So what was this Subterranean Circus, anyway, you late-comers ask, who were those tie-dyed men and women who put on the show, swung from the rafters and cavalierly rode the elephants around the ring? If we’re having the world’s Greatest Reunion, it must have been a special place with unique people, an oasis where everyone knew your name and which rolling papers you preferred.
Oh, it was.
The Circus opened in September of 1967 in a 30x80 ex-fertilizer warehouse a half-block off University Avenue on SW 7th Street in Gainesville. The rent was a perky $75 a month, and for good reason. When we turned the power on, water spat out from numerous uncapped pipes, the wiring looked like Medusa’s hairdo and the “cooling” fan at the rear of the building sucked up everything that wasn’t tied down. When we checked out the spotty light fixtures in the front of the place, most of them were dated “dawn of antiquity” and refused to work more than three days a week. Don’t even ask about the bathroom, which was small, dark and foreboding, with evidence of once housing serpents. Still, not bad enough to prevent employee Michael Hatcherson from once having a tryst in there and bragging about it for months. Not about the sex, mind you, just about surviving the experience. “There were funny noises coming from behind the toilet,” Mike said. “Guttural snarls and thumping. I thought I was toast.”
The original cast consisted of Bill Killeen, Dick North and Pamme Brewer, famous for having posed nude a year earlier in Killeen’s outrageous Charlatan magazine. Dick, a man of many talents, crafted the first smoking pipes sold in the place using lamp parts and a sense of humor. He later made sandals, leather belts and brass buckles, eventually opening his own shop, The Appollonian Alternative, across the street.
The Subterranean Circus was the second head shop to open in the state of Florida, following Michael Lang’s Head Shop South in Miami by a few weeks. Lang was a frequent visitor, wholesaling posters and the like before packing up and heading north to help produce Woodstock. In the early days, the Circus sold mostly posters, buttons, incense, homemade pipes, India print bedspreads and the indispensable cigarette rolling papers, which started at six cents. Within 12 months, half the front counter was devoted to over 35 types of papers. Customers would nonetheless bitch if we ran out of any one of them. Epicures and devotees of fine wine have nothing on discriminating marijuana smokers. “WHAT---you’re out of CLUBS? Have you no shame?”
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| Left to Right: Patty Wheeler, Danny Whiddon, Guy Thibaut And Debbie Adelman in front of the Circus, 1969. Photo by Chris Thibaut. |
The Pioneers
The earliest employees, including those above, were Gunny Carnes, Daniel Levine, Patti Walker, Jarrett Renshaw and the entire middle-sixties graduating classes of Winter Park High School, which included Patty Wheeler, Debbie Adelman, Johnny Bolton, Danny Whiddon, Linda Hughes, Barbara Stump, sex-maniac Hatcherson and Chris Thibaut. Alas and alack, Chris departed this mortal orb earlier this year to scout out a new psychedelic playground for those of us who follow.
Levine, who is prominent on the Circus Wall of Fame, was hired only at the behest of Pamme Brewer after several untoward incidences in San Francisco. He quickly proved his mettle, however, selling 50 pair of pants on his first day of work, after which he saddled up, handed Killeen a silver bullet and rode off to find a high-school girlfriend. Danny later fell under the spell of motorcycles and even raced a few Kawasakis at Daytona. Eventually, some risk-takers hired him to teach Art History at the Savannah College of Art & Design, where his students rated him either a tyrant or a genius. We’d call him more of a fun-boy with demonic tendencies.
We wouldn’t mention this if he was not now semi-famous, but renowned author Marty Jourard also spent time at the store, as did his frisky brothers, Jeff and Leonard when they were teenagers. The boys later went on to successful careers in music, having learned several life lessons from their Circus experience, like what was cool and what not, how to find a reliable dealer and what to do with groupies. Marty became so cool he moved to Seattle. The sacrifices some people make for a sexy book jacket bio.
The Days Of Wine & Roses
The Circus unofficially opened one Thursday afternoon while we were covering the walls with posters and highlighting them with color wheels. Passersby began stopping, gathering and knocking so we decided to let them in. We made all of $27. Next day, we doubled it to $54. Takes a while for all those dollar posters to add up. On the third day, a Saturday, the Gainesville Sun put a picture of Pamme Brewer with a rose in her teeth on the front page and we were off to the races. Within six months, the average daily gross was $1000, which in those days was real money. We ate out a lot. The Manor Motel Restaurant was practically our clubhouse. “Here come the prime rib guys again!” warned Mabel the waitress.
The success of the Circus and stores like it in other towns transformed the local business communities. Where retail was once the province of middle-aged to older straight men with ample funds, now young people operating on a shoestring were opening up sandal shops, health food stores, small boutiques and other counterculture oases in every town in America. They had the hot new things first because they knew what the hot new things were. The Circus had bellbottoms when no other store in town even knew what they were. When the New York suppliers ran out of Nehru and Cossack shirts, Pamme Brewer enlisted a crew of seamstresses to make them. When waterbeds came to the fore, we stocked them, even corralling some amateur carpenters to make basic frames. In many cases, we even delivered the things. It was easy to find delivery boys, who in several instances were shown exceptional appreciation by generous damsels in distress. On one occasion, I delivered a waterbed myself at dinnertime, set it up and only returned to the store five minutes before closing at ten p.m. Bill Faust, the store manager at the time, merely arced an eyebrow and asked, “Damsel in distress?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s an occupational hazard.” The things we do for love.
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| Patti Walker, circa 1968; hospital raider, comforter to the sick. Long live her fame and long live her glory and long may her story be told. |
Calling Dr. Kildare!
About a year after the Circus opened, Bill met a cultured young man from Tallahassee named Rick Nihlen. On the verge of opening a “psychedelic shop” himself, he came to Gainesville to learn the ropes from the masters. Rick was a quick study and soon unveiled a place near the state Capitol with his wife, Lynn Levy. They called it Gemini Bear. Before guffawing, remember that this was the dawning of The Age of Aquarius, where astrology was a certified science. You could take your bow and arrows to the Sagittarius Archery Range, buy herring at the Pisces Fish Market or find an attorney at “Libras ‘R’ Us.” By the way, what’s your sign?
In spite of its moniker, Gemini Bear became quite the place to go in Tallahassee, and Nihlen now had dollar signs in his eyes. He talked Bill into opening a wholesale psychedelic showroom in the “now-leasing” Miami Merchandise Mart, still in the latter stages of construction. What both of them should have realized was that the sort of people who became head shop owners had no idea this source of merchandise was even available. The dearth of customers and wealth of plaster dust constantly in the air sent the boys scurrying home after a couple of months and Bill was soon in Alachua General Hospital with an asthma attack.
Three days in, Mr.Killeen was worse, if anything. Half asleep, he heard his internist tell a nurse, “If he isn’t better by tomorrow morning, better put him in intensive care,” a remark guaranteed to put a fellow on notice. Bill began to concentrate on his breathing, slow and steady, over and over, well into the night. By morning, there was improvement and a day later he felt almost normal. To this time, visitors had been discouraged, but that wasn’t enough to keep away the irrepressible Patti Walker, who had been dating Bill before the disaster. She walked into his room, winked and said “We gotta get you out of here.” Then she climbed into the bed to provide physical rehab.
As Patricia was readjusting her garb, a nurse popped into the room, bringing medication. She was dumbstruck by the apparent infringement of the rules. “This is a HOSPITAL,” she huffed, “you can’t do that sort of thing in here!”
“Why not?” Patti said, “It’s visiting hours, isn’t it?” With that, she flipped her long hair back, tossed her bag over a shoulder and sashayed off. Somewhere in the distance, the William Tell Overture played loudly and that great horse Silver reared majestically on a sunlit mountaintop.
That’s all, folks….
Next Week: The Subterranean Circus malleteers battle the Forces of Evil for The Intergalactic Cup. The National Boutique Show smokes up Manhattan’s McAlpin Hotel. The Circus crew visits the first Atlanta Pop Festival. And Selected Short Subjects. You’d be a fool to miss it!
