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Welcome Home!
This is a grassroots level, Web 1.0 site.
It first went online in the year 2000.
Now it's older than MySpace, Facebook, Twitter etc.
Welcome to
my hippie crib on the Web
Hippie also spelled 'hippy' is a member of a
counterculture group that began in the United States
during the Vietnam War, just after the British
Invasion in 1960s. Hippie, Flower Child or sometimes Hipster are synonyms for a Hippy. Hippies are people whose behavior, dress,
worldviews, use of psychedelic drugs, tastes in art,
music etc. imply a rejection of conventional Middle Class values. Origins of hippies can be
traced back to European freedom movement groups and Bohemians, American 1940s Hipsters and 1950s Beats. But probably every bohemian,
artist, hipster, beatnik and/or hippie will tell you that
they are who they are because it came naturally to them
from the heart. Hence, the real hippie crib is in the
heart.
During the 1950s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the sixties
counterculture, accompanied by a shift in terminology
from "beatnik" to "hippie" [Read more]. Hence, hippies came from the
Beats. The leading writers known as the "beats"
were Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William
Burroughs and Gregory Corso. Their followers were called
"beatniks", and the word "beatnik"
came from the word "beatific", which means
"bestowing bliss, blessings, happiness, blissful,
saintly [Def. from: Dictionary.com].
The most obvious differences between beatniks and hippies
were their tastes in dress and music. Beatniks preferred
Jazz music, abstract art and fashions from Paris, France.
On the other hand, hippies preferred Folk-Rock music,
psychedelic art and Mod fashions mostly from London, and
also from San Francisco such as jeans, bandanas and the
Hippie Look (bell bottoms, overalls etc.), which was
introduced in San Francisco in 1969.
The name of The Beatles, a 1960s English band that started
the British
Invasion was a
play of words in the spelling of the words "beat"
+ "beetle = "Beatle".
That play in spelling identified The Beatles with the
Beats and with Hippies. The spelling was a stoke of
genius that came to John Lennon in a dream. On July 6,
1961, John Lennon was asked by a reporter from Mersey Beat (Vol.1 No. 1) how did the name
Beatles arrive? He replied "It came in a vision - a
man appeared on a flaming pie and said 'From this day on
you are Beatles, spelled with an A'. Thank you Mister
Man, they said, thanking him."
The hippie movement was like a magic event brought about
by many coincidental events or by Synchronicity. Some of those were the British
music invasion headed by The Beatles, the Vietnam War,
Peace movement, Civil Rights movement, Women's Rights
movement, and others that merged somehow at the same
time. Hippies popped up like mushrooms in different parts
of the country, and the world. At first, the Beatles
style long hair became a hippie trademark. That was
followed by Mod fashions from London, and by other
fashions from San Francisco such as bell-bottoms in late
1969. The movement did not have a hierarchical or family
type structure with leaders or elders at the top. Though
the movement had different "heros" (persons
admired for having done or said something important), and
there may have been groups or communes that may have
taken on a hierarchial structure, the hippie movement was
a freedom movement that revolved mainly around music,
liberal ideas, gatherings and other events. It did not
have an organized structure and was different in many
ways from those that were formed abroad later.
Well over 90% of American hippies were young and of draft age, just like me. But the
movement was open for people of all ages who shared
hippie ideas. Attempts to categorize hippies into various
categories, casts or groups is a mistake and not in line
with its real freedom loving character. And the hippie
slang word "Head" was just an inside slang word
for a fellow hippie - not for a hippie leader. However,
it was an underground movement, and had its secrets and
intimate side. So, not all hippie circles were open for
anyone; especially those that weren't "heads";
in other words for those that didn't share hippie ideas
and weren't trustworthy. But that was not always the
case... There were also hippies that were eager to
accepted anyone who knocked on their door. And especially
in the early 1970s, sometimes hippie ideas and lifestyles
opened an opportunity for abuse by criminals and/or
pushers of hard drugs. But time has shown that hippie
ideas of peace, love and happiness have prevailed because
they are strong, universal and timeless.
Please
remember Woodstock 1969 and the Summer of Love. Peace!
To know where were going, we have to
understand where weve been. In that spirit this
website was built. At first, it was made for folks the
author had met in his travels abroad, who didn't
understand the influence 1960s and hippies had on our
modern culture. The site has also become a source of
first hand information about 1960-70s hippies and the author's personal
experiences, among other things.
Some reasons for the creation of the site
- because many websites on the subject were made by
people that were too young in the 1960s to understand
what was going on, weren't born yet or were not hippies
themselves,
- because the media portrays of the 1960s is often an
image created to serve conservative corporate propaganda
interests,
- because the author's experiences were different from
those of others,
- to prevent destortion of facts about hippies and 1960s
Peace movement,
- to contribute to the global community,
- to create a personal home site on the Web,
- to tell about my personal experiences,
- to preserve the spirit and ideas that are dear to
hippies,
- and other reasons.
I was there, drank the wine, smoked the weed, passed the
acid test, got initiated and was given a hippie name: The
Polish Hippy. So, if you won't expect too much from my
writing skills and find the time to go through some stuff
posted on the site, perhaps you'll learn a bit more about
the 1960-70s and how and why they changed the world so
much. But most of all, this will be a biography of a
1960s Chicago hippy rather then a research type work on
the subject.
In my transatlantic travels and the mentoring work I've
done in Europe, I've met many folks that didn't
understand America; especially the 1960s and hippies. So,
instead of writing a book on the subject, caring photo
albums and scrap books with me and retelling the same
story to everyone I've come across, I've built this site
instead. You'll find lots of information, related links,
photos, my music, etc. here. And the site was built by
me. Thus, the site is an online work of art, and blog
style literature.
My experiences were somewhat different from other 1960s
hippies. I lived in Chicago and traveled to Europe. When
I started building this site in about 2000, there were
just a few hippies on the Web. Perhaps that was because
many old hippies were not computer literate; though
hippies and psychedelics did play a major role in the
development of computers, informatics and the World Wide
Web. Later, after I've built the site came Web 2.0 technology and services that made it
possible for almost anyone to create their own blogs,
websites and pages on newly created social network sites
such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace etc. Web 2.0 opened
the World Wide Web for the masses.
Concept music album created in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and inspired by the 1960-70s.
Written and recorded between 2005 - 2006.
Full album was released
August 8, 2009.
Download .mp3 album in .zip file for free or listen.
Please donate
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