Craigs Stories, Tales, Views, BS, Opinions, Blog
Well, I did it.
I published one of my short stories on Amazon as an E-book and sales have actually been pretty decent! The Book is called “Growing up Hippie – Living with the Rastas” and is an edited and longer version of the Rasta stories which were posted here last year.
You can buy the book for only 99 cents!
The link is at:
http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Hippie-Rastafarians-ebook/dp/B008397HPG/
Enjoy!
Note – as is mentioned in some other posts here, my wife and I lived on a commune called The Farm for a few years in the mid-1970′s. I will write up some of my own stories and outlooks on the experience, but for those who want to know what we were about, the following story by a fellow “farmie” should answer….
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The Farm: A Case Study in Creating a New Consciousness and Culture
by Milt Wallace
In the dance between developing individual consciousness and a newly evolving culture, small groups that are in some way isolated from the larger culture can play an important role in creating, incubating and beginning to stabilize the new ideas and values. As the Post Modern paradigm emerged in the 70’s and 80’s, The Farm, a hippy spiritual community was one such group. Because of its size, outreach, and spiritual depth, The Farm’s impact was significant.
Post Modern Culture had its beginnings more than a century ago, but the turbulent years which included the Cold War, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the Kent State killings, and much more ignited a cultural revolution that led many baby boomers to question the status quo, and to search for some new meaning to life. Travel any highway and you would find young people and some not so young along the road, leaving their middle class homes or aborting their college educations and looking for something new. Modern Consciousness and Culture had a long run with its roots in the 16th century, but as we passed the middle of the 20th century, many came to feel that things weren’t working so well any more.
Read More…
I admit it.
I love Rhode Island.
Of course, I love and like a lot of places. But Rhode Island is very different. This may be due to it’s newness (to me), but time will tell if that is the case. I’ve been coming here for 6 years now and it still has not wore off…..
But I digress. Let me explain.
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In the 1960′s counterculture the term “dosed” came to mean being fed a mind altering drug against your will and/or without your knowledge. It was most often used to describe doses of LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) which were administered by slipping it into food and drink.
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Ayn Rand, The Koch Brothers and friends are quite the Hypocrites, eh?
It completely amazes me that a failed (in life and love, etc.) writer of FICTION and promoter of selfishness and godlessness has become the newest darling of the right. I would write more on the subject, but I honestly don’t know what to say! The gulf between what the right wing claims to stand for (morals, compassion, religion) and the Fiction Writer are just too large. Ayn claims religion is WORSE than the opiate of the masses…which makes her more Marxist than Marx himself.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist! I could claim that mantel myself. But there is something wrong with the evangelical right wing taking her in their new champion!
Ayn Rand on Religion (lack of)
….in this case, the Beast being us and Beauty being what we describe as such. I heard an NPR show on How Pleasure Works and it got me thinking….. Read More…
It seems that chance encounters often offer the best opportunity for seeing the world from another point of view….and so it was with a 10 minute cab ride I took in Boston today! Read More…
“But a Rasta never Marry, Cause a Rasta Never Sorry”
The tune still sticks in my head – it was part of a walking song our Jamaican friends called out as they trekked over the hills and ravines leading us to their bush outposts.
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Readers of this post should first catch up by reading the first part.
After hanging with Ken (the Fisherman) for a day or two, he pulled us aside for a personal chat and said “you folks don’t belong here (in town). I have some people I’d like you to meet”. Heck, we figured anyone who was alright with Ken was fine by us, so we answered in the affirmative.
He took us on a long walk up the coast road……for those who know Negril, this is past the caves and cliffs where the road gets lost in the bush. At some point we turned into the bush, and walked down a rugged path into the hills. Read More…
Here is an interesting article on a man who made it in life – and then came to an understanding of what he had and what he didn’t.
Here is a paragraph which expresses well the way I feel when I’ve been on vacation in certain places:
“The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to islands of Hawaii.
“It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is,” he said. “In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn’t met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real.”
As mentioned, I often feel the same. In fact, Martha and I were sent to Jamaica on a FREE trip by one of our vendors way back in 1986…..and I was unable to enjoy myself due to the wide and obvious gulf between the residents and the tourists. That has held relatively true to this day…not that I don’t enjoy luxury (I very much do!), but I don’t like going places where I am the center of attention as opposed to just visiting. An example might be that I would prefer touring Montreal or London rather than being enclosed in a fenced “all inclusive” places which was secured from the locals “for my protection”.
I’m not judging those , obviously numerous, who can feel comfortable in those situations. I am admittedly over sensitive in many ways, and this is one of them!
