John P. Barlow - Mother America Night: My Life in Crazy Times

Imagine you are hitchhiking and an ancient Mustang pulls up and the most interesting guy in the world beckons you to hop in. Hes driving 100 miles per hour all night long, and for the next three days hes telling you tales, each one bigger and badder and more profound than the one before it. This is a hilarious, rhetorical, and soul-prodding book. I never feel so alive as when Barlow is telling me a story, and here are a lifes worth.

Kevin Kelly

John Perry Barlow unmoored us from the clay of Earth and delivered us into a place of digital freedom. He leaves us with this kaleidoscopic necklace of colorful vignettes painted in his unique and poignant way.

Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer

Reading John Perry Barlows book is like a spirited visit with him. He was a rebel, having almost mystical and cosmic gifts of communication, wisdom, and awareness. Mankind was his cause. His book confirms the solace he found when he learned to love and be loved.

Alan K. Simpson, U.S. senator, Wyoming (retired)

It was easy to befriend John Perry Barlowhe was a visionary of the worldwide Web and prophet of cyberspace, the idea of the Internet as a libertarian realm beyond the reach of governments. He was also, at various times, a cattle rancher in Wyoming and a lyricist for the rock band Grateful Dead.Barlow had the air of a global vagabond.

Financial Times

Barlow is the uncrowned poet laureate of cyberspace.

Mitchell Kapor, cofounder of the Electronic Freedom Frontier

I loved this book. I am a slow reader, but I read it twice in three and a half days. I have since gone back and begun reading chapters in no particular order, which seems fine to me as well. I first met John about forty years ago, and we have been fast friends ever since.

Ramblin Jack Elliott

I am determined to learn how to accept love, which I think may be the secret of life. If you can accept love, you can do damn near everything else. Giving love is easy and so most people go about thinking that theyre fully capable in the love department because they can give it. But as I have learned, that is not the case, and how could it be? If you dont accept it, where are you going to get love to give?

My mentor in this regard is the only person Ive ever met in my life who can seamlessly accept love: Gilberto Gil, the great musician and former minister of culture in Brazil. For him, it appears to be effortless. Since I would say that he is the most beloved person in the most loving country on the planet, its very lucky for him and them that he can accept it so easily.

On April 16, 2015, Gil was performing at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. On my way back from Huntsville, Texas, where I had been lured to give a speech, I spent hours tramping around the Atlanta airport in a brand-new pair of cowboy boots while waiting for a flight that would get me back home in time for Gils show.

For years, I had been getting my boots from the Olathe boot company in Kansas. They were made of Norwegian elk leather, which is especially pliant and so could accommodate a bunion I have on my left foot that somebody once said should be in the Boone and Crockett big game trophy book of bunions if there had ever been one.

I already had about ten pairs of these boots that had been kept in walking condition by a wizard in San Francisco who said he could restore any cowboy boot that had ever been made, and, by golly, he could. But I had not been to see him for a while and in an act of desperation, I bought a pair of Norwegian elk boots from another company. Although they were not pliant, I said to myself, How bad could they be during a short trip?

Although I arrived in San Francisco too late to see him perform, Gil and I did then go back to the Mark Hopkins hotel, where the two of us sat up all night long talking in the lobby by ourselves. It was a rich moment, and an ironic one as well, because at the time, I had no idea whatsoever that I was about to embark on the greatest experience I could ever imagine in terms of teaching me how to accept love.

Having worn a gigantic hole in the index toe of my left foot by walking for hours through the Atlanta airport in those brand-new boots, I woke up the next morning, which also happened to be the twenty-first anniversary of the worst day of my life, with my right shoulder on fire. From past experience, I knew right away that I had contracted a staph infection in my blood and it had taken refuge in a major joint.

I went to Stanford Medical Center, where they said, Youre not running a fever, and since your white blood cell count is not elevated, we dont think youve got a staph infection. Take these pain killers and sleep aids and go home and see if it doesnt improve over a couple of days.

I went home. I took the pain killers. I went to sleep and when I woke up, all four of my major joints were on fire, both shoulders and both knees. I called my friend Dr. Beth Kaplan, who was then an emergency room physician at San Francisco General Hospital. She came down and checked me out and said, Youre dying. Weve got to get you the fuck out of here. Which I then confirmed by puking up about a quart of blood.

They came and took me back to the Stanford Medical Center by ambulance. At Beths insistence, they did this hideous thing called lavage where they opened up my joints and used a stream of antiseptics and antibiotics to clean out the infection. In the process, they also cleaned out all that was left of the cartilage in those joints.