All The News... Part III

Where was I... Oh yeah... something completely different... Well before I get into that, I remember a few things that happened while I was at the Times...

New Years Eve, 1969... Now one of the chores of the job was to go out each night around 11:30 and get the Daily News (which was publishing across town) as well as coffee and stuff for all the shift reporters and copy editors. Either a News Assistant (which I was) or a Copy Boy (which I started as) would go out and do this. The idea was that the editors wanted to see what was in the competition before the late edition was 'put to bed'.

So on this particular night, the Copy Boys and News Assistants decided to celebrate by taking some bright orange pills (some ersatz chemist named Owsley had created an LSD pill that replaced the original sugar cubes).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley

Now anybody who has ever turned on the television on New Years Eve knows what madness there is in New York’s Time Square. It isn’t unusual for a million people to turn out and watch the ball drop at midnight. The Copy Boy who was sent out to get the Daily News and the Coffee was Kenny Kessler, who was a really bright overweight guy who always dressed sloppily. This chore normally took about 45 minutes and in the hallowed world of the Times, nothing… absolutely nothing… should ever interfere with or come in the way of the daily production schedule. I think mentioned that the clerical staff was on acid that night. So off goes Kenny and the rest of us are walking around in our own little dazed states.

This particular New Years, the paper was expanding into another building, The Paramount Building, which had a lot of frontage on the Square. The building was under renovation and there was nothing to keep me from wandering into it and checking out the madness of the moment outside on the street. The newsroom was on the third floor and the office I found myself overlooked Times Square on 3 sides. So I looked out, saw the throngs, and totally spaced myself out. Next thing I knew, I had opened the windows to the fullest on all 3 sides and was standing there listening and watching the million crazy people. And then I began to hallucinate that I was the Pope and they were all there to see me! The sound of the mass of people was an electric undercurrent as the clock approached midnight. And at about five minutes till, I began to pray for them all and give my blessings. When the ball fell, they were all cheering for me and I had an acid-induced epiphany. I didn’t have to be a part of something to experience it. And the experience was whatever I chose to make it. At that moment, I realized that I was the one who could make things happen and not be the one who things happened to.

Anyway, about a half hour later, I closed the windows and managed to find my way through all the construction and get back to the newsroom. All the Copy Editors were clamoring for their coffee and cakes and stuff but Kenny was nowhere to be found. The Editors were freaking out that there might be an important story in the Daily News and the Times could be scooped. And the entire cadre of Copy Boys and News Assistants were all totally and irrevocably smashed on acid, smiling at everything and everybody. 1:30 rolls around and in staggers Kenny grasping a shredded copy of the Daily News and a now-empty ripped, wet, brown paper bag that must have had the coffee and stuff in it before Kenny tried to negotiate his way through a hundred thousand drunken revelers. His shirt was open, his pants were ripped, his face was flushed and he was completely wild-eyed. He had what I can only describe as a classic 'bad trip.'