| Am I Alone in This? Bill Bottrell in the January 2001 New Settler |
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As you sang 'Chocolate Albion' on the way down, balancing your way across the already downed redwoods, were you thinking anything more than trying to keep the words straight in your mind? There where your song is being sung in this extraordinary environ, its very wellspring. BILL:That was exactly the intended place for the song to be sung. That was Woody Guthrie, or Bob Dylan in 1963, in the fields |
of Alabama. I felt great. I felt at home. But what I was thinking was about the year before when I went back to Brown University to visit my daughter. Parents Weekend at Brown University. She and I are in this together, appalled at the rampant commercialism of the world; and yet, at Brown University, these kids were just embracing it all. In the little student town there's a GAP, there's a Starbucks; and we're sitting in a cafe and I'm my usual self with her: "How can you and your friends put up with this GAP right here on this street. In my day, at least the windows would have been defaced. Having grown up with me being this way, she says: "Oh dad, give it a rest for a minute. My friends don't care about this stuff. You just don't understand: the people here don't care about that." |