Richard Jernigan -> RE: On A Much Lighter Note, Rolling Stones in Oakland tomorrow, anyone? (May 6 2013 21:27:35)
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Congratulations on your enjoyment of the Stones, and to them for their longevity. For me they used to call forth a different feeling. I was at the free concert at Altamont, winter of 1969. They said there were as many as 300,000 people there. Things turned sour, and the altmosphere grew more and more violent as the day wore on and the various bands performed, due to two elements, from my perspective. The crowd was high on acid, meth and who knows what else. Drugs were being sold cheaply in large quantities and were freely given away by others. Lots of scuffles and out and out fights broke out. The other element was employing the San Francisco Hell's Angels as stage security. I was familiar with a biker gang that was as bad as, some say worse than, the Angels: San Antonio's Bandidos. My cousin Tom L. built engines for them, though he was not himself an outlaw. Through him I knew some of the Bandidos, and some details of their activities and attitudes. When my friends and I got to Altamont and saw the Angels' bikes parked in a row and the Angels themselves wearing their colors, premonitions were in the air for me. Things got worse and worse as the day wore on. We were down front, near the stage. Several times people in the crowd tried to climb onto the fairly low stage. We saw the Angels wade into the crowd more than once, cracking heads with their sawed off pool cues, pushing back the crowd to protect the performers. Almost inevitably in my experience, violence provoked blowback, as the crowd grew angrier and angrier at the Angels. We didn't see the Angels kill the guy who flashed a pistol. The film footage showing it was from higher viewpoints. But the word spread rapidly through the crowd that the Angels had finally killed somebody. Few people seemed to know that it was in response to a severe threat to the safety of the Stones. I was not surprised that the Angels had killed somebody, but I still remember the crushing sense of dread and disappointment. The crowd had degenerated into a violent mob. A lot of people began to leave.We joined them. Traffic was very heavy on the narrow access roads, and progress was very slow inching along on a big bike with my girl on the back. It was just beginning to be light by the time we made it back to Berkeley. For me it was a somewhat belated end to my youth. Clouds of darkness and despair closed over the entire "counterculture" community of the Bay Area. I was no stranger to violence, having participated in paramilitary "counter-insurgency" operations in Central America several years previously. In the end it revolted me, and I quit in disgust. I found some hope in parts of the anti-war movement back in the U.S.A. What discouraged me was not the violence at Altamont. It was the loss of hope by the "counterculture" that followed closely upon it. Altamont was not the only event that precipitated this across the country, but it was a key event for the Bay Area. After a period of some years, it finally became clear to me that although we are strongly influenced by events that surround us, and that we participate in, it is up to us individually to choose our path and to take responsibility for our own attitudes toward life. For me, the clouds parted to a considerable degree. The world is no better now than it was on that cold gray morning in December, 1969, as we made our way back home, shocked and saddened. In some ways the world is worse. But as old age takes over, I am more or less at peace, not with the way of the world, but with my own reactions to it. I don't condone the crass materialism, the self-serving of our politics, the know-nothing hatred and violence, the destruction of the environment. Forty-three years later I can still remember the crushing sense of tragedy that settled in after Altamont. But as I used to tell my employees, you must be healthy to fulfill your obligations to family and co-workers, you must have a positive and energetic attitude to make a contribution. For many years I have been able to follow my own advice much of the time. So the Stones can now make me smile again, and make me want to get up and dance. RNJ
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