Deceased: Gypsy Boots

From: nenslo <nenslo@yahoox.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 12, 2004

Here's a dead person you really should have known about, not some washed
up former pop star or ex movie actor. You bunch of dumb jerks. I was
just looking at my copy of Bare Feet and Good Things To Eat on saturday
and wondered if Gypsy Boots was still alive. He was, but only for ONE
MORE DAY. Last I'd seen of him was a few seconds on the short-lived
sketch comedy show The Downer Channel a couple of years ago, canceled
apparently because it DIDN'T SUCK ENOUGH. You idiots.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040809-2136-ca-obit-gypsyboots.html
http://gypsyboots.tripod.com/

By Gillian Flaccus ASSOCIATED PRESS
9:36 p.m. August 9, 2004
LOS ANGELES Gypsy Boots, a California fitness icon, author and health
guru who paved the way for generations of beatniks, hippies and
health-food junkies, has died at age 89. Boots, born Robert Bootzin,
died early Sunday at a convalescent home in Camarillo after a brief
illness, said his son, Daniel Bootzin.

Born Aug. 19, 1915, in San Francisco to Jewish immigrant parents, Boots
defined what it meant to live close to nature decades before the
nation's current obsession with organic foods, yoga and exercise.
During his life, he tried a number of careers, from author to
entertainer to hay baler to trendy restaurateur ^ but never shed his
long hair and thick beard or his passion for natural foods and a
near-Spartan existence.

"What people have a hard time understanding is that in the early 1960s,
there were no hippies and nobody had long hair, nobody had a beard,"
said Daniel Bootzin. "He really was that way way before anybody had that
look. As a child, I was painfully aware that he was extremely different
than anybody else."

Boots' philosophy of clean living, exercise and healthy eating ^ laid
out in his books "Barefeet and Good Things to Eat" and "The Gypsy in Me"
^ attracted thousands of fans worldwide and netted him 25 appearances on
the Steve Allen Show in the early 1960s.

Inspired by the German "Naturmensch" movement, Boots and a "tribe" of
fellow bohemians spent the 1940s living off the land in Tahquitz Canyon
near Palm Springs, sleeping in caves and trees and bathing in
waterfalls. Photos from that time show a robust and tan man, often
shirtless and shoeless, with a shaggy beard and long hair.

His lifestyle was immortalized in the 1948 Nat King Cole hit "Nature
Boy," which was composed by fellow "tribesman" Eden Ahbez, said Gordon
Kennedy, a longtime friend who has written a book about Boots and other
Nature Boys called "Children of the Sun."

etc.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Soot Bull Jeepô <ding@dong.com>

Aah, Tahquitz Canyon, I remember it well.
Spent quite a few 'lost weeks' there in the early '80's.

Sex-filled memories!

Even was able to inspire a few _garbage hauls_ while I 'inhabited' there...

Imagine that!?

Now if I can just get those pesky Hindus to manage the 400 tonnes of
paper mâche & plaster that's chucked into rivers during Ganesh
Chaturthi, then I'd really feel that I made a contribution to the planet.

SBJ

--
...........'cuse me whyl I kiss tha sky...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgeniusNOSPUM.com>

I never even heard of this guy. Figures.

He made it to 89 though. Proto-Hippie got the last laugh on Mr. Baskin
and Mr. Robbins anyway.

Wei and I started watching that movie "SuperSize Me" last night, is why
I mention Baskin & Robbins -- who died fairly young of ice cream, as is
pointed out in the movie by Robbins' son, a nutritionist.

We were patting ourselves on the backs profusely as we watched the
movie, because, while we both could use more regular exercise, our
eating habits WEREN'T the ones being mocked and shamed in the movie. As
long as they don't come out with a good movie about how pot smoking
wrecks you, I'm fine.

I can't resist bragging here that my neighbor has a HUGE garden -- BUT
IS ON THE ATKIN'S DIET this summer! So we're getting pretty much ALL of
the bounty next door. This guy likes to grow exotic stuff too, like
white eggplants and zebra striped beans and insane rainbow colored
tomaters.

But there's a good chance that if I weren't married to a cooking-crazy
health nut, I'd probably be living off the Burger King that lies
directly between me and the Post Office. As it is I walk to the P.O.
almost every day now, but I have never stopped at that Burger King.

I'm a regular Gypsy Boots, huh. But you won't see me running around
naked. I ain't THAT much of a hippie, nor am I so cruel really as to do
that.

I AM a stupid dumbass for not even knowing who this guy was until now.
Fuck. Oh well.

--
The SubGenius Foundation, Inc.
(4th Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti,
PRABOB

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Original file name: Deceased- Gypsy Boots.txt - converted on Saturday, 25 September 2004, 02:05