I took a break from Lord of the Rings for a book required for school, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. I thought the contrast between them would be way too much to balance. If you know what The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is about, I'm sure you can concur, if not, let me give you a ten words or less summary: Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters trip on LSD.
Ayup. It's essentially a report of their LSD-induced adventures and such. Ken Kesey is the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, FYI, and he was in a test group for LSD. He discovered how to synthesize it and began making more and passing it out to those in his inner circle--soon to become the Merry Pranksters. They acquired an old school bus and refitted it with bunks and a stairway and a deck on top and splattered it with Day-Glo paint and lived in their own little community. A good portion of the book is about their pilgrimage in the bus (named 'Furthur') to New York City, to see Timothy Leary and for Kesey's book signing/publication event of his latest book.
"That's good thinking there, Cool Breeze" (1). Of course, it's the first line. This isn't a particularly great first line (though the way Robby D made it sound great, like when Marky Mark reads Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit selections), but I just like how it's kind of directed out to... someone else. You know? Like dialogue, but seamlessly placed, nay, injected into the text. I feel like Palahniuk does this sort of thing a lot. It seems like something he'd do. Anyway, Wolfe does this a lot in the beginning, but not as much later on, which I kind of miss, there. (Another example from later on: "...Doris Delay, told me I ought to put some more... well, color... into my appearance. That hurt, Doris Delay, but I know you meant it as a kindly suggestion" [16]. I like this one better, I do.)
Pretty early, practically the first time we--Wolfe--meets Kesey, he says that it's time for "the psychedelic movement to go 'beyond acid'" (8). At this point, keep in mind, the use of LSD and such has been growing a swelling for a few years, but Kesey was the first pioneer--okay, it's just now starting to hit 'mainstream', but it's been underground for a while. He's ready to move on, but not the newcomers, so it looks like he's copping out. Kesey's ready to look for something beyond, but his followers think he's selling them short and will turn on him, well, could turn on him.
"'I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph'" (8).
The psychedelic movement is also want followed the Beat movement. "The whole old-style hip life--jazz, coffee houses, civil rights, invite a spade for dinner, Vietnam--it was all suddenly dying, I found out, even among the students at Berkeley... which had been the heart of the 'student-rebellion' and so forth. It had even gotten to the point that Negroes were no longer in the hip scene, not even as totem figures. It was unbelievable. Spades, the very soul figures of Hip, of jazz, of the hip vocabulary itself... all over, finished, incredibly" (10). That is, their time has ended, and now there is this. From Kerouac to Kesey, if you will.
Ah, yes, I feel I should mention that Neal Cassady is in the book, maybe not the most important figure but certainly up there. Neal Cassady, idolized in Kerouac's On the Road. In On the Road he was left in decline, still loved by Kerouac, but--differently. He wasn't quite the idol he had been. However, in this, Cassady seemed to have gotten 'IT' back, at least a little. (He is with the Pranksters traveling, for the record, wild and drugged as ever before.)
"Everything in everybody's life is... significant. And everybody is alert, watching for the meanings. And the vibrations. There is no end of vibrations" (18).
"Whether he is a genius or not, I couldn't say. He certainly looks mad enough" (22).
"'You've got to have some faith in what you're trying to do. It's easy to have faith as long as it goes along with what you already know. But you've got to have faith in us all the way. Somebody like Gleason... he was with us as long as our fantasy coincided with his. But as soon as we went on further'" (possible pun?) "'he didn't understand it, so he was going against us. He had... no faith'" (30). The Pranksters want to reject religion, at the very least the Christian God and trinity. However, they and Kesey parallel Christ or any other religious leader with disciples. You get a very religious feel from them, especially illustrated in this. Faith to create and have something more, something different, and god willing, better. Faith, faith's the word.
"He was from Oregon--who the hell was ever from Oregon?" (34). I laughed so hard when I read this. (But really, who is?)
So, one of the reasons why the LSD is so popular is because it makes you feel like a superhero. There's an added depth when you remember that Kesey discovered the stuff in a 'failed' medical experiment--think Spiderman or the Hulk, you know? Yeah, so he felt like a superhero of a sorts, definitely. "...So why not move off your smug-harbor quilty-bed dead center and cut loose--go ahead and say it--Shazam!--juice it up to what it's already aching to be" (39). That is, take the LSD, and bring your true powerful self to light, reach your full potential thanks to this little miracle, this bitty liquid.
"'Put your good where it will do the most'" (126).
Often, there are references to Heinlein's (sp?) novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. Mostly in that the Pranksters' end goal is to grok--they often say they grok or our grokking--like the main character, Valentine Michael Smith. He was raised by martians, so although human he's obviously been nurtured over nature, and one thing he picked up from the martians is the idea of grokking. To grok is to understand something completely--its physical being, its inner mental workings, everything, completely and fully. For those of you who saw Avatar, think of when the Na'vi princess says to Jake, "I see you, Jake Sully". It's essentially the same thing. Anyway, the LSD gives them, since it opens the doors of perception, the ability to 'grok'. Just--just thought I'd point that out... (And, regarding Stranger in a Strange Land: I hated it. It was a beautiful book 3/4 of the way through, but the end completely ruined it for me, so much so it ruined my perception of the first three-quarters, which was nothing but reverence. So... yeah.)
There is a bit of Joachim Wach's writing on how religions are formed included as well. I'll include a little, and you can decide for yourself whether the LSD culture growing up around Kesey was religious or not. "Following a profound new experience, providing a new illumination of the world, the founder, a highly charismatic person, begins enlisting disciples. These followers become an informal but closely knit association, bound together by the new experience, whose nature the founder has revealed and interpreted... it is oriented toward a central figure with whom each of the followers is in intimate contact... Membership in the circle requires a complete break with the ordinary pursuits of life and a radical change of in social relationships. Ties of family and kinship and loyalties of various kinds were at least temporarily relaxed or severed. The hardships, suffering and persecution that loomed for those who cast their lot with the group were counterbalanced by their high hopes and firm expectations" (128). I guess it's fairly easy to see where my opinion on the matter lies...
"Ne'mind! But Exactly! Don't explain it. Do it!" (188).
"...he; is; GOD It is crazy and delirious and zonked out and real, with half the mesencephalon saying YOU ARE HIGH and the other half saying, Nevertheless YOU ARE GOD" (196).
"Suddenly it seemed like the Pranksters could draw the whole universe into... the movie..." (203). The 'movie', as I've come to understand it, isn't exactly the Pranksters' circle, but... it's a part of them... to kind of be in sync with them, if only temporarily... literally, I guess it would be to have them all filmed with the records of the (bus and other) trip.
"'If society wants me to be an outlaw,' said Kesey, 'then I'll be an outlaw, and a damned good one. That's something people need. People at all times need outlaws" (264). They're our heroes. Our beloved hates.
"I later read about 'imprint' and that it was possible that we would continue to be meaningful to each other no matter what circumstances... I think this is true... the person in question remains very special in my life, and I in his, though we have no contact and see each other infrequently... we share something that will last. Oh hell! There's no way to talk about that without sounding goopy" (275). No, Tom Wolfe, it sounded sweet! And I know what you mean and agree with you!
Kesey, trying to skip out of his charges of marijuana possession, hightails it to Mexico. "Mario is broke himself, but gets off a collect telegram to Manzanillo under Kesey's new alias, Sol Amande. Salamander, you understand--the beast that lives in fire" (327). I thought that alias was quite clever, actually. Back in the day, it was believed that salamanders lived/were birthed from flames, but most likely what they saw were logs on fire and the salamanders rushing to escape, well, the fire. It's kind of like how the Greeks thought weasels gave birth via their mouth. (Oh, Ovid, you silly goose.) But yeah. Because Kesey's obviously under a lot of pressure... trying to duck the law... out of the frying pan into the fire... salamander... well, it induced a hearty chuckle from me, at least.
Anyway, from here on in I feel I should give some background--Kesey is caught between the cops, and former acid compatriots, who have filled in for him while he was away. Like I said much earlier, Kesey wanted to move 'beyond acid', and back in his former stomping grounds he attempts to throw a wild party to prove the acid isn't necessary... The acid heads drawn into the scene think he's copping out, but really, well, he (for lack of a better word) matured beyond it, or rejected it because it swelled into something much too large and wild for him to control--similar to when he goes to the Beatles concert and the crowd is full of wild energy, but there's just far too much to control... well, it's grown wild against him and he's being bitten by those who revered him (not all, but those later acid heads, yes...). Well, yes. So he's pretty much left for the dust, I guess you'd say. Just thought I'd throw that in here. Seems important. (I'm also open to, and would quite welcome interpretations on this.) Anyway, Robby D asked me if I thought he was copping out, and I had one of my famous brain twists--that is, the two halves of my brain both tried to speak and got twisted, and I sputtered nonsense then kind of wound down and shut up. (Spoiler alert: I'm really a robot.) Yes... maybe he was copping out a little... but like I said, he matured... it's not his fault if the others didn't understand... only to them it was a betrayal... But at the same time, to plea for a lesser sentence, and accept it all, 'play the game' I guess, I can't blame the poor guy. I'd do the same in his shoes. Most anybody would--nobody how they criticize or what have you. Bark as loud as you like, it's doubtful that empty courage will last, you know?
I mean, part of what lit his followers' fires (I believe) is that he didn't plead and rap and live up to his ideals and words, because he would have been "salted away for many years" (376), IE, put in jail. And he wanted to avoid it. So I guess I'm just reiterating what I just wrote. Well, hell, I wouldn't want to be put away either. Lay off him.
Oh! Fun fact, before I forget: Apparently, according to Wikipedia, Kerouac was greatly influenced by Wolfe's writing style, best example of this being The Town and the City. (I've yet to read it.) But, reading this, it's very easy to see similarities, especially in the 'spontaneous prose' bit, though Kerouac is the one who really welded it into that true form, or at least he is the one accredited with that. So... yep.
"'...For a year we've been in the Garden of Eden. Acid opened the door to it. It was the Garden of Eden and Innocence and a ball. Acid opens the door and you enter and you stay a while'" (395).
I think the odd thing is, this book made me most interested in Neal Cassady, more than anyone else. In the epilogue, it states that his body had been found beside a railroad track in Mexico. The two stories are that he had been pushing himself too hard and his heart gave out, or that Cassady "felt he was growing old" (414) and basically did it purposely to himself. I want to read voraciously on him now, but it appears that there's no satisfactory biography that exists on him (or not one that's caught Robby D's eye, at least). Supposedly the book Cassady himself wrote is "kind of crappy", in the words of Robby D, but he handed me over two writings on Cassady's suicide. The one Kesey wrote was godawful; it read like a bad Stephen King short story, one that attempts to be sentimental and sweet, but it's just a mess. Bukowski's was a tad more interesting, but it wasn't really what I wanted to hear about, you know? I mean, I guess I won't ever be completely satisfied till I hear Cassady's explanation and of course that's impossible. In any case, I'd like to hear about this charismatic man who inspired the Beat generations through Kerouac and was such an important bit in the Pranksters too--well, he seems a little larger than life, deified, you know? I'm--curious.
Um, where was I? Let's see, I definitely enjoyed the book. What a wild and weird bit of text. Well. Uhm. Yeah, that's about it, in a nutshell. See you soon!
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