Tag Archives: Woodstock

Costume

Costume: (n) a style of dress, including accessories and hairdos, especially that peculiar to a nation, region, group, or historical period.

If all the world is a play and all of us humans are actors on the stage, who’s in charge of the costuming?funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Are we all wearing costumes continually?

I came to write my blogs today. I’m wearing a pair of underwear, slippers and a golf shirt. It is what I refer to as my “blog costume.” Once adorned in this particular frock and frill, I am fully aware that I should not take myself terribly seriously. I should relax, be as realistic as possible, and certainly never lie.

Yet I’m not comfortable wearing this to the grocery store or even family functions. For them I require another costume.

Since I’m getting older, which began shortly after my birth, I want to dress for the grocery store with a certain contemporary appearance that lets people know that I’m not stuck in a decade which is tucked away in the history books. Of course, there’s a danger of dressing too young for myself, and looking like a wannabe millennial instead of an aging “Woodstocker.”

Then there are family gatherings. I realize they want me to play the function of “dad and grandpa.” What costume does one don for such an occasion? It has to be friendly, generous and have a certain amount of gravitas, so if one of the children is in need of counsel, the duds will match the words.

Are we all wearing costumes?

Can you really be a rock band if all you wear is blue jeans and t-shirts? Isn’t there a danger that it looks like you’re playing one set at the club and heading off to do a shift at the warehouse?

I guess we need to look the part.

To do that—to play our part—even to remain in character at times—we require costumes.

We know this is true, because when someone is out of costume, the reporters show up to do a story. When President Obama wore something other than a dark suit, for the next two days it was the conversation on the 24-hour news cycle.

“What was he doing wearing a light-colored suit? Are we a banana republic? What’s next? Flip-flops?”

I guess Bill Shakespeare was right—the world is a stage. Unfortunately, we spend much more time worrying about our make-up and our costumes than we do learning our lines.


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Chopper

Chopper: (n) a helicopter.

Knowing that my brain, like most human brains, has selective memory, and that triggers installed for certain sounds, words, or even smells, I can tell you of a truth that the word “chopper”–and the vision of one–for me conjures memories of Vietnam.

I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because I came of age during the height of the conflict, came upon my eighteenth birthday and was eligible for the draft. Helicopters were prevalent in the nightly news, and made me think about that horrible war.

Today I call it horrible. When I was a teenager, I lived in a community that actually had its own chapter of the John Birch Society, and the violence in Southeast Asia was extolled as patriotic–our best avenue for stopping the spread of Communism.

So for me, it’s a chain of mental commands:

Chopper makes me think about Vietnam.

Vietnam makes me think about the protests.

The protests make me think about rock and roll.

Rock and roll conjures images of Woodstock.

Woodstock reminds me that I was living in a provincial village and was too frightened to go to the festival.

And being too frightened to go–as a young man, I was also always arguing with my family over a half-inch of hair over my ears, trying to rebel by listening to The Monkees.

I was no hero.

But as history moves forward, we realize that unfortunately there were no heroes during that era.

The government was corrupt, the hippies were imbalanced, the Vietnamese were crazed, violent and suicidal, the draft dodgers were relegated to the status of cowards as they drove their Volkswagen vans to Canada, and the soldiers who did go to war bled in a jungle that no one even cares one bamboo shoot about today.

So I guess when I see the word “chopper,” I think of lost causes, and I am alerted to spy them–and call them out before they generate guilt, graft … and graves.

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Cherokee

Cherokee: (n) American Indian people of the southeastern US

Some things are just embarrassing.

When you realize how embarrassing they are, you can either pretend you did not believe them–or you can own up to the fact that your
ignorance has shown up drunk to dance at the party.

When I got the information today that I was going to be writing an essay on “Cherokee,” I scanned my brain for thoughts I had about this noble tribe other than the bizarre portrayal provided through the American Western.

After a few moments, the only thing that came to my mind was Paul Revere and the Raiders. You may or not remember this rock and roll band, which squeezed its way into the late 1960s and early 1970s with a few hits.

Their only Number 1 hit was called “Cherokee People.” The lyrics were so bold, brazen and audaciously rebellious that I, of course, loved the song, viewing myself to be of some sort of hostile tribe also. (That tribe would have been “TeenAger.”)

         Cherokee people

         Cherokee tribe

         So proud to live

         So proud to die

And of course, I remember the last line of the song, which was:

        And maybe someday when we learn

        Cherokee people will return

The song was then interrupted with an elongated organ solo, closing out with a loud rock and roll chord.

Every time I listened to that song, I did a little fist pumping. For a brief moment I was a Cherokee, even though I did not know what that meant and I knew absolutely nothing about the customs. Music, sentiment, defiance and freedom drove me nearly wild with enthusiasm.

So I must apologize to the Cherokee people–but I was not going to quickly research them on Wikipedia so as to appear knowledgeable.

I will thank Paul Revere and the Raiders for bringing the plight of the Cherokee Nation to the attention of a very white Midwestern boy.

 

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Cherish

Cherish: (v) to hold someone dear.

Those who did not live through the 1960s and early 1970s hold the abiding belief that the music of the time was loud, raucous, revolutionary and incorrigible.

Matter of fact, these non-Woodstock individuals would contend that Jimmie Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who were the primary thrust on
 the music scene.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you want to hear the music of the 60s typified by the mingling of innocence and emerging rage over the Vietnam War, you should probably sit down and listen to The Monkees and The Association.

Girls and boys were still falling in love. (We pretended it was a baseball game–where the goal was to get a hit and make at least second base if not a home run.)

There was a strange mingling of naiveté and blistering honesty that permeated the times.

But on many a quiet Saturday afternoon, as a teenage boy going dateless one more weekend, I laid back on my bed and listened to The Association sing “Cherish.”

I pined.

I cried.

I yearned.

I masturbated.

Usually in that order.

I wanted someone to cherish. More accurately, I wanted someone to cherish me.

Because:

“Cherish is a word I use to describe

All the feelings that I have, hiding here for you inside…”

Beautiful songs like “Cherish,” and also “Never My Love” by the same group, prepared me to be a soft, sensitive male instead of brash and demanding.

So today I want to thank the gentlemen from The Association for carrying me through a difficult time, until I could cherish and be cherished.

 

 

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