{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/222r49ht35/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["David Weissman, 7/17/2022"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["David Weissman has been a member of the Venice LGBTQIA+ community since the 1970s."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["7/17/22 at 3:00 PM"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["Name of interviewee, date; The Venice Heritage Museum Oral Histories Project; Venice Heritage Museum, Los Angeles, CA."]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["MP4"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["OH_022"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Venice Beach"]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Ss"]},"value":{"en":["access_public"]}}],"summary":{"en":["David Weissman has been a member of the Venice LGBTQIA+ community since the 1970s."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © 2024 Venice Heritage Museum"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Venice Heritage Museum"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/497/original/VHM_Aviary_banner.png?1768074560","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/249/435/small/David_Weissman.mp4_1724551792.jpg?1724551795","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - David_Weissman_.mp4"]},"duration":845.90933,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/249/435/small/David_Weissman.mp4_1724551792.jpg?1724551795","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-veniceheritagemuseum.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/249/435/original/David_Weissman_.mp4?1724551779","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":845.90933,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435/transcript/70985","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["David Weissman Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435/transcript/70985/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:09:12 - 00:00:12:07\nDavid, what years did you live in Venice?\n\n00:00:12:07 - 00:00:13:10\nWell, on and off.\n\n00:00:13:10 - 00:00:16:10\nI lived there between\n\n00:00:16:12 - 00:00:19:16\nback and forth, between ‘73 and late ’76.\n\n00:00:19:16 - 00:00:22:09\nI left, I think, in November of 1976.\n\n00:00:22:09 - 00:00:24:18\nWhat influenced you to move to Venice?\n\n00:00:24:18 - 00:00:26:05\nOh, it’s heaven.\n\n00:00:26:05 - 00:00:29:08\nVenice was like the most\rmagical place for an L.A. kid.\n\n00:00:29:08 - 00:00:33:15\nI went to high school,\rall of my life I was in school in LA.\n\n00:00:33:15 - 00:00:37:08\nI lived in Brentwood in a little house,\rnot in a big Brentwood house.\n\n00:00:37:08 - 00:00:40:03\nBut, uhmmm...\n\n00:00:40:03 - 00:00:44:04\nVenice was sort of considered\ra dangerous place, that, you know, \n\n00:00:44:04 - 00:00:46:03\nthe people didn't go to, you know.\n\n00:00:46:03 - 00:00:49:05\nIt was, you know, oil wells\rand it was slums and it was,\n\n00:00:49:05 - 00:00:50:19\n\ryou know, it's was just \rconsidered dangerous.\n\n00:00:50:19 - 00:00:53:19\nAnd I think I was probably\rin eighth grade,\n\n00:00:53:20 - 00:00:56:10\nand I was starting to take\rlong bike rides around town.\n\n00:00:56:10 - 00:01:00:08\nAnd I came down here and\rI thought, wow, this place is incredible.\n\n00:01:00:08 - 00:01:02:08\n‘Cause I was a little budding hippie.\n\n00:01:02:08 - 00:01:05:03\nAnd, so I thought, oh,\rthere's hippies here.\n\n00:01:05:03 - 00:01:10:01\nAnd, I guess I discovered the canals\rthen, on that first bike ride.\n\n00:01:10:01 - 00:01:12:08\nAnd I just thought\rthis place is incredible.\n\n00:01:12:08 - 00:01:14:07\nAnd I just started riding\rmy bike down here a lot.\n\n00:01:14:07 - 00:01:18:13\nAnd I was at the very first\rCanal Festival, probably a 14 year old.\n\n00:01:18:13 - 00:01:21:21\nAnd so there was really\rno place else to go.\n\n00:01:21:21 - 00:01:24:03\nI mean, I was dying to live here.\n\n00:01:24:03 - 00:01:27:14\nI didn't go to college, you know,\rbarely graduated high school.\n\n00:01:27:14 - 00:01:30:15\nAnd uhmmm...\n\n00:01:30:15 - 00:01:32:04\nYeah, I just wanted to live in Venice.\n\n00:01:32:04 - 00:01:35:03\nBut again, it came and went in spurts\rbecause there was a period where\n\n00:01:35:03 - 00:01:36:20\nI lived here for maybe\rfor a month and a half,\n\n00:01:36:20 - 00:01:38:16\nfirst with some friends.\n\n00:01:38:16 - 00:01:41:04\nAnd the first actual place that I had for\n\n00:01:41:04 - 00:01:44:17\nan extended period that was\rmy own place was probably ‘73.\n\n00:01:44:17 - 00:01:45:18\nNobody came,\n\n00:01:45:18 - 00:01:47:16\nlike I was saying, nobody came to Venice\n\n00:01:47:16 - 00:01:48:17\nexcept for the locals.\n\n00:01:48:17 - 00:01:50:11\nAnd that was sort of\rwhat made it so special.\n\n00:01:50:11 - 00:01:53:14\nWe had our own little kind\rof like Secret Magic World\n\n00:01:53:14 - 00:01:56:18\nand the boardwalk was kind of\rlike the epicenter of life.\n\n00:01:56:18 - 00:01:57:12\nAnd you'd go down\n\n00:01:57:12 - 00:02:00:13\nto Lafayette Cafe in the morning\rand have breakfast and see lots of people.\n\n00:02:00:13 - 00:02:06:15\nI mean, this evolved as I was there\rfor a longer period of time.\n\n00:02:06:15 - 00:02:08:19\nBut, you know, it was just our little world.\n\n00:02:08:19 - 00:02:10:16\nAnd you would just get to\rknow people from the boardwalk\n\n00:02:10:16 - 00:02:12:18\nand from the Lafayette,\rand people met each other.\n\n00:02:12:18 - 00:02:14:13\nThere was a lot of politics going on.\n\n00:02:14:13 - 00:02:20:00\nAnd also I was a conga drummer,\rso I sort of found my way into the\n\n00:02:20:00 - 00:02:23:07\nconga drumming scene that was both\ron the beach and on a wooden platform\n\n00:02:23:07 - 00:02:25:16\nthat the city had built\rfor drummers on the beach.\n\n00:02:25:16 - 00:02:28:15\nSo I started to know a pretty diverse,\n\n00:02:28:15 - 00:02:32:18\nsection of people. I was making,\rI was working for a woodworker down here.\n\n00:02:32:18 - 00:02:35:14\nA guy named Dale Schwarz,\rwho had a woodworking shop.\n\n00:02:35:14 - 00:02:39:07\nAnd I was making some stuff\rof my own down there.\n\n00:02:39:07 - 00:02:43:19\nI mean, I had two older\rsisters, which I feel very blessed by.\n\n00:02:43:19 - 00:02:47:02\nBecause they sort of started\rbringing the counterculture\n\n00:02:47:02 - 00:02:49:19\nand the ‘60s into my life\rwhen I was really, really young.\n\n00:02:49:19 - 00:02:53:01\nAnd for whatever reason,\rI had an inclination toward it.\n\n00:02:53:01 - 00:02:55:15\nI mean, I got exposed to a lot early\n\n00:02:55:15 - 00:02:59:11\n\rand, so really, I was really drawn to\n\n00:02:59:11 - 00:03:01:14\neverything that was happening politically,\n\n00:03:01:14 - 00:03:03:22\nculturally and everything,\rlike as a 10, 11 year old already,\n\n00:03:03:22 - 00:03:05:20\nbecause I just got exposed early.\n\n00:03:05:20 - 00:03:07:04\n\rYou know, San Francisco was always\n\n00:03:07:04 - 00:03:11:09\nthe cool place. San Francisco was,\rwhere, was the epicenter of it all.\n\n00:03:11:09 - 00:03:15:08\nBut then, I realized, you know, ‘cause\rSunset Strip never struck me as being very cool.\n\n00:03:15:08 - 00:03:18:11\nIt had, it obviously\rhad a sense, but it was Sunset.\n\n00:03:18:11 - 00:03:21:02\nIt was Hollywood. It was, I don't know,\rthere was something about it.\n\n00:03:21:02 - 00:03:24:18\nVenice had a kind of a California,\n\n00:03:24:18 - 00:03:25:23\nfreedom and magic to it\n\n00:03:25:23 - 00:03:28:06\nthat had no connection \rto the entertainment industry,\n\n00:03:28:06 - 00:03:30:03\nhad no connection to...\n\n00:03:30:03 - 00:03:33:17\nyou know, any aspirations other\rthan being free and being on the beach.\n\n00:03:33:17 - 00:03:34:22\nAnd, you know,\n\n00:03:34:22 - 00:03:38:05\nyou know, we wanted to have a separate\rfrom the country and be a separate\n\n00:03:38:05 - 00:03:39:20\nseperate country called Free Venice.\n\n00:03:39:20 - 00:03:40:22\nI mean, it was just...\n\n00:03:40:22 - 00:03:46:18\nSo for a kid coming from my background\rit was, it was just a place of magic.\n\n00:03:46:18 - 00:03:50:04\nAnd what was great about it, that\rI remember from the very beginning was\n\n00:03:50:04 - 00:03:54:02\nthat it was this incredible\rmix of racial minorities and old\n\n00:03:54:02 - 00:03:58:00\nJewish Holocaust survivors\rand, you know, who were communists\n\n00:03:58:00 - 00:04:00:22\nand they’d be selling the\rCommunist newspapers on the boardwalk.\n\n00:04:00:22 - 00:04:04:20\nAnd there were like, Hells Angels\ror whatever the biker group was down here.\n\n00:04:04:20 - 00:04:07:19\nI don't remember if it was the\rGypsy Jokers, but there was,\n\n00:04:07:19 - 00:04:11:20\nthere was such a mix of different kinds\rof people and there was also predecessors\n\n00:04:11:20 - 00:04:12:14\nof all of that.\n\n00:04:12:14 - 00:04:15:12\nThere were people\rwho were part of the beatnik world.\n\n00:04:15:12 - 00:04:16:20\nSo I was just learning about this.\n\n00:04:16:20 - 00:04:21:05\nI was, you know, when I was 14,\r15 years old, I was really curious\n\n00:04:21:05 - 00:04:25:07\nabout the, the current counterculture\rand also what preceded it.\n\n00:04:25:07 - 00:04:26:07\nAnd so I was interested\n\n00:04:26:07 - 00:04:30:03\nin the kind of beatnik and art world\rthat existed down here in Venice.\n\n00:04:30:03 - 00:04:33:05\nSomeone recently mentioned to me,\n\n00:04:33:05 - 00:04:35:17\nthe name, the, a name that\rI'd forgotten for a long time,\n\n00:04:35:17 - 00:04:38:07\nbut it was a guy named John Haig\rwho was here in Venice in those years,\n\n00:04:38:07 - 00:04:41:09\nand he had owned a place\r called the Venice Beach Cafe  \n\n00:04:41:09 - 00:04:42:06\nor something like that\n\n00:04:42:06 - 00:04:43:21\nAnd I remember he had a little gray ponytail.\n\n00:04:43:21 - 00:04:47:02\nThe cafe that he had run\rwas no longer there, but\n\n00:04:47:02 - 00:04:50:23\nit was kind of one of the legendary things\rabout Venice from the beatnik years.\n\n00:04:50:23 - 00:04:52:18\nSo who did I get to be friends with?\n\n00:04:52:18 - 00:04:54:18\nVince Coppola was a guy who lived down here.\n\n00:04:54:18 - 00:04:57:05\nI think he was Francis's\rcousin or something.\n\n00:04:57:05 - 00:05:01:19\nHe was, you know, he was a film student at\rUCLA, and he had made a film,\n\n00:05:01:19 - 00:05:02:14\na kind of an\n\n00:05:02:14 - 00:05:05:17\nexperimental student\rfilm in the 60’s with my grandfather in it.\n\n00:05:05:17 - 00:05:06:09\nMy grandfather\n\n00:05:06:09 - 00:05:10:00\nhung out at Barney's Beanery in the 60s,\rand so he knew all the poets and writers.\n\n00:05:10:00 - 00:05:13:03\nAnd, you know,\rmy grandfather was kind of a,\n\n00:05:13:03 - 00:05:16:00\nyou know, intellectual beatnik guy.\n\n00:05:16:00 - 00:05:19:07\nThere was a lot of people,\rfeminists and lesbians there.\n\n00:05:19:07 - 00:05:21:02\nIt was the early years\rof the women's movement.\n\n00:05:21:02 - 00:05:25:04\nSo there was this incredible\rwomen's energy in Venice,\n\n00:05:25:04 - 00:05:29:08\nthat, that, certainly at least in\rmy world, that I lived in\n\n00:05:29:08 - 00:05:32:23\nit was really a powerful presence,\rthe sense of the kind of\n\n00:05:32:23 - 00:05:38:03\nupwelling of women's solidarity\rand lesbian solidarity, and also the gay\n\n00:05:38:03 - 00:05:42:13\nguys that I would see on the boardwalk,\rthat kind of fascinated me and scared me and...\n\n00:05:42:13 - 00:05:45:13\nTwo people who I met\rvery early on, here...\n\n00:05:45:13 - 00:05:47:05\nAnd this was before I had my own place.\n\n00:05:47:05 - 00:05:50:11\nI was staying with friends\rat Market and Riviera.\n\n00:05:50:11 - 00:05:53:17\nAnd I was on the  front porch,\rand I see these two kind of\n\n00:05:53:17 - 00:05:57:12\nhippie guys going by holding hands.\rNow I had never seen that before.\n\n00:05:57:12 - 00:05:59:14\nOne of them had really big hair like this.\n\n00:05:59:14 - 00:06:02:07\nThey were short and they were...\n\n00:06:02:07 - 00:06:03:18\nThe other one had long blond hair,\rand they were...\n\n00:06:03:18 - 00:06:07:00\nAnd they were...I'd never seen men\rholding hands before, and I'd certainly never\n\n00:06:07:00 - 00:06:09:05\nseen gay hippies before.\n\n00:06:09:05 - 00:06:11:20\nAnd I was kind of floored.\n\n00:06:11:20 - 00:06:16:13\nAnd, so I sort of noticed them\rand I kept sort of\n\n00:06:16:13 - 00:06:19:19\nseeing them around and eventually,\ryou know, we became friends.\n\n00:06:19:19 - 00:06:21:13\nBut that was a big inspiration to me\n\n00:06:21:13 - 00:06:24:10\nto see these two guys who were\rnamed David and Little John.\n\n00:06:24:10 - 00:06:25:07\nAnd they were older men.\n\n00:06:25:07 - 00:06:26:23\nThey were probably 24, you know.\n\n00:06:26:23 - 00:06:29:18\nThey were like, so of course\rthey were like sophisticated\n\n00:06:29:18 - 00:06:32:23\nand knew everything about life because,\ryou know, I was just a 19 year old\n\n00:06:32:23 - 00:06:36:00\nand these were 24 year\rolds or something like that,\n\n00:06:36:00 - 00:06:41:13\nbut they were older than me, and I was,\rI was so amazed to see these gay hippies.\n\n00:06:41:13 - 00:06:43:15\nAnd you see them\revery afternoon on the boardwalk.\n\n00:06:43:15 - 00:06:46:09\nWe'd all be down there\rsmoking pot on a bench.\n\n00:06:46:09 - 00:06:49:12\nWe'd all have our little benches\rwhere people would gather and,\n\n00:06:49:12 - 00:06:53:03\nyou know, there would be David\rand Little John walking by and we'd say hi\n\n00:06:53:03 - 00:06:55:09\nand we'd chit chat and stuff,\rbut they were always holding hands.\n\n00:06:55:09 - 00:06:58:21\nAnd it just it was a wonderful\rexperience for me to sort of see that.\n\n00:06:58:21 - 00:07:03:13\nThere were two breakfast restaurants\rthat were the key places in those years,\n\n00:07:03:13 - 00:07:07:03\nand before I even knew\rabout the Lafayette, I went to New Pars.\n\n00:07:07:03 - 00:07:08:19\nAnd probably\rwhen I was still in high school,\n\n00:07:08:19 - 00:07:13:01\nI went to New Pars, and\rthat was the place that I knew of first.\n\n00:07:13:01 - 00:07:15:17\nAnd, New Pars was,\n\n00:07:15:17 - 00:07:17:22\njust around the corner\rfrom the arcades on,\n\n00:07:17:22 - 00:07:20:12\nwhat's that, Windward?\rNo. Yeah, on Windward.\n\n00:07:20:12 - 00:07:25:21\nAnd there was just, just south and, you\rknow, it was really cheap, big breakfasts.\n\n00:07:25:21 - 00:07:27:22\nAnd you know, all the freaks went there.\n\n00:07:27:22 - 00:07:30:04\nAnd so I probably started going there\rwhen I was in high school,\n\n00:07:30:04 - 00:07:34:02\nor maybe just after, and I don't remember\rwhen I discovered The Lafayette.\n\n00:07:34:02 - 00:07:37:14\nBut then slowly, my\n\n00:07:37:14 - 00:07:41:17\nbreakfast scene, my morning breakfast\rcrowd moved to The Lafayette.\n\n00:07:41:17 - 00:07:43:16\nAnd The Lafayette was just fantastic.\n\n00:07:43:16 - 00:07:47:18\nI mean, both places were, but somehow\rThe Lafayette became more like family.\n\n00:07:47:18 - 00:07:50:12\nWhat do you remember\rabout Ruby the waitress?\n\n00:07:50:12 - 00:07:52:13\nBecause everyone talks about Ruby. \n\n00:07:52:13 - 00:07:54:13\nWell there was two.\r There was Ruby and Rita, both.\n\n00:07:54:13 - 00:07:56:00\n\rAnd they were both, I mean,\n\n00:07:56:00 - 00:07:58:13\nthey're both equally deserving\rof praise and adoration.\n\n00:07:58:13 - 00:08:00:08\nRuby was sort of more classic.\n\n00:08:00:08 - 00:08:03:21\nShe would be someone who would\rbe cast in that role on a sitcom.\n\n00:08:03:21 - 00:08:06:23\nShe had a thick southern accent,\rand she called everybody honey and dear.\n\n00:08:06:23 - 00:08:10:08\nBut, you know, she was dealing\rwith drag queens and bikers\n\n00:08:10:08 - 00:08:13:16\nand junkies and, you know, big lesbians.\n\n00:08:13:16 - 00:08:17:12\nAnd, but she was just\ran absolute sweetheart.\n\n00:08:17:12 - 00:08:21:14\nAnd one of the things on their menu,\ryou've probably heard this before\n\n00:08:21:14 - 00:08:23:11\nyou could get huevos rancheros.\n\n00:08:23:11 - 00:08:26:21\nAnd if you ordered huevos rancheros\n\n00:08:26:21 - 00:08:29:18\neither Ruby or Rita, who would,\rthey would say, you wanted doctored?\n\n00:08:29:18 - 00:08:31:03\nthey wouldn't even say, \ryou want it doctored.\n\n00:08:31:03 - 00:08:32:22\nThey'd just say, doctored?\n\n00:08:32:22 - 00:08:37:06\nAnd doctored meant, grilled onions\rand provolone cheese on top of the beans.\n\n00:08:37:06 - 00:08:41:00\nAnd so you'd get, I would often\rhuevos rancheros doctored\n\n00:08:41:00 - 00:08:42:12\n\rand a chocolate milkshake for breakfast.\n\n00:08:42:12 - 00:08:45:05\nAnd then I’d go body surfing.\n\n00:08:45:05 - 00:08:48:09\nBut, it was, you know, it was\rjust the jukebox was great.\n\n00:08:48:09 - 00:08:50:19\nI remember Phoebe Snow\rwas on the jukebox regularly.\n\n00:08:50:19 - 00:08:53:16\nYou'd always hear, you know,\ra couple Phoebe Snow songs.\n\n00:08:53:16 - 00:08:57:13\nIt was Jimi Hendrix on the jukebox,\rbut it was very much music of the time.\n\n00:08:57:13 - 00:08:59:09\nAnd everybody would just\rkeep feeding the jukebox.\n\n00:08:59:09 - 00:09:01:14\nI don't know if it was a free jukebox.\n\n00:09:01:14 - 00:09:02:09\nIt could have been.\n\n00:09:02:09 - 00:09:03:19\nThey may have just, you know,\n\n00:09:03:19 - 00:09:07:02\nnot had any charges on it.\rBut the, the whole ambiance\n\n00:09:07:02 - 00:09:09:17\nand you just go in for breakfast\rand stay in there for an hour,\n\n00:09:09:17 - 00:09:10:22\nand Ruby and Rita would be great.\n\n00:09:10:22 - 00:09:14:04\nAnd we probably under\rtipped them terribly, you know.\n\n00:09:14:04 - 00:09:16:01\nNow that I'm older, I realize.\n\n00:09:16:01 - 00:09:18:21\nBut, it was just,\rand but the other thing\n\n00:09:18:21 - 00:09:20:09\nBesides Ruby and Rita were\n\n00:09:20:09 - 00:09:24:11\nwere Arturo and Fernando, \rwho were the owners.\n\n00:09:24:11 - 00:09:26:00\nI'm going to get choked up\rthinking about them.\n\n00:09:26:00 - 00:09:27:17\nThey were these\rArgentinian brothers,\n\n00:09:27:17 - 00:09:29:04\nand they\n\n00:09:29:04 - 00:09:32:00\nthey were like everybody's dads.\n\n00:09:32:00 - 00:09:34:15\nI mean, I'm sure people\rleft without paying.\n\n00:09:34:15 - 00:09:35:14\nEvery Thanksgiving they would do a\n\n00:09:35:14 - 00:09:36:07\nThey would do a free Thanksgiving dinner\ron the boardwalk for poor people.\n\n00:09:36:07 - 00:09:39:20\nthey would do a free Thanksgiving dinner\ron the boardwalk for poor people.\n\n00:09:39:20 - 00:09:41:04\nThey were just...\n\n00:09:41:04 - 00:09:43:19\nI don't know if anybody's talked to you\rabout them, but they were wonderful,\n\n00:09:43:19 - 00:09:46:02\nwonderful gentle men.\n\n00:09:46:02 - 00:09:47:16\nAnd usually both of them were there.\n\n00:09:47:16 - 00:09:49:02\nSometimes one of them would be working\n\n00:09:49:02 - 00:09:51:11\nthere, but,\ryou know, it was the four of them.\n\n00:09:51:11 - 00:09:53:10\nIt was Arturo and Fernando\rand Ruby and Rita.\n\n00:09:53:10 - 00:09:56:21\nI don't know if anyone else ever worked\rthere besides the four of them.\n\n00:09:56:21 - 00:09:58:03\nYou know, sometimes, you know,\n\n00:09:58:03 - 00:10:01:10\nboth of the waitresses would be there,\rsometimes just one.\n\n00:10:01:10 - 00:10:04:15\nBut yeah, it was, it was great\rgoing in there in the morning.\n\n00:10:04:15 - 00:10:07:21\nAnd, you know, kind of, it was,\rit was when I learned\n\n00:10:07:21 - 00:10:11:21\nthat eating out at breakfast,\ryou had a great time eating.\n\n00:10:11:21 - 00:10:14:13\nAnd then ten minutes later\ryou thought, oh, why did I eat all that?\n\n00:10:14:13 - 00:10:15:19\nIt was too much food.\n\n00:10:16:11 - 00:10:20:00\nUhmmm...could you talk about the\rVenice Underground Freedom Fighters?\n\n00:10:20:00 - 00:10:21:05\nWell, I don't know who came up with that.\n\n00:10:21:05 - 00:10:23:12\nIt may have been me, actually.\n\n00:10:23:12 - 00:10:25:01\nBut it didn't really exist.\n\n00:10:25:01 - 00:10:27:23\nIt was something that sort of...\n\n00:10:27:23 - 00:10:31:18\nAll right, Venice Underground\rFreedom Fighters, if I remember correctly,\n\n00:10:31:18 - 00:10:36:13\nwe were, we’re standing around\rsmoking pot, probably at sunset\n\n00:10:36:13 - 00:10:39:01\non one of the benches on the boardwalk,\rwhich is something we all did\n\n00:10:39:01 - 00:10:39:20\npretty regularly.\n\n00:10:39:20 - 00:10:42:09\nAnd there was a whole group of us\rthat sort of intermingled.\n\n00:10:42:09 - 00:10:45:07\nVince Coppola was part of that group.\n\n00:10:45:07 - 00:10:48:18\nElizabeth Sunny Sky, Tita Caldwell,\n\n00:10:48:18 - 00:10:52:04\nPaula Tobin,\rI mean, a whole bunch of people.\n\n00:10:52:04 - 00:10:55:09\nAnd, you know,\rwe all would sort of talk about\n\n00:10:55:09 - 00:10:58:09\nthat Venice should secede\rand become an independent nation.\n\n00:10:58:09 - 00:11:00:12\nThat was one of our solutions\ris that Venice\n\n00:11:00:12 - 00:11:02:23\nshould become an independent\rnation called Free Venice.\n\n00:11:02:23 - 00:11:05:18\nAnd the other solution was we felt it\rbecause we were all so interesting\n\n00:11:05:18 - 00:11:06:03\nthat we should\n\n00:11:06:03 - 00:11:09:23\nall be supported by the government because\rwe were of such great value to society.\n\n00:11:09:23 - 00:11:12:22\nNow these are just\rpot smoking things, you know?\n\n00:11:12:22 - 00:11:14:23\nBut we, you know, we were radicals\rand we were hippies.\n\n00:11:14:23 - 00:11:17:12\nAnd that overlap was an interesting one.\n\n00:11:17:12 - 00:11:19:20\nBut somebody\rand it may have been me thought we,\n\n00:11:19:20 - 00:11:23:18\nwe should start an organization, you know,\rand it was the, it was Venice Underground\n\n00:11:23:18 - 00:11:25:09\nFreedom Fighters. So it was VUFF.\n\n00:11:25:09 - 00:11:28:13\nSo we would say, oh, VUFF you know,VUFF,\rVUFF is getting stoned at the boardwalk\n\n00:11:28:13 - 00:11:29:05\nthis afternoon.\n\n00:11:29:05 - 00:11:32:15\nIt didn't exist and it didn't\rdo anything, but it was like a\n\n00:11:32:15 - 00:11:35:20\nit was at least\rin a very small little group of us.\n\n00:11:35:20 - 00:11:37:04\nIt was like,\n\n00:11:37:04 - 00:11:39:21\nyou know, were there\rany view of people down at the boardwalk\n\n00:11:39:21 - 00:11:41:17\nthis afternoon or at Lafayette?\n\n00:11:41:17 - 00:11:46:10\nSometimes when I've been asked in years\rpast if I had a spiritual perspective\n\n00:11:46:10 - 00:11:50:19\nin my life, I would say, well,\rit's to the extent that I do, it comes\n\n00:11:50:19 - 00:11:54:15\nfrom my first experience taking LSD.\rAnd that was my story for many years.\n\n00:11:54:15 - 00:11:58:23\nAnd then it struck me like,\rI was not a blank slate when I took LSD.\n\n00:11:58:23 - 00:12:03:11\nThe trip that I had was the way\rit was because of what I brought to it.\n\n00:12:03:11 - 00:12:05:09\nAnd I've sort of realized\rthat about everything.\n\n00:12:05:09 - 00:12:08:05\nMy first time coming to Venice,\n\n00:12:08:05 - 00:12:10:14\nsomehow, it spoke to something\rthat was already in me.\n\n00:12:10:14 - 00:12:13:01\nIt didn't create something new.\n\n00:12:13:01 - 00:12:16:22\nIt spoke to something\rthat needed to be, found.\n\n00:12:16:22 - 00:12:20:02\nAnd I realized that that's\rhappened all of my life.\n\n00:12:20:02 - 00:12:22:18\nAnd I think it probably\rhappens to all of us,\n\n00:12:22:18 - 00:12:27:18\nthat we find the thing that we need\n\n00:12:27:18 - 00:12:31:03\nand it stimulates us.\n\n00:12:31:03 - 00:12:34:03\nSo Venice.\n\n00:12:34:04 - 00:12:35:21\nVenice drew me from the very,\n\n00:12:35:21 - 00:12:37:02\nvery beginning.\n\n00:12:37:02 - 00:12:40:02\nAnd...\n\n00:12:40:02 - 00:12:44:21\nI feel my time here really\rshaped who I became afterwards.\n\n00:12:44:21 - 00:12:48:02\nBut I already was\rwho I was before I came here.\n\n00:12:48:02 - 00:12:51:03\nIt just hadn't...\n\n00:12:51:03 - 00:12:51:20\nflowered yet.\n\n00:12:51:20 - 00:12:53:10\nIt hadn't blossomed yet.\n\n00:12:53:10 - 00:12:56:04\nBut Venice really enhanced my sense of,\n\n00:12:56:04 - 00:13:00:04\nfirst of all, the importance of community.\n\n00:13:00:04 - 00:13:02:03\nCertainly being,\n\n00:13:02:03 - 00:13:03:08\nin the thick of the women's\n\n00:13:03:08 - 00:13:07:02\nmovement in Venice\rwas very powerfully influential on me.\n\n00:13:07:02 - 00:13:09:03\nThe gay stuff,\n\n00:13:09:03 - 00:13:10:22\nthe politics, the activism.\n\n00:13:10:22 - 00:13:13:20\nBut all of that mixed with the beach\n\n00:13:13:20 - 00:13:18:13\nand the boardwalk and the salt air\rand the free theater.\n\n00:13:18:13 - 00:13:19:20\nBut yeah, Venice.\n\n00:13:19:20 - 00:13:22:23\nI mean, I really count it as...\n\n00:13:22:23 - 00:13:24:22\nas one of the great, great,\n\n00:13:24:22 - 00:13:29:01\nyou know, good fortunes of my life\rwas living here in those years.\n\n00:13:29:01 - 00:13:32:21\nAnd then again, to be so lucky\rto go from here to late 70s San Francisco,\n\n00:13:32:21 - 00:13:36:05\njust as the gay liberation\rmovement is really starting to flower.\n\n00:13:36:05 - 00:13:38:18\nAnd San Francisco was\ra really political place.\n\n00:13:38:18 - 00:13:41:17\nSo it was a wonderful transition.\n\n00:13:41:17 - 00:13:43:01\nBut again, I didn't go to college.\n\n00:13:43:01 - 00:13:47:16\nSo, to come here as an 18 year old\rand to be in and out of here between\n\n00:13:47:16 - 00:13:54:17\n‘73 and ’76 was just so\rhugely formative and nourishing, really.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://veniceheritagemuseum.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2416/collection_resources/134366/file/249435#t=0.0,845.90933"}]}]}]}