Halloween Party & Be-In

Rules & Background

The Sixties were an exciting, revolutionary, turbulent time of great social and technological change: assassination, unforgettable fashion, new musical styles, Camelot, civil rights, gay and women's liberation, a controversial and divisive war in Vietnam, the first manned landing on the moon, peace marches, World's Fairs, flower power, great TV and film and sexual freedom. As 1960's television (Star Trek) and movies (The Graduate) reflected a new spirit of idealism (and a lot of questioning by young people), so did the music, some of it coming from a folk tradition, some a harder rock edge with roots in everything from blues to a new sound born of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds the year before and continued by the Beatles with Sgt. Pepper.

Music reflected the growing domestic conflict of the War in Vietnam, experiments with drugs (particularly psychedelics), the continuing civil rights struggle and its leaders like Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr., a maturing of the British Sound (groups like The Who) and new regional sounds, notably from LA (The Byrds, Steppenwolf) and San Francisco. "Progressive" rock radio, playing album cuts, flourished in cities like New York, Boston and San Francisco at the same time that "Top 40" or "hit radio" continued playing pop singles from groups like The Monkees or The Mamas and Papas.

Stardust Halloween Party and Be-In takes place Saturday, October 31, 1970. You're part of a Halloween Party at the home of Dr. Robert Sane, a chemistry professor at the fictional Washington University and a friend of Rainbow and Moonbeam (who used to be professors there too). Although the date is 1970, for all practical purposes American culture is still that of the late Sixties. Unless your character sheet says otherwise, you're a student at Washington, and probably took a class with Moonbeam, Rainbow, Dr. Bob, or any combination of the three. One or both of them invited you. If your sheet doesn't say, you just don't remember. They say short-term memory is the first thing to go when you do too many drugs!

If you're curious about the rules of this roleplaying experience, they're fairly simple. We're all adults here, and we know how to behave at a party. Be nice. Share with your friends. Wash your hands after you use the bathroom. Don't hit people (unless they ask very nicely). There are no combat rules, because fighting is extremely uncool. Sex will be simulated by the card game of "Congress." If you don't know how to play, just ask. Someone will be happy to teach you.

We realize that in a one-evening party LARP, we are unlikely to convey the full intensity and excitement of the Sixties and early Seventies. All the same, we hope you enjoy your immersion into the past. Here are some references for your information and entertainment.

• Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out: Dr. Gonzo's Guide to Drugs
• Stonewall Revisited
• Stardust Glossary

To give you some more familiarity with the period, here's a brief timeline. While this is by no means complete, it should give you a decent collection of events that would be relevant to your character.

1920

• October 22. Birth date of Timothy Leary, about 6 months older than Kerouac.

1938

• LSD-25 first synthesized by Albert Hoffman at Sandoz Labs, Bazel Switzerland and tested on animals.

1943

• April 16. Second synthesis of LSD leads to accident and Hoffman experiences its psychedelic effect.
• April 19. To further investigate the effects of LSD, Hoffman ingests 250 micrograms (gamma), a fairly strong dose.
• September 24. Linda Eastman was born, the daughter of attorney Lee Eastman. Jack Lawrence visited the attorney at his home one day in 1947. He was quite taken with the four year old girl, so he wrote a song for the girl. "Linda" by Jan and Dean got to number 28 on the charts in 1963. Little Linda grew up to inspire many other songs, all of them composed by her husband, Paul McCartney.

1949

• LSD research starts in the United States.
• September 19. The original waif model, Twiggy, was born Leslie Hornby, in London.

1954

• Huxley's book The Doors of Perception published.

1955

• R. Gorden Wasson discovers psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico and tries them.

1957

• May 13. Wasson mushroom article appears in Life magazine.
• September. Kerouac's On the Road published, putting the Beat Generation in the limelight.
• October. Sputnik launched by the Russians.

1958

• Hoffman isolates psilocybin from the mushrooms, and Alan Watts takes LSD for the first time.

1959

• Novelist Ken Kesey (Menlo Park Hollister study at the V.A. hospital) and poet Allen Ginsberg (Mental Research Institute at Stanford University, Gregory Bateson study, mid-May) take LSD for the first time.

1960

• Timothy Leary tries psilocybin mushrooms in Mexico, lands a job at Harvard, and starts psilocybin research project.

1961

• Dr. Leary gives psilocybin to all the important members of the Beat Generation and asks them to write a report of their experiences.
• September 18. Ray Stevens first chart hit peaks at number 35. The title? "Jeremiah Peabody's Poly Unsaturated Quick Dissolving Fast Acting Pleasant Tasting Green and Purple Pills."

1962

• Leary takes LSD for the first time.
• August 4. Marilyn Monroe died of an overdose of Nembutal, a Barbiturate. She was found lying naked in her bed, face down, clutching the phone tightly in her hand.
• September 4. The Beatles first recording session with George Martin begins at the Abbey Road studios.

1963

• Leary predicted that within 10 years, over a million people would have tried LSD. Harvard gives Leary and Alpert the boot. Sandoz patent runs out on LSD.
• November 22. President Kennedy and Governor John Connally of Texas cut down by assassin's bullets in downtown Dallas.
• November 22. Aldous Huxley dies same day Kennedy shot. His last request is for an injection of LSD.

1964

• Ken Kesey and his Pranksters take to the road in the first Hippie school bus (although none of them had long hair or even beards at the time) and shoot first acid movie. Leary, Alpert and Metzner publish The Psychedelic Experience: A manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

1965

• Leary busted for marijuana at the Mexico border. Kesey busted for grass. The Pranksters hold their first acid tests. Sandoz stops production of LSD, but Owsley takes over production.
• May 20. Stephanie Jeanne Olmstead born.
• September 9. An ad appears in Daily Variety reading: "Madness- auditions folk and roll musicians, singers for acting roles in new tv series, running parts for 4 insane boys ages 17-21, spirited Ben Franks types, have courage to work, must come down for interview." The Monkees auditions begin.
• September 25. The Beatles were especially animated when their cartoon series hit the airwaves. The Beatles did not lend their own voices to the series. Two actors provided the voices. One spoke for John and George, and the other for Paul and Ringo. Meanwhile, Elvis Presley made his only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry.
• September 25. Also on this date Sonny Bono's only solo hit peaked at number 10 on the charts. The song was called "Laugh at Me" (insert your joke here).
• October 23. James Gordon Dean born.

1966

• LIFE estimated that over a million people had taken LSD (seven years sooner than Leary had predicted).
• February 12. Watts acid test causes major freak-outs when people drink electric Kool-Aid they had no idea was dosed with LSD. LSD horror stories flood the news media.
• September 3. The British answer to Bob Dylan (is Bob Dylan a question?), Donovan, topped the US charts for the first and only time with "Sunshine Superman."
• September 11. To promote The Monkees TV series set to debut the following day, the town of Del Marr was christened "Clarksville," and a train loaded with 450 teenagers was sent to meet The Monkees.
• September 12. The Monkees TV show debuts on NBC.
• October 6. LSD becomes illegal in California.

1967

• Summer of Love in San Francisco. Hippie and Haight-Ashbury become household words.
• June 16-18. Monterey Pop Festival sets the mood of the "Summer Of Love."
• September 17. Before appearing on The Ed Sullivan show, Doors lead singer Jim Morrison promised to change line "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" in the song "Light My Fire." When the cameras were rolling, however, Morrison ignored his promise.
• October 21. - Thousands of anti-war protestors stormed the Pentagon during a rally against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C. About 250 were arrested. No shots were fired, but demonstrators were struck with nightsticks and rifle butts.

1968

• Leary Publishes High Priest and The Politics of Ecstasy. Tom Wolfe publishes The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) is first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
• February 4. Neal Cassady died.
• March 31. LBJ forced out of running for a second term.
• April 4. Martin Luther King is shot and killed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Riots break out around the nation.
• June 5. Just minutes after claiming victory in the California primary in a back room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot twice in the head, once in the forehead and once near the right ear. He died at 1:44 a.m., June 6, 20 hours after the attack and 4 and a half years after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated.
• August 26-29. "The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching," chanted the crowd as the Chicago police brutally beat and arrested protesters outside the 1968 Democratic Convention. The protesters were referring to television audiences, who were watching the violence in living rooms across America. Hubert Humphrey was nominated. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
• September 7. The Banana Splits Adventure Hour debuts on NBC. The show starred four rock and roll animals. Big trivia question for Banana Splits fans: What were the names of the Banana Splits? Answer: Drooper, Snorky, Bingo and Fleeegle. Nobody knows what type of animal they were supposed to be.
• September 14. The Archie Show hits the airwaves. Soon it spawns a hit song, "Sugar Sugar" (A Monkees reject).
• September 16. Presidential candidate Richard Nixon appears on Laugh-in and says "Sock it to me!"
• September 24. That oh-so-60s show The Mod Squad hits the airwaves. Incredibly, the series was based on a true story. The author had served as an undercover policeman in the 50s and wrote the pilot in 1960, before the hippies. In 1968 ABC execs saw it as a potential lure for the huge youth market.
• September 30. U.S. troops in Vietnam reach their highest level - 537,800.
• October 20. Jacqueline Kennedy married multi-millionaire Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis, ending nearly five years of widowhood following the assassination of her first husband, President John F. Kennedy.

1969

• Leary's case goes to the Supreme Court, which rules Anslinger's marijuana tax act unconstitutional.
• Accuracy In the Media (AIM) was set up as the Right Wing's watch dog on "liberal bias" in the media.
• NOW Chapters were involved in efforts to establish women's studies courses at universities in California, Michigan and at newly co-educational Princeton University.
• January. The FBI initiated an investigation of the women's movement for possible subversive activity, though verification of this investigation did not come until 1977, when information about the surveillance was disclosed by an inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act.
• January. The Bulletin of the John Birch Society called for the establishment of an "organized, nationwide, intensive, angry and determined opposition to the now mushrooming program of so-called sex education in the public schools." The Birchers believed sex education was part of the "overall Communist design." The Birch Society's local Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE) Committees, the Oklahoma-based Christian Crusade headed by the Rev. Billy James Hargis, and the American Education Lobby, another right wing group, led the attack that erupted in 34 states and targeted The Sex Information and Education Council (SIECUS).
• January. The first national conference on abortion laws convened in Chicago and decided to establish the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL). Lawrence Lader was the first chair. NOW's representatives included: Betty Friedan; Lucinda Cisler, East Coast Chair of NOW's National Abortion Committee; and Lana Phelan, West Coast Chair. Friedan spoke on abortion as "A Woman's Civil Right."
• February. The radical feminist group Redstockings was formed. The group practiced a formalized concept of consciousness raising and declared its principles in a document called "The Bitch Manifesto."
• February 28. The "Chicago Seven" were found not guilty of plotting to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
• March. Los Angeles NOW member Judith Meuli designed "The Brassy," the woman's symbol with the equality sign across the circle. The original version was hand welded of brass rod.
• April. U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam now exceed the 33,629 men killed in the Korean War.
• May 14. Canada passed an omnibus crime bill that legalized abortion and homosexuality.
• June 8. President Nixon meets with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu on Midway Island in the Pacific, and announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn immediately.
• June 28. When New York City Police entered the Stonewall Inn to harass gay patrons, they fought back and the modern gay and lesbian rights movement began.
• July. The National Coalition of American Nuns was founded to support the civil rights and anti-war movements and to pressure for women's equality within the Catholic Church.
• July 20. Apollo 11. The United States landed two astronauts on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
• August 8. President Nixon issued Executive Order 11478 which required Affirmative Action programs in Federal employment.
• August 14. Pre-Woodstock party at Rainbow's and Moonbeam's pad, and the drive up after.
• August 15-17. For one brief weekend, the Woodstock Nation, consisting of some 400,000 people, coexisted peacefully to hear the Who, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Band and Janis Joplin. "Don't take the brown acid!"
• December 6. A free Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Raceway, in California, erupts in mayhem and murder, effectively ending the Summer of Love.

1970

• Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church agree to ordain women; the Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod does not. Barbara Andrews becomes first woman ordained. The Equal Rights Amendment is reintroduced into Congress.
• January 15. NOW founder and national treasurer Inka O'Hanrahan dies. A clinical biochemist, she owned and directed her own laboratory in San Francisco until she suffered a first heart attack in 1969. She was vice chairman of the California Commission on the Status of Women (1965-67) and lectured in the U.S. and Europe on the status of women. She organized the Northern and Southern California Chapters of NOW.
• March 20. The Women's Heritage Calendar and Almanac, the forerunner of many feminist calendars and datebooks to come, was produced and published by Toni Carabillo, Sylvia Hartman, Judith Meuli, Louise Ramsdell, Cathy Timlin and Lenore Youngman-all NOW activists-and went on sale at NOW's National Conference.
• April 10. Paul McCartney splits, breaking up the Beatles.
• April 22. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin proclaimed "Earth Day," helping give birth to a historic movement. More than 20 million people participated in the event that gave birth to the modern environmental movement. In New York City, Fifth Avenue was closed to automobiles and over 100,000 people attended an ecology fair in Central Park. Congress adjourned for the day and over five hundred of its members attended "teach-ins" at universities or made speeches about saving the environment. The United Auto Workers lead parade through downtown St. Louis featuring a smog-free car. Ohio University students pasted stickers reading "This is a polluter" on cars in Athens, Ohio. New York Gov. Rockefeller signed a measure coordinating pollution abatement and conservation activities.
• April 30. House party at the Freedom Commune, home of Greg Davis, Doug Robinson, and Dandelion, begins.
• April 30. President Nixon announces the invasion of Cambodia, triggering massive protests on many of the nation's campuses.
• May 1. Kent State University students organize a demonstration to protest the invasion of Cambodia. A copy of the Constitution is buried to symbolize its "murder." A second meeting is called for Noon, Monday, May 4.
• May 1. President Nixon calls anti-war students "bums blowing up campuses."
• May 4. Four Dead in Ohio. Four students - Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder - are killed, and nine students - Joseph Lewis, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Robbie Stamps, Donald Scott MacKenzie, Alan Canfora, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell and Dean Kahler - are wounded, when National Guard Troops fire on protesters at Kent State University. In response to the killings, over 400 colleges and universities across America shut down. In Washington, nearly 100,000 protesters surround various government buildings including the White House and historical monuments.
• May 5. At a prominent university in Washington, DC, students and some radical faculty members seize control of a campus building to protest the killings at Kent State.
• June 22. American usage of jungle defoliants in Vietnam is halted.
• June 24. The U.S. Senate repeals the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
• June 30. U.S. troops withdraw from Cambodia. Over 350 Americans died during the incursion.
• August 11. South Vietnamese troops take over the defense of border positions from U.S. troops.
• August 26. Betty Friedan organizes first Women's Equality Day to mark the 50th anniversary of women's right to vote.
• September 3. Vince Lombardi, age 57, dies at 7:12 a.m., in Georgetown University Hospital, of cancer of the colon. He became coach of the Washington Redskins in February 1969 and led them to a 7-5-2 record, their first winning season in 14 years.
• September 19. Jimi Hendrix, age 27, dies in London of drug-related causes (the coroner’s report said he had inhaled his own vomit after taking barbiturates).
• October 4. Janis Joplin, age 27, dies of a heroin overdose, complicated by alcohol, in her Hollywood hotel room.
• October 7. During a TV speech, President Nixon proposes a "standstill" cease-fire in which all troops would stop shooting and remain in place pending a formal peace agreement. Hanoi does not respond.
• October 9. Cambodia declares itself the Khmer Republic following the abolishment of the monarchy by the legislature.
• October 24. South Vietnamese troops begin a new offensive into Cambodia.
• October 31. Groovy Halloween/Samhain Happening at Dr. Bob's pad.