Dr. Strange and the Psychedelic Origins of the Future - Part Four
by Vincent Bridges
Time magazine’s cover story that week was “The Turning Point in Vietnam,” by which the establishment press meant winning the war, not increasing the level of protest. Out in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, a proposal from the local chapter of the Vietnam Day Committee had grown into a worldwide event, the first large-scale antiwar protest of a new era. Somehow, someone from the Committee asked Kesey to speak in a prime time slot, just before the protest march into Oakland. This turned out to be a disastrous choice, as Kesey had his own opinions about the protest movement. The Pranksters arrived in full gear, the bus painted blood red and covered with every nationalist icon imaginable. Kesey took the stage in Day-Glo flack jacket and a WWI vintage helmet, also glowing faintly orange in the gathering darkness. The Pranksters, costumed for the occasion and playing their oddball atonal Chinese jazz behind Kesey’s folksy harmonica rendition of “Home on the Range” set the tone. Kesey launched into a long thoughtful meditation on how much the protest movement resembled the military, ending with the advice to just say f*#k it to the whole thing. The march rapidly lost steam after that, and turned back from Oakland at the first sign of trouble.
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2005 by AlternativeApproaches.com
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