Nah, Moonchild. It wasn't all for nothing. It was a wonderful time, and it continues to be -- just doesn't fit our pictures of how it was supposed to look. I think the Internet, and lovely folk like Max, are actually the hope of some sort of fruition of many of those dreams and visions.

It was also an awful time. I've thought of writing my memoirs from those years and calling it "Everything You Know is Wrong," because much of that time was like that for me. The values my parents so carefully inculcated me with were passe, much of the new set of values we were experimenting with didn't really work for me, and I often didn't have a clue what was right to do or even to want. And so much of it seemed to turn to shit before our very eyes.

But life is always like that. It's never clear-cut, never all one way. It's always a process of sorting out, winnowing, stumbling. We lurch toward Paradise, we never ride the bullet train. But we do keep moving ahead, poco a poco. And this gathering is at least some evidence that something lasting happened/is happening. Here we are, and this is outrageous. Unimaginable, and absolutely in its infancy.

Here's my credo, born in my Jimi-days and held in my heart: I stand for a bullshit-free world, where human beings treat each other with honesty and respect, where each of us dances according to the music that sings to us and shares what's in our hearts to share, and where we give thanks ceaselessly for the profound joy and delight of getting to be a human being.

Who stands with me?

I am Spartacus...

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