April 18, 2004

• There are still yippies and hippies out there.
• Many of them migrated to New Mexico and evolved new age movements, spiritual or holistic groups. Then there are small towns like Madrid (pronounced MAD rid), NM, where there is still a relatively healthy hippie enclave. Taos is renowned as an artist community. In fact many of those artists are hippies of one shade or another. Frommers has a great bit on driving tours in the area and mentions the hippies of Arroyo Hondo's New Buffalo Commune. All of this doesn't negate the fact that some hippies did "grow up" or find a love of money. Filmmaker Steve Anderson is an Albuquerque resident who falls into this category.
• I've known a few of them. They became left-wing career politicians, highly profitable, mainstream record producers, or some, like William Gibson, became writers. Most, however, cut their hair, wear suits, have an office job, got married; their give money to their kids so they can get the latest P.O.D. CD and play GrandTheft Auto on their PS2.
• Not to pick on Flagpole, but there seems to be this dominant idea that hippies all grew into wealthy corporate drones. But what about the others of that generation? Not all hippies went to university. I know an ex-hippy still living in a trailer, though not out of choice but because he is poor and unemployed in rural BC. Of course, there's also the fact that hippies were always a small subculture of teenagers and young people - some of whom had hippy children (that I went to school with - never had to worry about fashion because it was so nice and laid back - goodwill was the coolest place to shop). But the rest of the generation wore A line skirts and button-up shirts.
• never had to worry about fashion because it was so nice and laid back We slackers have kept most of the good things from the hippie subculture. And we don't necessarily subscribe to the flowery ideals. Most, however, cut their hair, wear suits, have an office job, got married Gosh, I'm glad found a corporate office job. As much as I hate it, is not the kind of impersonal hell idealist hippies love to imagine.
• err, I din't finished what I was saying. I'm glad that I found it 'coz the other way around I would still be biased in my perception.
• Santa Cruz, CA is still a hippie refuge, particularly the Santa Cruz mountains and up around Bonny Doon. Tie-dye sells well there. :) Santa Cruz is aided by the liberal-arts university and being home to Neil Young. It's a two-way system, too -- the City Council has declared Santa Cruz an official nuclear-free zone. They took a lot of flak in 1999 after imposing a sleeping ban, fining homeless people for sleeping in public. In the last couple of years the amount of local protest has led to an unofficial homeless campsite by the river and when the campsite flooded two years ago, the city helped the residents find alternate shelter. I think those aging hippies from the sixties and seventies have changed causes with the times. These days it's environment, freedom of speech, and protesting SUVs. Some have learned that success can be local, instead of trying for the big banana, and focus on city ordinances -- that seems to be the case in Santa Cruz. (There was a guy in my history class that had a swastika tattooed between his eyes, and the day someone challenged him on it, the rest of the class shouted the challenger down because the swastika guy was allowed freedom of expression...)
• My folks were hippies. Mom ended up settling down in a house in Nashville and became a nurse. My father never ended up taking a "real job" and instead became a professional writer/historian without affiliation with a university. He's still on the move and is looking to outrun the suburbs into Alabama. So that's two of them.
• I just say that one can be liberal and lefty without buying into the hippy attitude.
• My folks are hippies too. They live in semi-rural Colorado with a basenji. Mom became a manager for a health care equipment. My uncle and aunt were special superhippies who made their own yeast for bread and had dozens of terrariums with lizards, fish insects and rare tropical plants. He became a professional student and consultant who turned his house into a library made from cinderblocks and 2x4s; books in every nook and cranny in their east-coast brownstone. Compost drums spinning in the backyard in the morning and tending to the garden in the evening. They never lived in vans. They simply kept on keepin' on. I don't know of a book that covers the topic, though. Maybe if you get enough anecdotal evidence it could be your book.
• People who smoked a couple of joints on campus and slept around for a few summers aren't what I'd call hippies ;-). It was a subculture before it became a marketing scheme. The social networks hippies built are still in place, even amongst those who took a gig working for the Man. The idealized Summer of Love images people have are not representative. Being a hippie meant and means more than following Grateful Dead. The original hippies horrified people just like all "lost" generations do. Youth combined with a pragmatic vision of change is a threat to any established order. As with any movement, the loonies, the crackpot schemes and the celebrities got more attention than the people who buckled down to the hard work of making the world a nicer place.
• There are still some communes around New Zealand; one of my wife's uncles lives on one around Golden Bay. There was also Centrepoint up in Auckland, but that was organised aroundby a convicted pedophile, so I'm not sure that really counts as "hippy values."

  (There was a guy in my history class that had a swastika tattooed between his eyes, and the day someone challenged him on it, the rest of the class shouted the challenger down because the swastika guy was allowed freedom of expression...)

  But apparently they hadn't connected with the notion that this works both ways.
• It was a community college. ;)
• I'm a Rainbow Gathering person. I've gone to the nationals with my father since I was ten or so. I have friends I only get to see there, and I love the Gathering. It is hippies, and children of hippies, and grandchidren of hippies, some folks just looking for a party, and a whole bunch of individuals. It's an attempt to pray for peace, and its what raves want to be when they grow up. It has a library. It's often the biggest thing in county wherever it happens. All sorts of kitchens, camps, and Krishnas abound, each with their own interpretation of what the thing means and why the Gathering happens. As far as that myth/prophecy applying to us, I don't personally believe it. Seems like cultural appropriation to me. Sorry. Know that was long. I could go on like that for a while though. Seems likely that it'll be in California\Nevada this year. I hope you can come.
• Not to sound like all crusty, but it is fascinating how counterculture has transitioned 180 degrees from unity and brotherhood to a theme of attitude, selfishness, and engrained consumerism. Somehow I think this is converging on the ultimate expression of the "American dream".
• Sorry, I had to throw this out too -- I am banking on the possibility that counterculture has cyclical qualities, and that in 2020 the hippie movement might rise up as a backlash to today's stylish consumerism and arrogance. Stuff is only cool for so long.
• there are *plenty* of hippies here in madison. not just at state street or willy street, either; they're all over town. like berkeley, i guess. minneapolis had a sizable number, as well, last time i was up there. most of them were near dinkytown, i think. also, there has always been an overwhelming majority of hippies at every -- usually sold out or nearly so -- phish concert i've been to. lots and lots of hippies. i bet there are a shitload at burning man, too; though i've never been there.
• Pez - I think the Rainbow Gathering sounds fascinating - please post details when it comes up. thanks!
• The hippie community is alive and well in the Pacific Northwest! Especially in the San Juan Islands and surrounding counties. I even see a Green Tortoise bus from time to time. One of our local communes, the Love Israel commune, just sold their ranch to avoid bankruptcy. It was a family that was started in 1968, and remaining members are relocating to some undeveloped property in eastern Washington. The Rainbow Gathering, Burning Man, various hemp festivals, etc.. are all major draws for many of the people in this area. A lot of them are still die-hard Dead fans and follow them around while their relatively close to home (meaning the west coast). I lived on Guemes Island for about seven years (year-round population about 350-400) and most of the people living there were hippies. Had been there since early '70's. Even while I was there ('89-'97) bartering was a very common practice among islanders. Many of their children and grandchildren are home-schooled and lifestyles remain simplified. I just don't see the consumerism. That's left to the Microsofties that are invading every square inch of available land.
• i don't mind honest-to-god hippies. we lived next to a family out west, lived in a trailer and had a VW microbus. the dad would drive to any dead concert within a 200 mile radius, and probably further if need be. (of course the VW and the dead following was about as far as the stereotype went - but pretty funny to me even now; that's still how i picture a hippie.) they were very nice people, had a nice kid, and were pretty open to sharing whatever was on the table if you dropped by around dinnertime. i do however take issue with the pseudo-hippies i see on campus now. the ones that apparently feel that since their parents were freaks in college, they need to be freaks as well. there's more to the whole idea than wearing tie-dye, braiding hemp necklaces, going barefoot or wearing rotting birkenstocks, never combing or washing your hair, stinking of patchouli, and being high as often as possible. these kids kind of missed the point, i think. contrasted with the clean, simple-life neighbors we had out west i really can see the difference. our neighbors, if they ever did drugs, never spent their entire time making sure we knew about it. they didn't smell and they wore clean clothes. neither of them had stinking, ratty faux-dreadlocks. somewhere in my sister's jewelry box lives my own mother's hippie beads. but at some point she and my dad changed; probably it was the having 4 kids thing and getting jobs as teachers more than anything else. dad retired the battered cowboy hat and trimmed his beard shorter, mom stopped ironing her hair. the interesting hippie psychedelic pattern "drug rug" poncho-thing that one of them used to wear ended up in the halloween / dress-up box. we used to refer to it as a "hobbit coat" 'cause we had no idea what else to call it. they even stopped picking up hitchhikers before i was 10 or so; used to be on any given road trip we'd pick up someone or other and give them a ride. with a van that seated 12 (before dad removed the extra back seat) it was hard not to justify picking someone up i guess. we had the room. i don't think my parents were ever truly hippies. i just think that they were influenced by them - college in the late 60's / early 70's, large campus, different era. probably a lot of people were on the fringes of the movement. would have been interesting to see what they were like then.
• Hippies are still trying to ruin the country!
• "Whose life is more important: the 12-year-old Iraqi firing an Uzi or a soldier from Kentucky? Which is more sacred: a mosque hiding a weapons cache or a plane of tourists?" As if it's all either-or. I'd love to meet this clown and give him a thoroughly un-liberal, martially enthusiastic smack upside the head. Stupid, stupid man.
• Who says the Herald-Leader doesn't publish opposing views? The tirade against hippie, "lefty loonies" by Jenean McBrearty was a terrific introduction to the rantings of an authentic "right-wing nut job." I had never met one before, but now I know they exist. HW, it's a her by the way.
• Thx, SMT. Just goes to show you about making assumptions.
• Damn hippies!
• DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti- Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan. Don't forget it's pro-kid-kicking too. Christian kids. Shame!
• The hippies are revolting!
• Where Have All the Flower Children Gone?
• A long rant about global warming and dirty hippies
• One of my students, upon seeing my newly-pierced earlobe today (I take my eyebrow ring out at work and my elementary school students never see it) said, "Mr. R., all of the kids are saying that you pierced your ear because you want to be a hippie." I thought, but didn't tell her, "There are a lot of things that make me kind of a hippie, and this is among the least of them."
• I know some hippies; two old enough to have actually Been There, Man and one younger one. They run a game company here in DC.
• This . . "younger one" . . she vibrates? Hello? . . Helloooo? . . huh. Musta got disconnected.
• "Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation this"?
• "All hippies must die"