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The Zoo 4: Stomachs
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The Zoo 4 - Stomachs (Disk 2 of 2).adf
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*!EOM
101
2426Y00F07bookman24Y00J1Y00C3NDR. TIM'S LAST TRIP
0814Y00F05prime08N
0806Y00C5NPsychedelic philosopher Timothy Leary prepares to exit in typical style
0914Y00F05prime09N
0906Y00C6NJEFFREY RESSNER/LOS ANGELES
0911Y00J0Y00C1N
0814Y00F05prime08NTune in. it's Sunday afternoon, St. Patrick's Day, and traditional Celtic
0801Nmusic is wafting through the air outside a Benedict Canyon ranch home high
0801Nabove Beverly Hills. Inside, musicians are serenading an Irish philosopher as
0801Nhe lies dying in bed among linens that depict cartoon rocket ships zooming
0801Nover planets. Throughout the afternoon and well into the night, visitors come
0801Nto pay their respects: a grandchild, Rastas, filmmaker Oliver Stone,
0801Nslackers, alternative rocker Perry Farrell, Webheads. I run a salon, says
0801NTimothy Leary. Throughout human history, the salon has always been a
0801Nfermenting place where creative people meet.
0801N
0801NIndeed, Leary's recent guest list is both eclectic and electric: Yoko Ono,
0801Ngoddaughter Winona Ryder, former Mama Michelle Phillips, dolphin researcher
0801NJohn Lilly, onetime Dodger catcher Johnny Roseboro, the widow of Aldous
0801NHuxley, the members of the industrial-metal group Ministry, and Ram Dass, who
0801Nused to be Leary's old Harvard bud Richard Alpert. Oh, yes, Susan Sarandon
0801Nand Tim Robbins just dropped by and dropped off a tape of Dead Man Walking.
0801NIt's a little hectic up here, says Leary's personal assistant, a young woman
0801Nwith magenta-streaked hair, Technicolorfully tattooed legs and the too-good-
0801Nto-be-fact name of Trudy Truelove. Sometimes the weekend party situation is
0801Nlike an open house.
0801N
0801NWhile the concept of a salon may be traditional, this particular one can only
0801Nbe described as late century cyberpunk frat. Over by the patio is a
0801Nslate-gray pool table perched on construction girders, and out on the lawn is
0801Na sensory-deprivation chamber. The garage is less a garage than a World Wide
0801NWeb command post. Hiding among the overstuffed sofas and comic- book art in
0801Nthe living room are a video-game power glove, the latest issue of Rolling
0801NStone and a Yoda mask. The dining room is dominated by a psychedelic poster
0801Nfrom an old Don Knotts movie. But the master bedroom, which Leary refers to
0801Nas his de-animation room is the strangest place of all. Amid the clutter of
0801Nbills, floral bouquets, newspaper clippings, medical journals and stash boxes
0801Nis Leary's deathbed, and on either side of it are a huge tank of laughing gas
0801Nand an Apple computer. Bathing the Mac in red light is that hippie relic, the
0801Nlava lamp.
0801N
0801NTurn on. In this instance, one of Leary's friends adjusts the valve of the
0801Nnitrous-oxide tank, and a balloon inflates. Leary takes a hit off the
0801Nballoon, and his eyes roll back into his skull. The laughing gas eases the
0801Nintense pain he feels in his hip. All my life, I've hated the legal drugs and
0801Nloved illegal ones he says when he comes back to earth. The doctors don't
0801Nlike to hear me say that. But this is safe. It's just like air. Of course,
0801Nlaughing gas isn't the only remedy at his disposal. There are injections of
0801NDilaudid, doses of hallucinogens, various vials of white powder, a pack of
0801NBenson & Hedges and a daily highball. I'm an Irishman, he declares. I can
0801Nhandle my liquor! Whaddaya got?
0801N
0801NIt's a little too easy to dismiss the gaunt and frail-looking 75-year-old
0801Nsuffering from prostate cancer as just another artifact from the psychedelic
0801Nera. There was a time, after all, when tune in, turn on, drop out was the
0801Nmantra of a generation. People have forgotten how influential his
0801NInternational Foundation for Internal Freedom (pronounced If, If) was and how
0801Ndangerous the government considered him. LEARY IS GOD was almost as popular a
0801Nbutton on campus as peyote was in the mid-'60s. It wasn't just the kids who
0801Nfell under the spell of Leary and LSD, but Establishment figures as well:
0801NCary Grant, Steve Allen and musician Maynard Ferguson, not to mention TIME
0801Nmagazine founder Henry Luce and his wife, playwright and diplomat Clare
0801NBoothe Luce.
0801N
0801NThe beginning of the end, though, came in 1966 when a Dutchess County (New
0801NYork) assistant D.A. named G. Gordon Liddy raided Leary's Millbrook mansion,
0801Nwhich the doctor used courtesy of an Andrew Mellon heir. Two minor-possession
0801Narrests eventually landed Leary in a San Luis Obispo, California, prison in
0801N1970, but he escaped with the help of the radical Weather Underground, then
0801Nmaterialized among the Black Panthers in Algeria. Betrayed and recaptured in
0801N1973, Leary spent most of the next three years in prison. When he was
0801Nreleased, he turned his attentions to SMILE (Space Migration, Increased
0801NIntelligence, Life Extension) and then to vaudeville--a debate circuit with
0801NWatergate figure and old nemesis Liddy. His last few years have been spent
0801Nmigrating in cyberspace, trading on our nostalgia for lava lamps and dealing
0801Nwith cancer doctors.
0801N
0801NThough his days are severely numbered, Leary still has plans. He's writing
0801Nanother autobiography, following Flashbacks and Confessions of a Hope Fiend,
0801Nas well as a sort of how-to book on death. According to Leary, he also wants
0801Nto die on the World Wide Web and to leave behind a Website tour of his home.
0801NThe key to dying well is for you to decide where, when, how and whom to
0801Ninvite to the last party says Leary. He fondly recalls the 1963 deathbed
0801Nvigil for Aldous Huxley: Leary brought him a new translation of The Tibetan
0801NBook of the Dead, as well as the LSD that the author of Brave New World took
0801Njust before he shuffled off this mortal coil. He was so cheerful and funny
0801Nsays Leary. So sarcastic and all that. When Laura Huxley visited recently,
0801Nshe returned the favor not with illicit drugs but rather with a white
0801Nmagnifying glass that Leary uses for reading.
0801N
0801NWhen Leary feels his time is up, he says he will take a suicide cocktail. But
0801Neven at that, he's hedging his bets--he wants his body frozen by the Cryocare
0801Ncryogenics lab for future resurrection. If he had to live his life all over
0801Nagain, would Leary have done anything differently? Sure, he says, inebriated
0801Nby the gas and, for some reason, baseball. I've led the league as a human
0801Nbeing over the last 30 years, but I've only batted one out of three. The
0801Nother two times, I went up there, and probably shouldn't have swung at that
0801Noutside pitch. But look around--I'm still leading the league, I think. With
0801Nthat, Leary takes another deep draw on his balloon so that he can, for the
0801Nmoment, drop out.
*!EOF