Vintage News Articles & Finds

[billycw]

Beams and roof tied with hemp ropes


Mr. Nakamura's 300 year old hemp house is a landmark for the small town of Miasa Mura, Japan. It should be recognized as a landmark for humankind...

Fire place and kettle.
The smoke would rise and escape through the
raised centre section of the roof.

Mr. Nakamura's 300 year old hemp house in Miasa Mura, Japan. Built in 1698


Oh Ya, The Hemp house also served as a safe house, resting stop and residence for Samurai visiting the village. Complete with a separate wing of boarding rooms for the Samurai... Nope, not a Quentin movie, real life shit...

Residence for samurai visiting the village

Bedroom for visiting samurai

 

[billycw]

Weaver spins hemp threads by hand on the veranda of her workshop in Yomitan; Okinawa, Japan 1973

Tsune Sugimura. "Sada Yonamine, weaver. Okinawa, Japan 1973

 

[heady blunts]

wowwwww miasa-mura is right!

what a crime for such a rich cultural history to fall victim to US imperialist canna prohibition. for shame.

 

[nksv]

the thread just keeps on giving!

 

[billycw]

I'm with you Heady... Beautiful town, I can just imagine fields of herb with picture perfect mountains as the backdrop...

Thanks nksv, just getting warmed up, crazy stuff to come


Present day Miasa-mura, Japan

Miasa-mura, Japan

Miasa-mura, Japan

Miasa-mura, Japan

 

[billycw]

Teddy: "Are you high?"

Jack Melon: "Am I who?"

[both laugh]

-scene from 1980 ABC afterschool special, Stoned

Before Charles was in Charge, Charles was Stoned...

Stoned: 1980 ABC After School Special - Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry1BX1tmIGo
[YOUTUBEIF]ry1BX1tmIGo[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[billycw]

1928 WAMPAS Baby Stars

 

[Hermanthegerman]

Is 1967 vintage? Left my little bro and me with nice hats.

 

[billycw]

"It isn't by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world…by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves."

-Ken Kesey

Furthur aka Further the magic bus


Furthur Down the Magic Trip


In 1960 after graduating from Stanford University, Ken Kesey began training with the Olympic wrestling team while working as an orderly at a psychiatric ward at the Menlo Park VA Hospital. This year will forever change Kesey...

Kesey would volunteer for a study being conducted at the hospital, knowing very little about what or who he was volunteering for. The study it turns out was for 'MK ULTRA' the CIA's study into mind control through drugs. 'MK ULTRA' studied among other things LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on human subjects, some willingly, some not...

Showing up to the Menlo Park VA Hospital, he would be shown to an empty white room with a hospital bed, a side table with a glass of water and a wollensak tape recorder, a window with protective wire screen would serve as the only view into the outside world.

Given LSD25 by the nurse attending to the study, he was left alone to discover the results of the drug on himself. The discovery was mind blowing...

Ken Kesey rides atop the bus Further on April 26, 1967


After the initial government test, he began to experiment with psychedelics in his private life. Before a shift at the same Menlo Park VA Hospital where the lsd test was performed, he took a dose of Peyote for the first time...

That night, high as fuck on peyote, he would have a vision of Chief “Broom” Bromden in the halls of the psych ward... This vision would become a inspiration.

Still high as fuck tripping on peyote, he sat down and started writing his first literary classic 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' with Chief Bromden as one of the main characters...

Neal Cassady flying furthur with Ken Babb's sitting shotgun to the madness

With success of the Book 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' he was looking for the next great life adventure... After a cross country road trip to see his book as a Broadway play in New York, Kesey and a couple friends would drive back to California tripping on cactus... The tripping road trip sparked an idea...

With the money he made from the book, Kesey bought a 1939 International Harvester school bus. The plan? The group of Pranksters would take a psychedelic trip across the country filming the escapades along the way ending at the New York Worlds Fair.

“You're either on the bus or off the bus.”

inside Furthur


Painting the bus in all kinds of psychedelic colors, the group would load up with legend Neal Cassady at the wheel flying out of his mind on Amphetamines...

The trips start would be a preclude to madness running out of gas before even leaving Kesey's property... Gassed up they were on their way...

Taking days, the prankster group would make it to conservative Phoenix downtown. Again taking out the bright paint, to group would paint "A vote for Barry is a vote for fun!" referring to republican candidate Barry Goldwater, a Phoenix resident.

Not confusing enough, the pranksters loaded onto the bus. Neal pulling away from the curb in reverse, continued to drive the bus in all its glory down the street backwards right past Barry Goldwater's campaign headquarters...

Tripping while further was stuck in the mud, outside of Phoenix

 

[billycw]

Continued...

Outside of Phoenix, Cassady the madman that he is, veered the bus off the road towards a watering hole. Before long the bus was stuck in the deep mud...

Taking this as a sign, Kesey decides to really start the trip... Whipping out a jug filled with orange juice that had been dosed(how much no one really knew) with LSD...

Taking sips as dosages, the stranded pranksters would slide into a trip that would continue much of the journey.

Ken Kesey, Ken Babbs, Sandy Lehman-Haupt..., at the HItchcock estate, site of Tim Leary's Millbrook Castalia Foundation, 1964


The troop of pranksters would finally reached New York to see the worlds fair. After a uneventful meeting with Jack Kerouac, the fair again was a disappointment in the built anticipation...

Allen Ginsberg thought a meeting was in order... He would take the prankster bunch up to see Timathy Leary and his IFIF foundation at the Millbrook estate owned by the Hitchcock family. The east coast psychedelic scene meeting the west...

The meeting would never happen as Leary and crew would hold up in the upstairs of the house while experimenting with DMT. The pranksters would wait around until the general feeling was it was time to go. Cassady and Allen Ginsberg would stay, while the remaining pranksters aimed the bus home...

When the group would arrive home in California, they all discovered something. It wasn't the destination but the actual trip that made memories... This revelation would lead to many of the 60's ideal's of the 'be ins' and acid parties to come...

Neal Cassady & I went upstairs to attic at Millbrook estate Castalia Foundation big house where Timothy Leary and friends were then experimenting with DMT, a half hour trip - here Neal resting eyes closed with Millbrook lady friend (Susan Metzner, wife of Dr Ralph Metzner) in charge of holding the vile of liquid psychedelica. I’d driven upstate from New York City with Ken Kesey & Merry Pranksters in their day glo painted bus recently arrived East crosscountry from California, Neal at the wheel, Fall 1964.


First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

-Allen Ginsberg- December 1965

SF Chronicle April 27, 1965


"I don't like to divide the world into 'they' and 'us' but people here don't seem to be able to leave us alone"

-Ken Kesey


As the Pranksters and Kesey edited footage from their Magic Trip, they stayed at Kesey's La Honda property. On one of these days while painting flowers on the toilet, narcotics police raided the property, arresting Kesey among others for possession of marijuana.

Months later while awaiting court for the raid, Kesey was again arrested for Marijuana possession... Fearing a long jail sentence a plan was hatched...

Placing a fake suicide note inside Kesey's car, the pranksters drove the car off a cliff overlooking the ocean...

Kesey safe and sound was stuffed into a trunk of a car and smuggled into Mexico... The prankster group would reunite in Manzanillo where they stayed for the next couple of months...

"Never trust a Prankster"

Ken Kesey and John Browning re-enact what they were doing at the time of the La Honda narcotics bust in April 1965


"Ocean, Ocean, I’ll beat you in the end"

-Ken Kesey's fake suicide note


Deciding to face the music in the U.S., the pranksters would return to California where Kesey was sentenced to 5 months in jail...

The pranksters would look back at this magic trip as the kick start to the 60's madness to come.

Its not the destination in life but the trip itself...

Furthur with Pranksters at worlds fair 1964


“He’s working on his wave theory. This morning for breakfast he brewed and drank enough weed to put a horse in orbit. He’s been out there for three hours with his eyes closed ... imagining that he’s a piece of kelp or a jellyfish.”

-Mountain Girl, comments while Kesey floats in the Mexican ocean


Magic Trip - Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G_OdTgsu40
[YOUTUBEIF]-G_OdTgsu40[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[geneva_sativa]

serendipitous to the highest degree,

like free flowing, and the way Neal used to call out the serial #'s on dollars from a pocket, sometimes, right onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

 

[billycw]

 

[billycw]

The Richmond climax,
June 16, 1909
Article: Dynamite Used as Narcotic

128 Ledsam Street, London - April 5, 1883

 

[billycw]

Evening star,
May 29, 1909
Article: Dynamite Dreams


The 'Dynamite Used as Narcotic' article was published a couple months earlier with the addition of the Author trying the Narcotic himself in 'Dynamite Dreams'...

soldiers armed with molotov cocktails and sticky grenades — a sock filled with dynamite and then dipped in a bucket of tar with a 30-second fuse attached. 1942

 

[billycw]

Bismarck daily tribune,
October 23, 1906
Article: Weird Calf Tale

Cow Eating marijuana. India

1930's

 

[billycw]

Newspaper Movie ad (Ada Ok. Oct 10, 1939)


Tell Your Children

Following the Victor Licata murder case in 1933, a church group decided to finance a film showing the dangers of 'marihuana' to parents...

1933 Victor Licata mug shot and newspaper clipping


In 1936 (by some accounts 1938) the religious group, with actors/actresses on loan from 'RKO Pictures', wrote and made 'Tell Your Children'.

The film would be bought from the original producer George Hirliman by producer Dwain Esper. He would Re-cut the film and release it in the south under the original name before changing the title region to region.

Some of the release titles were Tell Your Children,The Burning Question, Dope Addict, Doped Youth, Love Madness and of course Reefer Madness...

1940 release of 'The Burning Question' is the Pennsylvania/West Virginia release of 'Tell Your Children' aka 'Reefer Madness'


Well I say 'Reefer Madness' was so good we look what else Mr. Dwain Esper was producing...

This gem is his next project to be released after Reefer Madness called 'How to Undress in Front of your Husband' and I'm all for it...

'How to Undress in Front of Your Husband' 1937

June St. Clair in 'How to Undress in Front of Your Husband' 1937


'How to Undress in Front of Your Husband' 1937
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77FOVuFOQFQ
[YOUTUBEIF]77FOVuFOQFQ[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[billycw]

Even made a full step by step article in Life magazine in 1937...

The Do's and Don't's of Undressing in 'How to Undress in Front of Your Husband' 1937

 

[billycw]

Early 'Reefer Madness' movie poster

 

[billycw]

"He who can make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before, ranks as a benefactor to society before all the heroes that ever existed"

-Jonathan Swift

Medal of the Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, 1786


America's First Cannabis Cup

After reading the title the uninitiated my be thinking, when did HT hold the first cup...

The knowledgeable may have thoughts of the Big Sur harvest parties, dancing around a bonfire offering 'First Fruit' to the harvest gods...(if anyone has the history on these I'm all ears)

Maybe your mind jumped to the Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival held in Wisconsin with roots dating back to 1971...

the 1st Annual Marijuana Harvest Festival, in Madison's Brittingham Park, September 25, 1971 Wisconsin


All arguments aside, they're all wrong...

We must go way back into our history to find the first American 'cannabis cup'...

The year of the first American 'cannabis cup'? 1790...

The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, wanting to promote the growing of hemp around Philadelphia, thought to include it into the societies yearly agricultural contest...

Concepts such as blind unmarked samples would be practiced to insure fairness...

The winners would receive medals, gold and silver, of course with the all important gloating rights I'm sure...

The American cannabis cup is born...


Gazette of the United-States, April 07, 1790(s is written as a f at that time)

Gazette of the United-States, April 07, 1790

"Xlll. The society believing that the culture of hemp on some of the low rich lands in the neighbourhood of this city, may be attempted with advantage, do hereby offer a gold medal for the greatest quantity of hemp raised within ten miles of the city of Philadelphia. The quantity not to be less than three ton; for the second greatest quantity–a silver medal.

It will be left to the choice of those successful candidates for prizes, who may be entitled to the plate or gold medals, to receive the same either in plate or medals, or the equivalent in money.

The claim of every candidate for a premium is to be accompanied with, and supported by, certificates of respectable persons of competent knowledge of the subject. And it is required, that the matters, for which premiums are offered, be delivered in without names, or any intimation t6o whom they belong; that each particular thing be marked in what manner the claimant thinks fit; such claimant sending with it a paper sealed up, having on the outside a corresponding mark, and on the inside the claimant's name and address.

Respecting experiments on the products of land, the circumstance of the previous and subsequent state of the ground, particular culture given, general state of the weather, will be proper to be in the account exhibited. Indeed in all experiments and reports of facts, it will be well to particularize the circumstances attending them. It is recommended that reasoning be not mixed with the facts; after stating the latter, the former may be added, and will be acceptable.

Although the society reserve to themselves the power of giving, in every case, either one or the other of the prizes, (or premiums) as the performance shall be adjudged to deserve, or of withholding both, if there be no merit, yet the candidates may be assured, that the society will always judge liberally of their several claims."

A 1860 diploma from the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture


" It is recommended that reasoning be not mixed with the facts; after stating the latter, the former may be added, and will be acceptable."

-from Americas first CC c.1790

 

[billycw]

Weed of Doom

The 'good guys' - The Deacon & Mickey

The 'bad guys' - Loco Gila & Pancho Montez

Poor poor Jack Winters stuck in the middle, gets high and shoots a cop...

Weed of Doom in Cat-Man Comics 1942

Cat-Man Comics 1942