“Further!”...Down the Rabbit-Hole

Some may be old enough to remember…..

FURTHER

In the mid to late 1960’s, Ken Kesey, author of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion”, boarded his Day-Glo painted, LSD and methamphetamine- fueled magic school bus …dubbed “FURTHER”… and day-tripped across the country with his friends. He and his wigged-out crew of “Merry Pranksters “ thereby kick-started the “All You Need Is Love” and “I Did It MY Way” mad, utopian delusion that we all are still “enjoying” today.

When “Further” rolled out of northern California in 1964 , Woodstock Nation was conceived¹.

Apparently, when Kesey was done with this inaugural magical mystery tour of nonsense, he parked “Further” (aka “Furthur”), his multi-colored, rolling dream world of unbridled progressive hedonism in a swamp…where it certainly belonged and where it remained for decades.

Recently, however, I read that Mr. Kesey’s magic bus was being pulled out of the swamp to be refurbished and immortalized as a shrine. From the story:

“It was one of the glorious symbols of the laid-back, acid-laced '60s in Northern California. Now, half a century later, Ken Kesey's psychedelic bus, with its quixotic name "Furthur," has been rescued from an Oregon swamp and is on its way to restoration, minus the LSD that fueled its passengers so long ago.”

Oh, happy day.

One might imagine that “Further” will eventually be transported… (at taxpayer expense, no doubt)… to the D.C. Mall and planted somewhere between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials as a moving tribute to the ever-expanding, progressive swamp-building project that Washington has become. A psychedelic national monument to Big Brother’s “Further”, ongoing, happy-go-lucky forward-thinking bureaucracies.

A memorial to make us all proud.

Just imagine. (It’s easy if you try.)

“Further!”...Down the Rabbit-Hole

“FURTHER!”….(Listen!...Hear the echo.)
“Further!”….Still progressives’ aim.
“Further!”….Now with extra wrinkles.
“Further!”….”Open-minded” shames.

“Further!”…Me, Me, Me promotion,
“Further!”….Rolling downhill fast,
“Further!”…Woodstock deconstruction
And rejection of the past.

From the swamp, great notions linger.
“Further!” …Finds new life again!
“Further!”…Dreamworld Future Fancies
That this Brave New World pretends.

“Further!”…Instinct-Nihilisms
From Big Brother’s bag of tricks.
“Further!”…Marxist Humanisms,
“Further!”…’Progress’ made to stick.

“Further!”…Darkened incoherence
Dressed up “Lite” to be more “cool”.
“Further!”…Flesh and contradictions,
“Further!”…Babble-on in schools.

“Further!”….Rebel rabble-rousing
“Further!”…Kool-Aid to ingest.
“Further!”…Mockery of Scripture,
“Further!”…Chaos left to bless.

“Further!”…Trashing of tradition,
“Further!”…Nonsense to behold…
“Further!”…WonderLand adventures
“Further!” …Down the rabbit-hole.

“Further!”…Lawless merry-making
To indulge in…(Just for ‘fun’.)
“Further!”…Yes!
(With good intentions!)
(Now The Pranksters all have guns.)

"Western culture has made a fortune in the marketing of the concept of the rebel. It has also paid a huge cost. The deep sense of meaninglessness that characterizes what historian Paul Johnson calls “modern times,” which is taught as the science of life in our education system and often embraced in our arts, is having an untold effect in the lives of many."
—Stuart McAllister

Colossians 2:13-15²

“I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints….For certain men have slipped in among you….godless men, who change the grace of God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord…These dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority…speak abusively against whatever they do not understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals---these are the very things that destroy them.”
—Jude 3…10

¹You may read more about Kesey’s adventures in beatnik-hipster paradise in Thomas Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, 1968.

²“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
—Colossians 2: 13-15