Webslave's note: Each month, back when I lived in Venice, someone from the Beachhead Collective would drop off a bundle of a hundred copies at my door, and I would distribute them house-to-house around Oakwood. My way of continuing to be a Beachhead volunteer is to resurrect and re-type selected articles from its past (pre-computer) issues, for which the Beachhead has graciously granted permission.

L. A. Shuns Walking Wounded
By Patrick McCartney........ #177 Sept. 1984

You all know him as Wino Bob, maybe as Veteran Bob. He’s the loudest, most obnoxious, egomaniacal, cussedest, theatrical public drunk and liar on the boardwalk. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.

But for all the times I’ve heard Bob run off at the mouth and chuckled at the audacity of his lies, I’m sorry he didn’t get his shot at the Olympics. Maybe you didn’t notice (say, if you left L.A. so you could watch the Olympics from a motel TV in uncrowded Boise), but Wino Bob (Schmidt is his family name) was given a three-week vacation at County General thanks to the LAPD and its contribution to cleaning up the streets.

To be honest, when the police took him in the day before the Olympics began, I was happy enough. They took Tony - "Circles" - also, the young, gentle schizophrenic who paced endlessly in circles, his feet eventually polishing the asphalt in a six-foot circle that defined his whole world.

Bob Schmidt was released two weeks after - the Friday before the Olympics’ final weekend. As usual after a dryout, Bob was spry, funny, and congenial. His voice was, for the moment, strong.

Bob stopped in front of my apartment and exchanged greetings. He’d been back on the boardwalk for an hour, but as we spoke a cruiser stopped and the officer asked Bob to get in, that the Sergeant wanted to see him. Bob cooperated, and the cop tried to give me Bob’s wheelchair. "We’re going to arrest him again," he told me in a confidential tone. I asked what for and was told for warrants. So much for Bob’s ballyhooed anticipation of the Olympic games.

The reason I’m writing this is not really to defend Bob’s right to have been loud and obnoxious during the Olympics - although I think a case could be made for just that. But instead, the incident bothers me for somewhat different reasons.

First, I remember the indignation expressed in 1980 when the City of Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics and the Russkies dared to paint the town, stock its stores up with rare delicacies, and build a small town’s worth of new facilities.

The idea of the Soviet Union constructing a made-for-world-television Potemkin Village in downtown Moscow infuriated critics who would have preferred TV coverage that stripped bare Communist propaganda.

Isn’t that exactly what happened here? Not only did we grace our public streets with pennants, "festively" painted Olympic signs, and exuberant temporary structures, but the City tried to paint over its seamier side.

The Police ran stings against area prostitutes before the Olympics, trying to suppress their activities. In downtown Los Angeles, the LAPD was eventually prevented from tossing away bedrolls and bundles from a stash area in Pershing Square.

Venice transients don’t have as many advocates as the homeless in downtown Los Angeles, so nobody protested when the LAPD twice patrolled the length of the boardwalk tossing all unattended bedrolls and packs in a dump truck. Since no count facilities exist in Venice for the care of the homeless, the only public policy apparent is a "make-it-tough-enough-on-them-and-they’ll-leave" attitude.

That brings me to the second point that bothered me about Bob’s and Tony’s removals. Tony should have been under medical care months ago. His joints were so bad from improper nutrition he couldn’t bend over: he slept standing up. When he was lucid (which was most of the time he was not pacing), he was a gentle, even witty young man. But he heard voices, and when he paced, he went into a trance-like state that nothing could affect. Tony was loved by a lot of people in Venice - I consider it a testament to the good will of most people that he was not hurt, and was given food and money regularly without asking.

Bob and Tony never had what it takes to succeed in a competitive society. Certainly, in a material sense, they have both been losers. It saddens me to believe that the only time our city and county will do something for the weakest and most deserving is when they want the streets cleaned up for a world television audience.

Ruby to Crown Goldie November 13
by Wendy Reeves.........November 1979

Mark it on your calendars: the coronation of Goldie Glitters as Queen of Venice will take place on Tuesday, November 13th, starting at 9:30 a.m. in the Lafayette Cafe (corner Ocean Front Walk and Westminster, a few blocks north of Windward Avenue).

A true Venice event, the ceremony is the brainchild of ever-popular community person Ruby Witeaker, a Lafayette waitress for the last nine years. Ruby's idea first appeared in the September Beachhead, and an enthusiastic response encouraged her to go ahead with it. Assisting Ruby in organizing the ceremony is Barbara Avedon, well-known community activist and long-time close friend of Goldie's.

As a direct result of stories this summer in the LA Times and the Beachhead, Goldie's star is on the rise again in the media. On Monday, October 29th, he is finally receiving the Homecoming Queen crown from Santa Monica College which he has been waiting for since 1975. "No queen has waited so long and been so patient as I have," was his comment to me on that belated award. An already completed interview with Dorothy Rhineholt will appear shortly afterwards in the Santa Monica Evening Outlook. A book he has written on his life - called Goldie Glitters - is now being read by Adams Ray Rosenberg Literary Agency. He has also been a guest on two TV talk shows - "AM Los Angeles" and "Collage" - and will no doubt be snapped up for others. At a recent ceremony-planning breakfast at the Lafayette, Goldie said he will not resume drag to receive his Venice Queen crown; he intends to wear an appropriate outfit consisting of tennis shoes, Levis, a black and white Lafayette T-shirt, and a robe worn by Richard Burton in a Shakespeare play on Broadway which he bought in New York. However, he says he may change his mind at the last minute - surely the prerogative of a queen.

"This is so exciting," Goldie said over french toast. "Perhaps this will be the beginning of a yearly event, a festival day in Venice, with a new queen each year."

"We'll start early so the press can cover it," added Barbara, "then we'll keep it going on into the afternoon."

Ruby stressed, "We want everyone and their cousin to be here!"

It looks like Ruby may get her wish. In addition to the many residents who have assured us they are coming, Peter Brown of the "Real People" TV show says the coronation will be featured on that program, and Carol Blue will be writing it up for the Times.

I asked Goldie, with all this publicity, what he wanted to do with his life now; is he serious about the movies?

"I love entertaining people," he answered, "and if I could get into movies that would be just fine. I would like to buy my house. I would like to finish paying off my dental work and all my bills. I would like to have everything paid off and not have to struggle any more.

"I don't have to worry about being rich because I don't really think that's ever going to happen. If it does, I'll be ecstatically happy and give fabulous dinner parties every other night. And anyone who's been to my dinner parties knows I can cook.

"And it's really time for me to be a queen," he added with a small sigh. "After all, I am getting on."

Venetians Remembered:
David Rosen
by Richard Conant........#130 Nov. 1980

David Rosen was murdered on August 20, 1980. He was killed by someone who shot him once in the heart with a .22 caliber handgun, just as he was opening his Venice apartment door to his killer. It appears that David was unconscious and dead quite quickly.

David was a friend of mine, and of many people in Venice. He was 33 years old when he died. He lived in my apartment building on Ocean Front Walk. You may remember him hanging out with us on the front steps of our building, passing the weekend time watching and interacting with the flow of Boardwalk traffic that passed in front of us. He was, no doubt, the dark, full-bearded guy in the cutoff jean shorts and the tight-fit Army green sleeveless t-shirt.

David was about 5'10", with photogenic body builder proportions, a rock of a guy to look at. But such bold looks can deceive, for he was actually the nicest, quietest, and most unphysical of people. Never did he use his brawn to intimidate; rather, his muscular appearance was just that, an appearance for the modeling work that he did and for the women he loved to attract. His was a gentle, "California" temperament.

How, then, did David draw someone's cowardly wrath? The small newspaper article that appeared after his death indicated that, "the slaying may have been related to narcotics dealing." Could be. He was minorly involved in some of the illegal activities pursued by a few of the people who do not want a piece of mainstream life: he dealt some drugs and would proudly show you some of the many magazines that featured his modeling work. I understand that a suitcase where he kept his drugs was missing, maybe some money, too. That may all be true. The police investigation continues. If you can help, do. Contact Lieutenant Zorn at Venice Division, 478-0781.

No matter how or why David died, he should be remembered not so much or so simply for how he died, but for who he was as he lived among us.

I think of him as a simple, uncomplicated, unassuming guy who wanted to and did enjoy as much as possible of each day and of each contact with someone. I knew David fairly well for more than a year, and never saw him angry or even visibly disturbed. In fact, I'll always see him, newly awake, with a smile on his face (more of a smirk), coming out of our building weekend afternoons around one o'clock, yawning and stretching dramatically to announce his late arrival to the doorstep hangers-out, saying, "Hey, what's happening?"

David was friendly, trusting, and non-judgmental - and hoped that other people would be that way toward him. He was a low-key fellow who, mostly, hoped that the rest of the world would not much bother him, while he would not much bother the rest of the world.

Somewhere, that way of living got screwed up badly. Someone in the rest of the world bothered with David and murdered him. IN the end, he was too uncareful, too trusting, too vulnerable, too friendly. But, that is just what David was: a nice, vulnerable, trusting, non-judgmental, friendly guy. I and many others will miss him.

Goodbye, David.

Street Vendor's Blues
by Carole Berkson........... March 1981 #135

Nearly three years ago, I discovered Venice. It was April 1st, April Fools' Day. A friend had asked me to come and sell my handwoven belts at a Medieval Fantasy Faire sponsored by the Parks Department.

I was fascinated. It was a wonderful day - people reading Shakespeare, theater groups performing - music, crafts, food - good, interesting people.

Across the way, I noticed, there were people selling, too. Just a few people, most of them selling craftwork. Was this an all the time thing? Could I do it? I found someone to ask. The answer was yes to both questions. Within the month, I was selling on the lot. The Vendors' Lot, it was called. I liked being a vendor. Selling there wasn't just selling. It was part of something.

Some of you may remember, on the corner of Market Street, a woman who sat with her loom, on the ground, on a carpet weaving. That was me, in the summer of '78. My belts hung on a pole. Sometimes people bought them. Some people stopped to look. Some people stopped to talk. I didn't make much money, but then I didn't pay much. And I loved it.

I sat on my carpet for months, every Saturday and every Sunday. My daughter had the run of the Boardwalk. The vendors were like a family and mostly everyone was friendly. The whole atmosphere in those days was very laid back, very cas.

Then, after a while, things got a little more hectic. A little too hectic to keep sitting on the ground. I got a table. By then I was making purses as well as belts. I had regular customers as well as regular Boardwalk-going friends who stopped to visit. I was making money, I was also paying more rent, but not more than seemed equitable in light of what I was making.

By then the whole enterprise had become more professional, tighter. But it was still primarily professional crafts people. Those who weren't selling crafts were selling things that fit with them: cacti, baskets, Indian and Mexican clothes. The Vendors' Lot had stopped looking like a few hippies out playing and started to look more like some sort of Moroccan bazaar. A Bizarre Bazaar. I thought about putting a sign up, and sending fliers out, maybe. I never did. There were quite enough people flocking to the Boardwalk without them. But not too many. Somehow the powers that be had balanced things just right. Those were the halcyon days, the spring of '79.

Those were also the days when we went to court once a month - well, not once a month, but it felt that way sometimes. We were fighting for our right to exist and continue to vend. "Save the Pushcart. Save the American Dream." Some of you may remember that sign in the middle of the lot and the petitions we circulated that went along with it. It never occurred to us then to stipulate a place for craftspeople or any kind of clause as to quality of merchandise. Craftspeople on the Boardwalk were after all traditional in Venice. Look, Jane. See Craftspeople. You know. You hear it all the time.

Then things got more hectic. The summer of 1980. By this time I had two tables and no longer brought out my loom. I was selling beads and whatnot as well as my belts and purses, only not doing so well as I had earlier, and paying more, and enjoying it less. And some of the vendors had left and we were less of a family and a lot of the people around weren't any longer so nice and a lot of the merchandise wasn't so nice either. I was feeling more and more like a token craftsperson on the Boardwalk. I didn't like it.

I never actually made a real decision to leave. Last fall for weekends on end there were other things I was involved with. I had to take time off. Then the weather got bad. Then when the time came to go back, I just didn't want to go back. It made me sad. I had love it so much for so long. I miss it. I still love it. Only I love it how it was, not how it is, and the contrast is painful.

I'm sure I haven't sat on my corner for the last time. The weather will be warm again soon. I know I'll be drawn back there. Even as I write I can feel that stirring hope that says change is constant. What was good turned bad. What's gone bad can turn good. And I feel the excitement of getting up on a Saturday or Sunday morning, going down to breakfast at the Lafayette, and setting up, and settling down to wait, not knowing WHAT might happen, businesswise or otherwise.

Vendors are invincible. So are craftspeople. You have to be, to be either. Not to mention both. I was a Venice vendor. It's still in my blood. Don't stop the carnival. I'm on my way there.

Montagnard or Marxist:
Calling the Question on Bob Wells
October 1981 #142

(This is the second part of an interview with Bob Wells, longtime Venice activist who recently left for a new life and setting in Berkeley. The interview was conducted on Aug. 7, 1981, by Arnold Springer for the Beachhead.)

Q. You've been involved in many activities here in Venice: the Free Venice movement, the Renters League, the Town Council. What did the Free Venice movement mean to you?

A. Speaking for myself, because at one time the Free Venice movement had dozens of people in it for dozens of reasons. At the time that was its strength; later it became its weakness. I like to think my reasons were like those of Steve Clare, Rick Davidson, Judy Goldberg. Ed Pearl was big in Peace and Freedom but not particularly in Free Venice.

Q. So its significance was community organizing? Towards what end?

A. Well, there was kind of a mystique of community organizing at that time. The "movement," a combination of the civil rights and growing anti-war movements, had been based, to a great extent, on the campuses and in other peoples communities...Mississippi, Harlem, places like that. And the feeling was, because of everything that was wrong...people were starting to feel that revolution was necessary. No real idea of what revolution actually meant, but the fundamentals gotta change.

It was not just that the good Jeffersonian democratic system is going wrong, suckered. There was something fundamentally wrong and we had to make it fundamentally right. To do that we have to go to masses of people. And they're in the communities, so let's go to the communities. And organize. People had a variation of themes on what that meant, organizing.

My own feeling at the time was that two things were going on. The civil rights movement had begun to generate a black liberation movement. This was happening at the time that the anti-war movement was growing. Somehow, together, this development had knocked out from under large numbers of people, mostly, it seemed, upper middle class and working class whites. They were alienated from this system; they weren't sure what system, what community, they did belong to. They were at arms length, had even broken away from what in the 50s was everything. that we had what all human history had been moving toward. All we had to do was maintain it. Well, that was smashed, broken. So people were beginning to congregate in the sump pumps of society, or whatever, in the drains. And a new culture, new standards had begun to evolve. Venice was one place where that was beginning to happen.

In retrospect people make fun of the counter-culture society, but it took a tremendous amount of personal, individual courage for people to do that in those days, because there was no networking system. People were bailing out individually, and jumping into a dark pit with no idea of what was there; with no companionship for the jump.

Nowadays it's somewhat reactionary white workers and bikers who wear long hair but in those days young kids were growing their hair long and getting shot at in places like Casper, Wyoming; for having long hair. And they did it anyway. So there was a tremendous amount of courage and progress. That was definitely a movement that shook American society. Not a movement: it was a trend. So part of this community organizing was to try to pull some organizational form out of these people who were looking for a new culture, society, and standards.

Q. Do you mean that you thought that the counterculture would provide the organizational form or that you would define one? Were you intending to give it meaning or substance by organizing it?

A. It was a combination, a dialectical interaction. Partly because that threatening social phenomenon was happening here, the powers that be were trying to break it up, to scatter it. Through code enforcement and community development, planning, and tremendous police pressure. And so there had to be a resistance, it couldn't be just a spontaneous, laissez-faire, let the thing grow and see what comes out kind of a thing. There had to be resistance and it had to have some organization. That organization had to be shaped, determined and constantly redefined by the people it was coming out of. We weren't"parachutists" coming into the community for some larger outside movement. We were coming out of the community itself. We had the heads for organization but we had to draw the forms and principles constantly from the community. But for me there was something else.

Q. What was that?

A. The year 1968 was historic, like 1848 in terms of revolution. It was building toward that. The anti-war movement had become radicalized. It was no longer a "Let's make a good Jeffersonian thing out of a bad situation," but it was becoming radical, and bureaucraticised. There was a lot of focus on the campuses, there was NACLA. People were specializing, they were saying that we had to get off the campuses and out of the specializes and into the community; take the anti-war message and build a mass movement by taking it to the people, to communities.

So I saw that as my specially. And it coincided with what was happening in Venice. And the developments were inter-related, because it was mainly the Vietnam was which was the catalyst that had alienated people from the system. So the whole thing was tied together. The police pressure in those days was like nothing that's happened since.

I remember me and Randy Waste had loaded 500 Beachheads in the back of a car. We were dropping them at various markets and distribution points. People had neighborhood routes. We had a police tail the entire time, black and white, and Metro. We saw them, they were following us. We went down some alleys, some odd routes, and they were right with us the whole way. It kind of put a romantic edge on what we were doing, gave us a sense of importance.

John Haag was instrumental to say the least in creating the Beachhead as an organ for Peace and Freedom and the Free Venice Organizing movement. We had to have an organ to communicate with the community. The Beachhead was it. So here we were delivering this revolutionary message with the cops bumper to bumper.

Q. Did you think it was a revolutionary message?

A. Yes, at that time.

Q. What was the most important lesson you learned out of the Free Venice experience?

A. I would say... there were dozens of people in the movement with dozens of ideas.. Well, I think that there was a great deal of loneliness, anti-war alienation that I've already run down. Community was being reified because people were looking to end that alienation. And this took place under a real threat from city engineers, planners, and cops. Those were the things that brought us together, but they weren't to keep us together.

The most important lesson is this truth, that there is no revolutionary movement without a revolutionary politics. And that's the most important thing. I've seen that validated in practice, negarively and positively. And every single revolutionary movement that I've had respect for has said that it was true for them. Like General Giap. In his books on the people's war in Vietnam he hardly talked about military strategy; it's always politics. It's the party, not the army, that always gets the credit.

We didn't have that in Venice. We didn't have a common political theory, one view and notion of how the world ran and functioned. Something was going on. We had to figure it out and what to do about it. And we never did succeed to do that as a unified movement. A lot of people in the movement did come to conclusions as a result of the experience of Free Venice. But the movement itself never attained that goal. And that's why it didn't stay together.

Q. Do you think that this failure resulted from too much emphasis on Venice and its problems?

A. You mean localism. Well, there was a time, around 1973, when Free Venice had been large but had then shrunk after we had passes a certain landmark. It was after the Canals fight. The struggle shifted ground and large numbers of people were no longer there. Of the rump that remained...people went in their own directions. Some of us decided to take the time and try to figure out what was going on. We formed the Free Venice Socialist Collective. We wanted to understand how we fitted into a larger movement, to break out of that localism.

We couldn't do it just on our own educational resources. We couldn't break out of localism in a local context. The break had to come from outside. And it was primed by Marxist study groups set up by people who lived in Venice but who were outsiders in the sense that they weren't part of the Venice movement. For a number of us (by this time a pretty small number)... in 1974 the Weather Underground published their book Prairie Fire, a summing-up of how they saw the world.

January 1982 #145

Interview with Bob Wells

This is the fourth and final part of an interview with Bob Wells, longtime Venice activist, who is back in Venice after a recent move to Berkeley. The interview was conducted on Aug. 7, 1981, by Arnold Springer for the Beachhead.

Q. Is your work in Venice finished?

A. My work is. I don't think the work in Venice is finished, although I definitely think it's hit a stage...I mean it's not like what it was in the Free Venice days.

Q. Do you have any regrets, politically or personally? Things that if you had a chance to do over you would?

A. One thing about the Venice movement when it was hot was that the social and political work were almost the same. We were all spending so much time on politics that we had to eat while we were doing it, so our social and political life became merged. My regret is that when the two started to diverge,...I don't regret that I went with the political divergence, but I think that I did it in such a way, (maybe it's just my character, maybe I didn't have an other way to do it), but I would have like to have retained more of the personal relationship, you know, more of the busy interaction with people on a personal basis.

Q. Isn't that an important question? The mix between the personal and social was so intense in the Venice movement. That dynamic is not discussed in books, is it?

A. No, I don't think so. But it was our strength at the time. That's why we were able to go and go and go, 18 hours a day, day and night, for year after year winning victory after victory on our terms. But then it became our weakness. Because when the time came to sharpen up our politics people began to diverge because there were just lots of different notions and people were prepped to go in different directions. And because our political life was our social life, we were liberal about that. We didn't press political questions to conclusion because we knew that when we did we would go in different directions. And that would blow the social thing. It was the strength that kept us going until it became an anchor which held us back.

Q. What's the relationship between sex and politics in Venice? How has sex worked as a dynamic?

A. Well, without directly answering that question. I felt that when I was getting involved in the Free Venice movement, that it was an important thing. It brought together what I had been building toward in my life. It was something I really wanted to commit to, almost careerism. And I felt that sex and politics shouldn't mix. Because that takes that social and political contradiction and really locks it in tight. So you can have a couple of lovers who, inevitably, at some point diverge. Sometimes there's tremendous bitterness and that can really screw up the politics. Or you have people who diverge politically, or should diverge politically, and don't because they're lovers. I mean, it just make everything real funny. And I've always been rather shy and lame around that kind of thing anyway, so it was kind of convenient for me, for a lot of reasons, to try and keep my sexual life out of the area of my political life. That wasn't totally the case; I had some love affairs with women in the Venice movement, but most of it has been outside the Venice movement.

Q. But there's a lot of that interaction in Venice.

A. Right. Well, maybe I'm copping out on answering that question by saying that I tried to stay out of it.

Q. Well, how would you assess it? How would you deal with it in the future? What if you had to organize a study group in community organizing and politics and somebody asked, "Well, Mr. Wells, how should we deal with this question? What would your advice be?

A. Somebody who went to China asked a young woman there what she was looking for in a husband and she replied that 1st of all his politics have to be right. That's an example of how rigid, and foolish, and... unreal the Chinese people were. But that made sense to me because your political ideals are really the world you live in, and you really can't have a growing and intimate relationship with another person if you live an another world. That's how the woman put it. So it's got to happen I think that I was probably unrealistic about trying to keep them separate. And I probably put myself through a lot of turmoil I didn't need to. They can't be separate. At the same time, they're a contradiction and, well, I don't know... I guess I don't have much wisdom on this question. You have to be aware of the contradiction and ride it, that's all I can say.

Q. Sometimes revolutionaries are portrayed as without vices. Do you have any?

A. I'm lazy.

Q. What about drugs and revolution?

A. I think that the only drug that could be useful for revolution is possibly caffeine. And that taken in moderation.

Q. You don't smoke or drink?

A. I don't smoke. I drink. I don't get drunk because I don't enjoy it.

Q. Marijuana?

A. I quit smoking marijuana because it didn't make me feel good, dizzy and a little nauseated. A glass of beer did make me feel good, so...

Q. The question of smoking or not smoking marijuana didn't have any objective significance; it was just personal? Just a bad physical reaction?

A. Yes. I smoked it socially.

Q. How does Bob Wells relax?

A. I'm an expert sleeper. I love to sleep, with a friend when possible, but alone if necessary. I run. I find if I'm getting depressed that a good run-off I can't sleeps run for pleasure, not for conditioning any more.

Q. What's the importance of family now in your life. You have three kids, your ex-wife lives in Venice, so you're really a family man?

A. Well, in terms of what I get out of it. I tried being a hermit, maybe that's another vice that I have. Besides being lazy, I can also be a hermit. I can do that for years at a time. I begin to lose notions of myself when I do that. I lose touch with myself. Family kind of posits me, and I'm amazed that people love me. I can't understand why. I try to rationally figure it out, but it doesn't figure. But it happens anyway. It's more than that it makes me feel good, it kind of props me up. Also, because there are things that I have to do, make money, spend it, be involved in other people's lives, because of loyalty, obligations, responsibility, law, whatever, it gets me out of myself.

Q. Do you think you'll be spending more time with family now?

A. I have been just recently. I come from a big family. The five kids...we got brilliant at finding ways to be alone. When you're a parent you can't do that. You have to interact.

Q. Did you find that hard, not being a parent but having children? Did that cause you a lot of pain?

A. Yeah. It cause me pain and it was also convenient. I had a lot of time to myself that I didn't have before. Whole areas of my head were free to think about what I wanted to think about, because I didn't have to think about details like, you know...get the kid registered for school, buy the shoes, getting him to the doctors on time.

Q. Are you looking forward to having to do that now?

A. Yeah. At the time I was looking forward to getting away from it. Now I'm looking forward to getting into it. It also was painful, because I missed the kids. I missed myself with them, and you know, it always comes and goes at the same time. These are some pretty good questions you're coming up with. Nobody's ever probed me like this. I'm flattered to be the subject of this.

February 1982 # 146

Pagoda Kidnap!
by T. Vestal

Maxine Mann, 63, of 5 Rose Ave., was sitting in the Breeze Ave. pagoda on Tues. Jan. 19 when two men entered and, without saying a word, grabbed her, knocked her down, handcuffed her, grabbed her purse, dragged her to a car in the parking lot, and threw onto the back seat. From the phone at "the Doghouse" they put in a call saying, "officer needs assistance." Four police cars rolled up; the men showed the officers badges and were allowed to drive off with Maxine.

They took her to the Santa Monica Police station, calling her "Ruthie" and asking her "how many aliases do you go under?" One man took her ID from her purse and went into the state. After awhile he came out and stand that she was the wrong person. They were looking for a 40 year old blonde named Ruthie who was reported to have been seen on the beach and she was wanted for grand theft auto.

She was put back in the car and dropped off at Sunset Ave. and Speedway. "Remember," one of the men told her, "we're not cops."

The manager of #5 Rose Ave. told Maxine that two men with the same description had been there on the day before asking if there was a blonde in the building. Maxine reported the incident to an officer on the beach patrol and he told her, "You haven't a leg to stand on. They didn't take you anywhere."

"It was a terrible experience for someone who has never been arrested," said Maxine. "They committed at least three crimes: kidnapping, assault, and false arrest, in addition to taking and opening my purse. I mean to try my best to follow up and find out who those men were." She didn't get the license plate number of the car. Maxine has reported the incident to the Santa Monica Police who said they would investigate.

Bums, Winos and Vigilantes
by Joan Friedberg from #128 September 1980

I guess I don't like watching someone pee or puke in public any more than the next guy. But one thing I've observed is that you can't make any generalizations about the kind of person who does it. Nearly every Sunday as I stood in my kitchen fixing breakfast (I've since moved) looking out over the Venice Blvd. center strip, I witnessed some guy getting out of his car, whipping down his fly, looking from left to right to see if anyone was watching, and then pissing on the weeds next to my (former) building.

Some of them drove up in fancy sports cars, and some were well dressed. And the reason I bring this rather disgusting subject up at all is that recently there have been some members of the Venice community who, in their zeal to clean up the beach, have organized vigilante committees to patrol the boardwalk and chase away "undesirable" elements, such as bums and winos, for doing the same thing.

Vigilante committee...the mere idea stirs up wonderful memories from the hours I spent as a child in front of the television set watching old Westerns. There's the John Wayne prototype, rounding up a crowd of all of the men in the small old West town, "Okay, men," he says, "Are we gonna let those varmints terrorize Liberty Gulch or are we gonna stand up like men and fight 'em?"

"Yeah!", they all say in unison.

So the John Wayne prototype deputizes everyone by passing our star-shaped badges, they all get on their horses, rifles in hand, and ride off in a cloud of dust in pursuit of the villains. The next scene is usually either a shoot-out or a hanging.

There may have been some justification for vigilantes in the old West, where there wasn't any other law and order, but anyone who seriously considers this method of dealing with the crime or "undesirables" in Venice is taking the urban cowboy myth to extremes.

There are several real dangers of such a method. For one thing, just like the old West sheriff who passed out star-shaped badges from the studio prop department, those who take matters into their own hands are assuming authority that is not rightfully theirs. They may not, and often do not, have the backing of the community they're trying to protect. I, for one, believe that the bums and winos of Venice are an integral part of what makes Venice a unique community, one which allows people who can't cope with our society to be left alone in their pathos. Besides that, they were here long before all the chic, rich, people who want to clean them out came on the scene. People who can't appreciate that are like Americans who go to Mexico and love the charm...if only there weren't so many Mexicans.

If we're going to clean up the beach, we better first agree on who goes. No bum or wino has ever bothered me, and I don't find them any more offensive than roller skaters who swerve in and out of the paths of walkers or obnoxious visitors who carry their radios tuned up full blast.

A second real danger of vigilantism is that it could result in the harassment of other innocent people whose appearance bears any resemblance to our stereotypes of criminals. An untrained or overzealous street deputy may prevent a crime, but he also could hit the wrong guy over the head with a club. He may think someone looks like a criminal because he's black. Even trained police officers have been known to make that mistake. In case anyone has forgotten, a person cannot be arrested for looking suspicious. American law does not allow for "prior" arrest. A person is innocent until proven guilty. At least that's the way it's written in the law books.

Venice, 1980, is not the old West. And the idea of an untrained, self-appointed militia patrolling the beach makes me a lot more nervous than any bum or wino ever did. While I don't have any ready solutions to the crime problem, I think we ought to stop and consider the implications before we let a bunch of macho, modern-day vigilantes rush out with clubs in hand to clean up the beach.

Jim Congdon - 1948-1982
"By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them..."
November 1982 #155
by Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Carolyn Rios, Ross Moster

"It's an adventure." These optimistic words were spoken by Jim Congdon, time and time again in response to the struggles and battles he participated in during his all too brief 34 years. On September 30th, 1982, he was tragically taken from us by drowning from an epileptic seizure off the Ocean Park beach at Bicknell. Many who knew Jim didn't know his life was shadowed by epilepsy, not because of an deceit on his part, but because he refused to let it chain his spirit down.

That expansive spirit showed itself first and foremost in his love of his children, Ian, Alia, Sacha, who he cheerfully raised initially with macrobiotics, always with love. Later when divorced, he insisted on having them come to see him every other week. His care and affection for them surpassed all other obligations and even when telling his friends of the troubles his children were causing him, as all children may, you could always tell from the tone in his voice that he was very proud of them. Even those who didn't now him couldn't help but notice his care for his children. In fact his girl friend, Sue Viets, was attracted to him, when they met for the first time two years ago, by the way he was caring for his children (two of whom were sick with the flu.) They were waiting stalled on the runway in New York on one of those nightmare LA-NY flights which never reached LA because it was detoured to Las Vegas.

His children were not the only beneficiaries of his love: Steppingstone, OPCO, SMRR among others all received his direct volunteer involvement. Although he lived on a very limited budget set by SDI due to his epileptic condition, the last three checks he wrote in his life were to Common Cause, OPCO, and SMRR: modest amounts but given with generosity and conviction.

However, it was to the Venice Ocean Park Food Coop that Jim poured out his soul over the last five years. He participated in the initial steering committee, on the workers' collective, on the Board, as a worker and as a coop advocate. He is the only member of VOP who served the Coop uninterruptedly from its start to the present. His stamina, good spirits, idealism and honesty were invaluable to the coop and his fellow workers. And like any organization with economic and political goals, VOP's birth and growth were very painful and exhausting. Naturally such an organization is very vulnerable to "burn-out" on one side and power trips on the other. Gifted with an innate modestly Jim avoided ego and power trips on one hand and gifted with an optimistic spirit, he miraculously avoided "burn-out."

Although in the coop's evolution he ended up acting as a manager, in his heart he refused both the title and the role, preferring instead a workers' collective form of management where the workers all have democratic control of decision making. There are three tragic ironies that illuminate Jim's last days at VOP. First, the newly proposed work schedule made it impossible for him to see his children, so he was going to stop working in the store; thus he eagerly planned to be on the Board of Directors. Second, the new produce case he actively fought for during the past year was installed the last day he worked there; he never saw its final impact on the Coop. And finally two weeks after his death the coop had its annual meeting where for the first time in three years, it broke even financially, a milestone that could not have happened without Jim's tireless devotion over the last five years.

But the ultimate irony is that he was taken from us by the betrayal of epilepsy, something Jim never let rule his life. It would be naive to think it didn't influence him: He wouldn't drive a car so it bugged him to have to always bum a ride from his friends. On the other hand a man who was landlocked (anyone without a car in LA is landlocked) managed to travel around the world last year. Epilepsy with its uncertainty and random appearance made Jim live in the here and now more than anyone I know. Perhaps that is why he had many girlfriends, perhaps that is why he wrote more than a dozen volumes of poems, notes and journals since 1966, perhaps that is why he loved rock and roll, dancing, and smoking, perhaps that is why he uniquely combined political seriousness and partying pleasures. Perhaps that is why he loved swimming and body surfing - choosing to risk leading life his way rather than paralysis of epilepsy's way: Jim chose life over death.

We have lost a friend, poet, comrade, cooperator, father and lover. But he taught us in leaving how precious and perishable life is, how not to accept the limitations of any illness, how to live in the here and now, and that life, as he was fond of saying, is an adventure. An adventure much emptier without you.