Taken 24 December, 1968 Apollo 8 mission Courtesy: NASA ____________________________________________________
Christmas Eve, 1968
(Ninth revolution around the Moon)
85 hours, 44 minutes, and 58 seconds into the Apollo 8 mission, astronauts James Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman broadcast photographs of Earth from lunar orbit.
"The vast loneliness up here on the moon is awe-inspiring...makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth," says Lovell. "The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space."
"We are now approaching lunar sunrise," Anders says. "For all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message..."
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth..."
Taken 24 December, 1968 Apollo 8 mission Courtesy: NASA ____________________________________________________
(Santa Monica, California)
I’m sprawled out in the work room with Levi, a some-time clerk at The Crystal Ship and a drug dealer on the Strip.
Christmas Day, 89:22:34. On the far side of the Moon and out of radio contact with Houston, Apollo 8's Service Propulsion System (SPS) has been ignited to accelerate it out of lunar orbit.
At 89:34:16, radio contact has been re-established with the crew.
89:34:25. Astronaut Lovell: "Please be informed there is a Santa Claus."
(Hollywood)
Far out Blue Moons.
Stoney and I don’t come down until after three–we crash for a few hours. Then, about seven, we go to Cecil’s Stand for cheeseburgers and fries.
Later we exchange presents–he gives me a jade ring and a petrified wood ashtray in psychedelic colors; I give him a blue rock. Both from The Crystal Ship. I’m not sure what he likes.
- Stoney left 45 minutes ago for San Francisco, to score some acid. We decided it would be best if I stayed behind–save money to buy a van.
It’s so cold in here, no heat, no one to keep me warm. I wish I could have gone with Stoney. He says he’ll be back, at the latest, by tomorrow evening.
- Still waiting for Stoney, but it’s early yet. I just got up–I slept 14 hours straight. So tired...I just crashed in the middle of writing a letter to Jeff.
I’m going to cut back the dope–wish Stoney would too. He can be difficult, especially when he’s high.
147:00:42. On December 27, Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S.S. Yorktown is on scene for the rescue: the astronauts on board by 12:20 p.m. (EST), the Apollo capsule by 1:20 p.m. (EST).
-
(Hollywood, California) -
Stoney’s back. He shows me 500 tabs of STP bought from his San Francisco source. I’ve never seen so much acid at one time.
Stoney and I look at a VW van. I found my old savings passbook from Sioux City: cool! I still have $136.14 left. We need two or three hundred yet. If we don’t get the van, then maybe I’ll use the money to visit Big Brother in Pennsylvania.
I love Stoney, but I’m sick of being stoned all the time.
Stoney didn’t come home last night. I worry that he’s been busted, so I hunt all over Hollywood and Santa Monica for him. I even check with the fuzz down at L.A. County.
I find him hanging out at The Crystal Ship, flirting with his ex old lady Syndi, she hanging all over him. She’s a skinny chick with short red hair, in a pixie style popular about three years ago, all doe-eyed, and looks about 15. But there’s nothing innocent about her...
As Stoney, Jeff, and I prowled the strip, we ran into Wild Man Fischer, clenching a tape recorder, one of those portable Juliettes, blasting a song from his new album An Evening with Wild Man Fischer.
He shoved it under my nose and shouted, “Hear my song?”
A pest, but harmless--probably a rich pest. He fit his name; he was manic, always wound up tight, fast like a fly or hummingbird. He even looked manic: eyes practically popping out of his head, his hair, black and frizzy, stuck out at all angles. He wore a loud yellow shirt with blobs of red, orange, and green, and flip flops, though, sometimes, only one, even when it was cold. Plus, he was constantly running around the strip with that tape recorder.
I’ve heard that he’d spent some time in a mental hospital.
“I’ll play it again,” he said, pushing the rewind button.
“That’s okay.” We inched away.
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but he had a way of getting under your skin. And then he’d be off to the next group of freaks. They were all out tonight, unusual for a week night: Julius Caesar, drag queens, streetwalkers–a circus. We verbally sparred with Caesar, an old dude, his Roman soldier costume stolen from 20th Century Fox. He harassed tourists, the middle-aged straights who arrived on the strip decked out in Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts, straw hats, and sunglasses, big clunky cameras around their necks, loud voices: “Hey, Herman, look at the dirty hippies.” Everyone was a dirty hippie because the straights couldn’t distinguish between groups that populate the strip.
Caesar yelled out his standard slogans: “LBJ is a necrophiliac; he digs dead dudes” and “All the way with LBJ; Lady Bird Johnson is a nymphomaniac.”
What a freak; his slogans angered many of the gawkers, who turned red.
Some even yelled back, “America: Love it or Leave it.”
Caesar paid no attention to the counter-yellers--like he was in a trance.
Regional pacts...can prevent a local conflict from escalating into world war. The regional pact thus becomes a buffer separating the distant great powers from immediate threat–and the danger of a Social conflict escalating into world war is thereby reduced. A regional pact would provide a buffer between the United States and the Soviet Union in future flare-ups.
Jennifer Semple, high school graduation picture (1968) _____________________________________________
For baby boomers, 1968 was a defining year, a year in which we, as a generation, lost our 1950's innocence. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy simply added another sickening dimension to President Kennedy's assassination four and a half years earlier.
President Kennedy had been assassinated at a time when, essentially, 1950's values were still in place and the shameful significance of the Viet Nam War was still unclear.
Jennifer and Olive Semple, June 5, 1968 _____________________________________
Photo from alternet.org _____________________________________________________________________
A year ago today (1967), “The October 17th Movement” was created by radical New York women dissatisfied with the increasing conservatism of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Their manifesto includes,
Radical feminism recognizes the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression wherein women are categorized as an inferior class based upon their sex. It is the aim of radical feminism to organize politically to destroy this sex class system.
As radical feminists we recognize that we are engaged in a power struggle with men, and that the agent of our suppression is man insofar as he identifies with and carries out the supremacy privileges of the male role. For while we realize that the liberation of women will ultimately mean the liberation of men from their destructive role as oppressor, we have no illusion that men will welcome this liberation without a struggle....
The oppression of women is manifested in particular institutions, constituted and maintained to keep women in their place. Among these are the institutions of marriage, motherhood, love and sexual intercourse (the family unit is incorporated by the above).
Source for Manifesto ______________________________________________________________________ *
The last recording session for The Beatles White Album wraps up, after John Lennon records the 32nd and final song, “Julia,” He tapes it alone, twice singing to his acoustic guitar accompaniment, this song the only one released by The Beatles on which John performs alone.
Selected pieces from the most recent version of the memoir.
2. Illustrations and Relevant Embedded Videos
I have very few photographs from that time in my life, so the illustrations are symbolic and artistic representations, which should not be interpreted literally. In 2005, when I wrote the first draft, embedding video clips was in its infancy, and so was my ability to embed them. But this is 2008, and I'm catching up with the YouTube revolution!
3. Out Takes
Text that appeared in various drafts but (for various reasons) was cut. The most important out take appears here--proof positive that I have been living on borrowed time for 39+ years.
In the first draft, I had added "news clips" to the text. During revision, I deleted most of them, but, now, have decided that they belong on this site.
5. New Text
I added this category--just in case something important is not covered in 1, 2, 3, or 4.
...The world as it appears to me is my creation, and for it I must assume responsibility. Given, as the bricks out of which I can build a universe, is a chaotic kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, sounds, moods, hopes, fears, joys, pains, ideas, movements...Out of this anarchy, I organize a world for myself. I subdue the disordered shapelessness into a world by choosing one out of an infinity of possible structures.
