Lots of good stuff about Kesey from the Punmaster,
the better stuff is towards the end:
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Novelist, 60s Icon Ken Kesey Dies
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - Ken Kesey, who broke into the literary scene
with ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' and then helped immortalize
the psychedelic 1960s with an LSD-fueled bus ride, died Saturday. He
was 66.
Kesey died at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, two weeks after
cancer surgery to remove 40 percent of his liver.
After studying writing at Stanford University, Kesey gained fame in
1962 with ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,'' followed quickly with
``Sometimes a Great Notion'' in 1964, then went 28 years before
publishing his third major novel.
In 1964, he rode cross-country in an old school bus named Furthur
driven by Neal Cassady, hero of Jack Kerouac's beat generation
classic, ``On The Road.'' The passengers called themselves the Merry
Pranksters and sought enlightenment through the psychedelic drug LSD.
The odyssey is documented in Tom Wolfe's 1968 account, ``The Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Test.''
``There was a lot of the frontiersman in him, an unwillingness to
accept conventional answers to a lot of profound questions,'' said
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Larry McMurtry, who was in a Stanford
writing seminar with Kesey. ``We argued and debated a lot of things.
But I never would not listen to him, even if I thought some of what
he said was gobbledygook, because there would always be the
perception of genius if you waited him out.''
When the Los Angeles Times honored Kesey's lifetime of work with the
Robert Kirsh Award in 1991, Charles Bowden wrote that ``Anyone trying
to get a handle on our times had better read Kesey. And unless we get
lucky and things change, they're going to have to read him a century
from now too.''
``He's gone too soon and he will leave a big gap. Always the leader,
now he leads the way again,'' said Ken Babbs, a longtime friend.
``Sometimes a Great Notion,'' widely considered Kesey's best book,
tells the saga of the Stamper clan, rugged independent loggers
carving a living out of the Oregon woods under the motto, ``Never
Give A Inch.'' It was made into a movie starring Henry Fonda and Paul
Newman.
But ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' became much more widely known
because of a movie that Kesey hated. It tells the story of R.P.
McMurphy, who feigned insanity to get off a prison farm, only to be
lobotomized when he threatened the authority of the mental hospital.
The 1974 movie swept the Academy Awards for best picture, best
director, best actor and best actress, but Kesey sued the producers
because it took the viewpoint away from the character of the
schizophrenic Indian, Chief Bromden.
Kesey based the story on experiences working at the Veterans
Administration hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., while attending Wallace
Stegner's writing seminar at Stanford. Kesey also volunteered for
experiments with LSD.
Kesey continued to write short autobiographical fiction, magazine
articles and children's books, but didn't produce another major novel
until ``Sailor Song'' in 1992, his long-awaited Alaska book, which he
described as a story of ``love at the end of the world.''
``This is a real old-fashioned form,'' he said of the novel. ``But it
is sort of the Vatican of the art. Every once in a while you've got
to go get a blessing from the pope.''
Kesey considered pranks part of his art, and in 1990 took a poke at
the Smithsonian Institution by announcing he would drive his old
psychedelic bus to Washington, D.C., to give it to the nation. The
museum recognized the bus as a new one, with no particular history,
and rejected the gift.
In a 1990 interview with The Associated Press, Kesey said it had
become harder to write since he became famous.
``Famous isn't good for a writer. You don't observe well when you're
being observed,'' he said.
In 1990, Kesey returned to the University of Oregon - where he had
earned a bachelor's degree in journalism - to teach novel writing.
With each student assigned a character and writing under the gun, the
class produced ``Caverns,'' under the pen name OU Levon, or UO Novel
spelled backward.
Among his proudest achievements was seeing ``Little Tricker the
Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear,'' which he wrote from an Ozark
mountains tale told by his grandmother, included on the 1991 Library
of Congress list of suggested children's books.
``I'm up there with Dr. Seuss,'' he crowed.
Fond of performing, Kesey sometimes recited the piece in top hat and
tails accompanied by an orchestra, throwing a shawl over his head
while assuming the character of his grandmother reciting the nursery
rhyme, ``One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.''
Born in La Junta, Colo., on Sept. 17, 1935, Kesey moved as a young
boy in 1943 from the dry prairie to his grandparents' dairy farm in
Oregon's lush Willamette Valley.
After serving four months in jail for a marijuana bust in California,
he set down roots in Pleasant Hill in 1965 with his high school
sweetheart, Faye, and reared four children. Their rambling red barn
house with the big Pennsylvania Dutch star on the side became a
landmark of the psychedelic era, attracting visits from myriad
strangers in tie-dyed clothing seeking enlightenment.
Furthur rusted away in a boggy pasture while Kesey raised beef cattle.
Kesey was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992.
His son Jed, killed in a 1984 van wreck on a road trip with the
University of Oregon wrestling team, was buried in the back yard.
Kesey also wrestled in college.
In a recorded message on Kesey's office phone, Babbs said: ``Ken
Kesey, a great husband, father, granddad and friend. Done in by a bum
liver. As always, he gave it a great fight, but his body pulled its
last dirty trick and done him in. If he has on legacy it is for us
the living to carry on with courage, compassion, generosity and
love.''
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A LAUREL AND HARDY HANDSHAKE
by David Gross
I met Ken Kesey in 1994 backstage at the 'Tribute To Chet Helms' in
San Francisco. Larger than life, Kesey wearing a top hat, we turned
towards each other and the first words from my mouth were, 'I'd like
to give you a laurel and hardy handshake.' With our hands and eyes
locked, and smiles on our faces, we shook hands for what seemed like
a long, long time......one of the strongest grips I can remember
outside of my late uncle Bernie.
Also in the mid 90s, as part of the festivities for the 'Benefit for
Jan Kerouac' (daughter of Jack), Ken Kesey agreed to make an
afternoon appearance at Enrico's. Jan had a bad liver and rare blood
disease and later died in 1996.
At the time of her death she was involved in the archive and estate
controversy, claiming that her grandmother's will had been forged.
Kesey was here for one reason, and for one reason only......when he
sensed that this was turning into something different, he LOUDLY
exclaimed....."It's about the liver!" .....and even louder
again....."IT'S ABOUT THE LIVER!!!"
Kesey stormed out of Enrico's........
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R.I.P. Ken Kesey ...
by GorDoom
Back in '64, me & my friend Johnny, hitchhiked down to San Jose to
see The Rolling Stones. This was a BIG DEAL ...The Stones were like
gods to two pimply, incipient, rockers ... 37 years later, I don't
remember much about the concert but I have vivid memories of walking
out when it was over & the events that followed ...
Zooming through the parking lot were what appeared to be mimes on
roller skates. As they wove through the crowd they handed out fliers
which read: "Hey Kid, You Want To See A Real Rock & Roll Band?" that
had an address in E. Palo Alto, just a few miles down the road, for
the 2nd Acid Test ...
We snagged a ride to what turned out to be a basement in the middle
of what was called back then, "A Negro Ghetto". We stumbled down the
stairs to this enormous basement where there were lights & images
flashing on the walls & at one end was the weirdest band I'd ever
heard called, "The Warlocks".
The other big center of attention was this giant tub filled with Kool Aid..
Being an intrepid youth I slugged a whole bunch down & my life was
forever changed ... I ended up in a magical, wooded, hollow, in a
place called, La Honda.
My parents didn't hear from me again for about ten years. I was 14
going on 15, hanging out with these weird older peeps, who treated me
like an equal. Within about 24 hours, scorching down the road,
screaming to the skies in a strangely painted old school bus; very
quickly driven by this wacky old dude named Cassidy, seemed like a
perfectly natural thing to do ...
There were many new experiences for a kid like Lil' Doom. Most of it
was eye opening but after a while the scene got so constricting ... &
I hitch hiked down Highway 101 to San Francisco & ended up in The
Haight ...
But I digress ... This be about Ken Kesey, a man who forever changed
my life by giving me a wide angle lens to view life from an extremely
different perspective. Now I ain't gonna blow smoke up anybody's ass
by claiming me'n Kesey where tighter than two ticks in Tucson, 'cause
we weren't.
In those days Kesey had much bigger fish to fry than a teeny bopper
like me - as he was being harassed by The Feds on innumerable
charges, mostly involving drugs. Kesey eventually had to go on the
lam to Mexico ... But, again, I digress.
While I was in La Honda & riding The Bus, Kesey was John The
Revelator for me. I grew up an OSS/CIA brat. Which is especially
ironic considering that I ended up in, La Honda??? ... I was born in
Paris, France, in 1949 & lived in Germany & Italy until my father was
briefly transferred to DC in '56.
A bit later, in '56, he was assigned to the Mexico/Latin America desk
& I ended up living in Mexico until 1962. Eventually, even a Gung Ho
diehard like my old man couldn't handle the bullshit & he quit. He
then relocated us to San Francisco. When we got to the U.S. I didn't
speak a word of English & had obviously been living under some
stringent rules ...
America was an epiphany for me.
& that's where Kesey comes in to my life. Up 'til the time I met him
I really believed in "The Big American Lie". Kesey opened my eyes to
new possibilities & new ways to live your life. He taught me to
question & always seek for an alternative view ... He taught me that
things are not always what they seem ...
& this shy, repressed, (I got over it, folks), altar boy, took his
guidance to heart.
When I heard he'd died today I realized how much he had influenced my
life. I haven't seen or talked to him since 1966 ... I'm sure he
didn't remember me & that doesn't matter. What's important, is that I
will always remember him.
As far as I'm concerned, the 60's wouldn't have happened without 50's
repression, The Beatles & Ken Kesey.
What a man. What a life well lived ...
***************************************************************************
(For Ken Kesey)
Hail To The Chief!
An ode to deliverances fallen
Like Jack, Neal and Allen before
This body's electric transformation
More than just a notion
And more than a body of word
Is this bardic souls deliverance
Laughing again out loud with Neal
Page, Zonker, Sandy and more
Pranking us - the eternal left behind
Knock, knock, knock'in on the door
To quiet the mind and rest our fear
As with this Knight's day drawn neigh -
All Hail To the Chief!
A cat in the hat
A cellular muse in the great meow
The greatest escape from bondage
Is this life endurance run -
An Acid Test we all must pass
However coo-coo our clocks become
Hail to The Chief!
Yes indeed - and once again
Whispering this songs deliverance
A ringing quest for the rest
To hear and know while carrying it on.
[r.i.p]
(C) 2001- Hammond Guthrie
***************************************************************************
We Are All On The Bus
in memory of Ken Kesey - November 10, 2001
by Allen Cohen
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.
***************************************************************************
Source: 2001 Punmaster's MusicWire punmaster.com |
