Jeffrey Blankfort for San Francisco Express Times (1968) “The demonstration had the tone of a festival and a religious ceremony. At the Panhandle where students and young people gathered earlier to march on the Federal Building, everyone was good-natured. 500 people lounged in the sun under the monument to William McKinley. There were dogs, daisies, harmonicas, cameras, kazoos, guitars and gentle conversation.” Continues
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Jeffrey Blankfort for San Francisco Express Times (1968)

“The demonstration had the tone of a festival and a religious ceremony. At the Panhandle where students and young people gathered earlier to march on the Federal Building, everyone was good-natured. 500 people lounged in the sun under the monument to William McKinley. There were dogs, daisies, harmonicas, cameras, kazoos, guitars and gentle conversation.”

Continues

Kathleen Cleaver by Alan Copeland “The pigs are hunting Eldridge and Kathleen down, the way they went after Bonnie and Clyde. This past Tuesday, Eldridge Cleaver’s parole officer ordered him to leave his wife. The reason is that Kathleen exercised her inalienable right not to be a sitting duck at a shooting gallery. She bought a Super Pig Riot Shotgun. Mrs. Cleaver has had her life threatened so many times that she has lost count. But lately it has been the San Francisco Pigs themselves that have been openly telling her to make herself scarce or else. When the shotgun and the heavy shells that go with it were bought, the clerk behind the counter in the Gun Store was so freaked that he called in the pigs and six of them stayed with him behind the counter while the purchase was being made. Kathleen also intends to buy a pistol. She told BARB “I went down to the Pig Station to apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon and they told me they had issued only six permits in the last 2 years. Well, if that’s true, there are a lot of businessmen carrying illegal weapons. I wonder why the pigs never move on them?” She told me that she ate in the Pig’s Public Cafeteria and she freaked everybody out. Their eyes followed her every move. When Eldridge found out about his wife’s purchase, he contacted his Parole Officer. Parolees are not allowed to associate with people who own guns. Cleaver’s parole officer visited his house in San Francisco, and when he saw the shotgun there he ordered Eldridge to move out. There is no question that Kathleen has as much legal and moral right to carry a gun as she does to give a speech in Bobby Hutton Park; but Eldridge is a Parolee and a Panther, and in this society that means some petty bureaucrat has the right to tell a human being he can’t sleep with his wife.” — Stew Albert, Berkeley Barb (1968)
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Kathleen Cleaver by Alan Copeland

“The pigs are hunting Eldridge and Kathleen down, the way they went after Bonnie and Clyde. This past Tuesday, Eldridge Cleaver’s parole officer ordered him to leave his wife. The reason is that Kathleen exercised her inalienable right not to be a sitting duck at a shooting gallery. She bought a Super Pig Riot Shotgun. Mrs. Cleaver has had her life threatened so many times that she has lost count. But lately it has been the San Francisco Pigs themselves that have been openly telling her to make herself scarce or else.

When the shotgun and the heavy shells that go with it were bought, the clerk behind the counter in the Gun Store was so freaked that he called in the pigs and six of them stayed with him behind the counter while the purchase was being made. Kathleen also intends to buy a pistol. She told BARB “I went down to the Pig Station to apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon and they told me they had issued only six permits in the last 2 years. Well, if that’s true, there are a lot of businessmen carrying illegal weapons. I wonder why the pigs never move on them?” She told me that she ate in the Pig’s Public Cafeteria and she freaked everybody out. Their eyes followed her every move.

When Eldridge found out about his wife’s purchase, he contacted his Parole Officer. Parolees are not allowed to associate with people who own guns. Cleaver’s parole officer visited his house in San Francisco, and when he saw the shotgun there he ordered Eldridge to move out. There is no question that Kathleen has as much legal and moral right to carry a gun as she does to give a speech in Bobby Hutton Park; but Eldridge is a Parolee and a Panther, and in this society that means some petty bureaucrat has the right to tell a human being he can’t sleep with his wife.” — Stew Albert, Berkeley Barb (1968)

“San Francisco last weekend was a city that seemed on the verge of revolution. The streets of the Haight-Ashbury section were filled with hippies, patrolling police cars and bands of tourists, some of them crew cut types looking for trouble. Anyone of the right age and costume (young and freaky) or with the proper introduction could start a conversation with a young person and within an hour be at a Diggers youth hostel or a private home, provided with food, a place to sleep, a sexual partner and a variety of drugs from LSD to crystals (methadrine) or pot.” —Art Kunkin, Los Angeles Free Press (1967)
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“San Francisco last weekend was a city that seemed on the verge of revolution. The streets of the Haight-Ashbury section were filled with hippies, patrolling police cars and bands of tourists, some of them crew cut types looking for trouble.

Anyone of the right age and costume (young and freaky) or with the proper introduction could start a conversation with a young person and within an hour be at a Diggers youth hostel or a private home, provided with food, a place to sleep, a sexual partner and a variety of drugs from LSD to crystals (methadrine) or pot.” —Art Kunkin, Los Angeles Free Press (1967)

Norton I: Emperor of the United States by William Drury (1986) Currently reading “This is the definitive biography of one of America’s most extraordinary “characters,” Joshua Abraham Norton, and it is a vivid, entertaining re-creation of the gaudy era in which he lived. Almost certainly Mark Twain based the character of “the King” in Huckleberry Finn on him. Robert Louis Stevenson also put him in a novel. Even the cynical Ambrose Bierce openly admired Norton the First, the pauper who thought he was an emperor. Joshua Norton, an Englishman who came to America to seek his fortune during the California Gold Rush of 1849, went from riches to rags to fame. When he lost his wealth, he lost his reason and proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States, an illusion he maintained for twenty incredible years, during which his “loyal subjects” in San Francisco made him a legend across the length and breadth of the land. The New York Times even called him “Emperor of the World.” When he died in a gutter in 1880, thousands marched in his funeral procession, and a grateful city buried him with honors in a millionaire’s grave. And today, there are plaques on the streets of San Francisco and public rooms in its best hotels that commemorate Emperor Norton.”
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Norton I: Emperor of the United States by William Drury (1986)

Currently reading

“This is the definitive biography of one of America’s most extraordinary “characters,” Joshua Abraham Norton, and it is a vivid, entertaining re-creation of the gaudy era in which he lived.

Almost certainly Mark Twain based the character of “the King” in Huckleberry Finn on him. Robert Louis Stevenson also put him in a novel. Even the cynical Ambrose Bierce openly admired Norton the First, the pauper who thought he was an emperor.

Joshua Norton, an Englishman who came to America to seek his fortune during the California Gold Rush of 1849, went from riches to rags to fame. When he lost his wealth, he lost his reason and proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States, an illusion he maintained for twenty incredible years, during which his “loyal subjects” in San Francisco made him a legend across the length and breadth of the land. The New York Times even called him “Emperor of the World.”

When he died in a gutter in 1880, thousands marched in his funeral procession, and a grateful city buried him with honors in a millionaire’s grave. And today, there are plaques on the streets of San Francisco and public rooms in its best hotels that commemorate Emperor Norton.”

The Source reports on the infamous battle between Hiero and Hobo Junction that took place on the Wake Up Show in November of 1994. Audio of the battle here and a really dope two-part video of an impromptu interview with Saafir shot on the street outside Q-Bert’s house in San Francisco a month after the battle.
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The Source reports on the infamous battle between Hiero and Hobo Junction that took place on the Wake Up Show in November of 1994.

Audio of the battle here and a really dope two-part video of an impromptu interview with Saafir shot on the street outside Q-Bert’s house in San Francisco a month after the battle.

RECIPE FOR ONE POUND OF BANANADINE POWDER Get 15 pounds of bananas and scrape off the insides of the peels. This will take one person one hour to finish. Put peeling in pots, add water and boil for two-three hours — until you get a solid paste. Spread on cookie sheets and dry in oven for about fifteen minutes. Final product is a fine black powder.
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RECIPE FOR ONE POUND OF BANANADINE POWDER

Get 15 pounds of bananas and scrape off the insides of the peels. This will take one person one hour to finish.

Put peeling in pots, add water and boil for two-three hours — until you get a solid paste.

Spread on cookie sheets and dry in oven for about fifteen minutes. Final product is a fine black powder.