Jules Siegel"s Playboy article

[Robin Landseadel]

I suspect the following line might be a big part of Jules [or "Tom's"]  
problem. . .

". . . Pynchon came bouncing into our room with a pound of excellent  
grass, the kind they called ice pack, and a chunk of violent hash. He  
was wearing a black-velvet cape. There was a mysterious undertone to  
his enthusiasm . . ."

It is also a central clue concerning "Count Drugula":

	Psychedelicized far ahead of his time, Mucho Maas, originally a
	disk jockey, had decided around 1967, after a divorce
	remarkable even in that more innocent time for its geniality, to
	go into record producing. The business was growing
	unpredictable, and his takeoff was abrupt—soon, styling himself
	Count Drugula, Mucho was showing up at Indolent, down in the
	back-street Hollywood flats south of Sunset and east of Vine, in
	a chauffeured Bentley, wearing joke-store fangs and a black
	velvet cape from Z & Z, scattering hits of high-quality acid
	among the fans young and old who gathered daily for his
	arrival. "Count, Count! Lay some dope on us!" they'd cry.
	Indolent Records had rapidly become known for its unusual
	choices of artists and repertoires. Mucho was one of the very
	first to audition, but not, he was later to add hastily, to call back,
	fledgling musician Charles Manson. He almost signed Wild
	Man Fischer, and Tiny Tim too, but others got to them first.

". . .  Another night, we went to Studio A at Columbia Records, only  
to find our way barred by one of Brian's assistants, Michael Vosse,  
who explained that we couldn't come in anymore, because Chrissie was a  
witch and fucking with Brian's head so heavy by ESP that he couldn't  
work. . ."

	"Mucho, what happened, you were the Head of Heads, and not
	that long ago. This can't be you talking, it must be the fuckin'
	government, which this is all their trip anyway, 'cause they need
	to put people in the joint, if they can't do that, what are they?
	ain't shit, might as well be another show on the Tube.

". . .One afternoon, Chrissie and I drove out to Manhattan Beach to  
see Tom, taking along with us some grass we had scored at a be-in  
(remember be-ins?) in Griffith Park. . ."

	"Well I still wish it was back then, when you were the Count.

	Remember how the acid was? Remember that windowpane,
	down in Laguna that time? God, I knew then, I knew .... "

	They had a look. "Uh-huh, me too.

" . . ."What are you always so afraid of?" I asked him. "Don't you  
understand that what you have written will get you out of almost  
anything you might get yourself into?"
There was no answer, but looking into his face, I could see his  
thought as plainly as if has spoken out loud.
"You think that it is what you have written that they will want to get  
you for", I said. . ."

	" . . .No wonder the State panicked. How are they supposed to
	control a population that knows it'll never die? When that was
	always their last big chip, when they thought they had the
	power of life and death. But acid gave us the X-ray vision to see
	through	that one, so of course they had to take it away from us."
	"Yeah, but they can't take what happened, what we found out."
	"Easy. They just let us forget. Give us too much to process, fill
	up every minute, keep us distracted, it's what the Tube is for,
	and though it kills me to say it, it's what rock and roll is
	becoming—just another way to claim our attention, so that
	beautiful certainty we had starts to fade, and after a while they
	have us convinced all over again that we really are going to die.
	And they've got us again." It was the way people used to talk.