Wow, I love this page. A window into the history and the personalities of the time, and really interesting points (factual or not) from Bill Graham that show one perspective on why the sixties' revolution soured in the seventies. This really struck me.
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BARB: In '65 and ’66 there was a time when the Fillmore and The Family Dog were sort of the centers of a community that was developing. I’d like to know whatever happened to the community that was supposed to be being formed.
GRAHAM: It may have started, but, uh, the seed may have been there somewhere, but in my opinion, again, we’re talking about opinions, not facts, the seed was in the ground, but there wasn’t enough water poured on, and I don’t think the flower ever surfaced.
BARB: Why didn't that happen?
GRAHAM: That’s a five hour question. It needs a five hour answer. It’s so easy to point as to who’s guilty and not guilty, the opportunist entrepreneur, which is an accusation that’s been, you know, we’ve been pointed at for a longtime. That maybe somebody’s opinion. Mine, there are basically two kinds of people, and I don’t mean just physically or mentally, just in the sense of a word, there are thse who DO, DOOO, and there are the other kind, who wait for something to be done to them, to be affected by life, and we have too many of the latter.
There aren’t enough, there never were, in San Francisco, enough people, whether they do right or wrong, or good or bad, inactivity is wrong, mental inactivity, or sometimes physical inactivity. But this community has always been jammed with people who wait for life to affect them, rather than for them to affect life within themselves, or life around them.
We had lovely people that used to come to the dances in ’65, ’66, ’67, with their plumage, their accessories, and feeling very good, and high, and dancing, and jovial, and painting on the floor, under the black light, but what else?
O.K., you're 17, 18, 19, 20, 24 years old, you trip out, you get stoned, you go to dances, and you beg in the street, and you deal, WHAT ELSE? What else do you do about the world you dislike so much? Around you exists this ugly world, which you are always putting down.
[...]
WHAT DO YOU DO? This is in answer to your question, the greatest tragedy in die last ten years, other than war and killings in Viet Nam, and the Civil Rights situation in America, for me, has been the tragedy of the Haight-Ashbury.
The world said: "We’re looking at you, here we come, News and Look and Life and Time and Esquire, and we're getting on the street”.
But what did the Haight Ashbury do, what did it say, where was the political platform?
Where was the theater, where was the community spirit?
There never was a community. Look at Golden Gate Park. What do you have in Golden Gate Park? Everybody looks peaceful, nice, docile, stoned, freaky, throwin’ Frisbees, WHAT ELSE?
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