Post #288116 by hodadhank on Sun, Feb 25, 2007 5:12 PM

Now Vigor, I certainly don't know you so am ashamed admit I was almost ready to write you off as a pretentious narcissistic windbag, but the more I read your posts I came to understand that this hippie hatred is ALL intensely personal to you. Like tasting something rancid you recoil automatically and then grasp for words to describe visceral sensations words simply can not do justice.

You may not realize your vocal hatred for pot smokers appears more than a little hypocritical since just about every jazz and R&B musician in your record collection were high as a kites on many occasions from pot, heroin or cocaine. You failed to mention the tie-dye and beanie wearing Jaco Pastorius' drug habits or nouveau-rich-kid feelings of entitlement that led to his death at 35 because a bouncer decided to teach a loud mouthed hippie a lesson.

Perhaps you even forget The Smokin Menehunes upcoming gig in Rancho Cucamonga sponsored by a smoke shop who's owner lists Bob Marley as a hero...

...but I digress.

I am personally soothed by my eclectic musical tastes. I'm grateful to have the flexibility to equally enjoy Pharoah Sanders, David Crosby, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Burning Spear, Stanley Clarke, Carl Perkins, Les Baxter, James Brown, Robert Fripp, Sun Ra, Allman Bros, Peter Tosh, Premiata Forneria Marconi, Jimi Hendrix, Lee Morgan, Celio & Kapono and Billy Holiday depending on my mood. (Perhaps the result of having a trumpeter father and a mother who worked at record shops and radio station encouraging me to explore all music.) I've been a kit drummer/percussionist for nearly thirty years and have also enjoyed playing many different types of music.

I realize hippie-bashing is a punk/hipster right of passage just as hipster bashing was for the hippies but as I said before I started this thread for fun in the Bilge to expose the Dead's many connections to Hawaii and their interest in the music of primitive cultures. I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking, or debate Viet Nam and the fall of tiki pop culture in America. However I honestly look forward to sharing mai tais and rapping about these things after one of your gigs someday soon.