We're thinking of going to the Woodstock Film Festival in September in the spirit of the Woodstock music festival of 1969 that's seen as one of the great cultural events ever, certainly a defining moment for the hippie/free love/drugs generation, now approaching geezer status. As Tobias, he of the 30-something generation , says: "Definately some sleaze makers going to be there... we should crash it in a VW bus!"
We're actually thinking some original hippies will be there. and we'll be tracking them down and sticking the camera in front of them for some cameo footage, assuming we aren't beaten back by the authorities.
Woodstock nostalia has endured and will endure for centuries no doubt. What's strange is how quickly its "message" if you can call it that, was forgotten in the scramble to Disco Up. Before you knew it, Woodstock was over and the 1970s were upon us. Just a few short years after the music festival that made history and was supposed to define the idelaism and unbridled lust for life the baby bommers championed--well, lust for a lot of things, anyhow--just a few years after the Summer of Love's defining moment, Disco emerged? Disco! Woodstock, a few years of soft rock and drift, then Disco! And the Nation's post-modern Sleazefest was born.
From Woodstock to John Travolta in polyester suit wowing the ladies in a short seven years. From peace, love and understanding (OK, lots of sex, drugs and rock n roll), a horrible war that saw 58,000 Americans dead, plus hundreds of thousands of innocents dying on the ground in Southeast Asia, gasoline shortages, recession, lots of social upheaval, and into the slop struts John Travolta and millions get the fever and purchase Disco clothes and records and Discos spring up across the land and everyone is grinding and hustling and otherwise boogying on down with many snorting coccaine...because it felt good, so they did it. If it feels good, they will do it.
So here they'll be, at the Woodstock Film Festival, aging baby boomers of the sixties generation, some proud alumni of Woodstock 1969, and we're expecting to interview some of them, 41 years later. Look how the culture has evolved since that summer when hundreds of thousands got along in the most famous lovefest of all time. Could anyone have predicted the baby boomer generation subsequently bringing us Disco, and that would morph into the materialism-is-good sexual rat race of the 1980s (led, yes, by the pop-star crotch grabbers, in our estimation), and then the rise of the sordid and vulgar and misogynistic rap and hip-hop industry (it's not all misogynistic and sordid, we know), and the gore film franchises, including "Nightmare on Elm Street," that led to the torture porn industry of the 1990s that's now a worldwide crowd-pleaser as we've entered the second decade of the 21st Century--well, if you've followed Sleaze Nation at all you know the content we're covering here.
So Tobias and I may well be going to Woodstock in a few months with camera and microphone in hand in search of former hippies (once a hippie always a hippie?) and anyone else who wants to take a shot at answering the question: How'd we become the Sleaze Nation? How'd we get to the point where mainstream entertainment consumed by millions is defined by (here I go again) hyper-promiscuity and drunkenness promoted by pop divas whose main audience are young teens and pre-teens; coarse 'n vulgar radio and stand-up humor' misogynistic and hyper-violent video games played by our children; torture as a means of enjoyment in the comfort of the cushioned metroplex seat...let's leave it at that and wait for the hippies to provide some answers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment