[MD] Suffering the Seeds of Change

[John Carl]

for Dan and gav



I want to know what became of the changes

We waited for love to bring

Were they only the fitful dreams

Of some greater awakening?

I've been aware of the time going by

They say in the end its the wink of an eye

And when the morning light comes streaming in

You'll get up and do it again

Amen


The Pretender, Jackson Browne



This is a story about intellectual seeds - books - stories that unfold in
one's brain, send roots down and sprouts up and become more than words on a
page or symbols on a screen.  Its a short story about a short story that was
a powerful seed of change at a time in my life when I was fertile soil.


I'd come out of a seven year marriage that went bad early and was
quasi-attending Sierra Community College, just on the edges of the foothills
of those mountains, about a half hour out of Sacramento.


I was working part time in various construction projects, piece work in the
valley or odd jobs here and there, going to school full time with no real
agenda except pursuit of philosophical excellence in life.  I'd always been
interested in Philosophy and discussed such with  high school friends. Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had a big impact on my outlook.  It
resonated in such strong ways that it became a seed of change so that I
didn't quite fit with normal social goals anymore.


To be honest, I hadn't done much of that before ZAMM, but at least after I
had some intellectual confirmation for my lack of enthusiasm for fitting
into life in America in the mid 80's.


The most telling effect of Pirsig's thought on my life at that time was a
little saying I found myself muttering as I wandered the halls of econobox
buildings, the wide courtyards and spacious library of this fine institution
of lower learning.  I'd remind myself often, "use the institution, don't let
the institution use you."    Pirsig's demonstration-idea of a gradeless,
degreeless school inspired this outlook.   I wasn't there to jump through
those adcademic hoops.    It was an enthralling notion and it worked out a
lot better in practice than you'd initially think.


It worked out especially well at that time for a basically homeless guy with
no serious agenda, showering in a late PE class, reading and studying late
in the library, and then sleeping at one of several coyote camping sites
where my tan VW Rabbit Pickup with camper shell and mattress would slide
right under some oaks, blending well with the golden california grasses.


I was only accosted once, and a simple and truthful, "Yeah officer my wife
kicked me out" was all it took to get out of the glare of the spotlight with
a mild admonishment to move along in the morning.  The fact that I'd been
doing that for three months didn't come up in the conversation.


One gray and drizzly day, I picked up a book on the "New!" stand at the
library.  Bright red garish cover, Big black blocky letters spelling out
title and author, Demon Box, by Ken Kesey.  I liked One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest, book and movie, and was glad to see something new by this
author.  I sat down in a comfy chair and stayed there for the next five
hours.  Blew off a couple classes, but hey, you know my motto.


The book was irresistible to me because Kesey was very much a central figure
in  that whole magic summer of love 60's thing which had been a mad object
of desire for me my whole adult life.  Think of a starving urchin with his
nose up against the window of a bakery; that was me going to a Seventh Day
Adventist boarding school on the coast with the lights of Santa Cruz
twinkling enticingly across Monterey Bay.  While trapped there I read
everything I could get my hands on about the sixties - experiencing
vicariously  a world of music, free love and drugs while living a
vegetarian, teetotaling, non-dancing Adventist existence and longing to be
set free.


Demon Box,  a collection of short stories, was ideally suited to my lonely
longings for those good times long gone.   The first story that that
captivated my attention, The Day Superman Died introduced me to the
person/character of Neal Cassady.  It took place on Kesey's Oregon farm and
reported Kesey's experience at the news of the death of his old driver and
pard.  A story of some sadness, exploring the questions I asked myself
often, "what happened to the summer of love? And how did it all go so wrong
so quickly?"


 I hadn't read Kerouac's On The Road yet, but I'd certainly heard a lot
about it and I hadn't read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test yet either, but I
knew of it and the Merry Pranksters on the good ship Furthur by reputation.
I was impressed to learn that they both feature the same Neal at the Wheel -
Neal Cassady, called Dean Moriarity by Kerouac and lots of other things by
other people.    It's rare enough to be at the very center of any social
movement, but here was a guy who was so fascinating that he was the center
of both the Beat Generation AND right there in the cosmic eye of the
psychedelic sixties.  Featured hero of Ginsberg's Howl, subject of song by
the Grateful Dead, pretty much the most dynamic individual of his age and
pretty much forgotten and ignored subsequently.


He was all dynamic, Neal was.  If you want to make a case for possessing
some static quality to balance the dynamic aspects,  Neal would be your
poster boy.   A literary genius who inspired other great writers and
songsters, he never published or produced anything significant himself and
thus drifted into obscurity after dying of drugs and exposure on those
railroad ties in Mexico.  Casey Jones had better watch his speed, indeed.


That story kept me reading Kesey's book to the end.  The end was the longest
story in the book, the Title track, as it were, the short story, "Demon
Box", which contained the biggest seeds of change for me so far.


The story unfolds in a hot tub, at this famous institute in Big Sur, I think
it's Esalen, but it was called something else in the story.  And I'm not
sure who the character of Dr. Klaus Woofner was modeled upon, but he is
lecturing his acolytes in the hot tub on the futility of existence.   He
illustrates his point with a little thought experiment designed to inspire
dialogue on the second law of thermodynamics known as Maxwell's
Demon<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon>.



Basically a demon, only today I think I'd call it a daemon, as in background
process, controls heated molecules in a way that obviates the rules of
entropy.  Woofner shows how this demon always takes more energy than he can
"create" and draws parallels with the ego-self  of the modern man which is
slowly running out of steam.


Kesey is intrigued and promises to continue the discussion in the morning,
but the good bus Further,  in which Neal had wandered off to find an old
meth cooking buddy in the nearby hills, comes back under the wild man's
honking and revving and collects the group for furthur travels and Kesey
never sees Woofner again until much, much later.


Much much later, Kesey is on his farm, the pranksters all scattered, Neal
dead on those train tracks and Ken gets an invitation to attend a
psychological convention in Orlando, complete with trip to Disney World, in
commemoration of the 20th anniversary of publication of Cuckoo's Nest.
Keynote speaker is the famous Klaus Woofner which decides it for Kesey to
go.


Kesey wrote that book while working the night shift at a mental hospital.
The same institute where experimentations with a new drug, LSD, were taking
place.  He did a little experimenting with the new drug himself, wrote some
of his book while on it and shared the experience with his friends and the
rest, as they say, is history.


Now returning 20 years later to the institute, he finds a lot of things
changed, but a lot of things also, depressingly, the same.


As Kesey arrives at the institute to be Limo'ed to the airport and whisked
with a Dr. of the institute to the convention, a new arrival is admitted.  A
whirling dervish of teenage girldom, nearly blind with thick coke-bottle
glasses and a seeing eye cane festooned with ribbons, decorations and a
donald duck head that quacks everytime she takes a swing at an orderly.
Kesey is intrigued and amused because she's belting out a Zen chant against
her would-be captors, something along the lines of *Namah samanta vajranam
chanda maharoshana Sphataya hum traka ham mam*


She notices Kesey's notice and bellows at him, "What's yer problem slick,
ain't you ever seen anybody on a bad trip before?"  Kesey doesn't really
have a chance to answer that yeah, he's seen his few, been on a few as well,
before she' s hauled off.


Orlando turns out  depressing.  Klaus Woofner's keynote speech turns out to
be the same explication of Maxwell's Demon Box  that he'd heard before.  And
though Woofner is now a pink, bald dwarf in a wheel chair, his wit and
intellect are sharp and biting as ever.  His assessment of the current state
of psychological health in America is not a happy one.    Kesey, hungover
the next morning, misses a chance to reconnect with his old friend and
mentor.  Again.  As well as forgetting to bring something neato back from
Disney World.  The guilts wash over him on the long ride back and he just
gets more and more depressed.


When they get back to the institute, he's sitting and waiting for his ride,
a photo falls from his bag.  It's one of his favorites, one of his son, in a
crib, at the back of the bus looking up and out at a world with the trust of
a child in his eyes, the trust that says it must be ok to be babysat by a
speed freak if dad says its ok.  The depression that has been building all
day now peaks as he feels  the failings to come through for people.  It's
the knowledge not so much of so much dissapointed as it is of so much
signified.  It all just washes over him.   It's a feeling I, on the other
side of a bad marriage that started out so cocky and strong  understood
completely and Kesey, writing in retrospect after the death of his son
explains better than anyone I've ever read.  And then he, and I reading him,
are saved by a voice in his ear:


"Hey slick, is that look on your face for real?"  It's the wild girl from
the last time he was here.  Now sedate and waiting for her ride as well.


Kesey replies that it's about as real as it gets.


"Well good.  If there's anything I despise it's a fake funk. What's got you
so down?"


He mumbles a brief non-answer and is interrupted by the girl grabbing a book
out of his bag that's all decorated and mandala'ed up the yinyang, and he
tells her that it's the chinese book of changes called the "I Ching".


"Burton or Erhard?  I read the Erhard in the original German and it was so
different from the English translation that I figured if this much is lost
in translation from German to English, how much more ridiculous it would be
to expect any accuracy from the Chinese to the German.  Last time I threw
the I Ching I threw it at my seeing eye dog who ate it.  Being a German
Shepard he just couldn't resist something in his mother tongue."


Kesey, now intrigued more than a little asks her what that wild chant was
when she was admitted.


"Ah, that was Gary Snyder's Spel against Demons" but then she recognizes
Kesey from the back of a book cover and says "Far fucking out"  -  then
asks, author to author, some advice on dealing with the publisher of her new
book entitled, "Tits and Zits - Teenage Girl Genius Conquers the World"


 Kesey,  having experience with Pranksters figures his leg is being pulled,
stalls by asking her  who her publisher is, fully ready to BS her with a
bunch of hokey  verbiage if she  names a big obvious publishing house,  but
her reply of "Binford and Mort" , being a rather obscure and unheard-of
specialty house takes him aback and forces give her the lame but safe
advice, "Well I don't think you can go wrong following the advice of Binford
and Mort."


Her ride arrives and as she's getting up to leave, Kesey, feeling better,
asks her, "Hey Missy, just off the top of your IQ, what do YOU make of the
second law of Thermodynamics?"


A sly smile comes over her face and she leans next to his ear to almost
whisper,


"Entropy is only a problem in a closed system."


The story finishes with Kesey discovering the girl has left her donald duck
seeing eye cane, and sees that it will make the perfect gift for his son.
And everybody will admire it and want one and ask for it and not find it
till one day, almost as if by magic, you'll go to Disneyland and it will be
there.


A great story, but that tagline of Entropy being a problem in a closed
system just lit me up like a lightbulb.  I knew what he meant and it took
the dark lid of suffering off my life in a way that few words have.  A few
words, fitly spoken are like apples of gold on platters of silver.  And you
can quote me on that.  I walked out of that library and into the evening and
decided to do something different for a change.  I went to a bible study.
I'd had an invitation from this guy I knew, and I also had had an invitation
from this girl I liked, and I figured two different invitations to the same
event MEANT something, ya know?   Not that I needed a lot of bible study.
Being subjected to an Adventist education is basically the equivalent of 12
years of seminary.  Them Adventists are keen on  "biblical accuracy" and I
figured that the last thing I needed was more training in a system I didn't
accept anymore.


But the first thing I needed was some sort of social life to offset my
loneliness.  So I went.  And there I met Bill.


Bill, who ended up as my best friend, roomate, introduced me to his best
friend/ex-girlfriend, whom I married, was asked to be my best man at my
wedding, even as I was asked to be his and went through so many adventures I
can't recount them all.  And certainly not now at the end of this long short
story...  But it all came about from the seeds planted by words on a page,
and the serendipitiousness of living in a non-closed system that came to me
when I needed them most.


Bill has always been primarily a math-physics-computer-oriented kind of guy,
so he was the perfect audience that evening for my excited recitation of
Maxwell's Demon Box and how it all fit together so perfectly  for me.   He
liked it a lot.  I felt that I'd found a soul mate just because he
understood.


I have always been a bit more poetically oriented myself, more on the
romantic than the classic side of things, so I was the perfect audience for
Bill's story as well, which he introduced to me by saying, "That's really
cool that you're into all that stuff.  Most people have no idea what I'm
talking about when I mention that I'm Neal Cassady's grandson."



John Carl


Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead sticker on Cadillac

A little voice inside my head said don't look back you can never look back.

I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?


Those days are gone forever, I should just let them go...


Don Henley, Boys of Summer


Amen