You know, I am a bohemian at heart. I really am. While I'm sometimes a little cranky (shut up, Rosemary!), for the most part I am a very placid, easygoing person. I hate suits and neckties. I can while away hours just listening to music, drinking good beer or cheap wine. Kind of gave up on the whole pot-smoking thing, but only because it made me paranoid and depressed at least 50% of the time, so I had to mostly eliminate it from my life, though I still have no regrets or shame over it. I had some fairly profound insights into myself the few times I used LSD or mushrooms, too. Although I'm quiet and a bit introverted, I can hang out with just about anybody.
Also love most of the music. Folk, bluegress, jam music--hell some of the most fun I ever had in my life was at Grateful Dead concerts, which I attended many of. I was really bummed when Jerry died. Up until about the age of 30, I had hair that went down to my butt, and usually wore tie-dyes, dug the whole handmade jewelry thing--well, bottom line, I always dug the whole loose, relaxed, accepting angle of that lifestyle.
Always noticed the negative aspects though--the radical politics, the drug dependency, the sometimes (not always, but sometimes) dysfunctional raising of children, and so on. I tried to steer clear of the worst of that.
I never exactly left it behind. I can still hang out with folks like that just fine. Sitting around a campfire playing drums, listening to guitar, singing, watching the skies, having long winding conversations about foolishness, I'm all over it.
Still, I had a friend named Ed who I got ahold of again recently. He's living in Eugene Oregon, which he says is Hippy Central for the pacific northwest. Ed was even more intensely into that whole latter-day hippy/Deadhead/travelling across the country panhandling lifestyle than I ever was. He's still a mellow and laid back guy. But he tells me most people now think of him as an annoying radical, because he challenges their flaky notions about politics, crystal healing, and so on. He then laid me out with the funniest thing I'd ever heard come out of him--you have to realize, coming out of him, this just floored me.
He said, "Yeah I was talking to this one flake and he started going on about reording the world hegemonic powers to be more in tune with nature-spirituality, and I just said, 'fuckin' hippy, shut up.'"
That still cracks me up. If you knew Ed, you'd find it as funny as I do.
All that came to my mind when I started reading an essay by Sour Bob that also cracked me up. I'm not mean, I really don't hate hippies. But The Hippie Gets It In The Afro had me laughing so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.
Ah, youth.
(Hat tip: Weekend Pundit.)
That's interesting. I used to have much respect for 'true hippies', and much hatred for 'fake hippies'. The mark of a 'true hippie' being the radical politics and the mark of a 'fake hippie' being the long hair/tie-die (ie: you up to age 30).
Bohemian is good. Hippie is bad.
I once had to go on a business trip to Eugene, back in 1999 or 2000. Anyway, I can vouch for Dean's friend's statement that the place is hippie central. Gawd. That one weekend -- stuck in Eugene, when it was always raining -- created an indelible impression of Oregon in my mind. And not for the better!
Damn, Dean, my hair never went down further than the bottom of my shoulder blades!
Well Chris, I'd say to you that there are actually three types, not two:
1) Radical politics junkie.
2) Spoiled brat yuppie/child of yuppies pretending to be profound.
3) The person who has the mindset, the attitude, but not necessarily the other trappings.
Hippies can be fun and relaxed people to hang out with. If they're not poseurs or in-your-face radicals, anyway. Or that's how I see it, anyway.
John Barlow is a good example of the third type. If you don't know who that is, click here to check out his home page.
Far out man... I can dig it!
If Dean Esmay is a hippie, then he's my favorite hippie of all time. That's the era when I was coming of age, the late 1960s-early 1970s. Nixon was President then, ha! ha! We had a lot of fun. It was an interesting era: marijuana, LSD, "Hair", Woodstock (we had our own little Woodstock, Vortex, in Portland, Oregon, that year), etc. That was when the first astronauts landed on the Moon. My brother looked good in long hair, and so did his friends, but I never did, so I've always kept it real short, a crew-cut. I'm a "square". Love that word.
I grew up in Eugene (up until I was 25). I can vouce that it is pretty much hippie central for the entire universe. That has advantages and disadvantages, and it's still a very nice town to live in regardless (and probably in some aspects because of).
"I've always kept it real short, a crew-cut. I'm a "square". Love that word."
I sometimes wear a 1940s-style fedora.
Oh, oh, the hippies in Seattle are great! That city is full of charm. They are also in the sate capitol of, Olympia. I went to eat at a real nice place there in Olympia that my daughter introduced me to. Great atmosphere and reminders of the ever lovin' 60's. We had some great pizza there!
Gosh, if I come back again...I want to be a hippie! Chicago has a lot of them on the north side!
Next time you talk to your hippie friend ask him why they own such fantastic eateries, man...groovy. Chicago, Seattle...uumh, good food and neat pockets of old hippies and grown older ones.
Oh, my cappie girlfriend...she has been around the world. Neat gal, anyway she too followed the Greatful Dead, along with her good friend in Washington that is a radio disc. jockey. What does she play there in Washington, D.C?
THE GRATEFUL DEAD!!!
I am coming back as a hippie and no kids, if I have kids, well then...like your funny post of 20 something things to do, I will tell them we have no food and they have to go live with welfare or something. "Kids, go blow it out your ears, I'm going to join a hippie community and put flowers in MY HAIR! Yeah, when I come back next time around!
Dah...my cabbie girlfriend. Man you wouldn't believe all the lady cab drivers here in this town in Tejas!
I am up late crusing the posts here and other places!
""I've always kept it real short, a crew-cut. I'm a "square". Love that word."
I sometimes wear a 1940s-style fedora."
The "sometimes" is only because I don't want to risk losing it just going to the store or something. Those hats are not that easy to find these days, unfortunately. I would love to see men start wearing them again. A man looks more manly wearing such a hat, even though I'm not a man's man. I wear it on more or less special occasions, e.g., with family or friends.