Boulder: too pricey for Hippies.
Boulder: a greener, liberal Orange County? Or: Reputation trails Reality.
Last night, on my way to a cool Manhattan-worthy sushi joint (Hapa) with my hip buddy LC, past a bunch of college bars and trendy joints worthy of Aspen, past multi-kajillion dollar developments that have gone up in the past year or two, I ran across a scene worthy of my iPhone’s camera.
So the photos are shaky, but here’s the deal: 12 or 20 hippies, hard to tell as they were all sitting and jumping and lying all over one another, all around 18 or 20 years old, barely clothed, playing loud (and not half-bad) folks music, right in the middle of Friday night downtown, dancing around or sitting aimlessly, busking. I said to my friend, hey, this is what the rest of the world thinks Boulder is like all the time, all Birkenstocks and armpit hair and pot and dreads…but what’s funny is none of these people are from Boulder!
She wondered if they were passing through on way to some Rainbow Festival somewheres. A little puppy repeatedly bit a dancing lion lady’s tail. Very cute. I was wearing a military trucker hat, and an older gentleman, who’d joined 20 others in stopping to watch the downtown hippie music scene, asked me where I’d served. I demurred, “Ah, nan, some hipster lady gave this to me…I’ve never had the honor.” We talked for awhile, joking about how the hippies couldn’t afford to live in Boulder, these days…how we’d become a greener, liberal version of Aspen or Orange County.
And I thought about how reputation always lasts 10 years or so longer than reality—which is why folks still think I’m cool, or have a life, say, even after 10 years (exactly) of working my butt off, sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen, being thoroughly un-cool and boring five or six nights a week.
Funny thing is, I sometimes am called, or call myself, a neo-hippie. I prefer The Last Hippie. Boulder did indeed used to be populated, and in many instances is what it is now today—a lovely, green-minded community that rich CA Republicans want to buy up—because of the hippies I knew growing up here. Some of the hippies were scientists, some were Buddhists, some were feminists, some were Beat poets or artists or activists who helped close Rocky Flats. All were their own person—the original modern Willy-living fixie-riding hipster. Their style was all their own.
*Angel-headed Hipster: In fact, if you consider the term’s roots, “hippie” has always been a moniker applied from the outside, just as much of the US still applies the label to Boulder. Jack Kerouac hated the term. He disowned the “hippies,” railing against their slovenly appearance, their lack of patriotism. The original “hippie” term came from “hipster,” a term applied to street-wise jazz-playing and/or appreciating young men or women, black or white, who were “hip” to something, “awake,” “alive.”
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
Too bad a person with a normal middle-class income can't even dream of owning a house in one of Boulder's idyllic, quaint neighborhoods.
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/07/affordable…
Haha still out of my price range. I'd totally live there though.
it's cool. Kinda like the hut in A PLACE OF MY OWN by Michael Pollan
totally busted a chuckle, realizing i've been a part of that street scene myself many times. only i was the one with the lion tail….even with eight years of locks, i absolutely detested being called a hippy. soo rude to just assume someone is a hippy, when clearly that is a term that applies to a small population (most of whom are old dead heads living in indiana somewhere.) i too wonder if becoming "boring" is an inevitable occurrence as you "mature." i might need to do something drastically dramatic. maybe i just need a lion tail.
you have an inner lion tail, Sara!
[...] drug-addled fixie-luvin’ dirty boy band hipster who don’t know where the term hipster originated (Beat generation; jazz). So what’s pretentious about being “eco”? Oh, [...]
a pathetic admission: growing up, the only thing I associated with Boulder was "Mork and Mindy," good ol' Conrad Janis!
A good friend/idol of mine, back in Jr. High, lived in the Mork n'Mindy house.
It's disturbing to have a hometown I'll probably never be able to live in as an adult…
Brings back memories. I was in Boulder before Hippies. The Hippies arrived mainly from Haight Ashbury and New York.
Memories of Kesey's Merry Pranksters coming through. Leary, Ginsburg, Ram Dass all late to the scene. They did not make the ambiance – they came to us. Mostly as stains upon a very pure gown of peacefulness.
I recall riding my bike home through Pearl Street, which was fronted by shuttered warehouses. Definitely down scale. One of my friends was first to buy, renovate, and flip in that area. Not SoCal but rather Burlingame CA money – Standard Oil inheritance. Then money flooded in from back East.
When I visit now my heart aches for what might have been – but I take the Buddhist perspective and realize all is temporary. There once was a place…
Thanks for sharing. Beautiful memories…sounds like you ought to write a short story.
[...] came up with Hipster Potter and the rare jazz album on vinyl, but was stretching for some true hipsterdom—you know, poetry, Beats, more jazz, some Buddhism, meditation, hitchhiking, rebell…n, individualism, independence, [...]
Funny, I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area where we think of hippies as being from the Haight or Berkeley. Boulder was though of as a wannbe Berkeley.
When I lived in Boulder, in the early 90's, it was clear that none of the people I hung out would be able to afford to live there in ten years.
[...] reminded that it ain’t just fair-weather-liberal-Whole Foods-trustafarian-dread-locked hippiesters who are into conspicuous-consumption-for-the-greater-good. From Eye-talians (like Travolta in [...]
[...] drove off to Coachella itself, saw faux post-hipsters in hipster uniform everywhere. Lots of great style, and lots of “I shop out of the Urban [...]
Hello People! Just wanted to tell you that I found tickets to Maroon 5 concert on Aug 19th. In this place you can find tickets for other dates too. It’s wonderful their performance on stage, this is my third time and I’m still so excited about listening them live! On this page you can see the section where you’re buying the ticket, so it’s very recommended! Good luck!!
[...] Hipsters are tough to pin down. A true hipster, and neo-hipsters, all deny being hipsters. I’ve talked about all that in some depth here: [...]
[...] what is a hipster, really? Waylon Lewis, founder of elephantjournal.com & host of Walk the Talk Show with [...]
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[...] look like they just stepped out of the 1960s. Sadly, this is a dying breed in Boulder. They sport tie-dye attire and wear their hair in dreadlocks, advocating peace and love [...]
[...] this is what hipsters actually are, or aren’t, or [...]
[...] [...]
[...] The term originated before and during the Beat Generation. It meant hip-to-something, awake, with it… [...]
Great point. I'm writing about the OC I see on TV, hypocritically–since I'm dissing the US' ignorant view of Boulder.
On your other point, we have a strong Latino population—but even if you live here for awhile, the non-white population isn't always that visible in everyday life—there isn't half as much cultural give-and-take as their could be.
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/06/why-is-bou…
Amen to that—you're dead on. But it is generally the shiftless, homeless outta centyral Hollywood casting sorta hippie—not the scientist poet activist who reads Tolkein and biodiesels his/her old car but mostly rides her/his bike with a made-in-USA bike trailer in back sorta hippie—that America has for many years visualized as belonging to Boulder.
Amen. Thanks. Always good to explode a stereotype. That said, the three ex-Californians living a few houses down from me now are all from Orange County.