0:00

Hey. Broke. I micah. Okay,

0:03

So I o s The Apple

0:05

operating system has made some changes

0:07

recently that I think. May.

0:09

Make it harder for people to

0:12

listen to on the media and

0:14

I've just learned this, but most

0:16

of our podcast listeners listen on

0:18

the Apple podcast app. Enzo is

0:20

likely affecting them. Now. I us

0:22

and on that. I want to walk you

0:24

through how to change a setting that

0:27

will greatly improve your on the media

0:29

listening experience. Okay, but you know

0:31

how I get when it comes to technology?

0:35

This is easy I promise. So go to

0:37

the podcast app. I'm. On it. Go.

0:39

To your favorite podcast on the media.

0:42

All right and in the top right hand

0:44

corner, do you see a check mark? Or

0:46

do you see. Plus. Follow.

0:49

Plus. Follow. Click. Plus follow it

0:51

turns to a check mark. That's how you know

0:53

that you have it right? Which. Means

0:56

that if you're. Out in

0:58

about and you decide you want to listen

1:00

to on the media it will be there

1:02

waiting for you. You don't have to stream

1:04

it, you don't have to use data to

1:06

download the episode. Ride I Ride or I

1:08

am have a good very good. Okay,

1:11

but that's not why we're here. Know.

1:13

We're here to talk about bicycle

1:15

day. Yes! Bicycle Day. It

1:17

was when the inventor of

1:20

Lsd road home on his

1:22

bicycle. inadvertently.

1:24

And unknowingly. Hi.

1:27

Yes, the April Nineteenth. Ninety Forty

1:29

Three. And the Scientists was Albert

1:31

Hofmann know? And. I'll.

1:34

Be honest, this is an excuse for

1:36

us to rerun one of my favorite

1:38

episodes that you and I worked on

1:40

together. In. Twenty eighteen. I

1:43

know you were so young then. That's

1:47

true. arguably I'm still so young that

1:49

but at time I was. Still in

1:51

short pants, I. Hey, you

1:53

must not spent enough time with me in person. I

1:55

still wear the short shorts. This.

1:59

Was a story. That I pitched

2:01

and produced. Were you.

2:03

About. Ten easy. Who

2:05

wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? A

2:08

friend of mine? River Donna Hey, who's a

2:10

writer and filmmaker? Or he also made of

2:12

a recent podcast called Good Call in which

2:14

he investigates the cold that he grew up

2:17

in. And he

2:19

came to me with a

2:21

hard drive filled with audio

2:23

recordings the original never before

2:25

aired on radio recordings. Of.

2:28

Ten Season never made documentary

2:30

about this. wrote a script,

2:33

Across the United States, From.

2:36

California to New York that was

2:38

documented in Tom Wolfe's Great Book

2:40

Electric Kool Aid Acid Test The

2:42

multi colored day glowed bass in

2:45

this set us down kind of

2:47

a fun rabbit hole where we

2:49

ended up. thinking. Well, maybe

2:51

we should talk to Tom Wolfe himself.

2:53

I reached out to him and ended

2:56

up scoring us an invite to his

2:58

penthouse on the Upper East Side, overlooking

3:00

Central Park. Yes, I remember. It. Well

3:02

it's little a solid like

3:04

round mahogany but cases and

3:07

ass or kids. You.

3:09

Know kind of hop. White

3:11

furniture, books everywhere, arts on

3:14

the walls it was saw

3:16

quite the place. And what?

3:18

As I was taking pictures we could

3:20

post lead supposed to i'm young enough

3:22

Yeah, fall fall on the media on

3:24

Instagram to see some of these vintage

3:26

voters. What was your experience interviewing him?

3:29

Well have had. Some.

3:33

Experience talking to very old

3:35

people. And do you really have to

3:37

meet them? On. Their terms and that

3:39

it was very clear that there

3:41

was only going to be a

3:43

very little bit that we could

3:45

use. He couldn't speak that well

3:47

and actually is at the time.

3:49

I don't think I appreciate the

3:51

significance of us being there because

3:53

we visited him on March eighth,

3:55

Twenty team and on May fourteenth,

3:57

Twenty eighteen. Tom Wolfe passed away.

4:00

so the that visit may very

4:02

well have been. The. Last.

4:04

Interview. With him quite likely, and

4:06

I'm glad we've gotten another excuse to

4:09

run it. Listeners. Enjoy!

4:12

Tv Story really starts late sixties when

4:14

he was a graduate student at Stanford's

4:16

Creative Writing program. River Donna Hey,

4:19

a filmmaker and writer based in

4:21

Brooklyn. Up until that point,

4:23

Cheesy was or this all american farm boy.

4:25

He was a college jock married his high

4:27

school sweetheart. He had a very wholesome. Childhood.

4:30

Or when he got to Stanford. He needed money to support

4:32

his new family, so he. Got this job

4:35

basically being a guinea pig. For.

4:37

A clinical drug trials in a nearby

4:39

hospital The. Drug trials in Menlo

4:41

Park Veterans Hospital were marketed

4:44

as research. For treating. Mental illness.

4:46

But we know today that

4:48

they were part of Project

4:50

Mk Ultra The Cia. His. Mind

4:52

Control Study. Cheesy was

4:54

given a few different. Drugs and early

4:56

anti depressant called ip to ninety

4:59

of vomit inducing antibiotic called did

5:01

trim and one of the pills

5:03

was Lsd and so how did

5:05

he feel on Lsd? Well.

5:08

I mean you gotta put yourself in keys

5:10

issues at that point, right? It's Search the

5:12

A Little Sissies. It's like Mad Men era.

5:15

It's just like Suburbs and Housewives. My dad

5:17

with the briefcase and the Psu going off

5:19

to work that was a repressed time is

5:21

very narrow window of what was socially appropriate.

5:24

And Lsd. Cracked Keys Brain open

5:26

to all these new possibilities. new

5:28

perspectives, a new ways of viewing

5:31

the world. We actually have some

5:33

audio from one. Of Keys first

5:35

experiences with Lsd in the Menlo

5:37

Park Hospitals. This was in. Nineteen

5:40

fifty nine or six to

5:42

sell how you doing right

5:44

now the some effect. On.

5:49

Yeah, in the little white boxes tiny

5:51

little room in the hospitals mental ward

5:53

and he sitting there taking a zealous

5:55

be and periodically orderlies and nurses are

5:58

coming in and out taking blood. Apples

6:00

and urine sample was not really the

6:02

ideal place to i have an acid

6:04

trip. Down

6:11

Memory. Could

6:13

to earth. And that I

6:15

certainly am filled with this great

6:17

moving in understanding of people who

6:19

my spine to get high on

6:21

it is our rape somebody in

6:23

my particular. Hillman Zero

6:25

Other Flowers. Our

6:28

Vr So. I see

6:30

public support has to your

6:33

mind. He

6:35

is a huge missionaries female. Need

6:37

a messiah? We need a

6:40

huge missionaries. He need a

6:42

messiah? Yeah I think

6:44

Cheesy really had to

6:46

spiritual awakening. I think he

6:48

saw that there was a pass to go down. That

6:51

all these structures that he had sort

6:53

of accepted as reality weren't really reality

6:56

and they're all these different options out

6:58

there. and that he had the ability

7:00

to go explore and sort of secure

7:02

hours sit within this sounds. I'm self

7:04

taught to eat and sleep on

7:07

concessions in Menlo Park. In doing

7:09

these drug tests and in experiencing Lsd.

7:11

Cheesy. Had an idea. Oh naturally I'll go

7:13

get a job at a mental hospital as

7:15

a night watchman and in on sneak some

7:17

of that as it out for my friends

7:19

back and homes. and also as a night

7:22

watchman have a lot of time to sit

7:24

and write. And that's where late

7:26

one night high and psychedelic. So he has

7:28

this. Vision of. One.

7:30

Institution patients called see Broom this like

7:33

hulking Native American man and he just

7:35

starts writing. Any Rights. Five pages. Six

7:37

pages of this book that ends up

7:39

becoming ones. Love: The Cuckoo's Nest. A

7:42

humanizing portrait of mental illness

7:44

and civil disobedience, one Flew

7:46

Over the cuckoo's Nest Released

7:48

in Nineteen Sixty two major

7:51

museum literary sensation at the

7:53

age of twenty seven, it

7:55

also boosted his profile as

7:57

a burgeoning said Mr. And.

8:00

Did Entourage that he would later dubbed

8:02

the Merry Pranksters began to coalesce around

8:04

him. Cheesy. Took some of the money

8:06

from One for the Cuckoo's Nest and

8:08

bought this house in La. Honda California

8:10

out in the woods. And that house

8:12

and the Honda became sort of this

8:14

pro commune with people flowing in an

8:16

out. and he also had the Lsd

8:18

and he was thrown really good parties

8:20

out there in the woods, so people

8:22

naturally gravitate towards him among. The Merry

8:24

Pranksters Neal Cassady a speed.

8:27

Freak and the news of

8:29

the Beat Generation inspiring the

8:31

main character. and On the

8:33

Road by Jack Parallax and

8:35

the heartthrob Zoc A Bond

8:37

in Allen Ginsberg poems, Howell

8:39

Mill tell City Secret hero

8:41

of these forms joy to

8:43

the memory of his innumerable

8:45

these of girls, an empty

8:47

lots and diner backyard. It

8:49

was Cassidy who would ultimately

8:51

drives that legendary. Pass to get

8:53

into the bus trip with to start and

8:56

nineteen Sixty Three. One. Full of

8:58

the Cuckoo's Nest became a Broadway play

9:00

sign Kirk Douglas. And so Cheesy and a

9:02

couple of his friends drove out to New York to go

9:04

check the play out. And. On

9:06

their way back, President Kennedy and

9:08

Texas Gov John Cena Lace were

9:10

shot from. Ambushed today in a

9:13

motorcade. Most are still alive but

9:15

in very serious condition in the

9:17

emergency room as the parks and

9:19

a moral suspend. Their

9:22

sharing this very intimate moment in

9:25

this collective space in the car,

9:27

passing through America and small towns,

9:29

it gave Civitas understanding of the

9:31

road trip as a quintessentially American

9:33

experience. And so once they. Dot.

9:35

Back to La Honda he said. Let's

9:38

go back next year. Nineteen. Sixty Four.

9:40

World's Fair as can be happening in New York.

9:42

About. The same time as the publication of

9:45

his follow up to One Full of the

9:47

Cuckoo's Nest this book Sometimes the Great Notion.

9:49

Unfortunately there's so many people hang out.

9:52

Around key these house. And other

9:54

channel fitness station wagon so need something a

9:56

little bigger. And. That's where the bus comes in.

9:59

It's this nineteenth. The Eight International Harvester School

10:01

Bus. They bought it for like fifteen hundred

10:03

bucks from a guy who had eleven kids

10:05

and he had sort of outfitted it so

10:08

it's kids could sleep in it's cheesy and

10:10

his friends cause a turret in the ceiling

10:12

and put this big death on the roof

10:14

and wired for sound. There's the same

10:17

as paint job. They had a bunch

10:19

of day glo paint floating around and

10:21

somebody decided to throw that smear orange

10:23

on there and somebody else to salem

10:25

add a little red. And add

10:28

a little blue and a little green.

10:30

You know, the thing with Lsd is

10:32

that doesn't really inspire great fine motor

10:34

skills. So by the time they were

10:36

done, it was like somebody eight a

10:38

bunch of markers and threw him off

10:40

his assistants. You have to

10:42

documents that depict this.

10:46

One is the Electric Kool Aid

10:48

acid test Tom Wolfe's. At

10:50

the time it a little cooler effort has

10:53

finally came out. Hippie movement was in full

10:55

swing. I guess the book functioned

10:57

as this behind the scenes look at

10:59

how everything started, how the hippie movement

11:01

became what it was. Cheesy taught the

11:03

hippies how to be hippies. Before.

11:05

The phrase hippie existed before anyone

11:07

knew what Lsd was. A. Mean

11:09

they were in the boss and people didn't even know what to

11:12

make them. People. Thought maybe they were in

11:14

the surface like states and a loony bin

11:16

assists. What did Time Wolf make of them?

11:19

Tom Wolfe. Saw. That cheesy

11:21

was as quintessential American sigur. A.

11:24

Little Pt Barnum a little spiritual

11:26

guru. We actually spoke to Tom

11:28

Wolfe his favorite singers, a real

11:31

on the bus or off the

11:33

bus and a you off the

11:35

bus of menu. Our previous experience:

11:38

human beings. Cheesy

11:40

was strong leader entire cycle.

11:43

Don't move will appeal to

11:45

me the most or sisters

11:47

is newsworthy. Go

11:51

for me! I mention that

11:53

they were to documents the

11:55

other one Cheesy on. The

11:57

Merry Pranksters documented their travels

11:59

from. That they never really should

12:01

east. He. Had this concept of

12:03

everybody's movies that everybody is living out

12:06

a script. Cheesy. Believed

12:08

that acid could serve as a

12:10

way of recognizing your script and

12:12

a way to break. Character to

12:14

live freely in the moment. I feel like

12:16

the only come to this movie was and

12:18

if you don't get century rewarding out of

12:20

every minute you're sitting there isn't there a

12:23

lawyer? Take. Months

12:28

to blitz. A

12:33

band of pro don't hippies cruising through

12:35

the south syncing, acid, late Kool Aid

12:37

and the psychedelic cool that with a

12:40

mom key property the we have often

12:42

thought about office and. Hemorrhages

12:45

burrow as and draws the desert and

12:47

Jesse those shirt on and is this

12:49

wetness weapon flooding is is talking merry

12:52

band of prices have a lot around

12:54

of a third. Or

12:58

stop some odd A Summary. Of

13:13

us. Myself.

13:19

Wishing New York for the final destination,

13:21

they were really expecting this hero's welcome

13:24

and first has to set up his

13:26

party with heroin and cz of course

13:28

idolizes parallax but once they got to

13:30

this party it's just it's just didn't

13:33

work care like was. Pretty

13:35

late in his license and an alcoholic. I've.

13:37

Seen some of that. He

13:40

looks very glum, almost sour.

13:43

And then after that. They. Drive

13:45

up to visit. Timothy.

13:47

Leary. Ah, former Harvard

13:50

academic. He's kind of

13:52

an acid philosopher. Turn

13:55

off your mind, relax, slow

13:57

down stream. He

14:00

was supposed to be least in

14:02

Ccs minds, a meeting of the

14:04

for most psychedelic experimenter of the

14:07

East in the West. Most didn't

14:09

work out like that now. Timothy Leary

14:11

was in this big mansion in Millbrook

14:13

with rolling hills and stone bridges and

14:16

perfect That was lovely. But Tc and

14:18

his friends' role of thrones smoke bombs

14:20

off the top of the roof and.

14:23

All. The members of Leery group to sort

14:25

of ran inside scared. Leary himself was just

14:28

coming down off of a. Psychedelic.

14:30

Trip and was in a very peaceful place

14:32

and didn't really wanna be involved as all

14:34

that raucous energy that Cheesy and his friends

14:37

brought along and they go back to La

14:39

Honda. And. Start trying to cut

14:41

together the movie that they sought. What?

14:44

They would do is every week they

14:46

would cut the foot together and then

14:48

on Saturday they would have a screening

14:50

of the weeks cut. These. Big

14:52

parties, Became. Very unwieldy

14:54

until finally. Tv. Decide

14:56

Okay, my family's living here as a

14:59

couple a young kids. Maybe we should

15:01

find another place to screen the movie.

15:03

And out of that came these things

15:06

called the acid test. What was an

15:08

acid test? I've never been clear on

15:10

that while. again, the pranksters defy definition

15:12

a little bit. Everything The

15:15

keys he was proud or typing

15:17

at La Honda, the sort of

15:19

communal experience and this promo hippie

15:21

lifestyle like the acid tests were

15:24

the opportunity for him to bring

15:26

that into public who was like

15:28

a terse whoop like earth prisons.

15:32

Screw them Mrs. Keys.

15:35

Is my Titanic Party Wilde

15:38

multimedia experiences around the same

15:40

Cisco Bay Area that spanned

15:42

the war lox would play

15:44

before they send finance The

15:46

Grateful Dead and like early

15:48

cited Ls visuals like that

15:50

Oil and Water Project Since

15:52

and Strobe Light of course.

15:55

Cheesy was attracting the attention

15:57

of the police. Lsc was.

16:00

We go in the mid sixties

16:02

so the cops eventually pinned him

16:04

with of. Marijuana charge and says

16:06

that his second marijuana charge he

16:08

was facing five years in prison

16:10

with no chance of parole and

16:13

in typical prankster, fast and easy

16:15

hatched a plan to take his

16:17

own death and go on the

16:19

run to Mexico. And

16:21

did it work well. The

16:25

runs in Mexico was successful, even in a suicide

16:27

note. The keys he wrote he said and frenzy

16:29

like an oven and was actually gonna believe that

16:31

To give it a try assists as he had

16:34

one of the samurai mers. That look like

16:36

him. Drive around the Bay Area and

16:38

then go up to a cliff and

16:40

throw his. Cheesy. Signature, boots

16:42

in the water and leave the suicide

16:44

note I don't know if it really

16:46

through the costs of the sensory long

16:49

but it it gives you the enough

16:51

time to make it across the Mexico

16:53

border. Easy fled to Mexico incendiary, nineteen

16:55

Sixty six. And sent the next

16:57

month as the seeds. It is well aware

16:59

that. He was being tracked by

17:01

the F B mean one word

17:03

had spread of them for movement

17:06

he had hoped the kids from

17:08

the country club he he faced

17:10

many possibly often they were in

17:13

search of what he created as

17:15

a year while he was gone

17:17

it took safe without him and

17:20

while he was in Mexico City

17:22

sort of came to this realization

17:24

that he had gotten everything that

17:26

he could from Lsd. that that

17:29

awakening consciousness. That A.like it was awake

17:31

and to have a be sustainable. He

17:33

had to find serve a chemical free.

17:36

Psychedelic. Experience. In.

17:38

October Nineteen Sixty Six Cheesy was

17:41

picked up by the F B

17:43

I outside of San Francisco. He

17:45

struck a deal with local law

17:48

enforcement promising to hold and sit

17:50

graduation a public renunciation of Lsd.

17:53

almost a year before the summer

17:55

of Love. This graduation was a

17:57

radical notion. Perhaps. Too.

18:00

Though he may have gotten out of jail,

18:02

but the followers that he had inspired. Had.

18:04

Sort a grown up without him and

18:06

weren't really keen on the idea of

18:08

stopping taking drugs. Can say lights the

18:10

drones. I think that the moment

18:13

that the hippie movement. Refused.

18:15

To give up acid and follow cheesy further.

18:17

It's the moment that the the movement stalled

18:19

and I think whatever last vestiges of the

18:21

his movement still exists today are still stuck

18:23

there. In. That same place. In

18:26

a sort of leaning on accretive drugs. You

18:30

care? So much about can you see.

18:33

So I grew up in Eugene, Oregon which is where

18:35

cheesy. Sort. Of retired to with the

18:37

pranksters in the seventies. And.

18:39

Eugene as a place. Fundamentally.

18:42

Changed by cheesy. It's. Sort

18:44

of the last enclave of the hippie

18:47

ideals. I mean my name is

18:49

River I sort of come from as they

18:51

come from a different piece of it. My

18:53

parents were more at this like new age

18:55

personal growth. Movement. In the eighties,

18:57

thera full generation after Keys, that's right, but

18:59

some of that comes from cheesy. I think

19:02

that creating this have a deep and real

19:04

emotional group work without drugs is sort of

19:06

what this personal growth move in the eighties

19:08

was also attempting to do. My.

19:10

Father gave me a copy of electrical It as a

19:12

test and I was in sixth grade and he said

19:14

here's the history of your home. At

19:18

my mother wasn't so happy with them. He

19:22

said the. The noisy

19:24

parties fueled by Lsd were

19:27

we to measure. Person's willingness

19:29

to discover what was out there

19:31

is. He moved being in the new.

19:34

Was a test in there were people

19:37

pass through are people in pass give

19:39

you an example of somebody who passed.

19:42

Some businessman is water on the

19:44

street came in for bucking that

19:47

to see as they call or

19:49

noise in the dead they call

19:51

or noise and anything else and

19:53

happen as goes and since had

19:56

an umbrella and he gets his

19:58

customary couple of or. Stuff.

20:02

About midnight you could see him

20:04

really get ripped however many anything

20:06

but drunk on beer but he

20:08

looked around saw restrained think when

20:10

he looked down and spotlight was

20:13

showing down and saw shadows will

20:15

stand up straight for said umbrella

20:17

over his shoulder says the king

20:19

walks in the king turns around

20:21

for whom the now that you

20:23

will bear. Is

20:33

the is often a the electorate he laid

20:35

off. The task was to be. Connecting

20:39

to something. See, there's something

20:41

beyond with seems to be

20:43

a profoundly our normal norm

20:45

is. Or maybe it's

20:47

been. Fueled by the realization that the. Norm.

20:49

Was never knew on. shouldn't

20:51

have thin. Anyway, it's creeping

20:54

back and so is Alice.

20:56

See if I'm going to

20:58

moving beyond. A

21:00

little easier. To

21:05

filmmaker and. Readers. In

21:08

the. Movie.