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SUN
AUG 16, 2009
Hempfest ZERO HIPPIES
Hempfest

Earlier this year, when The Stranger referred to Hempfest as a "patchouli-stained ghetto," event organizers lost their fucking minds. Despite our pointing to the gigantic tie-dyes hanging from the stage (and prayer wheels and dream flags or whatever), they insisted Hempfest wasn't a hippie thing. We hope so. Lots of people smoke pot and want to advocate for their personal liberty without having to haul around cultural luggage from 40 years ago. We trust that the stages at this year's Hempfest will be tie-dye-free—right, Hempfest organizers? (Myrtle Edwards Park, 3130 Alaskan Wy W, www.hempfest.org. 10 am–8 pm, free.) by Dominic Holden

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1
don't be a dick, just have fun!
Posted by jns on August 16, 2009 at 11:14 AM · Report
2
dominic - i'm sorry that hempfest has hurt your feelings. you fight hard for your causes, especially this reform issue. hempfest should know by now that ALL the stranger does is diss stuff.
Posted by cw on August 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM · Report
3
Mr. Holden, comments about "...haul[ing] around cultural luggage from 40 years ago", (or popular sloggers simplistically saying 'hippies' are the reason we've been unable to decriminalize an intoxicating plant, "full-stop") are designed to provoke a response. You looked, you saw, and poked a stick into hive; you're bound to be stung once or twice. Enjoy the easy fact that the PNW can even hold something called "Hempfest" and not have participants tazed and arrested by over-zealous police officers. Have fun and enjoy the festivities.
Posted by Laurence Ballard http://aseriesofsmallacts.blogspot.com/ on August 16, 2009 at 11:33 AM · Report
4
I went yesterday. I left feeling LESS inclined to legalize pot. Hempfest is about non-conformists getting high in public - the political work to promote legalization is secondary. I don't have a problem with it - the cops are right to adopt a "contain and ignore" policy - but if the goal is to convince people who enjoy participating in mainstream society to support decriminalization, then EPIC fail.

Also, there's something wrong with organizing an event to promote drug use - imagine if it was Boozefest or Methfest.
Posted by NORMaL person on August 16, 2009 at 12:14 PM · Report
5
@4 - They don't call it Boozefest, silly, they call it Oktoberfest.
Posted by shabadoo on August 16, 2009 at 12:51 PM · Report
6
Yeah, just imagine if some jerks tried to put on a beerfest or something. What idiots.
Posted by Bud Weister on August 16, 2009 at 12:54 PM · Report
7
@4

It's called HEMP-fest, sure there are a LOT of pot smokers, but the festival is also there to bring awareness to it's industrial uses (which I didn't see as much of yesterday).
Posted by jns on August 16, 2009 at 2:19 PM · Report
Bauhaus I 8
I'm not sure many ever bought the line about celebrating the many uses and glories (there are many - historic and eco-beneficial) of the hemp plant. I'm afraid most people see Hempfest and, indeed, NORMAL as, "I want to get baked with impunity." And although I see nothing wrong with that stance in principle and practice if that's the road one chooses, it isn't going to win over people who are in the way of progress on the issue.

Dom is right. The less counter-culture involved in hemp promotion, the better. Save the hippie stuff for rock festivals and Burning Man.
Posted by Bauhaus I on August 16, 2009 at 3:07 PM · Report
Swell 9
I went down & got the same feeling. Enough with the hippie-dippy crap. Heehee, weed dude...does nothing to help the cause.
I am all for legalizing pot, but seeing most of those folks just kinda bums me out.
Posted by Swell on August 16, 2009 at 3:29 PM · Report
10
Ugly people getting high. Pass.
Posted by JesseJB on August 16, 2009 at 4:14 PM · Report
11
I agree with the whole anti-hippy thing. It's like how gay pride gets ruined every year by those drag queens and leather men.
Posted by uptight today, uptight tomorrow on August 16, 2009 at 4:21 PM · Report
Heather 12
Get over the anti hippie shit! I wear tie dye when ever or where ever I choose and I will never have to answer to The Stranger or anybody under any circumstances.
Posted by Heather on August 16, 2009 at 5:55 PM · Report
Lee 13
No one is telling you what to wear, Heather. Dominic was pointing to the emphasis that festival places on tie dyes and hippie stuff as a problem for its effectiveness in attaining its stated goals. He wasn't telling you what to wear.

Get it? It's like, if I were to say that a peace demonstration loses its appeal if it appears to only be anarchist street kids with bandannas over their faces. I'm not saying that bandanna-wearing anarchists should be eliminated. I'm saying that peace demonstrations led by such people are less effective than demonstrations led by, say, doctors and lawyers.
Posted by Lee on August 16, 2009 at 6:03 PM · Report
Heather 14
You are incorrectly assuming that the general public is hostile to hippies or tie-dye. I think they are for the most part neutral about both and I would bet they do not have the intolerance that The Stranger and others project them to have.
Posted by Heather on August 16, 2009 at 6:09 PM · Report
i'm pro-science and i vote 15
I do understand and agree that marijuana should not remain so closely associated with "hippie" culture alone and it is a problem I had with hempfest when I went years ago. But at the same time hippie bashing is very tired and makes no sense, although hip in this "liberal" city. Go figure though, this is America, an insanely dysfunctional country that would rather ravage itself than live more wisely

Let's at least acknowledge that the hippies, the real ones anyway, have been right about damn near everything since they emerged in the 60's. Environmentalism, their values for peace, love, patience, staying chill, keeping an open mind, deflating the ego, resisting discrimination in any form, organic farming, sharing, minimalism, annoying the squares, resisting fascist pigs, protesting wars that should have never been started in the first place, taking timeless, usually harmonious LSD trips through the cosmos at massive jam band concerts, on and on. These are all good things. The hippies are a noble people who should have begun running this country decades ago
Posted by i'm pro-science and i vote http://home.comcast.net/~theyellowdog/joerepublican.htm on August 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM · Report
16
@14: You have no idea of the depths of disgust the general public has for hippies. Why, if my daughter brought a hippie home to meet me, I'd disown her and run him out of town.

Hippies make Jesus puke.
Posted by Massive Attack on August 16, 2009 at 6:26 PM · Report
17
Oh...wait...
Posted by Massive Attack on August 16, 2009 at 6:30 PM · Report
Heather 18
@15--well said. @16--you have no more idea what people think than I do. Speak for yourself.

At a time when we should all be embracing and encouraging tolerance. At a time when we may be facing a ballot fight against intolerance here in Washington it is self defeating to be preaching intolerance against a harmless social trend and whatever people are still living that way. I would prefer any children of mine bring home a hippie than some intolerant urban hipster.
Posted by Heather on August 16, 2009 at 6:37 PM · Report
Y.F. Redux 19
@ Laurence Ballard & Heather,

Hippies and Hempfest made me vote Republican for the better part of a decade. Hippies and Hempfest made me vote down decriminalizing medical marijuana. Yes, that's right! You patchouli-stained, tie-dyed dinosaurs made me deprive medical marijuana from people dying of cancer! Yes, you did! Dominic Holden told it to you straight and you can't handle the damn truth!
Posted by Y.F. Redux on August 16, 2009 at 6:40 PM · Report
Womyn2me 20
I was driving an out of town friend to eat in South Lake Union area and happened upon about 20 naked bike riders bearing hempfest signs..

the Missourian was completely shocked.. I love living here.
Posted by Womyn2me http://http:\\www.shelleyandlaura.com on August 16, 2009 at 6:43 PM · Report
Heather 21
Hippies made you vote Republican!? That really makes me take your other views seriously...Not!
Posted by Heather on August 16, 2009 at 6:43 PM · Report
Y.F. Redux 22
@ 21,

I was a pissy, rebellious teenager (and college student). I knew it would totally torque them.
Posted by Y.F. Redux on August 16, 2009 at 6:49 PM · Report
Lee 23
@Heather: Look, it's hard to respond to you at this point. Massive Attack and Y.F. Redux both made completely sarcastic comments aimed at Dominic and those of us who more or less agree with him, and you respond with shock and horror. So, it's hard to take you seriously in this conversation.

That said: I'm not against hippies existing. I "tolerate" them and judge them by the same standards as I would anyone else. I've had many friends who either consider themselves hippies or would be considered so by mainstream types. But: this is not about whether hippies have a right to exist. It's about where the symbols of hippie culture fit into the political landscape, and how that can be used very effectively against a movement like marijuana legalization.

Basically, a lot of us are saying: we think marijuana prohibitions should be lifted, and here's something that's standing in the way. And you're like: I have a right to exist!

Of course you do, dear, but that's not what anyone is discussing.
Posted by Lee on August 16, 2009 at 7:49 PM · Report
Y.F. Redux 24
@ Heather,

And by "them", I mean my parents....who are hippies.
Posted by Y.F. Redux on August 16, 2009 at 8:19 PM · Report
25
I love Dominic. I'm not giving him any kind of sauce at all! Jesus. You must be a hippie!
Posted by Massive Attack on August 16, 2009 at 10:04 PM · Report
26
Seems like the issue here isn't drugs or gayness...it's that there just aren't that many attractive people of any type in Seattle.
Posted by Andy Warhol on August 16, 2009 at 10:46 PM · Report
Greg 27
@26: You and SWM should totally hook up.
Posted by Greg on August 16, 2009 at 10:59 PM · Report
seandr 28
Dom, did you know your brother is a hippie. Or hasn't he come out to you yet?

And while we're on the subject of fashion, the T-shirt/long sleeve combo died in 1994 along with Grunge. Please make a note of it:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2194/1697…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co…
Posted by seandr on August 16, 2009 at 11:04 PM · Report
29
14
fyi
We Hate Hippies, especially in TieDye.
Hate. And Loath.
(please die)
Posted by General Public on August 17, 2009 at 2:46 AM · Report
30
@15
Don't forget Free Sex and it's children; 800,000 abortions a year, divorce rate through the roof, AIDS and a host of less glamorous but much more pervasive STDs, a 70% out-of-wedlock birthrate, pregnant 12 year olds with clap, etc etc.
Groovy, man.
Posted by I'm really pro-science and I crash Healthcare townhalls on August 17, 2009 at 2:54 AM · Report
31
10 OK I get it now.
Hempfest is like slog happy.
Hempfest=Ugly people getting high. SlogHappy=Fat people getting plastered.

Posted by FlowerChild on August 17, 2009 at 2:59 AM · Report
32
28, when you've got a rockin' schlong and a tight little ass like Dominic, it's more about what you do out of your clothes than in them.
Posted by oh yeah on August 17, 2009 at 7:36 AM · Report
33
32 that's why Journalism doesn't come up in the job interview
Posted by oh no on August 17, 2009 at 7:52 AM · Report
Suz 34
I had a blast. Got there early, left before the crazy crowds. Loved the hippie vibe. Loved the vendors and the food. Had so much fun. Not too many cities are able to host an event like HempFest, so glad that Seattle is one of them.
Posted by Suz on August 17, 2009 at 9:19 AM · Report
NaFun 35
After three years of using The Stranger to criticize this aspect of HempFest, are you gonna be done with this topic now?

Posted by NaFun http://www.dancesafe.org on August 17, 2009 at 10:36 AM · Report
36
Hot chicks with douchebags central. When did frat boys who like Dane Cook take over the wigga movement.
Posted by Holy Roller on August 17, 2009 at 11:13 AM · Report
37
Lee, i don't believe you have stooped so low as to post here on this pathetic blog so much.

get back to playing music you buffoon and leave this bullshit for these other inbred idiots.
Posted by same internet dictator on August 17, 2009 at 12:32 PM · Report
wilbur@work 38
The disassociation between hippies and hipsters, especially from the Stranger's viewpoint, is entirely one of fashon and/or attitude. Hipsters wear porkpie hats and beanies to hide their male-pattern baldness, whereas hippies wear hats to hide their stash.

Hipsters wear socks, hippies don't.

Hipsters like to closely scrutinize everything you say to them in order to properly judge you, compartmentalize you, then dispose of the need to interact with you. Hippies are too loud and verbose to hear what you're saying.

Both like to smoke shitloads of dope, and need to remain closely associated, in order to properly play the provider / customer game. A smart hipster will remain close to their hated hippie associates, if for no other reason then to keep the bud coming in.

Other than that, they are equally annoying and easy to ignore, as they literaly wear their 'differences' on their sleeve.
Posted by wilbur@work on August 17, 2009 at 1:23 PM · Report
wilbur@work 39
Holy Roller - A: in 1965.
Posted by wilbur@work on August 17, 2009 at 1:27 PM · Report

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