Kool aid: before we get too far, some ground rules please...

[Kevan]

I know, as many of us do, when and how this term recently got started, but what is its meaning?

There are connotations using this term - this product. Of course, there is the simple Kool Aid, enjoyed by kids worldwide, sold in paper cups on street corners by enterprising kids, if it's not lemonade. This view certainly conjures in the mind both positive times most of us can reflect upon and a summer-like wholesomeness of freedom and joy. It was bug juice served at summer camps after all. Then in 1978 Kool Aid took on a more sinister definition involving mass suicide, a dark period for us who enjoyed our bug juice straight. The flavor of grape was now and forever tainted. I suppose too there is the 60's define, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", by Tom Wolfe. Are we the coterie of Bike-Geek-Merry-Pranksters? Have we left that childhood wholesomeness behind and become society's renegades? If that's it, then I say...

"Kool!"

[Serpico]

Jonestown

[dbrk]

My referencing, such as it is, is to The Electric Acid Kool Aid Test. While certainly we all (of us old enough) remember Jonestown well and its truly tragic associations, I find a singular disobliging cultural association such as that no reason to banish the term from a playful vocabulary. In fact, it'd be good to reclaim many of the abused words we have now "lost" due to unhappy associations. Not all, mind you. (I am very, very careful, for example, to explain in a college classroom how the word "aryan" was used in ancient Indo-European vocabularies and how that ancient usage has NOTHING to do with 20th century European meanings. This distinction is too fine to bring back a word that is still used as a marker of bigotry. Sensitivity has its purposes and I think we can make important distinctions simply on the basis of good sense).

The most recent influx of kool aid into our Forum vocabulary came in a wonderful bit of repartee about interest in certain kool aid induced states of joy involving Grandpa's soap on the privates, phred-ish looking bikes that evoke mad love (ml is also a recent addition, my own, I believe to the current new Forum colloquialism in acroynm...as in, ml yo), and a certain purveyor of oldschool bike bits and a certain tone of loyalty/friendship/sychophancy that cuggles some but delights others.

So, drink on, I say. Let bug juice memories flow. Let electric acid kool aid be nothing you regret having done in your misspent youth. And may all the kool aid you drink refresh your humor! As for evil associations, well, I do not diminish, discount, or deny them, but I mean to transcend them.

dbrk

[Tom]

Misspent youth? Shucks, the only reason I can think at all is that I poured starter fluid into my brain in the form of some of that kool-aid to which you refer. I thank my lucky stars nearly every day that my brain just doesn't work the same as many others. It misfires a lot but the only reason it runs at all is that I got it to fire back when it just wouldn't start. No, it wasn't misspent. Some days I wish more people had been fed the kool aid. Whether our society would be any smarter I don't know but it couldn't hurt.

Cuggles. Always a cool nugget to take away. I have to admit a lot of times I read your posts as much for the vocabulary as the content.

Ride on!

[Keith A]

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Kool-Aid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/ff/Kool-AidMan.jpg

[flydhest]

Douggie,

I believe the preferred rendering is "oldskool."

Please take note.

sbc

[catulle]

Kool-Aid is groovy, atmo. Dr. Tim at 15, iirc.

[goonster]

The idiom drink the Kool-Aid, defined by Wordspy as "To become a firm believer in something; to accept an argument or philosophy wholeheartedly or blindly," is a product of the Jonestown massacre, despite the fact that the beverage consumed by the Jonestowners was actually Flavor Aid.

I also interpret the usage to mean "wholehearted embrace of a cultural or stylistic movement", somewhat ironically, without the sinister connotations of Jonestown.

http://www.lotsofco.org/archives/koolaid.jpg

[TimD]

Jonestown

Seconded

[e-RICHIE]

Kool-Aid is groovy, atmo. Dr. Tim at 15, iirc.


Catulle-Aid atmo

[L84dinr]

"Drinking the kool aid" reminds me of Jonestown. Which also then makes me think of those people in CA who died with their tennis shoes on trying to get to some comet. Do I remember that correctly?

What I vaguely remember from Tom Wolfes the great kool aid acid test is; "one needs to learn to "cope" while on acid". or something to that affect.


'scuse me while I kiss the sky...

[catulle]

Catulle-Aid atmo

BTW, she wants to know if she can be invited to Provo. She can mix some mean Kool-Aid, atmo. I told her I'd ask Sinatra, iirc.

[davids]

Personally, I like the way the sinister connotations and the groovy connotations bump off each other. It's like a psychedelic milkshake, baby.

http://www.malbela.com/images/bring.jpg

[Serpico]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool_Aid_Drinker

Kool-Aid Drinker is a pejorative term originating in 1978. It is most often used as a political or personal put-down to describe someone who blindly adheres to a set of beliefs or political system, or who follows an authoritative figure without question. The term is derived from the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in which Peoples Temple Church leader Jim Jones convinced his followers to commit suicide by drinking grape Flavor Aid (a Kool-Aid type of drink) laced with cyanide. Most of them did so, and as a result over 900 people died.

This term is often used by media personalities, such as the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, to describe individuals with unrelenting political views of one extreme or the other, generally targeting views that oppose their own./sarcasm/ :rolleyes: lol, because Faux News is a great example of independent thinking :rolleyes: /sarcasm/

[Grant McLean]

[QUOTE=L84dinr]
What I vaguely remember from Tom Wolfes the great kool aid acid test is; "one needs to learn to "cope" while on acid". or something to that affect.

QUOTE]

And trying not to spill the grape stuff on your white suit...

g

[dbrk]

Warning: More Mordant, Facetious Humor for your Peradventure

Another story, this one even more true than others:
So last year I presided over a wedding (at which no kool aid was served) along with my pals Zakir Hussain and John Friend at the Omega Institute, a bastion of former kool aid drinkers. After all, you can't do better than having Baba Ram Dass show up at the reception. No kidding. John is registered as a minister in the Universal Life Church in addition to being one of the most renowned yoga teachers in the world and Zakir has only peers in terms of musical achievement but I'm the only one with a degree, a bonafide Divinity school degree, I tell you. Taking the Wizard's advice, to paraphrase, "Son, there a lot of people in this world with a lot less brains than you have that have a degree! What you need is a DEGREE!", we left it to John to sign the legal papers for the marriage. Zakir was sublime, as ever; I tried to say something other than mordant or facetious.

This coming Fourth of July weekend, when there will be nearly 40 yogis at my house to endure more of this prolix sardonic wit, I will step out for a few hours to preside over the marriage of a former student. This time I'll not get any help from true luminaries and I'll need to sign the papers. So my wife Aimee had me "ordained" like palJohn in the Universal Life Church and "while I was at it, I had myself ordained too." "Why'dya' do that, honey?" "Well," she says, "every Bo needs his Peep."

The funniest part of the ULC certification is that one is entitled to perform any religious ceremony that is within the law, with the exception of a bris. This it says expiicitly.

So all you Forumites: Need a Presider? I'm yer boy. You be the Decider. Oops, that job is taken...But please if you need a bris, contact e-richie atmo yo.

mml

dbrk

[e-RICHIE]

What I vaguely remember from Tom Wolfes the great kool aid acid test is; "one needs to learn to "cope" while on acid". or something to that affect.




well - to the point...
i never drank much kool-aid but i sure
dropped some acid back in the day.
eff the inhalin' stuff . they don't use
the term good old days for nothin'.
hey - arrest me atmo.

[davids]

well - to the point...
i never drank much kool-aid but i sure
dropped some acid back in the day.
eff the inhalin' stuff . they don't use
the term good old days for nothin'.
hey - arrest me atmo.
Okay. But first, can you take a little off the top?

[goonster]

But please if you need a bris, contact e-richie atmo yo.


Can he do that with a torch???

[e-RICHIE]

Can he do that with a torch???


only at the drive-thru atmo

[MartyE]

orange barrels anyone? purple Owsley?
As far as I can tell my youth wasn't mispent,
I just wish I could remember more of it.

speaking of remembering, Jim Jones et al drank Flavor-aid not
Kool Aid. Major difference, it's safe to drink the grape Kool Aid, ok?

[goonster]

only at the drive-thru atmo

Sounds good, but forty months is too long to wait for this procedure, atmo.

Can you guarantee accuracy to within 3 mm?

[Bill Bove]

In 1978 I was in the Air Force stationed at Howard AFB in Panama, I went out for a beer with a buddy that turned into many, many beers, while we were "out" a bunch of our buddies had to go check out "a situation". They were among the first people to arrive at Jonestown, the stories they told made some us puke on the spot and even now my eyes water at the memory. There were as many murders there as suicides. Not everybody drank willingly.

[bcm119]

well - to the point...
i never drank much kool-aid but i sure
dropped some acid back in the day.
eff the inhalin' stuff . they don't use
the term good old days for nothin'.
hey - arrest me atmo.

At one time I enjoyed a veritable streak of good old days, but the memory of them is tainted by the last good old day, which turned out to be a not-so-good good old day atmo.

[catulle]

well - to the point...
i never drank much kool-aid but i sure
dropped some acid back in the day.
eff the inhalin' stuff . they don't use
the term good old days for nothin'.
hey - arrest me atmo.


Window pane: Looking through the glass brightly, atmo.

[Keith A]

http://www.tamarabanegallery.com/lrgimg/KOOLAID_lrg.jpg

[palincss]

I know, as many of us do, when and how this term recently got started, but what is its meaning?


Here's what RaptureReady.com says:
http://www.raptureready.com/rr-kool-aid.html



Don't Drink the Kool-Aid
The Origin Of The Saying

In November of 1978, the world was shocked by the suicide deaths of 913 members of the People's Temple cult. Jim Jones, the leader of the group, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown, Guyana, a remote community that Jones carved out of the South American jungle and named after himself. Jones constantly feared losing control of his followers. His paranoia was the main reason he moved the cult to Guyana.

The mass suicide occurred after U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and a team of reporters visited the compound to investigate reports of abuse. After some members tried to leave with the congressman’s group, Jim Jones had Ryan and his entourage ambushed at the nearby airstrip. He then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide.

The mass suicide wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. During the weeks that preceded the dreadful event, Jones had conducted a series of suicide drills, according to survivors. An alarm call would sound and every person in the camp would line up to receive a fatal dosage. These exercises in insanity proved that all of the adults at the compound knew what would be the result of their actions.

The People’s Temple did not start off as your average mind-controlling cult. It initially gained much respect as an interracial mission for the sick, homeless and jobless. Jim Jones did not manifest his darker side until near the end.

One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side." Of course, you would have to know of Kool-Aid’s dubious connection to Jim Jones to understand the proverb.

[vaxn8r]

...But please if you need a bris, contact e-richie atmo yo.

mml

dbrk
I'll handle the bris....

[catulle]

I'll handle the bris....

Well, maybe we shouldn't take Kool-Aid to Provo, so I'll handle the Tang, atmo.

[manet]

Well, maybe we shouldn't take Kool-Aid to Provo, so I'll handle the Tang, atmo.

'tang

[Kevan]

there we have it.

Thanks everyone for clearing this up.