Sunday, September 07, 2008
How They Do It
In a few posts below, commenter Ed linked to this video:
Hippies Cry and Wail Over Fallen Trees
You must watch it. It’s fucking hilarious. My favorite comment to that post: Do they get this upset when someone mows the grass?
Anyway, Ed told me that my next mission was to "figure out how the rest of us can get to that point. You know, no bills to worry about, jobs whatever. All we have to do is roam the countryside looking for trees to cry over."
Unfortunately, I already have the next mission accomplished. Again, having lived in extreme liberal Seattle, I saw, first hand, how they do this.
Go find a 3 or 4 bedroom house for rent and have 15 of your closest weed connections move in with you. This way, each of you only has to work one or two days a week with impressive jobs such as a bike messenger or coffee jockey at your local Starbucks, SBC, Tetrazzino, whatever. Inevitably, one person will be smarter than the rest and they will have a high end job as bartender 3-4 nights a week in a run down tavern. This is a good thing because you and the other 14 friends can get free drinks all night long...preferably the pitcher of “over fill”. (That would be the pitcher they use to pour the excess from many different types of draft beers into to speed up the serving process because they don’t know how to pour a fucking beer.)
One or two of you will panhandle throughout the day although, if you’re young enough, the clothes you wear that were bought for you by mommy and daddy before you ran away will cost more than most of people you are soliciting make in a week. Put on a lot of black eyeliner and paint your fingernails black to throw them off from the designer attire. If you can throw some food coloring in to your hair, all the better.
Except for the bartender, the rest of you will switch off in your employment status. You only stay employed long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits for the next three months. During that time, other members of the household take minimum wage, part time jobs until they qualify for benefits. It’s only fair that way. You all receive food stamps so that you don’t have to waste your money on the necessities that you think the government should be buying for you. You now have enough income to pay the rent and support your drug habit.
This gives you ample time to sit around your house to suck on your bong, talk about how the man is keeping you down, patronize the girls by asking them why do they call it “HIStory” and run to the local 7-11 for the nightly hot dog or to the Safeway for the weekly Top Ramen supply. (10 for a dollar! Woo-hoo!)
You should also have an artist as one of your friends who can help you draw your ridiculous protest signs for all your rallies you need to attend. It is not necessary to have any friends who can spell. Bonus if you meet the existentialist sensitive artist and invite them to move in with you to prepare signs that make no fucking sense to the rest of the world.
One should have an old, beat up, oil guzzling, filthy exhaust emitting VW van with a surf board rack on top of it that you will never use for an actual surf board but hey! GREAT place for your pawn shop guitar that you can’t play but that doesn’t stop you!
Listen to college radio stations. Go to Planned Parenthood for all of your yearly examinations and contraceptives for free because you have no health insurance and no job. Get your needles at the local needle exchange outside your local supermarket. Every once in awhile, you should take up a job as a community activist and harass people with your pen, clipboard and issues you know nothing about. If you can’t get enough signatures on the street, have your bartender friend get them from the people who come in to the tavern every single night of the week. Then you can get your paycheck and quit because hey! You have a hundred and fifty dollars! ZOMG! You’re so rich!
Blow it all on weed in less than a week.
It is not important to spend your money on things like soap, shampoo, brushes, toothpaste; those are just products from the big, evil corporations who are deceptive in telling you that oral and body hygiene are important. They just want your money and you’re no fool!
The bartender gets a big tip one night from some Canadians so you all celebrate by purchasing rat poison acid. Trip on acid. Get in the beat up VW van and drive around town, laughing hysterically at all the pretty colors and the paranoia. Wet your pants from the thrill of almost killing yourselves and other people on the road. “Oh the places we go!”
The next day, decide to do something important. A local rag discusses some trees that have fallen in the forest, far, far away and no one was around to hear them. Get upset. Get very upset. Get pissed off that no one cares that a tree fell down. Who are these people who inhabit this planet with you? Why don’t they have any compassion? Look at those assholes, driving in their cars, wearing their business suits, going to work....there’s a fucking fallen tree!
Decide that you and your 15 friends are the only ones who give a shit about this planet. Gather up your guitar. Borrow a drum and head out to the woods, getting high. You have to get high or you’ll get too angry at all these unempathetic snobs on your planet. Oh how you wish they would die. Wouldn’t it be great if a natural disaster happened RIGHT NOW and killed them all?! You hate them! Smoke more weed.
Reach the forest. Get out of the beat up, VW van. Take one last hit of your chronic. Stand silently, together, looking at the fallen tree. Trample over other plants and woodland creatures to get to the tree. Sit down, trampling more plants. Cry. Look at others out of the corner of your eye. Realize that you’re not crying as much as they are. Cry harder.
Scream. Scream for mother Gaia! Get it all out. This poor, poor tree! Lay down, crushing the grass and insects and sob. Someone strums the guitar, another beats the drum, you all start singing, “Kumbaya”. Pick up a rock and sit in awe at the life you are holding in your hands. You could crush the very life out of this rock but you won’t, because you have compassion for all living things. Place rock up to your cheek and tell the rock you love it. Rock back and forth while singing. Kiss the rock. Place it gently back down on the ground.
Cry some more.
This world sucks! You hate this world. Look what humans have done to this world! Greedy, capitalist pigs! Why won’t they DIE?
One hippie girl will pray to a pagan goddess. You will then get up, head back to the beat up, VW van. Pull out a notebook and start writing about how much you hate people and their disregard for nature. You’re going to make a poem to read at amateur night at the local bistro. It’s so homey at the bistro. You really love their wood floors.
Go home, light up another joint, get stoned. Crash on to your sleeping bag in the living room.
You’ve done good, hippie. Sleep well. Tomorrow you have to get up early to go to an Obama rally with your “Fuck Bush” signs and terrorist rags around your neck. It’s going to be another big day!
(Kids, many more posts below, don’t miss out.)
