Somewhere, he is celebrating his birthday. From his 1970 album:
Somewhere, he is celebrating his birthday. From his 1970 album:
^^
We walked arm in arm with madness, and every little breeze whispered of the secret love we had for our disease
He was an amazing character. Literally walked out of his jail cell, over the roof to freedom and stayed at large for ten years until he turned himself in.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Discover Magazine has a new article on psychedelic mushrooms.
He was quite a trip.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
When I saw Hawkwind in the 1973 Space Ritual tour, instead of an opening band, they had Timothy Leary's widow come out and talk to the crowd. I honestly don't recall a word she said and just wanted her off the stage so I could see Stacia, err, I mean Hawkwind...lol
Well, happy birthday, I guess, although I'd be much more liable to celebrate the milestone if his antics and cavalier approach to inserting psychedelic drugs into the culture hadn't put him on Nixon's shit list and led directly to schedule one status for LSD and psilocybin, thus halting legitimate and promising research into the many benefits of those drugs in clinical settings. Two generations later we're just starting to realize what an unfortunate mistake that was.
David
Happy with what I have to be happy with.
^^ The history of wacky weed prohibition is even more dubious.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
If you were 15 in 1973, we are the same age. I can only conclude that you not only weren't a user, but weren't real big on watching the News.
Leary played one of the coolest practical jokes in history. Nixon decided he wanted Leary taken down as a drug guru. He sent a special agent to the police department in the town where Leary was residing, and together they planned a raid on Leary's place.
But someone leaked it to Leary, who made sure that there was not one trace of illegal substance on the premises.
When the police came, Leary seemed to be hiding a particular piece of crockery. When asked he said, nervously, "Umm...that's my ... special pot." So they arrested him and took the vase and him downtown.
A few hours later, the police lab ordered him released and told the special agent - one G. Gordon Liddy - "Congratulations. You've just seized two kilos of peat moss."
******
Leary was actually only convicted of possession once, and it wasn't even his. He and his girlfriend (and two children) were approaching the Mexican border. American customs, seeing who it was, essentially strip-searched the car and found a small amount of pot belonging to the gf (which the daughter had hidden in her underwear). He played the gentleman and claimed it was his, and eventually was sentenced to 10 years in prison. (I've over simplified a bit.)
*****
After his release from prison Leary got into computers, claiming that they could do everything he had been trying to do with LSD. He toured the country as a "stand-up philospher" and had a number of public debates with his new friend, a fellow ex-convict: G. Gordon Liddy.
*****
Leary died a little sooner (from pancreatic cancer) than his doctors expected. Shortly before he died, he clenched his fist and said, "Why?" Then he unclenched it, said his final words - "Why not?" - and died.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I met Timothy Leary once. We were both in the Western Union Office in San Diego. I approached him after we both left and told him how mush I appreciated his work. He proceeded to tell me about a book he was going to release shortly, What does woman want. It didn't sound like anything he would write, so I assumed it wasn't really him. Of course a few months later the book was released.
That's a great story.
I think the greatest thing for me to come out of the whole Timothy Leary thing was Baba Ram Dass, and his book Be Here Now.
Having come home from Vietnam in the summer of 1969, and like many of the folks of my age at the time, I was seeking answers, spiritual mostly, and that book really helped me a lot.
I don't hold Leary up as some great inspiration, other than he was a cool(at the time anti-establishment dude).
Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457
Leary’s voice drops in and out of Daevid Allen’s fine Gong on Acid: “Be Cool, Be Kind, Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.”
We walked arm in arm with madness, and every little breeze whispered of the secret love we had for our disease
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