West Side Story

Before Lou Dobbs and company got on their anti-Latino illegal alien campaign, way back in the late fifties early sixties, White America was anti-Latino. In New York the racism was towards their colonial subjects from Puerto Rico who took advantage of America's need for war workers and then with the advent of post-war air travel to move to New York. As exemplified in the song America from West Side Story.

Latinos in LA faced the same conditions of racism where assaults on the Mexican community occurred during WWII making headlines nation wide as the Zoot Suit riots.

The racism and oppression Latino Americans faced gave Leonard Bernstein his idea for a rewrite of Romeo and Juliet, and it was a young Stephen Sondheim who penned these caustic lyrics. As America tries to close its borders the song America and West Side Story itself are still relevant after fifty years.

West Side Story Turns 50
The Show Took Broadway By Storm And Changed The Broadway Musical Forever

American musical theater celebrates a major anniversary in 2007. Fifty years ago this month - on September 26, 1957 - "West Side Story" opened on Broadway. Based on William Shakespeare's famous tragedy "Romeo and Juliet," "West Side Story" introduced a dramatically new approach to the music, dance motifs, and storytelling of a stage musical.

The idea of West Side Story began with the man who was to become its director/choreographer, Jerome Robbins. He imagined a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet on the back streets of New York City. It was originally the East Side, surprisingly enough, the conflict being Catholic/Jewish. Robbins's collaborator on several previous projects, composer Leonard Bernstein, persuaded him that it would work better if depicted on the West Side, with white New Yorkers vs. immigrant Puerto Ricans.

The musicals staged in New York could be politically liberal before movies generally tried to be. Hence the satiric power of a song like “America,” which counterpointed immigrant pride and immigrant disenchantment. Audiences in September 1957 heard “America” sung as inadvertent backbeat to Little Rock’s white mobs, who were attacking black children daring to desegregate Central High School. Such was the momentum of the civil rights revolution that, by 1961, the Oscar-winning film version had enough moral freedom to add that “life is all right in America” — but only “if you’re all white in America.” It was also easier to find “a terrace apartment” if you could “get rid of your accent.” In 1957, in an atmosphere of complacency in national politics, the “America” depicted in “West Side Story” was scarred by prejudice and violence, which this musical condemned with a raw energy that was irrepressible. Fifty years ago this month, a genre that was so often dismissed as escapist entertainment finally grew up.

And lets not forget the classic progressive rock version of America which launched Keith Emerson's career.

"America," by the Nice. Keith Emerson's '60s organ-playing sounds like an acid flashback. Is that a good thing? The Nice make you think so. It's listed on iTunes as "America (2nd Amendment)."

West Side Story - America




ROSALIA
Puerto Rico,
You lovely island . . .
Island of tropical breezes.
Always the pineapples growing,
Always the coffee blossoms blowing . . .

ANITA
Puerto Rico . . .
You ugly island . . .
Island of tropic diseases.
Always the hurricanes blowing,
Always the population growing . . .
And the money owing,
And the babies crying,
And the bullets flying.
I like the island Manhattan.
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!

OTHERS
I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!

ROSALIA
I like the city of San Juan.

ANITA
I know a boat you can get on.

ROSALIA
Hundreds of flowers in full bloom.

ANITA
Hundreds of people in each room!

ALL
Automobile in America,
Chromium steel in America,
Wire-spoke wheel in America,
Very big deal in America!

ROSALIA
I'll drive a Buick through San Juan.

ANITA
If there's a road you can drive on.

ROSALIA
I'll give my cousins a free ride.

ANITA
How you get all of them inside?

ALL
Immigrant goes to America,
Many hellos in America;
Nobody knows in America
Puerto Rico's in America!

ROSALIA
I'll bring a T.V. to San Juan.

ANITA
If there a current to turn on!

ROSALIA
I'll give them new washing machine.

ANITA
What have they got there to keep clean?

ALL
I like the shores of America!
Comfort is yours in America!
Knobs on the doors in America,
Wall-to-wall floors in America!

ROSALIA
When I will go back to San Juan.

ANITA
When you will shut up and get gone?

ROSALIA
Everyone there will give big cheer!

ANITA
Everyone there will have moved here!

Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
© 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed.
Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.


SEE:

Farmer John's Robot

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The Ethnic Cleansing of Satanists

In America they only arrest the 'Satanic' Rock stars for immorality, and the evangelical Christian Right burns their records and claims they use back masking for recruitment.

This shows that the Fundamentalist Patriarchal Abrahamic religions share a common ideology when it comes to their war on Rock n Roll and Satanism.

"Iran Arrests 230 Youths Attending 'Satanic' Rock Concert," AP, August 5, 2007

Iran arrested more than 200 music fans at an underground rock concert that one official called a "satanic" gathering and authorities accused the youths of breaking Islamic law.

A witness said Sunday that police raided the concert as it was ending late Wednesday near the town of Karaj, some 30 miles west of the capital.

Calls to authorities were not immediately returned on Sunday. But the public prosecutor in Karaj, Ali Farhadi, said Saturday about 230 people were arrested during the concert.

"Most of them were wealthy young people who were not aware of the satanic nature of the concert," Farhadi told state television. "A female singer, who was performing, and some rock and rap music bands were among the detained."

He said concert organizers had told young people to attend if they were eager to learn how "devil worshippers" perform music.

Local media reported organizers hid cameras to tape the attendants' behavior and later blackmail them. The reports also said police confiscated large amounts of alcohol and drugs.

Boys and girls mingled and danced together during the concert, and some of the women were not wearing the modest clothing and Islamic headscarf required by law, media reports said.

And speaking of Satanists I would be remiss not to note that the Fundamentalists are murdering (ethnic cleansing) the Yezidi in Iraq. You see once you declare someone a Satanist, it is okay to convert them by the force of the sword.

Kawwal Khoudeida Hasan, the leader of a community of about 50 Yezidi families now living in Lincoln, Nebraska, is pleading with the U.S. Congress and with the United Nations to stop the genocide of the Yezidis, a Kurdish people in Iraq with a unique history and religion.

According to Kawwal, Genocide is occurring at this moment in northern Iraq to the Yezidis, a Kurdish people with a unique history and religion. Their persecution is coming at the hands of Islamic militants, who for centuries have slaughtered all Yezidis who have refused to convert to their religion.

On April 22, 2007, the world became shockingly aware of the Yezidi plight when 23 of them were lined up and systematically gunned down by a firing squad of Moslem Kurds. A few days later, 3 more Yezidi men were gunned down by Moslem extremists in the city of Mosul, thus bringing the total of Yezidi murders to 34 during the three month period from March to May, 2007.

Most recently, on August 12, 2007, the drivers of four bomb-laden trucks detonated their loads after driving into two residential areas near the town of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, killing at least 250 Yezidis and injuring at least 500 more. This attack occurred in an area principally occupied by Faqirs, members of the Yezidi priest class, thus indicating that the ultimate goal of the culprits was apparently to strike at the jugular of the Yezidi religion by destroying its priests.

'They won't stop until we are all wiped out.' Among the Yezidi

"The attack came as no surprise to us," Prince Tahseen Sayid Ali, the temporal leader of the Yezidis, told the Guardian in his headquarters in Sheikhan, about 40 miles north-east of Mosul. Last April, the community came under the international spotlight when a Yezidi girl married a Muslim boy and was reported to have converted to Islam. She was promptly stoned to death by a mob in her hometown of Bazan. The murder was caught on a mobile phone camera and distributed on the internet. Yezidi leaders condemned the killing, but the damage was done. In response, gunmen pulled 23 Yezidi workers off a bus near Mosul and shot them dead. Hundreds of Yezidi students at Mosul university have since either fled or moved to universities inside the Kurdish autonomous area. For the past month, said Prince Tahseen, Yezidi leaders in Sinjar had been complaining of threats by Islamists. They said the militants, holed up among local Sunni Arab settlements along the Syrian border, had effectively blockaded Yezidi towns, preventing delivery of foodstuffs and fuel.

"The Islamic terrorists had made it very clear that they wanted to see rivers of Yezidi blood," said Prince Tahseen. But no one, least of all the US army, which is nominally in control of the region, was listening. "I'm sure it will happen again unless we take steps to protect ourselves," he said. "We are a peaceful people. We don't have force of arms. The only protection is for all the Yezidis is to be part of the Kurdish self-rule zone. But whether the Arabs allow us to vote on it as the constitution says we should, is another question."

A series of 4 massive car bombs in the Kurdish area of Iraq, near the Syrian border, killed more than 250 people yesterday. The attacks were aimed at the Yezedi sect, a pre-Islamic religious community that has been persecuted for centuries. Tensions escalated earlier this year however, when a 17-year-old Yezedi girl was stoned to death for falling in love with a Muslim boy and converting to Islam.

This stoning, incidently, led to the massacre of 23 Yezedis by Muslims who believed Du'a was murdered for converting to Islam:

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a police spokesman for Ninevah province, said the executions were in response to the killing two weeks ago of a Yazidi woman who had recently converted to Islam after she fell in love with a Muslim and ran off with him. Her relatives had disapproved of the match and dragged her back to Bashika, where she was stoned to death, he said.

A grainy video showing gruesome scenes of the woman's killing was distributed on Iraqi Web sites in recent weeks, but its authenticity could not be independently confirmed.

The town of Ain Sifni is being garrisoned by a force of approximately 1000 Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) and police. It is not clear when Kurdish forces will leave but the Yazidis are quite intimidated at this point. The Yazidis have long endured persecution and intimidation from their Arab and Kurdish Muslim neighbors as have the Christian Chaldo-Assyrians of the region. It would be great if a legitimate reporter could get in and take a look at what’s going on but based on how a journalist was treated when we were there yesterday, they may be very restricted in their movement and activities.

The Yezidi are considered a 'satanic' religion, because as a gnostic religion they believe that the god of this world is Lucifer, the Peacock Angel.Their religion is an example of the transition from Goddess worship to that of the Patriarchal Monotheistic God. The polytheism of the the Goddess and God based cultures gave way to a polytheistic pantheon ruled over by One God.

Yezidism is syncretistic: it combines elements of many faiths. Like Hindus, they believe in reincarnation. Like ancient Mithraists, they sacrifice bulls. They practise baptism, like Christians. When they pray they face the sun, like Zoroastrians. They profess to revile Islam, but there are strong links with Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam.

It's a remarkably confusing picture. And I still haven't got an answer to the main question: do they worship "Satan"?

In the centre of town I am greeted by Halil Savucu, a westernised spokesman for the Yezidi. Also with us is Uta Tolle, a German scholar of Yezidism.

In Halil's Mercedes we drive into the suburbs. On the way, the two of them give me their view of the faith. "Yezidi is oral, not literary," says Uta. "This is why it is sometimes hard to pin down precise beliefs. There are religious texts, like the Black Book, but they are not crucial. The faith is really handed down by kawwas, sort of musical preachers."

And who is Melek Taus? Halil looks slightly uncomfortable: "We believe he is a proud angel, who rebelled and was thrown into Hell by God. He stayed there 40,000 years, until his tears quenched the fires of the underworld. Now he is reconciled to God."

But is he good or evil? "He is both. Like fire. Flames can cook but they can also burn. The world is good and bad."

For a Yezidi to say they worship the Devil is understandably difficult. It is their reputation as infidels - as genuine "devil worshippers" - that has led to their fierce persecution over time, especially by Muslims. Saddam Hussein intensified this suppression.

But some Yezidi do claim that Melek Taus is "the Devil". One hereditary leader of the Yezidi, Mir Hazem, said in 2005: "I cannot say this word [Devil] out loud because it is sacred. It's the chief of angels. We believe in the chief of angels."

There are further indications that Melek Taus is "the Devil". The parallels between the story of the peacock angel's rebellion, and the story of Lucifer, cast into Hell by the Christian God, are surely too close to be coincidence. The very word "Melek" is cognate with "Moloch", the name of a Biblical demon - who demanded human sacrifice.

The avian imagery of Melek Taus also indicates a demonic aspect. The Yezidi come from Kurdistan, the ancient lands of Sumeria and Assyria. Sumerian gods were often cruel, and equipped with beaks and wings. Birdlike. Three thousand years ago the Assyrians worshipped flying demons, spirits of the desert wind. One was the scaly-winged demon featured in The Exorcist: Pazuzu.

The Yezidi reverence for birds - and snakes - might also be extremely old. Excavations at ancient Catalhoyuk, in Turkey, show that the people there revered bird-gods as long ago as 7000BC. Even older is Gobekli Tepe, a megalithic site near Sanliurfa, in Kurdish Turkey (Sanliurfa was once a stronghold of Yezidism). The extraordinary temple of Gobekli boasts carvings of winged birdmen, and images of buzzards and serpents.

The Yezidi are both an ethnic and religious minority in Iraq, Turkey, Iran,Georgia and in Armenia.

500 - 1,000 CE
Mohammed founds Islam (dies 632). Celtic Church outlawed by
Council of Whitby (664). Foundation of first Sufi secret
societies (c. 700). First written translation of Emerald Tablet
of Hermes Trismegistus. Charlemagne founds alleged first
Rosicrucian Lodge in Toulouse (898). Foundation of the Cathars,
Druzes and Yezedi (900). Heretical Catholic monks found first
Rosicrucian college (1,000).

And like all patriarchal dualist religions in the region they believe they are the chosen people. Coming from Persia they may have originated as a Zoroastrian fire religion of the Magi.

Roberts was inspired by a passage found in the Travels of Marco Polo. Upon Polo's visits to Persia (the land now officially known as Iran) he was given an unusual history of the Nativity which combined unique elements of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrian religion was once the most embraced and popular monothiestic/dualist organized religion in the world prior to the advent of Christianity and Judaism during the reign of the Persian Empire. The world Zoroastrian population still exists, but the adherents to that once-most-popular faith have now dwindled to only about 100,000 people.

And unlike their Semitic neighbours they are Caucasian/Indo-Europeans which also sets them apart, and as a visible minority makes them more vulnerable to ethnic as well as relgious cleansing.

Two Kids: One Bright Future

I had been hearing about the Yezidi people who live in villages near Dohuk. Followers of an ancient religion, whose proponents claim it is the oldest in the world, there are thought to be about a half million Yezidis, living mostly in the area of Mosul, with smaller bands in forgotten villages scattered across northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and other lands. Saddam had labeled the Yezidis “Devil Worshippers,” a claim I’d heard other Iraqis make, but no source offered substantiation. I wanted to know more.

Nearly everything I heard pronounced as fact about Yezidis was certain in only one narrow sense: before long, someone equally confident of their information would provide a different set of facts. The only way to find the truth would be to talk with Yezidis in situ, so I asked an interpreter in Dohuk to take me to a Yezidi village.

An older Yezidi man with whom I speak on occasion says there are seven angels: Izrafael, Jibrael, Michael, Nordael, Dardael, Shamnael, and Azazael. All were gathered at a heavenly meeting when God told them they should bow to none other than Him. This arrangement worked for a span of forty thousand years, until God created Adam by mixing the “elements”: earth, air, water and fire. When God told the seven angels to bow before Adam, six complied. A seventh angel, citing God’s order that the angels bow only to God, refused. Although this angel was God’s favorite, his disobedience cast him from grace.

There is some dispute among Yezidis about the identity of the seventh angel; some believe it was Jibrael, while others believe it was Izrafael. Much seems lost to time. But whatever his former name, when this seventh Angel, most beloved of God, fell from grace, he was the most powerful angel in Heaven and on Earth. He rose as the Archangel Malak Ta’us. (Although this, too, is the subject of some debate; some Yezidis call him Ta’us Malak.) His herald is the peacock, for it is “by far the most beautiful bird in the world,” and the name, Malak Ta’us, literally means “King of Peacocks.”

Most Yezidis equate Malak Ta’us with Satan, a mainstay in many religions but otherwise not mentioned in Yezidism. Some Yezidis claim that Malak Ta’us is like a god himself, at least in terms of his power-particularly over the fortunes of the descendents of Adam. In this religion, God created Adam, but no Eve, and therefore all men came from Adam alone. The Yezidis were first born among all men, and consider themselves to be “the chosen people.”

The Worst since 9/11

It has been a long time since mass murder in Mesopotamia has been news. Few still cry for Iraq. Hardly anyone has heard of Yezidis, the victims.

Their Satanic Majesties Request

The real psychedelic album of the summer of love.

Their Satanic Majesties Request is a psychedelic rock album by The Rolling Stones recorded and released in 1967. Its title is a play on the "Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires..." text that appears inside a British passport. Although, initially dismissed as a poor attempt to match The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album is now considered one of psychedelic rock's greatest albums.

Which is overlooked still after forty years of glorification of the Beatles, and the
dissing of the Rolling Stones as the bad boys of Rock N Roll. Because they had Sympathy For The Devil.

Though I doubt Cheap Trick will be doing a Fortieth Anniversary cover of it.

It is a great album. Starting off with the psychedelic sci-fi anthem; 2000 Light Years From Home.



The song "Sing This All Together" was used in the TV show Faerie Tale Theatre. It also contains a hidden track which may have given rise to later paranoia about back masking.

Why don't we sing this song all together?
Open our minds let the pictures come
And if we close all our eyes together
Then we will see where we all come from

Pictures of us spin the circling sun
Pictures of us show that we're all one

Funny things happen when you invoke Lucifer.


SEE:

Every Cop is a Criminal

More Sunday Satanic News

Classic Rock

Sunday In Hell

Marxism and Religion

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Desolation Row

One of my favorite Dylan songs for its William Burroughs like poetic imagery. And it still influences folks today, see here and here.

"Desolation Row" is the ninth and final song of Bob Dylan's sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited. This eleven minute song contains lyrics full of evocative imagery, poetry, and cultural references. It is the album's only purely acoustic track, in contrast to the thunderous electric rock and roll sound that Dylan was completely embracing for the first time with the album. It was recorded in New York City, New York on August 2, 1965; the take on the album was the second time Dylan had sung the song. Charlie McCoy plays the lyrical acoustic guitar passages throughout the song.

The songs of this period received wide critical acclaim. In the New Oxford Companion to Music, Gammond used Desolation as an example of Dylan's work of the mid-60s that achieved a "high level of poetical lyricism."

In 1969, Dylan told ROLLING STONE he wrote this song in the back of a New York cab. Since it is 659 words and clocks in at more than eleven minutes, that's a long cab ride. It was spliced together from two consecutive takes during the last sessions for Highway 61.

Desolation Row

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row


Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

Columbia Records

Commentary on Desolation Row, Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, 1965.

In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan is warning people that society is heading for destruction, an apocalype, if it continues in its then direction. With the US locked in a deadly embrace with Russia, teetering on a knife-edge of mutually assured nuclear destruction, it was reasonable for people to be concerned (more like scared half to death), but governments of the time characterised anyone who spoke out against the Cold War as unpatriotic, even traitorous. When we read the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it is horrifying to realise just how close the world came to letting the generals on both sides unleash a nuclear holocaust that would have likely destroyed much of the world as we know it.

In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan uses cultural and religious stereotypes as metaphors to describe this lunacy of main stream 1960's American society. Desolation Row is the name he gives to the place where people have gone to opt out of the lunacy, and who are being punished by society for not wanting to participate in the lunacy. For example, the lines "They're spoonfeeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured. Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words. And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls "Get outa here if you don't know, Casanova is just being punished for going To Desolation Row"

Desolation Row is a counter-culture destination, though more a state of mind than an actual place. In this example he is referring to the average wage slave who is made to work long hours doing dehumanising work until they have a heart attack and die: Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew (the FBI and other covert agencies looking for un-American activists), come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do (and who are therefore dangerous). Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders (the yoke of dehumanising work) and then the kerosene (to burn the midnight oil, to work long hours) is brought down from the castles (capitalist corporations) by insurance men (Actuaries who calculate how long someone is likely to live under these circumstances) who go check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row (no-one is opting out of the system)

The name Desolation Row may have been derived by combining the best of Desolation Angels (Kerouac) with Cannery Row (Steinbeck).

Jack Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and wrote The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels from his life transforming experiences on the peak. On the other hand, John Steinbeck's Cannery Row is a place where the outcasts of society found a home. Cannery Row is an actual place in Monterey California. It refers to the derelect sardine cannery whose close environs was occupied in the book by homeless men and the town brothel. The cannery was derelect because the sardines had disappeared through a combination of over-fishing, agricultural run-off and unspecified pollutants from a nearby army base. For Steinbeck, what happened to the sardines was symbolic of the ruthlessly exploit until exhausted attitude that society and the military-industrial complex had for the environment and ordinary people. Wring all the goodness out of something, then when it worthless, toss on the rubbish-heap and give it to the worthless people who are no use to us.

Desolation Row (VIII)

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Summer of Love

It is the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, which led to a social revolution around the world. One that we are still experiencing and which the Right Wing loves to blame for all of modern societies ills.

Summer love-in summer -in



Events nationwide mark the 40th anniversary of 'Summer of Love'

Events are being held around the country this summer to mark the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, when thousands of young people descended on San Francisco to experience the hippie counterculture in 1967. Here are some highlights.

Ongoing: ''Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era'' at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York through Sept. 16. Through light shows, album covers, posters and music, the show explores the era's cultural impact. http://www.whitney.org .

Ongoing: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum exhibit dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival. Highlights include telegrams from Jemi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and The Who regarding their attendance at the festival; Paul Simon's guitar; the dress worn by Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas,and many pohotographs. The museum is in Cleveland, Ohio. http://www.rockhall.com .

Related Links

• Baby boomers nostalgic for wild Summer of '67
• 'Psychedelic Era' exhibit a cheerful romp through shards of the vanished hippie tribe
• Summer Of Love Memorable Moment

Various dates: Jefferson Starship, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company and other bands reunite for a Summer of Love 40th anniversary tour, including the Monterey Pop 40th anniversary festival at Monterey Fairgrounds, Monterey, Calif. http://www.genxentertainment.us .

Concludes today: Monterey Summer of Love Festival, featuring dozens of bands performing from the same exact stage as the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. On stage: Riders on the Storm, Robbie Krieger's & Ray Manzarek's latest version of The Doors; Electric Flag; tributes to The Mamas and the Papas, and The Who. http://www.summer67.com .

American soldiers are fighting an unpopular war halfway around the world; peace groups protest and Congress is embroiled in a bitter, divisive debate.

At home, radios play the Doors, the Beatles, the Who and the Moody Blues. People flock to open-air concerts to see Eric Burdon and the Animals, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Concern grows for the environment and people feel good when they can buy organic food directly from growers.

It’s cool to get in touch with your feelings. Fashionable women wear flower power minidresses and empire-waisted tops. Jeans, of course, are everywhere. Is it 1967 or 2007? It’s both.

Forty years after the Summer of Love that signaled a seismic shift in our culture, many of the concerns and issues – even the looks – are back again.

And as for the areas where we’re not re-experiencing 1967 – the sexual revolution, the drug culture, the civil rights movement, the civil unrest – that’s because the subculture has now become the culture, says Robert J. Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

“Our entire lifestyle in the early 21st century significantly carries the genetic code of the revolutions and cultural and social changes in the late 1960s. And we don’t consider them at all revolutionary,” says Thompson.

Nineteen sixty-seven was when the journey began, but where, and when, did it end? Or has it? What really happened during those portentous few months of the Summer of Love that caused many of us to mutate physically, emotionally and spiritually? Did it really cause a seismic shift in the values, sensibilities and moralities of our culture, as many suggest? And are we still living in the afterglow of it intense culture-transforming heat?

Critics on the right would also like to deep-six the buzz about a better, happier time. A psychedelic Shangri-La. As the Chicago Tribune recently noted:

"In the nation's culture wars, the 1960s are a rallying cry for conservatives who view the decade as the source of social trends they oppose, such as a high divorce rate, legalized abortion and, more recently, the drive for same-sex marriage." (Strange, you make that sound like it's a bad thing.) For Jason Fine, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone, "A lot of what happened in the summer of '67 wasn't about politics, or even antiwar, it was much more personal. And those kinds of developments have certainly stuck around. Our attitudes about sex, drugs and spirituality are all rooted in that time. That wasn't a blip."

SEE:

A Little Eros For Valentine's Day

CIA Conspiracies Are Real

Psychedelic Saskatchewan

RAW RIP

420

Marx on Bigamy

Passover Song

Year of the Pig

Black and Redmonton

Celebrating Capitalism

Soul of a City

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Thick as a Brick.

This blog headline; 23% Of Canadians Are THICK reminded me of this;




Which is one of the finest Concept Rock Opera's of the early seventies.

And considering it won platinum because of Canadian sales, I would say we are.


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