Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

From Martin Torgoff:

> "The Drug Years,"  a four-part, four-hour documentary series that is based
> on my book, "Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-
> 2000," is coming to VH1, starting on Monday, June 12th, at 9pm.  The series
> is a production of Hart and Dana Perry and VH1 in association with the Sun-
> dance Channel, with me as Writer, Consulting Producer, and one of the prin-
> cipal commentators in the piece (yes, I'm actually in it--a lot).  For
> those who miss it that week on VH1 (or who can't get enough of my visage on
> your television), there is a special encore presentation on Sundance begin-
> ning June 16th.
  

    
Exciting!
  

    

Reminder: Martin Torgoff's series "The Drug Years" airs on VH1 this week.
Looks like 6pm PDT Monday thru THursday on my Dish - not sure if that's the
east or west feed.
  

    
I just watched it this week on the Sundance channel - all four
episodes. It was excellent.    

Ahhh - - the memories.  
  

    
I thought it was well-done.  Coulda used four more episodes to even
begin to do the topic justice, but it was nicely done with the
limitations they had.
  

    
Oh, I watched this when it came out! Funny that it popped up now. I
found the earlier episodes joyful and funny, and then when we got to
the '70s, it started feeling a little dark and scary... I guess that
makes sense. 
  

    

Yeah, depending on where ya went with exploring the drug culture, the '70s
got more than a little disturbing.
  

    
I for one can't wait for the Deluxe Unedited Edition of _Can't Find My
Way Home_ to finally come out.

As for the drug culture of the 1970s degenerating into recreational
obliteration, well the times themselves had a lot to do with that,
especially the early portion of the decade.  Vietnam was still raging,
Nixon and his crew were taking a blowtorch to the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights (where are Ellsberg, Bernstein, and Woodward now when we
really need them?), there was severe racial strife, and the U.S.
economy was beginning its downturn.  In addition to that, the high
ideals of the Civil Rights Movement, the radical/anti-war movement
(although by this time the anti-war movement had largely become
mainstream), and the counterculture had been sunk for a variety of
reasons, and the more utopian feelings that were associated with
cannabis and psychedelics accordingly abated as well.  It seems to me
that a lot of people turned to downers in this period just to forget
their own pain and heartbreak over those lost ideals, as well as to
momentarily escape the on-going strife in this country.
  

    
Also a lot of civilians (straight people) got into hedonism in a huge
way in the 70s.  Although I agree with your interesting comments.
  

    
Thanks mcdee!

To me, the REAL darkness became palpable when the talk on the '80s
edition turned to how crack came to be, circa 1985.  That segment feels
like the onset of a very long and deadly storm arriving, with the very
first shots of people sitting on the curbs and alleys with crack pipes
in their hands.  It is like the reverse of the famous Wizard Of Oz
scene--everything suddenly turns from color to black-and-white.  Or
rather just black (not the racial category, of course).