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KESEY

                                  April 1993 
     
In response to a question on the sfraves list: 

_The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_ is a book by Tom Wolfe            
about Ken Keasey dropping out of his "job" as a novelist            
(_One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ and even better                  
_Sometimes a Great Notion_) to lead a band of merry                 
pranksters called The Merry Pranksters on an acid drenched          
trip around the country in a psychedelically painted bus.           
The main bus driver was Neal Cassady, also written about            
(under the name Dean Moriarty) by Jack Kerouac in the book   KEROUAC
_On the Road_.  Included in the band of pranksters was the
young Stewart Brand, later to become involved with the Whole
Earth Catalog, Whole Earth Review, book about the MIT Media
Lab, and so on.  

People who insist on drawing parallels between the 60s and
raves are likely to refer to this frequently.  Ditto people
who think raves are about doing drugs.  It has some
interesting stuff in it I suppose, but also lots of boring
stuff... it's hard for me to avoid the conclusion that it
mainly documents a long period in Kesey's life wasted on
(chemical) mental masturbation.  Personally, I wish he'd
spent the time writing more books.

(In case I haven't editorialized enough already: yeah,
knowing some history is a good idea, but nostalgia is, if
you'll excuse the expression, a bad trip.  And whatever the
Pranksters were about, it certainly wasn't nostalgia, and if
anyone out there is harboring ideas like "wouldn't it be
cool to be like the Pranksters and bring back the good old
days of Acid Tests and Woodstock" I'd like to suggest it's a
better idea to twist your head around and look in the other
direction.)

Hm.  Did I answer the question?  Should I have mentioned
that "Acid Tests" were acid parties, begun in the days when
it was legal (imagine posters hung up on college campuses:
"Can you take the Acid Test?").  The title of the story
refers to a party at Kesey's place, where Tom Wolfe got
himself involuntarily dosed by drinking Kool-Aid spiked with
acid that was put out for anyone to drink (just possibly,
that practice was a tad irresponsible, no?).  

But then, should I talk about the Hell's Angels invited to
the party?  The now archetypal gang bang that I still see
discussed in places like the New York Times?  Maybe I should
explain that this was before Altamont?  Should I mention
Hunter S. Thomphson's _Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible
Saga_?  

Once you get started, where do you stop, anyway?  

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