William Burroughs' novel The Naked Lunch was at this time, in the early 60's, one of the most scandalous and debated books around. Since Conrad Rooks had money to spend he was actually the first one to buy the movie rights for the book. Initially it was that book he wanted to make a movie of, in order to illustrate the state he'd been in during his years of drug abuse. But at that time, no film studio would touch it. But Chappaqua was as close as Rooks could get to Naked Lunch.
The famous jazz musician, Ornette Coleman, was commissioned to write the music for this film but his material was rejected by the director and released seperately on Columbia Records with the title "Chappaqua".
The Beat Culture was a lot about drugs. Even New York in itself at that time, with all the jazz musicians and poets, was characterized by heroin. I drank mainly but I took heroin to cope with the backstrokes, says Conrad Rooks in Pattaya, Thailand, in the year 2000.
An offbeat mix of Native American Shamanism, Psychedelia, Buddhism and Beat Culture.