Friday, March 23, 2012

Hell's Angels and the frozen jug band

The group decided to invite the Hell's angels, A well known gang, to party with them in La Honda. They plan a big party at Kesey's place and all the 'Angels' show up on their defening, loud harleys. The pranksters has the trees all ready and painted with day glo with speakers booming from the trees. Hell's Angels didn't know what to expect or how to react but once the Pranksters gave them LSD everyone had a good time. The cops are watching but as of now, they aren't breaking any rules besides for public nudity so the cops stay at a distance. The cops still don't break up the party even after two days, and a gang rape. Members of a church had become curious with what the Pranksters were up to so they invited the group to join them during a serman. Kesey is getting caught up in the fact that he can easily manipulate people and the power is all going to his head. He starts to turn the young people of the church againt the older priests and such and with this Kesey realizes he can control more people than who's just in the Merry Pranksters. Kesey is overwhelmed with this new found power and while having a bad trip, believes he can control anything, including cars rushing past him.

The Pranksters hear word that the Beatles are coming to play in San Francisco. Kesey gets 30 tickets to the sold out show from his acid dealer so they are set and ready to go. They all trip acid and play popular Beatles songs as they're on their way to the concerts in costumes and everything.On the way while tripping on acid, they all begin to experience a 'transcendental experience'. Wolfe describes it as: "no one even has to look at another because they not only know that everyone else is seeing it at once, they feel, they feel it flowing through one brain, Atman and Brahman, all one on the bus and all one with the writhing mass sun reflector ripple sun bomb prisms." Wolfe describes this feeling of complete intersubjectivity and transcendence as "CLOUD," when they could "draw the whole universe into...the movie." The venue is an old cattle herding/ slaughter house converted into a place for a concert and their trip starts going terribly bad. Mountain Girl says it looks like a concentration camp and they all soon feel lost in the crowd of people. When the show is over they all feel as though they're getting trampled and someone spred false word about the Beatles coming to La honda. On the way home they try and find their 'Cloud' of a trip but everyone is still too down and all they care about is getting home. Once the get there they are welcomed by a crowd of hundreds of people and Kesey storms into the house. One of the guys in the crowd, however, catches Kesey's eye and Wolfe starts to give background information. This man was the biggest acid dealer in the states and was well known for his quality of drugs. He and his friend had started the band Grateful Dead and began the wave of acid rock. The Beatles 'come up with' the idea for the Magical Mystery Tour where they all dress up and take acid on a bus but of course, thie was the Merry Pranksters idea first.
Kesey gets asked to be a keyspeaker for a rally against the war but instead of speaking, they decide to do a prank. Instead of protesting they decide to play music which confuses the crowd but they eventually die down. Someone throws teargas into the group of people and everyone dispurses.

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