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 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.
Like fake literature. Posing, trying to hard, not having a clue -- not on the bus at all.
All of our sessions were filmed by some fellow named Todd. We could watch them afterwards. Don't know whether these videos were ever sold or made public. We did one session with Ann Halpern that I believe was for sale.
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?
Many if not most people on staff were trust fund babies...lots of them had big bucks. When were you there?
As for Fritz, the best I got from him came from casual chats. He really did see the difference between my authentic self and the heavily programmed behavior I'd been taught. He even liked my little kids, tho he professed not to like children at all. He volunteered to babysit one night when I had to run into town, and spoiled them rotten with candy. Many fond memories of that strange and wonderful year.
He talked for hours about root beer, but looked so spiritual in his long India-style shirt...
It would nice to see some of those tapes.
An accurate assesment.
Five or so others and myself lived on 100 acres separatly and were working on Art and Music projects.
We would periodically visit various communes in the Greater Santa Cruz area and observed what you described.
Most of these people thought they were on a new wave tht would change civilization as we know it...LOL...then they came down.
Saw a lot of the in the sixties
Paul Krassner was wierd.
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Socrates, Oedipus Rex
"You smoke this sh!t to escape from reality? Me I don't need this sh!t. . .I am reality."
Tom Berenger as Sgt. Barnes, Platoon
About 20 years ago I watched a fascinating documentary entitled "Return Engagement" that went behind the scenes of Leary and Liddy's debating road show across college campuses.
The movie mad clear that the politically authoritarian Liddy was the "liberal" on moral matters (cheating on his wife, riding with Hell's Angels, etc.) and the politically libertarian Leary was more of a "conservative" lifestyle-wise.
Owsley was correct "...It's the drugs that do it. It's all the drugs, man. None of it would have happened without the drugs."
BTW, one of my favorite parts of the book was when the Merry Pranksters basically ruined the annual California Unitarian conference. Kesey and the Pranksters were just supposed to be sort of guest speakers there but they basically took over the conference and made it very uncomfortable for the establishment Unitarians.
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