​It’s the End of My Trip
​by Dr. Larry Brilliant
​Sometime in the mid-90s we were on this land in Mendocino County. Wavy, Wavy’s wife Jah, my wife Girija, and I have a piece of land in Mendocino County, where Wavy has this remarkable Camp Winnarainbow.
​We were having a concert; it may have been called The Kate Wolf Concert at the time. There were about 5,000 people attending a Los Lobos concert on this land.
​At one point Wavy was on stage, and he had his microphone and a megaphone. While he was introducing them, he looked off in the distance at Route 101. You could see from the stage, coming down the road, coming towards the concert grounds, was a bus. As it got closer, you could see this was a psychedelic-painted bus. As it got closer and closer, I saw it said FURTHUR II.
​The crowd split in order to allow this bus to drive in, approaching the stage. The music stopped, Wavy was on stage, with his microphone, and as the bus got closer and closer Wavy was saying to the group, “I think it’s Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters.”
​The bus stopped like a Vulcan Starship looking at The Starship Enterprise decloaking. They’d all got their phasers on “stun.” Kesey made his way to the top of the bus and opened the hatch. He’d got a microphone and a megaphone himself.
​He yelled out, “Wavy, how are you?” Wavy says, “Welcome, Ken, nice to see you. You’re interrupting our concert.”
​Kesey responds: “I brought FURTHUR here and The Merry Pranksters, but I also have a great guest here. Wavy, don’t you agree we have failed to honor the elders of this movement we’re part of as much as we should?” Wavy and Kesey are having this conversation; 5,000 people were listening from the stage and the top of the bus.
​Kesey continued, “Well, I brought an elder with me that I think that we should honor. His name is Timothy Leary.”
​Making his way up the steps at the top of the bus from the inside was Timothy Leary in a sorcerer’s outfit and his little wizard pointy scepter. He was very thin and obviously dying of liver cancer. He struggled and got to the top of the bus, raised his wizard’s wand, and went around in a circle blessing all 5,000 people. Then he looked to Wavy and said, “Wavy, I’m dying; it’s the end of my trip. It’s been a wonderful trip. I’m not afraid of dying.” Kesey took the microphone and said, “Wavy, I think we need to honor Tim Leary now. What I have in mind is canonizing Tim Leary. Wavy, do you agree that Tim Leary should be canonized?”
​Wavy replied, “Yes, of course, but how will you canonize Tim Leary?” Kesey said, “I’m glad you asked.”
​We started to hear this sound of a motor grinding and something being elevated onto the top of the bus. After a lot of grinding, suddenly you saw he’d got this real cannon on top of the bus. Kesey announced, “I brought my own cannon to canonize Tim Leary.”
​Everyone was getting a little nervous. It was a crowded area and it was a big cannon. Kesey struck a match, the kind you would see in a comic book. He put it on the end of the cannon and there was a “boom,” but not a great blast. From the cannon came confetti and stars that showered down on everybody at the concert. Kesey said, “I hereby canonize Tim Leary.” The crowd went wild and Wavy went wild. That was the Theatre of Ken Kesey.