Even
Mountains Crumble, Man.
07.22.03
transmission: email / website
Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters on the bus
with Beat legend Neal Cassady at the wheel.
|
The
psychedelically painted school bus dubbed "Furthur" was
crammed with amplifiers, cameras, costumes, and assorted contraband
as cargo for a legendary
cross-country journey of the United States in the summer of
1964. The trip was immortalized in Tom
Wolfe's book |
Third annual Even Furthur
Friday May 24 thru Monday May 27, 1996
Somewhere, WI
- together we make beautiful music -
Even Furthur
1996 : view
from the Drop Bass Network camp.
Even Furthur 1996 :
overview
of the valley and all the techno campers.
We condensed our "Summer of Love" into four days,
like a turbocharged bus accelerating thousands deep into the night.
"Can you feel IT!?" Yes, we felt it!
And we peaked in every way we knew we could.
That Memorial Day Weekend was an important moment in of our lives.
You had to be there to fully understand.
We left our inhibitions and egos at home, with open minds and hearts
we were free to return to the source on the other side.
Not alone, but in a bus-load!
We journeyed our cultures vast potential like an open highway,
and for one weekend, jacked it up into high gear.
Together to gather...we were on the bus!
Strange
memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas.
Five years later? Six?
It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era
--- the kind of peak that never comes again.
San Francisco in the middle sixties
was a very special time and place to be a part of.
Maybe it meant something.
Maybe not, in the long run ...
but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories
can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive
in that corner of time and the world.
Whatever it meant ...
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit,
but even without being sure of "history"
it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then
the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash,
for reasons that nobody really understands at the time
--- and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
There was madness in any direction, at any hour.
If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate
or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda ...
You could strike sparks anywhere.
There was a fantastic universal sense
that whatever we were doing was right,
that we were winning ...
And that, I think, was the handle
--- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil.
Not in any mean or military sense;
we didn't need that.
Our energy would simply prevail.
There was no point in fighting
--- on our side or theirs.
We had all the momentum;
we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ...
So now, less than five years later,
you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west,
and with the right kind of eyes
you can almost see the high water mark
-- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Thompson's
touching reflection of the 60s quoted above
was the core of the book/movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".
His rumination for days gone by can be applied just as easily,
and sadly, to what we are feeling now.
The original "Furthur" bus peacefully resting
and rusting in a meadow
on Ken Kesey's farm near Pleasant Hill, Oregon.
Remember
the Merry Prankster motto:
“NOTHING LASTS!”
The
past sure was GREAT and we're looking forward to the future,
but for now, Even Furthur just ain't happenin'.
If you are one of those people who needs an explanation
you can use the same reasons
the festival didn't happen last year
(with emphasis on the venue, authorities, and anti-rave
legislation ).
It's
been said over and over again, but it's the truth...
"what a long strange trip it's been!"
THANK YOU to EVERYONE for EVERYTHING over ALL THESE YEARS!
Ken Kesey and friends on a descendant of the original "Furthur",
reliving the good times some 30 years later.
Live by the bus, die by the bus...never get off the bus!
Even
though "nothing lasts", this doesn't mean it's over.
We're shifting gears, and probably so are you:
Party...Learn...Forget...Trance–>form knowledge into instinct.
In the long-run, yes, even mountains crumble.
Yet
their presence can still be felt...
in silence they represent, their majesty and power just is.
Let the power flow through you…
Kesey with "Furthur"...
PEACE OUT
stay turned on, stay tuned in, keep dropping bass
(Please get the light on your way out.)
