Ken Kesey was born on Sept 17, 1935
in La Junta, Colorado.
As a cultural and literary figure, Ken
Kesey stands exactly at the midpoint
between the Beats of the 50's and the
Hippies of the 60's. Kesey borrowed from
Jack Kerouac quite consciously -- in
fact, he went on the road with Neal
Cassady.
Kesey, 1971
But there were
several differences to Kesey's 60's
version of the Great Trip Across
America: they drove a psychedelic bus
named 'Furthur' instead of a big old
Hudson or a borrowed Cadillac.
They preferred LSD to liquor.
They treated women as equals instead of
sex objects (most of the time).
They danced to 'The Warlocks' (soon to
become 'The Grateful Dead' instead of
grooving on jazz and shouting 'GO!'
Kesey did not write about this scene,
but journalist Tom Wolfe did in 'The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'.
Kesey did write two important novels,
the powerful 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest,' in which a modern psychiatric
ward becomes a metaphor for oppressive
American society, and 'Sometimes A Great
Notion.' Interestingly, these books are
not the least bit trippy, though their
intentions are without a doubt cosmic.
He later published 'The Further
Inquiry,' a screenplay with many photos
from the bus trip and a mostly
incomprehensible plot in which Kesey,
Cassady and others must testify at some
sort of supernatural trial. Kesey also
recently published 'Sailor Song,' a
wacky allegory involving environmental
crises, a Kesey-like middle-aged writer,
and a rock band called the 'Dreadful
Great'. Although he had his differences,
Kesey is without doubt a key figure of
the beat
generation.
Kesey's 'One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest', a drama, was filmed in
1975. It was inevitable that Ken Kesey's
novel would find its way to the screen
sooner or later--the story of a
rebellion in a mental ward, led by an
exuberant, supremely sane con artist, is
too wonderful to resist. But it's a
lucky turn of fate that Jack Nicholson
should play this rebel--and that his
story should be translated under the
direction of Milos Forman. The tyranny
of Big Nurse (Louise Fletcher) is
terrifying, an example of how dictators
rule, and do their worst evil, under the
guise of being "nice." This a superb,
intelligent realization of a difficult
vision was the first film since It
Happened One Night (1934) to win the top
five Oscars. The work remains Kesey's
finest to date.
William Seward Burroughs II was born 5
February 1914, in St. Louis, Missouri,
into a world of relative wealth and
comfort from the profits of the
Burroughs Adding Machine Corporation.
His Grandfather, after whom he was
named, was the inventor of the adding
machine.
At 8 years of age, uses his first gun,
writes first story, "The Autobiography
of a Wolf." Refuses editorial advice of
parents to change autobiography to
biography.
Sent to Los Alamos
Boys School in New Mexico. Later claims
the only thing he learned there was a
hatred of horses.
He is graduated from Harvard in 1936.
In New York, 1939, cuts off left little
finger. Shows it to his analyst at the
time, who takes him to Bellevue.
Burroughs tells a psychiatrist there
that he did as part of "an initiation
ceremony into the Crow Indian tribe".
In the Summer of 1942, moves to Chicago,
takes job with A. J. Cohen,
Exterminators. "I go into an apartment
and I know where all the roaches are,"
he later claims.
Moves to New York the next year.
Befriends Allen Ginsberg, Jack
Kerouac, Lucien Carr and David Kammerer
around this time.
On 13 August 1944, Lucien Carr kills
David Kammerer in self defense. Kerouac
and Burroughs are arrested as material
witnesses because they did not intially
report the murder. Later, they
collaborate on a novel based on the
events, 'And the Hippos Were Boiled in
their Tanks'. It was rejected by several
publishers at the time and has never
been published.
Burroughs meets Joan Vollmer. Along with
Ginsberg and Kerouac, they begin
experimenting with drugs and extreme
behaviors. Meets Herbert Huncke around
this time. Kerouac introduces Joan to
Benzedrine inhalers, to which she soon
becomes addicted.
Sometime in 1946, Burroughs injects
himself with a morphine Syrette.
Discovers junk ecstasy, begins
addiction.
In April of 1946, Burroughs is arrested
for obtaining narcotics through fraud.
Joan is committed to Bellevue for acute
amphetemine psychosis. Burroughs
attempts to rescue her from New York.
William Burroughs III conceived.
Convinces her to move to East Texas with
him. Huncke eventually moves in with
them. All three live in a small house
near New Waverly, growing marijuana and
laying low. On 21 July 1947, William
Burroughs III is born.
Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady visit
in August of 1947.
The Burroughs' move to New Orleans in
1948. Kerouac and Cassady visit, as
immortalized in 'On the Road'.
Burroughs is arrested in New Orleans for
possession of drugs, elects not to stand
trial, moves family to Mexico City in
1949.
On Thursday the 6th of September, 1951,
at a desultory party, Burroughs suggests
that he and Joan do their William Tell
act. Joan balances a highball glass on
her head, turns her head to one side,
saying, "I can't watch this- you know I
can't stand the sight of blood."
Burroughs shoots and hits Joan in the
side of the head, killing her. Later he
states: "I am forced to the appalling
conclusion that I would never have
become a writer but for Joan's
death."
Burroughs travels to Columbia in 1953 to
find the entheogenic vine Yage, meets
Richard Evans Schultes, who councils him
about the plant. Writes to Ginsberg
about his experiences, which are later
published as The Yage Letters.
In 1954, Burroughs moves to Tangiers,
Morocco. 
Introduced to Paul Bowles.
Meets Brion Gysin, who becomes a
pivotal catalyst for Burroughs. Begins
initial forays into unleashing his word
hoard and deeper addictions to
junk.
Kerouac, Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky
visit him in 1956. Kerouac helps
Burroughs to organize the "routines"
that would later become The Naked Lunch,
the title from a suggestion of Kerouac's
years before.
Early in 1958, sick of Tangiers, he
leaves to stay with Ginsberg in Paris.
Meets Maurice Girodias of Olympia
Press, who decides to publish The Naked
Lunch in 1959.
Moves to London in 1960. Back in
Tangiers in August of 1961, with
Ginsberg and others, meets Timothy
Leary who gives them all mushrooms.
Burroughs doesn't enjoy the experience,
saying: "Urgent warning. I think I'll
stay here in shriveling envelopes of
larval flesh... One of the nastiest
cases ever produced by this department."
Writes prolifically and lives
nomadically throughout 60's, returns to
New York in 1974. He has not lived in
the US for 24 years. Meets James
Grauerholz, who becomes Burroughs' life
manager, helping him to organize and
publish his writings.
Burroughs' son, Billy, dies in a ditch
after a hard and lonely life on 3 March
1981.
Burroughs moves to Lawrence, Kansas with
Grauerholz.
In May of 1982, Burroughs is inducted
into the American Academy and Institute
of Arts and Letters.
Died on 2 August 1997 of a heart attack
in Lawrence, Kansas. He was 83 years
old.
Some Burroughs'Quotes
"Horses are a dying artifact."
"Every man has inside himself a
parasitic being who is acting not at all
to his advantage."
"The Pusher always gets it all back."
"Language is a virus."
"This is a game planet."
"In Timbuktu I once saw an Arab boy who
could play a flute with his ass, and the
fairies told me he was really an
individual in bed."
"My purpose in writing has always been
to express human potentials and puposes
relevant to the Space Age."
