The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (44 page)
Read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
Tags: #United States, #Social Science, #General, #Popular Culture, #History, #20th Century
“Well, tell me, Ken, could you give some idea of what an LSD trip is like?”
“Yeah, it blows you out of your gourd.”
"Tucker stares at himâ
“Wellânow, you'reâgoing to tell all the people not to take it any more, is that correct?”
“I'm going to tell them to move on to the next step.”
“The next step?”
“It's time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. I don't know what this is going to be in any way I could just spell out, but I know we've reached a certain point but we're not moving any more, we're not creating any more, and that's why we've got to move on to the next stepâ”
The next step? â¦
it keeps going that way ⦠They can't figure out what in the name of Christ this big cowboy is saying ⦠What about the
danger
, man, those
sugar cubes
we had up
there ⦠and down in front of me, amid the wires and lights, a technician and a production assistant are frantically scrawling away on a big cue board with a marking pencil and they thrust it close to Tucker and Kesey, just out of camera rangeâ
it keeps going that way ⦠They can't figure out what in the name of Christ this big cowboy is saying ⦠What about the
danger
, man, those
sugar cubes
we had up
there ⦠and down in front of me, amid the wires and lights, a technician and a production assistant are frantically scrawling away on a big cue board with a marking pencil and they thrust it close to Tucker and Kesey, just out of camera rangeâ
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DANGER OF LSD! SAY ABOUT LSD BEING
DANGEROUSâESPECIALLY FOR KIDS!
DANGEROUSâESPECIALLY FOR KIDS!
âand Kesey just looks at them and gives them the biggest, most inscrutable upcountry smile, which on the screen looks as though he has suddenly gazed off toward an old buddy who is saying, What a shuck, Kee-zee â¦
Later in the day, rolling across the TV screens of San Francisco again, Kesey and the Pranksters and the bus pull up to Winterland to look it over for the ACID TEST GRADUATION ⦠TV microphones ⦠Kesey in Flag People coveralls and a ten-gallon straw hat â¦
“Ken!Ken!” A TV announcer heaves into position. “Ken, could you tell us something about the message you're going to have for the kids at this Acid Test Graduation?”
Kesey says, “I'm going to tell them, âNever trust aâ'”
BRAAAAAAAAAAANG
A huge glob of feedback screels into the microphoneâ
“Could you repeat that, Ken?”
“Braaaaaaaaaaang,” says Kesey.
“Ha-ha. No, what you were saying.”
“Never trust a Prankster,” says Kesey. The scene breaks up in a covey of Flag People bobbing off the bus â¦
Never trust a Prankster! â¦
Shit! ⦠That shakes them up all over again in Haight-Ashbury, there's no getting around that. A whole new inflammation of paranoia. The lunger heads are slithering up and down the store fronts on Haight Street. They're hunkered down gabbling in the India-print living rooms. The whole thing takes a Stakhanovite left turn. Kesey is not a right deviationist but a left deviationist. He's not going to cop out by
telling the kids to stop taking LSD, that's just the cover story. Instead he's going to pull a monster prank that will wreck the psychedelic movement once and for all ⦠Well, the acid heads in Haight-Ashbury are like a tribe in one respect, anyway, I can see that. It's all jungle drums and gossip with them, they love it, they swim in it, like fish in a stream in a cave ⦠A terrific thought bubbles up in the universal brain ⦠The Acid Test Graduation is scheduled for Winterland on Monday, October 31, Halloween. The next night the California Democratic Party is holding a big rally in Winterland for Governor Brown, who is running against Ronald Reagan. Kesey and the Pranksters hold their Winterland blast on Halloween. Right? Far from being an “acid graduation,” it will be an Acid Test of unbelievable proportions. Electric Kool-Aid will rain in the air like a typhoon, swizzle up every vein, 6,000 heads smashed out of their nuts, ricocheting off the walls like electric golf balls ⦠The sky falls ⦠But that's not all. They won't stop there! these maniacs ⦠The Pranksters will smear all the doors, railings, walls, chairs, the heating systèm, the water fountains, with DMSO ⦠laced with LSD ⦠Dig? ⦠DMSO is close to being an old alchemical ideal, the universal solvent. Put a drop of DMSO on your fingertip and thirty seconds later you can taste it in your mouth. It goes right through your skin and through your system that fast. DMSO with LSD ⦠What a vision! The following night the entire Democratic Party of California will get turned on, zonked out of their apples. Eight thousand emphysematous fatbacked Senators, Assemblymen, National Committeemen, National Committeewomen, Congressmen, the Governor himself, wailing like banshees, flopping around and gurgling and spitting and frying like a pile of insane pancakes, whereupon the Deaf Policemen descend on the whole psychedelic movement with knouts flailing â¦
Shit! ⦠That shakes them up all over again in Haight-Ashbury, there's no getting around that. A whole new inflammation of paranoia. The lunger heads are slithering up and down the store fronts on Haight Street. They're hunkered down gabbling in the India-print living rooms. The whole thing takes a Stakhanovite left turn. Kesey is not a right deviationist but a left deviationist. He's not going to cop out by
telling the kids to stop taking LSD, that's just the cover story. Instead he's going to pull a monster prank that will wreck the psychedelic movement once and for all ⦠Well, the acid heads in Haight-Ashbury are like a tribe in one respect, anyway, I can see that. It's all jungle drums and gossip with them, they love it, they swim in it, like fish in a stream in a cave ⦠A terrific thought bubbles up in the universal brain ⦠The Acid Test Graduation is scheduled for Winterland on Monday, October 31, Halloween. The next night the California Democratic Party is holding a big rally in Winterland for Governor Brown, who is running against Ronald Reagan. Kesey and the Pranksters hold their Winterland blast on Halloween. Right? Far from being an “acid graduation,” it will be an Acid Test of unbelievable proportions. Electric Kool-Aid will rain in the air like a typhoon, swizzle up every vein, 6,000 heads smashed out of their nuts, ricocheting off the walls like electric golf balls ⦠The sky falls ⦠But that's not all. They won't stop there! these maniacs ⦠The Pranksters will smear all the doors, railings, walls, chairs, the heating systèm, the water fountains, with DMSO ⦠laced with LSD ⦠Dig? ⦠DMSO is close to being an old alchemical ideal, the universal solvent. Put a drop of DMSO on your fingertip and thirty seconds later you can taste it in your mouth. It goes right through your skin and through your system that fast. DMSO with LSD ⦠What a vision! The following night the entire Democratic Party of California will get turned on, zonked out of their apples. Eight thousand emphysematous fatbacked Senators, Assemblymen, National Committeemen, National Committeewomen, Congressmen, the Governor himself, wailing like banshees, flopping around and gurgling and spitting and frying like a pile of insane pancakes, whereupon the Deaf Policemen descend on the whole psychedelic movement with knouts flailing â¦
Christ! what a stew ⦠Now the heads don't know whether Kesey is selling them out or shoving a big Roman candle up the universal arse. They're fascinated. They come around the Warehouse and peep into the gloom. Their eyes shine at the doorway
with a hepatic fever ⦠They come into the Warehouse, they stare at the bus, they stare at Kesey, Mountain Girl, Cassady, Babbs ⦠A whole platoon of them comes in, beads rattling, teetering around like gauchos, staring at the bus and going “Wowwwww! Wowwwwwww!” and smiling at each other, like, it's so groooovy, and suddenly all the Pranksters fall silent. “Cops,” says Mountain Girl in total disgust. “How do you know?” “Look at their shoes.” They have on lace-up boots like telephone linesmen. “You could never git heads to wear heavy shoes like that,” she says. Only a momentary downer, however. The fact is, the Pranksters are sailing. They've got the whole town into their movie by now, cops and all. Kesey is all over TV, radio, and newspapers. He's a celebrity, the perfect celebrity, the Good-Bad Guy, reeking all the secret Zea-lot delights of sin but promising to do good. They were all over town on the bus, befuddling the communal brain ⦠Even into Fillmore, the big Negro section, with the loudspeakers playing rock ân' roll and American flags flying and a big sign on the bus reading
with a hepatic fever ⦠They come into the Warehouse, they stare at the bus, they stare at Kesey, Mountain Girl, Cassady, Babbs ⦠A whole platoon of them comes in, beads rattling, teetering around like gauchos, staring at the bus and going “Wowwwww! Wowwwwwww!” and smiling at each other, like, it's so groooovy, and suddenly all the Pranksters fall silent. “Cops,” says Mountain Girl in total disgust. “How do you know?” “Look at their shoes.” They have on lace-up boots like telephone linesmen. “You could never git heads to wear heavy shoes like that,” she says. Only a momentary downer, however. The fact is, the Pranksters are sailing. They've got the whole town into their movie by now, cops and all. Kesey is all over TV, radio, and newspapers. He's a celebrity, the perfect celebrity, the Good-Bad Guy, reeking all the secret Zea-lot delights of sin but promising to do good. They were all over town on the bus, befuddling the communal brain ⦠Even into Fillmore, the big Negro section, with the loudspeakers playing rock ân' roll and American flags flying and a big sign on the bus reading
COLORED POWER
moving through the ghetto in a blur of Day-Glo swirls. The spades in Fillmore didn't know what the hell to make of that. Were these white freaks
serious,
only they got the term wrong? Or was it a shuuuuuuuuuuuckâby the time they figured it out, the bus was long gone, wailing off somewhere else. Then the big sign
serious,
only they got the term wrong? Or was it a shuuuuuuuuuuuckâby the time they figured it out, the bus was long gone, wailing off somewhere else. Then the big sign
ACID TEST GRADUATION
went up on the bus, and the bus went wheeling through Haight-Ashbury and downtown San Francisco and North Beach and Berkeley advertising the world's biggest convocation of all the heads. Pranksters flapping from every portal. George Walker up on top on the drums, Page on the electric guitar. Mountain Girl
hanging out the back of the bus exploding sunballs and screaming at the nonplused multitudes on the subject of the race for governor and Kesey's various busts
hanging out the back of the bus exploding sunballs and screaming at the nonplused multitudes on the subject of the race for governor and Kesey's various busts
“Kesey for Governor!”
“A man of convictions!”
“He stands on his record!”
“The idiot's choice!”
“A joint in every stash!”
“No hope without dope!”
They were
immune
again. The whole freaking town was into the movie. And after â¦
immune
again. The whole freaking town was into the movie. And after â¦
⦠WINTERLAND; YES ⦠THE HARDEST PART OF THE WHOLE fantasy, as usual, has been finding the right place. Winterland is perfect, the biggest indoor arena in the city limits, and a tight ship, used for ice shows and so on. The Winterland management didn't want to deal directly with Kesey and the Pranksters. Maniacs! jailbirds ⦠That was where Bill Graham came in. There was no love lost between Graham and Kesey, but Graham agrees to serve as producer, impresario, the sane hand on the controls, and sign the contract. Graham's job is to stay up on top of the new wave. But it's an aesthetic and moral thing with him, too. He's a believer, underneath it all ⦠Hmmmm ⦠There's Kesey ⦠Well ⦠Anyway, Hallinan and Rohan draw up a contract between Graham and Intrepid Trips, Inc. It's signed and a deposit is down, all legal and locked up.
Then there's the Grateful Dead. Kesey wants them for the Acid Test Graduation. They're essential, he says. But the Dead have a contract to play at an annual Halloween costume ball at California Hall. Ironically, the Pranksters' benefactors, the Calliope Company, were sponsoring it, and they had an impresario named Bob McKendrick running it. Kesey and McKendrick and a couple of the Calliope Company, Paul Hawken, Michael Laton and Bill Tara, are up in an apartment on the top floors of a rickety
building on Pine Street, all wood slats and bay windows. There are no furnishings, just a mattress in the living room. The sun makes a huge glare in here. Kesey sits on the mattress and everybody else is hunkered down on the floor. Except McKendrick. He is standing up in the middle of the floor like someone dancing on a hot plate. He has on tight black pants, black shark toe slip-on shoes, a soft black sweater and open-neck shirt ⦠dressed Main Stem hipster, in short. He's broken up in the glare, twenty-seven parts, all fidgeting.
building on Pine Street, all wood slats and bay windows. There are no furnishings, just a mattress in the living room. The sun makes a huge glare in here. Kesey sits on the mattress and everybody else is hunkered down on the floor. Except McKendrick. He is standing up in the middle of the floor like someone dancing on a hot plate. He has on tight black pants, black shark toe slip-on shoes, a soft black sweater and open-neck shirt ⦠dressed Main Stem hipster, in short. He's broken up in the glare, twenty-seven parts, all fidgeting.
“Look, Ken,” he's saying, “you're a leader, a prophet, you might say, and you have an important message, and I dig that, you know? I respect that ⦠But I have to think of this in other terms. I'm responsible to a lot of people, and there's a lot of money involved.”
Twenty-seven parts!âall moving, doesn't anyone see that this is a main chance, this dance at California Hall, in the impresario game. Kesey just sits there and keeps working on him like how long is it before he will see how it's going to beâHell, man! join forces with the Pranksters. Move your scene to Winterland, co-sponsor it. If he doesn't, everybody on ⦠The Scene will go to Winterland anyway, and he and his whole California Hall scene will be wiped out anyway. McKendrick is beside himself. His black pants shimmy in the glare. He smells disaster either way. Put me back together again! Everyone stares. It's all glare and myopia in here! He comes to a stop. He agrees. He pulls out of California Hall, freeing the Dead, thrash, crumbleâ
âbits and freaking pieces, grumbling. The heads start grumbling about Kesey's power play.
Kesey's power play
. The Grateful Dead ⦠They've been doing all right! Since the Acid Tests they have become a
thing,
the pioneers of the new sound, acid rock, with the record companies beginning to sniff around :::: hmmmmm ::::
the very next thing?
Freak that. All and everyone in one bag now, Winterland.
Kesey's power play
. The Grateful Dead ⦠They've been doing all right! Since the Acid Tests they have become a
thing,
the pioneers of the new sound, acid rock, with the record companies beginning to sniff around :::: hmmmmm ::::
the very next thing?
Freak that. All and everyone in one bag now, Winterland.
Friday night and the Pranksters decide to drop in on the Fillmore. Like, well, it's Friday night. Kesey, Cassady, Babbs, Page,
about a dozen of them, all in the Flag People coveralls, Cassady flipping his sledgehammer. The scene around the Fillmore is a freak show for sure. The dance hall is set down right in the middle of the Negro slums, at Fillmore and Geary, and it's Friday night with a lot of young spades with Stingy-Brim hats on out on the street having the usual Friday night on the streets and old Negro women doing the groceries for the weekend, liquor stores, drugstores, cars inching along, black faces all over the streets. Right in the middle of them, the white freaks. Kids in psychedelic dress burbling and gaggling up to the FillmoreâColored Power! the kids have that, all right. Kesey and the Pranksters walk up the stairs to the dance hall, which is on the second floor. Kesey talks to the ticket seller and the ticket taker. There's a big conference. The ticket taker goes upstairs. He comes back ⦠like, very bad vibrations ⦠They can't come in unless they buy tickets ⦠Graham ⦠bad vibrations, a freaking insult, in fact. The Pranksters go back out on the street to mull that one over. There's a Cyclone fence at the rear entrance of the Fillmore with a freaked-out chomping police dog behind it ⦠Graham ⦠Cassady goes off ⦠A few minutes later he's back.
about a dozen of them, all in the Flag People coveralls, Cassady flipping his sledgehammer. The scene around the Fillmore is a freak show for sure. The dance hall is set down right in the middle of the Negro slums, at Fillmore and Geary, and it's Friday night with a lot of young spades with Stingy-Brim hats on out on the street having the usual Friday night on the streets and old Negro women doing the groceries for the weekend, liquor stores, drugstores, cars inching along, black faces all over the streets. Right in the middle of them, the white freaks. Kids in psychedelic dress burbling and gaggling up to the FillmoreâColored Power! the kids have that, all right. Kesey and the Pranksters walk up the stairs to the dance hall, which is on the second floor. Kesey talks to the ticket seller and the ticket taker. There's a big conference. The ticket taker goes upstairs. He comes back ⦠like, very bad vibrations ⦠They can't come in unless they buy tickets ⦠Graham ⦠bad vibrations, a freaking insult, in fact. The Pranksters go back out on the street to mull that one over. There's a Cyclone fence at the rear entrance of the Fillmore with a freaked-out chomping police dog behind it ⦠Graham ⦠Cassady goes off ⦠A few minutes later he's back.
“I ran into Bill Graham,” he says. “He was out on the street checking tire treads to see if they'd picked up any nickels. I says, âBill â¦' and he says, âLook, Neal, we're in two different worlds. You're a hippie and I'm a square.
Square.'
He did it like this”âand Cassady makes a square in the air with his forefingers to show how he did itâ“âYou're a hippie and I'm a square.' Says, âI got off the subway in 1955, but you're still on it. We're in two different worlds. You're a hippie and I'm a square.' I'm telling you, Chief,” he says to Kesey, “I had some very negative feelings. I remembered what you said about negative feelings, but I had some very negative feelings.” Kesey laughs, butâ
Square.'
He did it like this”âand Cassady makes a square in the air with his forefingers to show how he did itâ“âYou're a hippie and I'm a square.' Says, âI got off the subway in 1955, but you're still on it. We're in two different worlds. You're a hippie and I'm a square.' I'm telling you, Chief,” he says to Kesey, “I had some very negative feelings. I remembered what you said about negative feelings, but I had some very negative feelings.” Kesey laughs, butâ
All day Saturday the Pranksters are working like mad. They're hassling up all sorts of equipment, mikes, spots, amplifiers, speakers, strobes, even an electronic music machine, all the stuff they had at the Acid Tests and more. They can't get into
Winterland until Sunday to start rigging it up because there's some show in there Saturday night. Anyway, they're working
en charrette
Saturday and into Saturday night ⦠At five o'clock in the morning, Sunday, it hits the fan. Kesey's lawyer, Rohan, gets wakened up at 5 a.m., at home ⦠Graham is on the phone, very excited, explaining a million things a mile a minute.
Winterland until Sunday to start rigging it up because there's some show in there Saturday night. Anyway, they're working
en charrette
Saturday and into Saturday night ⦠At five o'clock in the morning, Sunday, it hits the fan. Kesey's lawyer, Rohan, gets wakened up at 5 a.m., at home ⦠Graham is on the phone, very excited, explaining a million things a mile a minute.
They are having quite a little session up in Graham's office at the Fillmore. All night it's been going on. Graham has been wrestling with many negative feelings. He knows that term, too. By heartâalso Chet Helms knows it, and the Grateful Dead, and the Quicksilver Messenger Service, and more and more ::::: three fourths of The Scene is here, says Graham, the're all over the place, hanging on the walls ⦠Everyone is in a terrific sweat. Are we actually going to let Kesey do this thing? pull off this debacle? Go ::::
beyond acid
, whatever that may be, which, whatever it is, is no good for anyone here ⦠They've hauled out all the versions, the cop-out, the power play, the way Kesey twisted McKendrick's arm, the DMSO ⦠the DMSO! ⦠That's it! Christ, Bill, can't you see ⦠They're putting pressure on Graham to pull out of the deal ⦠They've got me by each limb, wild tow trucks heading to the four points of the compass ⦠The more they talk, the more urgent it is to
do
something, else, Christ, why have we been here all night ⦠Hope incubates in the warm loam of every armpit ⦠Helms has it figured out. Kesey's mentality is military. He thinks in terms of power differentials. He's playing the desert foxâlure the enemy into your own battleground by doing a turn-face claiming you came back to stop kids from taking acid, and when you have thousands of these straight people together, turn them on to acid. Kesey's playing the tactical deceit and façade gameâand so on ⦠And the Dead ⦠Why should we blow our hard-earned scenes for Kesey? As Ralph Gleason the columnist says ⦠Kesey's going to blow the whole new San Francisco scene for us. And Graham ⦠I ran into Cassady on the street. He's waving this sledgehammer at me like he's going to knock my head off if I don't play ball ⦠Many negative
feelings. Kesey's an Elmer Gantry, says Graham ⦠That's it! Elmer Gantry, the evangelical demagogue ⦠Freaking debacle either way ⦠If he blows it, he blows it for us all. If he succeeds, he takes over the whole psychedelic movement and leads it into the Elmer Gantry thing, Father Divine, Daddy Grace, Cagliostro, charlatan limbo, sledgehammer theocracy, a phosphorescent fascist fandango, King Herod spavining the Flower Children, O Fuck & Corruption, G-narl, G-nash, Elmer Gantry Cagliostro Day-Glo Nero ⦠Stop Kesey â¦
beyond acid
, whatever that may be, which, whatever it is, is no good for anyone here ⦠They've hauled out all the versions, the cop-out, the power play, the way Kesey twisted McKendrick's arm, the DMSO ⦠the DMSO! ⦠That's it! Christ, Bill, can't you see ⦠They're putting pressure on Graham to pull out of the deal ⦠They've got me by each limb, wild tow trucks heading to the four points of the compass ⦠The more they talk, the more urgent it is to
do
something, else, Christ, why have we been here all night ⦠Hope incubates in the warm loam of every armpit ⦠Helms has it figured out. Kesey's mentality is military. He thinks in terms of power differentials. He's playing the desert foxâlure the enemy into your own battleground by doing a turn-face claiming you came back to stop kids from taking acid, and when you have thousands of these straight people together, turn them on to acid. Kesey's playing the tactical deceit and façade gameâand so on ⦠And the Dead ⦠Why should we blow our hard-earned scenes for Kesey? As Ralph Gleason the columnist says ⦠Kesey's going to blow the whole new San Francisco scene for us. And Graham ⦠I ran into Cassady on the street. He's waving this sledgehammer at me like he's going to knock my head off if I don't play ball ⦠Many negative
feelings. Kesey's an Elmer Gantry, says Graham ⦠That's it! Elmer Gantry, the evangelical demagogue ⦠Freaking debacle either way ⦠If he blows it, he blows it for us all. If he succeeds, he takes over the whole psychedelic movement and leads it into the Elmer Gantry thing, Father Divine, Daddy Grace, Cagliostro, charlatan limbo, sledgehammer theocracy, a phosphorescent fascist fandango, King Herod spavining the Flower Children, O Fuck & Corruption, G-narl, G-nash, Elmer Gantry Cagliostro Day-Glo Nero ⦠Stop Kesey â¦
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