Hellhouse tales #5, Too much for MTV

  "Summer of love?!? What utter hippy bullshit!"

Dave was on a rant. We had gone down to the liquor store, and it took what seemed like an eternity just to pick up a 12 pack of Anchor Steam. It was 1989, the anniversary the "Summer Of Love" and there was a party taking up a good portion of Golden Gate Park and much of the Haight. 

     And, since we lived literally on Ashbury Street. Just a few houses up from Haight, and a few down from the legendary "dead" house, it was a wall-to-wall clusterfuck of tripping hippy wanna-bees, frat bros, and assorted party tourists making Haight street into a sea of pot smoke and tie-dye.

Dave let us in and we went into the kitchen. I looked around for something to open a beer with. We had no bottle openers. It was a rule. You had to be able to open a beer with whatever was available.

Dave grabbed a spoon from the sink, and popped the cap off an anchor steam. Klutch and I followed suit.

"Goddamn hippies!" dave exclaimed, "We should have a huge fucking BBQ!  Fill this whole valley with the smell of roasting meat!! That would show them! Goddamn vegetarians…"

I hoisted my beer, "Meat loaf, not war!"

"Fuck peace and love" Klutch cheered, "Piece of meat!"

And thus, the Summer of Meat began.

We formulated a plan.

We got good and drunk.

We made tee shirts with psychedelic script that said "Summer of Meat"

We made buttons that said "USDA Choice", "Meat Loaf, Not war!" and one that was a peace sign, and under it, "of pork".

We filled a backpack with what was left of the beer, grabbed the Croquet mallets, and headed out into the crowed.

We chanted our Meat slogans, we waved the mallets, we drank beer.

That was pretty much it for the plan.

Then there was the camera crew.

There was a commotion to our left, some sort of reporters...

"These guys, these guys…" said a voice. Suddenly there was a big TV camera in our faces.

"Hey! I am from MTV, and we are here covering the outrageous party that is the summer of love!"

He was using a suave singsong hip announcers voice.

"You guys look like you're having a good time…"

Dave cut him off

"We're are here to raise meat awareness"

"More Meat!" I chanted, "More Meat, kill and eat! More Meat!

Klutch and Dave joined in chanting.

Our interviewer just looked confused, and then put on a resigned smile.

"So!... What drugs are you guys on?

Dave waved his mallet "Drugs are for Hippies! Pure protien and MSG Man! M….S….G!"

It became obvious that we were not what the interviewers were looking for, but they pushed on "So what’s with the Mallets? You guys expecting a problem?"

 Dave shook his mallet at him. "Hippies are the problem, more meat, more peace!

"Piece of Meat!" I shouted.

Our interviewer shook his head and motioned to the cameraman, who stopped filming.

Our interview had ended

Dave didn't care. "This is the problem!" he said, motioning to the crowd with his mallet. "These people! All these goddamn people!"

As they left, and were swallowed up the crowd, Dave shouted after them, "If it wasn't for vegetarians, there wouldn't be any WAR!

But they were gone.

I shrugged. "I guess we are too much for MTV"

Klutch nodded, "And we're out of Beer"

Dave held his mallet out like a lance "To the liquor store!"

And with that, we were gone.