As I'm typing this the radio is telling me that the Woodstock thing was something that changed the world. To which I answer, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Trump, I'd go on to list the wars the United States started and waged, the U.S. supported coup in Chile, the dirty war in Argentina, the terrorist campaign in Central America, other support of some of the most vicious mass murderers in the post-war period in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Indonesia, etc., the invasion of Iraq, the resurgence of racism and hate speech as "free speech", the successful blocking of the Equal Rights Amendment, the weak Democratic presidencies, THE STEADILY WORSENING WAR ON THE BIOSPHERE, resurgent sexism . . . For crying out loud, if it had "changed things" we would never have had Reagan the Bushes or Trump.
Woodstock as it is presented in the imaginations of myriads of people born after the debacle in the mud, many geezers who never were there, the promoters of its myth, never did anything but produce Joni Mitchell's piece of crap anthem (she wasn't there and is pretty much a right-winger now) an album and movie and who knows how much other commercial crap.
I didn't go, I hated rock music for the most part and couldn't abide the pretensions of the baby-boomer generation which didn't change the world for the better except in so far as it had some effect on the lifestyle of the affluent, the white, the male (for the most part) and for affluent White Women, somewhat. That is if they're of a certain level of affluence. Not much has changed for the better for the lower income and destitute except that they were a lot better off, economically, in 1969 and there were fewer people on the edge and over the edge.
So, you see, I'm unenthusiastic for that bull shit.
Update: Did you think I made that up? It was this show this morning.
The Woodstock music festival was one of the most pivotal events of
the last century — even though very little about it went according to
plan.
I'm surprised such a man of the world in his own mind never heard anyone peddle that line of horseshit, or are you just getting forgetful in your dotage? I'm not.
Update 2: I've never been so hard up for "peer acceptance" that I was willing to look for it any old place, among drunken, violent high school jerks or those in jr. high, among the jocks or the kewel kids. Which is why I didn't care about hanging around Eschaton after I'd learned everything about play-lefty self-indulgence and progress hampering futility that you guys had to teach me. As as it was ran that experiment way longer than it needed. It's hilarious that a geezer in his 70s reduces everything to whether you're in wit the groovy in-crowd, the kewel kids who sit on the school steps.
Update 3: And now, now that I've said I had graduated from jr. high, the idiot is going for full 2nd grade "I know you are but what am I?"
Woodstock was remembered for:a) the movie soundtrack (nobody has any other recording, AFAIK); b) Jimi Hendrix playing "The Star-Spangled Banner"; c) the announcements.
ReplyDeleteAll from the soundtrack. Without that movie, the whole event goes down the memory hole. Most of what people know about it is hype from the movie's ad campaign.
Of such is history now made.
I remember hearing about it as it was going on and it sounded like a really awful, enormous version of the kind of high school parties that I went to once and realized they were no fun. I was never that hard up for being with other people my own age. Then I heard about how incompetently it was planned and managed. Idiots, most of whom probably couldn't plan a safe camping trip, going to lie stoned in the mud listening to crappy rock. I think going to summer school to take a math course would have been more fun.
DeleteI remember hearing about it. But the movie is our collective memory, because so few us were there.
ReplyDelete