John Perry Barlow, the hippie cattle rancher, Grateful Dead lyricist, EFF co-founder, and Berkman Center benefactor, wrote a long and rambling essay about Dick Cheney recently, which was posted to the Interesting People listserv. Barlow used to go fishing with Cheney, so he’s in a position to understand how the man thinks, which makes it worthwhile to slog through his awkward prose:
With the possible exception of Bill Gates, Dick Cheney is the smartest man I’ve ever met. If you get into a dispute with him, he will take you on a devastatingly brief tour all the weak points in your argument. But he is a careful listener and not at all the ideologue he appears at this distance. I believe he is personally indifferent to greed. In the final analysis, this may simply be about oil, but I doubt that Dick sees it that way. I am relatively certain that he is acting in the service of principles to which he has devoted megawatts of a kind of thought that is unimpeded by sentiment or other emotional overhead.
In the end, Barlow embraces the comfortable hippie stereotypes about globalism and McDonalds, but not before flirting with (and getting the phone number of) common sense. Aside from the observations about Cheney’s mind and lack of greed, the essay is interesting because of the obvious tension between what Barlow knows to be true and what he allows himself to say, as a professional hippie and all. It’s unusual to read someone bullshitting himself with full waking awareness that he’s required to bullshit himself for professional or social reasons.
Dead lyricist Robert Hunter’s a pretty interesting guy, too. I learned from Brian Doherty’s piece in Reason that Hunter was a National Guardsman during the Watts riots.
Hunter was also one of the LSD test piglets at Stanford, I think around the time Ken Kesey was making beer money the same way. And he wrote all the Dead songs that mattered.
Robert Hunter is simply a genius. Have you ever heard him sing any of the songs he wrote for the Dead?
No way, Ken. If nothing else, Barlow wrote “Cassidy” and that’s one of the best Dead songs ever. In fact, it’s one of the best pop songs ever written.
Barlow has a very interesting political view. He doesn’t like Democrats, considers himself a sort-of Republican. At least, that’s what he indicated to me in an email once, and it seemed to make sense. He’s not a pure hippy freak, just someone with his feet in two worlds I think.
Cassidy’s short, which is a virtue, but Barlow also wrote that “California” song and a bunch of other towering crap. I’ll take the Hunter songs any day.
Two Words:
“Jack Straw.”
If two words are not enough, how about three:
“Comes a Time”
I’ll even spot you four:
“Eyes of the World”
I’m with Bennett on this one..