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!!!???!!!

Bean Bags

Hippies love bean bag chairs, and will often have two or three of them strategically placed in their bedrooms. They find bean bags offer the perfect conduit for lazily slacking away the day. They are cushy, mushy, squishy, and easily moldable to whatever body type and physical shape or position the user has. This makes them ideal for laying on/sitting on while stoned on psychotropic substances, as such drug users often have difficulty maintaining correct posture and positioning in standard chairs, couches or other pieces of furniture. And they come in a wide variety of colors and patterns which, when combined with black lights, provide hours of entertainment for doped out hippies.

Black Lights and Lava Lamps

Aside from a water pipe, there are two accessories that you will find in just about every hippie’s home: a lava lamp and a black light. Both originated back in the 60’s, and were developed for one specific purpose: to “trip out on” while under the influence of mind-altering substances. The lava lamp makes little blobs of goo float up and down through a flask of oil situated over a light bulb. The black light imparts a purplish haze throughout the room that allows certain colors to become enhanced, while other colors remain dark. Both are considered groovy when high. There are lots of posters depicting hippie-era musical acts – like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Beatles, and so on – specifically designed to be viewed under a black light. Combined with the oddly-shaped goo blobs in the lava lamp, the black light provides stoned out hippies with hours of entertainment, as they stare intently at the posters and goo blobs, finding “hidden” shapes and messages planted there by hippies of old who, most certainly, were high when they created them. Of course, when the dope wears off, the messages and shapes are gone, leading the hippies to wonder, Were they ever really there? What a conundrum!

Water Pipes

Hippies have a special place in their hearts for water pipes. Known more commonly as bongs, water pipes facilitate the smoking of marijuana, sending the smoke through a chamber of water so that it is smoother and less harsh for the smoker’s lungs. The water, it is said, also removes some impurities and particulates from the smoke that are bad for the lungs. Thus, the water pipe is the instrument of choice for potheads, and they put much thought into choosing the right one. Typically, hippies purchase their water pipes at what’s known as a “head shop.” These places sell water pipes, regular pipes, rolling papers and all sorts of hippie accessories, like lava lamps, black lights, incense and Led Zeppelin posters. But they are very careful to note that such pipes and smoking devices are “for tobacco use only!” I don’t know exactly what the law is, but apparently it’s illegal to sell paraphernalia for the purposes of using drugs, so they pretend that their customers are going to smoke good old tobacco in these water pipes. Of course, tobacco is the furthest thing from the mind of the stoned out hippie who wanders in to one of these places. He can hardly suppress his giggles when he marvels at the rows and rows of ornate water pipes – made of hand-blown glass, or ceramics, or composite plastic, or even aluminum – and then notices the signs admonishing customers to refrain from referring to the inventory as “bongs.” They’re water pipes, after all!!! And they’re for smoking tobacco!!! Nothing nefarious going on here, officer!!!

Legal Pot

Hippies are all for the legalization of marijuana, and have worked stridently for decades to force the issue on voters. They have long made the case that pot has medicinal properties and that it should be allowed to be used by ill patients as they see fit. They have also long made the case that marijuana has so many industrial uses – rope, paper, clothing, oil, etc. – that it should be legal to grow it for those purposes as well. And of course, they have long contended that recreational use of pot should be legal because, just like alcohol, it’s a way for people to unwind and relax. On this point, they have all kinds of studies and statistics showing that alcohol – a legal drug – has far more negative health effects than pot, and exacts a far greater toll on society in general.

Well, guess what? In the Pacific Northwest, their arguments have gained ground in recent years, and in California, Oregon and Washington, medical marijuana is legal. Further, California is staring down the barrel of full legalization in an upcoming ballot measure that seems to have majority support. The hippies should be full of glee, yes? Shouting from the rooftops full of vindication for a fight that has gone on for decades! But are they? Well, not all of them. You see, the hippies that actually grow pot don’t want it to be legal. They are scared shitless at the moment, especially those in famed Humboldt County. Full legalization will destroy them, they say, because if just anybody could grow it, the state would see a huge oversupply of weed, bringing the costs down, while concurrently imposing taxes upon growers who, for decades, have worked under the table. It’s a double whammy, for sure. Thus, Humboldt County hippies – long stalwart proponents of legalization – are banding together to keep this innocuous weed from becoming legal. They have bumper stickers and signs in cafes stating “Save Humboldt County: Keep Pot Illegal.” It seems economics – making a killing on growing and selling an illegal substance – trumps all else in hippie land.

How’s that for hypocrisy?

Hating Cops

Hippies hate cops and law enforcement of all types. They feel persecuted by lawmen who search their hippie-mobiles for drugs and paraphernalia and, if they find it, write them tickets for possession of weed. It’s a hatred that goes back decades when the hippies of the 60’s got in physical conflicts with police officers across the land who would just as soon beat a long-haired with a billy club as they would help him cross the street. But these days, the situation has changed somewhat. Cops don’t crack hippie skulls anymore, they just search their vehicles. They generally take it easy on hippies, but when they do find something, they have to do something about it. This is yet another area that hippies just don’t seem to grasp the key concepts. The job of law enforcement is to catch criminals, and like it or not, hippies carrying dope around for recreational use ARE criminals. Why be mad at the cop? He’s just doing his job, man! (…to which the hippie inevitably replies, “yeah, so were the Nazi soldiers at Auschwitz!”)

Forests

Hippies love spending their down time in the forest, where they admire nature’s beauty, take stock of their lives, and generally sit around and do not much of anything. True, trees are pretty and the various natural critters milling about in the forest are fun to watch. But hippies take this one step further: They “bond” with nature in such ways. They claim to gain insight into how “connected” we all are to one another, to the trees and forest, to the streams that meander through them, and to nature as a whole. Well, that’s all well and good. But then they do the unthinkable: they smoke dope. They roll doobies and smoke their weed right there in the middle of the forest, releasing pungent secondhand smoke to fill the lungs of countless poor forest critters. As far as the critters are concerned, the only time there’s smoke in the woods, it means there’s a fire. And if there’s a fire, they should flee, quickly. Thus, whenever hippies light up their blunts, they inadvertently frighten away the very nature that they came to the forest to see. Silly hippies!

Finding Oneself

Hippies love “finding” themselves and tend to take a lot of time doing it. To regular folks, these efforts to “find” themselves look an awful lot like wasting time and avoiding responsibility with an ever-growing list of personal diversions. But to the hippies, it’s “exploration and evaluation of finding one’s place in the universe.” Such efforts typically involve traveling to developing nations and eking out an existence, often thanks to funding and other support from mom and dad. For example, moving to India to “study” another culture and religion, or working on a farm co-op in South America for a few months, in order to gain a greater understanding of the plight faced by the world’s poor, all the while getting a nice and tidy few hundred bucks deposited into their bank accounts each month from the ‘rents. Or simply bumming around with a backpack and a Lonely Planet travel guide to X region, thanks in large part to the around-the-world plane ticket bought for them by grandma. While these things may be fun, and possibly even exciting, they aren’t really ways of “finding” oneself because, after all is said and done, these same hippies tend to “find” themselves back in the Pacific Northwest, smoking someone else’s dope and eating their parents’ organic hummus, while they contemplate turning 30 and wonder where all the time went.

Woody Harrelson

Hippies love Woody Harrelson, presumably because he’s a pothead that hates on Christmas. You might remember, Woody made a comment many years ago on some late night TV show where he disparaged the idea of buying Christmas trees. Something like, “Why do we need to kill living things to celebrate the birth of Jesus?” Well, I’ll tell you why, Woody: Christ WANTS us to kill things. It’s in the Bible, look it up, man. Oh, and by the way, that doobie you’re smoking? It too was once a “living thing.” So the real question is, Woody, why do YOU have to kill living things just to relax and look at banana trees while listening to Native African bongos playing gently in the background? Huh???? Why!!!

Tatoos

Hippies love tattoos, especially ones that depict some aspect of the natural world, or pagan god of nature or environment. A common tattoo for hippie chicks is a flower, or chain of flowers, while hippie dudes prefer marijuana leaves, mushrooms, or other drug references. But hippies don’t seem to understand that this penchant for tattoos goes against the very nature of “natural,” a key component of hippie philosophy. Hippies love natural foods, natural hair growth, natural medicines, protection of nature, and otherwise anything that has the term “natural” in it. Yet, injecting an ink under your skin to permanently memorialize your devotion to weed is about as unnatural as you can get. No one is born with tattoos…unless you consider birth marks to be tattoos. It is unnatural, alien, and even somewhat “industrial” to have yourself branded in such a way. Oh irony…

Humboldt County

Hippies love northern California, especially Humboldt County. Ostensibly, it’s because of Humboldt’s relaxed attitude and progressive politics and the natural beauty of the surrounding redwood forests. But really, it’s the weed. You never see a hippie returning home to Portland from Humboldt carting back with them some pictures of trees or political pamphlets or anything like that. Just weed. And maybe some Larrupin’s Mustard Dill sauce, which apparently you can’t buy outside of Humboldt County, which provides a great excuse for driving down there, as opposed to saying, “I’m going to buy some weed.”

The Big Lebowski

Hippies love The Big Lebowski. Why? Well, let’s count the reasons: He smokes weed, listens to whale songs while taking a bath, has poor personal grooming habits, walks around in his pajamas all day, shirks responsibility at every step, doesn’t work, speaks in non-sequiturs, and otherwise avoids the Big Bummer that is life in modern society. Yes indeed, hippies can relate. Besides, he is also frequently seen with a skinny and fragile loner – somewhat akin to a hippie’s dog – as well as a large, angry fat man -which equates, in hippie land, to the “big boned” bearded lesbian that every hippie circle has.