Karl Hess — Chief speechwriter for GOP presidential candidate
Barry Goldwater and ghostwriter for Nixon and Ford — and not to be
redundant, a Mafia crime figure. He wrote the 1960 Republican platform. Karl was
the subject of a documentary that won an Academy Award. I have a video of him
with Robert Anton Wilson, famed science-fiction writer and philosopher, that was
made at the 1987 Libertarian Party convention.
Timothy Leary — Famed former Harvard professor and software
designer. While known for his advocacy of LSD, he also wrote the first paper on
group therapy and devised the Leary Personality Test, which has been used in
prisons. I produced an event with Leary and Wilson called "From Psychedelics to
Cyberspace" that introduced virtual reality to New York City in 1990. This event
attracted over 1,300 people as well as coverage of over 50 media outlets,
including the three major television networks, and got a front-page story in The
New York Times.
Terrence McKenna — Author of "The Archaic Revival" which
postulates that psychedelic mushrooms were the first domesticated plant. He also
founded a botanical preserve of plants used in shamanic preparations used all
over the world.
Spalding Gray — Actor in almost 40 films including "The Killing
Fields." His famous monologue "Swimming to Cambodia" is based on his experiences
in that film, a history of the genocide done by Pol Pot and his receiving aid
from the U.S. Spalding also freely admitted his use of psychedelics. Recently The
New York Times had a full page article on him calling him the greatest monologist
of our time. He was also the subject of a cover story in New York Magazine.
Allen Ginsberg — Poet laureate of the '60s and author of "Howl"
and "Kaddish." He led Buddhist chants at peace rallies to help mediate (or
meditate) an end to the Vietnam conflict. He was known for bringing the war "om."
I met him at a fund-raising party and told him I admired his poetry. "Will you
give me a blow job?" he responded. Poetry for Allen was a sound way of receiving
oral gratification in one sense or another. Alienated entertainers of the time
developed their talent in a selfish though honest search for a groupie to get
into.
Andrew Kopkind — New Left writer and editor of May Day and Hard
Times. He taped a talk of mine and printed it in his magazine. That was nice
since I never did that for him.
Walter Breen — Husband of and researcher for best-selling author
Marion Zimmer Bradley. He was an accomplished author in his own right, on humor,
ancient Greece, classical music, and the occult. His encyclopedia of American
numismatics made him the leading authority in that field. He agreed with my
theory that each rise of statism in America was marked by the physical and image
debasement of its coinage. Walter and I attended a psychedelics conference
together.
Abbie Hoffman — I confronted him about his cocaine dealing at his
coming out from hiding party, saying that he brought dishonor to all of us who
counseled people to stay away from hard drugs so that we could show the public
the distinction between the relative harmlessness of the marijuana culture vs.
the deadly, paranoid cocaine culture.
Jerry Rubin — Author of "Growing Up At 37" and former partner of
the political/comedic Abbie Hoffman, whom he debated at yippie vs. yuppie
debates. I met Jerry at one of his famous networking parties (there were 3,000
people attending) when he was a stockbroker. I told him about the legal "smart"
and life-extension drugs designed by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. This former
yippie ended up working for former YAFers Durk and Sandy as salesperson for their
products.
Steve Donaldson — Former Goldwater activist, Navy vet, noted
pre-Stonewall gay activist, and head of Stop Prison Rape. He was the subject of a
documentary on 60 Minutes. While in prison he was raped as many as 50 times in
one night and yet never had any hatred for those responsible. A true saint with a
punkish sense of humor. It was an honor to give him marijuana while he was in the
last stages of AIDS which he got when raped in prison.
Ron Crickenberger — Former political director of the Libertarian
Party. He was once arrested for possession of marijuana and was involved in
protests against the drug war.
Remember, these are only the dead ones, whose anonymity no longer needs to be
protected. I also smoked pot with three people who wrote speeches for Ronald
Reagan; Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who has admitted that he "drank the bong
water" and has submitted medical marijuana bills; and Ron Kimberling, who
actually authored a libertarian position paper calling for an end to the drug war
and later was Assistant Secretary of Education, and is now executive director of
the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which administers the Reagan Presidential Library.
Another future GOP leader I smoked pot with was Shawn Steele, who later became
the chair of the California Republican Party. All of these were members of our
libertarian caucus of Young Americans for Freedom. It is a truism of that time
that a conservative who smoked pot soon became a libertarian. It is also a fact
that many of us who did LSD evolved into anarchists. Maybe this is the real
reason for Reagan's War on Drugs and why I joined the opposition.
