*UPDATED* SEE some photos from the event RIGHT HERE.

So we are going to have this big fuckin’ party, celebrating one of the greatest Oregon novels ever…

In 1960 or so, Ken Kesey was volunteering to take hallucinogenic, psycho-active drugs while working the night shift at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital. He would talk to the mentally ill, and drop acid, and write. Kesey began to play with themes of sanity and insanity, society and the fringes, The Combine and non-conformity. He set his novel in the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and the narrator was a Native American from Celilo, who’s life was irreversibly changed with the damming of the Columbia River at The Dalles.

Fifty years ago this novel was published. Oregon is an inseparable component of this selection. So on the eve of what would have been Ken Kesey’s 77th Birthday, we are going to have one big fuckin’ party!

The party, co-hosted by Kick Ass Oregon History and Matt Love’s Nestucca Spit Press will be at Mississippi Studios on Sunday, September 16th at 7:30pm (doors at 7:00). The ticket price is $8.00, but you can purchase advance tickets for only $6.00 here. We will have readings from the book, Matt Love and our own Ribald Resident Historian, Doug Kenck-Crispin will speak about the novel and the hospital where the tale is set, and we will have live music from 1939 Ensemble, who has prepared a special set specifically for the festivities. There is going to be a trivia contest, with some fab prizes, including the Grand Daddy Prize of Them All, a free night in the new Kesey room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel. AND to finish off the evening, after everyone has had a share of adult beverages, Matt Love will lead us in a classroom debate worthy of your senior year American Lit class!

Sure – you’ve seen the movie. The 1976 “Big Five” Academy Award winning feature. And in no way are we attempting to disparage the production. But when’s the last time you read the fuckin’ book? It’s fantastic! Truly a literary masterpiece, AND the film leaves SO MUCH of the “Oregon-ness” found in the novel on the cutting room floor! If you’ve read it – it’s time to re-visit. And if you HAVEN’T read it, go get a copy (and we are going to be handing a shit-ton of the books away at the event – for free!).

There is no disputing the fact that the publication of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” helped to highlight the sad state of affairs that patients lived with, day after day, in state mental institutions across the United States. But even more important to us at orhistory.com is the fact that the novel was placed in Oregon, and it’s tales helped attract much needed attention to our own tragic and sad institutions. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”  can be seen as a lighting rod for the care of Oregon’s mentally ill.

In order to get you ready to go for the show, Kick Ass Oregon History will feature TWO podcasts on occurrences at the Oregon State Hospital. The first is actually the second podcast we ever broadcast, the Case of the Poisoned Eggs!!!. The second will appear right after the Labor Day Holiday, and it will talk about two other horrific events that have come to be icons for the sad state of affairs at the Oregon State Hospital. You will find that mellow-harshing podcast here.

So get a copy of  “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Read it. And if you have a copy of the book, bring it with you to the show! Listen to our podcasts. Buy a ticket. And come on down and help us celebrate perhaps the greatest novel of Oregon’s tragic past. And let’s do a celebratory Kesey Birthday toast too!!! This is THE EVENT to attend on September 16th. We truly hope you will join us!

Media inquires – 503-704-838FOUR

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:35 — 7.3MB) | Embed

As you have come to expect from this site, Kick Ass Oregon History delivers you the straight shit. In addition, we like to cover the exciting stories of Oregon’s past. So it was with a shit-ton of anticipation and frankly, excitement, that we began the researching and writing process to thoroughly cover our next topic… “Shanghaied in Portland!!” Which was a thing. And of course, we looked into these “Shanghai Tunnels…” which I really don’t think were a thing.

Now let’s back that ass up a little bit. As you have most likely heard, there are these passageways and basements that connect together and some random old urinal run-off paths under Old Town bars and restaurants– absolutely. I’ve been in them, and had a great, fun time as a participant on one of those “Shanghai Tunnel” tours – and if you HAVEN’T been on one of these trips, you are missing out!. These subterranean passageways were used to ferry goods back and forth from the river, they were used to access the sewer that dumped Portland’s shit into the river, and the Chinese certainly used them for their labyrinthine access and escape passages to and from their opium dens and Fan-Tan parlours [if you want to know more about that exciting topic, check out our podcasts Chinatown here, here, here & here].

But there just doesn’t seem to be much evidence to support these yarns that state that these “Tunnels” were designed specifically to secretly transport drunken and drugged men to ship captains who paid “blood money” to the crimps (or shanghaiers). And let’s not even address with the whole creepy holding cells in the basements thing. Please, don’t…

Now if you are asking if “Shanghaiing” was a thing, I am whole heartedly telling you “Oh Hell Yes It Was!” We have a ton of documentary evidence to back those age-old stories up. Wellllll, ok, maybe not some of the REALLY crazy, super out there stories (“undertaker’s dope,” anyone?). But Larry Sullivan, Jim Turk and Bunco Kelly (pictured below) absolutely prowled the sailor boarding houses, the saloons and bordellos looking for drunken and unsuspecting men to essentially sell into indentured servitude to ship captains awaiting n the shit-filled Willamette. And when they couldn’t convince, they absolutely used the leather sap, or a back-in-the-day version of a roofie to help fill their orders for sailors. Some of the classic stories from Portland’s past involve these malicious and malevolent men (and a woman crimp in Astoria!), and they certainly deserve a proper treatment.

Our tactics for our telling of the topic follows: On or about August 1st, we will unveil our first podcast on the subject, “Shanghaied in Portland!!” The second will drop around the 15th, and it will primarily concern these “Tunnels,” some of the more outlandish stories, and why they just don’t add up.

In the meantime, here is a little teaser (cause you sinful, debauch Portland people need a little Churchin’).

And to top it all off, we will have a Live Show for “Shanghaied In Portland!!” at The Jack London Bar on August 21st at 7:30pm. We are down at The Jack London Bar (really the home of Kick Ass Oregon History) the third Tuesday of every month, and we hope you can join us for this very special event!

If you would like to READ about the crimping and shanghaiing scene in Portland, check out Finn John’s book Wicked Portland; The Wild and Lusty Underworld of a Frontier Seaport Town. There is a great chapter in his book on this nefarious business. We interview Finn in the podcasts, and we are appreciative of the insight he shared with us.