Prankster Ken Babbs takes readers On The Bus in new memoir
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sounds like a good read...
https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/merry-prankster-ken-babbs-new-memo...
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sounds like a good read...
https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/merry-prankster-ken-babbs-new-memo...
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Wonder how factual it really
Wonder how factual it really is. Is his memory really that sharp!?
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Here is a recorded
Here is a recorded conversation with Babbs.
https://www.mudcitypress.com/kenbabbs.php
"On November 5, 2021, Dan Armstrong of Mud City Press sat down with internationally known Merry Prankster and author Ken Babbs to talk about Babbs' new book Cronies: Adventures with Ken Kesey, Neal Cassidy, the Merry Pranksters, and the Grateful Dead. What ensued was a lively, revealing, and at times hilarious conversation with one of Oregon's most engaging writers and story tellers, not to mention Ken Kesey's best friend."
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My copy arrived NYE. His
My copy arrived NYE. His other book, Who Shot The Water Buffalo? Was a quick fun read. Set during Babbs’ time as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
" We don't need facts, we need stories." - Ken Kesey
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: MeditateontheQ
CRONIES inspires, dazzles,
CRONIES inspires, dazzles, and leaves everlasting smiles and wonder, all the while expanding our horizons, and reminding us to laugh and think, as we continue to explore and experiment with Ken Babbs—one of the all-time masters. Look out. Hold on.
—Bill Walton, former NBA All-Star Basketball Player
Here's a link to buy an autographed copy from an independent bookseller:
http://www.tsunamibooks.org/shop/cronies-a-burlesque
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blurb from the dust jacket:
blurb from the dust jacket:
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 posted this earlier
Ken Babbs posted this earlier on FB:
HUGE MISTAKE, I SAID MY READING AT THE EUGENE LIBRARY IS ON SUNDAY, JANURARY 15. IT IS TODAY, SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 AT 2 PM PACIFIC TIME.
Fortunately, here it is for you;
Ken Babbs: Author Talk at Eugene Public Library
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCsmlOf5gIY
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Ken Babbs and Bill Walton "at
Ken Babbs and Bill Walton "at" Powell's Books in Portland today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8oMlPMlbu8
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Thanks Noodler.
Thanks Noodler.
Babbs and Walton make an entertaining team.
Also, Babbs seems pretty sharp to me.
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new interview of Ken Babbs
new interview of Ken Babbs posted by Relix.com:
Ken Babbs Remembers Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, Jerry Garcia and Other ‘Cronies’
https://relix.com/uncategorized/detail/ken-babbs-remembers-ken-kesey-nea...
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Thanks for the link. I just
Thanks for the link. I just ordered the book. Looks like a fun read.
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just ordered this also.
just ordered this also.
Tsunami Books is impressively efficient! from the "order received" email to the "order shipped" email was SIX MINUTES!
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Ordered one for me and one
Ordered one for me and one for my friend!
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Quinn thank you for
Quinn thank you for supporting tsunami books. It's a very important place.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: cultivate kindness
I like how Babbs describes
I like how Babbs describes this book as a burlesque: "a historical occurrence enhanced with additions, exaggerations, embellishments and inventions." That's a lot more honest than folks who call their writing non-fiction. It's all fiction when you get down to it.
Trigger pulled. Looking forward to reading this.
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I finished it last week and
I finished it last week and it was an enjoyable read. Kesey and Babbs were close buds. They enjoyed alot of adventures. When I read the electric koolade acid test I was extremely intrigued. The professor who assigned it was from Cali and new some of the players.
He new Leary and had him come speak to our class while he and liddy were doing a college tour. Kesey's wife married Larry Mcnurty after Ken passed. Kesey seems to have had an old school attitude towards women.
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My copy arrived a couple of
My copy arrived a couple of days ago, and I started reading it yesterday. I'm four chapters in and have to say that this is a very interesting text. It defies a lot of expectations about how a memoir should work, or how any story should work really.
Its tone is conversational for the most part, but at the same time it's clearly-constructed in ways. The chapters are short (4-5 pages) with each one carrying an epigraph (so far, they're all short nuggets from Kesey) followed by a descriptive chapter title. About the only thing that's noticeably conventional (so far) is its chronological structure with earlier moving towards later just like you'd expect. That's the through-line for this thing, and it makes some of them more fragmented parts much easier to navigate and digest.
There's a lot to be mined here, and I'm thinking that folks who have read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and/or are familiar with the stories of Kesey and the Pranksters will get the most out of it. But even for the thoroughly initiated, Cronies often plays like a psychedelic connect-the-dots contraption with the reader responsible for drawing the lines between Babbs' textual brain-droppings. Sense can be made here, but it's really on the reader to assemble the pieces, then take a step back, and decide what it all means.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: MeditateontheQ
I went to the Liddy + Leary
I went to the Liddy + Leary event at my college... loved it.
Haven't ordered my copy yet but it's on my list.
Was it autographed?
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Yeah, Tsunmani had signed
Yep, Tsunmani had signed copies for no added cost.
I just checked the website and found this: "Sold out. Update 2/13/22: Sorry folks, we are done selling signed first printings via our website, likely for some time. A few signed copies still available for customers through the door."
Need an excuse for a drive to Eugene, LLOLLO?
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That's enough of an excuse
Thanks for that follow-up Mike.
That's enough of an excuse for me! Will call ahead.
I have another way to get a signed copy, though... that's plan B.
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From Eileen Spear Babbs on FB
From Eileen Spear Babbs on FB:
"Hi all. Ken had emergency open heart surgery on Feb 10. He’s out of the hospital and in a rehab place to help him get his strength back. His big fat heart is strong!!"
Speedy Recovery Sir!!!
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Pranksters are a hardy breed.
Pranksters are a hardy breed. A fast rehab to you Ken.
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((((((( Intrepid Traveller ))
((((((( Intrepid Traveller )))))))
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: doctor
GET WELL SOON
GET WELL SOON
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: MeditateontheQ
Awww, so glad you posted this
Awww, so glad you posted this photo, Noodler.
I knew about this when it happened, but didn't feel like I should share it widely until the family did.
Yes, he's one strong dude and probably giving the nurses hell!