AdamH Posted August 7, 2003 Report Share Posted August 7, 2003 Man, I'm feeling the "Deep Question" thing today, so here's another thought to get you going: quote:Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life. Timothy Leary (The Politics of Ecstasy) 1967 So this was Tim's description of the term, and it's one I agree with. Do you feel that this scenario is different now, almost 40 years later? We still have the dichotomy of the "visible" and "invisible" communities...those who dress but don't act the part and vice versa. Do you believe that there are more of the dressers and fewer of the actors? Perhaps people enter hippyland as dressers, and through exposure to the true elements of a hippiy, reach the real and honest actor that we all want to be. I have a particular friend who many would say dresses the part but who is..in my mind..the most real and most honest person I've ever met. He carries with him a hippy vibe but when you befriend him you realize that he's working on different levels than you are, seeing things in completely different ways and challenging you to be the actor instead of just the dresser. Still another friend (female) dresses the part considerably well, and will chastise certain people for trying to grow dreads because they're basically not cool enough to have them. Further along the spectrum is someone who dressed the part, liked the Dead, smoked lots of drugs and said "cool" alot, then tried to cheat her friends out of rent and bills. That feeling really shattered my belief in people being inherently good. Then again, her behaviour was very real and very powerful so maybe she was a true hippy after all...shunning the "rent" establishment. I'm really mixed up on this. Straighten me out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhishyK Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 I think it depends alot on where you live. For example, last year I moved from Victoria to Toronto. In Victoria there are thousands of hippy dressers. Toronto has like 10. Yet Victoria's population is about 5% of Toronto's. What's up with that? I think it's the urban environment of Toronto. People in Victoria wear green clothes and dreads because they see green nature and trees. In Toronto all you see is urban chaos so you dress like an urbanite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancingbear Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 leary was a genius. love the quote. hippy is just like he says, an umbrella term covering a group of people who share a passion to make the world better and happier. It doesn't matter what you wear or how you wear your hair. I mean for every awesome inspirational person who sheds the light wearing burks and bearing dreads, there is one who wears a suit, and who might even drive a sports car. (as long as he/she doesn't keep it very clean). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven_Space Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 Actually, wasn't Leary a CIA informant? Didn't he work for the man? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booche Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 "Actually, wasn't Leary a CIA informant?" Damn straight. He also was the contributing factor in 05-08-77 being a fake show! Just ask Jerry, he came up with the idea........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raven_Space Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 No, I'm actually being serious here. A lot of people from that era have gone on record not being totally comfortable having been around Leary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kung Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 I always figured hippy was akin to labels such as beat or bebop. Or at least beat insomuch is it's something largely invented by the media to encapsulate a movement that they don't understand, usually after that movement has already signed it's deathknell. I think John Clellon Holmes coined the expression Beat again well past the zenith of the movement which is when everyone caught on to it. Well Herbert Huncke is said to have brought the particular use of the expression to the eyes of people like Ginsberg and Kerouac, Holmes just wrote about it first explicitly. There is and isn't a distinctive quality that makes beat 'beat', usually sloppiness, Kerouac used to opine again well after the fact that he felt the term meant what Huncke intended as in beat down but also beatific or inspired. Either way it's largely a mainstream media hogwash expression. Of course all of the beret wearing goateed weirdness is just poserism too but Dizzy Gillespie was happy to be the beret wearing negro for the masses as was Kerouac for a time. Dizzy is to bebop as Kerouac is to beat. Oh and I agree with everything that's been said. Look for Hunter S. Thompson's very old piece Hashbury Is The Capital of Hippieland for the very young and fairly straight Hunter's take on hippies. I seem to remember a story about tourbuses rolling through the Haight so that tourists could get a gawk at some real live hippies. Apparently acid freaks would occasionally run along the sidewalk with mirrors! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kung Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 quote: In the swamplands long ago, Where the weeds and mudglumps grow, A Yipiyuk bit on my toe… Exactly why I do not know. I kicked and cried And hollered “Oh”— The Yipiyuk would not let go. I whispered to him soft and low— The Yipiyuk would not let go. I shouted “Stop,” “Desist” and “Whoa”— The Yipiyuk would not let go. Yes, it was sixteen years ago, The Yipiyuk still won’t let go. The snow may fall, The winds may blow— The Yipiyuk will not let go. The snow may melt, The grass may grow— The Yipiyuk will not let go. I drag him ‘round each place I go. This Yipiyuk that won’t let go. And now my child at last you know Exactly why I walk so slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Booche Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 "I seem to remember a story about tourbuses rolling through the Haight so that tourists could get a gawk at some real live hippies. Apparently acid freaks would occasionally run along the sidewalk with mirrors!" Of course they did! Why hadnt I read that one before, or did I? Beautiful It said more about the people on the tour buses than it did about them damn hippies............ That's the best thing I have read on this board in a while (well, since I can remember. That may only be 15 minutes or 15 years) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esau Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 quote: On October 6, 1967 dozens of mourners gathered in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to mark the death of Hippie, an imaginary character killed off by overexposure and rampant commercialism. A broadside distributed at the event stated, "H/Ashbury was portioned to us by Media-Police and the tourists came to the Zoo to see the captive animals and we growled fiercely behind the bars we accepted and now we are no longer hippies and never were." The mock funeral celebrated not the end of ideals and beliefs but hippie commercialism and its ultimate core site, the Haight-Ashbury.Selling the lower east side. Hippies are long gone in my opinion,maybe some ideals still linger,I have never liked the word used to describe me thats for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B & Z Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 The hippies are all running TicketBastard! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishin4groove Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 if I had the director of the C.I.A in fornt of me, I would beat him with a rubber hose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snarfmaster C Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 a few years back (when my style of dress would be considered hippie-styles for sure) my sister introduced me to a friend of hers as a hippy. i didn't know what to say! i mean, this person is going to judge me quickly enough on their own, they don't need a category handed to them on first contact! (a poorly defined category at that!) besides, what my sister thinks of as a 'hippie' (and of myself) is likely different at least in some ways (probably in many ways) of what this friend thinks of when he hears the word. she knows my ideals - he saw my dreadlocks and beautiful skirts. i agree too with what phishy k said--- islanders around nature do more readily wear nature-y styles.... actually i've found a lot of differences in attitudes, human interaction, energy etc.. between the island and ontario since i've been here - not to mention dress. took a while to get used to people and how things work in an urban ontario setting. funny, now that i think about it maybe i'm dressing more urban since i've been here too. never made that connection - thought it was a personal evolution, but maybe more related to my environment. i'm rambling.... where DID all the hippies go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamH Posted August 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 My Mom lives in Sydney (20 mins outside of Victoria) and I live here in Ontario. There are differences in attitudes for sure, but I don't think the style of dress is all that different, it's just that the droves are bigger. Many of the hippies you meet out West (I can only speak for Victoria) are actually from Ontario anyway so where's the logic in all of that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snarfmaster C Posted August 8, 2003 Report Share Posted August 8, 2003 quote: Originally posted by ahess6488: I don't think the style of dress is all that different, it's just that the droves are bigger. what do you mean? not that it matters, really, i just don't follow. i think that's what phishy k said that i was agreeing with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arcane Posted August 9, 2003 Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 Someone called me a hippie a while back. Man, that was weird. Earthfreak's sig ... To quote The Mercenary: "Pain is the feeling of the Dark Goddess driving weakness from your body." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vermontdave Posted August 9, 2003 Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 quote: Originally posted by Esau13: quote: On October 6, 1967 dozens of mourners gathered in the panhandle of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to mark the death of Hippie, an imaginary character killed off by overexposure and rampant commercialism. A broadside distributed at the event stated, "H/Ashbury was portioned to us by Media-Police and the tourists came to the Zoo to see the captive animals and we growled fiercely behind the bars we accepted and now we are no longer hippies and never were." The mock funeral celebrated not the end of ideals and beliefs but hippie commercialism and its ultimate core site, the Haight-Ashbury. Selling the lower east side. Hippies are long gone in my opinion,maybe some ideals still linger,I have never liked the word used to describe me thats for sure. I agree. You nailed it right on the head! Then again that old tune 'Hippie Hippie Shake', is always a crowd pleaser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunshine Posted August 9, 2003 Report Share Posted August 9, 2003 No matter what, there is always going to be "categorizations" in society. Whether it's the right or wrong labels/terms being used... ...just remember to never lose track of who you are and what you stand for! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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