Friday, August 5, 2011

The Merry Pranksters Were Lame


Well Steven Holden doesn't think much of the new documentary about the Merry Pranksters' bus trip.

Almost a half century later, these pranksters come across as a bunch of spoiled immature white guys fiddling around while the world was burning..


Even back home in the U.S.... four days after the Pranksters set off on June 17, 1964, three civil rights workers—Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner—were reported missing in Philadelphia, Miss.  For some historical perspective, one might compare the pranksters' day-glo-colored bus with the bus that's pictured on this web page's account of the 1961 civil rights "Freedom Rides."

How was the pranksters' bus trip subsidized, anyhow?  Did Kesey pay for it?  How could those folks afford to spend their summer goofing around?

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