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Remembrances of the Who:




People have been talking about when they first hread of the 'Oo. I'm new to 
this mailing list, but not the band, and I suppose the following will 
pretty clearly date me!

It first started when my generation came out - I'd heard of this band that
blew up their instruments. My first real obsessive memory was in the fall 
of 1967: I was running for student council president in 9th grade, and
had the 45 of my-generation on my parent's stereo with the repeat arm open; 
and listened to it continuously from 8AM to 11PM making campaign stickers!
My parents went berserk. 

I'll spare you the rest of my who indulgences, except for one. In the summer
of 1970 the Who were going to appear in Maryland near where I lived. I 
didn't have a driver's liscence, so I managed to talk my mother into 
taking me. Tickets were cheap, and once we got there she bought one as well. 
Being a typical 15 year old kid; I proceeded to "lose" her so I could go 
off by myself. It was, to me, the Who's peak- basically the new Live at Leeds
set; replete with Tommy sandwiched inside. I sat about 15 feet from Pete - 
staring at his guitar, and probably killing most of my hearing that day alone.
To make the story short, when the show was over; I "found" my mother at the 
car. This was 1970, and it took until 5:30 in the morning to get out of the 
parking lot; nobody was really planning to go anywhere, what with everyone 
smoking dope, making out on the roof of cars, etc. My mother watched it 
all without saying a word. From that day on , she never mentioned it. 

About a six months later, I heard some friends of my parents talking about 
how rock and roll was destroying the country. My mother sat quietly, and 
then said, without missing a beat: "Well, I've seen the Who, and they're 
not that bad. Though it's amazing how much noise four people can make...". 


My Who mania has continued - my office at Berkeley has a great photograph of
Pete in the back seat of a Rolls, and a little tiny photo near my 
Cray manuals of Pete jumping. My system manager hates me, because my 
machines are named: 
                    sethian@quadrophenia.berkeley.edu
                    sethian@my-generation.berkeley.edu
                    sethian@psychderelict.berkeley.edu
                    sethian@wont-get-fooled-again.berkeley.edu
                    sethian@magic-bus.berkeley.edu
                    sethian@slip-kid.berkeley.edu

It's a shame that my mailer header goes out of math.berkeley.edu, so that 
the machine named is stripped; but mail to the above works. 


I have no favorite Who lines - there are so many that the mind boggles. 
But whenever I get really down, bummed, or just plain feeling sorry for 
myself, occasionally I am smart enough to remember:


            (This is no social crisis). 
            This is you having fun.
            (no crisis)
            Getting burned by the sun. 
            (this is true)
            This is no social crisis.
            Just another tricky day for you. 
            Fella.

            You'll get through."

     

                               Jamie Sethian