Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  The Glories of the Early ’60s

  The Mimeograph Revolution

  The Founding of My Magazine

  Jonas and Adolfas Mekas and the Film-Makers’ Cooperative

  Typing a Wild Magazine at the Catholic Worker

  An Egyptian Vision

  A Sit-In at the Atomic Energy Commission

  The Death of Bennie Paret

  An Unself-Confident Egomaniac

  The Charles Theater and Ron Rice’s Flower Thief

  A Polished Poem from Jail

  The “Freaking” Issue of F.Y.

  The Death of Marilyn Monroe

  A Party for Marilyn at Nelson Barr’s

  Warhol’s Silkscreens

  Working at the NYU Purchasing Department

  James Meredith

  A Spine-Chilling Speech

  The Fall of ’62

  Drawing on Stencils by Flashlight

  Trouble from My Editorial Notes

  Bodhisattva Collating Method

  The Beauty of Yum

  Meeting Harry Smith and H. L. Humes

  Underground Films

  Help from Jonas Mekas

  The Rise of Warhol as a Filmmaker

  Sending an Issue to Ginsberg in India

  The Children of Birmingham

  Quang Duc

  Al Fowler

  The Beginning of Filming

  The Kick Grid

  Renting the Secret Location in the Lower East Side

  Rent Control!

  “Jack Smith Decor” for the Secret Location

  Burnt by Herbert Huncke!

  The Living Theater

  The Great March on Washington

  Pound at the Great March

  Filming the Nazis

  Birmingham Bombing

  September 7, 1963

  The Shutdown of the Living Theater

  The Fall of ’63

  Hoping to Help the Spark of Revolution

  Amphetamine Head

  Sound Track for Amphetamine Head

  White House Cooperation with Seven Days in May

  Bye Bye, Nam

  A Trip to Texas

  The Final Procession

  Then the Assassination

  Oswald in the Village?

  The Arrival of 1964

  War, Always War—This One on Poverty

  Belief in the Power of the Lower East Side and the Underground

  The Beatles in America

  My Final Term at NYU

  Hanging Out with Allen Ginsberg!

  Roosevelt After Inauguration

  Reading with Joel Oppenheimer at the Five Spot

  Harvey Brown and Peace Eye

  Crackdown on Coffeehouses and the Arts

  Clamping Down on Jonas Mekas

  Barbara Rubin

  The Travails of Lenny Bruce

  The Great Society

  May 1964

  The Glorification of the Needle

  The Sexual Revolution

  A Long, Hot Summer of Drought

  Lenny on Trial

  Graduating from NYU

  My Catalogs

  Freedom Summer

  Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner

  Despair, an Anthology

  The Civil Rights Act of 1964

  The War Starting to Impinge

  The Republican Convention

  Goldwater’s Famous Speech

  Riots in Harlem

  Trouble in the Gulf of Tonkin

  The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

  Letter to Olson

  The Democratic Convention

  The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

  Getting Invited to Literary Soirées

  Parties at the Dakota

  The God Issue

  Applying to Grad School a Bit Too Late

  A Cigar to Phil Whalen

  Charles Olson’s Introduction to My Book

  The Folklore Center

  Johnson’s Victory

  Meanwhile, Kerouac Folding the Flag on Park Avenue

  Locating Peace Eye

  Tuli Kupferberg

  The Physicality of Peace Eye

  Bugger—An Anthology

  The Founding of The Fugs

  The Founding of LeMar

  The Free Speech Movement

  1965

  Writing Songs

  Marijuana Newsletters

  Trouble with Jim Bishop

  Orlovsky and a Break-In

  The First Fugs Concert

  Silkscreened Warhol Flowers

  The Grand Opening of Peace Eye Bookstore

  The Hideous Rolling Thunder

  The First Selma March

  Selma Two

  Selma Three

  The Fugs at the American Theater for Poets

  A Three-Day Fug Festival

  A Fugs Show Cost Me $250,000

  APO-33 for Burroughs

  Spring Arts Festival in Buffalo

  Peace Eye

  The First Fugs Session

  War War War

  The Mansfield Film at Cordier & Ekstrom

  Filming at the Dakota

  Harry Smith’s Freakout at Peace Eye

  Filming at the Secret Location

  The Background of the Bridge Theater

  Revolutionary Egyptology

  The Berkeley Poetry Conference

  July 25

  July 28

  Night of Napalm

  The Attempted Setup of Allen Ginsberg for Pot Arrest

  A Raid on the Secret Location

  Demonstrations Against Federal Narcotics Agents

  Neal Cassady at Peace Eye

  The Thought of Going to California

  A Moment of Antiwar Glory at Carnegie Hall

  Recording Some Tunes to Entice Verve/Folkways

  Preparing The Fugs First Album

  September 24

  September 26

  A Police Informant Trying Out for The Fugs

  A Visit of Support for the Kinsey Institute

  October 22

  October 29

  October 30

  Down and Out

  Fugs Gig with Country Joe and the Fish and Allen Ginsberg

  Benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe

  Neal Cassady Driving Us to La Honda

  The Fugs in Placitas

  Two Letters to Charles Olson

  Onward to New York City

  The Founding of the East Village Other

  Another Letter to Charles Olson

  Peaceful Life on East Twenty-Seventh

  Rastignac at the End of Balzac’s Pere Goriot

  December 20

  1966

  The Raid on Peace Eye

  Wanting Supporters to Come to My Trial

  An Offer from a Record Company

  Opening at Astor Place Playhouse

  Using the Strobe Light

  Recording The Fugs Second Album

  Jan Kerouac

  Trouble Trouble Trouble

  Burning a Flag of the Lower East Side

  Section of Chappaqua Filmed at Astor Place Playhouse

  The War the War the War

  The New York City Department of Licenses

  The Ghastly Attention of the FBI and the Justice Department

  A Trip to Gloucest
er to See Charles Olson

  June 12 at Town Hall

  The Players Theatre

  A Patriotic Flavor

  The Fugs’ Renown Among the Literati

  Subletting a Pad in the Summer

  Chart-Anguia

  The Revolution at Fillmore and Geary

  The Mystery of Frank O’Hara

  A Call from Jack Kerouac

  Performing with Little Anthony and the Imperials

  Lenny Bruce Memorial

  A Bomb Scare in the Musette Bag

  September 13

  Poseidon’s Mane

  A Hunger to Record Again

  The Loss of John Anderson and Jon Kalb

  Limo-Anguia and a New Pad

  Trouble Inside The Fugs

  Reading at the 92nd Street Y

  The Fugs to California in Late 1966

  Jimi Hendrix at the Wha

  The Frank O’Hara Award

  1967: The Year of Love and the Great Be-In

  Angry Arts Festival in New York City

  Recording at Talent Masters

  Still Playing at the Players Theatre

  On the David Susskind Show

  On the Cover of Life Magazine

  Sudden Fame

  “The Fugs Turned Them On”

  Some Hostility

  Craziness

  Plimpton

  Awareness of the Diggers

  Jade Companions of the Flowered Dance

  University of Buffalo Spring Arts Festival

  A Possible Album Cover

  Off to San Francisco

  ”Good Production Job, Ed”

  CIA Scandal

  The Peace Eye Bookstore in the Hands of the Community

  The Young Man Named Groovy

  And Then Touring

  Benefit for d. a. levy

  The Fugs Performing with Andrei Voznesensky at the Village Theater

  A Mood of Personal Defiance Following Court Hearing

  The Fuck You Trial

  Prosecutor Offended by Lady Dickhead Advertising Company

  Flaming Creatures Resurfacing in DC

  The Trouble over Virgin Fugs

  The Summer of Love in the Lower East Side

  The Psychedelicatessen

  The Riots of July

  The FBI and Army Intelligence Not Buying It

  The Questioning of Black Men in Detroit

  Linda and Groovy

  Zip Gun Cisco

  The Fugs at the Players Theatre

  Theater in Boston

  Signing with Reprise Records

  The CIA’s “Operation Chaos”

  Abbie Hoffman

  Abbie and the Burning of Money at the Stock Exchange

  The Community Breast Concert for the Free Store

  The Rise and Sad Fall of the Digger Free Store

  The Murder of Linda and Groovy

  Che

  A Fugs Movie Project with Barbara Rubin and Shirley Clarke

  Planning for the Exorcism

  The Trial for the Killers of Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman

  The Exorcism and Levitation of the Pentagon

  Meanwhile, Out in Topanga Canyon by the Pacific

  Publishing Some “Cantos” of Ezra Pound

  A Robbery on Avenue A

  Completing Tenderness Junction

  Richard Avedon Overseeing Design of The Fugs Album

  The Fugs in Cleveland

  The Fugs in Detroit

  Praise for Tenderness Junction from Robert Shelton

  Late 1967

  Still Searching for the Perfect Band

  1968

  The Indictment of Dr. Spock and Others

  A Festival of Life in Chicago

  The Death of Neal Cassady

  Kootch’s Departure

  An Exorcism of Joseph McCarthy’s Grave

  Dawn Protest Concert at Stony Brook

  Meanwhile, More Benefits

  Time to Complete a Major Album

  Idea for Recording a Single During a Parachute Jump

  Moving Peace Eye to Avenue A

  Life During the Glory Years of the Great Society

  A Mantram to Chant in Chicago

  Blown Away by Sly

  Martin Luther King

  A Possible Career Mistake

  Photo Shoot

  A Tour of Sweden and Denmark

  Trying to Finish an Album

  The Fugs at Fillmore East

  Warhol and Solanas

  The Shooting of Robert Kennedy

  A Hunger to Study

  Still Recording The Fugs Album

  Prague Spring

  World Poetry Conference

  The Summer of 1968

  Working with Bob Dorough

  Late July

  Designing the Album

  August 2–3

  The Telegram

  The Fugs’ Tompkins Square Park Concert

  Getting Ready for Chicago

  Thursday, August 22

  Saturday, August 24

  Sunday, August 25: The Festival of Life

  Tuesday, August 27

  Wednesday, August 28

  The Two Albums for 1968

  An Apartment for Doc Humes

  A Yippie Pot-Mailing Caper

  On Firing Line with Kerouac, September 3

  ”Win a Fug Dream Date” Competition

  Pigasus to the U.S. Embassy in Montreal

  Crackdown on the Underground Press

  The FBI on Avenue A

  A Visit to Europe, with Pigasus

  An Underground Comic Show

  A Book Party for Revolution for the Hell of It

  d. a. levy’s Suicide

  December 15

  Another Visit to the Galactic Spinach: Miriam Once Again Helps Me to Land Softly

  Becoming a Social Democrat

  1969

  Maretta Greer Barefoot in the Snow

  Baleful Words from Charles Mingus

  More “Win a Dream Date with The Fugs”

  Gig with the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead

  Retiring

  An Art Show for Claude Pelieu

  Red Boots on Avenue A

  Recording The Belle of Avenue A

  Saying Good-Bye

  The Resist Tour

  God Loves Rock and Roll