The Hare Krishna Look

For the past three or four years, marketing experts in major corporations have established a consistent pattern of taking quality make-shift ideas out of “youth-culture,” dressing them up, mass producing and distributing them with low ideals and high price tags. Bell-bottoms, leather clothes, head bands, long hair (wigs), and peace symbols can all be MasterCharged in suburban Shopping centers; there’s no need to mess with idle freaks while trying to emulate them. The individuals who come up with these concepts are usually titled “assistant vice-president in charge of youth marketing,” but they’re better known as “house freaks.” During the first week in April there was a “house freaks” conference, of sorts, in Nogales, Sonora, a Mexican border town across from Arizona. After three days of getting ripped on tequila, sleeping with Mexican whores found on Canal street, and getting burned trying to buy $40 kilos on expense accounts, they set about their business.

Each of them admitted that their individual items were doing well, but the recessive economy demanded they co-operate to some degree to re-inforce each other’s product sales potential (or ‘PSP’ as it’s called m the trade). Their last effort to “keep up with the action,’ bandolier cross-chest belts — the guerilla look — was only mildly successful. They half-heartedly hoped the Justice Department would try to stop the bandolier production or advertising on the grounds it materially aided violent revolutionaries, but no such luck. Even that gimmick didn’t materialize.