Ripped Van Winkle strolling through the hills
Known for herb the local pub distills
Decided he would just step in and hoist a glass
with some conscious members of the peasant class

The barkeep was Peter Van Dam
Recently returned from Vietnam
With seven sacred seeds smuggled in his garrison cap
From plants growin' on a ridge that was not on any map

The conversation turned to war and peace
“Who made us the world’s police?”
That was the two of them’s one-and-only line
And then they exchanged that old two-fingered sign

And by the time he headed out the door
Stars were overhead Ripped wasn’t sure
Where the trail would lead down to that scolding wife
Whom he’d see no more of in this life

Ripped Van Winkle lay down for a rest
In his Hudson’s Bay down-filled vest
Pine needles soft underneath his bones
Grolsch-Book-of-World-Records-level stoned

This happened the last night of sixty nine
He was reported missing at the time
The wife died, the kids grew up and had
kids of their own who’d never known old granddad

Ripped Van Winkle felt the morning sun
Got up, stretched and thought of what he’d done
the night before or was it all a dream
Involving some Catskills bowling team?

The cleared trail was nowhere to be found
He pegged it on that potion he had downed
Cannabis some alchemist most gifted had boiled
a super concentrate as thick as oil

The underbrush was wet and twice he slipped
And though he didn’t feel all that ripped
Van Winkle sensed man something is amiss
My beard was never long as this

But down he sauntered feeling very stiff
A man who did not fear the fiscal cliff
A man whose very concept of today
Was four point twenty decades away

The woods let him out on Stillman Lane
The scent of ozone hit him then the rain
A vehicle came round the bend and stopped
A short-haired man said where you headin’ pop?

The truck looked science-fiction new
A Ford Bronco built in eighty-two
Oldies station playing Jackson Browne
Ripped said north of Tarrytown

The man said something ‘bout the Knicks
Ripped was too awed to try and mix
He soon tumbled out with a grateful nod
To see what had been wrought By God

That war in Vietnam created fog
And Ripped might just be a shaggy dog
But I’m gonna go straight now, get right to the point
While you my friend can fire up another joint
 
Ripped Van Winkle is my self-mistake
Who tried to give reality a break
And stuck in the ‘60s, just like they say
Keeps seeing everything from way far away

When anti-war soldiers gave them doubt
When money wasn’t all it’s all about
When retro messages almost prevailed
Before they had 2 point 4 million of us jailed

And divided in a thousand separate groups
jumping through a thousand separate hoops
Funded by enlightened billionaires
Executive-directed by five-cornered squares

No, you don’t have to be Ripped to see
no threat to inequality
They can let us legalize the herb
if the rich/poor system we do not disturb

Start slow fade

No, you don’t have to be Ripped to see
the sacred as commodity
(reality)