Just woke up from a strange strange dream. It was almost supernatural, like being transported to this magical and haunted realm…
In the dream I discover this grainy black-and-white film that some art student had shot of me when I was 17 and had first visited Berkeley in the summer of 1974. It was so bizarre and fascinating and disturbing to be viewing my youthful self And heartbreaking, remembering my youthful dreams, and how it had all ended up…. Then I’m actually back in time in 1974, re-living what it was like back then in Berkeley. I’m on Sproul Plaza on the campus, and I’m comparing all the subtle ways the landscape had changed over the years. The plaza is full of young white hippies, lazily lolling around. A youthful Hate Man shows up and I meet him for the first time. He walks to the steps of Sproul and a crowd of people quickly gathers around him as he puts on a performance. Some guy who is sexually attracted to him keeps pestering him and following around. A young woman who looks like an R. Crumb cartoon is dancing. There’s a promiscuous vibe everywhere, like people are all mindlessly obsessing about sex. And a spiritual emptiness everywhere. Like it’s a realm full of doomed souls and lost souls and empty people with no direction. . . I’m in a funky second-hand thrift shop run by some hippie, leafing through the merchandise scattered on the shelves and floors, piles of shoes, etc. Hate Man is walking beside me, talking to me. I catch a glimpse of myself in these full length mirrors as I pass by them — in one mirror I look like this hip, dashing young hippie boy. In another mirror I look more like Bukowski, my face distorted and ugly with a mottled complexion….. I’m walking down Telegraph Avenue, a field of grass and trees is on Dwight Way where the Soup Kitchen and that apartment building were later. I mention to someone that I’m actually from year 2023 and have been transported back in time to this long-gone realm. I walk down the Ave, eager to see if the Caffe Med was still there.
I wake up and hear coyotes howling off in the distance. Mini Scaredy, my feral cat who sleeps with me, jumps off my chest to go investigate. And then comes back to me.
Ace Backwords Photos 