From the time I first became aware that I actually had a favourite decade, that decade has been the 1970s, and not just because I was born during it.  It was a wild and ragged time when civil rights were starting to take off,  hedonism was on the rise along with  industrial strength sideburn/moustache combos for men, feathered hair and jersey wrap dresses women and platform shoes for both were de rigueur. Plus lots and lots of brown and beige. It was a time before Wall Street dominated; and  the much overused “family values” became a empty catch phrase (which in retrospect seemed to be a way of saying to someone “stop what you’re doing, you’re having way too much inappropriate fun.”)

 It’s difficult to write about all facets of any decade in one sitting – there are politics, film, sports, music, literature and fashion to name but some, but here are a few books I’ve read in the past couple years that like the 70s itself, were fun, fast and very enjoyable.

  Let’s start with a couple of sports books and two of the most impressive explosions of hair of any era: hockey goon Goldie Goldthorpe – who is getting is own movie ( for real!) , and slugger Oscar Gamble who is responsible for one of my all time favourite quotes ” They don’t think it be like this, but it do.”   The Rebel League: The Short and Unruly Life of the World Hockey Association by Ed Willies is a great rollicking retrospective of the upstart WHL which looked for a (very) short time to have the strength to unseat the NHL as North America’s premiere hockey league.  It was a rough and tumble league with sky high salaries for a handful of players and often had more fighting than skill on display (The Paul Newman film Slap Shot borrowed much from the WHL including the Hanson Brothers characters based on real life Minnesota Fighting Saints siblings the Carlson brothers – if you get a chance, check out the video for the Fighting Saints featuring their old arena with transparent boards (?!)– they show up in the clip after some obligatory fighting footage)…and when was the last time you read of  a player eating hotdogs on the bench during a game? Only in the WHL

Next up is baseball – Big Hair and Plastic Grass – A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s by Dan Epstein– From Dock Ellis’ 1970 LSD influenced no hitter to Cleveland’s poorly thought out 10 Cent Beer Night (the ending of which was in hindsight fairly predictable – after fueling up on cheap booze, thousands of fans wobbled out of the stands – which they had already begun to rip apart and onto the field where they promptly uprooted the bases – which no doubt made a nice  addition to some fans’ living space) to the out of control pyrotechnics during the White Sox’s Disco Demolition Night in 1979 which scorched part of the field in the middle of a double header – this decade had it all – Oakland’s The Moustache Gang, The Big Red Machine, the volatile and violent Billy Martin/George Steinbrenner/Reggie Jackson Yankees to The We Are Family Pirates…plus plenty of greenies.  Put side by side next to players like  Bill “The Spaceman” Lee – modern day athletes seem so boring by comparison.

And now we move on to politics – or more specifically – the politics of paranoia as described in Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s:  The Golden Era of Paranoia by Francis Wheen.  The decade boasted a colourful cast of delusional characters who happened to double as heads of state in their spare time. Between Richard Nixon’s infamous late night fouled mouthed drunken rants, to the Ugandan dictator  Idi “”Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea” Amin threats to feed his enemies (i.e. just about everyone) to the crocodiles; there was no shortage of paranoia to go around. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was caught on tape saying “”I see myself as the big, fat spider in the corner of the room. Sometimes, I speak when I’m asleep. You should both listen. Occasionally, when we meet, I might tell you to go to Charing Cross Roadand kick a blind man standing on the corner. That blind man may tell you something, lead you somewhere.”

I’m not sure if the blind man ever led anyone anywhere (providing you could find a gas station with full pumps to get you to where he wanted you to go) but adding to the feeling of unease that is often associated with the 70s, was the emergence of assorted idealistic freedom fighters/terrorists/ guerillas (depending on your point of view) which bombed, kidnapped and sometimes killed their way through the urban landscape from the FLQ in Canada, the Baader/Meinhoff Group in Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional in Puerto Rico, Uruguay’s Tupamaros  to the Symbionese Liberation Army (kidnappers of Patty Hearst) who ended their communiques with the slogan “Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people”  – which sounds fairly absurd to present day ears.  And who can forget the man who for a time captured the attention of people worldwide: Carlos the Jackel (even as a young kid he was presence in my imagination)…with all this going on, it’s no wonder people saw plots and conspiracies around every corner.  

However, the old adage “It’s not a conspiracy if it’s true” may hold some weight as it later turned out that the FBI had files on over 500 000 American citizens during the J. Edgar Hoover era.  One of those files turned out to be on author, former NYC mayoral candidate and professional loudmouth Normal Mailer, who makes a few appearances in Wheen’s book.  At one point in 1973, a drunken Mailer gave a speech to inform the public of his intentions to form a  “People’s FBI” which would spy on the real FBI and CIA..he goes on to declaim “ Is there one plot going on between the scenes in America? Are there many plots? Is there no plot?” He admitted later to being “very paranoid” – a prominant vibe that was picked up on by the Rolling Stones in their 1974 song “Fingerprint File” as well as several key films of the decade such as The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor.

On the lighter side of the conspiracy tip that swept the planet during the 70s was the widespread embrace of pseudo academic Erik Von Daniken’s theories that humans are a bi product of “an ancient union between extraterrestrials and she apes”…how else to explain many of the planet’s enduring mysteries I ask you. Apparently the general public seemed to agree (particularly the Raelians) as people picked up his books by the millions.  At the time, my eight year old brain could certainly find no fault in Daniken’s shaky theories (oddly, his theses still seem to be a draw –  during the course of reading up a bit for this blog entry I discovered that in 2003 Switzerland opened up a Daniken designed theme park called Mystery Park.)

I could go on and and on (more than I already have) but will leave the second half of my look back at the 1970s for part two.  Over the past few years I’ve ordered some of the best (and often overlooked) films from this golden decade of American cinema for the library’s DVD collection …but as mentioned, that is for another day.