SELLING THE BIRD
I had been to the Bird House, the home that functioned as an office for some Emory kids who mixed politics, socialism and counter culture happenings. Very few underground papers of the day mixed politics with music, but The Bird did and helped create the hippie scene in Atlanta. I'd pick up a bundle of the papers at 10 cents each and almost everyone that bought one would give me a buck a paper. Minimum wage was $1.60 an hour or so, two newspapers sold and I was already making more than that. At 15 I was living large. Sell papers for three hours and my $30 rent was covered. After that, it was sell when I wanted.
I'd stand on the corner hoping not to get arrested (police busted Bird sellers all the time) and I never was. Once in a great while a car would pull up, grab a paper and drive off, but the vast majority didn't.
Many were people drawn to the area to stare, as if we were a lost tribe living among them. Some were kids from the South drawn to the oasis in the wilderness of racism. Some were soldiers on leave and curious about the free love. They usually ended up in the topless joints in the area. As the cars jammed the streets on the weekends many may have bought papers as their lone souvenir. Safer than getting out of the car and walking among us!
The idea to cover the music scene in Atlanta and the action in Piedmont Park was an early version of marketing genius. The announcements of who would be playing free in the Park drew bigger and bigger crowds. It wasn't just The Allman Brothers, it was The Hampton Grease Band.
It was The Brick Wall. It was many bands, including one that actually did a rock opera about Mothra! The Bird had made itself the center of the community.
I had many stories of selling the Bird. First I'll tell you the story of my best sell, and then, the scariest.
My best sell was for a beautiful girl in a Camaro who asked me about pot. I should explain that when the hippie movement started in Atlanta there were only 2 people on narcotics detail on the police force! They worked exclusively in the ghetto. Someone actually planted pot seeds in the front of the station which grew into big plants in front of the police sign before someone told the police what it was! Her car was way too cool to be a cop car. At that time, there were few women on the Police Force as well.
She bought my paper and we headed to my place to smoke. Turns out, she had never smoked before and I showed her how. Somehow I felt I was creating a hippie! Nothing sexual happened, it was just a thrill to be the person that turned this beautiful girl on.
The scariest story was when standing on a corner, I was approached by a Black male who pulled a gun on me and told me to step into an alley. I did, and as the guy ordered me to turn over my dollars two members of the Outlaws motorcycle club from New Orleans stepped into the dark alley. I could see the 1% tag and DILLIGAF on their jackets. 1% was a reference to a comment made that only 1% were criminal bikers, most bikers weren't. Wearing a tag that said you were part of that 1 percent was far more honest than most clothes could ever be. DILLIGAF meant DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A FUCK.
The guy holding a gun on me quickly put it away. He said something about making good, and the two Outlaws beat him down to the ground and hurt him really bad. In just seconds, I had lost count of the number of times they were able to hit him. One of the bikers turned to me and said, "You ok, kid?", and I mumbled a yes. I walked away, and it wasn't until minutes later that I realized they had just saved my life. They probably were beating him up for some other reason, but never the less, they had stepped in at the right moment and saved my ass.
I never saw those two guys again. Bikers came to Atlanta to lay low because the police liked them. This was a safe city for them.
How many people can say, The Outlaws saved my life?
I had heard about Big Sur in California, and decided that it might be nice to take a few months off and hitchhike around the country. Everyone hitchhiked in those days, and people picked them up! I had no way of knowing it at the time, but I was about to hitch through 34 states, spend my 16th birthday in a Clovis, New Mexico jail, trip on route one and hear Canned Heat play in Topango Canyon. A 16th birthday I would never forget.
As I thought of my strategy, which I actually didn't have, I knew I had to wait until after the weekend show at the Park to leave. A show that would end up being the first riot I was ever in!
