The Wizard asked me to contribute to a remembrance of Dick Motherfucker. As Lee Hays once said of Pete Seeger, “what the Wiz proposes, she don’t take no noses.” Still, I attempted to beg off on the grounds that it’s a daunting task to write about DMF while protecting the more-or-less innocent. Understanding that, she said I didn’t have to tell the whole story.

Good thing, too. It’s all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.

Politics? The deepest political discussion I remember with Dick took place in the Rag office, and I was one of his antagonists. One of several. Dick was defending the slogan “Smash the State!” and some actions that grew out of it.

I was and am from rural Oklahoma, showing up in Austin by way of the civil rights movement and the U.S. military. I took Dick for an ex-GI, which turned out to be true. I was, by the time I showed up in Austin, so dedicated to militant nonviolence I was ready to be known as a coward in the service of my new determination not to fight.

The cops had come into Vulcan Gas Company, turned on the lights, and started rousting people, looking for where that sweet smoke was coming from. The Austin Police did stuff like that in those days.