Wonkette
Robert Anton Wilson died yesterday just a few days shy of his 75th birthday. Beloved by the e-liberty Internet hordes, magicians, dope fiends, gun nuts, conspiricists and other political artists, RAW’s death was immediately noted by Boing Boing, Reason, 10 Zen Monkeys and not a single newspaper or wire service beyond this web-only column at the Panama City News-Herald site.
That’s to be expected. (The weekend should see at least a few print obits, we hope.) Wilson was a cult writer’s cult writer with the kind of fans who re-read his Cosmic Trigger and Illuminatus! series as an anual ritual. He was also a Discordian pope, Crowley scholar, Playboy Magazine editor and California gubernatorial candidate. He was and is a principal proponent of a kind of techno-hippie-mystic-2nd Amendment libertarianism that is worlds away from the Cato stereotype yet incredibly influential in Silicon Valley and electronic media. And unlike the “political thinkers” who clog Washington’s green rooms on Sunday mornings, Wilson was hilarious … on purpose.
Learn about the Guns & Dope Party’s platform, after the jump.
Wilson once described himself as a libertarian who didn’t “hate poor people,” which does away with the central objection most libertarian-leaning liberals have with a political movement pretty much owned by people who think they’re acting out some brave Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. the Herbivore drama by not giving a dollar to a hungry bum.
His platform for the mostly fictional Guns & Dope Party went like this, in part:We advocate 1 guns for those who want them, no gunsOstriches play a similar role to Jesus in the GOP or minorities in the Democratic Party: The leadership doesn’t really care about these symbols one way or the other, but it provides a handy identity for the party loyalists. Here’s some campaign propaganda from the RAW site:
forced on those who don’t want them (pacfists, Quakers etc.)
2 drugs for those who want them,
no drugs forced on those who don’t want them (Christian Scientists etc.)
3 an end to Tsarism and a return to constitutional democracy
4 equal rights for ostriches.
And here’s a little Poor Richard’s-esque homily:
Little Tony was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another. After the 6th candy bar, a man on the bench across from him said, “Son, you know eating all that candy isn’t good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat.”RAW Essence [RAW Data]
Little Tony replied, “My grandfather lived to be 107 years old.”
The man asked, “Did your grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?”
Little Tony answered, “No, he minded his own fucking business.”
Comments
Well...RAW needed to go first, so he can lead the way.
I'm sure he'll have a hell of a party set-up by the time the rest of us catch up to him.
Will miss him a great deal--amazing writer, great guy, kinda a wacko--but he blew my mind.
"Nothing is true, everything is permissible."
Magicians?
"Wilson espoused a belief in Jung's concept of synchronicity.... It's the idea that nothing is coincidental, that when we see patterns in unrelated events, that's because they aren't really unrelated."
Timothy Leary wrote the Forward to Wilson's "Cosmic Trigger". Synchronicity or blotter acid?
Say hello to "Moon Dog" for us, RAW.
Wilson once described himself as a libertarian who didn't "hate poor people," which does away with the central objection most libertarian-leaning liberals have with a political movement pretty much owned by people who think they're acting out some brave Tyrannosaurus Rex vs. the Herbivore drama by not giving a dollar to a hungry bum.
Two Words: Ralph Nader.
fnord.
fnord indeed! And it's "magickian" if you will.
On another note this is the FIRST time I have ever read Wonkette be serious about anything! Fuck a bunch of presidents - ex, current and dead - Discordians reign. Rest lively RAW
No drugs is CS reading rooms...
Big America has always ignored the f=geniuses and subgeniuses, like Harry Partch, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty, and Wilson. for all that this internet thing links us, tube to tube, we live in distinct countries. Big america's capital is Washington, which is why Washington, aside from the Houses of Dead Culture, has the pulse and heat of a strip mall.
Suddenly I fell old and tired. Bob was the thorn in my side hat kept me skeptical of my own skeptisism. the rest of my life will be a long chain of facing reality.
fnord.
sorry, this news has left me spelless. I did not fell, I feel, and that hat on my side should be a side that.
bob would laugh.
Keeping his death quiet is all part of a massive conspiracy by the Papists, Trilateral Commission, Knights Templar, Elders of Zion, 33rd Level Masons, Bavarian Illuminati. And the groups too secret to even have names.
I had the great fortune to attend a talk by Robert Anton Wilson at the Thunderbird Bookstore and I asked about a book by another author and he said he'd never heard of it, I reminded him that he had written the introduction and he just laughed. RAW will be seen 50 years hence as one of the most influential thinkers of the cusp. His neuroecconomics and RICH Economy essays have more to say than 99% of econonomists. He won't be missed because he's been prepping for this for years. Let er buck.
We've lost him surely, a true playboy of the western world, and now here we sit, poor orphans with no father to kill.
Nice piece Wonkette.
I've contributed to the distortion in the reality field by adding 23 more "23's" in a tribute here.
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?