1968
“One Life to Live” and “Hidden Faces”
Time published the official Hippie obituary in October of 1967, and on New Year’s Day of 1968 “YIPPIES!” were born. Mainstream media painted a negative reflection of counterculture teens for WASP America throughout the mid- Sixties. Hippies were portrayed as no-good, lazy, filthy, smelly, longhaired, sex-crazed drug addicts, etc. The underground now denied the existence of any such animal. A confused press asked, “So, what the hell is a Yippie?” Abbie Hoffman, one of the inventors, explained: “A political hippie. A flower child who has been busted. A stoned-out warrior of the Aquarian Age… A Yippie is someone going to Chicago.”
The Yippies’ immediate goal focused on stopping LBJ’s war machine, and as their first project, encouraged everyone to run for President in the upcoming election. Many unusual characters accepted the challenge. Dick Nixon, loser to JFK in 1960, and antiwar candidate (most Americans still believed in dominos at the time), Senator Eugene McCarthy ran on the Underdog ticket. Two great comedians from opposite ends of the humor spectrum, Dick Gregory and George Wallace, also entered the race (Wallace had captured a governorship with his absurd, deadpan style of comedy; so effective that some of his fans actually took him seriously!) Louis Abolafia, the favorite candidate of the Yippies, ran on the Love/Peace ticket. A nude photo of Louis adorned his campaign posters with his slogan, “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Abolafia had a chance until two other political rookies horned in and split the youth vote. Alfred E. Neuman announced his candidacy on the cover of Mad Magazine, and Pat Paulsen on the “Smothers’ Brothers” program. Pat represented the “Straight Talking American Government” (STAG) Party, whose motto declared, “We can’t stand Pat”. All of these wonderful choices fell by the wayside, however, during the moment of truth in Chicago, as the Yippies stood united behind their last minute entry into the race: “Pigasus” (a 500 pound porker from a local farm).
Lyndon had enough problems without all this competition. His popularity hit record lows in recent polls, and well-respected citizens spoke out openly against him. Dr. Benjamin Spock, writer of the bible of how to raise a Boomer, added a new chapter on common sense care for draft-age teenage boys. The government indicted Spock and the Rev. William Sloan Coffin of Yale on January 5th for “conspiring to aid and abet draft resisters”. Eartha Kitt, at a ladies’ luncheon in the White House a couple of weeks later expressed her opinion, “Discussion of the U.S. domestic problems is pointless while the Vietnam war rages”. Hostess Lady Bird looked liked a deer caught in the headlights.
Johnson and his staff had been telling the American public for some time now that “the war is near a turning point.” Unfortunately, they were correct. The Communists launched a massive Tet offensive on January 30th, against nearly every major population center in South Vietnam. In laymen’s terms, we got our white butts kicked. To make matters even worse, NBC-TV and the Associated Press sent back film of South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan casually blowing out the brains of a handcuffed Viet Cong suspect. That one mass-media reflection changed the hearts and minds of a lot of Americans. Even the most devout hawk had a problem justifying cold-blooded murder.
Disturbing reflections bombarded the American public from every direction. Every TV newscast and newspaper front page carried bad news about the war and opposition to it. Entertainment sources offered little escape. The Moral Majority remembered fondly the quiet days, before hippies and Yippies, when Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Doris Day dominated the pop charts. Frank’s only recent hit came when he shared the spotlight with Wild Angels’ daughter, Nancy, on “Something Stupid”. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Mick Jagger) declared himself a “Street Fighting Man” and asked “Sympathy For the Devil”. Teens took over FM radio, which led to a complete surrender of AM Top 40 radio and the record industry. The top selling albums had always been Broadway musicals or blockbuster movie soundtracks (Dr. Zhivago and The Sound of Music topped the charts in 1967). But, in 1968 a hostile revolution occurred in the record industry, and Disraeli Gears by Cream placed number one, followed by Are you Experienced by Jimi Hendrix. The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel occupied the next four spots. The Boomer cabal controlled the music industry.
Yippism invaded Broadway. With controversial language, irreverence, counterculture philosophy and the famous nude scene, Hair became the hit of the season. The characters on stage debunked the previous media stereotyped hippie image, and instead introduced the audience to a bunch of sensitive, intelligent teens who willfully chose voluntary poverty and nonparticipation in the system. But, our free society denies them an alternative lifestyle, as it inducts Clyde into the Army. His friend, Berger temporarily takes his Clyde’s place in Basic Training so the young draftee can have one last quick rendezvous with his girl. But, Clyde’s unit suddenly ships out to Vietnam, and Berger soon becomes another unfortunate statistic of the Great Society. Clyde transforms from an All American boy into a full-blown Yippie by play’s end. Next stop, Chicago? WASP, Middle-aged, Middle-class American for the first time heard and applauded lines like, “My hair like Jesus wore it/ Hallelujah, I adore it/ Christ was loved by Mother Mary/ Why don’t my mother love me?” and “The war is White people sending Black people to kill Yellow people to defend land that they stole from the Red people” (apologies to Muhammad Ali). In this context, “Peace, love and understanding” no longer seemed like such an outrageous demand, especially in the “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius”. Five of the songs from Hair hit the charts, and kids all over the United States explained to their parents, “But, you told me to listen to Broadway musical soundtracks.”