My Life as a Pro

My Life as a Pro, began as a person who read poetry out loud at Cafe Basement in Greenwich Village. My best poems were by T.S. Eliot, EE Cummings, and Robert Frost, but I also read sonnets from Shakespeare. To read a poem you have to understand it. I also read quartrains from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Mostly I got quarters in my basket, sometimes a dollar bill. I worked Fri, Sat, Sun and 3 sets per day. I had to pay from my rent at a cold-water 5 story walk up on Washington Square North. In those days, there was no decent food in the Village. So I had to go uptown to get hot food. Folk songs were big in those days. They were very poetic. Judy Collins and Bob Dylan were big. I was into the Beatles and Donovan and Joan Baez. Mary Travers worked at the Purple Onion just across the street, and she came over to Cafe Basement at least once per week. In the last 1960’s I studied in Taiwan, a province of China, and read Tao Te Ching in Mandarin. Even to this day, I am still a Taoist, although formally a Christian have been confirmed by the Anglican Bishop of Lausanne in Switzerland. Like Mary Baker Eddy, I see Jesus as a human being, not the creator of the entire Universe. I see Jesus as a teacher, not God almighty. Jesus got crucified. Bad things happen to good people. Here I am 80 years old, and I can testify to that.