Posted on 09/02/2002 7:29:14 PM PDT by 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 Keseys 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 Wolfes publishers. They told me that he usually doesnt do such events but, hey, theres 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.
The Athenians might not agree, nor do I.
"Where was there ever greater disparity between seeing and hearing."
Aristeides the Rhetor .
Clinton in his hippy daze...
The other of the trio that I forgot the name of ran off with a Professors wife and opened a ashram in San Diego...or so I seem to recall...don't rememer the third of the trio from harvards name does anyone here know who he was?
Thanks
Dr. Zoo
On the contrary, to me it was about the baths.
All the Psyco babble, dr'z, psychologists etc experimenting was mostly hype to rip off the people with money that would pay the big bucks to think they were being helped...IMO.
Fritz was an interesting person who actually really got the gastalt of what was happening there after you chipped throught the exterior he had to project to satisfy Murphy et al his "employers"
Were you in any sessions that Perls filmed on video camera?
We were there to use the place and play muzic and entertain the people...a friend was the wine steward there he drove a new mercedes how did he affort that on wine steward pay?
LOL
I did not have my doktorate then but now I* am
Dr. Zoo
She was quite an amazing lady, but the techniques she taught IMO were a little sever...lol as you know the sessions could be quite painful, manipulating the muscles to put them in the "right" place.
My friend, a man named Jan showed me his feet and how the were pointed straight ahead and parallel to each other, and said rolfing put them right like that.
Personally, I am more comfortable with them pointing outwards slightly...lol
A few years ago he was on a 3000 acre ranch in Laytonville, CA teaching young kids how to be hippies.
I believe he is still there.
About the only thing I like about what he does is his campaign every 4 years running "Nobody" for president.....LOL...Elect Nobody...heh
Dr. Zoo
Silly.
Like I said, I come to free republic to void that nonsense, not wallow in it.
One of the greatest things that ever happened in my life was realizing just what empty nonsense all that was and is.
It is as air headed and empty as the evening news with Dan Rather and all the other nonsensical mainstream tripe they pawn off on people.
It's learning the old time Catholicism Poised women mentioned or uptight protestantism is actually a lot more hip and wordly and self aware and on to the truth than is this hippy stuff.
I might've got off the bus (because the secret is it is busted down and decaying as much as Kesey is -- it doesn't and never went anywhere, least of all further), but you obviosuly never even saw it, much less got on it.
Dig?
He never stopped using drugs.
I no longer have any of the bios and can't look anything up. I also have other sources over the years. I am correct. You'll see.
Why anyone would want welcom the merry pranksters to Free republic is beyond me.
Welcome Al Gore or Dan Rather or Michael Moore. It makes just as much sense.
Interesting guy...dresses like it's still the 1930's, collects old blues records, and said he likes to eat at Elmer's when he's here, 'cause he likes their breakfasts!
Ed
Some of his later sketchbooks have been published in the US from Fantagraphics in chronological order. Some of his work is also psychedelic but he only did 2 concert posters in the 1960s (he also did the Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company album cover and some flyers later for the Slick Suit Seranaders).
Rick Griffin's posters for the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and the Grateful Dead are among the best of the genre. He was also an accomplished surf artist and a fellow Zap Comix artist.
Houstonian Gilbert Shelton did some poster art in Texas but is better known for the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and the Wonder Warthog. I was suprised when he recently was contracted to do the art for the 2 day psych fest held in Houston and Austin. He's been living in Paris for almost 20 years and was the man who convinced ol' Bob (America 'Love It Or Leave It') Crumb to move to France.
He termed the warped rock and roll/R&B that he spun "wavy gravy". He also mentioned the land of "Oo Bla Di" (as did Al Jazzbo Collins circa the same period).
Maybe it was all beatnik phrasing. I don't know.
I do recall Wavy Gravy making a plea to the participants in the original Woodstock that "those who still believe in capitalism" may want to support the booth of the hamburger man that had his booth burned down by agitators.
People think that the 1999 Woodstock was the only fest to have destruction of property and disregard for others. It is especially baffling since one of the organizers of all of the Woodstocks also was involved in Altamont. Hippies == Peace. What a joke.
Any significance behind the September 9th date?Yeah, on that day Mars and Venus are in perfect astral alignment with Uranus.
Gawrsh! I hope that no one is looking!
They were beats. They had a sense of humor. They also dug the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and the Hells Angels).
Jay (Rocky & Bullwinkle) Ward rode across America and was seeking acknowledgement for Pottsylvania or some such nation. When he got to DC, the White House had no time for him. It was right during the middle of the Cuban Missle Crisis.
Ward was no hippie. Were they surrealists? Dadaists? Court jesters?
The video I saw does include footage of them at the old Absynthe house in NO as well as footage of them swimming in a segragated swimming hole (it took them awhile to notice that they were the only white people).
The Pranksters almost sought an endurance level (and they even tried to be able to operate on a normal functional level under the effects of LSD).
It was odd to see one of them bidding on Pokemon.
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