tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post80200856320924779..comments2024-01-31T11:37:10.331-06:00Comments on Born-Again Hippies: An Appeal To YouthRandy Haspelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15371114789022032381noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-43520629688819031352008-11-01T05:28:00.000-05:002008-11-01T05:28:00.000-05:00Whether you're wondering about when to vote, early...Whether you're wondering about when to vote, early voting, polling place locations, whether or not you can still register, or anything else, there is one website that can provide you with all the answers: www.vote411.org.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-20524535480870216742008-10-30T13:43:00.000-05:002008-10-30T13:43:00.000-05:00Judy, I hate to be the one to tell you that the li...Judy, I hate to be the one to tell you that the light within you is darkness. When darkness is mistaken for light you had better watch out! The blind lead the blind.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-47062241691426752192008-10-29T23:33:00.000-05:002008-10-29T23:33:00.000-05:00I dont usually do this because I dont like to argu...I dont usually do this because I dont like to argue but I had to tell you how much i enjoyed your article in the flyer. We are again in very important times and what we do know will have unimagainable consequences. Thankyou for apealing to reason. Watching the Obama infomercial tonite brought tears to my eyes as the possiblities swelled in my heart. I believe that we are watching the blossoming of our greatest leader and I will hold him in white light for the rest of my life to help keep him safe from those who are blind to it. It is always good the listen to another voice of reason. I have always enjoyed your music. <BR/>Thanks<BR/>JudyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-85493334812759930622008-10-28T17:10:00.000-05:002008-10-28T17:10:00.000-05:00Hey Father Farken! Not to take anything away from ...Hey Father Farken! Not to take anything away from our good brother Randy's intuition but I was there that night in Midtown when you staggered in so swaggeredly. You were suffering so blatantly you looked like you were trying out for some kind of Bravehearted, Messianic Mel Gibson movie or something. You were blubbering...<BR/>Play 'True Love'! Play Carl Perkin's 'True Love'! He knew about TRUE LOVE! Why can't I know something about TRUE LOVE? Your 225lb. broken heart ended up spread eagle on the dance floor with a beer mug on your head! It was pathetic! Well! You are better off with out her & being a priest & all! I ran into the ol' gal the other day & she is HUGE! For starters...she shops at Miss Biggy's! If she walked into your Church..it would take a forklift to get her out of the Confessional. I mean she beleaves in A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHEW! Randy! Could you sing for Fr. Farken...E's "Bigha Bigha Bigha... Hunk Of Love!"? Thank you! Thank you very much!<BR/>Shecky Kierkegaard McGirkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-68216720850527511142008-10-28T10:28:00.000-05:002008-10-28T10:28:00.000-05:00If you were a veteran teacher and knew something a...If you were a veteran teacher and knew something about the actual level of educational attainment of the average teenager and something of the wisdom (Ha-Ha) that they possess, you might not be so eager for them to vote, unless you feel that they are going to vote for your candidate. In fact, they are most likely to vote for whoever their teachers or parents encourage them to vote for. You would do about as well if you encouraged all of the inmates at the country's insane asylums to vote. This is not much of an exaggeration. The situation is so bad in the Memphis City Schools that I despair of the country's future if there are many other school sytems in the country that are as dysfunctional. You could put all of the knowledge and wisdom of all of the students in the MCS and put it is a single bluejay and it would fly backwards. I have a feeling that you realize these things and are encouraging them to vote only because you are confident that most of them will vote Democratic. Bungle in the jungle.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-21073501229053231182008-10-27T12:30:00.000-05:002008-10-27T12:30:00.000-05:00It surprises me that more old hippies aren't liber...It surprises me that more old hippies aren't libertarian. If hippiedom stood for anything it was freedom, spontaniety, and a revolt against mind numbing conformity. The Republicans, and especially the Democrats stand for ever increasing government, regulation, and ever diminishing liberty for everyone. This was the first shock that I got when I discovered this blog with a name like Born-Again Hippies. I thought that it would be a call to return to the freedom, creativity, and spontaniety of the good old hippie ethic. But it turns out to be just another front and apologetic for the Democratic party. I still can't get used to the idea of hyper-political hippies. It seems to be a contradiction of terms. I must have lived my hippie days in a completely different world than Randy's. He is rabidly political and this kind of freaks me out. I never really left the old apolitical, create your own reality, free-wheeling life style of what to me was the authentic hippie world. I was aware of the SDS, the Weathermen, the Motherfuckers, Jerry Rubin et al, but I considered them to be the lunatic fringe. I am sorry that Randy has been captured by all this hyper-political bullshit. So much so that he lost his job as one of the best dj's ever because of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-85018532296371356072008-10-27T12:05:00.000-05:002008-10-27T12:05:00.000-05:00Obama is the worse of two evils. He is all style ...Obama is the worse of two evils. He is all style and no substance. His political past (if anyone cared enough to research) is full of support by and then support for the corrupt "Chicago Machine." He sounds good because his entire campaign is built on emotions, feelings - not substance. He speaks of change, but has no real plans for dealing with reality. He is beholden to the same neocons as his opponent. He will lead us further into Socialism! One World Government! <BR/> Ron Paul! There was a better choice. The media just didn't let you know. Read his book, "The Revolution." This is the way of the "Old Hippies." Yes, Dick, there is a party that sees another solution than war. It takes us away from war. Away from government control of our lives. Read it. You will never be the same. See for yourself. There is another answer!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-90185461586575152272008-10-27T10:51:00.000-05:002008-10-27T10:51:00.000-05:00PS- I retract the word miscreant in Randy's regard...PS- I retract the word miscreant in Randy's regard. My bad. I am lazy too, so we have something in common after all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-37726196237471336632008-10-27T10:45:00.000-05:002008-10-27T10:45:00.000-05:00Lighten up liberals, I just like to rattle Randy's...Lighten up liberals, I just like to rattle Randy's cage occasionally by using some hyperbole. The remarks about 'lazy, dope-addled people' weren't directed at Randy. They were in regard to many in the 60's and 70's generation. Not about him personally. Believe it or not, I am a fan of Randy's. I just don't see eye to eye with him politically, and besides, I know that Randy likes to spar with his opponents. I was just encouraging Randy to act more boldly if he is displeased with the sparseness of his associations with minorities. I don't want folks to think of him as a limousine liberal. If he couldn't have gone to a black high school, he certainly could have gone to college at Lemoyne-Owen to show good faith in his position on integration. Also, some liberals who live up to their convictions actually move to the ghetto to do 'mission' work. They feel that blacks can't possibly elevate themselves without the presence of whites in their midst. This is along the lines of the thinking of the early desegregationists who actually believed that blacks coudn't learn unless they were in close proximity to whites. In my humble opinion I think that these condescending positions are about as racist as you can get, but then liberals get a pass on everything. In line with this thinking I just want to encourage Randy to sell his house in his privileged and elitist east Memphis neighborhood, it's about a block away from the exclusive Hedgemoor area, and move to Orange Mound or Binghamton so that he can put his money and his life where his mouth is. This is all about encouraging him to live up to his ideals in a realistic manner. Any liberal can pontificate from the safety of a secure, wealthy, all-white neighborhood, casting aspersions on others who haven't done enough to advance the cause of integration, the re-distribution of wealth, and other liberal positions. He can be in the vanguard walking through ghetto neighborhoods at night showing others that it is really safe and that it is their racist attitudes that prevent them from moving into the ghetto too. And, he could take a voluntary vow of poverty and give all of his excess money to the NAACP. I would take my hat off to him and confess that here is a man who walks the walk.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-15637956959610811332008-10-25T13:59:00.000-05:002008-10-25T13:59:00.000-05:00To set the record completely straight, it was Eise...To set the record completely straight, it was Eisenhour who first took us into Viet Nam. JFK inherited it, and the murderous LBJ escalated the war.<BR/>ScarlettAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-76101515868031204382008-10-25T06:59:00.000-05:002008-10-25T06:59:00.000-05:00Father Farken,I don't know who you are but thank y...Father Farken,I don't know who you are but thank you for the kind words about our old pal.You obviously know him better then anon.1:00, anyone who really knows Randy knows of his brilliant but somewhat unusual mind. We are all different and that's a good thing.Randy just seems to know how to put it out there. Thanks to you FF. and all Randys readers that are only looking for the truthiness in it all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-27810972255354124162008-10-25T01:28:00.000-05:002008-10-25T01:28:00.000-05:00Thank You Father Farken,I knew you would come to t...Thank You Father Farken,<BR/>I knew you would come to the defense of the dear old Purple & Gold, if not me. I know who the president was in 1968 and need no history lessons from someone unaware of when the city schools were integrated. My "elite" university, Tennessee-Knoxville, had about a 6% total of black students in 1966. Not very representative of the state's population. As for being a lazy, worthless, dope-addled hellraiser, I never thought of myself as worthless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-58077348247961894652008-10-25T00:07:00.000-05:002008-10-25T00:07:00.000-05:00Anonymous 1:00pm 10/24/08! Perhaps you are correct...Anonymous 1:00pm 10/24/08! Perhaps you are correct about our beginnings in Vietnam but wrong about Randy being able to go to a darker complected school. It was not possible! And what makes you think he didn't complain. He was always a progressive. CBHS with all our faults was the first high school in Memphis to integrate & it did so while Randy was a student there. It just so happens that all Randy's classes were filled with Italians & Irishmen of the Catholic faith. How did he handle it? Randy was voted the most friendly! Though I dread finding out the truth when his memoirs come out! Once life threw me a curve... me girl friend ditched me and I walked in the Bombay Bicycle Club and Randy was sitting in the corner with his guitar sensing something was wrong and dedicated a couple of Carl Perkins songs to me...BOPPING THE BLUES...MATCHBOX. It meant a hell of a lot to me. He's a man of incredible intuition and has a heart of gold. You don't have to agree with his politics but if you knew him ...you would be the better person for it. Sputnik & Muddy are authentic people through and through! Something this world really needs at this time! The peace of the Lord!Father Farkenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00571295113979156361noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-45005783407457929552008-10-24T19:29:00.000-05:002008-10-24T19:29:00.000-05:00To anonymous at 1:00 pm. seems funny you know Rand...To anonymous at 1:00 pm. seems funny you know Randy well enough to know his alamater but not well enough to know him as a man. Funny how all you silly conservatives only think WAR will cure our ills and funny how you sound so bitter.You sound like a race baiter to me,why bring up Isreal?Is it because of Randys faith? And surely if you know him well enough to call him a "miscreant" you know the meaning of the word and that is not the Randy I have known for 35 years.Hummm, you sound like an asshole to me and there are way too many of you guys around. MOVE ON Dude.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-72450399648288586372008-10-24T13:00:00.000-05:002008-10-24T13:00:00.000-05:00Of course you realize that the despised president ...Of course you realize that the despised president who put us in the Viet Nam war was none other than the Democrat John Kennedy and escalated by the Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson through the deception of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. And you didn't have to be deprived of sitting next to blacks in school. You could have gone to the board of education and requested a transfer from your well-to- do and priviliged CBHS to a darker complected school. You certainly could have gone to college at Lemoyne-Owen. But then you probably only wanted a politically correct sprinkling of blacks around you. You were probably not liberal enough to want to be completely immersed in a black world. Your testimony of being so lazy only adds fuel to those who think of your generation as a bunch of lazy, worthless, dope addled hellraisers. Who would take advise from a self-confessed lazy miscreant such as yourself? You absolute pacifists are the ones who are going to get us killed. What if Israel were to follow your extreme pacifistic views? Israel would be steamrolled by her countless enemies almost immediately.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-85141951841015484692008-10-24T12:59:00.000-05:002008-10-24T12:59:00.000-05:00Randy, you've made a mistake or two in your analys...Randy, you've made a mistake or two in your analysis, beginning with the idea that "58,000 Men" died in Vietnam. That was only the Americans, and ignores the huge death toll we inflicted on the Vietnamese. We, lead by the media, continue to speak of the 4000 deaths in Iraqi, ignoring the 80,000+ Iraqis who have also perished as if thery are not also humans. All life, American or not, is life, and by ignoring deaths other than Americans we devalue all life.<BR/><BR/>You also seem to have forgotten that it was Gene McCarthy that led the anti-war political movement that finally drew Bobby Kennedy's attention and made him an "anti-war" candidate. I too revered and idolized RFK (I still have his picture on my wall) but it was McCarthy's bravery that spurred the movement. Indeed, Bobby kind of co-opted it, though he did certainly popularize it more than McCarthy ever could have done. I was in Chicago later that summer when the Democrats nominated the same old candidate, this time Hubert Humphrey. Politics as usual, and not much difference between the parties.<BR/>Not much has changed 40 years later. Obama (and I will vote for him when the early voting lines slack off a little down here in Florida) is still just another, slightly better, politician, supporting one stupid war (the one in Afganistan) while talking the standard "phased withdrawal" in the other. <BR/>What we really need is to realize that whatever the problem, war isn't the solution. We need to find a political party and candidate that understands this. That is the primary lesson of the "60's." Unfortunately we didn't learn it (or any of the other "lessons") very well, and look at us (and the world) now. Not a very pretty sight is it? <BR/>So, urge us all, and especially the youth, to vote for Obama as he is the best choice, but not a real solution though he has, as both John and Bobby did so well, inspired interest and passion in today's youth, if not all of us. <BR/>My girl friend's three teenage daughters are watching and supporting Obama, and I can only hope, despite my cynicism, that their support, and hope, is justified.<BR/><BR/>Your friend, Dick ParisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-72322282461053311372008-10-24T09:33:00.000-05:002008-10-24T09:33:00.000-05:00Randy, too bad we can't post this on the front pag...Randy, too bad we can't post this on the front page of the Commercial Appeal, or perhaps the Memphis Flyer (insert your own daily paper and alternative weekly if you're out of town.) Frighteningly enough, I've heard from a few members of my own generation that since they're not that enamored with either party's nominees, they aren't going to vote at all. Help. I'm all for the Australian system where those who qulaify to vote are REQUIRED to do so unless they can show just cause such as severe illness, not unlike jury duty in the U. S. Even if you're choosing the McCain/Palin ticket based on your convictions, which is certainly your right, albeit a choice with which I don't agree, go vote for 'em. Even if you're so cynical that you think the whole thing is "fixed" (I know some younger folks in that category) take the time out and go vote for somebody. In some countries, you know, people don't have those kinds of rights.geno722https://www.blogger.com/profile/15236026904737296972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12901178.post-24946661838062221752008-10-24T08:18:00.000-05:002008-10-24T08:18:00.000-05:00I will be e-mailing this to my children this morni...I will be e-mailing this to my children this morning. Oops, you've done it again. Thanks RJ, another insightful piece for us to chew on.Please vote and tell your children to vote. Good Luck to us all, or God help us one and all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com