joanie & me
A long long time ago, I talked to Joan Baez on the phone about how we were going to change the world.
I was in San Francisco pretending to be a hippie. She was at a party in New York that a high school buddy of mine was at, and he put Joan on the phone to tell me to come east and help change the world by making gritty documentary movies about all the bad things that were going on in the world.
Our conversation lasted less than fifteen seconds. I could tell she had no idea who I was or why she was talking to me. But it was still a neat moment, to be standing at the window of my apartment smoking a joint and shooting the shit with Joan Baez while across the street in the Panhandle Big Brother and the Holding Company were getting ready to sing and day-glo women twirled in lazy circles with their eyes closed. And I remember thinking how cool it was to almost be a grownup with the power to change the world, if only the world would listen to us.
As it turned out, I did end up going east -- where I sat around with my comrades getting stoned and plotting the revolution that would bring perpetual peace to the planet and food to the starving children. For reasons too numerous to go into here, my friends and I never quite got around to it. Instead of changing the world I got myself a job and a family and started thinking about how to change myself, which seemed slightly more manageable.
(And, amazingly, the world seemed to change all on its own).
I think it was Kenneth Tynan who called the 60's The Age Of Rubbish, and he probably has a point. Still, I'm glad I grew up in those times, and glad I grew out of them. But many of my friends never did... and though Joan Baez wasn't exactly a close personal friend, I grieve a little when I come across something like this about where her head is at these days.
Insert Twilight Zone music as needed.
I was in San Francisco pretending to be a hippie. She was at a party in New York that a high school buddy of mine was at, and he put Joan on the phone to tell me to come east and help change the world by making gritty documentary movies about all the bad things that were going on in the world.
Our conversation lasted less than fifteen seconds. I could tell she had no idea who I was or why she was talking to me. But it was still a neat moment, to be standing at the window of my apartment smoking a joint and shooting the shit with Joan Baez while across the street in the Panhandle Big Brother and the Holding Company were getting ready to sing and day-glo women twirled in lazy circles with their eyes closed. And I remember thinking how cool it was to almost be a grownup with the power to change the world, if only the world would listen to us.
As it turned out, I did end up going east -- where I sat around with my comrades getting stoned and plotting the revolution that would bring perpetual peace to the planet and food to the starving children. For reasons too numerous to go into here, my friends and I never quite got around to it. Instead of changing the world I got myself a job and a family and started thinking about how to change myself, which seemed slightly more manageable.
(And, amazingly, the world seemed to change all on its own).
I think it was Kenneth Tynan who called the 60's The Age Of Rubbish, and he probably has a point. Still, I'm glad I grew up in those times, and glad I grew out of them. But many of my friends never did... and though Joan Baez wasn't exactly a close personal friend, I grieve a little when I come across something like this about where her head is at these days.
Insert Twilight Zone music as needed.
posted by patrickhenry at 8:56 PM
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