A wild story, really captures the atmosphere of the psychedelic counterculture. Just gets a bit tedious to follow all the disjointed, erratic details. However, I guess the point of the book is to make you understand and feel the spirit of the events described and go inside the minds of the people rather than give you a history lesson.

Trying to tease apart and count every single level on which this book succeeds is making me a little dizzy, but the first four that come to mind:
- A showcase for spot-on imitations of the goofiest, most entertaining acid-rapping
- A miracle of strategic thread-management w/r/t the massive cast of characters that pop in and out of the story
- Probably my favorite use of stream of consciousness as a device in any genre or era (I hope that someone somewhere has written their psychiatry thesis on his use of typeface, all-caps, and "::::::"'s)
- In its attitude towards The Thing, in all its ineffability and elusiveness, pulls off a hell of tightrope act b/w sly, ironic condescension (which makes the come-up so goddamn hilarious) and earnest admiration and yearning (which, for me at least, makes the downfall tangibly ... no, "heartbreaking" is too schmaltzy, but...)

... I guess to balance out the gushing, I'll share one nugget of feedback for ways in which this book could have used some more attentive editing though, which is that by the end, reading the word "Day-Glo" used metaphorically as an adjective kinda made me want to rip my eyes out.

Anyway, all in all though, an un-put-down-able book, and a serious candidate for my favorite work of Nonfiction ever.

even the craziests trips eventually come to an end

This book isn't going to earn anything but a big COULD NOT FINISH from me. I admit it might be a revolting Czech translation which makes this piece of literature absolutely unbearable but mostly I think it's just the fact that this is a very, VERY bad book.
Can't recommend to anyone. Huge waste of time.

Tom Wolfe coined the term “New Journalism” to describe a genre of writing that abandon the conceit of objective journalism, placed the writer firmly within the story, and used forms more commonly seen in creative literature than in traditional journalism. (Along with himself, he included in this category Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and others.) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is definitely an example of the New Journalism, and should be examined within that context.

It would have been hard to do justice to this story with a more traditional journalistic approach. Ken Kesey, his Merry Pranksters, and the whole West Coast psychedelic counterculture was so far out from the experience of most Americans at the time that conventional journalism had no chance to tell the tale. Essentially, what Wolfe did by putting himself inside the story and describing it in hippy lingo like an ongoing acid trip was to attempt to show the experience rather than to tell it.

How you react to this story and the style in which Wolfe tells it depends on several variables, not least of which is how old you are and your disposition towards the subject. I was much more taken with the book when I read it at 25 than reading it now at 59. Maintaining the style of a manic trip throughout the entirety of the book wowed me then, but grates on me now. I also find myself far less sympathetic toward principle characters than I was then: an overwhelming hubris appears to be Kesey’s defining characteristic, while Cassidy comes across far more ragged and desperate to me now than the cool I saw then. Also, I was reading this book simultaneously with Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind where he goes into detail of the promising psychedelic research that had been underway since the early ‘50s and that was halted/set backed/killed by the brutal backlash to the Dionysian counterculture that Kesey and his acid heads personified. That context definitely shaped how I read the book this time around.

Still, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a major cultural artifact of a unique time in our history. It remains an important story — just not the far out blast that I found it on my first time through.

20 years after I initially read... and over 50 years since its publication - this has been one of the most important books in my life.

Tom Wolfe is an astute angelic observer. He describes the journeys/trips, Kesey's magnetic personality, the actual vision of the Pranksters (which they themselves couldn't describe) and he accurately observes the foibles, mental breakdowns, the PARANOIA! and how could anyone make Neal Cassady come to life like he does.

I wonder if the word has lost value as a medium because of its limitations, but no movie or YouTube clip has been able to match my understanding of the counter culture movement of the 60s.

There is much to like: the pure joy at the center of Prankster life, the revulsion of middle class values, the experiments with group consciousness, dropping out of the political games, the outfrontness about personal hangups, and the oddball American-esque quest of the group which Kesey claims is like apple pie.

In the end, this is a cautionary tale. Bordering on the cult, the Pranksters come apart and Kesey lives out his days on a farm in Oregon. The drug craze proves to be destructive. LSD becomes illegal and only in recent years has cannabis become accepted.

But their efforts to find a new art (in their lives) proves to be an illuminating challenge for groups of humans who are striving towards a shared goal. And their mark, which is against the establishment and most of the 300 million+ souls living in America is indelible.

The author writes a first hand account of experiences of famous author, Ken Kesey, and his group of Merry Pranksters, during the period, 1964 to 1966. The drug, L.S.D., was legal up until October 1966. The Merry Pranksters bought a large bus, painted it in psychedelic colors, and travelled the U.S.A., filming their travels and events they organised.

The book provides details of parties with LSD laced Kool Aid, meetings with the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, the Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg, Kelsey’s exile to Mexico and his arrests. The main idea of the Merry Pranksters and their Acid test parties, being to enhance the creative process and expand their consciousness. Initially Ken Kesey funded the main expenses of the Merry Pranksters. He had financial success with his book, ‘One Who Flew over the Cuckoos Nest’, first published in 1962.

This book was first published in 1968.

n  Ponche de ácido lisérgicon: 3 estrellas.

Estamos en los años 60 en Estados Unidos. Ken Kesey, flamante autor de su recién publicada novela, Alguien voló sobre el nido del cuco, se convierte en el líder-no líder de una generación incipiente, una contracultura, que años más tarde daría lugar al nacimiento de los “hippies”. En Poncho de ácido lisérgico encontramos uno de los más fieles testimonios de este movimiento psicodélico denominado “beatnick” o “la generación beat”. Para ello, Tom Wolfe, hace uso de sus cualidades periodísticas al máximo. No sólo reconstruye la historia del escritor y sus allegados mediante testimonios directos y entrevistas, sino que logra transmitirlos a la escritura, ya sea jugando con el estilo, las fuentes o la prosa.

Me resultó bastante interesante conocer este lado de la historia del que no tenía idea. Si bien no puedo decir exactamente cuándo comienza, no caben dudas que todo, al menos aquí, empieza con Kesey. Para quienes hemos leídos su primera novela, no nos sorprende descubrir su atracción hacia lo alucinatorio. De hecho, recuerdo que una de las cosas que más me impactaron del libro fue la veracidad para transmitir las distintas situaciones de los personajes de una forma tan onírica. Ahora, con esta lectura, descubrí que la realidad que sentía en las palabras no era sólo porque el autor se inspiró en el periodo que trabajó en un hospital psiquiátrico, sino porque justamente allí tuvo la oportunidad de experimentar con drogas de laboratorio, y se supone que muchos pasajes e ideas de la novela fueron producto de ellas, al menos en su esencia. A su vez, tiempo después, por haberse ofrecido como voluntario a ciertos experimentos psicológicos que estaban llevándose a cabo en un hospital local, es cuando conoce y tiene acceso directo al LSD. Fue entonces cuando su vida dio un giro rotundo, y esa puerta recién abierta, nunca más se volvió a cerrar.

Kesey se mudó a California, a una casa en La Honda (¿por qué todo parece un juego de palabras?), junto con su mujer, sus tres niños, y unos cuantos amigos. Desde un principio, Kesey fue el encargado de iniciar a todos los que lo rodeaban en la prueba del ácido. Él se los administraba y tenían que tomarlos allí todos juntos, pero jamás les daba para que pudiesen tomarlo luego. Recordemos que por aquellos años, las drogas de laboratorio, como el LSD y sus derivados, no eran conocidos en el popular de la gente, ni mucho menos había leyes contra su consumo o tenencia, como sí ocurría con la marihuana y la cocaína. No obstante, tampoco era necesario levantar sospechas.
Aunque muchos de los amigos de Kesey a veces no estaban de acuerdo con sus normas, nunca surgían conflictos. Se menciona mucho que su gran carisma y personalidad conseguían apaciaguar los ánimos de todos cuando estos se alteraban, como un líder nato, pese a que él no se afirmase a sí mismo como tal. En particular, hay algo que no termina de cerrarme sobre su forma de ser, y creo que era bastante manipulador, incluso de un modo un tanto siniestro. Pero no nos adelantemos tanto.

Su nueva casa estaba situada casi en el medio del bosque, y no pasó demasiado tiempo para que toda la onda psicodélica llegase también allí. Siempre con el objetivo de expandir la experiencia alucinatoria al máximo posible, desperdigaron por todo el lugar equipos de luz y sonido, pintaron árboles con colores fluorescentes y llenaron el espacio de arte improvisado. Nadie sabía realmente qué sucedía en aquel lugar, salvo ellos.
Y en esa misma necesidad de expandirse y contagiar su movimiento es que surge la idea de recorrer las costas de Estados Unidos en un autobús escolar, por supuesto todo colorido, decorado y pintado de la manera más estrambótica posible. Asimismo, comienzan a celebrarse “pruebas del ácido”, que básicamente son fiestas y reuniones en las que administraban alucinógenos a los asistentes. Porque ahora el objetivo no era sólo incrementar la experiencia, sino romper los límites de esta, y para ello había que estimular los sentidos al máximo potencial con música, proyecciones, luces, y sobre todo, filmando y registrando todo lo que sucedía. Su grupo se denominó a sí mismo como “Los alegres bromistas”, entre quienes se encontraba Neal Cassady, el icónico actor de On the road.



Quiero insistir que encuentro algo bastante perverso en toda la situación, pero especialmente en Kesey, que digamos era el dueño del circo. Él tenía el control sobre el resto, era quien decidía otorgar droga a, más allá de sus amigos (muchos eran simplemente gente que se les unía y pegaban buena onda), cualquiera que asistiera a esos eventos. No digo que estos sean inocentes, la mayoría que acudía allí ya tenía cierta idea de dónde se metía. Sin embargo, hay algo macabro en esa forma de casi experimentar con las personas, ver cómo reaccionaban a las drogas, si tenían un “buen o mal viaje” y grabarlo. Porque tampoco es que se preocupaban si algo malo pasaba. Wolfe cuenta algunas situaciones en las que personas tenían ataques producto del consumo, y los Bromistas lo dejaban a un lado cuando no pertenecía a ellos. O incluso cuando introducen ácido en el ponche o en otros lugares, para que las personas se droguen sin necesariamente saber que lo estaban haciendo. Me parece terrible y peligroso.

Wolfe recoge las vivencias dentro de ese autobús, en las fiestas, en las casas; y en todo momento, especialmente cuando no están en sus cabales (si es que alguna vez lo estaban). Esas alucinaciones traspasan al relato y se traducen en palabras. Las incoherencias abundan a propósito, y reflejan ese estado tan difícil de describir. Debo decir que son tantos los momentos de alucinaciones que me resultaban bastante aburridos y ansiaba volver al relato con rapidez. Wolfe se hace uno con la experiencia y en varias situaciones lo perdemos, y nos perdemos con él, en un mundo que se desintegra, en figuras que se derriten, en luces que nos atraviesan, en palabras que no se dicen, en la sincronización.

Otra cosa que me sorprendió y me pareció muy divertida fue cuando asistieron masivamente al concierto de The Beatles, pasadísimos de droga por supuesto, y la puesta en escena tan psicodélica también fue tan fuerte que tuvieron que salir corriendo de allí.

La popularidad que adquirieron los Bromistas en la California de la década del 60, convirtió al lugar en un verdadero epicentro de la generación beatnick. Allí frecuentaban también varios artistas famosos como la banda de rock The Greatful Dead (no los conocía), y el grupo de motoqueros Los Ángeles del Infierno, entre otros. Es curioso cómo en el libro se cuenta que sólo aquellos que estaban metidos en el asunto podían reconocer lo que sucedía en el otro con sólo verlo; y ese sentido de pertenencia, de verse con otro y sentirse identificado, generaba alegría y amor, era una especie de celebración, de la que todos los demás quedaban afuera. Pues sólo los que probaron ácido sabían lo que se sentía. Por momentos tenía una fuerte sensación de que se trataba de una secta.

Un aspecto que llamó mi atención es la ausencia relativa de Faye, la esposa de Kesey, y lo digo así debido a que está presente en el libro, pero sólo está allí. Ella lo acompaña desde el comienzo de sus locuras y aventuras, en la casa, en el autobús, y continúa a su lado. Empero, no se menciona nada sobre ella, como si no tuviera carácter o siquiera voz para expresarse, y me surge la duda si la manipulación y la personalidad absorbente de Kesey tenían que ver con ello. ¿Faye estaba de acuerdo con todo? Siempre se la encuentra cuidando a los niños o arreglando los disfraces de Los bromistas, pero nada se dice de ella cuando Kesey tenía relaciones con Montañesa, una de las jóvenes adolescentes del grupo y con quien termina teniendo una niña (de la que tampoco se hace demasiado cargo); ni cuando entabla otra relación con una chica que conoce en México, y en un momento llegan a vivir ellas tres junto a Kesey y compañía. Me parece que ahí hubo un silencio al respecto en el que Wolfe no quiso indagar.

Me dio mucho enfado todas las veces en las que Kesey estuvo detenido o a punto de terminar en prisión, y por algún motivo u otro se lo terminó perdonando. Creo que realmente tendría que haber cumplido una condena más grave de la que al final termina recibiendo. Porque su movimiento se agota y se acaba, no pasa nada concreto que marque su fin. Simplemente Kesey se quedó sin recursos. Apretado como estaba por la ley, no podía arriesgarse mucho más de lo que ya había hecho, y eso dejó de ser atractivo para la multitud. El grupo simplemente se dispersó, pero las personas no cambian.

Ponche de ácido lisérgico es un auténtico viaje a Estados Unidos, a San Francisco y California en plenos años 60, cuando la juventud perdida encontraba su lugar en fiestas nocturnas en las que se experimentaba con sustancias alucinógenas sin control alguno. Ken Kesey y su grupo de Alegres Bromistas, todos drogadictos y locos de remate, descubren el LSD y las drogas de laboratorio, y recorren distintos lugares organizando eventos para drogarse colectivamente, con todo lo que eso podía llevar aparejado. Wolfe ilustra casi con demasiada fidelidad estos viajes psicodélicos y los transmite mediante una prosa inconexa, un estilo que divaga y explota de repente como la propia alucinación. No obstante, también se las arregla para encontrar su voz y relatar lo que acaecía en una realidad, que nuevamente se vuelve a desproporcionar y ya no hay razón, porque todo eran sentidos. Pues, en definitiva, lo que se percibe es la convulsión de una sociedad desorientada y sin límites, que pretendía explorar lo desconocido y ser parte de la nueva generación; o probablemente, sólo ser parte de algo.

don’t do drugs m’kay

(ETA: Supposedly Gus Van Sant is working on making a movie of this book, slated for 2011.)

Much like Kerouac's On the Road, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was one of those books that I tried several times to read and always failed miserably to get through the first chapter. I made it a priority of mine now to sit down with it and read the effing thing.

(Side note: I have a notebook I've kept for... a really long time... in which I started writing down books I wanted to read when I worked at a used bookstore in Missouri. I could borrow the merchandise while I worked there, though that benefit really wasn't as fantastic as it was with Half-Price Books later in my book-slinging days. Anyhow, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was the second book I ever wrote in there. The first, in case you freaking care, was Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman, but I've already been able to cross that one off the list. Clearly I'm not reading every book from my notebook in order of when I wrote them in there, but I have been ignoring the earlier titles for some reason and I am making a concerted effort to get through some of them. Hence why I felt it was important to read Kool-Aid now.)



Ken Kesey is best known for his writing (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion), but there's another side (some might argue an integral side to his writing) of Kesey that not everyone (especially outside of the US) is familiar with. In the mid-60s Kesey formed a counter-cultural movement, participants of which were ultimately referred to as the Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters promoted the use of psychedelic drugs and in 1964 began a road trip (California to New York and back) in a Day-Glo-painted school bus called Furthur [sic]. Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters are credited (attacked by many as well) for encouraging the individual search for the expansion of consciousness through the use of marijuana, LSD, and other drugs. This is that story.



I was actually surprised that my interest didn't wane after the first chapter like it had so many times in the past. I realized during this reading that Wolfe's journalist narrative was actually quite hypnotic at times, certainly intentionally mirroring the effect of drugs. Still, have you ever been sober around someone (or a group of someones) who are tripping on mushrooms or acid, rolling on Ecstasy, or just plain high on pot? And they're in this completely different place than you are and you realize just how fucking annoying they are while they're like that (but of course if you were doing what they were doing it would probably be a horse of a different color)? That's what reading this was like for me. Okay, yeah, I get it, but dude. Seriously, take your high somewhere else, I can't be your babysitter/guardian/guide right now, I got things to do.

Also surprising to me was that Wolfe did take the opportunity to point out the negative moments that did occur on this Magic Bus Trip, and there were a few. A few Pranksters burned out - or, more appropriately, fizzled out as their brains completely fried and they went a little buh-bye. I could almost smell the brain meltdown from here. But Wolfe also sort of glossed over those situations. As if to say, "Hey, yeah, these things happened, but don't worry, it won't happen to you." One of the more disturbing parts for me was during one of the Acid Tests in which the Pranksters and the Hell's Angels combined efforts for a raucous good time - there was a gang-bang which was quickly written off as being okay because the woman "volunteered" for it. Sometimes it's amazing to me how much (or maybe how little) has actually changed in some forty years since the Merry Pranksters took off in their bus.

Wolfe wrote this book like he was there, like he experienced any or all of this. From what I can tell of his Author's Note at the end of the text, everything he wrote in Kool-Aid was information gathered from some of the participants themselves, like Kesey, or through letters, diaries, photographs, movie clips (the Pranksters were making a movie of their road trip), etc. It's hard to know how much is actually accurate, or if there was some extra glamor thrown in for good measure, as one is apt to do when reflecting on something that happened previously. Throw in some drugs and lord knows what kind of memories will come out, or how accurate they were. Still, Wolfe wrote the story well and I found myself interested, though some of that interest may have come from all the name-dropping that came along with this story: Leary, Burroughs, Cassady, The Warlocks (later known more widely as The Grateful Dead), Ginsberg, and others. Biggest complaint: I would have really loved to have had some photos included in the text.

I think maybe if I read this 10-15 years ago (and actually made myself read it all) I might have had even a better appreciation of this. As it is, I'm in a different place now, both physically and mentally, and so I felt a little old at times while reading this. (Though to be honest reading this in October made me think quite a bit about how much I miss the Lupus Chilifest - which I understand is an actual "thing" now? And not how it was back in my teen days when there weren't that many people.)

Anyway, sure, I could go get totally ripped on some acid right now. But I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to make it to work tomorrow if I did. Though I might make it in by Wednesday or Thursday at least. Maybe. I think.

I read it all and I want my six hours that felt like 600 years back.

LOL. I don’t usually LOL in a review but… LOL! I laughed more than I have in a long time while reading a book. I literally had a blast. Apparently the original Magic School Bus was a 1939 International Harvester purchased by author Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) in 1964 to carry his "Merry Band of Pranksters" cross-country, filming their counterculture adventures as they went. They painted it up in the most ridiculous multicolored, Day-Glo, paint job ever seen on a school bus or a microbus. What happened on that trip and afterword is the subject of Tom Wolfe’s deep dive into the psychedelic world of the acid heads.”

I think I get it, this whole new journalism thing, (not so new anymore) after reading some of the work of Hunter S. Thompson and Joan Didion and now this book, I’ve come to realize that this is a form of journalism where you don’t just step back and report the facts with cool objectivity (an impossible task for a human anyway) you dive right in and become a part of the story, merge with it, become one with it. As a form of actual journalism I can’t say if that’s the best way to do things but it’s sure as heck an entertaining approach.

I’ve been fascinated with the counterculture of the 1960s and 70s since I was a little kid and saw bunches of flower children hitchhiking by the side of the highway from the window of our bus as we Greyhounded it out to my grandparent's place. I was told by some less than kindhearted elders that if those people ever got their hands on me they’d hang me from a meat hook and eat me. Hippies were scary!

I’ve never taken hallucinogenic drugs and never plan to but there’s just something fascinating about that era. It was so much fun reading about the Merry Pranksters running around horrifying straight-laced America with their antics, naïvely believing that LSD and similar drugs were somehow the answer to the world's problems. It reminds me of the early days after the discovery of electricity when everyone from scientists to poets believed that lightning contained the secret of life.

One of the funniest parts of this book, for me, was when Kesey got up on stage in front of an earnest antiwar rally and let the air out of the proceedings by telling them that, with their rallies and marches, they were behaving like fascists and that would play into the hands of the authorities so they should just chill out and forget about it. They were all so shocked. It was hilarious.

This is one well-written, immersive journey into the trippy, slightly offputting, frequently ridiculous, and occasionally sincere world of the 1960s drug culture. I'm not sure how informative it was but I sure was entertained.