s like Kesey and Neal Cassady.Preparations for the trip were minimal. After searching on the internet for, oh, 10 minutes without finding the address of the La Honda ranch, I was beginning to worry that I'd never find it. Then I saw someone's off-hand comment that Kesey's house is about a mile west of Applejack's Saloon. Go on, check out the reviews on this fine establishment. It's a fantastic dive. It looks like someone had their wedding reception there and posted pictures of it on the review site. . . let me just note that those pictures make it look a bit nicer inside than it really is. But it was unquestionably a fantastic stop, and we were very luc
ky to find a friendly if spaced out bartender in a tye-dye t-shirt who was more than happy to tell us that not only did he know where the Kesey house was, he had ALMOST bought it. He said once when he was talking to Kesey on the phone (presumably about the house) he asked, "How are ya, Ken?" And Kesey replied, "Feelin blue." The two words came out like poetry.So we drove down the road about a mile, and there it was, just as the bartender said it would be, just as it was in the book. I'd post the address here since it doesn't seem to be available anywhere else, but I think that to find the house without asking directions at Applejack's would be to waste the entire experience. There were no drug-addled Pranksters, Beats, or bikers around; only a few pilgrims come to see where it all happened so many years ago.
7 comments:
Welcome to La Honda, Courtney. Y'all come back, y'hear?
Glad you found our house Courtney. Welcome.
Here's a rambling poem about this house:
Finding Kesey’s House
Windows broken
by the young trying to get out, and the old trying to get in. Glass sagging from hungry looks aimed in and the desperate wishes going away. Day Glow Motorcycles flicker 100 mph down the twisted canyon, another screech and a dull thump of plastic hitting asphalt - now waiting for the scream while the week is cooped up inside growing claws. Tall windows framed red
in a non-committal crime, by the humble redwood luster – when you are high it’s hard to know if your are high enough - enough is an elusive idea - best thing is forget iyou’ve ever been high before - it was nothing like this - freedom on the other hand is just enough to choose, when it is only a little free, distilled out of the soul-red trees, with blue rafter tails dreamed out of the long acid night - religions have all withered before the frozen semaphore of the crucifixions in the true-divide red windows - always somewhere a new Christ is boiling his attitude for lunch, - even the bathroom has a glass door shutting off that thing about modesty - some glass is gone - some glass is broken and siliconed together in frozen lightening any next hit will be the one to get you through, though it is framed by sheriff wood who brittle and ragged like a chewed tongue depressor trying to hold a dragon’s gums down, or an overbite big enough to slay Saint George himself –something dug so hard and long it actually got outside, then it came back and scratched the living shit out of the exterior to get even,
walked all around and kicked and licked at the windows, ate the paint the plants, left a shit -167 of us window panes including Tom, a small revolution is still on hold right out front of the towering wilderness intimidating and leering over the asphalt framing the tourists with all these un occupied crucifixes X-ed over the view like a running eschatological edit - heavenly ghost mist flowing above the creek breathing wet on everything metal dripping cold trying to rot us out like rust in the works of a dropped gun - moss on all sides of the trees because North thinks it has a right to everywhere in its abysmal dew point - the only direction that works here is up –-we put tin on the bridge for the sneaky cars and microphones in the bushes sentries leaning on painted lances like Maple yearling sprouts and infant millennial cathedral tree suckers sucking up out of everything we try to kill that wants to climb the hill and outlive us. MOLD is king of the local food chain, a different cousin for each shade of green, and mushrooms, like pimples on the face of an adolescent acid freak.
Old repairs as bad as the original damage accomplished during the first four beers of the night -sticks glued over cracks caulk squirted around the trim like snot. Repairs like
the unwilled plant on the back fence of the parking lot bordering
the alley behind the Jiffy Lube Palace,
next to the voluntary clothing recycle box.
“…no group has claimed the bombing yet.”, all collaged nearly into paperhood,
You can see everyplace from anyplace - doors adding flamboyance to the idea of exit where everything goes the wrong way, crazed by the stress cracks introduced properly at tea to the tip of mother’s hammer hitting the bell on the way to hell - raunchy loyal hound dog baying at the trees
It is almost time for rain and dark to take over again, and tease us indoors where the fire is flavorful with the bacon never carried all the way home. Singapore strawberries playing radio highlights - confetti of waiting dinner guests on the deck, a realism singing just out of reach, Applejacks letting out its popular odor like steam from a kettle of clams. - - - - Inclined planes precision machined on a nut that will take another hundred years to rot it out of federal tolerance as it lays here under a discarded condom relaxed over two gravel morsels whose load evaporated in a single hour last July, as if trying to impregnate the summer air.
Imagine the gesture that flung it here – probably he didn’t want her to see what he was doing, and she didn’t want to see either – like he was giving her flowers and at the last second threw them out, like the brides bouquet caught by the earth at last.
Terry Adams, 10/24/08
/Users/Terry/Desktop/Further on bridge1Scan-080101-0001.jpg
photo by terry
Courteny,
Please see my web site about the house. Enjoy!
Terry
http://web.mac.com/ta56ek/Site/The_Site.html
Wow. Courtney, you had no idea what a psychedelic nut you were cracking open. And I say that with all affection for Terry.
Terry, this is amazing. . . the poem, the page on the house, the insight into its history. Your article on the Prankster visit is mind-boggling--I wish I could have been there. Thank you for sharing this with me!
I want to meet the dude that gave you directions to this place. he sounds like a treat.
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