Harvey Ovshinsky

On Sunday, July 23, at 3 o’clock in the morning, The Doors’ “Baby Light My Fire” was the number one song in Detroit.

It couldn’t have been more appropriate.

At 3:30 a.m. a large crowd of black people watched as their brothers and sisters were arrested for drinking in a blind pig.

At 4:00 a.m. they stopped watching and began throwing things. The rest is history.

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Which local all night disc jockey wards off the most obscene phone calls, brings down the most listeners who get sick on STP, and plays stud to all the lonely night people who listen to his show with one hand on their Buddhist prayer candles and the other in their pants?

Dave Dixon does it all.

He is ABX’s “Night Tripper” and his thing is done every day (except Tuesday) from 2:00 to 7:00 in the morning.

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After closing the office on Plum Street and selling my last “Sterilize LBJ” button, I walked downtown where the old Vanguard Theatre used to be. It provided a few minutes of indecision because two skin-flicks were playing and I had already seen one.

The last time I was in the Vanguard was two years ago. I remember seeing THE FIREBUGS there. THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH was good too, and e. e. Cummings’ HE did a pretty neat job of stoning (all twenty members of) the audience.

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The transformation of life in its entirety begins when men dare to rule their own lives.

—A narchos

The Detroit revolutionary community needs its own turf.

There are tens of thousands of people in this area who read the Fifth Estate, take part in anti-war demonstrations, go to the Grande, listen to WABX, smoke dope, won’t listen to their parents, to the police, to college administrators or to their bosses.

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The Fifth Estate talked recently with Dr. Abram Hoffer, Director of Psychiatric Research at University Hospital, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Hoffer was one of the first legitimate scientists to become involved in research with the controversial drug LSD. In hopes of cutting through the hysteria currently clouding the use of the drug, The Fifth Estate discussed the problem, its origins and the prospects for the future with Dr. Hoffer.

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There are four estates, the fourth of which is journalism. We are the fifth because we are something different than Detroit’s other newspapers. We hope to fill a void in that fourth estate a void created by party-controlled newspapers and the cutting of those articles which might express the more liberal viewpoint. That’s what we really are--the voice (I hate that word) of the liberal element of Detroit. This does not mean that everything in the paper will be slanted or written with the so-called “far left” creeping through every space. We want to be a truly free press. If it’s good, if it has a name, and if it’s sincere, it will be in the Fifth Estate. If not, you can probably find it in the News.

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The Fifth Estate, our answer “to what could be happening in Detroit if people knew where to find it,” has moved from its Post Office box in Bloomfield Hills to 1107 Warren. Located just off the John Lodge expressway and four blocks from Wayne State University, the paper is making the move as the first of many steps to improve itself and to eventually come out weekly.

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld, known and loved “Hippocrates,” will be at WSU’s Community Arts Auditorium on Wednesday May 28 at 8 pm in a benefit for Open City, Detroit’s service organization for the free community.

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Open City, Detroit’s service organization to the free community, has begun operation. So far most activity has centered around people calling in problems to the switchboard.

Although many of the calls regard minor services like telling callers who is at the Grande or where they can read material on LSD, many calls have been of a more serious nature.

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Free medical attention for Detroit’s Free Community is now available at the Open City office, 4726 Third, every Monday evening from 6 until 8 pm.

Although this service has been in operation only a month the response has already been very encouraging. At this time plans are being considered to keep the service open three days a week and additional doctors and nurses have expressed an interest in Open City.

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A gala fund raising party for Open City’s summer campaign will be held on Friday, July 11 at Alvin’s Finer Deli on Cass at Palmer.

Admission will be $1 and the celebration will begin at 8 pm. Proceeds will go to the Open City Free Clinic and the new Open City General Store soon to open in the Warren Forest area.

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Several hundred people attended Open City’s first benefit held February 28 at Alvin’s Delicatessen.

The three hundred dollars collected at the door was used to purchase the community switchboard now in operation at the Open City office.

For the last few weeks Open City members have met in committees, rapped on telephones and have generally been putting their projects together. The most obvious result of all this has been the opening of the Open City office now located at 4726 Third, near Forest, 2^nd Floor, office number 5.

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Open City’s first financial setback occurred April 1^st when the Studio 1 benefit was canceled at the last minute. Bob Scott was supposed to receive enough backing to open his Optek Pharmacy at the old Studio location, but things back-rued and our April Fools benefit hit the dust.

Uncle Russ has come through for an Open City “Rites of Spring” benefit that will be held at the Grande on April 23. The celebration will begin at 7 p.m. and last only until 11 p.m.

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Every Mother’s Day Paul Krassner, editor of the REALIST comes to Detroit and educates us on what’s REALLY happening in the underground.

For instance, if you ever see Tim Leary walking around crouched like a rabbi, it’s because he has a rip in his pants and he doesn’t wear underwear. Krassner also suggested that’s where Leary keeps his stash.

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Paul Krassner, editor of a magazine of free thought, criticism, and satire, called The Realist, was in Detroit last month. In his “Evening with A Self-Styled Phony,” Krassner turned people on to what turns him on. The Realist, for example:

“I wake up every morning and I giggle: I’m the editor of The Realist ha-ha-ha. It really is strange because I’ve been doing it for eight years now and I really haven’t accepted that fact. If I walk past a store and it says ‘boy wanted,’ I stop—I say ‘maybe I can still get the job.’ I really don’t relate to this—you know what it’s like; working, you know, not going to a job, it’s like playing hooky all day long. I mean you can go to an afternoon movie and you don’t get in trouble. I have a secretary to take the calls while I’m gone. It’s very strange, you know, just putting out a magazine and not getting paid for it.”

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