David Peel THE HIPPIE FROM NEW YORK CITY

Words and music by David Peel. From the album 'The Pope Smokes Dope,' produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1972. The photos are from video footage that aired in January 1972 on the David Frost show, though according to a band member (Lance, on the conga drum) the performance was taped on December 16, 1971. The Lower East Side band on that occasion included John and Yoko. The guy in the white tee shirt is Jerry Rubin, one of the Chicago Seven defendants who were charged with conspiracy to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Presidential Convention. He and Abbie Hoffman who were the two most prominent members of the Seven, by way of their antics and media-mongering, did irreparable harm to the 60's counterculture revolution. If considered icons of the hippie movement, they should be remembered as icons of disaster. They diverted attention from and wrecked the convention, which was a huge mistake. They tarnished Humphrey along with the counterculture movement itself, which they co-opted as self-appointed leaders. They thought it was cute to make up the Youth International Party and run a pig for president. Rubin and Hoffman, more than any others, trivialized the movement and fueled a nationwide backlash. If not for the Chicago fiasco and Yippie nonsense, Democrats could well have won the election. If Nixon wanted saboteurs to sway the minds of voters, he couldn't have invented better foils than those two. Think of how many lives and injuries might have been spared in Vietnam if Hubert Humphrey had become president instead of Richard Nixon.