Never met Leary, and yes not a hero.
Did meet Richard Alpert after he went to India and came back as Baba Ram Dass, and a “guru”
Spent an evening at a friends house, a professer at UC
Santa Cruz, and Alpert was there.
Decked out in one of those Indian shirts that comes down to your knees.
He talked, to me, nonsense but others were kinda spell bound.
There was another guy with the two of them at Harvard doing the acid. I forgot his name.
He kind of blended out of the scene, and the UCSC prof’s wife went with him.
Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters were around Santa Cruz quite often.
They would come to a psychedelic nightclub called The Barn—cause it was in a converted barn.
Dayglo black light paint on the walls, painted by a friend of mine. Who incidentally went to India also, never came back,
Found an Ashram and I guess became a “hindu” religion guy.
Poor Joe... heh.
Two of the prankster opened a bookstore called The Hip Pocket Bookstore.
They had access to an old, not working, cold box where anyone that knew could come and get free acid.
Mostly window pane.
Funny while I am typing this Hannity is on and just said something about Kennedy dropping acid.
Now Kennedy is on.
Weird.
There is no word for coincidence in the Hebrew language so...
I knew one of the pranksters...Lee was his name. One of the originals...Anyway, by the time I knew him, he was a reporter for the Mercury News. He covered Santa Cruz County. I was news director for KOMY out of Watsonville. Never met Leary or Alpert...did meet the Dali Lama when he came to Santa Cruz. Pretty neat. I always like Alan Watts over Baba Ram Dass...Watts actually made sense. I think Baba Ram Dass recently passed? Or is in very ill health last I heard.
Quite frankly, at this age, I think everyone needs a little Soma to get out of bed these days...Ha!
So, down in your soirees there in Santa Cruz with Leary, et al, did Ginsberg show up?