It's not hard to notice that we are in a period of renewed interest in the lives of '60s cultural icons. Michael Walker's "Laurel Canyon: The Book," a well researched and finely crafted treatise on the cosmic intersection of time and place in the history of L.A. rock, makes the best seller Hit Parade in So Cal. And we notice a steady stream of rock biopics, including the recent "Stoned," on the life of Stones guitarist Brian Jones; the upcoming "See Me, Feel Me," with Mike Myers as Who drummer Keith Moon; and the long awaited "Gospel According to Janis," a Joplin biopic originally cast with Pink in the lead role, later replaced by Zooey Deschanel. Well, there's even more . . .

A glossy little Condé Nast companion magazine (to Wired, Details, etc.) "Fashion Rocks" arrived in my mailbox this week. Honing in on all things sixties, we find two scraps of interest. Evan Rachel Wood is photographed in $3,000 pants illustrating her hippie persona in the upcoming "Across the Universe," a movie musical directed by Julie Taymor ("Frida"--yes, another biopic). A plot summary says its "a fictional love story set in the 1960s amid the turbulent years of anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration and rock and roll." Looking over the cast of characters, rather predictably we find "Hippie," "Hippie Chick and "Hippie Protester." Methinks this Velveeta smooth and peanut butter spread thin, making nary a dent in your, mine or anyone else's cosmic consciousness. This one lacks stret cred.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, I direct your attention to "Chelsea Girl," a very fine essay wedged into the slick little supplement on the comet-like career of '60s icon Edie Sedgwick, a graceful muse who orbited around the likes of Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan. Yet another biopic in the works, "Factory Girl," with Sienna Miller, prompted this smart and worthwhile piece of cultural observation penned by illustrious poet rocker and South Jersey girl Patti Smith. You go girl!

Talkin' 'bout my generation:

Fear and Loathing in the Great American Heartland

I am sitting next to a stage of formidable proportion, just outside a bar where the big commemorative weekend bash is about to begin. A '70s rock band is setting up, and a couple arms' lengths away a freight train ambles by. It seems to mirror the leisurely pace of summer--clickity-clack, clickity-clack. Car after car after car. Its steadfast and reassuring, but for me one question persists: What the hell am I doing here in the middle of the American farm belt, America's heartland?


The road into Champaign

"Did you bring your tape recorder?" Dru says to me. "Good question," I reply, although at that particular moment I don't know why. I'm not sure if I am an ethnographer abruptly dropped in from another world, one more diehard rock 'n roller, or a filmmaker short just a script and a few mill of calling for cameras to roll. Whichever, I figure the tape recorder is a justifiable if not worthwhile prop dictated by the occasion. Stocked with extra batteries and cassettes, I never once turn on the machine.

On the night of August 11, 2006, hundreds of rabid Midwestern music fans converge on the Fat City Saloon in Champaign, Illinois to begin a three-day celebration that will forever be known as the Red Lion Inn 40th Anniversary Reunion. For me, the connection between the two venues is not altogether clear, although I gather that one downtown tavern is at least as good, if not better, than another.

Prior to setting out for this confab I am led to understand that during the 1960s and '70s and into the '80s Champaign-Urbana (nominally two halves of a municipal whole) provided fecund support for the embryonic journey of many, many a rock 'n roll band. And the formation of this explosive music scene was linked inextricably to a nucleus of public support emanating from said inn, dating to one fateful night forty years earlier and owing its humble origins to a not so humble shuttered Tudor enclave located at the intersection of Third & Green Streets in downtown Champaign. But who really knows, legends being the stuff of lore?

And thus, last week this mid-town parking lot and beer garden served as the focal point for townies, flatlanders and anomalous creatures such as yours truly to come together for a celebration of music and youth culture by bulging and balding 60-year olds.

Drink in hand, I'm standing in front of the smaller of two tents waiting for the festivities to commence. A 40s-ish blond woman sidles up to me from out of no where and starts to make conversation. Instead of an innocent starter like "What brings you here?" and then the flash of a smile, she lunges into what feels much more like an interrogation. "All the girls are wondering just who you are," the short woman says quite matter-of-factly. "What do you do and why are you here?" She explains that no one else had the courage to approach me with these questions. In the spirit of full disclosure, I tell her that I have come 2,000 miles to meet some friends whom I myself have never before met. She's had enough and walks away.

I go to call home, but my cell phone is without service. As far as I know, it last worked at the airport in Dallas. But after touching down here in Champaign, dead. Everyone else's phone is working just fine, but I'm having to rely on the occasional piece of scrawl from the motel desk clerk. My phone will not show a single bar of signal strength until I am once again on the tarmac, this time taxiing into position for take-off.

I meet Suzy, another reveler. She tells me her kids are into sports. I notice something: People here are big, extra-big, easily topping 200, maybe 250 pounds of corn-fed weight. I think they look like cattle, and from the boulevards of chain restaurants I gather that steaks, chops and burgers are a main food staple. It occurs to me that I am observing the top of the food chain as far as corn fed beef and steroids in the dairy go. Scary thought, then I realize that a bad case of culture shock has sent my perceptions into feverish overdrive. Time to chill, and I down another drink. I'm standing beneath the Budweiser big top, which projects a protective shroud like a mother's apron. Unfortunately, the big top is blocks from the nearest square meal and I'm dousing feelings of social isolation with alcohol on an empty stomach.

While this particular irony is almost too obvious to mention, it was actually a lack of irony that seemed to characterize most every town and country nook around Champaign during my four-day stay--with only a few notable exceptions. Modern, urban existence is, of course, characterized by subtext and irony, the semantic cross-winds and undercurrents that lend meaning to meaning. Glib and gilded to the point of collective ennui, we urbanites are accustomed to a whole whirlpool of interpretive possibility. Hell, nothin' means nothin' if it aint tossed on the high seas of situational turbulence or subject to a host of postmodern uncertainties. Then it really means something.

But the flatlands of Illinois move to their own, steady beat. I wanted to know the meaning--or at least the origins--of the U. of Illinois "Illini." "The Fighting Illini," I am told. "Oh. And 'Illini' are . . . ?" "Animal, mineral or vegetable?," I'm thinking. Perhaps it means "little soldiers," or maybe it's the plural of "illinus"? Inevitably, this line of reasoning leads no where and the questions die on the vine.

Constantly I find the fine citizens of Champaign to be so nice, so accommodating, so utterly direct; their masts are fully upright and their mainsails are billowed and full. Often they recite from scripts, seeming to savor every simple request and sentiment. Like the land, their voices are flat as the plains and their intonation conveys God-given virtue and sincerity. Try to throw a wrench into the works, and they'll just return it to you all shiny and new. Damn hard not to like the flatlanders. But also hard not to feel uprooted and plowed under. This lack of contrivance goes against the grain--probably not an unfamiliar image to local farmhands who can work the wood or the fields with equal proficiency.

To be fair, and thankfully so, all was not so straight-forward. Sensing my sense of dislocation, Dru, a newfound friend and well traveled local resident, directs me to the nearest California fusion pizza-sushi bar. Hugh sigh of relief. The sushi chef introduces himself as "Samurai," while the sous chef, a Mexican immigrant, flatly counters with the moniker "Poncho Villa." I know things are poised to get interesting. "Hamachi nigiri, Poncho Villa-san," I say.


Irony is not dead outside the Market Place shopping mall

After two days the psychic dislocation begins to ease. People are people, I think, and a good meal is the best equalizer. And once fed, how can one not find bliss in a swelling sea of ancient boomers, where blasts of Tower of Power collide against the lyrical fire of Pete Townsend, where Voodoo Chile melds with the lovelorn strands of Janis, and the requisite gods and goddesses are summoned. As one would expect, folks who haven't seen one another in 20, maybe 30 years are reunited, and after a few sets of music, the years fade away and amistad and solidarity prevail. And on a more personal level, new friends--even jittery urbanites--are embraced and welcomed into the fold with an air of easy, unconditional acceptance. So did the spirit of the '60s get channeled and time transported. This may be one for the ages, I think, and the fact that it is right here in Champaign is perhaps the best irony of all.

--for Dru, Dixie, Sarah & Nancy



After the great Hollywood Hangover--
Farmgirls Nancy & Dixie, with rodeo queen Sarah



Under the big top--Kathy Harden & the Delta Kings
(photo courtesy of Dru Vaughn)





Champaign on the Great Hollywood Hangover

The official Red Lion Inn reunion

Everyone knows how hearing a certain song will conjure memories of a particular time and place from long past. Conversely, when I recall the red Triumph roadster I had during several months of my high school senior year it often evokes the memory of listening to Good Vibrations on the radio as I drive around on a Saturday morning. Its an inescapable association. After the rather short-lived TR3 ran no more, I began to use my stepdad's new, 1966 Mustang whenever I could con him out of it. He was a soft touch. And one of the strongest and most enduring impressions of that car is listening to My Little Red Book on the AM radio as I soaked in the feeling of independence and impending adulthood of that special time in my life. They are all so interrelated.

The summer of the following year I bought two new LPs and played them both everyday when I returned home from work: Love's second album, da capo, followed by the Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow. I never bothered to analyze why My Little Red Book or da capo's Stephanie Knows Who and My Love She Comes in Colors held me in such sway, but once in a while during the decades that followed I wondered about the fate of Arthur Lee and Love.

I got the chance to see Arthur and Love (new musicians) the year before last. They played sort of a "best of" from Arthur's earliest and best known material. What I noticed was that Love was not like most other bands from the psychedelic era, with stinging guitar solos, heavy organ chords or flashy musicianship. Arthur's compositions were melodic with interesting and affecting movements that belied his more cynical nature with songs of great beauty. And rather than featuring any particular instrument, there was an unwavering energy carried by the guitar, bass and drums of the rhythm section. Nothing fancy, just melody, rhythm and Arthur's voice. And it all worked perfectly.

The death of Love founder Arthur Lee this week has been much eulogized in the press and in personal media.

LA Times Obituary

And so much has been made of Arthur's great contributions to rock and his enduring legacy. I will just remember the '66 Mustang, my first date, my first makeout, and the throbbing sounds of My Little Red book on the car radio. Thanks, Arthur.

First Gap store, San Francisco, 1969

Over the past few weeks I passed the Gap store remodel on Market at Powell many times and noticed this orange and yellow swirly print wallpaper on display, clearly reminiscent of the psychedelic summer of 1967. The tag on the store window reads "Summer of 1969," and I figure that's close enough for corporate image-making forty years later. Anyway, the dog days of summer must be waning because today all the models are wearing blue jean jackets and the slogan has reverted to the Gap's longstanding "Fall into the Gap". There are no bright colors in this new campaign, only black and chilly blue. Entering the store, you find that denim is king with "1969" sculpted in large blue numerals. The entrance to the store with its swirly motif seems a set piece for Disraeli Gears and I am prone to flashbacks. (Snaps to follow.)

It should be noted I am an inveterate fan of the original days of orange and yellow fashion combinations, pretty much coincident with orange sunshine. A close cousin was the pairing of orange with hot pink, the colors of the miniskirt outfits that PSA stewardesses wore during the days of ten dollar midnight flights between L. A. and S. F. But, as the Gap campaign is sure to remind us, fall is nigh and colors have cooled considerably.



Which brings me to a totally different matter, yet neatly of the same era. I've been cleaning out and unburdening myself from some 35 or more years of worthless paper products--you know the kind: books, magazines, film schedules, old love letters and neatly typed student loan applications. Things that once held great meaning in my life, then became quaint or cute and now have become dusty and worthless. Do things change or do we change? . . .

But wait! Is that my anthropology class binder from fall, 1969 running into spring of 1970? What was this course, Anthro 403--the label on the Cal State notebook--anyway? I see terse class notes and reading assignments and a whole new vocabulary documented between the covers, then kept in storage and lugged around for the better part of four decades. Suddenly, after "Project research design: (1) isolate phenomena; (2) samples of data; (3) how you're collecting it--method; (4) type of analysis; (5) specific question you are dealing with" the whole focus of the text is invaded by content from another planet.

My notes abruptly change to "Justification for departmental committees counterpart to school-wide strike committees" and there is much discussion about what activities should continue at the university in the midst of a general strike and campus-wide shutdown. And how can professors and students continue the process of teaching and learning. Can class credit be given for involvement in strike activities. Will there be an alternative curriculum for students to study (1) racism and war in Asia; (2) how to create a more relevant college curriculum; (3) rise of the counter-culture; (4) guerrilla theatre action; (5) media and propaganda. But mostly the talk is all about the structure and mechanics of organization. There are committees for everything, not only for community action and education (about the purpose of the strike) but for the day-to-day needs of leafleting and postering and picketing. For someone who never really joined anything, for whom everything to that point had proceeded pretty much ad hoc, I'm amazed at how much the focus is on organization and process. I do recall, however, that for me there was still a delicate balance between politics and art. I could participate fully in strike activities for six days running--which meant listening to speakers at one organizing session after another--but on the seventh day I rested. A mind-bending dose was enough to turn my attention to the sweet sounds of a campus concert or an art installation of humming refrigerators and away from the daily polemics of the strike.

But more to the point at hand: During those heady days of student protest (or "unrest," as it was so politely termed) and psychedelic visions, was blue denim actually our second skin? Is the Gap resurrecting an important but obscure historical truth, or is it guilty of historical revisionism to suit its own purposes? I'm not telling, and surely the Gap has assumed the mantel of authority to comment on such matters. They own the airwaves, at least in 30-second spots. And just look at their ads.

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