The Last Hippie

The Last Hippie, man, he rides.  He rides that endless highway of dreams that stretches from Syracuse to San Francisco, he rides along an invisible network established over seven decades of moving and grooving and digging the scene.  The back of his technicolor Vision Wagon is loaded with the finest grass, grass that was grown on a farm very near the site of Woodstock; the residual vibes of the place have imbued it with a shining power that resonates to this day still.  The power is needed in the world.  See, he stops at the back of a fish restaurant in Philadelphia to drop off a few lids to Old Larry who has managed the place since '79. Did you know he used to play bass for The Roughnecks, and later for Brown Gravy?  But that was long ago.  They munch on cod and smoke a joint and then it's back on the road.  See, he stops the next night at the Starlite Ampitheatre in Raleigh, and spends the weekend in the vast parking lot, peddling his amazing wares.  People come and meet the Last Hippie, rangy young dudes and their happening girlfriends, and they groove together like old chums for the brief minutes or hours of their companionship.  Then they gotta split and never again shall they meet.  Show's starting, then they gotta be at work the next morning.  And that's cool, man, because the Last Hippie knows that the universe is in constant motion, everything is fire like that cat Heraclitus said.  Greek times, man, that's where the Trip began for real.  I'm just a raindrop, a link in the chain, here for a moment and then gone, absorbed back into the Infinite Now.  And that's cool.

The Last Hippie fears not the pigs.  Sure, there was a time back in the day when his people, especially some of those black cats, thought they were going to have to get militant and that blood would be shed.  But now treaties had been ratified and peace has been established.  See, he gets pulled over on Route 65 outside Nashville, and this poor little hopped-up reactionary takes a look in the back of the Vision Wagon and pulls his piece.  Breaker breaker 10-4 i have a 9-83 in progress!  Man, put that away, son, i hate those things.  It's a bummer for the next few minutes, a real scratch in the groove.  But then the older cops arrive on the scene and slap the rookie on the back of the head and jeer him; man, don't you know who this is?  This is the Last Hippie, man!  How you been doing, brother?  And then they puff and the Hippie tosses them a few lids, and the poor rookie, he can't believe it, and the old pigs tell him, you make a stink over this and you'll be looking for your teeth in the Station House toilet, sonny.  Nah, leave him alone, he's a good kid, man, he just hasn't lived enough of life yet.  45 minutes have elapsed and Saturn is now in retrograde when they go separate ways, all friends.

The road goes ever on and on, just like Tolkien said.  It starts to rain hard outside of Omaha and so he pulls over and thumbs through his ancient dog-eared copy of The Fellowship of the Ring.  Man, he still remembers when he read it the first time back in school, that was a stepping-stone through the Door for him.  He's read the whole trilogy, of course, many times, never seen those movies about it, though.  Maybe someday.  Most times he'll skip the party and just start with Frodo and Gandalf chilling and talking about the Deep Shit in Bag End, and read through Farmer Maggot, Buckland, The Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow-Downs.  Tom Bombadil, that's the Man right there.  Tom motherfucking Bombadillo.  When they get to Bree, things kinda start getting a bit normalized, but he never gets tired of the beginning.  The begininng of the Journey.  The Last Hippie realizes that he likes reading about the beginning of the journey because his own journey is nearing an end.  He's been to Mordor, and there and back again more times than he can count.  What year is it?  2019, man.  Never thought i'd get that far in calendar land.  He remembers people telling him to get with the program and stop living in the past back in the '80s, but you know what?  Most of those cats got married and had kids and grew old and bland and dropped dead in their Barcaloungers watching The Today Show long ago.  And yet the Last Hippie is still riding the same road.  He's outlasted them all.  

Vegas, Carson City, Phoenix.  Morrison Territory.  He can still hear the voices of ghosts of the past, the fallen spirits he once called friends.  In the Desert they had times, such times, man.  You had to be there, be with them as they vanquished the dragons that dwelt in the orange canyons and steep mountains of the Desert.  He misses them just as much as he ever did.  Shanna.  Billy.  Starchild.  Rolf.  Lizzie.  Dank Hank.  Sally.  Jone (singular of Jones.)  They had their time and passed into legend.  I miss you guys, man, and i can't stop hoping we'll meet again at the end of the road somehow...

...ah, at last, he crests the big hill and there it is, just as it was the last 498 times.  San Fran, the City of Dreams.  But nah, it's not the same, not really.  The fire has eaten the world several times over and the last familiar landmark has passed into the mists.  He runs into some kids in the Park, and they're listening to strange music and saying wacky things.  They have their own trip, man, they're running on the same circle we did, it's just adjacent to mine in the continuum.  He busts out the wares and the kids, they're freaking, they're calling their friends and saying holy shit, man, this old white dude here is selling the bombest shit i've ever seen for twenty bucks an ounce!  Sure, man, it was never about the money.  If there was one thing that this thing was never about, it was the money.  That's a  fact, Jack.  You know, i dig you kids and these crazy computer phones you got, this whole electronics thing?  Cyberspace?  I dig it, man.  

Anyway, the wind begins to blow and again they part ways, more cinders in the fire.  The wind feels too cold.  Too cold by far.  The Last Hippie takes a last toke on his joint and an idea forms, and he knows that it's and idea whose time has come.  The Vision Wagon has been emptied for the last time, the wares are out in the world where they ought to be, and the band has left the stage.  Enough of the Blasted Lands, a voice whispers on the winds, enter the realms.  He knows the one right place, this little untended stretch on a cliff above the bay with a killer view and a sheer 300-foot drop down to the gnarly rocks below.  He'll floor it and the road will rush to meet him and he and the Vision Wagon will become as one and smash through the guardrail and plummet like a stone, except in reality, the true reality, they'll launch into the sky on a jet of rainbow luminence, and scream off to another planet to start the the Journey anew.  He's looking forward to it more than anything.  The beauty of the idea suffocates him.  He's about to make it happen, but... no.  Not yet.  He pulls back on to the highway and sets a course for Pismo.  It will happen someday but not today because he knows deep in the cosmic core that he's going to complete the circle again, because Last Hippie has one more ride in him.

And that's cool.