A really cool van. Pictures by Sophie Haigney.
We went to the lot. The lot, my youthful brother noticed—he was a first-time Lifeless & Co. present attendee—was “actually only a parking zone.” In actual fact it was a parking zone adjoining to the Port of San Francisco and close to the SFPD headquarters, the place I used to go for press conferences once I was against the law reporter. It was an unlimited parking zone, not removed from the stadium the place the second-to-last Lifeless & Co. present was going to begin in two hours, and it was filled with Deadheads.
The lot is the scene exterior each present, recognized colloquially as Shakedown Road. It’s roughly an open-air drug market, that phrase that will get thrown round quite a bit to explain different elements of San Francisco; it’s also the locus of the vestiges of actual hippie tradition. There’s nothing prefer it anyplace else. There are vans which were on the street for months, vans painted with psychedelic mushrooms, vans coated in stickers that say “Make America Grateful Once more” and “Thanks Bobby.” Folks promote T-shirts, an infinite array of T-shirts in each conceivable model of tie-dye. Folks promote quesadillas. Folks promote nitrous oxide—a lot of it; in reality, the unmistakable hiss of nitrous and the fixed popping of balloons is without doubt one of the most disconcerting options of being exterior a Lifeless present. Folks promote humorous hats. Folks promote, confusingly, a number of rocks. I noticed an indication subsequent to a giant field of rocks that mentioned BUY 1 GET 1 FREE.
Being on the lot is principally nearly wandering round and stuff, in order that’s what we did. One in every of my associates needed to get a brand new On-line Ceramics Lifeless T-shirt; one other one needed to purchase a tiny ceramic mushroom to carry through the live performance. My brother and I weaved out and in of some stalls, shirts and stickers that mentioned issues like “Not like different women” and “5-8-1977 was an inside job.”
“There was this apple final night time that I used to be consuming and I couldn’t cease consuming it, I even floor up the seeds after which I believe I used to be anxious that I had arsenic in my physique, so I obtained a bit disturbed throughout ‘Area,’ ” I heard one man telling his pal, bent over a tenting range the place he was frying some onions and nursing a beer.
I waited in line for a porta-potty, however the man in entrance of me got here out and mentioned, “That’s actually unhealthy … actually not good for ladies.” So I didn’t go in. One other man assured his pal, in a thick Boston accent, “You might piss in there bro.”
“Time to go see my FIRST husband,” yelled a girl in a protracted tie-dye gown who appeared like she was twenty-five.
The lot, which is a parking zone.
Somebody close by was shaking a tambourine.
“You’re so fucking cool, man,” mentioned an older hippie to a younger lady he was splitting a watermelon with. “It is best to maintain this.”
“No means,” she mentioned. “You by no means know once you’re gonna want a watermelon.” They exchanged Fb data.
“We have now sufficient acid to kill an elephant,” a tall man in a “Jack Straw” shirt reassured his buddy, who had been anxious that they’d have to get extra.
I shared my location with my aunt, who was additionally imagined to be on the present that night time; she and I are at all times attempting and failing to satisfy up at Lifeless exhibits, as a result of it is rather laborious to satisfy up in a crowd of forty thousand individuals. It’s usually all you are able to do to not lose your pals. In actual fact I had misplaced observe of my brother, so I texted him “You good?” and he hearted the message. He was on his personal journey now.
I marveled at some T-shirts. “The factor that sucks is I at all times wish to purchase a Lifeless shirt at a present, however then I’m already carrying a Lifeless shirt, so it’s not a great time to purchase a Lifeless shirt,” somebody mentioned, and I agreed.
My pal was not having a lot luck discovering her tiny ceramic mushroom. “You’ll assume this could be the proper marketplace for tiny ceramic mushrooms,” our different pal lamented along with her.
“They’re freely giving free sizzling canines on wook seaside,” one other pal texted, referring to the strip of rocks off the lot that prolonged into the bay. (Wook, when you’re not acquainted, is a derogatory time period that derives from the Star Wars motion pictures and refers to soiled long-haired guys who comply with jam bands round. We love wooks.) I went right down to wook seaside, although I declined the recent canine.
Wook seaside.
It was actually probably the most lovely place on this planet. San Francisco, the place I’m from, is a breathtakingly lovely metropolis, and it was at its finest that day, cool and sunny down by the water. San Francisco is the place all of it started—the Lifeless, after all, in 1965, and likewise my very own life, thirty years later. I considered this whereas I sunned myself on the rocks with my associates, and began to get just a little sentimental, however then it was time to go to the present.
There was an enormous bottleneck on the way in which into the stadium, individuals coming from all instructions and attempting to kind a line and squeezing up in opposition to one another. “In the event you stroll sideways, you’ll be half your measurement,” somebody noticed, and all of us tried strolling sideways for a bit. Throughout us individuals had been elevating one finger within the air, which is the signal meaning “I would like a miracle,” or, one ticket to the present tonight. A woman with lengthy armpit hair was holding up an indication that mentioned, “Bored with smelling my pungent pits? Promote me your further.”
My associates and I misplaced one another after which discovered one another once more, close to the gate. We waited for our final pal, who had texted to say she’d fallen behind. When she caught up with us she was beaming. “I discovered my tiny mushroom!” She held up a translucent inexperienced mushroom concerning the measurement of a thimble, and she or he proceeded to carry all of it night time lengthy, all by way of the present.
Sophie Haigney is the online editor of The Paris Evaluate.
