By Ken Krayeske • 5:20 PM EST
New York City musician David Peel salutes peace at the base of the Washington Monument after Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. I wish I took this photo, but Carl Bambini (I think that was his name - Syracuse U, class of 1993, Newhouse photographer and designer? eh, whatever). But I watched Carl take this shot, and later interviewed Peel.
Saturday afternoon fun - exam study break. I thought today was the anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, it's actually December 10 - and I'll try make a special post for that.
I wanted to interview Congressman John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee from Michigan in honor of the day, especially considering that he was in Hamden and Quinnipiac U. today speaking about the UN Declaration's 60th anniversary. But his press flak Jonathan Godfrey at 202-225-3951 never returned my numerous calls or emails.
Thus, we celebrate a different anniversary today - the completion of the Washington Monument, which at 555.5 feet tall, some conspiracy theorists consider to be a symbol of occult and Illuminati power in the United States New World Order business.
It is too fun to pass up today, when I am immersed in wealth transfer law in studying for a trusts and estates exam for Tuesday night.
Plus, the picture I have to illustrate this illustrious Monument features none other than the great punk rocker and marijuana activist David Peel. Someday I'll find the interview I did with him for Patti Adcroft's magazine 506 class and post it.
I met Peel at the base of the Washington Monument after Clinton's Inauguration in 1993 - a fantastic sunny day that I wrote about for a satire magazine at SU called Seriously. One day I'll post that, too.
Clinton's Inaugural was back when you could stroll right up to the base of the monument without passing through six degrees of security and submitting to metal detectors and what not. I doubt Obama's presidency will eliminate that security business. The five of us who trekked down to DC from Syracuse for the Inaugural made the monument our rendezvous point because of its visibility and accessability.
At the base of the monument, there was Peel, a unique character to say the least. I got his number, because he seemed like an interesting interview for a class assignment, or something. I met him that Spring.
While hanging out and getting stoned with Peel in his East Village loft doing research for the story, I met a man, named Ivan, I think, who left home when he was 16 after listening to Dylan sing "It's all over baby blue."
The exact line that led Ivan to leave home: "The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense/Take what you have gathered from coincidence." The coincidence we gathered that afternoon - there were five of us in the tiny apartment, and five is the number of revolution.
I doubt that anecdote made it into my magazine piece, and I have no idea what grade I got on it. But I handed it in with the picture above by Carl. And five multiplied by 111.1 is the height of the Washington Monument? A coincidence? A connection? Ooooh. I don't know.
Patti Adcroft was an adjunct as Syracuse University when I attended. She is now editor in chief of Marie Claire. She has also served the magazine industry as editor of the magalog In Style and the editor in chief of Seventeen. Unfortunately, her book hasn't done so hot.
But she made her mark as the editor of the defunct Omni magazine from 1986 to 1990. The interview Omni did with Terrence McKenna didn't come out until 1993, after Patti's tenure, but it is still worth mentioning here.
McKenna maintains that we evolved from apes because the apes ate a lot of psyilocybin mushrooms. Is this the secret history the Illuminati try to hide? Oooooh. I don't know. But maybe there's a connection.
It is unlikely McKenna ever met his fellow warrior in the pursuit of higher knowledge, David Peel, who created the record label that gave GG Allin a home. GG Allin needs no introduction, I hope, to the readers of this site.
So Peel is also important, if we are talking anniversaries, because Monday will be the 27th anniversary of John Lennon's assassination, and Peel and Lennon were best buds for a little while back in the early 1970s. Peel also wrote the fantastic "The Pope Smokes Dope."
Anyways, I gotta get back to Trust modification and termination and the problems trustees encounter when they have unknown or unascertainable beneficiaries or minors. How do you deal with it? Guardian Ad Litem? Virtual representation? Who knows. Back to the Books...
