Woodstock, Under the Stars
Suki (star girl)
August 07, 2009
August, 1969. I had a chance to go to Woodstock and I turned it down. I don´t have that many regrets. Some friends--two girls, three guys--were going to drive there in a van, one of those kinds with peace signs all over the sides, along with psychedelic streaks of pink and lavender. One of the guys was a crude, sexually aggressive jerk and I didn´t relish all that time in his company—two days there, two days driving back, the three days at the concert. Not to mention that my companions would have filled the van with the smoke from their joints and who knew what drugs they would be high on?
I looked like a hippie back then, in my youth—I wore long, gypsy skirts and tie-dyed T-shirts done in a knot above my midriff and I had long, long hair--to way below my waist--and I went barefoot a lot because the cool grass felt good between my toes. But inside I was a sensible girl who did not do drugs. I also hated the silly, stupid way kids behaved when they were high. I was called ´uptight´—but I didn´t mind.
I think they partly wanted me to go along to even out the numbers so the jerk would have a companion. There was no Sexual Revolution for Women in the 60´s, that decade of ´free love.´ It was ´free´ for the aggressive young male jerks who wanted to get their piece of the action; but it was still the chains of ´sluthood´ for any girl who dared think she was sexually ´free´ to ´sleep around´ (just the phrasing betrays the condemnation). If you refused, you were a ´cold b***h´; and if you gave in, you were a ´hot slut.´ No differ-ent from the ´uptight´ 1950´s or the current uptight, upright, morally suffocating decade we live in. A girl is still a ´piece of ass,´ and guys still ´chase tail´—and we have made no sexual progress at all.
"By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong." I do regret, at least a little bit, that I was not part of the legend. Part of the making of a legend. But, of course, back then, we did not know we were making a legend.
The Summer of Peace and Love. There was no such thing. It was the middle of the Vietnam War. This is the war that ruined my life. I see this war as a huge canvas stretching from horizon to horizon, scorched and hot with blood and misery and napalm and agent-orange babies and the mangled bodies of women and girls and children. That canvas still stretches from horizon to horizon and I cannot even meet a Vietnamese-American without thinking of the atrocity that was Vietnam.
The 60´s was no decade of peace. The 60´s assassinated the one Man of Peace allotted to it—-Martin Luther King.
Woodstock, place and time of Peace and Love. Of course the music of my generation was magnificent, and the more gentle side emanated peace and beauty. I did go to San Francisco and I did wear flowers in my hair. I swayed to the "dawning of the age of Aquarius" as I danced on grassy fields with other flower children. I saw many of the groups and performers of the 60´s (my era) in person: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Canned Heat, the Moody Blues, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Judy Collins—I just toss out at random the ones that I remember. I sat about twelve feet from Janis Joplin while she threw her guts out onto the stage and ground and sweated herself though every word and note of her songs.
She was brilliant—but also disturbing—so much heavy misery dripping from her, in a public space. I was more comfortable with the softer sounds of the Age of Aquarius.
Did I belong in my hippie era, to my hippie generation? "Of this time, of that place?" Not really, but everyone has to have at least a little space of history on this planet. It was a seductive time. I too was caught up in the dreams and hopes of the 60´s—"that peace shall rule the planets—and love shall guide the stars."
I remember over ten years later, in the early 1980´s, going to see the movie Excalibur and having a Woodstock moment—and a bit more regret that I did not go. Arthur and his knights have just united the kingdom through battle and are rejoicing on a hillside, with fires burning along the landscape, in the night. Merlin silences the men and says, "Look upon this moment with great gladness. You will be able to say, ´I was there, that night, with Arthur.´ For at this moment, you are one—under the stars."
I look back upon my generation with love and hatred, and with fondness and detestation--and with a small amount of pride for one of its accomplishments. The Summer of Peace and Love. Of course, it never existed. But a bunch of ragged kids—in beads and gypsy scarves--got together on a grassy field in New York in August 1969 and made A Legend. Under the Stars.
I looked like a hippie back then, in my youth—I wore long, gypsy skirts and tie-dyed T-shirts done in a knot above my midriff and I had long, long hair--to way below my waist--and I went barefoot a lot because the cool grass felt good between my toes. But inside I was a sensible girl who did not do drugs. I also hated the silly, stupid way kids behaved when they were high. I was called ´uptight´—but I didn´t mind.
I think they partly wanted me to go along to even out the numbers so the jerk would have a companion. There was no Sexual Revolution for Women in the 60´s, that decade of ´free love.´ It was ´free´ for the aggressive young male jerks who wanted to get their piece of the action; but it was still the chains of ´sluthood´ for any girl who dared think she was sexually ´free´ to ´sleep around´ (just the phrasing betrays the condemnation). If you refused, you were a ´cold b***h´; and if you gave in, you were a ´hot slut.´ No differ-ent from the ´uptight´ 1950´s or the current uptight, upright, morally suffocating decade we live in. A girl is still a ´piece of ass,´ and guys still ´chase tail´—and we have made no sexual progress at all.
"By the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong." I do regret, at least a little bit, that I was not part of the legend. Part of the making of a legend. But, of course, back then, we did not know we were making a legend.
The Summer of Peace and Love. There was no such thing. It was the middle of the Vietnam War. This is the war that ruined my life. I see this war as a huge canvas stretching from horizon to horizon, scorched and hot with blood and misery and napalm and agent-orange babies and the mangled bodies of women and girls and children. That canvas still stretches from horizon to horizon and I cannot even meet a Vietnamese-American without thinking of the atrocity that was Vietnam.
The 60´s was no decade of peace. The 60´s assassinated the one Man of Peace allotted to it—-Martin Luther King.
Woodstock, place and time of Peace and Love. Of course the music of my generation was magnificent, and the more gentle side emanated peace and beauty. I did go to San Francisco and I did wear flowers in my hair. I swayed to the "dawning of the age of Aquarius" as I danced on grassy fields with other flower children. I saw many of the groups and performers of the 60´s (my era) in person: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Canned Heat, the Moody Blues, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Joan Baez, Judy Collins—I just toss out at random the ones that I remember. I sat about twelve feet from Janis Joplin while she threw her guts out onto the stage and ground and sweated herself though every word and note of her songs.
She was brilliant—but also disturbing—so much heavy misery dripping from her, in a public space. I was more comfortable with the softer sounds of the Age of Aquarius.
Did I belong in my hippie era, to my hippie generation? "Of this time, of that place?" Not really, but everyone has to have at least a little space of history on this planet. It was a seductive time. I too was caught up in the dreams and hopes of the 60´s—"that peace shall rule the planets—and love shall guide the stars."
I remember over ten years later, in the early 1980´s, going to see the movie Excalibur and having a Woodstock moment—and a bit more regret that I did not go. Arthur and his knights have just united the kingdom through battle and are rejoicing on a hillside, with fires burning along the landscape, in the night. Merlin silences the men and says, "Look upon this moment with great gladness. You will be able to say, ´I was there, that night, with Arthur.´ For at this moment, you are one—under the stars."
I look back upon my generation with love and hatred, and with fondness and detestation--and with a small amount of pride for one of its accomplishments. The Summer of Peace and Love. Of course, it never existed. But a bunch of ragged kids—in beads and gypsy scarves--got together on a grassy field in New York in August 1969 and made A Legend. Under the Stars.
Print
Email
