Baron Dave Romm
Woodstock In Context
By Baron Dave Romm
Shockwave Radio Theater podcasts
Placing Woodstock in historical context
Last week, I told my Woodstock story, an expansion of the article printed in the Times Herald-Record, the paper my father edited and which I delivered for 5 years as a teen: In His Own Words, how I happen to go to Disneyland the weekend my parents were at Woodstock as reporters. I've been telling this story ever since, and finally put it in print. I ran it by my mother, who was there, and my brother Joe urged her to write up her reminiscences for Huffington Post: Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N Roll in Redneck Country. These articles, and the many more that have accompanied the 40th anniversary, prompted a backlash from those who don't want to hear about it anymore.
I've responded in a few places, and might as well try to cover many of the points here.
Culturally, "the 60s" was that period of time from Kennedy's Assassination to Nixon's resignation; from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols; from Twister to Dungeons and Dragons. The beginning and end points are fairly easy, though they are not sharp dividing lines. The highlights and lowlights are harder.
One of the major driving forces of the 60s was the Baby Boomers. At the time, it was the largest number of babies born in the US. By a lot. 76 million post-war children, all growing up. The Census Bureau defines the demographic as babies born between 1946 and 1964, though some (including 1961 baby Barack Obama) cut it off in 1960.
1955 is squarely in the middle, the year of Disneyland, McDonalds, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and me.
By Woodstock in 1969, the first of the Baby Boomers had graduated college and had good jobs, what we would later call Yuppies. Many 40s and early 50s Boomers were in college, away from their parents for the first time, with a flexible schedule (i.e. they could skip classes) and with a moderate amount of disposable income.
The older generation -- Browkaw's Greatest Generation -- had grown up during the Depression and many came of age during WWII. In that period 1963-1969 the older generation's significant events included, Kennedy's Assassination, The Berlin Wall, cars with radios, the rise of tv newscasting, the assassinations of Martin Luthor King and Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the election of Nixon and the Moon Landing.
Those events affected kids differently than adults. For many, including myself, Kennedy's Assassination was our first major memory. Nothing quite as disquieting and shocking happened until 9/11. The kids -- the younger generation -- didn't share the change. They lived it. Tv news wasn't a change in medium, it was the medium. When the Beatles came to America to be on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, at last the kids were the main audience. Three months after Kennedy's death, they gave us a much needed morale boost. And mainly, they gave the Boomers, many by then in their teens, something they could call their own.
And that's where Woodstock comes in.
Woodstock was an impetus for the new technological innovation: Stereo. Within a few years, top-40 AM radio was overtaken by album-oriented FM stations. Concerts like Woodstock demonstrated that people wanted more from music than canned three-minute pop announced by djs on speed.
Let me see if I can place this in understandable context. Lots of people remember Woodstock 40 years ago. 40 years before Woodstock... they barely had commercial radio. Commercial radio started in 1920, only in a few places, and not many people had radios. Even so, the early part of the 20th Century saw a tremendous technological boom in audio. But low tech: The amazing thing was that you could hear broadcasts or recordings at all. If you were rich you could hear low-fidelity phongraph recordings. If you were moderately affluent (or knew someone who was) and lucky you were within range of a radio station and had a staticy AM radio. The world changed quickly, because of the new technology; the Grand Ole Opry started broadcasting in 1925. Mass media effected America greatly; the time period is known as The Jazz Age. 40 years before that, in 1889, the world didn't have radio or recorded music of any kind. Your music experience was very likely limited to live performances and/or church. Before broadcast audio, people built opera houses in the middle of jungles. Many who were alive at the time of Woodstock remembered back when they had no more opportunity to hear music than they would have had in Ancient Rome.
Baby Boomers grew up in a world that never lacked radio, tv or recorded music. This is one of the biggest changes in culture ever, far more of a cultural divide than wars or assassinations. The medium is the massage.
Other events affected Boomers, of course, and you didn't have to be a Boomer to be affected by younger generation events. Vietnam was starting to get Boomers killed. The injustice of race relations and the hypocrisy of behaving even worse than our opponents in the Cold War were at odds with the teachings of almost every parent, not to mention the teachings of Jesus (and every religion). Many people born before 1946 were affected as well, of course. Vietnam was the most immediate problem, and it was a problem for everyone.
Politically, the anti-war movement cohered several disparate groups that had overlapping but not identical goals: The environmental movement (which resulted in the Clean Water Act and the EPA within a couple of years), the free speech movement, the anti-war movement (which elected Nixon and his "secret plan to end the war" and eventually saved thousands of lives by getting us out), the drug culture (which, lacking political clout, screwed up royally but at least provided an alternative to the drunken Valium-hazed 50s) and dragged the US kicking and screaming out of the McCarthy-era Cold War hatred and suspicion.
In and of itself, Woodstock did none of that, but did serve as a focal point for many of the issues, a rallying cry for the emerging political power of the Boomers. Within a few years, 18 year olds could vote. Predictably, this didn't change the political landscape in any major way, but did signal a subtle shift in demographics that has been, in general, for the good. Maybe America didn't have the political will to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, but the women's rights were on the table and have never gone away. The older generation pointed with pride toward the moon landing, and rightly so. The younger generation had Woodstock, less than a month later. It was a powerful one-two punch: As a nation, we simultaneously thumbed our nose at Communism and anal-retentive pseudo-patriots.
Woodstock was the last gasp of innocence, where half a million people could just show up and police themselves. Compare the security a few months later at Altamont. At Woodstock, despite the rain, no one was electrocuted; the techies did their job. Despite the lack of sanitation facilities, toilets and water, with kids running barefoot through cow pastures, there was no infection reported, nor cholera or related illness; the engineers (especially family friend Ed Silvers who dug the wells and poured chlorine everywhere) did their job. Despite the unrestricted drug use, there was only one reported (but unconfirmed) death from drug overdose (though there were other drug-related problems); Wavy Gravy and his crew did their job The largest rock concert in history was the most disorganized... and the most peaceful.
In retrospect, Woodstock was a prime example of a flash crowd, what we would now call a DoS attack. It had nothing to do with politics, it had to do with getting away from your parents (which I did by going to Disneyland while my parents were at Woodstock). Woodstock was the last gasp of Flower Child innocence. After that, it was Real World (tm) laissez faire capitalism for the underground drugs and slogging in the grassroots for political power.
After flexing its muscle at Woodstock, many entered political power still playing songs from the concert. We cleaned up the water and air, got us out of Vietnam, almost passed the ERA, invented the personal computer and used the internet in ways that hadn't been imagined by its developers. Some put away the beads for a suit jacket and tie, switching from marijuana to cocaine. Some stayed children, away from the world ala Thoreau. But most simply grew up. The world was changing and finally we were part of it.
It's an odometer year. Let us have our fun. If you think the 40th anniversary is waxing nostalgic, wait until the 50th.
E-Mail in the 60s
In my story about going to Disneyland, I mention sending e-mail in 1969. Invariably, geeks pop out of lurkerhood to ask. However, that story is uninteresting, so let me start with the more fun example: I sent e-mail circa 1965.
Well, sort of e-mail. Electronic communication, to be sure.
Before the internet, we had networks. Before networks, we had news wire services. Most newspapers in the country (and probably in the world), were connected to the service and each other via teletype to UPI, AP, Reuters or other news services. The Times Herald-Record had a bank of teletypes like this: UPI Wire Service Machine. Dozens of them, all typing at once. Different stories, with pauses and carriage returns and the permeating smell of typewriter ribbon ink. Mostly, these were uni-directional, simplex, devices. That is, someone in UPI's New York HQ typed a story and 5,000 teletypes around the globe echoed the keystrokes.
When I was about 10, I remember wandering around the paper. I was respectful but bored. Journalism is mostly people sitting and typing. Or talking about what they had just typed. If anything exciting happened, it didn't happen around a ten year old.
I got to one of the UPI wire service machine. It was idle. Something had come over the wire, not a news story, and the scroll of paper was languishing on the platen. I asked my father who was on the other end. He knew most of the UPI people in NY, but didn't know specifically who was on at the time. I asked if the communication was only one way; no, the Record could send a story to New York. Could I type a message? As long as it wasn't busy.
So I did. A very short message, hunt-and-peck, something like, "Hello. Is anyone there?" or "My Name is Dave" or somesuch.
And someone replied. Again, memory is very hazy. They said "Hello Dave" or similar. That might have been it; certainly our conversation was pretty short. I wasn't a good typist and didn't really have a lot to say. (Some opine this is still the case, but I ignore them.)
I can't imagine I was the first to use the newswire for personal communication, but it was probably pretty rare. In retrospect, I count that as an early example of e-mail.
I've often wondered whether my typing was echoed to all the teletypes, or whether my New York correspondent's words went to everyone. I never got in trouble and no one mentioned a problem, so maybe not. But I never did it again.
By 1969, computer networks were becoming part of large corporations. When I was in LA, I visited the office of my uncle-in-law (the brother of my uncle), who was a bigwig at TRW. The company was so large, it had its own network. Not the internet, its own internal lines, unconnected to anyone else. My uncle-in-law was very proud of the system, and showed me how I could send a message across the country. I vaguely remember him saying Florida, but that wasn't what I was focusing on. I dictated a few lines of "hello" and he sent it. We got a response, little more than that they had received the e-mail.
So while my 1969 venture was technically e-mail while my 1965 message was technically not, I didn't do the typing for the former and did actually get my hands inky in the latter.
Well, that's the story. Both of them. Thanks for asking.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Froma Harrop: Free-Market Death Panels (creators.com)
"Death panels"? I'll tell you about death panels. My husband faced one some years ago, and it didn't involve any government bureaucrat. It was run by our private insurer, the sort of corporate entity that foes of health care reform say will give you anything you want.
Susan Estrich: The Prince (creators.com)
I discovered Bob Novak when I was in college. My political science teacher assigned us Rowland Evans and Robert Novak's classic tomes: "Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power" (1966) and "Nixon in the White House: The Frustration of Power" (1971).
Joe Weider: Personal Thoughts on Personal Trainers (creators.com)
Tip of the Week: Park far, and reap the rewards!
George Varga: "Taking Stock: Two Veterans of Sha Na Na Look Back on Woodstock" (creators.com)
It was the most memorable 35 minutes of their young lives. Forty years ago, Columbia University students John "Jocko" Marcellino and Joseph "Joe" Witkin were at Woodstock, the soon-to-be legendary rock music festival that drew
Kathryn Bigelow: back in the danger zone (guardian.co.uk)
She's tackled vampires, gangs and undercover cops. Now Kathryn Bigelow has turned her camera on the Iraq war. She talks to Steve Rose.
Stuart Henderson: Review of "The Terry Jones Collection" (popmatters.com)
Monty Python alum and full-blown history buff Terry Jones has made a career in recent years out of hosting a variety of entertaining and insightful television programs.
Marina Hyde: Michael Bay scrambles his helicopters for Victoria's Secret (guardian.co.uk)
Ever since cinematic visionary Michael Bay fitted one of his 'Transformers' robots with giant wrecking-ball testicles, there has been a sense in the creative community that he really had no artistic frontiers left to conquer.
Roger Moore: Charlyne Yi, the mystery behind 'Paper Heart' (The Orlando Sentinel)
"That's such a rude question to ask!" Charlyne Yi is giggling because she's being asked for the umpteenth time if rumors of her break-up with supposed beau and "Paper Heart" co-star Michael Cera are true. "She's heartbroken," announced online gossip Perez Hilton.
Tim Teeman: "Penélope Cruz: I owe Pedro Almodovar" (timesonline.co.uk)
The star of 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' got her first big break from Almodóvar but, it's time to put her personal life first.
Diane Sweet: "Michael Moore on His Latest: 'I Made This Movie As If It Was Going to Be the Last I Was Allowed to Make'" (Raw Story; Posted on AlterNet.org)
Moore is back with his new movie, 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' wearing his trademark baseball cap to go after corporate America.
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"Your Woman. My Woman! Your Wife - AN EYEFUL?"
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The "History's Mysteries' Edition
If you could find out the answers to three of the many historical mysteries that have puzzled and perplexed the world, what would they be?
1. ) ______________________
2. ) ______________________
3. ) ______________________
Send your response to
Results tomorrow
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Bit warmer, lot more humid.
Finally See The Light
Advertisers
Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel after a vacation on Monday with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.
A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.
While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.
The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that is has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.
Advertisers
Fails To Set World Record
James Burton
Pioneering rockabilly guitarist James Burton led an ensemble of about 800 guitar players Saturday in a celebration of his 70th birthday, but failed in his attempt to make the Guinness Book of World Records.
At the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, roughly 30 miles west of his hometown of Minden, Burton led a battalion of pickers through the Elvis Presley hits "That's All Right, Mama" and "Hound Dog."
Guinness lists the world's largest guitar ensemble as 1,802 participants led by Andreas Vockrodt in Germany in 2007.
Burton, who is known for working with the Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson bands, celebrated his birthday Friday.
James Burton
Financial Crisis Sinks Price
'Obama' Date
Ramadan tradition dictates that Egypt's fruit-sellers nickname their dates to reflect unofficial popularity ratings, but this year the global recession has forced down the price of the 'Obama'.
Named after US President Barack Obama who chose Cairo to deliver a landmark speech to the world's Muslims in June, the popular date was expected to sell for 25 Egyptian pounds (around 4.5 dollars) a kilogram (2.2 pounds).
Emulating the Prophet Mohammed, Muslims traditionally eat a date and drink milk to break the dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, whose beginning is set according to the sighting of the moon.
Competing with "Obama", the second-most expensive date on the market after the "High Dam" which sells for 18 pounds, are the "Abutrika" variety named after popular midfielder Mohammed Abutrika who plays for local team Al-Ahly, showing that politics and football are never far from Egyptians' minds.
At 10 Egyptian pounds (1.8 dollars) are the "Columbo" dates, named after the 1970s American TV series starring Peter Falk as homicide detective Lieutenant Columbo, re-runs of which have played regularly on Egyptian television.
'Obama' Date
Golf Course Groundskeeper Finds
Mammoth Tooth
A golf course groundskeeper recently stumbled onto something unexpected on the greens: A tooth from a 10,000-year-old mammoth. Groundskeeper Patrick Walker found the 10-pound tooth Tuesday when he was on the greens about 30 miles east of Grand Rapids at Morrison Lake Country Club.
The recent high school graduate told The Grand Rapids Press he knew the tooth exposed by recent rains was from an extinct elephant because he paid attention in his science classes.
Research assistant Scott Beld from the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology visited the course and confirmed that Walker's find was a mammoth tooth.
He also visited the site the tooth was found and discovered bones and a portion of a tusk - fossils that will remain in place pending further study.
Mammoth Tooth
Pleads Guilty
Antwon Tanner
"One Tree Hill" actor Antwon Tanner has pleaded guilty to selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000. Tanner told a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday that he was a middleman, selling numbers someone else provided. He and his lawyer didn't comment on how he got involved in the scheme.
Tanner is expected to get as much as a year in prison at his sentencing, set for Nov. 20.
The 34-year-old actor was charged in April with selling 16 Social Security numbers and three bogus Social Security cards.
Tanner also appeared in the 2005 movie "Coach Carter," starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Antwon Tanner
Faces Ruin
Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is as famous as the people she photographs but now the genius behind the lens is close to financial ruin -- a victim, some say, of her own relentless artistic ambition.
Among the qualities making Leibovitz, 59, the most sought after portrait photographer in the world are legendary perfectionism and the pouring of resources into lavish sets.
In what now appears as a disastrous decision to raise funds, Leibovitz took a 24-million-dollar loan from Art Capital Group (ACG) -- in effect a high-end pawn broker -- in December 2008 using her own photographs as collateral.
That debt is due September 8 and if she can't pay up, she could lose her life's work.
Annie Leibovitz
Another Burglary
Lindsay Lohan
Police were called for the second time in three months to the Hollywood Hills home of actress Lindsay Lohan on Sunday to investigate a reported burglary there, a police spokesman said.
The latest call came in at about 6:30 a.m. local time, but the spokesman at the Los Angeles Police Department's Hollywood station said he had no further details, including who made the call or whether Lohan was home at the time.
The celebrity news website TMZ.com reported that the actress discovered the break-in after coming home at about 3 a.m. and called her father, Michael Lohan, who called police.
He told TMZ that a safe was ripped off a wall in the home and that a couple of watches were taken, and that he believes the theft was "an inside job" because employees for his daughter had failed to turn on the house burglar alarm.
Lindsay Lohan
Double Threat
Northern Forests
A veil of smoke settled over the forest in the shadow of the St. Elias Mountains, in a wilderness whose spruce trees stood tall and gray, a deathly gray even in the greenest heart of a Yukon summer.
"As far as the eye can see, it's all infested," forester Rob Legare said, looking out over the thick woods of the Alsek River valley.
Beetles and fire, twin plagues, are consuming northern forests in what scientists say is a preview of the future, in a century growing warmer, as the land grows drier, trees grow weaker and pests, abetted by milder winters, grow stronger.
It's here in the sub-Arctic and Arctic - in Alaska, across Siberia, in northernmost Europe, and in the Yukon and elsewhere in northern Canada - that Earth's climate is changing most rapidly. While average temperatures globally rose 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past century, the far north experienced warming at twice that rate or greater.
From Colorado to Washington state, an unprecedented, years-long epidemic of mountain pine beetle has killed 2.6 million hectares (6.5 million acres) of forest. The insect has struck even more devastatingly to the north, in British Columbia, where clouds of beetles have laid waste to 14 million hectares (35 million acres) - twice the area of Ireland. It is expected to kill 80 percent of the Canadian province's lodgepole pines before it's finished.
Northern Forests
Weekend Box Office
'Inglourious Basterds'
The war effort by Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt has paid off as their history lesson "Inglourious Basterds" claimed victory at the box office with a $37.6 million debut.
It was Tarantino's best opening ever, exceeding the $25.1 million haul for 2004's "Kill Bill - Vol. 2." Overseas, "Inglourious Basterds" added $27.5 million in 22 countries, giving it a worldwide total of $65.1 million.
Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino's "Grindhouse" partner, did not fare so well with "Shorts," his Warner Bros. family comedy that debuted at No. 6 with just $6.6 million. The movie features William H. Macy, James Spader, Leslie Mann and a cast of kids in a series of loosely linked adventures centered on a magic rock that grants wishes.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Inglourious Basterds," $37.6 million.
2. "District 9," $18.9 million.
3. "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," $12.5 million.
4. "The Time Traveler's Wife," $10 million.
5. "Julie & Julia," $9 million.
6. "Shorts," $6.6 million.
7. "G-Force," $4.2 million.
8. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," $3.5 million.
9. "The Ugly Truth," $2.9 million.
10. "Post Grad," $2.8 million.
'Inglourious Basterds'
In Memory
Larry Knechtel
Larry Knechtel of Yakima, a Grammy award-winning keyboard artist who accompanied musicians such as Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Neil Diamond, is dead at 69.
Knechtel died Thursday at Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital of an apparent heart attack. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Valley Hills Funeral Home.
Knechtel was born in Bell, Calif. He performed live and in studio recordings with a wide range of artists, including Neil Diamond, Randy Newman, Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, The Doors, Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Jr. and Elvis Costello.
He earned a Grammy award for his arrangement of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," played keyboard on the Dixie Chicks' Grammy award-winning album "Taking the Long Way," and performed on the Hammond organ for the group's tour of the same name.
Knechtel moved to Yakima in 2003.
Larry Knechtel
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
