Furthurmore

I went off to the Furthur Festival completely uncertain about how that would go. I met up with Zane Kesey and the folks on the Furthur Bus and we sat for a day in the rain outside of the venue. We had some very surreal moments trying to get the Furthur Bus on site. There were a handful of very quotable moments.

Zane approached the gate and was given a spot in the venue. He went back out to get the bus and drive it in and we were positioned to help him back it into this spot on a hill. It was all a very precarious series of maneuvers. Just as it’s about to be in place, a very angry aggressive production guy pulls in in a golf cart and parks right behind the bus so that Zane can’t park it.

We try to explain that this is the bus that the festival is named after. (It’s actually the sequel, but, y’know, still a fitting mascot.) This angry guy’s henchman walks up and says “well, anyone can paint Furthur on the front of their bus.”

I don’t know who these two guys were but the henchman proceeded to make a handful of really stupid statements. First he said “This isn’t the ’60s where you guys can just pull in and do your own thing.” Then he said the Merry Pranksters were “not that pivotal.” My jaw was on the ground. Not that pivotal to WHAT?!? The band named itself after the bus, the event was named after the bus, the band wrote a song about the bus (“The Other One”) with the lyrics “the bus came by and I got on, that’s when it all began.” How much more “pivotal” did the Pranksters need to be?

I asked this guy if he read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He said he had but was dismissive about the book and it’s importance to the Dead scene. This guy kept putting his foot in his mouth. He said that Zane didn’t “create” the Bus, so Zane replies “No, but I inherited it.” And then Zane backs the vehicle up and is gone and this guy turns to me, “Was that Ken Kesey’s son?”

I got a very big grin on my face when I said “Yes.” This guy had stood there acting important to us for twenty minutes and just now figured out how stupid his “anybody can paint Furthur on the front of their bus” comment came out sounding.

There was plenty of comedy and irony to go around.