Man, I have to vent to someone.....I was just watching the Today Show, and they did a whole big thing on The Summer of Love. Praising how great it was...the music, the clothes, the attitudes. Groovy, man. Like, far out. Yeeeeaaahhh, maaaaan....
They interviewed "experts" like some 60s historian (a liberal academician, natch) and "perennial hippie" Wavy Gravy....who has to be 70 years old and still dresses like a clown on bad acid.
What a shame to be a ridiculous, frivolous oddity; stuck in a time warp like that, simply refusing to give it up and move on with the rest of the world. He also seemed to have forgotten to comb his (thinning, gray) hair. Thing about people like him, I bet they make a real good living, you know, doing interviews that hark back to the good old days of the 1960s...relating how they utterly rejected the greed, materialism and Capitalism of their parents and country. Yeah...I bet they turn a good buck doing that.
At least Today did have the integrity to acknowledge the fact that the great "Haight-Ashbury Experience", a "Utopian" movement and "revolt against Eisenhower conservatism" that "changed the world", and which was "enhanced by free love and psychedelic drugs", soured rather quickly, with "rampant drug abuse" and violence in the overcrowded streets.
In other words, Timothy Leary disciples were reaping what they sowed. What amazes me...well, not really...is how quickly their "Utopia" collapsed. When you remove discipline and order and stigmatize them, along with basic morality, ambition and worth (conservatism), all of which are what they did, that's what you get. So many of them still don't grasp what went wrong. Or perhaps they do, and just don't want to admit the errors of their vision. Typical liberal thinking; if it clearly doesn't work, just keep doing it, and maybe it will.
People need to stop glorifying the chaos of liberal ideals; to challenge and refute the myths.
They had Jefferson Starship on, too, and the lead guitar was played by the original guy, from Jefferson Airplane....whatever his name is. They asked him what he remembered of the 60s....after the usual har-dee-har cracks about "if you were there, you don't remember it", he said, and I quote directly, that he calls it "the Golden Age of 'Eff-ing'.....it was like the 72 virgins of the bombers today....but they weren't virgins..." har-har. At that point the smiles of the interviewers kind of faltered a little, and they went to the song. Idiot.
Saturday morning, live network TV, and here's this pan-fried old geezer with long gray hair and with his John Lennon glasses and stupid Che Guevara beret, and with the red star on his t-shirt, spouting obscene stuff like that. Shows you the kind of irresponsible people and mentality the great ole "Haight-Ashbury Experience" produced.
I was born in the Summer of Love....early September, 1967, when the "Tune-in, Turn-on, Drop-out" hippies and Flower Children in The Haight were just beginning to eat their own; and I'm so glad I missed out. Now, am I just being crotchety and thin-skinned, or am I right in this line of thought?