Never heard of him before this, but I'm moving to California immediately to cast my vote.

He's one of the authors of the Illuminatus Trilogy and the Principa Discordia... whacky guy, but in a good way generally.

I've been hoping for many years that he'd run for public office. He's got at least two of my votes.

Actually he non-fiction is very non-wacky. Its quick intro into General Semantics, Agnosticism (by exploring every wacky religious cult and coming to the agnostic conclusion), Relativity, Quantum Physics (probably the best easy to grasp intro to the subject around), human/primate behavior, Tim Leary's theories, Buckmister Fullers ideas, and lots of James Joyce appreciation. That's off the top of my head, the index for Cosmic Trigger alone is insanly wide.

His fans often refer to his body of work as the RAW University because it touches upon so many topics like the liberal studies requirement at a university.

Disinfo page on RAW:

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id93/pg1/

Let me throw my $.02 in and suggest the very nice documentary "Maybe Logic" as an excellent intro to RAW's work. http://www.maybelogic.com also has a RAW library, as well as a collection of works that have influenced him, by authors as diverse as Crowley and Leary, Edward Bellamy and Alfred Korzybski, bunches of others.

I have heard that he is quite ill. He has cancled several appearences in the past few months due to illness. Anyone know the details?

Search for fnord these on Amazon:

Prometheus Rising
Quantum Psychology
The Illuminatus Trilogy
The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy
Cosmic Trigger (1, 2 and 3)

They are all required reading (especially the first 2) fnord.

Greetings
   Check out the quote from the Illuminatus trilogy at http://www.mutant.net/ and tell me that this man is not a prophet.

Z.

Freak power west of the Rockies! Where do I sign up?