The resident weirdo for the entire nation was Maynard G Krebs on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.” He adopted the “beat” persona, but wasn’t that weird looking. But nobody dressed like a slob like that in the 50s and the first half of the 60s.
We had “greaser” culture that didn’t conform, but they were largely restricted to big cities…
There were freaks, but they were called freaks then which made them at least attempt to limit their freakiness. Now freaks are called normal and people who aspire to be normal are called bigots.
10 years ago people got A tattoo. A young slut would get a tramp stamp on her lower back. Now, the're like some sort of vine that grows all over the body. People don't get A tattoo. They get tattooed - whole body sections done at a time. Can't do one on one leg without doing one on the other, etc, etc, etc
And that's just the parts of the body that show in public.
In some sections of some cities, sure. But the rest of the country wasn’t affected.
There have always been freaks, we just lost the necessary instinct to suppress their pathologies.
First, let me say that people now thought of as “hippies” never used that word to describe themselves. People who looked like, say, the Allman Brothers, called themselves “freaks.” It was an entirely different usage of the word from the unfortunates who worked in carnival freak shows.
It signified a break from the “establishment” and its values, but even so, they weren’t as bad as the scumbags we have today.
Where I lived in the 50s and 60s, growing your hair out and trying to look like a freak would get the stuffing stomped out of you quite promptly.
Schools had dress codes, and they enforced them.
The freaks would say they grew their hair out and wore those clothes to express their freedom. In fact, freaks had uniform regulations that were as strict as the Marines.
Crosby, Stills, and Nash (don’t remember whether Young was with them or not) had a song called “Almost Cut My Hair” with a line that went, “I feel like letting my freak flag fly.” His hair was his “freak flag.” And it was a hard-core “us against them” mentality.
I went to concerts and freak hangouts, but I was not accepted by those people. It was kind of like a dog being able to sense bad intent—somehow they just knew I wasn’t one of them.
In general, they were much better educated than young people today. There were philosophical underpinnings to what they were doing. All BS, of course, but at least they had something. And for the most part they were not sympathetic to the hard left, although there were a few around.
As Frank Zappa sang sarcastically, it was all “peace, free love, flowers and beads.” Except not really. It was no utopia. There was hypocrisy, dishonesty, cruelty, selfishness, guys pimping out young runaways to middle-aged “straights” (which meant people who were not freaks)—I’m not sure there wasn’t more of it than among the “establishment” of which they were so critical.
The main thing to remember, perhaps, is that everything they thought and believed was wrong, but I don’t think it was as malevolent, as downright Satanic evil as what we face today.
Although they were far from freaks and were the greatest patriots, the WWI Veterans who were burned and disfigured by the mustard gas were the scariest humans I saw as a young child.
I’ll never forget the pain I saw and felt when they entered the room.
Freaks in appearance only, but true Patriots underneath.
As a result, I try my best to look at the goodness in people’s souls rather than outward appearance. Some of the freaks have glowing hearts of gold and many of the glamorous have the darkest souls.
It is not mine to judge, as in doing so, I too will be judged. But still I faulter and fall short.
asylums!!!
Side Shows in
Circuses, Carnivals!!!
Beatniks were odd. Then The Beatles were a big shock.
The Movie, FREAKS. 1932.
Like IDIOCRACY,
WE are Living in It.
God Help Us.
Yes - they were called ‘beatnicks’
In the Eighties there were the Preppy and Yuppie looks. We used to joke our kids dressed better than we did. The decline started with men wearing an earring in the early Nineties (yes we laughed at how silly that looked), then came tattoos, and then everything went to hell. Men looked like slobs and girls looked like hookers, full of tattoos and piercings.
We only saw them on TV - usually some news report on something going on in California.
There were zero freaks at our school-unless you count people in boots and cowboy hats-and the hats were left in the truck.
Prior to 1960 the only place you saw freaks was at the side show of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Been around since 1940. I don’t remember “freaks” as described up through the 50’s. There were plenty of WW2 ex-GI’s with solitary bicep tatoos, and what I refer too as “Fonzi” or James Dean type punks and toughs. Leather jackets, low riding jeans, hobnail boots, duck’s ass haircuts etc. The closest thing these days would be Hell’s Angel etc bikers. Plenty of beatings, fist fights and general roughness but very, very rare shootings, stabbings etc. A “freak” in those days would have probably been humiliated if not beaten into conformity. It was an era when young men as a generalization were deeply into cars, sports and wait for it...girls! Overwhelmingly though, everyone male and female were “normal” as could be. That all changed in the 60’s.
The difference between today’s freaks and those in 1he 1930s & 1940s & 1950s were that back then, even the freaks loved America and welcomed and observed the protection of Constitutional freedoms & liberties ...
Many many thousands of those “freaks” fought & died for their country in WWII & Korea...
Things/freaks didn’t go into the dumper until the 1960s when the “hate America” religion was established under the auspices of the U.S. communist party...
That “old” America is now over and the lights have gone off...
I thought that was why San Fagsicko was created/made (with Nude Yawk right behind it).