Much of the creative work I find interesting and amusing has no basis in economic reality. Most decisions relevant to expenditures for what gets produced and distributed are made strictly on a bottom line basis. Nobody makes a move without talking to their accountant first. There will always be people who will take a chance, but their numbers are dwindling. Those who are crazy enough to take the chance on spending money to make some unusual object or event take place are an endangered species. The spirit of adventurousness at any level of American society has been pretty much legislated away. In the eighties, with a repressive Republican, yuppie-oriented administration installed and ready to perpetuate itself with Supreme Court appointments that will keep us in trouble for the next half century, the prognosis is not good for things which differ from the viewpoint of the conservative right. (read more)

Scans @ zappateers

(1) You have said that there's nothing about the '60s that you miss. But during the run at the Garrick Theater in New York in '67 there seemed to be an excitement and spontaneity in your concerts that would be hard to capture now. Do you miss the "anything might happen" adventure of those concerts?

That was not so much a series of concerts as a long-running engagement in the theater, which means you do things different than you would do in a concert situation. It was also being performed for an audience that differs greatly from any other audience anywhere else on the planet. The New York audience is special, it's a different bunch of people there. And also, at the time that we showed up, we were so out of phase with everything that was happening in that city. It was great just to be totally abstruse. You could do anything. And because they were New Yorkers, they would at least consider it. You couldn't do that in Hollywood. You couldn't do it in Paris. You couldn't do it in London. (read more)