Full disclosure: I lived these events. I think.

You of a certain age will recall: in 1966 word was spreading of new wonders, new charismatic creatures, and particularly an authentic American guru--a blessed hick from Arkansas named Captain Jim, who preached unfettered love, LSD, and a new life-ethic based on, of all things, FUN. Fun was the sole and final reason we were here, he taught. Fun was the pinnacle of ten thousand years of civilization. And to know this--to REALLY KNOW it--amounted to a cosmic leap in collective consciousness.

Metamorphosis was a major concern for me in 1966. I was a hungry useless thing—sixteen, clinically shy, strung-out, a runaway. A look at my snapshots shows it--the stricken eyes that say, "noooo, noooo, this is all a horrible mistake--I have been dropped into the wrong world. I understand nothing about this alien planet, this putrid epoch, these brutes I share the earth with! I yearn! I yearn for better things."

In 1966, I was ready for something else.

(from "Preface," pg. 1)

[Note: today I'm posting this tidbit, from chapter 32, "Sons of Applestock," because it reminds me of the Administration on the eve of battle.]

Chief Hadley shifted in his chair and made sure his various chains rattled and his gun came into view. “Look here, now, nobody’s going to kill nobody, okay—let’s get that straight right now.”

The boys sagged a bit.

“But buck up—Zorro never had to kill nobody. There’s plenty else we can do. Keep making them prank calls. Break some more windows if you can steer clear of The Seventh Seals and the rest of them goons. Send spooky letters. Stink-bomb Ray Riffles’ office—”

“We could even pipe-bomb that Kickin’ Machine van of theirs,” said Snappy Squires. “It ain’t a Ford product anyhow.”

Hadley scowled. “I don’t know about any pipe bombs.”

“Well, slash up the tires, at least.”

“And paint something that'll put a real scare in 'em, like: GIT OUT OF TOWN.”

“I already threw one damn brick through Riffles’ office window,” blurted Skippy Tarbox, then turned five sheets of pale as Hadley’s eyes swung to meet his, head-on. “Oh, jeez—I never actually 'fessed to that action, did I, Chief. . . .”

“It’s okay, Skippy. We’re on the same side now,” Hadley muttered—even though he almost puked at the thought of Skippy Tarbox as a comrade-in-arms.

Dr. Harlan’s mouth half-mooned into a crud-encrusted grin. “Well, I tell you this—I can make all kinds of explosive devices, if we ever get to that, but you can have some wicked fun with chemistry. A permanganate, for instance, that’ll turn their sex pond purple, maybe even bond to their skin.”

“Now you’re talkin’.”

“That’s good, that’s good!”

Hadley leaned back and watched the intellectual activity smoke out of these woolly heads. Give ‘em something anti-social to work with and they all clocked up as geniuses for sure!

(from "Sons of Applestock," pg. 191)

“That take, man. . . pure magic,” whispers Captain Jim in the silence that swirls around the dying of the final chord. “What a song you wrote, brother!”

Ray’s head keeps half-revolving and resetting itself. How long has he been in this place? Never mind, never mind, forget it—clock time is irrelevent, anyway. Pure flow has taken over, and Ray has just done the most amazing thing—recorded one of his own songs. Magic? Go to heaven, Ray Riffles!

“Let’s hear a playback,” says Captain Jim, letting his guitar rattle carelessly to the floor.

Prayerfully, The Captain lowers his head, and stands motionless while the studio floods with a universe of guitar shimmer from every speaker. His body takes on an eerily familiar bearing. Who is it? Who is he becoming. . . ? Confusion. Then suddenly Ray knows who it is: gazing back at him out of Captain Jim’s face, are Ray’s own eyes, Ray’s own body, Ray’s own life. Captain Jim has become Ray Riffles.

"I'm a-goin' down that road, a-smellin' like a toad. . ." The Captain mouthes Ray’s vocal, his lips slightly out of sync. "A-smellin' like a toad without no wings."

Is it Ray who is singing. . . or Captain Jim? Does it even matter? The longer Ray lives in this moment, the less he can see any distinction. The voice is his and the mouth is Captain Jim's—go figure that one out.

But the song, the song. . . rippling with between-the-lines profundity, it rains down wisdom, humanity, faith. This song could be an anthem. It really could—like "Blowin' in the Wind." Don't ask how, but Ray knows that "Toad Without No Wings" could easily save an entire generation!

(from "I'm God, You're God," pg. 86)

Tap, tap, tap. Come on in, man.

Becky sees right away what we’ve got here, inside the bus. A little traveling commune. Half-a-dozen scrawny kids smoking pot and drinking beer. One of them, a girl, is tripping heavily—her eyes a bit off center and her arms raised and undulating like seaweed. It’s hot inside and the kids have stripped off their clothes.

In the center of this downbeat little scene is their tripmaster, an evil-looking magic-man, older than the others, a little more voltage in his eyes, more hair, a California tan. A minor league Captain Jim. “Whoa!— What’s this, Universal Pictures, man?”

Becky says, “It’s French TV.”

“French TV! Ooo-la-la! Here, man, sit down. Everybody sit down and smoke with us.”

Becky sees history stuck in a familiar cycle. Here’s one extremely unimportant egomaniac with nothing but a broken-down bus and a handful of haze—and his “family” thinks they’ve found God. There are probably eight or ten of these small-time gurus right here in this meadow. The Festival has drawn them like roaches. Human beings are either leaders or followers. Declare yourself a leader and no matter how big a loser you are, somebody out there is ready to lose bigger than you. Dose them, play taffy with their minds, and they’re yours. Your family.

"Mm, you are. . . Ken Kee-zee?" The French reporter asks.

"Eez what?" says the tripmaster, with a sly earnestness.

"Kee-zee?"

"Kee-zee? Oh, Kesey. Me Kee-zee? Oh, wow, I love your question man!"

"Eez true? You are?"

"Sure I'm Kee-zee, man! We're all Kee-zee. You're Kee-zee, too."

Here we go, kosmic put-on time.

The director thrusts forward his mike. "M'sieur Kee-zee, what will be the role of LSD in future societies?"

"Oh, mind control. Absolutely."

"Mind control?"

"That's it, man. That's what we're all about. What you see here is your basic mind control. We're the Kee-zee family, right? We're all doing, like, mind control exercises. Want me to control your mind for a while? Here man, take the pipe--"

"No, merci."

(from "Day One--THOUSANDS KILLED" pg. 229)

Ray stirs at first light, swims to the surface of his dream, and breaks through it to behold his. . . wife.

Oh, god, the wedding!

Oh, god, what has he done?

He stares hard at his milk-skinned little spouse, snoozing rhythmically beside him. “My bride,” he croaks. A runaway surge of graveyard hopelessness bursts forth in the form of a giggle.

Married to this. . . chipmunk of a girl.

Today the Festival press conference will be attended by CBS, NBC, ABC, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, newspaper reporters from New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, LA, blah-diddy-blah-blah-blah. They're all out there now, tailgating in the lower meadow, wandering among the tents and magic buses, getting their background and color before the main event.

He remembers now: they absolutely adored the wedding.

Ray slips out of bed and pads barefoot to his open window. Outdoors, the scene is like one of those battle pauses in World War I, when opposing soldiers had stopped fighting and played soccer instead. Hard-bitten reporters toss Frisbees with hippies. TV trucks and trailers sit chocabloc with the campfires and teepees. Someone is beating a conga drum (someone is always beating a conga drum!). Sounds of drilling, hammering, and heavy clanging echo over the hill from the bottom of the dell, where Bob-Bob’s stage crew is finishing off the festival stage and erecting lighting towers. Huge interactions are in motion now. . . .

Sometime in the night, Ray dreamed he was chased by a big black cockroach that turned into a Buick. Funny, ha ha, but it jarred him into a state of gut wrenching panic. Why a Buick? Is it the old wisecrack about the loser who hears the honk-honk of destiny but thinks it's a Buick and jumps out of the way? Ray has no problem with Destiny. He takes on Destiny every day and has damned well mastered the sucker by now . . . hasn’t he?

Dreams, like politicians, come on with gigantic authority, even when they don't make sense.

What if Destiny really is a Buick. . . ?

(from "Even Jesus Had His Doubts," pg. 218)

Captain Jim is Ray’s new role model, warts and all. Even seeing him at the window that night, the masturbating god—even that hasn’t turned Ray away from him. It’s produced the opposite effect, humanizing and magnifying the Sacred Goat, in a sacrimental way, as if part of Jim’s mission as "god," small-g, is to lend dignity to the twisted secrets of humanity by acting them out, gloriously or shamefully.

After a quiet satsang, the two of them stroll along the ridge behind the farm, tripping lightly. “A cool place,” Jim pronounces, looking down on the house. “But people’s troubles go on no matter how cool things may be, ain’t that right, Ray?”

Ray nods. The world is out of joint. Troubles. You could call it that.

“Hey, Ray. Look me in the eyes.” Captain Jim has turned on him sharply. “I know what you want to tell me: that you wake up every day wondering when it's gonna get real again, ain’t that right, brother? When's real life gonna start, when’s the big buzzer gonna buzz? When’s the fella with the big hook gonna pull you off the kiddie stage and shove you up on the real one, hm? C’mere. Come close to me.”

Ray inches forward.

“Right up to me.”

Ray takes a step closer--

POW! Jim slaps him broadside in the face. Ray recovers; Jim slaps him again. POW!

“Wake up, Ray!” Jim is directly in his face--and loud, louder than Ray has ever heard him. “I’m going to predict the future for you, brother, the near future. I don’t need no I Ching to do it, either. I know what you're thinking--who the hell am I to talk to anybody, right? A sorry runt like me? Drug addict, alcohol abuser, sex maniac, jerk-off artist. I'm all these things, brother--but still you want to follow me, don’t you? Ain’t that spooky? It sure spooks me! You ready for this? Need another slap?”

Ray can bring up hardly more than a squeak. “No, I’m. . . .”

POW!.

Ray has decided to go light on Christmas this year.

Mother is off tooting around the Carribean. Fine. So he will just stay put, won't angle to be invited anywhere. No tree, no caroling, no solitary Yuletide dinner at Howard Johnson's. Let Miss Basnight lure him down to the parlor for a ritual cup of eggnog and be done with it.

And so Christmas comes and goes. Ray stays out of public view and makes himself reread War and Peace. Then, a solitary New Year's eve wraps it up and the holiday season is officially over and done with, thank God.

"It's going to snow again," Juanita mutters, seconds into the new academic year.

Sure enough, snow falls hopelessly on Applestock--almost a foot of it. Then more, foot after foot after foot, it seems. Ray buys a set of snow tires for the Cherokee, but it's a pathetic gesture. He has no place to go. . . .