Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties/Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties (1996)(Rockument)(Disc 1 of 2)[Mac-PC].iso/mac/MAIN/TUNEIN/TUNEIN01.DIR/00375_Field_Ken Kesey & The Great Pumpkin.txt

Text File | 1995-06-01 | 9KB | 15 lines

Ken Kesey & The Great Pumpkin

   The eve of all saints day--tributes & processions to all dead spirits--airs of mysteries we no longer understand--the meaning of the transition between life & death--that is the mystery of halloween.  The same mystery we confront in our acid trip--how do we die to the mind that belongs to our visible bodies into the life that we share with the undying reoccurring universal god.
   Ken Kesey returns from Mexico as if from the dead--full of defiance and a message which he can't speak to those who must hear it--thousands of us--because cops are hunting for him every where--a huge halloween party is planned--a graduation ceremony on the night when dead souls are supposed to be free--"Acid is a door"--"we must graduate from acid"--and then he is caught and jailed and released and the Federal prosecutor drops the charges against him though he faces two other convictions.
   The rumours start flying--we have yet to discover a true faith in response to the great mysteries--so we live at the edge of doubt--is Kesey copping out?  Is he going to put acid in everything consumable?  Does he want to create a big freak out, a big bummer?  Does he want to make a bundle of bread and ship the pranksters, himself and his bus to Europe or pay off the cops or beat the rap?  Do his lawyers want to create a political manque and run him for governor?  Will Reagan win if Kesey holds his graduation?
   Rumours like spirits loose from the grave flying everywhere--haunting all minds--Pressure is exerted to stop Kesey--Bill Graham had backed Kesey to secure the use of Winterland.  But he was hounded by the spirits of disbelief--from Kesey's former close friends, from hundreds of panicking people, from Ralph Gleason, from many acid users & hippies.  So he had to withdraw his support and the graduation was canceled at Winterland but there would be a small, private party at the Calliope warehouse.
   The Calliope warehouse long narrow dingy stuffy in the lower mission- the bowery of San Francisco--pawn shops, bars, cheap hotels, and warehouses--soon to be torn down for an urban renewal project--the temporary home of wandering wounded dead and painted faces--princesses and frog princes, robin hood, capes and madrases, saran wrap plastic woman--Kesey in a silver cape, bare chested with a red white & blue band from shoulder across his body to waist--the all American super hero--about 200 people under an orange & white striped parachute and light projectors & spotlights & cameramen everywhere.
   I had come with doubt and confusion flying through the sky of my mind and a cap of acid in my pocket.  There was a relaxed feeling in the crowd though I was a little spooked about the garage.  Am I amongst friends or spirits--it was a mysterious night.  I decided that we were friendly spirits and that earth could be both heaven & hell--and swallowed my cap.
   The music was played by the Anonymous Artists of America--a group of six musicians young spirited dressed in colorful sparkling clothes each had only been playing their instruments for four months of incessant practice and harmonious work.  Dancing, waiting, watching, hip voyeurism, curiosity, expectation of the unknown.
   Finally Kesey came to the center under the parachute and a spotlight was fixed upon him; he tried to move people from the center but newsmen & cameramen wouldn't move so Kesey just skipped whatever he had in mind for a graduation ceremony and started talking while Neal Cassady stood upstage and added his conversation to Kesey's.  Kesey spoke calmly and subtly about his experiences with drugs.  He said LSD was innocence--a garden of eden--but it was only a door that you go through enter a room stay a while and leave through the same door--at this point some cops came into the garage to have a look.  Kesey commented that they are always appearing also, a repeating pattern; everyone laughed; tension eased and the cops left.  Kesey began speaking about the west coast and how a cosmic intensity has been gathering here, that the beat in the music was changing from life-death, life-death to death-life, death-life but at the same time there was a contracting movement, a tensing, a political and cosmic and personal movement to the right, a right wing contraction.  He felt it was an important moment that we had to get our heads together to find out more about what's happening, to experience something new.  Let's move it around he said let's dance on it and the music began and there was a new loving relaxed feeling in the air-- people embraced, exchanged gifts and a fantastic human energy had been generated.  Once more Kesey & Cassady came out and we all sat on the floor and waited and meditated and chanted.
   Sitting on the floor waiting stoned with energy waves emanating from everywhere--suddenly my mind skipped from reality to hallucination--what are we waiting for, asking for?  Is it an idea? A revelation?  Are we waiting for love, feeling? What can we breakthrough into?  Is Kesey putting me on?  What am I doing here?  (Doubt rumour black spirits entered my imagination) Hallucinations replaced reality-- the idea we waited for became physical but couldn't be touched or passed on.  Are Kesey & Cassady producing some weird physical illusion or is it my mind?  Mass demonaic hallucinations overcame my clear view--I had to get out of that garage.  Was it a garage or a circus or hell?  Everyone seemed to manifest the appearance of the tortured & the damned?  I tried to leave by the 6th street door but hell's angels were there and the fear of them drove me back into the garage; I had fallen into a time warp repeating itself over and over again.  I couldn't get out of the garage or the fixed images of distrust in my mind.  Finally I remembered a chant I had read in the East Village Other "Hare Kushna, Hare Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare..." And I chanted and as I chanted I became Krishna--Christ-- and I popped out of the time warp of my mind, the hallucinatory hell I had created--into universal mind, out of Allen Cohen confused faithless doubtful victim or victimizer from wandering homeless spirit into a new incarnation and I was transported out of the garage chanting in a new incarnation a man of faith and I walked home to the Haight-Ashbury about 3 or 4 miles in the early morning hours dressed in red Chinese pajama top with a gold dragon embossed on it past incredible visions of human suffering in the lower Mission with people smiling and shouting "hello Jesus," police cars slowing down to observe me chanting smiling walking and then passing on When I came home I again entered Allen Cohen's Karma and suffered again the fantasies of doubt and guilt.  Finally I awoke again into my life.
   We have touched and experienced mysteries that have lain dormant to Western man for centuries by our use of LSD.  We are exploring the meaning of life & death reality & illusion heaven & hell.  Yet when we come down we are victims of the same human desires fears disbeliefs doubts (How many of us believe in God in immortality in devils spirits in love or total faith?)  Not to speak of the acts & facts these negations bring to reality: cops and robbers jails armies wars good & evil slaughters riots race hatreds--the whole cacophony that is the total illusion.
   The Kesey fear that exploded in San Francisco was an act of self-doubt.  How can we get out of the revolving door of fear, lovelessness doubt and desire that creates the total illusion which now seems to be moving toward greater human prejudice ignorance repression and war --to the right as Kesey has been saying.  We are confronted with the necessity of infusing our inner and outer lives with love & faith or else wander like halloween spirits in a purgatory of suffering.  If the political and psychological constrictions increase we will experience a cyclic return to the catacombs pursued and persecuted by the brutal and decadent romanization of America.  If secret rituals in hidden catacombs are in our future while America brings itself and half the world to ruin, then we must build the new civilization in the caves of our individual beings and in silent pastoral & urban communities of feeling and soda and spiritual exploration.  LSD has reintroduced the full human potentiality into our conscious awareness but LSD has now been absorbed into the cops and robbers duality within the total illusion.  Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary are now at the forefront in combating the effects of the martyr game of persecution and imprisonment.  Within the political framework we still have the opportunity to make the use of LSD & marijuana legal as religious sacraments and/or find other means to get high and stay high in order to continue to create a new epoch of love, wisdom and human trust out front.  But above all we cannot add more fear and doubt and confusion to each other's Karmic burden within the total game-world-illusion.

Copyright © 1995 Allen Cohen