Ken Kesey

“Anybody who says they have no regrets is either a dimwit or a liar — probably both.” - Ken Kesey

“It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” - Ken Kesey

An astonishing percentage of Oregonians have pranked with, drunk with, been taught by or wandered the woods with with the gentle literary giant who arguably founded the ‘hippie’ movement. Were you one of them?

Add your own remembrance of Ken Kesey to the comment section below.

About Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey is probably most famous for a book he didn’t write and a movie that he claims never to have seen. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test , written by Tom Wolfe about his experiences with Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, defined a generation on the cusp of a new psychedelic counterculture movement. His novel One Flew the Cuckoo’s Nest , about life in a mental hospital, was made into a cult movie classic (filmed at the Oregon State Hospital) starring Jack Nicholson. Kesey wanted Gene Hackman for the role, and refused to see the film, saying that Nicholson had turned McMurphy into too much of a Christ figure. Sometimes a Great Notion was Kesey’s second novel, and was instantly acclaimed a masterpiece, later being named #1 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s list of essential northwest books. It is often called the most famous NW novel you never read.

Read more about Kesey’s life and times.

Find out more about Portland Center Stage’s world premiere adaptation of Kesey’s novel Sometimes A Great Notion.

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buy tickets || read blogs about Sometimes A Great Notion || top of page || read blogs about Kesey

Were you on the bus? In his class? Under his care? Or just generally a fan? Share your Kesey remembrances here.

15 comments

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danny bruno said in 3-11-2008 @ 13:41:05

In 1985 I was living down in Eugene and was lucky enough to have been cast as R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. It was being done at the Hult Center and Ken Kesey was living not so far away. He came to see the show the night before opening and came by the dressing room after. He sat down and said “Ya know Bruno, I’ve been thinking about this character for 20 years and I just don’t know if I want him to be martyerd, in the play when you leave with Candy don’t come back” I looked at him and realized he was serious and I said “Ken, I understand how you feel about McMurpy but there are other actors on stage I just can’t leave them there. He said, No no it’ll be great, it will be in all the papers”Bruno leaves as McMurphy”. Well I looked at him and laughed because I was thinking here I am sitting with the author if this American classic and he has thought about this for 20 yrs. and now he is feeling different about it. Well I went on the next night and I did not leave,but I thought about it, who wouldn’t.

Mary said in 3-11-2008 @ 17:08:01

I would be careful about romanticizing Ken Kesey. It is true that he was a gifted writer but untrue that he was a gentle man. Those of us who went to school in the late 60’s knew all about his farm. It was a drug hub and commune where children of all ages were being raised without boundaries and exposed to drugs of all types. Kesey was essentially a drug addict who encouraged addiction in others. To be on the farm with him, all you had to do was take drugs and act like you worshipped him. Many of the brilliant people who were involved in that culture in those days have gone on to live broken, unproductive lives. My brother, who spent some time on the farm, is one of them.

Win Goodbody said in 3-17-2008 @ 13:30:05

I’m sure many of you already know this, but the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission is planning one of their “Discovering Oregon Originals” series this Friday, March 21, on Ken Kesey.

I don’t see the program listed on their web site yet, but I’m sure they will send out an email soon, and when they do I can post here.

These programs are usually very good, with excellent speakers.

I believe OCHC has already “tied in” to PCS on this one, but just in case.

http://www.ochcom.org

Win Goodbody said in 3-17-2008 @ 15:10:34

Here’s the info.

+++

Discovering Oregon Orginals

Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission

March: “Sometimes a Great Notion and the Kesey Legacy”

Friday, March 21
7 pm
First Unitarian Church
SW 12th & Salmon Street

Free

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1963) and Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), Ken Kesey’s initial books, made his reputation. A University of Oregon graduate, he studied with Wallace Stegner at Stanford, with a stellar cast of fellow students including Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Larry McMurtry, Robert Stone, and long-time collaborator Ken Babbs.

Anticipating the April 4 world premiere of Aaron Posner’s stage adaptation of Sometimes a Great Notion at Portland Center Stage, speakers who knew him personally for decades will focus on Kesey’s creative career.

Presenters: Gretchen Douglas, Boyd Harris, Walt Curtis, Mark Christensen & Aaron Posner

Richard Santee said in 3-29-2008 @ 10:51:46

I met Ken Kesey in the maternity ward of Stanford Hospital in 1962 when I was a sophomore at UC Berkeley. I had just finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and decided I would just phone him up and tell him what an impact his book had made on me. He said that was great and since I was only about an hour away, why don’t I come on over? He gave me directions to the maternity ward where his wife had just delivered, and when I arrived at the hospital room he was there with his wife and new baby–I thought that Kesey looked just like his character, McMurphy. I hung out with them for a while, and then Ken said why don’t you follow me home? He was living just off the Stanford campus in a bungalow which was painted inside with wild colors–blacks and yellows and reds. He took me behind the house to a little shed in the back yard where he said he had written Cuckoos’ Nest. Ken said the first chapter had been written en bloc, just springing from his head. He was very charismatic, and years later, reading about him, I understood why so many people were affected by him. My experience with him and his book was one of the factors that lead me to a career in social psychology.

trishap said in 4-2-2008 @ 14:12:29

From the Willamette Week’s interview with Richard Meeker about his 30 year history with the paper:

How did you get here [to Oregon]?

MEEKER: The first time I came through Oregon, I was 17 years old. I was driving across the country and reading Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Four years later, I wrote my English thesis about Kesey. I ended up going to the UO law school-and marrying Ken’s attorney!

When I first came here, this town could have gone two different ways. It could have become a typical American city-no downtown, a hopeless sprawl. Or it could have become a kind of community that could sustain a newspaper like WW. The genius of Portland is that it chose the latter course.

trishap said in 4-2-2008 @ 15:19:35

From a hand written letter sent to Portland Center Stage from the Washington County Jail on March 28th with the request “Please forward to “stories about Ken Kesey”:

Some years ago I was working at the Texaco gas station in Sherwood OR on 99W (now a Shell station). A small camper stopped to get propane and snacks. When I was done filling the propane I had a moment to talk with a man wearing a smile and a letterman’s jacket. I told him that I really liked his patches. He told me that his friends had made them for him. I never thought much of this until I saw his picture in a High Times Magazine my friends were reading. He was wearing the same jacket. One patch that stands out in my memory is a Twisted Sister patch that I think had been re-stitched to read “Twister Twister.” The year that Ken died my friend Celeste introduced me to Caroline Garcia aka “Mountain Girl.” I shook her hand and we talked for a moment. This took place at the OCF [Oregon Country Fair] and my memory of that year’s fair is a little foggy so I am not sure if I told her my story about Ken. I will always remember Ken Kesey as a guy with a smile and cool patches. - Michael Richards

P.S. Sparks travel up.

David Loftus said in 4-3-2008 @ 07:34:53

In the summer of 1990 I was a reporter for the Roseburg daily paper, The News-Review. A young photographer colleague called up Kesey and asked if the paper could send a team to do a story on him, and he said come on up. The photographer asked me to do the writing. Turned out, Kesey welcomed the coverage because he was planning his next big prank: trying to foist a newer, artistically painted Int’l Harvester bus off on the Smithsonian in place of the old, dead “Furthr.” You can find my story about the “interview” here:

http://www.david-loftus.com/Features/kesey.html

but a month or two later, the merry band drove down I-5 in the new bus and stopped off in Roseburg. I threw on my yukata (casual Japanese man’s robe often mistaken for a kimonot by gaijin), went down to the mall where the bus was parked, and read my interview piece (including the salty parts cut by the editors) for the microphone and videocam that the Kesey crew had brought to record their trip. Somewhere, I hope, there exists a videotape where I share the space with Kesey, Babbs, McClanahan and the other crazies from that trip. . . .

zane kesey said in 4-3-2008 @ 19:22:28

Mary stated above: “It was a drug hub and commune where children of all ages were being raised without boundaries and exposed to drugs of all types. Kesey was essentially a drug addict who encouraged addiction in others. To be on the farm with him, all you had to do was take drugs and act like you worshipped him”

…You weren’t there and don’t know what you are talking about! Maybe someone claiming to be there said this to you? I have seen many falsely claiming to have “partied wildly” with him.

I was one of these children you mention, and I had many boundaries, Ken set firm rules. Infrequently there was drug use, mostly marijuana. After the first year or so everyone except immediate family was sent away, so he could raise his family. He was a gentle man!

John said in 4-8-2008 @ 14:16:43

As a Freshman English major at U of O I found that Kesey was viewed, of course, as a legendary figure. Something mythical, but also tangible because he was around and appeared at various times. I heard him read several times, but had never met him until an event where a mutual friend introduced us. I was somewhat tongue tied, and stammered something as I reached out tentatively to shake his hand. But then he paused, grasped my hand firmly up to the hilt in his, looked me right in the eye and said ‘Remember, life is short, get all you can the first time around”. I had the chance to meet him several more times in various settings after that, but it is that memory which will always stick with me. And I don’t believe for a second, from talking with people who knew him for much longer and more intimately than I, that he was anything but a talented and caring man who pushed boundaries and social mores, but not in a punitive, reckless or egotistical fashion.

Dan Ness said in 4-14-2008 @ 17:30:47

In 1999, I worked at Eugene’s finest video rental store, Flicks ‘n’ Pics. Ken Kesey’s wife called to see if we had a copy of “Paint Your Wagon,” the musical western with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin. Ken came in from Pleasant Hill, set up an account, and rented “Paint Your Wagon,” returning it two days late and never renting there again. His 2 dollar late fee was on the computer for a couple years. I pointed it out to this kid who got a job there but who also worked at Pleasant Hill’s only video store. He told me Kesey came in there all the time to rent videos and once told this kid that “Johnny Mnemonic” was “ahead of it’s time.” I drove out there once because they were the only video store that still had a copy of “Thrashin.’” Later on, I showed the owner of Flicks ‘n’ Pics that Ken Kesey had a 2 dollar late fee on his sole rental and suggested that we call him on it. The owner thought it amusing but just deleted the late fee. Johnny Mnemonic “ahead of it’s time.” The only reason I’m going to rent that video someday is because of that comment.

jeremiah ballard said in 4-22-2008 @ 19:59:32

It’s so wonderful to read about Ken Kesey from his home state:) Having been reared in upstate NY, I can tell you that part of my affirmation to first travel to Oregon in 2000 was knowing that your friend lived here. That there was sure to be a unique state-of-mind for a certain radius around this legend of our tribe. I’m pretty sure I can still feel his influence in the air at certain gatherings;)
However, I only assuredly experienced his transparent sociability and artistic magnetization in 1997 when the bus helped carry phish from Buffalo to Limestone, ME. I felt he came on board to show us all how to have fun again. Lots of conversation created around him and painting the bus and bobos. So much fun and then treated to all you pranksters on stage playing Wizard of Ozz. A night I care to recall forever.

Martin Joseph said in 4-24-2008 @ 15:58:19

I saw “Sometimes” last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Wonderful acting, wonderful set and well written (considering how the book was written)….all good. Saw Kesey over the years here and there… very engaging guy! However, why is it so many gifted folks reach their pinnacle at such an early age? Orson Welles comes to mind too. As more time passes we either over embellish his or her abilities or perhaps forget all about their great contribution in their time. I am not sure where Kesey falls at this point but regardless his brief time frame of work was outstanding. Maybe the rest of the country does not put Kesey into a higher realm of writing and thought, as they might. Maybe the Northwest puts him a bit to high in the stratosphere, as well. I have known and know many very intelligent and creative people who just don’t seem to put it all together for that one perfect moment as some do, yet they have lead a very productive and giving life for MANY years. Do those people deserve less than someone who maybe does not use their fortunate abilities and timeing to make an impact on a lifetime of work?
No answer from me just a thought…..

Remington said in 4-25-2008 @ 09:45:56

I bumped into Mr. Kesey several times. Growing up in Pendleton Oregon, I had the pleasure to run across the “man” often as he love to visit “the Round-up City”. The first time I met him I was 20 years old and went to a local drinking establishment that was rather . . . flexible in their observance of OLCC laws. Sitting with him, I bought him a pitcher of brew and he reciprocated. Being a light-weight I had to excuse my self early in the evening. He was quite a story-teller, accessible and down to earth. Many years later, in January of 2001 I was directing a performance of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. Mr. Kesey invited my cas to visit his farm. He let the students climb all over FURTHER II, fired it up. He and Mrs. Faye Kesey invited us into his home. We sat around as he told tales about filming NOTION, hanging out in Pendleton and living life as an Oregonian. God Bless you Ken. We are staying on the bus.

MARGRETTA said in 5-2-2008 @ 05:59:38

I grew up in Pleasant Hill, Oregon during the mid and late 1960s.. I can remember going past the Kesey place. Lots of loud music and the bus of course.. Ken was real involved in the school-offered to help coach the wrestling team, but was turned down (Pleasant Hill at the time real conservative. and Ken was on drugs with the Pranksters..) He and the Pranksters would come to school plays and sporting events dress in the Hippie clothing style of the day and people would just stare..But I sure do miss him.. Later on he kick out the Pranksters and starting help at the high school.. His son Zane is still at the farm in P. Hill