THE FREE REPUBLIC WELCOMES THE MERRY PRANKSTERS!!! (9-09 Book Discussion Thread)

Self | September 2, 2002 | PJ-Comix

[PJ-Comix]

Okay, I tried to track down some of the Merry Pranksters mentioned in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” so that they might participate in our discussion on this book on September 9. However, I have been unable to contact any of them so in the spirit of the Merry Pranksters, who in 1965 hung a banner in front of Ken Kesey’s La Honda home that said “THE MERRY PRANKSTERS WELCOME THE BEATLES,” I am now hanging this virtual banner in Cyberspace---“THE FREE REPUBLIC WELCOMES THE MERRY PRANKSTERS.”

Hopefully this message will carry across the Cyberspace ether and reach Mountain Girl, Ken Babbs, Gretchen Fetchen, Owsley, The Hermit, George Walker, Hugh Romney, Norman Hartweg, Hagen, Doris Delay, Zonker, Black Maria, etc..

I will also be sending this thread to Tom Wolfe’s publishers. They told me that he usually doesn’t do such events but, hey, there’s an EXCEPTION to every rule.

If any of you happen to know the Merry Pranksters or know someone who knows the Merry Pranksters, please pass this thread along to them. Hopefully on September 9 (or soon afterwards) we can WELCOME THE MERRY PRANKSTERS!!!

Oh, and on October 14 our next book assignment is due. It will be a big change of pace---“Homage To Catalonia” by George Orwell.

[PJ-Comix]

I will be out of town on September 9 until late afternoon so go ahead without me in the discussion of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” I’ll join in later. And if you know any of the Merry Pranksters, please pass this thread along to them. Also please report here any progress you have made contacting them. Thanx.

[RightWhale]

Electric Kool-Aid was kind of a journal of the era. Like Kerouac's On the Road was for an earlier generation. There was linkage, too.

It's about time for another such journal.

[weikel]

Aye don't bring goddamn hippies on Freerepublic. They don't have jobs or take showers. LOL :).

[PJ-Comix]

In "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" there is a scene where Kerouac meets the Merry Pranksters.....and he doesn not like them. Timothy Leary was also leery of the Pranksters at first.

[Syncro]

That is interesting, Kerouac's main character was Dean Moriarity (Neal Cassidy) and he was pretty much a prankster...anyway he worked in the Hip Pocket Book Store in Santa Cruz owned by a prankster...Ron Bivert...and Peter Demma.

The bookstore was in a part of the St. George Hotel, and they had the Cold Box in their area...that is where they kept the window panes....lol

[Syncro]

Hopefully this message will carry across the Cyberspace ether and reach Mountain Girl, Ken Babbs, Gretchen Fetchen, Owsley, The Hermit, George Walker, Hugh Romney, Norman Hartweg, Hagen, Doris Delay, Zonker, Black Maria, etc..

I will add more later, but I belives (I like typols)Owsley's first name was Stanley, we all know what his job was rite?

Hugh Romney is Wavy Gravy (you saw him in the orange jump suit at Woodstock) and I repossesed a bed from Babbs and Gretchen...

Also there was a guy on the bus called cool breeze...they said he got kicked in the head by a mule...

[RightWhale]

(Neal Cassidy) and he was pretty much a prankster

Was he the bus driver?

[RightWhale]

Kerouac meets the Merry Pranksters.....and he doesn not like them

No, he wouldn't have. He didn't much favor the pharmaceutical scene. Even though he was partial to bennies and wine himself.

[sushiman]

"Neal Cassidy) and he was pretty much a prankster"

"Was he the bus driver?"

I believe he was .

[sushiman]

By the time Jack met the Pranksters , he was strictly on booze . His drug days were way behind him . From what I had read , he wasn't THAT heavily into drugs other than pot for a while when he was writing On The Road .

[Syncro]

LOL yes he was...and loved speed...died in Mexico on the railroad tracks at a fairly young age legend has it.

He lived for a time in a house in Aptos with a redwood growing in it on Cathedral drive for a while...Mountain Girl showed up there too.

[tubebender]

When all the Hippies started leaving The Haight I swear most of them came to Humboldt County in those old buses. There are probably 500 of them lost in the woods of the Emerald Triangle. I saw one 3 months ago trying to get brake work done so she could drive it to New York. It had the clasic VW bus penthouse

[Syncro]

LOL bennies...Cassidy LOVED benniesl...heheh

[Travis McGee]

Thanks for the invite, let me go dust off my copy!

[Syncro]

That is funny...Garberville is a little piece of Santa Cruz sixties era...full of "hippies" (called "yarn bags" by normal locals) and those taht can't get past their own "pasts"

[dixie sass]

Oh wouldn't that be a really neat birthday present for me if "The Merry Pranksters" did appear.

[Syncro]

Dixie you know those people??? The pranksters...you were at hate ashbury in the sixties???

Tell me you weren't....LOL

[ffrancone]

Was his name Norman? Think I knew him in LA many years later.

[weegee]

Well here's Kesey's own website (run in conjunction with his kids now).

I believe that they can contact Mountain Girl, Ken Babba, etc.

[weegee]

Typo: Ken Babbs