Last weekend I went to visit Haight Ashbury for the first time and was shocked by what I saw.
So, Haight Ashbury is supposed to be one of the hearts of the hippie movement. It has so much rich history and deep political and social roots in the summer of love. But what happened?
All I saw when I was there was smoke shops and tie dye t-shirts. One homeless man asked me "hey do you need some dank dank," a hand outreached with a mason jar full of weed. What the hell. Outside of Ben and Jerry's there is a fake Haight Ashbury sign that tourists were selfies with, Cherry Garcia cone cameo of course. There was also a remarkable number of Tibetian and Napali stores. OKAY NO BUT SINCE WHEN ARE TIBETAN SKIRTS HIPPIE? Am I missing something? Please correct me if I am. It was block after block of people just trying to make a buck. Or tourists walking out of a smoke shop with a way overpriced bong with a Haight Ashbury sticker on it. I think we talked a little bit about this in class a while back when talking about Reclaiming San Fransisco.
Does anything else feel like this about anywhere else? I know I read a blog post a while back about Kerouac alley being a bit of a let down. It's pretty depressing, but I suppose times change. But then that makes me think, where did all of the real hippies go? Are they in hiding? Where did all of this tye die come from?
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