01/24/2007: "Hippies made me cry"

It's a funny thing to admit, living half an hour south of Berkeley as I do, but I have to be honest with you and admit that I'm not all that thrilled with hippies. Oh, I don't have anything against them, per se, and there were a few in my family (I think my aunt Bean qualifies), but they still don't excite me. I don't just mean people who wore a bit too much fringe or had scary hair or marched in protests. I like those people. Hell, I have pictures of my Dad which send me into gales of laughter because it's like, "Um, Dad? The suede vest with the fringe and the plaid pants and the beard and the hair? (dear god, the hair...) Not a good look." But I don't blame people for dressing like that because I understand that just as with acid washed jeans in 1992, there was precious little choice. It wasn't that we wanted to wear acid washed jeans - we just couldn't find anything else. So too with the suede fringe. I wasn't there, but I can imagine vast warehouses of the stuff. My sympathies go out to those with such limited choice.

It's not individual hippies that I take issue with. It's more... the whole breed. The class of hippies. And I'm talking about, like, Woodstock hippies. The whole lot of them. The ones who need to wash their feet. And their hair. And maybe get a change of clothes because the layers of peasant shirts and paisley? They need an airing. I am a child of the eighties and, frankly, I'm a steel and leather kind of girl. I like my rooms devoid of clutter, my clothes tailored and I want a distinct lack of patchouli oil in my life. I'm not socially conservative, I don't think - I'm all pro-choice and yay, organics and environmentally aware and all that. But granny glasses and being one with the Allness? Not my thing.

Let me give you an example of my style of conservatism. I call it SnarkCon. A few months ago I was visiting my aunt and uncle in Mendocino county. If you know anything about California, you know that Mendo is the heart of The Green Triangle (refers to the growing of a certain illegal crop) and it's one of the many places that hippies wind up when city life gets 'em down. My aunt and uncle fit into this category. My uncle, in fact, proudly refers to himself as a Socialist with absolutely no irony whatsoever.

So we're visiting and the movie Woodstock comes on one evening. I'm knitting away, my mom is knitting away, my aunt is knitting away and my uncle is rocking out with Hendrix and Sha Na Na and whoever else was there. And just to drive him a little crazy, every once in a while during a lull in the conversation I would look up from my knitting and, in my prissiest Midwestern accent, say, "Aw, doncha know they're all hopped up on the goofballs! Oh yah hey and they need a haircut, every one of 'em." This would send my mother into giggles and earn me a shake of the head from my uncle. I think he lost all faith in me when, during a scene in which hippies were grooving in the mud, man, I looked up and said, "Ewww... how unsanitary." His generation tried to save the world and mine was overly concerned about grass stains. It's an unbridgeable divide.

It's not that I disagree with much of the hippie philosophy and the music wasn't bad (well, some of it was, but by no means all and disco was a far greater crisis, so I can forgive Neil Young, I guess. If I have to). I guess it's the naivete that gets me after a while - I'm sort of cynical if you hadn't noticed. And some hippies get really sanctimonious, which I hate in anyone, but any group has it's overly intense members so I can't paint all hippies with the same brush.

It's hard to put a finger on, exactly. It's sort of an overall eye-rolling, "here come the hippies" reaction, I guess. And it was the reaction I had when I noticed that Dave had Tivo'd "Hair" last week. "Oh, brother," thought I. "It's the age of aquarius all over again. Let me bust out my love beads."

Except, you know, with less enthusiam.

"Hair" is not the sort of movie I would have Tivo'd. See hippies, above. I'm too conservative, I guess, and long hair on guys is not my thing. I didn't even recognize Treat Williams until he cut his hair, ok? I was like, "Oh look, George cut his hair and is Treat Williams. Has Treat Williams been in this movie the whole time?"

But I agreed to watch "Hair" because it's not like the hippies were going to come out the TV or anything (although, wouldn't that be awful? Like in The Ring? Except that instead of that drippy drowned girl you'd get a decaying, lumpy Jerry Garcia? shiver)

And do you know what the hippies did, people? I never could have guessed the awesome power of the hippie. But in spite of my better judgement, I watched "Hair" and I let the hippies make me cry.

I don't want to ruin it for the last four people on the planet who haven't seen "Hair" yet, but I will tell you this. The end of that movie is sad! It will make you cry! Even if you don't want to. Which I didn't. But I did! Because... wow. Sad. And also ironic and senseless.

I really did not want Dave to know that the hippies made me cry. I tried to play it off. "Oh, these tears? Hormones. Got something in my eye. Allergies. Not related in any way to the hippies." But it didn't work. Dave saw that the hippies made me cry. But, people, it was so sad! Even though I totally saw it coming! I was like, "Hmm... that doesn't seem like the best plan, George. Perhaps there will be complications." And I was right! I was more farsighted than the hippie! But I do not feel good about that. The fact that I could envision the plan going awry means that I am cynical and George was not and maybe that is not a good thing. I don't think I want to be that cynical...

Oh God. You know what this means right? Not only can hippies make me cry, they can make me think.

Damn hippies.

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01/24/2007: "Hippies made me cry"