AtDTDA 32: Fantasia on a Fantasia of Thomas Tallis Pt. 1

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

            Jill:
            This is, in all respect, just a post about what hippy means 
            to me, and not about the community in which Robin grew 
            up and shared much joy. . .

. . .and much, much pain. . .

            Many life situations shared by country people and hippies 
            might have been the same. I just can't shake the perjoritive 
            of hippy. Hmm. Maybe I should look at that.

Go ahead, don't stop on my account. . . 

            The word hippy never brought me a positive feeling to me, 
            overall. And when I think of who Tallis had in mind, hippy 
            was far from it. I kind of thought about people who woke up 
            early, worked hard as a member of a small rural community. 
            A school teacher mother who walked 5 miles through rain and 
            snow, to a one-room school house to teach in rural West Virginia. 
            People who lifted and carried heavy loads from barn to truck... 
            I have been listening to pop country music this week from the 
            early 70's and some of the lyrics, "here in topeka, the rain is a 
            droppin' the faucet's a drippin' and the kids are a-bawlin'". Now 
            Loretta was singing about the contrast between the glitz and 
            glam of the hollywood elites and the country people. But hippies, 
            at least at the time, was a perjoritive word for other self centered 
            peoples interpreted by country people, well it wasn't good to be a 
            hippy to everyone. 

I suppose additional context would be helpful right here. I play blugrass/old 
timey music on Wednesday nights, supporting Kenny Hall's Voice and 
Mandolin. I was installing flooring with rednecks in Fresno in the early 
seventies. Heard a lot of them Billy Sherrill productions while inhaling 
psychotropic vapors. Bea/Mom was inaccessible, off in some utopia 
that went poof in a cloud of weed smoke by the time I really could settle 
in L.A. That was 1975 and Parquat was endemic. And I've seen my
fair share low-life scum passing themselves off as some sort of enlightened 
beings. It is to laugh. . . 

            My impression of hippiedom was that in it's attempt to cancel out 
            rules and open up the mind, just as many rules and laws of being a 
            proper hippie emerged. 

Hippies came from Acid, Acid came from Gaia. Now deal with it.


            My folks lived on the other side of the country and in the 60s, 
            during the Vietnam war, always only had thought of the act 
            of being a soldier as a noble task of some kind. Anti war 
            protests was one thing, but spitting on soldiers when they came 
            back rubbed people like that the wrong way. Kinda unfortunately 
            soured it for any good hippies that were out there. The manson 
            kids, the scene at Altamont, etc etc, removed any last vestiges 
            of positive ideas about hippies for people like my parents, and 
            by extension, probably me too. But maybe I need to look into 
            my navel here on this. 

My Mom prefered to refer to herself as a "Freak".
Compare the horror of the Manson family to the horror of the Vietnam war.
Yesterday, at the shop, quite early in the day, a Witch and her very 
confused husband came by, the Mrs. looking for candles and suchlike.
He said: "Not to get too political, but what if Iran has a nuclear bomb and 
can set it off wherever they like, isn't waterboarding justified then?"

And I said "Yes, we have the stockpiles of nuclear wepons, they can go 
off accidently, so let's start that waterboarding in the White House, where 
the real problem exists." This caused him to foam at the mouth and stomp 
out. Fortunately, we didn't lose a sale and I got to talk more to the lady. 
But yeah, yesterday's Hippies are today's Witches. And Pynchon has 
always known that. Read Gravity's Rainbow again, if you don't believe me.

            But there probably were hippies who helped their communities, 
            raised chickens, lifted loads, fixed trucks. 

That would be Me, my sister, my Mom, my friends, Food NOt BOmbs. . .

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/

            And, there might have
            been self centred country people. 

Like President Bush? Tom Delay? Turdblossom?

            So, just food for thought on the value of the word hippy. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAsxLKC1Dk