Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 21

Minneapolis Star and Tribune CO en Variety Tuesday July 261983 GOOD DATE SALE ONLY 1C CO CO fv 'y 4 I JfV tit. 1 4 mi ii r.iiifi ft.i.ri.iriTi Staff Photos by Donald Black Timothy Leary was in the Twin Cities to promote his autobiography. 'High priest of LSD' still preaching in favor of drugs By Jeff Strickler Staff Writer Sorry, skeptics, but Timothy Leary doesn't sit in a corner and drool. Nor does he wander around in a void or babble incomprehensibly. He's just as healthy, coherent and rational as ever, and a lot of people hate him for it.

"My health causes a lot of enmity," said the man who 20 years ago was hailed as the "high priest of LSD," the Harvard psychologist turned fugitive who urged the world to "turn on, tune in and drop out." His detractors had hoped that by now his brain would have been fried by the drugs he used and still uses in an attempt to explore the farthest reaches of his consciousness. But it hasn't worked out that way; the world's first "neuronaut" is still blasting off "I've been interviewed on a few radio shows where the host is a real right-winger who is infuriated that I'm reasonably healthy and reasonably alert," he said. "It's an insult to them that I'm still erect and not frothing at the mouth. It's like 'How dare you be healthy and "Older people, especially, seem to hate me. people" in this case means over 35.) They hate that I flouted the laws and thumbed my nose at tradition and not only survived, but somehow even had a good time.

It's like I cheated all the rules and it's not fair that I got away with it." But he didn't get away with it, he insists. He spent nearly four years in various prisons and another two years running all over Europe to avoid being put back in prison. He also was harassed and harangued for two decades. He was fired from his job, chased from his home and alienated from his family. And all because of one word: drugs.

"It's a bad word," he said while in Minneapolis Monday to promote his autobiography, "Flashbacks" (J.P. Tarcher, "When people hear the word 'drugs their hysteria level is raised and they don't listen to anything else you have to say. There is no drug problem and there never has been. It's a people problem." Leary, 63, leapt to prominence in 1960 when he started experimenting with drugs as a means of raising consciousness. A Harvard instructor who had at one time attended West Point, he was anything but radical.

In fact, he says now, his problem was that he was too naive. "I was from the ivory tower," he said. "You can be a Harvard professor and not know how to cross the street. That was me." In his naivete, he figured he had built a better psychological mousetrap and the world was going to beat a path to his doorway. Drugs were going to provide positive social change, he believed.

They were going to make us all better people living in a better world. But instead of embracing his plans, the so-called establishment was repulsed. Only the "counter-culture paid attention, making Leary a folk hero, much to his chagrin. "I'm seen as the person who caused all this, and I didn't," he insisted. "I'm seen as the Pied Piper who led a whole generation off to ruin.

But I'm not a guru. I've never been a guru. I'm a scientist." Leary likes to envision himself as Tom Sawyer (one of his childhood heroes) sailing off with Huck Finn to fight the system. "It infuriates my critics that hot only can I hold my own (in an argument) but I'm more American than they are," he said. "I'm advocating the conservatives' opinion that we should try to get the government off our backs.

I've avoided being imprisoned by the System with a capital S. I've entered and made my mark, but always as an outsider." He also says that his ideology was misrepresented by the mass media, which picked up his ideas and took them farther than he had intended. Leary 3C Gh. 1 1 news undergoing renovation Time and retirement have not diminished Paar's wit and verve V. i 'j Nick Coleman La Tom Shales Joseph Franzgrote plans to revamp Channel 1 1's news operation.

An appearance on "The CBS Morning News," to promote his funny new book "P.S. Jack Paar," sparked himinto later proclaiming that program's able and beautiful co-anchor, Diane Sawyer, "a phenomenon," the kind that happens "once in 10 years." Paar says, "That girl is a class act, and that's what that girl is." When he repeated that on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," Sawyer was asked for her reaction. She said, "Oh myl They are words to be treasured from him For so long, he was the standard." Paar's TV shows were springboards for the likes of Nichols and May, Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart and Liza Minnelli, so he does know something about spotting talent. At least, he knows what he likes. He's the world greatest expert on that.

Paar did not like doing the Phil Donahue show very much. "I was not terribly impressed by him," he says. And Paar resented the way Donahue's producers treated him as if he were some sort of nostalgic curio. But he thought Donahue's studio audience was great. "These women are so attractive! These aren't people who just got off the turnip truck," he exclaims.

"I think he's what is the phrase? A legend in his own mind." Paar detests the humor of Joan Rivers: "She's a monster." He is Paar4C That hammering noise you've been hearing lately has been coming from Channel 1 1 's studios in Golden Valley where WTCN's new owner, Gannett Broadcasting, has been building a full-fledged TV news department from the ground up. Station manager Joe Franzgrote said the other day that the station's news operation will be totally revamped and greatly expanded by the end of the summer. And he vowed that by that time, "we'll have nights when we are the best (TV news show) in the market." But Franzgrote admitted that it's still anybody's guess as to whether anyone will notice. Ratings for Channel 1 1 's news shows haven't improved since Gannett took over in April and the station's 1 0 p.m. news show consistently draws fewer viewers than its reruns of "M'A'S'H" at 10:35.

Speaking at a Minnesota Press Club luncheon Thursday, Franzgrote said WTCN will have "more backing, more people and more equipment than ever before. I think there's room for a third (news) choice in this market. I hope we won't be the third choice but we will be a third choice." WTCN's vice president for news, Tom Kirby, chimed in with a promise that the quality of Channel 1 1 's news Second of two parts New Canaan, Conn. "What big star can outtalk me?" Jack Paar jokingly brags. He turned mere talk into entertainment on television in the late '50s and early '60s as host of "The Tonight Show" and a later, weekly prime-time hour.

Paar became the Caruso of talk. He made talk a performing art, like dancing or singing or tightwire walking. The rabbit he pulled out of a hat was himself, and he did it night after night. What he revealed in all this chatter was a relentlessly observant mind and a gift for finding life's absurdities though sometimes life's absurdities found him first. Paar brought out the best in fellow conversationalists, but often we stayed up late just to hear him.

He could be all heart or all nerve, and he never lacked opinions. Years of retirement and a quiet, tennis-playing leisure life haven't dulled his enthusiasms or his wit. programming will be "on par" with the quality of the two dominant news stations here, WCCO and KSTP. Franzgrote and Kirby announced several coming changes in Channel 1 1 '8 news programming. Among them: Starting in September, the station is adding a 30-minute syndicated news feature show called "NewsScope" at 5 p.m.

on weekdays. The program will offer features gathered from 80 stations belonging to the service that will be beamed by satellite to member stations from Los Angeles. Kirby said Channel 1 1 expects to use a mixture of syndicated and local features on its program. The station plans to move up its early local news program from 6 p.m. to 5:30, following "NewsScope." The NBC nightly news, which currently runs in the 5:30 slot, will be pushed back to 6.

That way, the station will present an alternative to viewers of Channels 4 and 5: While those stations are broadcasting national news, WTCN will have local news; when they're airing local news, Channel 1 1 will have national news. The early news show will air every night of the week, up from five nights a week now. The station plans to add up to 40 new staff members, doubling the size of the news staff that Gannett inherited from Metromedia, WTCN's previous owner. About a dozen new staff members already have been hired. Yes, Virginia.

Franzgrote said WTCN does plan to get its own helicopter, "if for no other reason than I love to fly in helicopters." That means the air over our city's freeways will now be clogged by not two but three choppers giving us bird'seye views of terrestrial traffic jams. Coleman 8C.