THE FIRESIGN THEATRE
From the moment CIA agent Albert Hubbard began handing LSD out to people he deemed worthy bypassing the middle man, psychiatrists, the perception of the world began to shift. Within one generation the common knowledge would go from us conquering earth to wanting to help it, from being masters of the animal kingdom to vegetarians, from segregation and race laws to integrated police forces and today a Black man running for President.
Hubbard passed it out to Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, many others, not street quality LSD but military proof LSD. Half the CIA thought LSD would be great to use in warfare and half thought it could change the universe.
The half that thought it could do good went out of their way to convince the squares to try it. Hubbard himself would dose the coffee machine at the CIA cafeteria.
Imagine that. The CIA cafeteria you might see the same person everyday for years, and never know their real name or what they do. Here you are in your crewcut thinking about killing Castro when you suddenly notice a ray of light hitting your coffee and you see the texture of the liquid as you never have before and your cream! What is happening to your cream? So you pour some into the cup and look at the pattern. Hey wait a second..... I'm dosed! You look up and there is Hubbard, laughing his ass off.
Our tax dollars at work.
The squares kept trying to turn it into a weapon. They had a whore house in San Francisco and would dose the john (customer) and then film the person having sex with a hooker employed by the government. I'm sure this idea looked good on paper.
It seemed like each person who tried the drug at this time went on to become promoters of the drug and a creative lifestyle.
There were problems. No one in those days understood depression. If you had problems with depression, couldn't get out of bed or had crying spells, doctors would tell you to snap out of it and maybe prescribe speed, amphetamines.
People who years later would be diagnosed as bi-polar or suffering from depression in those days had no idea LSD was not a good idea for them.
LSD would change movies, TV, clothes, music, art by 1970- the crewcuts would give way to at least longer sideburns. LSD would also change comedy.
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE saga begins in 1966 when the comedy team did a three hour long form radio improvisation that left the hippies listening on KPFK radio stunned. LSD consciousness had hit Los Angeles and it was on the radio. These weren't jokes ala ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH IN this was a long form psychedelic trip into the heart of radio and media. This was genius, and tapes circulating spread the word to comedians all over the nation. The rules of comedy had just been changed.
By 1968 when the first album came out, WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICIAN OR SOMEONE LIKE HIM every hippie in America was waiting for this album. It lived up to the hype, not only were these guys hip enough to know about tripping, the album sounded great tripping!
Hippies had their own form of comedy, and Vegas comedians suddenly seemed very square.
This album was followed by HOW CAN YOU BE TWO PLACES AT ONCE WHEN YOU'RE NOT ANYWHERE AT ALL? and the masterpiece, DON'T CRUSH THAT DWARF HAND ME THE PLIERS we had all begun memorizing entire chunks off the albums.
LSD had also changed Del's comedy. Del had heard about the wonders of LSD, so when he discovered the Army was doing REM tests he jumped at the chance to try it. The Army didn't wait for you to go to sleep to try the tests on rapid eye movement. They injected you with LSD and had you lie down and close your eyes! Del was up for three tests, but by the second test wanted to do more than just lie on a table with his eyes closed. And he wanted to go to New York and try his hand at fame.... so he didn't show up for the third test.
He did however, send a letter to the Army with his new address and a request for payment on the two tests.
The Army replied with a letter that he had only completed two of the requirements to receive payment, and that he owed the U.S. Army one dream.
The monolog continues with the Discordians and a writing movement from France which launched the long form improv movement.....
Posted at 07:08 am by Psychomike
