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The Post-Competitive, Comparative Game of a Free City
[Originally appeared in The Digger Papers, August, 1968, p. 15. Reprinted in
Ringolevio.]
Our state of awareness demands that we uplift our efforts from competitive game
playing in the underground to the comparative roles of free families in free
cities.
We must pool our resources and interact our energies to provide the freedom for
our individual activities.
In each city of the world there is a loose competitive underground composed of
groups whose aims overlap, conflict, and generally enervate the desired goal of
autonomy. By now we all have guns, know how to use them, know our enemy, and are
ready to defend. We know that we ain't gonna take no more shit. So it's about
time we carried ourselves a little heavier and got down to the business of
creating free cities within the urban environments of the western world.
Free Cities are composed of Free Families (e.g., in San Francisco: Diggers,
Black Panthers, Provos [substitute "Red Guards" in Ringolevio], Mission Rebels
and various revolutionist gangs and communes) who establish and maintain
services that provide a base of freedom for autonomous groups to carry out their
programs without having to hassle for food, printing facilities, trans-
portation, mechanics, money, housing, working space, clothes, ma- chinery,
trucks, etc.
At this point in our revolution it is demanded that the families, communes,
black organizations and gangs of every city in America coordinate and develop
Free Cities where everything that is necessary can be obtained for free by those
involved in the various activities of the individual clans.
Every brother [add "and sister" in Ringolevio] should have what he [substitute
"they" in Ringolevio] need to do whatever needs to be done.
Free City:
An outline . . . a beginning
Each service should be performed by a tight
gang of brothers and sisters whose commitment should enable
them to handle an overload of work with ability
and enthusiasm. 'Tripsters' soon get bored, hopefully
before they cause an economic strain.
Free City Switchboard/Information Center
should coordinate all services, activities, and aid and direct assistance where
it is most needed. Also provide a reference point for legal aid, housing,
machinery, etc.; act as a mailing address for dislocated groups or individuals
and guide random energies where they are most needed. (The work load usually
prevents or should prevent the handling of messages from parents to their
runaway children . . . that should be left up to the churches of the community.)
Free Food Storage and Distribution Center
should hit every available source of free food--produce markets, farmers'
markets, meat-packing plants, farms, dairies, sheep and cattle ranches,
agricultural colleges, and giant institutions (for the uneaten vats of
food)--and fill up their trucks with the surplus by begging, borrowing,
stealing, forming liaisons and communications with delivery drivers for the
leftovers from their routes . . . best method is to work in two shifts: morning
group picks up the foodstuffs and the afternoon shift delivers it to the list of
Free Families and the poor peoples of the ghettos. everyday. hard work.
This gang should help people pool their welfare food stamps and get their old
ladies or a group to open a free restaurant for people on the move and those who
live on the streets. Giant scores should be stored in a garage-type warehouse
equipped with freezers and its whereabouts known only to the Free Food Gang.
This group should also set up and provide help for canning, preserving, bread
baking, and feasts and anything and everything else that has to do with food.
Free City Garage and Mechanics
to repair and maintain all vehicles used in the various services. the
responsibility for the necessary tools and parts needed in their work is
entirely theirs and usually available by maintaining friendly relations with
junkyards, giant automotive schools, and generally scrounging around those areas
where auto equipment is easily obtained. The garage should be large enough and
free of tripsters who only create more work for the earnest mechanics.
Free City Bank and Treasury
this group should be responsible for raising money, making free money, paying
rents, for gasoline, and any other necessary expenses of the Free City Families.
They should also organize and create small rackets (cookie sales, etc.) for the
poor kids of the ghettoes and aid in the repair and maintenance of the machinery
required in the performance of the various services.
Free City Legal Assistance
high-style, hard-nosed, top-class lawyers who are willing to defend the rights
of the Free City and its services . . . no honky, liberal, bleeding-heart,
guilt-ridden advocates of justice, but first-class case-winners . . . turn on
the best lawyers who can set up airtight receivership for free money and
property, and beat down the police harassment and brutality of your areas.
Free City Housing and Work Space
rent or work deals with the urban gov't to take over spaces that have been
abandoned for use as carpentry shops, garages, theaters, etc., rent whole
houses, but don't let them turn into crash pads. Set up hotels for new arrivals
or transients by working out deals with small hotel owners for free rooms in
exchange for light housework, porter duties, etc. Big warehouses can be worked
on by environmental artists and turned into giant free dance-fiesta-feast
palaces.
A strong trio of serious business-oriented cats should develop this liberation
of space within the cities and be able to work with the lawyers to make deals
and outmaneuver urban bureaucracies and slum landlords . . . one of the main
targets for space are the churches who are the holders of most real estate and
they should be approached with a no-bullshit hard line.
Free City Stores and Workshops
nothing in these stores should be throwaway items . . . space should be
available for chicks to sew dresses, make pants to order, recut garments to fit,
etc. The management should all be life-actors capable of turning bullshitters
into mud. Important that these places are first class environments with no trace
of salvation army/st. vinnie de paul charity rot. Everything groovy. Everything
with style . . . must be first class. It's all free because it's yours!
Free Medical Thing
should be established in all poverty areas and run by private physicians and
free from any bureaucratic support. The Free City Bank should try to cover the
expenses, and pharmaceutical houses should be hit for medical supplies, etc.
Important that the doctors are brothers and do not ask to be salaried or are not
out to make careers for themselves (witness Dr. David Smith of the Hippie Free
Clinic in San Francisco who is far from a brother . . . very far).
Free City Hospital
should be a house converted into bed space and preferably with a garden and used
for convalescence and people whose minds have been blown or who have just been
released from a state institution and who need the comfort and solace of their
[add "own" in Ringolevio] people rather than the cold alienated walls of an
urban institution.
Free City Environmental and Design Gang
gangs of artists from universities and art institutes should be turned on and
helped in attacking the dank squalor of the slums and most of the Free City
Family dwellings . . . paint landscapes on the sides of tenements . . .
fiberglass stairwells . . . make crazy. Tight groups of good painters,
sculptors, designers who comfortably construct environments for the community.
Materials and equipment can be hustled from university projects and
manufacturers, etc.
Free City Schools
schools designed and run by different groups according to the consciousness of
their Free Families (e.g., Black Man's Free School, Anarchist's Creative Arts
School, etc.). The schools should utilize the space liberated for them by the
Free City Space Gang.
Free City News and Communication Company
providers of a daily newspaper, monthly magazine, free Gestetner and printing of
[delete "of" in Ringolevio] notices for other groups and any special bulletins
and propaganda for the various families of the Free City. The machinery should
be kept in top condition and supplied by any of the various services. Paper can
be scavenged at large mills and cut down to proper working size.
Free City Events . . . Festival Planning Committees
usually involves several Families interacting to sponsor tours for the kids . .
. Balls, Happenings, Theatre, Dance, and spontaneous experiments in joy . . .
Park Events usually are best set up by hiring a 20-foot flatbed truck for the
rock band to use as a stage and to transport their equipment; people should be
advised by leaflets to bring food to exchange with their neighbors; banners,
props, balloons, kites etc., should be handled by a committee; an electrician
should be around to run the generator and make sure that the PA systems work;
hard work made easy by giving responsible people the tough jobs.
Cooperative Farms and Campsites
the farms should be run by experienced hands and the Free Land set- tled on by
cottage industrial people who will send their wares into the Free City. The
farms must produce vital food for the families . . . some free land that is no
good for farming should be used as campsites and/or cabin areas for [add "Free"
in Ringolevio] citizens who are in need of country leisure, as well as kids who
could use a summer in the woods.
Scavenger Corps and Transport Gang
is responsible for garbage collection and the picking up and delivery of items
to the various services, as well as liberating anything they think useful for
one project or another. They are to be responsible for the truck fleet and
especially aware of the economic strain if trucks are misused by tripsters.
Free City Tinkers and Gunsmiths, Etc.
will repair and keep things going in the houses . . . experienced repairmen of
all sorts, electricians, and carpenters. They should maintain a warehouse or
working space for their outfit.
Free City Radio, TV and Computer Stations
demand Free time on radio and TV stations; demand a Free City fre- quency to set
up your own stations; rent computers to call the punches for the revolution or
use them in any constructive way possible.
[following text in original, not in Ringolevio:]
Free City Music
Free Music
Where is the place that your music comes from
do you know
What determines the rest between phrases
The Interval that grows from the cluster
of sounds around it
Hanging behind the beat
Clipping the front of it
That's the gift
The thing that blows through a body that responds to spirit and a
mind that doesn't lock itself
It's that thing
We're all made of forget about, and then try to grab again
That thing that's all there and all free
The fretless infinite string banjo has invented new means of music
which it must buy from itself to sing
$ * $ * $
fat man owns the carnival and all the booths play business. he double hypes the
want glands, lets you buy in and then displays what's available to the crowd.
all of a sudden you got something to lose. he spreads the news and pays for it
by telling kids they're ugly blemished smelly unimaginative and dull . . . then
sells them cures, says to you, "here kid, change the name, change the games, do
anything you want, but don't give it away." that game's called vested interest
and it can apply to anything.
fat man runs a crumby joint, but it's the only joint right? He'll be there until
we free the goodies
Art forms and life forms interact
look at fat mans Life
look at fat mans Time
look at fat mans forms
The record industry, dance-hall promotion rackets and the artist-
star-celebrity-hero roles they support and promote are fat man forms and are
cramping the number
the dance-light show package hasn't changed since its form crystallized and it
became business. it reached the end of its evolution. kids don't dance they
watch, because the bands are pro now and you don't play with a pro. when you pay
to go to a dance the medium is business . . . the problem is to free the form
and the carnival.
Some Ideas for Liberating the Ferris Wheel:
A) Contracts could demand free cuts on all albums a name group might take one
side of an album and divide the other into sets of two tracks each of which they
would give away. give a brother a piggy-back over the business-shit to the ears
of our people. two truths don't compete
B) A certain number of records be released in plain white folders. saving all
art and printing costs and leaving free space for local artists to use. Ready
mades would cost more.
C) Scrap liner notes and "photos-of-the-band" print charts of the tunes,
diagrams of cheap amps and pick-ups so local wizards can plug in more kids, good
poems, clothes patterns, recipes.
D) Add 1% to all royalties to be used for free forms
equipment for free rehearsal rooms
sound systems for free concerts
musical communes for non-working cats.
E) Send other bands on your publicity junkets after all its not just your sound
is it its the sound you're all part of. make that clear to people. free fat
man's star trip by giving away your names. how many times can you go to Des
Moines?