NOT PYNCHON just Tim Leary

[Joseph Tracy]

This reviewer seems to think he is clever. Did anyone laugh at his crappy skit? Leary himself was at least funny enough to make me laugh and is only a target for shmucks like Boyle or RC because he is safely dead. The world is full of ego-trippers( TC Boyle not least in the writer type). Leary was the court jester variety with the guts to fart in the general direction of this self aggrandizing culture with the even bigger armed-ego problem.  He never forced anyone to believe his message about drugs or anything else. His whole message was not believe in me, I’m a Harvard prof; it was think for yourself and don't believe anyone just because thay have a credential. He took risks and paid a big price for being a loud-mouth advocate for LSD.  Blaming the paranoid, police state reaction to the 60’s , or the self destructive paths of a small part of that generation on him is just silly. Every generation has losses . As to psychedelics, there  were numerous responsible psychedelic researchers who did promising work*, numerous chemists  and others who put LSD on the street,   and numerous psychedelic experimenters who went on to enriched lives of spirit, science, technology and activism.

 While Boyle keeps focusing  his cutting snidectomies on hippies and enviros and big game hunters, the country he is in kills millions in wars and despoils the earth, but I guess those things are not “historical frauds" . I read some of his short stories a few years back and decided I’d heard enough of what he has to say.  Skillful writer though, any aspiring writer could learn from him. 

* That research is finally being revived and used as the most effective treatment for PTSD ever. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mdma-drug-ptsd-trauma-psychedelic/ <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mdma-drug-ptsd-trauma-psychedelic/>     A good book on the topic of psychedelic history and I suspect far more nuanced and balanced  is Michael Pollan’s  How to Change Your Mind. He also criticizes Leary , IMO more than is due but the facts are correct. 
 
> On Apr 8, 2019, at 2:44 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/tc-boyle-is-americas-bard-of-historical-frauds-its-about-time-he-skewered-timothy-leary/2019/04/08/f93b360a-5996-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html?utm_t <https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/tc-boyle-is-americas-bard-of-historical-frauds-its-about-time-he-skewered-timothy-leary/2019/04/08/f93b360a-5996-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html?utm_t>
> erm=.7c4ad5738f8b
> --
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