The Stoned Apocalypse

by Marco Vassi

Marco Vassi was possibly the greatest erotic writer of his generation. His first publisher at Olympia Press, Maurice Girodius, compares his talent of prose to Henry Miller's writing. His sexual explorations and literary talent are the foundations of nine novels written between 1970 and 1976. Although his life was cut short, his memory lives on with the release of The Vassi Collection. The collection includes nine fiction titles and his autobiographical memoir, The Stoned Apocalypse, which follows his sexual liberation while on a trip he took in the sixties. Join Vassi in his exploration of the human sexual and spiritual experience.

Genres: Fiction, Erotica

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Marco Ferdinand William Vasquez-d'Acugno Vassi (New York City, November 6, 1937 – New York City, January 14, 1989) was an American experimental thinker and author, most noted for his erotica. He wrote fiction and nonfiction, publishing hundreds of short stories, articles, and more than a dozen novels. Many of his works appeared as "Anonymous" in their first printings. He is most often compared to Henry Miller, has been called the greatest erotic writer of his time and "foremost of his generation," and praised by the likes of Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Saul Bellow, and Kate Millett.

Reviews

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Stoned Apocalypse is erotic author Marco Vassi's autobiographical account of the year and a half he spent searching through the sixties counter culture for a way of life and a state of mind that offered him more bliss and freedom than the world he came from.

The book begins when he is asked the question, "Are you searching?" by a woman he works with who subsequently leads him to join a small Gurdjieff cult. But Vassi has little aptitude for the "enlightenment-through-psychological-abuse" so popular in many spiritual movements and quickly jumps ship. From there, he dabbles in Scientology and Communism before dropping out completely and moving to California, where he continues his explorations into the soul and spirit of humanity while taking copious amounts of drugs and having sex with many, many people.

It took me a little while to get into this book. It's written in a straight narrative style, with little in the way of the "show, don't tell" scenes and dialogue that are required of today's writers. But once the story got going, it became fascinating to me on a number of levels.

Vassi's descriptions of his spiritual explorations were of particular interest to me as his front-line experience with various early cults show that little has changed in the last 40 years. Vassi's clear-eyed descriptions of his experiences as both student and teacher have useful insights to offer anyone interested in this topic. His discussion of his stint as a teacher of relaxation classes at Berkeley's experimental university is particularly fascinating in this regard; no sooner has he signed up to teach than Vassi found himself the object of all manner of mystical projections as people interpret his stoned behavior as somehow enlightened. His honest discussion of how he worked to both guide these people while also taking advantage of them offers a sage look at elements of the guru dynamic.

The book also served as an intriguing window into a world that was mostly over before I was even aware of its existence. Vassi's depictions of the drugs he took while bouncing between hippie crash pads is colorful to say the least. In the midst of expanding his mind, he also expanded his sexuality, moving through various stages of denial and experimentation before finally accepting his own bisexuality.

This is not a book for those easily offended by graphic sex or certain combinations of letters. But for those interested in a colorful and gritty report written from the front-lines of the experimental sixties, this book has a lot to offer.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

<1>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]

[David Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vassi has a reputation as an erotic writer, but with this one, I was too busy flipping the pages to fondle myself. It's a story that may cause you to erupt in laughter or cringe in embarassment as the protagonist goes from the guru con to the drugs con to the sex con to the psychology con (where he nearly goes stark raving sane working in a mental hospital).

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so grateful for this book. This is one example of how the written word has the ultimate power to transcend everything: class, time, prejudice, politics, fear, death. Marco Vassi died over twenty years ago and when I read this I felt like I had just made a very cool new friend.
I read this because it was on some list of classic erotic books. It is so much more than that. Given my history with psychologists as a teenager,running away, and the rest of what happens to a fourteen year old when she crosses the country on her own--I tried forever to figure out how it had affected me—hating the role of victim that people who were supposed to know liked to pin on me as a result --this book spoke to the person I was at fourteen. I felt like he was speaking from the great beyond and going, “it’s all good.”
A quick description of the book comes from the back cover flap:
“The Stoned Apocalypse is Vassi’s autobiography, a chronicle of his cross-country trip on America’s counterculture byways. Vassi’s relentless quest for the perfect union of the spiritual and the corporeal provides a rare glimpse of one generation’s sexual imagination.”
We get to follow him through all manner of different cult “trips,” from the Gurdjieff meetings held off Park Avenue where “the mood was one of psychic constipation,” to the Scientologists, to a commune in Oregon, a Swinger’s club, San Francisco bathhouses, and all over the country crashing in random flop houses.
One thing I continue to refer people to is his description of working in a psychiatric facility. He confirmed my belief that many people enter the profession with a vague notion of helping people but with all too human fallibility and end up causing more harm than good. Someone had finally validated my feelings of outrage and disgust with the entire experience.
The book also gave me a great way to learn about a culture and time in our country’s history I would have no other way to experience at such a personal level. I finally felt like I got this whole hippie thing. The piece of understanding I got was the innocence of the time.
After I read this I had a much better understanding of the 1960’s and the mindset that was innocent enough to believe there was still such a thing as a free ride, a free life, a free mind and body. I got to see what all that looked like, smelled like, tasted like, and became with the aid of all manner of drugs-- a spiritual experience. His commentary was at times comic, tragic, sweetly innocent and naïve, and cynical depending on what was going on. I envied him these experiences and was also glad I didn’t have to go through all that to come to some of the views he arrived at and expounded on in later books. When I read the last lines I felt sad, grateful, and a longing to make things different for him even as I felt so much of what he said resonated in my own life. I wanted to go forward with as much curiosity, honesty, and compassion for other humans as he did.
The sense of freedom and validation as a writer I got while reading this was wonderful. Richard Curtis wrote the introduction to the edition I have and one of the lines I think sums up what I like about this book and his other books:
“What distinguished his books from the rest of the pack was the application of Vassi’s intelligence. He knew the mind is the most erotic organ of all.”
This is an important book. For me it was not fun in a cheerful way but in the sense that I got to experience everything without leaving the comfort of my life. It reminded me a little of Tropic of Cancer only it was much more easy to follow. This book is different than anything I have ever come across. It is not smut. It is not strictly a memoir. It isn’t even exactly a manifesto but I can understand why he had a cult following.
His words encourage me to be more open to every experience I have, to live more fully in every aspect of my life. Crazy as it sounds, it has even stuck in my mind in ways that allow me to be a better wife, mother, to pay closer attention to my husband and kids, and try to see the world through their eyes. This book is still impacting my life, I still refer to it in conversation and I hope through this review others will start to rediscover this book that I consider to be a classic and one of my very favorite books.

[Todd R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, the author here is listed as "unknown." Despite the giant letters on the cover picture reading Marco Vassi. Who coincidentally is the author.

A fascinating memoir of a journey through the '60s turmoil, from New York to San Francisco and beyond, through a radical slice of humanity that tried to reinvent everyday life ... a beautiful try anyway.

[Steve Barrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiographical account of two years in the life of the author in the late 1960s, during which he left New York City for the West Coast, mainly San Francisco and environs, where he was caught up in the student revolution and hippie life in general. The book beautifully captures the spirit of the age. The author is searching for a new way of life, seeking to defy social conventions and live spontaneously in the moment. He wanders from scene to scene, never staying with one particular group of people in one particular place for very long. All the familiar baggage of the 60s is there in the account – drugs, orgiastic sex, weird cults and communes – even the Grateful Dead. Vassi writes well, and is clearly very intelligent and well educated, describing his wild and decadent experiences with literary flair.

It is astonishing to read this book, describing real life events (we must assume) from fifty years ago, in light of the current hashtag era. It really highlights how much our society and its priorities have changed. No one today would admit to the things that Vassi does so explicitly, or even approach living with the same questioning, wandering spirit. The author’s career and reputation could not possibly survive the me too movement, but he is off the hook on that, having died from AIDS in the late 1980s. If you read the book, you’ll understand how that could have happened.

In the end, Vassi abandons his search and returns to New York and the life of a publisher. Whether in an individual or a society, there is only so long that a free-wheeling spirit can be maintained before sober matters of reality take over. Not that he led a particularly sober life afterwards, as you can tell from his page on Wikipedia. I enjoyed this book as direct evidence of what life during the Consciousness Revolution was like – at least for the young adult generation.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for Marco Vassi's memoir which captures the epic craziness of the 1960's Vassi loves sex drugs and freedom and hates everything about modern American capitalism. His philosophical takes are frequently banal and stupid but Vassi lived life like a madman and that deserves admiration if not praise.
If you agree with Blake that the road of excess leads to the Palace of wisdom you might like this book otherwise let it go.

[Edward Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marco takes us on a head trip through his fractured mind as he weaves his way personally through the student movement at Berkeley, the drug scene at Haight/ Asbury, the retreat to Big Sur and Tucson back to San Francisco and when all his madness has abated back to NYC, Whew!

This is a first hand account from inside the student/ hippie movement as it implodes on its own energy.

[Calla Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and interesting read. Honest and unbelievable, but believable.

[Cooper Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a chronicle of Marco Vassi’s wildman experiences during the “revolutionary” nineteen sixties, the notorious age of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll—and quasi-religious cults. A very intelligent and insightful fellow, Vassi (now dead) was apparently also bipolar (manic-depressive)—whether genetically or from drug abuse or both. So he soared to incredible ecstasies and then dove into the paranoid pits of despair—over and over again. He never met an organization he wouldn’t join—briefly. The American Communist Party, Gurdjief’s Work, Scientology, Zen, Frontiers of Science…you name it. Of these he gives illuminating descriptions—especially of the fascistic mentalities of the Communists, the Gurdjief people and the Scientologists (the latter officially declared him an “enemy”).
As a boy Vassi grew up in Italian East Harlem, which was run by the Mafia with the complicity of the (paid-off) Irish cops. His hard-working but unassimilated parents could scarcely speak English. In fact, virtually all the Italians over thirty hailed from the old country and conversed mainly in their native tongue, whereas their kids all spoke English. Vassi said that as a boy he thought that at some magical adult age he would automatically start speaking in Italian. Raised a Catholic, he was trained by Jesuits and—by his own admission—became addicted to organization and hierarchy. But from the book it is clear that he was also addicted to the quest for a substitute (for Catholicism) absolute, and also to rebellion and anarchy. A confused lad. Bipolar.
After college he hung out in New York for awhile and then headed for the magical West Coast, did the San Francisco drug and gay scene with side trips to Oregon and LA, then spent some time in Tucson, then did a little Mexico, then back to San Francisco where he went to work in a mental hospital as staff and ended up (briefly) as patient. To get his mind together he finally returned to his home city New York, and book’s end finds him embarking on a new career—as a pornographer. (“A worthy successor to Henry Miller,” he was later called.)
This book serves as a good introduction to the hectic counterculture of the Sixties. Though a wildman, unlike many of his compatriots Vassi was articulate and insightful: his left brain functioned at least part of the time. Further, his addiction to joining gave him, in a short time, many remarkable opportunities to observe the dynamics of both startup and established organizations.
Here’s a smattering of Vassi’s observations and insights:

*This was the same problem that has faced every organization that has ever been formed. In the beginning, the bond is the shared vision of its members, but then the organization develops a life and momentum of its own, and the members become subservient to its currents and directions. The group becomes the monster, swallowing its parts.

*America has no space for failures.

*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.

*There are no atheists on bad [drug:] trips.

*He talked the way a musician plays, and to listen to him for content was as silly as trying to understand what a musical phrase “means.”

*The principle of try-anything-once was a guiding string through my life.

*As in every other human endeavor, the constitutionally strong, attractive, wealthy, and successful were off in some private corner, having their orgies, while the losers groped around the public places, searching to be found.

*The thing is that there is a way of perceiving existence that has no description in any symbology whatever.

*Between the two extremes of sleepwalking and insanity, there is simple perception, a seeing in innocence.

*Sadly, he still lied in the hope of his dreams, while he missed the stunning beauty of his actual accomplishment.

*My feeling is that life is once around for each of us, and there is something amounting to a sacred trust for each of us to live it most intelligently, most lovingly, most honestly.

*In any given endeavor, consistency is the main rule for success.

*If one can play a role with enough self-assurance, there will always be enough of those who will take complementary submissive postures.

*With all the good times and parties, there was an underlying unhappiness from no one’s having the slightest sense of who he or she was, and covering that ignorance with jargon and drugs and activity.

The Stoned Apocalypse is a good read. It zips right along and is—in spots—brutally poetic.

[Анастасия Грызунова · Rating 4 out of 5]

@Booknik.Ru: http://booknik.ru/context/all/1973/?a...