A hippie practice you'd like to see come back?

Plus a good part of the music is made on a computer anyways. Between autotune which sounds like nails across a blackboard and drum machines and other virtual instruments, all you really need is one person with some music theory and a pretty face with a...voice to make a contemporary song.

 

Cal-Rey Moon Pies
music with melodies one can whistle
map and compass expertise
Gifford, Meredith & Cosell
<$25 WHO, EAGLES, MOODY BLUES concert tickets
wrinkle-free rock stars
Marilyn Chambers
Cronkite's integrity
morning, evening, late-night News.. not 24/7
sign-off test patterns when stoned
NASA excitement
a thank you when I returned from Vietnam

 

I can only offer a belated thank you.

 

and to you..

and yes, I've noticed how America has fragmented.. being an optimist by nature, I'm really hoping that this Admin is so incompetent that the coming hyperinflation, food shortages, unemployment scares the crap out of indies and crossover voters into a massive negation of MAGA and we see both houses of Congress flip in 2026.. DT just might find himself finally impeached for aiding & abetting an enemy of America and maybe even delivered to The Hague should he move forward with plans to seize Panama, Canada, Greenland, Gaza.. he'd look good ruling over his 8'x12' cell

 

Sounds good to me. And this is one hippie practice that has come back, protest!

To be clear, I opposed the War in Vietnam, but I only protested against the government that was waging it and not the soldiers who served in it.

 

I recently went to San Francisco and stayed at the home of a friend (Presidents' Day, 2025). He had a pile of unopened mail. Among the envelopes was an unopened Christmas card from me. It was postmarked Las Vegas during my Thanksgiving trip there. I was sad that my holiday wishes were still in an unopened envelope three months later

 

Oh it's back baby!!

 

Though both of these have been said already in so many ways-----Love-ins, and Be-ins.

Spontaneous individuality.

Nietzsche would have described the Hippies as embracing the Dionysian. I truly believe that the Hippies were Nietzsche's superman, and if you read Nietzsche as if he was a hippie, I think he makes much more sense. (I think what makes him seem square is the strict objective nature of the German Language. We forget that he was a radical rebel for Germany and philosophy of the late 1800's.) He would say that today we are embracing the Apollinian. We need to embrace the Dionysian.

.............................................................and part of that is, getting back to the garden.

 

Oh, and somebody mentioned it already but-------Bell Bottoms! I've seen them on women, but when are men going to get them?!

I loved bell bottoms!

When I came back from Japan in the early 80's and my mom took me out shopping for clothes, I literally got angry that there were no bell bottoms. I remember saying something like, "Im not a goddamn cowboy! I want bell bottoms!"

My last several pairs of bell bottoms got real ratty walking around the Orient. The bottoms had gotten ripped and were held together with safety pins. But I wore them until 1997, when the maids tossed them as they were packing our bags for our move to America. Im sure my wife told them to get rid of them.

 

far out..

I think the biggest thing that changed after the '60s was around 1976..
everyone had always shared their stash if you ran out.. they knew you'd pay it back when you scored.. but some weird vibe settled in.. a paranoia.. it all changed.. I think a lot of people started doing coke.. surplus AK-47s/stolen M-16s found their way into America because Vietnam ended.. gangs started re-fighting for turf.. you'd knock a friend's door and they'd peek out and get really jittery..

I was born & grew up in Los Angeles when there were 11-13 million people IN ALL OF CALIFORNIA!! by 1980 there were about 20 million in the State..

then between 1972 and 1979 3 bdrm 2 bath 1,300 sf bungalows near where I lived in Venice jumped in price from $38K to $320K.. WTF? time to leave..

we never looked back..

LA was a great town 1955-1975
but we've lived 45 years 1-2 hrs south of CA/OR border..

you could fit ALL of Yellowstone, Yosemite & Glacier NPs in Siskiyou County, CA.. but there's only 42,000 people.. you see bears and deer in town at night.. antelope in plains.. now there's four gray wolf packs.. cougars walk into yards IN MIDDLE OF DAY and snag pets, goats, pigs..

but great place to raise kids in small towns.. they came back from college, great careers, bought homes just before Covid.. popping out grandkids now..

I don't miss the LA we left.. I miss the LA of the 1960s-early '70s..

heck, I miss the America I knew too.. lotsa cops would retire after 25-30 years and they never drew their revolvers.. I watched them build 405 freeway, Santa Monica freeway, LAX, Marina del Rey, Dodger Stadium..

and a 1 oz bag of good pot was $5-$10
and it was freely shared..

 

in early '70s, bell-bottoms were pretty standard unless wearing jeans .. I even used to hop on down to TJ (Tijuana for those too young to remember) and come back with a stack of blankets.. I'd make serapes and keep a few/sell the rest.. it got chilly in LA near the beaches where I lived, but nothing a serape couldn't handle..

hell, I went through a phase where I'd sit with friends and play music, smoke dope, drink Plum Wine, tell people what I did in 'Nam as an RTO in 101st Airborne Division (not the bad stuff) and embroider mountain scenes on my shirts..

my wife said the night we met she'd been checking out my muscular ass in those bell-bottoms made of hundreds(?) of 2"x2" variously-faded denim patches.. life was so very casual back then.. no one worried about anything other than getting pulled over stoned because we were driving too slow.. it was nice meeting a lady and getting married.. in two weeks it'll be 50 years since we shacked up and 49 years of marriage.. and we met in a popular pub for getting laid when horny.. THE PILL removed the main impediment for spending the night together.. hell.. women were predators!!
nowadays, people flip left / right looking at dating sites like they're picking out a puppy at the pound..

anti-social so-called social media..
just get out there with a couple of friends and actually INTERACT with human beings..

people are pretty much looking for the same things.. have some fun!

San Diego Zoo
Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO
(I lived in friend's parents house INSIDE Rocky Mountain NP.. I made decent $$ drawing Long's Peak and the elk that came to accept me and just lay down around me)

 

I should've made my own bell bottoms. (I did actually one time try to take regular jeans, cut up the seams from the bottom and sew in additional denim as an experiment. It didn't look so good. Oh well...)

Long's Peak is a beautiful mountain. I love taking sunset photos and many of them have a view of Long's Peak from the direction of Denver/Arvada/Broomfield/Lafayette.

Fun fact, which you may know, but others probably not-----There were numerous attempts to climb Long's Peak, all of them failed to reach the summit. It was pretty much assumed that it was near impossible to reach the summit. Finally someone did, a John Wesley Powell, and what did he find? An eagle trap that was used by the Native Americans in the area!

Of course today, there is a trail to the summit and a lot of people climb it. Here's the peak:




The first picture is from somewhere in Arvada I assume. The second one is from Stanley Lake in Arvada.

 

nice!

so JW Powell climbed it? same expedition where he rode rapids and mapped Grand Canyon?

Arapaho, Ute, Southern Cheyenne.. hell, probably anyone who could see Long's Peak called it Beaver Mountain.. at the right angle, it looks exactly like a beaver climbing ridgeline near the summit.. in Estes Park there was a restaurant called The Dinner Bell on Elkhorn.. $0.95 per hour.. but - like the rabbi's assistant - I got to keep a lot of tips..

I also made a lot of money playing 9-ball.. I just made sure I played guys drunker than I was..

That was all back in 1973.. I was still kind've messed up from 'Nam.. so in JANUARY (??) I hitchhiked from LA to Van BC and spent evenings at Gastown Inn.. Days were spent at Univ.. an older woman taught me to crochet scarves/berets.. then I thumbed my way to Banff via Okanagan Valley & Kamloops (guy who picked me up between Langley & Chilliwack BC lived at N end of Okanagan Valley and said sleet storm was coming so able back to Kamloops.. he wouldn't accept $$).. lady motel owner in Kamloops felt bad seeing me standing in dark in sleet so gave me room at 50% off ($6) and brought a hot pot of beef stew + loaf of homemade bread.. next morning was clear and cold.. there was a big 50/50 delivery van/bus (painted a psychedelic paisley pattern that was pouring so much smoke out everywhere it was leaking faster than a week-old diaper , kind've like a Cheech & Chong movie) that picked me up.. then the took me all the way to BANFF, AB.. it was 9:30 pm.. there was a almost-empty cafe.. as soon as waitresses found out I was from LA they all wanted to know if I'd ever seen movie stars?? hell yes, they're everywhere.. they buy groceries, TP, lumber, clothes.. my uncle was Charles Bickford.. Dom De Luise found reasons to drop by lumberyard every few days to see me.. he asked if I wanted to be in movies (uh.. no).. Jan Michael Vincent, Vincent Price, Adam West, etc, etc).. but, I suppose I was a novelty because no one let me rent a room or buy food.. all those good ladies made sure I was well fed and had a bed for two months..

Then I made my way to Omaha, NE in March and worked as a hot tar roofer apprentice.. then - in June - I made my way to the Rocky Mountains.. I stayed until the first snows started and the orange aspens waved goodbye..

I felt a lot better after that trip.. ten months among a lot of good ladies has a way of straightening things out..

the people in Canada's western provinces are maybe the nicest I've met in my life.. (I'd soon be visiting the Canadian Maritimes.. they're nice too)..

hell, maybe all of Canada is full of nice folks, eh?

 

yep I remember Long's Peak. Beautiful back in the day.

 

I did a lot of hitchhiking in the 60s and 70s and had a lot of great times doing it, but I'm not sure I want it to come back, too dangerous.

 

One thing I forgot to mention was head shops. Places where you could get paraphernalia for your weed. Plus album rock like the Alman Brothers and Traffic. They sold incense too. We thought it would cover up the odor from the weed. Not.

Along with free love we fucked without worry of HIV/Aids. Sure would like to be able to freely fuck like that again.

 

lotsa headshops here in California. One of the best is the Black in Ocean Beach. I think it may have finally closed...