Before Laurel Canyon became a myth, it was a room.

This is Part 2 of my deep dive into David McGowan’s Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream.

In Part 1, we looked at Laurel Canyon from above: the military family backgrounds, Lookout Mountain, and the strange feeling that the official hippie dream had something sitting over it in the hills.

In this episode, we go inside the rooms.

This part gets into Vito Paulekas and the Freaks, the strange dancers and scene-makers who helped create the atmosphere around the early Los Angeles counterculture. These were not just random people in the crowd. They helped make the scene feel like something was happening before the public fully understood what the “hippie dream” even was.

Then the story gets darker.

We talk about Godo Paulekas, Kenneth Anger, Lucifer Rising, Bobby Beausoleil, occult film, performance, young runaways, unsafe rooms, and the question that keeps coming up throughout this whole series:

What kind of freedom was this, and who was actually safe inside it?

This episode covers:
Vito Paulekas
The Freaks
Godo Paulekas
Kenneth Anger
Lucifer Rising
Bobby Beausoleil
Laurel Canyon
The Sunset Strip
The early counterculture
The dark side of the hippie dream

This series is not about pretending every connection proves one giant conspiracy. Some of this is documented history, some of it is David McGowan’s interpretation, some of it is speculation, and some of it is just extremely weird.

The goal is not paranoia.

The goal is discernment.

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