Have I mentioned I hate hippies?

[pseydtonne]

Normally I don't like to make such a blanket statement as the above title but I gotta. Hippies can harsh my mellow like you wouldn't believe. It's frustrating. How can people born to be stoned make me angry even when I am stoned and should thus be in tune with them? (Quick funny thought vaguely related to this is the second from the bottom in Rowland's diary.)

I went to the second Afroskull show in as many days. They opened for a Grateful Dead cover band tonight. I must emphasize this is not a Dead Kennedys cover band and not even a Dead Milkmen cover band. Nope, it's the band that invented the 17-year-long song (that's what the Onion siad and I believe 'em).The club was in Teaneck, New Jersey. If you're not familiar with said suburb of New York City, you take the GW and then take 80 for less than a mile and then take route 4 (which is a lot like the upper, non-95 section of 128 with a lot of abrupt off- and on-ramps) until the rhododendrons choke you and bam the hippies will flock across the street from a bank. It's a nice suburb but it's full of married middle managers that send their wives ahead of them into the bar.

You know what's worse than going to a bar? Going to a sausage party disguised as a bar. Everyone in this place was either hitched or goateed. None had a desire to flirt because they weren't married in Somerville. I was in the mood to cruise. If the music weren't so damn good I would've left that buzzkill a lot earlier.

All the couples were getting on my nerves. I kept thinking back to when I was one of those couples and I tried not to rub it in anyone's face. Then again, no couple means to rub it in -- they're just being themselves. They don't have to be themselves alone and those of us that hate being alone resent it but we try not to say as such. Yes, this is what was running through my head.

Then I got to sinking into my chair. In fact, I was getting close to whipping out a book but I didn't want to be rude. Maybe a faux pas would've been better than a smoldering loathing.

I went back to standing at the merch table with my friend G. This guy in a bowler hat and white boy dreads comes up. His voice sounds cogent but his brain cannot hold up its end of the charade. He may have once had enough brain cells to pass for a toll booth attendant but that time was leaving him. He stares at the merch (the regular CD, the live show made only of Black Sabbath covers, the tees and the mailing list signup sheet. He starts asking questions and I make the mistake of engaging him in hopes of selling some merch for my buddy.

He cannot wrap his head around a concept long enough to finish it. Even simple concepts such as "you liked the band, right? Why not shell out the five bucks for a disc?" Think of that Kids in the Hall sketch where the vacuum salesman is blowing it with the man with no attention span. "Ya got me... ya lost me." He got hung up on the idea of Ozzy Osbourne being weird. (Scudder, if you're reading this: I AM NOT MAKING ANY OF THIS UP!) The biggest idea blowing his mind is that the funk-jazz band he just saw could also do Sabbath covers.

Remind me: what year are we in again? 2... double zero... five. Right. Okay. So having grown up on the first four Black Sabbath albums, Funkadelic and the Blue Note catalogue is somehow impossible. Do these kids live in a world without music, without rhythm, or without taste?

I was trying way to hard to get this kid to see the emotion of at least signing up for the mailing list. Finally he just says "peace, man" and leaves.

Yes, really.

That's it. It's official. I no longer have a damn thing in common with these fuckin' fake hobos nor any sympathy for the parents that don't cut 'em off. I am officially a geek.

How did it come to this? How did I come to resent people I don't know? How can I temper my ire? I know hippies that don't piss me off. However, all of them have lives. Many that's it.

Maybe seeing ten guys in the nouveau hippy outfit doing that brainless air drum and lap-hand dribble they same way they did more than a decade ago when I was in college and these kids were in grade school.

Why recreate something dead? Why not do something new? Oh wait, cuz it may involve an effort.

Gah.

Then we got into a debate about electronic toll booth tags on the way home. The arguments blew my mind: "they use it to send you speeding tickets", "some toll booth worker loses a job".

I've had Fast Lane since 2001, used it enough last year to qualify for the tax rebate, and never got a bleedin' ticket. In fact, I've only heard of extreme examples of the use of E-ZPass records to nail someone for a crime and rarely for speeding. In fact, the only way handing out a speeding ticket deters speeding is when the driver gets the ticket right away -- the other drivers see the victim and slow down. Also, the attempts to mail people tickets back in the late Eighties led to no improvement about speeding. Oh sure, the state liked the free money but they made more money sending cops out to hand out the tickets because cops can add in stuff like "expired registration", "DWI", and "fuckin' gotta Hoover those floor mats, lad". So they pull folks over. You rub a dog's nose in its shit right away before the dog has no idea why you're whining about some shit you found. Primary enforcement, if you will.

Oh, and "toll booth operator" is a lousy job. "Database administrator for E-ZPass" is a better-paying, seated job. Using electronic toll tags cuts down on pollution, expedites travel and gets you discounts. 75¢ for the Allston tolls instead of a buck? Hells yeah!

Yeah, that was just the whiny fit I needed. I was not the only person in the car hating hippies because I was the instigator. I think sleep may finally arrive for me. To sum it all up: I resent certain people and I've clumped them. I keep thinking someone is filimg a bad TV show when this happens. I am a geek and I need someone to dig that.

-I wish I had some Devo on my iPod

Comments

[dimers.livejournal.com]

Sounds more like you hate slackers than hippies.

I am a geek and I need someone to dig that.

Consider it dug. =)

[tkitch.livejournal.com]

And central to the concept of hip is to dig. What exactly is to dig?

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking that ... I'm a hippie! Mew.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I need a different term to describe whatever humans were at that show. They weren't hip. I think of the piece from Dave Barry Turns 40 about no longer being with It, that "the light leaving It will not be reaching our galaxy for several years" or something like that.

So, what is hip? Del CLose explained "Basic to hip is the concept of digging, to dig." The people I saw last night were not picking up on anything new. You play them anything new and they could only refer it to this womb-like swirl or sound they already know.

You're right -- I need fresh terms. More writing to come...

Remember also that the term "hippie" was a derogatory term for the generation that came after the beatniks (itself a derogatory term made by combining "Beat Generation" with "Sputnik"). There is a fascinating write-up over here. (http://wild-bohemian.com/named.htm) That page has the most factual information but it's also oddly dated (look at the background-- it's soooo first-gen web page).

Yes, I have much more to figure out. I need a classification to let me feel comfortable about disliking a group of people. THen again, that is prejudice and I shouldn't encourage myself to that. But gah! Those people pissed me off. It looked like they'd turned themselves into zombies and I rebel against them simply by doing some work...

[dimers.livejournal.com]

My understanding of psychology sez: their dazed apathetic laziness wouldn't matter to you, wouldn't offend you as much as it does, were that not something you fear in yourself. You rebel against them, and against the idiot slacker within, by simply doing some work, yes. Take that wherever you want. =)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Stoners.

Slackers.

Hippies don't go to Grateful Dead cover bands. That would be deadhead wannabees.

short attention span theatre

[cris6848.livejournal.com]

I think you're trying to grasp a concept somewhere between "growing up" and "experiencing new things". Your rant seems directed at people who have adopted someone else's mindset and worldview.

Brian: "You are all individuals!"
Crowd: "We are all in"duh"viduals!"
Man in back: "I'm not! I'm the same!"

[fuzzplugjones.livejournal.com]

Where do I start? "Now you know how I feel" would be too rude. You are, after all, one of my dearest friends, and as evidenced by this rant, getting smarter every day.

No, instead, this particular story comes to mind. Since I'm interested more in the psychology of politics (i.e. why people believe what they believe) more than the politics itself, I've used the Bush administration to perform some experiments. And trust me, if you think Bush is bad, you oughta pay more attention to some of his detractors (I don't think the guy is perfect either, but read on).

I have a good friend who just happens to be a hippy. He's very talented - a hell of a sax player, in fact - and we get along just fine. I used to work in the same office with him, and once in awhile he'd get all twisted up about this or that in the news. And sooner or later he'd start making rude comments about Bush.

When he started in on that, I'd slouch down in my chair, and make my words whiny and slow. "Maaaaaaan," I'd say, "why's everybody gotta hate so much? There's all this hatred and intolerance... why can't we just... like... have peace, man? And love? Love everybody, man. Let's just all get along..."

"Man, fuck you," he'd say, and walk away.

That chris6848 person is right. They've adopted someone else's mindset and since they aren't invested much past that, they're too busy pretending to be this character that they don't realize how much of a hypocrite they are. I mean, hippies don't have to like a Republican President. It's not that. But most of them don't realize the inherent irony in hating hatred... or being intolerant of intolerance... or all dressing and talking and acting the same way to show that they "embrace diversity." I don't care what anybody does, but that's one group of people who really need to think before they speak.

Me, I'm tired of getting told what to do by people who don't even bother to PRETEND to practice what they preach. And this isn't a Bush thing - he's just a very convienent example. If anything, this may be his purpose: outing the hypocrites. I know the people you ran into were just stupid and not political, but that's the best hippy story I personally have. Whereas you were just frustrated, I've sort of turned it into an art form. If I try real hard, I can usually tie their logic up in a knot for them, and leave them walking away more confused than I am. And you're better at argument than I am, so you might consider it a hobby to pass the time if you're ever surrounded by hippies again.

And since you seem to be spending so much fuckin' time with Jason, why haven't you told him about this little project I'm working on for WHRW? You know, the one nobody's supposed to know about, but we're supposed to get some legendary station members in on the ground floor before it goes public?

[graciana.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha ha ha! I thought it was good enough to listen to you bitch and moan before you went back to Bah-ston. No no no no no....reading about it - FAR more better.

BTW, you never introduced me to your friend Robert. Bah you. Oh well...I don't think I'll need the intro anymore... ;)

Did I ever laud your wingman/cockblocking abilities to others? PEOPLE READING THIS COMMENT NOW - HE MAKES AN EXCELLENT WINGMAN AND AN EVEN BETTER COCKBLOCKER. There - you've made my world much easier, so the world will let the rest of the cards you want fall where they will. :)

[michigansundog.livejournal.com]

Are you ok?

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I'm better. I think metahacker had the best idea for reclassifying the people.

I think a lot of this comes from having been told I had a duty to the world to use my brain effectively and that people like me could make a real difference. Then I see people that got told "no matter how much you fuck up, you can have a job at your dad's firm" and it makes me feel like stealing their life energy and transferring it to people that would use it. I know it's immoral to say this, but some folks are a waste of cell differentiation.

Maybe I haven't learned a good lesson from the event yet.

We should talk, yeah. I need a completely different perspective. That and I miss you.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

I'm all with you on the hate of slackers--in fact, I was there well before you were. But now I'm going to have to rip you the new asshole that I decided not to give you yesterday, because I rarely see you in person and I don't like souring those occasions.

Oh, and "toll booth operator" is a lousy job. "Database administrator for E-ZPass" is a better-paying, seated job.

This argument--which you've actually posed in much more sedate and less offensive terms here than you did when I saw you yesterday--has about as much to commend it as Thrasymachus' rantings in the Republic. You know full well that it's not a zero-sum game. 10 toll booth operators getting paid $30K/year get laid off, and one database administrator making $100K/year gets hired. Voila: net cost savings of $200K each year--otherwise why would they bother making the capital investment necessary to install the equipment? But the fallout: one geek gets to buy himself a condo, and ten families that had been just getting by are now scrambling to survive.

You seem to be adopting a cargo-cultist attitude toward technology. "If it comes into my life and makes things better for me, then it must be good in all ways, a gift from the gods." The difference between you and the cargo-cultist is that you know the technology hasn't just fallen from the sky, and in some cases you actually understand the basic physical and design principles contained within the technology. But any thought to the social context in which it is developed and the purposes to which it is deployed, you dismiss as "Luddite."

This combination of arrogance and naivete--a combination I'm very familiar with--that you are developing is characteristic of the managerial strata in our society. And this is where it gets really absurd coming from you, because your identification with such a status is, at this point, purely aspirational. You're still a customer service monkey. A very well-paid customer service monkey, who has the rare distinction and pleasure of working with systems that he is interested in and enjoys, but that's all.

Open an eye on yourself before you end up a full-blown cynic.

And, mandatory straw-man prevention: yes, I know that full well that one person refusing to get EZ-Pass installed is not going to save the job of any toll booth operator, so don't act like I'm defending that thesis. I also know that we live in a world where there are much more significant matters for thoughtful people to get worked up about than an occasional moralist absurdity.

[(Anonymous)]

This post may contain language and views which can be considered offensive. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the views of Afroskull or WHRW management. Reader discretion is advised.

Afroskull likes hippies - and anyone else who pays the cover charge.