As I noted,
there was rising tension between me and key Seed staff members over
rhetoric like spelling Amerikkka that
I felt was alienating to working class readers. I was suspected
of being if not sufficiently
revolutionary then insufficiently insurrectionist. I doubted
that we could win a new society from
the barrel of a wildly out-matched gun. I
was seen as a Wobbly romantic out of touch with the new movement. Maybe I was. And I maybe I was not loyal in the brouhaha between the Seed and Alice’s Revisited downstairs.
So it
was sort of a gesture of reconciliation when the collective finally agreed on an idea
for a fiction supplement that I had
been pitching for some time.
I had
recently left Colombia College where
I had studied creative writing and
the Story Workshop method with John Schultz and Betty Schiflett. In addition
to mentoring aspiring writers, Schultz had also published one of the best
books on the 1968 Democratic
Convention turmoil, No One Was Killed and
a follow-up on the Trial of the Chicago 8/7. I was enamored by the short story form and in my fantasies could imagine turning up in
the New
Yorker or turning out collections
as rich as J. D. Salinger. Of course I was deluded, but happily so.
Even
after dropping out of Columbia, I
still met regulars, teachers and students alike, from the Story Workshop classes for drinks in an almost always deserted and dark saloon called the Red Barron just down the street from
the Oxford Pub. My pal Larry
Heinemann who would go on to win a National
Book Award for his great Vietnam War
novel Paco’s Story was one of the regulars at those alcohol fueled bull sessions.
For the Seed supplement I envisioned a collection of short-short stories, just a few hundred words each, submitted by
readers. I rather hoped that some of the
Columbia writers would offer pieces,
but they did not. I suspect they were
holding their stuff for more prestigious
outlets that might actually pay. I, of course, had a couple of pieces of
my own ready to go.
It was
no small gesture from the staff. A four page insert supplement to the 36
page paper would be expensive and
there was no reason to believe that a sudden
literary foray would appeal to our readers who by in large found their cultural interests filled quite nicely
by music and film. Feedback from street sellers
when they heard about the plans was not
enthusiastic.
We solicited submissions for a couple of
issues. The response was underwhelming. But I selected enough stories to fill the
section with room for graphics. When I
brought them to a regular staff meeting, I was stunned by the response.
Some of
the pieces were attacked as racist or
sexist or simply irrelevant to “the
struggle.” Some staff members viewed art as necessarily didactic and had little or no consideration for individual
free expression that was not in service to the cause. At least one or two stories were rejected outright.
My own two
pieces also came under critical scrutiny. One piece was about a stoned out hippie on a late
night deserted L platform who was stabbed by a Black street kid. I thought
the story was about the delusions
some counter-cultural folks had for
the deep racial resentments and divisions in society—we were not immune. Others felt it promoted racist stereotypes.
The
second story The Dear Old Yellow Porsche described a heroin overdose and/or suicide
at the Lakefront of comfortable young couple.
After
much wrangling it was finally decided to go ahead and publish the supplement if
only because we had been promoting
it for weeks. But a disclaimer disassociating the staff collective from the contents
and denouncing some of the content
had to be run.
The
supplement came out. The vendors were
right. It did not sell like hot cakes. My attempt at becoming a literary figure on the Chicago scene failed.
I was disillusioned. My resignation
from the staff was taken without much regret. Everyone moved on.
The Seed remained under pressure from ad
revenue loss, completion from the Reader, and dwindling street
sellers. Within a couple of years they
could not afford the rent on the Wrightwood offices which made it even more difficult
to get copies in the hands of vendors. Dick O’Brien a/k/a Dick Yippie did what he could to keep the paper afloat sporadically
bringing out copies he laid out on his kitchen table. It faded away in a city that had moved on.
I went
to work on third shift at a Schwinn Bicycle
plant hoping to help organize it as part of a Chicago IWW branch Metal and Machinery Workers organizing
drive. Nothing came of that before I
was finally sentenced to prison for Draft Resistance in 1973. When
I got out I went to work a Dietzgen Corp,
an old engineering equipment and supply company with buildings at Fullerton and Sheffield,
I continued to be active in the IWW and worked on the Industrial Worker eventually
becoming editor.
The IWW
lost the Lincoln Avenue Hall and
moved to storefront digs on Webster near Armitage which could no longer host
the big community events and benefits.
After that the union moved to even more cramped space in a second floor
office in Links Hall north on Sheffield.
I ended
up disgraced, drunk, and frequently homeless in the late ‘70’s
before I reconnected with a former Seed seller Kathy Brady-Larsen who was a widow
with young daughters. I moved into her Logan Square neighborhood flat and we got married. After our daughter Maureen was born we moved to the boonies of McHenry County in 1983.
But all
of that are stories for another time.
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