by Julia Scott
—M.M.
JACK BOULWARE
HIPPIES
JACK BOULWARE is a journalist and the author/coauthor of three nonfiction books, including the Bay Area punk history Gimme Something Better. He is cofounder of San Francisco’s annual Litquake literary festival, and its affiliated Lit Crawls in several cities, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Seattle, Los Angeles, Iowa City, London, and Austin. As a freelance journalist he has covered stories throughout the United States and more than twenty countries. In the 1990s, he was founding editor of the satirical investigative Nose magazine. He lives in San Francisco and empties the trash at the Litquake office.
Growing up on a cattle ranch in Montana, I was always fascinated by words and books. We didn’t have a TV until I was seven, so I read anything I could find, especially National Geographic (sharks, topless native women), and Life magazine (Vietnam, hippie scourge). My opinions were shaped by Walter Cronkite and various adult Montanans who most certainly had never seen either a hippie or a Black Panther.
In fourth grade, around 1970 or 1971, I synthesized all of my vast knowledge of hippies (none), wrote up this urgent little thesis, and read it aloud in front of the class. Every so often, I would find it in a box and read it again and think, Jesus, this is terrible on so many levels. The mangled spelling, the wildly inaccurate facts, the alarmist tone. I should have ended up a TV pundit.
The photo was taken on our cattle ranch in 1971. I am presenting the first fish I ever caught, a rainbow trout that I named Sam. I have since learned to use a napkin.
—J.B.
Hippies are people (usually collage students) who are against the war in Vietnam. They show it by coming in groups to Washington D.C. and starting riots. Some of them do it because they are under the influence of drugs. Common drugs are called marijuana, LSD and others. They are called heroine. Some hippies who are drug addicts will do anything to get more.
Some hippies are vandals. They ruin valuable property. The Black Panthers are Negro rioters, vandals, murders, and thiefs. They cause trouble for police and National Guard. Many police have been killed by Black Panthers.
Hippies call police
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s one thing to be asked to cough up your mulligans for a humor book. It’s another to do it for free. We offer our deepest respect and gratitude to all the authors who contributed deeply personal and meaningful pieces from their past to this collection, wrote thoughtful introductions, and took the time to hunt down a photo to match—taking significant pains to do so. We salute you.
For fifteen years, Litquake has brought the most exciting writers to the Bay Area and fostered the local literary community. In addition to their indefatigable work in running a premier annual literary festival and events in several cities, many staff members helped with initial author outreach for this book. Special thanks to Litquake cofounders Jack Boulware and Jane Ganahl, associate director Elise Proulx, and festival coordinators Jakki Young and Jen Siraganian.
To the Writers’ Grotto community, the nuclear core at the center of all the sold-out Regreturature shows, not to mention much of this collection: may we continue to make beautiful fission together.
We extend our warmest appreciation to our indispensable agent, Danielle Svetcov at Levine Greenberg, and to the diligent and talented editorial and design team at Perigee Books, who used their strong creative vision to make this collection such a fun read.
Lastly, we want to give a special shout-out to all the moms who supplied vintage photos of their beloved offspring: Gillian Flynn’s mom, Judith; Simon and Nathaniel Rich’s mom, Gail; Isaac Fitzgerald’s mom, Susan; and Julia Scott’s mom, Laura.
—Julia Scott and the team at Litquake
PHOTO CREDITS
All author photos are provided courtesy of the authors unless otherwise noted.
Here and here: © Chris Hardy
Here: Courtesy of Brian Kammer
ABOUT THE EDITOR
JULIA SCOTT is an award-winning radio producer, journalist, and essayist who has reported from across the United States and Canada. She has profiled giant pumpkin-growing fanatics, spent a month bathing in bacteria, and reported from the inside of an iron lung. Her work has been collected in The Best American Science Writing.
Scott’s stories have appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Modern Farmer, Nautilus, Salon, and on PRI’s Marketplace and NPR. Her BBC World Service radio documentary, “Bon Voyage,” won the Excellence in Journalism Award from the NLGJA and was nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award.
Scott hails from Montreal, Canada, and graduated from Smith College. She lives in San Francisco and is a proud member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Visit her website at JuliaScott.net.
Founded by San Francisco writers in 1999, Litquake has grown to become the largest independent literary festival on the West Coast. Litquake seeks to foster interest in literature for people of all ages, perpetuate a sense of literary community, and provide a vibrant forum for writing from the Bay Area and beyond, as a complement to the city’s music, film, and cultural festivals. Litquake is a project of the Litquake Foundation, which also produces annual literary pub crawls, aka Lit Crawls, in San Francisco, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Austin, Iowa City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and London.
Proceeds from the sale of Drivel benefit the Litquake Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit registered in the state of California. Visit litquake.org for more information.
The San Francisco Writers’ Grotto began in 1994, when Po Bronson, Ethan Watters, and Ethan Canin rented a six-room flat in a rundown Victorian on upper Market Street, to use exclusively as a workspace. From its beginnings, it has been a place where artists welcome the discipline of structure in their work lives and build a community of peers. Today the Grotto occupies an entire floor of an office building, with shared workspace for more than ninety published authors, journalists, fiction writers, filmmakers, and poets. In addition, the Grotto has introduced a Grotto Fellowship program to help inspire and nurture new writers, as well as Grotto Classes, a four-session-a-year educational program with writing classes taught by working writers. Visit sfgrotto.org for more information.