Do Drink The Kool-Aid
04. Aug, 2011 
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Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s
Search For a Kool Place
Further Afield
Official Website |Â Trailers & Mo
R | 107 min
Ken Kesey, The Merry Pranksters & that Further bus - for those who have read Tom Wolfe’s Acid Tested book, you probably know a thing or three about the trials and travails of that combo of peoples and vehicle.  For the rest of us illiterate, image craving bunch, probably not so much outside of those names and the fact that they did lots of drugs and stuffs, and bright colors and things!
Well, on the bus’ inaugural trip (Wolfe wasn’t on it!), from Kesey’s Cali home to 1964 World’s Fair in New York, stuff certainly did happen (like LOTS OF STUFF!!!) and all of it was filmed for a documentary… that was never made!!!!  Years later, Alison Ellwood & Alex Gibney took the 100+ hours of film and turned it into something (mostly) cohesive, with Stanley Tucci‘s voice driving the bus
While not eggzactly the most enthralling documentary chronicling 60s hippie dippie life and experimentation, Ellwood & Gibney’s Magic Trip is still a vital and important moving document, which will hold historical value for time eternal (future generations will need to see how people on LSD acted, in a time when it was legal!!!).  Even though sex, drugs and rock n roll are givens we take for granted in today’s society, it was pretty radical sh%t back then.  Educated people jumping on a wildly painted bus, taking boatloads of acid, swapping partners left and right, and to what end? Or to what beginning?
Their destination may have been the World’s Fair, but when they got there, they truly realized that all the eye opening memories were forged on that bus ride. Â What a long strange trip it was indeed! Â Hop on board, even if the bus has already come and gone
Bus A Don’t Move: there were two editions of the Further bus, and both are collecting dust/rust on Kesey’s farm (where his widow still lives) in Pleasant Hill, Oregon
Verdictgo: Jeepers Worth A Peepers
Trip hums along in NY & the SF area tomorrow, on demand everywhere now, and elsewhere elsewhen
and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…
