Furthur coming back
From the
Seattle Times:
Kesey's bus on magic road to resurrection
Zane Kesey picked at moss competing with swirls of brightly colored paint and patches of rust to cover the 1939 International school bus that his father, the late author Ken Kesey, rode cross-country with a refrigerator stocked with LSD-laced drinks in pursuit of a new art form.
"This comes off pretty easy," he said, a fond smile playing over his face. "It's amazing, some of the things that are coming out — things I remember."
For some 15 years, the bus dubbed "Furthur" has rusted away in a swamp on the Kesey family's Willamette Valley farm, out of sight if not out of mind, more memory than monument.
That is where Ken Kesey — author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and hero of a generation that vowed to drop out and tune in with the help of LSD — intended it to stay after firing up a new version.
But four years after his death, a Hollywood restaurateur has persuaded the family to resurrect the old bus so it can help tell the story of Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and the psychedelic 1960s.
David Houston, owner of the roadhouse Barney's Beanery in Hollywood, Calif., said he read Kesey's books while in high school and college.
"The story of the bus was always very compelling. To find out it had been just left to go — I really wanted to restore the bus and tell its story to the world."
Houston hopes to raise some $100,000 to get the bus running and looking good. The Kesey family will maintain control of the bus, taking it to special events.
"People think of a bus as transportation," said Zane Kesey. "No. It's a platform, a way to get your messages across."
Last fall, a group of old Pranksters hauled the bus out of the swamp and parked it next to a barn to await restoration.
Very cool -- a fascinating artifact of that generation. I had known that it was rotting away in Oregon -- a year ago, part of its sound system was auctioned off (went for several thousand). Nice to see that it will be preserved for history.
Posted by DaveH at January 10, 2006 4:45 PM