Happy Late Night, my Darling,
I hope you had a great first day at your campsite! And if you are awake now (yeah, I know it's super late) then I'll bet you can see a million stars. I am happy you got to go, and you will be inspired by your surroundings and have great melodies come to you while you're there. And you will take tons of great photos, naturally. :)
I finally got outside - hooray! Nothin' fancy, just a regular old Aliso Canyon hike, but these days that is great, and it just felt great because I love that place, and I hadn't been on any kind of hike in a couple weeks or so. Also, it was 95 degrees today, so you know I was loving the heat, too.
I finally finished my book, "A Terrible Mistake" about the death of a man named Frank Olson, who worked at a place called Camp Detrick in Maryland in the early 1950s. He worked in creating biological warfare agents (germ warfare). The military was also very interested in using drugs to destabilise enemy forces, and right around that time LSD was discovered by Albert Hoffmann in Switzerland, and the CIA was all over it. The CIA is evil to the core, of course, and one day they will go down the tubes, but back then, they did experimentation of LSD on people without their knowledge. And in France, there was a horrible incident in the town of Pont St. Esprit in which they used aerosol spraying from a light plane to spray an LSD laced mist on the villagers. It is documented and can be Googled. Many people went crazy and some died. Frank Olson had helped design the aerosol device, which he assumed was reserved for warfare, and he was horrified that it was tested on civilians. So in the ensuing years, he began to talk about it to colleagues because it bothered him so much. Because of this, he was finally thrown out a 13th story window by some CIA hired thugs. The CIA told his family he had committed suicide, and there the story laid, for almost 50 years.
But because of this researcher, the author Hank Albarelli, the case was finally reopened at the turn of the millenium. No verdict of murder was ever reached, but in the book he proves his case beyond a shadow of a doubt. The book is 750 pages, and is exhaustive in it's detailing of the deeds of the CIA in the notorious MKULTRA program.
Grim stuff, I know, but of course you know why I have interest in such a subject. And all Americans should, really.
Tonight I watched a really great movie called "Fences" (2016), directed by and starring Denzel Washington, in one of the great performances of recent years. It's the story of a black man in the late 1950s who had been a star baseball player in the Negro Leagues but was now reduced to driving a garbage truck. He is stoic but bitter about his life experience and takes it out on his family, though verbally and not through physical violence. But he is very intimidating, especially to his youngest son.
It's a great American story with a magnificent script by playwright August Wilson, and it was a play before being made into a film. On it's face it's about the struggle of colored people, as they were called then, in the changing social climate of the 50s, just before the civil rights movement happened. But even more than that, the story contains everything that is relevant about The American Experience as well. It's a movie that speaks to everyone, no matter one's life experience. The performances are across-the-board stellar, especially Washington, Viola Davis and Mykelti Williamson as Denzel's brain damaged brother.
For me, it is one of the three great films from last year, along with "Hacksaw Ridge" and "Silence".
Well, that's all for tonight. Have an awesome time on the peninsula! Post pics when you get a chance.
P.S. I saw your post about Taco Bell. It definitely does fill the void, imo. Especially when you are pounding packets of their hot sauce straight into your mouth.......pure bliss. :)
See you in the morning. I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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