Neal Cassady's son, John:
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John Cassady: One story I do remember, my sister Jami and her friend Kim and I were hitchhiking up to Golden Gate Park for a Dead show or something. We’re in a little VW and the driver turns down one of those residential side streets and there’s the bus! It’s parked in front of this funky old looking church. The guy lets us off, so we knock on the bus and the doors open and Zonker, Steve Lambrecht, was sitting in the little couch seat. He’s got the headphones on and he goes, ‘Holy crap, Johnny. You’ve gotta hear this.’ He didn’t say hello or anything, he just put the headphones on me.
I could tell who it was. It was an acetate final mix of
Sgt. Pepper. The reason they got it was because – I think it was John [Lennon], I don’t think Paul was as into acid as John was at the time – Kesey had sent the Beatles some Owsley Stanley LSD in film cans, 16mm or whatever. The Beatles were very happy with that and to say thank you, they sent an original acetate to Kesey!
I said, ‘This is good shit! This is The Beatles, right? and he said, ‘Yeah, give ’em back!’ Months later, the record came out and I thought, ‘I remember this song!’ Mountain Girl told us later that Kesey had sent the Beatles a bunch of pure LSD and John Lennon kept a vile of it on his mantelpiece.
So Jami and Kim ask, ‘Where’s my dad?’ and they told us he’s up in the church. Dad is sitting around with Kesey and a bunch of Pranksters, or friends, or whoever and they’re sitting in a circle doing nitrous. They really liked nitrous oxide. They knew a dentist in Santa Cruz and he got them as many cans as they wanted for free."
John Allen Cassady, now 67, reflects on growing up with the king of the counterculture, the inspiration for Dean Moriarty in On the Road, the driver of Kesey’s Merry Prankster bus. It was a lot
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