Lsd blotter art 108010/30/2023 I moved into the family farm with my future wife, and Dad had us looking through the old films. Kesey: Key-Z Productions goes back to just before I got married. (Above) Ken Kesey on his farm in Oregon / (Below) Kesey with Allen Ginsberg & Ken Babbsġx: When did you guys first start working together, making art? How long have you been doing this printing and perforating? This was more about him and the way he grew up, which was fairly strict and straightforward. Dad was a different person from what you see in his public persona. Later in life, it was, you’re a farm kid, these are your chores, this is what is expected from you. No, that was when I was really young, when the Prankster scene was happening. People always assumed it was this wonderful relationship of getting high whenever you want, it’s all a party. I’m supposed to be more serious than this. About that time, I’m fairly deep in school, an athlete, and this was frowned upon. It wasn’t something that you talked about because you’re sneaking off to do it. But once, as kids, we found where the stash was… that was a different story. Same with acid, in a very rare and very tiny amount. An easier way to look at it would be pot: that every now and then, the joint would be passed in the direction of the kids. Kesey: Well, around that time, it was me and the neighborhood kids. Kesey: I don’t know if I would pass the actual Acid Test.ġx: Once you started taking LSD, did you guys start working together on things? How did your relationship with your father evolve? I don’t like the idea of being out there where my feet aren’t even a little bit on the ground. It still scares me, as far as taking too much of it. Later in life, when I started really participating in it, I came to respect it a lot. Realizing that, all this time, the straight world was freaking out about acid? I was never worried about acid. All the sudden, I realized, “Wait a second, you mean acid is the same thing as this horrible stuff I’ve been hearing about called LSD?” I had a hard time putting those two things together. I remember, it wasn’t until I was deep into school when they had cops come in and show us this or that. Kesey: In general, acid was this cool thing, just like people smoking pot. I learned words like “hippie.”ġx: What was your relationship with psychedelics early on? How was it introduced to you? It wasn’t until about 1969 or ‘70 when I went to school and found out that not everybody grew up in the circus. Eventually all of us moved up to Oregon onto the farm. Painting on the bus, riding around on the bus, all the wild Pranksters doing their thing. ![]() Ken Kesey barefoot at the typewriter in La Honda / Blast Off – photos courtesy of Zane Keseyġx: Were some of your earliest memories with him? He was doing all these crazy, psychedelic buff antics––was that part of your life? That’s sort of where Cuckoo’s Nest got its oomph from: it was this fairly boring, straightforward, first-person story until that night he hallucinated Chief Bromden, who was crazy, and told it through his point of view. ![]() It turned out to be the CIA that was giving it. I know that around the time I was born, in 1961, while he was writing Cuckoo’s Nest, he signed up for these drug experiments with LSD. Kesey: How old was he? Good god, this is math. That whole feel.ġx: How old was he when you were born? What were some of your earliest memories? Out of these parties came all the things we consider to be part of psychedelic festivals: the wild clothes and the day-glo and the strobe lights and the psychedelic light shows and the weird music. It was legal at the time, and they had a lot of fun with that. He’s the guy that wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, and drove around in a psychedelic bus with the Merry Pranksters and put on these parties called The Acid Tests, which had a big vat of Kool-Aid in the middle of the floor, and in the Kool-Aid was LSD. Read our exclusive interview with Zane Kesey below… (Above) The Merry Pranksters with The Further Bus / (Below) Zane Keseyġx: For those who don’t know, tell us a little about yourself… In our exclusive interview, we spoke to Zane about growing up with one of America’s most influential figures, collecting blotters, and the secret history of Acid Tests. ![]() Through Zane’s legacy, the Bicycle Day Collection is deeply connected to a history of creating art on blotter paper. 1xRUN has partnered with Zane to hand-perforate blotter editions since 2018, carrying a tradition passed down from the family that started it all. Today, Zane and his wife Stephanie run Key-Z Productions, a small production company that later morphed into a blotter printing after they moved from his father’s farm in 1991. Zane Kesey is the son of American novelist Ken Kesey ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Sometimes a Great Notion), who pioneered the 60s psychedelic movement alongside Neal Cassady and the rest of the Merry Pranksters.
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