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Kesey Tribute PageAww Fuck. You all know by now that Kesey died on Saturday, November 10. I was in New York when I heard the news, but only now, having read what Babbs had to say on their website, has it really hit me. I barely knew Kesey, and I was never some big sycophant, but still I'm all teary-eyed as I write this because he was kind and generous to me even though I was just another uninvited stranger in a long line knocking on his door wanting something but with nothing to give in return. I don't really go for that great men of history stuff -- Kesey was as human as the rest of us and he knew it -- but as we bid him farewell we should thank him for adding some color to our existence and for making the world a better place. He was a good man, a good friend, a good father, and he was loved by the people that knew him. That's all I hope will be said of me when it's my turn to go. I was in New York to give a paper at a conference about peace and history, and I ended my talk with a quote from Kesey that made my audience smile and think at the same time. This is from around 1970 when some kid was busting Kesey's ass for not being more "revolutionary." In response Kesey started singing, "when you walk the streets you will have no cares, if you walk the lines and not the squares. As you go through life, make this your goal, watch the donut not the hole...." and then he said, "that is where I think the revolution is at . . . focus on the positive and try to make the world better around you as much as you can." Amen, Kesey. Amen. I'll miss having you around. Love and Peace, Rick
 Me and Kesey, July 2001
I was lucky enought to go to the San Francisco Memorial Tribute to Ken Kesey. Great event, put together at lightening speed by Gerald Nicosia, with speakers ranging from the Perry Lane days, through to more recent events. The weather was bad, so some scheduled speakers like Bob Weir didn't make it, but others made up for their absence. I took lots of pictures and will post lots of them when I get a chance. Here's a few to be going on with: John Cassady and Chet Helms, Allen Cohen, and Mountain Girl. Mountain Girl produced many smiles with her recollections of her first encounter with Kesey and Further at La Honda, but she got the most rousing cheer of the night for finishing her story by saying that, "Kesey's passing reminded me, and I think a lot of other people, that we have a responsibility to keep the show going; to be kind to each other; to keep the psychedelic community in contact with itself so that events will happen -- events are what brings people together and without events we don't see each other. The internet is lovely and nice but we need to actually be with one another...." So stop pushing that mouse around everybody, and go organize an event in Kesey's honor!!! Talking of which, a friend from around Philadelphia, PA is looking for like-minded souls to organize some sort of event to celebrate Kesey's passing. If your up for it, contact me and I'll forward on your message. Go Pat.
From Don Witten, Friday November 9, 2001 Keez, You're in our thoughts and prayers today. My writing students are pulling for you. From Jorma Kaukonen, Saturday, November 10, 2001
Vanessa just called me from Racine up on the River and said that she heard on NPR that Ken Kesey had just died. If it weren't for Ken I probably would never have joined the Jefferson Airplane. When I went to sit in with the then nameless band he stopped by with an echoplex and had me plug my guitar through it. The electronic voices that came out of my speaker that day informed me that maybe Rock 'n' Roll might be fun. From JA Sternsaat, Sunday November 11, 2001: How can it be that a complete stranger dies, and I feel so sad, and I feel such a loss? I never met Mr... Kesey, but I feel like I know him; I feel like I owe him; and although his few books were not - as far as I can attest - formative in my life, the stuff of magic is at work here, and this spirit's passing makes me feel like I just lost a brother, or a friend. And I reflect on my own life and my own work; and yes! His life and his death inspires me to be less skimpy with myself, and do more of what I know is the best I can do, and give more of all I can give... Dear Ken, may happy wings carry you forth, and may the gentle flapping of these wings whisper in our ears stories yet untold, and show us here the way to places yet unknown... From Tom Ditto, Sunday November 11, 2001: About six months ago I was noticing the return of Cuckoo's Nest to Broadway and launched an e-mail campaign to reconnect. Eventually I fielded a couple of eee's from Kesey and Babs, but I couldn't break through to Mountain Girl who was at the well spring of my involvement. That dates back to 1961 when we were both in the same high school in Poughkeepsie, NY. I wanted to get her up to date with some of art that followed our last meeting in the '70's. Now that Kesey has died, we have lost one raconteur whose voice is needed. Ginsberg is dead too. He expressed a belief in a kind of cohesion that exists between the many faces of the hipster community. I didn't know about your site at the time months ago, and I couldn't get the dialogue going with the Oregon farmers. I'm glad to know that finally I have an archive to address. My arc runs from NY to SF and back again. During the critical moments in SF I was at the controls to the heart of the sun. My light shows were behind many of the bands, and the "Warehouse" was my studio. I want to deposit these memories. Let me say that I also benefit from the archives, because they help me reconstruct. I have long been troubled that I couldn't remember the band whose abandoned commune I inhabited in 1970. Not surprising, given that they were Anonymous. That corner of your website helps me remember. I recall later making a pilgrimage to their Colorado farm. I see a photo of what is probably the back of my head. We carrot tops are 1 in 100. The Trips Festival tipped the scales to SF when UCLA was also beckoning me. Once I found Longshoreman's Hall, I climbed right up the light show scaffold and took over the Carousels. It was in my blood. I had been apprenticing with Stan VanDerBeek, who Lenny Lipton mentions prominently in his Berkeley Barb "review" of the event. Stan and I knew how to do it. The Pranksters were rank amateurs, and their unquenchable love the process continues to today. I've moved on to holography. I have those holographic rainbow vision glasses too. If you want to see what I've learned to do with them look at here From Jade Tippett, Sunday November 11, 2001: The first time I met Kesey was in the livingroom of the Hog Farm House in Berkeley. As I walked through the door, he was asking Wavy Gravy the origin of the word rape. Having studied Latin in school, I piped up, "from the Latin word rapio, which means to take." Seeming satisfied, he took the conversation in other directions. I have no idea why he was asking. During that same period, the Hog Farm was slowly and affectionately infiltrating the Grateful Dead organization. We had the back-stage child care gig, entertaining the kids of the band and crew when they played in the Bay Area. Came a query from the band one November: Bill Graham wanted to take New Years that year with his family; who would play Father Time for the festivities on New Years Eve? I suggested flying Ken fron the rafters on a bosun's chair, and "gong bonging" the audience. Gong bongs being known for dropping people with epilepsy into seizures, I think that New Years Eve one may have been the fastest on record. The audience still roared and wobbled as they stood up. As far as I know, there were no ill effects. Years later, I got a call on the radio at the Hog Farm Pignic that Kesey had arrived with Further (II), bringing Tim Leary, who was dying of prostate cancer and hoping to make his final exit while tripping his brains out at the Pignic. They needed a wireless microphone taken out to the bus, which was hiding in plain site on the back stage road. I delivered the microphone, but missed the grand entrance. I heard it was spectacular. Leary's body refused to cooperate, so he lived through the Pignic and died several months later. Ken, the Pranksters, the acid, the legacy that I hooked up years later, took the collective brain on a hard left turn into a deeper integrity. Thank you, Ken, and pleasant dreams. From Ann Goddard, Sunday November 11, 2001: Thoughts turning to Ken these days, with his passing. In his honor, I'm sending you these long-past promised photos of him at the Country Fair. Kesey with Thunder Machine, 1986 From Hammond Guthrie, Sunday November 11, 2001: My memoric today - with solidarity and courage for us all! (For Ken Kesey)
An ode to deliverances fallen
More than just a notion
Laughing again out loud - with Neal
To quiet the mind and rest our fear
All Hail To the Chief!
The greatest escape from bondage Hail to The Chief!
Yes indeed - and once again - [r.i.p.] © Copyright 2001, Hammond Guthrie From Niki Morris, my friend with the longest dreads in the world and the sweetest Ruby Sunshine, Sunday November 11, 2001: I am typing in response to the sad news of Keseys passing. I feel a gnawing sadness which is strange since personally Ken Kesey had no strong presence in my life. However, there are still many people cutting teeth on the pranskter ideals, the promise of a family, no matter how much of a weirdo that you think/know you are. Ken and the pranksters shared with people the notion of freaking freely and the people said YEAH!, WOW, this is really living. Now I guess it's back to the movie, the storyteller just took a bow and walked away. R.I.P. Ken From Doug Gannon, November 11, 2001 I was just a child when all of the fun was going on. I don't think I ever met Ken personally. Who knows, there were so many. He was always in a way one of my heroes. In him seemed to be that spark that you always see in children and seldom in adults. Adults deny the spark in favor of "growing up and taking responsibility". I just loved The Kool aid acid test each and every time I read it. I always wanted to see the bus and check out the vibes that must be as woven into it as much as the art work that graces it. (Smithsonian's loss) We've lost someone wonderful today. I am sorry for those who knew him and loved him. Your sorrow must be great. He was for me a great example of how to live life and not just be alive. From Astrid Olafsen, November 11, 2001 I got turned on by Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in Spring 1967 at Rice University in Houston. My college there (Brown) had sponsored them as an event. The Pranksters joined us in the dining room for supper, fingers still multi-colored from the painting they had been doing on The Bus. Me, I had no idea what I was in for (Rice = MAJOR GEEK!, and I had previously all-consumed by the Civil Rights movement in our segregated society), but I now was into major rejection of classes and wholeheartedly embracing play. After dinner, people showed up, the kind never seen before on the Rice campus, and we all sat on the floor, jammed together, while Ken stood and started to talk. The chatting subsided, as he quietly and plainly started to tell a biblical parable. We wondered - huh??? But he was mesmerizing! silent hush became palpable...when he was done, the silence remained for a while, as if we had all been hypnotized...I never remembered what the story had been, just that I had been following it intently, as if in a trance! He was that way, then. So, we were invited to visit The Bus, and I was on the side nearest him, so at the forefront. He went and sat in the cockpit, very calm and detached, more like a guru (the word i would learn later). He was different from the Pranksters...they were interesting, and I was intrigued (but knew fuck nothing), but him --THIS was what I could identify with, and I REALLY liked him. As if he were the outside observer, making things happen quietly on the side. (later I learned that WAS the case). I, too, was alone at that time, experiencing it all solely for myself, no partner or friend to distract me. Eventually tons of people piled on the bus, and I had a seat next to a window. We drove around campus (on the sidewalk! -- Yeah!) and through the Sallyport. A cluster of other people were there, but the bus was full. So what!!! I pulled a short, skinny guy in Uncle Sam pants through my window, and he sat on my lap for the rest of the ride. But the evening had to end, and The Bus had to go on. But after it stopped, it wouldn't start again. So we were entreated to help push-start it. I had the position of notoriety next to the tailpipes, and when The Bus coughed to a start, it embedded its soot into both my legs - side and inside thigh! While blood was streaming down my leg, Pranksters surrounded me, hugged me, and kept assuring me that The Bus had not meant to do that! So I ended up in the emergency room of Hermann Hospital, where they scrubbed my raw legs with a brush, only removing a few of the big chunks. I was picking charcoal with tweezers for a month. My short, skinny guy found me the next week, anyway. And so I had my first joint, went to a party and met Shelly Duvall (bleached blond at the time, painting holes on an egg!). We became friends, she and I, we two wraiths...her boyfriend later became my dealer (turn on, tune in, drop out), sometimes keeping us in pot for free. My 15 minutes. And my life was never the same, taking an unpredicted direction. However, at City College San Francisco 1974...a substantial contingent of us re-entered the educational mill...and we all did really well. Ken Kesey is dead, long live Ken Kesey. 11-10-01 From Chris W. Nelson, November 11, 2001 The enclosed is a photograph made of Ken prior to "Bend in the River", at a Rose Garden poetry reading by 'Grandma Whitaker' in Porltand, Oregon - June 1974 This was my first encounter with Ken. He truly is the Grand Furthur of us all! Have Fun! From James Furnish, November 11, 2001 Rick; Just have to convey how bummed out I am over Ken's passing. Sad, sad, sad. Sure hope you will be keeping "pranksterweb" going, I'm sure its going to be very busy there for awhile. If you'll be attending the service for Ken, maybe I'll get to meet you. From Donald Thieme, November 11, 2001 I met Kesey at a workshop for student writers in Gainesville, Florida. This was probably 1978 or perhaps the spring of 1979. He read a story about the cattle on his farm which had been published in Esquire. John Ashbury and Peter Taylor were also at the conference. From lc, November 11, 2001
i'll miss my friend. From Gregory M. Kunert, Monday November 12, 2001: In July of this year, my 47th, I found myself riding a horse on a dusty Santa Inez Valley trail fending off flies. A 22 year old cowboy with whom I happened to be riding asked, out of the blue, what the best book I ever read was. This question seemed at first to be impossible to answer, given its unlimited breadth and the scores of thousands of potential entries from which to distill one. I pondered the question for about 15 seconds, then replied without equivocation, and surprising myself more than anyone, 'Sometimes a Great Notion by Kesey.' It had been nearly thirty years since I turned those pages, but the answer to me at that moment was obvious. Thank you, Ken. From Roy Pugh, Monday November 12, 2001: The first time I had conversation with Ken was at the Field Trip in '81. He was walking around the perimeter of the grounds, checking out the various vending spots, and I decided to walk up to him and just say "Thanks". A half an hour later he was still telling stories, much to my 7 year old daughters amusement. The last thing he said to me that day was, "You KNOW that the kids are what it's all about....and we are all kids......" While driving back to the Bay Area for work on Monday, I mulled that over in my mind. How true it was..... I ran into Ken more than a few times backstage at the Dead later, and he ALWAYS asked how my daughter was...was she growing into the kind person we all strove for our children to be?....was she into helping others?...I was always PROUDLY able to answer "Yes".... He was quite a teacher, friend to the "alien nation" that Deadheads have always been....and just plain FUN guy....I will miss him, as we all do already.... Yes, Ken.........FURTHER indeed!!! From Jim, Monday November 12, 2001: There was some shennanigans played out by us younger ones when the dates read on and around 1967. We had frantic calling that led our clan on some hazy mission to disrupt. anything, anyone that appeared within our field of sight. I was raised in Palo Alto, ca. left in 1974, to points north. The last vestige I have from those days, are fragile posters of happenings. My fave being the Acid Test poster that was made from butcher-paper, which includes as participants, Kesey, Pranksters, Dead, Ginsberg, etc. Also, my Mother Macree's Jug Band flyer from the Tangent . The memories have faded, but when I pulled out these momento's , shadow's appeared, and I reveled in the giddy relections. Never met mr. Kesey, but thank him for his presence, and wish him peace in eternal rest. From Danny R. Dickerson, Monday November 12, 2001: To those of us in Cleveland, Ohio born around 1951 to 1954, and who later moved to Oregon, Kesey and the Pranksters were mentors in the type of revolution we wanted to emulate. As discouraged veterans of the street wars, we retired to Curry County to pursue real work and real meaning. Imagine our surprise when, around 1973, in an article titled "Tools From My Chest" published in "The Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog", Kesey stated "the first tool, then, is the Bible." We could not have been more surprised by any other words he could have uttered. Was not the Bible a symbol of oppression, of standing against everything for which the new revolution lived and breathed? Yet, the phrase haunted me for the next twenty years, as a power greater than myself saved me from calamity after calamity. You know, the type of thing that happens to young hippies from the city who find themselves in Orygun, dealing with chainsaws, big trucks, bears and that combination of Oregon rain and substance abuse unique to the area. Time after time, my life was spared. This pattern continued, when after leaving Oregon for some twenty-odd years as a hillbilly musician and honky tonk hero based out of Nashville, I began to ask "saved for what?". Through further events for which I can't claim responsibility or choice, the "for what" became clearer. I had been given gifts: gifts of music, gifts of writing, gifts of solving problems. The message began to focus: use these gifts for good, not evil. Quit doing it your way. That doesn't work. Start doing it God's way. That will work. We are still a hard headed people, me included. But we're learning, me included. I give thanks for the grace and time to try to do good in the world. I give thanks for the seed planted in 1973 by Kesey that took almost thirty years to harvest. From William Harworth, Monday November 12, 2001: I'm a High School Forestry instructor. I've worked in the woods. I was born at Stanford Hospital and raised in Menlo Park. I went to Menlo Atherton High School with Garcia, Weir, Nicks, Buckingham, and such. I played in the redwood forests stoned on acid and drinking whiskey. I don't know why I'm still alive after all the shit I did! Every year I show "Sometimes A Great Notion" to my classes as part of my logging history unit. There are alot of loggers and forestry workers out there who realize the importance of this man. Will there be a gathering for Ken? Thanks! From Ross Anderson, Monday November 12, 2001: i lived in la honda for a bit.. i remember a monkey tied to a tree that was always said to be part of prankster ville..don't know monkeys name.. perry lane wasnt in menlo park not palo alto..near the stanford golf course.. iused to ride my bike there with my buddies when we were 7-8...and told by our parents not to go there.. we'd watch the oak tree blink on and off..decorated with xmas trree lights and loudspeakers..all synched.. weird and good.. From Tim the Gnome, Monday November 12, 2001: Im 23 years old and My is Time my Offical title is SIR TIM THE GNOME. I got the Title of Sir the night I meet Kesey. I was at the Magical Mysteral tour in June of 1999 in San Francisco. Me and my friend wayne who I also turned onto Keseys Vision and the Vision of the Merry Pranksters. We smoked some incredible grass then went inside of the International ballroom. We hung out and watched them set up until we were asked to leave. Then we went outside and Hung around the bus chatting it up with some of the crew. After that we headed up to Haight Ashbury to score some doses to make the evening just right. I barley stepped out of the Muni bus when this kid looks at me and says doses. When I say just stepped out I mean I still had one foot in the bus. So i buy the doses and get back on the bus to the party. We each dropped 5 hits on the bus. When we get back to the ballroom we had to stand in line for a while then we were let in. I was dressed in Blue harrom pants my red and white stripped Tshirt with a green tye-dyed long sleeved shirt on under it and a long floppy silk hat made of diffrent colored material,i was TIM THE GNOME. Anyway Im sitting around trippin my balls off when I see Kesey in the corner He is dressed in a big rubber suit of armor. So walk up to him and say Mr. Kesey what an honor it is to meet you,You have changed my life completely. May i shake your hand. He looks at me and smiles and says Well It may feel funny. I looked at him and said{You know I think it should} then kesey looks at me and says kneel. So I kneeled down. then he asks me my name I said IM TIM THE GNOME. HE then chuckles and says I dubb thy SIR TIM THE GNOME. My lord I almost shit I was knighted by Ken Kesesey I dont even remeber what happend next. I cried with joy and took off into the party. It was the best time I ever had. All I can say is KEN- THANK YOU FOR A REAL GOOD TIME. From Ann Sharda, Monday November 12, 2001: I don't have any long term memories from way way back, this is just recent, and just about Kesey mostly, because of the news. I first discovered Ken and the Pranksters in the stacks of the library at my community college, on the glossy pages of On The Bus. The pictures were like my inner imaginings of what life should have been like all along, because this was just a couple years ago, and I had no idea what I was getting into. Simultaneously that year the Acid Tests, the Beats, the Dead, and innumerable other hosts of marvelous influence came crashing in on me like holy radio waves from the past, beaming in from Then. Kesey's art made some kind of dynamic sense in my brain, assembling into patterns that had as much and more to do with life as with art in the abstract sense. for people my age, the pieces of the past can be hard to assemble. we weren't there when it happened. so many of the people who spoke to and touched that generation are gone now. It was one of the coolest things in the world that so many Pranksters were still around, just doing their thing, just living. I was proud of them and in a lot of ways I wanted, and want, to grow up to be just like them. then today my friend Jo got in touch to tell me Kesey died. so now 'Bob Dylan is raunching and rheuming' in the backround... I just turned twenty one today... Ken's 'Real War' was the best thing in that issue of Rolling Stone... Godspeed him. he was one of the really cool people, but he would have said everybody is. I'm glad I was alive while he was. I send my love and prayers to everyone else up there, bless all of you. thank you. From Kenny Sokolov, Monday November 12, 2001: I remember playing music a few times with the pranksters around the Dead show with "Tornado"? I played some West African "tama"( lizard skin talking drum of Senegal) while Huey Lewis sang a rock and roll song. Kesey seemed to beleive music would always find a way to work itself out. I participated in the "opening act" scam he ran at a party at his place. I played drums with the "Crawdads of Pure Love". I thought maybe Ken's a bit obnoxious or probably a bit lit or both. I asked him about his pal Ed McClellen? I had recently read his book.Ken replied," He's worse than I am"(about writing enough). He seemed like a generous sort. And I'm the king of obnoxiousness. I really try to be more sensitive to the way I treat people now. When Kesey dressed up in a bearskin and recited from his new book, my respect for him SOARED! Babbs seemed like a real pleasant guy as well. We played again out at Conde's big wing-ding the next afternoon. Kesey could really get an interesting collection of people together! I just went into a funk beat at 1 point, off the cuff and Ken and Babbs and some others started to RAP! I was awestruck how they were so automatic, not being what I would've considered musicians they were so in the groove and funny, that's real musicianship.Someone wanted to turn me on to some shrooms and I declined. He got insulted and told me I didn't know what I was missing. I said,"I ain't missin nothin!" I've done all that. I think it's important to experience but, you don't have to stay in that. Knowledge and education seem to work for me coupled with enough Love, Respect and Family or Community. My motto is "a little skunky bud and alittle skunky beer and I'm good to go. We'll see you Ken, real soon! And thank you, From my good friend but cowardly golfer, Rich Purdy, Monday November 12, 2001, Rick, Sorry about Mr. Kesey. Rich
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