E343: David Solbach - The 1960s Changed Human Consciousness: A Journey Through Revolution, Reinvention & Backlash
David Solbach is an author, poet, carpenter, former taxi driver, and jazz musician whose life has moved through some of the most fascinating cultural shifts in modern America. From growing up as a Kansas farm boy to arriving in San Francisco as the Beat generation gave way to the hippie movement, David reflects on music, freedom, writing, reinvention, and the deeper lessons of a life lived outside the conventional script. In this conversation, we explore how jazz shaped his writing, how driving a taxi taught him to read people, and why he believes the 1960s changed human consciousness in ways we are still wrestling with today.
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SHOW NOTES
🎵 [1:28] Music was the first thing in the world: got a clarinet in second grade
🌉 [4:18] Arrived in San Francisco in 1965: beats were old-fashioned, hippies arriving
⚡ [6:32] The Cold War colored everything: ducking under desks for nuclear holocaust drills
✍️ [7:48] Decided he was going to be a great novelist
🚕 [12:41] Driving a taxi was a real education
🎷 [15:13] Jazz taught him improvisation and also how to write
🦠 [17:08] *In the Shadow of the Plague* – set in Oregon during COVID recovery
🌳 [21:08] 10 square miles of forest land: either protect it or log it for family money
📝 [22:46] A letter to his brother – beautiful reflection on the half-century his brother missed
🌡️ [27:29] "We've totally given up on preventing climate change – now it's adapt to it"
🌍 [30:00] His grandfathers grew up farming with horses and lived to see a man on the moon
📰 [33:11] "We no longer agree on the facts – we've given up on reality"
💡 [35:42] The 60s were a shift from salvation ethic to self-realization ethic
⚔️ [39:52] The Civil War is still being fought – unresolved issues have resurfaced
🌌 [45:41] There's a force that defies entropy – it's in all of us
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Author
David Solbach's story begins as a Kansas farm boy, a third-generation son of German immigrants, growing up in the America of Eisenhower, black-and-white television, and racial and sexual prejudice so ubiquitous, so much a part of the woodwork, that most white citizens, especially men, were scarcely aware of it. It was a reality he gradually came to understand as he matured through small-town fisticuffs and clarinet lessons and came of age in 1960 as the first member of his family to attend college.
Dubbed the "teenage gadfly" of his music department, David transferred after his freshman year into what he found to be more interesting fields: psychology, English, philosophy, and history. He graduated with a degree in English that would be necessary for no job he would ever hold, though it proved useful in several.
He settled in San Francisco, doing menial jobs to support his dream of becoming a writer amid a Beat culture transforming into a Hippie revolution, replacing the old salvation ethic with a self-realization ethic. Along the way, he challenged many of the assumptions he had grown up with and embarked on a lifelong journey of self-discovery, personal growth, and exploration.
For a couple of years, David put on a suit and tie and traveled colleges for publishing companies. He used those experiences as the basis for his first novel. When the book was rejected for reasons he agreed with, he changed direction and learned carpentry.
He bought and remodeled dilapidated properties and, in a decade as an urban pioneer, worked … Read More
