The GRANDFURTHUR Tour
More...than you bargained for...
Pranksters Park it in Cleveland
journalisimo simulated by Kim Spurlock
Rained all morning the day The Merry Pranksters were due to bring
their bus Further to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Psychedelic 60s show. About
2:30 in the afternoon a cheer arose as a diverse crowd of maybe three thousand celebrants
greeted the bus as it pulled into the space reserved out front and parked like so
much monumental sculpture. Ballyhoo ensues from the bus led by Captain Ken Babbs
on the mobile PA with various & original Pranksters on fife & bell. The crowd
surrounded the arrivers and introductions were made all round. The mothership had
landed in what looked like Kuwait City. The futuristic facade of the R2HoF perched
like some silly diplodicus over the Gulf of Aqba or is it Lake Erie? Triangles of
gridded glass three or four immense levels high housing the accumulated artifacts
of our instantaneous past. St. Rockstar's reliquary. Jimi's strat & Elton's platform
shoes--the cherished debris of late 20th century popular culture.
A cordon was quickly erected around the Bus and it was subsumed under the aegis of
Corporate Sponsorship & made duly artifactual. A squad of blue blazer'd museum
guards sprouted with Loss Prevention embroidered on their breast pockets. They had
walkie talkies & patrolled the perimeters with scrutiny focused on Loss Prevention
I guess. Keep the crowd back—only the TV News Crews allowed thru each with a little
woman with stiff wind-resistant hair--phallic black mic thrusting--local media joustsers
meet the somewhat dazed rainbow jesters debussing into-- Ah! a Press Conference.
A gaggle of orphaned Deadheads dance at the far edge in advance of the music. Big
Brother & The Holding Co.--Country Joe MacDonald minus the Fish and--believe
it or not--Donovan are scheduled to perform for Free outdoors on a stage setup on
the Corporate Plaza. After a nonstructured interval of Time the Pranksters make their
way to the stage and after a strong solo acoustic performance by Country Joe who's
been playing for Vietnam Veterans lately in a kind of Reconciliation Tour--the Pranksters
tune up or turn on & prepare to drop some science on the crowd—Kesey speaks to
the crowd now extemporaneously of injustices being perpetrated under the guise of
The War on Drugs. He declares there are too many fine young kids going to jail under
mandatory sentencing. It's time Judge's take into consideration the Person and not
the Crime. He tells of how Timothy Leary went out with his High Irish sense of humor
intact--remembering his debates with G Gordon Liddy who bragged about what a hard
ass he was--he could eat rats. Tim said he'd eat a rat if Liddy would eat these two
little pills right here.--Liddy wouldn't do it.
When Tim was dying Kesey said well man it's been just great whadya say we make plans
to meet up again this Hallow's eve--where should it be? And Tim said in a terminal
rasp--Houdini's grave. These guys have courage--sez Kesey including Ginsberg's recent
departure with high holy grace & Toodle-loo.
The Prankster Band cranks up and the Sun breaks thru the clouds. Kesey enjoins the
crowd to bless Rush Limbaugh with Love & Light. That old authentic Silverback
Buddha of American True Culture Ken Kesey calling down the gawds not with a Curse
but a Blessing for the fools of the bogus broadband dispensation. Kesey a regular
Charles Atlas preaching Dynamic Tension Builds Muscle Groups. We need to start exorcizin'm.
The Prankster Band breaks into a wicked version of G-L-O-R-I-A--a tune extracted
from their recent Twister Tour. Along with Kesey & Babbs a lot of the original
1964 Bus Trip Pranksters are on board--George Walker & Mike Hagen--Roy Seburn
& Steve Lambrecht aka Zonker--Kesey's brother Chuck--most magikal of all perhaps
it's a reunion of sorts with the Grateful Dead's Mountain Girl--Carolyn Garcia.
Now MG was on the Bus before she was with the Band but they flowed together off and
on over the years and what a long strange trip that was. With Jerry without Jerry--MG
has that natural authority like Kesey—a Stone Tribal Elder. MG don't just Rock she
Swings. She moves thru the crowd dispensin' dayglo orange wrist bracelets that'll
admit you to the VIP room down in the Hall's basement. That Band--this band--wristband.
We don't need no stinking bandes I hear some Prankster wag goof. The stage is surrendered
to Big Brother and with the wails of a Janis clone we retreat to the Foodcourt over
in The Galleria across an interstate or two and acres of formless futurism--bad futurism--futurism
that's just now taking hold on the charnel ground created by Urban Renewal—that devouring
demon of the darkside 60s.
Under the preterite florescence of the Food Court we feel like we're coming on to
something stronger than that Prankster Whiskey they passed around. O-no its that
old familiar feeling--uneasy realization--can't be--but wait--no--yes--we got dosed.
Never trust a Prankster. Still. But alas & alack the odd unreality dissipates
before it takes hold—musta just been a contact high--the Bus was definitely buzzin--but
it was nothing other than G-d's Own High Octane.
Later that evening at the Reception attended by Corporate Cleveland's latest donors--where
the Ruling Class meets the Drooling Class—we stumble into the exhibit. Lots of lil
bits & pieces of what mighta been. The remnants of a Revolution Betrayed. Posters
announcing Kingdom Cum.
Buttons spout neat lil Nietzchean aphorisms. So the End of the World started around
the Summer of 1966--the real Summer of Love. John Cassady the Son of The Man is wearing
his original Go Easy on Kesey button--alluding to a pot bust in 1965 at La Honda
and again dammit on a North Beach roof with--you guessed it--Mountain Girl. Son John
drove the Bus part of the way out here in honor of the Original Driver--Sir Speed
Limit--dear old dad. Wonder what Neal would make of all this appropriated propriety.
His ghost brushes by me with the hack & harumpf!#@ of Major Hoople--mock disgustedly
approving.
Hey the Thunder Machine is heatin up over in the corner. Yep and there's Kesey inside
wired to the gills and i don't mean Methadrine. Looks like a 'pocalypse now chopper
pilot inside an Afghani pinata. And here come the Prankster's with their axes again.
Contact. Babbs is scattin Salt Peanuts accompanied by a Dobro deconstructin Moonlight
on Vermont. They're giving Harry Partch a run for his money honey--and who let John
outta his Cage.
The Thunder Machine clears the Hall pretty good and only those left are there for
the long haul. The Corporate hoard has retreated with their warbling cellulars. Say
when did we swap the Very Cellular Song for the cellular phone? Did we get to vote
on that one? or was it another one of them Takeovers?
Kesey's sequestered himself at a table way back in the corner with an admiring group
of what--Ohio relatives?--and John Cassady sits next to him--we'll just say adieux.
Kesey's in the middle of a story for John about his dad--no not John's dad Neal--Kesey's
dad--the old Oregon dairy farmer. He's telling John about when he was a teenager
and he told his dad how he was gonna start smoking cigarettes--and his dad tells
him--well when you buy your first pack a cigarettes buy one for me too and I'll join
ya--now the idea of his dad smoking just wasn't right—and having his dad join him
in a new bad habit was unappealing in the extreme--enough to scuttle the whole idea.
So it's not only what we teach our kids that's important but how--right?
Yeah sez Kesey but the thing is you don't ever wanna get drawn into thinking about
winning by popular vote--we're never going to win. We're never gonna be a majority--this
is it--this is us--for chrissakes.
So the only way you can tell who we are is to look at people over there on the ladder.
Climbing the ladder--they can see it way up at the top there--up at the top there
is this Great Judeo Christian Old Man Gawd with a beard and everything--they're climbing
this ladder and he's raining shit in their faces--and they're raining shit on the
people below them--there's Dan Quail tryin to claw his way over the back of Henry
Kissinger who's up there tryin to work his way past Janet Reno.
And over here WE got this ladder that goes up like a crickety kinda thing its all
taped together and goes off into the clouds--nobody knows where it's goin and we're
all on this ladder. The only thing we know for sure is we're not on THAT LADDER OVER
THERE! We're not on that Corporate Ladder--and all we gotta do is NOT DO what they're
tellin us to do—and the skies will open for us.
And here's the easiest cheapest way to do this and deal this culture a real blow
right now. Watch television and count the number of guns fired. Count the number
of bullets fired on those shows. See the bullets is the answer. We can't ban the
gun--that's in the Constitution--but nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything
about bullets. So ban the bullets. Male contraceptives is a way of disarming the
pistol--its easier to disarm the pistol than protect the site. You just take away
the bullets.
We have to save the world--it's as simple as that--nobody else is gonna do it.
Prompting John Cassady to exclaim--Well bless your heart man you haven't given up.
And Kesey back at him in his toughguy voice--Nobody quits The Mob.
--
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum's I Want to Take You Higher: The Psychedelic
Era, 1965-1969 opened May 10th and will run thru February of next year. For more
information visit their web site:
The faster we go the rounder we get. --NC