Taking Woodstock

If Ang Lee wants to make a doe-eyed tribute to the transformative power of good vibrations, I guess he has the right. But me, I need to watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas right away, to get out the patchouli stink.

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously — all those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped create; a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the acid culture: the desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

— Raoul Duke