What's Goin' On?

Hello Everybody,

Wow, it's been a long while, the Universe was calling me to wander for a bit...

Thanks to those of you who wrote in while I was gone, I answered your questions at the "Ask The Hippy Guy" link. It shouldn't take as long next time.

While I was away I started a pad at MySpace, the address is http://www.myspace.com/po_man_sings ...or you can just click on the new link in the Blog list. Good to be back!

Peace and Love, The Hippy Guy

Teach Your Children

Children held a very special place in the hearts of hippies.
We vowed never to grow up,
we called ourselves children of the universe, star children and things like that.
Children are pure, clear eyed, and largely unwearied by this cynical world.
We held children in very high esteem.

We knew that sooner or later parenthood would cause us
to have to make many uncomfortable decisions
about our uncompromising quest for unrestricted freedom.
In the movie Woodstock John Sebastion sings about the kinds of things
we might hear from our own children someday:

"Hey, Pop...My girlfriends only three,
she's got her own videophones
and she's a takin LSD.
And now that we're best friends
she wants to give a taste to me...
But hey, Pop...How come you're tuning green..."

From the hippy point of view, everything begins and ends with the children.
In fact the same movie begins with a song from CS&N written about Woodstock:

"I came upon a child of God,
He was walking along the road,
and I asked him 'Where are you going?
'this he told me.
He said 'I'm going on down to Yasquer's farm
going to join in a rock and roll band.
Gonna camp out on the land,
and try to set my soul free."

And of course there's the unforgettable rock classic by the same band, "Teach Your Children":

"Teach, them all your dreams
the ones they pick
are the ones you'll know by."

And then there was one of the very most popular posters
that you would find just wherever you found hippies,
copies of an original artwork painted by a nun.

"War is not healthy
for children
and other living things."

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The Hippy Guy, where cool is the rule.

The Universe

Hippies knew what quantum theorists would discover decades later, that the universe is a singularity, it's all connected. It may be multiple faceted, but that's because it's alive. It's permeated with consciousness.

"To the Native American all things are alive. To the white men, all things are dead already." -Native American wisdom

The universe was our teacher. All you had to do was to attend, in consciousness, to be aware of the fact. Some empiricists might call that magical thinking, but these days we know that the universe is a singularity, is alive, and apparently conscious. Thanks to hippy guy Fritjof Capra for the Tao of Physics, man. If you read such things and aren't hip to how
magical the universe really is, you must be brain dead or something.


Everywhere I went the universe was there to show me something. To prove it's consciousness to me. It was the big Everything, man.

One day after our high school rap session, which was always followed by a wonderful group Om chant, my friend looks at me and says, "I have a mantra for you." Which was wild
because we'd never discussed such things at all, really. But he looked at me and said, "Om kria babji nami Om. It means the absoluteness is the teacher, the teacher is the absoluteness." Heavy, man. Because like, those were my thoughts exactly.

Sometimes the universe seemed to me in consciousness like an ocean. Some people stood on the shore looking at it, others waded in, some even swam. But if you had faith, that was like having a surfboard. Even still, some people would paddle around, you know. But others would make if their life to ride the waves, to remain above it all, and to become a part of the universe instead of being a bonehead that insisted that the universe become a part of their own meager consciousness.

To me it's like, Jesus wouldn't have even needed a surfboard because he *was* faith. He was nondifferent from his faith. That's what happens when your consciousness becomes universal, absolute. Enlightenment. All we need to do is wake up and embrace that greater reality. "Seeing the Buddha walking down the road, a man ran up to him and asked, 'What
*are* you!?' To which the Buddha replied, 'I am awake!' "

And to me the permeation of consciousness in the universe began to manifest all the more in everything because the hippies left the door open on purpose. It manifested itself in our art, in our music, in the clothes that we wore, in our attitudes towards everyone and everything, our attitude towards the universe itself, of which we are undeniably a part. In such a singularity, we never truly escape what we put into it. Negativity will come back to haunt us, just as positive thoughts will come back to reward us. We can't escape the universe, and each and every one of us is part of it's condition. So then the question is who is putting all the negativity into things, and who is making the universe just a little bit more wonderful. Who's being ugly about things, and who's being beautiful.

To me, Universalism is it's own reward. But to be good at it, one has to practice. Just like anything else.

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Quotes

"Everybody in here is wearing a uniform." -Frank Zappa

The fascists are back. Stand up and be counted. Better get on one side or the other.


"Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong." -Buffalo Springfield, from the song, "For what it's worth".

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Counter Culture

Most people today just don't understand how profoundly psychedelics influenced the world. Nothing new about that, really. People have been doing psychedelics from time out of mind, man.

LSD was a CIA plot that backfired on them big time. Before you knew it, minds were liberated everywhere. Instead of being under the same old propagandist spell of years and years, acid made it seem like you just landed on the planet today and began to look around. Then you couldn't help but notice all the bullshit everywhere. But instead of getting depressed about it, it was like the universe said to you somehow, "Ain't that sumthin'", and it just made you crack up at the enormity of life's absurdities. How can anyone take lieing fools seriously? Well, of course you had to take things like the war, and jackbooted storm trooper police brutality seriously. But that it would win out over the universe? No way, man.
What a joke these fascists are, man. When you get right down too it. Only, you know, when you really think about things like war, it's no laughing matter.

Anyway, acid heads profoundly influenced every kind of art and design work of the times, sometimes in obvious ways, but as often in far more subtle ones. Psychedelics had become part of our legacy, whether fascists want to admit it or not. And according to the Native Americans, part of our heritage as well.

Now, when I'm talking about these psychedelics I'm not talking about the garbage that's been on the streets since the mid seventies which is mostly strichnine and arsenic. I'm not talking about stupid stuff. I'm talking about what was real LSD, but mostly, natural is better. Peyote, shrooms, these days people don't make good drugs. But they should allow better drugs, because then people wouldn't self medicate themselves in this insane society with stuff like speed or sniffing solvents, man. People could, like, you know, smoke some weed or some peyote or something. And for cheap. They wouldn't be turning to all of these drugs marketed by the CIA, man. Meant to make us addicted, stupid, ineffective. No, I like my drugs to be cerebral man. Something I can think behind, you know? And back in the day we educated ourselves about drugs. Everybody knew and accepted the saying "Speed kills."
Which is why we never knew any speed freaks. Or glue sniffers, or heroin addicts, or cocaine addicts, we weren't stupid man. We had self respect. Lot's of pot heads. Lots of acid heads. But none of this other bullshit. Very, very rarely. Out of who knows how many thousands of people I'd partied with, I knew met one speed freak, one heroin addict, and one coke head. All that changed in the later seventies when coke and maggot gagging disco came in as a CIA plot to undermine the counter culture. The "Me generation". Barf, man.

Then they went about their propaganda to make the counterculture look stupid. As for me, I'm proud to have been a hippy. We changed the world, man.

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Quote

All things must pass. - George Harrison

Come to think of it, that was in the Bible too.

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The Rolling Stones

Life used to be so good.

One day I'm sitting around and this other chick calls me and asked me if I want to drop some acid and see The Stones. I was like, "You can't be serious." She laughed. She knew me so well, man. We had a great time. Stevie Wonder opened the show and really was wonderful. I was really, really impressed, man. But the guy behind us who was drinking from a gallon of Spanada wine passed out and didn't wake up until everybody was stomping the floor wanting the Stones to do an encore. I felt sorry for the dude. Afterwards we were standing in the parking lot of The Forum and somebody handed me a lit joint out of their car window. After I finished that, I nearly passed out, man.

But what this really far out chick didn't know was that two days before that I'd tried to get Stones tickets at the forum but failed. I failed even though I stood in line for like two days. It was so sad, man.

More and more people showed up at The Forum box office for tickets. Must have been thousands. Everybody was being cool and partying, you know. But as it grew later people began to like inch their way closer to the front by the box office, nobody wanted to be left out. Since some people were sneakily advancing their way closer to the front of the line, I had this brilliant idea. There was a whole lot of these parking lot dividers, the sawhorse type, sitting across the street doing nothing, so my friend and I lifted a few so that we could establish our area around the box office. Then you needed a password to get back in.
Wonderful, right? But then the people around our cordoned off area were getting invaded, and they went and lifted some partitions. And then the people around them did the same thing. After awhile you had to know a half dozen passwords if you wanted to get back to where I was. So everybody just stayed put and camped out all night, getting high, whatever.

The last of the heavyweight party people were just starting to crash when the sun began to come up. That's when everything changed. Somebody stood up and stretched, then everybody started jumping to their feet and pushing forward, man! As everybody packed in sardine style the partitions all came down. Everybody finally mellowed out until they opened the box office. Then everybody freaked out and started pushing towards the front. It got so bad that they stopped selling tickets to my line until everybody mellowed out. My line didn't move for about an hour. Then, oh, man. They ran out of tickets the couple before me and my friend. Bummer, man!

So, here I am sitting at home thinking, "I guess the universe just didn't want me to go to see the Stones." But when my girlfriend called I suddenly realized, the universe just didn't want me to pay for it man! Far out!

What a cool chick, I think about her to this day. She ended up being a DJ at a radio station in San Francisco, last I heard.

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Quote

"There's nothing new under the sun." Mick Jagger

Later on I found out it was in the bible too.

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Who's Next

One day I'm just sitting around with nothing to do

and this chick calls me up

and asks me if I want to drop some mescaline

and go to a concert.

She had both the tickets and the mescaline.

So of course we went.

*

It was a really big deal.

The Who

were playing at the Forum

on the day that they released the album

Who's Next

in L.A.

The album was all over the radio on the way there.

For the first time ever.

*

We pull the van in for some gas and this narc with a German Shepherd

a three day growth of beard and dumpy plain clothes

but still wearing his rubber soled police shoes

comes running over to the window and says,

Wanna trade some pills for some pot?

and we're like, yeah, right, get outta here!

*

We decided to park at a gas station and walk across the parking lot

so we wouldn't have to hassle so much traffic coming out.

We ate a second dose of mescaline before we left the van.

*

Our seats were so far up in the back that we should have taken oxygen.

The concert was really bitchen', man!

What a light show!

And could those guys perform. Daltry was swingin' his mike all over the place as Townsend jumped and spun his arms around like you wouldn't believe, man.

And it was the first time I ever saw a laser light show.

It was like, the hippy gods had landed.

*

So, I'm watching the show and hallucinating my buns off, and by the time they begin to do one outrageously long medley for an encore, the floor of the forum had turned into one huge brain, and the music was tickling the brain, and then pulling at it, then tickling at it, then pulling at it, like the music was just too much to handle, then it would get sweet again, then become too much to handle, then get sweet again..........................................................................................................

*

But the chick that I went with suddenly started digging her nails into my hand, man!

She told me that I was turning into a werewolf.

And I said, far out, you know.

But she was like really freaking out because of the music and wanted to split.

Awww, man!

Show was almost over, but well, chivalry knows best and all that.

*

Now, the seats in the sky at the forum are on the steepest incline that you've ever seen.

If it were any steeper you'd be climbing a ladder.

And we stood up to leave, you know, but that's when I discovered that

my legs were asleep.

So, I'm like falling over people in their seats and stuff because my legs wouldn't work.

I'm lucky I didn't break my freakin' neck!

*

So we started back to the van, but, cool, it was nearly as loud outside the Forum!

We weren't going to miss much, maybe.

I think they were playing Magic Bus, but like for an hour, seemed like.

*

So we looked for the gas station sign under which the van was parked.

But in between us and the station was the biggest bunch of riot cops you've ever seen!

Like an ocean of blue, man.

*

So, now dig this, I'm walking on her right, she's walking on my left.

And we're just like, bug eyed at all these cops in riot gear, you know?

And we're trying to be inconspicuous and not talk or anything because,

talking might piss them off or something.

*

But for some strange reason, I'm thinking we'll go left around the swarm of cops,

she's thinking that we should go right around the blue hoards,

and together we ended up pushing on each other so hard

that we made a straight line right through the center of all these cops.

*

And as they're stepping out of the way,

and we're walking through the center of them,

we're looking at them all bug eyed, you know?

Like, "Please don't eat us!"

All the way to the van.

Where we ended up talking about werewolves

and dreams and stuff.

Quote

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act." George Orwell

Tiny Red Flowers

I knew these really cool people who had a cabin in the mountains

where we all used to go sometimes.

It was beautiful, overlooking a canyon that had a stream running through it.

*

So, one day I decided I was going on a hike

with my room mate's dog,

Alexander Graham Beetle.

*

And because we'd be gone all day,

I took along a bag of trail mix,

and a bottle of Chevas Regal

just in case I got the munchies.

Or if I got cotton mouth

from the LSD.

*

My favorite sport at the time was rock hopping.

I would make a small staff,

and hop from rock to rock as fast as I could,

up stream

and when suddenly the rocks were too far apart,

I'd vault the extra distance with my staff.

The goal,

of course,

to go as fast as possible without getting wet.

*

At about noon day or so I told Alex it was time for lunch.

There was a perfect rock upon which to sit

in a little nook of the canyon covered with little red flowers

all up and down the sides of the rocks,

and all around my philosopher's stone.

*

Chomping on my trail mix,

and taking sips of scotch,

I noticed that Beetle had the tiny red flowers all over his nose.

*

But the flowers were moving.

*

That's when I looked closer and saw that

we had parked ourselves

in a humongous nest

of

ladybugs.

~~~@~~~

Going on a Freak Out?

"I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all! The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles! Sure, I might offend a few of those blue-noses with my cocky stride and musky odors---Oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called "City Fathers" who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?" -----Homer Simpson, quote extracted from The Simpsons and Philosophy, the D'oh of Homer

A Happening

Four of us went to this party in the canyon once,

it was huge!

*

It was out in the sticks, man,

there was a live band playin'

and there were cars parked

all over the north forty.

*

Far out.

*

When the farmer people ended the party

it ended in a huge caravan heading

back towards the city.

*

But, bummer, it was only 10 PM.

*

The caravan was boogiein' down the road

and there was this chick standing on a street corner

waving cars to turn down this street.

So we all did.

*

We all ended up in the parking lot of some apartment building.

Must have been a hundred cars, I don't know.

And it was like, one big party.

*

The only thing was, man, I don't think anybody knew anybody that lived there.

*

So, I'm sitting shotgun in the Volvo, and we just bought a gram of some primo hash.

But we didn't have a pipe, so we were just starting to smoke it by

dropping it into the red hot cigarette lighter.

*

But that's when the man showed up.

Pulled right in behind our car and got out.

So I ate the hash.

*

But the crowd was rowdy and started throwing beer bottles at the cops, man.

Pretty uncool, but the cops got back in their car and pulled back to wait for reinforcements.

We split.

*

But everybody was like, oh man!

Why'd you eat the hash!

Quote

"If you knew what I knew, Sariputta, you'd never let a meal go by without sharing it with someone." Buddha

Nazi Conservatism is Dead

Today I read in the Huffington Post that Neoconservatism is dead.

And I'm like, good, I can take the day off.

*

So, I thought I'd tell it like it was.

*

We've been fighting the storm troopers for a long time.

*

Fascist pigs!

*

Why would we have ever thought that anything good could come from these old Nixon supporters anyway?

*

Speaking of supporters.

At the end of the article about Naziconservatism being dead

some guy made a comment that I thought was brilliant.

*

He said, "Bad ideas never die. Keep your bullshit detector on at all times.

And don't forget to wear a cup."

*

Never again, man, never again.

*

We must always remember.

*

We must never forget.

Quote

Does one need proof of God? Does one light a torch to see the sun? Lao Tzu

Everywhere We Went

Sometimes I'd be sitting around with nothing to do, you know, out of pot, nobody around, and it was like all you had to do was walk around to find something going on somewhere. People would take one look at your long hair and know that you were cool. It wasn't such an uptight society back then, not all this paranoia going around these days. ..................................................................... *...................................................................................................................................................................... One day I was bored and just stuffed a copy of Zap comics in my overalls and headed down the street and these chicks were like, "Hey!" And one of them wasn't wearing pants. But they were like, come on in, listen to some music, so I did. But I was really looking to score some pot, man, so I boogied on down the railroad tracks to see if anyone was hangin' out under the bridge. *...................................................................................................................................................................... There was nobody there so I read my Zap Comic (There's a picture of that particular issue here somewhere) and then decided to keep on truckin'. Now I'm going down the street and some guy is smokin' a joint out in his front yard and says, "Wanna get high?" Oh God, did I. So we talked for a little bit and smoked this number. I don't know what the hell it was, but all of a sudden I thought that I was going to pass out, and so thanked my new friend and began to walk home. But I only got about 20 feet before I had to sit down on the curb because I was going to pass out, man. From there on it was 20 feet at a time, all the way home. But that wasn't as bad as when I left my friend's house after smoking pot, hash and peyote. I mean, at least I could find my way home. I didn't even know that you could smoke peyote, man. Anyway, I made it home before I passed out. Alright! *...................................................................................................................................................................... Things were just that way, man. They were cool. One day me and some friends are sitting on the sidewalk in the Village and my friend Stoney sees this beautiful chick walking by and says, "Let's f**k!" And she stops and looks at us and says, "No. But I'll have a cigarette with you." And just sits down and visits with us. Far out, man. Not everybody was like that, but Stoney was from Detroit. *....................................................................................................................................................................... In those days it was so easy to just hook up with other people. Everybody was cool, man. A whole different attitude prevailed in our society. I mean, you know. One night I'm hitch hiking home from L.A. back to Pop's house in Downer about 10:30 PM and I got picked up by this beautiful chick driving a '67 Corvette. And she was, like, an erotic dancer, she told me. Worked at the Classic Cat. And she drove me all the way to Pops house. She was waiting for me to ask her in, but, well, ah jeeze, man, I just left my GIRLFRIEND's house man. I was like, 16, and didn't need any bad karma. Besides, how the hell would I explain that to Pops? He'd been cool about my girlfriend, but you know, that might have been too heavy. *....................................................................................................................................................................... It was an adventure anywhere you went back then. It was sort of like an adventure that everyone was taking together.

The Evolution of the Revolution

*We began with brightly colored mod clothing, flowers, cheery upbeat music, psychedelic colors everywhere and a great attitude. But as the war dragged on, as the fascist attempts to squelch the direction of the nation became obvious, things began to become more serious.

* The underground became synonomous with authenticity. Being on the road, living the non-materialist minimalism meant that the whole movement had become much more sophisticated, earthy, and grungy.

Quote

So, one day a few months ago my auntie takes me out to lunch. I love my auntie, but she's never really known what to make of me, The Hippy. She's very conservative. We're in the fast food place munching down and she looks me over for a moment and the says something like, "You know. One time we went out on a picnic in the woods and there were a bunch of hippies there having a picnic or something, and they weren't hurting anybody or anything!" I just looked back in stunned silence and said nothing. But what I was thinking was, "Great, auntie. You mean just like real human beings."

Hippy Head

Smokin' in the Boys Room

*

One Toke Over the Line

Sweet Jesus

One toke Over the Line

*

2007 *

Back in continuation school they let us smoke in the boys room.

All the time.

Not like they didn't know what we were smokin', either.

Just that they were paid to have students there.

So they couldn't kick us all out.

*

It was the strangest thing, that I would be elected student body president.

And the faculty came to the student body one day with a problem.

Nobody was showing up on Fridays.

So we devised a solution.

We made it Happy Friday.

*

On Happy Friday, which was every Friday, they showed old movies.

Marx Brothers, Refer Madness, anything funny.

They had a drawing for new albums too.

Which was even better for me because some of us on the student council got to go to the record store/head shop called Middle Earth and pick out albums. Then it was just a matter of finding our way back to school again.

*

We had two official school sports.

Ping Pong and Chess.

And because it was continuation school you didn't have to do anything but attend,

unless you wanted an education.

They could help with that.