1990 or so, Hunter was doing a talk in town so we took the bus and crew to hijack the good "Doctor".* After an inaudible (but still hilarious) talk we escorted him away to the bus.** Many unknown people climbed on board, so we informed them that the bus was taking Hunter and the Pranksters to the Kesey farm with no return ride. This only seemed to encourage the crowd. A poker table was set up in the back of the bus and it was "stud all-round." Jokers and Pranks flew across the green felt that night, as did mind altering elements too numerous to mention.
Much later someone noticed that the bus driver was sitting at the table poking along with the players and that they had been parked for the last three hours in the driveway at the farm. The liquor flew, the smokes blew, and the Jokes grew. Around 4 A.M. Hunter decided that he "should have won every hand so we must have cheated"...
He stepped off the bus. A friend quickly grabbed Hunter with plans to tell a deep secret and smoke a joint with him. The only good looking place to sit and smoke was in a nice white Cadillac convertible that dad was very fond of. If you know Hunter, you can see what is coming!
About 3/4 through the joint Hunter exclaims "the goddamn keys are in the ignition!" Dad always kept the keys in his vehicles, as he lived way out in the country, and hated losing them. Hunter ripped the car into gear and sped straight for the main cow field, with the Sons Of The Pioneers blasting from the speakers.
"What?" says dad when he hears this, "Shit, come on everyone let's round up this loose Joker before the neighbors get on the phone or on the shotgun". What a scene...Cadillac spinning backward circles, Hunter shouting about aliens cheating him at cards, Ghost Riders in the Sky screaming from the tape player. Eventually dad jumped into the circling vehicle right in time to the cowboy song with a rodeo car-bronking maneuver. He grabbed for the keys, the engine died, Hunter and the song ebbed to silence. Everything sat still. Dad just started walking back, leaving the Cadillac, Hunter, my friend, the joint, and all of the card players in the field...watching him walk back to the safety of the farm, keys in hand; he won that round.
The next morning all was normal—roosters crowing, beer bottles put away, bus in the garage, all other cars gone...[we took] Hunter in the night back to some hotel. As you leave in this foggy, still morning...you go past the barn, under the apple trees, down the long driveway, past the tree twinkling with mirrors, down the road...and...see the strangest thing...a Cadillac in the very middle of the field, surrounded by cows that have seen the terra stomped on!
To See a Video of the Card Game order the FURTHER ON video from key-z.com
*It was at the Hilton and Hunter hadn't showed and the crowd was getting restless. The promoter asked Kesey and me to come up and assuage the audience. We talked and carried on for twenty minutes and then someone yelled, "I didn't pay seven dollars to hear you idiots," at which point Kesey jumped off the stage and, pulling out his wallet, went over to the guy and said, "Here's your seven dollars," and it looked like they were going to start wresting but just then Hunter Thompson slouched to the lectern and started mumbling. —Ken Babbs
**Thompson staggered off the stage into my arms and said, "Get me out of here, Babbs." There was a long serving table there on wheels. I lifted Hunter on it, covered him with a table cloth and wheeled him, not to the elevator and up to his room...but outside to the door of the bus and pushed him inside. —Ken Babbs
Ken "Intrepid Traveller" Babbs, one of the founding members of the Merry Pranksters (indeed, the man who coined the term "Intrepid Traveller and His Merry Band of Pranksters") an author, father, instigator, Sky Pilot and Prankster Extraordinaire. He can be found online at
skypilotclub.com.
Zane "Chicken Leopard" Kesey is Ken Kesey's son, a Prankster in his own right, and webmaster of key-z.com, a site where people can order books, videos and merchandise pertaining to the life and works of Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, the Beats and other counterculture luminaries.
" 'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property -- or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
|
