MISCmedia for 3/23/01
Looming Hippiedom?

THEY'RE BACK. Eight years or so ago, I thought we were rid of them for good. But now they're reasserting themselves, and again threaten to subjugate us all under a numbing regime of enforced mindlessness.

I'm not talking about the Republicans but about the hippies.

Humans of my acquaintance, whom I thought were safe from the infestation, have succumbed one by one. Could you be the next? Take our handy quiz.

Patchouli smells like:

(A) Car exhaust.
(B) Stale beer.
(C) The breath of the angels.

Television is:

(A) A medium of still-unfulfilled potential.
(B) A pleasant-enough diversion.
(C) The root of all evil.

Spectator sports are:

(A) A vital part of almost all large human societies.
(B) A great way to spend the afternoon with the guys and/or the family.
(C) The root of all evil.

Lower-income working Americans are:

(A) Victimized by the Bush administration's tax plan.
(B) The key toward establishing a permanent progressive movement in this country.
(C) All redneck fascists.

Tobacco is:

(A) An industry making billions off of lethal products.
(B) An unfortunate addiction.
(C) Good for you if it's American Spirits, right?

I buy my groceries:

(A) Where I get the best prices.
(B) Where I get the best selection.
(C) Someplace small and dark where I have to bring my own unbleached cash-register paper.

Medical marijuana should be prescribed:

(A) In accordance with guidelines for other potentially therapeutic regimens.
(B) To the extent it can be shown to relieve extreme pain among the seriously ill.
(C) For tummy aches and bad-hair days.

The answer to global warming is:

(A) International action to reduce greenhouse gases.
(B) Concerted efforts to make industry cleaner and reduce automobile use.
(C) Hemp.

The answer to racial inequality is:

(A) Working to break down the barriers to full democracy.
(B) Diversity training in schools and workplaces.
(C) Hemp.

The answer to Fermat's Last Theorem is:

(A) A quandry that's riddled mathematicians for decades.
(B) Now believed to be known, but too complex to be quoted here.
(C) Hemp.

The purpose of politics is:

(A) To work publicly toward a more just world.
(B) To realign society's structures of power.
(C) To let me proclaim how perfect I am.

SCORING:

Score one point for every (A) answer.
Score two points for every (B) answer.
Score three points for every (C) answer.

RESULTS:

11-17 Points: You're safe for now. But creeping hippiedom can occur to anyone, so be careful.

18-25 Points: You're in serious trouble, dude. You should consider total-immersion therapy: Eighteen hours at the Riverside Inn casino, playing high-stakes poker in between line-dancing lessons.

26-33 Points: If you don't act now, you might be just days away from tie-dying your bedsheets and taking up the hammer dulcimer. You need professional help; or at least a few days' worth of sensory realignment at a Tokyo pachinko parlor.

If you didn't even finish the quiz, you might have lost the ability to concentrate. Get to your nearest aerobics class or sports bar immediately, or as soon as you can gather enough energy to put some shoes on.

NEXT: Boeing becomes just another global corporation.

ELSEWHERE:

• Dave Marsh asks many musicians and others whether the music industry is even necessary (found by Slumberland)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Is it time to privatize welfare customer-service?
• Tell me a story.
• A TV critic faces cancer.
• Music to accompany the mattress mambo.
• Goodbyes to film critic John Hartl, the outre-music zine The Tentacle, and some cool stores.
• A last lingering look inside the OK Hotel.
• Seattle as a city that works (and works and works).
• The terrible beauty of the freeways.
• The end of our little makeover parable.
• PBS discovers marketing to kids.
• Courtney Love reinvents herself as an anti-major-label crusader.
• Handicapping the Seattle mayoral race.
• The local Mardi Gras ought to be just as dumb and naked, just less fight-prone.
• Fun, sort of, with earthquakes.
• Hardcore porn producers tone down their works for a new mainstream market.
• Comparing a couple of WTO protest videos.
• That integral aspect of the Seattle zeitgeist, complaining.
• Previewing a whole empire of MISCmedia products.
• Does the "Northwest Lifestyle" personality type even exist?
• An amateur experiment in age-regression therapy.
• A fantasy-fandom HQ pulls a disappearing trick.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate)
• The origin and future of MISCmedia