The Bandit of Kabul – Counterculture adventures along the hashish trail and beyond (2006) [Ο Ληστής της Καμπούλ – Περιπέτειες αντικουλτούρας κατά μήκος του μονοπατιού του χασίς και όχι μόνο]

Jerry Beisler

Σημείωση του συγγραφέα

Το βιβλίο “Bandit of Kabul” γράφτηκε βάσει συμφωνίας ότι θα ήταν περίπου 220 χάρτινες σελίδες. Για έξι χρόνια έκτοτε, έχω δημοσιεύσει πολλά άρθρα σε περιοδικά που διεύρυναν την προηγούμενη ή μεταγενέστερη ιστορία, εξέθεταν ανθρώπους ή καταστάσεις.

Η μη φανταστική μυθιστορηματική συσκευή μου δείχνει μια φωτογραφία ενός ατόμου όταν παρουσιάζεται, είτε σόλο είτε σε ομάδα, επομένως η αφήγηση δεν χρειάζεται να σταματήσει και να περιγράψει μια φυσική εμφάνιση, συνεχίζεται σε αυτά τα άρθρα των περιοδικών χρησιμοποιώντας διαφορετικό χρόνο ή περιβάλλον όποτε είναι αυτό δυνατόν.

Ο εκδόσεις Trineday Publishing έχουν δημιουργήσει κείμενο από αυτές τις δημοσιεύσεις και έχουν βρει και πρόσθετο κείμενο, σχετικές φωτογραφίες και χάρτες από άλλες πηγές για να επεκτείνουν περαιτέρω το “The Bandit of Kabul” σε μια ευρύτερη πιο λεπτομερή και περίπλοκη άποψη της αρχικής μου ιστορίας αντικουλτούρας της δεκαετίας του ‘70.

Περιεχόμενα

Κεφάλαιο 1

If it didn’t happen this way, it should have.

GOA, INDIA, NOVEMBER 1971

Κεφάλαιο 2

Hark, now hear the sailors cry.

Smell the sea and feel the sky.

Let your soul and spirit fly.

Into the mystic.

– Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic”

Κεφάλαιο 3

If you smile at me, you know I will understand.

Cause that is something everybody

everywhere does in the same language.

– Stills, Crosby & Kantner, “Wooden Ships”

Κεφάλαιο 4

We have found these clothes, this time and place, this personality.

If we go toward the light and praise others, it comes pouring back.

– Rumi, Back Story – California, Summer of 1971

Κεφάλαιο 5

There is a Bazaar where everyone seems to be buying and selling things from all over the world, and you meet all kinds of people. It is as noisy as hell and very dirty but a very nice and interesting place in a lovely valley.

– A Chinese traveller, 700 AD

Asia, 1972

Κεφάλαιο 6

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love and they had 500 years of democracy and peace; and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!

– HARRY LIME, “THE THIRD MAN” BY GRAHAM GREENE

Κεφάλαιο 7

Hanoi Hannah

Averaged about a man a day

When she wasn’t working

She kept the coffee perkin’

For a guy that didn’t have to pay.

– R.McGuinn and J. Levy, “Hanoi Hannah”

Κεφάλαιο 8

Afghan: unruly or untamed.

Afghanistan: land of the unruly.

Afghanistan, 1972

Κεφάλαιο 9

No great genius was ever without some tincture of madness.

– Aristotle

Pakistan, 1972

Κεφάλαιο 10

If you have a job without aggravation, you don’t have a job.

– Malcomb Forbes

Business and Pleasure

Κεφάλαιο 11

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.

It felt good to be out of the rain.

In the desert you can remember your name,

’Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.

– America, “A Horse With No Name”

Κεφάλαιο 12

When your I.Q. reaches 28… sell!!

– Comedian Dr. Irwin Corey, to a heckler

KABUL

Κεφάλαιο 13

If you are a Police Dog, where’s your badge?

– JAMES THURBER, 1894-1961

Κεφάλαιο 14

I can mend the break of day Cure a broken heart and Provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.

– LARRY LEE

Κεφάλαιο 15

And now the tale is done And home we steer, a merry crew Beneath the setting sun.

– LEWIS CARROLL

A Taste of Malaysia

Κεφάλαιο 16

Rogue\’rog\ n (origin unknown) 1: vagrant, tramp 2: a dishonest or worthless person: scoundrel 3: a mischievous person: scamp 4: a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave 5: an individual exhibiting a chance and unusual inferior biological variation

– WEBSTER’S NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY

Κεφάλαιο 17

A verbal contract ain’t worth the paper it’s written on.

– Samuel Goldwyn

Κεφάλαιο 18

You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

– JOHNNY CARSON

Κεφάλαιο 19

If you are a bully treat me good

If you are a bully, a bully treat me good

I’m like a steppin Razor

Don’t cha’ watch my size

I’m dangerous, so dangerous

If you wanna live treat me good

Warning, If you wanna live,

I BEG YOU, you better treat me good

I’m like a steppin, jumpin’ cussin’ fightin’ razor

I’m dangerous!

– PETER TOSH, “STEPPIN’ RAZOR”

Κεφάλαιο 20

Behind every great woman there’s an idiot.

– JOHN LENNON

Κεφάλαιο 21

You don’t have to answer

There’s no need to speak

I’ll be your belly dancer, prancer

And you can be my Sheik.

– Maria Muldaur, Midnight at the Oasis

Κεφάλαιο 22

I lay traps for troubadours who get killed before they reach Bombay.

– The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil,”

Back in the USA

Κεφάλαιο 23

After thirteen years in an insane asylum in Washington, D.C. the poet Ezra Pound was asked how it went. “Rather badly. But in what other place could one live in America?”

Dirty Creek

Κεφάλαιο 24

It is not a question of how much we know, how clever we are, nor even how good; it all depends upon the heart’s love. External actions are the results of love, the fruit it bears; but the source, the root, is in the deep of the heart.

– Francois Fenelon (1651-1715), “The Inner Life”

Κεφάλαιο 25

I’m tired of looking at the TV news

I’m tired of driving hard and paying dues

I figure baby, I’ve got nothing to lose

I’m tired of being blue

That’s why I’m going to Kathmandu

– Bob Seger

Κεφάλαιο 26

If the President does it, it’s not illegal.

– Richard M. Nixon

Κεφάλαιο 27

When I get lonely and I’m sure I’ve had enough

She sends her comfort coming in from above

We don’t need a letter at all

We got a thing that’s called radar love.

– Golden Earring, “Radar Love”

Κεφάλαιο 28

If I were a grave-digger or even a hang man, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

– Douglas Jerrold 1803-1857

Κεφάλαιο 29

It appears I am destined for something. I will live.

– Robert, Lord Clive of India, in 1744, after twice failing to shoot himself

Κεφάλαιο 30

The Lama said on my deathbed I’d receive total enlightenment … so I’ve got that going for me.

– Bill Murray as Carl Spackler in “Caddy Shack”

Κεφάλαιο 31

We can’t all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

– Will Rogers

MEXICO

Κεφάλαιο 32

Asked how he could play so well when he was loaded, Zoot Sims said … “I practiced when I was loaded.”

Κεφάλαιο 33

Atman: a man who has entered into a mystical state wherein he has thrown off his ego; a man who has realized his greater self; a man, who, through a process of realization of his true nature as a human, identifies himself with, and so becomes, universal spirit. In Hinduism and Buddhism: a seer.

Prophecies

Κεφάλαιο 34

During a battle with U.S., British and other European forces in Lebanon, Syrian General Mustafa Tlass, who had a life-long obsession with the Italian movie star Gina Lollobrigida, instructed his men not to attack the Italian soldiers because “I do not want a single tear falling from the eyes of ina Lollobrigida.”

Κεφάλαιο 35

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

– Samuel Johnson

Indonesia

Κεφάλαιο 36

Tibetans say that obstacles in a hard journey, such as hailstones, wind, and unrelenting rains, are the work of demons, anxious to test the sincerity of the pilgrims and eliminate the fainthearted among them.

– Mathew Matthiesen, “The Snow Leopard”

Κεφάλαιο 37

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

– Charlotte Whitton (1896-1975)

AT THE RANCH, LATE ’70s

Κεφάλαιο 38

I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe, when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

Woody Allen

Last Words with the Atman

Κεφάλαιο 39

Take a glass of water

Make it against the law

See how good that water tastes

Like you never had it before.

– Credence Clearwater Revival, “Bootleg” California Dreamin’

Κεφάλαιο 40

Moulay Ismail, the Sultan of Morocco from 1672-1727, gifted samples of his bowel movement to the ladies of the court as a mark of special favor.

Κεφάλαιο 41

I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

– Joan Rivers

Κεφάλαιο 42

Oh, East is east and West is west, And never the twain shall meet Till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat.

– Rudyard Kipling

Κεφάλαιο 43

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times.

People have always been like this.

– Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

Κεφάλαιο 44

Mind Moves the Mass

– University of Oregon motto

Κεφάλαιο 45

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses.

– Chinese Proverb

Κεφάλαιο 46

Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight.

You’ll never meet the Buddha with such bad posture.

– The Lotus and the Mishpokkeh–Principles of Jewish Budhism

Κεφάλαιο 46

Oh, I am just a vagabond, a drifter on the run

And eloquent profanity, it rolls right off my tongue

Yes, I have dined in palaces, drunk wine with kings and queens

But darlin’ oh darlin’ you’re the best thing I ever seen

Won’t you roll ’em easy, so slow and easy?

Take my independence with no apprehension, no tension

Because you are a walkin’, talkin’ paradise, sweet paradise.

– Little Feat, “Roll ‘em Easy”

Κεφάλαιο 48

He went to Europe as a boy, where in Geneva his father arranged for a prostitute. He was soterrified by the experience that he didn’t marry until he was 67 years old.

– John Leonard of the New York Times – on South American writer Jose Luis

Borges

Κεφάλαιο 49

GOD! …The country that produced George Washington has got this collection of crumb-bums!

– Barbara Tuchman, the great historian, on the 1980 election

Κεφάλαιο 50

There’s not a damn line in this law nowheres that makes it illegal to kill a Chinaman.

– JUDGE ROY BEAN (1823–1903)

Where and When the Journey Began: California, 1970

Κεφάλαιο 51

In 1963, a band of beatniks arrived in Kathmandu. They were led by a man who had renounced his citizenship and believed it was time to carry Western philosophy to the East. The crazy wisdom of Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” mixed with the romance-of-the-road view of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose credo was: “It’s the journey, not the destination.” When they arrived, they set up their campground around a compound on the far reaches of the Valley. A runner was dispatched rom the Palace. He invited the leader to have an audience with the King. The King thought they were a tribe of sadhus with long hair.

– Counterculture Oral History

California, Summer of 1971

Κεφάλαιο 52

Lightning strikes … maybe once … maybe twice

Oh … and it lights up the night …

And you see your gypsy …

You see your gypsy …

– FLEETWOOD MAC , “GYPSY”

Επίλογος

Every day, I try to understand the meaning of this line: “Live your life without ambition. But live as those who are ambitious.” Do that and you discover the discipline of living an authentic life – and of living hard, as if each day counts.

– Dr. Larry Brilliant

California, 1970

ΠΑΡΑΡΤΗΜΑ: Η μνήμη για τους νεκρούς

Σχετικά με τον Συγγραφέα

(το βιβλίο σε μορφή αρχείου PDF)