Joe Bageant: Born in rural Virginia. After stint in Navy became anti-war hippie, ran off to the West Coast ... lived in communes, hippie school buses... started writing about holy men, countercultural figures, rock stars and the American scene in 1971 ... lived in Boulder, Colorado until mid 1980s ... 14 years in all ... became a Marxist and a half-assed Buddhist ... Traveled to Central America to write about third World issues...

Moved to the Coeur d'Alene Indian reservation in Idaho, built a cabin, lived without electricity, farmed with horses for seven years ... tended reservation bar (The Bald Eagle Bar), wrote for regional newspapers... generally festered on life in America ... Moved to Moscow, Idaho, worked on third rate newspaper there ... Then moved to Eugene Oregon, worked for an international magazine corporation pushing insecticides and pesticides to farmers worldwide, etc.

Bageant died of cancer in 2011.