The Pranksters chilled until about noon... the excitement of the GRANDFURTHUR Tour had somewhat subsided... but tonight was the Big Show at the Fillmore Auditorium. Time to rev up again. The Bus was due at the Rainbow Grocery Store, a natural food emporium, at 2pm. Remarkably, the Bus was on time. More friends and well wishers and seekers appeared to say hello and admire the proceedings. Much unfiltered apple juice, dried fruit and nuts were consumed.
It was time to head-em'-up-and-roll-em-out! Massive set-up was necessary
at the Fillmore. Electricity and video cables needed to be run to and from the Bus. The Zyberjam computers needed
to be connected for the live feed to the internet. 
There were only four hours to make all of the connections. The BGP/AKG
crew at the Fillmore did their usual impeccable job of getting the hall tricked out for the evenings' festivities.
The bar was stocked, the caterer loaded in, couches and bean bags were strategically placed... did I say "BEAN
BAGS"? 
Big
Brother, Country Joe McDonald and the Sons of Chaplin all sound checked the Ultra Sound house system. The excitement
was brewing! The audio/visual light show crew adjusted their projectors.
Outside... the Art Police hoisted the Killer Bees and accompanying sound device
into a tree between the Bus and the entrance to the Fillmore. Anyone within twenty feet of that tree would soon
be affected by the Killer Bees!
Ken Kesey with a swarm of Killer Bees above his head
7pm... a small crowd of San Francisco artists begins to convene on the
sidewalk next to the Bus. Are We Really? posted a CALL-TO-ART in a topic in the Grateful Dead Tours conference
on The Well and at Electric Minds, two computer conferences frequented by Burning Man, 
Denefenstration and Cacophony Society advocates.
David Gans, host and producer
of Dead to the World, read the posting on his radio show a day earlier. 
The kind folks at Bill Graham Presents and
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum starting calling... "what the hell is going on Freddy?" Are
you doing something we don't know about? Well of course something is going on! Working with the Pranksters and
the Grateful Dead over the years, I learned, if you ask permission, it gives them the opportunity to turn you down.
So
I invited a small group of art associates to come to the Fillmore and help celebrate the Bus. One of the more interesting
proposals I received was from a woman named Kate McGlyn and John Law from Burning Man. They offered to jump off
the top of the building repelling down as Ninjas. They did exactly that... 
while the crowd was entering the Fillmore,
we clandestinely hustled them onto the roof where they attached their rigging and suited up. On the way down, the
Ninjas sprayed silly string all over everything including the Bus. About a hundred artists showed up making the
scene around the Bus rather surreal. The CyberBuss parked behind the Prankster Bus for the evening and participated in the live Zyberjam.
The fabulous party, hosted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, was well underway with dozens of 60s
San Francisco musicians filling the Fillmore with psychedelic sounds. The audience itself was a who's who list
of San Francisco luminaries from the psychedelic scene. The media were having a field day inside. Outside, the
Live Zyberjam was cookin' from the Bus. The Pranksters cavorted about the Bus while three video cameras fed the
action upstairs to the Poster Room where the cyber-connection shuttled the zeroes and ones by microwave across
town to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's T1 line and out over the internet. 
After a while, the Pranksters handed the cameras
and the microphone to the artists and street people outside of the Bus who became the show on the internet. Kesey
and the Pranksters went inside to do their time on the stage. 
The Art Police were suited up inside as Bozos and MadHatters
and were dancing wildly in the crowd while Big Brother jammed.
Rock and Roll is the dominant "art" form of the establishment. In economic (real) terms it is the property of and for the establishment. The irony of its existence is that it relies on its image of rebellion against the establishment to sell itself. This careful balance of appearance versus substance is a sublime paradigm of hypocracy. If the Christian ministers of the 50's were not paid by corporate and governmental Amerika to burn Bill Haley records, they should have been. They (the ministers) sold a lot of records, and a lot of Nikes. Rebel now! Shake off the chains of corporate/ MTV/ Disney mind control. Illusion sucks unless it is high quality. The bus as nostalgic ikon removed from its chaotic anarchy is a cheap illusion. Force chaos down their corporate throats.
---- Steve Schuster, Prankster Musician
Meanwhile... one of the security guys walks up to Are We Really? and hands him the sound device from the Killer Bees. Apparently two and a half hours of annoying buzzing was enough!
Alas...no time on the stage for the Merry Prankster performance? What the hell is going on here? These psychedelic pioneers paved the way and you won't give them their moment on this auspicious occasion? Now just a damn minute. Where is the respect? Kesey said... "all of the Bean Bags flew off the roof of the Bus in a cross wind. So we'll take these three Bean Bags as a measure of honor!" With Prankster John Swan jamming slide guitar with Big Brother on the stage during the finale, the Bus quietly pulled off and headed back to Marin. At 2:45am in the morning, the Prankster group mind decided to pack it up and head back to Oregon in the comfort of the Bus in lieu of riding back in a stuffy van. The Low Boy Truck could pick up the Bus at the Farm instead of at the Ferry Building in San Francisco as originally planned.
8am that morning...dilemma ensues! The Bus is on its way to the Farm with the Low Boy chasing a few hours behind. The race is on and here comes heartbreak or however that Grateful Dead song goes. We came not to sacrifice but to show mercy. It's not a sacrifice to lead the simple life. But we are entitled to clean air and water and a green earth and we must speak up at all times for our causes. It's okay to take a job and make money, too, you just have to practice your ideals and beliefs in the work force as well off as we all are, blessed with life. Remember the Beat Movement? No matter how down and out you are, you keep consulting the beatific center of your being and you will be able to groove no matter what. Now go party down and take that good feeling with you wherever you are, passing the vibes on to others who are not so fortunate.
---- Ken Babbs, Prankster Extraordinaire
