The other day I met this guy named Paul who was bartending at a local spot in the city. He noticed my shirt and I noticed his hat. Mine read: “DEADHEAD.” His read: “DEADHEAD.” Paul, a big bearded man covered in tats, gave me a shot of whiskey and told me about living “up north in the woods” and that it was “fun but got kind of weird.” My guess is he was in his early 40s, just living the cliché cool guy bartender lifestyle to the fullest. Maybe it’s a costume, but it’s his costume, you know what I mean?
This got me thinking about the modern hippy lifestyle, what that means, and how we signal to others the things we’re sorting out amongst ourselves. I don’t think I identify as a hippy — at least not how they did back in the day when having long hair that touched your collar as a man could cost you your career. But I want to… I think? Maybe? Or maybe that doesn’t really matter. What I think I’m trying to figure out is this weird thing that’s inside of my psyche that just wants to wear a different costume every day depending on my mood.
Recently I watched a funny and odd movie from 1997 called Going All the Way starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies. It’s a coming-of-age film in the post-Korean War ‘50s that takes place in Indianapolis. Affleck plays a reformed jock searching for the meaning of life. Davies plays an introverted sensitive geek who takes good photographs. They went to high school together, both served in the war, and found friendship upon their return. The film paints their relationship as almost romantic while they wander around art galleries and museums, exploring the Meaning Of It All in rural America. You know, the kind of thing you do when you’re 24 and living in Indiana in 1954 and wondering why the world seems so square.
Going All the Way is an all right film. It’s surrealist and absurdist and does a nice job parsing the deeply shallow thoughts of youth. If I were you, I’d watch it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do so. The reason I bring it up is there’s a major thing that happens about halfway through the plot. While testing the edge of society and how people perceive things, Affleck’s character Gunner — who is extremely hot — decides to grow a beard. This is significant because it was the ‘50s and I guess people thought you were a communist if you had facial hair. It’s a funny thing to consider, especially when you look at Gunner.
Here he is without a beard. Very hot.
And here he is with the beard. Still very hot, but a communist.
The film plays out and, as I said, it’s a real big deal that Gunner grew a beard. In just a few days, the entire community is up in arms about the former jock turned communist. Adults nearly faint upon the sight of Gunner in the street. Their parents mockingly call him Abe Lincoln. And in the climax of the beard subplot, a fight breaks out at the local country club pool, because people refuse to swim in the same water as a “dirty beard.”
This is all absurdist. The point of this is not to just think about how hot Ben Affleck was in the ‘90s, beard or no beard. What I’m trying to illustrate — and the film does this well — is how stupid it is that our subtle presentations of ourselves determine our value to society. Before Gunner had a beard, he could’ve been president. Once he grew a little stubble, he might as well have been brought behind a building and shot.
One of my favorite descriptions of the trappings of the midwest comes from David Foster Wallace in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again:
I'd grown up inside vectors, lines and lines athwart lines, grids—and, on the scale of horizons, broad curving lines of geographic force, the weird topographical drain-swirl of a whole lot of ice-ironed land that sits and spins atop plates. The area behind and below these broad curves at the seam of land and sky I could plot by eye way before I came to know infinitesimals as easements, an integral as schema.
History has built our cities and society upon grids, somewhat unknowingly hoping the convenience presented by the environment could give humans easy access to happiness. Anxiety can be thwarted by routine, for better or for worse, but the monotony might also cripple. How do you balance the challenges of being alive while providing fuel for hope? The edge is enlightening. Until it isn’t. There’s a story about a guy named Icarus you might be familiar with.
Last year, there was a cool little record label started in Los Angeles called Forager Records. I don’t know their story at all, but they’ve managed to dig up some really enjoyable music since their inception. In particular, there’s one release that’s stuck with me. Entitled Belong to the Wind — buy it here — it’s a 10-track compilation of lost psychedelic and soul 45s from the ‘70s with a great cover.
In particular, there’s one song that’s stuck with me: “Oh Man” by a musician named Cisco. It’s a meditative and introspective journey of a track, one that’s considering solitude and existence, capturing that longing and strangely depressing feeling of sunshine flowing through a window. Ah, to be a fleeting thought, dashing off with the birds.
Where do we go from here? The wind, I suppose.