7:30 PM

Chet Helms

"Getting Down Together"

Technology forces cultural change -- the way we adapt to these changes is through rites of passage. Rites of passage allow us to leave one state of consciousness and enter another... Most rites of passage involve the massing of people for the purpose of touching each other. This is often accomplished through dance... In other words, 'getting down' together. This is the most ancient of techniques for dealing with the fears that accompany precipitous technological and cultural change.
 -- Chet Helms

words by Julia Gilden
photo by Donna Compton

     Cultural change is technologically driven, and those changes cause great upheaval and turmoil... sez Chet Helms, who gave an overview of history from his perspective as a musician and activist who contributed to--and gained from the sixties:

     "I grew up under the shadow of the atom bomb. Women gained control over their bodies for the first time in history. And psychotropic drugs made their way into society.

     "And then Les Paul introduced multi-track recording and amplified guitar made giant rock concerts possible.

     "And then -- TV. I was raised in a fundamentalist family in Texas. Movies were immoral, but TV was the great ticket to the American Dream that taught people how to get a lifestyle.

     "Then we had the first television war in our living rooms -- Vietnam. . . .

     "Now, with PC's we have externalized our very core our brains-out in the ether. We knew about Tiannamen Square because of cell phones and faxes."

 [Editor's note: Chet Helms was later spotted on the bridge, uploading his own pictures and words to the internet. Go, Chet!]

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