JUNE 19th - You're Jack Bauer



On this day in 1967, in what should not have been a surprise to anyone, Paul McCartney admitted to ITN that he had taken LSD. I wasn’t around for the Peace and Love of the 60’s, but from what I’ve heard experimentation was pretty common, so chalk up a certain percentage of certainty about The Beatles’ drug use to simple prevalence. Also there was the increasing broadening of subject matter that The Beatles sang about. When they first started out there was “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” A song about the innocent, simple, yet powerful gesture of love—probably not on LSD. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?” “Tangerine trees” and “marmalade skies?” Okay you’re just being descriptive. And you’re possibly a little hungry. “Kaleidoscope eyes.” Umm? Then you get “cellophane flowers” and “rocking horse people eating marshmallow pies.” I don’t think I’m making huge leap in surmising that there was some brain expansion going on when that song was written. Now the album “Lucy in the Sky…” was on was released on June 1st of the same year, so understandably people might not have been dissecting the lyrics yet. But then there’s the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? No dissecting required. Totally LSD. Of course the real indicator was the article that ran in Life Magazine two days prior, in which Paul admitted to taking the drug. So I doubt that people who had been paying attention were really surprised by Paul’s admission. Then again, I guess the actual admission in print and on television was the shocking part. Paul saw himself as an advocate of truth and twisted the whole responsibility of celebrities and the media. Because who’s really perpetuating the knowledge and glamorizing the drug use, the guy who admitted he partook or the media who splashed it all over the papers. That’s some heady stuff, man. And now I’m getting caught in a tangled web of perpetuation because I’m posting about it all these years later which is technically a form of glamorization, so I wonder if Paul McCartney would be mad at me. I’ve been told I look John Lennon once or twice. I wonder if that hurts or helps my cause. But just to clarify: don’t take LSD. Paul McCartney did. But he didn’t want to talk about it. And if you don’t want to talk about something you did, you probably shouldn’t have done it. Unless you’re a classified, top secret agent in possession of important national security secrets and have committed some questionable acts in your past that you were forced to perform for the well-being of our country. In that case, you wouldn’t want to talk about what you did even though it was something you should have done. And you’d keep your mouth shut. Because you’re Jack Bauer.

This day has been Marked.

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