elcome to my home on the web. I'm a singer and songwriter, I used to be in Country Joe & the Fish, and I live in Berkeley, California, Planet Earth.

US military casualties in Vietnam during the "Summer of Love" ANNIVERSARIES OF 2017 January 14: First Human Be-In March 18: "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride opens at Disneyland March 28: Muhammed Ali refuses induction May 11: Electric Music for the Mind and Body released May 20: Start of the Summer of Love July 1: Beatles release Sgt. Pepper June 12: Loving v. Virginia decision legalizes interracial marriage June 16-18: Monterey Pop Festival June 21: Summer of love begins October 9: Che Guevara executed in Bolivia October 21: Allen Ginsberg fails to levitate the Pentagon November 9: First issue of Rolling Stone magazine Joe at 75. Photo by Steve Read, from the crew of the BBC documentary on the Summer of Love.

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Upon reading a recent Overheard about a four-letter word we’ll call “buck” being usable as just about every part of speech, Cathy Robbins referred the matter to her friend Aaron Smith, an academic with a doctorate in linguistics. Smith wrote a brisk refutation: “It just isn’t true! Buck is not a grammatically fascinating word.” It can be used as a noun and a verb, but that’s not unusual, he writes, as well as an interjection — but that’s all. According to Smith, “the assumption of the adjectival status of ‘buck’ is a misanalysis of the use of the word in compounds like ‘buck face,’ ‘buck head,’ etc.” He explains further that you can’t use buck as a comparative or superlative, and that “‘bucker’ is not the same as the agentive noun ‘bucker’ as in ‘what a bucker.’”
I got completely lost in the linguistic briar patch of his explanation, but thank you, Professor Smith, for sharing your wisdom. (Though my spellcheck didn’t much like “misanalysis” and “agentive”).

Jimmy Hayes, bass singer for the a cappella group The Persuasions, has died at 74. Read an obituary.

See the poster for the Woodstock 50th anniversary event that I am hosting.

A lawsuit is claiming that Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" is in the public domain. Read about it.

My daughter Tara Taylor McDonald has her new web site up and running. Check it out.

The UCSF School of Nursing is planning to archive my Tribute to Florence Nightingale website so that its information will be saved for posterity. (But the site will still be available in its current location.) They are also taking over my collection of Nightingale memorabilia. Read an interview with me by the UCSF archivist.

"A Ride with Matt" is a documentary film about Huntington's Disease, intended to raise awareness and to generate support and funding for research to ameliorate or altogether eradicate Huntington’s -- the disease that killed Woody Guthrie. Check it out.

Philip Buehler has collaborated with Nora Guthrie on Woody Guthrie's Wardy Forty, chronicling Woody's years with Huntington's as seen through his letters, family snapshots, rare interviews and photos of the abandoned Greystone hospital today. Buy your copy here.

Glass sculptor Peggy Pettigrew Stewart is casting the faces of many Woodstock musicians, including mine, to be reproduced in glass. We're going to be posting pictures of the process here as it goes along.

They've been trying to make a movie about Janis Joplin for the last 15 years. Candidates for the role have included Zooey Deschanel, Nina Arianda, Pink, and Renee Zellweger. Now it's on again under the title Get It While You Can, with Joplin played by -- the envelope please -- Amy Adams. It was supposed to start shooting late in 2015, but has apparently been delayed by legal wrangling. Meanwhile the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and will be seen on PBS's American Masters.

My son Devin has bought Berkeley's beloved Mr. Mopps' toy store. You can visit Mr. Mopps' on the web and on Facebook.

Collage by Charlotte Jackson.

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Who is Sister Ignatia? Listen to her address the AA. East Bay AA (S.F. Bay Area) Al-Anon and Alateen for Friends and Families of Alcoholics Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, Inc AA Online Intergroup Read a short story by Joyce Renwick.