Pat, Joanne, Lindsey and I moved into the house that Pat had found on 25th Street and Valencia in the Mission district of San Francisco. The rent was $150 a month and the realtor told us we could live there until it was sold, and as long as we paid the rent on time. It was a cute little house and in good condition too. It was a one story with a full basement. It had two bedrooms in front, a hall, a living room, a sitting room that I would turn into another bedroom, a large bathroom with a ball and claw tub and a big kitchen. Outside the kitchen was a big back deck made entirely of redwood. The basement was actually only 1/3 underground and was divided into a one car garage, a large bedroom with it's own toilet, and a large laundry room completely encircled by windows looking out into the back yard that was twice as big as the house.
The neighbor situation was great too. On one side was a church that only was used three times a week. In back of us was a school yard used only on weekdays at recess time but the ground slope was so that the level of our backyard was a good 10 feet above either of these two. Our other neighbor who Pat had already met, was a very old couple that we hardly ever saw outside and who never complained about us the whole time that we lived there. Also, the backyard was completely enclosed by a 6 foot high wooden fence that you couldn't see through or over unless you stood on something. It was full of flowers, shrubs and even a couple little fruit trees so that meant that the soil was good and I could plant my own type of flower. The house was completely unfurnished except for a huge old gas stove and a water heater, both of which worked well.
Pat and Joanne's mothers came over to look our new house over and decided to contribute a lot of their old furniture to us so they could each go and buy all new things for their own homes. Joanne's mother even sold us her "old" refrigerator for $10 that lasted as long as the house, then bought herself a brand new one. Joanne wanted the basement
room so she could have more privacy. Pat took one of the front bedrooms, Lindsey and I took the other.
We all then went to the Sallie and bought whatever else furniture we needed to finish furnishing our new home then we decorated the place making it really ours. We went to St. Vinnie’s and bought about hundred old Life, Look and National Geographic. The girls took some speed and spent the next three days cutting and pasting until the entire hallway was a beautiful giant collage. It was a true work of art and we got many compliments on it over the years.
Next, the girls went to a carpet store and brought home a big bag of remnants, scraps and even some samples, all for the price of Joanne fucking the manager. They spent another few days on speed cutting and fitting pieces together until the hall and living room floor was totally covered by a lovely multi-colored carpet. While the girls were doing all this, I painted every room in the house, walls and ceilings, in the colors the girls had picked.
Lastly I ripped up all of the old ugly linoleum off of the kitchen and bathroom floors exposing the nice hardwood floors underneath. We then all hung posters, pictures and prints all over the wall then put up a beaded curtain between the living room and kitchen to finish the place. We were home.
A few weeks later Pat and Joanne would break all the glass out of the front door and replace it with stained glass pieces that Pat had been turned on to. I would close off the sitting room with a bunch of doors I had found and painted, making a fourth bedroom. The house pretty much stayed that way for the next six years. The people would change but the house stayed the same.
We named our little commune "The Funny Company" because FUN was the main object and obsession of our lives at that time. And it was a fun house though not a party house, not that we didn't have our share of parties, but unlike 22nd St., who had one every weekend for years on end, we had them whenever we felt like one or for special occasions and holidays.
The four of us, plus Kerry who would move in a little later, were the core of the house, but there was always three or more souls crashing or temporarily living there at all times. First of all, Pat and Joanne always had boyfriends. Pat might sleep alone every now and then, but Joanne never did unless she was sick. Some times even having two guys in her bed at one time which only doubled her pleasure and doubled her fun. Of course, a lot of dudes could not take that kind of action.
Once she picked up a couple of brothers who we heard were big time freeks, but after just one weekend with Joanne on acid and an assortment of other drugs, they freaked right out, grabbed their clothes and ran half naked from the house. We asked Joanne what had set them off. She said that she didn't know, she thought they were all having a good time. Whenever we saw them again, they would avoid us, but if they saw Joanne they would run the other way, so we spread vicious gossip about what a pair of wimps they really were.
About 6 months later Kerry and her husband Dell moved in. Lindsey and I didn't like the front bedroom, it was too noisy in the mornings and we liked to sleep in so we moved into the sitting room. Joanne was tired of being by herself in the basement so she took our old room, leaving the basement to Kerry and Dell. Dell would not last long with us.
Dell was a paranoid speed freek from LA. who was always moody and who mostly just bummed out the house during his short stay. He went school on the GI Bill and hung out mostly with other speed freeks so he wasn't around much anyway. But when he was, he and Kerry would fight, and even if it was in the basement, we all could feel it. Once he hid in the kitchen closet for hours and listened to what was being said about him, he wrote it all down in his little black notebook and then confronted us with it. The first time it happened we were surprised and didn't know what to say but later we all talked it over so the second time it happened we knew exactly what to tell him, and it went like this, "Fuck you! You paranoid cocksucker! If you weren’t so chickenshit, you wouldn't be hiding in the closet in the first place, so you can just kiss our ass and ram it where the sun don't shine. And if you don't like that, then you can just move the hell out, because we never liked you anyway."
All of us except Kerry, ragged on him like this until he left the room in a huff. After that whenever we were in the kitchen we'd yell, "Hey Dell, we're talking about you. Can you hear us okay?" then loudly discuss what an asshole he was.
Less than a month later he told Kerry that he had met another girl, was leaving her and moving out. Everyone including Kerry, after she got over the shock that is, was happy. Now that that bummer was gone, we could all relax and enjoy ourselves in earnest.
Pat, Joanne, Kerry, Lindsey and I would all live together for the next three years and have a ball. Pat, Joanne and I, like Dell, went to school on the GI Bill. Me, because I was a Vet, Pat and Joanne because their Dad's had died in Korea, and at that time the VA was still paying survivors benefits to kids who went to college until they were 22. Joanne and I were not serious students. We took the minimum easiest courses. "Yes sir, I do want to major in Art and Music Appreciation.” We only went the minimum amount of days to be eligible to collect our pay then we'd usually drop out on the last drop day. Pat though, was a serious student when she went. She always got good grades and she always finished out the semester. She'd usually go a semester, then take off a semester or two to party.
It took her 6 years but she finally did get her degree, take the state test and become an RN which I thought was funny, because Pat was one of the most cynical, sarcastic, unsympathetic women I have ever met. After becoming a Surgical Nurse, she told me, "Tai, in the operating room you've got to have a black sense of humor, and you can't really care if the patient lives or dies. Although you do the best job possible, or else it all gets too personal and you'd just go crazy and not be able to perform your duties."
At school we all only picked afternoon classes and tried for those on the Tues-Thur schedule so if we did have to go it wouldn't interfere with our partying. Lindsey and Kerry sometimes worked at straight 9 to 5 day jobs as secretaries but sometimes at night they’d work as Go-Go Dancers in North beach which paid a lot better but was at times a lot of hassle. When they could, they would collect unemployment, and we all always collected food stamps.
Our days were usually filled with fun and excitement. If none of us had classes or day jobs, our days went pretty much like this; up at the crack of noon, smoke a joint or three then have breakfast. Smoke another joint and figure out what to do with the day. Let's see, any concerts, protest marches, movies, anyone else having a party, if so then let's go, if not, then there's always drop some acid and see what shakes loose. Or we could go down to the finical district and watch the wage slaves at lunch then tripp around downtown. Then again we could go to either Polk St. gulch or Castro St. and watch the drag queens and their "dogs" at play. And there's always Haight St. and the park to play in. Or we could visit any of our numerous friends to see what they're up to. If none of that strikes our fancy then we can just hang out here doing copious quantities of the dope de jour all washed down with a gallon of dago red and see what happens. Because something is always happening in San Francisco 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
If you ever got bored in the City then it was 100% your own fault. Then smoke another few joints and hit the hay. We would usually go to bed anywhere between 3 a.m. and sunrise, unless we were on speed, then we could run for days and days. And where did all that grass and dope come from you might ask, well...
First of all, grass in those days was cheap, real cheap, $60 a pound or between $5 and $10 an ounce for Mexican regular, $10 to $15 for Mex gourmet, Colombian or Jamaican, and $20 for Thai stick (the best at the time). Hash was plentiful but expensive, $5 to $10 a gram or around $100 an ounce depending on the quality. You could get kiffe real cheap but no one really liked it. It didn't get you very high and it didn't last too long and we only smoked it when it was free, but most of the grass we smoked I grew.
The whole time we lived there I had at least a dozen plants in the kitchen pressed up against the south facing sliding glass door and another 50 or 60 plants growing in the back yard. This was before cop copters so there was never any problem. We had so much waterleaf that we made our own grass oil. It wasn't very good for smoking but if you used it in cooking, it would fuck you up something fierce. We smoked all the bud leaf and all the buds. We always had plenty of pot, both homegrown and store bought, and we smoked it each and every day all day long. If we were awake, we were smoking dope.
Our favorite dealer was TB Sheets, a.k.a. "The Fuller Bush Man" who rode around the City on his 10-speed bike. He had long thick black hair and a big black beard to match. He dressed in total freek attire and carried a black brief case that was half full of paraphernalia and half full of dope in all its many varieties. He was our one stop dope shop, our home doping network, and he delivered. It was all reasonably priced and of course, you could always sample the goods before purchase. He dealt everything except smack and specialized in different exotic grass because he, like us, loved to smoke. And if we had some extra homegrown bud to trade for something exotic of his, then that was fine by him.
After Kerry moved in and Dell moved out, our house was complete and we all settled down to do what we did best, which was sex, drugs and partying. We partied with hundreds of people over the next few years. People of every kind from all walks of life. It did not matter in the slightest if they were pot head, acid head, junkie, speed freek, alkie, young, old, straight, hip, gay, black, red or east Indian, Asian, Latino, white, priest, yogi, radical, liberal, conservative, retarded, crazy, or sane. They were all welcome at the house on 25th St. as long as they came to Party!
There was only one rule, and that was ‘No Violence.’ Other than that you were free to do as you pleased. And if you wouldn't come to our house to party, why then, we would just go over to yours. It didn't matter where as long as it was fun with a good time being had by all. We took every drug that was offered us too, sometimes not even asking what it was, "Hey man, try this" "Sure", gulp, snort, suck or swallow. Sometimes it was good, sometimes not. Even though we consumed mass quantities of every kind of drug known at the time, grass and acid were our staples. We smoked grass all day everyday and dropped acid whenever the occasion called for it, like going shopping, going to school, going to a concert, going to a protest rally and of course, going to a party.
Once the five of us went to a midnight showing of "Woodstock". We all dropped around 10 p.m. so we would be in fine shape by the time the flick started. We left at 11 and took a MUNI bus to the theater, but when we got there the ticket girl told us that "Woodstock" had been canceled. We got indignant and demanded to see the manager. He told us that old fascist Disney had told him that since "The Cat from Outer Space" was playing then he couldn't show "Woodstock" too or he would get sued. We were incensed and so loud the manager told us we could see the Disney flick for free if we just quieted down. Having nothing better to do, we accepted and went in. Within five minutes Joanne said she just could not take the movie any longer and was going to find the manager and fuck him, and for us to come get her when we had had enough. We lasted maybe another 15 minutes before that crap got to us and went in search of Joanne. We found the managers office and pounded on the door telling Joanne to hurry up because we wanted to leave. She told us to give her another 10 minutes, so we went to the snack bar and told the girl behind the counter what her boss was doing. She smiled and gave us Cokes for free. Joanne showed up and we all went back home to finish out tripp.
We all did a lot of fun things involving acid, like one time I dropped every morning for 10 days in a row just to see what would happen. The first two days was a regular fun paisley tripp but then it started to get weird and got progressively weirder. By the ninth day I didn't sleep much and talked even less. I did not enter into any conversation, and if someone did ask me a question, I would think 'are they talking to me?' 'do they want an answer?', then I would start thinking of all the possible answers that I could give them and how to phrase them. Usually the person talking to me would say something like, "Earth to Tai, are you receiving? Can you hear me? Can you talk or are you just stupid?" How could I even attempt to answer that, so instead I would just stare at them until they got fed up and left me alone. By the tenth day I was no longer even able to understand what anyone was saying unless I concentrated real hard. I knew it was English they were speaking but it sounded more like Chinese to me. I just sat on the sofa all that day and didn't interact with anybody or anything. I only observed the world around me as it went by. On the eleventh day I stopped taking the LSD and two days later I was my normal self.
Another time I thought I would take 10 hits at once just to see what would happen. Within four hours I was in that silent observer state, which all my friends thought was pretty strange but that I kind of liked. Everything was calm and peaceful, there was no need for action or thought on my part. The world took care of itself just fine without my interference. I remembered the time I was like this before and thought I’ll be back down in a couple days at the most, but I was wrong. I stayed in that state for over 2 weeks.
The girls, especially Lindsey, started to get worried by the end of the first week. To try and snap me out of it, one night all the girls dropped then took off all of my clothes and gave me a hot bath then took me into the living room, laid me down on the rug and then took off all of their clothes. They stroked, patted, hugged, kissed and fondled me but I only observed the event not reacting at all. After a while Pat says to me, "Jesus H. Christ Tai! You got four naked women crawling all over you. Just don’t lay there like a fucking log! Do something!" but I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. First, there were just too many choices, too much going on to decide so I just lay there, observing. After a bit longer Joanne says, "This is hopeless. I've got better things to do." Pat gave me a kick then said, "What's the hell’s the matter with you? Why don't you do something!" but I was doing something, I was observing the world around me. Kerry then gave up and left so Lindsey took me to bed where I lay observing the ceiling.
A week later 22nd St. was having a major party. The girls all wanted to go but instead of leaving me at home by myself they took me along and sat me at the kitchen table. Gyro came up to me, handed me a tab of acid saying, "Here take this man, you need it bad." I did, figuring that it sure couldn't hurt me. Two hours later I was my normal self partying and enjoying myself with no acid effects at all. Everyone said how happy they were to have me back.
I continued to take a lot of LSD but never in such a concentrated span of time or quantity. Taking acid became such a usual event, that sometimes I would get up in the morning take a hit then forget about it for hours until suddenly I’d realize, ‘Hey I’m tripping’ then remember, ‘oh yeah, I did drop today.’ Anything there was to do as a human being I did at one time or another while tripping, and most of the time functioned quite well. Sex was a lot of fun as long as you could concentrate on what you were doing. Driving was one of the hardest things to do, all the lights and traffic disoriented and confused me, and keeping a steady speed was almost impossible. I sometimes got lost but never did have an accident so I must have done all right.
One of my favorite things to do while tripping was mechanics. I loved working on engines while high, everything was just so orderly and precise, as opposed to say, hiking in the woods by myself, in which the woods would turn into pure chaos until I found the patterns. I still liked to party, work or even go to school on acid but after those two silent observer incidents I found myself drawn more and more taking it all by myself and doing something alone. Until after a few years I would only take it when I was alone and in a natural setting. I no longer wanted humans interfering with my high, but I still did have a lot of fun with it.
Whenever we or anyone else had a party, I’d usually buy a jug of dago red, put 10 or 12 hits in it then write in big red letters "ELECTRICK! across the label, take a glass for myself and set it on the kitchen table. LSD was both cheap and plentiful in those days. In fact, most of the time it was free, but if you did have to pay for it then it never cost more than $25 per 100 hits and most of the time a lot less.
Once at a party, I saw a guy I didn’t know drinking the electrick wine like it was regular wine. He looked like a freek so I thought he must know what he's doing. He probable just wanted to get high so I left him be, but after he had drank almost half the bottle, I thought I’d ask just to be sure, "Hey man, do you know what ‘electrick’ means?"
He looked at me saying, "Yeah, so what?"
I said, "Well, look at the label and tell me what it says."
He looked then said, "Shit. I didn't even notice it. How many?"
"Ten." I said, then, "I guess you're in for a pretty good ride."
He smiled and said, "No sweat, man.” Then finishes his glass in one gulp.
About three hours later Roger Dodger comes into the kitchen saying, "Come into the living room. You gotta check out this shit."
There was the dude watching the TV, except it wasn't on any channel, he was watching snow. The TV we had someone had given us. It was a small black and white and I had cut the speaker wire so no sound could come out of it, it was just a moving picture, the sound we provided with our stereo. Sometimes the music was in synch with the picture, sometimes not but we didn't care, we had much more important things to do than to watch the boob tube. Anyway, the guy kept watching the snow and would not be distracted by anything we did so after awhile we lost interest and left him alone.
Right before dawn he gets us and without a word and walks out the door. I saw him a few weeks after and asked him about his tripp. He told me, "I don't remember a single thing about it. One second I'm at your kitchen table, the next I'm waking up at noon in my own bed."
I told him about the TV, but he just shrugged and asked if I wanted to get high.
The girls and most of my close friends at the time took as much acid as I did. They just spaced it out better. Joanne especially liked it with speed. Most folks took just a hit at a time maybe once a week whereas I liked to go couple weeks without then drop a couple hits. Other than grass, acid was our major source of fun and high times. For a long time it really didn't have any other serious competition until Quaaludes came along and gave acid a run for the money in our hearts and minds. They didn't mix either, if you dropped acid then Ludes, you'd get almost no acid effects at all.
The Quaaludes and any other pharmaceuticals you wanted were easy to obtain. There was a famous medical building at that time in the City at 555 Sutter St. It was a big building with four stories of doctors who all took medical, and a ground floor pharmacy. Between the first and the fifth of each month the freeks poured into 555 all with appointments on every floor.
"Gee Doc, I just can't sleep." 30 downers of some kind;
"I just have no energy and I'm too fat." 30 uppers of another kind;
"I'm nervous all the time." 30 Valiums or Quaaludes.
Each month you got four doctor and four pharmacy stickers on your card and almost everyone I knew used at least two of each at 555. Once the doctor got to know you, you'd just walk into his office and within two minutes you'd be back out with your script in your hands. You’d then go down to the pharmacy, get it filled and walk out with 30, 60, 90 or 120 legal highs that even the cops couldn't hassle you over.
In the next few days you'd be trading with your friends, "I'll trade ya two reds for a black beauty" or "You give me a Lude and I'll give you three Dexies" etc.
This went on for years until the FBI shut 555 down. One day they raided the place and told the Doc’s that they’d been real naughty, and if they did it anymore they would go to jail so 555 was no more.
We were sad to see it go but it presented no problem for us because the Woolly Bully had a friend who owned a pharmacy. We could score from him anything that we wanted except for class “A” narcotics and all for only 25 cents a pill. It was great and even though the prices doubled every few years it lasted a long time.
It was a wonderful time of life. Lindsey and I spent Sept. to June at 25th St. then we’d summer at a place in the country where she knew the owner, a rich guy who lived across the bay and who let us stay there for free. We kept our room at the commune because for sure we would be back when school started.
About the only real argument we all had with each other was when the monthly phone bill arrived. No one would cop to about half of the long distance calls. We'd all accuse one another, argue, and then end up splitting the unclaimed portion, something that satisfied no one.
After a year of this I’d had enough. I call Ma Bell and told her that I was the apartment manager and I wanted a pay phone in our lobby. They sent a guy out who, after being plied with pot, installed a shiny new black pay phone on our kitchen wall. The girls and everyone else I knew was against it. They said that I was a cheap fuck and this was an insult. I told them all tough shit, if you don't like it then don't use it. I told the girls to have a private phone put into their room because I was not going to argue any more over the phucking phone bill. After a short time everybody got use to it and it even became a conversation piece. The phone guy came every three months to empty out the coins and smoke a joint. That phone lasted as long as the house did.
After three years Joanne, Kerry, Lindsey and me decided to leave not only the City, but the whole US of A for sunnier climbs. We went to the Caribbean, then New Orleans for eight months, but that's a story of it's own and best told another time. Pat, who had just two more semesters to go to finish up school before she could take the RN test, decided to stay. We turned over the house to her and to TB Sheets, his girlfriend Helen, and her two kids, Billy, 8 and Connie, 6. We said "Adios, see ya all in the funnies" and left.
Eight months later Lindsey and I were back. The house was full but Pat told us she had finished school, had taken the test which she knew she had passed and that as soon as the test results came in and she got her license, she would be moving out to a place of her own. She already had a job promised to her working in a hospital working graveyard so she needed a space of her own where she could sleep undisturbed, but until then we could live with her in her room. We moved in, and let me tell you folks, there's no more comforting feeling for a person than sleeping between their two best friends of the opposite sex,. Now that's real security. We were together for six weeks then Pat left.
When Pat moved out we traded rooms with the kids, giving them the front room and we took the sitting room back. The house now consisted of Lindsey, me, TB Sheets, Helen, Billy, Connie and Yvonne, a half American, half French lesbian living in the basemen who was big, built and beautiful.
When guys saw her they'd shake their heads and mutter, "What a waste." but she would just laugh telling them "You men are such pigs, you can only think of your own pleasure. If I want to get fucked, then a man is okay. But if I want a real lover, then I want another woman."
She went through lovers fairly quickly though, she was just too wild to be tied down. Living in the commune was now quite different too than it was with just the girls and me. Since TB was with Helen and I was with Lindsey, the party-hardy new people always coming and going atmosphere was toned down quite a bit. We became more like a little family instead of just a group of close friends sharing life’s many adventures. There was still as much doping going on but it involved lot less variety, and the fucking anyone anytime anywhere really cooled down. Smack and downers disappeared, speed and coke were now used only for special occasions and hypnotics were rarely used. Drinking vino was still about the same, but tequila consumption was only for weekends. However, our daily intake of grass went up, way up and the use of psychedelics was even higher than before. Plus, sometimes we would take psychedelics as a group instead of always individually like before. We also used more organic psychedelics, peyote and majick mushrooms instead of just LSD.
TB and Helen were into getting high, not just fucked up and although it wasn't as much fun, it was a lot more enlightening. They were also into more spiritual interest like, astrology, numerology, meditation, yoga, Tarot and of course, the incomparable I Ching, which we all used every day. This was also the time the "Don Juan" book became popular. We would take a psychedelic and then read it cover to cover at one sitting, sometimes as a group, then sit around and discuss what we had read and what we thought. Also, Stephen Gaskin was giving lectures at the Family Dog and we went to hear him every time he spoke then would come home and talk about what he had said. I didn't know it at the time but I was entering into a new phase of my life, a phase that continues right to this day.
The commune was run about the same as before. Each of us had our own day to cook and clean and be responsible for the maintenance of the house that day. One of the biggest differences was that Helen was a veggie, so for four days we'd eat whatever, then on Helen’s day, it would be pure veg. Even though we all harassed her about her obsession, we all had to admit that her cooking was pretty tasty. Except for a few psychotic incidents involving the heavy use of LSD, the house ran even more smoothly than before.
TB had turned part of the back deck into a green house and was growing some killer bud in it to supplement the reg I was still getting out of the kitchen and back yard. Since he was in the biz, we always had more weed than we could smoke, and we smoked a lot. TB's one vice was underground comix, he bought every single one ever published between 1970 and 1975. There were stacks of them. Some days we would do nothing but read comix, smoke dope and sometimes drop. They were always entertaining and I sure would like to have those stacks around today to read. I once lived in a house on Maui for a short time where the freeks sat around, smoked dope and read out of the Urancia Book, and it was very interesting but not half as good as those comix were.
Living with kids was a new experience too. You had to treat them as adults but always remembering they were children and allow for it. Lindsey and I had lived with babies before. In fact, Lindsey and I had one of our own now, but this was the first time we had ever lived with older kids and it was a lot different. Babies you can kind of work around but kids demanded you attention, NOW! What you wanted was secondary to their needs and they let you know it. Of course, it was compensated by their unconditional love and trust in you.
After we had been there for three months, Yvonne moved out. She'd found herself a full time lover and Alice replaced her.
Alice worked for a vet and loved snakes, big snakes. She had a couple of pythons, one of which was almost 6 feet long, and a bunch of boas.
Once when she was entertaining some male company, one of the pythons got out of the terrarium and crawled into bed with the two lovers. The dude totally lost it. He jumped up out of the bed and ran screaming naked from Alice’s room leaving her to deal with the snake. He slammed her door