pre-hippies
bostThe Pre-Hippies
By Michael Erlewine
Before the reign and rain of hippies fell into place around 1965 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before that was the so-called Beat Generation. Unfortunately, I was just too young to fit that time slot, but you know I tried. So, although I wanted to be a Beatnik, instead I was a Pre-Hippie or post-beatnik, having been trained by the Beatniks in what today we would call a liberal arts view of life.
There were just a few of us, but we served to teach the hippies about art, philosophy, music, and being cool. By definition, we walked point for the 1960s alternative hippie culture that came in 1965.
People like me got respect because we knew so much more about art and philosophy, and that was considered cool, while the Hippies were hot, and it was even cooler to be hot. With us it was sitting around and listening to jazz and classical music, while in what is called the 1960s, the alternative culture of the Hippies, was all about dancing, getting high, and having a good time.
Here is a photo of me, probably from the late 1950s or early 1960s in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That is Carl Oglesby standing behind me, a prominent antiwar leader, author, and president of ‘Students for a Democratic Society’ (SDS), and that is Carl’s wife Beth Oglesby on the left. This took place at Oglesby’s house. I am wearing my herringbone tweed jacket and a dark blue sweater. Back then, for me that was cool.
I never quite crossed over into the ‘Hippies’, so I missed both sides of the equation, Beatnik and Hippie, and each by a hair. I never thought that much of pot, marijuana, which for me was a waste of time, but hallucinogens like LSD (acid), that was another story. I learned eons of wisdom on acid.
My late friend John Sinclair, poet, blues expert, and marijuana revolutionary used to talk about ‘walking point’ for and teaching the Hippies. It was John that pointed this out to me. I miss him. As they say, ”Ain’t but a few of us left.”
I did about everything I could to be a Beatnik, but that train had left the station. In 1960 I dropped out of high school, hitchhiked to Venice West (Santa Monica) and lived along the beach, traveled to San Francisco, and to New York’s Greenwich Village, lived on nothing, smoked cigarette buts off the street, etc. Soon after that I was hitchhiking with Bob Dylan, etc.
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Yet even I had to throw in my hat and acknowledge I was born just too late to be part of the original Beat Movement. All that remained were the remnants and embers of a way of life I had tried to live. Yes, there were the Hippies and everything 1960s, and I sampled what I could, playing music, and all of that. Yet at heart, the Beat Movement haunted me. In the end, all that I really took away from the pre-hippie times was a respect and taste for Zen Buddhism and a love of the films of Akira Kurosawa. The following is one of my favorite Kurosawa films.
“The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail”
And after some years all that morphed into a full-on interest in the dharma and eventually my deciding to practice it. I never thought of the dharma as a religion. Still don’t. To me, the dharma was just the truth, the way things are at heart, And I wanted to be aligned with that truth.
I had not yet tasted the fruits of dharma. That took many years, but for me practicing the dharma with an authentic teacher was all that I asked of life, or close to it.
[Just for fun, “Landman” on Paramount (streaming) is the best series I have seen in a long time. Billy Bob Thronton is doing the best acting he has ever done, IMO.]
[Photo of me with Carl Oglesby standing in back, and Oglesby’s wife Beth on the left .]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: SpiritGrooves.net.
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
