Peace, Love, and Happiness

Last week the 1973 version of Jesus Christ Superstar was on television, which I watched with interest as I saw Tim Neeley reprise his role on the last tour of the play, a few years back. Almost immediately, I had the song “What’s the Buzz (Tell Me What’s Happening)” stuck in my head, and it stayed there for several days. After a few days of this I started to consider various hippie slang that should – by all rights – make a comeback: What’s the Buzz, of course, along with its counterpart Don’t Be Such a Buzzkill, as well as the ultimate complimentary term, Far Out! As I was watching, Tim Neeley hit a very high note, and I realized that Adam Lambert’s style is completely imitative.

Is nothing original anymore?

Clearly that is true about style, given that I have noticed, disconcertingly, that it seems to be fashionable to tightly roll up your pants. Tightly rolling up your pants! I was someone who tightly folded, then carefully rolled, my acid wash jeans back in the late eighties, and the thought of that particular style coming back to the forefront is distressing to say the least. It wasn’t a flattering style then. It is even less so now. Youth of today, take a stand against this, for the good of the nation.

Back when I was an angst-ridden teenager, around the time of the rolled jeans, I thought that it would be amazing – far out, even – to come of age in the late 60’s, early 70’s; all that revolutionary thought, the electricity of change. They sure did know how to make a good rock opera back then: all the hippie singers and dancers arriving on that decrepit bus, the funky music, the obviously high and very sweaty cast. What a time to be alive, I used to think, with my rose coloured outlook and my youth and my idealism.

As an adult, however, I now look back on that time with revulsion: the promiscuity, the venereal disease, the hallucinogens, the lack of hygiene. Maybe because it’s my birthday next week, and I am officially entering what used to be known as middle age, and back then in the era of peace, love, and happiness, I would be someone who would not have been trusted, a total square, despite my very strong dedication to a life of peace, love and happiness. Maybe I’m just being a buzzkill.

Comments

  1. Thanks. Now I have What’s the Buzz in my head. I’m going to have to search it out on YouTube tonight so I can go to sleep without an ear worm.

    Somewhere in my stash of old pics is one of me wearing acid wash jeans – tightly rolled of course. With converse hightops, a bleached jean jacket, a fem-mullet and huge plastic-framed glasses. I look awesome.

  2. I’ve also seen girls wearing leggings and high heels. NOoooo….

  3. The flashbacks… oh, the painful flashbacks that come with those jeans. *shudder*

    As for boys and crazy hair day, I have two words for you: colored hairspray. *grin*

  4. Hippies were(are) the grossest things ever. I read this book written by someone who worked in a free clinic in San Francsisco in the 60s, and people were coming in with medieval diseases related to NOT WASHING that were so OLD that they didn’t even have names.

    And with that? There went any idealism I had about the 60s. HAVE A SHOWER.

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