Fahey: Have you read Ken Kesey's new novel yet?

Leary: Huh-uh, did you?

Fahey: I've gotten through chapter eight or nine of it. I think it's a brilliant piece of work.

Leary: Good. I love Ken Kesey. I don't think the novel, just as letters mass-produced in printing presses is the real way to communicate now. Anyone who writes a book now, half of it should be a videoed, multimedia book. But I adore Ken Kesey, and I'm sure that what he produced, there, is something that could be enjoyed as an archaic form of art, just as Picasso's [pause]; I just honor and adore Ken Kesey. I should also say that Ken Kesey is spending more of his time making films than he is writing books.

Fahey: Right now he is? Currently?

Leary: Oh, for the last five or six years he has. People criticize Ken because he hasn't been writing books, but I endorse the fact that he's been doing both.

Fahey: So you don't consider his attempt to videotape or tape his whole Bus experience a waste of time, like so many other people did?

Leary: Well, the literary mafia running out of New York City considers anything that substitutes for printed letters on wood pulp, anything less than that is an inferior product. I credit Kesey for doing both. No reason why you can't do both.

Also, I wanted to point out that Ken Kesey taught a course at the University of Oregon, in which the computer was basically like a videotelephone, the mind-link; and he had a group of student using computers to link their minds to write a group book, which was one of the most brilliant uses of computers ever performed. And I honor Ken Kesey for that.

Fahey: Caverns.

Leary: McLuhan said, 'the medium is the message.' You can argue about how great that computer book is, as compared to Proust or Hemingway; that's not the issue. The fact that a group did it together--and presumably other people can add to it--is introducing medium. And Kesey will be probably as famous for that as for anything else he did.

Fahey: Even if people don't see it now.

Leary: Well, nobody ever understands what a pioneer is doing. And the people who believe in the literal sanctity and holiness of the printed word hate the idea that Kesey is having a group of people come together using computers to produce a group thing; the fact that they're literally threatened by being put out of business. If they don't oppose you, you're in trouble. So it was inevitable that Kesey would not be honored for that. It was a great act of courage on Kesey's part to do that, because he is not basically an electronic, cybernetic person; he's a people person. And he understood, intuitively, that the computer could be used as a group party-line telephone: a mind-phone.

[Phone call for Dr. Leary interrupts conversation]

[Leary reenters with KUED television reporter]

Leary: We're about finished, aren't we?

Fahey: Yeah, we are.

Leary: [Archly] More wisdom has poured out in the last ten minutes . . . [laughs]. It would take a hundred books to reel in what we've gone over, here.

Fahey: Let me ask you one last question.

Leary: Sure.

Fahey: If you had to do it all over again, is there anything you would do differently, substantially?

Leary: Damn right! I would have fucked more, taken more psychedelic drugs and spent more time with my family [laughter all around].

[Leary begins talking about Rolling Stone magazine; Fahey turns tape back on]

Leary: Jann Wenner has an editorial, full page, endorsing Clinton; and the last line of it [fades]. I've known Wenner since he was an eighteen-year old kid stringer for Ramparts magazine. 'The day Clinton is elected President will be the greatest moment of our lives.' [hysterical laughter from Leary]

Unidentified Camera Man: Wennerlogic.