Promethean prose poet Wolfe. . . One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and never-ever-never-would-come-could-come down Ken Kesey. . . . A head combination if there ever was one. Kesey was "The Chief," pre-Haight, pre-Hippy, the floating plastic fantastic West Coast apostle of the impossible who so ordained that LSD was the KEY!!! and put together a band of Merry Pranksters whose name became synonymous with the freak-out of all life-styles. This is the story of how Kesey almost became God and wow-why-not-he-was-was-into-every-thing with Mountain Girl and Gretchen Fetchen the Slime Queen and the Hermit and Black Maria and Ned Cassady (who first appeared On the Road and won't Kerouac get the jealous bends over this trip) and Freewheeling Frank (Yes!. . . he's the one on the Grove list) and Owsley (mad and paranoid manufacturer of the sacrament) and just all those near and now famous. And didn't he create the psychedelic bus with sound and strobe and just vats of Day-Glo and blow those work-a-daddy minds all the way across country with the pranksters zonked on acid and speed and tokes and all the while makin' this spontaneous here and Now movie for miles and miles. . . and didn't he invite the HeWs Angels to a party that had the cops and community up-tight all right. . . and didn't he start the Acid tests and bonk out all the straights on electric Kool-Aid and wasn't he busted and didn't he escape to Mexico and come back as What Else "Captain Marvel." And Wolfe trips along until the Cuckoo's grounded. . . a sorry, sad, sordid head-ache. But a mad master portrait for Wolfe.
