Take trip through San Francisco’s hippie history
I’m on a hippie bus. A rolling commune on a road trip to the Summer of Love.
No, not in 1967, but just now in 2017, on a two-hour, time-warped, phantasmagorical journey with San Francisco’s Magic Bus tour. It takes guests through S.F.’s hippie history — the music, the flower children, the Haight — and back to that famous, hallucinogenic summer. All without dropping any (real) acid. They give you peppermint candies for pretend LSD.
This trippy trip begins on a gray, drab Saturday morning in Union Square. In the shadow of Macy’s, herds of huge, shiny, modern tour buses — tools of The Man, no doubt — huddle together, vying for curb space and the all-mighty tourism dollar. But soon, our transcendental transportation arrives — a funky, bubble-spewing bus of many colors. Somebody must have totally spilled Electric KoolAid all over this thing!
Bus driver James “Tipsy Love” Fischer — his eyes tinted by rose-colored glasses — parks the ride and tour guide Jessica “Moon Babe” Risco floats out the door in that happy, hippy-dippy, Goldie-Hawn-on-“Laugh In” kind of way, greeting the dozen guests with open arms.
“Welcome, my brothers and sisters! This is your family now. Your tribe,” she coos as we climb the steps. “We’re not just commuting, we’re a commune!”
While there are other tours of the city’s counterculture past, this one comes from a place of authenticity. For one thing, it’s really on an old school bus, a 1995 Carpenter, all dolled up in primary colors inside and out, with fullblown hippie vibe — like the famous bus of novelist Ken Kesey and his group of Merry Pranksters.
And it’s a rolling piece of performance art with professional actors (Risco and Fischer) and cosmic effects — not only with tunes from Joan Baez, the Grateful Dead, the Freedom Riders, The Beatles and more, but with movie screens that drop down over the windows during parts of the ride. It’s a full immersion of images, snippets of news footage from back in the day and swirling blobs of psychedelic colors. (If you get motion sickness, this may not be the tour for you.)
The tour — created in 2008 by Chris Hardman of Antenna Theater, a small, nonprofit, experimental theater group — is super popular right now because of this year’s 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and it books up fast. So get on the web to get on the bus, now.
With everyone seated, Tipsy Love turns on the motor, Moon Babe tunes in to Scott McKenzie, and we all drop out of the 21st century into the Age of Aquarius, the ostensible nirvana of the counterculture ’60s.
“If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. If you’re going to San Francisco, you’re gonna meet some gentle people there ...”
Our happy bus draws stares, glares and smiles as we rumble through the city. Moon Babe rolls down a window, “You’re beautiful!” she calls to bewildered bystanders. “Peace! Love! Have a beautiful day!” The screens come down, and we see scenes of ’ 50s jukeboxes and bowling alleys, then the changing times — soldiers in Vietnam, moon landings, flower children. “We were carefree,” a recorded voice says, “ready to do anything.”
Screens up, and we’re transported to Chinatown. It’s a chance to learn how Eastern cultures influenced young America, introducing things like yoga, Buddhism, sitars and Nehru jackets. We’re blocked for a moment by a double-parked truck unloading boxes. But hey, we’re children of the universe, floating on the happiness ride! So we don’t mind. Tipsy gets out and helps lift boxes to speed the process, and Moon Babe gets a game going, bestowing hippie names upon all of us. I’m Gossamer Dew.
Finally moving again, and we’re in North Beach for a bit of Beatnik lore, passing