OC Hippies

I think that Orange County probably has less hippies than anywhere I've lived, besides perhaps South Dakota, which is too downtrodden, desolate and full of real nature to properly ferment Flower Children.
Most of the coastal cities have their share of beach bums, who share the hippies affection for mild hedonism, convenient spirituality, general uncleanliness, and probably marijuana, but don't give a toss about activism or protesting unless it directly involves both a). sand and b). salt water.
But the beach bums are far and away more anti-establishment than most of those in the O.C. who outwardly appear to be hippies, or at least hippiesque. Here it is, of course, all about fashion. One of the most visible centers of counter-culture in the sprawl is The Lab in Costa Mesa. It is hip, it is bohemian, it is progressive and it is "The Next Generation of Retail." The Lab bills itself as an "antimall," meaning of course that it is a mall. There are things I like about the place -- and I'd certainly rather hang out there than South Coast Plaza -- but when I read things about it being Orange County's "only progressive, lifestyle-culture, specialty retail shopping destination of its kind" I want to throw up.
My most outwardly "hippie" friends here loved nothing more than talking about the things they buy at Ikea and Banana Republic. Another friend wore bell-bottoms, read Keouac and kept a "Peacenik Barbie" in her dorm room, but would forbid me from ever speaking out against the war in Iraq or President Bush.
I'm not actually why I'm talking about this -- the Hippy Movement is fascinating from a historical perspective and also jaw-grindingly embarrassing. But there aren't really hippies around today, regardless of what popular nostalgia will tell you, and that is no different from saying there are no Legionaries around today. Hippies are tied to a particular time and place. I guess what I'm talking about is something pretty different. But I'll have to get into that tomorrow.
More soon.

City of Orange: feel the night

The best part about the tiny room that I rent for $650 a month is that I've got a door that leads directly to a suitable backyard with a lawn and a patio and a grill and some flowers and an abandoned shed and everything.
Tonight I was inspired to step outside and take in the moonlight, but as soon as I walked out the door all I could hear was the roar of a jet engine overhead. The cool night air was only slightly less stuffy than inside. As far as moonlight, there was none. A few gauzy stars shone meekly, as if through a sky of dirty glass and the entire horizon was still glowing like a 24-hour gas station, the eternal, dusty halo of endless miles upon miles of freeways, minimarts and midcity sprawl.
This is one of the quaintest houses on the city's sleepiest street. It was built so long ago that there are no washer/dryer hook-ups, no air-conditioning, no washing machine, hardly anything that could smog up the sky. I feel the original floorboards individually creak under the carpet when I do sit-ups in the mornings. This house has been on the planet at least twice as long as I have.
I wonder if there was ever a time when it wasn't surrounded by solid city from ocean to desert. I wonder if this town ever felt more like a real neighborhood than an anachronism. I wonder how long it has been since you could step into the backyard and still feel the night.

Never Forget...

It's hard to believe that I had only been in college for a few weeks when a phone call woke me up at what had quickly become an unthinkable hour in the morning, somewhere around 7:30 a.m. I wish I could get back the unspoiled optimism and boundless energy I had in those first endless weeks in California. I met many of my best friends, was first introduced to a lot of my music I love, explored Orange County more extensively than I would for a long time, looked into joining all sorts of social causes and generally felt like I could change the future.
But sometimes the future changes without you.
I had been reading about the anti-globalization movement the night before. This was less than two years after huge the WTO protests in Seattle, and there was a growing international movement committed to breaking down corporate control, cleaning up the planet and restoring power to individuals and local communities. In Mexico the Zapatistas were giving power back to the farmers of Chiapas, the Green Party was more visible than it had ever been, and "culture-jamming" seemed like an increasingly powerful and popular way to subvert media control. I felt hopeful -- it seemed like things were going in the right direction, and I was ready to fight the good fight.
So I was confused when I answered my dorm phone to an unfamiliar woman's voice. She was somewhere on the East Coast and had been trying to reach her daughter. And so it was due to a wrong number that I learned how the world was about to change. The woman was not panicked or hysterical; she sounded energetic, probably just running high on adrenaline, but thanks to my drowsy state and optimistic disposition I thought it could have had something to do with hope.
"They bombed the World Trade Center," she said. "Really?" I said, not even sure where the World Trade Center was, "Who did?"
"They don't know yet," she said, "Turn on the TV, it's just incredible."
"Ok, thanks," I said. "Good luck finding your daughter."
So I woke up my roommates and turned on our TV. Before long there were half a dozen people in our dorm room. Watching. It was simply impossible to do anything else.
We saw the second tower collapse before the newscasters even knew it had happened. Eventually I dragged myself to class.
Walking across campus, I watched students skate and shuffle across Chapman and everything looked the same, but in my head just one thought repeated over and over again: "Everything is going to be different now."
And it was.
I never cried. I read that if you hadn't cried over September 11, you were not human, or not American or something, and I actually did try to cry. I would sit still all alone and meditate on how awful it was, but I only felt cold and numb. I hardly knew anyone on the entire East Coast, let alone in New York, let alone Ground Zero. The whole thing seemed so far away. I didn't even know they were calling it "9-11" for a few weeks, I think. If any of my friends cried, we didn't talk about it. We got on with our lives -- after all, we were college freshmen and it seemed like our lives were just beginning.
The only real outwards sign of what had happened was that for at least a week people incessantly drove around the Orange Plaza traffic circle, honking horns and waving flags in what seemed like patriotism as impotent posturing.
The only tears I saw shed over September 11 came from a friend of mine after a church service we attended where patriotic songs were played in leu of hymns and she was berated mercilessly for daring to pray for mercy on the soul of Osama bin Laden.
It did not take long for frustration and cynicism to set in. There was a sense of "Yes, this was terrible. But what are we going to do now?" The answer quickly became: depression, repression, war, fear, bad entertainment and divisive politics. More than the destruction, more than the fatalities and broken families, what broke my heart was how quickly the spirit of hope seemed to vanish from America.
We couldn't move forward.
September 11 was compared to Pearl Harbor, America's enemies were branded the new "Axis of Evil" and everywhere you turned people seemed to be drawing poorly defined comparisons to past wars as if they desperately wanted them to be true. Even the few anti-war rallies that were held at Chapman seemed more like re-enactments of Vietnam-era protests, complete with Hendrix music and flowery fashion. The future was here, and America was determined to look only to the past.
As for me, I felt powerless. All the anti-corporate causes I had wanted to support suddenly had a smell of being anti-American; it was pretty much accepted that if you had something to say, it was time to go underground and wait it out. Which is a damn shame, because THAT is the most anti-American thing I can think of.
It has been five years now and we still living in the shadow of no towers. Today we remember a terrible day, but I choose to also remember the cautious hope that I felt in the wake of that tragedy. Hope that we would be shaken awake. Hope that things could be better. Hope that we would react not with fear, but in love.
I choose to remember that it's still possible.
Everything is different now. The earth turned upside down that day. But it also keeps on turning. Let's turn with it. Let's change for the better. Because it's easy to forget that we still can.

As I post this, it's almost September 12, 2005. How will you change the world today?