Joseph Campbell Foundation - Bliss and all that Jazz

Bliss and all that Jazz
By Don J. (Apple Valley, California, USA)

My bliss story began in 1989 when by chance I was tuning into the San Francisco PBS TV station one evening during their pledge drive when the Moyers/Campbell The Power of Myth series was first being shown to the world. After watching the entire series with the intensity of a man with his hair on fire, I purchased the videos and later the Transformation of Myth Through Time video series.

I was at the time 56-years-old and in my first year as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in Sonoma county Calif. attempting to recover from my alcoholism, an ex-Catholic and former seminarian, in search of a higher power, when I found Joseph Campbell.

I played those videos to myself constantly for the next six years (and I'm playing them these days to the men I sponsor in the A.A. program 16-years later) and began buying Joseph's books.

Between A.A. and Joseph Campbell I was returned to sanity and given a life I could have never imagined.

Today, and for the past ten years, I have published a specialty newspaper which deals with Traditional Jazz and Ragtime music. I found this music in February 1989 when I was introduced to it by some friends of mine who had been my occasional drinking buddies when they invited me to meet them at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco one Sunday afternoon.

We hadn't seen each other for about two years, and as they approached me in the parking lot they said, "My God Don, you look different! What have you been doing?" I replied, "Well you might not believe this or then again you might, but I am an alcholic and quit drinking almost a year ago and this is my first attempt to be around people who are having fun and probably drinking to see if I can also have fun in their presences without drinking!"

They were totally amazed and couldn't believe that I was an alcoholic. They were not then and are still not alcoholics themselves to this day. Nevertheless, we went into Bimbo's where there must have been 400 people enjoying themselves dancing to this fabulous music, and I joined right in dancing and enjoying myself as well, and got to know quite a few new people who also weren't that interested in drinking but loved to dance and couldn't get enough of this music. They educated me into all the possible places to go to participate in more of this music which I immediately began to pursue as my time and finances would allow.

In March 1989 I attend a Jazz Festival at Dixieland Monterey, Calif. In April 1989 I took an Amtrak train excursion with 300 Calif. jazz fans to Seattle, Wash. and Victoria B.C. to attend the Victoria TerrifVic Jazz Party. And in June 1989 I took myself on a 7-day Jazz cruise to Alaska. I was hooked.

For the next six years I continued to be very active in my A.A. recovery and continued my involvement in as many Traditional Jazz events as I possibly could. In the process I began taking groups of people to jazz events as a way to earn some money and have fun at the same time. In the process I met the man who started the newspaper which I now own and publish.

Today, I am 73-years-old. In 1995 at the time I bought the paper, I met a lovely lady (and her mother) at a Jazz Festival. We began dating and she was interested in helping on weekends working on the job of publishing the paper. After a year-and-a-half, we got married and have both been following our bliss ever since.

I continue to buy Joseph Campbell's books and CDs. I give them away and use them to teach my A.A. sponsees how to find and follow their bliss. I have never had so much fun in my life. I have never been as peaceful and serene before in my life. I owe it all to A.A. and Joseph Campbell.

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