Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Punk era = Mission District
  

    

That would prove that the world does indeed revolve around the Bay Area.  I
try to tell friends in Boston, New York, and D.C. that and they think I'm
crazy (New Orleans folks just shrug).
  

    
Oh, I thought it was a San Francisco-based museum. I could live with
Gay Era branch in the West Village and the Punk Era branch in TriBeCa
or something. 
  

    
Actually, Jack, it's the *Well* that revolves around the Bay Area. Do
not confuse with Real Life. 

And Krassner's from Noo Yawk, ain'cha? 
  

    

Well, that's where he's gotten in the most trouble.
  

    
Noo Yawk, ain't that east of Dallas, Ed?
  

    
And north. 
  

    
speaking  of Gene Schoenfeld's pranks, when Tim Leary was in prison
and supposedly revealing secrets, a press conference was held in
Berkeley to denounce him; Gene came dressed in a kangaroo suit (it
being a kangaroo court, y'see) and a cream pie he hoped to smush in
Jerry Rubin's face, only it had Saran Wrap on it and with his kangaroo
mittens he couldn't remove it and his plot was foiled (but if he had
used ALUMINUM foil...)
  

    
Which books, you ask, are in print?  Murder At the Conspiracy
Convention and Other American Absurdities is in stores and  on the
Internet.  I still have The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race: The
Satirical Writings of PK; Sex, Drugs and the Twinkie Murders: 40 Years
of Countercultural Journalism; and an anthology, Psychedelic Trips For
the Mind.  I have very few copies of Impolite Interviews; Pot Stories
For the Soul; and Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut:
Misadventures in the Counter-Culture.
  

    
hiya, dotcompost (great pseudonym)...nice slice.  Tom Lehrer teaches
math at the University of Santa Cruz.
  

    
oh, Silly...wouldn't the Castro & Market area have been the site of
the gay era even more than the Tenderloin?
  

    
yeah, I'm from Noo Yawk, you gotta problem with that?
  

    
Paul, do you have any memories of the 1970 Alternative Mmedia Conference in
Vermont? I remember you on a stage giving somebody (Jerry Rubin maybe?) a
hard time.
  

    

Paul, Goldie says to say hi.  She runs my business, and she's in my office
one day a week.  Today's that day.
  

    
John: I was tripping on acid at the 1970 Alternative Media Conference
at Goddard College, and so were many others.  I was a featured speaker,
and I don't remember anything I said except my opening: "Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...I'm just articulating the
consciousness of the audience."

David: Please give Goldie a conscious hug for me.  Also, how come the
number of responses at the top of these pages are always one number
higher than the actual responses?
  

    <scribbled by tnf Thu 12 Dec 02 15:23>
  

    

Hug delivered.  And now Mountain Girl is here, and she says hi too.
  

    
The Well runs on software that was written in the early 1980s.
And in those days, programmers had not yet tumbled to the fact
that they were the only people on earth who had a finger numbered
zero.  So every topic starts with Response 0.
  

    
This conference has taken on a life of its own.  And the general
consciousness is a lot higher than blah blah blah blah blah blah.  
  

    
Paulsie, concerning the old chestnut of "if you remember the '60s, you
weren't really there", how much do you NOT remember?
  

    
When people say "irony is dead", I think what they really mean is that
it's thriving at the highest levels.  From today's Toronto Star:

     <<What's a definition of irony? 
     It's the United States — the world's largest weapons seller and
heartiest participant in the international arms bazaar — complaining
about North Korea shipping 15 Scud missiles to Yemen, according to
peace activists. 
     For Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to call North Korea the
"single largest proliferater'' of missile technology is, as they say,
the pot calling the kettle black. 
     "I guess you've got to remember that irony is essentially dead in
the United States,'' said Scott Lynch, from Washington-based Peace
Action. 
     "But even so, this one has got to be seen as highly ironic. One
could even move up to hypocritical.''>> 
  

    
Mikey--how do I NOT remember the '60s?  Is that a trick question?  but
I know what you mean.  it was a mass awakening, and jokes about not
remembering the decade don't diminish that kind of--I'm actually gonna
say it--paradigm shift.
As for irony, it's not dead, it's just a flesh wound.  Oh, and Chuck,
thanks for the explanation; it's sort of like a basement apartment.
  

    

What could we have done to keep Lenny alive?   (not addressed to anybody in
particular)

And how did Mort Sahl, a former Kennedy speechwriter, and Ben Stein, a
former Nixon speechwriter, get to be "funny"?
  

    
It's entirely possible that I was one of maybe three people at that
conference who was not stoned, tripping or otherwise operating on some kind
of altered brain state.
  

    
     Although I was not at the 1970 Alternative Media Conference in
Vermont, I have a xerox of the Rolling Stone article from the time
covering it.  It comes across as a smaller Altamont crossed with that
infamous, contentious, final days SDS confab.  Amuck hedonism and
leftist bickering.  Although with all the nekkidness and shtupping
reported and photographically shown, someone must've had fun.  There's
one photo of a nude teen hippie chick lecturing a crowd about something
directly after (according to the text) fucking a friend in the middle
of this meeting.  
      I look at the photo and wonder 32 years later if this woman now
sits with her grandkids, drags out the old issues of Rolling Stone, and
sez "Now here's Grandma at the Alternative Media Conference in Vermont
in 1970.  Your mother was conceived on the floor of this very meeting
room with Raphael from Berkeley.  Never did learn his last name.  Nice
boy and a helluva lay.  He idolized Rudi Dutschke, his favorite movie
was 'Putney Swope' and all he ever listened to was Blodwyn Pig.  HA! 
And they say if you remember the '60s, you weren't really there!"