Full disclosure: I lived these events. I think.

You of a certain age will recall: in 1966 word was spreading of new wonders, new charismatic creatures, and particularly an authentic American guru--a blessed hick from Arkansas named Captain Jim, who preached unfettered love, LSD, and a new life-ethic based on, of all things, FUN. Fun was the sole and final reason we were here, he taught. Fun was the pinnacle of ten thousand years of civilization. And to know this--to REALLY KNOW it--amounted to a cosmic leap in collective consciousness.

Metamorphosis was a major concern for me in 1966. I was a hungry useless thing—sixteen, clinically shy, strung-out, a runaway. A look at my snapshots shows it--the stricken eyes that say, "noooo, noooo, this is all a horrible mistake--I have been dropped into the wrong world. I understand nothing about this alien planet, this putrid epoch, these brutes I share the earth with! I yearn! I yearn for better things."

In 1966, I was ready for something else.

(from "Preface," pg. 1)