Kansas City has just experienced several days of unseasonably warm weather. Whether or not it measures up to ‘Indian Summer’ I don’t know but by mid December, three balmy days in a row is remarkable. Even with global warming and rising average temperatures you don’t take Indian Summer for granted. Rain today, wouldn’t you know. Writing about the weather; what am I doing, you’ve got to be kidding. But yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they’re here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday. I wish it were that simple, write a song that laments the passage of better days. Perhaps a fond recollection can soften the moment and the fall.
I just wrote several paragraphs about Covid and American hubris. I don’t hesitate to point out flaws and faults that seem uniquely American. As a nation we suffer from, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall - we are fairest of them all’ syndrome. MAGA looses its mojo when its message turns out to be fabricated fiction and fear mongering. With few exceptions, that’s what Trump rhetoric amounts to. The biggest, most wretched lie to come out the mouths of those elected/appointed bigots is that they care about the world they leave for their grandchildren. All they care about is themselves and right now. So I deleted it; piss in the wind.
Last night I watched a PBS special, Peter, Paul & Mary at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1963. It was in black and white but the sound was clean and clear. In ’63 I was in my mid 20’s. PP&M were to us what Justin Bieber was to teenagers a decade back. I don’t know how well Bieber’s music will hold up but PP&M are still relevant, powerful and their stories are timeless. I think about those days and wonder how we made it through. Between an unpopular, unwinnable war and civil rights bubbling in a pot that could not be quelled, the country was in turmoil. We had patriotic racists pitted against egalitarian activists and nobody was going to budge from their perch. PP&M were out front, flag bearers if you will for a new generation. “Yes, and how many years can some people exist, before they’re allowed to be free.” I still had loyalties to the military and a shred of trust in government but the music was a hardwired channel to an undeniable reality. “How many seas must the white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?”
In 1962 I took my girlfriend, (later wife) to see them at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City. ‘If I Had My Way’, ‘500 Miles’, ‘If I Had A Hammer’, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’; OMG. I’ve never done drugs but that euphoria must be similar. Forty five years later in 2007 I was in Washington D.C., went to see Paul Stookey do a one-man show at Wolf Trap. He is a storyteller with songs that slip into and out of the PP&M days. At the time, Mary was fighting cancer and Peter was performing some other place. She would lose her battle and pass away two years later. But the music is still there, just a finger touch away. Watching, listening to them last night was to feel their energy again. Mary was so animated she looked like a cat twitching before the pounce. Then the slow songs, we were moths and they, candles. I still love them, never left them behind, I have kept them with me. I love James Taylor too, Judy Collins, Van Morrison and Susan Tedeschi as well but what good is love if you keep it to yourself.
That wasn’t so bad. Had I labored over the new normal, both pandemic and politic, that would be for naught. As it is, I defaulted to a previous ‘New Normal’, one that felt unreconcilable but we plunged ahead without knowing our fate. Had we known how profoundly the 60’s would change everything we might have stopped to ponder, stumbled, lost our way. The lesson learned was, whatever lies in wait, young people will sieze their day. Their music will see them through and then, before they can change the channel, a new, younger generation will have picked up the struggle. Kids will have grown old if they’re lucky and those before them even more so, wrinkled and gray with an attitude. In the end it doesn’t end, just keeps on, and on. We play musical chairs until the chairs are all taken and we be left standing, watching from a distance, leaning on each other.
I just wrote several paragraphs about Covid and American hubris. I don’t hesitate to point out flaws and faults that seem uniquely American. As a nation we suffer from, ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall - we are fairest of them all’ syndrome. MAGA looses its mojo when its message turns out to be fabricated fiction and fear mongering. With few exceptions, that’s what Trump rhetoric amounts to. The biggest, most wretched lie to come out the mouths of those elected/appointed bigots is that they care about the world they leave for their grandchildren. All they care about is themselves and right now. So I deleted it; piss in the wind.
Last night I watched a PBS special, Peter, Paul & Mary at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1963. It was in black and white but the sound was clean and clear. In ’63 I was in my mid 20’s. PP&M were to us what Justin Bieber was to teenagers a decade back. I don’t know how well Bieber’s music will hold up but PP&M are still relevant, powerful and their stories are timeless. I think about those days and wonder how we made it through. Between an unpopular, unwinnable war and civil rights bubbling in a pot that could not be quelled, the country was in turmoil. We had patriotic racists pitted against egalitarian activists and nobody was going to budge from their perch. PP&M were out front, flag bearers if you will for a new generation. “Yes, and how many years can some people exist, before they’re allowed to be free.” I still had loyalties to the military and a shred of trust in government but the music was a hardwired channel to an undeniable reality. “How many seas must the white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?”
In 1962 I took my girlfriend, (later wife) to see them at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City. ‘If I Had My Way’, ‘500 Miles’, ‘If I Had A Hammer’, ‘Where Have All The Flowers Gone’; OMG. I’ve never done drugs but that euphoria must be similar. Forty five years later in 2007 I was in Washington D.C., went to see Paul Stookey do a one-man show at Wolf Trap. He is a storyteller with songs that slip into and out of the PP&M days. At the time, Mary was fighting cancer and Peter was performing some other place. She would lose her battle and pass away two years later. But the music is still there, just a finger touch away. Watching, listening to them last night was to feel their energy again. Mary was so animated she looked like a cat twitching before the pounce. Then the slow songs, we were moths and they, candles. I still love them, never left them behind, I have kept them with me. I love James Taylor too, Judy Collins, Van Morrison and Susan Tedeschi as well but what good is love if you keep it to yourself.
That wasn’t so bad. Had I labored over the new normal, both pandemic and politic, that would be for naught. As it is, I defaulted to a previous ‘New Normal’, one that felt unreconcilable but we plunged ahead without knowing our fate. Had we known how profoundly the 60’s would change everything we might have stopped to ponder, stumbled, lost our way. The lesson learned was, whatever lies in wait, young people will sieze their day. Their music will see them through and then, before they can change the channel, a new, younger generation will have picked up the struggle. Kids will have grown old if they’re lucky and those before them even more so, wrinkled and gray with an attitude. In the end it doesn’t end, just keeps on, and on. We play musical chairs until the chairs are all taken and we be left standing, watching from a distance, leaning on each other.
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