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Was anyone here on the 60's counterculture scene?

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ohayoco

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Is there anyone on here who was on the 60's counterculture scene?

I'd love to hear about what it was really like, I bet everyone would!

The only primary source I've ever seen is from watching the Woodstock video. Everything else is hearsay really.

I'm particularly interested in what the people were like- were they mainly as good intentioned as is made out, or were they a motley bunch of the most and least ethical, like hipsterism and all the other subcultures of today descended from the Beats and the hippies? I'm also interested in the autonomy movement and free love. :)
 
SWIM has met and is related to several people from the 60s european counterculture, like people travelling from europe to india on buses/vans, passing through afghanistan, pakistan etc... Very very very interesting people with incredible stories

I dont think that they are/were more enlightened than people nowadays but neither that it was a bunch of wannabes and pretentious people... I think that as with every group you see 'good' and 'bad'... The commonality between them is that they all believed the society as it was organized was wrong, so they 'dropped out' and looked for their own ways, but obviously some were reckless junkies, others were 'vampires' that just sucked and gave no good input, and others were very very good and special people.

I will see if I get permission to post some of the amazing pictures that some of these people have shown me from those times.
 
Yeah, that would be awesome!
I am really interested in what kind of people they were (the 'freaks'?)... because while hipsterdom/artdom today seems vacuous, they at least it seems shared an optimism for a better world and I'd expect such idealism to rub off on people. I hear Hunter S. Thompson lamented how this 60s idealism seemed to disappear when the 70s came, that people forgot about what it was really about.

In your experience, do you think that counterculture brings the most well-meaning and ill-meaning together in the same places? This is my theory. Versus the comparable uniformity of the 'straights'? Or do you just think that the straights hide it better? I have seen and heard of some grotesque things on the party scene.
 
well honestly, even if hunter thompson is very inteligent and has a very special writting style, I think he doesnt seem like someone with much conscience to begin with... He was a take-any-and-all-drugs kind of person, had his very strong violent side, always with guns, and killed himself.. So I think maybe he didnt know what 'it was really about' to begin with.

I dont think the hipster or whatever you call nowadays is empty... I wasnt there but my good friends were in the psychedelic symposium in switzerland and it seems that was a perfect example of how the 'scene' has some very very good souls.

It does make a lot of sense what you say about the counter culture bringing the extremes. Some are honestly trying to improve themselves and the world, while others are exploiting the flexibility and openness of the counterculture to fulfil their unbalanced desires and habits.

but also you know what, I think that the 'straights' are many times extremely crazy, but its just that their persona is adjusted to society so we dont notice it.. but underneath there's so much crazyness and extremes.. Like all these weird sexual kinks, or crazy neurotic habits, and so on...

btw I think I already recommended but do check the book 'brotherhood of eternal love: from flower power to hippie mafia'

its very very nice and well researched book, mostly about the american side of the counterculture (leary, kesey, owsley and other acid cooks, etc) with a lot of stories. Sounds like exactly what you would love to read about.
 
Yes I put it on my list, thanks :)
Although one of the 3 reviews on Amazon says that its facts are messsed up...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1UA2XY9Q6NFXN/ref=cm_pdp_about_see_review?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview said:
Good story, unfortunately it's 90% fiction. For example the Marsh Chapel experiment had nothing to do with LSD and none of the participants thought they were a fish or wondered into the streets of Boston believing they were Christ as the book claims (nor did the experiment take place in 1963), this fabrication is based loosely on the well publicised Marsh Chapel psilocybin experiment of 1962 but all the facts have been changed to fit author's fictional account of the history of LSD. It's like a collection of the worst tabloid style stories only loosely based on fact collated into one book. Read it as a work of fiction but please do not be mistaken into thinking that anything presented in this book actually happened as described. For a more accurate cultural history of psychedelic drugs see Andy Letcher's Shroom.
Click to expand...
Could just be a smartarse though, or the author of the alternative book he recommends!
This one looks interesting too: "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD"
 
ohayoco said:
Yes I put it on my list, thanks :)
Although one of the 3 reviews on Amazon says that its facts are messsed up...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1UA2XY9Q6NFXN/ref=cm_pdp_about_see_review?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview said:
Good story, unfortunately it's 90% fiction. For example the Marsh Chapel experiment had nothing to do with LSD and none of the participants thought they were a fish or wondered into the streets of Boston believing they were Christ as the book claims (nor did the experiment take place in 1963), this fabrication is based loosely on the well publicised Marsh Chapel psilocybin experiment of 1962 but all the facts have been changed to fit author's fictional account of the history of LSD. It's like a collection of the worst tabloid style stories only loosely based on fact collated into one book. Read it as a work of fiction but please do not be mistaken into thinking that anything presented in this book actually happened as described. For a more accurate cultural history of psychedelic drugs see Andy Letcher's Shroom.
Click to expand...
Could just be a smartarse though, or the author of the alternative book he recommends!
This one looks interesting too: "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD"
Click to expand...


well its simply not true that its 90% fiction... for example all the story of the police operations, the chemists and so on, I have read from different sources that basically confirm a lot of what is said.. Sure its possible there are mistakes and so on, but saying 90% is fiction is a lie or biiig exageration

for example, what this person said about the marsh chapel, its true they mention in the beginning of the book that they tested with LSD, but in the next paragraph they say that 'harvard did not like the psylocibin experiments' or something of the sort, so maybe it was just a mistake when they wrote LSD before.. In any case one should always be critical about things read, no matter where its from, but this book is a good one imo..

and yes this acid dreams seems very interesting too, and as appelseen mentioned, available online.

btw, an example of a very interesting person from the 60s is nick sand. He was one of the acid cooks from those days, seems to be a very special character. There is one podcast where he talks about his experience in prison, very nice stuff, check it out:
 
Cool, I'll have a listen. Yeah I know it's just one guy, I'll read it anyway. I agree Thompson was a nut! But I quite like him, especially when he ran for sheriff.

Here's the Woodstock docufilm if anyone's interested... themoviesempire.com
The end is odd to see nowadays... the field completely covered in rubbish- blankets, cardboard, plastic- a few people picking through, piling up the rubbish and just burning it. I wonder if they meant that ending to have significance?
 
endlessness said:
btw, an example of a very interesting person from the 60s is nick sand. He was one of the acid cooks from those days, seems to be a very special character. There is one podcast where he talks about his experience in prison, very nice stuff, check it out:
http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=146
Click to expand...

Yes, that talk is just incredible, you can get high listening to it. Nick Sands is an :!: amazing guy:!: . He invented smoking freebase DMT (before that they injected). The two essays he wrote on dmt ("Moving to sacred world of DMT" and "Wee bit more about DMT", available at the Files section) are to be considered as essential reading.

He is reported to have written a book about psychedelics when he was in prison, I've been waiting for years for it to come out...
 
yes, one can see this dude really has a developed conscience.. he speaks from the heart. much respect for nick sand!

he has also been interested in gurdjieff, which is, together with psychedelics, what changed my life the most.



nick sand is really in the roots of psychedelic culture. His stories make one have appreciation for what acid represents also, its not just some random man made chemical. It has its place in the whole tale of history.

he also seem to have been very interested in dmt.. didnt know he invented smoking dmt freebase, thats pretty incredible haha
 
Well, none of the old heads found this thread unfortunately, so I've been reading Tom Wolfe's 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'.

Now I know the Merry Pranksters aren't the whole psychedelic movement. But reading what Wolfe had to say, I was disappointed to see so many of the faults of the descendent subcultures inherent in the Prankster's scene. The Pranksters were fun, exciting, 'deconditioned'. But they were jerks. Sometimes I felt as if I was reading an Irving Welsh.

The book is full of snobbiness that you don't find in Kerouac's empathetic view of the world. To me, Kerouac outhippied the hippies- he stands for love... Tom Wolfe's Pranksters just thought they did... they were hypocritical in many ways.

All the selfishness-hidden-behind-love-facade that is my main complaint of most modern hippies seems to have been present since the start of the movement. The only thing that has changed is the plummeted level of optimism. And, no offence, but hippiedom in general nowadays seems a little staid to me, some of them are nice but a lot of them are selfish snobs. I'm not knocking the psychedelic movement completely, because I imagine it did change attitudes to sexual freedom, it did change society in some ways. But I'm disappointed... I guess I was hoping for some kind of nostalgic model that didn't exist. I'm a problem solver by nature, I criticise in order to attempt to improve, please do critise me if I need it, I'll welcome it. :)

Here are the jerkiest things they did according to the book:
-On their first bus trip, a haze of acid, speed and weed, they just abandon the two who ae driven mad and end up in nuthouses. Just carry on without them. They all ignore the need for physical sleep with no regard for each other's health.
-They are innately racist, they never deprogram themselves in this way. When they drive the bus to the negro beach by accident, they meet the only members of the public to dig them. The black people start dancing and having a ball around the bus, and it scares them- it wouldn't have scared them if the crowd was white- and they say when the police moved them on it was the only time they were glad and didn't prank the police into giving up.
-They prefer the company of the Hell's Angels to black people. I get the implication that when they threw the party for them they were showing how they could all get along, but Wolfe says words to this effect "there was only one gang-bang, and it was consensual". Between the lines here I'm guessing that the Angels have a proven reputation for gangrape. Is the solution to stopping rape to just always have up-for-it women around? As for there being no fighting at the party, is the solutionto stop belligerent men fighting to ensure that people just don't piss them off by being likeable?! Of course not, people should just learn to respect each other's right to freedom so long as your freedom doesn't impinging on the freedom of another (do as you will when it harms no other).
-Later on Wolfe says that the Angel's became the 'favoured minority', replacing the blacks. So it's all about what's 'cool', nothing to do with civil liberties any more.
-The Pranksters resent Leary just because he isn't enthralled by their big joke when they turn up uninvited. It sounds like they were pretty rude to the Learyites, even through Wolfe's bias, and even though Leary's bunch seem to have been very tolerant to them, introducing two of them to DMT and offering them Morning Glory because they couldn't meet their demands for 'more LSD!'. The Pranksters seem like petulent spoilt brats here.
The book is steeped in hedonistic selfishness.
-What's with Kesey being the leader? The awful hierarcy? The Prankster social order made me sick, they were like a little tribe of chickens pecking each other, waiting for their cockerel to mount them next. Their social order was a fake heterarchy, and a true tyranny. In effect, you're only 'on the bus' if Kesey approves of you (his minions being extensions of his psyche, more than there being a mixed 'group mind').
-p174 talks about how the comune has degenerated due to its popularity with 'even spades turning up', as if it's the last straw if black people are there!
-p200 Here they ruin an entire anti-war march with their apathetic speech. The vague message was an anarchist one of ignoring the war, as if that would make it go away, rather than taking on the elite at their own game. Let people march if they want to, don't bum them out and dissolve the desire to protest for good. And look at America now, not much protesting goes on there anymore. So now we have a situation where the religious zealots and greedy moneymen hijacked America unopposed.
-p210 Elitism- Jerry Garcia booted out when gatecrashing Penny Lane because he was a nobody back then by 'Kesey and the wine drinkers'. Then when he's in Grateful Dead suddenly Kesey's ego approves.
-p238 An example of how the prankster-hens peck Pancho. Never tried to help him change himself for the better with any compassion. Just pecked and pecked, all rod and no carrot, just like the government do to them.
-p252 Electric Kool Aid- spiking the drink with acid, sending people loopy without consent (mindrape in my eyes). Broadcasting some poor girls freakout over the speakers instead of treating her compassionately.
-Babb's pranking Cassidy and others- they just drive off in the bus and abandon their 'friends'. The group degenerates whenever their cockerel Kesey isn't there.
-p135 political apathy becomes cool in the psychedelic community. Blacks aren't considered 'cool' anymore either, the explanation being that they don't want to live in squalour with pube lice etc etc. So you're only cool now if you do acid and don't do personal hygiene, according to Wolfe (who has a mistaken view that back-to-basics equals filth).
-p340 Kesey's ego makes a powerplay forcing the Dead to drop a concert they're already playing because he wants them at his Acid Test Graduation. No regard for the people he's disappointing from the other gig by doing so, nor the people he's manipulating to get his own way.
p361 The Pranksters piss off a band by being jerks talking over another band's set over the mike. Then when they come on everyone leaves because they're... well, rubbish musicians.

Acid wasn't the answer. Could DMT do better? From the people who talk about it here, one could be tempted to think that's true. Or could it be that Traveler just does a good job of banning jerks? (yeah I know I must sound like a jerk after this rant, I admit it!) :lol:
 
Definitely read Acid Dreams. It is an excellent history of LSD and the 60s counterculture, the CIA involvement with LSD, and other stuff you'll find interesting.
 
Your observations are certainly accurate, Oyahoco. I would contend though that these were not hippy flower children nor were they activists, but beats turned acid-freaks--emphasis on 'freaks'--whose aesthetic and manner had a heavy influence on the hippies, though the pranksters would likely be considered as "morally inferior" to that breed. I personally loathe the hell's angels, Hunter S. Thompson was right on, "exterminate all the brutes."

I generally do not pass moral judgement on the pranksters, but I also do not necessarily hold them in high regard. I have a fascination with them and their lives and their historical significance. Neal Cassady was probably the only one among them that I truly respect and could ever consider among my "heroes." There's still much learn from the pranksters and their endeavors, regardless of their faults.

I feel no need to chastize them, as I could hardly be mistaken as even being one of their breed. We have the luxury of time and distance to be able to assess them freely and, yes, even critically, but perhaps we miss out on something by holding too much moral weight against them.
 
Yep I'll read acid dreams next. I know I sound like an old fart! I too have mixed feelings about the pranksters and admire as much about them as I disapprove... I would love to experience their way of life. Their (presumed) sexual freedom, fun and the sheer fact that they successfully dropped-out, which isn't easy these days what with having to get money somehow, unless you want to squat and battle landlords and authorities all the time. I'm not ready to give up my career, I'm scared of dying in poverty or being stuck in a horrific old people's home to be fed talcum powder by nurses who treat you like cattle... or burn myself out and die early like poor old Cassidy... I really admire their bravery in that respect.

But the 'benefit of hindsight' is a great tool, which is wholly why I'm criticizing- not because I enjoy wagging fingers, but because we can benefit from the analysis. I want to know what went right and what went wrong, so we know what to do NEXT. It doesn't feel like there's anything going on right now, other than the anti-capitalists with all their black and grey and bandito masks and anger and bitterness at the world.

I'm glad to hear you say they're just one subsection of the movement, I thought freak just meant hippy... so flower power is different from 'coloured power' as the Day-Glo Pranksters called it?
 
hey ohayoco, I really enjoy your contributions to this forum, you dont sound like a jerk at all :)

I very much agree that there are many aspects that are quite negative about some of the pranksters and so on.. Its important that we have our critical sense turned on, and dont blindly identify with people just because of one or another similarity with ourselves (like use of psychedelics). But also on the contrary, we shouldnt look only at their faults, because then we'd not realize a lot of contributions they had and can have to society and us. Like when the colonizers arrived and destroyed many cultures, only looking at the negative parts and missed for example learning so much about astronomy and so on..


btw, the 'freak' thing.. I think freak can sometimes be synonymous with hippie, but also sometimes freak may be less 'flower power and love' like hippies and instead a bit more revolt-anarchist style, or just these pure crazy dudes you see in parties that seem to break all rules.

Its one more of those things that different people have different definitions, and all depends on intonation, context and so on.
 
Thanks Endlessness, I'm glad you don't think I'm a jerk! I have a tendency to be overly critical and concentrate on the negative side, fortunately I'm aware of that now and try to balance it out (entheos really help SWIM with that)... yes, it's easy to forget the positive because when something's RIGHT, it isn't drawn to the attention ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it" )

It looks like things were more fragmented back then than I thought, even if still visibly less so than now. I've dipped my toe in some anarchist scenes, they can be great fun but there's something dangerous about that ideology, it's too easy to get what you want at another's expense. It does depend which particular group of personalities you're mixing with. In truth, the elite who run the world should be added to the list of 'types of anarchist'- they ignore any ethical codes that stand in the way of what they want and manipulate and subvert their way around them. What to call them, anarcho-aristocrats? The difference is they have money to do so, while your average anarchist has to play the game the other way round by dodging the authorities, rather than controlling them. I do think the prankster's use of cameras and microphones to deter police was genius- there being no higher power than TELEVISION in our culture, as we are increasingly seeing nowadays the power of the media. They really do seem to have power over what the 'group minds' of 'the masses' think. The question is, is it a one-sided arrangement, power flowing one way or the other; or is it more cyclical, with the papers saying what the readers want to read, then the readers believing what the papers say, back and forth forever, perhaps with the power shifting at different periods...
 
SWIm is a child of the 60s. I was in my high teens then. Swim started with ganja and very rapidly progressed to some LSD tripping, and some pill culture with uppers, downers and beans. My time in the scene was 4 years, but an intense four years.

We were just suburban high schoolers and early college types. When you are 17 you are looking for fun, kicks, and of course sex! I was vaguely aware that there were some serious hipsters and spiritualists 5 or 10 years older than us, but we were mostly just young and foolish.

A typical Saturday night--
Six people piled into my '63 Impala with a full bag of weed and a tank of gas. We roll and smoke and drive and roll and smoke and drive from 9Pm to 6am. I was always the driver because I was so "tuned" to the driving thing I always had perfection in mind. No speeding, nothing dangerous, no weaving and so on - - just locked like Spock on the road, the wheels, the scenery floating by.

Usually it was four guys and two girls - so that brings it's own dynamic into play. But we were all in love with each other, so it was mellow. We could blow up a whole bag of weed in one cruise. That was $10/lid back then. 8-track tape player would be blowing Hendrix, the Doors, and on the radio we had this unreal guy....what's his name...something "Diamond" from "deep in the Diamond Mine.." and he was clearly tripping all the time too. We drive down to Sunset, through Hollywood, Beverly Hills, West Los Angeles and then up onto Mullholland Drive to get through the canyons down to Malibu for dawn, before heading home.

It didn't take long before LSD joined the fun. Although with acid it was a LOT less driving, which didn't feel as safe as it did with weed. We'd go to some park or to the beach and just let it all roll. Sometimes we ended up in places we didn't know how we got to. One night we ended up in a huge Cathedral in Los Angeles - staring at the candle racks used for people to come and light prayer candles.

I guess for 17 year olds we were having a deep experience in some ways, but really, we weren't ready for it. It was more about trippin' than Being. Of course, the ultimate goal for guys was to sleep with one of these free spirited girls. What else is new, huh? Ha ha.

I finally had to get a job - a real job. And I made the decision to just get totally out of the life. So I brick walled it. Never got high again until maybe 5 years ago.

If I think of some cool stories I'll post them up!
Peace.
 
I was around then. I was 15 when woodstock happened. A little too young to go (i.e., to get away from my parents to go), but I actually lived in the NY-NJ metro area, and drove through the UNBELIEVABLE traffic on the NYS Thruway--bumper-to-bumper with people going there...

The time WAS different--far different than I've seen since. You could watch TV, for example, and see all the elements of the "old" culture, and then go out into the world and discover that it was NOTHING like the old. The air was THICK with it: There was a sense that anything could happen, because people were mobilized for change. There were MANY hippy-type people doing ALL KINDS of new things, trying out new ideas. There was a tremendous surge about the idea of raising consciousness, eastern religions, free and open sex, love for everyone, and ending WAR. At the same time, many young people were naive about things--as was only possible back then. Thus there was tremendous INNOCENCE combined with extremely idealistic and loving intentions. It was a time when a CENTURY'S worth of old and stupid ideas were SWEPT AWAY by newness and goodwill and...love.

It was AMAZING. It seems to me that there will never be a time like that again. Something just "jelled" in the social fabric and it all came together...
 
Yeah!! Thanks for posting Old Scout. Your stories really made me smile. Funny because when I was 17 we also did a lot of driving around in a car full of smoke. SWIM was 17 when he first did acid too, but it was a fluke and a one-off because psyches weren't really a youth culture thing- ecstacy was the big one back then, but many people were scared of it whereas he knew acid was safe (not that that didn't stop him once he was offered e and had no other option available at the party). In fact some people were even scared of weed- my generation have been fed awful anti-drug propaganda our whole lives.

The free love bit really interests me- I can't speak for anyone else, but this is I think how things stand today. It's very easy to get laid these days, but very difficult to get two girls into the same bed. Many people like me have 'sown their wild oats' to explore their sexuality, but still the drive to find a monogamous woman to have children with is strong. Casual sex lost appeal as I got older, and since SWIM discovered DMT I actually turn down those opportunities, because I'm looking to start a family in a couple of years if the right girl comes along. It's interesting how people seem to have chosen to be less sexually liberated than they are able to be, and I wonder if we're near to our 'natural' sexuality now, or whether we're still culturally conditioned.


[EDIT- thanks to SWIMfriend too, another great post! More more! Yeah I think that's what's missing today- the feeling of being part of something great. Didn't one of the postmodernist philosophers predict the 'return of the grand narratives'? But then this makes me think of an earlier opinion in this thread, that people today are no more nor less 'enlightened' than back then. What do you guys think of that proposal? Because if we're no more turned on (or even less so), then is humanity is doomed to this endless struggle for peace and freedom?]
 
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