New Wave Show, April, 1978

Getting ready for the New Wave Show at the San Francisco Art Institute, I am bleaching my hair. One of the pieces I consider doing for the show is a performance piece wherein I act as a barber, cutting the hair of hippies for free. Moved to San Francisco in 1975, so I lived among hippies passed, present and wanna-be for a few by the time the punk rock norm of "Hippies Stink" came along.



By 1978 I'd already lived in several flats within blocks of the corner of Haight Street and Ashbury, for a while on Clayton & Haight, and a shorter while on the Panhandle at Fell and Masonic. My first gay bar hangout, Gus' Pub, was on Haight between Masonic and Ashbury; friends of Art Institute friends got me in and known by the bartenders so I could drink underage.



The flat in which almost all the 1978 self-portraits were taken was on Pierce Street, a block south of Haight. That's a few blocks east of Divisadero and Haight, amajor bus route crossroads: go west and you reach the Haight-Ashbury; south and you're in the Castro.



But the role of barber for hippies, for the New Wave Show at the SF Art Institute, kept hitting conceptual snags, as I write in my journal from late march, early April, 1978:
"Like the idea of making the barber booth into a skit. ... combine destruction w/ challenge. By what I choose to destroy, the hippies will have an inkling of what I don't like, wouldn't do, in a sense. The Grateful Dead as a Frisbee, etc., followed by the open invitation to chop hair.
"Most of all, I hate long hair. Are there any hippies here? No one leave, I want to see a hippie. I want to cut their hair off. A bona fide punk cut, right here. I challenge you, right here. I challenge you to let me cut it.
"I challenge you? Who am I? And what is it that I am doing? Do I have this right?
"What would you ask for in return for having your hair cut short?" " What would you want in return, outside of money?"
"You are great people, but I don't like your looks. I'd like to cut your hair off real short. I want to be responsible for your appearance. I bet some of you have Grateful Dead albums. I'd like to break every one of them over my leg. And that goes for the Eagles, Peter Frampton, Ronstadt, BeeGees/Sat. Nite Fever....
"And what if one enterprising individual wants me not to cut my hair for a length of time. "I will grow my hair an inch for each inch you let me cut off yours."

As it was, I read a tirade about gay sex fantasies, shouting above a hostile crowd. I was mad with myself for reading from sheaves of typewritten paper, a cut-rate Patti Smith. Sculptures were smashed; I slashed the painting backdrop I'd done for my Polaroids, which were were peed on by Freddy, the lead singer of the Mutants. I had to wipe the pee on the Polaroids off on my pants.