Miles Mendenhall and woodstock
My friend Paul has this idea for a party: Everyone gets naked and then a person walks around with a tray of drinks that all have rufies in them except for one. Everyone drinks, everyone passes out except for that one person and he or she gets to have whatever experience they want with whomever they want in a room filled with unconscious naked people. I told him it would never fly and although kind of funny, a good majority of people would probably get offended just via the invitation. “Loosen up, man, it’s about facilitating an experience for one person,” he told me. I don’t think I found any merit in his counter-argument until I read Walley’s Blame it on the Sixties article. I think he summed up the use of drugs at that time the best by saying that it was “…one way to build an experience.” Maybe it’s how he phrased it without limitations, using one way instead of the way but I think it really placed the intent around Woodstock within something more innocent then a “party mentality.” The documentary showed a variety of activities and viewpoints within the attendees and those affected by Woodstock but I found the overall message of experimentation much more interesting. You have this generation who grows up under the rule of a much more strict older generation and they reacted to that authoritarian by not being complacent with one type of experiencing the world. They made mistakes, inevitably, but it seemed like that was part of it, and the documentary portrayed Woodstock as it should have been portrayed: As a organized mess of people trying to figure their world out for themselves.