Welcome!
How are you?
I hope life has been treating you well.
Although it hasn’t felt like it at times, life has been good to me recently, so I can’t complain. That’s not to say I haven’t complained at all, but that was mostly in private when only the universe could hear me. But overall, things have worked out, and my trials were not very difficult, especially when considered on this 50th anniversary of the greatest speech in American history.
I’ve got a lot to say, and I am saying it all now because I haven’t had consistent internet access or available time for about two weeks.
Here we go:
I woke up this morning in a nice big comfortable bed in a safe and almost absurdly clean apartment. After a shower and a quick breakfast I left to go to work. I would not return to the apartment. The apartment belongs to someone I will never meet. I am most likely about to sublet an apartment in Oakland for two months, and the sublease guy was kind enough to offer me a place to stay while I wait for the first of the month and he’s out of his apartment. Strangely, he’s currently housesitting for another friend, but last night was staying with a different friend, so he offered me to housesit for a night at the place he was supposed to be housesitting. It was my 11th place to be in 14 days.
Let me explain.
Two weeks ago I left my parents' home after an incredible vacation in the countryside of upstate New York. I was very happy to see my family and many of my friends for the first time in over a year, after the longest period I had ever been away.
After that pleasant recharge I got on an Amtrak train to New York City to see even more familiar friends and places. That involved friend's couches and mattresses on the floor for a few days, and walking around the city with my backpack in between lunch meetings, dinners and late night drinks. It was great to see everyone again, and I had perfect weather.
Once the reunions were done I took the train out to Long Island to see my dad's side of the family, including my parents who had driven down for the weekend. We went to the beach and I got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean again, and under a big moon too.
On Sunday morning I awoke to my cousins' infant child screaming and crying and running and laughing and screaming again, mostly right outside my door, and several hours before I needed to get up for my flight back to California. Then there was an awkward argument within my extended family that didn't occur in front of me, but had clearly noticeable undertones at breakfast and then manifested itself more boldly as I left with my parents for the airport. It has since been resolved somewhat, but it was a very awkward way to go to my flight. My parents were great though, and they wished me well at Newark. Then I read a book my sister gave me about a very crazy family with all sorts of terrible problems that I'm very happy we don't have, which both relieved me about my chaotic situation and unnerved me because so many people are deceitful and unhappy. At least I arrived safely in San Francisco.
I made it to the hostel in San Francisco Sunday evening, and immediately embraced the situation of meeting fellow travelers staying in the same overcrowded room with limited facilities. One of them was a friendly German (there is always a German) who was going to camp around America but had no set plans, and the other was an American from New Mexico, Alaska and North Carolina. He was also African-American, bisexual and full of mirth. Then two girls from Ireland and one from Scotland joined us.
Meanwhile, a man from east of the bay answered one of my open requests on couchsurfing.org and told me I could stay with him for three nights, but only if I was open to a Swedish massage from a certified masseuse. He also told me he could take me to Diablo State Park nearby. He had over 80 positive references from people mentioning a good time and a professional massage, so I said sure. I had nowhere else to stay, and hostels in San Francisco are insanely priced and even hard to get during the week. Then I asked anyone if they wanted to eat, and only the New Alaskan Carolinian was hungry, so we went around the corner and got some burgers and traded travel stories. He seemed to think that the massage was strange, and I did too, since it's uncommon for couchsurfing hosts to add conditionals like that, but that's why people leave references recounting their experiences. Nobody had complained, and although not used to massages from men, I'm very comfortable with my heterosexuality, so I figured it was just another new experience. What the hell, it is northern California.
The next morning I went to work with my suitcase and backpack still in hand, and was relieved to find out that my students didn't like my substitute and were happy that I was back. It was a decent day teaching, but then I had to ride the train over an hour to the end of the line to Antioch to meet my host. I had this huge over packed suitcase and hiking backpack similarly jam packed because I had been transferring a lot of possessions back home, but somehow not as many as I had thought I would.
He picked me up at the train station and we went out for a few beers. We traded traveling stories. Apparently he gotten bitten by a dog in India. He'd been to over 80 countries around the world. Then we went back to his one-story house in the suburbs and burgers and fries. We continued to talk about traveling around the world, and then I had my first Swedish massage. He put on relaxing music that made it easy to think about all the places in the world we'd just been talking about. He was a good masseuse, but I wasn't really into the massage overall. Apparently he's really enthusiastic about massages, and that's why he's opened his home to eighty people of all ages and genders and offered them massages. A woman he knew got him into it, and he learned how and became certified, and he knew what he was doing. Even so, I was very happy to finally be able to go to sleep in my own room.
On Tuesday I had to get my car after work, so I rode the train up to Davis to meet my friend. Unfortunately I missed my stop because they arrived early, so I had to ride to Sacramento and then back, which ate up some time. Then I got a quick taco with my friend who had so graciously let me park my car in front of her house and store my suits in her closet. We caught up quickly and I was very happy to be back in my car. But I had to do a lot of things like fill up the tires with air, add oil, re-arrange my belongings and find certain things I'd packed under other things (like the backup cord to my headphones, the original of which had died the day before I got on the 6 hour plane ride). Then I had an hour drive back, and even though I kept updating my host, I knew he would be annoyed because when he brought me to the train that morning he kept saying, "Yeah, 7 is okay... but 6 is better... and 5 would be much better." Other people had written in their references that he was the kind of host who wanted to spend as much time as possible with you, so if you were looking for a place to recharge with some of your own down time, this wasn’t the place to go. I had sent out three other requests with no responses, so I didn’t have any alternatives. I really just needed somewhere to regroup and figure out the next step, and he had a lot of passive aggressive pressure going the whole time.
I didn't get on the road until 6:45, and then I accidentally turned west instead of east, driving into the sunset, and didn't realize it for 15 minutes. But destiny was on my side, because when I turned around I saw the beginning of the full moonrise as I drove through a field of windmills. I finally made it back to his place at 8, apologizing profusely, and I gave him his beer, which he had requested I purchase. We began to play cards, and he suggested a game called, "Spite and Malice," which he won. It's hard to learn a new card game, and even harder when you have a few drinks and you're completely exhausted and worn out from the road. It was pleasant for a while, but he kept nagging me for taking forever to move, and correcting my strategies so much that it didn’t seem to matter if I made decisions at all. I really didn't want to win this whole "Spite and Malice" game.
The whole time I was thinking I not only wanted to sleep, but my body and mind desperately needed it. After all, I had to teach the next day. He was in between accounting jobs, so he had nothing to do. I understood that he'd opened his home to me, but he also seemed more into playing a meaningless card game and rushing to the massage than actually trading travel experiences. After the millionth time that he commented on my inability to play well, I switched the subject to travel experiences, explaining that’s why I do couchsurfing in the first place. Eventually I asked about why he opens his home to people, because I'm always curious about that and ask every couchsurfing host I've ever had the same question. He said that massage and travel were his two passions. I asked if he would do the same thing without the massage, and he said there was no reason to because he had been hosting constantly for a year and could find someone who did want a massage. There was certainly nothing disingenuous about that, because massages do make people feel good, but there was something about it that I didn't like. Most of the other couchsurfing hosts said they wanted nothing in return and simply the knowledge of providing a space for someone and getting an experiential exchange was good enough for them.
In fact, my first couchsurfing host was a 61 year old nudist recently separated after 37 years of marriage, living on his own for the first time and coming to terms with his newly embraced bisexuality. But he treated me with respect as if I was his nephew, because he had grown daughters my age anyway, and was even very diplomatic about the nudity. When I told him I didn't care because I'd been in locker rooms, he still kept it at shorts and a t-shirt. He fed me and drove me to my first hitchhiking experience, and gave me maps for camping. He was by far the strangest "demographic" host I'd ever had, but he was an excellent host and completely kind.
My current host, however, although opening and mostly laid back, would bring up money a lot and whether or not he, my host, was losing his money on the deal with couch surfers, and how he would only do it if it satisfied his passion of giving naked massages. I could hear the combative tone rising in his voice as I "hypothetically" raised the subject, and my stay was beginning to become awkward. Also, did I mention I was exhausted? We didn't finish the card game until close to midnight, and then he became quite passive aggressive when I declared I absolutely had to go to sleep, as he expected to be able to practice his massage. What could I say? I wanted to sleep.
I packed up my car in the morning and left him my cooler, and I wasn't sure if I would go back. My friend had told me I could crash at her place, but she was in the middle of moving, so it didn't seem like a good idea after all she had done for me. I phoned my host from work and told him about my sudden change of plans, and he was more forthright but still passive aggressive, saying it was obvious that I wasn't coming back and commented on how distracted I appeared during the card game, and how we really should have done the massage instead. I promised to leave him a good reference, which I did, and I should have, because he did provide me with a bed, a shower, two rides and decent enough company. The massage was a good new experience, but I wasn't nearly as passionate about it as he was, and his forceful conditions about the matter really bothered me the more I thought about it. He has yet to leave me a reference, which is fine by me. I think I've had enough of staying in the homes of complete strangers. After being on my own so much, I really hate asking people for charity like that. Especially if the condition is that I have let them touch me, regardless of the context. Even if it’s supposed to make me “feel as good as the first time [he] had one.” That's kind of noble, but not if it's non-negotiable.
Of course, all of the days’ themes in the textbooks and readings appeared to be about money, needing money, being bankrupt, and hustling for work.
After work I stumbled over to the main branch of the public library, very hungry and very spent. I eventually picked out three memoir books by Maya Angelou recounting her crazy wanderings and adventures. The first was about being young and bouncing around looking for places to stay and get by, so I decided to give her a try.
Later I drove an hour south along the coast to find a place to camp, but Half Moon Bay had just filled up. The friendly ranger told me I could drive another 30 minutes to Butano State Park, and eventually I found a space nearby at Memorial State Park. It was $35 just to put my tent somewhere and sleep on the ground of mother Earth. Before I set up my tent though, I explored La Honda.
La Honda is a historically significant place for a guy like me. You see, Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters lived there when the psychedelic sixties were beginning. That's where the Grateful Dead began playing at his big parties, and that's where the great Further bus road trip to New York City began. For those not attuned, Ken Kesey was a very successful author in the 1960s who became famous with the publishing of his first book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, later made into a famous movie starring Jack Nicholson. He had become inspired to do so after experimenting with legal LSD tests at Palo Alto, as he had studied at Stanford. The book made him famous, and he wrote another successful follow up called Sometimes a Great Notion. Around then he was having enormous acid parties at his home in La Honda, inviting the Hell’s Angels and a young Jerry Garcia’s new band called the Warlocks, which eventually became the Grateful Dead. They decided to deck out this huge school bus with crazy painting and get Neal Cassady, the hero of Kerouac’s On the Road, to drive it for them. The idea was they would arrive in New York City in time for the publishing of Kesey’s new book, and meet up with Timothy Leary in upstate New York for some kind of super psychedelic meeting of the minds.
As far as my story goes, I began my journey from New York to northern California by visiting my alma mater in Ithaca. My last night in Ithaca it just so happened that my buddy Russ, from my first road trip in New Zealand, was watching the newly released documentary about Kesey's bus trip across America: Magic Trip. It had taken them decades to finally put together all the footage. At the end Kesey relents that the experience "never really caught on" and that the world is full of "divine losers” like him.
As I searched for a camp site that night, I wondered if I was a "divine loser." I knew the glory and beauty of the world, I had had many incredible adventures and experiences, and I had expressed and shared them extensively online. But so far I was still officially unpublished, living out of my car and hunting for a place to be.
But then, the more I thought about it, I realized that Kesey had unfairly assessed himself. First of all, it did catch on. His time in the spotlight was in between the beats and the hippies. In a way, he served as a bridge for the two counterculture movements. But he got arrested back when marijuana was a huge deal, and actually fled to Mexico in the trunk of a car. For some reason he came back to America, once again in James Bond fashion, but finally the feds caught up with him. The conditions of his release were that he encourage the young hippies to “graduate” from LSD. Of course, by then, young people weren’t going to listen to anybody, let alone the founder of the movement. So he gave up on writing and moved back to a quiet life at his family's farm in Oregon right as the craziest part of the hippie movement was beginning. Many more seekers and journeyers followed in his footsteps.
Forty years later he said the world is full of divine losers like him, who knew beautiful paths to joy that weren't recognized by the culture at large. Well, what did he expect to happen? If being a successful author and the basis of another successful authors' first hit book (Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), the most badass rebel of his age and an inspiration to countless others who followed, then what could please him? I understand being bummed about corporate America and mindless zombie youths addicted to gadgets and chasing dollars, but that doesn't mean the magic isn't still there for those willing to seek it. In a way, it just makes it more privileged and exclusive. When I read his books and read about him in Wolfe’s book, I was amazed by his courage and cutting edge position on the frontier. He simply called it quits too soon.
Speaking of badass rebel wordsmiths, that brings us to Part II of the lesson...
How are you?
I hope life has been treating you well.
Although it hasn’t felt like it at times, life has been good to me recently, so I can’t complain. That’s not to say I haven’t complained at all, but that was mostly in private when only the universe could hear me. But overall, things have worked out, and my trials were not very difficult, especially when considered on this 50th anniversary of the greatest speech in American history.
I’ve got a lot to say, and I am saying it all now because I haven’t had consistent internet access or available time for about two weeks.
Here we go:
I woke up this morning in a nice big comfortable bed in a safe and almost absurdly clean apartment. After a shower and a quick breakfast I left to go to work. I would not return to the apartment. The apartment belongs to someone I will never meet. I am most likely about to sublet an apartment in Oakland for two months, and the sublease guy was kind enough to offer me a place to stay while I wait for the first of the month and he’s out of his apartment. Strangely, he’s currently housesitting for another friend, but last night was staying with a different friend, so he offered me to housesit for a night at the place he was supposed to be housesitting. It was my 11th place to be in 14 days.
Let me explain.
Two weeks ago I left my parents' home after an incredible vacation in the countryside of upstate New York. I was very happy to see my family and many of my friends for the first time in over a year, after the longest period I had ever been away.
After that pleasant recharge I got on an Amtrak train to New York City to see even more familiar friends and places. That involved friend's couches and mattresses on the floor for a few days, and walking around the city with my backpack in between lunch meetings, dinners and late night drinks. It was great to see everyone again, and I had perfect weather.
Once the reunions were done I took the train out to Long Island to see my dad's side of the family, including my parents who had driven down for the weekend. We went to the beach and I got to swim in the Atlantic Ocean again, and under a big moon too.
On Sunday morning I awoke to my cousins' infant child screaming and crying and running and laughing and screaming again, mostly right outside my door, and several hours before I needed to get up for my flight back to California. Then there was an awkward argument within my extended family that didn't occur in front of me, but had clearly noticeable undertones at breakfast and then manifested itself more boldly as I left with my parents for the airport. It has since been resolved somewhat, but it was a very awkward way to go to my flight. My parents were great though, and they wished me well at Newark. Then I read a book my sister gave me about a very crazy family with all sorts of terrible problems that I'm very happy we don't have, which both relieved me about my chaotic situation and unnerved me because so many people are deceitful and unhappy. At least I arrived safely in San Francisco.
I made it to the hostel in San Francisco Sunday evening, and immediately embraced the situation of meeting fellow travelers staying in the same overcrowded room with limited facilities. One of them was a friendly German (there is always a German) who was going to camp around America but had no set plans, and the other was an American from New Mexico, Alaska and North Carolina. He was also African-American, bisexual and full of mirth. Then two girls from Ireland and one from Scotland joined us.
Meanwhile, a man from east of the bay answered one of my open requests on couchsurfing.org and told me I could stay with him for three nights, but only if I was open to a Swedish massage from a certified masseuse. He also told me he could take me to Diablo State Park nearby. He had over 80 positive references from people mentioning a good time and a professional massage, so I said sure. I had nowhere else to stay, and hostels in San Francisco are insanely priced and even hard to get during the week. Then I asked anyone if they wanted to eat, and only the New Alaskan Carolinian was hungry, so we went around the corner and got some burgers and traded travel stories. He seemed to think that the massage was strange, and I did too, since it's uncommon for couchsurfing hosts to add conditionals like that, but that's why people leave references recounting their experiences. Nobody had complained, and although not used to massages from men, I'm very comfortable with my heterosexuality, so I figured it was just another new experience. What the hell, it is northern California.
The next morning I went to work with my suitcase and backpack still in hand, and was relieved to find out that my students didn't like my substitute and were happy that I was back. It was a decent day teaching, but then I had to ride the train over an hour to the end of the line to Antioch to meet my host. I had this huge over packed suitcase and hiking backpack similarly jam packed because I had been transferring a lot of possessions back home, but somehow not as many as I had thought I would.
He picked me up at the train station and we went out for a few beers. We traded traveling stories. Apparently he gotten bitten by a dog in India. He'd been to over 80 countries around the world. Then we went back to his one-story house in the suburbs and burgers and fries. We continued to talk about traveling around the world, and then I had my first Swedish massage. He put on relaxing music that made it easy to think about all the places in the world we'd just been talking about. He was a good masseuse, but I wasn't really into the massage overall. Apparently he's really enthusiastic about massages, and that's why he's opened his home to eighty people of all ages and genders and offered them massages. A woman he knew got him into it, and he learned how and became certified, and he knew what he was doing. Even so, I was very happy to finally be able to go to sleep in my own room.
On Tuesday I had to get my car after work, so I rode the train up to Davis to meet my friend. Unfortunately I missed my stop because they arrived early, so I had to ride to Sacramento and then back, which ate up some time. Then I got a quick taco with my friend who had so graciously let me park my car in front of her house and store my suits in her closet. We caught up quickly and I was very happy to be back in my car. But I had to do a lot of things like fill up the tires with air, add oil, re-arrange my belongings and find certain things I'd packed under other things (like the backup cord to my headphones, the original of which had died the day before I got on the 6 hour plane ride). Then I had an hour drive back, and even though I kept updating my host, I knew he would be annoyed because when he brought me to the train that morning he kept saying, "Yeah, 7 is okay... but 6 is better... and 5 would be much better." Other people had written in their references that he was the kind of host who wanted to spend as much time as possible with you, so if you were looking for a place to recharge with some of your own down time, this wasn’t the place to go. I had sent out three other requests with no responses, so I didn’t have any alternatives. I really just needed somewhere to regroup and figure out the next step, and he had a lot of passive aggressive pressure going the whole time.
I didn't get on the road until 6:45, and then I accidentally turned west instead of east, driving into the sunset, and didn't realize it for 15 minutes. But destiny was on my side, because when I turned around I saw the beginning of the full moonrise as I drove through a field of windmills. I finally made it back to his place at 8, apologizing profusely, and I gave him his beer, which he had requested I purchase. We began to play cards, and he suggested a game called, "Spite and Malice," which he won. It's hard to learn a new card game, and even harder when you have a few drinks and you're completely exhausted and worn out from the road. It was pleasant for a while, but he kept nagging me for taking forever to move, and correcting my strategies so much that it didn’t seem to matter if I made decisions at all. I really didn't want to win this whole "Spite and Malice" game.
The whole time I was thinking I not only wanted to sleep, but my body and mind desperately needed it. After all, I had to teach the next day. He was in between accounting jobs, so he had nothing to do. I understood that he'd opened his home to me, but he also seemed more into playing a meaningless card game and rushing to the massage than actually trading travel experiences. After the millionth time that he commented on my inability to play well, I switched the subject to travel experiences, explaining that’s why I do couchsurfing in the first place. Eventually I asked about why he opens his home to people, because I'm always curious about that and ask every couchsurfing host I've ever had the same question. He said that massage and travel were his two passions. I asked if he would do the same thing without the massage, and he said there was no reason to because he had been hosting constantly for a year and could find someone who did want a massage. There was certainly nothing disingenuous about that, because massages do make people feel good, but there was something about it that I didn't like. Most of the other couchsurfing hosts said they wanted nothing in return and simply the knowledge of providing a space for someone and getting an experiential exchange was good enough for them.
In fact, my first couchsurfing host was a 61 year old nudist recently separated after 37 years of marriage, living on his own for the first time and coming to terms with his newly embraced bisexuality. But he treated me with respect as if I was his nephew, because he had grown daughters my age anyway, and was even very diplomatic about the nudity. When I told him I didn't care because I'd been in locker rooms, he still kept it at shorts and a t-shirt. He fed me and drove me to my first hitchhiking experience, and gave me maps for camping. He was by far the strangest "demographic" host I'd ever had, but he was an excellent host and completely kind.
My current host, however, although opening and mostly laid back, would bring up money a lot and whether or not he, my host, was losing his money on the deal with couch surfers, and how he would only do it if it satisfied his passion of giving naked massages. I could hear the combative tone rising in his voice as I "hypothetically" raised the subject, and my stay was beginning to become awkward. Also, did I mention I was exhausted? We didn't finish the card game until close to midnight, and then he became quite passive aggressive when I declared I absolutely had to go to sleep, as he expected to be able to practice his massage. What could I say? I wanted to sleep.
I packed up my car in the morning and left him my cooler, and I wasn't sure if I would go back. My friend had told me I could crash at her place, but she was in the middle of moving, so it didn't seem like a good idea after all she had done for me. I phoned my host from work and told him about my sudden change of plans, and he was more forthright but still passive aggressive, saying it was obvious that I wasn't coming back and commented on how distracted I appeared during the card game, and how we really should have done the massage instead. I promised to leave him a good reference, which I did, and I should have, because he did provide me with a bed, a shower, two rides and decent enough company. The massage was a good new experience, but I wasn't nearly as passionate about it as he was, and his forceful conditions about the matter really bothered me the more I thought about it. He has yet to leave me a reference, which is fine by me. I think I've had enough of staying in the homes of complete strangers. After being on my own so much, I really hate asking people for charity like that. Especially if the condition is that I have let them touch me, regardless of the context. Even if it’s supposed to make me “feel as good as the first time [he] had one.” That's kind of noble, but not if it's non-negotiable.
Of course, all of the days’ themes in the textbooks and readings appeared to be about money, needing money, being bankrupt, and hustling for work.
After work I stumbled over to the main branch of the public library, very hungry and very spent. I eventually picked out three memoir books by Maya Angelou recounting her crazy wanderings and adventures. The first was about being young and bouncing around looking for places to stay and get by, so I decided to give her a try.
Later I drove an hour south along the coast to find a place to camp, but Half Moon Bay had just filled up. The friendly ranger told me I could drive another 30 minutes to Butano State Park, and eventually I found a space nearby at Memorial State Park. It was $35 just to put my tent somewhere and sleep on the ground of mother Earth. Before I set up my tent though, I explored La Honda.
La Honda is a historically significant place for a guy like me. You see, Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters lived there when the psychedelic sixties were beginning. That's where the Grateful Dead began playing at his big parties, and that's where the great Further bus road trip to New York City began. For those not attuned, Ken Kesey was a very successful author in the 1960s who became famous with the publishing of his first book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, later made into a famous movie starring Jack Nicholson. He had become inspired to do so after experimenting with legal LSD tests at Palo Alto, as he had studied at Stanford. The book made him famous, and he wrote another successful follow up called Sometimes a Great Notion. Around then he was having enormous acid parties at his home in La Honda, inviting the Hell’s Angels and a young Jerry Garcia’s new band called the Warlocks, which eventually became the Grateful Dead. They decided to deck out this huge school bus with crazy painting and get Neal Cassady, the hero of Kerouac’s On the Road, to drive it for them. The idea was they would arrive in New York City in time for the publishing of Kesey’s new book, and meet up with Timothy Leary in upstate New York for some kind of super psychedelic meeting of the minds.
As far as my story goes, I began my journey from New York to northern California by visiting my alma mater in Ithaca. My last night in Ithaca it just so happened that my buddy Russ, from my first road trip in New Zealand, was watching the newly released documentary about Kesey's bus trip across America: Magic Trip. It had taken them decades to finally put together all the footage. At the end Kesey relents that the experience "never really caught on" and that the world is full of "divine losers” like him.
As I searched for a camp site that night, I wondered if I was a "divine loser." I knew the glory and beauty of the world, I had had many incredible adventures and experiences, and I had expressed and shared them extensively online. But so far I was still officially unpublished, living out of my car and hunting for a place to be.
But then, the more I thought about it, I realized that Kesey had unfairly assessed himself. First of all, it did catch on. His time in the spotlight was in between the beats and the hippies. In a way, he served as a bridge for the two counterculture movements. But he got arrested back when marijuana was a huge deal, and actually fled to Mexico in the trunk of a car. For some reason he came back to America, once again in James Bond fashion, but finally the feds caught up with him. The conditions of his release were that he encourage the young hippies to “graduate” from LSD. Of course, by then, young people weren’t going to listen to anybody, let alone the founder of the movement. So he gave up on writing and moved back to a quiet life at his family's farm in Oregon right as the craziest part of the hippie movement was beginning. Many more seekers and journeyers followed in his footsteps.
Forty years later he said the world is full of divine losers like him, who knew beautiful paths to joy that weren't recognized by the culture at large. Well, what did he expect to happen? If being a successful author and the basis of another successful authors' first hit book (Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), the most badass rebel of his age and an inspiration to countless others who followed, then what could please him? I understand being bummed about corporate America and mindless zombie youths addicted to gadgets and chasing dollars, but that doesn't mean the magic isn't still there for those willing to seek it. In a way, it just makes it more privileged and exclusive. When I read his books and read about him in Wolfe’s book, I was amazed by his courage and cutting edge position on the frontier. He simply called it quits too soon.
Speaking of badass rebel wordsmiths, that brings us to Part II of the lesson...
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