Onward & Upward

Michael Wiese's autobiography, Onward & Upward is a racy, gleeful, grateful story of adventures, successes and failures in questing and pilgrimaging, reflecting on his many 'meaning seeking' adventures and the learning, filmmaking and publishing that accompanied it. He is a baby boomer (born 1947) who grew up in Illinois with an interest in filmmaking and the performing arts. As a talented, fearless and curious young man he enters into and observes the aesthetic and commercial culture of 1960's and 1970s' mainly in USA with frequent excursions to Bali to study and participate in their performing arts, music and shadow puppetry. In all of this time he is involved with filmmaking. He is pretty successful but his life goes up a notch when in his early forties (1988), he meets and falls in love with Geraldine, his soul mate, and they have a child Julia and soon move to Cornwall in the UK.

Prologue

OBSERVING - Champaign, Illinois
Bright Lights, Toes, Baby Jeff, Wabbits, Dough Boy Elm Street, Encounter with Death,The Paddle, Big Chief Al's, Johnny Disappears, First Grade Candy, The Cheater, A Close One, Miami, Reading Club, King of the Wild Frontier, Lake of the Weeds, Killing, I Get It From My Dad, Treasure, Softies, New House,The Secret of Life, Park Here, The Kuhns and The Wieses, Darkroom, Music, Puny Uni, Initiation, First Jobs, My First Deal, The Sterlings, Bad Art, Driving, The News Gazette, Film Bug, Doc Unit, Rochester

OPENING - San Francisco - Summer of Love
Jade Muse, Underground Movies, Messages Messages, Naked Ambition, A Party for Fellini

QUESTING - Japan and Beyond
Japan, Road to Bali, Bali, Return to Corn Country, Japan - Take Two, Kathmandu, East Africa, Egypt, Santorini

RETURNING - America
Saddhu in New York, San Francisco Redux, Asian Refuge, An Aquatic Future, Living in the Avenues, Silver Box, est, Extraordinary Powers, Bucky, San Anselmo, Enter Kaskafayet, An Experience of Light, Hardware Wars, Ketamine, Finding Joe, Dolphin Bliss, People Who Live in Glass Houses, First Book

WORKING - The Entertainment Industry
Robot Wars, New York, New York, My First Real Book, Pay Cable - The Movie Channel, The Budget Book, Vestron, The Beach Boys, Life After Vestron, Goin' Hollywood, End of A Life Cycle

SOWING - The Spirit
Shirley, Pacific Arts, The Great Ken Lee, She (Who Knows All, Sees All) Shows Up, The Test, Diet for a New America, Vigil, Julia Bronwyn, What Our Children Eat, Knoxville, One Month Birthday, The Merry Maidens, Studio City, Shake Rattle and Roll, You Have to Tell the Spirits, Cashing In

ENJOYING - Cornwall
First Year in Cornwall, Brother Jeff, Permanent Residence, MWP, Dolphin Girl, St Loy Today, My New Best Friend, The Extension, Bali Brothers, Sacred Sites, The One in Your Garage, Stem Cell Adventure

KNOWING - Other Realms
Mother Ayahuasca, First Journey, The Second Journey, The Birth of Divine Arts

TRANSFORMING
The Parkinson Journey