Goldstar's Booklist

Hi. We were in Montanita for a week in the sun on the coast. More rastas than Ive ever seen in one place. They re all wandering around with dreads and rainbows selling trinkets. I made lots of freinds and played in the bar. For the full moon drank down my sanpedro cactus tea and watched a hardcore reggaeband. (San pedro cactus probably has the worst taste Ive ever tasted but once its in there its probably the best feeling Ive ever had. Tons of psychedlic energy. Really healhty feeling) All these dudes have dreads below their knees. JAH. I truly love rastas above all cultures I think they are somekind of advanced race from outerspace. They kind of remind me of Ben Laden too. Also they remind me of ancient Egyptians. That place was way too fun though so we had to depart. before it was to late.
Now Im in Vilcabamba Ecuador also known as the valley of longevity. Tons of real oldies wandering around. Lush green hills etc. The pace is incredibly slow. Slowness is everywhere. I bought my fresh coffee in a brown paper bag. Picked some lemons from the lemon tree. There's a book store at the top of the hill. Ive been reading so much holy shite! That's one of the reasons I like to travel. Mostly going from place to place exchanging books. There are many interesting books to exchange on the road. Ive decided to recapitulate my reading list of the past few months;
Catch a fire by Timothy White: Too good. A massive tome of a biography of almighty BOB. Goes through his youth to his death, explaing rasta beleifs, jamaican history, the music industry. Bob's life was crazy. I really do beleive he was a holy prophet. His life certainly wasnt easy tho, filled with violence and death and murder. Many people dont think he's perfect because of the way rastas are with women. Id like to ask Bob about that. He certainly did make a lot of love. Ilike when they describe his life at the climax. He had this mansion in Jamacia where him and all his rasta buddies lived. Everyday they would wake up, smoke reefer and go on a big long jog. Then they would wash their dreads in a waterfall and go back to the mansion to eat a big lunch of veggies and fish (proper rastas dont eat any other meat and dont do any drugs other than herb), then they would play soccer, smoke more reefer and play music. Sounds ideal to me. I like that their spirituality puts emphasis on excersice and pleasure.

Black Elk Speaks John G Rehardt; Whoah this knowcked me on my arse. I got a super old copy too from 1960. It tells the story of Black elk this crazy indian in the states. The author heard the story directly from Black Elk. He lived before the white man, through battles, through surrender, then he joined the circus and travelled to England to meet the queen, then he came back and had more battles. The whole thing is freaking tragic. Black elk was a shaman who heard voices and had visions. The Indians were right and our ansestors were wrong. But who is to blame in the clashing of cultures? I wrote a song about this.

The Incas Garcilaso de la vega: This tells the story of all the 12 inca incas and their eventual demise at the hands of those bastards the conquistadors. The author is writing from that time period so its first hand information. He's a half inca half spanish mestizo. The incas sound like a pretty darned advanced society. Like ants. They didnt have writing only knots. The inca went around each generation and conquered all the mini civilizations making this huge empire by the time the spaniards came. He illiminated practices he thought were bad like sex in the bum and human sacrifice. (some human sacrifice was ok) He made everyone worship the sun as the ultimate. He built insane wonderful palaces and gardens and canals and in every city he would have convents filled with beautifull virgens. Things were pretty sweet for him and his family. Then the Spaniards came and they were like demons. They raped everyone and took the whole palce over in the name of Jesus, burned all the sweetest stuff and ripped apart the rest. Stealing all the gold for their king back in Spain. Most of it got sunk going over the ocean though. Man this story pisses me off even more than the black elk one. How can we repair what was lost? Who is to blame in the clashing of culture. The ironic thing is that its all written into a prophecy made by the first inca. Also same as black elk.

The Amazon, Shamans, God and Ayahuasca: Patricio Salvador. Great book with beautiful illustrations done by the author. Its like an instruction guide for taking ayahuasca. Ive already talked a lot about ayahuasca. Its a meditation tool.

Bulfinchs Mythology;the age of chivalry- Hellsya! this is a small book with tiny print. Took me a long time to plow through. Relearned all the glory and anguish of Arthur. Learned about a whole bunch of crazy massive battles in the middle ages. Robin hood. Finnally rapping it all up with The legends of Charlemain which Im not sure if Ive read before. The Charlegmain stories are basically a continuation of the Arthur legends in France. Charlemaign was kind of this idiot french king who was constantly fighting the Saracens. Doesnt talk much about him mostly about his Paladins who were always running around drinking magic potions, falling in love, fighting giants, getting entrapped on enchatned islands by fairies, riding hippogriffs, etc. Its almost impossible to follow since there are so many heroes running here and there doing the craziest things. Orlando is the funniest and best. After spending most of his career searching for this girl who he was in love with through enchanment, he finds out she got married to some nobody. This makes him insane and he goes running around the country naked randomly deafeating every knight in his path and eating raw chicken. Then one of his buddies needs to travel to africa on a Unicorn and slay dragon and meet some archangels who give him Orlando's sense back. Hilarious!

Bit of a Blur alex james: This was a bit of fluff funny since Ive never really heard much of blur. Apparently they were the biggest British band since a long time! This guy lives the utmost rockstar life. Its almost a fairy tail. Very interesting and entertaining read. Makes me want fame and money! but alas. Also I learned that the singer from Blur is also the singer from the band Gorillaz. I really like Gorillaz. Maybe Ill buy some Blur albums. They seem like the real deal.

The Sirius Mystery Robert Temple: Oh oh. This is what Im reading now. What on earth have I walked into. Another massive tome of a book. This guy uses ancient babylonian and egyptian history to prove that aliens visted the planet 5000 years ago. He's super paranoid too the intro to the book talks about all these times the cia has tried to knock him off. My mind is getting blown. He's trying to tell me that certain stars have a harmonic connection to the earth like the way that there are harmonics on the guitar. So certain stars have harmonic connections which allow certain types of energy to flow between them faster than the speed of light. Enough said, I was sitting there staring off into space, one hand on my coffee cup with spittle rolling down my chin before Miriam pinched me. Im not sure how long I was contemplating that.

Visions of the Gods Erik Von Daniken; This guy is famously out there. He's the one who first put forth these alternative interpretations of history involving space aliens and the like. Ive read him a lot and think this line of thinking is on the right track. He's also very charasmatic and interesting speaker. This book is a survey of all the times people have seen visions throughout history. Like when some children in france 500 years ago see the vergen mary and then thousands of people flock there to see the miracle. Its crazy how much this time of thing has happened even right up to modern times. Von Daniken thinks that its aliens. Aliens from another dimension.

Anyways, so thats the books Ive read that I can remember. I also read the bagavadgita and a whole bunch of other hare krishna books a bunch of times when I was with them. There are porbably a few other s that Ive forgotten about and exchanged. I just wanted to write this stuff out so that I can make some connections between things in my mind.