Dead Beat Falls Prey to the Satires of Horace.

Kesey took off - and what with the relatives safely back in Ireland Dead Beat thought it was back to normal. He had finished a draft of a novel before Christmas and was waiting on some feedback, and so he got on with rewriting a children's novel he has been working on (or more like working on and off on). Anyway Dead Beat thought he would return to his rewrite and all thoughts of Kesy and his Merry Pranksters disappeared like a sinking psychedelic bus in a western swamp.

But no it was not to be - there I am ensconced in rewriting once again when who wanders in uninvited but Horace. Yes that Horace! Gave up all the gladiatorial work so that he could tramp around the country and ended up finally on my doorstep.

"Shoo!" I shooed.

But Horace is no pushover, pig-headed really. Will not be shooed. Starts berating me infact:


"Dead Beat, You write so seldom, as not to call for parchment four times in
the year, busied in reforming your writings, yet are you angry
with yourself, that indulging in wine and sleep you produce
nothing worthy to be the subject of conversation. What will be
the consequence? But you took refuge here, it seems, at the very
celebration of the Saturnalia, out of sobriety. Dictate therefore
something worthy of your promises; begin."

Then he skulks off - takes up residence in my tool shed.

Too busied in reforming my writings!!
Dictate therefore something worthy of my promises!!

Be gone fool!

First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels

First Party At Ken Kesey's With Hell's Angels

Cool black night thru redwoods
cars parked outside in shade
behind the gate, stars dim above
the ravine, a fire burning by the side
porch and a few tired souls hunched over
in black leather jackets. In the huge
wooden house, a yellow chandelier
at 3 A.M. the blast of loudspeakers
hi-fi Rolling Stones Ray Charles Beatles
Jumping Joe Jackson and twenty youths
dancing to the vibration thru the floor,
a little weed in the bathroom, girls in scarlet
tights, one muscular smooth skinned man
sweating dancing for hours, beer cans
bent littering the yard, a hanged man
sculpture dangling from a high creek branch,
children sleeping softly in their bedroom bunks.
And 4 police cars parked outside the painted
gate, red lights revolving in the leaves.

December 1965 Allen Ginsberg

Potholing With The Merry Prankster

Dead Beat puts a lot of faith in Kesey (see Advice To A Would-Be Writer). The Merry Prankster speaks the truth.

Examine the hollow.

Too many writers are attracted by the light(s) shining from the dark instead of shining their own light upon the dark and revealing what lies within.

Too much surface layer stuff. Get down on your hands and knees and go potholing.

Never mind the bright lights of 'success': The Awards, the BestSellers' Lists, the TV appearances. ..

It's tinsel, Christmas Tree shananigans.

Look at the root system, get dirt in your nostrils and upon your lips.

And remember you are not alone. Ken is right behind you showing you the way.

Advice to a Would-Be Writer: Examine the Hollow

"Stay with me Dead Beat."
"Not going anywhere Ken."
"It's just that you call yourself a writer."
"Occasionally."
"Well promise me one thing."
"Cross my heart."
"Examine the hollow."
"The hollow?"
"When people ask me about LSD, I always make a point of telling them you can have the shit scared out of you with LSD because it exposes something, something hollow. Let's say you have been getting on your knees and bowing and worshiping; suddenly you take LSD, and you look, and there's just a hole, there's nothing there. The Catholic Church fills this hole with candles and flowers and litanies and opulence. The Protestant Church fills it with hand-wringing and pumped-up squeezing emotions because they can't afford the flowers and the candles. The Jews fill this hole with weeping and browbeating and beseeching of the sky: "How long, how long are you gonna treat us like this?" The Muslims fill it with rigidity and guns and a militant ethos. But all of us know that that's not what is supposed to be in that hole.

There's only a big hollow, the great American wild hollow, which is scarier than hell, scarier than purgatory or Satan. It's the fact that there isn't any hell and there isn't any purgatory, there isn't any Satan. And all you've got is Sartre sitting there with his momma--harsh, bleak, worse than guilt. And if you've got courage, you go ahead and examine that hollow."

"I'm listening K.K."

"That's the new wilderness. It's the same old wilderness, just no longer up on that hill or around that bend, or in that gully. It's because there are no more hills and gullies that the hollow is there, and you've got to explore the hollow with faith. If you don't have faith that there is something down there, pretty soon when you're in the hollow, you begin to get scared and start shaking. That's when you stop taking acid and start taking coke and drinking booze and start trying to fill the hollow with depressants and Valium. Real warriors like William Burroughs or Leonard Cohen or Wallace Stevens examine the hollow as well as anybody; they get in there, look far into the dark, and yet come out with poetry."

"I'm ready Ken. I take up my torch. I'll shine with it."

The Novel as a Box of Tampons

Kesey just won't let go.

"You write novels Dead Beat."

"Do too."

"An archaic form don't you think? What with the information age - all that the brain can absorb."

"What are you saying Kenneth, give it up?"

"It's a flash in the pan, as far as history goes, I think. Because the storyteller was there to begin with. He used the fire, and he used his voice; he used shadows and monsters, and he used poetry and music. And all those things worked on the audience. When you just get into print, you reduce the input quite a bit. But it makes for a nice thing to package and distribute--like a box of tampons. But I think that for us to really deal with a young audience, we're going to have to pick up the pace."

"What to do?"

"When Shakespeare was writing, he wasn't writing for stuff to lie on the page; it was supposed to get up and move around. And I think that writers are going to have to face this; they were performers originally. That's what storytellers did--they told a story. And the better they were at telling it, the more famous it became. The Chopes were writers that moved from castle to castle. The word `Chope, C-H-O-P-E,' means `see, too see, and be seen.' So you went from castle to castle and you told about the castle you just came from, and how beautiful the maidens were and how powerful and manly the knights were. You helped prop up a young civilization: They couldn't have done it without them.
Now, we've got electronic means to do that, so you wouldn't have to actually travel to castles. Come out of that box, there, and address the audience. The whole MTV audience, that is the new audience. And the people who are being purists and ignoring that, are those who are going to be left behind. As Dylan says, `it's a new road; if you don't like it, get out of the way.'

Dead Beat thinks he has a point. Pick up the pace or get out of the way.

If You Fall In Water, You Drown

So Kesey calls me back.

"Sorry about the bus Dead Beat."

"It's okay Kenny. It was a lousy plan anyway. So what's really on your mind."

"This Dead Beat and only this: Everything's still basically the same as it used to be. Fire hurts you when it burns you. If you fall in water, you drown, rocks bruise you, wolves bite you, you go through a certain bunch of things that are the same. The job of the shaman / mystic I think is to pull things away from the Freudian mind. Let's quit examining ourselves and trying to make ourselves psychologically perfect. We aren't and never will be.

Now I gotta rush. Some things that need pulling away."

Kesey and the Winds Begin to Howl

So Kesey drove Further into the swamp (see previous posts).

"That'll stop you Dead Beat," he howled.

Meanwhile the winds began to howl outside Dead Beat's door. The temperatures dropped. Nostril hairs froze and the folks finally decided it was time to go home.

D.B.'s off to put his feet up and finally read Visions of Sin.

Dead Beat Trips Out with Ken Kesey

So Kesey calls up Dead Beat:

"Keep your hands off Further," he warns.

"Kenny, it's a great plan."

"It's a disaster."

"You haven't even heard it yet."

"Shoot."

"Okay, so I put up the cash necessary to bring Further back to life in exchange for one trip."

"LSD laced juice again?"

"Not that sort of trip K.K. No, Neal Cassady drives the bus to Seven Sisters Falls. I tell the relatives to forget about the snow, think California, Summer of Love, long hair, beads that sort of thing. They won't be able to resist it, I just know it. So off they go. They're off my hands and I can get on with reading Visions of Sin. It's a surefire thing."

"Dead Beat, Cassady's dead."

"You sure K.K.?"

"Sure as the hole in the ozone."

"It's still a good plan, Ken. We just need a new driver."

"It's a lousy plan."

Further, Ken Kesey and Dead Beat Update Their Plan

Update on my plan (see previous post):

Recognise this?

Answer: Further.

Yes, Further, Ken Kesey's old psychedelic bus. The one that crossed the States from California to New York with The Merry Pranksters on board, Neal Cassidy at the wheel, and a jug of LSD laced juice in the refrigerator.

Well it is in the process of being restored...sort of...

So my plan is....

Dead Beat Has A Plan to Get Life Back to Normal

Dead Beat apologises for his lack of posts, but honestly his relatives from Ireland just won't go home. They love the snow, they really do. Dead Beat is more than willing to help them pack it up and ship it off to the old sod, but no, they love the good life too.

So Dead Beat is still on page 6 of Visions of Sin and Modern Times is little more than background music.

But D.B. has a plan....