hippies

ritamaya · Post by **ritamaya** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 10:23 am

There is a huge difference between hippies and dirt surfers

Hippies, good, sweet and self sustaining

Dirt Surfers, those freeaks that hang out in A camp at Rainbow and suck the community dry

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:43 pm

Well, another difference is that the "dirt surfers" as you call them tend to burn better than the hippies because of their higher alcohol content. It can take a week for the fire to go out sometimes. The hippies are quite hard to get lit. Most are already burned to a crisp anyway.

Sensei · Post by **Sensei** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:56 pm

No offense there Geekster, but I'm betting you wouldn't know what a hippie was if one fell out of the sky and landed on your face and wiggled.

Now back a coupla few years ago, when Sensei still had his ponytail, he was innocently walking along a side street in Black Rock City. Before Sensei appeared a sign, "Hippie Shavin' Camp". It was kinda early, before 9 a.m., but Sensei made his presence known. They had a quick quiz, to ensure only actual hippies got shaved. The only question I can recall now is, "Have you ever worked for food?". I answered in the affirmative to every question.

No, they didn't shave poor Sensei. Instead, they treated Sensei like the hippie he (proudly) is. I think they gave me some bean dip on a tortilla. I was in heaven. THANK YOU HIPPIE SHAVIN' CAMP!

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:15 pm

Sensei wrote:No offense there Geekster, but I'm betting you wouldn't know what a hippie was if one fell out of the sky and landed on your face and wiggled.

Well, maybe ... but I am a child (by that I mean I was born in the '50's) of the late 60's, early 70's and have gotten a whiff of one or two. Actually, I am just kidding. I have never really ever burned a hippie or a "dirt surfer". It was an extrapolation based on watching Sterno and a chafing dish. Pretty much the whole thing including the "whiff thing" above was a joke. In about 2 minutes your mouth is going to close and then open again and you are gonna go ... Ahhh! and then you will get a frown and go Huh? Didn't you?

Sensei · Post by **Sensei** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:46 pm

geekster wrote:... Pretty much the whole thing including the "whiff thing" above was a joke.

Really? Never would have guessed. In about 2 minutes your mouth is going to close and then open again and you are gonna go ... Ahhh! and then you will get a frown and go Duh? Didn't you?

Sensei · Post by **Sensei** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:53 pm

geekster wrote:...I have never really ever burned a hippie or a "dirt surfer".

I just wish I could say this, but that dirt surfer really had it comin'. I confess that I really hate it when dirt surfers call me bro'.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:13 pm

well...I am a true blue Hippie and proud of it! Now, what's a dirt surfer? same as a dirt napper?

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:13 pm

Sensei wrote:
geekster wrote:Really? Never would have guessed. In about 2 minutes your mouth is going to close and then open again and you are gonna go ... Ahhh! and then you will get a frown and go Duh? Didn't you?

Dude! You got psycho powers or something! Awesome!

Actually, I always secretly wanted to be a hippie back in those days, but there weren't any real ones around where I grew up. We had to make believe in this structure we built out in the woods next to a gravel pit. It was pathetic, really.

Sensei · Post by **Sensei** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:47 pm

Your heart was in the right place. That counts.

Markov Chaney · Post by **Markov Chaney** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:55 pm

Thank goddess some real hippies spoke up to defend themselves. I was really getting tired of all the hippy hating going on.

PetsUntilEaten · Post by **PetsUntilEaten** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 12:25 am

chaney -

aw - its only that there's so much "can't we all get along" in so many people's version of the "burningman spirit" - that hippies are and instant fake rivalry target in the "lets create mayhem & chaos" crowd.

- - feel our love - -

- the old fashioned way- .

Markov Chaney · Post by **Markov Chaney** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 7:18 am

Nah Pets,

I'm not offended for myself. I'm certainly not a hippy. I tend to get a little defensive when I feel that friends are being attacked, however indirectly. It's never nice to characterize an entire subculture based on the actions of a few. Just ask Capt. Goddamit how he feels about the Frat Boy comments which happen so often on this board. I can hang with joking, it just becomes annoying after a while.

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 8:35 am

Markov Chaney wrote: Just ask Capt. Goddamit how he feels about the Frat Boy comments which happen so often on this board.

Amazingly good point... just an hour later I said this http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... 3270#83270 without having seen this thread...

bullD · Post by **bullD** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 8:45 am

Captain Goddammit wrote:
Markov Chaney wrote: Just ask Capt. Goddamit how he feels about the Frat Boy comments which happen so often on this board.
Amazingly good point... just an hour later I said this http://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic. ... 3270#83270 without having seen this thread...

Now thats funny/weird, goddammit...

birdbrain · Post by **birdbrain** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 1:21 pm

Hi, Markov et al,

I'm an aging "hippie" who did use some patchouli in the 60 & 70 and the Nag Hammadi (sp) incense too. I still like the scent but have "converted" to Burt's Bay Rum hand cream (good for playa hand)! I choose to keep myself clean, chose to "afford" my ticket, and choose to labor for food and a few capitalistic goodies. Why, I even function while I labor or is it I function to labor??? oh well something like that...

Anyway, the various threads on the subject amuse me/annoy me sometimes. Some might be interested to know I fed several groups of people who were not at all "hippie types" supposedly scrounging for food. I'm not sure what they were and don't like to box people in. Also, as to the comment on another thread saying all we do is knit hats or something.. Well I do and other stuff too. This "youngster" was admiring my little pocketbook so much I gave her one several I'd brought in case someone did like mine.

I am proud that I and others like me/us have taken the best ethics that the 60's had to offer and have incorporated them into our lives. Living and helping others to live while respecting the planet is a pretty good ideal/ethic. Hooray for us!

Anyhow, I'd like to go to a Rainbow gathering. Anybody know their official website? So, maybe a Rainbow AND Burning Man next year. Maybe even a Rainbow THIS year. Know of any?

Peace to all...

Burn hemp, not hippies!

And I sure wish I could cruise on Captain's mutant some year. I'll BMOB!!!!

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 2:57 pm

Markov Chaney wrote:

It's never nice to characterize an entire subculture based on the actions of a few.

Sad but true. It happens every day...

However, not to me. I see Republicans as a tolerant group whose main concern is to clean up the environment and help the less fortunate all over the globe; Frat Boys as misunderstood young men who are really polite, are aware of their impact in other people's lives, and who care for the dignity of women; candy ravers as intelligent, sophisticated people who are in touch with the higher meaning of life; and citizens of Black Rock City as rigid, constipated, uptight, conservative morons who want the whole world to believe, and behave, like they do....

... not to speak of those ultra-violent Buddhists....

Shady Backflash · Post by **Shady Backflash** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 10:09 pm

Tom Wolfe had some funny comments on the term hippie. He basically said it was a "totally Newsweek term" and said that the hippies in the Haight called themselves "acidheads" but that the media wouldn't use the term acidhead because, as he put it, "it sounded like corroding batteries." so they invented the term "hippie", which the Beats in North Beach used to use condescendingly to refer to junior hipsters... then, of course, the Summer of Love exploded but not before the Diggers held the Death of Hippie -- Child of Media funeral procession down Haight street...

All of this is very excellently chronicled in the book "Haight-Ashbury: A History" by Charles Perry, one of the best books on the psychedelic movement ever, and an excellent primer for, believe it or not, Burning Man... the Digger Free Store and Free Movement were all precursors to BRC because, as the Diggers said, "Free is the only thing you can't commodify." and it's also why mountain girl, last year, when speaking to the black rock gazette, said that if the acid tests had been allowed to continue without acid being outlawed or the music industry taking over after kesey was busted, they would have evolved in much the same way that BRC has evolved over time...

i've been called a hippie, or even The Hippie, on occassion. one friend even calls me The Hippie Of The Highest (THOTH), but for the most part i think the term hippie is pretty shallow and mostly meaningless. as a friend of mine said about the burners when he went for the first time in ten years, "these people are hippies and most of them don't even know it..." as in, all the raver kids who think they're "beyond hippie"... well, they've really just integrated another layer of the hippie aesthetic, only in a version that is more suitable to current trends and technology.

of course there is always going to be the stereotype of the freeloader and it is sad but true that that stereotype has so often become projected onto hippie... or the deadhead scamming into shows... or whatever...

well, the fact of the matter is that the elimination of commerce at burning man will keep most of the predators out. there is little incentive for a nitrous dealer in black rock city. so in the end, even if there are a few more longhairs wearing yesterday's patchwork wandering the playa, most of them had to make the effort to get to the middle of nowhere with enough food and water to survive for a week. the prohibitive ticket cost, while a pain in the ass, also keeps out a lot of "fair weather burners."

as for avoiding dirt surfing in black city... good luck. we pretty much define "dirt surfers." i could do phish tour for an entire summer and see fewer dirt surfers than i see in eight minutes after a white out in black rock city. and ya know what? phish tour ain't got nothing on black rock city...

thankfully, there is little reason for most of the phish heads and deadheads to wander into BRC by accident. they have to WANT to be here and that, in itself, means they are typically ready to be part of an experience where they have to contribute energy as well as receive it...

RingO'Fire · Post by **RingO'Fire** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:15 am

birdbrain wrote:...Anyhow, I'd like to go to a Rainbow gathering. Anybody know their official website? So, maybe a Rainbow AND Burning Man next year. Maybe even a Rainbow THIS year. Know of any?

Here's the URL for the official UN-official website, since the Rainbow Family of Living Light is the "largest non-organization of non-members in the world." This website may have info on the periodic regional gatherings as well.

http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow.html

I thought it odd when I found out that the greeting one typically encounters when arriving on the playa is "Welcome Home!", since I've been hearing this same greeting for approximately 20 years upon arriving at Rainbow Gatherings (I've been to eight).

I commonly get pidgeonholed as a "hippie", since I have long hair and a beard and I make and wear tie dye. I actually think of myself more as a "freak" in my many roles as a scientist (geologist), artist, teacher, engineering student, yes, part-time hippie. Now I can add to this list "Burner."

Although I was born in '62, I can still claim membership in the "first wave hippie club" if I so choose. My mom dressed me as a hippie for Halloween in '68, complete with pancho, headband, big round sunglasses, "love beads", and hippie beard taped on with black electrical tape (I have the photographic proof). My aunt, my mom's younger sister, also took me to an anti-Vietnam war protest in '68 when I was six years old (without my mom's knowledge). My mom told me that after we got home from the protest that day, that I was sitting on the floor later, playing with my toys and chanting "War! War! No more war! War! War! No more war!"

All the "hippie-hater" talk here on the eplaya doesn't really bother me at all; I just let it roll off my back like a duck shedding water. I had heard about Camp "Beat It Hippy!", and other such camps before I went to BRC. However, I didn't encounter any prejudice or discrimination on the playa, not that I could discern anyway, because of my tie dye, long hair or beard.

I also have to agree with birdbrain:

birdbrain wrote:I am proud that I and others like me/us have taken the best ethics that the 60's had to offer and have incorporated them into our lives. Living and helping others to live while respecting the planet is a pretty good ideal/ethic. Hooray for us!

Also, for real, my personalized license plate on my big-ass Dodge 4x4 is "IF6WAS9" since I agree with Jimi so much:

Jimi Hendrix wrote: If the sun refused to shine,
I don't mind, I don't mind,
If the mountains fell in the sea,
let it be, it ain't me.
Alright, 'cos I got my own world to look through,
And I ain't gonna copy you.

Now if 6 turned out to be 9,
I don't mind, I don't mind,
Alright, if all the hippies cut off all their hair,
I don't care, I don't care.
Dig, 'cos I got my own world to live through
And I ain't gonna copy you.

White collared conservative flashing down the street,

Pointing their plastic finger at me.
They're hoping soon my kind will drop and die,
But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high, high.
Wave on, wave on
Fall mountains, just don't fall on me
Go ahead on Mr. Business man, you can't dress like me.

I'm the one who's going to have to die when it's time for me to die.
So let me live my life, the way I want to.

Sing on Brother, play on drummer.

sparkletarte · Post by **sparkletarte** » Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:58 am

You should come to my town. There are many 'hippies' here or whatever you want to classify them as. The funny thing is that many of them only dress the part, they don't live the ideals. I got into an argument with a righteous 'hippie' on front of a coffee shop because he told all his friends he got his coffee for free, but I was in the shop at the time and he had taken his money back out of the tip jar because he was mad at the server. Then there's the guy who walked around town with a goat, took the goat into shops, and when he was told to get out and take his goat with him, he pulled the 'the goat's a free spirit, man, he's just doing his thing' line, which included pissing on the carpet of my friend's shop.

Some of my co-workers used to look like 'hippies' and as soon as they cut off their hair, the other 'hippies' wouldn't talk to them anymore. They used to go to Rainbow gatherings, which sound really bizarre...there are the drainbows, who show up and mooch off everyone, the righteous rainbows, who think they are the reincarnation of jah and they know 'the way', the drunkbows, those hippies who get drunk and turn into assholes, all sorts of interesting characters I'd rather not spend time with.

Some of my friends go back east to visit and get called hippies, but here they are straightlaces compared to many other people that live here, although I would say many of them have more 'hippie-ish' ideals of lifestyle, rather than just the appearance. It seems like out east if you don't wear make up and have earthy coloured clothes, you're a hippie.

In the end though, I have to say I like the 'hippies' that come through town, because they make it interesting to say the least, and a lot of them make some very positive contributions to my community, just like any other group of people.

cowboyangel · Post by **cowboyangel** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:30 pm

finally got my tyedye tiedie tiedye ? shirt in the mail......it's a bit too shrunken

oh well

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:03 am

sparkletarte wrote:Then there's the guy who walked around town with a goat, took the goat into shops, and when he was told to get out and take his goat with him, he pulled the 'the goat's a free spirit, man, he's just doing his thing' line, which included pissing on the carpet of my friend's shop.

Dang, my mother has an anecdote about some sort of town (berkeley) meeting in the early 70s re leash laws where some hippie was going on about the dogs being the only animals that children see running free and this shouldn't be taken away from thier souls, and all my mother could think about was what the children would think when they saw the dogs get run over.

As for walking the walk, way back when they invented the term Yippie as a way of differentiating the political from the partiers--which could be seen as the beginning of that split. And apparently there ware male long hair hippie wigs so you could have street cred on the weekends and make out with groovey chicks and go back to your straight job not looking like a freak Monday through Friday. I suspect that some of the dissapointment with "hippies" not living up to the standards is a lack of historical knowledge as to how little the standards ever applied in the first place.

What did they call yahoos back then anyway?

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:13 am

theCryptofishist wrote:What did they call yahoos back then anyway?

Hippies.

mars · Post by **mars** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:27 am

Fun Conversation:

My brother, who lives in the midwest, asked me, "Isn't Burning Man just a hippie thing?" I said, "Dude, Burning Man isn't about hippies at all." He said, "I've seen the photos, they all look like hippies to me." I said, "That's like saying all Asian people look and/or are the same."

That stopped him in his tracks, as he has lived in Japan and has done lots of travelling.

blyslv · Post by **blyslv** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:30 am

I'm a frat boy hippie full of PLUR.

So fuck yer day!

playasnake · Post by **playasnake** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 10:55 am

ive always wanted a set of brass knuckles that spelled out PLUR...

hippies

hippies

mutant hippie ninjas

Re: mutated hippie yuppies

~

Re: ~

Re: ~