By Author Marty McMorrow
Phoenix To L.A.
A Memoir
In his evocative memoir, Phoenix to LA, Marty McMorrow takes readers on a mesmerizing trek through America in the 1960’s.
Author
Martin J. “Marty” McMorrow
Martin J. (Marty) McMorrow dropped out of college in 1971 and, months later, found himself in the Army treating young soldiers who were addicted to heroin in Vietnam. Following his military experience, he completed a Master’s degree in Behavior Analysis and Therapy at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and has now spent 39 years participating in the lives of persons who are considered to be mentally ill, intellectually disabled, or brain injured. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 professional papers, as well as the specialty books Stacking the Deck (Research Press, 1983), Looking for the Words (Research Press, 1983), Getting Ready to Help (Paul Brookes Publishing, 2003), and The Helping Exchange: PEARL (Lash and Associates, 2005).
Since 2008 Marty has branched out to explore other “roads not taken” earlier in his life. Phoenix to LA: A true story of one young man’s journey out of the 1960’s represents his first work in novel form and has been followed by two others entitled Raindrop Races and Spectating: Becoming Witnesses of Life in which he has invited readers to consider a radically behavioral view of existence in the name of personal and interpersonal wellness.
In his spare time, Marty plays guitar in a low-key local band called “Blue Afternoon” (check out his original music on Spotify or other streaming services), enjoys traveling with his wife and family, watches stock car races, collects antiques, and does his best to keep his old tractor running.
Phoenix To L.A.
In his evocative memoir, Phoenix to LA, Marty McMorrow takes readers on a mesmerizing trek through America in the 1960’s. Through the eyes and ears of a young man from Peoria, Illinois, we find ourselves swept up by the gritty soundtrack of a country in crisis and into the thick of the action at Chicago’s Loyola University and Edgewater Beach Hotel, Denver’s 1969 Pop Festival, the 1970 Draft Lottery, a Sambo’s restaurant in the California desert, and countless spaces in between. By the time we reach the “High Hopes” Drug Amnesty Center, where Marty is treating young soldiers impacted by the heroin epidemic in Vietnam, we’ve discovered a time and place that the history books barely touched.
Spectating
SCIENCE TELLS US –
- Thoughts, feelings, and actions are things too
- There are relations among things
- Things are caused
- There will be causes for whatever happens next
- Recognition or awareness of causes is not necessary to be moved
- We are not in control of things
- Our self is miniscule, yet intimately connected to the social and physical world that surrounds us
Yet, while most of us casually agree with statements like these, remarkably few sense an existence in which all things are caused: including our thoughts, feelings, and actions. In 2017, most of us continue to believe we are masters of our own destinies and that we make moment-to-moment decisions or choices that influence whatever happens next in our lives. It appears that centuries of contrary learning have gotten in the way of a more accurate interpretation of what it means to exist.
But perhaps it is time to look at things differently. Spectating: Becoming Witnesses of Life is a step-by-step excursion through some premises of behavioral science that disassembles the self-aggrandizing myths of self-control and free will and replaces them with a radically different view of ourselves and the world that surrounds us. Of particular interest is that this view can be sensually exhilarating and less burdened by unpleasant emotions such as guilt, self-deprecation, and anger.
The book provides good reasons to learn how to witness the awesome pervasiveness of external causality in our lives and to experience our intimate connection with the physical and social space in which we are moved.
Get the book. Join the conversation. Be moved.
Raindrop Races
A fundamentally true story of two intertwined lives
As childhood best friends, PJ and Moose grew up in a Midwestern neighborhood, ran the halls of the same parochial schools, and were rarely out of each other’s sight. Then, the 1960’s happened. PJ’s lust for the next thrill results in trouble. After quick stops at the local mental health center, military school and the Marines, he winds up hustling one-arm pushups, drinking whiskey and Coke, and chasing every woman on the dark side of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Moose heads off to private college, but disillusionment and drugs get the best of him. He drops out, lands in South Vietnam, and finds himself living out of the back of his pickup truck five years after the War. But through it all, worlds apart, PJ and Moose maintained their boyhood connection.
Feel free to contact Marty.
