Ken Kesey at Acid Test Graduation in 1968
Ken Kesey (1935-2001)

Ken Elton Kesey was born to a family of Oregon dairy farmers on September 17, 1935. Active in sports and fraternities at the University of Oregon, he won the Fred Lowe sScholarship awarded to outstanding wrestlers. A year after marrying his high school sweetheart, Norma Faye Haxby, Ken Kesey graduated from the university in 1957. Mr. Kesey moved to Palo Alto, California after he was awarded a scholarship to Stanford University's graduate writing program. It was here that his normal, middle class upbringing took an unexpected road. He became a visionary, shaman, criminal, prankster and a bridge from the beat generation to the hippy culture of the 1960s.

In Palo Alto, Ken Kesey met a graduate psychology student who was participating in L.S.D. experiments at a veterans hospital. These L.S.D. experiments were sponsored by the C.I.A. and the U.S. Army. Mr. Kesey was probably first attracted by the $75 per session that the volunteer subjects were paid. Ken Kesey afterward brought this new found experience into the public realm at the fabled acid tests in and around La Honda, California. The acid tests were big parties with strobe lights, music and participants drinking L.S.D. laced Kool-Aid. These parties, along with other experimentation in New York by Harvard University professor Timothy Leary, were the starting point of a cultural revolution. Psychedelic art, drug experimentation, 1960's intellectualism as well as music by acid rock groups such as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane had roots in the Kesey acid tests. Mr. Kesey's acid tests were for everyman while Dr. Leary's experiments attracted a more intellectual crowd.

In 1964, Ken Kesey took his famous transcontinental bus trip. He brought with him an experienced driver and cross country traveler, Neal Cassidy. Neil Cassidy was perhaps better known as the Dean Moriarity character from Jack Kerouac's book "On the Road". Mr. Kesey was also accompanied by the "Merry Pranksters", an entourage of like minded friends; proto-hippies who shared a commune in La Honda. Their means of conveyance was a Day-Glo 1939 International Harvester bus christened "Furthur". "Furthur" was wired for light and sound.


Communication in this country has damn near atrophied. But we found as we went along it got easier to make contact with people. If people could just understand it is possible to be different without being a threat. - Ken Kesey

Tom Wolfe documented these activities in his book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". The purpose for the Merry Prankster cross country adventure was to visit the New York World's Fair, but did include a side trip to the Hudson Valley where Dr. Leary was with his group. Apparently Dr. Leary didn't feel that this rabble from the west coast were deserving of his enlightenment and made himself unavailable to the travelers.

While in California, Ken Kesey found time to pen two novels. His first published novel in 1962 was entitled "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Mr. Kesey wrote the book while working as a night attendant in a hospital psychiatric ward. He told the story of the conflict ridden relationship between Randall McMurphy, a convict/con man who thought that serving time would be easier in a psychiatric hospital, and Miss Ratched, a by-the-book, no nonsense nurse. It was a huge success, but the novel may have over shadowed his later works. Kirk Douglas bought the stage and screen rights to the book and starred on Broadway in the title role, Randall McMurphy. The play was revived in 1970 with William Devane in the title role. In 2001, the play was again performed with Gary Sinise playing Randall. In 1975, a movie was released with Jack Nicholson playing the starring role. The film was extremely successful with Nicholson winning an Oscar for Best Actor, Milos Foreman for Best Director, a Best Actress award for Louise Fletcher and best screen adaptation for Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman. Ken Kesey was unhappy with the production and disapproved of the script. He sued the producers Michael Douglas and Saul Zaentz, later agreeing to a settlement. Mr. Kesey refused to ever watch the movie. Ken Kesey's second novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion", was also made into a movie starring Paul Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick. Neither the book or the movie, which was later renamed "Never Give an Inch", was as great a success as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

Ken Kesey settled down in Pleasant Valley, Oregon with his wife and children to farm and write. Mr. Kesey coached local wrestling teams and taught a graduate writing course at the University of Oregon.


Ken Kesey on DVD

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (Deluxe Two-Disc Set) by New Yorker Video The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (Deluxe Two-Disc Set) - New Yorker Video - Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
The re-release of Jerry Aronson's biopic, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg, timed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of "Howl," suits this wonderful documentary and proves Ginsberg central to all radical artistic and political movements of the past 60 years. The feature-length film, segmented by decade, provides ample footage of Ginsberg's life; but extras added into this package, including footage of his memorial and 35 interviews with artists inspired by the visionary poet--from Beck to Lawrence Ferlinghetti--solidify Ginsberg as an American cultural icon. The film unravels Ginsberg's obsession for life and death around his mother's nervous breakdown and his father's affinity for poetry. Interviews with Ginsberg from each decade, both amongst his Beat friends like Burroughs and Huncke, and later with talk show hosts William Buckley and Dick Cavett, show the author's progression from sexual politics in the '40s and '50s to the "politics of ecstasy" in the '60s and '70s, when he founded the Flower Power movement with Tim Leary, and later, Naropa Institute. Ample footage of Ginsberg's stepmother provides a sensitive outsider's opinion on how he blossomed into one of the most spontaneous minds of the century. The film transcends simple Ginsberg descriptions by framing his life with historical happenings to contextualize the author's words and actions. The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg reminds the viewer that there is no better example of an artist devoted to a life of letters, activism, and idealism than the original beatnik. --Trinie Dalton
Release Date: 17 July, 2007
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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by New Line Home Video Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - New Line Home Video - AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
If someone ever put together a what-were-they-thinking top 10, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues would surely make the list. Based on Tom Robbins's '70s ode to freedom, whooping cranes, and ambisexuality, this Gus Van Sant film sat on the shelf for almost a year before its brief release. More of a curiosity than anything else, it tells the convoluted story of Sissy Hankshaw (Uma Thurman), the world's greatest hitchhiker by virtue of her mammoth, um, thumbs. She falls in with a lesbian collective at a dude ranch and, well, the rest is kind of a mess. Kind of? Let's say it's a monumental mess, one of those films that's like a 25-car pileup on the interstate that you have to stop and look at, just to figure out what people like Keanu Reeves, Roseanne, John Hurt, and Angie Dickinson are doing there. A great score by k.d. lang, by the way. --Marshall Fine
Release Date: 02 November, 2004
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Go Further by Homevision Go Further - Homevision - Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
In Natural Born Killers, Woody Harrelson played a mass murderer on a road trip killing spree. In Go Further, Harrelson has returned to the road, this time as himself, and this time he’s out to save the earth. The film documents a trip down the Pacific coast Harrelson and assorted friends took in the summer of 2001 in a bio-diesel and hemp oil-fueled bus. Along the way they tackled various stretches by bike, did a lot of yoga, spoke in front of college crowds about environmental awareness, ate avocado-based delicacies prepared by the on-board raw foods chef, and encountered rock stars like Bob Weir, Natalie Merchant, and Anthony Kiedis. Your run of the mill road trip, in other words. Harrelson’s buddy, the junk food addict Steve Clark emerges as the star, if stardom means the ability to expound on the evils of non-organic milk at length. Herein lies the conundrum. For all its earnestness, or maybe because of it, Go Further drags. It’s a movie with its heart in the right place, but that seems unwilling to preach to anyone outside the choir. The best bits are those in which Harrelson and the crew encounter folks who don't share their point of view--inhalant-addicted teens in Oregon, small town folks who sneeringly refer to Harrelson as "Woody Allen." Opportunities for confrontation are eschewed lest anyone's vibe gets harshed. One almost wishes Michael Moore had been hitchhiking along US Route 1 that summer. --Ryan Boudinot
Release Date: 03 May, 2005
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Rubber Tramps by Just Passing Through Productions Rubber Tramps - Just Passing Through Productions - Color, Full length, NTSC

Release Date: 07 June, 2005
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Ricochet River - Lions Gate - Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC

Release Date: 23 October, 2001
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Timothy Leary's Last Trip by Shout Factory Theatr Timothy Leary's Last Trip - Shout Factory Theatr - Color, DVD-Video, NTSC

Release Date: 05 August, 2003
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Charlie Rose with Tom Stoppard; Gary Sinise (March 27, 2001) by Charlie Rose, Inc. Charlie Rose with Tom Stoppard; Gary Sinise (March 27, 2001) - Charlie Rose, Inc. - NTSC

Release Date: 15 August, 2006
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Timothy Leary's Last Trip by Winstar Timothy Leary's Last Trip - Winstar - Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC

Release Date: 14 January, 1998
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Ken Kesey

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Signet

Release Date: 01 February, 1963
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Penguin Classics) by Ken Kesey, Robert Faggen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Penguin Classics) by Ken Kesey, Robert Faggen
Penguin Classics

Release Date: 31 December, 2002
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Sometimes a Great Notion (Penguin Classics) by Ken Kesey, Charles Bowden Sometimes a Great Notion (Penguin Classics) by Ken Kesey, Charles Bowden
Penguin Classics

Release Date: 29 August, 2006
Paperback
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Chuck Palahniuk, Robert Faggen, Joe Sacco One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Chuck Palahniuk, Robert Faggen, Joe Sacco
Signet

Release Date: 27 June, 2007
Kindle Edition
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Signet

Release Date: 01 February, 1963
Paperback
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Demon Box by Ken Kesey Demon Box by Ken Kesey
Penguin (Non-Classics)

Release Date: 04 August, 1987
Paperback
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Kesey's Jail Journal by Ken Kesey Kesey's Jail Journal by Ken Kesey
Viking Adult

Release Date: November, 2003
Hardcover
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Sailor Song by Ken Kesey Sailor Song by Ken Kesey
Penguin (Non-Classics)

Release Date: 01 July, 1993
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