Orange Sunshine - LA Record

Orange Sunshine - book review & interview for LA Record

Orange Sunshine
By Nick Schou

When people see a book about acid they feel compelled to share their personal stories – often too personal. But few question how that little tab traveled from some Bay Area chemistry lab to the center of their innermost fears. Nick Schou’s new Orange Sunshine charts the rise and fall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – an organization that reached from the resin-coated hookahs of Afghanistan to the hem of Tim Leary’s tunic. During the mid 1960s, psychedelic swami John Griggs helped create what would become one of the largest smuggling organizations in the United States – distributing extravagantly obtained bricks of hash and LSD out of a small storefront on Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. (The group supplied Hendrix with the titular tabs in Hawaii during his Rainbow Bridge concert.) Eventually cocaine blew the whole organization to pieces, leading to homelessness, arrests and a few fatal overdoses. Through extensive interviews and painstaking research, Schou, a staff writer for OC Weekly, presents a precise and unbiased view of one of the most radical organizations to come out of Orange County.

Does anyone appear to have held on to the money they made?

With few exceptions, nobody in the Brotherhood got rich. A couple of guys managed to get out of the business and reinvest their money in real estate, so they are now retired and playing golf and meditating at nice resort-style ashrams. A lot of them spent years in jail and others became addicted to cocaine in the 70s and endured harrowing experiences behind bars in third world prisons, so you really have the whole range of outcomes – some redemptive, others tragic.

How many times did you have to watch Rainbow Bridge? Are you concerned about what that may have done to your psyche?

I actually discovered Rainbow Bridge in college, when I was listening to a lot of Hendrix. I thought the film was a joke. After I realized how it fit into the story, I watched it again and still had no idea what the hell was going on. The scene with the hash inside the surfboard used to be on YouTube, so I was able to transcribe the dialogue from there. There are other clips on YouTube, but the only part of the film I enjoy is when Jimi plays ‘Hey Baby, Land of the New Rising Sun’ to the Brothers and their friends at the end of the film. The movie is mostly painful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been used to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Do you think getting Jimi Hendrix to perform on the edge of a volcano in Hawaii was the greatest stoned epiphany ever actualized?

Despite the really poor sound quality and drugged-out vibe, the performance on the slope of Haleakala includes some of Jimi’s best playing, and it captures him right before his untimely death. Supposedly he shared Chuck Wein’s belief in extraterrestrials. Brotherhood guys who surfed in the movie insist that a ‘Mothership’ full of ‘Space Brothers’ did flyovers during filming – but the reels came out blank.

Orange Sunshine
By Nick Schou

When people see a book about acid they feel compelled to share their personal stories – often too personal. But few question how that little tab traveled from some Bay Area chemistry lab to the center of their innermost fears. Nick Schou’s new Orange Sunshine charts the rise and fall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – an organization that reached from the resin-coated hookahs of Afghanistan to the hem of Tim Leary’s tunic. During the mid 1960s, psychedelic swami John Griggs helped create what would become one of the largest smuggling organizations in the United States – distributing extravagantly obtained bricks of hash and LSD out of a small storefront on Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. (The group supplied Hendrix with the titular tabs in Hawaii during his Rainbow Bridge concert.) Eventually cocaine blew the whole organization to pieces, leading to homelessness, arrests and a few fatal overdoses. Through extensive interviews and painstaking research, Schou, a staff writer for OC Weekly, presents a precise and unbiased view of one of the most radical organizations to come out of Orange County.

Does anyone appear to have held on to the money they made?

With few exceptions, nobody in the Brotherhood got rich. A couple of guys managed to get out of the business and reinvest their money in real estate, so they are now retired and playing golf and meditating at nice resort-style ashrams. A lot of them spent years in jail and others became addicted to cocaine in the 70s and endured harrowing experiences behind bars in third world prisons, so you really have the whole range of outcomes – some redemptive, others tragic.

How many times did you have to watch Rainbow Bridge? Are you concerned about what that may have done to your psyche?

I actually discovered Rainbow Bridge in college, when I was listening to a lot of Hendrix. I thought the film was a joke. After I realized how it fit into the story, I watched it again and still had no idea what the hell was going on. The scene with the hash inside the surfboard used to be on YouTube, so I was able to transcribe the dialogue from there. There are other clips on YouTube, but the only part of the film I enjoy is when Jimi plays ‘Hey Baby, Land of the New Rising Sun’ to the Brothers and their friends at the end of the film. The movie is mostly painful. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been used to torture detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Do you think getting JImi Hendrix to perform on the edge of a volcano in Hawaii was the greatest stoned epiphany ever actualized?

Despite the really poor sound quality and drugged-out vibe, the performance on the slope of Haleakala includes some of Jimi’s best playing, and it captures him right before his untimely death. Supposedly he shared Chuck Wein’s belief in extraterrestrials. Brotherhood guys who surfed in the movie insist that a ‘Mothership’ full of ‘Space Brothers’ did flyovers during filming – but the reels came out blank.

Orange Sunshine @ LA Record