Comments on: Remembering The Summer Of Love

Forty Years Ago, The World Was Introduced To The Counterculture

[mcvet]

We changed the WORLD! That's right all you Nazi's, no matter how much garbage you try to spew about the Generation... no matter how hard you try to take us back, WE changed the world for the better and are on the brink of doing it yet again. If you fascist out there think you had it rough the first time around, just wait. The Boomer Generation is getting ready to take over as the Senior Generation and by pure numbers the politic's of the next couple of decades will be MORE "people" friendly and less Corporate Friendly. So hang on to those swastika's and your Goldwater Pic's because we're going to take you through a whole new door.... And if history is any indication the earth and all on it will be better off for it. Just as the present day world is better off for the 60's generation. Sieg Heil Y'all.

[if6ws9]

The number of people that were part of the 60's counterculture was actually very small. It was far from an entire generation, so drawing conclusions about how the hippies turned into yuppies is inaccurate. Rich yuppies were a minority also.

Until the Woodstock movie came out most boomers didn't "get it" and even after the movie, to most of them it was just fashion. To be denied service in restaurants, to be profiled by the police, to be denied jobs, to be treated to a haircut and beating in the south just because of how you looked and even to be refused entry into Disneyland required a commitment to that lifestyle.

And yes drugs were a big part of the inner change that caused people to become "freaks". Marijuana and LSD provided insights that caused some people to adopt a more natural lifestyle change. They opened the mind to realities not considered before. Among them that we were all connected and love was elemental.

Ask any person that was a real freak from that period to recount their best experience and it will invariably include LSD. White powder drugs ruined the dream for some but "straight" propaganda was the real culprit.

Unless you were there and unless you were tuned in it would take hours to explain the truth. This report was even handed, unlike the faux documentary by the History Channel, but it's still only a basic intro to a period in history that was unique and misunderstood.

[lucymcg]

Yes, that was Micky Dolenz in the last shot of the cheering audience...

[hypnotoad72]

wiredwilly - true, but achieving peace cannot be accomplished by snorting, ingesting, or pumping drugs into one's body, engaging in unsafe *** with just anybody and hope to not get a disease, and then singing ballads about how wrong it is for the cops to take people away for engaging in stupid and dangerous activities.

Okay, the using drugs part is illegal... promiscuous *** is stupid and dangerous, never mind the emotional ramifications of breaking another person's relationship (so much for peace and harmony...)

[wiredwilly]

The 60'S Counter Culture was correct : Love is Better Than Hate. Peace is Better Than War.

[hypnotoad72]

Listen to the music of the 1960s.

Sounds really good; very creative, yes...

But the lyrics either condone drug use... or are subversive. Often because drug use was illegal, or for other reasons...

The irony is the selfishness of that generation; the results of which became the yuppies of the 1980s.

SOME might argue the same folks are tearing things down in this country today; fulfilling their drugged-up fantasies of 40 years ago. Sounds far-fetched, but what the h3ll. Anything's possible, I suppose.

All I know is, and this is unrelated, priests have sermons about America being underpopulated and ask where the next generation of scientists will come from to resolve these problems... maybe Father Corapi hasn't been reading up on the news when he made that videotaped sermon - those jobs are leaving America... (that aside, he's had some interesting sermons...)

[tgophoto]

The Monterey Pop Festival changed my life as it launched my rock and roll photography career. Looking back at my shots every performer was touched and able to reach out- it was an experience... a special connection between performers and audince with this kind of music. There was an incredible sense of good feeling, unlike any experience before.
When Hendrix started to burn his guitar I was so stunned I put my camera down and watched in amazement. That powerful gathering in 1967 was the first real tribute to rock and roll!
Thank you Lou ADler and John Phillips!
Tom Gundelfinger O'Neal
www.tgoportfolio.com

[ewelch]

In the closing shot to this story, was the Mickey Dolenz, of the Monkees, cheering in the crowd?

[tc_49]

Seems strange that you only list events celebrating the 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" that are being held on the East Coast. Can't get much further away from San Francisco than that. Surely there is something going on in San Francisco or Monterey that you forgot to mention.

[jbforton]

My husband and I watched this piece with our kids, ages 15 & 17. The talk in our family was about the story that was missing . . . the one that needed to between %u201CThe AP%u201D and %u201CThe Summer of Love%u201D stories.

"The War In the Living Room" drove so much of what went on at that time . . . we pointed out, that back then, the photo shown during %u201CThe AP%u201D piece: The man with the gun to his head, and many like it (the girl running naked and on fire) were in our living rooms every night, via the evening news, which the AP contributed to. We also made the distinction that today, with 2 wars going on, they don't see the "war in the living room." They see well screened scenes, chaos in the distance, and no endless lines of coffins coming in to Dover.

Yes, your piece was a nice reminder about the Summer of Love - but the evenings of the war in our living rooms played a big role in looking for that love!