Guest speaker: Ken Adams
“I’m almost sixty years old, and I can guaranty you that I’m fucking tired of having to whisper about psychedelics.” – Ken Adams
Watch a video of this talk
PROGRAM NOTES:
Today we feature the fifth Palenque Norte Lecture of 2012, which was given at the Burning Man Festival. This talk features the filmmaker Ken Adams, who was a neighbor, friend, and collaborator of Terence McKenna in their search for new ways of explaining the psychedelic experience. Ken is the producer/director of a new, and experimental, film titled “The Terence McKenna Experience” which features never before seen and heard raps by Terence.
Download
MP3
PCs – Right click, select option
Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option
TerraLucida-The Terence McKenna Experience-test sequence from Ken Adams on Vimeo.
Ken Adams “Producing “The Terence McKenna Experience”” – Burning Man 2012 from Palenque Norte on Vimeo.
Lorenzo, i got a question…
with 12/21/12 approaching, you got anything planned for the occasion?
[COMMENT by Lorenzo: This morning, when I realized that it is now December of 2012, I suddenly realized that it has been many months since I even thought about the December 21st date. So, as you might guess, I have no plans other than to read holiday stories to my grandchildren who live nearby. Like Y2K, the whole 2012-thing diminishes in importance the closer it gets. I think that this apocalypse just came too close to the 2000 one :-). Maybe we should push the next end-of-the-world event out a bit more this time. Has anyone heard of something to replace 2012 yet?]
i like that the Occupy segment is back too. not that i thought it was ‘gone’ per se’, but that there’s great current content to relay.
while i really loved and appreciate the added facets of Terence, it was the Occupy stuff that preoccupied my thoughts after the podcast was over. (i should also mention i dug the kudos to those others behind the scenes that contribute to the podcasts.)
one thing that i kept thinking about during the Occupy segment was on those who’d come before. (this often happens with me listening to the podcasts here.) i thought about the Diggers. after the podcast was over i giggled up the Diggers again to refresh myself with their history. they’re really only very very vaguely analogous to OWS -but they did precede.
among the hits i got in my giggling were some on Peter Coyote, who started the Diggers or was at least very instrumental in their founding. one youtube of him speaking [about the ‘counter-culture’] was thought-provoking -not necessarily epiphanous -but did get my gears going. (i love the guy. i just rewatched my disc of Deadly Drifter last night. there simply isn’t any decent video samples of it available online, alas. just 2 crappy ones that imho are best ignored if one hasn’t seen the film. it’s really extremely trippy. rife with telepathy, for example. and revelatory ecstasy in a beach scene at the end.) sadly, and just a little surprisingly, i do not find now any hits on him speaking of OWS…
i begin to wonder if there isn’t the smallest beginnings of some co-opting or assimilation of OWS beginning to manifest. i don’t mean in any deliberate way either, but naturally. (some reviews of ‘Deadly Drifter’ suggest that that is what it’s plot was about -the compromise of the ‘counter-culture’ -over the course of a couple of decades.)
“When you make peace with authority, you become authority.” -Jim Morrison
in this youtube, Coyote makes a point about the sheer notion of an upfront ‘counter-culture’ being doomed to failure -that there really is only culture en masse -that it’s best to do your part quietly. (Terence’s admonition that culture isn’t your friend comes to mind…)
‘Where the Counterculture Prevails – Peter Coyote’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV3qLXhmSLQ
what’s more germane, i think, is to consider the notion that conservative (mainstream!) culture *is* the actual “counter” culture -when i think of a recent crooks&liars report on conservative mentality (simplistic shortcuts to thinking), i think too of a recent unwelcomeguests podcast on John Taylor Gatto and the dumbing down of america… (i was already long aware though of Gatto’s views of education systems and agree.)
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/study-conservatism-lack-complexity-po
Study: Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCwHAjGavB0
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/631
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/archive/ug631-hour1mix.mp3
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/archive/ug631-hour2mix.mp3
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/archive/631/The%20Neglected%20Genius%20of%20American%20Spirituality%20(John%20Taylor%20Gatto).mp3
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/archive/631/Bianca,%20You%20Animal,%20Shut%20Up!%20(John%20Taylor%20Gatto).mp3
…UG’s *last* podcast is still ringing in my head for all the greater perspective it brings:
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/630
“Episode #630 – The 6th Mass Extinction (And What To Do About It)” the current massive die-off of species is worse than is being talked about. it blew my mind and enlargened my perspective, even ecologically [*koff*].
…but this gorgeous animated video from that episode is *totally* uplifting and highly recommnded:
http://unwelcomeguests.net/archive/630/The%20Man%20Who%20Planted%20Trees%20(1987).avi
but i digress from my digressions, yes? before i close out though, C&L brought this to mind as well: Occupy Sandy
http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/
http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/occupy-sandy-how-it-works-needs-info
have i left out the kitchen sink?
“Have you had your breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Did you wash the dishes?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
-from ‘An Open Life, Joseph Campbell, A Conversation With Michael Toms’
Greetings from Sweden! This was a really nice talk that I think gave some more friendlier insight into the life of Terence than the one Bruce gave this summer. The image of him as a social, friendly and intelligent entertainer or trickster resonates more with for me than the one of a scientist or intellectual telling the Truth. And I really like that the occupy segment is back!