Along with Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson can be thought of as a psychedelic messenger who took a baton from Timothy Leary before heading off on a long strange journey into consciousness expanding new realities. McKenna became the greatest spokesman an entheogen could ever dream of, but Wilson became something more like a conman sage whose writing and lectures were packed with equal parts philosophy and flim-flam, bombast, Buddha and bullshit. In my repost for From the Archive Friday last week I mentioned that we observed the 10th anniversary of Wilson’s death on January 11. As a more fitting tribute than the rerun of an old post, here’s a full documentary about the man, his work, and his ideas. Here’s Maybe Logic: The Lives & Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson…

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On December 8, 1980 John Lennon was shot dead in New York.

Here’s The Day John Lennon Died…

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This weekend I watched a preview screener for Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead, the new National Lampoon documentary. I really loved it and it’s required viewing for any long time fans of Saturday Night Live. American humor of the last half of the 20th century would be drastically different without the impact that the magazine had on every kind of media, and even the radio shows can still make for hilarious listening.

Here’s a show from 1974 that features a parody of Hunter S. Thompson…

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Between the ages of about 9 and 12, I was a little more than obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. I loved creating dungeons and DM’ing the campaigns that my brother’s character would adventure through. Learning how to manage the complex action while also marrying the player’s choices to a fantastic narrative was challenging and fun, and it was always rewarding to create a world full of tricks, traps and treasures.

I also loved the look of game: the graph paper dungeon drawings, the painstakingly painted miniatures and — of course — the books! I’d spend hours poring over the Monster Manual and the Player’s Handbook learning about creatures and spells and classes and characters, but always taking time to linger over the rad illustrations.

That’s why last week’s news about the death of David A. Trampier was so sad. The TOR site has the details…

Trampier was doggedly reserved throughout his life, to such an extent that most D&D fans know his work more than they know his name. He disappeared in 1988, leaving his ongoing comic D&D Wormy abruptly unfinished, and retired from illustration to drive a Yellow Taxi in Carbdondale, Illinois…

Take a look at Trampier’s iconic illustrations below:

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Kim Monaghan and I recorded an epic episode of Coincidence Control Network today. It’ll likely go live by Thursday. During the recording Monaghan was moved to declare his love for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. The legally elected Chavez has been vilified as a mad dictator despite the fact that his political roots reach back to his heroic resistance of the former Venezuelan government that ordered soldiers to kill citizens during an uprising.

Tonight, news reports that Chavez has died are all frantically emerging across the mediascape. Chavez had cancer and had contracted a severe infection.

Oliver Stone’s South of the Border (2009) profiles Chavez, picturing a hero of the Venezuelan people who is vilified for his anti-business politics – in other words, he wouldn’t take orders from America. The film also pictures Chavez as the de facto leader of a “pink wave” of socialist leaders who have emerged throughout the region: : Evo Morales of Bolivia; Cristina Kirchner and former president Néstor Kirchner of Argentina; Rafael Correa of Ecuador; Raúl Castro of Cuba; Fernando Lugo of Paraguay; and Lula da Silva of Brazil.

Tonight you’ll hear one, homogeneous story echoing across the mainstream media outlets. Here is another.

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