Lost But Making Good Time — A Rebel Not Looking for a Cause
Born and Raised in a Mental Institution, Thank God
For a decade, I followed a rainbow to a gutter. Coming out of the Army as a Hippie, I made a mad dash to buy my first bell bottoms and a pewter peace sign belt and buckle to hold them up. A few months later, I had long hair, a mustache, and a bag of weed, and I started believing life could be lived under a rainbow. Lost But Making Good Time is a series of accidentally madcap stories. The book begins with being born and raised in a mental institution. There, among society's crazies, I perfected my defiant ways and committed to pursuing endless happiness. In the company of this legion of existential crazies, I learned to reject "society's norms."
Rainbows and Gutters
My book "Lost But Making Good Time" follows my decade-long rejection of norms, a path started under a rainbow, ending in deeds of crime, the gutter. My random journals are true stories from the wildest era in modern American history, the 1970s. From a middle-class family to a lost hippie to a federal criminal, dedicated husband to a cheater, and Army soldier to the craziest risk-taker, my stories are funny, sad, dangerous, lucky, and self-reflective. I was a willing misfit attracted to the unknown and fearless in pursuing it. With no limits and no plans or rules, there is no shortage of coincidence in my book.
The Book
My book is a comedy to me. Looking at many dumb things about my behavior makes me laugh! It helps to cover the grim realization that my luck kept me alive. And what the fuck, why was I living without thinking. I've always tried to live in the moment and achievimng it is liberation. A crazy way to live; I do it even today. Happy happens when you are free from the past and the future. It takes letting go and balls to not worry about what's next. Looking back, the entire decade was a reckless practice of living in the moment. Nothing but letting go! The stories are based on my journals, memories, and sketches, and they include wild stories, family stories, love stories, dangerous stories, travel stories, and getting caught stories. New York Circa 1970s was perfect for a heedless lifestyle adding another madness: decadence. It all ended in 79 when the DEA took me right off the streets. My book is 345 pages long, has 45 chapters, a little over 750,000 words, and a Preamble. Try a few chapters, and let me know if you laugh. And don't get caught!!!
Excerpts From My Book
Gringo Trail
There was no electricity in this house, but right in front of me, there were three American-made washing machines and two console television sets. It made no sense. For a good part of the time in that room I was thinking I’m kidnapped. There were too many signs. Locked in a dark room in a strange place, it’s a little too quiet, and I am surrounded and was not going anywhere. What would anyone want with me? Maybe they think I’m a US agent. The CIA did help the Colombian military. Perhaps these guys are with the rebels and want to hold me? I was clueless.
Soldier to Hippie
The drive from Fort Hood to Austin was just the right time for LSD to fully kick in. According the medical literature, the lysergic acid diethylamide trips lasts for 10 to 14 hours...
… Passing through the door took me into a more profound LSD landscape. All movement looked in slow motion. Not understanding a word, magnified voices poured out from every direction. Gripped by the streaming chaos in my mind, flight is what I wanted to do but I could not organize anything for more than a few seconds. How do I get out of this? Kids, old folks, a small dog barking its brains out - there was a frenzied buzz, everyone but me in their Sunday best but mean in spirit, and voices sounded like they had rubber bands around them. All this right in front of me…
… At that moment, the acid re-terrified me when Granny came directly over to me and asked if I liked her giant onion. The red onion the size of two softballs was stuck smack in my face. Her voice, the onion, I quickly stood up when my mind could not organize a response. As if someone turned a hose on in my mouth I suddenly vomited just short of the onion. Landing by our feet it was a projectile vomit that came out of nowhere. No warning, no sickness it just flew out. Looking down at the pool of puke that must have been breakfast, all I could do was run. I bolted, as fast as I could run out of the backyard and down the street, my getaway all-consuming to me now. I had no idea where I was going. I just kept running.
I Got Caught
On my second step onto 54th street, two cars drove over the curb and onto the sidewalk to cut me off. The car closest to me was a two-tone blue two-door Pontiac, a sporty kind with bucket seats. My eyes about fell out when the passengers had arms stretched out of the windows with pistols drawn. Real fucking guns, pistols up like a movie! All this armament could not be for me, it had to be somebody else getting chased, and I was in the middle of it…and then two guys grabbed me and tossed me up against the post office wall, handcuffed me and quickly threw me into the blue car…
… Like a scene from a mob comedy, the two thugs, or police, or whatever, started arguing over where to shoot me. It is wildly jarring to hear a debate about your own violent ending on a ride across 57th street. I pleaded with them to just take the package of cocaine, some cash, it’s not worth a murder rap. “You’re going to kill me for this.” Ignoring me they didn’t even respond - and they kept up the lighthearted argument with each other. The driver, Luis, was all for shooting me under the abandoned Westside highway at the end of 58th Street. He argued that they could dump my body right in the Hudson River. George, the other guy, finally agrees. So now I’m thinking, in less than five minutes, about six blocks away, I’m getting a bullet to the head so what the fuck to do?
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The Money and His Wife
At his house, his beautiful wife greeted me on the porch. He was not there, so I assumed he was picking up the money. Right out of the blue his wife started a very stimulating conversation about all the open sex in Key West. She talked about her friends and neighbors all enjoying and sharing the good stuff as she put it, gays and straights. According to her, it was saving marriages, like orgies are right for the family. Coming from this beautiful wife, it was giving me an erection. It was clear they participated in it or sure knew a lot of people who did. Amazingly casual talk that felt a lot like an invitation to join in sometime, it was seduction. Here I am getting ready to pick up bales of weed with a guy who may be a cop, he has a gun, and all I want to do is fuck his wife on the spot, on the porch.
Lance Lancone the Last Disco Journalist
Laying there tripping , naked, with my eyes closed and in the fastest of dreams, the waterbed slowly floated up like a gentle wave when in a silent instant a wet tongue entered my ear. Someone joined me on the bed licking my ear with purpose. It felt good so with eyes closed I just let it happen. My body was rushing with excitement as I just assumed it was one of the women in the pool, another nibble from the endless candy bar that was my life at the time. Finally peeking from the corner of my eye, I saw it was a man. Not one of the beautiful blondes, a man. I did not move, no panic, I just stayed there calmly and told him he picked the only straight guy in the entire Fire Island Pines and a naked one to boot. In a heavy French accent, he started a sales pitch to get me to think otherwise. He went ahead to tell me that sex with him was as good as any woman. If I would try sex with him I would find out “he was like a pussy,” offering me unlimited cocaine and even the two women in the pool - if he could have me first. He had an overwhelming charm, and I was immensely attracted to him, but not sexually. It turned out he was the Jacques Morali who created the Village People.