Fucking Hippies

When I got to San Francisco back in 19aught92, I of course noticed all the hippies, especially up on Haight Street, because I was hanging around with some college kids who lived in an apartment on Belvedere Street, which was in Upper Haight, by the Park.  And you'd hear the "kind buds, man?" and see the gutterpunks with their dirty dogs and kittens on strings panhandling, the mossy bearded dreadlocked ponchos and doily chicks playing with beads on the sidewalk, and they smelled bad, but it didn't make me angry or anything; it was sort of a novelty.  I mean, we didn't have hippies where I came from, so it was quaint, like discovering bubble gum soda or one of those humping monkeys in Spencer Gifts.

I knew a little about hippies.  I'd seen Tom Cruise's turn as a bad hairpiece in Born on the 4th of July, and Petersen was an old chain-smoking hippie railing against the government.  Yeah, hippies smelled funny, but I sort of respected their cause. Down with the Man, free health care, and all that shit.  So I couldn't understand why one of my friends on Belvedere Street, Rich Prasch, hated them so much. Every chance he could, Rich would let you know how much he despised them.  "I fucking hate hippies," Rich'd say.  "I can't wait until Jerry Garcia dies.  I can't wait for that mutherfucker to die and watch all those damn hippies cry."  Which seemed a bit harsh.  I'd never been a big fan of the Grateful Dead; all that noodling non-rock spacey jamming wasn't my thing.  But I didn't wish the man dead or anything.  And hippies seemed harmless.

But I was wrong, they are far from harmless.  Hippies are the scourge of this city, and I fucking hate the damn things.

Hippies are like weeds, only you can't pull them because this is the Bay Area and there is probably an ordinance against it.  And the fuckers are not just indigenous to Haight Street.  In fact, those aren't even real hippies, just suburban kids from Pleasanton who still go home to do their laundry at their parents' four-bedroom house on the weekend, and the ones who really are living on the street no doubt came from the same affluence, because only white suburban kids can have the balls to rage against the system of privilege that affords them the right to rage against the system of privilege.  I know because I did the same.  But at least I wasn't a fucking hippy.

No, man, the whole Bay Area is infested with the vermin, like something eating the dry rot of the City's foundation, and it isn't just in the gutters and streets.  These hippies are everywhere.  They are in the hills and in the trees.  Literally in the trees, sitting in them, protesting who the fuck know what.  And they are riding their bio-diesel bicycles, clogging up the streets to save the planet by getting in my way, acting superior because they don't pollute the air in their goofy little helmets.  (And here's another thing, a little note to the bicyclers.  It's a fucking bicycle.  You don't need a helmet, pussy.  I rode a motorcycle, and I didn't wear a fucking helmet, and I crashed and my head is fine.  Or no worse than it was before.  Take off the helmet, and take off the goofy shorts.  In fact, just get in the damn car.  You're not erasing a "carbon footprint."  In fact, you are actually doing the planet more harm by exposing the atmosphere directly to your flaming pussydom.)  And then there's the recycling nonsense.

We don't have one recycling container in the Bay Area.  No, thanks for the Captain Planet crusaders, we've got like 12: plastic, paper, compost, biodegradable, non-biodegradable, glass, slightly darker glass, very dark glass, etc.  It's bullshit.  It's fucking garbage.  Why should I have to take time out of my day to separate my garbage?  That's why I pay a garbage bill.

I suppose it comes down to a fundamental ideological difference.  I don't care about saving the planet.  I really don't.  Ozone.  Carbon footprints.  Recycling.  Organic. Sustainable.   Do.  Not.  Give.  A.  Shit.  Do you know Derek Jeter's road batting average last year?  You don't care about Jete's BA against lefties on the road after the 8th inning in tied games, I don't care about organic produce.  Which by the way is the biggest scam since pet rocks.  All "organic" means is that there is a list of chemicals you can't use.  Which only leaves a whole bunch more you can.  And who regulates this?  A contingency of honest farmers who don't care about making money?  Everyone cares about making money.  Except hippies.  It is regulated by the same government hippies distrust.  OK, maybe I care about the planet, but only a little bit, in normal moderation, and if it doesn't inconvenience me needlessly.

I am a liberal.  I am a proud liberal.  Glen Beck is a hate-mongering asshole, and Republicans don't want you to have their money, and we, the 95%, need to stop supporting a system that appropriates 95% of the wealth into the hands of a select few.  But hippiedom is what happens when liberalism goes amuck, like cells mutating unchecked and growing cancerous.  I am all for peace and love and all that shit, and I would like to be a responsible citizen and help the planet, within reason, but because hippies and their hippy agenda are so fucking annoying, I now feel the need to do my part to combat them by spraying aerosol needlessly into the air and letting the water run for a really really long time.  Hippies are the boil of liberalism.  And the fuckers need to be lanced.