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The Stoned Apocalypse

di Marco Vassi

Altri autori: Vedi la sezione altri autori.

Serie: The Vassi Collection (1)

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There is no better introduction to the world of Marco Vassi than his autobiography, The Stoned Apocalypse, a stirring and sensual work that is both unflinchingly honest and erotically charged. Did the sixties happen so Vassi could exist, or did Vassi define the decade? His journey across the country at the moment when the Woodstock generation was discarding conventions--and clothes--is an allegory of sexual liberation. If you loved Jack Kerouac's On the Road you will thrill to The Stoned Apocalypse--and you will be ready to take on Vassi's mind‑blowing novels.… (altro)
Aggiunto di recente daVenRandle, Ranjr, RedMagus77, viennamax, Desertcore, Sistah_Eve, Grant_McLeester, DocBenway78
Biblioteche di personaggi celebriNewton 'Bud' Flounders
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I searched out this book after reading The Gentle Degenerates intrigued that a porn novel has some interesting undercurrents. Well, after reading this book, it turns out he included some semi-biographical elements in that work.
This memoir tracks the author’s adventures as he bounced around “searching” between San Francisco and New York City at the height of Age of Aquarius idealism. He spent time as a professor/guru, frequented the gay bathhouses of Frisco (my first thought when reading this section of the book was: well, he died of AIDS – he did btw), was a searcher of spiritual experience, a drug experimenter, orgiast, cult member, everything that he termed being a “head”. According to this autobiographical work, it seems that he touched every aspect of the 1960’s, even being immediately adjacent to a violent protest although he was seemingly not involved in that part of the era. In fact, he seemed very bitter towards and rejecting of “political types”. He was busy cruising the cosmos via drugs, sex, and exploring belief.
After all, cosmic consciousness is just a part [of the human condition] and is no more or less real than a fart. [p.23]
Looking at this work from a current perspective, he does come off as a user, selfish, often compulsive, and unable to control being whipped around by his own overflowing of emotion whether fueled by sheer momentary knee-jerk or firmly held personal opinion. He also tended towards utter selfishness by using others, especially during his guru phase, particularly for sex. According to his Wiki, just like the central character of The Gentle Degenerates, he was unable to ever form and maintain a long-term relationship. After reading this is not that surprising sadly. He never seemed, as presented in this book, to get beyond pure sexual want and cohabitation out of necessity.
He did have interesting takes on religion especially when he converted to Christianity. However, while banging an associate’s wife:
That night, while coming, she spread her arms wide and shouted, “Oh fuck me, Jesus!” And with Jesus backing me up, so to speak, I sailed into an orgasm that I had never attained on the purely material plane. [pg.63]
When interrupted by her husband (I had to laugh at this): Mutilation was close when, with a brilliant inspiration, I snatched up a Bible, brandished it before me, and yelled, “In Jesus’ name, I ask you to consider. [pg.63] This encapsulates my view of the man, he used others’ spiritual beliefs to get what he wanted from them, typically sex. He used it as a shield when it blew up in his face. And he seemed very adept at this though he might have been (hopefully) fooling himself thinking it was (or under the guise of) a sincere self-held sort of spirituality.
He did have some insights that are still unfortunately relevant today.
The sins of this nation have gone too long unpunished. And since we are the strongest military power in the world, retribution cannot come from outside. We are condemned by destiny to be our own torturers, judges, and executioners. We are doomed, like so many civilizations before us, to commit a ghastly suicide. And the only pity is that we may take the rest of life on earth with us. [pg.68]
Although, I think he may be referencing nuclear war there.
Another quote that I think sums up the first half of the book, and really the book in its entirety is this, which comes at about the halfway point of the book.
With the scene at the pad, spending long, amorphous afternoons smoking grass, swimming in people who were always strangers and always immediately inmates, moving in an ambience of religious vibrations and political confusion, I began once more to go mad. [pg.86]
He goes a little crazy in several parts of the book especially when he goes to work in an asylum. He goes into the project with such an idealistic fervor only to come crashing hard to earth when he realizes the reality of the thing. I did find this portion of the book powerful.
Another bit I enjoyed was:
I am given the creeps by people who think, somehow, that death isn’t real. It indicates that they think life isn’t real. [pg.106]
I’m reminded of several religious debates I had in my youth.
Then there are things for which I actually read similar works of hippy or martial spiritually, hokum like this: I took every bit of heaviness that was wracking my being, spewed it out of my third eye, and laid it right on them. They passed out immediately, and were depressed for three days afterward. [pg.157]
When the book covers his involvement with the homosexual bathhouse culture in which he both frequented and later worked, he had what I feel are genuine insights.
Whoever gave the name “gay” to the homosexual world had a cruel sense of irony. For the gaiety was all superficial, all hysterical. Mostly, there was pain. [pg.170]
And…
[T]here is no difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals. They have the same range of problems, from impotence to promiscuity, struggles with fidelity, guilt. They have the same joys, the same fears. And they completely share the general sexual sickness of the nation. [pg.171]
He was also at least half aware of his own self-centeredness apparent in what others were venting at him.
…Donna unleashed a vicious attack.
“You’re a pig,” she said, “…You’re arrogant, You’re always looking for a handout, You have no decency.” [pg.196]
And a few pages later:
“You’re selfish,” he said to me. “You are the single most selfish human being in the world.”
And I knew it was true. I examined my conscience and realized that I had never done a single thing which didn’t take as its starting point the benefit it would bring me. [pg.202]
He then immediately follows that up with philosophizing about the myth of altruism “with which we are inundated with since we are small”. Waving away the accusations of selfishness with the statement that we all are born alone, and we die alone as if he has since discovered a secret truth that justifies his self-centeredness. He does this a lot throughout the book when confronted with his own shortcomings.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It gave me a glimpse into the “head” lifestyle of the 1960’s at its height. The text can seemingly get a little dense in places due to the mass of people he met and the activities he indulges in with them which tend to become a blur. Then again, it drives home how much this guy doped, bounced around, and fucked across the country. I would recommend this one if anything in my review caught your attention. I would definitely advise you though, to read this one first before you delve into any of his other works. It is a trip to be taken with this free spirit as it were, though I found his destination (in the book) somewhat dispiriting.
My favorite quote:
There was no doubt about it; the civilization was coming apart at the seams and to be involved with it at all ran the risk of total contamination. Yet, what was the alternative? [pg.219] ( )
  Ranjr | Oct 8, 2023 |
nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione

» Aggiungi altri autori

Nome dell'autoreRuoloTipo di autoreOpera?Stato
Marco Vassiautore primariotutte le edizionicalcolato
Curtis, RichardIntroduzioneautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato

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I truly attained nothing

from total unexcelled enlightenment.

        
        
—Gautama Buddha
Life is an omen.

        
        
—Frank Gillette
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For Richard Curtis—Minister and Midwife
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There is no better introduction to the world of Marco Vassi than his autobiography, The Stoned Apocalypse, a stirring and sensual work that is both unflinchingly honest and erotically charged. Did the sixties happen so Vassi could exist, or did Vassi define the decade? His journey across the country at the moment when the Woodstock generation was discarding conventions--and clothes--is an allegory of sexual liberation. If you loved Jack Kerouac's On the Road you will thrill to The Stoned Apocalypse--and you will be ready to take on Vassi's mind‑blowing novels.

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