How Many Old Hippies Are There On The Cm Forum

[anonymouse]

Just reading a few post today and there has been mentions of the Grateful Dead, Swarmi's in India etc etc and I was wondering how many old Hippies are residing in Chiang Mai.

After the Chiang Mai forum thread I'm just trying to put a little umpthh into the CM forum.

Really I couldn't care less being an old punk rocker myself

[Ulysses G.]

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

[Atmos]

just trying to put a little umpthh into the CM forum

maybe all us old punks could get together instead? Just back from a week in CM, and yes, I understand the hippie image it has . . .

[harrry]

I don't mind being called a hippie so much eek but I would rather you didn't call me old.

[harrry]

All I can say was I got to the Orange People's place in Pune to see a gate with the the big nscription. "The Ever Open Door" and under it a small sign closed till Monday.

Never was a real hippie as was never into drugs but went a lot of places they did.

[doppa]

hated punks like, was originally guess my tenencies were towards mods, then i saw a film that changed my dress code forever, well for a few months, the 'wild one' b/w marlon brando, lee marvin, immiediatly changed my clobber from art school attire to black leather jacket, big bike boots, wanted the full monty like a bike, could never afford it, until for a tenner, got a triumph sports tiger cub,pushed it home, and then upto the girlfriend at the time house, where her dad fixed it all up for me, good looking bike that, just like the driver, unfortunately, i tinkered with it, and it never ran again.

having said all that triumph got a nice shop in town, maybe one day i'll repeat the excercise again, minus the girlfriend of course.

[anonymouse]

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

I think we all get a litttle more conservative as we get older

[anonymouse]

just trying to put a little umpthh into the CM forum

maybe all us old punks could get together instead? Just back from a week in CM, and yes, I understand the hippie image it has . . .

You left a week early it's punk rock night down the Guitarman this Friday.

[anonymouse]

I don't mind being called a hippie so much eek but I would rather you didn't call me old.

I don't think eek has been involved in this thread yet, I blame the drugs , you've got to be old to be a hippie

[Birdman]

Made a hippie poll once on TV, but the result was not an overwhelming success

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/40-Years-Woo...mp;hl=Woodstock

but after all more replies than my Glam Rock thread.

[harrry]

I don't mind being called a hippie so much eek but I would rather you didn't call me old.

I don't think eek has been involved in this thread yet, I blame the drugs , you've got to be old to be a hippie

I blame this new fangled telephone technology. I got interupted in the middle of the post. It couldn"t be alkeimers.

[cmdream]

I find myself asking what happened to the "Age of Aquarius" the earth must have hit a bump in the cosmic highway.

Peace,love and brotherhood have been replaced by religious fanatics and money grubbers. " O" well lets have another round barkeep !

[Tywais]

Well, when I was in college I remember occasionally someone yelling out hippy at me. Hadn't a clue what he was on about, I was wearing my normal attire - tank top, bell bottoms, sandals, full beard and headband to keep my 50cm long hair out of my face. Bit of a rebellion after having spent 4 years in the military, decided to let my hair down.

[Johpa]

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

I think we all get a litttle more conservative as we get older

I for one now prefer Sang Som + Soda to opium or pot, long gone are the days I managed the Ye Old Karen Coffee Shop guesthouse, but my politics have moved perhaps a tad more to the left than before.

[PeaceBlondie]

Last night I downloaded "Almost Cut My Hair," by CSN&Y. Already had "Four Dead in Ohio," "White Rabbit," etc. I joined the anti-war movement as Reagan ran for re-election.

[cmdream]

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

I think we all get a litttle more conservative as we get older

I for one now prefer Sang Som + Soda to opium or pot, long gone are the days I managed the Ye Old Karen Coffee Shop guesthouse, but my politics have moved perhaps a tad more to the left than before.

The Sang Som I can understand but politics ????? Why bother yourself ?

Politics: The diplomatic name for the law of the jungle. " Culbertson"

[KMixon]

How often do they have "punk night" at the Guitarman?

[IanForbes]

Me, but being drug free I tend to have a lot more sympathy for right-wing reactionaries these days.

I think we all get a litttle more conservative as we get older

Not me. I've gone the otherway and I kind of like it. I never got in the drug scene even though I was around when the hippy era started. I never saw much sense in sticking anything in my body other than good food. I knew lots of hippies though, and one of my girl friends was a bonafide groupie hippy. I just stood around with a bemused look on my face and watched them get silly with weed.

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun Anonymouse,

Just reading a few post today and there has been mentions of the Grateful Dead, Swarmi's in India etc etc and I was wondering how many old Hippies are residing in Chiang Mai. After the Chiang Mai forum thread I'm just trying to put a little umpthh into the CM forum.

We wonder what this "umpthh" quality you crave or feel is missing : is there an example that embodies "umpthh" you could tell us of ?

For us "hippie" is just another label (and a really worn out one, like the labels "yuppie" or "baby-boomer," or "Genx"); my human was certainly on the fringes of that scene in the sixties, but he was much too literary, and too politically acive (anti Vietnam war), to be part of the stoned-out "peace-love" brigade. But the music and the events : were great, including :

1. 1966 Ken Kesey's 'Trips Festival' at the Longshoreman's Hall in SF. We think Steward Brand was involved that, too, and, of course, the "Merry Pranksters"

2. dancing at the Fillmore and the old Avalon Ballroom. Jimi Hendrix live with two skinny Englishmen on bass and drums at Winterland at New Year's : unbelievable.

3. various happenings in Golden Gate Park that included the Be-In of 1967, the "Death of Hip," and so forth.

4. the bay area poetry, literary, scene, with luminaries like Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, and the unique Richard Brautigan. Visitors from the New York scene like Allen Ginsberg. The amazing "erotic poetry" of Lenore Kandel (who died this October) also fascinated us (she appears in Kerouac's "Big Sur" under the alias Romana Schwarz).

5. the Hare Krishna Juggernaut in Golden Gate Park.

6. the various narcissistic "shows" put on by people such as Leary and "Baba Ram Dass" where they encouraged a lot of near psychotic young kids to go ahead and go fully insane with chemical help.

My youngish human's inspiration was the "beatniks," Ginsberg, Corso, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Rexroth, Patchen, Diane di Prima, and so forth, and he was in the lower east side in 1963 or so with his first true love, Beatrice (what an appropriate name for a Poet's partner) being kept awake a lot of the night in his fifth floor walk up thirty-five dollar month flat by the all-out playing of Albert Ayler and his free-jazz group in a loft nearby.

My human never cared for the Grateful Dead, and thought their music was stupid, and they simply formed the nucleus of a cult of drug abusers, found the general illiteracy, and mushy-headed "groovy" so-called "hippie philosophy" just repulsive; so you might say we were around that scene, but never knocked out of our own weird orbit by it. Of course it was easy to be "accepted" in it : you just had to have long hair and mumble.

Today we associate the term "old hippie" with several pretty negative things : old degenerates in general, people with burned out brains, often either alcoholics or substance abusers; pretentious former yuppies who have invented a counter-culture past as a kind of personality veneer composed of flat-out lies about where they were and what they did; out-of-kilter romantics longing for their adolescent abandon while conveniently forgetting the many forms of abuse and "psychic faciscm" that characterized the whole "hippie" thing which was as much invented by the media as "acted out" by those who learned their "parts" from the media.

To our ears the Grateful Dead's music remains "trash" compared to bands like the Airplane, Dylan; and, for us, the musical work of people like Van Morrison (who was very influenced by Kerouac), and Tom Waits in music remains truly "revolutionary" and timeless. Sorry, our old ears also would characterize as trash all of punk rock, metal, heavy metal, glam rock, the stadium-rock thing of the seventies and eighties, rap, etc. For us Leonard Cohen remains an "immortal" : the lyric bard.

India : we were in India on an academic fellowship for a year : the vacant-headed so-called spiritual seekers running around India we met at such madhoues as Rajneesh's ashram in Poona, and in Sai Baba's cult center in Puttaparthi, and on trains. etc. : many of them were just narcissistic scum using mommy and daddy's money to indulge their own version of finding themselves at the center of the universe without one iota of compassion for the human suffering that surrounded them, helped along by generous amounts of hash and ganja (or in the case of Rajneeshites : hyperventilating and sado-masochistic group encounters).

Swami balaami : of all the obscure Indian nutcases we imported to plug-into their ecological niche in the topsy-turvy of the American sixties many were ruthless psychopaths, like Chogyam Trungpa, Rajnessh, etc. And our "home grown" dharma-paragons, like Dick Baker who "inherited" the "mantle" of Suzuki-Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center, were later exposed for the sexually predatory frauds they were (which was, of course, poetic justice).

So we don't think you should invite us to an "old hippies" party because we think we'd have a better time sitting in the garden watching weeds grow There's still poetry in weeds if you have eyes to see.

Was there any "umpthh" in that ?

best, ~o:37;

Edited December 15, 2009 by orang37

[Ulysses G.]

To our ears the Grateful Dead's music remains "trash" compared to bands like the Airplane, Dylan; and, for us, the musical work of people like Van Morrison (who was very influenced by Kerouac), and Tom Waits in music remains truly "revolutionary" and timeless. Sorry, our old ears also would characterize as trash all of punk rock, metal, heavy metal, glam rock, the stadium-rock thing of the seventies and eighties, rap, etc.

The Orang37 guy is indeed a cool dude, but too much of a beatnik at heart to ever appreciate what followed in time.

I think that the Grateful Dead suck too, but I simply did not enjoy their style. IMHO drugs were not the culprit. The Airplane, Dylan, Hendrix, the Stones and even the Beatles were all blowing their minds on drugs and somehow it all worked. There are countless others who were able to produce amazing books and music while stoned to the gills - Ken Kesey kind of dabbled in both. The music of the 60s was wondrous, but really not much better than the 70s and 80s, no wonder what some other old farts think.

Sure a lot of the hippy era was stupid, but a lot of minds opened up at the same time. Before that, it was almost normal to hate blacks and gays and a lot of other people that never caused me any harm. After the 60s, racism and hatred were no longer the norm.

The 60s and 70s were one of the most interesting, mind-expanding eras in history and I am glad that I was there and not in the box seats.

Edited December 16, 2009 by Ulysses G.

[Puwa]

Hahahahahaha

[harrry]

[ I just stood around with a bemused look on my face and watched them get silly with weed.

All the time practicing deep breathing exercises?

[Birdman]

............................Sure a lot of the hippy era was stupid, but a lot of minds opened up at the same time. Before that, it was almost normal to hate blacks and gays and a lot of other people that never caused me any harm. After the 60s, racism and hatred were no longer the norm.

The 60s and 70s were one of the most interesting, mind-expanding eras in history and I am glad that I was there and not in the box seats.

We wanted peace, more tolerance und better understanding each other, getting away from that bourgeoisie box thinking system, but simultaneously we were sceptical of others who were not like us and even of others who did not look like us. I think that I am now way more tolerant than then. If I with 20 would have seen myself with 49 I would have instantly thought not to trust that guy.

[lannarebirth]

Maybe I'll comment further on this later but I just wanted to say I think you guys are being a little hard on the Dead. Maybe you didn't like the scene that sprung up around the bands touring, but the music was fantastic. They are a band you can't compare to other bands as they were in a genre all their own, same with Dylan.

[MonsieurHulot]

I think that the Grateful Dead suck too

Even American Beauty and Workingman's Dead?

[Ulysses G.]

I've never heard a song by them that I enjoyed. I just don't like their style in the same way that I do not like Tom Robbins the writer. I know that some other people love both of them, but I don't.

[lannarebirth]

I've never heard a song by them that I enjoyed. I just don't like their style in the same way that I do not like Tom Robbins the writer. I know that some other people love both of them, but I don't.

Fair enough I guess. Just as I can't think of a single great band that came out of the 80's, which I guess you can.

[Gonzo the Face]

I've never heard a song by them that I enjoyed. I just don't like their style in the same way that I do not like Tom Robbins the writer. I know that some other people love both of them, but I don't.

Fair enough I guess. Just as I can't think of a single great band that came out of the 80's, which I guess you can.

......band of the 80's ..... How about " CONTRA " ????

Edited December 16, 2009 by Gonzo the Face

[PeaceBlondie]

As Springsteen said, Dylan changed the world. The Grateful Dead didn't change their underwear.

[PhilHarries]

I don't mind being called a hippie so much eek but I would rather you didn't call me old.

I don't think eek has been involved in this thread yet, I blame the drugs , you've got to be old to be a hippie

I blame this new fangled telephone technology. I got interupted in the middle of the post. It couldn"t be alkeimers.

Is that like Alzheimers but you remember where you left the Wild Turkey?