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copyright 2003 by Kipseeks Return to Ex-Keristans Speak My Early Influences My parents divorced after 4 years of marriage in the early 1960's when I was about 4 years old. My mother remarried quickly with a man 20 years her senior who had three marriages and four other kids (almost all estranged) under his belt. My relationship with my father was very good, but my relationship with my stepfather was rocky. My mother's relationship with my stepfather was rocky. My real father did not remarry until after I changed custody to live with him in 1975, when I was 15. I did not have a Norman Rockwell stable-family-life. Another major influence in my life was reading Tom Wolfe's, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in the middle 70's. I used to get stoned in my driveway late at night then read Tom Wolfe's book until early in the morning. I regretted that I had missed the 60's and glorified it as a golden age. I absorbed what I could of the feelings of the era. I believe one of my reasons for going to UC Berkeley was its reputation as a place for radicals - from the 60's. My Introduction to Kerista While getting my BA at UC Berkeley in Political Science, I fell in love with a professor named Karen and during my senior year in 1982 she moved into the house where I was renting a room, and then we moved in together in a house in El Cerrito. Within a year I had taken a rental room in Berkeley with an old friend, but was still sleeping at Karen's house every night and trying unconvincingly and unsuccessfully to break up with Karen. I was gardening for clients and making no money. My cousins got me an interview at Moto-X-Fox in the South Bay in the summer of 1983, but I quit after six months. My introduction to the Kerista Commune was Bluejay Way coming into my workplace in March of 1984. I had stopped working at Moto-X-Fox around December 1983 and I took a job selling typewriters for Gordon's Office Equipment on Bancroft Way in Berkeley. At the time, Gordon's was pushing a typewriter that hooked up to a little minicomputer & display that gave you a screen for editing and a calculator-sized keypad that had all the editing commands as buttons. It was called a Lexorwriter. I never sold a single one of them. People were buying little Apple's instead of typewriters. It was hard to sell typewriters in 1984. Way came into the store to renew Gordon's ad and she sort of homed in on me. I demo'ed the Lexorwriter for her. I remember she talked about being in a rock-n-roll commune, Joan Jett, and I remember she was wearing red tights under a black dress and at some point during the demo she grabbed the tights under her skirt and pulled them up. I heard the tights slide across her thighs and I got a little interested. I was familiar with the Utopian Classroom, as they were delivered all over the East Bay, but I had never thought much about what it was or who did it. There were several free newspapers around Berkeley, and the Utopian Classroom hadn't caught my interest. But Way did catch my interest, and I decided at some point to go to a Growth Coop in San Francisco. I was in a burned out relationship with Karen, and we weren't really talking, so I was unoccupied. The Growth Coop I thought about going to the Growth Coop for several weeks and then I called the number on the magazines and Fir answered the phone and was very helpful at giving me directions. I drove an old '68 VW window van into the city and followed Fir's directions to the Storefront Classroom in the Haight. There were about 20 cheap plastic overstuffed chairs in the storefront with a bunch of hippie art with various logos. Way was called when I arrived and she came down shortly with Eve and some others. I remember there were a lot of attractive women there, and (in hindsight) I remember there were pretty interested in me. But I was unaware of that at the time. The Growth Coop turned into about 20 hippie types in this storefront in all these overstuffed chairs talking about all kinds of things late into the night. It was fun and stimulating. I started going to the Growth Coop every week and I spent a lot of time with Tye and Way, who would stay late with me - after the rest of the group broke up for the night - talking about things. I think it was those talks that seduced me into the commune. I had the hots for them, I was pretty convinced that I was having trouble with monogamy, and Kerista was sort of like being in college: lots of idealistic talk and plenty pretty girls. I liked the Growth Coop, and I liked the women paying attention to me, and when I was transitioning out of my rental apartment, I briefly moved in with a woman who was checking out the commune named Linda Belonger. Linda lived in the Sunset District about 10 block from the Kerista flats. Linda had some standards that I don't remember, and I think we tried to have some standards but I don't remember them. Why I Joined My two big problems with joining Kerista was 3 months of transitional celibacy and no drugs. I just wasn't the kind of 24 year old male that planned for 3 months of celibacy, and never getting high again. To me, celibacy and sobriety only happened by unfortunate accident, and only after great efforts of prevention had been expended. Way and Tye were talking to me about celibacy, and making pretty overt promises of great sex with lots of women after the transitional period. So I was feeling reassured about the sex. Also, I was a pothead and the commune's public standard of no drugs was discouraging. However, one night during a Growth Coop some people invited me back to one of the flats afterwards, and Azo came in with a shopping bag full of pot, and proceeded to dump the whole thing out into two large baking pans and began rolling joints in quantity, while crowds of commune people surged into the room. I started to feel that I could survive the "No Drugs" standard. Within a few weeks of starting to live at Linda's, I was at the Growth Coop when Jud came back from a dinner with Linda and he announced that she wanted to join. Within an hour I rode the wave of enthusiasm and said I wanted to join too. Both times I joined the commune, a woman I was close to had just joined. The first six months My first kiss came from Loki Doke in the bathroom of the Church. I was first 'on' with Zia. There were nine women in the BFIC when I joined and I don't remember all that much of the first few months, except that I fucked like a bunny. My schiz-out SFUSD Abacus The Hetch Hetchy Trips Lessons Learned - The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly |