The Secret Files of Johnny Allen Shaw

What I've been doing with myself

This part of my site is mostly for those who have known me in the past and take an interest in what I've been doing since they've lost track of me, especially my mother and the rest of my family and childhood friends. But it's not some dull, pukey, yuppie recounting of all my successes like so many "personal info" pages you might have seen; "Ooh, then I got my degree, opened up the La Puka Botique, and married the ginchiest girl in Youth Ministries." Uh, uh. My life has been extremely different than what most people might have experienced; I've spent the last ten years hittchiking across the country, stopping here and there for no more than a year at a time, finding shelter where I could and generally having nothing but the clothes on my back.

I'm trying to write so as to interest all readers, so if you like a good story, then read on. If not, maybe you'll like the other pages I've been working on which are linked up at the top.

LIFE IN THE STREETS

Having left home at fourteen or fifteen, I went from my hometown of Puyallup, Wa. north to Seattle, and there learned life in the streets the hard way. It's a wonder I ever survived. I learned alot about how to avoid deadly situations and to appreciate what little I had.

As I began to mature I discovered that life didn't have to be a constant struggle to find the next meal. I realized that the police were not able to see into every dark crevasse of the streets and were not going to bust me as a runaway as long as I didn't give them a reason. So I started using my talents to get by; playing music in the Pike Place Market (I used to perform with Artis the Spoonman long before he was on MTV) doing "middle-man" pot deals and hustling crafts I made out of junk. I figured out that, with the right gear, I wouldn't freeze to death if I camped in a Park and that the only people who get robbed or killed are those that asked for it. Things were getting easier.

HIPPIE DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

By the time I was Eighteen, I had the street scene pretty much figured out. I had hitchhiked up and down the coast and was hanging out at the college scene at the University of Washington. The U-district. Or as we called it, "The Ave". What a blast! to have normal friends who weren't hardcore street types drooling over a bottle of cheap wine. This was where my hippie days truly began. I grew to love the Rainbow people and admired them for their kind and concientious ways and still do. The Seattle Peace Concerts were my haven and Tribal Therapy chanted my mantra.

THE COST OF FREEDOM IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE

When Operation Desert Shield began, I figured I was going to have to leave the country. I was preparing to go to Eastern Washington and cross the border into Canada through the Okanogan. The Peace Concerts were coming up, so I decided to stay for them and maybe long enough to see if a war was going to break out. I'm sure glad I did. On August 26th, 1990, one of the concert organizers and an acquaintence of mine, Don Glenn, Got up on the stage and announced that, "...we're not leaving this park until the United states pulls out of Saudi Arabia." At first he was met with silence and blank stares, but slowly, as what he said began to sink in, the crowd erupted with applause and howls of approval. What had formerly been known as Gasworks Park was magically transformed into Peaceworks Park in that moment and I knew what I had to do. Instead of running away from the problem, I would face it head on with others of like mind.

Now, we knew that George Bush wasn't going to see us on CNN and say, "Look at those hippies down in that park, Barb. The war thing, not gonna do it." The point was to make other people aware that they didn't have to go along with this war just because the President said so. I became one of the Big Four, the original vigilists who stayed in the park twenty-four hours a day (give or take) for the next eight months. All kinds of things went on from the greatest of revels to the absolute worst of disasters, including the brutal rape and murder of a fourteen-year-old girl.

More on Peaceworks Park will be forthcoming.

GO EAST, YOUNG MAN

While the vigil was winding down, I met a beautiful, raven-haired girl around the fourth of July. She lived in Oregon and was in town because her father was attending a convention in Seattle. She took me up to her room at the Sheraton (me, in the Sheraton!) where we, uh... read our bibles and played monopoly, yeah, that's it. I ended up going to Oregon to be with her. It seemed like we were playing Monopoly all the time, in the bushes, in the kitchen in her parent's room... I guess we were really compatible players. Anyway, she wen't to college at Smith, way out in Northampton, Massachusetts. When it came time for her to go, I told her I'd see her there. Thus began my biggest hitchhiking venture to date.

More Later

CHASING THE RAINBOW

I went to the 26th annual Rainbow Gathering this year in central Oregon. Wasn't that just the coolest thing ever? You haven't lived until you've seen the Gathering. I highly recommend it to everyone. Everyone but cops, they can all stay home. While I was there I toted around my notebook everywhere I went and managed to come up with several pages of notes, which I'll be sharing here.

I took the Green Tortoise from Vacaville,CA. to Eugene. There I bumped into a street musician named Richard who let me store my bass guitar at his studio while I was at the Gathering. I screwed around in Eugene for a while and ran into some freinds I hadn't seen in the seven years since I left Seattle.

I took a city bus out as far as Cougar Hot Springs with a sign which simply read "Rainbow Gathering" About fifteen minuites later I had a ride.

More later