My disdain for hippies and their ridiculous behavior is no small secret, a recent walk down the street has re-affirmed this in no uncertain terms. I have, in the past, gone on tirades about hippies' hypocrisy and the inexplicable habit of makin' shit up as they go along.
The contrived archetypes and hippie cliches abound for all to see in their uni-dimensional glory as they extol their misconceived sense of individuality. I would hope that, deep down , they would admit to themselves that they are full of shit, but I suspect that most firmly believe in their skewed doctrine.
There is a strip in town here called "The Drive". It attracts people from all walks of life, but has had a reputation for many years for being a notorious hippie hangout. Scores of twenty-something hippies still populate this area, most are from middle-classed backgrounds who go eat roast beef at their folks' house after a long day of bongo-beatin', scoring pot, mooching change, playing bicycle polo and being all around nuisances.
A few days ago, something was in the air. An all out assault on the senses. Maybe the tofu went bad at the one of many local organic shops or maybe somebody spiked the local supply of pot, but like cockroaches scattering when the lights are turned on, there were frenzied hippies everywhere.
The were out in full force and ready (as is their way) to annoy. Their mere presence if enough to annoy me, but that day, they made sure that they would create an onslaught of sights and sounds meant for maximum mayhem.
As I tried to relax at my favorite Italian coffee shop and attempted to make out what the old Italian men were arguing about, I heard some faint tinkling in the distance. As the high frequency noise approached, I began to here caterwauling and, soon after, drums.
The source of this auditory assault soon became apparent. Hare Krishnas! Some had little tiny cymbals, other had various percussion instruments that seem to go "boing" when they are hit, and others had various contraptions that made noise as well. These happy Hares were totally into it, jumping and skipping, others twirling like dervishes.
One can only help but laugh at the sheer inanity of this spectacle, but the sad part is that these deluded fools take it all so seriously. I also wonder what they hope to accomplish with this public display. I don't wanna buy a book, I don't want a free meal down at the temple, I don't want no flowers, so fuck off, you pie-eyed altruists. More middle classed suburbanites who have lost their way. I'm not endorsing the suburban lifestyle by any means, but why couldn't they just turn to vandalism, graffiti and brawling like other normal suburban kids?
Krishnas never stay in one place for long, so their wailing and a dancing was soon gone, leaving only the stray dogs that were following them in sight.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked at the old men's looks of incomprehension. I took another sip of my excellent espresso, only to have my senses assaulted yet again. The fucking bubble lady was upon us ! Yes, the crazy bubble lady. She ain't that old and probably ain't that crazy, she probably just needs to set herself apart. She must show the world what a crazy rebel she is. Wearing long dresses, crazy pants, stoopid shoes and every other hippie-rag-clich, she parades up and down The Drive, ragged hippie comapnion in tow, and constantly shoots out soap bubbles.
Now, if you dropped acid or ate three pounds of Mescaline this would probably amuse you. This contrived lowbrow circus is offensive enough, but every time on of those soap bubbles hits me, it's like a small punch in the face. Hundreds of tiny, sticky, fucking dirty hippie punches. It makes my blood pressure rise and I feel like punching those stupid bubbles back. They would probably lock me up. Like the Krishnas, however, bubble lady is soon gone, and vengeful scenarios such as peeing in her bubble soap. are soon gone as well.
As the last bubble popped, I breathed a sigh of relief erroneously thinking that all the hippie nonsense was over, but my optimism was short-lived. The Drive, you see, is also home to bad buskers. The worst buskers always seem to set up shop right by my favorite coffee shop.
Lacking any kind of drive or even a modicum of talent, most hippies find it far too daunting a task to master an instrument. Why they insist on playing them anyways perplexes me, but I wish they wouldn't do it in public.
This youngish, purposely scruffy hippie plopped his ass on the sidewalk and produced a classical guitar out of some filthy sack. Hippies love to sit on the ground for some reason, and what they fail to see, is that so do crackheads and insane people. They will all get a massive case of hemorrhoids soon enough.
Earnest hippie guitar man then proceeded to attempt to tune said guitar. After about twenty minutes of attempting, that damn thing still wasn't tuned and he decided to play it anyway. Other than cats fighting and fucking wind chimes, there is no sound quite as annoying as someone playing a bunch of chords on an out of tune guitar. The guitar-mangler soon grew tired, most likely because he was beginning to pass out from hunger from all the seeds that he ate earlier that day. He packed the guitar back into the dirty sack, stood slowly and ambled away.
My theory about the world's most annoying sound was soon to be disproved, however, by some Miles Davis wannabe. Some trumpet playing fool set up shop at the bad busker spot. He wasn't even attempting play jazz, but decided to mangle some popular tunes instead. It's bad enough hearing tunes that you hate being blared in close proximity, it's a whole different level of hell when they are played by an incompetent trumpet player at 120 decibels.
To add to the circus-like atmosphere, trumpet man was accompanied by his accordion playing sidekick who happened to be just as inept. Clown-like as this deluded duo may have seemed, they were oblivious to it, which made it that much more annoying. They were attempting to serenade customers exiting the nearby liquor store in a misguided attempt to relieve said customers of their spare change. There ain't enough booze in that entire store to make me want to give them money or somehow make that stilted, off-key shit sound like music. After about ten minutes of this barrage of bullshit, I had had enough and decided to leave the cafe to go for a walk down the Drive and put as much distance as possible between myself and the mental patient band rehearsal.
As I walked, adrenaline still surging due to the assault on my senses, I passed yet another bad busker who was severely massacring a banjo. Thousands of hillbillies were probably rotating in their graves at that precise moment. I picked up the pace and continued my search for some respite.
That's when I saw it. The grand daddy of all hippie cliches. The event horizon from which all hippie culture emanates. It was like staring into the sun, terrible and wonderful at the same time. I was finally justified in all my rantings. Here was irrefutable proof that I wasn't over reacting. It was the biggest fucking hippie bus I had ever seen!
It was a 1970' Western Star big rig that had been converted into a bus. It was inscribed with all kinds of ridiculous hippie-slogans and one prerequisite rainbow. There musta been thirty hippies in and around that bus. There was a lot of tie-dye, long skirts, braided beards, unwashed hippie children sporting hippie clothes and various nondescript rags.
They had a table set up right there on the sidewalk and were peddling some sort of noxious hippie-juice . This juice seemed to posses some sort of questionable health benefit and I cringed as I imagined what it might be made from or what disgusting ingredients it may contain. Goat-piss? Squashed cockroaches? Leftover lice from the hippies' tangled beards? It would probably turn your shit blue. A couple of the hippies were next to the table with guitars. They smugly sang songs vaguely reminiscent of the late sixties as their matted hair and filthy beards swayed in the breeze.
This was like proverbial car crash that one cannot look away from no matter how gruesome it was. I laughed to myself as I pondered the irony of a bunch of freako-s peddling hippie juice in a vehicle equipped with 70's era Cummins diesel that belches black diesel smoke from its twin stacks and is probably in dire need of a tune up. They must kill two trees, one whale and five dolphins every time they fire that baby up.
I was shocked, but in a way, far more amused at this shameless display of hippie self-righteousness, lack of hygiene, questionable parenting skills and the ignorance of what the juxtaposition of that big-assed diesel and those bottles of hippie juice meant.
It was time for me to leave. I made my way westward towards the bad part of town. The banshee-like wailing of tweaking crackheads would be a refreshing change from all this hippie mayhem.
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