Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side
Page 40
Then I said, well, I let it be known, as a pacifist and a vegetarian, I had heard there was a faction within the hippie hemp horde that was advocating a big pig roast after election at which point the pig would be made into bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, and that I was a spokesman for the vegetarians and I was opposed, philosophically opposed to this.
And so it was agreed tentatively at that point that there would be no bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches made of our presidential candidate.
Mr. Weinglass: Now, directing your attention to the date of August 7, at approximately nine o’clock that evening, do you recall where you were on that date and at that time?
The Witness: Yes, I was in an interior office somewhere near Mayor Daley’s office for a meeting with Al Baugher, David Stahl, Richard Goldstein, myself, Jerry, Abbie, Krassner, I guess.
Mr. Weinglass: Do you recall what was said at that meeting?
The Witness: I addressed Mr. Stahl and Mr. Baugher, saying that for many months we had planned a Festival of Life with the basis of free music and that I had negotiated with rock groups and singing groups to come to Chicago on that basis and that we needed permits, and we needed the use of the park for our various festival activities.
Mr. Weinglass: Now, what, if anything, were you doing during the course of that meeting?
The Witness: I was making notes for a document that had been requested by various editors and people about the Yippie program for the Festival of Life. You know, poetic rendering of it.
Mr. Weinglass: Now, I show you D-252 for identification, and I ask you if you can identify that document.
The Witness: Yes. I wrote it. I mailed it out to various editors and publishers who had requested me for a statement.
Mr. Weinglass: Your Honor, the defense offers Defendants’ Exhibit D-252, identified by the witness.
Now, how many paragraphs appear on that document?
The Witness: Eighteen.
Mr. Weinglass: And could you read to the jury those paragraphs which are marked.
The Witness: “Predictions for Yippie activities in Chicago:
“A. Poetry readings, mass meditation, fly casting exhibitions, demagogic Yippie political arousal speeches, rock music and song concerts will be held on a precise timetable throughout the week, August 25 to 30.
“A dawn ass-washing ceremony with tens of—”
The Court: I didn’t hear that last.
The Witness: Excuse me.
“A dawn ass-washing ceremony with tens of thousands participating will occur each morning at 5:00 AM., as Yippie revelers and protesters prepare for the 7:00 AM volley ball tournaments.”
Three-oh, no, five, excuse me.
“The Chicago offices of the National Biscuit Company will be hi-jacked on principle to provide bread and cookies for 50,000 as a gesture of goodwill to the youth of America.
“The Yippie ecological conference will spew out an angry report denouncing Chi’s poison in the lakes and streams, industrial honkey fumes from white killer industrialists and exhaust murder from a sick hamburger society of automobile freaks with precise total assault solutions to these problems.
“Poets will rewrite the Bill of Rights in precise language detailing 10,000 areas of freedom in our own language to replace the confusing and vague rhetoric of 200 years ago.
“B. Share your food, your money, your bodies, your energy, your ideas, your blood, your defenses. Attempt peace.
“C. Plan ahead of time how you will probably respond to various degrees of provocation, hate and creep vectors from the opposition.”
Mr. Schultz: I didn’t get that. Creep what?
The Witness: It is a neologism. Creep vectors.
“D. Learn the Internationale.
“E. Bring sleeping bags, extra food, blankets, bottles of fireflies, cold cream, lots of handkerchiefs and canteens to deal with pig spray, love beads, electric toothbrushes, see-through blouses, manifestos, magazines, tenacity.
“Remember we are the life forms evolving in our own brain.”
Mr. Weinglass: Now, August 27, at two o’clock in the afternoon, do you recall where you were?
The Witness: Yes, I was at the Coliseum.
Mr. Weinglass: How long did you stay at the Coliseum?
The Witness: From approximately 2:00 P.M. to approximately midnight. I was the master of ceremonies at the Johnson birthday festivities, and I was in the process of coordinating the program and introducing people.
Mr. Weinglass: Do you recall what time you introduced Abbie Hoffman?
The Witness: Approximately. It must—about 8:30, quarter to nine.
Mr. Weinglass: Were you present when he spoke?
The Witness: I was.
Mr. Weinglass: I have no further questions.
The Court: All right. Is there any cross-examination of this witness?
Mr. Schultz: Yes, your Honor. Now, you said, I think, that on January 4, 1968, you went to Rubin’s house, is that right?
The Witness: Yes.
Mr. Schultz: And that you meditated before a picture of Che Guevara, is that right?
The Witness: Yes.
Mr. Schultz: Is this the same Che Guevara who was one of the generals of Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution?
The Witness: Yes.
Mr. Schultz: How long did you meditate before his picture?
The Witness: About a half hour.
Mr. Schultz: In Mr. Stahl’s office on August 7, did you hear Hoffman say the Festival of Life that you were discussing with Deputy Mayor Stahl and Al Baugher would include nude-ins at the beaches, public fornications, body painting, and discussions of draft and draft evasion? Did you hear that?
The Witness: Nudism, draft counseling, the beach thing, but he didn’t use the word “public fornication.”
Mr. Schultz: He didn’t use that word. What word did he use in its place?
The Witness: Probably fuck-in.
Mr. Schultz: This was a very important meeting for you, was it not, because if you didn’t get the permit, there was a possibility that your music festival would be off, isn’t that right?
The Witness: The concept of the meeting was important; the substance turned out to be bilious and vague.
Mr. Schultz: And you wanted those permits badly, did you not?
The Witness: We sorely wanted them.
Mr. Schultz: While you were writing this document, you were also listening to what was going on at the meeting, weren’t you?
The Witness: I was keeping an ear into it.
Mr. Schultz: Will you read number four of that document, please. The Witness: Four. OK. “Psychedelic long-haired mutant-jissomed peace leftists will consort with known dope fiends, spilling out onto the sidewalks in porn-ape disarray each afternoon.”
Mr. Schultz: Would you read eight, please?
The Witness: “Universal syrup day will be held on Wednesday when a movie will be shown at Soldiers Field in which Hubert Humphrey confesses to Allen Ginsberg of his secret approval of anal intercourse.”
Mr. Schultz: Will you read nine, please.
The Witness: “There will be public fornication whenever and wherever there is an aroused appendage and willing aperture.”
Mr. Schultz: Did you read thirteen?
The Witness: You want thirteen read? “Two-hundred thirty rebel cocksmen under secret vows are on 24-hour alert to get the pants of the daughters and wives and kept women of the convention delegates.”
Mr. Schultz: Did you ever see these principles, or whatever they are, published in any periodical?
The Witness: Yes, a couple.
Mr. Schultz: They were published before the Convention began, weren’t they?
The Witness: Right. Before.
Mr. Schultz: I have no more questions, your Honor.
The Court: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are about to recess until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
Ladies and gentlemen, good night. You may go.
[Jury excused]
/> The Chicago 7 Convicted
The Chicago 7 trial at last came to a clamorous closing on February 14 after five and a half months of mishugas, and the jury went away to deliberate. There was a kind of collective “Whew!” that the defendants could have uttered just then except that as soon as the jury had departed, the ghastly and arbitrary Julius Hoffman sentenced the seven defendants, and attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass as well, to jail terms of up to four years for contempt of court.
On February 18 all seven were acquitted of “conspiracy” to incite riots, but the jury convicted five of the seven—Dave Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin—of violating the so-called Rap Brown amendment to the 1968 Civil Rights law, that is, crossing state lines to foment a riot (John Froines and Lee Weiner were acquitted).
Then on February 20 Judge Hoffman added five years to the five for Rap Brown. (Bobby Seale was tried and convicted separately.) By February 27 all were out on bail and began to appeal their convictions. (Ultimately none would have to serve time. Whew.)
The Invention of the Term “Punk Rock”
I provided the first-known use of the term “punk rock” in an interview in the Chicago Tribune. “Self-honesty entails an admission,” wrote Robb Baker in that article, published on March 22, 1970, “even if that heritage has been rejected. Sanders does this particularly well in his first solo album for Reprise records, ‘Sanders’ Truckstop,’ which he describes as ‘punk rock—redneck sentimentality—my own past updated to present day reality.’”
No one sent a check for coming up with the term.
Changing Directions
Sanders Truckstop was released in the spring. When the members of the Manson Family heard it out at their Spahn Movie Ranch, they invited me to lead them in singing one evening after a garbage-run dinner—an offer I turned down.
Full-page ad for Sanders Truckstop in the Village Voice.
I got to design my own ads.
the village VOICE, April 9, 1970
Also appearing in 1970 was my novel about the Yippies, Shards of God, from Grove Press. And from Reprise records came Golden Filth, The Fugs live at the Fillmore East. When in August Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground, The Fugs already seemed like a distant fantasy.
Setting Aside Poetry to Study “The Family”
I stopped writing poetry as the Manson case consumed my life for almost two years. I neglected touring for Sanders Truckstop. I had planned to put together a band, but that never happened. I more or less withdrew from the counterculture.
I arranged to get on the staff of the Los Angeles Free Press, the premier underground weekly, to cover the upcoming Manson trial. During 1970 I wrote about twenty-five articles for the Free Press on the Manson Family trial.
Miriam and I, with Deirdre, flew to Los Angeles, where I began the quest for data. I went out to the Spahn Movie Ranch to visit the remnants of the Manson family. It was eerie. I’d thought at first they might have been set up or that there was a bigger story than had been published in Life or the New York Times. I became swept up in research for The Family. I’d been raised to ponder the real presence of evil. Now I was about to come up close to its clear and present manifestations.
Something was over. But “Over” was not over. Writing a book on the Manson group helped me to grow up. Helped me to get to know, and even become friends with, police officers. Helped me to measure evil more acutely, to appreciate the sense of right and wrong given to me by my parents, especially my Sunday-School-teaching mother, Mollie.
As for The Fugs, I quickly forgot they were of any importance at all. Years were to go by, all the way to 1984, until I realized The Fugs had an unfulfilled destiny of songcraft and I would rebegin their voyage with regular reunions and the issuing of new CDs.
The 1960s had ended, and Miriam and I were still together. We had survived the Revolution. I was very grateful for that. The war was still going on like a sore that wouldn’t heal. But still I was feeling vim and energy. The Future was there, ready to savor.
INDEX
Note: References in subheadings to Fuck You/ A Magazine of the Arts are shown with the initials F.Y.
ACLU
AEC. See Atomic Energy Commission
Aeneid (Virgil) translation
“Ah, Sun-Flower, Weary of Time” poem (Blake)
A-head. See Amphetamine Head film project
Alderson, Richard
background
as creative engineer/producer
It Crawled . . . album
live recordings
departs
Alice’s Restaurant movie
Allen, Don
as editor/publisher
helps with Fugs money problems
New American Poetry anthology
Amphetamine
Amphetamine Head film project
Anderson, John
Anger, Kenneth
Angry Arts Festival
Annotated Howl (Ginsberg)
Anthology of American Folk Music (ed. H. Smith)
Anticipation of the Night film (Brakhage)
Apostolic Studio
Asch, Moe
Ashbery, John
Astor Place Playhouse
Atlantic Records
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) sit-in and arrest
Auden, W. H.
Auerhahn Press
Automatic Pilot (Pelieu/Beach)
Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco
Avedon, Richard
Baez, Joan
Baker, David
Bar, Nelson
Baraka, Amiri
Barr, Nelson
Beach, Mary
Beat Generation
The Beatles
The Beautiful Book (J. Smith)
Beck, Julian
Beckett, Samuel
Beckman, Bill
Beer Cans on the Moon album
Be-ins and love-ins
Belafonte, Harry
The Belle of Avenue A album
Bergé, Carol
Berkeley Poetry Conference
Bernstein, Leonard
Berrigan, Ted
on Andy Warhol
in charge of Peace Eye Bookstore
on d.a. levy
friendship
poetry, songs
Bikel, Theodore
Birmingham, Alabama, civil rights violence
Birth control pills
Birth magazine and Birth Press
Bishop, Jim
Black, Hugo
Blake, William. See also under specific poem titles
Blues Project
Bly, Robert
Boat of Death
Bomb scares and threats
Book of Lies (Crowley)
Bowart, Walt
Brakhage, Stan
Bremser, Bonnie
Bremser, Ray
Bridge Theater
The Brig play and film
Brown, Harvey
Bruce, Lenny
Buckley, William F.
Bugger—An Anthology (ed. Sanders)
Burroughs, William
at Chicago Democratic Convention
court cases
Fugs homage to birthplace
and Kerouac
in Time magazine
as writer
Cafe Au Go Go
Café Le Metro
Cafe Wha
Cage, John
Camera (Bell and Howell 16 mm)
Cantina of the Revolutions
Cantos (Pound)
Carnegie Hall
Cassady, Neal
Catholic Worker newspaper and organization
about
peace activism
restrictions on staff
used for early issues of F.Y.
Chaney, James
“The Change” poem (Ginsberg)
Chappaqua film (Rooks)
Charles Theater
The Chicago 7 (Chicago 8)
Chicago Democratic
Convention riots (1968). See also The Chicago 7
Chicago Festival of Life
preparation/planning
denied permits
police killings, brutality
Chicago Seed newspaper
Christmas on Earth film (B. Rubin)
Chumlum film (Rice)
CIA
in Central America