My Odyssey Through the Underground Press

Michael Kindman. My Odyssey through the Underground Press. Edited by Ken Wachsberger. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011. xx + 206 pp. $39.95, paper, ISBN 978-1-61186-000-9. Reviewed by Susan Keith Published on Jhistory (August, 2012) Commissioned by Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia) Social movements of the Sixties--a cultural era movements of the Sixties as Michael “Mica” Kind‐ often said to have begun in the 1950s or even man in his posthumous memoir My Odyssey 1940s and to have continued until nearly the mid Through the Underground Press. In a book edited 1970s--gave new voice to a variety of groups that by Ken Wachsberger as one of four volumes in the previously had been marginalized in U.S. society. Voices from the Underground series, Kindman, [1] During this period, as Abe Peck writes, “War, who died in 1991, recounts his involvement in racism, class, nationalism, the environment, sexu‐ student protests, an autocratic urban religious ality, the nature of consciousness, culture, work, commune, the back-to-the-land movement, the lifestyle--all were radically, substantially, some‐ men’s movement, and gay liberation. As Kindman times explosively reconsidered.”[2] Alternative was either a creator of, contributor to, or acute newspapers and magazines were key components observer of the media of all these struggles, his of this reconsideration, as Peck and other schol‐ book will be useful to historians of both alterna‐ ars--including John McMillian in Smoking Type‐ tive media and social movements. writers: The Sixties Underground Press and the The frst three chapters of the book chronicle Rise of Alternative Media in America (2011)--have Kindman’s transformation into, in Wachsberger’s documented. words, “a legend of the Vietnam era underground Since the 1970s, a number of books and arti‐ press” (p. xv). The story begins in 1963 when he cles--including Sean Stewart’s On the Ground: An arrived at Michigan State University (MSU) from Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Under‐ Long Island, one of nearly two hundred National ground Press in the U.S. (2011)--have given voice Merit Scholarship winners wooed by MSU that to the people who produced these alternative year to improve the school’s reputation. A journal‐ American media. Rarely, however, has a single al‐ ism major, Kindman quickly found a job on the ternative media producer shed light on as many copy desk of the campus daily, the Michigan State H-Net Reviews News, and moved up to co-editor of the editorial under the auspices of the Fort Hill Community, a page. He grew increasingly disillusioned, howev‐ loose urban commune led by folk musician and er, with “unexciting” journalism courses “taught self-styled “world savior” Mel Lyman, a former by traditional faculty with a heavy commitment to member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.[4] (Three what we have since come to know as the ‘myth of years earlier, at the Newport Folk Festival, Lyman objectivity’” (p. 5). had became a popular music icon after using a In 1964, he moved toward activism, becoming twenty-minute solo harmonica version of “Rock of involved in an MSU activist group called the Com‐ Ages” to calm a crowd of folk purists disgruntled mittee for Student Rights, participating in the Sel‐ by Bob Dylan’s use of electronic instruments)[5]. ma-to-Montgomery civil rights march in Alabama, Kindman and Schoenherr were welcomed into and being placed on social probation for cohabi‐ the cult-like Lyman Family but soon were “re‐ tating off campus with his girlfriend. The next duced emotionally to childlike conditions by the year, when staff members at the State News were complexity of the life and subculture we had told they must adhere to a policy of having “no stumbled upon” (p. 47). loyalty above the State News,” Kindman quit (p. Both initially worked at the Avatar offices, 8). With his girlfriend, Carol Schneider, and Kindman on layout (though he is credited as being housemate Larry Tate, he started a new weekly “managing editor” in the staff boxes of two issues) newspaper called the Paper. (Issues are archived and Schoenherr as a typist.[6] Soon, however, at http://www.msupaper.org.) Kindman served as Kindman writes, the South End staff that pro‐ editor of the new publication, which critiqued the duced the newspaper clashed with the Roxbury- administration and the university’s connections to based commune over control of the content. A le‐ the war in Vietnam, battled for campus distribu‐ gal fght resulted in the South End group publish‐ tion rights, and jabbed at the State News, publish‐ ing a few more issues of a standard alternative ing seventeen issues in 1965-66. newspaper called the Avatar, while commune in‐ Over the next two years, circulation of the Pa‐ siders began putting out four issues of a magazine per, which was produced largely from Kindman’s called American Avatar (see archives at http:// various homes, grew to 5,000. Staff and volunteers www.trussel.com/lyman/amerav.htm#amav1) that “numbered in the dozens” (p. 21). The Paper di‐ featured Lyman’s religious ramblings and images rectly inspired the creation of at least one other of the Fort Hill Community. Although Kindman campus alternative newspaper, the Rag at the never seems to have gotten close enough to Ly‐ University of Texas Austin. But the stress of run‐ man to be allowed to help produce American ning a weekly publication for several years--while Avatar--he writes that he “never found the secret” experimenting with psychedelic drugs and discov‐ of moving into the group’s inner circle--he does ering bisexuality--left Kindman ready for a provide detailed accounts of its content (p. 89). change. Kindman remained with the main Fort Hill One night in winter 1968, “in an LSD-induced group or its New York City outpost for four years, haze” (p. 37), the author and a new girlfriend, recounted in chapters 4 through 14, losing Candy Schoenherr, left East Lansing and hitch‐ Schoenherr’s affections to a higher-status group hiked to the Boston office of the Avatar, a counter‐ member; proselytizing, reuniting with, and break‐ culture newspaper begun in 1967 that Kindman ing up with his old girlfriend, the Paper co- had admired from afar.[3] (Some text and covers founder Carol Schneider; learning construction are available at http://www.trussel.com/lyman/ and other jobs to bring in money for the com‐ avatar/avatar.htm.) The newspaper was published mune; and being assigned to sell American Avatar 2 H-Net Reviews at Woodstock, where he wound up directing traf‐ that all this experience has added up to some‐ fic in the rain and mud. He left the community, he thing” (p. 188). writes, only after angering Lyman by beating him As a memoir of the “long Sixties,” Kindman’s at cards and being given a choice: stay and be de‐ book is fascinating as it encompasses almost the moted in his workgroup or leave immediately. entire length of that era. The book’s editor, Wachs‐ Kindman chose the latter and hitchhiked west. berger, worked on an East Lansing publication Kindman did not make a complete break that was a successor to the Paper. After he initial‐ from Lyman’s influence, however. He eventually ly commissioned a chapter by Kindman for the landed, as chapter 15 recounts, at a Kansas farm first edition of a volume about the Vietnam-era where members of the Fort Hill group were at‐ underground press, he commendably recognized tempting to build a rural outpost. Again, Kindman that Kindman’s story, which he fnished just be‐ became entangled in a community that controlled fore his death, deserved its own book.[7] his life--at one point, he writes, he was assigned to The minor shortcomings of the book for move in with a female commune member and scholars are those common to memoir. Dates of care for three children newly arrived from Bos‐ events occasionally are reported, with the under‐ ton--leaving only after he was beaten in a bizarre standable fuzziness of memory, as “within a few confrontation. weeks” (p. 73) or “during this period” (p. 145), re‐ Kindman wound up in San Francisco’s Mid- quiring the reader to look back to the most recent‐ Peninsula suburbs, where his sister lived, and re‐ ly cited month or year to determine what hap‐ turned to the activism of his college years, which pened when. The focus of the book also necessari‐ is recounted in the fnal four chapters of the book. ly reflects what seemed important to Kindman at While working construction, he spent his free the too-early end of his life. Scholars of the cam‐ time volunteering with a peace-oriented men’s pus alternative press, the San Francisco-area al‐ group, a rural commune known as The Land. The ternative media of the 1970s, and the gay libera‐ men’s group produced a page of content for an al‐ tion movement may wish that the book had con‐ ternative community newspaper called the tained more information about the Paper , the Grapevine, for which he both wrote and sold ad‐ Grapevine, or the (variously spelled) Radical vertising. He also began to explore the gay scene. Fairies, and less about Kindman’s involvement Although during part of this time he lived with Lyman’s cult. with a woman who supported his sexual explo‐ The considerable space the book devotes to ration, they eventually parted and he began to the Fort Hill Community will be extremely useful, live as a gay man. He adopted the name “Mica” however, to scholars of alternative religious and became active with the “Radical Fairies,” a movements of the Sixties and is understandable, group of “spiritually seeking and politically ac‐ given the profound impact those years had on tive” gay men (p.

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