FATHER OF LSD DIES AT 102

Albert Hoffman, the Swiss scientist who created LSD, died at his home near Basel, Switzerland at the age of 102.

To some, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) may seem to be an anachronism, a souvenir of the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s like lava lamps and black lights, but the drug was actually created in 1938. It's powerful psychoactive properties weren't discovered for five more years, when Hoffman accidentally ingested the drug and experienced its powerful effects while riding his bicycle home from the lab.


"[Hoffman] then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. That perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and professional life."
--the New York Times, 4/30/08

From a BBC documentary on LSD:


A link to the New York Times obituary, click HERE.

WILL HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF?

Walter Cronkite, Feb. 27, 1968

The war drags on. The Democratic party is fiercely divided. Martin Luther King is killed in April, and Robert Kennedy in June, the night of the California primary. With Kennedy dead, only one peace candidate remains, Eugene McCarthy. President Johnson isn't running, but Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who did not participate in the primaries, has enough spoken-for delegates to secure the nomination. This is his golden moment. To most people opposed to the war, Humphrey promises nothing but a continuation of LBJ's failed policies. The year is 1968.

The Democratic National Convention is held in Chicago. Protesters come from all over. Mayor Daley, the last of the big city bosses, meets them with brute force, Chicago style. Protesters are denied a permit, making them easy targets for Daley's agitated police. The Walker Commission later term what occurs as "a police riot."

Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Aug, 26-29, 1968

As the Chicago streets fill with teargas and bloodied demonstrators, strong-arm tactics invade the convention itself, as you can see from this clip with Dan Rather. America watches this chaotic scene on television, uncertain if the whole shebang is going up in flames.



Norman Mailer wrote extensively about the events in his book, "Miami and the Siege of Chicago." He spoke with Amy Goodman in 2004:

"Most of you, I’m sure, know all about it. For those of you who you don’t, there was a huge march of demonstrators, an essentially peaceful march that went up Michigan Boulevard and at a given moment, given the order by Mayor Daley then, not the present Richard Daley, but his father, the police surged into the marchers and beat them up with canes. It was all on television. It was extraordinary television, one of the incredible moments of network television, and everyone was shocked down to the core. The Cronkites, the Rathers, whoever was there then—I don’t even remember—they all were profoundly shocked. And it looked—at the moment, it looked like: how awful, how awful, the Republicans are going to pay for this. Quite the contrary, the Republicans won..."


-- from the documentary, "1968: The Year That Shaped a Generation."

Democratic Party nominee Humphrey will lose to Republican Richard Nixon, who uses the same talking points Republicans use today. Promising law and order, victory, patriotism, tough guy rhetoric, Nixon wins the general election and immediately escalates the war.
There are parallels. The war drags on. People want change. The Democrats are strongly divided. For some reason they argue endlessly about non-issues like flag lapel pins, instead of uniting against the Republicans and Bush's disastrous policies. Let's hope they wise up.

FROM THE ANIMATION ARCHIVE

Here is the St. James Infirmary section of Betty Boop's "Snow White" from 1933. Yes, that's Cab Calloway singing! What wonderful animation! Produced by Max Fleischer, directed by Dave Fleischer.

MUSIC FROM BIG PINK

in the early days...

The Band in the basement of Big Pink. Formerly The Hawks, and Bob Dylan's backup band, these country gentlemen created a timeless American music (though all but one were originally Canadian) in a basement in West Saugerties, New York. "The Basement Tapes," recorded with Bob Dylan while he recovered from a nearly fatal motorcycle accident, became one of the most famous bootlegs to ever leak. At a time when everyone else was making heavy psychedelic rock, these guys seemed to go back to the Civil War. Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, and Richard Manuel left Dylan to make some classic albums. They toured with him again in 1974.


Ross Reynolds of KUOW in Seattle produced a radio show on Robbie Robertson, with an interview by Bob Santelli of the Experience Music Project. I assisted Reynolds as music director of the piece, which gave me an excuse to obsessively pour over the music of Dylan and the Band, something I continue to enjoy on a regular basis.
To hear the show, click HERE.

at the last waltz...

ZAPPA SWAPS SOULS WITH A MONKEE

There is only one Frank Zappa. Maybe two. This creative weirdo stood alone in the music world, a creature at the edge of the wilderness, with no commercial potential. On the other side of the void, but still in Los Angeles, a four-headed beast built solely for commercial potential, ersatz-Beatles created by Hollywood hucksters to capitalize on pop music, struggled to life in both television and records, though never actually playing their instruments...The Monkees!

You would think these two had nothing in common. In fact, you'd think they couldn't occupy the same universe, much like matter and anti-matter, or pasta and anti-pasta. And yet these two forces came together one glorious day, the fuzz-tone Lion and the wool-hatted lamb, somehow merging a moment in the time-space continuum, and this is proof. Do you believe me? Watch as Frank Zappa and Mike Nesmith, the coolest Monkee, swap souls one fine afternoon in LA.

CELEBRITY CRAP NEWS

It's obvious, we spend too much time thinking about celebrities. Turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, and you're buried in a wave of celebrity sludge. It's the fast food of the news, the greasy, salty, heart attack special, and we're drawn to it like Newton's apple was drawn to the earth.
There is a gravitational pull to Brad Pitt and what's-her-name. Beyonce and Jay-Z. Whatever. A little less superficial crap would be a good thing, sure, but people aren't about to skip celebrity gossip and start reading Kierkegaard or anything. Gossip makes us feel better about ourselves, maybe a little superior. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, fills us with dread, absurdity, and the great harrowing abyss. Definitely no fun. And, hey...Know what I heard?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

Soren Kierkegaard

I heard Amy Winehouse got thrown in jail! Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed got married. Madonna is planning to adopt again. Guillermo del Toro, director of "Pan's Labyrinth," will direct the "Hobbit" for Peter Jackson. Soren Kierkegaard was voted off "Dancing with the Stars." Alicia Keys has a spiffy new album. Actor Wesley Snipes got three years in prison for tax evasion.

And you thought you had problems, home skillet!

TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR

Big Brother is not always watching. Take the case of Nicholas White. The New Yorker was working on the forty-third floor of the McGraw-Hill Building at Rockefeller Center, and decided to take a smoke break. He got on an elevator -- an elevator with a security camera -- and felt a jolt. The lights flashed off and on, and the elevator stopped. White pushed the intercom, and got no response. He pushed the emergency alarm bell. Nothing. Time passed.

He was stuck on the elevator for forty-one hours.

The City of Seattle just placed cameras in all its parks. Many cities in Europe and the States are already covered with security cameras. We've come to expect less privacy and more surveillance. Do all these cameras make us safer, or nudge us closer to George Orwell?

In the case of Nicholas White, a camera didn't seem to matter one way or the other. Watch his forty-one hour ordeal on this security camera video.

For the full story from the New Yorker, click HERE.