I'm not starting this topic to dig at Trimac20's thread or anything, but I dunno. I think the psychedelic era was cool and all and that some of the greatest music and films ever came out of that era, but I myself would much rather have been around in the late 1950's and early-to-mid 60's. Back when everyone aspired to be classy and elegant and not like today where everything seems to be in-your-face and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXTREME!!!!!!!!!!!!! Back in the days of the Rat Pack and Camelot. Here's a few reasons why:

I wish I could buy a brand-new car with tailfins.

I wish I could wear a fedora in public and not look like a pretentious jerk.

I wish I could ride the Pioneer Zephyr or the 20th Century Limited.

I wish I lived in a time where women had grace and style like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, and not trashy and tattooed and pierced like Christina Aguilera or Jenna Jameson. I'd much rather have a "broad" than a "ho."

I wish I could walk into a bar and order a cold Falstaff on tap.

Dean Martin was the coolest man ever to walk the face of the earth. He was cooler than all four Beatles and Jim Morrison put together. He was so cool that even Elvis idolized him. I wish I could have been around when people subscribed to that school of hipness.

I wish I could go to a St. Louis Cardinals game in 1959.

I wish I could go out to Las Vegas in 1960 and see the Rat Pack live at the Sands Casino.

I wish I could go out to southern California in 1962 and see Dick Dale live.

I wish I could go to a Nebraska Cornhuskers game in 1964.

I wish I could have seen the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, just to witness firsthand the impact they had on American society. I wish I could have experienced all that when they were brand-new.

I wish I could have seen the Beatles in Hamburg in 1960, while they were still raw and greasy and wore leather jackets.

I wish there was still an Ed Sullivan show.

I wish every other nice restaurant wasn't either an Applebee's or a Chili's or an Olive Garden.

I wish there were still a lot more drive-in movie theaters around. I wish I could go to them and watch brand-new B-movies from American International Pictures.

I wish that there were still locally-owned drive-in burger joints with carhops, and that every other one of them wasn't a Sonic. (I wish I could have gone to this one drive-in restaurant back in Lincoln before they tore it down in the early 80's.)

I wish there were still local 5-and-dime stores, and not Wal-Marts.

I wish I could have snuck up behind Oswald and threw him out the window.

I wish I could have snuck up behind Oswald and threw him out the window.


...or you could go to the grassy knoll and shout "duck!"  ;D Sorry, that was probably in bad taste, but at least I can't take credit for coming up with it.

I'm not starting this topic to dig at Trimac20's thread or anything, but I dunno. I think the psychedelic era was cool and all and that some of the greatest music and films ever came out of that era, but I myself would much rather have been around in the late 1950's and early-to-mid 60's. Back when everyone aspired to be classy and elegant and not like today where everything seems to be in-your-face and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXTREME!!!!!!!!!!!!! Back in the days of the Rat Pack and Camelot. Here's a few reasons why:


Dean Martin was the coolest man ever to walk the face of the earth. He was cooler than all four Beatles and Jim Morrison put together. He was so cool that even Elvis idolized him. I wish I could have been around when people subscribed to that school of hipness.

I wish I could have seen the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, just to witness firsthand the impact they had on American society. I wish I could have experienced all that when they were brand-new.


Dean Martin was ultra cool as Matt Helm in the 60's. I remember seeing him in The Silencers and a couple other campy spy movies and he was coo, he was very funny and always got the ladies.

I was 7-8 years old when the Beatles arrived in America and even at the early age me and my brother and our friends felt the excitement and enjoyed the hysteria. It was memorable and then their albums started coming out and we enjoyed every song that came out. And shortly after they made A Hard Days Night in black & white and then Help. Both had excellent music and the Beatles were funny and clever and hip.

I'm a fan of the late 60's psychedelic era because I was going thru "The Wonder Years" of my life at the time and the music fit that pubescent time of my life. Both periods were important times in my lfe.

I wish I could have seen the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, just to witness firsthand the impact they had on American society. I wish I could have experienced all that when they were brand-new.


I was about four or five at the time but I still have a wonderful, albeit, hazy memory of seeing their appearance on Ed's show.


I wish that there were still locally-owned drive-in burger joints with carhops, and that every other one of them wasn't a Sonic. (I wish I could have gone to this one drive-in restaurant back in Lincoln before they tore it down in the early 80's.)


For anyone who ever happens to pass through Kenosha, Wisconsin, there is a drive-in on Hwy 50 called The Spot that still employs carhops who bring your food out on a tray that rests on your car window.  They have some of the best burgers in the Midwest!

The pre-psychadelic 60s are indeed all too often ignored, but while there were a few interesting political developments (peak of Civil Rights, JFK, Malcolm X., beginning of Vietnam War, Beatlmania) in other ways they are comparatively BORING. Early-60s you had checkered shirts (it was pretty much an extension of the 50s), the British Invasion, late Beat poetry, Mods (I associate the Mods with mid-60s Swinging London), etc. But there wasn't that electricity in the air the 60s head...an almost ominous, apocalyptic feel, as if people were ushering in the 'Age of Aquarius', culminating with Woodstock, Altamount, the Landing on the Moon, the Man Murders etc. Each has their own identity, but as for me I definately prefer the later part of the decade (IMHO the most exciting years of the 60s were 1967, 1968 and 1969).

The pre-psychadelic 60s are indeed all too often ignored, but while there were a few interesting political developments (peak of Civil Rights, JFK, Malcolm X., beginning of Vietnam War, Beatlmania) in other ways they are comparatively BORING. Early-60s you had checkered shirts (it was pretty much an extension of the 50s), the British Invasion, late Beat poetry, Mods (I associate the Mods with mid-60s Swinging London), etc. But there wasn't that electricity in the air the 60s head...an almost ominous, apocalyptic feel, as if people were ushering in the 'Age of Aquarius', culminating with Woodstock, Altamount, the Landing on the Moon, the Man Murders etc. Each has their own identity, but as for me I definately prefer the later part of the decade (IMHO the most exciting years of the 60s were 1967, 1968 and 1969).
I guess with me it's more about the style and elegance of the earlier part of the decade. The thing about not only the 60's, but past history in general is that it's too easy to look at it with 20/20 hindsight, and I'm guilty of that myself. It's easy for me to say, for example, that it would've been cool to be a hippie and go to Woodstock or Haight-Ashbury or something like that, and that Vietnam was a B.S. war and we all would have burned our draft cards and fled to Canada, but the reality (for me anyway) is that if I was alive in that era in the exact same place I grew up (Nebraska), and I received a draft notice in the mail, I most likely would have gone off to Vietnam because I would have felt that it was my patriotic duty as a good Midwestern boy to serve my country, and if I was lucky enough to make it back in one piece I would have had to deal with a bunch of hippie a$$holes spitting on me as soon as I stepped off the plane.
    It's easy to think that the whole counterculture thing was "groovy" and all that, but the reality was that the late 60's was a particularly ugly time in history, and if you take 1968 in particular, with the Tet Offensive and the assassinations of MLK and RFK, and all the riots and unrest that went on all around the world, I can see where someone who was alive back then could have thought the world was coming to an end.

They sound like a pretty cool period ... but they're really the Fifties.

They sound like a pretty cool period ... but they're really the Fifties.
I guess I feel the same way about that era as you feel about the 80's.  ;)

I guess I feel the same way about that era as you feel about the 80's.  ;)


Totally :)

Do you feel, being a 1970er that 1970 was actually the end of the '60s rather than the beginning of the '70s, in an abstract way?  I've always associated 1970 and even 1971 more with the hippie late '60s than the disco era.  Because I've always felt that 1990 was really the end of the eighties and that the '90s didn't really start happening until 1991 and '92.

Totally :)

Do you feel, being a 1970er that 1970 was actually the end of the '60s rather than the beginning of the '70s, in an abstract way?  I've always associated 1970 and even 1971 more with the hippie late '60s than the disco era.  Because I've always felt that 1990 was really the end of the eighties and that the '90s didn't really start happening until 1991 and '92.
**MY HEAD A SPLODE**

**MY HEAD A SPLODE**


;D

I guess with me it's more about the style and elegance of the earlier part of the decade. The thing about not only the 60's, but past history in general is that it's too easy to look at it with 20/20 hindsight, and I'm guilty of that myself. It's easy for me to say, for example, that it would've been cool to be a hippie and go to Woodstock or Haight-Ashbury or something like that, and that Vietnam was a B.S. war and we all would have burned our draft cards and fled to Canada, but the reality (for me anyway) is that if I was alive in that era in the exact same place I grew up (Nebraska), and I received a draft notice in the mail, I most likely would have gone off to Vietnam because I would have felt that it was my patriotic duty as a good Midwestern boy to serve my country, and if I was lucky enough to make it back in one piece I would have had to deal with a bunch of hippie a$$holes spitting on me as soon as I stepped off the plane.
    It's easy to think that the whole counterculture thing was "groovy" and all that, but the reality was that the late 60's was a particularly ugly time in history, and if you take 1968 in particular, with the Tet Offensive and the assassinations of MLK and RFK, and all the riots and unrest that went on all around the world, I can see where someone who was alive back then could have thought the world was coming to an end.


I think the 'ugliness' you speak of was actually part of the appeal of the late 60s. If not for Vietnam and the protest movement, ALOT of the music we associate with that era would not have happened. If they didn't sing about going to Vietnam to die, or burning draft cards, what else would they sing about? Smoking weed (well, they did do that alot as well). Turmoil is what makes a period particularly interesting...take 1920s Berlin...seemed like a hedonistic paradise, but under the surface was a dangerous undercurrent; the rise of fascism and the Nazi Party. Though the Cold War was in full swing, there was just something lacking in the early 60s that the late 60s had, and something found in no other period in history. Music and culture developed faster during the period 1965-1970 than any other in the 20th period, and society was in revolt. Sure I never lived during the period, but one can at least sense what it ws all about.

Turmoil is what makes a period particularly interesting...take 1920s Berlin...seemed like a hedonistic paradise, but under the surface was a dangerous undercurrent; the rise of fascism and the Nazi Party.
So where's all the cool music and pop culture now?  ??? ::) ;D

I guess the Iraqi War and War on Terrorism doesn't have the all-encompassing effect of the Vietnam War. There's no more national service, and people aren't getting CONSCRIPTED to fight in wars. Sure, they still protested, held rallies.etc, but it was nothing on the scale of the Vietnam War, and it didn't include all members of the community. People seemed to care alot more than (thought it didn't seem that way), and there was a definite rift between young and old (today's 'generation gap' was nothing in comparison). Youth rebellion...that was what made the music so good.

I think the pre-1964 '60s was definitely an interesting time (I've always been a little fascinated with it), and probably a nice era to live in, but not really as "happening" as the real '60s were (1964-71).

You know, I would actually go so far to say it was a "quieter" and more innocent seeming time than the bulk '50s was (i.e. 1954-57/58 or thereabouts). That was when the initial wave of teen rebellion, Elvis, malt shops/diners and all that was in full swing.

1959-62 and probably '63 as well, seemed to be a bit of a lull in the rock industry (not really any new names, and the big stars of a few years earlier -- Little Richard, Elvis, Chuck Berry, etc -- seemed to be fading out for the time being). Even though there was more political turmoil, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, overall it seemed kinda less rebellious in a "dead 50s" sense.

1959-62, no big names?

Think the Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan, Joan Baez, Cliff Richard, Peter Paul and Mary (shudder), Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye...these and many other great groups originated in the 60s originated in the 1959-1960 cusp...but their music was pretty underdeveloped at this period.