Hi 👋 stumbled across your viral post so thanks algorithms!! Traverse City is beautiful in summertime and brutal in winter. I wish you the best both here and there!
NO PRESSURE, but for anyone who finds Substack's paid model to be as confusing as I do, you can upgrade to a paid subscription by going into your account settings. Click your profile icon, go to Settings, find the Subscriptions section, and click "Edit" or "Upgrade to paid" next to the publication. New posts will always be free; this is entirely optional.
Wow it’s really cool that your writing is getting traction.
I’ve also considered writing about some stories from my life because I’ve had a very strange, wild and complicated life. I just wonder if anyone would bother to read it.
Just as a short summary, I left home at 17 and hitchhiked all over the US. At 19 I got a one way ticket to Paris for $100 and landed with $83 and a beat up acoustic guitar. I hitch hiked and hopped freight trains all over Europe while living in a tent and playing punk rock songs for coins on the street. I nearly starved until I got a job washing dishes for $1 an hour in Portugal.
It’s only gotten weirder since then, 40 years later.
I’ve lived in Mexico City where I made friends with some street artists and ended up becoming one myself, surviving by selling my art in the Zocalo.
I’ve lived in Bangkok in an alley just wide enough to walk through, eaten psychedelic mushrooms with a Thai royal family princess, survived the 2004 tsunami by hanging onto a tree, lived on the street for a month in Guatemala, worked as a runner for a Mexican cartel, spent 26 summers in a row on fishing boats in Alaska, bought and sold gemstones smuggled out of Burma in the mouths of people who swam across the river, played Jenga and shot pool with Cambodian prostitutes, been charged by a grizzly bear, smoked opium out of a rocket launcher tube with the Hmong tribe in the mountains in Laos, shook hands with a wild Orangutan in the jungle on the island of Sumatra, played a reporter in a Korean action movie, got chased around Bangkok by Unocal oil company goons after I stole a phone book with the numbers of their executives and asked about their human rights record in Burma, I’ve hidden from the police inside a Buddhist temple, saved my girlfriend’s life twice, partied at a cartel ranch in Sinaloa, lived in a hut in the jungle with an old communist rebel in Indonesia…Those are just a few of my experiences.
I honestly can’t even tell a lot of my stories to normal people because it’s so beyond their imagination, they think I’m making it up.
So it’s all kind of bottled up in my head and I’d like to get it out there just to do it.
I don’t even care if anyone believes it or not. I know what I’ve done and my girlfriend has been there for most of it so she can help with remembering the details.
Anyway seeing your post here makes me think I should just start writing and put it out there. Thanks for the inspiration 🙏
I just finished writing a 6 page story about my experience in Nepal in 2006 at the end of the civil war when the Maoists called a nationwide general strike and shut down the country. I need help formatting it for Substack, if you’d be interested in helping I’ll send you a link. DM me if you’re interested.
Hi Tara, I discovered you today mid-night browsing on Substack unable to sleep. I read through your long post that went viral. I think that's probably one of the most fascinating things I've read for a long time full of real insight. A compelling read and really moving personal story - sending you best wishes from Australia... please keep writing and posting.
Hi 👋 stumbled across your viral post so thanks algorithms!! Traverse City is beautiful in summertime and brutal in winter. I wish you the best both here and there!
Oh do you live in TC??? Thanks for reading!
This post is a good idea! I subscribed and shared your grooming essay with my Gen Y/Z daughters and wife. It hit a nerve
Thank you so much for reading and sharing! I'm sure it was really meaningful to them to feel seen and heard by you.
Cheers Tara, looking forward to your posts and comments…
This World is indeed frictional at its current best…
Having similar souls to bind the wounds inflicted seems a remedy best prescribed in time ✨🙏✨
NO PRESSURE, but for anyone who finds Substack's paid model to be as confusing as I do, you can upgrade to a paid subscription by going into your account settings. Click your profile icon, go to Settings, find the Subscriptions section, and click "Edit" or "Upgrade to paid" next to the publication. New posts will always be free; this is entirely optional.
Thank you for reading!
Wow it’s really cool that your writing is getting traction.
I’ve also considered writing about some stories from my life because I’ve had a very strange, wild and complicated life. I just wonder if anyone would bother to read it.
Just as a short summary, I left home at 17 and hitchhiked all over the US. At 19 I got a one way ticket to Paris for $100 and landed with $83 and a beat up acoustic guitar. I hitch hiked and hopped freight trains all over Europe while living in a tent and playing punk rock songs for coins on the street. I nearly starved until I got a job washing dishes for $1 an hour in Portugal.
It’s only gotten weirder since then, 40 years later.
I’ve lived in Mexico City where I made friends with some street artists and ended up becoming one myself, surviving by selling my art in the Zocalo.
I’ve lived in Bangkok in an alley just wide enough to walk through, eaten psychedelic mushrooms with a Thai royal family princess, survived the 2004 tsunami by hanging onto a tree, lived on the street for a month in Guatemala, worked as a runner for a Mexican cartel, spent 26 summers in a row on fishing boats in Alaska, bought and sold gemstones smuggled out of Burma in the mouths of people who swam across the river, played Jenga and shot pool with Cambodian prostitutes, been charged by a grizzly bear, smoked opium out of a rocket launcher tube with the Hmong tribe in the mountains in Laos, shook hands with a wild Orangutan in the jungle on the island of Sumatra, played a reporter in a Korean action movie, got chased around Bangkok by Unocal oil company goons after I stole a phone book with the numbers of their executives and asked about their human rights record in Burma, I’ve hidden from the police inside a Buddhist temple, saved my girlfriend’s life twice, partied at a cartel ranch in Sinaloa, lived in a hut in the jungle with an old communist rebel in Indonesia…Those are just a few of my experiences.
I honestly can’t even tell a lot of my stories to normal people because it’s so beyond their imagination, they think I’m making it up.
So it’s all kind of bottled up in my head and I’d like to get it out there just to do it.
I don’t even care if anyone believes it or not. I know what I’ve done and my girlfriend has been there for most of it so she can help with remembering the details.
Anyway seeing your post here makes me think I should just start writing and put it out there. Thanks for the inspiration 🙏
Please start writing and posting Ronald.
I just finished writing a 6 page story about my experience in Nepal in 2006 at the end of the civil war when the Maoists called a nationwide general strike and shut down the country. I need help formatting it for Substack, if you’d be interested in helping I’ll send you a link. DM me if you’re interested.
Hi Tara, I discovered you today mid-night browsing on Substack unable to sleep. I read through your long post that went viral. I think that's probably one of the most fascinating things I've read for a long time full of real insight. A compelling read and really moving personal story - sending you best wishes from Australia... please keep writing and posting.