Turbulence at 67 Inches is a life story and a rant in one. The book follows the life of acclaimed poet Howard Camner. The writing is at once brutally honest, very funny, at times heartbreaking, and often inspiring. The journey begins during the Bicentennial. It is America's 200th birthday. Camner has just been awarded the title of "Most Artistic Body of 1976" in a body painting contest. But, at the moment he is sitting in the shallow end of the Atlantic Ocean about to run naked through a very crowded beach. He is not doing it for fun. He is doing it because he has no choice. Seconds after his run begins, several angry men are giving chase in an attempt to kill him. So sets the stage for a life that becomes one wild problem after another. There are encounters with the most bizarre characters this planet has to offer, including a talking dog, a guy who claims that he and his invisible companion are on the lam from a police force from another planet, a woman who fries up Manhattan sewer rats for dinner, and the Devil himself, just to name some of the saner ones.
After the streaking episode, which turned into a run for
his life, the book hurls us back to the early 1960s, where as a young boy the author is trying to figure out who he is. Finding himself in direct competition with the next-door neighbor's talking dog, the boy transforms himself into several memorable characters, including a werewolf, a superhero, a mad scientist, a fake musician, and a secret agent. All of these lead to disastrous moments. Still, he plods along, convinced that he is destined for... something. 17 proves to be a difficult and pivotal year with the loss of his grandfather who taught him wisdom the hard way and that one should always wear socks when kissing a girl. Devastated by the loss, the author threatens to use martial arts that he doesn't know how to use on a future homicidal drug kingpin, becomes a criminal himself, gets repeatedly attacked by a man running for public office, and loses his virginity to an outfielder's mitt. Needing an outlet other than sex with baseball gloves, he finds that he has a knack for poetry.
In 1979 at the age of 22 he heads for New York City to
take his place in the literary world. Somehow it clicks and he finds his voice as the headliner with the West End Poetry Troupe. New York provides several narrow escapes, a taste of fame, collisions with a vast array of human oddities, and an on-stage confrontation with a waiter that left the waiter possibly dead and our hero in hiding. This led to a breakdown and a three-month period of seclusion with no human contact whatsoever. Snatched from death by his father, he returns to Miami for a brief stint as a beach bum and falls for a Midwestern girl. Following her to Chicago, his life is threatened by her father, so he returns to Miami and meets another girl who makes his life a nightmare because he bought her a Nutty Buddy ice-cream cone instead of the cherry Popsicle she wanted. Narrowly escaping being murdered by a transvestite hooker, he heads for Los Angeles to be rich and famous. His screenplay "Duck, Duck, Goose" creates havoc in Hollywood causing an affair between two Hollywood producers and the breakup of a prominent management team. Distraught over the mess his screenplay has caused he turns to acting, falling under the protection of Hell's Angels on one film and ruining a $30,000 scene in another. He befriends the Mayor of Munchkinland, takes up with a psychotic bitch in Beverly Hills, and risks his life to save the lives of some hummingbirds.
Feeling confident after rescuing the hummingbirds, he creates and hosts the worst talk show in the history of television where he interviews Death among other offbeat celebrities, and soon embarks on a mission to seek out celebrity ghosts. Avoiding fame and fortune like no one else has, Camner exits Los Angeles and returns to Florida where he almost gets murdered in a swamp.
