Duke Tate

It's October in the Florida keys, Fantasy Fest, the legendary Halloween carnival, is underway in Key West and Big John Hoover and his wife Angela have just moved to the artist enclave from Big Sur, California for John to pen a book. John has traded his bad food addiction for a liberal island diet of Cuban coffee, rum and Cohiba Habanos cigars. Out of the blue, he gets attacked in his sleep by a shadow being and a ghost appears at their cottage, which sends John and Angela running to Miss Anne, the Voodoo Queen of Duval Street who gives them some poignant advice she sees in her cards. No longer interested in John, Maggie May had a spiritual rebirth a few years back and now works at a psychic shop in Applebury, Vermont. She just so happens to fly down to Key West for a dose of sunshine, staying with her friend from Santa Monica High, Hank Judge, who is now a cop on the island. Meanwhile, an old enemy of John's tries to send him to his grave and John must figure out how to protect himself before it's too late. Maggie and John run into each other by accident and everything is ghosts and phantoms for the group. Will they see the light before Halloween eve on the key that never sleeps?

Big John and the Island of Bones

Greedy developers want Teddy Dollarhide's land. His only hope for salvation lies under the sea. Nightmares have him gasping for air. Frequently dreaming of being a sailor on a sinking Spanish galleon, La Gracia, in the seventeenth century, he's searched for the wreck and its priceless cargo off the Northeast Floridian coast for the last six years. Facing financial ruin from a massive tax bill, Teddy fears he'll lose his beloved historic estate, Isabella, before he can dredge up the treasure. However, his luck changes when an antique pistol covered in barnacles surfaces in a new location, and he and his four man crew, The Pearlmakers, shift their search hoping to make the score of a lifetime. But with a brutal hurricane assaulting his little town, Teddy's renewed fortunes may drown in a mountain of debt deeper than the lost ship's deepwater secret. Meanwhile, Teddy falls in love with a beautiful riveting stranger that oddly resembles a Spanish woman from his dreams and his older boys go off in search of a long forgotten family treasure buried in the California mountains. Nothing is what it seems as time slips away and everyone's dreams are on the line. The Pearlmakers Trilogy contains all three books in a riveting mystery serial. If you like Southern gothic, magical realism, funny characters, and seafaring legends, then you'll love Duke Tate's atmospheric adventure. This Special Edition Hardcover features a Foreward by the author, an Appendix packed full extras, plus an illustrated map.

The Pearlmakers Trilogy

A 258-pound teenager named Big John from Los Angeles has a ravenous appetite for bad food. Eating it is the only thing that stops the warmth and tingling in his hands. The only problem is his dream girl, Maggie May likes dream guys. One day, John and his crew, The Zoo Crew, wander into a Madame Bernadette's Fortune Telling shop in Venice and the psychic gives John the key to winning Maggie's heart, but when he starts to get what he wants, he finds he no longer wants it. Led along by the Madame and a mystical white wolf with aqua eyes, he begins to discover his true self and the secret magic stored in his hands. A witty, profound coming of age story about life, real love, appearances and finding your soul's purpose.

Big John and the Fortune Teller

Ken Tate

The Alchemy of Architecture: Memories and Insights from Ken Tate by Ken and Duke Tate is celebrated architect Ken Tate's creative memoir about his life. Beginning with his days growing up in Columbus, Mississippi where he was surrounded by beautiful Greek Revival houses, the book journeys through Ken's upbringing as a creative adolescent to his early days at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he started his architectural collegiate career. There Ken struggled to keep up with the hard-edged modernism being taught in school and longed to design beautiful houses with soul. His quest led him on to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, where he found what he was looking for in two creative professors, Jim Jones and Lewis Lanter, who mentored him. That tutelage led him to write his architectural thesis Architecture in Search of a Soul. Following graduation from Auburn, Ken journeyed to work for eccentric talent Bruce Goff in Texas and afterwards for Sambo Mockbee in Jackson, Mississippi. He established his own firm, Ken Tate Architect, in 1984 in Jackson, Mississippi, which began a lifelong career of designing houses in an alchemical way where an inner essence was breathed into them. Full of rich detail and texture, the book follows Ken's 35-year career from Jackson to New Orleans and on to Palm Beach where the firm has opened their second office. Covering his approach to design, how architecture relates to cinema and photography, advice, reflections and even epiphanies, the book is a must read for any fan of the profession. The book features many black and white photos taken over Ken's life and career.

The Alchemy of Architecture: Memories and Insights from Ken Tate

Big John and the Hitcher

The Burger Flip Kid

The Alchemy of Architecture: Memoirs and Insights from Ken Tate is celebrated architect Ken Tate's creative memoir about his life in houses. Beginning with his days growing up in Columbus Mississippi where he was surrounded by beautiful Greek Revival houses, the book journeys through Ken's upbringing as a creative adolescent to his early days at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he started his collegiate architectural career. There Ken struggled to keep up with the hard-edged modernism that was being taught in school and longed to design beautiful buildings with soul. Thus, his quest began leading him to Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama where he found what he was looking for in two professors, Jim Jones and Lewis Lanter, who began mentoring him. That tutelage led him to write his thesis Architecture in Search of a Soul. Following graduation from Auburn, Ken journeyed to work for the eccentric talent Bruce Goff in Texas and afterwards for Sambo Mockbee in Jackson, Mississippi. He established his own firm, Ken Tate Architect, in 1984 in Jackson, Mississippi which began a lifelong career for designing houses in an alchemical way where truth, beauty and an inner essence was distilled into them. Full of rich detail and texture, the book follows Ken's 35-year career of soul from Jackson to New Orleans and onto Palm Beach where the firm has opened their second office. Covering his approach to design, how architecture relates to cinema and photography, advice, reflections and even epiphanies, the book is a must read for any fan of the profession. Features many black and white photos taken over Ken's life and career.

Memories and Insights from Ken Tate

The Alchemy of Architecture

In 1999, Duke Tate became deathly ill after getting bitten by a Wolf Tick on The Appalachian Trail in Connecticut. Less was known about Lyme Disease at the time, so his strange symptoms went untreated even though he had all the telltale signs of Lyme. After over a year of being nearly bedridden, his family finally managed to get him treatment by a medical doctor with extensive IV and oral anti-biotics for Lyme. The medicine worked and he became well enough to re-enter culture and live on his own, but he was still chronically fatigued. As days turned into years, he pretended like he was well and started dating and working but was truly struggling with fatigue on a daily basis. Then something mysterious happened in the summer of 2004 - he was struck with a severe chemical sensitivity to new paint while painting his new apartment in Oxford, Mississippi where he was preparing to attend The University of Mississippi as a paralegal major. That first mysterious hint of chemical sensitivities, which he knew nothing about at the time, manifested into full blown Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) slowly over the course of the next two years. Duke was sensitive to absolutely everything: new paint, cleaning chemicals, perfumes and colognes, EMF's, mold and pesticides, causing him to move out of three rented places prematurely.Along the way, he encountered a Mexican Sufi master named Ali Dede who ran an Institute in Mexico. Dede was an enlightened doctor who had been trained in Greece and agreed to take on Duke as a student and as a patient. Over the next few years with Dede, Duke learned a tremendous amount about energy therapies, alternative health, the body, nutrition and optimal diet, and in time, with Dede's help, he freed himself from the bonds of chemical sensitivities and Lyme Disease. Duke has been physically well since 2009 and lives a joyful life in Southeast Florida with no chemical sensitivities anymore.

Duke Tate

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