That 70's Guy

History repeats the old conceits.
Everything that was once old is new again.
Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.
Wisdom comes with age.
What was once lost, is now found.
Don't trust anyone over 30.
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain.
Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll.

I'm not that good with cliches, but can you figure out which ones apply here?

The '60s.

I was born in 1960. It was the beginning of a turbulent decade that shall always hold a place in the history books. Having it be part of my life for my first ten years on this planet is something I'll never forget. I can't remember the actual events of the early '60s, but I do remember these events as if I really experienced them, because I did.

Anyone will now tell you that events of epic proportion can affect the young child. Look at all these people who go on the talk shows and claim how little Johnny is a troubled teen because of the fact he has suppressed memories of the death of his cat when he was two years old.

This is my claim. I may not be able to remember the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, or Malcolm X, but I know all about them. I did not witness Jack Ruby gun down Lee Harvey Oswald, but those images will always be frozen in my mind. I don't recall the Bay of Pigs, the beginning of the Vietnam "conflict," the Cuban missile crisis, the Civil and Equal Rights movements, nor the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (although my mother tells me I did watch along with everybody else). But all these things and more, make up who I am.

I do not remember these actual events as they happened, but I did live these events and I remember them as part of me. And I agree with the so-called experts that state that at any age, your persona can be conformed by the events around you.

I do remember Neil Armstrong's "One small step..." I watched it live on my grandfather's black-and-white TV. Elvis' 1968 comeback, napalming the Vietcong, the '68 Democratic Convention and the chaos that ensued. I remember Woodstock, hippies, Peace & Love, "Hell No We Won't Go," Kent State, Timothy Leary, ("Turn on, Tune in & Drop out"). I remember Bobby Seals and the Black Panther party demonstrating on May Day on the Yale campus, just miles from my house. I remember the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the sit-ins, peace demonstrations, and marches on the capitol. But most of all I remember a world turned upside down and inside out set against a musical soundtrack that still resounds today.

These were the turbulent '60s, and I remember them. I remember them because of the media. The media grew up in the '60s as well. Television was no longer a perk of wealth. Everyday more and more people owned TVs. Color was introduced and boomed. Newspapers and magazines needed to capture everything more quickly now so as to remain competitive in the industry.

What we had was a crush of information. Us late Boomers, we caught all this information mainly through our baby-sitter, the electronic baby-sitter, our TV. The information age of TV was upon us and it was up to us to determine what fit where.

It affected us. It changed us. For better or for worse? Who can say? Only each individual. I myself have not come to a final conclusion just yet. But I must say that in looking back, the past definitely affected my future.

The '70s.

Yes, I can be identified as a product of the '70s very easily. Everything I think or do, my opinions and my philosophies are all rooted in the '70s as influenced by the '60s. This is one reason why Richard Hell labeled us the "Blank" generation, but a lot of us refer to ourselves as the "Lost" generation.

After the upheaval of the prior decade, we were left pretty much alone, almost forgotten about, handed a legacy that we didn't want, forced upon us by people of no connection to us. A legacy given birth by a society that had scared us to death as we were growing up. A society that was still scaring us as we tentatively felt our way through the decade of the '70s, not knowing whether or not there would be a life waiting for us on the other side of the cold war. So, we took all our teenage angst, unrest, uncertainty, and fear, cranked up the music and said "The Hell With It, Let's Party While We Can." A good time was had by all in the shadow of the atomic sun.

You have to remember--we grew up watching as the teens of the sixties tried to change everything with Peace & Love. We watched as they were slaughtered in the jungles of Vietnam. We saw them beaten in the streets of our own hometowns. We heard of the draft dodgers being hauled off to prison for not wanting to go to war and kill someone over something they did not believe in. We witnessed their revolution of drugs, music, free love, peace, and harmony reach its apex at Woodstock. Approximately five hundred thousand people had the chance to come together and make some sort of change in the world, and what did we see? We saw it fizzle. Shortly after Woodstock, the sixties generation quietly faded from view. Nothing monumental ever came from Woodstock except the fact that as an event (both musical and [counter] cultural) it will always be of historical significance.

So the 70s generation (the "Blank" generation, the "Lost" generation, I'm talkin' 'bout MY generation) said; "Hey, That Peace and Love shit was OK, but it didn't work then and no way in hell will it work now. So fuck everything, we're gonna burn this sucker to the ground and go up in flames with it."

The cliches above, they all apply.

And this is what this column will be about.

Write me at g_gone@independisc.com and ask a question, any question, about the seventies. I'll answer them from a perspective that was developed as a partying, rock 'n' roll loving, confused teenager of the '70s who had a plateful of "No Future," "Real" world put on the table in front of him, and with the stereo blasting, is still munching away. If I choose your question, you'll get an Independisc Disc of the Month free of charge, along with a PCC T-shirt.

Finally, if you haven't figured this out yet, I LOVE music, it shaped and formed me as much as everything else. If anything, it was music's cultural impact that defined who/what the '70s (and I) were/are. (And for the record, I've never seen That '70s Show, from which the PCC editors have stolen [OK, restructured] the title for this column.)