With this time of the year being prime for reflection – and 2011 itself being quite a year to reflect upon – we thought this would be a good time to check in with Ken Babbs.
Merry Prankster and longtime joined-at-the-imagination soul brother to the late Ken Kesey; Marine Corps vet and chopper pilot; “rookie author at the age of 74” with the release of his long-awaited Vietnam novel Who Shot The Water Buffalo? last year; husband, family man, woodcutter, poet, philosopher, and a mean trombonist. Ken Babbs is all these things and more.
Having played a role in history that helped make the transition from the Beat Generation to the hippies and the protest movements, Babbs, Kesey, and the rest of the Merry Pranksters laid groundwork that is still being employed today. And, as we shall see, Babbs still has hope; he still has a vision; and he certainly still has humor.
Ladies and gentlemen … boys and girls … children of all ages … with reflections on the past and a clear view of the future, we bring you the Skypilot himself: Ken Babbs.
BR: Well, hey, Ken. Thanks for taking the time to chat this morning.
KB: Always good to hear from you, Brian. How’s it going up there in Maine?
BR: Just another winter. How about on your end of the world – what are the current weather conditions at Skypilot HQ in Eugene, OR?
KB: It’s been in the 20s every morning for the last six or seven days. Totally dry and real crisp – frost on everything in the morning.
BR: Ah – good weather for getting in the winter’s wood.
KB: That’s right! And that’s what I’ve been doing – a lot of it. (laughter) Plus, I just sent in final corrections for the paperback version of Who Shot The Water Buffalo? coming out in the spring.
BR: Super – we’ll let folks know it’s coming.
KB: Yeah, thanks. A lot of people wait for the paperback ‘cause it’s a lot cheaper.
BR: If we’re going to talk about some of the events in your world during 2011, Who Shot the Water Buffalo? is a good place to start. You did a bunch of readings and signings around the release of the book. Did you reconnect with anyone that you hadn’t heard from in a while?
KB: Oh, a lot of people. Every reading I did, there’d be old friends coming up that I hadn’t seen for a long time. It was really great to run into them and connect again; get caught up on things. The readings we did were becoming scenes in themselves; I wish we’d done more, and kept working our way east to New York … it would’ve become a great show by then.
BR: One of the things that tickled me about the book was the blend of potential readers: on one hand, you had the people who were interested in a Vietnam story told by somebody who was there; on the other hand, you had people who would be drawn to it simply because of your life as a Merry Prankster. I loved the notion that it brought those groups together.
KB: Oh, yeah – it’s a book for all people. I wrote it with the thought in mind that I read books and I know what I like in a story. People want books that really take off, go somewhere, and keep their attention. I’ve always liked wordplay, too – plenty of wordplay.
*BR: I’d say you nailed all of those things. *
KB: Well, thank you. You know what was one of the best books I read this year? Once Upon A River by Bonnie Jo Campbell. It takes off with tremendous action; it has a great leading character who has to overcome all kinds of difficulties; and it’s really inspirational. The main character’s a young girl – only sixteen years old. I’m going to get a copy of it for my granddaughter for Christmas. She’s a freshman in college and loves to read.
BR: Is there any one thing that you would hear from reading to reading – or one main reaction to your book that you’ve been getting from people?
KB: Actually, the main reaction is just how much they enjoyed it – which has been great to hear. (laughs) I heard from this one Marine who liked it a lot.
“But I’ve got to point out to you,” he said, “that jeeps didn’t have keys. You had two switches that you had to hold together. And the other thing is, you can’t pull a grenade pin out with your teeth.” (laughter)
So today I had to go through the book and find those two places where I mentioned the jeep keys and the grenade pin and change those. (laughter)
BR: Of course, as soon as you dole something out, everyone says, “This is great – and what are you going to do next?”
KB: (laughs) That’s true – I get an awful lot of that. But I do have something coming up next: a book called Cronies, which is all about the adventures I had in The Pranksters and with Ken Kesey.
BR: Oh, boy …
KB: Yeah, I’ve already started on it. I had to kind of take a break from writing around the holidays, but I’ll get back on it after the new year.
BR: When you’re head down and burrowed into the writing process, how do you structure your days?
KB: Oh, I get on it first thing in the morning when I’m fresh and my mind is clear and I haven’t bogged down on anything. But I always keep a little notebook in my pocket during the day and whenever I get ideas that come to me, I jot them down. I have a box that I labeled “Cronies” and I throw my notes in that box.
I read a story once about a painter in Paris who set a big easel up in his room with just a blank canvas on it. He worked as a stevedore and he’d be out there working and lifting and carrying stuff. He’d stop every once in a while and sketch scenes while he was working. Then this painter would go back to his room and paste those sketches on the wall and keep collecting them. All of a sudden, when it hit him, he’d start painting and he’d do these big, huge paintings that contained all those scenes he’d collected.
I’m kind of the same way – when I’m working in the morning, every once in a while I’ll reach in the box, pull out one of those slips of paper, and put that into a little scene. This is going to be kind of a book of non sequiturs; it’s going to just be stuff thrown in there – “bits,” as William Burroughs called them – like a standup comic’s recollections and stories. I’m collecting all these bits together in a book.
BR: That’s going to be a big frigging book. (laughter)
KB: Yeah, I know. (laughs) It may end up being two volumes.
BR: Cool. You know, as soon as you’re ready to start leaking pages and you need some trustworthy journalist type to bounce them off of …
KB: Oh, don’t worry. (laughter) I’ll actually be doing some readings in the months ahead, even though it’s a work in progress.
BR: Another event that took place in 2011 that you were certainly a part of – as far as being one of the people who lived the experience – was the release of the Magic Trip movie, which documents the Pranksters’ cross-country bus trip in 1964. I know you were right in the thick of the book signings when Magic Trip came out – have you even had a chance to watch it?
KB: (laughs) You know, I was at Miami University in Ohio – my old alma mater – back in October. My buddy Ed McClanahan had a new book coming out, as well, and we were there at the same time to visit classes and do readings and signings. We were at the school for two days – one night we did a reading and the other they showed Magic Trip. The university had me introduce the movie – and I had never seen it! (laughter)
So I gave a good, long introduction – had ‘em howling and rolling in the aisles with stories about how we shot the original film back in ‘64.
BR: Ah, cool.
KB: Yeah. So by the time the movie started, I had to take a leak, you know? And while I was out there, I got a phone call from my wife and we shot the shit for a while. By the time I came back in, the movie was over! (laughter) But it was a great time; I got to talk with everybody afterwards … a lot of fun.
BR: Well, you made the trip back in 1964 – followed by hours and hours over years and years of working with the original film. I wondered how it would feel for you to watch it as produced by someone else’s hands.
KB: Well, Kesey and I – along with his son Zane and my son Simon – eventually had an office nearby here in Pleasant Hill. By then, we were into video and were able to merge the sound and film, which had been a big problem for years. The sound was on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and in the old days we had to cut film and try to cut the tape to match, which was just impossible. But you can do that easily now on the computer with an editing program.
So, in the early 90s, we put out our own movie – we called it Intrepid Traveler And His Merry Band Of Pranksters Look For A Kool Place. We released it on VHS and sold thousands and thousands of them.
[Note: A DVD version of the original Intrepid Traveler bus movie, along with Magic Trip and other DVDs, books, posters, blotter art, and much more – can be found these days at Key-Z Productions the family business owned and operated by Zane Kesey and his wife Stephanie.]
When Kesey died in 2001, we closed the Pleasant Hill office and the business – Intrepid Trips – ended. Then the movie just sat until Alex Gibney came along. Alex was going to do a documentary about Kesey, but when he saw the Intrepid Traveler bus movie, he decided to do his own version. That’s how that came down.
BR: One of the things for me was the footage of Neal Cassady, as there just isn’t a lot of it around. There’s a great 3-part YouTube of Neal and Allen Ginsberg at the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco in 1965. It opens with a few minutes of Allen by himself before Cassady makes an entrance like a hipster Groucho Marx. But if you listen to what he’s saying …
KB: Right! (laughs) That’s a beautiful bit, as Neal makes a really valid point: the old forms are dead; and people that are following the old forms are dead, too – even though they’re banging the drum hard. Look at what’s going on now – in music as well as in life: there’s a new form, and if you’re not following the new form, you’re not following life. Right?
BR: Exactly. It’s classic Cassady: the casual observer might write off what he’s saying as clowning around, but if you really listen, there’s something to think about.
KB: Yeah – that was Neal. (laughs) In our original bus movie, we did a long, long piece with Neal driving on the New Jersey turnpike. We finally managed to sync up the sound and the video so that it’s the real deal.
The whole thing is a long and involved story that started back at Kesey’s place in La Honda, when Neal first came driving in at the wheel of his old clunker car with “Love Potion #9” playing on the radio. Later on, there’s a scene on the New Jersey turnpike when he’s at the wheel of the bus and yelling, “Exit 9! Strychnine! Love Potion #9!” (laughs) After all the days and all the miles, Neal brings it all back home again.
It made me realize that “Love Potion #9” was the real theme song for the Pranksters on that bus trip. (laughter)
BR: And that was classic Cassady, right? Jump back into a conversation from hours or days or weeks or months ago and pick it up where it left off.
KB: Right – tying it all together. (laughter) He was a genius at it. Incredible.
BR: Ken, do you remember the last time you saw Neal?
KB: Yes, I do. It would have been in January of ‘68 on Kesey’s farm and Neal was getting ready to go to Mexico. He had a flat tire at, like, eleven o’clock at night and he was out in the driveway fooling with this tire.
“It’s got a hole in the tube,” Neal says, “and I don’t have a patch kit.”
“Well, come on,” I says. “I’ll take you down to the gas station and see if we can get it fixed there.” So we went down to the station and they had the stuff. Neal whipped it together, got the tire blown up, and we headed back to the farm.
Neal put the tire back on his car and was about to get in when he turned and shook my hand.
“Thanks, Ken,” he says. “You know, I think you made that pool shot after all.” (laughter)
BR: What …? (laughter)
KB: He was talking about … oh, I don’t know how many months before that when we were playing pool. We were playing rotation and Neal was talking to some girls when I took my shot.
Neal says, “Hey – you didn’t make the seven ball!”
And I said, “Sure I did!”
And he says, “No, no, Babbs – you didn’t make it.” And then he turns to the girls and says, “Babbs lies, you know.” (laughter)
I said, “What are you talking about?”
“One time on the bus trip,” Neal says, “you bought twenty ratburgers at the ratburger stand and you only paid for ten.”
And I said, “Oh my God, Neal – I’m not like that anymore; I’ve changed! And it’s due to your influence!” (laughter)
But that’s what he was talking about the night of the flat tire: “You know, I think you made that shot after all.” (laughter) In the end, Neal okay’d me. (laughter)
BR: If it had to be the last time, I guess that was a nice way to end it.
KB: Yeah, you’re right. Neal left for Mexico after that and died down there.
Now, see? You wanted me to leak a Cronies story – there’s one right there. (laughter)
BR: And we’ll let folks know that if they want more of that, they’ll have to stand by for the book.
KB: Right! (laughs)
BR: Around the time Magic Trip was released this past summer, I talked with Carolyn Garcia about the movie and about the bus itself. She was great about explaining the difference between the bus as a thing and the bus as an experience, a metaphor. She wanted me to understand that the old bus was just a thing. How do you feel about that? And when’s the last time you were around the original bus?
KB: Actually, Zane towed the original bus out of the swamp a while back to restore it. It’s sitting in Kesey’s barn now, right next to the new bus.
You know, people would ask Kesey about the different buses and he would say, “There’s only one bus. It’s like the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek – they made many versions of it, but there was only one Enterprise.”
And that’s true – the bus is the bus.
BR: And we’ve talked about this before, but for those who might have missed it, can you address the “Further” vs. “Furthur” issue one more time?
KB: (laughs) Sure – the original bus was “Further.” That’s the name Roy Sebern painted on the sign on top in June of ‘64. Roy said it was a good luck name – one that would keep the bus going to its destination.
Later on, somebody repainted the sign and misspelled it as “Furthur” – that’s where that spelling came from. And now, to complicate things even more, you have the band named Furthur, as well. All because somebody made a spelling mistake. (laughs)
You know, one of the neat things about the bus is all the memories of the people who were on it – whether they were there or not. (laughter) Particularly on that trip we made cross-country to New York and back; near as I can tell, there were hundreds of thousands of people on that bus. (laughter)
BR: Another occasion from the past year that I wanted to ask you about was the 10th anniversary of Ken’s death in November. Did you do anything in particular to mark that day?
KB: You know, that happens to also be the Marine Corps birthday – a huge day. That was a major chapter in Who Shot The Water Buffalo as you remember with a big celebration and all …
BR: Oh, I remember. What a mess.
KB: That’s right! (laughter) But yes, the anniversary of Kesey’s death is always a big deal. I always write something on my website about it. I didn’t go over to the place where he’s buried, but I know the family did.
BR: I think it’s different for everybody, don’t you? Myself, I don’t necessarily go to someone’s grave to feel closer to them. Is there anywhere special that you go – or any one thing that you do – that makes you feel especially close to Ken?
KB: Oh, sure. There are many, many, many things – his presence is always around me.
Like when you open a can of paint: you always take a hammer and a nail and punch holes around the inner edge of the can so that the stuff that collects in the little gutter there drips back into the paint. That’s something Kesey passed onto me and I think of him every time I do it.
Or when you make spaghetti: when you’re stirring the sauce with a spoon, you dip the spoon in the water that you’re going to boil the noodles in so that the flavor goes into the noodles. That was something Kesey showed me.
I asked him one time, “Where’d you get that from?”
And Kesey said, “Faye’s been taking a cooking class at the community college.”
I said, “Your wife? A cooking class? She’s only cooked about 6000 meals for about 10,000,000 people over the years!”
He said, “Yeah, I know. But that’s what they taught her at the class.” (laughter)
But yeah – every time I stir the spaghetti, there he is. There are lots of things like that.
And Kesey’s in my dreams all the time, too. That’s when you know that their spirit and their presence is still around you and connected to you. I had a dream last night that we were in together, in fact. I wish I could remember my dreams better; I should write them down.
BR: I’m thinking one of the single biggest things that’s evolved since Ken died that he would have made use of is the internet. Had you two tapped into it much prior to his death?
KB: Yes – both through our website and through e-mail. Kesey realized early on that this was the new “virtual bonfire,” as we called it. Years ago, people would sit around the bonfire and exchange stories; now that’s what the internet is. Facebook has really taken over now as that sort of thing – more than e-mails and websites. Websites are good for information; and e-mail’s good for talking to each other; but people are writing about their own lives on Facebook and other people are reading it and commenting and they end up talking back and forth.
BR: I love the vision of you two birds hand-painting the boxes for the VHS movies of the bus trip. Do you feel at all that the computer age has taken away some of the organic nature of things?
KB: Oh, you have to do both. You can’t just devote all your time to the computer and the world that goes on there. You have to get out of the box and get your hands dirty and laugh and … yeah: get in the paint!
That’s a good example – the movie. We were in the box working on the actual film, okay? But then we dipped the cardboard boxes for the VHS tapes in water with paint swirled on top and then hung them out to dry. Then we printed the labels on the computer and had to glue them on the tape boxes and send them out. It really was a complete organic process going on right there at the Intrepid Trips office we had.
The post office was next door; next to them was the bank. Across the parking lot was the market; and across the street was the pizza place. We had everything right there – we never had to leave! (laughter)
BR: In the years since Ken’s passing, you’ve gone ahead with the Skypilot Club and made good use of the internet with your website, your Facebook page, and YouTube videos you’ve posted. Do you have a goal? Are you trying to stay in touch with the existing pool or are you still trying to expand the tribe?
KB: Well, there’s meatspace – that’s the material world. And then there’s cyberspace where people can meet and exchange information. You have to do both; each has a function. The computer’s a tool, just like a drill or a hammer. In today’s world, the cordless drill and the nail gun have become like magic things that revolutionized the world of the do-it-yourselfer – just like the computer has revolutionized the way we can meet in cyberspace.
But the problem is, now you have people who are addicted to things like Facebook … you gotta control your addictions, you know. It’s like you can’t start drinking during the day anymore – I can’t anyway … it fucks you up. Wait ‘til 5 o’clock. (laughter)
Same thing with the computer: too much of that and your brain’s fried and you’re stumbling around – can’t even tell where the couch is anymore. That’s bad!
BR: It’s a balance, isn’t it – between the way it makes the world bigger and smaller at the same time?
KB: That’s right.
Why are we here? It’s a material world and we’re material beings – we’re here to work and if we don’t do that, we’re trying to be something else; we’re trying be some sort of ethereal beings – but that will come in time. (laughs)
That’s something that’s become clear to me: embrace the material world. It’s hard; it’s tough; it hurts – it’s a problem all the time that has to be solved: how we deal with this material world? But I think that once we do that; once we learn to get over it, keep happy thoughts, and don’t let it get us down and don’t get discouraged, then … eventually perhaps comes this limited thing called grace.
BR: So … you believe there’s hope, then.
KB: Oh, sure – that’s all we’ve got to live with.
I mean, every day you wake up in the morning and you’re clean. You can’t have baggage from yesterday with you or hell, man – you can’t get out of bed. (laughter)
BR: What do you see for this old world in the year ahead?
KB: Oh, I see some tremendous, wonderful things happening. I just love all the shit that’s going on. The Occupy movement has really been something.
That spirit caught on here in Eugene – the people woke up in the Occupy camps and said, “We can’t just be occupying and holding signs; we have to do something positive.” What they’re doing now is taking in the homeless: they’re running the kitchens; running the health centers for alcohol and drug abuse; they’re trying to keep the fights and all that down.
I’m hearing that the crime is dropping in town at the same time because these people have a place to go and something to do – they’re not out there having to steal to support themselves.
But you know how it works: we’re all renters here – nobody really owns anything. (laughs) The point is, hopefully the city will realize what the Occupy movement is trying to do and they’ll find a place where this kind of a camp can exist; where these people – who are actually volunteer people who are out of work and don’t have anything else to do – can use all their talent and skills for the good.
This is where I see things are going to happen in this world. There’s always going to be the assholes that try to run things and get the most money they can, but underneath that is what I call the Fourth World nation. America has an emerging Fourth World nation that’s never been seen before.
In the Fourth World nation, there will be all these levels of society but the people who are really hip won’t care. They’ll be perfectly happy living without trying to be at the top of the heap or make more money or have the biggest palace or the biggest car or any of that shit.
BR: And I guess that’s where you have to hope the change comes out of things like this. I mean, we need to be realistic: they’re not going to throw the windows open on Wall Street and yell out, “We give up! We know we’ve been lying, cheating crooks!”
KB: Oh no – that’s never going to happen; banks are always going to be the same. But it was great what happened here when they said, “Take your money out of Bank of America and put it in your local credit union.” People were lined up at the doors of the credit unions here in Eugene.
BR: Maybe what it comes down to is simply making enough noise – enough of a scene – to get people’s attention and make them think.
KB: That’s right – people have to know that they need to work together; they need to form co-operatives and groups to make all this work.
BR: And the upcoming elections?
KB: Who cares, really? (pauses; laughs) It’s always going to be the same. I mean, look at poor Obama: he came in there with so much promise, but the moment he hit that quagmire in Washington, he was stuck up to his eyeballs in muck!
BR: Oh, I know. I wish that one person could change it all …
KB: It’s got to be all people getting involved and working together to change things – and they have to change it from the bottom up.
The real key to the whole thing is education; people have to be smart enough to recognize the bullshit and not contribute to it. They need to recognize what’s good and pure and true and look for that. Overcoming problems is part of the material world. The smarter we are; the better we are at problem solving; the better things get.
This whole deal of taking the money away from education and making the class sizes such that the teachers aren’t able to do their jobs properly is all part of the same plot: to create this nation where there are overlords and serfs. The overlords need the serfs to do all the dirty work while they suck up the stuff.
Kesey always said, “We have to remember that there are more dumb people than smart people.” (laughter) The smart people will always be in the minority, but it doesn’t matter: even a minority can do a lot of real good for the world.
He always said, too, that “our mission is walking the earth and saving the world” – and more and more people are realizing that. If we’re not saving the world, then all the money and all the riches won’t do anyone any good … unless they can buy their way to Mars.
BR: And then they’ll screw that up.
KB: Right! (laughter) But I really would love to live another 50 years and see this all happen. I think it’s going to be tremendous.
The challenges are so great; but the possibilities are, as well.
BR: Well, if you want to live another 50 years, then I think you should, Ken.
KB: Well, all right, then – maybe I will!
I’ll need a lot of firewood, though. (laughter)
BR: I’ll let you go so you can work on that, then. Take care and thank you, Ken.
KB: Well, thank you, Brian. Good talking with you.
