our guest today has been paul kantner. i'm ken paulson, back next week with another conversation about free expression, the arts, and america. i hope you can join us then for speaking freely. [applause] captioning provided by the first amendment center, funded by the freedom forum. captioning by ben at captionmax www.captionmax.com

we're delighted to welcome rock and roll hall of fame member paul kantner. pplause] not long ago, paul, the washington post called you "the political conscience and space cadet of the jefferson airplane." do you plead guilty as charged? oh, and more. were you really the political force behind a very political band? no, no, we're a very apolitical band, if you really analyze it. and--we have the luxury of coming from san francisco, which is very nutritious for off-the-beam, off-the-normal-beam kind of people and nurtures them, really, in its own way. and we, in contrast to, say, berkeley, for example, in the '60s or the s.d.s. or the weathermen, chose and got away with creating our own alternate quantum, if you will, universe: this type of place where we-- rather than going up against city hall and fighting city hall, like i'm sure all of you are probably engaged in doing, we had--and i must admit it's a luxury-- the ability to get away with not fighting city hall but in a sense creating our own city hall without all the bureaucracy, and just going out and-- a