Got some nice stuff from you folks.
Jeff, Brodie and the dog are high above it all in Alaska. Wish I was...
Will sent this interesting share, the cheese menace, 1941.
Ricardo sent this tasty nugget over:
I'd say top Health department spokesperson Michael Caputo needs that mental health leave really bad right now.
He concluded the recent farewell meeting with his HHS staffers by encouraging his troops to listen to music by the Grateful Dead if they need to keep it together.
Always worked for me.
I rarely agree with those on that right side of the aisle but in this case, he is probably spot on.
The whole premise astounds me, I saw a statistic recently that there are now more GOP deadheads than Dems. Seems inimical to what I learned about life on the tour but there obviously has been a serious reset.
A poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and the Mellman Group found the band has a 46 percent hard name ID (i.e. whether people can judge it favorably or unfavorably) among Republicans, compared with 37 percent among Democrats, and 35 percent among independents.
Tucker, Coulter, Caputo etc., these folks obviously caught a very different train than I ever did.
If you get confused listen to the music play.
10 comments:
you were mentioning about Republican fans of the GD,
I have noticed a bunch of originally Republican and right wing verbiage coming from the mouths of a bunch of young kids that I deal with in the Festival/psychedelic art scene..Young mostly suburban & rural tattooed creatives. Stoners, kind of hedonistic types, burning man, Symbiosis types… but they are just resonating with certain concepts that are being conflated with right wing rhetoric… Q-anon stuff, desires for “freedom”, dislike of masks, conspiracy of centrist Dems to use the virus to eliminate personal freedoms… it’s really a very dangerous overlap of not similar rhetoric.. propelled heavily by all of these kids reliance on Youtube video and Instagram disseminated opinions… the more contemporary ones, that seem like, "totally sensible”.. like it’s just another smart regular person telling you this stuff, some infallible expert, like a “doctor”, or someone who used to work at a scientific facility.. etc
Honestly.. it’s just …. “whiteness”. Most whites have never had to take a stand regarding racism. Most of us grew up in majority white areas, that reinforced and enjoyed the benefits of a system in which systemic racism is structurally ensconced. We didn’t really see it that way because it wan’t apparent from where we stood. Many of us didn’t really know if we are racists or not, as it’s natural to feel one is good, and fair, etc since it was only tested within a certain context..How would anyone know. But most of us just get a ticket when we get pulled over on the road. We get handcuffed when we protest. We don’t really feel complicit with the bad guys.
But the underpinnings of GD music (which I am very fond of)… is either white rural music, or culturally appropriated sounds adjusted to white tastes.. as much of rock was (maybe not so much prog rock, haha…like wtf is that!)… just like back in the 50’s having Elvis to swoon over instead of say Chuck Berry… Even though the GD was somewhat enlightened and very psychedelicized, and groovy.. the SOUND… naturally seems to appeal to white people, not black people by and large.. (I’m simplifying)… but where is the black audience.. hey it’s been 50 years.. they’ve had time to like it !?
The hippies… you know, bout 70% of them moved out of san Francisco around 1968-70… they kinda ran away from unpleasant “urban issues” that were bringing them down.. and tons of dumberer white kids flocking in from suppressing white suburbs, their parents having fled the inner cities you know… they ran off (just like their parents!) to northern calif by and large, always a place for “cowboys” when I was a kid… loggers and such.. country people. Sure they are insular and have hipster ways, but you know.. it’s white moving out to areas that are all white, and it’s “safe”… The rural areas adopted the herb and the rock, and anything else that the young rural whites adopted as cool.. I was up at the hog farm last year. Old cool people.. safely ensconced in a 1000% white land.. of course they didn’t go there because of that but it was cheap and beautiful.. and…. (to be continued)
Whites are like all identity groups at a certain level- very tribal.. I remember once being in a country where I didn’t speak the language for maybe a month… (was trying to learn but knew I’d be leaving).. boy, did I jump at the chance to hang out with almost any english speakers.. I had gotten kind of lonely and depressed. I became instant friends with people that once back in the states I’d never probably associate with. Why…. so comfortable to be with people that I could talk to (relate with).. I was such an outsider there when not around fellow travelers.
Whites bicker and fight amongst themselves, but are not so different in the face of say, black anger. Especially when they feel it’s being unfairly directed at them! Grateful Dead fans are white. Whites have fled to the suburbs and rural areas probably in the proportions you mentioned as to Dem vs Rep deadheads… Most deadheads just want to party anyway.. the fans were never particularly a sophisticated bunch.. Maybe 35% would probably be Democrats I’d guess.. at least today. The %’s must have changed a bit, as the faces of the parties have morphed into masks..White people (and that is just a stupid generalization of a color that isn’t really a real classification or distinction) just have been in a place where their type has thoroughly dominated, and has kind of trained the young with tailored history, and rationalizations of complete hypocrisy in the face of America’s stated ideals… but hey.. Give them bread and circus..
Anyway.. your musings on the political make-up of Deadheads was pretty spot on, and I think it just reflects the direction that whiteness in general in our county is taking in the face of being challenged to step off our ordained pedestal. A lot of people are being asked to “get tested”.. not the covid19 test, but the “am I a racist?” test… understandably.. people don’t want be asked to be tested about anything… Don’t tread on me!
Thank you for the great letter, anonymous one. It leads me to another thought, deadheads were not just parochial in the racial sense, it extended to the way women were treated in the scene as well, sort of a riff on the Neil Young "A man needs a maid, down by the river I shot my baby" thing. More like pirate molls or biker chicks, appendages, at least early on.
Many years ago I read an interview with Paul Simon about flying to San Francisco and meeting the dead. Paul, coming from a rather sophisticated and feminist New York City, was aghast at the misogyny, or perhaps a better word is patriarchy he felt existed in the dead scene.
I didn't arrive on the scene until 1972 so I can't vouch for earlier but I do think that women were sort of invisible creatures, good to get high and have your way with in the early days, but not much else.
In defense I would say that the psychedelic experience was so momentous and in some ways traumatizing for many of us that it took all your nerve just to pull your shit together and walk straight. So if it meant joining a band of pirates or outlaw cowboys and doing a little raping and pillaging, it can be partially excused.
Later on there were some very strong women around and I think things evened out a bit.
Sorrrrry Hog Farmers. Some really nice people. REALLY cool. Was just using them as an example.. NOT going deep with them. I’m no better. Kind of an off the cuff comment, from a city hippie visiting his country hippie cousins… just not used to being in such all white areas… no disrespect to them.. just some super generalizations to make a point...
We all were in a sort of “pre-racist”, anything-could-come-of-this stage when we were young… just the openness to new ideas and behaviors was so liberating. But acid though opening doors, did not necessarily Define what we saw as we passed through them. In my experience.. mainly (not in all cases of course), people just kind of turned out pretty much based on their existing makeup. I don’t think a lot of kids were real familiar with their own make-up, but a lot of it gets taken in subliminally when we are very young, and though we rebel against the personalities of Daddy & Mommy (and Mrs Perriwinkle the teacher).. what we were taught, what we were fed, the background NOISE, toys, media, ads, etc… it all has an effect, and though I think acid helped EXPAND the consciousness of many.. I don’t think it changed it so much in many cases. Certain middle class values just became cloaked in different rituals, etc (Thinking of the “hey, I’m a guru” late 60’s-early 70’s). I look back at people from the 60’s and even when I see the signs of racism and classism in their later writings or art… I don’t think there was anything evil about some of the virtually all white identity/social groups going around at those times.. You have to rebel against your surroundings a bit, and the desire to rebel comes before any kind of thorough understanding of the overall structure of the larger world..socio-economic etc. So first I was kinda reviewing my past and being horrified at how much white-assumption some of the people I admired had, and how Oblivious… But I’ve relented a bit, and now my attitude is more of acceptance for the early stage earnest hippie “revolution”.. but disappointment at how few perhaps kept challenging themselves, and growing. People just aren’t willing to stay in the “uncomfortable zone” too long. I was thinking today about all the urban communes that were really trying to institute race relations as part of the agenda… and how few of them really got the publicity or reflection-consideration they deserved, for being brave and working on the forefront of race relations..whether it worked out or not.. at least why recognized something needed to change. (to be continued)
Jonestown of course got a lot of attention but, mainly I think just for the results of allowing a typical “strong-man”-minister leader type to lead everyone down his personal path to destruction…. but there were others.. I used to go to a place in SF to eat (can’t remember the name!), where you couldn’t talk, but could eat all you wanted for $1. It was run by a racially mixed group of communards that I think had a farm also in the country to grow the food.. They had a lot of pictures on the walls of their members (black and white.. other races maybe weren’t in the mix quite yet- the vanity of both black & whites).. The history of attempts to bridge race relations isn’t as highlighted lately as the failures… So I’m not totally giving “us” whiteys a pass for being ignorant or entitled, by no means.. you don’t get one of those! But being a little more understanding in what is an ongoing introspection of why a lot of white Liberals/Hippies (or Deadheads) didn’t change that much from that period on.. Old too soon and smart too late. Dang. PS: Ami Magill, an early hippie artist and member/resident of “the Dog House” (the people that brought us The Family Dog, and the dance hall scene at the Avalon Ballroom in SF).. she mentioned how unfair it was for the ladies.. having to scrounge food from grocery garbage etc and then cooking meals to feed not only the whole large group but the pets as well.. laundry, chores, and of course the children.. etc etc, all the while she said the men would spend an inordinate amount of time smoking grass out on the porch and discussing “the movement” and the larger workings of the cosmos, etc… she said it was just like how ladies did it back during the days of the western migration and early settlers.. nothing had changed. She said she even scrounged up the art materials for the early silkscreening and poster projects for their events.. Funny, in The Art of Rock book, some of her very seminal “Tribute” posters.. important primary pieces of the emerging genre of the new hippie rock posters.. are all credited to Alton Kelley.. It’s like she had the ideas, sewed the flag, and then some guys waved it all the way to glory… and historic status (she is widely unknown- ).. but I digress.. just sayin’. I guess it’s hard to be well adjusted with so many challenges everywhere, and the subconscious “color-blindness” of a stubbornly white world being hard to even see for middle class kids of the time. But lately, it’s time for a reckoning it seems, as Civil War II looms…. Deadheads will be on both sides for sure...
keeping it anonymous
https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2020/06/oregons-founders-sought-a-white-utopia-a-stain-of-racism-that-lives-on-even-as-state-celebrates-its-progressivism.html
Oregon became a state in 1859 and would not allow black people for many decades. It is still one of the whitest states in the country per capita, maybe Idaho is whiter, would have to look into it. You raise a good point that I have never considered. When the "hippie move to Oregon" thing was in full flower, was the lily white racial makeup perhaps an unconscious part of the calculus?
I lived in Ashland and Bend in the early seventies, spent time on several communes, met the STP family, was not a very diverse place or a very harmonious place for that matter. What you had was a largely bifurcated place either serious redneck or flower child. This led to a real schism in cities like Jacksonville. In eastern Oregon, places like Pendleton were off limits.
You bring up a lot of food for thought, friend.
Regarding the G deads inability to fire with a greater black audience, not hard to figure that one out. Great as Phil Lesh played, he had no funk whatsoever. Nor did the rest of the band for that matter. perhaps if they had woodshedded with Larry Graham and Sly Stone for a while, things could have been different.
Dave Chappelle did a great sketch called "White People Dancing" that works this same idea. John Mayer was the guest Caucasian on the bit.
As an early "hippie" in 1969, I can remember arguing with my Dad about the perfidy and downright lies Nixon told us. Dad was a die-hard Republican back then. I told him that I marched against the war and Nixon in 1969 at the anti-war rally in San Francisco. We went back and forth and finally agreed to disagree on the war and Nixon.
I left San Francisco in the summer of 1970 and stayed home for a year or so due to some issues which have nothing to do with these discussions and returned to Bay Area. Finally, took a job as a counselor in a halfway house in San Mateo where we took in juveniles straight out of juvie hall and attempted to let them sort out their lives within the confines of our house while attending school at San Mateo high school. Left the Bay Area again much later so I could return home and apply to college again since I dropped out after my freshman year in 1970.
Ended up at the University of Texas where I discovered my political home. In the 1976 presidential election, I voted for the Libertarian candidates and never looked back. I have voted Libertarian ever since. I vote my conscience and the Libertarians are that conscience for me.
I state this political affiliation as long-time, proud DeadHead who saw his first show in 1968 and has continued up until the present day.
The lies and perfidy expressed by both Dems and Repubs are an anathema to me.
WRT the inherent or otherwise acquired "racism" discussed here, I have no comment. As a 70 yo, white guy, I guess my response would be that I treat everyone as I want to be treated.
'Nuff said
You libertarians are neutral like Switzerland right? Keep your head staring straight ahead and if it doesn't bother you, fuck it. I copied some stuff Ann Coulter said on my blog once.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.
Ann Coulter
My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism.
Ann Coulter
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president.
Ann Coulter
Personally I think if this stuff doesn't offend you, you are part of the problem. I recognize your good taste in music and that is about it.
https://www.blueheronblast.com/2013/01/aint-no-time-to-hate.html
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