Of Mule And Man

April 2009

LOS ANGELES, CA

Do you know about serendipity? Well, you’re holding it in your hands. The word has always tickled me—as does the sense of wonder that comes from having amazing things happen or discoveries made, quite spontaneously, as if by accident. This book is all of that—all part of a kind of magical experience. I had no intention of writing my first book—the one from which this one has sprung (but that’s another story)—so just imagine my delight at the birth of Of Mule and Man.

Writing Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist was an adventure in itself, one for which I’m enormously grateful. But the process of introducing it to people, the “book tour” effort necessary to allow an offering from an independent publisher to get a modicum of attention in an extraordinarily competitive marketplace, has not only been a surprise, it has turned into one of the great treats of my life. With every stop on the tour cosponsored by individuals or groups I’ve worked with in efforts to secure social justice across the world, these travels have been a great way to say thanks to them, and thanks to America for giving us a reason to believe a just society is possible. And the openness and willingness of people across the U.S.—in so-called red and blue states— to welcome me, to come and say hello, to accept the invitation to hear what I have to say, has enriched me in ways not easily put into words.

That being the case, the chance to do a second tour, this time with the paperback release of Just Call Me Mike, was too good an opportunity to resist. And little did I know, when Johnny Temple, the publisher, asked me to write a journal of the experience for the Huffington Post, that this larky diary would turn into this chronicle, this multifaceted tale of an adventure, an odd kind of love story, and, in all, a heart-wrenching, mind-altering, spirit-raising, brain-twisting happening. It’s a story of what was a total hoot!

From California to the New York Island, as Woody Guthrie sang it, my … well, I’ll leave it to you to figure out what she/he was to me … Mule and I traveled the highways and byways of this great nation—and back again. We saw the high country and the low, the deserts and mountains, the rusty, dusty, boarded-up towns and the bright, shiny, skyscraperladen cities. We saw extraordinary beauty, natural and otherwise, the horror wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the waste laid by the Iraq War, the remnants of the industrial strength that once powered our nation, the changes caused by global warming, the homeless who’ve been left out and the hopeful who believe it can yet be made right.

I found long-lost friends and made new ones, discovered long-lost relatives and reclaimed them. I saw evidence—everywhere—of the loving embrace M*A*S*H enjoys. So many people came out to laugh with me over memories of the television show, and also to share stories of first watching it with their mothers and fathers or grandparents and now doing the same with their children and grandchildren; it touched me deeply. The connection, it was never more clear, between countless numbers of people and that show, is engraved on their hearts—as it is on mine.

And in every place Mule and I stopped there were books and book people, readers and writers and those who love words. We talked show business and politics, social concerns and personal ones. Poets and students, the young and the old, were all joined in a mutual sense of gratitude for the possibility of human survival that is promised in the millions and millions of words around us, words written by cynics and lovers, the great and the small, the hopeful and the hopeless, all with a need to put down thoughts, to leave some trace of themselves, for the benefit of those who come after. (As with my first national book tour, political and social justice groups cosponsored each event. You will find details about some of them in the pages that follow—often in their own words—along with a Resource Guide at the end of the book with contact information for all of them.)

These bookstores and libraries are temples, in a way, even the glittering chain stores, to some degree, but mostly the struggling little independents, the mom-and-pop stores; these places, run by big-hearted, literature-loving souls who relish bathing in human knowledge, are havens for the world’s seekers. Those who prowl the stacks gain confidence that there is a reason for being—for some, that there is finally a purpose to their existence—by delving into the hearts and minds, the thoughts, ideas and ideals of human beings courageous enough to set them down for others to touch, consider, take in, laugh at, accept, reject, enjoy, identify with and, as a result, become more than they were.

In that spirit I welcome you to this whimsical journey that I shared with a … well, with a machine … an inanimate object that became … animate. It became Mule: my friend, my companion, someone I loved.

This is a mostly lighthearted sharing of a fabulous trip. It was a wacky time, but if there are laughs, and I trust there are, there are also discoveries, some hopefully thoughtful observations and some wonderful experiences, all of them part of coming into contact with the decency, generosity and hope that are, to me, the spirit of America.