From: erikred@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (Erik Nielsen)
Subject: (Long) Cult of Ecstasy:  On the Bus
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Date: 22 Jan 1997 07:15:05 -0800
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[Response to the Verbena piece was very good, and I'm 
grateful to everyone who took the time to tell me that they 
liked it.  I only hope this second piece goes over as well.

This is the second in a series of articles on various 
Tradition-oriented recruitment programs.  Use, abuse, copy, 
modify, and have fun with it.]

The Neko Bus

Turn on, tune in, drop out.  With a slogan like that, how 
could the Cult of Ecstasy fail to be one of the largest 
Traditions in the world, right?  Wrong.  Following on the 
heels of the Reagan/Bush Era, rampant capitalism, cocaine for 
the masses, and "Just Say No," the free-floating, paradigm-
subverting, neo-beat lifestyle of the modern Cultist is 
misunderstood, misquoted, and often viewed with fear and 
derision.  Too many young people are falling into the trap of 
running-away drugs instead of realizing the potential of 
running-toward drugs; LSD, peyote, mescaline, and even 
'shrooms, the old mainstays of the Cult, are being replaced 
by heroin, PCP, crack, speed, and alcohol, the choice of a 
nowhere generation.

Quite a few Cultists are willing to respect this apathy on 
the part of the young.  A choice not to choose is still a 
choice, they say, and who the hell are we to force them?  
Indeed, forcing or coercing anyone runs counter to the 
Tradition's message of individual Ascension.  But some 
Ecstatics believe they have found a way around this apathy.

====

"Dude, have you seen this?"  Barney sounded totally excited 
on the phone, which is rare for him.  "Says here they got a 
tour going from downtown to LA, and, check this out-- it's 
just twenty bucks!"

I took another swig of my beer before I answered.  "What is 
it?  Some weekend flight?  Special deal?  Gotta buy your 
ticket twenty days in advance?"

"Nah, man, says it's a bus."

The beer went down the wrong tube and I ended up spraying it 
across the room.  "Dude," I said, "there's no _way_ you can 
get to LA in a weekend."

I could hear Barney reading the flier before answering me.  
"Says here it's a three week trip."

"Say what?  Man, what drugs are these guys on?  It's a four-
day trip, maybe.  Three weeks?"  The problem was, I really 
needed to get to LA, and I didn't have a car.  This town was 
nowhere, and LA was the Promised Land.  I had a job lined up, 
if I could get there within the month.

"Three weeks is what it says.  Says they stop in the Grand 
Canyon, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, and then LA."  
Barney had nothing going for him in LA, but he had nothing 
going for him here, either.

"All right, but what about hotel, food, that kinda stuff?  
Bet that's why it's cheap, they got some deal with the hotels 
along the way, right?"  This was too good to be true.

"It says here the driver takes care of all of the food, and 
you camp on the road."

I could hear my heart racing in my chest.  Three weeks on the 
road, everything taken care of, and all for twenty bucks?  
This was surreal.  This couldn't be happening to me.  
"Barney, man, when do they leave?"

"Day after tomorrow, but we gott call them right away, make a 
reservation, y'know?"

"Barney."

"Yeah?"

"Call 'em."

====

The Neko Bus started running in the early 'seventies as a 
kind of tour bus for kids following the Dead.  In those days, 
the rules were simple:  community food, sleeping facilities, 
money, and drugs.  Most of the kids who rode on the bus 
didn't have a penny to their name, but they were willing to 
travel, and the Ecstatics were happy to have a constant 
stream of disciples to teach.  The Bus (named by a Cultist 
with a penchant for watching Japanese animation that wasn't 
due to come out for years) would pull into town just ahead of 
the Dead, drop off its load of kids, catch the show, pick up 
a new batch of kids, and take off for the next concert 
location.  In all of the years that the Neko Bus followed the 
Dead, it never missed a concert, never got a flat tire, and 
never, ever, got hassled by the cops.  It also had no 
schedule that anyone could ever really figure out.  If you 
were on the Bus, you were on the Bus.  If you were off the 
Bus, oh well.  The whole thing was a matter of chance, helped 
along by the trio of Cultists who took turns driving the Bus.

In the eighties, Bus service faltered, and then stopped 
altogether.  Some blamed Reaganism, some blamed the yuppies, 
and some (as always) blamed themselves.  The truth of the 
matter was nothing as simple as all of that; it was simpler.  
The three Cultists in question just got sick of driving the 
damn bus, started their own band, and now own an independent 
record label that refuses to do business with Ticketmaster.  
More power to them.

Toward the end of the eighties, a small group of 
environmentally-conscientious Cultists were sitting around 
with the older trio, kicking back, when the conversation 
turned to the old days of the Neko Bus.  After a marathon 24-
hour binge of psychedelics and uppers, the entire group 
decided to reinstate the Bus, only this time as a legitimate 
tour company.

====

"You have _got_ to be kidding," said Barney, not looking so 
excited now that we were finally standing in front of the 
bus.  Bus.  That's the word, I think.  It was hard to tell, 
exactly.

You see, the entire bus was painted in this shade of beige 
that looked exactly like cat fur.  The tires had cat-feet 
painted on the hubcaps.  The back of the bus had a humongous 
tail painted on it.  The front had whiskers, and the 
headlights were painted to resemble big cat's eyes.  And 
there were honest-to-God metal cat ears on top.  It looked 
like Salvador Dali's kid's school bus.  The only part that 
looked like a bus was the destination marquee, and that was 
in Japanese.

Of course, it wasn't quite a school bus.  It was a city bus, 
but the back half had had the seats torn out and replaced 
with hanging cots.  The remaining seats were hella 
comfortable, if you like fake lambskin.  It was like a dream 
come true, if my head had been more screwed up at the time.

The driver was a Native American guy named Chris, and he had 
long hair and John Lennon sunglasses.  He was wearing tie-dye 
and Mardis Gras beads.  I kept expecting him to break out 
into "Imagine," but he never did.

"Hey, you guys Barney and Ray?" he asked, smiling like he'd 
known us forever.

"Um, yeah," I managed.  "That's us."  Barney just looked at 
him like he was from another planet.

"You're going to LA, right?"

"Uh, huh."

"Cool."  And he sounded like he meant it.  "I got people out 
in LA.  Good folks."

"Yeah?"  I didn't know what to say.  I mean, he was being so 
cool and all, and all I could think was, is this for real?

====

The Neko Bus Tour Company runs through several dozen cities 
all across the US, but its headquarters are located in San 
Francisco.  Most of its publicity comes from word of mouth, 
but it is located in the Bay Area phone books, and there's an 
actual office just off Haight Street where the legitimate 
aspects of the business are conducted.  There you can book a 
tour to just about anywhere in the country; if one bus 
doesn't go there, you can transfer to another bus that is 
going where you want to go.

Most people who use the Neko Bus are more interested in the 
tours than in actually getting from one place to another.  
Each tour includes meals and camping; if the weather isn't 
nice enough for camping, there are beds on the bus.  The 
drivers (and occasionally their assistants, on long trips) 
buy the food for the evening, and the cooking and cleaning 
are done cooperatively.  The meals are all vegetarian, but 
there's nothing to stop you from running over the nearest 
McDonald's, if you're a dedicated carnivore.  The tours 
themselves tend to be roundabout affairs; many tours go 
through Yosemite National Park, taking a few leisurely days 
to allow the passengers to enjoy the camping and wilderness.  
Usually the day's entertainment is left up to the driver and 
the people on the bus.  Depending on who's on the bus, the 
day's entertainment could be bungie-jumping, wilderness 
hikes, a psychedelic excursion, tribal drumming, or just a 
campfire.

The most popular tour is the Gathering Tour.  Every year, a 
group of old hippies, Cultists, and people who enjoy communal 
living get together in a pre-determined location and throw 
one huge three-day party.  Usually the Gathering is held on a 
reservation so as to avoid normal local police intervention; 
it's not uncommon to see Gangrel or Garou hanging around.  
The Gathering Tour leaves from Haight Street three days in 
advance and always arrives just in time.  When the Gathering 
is over, the bus takes another three days to get back, no 
matter where the Gathering is actually held.

====

"Y'know, I have no idea where we are," said Barney as he 
stared out of the window at the desert we were riding 
through.  "What day is it, anyway?"

I started giggling.  I couldn't help it.  Pretty soon Barney 
was giggling, too.  Chris looked over his shoulder at us and 
grinned.  "Having a good time, guys?"

"Dude!" I managed to say, "where _are_ we?"

"Mojave Desert, Califor-ni-A," he replied, looking back at 
the road.  "We've got to stop and pick up two kids who are 
going to Chicago."

My head whirled.  "Man, we left from Pennsylvania.  How can 
we be in California already?  And how the hell are the kids 
going to get to Chicago by travelling to LA first?"

Chris smiled at me in his rear-view mirror.  "Actually, we're 
dropping them off on the way to LA."

"Oh," I said.  And somehow that made some kind of sense.  
Must've been the drugs.

====

While the Neko Bus Tour Company is a legitimate business 
which actually does conduct legitimate tours all across the 
States, it's also a front for Cult of Ecstasy recruitment.  
By offering rock bottom prices, the Cult manages to get a lot 
of younger or more bohemian customers.  During the tour, the 
drivers are careful to quietly and tactfully espouse the 
Ecstatic creed of individual responsibility and freedom; this 
policy of evangelism by example can be awfully attractive for 
people who have grown up on a steady diet of authority 
figures telling them what to do and what to think.  Even if 
the Cultists don't convert everyone who takes a Tour, most 
people who ride on a Neko Bus leave it with a new respect for 
the creed.

Of course, while the drivers are letting the passengers check 
out the Cult of Ecstasy lifestyle (or one facet of it), 
they're also checking out the passengers for magickal 
aptitude or sympathetic attitudes.  A Cultist would very 
rarely force a Sleeper to Awaken, but most Cultists have no 
problem with helping Sleepers into Awakenings of their own 
choosing.  Those who do Awaken on the Tour are free to join 
the Company or wander on their own, as their Bliss takes 
them.

Sometimes a passenger may have a different path to take.  The 
Neko Bus tours often stop by and join friendly Dreamspeaker 
rituals; occasionally, a passenger who hasn't wholly embraced 
the Cultist path will find that his path lies on the 
Dreamspeaker path instead.  Less frequently, Buses stop by 
Verbena nature communes; in exchange for this courtesy, the 
Verbena often hold a feast for the participants.  While only 
a few participants ever decide to stay with the Verbena, the 
Cultists feel obligated to make the choice available.

====

When we dropped the kids off in Chicago, I started to feel 
like I was a veteran on the bus.  I'd learned how to gather 
common cooking herbs and even how to cook them, and Chris 
sometimes even let me go get the food for the evening.  
Barney kept getting more and more spaced out.  Chris said he 
was on a visionquest or something, but that he'd be okay.  I 
had to make sure he ate properly, but otherwise he seemed 
fine, just... not really there.

I figured out that we had about four days left to go, which 
really surprised me.  I mean, we'd been all over the country 
now, and it had only taken a couple of weeks.  Time flies, I 
guess, but I didn't expect it to stop occasionally.

Anyway, after Chicago, we made one last detour through 
Yosemite.  It was just Chris, Barney and me, so there was no 
real rush.  Chris suggested we go check out this bridge he 
knew.  I said sure.

When we got there, it was incredible.  There was like a drop 
of at least two hundred feet down to the river and rocks.  
Chris said a friend told him about this bridge, and it was 
impossible to find unless you knew where it was.  I could 
believe it.  It felt totally otherworldly.  I just looked 
down, grinning.  It was unbelievable.

We stopped there lunch, and Chris broke out the 'shrooms.  
They never seemed to affect his driving, and I was really 
getting to like them.  We ate them with our lunch, and I 
didn't even feel sick, which is weird because 'shrooms made 
me throw up the first time I took them.  Just as the colors 
were starting to come in hardcore, Chris says, and I quote, 
"Hey, you ever bungie-jumped?"  I grinned from ear to ear.

Next thing I know, he's got these cords and ropes and stuff 
out and attached to the bridge.  Then he attaches the other 
end to my legs.  "You sure you want to do this?" he asked.

"Are you kidding?" I said, the 'shrooms making the cords look 
like the roots of a massive tuber.  My grin was threatening 
to spread right off my face.  I hopped over to the rail and 
climbed over so I was standing on the other side.  Chris 
moved about five feet down the bridge.  "Hey," I said, 
"aren't you going to push me?"

"Ray," he said, his face as serious as I've ever seen it, "I 
will never push you.  That's not our way."  And I knew right 
then that he meant it.  Everything I'd done on this tour had 
been my own idea, my own choice.  This was exactly the same 
way.  "Just promise me one thing."

"Anything."

"Don't say 'Geronimo.'  I really hate that."  And he grinned 
big enough to match my grin.

I gave him the thumbs-up and then dove straight into 
oblivion.

My heart stopped beating.  The air rushing in my ears stopped 
rushing.  The water below me stopped flowing.  I stopped 
falling.  Hanging there, suspended, almost two-hundred feet 
above rocks and water, with nothing between me and death but 
my will, I knew.  It was all my choice.  All of reality was 
my choice.  The distance between Levittown, Pennsylvania and 
Los Angeles, California was my choice.  The fall was my 
choice.  I decided to fall.

I screamed all the way down and all the way up, a war cry, a 
declaration of existence, the cry of the newly Awakened.

We never did make it to LA.  Barney stopped off with a 
Mexican Indian wise woman down in Baja, and Chris and me, we 
just kept going.  You know, I still don't know where we are, 
but I know I chose to come here.

[End]


-- 
"To sleep perchance to dream, Ay, there's the rub;
 for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come
 when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must
 give us pause...."	The Bard, waxing poetic...