KENO'S HOME PAGE   Hippie or Hippy?   "And the sign says 'Long-haired freaky people need not apply' , so I put my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why. He said you look like a fine outstanding young man, I think you'll do, so I took off my hat, I said 'Imagine that, huh, me working for you'" -  Les Emmerson from The Five Man Electrical Band song "Signs"   "I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people" -  John Lennon "Almost cut my hair, It happened just the other day, It was getting kind of long, I could have said it was in my way, But I didn't and I wonder why, I feel like letting my freak flag fly, I feel like I owe it to someone" - David Crosby, from the CSN&Y song "Almost Cut My Hair"   "If some shorthaired, prejudice, "you must play the game" type of boss, don't want to hire me to a job that I'm qualified for, simply because my hair is too long, then it's his loss, not mine" - Keno, 1974   As I said, I'm different. I was a full blown hippie as a teen and young adult, then for awhile I was just half a hippie. But now as I grow older I find I'm all hippie again. My hair is still real long. It has been long all of my adult life. I'll never cut it short like most men do or are into. I don't want that "clone male look" that most men have. You know the David Crosby song "Almost Cut My Hair', a bit of it is quoted above. Well, I still identify with that song today. Glad David and others still do, too.   This page is very simple, it deals with the question: What is the difference between a hippie and a hippy? There is a difference in the two types of people, since I’m a hippie and was once a hippy, let me give my own viewpoint on this…. (I should note that most of what you see here was first written by me for Yahoo News. I just changed a bit on how the article was laid out from when it was first published over there, and I changed some words here, too, so this is read today as more a personal thing than how it was first written a few years back)   Hippy: A person who has long hair, is peace loving and wants to make friends with everybody. A hippy makes for the best of neighbors; they are naturists (aka nudists); most of them are into free sex and love; they don’t worry about the race of other people; hippys smoke a lot of weed (and like all heads, they do not have to have it pointed out to them to be able to see where, in this site's pages' background, a dude is smoking a roach  - Hint for non hippys and non-heads: - he's inside the spiral); they eat healthy foods (and many are vegetarians); raise their children in liberal but very loving ways. Hippys are groovy and very cool. They are anti-establishment. They are amongst the most discriminated people on the planet. Hippys love all animals. They can be very much like Buddhists and into Zen. They also love to listen to rock and or country music (especially late ’60s psychedelic rock music); and totally believe in the saying “don’t worry, be happy”.   Hippie: Hippies are close cousins to hippys, but they are not the same. Politically charged and very much to the left – and not afraid of the word “liberal”, in fact hippies like to be noted as being liberal. They are not afraid to speak out for what they believe in – hippies will take on anybody. They will get in another’s face if that is necessary to get their point across; they like to take part in protest marchers; are anti war; pro human rights. They are very much anti-establishment. They are misunderstood and discriminated against. One doesn’t have to have long hair to be a hippie, or smoke weed, even if many of them do. They are for the legalization of all drugs. Most hippies watch their diets, but do not go overboard on that either. They are not groovy but are very cool never-less. Hippies like all music styles and are not restricted to digging only rock or country music. They have no problem with free love but usually don’t partake in it themselves. Many of them are naturists, but not all. Like hippys they are very liberal in raising their children.  There is more to this hippy vs hippie thing, but I think I covered enough.   - Notes on this subject - (and a word or two about Yippies and Freaks, too) These days there are many more hippies around than hippys (well at least in the U.S., anyway). Perhaps today’s hippies are what the yippies from the late 1960s turned into, since there are so few yippies around today. But no, not all hippies were once yippies, nor were they all once hippys – although many hippies were hippys in the past and a few were yippies, too.  *A good song lyric to describe a Hippy: “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now” **A good song lyric to describe a Hippie: “I ain't askin' nobody for nothin', if I can't get it on my own"   ***A good song lyric to describe a Yippie: “But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out – in!” * from The Youngbloods  "Get Together",  by Jesse Colin Young **from The Charlie Daniels Band "Long Haired Country Boy", by Charlie Daniels *** from The Beatles – "Revolution I", by John Lennon The longhair thing: Although one has to be a longhair to be a hippy, today most longhairs are not even close to being hippys. Being a longhair might have meant you were anti-establishment years ago, but it no longer applies. Today in the U.S., even many, if not most rednecks in the south are longhairs. Perhaps the only thing that still applies today to all longhairs is their love of music.   Freaks: The term might not be used too much anymore, but yes, Hippies and Hippys and for that matter, Yippies too, are still considered freaks, but perhaps it applies more so to just hippys today. Finally, a couple of answers to questions that were emailed in to me in regard to this page..... Why don't you mention Neo-hippies on your webpage?  - and -  What is a Neo-hippie? Great questions. Some say neo-hippies are modern day wanna be hippies who were born many years to late to be regular hippies or hippys. Really? Why can't the children of today who wish to be hippies/hippys, just be called "hippies" and "hippys"? I know that "neo" is used to describe something new and different, but neo-hippies seem to be the same as us old hippies, so why attach "neo" to the word "hippie" if that's the case? IMO, the word isn't really needed. But I guess it doesn't really matter, either. Who are people who call themselves Rainbows?  "Rainbows" are hippys. I noted above that the word "freak" isn't used to much anymore today. It seems to have been replaced by "rainbows". Where did this new word come from? More than likely from the Rainbow Gatherings that take place. Yes, those gatherings are a hippy thing for sure. But the word "freak" was used to describe both hippys and hippies, so who knows for sure if it was meant to replace the word "freak" or not. Again, it doesn't matter, it's a cool enough word I guess, so use it of you prefer, but I will always be happy to be just known as a old hippie, that's good enough for me!   Home Me & Mine Gramps and Mr McMurtry Telepathic Communications Crestone Crater Photos Naturism Family