The universally themed book titled, 'The Karmic Car Cycles', is a hilarious romp of car related misadventures by the author/protagonist Cliff R. Livingstone. The book hits the ground running and is still running at the end. Having led one of the wackiest, most unusual, and so far unlikely lives on the planet, the author romps through these awesome and oftentimes unbelievable Karmic Car adventures at the rate of about ten laughs a second. The author proposes that his car misadventures occurred because he had a Karmic Car Cycle going on. He then builds the case though a series of hilarious 'vignettes' that work in their right own over and above the narrative. In writing it is hard to find an approach that stands out from the crowd. But this is what Livingstone has done with this distinctive work which lives up to its billing as a 'non-stop romp, morning, noon and night'. The writing style is uproariously funny, conversational, wry, even whimsical at times and is never less than totally entertaining. The book is anything but your standard bowl of cornflakes. Writing is about addressing other people. Mr. Livingstone has accurately identified the things about his life's experiences which could be of interest to others. This gives the 'Karmic Car Cycles' a more universal appeal than an average straight forward narrative novel might offer. The book also has a universal appeal which everyone can enjoy, in the sense that while located mainly in Canada, the misadventures could just as easily have happened to anybody, anywhere in the world whether rich, poor, male, female, sane, zany or just plain still in their boots. Likewise, the author's self-imposed criterion that all included material be entertaining and/or thought provoking for the benefit of others is a rule from which many writers could benefit.

The Karmic Car Cycles

By Cliff Livingstone

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Cliff Livingstone
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-0826-0

Chapter One

The Karmic Car Cycles

Parallel Universes

Scientists claim parallel universes exist. In a sense they're right. We metaphorically co-exist in parallel universes every day of our lives, we just don't recognize them. A good part of most days we spend at the office or home doing one thing, part of the day we spend with family and friends doing something else altogether, and the weekends we usually spend getting drunk or something entirely different yet again.

Except for those who are self employed or in the pokey, the twains usually don't meet. So ergo, accumulatively, each adds up to a completely separated, but distinctly related parallel universe.

I have been in a parallel universe about car since before I could drive. This crazy car universe contains those annoying little slices of life that for some, like me, always seem to go off as regular as clockwork. Namely, that you get a traffic ticket and you really hadn't done anything. So what the heck is going on?

The fact is, that even though it isn't obvious, you actually did deserve the ticket and everything like it. The reason is because of that little understood fact of human existence lovingly called by some, Karma. The Karma in the alternate parallel universe I'm talking about is as metaphorical as it gets and is the universally little recognized institution of "Karmic Car Cycles".

If you haven't received an unfair traffic ticket yet, you've probably been more lucky than undeserving. If you have, you no doubt live right in the middle of this particular parallel universe, and chances are that at least half the stories in this volume will also apply to you or your friends in some appreciable way.

At any rate, I'm sure you will be able to at least sympathize with me about them. If for no other reason than for counting your lucky stars, or because Murphy never caught wind of you.

When re-remembering the material for this book, I one day suddenly realized the inordinate number of times I had seemed to have run inadvertently afoul of the law for traffic related offences, but hadn't really done anything worth getting railroaded about. At least not in the sense of deliberately trying to break the law or trying to get away with something. Spirit of the law, intent of the law, I never did figure out which one was worse if you broke it.

Whichever one was the more important at any rate, my point is that it was never by "From the heart" did anything improper ever I do. Even though the authorities sure like to hang that one on everybody.

Similarly, I started to see how many times I had been in a vehicle when my hair was raised by some sort of hairy incident, or my feathers ruffled by something beyond my control and convenience, where the circumstances had been right out of the loony bin.

Some people never get a ticket in their entire life no matter how hard they flagrantly flaunt the law. Like speeding. I never deliberately speed.

Likewise, if a traffic light is out, some people see that as the opportunity of a lifetime and immediately pull a fast one. Others like me instantly go into a cautious and courteous mode so as not to get clocked by one of those others coming the other way.

In general, in my driving, I always drove by an extra gentile fashion to be on the outlook for the opportunists so specified above. Yet I always seemed to be getting into hot water with Johnny Law no matter how square I did it. Like a jay walking ticket which didn't make much sense.

I also looked at all the unseemly and untoward "what are the odds" type things which always seem to be happening to me involving motor vehicles or anything that runs on gasoline. Like buying a brand new tire and running over a big fat nail twenty minutes later.

I finally figured out that it was probably because I was also living in the parallel universe of Cars, and had inadvertently set up a Karmic Car Cycle when I was still a kid in high school in Vancouver.

You know how Karma is supposed to work. You do something bad or nasty in one lifetime and you come back in the next to make amends. It's like a ledger. The not-so-good stuff you do all goes into the book as "bad" Karma. In the next lifetime, the good stuff you do goes in as "good" Karma.

If all goes well, and you watch your Ps and Qs real carefully, eventually, the book is balanced and you're off the hook. Or so goes the theory

I decided that the Karmic Car Cycles worked in a somewhat similar manner. The rules were simple, though it all happens on the physical plane instead of in some metaphysical plane of the pundits. Secondly, it all happens in the same lifetime instead of over many. Thirdly, the Gods of Cars are the keepers of the ledger instead of supposed higher spiritual factors looking down from above.

Otherwise, the mechanics are just as simple. Namely, the bad stuff you do goes in as an "Innie". The bad stuff that happens to you comes back out as an "Outie". Similarly, the good stuff you do also comes out as 'Outies' because it helps counterbalance the books against any bad 'Innies' you may have on record which had gone in.

Not to get confused, the general world day to day good stuff that happens to you is usually a bonus for your regular Karma that doesn't have anything to do with the Karmic Car Cycles. In short, say I were to break the law, or was instrumental in a vehicular situation which was not exactly good form under the circumstance, then it would go into my Karmic Car Cycle ledger as an "Innie". If I help an old lady across the street that goes into my regular Karma. Similarly, if I swiped a racing form from a convenience store, that would be regular Karma, and bad.

On the other hand, if I got an unfair traffic ticket, or was involved in a vehicular situation that was decidedly 'In my face' under the circumstances, or I did something to make the Car Gods smile favourably, it would come out as a Karmic Car Cycle "Outie".

In a nutshell, if you screw the pooch it's an "Innie". And it's an "Outie" if the pooch screws you. "Innie", "Outie", "Innie", "Outie", kind of sounds like your belly button when struggling to get control of your weight.

Just to be sure that we're all still in clear here again, the Karmic Car Cycles are not the great wheels of Karma which are said to tie you inexorably to your past as a responsibility. Those are another kind of thing over in another parallel universe which is a lot harder to access.

The Karmic Car Cycles are great wheels like Karma nevertheless, but which inexorably tie you only to the present according to the things you do in front of the cops, or are done to you by others involving anything that moves faster under power than you do and those around them.

Some people flaunt the system their whole lives and never seem to get caught or have to pay retribution. Others, who are a little more sensitive to Karmic Car Cycle effects, get away with the littler things but pay big for the larger ones.

Others, like me, who are so finely tuned to the Karmic Car Cycles that they pay for every little nicky nork thing you could possibly imagine, have a Karmic Car Cycle going on at a frantic pace that never wants to give it a rest.

If you are one of those like me, you need to know that the Car Gods are exceptionally good bookkeepers and don't let you get away with a thing. I therefore decided that my non-stop montage of unfair tickets and unfriendly car like occurrences over the years were probably therefore on the payback or "Outie" side of a big Karmic Car Cycle ledger.

This is all tongue in cheek of course. There is no such thing as the great wheel of Karma. Just your complete responsibility to take full responsibility in a next lifetime for all the things you did in a previous lifetime which may not have been so cool. A creator is responsible for their creation as long as their creation exists.

The idea of a Karmic Kar Cycle on the loose however, is far too much fun to pass up. Besides, just about everybody has been there, did it, and won a tee shirt at the local bottled drink festival for doing something at least a teeny bit naughty involving cars at least once or twice in their lifetime. So for causing all my problems, I decided to gibe the Karmic Car Cycles the nod.

One last thing, since nobody in the universe except you and I are keeping the Karma score such as it occurs within this volume, a clerical error or two is therefore not beyond the realm of possibility. If you see something I record as an "Outie" and you think it should definitely be an "Innie" or visa versa, what can I say. The important thing to remember is that there is almost no such thing as a 'good Innie', and almost no such thing as a bad "Outie".

Similarly, if you are one of those types with photographic memory, and you have to know that of all the things on the planet which I am, someone with a photographic memory is definitely not one of them, and you see that the slate has gone off track a little, have a little fun and keep your own slate going for yourself. Then hereby accept my grovelling apology for having punted the occasional one over the bleachers.

What I'm trying to say is, like the lady said, I'm dancing as fast as I can about the ledger, so cut me a little slack already.

The rent is very affordable

I put together and managed a rock and roll band called "Mothers Tuckers Yellow Duck" in the late sixties. I was unceremoniously fired as the band's manager in the late fall of 1969 and moved into Rochdale College in Toronto Rochdale College wasn't exactly a hall of learning as the name might imply. It was simply a hippie enclave on Toronto's Bloor Street West.

The College along with a half dozen other enclaves like it around the world, had been an experiment gone awry in contemporary education. The building was actually a fourteen storey apartment building in ashram style which had been configured to act as a complete college type complex unto itself.

The original idea wasn't all that bad. A number of leading intellectuals would be allowed to live together rent free at the government's expense to operate as a high octane think tank.

The mutual coagulation of all their thoughts and ideas as they yakked and even mounted mutual projects together on the fly was hoped to provide new and useful insights into the prevailing problems of world affairs and the philosophic questions of life in general. Like who has the remote.

That had been the hope at least and the reason for the millions of dollars that went down the drain in trying to set them up. Unfortunately, what ended up instead was complete mental anarchy.

The octane fumes were way too high and the only thing that got coagulated out of all that good intention was everybody's ability to function. The high powered output of their collective high-powered alpha brain waves in such close proximity was just too much to handle, and everyone just shut down ending up as droolers like you and me, and in some cases even dumber.

There is for sure a universal theme lurking in the wings here somewhere, as every one of the assorted such projects around the world suffered the exact same demeaning fate of falling on their face. The projects were subsequently all abandoned, all around about the same time as if that were in some way significant.

If there is one thing you can count on for consistency, it's the consistency of the same thing to fail no matter where located. Proving once and for all that you can lead someone to water but you can't make them think.

After the collapse, Rochdale College was left to drift with the tides. A boat left drifting with the tide quickly attracts a lot of attention. A full contingent of hippies quickly drifted in as its main occupants because of the laissez faire attitude at the rental office, who seemed to be a lot more concerned about filling up the vacancies then collecting the rent. Hippies were always good at recognizing a good thing when they saw it.

Guilty as charged

While sitting around Rochdale one sunny afternoon, I had been discussing expansion of consciousness with someone. The place was still high octaneing it a bit after all.

My favourite claim at the time was that my consciousness had gone from here, "hand at the waist", to here, "hand at my neck", as a result of my restrained and somewhat academic-style use of psychedelics during my years with the rock band.

The other party looked hard at me and said, "The consciousness of the whole planet has been going up sky high since the early sixties. Without the drugs, your consciousness would probably have expanded from here, 'hand at the waist', to here, 'hand way over his head'. In my little heart of hearts I knew he was right. Have you ever noticed how it's the other person who's always right?

Drugs had just gone along for the joy ride and had tried to take all the credit. It's the Law of Entropy. Energy in equals energy out except when you're stoned.

Unfortunately drugs also took a lot of good people right out of the picture with it. Because of this realization and other factors, on February 14th, 1970 to be exact I stopped smoking the good old stuff, down the can, cold turkey, done forever, Sayonara, and that was the end of that.

It wasn't for thinking, "Hey, I know what, I think I'll quit, eh". Actually, I'd received quite the hint that I should and I couldn't quit fast enough.

A few of us had touched base with a glowing good one late one afternoon. We talked a little, then started heading off into our own little happy places to think things over.

I passed the elbow of one of the gals on the way out, and a definite big spark of electricity jumped across. It had jumped more than three quarters of an inch like static from a doorknob. She was definitely no doorknob and there were definitely no carpets on the floor.

This unsettled me a mite and I eventually lay down to pass it off. Almost instantly I had the distinct feeling of falling. Like I was sinking through the mattress horizontally out flat as I lay. I woke up, drifted back into doze, and the falling started again only this time really fast and a lot deeper.

I suddenly hit bottom and found myself standing in front of what could only be described as a huge judge's desk in a stately courtroom. Somebody was sitting behind a tall judge's desk like St. Peter himself in gigantic white hair and a huge white beard.

Nothing but nothing beats a flowing white beard for making you look apocalyptic. Under the circumstance, I had no problem getting the message and was quite duly struck with the apparent significance.

To the left, someone was reading aloud and clear from a big open book. When he was finished, the sagely one glared down at me and declared in a great booming voice something equivalent to, "Since you have rejected eternal survival it will be thus and so." He banged down hard on his desk with his big heavy gavel and I snapped awake in a cold sweat.

That had seemed way-y-y too real to be a cool one courtesy of the Cinematic express. And I also felt with a little nagging certainty that it had to do with my not infrequent, albeit somewhat academic, visits to the roach motel. And that the constant coaxing of roaches into a toke or two was the culprit of my dismal demise from grace.

I have no idea whether it had actually been St. Peter at the gate or not, or whether my own higher sense of self preservation was simply suggesting "Time to give it a rest already". Whatever it was, it sure worked for me. I haven't been anywhere near a glowing doobie since, and have no intention of ever starting up again. I mean some things are forever.

The long arm of the law

After returning to Vancouver in the spring of 1970, I knocked around for a year. I eventually I took up with a small group of people who eventually evolved into a flower business that got me started selling flowers in bars and restaurants across Canada and the US by the end of the seventies.

Some of the people like me had dropped out of drugs. Along with other groups, we had become local advocates within the hippie scene for dropping out of drugs in general and becoming responsible again.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Karmic Car Cyclesby Cliff Livingstone Copyright © 2009 by Cliff Livingstone. Excerpted by permission.
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