FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2003 Every once in a while a student emails me and asks me a bunch of questions for a paper he is doing for a class. Here's a good example:
1. How would you compare the times depicted in the book
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test to the world around us
today in the 21st century?
Too much beating around the Bush today. In the early Sixties the psychedelic revolution hit and everyone was changed overnight: saw love peace and happiness and were willing to let it all hang out in demonstrations, dance, talk, art, music. A wide open time of new beginnings and the powers that didn't like what they saw began the movement to curtail our freedoms but those in the know continue to work for love peace and happiness.
1-A. Obviously there are many differences, but what similarities can you see? Whatwould you want to change in our society today?
The only thing that changes over time is the outward trappings of civilization. Meanwhile the same eternal works continue: birth, growing up, falling in love, having families, growing things, making things, expressing yourself in works of art, music dance, getting old, grooving, fighting for what is right, helping others.
2. What (in)consistencies can you see in the youth oftoday, compared to the youth of the 60s?
Greater stimuli today from forces of fashion, perfumes, crass behavior, mockery of the family so it is harder to resist since we are constantly deluged with so much crap from TV and Newspapers and magazines. But it is the same as always. the mission is to see through the crap and go with the true stuff. Plus there's so many more people and cars and material goods piling up all around us.
3. Why do you think the Acid Tests were such a success?
Did it seem like people were waiting for something new?
The acid tests were a natural outcome of our desires to get together with others and get high and dig the music and the scene and stay up all night and go home the next day a better person, ready to tackle the world with a big smile and hie-dee-doo.
4. While in the 60,s all the "kids were eating LSD, today all the "kids eat Ecstasy (MDMA). How do you think this makes for a different atmosphere or drug-based culture?
Ecstasy is a dumb downed drug and has nowhere near the efficacy of LSD but acid is a serious drug not to be taken lightly and is hard to find in pure form.
5. For this project my 2 primary resources are The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and On The Road by Jack
Kerouac. How, do you feel, things were changing
between the 50's and then into the 60's?
The movement in the 50's was the Beats. The movement in the 60's was the psychedelic revolution. One led directly into the other and both are on a long line going back to the founding fathers and up through Emerson, Moby Dick, Whitman, Hemingway, Faulkner and into the Beats and beyond. We went socially from the calm days of Eisenhower to the blown away days of Kennedy and Johnson and the civil rights movement and the vietnam war and the revolution in music and the arts.
6. How did you feel, when the first acid tests were
happening and LSD culture was being introduced to the
Haight-Ashbury area? Did you feel that, as a group you
had instigated a change?
We were part of something that was happening. We were riding the crest of a wave. We didn't have to instigate anything. It was happening everywhere. When meatball fell it hit everything. The people, the plants, the rocks. We started doing the acid tests to get out of the house. So many people were showing up on the weekends it was making a huge mess someone had to clean up: trash food and the usual party aftermath.
7. If so, what exactly do you feel was changed? Upon reflection, does it seem like a change for the better or worse?
A change in consciousness was always the goal. To wipe out the old tired dull mind set and have a new wide open, visionary, all-encompassing view, seeing the unity of life, people, the planet, the universe and then operating from a universal loving perspective.
8. What was the fuel behind the Pranksters?
Gasoline, regular, 87 percent octane. Fill up the bus and drive.
What inspired you to make "The Movie and to throw the Acid
Tests?
We are creative artists. We make books, audio tapes and movies. we were going to drive across country and film and tape everything and make a movie and have it appear in the theaters. We did the acid tests because on Saturday nights we were showing the rushes of the movie and so many people started showing up we had to find a bigger place. By then we knew the Grateful Dead and they joined in. Speaking of fuel, we said they were the rocket fuel that ran the engine of the space ship and the acid test was the space ship and Cassady was the driver.
9. What did you feel you learned individually from your
life with the Pranksters?How to grow old with a good bunch of good friends doing a lot of great things together: how to get along and how to co-operate in putting on shows and putting together very complicated journeys, also known as trips.
10. If you had a chance to do it all again, what would you do differently now that you are able to reflect?
I would have gone ahead and had my vietnam novel published in 1964 instead of pulling it back under the guise I was into movies now and books were too slow. So now forty years later I have to dig it out and try again so the moral of the story is finish what you start or as Kesey's lawyer once told him: "finish your sentence, Kesey."
Thank you so much for taking your time to help
me out. It is appreciated greatly.
-jake langmuir
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2003
Old Gonzo hisself, Hunter Thompson did an interview for salon.com. Here's how it starts:
The Salon Interview
- - - - - - - - - - - -Hunter S. Thompson
The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide nervous breakdown" --
and let the Bush crowd loot the country and savage American democracy.- - - - - - - - - - - -
By John GlassieFeb. 3, 2003 -- He calls himself "an elderly dope fiend living out in the wilderness," but Hunter S. Thompson will also be found this week on the New York Times bestseller list with a new memoir, "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century."
Listening to his ragged voice, there is some sense that Thompson, now 65, has reined in his outlaw ways, gotten a little softer, perhaps a little more gracious now that he's reached retirement age. "I've found you can deal with
the system a lot easier if you use their rules," he says. "I talk to a lot of lawyers."For the rest of the interview get a day pass on salon.com. Click on:
GONZO
MONDAY FEBRUARY 3, 2003
pardon the good times
i'm dreaming of the unemployment line
at the end now, but my rope's still got slack
screw the handouts, i'm looking for payback
so i draw my line, only five to go
it's the usual shock and jive, just go with the flowwith a fluttering belly, it's my turn next
high anticipation, hand and knob connect
this is it! finally, my time is here!
but no turn will i get
a voice yells out, "away from the art, you're much too near!!!"
-- todd diciurcio @ george segal's "unemployment line"
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2003
GROUNDHOG DAY
"Ahem, I know you are eager to hear the prediction but I'm still a bit groggy from my winter's sleep. Woke up in Oregon and it was a very iffy morning. Misty with high cirrus clouds and a hint of a shadow so I am going to depart from my usual prognostication and neither declare for six more months of winter nor an early spring. What it looks like this year -- and it is a peculiar year from all indications -- we will have three more months of mild winter followed by a luscious spring. Thank you all for turning out and I think I will turn in."
-- P. Paul
Is a groundhog a woodchuck?
Yes. The woodchuck, Marmota monax, is also called the groundhog or the whistle-pig. This rodent is a member of the squirrel family, and is found across Canada and in the northeastern and midwestern United States. The western United States is the home of its closest relatives, the yellow-bellied marmot and the hoary marmot. What causes them to be yellow bellied and hoary when west of the Mississippi is beyond my ken.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2003
R.I.P. Columbia and Crew
Kiss your January goodbye and it was a good one too depending on your point of view and where you sit and there's where we all meet: on our posteriors. I've heard in an interesting fact report that it is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. Well I'm here to tell you that it isn't true. After weeks of rigorous training and two rolls of masking tape used to hold my eyelids open during practice sessions I was able to achieve the open eyed sneeze. Doctor says bandages can come off in a couple days and I should be able to play the piano as well as ever. I haven't thought about war or government or debt or any other downers since I started my discipline. Unfortunately I won't be able to see if the groundhog sees his shadow or not. Stay attuned.
-- Capn Skyp
If you haven't already done so, check out Zane's Kesey Productions website. Click on:
Hey Zane,
You've got a good looking webpage. First I heard of Sunshine Daydream. I think Sam Field is disappointed in me because I didn't stick around for the showing at the 02 field trip but Bob Faggen had eaten the magic cookie and thought he was having a heart attack so Hagen took him to the emergency room where the line was so long they went to dairy queen instead and ate ice cream and walked around campus and pretty soon Faggen was feeling fine and the excitement of it all wore me out so much I went home to bed.
Wal, a bus is a vehicle but a buss is a kiss so I guess you could say if two buses met head on one bus busses the other bus . . . except: the spelling book gives two plural spellings for bus . . . buses and busses . . . so once again the beauty of the English language confuses foreigners and americans alike. Thus the americans and arabs should kiss and make up. Headlines scream: buss ends war. Insert picture of bus.
-- capn skyp
be President. I am beginning to believe it."
- - Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
What, me worry? Click on: DUBYA
Okay, give griftproductions website another try. Mike Finoia's got his interview with Kesey there. Have to bear with it a while. Took two and a half minutes to load in on my old slow computer and old slow phone line. Click on:
GRIFTPROD
World class fly fisherman, author and accomplished painter, John Babbs has published a fly fishing book, Yellow Leaves.
For more, including an excerpt and how to get the book, click on:
JOHN
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2003
To see what this is all about, go to:
MOTOWHEEL
From the WolfMan, comes:
So in all of this after all of these years, what is the mystery? I'm still with my wife of now 25 years in the fall. Not much feeling left, but maybe recoverable. What would ye say is the main thing to pursue in life to make it go again? You seem to have it going. Any advice oh Intrepid one? Cap'n?
Engenders this response:
Wal it is always a mystery to me how in spite of the daily grind and all the fear laden shit comes down on TV and newspapers this is still paradise and even with the seemingly flaws actually is heaven on earth. It is hidden but sometimes made clear. Eyes wide open, like new born babes spoke as a child but now as a man befogged where oh where is the clarity we seek?
There it goes, or was that a little mouse scuttling round the corner. Check with the cat.
-- capn skyp
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2003
White House Cancels Poetry Symposium
NEW YORK (AP) - The White House said Wednesday it postponed a poetry symposium because of concerns that the event would be politicized. Some poets had said they wanted to protest military action against Iraq.
The symposium on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman was scheduled for Feb. 12. No future date has been announced.
``While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum.'' Noelia Rodriguez, spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush, said Wednesday.
Mrs. Bush, a former librarian who has made teaching and early childhood development her signature issues, has held a series of White House symposiums to salute America's authors. The gatherings are usually lively affairs with discussions of literature and its societal impact.
But the poetry symposium soon inspired a nationwide protest.
Sam Hamill, a poet and founder of the highly regarded Copper Canyon Press, declined the invitation and e-mailed friends asking for anti-war poems or statements. He encouraged those who planned to attend to bring along anti-war poems.
Hamill said he's gotten more than 1,500 contributions, including ones from poets W.S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
``I'm putting in 18-hour days. I'm 60 and I'm tired, but it's pretty wonderful,'' says Hamill, based in Port Townsend, Wash., and author of such works as ``Destination Zero'' and ``Gratitude.''
Marilyn Nelson, Connecticut's poet laureate, said Wednesday that she had accepted the White House invitation and had planned to wear a silk scarf with peace signs that she commissioned.
``I had decided to go because I felt my presence would promote peace,'' she said.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2003
*************HAY FOR THE HORSES
He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds-
'I'm sixty-eight,' he said,
'I first bucked hay when I was seventeen
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done.'GARY SNYDER
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2003
Last night I was going to sleep to the radio, after working late on my house remodel plans. I was tuning, looking for "Coast to coast" (Art Bell's successor), but only got noise when tuned to the station's spot on the dial. I was about to give up, when suddenly it came on. After the news on the hour, a discussion of Skull & Bones, the secret Yale U. "club" that counts as its members the Bushes, as well as most of the directors of the CIA and many high government officials, including most of W Bush's closest advisors. A caller mentioned that, just as the information was really getting to the point, his radio station suddenly "went off", as though jammed. I wondered, had the same thing happenned here? Then, after several minutes of rather scary discussion of the power and potential evil of this super-secret "club", one of the participants was telling a particularly juicy story about a Sk ull & Bones wedding. Apparently, this party was a hidden witness. It went something like this: " I was watching, and the Bonesmen ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" White noise. Just as we were going to hear what these guys actually did at their secret gathering.
After maybe half an hour, the station came back on, with absolutely no explanation or even mention of the curious interruption.-- Agent Skypilot Geo
Cap'n
Seems to me whomever may be the producer of Coast to Coast AM has a great sense of humor. What a great prank! Tweaking the conspiracy seeking listeners of that show is what's perfectly necessary.
Cheez
capn:
Yale is the mother chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. Gerald Ford was a DEKE at Michigan.
Bill Simon was a DEKE. George Bush was a DEKE. Quayle was a DEKE. There is a connection between DEKE and Skull and Bones but I don't know what it is. One of buddies is going to get his MYSTIC BOOK OUT FOR ME TONIGHT. According to him, the DEKE flag flew on the moon(Alan Bean of Texas) and their ritual is the only one not printed and in the Library of Congress. And one more thing: Remember American Bandstand----Dick Clark was a DEKE at Syracuse.
best,
doubleaura (that's me on the left, skypilotclub member in good standing and on the right is Mr. Hugh Taylor. The photo was taken by a world class photographer Michael Palmer. He became world famous in December of 2000 when he photographed a young black man carrying an unconscious little blond headed white girl out of the savage devastation produced when a twister went through the Bear Creek Trailer Park.)
Alan Bean was a DEKE. Eeek!
For some great pics of skypilots on the moon click on:
http://www.alanbeangallery.com/howitfelt.html
and also:
http://www.alanbeangallery.com/ourown.htmlFor more old pages click on: MORE To return to main page click on: HOME