Pageonelit.com: Your early aspirations were to be a
writer. Who were some of your earliest inspirations and favorite
books? What was the last book you read?
Peter: I read interminably as a child, and still remember
the summer of my Seventh year when I got a library card and read
thirty books over the 
summer. I loved all the OZ
book, the Edgar Rice Burroughs fantasy books; H. Rider Haggard.
Then I read the entire lighthouse books series. Later I Fell
in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolf, Melville, Hawthorne.
I usually read two or three books at the same time, and I just
finished the new fagel translation of the odyssey, a biography
of Melville by Lorant Robinson, and am reading Hemingway’s
"A Moveable Feast."
Pageonelit.com: How long did it take you to write SLEEPING
WHERE I FALL and what was the process? Did you use
notes? An outline? Free write?
Peter: Sleeping where I fall took
about ten years. It began as a submission to Zyzzva magazine
which my friend, Jack Shoemaker, editor of then Northpoint (now
counterpoint) told me should be a book. I worked on it on and
off for the next nine years - interviewing 
friends,
perusing old Journals, cranking up my memory. I finished the
first draft in a binge
Session at a friends house in Gourds, France. Then my old comrade,
Terry Bisson helped me shape the manuscript and counterpoint,
after all that Time, bought it. It is currently in its fifth
printing and will be out In paperback in April.
Pageonelit.com:"Explain the title SLEEPING
WHERE I FALL. What does the title say about the book and
when and where in the concept for the book did the title become
the title?
Peter: I never know how or why things come over the
'spinal telephone' out of the ether into consciousness.
The title has two senses in my mind - one means running until
you drop, until nothing is left over; and the other suggests
taking advantage of circumstances...as in - ' I’m lying
down,
might as well sleep.'
Pageonelit.com: The San Francisco mime Troupe and The
Diggers were the first 'portals' you mention that gave you new
directions and pursuits for what you describe as absolute freedom."
Do you feel any "absolute freedom" was found and costs
for you in the pursuit? Were the costs worth it?"
Peter: The truth is that absolute freedom is a chimera,
a youthful fascination. Wisdom dictates that everything in the
universe is 
interdependent and Therefore
nothing is, in the sense that we wished it as young people, Free
- either of relationships or karmic retributions. Some people
might Have been innately wise enough to know that without going
through all Those experiences, but that was not me. However,
the life I lived was The life that brought me here...to Zen practice,
to relative health and Sanity and a measure of peace. Were the
costs worth it? Who knows. I'm sorry that I took so many drugs
and ruined my health, but I’m certainly
glad I’ve learned what I have. I certainly have come to
appreciate limits and their utility."
Pageonelit.com: In SLEEPING pg. 123, you discuss
The Rolling Stones (namely Mick Jagger) refusing to allow an
eight month pregnant friend of yours who had been hit with a
bottle to use their helicopter for medical treatment. This particular
incident seems to sum up the entire Altamont concert and the
winds of change that were beginning to blow hard through the
country. Did you feel, know or have any sense of these changes
before this concert?"
Peter: The diggers had a good sense of what was coming
and this is why none of us attended Altamont. We tried to warn
Sam Cutler and the Grateful Dead that what they were doing was
wrong and irresponsible; using the audience as props in a piece
of economic machinery that had already been sold but was pretending
to be 'free'. To me, Altamont was part of the cynical manipulation
of counter-cultural values by the very people who 'symbolized'
(as opposed to actualized) those values. I had a hard time forgiving
it for many years, but, what the hell, life's short and no one
is who they were then any longer."
Pageonelit.com:What do you hope the end and overall
result will be for readers of SLEEPING WHERE I FALL?
Peter: I hope that readers of my book will get a taste
of the contradictions which made up 'the sixties'; the blend
of high-ideals, deep-thought, Selflessness, personal betrayals
and indulgences. I hope they will get a Taste of the times interpreted
by a peer instead of a wannabe or some Pundit or whore-of-the-court
hoping to put their own spin on history. I Hope that the reader
will learn how acts of personal indulgence can Weaken the grandest
plans and aspirations, and how necessary impeccability and caution
and restraint are to any measure of success. Finally, the result
was that the process of writing the book, put the Issues and
the times to rest in my mind."
Pageonelit.com: Who is Peter Coyote now as compared
to Peter Coyote in 1966?
Peter: Peter Coyote came from nowhere and is working
his way back. The same man began and will end the journey - the
same in terms of intentions, the drive for heightened opportunities
for more people and other species to achieve their maximal potential.
I am different primarily in understanding how long social processes
take, so that I am more patient, less judgmental, less anxious
for immediate gratification. But, I was comfortable with myself
then, and am so today, if you take that to understand that I
am also continually working on my self - sitting Za-zen (Buddhist
meditation) doing yoga, trying to conquer the 'Big-three' of
greed, hatred, and delusion -- an avocation that will Take lifetimes.....
Francisco
Actor's Workshop, he joined the San Francisco Mime Troupe, a
radical political street theater which had recently been arrested
for performing in the City's parks without permits. In the Mime
Troupe, he was soon acting, writing and directing.