More Kesey Tributes Page
Thanks to everyone who sent stuff in honor of Kesey.
If it's not on the site yet, it soon will be...Rick
From Ed Zareh of the Del Close Project
Dear Rick,
I was very sorry to hear about the passing of Ken
Keesey. I know that he and his work meant a lot to you
and your own intellectual efforts. I only hope that
you feel comforted by the fact that you got to meet
the man, and that your time together was well spent.
Best wishes to you.
From Chuck Lenfest
here's a poem i wrote for ken when i heard about his death. peace, woodpeeker
For Ken Kesey
Toodle-de-Oodle played the cow's horn,
the Goats sailed free, the Farmer is gone.
With Visage all swarthy, A True Man of the Deck,
we lost us a Card, a Joker, by heck!
Gravity slowed, Neal and Jack swam alongside,
and the smiling, beaming, Fair Lad, in the water he dived.
Goodbye said We All, with tears in our eyes,
we'll miss you Ken Kesey, for all of our lives.
From Allen Cohen
Friends
Here is a remembrance of Ken Kesey - his work and life will continue to
open to us.
We Are All On The Bus
in memory of Ken Kesey - November 10, 2001
Waking down Pearl St. in Oakland
a curled brown oak leaf flutters
and floats down to the sidewalk.
I think of Kesey's great soul
ripped like a giant redwood
from the earth floating upward
fluttering around us laughing
urging us to an openness that
humanity has forgotten
in the midst of yet another
war of fear and hatred.
He joins the great cabal
of our generation -
our beat-hippie ancestors
urging future generations to move
toward freedom-real freedom
that has its roots in the open heart
and the truthful mind.
They are greeting him there
in the land of the ancestors
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Leary
Garcia, Cassidy, Parker,
Coltrane, Janis , Hendrix
Miles, Corso, Micheline.
They are there smiling
at the wonder of the cycles of life
at the humor of being and not being
at the playfullness of the illusions
we build our empires upon.
They will dance there forever
and we can dance with them as we have
in the great exploration that opened
up the unity we discovered together
hidden in the depths of the mind.
This is the real graduation,
the alignment with the light
toward which we are forever traveling.
From David Whiteis
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious is never to forget
The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth;
Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light,
Nor its grave evening demand for love;
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass,
And by the streamers of white cloud,
And whispers of wind in the listening sky;
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun, they traveled a short while
towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.
-- Words by Stephen Spender;
the sentiments, in & from all of our hearts...
From Capt.
A small paragraph appeared in the Houston newspaper I was reading in my
motel room after dinner at Denny's in 1964, "Ken Kesey and the Merry
Pranksters bus will be parked at ---- St. tonight". Strange little
notice I thought and inquired as to directions to the address from the
frontdesk clerk. I was 16 then, driving to New York to catch a flight to
Egypt and a tour of the Middle East and Europe for the next six months.
I had lived in California my whole life and had recently tried acid with
some friends in Palm Springs. LSD was quite tame compared to the batchs
of Jimson weed brew I had been making for two years.
I found the brightly painted schoolbus parked at the listed address and
knocked on the door. I intodurced myself and was welcomed aboard and sat
and listened to the rock music playing and talked with the 10 or so
people onboard. Others came to the door and came aboard until the bus
was getting full and some were on the roof. We all had been drinking
little paper cups of koolaid and discussing our adventures around the
country and how we all disliked Texas. As more people arrived I decided
it was getting too crowded for my psyche and departed wishing all a safe
trip.
Two days later I found myself in Cambridge, Mass. in Harvard Square
talking with student seated on a park bench with a cigarbox in his lap.
In the cigarbox were 200 sugarcubes with a slight bluish tint. On the
open lid of the box he had affixed a small piece of paper that said "LSD
$2.00". I asked about the origen of the LSD and he said it was Dr.
Leary's receipe made in the Chemistry Dept. labs at Harvard. I made him
an offer for the whole box that he accepted. Three days later I flew off
to the Middle East and Europe. For the next six months I gave away the
sugar cubes to Bedoins and beggars to students and teachers, to all that
wished to take the acidtest! Most had only read about LSD then and were
curious to try it. I am glad to have helped expand those minds then and
thank the Pranksters for the inspiration.
From Barbara Saunders
My only in-person encounter with Kesey was at a book signing, but he was uniquely influential in my life. Most of my heros are artists, writers, musicians...people who can provide "inspiration" and "insight." My trouble is, I'm moved to inspiration rather easily and moved to action rarely and often with great resistance. As a teenager in New York, I had a vague, amorphous vision of the kind of questions I wanted to explore in life, but absolutely no idea of what path to pursue or how to create one. Then I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And I got my answer as to WHAT TO DO to move onto my path...Go to Stanford! To this day, that is the most decisive thing I've ever done. I felt a sort of resonance with this Warrior Athlete, this Gentleman Farmer, this intellectual who did not live entirely in his head. "My movie" came suddenly into focus, and it's never gone out of focus again -- despite the ever-present technical difficulties and budgetary constraints, I still live "my movie." I am reminded today of Kesey's spoken word lament to Bill Graham at a Halloween (or thereabouts) Dead show in 1991. I can hear him now, "How do you like your blue-eyed boy now, Mr. Death?"...
From John Neal
I didn't know Ken, other than reading his excellent book 'One Flew Over the
Cuckoos Nest'
in high school (summer 1971 I think). A very thought provoking book on the
nature of the
human condition. I didn't know who the author was at the time, but a few
years later
someone gave me a copy of 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'. I probably
wouldn't have
bothered reading a book about a bunch of people driving around the country
partying,
but the subject of the book (Ken Kesey) encouraged me to read it. I just
wish I could have
spent a day or two on that bus! Ken, you will be missed. Now let's party!
From Niki Morris
KEN KESEY 1935-2001
As you have probably heard, Ken passed away this weekend. Like some of you,
I first dipped into the world of the Grateful Dead (so to speak) when I read
Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test back in high school. It resonated, and I
like to think that eventually I made it "on the bus."
Come to think of it, I did once, literally. Okay Furthur II (pic), which was
parked across the street from Eugene's Autzen Stadium during the Dead shows (pic)
in August of 1993. That was also the day that I had my lone encounter with
Kesey, as I pranked my way into the debut of his musical Twister which took
place after the 8/21 show in an armory a few hundred yards from the venue (a
prank in its own right no?). I have a long story about the whole event
involving Timothy Leary and Huey Lewis (?!?) which I will save for another
day.
BTW, if you're hankering for Kesey right now can I suggest.
(A)Read his short story "The Day After Superman Died" which focuses on the
death of Neal Cassady but is applicable to Ken's passing as well (then go
back and read Sometimes A Great Notion)
(B)Watch your Acid Test video or listen to his most recent appearances with
the Dead on 10/31/91 or Phish 8/14/97
(C)Check out Pete Shapiro's "Conversation with Ken Kesey" which is appended
to the film Tie-Dyed
(D)Go to Key-Z Productions a site run by Ken's son Zane which offers
some real cool stuff (including acid test videos and bus footage)
(E)Visit the Relix archive of Kesey-related articles.
From David Whiteis
I wasn't there for Bend In The River, but I received a copy of the Bend In The River "Reality", the journal/newspaper they put out after the big Council in Bend (I believe it was a perk of being a SPIT IN THE OCEAN subscriber) --
I remember that as being one of the truly magnificent & enlightening moments of my life, because at that particular time I was torn between two parallel passions, which shouldn't have been contradictory but were seen as such by almost everyone on each "side": I was [& am] committed to social justice, organizing, & progressive social change; I also was [& am] a crazy fool fer music, great & noble Buddha-souls & denizens of the street & the wrong side of the tracks, all-night satori sessions at the feet of Sensei Barleycorn & Sensei St. Cecilia [patron saint of music, fer the uninitiated]... as obsessed w/ rainbowcolor'd sunshine daydreams & transcendent motley-foolery as I was (& am) w/ hard & earnest struggle to make this a better world. Needless to say, I found (& find) myself irrevocably caught between two camps, each as earnest & purist-minded, in its own way, as the other...
So along comes Kesey w/ BITR, showing how effortlessly & profoundly the two can AND MUST be joined, if terms like "liberation", "justice", "freedom", & "enlightenment" are ever to mean anything at all --
Not too many years ago, I mailed one of my two copies of the BITR paper to Ronnie Dugger, as a kind of template he might think of using in organizing/planning the Alliance For Democracy, a marvelously idealistic organization that was supposed to be a grassroots-level populist movement to oppose corporate power/domination & return true control of life, liberty, & the pursuit of all things good to the hands of The People them/ourselves...
...the Alliance flamed out, unfortunately, under the burden of egos/conspiracy theories/internal squabbles (DAMN! How come only the "bad guys" can ever get/stay organized!?) -- but, from the way they structured their town meeting -> regional conference -> national organization plans, & from their overall vision of being leaderless & truly small-"d" democratic yet focused & guided in their vision... I cherished the idea that maybe the BITR template might've provided Dugger & Co. w/ some inspiration or ideas.
From Ann Goddard
A little bit of Kesey lore: I've been amazed at how little his last book, "Last Go Round", has been mentioned in obits or anywhere else for that matter. It got zero placement in stores. Now there's a movie about the same thing, and someone else's writing, and still no mention of his & Babbs' book. Frankly it is my favorite behind Cuckoo's Nest. I asked Kesey about the book's low profile when he was in Newport last year, and why he thought that was. The publishers were clearly at fault for not promoting the book, he agreed. It seems, he said, that there was some sort of wrong impression someone got in the publishing world that he was anti-semitic, and the publisher was sensitive to it and buried the book. My jaw dropped, as did Nancy Merkens', a friend who's a Jew and a dance teacher in Newport, who was standing there with me. I turned to her and asked, "Did you ever get that impression?" "NO! I can't believe it!" she replied. We both turned back to Kesey in amazement. He smiled and shrugged. Whatcha gonna do? He wasn't anti-semitic, in fact he was one of the more tolerant types I've ever known. Well, what we can do is promote it word of mouth, and that's what I'm doing now. I LOVE that book. It's a genuine piece of Oregoniana, and a testament to tolerance and appreciation of others' talents. Go out and buy a copy! I even ordered a hardback copy after it came out in paperback, and I gave a copy to family members for Christmas. And I think Babbs deserves a lot of credit for its conciseness (much as I loved Great Notion it was as deep in description as the coastal moss), and hope he gets more credit for his own writing talents.
.
From Matthew Rick
In tenth grade I was reading a history of the United States in the '60s called Coming Apart and the words The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test jumped out of the page at me. I wound up reading that book that year and it blew my mind. The following year, I was in an English class and the assignment was to pick an author and read three books by or about the author and write three book reports, culminating in a term paper on the author, due at the end of the year. I picked Ken Kesey.
I reread parts of Kool-Aid and did a book report on that. Then I went to Cuckoo's Nest and did a book report on that. Part of the class involved learning to use the library and access all the reference books, so I found all the sources that indicated different writings by and about Ken Kesey and, as the teacher instructed, began compiling flash cards with all sorts of citations. I dug up Kesey's Garage Sale and bits and pieces that were later collected in Demon Box and also read a biography about Kesey written by Stephen Tanner. (Actually, in all honesty, I stole the book from the school library, and still have it.)
The term paper was supposed to be something like ten pages, but mine had grown to about thirty pages. I had references from all sorts of directions and the paper was growing fairly unweildy. I started Sometimes A Great Notion at that time also, and it totally changed the way I looked at fiction writing. I was doing a fair amount of fiction writing at that time, and started trying all the narrative tricks that Kesey used in Great Notion, generally to very awkward results. But it really freed me up as a writer.
Kool-Aid had also introduced me to the Grateful Dead and it was also about this time that I started collecting Dead bootlegs and plotting my first journey to Grateful Dead land.
I didn't actually finish Great Notion junior year. Even though I was totally blown away by the book, it was too complex for me to digest in a single sitting, and it wasn't until I was living in the Redwoods and interacting with logging communities, during the Earth First! Redwood Summer protests in '90, that I determined that I was going to finish the book, and did.
My Kesey book report was so involved that I eventually gave up on the footnotes and bibliography, and instead of putting in a typical cover page, I drew a picture of Kesey's face melting into a Steal Your Face with the words LOVE in psychedelic letters above it, and the words "Ken Kesey: Psychedelic Pioneer" also on it, and a psychedelic sugar cube in the third eye of the Prankster. The teacher was blown away by the paper and praised the writing but docked me all sorts of points for throwing out the bibliography and footnotes and substituting my psychedelic cover page for the conventional one, so I wound up with a 67% grade and eventually said, "Fuck it" and took off with a delinquent to Colorado during exam week, failing the class...
I never lost interest in Kesey or the Pranksters, though, and instead kept all the original file cards and citations and read every new piece I could find, compiling them in a few different folders.
When I got to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, I was required to write a thesis on an author and I decided, without much need to consider the matter, to write it on Kesey. As fate would have it, a series of events unfolded where the director of the writing program, Anne Waldman, received a call from Ken telling her she would be opening for the Grateful Dead at the '92 Field Trip. (He not only didn't ask, he also told the press that she'd be reading at the opening.) So Anne went out to Oregon and a group of students went with her. I caught a ride to Boise, Idaho and went to the Nez Perce Indian reservation because I wanted to see it first hand because I was hoping to incorporate a Nez Perce into a story I was writing, and after a few days in Nez Perce land, hitchhiked over through Washington, down into Portland and on to the Eugene area, spending a couple of days at the Cougar Hot Springs.
When the fateful call came that Jerry was in the hospital due to an enlarged heart and that the Field Trip was cancelled, I checked the local phone book, got the phone number for Faye and Ken's place, and put in a call to see if Anne Waldman had come out. She had, and the group was meeting over at a school house for a reading. I went to the reading, and, later, over to Kesey's house where they did an impromptu Field Trip.
The following January when I returned to Naropa, Kesey had released his first novel in 28 years, Sailor Song, and was scheduled to come and read "The Sea Lion" and it was there that I got to interview him, courtesy of a wonderful woman named Emily Hunter. There were a handful of other weird synchronicities, such as sitting at a lunch table the day that the Ken Kesey press packet arrived and talking with the woman at Naropa who was in charge of publicity and having her let me photocopy the packets entire contents.
And there were some letdowns, like the night I lingered too long in the parking lot after the Autzen Stadium show and was supposed to go to the premiere of Kesey's play Twister! but was told that they'd exceeded fire marshall capacity and would have to come back the next day (only to learn the next day that there would be no second show) but mostly my long strange trip into Pranksterdom was riddled with curious and delightful magic.
Kesey wound up coming to Boulder in '94 for the Allen Ginsberg tribute, and I was working in Emily Hunter's office helping her coordinate the conference along with the writing department, and was given the (paid!) job of being Kesey's teaching assistant for a week long writing class he did there and also putting together many of the logistical aspects of the Ginsberg conference (which a few of us jokingly called Ginstock.) Kesey's writing class was incredible, and he scheduled extra classes in when he felt that we didn't have enough time to do everything that he wanted to see the class do. I also got the opportunity to sit in with Kens Kesey and Babbs talking with Ginsberg, a photo of which I later saw on the net, and tape record most of Ken's press conferences and classes.
I left Boulder after Ginstock and eventually settled in upstate New York to work with the New York Tie-Dye Mafia. I finished my MFA Thesis on Kesey in fall of '95, just around the time that Garcia died. Two years later, something really curious happened -- Happy Life Productions, a tie-dye company that I was working for, got a phone call from Key-Z Productions and was asked to work the Kesey booth on that year's Furthur. I volunteered myself to go on the tour and work the booth for the simple reason that I'd read most everything he's ever published.
The Merlin's Wheel Gallery that I do with Mikio evolved out of that, as did two tours doing the Kesey booth on Furthur. (The tours are far more hellish when they are happening than in retrospect, due to rigor and intensity of the vendor tour schedule.)
I think what amazes me most is that it has really been little more than a certain kind of passion for the whole Prankster mythology that has triggered so many of these synchronous happenings. The fact that the Pranksters were inspired by Marvel Comics super heroes gave me a real affinity for them in high school. Also, I really enjoyed the fact that they approached the heavy issues with humor and tried to create art from it rather than just spout rhetoric.
In many ways, the Prankster trip has always been the central kernel of my journey on the Golden Road. The Pranksters opened a window for me that pointed forward to the future and backwards to the past -- turning me on to the Grateful Dead experience even as it gave me a reference point for accessing the Beat literature. And it helped me to realize how far one can go just on a dream. In the case of the Pranksters, the dream was (and is) about creating rather than destroying, and, above all else, about keeping a sense of humor in one's creations.
One final thought: when Kesey came to Boulder to read the Sea Lion, I approached him with some books to sign. Additionally, I had a copy of the term paper that I'd written in high school. I handed it to him, he gave me a curious look and I explained what it was and he signed the drawing that I put on the cover (with the Kesey face melting into a Steal Your Face with the sugar cube on the third eye) by drawing a thought bubble (comic book style) coming out of the head with the words "OH MY GOD! AM I KEN KESEY?"
He was, is and forever will be.
In our hearts and Not Fadin' Away..
From Robert Hunter courtesy of Niki Morris
Just got a call from Mountain Girl in Oregon to say that Ken Kesey passed
away at four a.m. Big ol' laughing moon in the sky she said. Another great
one gone.
Lament for Kesey
all away all away all away all
draggin 'em all away
down into down with
a scream or a sigh
a smile and a nod,
quiet or in full cry
here comes Death
draggin 'em all away
sneak around corners
up out of grates
eagles and the ants,
spiders and the cormorants,
draggin 'em all away
Damn you Death,
I piss on your shoes,
Father of Blues
get offa my land
or I'll run you through!
And who'll be there to
get you when I do?
Never could say goodbye
like it had any kind
of final rectitude,
any essential rightness.
Whatever's right, yeah?
Whatever's true -
later, not farewell.
As in, see you around.
Death is senseless
unless we just pop over
into some other place,
along with the eagles and ants,
the spiders and cormorants,
the destitute and shameless,
the brightest and best -
born to be banished
banished to be born.
One stood in the moonlight
One stood out in the crowd
One stood under star blue sky
his daydream turned up loud.
How did this come to pass?
Don't gimme no don't gimme no . . .
this tractor don't run on horseshit,
Deboree, just natural gas.
Some folk come
to stir it up
and when it's stirred
they split - simple as that.
From Nicholas Meriwether
... a sad weekend. After the stroke a few years ago
we were on warning, but it's hard to lose this one; so few lights left, and
none like his. It's funny, I pulled out one of my scrapbooks last night and
looked at the pictures and pages I had done of Allen Ginsberg's death a few
years ago--like five now--and after looking at the pictures of the memorial
(at Emanuel in SF) , I kept flipping; right after it was my account of when
Furthur II came to SF, right before they took it to the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame exhibit [?]. At least, they took it somewhere; I forget exactly. But
it made its grand appearance in SF and I got my photo snapped with Kez and
Babbs. What's most striking about the shots are how unchanged he looks:
still a Prankster, still an author; that was the point of the day, I think:
despite the superficial differences in the various stages of his life (and
they were extreme differences, on the surface), the same notions bubbled
beneath, and the same magnificent mind linked them together. "Stay in your
own movie" was one of the great counter-culture epigrams, as well as
perhaps the best advice I've ever heard. Even though I took his advice to
heart, and following his inspiration became more of an author than a
non-fiction writer, it's hard not to think that for forty years, those of
us who found him inspiring were all a part of his movie. Thanks Ken.
Requiescat in pace.
From Hillel Resner
I can't believe Kesey is gone. I always thought of him as immortal,
permanent...sort of a head on the Mt. Rushmore of the '60s (you can
imagine the other heads yourself.) I never actually knew Kesey, though I
crossed his path frequently back then. I and some fellow-travelers ran a
dance emporium on Haight Street from '66-'69, called the Straight
Theater. And one of the most memorable events that ever transpired there
(and there were many, believe me) was the Grateful Dead's performance on
our opening night in July, 1967. The Dead, as always, were their
electric Kool-Aid selves... but what made it so memorable, was the
sudden appearance from the audience of Neal Cassady, who took the stage
while the band was in the middle of "Love Light" (at least I think that
was the song--someone else who was there may remember it differently.)
While the band riffed the song's main chords behind him, Neal
(shirtless, sweat glistening on his body) proceeded to deliver a
soliloquy as only he could--the most amazing stream of consciousness rap
that seemed to go on for half an hour, thoughout which the band simply
strummed and noodled and jammed, while Neal plugged into his memories,
visions and observations of the passing scene. We stll have the tape,
and it puts me right there whenever I hear it. I don't think Kesey was
on stage that night, but I'm sure he was there, doing what he did
best--encouraging people to let it all hang out. Peace, Kesey--you are
now Further than the rest of us...but we'll catch up with you down the
road.
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© Copyright 2001, Rick Dodgson
Webmaster: Rick Dodgson
Revised: November/28/2001
