Death of a Rebela Biography of Phil Ochs by Marc Eliot

Author:Marc Eliot [Eliot, Marc]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780806515557
Amazon: 0806515554
Publisher: Citadel Pr
Published: 1994-10-13T22:00:00+00:00

174 DEATH OF A REBEL

you to come along." An hour later, Phil left for the airport.

Phil, Jerry, and Nancy, Jerry's lady, were admitted to the festival wearing phony press passes Rubin had safety-pinned to their shirts. Rubin began passing out copies of The Yipster Times. He spotted three nuns sitting together and couldn't resist going over and giving them copies of the yippie paper, which contained the following editorial:

Who says that rich White America can tell the Chinese what is best? How dare you tell the poor that their poverty is deserved? Fuck nuns: laugh at professors: disobey your parents: burn your money: you know life is a dream and all of our institutions are man-made illusions effective because YOU take the dream for reality.

Someone recognized Rubin and he was immediately ejected from the festival grounds. That night, as Jerry, Nancy, and Phil were sitting in a local bar having a drink, William F. Buckley happened to walk in off the street to have a cocktail. Phil couldn't resist going up to him. A small group gathered to listen as Phil told Buckley about the McCarthy campaign. Ever since the death of Robert Kennedy, Phil had redoubled his efforts in supporting McCarthy, convinced now he was the sole hope for America. Buckley listened as Phil told him about playing a rally in Boston's Fenway Park with Pete Seeger. "You know, Mr. Buckley, it was the first time Seeger sang for a presidential candidate since Henry Wallace."

"You mean the first time since Moscow?" Buckley replied. "I hope," he continued, "that Pete Seeger will be singing on the Czechoslovakian border to the Russian troops as they come marching through. When are you singing at the festival?"

"I'm not," Phil said. "I guess I don't fit into the folk music establishment at the moment."

"Oh, is there a folk music establishment too?"

As they spoke, George Wein, the director of the festival,

DEATH OF A REBEL 175

walked up to Buckley. Buckley turned and asked Wein why Phil hadn't been invited to sing at the festival. The small gathering cheered his question, echoing, "Why didn't you invite him?" Wein quickly asked Buckley if he'd like to come to a party, and left. Rubin immediately suggested they all go to the party.

When they arrived, Phil was told at the door he could come in, but the others, meaning Jerry Rubin and Nancy, couldn't. All three left. "Don't worry, Phil," Rubin said. "The real party is just beginning."

Everyone assumed that Rubin and Phil were the best of friends. Actually, Phil's association with Rubin was almost exclusively in the realm of political protest. His alliance with Rubin was symbolic—Phil Ochs the Che Guevara to Rubin's Fidel Castro. If Phil needed Rubin to counter the distrust the radical Left had for the singer-protester bon vivant, Rubin, in turn, needed to validate his own poetic abilities through his association with Phil. Rubin made Phil politically acceptable with the radical fringe; Phil shared the literary stage with Rubin.

If Phil went out of his way

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