John Haag, that elegant iconoclast -Jhos Singer (nee Johanna Johnson)
I’m sitting in my calm Berkeley home
office, mourning quietly for John Haig. I’ll let those of you who knew the
man better write the eulogies and tributes.
I knew John mostly as that elegant
iconoclast with the throaty laugh and tight pony tail whose politics impressed
my hard-to-impress mother, Mary Lou Johnson.
I met him when I was a kid, and mostly
found him to be unintelligible, like most of my mom’s associates. After
all, my concerns were really much more focused on the end result of his
philosophy not the source of it. He was one of the driving forces behind all the
wonderful sociological principles that, along with the miracle of the Pacific
Ocean, defined the Venice of my childhood.
John (and Anna and my mom, and Rick
and Marge and Carol and Steve and Bob and and and and) established, maintained
and promoted the notion of a ‘free Venice.’ And while all those
adults were bandying about words like, ‘redevelopment,’
‘radical democracy,’ ‘greedy speculators’ and
‘urban development master plan’ there was a horde Venice kids, tan
and salty, running up and down the boardwalk they sought to save.
They were discussing socialism and
justice while we were hopping trams, stubbing toes, surfing and skating on the
very ground they were defending. They were sealing a moment in time as we were
being tattooed by having the good fortune of growing up in the strange
beachfront slum that was the Venice beach they were arguing to save.
I’m 47 now. My two kids are
growing up in a culture of ‘playdates’ and computer games. Our
neighborhood is sweet, folks are generally nice liberal Berkeleytariats. The
streets are at right angles and get swept with regularity. Everyone recycles and
lots of my neighbors eat organic. But compared to my childhood environs, its
rather non-descript. However, in some funny way, as plain as it is, I feel all
those Venice Peace and Freedom party Venetians presence here.
I doubt that we would have a
recycling program or fridges full of organic agri-business food products if it
weren’t for the efforts of a bunch of oddball poets and thinkers that John
rallied up into a collected mass of political action.
They were mavericks, and ironically
John Haig might be accused of being one of the first ‘real estate
speculators’. Face it, it took a lot of vision see any value of
Venice-by-the-Sea in the late ‘50s.
But unlike the capitalist wave of
speculation that hit the beach in the late ‘60s, John was speculating in
the realm of community. He was looking for an investment of commitment, love and
energy, and offering a return of having a real home. He wanted to keep a little
slice of beach livable for folks whose contribution to society was art, music,
laughter, passion, poetry and humor. He wanted to keep the streets as crooked as
were the denizens of ‘where the debris meets the sea.’ And at least
by me, he was successful.
As a kid, my
Venice was free. John, Mary Lou, Carole, Rick and and and made sure of that. I
remember being in the ocean all day, all summer long. I remember being part of a
pack of kids tromping through the canals, skittering up and down Speedway and
bounding across the beach barefoot and brazen. We skateboarded up and down every
concrete surface we could find, leaving a lot of our elbow and knee skin on
those sidewalks. I swear every one of those scrapes took in and sealed inside us
some of the sidewalk and sand molecules, which will be with us until we join
John and the rest of the Peace and Freedom party-ites in eternity.
Our hearts soaked up the energy of our
elders, whose words may have soared over our heads but whose example and
dedication to the proposition that everyone deserves to have a real
neighborhood, and a real community and real involvement are indelible. May the
memory of the righteous be for a blessing and may John rest in Peace and
Freedom.
Love,
-Jhos Singer (nee Johanna Johnson)
Posted: Mon - May 1, 2006 at 04:10 AM