Feel like I do

Saw the headlines about Michael Lang today.

It’s like the kid in Cinema Paradiso, back in town, to find the old movie theatre demolished, making way for a parking lot, while his old mentor/projectionist had died and left him with just a gag reel.

I was that cinema kid: glued to the silver screen (our version of large I-pad) at a theatre near me. It was own by my cousin who waved me through the turnstile. Then I settled in for a double-features matinee. First time I saw Michael Lang, was with a split screen (twice the pleasure) of Woodstock, the movie (I did not have to hit the rewind button. Just stay put and wait for the projectionist to start the show again.)

There I watched Michel Lang answer the documentary interviewer “It’s beautiful”, as he sourced , convinced and transformed backward Woodstock – cow country – to a city of one million, with only one high-rise: the stage.

Just chill.

Richie Havens opened it, stretching his jam after stretching those new guitar strings (he knew he would need their whole life cycle) for “Freedom”…

I heard that catch phrase a lot in my youth. People killed, died and fought for it.

Never a day of Peace, much less Love (oh well, Woodstock had its dark and down side too, with drug and unruly mud slide). But music, yes! I watched Ten Years After (i am going home), White Rabbit, CCR and of course, the Who ?

All the “colored” performers on stage, from Richie to Sly, from Jimmy to Carlos Santana. Even at a young age, I couldn’t help notice that Arts elevated people above the politics of divide. That is to say, today’s tribalism doesn’t come near, not when a 19-year-old arrested development from Pennsylvania, pleading for a more lenient J6 sentence, or 17-year-old Kyle of Illinois, who was hailed as a hero ( with a borrowed gun not guitar).

Back to Michael Lang and his iconic scooter (my best friend took me on a ride to School for years on similar vehicle). “Something is happenin here…what it is, ain’t exactly clear.. Marcuse? Timothy Leary? 68 spill-over?

The reality is this: youth think and speak out too (whether the mandatory draft lottery hit them or not) from walking Ashbury St in San Francisco, to sit-in at Berkeley, from NYU to KSU. They grew their hair in protest against the war machine (a Quaker burned himself at the steps of the Pentagon), against “Tricky Dick” or any other “Dicks” of the day. High-school kids got drafted, while college kids protested.

View and opposing view should be heard and taken into account e.g. “goddam shit hole! The fuckers in Washington D.C. need to let us bomb this shit hole back to the Stone Age,” “Kill every one of these mother fucking gooks and piss on their rotting carcasses” (said an Army Chaplain, as recounted by an MP in “Policing Saigon” page 207).

There had to be a viable alternative to killing (anything that moves). Perhaps not everyone thought so.

“You’re so beautiful, to….me” “I get by with help from my friends” esp from Joe Cocker.

Then, “please move away from the towers” (storms passing).

From Joan Didion to Joan Baez, Michael Hayden to Michael Lang. Lots of artists and a whole generation of “youth matters”. For three straight days. With no major incidents. A today’s impossible (this side of J6 White grievances).

Last night I had the strangest dream. …

That people co-opted youthful energy…nudging it and turning it into the Ralph Reeds of the day, Franklin Grahams of the day (who has no rights to co-opt the image of rebel rousers on a Michael Lang’s ride) and Steve Bannon’s local precincts and local school boards to push the agenda of Christian nationalism, a doctrinal betrayal (the Romans crucified him, then built an Empire out of it, whitening a darker image of a Jew, who during the culture war, grown into a all-hair JC Superstar, a 60’s musical. Whatever made them money in the short term). From The Silent Majority to the Moral Majority, then 2.0 version.

Woodstock chipped and bargained away – for a few pieces of silver (using Graham’s quotes).

The idea is spontaneity, but also planned (then un-planned – Free concerts!). Lots of risks but “Screw it, let’s do it”.

The town folks were beyond nice. A testimony to a long time past, when people were given that generation of young people the benefit of the doubt.

Today, we have St Louis husband and wife holding their automatic rifle and short gun ( pretty in pink polo ) pointing at peaceful protesters (it’s our lawn), then leverage those publicity and press – albeit shameful- to run for office. an anti-thesis of Woodstock, of back to the land, back to nature against climate abuse (Mother Earth they have no respects for, do you think they would for her children of a different race?).

Rest my case. So wave the South Vietnam flags , the Confederate Battle flags, on the lawn and near the top of the Capitol , on January 6th or any other day (outside of my cousin’s theatre). Before everything was disintegrated and dismantled pretty quick as I personally experienced.

Meanwhile, inside, I watched Woodstock, (Director’s cut), anticipating and reciting each scene and song. all the while, wishing to be somewhere else , be someone else, anyone, whose flag – wasn’t waved for lost cause only (on Subic Bay and Steps of the Capitol .)

Curse the day I was born – always unwanted –

in a controversial birth (parents didn’t quite seem to want me – since there was another side marriage and half-sister),

a controversial war ( debate and protest) a controversial religion – Buddhism by culture – (regime persecution that drove a monk into suicide by self-immolation)

a controversial re-settlement in America (“Are you from the North?” asked my PSU roommate Jay) while today’s Afghan counterparts got a quiet break – no protest – despite similar inflationary rates in today’s economy.

How I wished I could have taken my shirt off (young and tan) and enjoyed those Summer Breezes of Upstate hills.

Meanwhile, across the pond, back to the future, fast -forward to today, another Pennsylvania kid, at age 19, pleading via paid lawyer :” your Honour, please…be lenient in your sentencing.” “ he was just having fun – waving the flag, breaking into The office of No 2 in line for the Presidency, “ (just like John Lennon once waving Mao’s Red Book in protest, or Trump, with up-side-down Bible in front of St John.) Arrested development while exercising 1st Amendment.

We’re all arrested in our cerebral development.. Do you….feel like I do. “It’s beautiful”, R.I.P. my friend Lang ( who said: ”the people are showing up, so we have to feed them…we have to prioritize:” a gut call between finish the fence to charge them money, or Screw it, Free Woodstock “.