I’m headed down Laurel Canyon. Do I turn left on Hollywood Boulevard or
right on Sunset?
by Not Sure
27 July 2025
“I
am a big believer in the notion that 'the truth is out there', but don't expect
it to be delivered to you in a tidy package by any mainstream media outlets.”
― David McGowan, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel
Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
Sometimes dispassion is described as freedom from passion, an undisturbed state, to be objective or unbiased. Sometimes it is called apathy. The English languish is weird and confusing that way. It is good to be objective but also it is apathetic, as in lacking interest or concern. Sometimes dispassion is used to describe the opposite of compassion, which is to be deeply aware of the suffering of another and perhaps to wish to relieve that suffering. The dispassionate person would not want to relieve someone’s suffering because, following the logic of the language, to be objective is not to care.
In this RBN talk from May 19, 2008, Alan Watt read from the first in a series of articles by Dave McGowan which was entitled “Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of the Hippie Generation: Part I”. This first installment was published on May 8, 2008, the second and third installments were published on May 13, 2008, and the fourth installment followed on May 19, 2008. Over the next four years, McGowan would publish a total of twenty-one installments of this fascinating look at the music and hippie/antiwar movement that burst on the stage starting in the mid-1960s. It is thoroughly researched and fascinating, but a warning that it is not for the faint of heart; amongst many disturbing details, he includes graphic pictures of the Black Dahlia murder victim.
McGowan would turn the series into a book entitled Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream, which was published in 2014. If you combine that book with Tom O’Neill’s book from 2020, Chaos: Charles Maonson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, you’ll make much headway in your education of how culture creation is achieved.
In the first installment of the series, McGowan details how so many of the major musicians that came out of that time and place were the children of military men, including John Phillips, Frank Zappa, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and all three of the members of the band America. Both Phillips and Zappa were married to daughters of military men. These deep connections between the musicians who brought us the antiwar hippie movement and those who were carrying out the geopolitical aims of the American establishment is eye opening. Jim Morrison of the Doors was the son of U.S. Navy Admiral George Stephen Morrison who oversaw the U.S. warships that allegedly came under attack in what was known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident which embroiled the U.S. the war between North and South Vietnam that Dave McGowan describes as “one of the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated on this planet”.
I scrolled through some of the comments at the end of the first installment. Here are a couple:
Many of the stars of the
generation that came after the Second World War were the children of people who
had served in the military. Authoritarian parents whose work nevertheless
obliged them to bring their children to faraway places raised people who were [by]
birth culturally curious and dismissive of older societal norms. I don’t see the conspiracy.
Where on earth did this clown
come from? He hates everything and if he can’t imply everyone in Laurel Canyon
is descended from the evil military, he will just slant his comments to appear
as such. Most of his info is pretty well known and
benign. Maybe I should withhold judgement until I read some more. Nah, you can
see where he’s coming from a mile away. I don’t have
the time to waste.
Logic and the laws of probability would lead us to conclude that ‘culturally curious and dismissive of older societal norms’ types might also come from the loins of the clergy, or academia, or even banking and big business. But in the case of the Laurel Canyon music scene they’re missing. I’m sure I’m committing a logical fallacy here, but it would appear that only children of high-level military officers are ‘culturally curious and dismissive of older societal norms’. When it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then quite likely it’s a covert ops duck.
Dave McGowan was born in 1960, earned a degree in psychology, and started a construction business. In his mid-thirties he made a website and started reporting. He covered his areas of interest in detail; most of his coverage was multi-part and engrossing. In addition to the series on Laurel Canyon, he also wrote a comprehensive series on the moon landing, the Boston bombing, and 9/11 which he began writing within hours of the Twin Towers coming down. He also wrote five books. In April of 2015, Dave McGowan was diagnosed with incurable small-cell lung cancer that had already spread to his liver and bones. He passed away on November 22, 2015, the anniversary of the deaths of C.S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and of course, John F. Kennedy.
When reading through the comments, I saw one made by ‘Alissa’. Another commenter said, ‘You must be Dave’s daughter’ and indeed Alissa McGowan is Dave McGowan’s eldest daughter. I remember visiting his website several times throughout the publication of the Laurel Canyon series, but I can’t recall now what it looked like. Alissa McGowan has built a new website which includes his investigative series, and links to where his books can be found. There is detailed autobiographical material which must have appeared on the original website. On the main page of the new site, Dave McGowan is captured in a photograph with his dog, in much the same way I captured Alan sitting with Hamish, in the woods, with a stream in the background.
Alan Watt with Hamish, © Melissa/CTTM 2008
Follow this link to see Dave McGowan with his dog. https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/ Alissa McGowan owns and maintains the website and it is clearly a labor of love.
***
What are we saving? This is a question that people must get to when they study the agenda long enough. William “Bill” Cooper used to ask people where they wanted to get America back to. What ‘golden age’ are we returning to? What time was it in any country’s history when people were free from taxes, bureaucratic interference, left alone to enjoy a life of their own making? No indoctrination? No wars to fight for our masters?
Sometimes I hear from people I know who caution me against jumping on the anti-woke, anti-DEI bandwagon. We all know why young people are as they are, is a line I’ll get. This is true and I know the listeners. I know that their daughter transitioned (female to male) at university and married a man whose brother transitioned male to female at the same time. I know that their granddaughter transitioned female to male, or their brother identifies as a woman and is taking hormones. These stories have been shared with Alan for many years, and now I receive them too. I know a listener ‘of color’ who spent years hating white people, and moving from one organized protest group to the next until the penny dropped and he realized he’d been used for an agenda that had nothing to do with skin color. Even the furry lovers are given a pass by listeners and readers.
Why, they ask me, do we mock them? We know what has been done with our food, we know about the inoculations, and we know what kind of rubbish they’re indoctrinated with. These people are the fallout of an ancient agenda. Why mock them?
If something is worth saving, we must sort that out for ourselves. In this technocracy run by psychopaths, we’re judged by how quickly we adapt. You may not use ‘pronouns’ but chances are your individuality has been chipped away, nonetheless. My thoughts this week have been about what makes us human, how we tune out information overload, and restore the quiet of our mind and spirit.
I like to talk to people and my first thought when learning about Alissa McGowan was the desire to talk to her about her father. Alissa is a book editor, and her site is Red Pen for Rent. She describes herself as “Queer. autistic. Geek. Rebel. Feminist. ABOLITIONIST. Human.” Her pronouns are she/her. She describes herself as ‘white, cisgendered…a pansexual, polyamorous cat person” in a relationship with her two partners, who were husband and wife until they expanded their relationship to include her. She was diagnosed with autism and ADHD in 2022.
Perhaps, I thought, there’s no common ground and a conversation would warrant nothing. I continued to read her site, and this is what she wrote about herself and her father, Dave McGowan. “My dad was also obviously autistic, which is probably part of why we always clicked so well. He died in November 2015, just six months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. It was at once the most painful and most beautiful period of my life. I miss him more than I could ever put into words, and it breaks my heart that he never got to meet my people, but I came out of the experience a better version of myself, and for that I will be forever grateful. He was a writer, too, and I now manage his intellectual property and his legacy”.
I stumbled on a video that had been uploaded where Dave McGowan discussed the Boston Marathon bombings that occurred in April of 2013. I have not watched all this interview or McGowan’s sixteen-part series on the bombings, but I did see a piece of text that Alissa McGowan inserted in the video:
“My dad was my
hero, and my friend. He was brilliant
and hilarious, imaginative and easygoing, adventurous and brave. He was a great travel buddy, hiking partner,
reader of stories, builder of Lincoln Log houses, and griller of tri-tip
steaks. Please know first and foremost,
that I am fully invested in preserving and promoting his legacy.”
I respect Allisa McGowan’s dedication to her father’s work. Dave McGowan contributed to our understanding of this many-layered agenda, and keeping it available to us is generous and appreciated.
“If ignorance is truly bliss, then why do so many
Americans need Prozac?”
Dave McGowan, 2000
Center for an Informed America
https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/
Caravan To Midnight - Episode 269 David McGowan Talks Boston Marathon
https://www.bitchute.com/video/vnkButpq2Wza/
The Boston Marathon Bombings Fully Exposed
https://centerforaninformedamerica.com/bostonmarathon/
Transcript - Alan Watt "Cutting Through the Matrix" LIVE on RBN - "Freedom of Mind for He Who Chooses, Is Known by Controllers Who Study the Muses" - © Alan Watt May 19, 2008