Jake, circa 1982

You need only perform a glancing investigation into art, history and politics of the 1965-1975 in North America to find something glaring you directly in the face. It’s something that fails to exist today - it whimpered out and died long ago.

What was it? I can’t describe it - radical social conscience?

Still don’t know what I mean? Fire up some Joan Baez or early CCR. Janis Joplin. You’ll hear it.

People as a whole were gaining strength, getting a voice - they were able to say ‘this is wrong’ and have the rest of the world listen.

Let’s not let the images of drugs and sexual freedom of the 60’s disguise the facts. Something was there.

I’m not sure what it was. The Doc described it as best he could;

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning…

And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

We’re regressing. There was a point where it appeared that the momentum would carry us into a new age. It didn’t.

I suppose we could blame it all on the black star, or the falling sky.

Regardless the reason, what will it take for us to gain that momentum again?

I’ll start thinking and let you know.