80s Terrorism

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Beyond #2

Helter skelter in a summer swelter.
The byrds flew off with a fallout shelter,
Eight miles high and falling fast.
It landed foul on the grass.
The players tried for a forward pass,
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast.

Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune.
We all got up to dance,
Oh, but we never got the chance!
`cause the players tried to take the field;
The marching band refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?


Helter Skelter was the song that inspired Charles Manson and his followers to commit the Tate-LaBianca murders, and summer swelter could be a reference to the summer of love or the long hot summer.

The Byrd's song Eight Miles High was banned for drug oriented lyrics, and one of them was arrested for Marijuana charges.

The last two lines in this verse could be refering to musicians trying to get into the spotlight while Bob Dylan was recuperating from his motorcycle accident.

In the halftime of the decade drugs were seemingly everywhere.

The Beatles new album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" changed rock 'n roll forever through the use of synthetic sounds, album theme, and hidden meanings.

The youth of America never had the chance to dance because the Beatles changed rock 'n roll from dance music to longer slower songs.

The players trying to take the field were all of the other musicians of the time period but the Beatles (the marching band) were just too big to compete with

What was revealed is supposedly a reference to people's growing awareness of the hidden meanings and drug references in popular music

Beyond #3

In this picture we see a napalm bomb exploding in the forest while soldiers walk away, some look back, some don't need to. The exhausted men walk away from the fight many of them have lost close friends and many have taken lives for reasons no one will tell them. The soldier in the foreground bottom right walks away from his latest nightmare with his head hanging down while another trudges through the grass towards him. The men near the bushes look up in awe at the fiery cloud as it rises towards the sky. The battle may be over but the soldiers work goes on and on, and so they march on, to their next hidden objective.

Rushmore Honors

If I had to pick four people to add to my own personal Mount Rushmore, the first would have to be Ruby Bridges. A person that faced so much adversity and hate at such a young age deserves to be honored. They tried to yell at her to leave, throw things at her, attack her, and even poison her, but little Ruby Bridges still stood tall.

The second person I would pick for my Rushmore would be James Dean. A young boy who helped break the illusion of a perfect family shown on TV. In the 50s many families who sat down together to watch their favorite shows, like leave it to beaver or I love Lucy, saw the loving caring and almost flawless families and saw it as normal, and James Dean and the rest of the rebels group helped to break that unreachable standard.

For the third person I choose Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier of professional baseball. Jackie lived in a world where black players weren't allowed to play on the same players, due to the racism of the common man. Jakie Robinson helped to desegregate all professional sports and should be honored for it.

For the final choice I would like to choose a rather unsung hero, Emmett Till. Emmett was visiting his family in the deep south and happened to whistle at a white store owner's wife, for this he was brutally murdered. Because of Emmett's death the world became aware of the ugly picture painted by the deep south

Now and Then

The Ipod is today's Transistor Radio because it allows people to listen to music wherever they are and opens up a much wider variety of music to them and what music is playing is based upon their preference as opposed to the preferences of their parents or the people around them and gives much more musical liberty

Time Machine

Atomic Bombs

Me: So, what your first reaction to hearing about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Him: Honestly I didn't know what to think, a single bomb destroying an entire city? It was something unheard of, it was terrifying to think that something so destructive could be unleashed upon the world

Me: What did you do?

Him: I thought and thought, and I couldn't think of anything that could save us if one of those things was used against us, the best the government could think to do was tell children to hide under desks

Me: So you did nothing?

Him: There was nothing we could do, nothing our government could do, we were helpless, if those things were to be used, it would be the end of everything
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Me: You worked on developing the Atomic Bomb didn't you?

Him: Yes, but I was just doing what they paid me to do, I had no doubt that the testing would fail miserably, when it worked so well i was awestruck

Me: What exactly did you do?

Him: I was just another scientist, no one important, just a face in the background

Me: So you didn't think it would work but you still stayed there and kept doing your job?

Him: It was good money, and I didn't exactly have people lining up at my doorstep handing me job offers
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Me: What was it like being a soldier before the bombs dropped?

Him: Not gonna lie, it was pretty terrible, my buddies dropping all around me, pushing and pushing trying to take some God forsaken island none of us had ever even heard of

Me: And how did it change?

Him: We were happier than we had been in a long long time, they told us the war was about to end, they just never told us how