NOT VENICE BEACH

I was in a rehab at eighteen and there were younger teens there... I was the only real "hippie" and had long moppy hair and slept the entire week, coming down off months of speed and LSD... I did wake up now and again and in fact got in trouble for something so I couldn't go with the group of kids on a field trip to Venice Beach... That was a bummer... Venice Beach is the place where Hippies live and sell cool stuff and I remember when the kids were gone (none were into sixties music, at least not like me) I was sitting out in a gloomy patio separated by a brick wall, but that you could climb, so I could hear a radio playing in the next patio... Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ("Carry On") coming from a (what sounded like a) small transistor radio...  You could hear the beautiful voices and static too... I sat smoking a cigarette, listening to this song, beat and shaggy and sleepy and not stalking sunny Venice with those lucky kids who, when they got back from the trip were fulla smiles, wearing costume sixties memorabilia... I watched 'em from the hallway as they entered through the side door, turned around, returned to my room and went back to sleep...