by Nicholas Schou
http://www.erowid.org/library/review/review.php?p=316
Reviewed by Jonathan Taylor
9/1/2010
Once upon a time there were hippies in Orange County, California.
To someone like myself who has lived in this ostensibly conservative
region for some time, this might already seem like a fairytale. How
much more so then to realize that these OC hippies worshipped LSD as
a sacrament, distributed unbelievably massive quantities of it,
pioneered smuggling hash out of Afghanistan while forming an enormous
hash and weed distribution business, counted Timothy Leary as one of
their own for a few years and bankrolled his prison breakout by the
Weathermen, and were eventually prosecuted out of business by Orange
County cops?
The "hippie mafia" in question was the Brotherhood of Eternal Love,
and the latest (and by my count only the second) major book to tell
their story is Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and
Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World by OC Weekly
investigative reporter Nick Schou. This non-fiction account reads
like a late 60s crime thriller, though the crimes in question seem
mainly to be quenching an enormous thirst for weed, hash and acid
among the young recreational drug-using subcultures of the late 1960s
and early 1970s.
Though true, it is an amazing tale, especially in Schou's telling.
Schou gets this scene, the humor of it, the foibles, and the sheer
legendary stonedness. He also stresses the anecdotal and personal
over the larger context, unlike an earlier account of the Brotherhood
by Tendler and May. That book, engaging and informative, focused more
broadly on LSD in both its cultural milieu and also its main
manufacturers. Orange Sunshine focuses almost exclusively on the
Brotherhood of Eternal Love itself, with a major exploration of their
hash smuggling exploits. Thus the title is a bit of a misnomer.
The Brotherhood was initially a group of violent thugs from the
flatlands of Orange County and LA, some of whom were also surfers,
who got religion in the form of LSD. Utopian in orientation but
street dealers in practice, they figured out how to make a bunch of
money from smuggling and distributing their favorite drugs. They
didn't, apparently, ever quite learn how to not bring their work home
with them and the tale of their success and dissolution almost seems
to suggest that smuggling drugs was the easy part, while just
existing while being on so many drugs all the time was tougher.
Eventually, carelessness, misadventure, bad luck, and snitches put an
end to the Brotherhood. The LSD manufacturing and hash smuggling
continued, but that's another story.
Orange Sunshine mixes together great huge swaths of seemingly
disparate Southern California culture. Mean flatland thugs, crazed
canyon bikers, stoned coastal surfers, pan-Californian acidheads: the
Brotherhood is where these subcultural strands came together. Always
seeking a utopian escape, some of its members fled to Maui, where
these transplanted pot smugglers turned to big-wave surfing, created
Maui Waui, and appeared in the film Rainbow Bridge with Jimi Hendrix,
whom they dosed with a DMT-laced joint during his performance. In the
great tradition of the Southern Cal/Northern Cal rivalry, the
Brotherhood seems simultaneously more heroic, hedonistic, and moronic
than the Haight crowd, whom they happily sold weed to and bought
Owsley acid from. One of their few NorCal appearances was showing up
to dose the Hell's Angels with acid at Altamont. Sadly, the
Brotherhood seemed to have no "house band" counterpart like the Bay
Area's Grateful Dead (one hesitates to guess what this would have
sounded like), but its members did include the former drummer of Dick
Dale and the Del-Tones. (Dale, the most influential guitarist in the
history of surf music, was based in Orange County.)
Schou has a great, almost pulp-entertainment way of telling this
story and seems to have put in abundant time interviewing
participants of the scene, and the larger-than-life characters he
describes come bursting off the page. Most notable is John Griggs, a
mean son-of-a-bitch 50s-style jock who changed dramatically after
sampling LSD stolen at gunpoint from a Hollywood producer. He became
a sort of LSD visionary, leading the Brothers from their criminal
ways to, well, way more stoned and peaceful but still criminal ways.
Eventually he decided to drop out and formed a communal ranch group
in the mountains near Idyllwild, California. It was here that he
tragically died of what was reported by onlookers to be an overdose
of "synthetic psilocybin" (see Afterword). This sort of horrible
comeuppance seemed to be the fate of more than a few of the elite
members of the Brotherhood, with accidental deaths, overdoses
(including those of children), and busts far too common, though few
of the Brotherhood ever served serious time.
But this is not really a cautionary tale, it's an adventure story,
and a ripping one at that. The moral of the story, if there is one,
is "Wow, it sure would have been fun to live in Laguna Beach in the
60s!"* It nicely complements other accounts of the cultural history
of acid in the 60s such as Storming Heaven and Acid Dreams. Read
those for the insightful discussions of the major political shifts
and cultural changes of that singular and incredible era, as well as
for the equally incredible story of the CIA's engagement with acid.
But read Orange Sunshine for the kicks.
*Actually I did live in Laguna Beach from '66 to '67, but I was two
years old and my parents moved our family, in part, to get away from
the drugged-out hippies.
Afterword:
Unfortunately, I find it necessary to write an afterword, as this
book is attracting some controversy from within the psychedelic
community. The main charge is that the book is error-ridden and
inaccurate, the reason being that key participants were not
interviewed and some of those who were may have had their own vested
interests in providing misleading information. Nick Schou has told me
that he made every effort to interview key protagonists including,
for example, Nick Sand, who declined several interview requests.
Others who denied requests remain anonymous. At the same time, I feel
it necessary to point out that Schou did interview a lot of former
members of the Brotherhood as well as their family or other
hangers-on, thus while it is certainly possible that the book
contains some errors, distortions, or omissions, it is impossible to
dismiss it as being poorly researched. It clearly and obviously isn't.
A couple of issues remain. First, there are questions about whether
John Griggs really died of an overdose of synthetic psilocybin. I've
asked Schou and he replied:
"Yes this question always comes up every time someone mentions
Griggs' death. Although it's not in the book since I only talked to
[Brenice] Brennie Smith after I turned in the manuscript, he was
there the night Griggs died and confirms that he died of a toxic
reaction to a crystallized form of psilocybin as stated in my book.
Who knows what else was mixed in with it, but by all accounts, it was
poisonous in the extreme in so far as Griggs ingested far too much of
it, according to Smith as well as other Brotherhood members who
weren't there but got that story straight from those who were
present. Nobody I interviewed for the book who was in the Brotherhood
and on the scene when he died have any confusion that this is how he
died. It was widely known among the Brotherhood that this psilocybin
was making the rounds, see where I mention Ed Padilla mentioning
Griggs' enthusiasm for the stuff the last time he saw Griggs. Some
speculate that Griggs choked on his own vomit on the way to the
hospital, but Smith says this is not the case and backs up the
version in my book."
Schou also enclosed a death certificate, which listed Griggs' death
as a consequence of "suspected drug intoxication (psilocin)". This is
one of the few known deaths claimed to be caused by an overdose of
psilocybin/psilocin. Given that no other fatal ODs from synthetic
psilocybin or psilocin have ever been reported, it is possible that
this was actually something else, or that the psilocybin was
contaminated or adulterated.
Another question is more serious. In October 2009, Schou wrote a
story for the OC Weekly on former Brotherhood member Brennie Smith,
who had arrived in California in part to be interviewed for a
documentary on the Brotherhood, and was arrested on an outstanding
warrant.1 Apparently there is suspicion in some quarters that Schou's
publicity of the Brotherhood from his prior OC Weekly stories on the
group led to law enforcement's previously dormant interest in Smith,
or that Smith arrived at Schou's behest. Schou insists that he had no
knowledge of Smith's visit until he arrived, and in fact he gathered
information helpful to Smith and shared it with Smith's defense
attorney. Schou's stance on the ludicrousness of arresting and
charging Smith is evident in the follow-up he penned later in October
2009.2 Given Schou's record of articles and investigative news
reporting critical of the War on Drugs and the generally critical
bent of the OC Weekly on Orange County law enforcement, the
allegation that Schou somehow contributed to Smith's arrest seems baseless.
Clearly, those who were there and participated are in the best
position to evaluate Orange Sunshine's accuracy, but given the
complexity of the Brotherhood, its changes over time, the number of
now elderly interviewees Schou talked to, and the fluid nature of
memory, this is probably about the best account of a bunch of drug
smugglers from 40 years ago that we're likely to get.
--
1) Schou N. "Was Brotherhood Member Brenice Lee Smith a Felonious
Monk?". OC Weekly. Oct 22, 2009.
2) Schou N. "Why is Brenice Lee Smith Still Behind Bars, Awaiting
Trial?". OC Weekly. Oct 28, 2009.
.
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