Lucky Luke and the Wild West
As soon as I knew how to read, he was with me, jumping of the pages of my comic book. He rode his horse around my room in Paris; he was my hero. In the comic books I read as a child Lucky Luke was portrayed as the world's greatest cowboy. He could outshoot his own shadow, he could lasso a whirlwind, and he could outride, outdraw, and outshoot anyone. Jolly Jumper, his horse, was also pretty unique, he was the smartest horse in the world, he could play Luke at chess, arm-wrestle him and run while asleep, incidentally he could also cook and do laundry.
Lucky Luke was a cowboy in the Wild West who traveled around delivering justice wherever he went. In my imagination he was my protector, he was my real father, not the one who disappeared shortly before my birth. Lucky Luke was from Belgium, but he lived a world away from the gray skies and cold rain that fell over Paris in the winter. Looki Loook, one day I would be with him in the great plains of the American West. He and I would smoke cigarettes at night by the campfire and we would track down the Dalton brothers, find them near the Pecos River and force them to meet their fate.
When I made my way to America in 1969, I was looking to be part of the great celebration of the late 60's. I wanted to be part of the change that was sweeping the world. I wanted to be part of the war protests, the feminist revolution and the consciousness revelations. In my quest Timothy Leary and I crossed paths, we fell in love and soon he was arrested and imprisoned on a trumped up charge for possession of 00,1 grams of marijuana. I then travelled around seeking support for him and working tirelessly towards his release from prison.
During the fall of 1974, Dennis Hopper got in touch with me and invited me to come to Taos to speak about Timothy's plight. I flew from New York to Albuquerque with thoughts of Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Calamity Jane swirling in my mind. When I got off the plane, two men in cowboy boots and cowboy hats greeted me at the gate. We walked swiftly towards the exit of the small airport. I stepped out into the New Mexico crisp air, my eyes bathing in the flawless turquoise sky. My friends had a dark gray 1969 Mercedes with light tan leather interior. "We are driving you straight to Taos where Dennis Hopper in expecting you." I slipped a Bob Dylan cassette into the car's tape machine and we were off. One of the guys rolled up a fat joint and we passed it around to each other. Soon I felt pleasantly cocooned in the back seat of the car. New Mexico was a movie playing outside the window. Just like in the Lucky Luke comic books there were red mesas growing out of the earth, there was big sky reaching forever into the distance.
When we came to Santa Fe, at that time, a small dusty town, we stopped at the La Fonda hotel, it was just as I had imagined it in my dreams, red tile floors, deep leather arm chairs. Beautiful dark-skinned women with shiny black hair and long colorful pleated skirts and turquoise jewelry sat at the bar. We walked through the hall of the hotel and to my surprise we entered a French Bakery, cases filled with croissant, chocolate éclairs and authentic baguettes. The place was hopping with interesting looking people; I sat down with my two companions and ordered a tasty crepe with spinach and Gruyere cheese. The guys were not very talkative; they asked me about Timothy Leary and how his life was in prison.
The road to Taos gripped me deep in the heart, the Rio Grande meandering below the highway. The cottonwood trees still lush and green waving in the wind, the tall golden grasses on each side of the riverbanks. I was falling in love just like that, love at first sight with a land, a place, a love that was unexpected, strong, and deep. I was in love with the rock formation on the side of the road, the red and pink striations in the stone. The light was different here, brighter; it seemed to turn up the intensity of color in the landscape.
My escorts parked their car next to an old movie house in the center of Taos. There were hippies everywhere on the street and inside the cinema, a curious mix of hippies and cowboys waiting for me to arrive and tell them about Timothy Leary's imprisonment, their very own martyr in the cause of the free use of drugs.
Dennis Hopper was on stage, my very own modern Lucky Luke transformed into Easy Rider. He was magnificent in his brown snake cowboy boots, his washed-out jeans, and a leather vest with a red bandana tied around his neck.
As I walked to the stage he fired his gun in the air and put it back in his holster. He lit a cigarette that he left dangling on the corner of his mouth. This is the American Far West as they called it in France and the man waiting for me on stage was a real life Lucky Luke. I looked at him adoringly, dizzy from the altitude and high on the good dope we had smoked on the road.
Someone lifted me up and deposited me on the stage, Dennis gave me a great big bear hug and said ,"listen everybody, this is Timothy Leary's wife," then he shoved a bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand and I took a long tasty swig. The crowd was cheering out of control "Free Timothy Leary" more people were firing guns in the air. I too, joined in yelling "Free Timothy Leary," as the frenzy grew stronger and stronger. By now I had forgotten my speech, I just smiled from ear to ear, delighted. Easy Rider, Lucky Luke, and Timothy Leary from the Moody Blues song, the line between fact and fiction was completely blurred in my mind. Inside this musty, smoky theater, amongst this pandemonium I felt at home. I had found my place and my people.
Tweet- 11-27-09
- Joanna Harcourt-Smith's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
Comments
I tuned in
The late 60's would not have been wild rootin tootin magical without Tim Leary and that eternal smile.That Lysercic twinkle in his eyes.As a 17 year old kid in 1967, there were no directions home for a restless teenager like me.On Thanksgiving day I took my first LSD trip.I dropped a green cap with a musician high school friend, and we shared a beautiful night together.Throughout the rest of the late 60's all my acid trips were inspired by Tim's famous mantra, "Turn on, Tune in, Drop out."In all the various experiences I had in those years I always felt that that great smile of his was there with me, to guide me.I use to hang out in Laguna beach where Leary was busted for that silly little joint or two, I knew what It was like to live in Orange county where Laguna beach is located.Laguna was home to the famous surfer dealers that became The Brotherhood of Eternal Love.I used to hang out in their great hippie store Mystic Arts, and read books in the book part, There I read writings of Tim Leary.The Psychedelic Prayers.
That first Thanksgiving day night's trip, set the pace for all the rest of my LSD experiences.I really believed in the things Tim Leary spoke of, as I had nothing else to go on, I had dropped my Catholic conditioned childhood like a cold rock at 12 or so, and I began reading Science Fiction, but as my high school years came on I began to feel the vacuum of society acutely, I wanted to be a artist, I had thought of myself as a Beatnik.So beginning in my junior year I had read some stuff about LSD in Life magazine, and I was very much into the music, and Bob Dylan inspired me.From the first day of my junior year all I thought about was the day that I would take the psychedelic sacrament.I met a girl in my high school that had come from a school in Hollywood, and she was the first person I met that had taken LSD trips, she educated my mind about the intricacies of the mind states one encounters in the mind expansion of the drug.She became a kind of psychedelic muse to me, so in my psyche was this beautiful wild child acid goddess and Tim Leary's ecstatic words.I never had a bummer in those years 67, 68, 69, i did have some wild rides, but it always felt like a revolutionary thing to do, Thanks Tim.And thank you Joanna for the lovely inspiring writing.
revolutionrabbit.blogspot.com
Jonathan writes a song a
You mean the Congress with a
You mean the Congress with a lower rating then President Bush that promised impeachment to get elected knowing full well there were no impeachable offenses? She is a dismal failure.
Electronic Cigarette
The good old dayz...
You're quite a story teller Joanna! But I sure hope they were shootin' blanks in that thar theee-ater.
I remember those huge joints, we called 'em bombers, that my friends would lite and stick in my mouth. Then they would take a deep breath, cover the lit end with their mouth, and blow me away! It was called gettin' a shotgun in the east where I got high back then.
"Love was so simple then"
Ahhhhhh, the good old dayz!
I would like to now the
i don't think you will ever know
and the speculation of people that let their minds run a muck just went up a notch with this comment.Can you feel the pressure? I never heard anybody say that Leary was payed off.Oh lookie here another mind control forum out to control you.Right Tim was called the "most dangerious man alive" by Nixon, and LSD was made illegal by Johnson, well suprise suprise, after all they made marijuana illegal back in the 30's.Don't want people using drugs that thay can't use against them.No Tim Leary was put in prision for two joints.And they say he gave some names to the FBI, but and some others have tried to make a career on finding dirt on Tim, and maybe he did get caught in a rock and a hard place.But to say that it was "his mission to give LSD a bad rep, is just plane reverse propaganda.But a lot of young people will fall for anything that knocks the late 60's, because they weren't there.Dig it!And Leary was if anything the man most connected to the kids that needed to awaken from the nightmare of the 50's.This is not the place to push your agenda( right "TIM LEARYS MISSION WAS TO MAKE LSD LOOK BAD", obviously Joanna doesn't think Tim was merely a stooge of the CIA.So go back to your mind control forums and swim around in a sea of theory and counter-theory, and then read some more, and maybe think beyond the CIA envelope, I mean really imagine a world without military industrial media-hype complexes and counter hype conspiracy and try to picture a perfect Trip.
With perfect enlightened individuals, do you expect that anybody is going to actually answer your questions that you dredged up here? Only you can! If you want to believe that Tim was only some clown that danced to the tune of money and missions to made psychedelics look bad, go ahead if you makes your feel more personal power.The more bad acid conspiracy you micro-manage the better.Ahaahahahha.
Soul Control
Pay attention to the battle for your soul. What is soul? Soul is what gives you the incentive to laugh a deep belly laugh, soul is your individual spirit linked to all other vapors of spirit in this world and beyond.
Beware of the battle to numb your soul by falling in love with your minds need for dirty tricks.
I speak of Timothy Leary, being a "Trickster. Yes, Timothy was and probably is a "Trickster" caught in a game of obscene political tricks.
There is a war going on not only in far away countries but an implacable psychic war for your soul and most of all for your heart. The ones who are willing to sell anything to anyone for the maximum price want you to be numb and dumb.
In many cases "The Doors of Perception" can be opened and stay open. Don't believe anything anyone says , they might be trying to sell you something you don't want!! Live by experience, ask your heart what to believe and how to live. Timothy , myself and many others lived and died to create passage ways and open portals for your own experience.
This is the crucial time for consciousness expansion. Open, open, be better, more generous, more courageous than we were. Find what is authentic to you and in you. This is my quest everyday of my life, no blame, no game, just the immense gratitude and awareness of being alive on this luscious planet.
The battle within
In my experience, and Joanna alluded to it, the battle for your soul is more like a struggle within as opposed to a battle from without. The Soul of the planet needs us to awaken now in order for it to imagine a connected world of life forms among all the kingdoms here on Earth, and in order for us to take responsibility for our advanced placement as humans within it. The golden chrysalis within your heart is breaking open. It is the time when your pregnancy has come to term. The choice to be a live birth is your own.
Try to think of it this way: Lets say that there are five kingdoms on this Earth. Each of which contain its own version of consciousness. We are all familiar with the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In addition, there is the kingdom of the mind, and the kingdom of the spirit. A certificate that indicates our proficiency regarding it verifies our graduation from each lower kingdom. Humans are now princes of matter, of vegetation, and of biology, and are quickly becoming princes of the mind.
While the 20th century has seen many humans left behind in the kingdom of the animals, a large number of us have become members, and some of us princes, of the kingdom of the mind. Here in the mind we use symbols, such as these words I’m typing, to communicate with each other. (In the kingdom of the spirit, words are not as useful) Here in the kingdom of the mind there are also many who manipulate these symbols to build a trap, exploiting our innocence for the expansion of their own biological needs. They are holdouts from the animal kingdom, having yet to earn their graduation. They are not yet princes of the mind, but are familiar enough with its mechanics to terrorize others with their words for the purpose of enhancing their animalistic desires.
Many of us getting ready to graduate from the kingdom of the mind, and some of us who have already earned our certificate and have become members of the kingdom of the spirit, are here on RS to encourage all who visit. We can easily recognize those who have yet to graduate from the animal kingdom. We are here to help.
The time is quickly coming when these certificates will be useful in gaining admission to the kingdom of the spirit, because it is only within this kingdom, within its many different towns and villages all communicating in the language of love, that hope exists for the survival of all five kingdoms of the Earth.
Mr. Night
oddlyenuff...
All I can say is that in my case, one thing led to another, and here I am. I arrived here over an obstacle course apparently laid out just for me, starting decades ago, by someone who knew just what it was doing, when it should intervene, and when it should let me flounder.
If others are on a path similar to mine, I know that their's is also a solitary journey with its own intelligent schedule. If I am ever placed in their path to provide encouragement, I do what I can.
Otherwise, I must be careful not to insert myself into their karmic plan. What if, by helping someone, I prevented that person from accomplishing an important karmic goal in their current life? Might they have to come back in another lifetime, because, while I was insistent upon helping them, I prevented them from learning an essential lesson?
There is a reason why people often ignore another person's best advise. It's the same reason why you have perhaps done so, a time or two, yourself. The time was just not right for it.
While helping others is a common and accepted practice, accomplishing much good in the world, helping others can also be a very selfish endeavor.
Have faith that those guiding your loved ones know that you're ready and willing to help. They will call upon you when they need you. In the mean time, just hold a place open for them in your heart.
Sometimes the most effective help for those around you is a redoubled effort on your part to add further layers of integrity, honesty, and love to your progress. A congruent spiritual life provides the best example.
another bad prose comment
All I know is that I am thankful that LSD came along,when it did. I was fast becoming a teenage alcoholic and and I was looking to medicate my feeling of emptiness that some call teenage angst.For me LSD came along in the Nietzsche of time, it gave my mind the space it needed to find the words to hold up to my existence.I had already found out at the age of six that things are not what they seem, by the first grade teacher that singled me out.And in the years of my childhood between Disneyland and the catholic church.Between A-Bomb drills, of "kiss your ass goodbye" and the good humor man.Oh, I could not wait to take my first Trip.To Tune in, to Turn on, and to Drop the drop of eternal return out.
Bad user of language that I was.
Deference
It is obvious that we have all tread different paths to arrive at our current states of mind and being. In this matter I give the outmost respect to those that have a known back ground. In this case, and on the thread of this blog, that is Ms Smith. To have experienced a life with the notables she associated with affords her an undeniable platform to be heard.
It can usually be discerned within a few lines or paragraphs if the writer is authentic on both assertions and beliefs. For my part one of my most notable meetings was with a duck and I did not get his name. What I am wondering is, why on sites such as this and evolver are so many of us rehashing the good old days?
My activism of the late sixties, into the mid seventies, was represented by being the proprietor of a small headshop in central Ohio. I attended the first Peoples Pot Conference, hosted by NORML and its director Keith Stroup in I believe 1971. My first experience with a hallucinogenic was in Missoula Montana in 1969. Quite the thing, that first out of body experience, nothing like seeing yourself walk into a room for the first time.
I spent the next decade of my life working toward the furtherance of a sane drug policy. That all began forty years ago. In the regard of drug policy not much has changed. We have some states that now have medical marijuana. Montana, where I am fortunate enough to reside, is one of those states. I am now well past working for a saner drug policy. To be working toward maintaining my own sanity and wondering about the sanity of my fellow human beings would be closer to the mark.
If we are all on our own individual path, as some of my fellow commenters assert, does that mean we are not to be active in attempting to bring about change of all manner? While walking through a shopping center, some of us called them that back in the day, doing purple blotter acid I came across a duck in a box with a piano and an empty food bowl. The duck had quite the life. By placing a nickel in a slot the duck would be prompted, by the clink of the nickel to peck a quick tune on the piano. When he had hit a sufficient amount of keys to do a short tune the mechanism would release a few kernels of mashed corn. That poses the questions, are we to free the ducks, are we to convince them that they have a good life, or are we to do nothing and walk our singular paths?
Oh well put a nickel in- quack , quack, quack, quack.
yuck yuck
I'm a duck, reminds me, of the day I went to hear a poet that I liked very much and had met at a poetry reading in the little town I was living in at the time, I was involved in a meditation community.I went to hear this particular poet this time he was reading at the Jr college I had attended, and I recall him reciting this: "Everything is one big cosmic duck" I never forgot that line.I obviously don't move in the circles that Joanna does.I'm just a writer/poet on my own, that was what my response to the insanity that I felt in the world, I admired Tim Leary because he pointed the way out of the mister normal mister Jones that Dylan talked about.At least that was the way It seemed to me, I liked Dylan, I liked Allen Ginsberg, Alan Watts, those were the people that turned me on.I am not from the rich world, I was a 17 year old when I went off to Haight Ashbury to see the happening up there with all the young people dressed in colorful rags and love beads.That was me, but I did not end up with the Manson bunch.That was not me.I was not going to mention this, but my LSD trips turned me into a poet, So I have been writing for many years, but I was not a University crank out, and If you go look at sites where famous poets gather, they all have degrees and teaching jobs, well a lot of them do, so to be a poet like me, you have to hang in there and it is a way of life.I have seen and met a lot of poets and some of the people I met were poets that I hung out with.So I finally decided to write a novel about my life as a poet.But I decided to start in the beginning before I became one.This novel Is about the late sixties.Peace, Love and Diggers.I'm not trying to sound like other writers, that are on this site RealitySandwich, I only can sound like me, If some people on here think I am terrible, so be it, I'm terrible then, Watts ever.It never was my trip, or journey to become like Tim Leary, or Ram Dass, or for that matter Terence Mckenna, but in his case he was very influential to me, as far as helping formulate my thoughts, besides all the other great writers I read, to just find my own voice.So, as far as change goes my response was to be able to speak at all.To be able to speak to the truth, or as we used to say "tell it like it is" if it took me a life time to write my first novel, then my search for true took me down a lot of roads, some not so fun as others, I was a street freak, a street poet, I hung out in cafes and libraries, I met people that were hanging out, like me, looking for some intelligence in the universe.
And damn, Jesus! what a long strange treep it has been.
People on RS apologise for "hijacking the thread"I don't hijack, but I say "hi Jack Kerouac!" so Lucky Luke let's take a ride into the sunset.Look at the strange shapes in the sky! Looks like some Varmints down over yonder.As Frank Zappa said, Vaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrmints.
Yesterday was an old day
Old days, new days. I appreciate those who like to have fun. I put a high value on fun. Thank you for your sense of humor, it warms my heart. Who's who already!? Yeah i cavorted with the Gregory Peck of drugs, so what.
I too am a poet, thrilled to be published on this website, on a wall or in a tree. I write because I love to write. my favorite haiku that came to me in the fall, speaking of our little lives is:
One tree
One leaf
One time
One LSD
One Smile
One Trip
One Fun
Beautiful Story
From a Octavio Paz point of view...
http://www.well.com/~davidu/sunstone.html
your story is beautiful...
Reality mimics Art
Let's tell a new beautiful story together, let's do cognitive activism together, that is the key...!!
"The SACRED (whatever that means) is surely related (somehow) to the BEAUTIFUL (whatever that means)..."
Gregory Bateson
oh my
I know that the girls back
Wild West
Lucky Luke
Wild West
Lucky Luke and the Wild West
I was there
I'm so grateful to find this blog. I was hitch-hiking in Taos, long-haired, very red hair, 20, and Dennis Hopper picked me up, though I didn't recognize him, not having seen any of his movies yet, and asked me "Want to see wierd movie?"I can assure everyone that Dennis Hopper did not fire a gun, though metaphorically it was true. What he did was heckle Joanna throughout her presentation. He was full of himself, and pretty obviously drunk or something. It seemed so unkind to be hosting "Mrs. Leary" and to heckle her at the same time.The movie they presented was amazingly filmed of Leary in jail, and both he and Joanna were sincere and amazing.All in all, it was one of the most memorable events of my youth. Probably about 40 people there.
Joanna, I was so impressed with you, your calm, beautiful presence was so convincing and beautiful, and I was so fortunate to be there that day.
Luke and the Wild West