I haven't read the new biography of Timothy Leary, and I'm not sure I want to, because from what I've heard about it, author Robert Greenfield takes every opportunity to make Leary look bad.
On the RU Sirius Show this week, R.U. plays brain tennis with Greenfield about his very negative biography.
RU Sirius: "… so now they have two guns. Tim picks up the gun and he folds it up into a newspaper and he hands it back to the Sheriff. The plan is off. So he goes off to talk to Joanna, and his explanation is, 'we couldn't have pulled it off. If we shot these two guys, then we'd have to shoot two other guys." And this is Joanna's explanation. And you just leave that hanging as sort of the final…
Robert Greenfield: But that's not my take. He…
RU: It still sits in the book as the judgment of Leary's character that he would have shot these two people. That's what she says, that he would have had no qualms about shooting them.
Greenfield: That's what she says. But you have to separate the narrator. You have to look at the quality of the story that's told in terms of the person who is telling you the story. Listen…
RU: …Yeah but Joanna is a major source here…
Greenfield: Sooner or later you're gonna have to let me say something. The point of that story is that Tim was completely non-violent. He never would have used that gun!
RU: That doesn't come across.
Greenfield: Well, I'm sorry.
