GENERATIONS

In the middle of filming, someone points out Ken Kesey, standing on the sidelines. Next to Kesey stands Rock Scully, associated with the Grateful Dead, and a few others, a small band of notables from the Haight. They had come to England to see if it was really all it was reputed to be. From […]

Slowly, a strange thing began to dawn on me: you never heard The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, or any of what would be the royalty of England’s rock on their own on broadcast radio. (Unbeknownst to me this had not always been the case. Pirate Radio had filled that void but had been […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh3fV-2rnA4&feature=youtube_gdata_player Valerie had blond hair that hung to her shoulders and was cut in a flat bang across the front. She looked like Marianne Faithful, or Françoise Hardy, the look of the time. I found her beautiful and, of course, assumed she would have nothing to do with me, so it came as a great […]

    Every weekend there’s a party where the new music is played. Dance. Smoke a little marijuana. Dance. “Love, love me, do.” Beautiful, beautiful college women. John Lennon howling. Mick Jagger singing, “Time, time, time is on my side… Yes it is.”  The Beatles release their second movie. Help! I see it multiple times. […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4WmBiSA5XU&feature=youtube_gdata_player Dylan hit a nerve for me, opened a door into a trove of barely distant memories when I was a grade-schooler and would be told to huddle under my desk in case of attack. I had grown up with Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove and had lived through the endless grade-B Japanese horror films where […]

    While The Beatles were singing: “Love, love me, do,” Peter, Paul, and Mary -along with Joan Baez – were spreading the Word according to Bob Dylan. While they paved the way with the, in retrospect, surprisingly gentle “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Dylan went on to write and sing increasingly angry and passionate songs: […]

Ron made his living selling, trading, and displaying Beatle memorabilia. When I last saw him he was leaving for Paris to screen one of his Beatle movies. He would (no doubt) go to Paris, spend most of his time in the projection booth, and never let the print of the film out of his sight. […]

  I played Meet The Beatles a lot. What was it about them? Back in the roadside diner, on the little black and white screen Ringo shook his head, his hair bobbed. The girls screamed. Paul wiggled and smiled. The girls screamed. John Lennon bobbed up and down, singing into the mike, thin-lipped. Each young […]

I sat on the floor and watched, along with my high school friend Charlie Osborne, whose father, Richard, was hosting this affair. There were a lot of people in conservative Pebble Beach who felt that Richard had no business inviting a known radical singer into his house to raise money for a measure seen by […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfibkHlmeag&t=58&feature=youtube_gdata_player When I consider the history that I, my friends, and cohorts have lived, I find I want something that rings true, a history that is comprehensive and makes sense of the times, which captures the spirit I and many others knew to be there, and which could, perhaps, create a bridge from that time […]