{"id":5266,"date":"2019-07-23T06:06:43","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T13:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=5266"},"modified":"2019-07-23T06:06:45","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T13:06:45","slug":"the-greatest-gig-in-oregon-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/the-greatest-gig-in-oregon-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Gig in Oregon History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

(This essay is adapted from my book,\nThe Gigging Life<\/em>. It represents original reporting about a Ken\nKesey story that almost no has had ever heard of, but is my\nfavorite.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest Oregon literary gig of all\ntime is The Bend in the River Media Referendum. It culminated July\n4th<\/sup> weekend 1974 in Bend, Oregon and traveled well beyond\nwords and stories and embraced grassroots politics and the promise of\ndemocracy during the darkness of the Vietnam War and Watergate years.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a frantic, four-month, statewide\ngig for a better Oregon future, funded by taxpayers, and orchestrated\nby the greatest Oregon writer and impresario of all time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ken Kesey pulled it off, with a lot of\nhelp from his friends and some Merry Pranksters, too. In essence, The\nBend in the River Media Referendum is the Wild West story of a lost\nMerry Pranksters gig. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has virtually disappeared from\nOregon history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let Ken Kesey begin the tale. His\nessay, \u201cHow it All Came Together,\u201d <\/strong>opened the 126-page\nBend in the River Reality<\/em> newsprint magazine published a month\nafter the Bend in The River Media Referendum concluded. It\u2019s one of\nthe more psychedelic and prescient publications ever produced in\nOregon and virtually unread in over four decades. Very few copies\nremain. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kesey wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe madder\nyou get the madder you get\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So there we are\nafter Sunday supper sitting around the dirty dishes and fresh coffee,\ntalking, me and Gary Mikklesen (Mikklesen is ten years my junior plus\nhis dad worked for my dad making prize winning Darigold ice cream for\nthe Eugene Farmers\u2019 Co-operative Creamery but then see I worked as\nsecond-string ice cream maker under Gary\u2019s Dad, Mick Mikklesen,\nduring my adolescent son-of-the-boss years\u2026 all of which makes Gary\nand me somehow eye-level on the Lane County turf) \u2026talking about\nthe bleak, sad feeling of seeing things long-loved go under the\nRoller of Heartless Progress, sipping coffee and griping, getting mad\nand madder, wondering what could be done about the problem by a\nnotorious novelist gone bad and a slick-talking feed store\nproprietor, done to somehow stall or at least call for a re-appraisal\nof the Awful Roller, when I suddenly remember the pig farmer in\nMontana\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PIG FARMER\u2019S\nNOTION<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a\npanel-scarred veteran of numerous Humanities Conferences (the JFK\nSymposium in Kansas City and the Montana Land Use Conference in\nBillings, to name a couple) I have been impressed both by the\ncommendable wealth of information attracted to these events and by\nthe lamentable dearth of this wealth. The people just aren\u2019t\ngetting the information. This was never made more clear than on the\nfinal day of the conference in Billings when a raw-jawed pig farmer\nin the hotel elevator asked me, \u201cYou one of them eck-ollygists flew\nin here to talk to yerselfs?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to admit I\nwas. I asked what he would do, if he were king, to change the\nsituation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPut it on\nTV,\u201d he answered. \u201cjust like they do the political conventions.\nThen let the folks at home vote t\u2019see who won. Simple\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This project has\nbeen our attempt to adapt that Montana pig farmer\u2019s notion to the\nOregon situation. It wasn\u2019t quite as simple as any of us first\nfigured.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE GRANT<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Gary and I\nwere discussing our fantasy, the phone rang. It was Joyce Theios,\nVista Burnout, calling from San Bernardino, asking to speak to Faye\nabout onion sets. Faye wasn\u2019t there but the call seemed fortuitous.\nAn ex-Vista Volunteer seemed exactly what was needed. I explained the\nproject to her and asked if she would like to be the secretary. Joyce\nassured me she would help but it was to be definitely understood that\nshe was \u201cnot the secretary.\u201d (In the months that followed there\nwere quite a number of fine folks, both yin and yang, who acted as\n\u201cNot the Secretary.\u201d) <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joyce helped\nGary and me apply for the grant. I remember the first line of our\nfirst application as a prime example of how not to mince words:\u201cDear\nHumanities People: we need a hundred thousand bucks. . .\u201d We then\nsubmitted a revised budget for 87 thousand. Then 75. And finally<\/em>\u2014<\/em>with\nthe help Bill Korns, Phil George, Bob Wynia, Jim Williams, Kathi\nWagner, Barbara Platz and Chuck Ackley\u2014we were allotted $12,000,\nas planning or \u201cseed money,\u201d by the Oregon Committee for the Arts\nand Humanities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joyce was the\none who first heard from Chuck Ackley that our fantasy had actually\nbeen funded. She told me over the phone that the Humanities people\nconsidered us a definite gamble but nevertheless a gamble definitely\nworth taking. After she hung up I called Gary at his feed store in\nCrow: \u201cMikklesen, we got trouble. . . \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ADULT\nOUT-OF-SCHOOLERS<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found out one\nof the stipulations of the grant was involvement with a recognized\nHumanist and an \u201cadult, out-of-school public.\u201d Gary had covered\nthis in the application by saying we would hold a bunch of what he\ncalled \u201ctown meetings\u201d with me acting as the honcho Humanist.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoncho what?\u201d\nI demanded in dawning aghastment? \u201cYou mean we have to hold\nmeetings all over this mother state! Who\u2019ll come?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWall-l-l-\u201d\nMikklesen mused over the phone, \u201c\u2014if you don\u2019t think we got the\njuice to draw a crowd\u2014.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut even so,\nwhat\u2019ll we do with them? We ain\u2019t the King Family. . .\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy, chief,\ndidn\u2019t you say you used to do a little magic show, silks and ropes\nand so forth\u2026?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE GLARE OF\nDEMOCRACY<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually I did\nremember the trick we had used in 1972 when we were trying to get the\nPeoples\u2019 Party going\u2014to hold nominations and elections as a way\nof involving the audience. It had been far more effective than the\nusual one-way political bombast. So what we did at each Oregon\nmeeting was have me get up front at first and run thirty or forty\nminutes of rap off the top of my shiny head, then open the floor to\nnominations. When the blackboard got full someone always closed the\nnominations and we heard from each candidate in turn.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, I\njudge this part of the project my favorite\u2014listening to these\nnominees speak, feeling for them, seeing them thrust without\npreparation into the glare of democracy at its starkest, and watching\nthem at first blink and bumble and blush then, finally, grandly,\nbloom in its light.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the\nspeeches we would elect however many the gathering thought right,\nthose elected to be delegates at a Council. All we could tell them\nwas that this council was to convene in Bend on the 4<\/em>th<\/em><\/sup>\nof July where they would address themselves to the issues concerning\nthe next 25 years of our state\u2019s future, the<\/em>n<\/em> present\nthese issues to the public via some kind of exciting new ballot. The\nmeetings broke up with everyone confused but enthused.<\/em> \t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone could write a book about the\nunlikely and inspiring story of the Bend in the River Media\nReferendum. It most assuredly deserves a book-length treatment\nbecause nothing comparable exists in the annals of American history:\na celebrated novelist gigging across his state on the taxpayers\u2019\ndime, at the tail end of the criminal Nixon Era, to rap with citizens\nand envision a new path for a better Oregon in 2000. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, this short essay will\nhave to suffice for now. But it’s a story ready-made for an author or\nfilmmaker. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chief source for the following\naccount of the Bend in the River Media Referendum is the Bend in\nthe River Reality<\/em>, a truly remarkable piece of counterculture\njournalism, some newspaper clippings, and interviews with David Dumas\nand Walt Curtis, both participants in the community meetings and the\nculminating event in Bend. It was Walt Curtis who said, that on the\ndrive over to Bend with Kesey, Kesey said in the back seat, \u201cOregon\nis the citadel of the spirit.\u201d That\u2019s what he was feeling after\nspending four months talking with so many Oregonians and listening to\ntheir concerns and desires for their state\u2019s future. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central idea behind the Bend in the\nRiver Referendum was to give the people the, \u201cmagic scepter of\ndemocracy,\u201d as Kesey described the grassroots process that called\nupon Oregonians to gather across the state in their communities and\ntalk, and better yet, listen to one another. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process entailed holding meetings\nin Portland, in Eugene, Corvallis, Albany, Salem, Springfield,\nAshland, The Dalles, Coos Bay, Newport, Astoria and Fossil (!), where\nattendees identified and discussed the issues and then cast ballots\nto prioritize them for further discussion. Kesey hosted these\nconclaves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the meetings, delegates were also\nselected to represent their cities at the Bend in the River Media\nReferendum over the July 4th<\/sup> weekend. The plan was to\ntally all the ballots from the meetings and devise a working agenda\nfor the final gathering. In Bend, delegates would meet in groups on\nspecific issues and make policy recommendations. (It should also be\nnoted that after these meetings, held in venues such as churches,\nfairgrounds, schools, libraries and colleges, Kesey and crew would\nrepair to a local watering hole and invite anyone who wanted to join\nthem. Can any Oregon writer do that sort of thing today?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who came to the meetings? Ken Babbs,\nwriting in The Bend in the River Reality<\/em>, described them this\nway: \u201cThey were young, but not all; there were long hairs but\nshort-cuts too. They wore overalls and business suits, granny gowns\nand chic pantsuits. Some carried babes in arms. They came on foot and\nbike, in pickups and Torinos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accounts of the initial community\nmeetings in Eugene and Portland portray confusion, a penchant for\ndigression, and a distinct counterculture flavor. It is clear from\nreading Bend in the River Reality<\/em> that Kesey and crew knew\nthat their ad-hoc, freewheeling approach wasn\u2019t going to fly in the\nhinterlands, or even in Portland. This wasn\u2019t the Oregon Country\nFair. They tweaked the space ship, reeled in the sky pilot, and\ntightened the focus for future meetings. Apparently, the\nmodifications worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concurrent to the community meetings\neffort, the Bend in the River organizers also published a ballot in\nmany newspapers across the state and urged people to participate in\nthe process even if they didn\u2019t attend the meetings. All they had\nto do was fill out the ballot, tear it from the paper, and mail it to\nthe Bend in the River headquarters in Eugene. Eventually,\nparticipants returned some 5000 ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One hundred and seven delegates\nconvened at Central Oregon Community College in Bend to stage the\nReferendum. There were early disagreements on procedures, agendas and\nwording on abortion rights that threatened to disrupt the\nproceedings, but they dissipated and the gig went on. Dr. Andrew Weil\nshowed up to talk about the medicinal benefits of plants used by\nNative Americans. David Brower railed against nuclear power. Former\nUS Senator Wayne Morse, the Tiger of the Senate, trying to regain his\nseat, gave a fiery speech on the perils of secret government.\nDelegates formed groups on the following issues: Land Use, Health,\nEducation, Energy, Nuclear Power (moratorium), Amnesty (for Vietnam\nWar draft resistors), Computers (data collection!), Economy,\nCommunications (the role of the public trust in media). Fifty-nine\ncredentialed members of media came from all over the West, including\na writer from Rolling Stone<\/em> and photographer Annie Lebowitz.\nInterestingly enough, neither the Oregonian<\/em> nor Oregon\nJournal <\/em>sent any reporters to the event. They probably considered\nthe whole thing too hippie and out of touch with reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which it was and was not. That was the\nwhole point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Referendum culminated with a\n90-minute show Sunday morning promulgating the policy positions on\nthe issues. It was aired live on Oregon Public Broadcasting. The\nMerry Pranksters live into the living rooms of Oregonians! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the broadcast, Kesey gave a\nquick lecture on manners and timing and warned that the Bend in the\nRiver concept was on trial and Middle America was watching. Imagine\nthat! Ken Kesey warning his tribe to behave! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show began. Kesey appeared and\nexplained the spectacle about to unfold. People at home were asked to\nimprovise ballots and mail them in later. Then the discussion about\nOregon\u2019s future began. Ninety minutes later, after a closing Om\nchant for all Christian Middle Oregon to ponder, the show ended. It\nlargely went off without a hitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is probably nothing comparable to\nthat live program in the history of American television, at least how\nit was detailed in the Bend in the River Reality<\/em>. Someone\ncaptured it on tape. The tape has gone missing. I know it\u2019s out\nthere, in a Eugene basement or Springfield attic. Someone find it and\nthrow this artifact up on YouTube. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Dumas recalls how The Bend in the\nRiver Media Referendum ended: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the last day,\nafter the media event ended and the news people were gone, the\nPranksters set up the gymnasium for a party\/dance that I would\ndescribe as a cross between a square dance and an acid test. Kesey,\nplaying the high priest, was breaking open chemical light sticks and\nanointing everyone. I was wearing an old maroon sweater with jeans,\nand Kesey came over and covered me with eerily green florescent\ngalaxies. Glowing, we formed a rumba line and snaked our way around\nthe auditorium.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A month later, Kesey and crew published\nBend in the River Reality<\/em>: The BITR END<\/em> and distributed\nit via the mail and other unknown methods. Kesey concluded the\npublication with a poem. Its second part read: \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people have\na wisdom no government can equal. The people are the computer, and\ntechnology needed to tap this human resource bank is minimal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people are\nnot dumb.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people can\nrun the ship through the rapids ahead better than any group of\nelected officials.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officials\nneed only gather the information and mount the argument and present\nthem to the people; the people will do the deciding. . .<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be done\nsoon. It must be prepared for now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because if the\npeople aren\u2019t driving there is always the possibility that some\nmaniac might grab the wheel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official\nchannels, like the Media Referendum, must be made available to the\npeople as a means of impeaching any part of the system that has gone\nawry\u2014any time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be done.\nIt must be prepared for.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gig was over. But it was also not\nover. It\u2019s never over. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether The Bend in the River gig made\nany difference how Oregon ended up 45 years later is a matter for\nfurther inquiry, conjecture and debate. It is no coincidence that in\nthe aftermath of that extraordinary gig, the thousands of Oregonians\nit directly, organically engaged with peace, love and a willingness\nto listen and learn from all walks of Oregon life, coupled with the\nprogressive measures enacted during Governor Tom McCall\u2019s second\nterm, a zeitgeist for improved livability was seeded. Over time,\nthose seeds germinated, and later grew Oregon into one of the most\ndesirable places to live in the country. It\u2019s the story of modern\nOregon. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This essay is adapted from my book, The Gigging Life. It represents original reporting about a Ken Kesey story that almost no has had ever heard of, but is my favorite.) The greatest Oregon literary gig of all time is The Bend in the River Media Referendum. It culminated July 4th weekend 1974 in Bend, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,74],"tags":[1058,1059,1061,454,1060,53],"class_list":["post-5266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-coast_history","tag-bend-in-the-river","tag-bend-oregon","tag-ken-babbs","tag-ken-kesey","tag-merry-pranksters","tag-oregon-history","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5269,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266\/revisions\/5269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}