THE SHELDON INTERVIEW

Here are Rush and Celise, Sheldon High School students from Eugene, Oregon, come to interview ol' Capn Skyp for an oral history project they are doing on audio tape; the results to be aired on student radio station KRVM. They asked lots of questions, like: "What was the cause?" and I answered best I could, rambling around the subject:

"We had a saying back on the bus in '64 that our avocation was the obliteration of the entire nation, not in a physical but a spiritual sense since we were coming off the Eisenhower years when everyone was pretty much set in their ways, white bread bland, homogonized, and needed to be set free of their regular routines and venture into areas where they didn't normally go, like into the arts. The Beats were the forerunners of this and were part of a longer tradition of the jazz generation and the roaring 20's, freedom of expression, be it voice, dance, music, drama, painting, writing, the freedom to express yourself in a joyous way unihibited by the restraints of peer pressure or the demands of the norm and at the same time have your family, your house, go to school, get a good education and within that framework groove and enjoy yourself. As for the cause, Kesey always said, 'Our mission is none other than to save the world.' Yes, from rampant colonialism, imperialism, consumerism, commercialism, all the products of the industrial-military complex and itsn't it odd that the expression came from Eisenhower himself warning the country that's what we have to worry about?"