The Romantic Psychedelic Revolutionary

By David Nazar

A barefoot hippie on probation encounters a debutante on a streetcar in New Orleans and falls in love. Thus begins an amazing adventure. There are miraculous escapes, incredible coincidences, and the story of one young man's journey for Goldwater conservative to radical LSD revolutionary - from rational materialism to mysticism - from fast food to natural food. If you have ever been curious about what it was really like to be a hippie, and what motivated the movement," The Romantic Psychedelic Revolutionary" is for you. And it is all completely true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 12, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452072067

David Nazar

Like so many others, David Nazar became a hippie during the Summer of Love in 1967. Inspired by psychedelics, driven by idealism, he and his Hippie family were a part of the movement that turned away from consumerism, materialism and the Viet Nam War and tried their best to create a new and better world and society. They lived through the war against psychedelic substances that lead to illegal arrests, inquisitional tactics, and the imprisonment of so many innocent young kids. And for what? For nothing more that seeking God within themselves - and for demonstrating against and refusing to fight in an unjust war. David went on to help create the Natural Foods Industry and produced and marketed one of the worlds first vegeburgers. In 1996 David authored and published "There is a Tomorrow", a novel that envisions the more peaceful and equitable world that would result from achieving ecologically sustainablity. As a Yoga and Tai Chi teacher for over 25 years, David has been leading students to a healthy lifestyle that is not only good for the individual, but also for the environment and the animals we share the planet with. The idealism of the hippies has found continuous expression in the live of this author.

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Dear Sandy

Love

Who Am I

Summer of Love

Revolution

If you’re going to San Francisco

Know Body Else

Love Is All There Is

Keep On Chooglin’

Are You Experienced

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Universe

Bad Moon Rising

The Son of Woodstock

Going to the Country

Om Sweet Home

Walking to New Orleans

Let It Be

When I Find Myself in Times of Trouble

Freedom

What I Want in a Woman

Crazy David

Son of On the Road

Introduction

Fiction surely has an important place in human life. It is so nice when magical coincidences and perfect characters find the pathway to a satisfying, happy ending. Life itself is another story. It is not so neat. It is not so perfectly ideal. But it is powerful; it is totally miraculous; it is very real. This story is true. There are no composite characters, no smoothing of rough edges, no feats or coincidences added to spice up the plot. Though many names have been changed, it is the real story of events that happened to real people.

At this point in time, there are many who have virtually no idea what it was like to be a hippie. A lot of the people who lived through the era didn’t really know what was happening. Most of what has been seen in the media about hippies made them into two-dimensional cartoon characters preoccupied with free love, drugs, long hair, outlandish clothing and rock music. Well, we were into those things, but there was so much more. There was a terrible war to resist, and several kinds of simultaneous revolutions going on. There was an incredible explosion of awareness and consciousness. There were the seeds and the roots of the New Age movement and the wondrous acceleration of our understanding of the power of the mind. There was the beginning of the natural food movement, the shift to a more healthful diet, better understanding of nutrition, and so much more.

Here is the story of one hippie and his friends and family as they all went through the turmoil of the sixties. It is offered with the hope that as well as to amuse and entertain - it will also serve as a historical record of what it was truly like to live through this period. As we learned many lessons, I also hope that it will enable others to learn as well.

This book would never have been written if I had not fallen in love with Sandy. The idea for writing this book came from my greatest moment of difficulty and tribulation. Our hippie revolution was inspired by the power of psychedelic substances; there is no way to deny or get around that fact. That made us all outlaws in the eyes of America. As this story begins I have once again become a fugitive from the law. In that moment of miraculous escape and the intense emotion of again facing exile and the threat of prison, I decided to write Sandy this letter. And yet it would be more than a letter. It would also become a book.

Dear Sandy

I know you must be puzzled. To receive such a very long letter from anyone is most unusual. To have it come from someone you hardly even know is strange indeed. I’ll try not to keep you in suspense and will endeavor to lead you with my trail of words swiftly out of your bewilderment.

Love was weaving its wonderful spell over my heart, glands and mind. It is true that I was very poor, had no car, and was on probation, but what matter that, when love fills the heart. Between charting a few horoscopes for people and attending college with the help of the G. I. Bill, I was able to keep the wolf, as well as the probation department, away from my door. I had received a year suspended sentence and two years of probation for possessing less than an ounce of pot, but considering that I had been a fugitive for almost two years, I was lucky.

The six weeks I spent in Parish Prison were incredibly frightening and difficult, made all the more so by my not having any idea just how long I’d have to be there. It all seemed worth it now, for I was in love, and the World looked wonderful. If I hadn’t come back to New Orleans and turned myself in, I wouldn’t have seen you on the streetcar. Now it all seemed so perfect.

I have been attracted to you ever since I first met you at Valencia, the teen country club where we were both members. You were a freshman in high school then, Sandy. Though we had never dated - you were a little young for me at that time - we did have that one night when I took you up onto the roof of the Jung Hotel. It was the opening dance of my fraternity’s annual convention. You had come to the dance with a lot of other girls, answering the call to come and meet the boys of my fraternity from chapters all over the south.

I was having a wonderful time, so drunk that I really don’t remember much of what happened. I’m sure I tried to kiss you, and I wonder if you let me. I probably made a fool of myself. This incident must stand out in your memories of me, as when I said hello the first morning I saw you on the streetcar, you said you remembered me from some fraternity party.

I felt I knew many things about you when I saw you that morning. You were sitting next to a friend, and I overheard you say that you learned that white sugar wasn’t good for you when you were going to the University of Colorado. From that I discerned that you are a somewhat turned on person. When I saw that you wore no ring, I knew that you hadn’t found the one for you because you are so very idealistic about love. I felt I knew this to be true. And also, I felt that I was the one.

Love was in the stars for me in the near future. Being a student of Astrology, naturally I was aware than with Venus strongly activated by several major progressed aspects, my next few years promised love, pleasure and happiness. I felt that I would surely find my lifelong mate under the planet of love’s benign rays. My progressed moon was in my seventh house, the house of marriage and partnerships, and making a most harmonious trine aspect to my Jupiter and Neptune, which are conjunct and parallel in the beginning of Libra, the sign of marriage. Surely this auspicious combination of aspects would bring that ideal love which I had so long awaited.

I had been up writing a poem all night, deeply under the sway of poetic inspiration, and I just wouldn’t quit until I had it completed. It was the poem Universe. That made me forty-five minutes late for my only class that day. It was probably pretty silly even to go, but Fate had something in store for me that morning - seeing you. I didn’t think that I would see you again on the streetcar, unless I was willing to flunk that class, so I decided to take some direct action. The memory of you filled me with an exuberance that could justify even the most overtly forward act.

You had told me you had recently graduated, so I called information and asked for a new listing, as you weren’t in the book. I was given your number and found that you lived only twelve blocks away. I called you that night with the intent of just telling you that I wanted to get to know you better. No one was home. The next night found my momentum blunted. What had you thought of my patched old hippie clothing and my bare feet? Going barefoot made me feel more like St. Francis and in intimate touch with the Mother Earth. I didn’t have a car or enough money to take you out in a cab, so I couldn’t just ask you for a date. I let you slip from the forefront of my consciousness thinking, if it were really meant to be, I would see you again.

About two weeks later, the morning greeted me with a seat on the streetcar right next to you. I was mildly ecstatic, but I knew I had to keep myself under control. This time I had to get something together with you. I couldn’t just ask you out, but I had my own way of getting to know you. I wanted to do your horoscope, so I would have an evening with you getting to know you better and interpreting your chart for you. I would also be able to see just what kinds of connections were between us, as the astrology of interpersonal relationships had become my main study. I had often seen how powerfully accurate comparing two horoscopes can be in predicting volumes about a relationship.

You were friendly, I’ve always felt good vibes between us, and you seemed positive about me doing your chart. You gave me your phone number so I could call you to get the exact time of your birth. You gave me your date of birth, Valentines Day, 1949. I was elated! I instantly knew that you had an Aquarius Sun, which would conjunct and match wonderfully with my Aquarius Moon. I also had your number and an excuse to call you.

When I arrived home that afternoon and took out my astrological ephemeris, the last vestiges of doubt slipped away. You also have a Virgo Moon to match my Virgo Sun - a perfect polarity. Once the psychologist Carl Jung had picked the married couples out of one hundred pairs of horoscopes simply by looking for Sun/Moon aspects. The conjunction is the best. Jung’s results were statistically impossible to have come from chance. I’ve always thought that this alone proved astrological influences to be real. Your Sun conjuncts my Moon and my Sun is in the same sign as your Moon. But that is just the beginning. I’ve compared many horoscopes, so I know what one can expect in the way of harmony. Our horoscopes fit together like the two pieces of a broken heart charm. Many beautifully harmonious aspects between our charts promised a symphony of loving compatibility. The odds against such an ideal match were fantastic.

Two nights later I called you. I was supposed to be getting your time of birth, but of course I wanted to just talk to you and get to know you better. It was a fun conversation, as I struggled to be casual. You had gotten the exact time you were born, so I knew that you hadn’t just been humoring me, and you did want me to do your horoscope. I couldn’t really tell where you were coming from. At best I hoped for a real interest and at the very least, I hoped for openness.

When I cast your horoscope I found you have Aquarius rising with Venus, the goddess of Love, exactly on your ascendant - how simply beautiful! And they were both in my seventh house trine my Jupiter Neptune conjunction! Everything was so perfect I hesitated to believe. I could be setting myself up for a grand disillusionment.

There was one final test I could perform. The I Ching is a venerated ancient Chinese oracle. It has never lied to me. Sometimes the I Ching will answer a different and more important unasked question, and other times it can be ambiguous, but generally it has been a wonderful tool for me, almost equal to having a great sage to visit. I asked it about us. This time the answer was very clear. It was Hexagram 48, the Well, changing to Hexagram 11, Peace. Both indicate Union. Either Fate was playing with my heart or it was real. I could not believe the former.

The first time I saw you I was high all day just thinking about you. The second time I saw you started one of the most blissfully happy periods of my life. I was filled with more and more joy, as I became surer of the inevitability of our love. I felt my life was getting ready to turn into a beautiful fairy tale.

I was living in an old house on Second Street, a huge old place that belonged to a friend I had met at Unity Church on St. Charles Avenue. Amazingly, he had bought it for only $13,000, even though it was on the edge of the Garden District and had three stories with balconies and apartments in the back. You can imagine what kind of shape it was in. John had done some work on it, but it was still rotted out in places. It had settled in places, and generally was a huge wreck. I think John was bisexual, but I was careful to never find out for sure. He had filled the house with hippies by giving us cheap rent and a quite lovely hippie family environment.

John had made a large, low dining table big enough for all ten of us who lived there and then some, though all sat on cushions on the floor hippie style. We did try to get him to alternate his place at the head of the table, but he was rather attached to it. There were a couple of rather attractive girls living there, one alone and one with a husband. The husband had a obvious crush on the single lady. We had a great old time, and shared a lot of love and camaraderie. Every supper was a communal affair, and there is nothing like eating with people to develop closeness and a sense of family.

This was the only place I could afford to live and still be able to help my mother financially so she could stay in her house. One of the reasons I had returned to New Orleans was that she was almost destitute. I tried living with her again but just couldn’t, as mother has a mental aberration that will not allow her to live in a clean, uncluttered home. Even if someone is willing to do the work, she will not let anyone clean it up. This Virgo just couldn’t live with that particular insanity any longer. Better a clean old dump full of hippies. I was a bit paranoid living there, as everyone smoked grass and used other psychedelics, and my judge told me he would suspend my probation and put me back in prison if I were even seen with any hippies.

Orleans Parish Prison was a very dark and dangerous place. When I was in there I had no idea if I’d be there a few months or a few years. If my eyes were open I saw crawling roaches. While I was there I saw sixty acts of violence, from forcing guys to fight each other all the way to a gang beating a man, who had been a shotgun guard at Angola State Penitentiary, within an inch of his life. I heard rapes happening but luckily never saw one. If I went up the river to Angola, I was told, because of my long blond hair, nice ass and lack of body hair, I’d fetch three or four hundred dollars. Young men were actually bought and sold as sex slaves. I met a guy in jail who had been sent to Angola when he was seventeen, and there was someone killed over him the first day he was there. I was terrified of going back to jail.

That Monday when I returned home from college I wasn’t thinking about all that. I was thinking about you, Sandy, and blissing out with love for you and faith in the wonderful romantic relationship that I felt was our destiny. That Wednesday night when the Moon was in Aquarius right between my Moon and your Sun I was planning to visit you and take you an invitation to the Astrology class I was starting. It was to be at the home of a friend who just lived a few blocks away from your apartment. Randy had the large attic in the old mansion where he lived fixed up into the ultimate hippie pleasure pad. It was complete with a waterbed inside a round turret with three awesome views of uptown New Orleans. The space was nicely carpeted with cushioned backrests along most of the walls.

I was temporarily poor, and didn’t have a high society family as you have, but I did have the love and respect of the high hippies in New Orleans. Randy put up his pad, the best astrologers in town were going to participate, and I even had the local metaphysical bookstore promise to give 20% discounts on astrology books to everyone who took the class.

It is truly wonderful how love can make you feel. Birds do sound sweeter, grass is greener and the Sun is sunnier. I was feeling very good that afternoon. I took out my Ginseng, Gota Kola and some capsules so I could cap some up and take my favorite legal herbs, wonderful stimulants both, and keep myself high energy through to Wednesday. When I got to the top of the long flight of stairs that led from the first floor to the second, I put the bowl with the capsules, Gota Kola, and Ginseng on the banister post at the head of the stairs and went in the second floor bathroom. When I came out I saw a middle-aged man with white socks and a plaid sport coat with a bulge in the back walk up the stairs and right past me without a word. He then went on up to the third floor room I was sharing with a girl named Lois.

Lois and I had shared one of the most powerful lovemaking experiences of my life a couple of years earlier when we were both living in San Francisco. We were both high on acid and it was incredible. She was leaving for Denton, Texas the next day or I’m sure our relationship would have continued. Amazingly, after I had settled in the apartment house she called me and told me she was coming back to New Orleans and wanted to come and see me. She showed up with a bottle of wine and a loving vibration. I made an exception to my rule of not drinking alcohol and shared the bottle with her and Randy and we did have a pretty cosmic night and morning. Lois is petite with a nice figure and a very cute face. She’s a high energy little lady. We were very different. She had worked in bars her whole life and had helped manage the Troubadour in San Francisco until it had closed. Now she was back to tending bar, and my little bedside altar soon became a pot paraphernalia table.

I realized that I didn’t really love Lois, nor were we compatible, so I ended our sexual relationship. She told me when she arrived that after her hippie apartment on Downey St. in Haight-Ashbury, she had promised herself no more dumpy places. Soon an opportunity to move presented itself. She went to live with this weird guy who did have a nice apartment in the French Quarter, but I considered him an untrustworthy materialistic jerk.

He and his boss ran a scam where they put on benefit shows for police fraternal organizations. They went into a town, raised a good bit of money from the local merchants, put on a funky circus show, gave a few thousand dollars to the police, and kept the lion’s share of the money. He bragged about how well they did essentially ripping off the police, and he often wore his long hair up under a wig so he could work with them. Lois told me that he was also into black magic and that they had held a ceremony at his apartment where everybody drank blood. She said she had refused.

One Sunday morning she showed up at my room with a fat lip and told me that a black man had punched her out for no reason at a bus stop. When she asked me if she could live there with me again I figured the guy she was living with had hit her, though I didn’t tell her. Of course I said sure, but only as friends. I had Cupid’s arrow through my heart already, as I’d fallen for you since she had been away.

For quite a while after Parish Prison I didn’t smoke any pot. To make a long story short, I had started again. I was living with the risk anyway, so I went ahead and joined in on the communal smokes we shared, often with everybody sitting on the roof of the old house having a great time together. After a while I felt bad about never having anything to share, so when an old friend offered to front me a quarter pound of good hash, I accepted, thinking I could sell three ounces and have an ounce for myself and my friends. Lois told me she wanted to sell an ounce of hash to the boyfriend of a girl she worked with. I must admit, that made me very paranoid, but I felt it would be cowardly to insist on her not going through with the deal.

I wasn’t thinking about that as I got home from college that fateful Monday. I was thinking about seeing you in person that Wednesday when I delivered the invitation to the Astrology class. Upon seeing the guy who I suspected was a narc go up to my room where the hash was, I decided to split, but when I got to the head of the stairs I saw Lois, hands behind her back, followed closely by three men, all on their way up. It’s the police, David, she said, looking completely blown away. I could see that the next two guys were also handcuffed, and the last man was obviously another plain clothes cop. When they got up to the landing where I was the policeman asked me for some I. D. It was in my jacket hanging over the banister.

Oh no, Oh my God no, I was thinking, completely horrified at the predicament. I knew there was more hash up in my room. I could go to Angola for years! By the time he asked me for my address, I was desperately searching for a way out. I told him my mother’s address, which was the one on my I. D., but I seriously doubted that would get me out of this. About then the officer knocked over the bowl with the Ginseng, Gota Kola and capsules, and they went all over the floor.

What’s this? he said with a smile, holding up the two-ounce bag of ginseng. He called to the other officer to bring down another set of handcuffs. It was obvious that they were not going to believe it was legal herbs. I knew that there was absolutely no way left to talk my way out of this one, yet somehow I just could not believe that I would go to jail. I had been through so much. I couldn’t believe I deserved to go to Angola. My karma couldn’t be that bad. I couldn’t go to jail now that I had met you.

The only answer was that I had to escape. The only question was, when. The cop told me to stand away from the stairs by the wall. I asked one of the fellows who was handcuffed who he was and he said, I’m just some sucker in town trying to score. The other officer had come down, and when the handcuffs were in the downswing towards my wrist, I knew the answer to my question. It was obviously now or never. The two cops were between me and the top of the stairs. Somehow, I managed instantly to move between them to the top of the stairs, and then it was just a great leap of faith. The first floor had a high ceiling, so the steps were at least twelve feet high. I jumped as far as I could and miraculously, I landed on a step. This miracle was repeated a couple of times, then it was out the open front door and off the porch, leaping and then running down the middle of the street towards St. Charles Avenue.

The impossibility of my flight never had time to enter my mind. I only knew that I couldn’t go back to jail, perhaps this time to Angola. Not now! I only looked back once, and that was when I was in the middle of the street. An officer was running out the front door after me. I didn’t hear the shot that was fired, but it wouldn’t have stopped me. I was more terrified of prison than death. I put every ounce of energy into my adrenaline-soaked legs. I didn’t even think, as every bit of energy was in my running feet. When I got to Carondelet Street, I went right and then went left down Third Street towards St. Charles.

When I saw a hole in the foundation under a huge old house on St. Charles Avenue I ran in it like a scared rabbit fleeing a wolf. I was by no means safe. Actually, I had trapped myself without thinking. Ten seconds later the policeman ran around the corner, and twenty seconds after that there were blue lights flashing through the many holes in the foundation’s walls, and police storming into the house and up the stairs, pounding on doors and yelling. I heard one say, Get some flashlights.

I made my way to a place instinct said was the safest. There were gaping holes in the foundation all around the house, but there were also brick partitions spread around to support the aged structure. The place I made my way to seemed to afford the most protection, though I could still see daylight in several places. As they were searching inside the house, it did appear that no one had seen me go underneath.

I squatted there and prayed fervently. Freedom, any conditions, just let me walk under the Sun. I couldn’t believe I would go to jail, but things looked very bad. I got up against one of the partitions and folded my body over against