“It is one of the richer ironies of psychedelic history that Ken Kesey had his first LSD experience courtesy of a government research program, the acid trip bought and paid for by the CIA as part of the agency’s decade-long effort to discover whether LSD could somehow be weaponized…Kesey proceeded to organize with his band of Merry Pranksters a series of “Acid Tests” in which thousands of young people in the Bay Area were given LSD in an effort to change the mind of a generation.  To the extent that Ken Kesey and his Pranksters helped shape the new zeitgeist, a case can be made that the cultural upheaval we call the 1960s began with a CIA mind-control experiment gone awry.” Michael Pollan, How To Change Your Mind ODD INTERSECTIONS CHART STRANGE TRIPS When it comes to chemicals, initially at least the suits often are a step behind the culture, and that’s whether we’re talking about the current debate over Delta 9, THCa and marijuana, the moment ecstasy was legal in the 80s, or the loopholes during the psychedelic 60s. “I took it to San Francisco, and traded mescaline for like 1000 hits of acid and brought it back. It was like dropping a bomb on Austin. That’s the money that started The Vulcan.” Don Hyde, Vulcan Gas Company Co-Founder THE HIPPIE HIGHWAY We asked some psychedelic septuagenarian friends about the direct line from San Francisco to Austin in the 60s. Mescaline would flow west — you’ll recall the Vulcan Gas Co. origin story — and acid flowed east.  Police on both ends were trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Surveillance records, courtesy The University of Texas at Austin, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. To further blur the lines, the hub of Austin’s psychedelic counterculture, The Vulcan Gas Company, ducked rules that typically governed clubs by not applying for a liquor license. Staying outside the reach of the man. “Alcohol’s a drag. It’s a depressant. A lot of us were micro-dosing, or we were straight. So when you’re seeing Mama Thornton or whomever, you could enjoy it in its fullest form without alcohol bringing you down. In that moment, when psychedelics were still legal, there also were two big reasons to avoid marijuana — the cops and the cost. “The vice and drug detail at the Austin Police Department was struggling to keep college students from, you know, ‘going astray.’ They’d make examples. There was always somebody getting busted. So if you did have weed, it’d be buried two feet underground in your backyard.” “One time we went to Denton to score — a four hour drive. A matchbox filled with manicured pot went for, I can’t remember, either five or ten dollars.” JIM FRANKLIN’S SPECIAL ART PROJECT (L-R) Jim Franklin, Houston White, Vulcan Gas Company. “We rented a house out in the country, by Luling. Jim Franklin and another guy were chopping up all this cactus. And you boil it down into a liquid from which you extract the mescaline. What we didn’t realize was how much propane it takes. We were going through a tank every two or three days, and this went on for three weeks. The propane guy constantly coming back out and filling us up. So he tells the Sheriff. They show up, there’s mashed peyote buds everywhere, a vat boiling stuff down, and they ask ‘what are y’all doing?’ Jim Franklin, God bless him for this, says ‘we’re University of Texas art students and we’re extracting dye from this plant for an art project.’ The deputy said ‘well you guys sure are using a lot of propane, be careful.’ And they left. We struck the site within 24 hours, rolled off a 55 gallon barrel filled with mother liquid." Jim Franklin, 1971. “We had more cops there sometimes than we had actual paid customers. And never did they once find even a speck of marijuana. But dear God if they’d gone upstairs into Jim Franklin’s little area….that’s a whole different world, you know, we called it Jim’s little magic kingdom.” The cops couldn’t find any weed, the Vulcan didn’t sell booze, but a whole lot of folks looked high as f*ck.  And they had long hair. And the club was right there on Congress Avenue, with the State Capitol eight blocks in one direction and City Hall two blocks in the other.  So the vise began to close. Patrick McGarrigle says everyone at their Coop knew they were being watched. “The feds would literally come up to the front porch and ask for people by name. Happened to me several times. I’d say ‘you know, we’re not going to help you because what that person is doing is totally innocent and he’s not hurting anybody. This is not murder.” Hyde learned of a scheme to plant marijuana on him since the acid and mescaline he sold wasn’t yet illegal, so he split for San Francisco thirteen months before the Vulcan closed. The club itself lasted three years. When the scene shifted to the Armadillo, so did the drugs of choice. “The only LSD that was happening in that crowd was Lone Star Draft, that was the big thing at the Armadillo.” But check out the thread. Psychedelics provided the seed money for the Vulcan, where favorites Shiva’s Headband scored one of the city’s first big record deals.  That money in turn helped band manager Eddie Wilson open The Armadillo World Headquarters. And Jim Franklin? He helped put together the legendary Armadillo Art Squad. All part of a scene that continues to define Austin culture to this day. Jim Franklin, 1970 *photos by Burton Wilson, art by Jim Franklin, courtesy Auspop. Interviews by Barry Underhill, courtesy Vulcan Documentary Project. HAVING FUN WITH CLEVE Speaking of the Armadillo, we’re experimenting with the best way to roll out Greezy Wheels frontman Cleve Hattersley’s incredible collection of stories. Maybe a serialized release through social? With a tight hook? We asked our artists to riff, and here’s what came back. Curious for your thoughts as we work to keep the roots of our culture in the current conversation. Let us know as well who else we should be talking with and about — we’re all ears and we love our city. GAY HEAT It’s coming to Still Austin Wednesday, and watch our socials for more surprises!  Here’s the link for tickets, and here’s a link to buy a limited edition Gay Heat T from Austin artist Sophia Rumbarger. Read more about her design inspiration in last week’s Happy Heat …this is a good one. Brigitte Bandit’s hosting, we’re raising money for Equality Texas, and the music lineup’s headlined by Lord Friday the 13th. One of the buzziest bands at SXSW this year, the duo’s led by siblings Felix and Sloane Lenz, who hale originally from East Texas. They migrated to Austin for film and costume design. And somehow this came about. Of course we have questions! We’ve always wanted to make music together, but visual arts definitely took the forefront for both of us until about 5 years ago. We kind of had this moment of inspiration while on tour with a friend’s band selling merch for them and things like that, where we decided when we got back to Austin we were gonna take a week off and see if we could write an EP. The name (Lord Friday the 13th), is based on the puppet king in Mr. Rogers’ ‘Land of Make-Believe’, whose name was King Friday the 13th. We changed it to ‘Lord’ and felt that was a bit more mysterious and less monarchical. Like ‘Lord’ could be a vampire, a religious character, an eccentric villain who lives on a hill, etc. We’re both really inspired by the simplicity and power of early New York punk, like Patti Smith reading poetry over Lenny Kaye playing guitar kind of performance art, as well as the trash glam punk energy of the New York Dolls and Iggy and the Stooges. We wanted to kind of channel that energy in what we wrote, using what we had and making it work to say what we were trying to say. Neither of us drink or smoke or anything like that, and we try to keep our lives pretty drama free haha. So Lord Friday kind of became a sandbox for us to play with the idea of what is even considered “bad”, and what’s considered “good”. Why do most people think 13 is unlucky, it’s been extremely lucky for us. What is “beauty” and what is “ugly”, what is “boy” and what is “girl”. We very quickly turned ourselves into these kind of cartoonish ideals of all of those things at once. HAPPYIN’ THIS WEEKEND 6/20/24 Summer Solstice at Laguna Gloria presented by The Contemporary  Close out the longest day of the year and celebrate the life of plants with a themed night of performances, vendors, artmaking, and more. 6/21/24 SUNBIRD FEST & Hyperreal Presents: OMAR With masterful direction by acclaimed director Hany Abu-Assad and superb performances lead by Adam Bakri, Omar has placed itself high in the canon of Palestinian cinema and is an excellent entry point to newer audiences of films from the region. 6/21/24 Juneteenth Jubilee Travis County is hosting its 35th annual Juneteenth celebration. Expect vendors, information booths, music, performances and games. The free event is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  6/22/24 The Majestic Ball at the Paramount Theatre A drag diva competition with special guests Natalie Lepore, Diamond Dior Davenport and A’Keria C. Davenport. Doors will open at 7 p.m., and the show will start at 8 p.m. How are we doing? We want to hear from you. 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