You're either on the bus or off the bus.

Cover of the first US Edition

I remember reading this many years ago, just after dropping acid in Bean Town back in the day. Totally in the present, Tom Wolfe captures the insane 60's by covering the Merry Pranksters and their bus, Further, complete with tales of the Grateful Dead as the bus band along with the exploits of Ken Kesey and driver supreme, Neal Cassidy, a cosmically talented pilot able to navigate the most complex traffic patterns ever with Zen like calm while tripping 24/7.

A read for the ages applies.

Why channeling Wolfe now? Well, it seems a documentary about the esteemed writer has emerged, a flick yours truly intends to watch as his writing blows me away without question. :)

“You never realize how much of your background is sewn into the lining of your clothes.” 

“Sometimes we don't even realize what we really care about, because we get so distracted by the symbols.” 

“You're either on the bus or off the bus.” 

“[Aldous Huxley] compared the brain to a 'reducing valve'. In ordinary perception, the senses send an overwhelming flood of information to the brain, which the brain then filters down to a trickle it can manage for the purpose of survival in a highly competitive world. Man has become so rational, so utilitarian, that the trickle becomes most pale and thin. It is efficient, for mere survival, but it screens out the most wondrous part of man's potential experience without his even knowing it. We're shut off from our own world.” 

― Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

“None of us are going to deny what other people are doing. If saying bullshit is somebody's thing, then he says bullshit. If somebody is an ass-kicker, then that's what he's going to do on this trip, kick asses. He's going to do it right out front and nobody is going to have anything to get pissed off about. He can just say, 'I'm sorry I kicked you in the ass, but I'm not sorry I'm an ass-kicker. That's what I do, I kick people in the ass.' Everybody is going to be what they are, and whatever they are, there's not going to be anything to apologize about. What we are, we're going to wail with on this whole trip.” 

― Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

An Acid Test invitation from 1965

Interestingly enough, Leary was right as LSD's now being used therapeutically. 

Right on applies ... :)

Lest we forget ... The Doors of Perception/Aldous Huxley

I read this too, back in the day while mescaline ruled ... :)

A peyote cactus, from which mescaline is derived.

And so it goes. K. Vonnegut