About Me

People who think they know me well will be amazed that there are some things I’m actually shy and retiring about. One of them is pushing myself forward as a writer. The work is of supreme importance. So why bother about the chap who knocked it out? What’s he got to do with it anyway?

But in a world where everything has become a market right in front of our noses – a recipe for spinach tempura, last night’s candlelight dinner and what happened in the taxi after - and everyone is more or less reduced to personalities promoting their or someone else’s products, services and takes on this and that, such a reclusive, almost J.D. Salinger attitude no longer cuts the mustard. Thus if you want to be read in this jammed to the rafters marketplace, you have to slink out of the shadows, smile, be nice, get irate at all the PC¹ things, blog, flog, press flesh, kiss cheeks and babies, sign autographs and “be somebody”.

And let’s face it, rail as many disenchanted young, middle aged and old practitioners might, getting read is no small part of the job description.

Rhetorical question number one. Who am I?

I’m something of a purist about the craft, which to me is infinitely more calling than career. Or, as one fellow traveler has put it, “The way to earn the least amount of money for the most amount of work”. The good news is that it’s not all work.

The end result can and should be entertaining, but page turning tricks and edge of your seat razzmatazz shouldn’t be at its hollow heart. There has to be form, content and point. Rhythm, light footedness and what the Germans call Schwung. It has to dance, breathe, shimmer, surprise, startle and occasionally whisper stop language, time and readers in their tracks.

The vast majority of what I’ve done in my decades long pursuit of the je ne sais quoi ou pourquoi doesn’t measure up to this rather exalted, and possibly antiquated and élitist standard. It’s got too much of me in it. No one will be one jot worse off for never having heard of it, and thus it will remain brooding and breeding in the background, perhaps permanently relegated to the I wonder what he meant by that Nachlaß.

Grist for murky archivists several centuries down the pike yearning to blow dust off yet another could have been and rescue him from obscurity. You never know. In karmic bingo anything’s possible.

The items presented for sale on this site, however, do fit into that charmed magic circle. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be palming them off on an unsuspecting and almost always duped and disappointed public. There are three novels – Falling, Martyrs and Murderers, and Oedipus’ Reckoning: A Comedy of Oracles - of increasing scope, complexity and craftsmanship. (See the descriptions of each on the product pages.)

For what it’s worth, the third item on that list is a masterpiece. I know that apparently arrogant assessment will piss some people off. It already has. That’s not my problem. Writing and reading are about daring something more and different so those who engage in these activities – indeed, yearn for a genuinely good read - can recognize strange, “don’t go there” regions and venture into if not necessarily understand them. They were invented to extend our range of thinking, feeling and being, not further enslave us to dismal conventions about the done and not done.

There are two other items on the block. Talk Book: Essays in Stand Up Esoterica. Provocative and amusing essays about interrelated topics. Darwin, Wittgenstein, Freud, Michelangelo and other historical big shots as perhaps you’ve never seen or thought of them before. Each is intended to be a dimension leap – “a whole other level” – from the one before. Ten essays, thus ten dimensions.

Have I succeeded in that gamble? I think I might have pulled it off. Let my readers decide for themselves. But first let them read and reflect!

The fifth title – A Passage to America – is a high quality investigative journalistic account of events in and around Rajneeshpuram, a controversial “New Age” city commune smack in the heart of Oregon’s “Redneck Riviera”. It is up to now the most definitive report about its meteoric rise and even faster fall.

It is by far the most famous and talked about of my books. As far as I know, no one has even unreasonably bad mouthed it. And certainly no one has picked up the challenges it throws down or even dreamed of addressing its claims, let alone trying to refute them.

Thanks everyone for your attention, kind words and support.

The first traditional print version was published in 1993, two months before “Waco”. The one appearing here has been totally revised and updated. For fans and those truly interested in a deep going description and analysis of these historical events – in my opinion, relevant for what we’re going through this week and next - it’s well worth another go around.

All of these books have cost blood to research and write. But they shouldn’t demand a single drop from you to read.

Rhetorical question number two. What else do you need or even care to know about me? I have worked as a journalist – freelance and full time – editor, script writer, writing teacher, communications specialist (The Write Stuff) and other less impressive sounding ways of earning money. Dish washer and waiter in the Swiss Alps, construction on various continents, failing miserably to sell a single time share on the Costa del Sol.

I have traveled widely in the US (including Alaska), Canada, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and have lived for varying periods in Greece (Crete), India, Germany and The Netherlands. I now reside in the Alentejo (Portugal) in a casa more luxurious than anything I’ve been accustomed to. But the human spirit is infinitely adaptable and I’m getting into the Schwung of things, thank you very much.

Tragedy has been classically described as things beginning well and ending badly. Comedy is the exact opposite. As if exact opposites actually exist! According to those definitions, my life up to now has been a comedy. Perhaps it’s been a matter of merit, perhaps grace. Maybe a combination of the two.

In any case I’m more content than I could have ever dreamed possible, and I’m not complaining. There are, however, some things that would definitely put wind in my sails and improve my condition. World peace, more people waking up to the light within and learning to live in harmony with themselves and others. That sort of thing.

And being read and appreciated – or even argued about and against. This is where you come in. Please do. Come into my shop and buy, read, understand, feel, think about and discuss some or all of my books and help make my writing circle complete.

 

1 "Politically correct", without reference to any particular politics. People speaking as members of any specifically recognizable group.