Hippie & the Spook Talk God, Guns, Movies and the End of the World

Hippie is a bald, pot-cookie munching, middle-aged Ethiopian living in America and the Spook is a slightly younger, pale-faced, long-hair with a goatee and moustache who tries not to spoil his dinner with cookies, pot-laced or no. They like to hang out and debate the meaning of life and maybe have a snack.

Hippie: You don't have to fear anything, but God.

Spook: Shouldn't you love God?

Hippie: If you fear God then you won't do anything wrong.

Spook: If you love God then you won't do anything wrong either.

Hippie: You always hurt the ones you love.

Spook: And you always hate the ones you fear. Love is better.

Hippie: You don't get it!

Spook: Maybe you don't get it. How can love be wrong?

Hippie: If you love guns then you're a killer.

Spook: I don't love guns.

Hippie: You watch movies that have guns in them.

Spook: I watch movies that don't have guns in them too. I'll watch anything, musicals, cartoons--

Hippie: --Cartoons are filled with guns and violence that's all they are is killing.

Spook: So you're against cartoon violence now?

Hippie: First you think it and then you do it.

Spook: Sure, if you have no impulse control. Luckily, I do.

Hippie: You know you have to think something before you can do something, right?

Spook: Yes, but you aren't ordered by royal decree to make every thought a reality. There aren't enough hours in the day.

Hippie: If you think about them then you talk about them and then you use them.

Spook: About what?

Hippie: Guns.

Spook: You're talking about them now, does that mean you're going to use them?

Hippie: No, because the black man is not a killer, only the white man thinks about killing.

Spook: I'm not a killer, and you're the one who brought it up.

Hippie: Because Europeans are killers.

Spook: Well, I'm a mix of a lot of stuff, because we've been in America for a while now. And you know there aren't a lot of wars in Europe at the moment.

Hippie: You started the killing.

Spook: I didn't start anything and neither did my Dad nor his Dad nor his nor his before him. Not all white people are killers and not all black people are saints, Hippie, just because some power hungry people go to war.

Hippie: I know you better than you know yourself. The hardest thing to do is know yourself.

Spook: Me, personally? I doubt that you know me better than I know me, you just haven't put the hours in.

Hippie: You don't know yourself.

Spook: I say I do.

Hippie: You're living in denial. I know what you don't know you don't know.

Spook: What? I could say the same thing to you--that doesn't make it...--the whole world has killers in it now. But we have free will and a person can talk about guns without killing as you've proven today. Because just saying it doesn't make it true, you see, since words aren't the same as actions and thoughts aren't the same as words!

Hippie: Cookie?

Spook: No, I haven't had dinner yet.

Hippie: I just eat them for the pot, you want to order a pizza? Where's that coupon?

Spook: Yeah, sure, pepperoni and onions? It's right in front of you.

Hippie: No, I don't eat pork.

Spook: Don't tell me it's because it's a dirty animal because you know cows and chickens hate taking baths too and as long as you cook it it's okay.

Hippie: How about grilled chicken and roma tomatoes?

Spook: Hm, that's sounds good actually. And since when did you start hating movies?

Hippie: Movies are all about killing. That's not art.

Spook: Art is anything that communicates something about life. And movies are the greatest collection of all the other arts. What if it's a movie about fluffy bunnies with squirt guns?

Hippie: Cameras are artificial and separate people from the Earth and the Natural world. We weren't designed to wear shoes and live in houses and kill and take pictures when our eye is a perfect camera. And how can you talk about guns and say you're not a killer?

Spook: Well, I wouldn't call the eye perfect when one of your cookies can blind you to what's right in front of you, Hipp. Besides with the eye there's no hard copy to show off to friends and neighbors.

Hippie: Why would you need it? That's the past. You have to live in the present and not separate yourself with machines.

Spook: Isn't your life better with machines? In the hospitals and your house? Aren't you better off now?

Hippie: No, we had it better then.

Spook: Who had what when? Stay on the subject, ya frigging pot-head!

Hippie: Black people had it better in the 1950s.

Spook: Are you high? Nevermind! It was better when you couldn't even sit at a lunchroom counter? And you weren't even here then, Hippie!

Hippie: We were happier then and what's the price of sitting at the counter? Do you know?

Spook: The price of desegregation? Are you going to say killing?

Hippie: Do you know?

Spook: Why don't you tell me?

Hippie: You can't admit you don't know.

Spook: It could be anything--so why don't you just say it. Believe me, if it's news to me then I'll say so.

Hippie: You can't say it?

Spook: I don't have a problem saying it, but if you say killing or death or sacrifice then I already guessed that.

Hippie: Just say you don't know.

Spook: Why are you harping on this?... Okay! I don't know, I don't know, I don't know--see, I can say it, now can you answer?

Hippie: That's the right answer, but it's not the whole answer. Do you know what that means?

Spook: "I don't know" isn't the whole answer?

Hippie: No, the killing. The price is...the lives of the children. The jails are filled with kids. They are the ones who have to pay. Do you get it?

Spook: Oh, okay. No, you're right, but every revolution--

Hippie: You don't pay with your kids!

Spook: Okay, you're right, it's a terrible price, but whose to say it wouldn't be worse now. If this were 1950 you'd still be home in Africa because you'd probably have more freedom there. And we'd never be friends either because we'd both be targets then.

Hippie: Right, you'd be in as much trouble as me for being a--

Spook: Hold it. Don't go flexing your English all haphazardly, there are still some words that carry a curse no matter who says them.

Hippie: I know, but I was just saying you'd be called a--

Spook: Hippie, enough! I'd be called a bad name, yes, let's not send us all back to the 1950s again please.

Hippie: The 1950s aren't the problem. They had the same things then as now, the same toys and movies about killing. We really have to go back to the beginning of Europe to see.

Spook: I thought living in the past was no good? That's why pictures and cameras are bad, right? And squirt guns are the path to destruction and the Holy Roman Empire screwed us all. But what about the Egyptians with the slaves and what not?

Hippie: They learned that from the Europeans.

Spook: Before there was a Europe?

Hippie: Whatever you want to call it. And who said the Egyptians had slaves.

Spook: Well, I wasn't there so I don't know, but then you weren't there when the killing started either.

Hippie: Yes, but you can look at who is killing today and imagine back to see who must've started it.

Spook: Africa has several wars going on right now, I believe. Even in Ethiopia.

Hippie: Yes, but we didn't make the guns. Guns kill.

Spook: So do cars.

Hippie: Spooky, don't you know that the world can end with the push of a button?

Spook: In that case it won't really be a concern anymore.

Hippie: We're on our last legs.

Spook: And yet you own a car and carry a cell phone and I'm not the one separating Europeans from the rest of the world you are. We're all humans, I say, that's why I hang out with you.

Hippie: That's exactly what you do by killing, separate us from the source.

Spook: I try to show how all people are the same at the core, you're the one name calling.

Hippie: Yeah, but you are a part of it.

Spook: How? Because I wasn't born in Africa? I still come from there, way back when, everyone does.

Hippie: Yes, that's right, but you are further from the source.

Spook: We're contemporaries, you and me, Hipp! In fact your older. But that doesn't matter--

Hippie: You're older, I live forever.

Spook: --What? Oh, for the love--Hippie! The source isn't a specific geographical place on the planet it's that place inside each of us that gives us life!

Hippie: You don't believe in the soul do you? What you see is what you get.

Spook: Did you work in a fortune cookie factory? Is this all the English you know? Do you think the Earth is flat too?

Hippie: The Earth was flat until the Europeans came and reshaped it for themselves. Everything is as we see and what we see is everything.

Spook: Oh, my goodness, gracious me. You don't come from a different planet, Hip!

Hippie: You don't get it. You'll never get it.

Spook: What don't I get?--What.

Hippie: You can't kill and use machines and still think you can evolve to a higher state.

Spook: Oh, but pot cookies and cell phones are the way to enlightenment, right?

Hippie: Nothing else matters but stopping the guns and the bombs! Once those are gone then we'll be able to come together and connect again without the machines and the killing.

Spook: So, you'd like to turn off all the power grids and send us back to the Stone Age?

Hippie: Machines are what separate us. If we didn't have them then we'd be evolved and able to communicate without any problem.

Spook: Sure, but we'd all have to be in the same room.

Hippie: We wouldn't need houses. We'd be perfect.

Spook: Sure, if we lived some place it never rains.

Hippie: Rain can't hurt you. We need to get back to nature. We were never designed to live like this.

Spook: What were we designed for if not to use our intellects to make the world a better place.

Hippie: This is better?

Spook: Well, we've hit a few snags, sure, but I think we're closer then we were before.

Hippie: The planet is dying and the black man is still a slave. We can't be free until everyone is free.

Spook: Don't say that or else it may come true, right, Hip?? Call me an optimist, but I don't really see the Earth getting knocked off its axis and hurtling into the sun. If there's a design or something that was meant to be then everything is a part of that including us and our intellects and free wills, and including machines too. If everything is designed then how can we live any other way then how we're supposed to? And if there is no design then we have to fight to make things better. First the Revolution than the Evolution.

Hippie: We were never meant to kill.

Spook: You won't drop that, will you?

Hippie: It's the only problem. Once we stop the guns and the killing then everyone will be fine.

Spook: Well, then maybe that's how it will work out, if you have faith in the design, I mean.

Hippie: Are we gonna go for pizza?

Spook: Oh, Hippie! Do you need a hug?

Hippie: Don't touch me, I only let women hug me.

Spook: I'm not coming onto you, don't be afraid. Didn't your Daddy ever hug you?

Hippie: I'm not afraid of anything. And no, he didn't hug.

Spook: No wonder you're so negative. What did he do for a living?

Hippie: He had his own army.

Spook: And you're condemning me? He wasn't European, was he?

Hippie: No, he defended us against them.

Spook: Was he killed?

Hippie: No, he wasn't afraid and so nothing could kill him.

Spook: Not being afraid is what saved him? Not the guns he had?

Hippie: He wasn't a killer, he would sacrifice himself for his family.

Spook: Would you?

Hippie: Of course, I would do anything for my family.

Spook: Even teach them to hate Europeans.

Hippie: I don't hate anybody, but we're all about to die and we have to stop the guns and the Europeans are the ones who started killing. Why would an African need to kill?

Spook: Aren't we all Africans? Didn't we cover this, you frigging Hippie.

Hippie: No, you went to the cold and had to start fires and hunt and kill and eat flesh and lose your pigment.

Spook: Ah, no wonder you hate us. Well, luckily lighter skin works out better when you don't get much sunlight and it offers better protection against frostbite too.

Hippie: No, black is the best skin for everything.

Spook: Sure, for heavy sunlight, but it doesn't protect you from fire or sharp objects or the cold. You're only human.

Hippie: The original human. The only way to save the world is by mixing with us.

Spook: Really, that was you?

Hippie: That's me. I'm the first one.

Spook: You've held up well, except for the hair.

Hippie: I shave it.

Spook: I'm sure. If everybody mixes then aren't you afraid that people will settle into a nice light beige color. Like your kids are lighter than you because your wife is white.

Hippie: I'm not afraid of anything and let's get some pizza already.

Spook: You buying?

Hippie: Sure.

Spook: Off we go...

(...Until next time with Hippie and the Spook)