Somebody throw me a life preserver...I'm drowning in Boomer nostalgia.

I've never been one of the millions of people that lied about their attendance at Woodstock. Had I been home in Ohio I probably would have been one of the hundreds of thousands of drug addled young fools to traipse off to Yasgur's farm for 3 days of Peace, Love & Rock and Roll. Translation: Drugs, nudity, sex, mud, rain, misery, more drugs to forget the mud, rain and misery, etc., etc., etc. At the time I was on tour on the other side of the country (wrong place, wrong time again) indulging in, you guessed it, sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Mean Hippie

Not a lot of Peace and Love in California that August as Charlie Manson and his merry band of creepy crawly sociopaths were busy stabbing and slicing up the local rich people. I can now reveal that quite frankly, I hated Hippies from the moment some smelly guy rolled up to me backstage in the late 60's and screamed through his spittle flecked beard, "Music should be freeeeeeee.....Maaaaaaaaannnnn!" God, fuck off asshole...I'm trying to make a living here. The sex and the drugs were fun during that time (although ultimately destructive) but Hippies sucked big monkey balls.

Anyway, we have rolled around to the 40th anniversary of that magical time, and deference must be paid to us solipsistic Boomers. Watching Woodstock (the film) while sober you're forced to admit that most of the music sounded like crap. Not the fault of the performers necessarily as the conditions were awful. I've played plenty of outside gigs and hated the way every one of them sounded. The film is interesting as a cultural artifact, I suppose, and some performances do stand out. Here is one of them from a guy who against all odds is still alive and about to be collecting Social Security checks. Truth be told, he's been in my death pool for years.

Ladies and Gentlemen...Mr. Joe Cocker.