Pioneers of Leisure: 50 Years of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll Paperback - 2021

This is a nostalgic book for those who, like the author, lived through the cultural revolution of the Sixties and the long strange trip that followed. Meet Marcello as a ten-year-old shoeshine boy selling tins of weed in the barrios of Denver before he becomes a major dealer offloading a mothership full of Colombian-intertwined with stories of partying with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Cheech and Chong, and loco friends who try to steal an alligator from the Tucson zoo.
"Junior" was a DJ at the inception of freeform radio in Boulder, Colorado; owned a custom boutique that made clothes for Glen Campbell and Mick Jagger; tripped around Europe in a VW bus selling Sunshine LSD; and transported hashish and seeds from Kathmandu. Going straight in the '80s, he patented a food dehydrator designed to reduce world hunger, but the Organized Crime Strike Force in Colorado used their press connections to ruin him and his idea. Fortunes were made and lost as Marcello traversed the disheartening lows of cocaine addiction and court-ordered residential drug treatment to reach the tempered highs of redemption.

"This is an intriguing read... Marcello tells of both adventures and tragedies that have occurred over a lifetime of exploits." -James St. Veltri.