Old people still don't like anyone being anti-nam. Whenever I mention being anti-nam around my folks they don't like it lol. Then I have to remind them I like Dubya & am a conservative. Which I am except I'm anti-nam & think hippies are okay...

Hey Tom, maybe you saw what you wanted to see, its ok, I did too!

Okay, Tom, I voted in your poll. How? "It's still messed up." I might add that it's a lot more messed up. But it's always been messed up; just read Cicero, or the Bible or any commentary on the state of the world between then and now. That's why we stand out in the field and point and say, "He went thattaway." (Ref. to an Arlo story.) You do what you can do because it is what it is. But do it with a song on your lips and in your heart. And with feelin'.

I did beter than I thought back up there.

I did miss one point: Using a religion for political purposes never works out, politically or religiously.

Peace, Love, and Brotherhood.

kurt...

Put almost a half million people in a field, in torrential rain and you're going to get a muddy, trashy mess. Well, even without the rain, you're gonna get a trashy mess. As far as press reports, etc. that I've read, the original Woodstock had no incidents of physical violence. If anything, just the opposite. I read of one incident of two guys arguing to the point of shoving each other and were spontaneously surrounded by a huge crowd of people who started chanting "Peace, peace..." until the two stopped and actually shook hands.

The two festivals that followed were marred by blatant acts of vandalism, arson, violence and rape.

Yep, the movie was the biggest piece of PR about Woodstock, but it was making front page news around the world while it was happening and even spawned a bunch of magazine cover stories, including an entire special issue of Life magazine (I've still got an original copy somewhere around this mess of mine). Even the media saw that it was significant back then.

But that was then, it sure as hell ain't now. Jerry Garcia's analogical door of beautiful light has slammed shut. But, as one of the artists who did some of the Fillmore posters (whose name escapes me) said about that era of peace & love, it happened once..... it can happen again.

PSB- You speak in riddles Please, say what you want to say- I want to understand.

Just wanted to say that some of the most interesting messges came privately. I did not share the stuff that was sent privately because, well it was private. Thanks to everyone that shared.

Hi Tom. I am glad I lived through the 60's, and as a teenager marched in the anti Nam protests here in Australia, as I have again in the last few years over the Iraq debarcle. As with some others here I sometimes feel like we've slid back. I get so frustrated with people who won't inform themsleves, and secomb to lies and fearmongering. I vote here and in the US (I'm a dual citizen) so have to be twice informed.
I told Cindy Sheehan of my frustration when I spoke to her when she was here a couple of months ago. She said "Think of it like eating an elephant, one spoonful at a time" So I'm trying, one person at a time.
And there are lots of things like WoodyFest and Arlonet (thanks to the net which we didn't have last time! )where we can look for hope and likeminded people, and I think alot of us are even more serious the second time around. And I think those of us that didn't completely sell out are doing a pretty good job thanks to our experiencing the 60's.
Good Luck, from a fellow mature age student.

Thanks, Louise, for explaining more clearly what I was trying to say. Someone else said, in reference to how screwed up things are: "Never in the history of the world was it so easy for one person to make a difference."--ADG

I speak in riddles because I am generally a confused man. When you say 9 out of 10 were on the same wavelength, I say I can’t recall that kind of distribution. Probably the most politically charged and organized period that I personally can recall of the Woodstock nation was between 1970 to the end of the Nixon era. I would say the largest percentage of people involved in the happenings I attended during that period, I mean one single happening where it came closest to a true joint ultimate everyone was in tune politically to what I was tuned to was closer to 70%. That was at the Ozark Mountain Folkfair in Echo Park Arkansas not far from Eureka Springs in May ‘73 and for some reason at that moment in time I felt really tuned and it transcended the political to a more spiritual tuning (we were breaking beyond the bonds of twelve tones and heading into the harmelodic). In retrospect it was probably the LSD and Mary jew wanna done it. I still recall a time at a small concession stand up on the hill above the crowd one of those Arkie Natives looking past me down the hill from his stand and saying “I think I am gonna go down there and try some of that mary wanna!”

But in reality, I had already began to realize how far apart many of the people I fraternized with in those times of Nixon and War and Civil rights and Baba Ram das and Bucky Fuller and tales of spiritual enlightenment and overthrowing the great pirates of the world or the Earth is doomed. The election year in of ’72 in Oklahoma City was well organized by the Nixon Youth and a strong sense of the Moral Majority (silent minority or whatever the hell they were) not smoking Mary wanna in Muskogee but there was a strong alternative culture of mostly youth that used things like concerts and midnight movies to let their freak flags fly. By ’72 we had all become more Woodstock like than those that actually attended Woodstock with our long hair and our commercially obtained tie dye and peace signs (the early days of the head shop trade is a fascinating subject of which I have some firsthand knowledge, remember the black light poster section with the zodiac sexual positions guide poster, or the black power afro poster or the stoned again crumb poster all to the sounds of alternative FM radio and the incense stenture). Well the midnight movie in downtown OKC became the ultimate weekly happening on a Saturday night back then and we would see all the latest underground alternative movies (Harold and Maude with Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort, Joe with Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon (boy they were young in 1970), Putney Swope (Robert Downey bashes race relations, corporate America in fantastic characterizations of black militants, white crackers, corporate sycophants and 1969 in general), Zabriske Point (I was either too stoned or it was difficult to follow cause all I remember is listening to some pretty good music as it flashed on the screen), then there was the Easy Rider, Zachariah, Vanishing Point, Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 200 Motels and of course Alice’s Restaurant. But the big event was to show up in the street and hang out in the Happening before the show at Midnight in downtown OKC just across from the Civic Center and a couple blocks over from where the Alfred P. Murrah building would soon come and go. We were all there in a tribal gathering mood with our long hair flowing saying stuff like “spark that puppy up” and things like that and chanting stuff like “why change Dicks in the middle of a screw vote for Nixon in ‘72” and we were generally trying to be a public nuisance in the name of the new dawn. Also, a general atmosphere of trying to get either/or generally as stoned as possible with the thought of finding a hippie chick to “explore and discover” with and stuff like that.

One time we were at a little pre-party on Binkly street with little purple pills before 200 Motels and we got a t-shirt and painted the happy mescal worm on it an we made a rainbow valley riders banner with a big rainbow on top and underneath a subtitle as the Holy Order Of the Mezcal Worm and my brother put on cowboy boots and cutoff shorts and this Tshirt and a cape and goggles and John put on his Monk Robe Outfit (oh it was a beautiful monks robe) complete with the swinging incense basket and the rest of us made masks out of that weird colored silly putty like material that came with little straw and you could make psychedelic patterns with it and we pulled up in front of the crowd at about 11:30 and popped open the back of the Ford Econoline Van and out popped the monk mumbling in pig latin with incense swinging and then came the mask people and finally my brother with a skate board and a rope and the mask people pulled the Mezcal god up and down the street in front of the amazed and stoned crowd before everybody went in side to see 200 Motels, after which, we all came out smacking our heads and saying “I am a f23king genius and I don’t understand (smack the forehead) I am a f23ling genius and I don’t understand (smack the forehead)” over and over again.

The reason I persist in this riddle is that an event occurred that changed the way I looked at the people around me during one of those movies, Alice’s Restaurant. I always liked that movie because well just because. But it does have its emotional quiet moments. I had already known friends, good friends that opted out of life on the drug induced plan by that time so I new that feeling of helplessness while watching someone 18 years old balance their life toward accidental suicide. But that wasn’t the part that affected me. It was the hospital scene and the Woody Character with the cigarette and sad eyes and if you watch there is a quiet long pause of sadness there and I was naturally reflecting on all the Woody stuff and someone in this enlightened crowd actually broke the silence and yelled “kill the old SOB” and he started laughing. Now I was sitting there in the huge theatre (the Centre was one of those 20’ – 30’s movie palace type deals and it was packed through the balcony) and I was shocked and startled by the fact that within this group of people there was this mentality on board. And, as the weeks past I paid more attention to those around me at these affairs and it was a startling look of self interested, self abusing,scene making party animals which later become ultimate characterized by John Belushi as he tended toward accidental suicide for the whole world to see.

I don’t know why I put this here, just another riddle I suppose, it was interesting being 13 and observing that world, I was really idealistic back then.

You know how time fades away, time fades away, you know how time fades away.

maybe the answer to the riddle is that the sight of somebody that dressed and looked like Bob Dylan in '66 walking the streets of NYC might not have created much of a stir there but in OKC I guarantee you would have solicited abuse.....in 2006, it is more difficult to show you rebel, how do you make a statement with appearance when America's freak flag has become ordinary, it requires a lot more effort

Amen, PS. Back in 1970, a friend and I went to a party. Most kids back then got drunk. Peter and I arrived stoned. We were outside when this kid staggers around the back of the house, falls to his drunken knees and proceeds to vomit his guts out. Peter says, "You don't get that from getting stoned. God I hope they never legalize pot!"

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because then you'll have assholes like that smoking it!" sez Peter.

Well, PS, you're right. The assholes started smoking pot anyway. And I stopped (not consciously) basically because it costs too much now and I just end up falling asleep anyway! And my friend Peter, who I thought was the counter-culture personified back then, is now living in Colorado and selling concealed video surveillance systems (Hippie goes Orwell!)! Lookout, Wyld! He may be watching you! And freak flags are hard to come by these days. Hell, it even seems that a prerequisite for working at a Borders is multiple facial piercings!

Yeah, now you see kids with green & pink hair lol...

i didn't get to go to many midnight matinees (and when i did go i had to find a responsible adult (generally my brother, who i was able to highjack into taking me...) but a lot of what you describe, psb, reminded me of the neighborhood i grew up in...all i had to do was walk outside the house!

i had on occasion baby sat for someone who lived nearby who was in a local rock-n-roll band, and the kids used to dress up in outfits that i'm reminded of when i read your story about the capes and the monk outfits...hahaha

oh but ps..that was some story!

i'm just a wee bit tired...

Really as far as the party scene, I don't think things have changed too much. You had weed or Mary Jane then, now it is chronic. Point is Psb, like people seem to congregate. Take his forum for instance, people of like minds tend read it, perhaps not everyone but the majority.

Everybody is out for thmselves today, hence, no congregations. Birds of a feather... We all know that cliche'. Yeah, not everbody agrees on every thing but most people surround themselves with people that have the same core values, except for maybe James Carvel and Mary Matilyn.

I don't know, I don't think people are that different now.