Something that I think both readings, "The Police Band" and "Che's Last Letter", have in common is emotion. "The Police Band" is more about how the band had emotion and created emotion; whereas, "Che's Last Letter" you could feel the emotion that she was creating when asking the youth to help make a change. That also created an emotion as me as a reader. It motivated me and got in interested in what she had to say.
I think "Che's Last Letter" was more effective. She gave a lot of feeling by adding in detail of what her conditions were like, which is a condition no one would want to be put in, then leaving the reader feeling sorry for her. After she asks for the youths help, she then creates and points out the perspective as a youth. She proposes questions that we would have directed toward her. She asks us to put aside any negative feelings and to do what we know is right. The line that struck me as very powerful was, " For a revolution, in order to be a true revolution, must be a world revolution." and I totally agree with that. For there to be a huge change in a society, we need one another and other resources and peoples help and cooperation to make a change and make a difference. I only wish that we could realize this to change what is going on in our society today.

Famous Losers

In life some of us seek to be big move stars that walk down the read carpet, or some seek to be a big time author winning big awards like the Pulitzer Prize. But what makes them so great is the work they do, not really who they are as a person. They could be real losers, they could be druggies, they could be the most normal down to earth person ever; yet, most of us will just never know. Andrew Gordon wrote a piece on how Thomas Pynchon was this great American novelist and then when he finally met him, he realized he's just like a normal person. When Gordon first met Pynchon the first thing he said was, "Hey man, would you like a joint?" Then he pulled out a string of firecrackers and said, "Where can we blow this up at?" Although Gordon doesn't admit it, but I think he was surprised at how careless and free he was. It was like two different parts of the culture of the time were meeting. Gordon was an English major from Berkley and then you have this writer who smokes pot and is just hanging out, meeting not really having anything in common besides their writings.
I think a lot of the time we have to sit back and think that these famous people do have outside lives and they're for the most part normal people like you and me. Its not always just hard work, sometimes they have to relax and smoke a blunt. Maybe Pynchon should have had some type of professionalism about him but at the same time, it could just be the hippie in him. Gordon said that he was inspired by his "epic, wild imagination", and that he was very "profound...complex and allusive", I laughed because its probably all due in part to the pot and LSD.

In the Moment

In "The Rolling Stones-At Play In The Apocalypse", written my Michael Lydon, the first stanza alone made me think. "A cold sun alternated with bright clouds, and 300,000 young Americans stepped into the future (or was it?)...". This statement got me thinking. Everything back in the sixties has made such an impact on life today, but at the point in time do we know were making history? All these concerts, the clothing, the drugs, the music, did we know it was going to be this big era that we all are studying and are influenced by? Probably not. I think its just something to think about. Like will today for some reason one day be history that our great great grand kids can look back on and be like why are they doing that? I think it's cool actually. I mean its obvious that our lifetime will be in history books because of the obvious events that have occurred but little things like clothing and music. We may be in a new rave of music and not even know it.
Another thing most people, as listeners, we don't really think about is how shows are even put together, and how much work it actually takes. Like the reading says, "You need a place, a source of power, a stage, a few bands, spread the word, trust to God, and have the thing." Nowadays that probably isn't so easy. Now we have to worry about permits, legal issues, money, security etc., and we all know that nothing is free anymore. Concerts are now thousands of dollars I'm sure to create. But what is in common is the music. Music, I feel, will always bring people together. Its the one thing that most Americans can have in common with one another and not cause an argument. Music is music. What it means to one person may not mean the same to you or I, but to some stranger out there there is some kind of impact, and they can share that idea/feeling with that someone else.

Images

During this time period, not only was drugs, clothing, sex and drugs important to this psychedelic lifestyle, but art was becoming a true pat of history. When you think hippies art what do you think about? I see bright colorful swirls with blocky lettering, usually stretching across the whole page. Well, that's exactly right. Hippie art has its own specific genre. Sally Tomlinson says that most of the art posters created were similar to posters that were used to promote boxing matches. They were large rectangular posters where the message was pretty much straightforward. Some may say that actual design is ineligible but to the hippies that was their art work. Tomlinson uses "doodling" as a way of describing it and I think there's not better way to describe it. The way we see art today can be interpreted in many different ways. It depends on the person and what they may think or feel from the art. But the hippies had a different approach. Their work was based off of promoting a certain band, or event. Most of the work had cool psychedelic colors swirling around with huge block lettering. Not to much, and not to little was said about the event or band, it was just enough. Like the picture I included above. It says what bands are going to be there, where the concert is and what it is called. It includes some psychedelic work and the funky block lettering.

Honestly, I never really liked those kind of pictures. Maybe cause I wasn't ever really into that "scene" so much, but after this class I can appreciate more of their art work and understand where they were coming from now that I know more about what the hippies were all about. Yeah, drugs and their trips had a lot to do with the creation or appreciation of the art back then, but now it has become an art form that is recognizable just by the certain lettering that is used and certain hippie characteristics that it may include.

Haight-Ashbury

In the beginning of our reading their was a passage that stuck out to me. It is titled, "The Failure of Haight-Ashbury/Love Generation". I for whatever reason was intrigued by this passage. It is full of contradictory statements that all make sense in its own way. "Haight-Ashbury is a "new" reality. Yet it shuns reality." Meaning that these streets are creating a new world inside of a world that no one wants to live because of its realistic constraints of what life should be like.

If anything this passage reminded of me of a street in Philadelphia that is very popular due to all of its diversity and off track version of what life really should be. South Street. I'm sure every Philadelphian has been there at one point of their life or another, but if you haven't you should go and gain an experience like none other. As you walk down South Street you'll see all kinds of people: black, white, hippies, goths, preppies, punks etc., all of which are accepted. The passage says, "Haight-Ashbury is a rebellion from conformity...to conformity." Meaning that it is coming together as a rebellion against what is expected in the outside real life. Which I think is what South Street does. You have all these different kinds of people, all with different lifestyles, different types of views on life and yet, this on street in this big city allows people to act, do and say what they want and there be no constraints on it. But back in the "real world" outside of this area/street, people like this aren't accepted everywhere. Like if you were to have a gothic black guy walk down the street in my hometown, I can guarantee you people would stare and be like, "What the hell is that?" But on South Street that is just expected.

Althought Haight-Ashbury wasn't our modern day South Street, it was similar in that the hippies were conforming to freeness and openness. Anyone could do, say and be what they wanted. "Haight-Ashbury has fallen. Haight-Ashbury is a failure. May we have many more failure like it." Ultimately, I think there is one just like it right in our hometown of Philly. South Street, our own Haight-Ashbury.

Civil RIghts

After reading the assigned pages for this past week I was very inspired by the students at Berkely, in 1969. The protest was title "Battle of Berkely" where nine hundred people had been arrested. The battle was in protest towards University of California repossesing a vacant lot on Berkely's campus. The students did evreything possible to keep their civil rights. Dave Mandel created a song which outlined the whole event.

"The rebels were ousted, the tables banned,
The deans thought they had won their hand...
Then came a sight they never thought they'd see,
A genuine sit-in in the hall of Big C...
Civil Disobedience...an essay come alive...education in action"

The students had sit-ins and stood outside of their campus' building causing a scene and nothing would stop them not even the police. They had a right to stay outside and riot for what was rightfully theirs. This song was created has a nice ring to it as well. The song flows which reflects how things went with the protest. Although there was a lot of arrrests and what not the protest went fairly well.

Edward Abbey documents his story on being a park ranger at a nature preserve in Utah. The one thing that caught my eye in this reading was how he describes the park and the two "dancing" snakes. He says that the April mornings are bright, clear and calm, which contradicts the meaning behind the animals he describes in the story. I just get this vision of a whimsical, peaceful, dusty, early morning land filled with animals just doing and living as they please. He then goes into how hes watching the snakes wind and unwind from each other not knowing what their intentions really were.
I'm not to sure what this has to do with the nature of our course but in a sense the animals are representing the people (the hippies) of that time and they are just living life as if no one else is watching. The imagery that Abbey portrays signifies what we see in pictures from the '60's. Bright blue skies, a bright sun, calming winds all of which are peaceful and in term of counter culture, signify peace itself.

Voices

In From the Feminine Mystique: The Problem That Has No Name women's rights are brought to the service. It gives a different perspective to the reader, as to what its really like to be a women and how certain women may feel in society. The publication brought to the surface of political, social, educational, and personal issues. Why can't a woman have an education? Why can't a woman run for a position in office? Why can't a woman do more than shove the kids off to school and cook dinner. Although, all of this seems to be a bigger issue then, then it is now, we still face certain factors with each of these issues. For example, Hillary Cliton is a well-respected and well-known politician. The press stressed that one of the reasons she was not elected as president, was based off the fact that she was a woman and that The United States was not "ready" for a woman president. Another example, would be how woman are portrayed on TV. Talk shows like the Tara Banks show, portray women's rights as the most powerful we have to own as a woman. But shows like Wife Swap do almost the opposite. They portray women as the "typical housewife". SOME of the women do all the cooking, the cleaning, and wait hand and foot on the men. Yet the show balances it out with having a different mother come in and show the families that it is okay to take on some of these responsibilities themselves, to create fair and equal-ness within the home. But the negative part of the show it disturbing. The fact that kids do not appreciate what their mothers do for them, or how their husbands only confine them to their certain "jobs" or rooms is a sign of disrespect to women. If there is one thing i would want society to know is that women are just as good as men and we are equally as mentally strong and able just like men, AND...we can look good doing it!

Beating the Draft

David Lance Goines. I consider him a coward, but clever coward at that. I personally could never imagine what it would be like to be drafted into war. But as a teenage college student I feel that it is anyone's civic duty and honor to be drafted and be willing to fight for our country, not matter the circumstances. Goines was just a smart college student that seemed to get into trouble once and awhile, being that he was trying to win the "all-time most civil rights arrests" award. He was eventually drafted and was not happy about this decision. At this point, being drafted and going through the military might be a good thing for him at this point being that he was getting arrested being out on the streets. It was obvious he did not want to be fighting in the war, yet he passed his physical and intelligence tests with flying colors. My question is, is if he did not want to get picked for the draft then why wouldn't he of just failed the tests on purpose so then maybe the military would just skip over him? Instead, he thought it would be a good idea to write letters back and forth to the offices in hopes of them losing his file which ultimately, they did. I actually had to laugh at this. There is NO WAY that that could even happen today. I mean anything is possible, but really? Goines even says himself, "I guess now with everything on computers, this truck wont work anymore. But it might!" That just gives hope to selfish American teenagers to try and beat the system just so they don't have to go and serve for their country.

I have an uncle that served for our country in Iraq two years ago. It was the scariest thing to think about. My dad would talk to my brother and I about the draft and how it just was never something to look forward to, but it could just happen to anyone. Putting myself in Goines' situation, would I have been just as scared? Yes. Would I have bitched and complained? Yes. Would I have thought of ways to get around the system of going to fight for our country. Probably. But the way I was raised is, that you do what you have to do because you have to. Knowing that I could have made a difference in this country would have been enough for me. One person can change anything. It takes one person to build something up and it takes one person to build something down. Because of Goines' story everything is probably on lock down and it would be impossible to get around the system. But if this was to ever happen to you I would hope that you would be PROUD and HONORED to put on that uniform and fight for our country and not take the easy way out.

I think that this whole time and era just blows my mind. The fact that they could have these Acid Tests and no law enforcement did anything about the drugs is just unreal. I understand at the time that it is legal, but why? Kesey ended the last Acid Test because he said there were "bad vibes". My question to him would be bad vibes? They were basically allowed to do whatever they wanted without getting arrested. The only thing the cops came for was because of noise violations and stuff like that.
I also found interesting how a scholar like Dr. Timothy Leary could participate in the whole 'drug scene'. A psychologist from Harvard is using it for study purposes but at the same time was taking it himself to see the 'enjoyment' that the others see. He would just hand out doses of mushrooms like it was nothing not really knowing how someone could react to it. After the mushrooms it furthered his curiosity into LSD. Today if this was done by any unregistered doctor he would probably be in jail for a long, long time. Eventually Leary was stopped by the "Campus Drug Cult", of Harvard University. I also think its funny looking at bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. No one probably knew what they were doing behind the scenes until now. People look up to them but are they really worth being looked up to now? Drugs today is seen as such a negative thing, but back then it was all apart of their normal routines. You were cool if you did mushrooms or LSD.

Obama v.s MLK?

While reading over James Baldwin's essay, Struggling to Be Free, all I could think about was how Baldwin was describing MLK, that it sounded similar to as if someone was describing President Barack Obama. To sum up a point Baldwin made about MLK was saying that King was a great public speaker. It was his tone, presence and manner that made people want to listen to what he had to say. King did not only reach out to the black and white people but he would give every person the self-respect that they deserved. As for Obama, we all know how great of a speaker he is himself. I agree in saying that Obama and King are similar but they also have their differences. Obama is black AND white, i think since he became president some people are only looking at him as being JUST black. When Obama is up in the public eye we need to consider that he is a black man, but he IS also white and that he was not just elected to help the one side of the spectrum. King was the turning point in society. Although, he was for making a change for the black people of that time, Obama is wanting to make a change for the society as a whole.
I wanted to see what other people thought about this topic too, so I looked up a little search on Google. It is obvious that this is going to be a very tough subject to agree upon, but a lot of the posts from YahooAnwers MOSTLY said that Obama and MLK do not compare even close as to being the same. One post said, "Obama is a master at precisely and articulating analyzing a problem; BUT, he never gives solutions. Same with this speech. He brilliantly hit the nail on the head about the problem but offered NO SOLUTIONS", another quote stated said, "King appealed to the heart, Malcom X to the gut, and Obama to the mind." Which is a powerful statement in of itself. There's a little food for thought. Now I'll leave it up to you to form your own opinion.

LSD

Some people always thought the the psychedelic designs of the 60's and the big fancy font was so radical and cool, which they are but after reading more about LSD and its effects it became clearer as to why they looked so cool. In the 60's was, to me at least, one of the most accepted drugs by adolescence at the time. It blows my mind as to how and why the law enforcement would just allow these people to hold "acid parties", which was based around LSD in kool-aid and bands playing. I didn't know much about LSD and its effects so I looked it up online and it explain a lot. LSD can take your perspective of life and flip it. Sometimes the 'trip' can make the colors of your vision blur together and sometimes give the effect that everything is distorted or just mushing together. When you look at the graphics from back then you can see how colors are all swirled together and everything is just kind of one big blob, which you can imagine is how these hippies see life when most of the time they were on LSD trips. I'm still surprised that it took until 1966 for it to actually become illegal. What as lo surprised me is the fact that the Beatles did LSD. Its like LSD was an outlet for people compared to what women feel about shopping today. It provides this high that feels so good at the time but once its all over, you're just really left with nothing but materialistic things that really mean nothing. LSD's after effect would just be the fact of being back to reality.