The photo on the right was taken in the 80's. It includes the Beat revival trio known as the Washington Squares and a fellow by the name of Abbie Hoffman.I post this because I'm a fan of the Squares for a long time. Though folky/acoustic/retro in all aspects (they like to sing old union songs... or did) they also opened for people like Joan Jett and the Ramones back in those days. And I just downloaded one of my favorite tunes of theirs from their rather small book, and I was just browsing into their past a little and up comes a picture of them and Abbie.
Which reminded me of the very very first blogger meet-up I ever in my life attended here in Chicago wherein I happened to mention Abbie Hoffman and drew blank stares from absolutely everyone at the round table. Nobody knew who he was - or had been. And nobody knew what I was talking about when I tried to explain.
Which sticks in my mind (and in my craw) unto this day not because of anyone's ignorance (they all had their priorities straight, after all) but because I realized at that moment that there were aspects of my past that folks just... hey... not interested in. As in what's the big deal? And they'd probably be right.
So I'm home this week just cruisin' for burgers like Farco Barnes and doing my chores and getting stuff in order for the big time change (I'll be working overnight starting next week) and doing a lot of writing too and this struck me as something to say. Notice no links to Abbie's story. It's out there if you want to know. If not, no worries. Oh and I'm not making any $ from the link to the mp3. It's listed because the Squares have one of the weakest internet presences of any nationally distributed groups I ever saw. Blink and you miss 'em.
Okay now I'm going to wait for the city water dept. to come by and try to figure out why they're not getting a water meter signal back at their HQ. Psst - we stopped our house phone line Jan. 1 and went 100% to cell phones, that's why. I'm sure this has happened to your dept. before, dude. I'm sure this isn't the first time you've seen it.
All for now.
6 comments:
I've heard of both the Washington Squares and Abbie Hoffman. Even saw the Squares play in the late 80's somewheres. And Hoffman was one of them damn yuppies, right? ;)
Exactly.
Man, we missed all the really good music out in California. Just listened to the Squares on YouTube and I LOVE them!
I'm perplexed how anyone living in Chicago could be ignorant of who Abbie Hoffman was.
At least we knew about him on the west coast.
Abbie Hoffman was the guy who invented LSD, duh...
there's a new documentary about abbie hoffman. i only know about it because i ran into roz payne at the post office.
her days with him kind of predate my awareness of her, so it's weird when i'm watching documentaries and stuff on TV and i'm all like, hey, isn't that roz payne?
fer real. one day i was wathcing this national geographic or something abotu hippie communes and there was this familiar looking woman against a familiar looking backdrop talking about coming to town for the commune and then just staying after the rest of the hippies left.
and i was all, like, hey. isn't that bridge street? and that looks a lot like roz payne...
wow... there's a name I hadn't heard in some time. Wizardress with a camera eye.
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