> I have been increasingly bothered by the number of inquiries to the list
> by students all of whom seem to want to talk about the drugs we all
> took. The image students are getting is worrisome. I thought I was the
> only person getting irritated at the overwhelming focus on drugs that
> appear in the requests we have seen here. The fact that our serious
> struggles are not what's getting the focus is terrible. . . .
And reminded me of Hunter S. Thompson's visit to Tulane some time back.
McAlister Auditorium was packed to the gills and of course HST was late.
But I've never seen such a mellow and patient crowd--all of course stoned
and grooving. Only after a couple hours when the buzz began to wear off did
they become restless. Unstoned and impatient, I left. Word later was that
when HST finally showed (bottle of Jack Daniels in hand) and wanted to talk
about politics not drugs and alchohol, the audience grew rowdy and HST fussed
at them for being airheads.
Which leads me to a more recent encounter with the nouveau counter-culture:
the Phish gig at the Jazz Fest last week. How could I pass this up: 1)
Phish is great and 2) my son who's off at school would miss it and I'd be one
up on him. So I went and they were good but the Phish-heads were truly
disturbing. And then I was disturbed that I was so disturbed. But, oh how
the mighty have fallen. You just don't want to see this caracture of our
sixties selves: humorless, vapid, scuzzy. Two bad acid trips in progress
within yards of one another (when's the last time you had the thought, "must
be some bad acid going round"?). When the Jazz Fest staff came to throw
Phish-heads off the scaffolding near where I stood, and the Phish-heads
started chanting, "Pig, Pig," all I could think was, "Heh, get a war, man,
get a war. . . ."
But today it's Trout Fishing in America and perhaps there is hope.
BTW, you're all fools not to be here for Jazz Fest, Phish-heads to the
contrary notwithstanding.
Randy Fertel
Tulane University
Rfertel@aol.com