It was 20 years ago today...(if you need a break)
Tue Apr 22, 2008 at 06:22:08 AM PDT
This primary season has been relentless, and in many ways frustrating. We've seen some hopeful signs, some shattering betrayals, and it's hard to keep it all in perspective. But taking a step back and regaining our composure is essential, so I present this diary.
20 years ago, April 22nd 1988, was when I attended my first Grateful Dead concert. I was only 18 years old, in my first year at UC Santa Barbara. As you might guess, the political scene was every bit as ugly then as it is right now, and this was a much needed break... (more on the other side)
Before I go any further, why don't you open up a new tab and tune into that day's music, courtesy of archive.org:
I spent my adolescence surviving the Reagan years. I watched while Reagan funded the contras (we never even guessed it was by selling arms to Iran, much less freighters of cocaine), I watched while Reagan ignored AIDS, and people started dying of it, even in the small town where I lived. I had nightmares of Nuclear annihilation. I despaired as he was re-elected, and vowed never to bring a child into such an unfair world.
But in 1988, I figured things were looking up. I felt we would be recovering from our long national nightmare. I saw Jesse Jackson speak, I saw a field of candidates, and any of them seemed like a welcome alternative to more Reaganomics and arms-race insanity. In fact, 1988 felt a lot like right now. Except that in April, nobody had heard of Willie Horton or the "Revolving Door".
That day, April 22nd, was different kind of day, however. That was a day off. I drove down to Irvine with new friends, all of us 18 or 19, many of going to our first dead show. I knew that there would be tens of thousands of people, but I didn't understand yet what it would feel like to be heading in to a party that had been going in for over 20 years. Somewhere in that time, what started as a party, (and still looked like one) became people's lives. There is a significance to longevity, especially in the ephemeral world of rock and roll.
I felt more than ever before a connection to a living historical movement. Many of these people, I mean these exact people, had been there for the upheavals of the 1960s, and in many ways the Dead still reflected a response to the insanity of any particular time: that you can make your own reality, even as a group, even as a huge movement. You might change the world around you a little bit, but you can also build a parallel world. I saw an alternate social structure there, where people created their own economy, and adopted an improvisational approach that went beyond experimental music, well into all areas of living. The way the band toured allowed people to be immersed in that separate economy for months at a time, creating and living in a history that was as far as they could make it from the mundane and mean Reagan-era America.
Anyway, back to that day, I was up on a giant green lawn. The blue angels buzzed the parking lot (they practiced across the street), eliciting some "oohs" and some "boos". 
, Just floating on the scene; I was thinking about how this was basically the same thing people had been doing in places like this for centuries, waiting for their favorite entertainers. The sense of history just deepened.
Then the show started, and you can hear for yourself pretty much what I heard. I had never danced with that many people, had never had such a simple shared ecstatic experience. You could say I got hooked right then and there, but there's a lesson in there.
Today's election in PA is just one chapter in a long story. Every now and then there's a chance to make a difference, we all are stronger when we band together, and tomorrow we will keep on going, and the days and months to come we will still keep on going, and we will keep the hope alive. And left that seem like a long sad story with no bright points, we need to take the time to build a little bubble, just for pleasure's sake, just to revel in the sense of being alive, and share that joy for a while with as many people as happen to be there, in that bubble.
Thanks for the memories, I hope you're still enjoying the ride.
4/22/1988, Friday, Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, Irvine , CA
Set: 1
- Half Step >
- Stranger >
- Franklin's
- Minglewood
- Candyman
- Queen Jane
- Push
- Let It Grow
Set: 2
- China Cat >
- I Know You Rider
- Louie Louie
- Estimated >
- He's Gone >
- Drumz >
- Wheel >
- Gimme Some Lovin >
- Watchtower >
- Sugar Magnolia
- Black Muddy River (Encore)
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