The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

I still think his greatest novel was the "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", which is sort of this history of the LSD counterculture movement, starts at Stanford, moves to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.

and Thompson's like all right they're not eating each other skulls like we can hang out a little bit so they hung out and it was interesting how acid pacified the Angels instead of made them violent and that's what acid you know of course that's what acid is but they spent the night hanging out there Thompson was writing so he's like I'm not gonna do drugs he's like I'll have a few drinks he's taking notes for his his book

and so this is why we talk about truth later in life Thompson some biographies might have said that he actually recorded the event he didn't he went back and he took these long audio notes right of like shadow and light and the horror that he saw no that's what I'm saying yeah he took the audio notes the recordings he made the recordings yes yes and then he gave those to Tom Wolf and Tom Wolf that's what I'm saying exactly yeah but some people have said that he put the tape recorder in the room no no that's not what I meant I mean he gave him the recordings and I was really they're beautiful I mean like they're terrifying but it's about like violence and shadow and light and horror you know it's a horrific it's a horrific scene that this Thompson's brilliance at that age he could in an audio note get the fucking images and details that he needs to express the nature of that instant and so Tom Wolf used those to create it himself but then Thompson recreated it too or wrote about it in Hell's Angels yeah but in a more distant way than Wolf did which is crazy because he was actually there it's fucking crazy dude

Um, and it documents a Merry Prankster. It was basically a school bus, uh, psychedelically painted full of hippies driving around with gallons and gallons of acid.

One of my favorite books. Required reading. Really good.

I also read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test around the same time. And I was just like, I love Hunter Thompson, but Tom Wolfe is just, I think by far the better journalist.

He was notable for being a part of the Merry Pranksters, which, um, is documented in the great, great Tom Wolf book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

One of my favorite books.

Required reading.

Really good.

He starts talking to me, talking to me about psychedelics and quantum mechanics and shit. And usually I don't like talking about it. That was an interesting conversation. It was really dope. You should read the book that Ken Kesey acid. That's what he was saying. He was like, you got to read the book, man. So I Googled it. So I ordered it on Amazon.

I also really like Tom Wolf especially um the electric cool aid no uh no no no uh yeah yeah the electric cool aid acid test yep yes exactly and and and candy colored tangerine flake baby that's also a great collection of uh this he wasn't as much of a Gonzo journalist as Thompson but man he had an eye for the times and he could sure write man those those uh those articles are so brilliantly plotted in books yeah he really nailed it so

Ken Kesey, the hero of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Ken Kesey, the hero of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

And I think maybe maybe that was a different time because I just remember having access to all kinds of inappropriate material my Local library you know studying my parents finally drew the line of the electric kool-aid acid test by Ken Kesey Which I remember when they saw they're like nope you can't read that But they didn't care that I read Dean Coontz and Stephen King and all this like murder You know psychotic you know devil worship book, but a little bit of counterculture hippie dumb. You know about LSD Was was a bridge too far

And I think maybe maybe that was a different time because I just remember having access to all kinds of inappropriate material my Local library you know studying my parents finally drew the line of the electric kool-aid acid test by Ken Kesey Which I remember when they saw they're like nope you can't read that But they didn't care that I read Dean Coontz and Stephen King and all this like murder You know psychotic you know devil worship book, but a little bit of counterculture hippie dumb. You know about LSD Was was a bridge too far

And I read it and I was like, how could anyone read this and not see how preposterous the claims people are making about these things to, you know what I mean?

So you read like Dydian or you read Tom Wolfe and you're like, yeah, it wasn't the paradise that maybe we are retroactively imagining that it was.

actually I don't know if I should say this but Tom Wolf's estate reached out and they asked if I would write a new intro to the electric cool aid acid test. So in like the 60s Tom Wolf wrote this book about Timothy Leary and like his band of Mary Pranks or whatever and I was rereading it because they asked me and it was like amazing how utterly similar all of the types and the fascination and the the certainty that they've discovered this thing that will solve all of the world's problems and then just like how comical and delusional and dangerous it turns out to be like in retrospect.