Art Beat; Interview with Ken Kesey on Writing in Oregon

Any where near as good but boy gets good pictures. Jamie does it gets sweet pictures. Rocky Rocky Horror. OK good. Thank you. Now you were saying about Magic. Magic and I was interested in that a long time before I thought of it as writing. And yet that's what a writer does. It takes the attention of his audience and turns it on something and tries to make that thing seem real. It's not real - it's just words on paper. He creates this thing in the mind of a reader. Oh mercy me. Call that an illusion? No, that was a bark - full scale bark. And when you see it happen whether it's in writing or music whether it's Bob Dylan or Garcia

or whether it's its Kurisaba or Fellini. When those things happen you think "oh wow - that was wonderful". Cause your mind per minute go snap and it's through that little crack that it leaves that all magic flows through and it's all a trick but some tricks are better than others. And again the great tricksters are people like Hemingway. Kerouwac worked his trick is a whole lot more complicated. He's he's writing fast off the top of his head and trusting his soul to do the magic. Where Hemingway wrote very hard and very long and trusted his mind to the magic. And Faulkner wrote very drunk and very fast and trusted the South to do his magic. And what about you? Did you happen to listen to

that thing yesterday about Josh from CBS that had died recently he was head of the PBS for many years and one of his lessons was to keep the first sentences in something very short. And I've often thought that is one of the reasons for Cuckoo's Nest success is the first sentence is three words long. Just that as an old fashioned journalistic idea. You don't start off with a long sentence, you start with a short sentence and and work with that. And those are just hand moves that you learn to do when you're writing and working with pictures. It's more complicated. They're still coming down the same stuff. Boy you're working with the mind of somebody there. You're leading him along and you have something you want to happen in their mind. And when it happens it's wonderful. That was what was always nice about going to see the Dead up here in Oregon because an Oregon audience is a very special audience that everybody talks about you know we all support a losing basketball team a

losing football game for years waiting for them to make that one contact and a Grateful Dead audience in Oregon to listen to mediocre music you know two three hours to have that king hit and when it hits everybody in the audience and people on the stage all know it. That was it. We finally hit something where everything connects and it all blooms in everybody's mind the same time. And that's part of the psychedelic experience. And that wasn't available to people 50 years ago. Just electronically available and now they're getting to where they're using the video and projecting the video up there so that you not only see the small character on stage with you realize but you see the great big character above them like Mick Jagger. That will be a common thing in an opera. before long. You will see the people up there small but you'll also see them quite large above and then pretty soon know you'll see people accommodate

that technique into the story, like say you've got a pigeon here or a raven would be better. Saying up to this point where you throw the raven in the air and keyed in on the TV is a shot of the Raven at that moment. It flitters away. As it is they just keep turning up the sound turning up the sound, until you can't hardly hear it anymore in a rock and roll show and they've ignored the face. You know think how many things you've seen of rock n roll people on stage or just anything that doesn't have the footlights. The footlights are part of the magic - it's the fire. The light comes up hits underneath your eyes and it hits you underneath your cheeks and give you these this strange melodramatic look of "I can't pay the rent". "Oh you must pay the rent" " I can't pay the rent" That bright little thing that goes on in the face with foot lights. The people who are working the stage, they can only think of it like other lights like a stab stab around the outer circle. Color color the smoke machine.

Things go off like this. But the simple little thing of the face and how much is communicated with the face. I do these stories that I travel around and do with with kids. One is a Little Trigger the Squirrel story and the other one's a sea lion story. I've memorized the Trigger the Squirrel story so I can do almost a half an hour from memory. And I've almost got the other one memorized, that sea lion story. It's about a hour. Because when you take your eyes off somebody in the audience and you look down at the book. you break the magic. If you continually look up and deal with them like this you gotta hang on to what they have to look below the book you break the magic. We've started, Babs and I, started wearing the hearing things in our ears. Which is the story and then you talk right after it. And it's very hard to do but once you get it rolling you know that you've got to keep up with it because it goes on past you then you stammer and stammer and then you can't catch it again. But it's to perform to an audience that you're letting them know that

you respect them enough to know that you're dealing with that audience all the time. It's like signing these boxes. Each one of these people gets with these boxes knows that we've all worked on it and that we haven't turned it over to the Viking back in New York. It hasn't been part of anything that they want to do. So we're able to reach this audience through this medium and let them know that we're responding to each and every one of us as well as we can which is just courtesy. People often apologize for asking for my autograph and I always tell them a thing my dad says you never out grow your need for compliments. How can an autograph be anything but a compliment and the same way with these boxes the fact that these people are out there and they're our friends - friends we haven't met but I've all read that wolf book and there is usually about twenty

two years or younger, or about 50 years and older. We missed a big section somehow right there in the middle and we try to go back and get a by the eyeballs. Yes, let's wander down to the bus barn - good idea. It will be outside and we'll dip Do you have enough stuff from in here? No? We need to get a few more shots of everything but you. OK. And that room. You see how we transferred that stuff. We projected it with a five bladed fan through the projector so we didn't get the rollover and then shot the projection and run the image through the computer. So a lot of this footage is better than your original footage. It's amazing. I look up there and here it the things we're projecting over here here's this picture. This about 10 times better. And we've only recently learned getting off the wall because it's a lot

of the images. This is Happy's favorite salad. Which means I'm leaving this god-awful machine. It's Happy's theory there's something very un-dogly about computers. It would be really nice if you could copy some of that stuff for us. Also. And also a copy of We were followed around in England by a group from Channel 4 and we get it playing football. Carying that deck they go thing in carrying the camera another to go think you know look at this. It's amazing stuff and this is I'm taking this to my son because he's got a little mini TV and the stuff that we had it with over there is a lot of the little mini dvd decks and flip up you got cheaper and more powerful all

the time. And you know for an artist not to use that - art - it's not a bit - it's a way of doing, it's a way of doing something it's already old fashion by the time the book comes out. I tell you I'm a little ashamed sometimes of the profession of being a writer. Because as I do it now, I see how much I was bending it toward this New York consciousness you know and or L.A. consciousness Absolutely. I have two words. Absolutely, it's like musical notes on a piece of paper. All of these machines will break if scratches on the wall that people always use. Yes. And, yes, I learned a very hard lesson - I was working at KCT in Los Angeles

in the 70s - you can write your way out of anything. [laughter] (unintelligible) Oh no they're in the back of the van - I forgot about 'em. "The van, what's the van?" "The van. The white van. The big van that is moving around. "The van." the van, the van. "I brought some jam." You made some jam? "Yeah, I don't know if you want to pick one...but it'd be kinda you know," Like the boysenberry, peach. Ok. No, I think I'll get this boysenberry. Boysenberry is, wait a minute, apricot, oh, there I go. Yeah. I've got some, we were talking about ... because we got all the berries... you know they just put up a bunch of berries and yeah and. The.

Oh. [Coughs] I guess, but you know what. [Birds chirping] Oh hell. [Metal grinding] Jane. Let's get this one shot. Okay. [Metal screeching] [Footsteps]

It's going to sunshine before we get to the coast. Goin' to be neat. [Footsteps] Okay. [Exhales] First thing we're going to do it de-scum the pot.

That's pretty good. I'll turn some more water in it. We did this down the Wow Hall for a benefit. And it was at night in this kind of bar place. And you're able to - look it comes up from there. Take the camera right down into the stuff and project it on the wall. [water pouring] And one guy in the audience, he got up and he came up and says "let me take a look at this pot. I don't believe you're doing that," but he looked at it and realized we were doing it and it's being projected right up on the wall. We'd dip Tonya Harding.

As an award she got either for kneecapping or hubcapping and we weren't sure why we had a little wind up baby doll that skated very very slowly. It's on our website. OK. First thing we've got do is wait for Matt to get here with the boxes. But you can see what a great place this is to have the bus. In fact, I'll turn on some lights. on in there. Whoa, [expletive]. Lights. Ask question when he comes over. You learn about working with these

cameras is how vital lighting is to us. Yes. And it takes the kids a long time to learn this. They shoot everything things that kind of looks Squeegi's pouring. With no shadows. How long has it been since the bus has been on the road? Oh, we took it to England last year. And since then we've gone up to a mushroom convention and on Easter we climb to the top of the hill and all the way over the hill. A bus waits on the other side. So we could - we could just be riding up I-5 and - right - see it. Oh right right. It works good. It's dusty and needs to be reworked for the set so long in the shipping yards or because it has to set so many weeks before it clears customs and

nothing is harder on it than the sun. It really dulls up the urethanes. Who did all the work on this one? Just everybody. Everybody. Oh yeah it's a continual job. People who start off with a rig and plan to paint it, they don't understand it. Boy, you got to keep a rig looking sharp. Or it looks like faded hippies. And it's - it's a chore. But, it was so nice in England. Everywhere this bus went, everybody knew - uh - would come out there to see it. They were all your friends. And the four-year-olds are the best. You see these little four-year-olds come up this bus. They have no notion who Tom Wolfe is - or the Grateful Dead - and they look over and they're begin to look at it and break into a smile because it's a school bus, and everybody knows what a school bus is school bus. Something comes by. Picks you up, takes you somewhere. You learn something and it picks you up and brings you back and you're safe in your home and

mom's there. Yeah. We're waiting for Babs. Band in an existence, I think Paul Revere and The Raiders were around before us, but that's about it. Can you say that again? The second oldest band in existence - except for Paul Revere and The Raiders. We were around before the Rolling Stones. This is Adam. Adam, as you can see, is reaching out to the power and the glory, whereas down below him, you see all this autumnal glory coming through. That represents the fall and fall of man, and you see it circulating up there through the great steak fish Yoni and on up into the perfect equilibrium, which is represented by Pogo the possum. [Clanging]

I'm going to go give Babs a call and make sure he's coming. He's got all the boxes. I didn't bring the boxes. [footsteps] [whispering] [dial tone and beeping] [beeping] [Robot voice:The line is busy]

[Robot voice: busy] [dial tone and beeping] [Robot voice: The line is busy] [nothing] I - uh - keep getting a busy signal out there at the office where Babs is. You guys want to walk down and look at the old bus while we're waiting. Yeah. Yeah let's do that. You know what I'd like to do - it's down to toward the pond, right? Yeah. OK. Well I can do is this: I'd like to get Greg and Jean down by the pond ahead, you know. And since it's long I think you'll need the sticks. The light's a lot like this and it's why they have such good painters.

Angle down there, I'll catch up to you. OK. I'll make another try on the phone. [footsteps] In fact - well, leave it. I'll be right there. I'll call on the phone. This is where I'm going to ask him about the influence of being in Oregon. This is where I'm going to ask him about the influence of being in Oregon. So, stay tuned. Right here. No, in a minute. If I was talking to you and you were right next to me. Blue and it's blackberries. And they're red and they're green and then they turn black and then blue.

Turn blue when they go black. You're - you - you're from Oregon. You moved back here a long time ago. You've been here a long time. How does - how does being it in Oregon figure in your work? The barn belonged to my dad. It was his property - and then to my brother and then to me. And - We know - we know this piece of land. I can tell a lot about it. How low the pond is. It should be about another three feet. But we have nutrias - you know nutria? Mmhmm. Oh, man are they the baddest animal in the world. We trap these nutria and take them to the river and there's - We took 17 down there last year and they make holes in the bank, so the pond siphons out too fast.

And when it's this - my stomping grounds. Up there is where Jed is buried. And the kids spent a lot of time down here. And now their kids spend a lot of time down here. And we have some gargantuan frogs. Wait 'til you see him. That's a mediocre frog. We got one frog called Ol' Legs - eats other frogs, and that's not exaggerating. He's an Alabama frog. Most of our bull frogs were imported. Like the nutrias like the earwig and the starling. Mmhmm. Big bass in there. In fact, Happy will show you where the path is. Just follow him and you can get down in front of us.

Show them down to the bus, Happy. Go ahead. Okay. Go to the old bus. Go ahead. OK. Kids call it the Ghost Bus. The grandkids do. Now about here. OK. Go ahead, Happy. See we still got a little bit of water in it, but not usually what we do. A few years ago, we had a field trip. We do one every ten years. We did a '72, '82, and '92. And in '92, Garcia got real sick so he couldn't make the trip. So we took all the people that come on vacations and they never knew. We told them we'd do a concert down here.

And we set up a concert. Great little concert on the back of the truck. No charges. Everybody got to get on the stage and do their number. One girl had a ferret. The ferret was hooked up to a little cart and another ferret in the cart. And her act was that one ferret pulled the other ferret across the stage. You know it's like a 30 second show. But it was good, for 30 seconds. And the kids used to come down here and camp. This was Camp Kesey, right in there amongst these big old cottonwoods. They'd stay down here. They'd show up at the house for milk and the essentials. Then they'd be back down here. They spent a lot of time down here in the swamp. It's great having a swamp. You can see how things live and prosper in a swamp,

especially these blackberries. Watch it. The Smithsonian. See, they thought they were getting the bus. There was a lot of stuff in the paper about it. They had a budget. They were going to restore it. I knew better. They never called me or said anything to me, so I just said let's fix up another bus. So, we put it put ourselves together a bus and then drug this one down here to hide it. And with our other bus everybody just went for it. Completely. Even though - if they thought about it, it couldn't possibly have been the same bus. It's a 1947, that one is. This one's a '39. But that one is older to us now than this one was to us then. Why?

Because there was that many span of years, you know. We did it '64 with a '39. We did this one in '89 or something and it's a '57 so there's more distance. But, I love it down here. People keep coming down and wanting to fix it up. Smithsonian was just so sure it was going to go back there, that we staged an uprising between the young pranksters and the old pranksters. While we were in giving a talk, the young ones stole it. We came out and there were the outline, like crime scene where the bus used to have been. And all the press that were on there just completely went for it - hook, line, and sink her. And they've stolen the bus. They put out an APB on the bus that they took the bus. They painted it - this is the one up there, the '47 - and they painted it all over with a water base blue, and up on top of it they painted

Stockton School for the Dumb and drove it back up and hid it in my brother's yard for a long time and we were able to suck the Smithsonian and a lot of the other people into believing the bus had disappeared for quite a number of months. Finally the AP wire service began to get an inkling that we were tricking 'em. His name is name is Jeff Bernard and he lives in Ashland. And he was the first one that kind of pulled the covers on it. And at that point everybody said, "Oh we all knew!" The didn't all know. They just went for it. [Laughs] Yeah, it didn't ever run much afterward.