See more distortions after the jump…
See more distortions after the jump…
Turn on, tune in, happy birthday! Dr. Timothy Francis Leary, the revolutionary philosopher, “most dangerous man in America” (as per Richard Nixon) and High Priest of LSD was born on this day, October 22, in 1920.
More Timothy Leary on Dangerous Minds
In February 1967, just a few weeks after the first Human Be-In, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Alan Watts discussed how to “drop out” and radically change society in an hour-an-half interview recorded on Watts’ houseboat. In amongst the naive hippie shit, there are parts of this that are as relevant today as they were back then.
A few days ago, I posted here about disco singer Monti Rock III, the first queen I ever saw on TV when I was a kid, and I mentioned that he had not really crossed my mind in a very long time… then coincidentally, yesterday, Robert Coddington, Nelson Sullivan’s archivist (who I wrote about here), gave me a copy of a short film by D.A. Pennebaker titled You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You. Who should turn up in this obscurity? Well, Monti Rock III, that’s who, then working as a celebrity hair stylist (he did the bridal party’s hair). A young Richard Alpert (AKA Ram Dass) and jazz great Charles Mingus also turn up in the film.
And Mrs. TImothy Leary? Well, after divorcing the High Priest of LSD—their marriage lasted about a year—the high fashion model then known as Nena von Schlebrügge married Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman. Their daughter, actress Uma Thurman, was born in 1970.
Here’s how Pennebaker describes the Leary nuptials:
This movie is something of a mystery. Timothy Leary was getting married to a model named Nena Von Schlebrugge up in Millbrook, New York at the Hitchcock house, where Leary had been carrying on his hallucinogenic revelries for the past year or so after leaving Harvard. It was rumored that this was going to be the wedding of the season, the wedding of Mr. And Mrs. Swing as Cab Calloway put it. Blackwood took me downtown to meet Monte Rock III who was singing at Trudy Heller’s but who was also a very pricey and off-the-wall hairdresser and was in fact going to be doing the bride’s hair. Nena’s brother, Bjorn, known as the “Baron” was a friend of the Hitchcock’s, as was I, and the idea of going along and filming the wedding seemed not unwarranted. I’ve always wanted to film someone getting married.
So we drove up in Monte Rock’s ancient Buick, Diane Arbus, an editor from Vogue whose name I can no longer remember, and of course Monte Rock, his fingers covered in rings. Close behind, Proferes and Desmond filmed us as we drove, up the Taconic and through the gates of the Hitchcock mansion.
There were Hitchcocks and friends and relations of Hitchcocks, the Baron and his court, a score of models, and Charles Mingus playing a lonely piano. Even Susan Leary fresh out of jail. It was indeed an amazing wedding, and for all I know, an amazing marriage, although someone later told me it was over before I’d even finished editing the film.
After Nena divorced Leary she married a Tibetan scholar, Dr. Robert Thurman and her daughter Uma is Uma the actress. Dick Alpert became his own guru, Baba Ram Dass and achieved a sainthood of his own. Monte Rock III left Trudy Heller’s and went out to Hollywood and became famous for his line in the John Travolta movie, Saturday Night Fever, when as the disco DJ he exclaims, “I love that polyester look.” Charles Mingus got thrown out of his loft and sadly perished, and in time the Hitchcock house itself burned down, or so I’ve been told. The mystery is that we never filmed anyone actually getting married.
D A Pennebaker, 1964, 12 min., b&w
Part II after the jump…
Noteworthy entry today at Dorian Cope’s great On This Deity blog:
Today we remember Timothy Leary’s daring and ingenious highwire escape across the highway from his Californian jail – a middle-aged Harvard professor yet symbol of the psychedelic revolution, Leary was assisted to freedom by members of the righteous terrorist organisation, the Weather Underground, and ably financed by those idealistic drug-dealing bikers, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love. Despite the negative outcome of this escapade – kidnapping, a brush with the Black Panthers, even more jail time for the good doctor and the selling out of revolutionary comrades – at least its high aims of uniting disparate radical groups ultimately failed only because of the extraordinary thoroughness with which members of the CIA, FBI, Police, Customs and IRS had managed successfully to infiltrate the Underground. That this gang of unmitigated government bastards had felt compelled to join forces in order to discredit and destroy Hippy Society is, however, merely evidence of how seriously they were being forced to take the actions of Radical America; and of how seriously their authority was being challenged. So today let’s not dwell on how the ‘60s Revolution turned in on itself, but instead remember that brief moment of unity when such disparate groups as the Black Panthers, the Weathermen and the leader of the psychedelic movement came together to confront the MAN.
Below, my interview with Nicholas Schou about his book, Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World:
At Folsom Prison with Dr. Timothy Leary is an extraordinary counterculture document, filmed during Leary’s incarceration there. Under 30 minutes in length, this 1973 film shows Leary at his most engaging and personable. It’s a testament to his considerable charm that he was able to pull off such a performance, considering that the prison warden and other officials were sitting across the room listening as this was filmed.
Leary discusses his jailbreak (intimating that the daughter of a United States senator he refuses to name helped him), the revolution in consciousness and drugs, Eldridge Cleaver and what it feels like to be an imprisoned philosopher.
At Folsom Prison with Dr. Timothy Leary was used to raise awareness of the reasons Leary was imprisoned in the first place and to raise money to fight his sentence. Joanna Leary, who was behind this film, also introduces it.
Via the Timothy Leary Archive
An interview with Nicholas Schou, author of Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World. The inside story of the infamous gang of dope-dealing surfers who played a key role in the counterculture of the Sixties. It’s a mindblowing—and improbable—tale of drug smuggling, large scale marihuana farming and LSD distribution—basically, it’s the hidden history of how America got turned on. The story of the Brotherhood might’ve gone to the grave with the participants if not for Nicholas Schou’s intriguing history. Highly recommended.
What follows below are a pair of newly uploaded Rock Music Exposed clips from YouTube channeler, Triplexity, and were apparently culled from the two-part ‘89 documentary, Hell’s Bells (which, to my knowledge, remains in VHS-only exile).
The intro, clip 1 of 36 (!) and found here, lays out the Hell’s Bells agenda, “to help people understand the big picture, peel back the veneer of pop culture, and gaze into the bedrock of truth that lies beneath.”
Since it also hopes to serve as, “a wake-up call, an alarm warning of the fire raging just down the hall,” you can bet your salvation its earnest-but-porny-looking narrator means a “Christian truth.” I know, sounds like a snooze. We’ve seen—and smirked—at this kind of crap on numerous occasions.
But readers of Dangers Minds might find far more compelling the below clips, 12 and 13. In them, Hell’s Bells puts under the Christian magnifying glass Kenneth Anger, Mick Jagger, Timothy Leary and The Beatles.
Australia’s 21.C, edited by Ashley Crawford, was probably the best magazine of the ‘90s—it was my favorite at least—and to be profiled in its pages and later to contribute to it, was an lot of fun for me.
21.C was the most unabashedly intellectual and forward-thinking journal that I have ever seen, anywhere. And it was a striking and beautifully designed product to hold in your hands. Each issue was finely crafted, I must say. To have my own writing published alongside the likes of Erik Davis, Mark Dery, Greil Marcus, Hakim Bey, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, R.U. Sirius and Kathy Acker was an honor. I also met Alex Burns via Ashley and Alex, of course, went on to edit the Disinformation website for many years.(I wrote about art for 21.C’s sister publication—also edited by Ashley Crawford—the quarterly glossy World Art. I know that I wrote an article about the product design of the Japanese pop combo Pizzicato 5, but I can’t remember what else.)
Now 21.C is back as an online magazine. There’s also a lot of still interesting archival pieces on subjects such as William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna and Robert Anton Wilson that readers of this blog will find very interesting, I’m sure. There’s an interview with me from 1996 conducted by R.U. Sirius where I tell the nutty story of how Disinformation was started. Welcome back 21.C!
Tantalizing short excerpt from The Harvard Psychedelic Club over at The Daily Beast. Don Lattin’s new book looks at the moment in time when Dr. TImothy Leary, Dr. Richard Alpert (AKA Ram Dass), Huston Smith, and lifestyle guru Andrew Weil (then a student) crossed paths at Harvard in the early 1960s setting off a revolution in consciousness that is still felt today. It’s fascinating to see Leary’s influence on culture beginning to become rehabilitated a decade after his passing. His legacy is difficult to ascertain, to be sure, but the man had a huge, huge effect on so many people’s lives—whether directly or indirectly via the fact that LSD use became widespread, you cannot untangle Leary from that fact. He certainly had a huge influence on me. I can’t wait to get my hands on this!
From the book:
Weil and Winston had both read The Doors of Perception, Huxley?
Timothy Francis Leary was born on this day in 1920. Leary lived one of the most out-sized lives in all of human history and his story is the story of the latter half of the twentieth century. He was a brilliant psychologist, philosopher, author and of course, the man who turned on the world with LSD.
Was Leary a great man? He was too complicated to be called a great man, but he was a great revolutionary. Nixon called him the “most dangerous man in America” and Leary most certainly lived up to that description. It’s been said of historical figures, especially controversial ones, that it takes 100 years after their deaths before history can properly judge them. If you divorce Leary the man (a charming Irish con man, basically) from the vast cultural changes he and other hippie leaders ushered in and all of the doors they broke down for future generations to live freer, more fulfilled lives, you’ll get a better perspective on how important of a character he was. He is a pivotal figure of the greatest era of social change in history, a spiritual revolutionary in the most profound sense.
Bonus clips:
Timothy Leary meets Cheech and Chong and Pee-wee Herman!
Timothy Leary in Folsom Prison
Straightforward article from AP about the 2012 doomsday silliness. Worth reading. The bit about kids and young mothers buying into this BS is sad and depressing.
Pure and simple this is Christian apocalyptism being projected onto the ancient Maya (in retrospect, even!) and various New Age theories (
After reading Ginia Bellafante‘s NYT review of Lords of The Revolution (last mentioned in these pages here), I’m now even less inclined to spend my 5 hours on the VH1 special. That being said, Bellafante does single out for praise the installments profiling Timothy Leary and The Black Panthers. Despite their generational link, though, Leary and the Panthers didn’t always see eye-to-eye.
After escaping from prison in 1970, Leary found refuge in Algeria with the Panthers’ Eldridge Cleaver, who was himself on the lam for attempted murder. But rather than receiving Leary as a kindred spirit—and displeased with his drug-touting ways—Eldridge kidnapped Tim and his wife, Rosemary Woodruff…er, placed them under “revolutionary arrest.” Eldridge eventually freed the pair, but, in the clip above, you can still get a sense of their uneasy Algerian alliance.
I’m looking forward to next week’s VH1 series, Lords Of The Revolution, with an excitement approaching…apathy! I mean, we all know the drill: yet another 5-parter assembled from already available footage both superior and less sanitized. Still, with Leary, Warhol, Ali, Cheech & Chong, and The Black Panthers each spearheading a night, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
If you’re curious as to what it might look like, check out the VH1 trailer. And for those of you who lack the time—or energy—to “tune in,” but still want a hit of era-defining idealism, click right here.