HIPPIE REDUX: #12 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

Vietnam War

The Sixties were a time of increased polarization, particularly in America. Straight/Freak, Black/White, Youth/Establishment, Hawk/Dove. The Vietnam War, with the draft, unclear motivation and the confusing story of what was happening, tore the country up. I personally know five men in Toronto who came North to avoid being drafted in that era. Fine people. Our gain, America's loss.

HIPPIE REDUX: #8: Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

What was the Hippie ideal all about...

Don't think your world into little boxes. Stop trying to have everything make rational sense. Forget your car, house, furniture and what the front lawn looks like. Trust the wisdom of your body. Respect the intelligence of your emotions. Look for spirit, outside and inside. Enjoy your senses. Laugh, sing, fuck, dance, play...preferably with as many people as possible, in the sunlight in a public place, as nude as you dare. Make love not war.

HIPPIE REDUX: #11 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

The Band

This Canadian group formed around 1960 in Toronto as the Hawks, backing up Ronnie Hawkins and then Bob Dylan. Their first solo album, Music From Big Pink, 1968, established them as channeling the sound of a rural past, without ever being "country", and always keeping a Rock'n'Roll grittiness. Everyone was doing psychedelic music, and Big Pink came out with banjos and mandolins. "What the hell is this," we thought, and then got blown away. They somehow captured more of the feel of American music than any American band. Amazing ensemble musicians, The Band were perhaps one of the best groups ever formed, and their music never fails to move me.

HIPPIE REDUX: #10 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

Easy Rider

I watched this movie again several years ago, and enjoyed it. Of course back in the Sixties we thought it was astonishing. Not sure now about the message, are the two main characters bikers, hard drug dealers, hippies, reactionaries? They seem to stand apart from everyone. Not that that bothered us when we first saw it, it was to us simply counter-culture against establishment, end of story!

HIPPIE REDUX: #9: Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

How young we were.
The band Buffalo Springfield who put out their protest hit "For What It's Worth" in 1966, made 3 great abums before disbanding. That's Steven Stills pointing upward, and you can probably guess who the guy in the crazy sweater is.

HIPPIE REDUX: #7: Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

Ken Kesey

This author of two acclaimed books, Sometimes a Great Notion and One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, took LSD in a CIA-funded study in 1959. Subsequently he and friends, named Merry Pranksters, travelled across the States in the first psychedelic bus, freaking out the locals, and gleefully disregarding common views of reality. Back in California, they held multimedia "acid tests", often including a new band later called the Grateful Dead. If Hippie had a father, it was Kesey. Wonderfully documented in the book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe.

HIPPIE REDUX: #6: Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

How Young We Were

Two of these guys are dead, a third is almost deaf, the fourth has viral meningitis, but The Who continue touring to sellout crowds 50 years later.