HTA-0620: David Talbot — Season of the Witch

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Summary

Henry interviews David Talbot about his book 'Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love' about San Francisco history.

Full Transcript

00:00
Welcome back, Cron4 News Weekend. I want to go straight to our guest, David Talbot.

00:04
He's the founder of Salon.com. He's written a book called "Season of the Witch:

00:08
Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love." It's the 60s, the 70s,

00:13
and the 80s. It breaks down fairly nicely. Let's start by talking about the

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enchantment, the 60s. And most people know about that. Well, we all know about the

00:22
music, the Summer of Love, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin,

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and so on. Some of the things I think that are new about this are the tough hippies who lived in the

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hate, a commune called the Good Earth commune that fought against the bulldozers, the redevelopment.

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They had leveled, you know, the city that Fillmore, the great African-American district. The same might

00:41
have happened to hippie villas, as it was called in those days. But these tough hippies stood their

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grand against Mayor Aliotto at the time. They moved into the neighborhood, took over these houses,

00:49
fixed them up. And, you know, that's why the hate is still here. The hate Ashbury Free Clinic

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comes out of that the whole notion of free which the diggers peter coyote's group spreads that you

01:01
know we should have free music free food people should take care of each other so that's the great

01:05
era of enchantment right and then reality bit well reality so the 60s start to implode with altamont

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the terrible bloody concert where the rolling stones played and a young african-american

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teenager is knifed to death by the hell's angels during the concert and then it just goes from bad

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to worse you had the zebra and zodiac murder sprees refresh people about the zebra killers

01:27
yeah most people remember zodiac because there was a great movie made by david fincher but

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zebra was a terrible uh murder spree there was a splinter group from the nation of islam that

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patrolled the city streets and thought that their redemption lay in killing white victims

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so 23 people were killed during this spree in 1973-74 before the police finally solved the case

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It was a reign of terror.

01:50
A reign of terror.

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People were afraid to go out at night, didn't want to send their kids to school.

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And it really brought the city, the city that prided itself on racial tolerance and civility

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to the, some people felt, the brink of a race war.

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Then you had Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, this strange underground group

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that kidnaps the newspaper heiress, Patty Hearst.

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And of course Moscone Milk.

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And then the terrible double assassinations.

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And Jonestown.

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People's Temple.

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Okay, deliverance or redemption, as I would say, really is the part that's been underreported.

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What happened?

02:25
I think so.

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And look, this is when San Francisco really comes together to take care of its own.

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Number one, the AIDS epidemic hits, which could have been the final nail in the coffin, frankly.

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People could have panicked at that point about gays.

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In fact, many people were afraid to go into rest, certain restaurants, even clothing stores in the Castro.

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But the city comes together.

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Mayor Feinstein is the leader that the city needs.

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She spends more money to combat AIDS.

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in this city than President Reagan does at the national level.

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- And then I wanna talk just real briefly, sports.

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- Sports, well, Joe Montana.

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The first Super Bowl victory for the 49ers

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under Bill Walsh, 1982, brings the whole city together.

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People didn't think San Francisco was a football town.

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But on that amazing motorcade victory celebration

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after they win in Michigan,

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the team suddenly sees people hanging out of windows,

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they're hanging on lampposts, you know, gays, straights,

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men, women, everybody, and the whole city celebrates.

03:20
Season of the Witch.

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Boy, I tell you, I haven't finished it.

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I'm still working on it, but I have a long drive coming up.

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I'm getting the audio book, and I'm listening to it all the way up.

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June 7th, you can meet David at Book Passage San Francisco.

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June 8th, Copperfields in Petaluma.

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Simon Schuster is the publisher, simonschuster.com.

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This is going to be a huge hit, a must-read for anybody who cares about the city

03:41
or just cares about history.

03:42
Thank you very much for joining us.

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Congratulations.

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We're taking a break.

03:46
When we come back, we're going to be finding out about the brain, the healthy aging brain.

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That's coming up, Cronfone Newsweek.