Bohemian Spirit

"Using accessible language, Paul Hosch describes the twenty years he worked as a fingernail artist in Hawaii's burgeoning tourist industry. He pulls back the curtain on the voracious merchants, clueless tourists, talented entertainers, and exotic locals that we never get to see in tourist guidebooks. His internal dialogue is honest and endearing in this stirring and colorful narrative. I wish more writers told stories this way." GHH-Beta Reviewer"Paul Hosch's latest e-book offers readers a new and different view of the islands; one they will not soon forget. The Fingernail King takes us back to Waikiki Beach of the 1980s, in which a recent art school graduate creates a tourist craze by painting tiny tropical scenes on fingernails…"After working for several years as an unpaid volunteer for a yoga organization, a penniless thirty-year-old is offered part-time employment in a halfway house and two months' free rent in Hawaii. Having no other means of support, he gladly accepts the job offer and lands in Honolulu with only a tattered suitcase, an old guitar, and barely enough money to stay alive. The year is 1976.Longing for a career as an artist, he answers a want ad in the local newspaper and is hired to decorate inexpensive shell jewelry in a famous Waikiki Beach shopping center. This leads to a lucrative gig painting Hawaiian scenes on fingernails, which surprisingly goes viral. Within a few short months, he becomes an established tourist attraction.For the next twenty years, the young man works in one of the busiest tourist resorts in the world, and as an unexpected perk, he stumbles into many strange and exotic romantic entanglements. While struggling to balance his meditation and yoga practice with the overwhelming allure of Waikiki, he finds it increasingly difficult to resist the worldly pleasures vying for his attention. The Fingernail King is the humorous and sometimes poignant story of youthful indulgence, occasional overindulgence, and eventual redemption.After reading this unique e-memoir, you'll never see "paradise" the same way again! ABOUT THE BOHEMIAN SPIRIT TRILOGYA creative kid on the Jersey Shore performs well on IQ tests but struggles in school with undiagnosed learning difficulties; his worst subjects are math and science. Jersey Goes West opens in 1951 when he is sent away to a Jewish summer camp at four years old and ends in 1969 when his friends are arrested trying to sell fifty pounds of marijuana to a federal agent in Haight-Ashbury. Having narrowly avoided serious trouble, he renounces his life of crime and looks to Eastern philosophy for his future.In his second book, Undercover in India, we see him as a young aspirant at the beginning of a serious yoga and meditation practice. He meets a venerable Indian swami and tours the US as his assistant. After the tour, the swami convinces him to sell his beloved VW bus and buy a plane ticket to India. Leaving the country for the first time, he stops over in London, Cairo, South Yemen, and lands in sweltering Bombay, where he is surprised to see cows roaming around the runway. For the next year, he lives in the ashram of an all-knowing guru and becomes a trusted disciple. But when his guru is suddenly arrested on politically motivated murder conspiracy charges, he enters an obscure monastery with no electricity or running water. He later goes undercover with wandering sadhus in the holy city of Varanasi.The third book of the series, The Fingernail King, chronicles the next twenty years of his life, in which he runs a small but successful business painting Hawaiian scenes on fingernails in Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.

"Reading Mr. Hosch's memoirs made me feel as if I was part of every scene, whether living the idealistic hippie life in San Francisco or alongside the colorful characters in the ashrams of India. It's the agenda-less storytelling of a trusted friend who never manipulates the reader or leaves anything uncomfortable out of his narrative to make himself look good." RSF, Auteur, Social Media influencer."The writing transported me from my home in Miami straight to the Jersey Shore, Berkeley, and San Francisco. Jersey Goes West is a compelling mix of cynicism, hope, and humor." D.T. Beta ReaderAn intelligent boy with undiagnosed learning disabilities is virtually shut out of the education system due to his lackluster grades in math and science. His parents and teachers accuse him of laziness, although his real problem is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and dyscalculia (trouble with numbers).In college, he experiences an epiphany on LSD and realizes that there is more to life than a dreary middle-class existence. In the following months, he grows his hair long, dresses in bellbottoms and army jackets, and becomes the most notorious marijuana dealer on his college campus. When the college ejects him for poor grades (among other things), the young man and his best friend take a cross-country road trip in an old Mercury Comet and end up in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in 1969, aspiring to become famous musicians.He attends Grateful Dead concerts at the Fillmore West, finds disappointment at Woodstock, witnesses the Stones' ill-fated gig at the Altamont Racetrack, and gets busted (and acquitted) on drug charges. Things get tense when some new acquaintances get busted trying to sell fifty pounds (two shopping carts full) of marijuana to a federal drug agent. He realizes that if he doesn't change his outlaw life, he could be next. ABOUT THE BOHEMIAN SPIRIT TRILOGYA creative kid on the Jersey Shore performs well on IQ tests but struggles in school with undiagnosed learning difficulties; his worst subjects are math and science. Jersey Goes West opens in 1951 when he is sent away to a Jewish summer camp at four years old and ends in 1969 when his friends are arrested trying to sell fifty pounds of marijuana to a federal agent in Haight-Ashbury. Having narrowly avoided serious trouble, he renounces his life of crime and looks to Eastern philosophy for his future.In his second book, Undercover in India, we see him as a young aspirant at the beginning of a serious yoga and meditation practice. He meets a venerable Indian swami and tours the US as his assistant. After the tour, the swami convinces him to sell his beloved VW bus and buy a plane ticket to India. Leaving the country for the first time, he stops over in London, Cairo, South Yemen, and lands in sweltering Bombay, where he is surprised to see cows roaming on the runway. For the next year, he lives in the ashram of an all-knowing guru and becomes a trusted disciple. But when his guru is suddenly arrested on politically motivated murder conspiracy charges, he enters an obscure monastery with no electricity or running water, he later goes undercover with wandering sadhus in the holy city of Varanasi.The third book of the series, The Fingernail King, chronicles the next twenty years of his life, in which he runs a small but successful business painting Hawaiian scenes on fingernails in Waikiki Beach, Hawaii. In this e-book, he spills the inside tea on the clever scammers and con artists who make a living cheating naive visitors, year after year.