He picks up a girl hitchhiking. This was a common form of transportation for independent minded kids in the years before Ted Bundy. Her shawl is perfect for the era (Gene Ashman and Rita Riggs designed the costumes). George’s thoughts are still with the mysterious woman in the hills. He accepts the hitchhiker’s offer of a joint and drops her off on the Strip. Still in search of cash, he winds up at the house of friend, Jay, who’s the leader of the band Spirit. Demy sought out the band to compose music for the film (Marty Paich conducted the score). Here, they play themselves.

Standing next to Jay, his architecture classmate at Berkeley, George looks completely square. Jay is also much more successful and doesn’t hesitate to lend his old college chum a hundred dollars. Along with the cash, he gives George a copy of the new album. This sequence has a documentary feel true to the period. A later sequence when George visits a radical newspaper doesn’t come off as well.

Jay plays George a new tune and says: “I haven’t got the words down, yet. But, I know what I want them to do. I’d like them to be sort of a personal testimony to the insanity of this world . . . it’s really far out . . . but, if I could just get it down, like it is in my head.”