Meet Dennis McNally (historian, Grateful Dead publicist, author extraordinaire) and his wife Susana Millman (photography goddess; Jerry Garcia walked her down the aisle at their wedding) — dear friends of mine a zillion years. I’m thrilled to bring you Dennis in his own (fabulous) words talking about his poignant new book, the coming of the Counterculture Museum, and much more. Love you, Dennis and Susana! — LK
As my wife keeps pointing out, the timing of The Last Great Dream: How Bohemians Became Hippies and Created the Sixties is definitely weird. Just as a madman in the White House scraps democracy and attacks tolerance — in fact the current administration is the exact anti-‘60s — here comes my book about the other side of the coin.
It’s not new. Going back to the 1830s when corporations were first created and became the basis of the American economy, the country has always celebrated two kinds of freedom. There’s the Thoreau kind; he questioned the Protestant work ethic, American racism, and our relationship to nature, along with other fundamentals. The other kind of freedom in America is the right to make as much money as humanly possible … the Trump kind.
In the ‘60s I was in the backwoods of Maine or in college in northern New York State. As a result, I read about what was happening in SF at the public library. Apparently I’ve spent the last 50 years or so studying what I missed. First Kerouac and the ‘50s in Desolate Angel, then the Grateful Dead in A Long Strange Trip, then the background origins of the counterculture, the relationship with black culture, primarily black music, in On Highway 61.
In the process, I came to SF to research, fell in love with the City, eventually connected with the Dead and became the band’s biographer and then the publicist. In 2016, I was invited by the California Historical Society to curate a photo show celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and realized that it was a book I needed to write; The Last Great Dream is volume four, the final episode of American bohemianism in the late 20th century.
I’ve always liked the Beat Museum across from City Lights Bookstore, but the idea of combining Beat with ‘60s artifacts as a Counterculture Museum in the Haight makes perfect sense to me.
What happened in the ‘60s in SF is a wonderful statement of people coming together to skip the usual American mythology and create a culture that was inclusive, healthy as to the natural order, and open to sexual freedom. It was then and is now an antidote to the repression coming out of Washington, and as such, something we need very much to embrace. And if you can afford it, The Last Great Dream is kind of good background reading for the job!
Do your homework, kids! Follow this link to order The Last Great Dream!
