- This post originally appeared on Regretsy on May 20, 2011
I DON’T LIKE THE HIPPIES.
There, I said it.
It’s out now, you can copy and paste it to your LiveJournal, and spam my Facebook page with Quorn recipes. I don’t care.
I’m going to break down my revulsion in sections so we can both understand my misdirected rage a little better, or at least be able to keep track of where we lost interest.
1. I don’t like dreadlocks on white people.
White people with dreadlocks always have an art name or a hippie name or a fucking yoga name. You never meet a white girl with dreads named “Jill”. It’s always, “Hey, this is my friend, Ananda Gheranda-Samhita Sunflower One Tree Berkowitz.” And there’s always a “Berkowitz”, because so many white hippie girls are Jewish. I don’t know, maybe they’re tired of flat irons.
Don’t tell me that dreads are clean. Just don’t. I know, you have a friend with dreads, and she washes them all the time. I consider that anecdotal evidence, and not compelling. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong (not really), but aren’t dreads created by not brushing, not combing and not washing your hair? That’s how they’re made in the wild, anyway. There was a guy who used to hang outside the 7-11 with one big dread the size of a pie tin, and he smelled like the inside of a plunger.
So no, I’m not ever going to buy anything modeled by someone with dreads. You may very well be the one person in the world without nits in your gnarled clump of mats, but I’m not taking any chances. Any bugs I’m hosting are my own.
2. I don’t like women who call each other “Mama”.
Enough said.
3. Making your own bread is not brave.
Hippies are not heroes. It’s nice that you make compost, but no one fucking cares. Washing your reusable bamboo panty liners in a stream with a rock does not make you Gandhi. Not that he wore pads, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make.
And really, more often than not, these people who live so simply would be thrilled to do their laundry at your place. Hippies are not Amish, they’re broke. And they’re usually broke because they don’t want to work, or they can’t get real jobs because they have a lotus tattooed on their face and smell like kefir.
Hippies also hate the government, but wish the government would give them more money. And they believe that the country’s financial problems could all be solved by legalizing marijuana.
More importantly, hippies think Bob Dylan is a genius. And there’s just no coming back from that.
4. I used to live in Santa Monica.
This may not make sense if you don’t live in California, but trust me when I say that this may be the most compelling reason of all to dislike hippies and hippie culture.
There was a market behind our apartment house called Wild Oats. This was the only market in walking distance, so we went there a lot. It was frustrating because they had nothing a normal human being needed. If you wanted a Coke, you’d have to settle for a Yohimbe Bark Spritzer. If you wanted aspirin, they’d suggest shoving aloe leaves up your blowhole. I remember going in there for some instant rice, and they looked at me like I voted for Mike Huckabee. Of course you could get as many American Spirits as you wanted, which hippies perceive as a vegetable.
On one particularly awful day, I stood in line behind a woman who was ripping the cashier to shreds over something that had been mismarked organic. “DON’T YOU REALIZE HOW SERIOUS THIS IS? I ALMOST BOUGHT SOMETHING THAT WASN’T ORGANIC! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME! MY FAMILY AND MY HEALTH IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME AND THIS IS INEXCUSABLE!”
I stood there, holding the Seventh Generation recycled toilet paper that feels like wiping your ass with an emery board, and waited for my turn. When I paid and got outside, I saw the organic tantrum woman loading her Range Rover, and talking on her cell phone with a Marlboro Light hanging out of her mouth.
5. I hate Kale.
Even as a garnish.
