The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon & the Birth of the Hippie Generation, Part I.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

Interesting stuff.


http://www.sott.net/articles/show/155794-Inside-The-LC-The-Strange-but-Mostly-True-Story-of-Laurel-Canyon-and-the-Birth-of-the-Hippie-Generation-Part-1


<snip>
Another of those icons, and one of Laurel Canyon's most flamboyant residents, is a young man by the name of David Crosby, founding member of the seminal Laurel Canyon band the Byrds, as well as, of course, Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby is, not surprisingly, the son of an Annapolis graduate and WWII military intelligence officer, Major Floyd Delafield Crosby.

Like others in this story, Floyd Crosby spent much of his post-service time traveling the world. Those travels landed him in places like Haiti, where he paid a visit in 1927, when the country just happened to be, coincidentally of course, under military occupation by the U.S. Marines. One of the Marines doing that occupying was a guy that we met earlier by the name of Captain Claude Andrew Phillips.

But David Crosby is much more than just the son of Major Floyd Delafield Crosby. David Van Cortlandt Crosby, as it turns out, is a scion of the closely intertwined Van Cortlandt, Van Schuyler and Van Rensselaer families. And while you're probably thinking, "the Van Who families?,"

I can assure you that if you plug those names in over at Wikipedia, you can spend a pretty fair amount of time reading up on the power wielded by this clan for the last, oh, two-and-a-quarter centuries or so. Suffice it to say that the Crosby family tree includes a truly dizzying array of US senators and congressmen, state senators and assemblymen, governors, mayors, judges, Supreme Court justices, Revolutionary and Civil War generals, signers of the Declaration of Independence, and members of the Continental Congress.

It also includes, I should hasten to add - for those of you with a taste for such things - more than a few high-ranking Masons. Stephen Van Rensselaer III, for example, reportedly served as Grand Master of Masons for New York. And if all that isn't impressive enough, according to the New England Genealogical Society, David Van Cortlandt Crosby is also a direct descendant of 'Founding Fathers' and Federalist Papers' authors Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

======================
Hmmmmm..............

[Wilms]

1. Wow.

Freud and Jung would have enjoyed those cases.

Thanks for posting. Hope I catch Part II.

[gateley]

2. K&R - Interesting! I can hardly wait for the next installment. nt

[lligrd]

3. Very Interesting! nt

[pepperbear]

4. I have never heard any mention of frank zappa being pro war,

but it is true that he refused to do drugs and was abhorrent of the Haight/Ashbury drop out culture. "We're Only In It For the Money" is for all intents and purposes a concept album about that very subject.

As far as being authoritarian, I can only chalk that up to his artistic method. He might have been a tyrant. Who knows? But some of the best and most disciplined musicians in the business worked for him, and many of them went on to fame and fortune.

I would have to read first hand accounts of his pro-war stance to believe it. Zappa has always been anti-establishment in both his views and his music. His autobiography is a good read. Based on his book, I would describe his views as libertarian, pro-business economy but anti-corporate, and he's not for one for political correctness or feel good politics.

He hated Nixon and would despise Bush.


http://www.amazon.com/Real-Frank-Zappa-Book/dp/0671705725

[orleans]

5. maybe i just don't get it. maybe i misunderstood this article

but my first reaction is: what a crock of shit.

it sounds like the hippie music/culture was all one big conspiracy. and that's total bullshit.

maybe these musicians were rebelling against the upbringing of military crap--but the article makes it sound as if they were involved with some sort of master plan to manipulate the masses.

zappa pro war? where's a link for that one!

who groomed him as a musical genius to mislead the youth?

please.

like i said, maybe i don't get what the article is saying, but i'm wondering what the fuck that website is and who the hell wrote that crazy ass thing.
and where are all the reference links that this writer is putting together? (in his own head?)

Dave McGowan sounds like he has either gone off the deep end, or he's fried.

on edit: i've known musicians who didn't do drugs and were major control freaks. bfd. it doesn't mean they were part of some government conspiracy. that's just crazy. and in what circles is david crosby's sperm in demand? i'd hardly call melissa etheridge and her s.o. a "circle"

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. I posted it to stimulate thought. I don't know if it's correct either.

:shrug:

[PSPS]

7. Dave McGowan in a crackpot

Dave McGowan, that author of this, um, "piece," is a crackpot. He also believes the moon landings were a hoax and that psychologists are actually an "appendage of the national security apparatus to attain social control and enforce conformity to the fascist state."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. If you believe that psychology is NOT enforcing conformity,

please read Thomas Szasz and Jonathan Kozol and Noam Chomsky. They've been writing books about the psych community enforcing standards of sanity, especially on various groups, for centuries. For example, the term "hysteria" was applied to women in the 19th century for some mysterious malaise, which was probably not adapting to their doormat role. Slaves who kept trying to escape their horrible circumstances were given a diagnosis of a mental illness and considered to be mentally ill.

Up until about 30 years ago, the mentally healthy male was diagnosed as independent, strong and assertive. The mentally healthy female was diagnosed as weak, shy, fearful, timid, easily dominated, and uninterested in anything but being a good wife and mother. Karen Horney described this dichotomy and argued that a mentally healthy human being has the same qualities, regardless of gender.

The definition of sanity has varied widely in different times and places.

www.radpsynet.org

Home page quote:
The Radical Psychology Network seeks like-minded psychologists and others to help create a society better able to meet human needs and bring about social justice. We want to change society's unacceptable status quo and bring about a better world.

And we want to change the status quo of psychology, too. We challenge psychology's traditional focus on minor reform, because enhancing human welfare demands fundamental social change instead. Moreover, psychology itself has too often oppressed people rather than liberated them.

[jimshoes]

9. I'm with you on this article

this guy is just throwing shit against the wall to see if anything sticks, It's RW infoganda. Frank Zappa, pro war? I don't think so bunky.

[orleans]

12. exactly.

"It's RW infoganda"

i completely agree.

("infoganda"? interesting word--never heard it before)

[pamela]

10. I'd like to see where he is going with this in Part 2.

I've read a couple of books on Laurel Canyon, (one by that name and another, "Hotel California",) which chronicle that period when all those folks were living there and getting their start in the music business. It's at the top of my list of places I want to go if I ever get the ability to time-travel.

I vaguely recall some mention of the "military brat" backgrounds of some of these folks. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone born in the 40's-early fifties who wasn't the son or daughter of someone who had been in the military. That's pretty much the basis behind the whole "baby boom." I guess it's a little odd that so many of their fathers were so high up in the military but that seemed to be, for some, what they were rebelling against. Same thing for the ones from wealthy and prominent families.

I would like to read Part 2 though, to see where he is going with this. It seems a bit" tin-foilish" to me but it is interesting.

[katty]

11. 1960's military was into 'remote viewing'and psychedelic drugs

and back in the day, 'remote viewing' was actually a sanitized term for: astral projection (the hippie, spiritual term. Astral projection is a term used heavily in all the early spiritual movements such as Theosophy (Theosophical Society)and later offshoots.