On the bus #4: Further adventures of the Cassady kid

British summertime

So Kesey called me up in the Summer of 1999 to invite me along on the Pranksters' month-long ‘Searching For Merlin’ Grandfurther tour of the UK. They had concocted a stage play loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, complete with costumes. I think Walker was the Tin Man. I said, ‘Sure, I'll go!’ I mean, what could possibly go wrong, right?

They shipped the bus over on a freighter (or maybe they drove it across the Atlantic, ha ha). We picked it up at Portsmouth harbour in Southern England and drove North with a bunch of vans behind us.

I think the whole trip was financed by the BBC. Their broadcast truck was huge and packed with high-tech equipment which I had no idea what the stuff was that they were telling me about. Every night they would screen a 10-minute update of our day's adventures before the news at 6pm. Those were fun to watch in the pubs in the evenings.

A highlight for me was when we performed the show at the historic Minack Theatre above Porthcurno Beach, Land's End, Cornwall. Famous for its Shakespeare productions since forever, it has a huge fort with ramparts and parapets to defend the coast. It's where the Lusitania sank.

There were a few of what I called ‘Second Generation Pranksters’ along with us, who included Trixie Garcia, Sunshine Kesey and one guy named John Swan, who was a real character. Always made me laugh.

We stopped at some convenience store for supplies once, and when I came out of the store, they had duct-taped Swanny to the front of the bus! Why I don't know, but it was a hilarious scene. George Walker, the driver, came out and said, ‘That's funny, but he'll block the air to the radiator!’ So they cut him loose.

Back at the Minack, we were there for the total lunar eclipse of the Sun on August 11th, 1999. We stopped the show to watch it, of course, and I remember that as it got darker, all the birds stopped chirping, thinking that it was nighttime, I guess.

John Swan got up one the parapet with a longhorn, like the ones you see in old Robin Hood movies. Where he got it from, I'll never know, but he sounded pretty good! He was no Miles Davis or Louis Armstrong, but I thought it was a cool gesture for the event.

We camped in tents on a huge field above the venue for about a week. Lots of good cooking, parties and spirits.

I've gone on YouTube and noticed a lot of Kesey documentaries. Tripping, 1999. Magic Trip, 2011. Everyone wants to cash in. ’Twas always thus...

Keep the Beat,

John Allen Cassady

Coming soon: ‘On the bus #5’, Wales, Ireland and Scotland all welcome the revels