Once he stopped exploring, the whole scene stopped exploring.”
Posted on 11/06/2022 8:27:11 PM PST by Beowulf9
FOR DECADES,A major piece of counter-culture history was wedged behind a bed in Merl Saunders’ San Francisco house.
The crude pipe looks like something a teen may have cobbled together at summer camp, but according to art historian Steve Cabella, it’s basically a religious object. A so-called “spirit pipe,” this particular pot implement was made by LSD pioneer Augustus Owsley Stanley for Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, & it’s been MIA for decades.
“I’ve bought party pipes from rock people before,” Cabella — owner of California antiquities shop The Modern i — tells Rolling Stone. “They’re just funny little things; they have no history to them. No lost story. No lost connections. This is a different object. It’s sort of a holy grail in a lot of ways, because, obviously, when [Jerry] was smoking this pipe he was playing music at the time & that was where he was getting the spirit from — the creativity from.” Rolling Stone reached out to the band for comment but did not hear back.
The Grateful Dead & Owsley’s history are as intertwined as, well, drugs and rock & roll. Owsley — whose name is officially in the dictionary describing a strain of pure LSD — was the band’s original soundman & financial backer. He developed their distinctive Wall of Sound, helped design their logo, and, of course, kept them flush with LSD. The band even immortalized Owsley in song: 1967’s “Alice D. Millionaire,” a twist on a headline about the arrest of the so-called “king of acid.” Although he was tight with the whole band, Owsley was drawn, in particular, to Garcia.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
Once he stopped exploring, the whole scene stopped exploring.”
owsley and the merry pranksters were a trip
Dog bites man?
Someone’s bed hasn’t been moved in 30 years?
Dave’s not here.
What a strange trip it’s been...
Apparently smoking serious Dope makes time slow down, Big Time, Yugely...
Wow. Merl’s been gone a while
That looks like your typical Meerschaum Pipe.
It’s more heat resistant than briar, with less risk of burnout.
/sarc
Who cares. Some idiot will pay a fortune for the damn thing and claim Jerry came to him after he smoked weed in the Holy Pipe.
“The crude pipe looks like something a teen may have cobbled together at summer camp..”
People forget (or don’t realize) there weren’t ready sources of paraphernalia like there are today. In ‘The Child’s Garden of Grass’ (from the late 60s), there are diagrams showing how construct bongs from glass lab beakers because going down to your friendly neighborhood head shop wasn’t an option yet.
Or at least that is what I’ve been told.
LOL! That’s what I thought!
My great-grandfather smoked Half and Half in a briar pipe. Mom kept it after he died and it smelled of burley and bright for years afterward. There was no spirit thing going on as with Garcia, but he did read the Bible a lot and often smoked while he read.
I remember that book. I also remember going to Woodbridge Center (NJ) to look at the bongs at Spencer’s i think.
“LOL! That’s what I thought!”
Maybe if they look a little harder, they can find a bag of that era’s good weed. It would probably sell for millions!
My daughter’s teacher rapped on the desk for quiet and she responded “Dave’s not here”.
Sad thing is....the teacher was the only one who laughed.
Put me firmly in the who gives a crap column!
It was a DOPE PIPE that belonged to a DEAD DOPER!
Big WHOOP!
FAR OUT MAN!
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