Ken Kesey died yesterday. Fuck. Kesey was one of my high school heroes, and his books; "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Sometimes a Great Nation" had a deep effect on me during my teenage years. The book that Tom Wolfe wrote about Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", had a staggering amount of influence on me when I was younger. In 1964, with Neal Cassady (also the hero of "On the Road") and the rest of his band of Merry Pranksters, Kesey (with Neal at the wheel) drove cross-country in an old school bus named Further, seeking enlightenment in LSD and trying to open the minds of others as well. I'm sure many of you read the novels, most of you probably saw the movie that was made of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", a movie Kesey hated because it took the point of view away from the character of the schizophrenic Indian, Chief Bromden. Now, the 60's are looked back on with either a condesending nostalgia, or as the butt of a joke (look at those silly hippies!!), but the truth of most of the 60's is far from tie-dyes and flower children. For all their flaws, the heroes of the 60's believed in a better world, and they believed in a greater freedom, and it's a shame the world just passed on by that dream. They did do great things though, the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement, helping to turn public opinion against a corrupt war and a corrupt goverment, and they laid the seeds of rebellion and hope and jump started a stagnant culture. One generation did that in the span of ten years, not a bad record at all. I really feel like just going and making up a 'special' batch of kool-aid in tribute to one of the greats, but instead I'll just tip a glass to the memory of the Pranksters tonight and say a toast for Kesey and all the old Merry rebels. Ken Babbs, Kesey best friend, said it best: "A great good friend and great husband and father and grand dad, he will be sorely missed but if there is one thing he would want us to do it would be to carry on his life's work. Namely to treat others with kindness and if anyone does you dirt forgive that person right away. This goes beyond the art, the writing, the performances, even the bus. Right down to the bone." Jim _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+