Holiday Weekend

Three thousand seven hundred plus or minus pounds of muscle made in Michigan. My 1969 442 convertible was unleashed from the garage this weekend. What better way to celebrate the birthday of our Nation than by piloting an iconic American classic. With an engine bigger than Bunyon's Blue Ox Babe's butt...this car has the  power to slam you back in the seat and get rubber between first and second AND second and third.

The thunderous growl of the pipes and the raw power create an experience kids today do not get from contemporary  finely tuned performance vehicles.. Well, at least my kids will know the feeling.

YouTube Interview

In Central London at the YouTube television studio, getting interviewed by Simone Thorogood about my latest book, Party Time, the prequel to Hard Time.

The video will be posted when it becomes available. The previous video with Simone about Hard Time is here:



Shaun Attwood

Where Are You Reading Party Time?

Dan reading Party Time in Costa Del Sol
Click here to like the Facebook page for my new book Party Time
Shaun Attwood

Help With Self-Help Book

I’ve been commissioned to write a self-help book about the ten most important lessons I’ve learned in my life. The publisher has requested a 1½-page prologue, starting with the SWAT team raid, and mentioning my relations with the Mafia. Below is just a draft and there’s plenty of time to make changes, so your feedback and editorial suggestions are most welcome.  

Prologue 

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

“Tempe Police Department! We have a warrant!”

As I leap up from my computer table, my insides clench. I rush to the door. The peephole’s blacked out. Feeling the threat from the other side flare up, I jolt back. Through a window, I see police positioned behind cars and marksmen aiming rifles. Afraid of getting shot, I duck. Get the hell out! Blood surges to my head. Hide in the ceiling? Jump off the balcony? Nowhere to go! I’m trapped!

I’m halfway through the living room when – boom! – the door leaps off its hinges. Pointing huge guns, the SWAT team barricades me in with a wall of Plexiglas shields, screaming, “Get on the ground now!” Fear of getting shot paralyses me. My chest seizes up. The price has finally come for committing so many crimes.

It was years before I realised that the SWAT team had saved my life that day. Before my arrest, my drug-crazed behaviour had become so extreme, I once smashed my head through a plasterboard wall, just missing a lengthy nail by a few inches. I woke up caked in vomit with no recollection of what I’d done. The carpet cleaner couldn’t remove the stains because the chemicals in what I’d ingested were so toxic. My biggest competitor in the Ecstasy market, the Mafia mass murderer “Sammy the Bull” Gravano had a hit out on me, and I was under the protection of the New Mexican Mafia, the most dangerous criminal organization in Arizona.

Sobering up in prison, wondering how on earth I was still alive, I went on an amazing journey of self-discovery. Previously, working my way up from a penniless student to a stock-market millionaire and Ecstasy kingpin, I’d rushed through life without any introspection. Prison forced me to grow up. I saw how emotionally immature, selfish and foolish my behaviour had been. The pain I caused my family made me ill, but added extra motivation to my soul-searching. I regretted sending people down the road of drug use, which devastates so many. Shocked, ashamed, I set out to try and make sense of my behaviour in the hope of becoming a better person. I read over 1000 books and submerged myself in psychology and philosophy. I was fortunate enough to have counselling with a brilliant psychotherapist, Dr. Owen, and to befriend Two Tonys, a Mafia mass murder who left the corpses of rival gangsters from Tucson to Alaska. After I started putting his stories on the Internet, Two Tonys, a self-taught philosopher serving 112 years, took me under his wing and schooled me on prison etiquette

To this day, I fall back on what Dr. Owen, Two Tonys and other people taught me. Since my release five years ago, I’ve been blessed to share my experiences as a motivational speaker with tens of thousands of students in the UK, I managed to expose human rights violations in the jail I was at via an episode of Locked-Up Abroad televised worldwide, and my story was published as a trilogy. But just as importantly, I wake up with a smile on my face because I feel at peace with myself and the world. In this book, I’m going to share the lessons I learned that transformed my life.

 

Shaun Attwood 

The Basics

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,---That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." 

 Excerpt from The Declaration of Independence.



I prepare this pre-Holiday post from an office only a few short blocks from the room where this whole thing materialized. We take this Holiday seriously here in Philadelphia. It is not all just parades and hot dogs, fireworks and watermelon. The area around Independence Hall is called" America's Most Historic Square Mile." It is worth visiting these historic locations and absorbing some of the essense of the enormity of the task that Franklin and Jefferson and the boys undertook. I for one question whether the current pack of slugs and wastrels in Washington,regardless of party affiliation, can conceptualize that they have power based on the consent of the governed. When that pesky 2nd Amendment debate flares up....as it has recently...remember what these guys did down at 6th & Chestnut here in Philadelphia so many years ago. One might need arms to "alter or abolish" a form of government that becomes "destructive." Embrace the gravity of the words in the Declaration of Independence tomorrow when you hit the beach or linger at the pool or ice down the beer and grill the steaks.

Francis Holland School Visit

With Sawyer and Millie
 

Shaun Attwood

20th & Lehigh

6 years old. First time at the ballgame with my dad and two brothers. Double header against the Pirates.
The vendor slaps open the metal top of his hot-dog case. A swirl of steam and a lighting quick poke of a fork. The dog hits the roll and with a gunslinger fast swipe of a tongue depressor sized stick, mustard is applied. The Old man pays for it and the first bite is all soft roll and hot grease and the tang of mustard. A watery Coke from a big waxed paper cup washes it down. My brothers are eating peanuts and the Old man is intent on the game. He sips a beer.
Dick Allen, Tony Taylor, Don Money and Johnny Callison. These were the players I remember from that era.  A game in late June. I remember we lost the first game. I fell asleep for much of the second game...waking periodically if action on the field evoked a cheer from the crowd. I would open my eyes and see the old rust colored steel rafters under the stadium roof over-hang. My thighs were sweaty against the seat and my brothers were reading the program. I guess 18 innings of baseball were to much for a 6 year old. But my memories of the long gone Connie Mack Stadium are a treasure.