I had a relaxing and luxurious bath this morning in our new clawfoot tub, which is blowing our minds after some years of only having a shower in the house. While I was in there I read a good way into a book someone left on our sidewalk bench, Polaroids from the Dead by Douglas Coupland. I liked the title and was curious what Mr. “Gen X” inventor had to say. (For accompaniment, I put on Lou Reed’s album Transformer.) So far, Polaroids strikes me as mostly accurate in mood and content. I moved to the Bay Area in 1990 so it was all very familiar. It did feel a little more like the late 80s but still, accurate.
Part of the mood that I enjoyed was that it conveyed our (us being people roughly of my age in 1991 or so) attitude towards hippies and the 70s, which was that they seemed to have had all the fun and excitement but that there was a little left for us; they would kindly sell us blotter acid, and we could still go see them in concert.
I thought less about California in the 90s while reading this book and more about Austin in the 80s. I lived in or hung out at various co-ops (and yes it was pretty much exactly like the movie Slacker which captured the vibe perfectly (ofc I knew half the people in there) in that it was possible to live on your part time minimum wage job and go to school and fuck around doing art and music or whatever. ) So tempting to keep nesting parentheses, but no.
Here’s me with a guy I briefly “dated” (if you can call it that) from Arrakis Co-op and then a little after I moved into 21st Street Co-op in late 1986 or early 1987. He was a Deadhead and very nice, and had cases and cases of taped Dead concerts carefully labelled & often with very lovely art and handwritten liner notes. (I remember being impressed with this and also with how he would diligently do all his engineering homework, then hit the bong with equal diligence afterward.) But my point is that hippie culture was not at all dead in 1987, or 1990. It was alive and kicking. I was so relieved that I hadn’t missed my chance after all to experience it.
There was a guy who would come by the Loud Suite (where I lived at first in 21st St) named Motorcycle Michael, who had long white guy dreads done up in a crocheted hat, drove a van, and always wore pretty much the same outfit made of that gorgeous oaxacan or guatemalan woven cloth and a tie died tshirt. He seemed to be the most obvious dealer hanging out there and I don’t think I bought anything from him (I did not need to ; see above photo of me; do you think I got free bong hits or??! It didn’t even occur to me, and besides, I had no money) It did not have any sort of creepy feel (Drug dealer or pusher hanging out with teenage students) but rather, a sort of benevolent uncle and friend vibe. (Trust me I have seen the creepy, gross, skeevy ones and know; or maybe i just am overly impressed with any older guy who was decent enough not to hit on me) Like, his life was bopping around between Mexico and all over Texas maybe, living in his van, hanging out with people who were pretty chill, listening to good music, being super generous with his time and energy, telling funny stories, helping people out, going to Dead concerts. He was part of the culture! I heard a while back through a co-op FB group that he died, and then I just looked him up again and found this interesting memoriam.
Pic below of Loud Suite life:
Lest you all think of me as a drug addled fool, I can reassure you I was not much into excess, was a complete lightweight, would cut blotter acid into quarters, etc. etc. (We won’t even talk about where the other drugs like X came from, *cough* *Rice chemistry students*) It was occasional! And social! I swear! Anyway, I still graduated and I appear to have a reasonable amount of brain cells left.
A more wholesome photo, of a bunch of us cooking in the industrial kitchen – I learned to cook here, and was dinner cook (for 100 people) and menu planner for many years. Here, Ethan, Paul Macafee, Karen, Mike LeFebre, and I are drinking Old Milwaukee and cooking dinner. Ok, mostly wholesome. I blame Paul for the cheap gross beer choice.
ANYWAY. Because of prepping to go see The Way to Eden in Star Trek Live tonight we watched the original episode yesterday and laughed our asses off at the space hippie children! (Their drug use is implied only, but their vibe is impeccable!) Star Trek tried hard to come to grips with how the future might see hippies. Were they wrong?!
There were really lovely hippietastic moments I remember, like about 40 people from the co-op all tripping and going to see Koyaanisqatsi together. It was fine! We were a lovely social amoeba moving across the town and into the movie theater! The point was not the drugs so much as it was being gorgeously social and also experiencing and creating music and culture together!
I have forgotten my point. I have more to say about hippies, drugs, and the internet, which we all talked about at DWeb Camp and which I kind of go into in my long poem “Whole Earth Catalog”. But here, I think my point was that I have found it funny and a little sad sometimes to see people now worrying that they missed raves, or grunge, or riot grrrl, or zines, or whatever, and then I absolutely fucking love it when they realize they can JUST DO THOSE THINGS. Nothing is stopping you! You are in history, too! You can make an entire scene happen, and also, whatever else you are doing now, someone is going to look back on with fondness and longing, in some way that you are not even aware of as a Thing! You are in your own Thing right now!!!!!