May 29, 2021

Beemer Memory 35 ~ Peace Pipe, bull's ball stash box & the B.T. Express

  ~   
Peace Pipe & bull's ball box 
photo by Styrous®

     
Almost 50 years ago in 1972, when I first got my Beemer (links below), as a present to celebrate the purchase of my new bike, a friend gave me this special pipe that had been made at the height of the hippie movement in the late sixties; it was well used when I got it. It is made of some kind of horn, maybe a goat's horn, 8 inches long and beautifully bound in strips of well-worn leather.       

The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into Greenwich Village in New York City, the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco, and the Old Town community in Chicago. The origins of the terms hip and hep are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term hip, and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation in the 1950's (a wonderful time to have experienced). Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore altered states of consciousness.      
 
In 1967, on the West Coast of the United States, the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park and the Summer of Love in San Francisco . . .         
 
 
 
 

 
 
 . . . and the Monterey Pop Festival popularized hippie culture, leading to the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast (link below).  
 
 
 
 
I enjoyed many happy hours  of smoking my pipe while tripping to the music of Led Zeppelin, Captain Beyond, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Can, The Beatles, The Stones, Black Sabbath and on and on.  
 
Of course, I would not only just trip but dance and gyrate madly in my studio at times to the fantastic dance song by the B.T. Express from their Non-Stop album, Peace Pipe; somehow the song and the pipe went together perfectly.
 
Peace Pipe was a BIG hit in the dance clubs in the mid-seventies; not only here, but all over the world, even in Japan.       
        
 
B.T. Express ~ Peace Pipe
 45 rpm record
 Japanese issue
 
 
  

     
 
 
 
 




 
 
 
 

 
 
At a later point, someone gave me a bull scrotum that had been tanned and formed into a hard, circular container which I used as my stash box.      
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Both the pipe and the tanned, bull testicle, stash box made a very handsome set and I was ready for anything.   



 pipe and hard, tanned bull testicle
photo by Styrous®
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

     
 

 
 

 
 
After almost fifty years or so of having the enjoyment of my pipe, it is time to pass it on to a younger generation with good wishes, great love and grand health.         
    
    
    
    
Viewfinder links:    
   
all things Beatles        
B. T. Express        
Captain Beyond        
Deep Purple       
Led Zeppelin          
The Rolling Stones      
Styrous®    
    
Net links:    
    
Smile Politely ~ Bulls Balls: A Truck Decoration    
Wikipedia ~ Testicles as food    
    
YouTube links:             
    
B. T. Express ~ Peace Pipe     
B. T. Express ~ Peace Pipe (live)     
PBS ~ Summer of Love | American Experience     
Scott McKenzie ~ San Francisco         
    
    
    
    
Dedicated to Rick on his birthday! 
    
    
    
    
Styrous® ~ Saturday, May 29, 2021     













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