Showing posts with label 1968. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1968. Show all posts

Excerpt (Chapter 1): The Crystal Ship

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Taken 24 December, 1968
Apollo 8 mission
Courtesy: NASA

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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

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(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.

Excerpt (Chapter 1): Blue Moons

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From Apollo 8: December 24, 1968
Photo courtesy of NASA (Blue tint added by webmaster)

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Christmas Eve, 1968
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(2001 Ivar Street, Hollywood, California)

Blue Moons.

Black dots from the linoleum rise up and float, planets bursting into blue, red, yellow, green, purple, orange.

Birthing galaxies...

Does God feel the same awe?

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Dark Side

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December 25, 1968


(Tenth revolution around the Moon)

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.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Flying Solo

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December 1968
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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.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Weed and Seeds

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(December 1968)
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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.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Funny Little Naked Clowns

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December 1968
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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).
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(Hollywood, California)
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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.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Decision Time

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(December 1968)

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. 

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Thirteen Tabs

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(December 1968)

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...

Excerpt: The Luckiest Hand

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Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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August 18, 2004

(Delta Flight #5883 to Omaha, Nebraska)

I would never see Stoney again.

I have no pictures of him, and yet his image remains grooved in my mind–my first real love, however ill-conceived.

Shortly after we parted, I drew a picture of him from memory. 

Memoir Madness: driven to involuntary commitment (Blurb)

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Blurb revised and moved to MemoirMadness.com

Memoir Madness: driven to involuntary commitment (Summary)

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Summary moved to MemoirMadness.com

San Francisco Municipal Railway Bus Transfer, 1968-1969

San Francisco Municipal Railway Bus Transfer, 1968-1969
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I can't believe that I saved this old bus transfer from San Francisco and still have it, but here it is, photo of front and back.

Outtake Moved to Madness Memoir

Flashback--October 1968: Wild Man Fischer's Merry-go-round

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(Hollywood)


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?”

C’mon let’s merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!

Merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!

Merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!



Me and you can go merry go round!

It’s very easy, just go up and down!

C’mon, c’mon let’s merry go, merry go, merry go round! Boop boop boop!

–“Merry-Go-Round,” Wild Man Fischer

“Yes, Wild Man, we hear it.”

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Circle Song



hleaf

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“You like my song?”

“It’s a cool song.”

“You wanna buy it? Only ten cents.”

“Not today, Wild Man. Thanks, anyway.”

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.

What a nark.

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Excerpt copyright 2008, Jennifer Semple Siegel.

Text may not be reposted or republished without permission.


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Flashback--October 12, 1968: "A Mother's Warning"

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Mother in front of her Canoga Park Home (Late 1960's)
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(Hollywood)


Mother called about 2:00 a.m.

I grabbed the phone before it awakened everyone, including Mrs. Horton, that old busybody.




I knew it was Mom even before she spoke, the only person I know who calls in the middle of the night, rip roaring drunk.

News Clip--October 19, 1968: Nixon Presidential Campaign

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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.


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drerxn
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New Text: 1968--The Year That Shaped a Generation

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Jennifer Semple, high school graduation picture (1968)
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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
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Posts moved to Memoir Madness: 

Outtake: 1968 –The Year that Shaped a Generation (Jennifer’s Viewpoint)

 

Outtake: 1968 –The Year that Shaped a Generation (Documentary)



News Clip--October 17, 1968: First Anniversary of "The October 17th Movement"

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Photo from alternet.org
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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....
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Ms. America, Up Against the Wall


Maisonpop93
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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
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News Clip--October 16, 1968: Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos Give "Black Power" Salute

Public Domain Photo by Angelo Cozzi (Wikipedia)

During the Olympics awards ceremony for the 200 meter race, Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) give the “black power” salute. 

Photo: Gold medalist Tommie Smith (center) and bronze medalist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200 m race at the 1968 Summer Olympics; both wear Olympic Project for Human Rights badges. Peter Norman (silver medalist, left) from Australia also wears an OPHR badge in solidarity with Smith and Carlos. 


Source

Source
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Mexico City, 1968: Actual Footage From the 200m Final


Justinglewis

1. Tommie Smith (USA)
2. Peter Norman (AUS)
3. John Carlos (USA)



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News Clip--October 14, 1968: Beatles Wrap Up Recording the White Album

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***Video removed because it was taken down on Youtube***
Go directly to Youtube for another version:



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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.

Source 1

Source 2

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News Clip--October 12, 1968: Mexico City Olympics Opening Ceremony

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Nineteenth Olympic games open at Mexico City, Mexico. Norma Enriqueta Basilio Satelo is the first woman to light Olympic flame.

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"Jennifer Juniper," Donovan Leitch, 1968 (YouTube)

Jefferson Airplane

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Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love"

Jefferson Airplane performing live both "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. More
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