MovieChat Forums > Woodstock (1970) Discussion > would you want to be alive in the '60s?

would you want to be alive in the '60s?


every time i watch something like this i envy the people there. wish i could have been around in the 60s and 70s.

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I grew up in that time. I went to college a couple days after Woodstock. The times are just like now. You don't realize what's happening around you, but can see it from the perspective of times past. It wasn't all peace and love, believe me. Most people didn't even know Woodstock was even happening. The hippie era was just as stupid as the hip-hop culture is today.

Billy the Kid

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I think I could've put up with the hippie era a lot easier than this hip-hop crap.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

maybe that just depends on where you grew up. according to my parents (who are from 2 different worlds which lead to their divorce), that was THE time to grow up. both of them speak of woodstock as this big deal and just generally how the overall attitude was so much different.

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It was the best time to be young in history. Except for the Viet Nam War of course. I knew about Woodstock and tried to get my friends to go (we lived in the Midwest) but they thought it would be too much of a hassle.....as I have said it was great to grow up then because we all had so many shared experiences....the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Walter Cronkite, Kennedy's assasination, MLK's assasination, we were all like one big family who had gone through the good times and bad times together. Now the kids have experiences in too many different ways, internet, Facebook, Satellite radio, it goes on and on....one of my friends used to say "These are the good old days" in the 60's and he was right!

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[deleted]

Oh I totally disagree with you. I was at Woodstock and went all the way there from Dallas Texas. Everyone knew of Woodstock. Not sure what rock you were living under or what your family life was like. Maybe you werent allowed to watch tv or listen to the radio but Woodstock was around everywhere. I just want people to know that and your perspective of that is all wrong and apparently you were living in some town like Footloose.

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Gee, Barber. Can't anyone else have a memory? No, not "everyone knew of Woodstock". I said I didn't, and I'm certainly part of "everyone". I didn't grow up under a rock. Just a normal life in Trenton, NJ; a two-hour ride from Bethel. And my perspective is not wrong you nitwit. It's my perspective and it's absolutely correct.

Billy the Kid

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Gee, Barber. Can't anyone else have a memory? No, not "everyone knew of Woodstock". I said I didn't, and I'm certainly part of "everyone". I didn't grow up under a rock. Just a normal life in Trenton, NJ; a two-hour ride from Bethel. And my perspective is not wrong you nitwit. It's my perspective and it's absolutely correct.


Agreed bmodica. I was 16, at the time, and I didn't hear of Woodstock until I saw reports about it on the evening news. My Woodstock memory is my dad pounding the table at dinnertime and going on about "those long-hair, drug using Communists up in New York."

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6 years late in responding. However, I was a little upset by your remark. In as much as how could you compare the hippy movement with hip hop? They're so utterly different. The latter glorifies violence, guns, sex(not love) and is completely nihilistic. The former produced some of the greatest talents ever. And promoted sharing, caring and a love of nature. PK, there were some idiots in the hippy movement and some bad people. All sorts of people came to infect the original ideal, which was 'Peace'.

Watch Santana on YouTube, live at Woodstock, or Richie Havens. Or Country Joe McDonnald, Hendrix, The Who etc etc. There's some great musicianship going on there. 500,000 people descended on a bit of rural land, and had virtually no sanitation, food or water, and yet this city of people had no fighting, no pushing and shoving and no violence. Go to any gathering today under such circumstances and there would be big problems.

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500,000 people descended on a bit of rural land, and had virtually no sanitation, food or water, and yet this city of people had no fighting, no pushing and shoving and no violence. Go to any gathering today under such circumstances and there would be big problems.


From what I understand/what I've heard, things weren't all hunky-dory at the original 1969 Woodstock Festival. There were problems, there was a fair amount of violence, a lot of bad drug trips, and several people died at that Woodstock festival:

A) One kid was run over by a tractor-trailer while sleeping in his sleeping bag, in order to get out of the rain

B) One kid died due to falling off of a scaffold.

C) One man died of a heroin overdose.

D) Another kid died from a ruptured appendix.


When Woodstock was made into a movie, all of the violence, bad trips, and the deaths were delilberately cut out, in order to make it look as if the 1969 Woodstock festival was all peace, love and kindness despite the lack of food, sanitation and water. The media, all too often, sensationalizes things, and Woodstock, from what I understand and from what I've heard, was no exception.

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I, too grew up during that time. I was a teenager during the 1960's, and while I agree that it was kind of a nice time to be a teenager, and that the 1960's were very exuberant times, there was a lot of bad stuff that happened, as well. There was also quite a bit of meanness and dishonesty, and, as you put it, not all peace and love, either. I liked much of the music and a lot of the movies of that day, however.

I also might add that cars that were made back then weren't nearly as safe as they are nowadays. I'm glad they're now making better, safer cars.

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Oh yes! I love the '60s... It would be perfect to be alive in that time.

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[deleted]

Id LOVE to have gone to Woodstock and would also love to spend a week in 1967, 1968 and 1969...But if I could choose only one era to be alive in and experience as a much older person than I was at the time, it would have to be the time between 1975 and 1980 (inclusive of these years). I was three in 1975, but do have some memories, and also remember from 1976 onwards.

If I could only go to one concert, it would be Woodstock.













hjl









Star Wars Episode IV.V: The Holiday Special.

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People always forget about the casualties of the sixties, and there were a lot.

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I was born in 1949 so my formative years occurred in the 60s. It was an exciting time. I have fond memories of that time period and watching Woodstock brings back a flood of great memories.

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Heckle, one of the misconceptions about Woodstock is that it was full of big names. Not really so. Most of the bands were virtually unknown, at least on a national scale. Big names, such as Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Jefferson Airplane; Sly and the Family Stone; were just coming up, or were only known at the local level (such as Jeff Airplane in the San Francisco scene). Jimmy Hendricks was the biggest name, which is why he was on last. Yet Hendricks got a bigger following after he died.

Billy the Kid

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Jimmy Hendricks was the biggest name, which is why he was on last. Yet Hendricks got a bigger following after he died. - bmodica

And also after he changed the spelling of his name to Jimi Hendrix.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." - Refugee in Casablanca

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Fleance, what do you mean by "an un-winnable war"? Both VietNam as well as today's fight are, and were, winnable. In fact, most of what you think you know about VietNam is probably untrue, or only partially true. VietNam was undeniably winnable. US forces won every single battle; every one. What we now view as failures, e.g. Tet Offensive, were huge US victories. But then, just like now, our press labled them failures. Walter Cronkite, the old Communist goat, even said, "this war is unwinnable". Baloney. Up to that time, the US populace was virtually completely behind our efforts to stop Communism. But the daily, never-ending, browbeating by the media, as well as efforts by the Democrat Party to destroy our overseas efforts, put an end to the war. The result? Millions, yes millions of people died at the hands of the Communists. I lived in that era, and have the perfect 20:20 hindsight. Just like now, we get one-sided reporting by our press. Did you know that the Old Gray Lady, the New York Times, even reported negatively throughout WW II? Hmmm..sound familiar?

Billy the Kid

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[deleted]

It was not only unwinnable, but we didn't deserve to win. We should never have been there in the first place.

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I agree. And did you know how most of the money to fund that so called war came from? The US drug running opium. Yes and sold it to northern Vietnam at that, the enemy. It really never was a declared war either. It was not a winnable war simply because the Northern Vietnamese knew that country well and how to borrow deep under ground and had patience. We didnt win that so called war and never could have. It just stopped and that was that. I lost so many people I knew and even was a volunteer at the VA Hospital in Dallas Texas and use to help with bingo and feed the guys that came back paralyzed and hold there cup to there mouths. I saw so many men so damaged I know they never recovered physically and mentally. I some what disagreed with the Iraq war only because it was a lie that opened up the door. Dont you know thats what the US government does all the time is lies to get there way. Nothing ever changes.

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Oh, and by the way, Barber, I doubt you're in your 60s as you would have to be to have worked in a VA hospital. Your spelling, grammar, and the way you put words together strongly suggest you are a teenager. "Borrow", "under ground", "there mouths" are just three examples of someone educated by today's public school system, and doesn't know or care how to put spelling and words together to make a cogent sentence. Furthermore, "I lost so many people...". Baloney. I am absolutely of that age (61) and I don't know one single person who was killed. Not one. I know maybe only a half-dozen guys who even went. So, show me your profile to shut me up.

Billy the Kid

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Well -- that's one way to look at it !

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Yes!

I'm the King, y'all know that. She the Queen, came right back.

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[deleted]

Well "technically" I was :) being born in 1963.....but I always say I'm so jealous of my aunt who was born in 1950! She was/is still a free spirit who was involved in all of this and had a great time, what stories she has!

On a side note.....her sheepdog Melody has a brief cameo in the park scene in the movie Hair :)

"everyday above ground is a good one"~SFU

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Charles Dickens said it best in "A Tale of Two Cities": It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was definitely an exciting time. The ideals of hippie were good, the reality grungy at times. Don't forget that the Manson murders happened at the same time as Woodstock, so there was both a light and dark side to the thing. I was fortunate to be on the light side, hung out with the "peace and love" group and frankly had a wonderful time in the 60s.

There was a lot of heavy things happening then too that can't ever be forgotten. The war was #1, civil rights, black power, the Kennedy-King assassinations and bad racial riots, plus the whole bad scene in Chicago all happening in '68.

I guess in retrospect the best thing about it was a feeling of hopefulness, like people could change the world. I know that if I could time travel, that's where I'd be heading back to.



**********
Dark Knight.. yes it's great; I can't wait for the sequel "Dark and Stormy Knight."

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Equating Woodstock with Manson is like equating the Johnstown Flood with the leak below your sink.
They're not the same thing.

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I am the only person I know of the hippie generation who has remained true to the original legitimate aims of that generation.

all the rest my age have sold out to materialism and self indulgence.

so, climb into the time machine for a peek:

we popularized pot, self expression, long hair and the anti-war movement.

my big thing was the long hair. I didn't have enough coin to buy a lot of drugs and anyway, and I never found a dealer I could trust to provide unadulterated stuff.

I therefore, came out of that era with a clean conscience and a clear head. some did not deserve to.

a lot of what I saw was repeated time and again after: the hunks get to boink all the cute chicks, the man with the money calls the shots, and alcohol makes a LOT of people very aggressive. it just makes me laugh at everything, thus irritating the ones that get belligerent.

there was a lot of media hype around hippiedom. farcical hollywood flics like 'the party' and also 'bob carol ted alice' exploring new sexual mores.

the bottom line is, if you had some means of independence, you were in the golden age of north american prosperity. lots of public and private resources and lots of stuff paid for already, so lots of opportunity to 'do your own thing'.

I have the advantage of a library of facts, trivia, information and history so I was able to piece it all together. what did it all mean?

basically a chance for that generation to cultivate a solid footing towards a better world, squandered by the distraction of acid, pot, meth, mescaline, more pot, balling the hot chicks, and then along came the weathermen, a domestic terrorist group and the infamous manson murders that marked the end of the dream.

it was the time when both RFK and Martin Luther King each stopped a bullet.

there were also a LOT of 'weekend' hippies. put the garb on, wander downtown, then monday morning back at school like good little boys and girls trying not to upset mumsy and daddy so they dont get their allowance held back.

today in 2008, I still detest violence and aggression, but have long since learned that I have to use it against those who try it on me. and I detest them even more for forcing me to resort to something I so abhor. but it is a violent selfish world we live in, all you can do is to avoid situations that put you in reach of it and be kind and caring and generous to those you love.

I dont own a car, I dont engage in criminality, I dont go to church (way too many hypocrites there), and iraq 2.0 has the potential of setting the stage for horrific outcome in the middle east. and no, I'm not a cummmmmuniiiiiist either. but I still have long hair even if it is all grey.



"google it if you dont think so ...."

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Hi there

And a special hello to you couple of people who were *there* in the 60s. It must have been awesome

Im 34 and live here in the UK. Ive always had a slight fascination with the 60s , and esp. American 60s

Id have loved to have experienced that whole late 60s hippy thing !

Peace

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" No Ace. Just You "

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widescreenguy - thanks for sharing

for all the drugs, friends and girlfriends i've done i may as well have been there, but *beep* it - you are were you are, re-incarnation aside.

it's always been the same - eras go, you see them when they've gone, but know it's the same now as it ever was - we just see our outer shells changing.

in for the ride . . . *

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HELL yes...born 5 years too late. I've heard an endless stream of stories of how it was back then, I definitely feel a connection with that time. I believe time travel is quite possible, so when I actually go back to the 50's-60's I'll really be focusing on a fulfilling experience.

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As much as I wish I could of lived during the days of the hippies and the Summer of Love, it didn't last that long. There was a lot of turmoil & the war etc. I don't want to see all that. I like being a loner modern "hippie", I guess.

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