Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
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> Langdon Winner, who was another Cal graduate student and friend of
Greil. First, he reviewed Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter
Culture for the magazine. That indicated to me that the magazine had
a certain intellectual heft even in 1969. (Roszak is my book's
secret hero.) 

I've never read Roszak's _Counter Culture_ book, which is
interestingly subtitled "Reflections on the Technocratic Society and
Its Youthful Opposition." Looking at a few pages in Google Books, I
see it's probably more readable than _Flicker_, Roszak's 1991 novel
that I abandoned after a hundred pages--I thought I would enjoy it
since I'm in film studies, but I couldn't stand it.

Is _The Making of a Counter Culture_ worth reading today?  
  

    
The Masked Marauders story was funny but also illustrative. Greil
wrote the lyric ("Can't Get No Nookie") and Langdon played piano. It
was illustrative because it echoed an earlier jape, when Ramparts
reviewed a fake book about the Kennedy assassination. Journalists
began citing the fake book as if it were real, which showed how lazy
and flatfooted the mainstream media could be. All of which delighted
Warren Hinckle. "Can't Get No Nookie" adapted and updated that jape
perfectly. (I'm not saying the first led to the second, just noting
the resemblance.)

I think The Making of a Counterculture (along with From Satori to
Silicon Valley) holds up very well. No need to get bogged down in
the social theory, of which there is some. It's really the
intellectual intervention that matters. In some ways, Roszak was
defending the counterculture (and especially its opposition to the
technocracy) when the mainstream media was busily disparaging hippie
culture. I think that message--that it's perfectly reasonable for
young people to question and disaffiliate themselves from a sick
society--has never been more timely. 

Of course, the question of lunacy hangs over the whole exchange. The
mainstream media figured hippies as kooks and reprobates. The
hippies had good reason to believe that the establishment was off
its rocker. Although Roszak had his criticisms of the
counterculture, he also believed that the establishment and
mainstream culture was far from healthy. And he would certainly
concur with Norman Mailer that Vietnam was "bottomless in its
lunacy." 

I'm driving from Santa Barbara to Sonoma today, so won't be at the
switch for a while. I appeared with Charlie Perry and Abe Peck at
first Santa Barbara Literary Festival last night. Jerry Roberts, who
worked at the San Francisco Chronicle and Bay Guardian, moderated.
We were missing Marianne Partridge, but that gave us a chance to
praise her contribution to Rolling Stone.  
  

    
Jerry Roberts! I remember him!
  

    
<77> I haven't read "The Making of a Counter Culture" since I
was an undergrad, but I suspect it would be pretty interesting as a
cultural artifact. 

At the time, Roszak was criticized for describing the phenomenon
from the outside, without fully digging the scene, as it were. But
he's a whole lot closer to it than we are now.
  

    
I worked in the advertising department in 1973, still in San
Francisco, Jann still in his dollar socks trying to figure out how
to make his dream come true. Most or maybe all department heads were
amateurs who'd managed to make it into the boss chair, so it was a
little chaotic. I remember the money boss, Hank Torgrimson, issuing
a stern memo telling us to use fewer paper clips because the company
was running out of money. Hunter Thompson and Oscar Oscasa would be
storming through the offices, and we'd be told to cut back on paper
clips.

At that time EST was big. For the younger folks, this was Werner
Erhard's training (tried to think of the right descriptor to put in
there and failed). I guess our hippie life was waning and we were
hungry for guidance. Many of the people at RS went through the
training and I kind of think maybe we were told it was mandatory. My
favorite memory of it is, I was hired to work on the San Francisco
Flyer, a local insert that never really found a footing, and when
the Flyer was folded, our boss, Laurel Gonzalvez, had to let someone
go. It was between another girl and me, and I was surprised when I
made the cut. I learned that the decision was made by Laurel using
the EST technique of "putting on someone's head." She put on my head
and put on the other girl's head and kept me. Since I was entering
the final phase of alcoholism and drug addiction and having affairs
with two different co-workers at the time, even I thought maybe the
EST technique was maybe not the best way to make personnel
decisions.
  

    

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!!!

I have a vaguie memory of the San Francisco Flyer!
  

    
Hah!  I managed to avoid EST but remember it being extremely popular
in the Bay Area (I moved there about the time that RS moved to NYC).

I ended up working in another countercultural business - tiny
compared to RS but with its own exciting interpersonal dynamics and
intoxicant excesses.

One of the things that sort of turned me off RS for good was
Wenner's phase of hanging out with musicians who I thought were
utterly lame - the guys from Foreigner are the example that springs
to mind.  I was also dimly aware of stories where negative reviews
were spiked and cover material dictated.  It seemed like RS didn't
do a great job of navigating the rise of "celebrity culture" in the
1980s.
  

    

I recall that Bill Graham had a brief infatuation with EST as well,
which included Werner Erhard speaking at the S.N.A.C.K. Sunday benefit
at Kezar in '75. There was some talk of some sort of collaborative
ventures between the two organizations, but nothing came of them.
  

    
wow, I forgot about that!!
  

    
I was at SNACK and thankfully don't recall Erhard. It was a great day.
  

    
I was there and didn't know anyone in est at the time.
  

    
[high-fiving Frako]
  

    
It was an interesting time in SF.  Remember "fern bars?"
  

    
Today's the final official day for this Inkwell discussion, though
you're welcome to continue. Just want to thank Pete Richardson and
all who contributed their questions and thoughts! Onward!
  

    
It's been quite enjoyable.  I learned a lot!  And will read the book!
  

    
You'll be glad you did!
  

    
FERN bars, oy.
  

    

Iirc, the original one was at Van Ness and Lombard. Yes, it had lots
of ferns.6
  

    

I spent some evenings at Henry Africa's because a woman I know lived in the
'hood.
  

    
I could be misremembering after all these years, but I think my
girlfriend and I had one drink there - and felt very much out of
place.

I could not have remembered the name of the bar if you'd offered me
a thousand bucks - but yeah, Henry Africa's.

Only a hop skip and a jump from the White Swallow, which was quite
another kind of bar.
  

    
I don't think Henry Africa's was the first one, but it was a biggie.
  

    
Pete, I'm still reading your book. It's so readable and fascinating,
thank you.
  

    
We're giving people from outside of The Well a great demonstration
of topic drift here!