Got Hippies? Whole Earth Catalog

There are numerous books and individual people and bands that typify a certain attitude about life that really shouts out "Hippies!", but the one publication that helped mold that cultural idea as much as anything was The Whole Earth Catalog. It was like a Sear's catalog of ideas and groups and sources to get stuff. At first, you could order the stuff right from them, but as it grew bigger and bigger, eventually it became a source of sources.

Later, there were a series of "Whole Earth" stores around the country usually in towns that had a big university and a powerful youth culture, like Boulder, CO; or Madison, WI. There was one in Austin, TX, where the University of Texas is. The only drawback was that stuff from the Whole Earth store, while extremely high quality and durable, was usually expensive as hell. A friend of mine bought a really first-class oil-burning table lamp, solid brass with a glass chimney and a shade, made by a company called Aladddin in about 1969. He's still got it, and it works perfectly. All their stuff was just wonderfully made, first-class, high quality. After a while, rich people sort of caught on to the idea of being hip. It wasn't cool, back in those days, to be rich. (I never could really understand this--it was a spin-off of New Leftism--college kid radicalism.) So there were a lot of kids of very wealthy people pretending to be poor(er.) There was a lot of reverse snobbery too, people who came from middle-class families who put down wealthy people and blamed them for things they really had no control over.

The Whole Earth catalog and Whole Earth stores was a sort of middle ground where everybody could agree on an Earth-friendly consumer culture. I participated in the very first Earth Day, here in Houston, as did people all across the country and the world. It was a feel-good "holiday," almost custom made for anarchists. I bought an Earth flag from Whole Eartyh Catalog. I remember it was black and had a big photograph of the Earth, taken from space about 1969. (This was something totally new back then--and very awe-inspiring. Think of it! A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ENTIRE EARTH. Outasight, man!) The caption on the advertisement went something like "This is the first flag I ever saw that I felt like didn't exclude anybody." It was fun flying it, but I wouldn't do it today, no way.

i didnt read all of that.......

...but i still hate hippies.:idea:

Honestly, that particular phenomenon ("I didn't read all of that..." or "You write too much") is something I never, ever imagined would exist. I guess we get what we deserve. I like the way Clint Eastwood put it in "Unforgiven"-- ""None of us are innocent." We fail to pass on critical skills and ideas to the next generation out of laziness or selfishness or whatever, and we all get what we deserve. Pass the bottle.

actually, i dont mind reading, i just hate hippies.;)

I read through it. Interesting. I dont really have any ground breaking commentary to contribute... i did find this excerpt from your writing thought provoking though.

"So there were a lot of kids of very wealthy people pretending to be poor(er.) There was a lot of reverse snobbery too, people who came from middle-class families who put down wealthy people and blamed them for things they really had no control over. "

You could start a whole thread just on that premis alone.

I dont see where all the hate for hippies comes from on this board. Im not a hippie, but a hatred twards all members of any group is going to get you no where and exemplifies human stupidity to the max.

i didnt read everything you wrote but the whole thing about rich people acting poor still goes on all the time. mad kids who people classify as hippies (while theyre really just scroungy dreads who want excuses to be lazy and do drugs so they preach about shit but dont care about much) come from super rich families and just live like fuckin slackers cuz theyre lazy or think its cool or want to rebel or some shit. not all of them but many of them. people these days seem to think the words "hippie" and "dirty" go hand in hand. this is not true at all. while they usually wont buy a million beauty and skin care products and take excessive showers and keep their hair military style, they arent complete slobs/scruff balls. hippie is more of a state of mind(a mentality) than an immage. hippies dont call themselves hippies usually either. that was a name given to them by conservatives. hippies are fuckin tight!!!!!!

peace

JAH

What you say is true, we rarely referred to ourselves as "hippies." The preferred term was "freak," as in "Hey, he looks pretty cool. Is he a freak?" Translated this would mean, "Hey, he looks like he smokes pot. Is he a pothead?" The only time that I can think of when the concept of dirty hippies might have applied was the mud people phenomenon at concerts like Woodstock (I didn't go) or The Monterrey Pop Festival (I did go--it was great.) Or maybe when we were trainhopping. I got filthy dirty then, but my whole goal was to get clean as soon as I possibly could.

Another word we commonly used was "head", as in half of the term "pothead." People might ask "Is he a head?" This had more of a drug-using connotation, obviously. Just about everybody I knew back then smoked dope.

The word "freak" has taken on a sort of sick-o sexual connotation now that it definately did not have back then. This is due, in part to the "hippy-JimiHendrix-funkadelic music" connection. There seems to be (or maybe used to be) a wierd sort of funk/ psychedelic connection that was a part of the hippie phenomenon of the '60s that was black hippies. I knew a few black guys and girls who were hippies. They got disrespected by the black nationalist types for associating with "white devils." What can I say? Racial bigotry is racial bigotry no matter what color your skin is.

The Grateful Dead were okay, but they never really did it for me. I liked Jefferson Airplane, (then later Jefferson Starship) and especially Grace Slick. I liked Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company, and when she put her own band together, the Kozmic Blues Band, I liked them okay, but not as much as Big Brother. I liked the Doors. I liked all the Southern Rock bands too, like CCR, Alabama, .38 Special, the Allman Brothers Band. I love Stevie Nicks' voice. She is still singing. I caught a country and western tune the other day with Stevie Nicks.

I like a lot of alternative music that I hear today, too. But I think you have to be 18 or 19 years old to really have that feeling about music. I used to live it and breathe it. Not so today.

if you like hte souther groups check out jj cale. get the album "5". even if you dont get to listen to it first. just pick it up. every song on it is sick. where are you from? im more accustomed to california hippies cuz thats where my family is from and i was raised in southern oregon/norhtern california. i apply my theory to todays "hippies" to the original 60's and 70's hippies too. most of them were just rich spoiled kids who didnt want to work or do anything they were raised doing and they wanted an excuse to do drugs(or to get out of the draft). barely any of them actually followed the ideals that they claimed to live by. a good proof of this is how the world is now. if all those people who claimed those liberal and idealistic beliefs actually followed htem and believed in them they would still be around today and the world would be a different place. instead, the mentality pretty much died out with all of the revolutionary artists that influenced that era and everyone seemed to kinda foget about it and just accept all the bullshit they protested against all the time. they took the easy way out.....sellouts.

i was on my way to becoming one of those hypocrite hippies. then i saw that i drove a 70s muscle car that polluted the world and that i couldnt stand not cutting my hair but i still feel like a hippie all the time. about the not wanting to be rich thing ill explain my own situation.

all my life untill i was about 12 or 13 my family was your usual poor mexican family raised on beans and rice. then all of a sudden my family started having some money, the first year i went and bought expensive clothes and shoes but then i noticed my cheap clothes fit much better. i dont have that rich mentality that tells me expensive is better, i have the mentallity of better is better reguardless of the price. im still wearing clothes from live 3 years ago and i love it. i will never claim to be poor but i will claim to be ghetto, i was raised this way and im gonna live like this. my brother is a whole different story, he saw money coming in and he saw his chance to show people he could now dress like the people on tv. he still buys $50-110 shoes, $4o pants and shirts and i just dont understand it. ill stick to wearing my dickies and a tshirt and some $20 shoes, ive been doing it all my life so why change it??

Retnilips

I understand what you're saying, and you're right, there was a certain element of "hipness is style" , especially on both Coasts. I have a brother-in-law who considered himself a hippie who worked on Wall Street as a stockbroker's assistant, and on the floor of the NYSE. The idea that one's style, the length of one's hair (i.e. long or short) and the kind of vehicle one drives all being symbols for one's principles and beliefs isn't a new one, and isn't by any means restricted to hippies. Choosing to dress in durable, inexpensive clothes doesn't make one more or less of a decent person, any more than choosing to dress in expensive clothes makes one wealthy, or good, or bad. Does "dressing like an artist" (whatever that means) make one a better artist? Does "dressing like a graff writer" make one a better graff writer? I don't think so.

Here in Texas in the late '60s, early '70s, many of us got into a new music sound that was centered in Austin. An entire music industry grew up around it. Pretty much, this musical influence has really changed country & western music, and certain types of country folk music. But just because hippies were going all over the place wearing Resistol hats and cowboy boots, that didn't make them bull riders.

Everybody just dresses like however they please. We should pay a lot less attention to people's appearance, and a lot more attention to how they are inside. That's what really counts.