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Free City News / Free City News Articles / Orange Sunshine by Nicholas Schou/Reviewed by Jonathan Taylor
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on: September 07, 2010, 05:49:02 PM
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Started by LostDog | Last post by LostDog
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Orange Sunshine
by Nicholas Schou
http://www.erowid.org/library/review/review.php?p=316
Reviewed by Jonathan Taylor
9/1/2010
Once upon a time there were hippies in Orange County, California.
To someone like myself who has lived in this ostensibly conservative region for some time, this might already seem like a fairytale. How much more so then to realize that these OC hippies worshipped LSD as a sacrament, distributed unbelievably massive quantities of it, pioneered smuggling hash out of Afghanistan while forming an enormous hash and weed distribution business, counted Timothy Leary as one of their own for a few years and bankrolled his prison breakout by the Weathermen, and were eventually prosecuted out of business by Orange County cops?
The "hippie mafia" in question was the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and the latest (and by my count only the second) major book to tell their story is Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World by OC Weekly investigative reporter Nick Schou. This non-fiction account reads like a late 60s crime thriller, though the crimes in question seem mainly to be quenching an enormous thirst for weed, hash and acid among the young recreational drug-using subcultures of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Though true, it is an amazing tale, especially in Schou's telling. Schou gets this scene, the humor of it, the foibles, and the sheer legendary stonedness. He also stresses the anecdotal and personal over the larger context, unlike an earlier account of the Brotherhood by Tendler and May. That book, engaging and informative, focused more broadly on LSD in both its cultural milieu and also its main manufacturers. Orange Sunshine focuses almost exclusively on the Brotherhood of Eternal Love itself, with a major exploration of their hash smuggling exploits. Thus the title is a bit of a misnomer.
The Brotherhood was initially a group of violent thugs from the flatlands of Orange County and LA, some of whom were also surfers, who got religion in the form of LSD. Utopian in orientation but street dealers in practice, they figured out how to make a bunch of money from smuggling and distributing their favorite drugs. They didn't, apparently, ever quite learn how to not bring their work home with them and the tale of their success and dissolution almost seems to suggest that smuggling drugs was the easy part, while just existing while being on so many drugs all the time was tougher. Eventually, carelessness, misadventure, bad luck, and snitches put an end to the Brotherhood. The LSD manufacturing and hash smuggling continued, but that's another story.
Orange Sunshine mixes together great huge swaths of seemingly disparate Southern California culture. Mean flatland thugs, crazed canyon bikers, stoned coastal surfers, pan-Californian acidheads: the Brotherhood is where these subcultural strands came together. Always seeking a utopian escape, some of its members fled to Maui, where these transplanted pot smugglers turned to big-wave surfing, created Maui Waui, and appeared in the film Rainbow Bridge with Jimi Hendrix, whom they dosed with a DMT-laced joint during his performance. In the great tradition of the Southern Cal/Northern Cal rivalry, the Brotherhood seems simultaneously more heroic, hedonistic, and moronic than the Haight crowd, whom they happily sold weed to and bought Owsley acid from. One of their few NorCal appearances was showing up to dose the Hell's Angels with acid at Altamont. Sadly, the Brotherhood seemed to have no "house band" counterpart like the Bay Area's Grateful Dead (one hesitates to guess what this would have sounded like), but its members did include the former drummer of Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. (Dale, the most influential guitarist in the history of surf music, was based in Orange County.)
Schou has a great, almost pulp-entertainment way of telling this story and seems to have put in abundant time interviewing participants of the scene, and the larger-than-life characters he describes come bursting off the page. Most notable is John Griggs, a mean son-of-a-bitch 50s-style jock who changed dramatically after sampling LSD stolen at gunpoint from a Hollywood producer. He became a sort of LSD visionary, leading the Brothers from their criminal ways to, well, way more stoned and peaceful but still criminal ways. Eventually he decided to drop out and formed a communal ranch group in the mountains near Idyllwild, California. It was here that he tragically died of what was reported by onlookers to be an overdose of "synthetic psilocybin" (see Afterword). This sort of horrible comeuppance seemed to be the fate of more than a few of the elite members of the Brotherhood, with accidental deaths, overdoses (including those of children), and busts far too common, though few of the Brotherhood ever served serious time.
But this is not really a cautionary tale, it's an adventure story, and a ripping one at that. The moral of the story, if there is one, is "Wow, it sure would have been fun to live in Laguna Beach in the 60s!"* It nicely complements other accounts of the cultural history of acid in the 60s such as Storming Heaven and Acid Dreams. Read those for the insightful discussions of the major political shifts and cultural changes of that singular and incredible era, as well as for the equally incredible story of the CIA's engagement with acid. But read Orange Sunshine for the kicks.
*Actually I did live in Laguna Beach from '66 to '67, but I was two years old and my parents moved our family, in part, to get away from the drugged-out hippies.
Afterword:
Unfortunately, I find it necessary to write an afterword, as this book is attracting some controversy from within the psychedelic community. The main charge is that the book is error-ridden and inaccurate, the reason being that key participants were not interviewed and some of those who were may have had their own vested interests in providing misleading information. Nick Schou has told me that he made every effort to interview key protagonists including, for example, Nick Sand, who declined several interview requests. Others who denied requests remain anonymous. At the same time, I feel it necessary to point out that Schou did interview a lot of former members of the Brotherhood as well as their family or other hangers-on, thus while it is certainly possible that the book contains some errors, distortions, or omissions, it is impossible to dismiss it as being poorly researched. It clearly and obviously isn't.
A couple of issues remain. First, there are questions about whether John Griggs really died of an overdose of synthetic psilocybin. I've asked Schou and he replied:
"Yes this question always comes up every time someone mentions Griggs' death. Although it's not in the book since I only talked to [Brenice] Brennie Smith after I turned in the manuscript, he was there the night Griggs died and confirms that he died of a toxic reaction to a crystallized form of psilocybin as stated in my book. Who knows what else was mixed in with it, but by all accounts, it was poisonous in the extreme in so far as Griggs ingested far too much of it, according to Smith as well as other Brotherhood members who weren't there but got that story straight from those who were present. Nobody I interviewed for the book who was in the Brotherhood and on the scene when he died have any confusion that this is how he died. It was widely known among the Brotherhood that this psilocybin was making the rounds, see where I mention Ed Padilla mentioning Griggs' enthusiasm for the stuff the last time he saw Griggs. Some speculate that Griggs choked on his own vomit on the way to the hospital, but Smith says this is not the case and backs up the version in my book."
Schou also enclosed a death certificate, which listed Griggs' death as a consequence of "suspected drug intoxication (psilocin)". This is one of the few known deaths claimed to be caused by an overdose of psilocybin/psilocin. Given that no other fatal ODs from synthetic psilocybin or psilocin have ever been reported, it is possible that this was actually something else, or that the psilocybin was contaminated or adulterated.
Another question is more serious. In October 2009, Schou wrote a story for the OC Weekly on former Brotherhood member Brennie Smith, who had arrived in California in part to be interviewed for a documentary on the Brotherhood, and was arrested on an outstanding warrant.1 Apparently there is suspicion in some quarters that Schou's publicity of the Brotherhood from his prior OC Weekly stories on the group led to law enforcement's previously dormant interest in Smith, or that Smith arrived at Schou's behest. Schou insists that he had no knowledge of Smith's visit until he arrived, and in fact he gathered information helpful to Smith and shared it with Smith's defense attorney. Schou's stance on the ludicrousness of arresting and charging Smith is evident in the follow-up he penned later in October 2009.2 Given Schou's record of articles and investigative news reporting critical of the War on Drugs and the generally critical bent of the OC Weekly on Orange County law enforcement, the allegation that Schou somehow contributed to Smith's arrest seems baseless.
Clearly, those who were there and participated are in the best position to evaluate Orange Sunshine's accuracy, but given the complexity of the Brotherhood, its changes over time, the number of now elderly interviewees Schou talked to, and the fluid nature of memory, this is probably about the best account of a bunch of drug smugglers from 40 years ago that we're likely to get.
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1) Schou N. "Was Brotherhood Member Brenice Lee Smith a Felonious Monk?". OC Weekly. Oct 22, 2009.
2) Schou N. "Why is Brenice Lee Smith Still Behind Bars, Awaiting Trial?". OC Weekly. Oct 28, 2009.
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Discussion Forum / The New (new) Guestbook / Re: A New Day
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on: September 04, 2010, 06:42:13 AM
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Started by Ed. | Last post by Rejoice!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5tyb98gCQ8
Yet Another "9/11 Was An Inside Job" Song
An original song. Although primarily about 9/11 it does touch on some other issues such as the dumbing down of the public, the bombings of 3/11 and 7/7, the global warming/carbon tax scam, the central banking scam, fluoridated water, toxins in vaccines, the Kennedy assassination, the false left-right paradigm, the Rockefellers, the Saudi Corporation Ptech, swine flu, martial law, the police state and Internet 2.
This is way cool. Worth your 5 minutes. goes right to the heart of the matter. Bravo!
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Free City News / Free City News Articles / American Lives: ''James Baldwin, 'Lifting The Veil'
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on: August 29, 2010, 01:50:36 PM
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Started by LostDog | Last post by LostDog
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American Lives:
James Baldwin, 'Lifting The Veil'
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129281259
August 19, 2010
The writer James Baldwin once made a scathing comment about his fellow Americans: "It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak."
As an openly gay, African-American writer living through the battle for civil rights, Baldwin had reason to be afraid and yet, he wasn't. A television interviewer once asked Baldwin to describe the challenges he faced starting his career as "a black, impoverished homosexual," to which Baldwin laughed and replied: "I thought I'd hit the jackpot."
Several of Baldwin's essays, speeches and articles are collected in a new book called The Cross of Redemption. Randall Kenan, who edited the collection, talks to NPR's Steve Inskeep about Baldwin's complicated identity and how his work challenged black and white readers alike.
'His Charisma, His Rhetoric'
Baldwin wasn't afraid to speak out, but that didn't stop critics from trying to silence him. Kenan says Baldwin was "mysteriously" removed from the list of speakers for the March on Washington in August 1963.
His sexuality often came up when he dealt with conservative religious organizations, Kenan says. And when he tried to help the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, his sexual orientation was "thrown up at him in very hurtful ways."
Baldwin was quite open about his sexual orientation, and Kenan says there was something almost "magical" about Baldwin's frankness on the issue. At a time when major publishers wouldn't consider taking on a book about homosexuality, Baldwin wrote his second novel, Giovanni's Room, about a love affair between two white men.
"Right out of the box, Baldwin was going to blaze his own path," Kenan says. "And he got away with it. It's hard to imagine how he did part of it was his charisma, his rhetoric ... A lot of people would have had the door slammed in their face."
Underneath The Veil
The collection includes a dramatic profile of the boxer Sonny Liston on the night of his historic 1962 showdown with Floyd Patterson. Though publicly Liston was known for being a criminal connected to the mob, Baldwin found him to be a "gentle teddy bear."
Kenan believes Baldwin's own background allowed him to see through the spin to get to know the man himself. He found Liston to be a "very complicated, very dedicated, and very spiritual" person.
Baldwin wrote that Liston reminded him of "big black men I have known who acquired the reputation of being tough in order to conceal the fact that they weren't hard."
For Kenan, the quote sums up the way Baldwin was so well-equipped to explore the complexity of black identity in America.
"There is a dichotomy between the way the world views a person and the way your folk see you," he says. "I think that what we see in this piece is underneath that veil."
'An Insight Into Black America'
"You give me this advantage," Baldwin once wrote to his white audience. "Whereas you never had to look at me because you've sealed me away along with sin and hell and death my life was in your hands and I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me."
Kenan says that as members of the minority, African-Americans are observers of the majority culture through television, newspapers and pop culture, blacks "are privy to so much about white folks' lives" but not vice versa.
Kenan points to Baldwin's 1963 New Yorker profile of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. "The Fire Next Time" turned into a "long peroration, a sermon about race," Kenan says. "And it became a huge rallying point for black folk and white folk."
During a tense time in America when blacks and whites didn't have opportunities to communicate, Kenan says Baldwin's writing gave them something to talk about. His descriptions of growing up poor and black and discriminated against helped open a window through which the majority could begin to truly see the minority.
"He lifts the veil," Kenan says. "White people felt that they had an insight into black America that they didn't have before."
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See URL for Excerpt: 'The Cross Of Redemption'
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