I’m over the worst of the pain, recovering from a very robust shoulder operation, listening to my first music in a week. I’ve been putting this operation  off for months, so good to be on the uphill side of it. There’s light at the end of this long tunnel.

Going through my old B&W photos, still trying to determine if I have a cohesive book on the ’60s to write. It’s going to take me a week to get through the notes from my 1-month trip.              

I hitchhiked across the USA in Fall, 1965, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was an insurance broker in San Francisco, and the ’60s were exploding around me. I had smoked pot — at age 28. (Think about it — 28 years before encountering alternate universes.)

 On my way back to NYC from visiting my cousin Mike in Provincetown, I got picked up by some students from The Rhode Island School of Design. They said I could crash at their loft in Providence, Rhode Island, and they were going to a Bob Dylan concert that night, did I want to go?

$3.50 to get in and I told the cops I was a newspaper reporter, and I got to roam in front of the stage. 

Black and white Tri-X film on a Nikon. I didn’t know much about Dylan. I was a Beatles and Stones fan. The first half was solo acoustic folk music. The second half was rock and roll! A lot of folkie fans walked out at intermission, but I had stumbled into the early part of Dylan’s 2 years of brilliance.

I looked at the photos 40 years later. Jeez, that’s Robbie Robertson! I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…

What is this? Holy shit!

 I’ve just been looking at these photos, after they’ve been 42 years in the archives.

I came back to San Francisco and quit my job and went to work as a carpenter — 1965.

All this to preface:

1. I’m recuperating from almost a month on the road.

2. I’m working on a book of the ’60s, from my own point of view. I’m a native San Franciscan, went to high school in Haight Ashbury district, was 10 years older than the movers and shakers of the cultural revolution. I had a quite different experience in the ’60s than I see talked about in the media regarding the — ugh — Summer of Love. I’m still in the stages of seeing if the book is going to work. 

3. Getting shoulder operated on tomorrow. Long recovery period.

A new octave coming up.

See ya when I can see see ya…

I’ve been on the road for 26 days now. 6 flights, 5 hotels, 2 airbnb’s, 2 radio interviews, one TV interview, 3 sleepovers at friends’ houses (including Bruno’s boat); taxis, Supershuttle, subway and bus rides, miles and miles of walking, all for the sake of 8 bookstore presentations for Small Homes.

The good part is that it’s good to get out and meet people, to get outside the California bubble, and hopefully to promote sales of the new book. The down side is so much time away from home. I’m homesick.

Following is all pretty obvious to seasoned travelers. (I’m just killing time at the airport here.)

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