Hippies of the 1960s | Tsvi Strauch Interview | Haight and Ashbury

7/31/15 2:05 PM

Billion Dollar Hippie by Michael L. Klassen, Ph.D.

(http://www.billiondollarhippie.com/)

(http://www.travelswithmikeem.wordpress.com)

how a handful of haight-ashbury freaks revolutionized american business in

less than a hundred weeks
The story of the Haight-Ashbury Hippie Movement began on the evening of
November 27, 1965 in an abandoned barn in rural Santa Cruz and ended on
the afternoon of October 6, 1967 in the Panhandle section of San Francisco.
In that 100-week period, thirty-nine hippie business entrepreneurs created
thirty-eight different ideas and products using little more than their own
ingenuity and the meager material resources available to them. Over forty
years later, their innovative activities are collectively worth nearly $360 billion
dollars and are responsible for the employment of millions of workers in the
U.S. and abroad. Interested in learning more? You're in the right place.
THE BOOK

THE AUTHOR

BOOK/)

AUTHOR/)

INTERVIEWS

PHOTOS

PRAISE FOR

STORE

PHOTOS/)

FOR/)

NOW/)

CONTACT

(http://www.billiondollarhippie.com)
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(HTTP://WWW.BILLIONDOLLARHIPPIE.COM/HIPPIE(HTTP://WWW.BILLIONDOLLARHIPPIE.COM/PRAISE(HTTP://WWW.BILLIONDOLLARHIPPIE.COM/BUY(HTTP://WWW.BILLIONDOLLARHIPPIE.C

Tsvi Strauch

In the book Billion Dollar Hippie, some of the most influential Haight and Ashbury
hippies of the 1960s share their feelings and experiences with the author. This is an
interview with Tsvi Strauch, a close friend of the legendary singer Janis Joplin. Tsvi
Strauch is documented as one of the first San Francisco men to assume the hippie
look. Along with his wife, Hyla Deer, he helped launch an industry that in 2012 was
worth $12 billion.

August 11, 2010 interviews with Tsvi Strauch

What can you tell me about ..?
(The author with Tsvi Strauch in 2010,
in front of his shop Gallery 638, located
at 638 Haight Street.)

Klassen: Youve been running businesses in San Francisco for a number of years now, havent you?

Strauch: Thats right. My wife, Hyla Deer, and I began our first business on Divisadero (Street) in the early sixties and then we opened up In Gear
on Haight Street in 1966.

Klassen: So, you were here before the hippie movement began. Were you a part of the Beat Movement?

Strauch: I would call myself a neo-beat first, and then later, a hippie. Neo-beats were around between the beat and hippie movement in the
early sixties. I was going to graduate school at Berkeley during much of the beat movement and after that, I worked as a business owner and
also part-time as a philosophy professor. I got my undergraduate degree at Harvard and was raised on the East Coast. After I moved to San
Francisco in the fifties, I never lived in the East again.

Klassen: Ive talked with quite a few members of the hippie movement, but I have to say that you are exceptional in the number of people youve
known over the years. I was wondering if I might mention some names to you that I have become aware of in my research, and if you could tell
me a little bit about the person?

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Strauch: Ill do my best.

Klassen: Great. Well, lets start with an easy one: Janis Joplin.

Strauch: I knew Janis very well. She shopped at our place a lot and bought a number of her hats here which she then appeared in on stage and
in photographs. My wife and Janis were quite close.

Klassen: Hyla (Tsvis wife, who passed in 2007) was a friend of Janis Joplin?

Strauch: Oh yes. In fact, Hyla introduced Janis to R. Crumb, the artist who illustrated Janis Cheap Thrills album. Janis came in the store one
day and started to complain that she was not happy with the album cover of her upcoming record. She mentioned that she had recently seen
some work by Crumb his Keep on Truckin piece and that she really liked his art. Hyla and I knew Crumb as he lived in the neighborhood,
and Hyla offered to introduce Janis to him. Crumb eventually ended up doing the cover for Cheap Thrill, which was Big Brother and the Holding
Companys second album and the last album Big Brother did with Janis. Chet (Helms) introduced Janis to Big Brother (Note: please see my
interview with Travis Rivers in which he recounts the story of Janis and him driving from Texas to San Francisco to meet Chet Helms.) After that,
she went on to start a solo career, and then, as we all know, she died of an overdose shortly after she went off on her own. Cheap Thrills had
the song, A Piece of my Heart, on it and it sold a million copies in 1968 alone.

Klassen: In a sentence, how would you describe Janis?

Strauch: Janis was tragically brilliant. Thats about it, she was tragically brilliant.

Klassen: Did you know Bill Graham?

Strauch: Sure I knew Graham. He was a very successful businessman, made millions promoting the San Francisco bands. He worked with Chet
Helms for a while and then they split up and went off on their own. Bill and I were both Holocaust survivors. I was born in a concentration camp
and arrived in the U.S. in 1941. Bill arrived here as a teen and he was part of a forced march between Spain and France in World War II.

Klassen: You know, most people think that the hippies were baby boomers, but

Strauch: No, no, no thats not true. Most hippies were too old to be baby boomers. I mean, look at Bill and me there were no boomers in
Hitlers camps, believe me! And we werent the only ones. Frank Werber was in the camps, too.

Klassen: Tell me about Frank Werber.

Strauch: Werber preceded all the hippie folk/rock bands when he managed the folkies, particularly, The Kingston Trio and The Lamplighters.
He was a Berkeley scholar, a bohemian, and very important in the early scene. He became one of the first rich long-haired businessmen
managing these hugely successful singing groups. He eventually became a restaurant owner in Sausalito (just north of the city of San
Francisco). Franks biggest success was with the Kingston Trio. They sang folk music in the manner of Peter, Paul and Mary, or the Smothers

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Brothers. The Kingston Trio was huge in the early sixties, made millions, appeared on T.V., and Frank put them together (Note: By 1961, the Trio
had sold over 8 million albums). Frank was in the Nazi camps, too. This is something most people would never guess, but Frank Werber was
also a big-time private dope dealer. So it was kind of strange, you know. Here was this squeaky clean Kingston Trio with their toothy smiles,
short hair, and red sweater vests, and then there was their manager, Frank, dealing dope. So there was this other thing kind of brewing under the
surface even though the Trio looked like every parents dream child. That was a myth used to sell records.

Klassen: Was this common, that people were involved in both legitimate legal businesses and dope dealing at the same time.

Strauch: Look, everyone dealt dope in those days. What I am saying is that Frank wasnt just a smalltime dealer he was a significant dope
dealer, a big player. We were all dealing drugs and this allowed us to have a pretty good lifestyle. For a lot of businesspeople like me, it was
kind of like having a money tree in the backyard. Need a little extra money to pay this months rent? Just deal a little pot or acid and voil the
rent is paid!

Klassen: That would be a definite advantage for a young person trying to get a business started.

Strauch: Right. And it wasnt the only source of cash we had at our disposal. We were lucky because at that time, the social welfare system was
really generous. The unemployed were entitled to $400 per month, no questions asked. You could easily live on $400 a month in 1966 and a lot
of hippies just dropped out and collected their check, dealing drugs on the side when they ran short. Consequently, when the hippie movement
started, there were no homeless people that is a myth. Later the street kids invaded the Haight and lived the vagabonds life, but in the early
days, there was little of that kind of thing going on. Oh I remember that someone once showed up on my doorstep, needed help, you know. I
just took him in for a while and took care of him it was no sweat off my and my wifes backs we could always get money somewhere.

Klassen: Ive got another person for you to talk about: the San Francisco Chief of Police

Strauch: (Laughter) Oh boy well, I guess you read the article.

Klassen: The San Francisco Chronicle piece yeah, I read it

Strauch: Well you know when things started to heat up on the Haight around late 1966, before the summer of love in 1967 a lot of us were
getting concerned about the condition of the (Haight) neighborhood. There were more and more tourists and kids from all over the country just
started pouring in and, consequently, the place was getting real run-down. So I helped create a job coop that was in charge of keeping the
Haight clean, and our members decided to petition for more garbage cans and some benches on the sidewalks on Haight Street. You know the
tourists would just stand around and throw their garbage wherever they liked.

Klassen: A job coop sounds like a good idea. So what happened?

Strauch: So we got a meeting with the Chief of Police and requested these things. We were having a friendly conversation with the press all
around us and the Chief asked something about the LSD in the community, like is that stuff any good, or something like that. I told him, well,
why dont you just try some. The Chief laughed it off, but the press ran with it. The next day, the San Francisco Chronicle runs this big story
with the headline: Hippie Leader suggests that the Chief of Police take LSD.

Klassen: The infamous headline

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Strauch: Right. We were never able to get a warm reception from the police again and that led to the downfall of the Haight district. Pretty soon,
cops werent showing up when we called them and they were just two blocks away. The neighborhood grew practically lawless. By 1970, the
street was dead. My wife and I closed shop and headed north with our daughters.

Klassen: Wow well, I guess thats the story behind the story.

Strauch: Precisely. It wasnt the way the press made it out to be. That little headline sure did screw things up.

Klassen: Who was Charlie Brown?

Strauch: Yea, his real name was Charles Altman and I believe he was from Iowa, a Methodist minsters kid. Charlie was a very early bohemian,
before the hippies arrived he dressed in flamboyant costumes with ringing bells attached. He also built a teepee in Berkeley and lived in it. He
would hold Peyote smoking sessions this was still way back in 1964 before the Haight came to life. So people like Charlie Brown, me, Allen
Ginsberg, and a few others were what I believe you were referring to earlier as neo-beats. We were here doing our bohemians thing in the early
sixties, between the end of the beat movement and before the beginning of the hippie movement.

Klassen: Did you know Judy Goldhaft?

Strauch: Judy was a Digger and she is married to Peter Berg one of the most thoughtful men I know. In many way, Peter was the intellectual
leader of the hippie movement. Peter and Judy were both Diggers, but now I think they run a non-profit organization. Anyway, one day Judy
came into my wifes and my store with Peter Coyote and his girlfriend. Peters girlfriend was named, Sam. Sam and Peter are pictured in Deb
and Leonard Wolfes book, Letters from the Love Generation Sam was photographed au natural. The three of them were looking to sell us
some tie-dyed shirts to put in our shop to sell. I would say that Judy definitely originated the tie-dye look. Incidentally, Deb and Leonard are the
parents of Naomi Wolfe, the author of The Beauty Myth, which sold millions.

Klassen: Peter Coyote, of course, is a celebrity now. But what did Peter have to do with the tie-dye look?

Strauch: Peter ended up in Hollywood, acting in E.T. and doing a lot of voice-overs. He is difficult to get in touch with these days a big shot, I
guess. I remember that Peter and his girlfriend were just along for the ride, and I dont think either one of them had anything to do with the
creation of tie-dye fabrics. Judy was the creator of that style. I mean, some tie-dye artists started hanging around Peter Coyote and there was
this one girl, Luna Moth was her hippie name, and she was a textile artist who did tie-dye as art in 1964. Then sometime after 1965 the tie-dye
look blossomed. Hyla and I sold some of this stuff in our shop but most of it really took off when it was sold at the Dead concerts. All the selling
was in the parking lot and some of those kids made a $100,000 a year just selling tie-dye shirts in the parking lot of the Dead concerts. This is
not just me talking. This was documented in a film made by a North Carolina professor on the Dead parking lot phenomenon.

Klassen: Another distinctly hippie style was so-called shabby chic. What can you tell me about that look?

Strauch:The press called the hippie home look, shabby chic you know, hanging tapestries, beads, posters, candles, incense holders, wicker
furniture. Pier 1 Imports and Cost Plus opened up in the Bay Area at that time and started selling the look and eventually took the shabby chic
interior style to the rest of the nation.

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Klassen: The written descriptions of the hippie pads almost always mention wooden floors and imported fabrics used as wall hangings or room
dividers. How did that come about?

Strauch: That probably started with the beats but it was due to the fact that there were so many Victorian houses around North Beach and
Haight-Ashbury. These young bohemians would move into these cheap houses and they would have wooden floors or they would tear up the
carpet and get wooden floors. Some of the imported fabrics and stuff they picked up in Chinatown.

Klassen: Why this particular look?

Strauch: It was kind of mandatory you know, they had to look artsy, like the beats.

Klassen: So it was a beat thing?

Strauch: Not entirely. You need to remember that at this time a lot of hippies thought the world would end from nuclear war between Russia and
the U.S. So a lot of them were returning to the comforts of home. A lot of the hippies turned to their families and kids they didnt want to go
out and contribute to this war machine, so instead, they set up their cozy, warm homes with their spouses and kids and tried to make money
any way they could without getting involved with the government and big business. The natural look with the wood was one way they did this.
The modern look was popular in the suburbs you know the stainless steel, tile, and fat rugs these were totally out with the hippies and were
seen as symbolic of the militaristic culture.

Klassen: Perhaps one of the better-known hippie style accessories was love beads.

Strauch: Right. Actually, the hippies didnt come up with that term. It was Herb Caen, the journalist from the Chronicle, who coined the term
love beads. We were one of the first sellers of love beads in the Haight and before Herb, we called them Mojo or Ju-Ju, like: Im going to wear
my Mojo or Ju-Ju. Ju-ju came from the word Voodoo. Herb wrote a column for the Chronicle in which he told readers to go to the Haight and
buy their love beads. So the name stuck after that and Mojo and Ju-Ju were lost to time. We made and sold love beads at our shop, In Gear.

Klassen: The idea of American men wearing necklaces and beads was pretty unheard of before the hippies came along.

Strauch: Thats right. Before we opened in 1966, the only jewelry a man wore was a watch and wedding band. And he wouldnt be caught dead
carrying a bag slung over his shoulder- that was too feminine just a briefcase preferably tucked up tight under his arm rather than swinging from
his hand. We were the first in San Francisco to sell mens handbags in 1962 at our first store. These bags were popular in Europe at the time,
but not in the U.S. When I was at Harvard in the 50s, there was this thing called the Harvard bag that men wore over their shoulders. It was a
big green cloth bag with a draw string. But of course, that was only seen at Harvard. People were also beginning to wear backpacks in the midsixties, but some hippies found backpacks to be too militaristic because the only place you could pick these up in the earliest days were at an
Army Surplus, so they were in the Army drab green color. Some also thought the backpack was too European for their tastes. You know, we
were Americans, not Europeans. And in the earliest days, we kind of looked on European radicalism suspiciously, like, the protest and
intellectual stuff is what they do in Europe but not here. That was definitely the attitude about public protest when I first got to Berkeley in the
late fifties, but of course, that quickly changed. When I was a student at Berkeley, there were no more than a hundred students who considered
themselves radical and they took their cue from Europe. You know, the country was making a lot of money in those days and no one wanted to
upset the apple cart. We just all stood at attention, saluted Eisenhower, and worked our asses off.

Klassen: Did you ever run into Timothy Leary while at Harvard?

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Strauch: When I was studying at Harvard I heard about Learys Mushroom Project, and when he brought that project to San Francisco years
later, I participated in it. But I did not know Leary personally. He and Allan Watts were responsible for infusing people on the East Coast with the
mentality of Ken Kesey, you know, and his experiments in LSD.

Klassen: Ok, lets play, Name that Hippie.

Strauch: Shoot.

Klassen: I read some information recently on an early and prominent hippie named Eric?

Strauch: Yes, there was a guy named Eric. He was close to 50-years-old and a corporate dropout. He dressed in wild clothes, hats, and boots.
He had a way with young female dropouts, and I think he was more interested in the women than in creating a revolution. Eric once told me: I
feel like I missed a lot, and that haunts me; so, now Im making up for it.

Klassen: Al Rinker.

Strauch: Al operated a switchboard for hippie social problems. So if you needed some help getting over a bad trip or needed a list of places to
stay, you called Al.

Klassen: Charlie Manson.

Strauch: Manson was an unknown when he lived in the Haight. He was a thug and there were others involved in criminal activities

Klassen: Like

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