Even 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 Jo Wilt
When I was like fifteen I was watching this Rock and Roll history documentry on PBS and the topic was the psychedelic music scene... And amid the Dead and Jefferson airplane and all teh Woodstock people there was this balding guy in a red beret talking in this drawl about The warlocks and these things called the Acid tests and about the things that happened then and I was sucked in... I didn't wanna say anything out loud because I livied in middle America and what if people thought I was into drugs, so I kept quiet and just read Acid test in the privacy of my own free time and I got wrapped up but there wasn't a lot I could do to be like that I had no car or license and drugs were an absolute no at that time so I just held on to it and watched my tape of Kesey and hoped someday that I would get to meet this court jester and tell him how much he meant to a sheltered 15 year old... but the closest I got was the chance to email him which i guess is more than some of us have gotten but I am glad for the 6 or 7 years I have known about Ken and the Pranksters and all of this stuff but especially the last two years with my finding ann and the books at our community college and falling in love with all of this stuff... I think he was a major part of my life and I am glad for it because I feel like maybe they were right and the 60'snever ended and I got my piece... I just wanna say Kesey was one of the rare ones that made us wanna stretch past it all... And as I said when I found out he died "He can't die because he's Ken Kesey and noone else is left" but I guess the legacy is there and Babbs is right we have to continue on with what Kesey taught because we ALL have the ability to be one of the rare ones because the world needs more of those... And I just send out all my thoughts and prayers to everyone because life is a hard struggle and things like this don't help.
From Chris Ramsey
I never met Ken Kesey, however, when I heard of his untimely passing, a
sense of sadness and despair crossed over me as if the man was a close
personal friend. Although many do not know it, although those who visit
this site most assuredly do, Mr. Kesey was one of the most influential
persons of the twentieth century; indeed it can be said that the sixties
started with his acid tests. Now, one of the few great remaining
counterculture icons of the sixties is gone and I feel at a great loss, one
not felt by many since the passing of Jerry Garcia. My deepest sympathies
go out to his personal friends and family. And Ken, if in some way you can
read this, God Bless You.
From Hank Dorst
Last night I listend to the tape of Phil and Friends at the Fox in St
Louis Nov 9, and cried for Ken and all of us as the music played. It's
truly a time of celebration of life.
Saturday Nov 17, 2001 was "For What it's Worth: An Evening of 60's
Music" at our coffeehouse in West Plains, Missouri, "the Heart of the
Ozarks" (and home of Porter Waggoner.) An eclectic evening that took on
a life of its own, at times resembling an acid test as chaos ruled, yet
beneath it all there was a roadmap of the backroad to salvation.
One of the poets took note of Kesey's passing. I had thought to dedicate
the evening to Ken but came off the road an hour before showtime and had
just enough to do to be ready to easily avoid making thematic statements
beyond thanking everybody. After many tales, the evening ended with "My
Back Pages" and "White Rabbit."
Little tricker the squirrel has informed my 20 years
of homesteading in the ozarks during which I've finally caught up with
Co-Evolution Quarterly's computer revolution; continued visual and
conceptual artistic living endeavors; and got deep into the Ozark Planet
Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra.In the words of Paul Kanter, we go to the
forest and move.
From David ROVING Liberman
To All Merry Pranksters everywhere. We all lost a wonderful ,
insightful, inspirational , sage, guru & Teddy Bear of a man today, My
heartfelt condolances go out to the Kesey Familly, The Babbs, Wavey, Ram
Dass & truely all ,myself included who were luckey enough to be touched
& AFFECTED by a true gift from God. I hope he's up there zooming thru
the universe, showing that gold tooth to the angels & thinking up new
pranks to pull on the heavens !
Peace & Love to you all
And another from From David ROVING Liberman to Babbs
V
Ken I wasn't there in the flesh but your kindly postings gave me the
oportunity to feel like I was with you all in spirit. Kessey 's passing,
as his life , has been an inspirational message for me...it caused me to
reach out to my roots & rediscover who.. I really am.. & from whence I
came In the past week since learning the sad news & sending you my
thoughts I have sought & found Dick Ram Das Alpert now sadly infirm but
still "Being Here,,," on San Anselmo Ave around the block from my old
home on Ross Ave in Marin & Wavy's Camp Wannarainbow,( sure I do - a
double please !) maybe I'll send my 13 year old daughter Liz? Jorma
living on his Fur Peace Ranch, I'd sure love to get up there for one of
the Motorcycle rides. The other night while channel surfing I came upon
Woodstock Movie & there was Wavy in his toothless glory grinnin at me &
I was immediateley wisked back to Aug 69 , Sat afternoon I was workin
the Free Kitchen standing next to Mountain Girl & Wavy says to me "
Theres no bad acid just BAD VIBES ! A philosophy I carried with me over
the next years finding myself several times in Emergency Rooms trying
to help friends & others come down from a Bad Trip.Babbs once before I
was with you in spirit :The summer of 1970 in NYC I built the Bubble
Truck a 65 Chevy Suburban with a plexiglass observation Bubble on the
roof.. Me & several others began our trek cross country but I found
myself dissalussioned in Banff Nat'l Forrest. The rest of my Bubble
buddies had decided to travel to Ken;s Farm in Oregon but I needed to
follow my own path so I gave them the keys & reg & hoped a freight to
Vancouver. There I realigned with others who had been at the Banff camp
& proceeded down to Berkeley & beyond. The Bubble truck spent a short
while at the Farm & then ended up at the Good Earth Comune in San Fran.
If this makes any sense The NOT being there with y"all was my
inspirational message. Instead of being in awe of others who had come
before me I learned to blaze my own path & find my own way...remember I
was only 18 that siummer. Yesterday I went to my local little CD store
& listened to Rev Gary Davis sing "Death Don;t Have No Mercy" . It was
my own little memorial service. I just want to say thank you for your
response last Sunday to my little Tribute Message. With everything on
your heart & soul with the passing of so dear a friend to take some time
to respond to me meant a lot If I can ever be of any help or
assistance with the extended familly please let me know. You"re a good
man Ken Babbs & a better friend I pray I have such a noble soul as you
looking down on me when I pass.
and more from David about Woodstock
I was a High
School senior in Brooklyn NY that Spring & upon hearing of "3 days of Peace &
Music" I contacted Mike Langs Offices & actually sold Woodstock Tickets to many
of my comrades. I also owned a Grey 1961 Dodge Seneca that I quite
professionally painted the two rear doors with the Woodstock Festival logo of
the Guitar neck w/Dove.It was seen all over NYC the Summer & Fall of 69 & known
as the Woodstock Mobile. It also traveled to & spent the Chrismaas Holidays at
Antioch College where it broke down upon arriving in front of the Student Union
& stayed in the same spot immobile for close to 3 weeks but "miraculously"
started on the day we wanted to leave !
I first encountered the :Hog Farm" at their camp at Woodstock on Fri afternoon
, I remember their buses but not "Further"? & also a small stage area where I
heard people jamming ,( Jorma Kaukonen & Jack Cassidy amonst others I believe
.) The camp was some distance from the actual stage area out to the left & I
recall several Teepees there too, Sat afternoon I spent in a Free Kitchen area
behind the audience mainly giving out Free Sandwiches that were brought by the
local townspeople. I remember Mountain Girl next to me & I'm pretty sure the
other woman there was Hugh Romney's wife. I also remember a friend going to
"Get a soda" & it taking several hours waiting on line to do so ! And by the
way the Blue Acid wasn' treally that bad as Wavey had kindly assured me.
From Wayne Grimsrud
The Death of Ken Kesey
(The Day The Day-Glo Colors Died)
(Day-Glo, Day-ay-ay-ay-Glo!)
"When you don't know where you're going, you have to stick together just in
case someone gets there."
"Anybody who says they have no regrets is either a dimwit or a liar --
probably both."
-The late Ken Kesey, wrestler, writer, ringmaster, artist, psychedelic
prophet and guru, husband, farmer, father, wise man, trailblazer, preacher,
...(the list is endless!!!) - September 17, 1935 - November 10, 2001. Photo
Now that Kesey's journey has taken him beyond the physical limitations of
living flesh, and, assuming he is now reunited with Neal Cassady (among
others), with Ken navigating and Neal at the helm (Cowboy Neal is at the
wheel...), its going to be one hell of a trip!
I had a fantasy-vision of Ken departing in a version of Further, his
psychedelically painted school bus which became an icon of the Sixties and
the hippie movement, that resembled the tug-boat (could we name it
"Deeper?") in the last scenes of "Sometimes a Great Notion," only the vessel
was also psychedelically painted and moving away from me, entering the
narrows of a stream (the River Styx?) which was to carry him into the
beyond. In my fantasy, Ken is standing on the roof busy lashing something
to the mast, as emblematic as the dead Father's frozen arm, middle finger
erect, sending a salutatory "fuck you" to all his detractors lining the
banks.
Ignoring detractors, Kesey the farmer was outstanding in his field! (I
couldnıt resist that one) Ken surrounded himself with friends and had very
few (if any!) enemies. But he seemed to me to be a very stoic, individual,
man's-man type of character. He was very much like the character, "Hank
Stamper," from Kesey's literary masterpiece, a character brought to life by
the directing and acting talents of Paul Newman. "Never Give A Inch,"
although (intentionally, I presume) grammatically incorrect, could easily
have been Kesey's motto for his ongoing commitment to "Pranksterism."
Although he admitted to having had regrets, I think it was his unyielding
tenacity and commitment to "going against the grain" that made possible a
great many things. Kesey's influence touched more than it seems should be
possible for one man in one lifetime. And his legacy continues...
I could say rest in peace, but I know that is not Ken's style. I
observed how he worked constantly, obsessively and whenever he could. As
I've been told, he was busy working right up until the end--always editing
and archiving, documenting and preserving his memories, ideas and
experiences for future generations. I'm fairly certain he has some Prank in
the works right now which we will have to look forward to on the other
side...
Although I live in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, I've known Kesey's story
for a long time. Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" was one of
the requisite texts for young twenty-somethings who were enrolled in "Hippie
101." I have since become very familiar with the Palo Alto/Menlo
Park/Stanford U area, thanks to a college buddy who settled in that area. I
guess I had forgotten until just recently that it was Stanford where Kesey
attended graduate school and learned, also recently, that the hospital which
was conducting the LSD experiments Kesey volunteered for was the VA hospital
in Menlo Park. The area has changed so much! Not only is
Atherton/Menlo/Palo one of the most expensive places in the world to live
(thanks partly to the dot com universe), but Stanford Students seem to be
more interested in which model of BMW they will get first (that is, assuming
they arenıt already driving one), than they are in the pursuit of truth,
beauty and enlightenment.
A friend and former business partner and his wife attended graduate school
in Eugene, Oregon before settling in Minneapolis. (Incidentally, I have
another friend, a 77-year-old retired professor of studio art, who was
completing his last year of graduate school at the U of O in Eugene in
'65-'66 when he saw "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" performed on stage by
the U of O-Eugene drama department--a few years before it was made into the
movie Kesey claimed never to have seen. I wonder if Kesey had anything to
do with that production at Eugene???) Anyway, this friend and his wife were
planning a road trip out west during the summer of 1995 (or was it '96?),
with the eventual destination being Eugene to visit college friends and
perform a wedding on a mountain side in nearby Roseburg. See, this friend
is an ordained minister in the First Universal Life Church, otherwise known
as The Church of Elvis (I think he answered an ad in the back of a Rolling
Stone magazine or something...) I was planning a similar tour of the
Pacific NW, and they invited me to meet up with them out in Oregon.
My friend studied English literature/creative writing and, while at Eugene,
was given the opportunity of a lifetime. He was among those thirteen
graduate students who were selected from a pool of applicants by Ken Kesey
to participate in a novel writing class which Ken taught there as an adjunct
professor. They wrote a novel entitled, "Caverns," by O.U. Levon (U of O
Novel backwards). I've read it, and, although well written and
entertaining, it is not indicative of the genius of Ken's early literary
works. Considering that it was written by Ken and a team of graduate
students in a relatively short period of time, and it is most noteworthy.
I surmised that the class was intentionally reminiscent of the structuring
of the Cuckoo's nest story, an early success for Ken (he wrote it when he
was just 27), and a story whose origins could arguably be Biblical: A
leader or prophet shows up to teach and deliver 12 disciples (one of Ken's
13 students dropped out of the class), creates controversy and is
crucified/lobotomized, etc.--luckily, neither ever happened to Ken!).
The experiment was a success. Ken returned to the craft of the novel,
pulling himself out of a 28 year writing "slump." I use the word "slump"
dubiously--he was actually quite prolific but, hampered by the expectation
to match the success of his first two novels, he wrote nothing of novel
length during the period between 1964's "Sometimes a Great Notion" and
1992's "Sailor Song." The death of his son, Jed, ironically (If I remember
the story correctly), due to a bus crash which happened on the way to a
wrestling tournament, affected Ken profoundly and may have contributed to
this "slump."
After the novel class, my friend and his wife stayed with Ken and Faye at
the farm for the summer and did some work for him--among other things, they
painted the barn, I think. They were also around when Ken located and began
to create Further II.
When I arrived in Eugene that Summer, I hooked up with my friends and we
went to the "Further Festival," a music festival and hippie gathering, at
the county fairgrounds. Ken was there with "Further II," (Further is
returning to the earth, rusting away out in the woods on Kesey's farm)
signing autographs and selling books and videos. He was wearing his
trademark stars-and-stripes suit and top hat, only it was faded and well
worn. He was as jolly as ever. He took the stage at one point during the
show and sang "Gloria."
I don't remember if the Thunder Machine was there or if it was being played.
This scene was relatively new to me at the time. Prior to the Further
Festival, I had only been to one Grateful Dead show, at Buckeye Lake, Ohio,
and it was all I could do in Eugene, just to take it all in. We climbed
around in and on the "new" bus, a 1938? International Harvester school bus
(the original was a '39, I believe) and talked to Ken. He invited us to
come out to the farm the following day to visit him and Faye.
When we arrived at the Kesey's the following day, Faye greeted us, then went
out to get Ken. There is a metal barn (the old, wooden barn is actually the
house)on the farm within which there is a fire-proof concrete pillbox type
of structure. Ken worked in there and also archived his material within for
safekeeping. It contained a desk with Ken's computer along with file
cabinets and shelves filled with manuscripts, computer disks, movie film
canisters and audio and video tapes.
Ken took a break, came out and sat on the porch with us. Faye brought out a
huge block of cheese, off of which Ken carved pieces for us with his
jack-knife, and we drank cheap red wine from a box. He got up and went into
the house to retrieve a shoe box(!) full of green marijuana buds that he
rolled into a nice, fat joint while he talked. He rarely or never looked
down while he did this, but rather continued to stare out at the field, look
us over and tell stories, and I couldn't help but wonder how many times his
deft fingers had performed that very task. We smoked and Kesey talked and
told stories. He was the consummate story-teller!
He offered us a pair of binoculars and pointed toward a pond in the middle
of his field. He informed us he was raising a pack of Nutrias (Coypu?), a
gigantic rodent creature from South America, which is about the size of a
small pig but looks just like a giant rat. I'm talking the BIGGEST rat you
have ever seen! I watched them swim around in the pond, occasionally to
step out and walk around nearby.
I may have zonked on the weed, but those giant swimming rat things did NOT
SEEM REAL and began to freak me out. We wanted to steal a peek at Further,
and, in order to get to the spot in the woods where the original bus has
been lain to rest, we had to walk past the Nutria pond. Believe me, I made
a WIDE circle! The college friend who settled in the San Francisco Bay Area
later told me he and a bunch of other hippies once camped out next to this
pond after a music event/festival/party at the farm. I can only guess that
this must have been pre Nutrias. It would have been a rude awakening, after
a night of partying like a rock star, to have one of those giant water-rat
critters staring you in the face!
And then I actually saw it. There it was, right in front of us! Lying on
the forest floor like an old, tired, bulky shell of a dinosaur carcass,
leaning against a tree and rusting to pieces in the woods. It was the
original Further, the bus Kesey refused (in fine Prankster fashion) to give
to the Smithsonian. It was a single vehicle, and yet it was so instrumental
in launching a movement which has since travelled so far. The stories IT
could have told!
Ken took us into his creative lair (he also parked the "new" bus and stored
sound and video equipment in this metal barn) and showed us a video in
progress called "Twister" (a take-off on "The Wizard of Oz") he was editing
on his Mac. Ken was doing digital video editing, which is much more
accessable now, on a home computer back in 1995! Again, it may have been
the weed, but this was one of the strangest things I had seen or experienced
in quite some time and, although I remember very little of it now, it really
blew my mind! I've since seen that this video, based on a theatrical
performance art piece staged by Kesey and Pranksters across the street from
a Grateful Dead show in about O92, is available for sale on Ken's son Zane
Kesey's web site, key_z.com. Ken then very politely informed us that he
enjoyed our visit but would like to get back to work. We all shook his
hand, thanked him and said goodbye.
Ken was diagnosed diabetic in '92, and suffered a mild stroke in '96, about
a year after I met him. Faye later told my friends, who stayed in touch
with Ken and Faye, that the stroke had slowed Ken down in some ways, but
drove him to work like a demon in others to finish all of his uncompleted
projects and do all of the things he always wanted to do. He also became a
very devoted grandfather around the time of the stroke. And he always
greeted wandering hippies with open arms. No matter how busy he was or how
ridiculously lost or stoned (like I was!) the poor bastards that visited him
were, he made time for them.
I was about 29 years old and going through a very difficult time in my life
then. Let's just say I had a black cloud I couldn't shake and the blues'd
been followin' me everywheres. Not only that, but while wearing my
dreadlocked mane, I was clinging to an idealized adolescent dream of
freedom, peace, equality, justice (I haven't abandoned my slightly idealized
beliefs, I've simply matured and modified them to jive a little better with
functioning in modern society). Meeting Ken that summer was like going to
the source--meeting the "Godfather Hippie." After meeting Ken, I felt like
I had been to the source, and there could be no other living person for me
to seek or turn to for enlightenment other than myself, from within.
I was impressed, even rendered speechless by meeting Ken Kesey, but also to
find how simple, humble and even a little redneck-rural-Oregon this great
man was. Like Hunter S. Thompson once wrote to Ken, "How are things up
there in rape country?" In a way, it was as though I climbed the mountain
to meet the wise man and then was disappointed to hear what he had to
teach--only to realize later that it was exactly what I needed to see and
hear. My experience taught me that what I was after was an attitude, a
state of mind, a spirituality--things which the "Hippie Movement" had hinted
towards but not fulfilled or failed to offer.
Perhaps this notion was growing in Kenıs mind way back in the late Sixties
when he staged an "Acid Test Graduation," and spoke of "abandoning the
current psychedelic pursuits and moving to the next level." It may be Ken
was predicting, through observations of the early indications of the demise
of the very same hippie dream he helped spark. I experienced the same
disenchantment that summer that must have been experienced much earlier by
thousands of young people during the fading hippie movement in the early
Seventies. It seemed to have all degenerated into a fashion statement and
an excuse to abuse drugs.
When I returned to Minneapolis, one of the first things I did was cut my
dreads. It was not pre-meditated, at least not consciously. Rather, it
happened spontaneously one morning while standing in front of a mirror. The
whole experience that summer was an amazingly metamorphic one. I really
shed some old skin. I'm glad for everything I did, and although I have
regrets (don't we all?!), I don't think I would change a thing, given the
chance to do it all over again. I am most glad however, that I don't have
to live the lifestyle, wear the "costume," or abuse the drugs any longer to
experience the artistic sensitivity and level of consciousness I now enjoy.
As Dr. Andrew Weil so wisely pointed out in his early and controversial
book, "Chocolate to Morphine," "The key to enjoying recreational use of a
drug is recreation; to use it so infrequently that you build no tolerance to
it. Once tolerance to a drug is built, the user imbibes not to get 'high,'
but rather to get 'normal.' There is little or no enjoyment to be derived
from that."
I heard a Rastafarian who cut off his dreads rationalize about how "flying
your freak flag freely" is all well and good, but it can make you a target
and lead to a lot of hassles ³from de mon.² I know what he was talking
about very well. This same friend of mine (who worked on "Caverns" with
Kesey) and I were working on a mural painting gig in a casino in Gulfport,
Mississippi. We went to a bar one night and, as we were leaving, I wound up
getting the shit kicked out of me on the ground in the parking lot and he
brutally slashed across the back with a knife, all because, as I was quoted
in the police report saying, "In their eyes, we were a bunch of faggot,
hippie, Yankee artists." The Rastaman pounded his chest and said, "Now I
wear my dreads in here."
I heard from the wife of my friend today (Friday, November 16, 2001). The
wife of the same friend who worked on a novel with Ken Kesey and a small
group of graduate students, and who bled profusely from his knife wound in
the passenger seat of our rental car while I drove him to the hospital on
the Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. She told me he had flown to
Eugene earlier in the week to attend the memorial service for Ken Kesey,
held at the McDonald Theater and then the burial, which apparently involved
digging participation from anyone who wished to lend a helping
shovel-wielding hand, on the farm. Apparently, during the memorial, people
walked up to Ken's coffin, a plain wooden box with a psychedelically
dip-painted lid (a marbled swirl technique developed by Kesey and his
longtime friend Ken Babbs) and left within it mementos, i.e., an incredible
stash of drugs (pot, shrooms, sheets of LSD, etc.), which prompted Zane
Kesey to joke afterwards, "Seems like a waste of good drugs, burying them
with my Dad like that..."
My friendıs wife told me that they had recently become the proud owners of a
newer Volkswagen Eurovan with a camper interior conversion. It is a vehicle
which represents the most recent incarnation of the old utilitarian Microbus
that the hippies were so fond of for road trips and going on tour. I could
hear their young daughter, toddler aged, crying, shrieking, laughing and
playing in the background. "And when I die, and when Iım gone...There'll be
one more child to carry on, one more child to carry on..." The dream is not
dead, nor was it ever; It has simply moved on to "next levels," constantly
evolving and changing with the times, incorporating what each subsequent
generation has to offer and brings to it.
I'm Grateful to have been given this opportunity to contribute my story to
the ever-growing mythology of Kesey. I envision him enlarging even Further
in stature, becoming an iconographic figure of folk cult Americana, right
beside John Henry and Paul Bunyan, with Woody Guthrie providing the
soundtrack. I envision our grandchildren singing folk songs about him.
Like the African "Griots" of old, who would sing and recite to record,
relate and pass along the oral histories of their peoples, let's continue to
write and sing the songs which tell our stories and the stories of those,
like Ken, who helped create an alternative consciousness.
Thanks for making the world a brighter, more interesting and colorful
(day-glo) place. Good bye, Ken, we all love you!.
love, Wayne Grimsrud.
P.S. I kept my sheared dreads and, believing them to contain lots of old
juju, I plan to use them in an art piece. They will probably end up as
part of a life-sized crucifix entitled, "Portrait of my Former Self," in
which I will finally crucify that poor bastard martyr of a hippie I used to
be once and for all. Because after all, as Andy Partridge of the English
rock/pop group, XTC says, "Weıre all Jesus, Buddah, and The Wizard Of Oz."
More tribute pages 1
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Page URL: http://pranksterweb.org/index.htm
© Copyright 2001, Rick Dodgson
Webmaster: Rick Dodgson
Revised: November/28/2001
