Grace Slick In Atlanta
Last Saturday, December 1st, Grace Slick appeared in Atlanta; not as a singer but as a painter. She was showcasing her paintings at an Atlanta art gallery. For those of you familiar with Atlanta, the gallery was located in Phipps Plaza. Although I have never seen the gallery, I would have to assume that it is small, and I bet that every ex hippie in Atlanta mobbed the place ! I would have loved to have taken Grace’s hand and thanked her for all of the love and music that she brought into the world, but I didn’t. If I had driven up there and done that she would probably have spontaneously thrown up the instant that I uttered those words… So I missed it.
Last night I put on my Jefferson Airplane documentary DVD; the one that was authorized by the band, not the bootleg DVD. The music clips are divided up with sound bytes of the band members being interviewed today. At one point Grace talks about the band throwing baggies full of LSD tabs to the early audiences at the Fillmore. (the drug was not made illegal until 1967, I believe.) Paul Kantner talks about the unity between the band and the audiences at that venue and at other San Francisco venues. He said that they wished that they didn’t have to tour to cities where the spirit of unity had not caught on yet.
Last night, I lay in bed awake for about an hour. I was in touch with the energy of my youth, from having watched that documentary. The energy was of an exciting, rebellious nature. I was fortunate enough in my twenties to take part in the punk rock rebellion against the hippie movement. Just because I rebelled against the movement doesn’t mean that I hated it. After about four years, I rebelled against the punk / new wave movement as well.
With sweet rebellion,
I.C.