The year was 1971. I was twenty-four and had barely made it through high school. Then suddenly, I was a published author. How'd that happen? After all, I'd been a run-a-way kid from Minnesota who finished 12th grade homeless.
Thirteen years after I'd last seen him, my hen pecked, California father's gigolo(ed) wife kicked me out of her house and, well . . . migrant farm workers told me to "forget" my diploma and pick white asparagus instead. Back street dropouts sneered, "Graduation? Ha! Not likely, dude. Look at me! I'm emancipated! I'm doin' okay . . . 'cept now and then. Thirsty? Let's boost some Ripple. I got a fat roach with no seeds. Lick-itty-split, you won't give a damn 'bout nothin'. "
Being challenged has always fueled me. My motto: "I'll show 'em," worked in this case. I crashed in unoccupied houses, and burned rubber at school. Stayed well past the last bell and arrived early at Study Hall. In other words, I hit the books hard! That June, I grabbed my Stockton pigskin and headed for San Francisco.
It was '65, the world lay at my feet and "the first day of the rest of my life" unfurled like a golden sunrise. What now? What shall I be? Who am I? Is God real? What's life about? "I'm going to die someday, why slog through years of pain?" I seriously considered snuffing myself, but after losing my virginity, put suicide in the "Plan B" box. Sex, drugs & rock 'n roll, might be a fun diversion for awhile. Screw the military, Vietnam had nothing to do with "my civil war." Go figure, offering yourself up as cannon fodder, can be implimented any 'ol time. Give ADVENTURE a whirl and get out before thirty. Live fast and split!
Though depression was my constant companion I clearly sensed that suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. We're here for a reason. Go forth young man . . .
Although it took a bunch of time, energy and investigation, I'm still here. In the tome I'm currently writing, I'll reveal secrets that may give your jaded grandkids a reason to stick around.
In 1969, after mud dancing at Max Yasgar's Farm and dishwashing in Woodstock, I left The Catskills for New York and married a Brooklynite. I immediately announced to her Manhattan friends that I intended to publish a book about the last four years of my life. Again, I was challenged by "well intended," negative replies. I was "naive," they told me. I was basically a hick from the "Midwest" and didn't know my way around New York sharpies, (like themselves) let alone the publishing industry. Okay, I'd heard drivel before. "I'd show 'em!" I believed in myself. The world was new and anything was possible. I talked myself into a job at a major publishing house (Grove Press) In their mailroom, I picked up a pen, dropped into first gear and wrote on their time between deliveries to each department and every desk. Book agents weren't interested in "newbies," so I did an end run: I chummied up to the editors. By the time I'd finished my 7th rewrite, I sold it at a different house! I met an editor from Ace Books at a party, he liked it, and eighteen months down the road The Sign of The Fool was selling like hotcakes.
Who says you need an agent? Who says, "without an education," "this," or "that's" impossible? Tell me their names! Cut them off at the knees! Take them off your speed-dial and Christmas lists. People who encourage you are your friends. People who piss on your parade are not. They want you in the gutter and will lay banana peels at your feet. Listen, the next time someone tells you to give up on YOUR DREAMS, turn up your ear buds.
Revenge is not "a dish best served cold." Leave the nay sayers in their sewers. Scamper! A loser's influence diminishes exponentially. For my money, the best revenge is: "Let them eat static."
Moving on . . .
The Sign of The Fool has never been reprinted. I was drinking at the time, and didn't care... Eleanor and I fell apart and I moved on . . . and on, and on, and on . . . (I'm sober today).
This coming June marks forty years since San Francisco's wild, "Summer of Love" party on Haight Street. The San Francisco Public Library considers The Sign of The Fool an historical document and keeps it in their "Special Collections Section." Now sober, I figure it's time for a reprint.
Used 1st edition copies of
The Sign of The Fool can be purchased at
www.alibris.com I make no money from such purchases but encourage you to obtain a copy this way until the forth coming 2nd edition comes out later this summer.
Many people have ponder/blogged on "hippie" websites' and chat rooms about my fate. Where did I vanish to? What have I been doing since Woodstock and my New York City cab driving days? What have I learned over the last 40 years? Well, for one: "Once a biker, always a biker," was true, in my case. I never stopped. Another: I've never let money become my god.
I was a "good" bad guy/biker (and) as one of Emmett Grogan's "Diggers," (which esposed barter over the coin of the realm), we regarded money as thee capital tool of the Military Industrial Complex waging wars in Southeast Asia. Young men of my persuasion refused to be the cannon fodder of old rich men of secret societies with secret handshakes.
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The FBI was always shadowing us Diggers as probable communists. We, (among other things) believed in communes and bartering rather than residential hotel rooms and money, (anti-capitalistic, un-patriotic, seditionistic behavior) and we played "Robin Hood": We stole from "big buisness" and gave our swag to the poor. The Diggers also maintained an "underground railroad" to Canada. (Complete with false ID's for all draft dodgers).
Naturally, I was always broke, but there were up sides to that equation: Hippy 'chicks" threw themselves at us. Ahhhh we were so very, very rich in bed. On the floor. In the park. On the beach. What, with constant "free" sex and free antibiotics from The Free Clinic, we confused lust for love but let the press call it "love" if they wished. The Summer of Lust just didn't sound as "cool" as "The Summer of Love".
So, concerning money: I could take it or leave it. That hasn't changed. If I have a chunk of change . . . great! If I'm on the road, living hand to mouth . . . great! If I have a dollar to my name and meet a broke bloke, I would and will share that plus my last cigarrette.
I have learned: While wealth advances the bottom line, bottoming out, advances the soul. Frankly, "Poverty 101," is the one lesson that can't be bought. The same is true of wisdom. You can have an I.Q. of 160, sans wisdom. You can memorize The Bible and the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Knowledge is not wisdom.
Career students can pile up sheep skin after sheepskin, moving up from Ph.D's to Doctorate's. Diplomas are not bestowed for "Doctor of Wisdom" however. You! Can be as rich as Coca-Cola and yet, be spiritually stupid. The secular squelching of the soul makes for penniless deathbeds inside million dollar mansions. That last statement dawns upon rich dying folks as they enter the shadowed valley. Sorry dude, tooooooo late . . . . "Time to die". . . . .
Dwell on this: Only emotions may be taken with you. On the negative side, the usual suspects: Fear, bitterness, hatred, envy, jealousy, regret, etcetra. The lot. In the PLUS COLUMN, stands LOVE. The unconditional sort. (Anything less is counterfeit). Money, power,celebrity and stardom does nothing for a person receiving Last Rights.
I have worked as a Certified Nurses Aide in a hospice. I have held the hands of those blinking out. I know (therefore) of what I speak: Most people live life in an illusional bubble. "They" (us, we, me) know intellectually that we'll die someday in the nebulas, unfathomable future. Emotionally we do not believe this. Our soul knows that the "I" of our "I am," never dies. In a virtual slide-of-hand, "we" using this natural "knowingness" shifts subtly towards our bodies. Thus begins "the grand illusion." (Which, in the end, bursts like a urine bag dropping to the floor). At the end of the trail, terror reigns for the rich. I have seen it. "They" spent their life gathering toys. At The Grim Reaper's approach, they see that they're about to lose everything. In a single stroke, a lifetime of plotting to "garner the market" in hog bellies and soy beans. All gone. Can't take it.
Mean while . . . (back at the miminum wage factory) pickle packers relish death with a smile. They have nothing to lose but poverty.
By choice, I've led a tough, dirt poor life. I'm 60 with a bum heart and have no prostate. I'm no longer a pickler, packer, or candle stick maker. I'm no longer a nurses aide. My turn to die is just around the bend. As I survey and analyze my past, am I really a fool?
Look, eleven years ago I had cancer. I "beat it." More precisely, God beat it. Hospitalized, I examined my past. Both good and bad. The wheel had turned. In 1995, health care personnel held my hand. So you can see, I've been on both ends of the "Call Light."
What has disease taught me? I am happy to report that my above opinions represent more than personal pet theories. Question: "If I had to do it all over again, would I do anything different?" Answer: Hell yes! I whole heartedly regret shipwrecking Eleanor, Jill, Marilynn and Sarah and many others I can't recall. You see, the '70's, 80's and 90's have a few blank spots: I boozed, bonged and banged with abandon and when I quit, I decided to give back. I became a nurse's aide. I exchanged "my thing for "God's Thing," I quit flirting and hurting. I quit being a problem by hooking up with The Solution.
I'm at peace now. I've got my happy shoes buckled, and I'm ready to go.
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Motorcycle Richie was my best friend, brother and pal. He burned to death in an arson fire at The Chelsea Hotel in New York City. It was a Friday the 13th. Early January,1978. It was, and remains frozen in history, "a-cold-day-in-hell" kind of death. Then, just three months later, on April 1st, Emmett Grogan was found dead in an empty subway car in Coney Island. At the end of the line. Heroin tracks scarred every vein, every trunk line. Emmett, God love him lost his direction when "the music died." He became bored. I miss him. Shakers and Diggers miss him. (but) Stagnation leads to alcoholism, junk, speed, coke and death. You've got to "keep on truckin'. . . " Stay focused. Beat those soul murdering habits before they beat you. Real learning (and churning) has no time for drugs. (Got a smoke?)
All my buddies are dead. They didn't reach 60. they didn't reach 50. They didn't reach 40. They didn't reach 30. They didn't reach. Period. After "The Summer of Love," empathy flagged. Brackish pond scum settled over the flock. Selfishness crept in. "Greed is good!" was the motto of the 80's (and all that 1967 stood for) has been lost to the mist. Look, time is short. I'm slogging out my final tome. I really have something to spout. I have scheduled a publication date for it, sometime in 2008. I will finish it before the "waning of the light". It will be my "long good-bye" left on a wet beach beneath a dry rock.
The book I am working on is filled with joy, hope, and faith. I'm overflowing with those feelings for my wife, Jan. She is my soulmate, best friend and partner in this (and the next) life. I place that here (and now) in in the event I should run out of time before ink. "It" boils down to this: Being poor, has made my life rich!