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it all, on his game with an irrepressible downbeat on a funky lyric for the ages. Sly Stone nev-
er shared billing with John Denver, who stood on a stage in a mop-top to yell, “Far out!”
Sly Stone felt connected to the central nervous system while John Denver probed and Tom
Brokaw watched. Everything was everything, but how could such disparate parts cohere? Ah,
yes: and the doobie's red glare, the thoughts bursting in air, gave goofs through the night, and
we needed more beer. Paradox prevailed in chaotic times.
Tom Brokaw seemed outside the action, yet Dick Nixon was in it. Tom Brokaw wore a tur-
tleneck as seen on Bobby Kennedy in a radical fashion statement, indicating Brokaw's willing-
ness to dabble in daring—adding bell-bottoms didn't mean shit, because department stores
overflowed with 60s ornamentation once marijuana hit the suburbs; once TV was rife with
reefer wry humor and everybody wanted to be hip. Pat Boone doused
Tutti Frutti
with corn
syrup, turning Little Richard's original classic from funk and soul to shit with sugar on top.
Self-respecting white kids knew little Richard and resented the theft. Dick Nixon loved Pat
Boone and lunched alone on cottage cheese and ketchup, transcending the munchies with
perversion.
Riptides made for differences and cultural rift both general and personal, delineating
sides. Tom Brokaw hit the park in timely style, reflecting awareness or hip taste. At another
park down the street or cross-town, others gathered in ragtag consensus, smoking joints,
commiserating on strategy and taking solace in the music, wondering along with one lyric or
another where America as a concept had gone to, asking if it still cared for its sons and daugh-
ters, asking if it could sense the monster. Or had the monster already prevailed?
he Monster
voiced the harsh sentiment and growing divide. No candidate could easily
embrace a lyric that questions the continuing legitimacy of the government, and the cultural
rift still festers. Now down to septic level and festering worse than a faulty drain field, the
two-party system is stymied. Problems persist through power grabs and shit slinging until one
party fails. Self-righteous buttholes still spew dogma that you will accept or be damned. Chris-
tian standards will determine family values or you will be deemed subversive and damned
again. They did it in the 60s—and the 50s too.
The good news is that no other culture in history was ever more ready to self-efface, to
find truth in humor than in the U.S.A.
he Monster
touched a nerve for poignancy. Creedence
Clearwater Revival touched a different nerve on a rockabilly downbeat for equal effect by pok-
ing fun at the culprits.
Who was the silver-spooned draft dodger that inspired
Fortunate Son
? Just look: two
ranking political families with draft age sons qualified, both sons fortunate, silver-spooned,
as it were. Both sons would in time be candidates for the Presidency of the United States of
America. Both would dodge military service in Vietnam by sleight-of-hand maneuvers, with
Daddy on the phone for some well-placed calls to gatekeepers with needs of their own.
