We Blew It

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In late 1965 I was a sophomore in high school. I had friends who were already living in the Haight and were part of the psychedelic community. The saga of Kesey and the Pranksters had, by 1966, gained a kind of mythic status from Oregon to Los Angeles. The Pranksters, with their Acid Tests, created a legend around themselves. When the Tom Wolfe book (The Electric Koolaid Acid Test), came out, years later, the Kesey story had influenced the cultural identity of the San Francisco Bay Area more than anything since the time of the Beats ten years before. "Sparks Fly Upward" is the phrase on Kesey's tombstone, at least this is what I have heard. It summarizes his whole life.

We Blew It

‘Sparks fly upward’
in the night right up to the moonlit sky,
sparks fly upward.
From the campfire light they turn into fireflies.
When Kesey died it was like that.
When his heart stopped beating, the spark of his soul
was a drum beat, beat memory, beat energy,
the beat of the beaten path of imaginature,
the hidden treasure.
Sound-like sparks in the drum beat night,
in the chilly spring of ‘65,
there by the fire, under the moon,
I changed my mind.

It was Kesey and Cassady, and a guy named Champion
who showed me that my reality was just a beat up bus
with a sun burnt skin covering up the big grin
of a “4th dimensional being in a 3rd dimensional body
inhabiting a 2 dimensional world.”

The forbidden fruit of the Further In
took us out and broke down the ritual
positioning into Shakespearean hallucinations
that were swimming in the Biblical,
in the physical, mental and spiritual.
And the ones that checked out the first great bloom
of the first fruits with the deep roots,
saw the good news came with a price to pay
on a bus that had no room, and had no use
for the truckin’ stuff,
and that meant the walkin’ blues
for those off the bus to get on the bus.
Getting on the bus was getting off on the way to get it on.
Gettin’ off on gettin’ it on.

Neal Cassady and Ken Kesey,
they were outlaws they were kickin’ it.
They were free men ready for the thick of it.
They were lighting it up, got the pick of it,
and Cassady he got the worst of it.
He was never the one to be late.
Blew up walkin’ down the line, countin’ down the ties,
“64,928.”

Stoned frat boys party down,
even when they played the fool.
Hipster, outlaw, poet, clown,
blew it hard, bought it cool.

They blew it.
They blew it.
They blew it wide open.

Now, a great man isn’t always a good man.
And a good man isn’t always understood
as a great man would be, could be.
But now a good man, even if he’s not a great man,
he’ll have his reasons that will freeze him in his grave.
Because, as a good man, he wants to find a way
to protect those things that another might want to play with,
might stray with, or might try to slay him with.
But a great man he would play it,
would accept the date, seize the day,
explain, illuminate, and reframe it, like Kesey did
when the parachute dropped him down on the Be In,
in the blinding sun, floating 2000 feet to the front seat
at the birth of a new humanity, or just vanity, but it was fun
and it got a lot of people into using their imaginations,
or the insanity of their visions, or the dreams
that they kept on wishing and fishing for.
That’s what you’re listening for.
That’s why I opened the door.
That’s why I wanted more and more and more and more
and more and more and more, til I though I knew it.

But I blew it!

Last time I met Kesey,
in a bookshop owned by a man named Cody,
kinda crowded, wasn’t easy.
Just listened and I thought he’d show me.
But then nothing. A little magic trick,
a little beat up story line,
and a smile from the big chief,
then a handshake, and I was moved along
to another umbilical clambake
at Coppola’s, for a party.
Lots of pasta fazul and wine and balloons and me drooling.
I played the fool then, I was young and daring
with his kids in the corner staring. Me not caring,
cause I was tripping on the walls with the roses dripping,
too ripped and beat to be any kind of good time,
constantly beating myself up in my own mind.
When I settled in the back of the same old shelf
in the backwoods playing out a martyr’s dream,
just a whack job, maybe you been there yourself,
just a head case, given to extremes.
Self sabotage was my stated creed.
Ran a rat race like a no show.
Though I played for keeps there were always creeps.
Everything I did it was a no go.
Had a big goal and to prove it
I paid dues as a low down loser, a refuser.
I confess that in my depression I became a user,
but so useless the skin I wrapped myself in
was all dried up and dead and I knew it.
I couldn’t accept the past was done.
Never trust a prankster on the run.
It was on the level. It was all a con.
Helluva time. Biggast fun.

By the campfire light with the rainbow trace,
where the sparks flew up and out like lazers,
a little spark lit my time and place.
I took a deep breath aimed my face, and

I blew it.
I blew it.
We blew it wide open.

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