On the morning of September 11^th, I was a young writer living in Woodstock, New York, spending as much time as I could as far away as I could from civilization, hiking the trails of the Catskill mountains.

And then that morning happened, followed in short order by anthrax attacks, sniper shootings in Washington, DC, and later, war.

Everywhere, war."

I don't believe I was alone in my thinking at the point, which basically boiled down to this: Whatever happened to the ideals that I grew up with? The idea that we, as individuals, were permanently linked together? That it was our responsibility to make the world a better place?

Even in Woodstock, there were copious signs of change. The old hippies that had forever made the Village Green their second home were now being hauled off by the cops. And many of my artist friends were being forced to leave town by the skyrocketing rents and the weekenders blowing through town in their shiny SUVs, spending millions of dollars on second homes.

With these questions in mind, I began approaching friends. Often older friends. Often with a camera. And always with the following question? When did it all go wrong? Their answers surprised me. "Look at the history of the town," they'd say. "It's all there. Woodstock ruined Woodstock."

"How could that be?" I would ask. "The festival didn't even happen here!"

"Just look at history," they would repeat. "It's all there. It all started here, and in some ways, it all ended here."

"Start with Herve White," they'd say. "He was our saint. He started the sixties."

So I went to the town library and asked about him. There was a picture of him on the wall. The librarian beamed when I mentioned his name.

She took me upstairs and showed me photographs. Mad, insane photographs of Woodstock Festivals in the 20s, where people dressed up in costumes, camped out in the mud, and made love in the bushes.

I was astounded. Woodstock, the idea, had obviously started long, long before I ever imagined.

The more I learned, the more amazed I became. This little village, nestled in the foothills of the Catskills, had been the birthplace for some of the greatest ideas of the century. And this little village had later been ruined in many ways by the very values it had come to represent.

So, as my way of figuring it all out, figuring out why things had gone from so hopeful to so despairing in such a short period of time, I realized that I had the perfect mirror to all of America, the perfect metaphor, so to speak.

If the 60s represented hope, it also represent the beginning of a slide into a period of self-involvement that shows no signs of abating, even though all signs are there pointing to a potentially catastrophic end.

It is no less than my intention with this film than to take the ideals of the 60s back from those who dropped the ball and make them relevant again to the very same people who might, in a few years, be going of to war in some foreign land.

The only way to do it is to make forgotten history come alive again and do it in the most fun and entertaining way possible. For a generation weaned on MTV and way too much information, I had to make this film as...well, let's just use the word vivid, as I possibly could.

Let's see if you agree.