The Official Website of Howard Marks, aka Mr. Nice

Book Name:	Mr Nice
Author:	Marks, Howard
Sale Price:	£7.00 plus P&P
Buy Online:	Yes, Available Now
Signed by Author?:	Yes, only when purchased via this website.

OVERVIEW

Shortly after my release from the United States Federal Penitentiary, Terre Haute, in April 1995, Secker & Warburg offered me a £100,000 advance to write my autobiography. Sensibly, they had a ghost writer in the wings in case I was unable to do it myself. The idea of lying on a sofa while chain smoking joints and rapping about my past exploits to an attentive literary scribe was appealing. But ghost writers get 40% of the money. I didn't like that, so I submitted a sample first chapter, which the publishers approved. The advance came through. I bought a computer and spent the next nine months either writing or honing my primitive computer skills. I found both extremely difficult. The sole reason for acquiring a computer was to use it as a dedicated word processor. My tangential mental meanderings are such that I cannot write without a sophisticated cut and paste facility. (If I had one in my mind, I would be able to talk more sense.) But now my writing machine was nothing other than a severe distraction from writing itself. E-mailing, surfing, playing games, and making music dominated each day. Technology and freedom had combined forces to render me undisciplined. I already had writer's block after writing just the sample chapter. Who was my target audience? Would it comprise prisoners, geriatric hippies, peace loving pot smugglers, or hardened criminals?

My lifestyle in prison had been disciplined, as well as healthy. At 4:00 AM, when the prison was quieter and darker than death, I would get up and put my hands in a plastic basin of cold water, wet my face, and breathe water up my nose. This was followed by at least twenty cycles of the Salutation to the Sun, whose existence had to be left to the imagination. Then I would read the current Siddha Yoga lesson followed by reading a few thousand words of any religious writing. Finally, I would write a dozen letters to family and friends before breakfast and work. My official job was teaching grammar; my unofficial hustle was a jailhouse lawyer. There were plenty of distractions, such as murders, riots, gang fights, hip-hop, other prisoners' life stories, and dead men walking. I could write then, why not now?

Surely, one disrespects freedom if one behaves when free as if still in prison. I love freedom. If I could bottle it up and sell it, I would. I definitely didn't want to revert to twisting myself up in knots, chanting, and sniffing water up my nostrils: I had no problems with hedonism. I loved it all. But I had to do something to force myself to write. I decided to make sure I would write at least a thousand words a day, even if they were complete crap.

Writing autobiographies requires less research than writing other books: one can usually rely on memory and diaries. Despite having smoked 100's of pounds of hashish, I am lucky enough to be blessed with a good memory, both long and short term. Two biographies had already been written about me years ago, and there were drawers full of press cuttings. This made the little research I had to do considerably easier. But, like all serious dope smugglers, I kept no diaries. I remembered every detail of most of my scams, but not the years in which they took place nor the order in which they occurred. This shortcoming began to present serious problems in structuring my book. Luckily, a solution presented itself in the form of a letter from my United States defence attorney, Stephen Bronis, who wanted to know what he should do with a container full of what Americans refer to as "discovery" and the British as "depositions" - the documents of prosecution evidence. These were taking up valuable space in Stephen's law offices in Miami, Florida. He wanted rid of them. I asked him to air freight them across the Atlantic. It cost £2,000. Soon, I had typed copies of detailed investigations concerning my activities, tenaciously compiled by the law enforcement authorities of fourteen different countries. I had at my disposal meticulously prepared observation reports of my daily routines, painstakingly carried out by the Drug Enforcement Administration, cassettes of dozens of hours of tapped phone-calls, and transcripts of debriefings of co-defendants and grasses. I might not remember where I was at any particular time, but now I had the means to determine all such matters with exact precision.

Six months later, I submitted 180,000 words to my infinitely patient editor, Geoff Mulligan. He liked it. Some names would have to change, much would be better left out, lots had better be left out, there was some sloppy grammar and construction, but nothing would have to be added. Commercial criteria kicked in. Should it have an index? What would be a good title? What about the cover? Should one go for selling serial rights to the Daily Mail or to the Guardian? How does one promote the autobiography of a Welsh smuggler?

Meanwhile, other Welshmen were also breaking the borders of boredom, particularly in music. For many years, the Welsh had very rarely featured as pioneers of innovative contemporary music. Admittedly, there had been a modest number of Welsh singing successes, such as Ricky Valance, Bonnie Tyler, and Tom Jones, but there had been no ballsy barrier breakers of the calibre of the Stones, Beatles, Sex Pistols, or Oasis. The impasse was broken by the Manic Street Preachers from Newport. At last, Welsh street culture had an avenue of export. Other bands followed in the wake, most notably, the Super Furry Animals. On the day I finished writing my autobiography , a promo copy of Fuzzy Logic, their first album, arrived at my home by post. The tenth track was called "Hanging Out with Howard Marks." I loved it and went to hear them playing in Pontypridd. The show was brilliant. We became firm friends. They then asked if I would mind if they plastered the cover of the album with my false passport photographs. I thought it an excellent idea. Over one of our many drunken lunches, I told Geoff Mulligan about the Super Furries' album design.

"That's brilliant, Howard. That's exactly what we should do with the chapters in your book. Instead of calling them Chapter 1, 2, etc., call each by the name of the main identity, false or otherwise, that you were using at the time."

That's what we did.