Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation

I have only read the first of 3 but I am riveted

Excellent and intriguing read, thanks. Looking forward to the next one.

ya know what blew me away? the crosby/degeneres sperm donar stuff. it never made any sense until this.. through the rabbit hole.

because nobody else will!! ha!

"...and there's this guy, from the CIA, and he's creeping around Laurel Canyon..."

~Frank Zappa & the Mothers; "Plastic People" [Absolutely Free, 1967]

Another thing that only 'makes sense' after the articles !!

It's been 36 years since I read the book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe - the story of how Ken Kesey (author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and his Band of Merry Pranksters, together with Gerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, went on a road trip to turn on America to LSD...

but weren't the Merry Pranksters based out of Laurel Canyon?

My bad... Ken Kesey's ranch was located in LaHonda, California.

but note who turns up in the Wikipedia entry for laHonda (see below)...

..Neil Young.

Neil Young, the only Canadian mentioned so far in this story was not a military brat like all the others, but the son of of well-known Canadian sports columnist Scott Young.

I remember wearing Neil Young's felt hat for several years, after he threw it into a crowd at a folk concert. The friend who gave it to me said "This hat belonged to Scott Young's son"

Wikipedia entry for "La Honda"...

La Honda is a small unincorporated town in San Mateo County in the state of California. It is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Silicon Valley and the Pacific coast of California, western United States. The population of the Cuesta La Honda subdivision is approximately 1,500, with a similar number in the surrounding area. It is near the La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve. It is situated on State Route 84 on its downward slope towards the Pacific ocean, that is, on the ocean side of the Coastal Range.

The ZIP Code for La Honda is 94020 and the community is located in area code 650. Wired numbers in the La Honda telephone exchange follow the pattern 747-xxxx while wired telephones in and around the Middleton Tract (along Portola State Park Road) work out of the Los Altos exchange with 94x-xxxx numbers. U.S. Geological Survey NAD83 coordinates for the community are [show location on an interactive map] 37°19′09″N, 122°16′27″W. The Survey says Lahonda is a historic variant of the modern spelling.

The book A Separate Place by Charles Jones describes the people, history and landscape of La Honda.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Cultural history
* 2 Sources
* 3 Citations
* 4 See also
* 5 External links

[edit] Cultural history
State Route 84 in downtown La Honda.
State Route 84 in downtown La Honda.

La Honda is well known as one of the birthplaces of the Psychedelic era.[citation needed] Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (pages of which were written all over the restroom wall of his La Honda residence) and other books, owned a home in La Honda, which served as the base of operations for The Merry Pranksters where they used LSD and other drugs.[1]

The escapades of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters are documented in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which describes the wildly painted school bus, 'Furthur', driven by Neal Cassady, who had been the frenetic driver in Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Today, Neil Young lives on a 1500-acre (6 km²) ranch near La Honda.[citation needed]
A neon sign in the Redwoods: Applejack's Saloon.
A neon sign in the Redwoods: Applejack's Saloon.

The La Honda house where Kesey's adventures became famous - one mile west of Applejack's saloon - has been faithfully restored after years of neglect and a near catastrophic flood in 1998, although the road sign on the bridge no longer exists: "No Left Turn Unstoned".[citation

I'm not trying to hijack this thread, but I'm sure there must be a big connection between the Ken Kesey-Gerry Garcia- Hunter S. Thompson-Hell's Angels crowd and the Laurel Canyon scene.

Hunter S.Thompson of course was suicided just when he was investigating the possibility that child kidnap victim Johnny Gosch and Bush's gay prostitute/political groupie Jeff Gannon were one and the same.

The Grateful Dead's legacy lives on through their nephews, who formed the band Green Day.

The whole music-as-mind-control scenario was laid out in the classic underground novel "ILLUMINATUS TRILOGY" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, friends of CIA double agent Timothy Leary... I am always astonished at how much of that sci-fi "fantasy" has since come true.

dang!

I could tell you where this all originated , but then, I would get banned.

OMFG smart kids who pursued art in the mid-1960s were often the children of well-off families, many of whom were military officers.

I mean, there's no way smart kids who grew up in conservative America would maybe have something to say about all that, during the Vietnam War.

All what originated?

give me a T
give me a A
give me a V
give me a I
give me a S
give me a T
give me a O
give me a C
give me a K

WHAT DOES THAT SPELL?(don't answer or you'll be banned)

You're probably right. Look at the movie Bye Bye Birdie very carefully and watch for the British character named Dr Paisley, sent to the USA to observe experiments in popular culture.

... hmmmm????... and okay okay, I've just read through all of those links there OP, and they are pretty much right on.... and as far as life in Laurel Canyon was back then anyways.

I lived in Laurel Canyon during those thar times... and like from 1965 through 1976 I lived at 1850 Jewett Drive (a rental) and then I bought the house next door (for $30,000) at 1860 Jewett Drive in '69 (just off of Ridpath and up from the Country Store to the west)

And I say 'pretty much right on' there, and cuz for example, lol, right across the road, or street, from Mama Cass's was actually almost a quarter of a mile away for instance (my most gooder friend and my doctor at the time, Dr. Walter Ellerbeck bought Cass's house in '71)... and, like Jackson Browne had already been living up on Lookout Mtn. Drive for a while, and so too was soon to be governor Brown also living up there on Wonderland for quite some time as well.

And too, at that time I was also working at the Ralph's Grocery Store nearest to Laurel Canyon, and located at Sunset and Poinsettia... or... about a mile and a half a way from me home on Jewett Drive.

My only disagreement though, and with what all is written there might would be... that the birth of the Hippie Generation, and so to speak... methinks/feels actually began springing up right after the death of the Beatnik scene. Well, and too... at first 'we' were known as 'Flower Children'... and the term 'Hippy' really didn't come into play until a bit later on... and as in like when the 'sleaze factor', or them 'Flower Power' wannabes kinda moved in that is... and just because the notion of 'Flower Power' was just becoming more and more mainstream popular at the time.

As for all of them deaths though... well... ya have to also remember that drugs in those days (LSD, Black Beauties, White Crosses, and the likes) was pretty much a free for all... and pretty much readily flowing just about everywheres ya went... lol, and I do mean everywheres too. And, I knew an awful lot of kids back then who totally flipped out on all of those kinda drug flowings as well.

Better living thru chemistry [link to www.westernwebsites.com]

From the second link :

"Watson co-owned and worked in a wig shop in Beverly Hills, Crown Wig Creations, Ltd., that was located near the mouth of Benedict Canyon. Meanwhile, one of Jay Sebring’s primary claims-to-fame was his expertise in crafting men’s hairpieces, which he did in his shop near the mouth of Laurel Canyon. A typical day then in the late 1960s would find Watson crafting hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele near Benedict Canyon, and then returning home to Laurel Canyon, while Sebring crafted hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele near Laurel Canyon, and then returned home to Benedict Canyon. And then one crazy day, as we all know, one of them became a killer and the other his victim. But there’s nothing odd about that, I suppose, so let’s move on."

<<<<<

Lyrics to Frank Zappa's "Who Needs the Peace Corp" - Sept '68:

"Buy a wig
And sleep on Owsley's floor,
Walked past the wig store."

Almost one year before the deaths?

Wow! Amazing stuff, much of it I've known in the past, but put together so well. Taking the red pill might not have been such a good idea, Trin.

then of course there is the famous contractor dr timothy leary

For folks who might contribute to this who may have missed this one.

old stanley is online too:
www.thebear.org

for those who know

4 2sdae.

4 3sdae.

It's all true. mkultra from the getgo. I had the hints back then but could not put it together.

hey here's part 4;

[link to www.davesweb.cnchost.com]

Thanks, OP!

Good reading...

The generation may have sprung to life in Laurel Canyon, but the word "hippie" didn't start there. I was in on the tale end of the beat generation, and was living in Greenwich Village in '65. We used to see bubble gum-chewing 15 year-olds coming into the Village on weekends trying desperately to make people think they were "hip." "Hippie" was a derogatory term describing these wet-behind-the-ears hipsters. And so it all began. The anti-war movement in those days had more to do with Santo Domingo, believe it or not, and of course Dr. King's marches in the South. What a complicated time it became.

fascinating...maybe the lsd made them more creative?

the www and email were born in berkely- not switzerland