A Request for Criticism or Editing...

If anyone wants to help me out some, here's my book report... Any input would be appreciated. 

‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’, writtenby Tom Wolfe and originally published in 1968, is a fast-paced and at times incoherent exploration of writer Ken Kesey and his informal group of followers, the Merry Pranksters. Tom Wolfe takes the reader on a psychedelic romp across America, seeing normal people as absurd through the eyes of drug users, and seeing the same drug users as almost insane through the eyes of an unprepared society. It is a loose biography of Ken Kesey and a history of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide-25⁴). Most of the Merry Pranksters, (including Kesey himself who passed away in November of 2001³) have faded away from public memory, some of their public ‘pranks’ left a legacy to today’s youth and counter-culture in the form of multi-media rock concerts, the underground dance-parties known as ‘raves’ and the Burning Man Festival held yearly in Nevada’s Black Rock desert. Wolfe’s writing style does overwhelm the story in places – his stream-of-consciousness meandering and tendency to rhyme his words makes it seem as though he was indulging in some of the Merry Pranksters’ favorite substances.

Ken Kesey was originally from Springfield, Oregon. He met his wife, Faye, in high school, and they eventually moved to San Francisco, California so Kesey could attend Stanford University and obtain a degree in creative writing. There, Kesey became involved in clinical trials of experimental and hallucinogenic substances, including LSD. Along with pharmaceutical drugs, the inhabitants of Kesey’s neighborhood were also trying organic substances, like marijuana and peyote. It was in a peyote-induced vision that Kesey received his inspiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his landmark novel. After its publication, Ken’s home became a haven for other writers and artists of various media. Through Jack Kerouac, Kesey was introduced to Neal Cassady (Kerouac’s inspiration for the main character in On the Road), who became one of the founding members of the Merry Pranksters.

After a developer bought Perry Lane, Kesey bought a home in La Honda, CA. Where Kesey went, his early fans followed – including Cassady, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, a sound engineer, and Kenneth Babbs, a Vietnam Marine captain who began devising ideas for public displays, or ‘pranks’. The first and most grandiose of these pranks was a road trip to New York City for the publication of Kesey’s second novel, Sometimes A Great Notion. The group purchased a 1939 International Harvester school bus and painted the destination sign with the misspelled word ‘Furthur’. They rigged the bus with microphones and speakers, built a band platform on the roof, and planned to film the entire trip.They had a disappointing welcome at the home of Timothy Leary’s League for Spiritual Discovery. The grand old man of tuning in, turning on and dropping out was in a three-day meditation and could not be bothered to come and say hello to the intrepid travelers.

Sandy Lehmann-Haupt, already somewhat paranoid due to methamphetamine use, tried DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen and psychoactive⁵) at the League headquarters that started a rocky future of nervous breakdowns for him. After leaving New York, Sandy began starting arguments with Kesey over an expensive piece of equipment, an Ampex. The Pranksters used the Ampex to control the delay of sounds and taping of their performances and constant recording of ‘rap’ sessions while they were all under the influence of various drugs. Ken’s reaction to Sandy’s behavior was asking that the group give him ‘total attention’, saying ‘feed the hungry bee’. All the extra attention only seemed to magnify Sandy’s paranoia instead of heal him. Sandy never seemed to feel completely comfortable with all of the Pranksters, and later claimed to be fighting a power struggle in dream wars with Kesey himself.

            There is a constant strain through the book of Kesey’s ongoing legal battles. In late 1964, police placed La Honda under surveillance and in April of 1965, the Pranksters received warning that the police would be staging a raid. Both Ken Kesey and Page Browning were arrested for possession of marijuana and resisting arrest. A second time, he was arrested for possession of marijuana, along with Mountain Girl (Carolyn Adams) on a San Francisco rooftop. The second arrest led to a haphazard flight to Mexico, where he spent some months in an ocean-side resort town, giving way to paranoia and fleeing into the nearby jungle for days at a time. After Kesey had fled to Mexico, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt returned, finding his way down to the Pranksters that had gathered and managed to steal the Ampex by way of a simple ruse. Kesey had planned a triumphant return to the U. S. but was stopped near Guadalajara by the Mexican Federales. Kesey fled and ended up crossing the border into the U. S. on horseback, acting like an old drunk who had been mugged.

Kesey’s greatest plan after his return from Mexico was to hold an ‘Acid Test Graduation’. He had been developing the notion that those who used psychedelic drugs were ready to move beyond the awakening of their senses. It was time, not just to open the doors of perception, but to walk through them. Kenneth Babbs had engineered two such ‘Acid Tests’ in Los Angeles while Kesey was in Mexico. After an argument with Bill Graham, who had been their frontman to book a large venue, Winterland, Graham pulled out of the deal and the Pranksters were left with no choice but to hold their graduation ceremony in the decrepit warehouse in which they had been living. Somehow, in the quiet hours of the morning, as each Prankster present received a diploma from Neal Cassady, the end of their journeys together seemed inevitable.

 Eventually, Kesey ended up serving a six-month sentence on a work farm for the original possession charge from San Mateo county, along with a 90-day concurrent charge from San Francisco. Following Kesey’s release, the Pranksters drifted apart, following their own paths. Kesey and his wife Faye and their children returned to Oregon. Kesey continued writing, operated his own website, and worked with dairy cattle until his death from complications of liver cancer in 2001².

In many ways, this story focuses so tightly on the lives of a few certain individuals that it does not seem to have any broader significance. It is mostly the cameos of people who caught the attention of the media - Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead, music producer Bill Graham, Timothy Leary – who are remembered by the masses. It does do a good job of showing both sides of the psychedelic experience. On one side, there is Timothy Leary’s world, clean, pristine, a world that Gautama Buddha could walk into and feel at home, and on the other side is the Merry Prankster’s world – lice-ridden, filthy, filled with mental breakdowns but also seeming so much more colorful and inviting than that of the aesthetes surrounding Leary. The bus, Furthur, molders quietly in an Oregon swamp, waiting for funds for a restoration project, still proclaiming ‘Caution: Weird Load’².

 

 

1) Wolfe, Tom: The Electric Acid Kool-Aid Test, originally published in 1968 by Farrar, Strous & Giroux. Current trade paperback edition published 1999 by Bantam Books, New York, NY

 

2) Ken Kesey (1935 – 2001) and Furthur: http://www.key-z.com/ Key-Z Productions

85343 Nestle Way Pleasant Hill, OR 97455

 

3) LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide-25): http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_faq.shtml Last Modified - Sat, Jul 8, 2006 html and design © 1995-2005 Erowid.org

 

4) DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine): http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt.shtml

Last modified Oct. 26, 2006 Content & design © 1995-2006 Erowid.org.