MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2008 SNOWED IN It poured down all day Saturday and into the night. Rain that is. But about midnight the pounding on the roof stopped. Everything hushed. An occaisonal soft clump on the roof hipped me to what was happening. Sunday morning it was coming down heavy, or for purists, heavily. And kept on coming. All morning the lights were flickering. At a quarter to noon the power went out. Luckily we have a wood stove and a fireplace so we were able to keep things warm. A propane cookstove took care of the cooking problem. But with a pump and well we had to conserve the water. If needs be we could always melt snow or trudge down to the creek with a bucket.
This is the firt snowstorm we've had in years. My wife dug out her cross country skies and went touring around the property. Down the one lonely hill. The dog and I followed on foot.
Sunday night we made like Abe Lincoln and read by candlelight. The schools had already announced they would be closed on Monday so we didn't have to set the alarm.
When I woke up at seven this morning the digital clock was doing the 12:00 on and off thing. We had the power back. Went into the living room to find all the lights on and the radio blaring. Now getting back to normal. Sun out, temperature rising, snow melting, big clumps coming down off the fir trees. Back to work tomorrow.
From Travis Holland:
what are we missing? and by that i ask what can we do to get there again? i cant help but feel like we, creatively, have regressed with age and now we just want to the wear the most stylish clothes and have the most ridiculously over prices cellphones with things we dont need. we are forgetting how beautiful the natural world is around us and how we can create art of out anything. i really feel like i've always been "on the bus", in my mind, but i've yet to see a prankster event or further tooling down the street. i dont know if there are anymore events of that nature anymore so i try to find any way i can to connect.yes, tis I, Ken Babbs, responding. We aren't missing anything. Misplaced, perhaps. Eyeballs on the fried ice cream instead of on the ball. Always been a battle of freedom against rampant consumerism with advertising banging on our brows. So, it takes a twist of the head of the attention apparatus, to focus on the good stuff, to do the good work; and then the will to follow your bliss. Plus, don't forget the day job to pay the bills. Not too many prankster events tooling down the streets aboard a multicolored bus, but they are out there, spread thin, for that is the nature of the beast: to proclaim loudly and colorfully, in a large mass, then disperse like the proverbial rings in the water where the boulder got tossed, going farther and further and furthur, out across the land. Forget about getting there again. Move forward, chart your own course, buddy up. The magic isn't gone, it's waiting to be found, to be used. So, groove.
Keep your eyes open. The herd of our like ilk is growing, but we have learned the art of cloaking ourselves in invisiblity so the media circus doesn't spotlight our glow.
You may think you are alone but you are not. Here's more:
I pulled up in front of the Kesey statue in downtown Eugene to find a group of students from Seaside High School, off on a field trip, come to meet me and hear about Kesey. We hung around the statue for a while and I answered their questions about the meaning of life and the fact that just because they weren't around in the Sixties, when so much was going on, they thought they'd missed out, but I told them it doesn't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing, so swing with your own times, heck, we didn't have pooters or cell fones or digi cameras nor even vidies back in the day, but we are surely still working on the same things the Beats were hosannahing and the psychedelic revolution brought to the forefront which is first and foremost, as in the words of the man, Kesey, "Be kind."
MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2008 THE IRAQ PEACESHIP PROJECT Erik Beckjord, down on the San Francisco Bay, is dubbing this rig, THE KETCH FURTHER. He plans to have the words, STOP THE WAR, on the sides and sail it around in the bay with however many volunteers he can get. For more, click on:
KETCHFURTHER MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2008 ACROSS THE UNIVERSE REVIEW
Boy, you've got to carry that load.This is the perfect time to see ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, Martin Luther King day,
and events all week long celebrating the civil rights freedom fighter. The most
powerful sequence in the movie is the Let It Be number. I thought at first,
oh my, this is going to be too slow, starting off the way it did, but it
built up through rioting, burning, a storefront window showing TVs with
Walter Kronkite reporting Martin Luther King's death, a chorus of singers,
Vietnam soldiers fighting, the music swelling, poignant shots of the
soldier's funeral, the funeral of the young boy who was first singing, the choir''s voices soaring to a memorable climax. After that they didn't need any more war or rioting stuff.It was early in the movie when I realized this movie was going to be a fun trip. The
Asian high school cheerleader, singing and roaming through the football
players throwing each other up in the air and around their shoulder in a marvelous dance sequence made me lol before I hushed, thinking I might be bothering the other moviegoers. The dancing throughout the movie was tremendous, a step up from Hair, which this movie reminded me of. Certain songs and sequences stood out. I was in a mediocre state of anxiety, having drunk and smoked tea beforehand, so at a certain point I really had to pee, and so clambered out through the laps of the women between me and the aisle, and when I got back to my seat my wife said, "You missed the bus."Oh no, I was looking forward to the bus. I sat back and watched the pack
of main characters dip cups into a punchbowl full of red liquid, hardly the
trash can full of kool aid at the acid tests, but the effect was the same. Bono was
fantastic siging I Am The Walrus and the acid trip was the best since the
one in Hair. In the background while Bono was moving toward the stage to
sing, the comments from the people around him were all actual quotes from
Neal Cassady. The colors and the looks of the photography and the effects
were great renditions of those from the 60's.And I got to see the bus. It was great. The inside ceiling of the bus was painted just like the new Further bus. Bono wasn't Kesey so much as he was Doctor Robert.
Then, when the bus stopped at Leary's and Eddie Izzard played the part of Mr Kite, there will be a show tonight, on trampoline, and Mr. Kite will be topping the bill, the movie went over the psychedelic top like nothing ever done before on the screen. I was bouncing in my seat and whooping for joy and the audience was digging it like crazy. Skypilot Rocket Rich from Junction City was grokking so hard his glasses fogged up. Litlle kids in the audience leaped out of their seats and ran up and down the aisles.
The movie came at you in waves. Joe Crocker, as beat as a man can be, edged
in from the side singing, "Here come old Flattop, he come grooving up
slowly," then down into the subway then up onto the street, Joe Cocker now a real sharp dude in a convertible, taking over the song, then wham bam falling into the frame from the top of the screen, a STOMP dancer grabbed a stick out of the air and started banging on tin cans and trash cans, finishing off by kicking the shit out of a garbage can, the lid flies off into the street, lands at the feet of one of the main character guys.The main character guys were purty good, one goes through a complete
character transformation, and my only complaint is their voices were too
weak, as were the voices of the women leads, so the love songs dragged on.
And on. And on. Luckily, the Tina Turner, Janis Joplin singer, name of Sadie,
really belted it out. And her boyfriend, the Ike Turner, Jimi Hendrix character, name of Jo Jo was right up there with her in terms of star quality.
All in all a tremendous movie, stands on its own, doesn't try to re-create
a a time, but does its own scenes that are totally in the groove, in the
mode. LIke Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, it adds to and
embellishes the 60's myth, for, like that memorable character, Chief Bromden
Stamper said in the great American Novel, Sometimes A Great Cuckoo, "It's
true even if it didn't happen." It would be great to hear Paul McCartney's take.Kudos to director/writer Julie Taymor -- Kapnken
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2007 In a triumphant return to Cottage Groove, the Prankster Skypilots performed "Dreaming" in front of a loud supportive audience at the KSOW radio station benefit to raise the new antenna for the station so listeners can tune in as far away as Drain and Yoncalla.
Here's the band: Lynda Duffy, the ol Kapn, Walker T. Ryan, David Rhodes, George Walker, Scott Landfield, and hiden way in the back, Eric Richardson.
Do we dream of dancing with a sailor?
Yes, we dream of a naval engagement without the loss of seamen.FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2007 A GAGGLE OF SKYPILOTS
The largest gathering of T shirted skypilots in historical Christmas. Food was consumed, enormously, drinks likewise. Musical oompahs galore. Roasty toasty fire. All hail.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2007 DOWN AND OUT Bit by the flu bug. No fun. Haven't been sick for years. Weak as a kitten. Can't stand it. So I'm spending my time lying down on the job. Did manage to get a tree. Another thing, the DREAMING DVDs are screwing up. I think it's because of the paper labels I put on them, so I am going without labels from here on, put the label info on a separate sheet. If you've already received a DREAMING DVD and it isn't playing right, let me know and I'll send another.
REMEMBER ED MCCLANAHAN? He and his friend, Gurney Norman, attended a performance of the play, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" in Lexington Kentucky. Afterwards, Ed and Gurney went onstage and talked about their friendship with Ken Kesey. For a real good writeup of the evening, click on:
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