Roberto Loiederman
During the Vietnam War I worked as a deckhand on ships that delivered napalm and other ammo to Southeast Asia. On my first vessel, as we approached Vietnam, my shipmates looked longingly toward the green coastline, rotten ready to get ashore after three tough weeks at sea.
Thinking I was being clever, I grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote something on the messroom blackboard. It was a quotation from The Egyptian Book of the Dead and it went like this:
“Death is before me today, as the odor of lotus-flowers, as when one sits on the shore of drunkenness.” One hour later I came back to the messroom and someone, probably Ed, the ex-junkie third cook, had erased most of the quote. It now read: “Before me today… drunkenness.”
For the last 45 years I’ve worked as a writer, and – like all working writers – I’ve been edited and rewritten many, many times by editors, directors, producers and publishers.
But none of them did as good and clean a rewrite as Ed, the ex-junkie third cook.
I was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014, 2015, and 2021. I’m the co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on an American ship in modern times. For more info, please visit: www.eaglemutiny.com
Memoir
The Night Ken Kesey Gave His Magic Away
written by Roberto Loiederman
In January 1966, novelist and countercultural leader Ken Kesey held a three-day event in San Francisco called The Trips Festival. This story is Roberto Loiederman’s recollection of the festival — a mind-bending event, as well as a dramatic turning point for Kesey, and those who attended.
© 2001 Robero Loiederman | Recording © 2022 Rivercliff Books & Media. All rights reserved.
First published by Los Angeles Times, November 2001.
Read by Tom Zingarelli
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Roberto Loiederman
During the Vietnam War I worked as a deckhand on ships that delivered napalm and other ammo to Southeast Asia. On my first vessel, as we approached Vietnam, my shipmates looked longingly toward the green coastline, rotten ready to get ashore after three tough weeks at sea.
Thinking I was being clever, I grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote something on the messroom blackboard. It was a quotation from The Egyptian Book of the Dead and it went like this:
“Death is before me today, as the odor of lotus-flowers, as when one sits on the shore of drunkenness.” One hour later I came back to the messroom and someone, probably Ed, the ex-junkie third cook, had erased most of the quote. It now read: “Before me today… drunkenness.”
For the last 45 years I’ve worked as a writer, and – like all working writers – I’ve been edited and rewritten many, many times by editors, directors, producers and publishers.
But none of them did as good and clean a rewrite as Ed, the ex-junkie third cook.
I was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014, 2015, and 2021. I’m the co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on an American ship in modern times. For more info, please visit: www.eaglemutiny.com
Q&A with Roberto
Tell us about your story...
In early 1966 I went to the Trips Festival at Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco. It was an eye-opening event for those lucky enough to have been there. And Ken Kesey – unquestionably a key figure in the changes taking place in San Francisco, changes that would spread out in coming years – was at the center of it. Facing jail time for marijuana, he was in control of the mind-bending events of that festival, after which he disappeared, first literally then figuratively.
What inspired you to write this story?
In 1966, at the Trips Festival, I felt that Ken Kesey signaled that he was no longer interested in being a leader of “the scene,” that he was like Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, rejecting his magical powers, or at least giving those powers back to the people who were treating him as a leader. When Kesey died in late 2001, I wrote a kind of eulogy, describing Kesey’s actions and words at the Trips Festival, which he had organized, as a turning point for him and for us.
What have you recently read and enjoyed?
I’m rereading Joyce’s Ulysses, given that it’s been 100 years since its publication, and I’m enjoying it immensely because I’m not trying to understand all of the references, just reading it as one would read a “normal” novel, following the events, characters and interactions.
Do you have any guilty pleasures?
Doing a lot of crossword puzzles, NY Times, LA Times, and The New Yorker. Been doing the NYT Spelling Bee every day as well and Wordle. It’s a great way use your mental faculties, at least that’s what I tell myself when I’m doing puzzles instead of more productive activities.
Coffee or Tea? Whiskey or Wine?
Coffee!
Anything else you'd like to share?
I started making ice cream at home about a month ago, and I realize that it would be a holy exercise, a way straight to enlightenment, to go on an ice-cream-only diet.
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