Thursday, November 6, 2008

What I believed in the 1960s by P.J. O'Rourke

I think the following piece from The New Republic by P.J. O'Rourke is pretty damn funny, especially given all the references to beat behavior.


What I Believed in the 1960s
by P.J. O'Rourke (in The New Republic)

Everything. You name it and I believed it. I believed love was all you need. I believed you should be here now. I believed drugs could make you a better person. I believed I could hitchhike to Calfornia with 35 cents and people would be glad to feed me. I believed Mao was cute. I believed private property was wrong. I believed my girlfriend was a witch. I believed my parents were Nazi space monsters. I believed the university was putting saltpeter in the cafeteria food. I believed stones had souls. I believed the NLF were the good guys in Vietnam. I believed Lyndon Johnson was plotting to murder all Negroes. I believed Yoko Ono was an artist. I believed Bob Dylan was a musician. I believed I would live forever or until 21, whichever came first. I believed the world was about to end. I believed the Age of Aquarius was about to happen. I believed the I Ching said to cut classes and take over the dean's office. I believed wearing my hair long would end poverty and injustice. I believed there was a great throbbing web of psychic mucus and we were all part of it. I managed to believe Gandhi and H. Rap Brown at the same time. With the possible exception of anything my parents said, I believed everything.

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