Passing the hat at the end of the show...

I mostly keep my sub-personalities apart, but any lightweight researcher could easily compile a profile as I spend very little time hiding behind avatars. I never felt the actor's need to hide behind a mask, a different name, etc.

Still, in exceptional circumstances we have to break our own rules. Apart from working as a juggler and circus worker and film puppeteer I have spent much of my life reading. If I had followed through on my school work I might have ended up doing Psychology or Philosophy or Anthropology or something. As the physical jobs of the vaudeville/variety world often appeal to less wordy people than me, it often surprises people to find out just how introverted I act at times.

Anyway, for the last two years I have worked with an amazing group of people in an online forum - the Maybe Logic Academy - mostly under the tutorship of the founder, one of my favourite authors - Robert Anton Wilson - someone it would prove hard to categorise in a few words (or even a few books!)

Suffice to say that I had recently prepared myself for yet another brain-stimulating course with 'Bob' or 'RAW' as we sometimes call him, when I heard he had become very ill. At the age of 74, confined to a wheelchair with Post-Polio Syndrome he has remained cheerful and optimistic to an incredible degree, but it seems as though he may have knocked on Death's Door recently. I don't think he got an answer. However, the course got postponed indefinitely, and now he racks up medical bills that (in spite of his many books still in print) could prove just as crippling. His student group have rallied around, to support and publicise attempts to cover the costs.

He has begun auctioning items on eBay...the first one seems to have done well so far, with bidding up to $500, and if you don't do those kind of Red Nose Day things then you can simply send cash and good wishes to him directly through PayPal - account olgaceline@gmail.com

[UPDATE: 8th July: that link went to Driftless Music's eBay, but Bob has his own profile now, and our latest scam involves inventing our own currency and getting Bob to sign them. For more details on the art/satire/revolutionary aspects of printing your own money see the links here - or dig through RAW's books, which contain quite a lot of commentary on the 'magic' of the Treasury...]

Of course, if you haven't read any of the books (or even heard of him) then you can ignore this, or rush out and start a fun adventure - with his books on everything from conspiracy theory (stuff he covered in the 1970s - 30 years before the f'ing Da Vinci Code) to Quantum Psychology, and essays on libertarianism, economics, James Joyce, etc. Eclectic stuff - all lucidly written and often hilarious.

For more links to the online Academy he set up, to his website, and related fan sites, etc - just go over to the Only Maybe blog which we started a year ago for updating people outside the Academy walls...