Peter Gorman has Died

Explorer of the Amazon and Psychedelic Pioneer.

I just found out that Peter Gorman died in April. He was just 71, but those were 71 tough years, as this excellent obituary makes clear. Over his life, he’d endured everything from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis to monkey bites, snake venom, and flesh-eating bacteria. When I sat down with him to record our podcast at his place, he was well into the first of three bottles of wine I saw him finish in the next couple of hours.

I have mixed reactions to hearing of his death. I’m sorry, of course, but also a bit surprised he was still alive til April. I only spent a few hours with him, but that was plenty of time to know that he was a free man, saying whatever the hell he wanted and roaming the jungles without fear. I was glad to read in the obit that he’d had one last, rather magnificent trip to the Amazon just before he passed. He brought some good things to the world, and enjoyed himself while doing it. We can’t ask for much more than that.

Here are a few photos from that day. Peter and me recording the podcast (on March 11th, 2018), a shot of some indigenous people he was with, and a shot of Peter himself as a younger man. The degradation of the photo says a lot about how rough the years had been, I think.

321 - Peter Gorman (Amazon Explorer and Psychedelic Expert)