
About this document:
This passionate, brutal broadside speaks for itself with acid clarity: a real moment of beholding what’s at the end of the fork, as William Burroughs would put it. The piece has a real Peter Berg vibe to it, but, like almost all Diggers broadsides, it is unsigned by an individual so we can’t be sure…
About this series:
Arthur is proud to present scans of essential documents produced by and about the San Francisco Diggers, who were in many ways the epicentral actors in the Haight-Ashbury during the epic, wildly imaginative period from late ’66 through ’67. The Diggers’ ideas and activities are essential counter-cultural history, sure, but they are also especially relevant to the current era, for reasons that should be obvious to the gentle Arthur reader.
Most of the documents that we are presenting are broadsides originally published on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist/poet Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, who used the name “Communication Company,” or more commonly, “Com/Co.” According to Claude, these broadsides were then “handed out on the street, page by page, super hot media, because the reader trusted the source, which was another freaky looking hippie who had handed it to him/her.”
You can see all of the Diggers Papers we are posting here:
http://www.arthurmag.com/contributors/diggers
Read “Ringolevio,” by Emmett Grogan, chief Digger, who said that Abbie Hoffman stole his ideas; in revenge, Emmett made out with Abbie’s wife. Abbie called the book “a work of genius in the first part, pure vindictiveness in the second.” He was right. The first half of the book was great. Emmett died on a subway in Brooklyn. Big drug-user/junkie. Abbie said, “Which proves that only the dead know Brooklyn.”
Okay, the best-known Digger then…
Ok, Jay. What next ????