By Kelcie Lee

Learning to swim at Sutro Baths. Working amusement park carnival booths next to Ocean Beach. Joining fellow hippies in a Haight-Ashbury commune. Smoking a joint with the Grateful Dead. Talking to Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio and Liberace while busboying in Fisherman’s Wharf. It feels like a San Francisco fever dream – but for Richmond-district resident painter and musician Joe Mirante, now 76, this was simply his reality.

According to Mirante, this was the best era in San Francisco history, and the best time of his life.

Now, he continues to find ways to keep this creative and free spirit through psychedelic art and cross-genre music.

In 1949, Mirante was born in North Beach, and later moved to the Richmond District when he was 3 years old. He recalled his father taking him to the “mystical, amazing place” that was Sutro Baths to learn how to swim and explore the exhibits and galleries kept at the front entrance. Mirante said he can never forget the all-glass enclosure that contained echos of laughter and steam rising from the large heated pools.

He also said he remembers all his time spent at the seaside amusement park Playland at the Beach. From the 1920s to 1972, Playland entertained thousands of San Franciscans with its carnival games, rollercoasters, concessions and sea lions on the rocks next to Ocean Beach, between Balboa and Fulton streets.

“Being a little kid moving out here, I was only less than a mile away from the amusement park,” Mirante said. “I just constantly went there as a kid. And later on, working there, I was addicted to it. I learned a lot about life at amusement parks.”

As a teenager, Mirante worked the carnival games for $1.50 an hour, but to this day, he said it was one of the best jobs he ever had.

“That’s the part of San Francisco that I miss the most, Sutro’s museum and baths and Playland – that was such a great attraction,” he said. “To lose that was a really huge loss for San Francisco.”

At 18, the 1967 Summer of Love was emerging in the Haight-Ashbury district and Mirante fell right into the middle of it. The countercultural social movement attracted 100,000 youth in hopes of creating their own bohemian utopia. Most often connected with hippies, the movement represented ideals of peace, love, creativity and communal living, leading to the emergence of psychedelic use and rock ‘n’ roll.

Just out of high school, Mirante got in trouble with his father and got thrown out of the house – but he quickly found a new home in the Haight. The whirlwind of art, rock ‘n’ roll and psychedelics made for the richest time in his life.

He said the creativity, new ideas and art of the time made him “more happy being broke and being a hippie living in a commune than if I was working at General Motors and making a lot of money.”

“It was the most fantastic time of my life, meeting all these really cool, free thinking, artistic people that would be like family,” he said. “When you’re in a commune, you’re in a family situation with all these people. They all back you up, and do whatever they can do to help you or you can help them. It’s like one big family.”

While communal living did not last forever, at the time, Mirante said the new philosophy did seem to work. The Summer of Love also inspired Mirante’s love for music as the movement brought him to all the Golden Gate Park concerts where he met Rock & Roll Hall of Fame icon Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead.

While the movement eventually came to a close, Mirante said the liveliness of the Haight can only be described as a dream – one he wishes was recurring.

Mirante’s life experiences deeply reflect the history of both San Francisco and the Richmond District, and he continues to keep these memories alive through driftwood art and music.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Mirante would go on morning walks along Ocean Beach, right where Sutro Baths and Playland used to dwell. The shore brought in driftwood, which inspired an idea.

“Driftwood has been in the ocean so long and deteriorated into weird shapes,” he said. “Interesting curvatures and shapes of the driftwood intrigued me, because I say, ‘god, this one might’ve traveled thousands of miles and finally wound up on Ocean Beach.’ It’s interesting where this wood comes from. It was kind of intriguing.”

Mirante brought pieces of driftwood home, mounted them on plywood in his garage and used fluorescent paint under black light to paint the wood. He was inspired by psychedelic art from the ’60s, which used the same bright colors on posters and clothes. Mirante said he quickly became “obsessed” with going to the beach every day to look for driftwood and found a new passion in painting new creations. Eventually, he brought the same psychedelic art style to paint drum sets, guitars and even dogs upon their owners’ request.

Besides keeping his memories alive through art, Mirante continues to rock even after years on a variety of different bands.

While writing and recording his own album, Mirante met Joe DiLeo, a then 17-year-old guitarist, at a cafe. Mirante learned that the teenager had a falling out with his mother, leading him to live and play music on the street.

“So I took him in, I felt bad for him at 17 years old, and now he’s 27 years old, and he never did leave. He’s still here. He’s still living with me. We work on songs, and we started playing together, just me and him. Then we played so good together, we started ‘The Joes,’” Mirante said. “That’s what we are.”

Mirante calls DiLeo a “fantastic guitar player, one of the best I ever played with.”

Both musicians also continue to play together in a theatrical rock ‘n’ roll cover band called “Dark Rabbit,” taking inspiration from Alice in Wonderland. Mirante said he oftentimes brings his driftwood art to performances as a part of the “psychedelic musical adventure.”

With more than 160 pieces of driftwood, Mirante has started looking to exhibit and sell his art. He said he hopes to leave a mark on the world through his artwork.

“I have something I can leave behind. Maybe when I’m dead, I’ll become famous, like Van Gogh or something … seems like people get famous after they die, but I just want to leave something behind as a part of me, because I know I’m not going to live too much longer,” Mirante said. “I’ve given pieces to my friends who would cherish psychedelic art. Your feelings and emotions are put into painting or sculpture, whatever you put into it, it’s like a part of you that goes into an object. Then it lasts – it’s like a part of you that they have.”

Looking back at his memories, Mirante said he continues to cherish the opportunities he has to create art, make music and perform in a city that he has always called home.

“What brings you happiness? It isn’t money, that’s for sure, although a lot of people think it is. But it’s doing something that makes you feel good,” Mirante said. “So I feel rich right now, even though my bank account doesn’t agree with that, but I feel rich that I’m doing something that I like to do and am able to do it.”