Gypsy Boots was a proto-hippie and health food entrepreneur

Hippies explored the possibilities of organic food

The 1960s counterculture sought to buck traditions, including culinary ones. Hippies believed that healthier food was integral to dismantling the status quo and, in turn, started health food stores, espoused vegetarian diets, and cultivated organic food, which they found to be a welcome alternative to the over-commercialized farming industry. In the decades since the movement’s decline, many of its practices have been absorbed by the mainstream.

Trader Joe's hired a college student to advise on health food lingo

The grocer jumped into the 1970s health food movement by selling granola, fresh juice, nuts, and raw milk. Joe Coulombe, the company’s founder and namesake, hired “a young hippie woman” from the University of California at Santa Cruz to teach employees the language of the health food movement to properly label their products.

Joan Didion's 1967 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' laid the hippie counterculture bare

Didion wrote a detailed account of living alongside hippies in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury area in the 1960s. Beyond their style and politics, Didion uncovered chaos, with one particularly shocking interview of a 5-year-old on LSD. Her stories challenged the movement's message of freedom and utopia in California.

Haight-Ashbury's hippie character was shaped by a store selling psychedelic texts and wares.

The Whole Earth Catalog offered readers tools for healthy eating

The publication promised hippies "access to tools"—listings for "high quality or low cost" books, devices, and instructions for alternative living, including cultivating natural and organic foods. This archive comprises high-definition scans of nearly all materials published between 1968 and 2002.

Gary Panter's punk art defined the '70s and '80s counterculture

The artist got his start providing fliers and logos for early Los Angeles punk bands, but later took his psychedelic, Pop Art-vision to designing on "Pee-Wee's Playhouse," for which he won three Emmy Awards.

Health food broke into the mainstream by the 1980s

A 1984 New York Times story noted that Americans were eating less red meat than a decade prior, and that, in general, the country was “talking, thinking and worrying about what they eat to a degree unique in the nation's history.” The feature then details foods that were then considered bizarre: whole-grain muffins, hummus, and a variety of vegetarian dishes. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Long before Coachella, Steve Wozniak attempted a similarly-minded festival

In 1982, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak was on a hiatus from Apple after a near-fatal plane crash. In his spare time, he decided to throw a festival that would bring together cutting-edge music and technology—a Woodstock for the 1980s. The result was the US Festival, an early ancestor of Coachella that brought world-class acts like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Talking Heads, the Grateful Dead, and the Ramones to a rustic venue outside Los Angeles.

Googie architecture, a cousin of mid-century modernism, was a popular style for American roadside attractions.

Natural food stores began sprouting up in the US in the 1960s and 1970s

Health food stores began opening in the ‘50s, though they were primarily focused on vitamins and holistic supplements. Natural food stores, however, provided pesticide-free produce and often relied on local farmers for their products. One of the first was New Age Natural Foods, in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which opened in 1965.

A short-lived dance festival gave a promoter the idea for Coachella

In 1996, Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett helped organize the Organic festival, an all-night electronic music festival held at a ski resort east of Los Angeles. Tollett said he was inspired by the way Organic's lineup brought the United Kingdom's burgeoning rave culture to a distinctly picturesque and American venue and environment.

Richard Hittleman brought yoga to TV

"Yoga For Health" was a 1960s television show that sought to make yoga accessible for everyday Americans. Richard Hittleman, the show's host, walked viewers through basic postures, introducing them to the practice's therapeutic benefits. "We know that within us there's great forces, and great power, and great beauty," he says in this 1961 episode, "and the idea is to bring it out."

The Beat Generation inspired significant parts of 1960s counterculture

The Beat Generation championed the transformative power of psychedelics, rebelled against the post-war social order, and called for more radical politics. With a strong foothold in San Francisco, it's no surprise these themes were carried over to the city's 1960s counterculture, informing the larger national hippie movement.

In the 2000s, Dylan began hosting a weekly radio show

Bob Dylan remained unpredictable, even 40 years into his career. Look no further than his satellite radio show from the 2000s, which found the legendary singer-songwriter riffing on a different theme every week. In this episode that theme is “Nothing.” He talks about Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ but a G Thang,” quotes several lines from Shakespeare, and speaks at length about his love for the musical “Porgy and Bess.” It’s a wild, unpredictable ride, just like the rest of his career.

Before launching his cereal company, John Harvey Kellogg promoted a eugenics-inspired natural food regimen.

J.I. Rodale helped pioneer organic farming in the US

Rodale began using the term “organic” in the 1940s to describe farming practices that avoided the use of pesticides and chemicals, which he believed were dangerous. Rodale used a 63-acre farm in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, to cultivate organic food and established a magazine, Organic Farming and Gardening, as well as a foundation based on a simple motto: “Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People.”

Largely considered to be the inspiration for Gordon Gekko in the movie 'Wall Street,' Ivan Boesky was one of the most high-profile white-collar criminals and faced a $100M fine for insider trading in 1986.

Steve Jobs mandated that a legendary book on yoga be distributed at his memorial service

The iconic entrepreneur died in 2011, but before he did, he planned the details for his memorial service. One of the instructions was to leave attendees with a parting gift: a brown box that contained Paramahansa Yogananda’s book “Autobiography of a Yogi,” a book he read as a teenager and then returned to annually.

Before Chipotle, San Francisco was the epicenter of American burrito obsession

More than just something to eat, burritos were akin to a Bay Area religion in the early 1990s, inspiring performance art, comedy shows, music, philosophizing, and more.

‘The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved’ signaled the birth of Gonzo Journalism

The 1970 essay opens with a crude conversation between Hunter S. Thompson, the author, and a man at an airport bar. Thompson’s first-person account places him as an active participant. Instead of focusing on the race itself, Thompson paints vivid details of his experience with the hedonistic scene surrounding it.

Joan Didion interviewed The Grateful Dead in 1967, before they became music icons.

Gary Panter designed punk flyers before building the surreal world of Pee-wee Herman

The illustrator’s anxiety-ridden comics adorned flyers for LA punk bands, defining a distinctive aesthetic for the burgeoning genre. That work caught the eye of Paul Reubens, who was staging a late-night show with his persona Pee-wee Herman.

The Stooges were a stark contrast to the hippie movement

The Detroit band is often considered “proto-punk” because their loud, dark, and distorted music helped establish a template for the punk explosion that came later. In 1970, rock writer Lester Bangs even used the word “punk” to describe the band’s frontman, Iggy Pop.

Fascinated by the 1960s counterculture, Jim Henson tried to build a psychedelic nightclub.

Goldenvoice, Coachella's promoter, began with punk and gangster rap

This documentary produced by Coachella tells the story of Goldenvoice—a scrappy upstart booking punk, hardcore, and gangster rap shows in Southern California—and how it created one of the biggest festivals in the world. Beyond the narrative, though, this is worth watching for incredible performances from the White Stripes, Kendrick Lamar, Amy Winehouse, and more.

Why one country legend embraced punk rock

Dwight Yoakam was among the most popular country music acts of the 1980s, praised for his upbeat rockabilly and neo-Bakersfield sound. In this interview, Yoakam explains why he left the Midwest for California and began playing in punk clubs, including with an iteration of the legendary LA punk outfit X.

Beat Generation iconoclast William S. Burroughs once appeared in a Nike ad, singing the praises of 'new technology.'

Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman

The name change was just one facet of his self-created myth. From the moment he arrived in Greenwich Village’s folk scene, he was crafting tall tales about his life, including a claim that he'd spent the previous six years working for a carnival.

Fugazi refused to make merchandise, but that didn't stop bootleggers

The band—formed by members of Minor Threat and Rites of Spring—was known for its innovative post-hardcore music and its high-minded ethics: They released albums themselves through the Dischord label, ensured all shows were $5 all-ages affairs, and refused to make merchandise to avoid commodifying their art. That didn’t stop bootleggers.

A biker from Hell's Angels said Hunter S. Thompson's book about the group was mostly 'cheap trash'

Thompson's popular coverage of the motorcycle gang was not necessarily popular with the gang members themselves. In a bizarre and amusing TV interview from 1967, a biker is given the opportunity to confront Thompson about using the gang for profit, misrepresenting them, and failing to buy beer he promised them.

Gonzo Journalism places the author at the center of the events

Some may describe Gonzo as a more daring style of subjective reporting than New Journalism, as it prioritizes the personal experience and opinions of the writer. Gonzo pieces also tend to feature hyperbole, comedy and taboo subjects.

The Whole Earth Catalog provided an early blueprint for the social internet

The Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture guide to alternative living, was a repository for hippie ideas. In 1985, its founder decided to bring Whole Earth to the nascent internet with the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, or WELL, an early web forum.

How a crew of hippies and nerdy teens in 1970 launched the global phenomenon of Comic-Con

Brinke Stevens and nearly 50 early organizers recount assembling Comic‑Con in 1970s San Diego—starting with just 300 attendees in a hotel basement—and how that grassroots, inclusive mix of fans sparked an enduring and worldwide pop‑culture movement.

In 1957, a vice president at JPMorgan became an outspoken evangelist for psychedelic mushrooms.

Coachella fashion repurposes looks from Woodstock

Coachella attendees' flower-forward fashion sense has been widely replicated (and lampooned) since the festival became a mainstay of the cultural calendar. This podcast, featuring a panel of style writers and music reporters, traces the aesthetic back to the 1969 Woodstock festival. In the process, they also look to untangle why festivalgoers fall into certain styles—and what that means for Coachella and its attendees.

CBGB, the breeding ground for punk, was intended to be a country bar

Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, and many other bands got their start at CBGB. But its owner, Hillel “Hilly” Kristal, didn’t intend for it to be a punk rock venue. CBGB stood for “Country Bluegrass Blues,” though he included “OMFUG” (for “Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers”) on the venue’s marquee.

Sri Swami Satchidananda gave the opening remarks at the first Woodstock

The yoga guru was invited to begin the legendary 1969 festival and told the massive crowd he believed music “is a celestial sound and it is the sound that controls the whole universe, not atomic vibrations.” The speech leaned into yoga as a philosophy, one that the many concertgoers in attendance could use to guide their collective desire for peace.

Sun Ra and his band operated a grocery store in Philadelphia

Ra arrived in Philadelphia in 1968, settling into a home in the city's Germantown neighborhood with his band, the Arkestra, where they would practice for hours on end. The ban also operated a grocery store called Pahroah's Den, which sold produce, candy, and Sun Ra records. You can see scenes from the store, along with several astonishing performances, in the 1980 documentary "A Joyful Noise."

Before he was known as a folk singer, Woody Guthrie was a popular radio host in Los Angeles.

The Six Gallery, and San Francisco at large, helped the Beats grow

The Six Gallery was located in the “Harlem of the West,” where jazz musicians, filmmakers, painters and poets experimented with no regard for commercial success. “If Ginsberg had broken new ground,” historian Rebecca Solnit writes, “the Six had made it possible to go public with it.”

Some call Beard the original 'foodie'

James Beard came of age when home cooking revolved around canned and frozen ingredients. Likewise, West Coast cuisine wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Beard’s appreciation of fresh, seasonal ingredients and regional influences provided a foundation for today’s movement toward local, farm-to-table cooking and the foodies who seek it out.

'Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise.'

- Ted Turner, on his secret to success (1938-2026)

Dylan's raucous 1976 tour was one piece of an ongoing reinvention

In the mid-70s, Dylan assembled a ragtag group of musicians and poets—including Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Allen Ginsberg—he called the Rolling Thunder Revue. Rather than playing stadiums in major markets, they played smaller venues in smaller cities for a more intimate experience. The tour yielded some of the most exuberant versions of Dylan songs, captured in this 1976 performance in Fort Collins, which originally aired on NBC as “Hard Rain.”

A Grateful Dead online bulletin board system inspired the early internet and counted some of tech's biggest names, like Apple's Steve Wozniak, as users.

'Johnny Appleseed' was the itinerant horticulturalist John Chapman

Born in 1774 in Massachusetts, Chapman planted apple orchards for pioneers across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, to be sold to locals to produce hard cider. He became famous through a 'Harper's Weekly' profile in the late 1800s, cultivating the modern legend.

Revisiting the milieu of the Greenwich Village music scene

Few neighborhoods of the world stand out as more productive of a robust music scene than New York City's Greenwich Village, the bohemian launchpad of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and other folk artists of the 1960s and '70s. Expert David Browne discusses why it became so significant in this episode of "Sound Opinions."

Arthur Russell's avant-garde music spanned many genres

The classically trained cellist moved to San Francisco in the early 1970s, mingling with the hippie movement and the Beat Generation. After arriving in New York in 1973, he began exploring the nascent punk and disco scenes, infusing them with his classical training; however, his eclectic style might've been part of the reason he never broke through during his lifetime. That variety, though, is what draws so many devoted listeners to his work today.

The Beats also influenced the imagery of the 1960s

First editions of Burroughs’s "The Naked Lunch," Kerouac’s "The Dharma Bums," and Ferlinghetti’s "A Coney Island of the Mind" were just as notable for their text as they were for their design, which anticipated the psychedelic imagery of 1960s countercultural touchstones like Ken Kesey, Andy Warhol, and R. Crumb.

Cyan Banister, once homeless, was an angel investor in Uber, SpaceX, and DeepMind.

Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch had a gambling problem, burning through the $7M she made from the company's sale to Heinz after moving to Las Vegas.