Some NEW Kind of Trailer Trash

This book tells a story about me, Brad Blanton, a not-so-lone ranger from the quaint, gross, violent, shit-upon antique American South. I've turned out to be a rough-cut but compassionate kind of Bubba Buddha. I am a poor kid from the hills of Virginia who overcame abuse, ignorance, and poverty to become a social activist, psychotherapist, best-selling author, pretty good father, bad guitar player, and a poor politician. It is a tale of how, for most of my life, I was often cheerfully alive, happy, and in love, and simultaneously extremely pissed off at a lot of dumb-assed people for a lot of horrible, stupid things they did to millions upon millions of other people. I give some details about that. Basically, I've lived my life as a dung beetle in the shit pile known as the United States of America during the time when its corporate capitalists took the lead in destroying the world, without me ever killing a God-damned one of them. As it's turned out, though I thought I was brave I was a coward after all, and just as full of shit as everyone else of the social classes that I have lived in and with. And I have helped keep up this ignorant, powerful, and poisonous place in the world where I grew up. I want this epithet for my epitaph: "I am glad for what I did with my life except that I sincerely think I could have helped a hell of a lot more of humankind and the Earth if I had killed more God-damned rich people." What I think is admirable and worth striving for in this world turned deaf and dumb by blind belief is taking responsibility for honesty between and among people, which means to: Have the capacity to lie, and not do it. Have the ability to control others, and by choice not do it. Confess deceits and promise not to deceive, despite knowing one can get by with it. What value do these hold? This approach is the source of the greater intelligence, or co-intelligence, and of the greater heartedness, or co-heartedness, which are now the only keys to the survival of the human species. We must advance beyond the mere capacity to deceive or dominate or control each other, or be hoisted by our own retard. At least this is the myth I live by. Out of that myth, for the last twenty or thirty years, I have designed my life consciously, according to the following vision that I came up with, based on the experiences of my life, but not determined in reaction to my life: The purpose of my life is to use my perceptiveness, intelligence, love of children, love of people, love of life, and sense of humor by writing books, designing and conducting workshops, sharing honestly with friends, giving talks, making media appearances, being with my family, and helping raise children and grandchildren in such a way as to create the possibility of a lifetime of play and service for every human being on the planet. Because of the way I have lived, which is partly a byproduct of my era in history (especially the 1960s and 1970s, when I came of age, left home, got married, had kids, became a psychotherapist, and took part in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements), and also a byproduct of what has interested me, I have learned how to employ my mind in service to my being, which is who I am. My being identifies strongly with other beings. Now that I know that who I am is not my ego anymore, I feel right proud of it! Oops! There I go again! . . . And that is what my life is like and has been like for a long time, which is what I intend to share with you. Brad Blanton, Sparrowhawk Farm, Stanley, Virginia

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