I Ran Into Some Trouble

by Peggy Caserta, Maggie Falcon

Peggy Caserta, founder of the famous Haight-Ashbury hippie boutique Mnasidika, and lover and girlfriend of Janis Joplin, was a Louisiana homecoming queen turned airsick stewardess who eventually landed in 1960s San Francisco and set up shop. Her store was a hang-out for The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company; it was where Wes Wilson’s posters hung and Bill Graham sold concert tickets and Owsley’s LSD was enjoyed. Caserta’s world of psychedelic peace, love, LSD, and rock kaleidoscoped into bereavement, heroin addiction, prison, and desperation. She was hated, betrayed, and self-exiled, and after many, many years has recovered, returning home to the bayou to care for her mother with dementia. Now Caserta is giving a new generation an inside-look into a revolution—both countercultural and personal—in her new memoir. It’s the celebration of a transitional time in history, and an attempt at redemption.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Music, History, Biography Memoir, Autobiography

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 23, 2018

About the author

Peggy Louise Caserta was an American businesswoman and memoirist. She owned Mnasidika, a boutique in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district that became a hub for the counterculture of the 1960s, and published two memoirs, including one detailing her relationship with singer Janis Joplin.

Reviews

[Scot · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unevenly written memoir that would have benefitted from a bit more editing and better proofreading, particularly in the opening and closing sections of the book. Caserta has lived a fascinating life with some incredible experiences, and hearing her firsthand accounts of the beginning of the counterculture in Haight Ashbury is magical delight, while the discussion of heroin addiction, jail time, and how easily a strung out junkie might be raped, repeatedly, then ignored is direct, powerful, and memorable. There is a range here: assisting a prison breakout in Mexico, being Janis Joplin’s lover & guest at Woodstock, inventing bellbottoms, and even surviving Hurricane Katrina with her elderly mother and dogs, amid the devastation of southern Mississippi. She has been a millionaire living a high life, she has been a junkie in the dirty street begging for her next fix—Peggy has seen it all, and shares some life lessons, some poignant moments, and some humorous recollections.

She also says her earlier memoir was taken over by the ghost writers who misrepresented much, including her tone and intent. This time around she is older and wiser and more in charge, she maintains. Her new theory on the cause of Joplin’s death which she introduces here has merit, given her presence on the scene so early, her attention to detail, and her deep knowledge of the behavior and practice of Janis in everyday life at that point.

[Constanza · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first time I heard of Peggy Caserta was on a Janis Joplin documentary. Of all the people close to Janis, it was Peggy who held my interest the most. My interest in her grew when I read a interview where Courtney Love - Kurt Cobain’s widow - said that “Going Down With Janis” was the biography she wanted to be written about her.

So when I read she was releasing a new memoir, I instantly knew it was a must-read. You don’t even have to be a fan of Janis - or the counterculture- to enjoy this book. You just need to feel like reading a fascinating book. This the most entertaining one I have read so far this year. I have always had respect for Ms. Caserta but this book made me respect her even more. She’s a survivor, she really is. She has gone through so much during her life that it is amazing the fact she’s still alive, though the chapters about the darkest phase of her addiction were hard to read. I was feeling anguished, but I really enjoyed the book. There’s no doubts I’ll read it again - and again.

I’m 18 y/o and feeling nostalgic for an era I never got to live! (and also left me waiting for a Janis biopic with Peggy on it)

Definitely a must-have!

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a story and what a life! The author has definitely had the highest highs (literally and figuratively) and the lowest of lows. Near death several times, living on the edge, and also living the good life and experiencing the birth of Haight-Ashbury. I enjoyed reading this memoir and learning about her time with Janis Joplin, as well as others, and starting her business, Mnasidika.

[Russ Bertetta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first 1/3 of this story. The origins of the Haight, the idealism of the movement, the people who were part of the legend have always been fascinating to me. However, once that first needle went into Peggy's arm the book became one long, repetitive and very sad story. I almost put it down because it was so,so sad but wanted to see how she came out of this suicidal ride. Even then her life was still a mess and certainly didn't leave me feeling any better.
How she survived is a miracle!

[Rusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Caserta's been through addiction and prison and Hurricane Katrina, but the lack of important detail where it's needed and too much where it's not, along with odd, unexplained jumps in the narrative and graceless writing create a bore of a read. Survival skills don't necessarily equal a successful memoir.

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first third is interesting and shows promise, just like Peggy Caserta's life. But as Peggy's life descends into drug addiction, the book descends into endless descriptions of looking for drugs, shooting up, and going through withdrawals, again and again and again. There are also many other painful episodes - it's amazing she lived through it all! However, the way it's written is chaotic and uneven, chronicling so many extreme situations one after another that I eventually stopped caring. It was like getting stuck talking to a stoner at a party - Man, you won't believe what happened to me... And then I... And then I... And then I...

[Harvey Soon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trials and Tribulations of an Exceptional Woman

Peggy Caserta tells her life story that would graphiically look like a roller coaster in an earthquake. "Some trouble" as a title takes understatement to a new level. She was at the forefront of a generational transformation: The Age of Aquarius, flower power, the hippie movement, drugs, sex, rock and roll. Yet her greatest achievement just might be that she eventually kicked her addiction to heroin. A survivor of the first order.
I'm glad she was able to tell story.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m happy to be me (with all my past tribulations etc.) after reading Peggy’s autobiography. I liked the first part but her heroin addiction, rapes, crimes, prison etc. became overwhelming.
Peggy was intelligent and a great business woman but destroyed her life with heroin.
At least she got clean and returned to Louisiana to care for her ageing mother.

[jimtown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story the author, Peggy Caserta, lived through. She starts out in life positive she's meant for greater things than what is expected of women of her generation. Her father spent his life as a Postal Worker because it helped him support Peggy and her mother. Peggy was an only child and her parents always gave her the love and support she needed but her ambitions lead her away from her hometown and family. They handle that pretty well and continue to support their daughter's dream from a distance.

Peggy arrives in the most up and coming place in San Francisco just before it becomes a mecca. She rents a little store near Haight-Ashbury where she single handedly is responsible for the ensuing bell bottom craze. If you find that a little hard to believe, perhaps hearing that she was personal friends with Janis Joplin will also sound far fetched, but Google Peggy Caserta, or better yet, read her story, the proof is in the photos. There are several never seen before (by me) photos in this memoir.

Peggy who doesn't drink and seems so in control of herself at first is making good money until she runs into some trouble. The ensuing saga of her life out of control is gut wrenching. Peggy becomes a heroin addict and recalls her life at that time in enough detail that it should curtail the desire in youth if it were required reading.

I admire her for writing so honestly, in almost too much detail at times. She wanted to tell her story, and it was worthwhile telling and reading. Usually when Peggy was interviewed people only want to hear about Janis. Eye-opening and enlightening story of the 60's.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book and a quick read. It was a bit annoying how the author was clearly trying to make herself out to be a bit more well liked than she probably was. Some of the information was not the same information that she gave in interviews in her later years. Her conversations were clearly fictional being that there is no way she could remember what she said during these events. Also, I have read in the police reports and autopsy that Janis was wearing a night shirt/gown when she died. No shoes were ever mentioned. I’m sure she did the best she could with the details while also attempting to make herself out to be a well loved and good person, which is contradictory to every interview which she has been mentioned. I think if I hadn’t seen and read so much about Janis before this book, it would have been more believable.
Overall though, the book is good. I actually liked the after Janis portion of the book better. If you can look over the bragging about how successful she was and that she was basically the first person to be a true flower child hippy and what a saint she was to allegedly help people and stay away from Janis while she was attempting to stay sober because she was such a good person, it really is a good read.

[Othniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The autobiography of Peggy Caserta, of one of the pioneering figures on the Haight-Ashbury scene in 1960's San Francisco, most famous for her association with Janis Joplin.

This has been written as a corrective to an apparently exploitative volume which came out in the early 1970s, focussed on the relationship with Joplin, and only existed because of Caserta's need for money to support her heroin habit. This book deals with the early hippie days, during which Caserta made good money as a fashion entrepreneur; the horrific, long-lasting period of addiction; and her subsequent recovery and "retirement" to her Louisiana home town, where life is complicated by her mother's illness, and Hurricane Katrina.

Inevitably, the casual affair with Joplin dominates the narrative, despite taking up only a small segment of the book (and Caserta's life) - the singer comes across as a victim of her own "devil-may-care" exuberance. The writing is rich, and the evocation of a lost, golden era is vivid; as are the tales of less fortunate times.

There are a few errors, and this being a highly personal tale, its appeal may not be broad. Still, it’s a valuable document.

[Tina Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can always find your way back

Peggy's life is fascinating. I laughed at some parts, cried at others, but, in all of the book U just felt as if we were sitting down having a 'girl talk'. I am also from the South (North Carolina) and can completely identify with the descriptions of the culture and what it's like to live there. Her description of the feel of Southern humidity is spot on. I also am a bit of a black sheep with the nickname 'Southern Belle from Hell' which was bestowed upon me lovingly by a dear friend. I recommend this book for many reasons ~ the history of Haight Ashbury, history of her clothing stores, Peggy's life in general, but, most of all - just Peggy. She's a survivor and this is an inspiration for all those who take the wrong turns and get lost. You can find your way back. Thanks, Peggy, for reminding me of this!

[Celia Lynch Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My years, the 60's.

I can relate to so much of this book that it's quite disturbing. I was a child of the 60's. The music, hippies,wearing flowers in my hair. It's when I look back and am reminded of the crazy lifestyle we had that I can appreciate it was an amazing time to be young. Reading of the dark side of what Peggy endured though really freaks me out. I guess only thing that saved me was that I didn't smoke and I was too young to drink. What an interesting fucked up book. I even got to see New Orleans just after Hurricane Katrina and took many bus trips to see the devastation. I sure would have liked to meet the Author.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captivating

I'm so happy Peggy Caserta wrote this book... recounting the decades and characters they were peopled by -the truth more entertaining than any fiction- from her launch into adult life out of a much loved but ordinary childhood in the south of the U.S. into the 1960's beginnings of hippie culture in San Francisco, wild times from the 1970's of California that lasted decades, to its poignant culmination after the last of several nailbiting interludes... for our enjoyment, the roller coaster ride of her life, the bright and heady times, the downs and almost but not quite ever outs. Bravo.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting and sad life. She grew up in Covington Louisiana where I raised my children. I was there during Hurricane Katrina. She was nearby outside if Slidell. The next Spring she had appendicitis as I did. Fortunately I caught mine in time. It was just weird coincidence all around. But her book rings true even tho I wasn’t part of the movement. The addiction was so unfortunate but so part of the culture and Vietnam era

[Angie Cory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild Ride

Sex, drugs and rock and roll. The tumultuous 60s in the ever famous Haight Ashbury. Turns out Peggy's life goes full circle. Unconditional love, parenting and finally home to the role reversal of child parent. The journey from wealth and clout to washed up then out. Getting clean so many times only to find a vein again. Addiction finally lost. However, this book is an insight into the decade of great music when the times were changing. Excellent read.

[Mike MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was how it happened

No bullshit. Looking back, it's hard to believe you could be having lunch in Indiana and hitchhiking to New Orleans, Miami, Churchill Downs by 2:00 that afternoon. Somebody packing an ounce, another with a few hits of blotter, change of underwear and go. This book tells the amazing freedom and spontaneity we were so lucky to have. Thanks Peggy.

[Calla · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a story! For anyone that lived through the 1960’s, it’s a fascinating insider look into the Haight-Asbury culture. Brutally honest about her addiction through the ‘70s and on, and ending with a first-hand account of riding out hurricane Katrina in a Louisiana town outside New Orleans. Glad I ran across this gem of an autobiography.

[lauraღ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it a bunch! At times it read like fiction because wow... she's done some stuff. Never really listened to Janis Joplin's music, so there was no attraction for me there, but it was a well told narrative of a wild, interesting, and sometimes very sad, life.

[Jeff Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wild ride! I didn't want to like this one at the beginning. But her story just drew me in and I finished it in a matter of days. Worth the read, for sure, if you're curious about life in the hippie sixties and beyond.

[Banjo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I disliked almost everything about this. By the last section, I was finishing it partly to see it through and partly to see if she could possibly craft a final ending that would make me feel differently.

Nope.

It's true that she lived a life of high highs and low lows. That said, I found myself thinking "wow, boomers really had this entitlement the entire time, huh? That wasn't some sudden onset in retirement?"

This person had money to buy a store, showed up to the Levi's offices and just happened to chat with someone who agreed to make her a small run of bell-bottoms for her store. She owned a home, a car. She bought motorcycles for friends and hopped on flights for $15 (that is, except the time she hopped on a test flight flight for free in the middle of San Francisco because her friend was getting her pilots license. Cute!)

She says "I used the last of my money" or "I had no more assets" so often in this book that it ceases to lose all meaning. She went to Mexico, New York, LA - wherever she pleased. She rented and started her store when she was 23.

Jesus Christ. I found myself getting angrier at this person as her self-made lows and "fell into some more gold!" highs stacked up. Out of prison? Open a bar! With what money? Oh, the "last of my assets" again. This person lived a life so charmed by the times that its no wonder boomers think they alone created the concept of love. The financial shit show they left the following generations to grapple with? Nah, blame it on someone else.

At one point she says "I had gotten myself back up to a $300 per day habit, which was a lot of money in 1970."

IN 1970?! Sure, yeah, that was the equivalent of OVER $2000 in the 70s, but holy. shit. Having $300 a day for anything is unfathomable to me. To most of us.

I could tell that I was supposed to feel inspired by her gusto and wowed by her thrilling stories but it was nothing but infuriating to read someone be so self-impressed. I don't actually give a shit about you helping your friends get out of some predatory scheme they've gotten caught up in. I'm still trying to figure out how the hell you're bankrolling it, cause even in your dark days you seem luckier than anyone I have ever met.

When she returns to SF in the late 60s, now a full-fledged heroin addict, she writes about finding herself in her old neighborhood and looking around disgusted with the new crops of kids who had taken buses from all around the country to settle down in her area. She describes the mood as having shifted, and she blames it on them "not wanting to work and not having the creativity we had had in those earlier years."

Get so bent like the snake you are.

She doesn't recognize how lucky she was. It's not luck that she set up her store when she did, it was actually her still - she took that acid at the right time and she, unlike others, had actually listened to the call. So.... not gonna talk about the loan from your parents to open it? No? Cool. Good job on the divine acid timing and grit to follow it through, if only the rest of them had the fortitude you do, lady.

Zero humility. And do I need a queer woman who is succeeding in business in the 1960s to say she was lucky? No. But the thing is, she doesn't talk about what it meant to be queer or a woman. She's so full of her own shit that topics like that don't seem to matter or even occur to her. It was fine for her. I suspect that was and continued to be the beginning and end of her thought process. But what about her?!

My takeaway is she was a savvy smooth-talker and a very solid businesswoman. I'm certain she was a great hang back in the day. But holy shit I don't care about the life and times of a bunch of spoiled bourgeois boomers - her suffering was always at her own hand, yet somehow she paints herself at the tragic hero perpetually using the last of her meager $16,000 to survive.

I'm not impressed. I don't understand the nostalgia hard-on people get for the summer of love. These idiots were spoiled then and they're spoiled now. I didn't hate the 60s before but holy shit I do now after reading this.

Truly what an obnoxious generation.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the updated story that Caserta might tell in this book, especially since I'd read parts of the terribly lurid Going Down With Janis that most people know by now was exaggerated to say the least. The story of Caserta's life up through the early days of the Haight were fascinating, as were her insights into the fragile psyche of Janis. The evolution of her drug habit turns the tables on what most of us thought had happened and it was an eye opener. The stories that she tells are pretty much a non-stop roller coaster ride of excess and taking risks, and the fact that the ride never seems to end is what makes me want to caution people about what they'll get from this book. It's a dark ride that never lets up. You can't help but be amazed at her survival skills, even when she herself seems to be determined to test those skills endlessly. And then there's the additional gut wrenching trauma outside of her control that life threw at her which can only be described as bad timing on a cosmic scale. She's never more brutally candid than when she's being critical of herself, so you keep wanting to root for her and hope the next part somehow is redeeming. But those bits come only in too small doses to offset the sense of looming despair around the corner of each page. And that is why after the first third or so this book becomes kind of an emotional slog. The drug fueled years become a somewhat tedious read, although you can't blame the story line for being what it is. But as others have noted the writing is a bit chaotic and uneven and I feel that if she'd had better guidance assembling the stories and writing descriptions that even the worst times could articulate the degradation of her existence with less exhaustion for the reader. A prime example of this confused storytelling is that the book ends abruptly in a way that feels incomplete. You're left asking "Wait, what the hell happened after that?" Of course overall it is a tragic story and it shouldn't necessarily have a happy ending. But in reality she did get to live happily late in her life after reconnecting with a casual former lover from her reckless days and being life partners with that woman until she died. She moved back to the country in California to a property she'd owned for decades (although you want to know how she kept that property when she lost everything else but you won't get to find out) and eventually on up to Oregon, a period of time that was more than a decade. But in a completely baffling omission that lover from the past wasn't mentioned at all in the drug hazed portion of the book, and neither was the relatively long period when Caserta stayed completely sober and had a long term relationship with her. If we'd gotten to read how she finally got past her tragedies to live in peace it would have made an uplifting ending to her story which would have been excellent closure for the reader and a more complete telling of everything that happened.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Ran Into Some Trouble is a very stark look at the life of Peggy Caserta, the founder of Mnasidka, ground zero of the Haight Ashbury scène in the 1969s. A former homecoming queen and stewardess for Delta Airlines turned business guru and sometime lover of Janis Joplin turned drug runner, heroin junkie turned Hurricane Katrina survivor, this memoir is a memoir that isn’t. Yes, you do get a look back at the hey day of the Hippie scene (seriously, anyone who was anyone back then came through her store), but who this woman was back then and what made her tick is as wispy as the smoke from one of her ever present joints.

The first two parts of the book jump timelines so much that I found myself going back to parts I’d read before to try and connect the dots. While much is made of her relationship with Janis, you don’t get a lot of details, perhaps because of a book deal gone wrong shortly after Janis’ death, but what was mentioned left me with a lot of unanswered questions. She was at Woodstock for heaven’s sake and aside from Janis flying her to the festival in a helicopter, not much else is said. There are really vague hints that Janis was killed by the CIA that sound more like the paranoid delusions of a junkie than anything else.

Caserta’s life after Janis’ death is a dark spiral into the life of a heroin addict, a drug first given to her by the singer. She writes about friends trying to get her clean, all of which failed, about life in the California penal system for drug addicts, some of her attempts to recapture that first success of the Haight. Towards the sixth and seventh parts of the book, the tale becomes more of a reckoning of what happened to all those aging hippies.

The book closes with Caserta’s return to Mississippi home in order to care for her widowed mother and the days before and after Hurricane Katrina. The best comparison I could make would be to call it a Southern Grey Gardens.

The book ends abruptly, and I was left with a cliffhanger sans the cliff, disappointed and disinterested.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Self-published, riddled with typos and historical inaccuracies, and badly in need of an editor. There is no linear narrative; the timeline jumps all over the place and it's chaotic and hard to follow. One moment we're in 1968, then the next paragraph is an anecdote about something that happened in 1965, then there's a vague mention of stuff that took place possibly in the 1970's; suddenly we're at Woodstock with Janis in 1969, but immediately in the next paragraph Caserta claims Janis was afraid she'd be "fired" from Big Brother...a band she'd left in 1968. For good portions of the book, Caserta doesn't mention any dates at all. I had no idea if an event or anecdote was taking place in the 1970s or 1980s. At one point she mentioned using her house as collateral for a friend's bail bond, but then pages later she talked about buying the house for the first time. This jumping around in time is incredibly annoying and confusing. Likewise, verb tenses change mid-paragraph from past to present tense.

Caserta also tells stories that contradict recorded events in other, well-researched biographies. And there is no excuse for writing things like "By August of 1969, the Kent State massacre had happened." Come on. Even if you can't recall the year it happened, it takes three seconds to Google that it was May 4, 1970. I realize she spent two or three decades as a junkie and her memory may be fuzzy about certain things but that's no excuse for not having an editor look over your book.

Based on this laziness, I can't trust that anything in this book is factual. And it's not even very entertaining.

[Janice Goll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a life Peggy has lived, from the people she knew to the highs and lows of her fantastic life. The drug usage, the overdoses, the hospitalizations where she was given last rites, and almost didn't make it, the loss of so many friends, the changes in the landscapes of Los Angeles, the hippy generation. This was a fascinating read. She was the closest to Janis Joplin, she met many of the great music groups of that time before they were at the generation's peak. I highly recommend this read, it will enlighten you to the hippy vibes of that time.

[Joanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having been born about the time that stars like Janis Joplin were making it big and then dying from the hard-living lifestyle of the 60's, there was much in Caserta's story I might have been somewhat aware of, but I knew little about. Caserta, like Joplin, lived hard and spiraled much farther into drug addiction. The fact that she managed to come out on the other end and still write such a compelling and coherent story is amazing. Even if only half of it is true, it's still astounding. I am glad I read it, and I sort of wish they would make a movie. Ha!

[Tina Makaneole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nature Child Extraordinary

Couldn’t put this book down. In awe of Peggy’s personality and adventures. That she knew Janis Joplin was the reason I read this. But I discovered a whole world of different people. Give up your Shelby Mustang? Unbelievable. The drug usage and the circumstances she got herself into, horrid. I love how she guides the story, no wasting of words. Magnificent.

[Doofus Mcdingberry Carlbutter · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do I think. I think this book great and very insightful from a lady who went through hellenbach. It seems like rehash of: Going Down with Janis which is also a good book to say the least but according to Peggy she had very little part of that book in reality. This book is a roller coaster ride of the sixties and seventies and I highly recommend it if you want insight and perspective of the sixties. Just my tiny opinion that doesn't matter really.

[Traci Styner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a life. I gobbled up this book.

While Peggy Caserta is best known for her life in the 60s Haight-Ashbury scene and her relationship with Janis Joplin, I found that the story really grabbed me after that period. Peggy’s struggles with addiction and her relationship with her parents come to life in this often-humorous and straightforward telling of her life.

[Rand Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has an open and vivacious southern charm like Peggy herself, a seminal force in the formation of the original Haight Ashbury District, of Sixties lore, in San Francisco, California. I felt an increasingly visceral engagement with Peggy as the book unfolded, and the reason the inhabitants of that fabled place, and time, loved her. Including Janis Joplin!