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                                                FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2022
                                                     
   Indeed. On this day, February 4, 1968, 54 years ago, our beloved father, Neal Leon Cassady,
passed away in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 4 days short of his 42nd birthday. As they say,
the good die young.

   Born on February 8, 1926, in Salt Lake City, UT, to parents who were driving West in their
search for a "better life," and who eventually landed in Denver, Colorado. Young Neal led a c
olorful life, as has been recorded so well in story and song.

   I have a gazillion stories about him (don't we all!), of which I intend to write down one day.
   In fond memory, Dad...
   All best, John Allen Cassady




                          SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2022

                     





And today, February 5, William S. Burroughs, author of the novel "Naked Lunch," as well as
many others, was born in St. Louis, MO, in 1914. He would have been 108 today (yeah, as if!).
He died August 2, 1997, at the age of 83, in Lawrence, Kansas.
   The grandson of the inventor of the Burroughs adding machine, he had enough money to
become a notorious heroin addict ("Junky" was another book that he wrote). I met him only
once, at the Cooper House in Santa Cruz, CA, during some Beat convention. I must say, he
looked pretty "Beat." (Oh, sorry, ha ha). Bill Burroughs Jr. was a house-mate of mine in Scotts
Valley for a while, until he died from liver failure, despite my driving him down to Dominican
Hospital in Santa Cruz almost daily. He was fond of red wine, and I eventually gave up on trying
to stop him from drinking it. There's only so much one can do. May he rest in peace.
--- John Cassady 



                                               TUESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2022

                                                     BOOK LAUNCH DAY !!

                                               
                                         TODAY, CRONIES WILLL BE IN BOOKSTORES
                                          ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
                                          If your bookstore doesn't have it, have them order it.


                                                THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2021
                                                Everything I put on the website since before Christmas
                                                                 Got lost.



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
Ken Kesey was born this day in La Junta, Colorado in 1935

                


 

                                                                       You can pre-order Cronies now. All books signed. Free shipping in the U.S.

                                                                                                To pre-order, click on

                                                                                                       PRE-ORDER


                                                            For out of country orders, email Tsunami Books at tsunamibooks541@gmail.com



                                                                                           

                                                                                       

                                                                               MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2021

                                    Sorry to say, I've been off the website for so long, been overworked with
                                                                book bix since Cronies has been printed. For those of you who pre-ordered, the
                                                                books will be sending out the end of next week.

                                                                The actual publication date of the book, when they will be in book stores,
                                                                is January 14, 2022.


                 
                                                                            HERE'S A GREAT INTERVIEW I DID, TELLING ALL

                                                          http://www.mudcitypress.com/kenbabbs.php

                                                               



   A BABBS BOOK DEAL

My Vietnam novel, Who Shot The Water Buffalo and a free bonus,
my brother's book, Prankster Memoirs.

                 
                                                                                                                

 

I can receive credit card payments through paypal. Go to 

https://www.facebook.com/Who-Shot-The-Water-Buffalo

and click on the shop now banner at the top of the page.

Or send check, cash or money order to Buffalo Book 81774 Lost Creek Road, Dexter OR 97431

Free shiping in the U.S. All books signed. Say if you want a special inscription.
Thanks, Ken


FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED BEFORE THIS, CLICK ON

                 OLDPAGES 67
                                                                                                       
IF YOU WANT TO TALK WITH THE KAPN, CLICK ON:

       YAK


                                                                                                  SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2021

                                                   
                                   Here's something all book lovers and aficionados of the Beat and
                                                             Prankster generations will love:

The Reprint Release of the 1981 classic
"Spit in the Ocean, Number 6: The Cassady Issue."
A score of books, including "On the Road," by Jack Kerouac,
as well as the music of the Grateful Dead,
have delved into the myth of the iconic Neal Cassady.
Spit in the Ocean was a local publication in 6 issues, produced by
the Kens Kesey and Babbs. The final issue, #6, edited by Babbs,
has become an essential (and rare) relic of the Cassady legend.

This reprint edition of 500 copies is an important addition to the
study of the fiction, poetry, prose and music of both the Beat Movement
and the Psychedelic Generation.


To order a copy of The Cassady Issue, go to BOOK ORDER. $18


                          



                                                WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2021
                                                                SHYSTERS
                                   

This has been the story of the world. The shysters come in and they convince the
rubes that something is a good deal. Once they’ve cleaned the rubes out, they move
on, and the rubes are left scratching their heads, and saying ‘What happened MAAAW?!
 Well I don’t know Cyrus, I think that, uh, well, they gave us 5 dollars, uhh, and we
bought all that flour, but err, the flour’s gone!!

 

We are ‘God’s own rubes.’ They come in, they fleece us, and we cackle and laugh!
Then we do something else and wait for the next band of shysters to come in and fleece us again!

 

We grin when we see those guys. We clap them on the back and say, ‘Maan! You so crazy!
You so crazy, I think that I might even knock you on the head!’ No, no, no, we’re not that bad!
We just go along with it. Besides, you know what? ‘I think I just might outlive you.’

 

The sad thing about it, the realistic thing about it, is that there are a whoooole new crop of shysters growing--




                                                        SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2021
                                Here's a youtube of a live stream I did with Walker T. Ryan at Tsunami Books in Eugene last month:
                                                                                               
                                                                                                    GROVELING AT THE GATE

                                                                                   



                                                                                        Another youtube, this one an Earth Day 2021 poem I did
                                                   
                                                            EARTHDAY 2021

                                                      



                                                  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2021
                                             QUESTIONS ABOUT NEAL CASSADY



How did you personally meet Neal?

The first time I met Neal was when we took the Further bus to Madhattan in 1964. He was the driver and I was
one of the fourteen Merry Pranksters he had never met before, with the exception of Ken Kesey. That must have
been around 1962 when Neal just got out of two years in San Quentin and he went to Keey's house in Menlo Park
California; pullled up in his jeepster and the back end went out. He borrowed tools from Kesey and spent all
afternoon fixing the car while talking all the while.

What was your relationship with him through the Merry Prankster days?

He didn't think much of me at first. I gave him hell one day for trying to show the racing car four wheel drift while
driving the bus and throwing us all around. He called me a tourist, which was his way of saying I didn't come up
through the Beat and Bohemian ranks. But as time went on and we got to know each other better, we became good friends.

Did he influence the way you looked at things?

Spend time with Neal and he definitely influenced the way you looked at things, from figuring out the one thirtieth of a
second time it took for you brain to react to something you were trying to do, to working at being a better person, one
who would help another out, try to bring people out of their shells and groove.

Do you think Neal could have ever settled down and had a life, or are spirits such as his here on earth just a short time
to be a bright star and then fade away?

Hard to figure that one out. Neal settled down to a regular life every once in a while and then got pulled away into some
other kind of adventure. I don't know about how spirits are destined to exist; maybe they just are.

What is the message Neal would want the youth of today to learn from his passion and work.

Speaking for Neal: "Go wrong this curve, set up for that, unless you got a flat or some other kind of suspension change,
but what it really matters is to not go on the other side of the railing unless you of course is really wailing, but they ain't
working against you, remember that, what's in the way is going to join you, like they say on the railrooad, you can always
tell by the fear in your belly how limited you are."

Ken Babbs


INTERVIEW WITH GREGORY DAURER

         This was voted one of the best Gregory Daurer interviews in 2020.
                                       https://pleasekillme.com/ken-babbs-merry-pranksters/





SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2021



"Who Are These Vigilantes?

Why, they’re the dirtiest guys in any town.  They’re the same
ones that burned the houses of the old German people
during the war. They’re the same ones that lynched Negroes. 
They like to be cruel.  They like to hurt people, and they
always give it a fancy name, patriotism or protecting the Constitution."
 
– John Steinbeck
In Dubious Battle




                                                 SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2020
                                                HALLOWEEN
                                                FULL MOON 

                                                                                          



                                             FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020

                                                   
                                           

Zen Cwen

 by ken babbs

 

         She was a Cwen. The club of the queens. The campus queens. Cwen meant queen
in Olde English. Only the prettiest and brightest could be Cwens, and service to others was mandatory.

 

Professor Clagmont was chortling at the head of the long table in the English grad room.
The Oxford English Dictionary filled the shelves, floor to ceiling, all the way around.

 

         “Cwen,” he guffawed. “A queen, for sure, but a kitchen queen. That’s what Cwen
really means in Old English. And the kitchen queens were the scullery queens, the dish washers. Our
darling campus queens are dish washers.”






                                                                                         MONDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2020
                                           QUESTIONS FROM A FRIEND IN NEW YORK STATE

..... What the hell is going ON out there? I don't recall any mention of forest fires on this level in the past..

four shore and seven yars ago there warn't this durned climate change x-acerbaiting the sityation.

Everything ok there in Dexter? Lots of smoke in the air (other than the normal GREEN type)...?

For a couple of weeks when the fires in Oregon were raging the red smoke was so thick you couldn't go
outside without wearing a mask. Then the air cleared and now we are getting high grey smoke blowing in
from the California fires still raging

How's this all happening? Man-made.. or Au Naturale ?

Mostly lightning strikes but some man made through calessness and there are idiots who set fires deliberately
due to some maelstrom in their brains. And the change in climate with the hotter dryer summers makes
everything worse and this is only the tip of the iceberg, if we don't reverse climate change only ones left will be
the eskimos and penquins. Projections say we have two decades to get er done, alas.

kb




                                             FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020
                                           
                               

The first hipsters got their name from the opium junkies who lay on their hips while
smoking the pipe. To be hip meant to know what was in the know, both above and below the
flow of the squares' desires to rise to the crop, for hipsters knew that shit rises but cream floats.

Hippies didn't happen as a "thing" (like the beats in the fifties) until 1967, the summer of love.
Kesey and I were forty years old. We were never longhairs or wore tiedye. By then we had gone
"under the asphalt" to mean back to the earth, for Kesey, through his dad and brother, bought a
sixty eight acre farm in rural Pleasant Hill Oregon and the pranksters moved there en masse and
lived on the farm for a couple of years until everyone got their own places.

Cassady bridged the gap between the beats and the hippies. We were too young for one and
too old for the other, and so exist as a phenom as our own thing, so the timeline goes: the beats the
pranksters the hippies.

Hippies are more than potheads, music freaks and bohemians, for there is an underlying
philosophy of self-sufficiency and ongoing efforts to restore the planet, one small plot of land at a
time. Don't forget sharing food and shelter and the spiritual side of being in tune with creation and
restoration; helping one another out, and most important, being kind, not only to those you know
and love, but also strangers who live in pain and misery.

--Ken Babbs





                                        SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2020

                                                               

The Revolution Test
by Ken Babbs

Bus to the Tower of Babbel
via the Colossus of Roads
not stepping on toads
medicate meditate
two grapes in the head
trump one in the bush
job prospects are nil
stay high until
another pitcher's lob
hits the bat on the knob
a turn in the barrel
is part of the job
lighten your loads
follow the Joads
we're not dumbsters
we know what to do
we bust ass fully
enjoy life wooly
we don't struggle
when we snuggle
we run our asses off
following the donkey feet
of the massah hisself
bray at the pool
splash through space
everything in place
nose full of water
mouth blowing bubbles
message is gargled
what's the rush
there's always more
is profess'd in jest
it's the revolution test
with better kool aid
than all the rest
pipe that in your put
and hie to the fest,

 



                                            FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2020
                                    The Shakedown Steam Pre-Show with me and Sue Kesey remains up on youtube.
                                                                                                    Here is the link to watch it:

                                                                                                    SHAKEDOWNSTREAM
                                                                       
                                                                           



                                                                       WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2020
                            Thursday (tomorrow) on the SHAKEDOWN STREAM PRE-SHOW Merry Prankster ken Babbs
                                                  and Nancy's Yogurt natural food pioeer, Sue Kesey, will share memories of the Grateful
                                                  Dead concert in the field in 1972 that saved Springfield creamery. Following the pre-show,
                                                  Sunshine Daydream, the movie of the concert will be shown.

                                                                   


                    
                                            SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2020
                                                   FOURTH OF JULY
                                    The celebration of our declaration of independence from Great Britain,
                                                                (Nothing to do with the Constitution, that came later.) "We hold these
                                                                truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women too, added later) are
                                                                created equal, that they are endowed with by their Creator with certain
                                                                unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the search for happiness."

                                                                               

                                                                Old Glory, a bit tattered and torn on the edges these days, due to the rancor running
                                                                rampant, but take heart, a movement is afoot to restore the earth to its primal beauty
                                                                and bounty and the true sentiments of the heart to be expressed in love and kindness
                                                                to others and the resolution of the societal conflicts.

                                            THURSDAY, JULY2, 2020
                                                This popped up from a pile of old papers  

                                                                             
  
    


                                            THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020

                                               

                                                        I wrote a preface for my Vietnam novel, Who Shot The Water Buffalo
                                                                           but never included it in the book. Rooting around in some old files I
                                                                           found the preface. Here it is

 

     The beautiful thing about the Vietnam expcrience was the way the American people rose up in outrage over a war we had no business fighting and put a halt to it. The parents and relatives and friends of all the people killed and wounded had the stongest voices.

     It seemed to mark the end of something. Now we could get on with the business of grooving out the new millenium. But turned out, it's not over yet. War and threats of war are still with us; must be a fixed condition of the world experience after all.

     If so, what becomes interesttng is the way we come through the experience, be it Ulyssess trying to beat it home after the Trojan war or Robert Jordan making Ingrid Bergman's earth move, Prewitt preferring the bugle to the boxing ring, or Yossarian taking a raft to Sweden.

    Young people today might wonder why anyone used to go into the military at all. What they don't realize is that for a long time there was a thing celled UMT, Universal Military Training, a highblown phrase, much like the way the word assistance has replaced welfare, but in this case the ugly word was the draft and in those days unless you secured a deferment, you served. The problern then became how to best serve.

     "If you don't learn from your past mistakes you're doomed to repeat them agean," George McGovern parroted from someone else, when McGovern was running for president the second time. Nicarauga. Beirut. Panama. Grenada. Gulf War. Iraq. We thought Vietnam settled all this. But no, here it comes again. So how do we play it? How do we carefully tread the narrow path between total disaster and maddening victory?

     The best clue is one all followers of MASH will recognize. If you're in an insane situation a good way to keep your sanity is to act like you're insane. Do the things that in a sane scene would render you mad, in the eyes of the beholders.

     Vietnam was a tremendouls trauma, particularly for those who couldn’t see it as a triumphant note in American history. Big Munitions and big military and big government were anxious to try out their toys and Vietnam seemed like a good playground. After all, foreign nations had been working over its soil for centuries.

     But the people of the United States rose up and said, “Back off. We’ve got no business over there.” And this was the triumph: that government of the people, by the people, and for the people again asserted itself. Rightly so. One of the sad outcomes was the way the soldiers were treated when they got home. Even if you are against the war you aren’t against the solders.

     Enormous damage had been inflicted. Not just to the bodies and the pride but the psyches as well. Take one man’s example. He was a Navy corpsman in Vietnam. He saw terrible things. Bulldozing bodies into ditches. Pieces of bodies. Heads. Arms. Legs.  Awful memories. They were tearing him to pieces.     

    Then one night he had a dream.

     He was on a troop plane flying with a group of militlry men. They landed on a dirt jungle landing strip. They got out and were marched in columns betweeen two rows of quonset huts. As they marched along, the men peeled out of the columns and went into the quonset huts.

     When it was his turn he went through an open door. It was dark inside and crowded with bamboo cages. So crowded he had to crawl on hands and knees and fight to get through.

     The cages were full of the remains of men killed in vietnam. Some were rotten. Some were skeletons. Some were only parts of bodies.

     Finally he got to the end of the quonset hut and went out the back door. He was in another building that had long corridors with rooms and alcoves going off to the sides. In one of the alcoves were the guys from his outfit still living. They wore old-style, beat-up camouflage fatigues. They were eating crackers and drinking pop. Then he heard something.

     He went down the hall and around the corner and down a long corridor. At the end of the corridor was a screen door that led outside. Standing in front of the door was a group of elite military men: Special Forces, Seals. Green Berets,  Rangers. Someone was knocking on the door.

     One of the men opened the door and let in a little, brown-skinned, Asian-looking boy. He was a shoeshine boy wanting to shine their boots. They laughed at him. Their boots were already gleaming. Outside, a low rumbling started and began to pulsate and grow. The soldiers snapped to attention. A call for assembly came over the loudspeakers.

    The men from the Corpsman's outfit formed up along the walls at attention. A General marched down the hallway with his Adjutant alongside. The General shook hands with everyone. He had a big smile on his face.

     "Good luck," he said. "I know you will do your best. The country is depending an you."

     The Adjutant’s face was tough and impassive. He had on a pair of reflective sunglasses so you couldn't see his eyes. He and the General approached the Corpsman. The rumbling outside got louder. The Adjutant cupped his ear to hear better. He smiled.

     "It's starting up again," he told the corpsman.

     The wheels of war were grinding and rumbling. The men marched out of the building and down to a boat parked alongside the dock. On the other side of the river was a long line of 19-20-year-olds. Fresh. Green. Raw. FGNs.

     The men from the Corpsman’s outfit stood and looked at the recruits. The  Rangers and Seals and Special Forces moved in a group toward the boat. They got in and it imnediately pulled away from the dock, heading for the other side. A big black hand fell on the Corpsman's shoulder. One of his old pals.

     "It's all right," the pal said. "Everything is okay."

     The Corpsman realized he didn't have to feel bad about not getting on the boat. He didn't have to feel bad about not having bought it in the Nam..

     He woke up from his dream and realized he was free of the guilt. He didn’t have to feel bad about it. No one who lived through Vietnbam has to feel bad about it.

     After all, when all’s said and done, there’s two sides all right. But they’re not the winners and the losers. They’re the living and the dead.



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