What a short, strange trip: Be-in is 40 (Smelly SF Hippie Alert)

Yahoo ^ | 1/13/2007 | LISA LEFF, Associated Press Writer

[tobyhill]

SAN FRANCISCO - Their hair, once a symbol of youthful rebellion, is mostly gray. Bodies that writhed with wild abandon when a guru invited them to "Turn on ... tune in ... drop out" now sport stiff knees and age spots.

"How many of you are on acid right now?" rock critic Joel Selvin asked an audience of former hippies who turned out this past week to mark the 40th anniversary of the Human Be-in, the counterculture event that unofficially launched the Summer of Love. "How many of you are on antacid right now?"

In many ways, the '60s as we now know the era was born Jan. 14, 1967, when musicians, poets, visionaries, student radicals and wayward youth gathered in Golden Gate Park. It was the unofficial birth of the counterculture movement that defined San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, a prelude to the social and political upheaval that followed.

[Cicero]

Nostalgie de la boue.

[Dallas59]

Yuck.

[RichInOC]

"How many of you are on acid right now?" rock critic Joel Selvin asked an audience of former hippies who turned out this past week to mark the 40th anniversary of the Human Be-in, the counterculture event that unofficially launched the Summer of Love. "How many of you are on antacid right now?"

Power scooters to the people, right on.

[kcvl]

Joel Selvin

[Theresawithanh]

"Over the years, probably a dozen people have come up to me and said 'You guys were fantastic!' I say 'We weren't there,'" laughed David Getz, drummer for Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Janis Joplin-fronted band that was not on the lineup the day of the Be-In. "And they say 'No, I saw you!' Maybe they did."

*Snicker*! Guess their motto would be I was there in the '60s, but I don't really remember much about it...

[Kimmers]

Does depends come in tie-dye?

[tobyhill]

I bet he still doesn't use toilet paper because he's out to save the trees.

[Lizavetta]

the 40th anniversary of the Human Be-in

In other words, a celebration of self-absorbtion.

What a worthy cause.......NOT.

[skr]

An era that celebrated stupidity, sloth and wastefulness, as well as the other deadly sins.

[SamAdams76]

Fortunately 1984 was the apex of all that 60s nostalgia. In fact, I think 60s nostalgia officially jumped the shark with that overwrought and unwatchable The Big Chill movie.

Now the 1960s is a distant memory. In fact, old people reminiscing about the 1960s is as pathetic today as it must have sounded to the hippies back then when older folk were yapping about the 1920s!

[WorkingClassFilth]

I've waited for this moment for a long, long time. Nothing as ironic as the aging and demise of the youth g-g-generation. Heh, heh, heh.

There's still time to get in on the ground floor of my sure fire money maker: Drive-In-Euthanasia. The way I've got it figured, the X&Y kids take the folks to the facility. There, roller skating, mini-skirted attendants put Mom and Dad into a luxury SUV of choice and serve a last high cholesterol meal of cheeseburgers or pizza with a mega dose of psychoactive pharmaceuticals in the soft drinks. Meanwhile, groovy tunes are pumped into the car through minispeakers and a psychedelic trip projected onto the outdoor screen to relive g-g-generational high times until they flatline. Illegal aliens remove the deceased (doing jobs Americans won't do) and chuck them into dumpsters where they'll be picked-up and later converted into soylent green for the family pet.

What a drag it is getting old, but there's good money in it.

[A.Hun]

[Thrownatbirth]

old people reminiscing about the 1960s is as pathetic today

Ah, that would be your Senate Dems.

[tobyhill]

LOL. There was this SP episode, one of the very few I've seen, where this guy was just walking by this long hair guy and he just turned around for no obvious reason and said,"shut up hippie".

[Cicero]

I thought The Big Chill was remarkably good. I saw it when it came out and it confirmed to me that the Summer of Love was over. Kaput.

I don't know if that was the director's intention, but it sure was the message I got from seeing it.

I witnessed a good deal of the hippie movement first hand, in Seattle in 1965-68 and then at NYU during the anti-Vietnam protests. I thought it was all totally brainless at the time, and I've never seen any reason to change my mind.

That was the message I got from the movie. "It's all over, Baby!"

[wildcatf4f3]

yawn

[woofie]

[A.Hun]

I loved the one where the hippies took over SP, and Cartman saved them!

[tobyhill]

I bet a few of the Geezer-tongues tried to relive the past by taking some trip and getting naked. I thought I would try to gross everyone out.