WhatFinger


Hippie Country Safari theme park

The last hippie on the planet earth



For several months I hunted the elusive creature in the Santa Cruz Mountains without any luck. A couple of times I spotted Bigfoot, but I paid no attention to him. I was searching for a being much more rare.

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Finally, late one afternoon, I caught sight of him through my powerful binoculars. Knowing of his deep aversion to captivity, I spent all night rigging an elaborate trap for my prey. I rolled an old VW bug into the brush and spray-painted it with colorful psychedelic designs. Then I baited the trap with liberal sprinklings of oregano in the front seat and left the door open. The next day I watched in deep suspense as I saw him slowly moving towards the trap. When he finally crawled into the front seat, I flicked the switch on the remote control device that shut and locked the door. With my heart pounding in anticipation, I approached the trap, holding my rifle at the ready. After I reached my destination, I gazed in wonder at the strange sight before me. He had a long beard and shoulder-length hair over which he wore a floppy leather hat. His attire consisted of bleached-out, flared Levi's, an old fringe leather vest, sandals, and a guitar strapped around his shoulder. Dangling from his neck were beads and an ancient artifact that I later identified in an old illustrated scroll as being a peace symbol. I shoved my rifle barrel through a crack at the top of the door window and fired a tranquilizer dart into him as a precautionary measure. His eyes glazed over as he smiled happily. "Oh wow! That stuff is outta sight! Let me have another hit," said the Last Hippie on the Planet Earth. "Not until you give me some information," I said, beginning my interrogation. "Hey, man, no need to get uptight." "First of all, what is your name?" "The Answer, My Friend, is Blowin' in the Wind," he sang while strumming his guitar. "Your name!" I snapped. "I feel bad vibes comin' from you but, since you gotta know, my name is Aquarius Hippe." "Okay, Aquarius, now tell me….." "FREE LOVE!" he suddenly screamed. "Huh?" "FLOWER POWER!" "What?" "TURN ON! TUNE IN! DROP OUT!" For the next few minutes, Aquarius Hippe ranted and raved, screaming archaic slogans from the distant past. When he finally calmed down, he said, "Sorry Man." I keep having these flashbacks. This time I was grooving in Haight-Ashbury back in '66." "Haight-Ashbury?" "Yeah. That's where the movement got its act together. I smoked my first banana peel there and then went on to heavier trips." "Why did you leave Haight-Ashbury?" Tears started welling up in Aquarius Hippe's eyes." It's a real bummer what happened to the Haight," he said with a deep sigh. "Today that area is nothing but a bunch of high-priced condos and trendy boutique shops. There's just no place left in the Haight for an aging hippie." "What I want to know is why….." "MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR!" he yelled. "WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN OR OTHER LIVING THINGS!" This tirade continued until Aquarius collapsed in exhaustion. "Where were you this time?" I asked. "I flashed back to the March on the Pentagon in '67." "OK, what I want to know is why you're the last of the hippies." "The others sold out! I should have seen it coming. First Peter Max started making a lot of bread by commercializing psychedelic art, then they ripped off the whole hippie movement with the musical, Hair." But what happened to the rest of the hippies?" All of a sudden he started writhing in pain as he grabbed his head. "OFF THE PIGS! THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" "What was that all about?" I asked when his mind finally floated back to the present. "Streets of Chicago, '68. The pigs were busting my head open outside the Democratic Convention." "Now maybe you can tell me why your kind disappeared." "They became part of the establishment. Once they were free spirits communing with nature, and now they develop computer software, start DotCom corporations, and put together multimedia package deals. Even Jerry Rubin became a stockbroker!" "But how did you remain true to the Cause?" Before he could answer my question a look of absolute bliss came over his face. His head nodded rhythmically for a long time until he slowly returned to normal. "You sure looked happy. Where did you drift off to?" "Woodstock, '69," he said softly. "Maybe now you can tell me how you survived the last few years." Aquarius Hippe began sobbing. "It was rough. The 'We Generation' of Gimme Shelter became the 'Me Generation' of Gimme Tax Shelter during the 80s. As the years went by, more and more of us dropped out into materialism. By the beginning of the new century only a handful of us were left." "Then what happened to them?" His sobbing became so uncontrollable that I had to calm him down with a couple more tranquilizer darts. "It was a really bad scene" he said, blubbering. "Our small band heard about a guru in Oregon who set up a commune where they shared all worldly possessions, so we decided to check out the scene." "How did you like it?" "When we got there we saw the guru being chauffeured around in a fleet of Rolls Royces. It was so disillusioning that the rest of my group traded in their love beads for three-piece suits. Even the gurus became rip-off artists!" He buried his face in his hands. "Once we thought we were at the dawn of a New Age, and now it's gone, gone with the wind." I must say that I was quite touched by Aquarius Hippe's story. Therefore, I soon endeavored to preserve the values of his lost kind by building a mock replica of Haight-Ashbury and putting Aquarius Hippe on display there as part of my Hippie Country Safari theme park. The admission fees are $10 on weekdays and $12 on weekends. P.J. Gladnick lives in South Florida which is full of eccentrics which is why he feel right at home here. P.J.‘s main accomplishments in life was winning a bottle of aftershave when he was eight and having the biggest PING List (almost 1000 Pingees) on the Free Republic forum for my DUmmie FUnnies blog. This is fortunate since he suffer severely from Ping List Envy. He has written a syndicated humor column that appeared in dozens of newspapers throughout North America. Only complete humility forbids him from telling you that his columns appeared in the Houston Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, L.A Herald-Examiner, Winnipeg Free Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Vancouver Sun. P.J. has produced an award-winning satirical comix website called PJ’s Comix. Among the people we viciously satirized was James Carville but I hope that Mary overlooks that. P.J. can be reached at: pjcomix@hotmail.com


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Guest Column P.J. Gladnick -- Bio and Archives

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