Lunch Minutes for 7.13.05

Most organizations with any semblance of order keep minutes for all their meetings, both formal and informal. At WFMU, most of the meetings amongst the small office staff fall into the informal category, with proper station procedure, technical issues, programming matters, and related cultural phenomena frequently discussed at the lunch table while gobbling down inexpensive takeout food. What follows are the lunchtime minutes for today, July 13th, 2005.

Those present for this meeting were: Ken Freedman, Scott Williams, Megan Murphy, Liz Berg, myself, + volunteers Wendy, Greta, and Ed Word. Brian Turner, Moshik, and Bill Zurat were also present, but were forced to eat in the other room because of poor behavior at yesterday's meeting.

The menu: Most of us ordered from a local Asian place called Nutty Handjob's. A few non-believers either brought food from home or ordered slop from some other place that I can't necessarily endorse. In most cases, lunch was complemented by icy cold and delicious (i.e. "free") water.

The topic of today's lunch discussion was hippies. (Yesterday, we talked about Oingo Boingo, so there is a logical progression evident at work here.) Here are some of the sub-categories of the hippie subject that were tackled this afternoon:

* The DJs on staff who either shy away from the hippie music, as opposed to those who embrace it warmly and cradle it to their bosom appreciatively.

* Which DJs on staff might have been hippies, who are currently hippies, who are hippies in denial, or who are closeted hippies. (Followed by the suspected reaction that accusing specific staffers of being hippies might earn.)

* The most feverishly devoted kind of hippie, i.e. "Off the Grid Hippies". The differences between OTG Hippies and "Phishheads", "Trust Fund Hippies", and "Ho-Hippies" are briefly argued.

* The difference between a punk and a hippie. Kurt Cobain was a polite hippie, most of us agreed. Ken told a story about a time that Kurt Cobain pointed at some people (politely).

* The general ease with which one can engage in sexual intercourse with a hippie, followed by loud boasting from several of the assembled diners regarding who has bagged more hippies in this manner. In the excitement, I accidentally shot a piece of rice out of my nose.

* Hippies who like guns, hereafter referred to as "Weapons Hippies". The list of "Weapons Hippies" included John Sinclair, Abbey Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, most of the MC5, Charles Manson, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Dennis Hopper, and a few others. We got de-railed from the topic here and talked about the MC5 movie for a few minutes, Iggy Pop's alleged homosexuality, as well as the hippies of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

* It is generally agreed upon that the term "Weapons Hippies" can inspire gales of robust laughter when repeated aloud.

* Whose turn it is to make the coffee. The admission that our coffee was grown by the hippies of Vermont. End of meeting.

Comments

[squinchy]

Iggy Pop's alleged homosexuality? I always figured the Ig transcended normal parameters of human sexual intercourse, thus his bagging of Dinah Shore.

[Listener Matt]

Was that "Hippies Go Home" photo taken at the D.C. pre-invasion protest in February of 2003? Looks mighty familiar...

[Eep]

Hey I remember that sign too. Along Capitol Hill, right? A girl near me replied, "Hey Alex P. Keaton, go to hell!"

[Ed Word]

That is some good water.

[impboy]

i'd say it sounds like a good balance. Oingo Boingo was probably one of the few true right-wing rock acts you can name (cf. "Intruder" and "Capitalism"). Gotta give balance where it's due, ya know?

[Alexandra S.]

Urban legend has it that Neil Young used to live in my old apartment in Ann Arbor.

But the hippies in Ann Arbor are for the most part long gone, or else they got rich. Having lived in both places, I would say Kalamazoo is the town for dirty hippies in Michigan, with Bell's Brewery as ground zero.

Alexandra (who hates hippy music)

[buckeye girl]

Damn. My lunch minutes today consisted of endless variations on "Should I eat these donuts or will they go right to my hips." Then I went and sat in the car for 15 minutes to escape this ongoing debate.

there used to be a great Columbus band called Stupid Fucking Hippie.

[dsnealy]

can someone direct me to nutty handjobs?

[listenerstan]

I remember seeing a picture of the Grateful Dead from the early seventies in which the late Ron "Pigpen' McKernan is holding a Winchester repeating rifle.
Nothing says "there's no time to hate" like a lever action rifle.