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State Senator Roger Craig (D-Dearborn) has introduced a bill in the Michigan Senate that would exempt marijuana from the application of the general narcotics act.

Craig wants the judiciary committee to hold hearings to determine whether it’s appropriate to consider marijuana and opiate derivatives together.

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Twenty-three people stood silently at Grand Circus park on Saturday March 18 to indicate their support of the Phoenix, a peace ship sailing to North Vietnam.

The vigil was called by the American Friends Meeting (100 St. Aubin) to publicize the voyage of the Phoenix, which left Hiroshima under sail for Haiphong. Captained by Earle Roberts, the Phoenix is a fifty foot sailing ship which in 1958 was sailed into the Eniwetok nuclear test area by the captain and his family.

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Here’s the political line-up for 1967, so far: There will definitely be a special election in the City of Detroit, and probably the rest of Wayne County, in November. The primary will be held either in August or September.

One of the most interesting races will be for two Detroit Common Council vacancies. Possible candidates are: Walter Shamie, Mary Ball, Rev. James Chambers, State Rep. James Del Rio, Asst. Police Commissioner Hubert Locke, and State Sen. Coleman Young.

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All those charged by police in the January 4^th “Great Reefer Raid” have by now been arraigned and examined and, with one exception, bound over for trial in Detroit Recorder’s Court. The exception is Magdelene Sinclair, charged with possession of marijuana, whose March 14^th examination was continued until March 31^st.

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(Special to the FIFTH ESTATE) LONDON—From the suburban sprawls of America where the language of LSD and grass is used to sell cars and discotheque tickets, the appeal of the country that produced Tolkien, “Morgan!,” and George Harrison is strong and readily fulfilled.

Unfortunately after nearly six months in “Swinging London,” I am willing to face General Hershey and his clerks of conscription and the napalm aces of the USAF rather than stay another six.

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The Marijuana Scare is getting weirder and weirder, with the grass police moving backwards faster every day, trying to bust everybody they can before the laws won’t let them do it any more. As far as I’m concerned the busts first in Detroit, and now at Grosse Pointe and Livonia high schools, are the best thing that could have happened at this time—short of legalizing grass altogether, of course. Because the only way the police have been able to keep up their screen of lies and fear is by keeping it all “under ground,” where no straight people could see what was happening. Now, with the silly narcotics police breaking in on their sons and daughters almost every day, the middle-class citizens of our time are beginning to wonder about marijuana prohibition—and it’s just about time.

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Support The Spring Mobilization To End The War In Vietnam.

As members of the Detroit community we declare our opposition to the illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional war being waged against the people of Vietnam. We declare it particularly to the U.S. leaders who bear ultimate responsibility for the outrages being committed in our names. We indict them thusly:

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The second annual Detroit Jazz Conference will be held on Saturday, April 8 and Sunday, April 9 at Wayne State University’s McGregor Memorial Conference Center, the Community Arts Auditorium and the Music Wing.

More than 75 musicians and speakers will participate in the week-end program of live performances, discussions and lecture-demonstrations. Headliners include conference artist -in-residence pianist Cecil Taylor and his quartet, guitarist Kenny Burrell, critic-author A.B. Spellman, and Frank Kofsky, FIFTH ESTATE jazz columnist.

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FILM

FILM Famous Early Movie Series. Bringing Up Baby, with Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn (1938). Henry Ford Museum Theatre. 2 & 4 p.m. Adm. 2/19

FILM Famous Films of Famous Directors III. Dreyer’s Day of Wrath, at Rackham Educ. Mem. Aud. 80 Farnsworth. 8:15 p.m. Adm. 2/25

FILM Film Arts International. Sadko, Liberal Arts Bldg. , Marygrove College, 8:15 p.m. Adm. 2/17

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To the Editor:

The recent bust of the Artists’ Workshop and surrounding area is indeed a tragedy. [See Narco Agents Raid Artists’ Workshop, [FE #23, February 1–15, 1967.] It’s a sign of the times too, for we are presently living under a totalitarian police state system and it’s getting worse all of the time.

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Having surveyed the recent New American Cinema products, one might easily be tempted to remain silent until an achievement of greater substance presents itself for evaluation. Yet, since an authentically New American Cinema is the concern of any conscious film artist, he must accept what is available as a concrete basis and subject it to a definite scrutiny, before he can discard or transcend it. For, assuming the existence of talent, it has precisely been a view of life without ideas, and a conception of art without theory that has prevented most of the New American Cinema film-makers from becoming true artists and thus the true spokesmen for their generation.

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The 24^th of January Movement met February 20^th to discuss the possibility of bringing suit against the Detroit Police Department for the illegal arrest of the 43 persons who were seized in the raid and released without charges.

Attorney Dennis James addressed the group, clarifying legal procedures and explaining what is necessary to collect damages in such a suit. He felt that the suffering experienced by those detained was slight, at least in a legal sense, and that a weak case at best could be brought by individuals against the police.

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The effects of U.S. bombing on Vietnamese civilians will be the subject of a talk given by William F. Pepper, Sat., March 18, at 8 p.m., at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Woodward at Holbrook.

Mr. Pepper is the author of the recent article in RAMPARTS magazine on the same subject. He recently visited Vietnam and was accredited by the Military Assistance Command. His main concern was the effects of the war on women and children and he visited many hospitals, orphanages, and shelters. He is the executive director of the New Rochelle Commission of Human Rights and an instructor at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

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Hey Breakthrough! We don’t want him!

Breakthrough has been on this kick ever since Mayor Cavanagh ordered the police to crack down on the rightist group. They’ve been trying to make the mayor out to be some kind of leftist.

In an invective issued earlier this month the parapatriots called Mayor Cavanagh a puppet dancing to the tune of the leftists. They implied he is a toady to such organizations as the Dubois Clubs, the National Lawyers Guild, Students for a Democratic Society, for the various peace groups around Detroit. They linked him with such men as Dr. Tracy Pullman, Fr. Maurice Geary, Ernest Goldman and Rev. David Gracie.

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FILM

FILM. “Nothing But A Man,” with Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, Benefit for SNCC & People Against Racism (PAR). Central Methodist Church (Woodward at Adams), March 4 8 p.m. Advance tickets $1.25 available at 5^th ESTATE Bookstore; $1.50 at the door; $5 patron, $7.50 couple. Also in Birmingham. Northminster Presbyterian Church (Big Beaver, east of Adams Road), March 3, 8 p.m.

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The Arizona road dipped suddenly out of a high serpentine ridge and fell straight out like a great javelin dropping ever faster and deeper down, down until it was lost from sight in the blinding rays of a white-hot sun.

To all points stretched the desert. Off in the dim, shimmering distance were the brooding, purple peaks of the incongruously snowcapped Vulture Mountains.

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What has evolved from Rock, besides even better Rock, are magazines about the new music that are keeping up to the fast pace of their subject matter. CRAWDADDY magazine is fantastic. Best pop record reviews and news that I’ve ever read. Love it.

I can’t believe that there are that many people who love good R & R; after all these years of thinking of myself as a minority freak. Their criticism is sometimes Master Thesis heavy, but is worth it. I have to read hard sometimes, to understand HOW MUCH they really get ‘into’ music. They also have tipped me off to some good albums, and I’ve so far pretty much agreed with all their criticisms.

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LEMAR has its first publication out—The Case For the Relegalization of Marijuana. It is available at the FIFTH ESTATE Bookstore and Mixed Media for 25 cents. This group’s next major printing project will be the LaGuardia Report. Speakers are available to high schools, colleges, and any interested private groups. John Sinclair spoke before an assembly at Royal Oak Kimball High School on Feb. 16^th to a very receptive audience. If you are interested in a speaker from LEMAR call or write the group at the address below.

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EDITOR: Harvey Ovshinsky

MANAGING EDITOR: Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Cathy West

ART: Dave Carlin

CIRCULATION: Wilson Lindsey, Rita Cole

TRAVEL EDITOR: Sheil Salasnek

MUSIC & LITERARY EDITOR: John Sinclair

CALENDAR: Rhona Whipple

ADVERTISING: Leon Brenner

FILM EDITORS: Joe Fineman, Shirley Hamburg

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The DAILY COLLEGIAN (the school newspaper), was the subject of attack at the Wayne University campus this past month. The Wayne Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Students For a Democratic Society, Young Socialist Alliance, National Student Association, Young Democrats and the Wesley Foundation have published two issues of an 8-page paper, the Wayne Reply, to counter the ineffective and inaccurate coverage of campus political events by the DAILY COLLEGIAN.

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When Gene Clark left the Byrds sometime last year, an integral, a genuine and soulfully beautiful portion of their sound left also. Gene Clark is more or less on his own now, with a twosome called the Gosdin Brothers. His first album on Columbia (CL2618) is a beautiful experience. The L.P. is simply called GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS. In one cut on the album called “Echoes,” his music is not only heard, but felt, a velvety smooth and pure sound.

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University of Florida co-ed Pamme Brewer was found “guilty,” Feb. 11^th, of “indiscreet and inappropriate behavior” by a Faculty Discipline Committee after the above photo appeared in an off-campus humor magazine, The Charlatan. The Committee’s finding’s triggered student protests with calls for “nude power.” Miss Brewer said she consented to be photographed nude and felt that she had not committed any indiscretion. —photo courtesy The Charlatan and Underground Press Service.

Bulldozers for all of Michigan? This was the fear of liberal delegates to the recent Democratic state convention in Grand Rapids as Patti Knox, wife of “Bulldozin’ Bob” Knox—Detroit Housing Director, was elected vice-chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

The Cavanagh “Irish Mafia” was in full evidence on behalf of the candidacy of Mrs. Knox as the “old guard” Democratic leadership of Staebler, Williams, and Scholle left open a big vacuum into which the well-oiled “Jerry-boys” could easily move.

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“There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

There’s a man with a gun over there.

Telling me I’d better beware.

It’s time to Stop! Children,

What’s that sound?

Everybody look what’s goin’ down.”

(Special to the Fifth Estate) The Pittsburgh police’s premature Valentine to the left came in the form of a monster pot (marrywhana) raid on the night of Friday, 10 Feb., that netted a total of 55 arrestees. The bust took place at a reception for the noted anti-war speaker David Dellinger, following a report on his trip to North and South Vietnam delivered earlier at the University of Pittsburgh.

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Chuck Larson, chairman of the WSU Student-Faculty Council (S-FC) was attacked for his participation in the newly formed Detroit Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (DSM) last week. Larson was elected honorary chairman of the anti-war group.

Dr. Richard F. Ward, Vice-Chairman of the SFC felt that “this was a clear conflict of interest and agreement over Larson’s loyalties,” and called for his resignation from either the S-FC or the anti-Vietnam war group.

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Michelangelo Antonioni’s BLOWUP, to paraphrase Archibald MacLeish, is a film that means more than it is. Even if people are lost souls, as those in the film certainly are, their relationships to one another, to their surroundings, to the work of art in which they figure should be firmly apprehended and made convincing. Instead, the film’s meaning is wide-open, so much so that I wonder if the Detroit release did not have sections necessary to the development extracted.

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On Valentine’s Day at WSU a strange coalition was effected and the Student-Faculty Council ended up sponsoring a “Bitch-In” on campus, which was an honorable attempt to move from the usual “left-hippy” practice of simply haranguing everyone, to pointing out the similarities of concern and interest among all students and young people generally and making those similarities known by attempting to gather the different people together to “bitch” at the University for all its weird practices. The general purpose of the Bitch-In failed to make itself known or felt, but one or two beautiful things happened which made the attempt really worthwhile.

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JOHN COLTRANE LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD AGAIN! (Impulse 9124) just might be the greatest work of art ever produced in this country -not to mention the greatest selection of jazz music ever to get set down on wax.

Regardless of what you have read, regardless of what anyone has told you, you must give this new music a chance to speak for itself; only you will be the loser if you fail to do so. The place to begin is with this album. Not a day has gone by since I first heard it that I don’t play it at least once, and sometimes twice or even three times. If I were in charge at Impulse, I would sell the record on a money-back-if-not-satisfied basis—it’s simply that good, and that policy would insure that it was heard as widely as it deserves to be.

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A minor illustration of the contemporary disappearance of chivalry is the extensive use of a new rifle by United States forces in Vietnam: the M-16. It shoots a tiny, .223 calibre, 55 grain bullet at the very high muzzle velocity of 3,185 feet per second. Its power to inflict wounds is of the magnitude usually associated with the soft-nose and exploding bullets outlawed by the Hague Conventions.

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“No man knows what vibrations he sets in motion in his lifetime.” —Loren Eisley

So too, it is too early to judge completely the effects of the General Strike for Unity called in support of Adam Clayton Powell for last February 13.

That the city failed to grind to a halt as a result of the strike is certain. Most of Detroit’s Negro community admittedly did not participate. In the absence of any apparently unified sentiment on the part of the nation’s black people the Congress is moving toward a severe punishment of Rep. Adam Powell.

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The Conference on Drug Abuse at Oberlin College sponsored by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) came off not quite as planned. The weekend of Feb. 17, 18 and 19 found a gathering of the drug elite crowded into this tiny collegiate community with the purpose of presenting an objective view on the abuse of drugs.

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Editor’s note: The West Central Organization is a “poor people’s organization” founded in June of 1965. It is modeled after the militant community organizing projects of Saul David Alinsky, executive director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, who is retained by WCO as a consultant two days per month at $200.00 per day.

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Violence in our society will be discussed in a day-long conference sponsored by Detroit Women for Peace on Saturday March 18. Beginning at 9:30 a.m. with luncheon at 12:30; the sessions will be held at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Woodward at King in Detroit. A registration fee of $3.00, $2.00 for students, includes coffee and the luncheon.

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As is the woeful and morose custom, late February salutes George Washington, who reputedly fathered a nation of sheep, and the motion picture industry boosts itself despite its fathering a low grade of mutton in the disguise of art.

1966 proved the physics maxim that nature abhors a vacuum as the field raised some rather substantial fare to credit with this year’s Academy Awards. No lily white fields for shuffling Negroes to help make nuns in or out of, but rather what approaches an honest effort at resolving the elephantine puzzle of the year’s best performances by actresses, writers, cameramen and directors.

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(This column discusses basic “tune in” methods. The next installment suggests harmonious “dropout” methods.)

Psychedelic drugs make it possible to reach a wide range of consciousness. The experienced psychedelic religionist can move consciousness from one level to another, just like focusing a microscope or telescope.

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Over 100 members of Detroit’s Negro population have banded together to form an Afro-American Museum.

Headed by Dr. Charles H. Wright, founder of the African Medical Education Fund, the group is united in a common interest of Black Men in history. The International Afro-American Museum (I.A.M.) hopes to demonstrate how a knowledge of Negro history will restore a sense of pride and dignity to all black Americans.

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At a 9 March meeting of Detroit LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) Attorney William Segesta spoke to a mixed group of interested hippies, students and a middle-aged stenographer. Segesta discussed the validities and abuses of “Search-and-Seizure” statutes as interpreted by police and law enforcement agencies. Segesta outlined the two main types of arrests, the legal and illegal, describing what to do until the lawyer comes and basic constitutional rights that most citizens were unaware of, such as your right not to speak when arrested, not to sign papers and demand an attorney.

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The column, “You are a god, live like one” by Timothy Leary that appeared in the last issue of the FIFTH ESTATE [FE #25, March 1–15, 1967] was originally published in our sister underground paper, the EAST VILLAGE OTHER (EVO). The letter that follows is a letter written in response to that column by a New York based group of revolutionary poets calling themselves BLACK MASK.

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FILM

CINEMA GUILD PRESENTS: a series of films being shown on Thurs., Fri., Sat., and Sun. at 7 and 9:05 p.m. at the Architecture Auditorium in Ann Arbor. Adm. 50 cents.

March 16 & 17: Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) 1959

March 18 & 19: Tirez sur Le Pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) 1960

March 23 & 24: Nuit Et Brouilard (Night and Fog) 1955, and Let There Be Light 1946

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Sidney Peck, one of the National vice-chairmen of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and coordinator of the Western Reserve University Circle Teach-in Committee in Cleveland, spoke to a group of over 80 people, Sunday, March 5, at Wayne State University.

Dr. Peck was gathering further support for the April 15^th effort to mass hundreds of thousands of people protesting the war in New York and San Francisco. He made a special plea for unity around the April 15^th action and to broaden support for the mobilization.

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Profits are the law and life. If survival carries with it struggling with one’s own values than a movie theater must frequently submit to fourth run showings and nudies. In fact, this vain grasp at subsistence usually takes a downward spiral as the drowning business first revives and then submits, meeting bankruptcy its final reward. Sympathetically the owner is on trial. Curiously his jury is likewise his lifeguard and his sentence often is the road of least respect.

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MACBIRD by Barbara Garson. The complete text, 75 cents

STUDIES ON THE LEFT. Panel from the Socialist Scholars Conference on The Roots of Slavery, $1

THE LOVE BOOK by Lenore Kandel. Banned in San Francisco, $1

HASHISH COOKBOOK by Panama Rose. Get high on the range, $1 65

ENTRAILS Magazine. Latest issue reads from right to left, comes complete with yamalka, $1

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(Underground Press Syndicate) An inspired madman whose bright blue eyes halt now and then in their rapid pantomime to beam upon you with benevolent love and pity, has rediscovered the ancient secret of the court jester.

General Hershey Bar (an absolute ringer for a great freak-out dancer named Calypso Joe) is the court jester to the War in Viet Nam. For a year and a half now he has appeared at every major protest meeting, on the streets, anywhere a crowd is on hand to listen. He has a strangely ingratiating way of telling the truth to people who would not listen to a serious presentation of the war horrors they would rather forget. And his mannerisms and costume allow you to pretend it’s all a joke. (But later that night, you begin to think, to wonder, and then...)

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On Feb. 26 a holy celebration was held here in Detroit. The stark grey coldness of the Administrative Services Building at Wayne State University was transformed for a few hours into a magic theater and the secret price of admission was your mind.

People came for many reasons that night. Some were there out of curiosity and some, despite the unfortunate lack of advance publicity, came because they heard that the poet Allen Ginsberg was going to be there. Some came with hope and some with contempt.

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The Jefferson Airplane arrived in New York for what is probably the beginning of the San Francisco music “explosion-exploitation.” I still can’t believe I heard them on the radio advertising some thing besides music; but since that was the only time I heard them via mass media I guess I shouldn’t put it all down. Its like color TV, the commercials are better than the shows themselves.

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Two months ago Detroit LEMAR started planning a Law Day (Law Day is May 1^st) Puff-in for Love. The group has written various LEMAR groups in both the East and West coast suggesting that this could be coordinated on a national level with Puffins taking place in love centers across the country.

Rather than limiting the puff-ins to one area, i.e. marijuana, LEMAR will expand it to human be-ins all across the country taking place on April 30^th, the Sunday preceding Law Day. This would bring the local tribes together and still allow the Detroit Community to share the total love-consciousness of all groups across the country.

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I thank Mr. Kofsky for calling me a major critical figure [“The Jazz Scene,” FE #24, February 15–28, 1967].

I have the feeling that he has rarely read my Voice column because I have often written about the agonies of “abandoning my preconceptions and biases” about the new jazz. I have stated very clearly that I WAS biased but that I realized it and that I was trying to make contact with the new music.

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London will be the scene for an International Congress known as the Dialectics of Liberation this coming July 15–30. The purpose of the congress, sponsored by London’s Institute of Phenomenological Studies, is to examine societal influence, conditioning, and control of man and the resulting alienation of his true self within that system.

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EDITOR Harvey Ovshinsky

MANAGING EDITOR Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Cathy West

ART Dave Carlin

TRAVEL EDITOR Sheil Salasnek

MUSIC & LITERARY EDITOR John Sinclair

CALENDAR Rhona Whipple

ADVERTISING Leon Brenner

FILM EDITORS: Joe Fineman, Shirley Hamburg

NEWS EDITOR, Frank Joyce

CIRCULATION, Rita Cole, Wilson Lindsey

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Early last week the Denver branch of the American Civil Liberties Union won a complete acquittal for the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Minstrel Show on charges of obscenity and lewd behavior dating from last November [see “Mime Troupe Busted,” FE #17, November 1–15, 1966].

Bill Linden, Peter Cohon and Earl Robertson were the three minstrels arrested last year when the show started a cross-country tour with performances in Denver. The group performed the same act in Detroit last September without incident. “It was a victory of free speech for all of Colorado,” said an ACLU attorney: “It showed that the vice squad cannot set the standards for free speech.”