A Tip to Tipper

I’m sorry, Patrick Goldstein, but I’m really getting tired of hearing that Tipper Gore is “anti-rock” or “against free speech” (“No Justice for Pre-Presidential Peccadilloes,” Nov. 22). If you’ll pardon a questionable four-letter word, that’s a lot of crap.

Tipper Gore was raised on rock ‘n’ roll, just as most of the members of the ‘60s generation was. I’m sure she had as many Stones and Who albums as the next Cliffie, went to as many rock concerts and had as much--yes--fun.

As the mother of four young children, she just got tired of the availability of rock lyrics glorifying sadism, satanism, mutilation and death.

All she has asked is that the recording industry provide a rating system similar to the one used by the movies so that parents are able to screen senseless and tasteless garbage out of their children’s lives. They’ll be exposed to it soon enough on their own.

Calling Tipper Gore anti-rock is the same kind of hyperbolic oversimplification that turned open-minded and socially concerned scriptwriters of the ‘50s into fellow travelers.

ROCKY LEPLIN

Van Nuys