Psychedelic Women - Smuggler Family Album

Imagine growing up in the Merry Pranksters commune and Grateful Dead family -that’s like being part of the hippie Game of Thrones House Targaryens and Lannisters – it’s the inner inner circle of the counterculture and it’s where host, Rainbow Valentine’s childhood friend, Trixie Garcia, comes from.  As the offspring of Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl, (a Merry Prankster), Trixie has a unique perspective on psychedelic culture, history and what it means to be a second-generation psychedelic woman.  Trixie shares stories from her childhood, teen years and more, including holidays with the Merry Pranksters, embarrassing kid memories, the disappointment of a raisin and experiencing the extremes of pre-conceived notions due to her name.  Plus, the history of Kool Aid, DIY hippie sweaters, ayahuasca and more.

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The second most notorious smuggler of the SF counterculture was an outlaw named Milan Melvin, who everyone from the scene has a story about… If you listened to past episodes, Milan Melvin was the drug dealer/station manager at the first free rock radio station, KMPX, who briefly married Joan Baez’s sister Mimi Farina, after Mimi had an affair with host, Rainbow Valentine’s mom’s 3rd husband.  Yes, the 60’s in San Francisco were one big Psychedelic Soap Opera and in this episode of Smuggler Family Album, RV chats with Milan Melvin’s son, Mocean Melvin, a voice actor who grew up dodging pirate ships, customs officials and international border guards.  Mocean Melvin gives us the inside scoop on his dad’s illustrious, international smuggling career, from money laundering to losing everything and Mocean answers the pressing question: was Milan Melvin a narc? If you like true crime stories of global outlaws, outliers and outside-the-box bikers, you’re welcome. 

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In the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, American counterculture offspring like host, Rainbow Valentine and her childhood peers from Northern California, were forbidden to have sugar and real candy bars but were allowed to occasionally have a sweet (ish) treat called the Tiger’s Milk Bar, a progenitor of today’s ubiquitous protein bar.  Sadly, in 2022, the Tiger’s Milk Bar

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Rainbow Valentine talks with her mom’s friend, Julia Brigden, aka Girl Frieberg, who married musician, David Frieberg of the Quicksilver Messenger Service at the age of 17 to avoid returning to Juvenile Hall. Julia Girl Brigden did reckless things in the 1960’s like hitchhike to Mexico to trip with psychedelic mouthpiece, Tim Leary (coiner of Turn on, Tune in, Drop Out) before being sent to reform school where she hung out with musicians David Crosby, Paul Kantner of the Jefferson Airplane and fellow classmate, Bob Weir.  Along with her youthful delinquency, Julia Girl Brigden tells us about her freewheeling life with the acid rock stars, drugs, misogyny, free love and more. Plus RV unpacks the history of hitchhiking, the 1966 Hunter’s Point Race Riots, Cool Whip and much more.

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In a mini episode of Smuggler Family Album previously only avail on Patreon, Rainbow Valentine’s mom, Taffy Lemur aka Kathy Mason Lerner, from Psychedelic Women and Disorganized Crime, shares true stories about an infamous 1960’s San Francisco prostitute known as The Dragon Lady and an ergotomine tartrate smuggler who had a secret cellar of treasure and strangely, a fake tire store. Plus, the history of the condom, the sordid pasts of Marin real estate ladies, Margo St. James and memories of vintage Marin County, California in the 1970s and 80’s before the tech titans usurped the psychedelic pioneers. To support this historic work, join Patreon.com/RainbowValentine

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Before she became one of the first female DJ’s in America, Dusty Street was babysat by San Francisco’s most iconic Madam, Sally Stanford and the brothel’s cook, Juanita, who became the Bay Area’s most colorful restauranteur.  These historic women and Dusty’s Communist/cocktail waitress mom taught Dusty to be a badass trailblazer who was on the air continuously for over 30 years.   

Host, Rainbow Valentine interviewed Dusty Street before her death in 2017 and in this juicy, sex, drugs and rock’n’roll packed episode, Dusty shares fascinating stories about growing up in Beatnik SF in the 1950s, her teen years in Palo Alto hanging out with the future Grateful Dead, the rise of her historic DJ career, her illegal abortion, her Mexican run-in with the counterculture’s most notorious one-handed smuggler, the Trips Festival of 1966, the Summer of Love, her encounters with murderous music titans and rock stars, her marriage to RV’s sister’s babydaddy, LSD, the Pill, cocaine, plus the history of Kotex, Pop Tarts and much more.

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You can’t buy your way into the inner circle counterculture - you behave your way in; plus what’s difference between outlaws and criminals?  In this hybrid episode, host, Rainbow Valentine talks counterculture greed, loss, trust and betrayal with her psychedelic pioneer mom, Kathy Mason Lerner (subject of eps 1 – 6) and Kira and Jasper Thelin, whose family opened the first headshop in America.  RV’s mom tells us about Janis Joplin’s best friend/costumer, Linda Gravenites, the ex of Nick Gravenites, who was RV’s mom’s 3rd husband’s drug-dealing partner. Plus, a bag of stolen bling, a smuggler named Anchovy, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart’s ex and that’s just the first 20 minutes of this psychedelic soap opera.  Next, we hear the story of the visionary boy scout who burned $100 dollar bills aka Ron Thelin, who, along with his wife, Marcia and brother, Jay, started the Psychedelic Shop on

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Don’t everyone’s parents have smuggler friends who disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle? In the subculture host, Rainbow Valentine grew up in, yes, but the rest of the world, maybe not. And because of this, RV shares ho-hum lunch convos with her and her former pot-smuggler counterculture parents from the podcast, Disorganized Crime. In this trio of Lunch with the Lemurs, RV's parents tell us true stories of missing smugglers, a power-crystal shaman, a San Francisco smuggler soiree, the most infamous Mill Valley cop of the 80’s, plus RV’s dad’s love of Costco, the hippie

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Before she was a 17 year old groundfloor member of the 1960's San Francisco counterculture, Rosie McGee was the child of French Holocaust survivors who, after WW2, flipped a coin on where to emigrate and as Rosie says, “I won” because San Francisco in the early 60’s was a city of beatniks melding into hippies – the perfect place for a teenage detective to become a psychedelic woman.  Before she wrote her memoir, Dancing with the Dead, Rosie McGee was Florence Nathan, a naïve, theater enthusiast who lived a double life, secret from her conservative French parents who had no idea their daughter’s job with Big Daddy Tom Donahue would lead her into the arms of comedian, Lenny Bruce, Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh and to the Far East with the SF counterculture’s most infamous smuggler.  This episode unpacks true stories of the Muir Beach Acid Test, the Human Be In,  Janis Joplin, The Coffee Gallery, The Committee, the Warlocks and more.

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“You can smuggle anything except for drugs and guns…” These were the rules laid down by a Brazilian beauty queen to her Uraguyan Jewish husband, who smuggled everything from hi-fis to Hindus.  In this episode of Smuggler Family Album, host Rainbow Valentine chats with her Brazilian drummer friend, Pedro Strasser, whose father (also named Pedro) was a smuggler during the Brazilian dictatorship of the 1970s and 80s.  Everyone in the counterculture smuggler scene or those interested in the smugglers of yore, will relate to/be fascinated by Pedro Jr.’s memories of his scrappy smuggler dad’s innovative creativity and entrepreneurial spirit as he moved everything but drugs and guns, in his handmade yacht, in order to support his wife, kids and art.

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