When a heckler repeatedly shouted for Leary to do a routine on Baba Ram Dass, Leary peered back quizzically, asking "Who? Who?" until his wife had to shout out, "Richard Alpert."Īided by a slide show that was appropriately out of synch with his jokes, Leary attempted to explain how Hollywood has come to be the "neurological capital of the planet." His theory of "Neurogeography" goes something like this: He stopped several times, breathless, to sit on the edge of the stage and hold hands with his wife Barbara.
Johnny Carson was crossed off the list because Leary's plan for surviving the coming cataclysm, he says, includes getting on "the Tonight Show." Several "Tonight Show" talent scouts sipped free drinks at reserved tables during Leary's opening performance Monday night.ĭressed in black slacks, white tennis shoes and a flowing white shirt, Leary kept the show-biz audience of 225 - including Robin Williams and Roscoe Lee Brown - constantly tittering, if not rolling in the aisles.
Leary is calling his series of comedy performances "How to Joyfully and Profitably Survive the Total Collapse of Civilization in the 1980s (or Roasting the Sacred Cows of the Sober 1970s)." On his hit list are "Jane (Shirley Temple Black) Fonda, Jack (Lobotomy) Nicholson, Woody (Son of Sam) Allen, the Rev. Looking clear-eyed, tanned and fit, the 59-year-old Leary bounded around the stage at the Los Angeles comedy showcase, The Improvisation, plotting the overthrow-through-humor of the Hollywood establishment, explaining his plan for space migration and clearing up some popular misconceptions: Timothy Leary, launching a show-biz career as a "standup philosopher." The man in the spotlight this week was America's self-proclaimed No. The comedian stood on the nightclub stage, thanked his producer and press agent, plugged his upcoming appearance on "Dinah" and told an SRO Hollywood crowd that in six months he'd be playing Las Vegas.