Anonymous ID: 29f860 Nov. 20, 2018, 3:58 a.m. No.3970032   🗄️.is 🔗kun

There's that number 17 again.

 

https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/02/13/john-perry-barlows-last-words/

 

Aimlessly, he managed to be in absolutely the right place at the right time. He spent the Summer of Love (1967) in Haight-Ashbury in the home of the Grateful Dead. In the early 70s, he lived beside Needle Park on New York’s Upper West Side and dealt cocaine in Spanish Harlem. He got into computers in the mid-80s, and his links to the Dead got him entrée to computer high society, which was populated by deadheads.

 

Among the right places at the right time, Barlow:

 

Had his pick of top eastern universities (despite his school record) simply because he was from Wyoming, where few applications originated.

 

Forged three medical excuses from the draft, and though discovered (he used the same typewriter for all three) got away with it.

 

Worked with Dick Cheney to get him into Congress, but realized he was a “global sociopath” interested only in pure power. They argued fiercely, and went their separate ways.

 

<Had John F. Kennedy Jr. as a 17 year-old summer intern on his ranch, taught him how to fly, and warned him about instrument flying,

 

which, like Barlow, he could not master. Before Kennedy plunged his plane into the ocean, they danced together at a Prince concert in New York and got the whole Radio City audience up and dancing — and no one recognized them.

 

Became a close friend of Timothy Leary, after meeting him as an anonymous undergrad. It was Barlow whom Leary wanted at his side when he died, though that didn’t quite work out.

 

Got a $5,000 advance on a novel while an undergraduate, and instead of finishing it, took off to India with the money.

 

With no connections, sold several screenplays to Hollywood to raise money for the family ranch.

 

Wrote the lyrics for 30 Grateful Dead songs.

 

With no qualifications but his Dead connection, worked for Steve Jobs on a book idolizing the corporate culture of Apple, and later, the NeXT news magazine.

 

Co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation with Mitch Kapor, who diverted his private transcontinental flight to Wyoming to meet him. This was both a momentous development for the internet and a transformation for Barlow from deadhead druggie to respected diplomat.