Brianland

. . 15 minutes before this show I was lying on the ground behind the Cassady’s booth trying not to lose consciousness. . . . An hour into it I was running around the stage playing Gregory Corso on a football team.  The build from wounded wobbly to careening comedy is completely crazy. Everything had been […]

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Finding Kesey . Following the November 2016 election I knew it was time to get my own house in order.  A year had been lost to a losing campaign, added to five years of On The Road domino-tumbling madness that had passed since my mother had passed in 2011, and there was a lot of […]

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. On The Bus and On The Road . . “Put your good where it will do the most,” …….. as Ken Kesey said, and Wavy Gravy recounted in the luminous new documentary, Going Furthur. This movie is really funny — and not in a you-had-to-be-there way.  A huge part of the Merry Band of […]

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A Secret Space of Dreams . . Somewhere in the Universe, Pranksters are gathering. It’s fireworks, calliopes and clowns, And everybody’s dancin’ . . . On fifty acres through country woods, with ponds and trails and fields and split-rail fences and immaculate stables and barns in fresh but classic rusty red . . . Now […]

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Floating Universities  — The Power of The Collective in Art . Give me your befuddled masses, Your rejection slips, pink slips, verbal slips, all; Knock down the gates, throw open the bars, The artists are havin a ball. Teach me, show me, let me in; Challenge me, push me, help me win. Athletes have their […]

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David Amram, Jami Cassady, Al Hinkle holding the book, Levi Asher and the author after the Cassady Family panel at the Beat Shindig in San Francisco . This is an excellent book about Uncle Jack, and also a heartfelt outpouring of love for Mom and Dad, and the Grateful Dead, too.  I just got done […]

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. Somewhere in America . . . Pranksters are gathering . . . and in this case it was Wonderland. A dozen acres of wilderness hills and valleys, with a sunken natural amphitheater on the highest point of land in sight. 150 or so Pranksters came from across the land, traveling by every mode there […]

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Then Along Comes Kesey . .  Excerpted from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac” available now.   I was well into Jack — and this whole conference kicked that up a few dozen notches — like it did everybody else — but The Chief and The Boys (the Grateful Dead) — those were the magic […]

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The Pranksters on A Mission to The Mission . . It’s New Year’s Eve in the universe ………..and we’re on a mission. The Wizard of Wonder called on Christmas Day.  Seems The Pranksters are needed for a little Merry Jerry conjuring on New Year’s Eve in O-Hi-o.  The official good-time resident Grateful Dead-vibed band of […]

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. Here’s some early songs in sound and light . . . My tribute to the late great Carolyn Cassady on the one year anniversary of her passing … . Or “The Pranksters Invade the Woodstock Museum” . . . . Or here’s opening the Marry Prankster Reunion weekend in 2016 . . . . […]

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