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One thing I always remembered from that afternoon so long ago was Leary warning the audience that “acid is not for every brain, only positive, adventuresome, healthy human beings would truly benefit from the drug’s infinite possibilities.” This fact, not surprisingly, was always left out when Leary’s theories were discussed in the media. He defined the word ‘psychedeli’c to mean ‘mind-manifesting’, and certainly didn’t advocate that the drug be taken by just anybody.” Leary also possessed a healthy sense of humor, as evidenced later in the same lecture when he speculated that “If Aristotle were living in today’s world he would definitely have his own television talk show.” Leary was in the process of forming his “League of Spiritual Discovery” during this period. It was the Esalen lecture that first blew me away, witnessing his considerable on-stage charisma coupled with an amazing world-class verbosity, spoken in that familiar, confident, awestruck voice. It made him quite irresistible, as my generation was about to discover for themselves.

Later on, of course, I would learn through the media of his ongoing exploits. I never once believed Timothy Leary was, in the famous words of President Nixon, “The most dangerous man in America.” I always thought that was rich,coming from the man who just bombed the shit out of Cambodia and then plunged this country into years of darkness and shame.

The fellow who was instrumental in my getting to know Leary on a more personal level was the man often referred to as the ever-hip Nelson Lyon. So now I think would be as good time as any to introduce some background regarding Nelson, as I already mentioned him briefly in my essay on Terry Southern entitled THE ICON OF COOL.

Nelson had been a staff writer for the wildly successful SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE at the same point in time that the legendary Terry Southern was installed there, from 1980-81, to make some serious money and try his hand at television comedy writing. Terry was having no luck in adjusting his gonzo wit to the fast pace of a show run by twenty- something’s who were in the process of being born when Terry was writing the screenplay of DR. STRANGELOVE for Stanley Kubrick.

Nelson became Terry’s rock on that show and they became lifelong friends as a result. Into this relationship came the ever-mordant William S. Burroughs, and then Dr. Leary arrived, recognizing Nelson as a well-connected friend who was on his wave length as well. Nelson produced and directed recording projects with all of them. The result for Terry would be the audio cassette known as BRING ME YOUR HUMP in which Terry reads excerpt’s from his short stories, climaxing as it were, with the title sequence from CANDY. For Bill Burroughs, Nelson would co-produce DEAD CITY RADIO, as well as other recordings later on. Nelson had appeared as an actor in THE TELEPHONE BOOK, a short-but-to-the-point grindhouse film that is now regarded as a classic underground film by those in the know.

Nelson, needless to say, is a brilliant man with many diverse interests, some of which we shared in common. When I first met him he lived in a large upstairs flat on Orange Drive in that wonderful part of Hollywood between third street and Melrose, once the grand area where “old Hollywood” maintained large sprawling homes, most of which are now divided into duplexes. Nelson was a consummate collector in every sense of the word. He loved movies, vintage and otherwise, comic books, pornographic and otherwise, and anything related to pop culture.

His upstairs living room was dominated by four large Warhol silk screens of Marilyn Monroe, each in a different color. The black one, he told me, was the rarest of the four. He also had the famous Warhol of Garbo as Mata Hari. What bonded us straight away was his passion for films, and especially collecting memorabilia from all the great films, which of course now are so expensive only museums can afford them. At that time Nelson had the entire set of lobby cards from CITIZEN KANE as well as Von Stroheim’s FOOLISH WIVES, with the three-sheet poster from the noir classic GUN CRAZY framed in his dining room. I knew at that moment Nelson was a soul mate.

Unfortunately for Nelson, his only real lasting claim to fame would not lie with producing projects for icons like Terry Southern or Bill Burroughs, but in having the monumental bad timing of being one of the three people on March 4th 1982 (later it would be revealed that both Robin Williams and Robert De Niro had also dropped by as well) to spend the evening with the troubled comic John Belushi the night he OD’ed at the Chateau Marmont.

Nelson was an eye-witness to the woman who injected Belushi with the fatal dose of drugs that killed him. A former “back-up singer” for the rock group THE BAND, Cathy Smith’s real talents lied elsewhere, in the area of drug dealing. More importantly, she was an addict herself.

In the end Nelson gave his evidence to the Grand Jury, receiving immunity from prosecution, and knowing Nelson, he got no Schadenfreude from the experience either. As for Cathy Smith, she would eventually be sent to prison for manslaughter. Nelson Lyon never really survived the notoriety from the press, and he would fall from the heavens of Hollywood a howling devil, not unlike another character we could name.. This, followed by life-threatening health issues, took its toil on my world-weary friend as time went by.

Nelson once proudly maintained a world class book collection of the works of both his friends Terry Southern and William S. Burroughs, most all of them first editions and signed to him with gratitude, and humor as well. Most of these treasures would be sold off in the years after the Belushi scandal.

I was fortunate to know Nelson at a time when he was relatively well off and entertaining on a regular basis. It was during this time that Timothy Leary was a frequent visitor and confidante, involved, I believe, in some of Nelson’s audio projects as well. One must remember that Leary was as much of an entertainer as he was an academic. He had appeared on the Sunset Strip on a few occasions as a stand-up comic, or as an author reading from one of thirty books he wrote over the years, but it was his personality people came to see, as well as his notoriety as the infamous “pope of dope.” Timothy Leary always laughed at himself first, and made the best of whatever the fates decreed

I for one could never stop the involuntary habit of always hearing that famous song in my head whenever Leary appeared, that ode to the fame of Timothy Leary done in the sixties when it was all happening. With the “Summer of Love,” the MOODY BLUES were on the airways with that tune from their classic IN SEARCH OF A LOST CHORD album,
“Timothy Leary’s Dead” with the unforgettable refrain, “Oh no, he is outside looking in.”

Sometimes I would be sitting on Nelson’s couch when Leary would show up and we would wind up watching a film together while having drinks and some smoke. This was as good as it gets was my view, actually getting high with The Man.

I remember watching, of all things, CHARLIE CHAN IN RENO on cable with both Nelson and Timothy when the whole Chan series was being broadcast on the old Z CHANNEL, which in itself became quite the cultural phenomenon at the time among film lovers and hipsters in Los Angeles. For some reason (let’s blame it on the quality of what we were smoking) I was at the top of my game that afternoon and provided a non-stop commentary for the film that really got Tim laughing and digging the film, which was a real high, believe you me. When it was over he said to me ‘David, you are a funny man and you should realize that you have a gift for interpreting films from the right side of your brain. You should do commentaries for all these films, that is your true calling, I believe.” I never forgot what the good doctor said to me that day, and as of this writing I have recorded nearly a dozen audio and video commentaries for films on DVD.

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