Cronies, a Burlesque: Adventures with Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead
A bullet train of a book, fast-paced, hilarious, rich with action. A harbinger of good things to come in mysterious ways.
It all began at a cocktail party at Wallace Stegner's for the Stanford writing class of 1958. Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs became cronies, embarking on a frolicking, rambunctious adventure that lasted over 40 years. Babbs calls the 70 stories of this book "burlesques" because, after 85 years of living, much of it in the wide friendly center of an evolving, at times psychedelic culture, memory no longer can, or even should include an exact retelling, but only a tasty sprinkling of the truth, mixed with an endless enigma, all topped with the best of humor and heart.
The troupe of characters include the Kens Kesey and Babbs, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Timothy Leary, Jerry Garcia, Pigpen, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mountain Girl, Sonny Barger, Larry McMurtry, Wavy Gravy, Hunter S. Thompson, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Jan Kerouac, Bill Walton, Wendell Berry, a pick-up bed-sized sturgeon, and always the many free-spirited, creative, friendly men and women who made up the Merry Band of Pranksters.
Come along for the ride on the famous bus trip to Manhattan. Join the Hells Angels at their partying best. Drop in for the early Acid Tests. Experience the Berkeley Vietnam anti-war rally. Relish the stories of Kesey's pot busts and "suicide." Climb aboard--"Board!"--for six months on the lam in Mexico. Take the Further tours with the Grateful Dead. Make the ultimate move to Oregon, where Babbs and Kesey grew a magical friendship and collaboration until Kesey passed in 2001.
Irreverent, unencumbered by social norms, literary and poetic, Cronies is a poignant view of the Sixties and beyond from someone who was there, and remembers it well. Kind of...
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Ken Babbs, Ohio-bred and Ohio-born, is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a member of two NCAA tournament basketball teams. He was turned on to writing at Miami by Walter Havighurst, a fine scholar and scribe.
He attended graduate school at Stanford University, where he met Ken Kesey, Wendell Berry and other luminaries in Wallace Stegner's writing class. Five years in the Marine Corps followed, serving as a helicopter pilot, with his final tour of duty in Vietnam. He got off the chopper and onto the bus, Further, for the famous trip to Madhattan in 1964, chronicled in print by Tom Wolfe and filmed and taped by the Merry Pranksters.
He shared forty-three years of collaboration and shenanigans with Kesey--doing shows, speaking engagements and musical catastrophes--plus writing books, magazine articles, and co-editing six issues of Spit in the Ocean. Babbs co-wrote Last Go Round with Kesey, and went on to publish a novel based on his experiences in Vietnam, Who Shot the Water Buffalo?
Married to a retired high school English teacher, he lives on a six-acre farm in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon.
Review Quotes:
"Babbs's vivid
storytelling ... invites us to connect to the Pranksters' moment and the spirit
of restive questioning that powered it and so many other countercultural
eruptions. ... Babbs's memories prove arresting, and his reconstructed
conversations pulse with energy, wit, and a persuasive sense of truth,
especially as Pranksters jape, improvise road poems, and build on each other's
mad thoughts with thoughts madder still."
--Publishers
Weekly
"...[A] wondrous
record: a lengthy memoir by a man who witnessed a great deal and brings it to
life in vivid detail. But it's also a tremendous act of friendship, capturing
the visionary Kesey in a way that gives him depth without demystifying his art.
A freewheeling, candy-colored journey of comradeship, drugs, art, and 1960s
hijinks."
--Kirkus
Reviews
"...[A] must-read for
aging hippies, admirers of Kesey and anyone who wondered whatever happened to
that group calling itself the Merry Pranksters. ... [An] affectionate
remembrance of years spent raising hell with his best friend and taking others
along for the ride."
--Associated
Press, John Rogers
"This book is for
anyone who has read Kerouac's On the Road, dreamt of
leaving it all behind, getting with close friends, and venturing forth into the
unknown. It's an enlightening, adventure-filled book for the inner prankster in
us all."
4.5/5 stars
--San
Francisco Book Review, Eric Smith
"While previous
writers have created caricatures of Kesey, Babbs presents Kesey in a much more
personal way, as a friend and pal. The book is an excellent read for anyone
interested in learning more about the overlapping circles of the Merry
Pranksters and the Grateful Dead."
4/5 stars
--City
Book Review, Seattle, David Keenan
"...[A] rip-snorting
tale tempered by the wisdom of time and informed by the psychedelic enthusiasm
of a culture founded in youth but defined by eternity."
--CounterPunch,
Ron Jacobs
"At its heart, Cronies is a buddy picture. ... Ken Babbs
carries on the Prankster spirit into the 2020s, acting as an anthropologist and
living historical record, still on the search for a Kool Place."
--Live
For Live Music, Michael Broerman
