“An otherworldly 18-year-old seeking a mystic’s higher understanding flees compulsory military service in 1966, drifting without a safety net through subterranean America for 22,000 reckless miles.”
Printed on the cover was the word Record. With a marker he added “of Mishaps.” In its pages he wrote poems and made notes of his travels (see map)… until it was stolen!
Record of Mishaps is the 1966-1969 memoir-in-progress by Randy Rhody. Learn more about the book at http://www.randyrhody.com.
Various and sundry of us, including three pictured, occupied a sixth-floor stair-climb at 608 East 9th, half a block from Tompkins Square Park. In June I saw the Grateful Dead play a free concert at the band shell. Their first album had come out in March.
In 1967, after 8 months on a road more extreme than Kerouac traveled, I lived in the Lower East Side and worked on St Marks Place at Underground Uplift Unlimited. The store and mail order business sold buttons such as Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, Keep the Faith Baby, and We Shall Overcome. It quickly evolved into a head shop.
I would be beholden to anyone who contacts who has or knows of other photos of the Underground Uplift Unlimited, 28 St Marks Place.
The poet Tuli Kupferberg dropped in occasionally. Valerie Solanas brought her SCUM magazine in to sell. Abbie Hoffman lived upstairs from the store.
We took the subway up to Central Park on March 26 for the Easter Be-In. David, Keith, Toni and me.
By October-November we started attending the daily meals the Diggers served in Golden Gate Park panhandle. They made their stew once at the place we were staying. We helped clean out the garage on Page Street for the first Free Store, where at Thanksgiving they served turkey and all the usual dishes.
(August-September 1966) – Big Brother and the Holding Company played at Mother Blues, a small club on Wells Street, Chicago. They didn’t have a record out yet, we’d never heard any of their songs, and they had a new singer no one ever heard of.
Some of the band members needed a place to stay. Accommodations were made for one of the musicians at a crash pad I was staying at on North Avenue, about two blocks from Mother Blues. I’m not sure he actually stayed there, but in return several of us were allowed in to see the San Francisco band, because of course we couldn’t afford tickets.
The club was full of tourists as usual, except for our table of hippie street people. The singer gave us a little wave and at intermission came over to say hello. Sounded like her name was Janice.
On my third or fourth pass through Cleveland in 1966, d. a. levy brought me along to an open-mic poetry reading he’d organized at The Gate on July 1. The Plain Dealer wrote a full-page story on the event, including my photo and a poem of mine from my booklet Paracutes that d. a. levy had published. The two other poems I read were also published, one in Carl Woidek’s Sum, and the other in levy’s compilation, Poets at the Gate. That one came to the attention of poet Walter Lowenfels, who published it in a 1969 Doubleday anthology, The Writing on the Wall.
(accessed January 19, 2018). Poets At The Gate Vol. 1, No. 4. Mimeo, July 1966. http://verdantpress.com/checklist/d-a-levy/periodicals-edited-and-published/ (accessed January 16, 2018). The Writing on the Wall. Hardcover, Doubleday, July 1969. ISBN 0385017448. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=0385017448&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A0385017448 (accessed July 1, 2018).In February 1966 Allen Ginsberg visited Lincoln, Nebraska to read poetry at the University, where I was an 18-year-old freshman and aspiring poet. He is shown onstage with his companion Peter Orlovsky in the February 21, 1966 University of Nebraska at Lincoln newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan.
The Department of English literary magazine, Scrip, featured Ginsberg’s photo on the cover (upper right) of the March-April issue. When the department chairman balked at including a copy of the poet’s latest composition, “Auto Poesy to Nebraska,” Steve Abbott, the Scrip editor, ran it as a supplement.
Karl Shapiro, 1945 Pulitzer winner and faculty member, wrote a review of Scrip in the Daily Nebraskan (lower right). He very kindly praised my poem about Ginsberg’s appearance. Karl also slipped in a mention of my self-published book of poems, A Year’s Worth of Wonder 1965-1966 (lower left).
“Younger” because Pat Brougham, George Eade, John Powers, Joe Knight, Ron Barzydlo and others were my peers, mostly freshmen at the U. of Nebraska in Lincoln. The problem is, we didn’t have cameras. I don’t have my own picture from that year, 1965-66.
I have an image of the book of 50 poems I printed, titled A Year’s Worth of Wonder: 1965-1966. Steve Abbott drew the cover, and Grady Waugh wrote an introduction. Grady Waugh (from a later photograph) was a guitarist and my roommate at the time we hosted the big party for Allen Ginsberg at our apartment on W Street. Darlene Barnes was always on scene.
“Older” because these people were all older than me by 4 to 6 years.
Carl Davidson came from Pennsylvania to Lincoln as a graduate student and lecturer. He co-established the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on campus in 1965-1966 when I knew him. In August 1966 he was elected SDS national vice-president.
Larry Clausen was vice-president of the Lincoln chapter of SDS that Carl Davidson started. In Lincoln I used to see him riding around on his Indian motorcycle, with Steve Wilson. At about the time I knew him, this photo by Jon Giorlich appeared in the March-April Scrip magazine.
Steve Wilson already had a degree in fine art from the university and had served a year in the army, before the Vietnam ramp-up. He rode a 1950 Harley and lived at his mom’s house, making paintings and drawings like the one shown, courtesy of J. Seyler. In a couple of years he became the ZAP Comix artist, S. Clay Wilson.
Steve Abbott edited the campus literary journal, Scrip, issued five times in 1965-1966 at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. I considered him a good friend and he kindly published some of my poems in each issue.
