Sinister: The bus has left the station

[JAMES GILMER]

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


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