Journey to Everywhere

Schwann, aka Mike Kawitzky, is a fellow traveler and member in good standing of the neurocybernetic tribe. In this memoir, he chronicles his evolution from corporate über-geek to psychedelic cybershaman (a term he invented) and introduces us to some extremely weird scenes and characters along the way.

I can vouch for that because I am one of them…along with my dear departed brother Terence, fondly and well remembered in Mike’s narrative.

In the true spirit of gonzo journalism that does Hunter S. Thompson proud, Mike chronicles a rollicking ride through the waning last decade of the twentieth century and the hopeful but anxiety-fraught first decade of the dawning Millennium.

Mike shares his accounts of his acid-fueled expeditions through the blasted badlands of the South African desert, Terence’s only visit to South Africa when he joined Mike and friends at the Rustler’s Valley retreat in ’96 and Mike’s pilgrimage to the Big Island in the fall of ’99 to visit Terence at the All Chemical Arts Conference in a sometimes-frustrating quest for ever-elusive footage and sound-bytes.

Some of that footage was successfully smuggled out under the noses of the thought police and eventually found its way into his stunning documentary, Cognition Factor (2009). I found myself sucked (willingly) into that same vortex when Mike persuaded me to visit him in 2004 and hang out for a while at his comped villa on the Spanish Costa del Sol along with his batshit crazy but nonetheless entertaining fashionista pal Joey. The invitation came with a free airline ticket to a place I’d never been, a strong incentive to take him up on it, and so I went and we had a great time tearing down the coast in his rented convertible to visit our friends in Ibiza for a few days, hang out with Robert Venosa and wife Martina, and generally act like irresponsible geezers on a lark, which we were.

Always on the lookout for unique footage, and an astronomy geek from childhood, Mike also describes some interesting vignettes from his eclipse chases in South Africa in 2002 and later in Ghana in 2006 as the official media rep for an expedition sponsored by the South African Astronomical Observatories.

Journey to Everywhere is an exciting read from the unique perspective of a fellow netizen from the far side of the planet. Mike lived those turbulent years with gusto and enthusiasm and remembers most of it…or a pretty good chunk of it anyway; what isn’t remembered may have never happened but the rest of it is all here for the reader’s delectation.

All in all it’s a great read; a tale well told and one that will resonate with many members of our generation.

Dennis McKenna

Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota

November 2012