Culture Comes to Ocean Beach : Arts Festival Adds New Dimension to One-Time Hippie Haven

This weekend’s Peninsula Arts Festival is a strong sign that Ocean Beach is no longer just a funky seaside village where mellowed-out crazies amble down palm-lined streets humming “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

“First of all, aging hippies can’t afford to live here anymore,” said Ron James, festival director and a 15-year OB resident. “The cost of houses is skyrocketing in Ocean Beach. The hippies that can (live here) aren’t very hippie anymore. They work for accounting firms or law firms.”

A visitor would expect to encounter locals kicking back to the wailing sounds of raucous bands like the Forbidden Pigs, the Cardiff Reefers or the Rhumboogies.

Or the the good-time, boogie-woogie of Tobacco Road, or maybe the scratchy guitar licks and rasping, bluesy voice of Tom (Cat) Courtney.

In Ocean Beach, tie-dyed T-shirts never went out of style. Long hair still means shoulder length tresses, not classical music. But this weekend, Ocean Beach takes on a new cultural wrinkle. Culture with a capital C comes to town when the San Diego Symphony and the California Ballet join with all the above entertainers and more in the first, and a decidedly eclectic, Peninsula Arts Festival.

Up to 40,000 people are expected to attend the two-day music, dance, arts, crafts and food festival, located at Sunset-Collier Park at Nimitz and West Point Loma boulevards.

The festival includes more than 50 separate events: two stages with constant entertainment, four visual arts exhibits; crafts and food booths; and a section set up for wine and champagne tasting.

The festival grew out of a desire by James and other OB residents for a cultural arts center. They want a repertory theater, a visual art gallery and space for workshops for crafts and fine arts. They also want to reach out to their neighbors in nearby Point Loma. The festival is a means to raise money for a

cultural center and interest in the arts, James said.

The Ocean Beach Arts Council hopes to raise the money and convince the powers that be to allow them to convert the vacant Dana Junior High School into a permanent cultural center.

For James, the festival marks an inspired return to volunteer public service after four years recuperating from burnout.

In 1979, James, who is a partner in an OB T-shirt firm, helped organize two OB events, the Fourth of July Street Festival and the Christmas Tree Festival, both of which will celebrate their 10th anniversary this year.

“I get a tremendous sense of pride seeing something pull the community, the different factions together,” James said. “You see something like this grow and blossom. Those things leave a mark on the community. I think those are the most important things I will do in my life.”

During the festival, artisans will demonstrate screen printing and how to make paper and clay sculptures. Hands-on activities are scheduled for children, including a printing workshop and mural painting.

A Varied Lineup

Due to limited parking, visitors are encouraged to park at Sea World and use the 15-minute shuttle service to Sunset-Collier Park.

The festival is budgeted at about $50,000. It is underwritten by individual and business donations and rentals from food and craft booths. Though the food and wine are for sale, all the entertainment is free, James said.

The varied lineup includes master folk singer Sam Hinton, a Portuguese-American dance group and the California Ballet, dancing excerpts from “Coppelia.”

Yoav Talmi, the symphony’s new music director designate, will close the festival Sunday afternoon with a full-on two-hour classical concert of Mozart and Dvorak. Complete with a Mozart concerto by acclaimed oboist Allan Vogel, the concert begins at 4.

The long days that James and about 50 festival committee members have been volunteering are worth the effort, said James, who loves the OB and believes in what the festival can add for his community.

“I love the smell and the sounds of Ocean Beach,” James said. “I wake up and hear the surf crashing. Ocean Beach has a sense of identity you don’t find in other parts of the city. There’s an energy, a creativity, that goes with it.”

The arts festival, he says, is helping forge a bond with OB’s more upscale neighbors in Point Loma and with the city’s mainstream population, lending credence to Bob Dylan lyrics: “The times, they are a changin.’ ”