My late friend, Kerry Watson, and I met in the late 1990’s, shortly after he moved to Boulder, CO from Hawaii. He needed to buy a house. At the time, I had a license to practice law and real estate. Helping him buy a house led to a friendship, which led (unsuccessfully, obviously) to trying to help him find a publisher for his book.
I have in my possession two versions of his autobiography. Neither of which is as intense as the first version I read and which is, as far as I know, forever lost, unless there’s a copy of it tucked away in the attic of the house in Boulder that I helped him buy. But I don’t think so. The first version was more stream of consciousness and had its own special, unique beauty, which I hang onto emotionally, as best as I can, with the passing of years. This version from the middle of his process preserves a good bit of those original qualities and also has the original first chapter, which I found to be an incredible way to begin a story. So, the middle version is what you’re getting.
If Kerry wants to kick my ass when I catch up to him for giving you this rather than the latest version, I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it.
Kerry wrote with a vocabulary so rich that it has no commercial value and he addresses issues so profoundly disturbing about the Viet Nam war that, again, there is no commercial value. But for the soul, there is incredible value in his story because it is the story of a soul’s journey through all the hardship and splendor that life has to offer. And for a perspective on history, there is nothing quite like his. As Kerry put it:
Dedicated to the war babies …
We ate the pill, grew up with the bomb,
Lived in the now, and died in Viet Nam.
The Road To Ataraxia
Chapter 1: Notes From Asylum
Chapter 2: Of Specimen Jars And Rockets To The Stars
Chapter 3: When James Dean Was God
Chapter 4: Black Jack And The Midnight Sun
Chapter 5: The Secret Museum Of Man
Chapter 6: Square Peg … Round Hole
Chapter 7: To Skateboard Around The World
Chapter 8: The House Of The Rising Sun
Chapter 9: Everything Possible Shall Exist
Chapter 10: Lord Of Love
Chapter 11: Flight From God
Chapter 12: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Chapter 13: The Magic Salesman
Chapter 14: Ship Of Fools
Chapter 15: The Splendid Little War”
Chapter 16: Beyond The Pale
Chapter 17: Heart Of Darkness
Chapter 18: The Most Dangerous Game
Chapter 19: Home The Hunter
Chapter 20: Karmic Mortgage
Chapter 21: God’s Secret Hiding Place
Chapter 22: The Gypsy And The Giant Moths
Chapter 23: Somewhere In Time
Chapter 24: The Tibetan Two-Stepper With Disraeli Gears
Chapter 25: “He Blew His Mind Out In A Car”
Chapter 26: Piccadilly Circus
Chapter 27: The Grim Reaper Comes To Psychedelphia
Chapter 28: The Pope Of Dope
Chapter 29: Lost Native
Chapter 30: The Edge
Chapter 31: Exodus
Chapter 32: To Feel Life Keenly
Chapter 33: Take Your Pain Pills Before You Get Hurt
Chapter 34: Lord Of Fulcrum Rock
Chapter 35: Red-Eye To The Stones
Chapter 36: Dorothy And The Tinman
Chapter 37: The Flashcard Smuggler
Chapter 38: Against All Odds
Chapter 39: The Mud Elephant
Chapter 40: Daze of ’49
Chapter 41: Further
Chapter 42: Sons Of Hawaii
Chapter 43: A Mission From God
Chapter 44: Pissing Into The Wind
Chapter 45: Is This Heaven Or Should I Wait?
Chapter 46: May You Live In Interesting Times
Chapter 47: Riders On The Storm
Chapter 48: Angels Of Death
Chapter 49: The Promise To Deliver
Chapter 50: Threatening The Envelope
Chapter 51: Home Is Where They Take You
Chapter 52: A Man Who Sleeps On The Floor Won’t Fall Out Of Bed
Chapter 53: David And Goliath
Chapter 54: A Shadow On The Wall
Chapter 55: The Flip Of A Coin