A little background on Laurel Canyon

I happened upon this guy's books online. This guy is David McGowan, and he's got some pretty amazing books. Some might say unbelievable. Titles like "Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See," "Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder," and "Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion ." From what I've gathered, at least the last of these is very very interesting. The others could be as well.

He also has a website with some, well, pretty unbelievable stuff on it. But, in the interest of open mindedness, I decided to take a little time tonight and read a bit of it. And there's lots and lots and lots of stuff.. He seems to delight in debunking things that are common knowledge. Some I might agree with. Some I might not. In fact, some I definitely do not. Things I won't mention for fear of you running away, laughing hysterically. But, nonetheless...

Anyway, the subject for tonight is Laurel Canyon. Like "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell. That Laurel Canyon, and the counter-culture and musical icons that inhabited it. This guy has just assembled a whole bunch of commonly available facts, and grouped them together for effect. (He also sprinkled liberally a heaping helping of innuendo, but at least it's entertaining. Even my open mind has it's limits— his idea that Frank Zappa was part of some CIA-type black op to distract the youth is hilariously misguided...) But there sure are a lot of murders involved...

Prepare for some surprises.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

...at this point, I have to call it a night an go to sleep. But here's just a little teaser.

This is at the end of Part 4:
(Did I mention that this particular series of posts goes up to part 20...?!)

The bridge of the USS Bon Homme Richard, January 1964. Just months later,
the guy on the right would guide his ship into the Tonkin Gulf, and the
young man on the left would begin a remarkable transformation into a
brooding rock god. The Bon Homme Richard, by the way, was launched
on April 29, 1944, under the sponsorship of Catherine McCain,
the grandmother of a certain presidential contender.

Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that you are the young man in the photo at the top of this post, and you have recently arrived in Laurel Canyon and now find yourself fronting a band that is on the verge of taking the country by storm. Just a mile or so down Laurel Canyon Boulevard from you lives another guy who also recently arrived in Laurel Canyon, and who also happens to front a band on the verge of stardom. He happens to be married to a girl that you attended kindergarten with, and her dad, like yours, was involved in atomic weapons research and testing (Admiral George Morrison for a time did classified work at White Sands). Her husband’s dad, meanwhile, is involved in another type of WMD research: chemical warfare.

This other guy’s business partner/manager is a spooky ex-Marine who just happens to have a cousin who, bizarrely enough, also fronts a rock band on the verge of superstardom. And this third rock-star-on-the-rise also happens to live in Laurel Canyon, just a mile or two from your house. Just down a couple of other streets, also within walking distance of your home, live two other kids who – wouldn’t you know it? – also happen to front a new rock band. These two kids happened to attend the same Alexandria, Virginia high school that you attended, and one of them also attended Annapolis, just like your dad did, and just like your kindergarten friend’s dad did.

Though almost all of you hail from (or spent a substantial portion of your childhood in) the Washington, D.C. area, you now find yourselves on the opposite side of the country, in an isolated canyon high above the city of Los Angeles, where you are all clustered around a secret military installation. Given his background in research on atomic weapons, your father is probably familiar to some extent with the existence and operations of Lookout Mountain Laboratory, as is the father of your kindergarten friend, and probably the fathers of a few other Laurel Canyon figures as well.

My question here, I guess, is this: what do you suppose the odds are that all of that just came together purely by chance?