meshugginah posts

[Greg Montalbano]

Maybe should take this off-list (as I'm sure the others would rather spend
more time on the great "small-town librarian debate"):

At 12:42 PM 7/3/97 -0800, you wrote:

>The only thing I might quibble with is "we all KNEW we had a future" --
>well, maybe. My youth also includes atomic bomb preparedness drills at
>school (what to do in case of a nuclear attack, sort of the Sputnik-era
>equivalent to the fire drill, for those who weren't there), and it was
>pretty clear to me and my close friends that the bomb meant there may not
>be a future at all, 
>
>Regarding "sexual freedom" -- 
>p it's also clear just how
>sexist so many of those noble hippes were; Jules' writing drips of it, of
>course.  Likewise for race relations -- lots of progress, although I still
>wouldn't take my non-white wife and mixed race child back to live in the
>Louisiana town where I spent the first 12 years of my life.
>
>I agree that lower level drug dealers didn't carry guns back then as a
>rule, in my experience, but  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the drugs
>back then really WERE a lot mellower and less threatening than now". LSD
>was available in doses far stronger than what is generally sold now;
>amphetamine was readily available and potent as ever; 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What I was mainly trying to convey were the PERCEPTIONS that were prevalent
& popular at the time.
Yes, with the benefit of hindsight (as TRP did in VINELAND) it's easy to
see the bullshit, self-deception and general lameness of the "revolutionary
hand-job" so many of us were involved in... all I was trying to describe
was the FEELING of being alive then, contrasted to the feeling of being
alive (and young) today.

And as for the DRUGS -- the standard $10 lid of Mexican weed would, smoked
one joint at a time, got you about as fuzzy as a couple of good beers.
The LSD and amphetamines I indulged in liberally, and yet -- CRIMINAL that
I have been -- neither I nor my (then) large circle of friends ever stared
at the sun 'til we burned out our eyes, jumped off a building thinking we
could fly, robbed and raped any grandmas or little school girls, or
indulged in any of the other folkloric horror tales that surrounded the
media terror over "the drug scene."  I DID, however, know of a great number
of fellow youths who got drunk & impregnated their girlfriends (or got
drunk & were impregnated by their boyfriends), got drunk & wiped out their
dad's car, themselves, and more than a few "innocent bystanders", etc etc
etc ad nauseum.  I mean, come on, this is one of the oldest, most
hysterically-prone debates in the book.  YES, there were abuses of drugs;
there have always been, & always will be (not just in this culture, but in
every culture that posesses drugs).  YES there were assholes in the
"movement" and the "revolution" -- but you don't have to look too far to
see that they were, are, and always will be everywhere.

'Nuff said?

Now back to librarian-trashing!