This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the legendary “Summer of Love” and everywhere I turn, from the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine, to the hippy burn-out living in a van parked in my alley-way, somebody wants to tell me how great the 60’s were. And I don’t doubt it – the advent of the birth control pill and LSD at precisely the same cosmic moment. An unpopular war being telecast every night and uniting a whole generation of long-haired pot smokers with slogans like “turn on, tune in, drop out,” and “be here now.” Experimental drugs, experimental music, experimental sex. It sounds like a day-glo nightmare or a psychedelic paradise depending on your point of view. And I’m jealous. I’m not too big to admit it. I am jealous as hell of the people who got to come of age in such a revolutionary era.
I’m also sick of hearing about it. Because look, when the summer of love happened I was four years away from existing. I was born in 1971 – the summer of rock-stars dropping dead from overdoses and the free clinics filling up with tweakers and syphilis patients.
Some people love to hear stories about that magical time that was the 1960’s. I came of age in the 1980’s. No one has ever asked me to regale them with stories about the 1980’s. It seems to be a natural phenomenon that people always want to tell you that life was better when they were young but kids I am here to say that if anyone tries to tell you that the 1980’s were better than today they are full of shit. The 1980’s stunk on ice. We had Nancy Reagan telling everyone to say “NO” to drugs while Ronald Reagan cut the funding for all mental patients except those who would pose a physical threat of violence if they were released from their asylums. Meanwhile while the Gipper could not be bothered to show compassion to our most vulnerable citizens he was perfectly willing to spend trillions of dollars on a nuclear arsenal capable of blowing up the world 250 times over. In an ironic twist of fate Reagan cut federal funding for Alzheimer’s research. Today people credit Reagan with winning the Cold War. You’ve got to hand it to him, he had good timing. But what do you expect? He was an actor. The Soviet Union collapsed inward because of corruption. It would have happened eventually no matter who was in office. Aside from that today Russia views the United States as its number one threat so as far as I can tell the Cold War is still set on simmer. We just had a fun little artificial celebration there.
We had AIDS so that was fun. Now not only could drugs kill you but so could sex. Ridiculous. The kids from the 60’s get free love and my generation gets death. Cold sores and crabs just weren’t good enough I guess. We still have AIDS now but for some reason it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal. It know it still is but I’m telling you in the 1980’s it was like “if you get laid you’re gonna die!” As if me and my high-school hacky-sacking buddies needed help not scoring with the ladies.
And the music – Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, old Metallica. Well alright, the music was bitching! But what about all that other crap? OMD, The Thompson Twins, Depeche Mode? Yuck. The 80’s were definitely a confusing time.
Talk about confusing though – I’ve never seen anything as completely befuddling as the 2000’s. It’s hard to even figure out what to call it. The 00’s? The “oughts?” I don’t know. But here we have a war – a full-on blood and guts war with hundreds of people being blown apart every single day. But the news won’t show it and the government won’t make us pay for it so for a lot of the folks at home it’s just life as usual. A handful of citizens are shouldering the entire burden of what has been called by our commander in chief the defining struggle of our lifetime. As a result there is no cohesive anti-war movement and that is no accident. Most of the people in power today were in power when Vietnam was raging and they’ve learned how not to make those mistakes again.
The reason the 60’s stands alone as such a wondrous and fascinating time is because the 60’s ended. The powers that be crushed the dawning Age of Aquarius and the work and change that had begun was not completed. The promise of peace was broken. Ideals were sold out. It’s been 30 years since the Summer of Love – since as a culture we turned our back on war. People joined together in peace and love. So why are we still allowing wars to be fought on our watch?
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