From: David Westling (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Oct 15 2005 - 15:22:37 PDT
>
>>
>> What does that mean? What is wrong with sounding like a hippie? What
>> does a hippie sound like?
>
> Hey man, can't we all just get along? Hey man, I don't have a place
> to stay, but we're all in this Kraaazy world together, so can't I just
> stay with you? Aren't you cool? What's your problem, man, don't
> bogart that pad...
>
> No offense to any hippies on the list, you guys have made some great
> music. I've just suffered a bit due to my californian upbringing.
>
> (Did anyone actually ever say Bogart? And what is the etymology of
> that phrase anyway, my elders?)
> jf
I'm a member of that 'tweener generation (b. 1954), too young to be a
first-phase hippie and too old to...I don't know...be comfortable with
the idea of cellphones? Anyway, I've seen various explanations of the
term "to bogart" such as that it means don't dangle a cigarette in
one's mouth so that it angles downward, making it burn faster and thus
wasting it, while ogling the likes of Lauren Bacall as she picks off
johns in a sleazy bar in Martinique, but this explanation doesn't
really satisfy. The actual song title by the original artists, the
Fraternity of Man, the one in the soundtrack of "Easy Rider", is "Don't
Bogart Me". This points to a more metaphysical realm, it seems to me.
Bogart's character was known, before his quasi-religious conversions in
flims such as "Casablanca" and "Passage to Marseilles", as one who
"sticks his neck out for no one". Thus, to Bogart someone would be to
selfishly hold oneself aloof, to be an "isolationist" in the parlance
of the WWII era, and, by extension, to be overprotective about some
possession.
I close with a text from Lewis Yablonsky's _The Hippie Trip_
(1968)--"The Psychedelic Creed".
1. The hippie movement is a spontaneous evolution. It is not a
"heavy" worked-out plan.
2. Drugs are a key to the God in men. Drugs are sacraments for a
greater knowledge of the universe. Drugs are a vehicle to a cosmic
consciuousness.
3. There are spontaneous leaders in the movement. They are not "pushy"
leaders, who are self-appointed. They are selected by hippie
constituents, because they are "spiritual centers."
4. Sex is free, holy, and should be naturally acted out without
guilt--for pure pleasure and communication.
5. The establishment and the police are not the enemy. They are a
constant reminder that the trip into the universeal unity of man was
never meant to be easy.
6. Communes are places where people can "do their thing", use
psychedelic drugs, seek their personal freedom and identity with a
minimum amount of "hangups" and interferences.
7. Violence is a result of frustrations and repressions.
8. "You can't change anyone else--you can only change yourself." A
true hippie believer would not get "hung up" with heavy game playing,
the new left, war protests, or civil rights battles. He simply wwould
strengthen his own perceptions of honesty and truth.
9. Children should not have the "heavy trips" of their parents put onto
them. They should have the freedom to "naturally" evolve in their own
line of growth.
10. People should stop playing "heavy games" in their life--as in
work, marriage, or the general plastic society. They should, as Leary
postulates, "turn-on, tune-in, and drop out." In this more natural
state of reality--with the aid of drugs--they will find their true
spiritual condition.
David Westling
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.