Long time no see

Sorry it's been so long since my last post...got caught up in a drum circle in Laurelhurst Park. I promise to post more regularly in the future ( unless another drum circle comes along...)

Hippie Nostalgia

Anyone that Googles “hippie” will find a plethora of web sites that claim to be hippie-oriented. Most of them are trash and only want to sell clothing. The rest, though, are strikingly nostalgic of the 1960s, the golden era of hippiedom where the counterculture really stuck it to The Man. (Well, not really, but it sure was fun to pretend!) The point is, there’s a whole lot of hippies reminiscing about the good old days of cheap weed, free love, good music and a sense of wonderment and possibility. One wonders where these folks are these days. As we noted in a previous post, many of the original hippies are now in positions of power and influence, having traded in their tie-dye for button downs. Others are slowly eking out an existence selling pottery and homemade apple butter at northwest farmers markets. Still others, though - and probably the majority - are working middle range jobs in some shitty office somewhere, earning a decent but in-no-way-earth-shattering wage, and dealing with a bulging midsection and a receding hairline. These former hippies still profess many of the same values they did while young, but with a catch: they have modified their original values to suit their current reality. Thus, a formerly staunch environmental advocate drives an SUV, because gee, they just really need all that space. A formerly fist-pounding social justice advocate now agrees with people who complain about the “damn Mexicans” because, well, they’re ruining property values in the neighborhood. The former LSD fanatic now chastises his son for smoking weed.  It reminds me of an old hippie refrain...Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss.

Hippies Discussing The Money Wrench Gang

Hippie 1: “Dude, that’s so cool! They just totally trashed that bulldozer! I wish I could do something like that!”

Hippie 2: “Yeah, and they burned down all those billboards! Man, those cats really love nature…”

Hippie 1: “Yeah, I heard it was based on a true story…I’d like to shake that dude’s hand...”

Hippie 2: “What, that one dude, Hayduke? The one who’s always throwing his beer cans out the window and stuff?”

Hippie 1: “Huh? Umm…that’s not cool…”

Hippie 2: “Yeah, but it was a STATEMENT, dude…”

Hippie 1: “Oh…cool.”

Alternative Schools

Hippies are generally supportive of “alternative schools,” those places where errant teenage hippies go when regular school doesn’t work out for them. These schools don’t teach the usual reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, they teach performing arts, and drawing, and sculpture and the like, giving the students a different skill set more in line with their interests. Unfortunately, these students, upon graduation, are ill prepared for life in the real world, where the ability to understand what you read, and write clearly and concisely, are highly valued. In addition, the skills that these students DO learn - drawing, dancing, playing bongos and such - are not really in high demand and generally don’t pay anything. Thus, the occupational choices available to alternative school graduates are pretty much limited to panhandling and the production of veggie burritos.

Punch-a-Hippie Day

BREAKING NEWS: WASHINGTON - Today President Obama declared June 30 to be “National Punch-a-Hippie Day” in honor of his administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling following the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

“As many Presidents have said before, the buck stops here,” Mr. Obama said, in taking full responsibility for the moratorium, which will put thousands out of work in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

“While I cannot erase the harm that has been done, I can provide this one small gesture: On June 30, frustrated - and unemployed - citizens of the Gulf states may take out their anger on the nearest hippie-dippy environmentalist they come across. Go ahead, give ‘em a whack! We will not prosecute you!”

Naturally, national environmental groups criticized the president for his comments, arguing that it wasn’t their fault and that singling hippies out for retribution amounted to discrimination.

“While stopping offshore drilling has long been a goal of our organization, the President’s moratorium policy was developed and implemented without any consultation with us,” said James Buttercup, executive director of Hippies Against Oil.

“To condone violence upon our kind is not only irresponsible, but may well be the political death knell for this President,” Buttercup added.

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political advisor, said much of the Gulf oil disaster could rightly be laid at the feet of organizations such as Buttercup’s, which have lobbied long and hard against drilling on land and in shallower waters, where emergency response capabilities would have made it much easier to contain a spill of this magnitude.

“I think, clearly, if the hippies had simply let the oil companies drill in ANWR, we wouldn’t be facing this situation today,” said Axelrod.

“Literally everyone else involved in this - BP, the White House, the MMS - has acknowledged their culpability and accepted responsibility for their roles in this fiasco,” Axelrod said. “It’s now time for the environmental lobby to do the same.”

Golf Courses

Hippies hate golf courses, and the game of golf in general. They hate the courses because they require tons of water and chemicals to keep the grass green and free of unwanted pests. As well, they say, golf course construction destroys natural areas that would otherwise play host to tons of critters and native wildlife. They hate the game of golf for different reasons, namely that it is a sport principally enjoyed by the moneyed class and, especially, the good-ole-boy network of corporate executives, politicians and other power brokers that has made positive social change so difficult to attain in myriad areas. Well, they might have a point on that last bit. But as for the environmental stuff, I dunno. Hippies seem to like their big urban parks, with nicely mown lawns and pruned hedges and trimmed trees and groomed walking paths. Really, just take out the tee box from the local golf links and it would look just like Portland’s Laurelhurst Park. And I never hear the hippies complaining about Laurelhurst Park…

420

Hippies love the specific time of 4:20 in the afternoon, and go to elaborate efforts to ensure that at that exact moment, they are smoking weed. Why? Honestly, I dunno. I think it has something to do with the codes that law enforcement uses to identify certain types of drug-related crimes, or something.. But I might be wrong. The point is, the numbers–420–have become a sort of “hip” or “underground” codeword for smoking marijuana. All through the streets of Portland, hippies give a sly heads-up to other hippies as the hour and minute approach, deftly skipping off into the park to join in on a group dope session. They light up “phat” doobies and pass them around, nodding their heads to the background Bob Marley and say things like, “Dude…420!” They even celebrate April 20th in like fashion, since, you know, that’s, like, 420 on a calendar, dude. Down in Santa Cruz (a slightly less hip version of Portland) all the university students get together on April 20 at 4:20 in the afternoon and smoke dope together in the quad, evidently with the full knowledge and acquiescence of law enforcement and campus officials. It’s really gotten out of control. Next thing you know, we’ll have police actually escorting bags and bags of dope into the quad and hand-delivering it to the young and idiotic dopehead hippie mongrels. Where does the madness end!!!???!!!