"65"

In regards to "65" in Hippie...

First of all, I thought it was hilarious that when Roy Seburn originally painted the sign for the bus, he painted it with two u's--"Furthur". Maybe a sign of all the drugs they were on?

I knew that the 60's were very much about music and bands. I also knew the 60's were filled with drugs. The drugs inspired music; the music inspired drugs. However, I don't think I realized to what extent this was true. I can't imagine my boss telling me that we have off on Mondays so that we can trip on acid all day. These days, people barely get smoke breaks, let alone a whole day off for an LSD party.

I thought it was interesting that people (Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary) purposely involved writers and artists like Jack Kerouac, Robert Lowell and Thelonious Monk with their drug "testing", so they could be used as "informed, articulate" references when the drugs would eventually become illegal. I can just imagine somebody calling up Oprah and inviting her to smoke a blunt with them so they could use her as a well-known respected pot-advocate to get it legalized again.

I loved the free-spirited nature of The Merry Pranksters. Whether it was based on drugs or not (which it was...), their lives were about them having fun. And how ironic that they'd go on a cross-country LSD "trip". Today somebody would get arrested for any ONE thing that they did back then: building a platform to the top of the bus for your friends to ride on, attaching speakers on that platform and in the windows to blast music to the towns you drove through, running around naked tripped out on acid in front of the cops at a 2-day concert just because they were on the other side of a fence than you.

I could go on and on; this wasn't a drag to read. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying that I dream about tripping on LSD 7 days a week, but it's almost like reading about something that a lot of people would love to do: hang out with your friends all day and listen to music, go crazy and push the boundaries a little bit, and just have a good ole' happy time.