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.
The latter is certainly what has harmed us most. Now youngsters don't even need to take drigs to get the mindset because they are taught it as the norm.
I read Electric Kool-Aid and other such books - Fear and Loathing, On the Road, all that stupid hippie crap when I was a dope-smoking, greenpeace, tree-huggin', pro-choice, nuclear freeze supporting registered Democrat liberal idiot. I threw all that crap away when I saw the error of my ways and the misguided idealogy that was ruining my life and destroying our nation. Why ever would a conservative be promoting such garbage?
BTW, I am just a few chapters away from completing the book. A very "interesting" read and I look forward to the discussion. The Tom Wolfe book doesn't "glorify" the Pranksters at all, in my opinion. I'm even less likely to ever want to trip on LSD after reading it.
Do you know where those videos will be made available? I think such videos would make for an interesting documentary on the History Channel.
Because I find the HISTORY of how the counterculture started to be INTERESTING. You might not like that History but it exists nevertheless.
I came to FR to get away from this sort of hippy dippy liberal claptrap that is the establishment where I come from.
Did you READ "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?" It was written by Tom Wolfe. Hardly a wild-eyed liberal. If you actually READ the book then you are qualified to grumble. Otherwise you are hereby sentenced to spend the time we discuss this book inside the Troll Cave.
Did you READ the book? If not then I'm NOT discussing with you a book you haven't read.
I saw one of those unreconstructed hippies at Florida International University a few months ago. Sandals, beret, the whole bit. He was in the student center with a pile of leaflets protesting the war on terrorism. He was both a sad and HILARIOUS sight to behold. Oh, and only ONE person picked up a leaflet from him the whole two hours he was at his table---ME! I was curious as to what it said.... And he was wearing a Green Party T-Shirt. It seems a lot of Greens are former hippies.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Maybe you should RE-READ "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." First of all it was written by TOM WOLFE---Hardly a wild-eyed liberal. Also, although the book is humorous throughout, it is hardly a glorification of the drug scene. Maybe a lot of the subtlety slipped by you.
A friend of mine, the Purple-Haired Lady (well-known in South Florida) saw me reading this book a week ago. She asked me if I ever dropped acid and when I replied in the negative, she told me about her one and only LSD trip. She said she thought she was dead for 3 days. Also she said it was a terrible experience for her but she did have some interesting comments about it. One thing is that she could actually see things in other dimensions and came out of the experience believing in the afterlife. However, she did warn me never to drop acid. Then when I asked her some more questions she got pissed off at me bigtime and said it was such a horrible experience that she didn't want to talk about it any more. However, she definitely did want to read the book.
True. Sometimes you have to wait a bunch of years in order to have a rational discussion about historical events. Over a century ago, Gold vs Silver standard was a HUGE issue because of the passions it raised on both sides and it was hard for folks to discuss it rationally until years later. Hopefully enough time has passed since the hippie era where we can have a rational discussion about that too. And, hey, some really kewl looking poster art came about in that era.
Actually Kerouac became quite conservative in his later years. He was a big reader of the National Review and was a fan of Bill Buckley.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is easily the BEST book about the Counter-Culture. There was another book called The Greening Of America that just didn't stand the test of time.
"This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody-- or at least some force-- is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel."
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Haven't read Electric yet, but looking forward to it. Slogged through On the Road, loved Fear (the movie was outstanding, and IMO, had the only decent role Johnny Depp ever played), even hacked through Naked Lunch and part of Ah Pook before I wearied of Burroughs' overweeningly scatophilic brainrot...
I guess to hit all the bases I should get around to Ginsberg at some point or 'nother, but can't bring myself to it...
Well better him than me. I got better things to do than knock around looking for a chick to take me home, do me and feed me. I guess I ain't the romantic type, huh.
It's been a few years since I read that thing and frankly I don't recommember much of it... I much prefer Thompson's style in Fear-- never could get into any of his other stuff. Maybe it's because it chapped my Republican a$$ too much. Hmmmmm.
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