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by Evan Quarnstrom (Editor), Dean Quarnstrom (Author)
Child of the '60s, branded felon of the '80s
When Owsley Stanley, the famed 1960s psychedelics pioneer and entrepreneur known as the 'Acid King, ' was looking for a right-hand man to help run one of the world's first and largest private LSD enterprises, he decided that Dean Quarnstrom was the man for the job. Dean had something that Owsley needed. He could ride the fine line between blending into the 'straight' world to procure chemicals and equipment for the production of LSD, while also well-versed and embedded in the hip, drug-fueled counterculture sprouting in 1960s San Francisco. Dean's connection with Owsley was just the latest in a string of bizarre events that pulled him deeper into the underworld of the blooming cultural revolution taking place in the Bay Area.
Ever since Dean ran away from home to join the circus as a child, he always knew that he was not destined for a traditional, conformist life. As a young adult, he set out to forge his own trail, a journey that led to surviving a life-changing, fatal car accident, falling in with the first generation of LSD experimenters and dealers, getting entangled in the world of drug smuggling, landing in federal prison, and reinventing himself as a father of three.
In his whimsical travels he crossed paths with many historical figures, including Owsley Stanley, the former Harvard professor turned spiritual Guru, Richard Alpert aka 'Ram Dass, ' and the novelist and cultural icon, Ken Kesey, with his misfit band of Merry Pranksters.
In The Substitute Asshole, the late Quarnstrom recounts the tales of his life through the lens of his crippling diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, which he conjectured allowed him to view his past life with a newfound sense of lucidity. In an attempt to reveal the true extent of his life to his three adult children, he narrates his compelling stories that include cutting his teeth as a kid on the streets of 1950s Chicago, dropping acid with the Grateful Dead, meeting with drug lords in Sinaloa, Mexico, and battling depression and loneliness from the confines of a bone-dry Mojave Desert prison.
