I watched the old man run an IR on the TMMA-2. The spectra looks right, it was definitely an aromatic amine and there certainly were no phenolic groups at the end of the day. The yields were poor, but the route is doable. Some of the "oil" was saved and it eventually spontaneously crystallized by itself if you get this "oiling out", don't worry about it.
As requested by others, I'll post my other dreams on PMA.
The old man was seen, a month ago or so, performing a Al/Hg reduction using the above prepared anethole ketoxime. 10 equiv of Al were used in a solvent of 90% EtOH at reflux (note: 10 equiv of AcOH would have really helped this low yield). So to a 100mL flask with a stir bar, 56mL 95% EtOH, 3mL H2O, 0.01g HgCl2, 3.8g Al were added, let amalgamate, 2.5g anethole ketoxime. (acid should have been added in small portions every hour or so) It was slowly brought to a light reflux for a few hours. Then 100mL of 35% NaOH was added and organics extracted with toluene... worked up by washing w/Na2CO3, filtering, washing w/Na2CO3, then extracting by titrating dH2O with HCl(aq).
A 17% yield of PMA.HCl (0.4g from 2.5g ketoxime) was recovered. The PMA.HCl was clean melting, smoky burning, liberates hydrogen chloride with marquis, bitter tasting...
The bioassay confirmed somewhere around 100mg... at 35 minutes the first effects were noted, his pulse was a mere 60bpm but it felt like it was going to explode. After 45 minutes, the old man noticed a definite stimulant effect, his nasal passages cleared up, his appetite went way down, he had major jaw clenching. At 55 minutes he started to experience major stomach upset, drunken, severe dizziness, cross-eyed sort of feeling, tingly all over the body. At about 1:20 his heart was pounding feeling as if it was going to explode, yawning, had a headache... Then about about 1:40 min there was vomitting, MASSIVE MIGRAINE HEADACHE (let's hope that wasn't his brain hemorhaging... heheh... shh... let's NOT think about it, m'kay?). Definite serotonin syndrome, not fun. At about 2:00 he was coming way down, at 3:30 it was over with an "afterglow" feeling.
If you haven't tried PMA, consider yourself lucky.