MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
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Helping Create the NEXT GENERATION of the Web: GENERATOR 21: The World's Magazine
American DreamsPity for the Youngby Robin MillerG21 Irregular
I'm glad I am not 16 years old in 1999. 1968, when I achieved that magic age, was a far better time to be a teenager.
Back then, birth control was brand-new. Every known venereal disease could be cured with either a single needle or a week's worth of pills. There was nothing (except for some dying parental ideas of morality) to keep us from fucking like rabbits.
Even an ugly guy like me had no trouble getting laid back then. If girls were going to prove their liberation from old, repressive social ideals, I was as good a tool as any for them to use as proof of their freeness and willingness to embrace a new morality unlike the tired old male-dominated one their mothers had foisted on them.
Did I feel exploited? Not in the least!
Another huge advantage of being a 60s teenager was a plentiful supply of cheap, interesting, fairly non-harmful drugs sold by reliable, non-violent dealers.
Despite all the TV warnings I heard back then by "celebrities" like Art Linkletter and Nancy Reagan about the dangers of LSD, I never met a single LSD addict, nor did anyone I knew slip into psychosis as a result of taking LSD. Sure, I knew people who took acid and ended up in mental hospitals, but they were headed in that direction anyway.
As far as the "establishment" anti-drug concept of teenagers starting with marijuana, then progressing to LSD and other hallucinogenics, and inevitably falling into the abysss of Heroin or cocaine addiction, I'd have to say that it was utterly false. The average teenage pothead I knew in 1968 or 1970 might have tried a little acid, but later settled down to a staple, adult diet of getting their weekend highs from beer or booze, just like Mom and Dad. Sure, a few fell off the edge into hard drugs, but just as those who went mental on us after taking LSD were obviously on the edge of psychosis already, the seeds of their potential addiction were visible long before they took their first whiff of pot.
And back in my teener years, if we wanted to listen to radical music guaranteed to offend our parents, we weren't forced to subject ouselves to the grunts and toneless moans of rappers dressed as if their greatest aspiration in life was to appear on a "Wanted" poster. No way, dude. We had Frank Zappa and George Clinton and The Greatful Dead, new and fresh, performing live all over the place, often for free. I'm sorry to break this to you young folks, but these people were far superior, musically, to the current crop of hitmakers. In fact, if you listened to all of the old masters' original music, why would you want to listen to any of their recent imitators, many of whom haven't even bothered to learn how to play an instrument or carry a tune? The only answer to that is, "Because all my friends do." (Hint, kid: get better friends!)
But there was bad music in the late 60s, too. Ever heard of The Cowsills? If not, don't feel bad. Imagine a cross between Donny and Marie Osmond and Sonny and Cher -- doing a Monkees impersonation. Think Vanilla Ice. And try not to puke on your keyboard as you read this; I apologize for having brought up such unpleasant subject matter here, but sometimes sordid truths must be told, if only to prove that although the late 60s and early 70s were the best of all possible times to be a teenager or young adult in America, there were negatives, even if all I personally choose to remember of my teenage years is the positive stuff, like unrestrained sex, cheap drugs, and high-quality rock and roll.  +++ The PREVIOUS AMERICAN DREAMS +++ The NEXT AMERICAN DREAMS +++ GET INTO A G21 FRAME OF MIND. THE MAIN EVENT |
To tell you the truth, I'd rather see people spend their weekends mellowing out on a little jade than going to country bars and getting tanked and getting into fights or getting into accidents on their way home in their pickup trucks while listening to Garth Brooks cranked up to an unholy volume level on their stereos, and it was one hell of a lot safer to buy acid or psylocibin from a chemistry grad than to hang around housing project dumpsters to score crack or smack, two drugs that, in my opinion, have always been strictly for losers.