The war in Southeast Asia had gotten intense under JFK's administration. The US stood by while its allies Ngo Dihn Diem and Ngo Dihn Nu were deposed and murdered about a month before Kennedy's assassination. Network TV showed us stupid and tragic films from the front lines regularly, but they were explicitly PRO-war. Under LBJ, everything "escalated."

Poster by Dennis Phillips

Since we grew up with a universal male draft in the USA, it was only a matter of time before the government would give me, my brother, and our friends free passage to do either guard duty along the Rhine, or full-scale slaughter along the Mekong River, unless we banded together to oppose the insane pointless carnage of the Viet Nam War, and defend our human and civil rights. I helped organize several events, the most successful one featuring keynote speaker Congressman Lawrence Burton in Liberty Park in early October 1968, as part of a National 'Protest the War' Day. There were also a number of meetings with activists in April Committee, who had a proud track-record of principled resistance against the Draft. We later formed a local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Among my tasks, I was happy to pick up printed materials and haul them around to local offices -- even drove to BYU one evening after a call for volunteers at the Phillips Gallery, with some of the Art Deptartment faculty in attendance. (Note the gratuitous semi-nude image at the left.) I kept informally advising other youth about their options, and supported the organizations that had possibly saved my life, but the damned war kept grinding on, even after Nixon's resignation, half a decade later. The Pentagon Papers and the POW-MIA campaign did much to change the majority's opinions against the conflict, but it still continued until 1975.

After several scholastic quarters of anti-war activities, my draft card changed from 2-S to 4-F.

While I was active, we organized one concert at the Terrace starring Holden Caulfield, but I had nothing to do with THIS show in 1969, except as a member of the audience. (Poster by Art Dept. grad student Richard Taylor)

After a quarter spent out in the weather at work, I was ready to complete my so-called Foundation Year in the Art Department. The old barracks in the elms fostered an atmosphere of experimentation consistent with those times. I met Concept Artist Paul McCarthy plus his friends Michael Cram and Al Payne, joining a broad coalition of artists and musicians sometimes called the "Up River Skool," which put on a series of "Gigs" around the city, somewhat following the example of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. These associations caused me to journey back and forth to Los Angeles over the next few years and meet other interesting people. (to be continued ...)

What can I say about the seemingly endless revolving sequence of Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, and Art History courses? Life Drawing, with nude models, was always a good time. Several students shared a studio with me next to that particular classroom, and I brought a stereo and records there. Thanks to the Cosmic Aeroplane, we always had something new and different to play. We especially liked the Incredible String Band, T-Rex, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper (before and after they became famous), Pink Floyd, the Soft Machine, and other kinds of music that we didn't hear on the omnipresent FM Radio.

(L to R) Composition of one of my early Intaglio prints; One of my pages from Aardvark Papers Number One.

We took initiative outside of class too -- some of us contributed to a locally-produced tabloid called Aardvark Papers, which was printed by my friends Jim Neilson and David Faggioli. Through them, I met Parley and Robert Holman, who created graphic art and comics independently, as did Neil Passey and Larry Farrington. We all found common ground as collectors of variously arcane forms of artwork, and knew rare book dealer Ken Sanders at the start of his career. We also got into Cinema through on-campus screenings of European and Underground films, and even shot our own 16mm films at times.

The Student Union presented a couple of spectacularly insane movies among their many gems. Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers came back after public distress had subsided over Sharon Tate's murder by the Manson Family. James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein was a legend, but for some reason hadn't been on television very much -- it was extremely well-recieved by a crowd who saw the humor behind the melodrama and horror.
(The monster's line: Smoke GOOD! was heard around the campus for a long time afterward.)
In Downtown Salt Lake, the tiny Blue Mouse Theater started showing Classic Cinema from what had been a screening room for 20th Century Fox's and Paramount Pictures' distributors -- movies by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields alternated with Art Films by Bergman and Truffaut. It was always easy to get a date for the Blue Mouse!
My friend Al Payne came back to the University of Utah as a graduate student, and I was glad to steep myself in his unconventional art projects again -- for credit, no less! He sponsored a video workshop by Paul McCarthy, where I was introduced to the Sony Porta-Pak, the first portable video system available to the public at large. At the time, I was also taking a class in Television Production with an eye on escaping from the grind of work and school via a career suitable to my far-flung talents. The Porta-Pak looked like it might provide me with the key to a much-needed change in my life, but all that took another year ...

Read about Video, Dance, and the Mime Troupe

Read more about my studios and The 9th & 9th