Woodstock, Celebrating 40 Years Of …
… flaming hypocrisy from the back-to-nature crowd, which trashed a meadow, disturbed the bucolic peace with electronic noise, disrupted dairy operations, narrowly avoided a public health disaster, contributed to the destruction of untold thousands upon thousands of lives, and never looked back … except in self-congratulation!
CBS celebrates Woodstock’s 40th anniversary with what almost sounds like a pot-addled ramble about the fact that Woodstock wasn’t actually in Woodstock. Voice of America mulls the legacy, scrabbles about for some depth, doesn’t find much.
“It was an inspiration I think for people to get back to the land, return to the ‘Garden [of Eden],’ change the world, leave the constraints of urban life and do other things,” (Woodstock attendee Vara Neverow) said.
VOA also dredges up this vintage quote from dairy farmer Clarence Townsend:
“It’s a disgraceful mess!” he said. “My fields are all cut up. Our second cutting of hay is going. [As for] my cows, the milk truck didn’t get here, so the milk had to be thrown out.”
This uninformative US News & World Report blog post on the influence of Woodstock suggests it popularized rock music. I thought the Beatles and Elvis did that, but whatever. I recall as a boy at the time being heavily influenced by photos of nude women cavorting in a muddy pond. Being a smelly hippy looked like fun. I’d say a lot of our society got sucked in by that, so there’s your legacy. Hedonism wrapped in misguided self-righteousness and hypocritical idealism. Living like there’s no tomorrow while pretending you’re making the future a better place. Hey, it was fun while it lasted. Even the dog end of it, which I caught. Nothing like it. Plenty of it out there still if you haven’t had enough yet.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald remarks with insufficient reverence:
Wasn’t Woodstock supposed to kill our capitalist society with flower power and LSD?
Well, capitalism is striking back with enough 40th anniversary Woodstock swag to fill Wavy Gravy’s rainbow school bus.
The Boston Globe’s Steve Kurkjian recalls covering it. Steve’s a nice guy but the comments say more than the article:
2. Who the h*ll cares about Woodstock….how about we reflect on the 109 American servicemen who lost their lives in Viet Nam during that 3 day period 40 years ago !!!!!
3. All i remember is the mud and the rain. And Gracie Slick and Ritchie Havens, and the Who and the amazing trumpet player from Sly and the Family Stone. God what a great concert. And a strange and wonderful trip
…
5. doing drugs, dodging the war, getting stoned and listening to crappy music. yep…..the 60s.
……enter Baby Boomer “how would you know, you werent there” replies on how this “festival” changed the course of human events. Spare me.
6. I am a 32 year old guy who would like to thank all the ne’er do wells and losers who were at the forefront of ruining this great country. Nothing like celebrating doing drugs and listening to music for three days straight. Far out. Don’t eat the brown acid.
7. Mike – people like you were and are ruining our country…
…
12. the sad thing……these are the clowns ruining the country…….still living in the past….
13. lets talk about this in a civl way people this was a wondeful event that changed the world peace and love peace and love….
Surber, Mustang owner, has a Gran Torino moment. “Get off my lawn.”
Riehl revels in the bogus hippy spirituality of it all.
Blue Crab wonders at the mystery of it all: How did a lot of dopes on dope in a muddy field turn into a watershed moment in American history?
Pundette dives deeper into the shallowness.
Here’s CBC pop culturist Greig Dymond, decrying the “generational smugness” and general hippy-dippiness.
The Dissident Frogman reflects on growing up dissident in post-hippy France:
being young in 80s’ France sucked way beyond proportions …
But hey, I suppose that’s in part what gave me a certain edge when it comes to swallowing Collectivist horseshit …
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:00 pm Comments (7) on Friday, August 14, 2009
7 Responses to “Woodstock, Celebrating 40 Years Of …”
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August 14th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I remember driving past that horseshit, on my way home to NYC from Upstate NY.
I also remember having (then) just read about that other travesty, the Manson killings of Sharon Tate and others.
Unfortunately for everyone except the victims, Woodstock and the decades of crap it spawned had much more devastating consequences.
The hippie morons are still a major pain in the ass.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
[...] I’m not alone, so I’ll get by with a little help from my friends: Jules slices and dices it: Hedonism wrapped in misguided self-righteousness and hypocritical [...]
August 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
[...] UPDATE: Jules Crittenden [...]
August 15th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
[...] Woodstock, Celebrating 40 Years Of … [...]
August 15th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Woodstock. Didn’t go there. Didn’t even hear about it until it was over. Didn’t understand the dreamy hooplah until years later, and by then didn’t care.
Woodstock. Yawn. Say, any chips left?
August 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Over at “This Ain’t Hell”, they have a pretty good answer for those @ssclowns who try and deify Woodstock.
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=13078
Respects,
August 16th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden has a round up of the hippie [...]