OFF: and we've got to get ourselves...back to the atm machine.

[DASLUD at AOL.COM]

hang on, dont quite know where i'm bound with this. ^_~

there was a spectacular color picture on the front page of the BOSTON GLOBE a
couple days ago of a guy, arms spread high , in the dark,  facing a huge fire
during what may become known as the "woodstock riot". seemed very primal,
very pagan....

today there are stories of mosh pit rapes having taken place during the
festival...

i wish i hadnt deleted the letter earlier today attributing some of the
negative aspects of woodstock 99 to the music...tsk tsk, those young people
and their music...
what's the world coming to? coming to $4 bottles of water sold at woodstock
99 among other things.

no, i dont need to ever hear limp bizkit, thank you. but this is the music
leading into commercial breaks on a lot of tv sports, the music promoting
murderous video games and WWF wrestling... and as such was hardly unique to
woodstock 99. pretty darned pervasive these days...tsk tsk, those young
people and their==wait, didnt i say that already?

i flinched when "rap" and 'rap metal' were singled out for criticism...i
think of the '77 generation x song 'your generation'...20 years later even
that is part of somebody else's "your generation"...

in the '50s that 'jungle music', those 'evil subversive rhythms', that
degenerate elvis presley...all singled out by those who felt threatened by
the dreaded rock n' roll. it would seem in many respects many of us are doing
a current equivalent of that criticism, even those of us who would still
crank up "doremi fasol latido" or 'on your feet or on your knees'...

were the critics of the '50s right all along? did the 'evil subversive
rhythms' subvert as feared? is each successive generation subverted even
further? the criticism of each successive generation hasnt seemed to have
changed too much.
tsk tsk, those young people...

and benny goodman was criticized in the '30s. (and some of his gigs caused
teenage riots!)
and jazz in the '20s was criticized.
and the waltz was criticized.

dewy-eyed woodstock '69 nostalgists seem to forget that the festival became
free when the fences were broken through by the surging masses...people
freaking out over the 'woodstock riot' seem to forget what has happened many
times in the downtowns of big cities following a sports championship...

i remember 10 years ago, the 'woodstock' movie being shown on VH-1, edited
and including a warning/anti-drug disclaimer after every commercial break.
this time around, pay-per-view (keyword: PAY) lets those who paid see topless
babes and the naked flea...(no, i didnt see it; my nephew says he'll send me
24 hours of it though)

at woodstock '69 the masses were stoned, drenched by rain, and stunned by the
size of the crowd they'd become....one of the biggest masses in the history
of mankind..
i dont know the details but there a variety of lesser festivals twixt '69 and
'71 which included much less peaceful goings on than at woodstock 69. no mosh
pit rapes, though...no corporate logo banners in sight either.

in the mid-19th century some people felt threatened by the growing popularity
of baseball, because crowds gathering in the thousands had basically been
unknown, even disallowed,  since the roman era.

no, i dont like great quantities of contemporary popular music, 'what those
kids listen to'... not at all. but if i rank on it as a 41 year old, am i my
dad? and if i am, did my dad's criticism have more merit than i believed as a
kid? and if it DID...(gulp)

or is this how things just have to be on media/culture planet earth?
or is this what has happened for millenia?

insert shudder at what these young people will be criticizing in decades to
come.
insert the sound of metallica being played in the nursing homes of 2050 AD.

dont eat the brown acid....
"<>"