A Small Victory

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine is a former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday Editor of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner.

I saw a poster in the grocery story today announcing that Richie Havens would be coming to give a free concert in a park near me next month. Richie Havens. Damn. I owned every one of his albums in the '60s, sang along with most all of his songs (I never was too sure what "Run, Shaker Life," meant, but I sang it with verve and gravity, nonetheless), and I went to his concerts. A Richie Havens show was my first real concert, at Westbury Music Fair. It was bad enough that my parents had to drive me there. But I decided that this being a special occasion, I should wear my coolest jacket -- a gold, double-breasted monstrosity (my parents having refused to allow me to get a Nehru jacket) with a black-and-gold tie. Of course, I was the only person in the place, ushers included, in a jacket and tie. Oh, how I regretted that. But nobody made fun of me, for these were the charitable '60s; ages before the age of geeks, a geek was welcome. I went to many more Havens concerts, never again in a jacket and tie. I think I'll go to one more concert next month.