Recovery & Perfect Bliss, Inc. by Theodore Berhanu Levine

Theodore Berhanu Levine was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the summer of 1960, just a few months short of the disastrous abortive coup in December of that year. That adventurous beginning was followed by years of struggle with mental illness in Chicago and many more years in Los Angeles moving from countless hospitalizations to jail to vagrancy on the street and back again. Strung out on crack, Ted was 35 years old when he began to live the Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous program, and has been clean and sober ever since. As a child, he improvised at the piano an astonishing mixture reminiscent of Beethoven and rock and roll. As an adult, he’s known as “Fingers” and has issued a couple of CDs; he pulls out his camera now and then and continues to draw, paint and write poetry.