US AND THEM

Many years ago I had a friend who lived across the street from L.A.'s Loyola Marymount University in the upstairs of his grandfather's house. The tenant upstairs from that in a tiny loft was an engineering student who could walk across the street to the campus. One of his interests was developing and building laser lights. On more than one occasion he would invite us up and show us his latest creation (along with the proper music and, um, "fruitless tomato" leaves). We were always amazed and aghast at the fantastic light show that had ensued.

I don't remember too much other than that or what his intention was for them, but this was the early 1970's. The first official laser light show was in 1973 at the Griffith Observatory and Planetarium in Los Angeles. Not long after that, rock concerts began to use the technology, so this guy, needless to say, was on the leading edge.

Before laser lights, the psychedelic atmosphere at rock concerts (other than the self-administered type) was by the use of projected images called a "liquid light show". This was accomplished by the use of projecting liquid slides or overheads behind the performers, creating a very hip visual experience. Being present at a few of these, I can tell you that they were quite an effective mood-enhancer, especially with bands like Pink Floyd.

This article from SHOW magazine (April 1971) provides images from some of the more well-known shows, such as The Joshua Light Show which was used to great effect at Bill Graham's Fillmore East. The article discusses the beginnings of the psychedelic light shows, their development and use. Far out, Man!

PSYCHEDELICS: IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

"To fathom hell or soar angelic,

Just take a pinch of psychedelic."

- Dr. Humphrey Osmond (1956)

Haven't done one of these in a while. Longtime readers of WoM know that I will occasionally post under this title something with only a wisp of tangential relevance to the usual content.

Unless you lived under a rock (or actually were one as in the Mother's song, "Help, I'm A Rock" from the ground-breaking 1966 "Freak Out" album) there was a serious drug culture afoot. Timothy Leary, along with others, such as the Bay-area basement chemist, Owsley Stanley, Richard "Ram Dass" Alpert (no relation to Herb), and later, Terrence McKenna (who ironically died of brain cancer), led the charge with their proselytizing of pot, LSD, mescaline and other "mind manifesting" (aka psychedelic) substances.

Horror films have used psychedelic drug use in numerous pictures of the years. The 2007 Irish slasher film, SHROOMS and the UK folk horror film, A FIELD IN ENGLAND immediately come to mind.

Today, these types of mind-altering drugs are being used and seriously being considered as a common modality of treating mental disorders in the medical community. Using the homeopathic model, it makes some sense. Hopefully, these substances can be used in a responsible and rational way. There's a lot Nature can tell us still, but unfortunately, there is always a caveat brought on by the ignorance and greed associated with harvesting and utilizing these resources.

This article from NEXUS (April/May, 2022) provides an "honest" history of psychedelics and their use around the world.

Also in the news is this story about new technology that reveals that mushrooms can communicate (!). You can listen HERE.

TIMOTHY LEARY'S HEAD

WARNING! GHASTLY REALISTIC DECAPITATION AHEAD!

Back in the 1970's, I went to a couple of Comic-Cons in San Diego. This is when Shel Dorf and Company were running the show. One year they offered paying fans to have breakfast with a notable personality in the field. By the time friend, "Hall of Flame" Doug and I signed on, we ended up with psychedelic kookster, Timothy Leary!

Leary was one of the remarkable personalities that populated the sixties in such great numbers. Scientist, philosopher, lecturer, and convict, he was most noted for his experimentation with LSD, enough to earn him the moniker, Acid King. He coined the phrase, "Tune in, turn on, drop out", and the rock group, The Moody Blues had a hit with their song, "Timothy Leary's Dead".

Well, the day came and we sat down with a number of other people and listened to Leary go on about his idea for a human "space migration" that went along with his "Starseed Transmisions", an exercise in group telepathy that he practiced while in prison. After he was done and breakfast was over, Doug and I had a good laugh at the "goofball" and decamped to the dealer's room to gawk at the tens of thousands of comics that were for sale.

On the year of his death (1996), a documentary was released on his life and included a startling segment where his "dead head" was removed from his body and cryogenically preserved per his wishes so that he might once again be earthbound and proselytize his outre designs for the world. The sculpted head used during the decapitation scene was so realistic that appalled viewers thought it was real.

Now this famous prop has come out of the freezer and put up at auction. You can see for yourself why this caused such a commotion at the time.

Lot Description:

Timothy Leary Hyper-Realistic Decapitated Head Prop and Production Materials from Timothy Leary's Dead (Davids & Mills Prods., 1996). Original life-size, screen-used Timothy Leary decapitated head prop constructed of cast silicone over interior skull armature. Meticulously painted down to every pore and freckle and individually hand punched hair, eyebrows, lashes and whiskers. All expertly fabricated and finished by FX master Steve Johnson and crew. This incredibly lifelike prop is highly visible in the scene at the end of the documentary when Leary, the pop culture icon, psychologist and psychedelic drug guru passes, and his head is separated from his body and placed in a container for cryogenic preservation. A scene so realistic, most audience members believed they were witnessing the real thing. The prop measures 11" x 8" x 10" and features viscera at the neck opening. This incredible prop is accompanied by interesting articles surrounding the controversial film, a photo of Leary sitting for his head cast, the movie's poster, signed by director Paul Davids and a DVD copy of the resulting movie. The head exhibits minor age and production wear. Some rubbing of paint to ears and neck. In otherwise, Very Good to Fine condition. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions.

You can watch the documentary here. But be forewarned, the image looks like it was videotaped off a TV set with lousy reception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNd50W-sFA

PSYCHEDELIC SATURDAY

Not all underground newspapers were screeds for antiestablishment political views. The Oracle of the City of San Francisco, aka the San Francisco Oracle was founded on 9-Sep-1966 with Allen Cohen as Editor-in-chief, who got the idea for the paper in a dream. It lasted 12 issues and ceased publication in 1968. At about mid-point of its run, it is estimated that circulation was 125,000.

You've probably heard the terms, mind-expanding, mind-blowing, mind-bending, trippy, freaky and more to describe the panoply of visual aspects particular to flower children of the time, but the one term that encapsulated the hippies unique style was "psychedelic", meaning "mind-manifesting".

The Oracle was distinguished by its quasi-art noveau, and yes, psychedelic page design, with content centered on spiritual, metaphysical and literary topics that aligned themselves with the Haight-Ashbury counterculture where the paper was centered, and left the political rants to papers like the Berkeley Barb. Various individuals took to the streets of The Haight and supported themselves by hawking the paper.

Contributors to The Oracle included Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Artwork was provided by Bruce Conner and the born-again stoner surfer, Rick Griffin.

The sample issue shown here today (Vol. 1 No. 7, February 1967) has a long forum-style discussion with leading "heads" of the day, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg. The graphics include a full-page illustration by Rick Griffin of a Mexican curandero dubbed "Sam Mescalito", and "American Tantric #2 (photo by Paul Kagan), both of which were popular wall posters of the day. There is also an ad for a Grateful Dead concert and a full-page ad for the legendary Big Brother & the Holding Company with Janis Joplin (with the "Zig Zag Man" cigarette/joint paper logo), as well as an ad for 60's mystic and filmmaker Kenneth Anger's LUCIFER RISING.

American Experience: The San Francisco Oracle
PBS.org

Every movement creates its own primary sources, and the hippies of 1967 San Francisco had a psychedelic one: The San Francisco Oracle. Published in 12 fantastic issues from 1966 to 1968, the Oracle is a fascinating artifact of the times.

With theme issues like "Youth Quake," "The Aquarian Age," "Psychedelics, Flowers, and War," and "The Politics of Ecstasy," the newspaper spoke directly to young people's imaginations and concerns. Whimsical, hand-drawn ads touted bookstores, concerts, health food stores, coffeehouses, shops selling hippie fashions, and music sellers. And the publication's wild page layouts, drawings, photo-collages and other graphics became icons of hippie culture.

Hippies sold the Oracle on Bay Area streets to support themselves, and the newspaper made its way around the world by subscription. Print runs grew to nearly 125,000 by issue #7. The editors estimated their circulation topped half a million when taking into account the number of people who shared each copy.

The Oracle's articles, interviews, letters, commentary, and poems explored hippie consciousness in a variety of ways. For example, in issue #6, Tom Law wrote a piece called "The Community of the Tribe" that obliquely referred to Fifties consumer culture, the Cold War and the war in Vietnam, contexts in which hippie attitudes had emerged:

"We are all — squares and the psychedelically enlightened alike — involved in our world of now. To take up the call, to respond to the cosmic forces, we must be the hard--working, harmonious, respectful, honest, diligent, co-operative family of man. Our words are inspired. Our feeling is deep and complete. Our devotion is strong. The precious revelations which have come through us with increasing magnitude must be fathomed until we are one with each other and can extend our awareness beyond the tribe to our entire planet.

What is the natural karmic duty of a generation whose brothers, neighbors, and childhood friends now promote hate by killing innocent human beings around the world? It is to balance their jive and immature actions with the light of intelligent goodness; fearlessly to deal with the money-mad machine in order to release its hold on our bowels — the bowels of mankind.

Practically, this means that all excess profit is turned back into the community. That means all money, material things, food, etc., which are beyond the basic necessities of a happy, healthy, human existence..."

BONUS! Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties

From 1964 to 1968, there swelled a gigantic wave of cultural and political change that swept first San Francisco, then the whole United States, and then the world. What was fermenting in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was a powerful brew that would ultimately stop a war.

As any history book will tell you, the Haight’s popularity grew as the Beat Generation in San Francisco was dying out. Many of the Beats, such as Allen Ginsberg, crossed over, but a younger generation gravitated to the Haight-Ashbury district, where the rents were cheap. Many were students at nearby University of San Francisco, UCSF, and S.F. State University. Others were musicians (such as the Grateful Dead), philosophers, artists (such as Alton Kelley), poets (such as Allen Cohen), apartment-dwellers, panhandlers, and even future CEOs of companies such as Pepsi, the Gap, Smith-Hawken, Lotus, and Rolling Stone magazine.

“The Summer of Love [1967] was the peak of the Haight Ashbury experience,” wrote founding editor Allen Cohen in his essay on the Summer of Love. “Over 100,000 youth came to the Haight. Hoards of reporters, movie makers, FBI agents, undercover police, drug addicts, provocateurs, Mafioso and about 100,000 more tourists to watch them all followed in their wake.”

The efforts of the pioneers in the Haight-Ashbury to create an enlightened community took about two years, from 1964-66, to reach the flashpoint, and during those years the music reached an artistic high point. By the end, two years before Woodstock and Altamont, overcrowding and the negative reaction of police and the San Francisco city government combined to make life in the Haight miserable for everyone.

Still, the experience of enlightenment had left a lasting impression on the minds and hearts of those who participated in the “hippie scene” either in the Haight or in far-flung communities that sprouted from Be-Ins and the acid-tinged philosophers such as Dr. Timothy Leary. The experience, like acid, reached a peak, then subsided, leaving everyone bewildered and changed for life.

The music of the Haight-Ashbury is special for me. I grew up in the Sixties, and some of these artists and musicians were my heroes, in the true meaning of the term. They stuck their necks out and risked everything to bring us this music.

The Haight-Ashbury’s music scene thrived and continues to shine like a beacon of the psychedelic age, as everyone now knows the music of the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Quicksilver, the Steve Miller Band, and friends from Berkeley including Creedence Clearwater Revival and Country Joe and the Fish, and many other lesser-known but amazingly talented bands. And just about all of them owe their existence to the legendary, nearly-forgotten, first acid-rock-western band, the Charlatans. The first rock poster was drawn by George Hunter and Mike Ferguson of the Charlatans for their shows at the Red Dog Saloon. Wes Wilson, a printer and artist, developed many of the motifs of the early posters along with Alton Kelley, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin.

Many of the poster artists cranked out poster and handbill designs quickly for hastily-scheduled concerts at the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms. And yet, despite (or perhaps due to) the quick work and druggy atmosphere, the poster art of this period represented the pinnacle of 20th Century poster art, and the innovations inspired a cascade of rock posters and concert handbills produced all over the country by many brilliant artists.

[SOURCE: rockument.com.]