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the column of lasting insignificance... —for June 13, 2015 by John Wilcock |
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Considering how easy it was for people to dismiss this phenomenon known as “the underground press”, it must have come as something of a surprise for them to learn that the young were reading more newspapers than ever. Only underground newspapers (sometimes) told a truth the elders preferably kept under wraps. The Underground Press, little more than a joke in the early Sixties, had become a notable phenomenon by the end of the decade: the earliest and biggest rags (a definition they gleefully accepted) such as the Los Angeles Free Press and the San Francisco area's Berkeley Barb were claiming circulation close to 100,000—and this in the era when ‘undergrounds’ still cost money. For reasons unexplained, the west was ahead this time. It took an artist, Walter Bowart, to introduce New York to the East Village Other, a tabloid likely to make the world pay attention. It was a radically different paper, as might be expected from an artist to whom words, in general, played second place to visual images. At first little was seen of the paper beyond Greenwich Village, but by issue number five we were united in our admiration for the beloved Slum Goddess, an unlikely-sounding pin-up. When I accepted Walter’s invitation to become EVO’s editor, I had already worked for the London Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Liberty, and the New York Times, the last of which paid me $150 per week, good money for the nineteen fifties. I was 30. After two years (or was it three?) at the sleepy 1950s Times I was fired, largely, I suspect for lack of attention. My Voice column was over after ten years because, ruled Voice publisher Ed Fancher, I could not write for both the sleepy Voice and its new rival. I was determined not to work for any established paper. Where was the excitement in that? Naturally it was a vow that could easily have been broken if any good job came along. But as it happened my Big Newspaper days were apparently over and magazine writing took their place. But my career as a newspaperman had one last gig: editing the East Village Other for the six weeks I had left before becoming a fulltime magazine writer. When I went off to Japan to revise my travel book about that lovable country, I didn't expect my romance with Sherry to survive, and of course it didn't. But our happy month-long idyll still had its course to run.
“I'll do it” laughed the goddess. “But Walter will have to be there”. When we filmed it, Walter was there and after we'd filmed it, in one take, we went for dinner. And that's how, after ten years, I left the Village Voice.
Nor do I remember giving her much guidance about the work. In 1964 I was 37 which means Amber was around 24, and as the years passed I became more and more reliant on her competence. In fact eventually she took over all the necessary chores on a little monthly magazine, doing all the jobs that I couldn’t do for the life of me—cleaning, proof reading, typesetting. Not to mention shopping, housekeeping, and all the time-consuming tasks that a busy editor—of as small a magazine was caught up in, as you're likely to see. I saw her again recently, for the first time in decades, and proposed again, more than 60 years after the first time. Sadly, I don’t think she’s interested. ********************** Note for friends: I dropped out of the working life in the Spring of last year when I had a stroke which has so far cost me about $150,000—pretty much all I had. I must find work to survive, and would be grateful If anybody has any suggestions... 6/6/15 National Weed (1974, issue #3) it's here... ![]() ![]() ![]() Email
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February 12, 2015 ![]() ![]() Wednesday, October 27, 2010 A Budget Travel Pioneer on a Time When $5 a Day Was Real (Frugal) Money
It was the first handwritten letter I'd received in 5 years. Or maybe 10. Signed by John Wilcock, a man I'd never heard of, and postmarked Ojai, Calif., it was waiting for me when I returned from my São Paulo-to-New York summer trip. Mr. Wilcock wrote that he had been an assistant editor at The Times Travel section back in the 1950s, and had written the first editions of “Mexico on $5 a Day,” “Greece on $5 a Day” and “Japan on $5 a Day” for Arthur Frommer in the 1960s. By George, I thought. This man was the original Frugal Traveler. Forty years ago the second of my three books about magic was published, A Guide to Occult Britain (Sidgwick & Jackson) covering a wide range of sites from Stonehenge to Loch Ness and King Arthur country to the witches of Pendle Hill. It is now available as an eBook on amazon.com. "A GOOD WAY to describe John Wilcock is to say that he is a talented bohemian counter-culture journalist who once played a major role in the emergence of America’s underground press. Born 1927 in Sheffield, England, he left school aged 16 to work on various newspapers in England, and on Toronto periodicals before moving to New York City. There in 1955 he became one of the five founders of the Village Voice in which he and co-founder Norman Mailer wrote weekly columns. Wilcock called his column “The Village Square”, an intended pun. He and young Mailer were not quite friends, although Wilcock was at times annoyed, but always amused, by Mailer’s monstrous ego." -From the preface of Manhattan Memories, by Martin Gardner |
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