It makes me Lucky.
I finally caught up with the Heroes of Woodstock tour on their last show, almost caught them at Bethel back in August (well almost is a stretch but I wanted to be there but I had a shortened East Coast tour this year). I also wanted to have caught the Roadshow up in Livermore, Maine. I knew that that was going to be great. Maine is simply... put it this way ... a perfect venue in the summer. Dave Getz tells me (name dropper - hey I have friends in High Places...) that they had an awesome clambake there.
One of the things about Woodstock that I think is mostly self-evident but I'll just say it anyways.. it was all about the Music. Not that a thousand hippie type young people, freaks, as
was the preferred way of referring to someone who was really cool or somehow privy to the knowledge* etc.. would refuse the opportunity to come together for a 3 day giant camp out in the country where they could make their own rules and have fun... woo hoo! It does sound like great fun even without the music... however the Music was the force that brought us to our feet
that had us, salivating weeks before the concert .... Hendrix, The Airplane, Canned Heat, Janis Creedence, Sly and the Who. WOW! I for one wasn't going there to make any countercultural statement... just let me bathe in the Music, 17 years old and maybe in Love with Music
I just wanted that music. Everything else was just the magic of the times, I kind of took it for granted. I was just a kid. Suddenly Boom! it was all going to be mine. The kid who the previous summer was playing JV Football during the summer and dreaming and wondering why dammit was I born so late that I couldn't be out there part of that wild Rock and Roll scene in SF.
What am I getting at? I forget.
It was all about to come true. They were coming to me. Holy CMoly it did.
I have been a counter culture believer for a long time, maybe that event kicked it off for me.
Maybe that stuff was already deep in my bones just looking for a path of expression, just ride the music and we'll get there. The Gentle Spirit, was alive at Woodstock as well as the fragility of us all, the confidence in the construction and creation of the event, when I look at the photos in Barry Z Levine's and Linanne Scott's book.. The Woodstock Storybook.. incredibly moving.
I remember the sight of that magnificent stage. It wasn't ticky tacky it seemed like a marvelous piece of 'Freak' engineering. Genius.. maybe that is too strong. The stage stood through the downpours, the light towers stood through the rain and when the ground turned to a stew of mud by late Sunday afternoon --they stood strong and solid. Unlike me the cold and wet had me slept in on Sunday Night (we packed a tent) ah well Saturday Night was the night to never forget and God Bless YouTube and Michael Wadleigh the great cameraman, who I called up out of the blue about 10 years ago to talk filmmaking .. what a great artist. He went on to have a very successful career making incredible nature documentaries for National Geographic that some of you may have seen on TV though who would have guessed that some of the great and perfect beauty of those shows were made by the man who made 'Woodstock' the movie.
I am going on this subject always makes me go on too much.
I think I made a prediction somewhere back in my so called blogging career which goes back now maybe 10 years. It seemed like I had some revelation cab driving one night. I predicted that the Counter Culture with it's direct historic routes from Woodstock and from infinite places before and after will become the dominant culture of America, this USA. I believe this, I don't know what we will have to go through to get there but I still believe this.
Counter Culture!? What the heck do I mean by this. Define your terms sir. OK for me you can forget the drugs not necessary, forget the free love, cool if you can live it but everything has a price let me put it this way... TANSTAAFL As Kurt Vonnegut described it in Cat's Cradle or one of those 'counter cultural' classics. 'There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.'
Maybe I need not even connect the dots to Woodstock it doesn't matter.. What will triumph I believe.... Well let me backtrack. I was cab driving one night in Marin County here just north of the city of San Francisco, when the dispatcher gave me an unusual call he wanted me to drive across the Richmond Bridge to some hotel over in a neck of the woods of the East Bay and rescue some girls who wanted to get back to Marin County. It sounded a bit adventurous with some promise for a good fare and though technically illegal as cab companies have usually prescribed territories that we jealously protect. (You don't pick up in ours we won't pick up in your territory.) Pirates all of us.. so I got over there and it wasn't all that big a deal. I found the Hotel with the big tour bus out front and two girls came running out of the dark from somewhere and (It's about 3 or 4 AM) They seem incredibly anxious, and nervous and crazy happy to see me and the cab and they said something about how they let themselves be talked into hopping on to a tour bus with some Rock nRoll actually it was a Reggae band and said they were very disappointed that they hadn't gone to a fancy SF location as promised with the group but some cheap hotel in the East Bay and whatever the players in the Band expected and what these girls got themselves into apparently it was not what they wanted and all they wanted was to get back to Fairfax. They were kind of nuts for in there mind they had just escaped some very dire situation.. but before we fled .. around the corner was a Jack in the Box and they were starving so Burgers and Fries coming up. I don't know why this reminded me of Woodstock but there were a couple of young people at the window of the Jack In The Box I don't remember what nationalities or sex or creed or whatever. But in the few minutes it took to take the order it just seemed that those kids serving the food were as happy and having as good a time as these two getting the food in the back and somehow I had the vision... yes children I received the divine Revelation... This is it! This happiness in being, in sharing, in serving one another in laughing together, was the most powerful force in the Universe. The spark of Life was firing joyful bullets back and forth and that really was what the best of all that 60's stuff whatever it was and it's not dead at all. That stuff will never die. Hey stranger, Life is fun! Here you want extra ketchup.
So taking it one step further and I might have stopped there but I will add that the so called counter culture, that died out back in the 60's or seventies as some say. That great gift that I think we got a taste of, a glimpse of, was this ability to see in anyone The Spark.. and the joy of sharing It... was great and what was happening and what needs to happen is for the world to recognize. This is it World, it can't be stopped. We all carry the spark of Life, the Fire of Life unites us all.* I think we still need the Music too. It won't be stopped. The fire won't go out.
I sure go on don't I?
Goodnight.
Guy
More Woodstock tales to come.. shortly
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