Say, were YOU There?

Rating: 8/10 (28 October 2007)

Say, were you there? were you born in the fifties? did you go to Vietnam, see Yellow Submarine on the Big Screen? Do you remember your first hit of acid/ your first maryjane rush to the tunes on Revolver or even performing with your theater cast party the entire SGT Peppers album? Why even try to comment on something you know nothing about? Did you listen to the White Album in the fall of 1968 on a dorm turntable set to 'endless replay'? memorize the Lyrics to "Glass Onion"? well, I suppose everyone is entitled to an opinion. i was afraid to see this with anyone else, for fear my reactions would embarrass them.. yes, i was in NYC in the summer of 1970, still mourning the breakup, visiting a friend and fellow fan who would be dead of AIDS less than 20 years later; too, I was in Boulder, CO that fateful summer, and Berkely, CA - saying goodbye and farewell as I prepared my heart for the united States Army. See, we all went to "Let It be" and we all went out on the barricades on campus and we mourned the deaths at Kent and Jackson State, as we had the deaths of MLK and RFK the year we graduated... It is so easy for me to fall into this movie. I had never seen ms Wood in a film, and she so reminds me of old girlfriends! I dropped out of college, wasted an academic, Big ten scholarship and in an existential rage went to Vietnam as an infantryman. Good dope and live ammo. 1971 was a nightmare. I survived horrors beyond imagining only by the grace of god Almighty - whom i could have cared less about in 1968..... so see this as homage, as eulogy, as tribute to an era long gone and blessedly dead, but bear with us dinosaurs and sixties survivors who need the catharsis still, the weeping that endures for a couple of harmless hours... could I take my wife, kids, grandkids to see this? the movie PLATOON? not either of them - not hardly. but for those of you born after 1958, my heart's desire is that you honor the memories of your older siblings, parents, relatives and friends, and cut us the slack we so dearly need.