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When I Was a Dynamiter! Or, How a Nice Catholic Boy Became a Merry Prankster, a Pornographer, and a Bridegroom Seven Times
Former beatnik, former member of novelist Ken Kesey’s famed Merry Band of Pranksters, retired journalist and one-time Executive Editor of Larry Flynt’s notorious Hustler Magazine, Lee Quarnstrom has jammed a lot of living into just one life! Now available, his memoir “WHEN I WAS A DYNAMITER, or How a Nice Catholic Boy Became a Merry Prankster, a Pornographer and a Bridegroom Seven Times,” is several fascinating, adventurous autobiographies packed into one.Quarnstrom left home when, he claims, he discovered that his mother was the world’s worst cook. Apparently seeking edible sustenance as well as excitement, he thumbed rides back and forth and up and down across the country – and Mexico – living and loving in some of the capitals of bohemia. His journalistic career started at age 19 when he covered the classic “Front Page” cops and robbers beats at the City News Bureau of Chicago. His stops as a post-Beat Generation, pre-Hippie beatnik included sojourns in San Francisco, Greenwich Village, Seattle, Mexico City and Kesey’s remote home in the Santa Cruz Mountains above the Bay Area.Writing about his peripatetic lifetime, Quarnstrom tells of rubbing shoulders and making friends with a wide spectrum of well-known writers and artists – such as Paul Krassner, founder and editor of The Realist, the late Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, poet Allen Ginsburg, death-and-dying spiritual counselor Stephen Levine, musicians such as Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, and Neal Cassady, hero of several Jack Kerouac novels and driver of “Further,” Kesey’s psychedelically painted old school bus.“WHEN I WAS A DYNAMITER” also recounts his ongoing sorrow since the 1982 fatal shooting of his 18-year-old son, Eric, near some of the San Francisco beatnik bars where Quarnstrom had hung out with other writers and artists and musicians.And, when he was 18, Quarnstrom did in fact work as a dynamiter – blowing up stumps and boulders – on a three-man crew building trails and bridges in remote parts of Olympic National Park in the state of Washington.Quarnstrom and his wife Christine, a poet, live with their pet Welsh corgis in southern California.
428 pages, Paperback
First published November 16, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 13, 2018
(FROM MY BLOG) Lee Quarnstrom is a journalist by profession and a story-teller by inclination. His memoir is a wonderful summation of his life and times, especially the 1950s and 1960s, a summation that he gives us in the form of well-narrated stories.
A small town kid, originally from what was then a somewhat isolated Pacific Northwest, Lee became the editor-in-chief of his student newspaper at one of the best public high schools in the country. Though in years to come, he found his attention often diverted by one picaresque adventure after another, he never looked back, culminating his career as reporter, columnist, and editor of the San Jose Mercury News.
But it's mainly those diversions, those amazing adventures, that Lee looks back on fondly now, and that make his memoir so entertaining. As an early member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, Lee describes the group's experimentation with LSD back before it occurred to the government to outlaw it. Dabbling in other consciousness-expanding drugs followed, and Kesey, Quarnstrom, and associates appear to have lived for several years in a psychedelic haze - surrounded by the comings and goings of aging "beatniks" like Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, by the ever-changing cast of the Merry Pranksters themselves, and by members of bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and other Bay Area-based, late 60s musical groups - with occasional cameo appearances by the Hells Angels, for added excitement.
Lee lived in New York City, when Gotham was an edgy place for a blond, skinny, Scandinavian boy to hang out, and he lived in Mexico City during its brief period as a bohemian mecca south of the border. He did grunt work for news services. He delivered mail. He built national park trails. He worked as a self-proclaimed pornographer, editing Hustler magazine, hanging out with its owner Larry Flynt (and many Hustler "models") and with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
He's had seven wives. He lost his only child, an 18-year-old son, to a street shooting - a loss whose grief haunts many pages of the book. Lee's no drug-addled "naif." He's been around the block a few times. But he knew what he was doing. And he knows where he's been.
Despite his dabbling in numerous activities that might well raise eyebrows in Topeka, Kansas, Lee's often breathtaking stories are told in the voice of a decent human being. Although Ken Kesey's friends and hangers-on at times sound like frat boys in a long-running party run amok, Lee shows us the excitement and joys of his participation in the beat and hippie culture of those days, without losing his ability to stand aside on occasion with his eyebrows raised ironically.
"When I Was a Dynamiter" may be one of the best and most readable pictures to date of an important era in America's cultural and literary history, written by a man who recalls it first hand and has the ability to recount his recollections in strong, expressive English. The book also offers a fine picture of an unusual life - one lived wide open to experience and observed with unflinching self-awareness.
A small town kid, originally from what was then a somewhat isolated Pacific Northwest, Lee became the editor-in-chief of his student newspaper at one of the best public high schools in the country. Though in years to come, he found his attention often diverted by one picaresque adventure after another, he never looked back, culminating his career as reporter, columnist, and editor of the San Jose Mercury News.
But it's mainly those diversions, those amazing adventures, that Lee looks back on fondly now, and that make his memoir so entertaining. As an early member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, Lee describes the group's experimentation with LSD back before it occurred to the government to outlaw it. Dabbling in other consciousness-expanding drugs followed, and Kesey, Quarnstrom, and associates appear to have lived for several years in a psychedelic haze - surrounded by the comings and goings of aging "beatniks" like Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, by the ever-changing cast of the Merry Pranksters themselves, and by members of bands such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and other Bay Area-based, late 60s musical groups - with occasional cameo appearances by the Hells Angels, for added excitement.
Lee lived in New York City, when Gotham was an edgy place for a blond, skinny, Scandinavian boy to hang out, and he lived in Mexico City during its brief period as a bohemian mecca south of the border. He did grunt work for news services. He delivered mail. He built national park trails. He worked as a self-proclaimed pornographer, editing Hustler magazine, hanging out with its owner Larry Flynt (and many Hustler "models") and with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
He's had seven wives. He lost his only child, an 18-year-old son, to a street shooting - a loss whose grief haunts many pages of the book. Lee's no drug-addled "naif." He's been around the block a few times. But he knew what he was doing. And he knows where he's been.
Despite his dabbling in numerous activities that might well raise eyebrows in Topeka, Kansas, Lee's often breathtaking stories are told in the voice of a decent human being. Although Ken Kesey's friends and hangers-on at times sound like frat boys in a long-running party run amok, Lee shows us the excitement and joys of his participation in the beat and hippie culture of those days, without losing his ability to stand aside on occasion with his eyebrows raised ironically.
"When I Was a Dynamiter" may be one of the best and most readable pictures to date of an important era in America's cultural and literary history, written by a man who recalls it first hand and has the ability to recount his recollections in strong, expressive English. The book also offers a fine picture of an unusual life - one lived wide open to experience and observed with unflinching self-awareness.
February 8, 2019
I was a big fan of Quarnstrom's column of nearly twenty years in the San Jose Mercury, and hoped that his memoirs would strike the same tone. Some of his anecdotes do, and are entertaining/engaging/touching. However, there is far too much repetition of points and minor details that often weren't really of great interest the first time around. There are also several typos - it almost seems as though there was no editing process - a bit ironic!
September 22, 2020
Great book about a magic era
I really enjoyed this book about Lee's time as one of the famed Merry Pranksters. I'm glad he shared it. I never realized how the group was rather small. Yet they're famous. Some of the stories are downright hysterical. I highly recommend this book
I really enjoyed this book about Lee's time as one of the famed Merry Pranksters. I'm glad he shared it. I never realized how the group was rather small. Yet they're famous. Some of the stories are downright hysterical. I highly recommend this book
February 24, 2023
Two books. First part is prankster, second is the rest of his life. Both are ok. It just never really took off for me.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews