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“Dare Mighty Things!”---Theodore Roosevelt
On May 7, 2022, just two moons away, an event will occur in Gainesville, Florida the likes of which the Earth has never seen before. Over 1000 old hippies and countless tagalongs will dust themselves off, limp to the train station and return to the Land of their Youth to celebrate their treasured adolescence and a venerable psychedelic shop called the Subterranean Circus. This may be the first time in recorded history where the audience fills the starring role and the folks on stage applaud.
It may be true that all generations fondly remember their green years when life was slow and oh, so mellow, but this generation is special. Growing up in an era when Authority was seldom challenged and a road map for life was set in front of them, these hippies-in-the-making balked, took a second look and decided to take a different path. They marched against segregation, put a stop to a foolish war and recreated art, music and fashion in their own image. If they occasionally overstepped the peripheries of propriety, wandered into spooky realms or suffered the stings and welts of brave explorers, so be it, no jungle was ever penetrated without cost.
Their cause was simple; to change the world for the better, and they did. They brought color and excitement to a drab society, they brought resistance to ill-considered norms and mostly, they brought Hope. Ridiculed at first, the hippie phenomenon settled in, took hold and slowly swept across the country like an attractive new religion, daily gaining converts, taking over the music business, publishing its own newspapers. Before you knew it, there were hippies in Omaha and even in Muskogee. Adults who once scoffed were dressing up in bellbottoms, buying waterbeds and searching for a dependable dealer.
The Beatles came along and brought Lucy. Greenwich Village morphed into San Francisco East. Poster Art became museum-worthy. Hippies began creating their own self-sustaining communities. The world paid more attention to the wellbeing of the planet. The children who inherited the Earth grabbed hold of the pendulum and pushed it as far as they could. All of us know now if we didn’t then that the pendulum inexorably swings back.
The hippies of the nineteen-sixties and seventies are fading now, blemished by the time and tide which wait for no man. But they remember. They remember the night they first fell in love, the first time they woke up on the beach at sunrise, that first puff of marijuana, their introduction to Lucy in the Sky. They remember an incomparable sense of community when everyone was pulling in the same direction, they recall a commonality of spirit, a time when “All You Need Is Love” was not a hollow promise. And they will never forget.
That’s why they’re coming….climbing aboard planes and trains and automobiles to make the hadj to a modest music garden in Florida where all their old friends will be waiting. In such company, the days of yore become real again, spirits soar, tears run down weathered cheeks, emotions reign. Once more, despite weary legs, timeworn hearts and mixed fortunes, they return to bond with their compadres of youth, smile again at old friends and lovers, speak to someone those words they meant to speak so long ago. It’s not just a Grand Reunion, it’s Life at its most poignant, a rare and impossible moment in time that will never be seen again. And just think….it’s yours for the asking.
The Broadcast
“Good morning, everybody, this is Jerry O’Leary speaking to you from downtown Gainesville, Florida, where the Event of the Year is taking place under sunny skies with no hint of rain. The Reunion guests are queuing up in two lanes over by the Heartwood Soundstage gates waiting for the gong to ring 11 a.m. We’re going over to talk to some of these ex-hippies. Hi! Your name please?”
“All you’re getting is my hippie moniker. Patti Walker.”
“Well that’s fine, Patti. What can you tell us about your golden days in 1960s Gainesville?”
“Are there any kids watching? I mean, my Gainesville career is X-rated. The cops didn’t cotton to my Lady Godiva ride down University Avenue. Good thing my horse was faster than their cars.”
“Oh my goodness, whatever made you think of doing a stunt like that?”
“Well, I saw Jeannie Uffelman ride naked down University on the back of a motorcycle. It looked like fun but it was over too fast.”
“Moving along, let’s talk to a well turned out young lady near the front of the line. You are?….
“I’m Debbie Brandt, worked at the Circus and then at Silver City in the rockin’ seventies. I was one of the Three Amigos, along with Ricky Childs and Jagger Hatcherson. We hit the bars when the Circus closed almost every night and we took no prisoners. The scene back then was over the top, live music everywhere, people hanging from the chandeliers. Bill didn’t care if we came to work next day in our pajamas as long as we weren’t late. Hey, there’s Ricky now, over there in the misty lane.
“It’s a little cloudy as we make our way through the crowd over to a small collection of barely visible guests in a separate section. Who do we have here?”
“Hi, I’m Pamme Brewer and this guy with the ponytail is Dick North. We opened the Circus with Bill and we’re thinking of doing it again in our current haunt if we can get a permit from the Cosmic Development Commission. Those people over there lining up for jobs are Ricky Childs, Ted Hansen, Rick Sturm and Chris Thibaut. Ted’s set on calling his part The REAL Acme Records because our neighborhood is as Acme as you can get.
“And what do you think of this mob scene today?”
We love it. Our customers were the best. We had a ton of regulars who just hung out. Bill kept the drug action out of the store because the State’s Attorney had people lurking in the bushes but the parking lot was a big party. I see so many of the old gang today I get emotional. Even Irana with all her replacement parts made it.
“Ah, and you must be the little lady of whom she speaks.”
“Right on. I was Irana Maiolo, a big troublemaker. It’s a wonder I didn’t get fired. I fell under the influence of my next-door neighbor, Patty Wheeler, who was criminally insane and wound up being one of Bill’s girlfriends. She made me do illegal things involving drugs. Before I met Patty, I was just an innocent waif from Brooklyn.”
“And you sir, the gentleman monitoring the line?…”
“Daniel Levine, Circus salesman-of-the-month every month. I was once Bill’s roommate at the luxurious Summit House apartments. They threw us out after a year. Bill said it was because I revved up my Kawasaki too loud at 6 a.m. but I say it was because he had the Moody Blues on full-blast at 1 o’clock in the morning. People pounded on our walls and shouted mean things. You’ll have to excuse me now, there’s a ruckus down the line. Either Patti’s taking off her clothes again or Irana’s running a doobie toss….”
Memories Are Made Of This/A 14-Year-Old’s Introduction To Psychedelia (by Marty Jourard)
As a teenage hippie in the late sixties, I spent a lot of time at the Subterranean Circus. At fourteen or so, still too young to drive, I rode my red Sears bike to 10 SW 7th Street and leaned it against the storefront.
Walking through the front door of the building was like entering another world. There, in the heart of midland Florida, were the same counterculture fashions and lifestyle accessories available in San Francisco, L.A. and New York City. The owner, Bill Killeen, had brought them all to the deep South and put them under one roof.
To the immediate left was the sales counter, a glass display case presenting rolling papers, pipes, roach clips, you name it---everything but marijuana, itself, still very illegal in all 50 states. Buttons with the latest buzz phrases cost a quarter: Ban The Bra…Make Love Not War…Mary Poppins Was A Junkie…
Near the front counter, everpresent employee Dick North twirled his mustache and showed off his leather wares and tiny dope pipes made from hardware parts; also a few beautiful hammered brass peace symbols strung on leather thongs. They were maybe five bucks, way out of my price range.
Against the front wall were racks of alternative newspapers and magazines: The Realist, Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, along with a great variety of underground comics, including my favorite, Zap Comics, featuring Robert Crumb’s politically incorrect cartoon characters, Flaky Foont, Mr. Natural, White Man, Fritz the Cat, etc. I visited the shop regularly, always eager for the next issue. It was via this array of mind-altering literature that Bill Killeen slowly corrupted the minds of the children of America and don’t let him convince you otherwise.
Also in or adjacent to the front room were clothing racks, a Coke machine and a poster of Bob Dylan staring down at you. (See the photo below; apparently I am the only person in the universe who has a photo of the store’s interior.) In the back section of the shop was the blacklight room, full of glowing posters reactive to the deep blue flourescent bulbs in the ceiling. The effect was…well…psychedelic.
Despite my minimal purchase history, I must have been at least a tolerable presence because the store crew let me hang out. I would bring Krispy-Kreme doughnuts to one of the regulars, a guy named Gunny who had just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam. I did buy some sandalwood beads, however, along with my first and last bottle of patchouli oil. I can clearly recall the time as a high-school senior when I was working for Domino’s after school before driving to band rehearsal. One night after work, bluejeans coated in flour and radiating the scent of pepperoni and anchovies, I applied generous dabs of patchouli oil behind each ear. After arriving at the rehearsal room, I was immediately exiled to a far corner by bandmates Steve Soar and Stan Lynch, thus learning a valuable life lesson: Sometimes More Is Much Much Less.
Ah, those were the days my friends. I hung out at the music stores to feel like I was part of the music scene and I hung out at the Sub Circus to feel like I was an alternative kind of kid. Eventually, I grew up to be and alternative kind of adult. I’m sure the Subterranean Circus helped show me The Way.
That’s all, folks….
