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  • John Sinclair 1941 - 2024

    From Norbert@21:1/5 to All on Sat Apr 6 11:26:51 2024
    John Sinclair, the subject of John Lennon's protest song "John Sinclair," died a few days ago at age 82. Lennon was unacquainted with Sinclair when he wrote that song. However, he and Yoko had been groping around for hippie causes to sing about in the
    early 70s, and they sympathized with Sinclair's plight -- he'd been locked up for giving a modest quantity of marijuana to an undercover cop.

    In fact, much of that late 60s/early 70s hippie scene were fixated on Sinclair. During the Who's set at Woodstock, Abbie Hoffman leapt onstage and began to rant into the microphone about Sinclair. Pete Townshend whacked him offstage with his guitar,
    snarling "Get the f*ck off my f*cking stage."

    Sinclair's prison sentence was reduced, and he eventually met John and Yoko. "The first time I met [John Lennon,]" Sinclair recalled in the early 80s, "to express my appreciation for his help, we sat around and smoked quite a bit of herb, and made the
    fact that the stuff was illegal the object of much laughter and ridicule."

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  • From oldernow@21:1/5 to Norbert on Sat Apr 6 12:47:35 2024
    On 2024-04-06, Norbert <[email protected]> wrote:

    John Sinclair, the subject of John Lennon's protest song
    "John Sinclair," died a few days ago at age 82. Lennon
    was unacquainted with Sinclair when he wrote that song.
    However, he and Yoko had been groping around for hippie
    causes to sing about in the early 70s, and they sympathized
    with Sinclair's plight -- he'd been locked up for giving
    a modest quantity of marijuana to an undercover cop.

    In fact, much of that late 60s/early 70s hippie scene were
    fixated on Sinclair. During the Who's set at Woodstock,
    Abbie Hoffman leapt onstage and began to rant into the
    microphone about Sinclair. Pete Townshend whacked him
    offstage with his guitar, snarling "Get the f*ck off my
    f*cking stage."

    Sinclair's prison sentence was reduced, and he eventually
    met John and Yoko. "The first time I met [John Lennon,]"
    Sinclair recalled in the early 80s, "to express my
    appreciation for his help, we sat around and smoked quite
    a bit of herb, and made the fact that the stuff was illegal
    the object of much laughter and ridicule."

    Huh.

    I either never knew the details due to disinterest in social
    "causes", or forgot.

    But Lennon was just two years younger than my dad, so I couldn't
    possibly have been interested in "causes" in the 60s. I did think
    marijuana being illegal seemed silly back in the 70s. I bought
    exactly one "quarter ounce" from a friend's younger brother. $20. My
    gosh, I made the most of that with trumpet player lungs that
    could hold onto the smoke until every last effective molecule was
    extracted.... :-)

    Lennon's "causes" phase just seemed silly to me. Orthogonal to
    his true talents. I recall listening to him in interviews talk
    about such, and my inner appraisal of his intelligence dropped
    significantly. He actually sounded more like a dolt than the guy I
    thought knew damned near everything. It was an early wakeup call
    into how much character I mistakenly endowed artists with, which
    is probably more an idolatry side-effect, so desperately wanting
    the artists to be "more" than just their art.

    Something like that....

    --
    oldernow
    xyz001 at nym.hush.com

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  • From Norbert@21:1/5 to All on Sat Apr 6 18:06:22 2024
    I think Lennon's radical phase -- the causes he took up, the freaks he associated with, the songs he wrote -- is cringeworthy. I think he truly *had* lost a lot of his intelligence due to all the drug use and his associations with people -- including
    Yoko and Alex Mardas -- who were cons and predators.

    I don't think any of this would have happened if Lennon hadn't turned his life into "a continuous acid trip" in the words of his close friend Pete Shotton. The constant dope smoking could not have helped, either.

    I had a phase in which I smoked more than my share of marijuana. I stopped using it because its effect became unpleasant, leaving me anxious and paranoid. I'm thankful for this -- because I'm not among the local glazed-eyed freaks shuffling about and
    muttering about the Storm, the Cabal, or Hollywood's being run by devil-worshipping vampires.

    In fairness, I have friends who use marijuana and have stayed sane and functional. There's something about the people, or the dope, or the *amount* of the dope consumed around here (suburban Massachusetts) that has resulted in their transforming into
    psychotic freaks.

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  • From oldernow@21:1/5 to Norbert on Sat Apr 6 22:03:58 2024
    On 2024-04-06, Norbert <[email protected]> wrote:

    I think Lennon's radical phase -- the causes he took up,
    the freaks he associated with, the songs he wrote -- is
    cringeworthy. I think he truly *had* lost a lot of his
    intelligence due to all the drug use and his associations
    with people -- including Yoko and Alex Mardas -- who were
    cons and predators.

    I'm not convinced he ever was truly intelligent. Clever quips and
    rhymes can seem that way. The modern day equivalents are memes,
    tweets, single sentence post replies, etc., which people post with look-at-how-smart-I-am-for-posting-this pride as though the mere
    act of posting such proves their being oh so wise. I don't see
    being able to rhyme words a skill too much beyond posting memes.

    To me, intelligence can carry a multi-point argument across lots of
    paragraphs (although, of course, many are talented at surrounding
    just so much nothingness with well-written verbosity).

    Back to John specifically. I was a kid reading a whole lot of
    intelligence into lyrics, into how he seemed in AHDN (and, of
    course, his behavior therein was that of a *character* designed
    to appear clever/witty), and the occasional snappy quote that made
    into the media.

    By the time I heard him speak unscripted for any significant amount
    of time, I was nearing adulthood, and was sorely disappointed. I
    honestly wish I'd never heard him speak outside of his field of
    expertise. I'd have much rather listened to him discuss the
    experiences that inspired the songs.

    But it could have been many factors: the points you made, his being
    out of his conceptual strong zone on topics like politics, war,
    drugs, possibly having to kowtow to what Yoko expected him to say.

    Regardless, I learned more *through* him about the power of my own
    idolatry than about any topic he non sequitur'd on about.

    I had a phase in which I smoked more than my share of
    marijuana. I stopped using it because its effect became
    unpleasant, leaving me anxious and paranoid. I'm thankful
    for this -- because I'm not among the local glazed-eyed
    freaks shuffling about and muttering about the Storm,
    the Cabal, or Hollywood's being run by devil-worshipping
    vampires.

    In fairness, I have friends who use marijuana and have
    stayed sane and functional. There's something about the
    people, or the dope, or the *amount* of the dope consumed
    around here (suburban Massachusetts) that has resulted in
    their transforming into psychotic freaks.

    I never had a problem with it, although I was a lightweight by
    force of economics. These days I use carefully cut gummy chunks as
    a sleep aid. The "high" doesn't compare to what I can experience
    contemplating any number of spiritual texts.

    --
    oldernow
    xyz001 at nym.hush.com

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  • From Norbert@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 7 13:20:48 2024
    That's an outstanding post and I agree with you. I maintain that there was a decrease in the post-LSD Lennon's powers of discernment, however. The pre-acid John Lennon would have found characters like Ono and Alex Mardas and probably the Maharishi daft.
    I'm not sure the younger Lennon would have gone for Janov's purported therapy, either; he said once that what attracted him to it was the word "scream"; he probably supposed this was a sort of vindication of Yoko's singing style.

    Also, while the younger Lennon could manage the occasional amusing pun and quip, even this deteriorated, giving way to Ono-promotion, hostility towards his Beatles work, and paranoia (e.g., his statement that McCartney would "subconsciously sabotage" his
    work.

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  • From oldernow@21:1/5 to Norbert on Sun Apr 7 13:49:42 2024
    On 2024-04-07, Norbert <[email protected]> wrote:

    That's an outstanding post and I agree with you. I maintain
    that there was a decrease in the post-LSD Lennon's powers
    of discernment, however. The pre-acid John Lennon would
    have found characters like Ono and Alex Mardas and probably
    the Maharishi daft. I'm not sure the younger Lennon would
    have gone for Janov's purported therapy, either; he said
    once that what attracted him to it was the word "scream";
    he probably supposed this was a sort of vindication of
    Yoko's singing style.

    Also, while the younger Lennon could manage the occasional
    amusing pun and quip, even this deteriorated, giving way
    to Ono-promotion, hostility towards his Beatles work,
    and paranoia (e.g., his statement that McCartney would
    "subconsciously sabotage" his work.

    I tried LSD once, and psilocybin (mushrooms) twice. No "bad trips"
    in an overt sense, e.g. screaming/sobbing about monsters. But
    it definitely undermined a more solid sense of my "self" and the
    reality surrounding it being, well *real*.

    In its aftermath, I came to see that solidity as a consequence of
    faith. So you might say the LSD/psilocybin introduced molecules of
    doubt in that faith. In a "you can't un-see it" sense, that solidity
    never returned. To this day I question whether "reality" is something
    actually objective and happening apart from (i.e. outside) me,
    or merely my own thoughts happening so quickly so as to give the
    appearance of reality - kind of the way spinning a hot firebrand
    in the dark causes a seemingly very real glowing circle to appear
    suspended in midair. I've actually come to model what is usually
    called faith as the repetition of thoughts fast enough that a solid
    reality emerges from it.

    I couldn't tell you which explanation - i.e. reality is real in
    and of itself, or it's just the really quick repetition of the same
    thought(s) - is better. But I miss *not* wondering. I miss reality
    seeming unquestionably clear and obvious.

    In that context, I feel I understand Lennon's seeming demise /
    devolution. It's quite possibly better to never question the
    underpinnings of seeming reality (See? I can't even say it without
    including the word-of-doubt 'seeming'...).

    The analogy I've come to prefer is that it's no longer magic when
    you know - or even merely think you know - how it works... and I've
    come to miss my magical innocence....

    --
    oldernow
    xyz001 at nym.hush.com

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