The temptation to act in really crazy over the top ways when the bus went by must have been incredible. I know I would have had little to no ability to resist it.
In Hunter S. Thompson's article on Haight Ashbury in the late 60s he mentions those tours. He also mentions seeing "some freak running along side the bus holding up a mirror".
Did anyone else get a hit of nostalgia off the bus windows? They're oddly shaped, and look just like the ones on the old MTA buses when I was a kid.
"No, lady, the beatniks are on the North Beach tour!"
All that acid, and no one had a vision that said "if you buy some of these run-down properties and hold onto them for 40 years, strange computer people and superstrict zoning codes will make you a zillionaire." Acid is useless.
Man, when I think of the Manhattan real estate that my parents might perfectly plausibly have afforded in the 70s, I want to weep.
I could have made a fortune buying houses in Lawrenceville when I moved to town in 2003. Or just buying one house.
6: The dilemna my Southern Cal grandparents had back in the day was whether to buy one house in Arcadia or two on Balboa Island. They chose Arcadia. Sigh.
Psych-Out 1967 complete, pretty clean
Strasberg, Nicholson, Dern, Dean Stockwell, Henry Jaglom acting...the definitive document
I hadn't heard of Psych-Out, but it has a great tagline. "These are the PLEASURE SEEKERS. They'll ask for a dime with hungry eyes - but they'll give you love - for NOTHING!" God bless movie marketing.
"I'll take your love, but you won't get this dime, pleasure-seeker."
"That dime was payment for your love, pleasure-seeker! Got your nose!"
I think that was the plot of several New Woman novels fin de last siecle. And _Strong Poison_, sort of.
Psych-Out is but the best of a great genre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_exploitation_films .
I just like how it showed how little fashion changed.
The American Independent Pictures (company that made Psych-Out and The Trip and a lot of those films) has the best Wikipedia page. My favorites are their rules:
a) a younger child will watch anything an older child will watch;
b) an older child will not watch anything a younger child will watch;
c) a girl will watch anything a boy will watch
d) a boy will not watch anything a girl will watch;
therefore-to catch your greatest audience you zero in on the 19-year old male.
Logic! Also, sounds about right.
Ha, my mom and her family went on one of those buses when she was 16-ish. They were conservative oligarchs of Reno and I think got a kick out of it; but woe to them when my mom turned 19, married a hippie and followed him to Stanford.