This is one of my favorite books of my early years. The writing is emotionally evocative and tingles all senses. It was one of my great thrills to meet Ken Kesey, Mountain Girl, Babbs and several other lesser pranksters at the Borders Books in New Town when they came through Chicago in the late 90s. I captured all their signatures on my hard cover, reader's club first edition, but sadly never had the opportunity to meet Tom Wolfe.

Ok, Children of the Sun and Merry Pranksters and all the Merry Wannabes and heads and freaks. I’m going to tell you how it was, and what it meant, and what it might still mean for today if anyone wants to still be up front and open their minds and LISTEN instead of jawboning...spend a bit of time in the NOW, and understand how things went down….back then.

In 1962 a man named Ken Kesey wrote a book called “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and he and the book became very popular. That book was about control in its many forms, and at his root Ken Kesey was also about control, but we’ll get to more of that later. For now you just need to know that Kesey UNDERSTOOD things on a higher level, because he had been introduced to the great God Rotor, and had taken some LSD trips in a lab environment, and he wanted to unleash that knowledge upon the world in a glorious, colorful blast of pure NOW. And so he gathered a few followers and took them into the woods, where a few more showed up. And the circle of knowledge grew, the disciples of the great God Rotor. Even Neal Cassady showed up, fresh from his Beat trip and ready to begin a new journey…..Kerouac knew the torch was to be passed….the Beats were the old hands….they were on the road but weren’t anymore, but Neal needed to be, and so he landed with Kesey in order to….drive the BUS.

And the BUS was a real thing, a tripped out, tricked out monstrosity that could carry Kesey and the Pranksters forth to spread the message, and so they did. And you were either ON THE BUS or OFF THE BUS. And they took the bus to Houston, and through the Southlands, and up the Eastern Seaboard all the way to New York City, where they found that others were taking their own trips. But as it turned out, old Tim Leary and his meditative shroud were most decidedly not ON THE BUS, and so they were Pranked. And along the way Kesey and the Pranksters learned more about control and how to use it. And all of this trip was recorded for posterity in THE MOVIE. Endless loops of footage documenting the trip, but more importantly it was becoming clear that THE MOVIE was the thing itself, and that others could be drawn into the movie, and the trip and the movie and the bus and Kesey and the Pranksters could control the movie. All in the glorious, technicolor, Day-Glo NOW.

It was all a time of discovery, a new paradigm that only a select few were into as of yet, but there would be more in time. And they made their way back to the woods to recalibrate the trip. And lo and behold but there was a Mountain Girl standing there when they got back. The bus was parked, but the REAL bus was still in motion, Cassady behind the wheel cranking up the speed and Kesey not the leader, but still the leader….not the prophet, but still the prophet. And in the midst of all of this, Kesey would bring the Hell’s Angels into the movie. Hulking, menacing creatures of doom and death, but they had a role to play in the movie, and so they came to get turned on and find the great God Rotor for themselves. And this whole movie was about one thing, the NOW. Motion, one must stay in motion to be in the NOW, and the Pranksters were most certainly in motion.

And by now the coppers, the flatfeet, the guys with the shiny shoes, well….it turns out they had figured out that all this crazy Prankster business out in the woods can’t be a square shooting deal at all, and they eventually moved in and tried to create their own movie. And the Pranksters had to scatter, and leave the woods behind, but still in the NOW, still ON THE BUS. Well, most of them….a few people got off of the bus or were left behind along the way. But the true believers, they could always find the bus. Those left...well, they were never REALLY on the bus in the first place.

And a dude named Owsley became part of the movie, and it turned out that he was the key to turning more people on to the NOW. And so the Acid Tests were born, to show people the way. Big multimedia events these Acid Tests were, and more and more folks showed up to partake of the magic of the MOVIE, to participate in the NOW. But the heat was still on Kesey, and now he was busted, busted, busted. And so he ran. He ran down to the Ratlands of Mexico in the bus, Cassady still driving. And he holed up to play the Fugitive Game on the Rat coastline. But the Ratlands were harsh and unforgiving, and eventually the heat found its way to the Rat house, where Kesey was holed up. And so he went back to the source, to play the Fugitive Game on American soil once more. Until the Cops and Robbers Game was played, and he took the fall. But by this time the magic genie was out of the bottle, and couldn’t be put back, not yet anyway. And so Kesey paid his dues and retreated, and the Merry Pranksters scattered to the winds, but once you were ON THE BUS, you were always ON THE BUS.

And this dude named Tom Wolfe wrote a book called “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” to try and tell this story to the people, and maybe the squares who didn’t really understand just what the hell had gotten into their kids. And it was a good book, and it turned out to be one of the best documents of the entire experience of the NOW, because in the end it was also part of the MOVIE. Now you need to understand that Wolfe was himself a bit of a square, from New York City and we already know those guys weren’t really ON THE BUS. But it was ok, Wolfe tried his best to get the whole story put down. And his book came out before the whole scene reached its screaming, orgasmic creshendo at a place called Woodstock in August of 1969. And it was before the whole scene reached its skidding, horrible death knell at a place called Altamont just a few months later in December of 1969, at the hands of the Hell’s Angels no less. And the circle seemed complete at that point. The movie was over. Neal Cassady was found dead in Mexico and would no longer drive, which was fitting because that trip was done. The bus would go with Kesey to Oregon, where it would lay in a field, rusting and decaying.

I can’t really describe to you how it feels to be in the NOW, but I have been there. You are either ON THE BUS or OFF THE BUS where that is concerned. But living in the NOW certainly opened my doors of perception, with all apologies to Aldous Huxley. There are many ways to live in the NOW besides THAT way, and people today could learn a few good lessons about what it was like to live in the NOW back THEN. Because for an all too brief moment there back in the then it seemed like maybe people really COULD make their own MOVIE. Maybe people really COULD cause change to occur in conformity with Will, with all apologies to Aleister Crowley.

I will tell you this much….everyone in the end has the choice to either be ON THE BUS or OFF THE BUS. It’s up to you. You get to decide. You either have the control, or you don’t. The lessons are here, in Wolfe’s book. It’s a snapshot of THEN, and how that relates to the NOW. Read it. It’s a fine bus ride.

A literary LSD trip. Felt like I was zonked outta my gourd for most of the book.

I will forevermore refer to little girls as "teeny freaks."

I'm a square.

The bus is dead.

First, the BOOK. Wolfe's prose is electric, to borrow a phrase. If you want to take an acid trip without the acid, read the book. His knowledge of mythology, religion, and culture is as expansive as his familiarity with rat holes in San Francisco, the dead flora and fauna of Mexico, and the personal hygiene of Hell's Angels. Wolfe may have been one of the few sober journalists in the Merry Pranksters' circle, and his work is shaped by personal experiences and thorough interviews with the principals and archival research. Thankfully, archives were one of the few things that the Pranksters got right.

Second, the MAN. Apparently, Kesey didn't like the book, comparing Wolfe to "shit" and Hunter S. Thompson to "cream" (both float to the top, get it?). I don't wonder why. Kesey comes across as an addled, narcissistic, would-be deity to a group of childish imbeciles. Notwithstanding their huge influence on 1960s' culture, the Pranksters were neither heroes nor visionaries, but rather infantile losers obsessed with the "NOW" at the expense of the past and future. I don't think the drugs destroyed the creativity of a potentially great writer; for one thing, Kesey continued to write (Sailor Song, Kesey's Garage Sale, Demon Box, not to mention Sometimes a Great Notion), none of them particularly good. Instead I think Kesey was a one-time wonder (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), like so many contemporary musical acts of the 1960s.

Kesey could only wish that he had the writing skills of Tom Wolfe.

This book was a huge disappointment. It's hard to believe that a book that included so many interesting people, Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsbergh and Neal Cassady just to name a few, could be so tedious and uninteresting. Wolfe's descriptions are clunky and monotonous. This is a guy who is about as square and straight as they come attempting to describe to his readers what it was like for Kesey and the merry pranksters to be high on acid and most of it reads like a hollow impersonation of Jack Kerouac. The poems at the beginning of some of the chapters are particularly nauseating. The book lacks substance as well. The further I got into it the more I began to feel that I was not getting the whole story but rather a romanticized version of what the hippie acid culture was really like. I'm not sure if Tom Wolfe set out to write an objective journalistic piece covering a time and a place in American history or to write an interesting and exciting non-fiction novel, but he failed on both ends.

Traversing the nation with the Merry Pranksters as they “transcended the bullshit” felt like a hellacious hallucination, but I love reading about 60s counterculture. I can’t say I was a huge fan of this particular story, mostly due to that pompous ass Ken Kesey, but Wolfe’s writing is mesmerizing. The audio is fabulous.

A mega doozy! A unique faux/dopey emblem of hippie Americana that blows angelic trumpets in your face with the celebration of a dadaesque topsy-turvy rover's lifestyle. So, oh so VERY unique. Is it all nonfiction? Really?! Or is it a horror film in disguise (no, no, no, just hear me out!) wherein body snatchers captivate the fragile minds of the youth, ensnaring them in major LSD consumption, "intersubjectivity," codependent thinking and a fantastical creation of genuine communal attachment? The hippies were a group that's just (if not more, at the time) self-aware & as conceited as all of them are. All about the "me."

Once the novel is one-fourth over, it finally becomes accessible, cracking open like some golden egg. And what pours out of the almost-mystical experience--following a group of misfits who grok over the long roads & ever-expanding horizons of the motherland--is something unforgettable, unattainable for any other writer than this one, the overly ambitious writer of "Bonfire of the Vanities," Mr. Tom Wolfe. Reading "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" is like following the Pied Piper into some sweet oblivion, acting as stupid foolish children, except that your parents will never find out nor be sad about your departure.

"You're either on the bus or off the bus." Yup, there are life-lessons aplenty to be harvested from this utmost jewel, this crystallized ruby, as important to historians as it is for creative writers.

This one requires your utmost attention, reader. Bring it into your own personal movie, which plays out in a singular, long, mystifying strip of Day-Glo Highlighter acid-&-lemon green!

Tom Wolfe, RIP

From Seventh Grade on (& still now) I found myself absolutely fascinated by the 1960’s and the freedom of the era. Every time a school project came about, I would find some way to focus it around this time period, which leads me to convincing my mother to purchase this, Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and many other books. At the time I first read this (Seventh Grade) I completely and utterly did not understand it; I found myself attempting to “look cool” by bringing it with me everywhere. Years later I find it on my book shelf and pick it up again, read it cover to cover and sit contemplating the words I just in took. Wolfe got mixed reviews for this novel, this historic journey and though I can see the point of the negativity, I can’t say I fully agree. Wolfe was able to describe even a few moments in an era, that from all of my research I can only label as indescribable. There are pages in this novel that I snored through, but more pages that I laughed at, awed at and read over again for pure enjoyment. In his best moments Wolfe is able to transform his readers mind to that of himself within his novel and as accurately as he can, create the feeling of this era.

The book reads like a monologue of Dennis Hopper's character in Apocalypse Now!, weird and spiraling and tricked out in acid-head lingo. For the most part its where it should be, its part of the scene and definitely adds to the feel of being "there" and what they sounded like. But the entire later half of the book I struggled to find solid footing (which I should have known about a drug scene-but come on!), and found reading it a little difficult and sometimes frustrating. The last quarter of the book I just pushed myself through, nonstop, to finish it and get the thing done. I felt like I was skimming over random babble and pointless, unnecessary and too frequent use of ellipses. I wanted to read this because it is somewhat of a bridge between the Beat scene and the Hippy scene, and after reading it I can confidently say that it leans far into the later.

The better parts of the book provide detail and insight into the Merry Pranksters that, considering the great amount of drugs they were digesting, I am honestly surprised by how much is there.

If you are interested in the hippy, drug, LSD or Grateful Dead, you should at least attempt a read of this. But be warned, it might give you a headache.

Did the Man in the White Suit have "Sweet Tooth" pushers ?
In the 60s he teased through his hat, to great acclaim ;
his liberal dose of saucy irreverence bursts with a brisk
vein of low humor. He injected the comic strip into daily
journalism-scribbles and it became his pet province. Meanwhile,
he remains a sort of modest church lady. Some of his pieces
are swell; he's at his best when he's at his waggiest (for he
never reaches wit). As a New Journalist, he dares to probe
inner thoughts of others; beware : he's an Externalist.
Keep peeling an onion and you're left with nothing but aroma.

I swear for a good long while I was seriously considering giving this book two stars for Wolfe's disingenuous pseudo-hipster "spontaneity," a la Kerouac but with bells on; the style and tone were actually kind of making me roll my eyes and cringe. And then there are the Merry Pranksters themselves; I can't quite tell if I just outright loathe them or actually begrudgingly envy them; doing whatever feels good in the "now." I tended to use to romanticize hippies uncritically, but have come to see things with more of a balance; their lack of responsibility to the social polity I find less admirable now.

Anyway, the book reads like lightning and is unquestionably a valuable and informative document on the counterculture of the '60s. In many ways, though, I wish Wolfe could have reined in some of his youthful stylistic enthusiasms. I know he's trying to emulate his subjects to a degree, to get in the spirit of the thing, but I think a more straightforward reportage approach would have been to my liking. Then again, the book would not be so famed and well regarded, no doubt.

OK, for 270 pages Wolfe attempts at various times to capture the LSD experience, but it isn't until he allows an acid test participant-- Clair Brush--to speak verbatim in her own words for several pages, that we actually get a real sense of what the experience is like. Clair Brush should have written this book...

FINAL:
The book wore me down a bit; by about page 300 I was wishing it was over. That said, it was a fast read; Wolfe's shotgun impressionistic Jackson Pollock array of words made it easy to speed read large chunks and get a complete enough view of the scene being described. I liked the book best when it slowed down into something closer to standard reportage. The book filled big gaps in my knowledge about the earliest and waning days of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. Anyone interested in the 60s counterculture will have to read this sooner or later. It's kind of unavoidable.

It's a fair amount of years ago but I remember it as a fair amount of fun, although very up & down in the quality of the writing and the interest of the material (or at least my interest). I think I liked the title most of all.It was, after all, my time and reflected a lot of the feelings I had about "hippies". The press always lumped "hippies" and "political activists" together, which seemed very odd, since "dropping out" and "working to change the system" would seem to be almost tautologically incompatible. The activists despised hippies. I don't know what hippies thought of us: I assumed not much since they seemed to philosophically opposed to thinking. Nevertheless, the book was about a lot of major people in my world & so fascinating just for that. I read it several times, always disappointed over all but with lots of moments of interest and wish for more solid writing. I found Vietnam, the Watts riots, the riots that echoed throughout the country, including my area of Washington Heights surreal enough. I was more, Pour-me-another-drink-&-lets-solve-the-country's-problems kind of girl.