Transitioning Into a Modern Hippie

[littlebittybobby]

okay---i was checking on the price of a pint of Ben-N-Jerry's "Nutty Buddy", which is what got me thinking: What is the formula for being a modern-day hippie? Is it going to the head shop to barter for used vinyl albums or concert tickicks of your best bands(or the most obscure--that might be even cooler)? But yeah---there must be conventions for being unconventional, so let's generate a checklist, here. I see where summa you kids discarded your old clothes---that would seem to be a faux pas; after all, hippies wear old clothes, don't they? so anyway---your turn. Edited to add: Ben and Jerry needta sell their ice cream,(vanilla Fudge, Strawberry Alarm Clock, etc.) in metric increments. Gram, CC. Kilo. etc. It will make their product more authentically hip.

[catherine]

Well, I think that just like Haight-Ashbury was Hippie Central back in the day, I think you can look at certain places and take your cue from the cultures there... I live in Vermont, which has a hippie-ish culture. Maybe not as much as Portland, OR. I think of hippie culture as:

• Being a "maker" or creator of pottery, jewelry, textiles, etc.
• Having "back to the land" aspirations
• Thrifting for clothes--but the clothes still have to have a coolness factor, like vintage band t-shirts.
• Participation in protests for peace, love, and justice.
• Growing your own weed and smoking it around a firepit with friends.
• Eating organic.
• Of course, following the hippie bands of the day, but I couldn't name what they are now.

So I think the basic old 60s-70s rules apply for being a good hippie today. But obviously, no one today calls themselves a hippie. The term itself is outdated and maybe even derogatory. Younger generations want nothing to do with Boomers. That's OK. They have their own thing.

[LessIsBetter]

Maybe you can find a hippie commune nearby?

[LDAHL]

Well, I think that just like Haight-Ashbury was Hippie Central back in the day, I think you can look at certain places and take your cue from the cultures there... I live in Vermont, which has a hippie-ish culture. Maybe not as much as Portland, OR. I think of hippie culture as:

• Being a "maker" or creator of pottery, jewelry, textiles, etc.
• Having "back to the land" aspirations
• Thrifting for clothes--but the clothes still have to have a coolness factor, like vintage band t-shirts.
• Participation in protests for peace, love, and justice.
• Growing your own weed and smoking it around a firepit with friends.
• Eating organic.
• Of course, following the hippie bands of the day, but I couldn't name what they are now.

So I think the basic old 60s-70s rules apply for being a good hippie today. But obviously, no one today calls themselves a hippie. The term itself is outdated and maybe even derogatory. Younger generations want nothing to do with Boomers. That's OK. They have their own thing.

Build a major brand peddling a hippy image to middle class consumers, and then sell out to Unilever for a few hundred million?

Personally, I’d prefer a return of the Beatniks. They were much more interesting and hygienic than the Hippies.

[iris lilies]

if I dress like Stevie Nicks, am I recreating my early adulthood to the aspirational wardrobe I didn’t have back then?

[Tybee]

The problem with dressing like Stevie Nicks now is that one looks like a secretly alcoholic villainess on an episode of Midsummer Murders.

[iris lilies]

The problem with dressing like Stevie Nicks now is that one looks like a secretly alcoholic villainess on an episode of Midsummer Murders.

Yes, alas.

[littlebittybobby]

okay----this grocery store down the street that was built in 1988, but has reinvented itself several times, has a new sales attraction. In the space previously occupied by a starbucks, is some pool-table-like shelves, onto which a pallet containing misc & assorted return-merchandise from amazon. Day one of the week(thursday), every item is $8, and every day the price goes down. What is left by tuesday is dumpstered, so it can be restocked with new "stuff". at first, i ridiculed the people(but not to their faces, of course), for being toothless, tattooed, cigarette-smoking hillbillies, digging like dogs through the piles of merchandise. Some of them evidently brought knives in a 7 AM on day one, to open the boxes to examine the items and even lose some of the pieces. jerks! why don't i have the nerve to try that? but yeah----what's happened there in the last couple months is kind of supernatural; i have wished and hoped for certain items to appear for sale, and voila! Today i got an umbrella to keep in my car and a high-intensity led clamp light for my workbench, for $8 each. yeah---i could've waited another day for the price to go down, but the bargin' huntin' folk were hard at it, diggin' like doggs, and i didn't want ta miss out on two primo deals. nope. another thing is that normally they don't have attractive wimmin workin' as cashiers there, but now i've spotted the exception. She is a 1960's-style long-haired hippie chick, neither super-thin like mama michelle or super chunky like mama cass. no tats, no nose jewelry, no weird hairstyle. it turns out she is a devoted catt mom, and she mention the "cat distribution system". Ha. `Prolly young enuff ta be my grandkid, but that's okay---she's legal. wish me luck. `

[rosarugosa]

Good luck, Bobby. I hope she turns out to be your soul-mate!

[catherine]

Personally, I’d prefer a return of the Beatniks. They were much more interesting and hygienic than the Hippies.

Well, Beatnik poetry was certainly better.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
Howl, Alan Ginsberg

vs.

Give me a head with hair,
Long, beautiful hair.
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen waxen
Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here, baby, there, mama
Everywhere, daddy, daddy
Hair (Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair)
Flow it
Show it
Long as God can grow it, my hair.
(Hair. From the musical, Hair)

Bobby, regarding your new find in the grocery store: sounds like a match to me!