TABLE OF DISCONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail-
that graduate school of survival. Here you learn how to use
toothpaste as glue, fashion a shiv out of a spoon and build
intricate communication networks. Here too, you learn the only
rehabilitation possible-hatred of oppression.
Steal This Book is, in a way, a manual of survival in the
prison that is Amerika. It preaches jailbreak. It shows you where
exactly how to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls. The
first section-SURVIVE!-lays out a potential action program for our
new Nation. The chapter headings spell out the demands for a free
society. A community where the technology produces goods and
services for whoever needs them, come who may. It calls on the
Robin Hoods of Santa Barbara Forest to steal from the robber barons
who own the castles of capitalism. It implies that the reader
already is "ideologically set," in that he understands corporate
feudalism as the only robbery worthy of being called "crime," for
it is committed against the people as a whole. Whether the ways it
describes to rip-off shit are legal or illegal is irrelevant. The
dictionary of law is written by the bosses of order. Our moral
dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a
brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that
are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.
Community within our Nation, chaos in theirs; that is the
message of SURVIVE!
We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the
lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries
from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system,
but destroy it. The weapons are carefully chosen. They are
"home-made," in that they are designed for use in our unique
electronic jungle. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof
of our "violent" nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us.
Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False
advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices
guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians
conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in
the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban
grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized
army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation
of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression.
Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence
in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the
language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be fucked. Let me
illustrate the point. Amerika was built on the slaughter of a
people. That is its history. For years we watched movie after movie
that demonstrated the white man's benevolence. Jimmy Stewart, the
epitome of fairness, puts his arm around Cochise and tells how the
Indians and the whites can live in peace if only both sides will be
reasonable, responsible and rational (the three R's imperialists
always teach the "natives"). "You will find good grazing land on
the other side of the mountain," drawls the public relations man.
"Take your people and go in peace." Cochise as well as millions of
youngsters in the balcony of learning, were being dealt off the
bottom of the deck. The Indians should have offed Jimmy Stewart in
every picture and we should have cheered ourselves hoarse. Until we
understand the nature of institutional violence and how it
manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we
will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we
conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the
trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When
we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the
Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our
young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to
think revolutionary.
Be clever using section two; clever as a snake. Dig the spirit
of the struggle. Don't get hung up on a sacrifice trip. Revolution
is not about suicide, it is about life. With your fingers probe the
holiness of your body and see that it was meant to live. Your body
is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. Become an
internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on
machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death
and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to
make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn't allow
for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more
a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A
revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution
in the distribution of power. We are not interested in the greening
of Amerika except for the grass that will cover its grave.
Section three - LIBERATE! - concerns itself with efforts to
free stuff (or at least make it cheap) in four cities. Sort of a
quick U.S. on no dollars a day. It begins to scratch the potential
for a national effort in this area. Since we are a nation of
gypsies, dope on how to move around and dig in anywhere is always
needed. Together we can expand this section. It is far from
complete, as is the entire project. Incomplete chapters on how to
identify police agents, steal a car, run day-care centers, conduct
your own trial, organize a G.I. coffee house, start a rock and roll
band and make neat clothes, are scattered all over the floor of the
cell. The book as it now stands was completed in the late summer of
1970. For three months manuscripts made the rounds of every major
publisher. In all, over 30 rejections occurred before the decision
to publish the book ourselves was made, or rather made for us.
Perhaps no other book in modern times presented such a dilemma.
Everyone agreed the book would be a commercial success. But even
greed had its limits, and the IRS and FBI following the manuscript
with their little jive rap had a telling effect. Thirty "yeses"
become thirty "noes" after "thinking it over." Liberals, who
supposedly led the fight against censorship, talked of how the book
"will end free speech."
Finally the day we were bringing the proofs to the printer,
Grove consented to act as distributor. To pull a total solo trip,
including distribution, would have been neat, but such an effort
would be doomed from the start. We had tried it before and blew it.
In fact, if anyone is interested in 4,000 1969 Yippie calendars,
they've got a deal. Even with a distributor joining the fight, the
battle will only begin when the books come off the press. There is
a saying that "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
In past eras, this was probably the case, but now, high speed
methods of typesetting, offset printing and a host of other
developments have made substantial reductions in printing costs.
Literally anyone is free to print their own works. In even the most
repressive society imaginable, you can get away with some form of
private publishing. Because Amerika allows this, does not make it
the democracy Jefferson envisioned. Repressive tolerance is a real
phenomenon. To talk of true freedom of the press, we must talk of
the availability of the channels of communication that are designed
to reach the entire population, or at least that segment of the
population that might participate in such a dialogue. Freedom of
the press belongs to those that own the distribution system.
Perhaps that has always been the case, but in a mass society where
nearly everyone is instantaneously plugged into a variety of
national communications systems, wide-spread dissemination of the
information is the crux of the matter. To make the claim that the
right to print your own book means freedom of the press is to
completely misunderstand the nature of a mass society. It is like
making the claim that anyone with a pushcart can challenge Safeway
supermarkets, or that any child can grow up to be president.
State legislators, librarians, PTA members, FBI agents,
church-goers, and parents: a veritable legion of decency and order
already is on the march. To get the book to you might be the
biggest challenge we face. The next few months should prove really
exciting.
Obviously such a project as Steal This Book could not have
been carried out alone. Izak Haber shared the vision from the
beginning. He did months of valuable research and contributed many
of the survival techniques. Carole Ramer and Gus Reichbach of the
New York Law Commune guided the book through its many stages. Anna
Kaufman Moon did almost all the photographs. The cartoonists who
have made contributions include Ski Williamson and Gilbert Sheldon.
Tom Forcade, of the UPS, patiently did the editing. Bert Cohen of
Concert Hall did the book's graphic design. Amber and John Wilcox
set the type. Anita Hoffman and Lynn Borman helped me rewrite a
number of sections. There are others who participated in the
testing of many of the techniques demonstrated in the following
pages and for obvious reasons have to remain anonymous. There were
perhaps over 50 brothers and sisters who played particularly vital
roles in the grand conspiracy. Some of the many others are listed
on the following page. We hope to keep the information up to date.
If you have comments, law suits, suggestions or death threats,
please send them to: Dear Abbie P.0. Box 213, Cooper Station,
New York, NY 10003. Many of the tips might not work in your area,
some might be obsolete by the time you get to try them out, and
many addresses and phone numbers might be changed. If the reader
becomes a participating researcher then we will have achieved our
purpose.
Watch for a special edition called Steal This White House,
complete with blueprints of underground passages, methods of
jamming the communications network and a detailed map of the
celebrated room where according to Tricia Nixon, "Daddy loves to
listen to Mantovanni records, turn up the air conditioner full
blast, sit by the fireplace, gaze out the window to the Washington
Monument and meditate on those difficult problems that face all the
peoples of this world."
December, 1970
Cook County Jail
Chicago
"FREE SPEECH IS THE RIGHT TO SHOUT
'THEATER' IN A CROWDED FIRE."
- A YIPPIE PROVERB
AIDING AND ABETTING
Tim Leary, Tom, Geronimo, Pearl Paperhanger, Sonny, Pat
Solomon, Allan Katzman, Jacob Kohn, Nguyen Van Troi, Susan, Marty,
Andy, Ami, Marshall Bloom, Viva, Ben, Oanh, Robin Palmer, Mom and
Dad, Janie Fonda, Jerry, Denis, LNS, Bernadine Dohrn, a wall in
Harvard Square, Nancy, an anonymous stewardess, Shirley Wonderful,
Roz, Gumbo, Janis, Jimi, Dylan Liberation Front, Jeannie, God
Slick, John, David, Rusty, Barney, Richard, Denny, Ron Cobb, the
entire Viet Cong, Sam Shephard, Ma Bell, Eric, David, Joe, Kim
Agnew, the Partridge Family, Carol, Alan Ginsburg, Woman's Lib,
Julius Lester, Lenny Bruce, Hack, Billy, Paul, Willy, Colleen, Sid,
Johnny Appleseed, the Rat, Craig, Che, Willie Sutton, Wanda, EVO,
Jeff, Crazy Horse, Huey, Casey, Bobby, Alice, Mao, Rip, Ed, Bob,
Gay Liberation Front, WPAX, Frank Dudock, Manny, Mungo, Lottie,
Rosemary, Marshall, Rennie, Judy, Jennifer, Mr. Martin, Keith,
Madame Binh, Mike, Eleanor, Dr. Spock, Afeni, Candice, the
Tupamaros, Berkeley Tribe, Gilbert Sheldon, Stanley Kubrick, Sam,
Anna, Skip Williamson, UPS, Andy Stapp, the Yippies, Richard
Brautigan, Jano, Carlos Marighella, the Weathermen, Julius Jennings
Hoffman, Quentin, the inmates of TIER A-l Cook County Jail,
Houdini, 37, Rosa Luxemberg, the Kent 25, the Chicago 15, the New
York 21, the Motor City 3, the Indianapolis 500, Jack, Joan,
Malcolm X, Mayakovsky, Dotson, R. Crumb, Daniel Clyne, Justin, The
FBI Top 10 (now 16), Unis, Dana, Jim Morrison, Brian, John, Gus,
Ruth, Nancy Unger, Pun, Jomo, Peter, Mark Rudd, Billy Kunstler,
Genie, Ken, the Law Commune, Paula, Robby, Terry, Dianna, Angela,
Ted, Phil, Jefferson Airplane, Len, Tricky Prickers, the Berrigans,
Stu, Rayanne, J.B., Jonathan Jackson, the Armstrong Brothers,
Homer, Sharon, Fred Hampton, Jean Jacques Lebel, A. H. Maslow,
Hanoi Rose, Sylvia, Fellini, Amaru, Ann Fettamen, Artaud, Bert,
Merrill, Lynne, and last but not least to Spiro what's his name who
provided the incentive.
SURVIVE!
FREE FOOD
RESTAURANTS
In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a
hell-of-a-lot food lying around just waiting to be ripped off. If
you want to live high off the hog without having to do the dishes,
restaurants are easy pickings. In general, many of these targets
are easier marks if you are wearing the correct uniform. You should
always have one suit or fashionable dress outfit hanging in the
closet for the proper heists. Specialized uniforms, such as nun and
priest garb, can be most helpful. Check out your local uniform
store for a wide range of clothes that will get you in, and
especially out, of all kinds of stores. Every movement organization
should have a prop and costume department.
In every major city there are usually bars that cater to the
New Generation type riff-raff, trying to hustle their way up the
escalator of Big Business. Many of these bars have a buffet or
hors-d'oeuvres served free as a come-on to drink more mindless
booze. Take a half-empty glass from a table and use it as a prop to
ward off the anxious waitress. Walk around sampling the free food
until you've had enough. Often, there are five or six such bars in
close proximity, so moving around can produce a delightful "street
smorgasbord." Dinner usually begins at 5:00 PM.
If you are really hungry, you can go into a self-service
cafeteria and finish the meal of someone who left a lot on the
plate. Self-service restaurants are usually good places to cop
things like mustard, ketchup, salt, sugar, toilet paper, silverware
and cups for home use. Bring an empty school bag and load up after
you've cased the joint. Also, if you can stomach the food, you can
use slugs at the automat. Finishing leftovers can be worked in even
the fanciest of restaurants. When you are seated at a place where
the dishes still remain, chow-down real quick. Then after the
waitress hands you the menu, say you have to meet someone outside
first, and leave.
There are still some places where you can get all you can eat
for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a
plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting
jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the
best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick
is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag
sewed inside your pocket and take it with you.
At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just
picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken,
and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting
turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food
heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit:
from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant.
Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes
in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to
confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment
house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that
are still in his truck.
In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and
halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a
piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate.
Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so
insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the
napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you
into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible
inconvenience.
In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving,
there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized.
After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the
restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of
the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills.
Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be
worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other
at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee.
Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your
check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After
he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the
large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining
that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your
coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another
place.
In all these methods, you should leave a good tip for the
waiter or waitress, especially with the roach-in-the-plate gambit.
You should try to avoid getting the employees in trouble or
screwing them out of a tip.
One fantastic method of not only getting free food but getting
the best available is the following technique that can be used in
metropolitan areas. Look in a large magazine shop for gourmet
digests and tourist manuals. Swipe one or two and copy down a good
name from the masthead inside the cover. Making up a name can also
work. Next invest $5.00 to print business cards with the name of
the magazine and the new "associate editor." Call or simply drop
into a fancy restaurant, show a copy of the magazine and present
the manager with your card. They will insist that the meal be on
the house.
Great places to get fantastic meals are weddings,
bar-mitzvahs, testimonials and the like. The newspaper society
sections have lists of weddings and locations. If your city has a
large Jewish population, subscribe to the newspaper that services
the Jewish community. There are extensive lists in these papers of
family occasions where tons of good food is served. Show up at the
back of the synagogue a few hours after the affair has begun with a
story of how you'd like to bring some leftovers of "good Jewish
food" back to your fraternity or sorority. If you want to get the
food served to you out front, you naturally have to disguise
yourself to look straight. Remarks such as, "I'm Marvin's cousin,"
or learning the bride's name, "Gee, Dorothy looks marvelous" are
great. Lines like "Betty doesn't look pregnant" are frowned upon. A
man and woman team can work this free-load much better than a
single person as they can chatter back and forth while stuffing
themselves.
If you're really into a classy free meal, and you are in a
city with a large harbor, check out the passenger ship section in
the back pages of the newspaper. There you find the schedule of
departures for ocean cruises. Most trips (these kind, anyway) begin
with a fantastic bon voyage party on board ship. Just walk on a few
hours before departure time and start swinging. Champagne, caviar,
lobster, shrimp and more, all as free as the open seas. If you get
really bombed and miss getting off, you can also wiggle a ride
across the ocean. You get sent back as soon as you hit the other
side, but it's a free ocean cruise. You should have a pretty good
story ready to go, or you might end up rowing in the galley.
Another possibility for getting a free meal is to go down to
the docks and get friendly with a sailor. He can often invite you
for dinner on board ship. Foreign sailors are more than glad to
meet friends and you can get great foreign dinners this way.
FOOD PROGRAMS
In Amerika, there is a national food stamp program that
unfortunately is controlled by the states. Many states, for racist
reasons, do not want to make it too available or to publicize the
fact that it even exists. It is a much better deal than the food
program connected with welfare, because you can use the stamps to
buy any kind of food. The only items excluded are tobacco products
and alcoholic beverages. In general, you can qualify if you earn
less than $165 per month; the less you earn, the more stamps you
can receive. There is minimal hassle involved once you get by the
first hurdle. Show up at your local food stamp office, which can be
found by calling the Welfare Department in our city. Make an
appointment to see a representative for your area. They will tell
you to bring all sorts of receipts, but the only thing you need are
a few rent stubs for the most recent months. An array of various
receipt books is a nice supplement to one's prop room. If the
receipts are for a high rent, tell them you rent a room from a
group of people and eat separately. They really only want to prove
that you have cooking facilities. Once you get the stamps, you can
pick them up regularly. Some states even mail them to your pad. You
can get up to a hundred dollars worth of free purchases a month per
person in the most liberal states.
Large amounts of highly nutritional food can be gotten for as
little as three cents per meal from a non-profit organization
called Multi-Purpose Food for Millions Foundation, Inc., 1800
Olympic Ave., Santa Monica, California. Write and they will send
you details.
SUPERMARKETS
Talking about food in Amerika means talking about
supermarkets-mammoth neon lighted streets of food packaged to
hoodwink the consumers. Many a Yippie can be found in the aisles,
stuffing his pockets with assorted delicacies. We have been
shoplifting from supermarkets on a regular basis without raising
the slightest suspicion, ever since they began.
We are not alone, and the fact that so much stealing goes on
and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits shows exactly how
much overcharging has occurred in the first place. Supermarkets,
like other businesses, refer to shoplifting as "inventory
shrinkage." It's as if we thieves were helping Big Business reduce
weight. So let's view our efforts as methods designed to trim the
economy and push forward with a positive attitude.
Women should never go shopping without a large handbag. In
those crowded aisles, especially the ones with piles of cases, all
sorts of goodies can be transferred from shopping cart to handbag.
A drop bag can be sewn inside a trench coat, for more efficient
thievery. Don't worry about the mirrors; attendants never look at
them. Become a discriminating shopper and don't stuff any of the
cheap shit in your pockets.
Small bottles and jars often have the same size cap as the
larger expensive sizes. If they have the price stamped on the cap,
switch caps, getting the larger size for the cheaper price. You can
empty a pound box of margarine and fill it with sticks of butter.
Small narrow items can be hidden in the middle of rolls of toilet
paper. Larger supermarkets sell records. You can sneak two good
LP's into one of those large frozen pizza boxes. In the produce
department, there are bags for fruit and vegetables. Slip a few
steaks or some lamb chops into the bottom of a large brown bag and
pile some potatoes on top. Have a little man in the white coat
weigh the bag, staple it and mark the price. With a black crayon
you can mark your own prices, or bring your own adhesive price
tags.
It's best to work shoplifting in the supermarket with a
partner who can act as look-out and shield you from the eyes of
nosy employees, shoppers and other crooks trying to pick up some
pointers. Work out a prearranged set of signals with your partner.
Diversions, like knocking over displays, getting into fist fights
with the manager, breaking plate glass windows and such are
effective and even if you don't get anything they're fun. Haven't
you always wanted to knock over those carefully constructed
nine-foot pyramids of garbage?
You can walk into a supermarket, get a few items from the
shelves, and walk around eating food in the aisles. Pick up some
cherries and eat them. Have a spoon in your pocket and open some
yogurt. Open a pickle or olive jar. Get some sliced meat or cheese
from the delicatessen counter and eat it up, making sure to ditch
the wrapper. The cart full of items, used as a decoy, can just be
left in an aisle before you leave the store.
Case the joint before pulling a big rip-off. Know the least
crowded hours, learn the best aisles to be busy in, and check out
the store's security system. Once you get into shoplifting in
supermarkets, you'll really dig it. You'll be surprised to learn
that the food tastes better.
Large scale thievery can best be carried out with the help of
an employee. Two ways we know of work best. A woman can get a job
as a cashier and ring up a small bill as her brothers and sisters
bring home tons of stuff.
The method for men involves getting a job loading and
unloading trucks in the receiving department. Some accomplices
dressed right can just pull in and, with your help, load up on a
few cases. Infiltrating an employee into a store is probably the
best way to steal. Cashiers, sales clerks, shippers, and the like
are readily available jobs with such high turnover and low pay that
little checking on your background goes on. Also, you can learn
what you have to do in a few days. The rest of the week, you can
work out ways to clean out the store. After a month or so of action
you might want to move on to another store before things get heavy.
We know one woman working as a cashier who swiped over $500 worth
of food a week. She had to leave after a month because her boss
thought she was such an efficient cashier that he insisted on
promoting her to a job that didn't have as many fringe benefits for
her and her friends.
Large chain stores like Safeway throw away day-old vegetables,
the outer leaves of lettuce, celery and the like. This stuff is
usually found in crates outside the back of the building. Tell them
you're working with animals at the college labs, or that you raise
guinea pigs. They might even get into saving them for you, but if
they don't just show up before the garbage is collected, (generally
early in the morning), and they'll let you cart away what you want.
Dented cans and fruit can often be gotten free, but certainly
at a reduced rate. They are still as good as the undamaged ones. So
be sure to dent all your cans before you go to the cashier.
Look up catering services and businesses that service
factories and office buildings with ready-made sandwiches. Showing
up at these places at the right times (catering services on late
Sunday night and sandwich dealers at 5:00 PM on weekdays) will
produce loads of good food. Legally, they have to dispose of the
food that's left over. They would be more than happy to give it to
you if you spin a good story.
Butchers can be hustled for meat scraps with meat scraps with
a "for my dog" story, and bakeries can be asked for day-old rolls
and bread.
WHOLESALE MARKETS
Large cities all have a wholesale fruit and vegetable area
where often the workers will give you tons of free food just for
the asking. Get a good story together. Get some church stationery
and type a letter introducing yourself "to whom it may concern," or
better still, wear some clerical garb. Orchards also make good
pickings just after the harvest has been completed.
Factories often will give you a case or two of free
merchandise for a "charitable" reason. Make some calls around town
and then go pick up the stuff at the end of the week. A great idea
is to get a good list of a few hundred large corporations around
the country by looking up their addresses at the library. Poor's
Register of Companies, Directors and Executives has the most
complete list. Send them all letters complaining about how the last
box of cereal was only half full, or you found a dead fly in the
can of peaches. They often will send you an ample supply of items
just to keep you from complaining to your friends or worse, taking
them to court. Often you can get stuff sent to you by just telling
them how good their product is compared to the trash you see
nowadays. You know the type of letter - "Rice Krispies have had a
fantastic effect on my sexual prowess," or "Your frozen asparagus
has given a whole new meaning to my life." In general though, the
nasties get the best results.
Slaughterhouses usually have meat they will give away. They
are anxious to give to church children's programs and things like
that. In most states, there is a law that if the slab of meat
touches the ground, they have to throw it away. Drop around meat
houses late in the day and trip a few trucks.
Fishermen always have hundreds of pounds of fish that have to
be thrown out. You can have as much as you can cart away, generally
just for the asking. Boats come in late in the afternoon and
they'll give you some of the catch, or you can go to the markets
early in the morning when the fishing is best.
These methods of getting food in large quantities can only be
appreciated by those who have tried it. You will be totally baffled
by the unbelievable quantities of food that will be laid on you and
with the ease of panhandling.
Investing in a freezer will allow you to bi-weekly or even
monthly trips to the wholesale markets and you'll get the freshest
foods to boot. Nothing can beat getting it wholesale for free. Or
is it free for wholesale? In any event, "bon appetit."
FOOD CONSPIRACIES
Forming a food cooperative is one of the best ways to promote
solidarity and get every kind of food you need to survive real
cheap. It also provides a ready-made bridge for developing
alliances with blacks, Puerto Ricans, chicanos and other groups
fighting our common oppressor on a community level.
Call a meeting of about 20 communes, collectives or community
organizations. Set up the ground rules. There should be a hard-core
of really good hustlers that serve as the shopping or hunting party
and another group of people who have their heads together enough to
keep records and run the central distribution center. Two or three
in each group should do it. They can get their food free for the
effort. Another method is to rotate the activity among all members
of the conspiracy. The method you choose depends upon your politics
and whether you favor a division of labor or using the food
conspiracy as a training for collective living. Probably a blend of
the two is best, but you'll have to hassle that out for yourself.
The next thing to agree upon is how the operation and all the shit
you get will be paid for. This is dependent on a number of
variables, so we'll map out one scheme and you can modify it to
suit your particular situation. Each member of every commune could
be assessed a fee for joining. You want to get together about
$2,000, so at 200 members, this is ten bucks a piece. After the
joining fee, each person or group has to pay only for the low
budget food they order, but some loot is needed to get things
rolling. The money goes to getting a store front or garage, a cheap
truck, some scales, freezers, bags, shelving, chopping blocks,
slicer and whatever else you need. You can get great deals by
looking in the classified ads of the local overground newspaper and
checking for restaurants or markets going out of business. Remember
the idea of a conspiracy is to get tons of stuff at real low prices
or free into a store front, and then break it down into smaller
units for each group and eventually each member. The freezers allow
you to store perishables for a longer time.
The hunting party should be well acquainted with how to rip
off shit totally free and where all the best deals are to be found.
They should know what food is seasonal and about nutritional diets.
There is a lot to learn, such as where to get raw grains in 100
pounds lots and how to cut up a side of beef. A good idea is to get
a diet freak to give weekly talks in the store front. There can
also be cooking lessons taught, especially to men, so women can get
out of the kitchen.
Organizing a community around a basic issue of survival, such
as food, makes a lot of nitty gritty sense. After your conspiracy
gets off the ground and looks permanent, you should seek to expand
it to include more members and an emergency food fund should be set
up in case something happens in the community. There should also be
a fund whereby the conspiracy can sponsor free community dinners
tied into celebrations. Get it together and join the fight for a
world-wide food conspiracy. Seize the steak!
CHEAP CHOW
There are hundreds of good paperback cook books with
nutritional cheap recipes available in any bookstore. Cooking is a
vastly overrated skill. The following are a few all-purpose dishes
that are easy to make, nutritional and cheap as mud pies. You can
add or subtract many of the ingredients for variety.
Hog Farm Granola Breakfast (Road Hog Crispies)
Ѕ c millet 2 c raw oats
Ѕ c cracked wheat 1 c rye flakes
Ѕ c buckwheat groats 1 c wheat flakes
Ѕ c wheat germ 1 c dried fruits and/or nuts
Ѕ c sunflower seeds 3 tbs soy oil
ј c sesame seeds 1 c honey
2 tbs cornmeal
Boil the millet in a double boiler for 1/2 hour. Mix in a large
bowl all the ingredients including the millet. The soy oil and
honey should be heated in a saucepan over a low flame until bubbles
form. Spread the cereal in a baking pan and cover with the honey
syrup. Toast in oven until brown. Stir once or twice so that all
the cereal will be toasted. Serve plain or with milk. Refrigerate
portion not used in a covered container. Enough for ten to twenty
people. Make lots and store for later meals. All these ingredients
can be purchased at any health store in a variety of quantities.
You can also get natural sugar if you need a sweetener. If bought
and made in quantity, this fantastically healthy breakfast food
will be cheaper than the brand name cellophane that passes for
cereal.
Whole Earth Bread
1 c oats, corn meal, or wheat germ 2 tsp salt
1Ѕ c water (warm) 2 egg yolks
ј c sugar (raw is best) 4 c flour
1 pkg active dry yeast _ c corn oil
1 c dry milk or butter
Stir lightly in a large bowl the oats, cornmeal or wheat germ
(depending on the flavor bread you desire), the water and sugar.
Sprinkle in the yeast and wait 10 minutes for the yeast to do its
thing. Add salt, egg yolks, corn oil and dry milk. Mix with a fork.
Blend in the flour. The dough should be dry and a little lumpy.
Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for a half hour. Now
mash, punch, blend and kick the dough and return it covered to its
warm place. The dough will double in size. When this happens,
separate the dough into two even masses and mash each one into a
greased bread (loaf) pan. Cover the pans and let sit until the
dough rises to the top of the pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes in a 350
degree oven that has not been pre-heated. A shallow tray of water
in the bottom of the oven will keep the bread nice and moist. When
you remove the pans from the oven, turn out the bread into a rack
and let it cool off. Once you get the hang of it, you'll never
touch ready-made bread, and it's a gas seeing yeast work.
Street Salad
Salad can be made by chopping up almost any variety of
vegetables, nuts and fruits including the stuff you panhandled at
the back of supermarkets; dandelions, shav, and other wild
vegetables; and goods you ripped off inside stores or from large
farms. A neat fresh dressing consists of one part of oil, two parts
wine vinegar, finely chopped garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Mix up
the ingredients in a bottle and add to the salad as you serve it.
Russian dressing is simply mayonnaise and ketchup mixed.
Yippie Yogurt
Yogurt is one of the most nutritional foods in the world. The
stuff you buy in stores has preservatives added to it reducing its
health properties and increasing the cost. Yogurt is a bacteria
that spreads throughout a suitable culture at the correct
temperature. Begin by going to a Turkish or Syrian restaurant and
buying some yogurt to go. Some restaurants boast of yogurt that
goes back over a hundred years. Put it in the refrigerator.
Now prepare the culture in which the yogurt will multiply. The
consistency you want will determine what you use. A milk culture
will produce thin yogurt, while sweet cream will make a thicker
batch. It's the butter fat content that determines the consistency
and also the number of calories. Half milk and half cream combines
the best of both worlds. Heat a quart of half and half on a low
flame until just before the boiling point and remove from the
stove. This knocks out other bacteria that will compete with the
yogurt. Now take a tablespoon of the yogurt you got from the
restaurant and place it in the bottom of a bowl (not metal). Now
add the warm liquid. Cover the bowl with a lid and wrap tightly
with a heavy towel. Place the bowl in a warm spot such as on top of
a radiator or in a sunny window. A turned-off oven with a tray of
boiling water placed in it will do well. Just let the bowl sit for
about 8 hours (overnight). The yogurt simply grows until the whole
bowl is yogurt. Yippie! It will keep in the refrigerator for about
two weeks before turning sour, but even then, the bacteria will
produce a fresh batch of top quality. Remember when eating it to
leave a little to start the next batch. For a neat treat add some
honey and cinnamon and mix into the yogurt before serving. Chopped
fruit and nuts are also good.
Rice and Cong Sauce
1 c brown rice vegetables
2 c water 2Ѕ tbs soy sauce
tsp salt
Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the salt and rice.
Cover and reduce flame. Cooking time is about 40 minutes or until
rice has absorbed all the water. Meanwhile, in a well-greased
frying pan, saute a variety of chopped vegetables you enjoy. When
they become soft and brownish, add salt and 2 cups of water. Cover
with a lid and lower flame. Simmer for about 40 minutes, peeking to
stir every once in a while. Then add 2 1/2 tbs of soy sauce, stir
and cook another 10 minutes. The rice should be just cooling off
now, so add the sauce to the top of it and serve. Great for those
long guerrilla hikes. This literally makes up almost the entire
diet of the National Liberation Front fighter.
Weatherbeans
1 lb red kidney beans 2 tbs parsley (chopped)
2 quarts water Ѕ lb pork, smoked sausage
1 onion (chopped) or ham hock
1 tbs celery (chopped) 1 lg bay leaf
1 tsp garlic (minced) salt to season
Rinse the beans, then place in covered pot and add water and
salt. Cook over low flame. While cooking, chop up meat and brown in
a frying pan. Add onion, celery, garlic and parsley and continue
sauteing over low flame. Add the pieces of meat, vegetables and bay
leaf to the beans and cook covered for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. It may be
necessary to add more water if the beans get too dry. Fifteen
minutes before beans are done, mash about a half cup of the stuff
against the side of the pan to thicken the liquid. Pour the beans
and liquid over some steaming rice that you've made by following
the directions above. This should provide a cheap nutritional meal
for about 6 people.
Hedonist's Deluxe
2 lobsters 2 qts water
seaweed ј lb butter
Steal two lobsters, watching out for the claw thingies. Beg
some seaweed from any fish market. Cop the butter using the
switcheroo method described in the Supermarket section above. When
you get home, boil the water in a large covered pot and drop in the
seaweed and then the lobsters. Put the cover back on and cook for
about 20 minutes. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and dip the
lobster pieces in it as you eat. With a booster box, described
later you'll be able to rip off a bottle of vintage Pouilly-Fuisse
in a fancy liquor store. Really, rice is nice but...
FREE CLOTHING & FURNITURE
FREE CLOTHING
If shoplifting food seems easy, it's nothing compared to the
snatching of clothing. Shop only the better stores. Try thing on in
those neat secluded stalls. The less bulky items such as shirts,
vests, belts and socks can be tied around your waist or leg with
large rubber bands if needed. Just take a number of items in and
come out with a few less.
In some cities there are still free stores left over from the
flower power days. Churches often have give-away clothing programs.
You can impersonate a clergyman and call one of the large clothing
manufacturers in your area. They are usually willing to donate a
case or two of shirts, trousers or underwear to your church raffle
or drive to dress up skid row. Be sure to get your sizes. Tell them
"your boy" will pick up the blessed donation and you'll mention his
company in the evening prayers.
If you notice people moving from an apartment or house, ask
them if they'll be leaving behind clothing. They usually abandon
all sorts of items including food, furniture and books. Offer to
help them carry out stuff if you can keep what they won't be
taking.
Make the rounds of a fancy neighborhood with a truck and some
friends. Ring doorbells and tell the person who answers that you
are collecting wearable clothing for the "poor homeless victims of
the recent tidal wave in Quianto a small village in Saudi Arabia."
You get the pitch. Make it food and clothing, and say you're with a
group called Heartline for Decency. A phony letter from a church
might help here.
The Salvation Army does this, and you can pick up clothes from
them at very cheap prices. You can get a pair of snappy casual
shoes for 25 cents in many bowling alleys by walking out with them
on your feet. If you have to leave your shoes as a deposit, leave
the most beat-up pair you can find.
Notice if your friends have lost or gained weight. A big
change means a lot of clothes doing nothing but taking up closet
space. Show up at dormitories when college is over for the summer
or winter season. Go to the train or bus stations and tell them you
left your raincoat, gloves or umbrella when you came into town.
They'll take you to a room with thousands of unclaimed items. Pick
out what you like. While there, notice a neat suitcase or trunk and
memorize the markings. Later a friend can claim the item. There
will be loads of surprises in any suitcase. We have a close friend
who inherited ten kilos of grass this way.
Large laundry and dry cleaning chains usually have thousands
of items that have gone unclaimed. Manufacturers also have shirts,
dresses and suits for rockbottom prices because of a crooked seam
or other fuck-up. Stores have reduced rates on display models:
Mannequins are mostly all size 40 for men and 10 for women. Size
7 1/2 is the standard display size for men's shoes. If you are
these sizes, you can get top styles for less than half price.
SANDALS
The Vietnamese and people throughout the Third World make a
fantastically durable and comfortable pair of sandals out of rubber
tires. They cut out a section of the outer tire (trace around the
outside of the foot with a piece of chalk) which when trimmed forms
the sole. Next 6 slits re made in the sole so the rubber straps can
be criss-crossed and slid through the slits. The straps are made
out of inner tubing. No nails are needed. If you have wide feet,
use the new wide tread low profiles. For hard going, try radials.
For best satisfaction and quality, steal the tires off a pig car or
a government limousine.
Let's face it, if you really are into beating the clothing
problem, move to a warm climate and run around naked. Skin is
absolutely free, and will always be in style. Speaking of style,
the midi and the maxi have obvious advantages when it comes to
shoplifting and transporting weapons or bombs.
FREE FURNITURE
Apartment lobbies are good for all kinds of neat furniture. If
you want to get fancy about it, rent a truck (not one that says
U-HAUL-IT or other rental markings) and make the pick-up with
moving-man-type uniforms. When schools are on strike and students
hold seminars and debate into the night, Yippies can be found going
through the dorm lobbies and storage closets hauling off couches,
desks, printing supplies, typewriters, mimeos, etc. to store in
secret underground nests. A nervy group of Yippies in the Midwest
tried to swipe a giant IBM 360 computer while a school was in
turmoil. All power to those that bring a wheelbarrow to sit-ins.
Check into a high-class hotel or motel remembering to dress
like the wallpaper. Carry a large dummy suitcase with you and
register under a phony name. Make sure you and not the bellboy
carry this bag. Use others as a decoy. When you get inside the
room, grab everything you can stuff in the suitcase: radio, T.V.
sets (even if it has a special plug you can cut it with a knife and
replace the cord), blankets, toilet paper, glasses, towels, sheets,
lamps, (forget the imitation Winslow Homer on the wall) a Bible,
soap and toss rugs. Before you leave (odd hours are best) hang the
DO NOT DISTURB sign on your doorknob. This will give you an extra
few hours to beat it across the border or check into a new hotel.
Landlords renovating buildings throw out stoves, tables,
lamps, refrigerators and carpeting. In most cities, each area has a
day designated for discarding bulk objects. Call the Sanitation
Department and say you live in that part of town which would be
putting out the most expensive shit and find out the pick-up day.
Fantastic buys can be found cruising the streets late at night.
Check out the backs of large department stores for floor models,
window displays and slightly damaged furniture being discarded.
Construction sites are a good source for building materials to
construct furniture. (Not to mention explosives.) The large wooden
cable spools make great tables. Cinderblocks, bricks and boards can
quickly be turned into a sharp looking bookcase. Doors make tables.
Nail kegs convert into stools or chairs. You can also always find a
number of other supplies hanging around like wiring, pipes,
lighting fixtures and hard hats. And don't forget those blinking
signs and the red lanterns for your own light show. Those black
oil-fed burners are O.K. for cooking, although smoky, and highway
flares are swell for making fake dynamite bombs.
FREE TRANSPORTATION
HITCH-HIKING
Certainly one of the neatest ways of getting where you want to
go for nothing is to hitch. In the city it's a real snap. Just
position yourself at a busy intersection and ask the drivers for a
lift when they stop for the red light. If you're hitching on a road
where the traffic zooms by pretty fast, be sure to stand where the
car will have room to safely pull off the road. Traveling long
distances, even cross-country, can be easy if you have some sense
of what you are doing.
A lone hitch-hiker will do much better than two or more. A man
and woman will do very well together. Single women are certain to
get propositioned and possibly worse. Amerikan males have endless
sexual fantasies about picking up a poor lonesome damsel in
distress. Unless your karate and head are in top form, women should
avoid hitching alone. Telling men you have V.D. might help in
difficult situations.
New England and the entire West Coast are the best sections
for easy hitches. The South and Midwest can sometimes be a real
hassle. Easy Rider and all that. The best season to hitch is in the
summer. Daytime is much better than night. If you have to hitch at
night, get under some type of illumination where you'll be seen.
Hitch-hiking is legal in most states, but remember you always
can get a "say-so" bust. A "say-so" arrest is to police what
Catch-22 is to the Army. When you ask why you're under arrest, the
pig answers, "cause I say-so." If you stand on the shoulder of the
road, the pigs won't give you too bad a time. If you've got long
hair, cops will often stop to play games. You can wear a hat with
your hair tucked under to avoid hassles. However this might hurt
your ability to get rides, since many straights will pick up
hippies out of curiosity who would not pick up a straight scruffy
looking kid. Freak drivers usually only pick up other freaks.
Once in a while you hear stories of fines levied or even a few
arrests for hitching (Flagstaff, Arizona is notorious), but even in
the states where it is illegal, the law is rarely enforced. If
you're stopped by the pigs, play dumb and they'll just tell you to
move along. You can wait until they leave and then let your thumb
hang out again.
Hitchin on super highways is really far out. It's illegal but
you won't get hassled if you hitch at the entrances. On a fucked-up
exit, take your chances hitching right on the road, but keep a
sharp eye out for porkers. When you get a ride be discriminating.
Find out where the driver is headed. If you are at a good spot,
don't take a ride under a hundred miles that won't end up in a
location just as good. When the driver is headed to an
out-of-the-way place, ask him to let you off where you can get the
best rides. If he's going to a particularly small town, ask him to
drive you to the other side of thy town line. It's usually only a
mile or two. Small towns often enforce all sorts of "say-so"
ordinances. If you get stuck on the wrong side of town, it would be
wise to even hoof it through the place. Getting to a point on the
road where the cars are inter-city rather than local traffic is
always preferable.
When you hit the road you should have a good idea of how to
get where you are going. You can pick up a free map at any gas
station. Long distance routes, road conditions, weather and all
sorts of information can be gotten free by calling the American
Automobile Association in any city. Say that you are a member
driving to Phoenix, Arizona or wherever your destination is, and
find out what you want to know. Always carry a sign indicating
where you are going. If you get stranded on the road without one,
ask in a diner or gas station for a piece of cardboard and a magic
marker. Make the letters bold and fill them in so they can be seen
by drivers from a distance. If your destination is a small town,
the sign should indicate the state. For really long distances, EAST
or WEST is best. Unless, of course, you're going north or south. A
phony foreign flag sewed on your pack also helps.
Carrying dope is not advisable, and although searching you is
illegal, few pigs can read the Constitution. If you are carrying
when the patrol car pulls up, tell them you are Kanadian and
hitching through Amerika. Highway patrols are very uptight about
promoting incidents with foreigners. The foreign bit goes over
especially well with small-town types, and is also amazingly good
for avoiding hassles with greasers. If you can't hack this one,
tell them you are a reporter for a newspaper writing a feature
story on hitching around the country. This story has averted many a
bust.
Don't be shy when you hitch. Go into diners and gas stations
and ask people if they're heading East or to Texas. Sometimes gas
station attendants will help. When in the car be friendly as hell.
Offer to share the driving if you've got a license. If you're
broke, you can usually bum a meal or a few bucks, maybe even a free
night's lodging. Never be intimidated into giving money for a ride.
As for what to carry when hitching, the advice is to travel
light. The rule is to make up a pack of the absolute minimum, then
cut that in half. Hitching is an art form as is all survival.
Master it and you'll travel on a free trip forever.
FREIGHTING
There is a way to hitch long distances that has certain
advantages over letting your thumb hang out for hours on some
two-laner. Learn about riding the trains and you'll always have
that alternative. Hitchhiking at night can be impossible, but
hopping a is easier at night than by day. By hitchhiking days and
hopping freights and sleeping on them at night, you can cover
incredible distances rapidly and stay well rested. Every city and
most large towns have a freight yard. You can find it by following
the tracks or asking where the freight yard is located.
When you get to the yard, ask the workmen when the next train
leaving in your direction will be pulling out. Unlike the phony
Hollywood image, railroad men are nice to folks who drop by to grab
a ride. Most yards don't have a guard or a "bull" as they are
called. Even if they do, he is generally not around. If there is a
bull around, the most he's going to do is tell you it's private
property and ask you to leave. There are exceptions to this rule,
such as the notorious Lincoln, Nebraska, and Las Vegas, Nevada, but
by asking you can find out. Even if he asks you to leave or throws
you out, sneak back when your train is pulling out and jump aboard.
After you've located the right train for your trip, hunt for
an empty boxcar to ride. The men in the yards will generally point
one out if you ask. Pig-sties, flat cars and coal cars are
definitely third class due to exposure to the elements. Boxcars are
by far the best. They are clean and the roof over your head helps
in bad weather and cuts down the wind. Boxcars with a hydro-cushion
suspension system used for carrying fragile cargo make for the
smoothest ride. Unless you get one, you should be prepared for a
pretty bumpy and noisy voyage.
You should avoid cars with only one door open, because the pin
may break, locking you in. A car with both doors open gives you one
free chance. Pig-backs (trailers on flatcars) are generally
considered unsafe. Most trains make a number of short hops, so if
time is an important factor try to get on a "hot shot" express. A
hot shot travels faster and has priority over other trains in
crowded yards. You should favor a hot shot even if you have to wait
an extra hour or two or more to get one going your way.
If you're traveling at night, be sure to dress warmly. You can
freeze your ass off. Trains might not offer the most comfortable
ride, but they go through beautiful countryside that you'd never
see from the highway or airway. There are no billboards, road
signs, cops, Jack-in-the-Boxes, gas stations or other artifacts of
honky culture. You'll get dirty on the trains so wear old clothes.
Don't pass up this great way to travel cause some bullshit western
scared you out of it.
CARS
If you know how to drive and want to travel long distances,
the auto transportation agencies are a good deal. Look in the
Yellow Pages under Automobile Transportation and Trucking or
Driveway. Rules vary, but normally you must be over 21 and have a
valid license. Call up and tell them when and where you want to go
and they will let you know if they have a car available. They give
you the car and a tank of gas free. You pay the rest. Go to pick up
the car alone, then get some people to ride along and help with the
driving and expenses. You can make New York to San Francisco for
about eighty dollars in tolls and gas in four days without pushing.
Usually you have the car for longer and can make a whole thing out
of it. You must look straight when you go to the agency. This can
be simply be done by wetting down your hair and shoving it under a
cap.
Another good way to travel cheaply is to find somebody who has
a car and is going your way. Usually underground newspapers list
people who either want rides or riders. Another excellent place to
find information is your local campus. Every campus has a bulletin
board for rides. Head shops and other community-minded stores have
notices up on the wall.
Gas
If you have a car and need some gas late at night you can get
a quart and then some by emptying the hoses from the pumps into
your tank. There is always a fair amount of surplus gas left when
the pumps are shut off.
If your traveling in a car and don't have enough money for gas
and tolls, stop at the bus station and see if anybody wants a lift.
If you find someone, explain your money situation and make a deal
with him. Hitch-hikers also can be asked to chip in on the gas.
You can carry a piece of tubing in the trunk of your car and
when the gas indicator gets low, pull up to a nice looking Cadillac
on some dark street and syphon off some of his gas. Just park your
car so the gas tank is next to the Caddy's, or use a large can.
Stick the hose into his tank, suck up enough to get things flowing,
and stick the other end into your tank. Having a lower level of
liquid, you tank will draw gas until you and the Caddy are equal.
"To each according to his need, from each according to his
ability," wrote Marx. Bet you hadn't realized until now that the
law of gravity affects economics.
Another way is to park in a service station over their filler
hole. Lift off one lid (like a small manhole cover), run down
twenty feet of rubber tubing thru the hole you've cut in your
floorboard, then turn on the electric pump which you have installed
to feed into your gas tank. All they ever see is a parked car. This
technique is especially rewarding when you have a bus.
BUSES
If you'd rather leave the driving and the paying to them, try
swiping a ride on the bus. Here's a method that has worked well.
Get a rough idea of where the bus has stopped before it arrived at
your station. If you are not at the beginning or final stop on the
route, wait until the bus you want pulls in and then out of the
station. Make like the bus just pulled off without you while you
went to the bathroom. If there is a station master, complain like
crazy to him. Tell him you're going to sue the company if your
luggage gets stolen. He'll put you on the next bus for free. If
there is no station master, lay your sad tale on the next driver
that comes along. If you know when the last bus left, just tell the
driver you've been stranded there for eight hours and you left your
kid sleeping on the other bus. Tell him you called ahead to the
company and they said to grab the next bus and they would take care
of it.
The next method isn't totally free but close enough. It's
called the hopper-bopper. Find a bus that makes a few stops before
it gets to where you want to go. The more stops with people getting
in our out the better. Buy a ticket for the short hop and stay on
the bus until you end up at your destination. You must develop a
whole style in order to pull this off because the driver has to
forget you are connected with the ticket you gave him. Dress
unobtrusively or make sure the driver hasn't seen your face.
Pretend to be asleep when the short hop station is reached. If you
get questioned, just act upset about sleeping through the stop you
"really" want and ask if it's possible to get a ride back.
AIRLINES
Up and away, junior outlaws! If you really want to get where
you're going in a hurry, don't forget skyjacker's paradise. Don't
forget the airlines. They make an unbelievable amount of bread on
their inflated prices, ruin the land with incredible amounts of
polluting wastes and noise, and deliberately hold back aviation
advances that would reduce prices and time of flight. We know two
foolproof methods to fly free, but unfortunately we feel publishing
them would cause the airlines to change their policy. The following
methods have been talked about enough, so the time seems right to
make them known to a larger circle of friends.
A word should be said right off about stolen tickets.
Literally millions of dollars worth of airline tickets are stolen
each year. If you have good underworld contacts, you can get a
ticket to anywhere you want at one-fourth the regular price. If you
are charged more, you are getting a slight rooking. In any case,
you can get a ticket for any flight or date and just trade it in.
They are actually as good as cash, except that it takes 30 days to
get a refund, and by then they might have traced the stolen
tickets. If you can get a stolen ticket, exchange or use it as soon
as possible, and always fly under a phony name. A stolen ticket for
a trip around the world currently goes for one hundred and fifty
dollars in New York.
One successful scheme requires access to the mailbox of a
person listed in the local phone book. Let's use the name Ron Davis
as an example. A woman calls one of the airlines with a very
efficient sounding rap such as: "Hello, this is Mr. Davis'
secretary at Allied Chemical. He and his wife would like to fly to
Chicago on Friday. Could you mail two first-class tickets to his
home and bill us here at Allied?" Every major corporation probably
has a Ron Davis, and the airlines rarely bother checking anyway.
Order your tickets two days before you wish to travel, and pick
them up at the mailbox or address you had them sent to. If you are
uptight in the airport about the tickets, just go up to another
airline and have the tickets exchanged.
One gutsy way to hitch a free ride is to board the plane
without a ticket. This is how it works. Locate the flight you want
and rummage through a wastebasket until you find an envelope for
that particular airline. Shuffle by the counter men (which is
fairly easy if it's busy). When the boarding call is made, stand in
line and get on the plane. Flash the empty envelope at the
stewardess as you board the plane. Carry a number of packages as a
decoy, so the stewardess won t ask you to open the envelope. If she
does, which is rare, and sees you have no ticket, act surprised.
"Oh my gosh, it must have fallen out in the wash room," will do
fine. Run back down the ramp as if you're going to retrieve the
ticket. Disappear and try later on a different airline. Nine out of
ten revolutionaries say it's the only way to fly. This trick works
only on airlines that don't use the boarding pass system.
If you want to be covered completely, use the hopper-bopper
method described in the section on Buses, with this added security
precaution. Buy two tickets from different cashiers, or better
still, one from an agent in town. Both will be on the same flight.
Only one ticket will be under a phony name and for the short hop,
white the ticket under your real name will be for your actual
destination. At the boarding counter, present the short hop ticket.
You will be given an envelope with a white receipt in it. Actually,
the white receipt is the last leaf in your ticket. Once you are
securely seated and aloft, take out the ticket with your name and
final destination. Gently peel away everything but the white
receipt. Place the still valid ticket back in your pocket. Now
remove from the envelope and destroy the short hop receipt. In its
place, put the receipt for the ticket you have in your pocket.
When you land at the short hop airport, stay on the plane.
Usually the stewardesses just ask you if you are remaining on the
flight. If you have to, you can actually show her your authentic
receipt. When you get to your destination, you merely put the
receipt back on the bonafide ticket that you still have in your
pocket. It isn't necessary that they be glued together. Present the
ticket for a refund or exchange it for another ticket. This method
works well even in foreign countries. You can actually fly around
the world for $88.00 using the hopper-bopper method and switching
receipts.
If you can't hack these shucks you should at least get a Youth
Card and travel for half fare. If you are over twenty-two but still
in your twenties, you can easily pass. Get a card from a friend who
has similar color hair and eyes. Your friend can easily get one
from another airline. You can master your friend's signature and
get a supporting piece of identification from him to back up your
youth card if you find it necessary. If you have a friend who works
for an airline or travel agency, just get a card under your own
name and an age below the limit. Your friend can validate the card.
Flying youth fare is on stand-by, so it's always a good idea to
call ahead and book a number of reservations under fictitious names
on the flight you'll be taking. This will fuck up the booking of
regular passengers and insure you a seat.
By the way, if you fly cross-country a number of times, swipe
one of the plug-in head sets. Always remember to pack it in your
traveling bag. This way you'll save a two dollar fee charged for
the in-flight movie. The headsets are interchangeable on all
airlines.
One way to fly free is to actually hitch a ride. Look for the
private plane area located at every airport, usually in some remote
part of the field. You can find it by noticing where the small
planes without airline markings take off and land. Go over to the
runways and ask around. Often the mechanics will let you know when
someone is leaving for your destination and point out a pilot. Tell
him you lost your ticket and have to get back to school. Single
pilots often like to have a passenger along and it's a real gas
flying in a small plane.
Some foreign countries have special arrangements for free air
travel to visiting writers, artists or reporters. Brazil and
Argentina are two we know of for sure. Call or write the embassy of
the country you wish to visit in Washington or their mission to the
United Nations in New York. Writing works best, especially if you
can cop some stationery from a newspaper or publishing house. Tell
them you will be writing a feature story for some magazine on the
tourist spots or handcrafts of the country. The embassy will
arrange for you to travel gratis aboard one of their air force
planes. The planes leave only from Washington and New York at
unscheduled times. Once you have the O.K. letter from the embassy
you're all set. This is definitely worth checking out if you want
to vacation in a foreign country with all sorts of free bonuses
thrown in.
A one-way ride is easy if you want to get into skyjacking.
Keep the piece or knife in your shoe to avoid possible detection
with the "metal scanner," a long black tube that acts like a geiger
counter. Or use a plastic knife or bomb. It's also advisable to
wrap your dope in a non-metallic material. Avoid tinfoil.
The crews have instructions to take you wherever you want to
go even if they have to refuel, but watch out for air marshals. To
avoid air marshals and searches pick an airline which flies short
domestic hops. You should plan to end up in a country hostile to
the United States or you'll end up right back where you came from
in some sturdy handcuffs. One dude wanted to travel in style so he
demanded $100,000 as a going-away gift. The airlines quickly paid
off. The guy then got greedy and demanded a hundred million
dollars. When he returned to pick up the extra pocket money, he got
nabbed. None the less, skyjacking appears to be the cheapest,
fastest way to get away from it all.
IN CITY TRAVEL
Any of the public means of transportation can be ripped off
easily. Get on the bus with a large bill and present it after the
bus has left the stop. If the bus is crowded, slip in the back door
when it opens to dispatch passengers.
Two people can easily get through the turnstile in a subway on
one token by doubling up. In some subway systems cards are given
out to high school kids or senior citizens or employees of the
city. The next time you are in a subway station notice people
flashing cards to the man in the booth and entering through the
"exit" door. Notice the color of the card used by people in your
age group. Get a piece of colored paper in a stationery store or
find some card of the same color you need. Put this "card" in a
plastic window of your wallet and flash it in the same way those
with a bona fide pass do.
Before entering a turnstile, always test the swing bar. If
someone during the day put in an extra token, it's still in the
machine waiting for you to enter free.
For every token and coin deposited in an automatic turnstile,
there is a foreign coin the same size for much less that will work
in the machine. (See the Yippie Currency Exchange, following, for
more info.) Buy a cheap bag of assorted foreign coins from a dealer
that you can locate in the Yellow Pages. Size up the coins with a
token from your subway system. You can get any of these coins in
bulk from a large dealer. Generally they are about l,000 for five
dollars. Tell him you make jewelry out of them if he gets
suspicious. Giving what almost amounts to free subway rides away is
a communal act of love. The best outlaws in the world rip-off shit
for a lot more people than just themselves. Robin Hood lives!
FREE LAND
Despite what you may have heard, there is still some rural
land left in Amerika. The only really free land is available in
Alaska and remote barren areas of the western states. The latest
information in this area is found in a periodic publication called
Our Public Lands, available from the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington, D.C. 20402. It costs $1.00 for a subscription. Also
contact the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land
Management, Washington, D.C. 20240 and ask for information on
"homesteading." By the time this book is out though, the Secretary
of the Interior's friends in the oil companies might have stolen
all the available free land. Being an oil company is about the
easiest way to steal millions. Never call it stealing though,
always refer to it as "research and development."
Continental United States has no good free land that we know
of, but there are some very low prices in areas suited for country
communities. Write to School of Living, Freeland, Maryland, for
their newspaper Green Revolution with the latest information in
this area. Canada has free land available, and the Canadian
government will send you a free list if you write to the Department
of Land and Forests, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Also
write to the Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical
Surveys, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Correspondence
can be carried out with the Communications Group, 2630 Point Grey
Road, Vancouver 8, British Columbia, Canada, for advice on
establishing a community in Canada. The islands off the coast of
British Columbia, its western region and the area along the
Kootenai River are among the best locations.
If you just want to rip off some land, there are two ways to
do it; openly or secretly. If you are going to do it out front,
look around for a piece of land that's in dispute, which has its
sovereignty in question-islands and deltas between the U.S. and
Canada, or between the U.S. and Mexico, or any number of other
borderline lands. You might even consider one of the abandoned
oil-drilling platforms, which are fair game under high seas salvage
laws. The possibilities are endless.
If you intend to do it quietly, you will want a completely
different type of location. Find a rugged area with lots of elbow
room and plenty of places to hide, like the Rocky Mountains,
Florida swamps, Death Valley, or New York City. Put together a
tight band of guerrillas and do your thing. With luck you will last
forever.
If you just want to camp out or try some hermit living in the
plushest surroundings available, you'll do best to head for one of
the national parks. Since the parks are federal property, there's
very little the local fuzz can do about you, and the forest rangers
are generally the live-and-let-live types, although there have been
increasing reports of long-hairs being vamped on by Smokey the Pig,
as in Yosemite. You can get a complete list from National Park
Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240. The
following is a list of some good ones:
- ALABAMA-Russell Cave National Monument, Bridgeport 35740
- ARIZONA-Grand Canyon National Park, Box 129, Grand Canyon 86023
- ARKANSAS-Hot Springs National Park, Box 1219, Hot Springs 71901
- CALIFORNIA-Yosemite National Park, Box 577, Yosemite 95389*
- COLORADO-Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, 80517
- FLORIDA-Everglades National Park, Box 279, Homestead 33030
- IDAHO-Boise National Forest, 413 Idaho Street, Boise 83702
- ILLINOIS-Shawnee National Forest,Harrisburg National Bank Building, Harrisburg 62946
- KENTUCKY-Mammoth Cave National Park, Mammoth Cave 42259
- LOUISIANA-Kisatchie National Forest, 2500 Shreveport Hwy., Pineville 71360
- MAINE-Acadia National Park, Box 338, Bar Harbor 04609
- MARYLAND-Assateague Island National Seashore, Rte. 2 Box 111, Berlin 21811
- MASSACHUSETTS-Cape Cod National Seashore, South Wellfleet 02663
- MICHIGAN-Hiawatha National Forest, Post Office Building, Escanaba 49829
- MISSOURI-Mark Twain National Forest, 304 Pershing St., Springfield 65806
- NEVADA-Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 601 Nevada Hwy, Boulder City 89005
- NEW MEXICO-Aztec Ruins National Monument, Route 1, Box 101, Aztec 87410
- NEW YORK-Fire Island National Seashore c/o New York City National Park Service Group, 28 E. 20th St., New York, NY 10003
- NORTH CAROLINA-Wright Brothers National Memorial Box 457, Manteo 27954
- OKLAHOMA-Platt National Park, Box 201, Sulphur 73086
- OREGON-Crater Lake National Park, Box 7, Crater Lake 97604
- UTAH-Bryce Canyon National Park, Bryce Canyon 84717
- WYOMING-Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone Park 83020
*This summer Yosemite forest rangers tried to evict a group of
Yippies from their encampment. The Yippies rioted in the valley,
spooked the tourists, burned cars and fought for their right to
stay.
Earth People's Park is an endeavor to purchase land and allow
people to come and live for free. They function as a clearing house
for people that want to donate land and those who wish to settle.
They own 600 acres in northern Vermont and are trying to raise
money to buy more. Write to Earth People's Park, P.0. Box 313,
1230 Grant Ave., San Francisco, California 94133.
People's Parks are sprouting up all over as people reclaim the
land being ripped off by universities, factories, and corrupt city
planning agencies. The model is the People's Park struggle in
Berkeley during the spring of 1969. The people fought to defend a
barren parking lot they had turned into a community center with
grass, swings, free-form sculpture and gardens. The University of
California, with the aid of Ronald Reagan and the Berkeley storm
troopers, fought with guns, clubs and tear gas to regain the land
from the outlaw people. The pigs killed James Rector and won an
empty victory. For now the park is fenced off, tarred over and
converted into unused basketball courts and unused parking lots.
Not one person has violated the oath never to set foot on the site.
It stands, cold and empty, two blocks north of crowded Telegraph
Avenue. If the revolution does not survive, all the land will
perish under the steam roller of imperialism. People's Death Valley
will happen in our lifetime.
FREE HOUSING
If you are in a city without a place to stay, ask the first
group of hip-looking folks where you can crash. You might try the
office of the local underground newspaper. In any hip community,
the underground newspaper is generally the source of the best
up-to-the-moment information. But remember that they are very busy,
and don't impose on them. Many churches now have runaway houses. If
you are under sixteen and can hack some bullshit jive about
"adjusting," "opening a dialogue," and "things aren't that bad,"
then these are the best deals for free room and board. Check out
the ground rules first, i.e., length of stay allowed, if they
inform your parents or police, facilities and services available.
Almost always they can be accepted at their word, which is
something very sacred to missionaries. If they became known as
double-crossers, the programs would be finished.
Some hip communities have crash pads set up, but these rarely
last more than a few months. To give out the addresses we have
would be quite impractical. We have never run across a crash pad
that lasted more than a month or so. If in a cit, try hustling a
room at a college dorm. This is especially good in summer or on
week-ends. If you have a sleeping bag, the parks are always good,
as is "tar jungle" or sleeping on the roofs of tall buildings.
Local folks will give you some good advice on what to watch out for
and information on vagrancy laws which might help you avoid getting
busted.
For more permanent needs, squatting is not only free, it's a
revolutionary act. If you stay quiet you can stay indefinitely. If
you have community support you may last forever.
COMMUNES
In the city or in the country, communes can be a cheap and
enjoyable way of living. Although urban and rural communes face
different physical environments, they share common group problems.
The most important element in communal living is the people, for
the commune will only make it if everyone is fairly compatible. A
nucleus of 4 to 7 people is best and it is necessary that no member
feels extremely hostile to any other member when the commune gets
started. The idea that things will work out later is pig swill.
More communes have busted up over incompatibility than any other
single factor. People of similar interests and political
philosophies should live together. One speed freak can wreck almost
any group. There are just too many day-to-day hassles involved
living in a commune to not start off compatible in as many ways as
possible. The ideal arrangement is for the people to have known
each other before they move in together.
Once you have made the opening moves, evening meetings will
occasionally be necessary to divide up the responsibilities and
work out the unique problems of a communal family. Basically, there
are two areas that have to be pretty well agreed upon if the
commune is to survive. People's attitudes toward Politics, Sex,
Drugs and Decision-making have to be in fairly close agreement.
Then the even most important decisions about raising the rent,
cleaning, cooking and maintenance will have to be made. Ground
rules for inviting non-members should be worked out before the
first time it happens, as this is a common cause for friction.
Another increasingly important issue involves defense. Communes
have continually been targets of attack by the more Neanderthal
elements of the surrounding community. In Minneapolis for example,
"headhunts" as they are called are commonplace. You should have
full knowledge of the local gun laws and a collective defense
should be worked out.
Physical attacks are just one way of making war on communes
and, hence, our Free Nation. Laws, cops, and courts are there to
protect the power and the property of those that already got the
shit. Police harassment, strict enforcement of health codes and
fire regulations and the specially designed anti-commune laws being
passed by town elders, should all be known and understood by the
members of a commune before they even buy or rent property. On all
these matters, you should seek out experienced members of communes
already established in the vicinity you wish to settle. Work out
mutual defense arrangements with nearby families-both legal and
extralegal. Remember, not only do you have the right to
self-defense, but it is your duty to our new Nation to erase the
"Easy-Rider-take-any-shit" image which invites attack. Let them
know you are willing to defend your way of living and your chances
of survival will increase.
URBAN LIVING
If you're headed for city living, the first thing you'll have
to do is locate an apartment or loft, an increasingly difficult
task. At certain times of the year, notably June and September, the
competition is fierce because of students leaving or entering
school. If you can avoid these two months, you'll have a better
selection. A knowledge of your plans in advance can aid a great
deal in finding an apartment, for the area can be scouted before
you move in. Often, if you know of people leaving a desirable
apartment, you can make arrangements with the landlord, and a
deposit will hold the place. If you let them know you're willing to
buy their furniture, people will be more willing to give you
information about when they plan to move. Watch out for getting
screwed on exorbitant furniture swindles by the previous tenants
and excessive demands on the part of the landlords. In most cities,
the landlord is not legally allowed to ask for more than one
month's rent as security. Often the monthly rent itself is
regulated by a city agency. A little checking on the local laws and
a visit to the housing agency might prove well worth it.
Don't go to a rental agency unless you are willing to pay an
extra month's rent as a fee. Wanted ads in newspapers and bulletin
boards located in community centers and supermarkets have some
leads. Large universities have a service for finding good
apartments for administrators, faculty and students, in that order.
Call the university, say you have just been appointed to
such-and-such position and you need housing in the area. They will
want to know all your requirements and rent limitations, but often
they have very good deals available, especially if you've appointed
yourself to a high enough position.
Aside from these, the best way is to scout a desired area and
inquire about future apartments. Often landlords or rental agencies
have control over a number of buildings in a given area. You can
generally find a nameplate inside the hall of the building. Calling
them directly will let you know of any apartments available.
When you get an apartment, furnishing will be the next step.
You can double your sleeping space by building bunk beds. Nail two
by fours securely from ceiling to floor, about three feet from the
walls, where the beds are desired. Then build a frame out of two by
fours at a convenient height. Make sure you use nails or screws
strong enough to support the weight of people sleeping or balling.
Nail a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood on the frame. Mattresses and
almost all furniture needed for your pal can be gotten free (see
section on Free Furniture). Silverware can be copped at any
self-service restaurant.
RURAL LIVING
If you are considering moving to the country, especially as a
group, you are talking about farms and farmland. There are some
farms for rent, and occasionally a family that has to be away for a
year or two will let you live on their farm if you keep the place
in repair. These can be found advertised in the back of various
farming magazines and in the classified sections of newspapers,
especially the Sunday editions. Generally speaking, however, if
you're interested in a farm, you should be considering an outright
purchase.
First, you have to determine in what part of the country you
want to live in terms of the climate you prefer and how far away
from the major cities you wish to locate. The least populated
states, such as Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Montana and the like,
have the cheapest prices and the lowest tax rates. The more
populated a state, and in turn, the closer to a city, the higher
the commercial value of the land.
There are hundreds of different types of farms, so the next
set of questions you'll have to raise concerns the type of farm
activity you'll want to engage in. Cattle farms are different than
vegetable farms or orchards. Farms come in sizes: from half an acre
to ranches larger than the state of Connecticut. They will run in
price from $30 to $3000 an acre, with the most expensive being
prime farmland in fertile river valleys located close to an urban
area. The further away from the city and the further up a hill, the
cheaper the land gets. It also gets woodier, rockier and steeper,
which means less tillable land.
If you are talking of living in a farm house and maybe having
a small garden and some livestock for your own use, with perhaps a
pond on the property, you are looking for what is called a
recreational farm. When you buy a recreational farm, naturally you
are interested in the house, barn, well, fences, chicken-coop,
corrals, woodsheds and other physical structures on the property.
Unless these are in unusually good condition or unique, they do not
enter into the sale price as major factors. It is the land itself
that is bought and sold.
Farmland is measured in acreage; an acre being slightly more
than 43,560 square feet. The total area is measured in 40-acre
plots. Thus, if a farmer or a real estate agent says he has a plot
of land down the road, he means a 40-acre farm. Farms are generally
measured this way, with an average recreational farm being 160
acres in size or an area covering about 1/2 square mile. A
reasonable rate for recreational farmland 100 miles from a major
city with good water and a livable house would be about $50 per
acre. For a 160-acre farm, it would be $8,000, which is not an
awful lot considering what you are getting. For an overall view,
get the free catalogues and brochures provided by the United Farm
Agency, 612 W. 47th St., Kansas City, Mo. 64112.
Now that you have a rough idea of where and what type of farm
you want, you can begin to get more specific. Check out the
classified section in the Sunday newspaper of the largest city near
your desired location. Get the phone book and call or write to real
estate agencies in the vicinity. Unlike the city, where there is a
sellers' market, rural estate agents collect their fee from the
seller of the property, so you won't have to worry about the
agent's fee.
When you have narrowed down the choices, the next thing you'll
want to look at is the plot book for the county. The plot book has
all the farms in each township mapped out. lt also shows terrain
variations, type of housing on the land, location of rivers, roads
and a host of other pertinent information. Road accessibility,
especially in the winter, is an important factor. If the farms
bordering the one you have selected are abandoned or not in full
use, then for all intents and purposes, you have more land than you
are buying.
After doing all this, you are prepared to go look at the farm
itself. Notice the condition of the auxiliary roads leading to the
house. You'll want an idea of what sections of the land are
tillable. Make note of how many boulders you'll have to clear to do
some planting. Also note how many trees there are and to what
extent the brush has to be cut down. Be sure and have a good idea
of the insect problems you can expect. Mosquitoes or flies can bug
the shit out of you. Feel the soil where you plan to have a garden
and see how rich it is. If there are fruit trees, check their
condition. Taste the water. Find out if hunters or tourists come
through the land. Examine the house. The most important things are
the basement and the roof. In the basement examine the beams for
dry rot and termites. See how long it will be before the roof must
be replaced. Next check the heating system, the electrical wiring
and the plumbing. Then you'll want to know about services such as
schools, snow plowing, telephones, fire department and finally
about your neighbors. If the house is beyond repair, you might
still want the farm, especially if you are good at carpentry.
Cabins, A-Frames, domes and tepees are all cheaply constructed with
little experience. Get the materials from your nearest military
installation.
Finally, check out the secondary structures on the land to see
how usable they are. If there is a pond, you'll want to see how
deep it is for swimming. If there are streams, you'll want to know
about the fishing possibilities; and if large wooded areas, the
hunting.
In negotiating the final sales agreement, you should employ a
lawyer. You'll also want to check out the possibility of
negotiating a bank loan for the farm. Don't forget that you have to
pay taxes on the land, so inquire from the previous owner or agent
as to the tax bill. Usually, you can count on paying about $50
annually per 40-acre plot.
Finally, check out the federal programs available in the area.
If you can learn the ins and outs of the government programs, you
can rip off plenty. The Feed-Grain Program of the Department of
Agriculture pays you not to grow grain. The Cotton Subsidy Program
pays you not to grow cotton. Also look into the Soil Bank Program
of the United States Development Association and various Department
of Forestry programs which pay you to plant trees. Between not
planting cotton and planting trees, you should be able to manage.
LIST OF COMMUNES
The most complete list of city and country communes is
available for $1.00 from Alternatives Foundation, Modern Utopian,
1526 Gravensteur Highway North, Sebastopol, California 95427. The
phone is (707) 823-6168. The list is kept up to date. For all
communes, you must write in advance if you plan to visit. Almost
every commune will give you information about the local conditions
and the problems they face if you write them a letter. Here is a
list of some you might like to write to for more information. Avoid
becoming a free-loader on your sisters and brothers.
- California
-
ALTERNATIVES FOUNDATION-Box 1264, Berkeley, California 94709.
(Dick Fairfield) Communal living, total sexuality, peak
experience training centers. Dedicated to the
cybernated-tribal society.
-
BHODAN CENTER OF INQUIRY-Sierra Route, Oakhurst, California 93644.
Phone (209) 683-4976.. (Charles Davis) Seminars on Human
Community, IC development on the land, founded 1934, 13
members. Trial period for new members. Visitors check in
advance.
- Colorado
-
DROP CITY-Rt. 1, Box 125, Trinidad, Colorado 81082. Founded 1965.
New members must meet specific criteria. Anarchist, artist,
dome houses.
- New Mexico
-
LAMA FOUNDATION-Box 444, San Cristobal, N.M.
- New York
-
CITY ISLAND COMMUNE-284 City Island Avenue, Bronx, NY. Visitors
check in advance. Revolutionary.
-
ATLANTIS I-RFD 5, Box 22A, Saugerties, NY 12477. Visitors and new
members welcome.
- Oregon
-
FAMILY OF MYSTIC ARTS--Box 546, Sunny Valley, Oregon
- Pennsylvania
-
TANGUY HOMESTEADS-West Chester, Pennsylvania. Suburban,
non-sectarian, co-op housing and community fellowship.
- Washington
-
MAGIC MOUNTAIN-52nd and 19th Streets, Seattle, Washington.
(c/o Miriam Roder).
FREE EDUCATION
Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there,
they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they
are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat
race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks. The only
reason you should be in college is to destroy it. If there is stuff
that you want to learn though, there is a way to get a college
education absolutely free. Simply send away for the schedule of
courses at the college of your choice. Make up the schedule you
want and audit the classes. In smaller classes this might be a
problem, but even then, if, the teacher is worth anything at all,
he'll let you stay. In large classes, no one will ever object.
If you need books for a course, write to the publisher
claiming you are a lecturer at some school and considering using
their book in your course. They will always send you free books.
There are Free Universities springing up all over our new
Nation. Anybody can teach any course. People sign up for the
courses and sometimes pay a token registration fee. This money is
used to publish a catalogue and pay the rent. If you're on welfare
you don't have to pay. You can take as many or as few courses as
you want. Classes are held everywhere: in the instructor's house,
in the park, on the beach, at one of the student's houses or in
liberated buildings. Free Universities offer courses ranging from
Astrology to the Use of Firearms. The teaching is usually of
excellent quality and you'll learn in a community-type atmosphere.
LIST OF FREE UNIVERSITIES
-
Alternative University-69 W. 14th St., New York, NY 10011
(catalogue on request)
-
Baltimore Free U-c/o Harry, 233 E. 25th St., Baltimore, Maryland
21218
-
Berkeley Free U-1703 Grove St., Berkeley, California 94709
-
Bowling Green Free U-c/o Student Council, University of Bowling
Green, Bowling Green Ohio 43402
-
Colorado State Free U-Box 12-Fraisen, Colorado State College,
Greeley, Colorado 80631
-
Detroit Area Free U-Student Union, 4001 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit,
Michigan 48221
-
Detroit Area Free U-343 University Center, Wayne State University,
Detroit, Mich.
-
Georgetown Free U-Loyola Bldg., 28, Georgetown University
Washington D.C. 20007
-
Golden Gate Free U-2120 Market St., Rm. 206, San Francisco,
California 94114
-
Heliotrope-2201 Filbert, San Francisco, California 94118
-
Illinois Free U-298A Illini Union, University of Illinois,
Champaign, Illinois 61820
-
Kansas Free U-107 W. 7th St., Lawrence, Kansas 66044
-
Knox College Free U-Galesbury, Illinois 60401
-
Madison Free U-c/o P. Carroll, 1205 Shorewood Blvd., Madison,
Wisconsin 53705
-
Metropolitan State Free U-Associated Students, 1345 Banrock St.,
Denver, Colorado 80204
-
Michigan State Free U-Associated Students, Student Service Bldg.,
Michigan State College, East Lansing, Michigan 48823
-
Mid-Peninsula Free U-1060 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, California
94015
-
Minnesota Free U-1817 S. 3rd St., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404
-
Monterey Peninsula Free U-2120 Etna Place, Monterey, California
New Free U-Box ALL 303, Santa Barbara, California 93107
-
Northwest Free U-Box 1255, Bellingham, Washington 98225
-
Ohio-Wesleyan Free U-Box 47-Welsh Hall, Ohio Wesleyan University,
Delevan, Ohio 43015
-
Pittsburgh Free U-4401 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Rutgers Free U-Rutgers College, Student Center, 1 Lincoln Ave.,
Newark, NJ 07102
-
St. Louis Free U-c/o Student Congress, 3rd floor BMC, St. Louis
University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103
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San Luis Obispo Free U-Box 1305, San Luis Obispo, California 94301
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Santa Cruz Free U-604 River St., Santa Cruz, California 95060
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Seattle Free U-4144Ѕ University Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98105
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Southern Illinois Free U-Carbondale, Illinois 62901
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Valley Free U-2045 N. Wishon Ave., Fresno, California 93704
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Washington Area Free U-5519 Prospect Place, Chevy Chase, Maryland
20015 and 1854 Park Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010
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Wayne-Locke Free U-Student Congress, University of Texas,
Arlington, Texas 76010
And a complete list of experimental schools, free
universities, free schools, can be obtained by sending one dollar
to ALTERNATIVES! 1526 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol,
California 97452, and requesting the Directory of Free Schools.
7. FREE MEDICAL CARE
Due to the efforts of the Medical Committee for Human Rights,
the Student Health Organization and other progressive elements
among younger doctors and nurses. Free People's Clinics have been
happening in every major city. They usually operate out of store
fronts and are staffed with volunteer help. An average clinic can
handle fifty patients a day.
If you've had an accident or have an acute illness, even a bad
cold, check into the emergency room of any hospital. Given them a
sob story complete with phony name and address. After treatment
they present you with a slip and direct you to the cashier. Just
walk on by, as the song suggests. A good decoy is to ask for the
washroom. After waiting there a few moments, split. If you're
caught sneaking out, tell them you ran out of the house without
your wallet. Ask them to bill you at your phony address. This
billing procedure works in both hospital emergency rooms and
clinics. You can keep going back for repeated visits up to three
months before the cashier's office tells the doctor about your
fractured payments.
You can get speedy medical advice and avoid emergency room
delays by calling the hospital, asking for the emergency unit and
speaking directly to the doctor over the phone. Older doctors frown
on this procedure since they cannot extort their usual exorbitant
fee over the phone. Younger ones generally do not share this
hang-up.
Cities usually have free clinics for a variety of special
ailments. Tuberculosis Clinics, Venereal Disease Clinics, and Free
Shot Clinics (yellow fever, polio, tetanus, etc.) are some of the
more common. A directory of these clinics and other free health
services the local community provides can be obtained by writing
your Chamber of Commerce or local Health Department.
Most universities have clinics connected with their dental,
optometry or other specialized medical schools. If not for free,
then certainly for very low rates, you can get dental work
repaired, eyeglasses fitted and treatment of other specific health
needs.
Free psychiatric treatment can often be gotten at the
out-patient department of any mental hospital. Admission into these
hospitals is free, but a real bummer. Use them as a last resort
only. Some cities have a suicide prevention center and if you are
desperate and need help, call them. Your best choice in a
psychiatric emergency is to go to a large general hospital, find
the emergency unit and ask to see the psychiatrist on duty.
BIRTH CONTROL CLINICS
Planned Parenthood and the Family Planning Association staff
numerous free birth control clinics throughout the country. They
provide such services as sex education, examinations, Pap smear and
birth control information and devices. The devices include pills, a
diaphragm, or IUD (intra-uterine device) which they will insert. If
you are unmarried and under 18, you might have to talk to a social
worker, but it's no sweat because anybody gets contraceptive
devices that wants them. Call up and ask them to send you their
booklets on the different methods of birth control available.
If you would rather go to a private doctor, try to find out
from a friend the name of a hip gynecologist, who is sympathetic to
the fact that you're low on bread. Otherwise one visit could cost
$25.00 or more.
Before deciding on a contraceptive, you should be hip to some
general information. There has been much research on the pill, and
during the past 10 years it has proven its effectiveness, if not is
safety. The two most famous name brands are Ortho-Novum and Envoid.
They all require a doctor's prescription. Different type pills are
accompanied by slightly different instructions, so read the
directions carefully. In many women, the pills produce side effects
such as weight increase, dizziness or nausea. Sometimes the pill
affects your vision and more often your mood. Some women with
specialized blood diseases are advised not to use them, but in
general, women have little or no trouble. Different brand names
have different hormonal balances (progesterone-estrogen). If you
get uncomfortable side effects, insist that your doctor switch your
brand. If you stop the pill method for any reason and don't want to
get pregnant, be very careful to use another means right away.
Another contraceptive device becoming more popular is the IUD,
or the loop. It is a small plastic or stainless steel
irregularly-shaped spring that the doctor inserts inside the
opening of the uterus. The insertion is not without pain, but it's
safe if done by a physician, and it's second only to the pill in
prevention of pregnancy. Once it's in place, you can forget about
it for a few years or until you wish to get pregnant. Doctors are
reluctant to prescribe them for women who have not borne children
or had an abortion, because of the intense pain that accompanies
insertion. But if you can stand the pain associated with three to
four uterine contractions, you should push the doctor for this
method. Inserting it during the last day of your period will make
it easier.
The diaphragm is a round piece of flexible rubber about 2
inches in diameter with a hard rubber rim on the outside. It used
to be inserted just before the sex act, but hip doctors now
recommend that it be worn continuously and taken out every few days
for washing and also during the menstrual period. It is most
effective when used with a sperm-killing jelly or cream. A doctor
will fit you for a proper size diaphragm.
The next best method is the foams that you insert twenty
minutes before fucking. The best foams available are Delfen and
Emko. They have the advantage of being nonprescription items so you
can rush into any drug store and pick up a dispenser when the
spirit moves you. Follow the directions carefully. Unfortunately,
these foams taste terrible and are not available in flavors. It
just shows you how far science has to go.
Another device is the prophylactic, or rubber as it is called.
This is the only device available to men. It is a thin rubber
sheath that fits over the penis. Because they are subject to
breaking and sliding off, their effectiveness is not super great.
If you are forced to use them, the best available are lubricated
sheepskins with a reservoir tip.
The rhythm method or Vatican roulette as it is called by hip
Catholics, is a waste unless you are ready to surround yourself
with thermometers, graphs and charts. You also have to limit your
fucking to prescribed days. Even with all these precautions, women
have often gotten pregnant using the rhythm method.
The oldest and least effective method is simply for the male
to pull out just before he comes. There are billions of sperm cells
in each ejaculation and only one is needed to fertilize the woman's
egg and cause a pregnancy. Most of the sperm is in the first
squirt, so you had better be quick if you employ this technique.
If the woman misses her period she shouldn't panic. It might
be delayed because of emotional reasons. Just wait two weeks before
going to a doctor or clinic for a pregnancy test. When you go, be
sure to bring your first morning urine specimen.
ABORTIONS
The best way to find out about abortions is to contact your
local woman's liberation organization through your underground
newspaper or radio station. Some Family Planning Clinics and even
some liberal churches set up abortions, but these might run as high
as $700. Underground newspapers often have ads that read "Any girl
in trouble call - -," or something similar. The usual rate for an
abortion is about $500 and it's awful hard to bargain when you need
one badly. Only go to a physician who is practicing or might have
just lost his license. Forget the stereotype image of these doctors
as they are performing a vital service. Friends who have had an
abortion can usually recommend a good doctor and fill you in on
what's going to happen.
Abortions are very minor operations if done correctly. They
can be done almost any time, but after three months, it's no longer
so casual and more surgical skill is required. Start making plans
as soon as you find out. The sooner the better, in terms of the
operation.
Get a pregnancy test at a clinic. If it is positive and you
want an abortion, start that day to make plans. If you get negative
results from the test and still miss your period, have a
gynecologist perform an examination if you are still worried.
If you cannot arrange an abortion through woman's liberation,
Family Planning, a sympathetic clergyman or a friend who has had
one, search out a liberal hospital and talk to one of their social
workers. Almost all hospitals perform "therapeutic" abortions. Tell
a sob story about the desertion of your boy friend or that you take
LSD every day or that defects run in your family. Act mentally
disturbed. If you qualify, you can get an abortion that will be
free under Medicaid or other welfare medical plans. The safest form
of abortion is the vacuum-curettage method, but not all doctors are
hip to it. It is safer and quicker with less chance of
complications than the old-fashioned scrape method.
Many states have recently passed liberalized abortion laws,
such as New York* (by far the most extensive), Hawaii and Maryland,
due to the continuing pressure of radical women. The battle for
abortion and certainly for free abortion is far from over even in
the states with liberal laws. They are far too expensive for the
ten to twenty minute minor operation involved and the red tape is
horrendous. Free abortions must be look-on as a fundamental right,
not a sneaky, messy trauma.
*There is a residence requirement for New York but using a friend's
New York address at the hospital will be good enough. The procedure
takes only a few days and costs between $200 and $500, depending on
the place. The best advice is to call one of the New York Abortion
Referral Services or Birth Control Groups listed in the New York
Directory section.
DISEASES TREATED FREE
Syph and Clap (syphilis and gonorrhea) are two diseases that
they are easy to pick up. They come from balling. Anyone who claims
they got it from sitting on a toilet seat must have a fondness for
weird positions.
Both men and women are subject to the diseases. Using a
prophylactic usually will prevent the spreading of venereal
disease, but you should really seek to have it cured. Syphilis
usually begins with an infection which may look like a cold sore or
pimple around the sex organ. There is no pain associated with the
lesions. Soon the sore disappears even without treatment. This is
often followed by a period of rashes on the body (especially the
palms of the hands) and inflammation of the mouth and throat. These
symptoms also disappear without treatment. It must be understood,
however, that even if these symptoms disappear, the disease still
remains if left untreated. It can cause serious trouble such as
heart disease, blindness, insanity and paralysis. Also, it can fuck
up any kids you might produce and is easily passed on to anyone you
ball.
Gonorrhea (clap) is more common than syphilis. Its first signs
are a discharge from your sex organ that is painful. Like syphilis,
it affects both men and women, but is often unnoticed in women.
There is usually itching and burning associated with the affected
area. It can leave you sterile if left untreated.
Both these venereal diseases can be treated in a short time
with attention. Avail yourself of the free V.D. clinics in every
town. Follow the doctor's instructions to the letter and try to let
the other people you've had sexual contact with know you had VD.
There are other fungus diseases that resemble syphilis or
gonorrhea, but are relatively harmless. Check out every infection
in your crotch area, especially those with open sores or an unusual
discharge and you'll be safe.
Crabs are not harmful, but they can make you scratch your
crotch for hours on end. They are also highly transmittable by
balling. Actually they are a form of body lice and easy to cure. Go
to your local druggist and ask him for the best remedy available.
He'll give you one of several lotions and instructions for proper
use. We recommend Kwell.
A common disease in the hip community is hepatitis. There are
two kinds. One you get from sticking dirty needles in your arm
(serum hepatitis) and the other more common strain from eating
infected food or having intimate contact with an infected carrier
(infectious hepatitis). The symptoms for both are identical;
yellowish skin and eyes, dark piss and light crap, loss of appetite
and total listlessness. Hep is a very dangerous disease that can
cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is
extremely permanent. It should be treated by a doctor, often in a
hospital.
FREE COMMUNICATION
If you don't like the news, why not go out and make your own?
Creating free media depends to a large extent on your imagination
and ability to follow through on ideas. The average Amerikan is
exposed to over 1,600 commercials each day. Billboards, glossy ads
and television spots make up much of the word environment they live
in. To crack through the word mush means creating new forms of free
communication. Advertisements for revolution are important in
helping to educate and mold the milieu of people you wish to win
over.
Guerrilla theater events are always good news items and if
done right, people will remember them forever. Throwing out money
at the Stock Exchange or dumping soot on executives at Con Edison
or blowing up the policeman statue in Chicago immediately conveys
an easily understood message by using the technique of creative
disruption. Recently to dramatize the illegal invasion of Cambodia,
400 Yippies stormed across the Canadian border in an invasion of
the United States. They threw paint on store windows and physically
attacked residents of Blair, Washington. A group of Vietnam
veterans marched in battle gear from Trenton to Valley Forge. Along
the way they performed mock attacks on civilians the way they were
trained to do in Southeast Asia.
Dying all the outdoor fountains red and then sending a message
to the newspaper explaining why you did it, dramatizes the idea
that blood is being shed needlessly in imperialist wars. A special
metallic bonding glue available from Eastman-Kodak will form a
permanent bond in only 45 seconds. Gluing up locks of all the
office buildings in your town is a great way to dramatize the fact
that our brothers and sisters are being jailed all the time. Then,
of course, there are always explosives which dramatically make your
point and then some.
PRESS CONFERENCES
Another way of using the news to advertise the revolution and
make propaganda is to call a press, conference. Get an appropriate
place that has some relationship to the content of your message.
Send out announcements to as many members of the press as you can.
If you do not have a press list, you can make one up by looking
through the Yellow Pages under Newspapers, Radio Stations,
Television Stations, Magazines and Wire Services. Check out your
list with other groups and pick up names of reporters who attend
movement press conferences. Address a special invitation to them as
well as one to their newspaper. Address the announcements to "City
Desk" or "'News Department." Schedule the press conference for
about 11:00 A.M. as this allows the reporters to file the story in
time for the evening newscast or papers. On the day of the
scheduled conference, call the important city desks or reporters
about 9:00 A.M. and remind them to come.
Everything about a successful press conference must be
dramatic, from the announcements and phone calls to the statements
themselves. Nothing creates a worse image than four or five men in
business suits sitting behind a table and talking in a calm manner
at a fashionable hotel. Constantly seek to have every detail of the
press conference differ in style as well as content from the
conferences of people in power. Make use of music and visual
effects. Don't stiffen up before the press. Make the statement as
short and to the point as possible. Don't read from notes, look
directly into the camera. The usual television spot is one minute
and twenty seconds. The cameras start buzzing on your opening
statement and often run out of film before you finish. So make it
brief and action packed. The question period should be even more
dramatic. Use the questioner's first name when answering a
question. This adds an air of informality and networks are more apt
to use an answer directed personally to one of their newsmen.
Express your emotional feelings. Be funny, get angry, be sad or
ecstatic. If you cannot convey that you are deeply excited or
troubled or outraged about what you are saying, how do you expect
it of others who are watching a little image box in their living
room? Remember, you are advertising a new way of life to people.
Watch TV commercials. See how they are able to convey everything
they need to be effective in such a short time and limited space.
At the same tune you're mocking the shit they are pushing, steal
their techniques.
At rock concerts, during intermission or at the end of the
performance, fight your way to the stage.
COMMUNICATION
Announce that if the electricity is cut off the walls will be
torn down. This galvanizes the audience and makes the owners of the
hall the villains if they fuck around. Lay out a short exciting rap
on what's coming down. Focus on a call around one action. Sometimes
it might be good to engage rock groups in dialogues about their
commitment to the revolution. Interrupting the concert is frowned
upon since it is only spitting in the faces of the people you are
trying to reach. Use the Culture as ocean to swim in. Treat it with
care.
Sandwich boards and hand-carried signs are effective
advertisements. You can stand on a busy corner and hold up a sign
saying "Apartment Needed," "Free Angela," "Smash the State" or
other slogans. They can be written on dollar bills, envelopes that
are being mailed and other items that are passed from person to
person.
Take a flashlight with a large face to movie theaters and
other dark public gathering places. Cut the word "STRIKE" or
"REVOLT" or "YIPPIE" out of dark cellophane. Paste the stencil over
the flashlight, thus allowing you to project the word on a distant
wall.
There are a number of all night call-in shows that have a
huge audience. If you call with what the moderator considers
"exciting controversy," he may give you a special number so you
won't have to compete in the switchboard roller-derby. It often can
take hours before you get through to these shows. Here's a trick
that will help you out if the switchboard is jammed. The call-in
shows have a series of hones so that when one is busy the next will
take the call. Usually the numbers run in sequence. Say a station
gives out PL 5-8640, as the number to call. That means it also uses
PL 5-8641, PL 5-8642 and so on. If you get a busy signal, hang up
and try calling PL S-8647 say. This trick works in a variety of
situations where you want to get a call through a busy switchboard.
Remember it for airline and bus information.
WALL PAINTING
One of the best forms of free communication is painting
messages on a blank wall. The message must be short and bold. You
want to be able to paint it on before the pigs come and yet have it
large enough so that people can see it at a distance. Cans of spray
paint that you can pick up at any hardware store work best. Pick
spots that have lot of traffic. Exclamation points are good for
emphasis. If you are writing the same message, make a stencil. You
can make a stencil that says WAR and spray it on with white paint
under the word "STOP" on stop signs. You can stencil a five-pointed
star and using yellow paint, spray it on the dividing line between
the red and blue on all post office boxes. This simulates the flag
of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. You can stencil a
marijuana leaf and using green paint, spray it over cigarette and
whisky billboards on buses and subways. The women's liberation sign
with red paint is good for sexist ads. Sometimes you will wish to
exhibit great daring in your choice of locations. When the
Vietnamese hero Nguyen Van Troi was executed, the Viet Cong put up
a poster the next day on the exact spot inside the highest security
prison in the country.
Wall postering allows you to get more information before the
public than a quickly scribbled slogan. Make sure the surface is
smooth or finely porous. Smear the back of the poster with
condensed milk, spread on with a brush, sponge, rag or your hands.
Condensed milk dries very fast and hard. Also smear some on the
front once the poster is up to give protection against the weather
and busy fingers that like to pull at corners. Wallpaper pastes
also work quickly and efficiently. It's best to work both painting
and postering at night with a look-out. This way you can work the
best spots without being harassed by the pig patrol, which is
usually unappreciative of Great Art.
USE OF THE FLAG
The generally agreed upon flag of our nation is black with a
red, five pointed star behind a green marijuana leaf in the center.
It is used by groups that understand the correct use of culture and
symbolism in a revolutionary struggle. When displayed, it
immediately increases the feelings of solidarity between our
brothers and sisters. High school kids have had great fights over
which flag to salute in school. A sign of any liberated zone is the
flag being flown. Rock concerts and festivals have their generally
apolitical character instantly changed when the flag is displayed.
The political theoreticians who do not recognize the flag and the
importance of the culture it represents are ostriches who are
ignorant of basic human nature. Throughout history people have
fought for religion, life-style, land, a flag (nation), because
they were ordered to, for fortune, because they were attacked or
for the hell of it. If you don't think the flag is important, ask
the hardhats.
RADIO
Want to construct your own neighborhood radio station? You can
get a carrier-current transmitter designed by a group of brothers
and sisters called Radio Free People. No FCC license is required
for the range is less than 1/2 mile. The small transistorized units
plug into any wall outlet. Write Radio Free People, 133 Mercer St.,
New York, New York 10012 for more details. For further information
see the chapter on Guerrilla Broadcasting later in the book.
FREE TELEPHONES
Ripping off the phone company is so common that Bell Telephone
has a special security division that tries to stay just a little
ahead of the average free-loader. Many great devices like the coat
hanger release switch have been scrapped because of changes in the
phone box. Even the credit card fake-out is doomed to oblivion as
the company switches to more computerized techniques. ln our
opinion, as long as there is a phone company, and as long as there
are outlaws, nobody need ever pay for a call. In 1969 alone the
phone company estimated that over 10 million dollars worth of free
calls were placed from New York City. Nothing, however, compares
with the rip-off of the people by the phone company. In that same
year, American Telephone and Telegraph made a profit of 8.6 billion
dollars! AT&T, like all public utilities, passes itself off as a
service owned by the people, while in actuality nothing could be
further from the truth. Only a small percentage of the public owns
stock in these companies and a tiny elite clique makes all the
policy decisions. Ripping-off the phone company is an act of
revolutionary love, so help spread the word.
PAY PHONES
You can make a local 10 cent call for 2 cents by spitting on
the pennies and dropping them in the nickel slot. As soon as they
are about to hit the trigger mechanism, bang the coin-return
button. Another way is to spin the pennies counter-clockwise into
the nickel slot. Hold the penny in the slot with your finger and
snap it spinning with a key or other flat object. Both systems take
a certain knack, but once you've perfected the technique, you'll
always have it in your survival kit.
If two cents is too much, how about a call for 1 penny? Cut a
1/4 strip off the telephone book cover. Insert the cardboard strip
into the dime slot as far as it will go. Drop a penny in the nickel
slot until it catches in the mechanism (spinning will help). Then
slowly pull the strip out until you hear the dial tone.
A number 14 brass washer with a small piece of scotch tape
over one side of the hole will not only get a free call, but works
in about any vending machine that takes dimes. You can get a box of
thousands for about a dollar at any hardware store. You should
always have a box around for phones, laundromats, parking meters
and drink machines.
Bend a bobby pin after removing the plastic from the tips and
jab it down into the transmitter (mouthpiece). When it presses
against the metal diaphragm, rub it on a metal wall or pipe to
ground it. When you've made contact you'll hear the dial tone. If
the phone uses old-fashioned rubber black tubing to enclose the
wires running from the headset to the box, you can insert a metal
tack through the tubing, wiggle it around a little until it makes
contact with the bare wires and touch the tack to a nearby metal
object for grounding.
Put a dime in the phone, dial the operator and tell her you
have ten cents credit. She'll return your dime and get your call
for free. If she asks why, say you made a call on another pay
phone, lost the money, and the operator told you to switch phones
and call the credit operator.
This same method works for long distance calls. Call the
operator and find out the rate for your call. Hang up and call
another operator telling her you just dialed San Francisco direct,
got a wrong number and lost $.95 or whatever it is. She will get
your call free of charge.
If there are two pay phones next to each other, you can call
long distance on one and put the coins in the other. When the
operator cuts in and asks you to deposit money, drop the coins into
the one you are not using, but hold the receiver up to the slots so
the operator can hear the bells ring. When you've finished, you can
simply press the return button on the phone with the coins in it
and out they come. If you have a good tape recorder you can record
the sounds of a quarter, dime and nickel going into a pay phone and
play them for the operator in various combinations when she asks
for the money. Turn the volume up as loud as you can get it.
You can make a long distance call and charge it to a phone
number. Simply tell the operator you want to bill the call to your
home phone because you don't have the correct change. Tell her
there is no one there now to verify the call, but you will be home
in an hour and she can call you then if there is any question. Make
sure the exchange goes with the area you say it does.
Always have a number of made-up credit card numbers. The code
letter for 1970 is S, then seven digits of the phone number and a
three digit district number (not the same as area code). The
district number should be under 599. Example: S-573-2100-421 or
S-537-3402-035. Look up the phone numbers for your area by simply
requesting a credit card for your home phone which is very easy to
get and then using the last three numbers with another phone
number. Usually making up exotic numbers from far away places will
work quite well as it would be impossible for an operator to spot a
phony number in the short time she has to check her list.
We advise against making phony credit card calls on a home
phone. We have seen a gadget that you install between the wall
socket and the cord which not only allows you to receive all the
calls you want for free, but eliminates the most common form of
electronic bugging. They are being manufactured and sold for fifty
dollars by a disgruntled telephone engineer in Massachusetts.
Unfortunately you are going to have to find him on your own or
duplicate his efforts, for he has sworn us to secrecy. If someone
does, however, offer you such a device, it probably does work. Test
it by installing it and having someone call you from a pay phone.
If it's working, the person should get their dime back at the end
of the call.
Actually if you know the slightest information about wiring,
you can have your present phone disconnected on the excuse that
you'll be leaving town for a few months and then connect the wires
into the main trunk lines on your own. Extensions can easily be
attached to your main line without the phone company knowing about
it.
You can make all the free long distance calls you want by
calling your party collect at a pay phone. Just have your friend go
to a prearranged phone booth at a prearranged time. This can be
done on the spot by having the friend call you person to person.
Say you're not in, but ask for the number calling you since you'll
be "back" in five minutes. Once you get the number simply hang up,
wait a moment and call back your friend collect. The call has to be
out of the state to work, since operators are familiar with the
special extension numbers assigned to pay phones for her area and
possibly for nearby areas as well. If she asks you if it is a pay
phone say no. If she finds out during the call (which rarely
happens) and informs you of this, simply say you didn't expect the
party to have a pay phone in his house and accept the charges. We
have never heard of this happening though. The trick of calling
person-to-person collect should always be used when calling long
distance on home-to-home phones also. You can hear the voice of
your friend saying that he'll be back in a few minutes. Simply hang
up, wait a moment and call station to station, thereby getting a
person-to-person call without the extra charges which can be
considerable on a long call during business hours.
If you plan to stay at your present address for only a few
more months, stop paying the bill and call like crazy. After a
month you get the regular bill which you avoid paying. Another
month goes by and the next bill comes with last month's balance
added to it. Shortly thereafter you get a note advising you that
your service will be terminated in ten days if you don't pay the
bill. Wait a few days and send them a five or ten dollar money
order with a note saying you've had an accident and are pressed for
funds because of large medical bills, but you'll send them the
balance as soon as you are up and around again. That will hold them
for another month. In all, you can stretch it out for four or five
months with a variety of excuses and small payments. This also
works with the gas and electric companies and with any department
stores you conned into letting you charge.
You can get the service deposit reduced to half of the normal
rate if you are a student or have other special qualifications.
Surprisingly, these rates and discounts vary from area to area, so
check around before you go into the business office for your phone.
There is an incredible 50 cents charge per month for not having
your phone listed. If you want an unlisted phone, you can avoid
this fee by having the phone listed in a fictitious name, even if
the bill is sent to you. Just say you want your roommate's name
listed instead of your own.
FREE PLAY
MOVIES AND CONCERTS
There are many ways to sneak into theaters, concerts, stadiums
and other entertainment houses. All these places have numerous fire
exits with push-bar doors that open easily from the inside. Arrive
early with a group of friends, after casing the joint and selecting
the most convenient exit. Pay for one person to get in. When he
does he simply opens the designated exit door when the ushers are
out of the area and everyone rushes inside.
For theatrical chains in large cities, call their home office
and ask to speak to the vice-president in charge of publicity,
sales, or personnel. Ask what his name is so you'll know who you're
talking to. When you get the information you want, hang up. Now you
have the name of a high official in the company. Compile a short
list of officials in the various film, theater and sporting event
companies. Next all the various theaters and do the same thing for
the theater managers. Once you have the two lists you are ready to
proceed. Call the theater you want to attend. When someone answers
say you're Mr. __________ from the home office calling Mr. __________
(manager's name) and you'd like to have two passes O.K'd for two
important people from out of town. Invariably she'll just ask their
names or tell them to mention your name at the box office. Not only
will you get in free, but you can avoid waiting in line with this
fake-out.
In Los Angeles and New York, the studios hold pre-release
screenings for all movies. If you know roughly when a movie is
about to come out, call the publicity department of the studio
producing the film and say you're the critic for a newspaper or
magazine (give the name) and ask them when you can screen the film.
They'll give you the time and place of various screenings. When you
go, ask them to put you on their list and you'll get notices of all
future screenings.
One of our favorite ways to sneak into a theater with
continuously running shows is the following. Arrive just as the
show is emptying out and join the line leaving the theater.
Exclaiming, "Oh, my gosh!" you slap your forehead, turn around and
return, tell the usher you left your hat, pocketbook, etc. inside.
Once you're inside the theater, just swipe some popcorn and wait
for the next show.
RECORDS AND BOOKS
If you have access to a few addresses, you can get all kinds
of records and books from clubs on introductory offers. Since the
cards you mail back are not signed there is no legal way you can be
held for the bill. You get all sorts of threatening mail, which, by
the way, also comes free.
If you have a friend who is a member of a record club, ask him
to submit your name as a free member. He gets 4 free records for
getting you signed up. A soon as you get the letter saying how
lucky you are to be a member, quit. Your friend's free records have
already been shipped. We used to have at least 10 different names
and addresses working on all the record and book companies. Every
other day we would ride around collecting the big packages. To cap
it off, we opened a credit account at a large department store and
used to return most of the records and books to the store saying
that they were gifts and we wanted something else. Since we had an
account at the store, they always took the merchandise and gave
credit for future purchases.
You can always use the public libraries. Find out when they do
their yearly housecleaning. Every library discards thousands of
books on this day. Just show up and ask if you can take some.
Almost anything you might want to know from plans for
constructing a sundial to a complete blueprint for building a house
may be obtained free from the Government Printing Office. Write: to
Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington
D.C. 20402. Most publication are free. Those that are not are dirt
cheap. Ask to be put on the list to receive the free biweekly list
of Selected U.S. Government Publications.
One of the best ways to receive records and books free is to
invest twenty dollars and print up some stationery with an artistic
logo for some non-existent publication. Write to all the public
relations departments of record companies, publishing houses, and
movie studios. Say you are a newspaper with a large youth
readership and have regular reviews of books, or records, or
movies, and would like to be placed on their mailing list. Say that
you would be glad to send them any reviews of their records that
appear in the paper. That adds a note of authenticity to the
letter. After a month or so you'll be receiving more records and
books than you can use.
If you really want a book badly enough, follow the title of
this one-Dig!
FREE MONEY
No book on survival should fail to give you some good tips on
how to rip-off bread. Really horning in on this chapter will put
you on Free-loader Street life, 'cause with all the money in
Amerika, the only thing you'll have trouble getting is poor.
WELFARE
It's easy to get on welfare that anyone who is broke and
doesn't have a regular relief check coming in is nothing but a
goddamn lazy bum! Each state has a different set up. The racist
penny-pinchers of Mississippi dole out
Steal This Book
STEAL THIS BOOK
By Abbie Hoffman
Dedicated to Jerry Lefcourt, Lawyer and Brother
Library of Congress number 72-157115 (stolen from Library of Congress)
copyright ©1971 PIRATE EDITIONS
TABLE OF DISCONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
It's perhaps fitting that I write this introduction in jail-
that graduate school of survival. Here you learn how to use
toothpaste as glue, fashion a shiv out of a spoon and build
intricate communication networks. Here too, you learn the only
rehabilitation possible-hatred of oppression.
Steal This Book is, in a way, a manual of survival in the
prison that is Amerika. It preaches jailbreak. It shows you where
exactly how to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls. The
first section-SURVIVE!-lays out a potential action program for our
new Nation. The chapter headings spell out the demands for a free
society. A community where the technology produces goods and
services for whoever needs them, come who may. It calls on the
Robin Hoods of Santa Barbara Forest to steal from the robber barons
who own the castles of capitalism. It implies that the reader
already is "ideologically set," in that he understands corporate
feudalism as the only robbery worthy of being called "crime," for
it is committed against the people as a whole. Whether the ways it
describes to rip-off shit are legal or illegal is irrelevant. The
dictionary of law is written by the bosses of order. Our moral
dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a
brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that
are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.
Community within our Nation, chaos in theirs; that is the
message of SURVIVE!
We cannot survive without learning to fight and that is the
lesson in the second section. FIGHT! separates revolutionaries
from outlaws. The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system,
but destroy it. The weapons are carefully chosen. They are
"home-made," in that they are designed for use in our unique
electronic jungle. Here the uptown reviewer will find ample proof
of our "violent" nature. But again, the dictionary of law fails us.
Murder in a uniform is heroic, in a costume it is a crime. False
advertisements win awards, forgers end up in jail. Inflated prices
guarantee large profits while shoplifters are punished. Politicians
conspire to create police riots and the victims are convicted in
the courts. Students are gunned down and then indicted by suburban
grand juries as the trouble-makers. A modern, highly mechanized
army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation
of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression.
Slumlords allow rats to maim children and then complain of violence
in the streets. Everything is topsy-turvy. If we internalize the
language and imagery of the pigs, we will forever be fucked. Let me
illustrate the point. Amerika was built on the slaughter of a
people. That is its history. For years we watched movie after movie
that demonstrated the white man's benevolence. Jimmy Stewart, the
epitome of fairness, puts his arm around Cochise and tells how the
Indians and the whites can live in peace if only both sides will be
reasonable, responsible and rational (the three R's imperialists
always teach the "natives"). "You will find good grazing land on
the other side of the mountain," drawls the public relations man.
"Take your people and go in peace." Cochise as well as millions of
youngsters in the balcony of learning, were being dealt off the
bottom of the deck. The Indians should have offed Jimmy Stewart in
every picture and we should have cheered ourselves hoarse. Until we
understand the nature of institutional violence and how it
manipulates values and mores to maintain the power of the few, we
will forever be imprisoned in the caves of ignorance. When we
conclude that bank robbers rather than bankers should be the
trustees of the universities, then we begin to think clearly. When
we see the Army Mathematics Research and Development Center and the
Bank of Amerika as cesspools of violence, filling the minds of our
young with hatred, turning one against another, then we begin to
think revolutionary.
Be clever using section two; clever as a snake. Dig the spirit
of the struggle. Don't get hung up on a sacrifice trip. Revolution
is not about suicide, it is about life. With your fingers probe the
holiness of your body and see that it was meant to live. Your body
is just one in a mass of cuddly humanity. Become an
internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on
machines, and in particular the sterile machines of corporate death
and the robots that guard them. The duty of a revolutionary is to
make love and that means staying alive and free. That doesn't allow
for cop-outs. Smoking dope and hanging up Che's picture is no more
a commitment than drinking milk and collecting postage stamps. A
revolution in consciousness is an empty high without a revolution
in the distribution of power. We are not interested in the greening
of Amerika except for the grass that will cover its grave.
Section three - LIBERATE! - concerns itself with efforts to
free stuff (or at least make it cheap) in four cities. Sort of a
quick U.S. on no dollars a day. It begins to scratch the potential
for a national effort in this area. Since we are a nation of
gypsies, dope on how to move around and dig in anywhere is always
needed. Together we can expand this section. It is far from
complete, as is the entire project. Incomplete chapters on how to
identify police agents, steal a car, run day-care centers, conduct
your own trial, organize a G.I. coffee house, start a rock and roll
band and make neat clothes, are scattered all over the floor of the
cell. The book as it now stands was completed in the late summer of
1970. For three months manuscripts made the rounds of every major
publisher. In all, over 30 rejections occurred before the decision
to publish the book ourselves was made, or rather made for us.
Perhaps no other book in modern times presented such a dilemma.
Everyone agreed the book would be a commercial success. But even
greed had its limits, and the IRS and FBI following the manuscript
with their little jive rap had a telling effect. Thirty "yeses"
become thirty "noes" after "thinking it over." Liberals, who
supposedly led the fight against censorship, talked of how the book
"will end free speech."
Finally the day we were bringing the proofs to the printer,
Grove consented to act as distributor. To pull a total solo trip,
including distribution, would have been neat, but such an effort
would be doomed from the start. We had tried it before and blew it.
In fact, if anyone is interested in 4,000 1969 Yippie calendars,
they've got a deal. Even with a distributor joining the fight, the
battle will only begin when the books come off the press. There is
a saying that "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one."
In past eras, this was probably the case, but now, high speed
methods of typesetting, offset printing and a host of other
developments have made substantial reductions in printing costs.
Literally anyone is free to print their own works. In even the most
repressive society imaginable, you can get away with some form of
private publishing. Because Amerika allows this, does not make it
the democracy Jefferson envisioned. Repressive tolerance is a real
phenomenon. To talk of true freedom of the press, we must talk of
the availability of the channels of communication that are designed
to reach the entire population, or at least that segment of the
population that might participate in such a dialogue. Freedom of
the press belongs to those that own the distribution system.
Perhaps that has always been the case, but in a mass society where
nearly everyone is instantaneously plugged into a variety of
national communications systems, wide-spread dissemination of the
information is the crux of the matter. To make the claim that the
right to print your own book means freedom of the press is to
completely misunderstand the nature of a mass society. It is like
making the claim that anyone with a pushcart can challenge Safeway
supermarkets, or that any child can grow up to be president.
State legislators, librarians, PTA members, FBI agents,
church-goers, and parents: a veritable legion of decency and order
already is on the march. To get the book to you might be the
biggest challenge we face. The next few months should prove really
exciting.
Obviously such a project as Steal This Book could not have
been carried out alone. Izak Haber shared the vision from the
beginning. He did months of valuable research and contributed many
of the survival techniques. Carole Ramer and Gus Reichbach of the
New York Law Commune guided the book through its many stages. Anna
Kaufman Moon did almost all the photographs. The cartoonists who
have made contributions include Ski Williamson and Gilbert Sheldon.
Tom Forcade, of the UPS, patiently did the editing. Bert Cohen of
Concert Hall did the book's graphic design. Amber and John Wilcox
set the type. Anita Hoffman and Lynn Borman helped me rewrite a
number of sections. There are others who participated in the
testing of many of the techniques demonstrated in the following
pages and for obvious reasons have to remain anonymous. There were
perhaps over 50 brothers and sisters who played particularly vital
roles in the grand conspiracy. Some of the many others are listed
on the following page. We hope to keep the information up to date.
If you have comments, law suits, suggestions or death threats,
please send them to: Dear Abbie P.0. Box 213, Cooper Station,
New York, NY 10003. Many of the tips might not work in your area,
some might be obsolete by the time you get to try them out, and
many addresses and phone numbers might be changed. If the reader
becomes a participating researcher then we will have achieved our
purpose.
Watch for a special edition called Steal This White House,
complete with blueprints of underground passages, methods of
jamming the communications network and a detailed map of the
celebrated room where according to Tricia Nixon, "Daddy loves to
listen to Mantovanni records, turn up the air conditioner full
blast, sit by the fireplace, gaze out the window to the Washington
Monument and meditate on those difficult problems that face all the
peoples of this world."
December, 1970
Cook County Jail
Chicago
"FREE SPEECH IS THE RIGHT TO SHOUT
'THEATER' IN A CROWDED FIRE."
- A YIPPIE PROVERB
AIDING AND ABETTING
Tim Leary, Tom, Geronimo, Pearl Paperhanger, Sonny, Pat
Solomon, Allan Katzman, Jacob Kohn, Nguyen Van Troi, Susan, Marty,
Andy, Ami, Marshall Bloom, Viva, Ben, Oanh, Robin Palmer, Mom and
Dad, Janie Fonda, Jerry, Denis, LNS, Bernadine Dohrn, a wall in
Harvard Square, Nancy, an anonymous stewardess, Shirley Wonderful,
Roz, Gumbo, Janis, Jimi, Dylan Liberation Front, Jeannie, God
Slick, John, David, Rusty, Barney, Richard, Denny, Ron Cobb, the
entire Viet Cong, Sam Shephard, Ma Bell, Eric, David, Joe, Kim
Agnew, the Partridge Family, Carol, Alan Ginsburg, Woman's Lib,
Julius Lester, Lenny Bruce, Hack, Billy, Paul, Willy, Colleen, Sid,
Johnny Appleseed, the Rat, Craig, Che, Willie Sutton, Wanda, EVO,
Jeff, Crazy Horse, Huey, Casey, Bobby, Alice, Mao, Rip, Ed, Bob,
Gay Liberation Front, WPAX, Frank Dudock, Manny, Mungo, Lottie,
Rosemary, Marshall, Rennie, Judy, Jennifer, Mr. Martin, Keith,
Madame Binh, Mike, Eleanor, Dr. Spock, Afeni, Candice, the
Tupamaros, Berkeley Tribe, Gilbert Sheldon, Stanley Kubrick, Sam,
Anna, Skip Williamson, UPS, Andy Stapp, the Yippies, Richard
Brautigan, Jano, Carlos Marighella, the Weathermen, Julius Jennings
Hoffman, Quentin, the inmates of TIER A-l Cook County Jail,
Houdini, 37, Rosa Luxemberg, the Kent 25, the Chicago 15, the New
York 21, the Motor City 3, the Indianapolis 500, Jack, Joan,
Malcolm X, Mayakovsky, Dotson, R. Crumb, Daniel Clyne, Justin, The
FBI Top 10 (now 16), Unis, Dana, Jim Morrison, Brian, John, Gus,
Ruth, Nancy Unger, Pun, Jomo, Peter, Mark Rudd, Billy Kunstler,
Genie, Ken, the Law Commune, Paula, Robby, Terry, Dianna, Angela,
Ted, Phil, Jefferson Airplane, Len, Tricky Prickers, the Berrigans,
Stu, Rayanne, J.B., Jonathan Jackson, the Armstrong Brothers,
Homer, Sharon, Fred Hampton, Jean Jacques Lebel, A. H. Maslow,
Hanoi Rose, Sylvia, Fellini, Amaru, Ann Fettamen, Artaud, Bert,
Merrill, Lynne, and last but not least to Spiro what's his name who
provided the incentive.
SURVIVE!
FREE FOOD
RESTAURANTS
In a country such as Amerika, there is bound to be a
hell-of-a-lot food lying around just waiting to be ripped off. If
you want to live high off the hog without having to do the dishes,
restaurants are easy pickings. In general, many of these targets
are easier marks if you are wearing the correct uniform. You should
always have one suit or fashionable dress outfit hanging in the
closet for the proper heists. Specialized uniforms, such as nun and
priest garb, can be most helpful. Check out your local uniform
store for a wide range of clothes that will get you in, and
especially out, of all kinds of stores. Every movement organization
should have a prop and costume department.
In every major city there are usually bars that cater to the
New Generation type riff-raff, trying to hustle their way up the
escalator of Big Business. Many of these bars have a buffet or
hors-d'oeuvres served free as a come-on to drink more mindless
booze. Take a half-empty glass from a table and use it as a prop to
ward off the anxious waitress. Walk around sampling the free food
until you've had enough. Often, there are five or six such bars in
close proximity, so moving around can produce a delightful "street
smorgasbord." Dinner usually begins at 5:00 PM.
If you are really hungry, you can go into a self-service
cafeteria and finish the meal of someone who left a lot on the
plate. Self-service restaurants are usually good places to cop
things like mustard, ketchup, salt, sugar, toilet paper, silverware
and cups for home use. Bring an empty school bag and load up after
you've cased the joint. Also, if you can stomach the food, you can
use slugs at the automat. Finishing leftovers can be worked in even
the fanciest of restaurants. When you are seated at a place where
the dishes still remain, chow-down real quick. Then after the
waitress hands you the menu, say you have to meet someone outside
first, and leave.
There are still some places where you can get all you can eat
for a fixed price. The best of these places are in Las Vegas. Sew a
plastic bag onto your tee-shirt or belt and wear a loose-fitting
jacket or coat to cover any noticeable bulge. Fried chicken is the
best and the easiest to pocket, or should we say bag. Another trick
is to pour your second free cup of hot coffee into the plastic bag
sewed inside your pocket and take it with you.
At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just
picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken,
and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting
turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food
heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit:
from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant.
Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes
in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to
confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment
house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that
are still in his truck.
In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and
halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a
piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate.
Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so
insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the
napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you
into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible
inconvenience.
In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving,
there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized.
After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the
restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of
the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills.
Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be
worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other
at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee.
Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your
check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After
he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the
large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining
that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your
coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another
place.
In all these methods, you should leave a good tip for the
waiter or waitress, especially with the roach-in-the-plate gambit.
You should try to avoid getting the employees in trouble or
screwing them out of a tip.
One fantastic method of not only getting free food but getting
the best available is the following technique that can be used in
metropolitan areas. Look in a large magazine shop for gourmet
digests and tourist manuals. Swipe one or two and copy down a good
name from the masthead inside the cover. Making up a name can also
work. Next invest $5.00 to print business cards with the name of
the magazine and the new "associate editor." Call or simply drop
into a fancy restaurant, show a copy of the magazine and present
the manager with your card. They will insist that the meal be on
the house.
Great places to get fantastic meals are weddings,
bar-mitzvahs, testimonials and the like. The newspaper society
sections have lists of weddings and locations. If your city has a
large Jewish population, subscribe to the newspaper that services
the Jewish community. There are extensive lists in these papers of
family occasions where tons of good food is served. Show up at the
back of the synagogue a few hours after the affair has begun with a
story of how you'd like to bring some leftovers of "good Jewish
food" back to your fraternity or sorority. If you want to get the
food served to you out front, you naturally have to disguise
yourself to look straight. Remarks such as, "I'm Marvin's cousin,"
or learning the bride's name, "Gee, Dorothy looks marvelous" are
great. Lines like "Betty doesn't look pregnant" are frowned upon. A
man and woman team can work this free-load much better than a
single person as they can chatter back and forth while stuffing
themselves.
If you're really into a classy free meal, and you are in a
city with a large harbor, check out the passenger ship section in
the back pages of the newspaper. There you find the schedule of
departures for ocean cruises. Most trips (these kind, anyway) begin
with a fantastic bon voyage party on board ship. Just walk on a few
hours before departure time and start swinging. Champagne, caviar,
lobster, shrimp and more, all as free as the open seas. If you get
really bombed and miss getting off, you can also wiggle a ride
across the ocean. You get sent back as soon as you hit the other
side, but it's a free ocean cruise. You should have a pretty good
story ready to go, or you might end up rowing in the galley.
Another possibility for getting a free meal is to go down to
the docks and get friendly with a sailor. He can often invite you
for dinner on board ship. Foreign sailors are more than glad to
meet friends and you can get great foreign dinners this way.
FOOD PROGRAMS
In Amerika, there is a national food stamp program that
unfortunately is controlled by the states. Many states, for racist
reasons, do not want to make it too available or to publicize the
fact that it even exists. It is a much better deal than the food
program connected with welfare, because you can use the stamps to
buy any kind of food. The only items excluded are tobacco products
and alcoholic beverages. In general, you can qualify if you earn
less than $165 per month; the less you earn, the more stamps you
can receive. There is minimal hassle involved once you get by the
first hurdle. Show up at your local food stamp office, which can be
found by calling the Welfare Department in our city. Make an
appointment to see a representative for your area. They will tell
you to bring all sorts of receipts, but the only thing you need are
a few rent stubs for the most recent months. An array of various
receipt books is a nice supplement to one's prop room. If the
receipts are for a high rent, tell them you rent a room from a
group of people and eat separately. They really only want to prove
that you have cooking facilities. Once you get the stamps, you can
pick them up regularly. Some states even mail them to your pad. You
can get up to a hundred dollars worth of free purchases a month per
person in the most liberal states.
Large amounts of highly nutritional food can be gotten for as
little as three cents per meal from a non-profit organization
called Multi-Purpose Food for Millions Foundation, Inc., 1800
Olympic Ave., Santa Monica, California. Write and they will send
you details.
SUPERMARKETS
Talking about food in Amerika means talking about
supermarkets-mammoth neon lighted streets of food packaged to
hoodwink the consumers. Many a Yippie can be found in the aisles,
stuffing his pockets with assorted delicacies. We have been
shoplifting from supermarkets on a regular basis without raising
the slightest suspicion, ever since they began.
We are not alone, and the fact that so much stealing goes on
and the supermarkets still bring in huge profits shows exactly how
much overcharging has occurred in the first place. Supermarkets,
like other businesses, refer to shoplifting as "inventory
shrinkage." It's as if we thieves were helping Big Business reduce
weight. So let's view our efforts as methods designed to trim the
economy and push forward with a positive attitude.
Women should never go shopping without a large handbag. In
those crowded aisles, especially the ones with piles of cases, all
sorts of goodies can be transferred from shopping cart to handbag.
A drop bag can be sewn inside a trench coat, for more efficient
thievery. Don't worry about the mirrors; attendants never look at
them. Become a discriminating shopper and don't stuff any of the
cheap shit in your pockets.
Small bottles and jars often have the same size cap as the
larger expensive sizes. If they have the price stamped on the cap,
switch caps, getting the larger size for the cheaper price. You can
empty a pound box of margarine and fill it with sticks of butter.
Small narrow items can be hidden in the middle of rolls of toilet
paper. Larger supermarkets sell records. You can sneak two good
LP's into one of those large frozen pizza boxes. In the produce
department, there are bags for fruit and vegetables. Slip a few
steaks or some lamb chops into the bottom of a large brown bag and
pile some potatoes on top. Have a little man in the white coat
weigh the bag, staple it and mark the price. With a black crayon
you can mark your own prices, or bring your own adhesive price
tags.
It's best to work shoplifting in the supermarket with a
partner who can act as look-out and shield you from the eyes of
nosy employees, shoppers and other crooks trying to pick up some
pointers. Work out a prearranged set of signals with your partner.
Diversions, like knocking over displays, getting into fist fights
with the manager, breaking plate glass windows and such are
effective and even if you don't get anything they're fun. Haven't
you always wanted to knock over those carefully constructed
nine-foot pyramids of garbage?
You can walk into a supermarket, get a few items from the
shelves, and walk around eating food in the aisles. Pick up some
cherries and eat them. Have a spoon in your pocket and open some
yogurt. Open a pickle or olive jar. Get some sliced meat or cheese
from the delicatessen counter and eat it up, making sure to ditch
the wrapper. The cart full of items, used as a decoy, can just be
left in an aisle before you leave the store.
Case the joint before pulling a big rip-off. Know the least
crowded hours, learn the best aisles to be busy in, and check out
the store's security system. Once you get into shoplifting in
supermarkets, you'll really dig it. You'll be surprised to learn
that the food tastes better.
Large scale thievery can best be carried out with the help of
an employee. Two ways we know of work best. A woman can get a job
as a cashier and ring up a small bill as her brothers and sisters
bring home tons of stuff.
The method for men involves getting a job loading and
unloading trucks in the receiving department. Some accomplices
dressed right can just pull in and, with your help, load up on a
few cases. Infiltrating an employee into a store is probably the
best way to steal. Cashiers, sales clerks, shippers, and the like
are readily available jobs with such high turnover and low pay that
little checking on your background goes on. Also, you can learn
what you have to do in a few days. The rest of the week, you can
work out ways to clean out the store. After a month or so of action
you might want to move on to another store before things get heavy.
We know one woman working as a cashier who swiped over $500 worth
of food a week. She had to leave after a month because her boss
thought she was such an efficient cashier that he insisted on
promoting her to a job that didn't have as many fringe benefits for
her and her friends.
Large chain stores like Safeway throw away day-old vegetables,
the outer leaves of lettuce, celery and the like. This stuff is
usually found in crates outside the back of the building. Tell them
you're working with animals at the college labs, or that you raise
guinea pigs. They might even get into saving them for you, but if
they don't just show up before the garbage is collected, (generally
early in the morning), and they'll let you cart away what you want.
Dented cans and fruit can often be gotten free, but certainly
at a reduced rate. They are still as good as the undamaged ones. So
be sure to dent all your cans before you go to the cashier.
Look up catering services and businesses that service
factories and office buildings with ready-made sandwiches. Showing
up at these places at the right times (catering services on late
Sunday night and sandwich dealers at 5:00 PM on weekdays) will
produce loads of good food. Legally, they have to dispose of the
food that's left over. They would be more than happy to give it to
you if you spin a good story.
Butchers can be hustled for meat scraps with meat scraps with
a "for my dog" story, and bakeries can be asked for day-old rolls
and bread.
WHOLESALE MARKETS
Large cities all have a wholesale fruit and vegetable area
where often the workers will give you tons of free food just for
the asking. Get a good story together. Get some church stationery
and type a letter introducing yourself "to whom it may concern," or
better still, wear some clerical garb. Orchards also make good
pickings just after the harvest has been completed.
Factories often will give you a case or two of free
merchandise for a "charitable" reason. Make some calls around town
and then go pick up the stuff at the end of the week. A great idea
is to get a good list of a few hundred large corporations around
the country by looking up their addresses at the library. Poor's
Register of Companies, Directors and Executives has the most
complete list. Send them all letters complaining about how the last
box of cereal was only half full, or you found a dead fly in the
can of peaches. They often will send you an ample supply of items
just to keep you from complaining to your friends or worse, taking
them to court. Often you can get stuff sent to you by just telling
them how good their product is compared to the trash you see
nowadays. You know the type of letter - "Rice Krispies have had a
fantastic effect on my sexual prowess," or "Your frozen asparagus
has given a whole new meaning to my life." In general though, the
nasties get the best results.
Slaughterhouses usually have meat they will give away. They
are anxious to give to church children's programs and things like
that. In most states, there is a law that if the slab of meat
touches the ground, they have to throw it away. Drop around meat
houses late in the day and trip a few trucks.
Fishermen always have hundreds of pounds of fish that have to
be thrown out. You can have as much as you can cart away, generally
just for the asking. Boats come in late in the afternoon and
they'll give you some of the catch, or you can go to the markets
early in the morning when the fishing is best.
These methods of getting food in large quantities can only be
appreciated by those who have tried it. You will be totally baffled
by the unbelievable quantities of food that will be laid on you and
with the ease of panhandling.
Investing in a freezer will allow you to bi-weekly or even
monthly trips to the wholesale markets and you'll get the freshest
foods to boot. Nothing can beat getting it wholesale for free. Or
is it free for wholesale? In any event, "bon appetit."
FOOD CONSPIRACIES
Forming a food cooperative is one of the best ways to promote
solidarity and get every kind of food you need to survive real
cheap. It also provides a ready-made bridge for developing
alliances with blacks, Puerto Ricans, chicanos and other groups
fighting our common oppressor on a community level.
Call a meeting of about 20 communes, collectives or community
organizations. Set up the ground rules. There should be a hard-core
of really good hustlers that serve as the shopping or hunting party
and another group of people who have their heads together enough to
keep records and run the central distribution center. Two or three
in each group should do it. They can get their food free for the
effort. Another method is to rotate the activity among all members
of the conspiracy. The method you choose depends upon your politics
and whether you favor a division of labor or using the food
conspiracy as a training for collective living. Probably a blend of
the two is best, but you'll have to hassle that out for yourself.
The next thing to agree upon is how the operation and all the shit
you get will be paid for. This is dependent on a number of
variables, so we'll map out one scheme and you can modify it to
suit your particular situation. Each member of every commune could
be assessed a fee for joining. You want to get together about
$2,000, so at 200 members, this is ten bucks a piece. After the
joining fee, each person or group has to pay only for the low
budget food they order, but some loot is needed to get things
rolling. The money goes to getting a store front or garage, a cheap
truck, some scales, freezers, bags, shelving, chopping blocks,
slicer and whatever else you need. You can get great deals by
looking in the classified ads of the local overground newspaper and
checking for restaurants or markets going out of business. Remember
the idea of a conspiracy is to get tons of stuff at real low prices
or free into a store front, and then break it down into smaller
units for each group and eventually each member. The freezers allow
you to store perishables for a longer time.
The hunting party should be well acquainted with how to rip
off shit totally free and where all the best deals are to be found.
They should know what food is seasonal and about nutritional diets.
There is a lot to learn, such as where to get raw grains in 100
pounds lots and how to cut up a side of beef. A good idea is to get
a diet freak to give weekly talks in the store front. There can
also be cooking lessons taught, especially to men, so women can get
out of the kitchen.
Organizing a community around a basic issue of survival, such
as food, makes a lot of nitty gritty sense. After your conspiracy
gets off the ground and looks permanent, you should seek to expand
it to include more members and an emergency food fund should be set
up in case something happens in the community. There should also be
a fund whereby the conspiracy can sponsor free community dinners
tied into celebrations. Get it together and join the fight for a
world-wide food conspiracy. Seize the steak!
CHEAP CHOW
There are hundreds of good paperback cook books with
nutritional cheap recipes available in any bookstore. Cooking is a
vastly overrated skill. The following are a few all-purpose dishes
that are easy to make, nutritional and cheap as mud pies. You can
add or subtract many of the ingredients for variety.
Hog Farm Granola Breakfast (Road Hog Crispies)
Ѕ c millet 2 c raw oats
Ѕ c cracked wheat 1 c rye flakes
Ѕ c buckwheat groats 1 c wheat flakes
Ѕ c wheat germ 1 c dried fruits and/or nuts
Ѕ c sunflower seeds 3 tbs soy oil
ј c sesame seeds 1 c honey
2 tbs cornmeal
Boil the millet in a double boiler for 1/2 hour. Mix in a large
bowl all the ingredients including the millet. The soy oil and
honey should be heated in a saucepan over a low flame until bubbles
form. Spread the cereal in a baking pan and cover with the honey
syrup. Toast in oven until brown. Stir once or twice so that all
the cereal will be toasted. Serve plain or with milk. Refrigerate
portion not used in a covered container. Enough for ten to twenty
people. Make lots and store for later meals. All these ingredients
can be purchased at any health store in a variety of quantities.
You can also get natural sugar if you need a sweetener. If bought
and made in quantity, this fantastically healthy breakfast food
will be cheaper than the brand name cellophane that passes for
cereal.
Whole Earth Bread
1 c oats, corn meal, or wheat germ 2 tsp salt
1Ѕ c water (warm) 2 egg yolks
ј c sugar (raw is best) 4 c flour
1 pkg active dry yeast _ c corn oil
1 c dry milk or butter
Stir lightly in a large bowl the oats, cornmeal or wheat germ
(depending on the flavor bread you desire), the water and sugar.
Sprinkle in the yeast and wait 10 minutes for the yeast to do its
thing. Add salt, egg yolks, corn oil and dry milk. Mix with a fork.
Blend in the flour. The dough should be dry and a little lumpy.
Cover with a towel and leave in a warm place for a half hour. Now
mash, punch, blend and kick the dough and return it covered to its
warm place. The dough will double in size. When this happens,
separate the dough into two even masses and mash each one into a
greased bread (loaf) pan. Cover the pans and let sit until the
dough rises to the top of the pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes in a 350
degree oven that has not been pre-heated. A shallow tray of water
in the bottom of the oven will keep the bread nice and moist. When
you remove the pans from the oven, turn out the bread into a rack
and let it cool off. Once you get the hang of it, you'll never
touch ready-made bread, and it's a gas seeing yeast work.
Street Salad
Salad can be made by chopping up almost any variety of
vegetables, nuts and fruits including the stuff you panhandled at
the back of supermarkets; dandelions, shav, and other wild
vegetables; and goods you ripped off inside stores or from large
farms. A neat fresh dressing consists of one part of oil, two parts
wine vinegar, finely chopped garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Mix up
the ingredients in a bottle and add to the salad as you serve it.
Russian dressing is simply mayonnaise and ketchup mixed.
Yippie Yogurt
Yogurt is one of the most nutritional foods in the world. The
stuff you buy in stores has preservatives added to it reducing its
health properties and increasing the cost. Yogurt is a bacteria
that spreads throughout a suitable culture at the correct
temperature. Begin by going to a Turkish or Syrian restaurant and
buying some yogurt to go. Some restaurants boast of yogurt that
goes back over a hundred years. Put it in the refrigerator.
Now prepare the culture in which the yogurt will multiply. The
consistency you want will determine what you use. A milk culture
will produce thin yogurt, while sweet cream will make a thicker
batch. It's the butter fat content that determines the consistency
and also the number of calories. Half milk and half cream combines
the best of both worlds. Heat a quart of half and half on a low
flame until just before the boiling point and remove from the
stove. This knocks out other bacteria that will compete with the
yogurt. Now take a tablespoon of the yogurt you got from the
restaurant and place it in the bottom of a bowl (not metal). Now
add the warm liquid. Cover the bowl with a lid and wrap tightly
with a heavy towel. Place the bowl in a warm spot such as on top of
a radiator or in a sunny window. A turned-off oven with a tray of
boiling water placed in it will do well. Just let the bowl sit for
about 8 hours (overnight). The yogurt simply grows until the whole
bowl is yogurt. Yippie! It will keep in the refrigerator for about
two weeks before turning sour, but even then, the bacteria will
produce a fresh batch of top quality. Remember when eating it to
leave a little to start the next batch. For a neat treat add some
honey and cinnamon and mix into the yogurt before serving. Chopped
fruit and nuts are also good.
Rice and Cong Sauce
1 c brown rice vegetables
2 c water 2Ѕ tbs soy sauce
tsp salt
Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add the salt and rice.
Cover and reduce flame. Cooking time is about 40 minutes or until
rice has absorbed all the water. Meanwhile, in a well-greased
frying pan, saute a variety of chopped vegetables you enjoy. When
they become soft and brownish, add salt and 2 cups of water. Cover
with a lid and lower flame. Simmer for about 40 minutes, peeking to
stir every once in a while. Then add 2 1/2 tbs of soy sauce, stir
and cook another 10 minutes. The rice should be just cooling off
now, so add the sauce to the top of it and serve. Great for those
long guerrilla hikes. This literally makes up almost the entire
diet of the National Liberation Front fighter.
Weatherbeans
1 lb red kidney beans 2 tbs parsley (chopped)
2 quarts water Ѕ lb pork, smoked sausage
1 onion (chopped) or ham hock
1 tbs celery (chopped) 1 lg bay leaf
1 tsp garlic (minced) salt to season
Rinse the beans, then place in covered pot and add water and
salt. Cook over low flame. While cooking, chop up meat and brown in
a frying pan. Add onion, celery, garlic and parsley and continue
sauteing over low flame. Add the pieces of meat, vegetables and bay
leaf to the beans and cook covered for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. It may be
necessary to add more water if the beans get too dry. Fifteen
minutes before beans are done, mash about a half cup of the stuff
against the side of the pan to thicken the liquid. Pour the beans
and liquid over some steaming rice that you've made by following
the directions above. This should provide a cheap nutritional meal
for about 6 people.
Hedonist's Deluxe
2 lobsters 2 qts water
seaweed ј lb butter
Steal two lobsters, watching out for the claw thingies. Beg
some seaweed from any fish market. Cop the butter using the
switcheroo method described in the Supermarket section above. When
you get home, boil the water in a large covered pot and drop in the
seaweed and then the lobsters. Put the cover back on and cook for
about 20 minutes. Melt the butter in a sauce pan and dip the
lobster pieces in it as you eat. With a booster box, described
later you'll be able to rip off a bottle of vintage Pouilly-Fuisse
in a fancy liquor store. Really, rice is nice but...
FREE CLOTHING & FURNITURE
FREE CLOTHING
If shoplifting food seems easy, it's nothing compared to the
snatching of clothing. Shop only the better stores. Try thing on in
those neat secluded stalls. The less bulky items such as shirts,
vests, belts and socks can be tied around your waist or leg with
large rubber bands if needed. Just take a number of items in and
come out with a few less.
In some cities there are still free stores left over from the
flower power days. Churches often have give-away clothing programs.
You can impersonate a clergyman and call one of the large clothing
manufacturers in your area. They are usually willing to donate a
case or two of shirts, trousers or underwear to your church raffle
or drive to dress up skid row. Be sure to get your sizes. Tell them
"your boy" will pick up the blessed donation and you'll mention his
company in the evening prayers.
If you notice people moving from an apartment or house, ask
them if they'll be leaving behind clothing. They usually abandon
all sorts of items including food, furniture and books. Offer to
help them carry out stuff if you can keep what they won't be
taking.
Make the rounds of a fancy neighborhood with a truck and some
friends. Ring doorbells and tell the person who answers that you
are collecting wearable clothing for the "poor homeless victims of
the recent tidal wave in Quianto a small village in Saudi Arabia."
You get the pitch. Make it food and clothing, and say you're with a
group called Heartline for Decency. A phony letter from a church
might help here.
The Salvation Army does this, and you can pick up clothes from
them at very cheap prices. You can get a pair of snappy casual
shoes for 25 cents in many bowling alleys by walking out with them
on your feet. If you have to leave your shoes as a deposit, leave
the most beat-up pair you can find.
Notice if your friends have lost or gained weight. A big
change means a lot of clothes doing nothing but taking up closet
space. Show up at dormitories when college is over for the summer
or winter season. Go to the train or bus stations and tell them you
left your raincoat, gloves or umbrella when you came into town.
They'll take you to a room with thousands of unclaimed items. Pick
out what you like. While there, notice a neat suitcase or trunk and
memorize the markings. Later a friend can claim the item. There
will be loads of surprises in any suitcase. We have a close friend
who inherited ten kilos of grass this way.
Large laundry and dry cleaning chains usually have thousands
of items that have gone unclaimed. Manufacturers also have shirts,
dresses and suits for rockbottom prices because of a crooked seam
or other fuck-up. Stores have reduced rates on display models:
Mannequins are mostly all size 40 for men and 10 for women. Size
7 1/2 is the standard display size for men's shoes. If you are
these sizes, you can get top styles for less than half price.
SANDALS
The Vietnamese and people throughout the Third World make a
fantastically durable and comfortable pair of sandals out of rubber
tires. They cut out a section of the outer tire (trace around the
outside of the foot with a piece of chalk) which when trimmed forms
the sole. Next 6 slits re made in the sole so the rubber straps can
be criss-crossed and slid through the slits. The straps are made
out of inner tubing. No nails are needed. If you have wide feet,
use the new wide tread low profiles. For hard going, try radials.
For best satisfaction and quality, steal the tires off a pig car or
a government limousine.
Let's face it, if you really are into beating the clothing
problem, move to a warm climate and run around naked. Skin is
absolutely free, and will always be in style. Speaking of style,
the midi and the maxi have obvious advantages when it comes to
shoplifting and transporting weapons or bombs.
FREE FURNITURE
Apartment lobbies are good for all kinds of neat furniture. If
you want to get fancy about it, rent a truck (not one that says
U-HAUL-IT or other rental markings) and make the pick-up with
moving-man-type uniforms. When schools are on strike and students
hold seminars and debate into the night, Yippies can be found going
through the dorm lobbies and storage closets hauling off couches,
desks, printing supplies, typewriters, mimeos, etc. to store in
secret underground nests. A nervy group of Yippies in the Midwest
tried to swipe a giant IBM 360 computer while a school was in
turmoil. All power to those that bring a wheelbarrow to sit-ins.
Check into a high-class hotel or motel remembering to dress
like the wallpaper. Carry a large dummy suitcase with you and
register under a phony name. Make sure you and not the bellboy
carry this bag. Use others as a decoy. When you get inside the
room, grab everything you can stuff in the suitcase: radio, T.V.
sets (even if it has a special plug you can cut it with a knife and
replace the cord), blankets, toilet paper, glasses, towels, sheets,
lamps, (forget the imitation Winslow Homer on the wall) a Bible,
soap and toss rugs. Before you leave (odd hours are best) hang the
DO NOT DISTURB sign on your doorknob. This will give you an extra
few hours to beat it across the border or check into a new hotel.
Landlords renovating buildings throw out stoves, tables,
lamps, refrigerators and carpeting. In most cities, each area has a
day designated for discarding bulk objects. Call the Sanitation
Department and say you live in that part of town which would be
putting out the most expensive shit and find out the pick-up day.
Fantastic buys can be found cruising the streets late at night.
Check out the backs of large department stores for floor models,
window displays and slightly damaged furniture being discarded.
Construction sites are a good source for building materials to
construct furniture. (Not to mention explosives.) The large wooden
cable spools make great tables. Cinderblocks, bricks and boards can
quickly be turned into a sharp looking bookcase. Doors make tables.
Nail kegs convert into stools or chairs. You can also always find a
number of other supplies hanging around like wiring, pipes,
lighting fixtures and hard hats. And don't forget those blinking
signs and the red lanterns for your own light show. Those black
oil-fed burners are O.K. for cooking, although smoky, and highway
flares are swell for making fake dynamite bombs.
FREE TRANSPORTATION
HITCH-HIKING
Certainly one of the neatest ways of getting where you want to
go for nothing is to hitch. In the city it's a real snap. Just
position yourself at a busy intersection and ask the drivers for a
lift when they stop for the red light. If you're hitching on a road
where the traffic zooms by pretty fast, be sure to stand where the
car will have room to safely pull off the road. Traveling long
distances, even cross-country, can be easy if you have some sense
of what you are doing.
A lone hitch-hiker will do much better than two or more. A man
and woman will do very well together. Single women are certain to
get propositioned and possibly worse. Amerikan males have endless
sexual fantasies about picking up a poor lonesome damsel in
distress. Unless your karate and head are in top form, women should
avoid hitching alone. Telling men you have V.D. might help in
difficult situations.
New England and the entire West Coast are the best sections
for easy hitches. The South and Midwest can sometimes be a real
hassle. Easy Rider and all that. The best season to hitch is in the
summer. Daytime is much better than night. If you have to hitch at
night, get under some type of illumination where you'll be seen.
Hitch-hiking is legal in most states, but remember you always
can get a "say-so" bust. A "say-so" arrest is to police what
Catch-22 is to the Army. When you ask why you're under arrest, the
pig answers, "cause I say-so." If you stand on the shoulder of the
road, the pigs won't give you too bad a time. If you've got long
hair, cops will often stop to play games. You can wear a hat with
your hair tucked under to avoid hassles. However this might hurt
your ability to get rides, since many straights will pick up
hippies out of curiosity who would not pick up a straight scruffy
looking kid. Freak drivers usually only pick up other freaks.
Once in a while you hear stories of fines levied or even a few
arrests for hitching (Flagstaff, Arizona is notorious), but even in
the states where it is illegal, the law is rarely enforced. If
you're stopped by the pigs, play dumb and they'll just tell you to
move along. You can wait until they leave and then let your thumb
hang out again.
Hitchin on super highways is really far out. It's illegal but
you won't get hassled if you hitch at the entrances. On a fucked-up
exit, take your chances hitching right on the road, but keep a
sharp eye out for porkers. When you get a ride be discriminating.
Find out where the driver is headed. If you are at a good spot,
don't take a ride under a hundred miles that won't end up in a
location just as good. When the driver is headed to an
out-of-the-way place, ask him to let you off where you can get the
best rides. If he's going to a particularly small town, ask him to
drive you to the other side of thy town line. It's usually only a
mile or two. Small towns often enforce all sorts of "say-so"
ordinances. If you get stuck on the wrong side of town, it would be
wise to even hoof it through the place. Getting to a point on the
road where the cars are inter-city rather than local traffic is
always preferable.
When you hit the road you should have a good idea of how to
get where you are going. You can pick up a free map at any gas
station. Long distance routes, road conditions, weather and all
sorts of information can be gotten free by calling the American
Automobile Association in any city. Say that you are a member
driving to Phoenix, Arizona or wherever your destination is, and
find out what you want to know. Always carry a sign indicating
where you are going. If you get stranded on the road without one,
ask in a diner or gas station for a piece of cardboard and a magic
marker. Make the letters bold and fill them in so they can be seen
by drivers from a distance. If your destination is a small town,
the sign should indicate the state. For really long distances, EAST
or WEST is best. Unless, of course, you're going north or south. A
phony foreign flag sewed on your pack also helps.
Carrying dope is not advisable, and although searching you is
illegal, few pigs can read the Constitution. If you are carrying
when the patrol car pulls up, tell them you are Kanadian and
hitching through Amerika. Highway patrols are very uptight about
promoting incidents with foreigners. The foreign bit goes over
especially well with small-town types, and is also amazingly good
for avoiding hassles with greasers. If you can't hack this one,
tell them you are a reporter for a newspaper writing a feature
story on hitching around the country. This story has averted many a
bust.
Don't be shy when you hitch. Go into diners and gas stations
and ask people if they're heading East or to Texas. Sometimes gas
station attendants will help. When in the car be friendly as hell.
Offer to share the driving if you've got a license. If you're
broke, you can usually bum a meal or a few bucks, maybe even a free
night's lodging. Never be intimidated into giving money for a ride.
As for what to carry when hitching, the advice is to travel
light. The rule is to make up a pack of the absolute minimum, then
cut that in half. Hitching is an art form as is all survival.
Master it and you'll travel on a free trip forever.
FREIGHTING
There is a way to hitch long distances that has certain
advantages over letting your thumb hang out for hours on some
two-laner. Learn about riding the trains and you'll always have
that alternative. Hitchhiking at night can be impossible, but
hopping a is easier at night than by day. By hitchhiking days and
hopping freights and sleeping on them at night, you can cover
incredible distances rapidly and stay well rested. Every city and
most large towns have a freight yard. You can find it by following
the tracks or asking where the freight yard is located.
When you get to the yard, ask the workmen when the next train
leaving in your direction will be pulling out. Unlike the phony
Hollywood image, railroad men are nice to folks who drop by to grab
a ride. Most yards don't have a guard or a "bull" as they are
called. Even if they do, he is generally not around. If there is a
bull around, the most he's going to do is tell you it's private
property and ask you to leave. There are exceptions to this rule,
such as the notorious Lincoln, Nebraska, and Las Vegas, Nevada, but
by asking you can find out. Even if he asks you to leave or throws
you out, sneak back when your train is pulling out and jump aboard.
After you've located the right train for your trip, hunt for
an empty boxcar to ride. The men in the yards will generally point
one out if you ask. Pig-sties, flat cars and coal cars are
definitely third class due to exposure to the elements. Boxcars are
by far the best. They are clean and the roof over your head helps
in bad weather and cuts down the wind. Boxcars with a hydro-cushion
suspension system used for carrying fragile cargo make for the
smoothest ride. Unless you get one, you should be prepared for a
pretty bumpy and noisy voyage.
You should avoid cars with only one door open, because the pin
may break, locking you in. A car with both doors open gives you one
free chance. Pig-backs (trailers on flatcars) are generally
considered unsafe. Most trains make a number of short hops, so if
time is an important factor try to get on a "hot shot" express. A
hot shot travels faster and has priority over other trains in
crowded yards. You should favor a hot shot even if you have to wait
an extra hour or two or more to get one going your way.
If you're traveling at night, be sure to dress warmly. You can
freeze your ass off. Trains might not offer the most comfortable
ride, but they go through beautiful countryside that you'd never
see from the highway or airway. There are no billboards, road
signs, cops, Jack-in-the-Boxes, gas stations or other artifacts of
honky culture. You'll get dirty on the trains so wear old clothes.
Don't pass up this great way to travel cause some bullshit western
scared you out of it.
CARS
If you know how to drive and want to travel long distances,
the auto transportation agencies are a good deal. Look in the
Yellow Pages under Automobile Transportation and Trucking or
Driveway. Rules vary, but normally you must be over 21 and have a
valid license. Call up and tell them when and where you want to go
and they will let you know if they have a car available. They give
you the car and a tank of gas free. You pay the rest. Go to pick up
the car alone, then get some people to ride along and help with the
driving and expenses. You can make New York to San Francisco for
about eighty dollars in tolls and gas in four days without pushing.
Usually you have the car for longer and can make a whole thing out
of it. You must look straight when you go to the agency. This can
be simply be done by wetting down your hair and shoving it under a
cap.
Another good way to travel cheaply is to find somebody who has
a car and is going your way. Usually underground newspapers list
people who either want rides or riders. Another excellent place to
find information is your local campus. Every campus has a bulletin
board for rides. Head shops and other community-minded stores have
notices up on the wall.
Gas
If you have a car and need some gas late at night you can get
a quart and then some by emptying the hoses from the pumps into
your tank. There is always a fair amount of surplus gas left when
the pumps are shut off.
If your traveling in a car and don't have enough money for gas
and tolls, stop at the bus station and see if anybody wants a lift.
If you find someone, explain your money situation and make a deal
with him. Hitch-hikers also can be asked to chip in on the gas.
You can carry a piece of tubing in the trunk of your car and
when the gas indicator gets low, pull up to a nice looking Cadillac
on some dark street and syphon off some of his gas. Just park your
car so the gas tank is next to the Caddy's, or use a large can.
Stick the hose into his tank, suck up enough to get things flowing,
and stick the other end into your tank. Having a lower level of
liquid, you tank will draw gas until you and the Caddy are equal.
"To each according to his need, from each according to his
ability," wrote Marx. Bet you hadn't realized until now that the
law of gravity affects economics.
Another way is to park in a service station over their filler
hole. Lift off one lid (like a small manhole cover), run down
twenty feet of rubber tubing thru the hole you've cut in your
floorboard, then turn on the electric pump which you have installed
to feed into your gas tank. All they ever see is a parked car. This
technique is especially rewarding when you have a bus.
BUSES
If you'd rather leave the driving and the paying to them, try
swiping a ride on the bus. Here's a method that has worked well.
Get a rough idea of where the bus has stopped before it arrived at
your station. If you are not at the beginning or final stop on the
route, wait until the bus you want pulls in and then out of the
station. Make like the bus just pulled off without you while you
went to the bathroom. If there is a station master, complain like
crazy to him. Tell him you're going to sue the company if your
luggage gets stolen. He'll put you on the next bus for free. If
there is no station master, lay your sad tale on the next driver
that comes along. If you know when the last bus left, just tell the
driver you've been stranded there for eight hours and you left your
kid sleeping on the other bus. Tell him you called ahead to the
company and they said to grab the next bus and they would take care
of it.
The next method isn't totally free but close enough. It's
called the hopper-bopper. Find a bus that makes a few stops before
it gets to where you want to go. The more stops with people getting
in our out the better. Buy a ticket for the short hop and stay on
the bus until you end up at your destination. You must develop a
whole style in order to pull this off because the driver has to
forget you are connected with the ticket you gave him. Dress
unobtrusively or make sure the driver hasn't seen your face.
Pretend to be asleep when the short hop station is reached. If you
get questioned, just act upset about sleeping through the stop you
"really" want and ask if it's possible to get a ride back.
AIRLINES
Up and away, junior outlaws! If you really want to get where
you're going in a hurry, don't forget skyjacker's paradise. Don't
forget the airlines. They make an unbelievable amount of bread on
their inflated prices, ruin the land with incredible amounts of
polluting wastes and noise, and deliberately hold back aviation
advances that would reduce prices and time of flight. We know two
foolproof methods to fly free, but unfortunately we feel publishing
them would cause the airlines to change their policy. The following
methods have been talked about enough, so the time seems right to
make them known to a larger circle of friends.
A word should be said right off about stolen tickets.
Literally millions of dollars worth of airline tickets are stolen
each year. If you have good underworld contacts, you can get a
ticket to anywhere you want at one-fourth the regular price. If you
are charged more, you are getting a slight rooking. In any case,
you can get a ticket for any flight or date and just trade it in.
They are actually as good as cash, except that it takes 30 days to
get a refund, and by then they might have traced the stolen
tickets. If you can get a stolen ticket, exchange or use it as soon
as possible, and always fly under a phony name. A stolen ticket for
a trip around the world currently goes for one hundred and fifty
dollars in New York.
One successful scheme requires access to the mailbox of a
person listed in the local phone book. Let's use the name Ron Davis
as an example. A woman calls one of the airlines with a very
efficient sounding rap such as: "Hello, this is Mr. Davis'
secretary at Allied Chemical. He and his wife would like to fly to
Chicago on Friday. Could you mail two first-class tickets to his
home and bill us here at Allied?" Every major corporation probably
has a Ron Davis, and the airlines rarely bother checking anyway.
Order your tickets two days before you wish to travel, and pick
them up at the mailbox or address you had them sent to. If you are
uptight in the airport about the tickets, just go up to another
airline and have the tickets exchanged.
One gutsy way to hitch a free ride is to board the plane
without a ticket. This is how it works. Locate the flight you want
and rummage through a wastebasket until you find an envelope for
that particular airline. Shuffle by the counter men (which is
fairly easy if it's busy). When the boarding call is made, stand in
line and get on the plane. Flash the empty envelope at the
stewardess as you board the plane. Carry a number of packages as a
decoy, so the stewardess won t ask you to open the envelope. If she
does, which is rare, and sees you have no ticket, act surprised.
"Oh my gosh, it must have fallen out in the wash room," will do
fine. Run back down the ramp as if you're going to retrieve the
ticket. Disappear and try later on a different airline. Nine out of
ten revolutionaries say it's the only way to fly. This trick works
only on airlines that don't use the boarding pass system.
If you want to be covered completely, use the hopper-bopper
method described in the section on Buses, with this added security
precaution. Buy two tickets from different cashiers, or better
still, one from an agent in town. Both will be on the same flight.
Only one ticket will be under a phony name and for the short hop,
white the ticket under your real name will be for your actual
destination. At the boarding counter, present the short hop ticket.
You will be given an envelope with a white receipt in it. Actually,
the white receipt is the last leaf in your ticket. Once you are
securely seated and aloft, take out the ticket with your name and
final destination. Gently peel away everything but the white
receipt. Place the still valid ticket back in your pocket. Now
remove from the envelope and destroy the short hop receipt. In its
place, put the receipt for the ticket you have in your pocket.
When you land at the short hop airport, stay on the plane.
Usually the stewardesses just ask you if you are remaining on the
flight. If you have to, you can actually show her your authentic
receipt. When you get to your destination, you merely put the
receipt back on the bonafide ticket that you still have in your
pocket. It isn't necessary that they be glued together. Present the
ticket for a refund or exchange it for another ticket. This method
works well even in foreign countries. You can actually fly around
the world for $88.00 using the hopper-bopper method and switching
receipts.
If you can't hack these shucks you should at least get a Youth
Card and travel for half fare. If you are over twenty-two but still
in your twenties, you can easily pass. Get a card from a friend who
has similar color hair and eyes. Your friend can easily get one
from another airline. You can master your friend's signature and
get a supporting piece of identification from him to back up your
youth card if you find it necessary. If you have a friend who works
for an airline or travel agency, just get a card under your own
name and an age below the limit. Your friend can validate the card.
Flying youth fare is on stand-by, so it's always a good idea to
call ahead and book a number of reservations under fictitious names
on the flight you'll be taking. This will fuck up the booking of
regular passengers and insure you a seat.
By the way, if you fly cross-country a number of times, swipe
one of the plug-in head sets. Always remember to pack it in your
traveling bag. This way you'll save a two dollar fee charged for
the in-flight movie. The headsets are interchangeable on all
airlines.
One way to fly free is to actually hitch a ride. Look for the
private plane area located at every airport, usually in some remote
part of the field. You can find it by noticing where the small
planes without airline markings take off and land. Go over to the
runways and ask around. Often the mechanics will let you know when
someone is leaving for your destination and point out a pilot. Tell
him you lost your ticket and have to get back to school. Single
pilots often like to have a passenger along and it's a real gas
flying in a small plane.
Some foreign countries have special arrangements for free air
travel to visiting writers, artists or reporters. Brazil and
Argentina are two we know of for sure. Call or write the embassy of
the country you wish to visit in Washington or their mission to the
United Nations in New York. Writing works best, especially if you
can cop some stationery from a newspaper or publishing house. Tell
them you will be writing a feature story for some magazine on the
tourist spots or handcrafts of the country. The embassy will
arrange for you to travel gratis aboard one of their air force
planes. The planes leave only from Washington and New York at
unscheduled times. Once you have the O.K. letter from the embassy
you're all set. This is definitely worth checking out if you want
to vacation in a foreign country with all sorts of free bonuses
thrown in.
A one-way ride is easy if you want to get into skyjacking.
Keep the piece or knife in your shoe to avoid possible detection
with the "metal scanner," a long black tube that acts like a geiger
counter. Or use a plastic knife or bomb. It's also advisable to
wrap your dope in a non-metallic material. Avoid tinfoil.
The crews have instructions to take you wherever you want to
go even if they have to refuel, but watch out for air marshals. To
avoid air marshals and searches pick an airline which flies short
domestic hops. You should plan to end up in a country hostile to
the United States or you'll end up right back where you came from
in some sturdy handcuffs. One dude wanted to travel in style so he
demanded $100,000 as a going-away gift. The airlines quickly paid
off. The guy then got greedy and demanded a hundred million
dollars. When he returned to pick up the extra pocket money, he got
nabbed. None the less, skyjacking appears to be the cheapest,
fastest way to get away from it all.
IN CITY TRAVEL
Any of the public means of transportation can be ripped off
easily. Get on the bus with a large bill and present it after the
bus has left the stop. If the bus is crowded, slip in the back door
when it opens to dispatch passengers.
Two people can easily get through the turnstile in a subway on
one token by doubling up. In some subway systems cards are given
out to high school kids or senior citizens or employees of the
city. The next time you are in a subway station notice people
flashing cards to the man in the booth and entering through the
"exit" door. Notice the color of the card used by people in your
age group. Get a piece of colored paper in a stationery store or
find some card of the same color you need. Put this "card" in a
plastic window of your wallet and flash it in the same way those
with a bona fide pass do.
Before entering a turnstile, always test the swing bar. If
someone during the day put in an extra token, it's still in the
machine waiting for you to enter free.
For every token and coin deposited in an automatic turnstile,
there is a foreign coin the same size for much less that will work
in the machine. (See the Yippie Currency Exchange, following, for
more info.) Buy a cheap bag of assorted foreign coins from a dealer
that you can locate in the Yellow Pages. Size up the coins with a
token from your subway system. You can get any of these coins in
bulk from a large dealer. Generally they are about l,000 for five
dollars. Tell him you make jewelry out of them if he gets
suspicious. Giving what almost amounts to free subway rides away is
a communal act of love. The best outlaws in the world rip-off shit
for a lot more people than just themselves. Robin Hood lives!
FREE LAND
Despite what you may have heard, there is still some rural
land left in Amerika. The only really free land is available in
Alaska and remote barren areas of the western states. The latest
information in this area is found in a periodic publication called
Our Public Lands, available from the Superintendent of Documents,
Washington, D.C. 20402. It costs $1.00 for a subscription. Also
contact the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land
Management, Washington, D.C. 20240 and ask for information on
"homesteading." By the time this book is out though, the Secretary
of the Interior's friends in the oil companies might have stolen
all the available free land. Being an oil company is about the
easiest way to steal millions. Never call it stealing though,
always refer to it as "research and development."
Continental United States has no good free land that we know
of, but there are some very low prices in areas suited for country
communities. Write to School of Living, Freeland, Maryland, for
their newspaper Green Revolution with the latest information in
this area. Canada has free land available, and the Canadian
government will send you a free list if you write to the Department
of Land and Forests, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Also
write to the Geographical Branch, Department of Mines and Technical
Surveys, Parliament Building, Quebec City, Canada. Correspondence
can be carried out with the Communications Group, 2630 Point Grey
Road, Vancouver 8, British Columbia, Canada, for advice on
establishing a community in Canada. The islands off the coast of
British Columbia, its western region and the area along the
Kootenai River are among the best locations.
If you just want to rip off some land, there are two ways to
do it; openly or secretly. If you are going to do it out front,
look around for a piece of land that's in dispute, which has its
sovereignty in question-islands and deltas between the U.S. and
Canada, or between the U.S. and Mexico, or any number of other
borderline lands. You might even consider one of the abandoned
oil-drilling platforms, which are fair game under high seas salvage
laws. The possibilities are endless.
If you intend to do it quietly, you will want a completely
different type of location. Find a rugged area with lots of elbow
room and plenty of places to hide, like the Rocky Mountains,
Florida swamps, Death Valley, or New York City. Put together a
tight band of guerrillas and do your thing. With luck you will last
forever.
If you just want to camp out or try some hermit living in the
plushest surroundings available, you'll do best to head for one of
the national parks. Since the parks are federal property, there's
very little the local fuzz can do about you, and the forest rangers
are generally the live-and-let-live types, although there have been
increasing reports of long-hairs being vamped on by Smokey the Pig,
as in Yosemite. You can get a complete list from National Park
Service, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C. 20240. The
following is a list of some good ones:
- ALABAMA-Russell Cave National Monument, Bridgeport 35740
- ARIZONA-Grand Canyon National Park, Box 129, Grand Canyon 86023
- ARKANSAS-Hot Springs National Park, Box 1219, Hot Springs 71901
- CALIFORNIA-Yosemite National Park, Box 577, Yosemite 95389*
- COLORADO-Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, 80517
- FLORIDA-Everglades National Park, Box 279, Homestead 33030
- IDAHO-Boise National Forest, 413 Idaho Street, Boise 83702
- ILLINOIS-Shawnee National Forest,Harrisburg National Bank Building, Harrisburg 62946
- KENTUCKY-Mammoth Cave National Park, Mammoth Cave 42259
- LOUISIANA-Kisatchie National Forest, 2500 Shreveport Hwy., Pineville 71360
- MAINE-Acadia National Park, Box 338, Bar Harbor 04609
- MARYLAND-Assateague Island National Seashore, Rte. 2 Box 111, Berlin 21811
- MASSACHUSETTS-Cape Cod National Seashore, South Wellfleet 02663
- MICHIGAN-Hiawatha National Forest, Post Office Building, Escanaba 49829
- MISSOURI-Mark Twain National Forest, 304 Pershing St., Springfield 65806
- NEVADA-Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 601 Nevada Hwy, Boulder City 89005
- NEW MEXICO-Aztec Ruins National Monument, Route 1, Box 101, Aztec 87410
- NEW YORK-Fire Island National Seashore c/o New York City National Park Service Group, 28 E. 20th St., New York, NY 10003
- NORTH CAROLINA-Wright Brothers National Memorial Box 457, Manteo 27954
- OKLAHOMA-Platt National Park, Box 201, Sulphur 73086
- OREGON-Crater Lake National Park, Box 7, Crater Lake 97604
- UTAH-Bryce Canyon National Park, Bryce Canyon 84717
- WYOMING-Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone Park 83020
*This summer Yosemite forest rangers tried to evict a group of
Yippies from their encampment. The Yippies rioted in the valley,
spooked the tourists, burned cars and fought for their right to
stay.
Earth People's Park is an endeavor to purchase land and allow
people to come and live for free. They function as a clearing house
for people that want to donate land and those who wish to settle.
They own 600 acres in northern Vermont and are trying to raise
money to buy more. Write to Earth People's Park, P.0. Box 313,
1230 Grant Ave., San Francisco, California 94133.
People's Parks are sprouting up all over as people reclaim the
land being ripped off by universities, factories, and corrupt city
planning agencies. The model is the People's Park struggle in
Berkeley during the spring of 1969. The people fought to defend a
barren parking lot they had turned into a community center with
grass, swings, free-form sculpture and gardens. The University of
California, with the aid of Ronald Reagan and the Berkeley storm
troopers, fought with guns, clubs and tear gas to regain the land
from the outlaw people. The pigs killed James Rector and won an
empty victory. For now the park is fenced off, tarred over and
converted into unused basketball courts and unused parking lots.
Not one person has violated the oath never to set foot on the site.
It stands, cold and empty, two blocks north of crowded Telegraph
Avenue. If the revolution does not survive, all the land will
perish under the steam roller of imperialism. People's Death Valley
will happen in our lifetime.
FREE HOUSING
If you are in a city without a place to stay, ask the first
group of hip-looking folks where you can crash. You might try the
office of the local underground newspaper. In any hip community,
the underground newspaper is generally the source of the best
up-to-the-moment information. But remember that they are very busy,
and don't impose on them. Many churches now have runaway houses. If
you are under sixteen and can hack some bullshit jive about
"adjusting," "opening a dialogue," and "things aren't that bad,"
then these are the best deals for free room and board. Check out
the ground rules first, i.e., length of stay allowed, if they
inform your parents or police, facilities and services available.
Almost always they can be accepted at their word, which is
something very sacred to missionaries. If they became known as
double-crossers, the programs would be finished.
Some hip communities have crash pads set up, but these rarely
last more than a few months. To give out the addresses we have
would be quite impractical. We have never run across a crash pad
that lasted more than a month or so. If in a cit, try hustling a
room at a college dorm. This is especially good in summer or on
week-ends. If you have a sleeping bag, the parks are always good,
as is "tar jungle" or sleeping on the roofs of tall buildings.
Local folks will give you some good advice on what to watch out for
and information on vagrancy laws which might help you avoid getting
busted.
For more permanent needs, squatting is not only free, it's a
revolutionary act. If you stay quiet you can stay indefinitely. If
you have community support you may last forever.
COMMUNES
In the city or in the country, communes can be a cheap and
enjoyable way of living. Although urban and rural communes face
different physical environments, they share common group problems.
The most important element in communal living is the people, for
the commune will only make it if everyone is fairly compatible. A
nucleus of 4 to 7 people is best and it is necessary that no member
feels extremely hostile to any other member when the commune gets
started. The idea that things will work out later is pig swill.
More communes have busted up over incompatibility than any other
single factor. People of similar interests and political
philosophies should live together. One speed freak can wreck almost
any group. There are just too many day-to-day hassles involved
living in a commune to not start off compatible in as many ways as
possible. The ideal arrangement is for the people to have known
each other before they move in together.
Once you have made the opening moves, evening meetings will
occasionally be necessary to divide up the responsibilities and
work out the unique problems of a communal family. Basically, there
are two areas that have to be pretty well agreed upon if the
commune is to survive. People's attitudes toward Politics, Sex,
Drugs and Decision-making have to be in fairly close agreement.
Then the even most important decisions about raising the rent,
cleaning, cooking and maintenance will have to be made. Ground
rules for inviting non-members should be worked out before the
first time it happens, as this is a common cause for friction.
Another increasingly important issue involves defense. Communes
have continually been targets of attack by the more Neanderthal
elements of the surrounding community. In Minneapolis for example,
"headhunts" as they are called are commonplace. You should have
full knowledge of the local gun laws and a collective defense
should be worked out.
Physical attacks are just one way of making war on communes
and, hence, our Free Nation. Laws, cops, and courts are there to
protect the power and the property of those that already got the
shit. Police harassment, strict enforcement of health codes and
fire regulations and the specially designed anti-commune laws being
passed by town elders, should all be known and understood by the
members of a commune before they even buy or rent property. On all
these matters, you should seek out experienced members of communes
already established in the vicinity you wish to settle. Work out
mutual defense arrangements with nearby families-both legal and
extralegal. Remember, not only do you have the right to
self-defense, but it is your duty to our new Nation to erase the
"Easy-Rider-take-any-shit" image which invites attack. Let them
know you are willing to defend your way of living and your chances
of survival will increase.
URBAN LIVING
If you're headed for city living, the first thing you'll have
to do is locate an apartment or loft, an increasingly difficult
task. At certain times of the year, notably June and September, the
competition is fierce because of students leaving or entering
school. If you can avoid these two months, you'll have a better
selection. A knowledge of your plans in advance can aid a great
deal in finding an apartment, for the area can be scouted before
you move in. Often, if you know of people leaving a desirable
apartment, you can make arrangements with the landlord, and a
deposit will hold the place. If you let them know you're willing to
buy their furniture, people will be more willing to give you
information about when they plan to move. Watch out for getting
screwed on exorbitant furniture swindles by the previous tenants
and excessive demands on the part of the landlords. In most cities,
the landlord is not legally allowed to ask for more than one
month's rent as security. Often the monthly rent itself is
regulated by a city agency. A little checking on the local laws and
a visit to the housing agency might prove well worth it.
Don't go to a rental agency unless you are willing to pay an
extra month's rent as a fee. Wanted ads in newspapers and bulletin
boards located in community centers and supermarkets have some
leads. Large universities have a service for finding good
apartments for administrators, faculty and students, in that order.
Call the university, say you have just been appointed to
such-and-such position and you need housing in the area. They will
want to know all your requirements and rent limitations, but often
they have very good deals available, especially if you've appointed
yourself to a high enough position.
Aside from these, the best way is to scout a desired area and
inquire about future apartments. Often landlords or rental agencies
have control over a number of buildings in a given area. You can
generally find a nameplate inside the hall of the building. Calling
them directly will let you know of any apartments available.
When you get an apartment, furnishing will be the next step.
You can double your sleeping space by building bunk beds. Nail two
by fours securely from ceiling to floor, about three feet from the
walls, where the beds are desired. Then build a frame out of two by
fours at a convenient height. Make sure you use nails or screws
strong enough to support the weight of people sleeping or balling.
Nail a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood on the frame. Mattresses and
almost all furniture needed for your pal can be gotten free (see
section on Free Furniture). Silverware can be copped at any
self-service restaurant.
RURAL LIVING
If you are considering moving to the country, especially as a
group, you are talking about farms and farmland. There are some
farms for rent, and occasionally a family that has to be away for a
year or two will let you live on their farm if you keep the place
in repair. These can be found advertised in the back of various
farming magazines and in the classified sections of newspapers,
especially the Sunday editions. Generally speaking, however, if
you're interested in a farm, you should be considering an outright
purchase.
First, you have to determine in what part of the country you
want to live in terms of the climate you prefer and how far away
from the major cities you wish to locate. The least populated
states, such as Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Montana and the like,
have the cheapest prices and the lowest tax rates. The more
populated a state, and in turn, the closer to a city, the higher
the commercial value of the land.
There are hundreds of different types of farms, so the next
set of questions you'll have to raise concerns the type of farm
activity you'll want to engage in. Cattle farms are different than
vegetable farms or orchards. Farms come in sizes: from half an acre
to ranches larger than the state of Connecticut. They will run in
price from $30 to $3000 an acre, with the most expensive being
prime farmland in fertile river valleys located close to an urban
area. The further away from the city and the further up a hill, the
cheaper the land gets. It also gets woodier, rockier and steeper,
which means less tillable land.
If you are talking of living in a farm house and maybe having
a small garden and some livestock for your own use, with perhaps a
pond on the property, you are looking for what is called a
recreational farm. When you buy a recreational farm, naturally you
are interested in the house, barn, well, fences, chicken-coop,
corrals, woodsheds and other physical structures on the property.
Unless these are in unusually good condition or unique, they do not
enter into the sale price as major factors. It is the land itself
that is bought and sold.
Farmland is measured in acreage; an acre being slightly more
than 43,560 square feet. The total area is measured in 40-acre
plots. Thus, if a farmer or a real estate agent says he has a plot
of land down the road, he means a 40-acre farm. Farms are generally
measured this way, with an average recreational farm being 160
acres in size or an area covering about 1/2 square mile. A
reasonable rate for recreational farmland 100 miles from a major
city with good water and a livable house would be about $50 per
acre. For a 160-acre farm, it would be $8,000, which is not an
awful lot considering what you are getting. For an overall view,
get the free catalogues and brochures provided by the United Farm
Agency, 612 W. 47th St., Kansas City, Mo. 64112.
Now that you have a rough idea of where and what type of farm
you want, you can begin to get more specific. Check out the
classified section in the Sunday newspaper of the largest city near
your desired location. Get the phone book and call or write to real
estate agencies in the vicinity. Unlike the city, where there is a
sellers' market, rural estate agents collect their fee from the
seller of the property, so you won't have to worry about the
agent's fee.
When you have narrowed down the choices, the next thing you'll
want to look at is the plot book for the county. The plot book has
all the farms in each township mapped out. lt also shows terrain
variations, type of housing on the land, location of rivers, roads
and a host of other pertinent information. Road accessibility,
especially in the winter, is an important factor. If the farms
bordering the one you have selected are abandoned or not in full
use, then for all intents and purposes, you have more land than you
are buying.
After doing all this, you are prepared to go look at the farm
itself. Notice the condition of the auxiliary roads leading to the
house. You'll want an idea of what sections of the land are
tillable. Make note of how many boulders you'll have to clear to do
some planting. Also note how many trees there are and to what
extent the brush has to be cut down. Be sure and have a good idea
of the insect problems you can expect. Mosquitoes or flies can bug
the shit out of you. Feel the soil where you plan to have a garden
and see how rich it is. If there are fruit trees, check their
condition. Taste the water. Find out if hunters or tourists come
through the land. Examine the house. The most important things are
the basement and the roof. In the basement examine the beams for
dry rot and termites. See how long it will be before the roof must
be replaced. Next check the heating system, the electrical wiring
and the plumbing. Then you'll want to know about services such as
schools, snow plowing, telephones, fire department and finally
about your neighbors. If the house is beyond repair, you might
still want the farm, especially if you are good at carpentry.
Cabins, A-Frames, domes and tepees are all cheaply constructed with
little experience. Get the materials from your nearest military
installation.
Finally, check out the secondary structures on the land to see
how usable they are. If there is a pond, you'll want to see how
deep it is for swimming. If there are streams, you'll want to know
about the fishing possibilities; and if large wooded areas, the
hunting.
In negotiating the final sales agreement, you should employ a
lawyer. You'll also want to check out the possibility of
negotiating a bank loan for the farm. Don't forget that you have to
pay taxes on the land, so inquire from the previous owner or agent
as to the tax bill. Usually, you can count on paying about $50
annually per 40-acre plot.
Finally, check out the federal programs available in the area.
If you can learn the ins and outs of the government programs, you
can rip off plenty. The Feed-Grain Program of the Department of
Agriculture pays you not to grow grain. The Cotton Subsidy Program
pays you not to grow cotton. Also look into the Soil Bank Program
of the United States Development Association and various Department
of Forestry programs which pay you to plant trees. Between not
planting cotton and planting trees, you should be able to manage.
LIST OF COMMUNES
The most complete list of city and country communes is
available for $1.00 from Alternatives Foundation, Modern Utopian,
1526 Gravensteur Highway North, Sebastopol, California 95427. The
phone is (707) 823-6168. The list is kept up to date. For all
communes, you must write in advance if you plan to visit. Almost
every commune will give you information about the local conditions
and the problems they face if you write them a letter. Here is a
list of some you might like to write to for more information. Avoid
becoming a free-loader on your sisters and brothers.
- California
-
ALTERNATIVES FOUNDATION-Box 1264, Berkeley, California 94709.
(Dick Fairfield) Communal living, total sexuality, peak
experience training centers. Dedicated to the
cybernated-tribal society.
-
BHODAN CENTER OF INQUIRY-Sierra Route, Oakhurst, California 93644.
Phone (209) 683-4976.. (Charles Davis) Seminars on Human
Community, IC development on the land, founded 1934, 13
members. Trial period for new members. Visitors check in
advance.
- Colorado
-
DROP CITY-Rt. 1, Box 125, Trinidad, Colorado 81082. Founded 1965.
New members must meet specific criteria. Anarchist, artist,
dome houses.
- New Mexico
-
LAMA FOUNDATION-Box 444, San Cristobal, N.M.
- New York
-
CITY ISLAND COMMUNE-284 City Island Avenue, Bronx, NY. Visitors
check in advance. Revolutionary.
-
ATLANTIS I-RFD 5, Box 22A, Saugerties, NY 12477. Visitors and new
members welcome.
- Oregon
-
FAMILY OF MYSTIC ARTS--Box 546, Sunny Valley, Oregon
- Pennsylvania
-
TANGUY HOMESTEADS-West Chester, Pennsylvania. Suburban,
non-sectarian, co-op housing and community fellowship.
- Washington
-
MAGIC MOUNTAIN-52nd and 19th Streets, Seattle, Washington.
(c/o Miriam Roder).
FREE EDUCATION
Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there,
they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they
are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat
race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks. The only
reason you should be in college is to destroy it. If there is stuff
that you want to learn though, there is a way to get a college
education absolutely free. Simply send away for the schedule of
courses at the college of your choice. Make up the schedule you
want and audit the classes. In smaller classes this might be a
problem, but even then, if, the teacher is worth anything at all,
he'll let you stay. In large classes, no one will ever object.
If you need books for a course, write to the publisher
claiming you are a lecturer at some school and considering using
their book in your course. They will always send you free books.
There are Free Universities springing up all over our new
Nation. Anybody can teach any course. People sign up for the
courses and sometimes pay a token registration fee. This money is
used to publish a catalogue and pay the rent. If you're on welfare
you don't have to pay. You can take as many or as few courses as
you want. Classes are held everywhere: in the instructor's house,
in the park, on the beach, at one of the student's houses or in
liberated buildings. Free Universities offer courses ranging from
Astrology to the Use of Firearms. The teaching is usually of
excellent quality and you'll learn in a community-type atmosphere.
LIST OF FREE UNIVERSITIES
-
Alternative University-69 W. 14th St., New York, NY 10011
(catalogue on request)
-
Baltimore Free U-c/o Harry, 233 E. 25th St., Baltimore, Maryland
21218
-
Berkeley Free U-1703 Grove St., Berkeley, California 94709
-
Bowling Green Free U-c/o Student Council, University of Bowling
Green, Bowling Green Ohio 43402
-
Colorado State Free U-Box 12-Fraisen, Colorado State College,
Greeley, Colorado 80631
-
Detroit Area Free U-Student Union, 4001 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit,
Michigan 48221
-
Detroit Area Free U-343 University Center, Wayne State University,
Detroit, Mich.
-
Georgetown Free U-Loyola Bldg., 28, Georgetown University
Washington D.C. 20007
-
Golden Gate Free U-2120 Market St., Rm. 206, San Francisco,
California 94114
-
Heliotrope-2201 Filbert, San Francisco, California 94118
-
Illinois Free U-298A Illini Union, University of Illinois,
Champaign, Illinois 61820
-
Kansas Free U-107 W. 7th St., Lawrence, Kansas 66044
-
Knox College Free U-Galesbury, Illinois 60401
-
Madison Free U-c/o P. Carroll, 1205 Shorewood Blvd., Madison,
Wisconsin 53705
-
Metropolitan State Free U-Associated Students, 1345 Banrock St.,
Denver, Colorado 80204
-
Michigan State Free U-Associated Students, Student Service Bldg.,
Michigan State College, East Lansing, Michigan 48823
-
Mid-Peninsula Free U-1060 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, California
94015
-
Minnesota Free U-1817 S. 3rd St., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404
-
Monterey Peninsula Free U-2120 Etna Place, Monterey, California
New Free U-Box ALL 303, Santa Barbara, California 93107
-
Northwest Free U-Box 1255, Bellingham, Washington 98225
-
Ohio-Wesleyan Free U-Box 47-Welsh Hall, Ohio Wesleyan University,
Delevan, Ohio 43015
-
Pittsburgh Free U-4401 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Rutgers Free U-Rutgers College, Student Center, 1 Lincoln Ave.,
Newark, NJ 07102
-
St. Louis Free U-c/o Student Congress, 3rd floor BMC, St. Louis
University, St. Louis, Missouri 63103
-
San Luis Obispo Free U-Box 1305, San Luis Obispo, California 94301
-
Santa Cruz Free U-604 River St., Santa Cruz, California 95060
-
Seattle Free U-4144Ѕ University Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98105
-
Southern Illinois Free U-Carbondale, Illinois 62901
-
Valley Free U-2045 N. Wishon Ave., Fresno, California 93704
-
Washington Area Free U-5519 Prospect Place, Chevy Chase, Maryland
20015 and 1854 Park Rd. NW, Washington, D.C. 20010
-
Wayne-Locke Free U-Student Congress, University of Texas,
Arlington, Texas 76010
And a complete list of experimental schools, free
universities, free schools, can be obtained by sending one dollar
to ALTERNATIVES! 1526 Gravenstein Highway N., Sebastopol,
California 97452, and requesting the Directory of Free Schools.
7. FREE MEDICAL CARE
Due to the efforts of the Medical Committee for Human Rights,
the Student Health Organization and other progressive elements
among younger doctors and nurses. Free People's Clinics have been
happening in every major city. They usually operate out of store
fronts and are staffed with volunteer help. An average clinic can
handle fifty patients a day.
If you've had an accident or have an acute illness, even a bad
cold, check into the emergency room of any hospital. Given them a
sob story complete with phony name and address. After treatment
they present you with a slip and direct you to the cashier. Just
walk on by, as the song suggests. A good decoy is to ask for the
washroom. After waiting there a few moments, split. If you're
caught sneaking out, tell them you ran out of the house without
your wallet. Ask them to bill you at your phony address. This
billing procedure works in both hospital emergency rooms and
clinics. You can keep going back for repeated visits up to three
months before the cashier's office tells the doctor about your
fractured payments.
You can get speedy medical advice and avoid emergency room
delays by calling the hospital, asking for the emergency unit and
speaking directly to the doctor over the phone. Older doctors frown
on this procedure since they cannot extort their usual exorbitant
fee over the phone. Younger ones generally do not share this
hang-up.
Cities usually have free clinics for a variety of special
ailments. Tuberculosis Clinics, Venereal Disease Clinics, and Free
Shot Clinics (yellow fever, polio, tetanus, etc.) are some of the
more common. A directory of these clinics and other free health
services the local community provides can be obtained by writing
your Chamber of Commerce or local Health Department.
Most universities have clinics connected with their dental,
optometry or other specialized medical schools. If not for free,
then certainly for very low rates, you can get dental work
repaired, eyeglasses fitted and treatment of other specific health
needs.
Free psychiatric treatment can often be gotten at the
out-patient department of any mental hospital. Admission into these
hospitals is free, but a real bummer. Use them as a last resort
only. Some cities have a suicide prevention center and if you are
desperate and need help, call them. Your best choice in a
psychiatric emergency is to go to a large general hospital, find
the emergency unit and ask to see the psychiatrist on duty.
BIRTH CONTROL CLINICS
Planned Parenthood and the Family Planning Association staff
numerous free birth control clinics throughout the country. They
provide such services as sex education, examinations, Pap smear and
birth control information and devices. The devices include pills, a
diaphragm, or IUD (intra-uterine device) which they will insert. If
you are unmarried and under 18, you might have to talk to a social
worker, but it's no sweat because anybody gets contraceptive
devices that wants them. Call up and ask them to send you their
booklets on the different methods of birth control available.
If you would rather go to a private doctor, try to find out
from a friend the name of a hip gynecologist, who is sympathetic to
the fact that you're low on bread. Otherwise one visit could cost
$25.00 or more.
Before deciding on a contraceptive, you should be hip to some
general information. There has been much research on the pill, and
during the past 10 years it has proven its effectiveness, if not is
safety. The two most famous name brands are Ortho-Novum and Envoid.
They all require a doctor's prescription. Different type pills are
accompanied by slightly different instructions, so read the
directions carefully. In many women, the pills produce side effects
such as weight increase, dizziness or nausea. Sometimes the pill
affects your vision and more often your mood. Some women with
specialized blood diseases are advised not to use them, but in
general, women have little or no trouble. Different brand names
have different hormonal balances (progesterone-estrogen). If you
get uncomfortable side effects, insist that your doctor switch your
brand. If you stop the pill method for any reason and don't want to
get pregnant, be very careful to use another means right away.
Another contraceptive device becoming more popular is the IUD,
or the loop. It is a small plastic or stainless steel
irregularly-shaped spring that the doctor inserts inside the
opening of the uterus. The insertion is not without pain, but it's
safe if done by a physician, and it's second only to the pill in
prevention of pregnancy. Once it's in place, you can forget about
it for a few years or until you wish to get pregnant. Doctors are
reluctant to prescribe them for women who have not borne children
or had an abortion, because of the intense pain that accompanies
insertion. But if you can stand the pain associated with three to
four uterine contractions, you should push the doctor for this
method. Inserting it during the last day of your period will make
it easier.
The diaphragm is a round piece of flexible rubber about 2
inches in diameter with a hard rubber rim on the outside. It used
to be inserted just before the sex act, but hip doctors now
recommend that it be worn continuously and taken out every few days
for washing and also during the menstrual period. It is most
effective when used with a sperm-killing jelly or cream. A doctor
will fit you for a proper size diaphragm.
The next best method is the foams that you insert twenty
minutes before fucking. The best foams available are Delfen and
Emko. They have the advantage of being nonprescription items so you
can rush into any drug store and pick up a dispenser when the
spirit moves you. Follow the directions carefully. Unfortunately,
these foams taste terrible and are not available in flavors. It
just shows you how far science has to go.
Another device is the prophylactic, or rubber as it is called.
This is the only device available to men. It is a thin rubber
sheath that fits over the penis. Because they are subject to
breaking and sliding off, their effectiveness is not super great.
If you are forced to use them, the best available are lubricated
sheepskins with a reservoir tip.
The rhythm method or Vatican roulette as it is called by hip
Catholics, is a waste unless you are ready to surround yourself
with thermometers, graphs and charts. You also have to limit your
fucking to prescribed days. Even with all these precautions, women
have often gotten pregnant using the rhythm method.
The oldest and least effective method is simply for the male
to pull out just before he comes. There are billions of sperm cells
in each ejaculation and only one is needed to fertilize the woman's
egg and cause a pregnancy. Most of the sperm is in the first
squirt, so you had better be quick if you employ this technique.
If the woman misses her period she shouldn't panic. It might
be delayed because of emotional reasons. Just wait two weeks before
going to a doctor or clinic for a pregnancy test. When you go, be
sure to bring your first morning urine specimen.
ABORTIONS
The best way to find out about abortions is to contact your
local woman's liberation organization through your underground
newspaper or radio station. Some Family Planning Clinics and even
some liberal churches set up abortions, but these might run as high
as $700. Underground newspapers often have ads that read "Any girl
in trouble call - -," or something similar. The usual rate for an
abortion is about $500 and it's awful hard to bargain when you need
one badly. Only go to a physician who is practicing or might have
just lost his license. Forget the stereotype image of these doctors
as they are performing a vital service. Friends who have had an
abortion can usually recommend a good doctor and fill you in on
what's going to happen.
Abortions are very minor operations if done correctly. They
can be done almost any time, but after three months, it's no longer
so casual and more surgical skill is required. Start making plans
as soon as you find out. The sooner the better, in terms of the
operation.
Get a pregnancy test at a clinic. If it is positive and you
want an abortion, start that day to make plans. If you get negative
results from the test and still miss your period, have a
gynecologist perform an examination if you are still worried.
If you cannot arrange an abortion through woman's liberation,
Family Planning, a sympathetic clergyman or a friend who has had
one, search out a liberal hospital and talk to one of their social
workers. Almost all hospitals perform "therapeutic" abortions. Tell
a sob story about the desertion of your boy friend or that you take
LSD every day or that defects run in your family. Act mentally
disturbed. If you qualify, you can get an abortion that will be
free under Medicaid or other welfare medical plans. The safest form
of abortion is the vacuum-curettage method, but not all doctors are
hip to it. It is safer and quicker with less chance of
complications than the old-fashioned scrape method.
Many states have recently passed liberalized abortion laws,
such as New York* (by far the most extensive), Hawaii and Maryland,
due to the continuing pressure of radical women. The battle for
abortion and certainly for free abortion is far from over even in
the states with liberal laws. They are far too expensive for the
ten to twenty minute minor operation involved and the red tape is
horrendous. Free abortions must be look-on as a fundamental right,
not a sneaky, messy trauma.
*There is a residence requirement for New York but using a friend's
New York address at the hospital will be good enough. The procedure
takes only a few days and costs between $200 and $500, depending on
the place. The best advice is to call one of the New York Abortion
Referral Services or Birth Control Groups listed in the New York
Directory section.
DISEASES TREATED FREE
Syph and Clap (syphilis and gonorrhea) are two diseases that
they are easy to pick up. They come from balling. Anyone who claims
they got it from sitting on a toilet seat must have a fondness for
weird positions.
Both men and women are subject to the diseases. Using a
prophylactic usually will prevent the spreading of venereal
disease, but you should really seek to have it cured. Syphilis
usually begins with an infection which may look like a cold sore or
pimple around the sex organ. There is no pain associated with the
lesions. Soon the sore disappears even without treatment. This is
often followed by a period of rashes on the body (especially the
palms of the hands) and inflammation of the mouth and throat. These
symptoms also disappear without treatment. It must be understood,
however, that even if these symptoms disappear, the disease still
remains if left untreated. It can cause serious trouble such as
heart disease, blindness, insanity and paralysis. Also, it can fuck
up any kids you might produce and is easily passed on to anyone you
ball.
Gonorrhea (clap) is more common than syphilis. Its first signs
are a discharge from your sex organ that is painful. Like syphilis,
it affects both men and women, but is often unnoticed in women.
There is usually itching and burning associated with the affected
area. It can leave you sterile if left untreated.
Both these venereal diseases can be treated in a short time
with attention. Avail yourself of the free V.D. clinics in every
town. Follow the doctor's instructions to the letter and try to let
the other people you've had sexual contact with know you had VD.
There are other fungus diseases that resemble syphilis or
gonorrhea, but are relatively harmless. Check out every infection
in your crotch area, especially those with open sores or an unusual
discharge and you'll be safe.
Crabs are not harmful, but they can make you scratch your
crotch for hours on end. They are also highly transmittable by
balling. Actually they are a form of body lice and easy to cure. Go
to your local druggist and ask him for the best remedy available.
He'll give you one of several lotions and instructions for proper
use. We recommend Kwell.
A common disease in the hip community is hepatitis. There are
two kinds. One you get from sticking dirty needles in your arm
(serum hepatitis) and the other more common strain from eating
infected food or having intimate contact with an infected carrier
(infectious hepatitis). The symptoms for both are identical;
yellowish skin and eyes, dark piss and light crap, loss of appetite
and total listlessness. Hep is a very dangerous disease that can
cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is
extremely permanent. It should be treated by a doctor, often in a
hospital.
FREE COMMUNICATION
If you don't like the news, why not go out and make your own?
Creating free media depends to a large extent on your imagination
and ability to follow through on ideas. The average Amerikan is
exposed to over 1,600 commercials each day. Billboards, glossy ads
and television spots make up much of the word environment they live
in. To crack through the word mush means creating new forms of free
communication. Advertisements for revolution are important in
helping to educate and mold the milieu of people you wish to win
over.
Guerrilla theater events are always good news items and if
done right, people will remember them forever. Throwing out money
at the Stock Exchange or dumping soot on executives at Con Edison
or blowing up the policeman statue in Chicago immediately conveys
an easily understood message by using the technique of creative
disruption. Recently to dramatize the illegal invasion of Cambodia,
400 Yippies stormed across the Canadian border in an invasion of
the United States. They threw paint on store windows and physically
attacked residents of Blair, Washington. A group of Vietnam
veterans marched in battle gear from Trenton to Valley Forge. Along
the way they performed mock attacks on civilians the way they were
trained to do in Southeast Asia.
Dying all the outdoor fountains red and then sending a message
to the newspaper explaining why you did it, dramatizes the idea
that blood is being shed needlessly in imperialist wars. A special
metallic bonding glue available from Eastman-Kodak will form a
permanent bond in only 45 seconds. Gluing up locks of all the
office buildings in your town is a great way to dramatize the fact
that our brothers and sisters are being jailed all the time. Then,
of course, there are always explosives which dramatically make your
point and then some.
PRESS CONFERENCES
Another way of using the news to advertise the revolution and
make propaganda is to call a press, conference. Get an appropriate
place that has some relationship to the content of your message.
Send out announcements to as many members of the press as you can.
If you do not have a press list, you can make one up by looking
through the Yellow Pages under Newspapers, Radio Stations,
Television Stations, Magazines and Wire Services. Check out your
list with other groups and pick up names of reporters who attend
movement press conferences. Address a special invitation to them as
well as one to their newspaper. Address the announcements to "City
Desk" or "'News Department." Schedule the press conference for
about 11:00 A.M. as this allows the reporters to file the story in
time for the evening newscast or papers. On the day of the
scheduled conference, call the important city desks or reporters
about 9:00 A.M. and remind them to come.
Everything about a successful press conference must be
dramatic, from the announcements and phone calls to the statements
themselves. Nothing creates a worse image than four or five men in
business suits sitting behind a table and talking in a calm manner
at a fashionable hotel. Constantly seek to have every detail of the
press conference differ in style as well as content from the
conferences of people in power. Make use of music and visual
effects. Don't stiffen up before the press. Make the statement as
short and to the point as possible. Don't read from notes, look
directly into the camera. The usual television spot is one minute
and twenty seconds. The cameras start buzzing on your opening
statement and often run out of film before you finish. So make it
brief and action packed. The question period should be even more
dramatic. Use the questioner's first name when answering a
question. This adds an air of informality and networks are more apt
to use an answer directed personally to one of their newsmen.
Express your emotional feelings. Be funny, get angry, be sad or
ecstatic. If you cannot convey that you are deeply excited or
troubled or outraged about what you are saying, how do you expect
it of others who are watching a little image box in their living
room? Remember, you are advertising a new way of life to people.
Watch TV commercials. See how they are able to convey everything
they need to be effective in such a short time and limited space.
At the same tune you're mocking the shit they are pushing, steal
their techniques.
At rock concerts, during intermission or at the end of the
performance, fight your way to the stage.
COMMUNICATION
Announce that if the electricity is cut off the walls will be
torn down. This galvanizes the audience and makes the owners of the
hall the villains if they fuck around. Lay out a short exciting rap
on what's coming down. Focus on a call around one action. Sometimes
it might be good to engage rock groups in dialogues about their
commitment to the revolution. Interrupting the concert is frowned
upon since it is only spitting in the faces of the people you are
trying to reach. Use the Culture as ocean to swim in. Treat it with
care.
Sandwich boards and hand-carried signs are effective
advertisements. You can stand on a busy corner and hold up a sign
saying "Apartment Needed," "Free Angela," "Smash the State" or
other slogans. They can be written on dollar bills, envelopes that
are being mailed and other items that are passed from person to
person.
Take a flashlight with a large face to movie theaters and
other dark public gathering places. Cut the word "STRIKE" or
"REVOLT" or "YIPPIE" out of dark cellophane. Paste the stencil over
the flashlight, thus allowing you to project the word on a distant
wall.
There are a number of all night call-in shows that have a
huge audience. If you call with what the moderator considers
"exciting controversy," he may give you a special number so you
won't have to compete in the switchboard roller-derby. It often can
take hours before you get through to these shows. Here's a trick
that will help you out if the switchboard is jammed. The call-in
shows have a series of hones so that when one is busy the next will
take the call. Usually the numbers run in sequence. Say a station
gives out PL 5-8640, as the number to call. That means it also uses
PL 5-8641, PL 5-8642 and so on. If you get a busy signal, hang up
and try calling PL S-8647 say. This trick works in a variety of
situations where you want to get a call through a busy switchboard.
Remember it for airline and bus information.
WALL PAINTING
One of the best forms of free communication is painting
messages on a blank wall. The message must be short and bold. You
want to be able to paint it on before the pigs come and yet have it
large enough so that people can see it at a distance. Cans of spray
paint that you can pick up at any hardware store work best. Pick
spots that have lot of traffic. Exclamation points are good for
emphasis. If you are writing the same message, make a stencil. You
can make a stencil that says WAR and spray it on with white paint
under the word "STOP" on stop signs. You can stencil a five-pointed
star and using yellow paint, spray it on the dividing line between
the red and blue on all post office boxes. This simulates the flag
of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. You can stencil a
marijuana leaf and using green paint, spray it over cigarette and
whisky billboards on buses and subways. The women's liberation sign
with red paint is good for sexist ads. Sometimes you will wish to
exhibit great daring in your choice of locations. When the
Vietnamese hero Nguyen Van Troi was executed, the Viet Cong put up
a poster the next day on the exact spot inside the highest security
prison in the country.
Wall postering allows you to get more information before the
public than a quickly scribbled slogan. Make sure the surface is
smooth or finely porous. Smear the back of the poster with
condensed milk, spread on with a brush, sponge, rag or your hands.
Condensed milk dries very fast and hard. Also smear some on the
front once the poster is up to give protection against the weather
and busy fingers that like to pull at corners. Wallpaper pastes
also work quickly and efficiently. It's best to work both painting
and postering at night with a look-out. This way you can work the
best spots without being harassed by the pig patrol, which is
usually unappreciative of Great Art.
USE OF THE FLAG
The generally agreed upon flag of our nation is black with a
red, five pointed star behind a green marijuana leaf in the center.
It is used by groups that understand the correct use of culture and
symbolism in a revolutionary struggle. When displayed, it
immediately increases the feelings of solidarity between our
brothers and sisters. High school kids have had great fights over
which flag to salute in school. A sign of any liberated zone is the
flag being flown. Rock concerts and festivals have their generally
apolitical character instantly changed when the flag is displayed.
The political theoreticians who do not recognize the flag and the
importance of the culture it represents are ostriches who are
ignorant of basic human nature. Throughout history people have
fought for religion, life-style, land, a flag (nation), because
they were ordered to, for fortune, because they were attacked or
for the hell of it. If you don't think the flag is important, ask
the hardhats.
RADIO
Want to construct your own neighborhood radio station? You can
get a carrier-current transmitter designed by a group of brothers
and sisters called Radio Free People. No FCC license is required
for the range is less than 1/2 mile. The small transistorized units
plug into any wall outlet. Write Radio Free People, 133 Mercer St.,
New York, New York 10012 for more details. For further information
see the chapter on Guerrilla Broadcasting later in the book.
FREE TELEPHONES
Ripping off the phone company is so common that Bell Telephone
has a special security division that tries to stay just a little
ahead of the average free-loader. Many great devices like the coat
hanger release switch have been scrapped because of changes in the
phone box. Even the credit card fake-out is doomed to oblivion as
the company switches to more computerized techniques. ln our
opinion, as long as there is a phone company, and as long as there
are outlaws, nobody need ever pay for a call. In 1969 alone the
phone company estimated that over 10 million dollars worth of free
calls were placed from New York City. Nothing, however, compares
with the rip-off of the people by the phone company. In that same
year, American Telephone and Telegraph made a profit of 8.6 billion
dollars! AT&T, like all public utilities, passes itself off as a
service owned by the people, while in actuality nothing could be
further from the truth. Only a small percentage of the public owns
stock in these companies and a tiny elite clique makes all the
policy decisions. Ripping-off the phone company is an act of
revolutionary love, so help spread the word.
PAY PHONES
You can make a local 10 cent call for 2 cents by spitting on
the pennies and dropping them in the nickel slot. As soon as they
are about to hit the trigger mechanism, bang the coin-return
button. Another way is to spin the pennies counter-clockwise into
the nickel slot. Hold the penny in the slot with your finger and
snap it spinning with a key or other flat object. Both systems take
a certain knack, but once you've perfected the technique, you'll
always have it in your survival kit.
If two cents is too much, how about a call for 1 penny? Cut a
1/4 strip off the telephone book cover. Insert the cardboard strip
into the dime slot as far as it will go. Drop a penny in the nickel
slot until it catches in the mechanism (spinning will help). Then
slowly pull the strip out until you hear the dial tone.
A number 14 brass washer with a small piece of scotch tape
over one side of the hole will not only get a free call, but works
in about any vending machine that takes dimes. You can get a box of
thousands for about a dollar at any hardware store. You should
always have a box around for phones, laundromats, parking meters
and drink machines.
Bend a bobby pin after removing the plastic from the tips and
jab it down into the transmitter (mouthpiece). When it presses
against the metal diaphragm, rub it on a metal wall or pipe to
ground it. When you've made contact you'll hear the dial tone. If
the phone uses old-fashioned rubber black tubing to enclose the
wires running from the headset to the box, you can insert a metal
tack through the tubing, wiggle it around a little until it makes
contact with the bare wires and touch the tack to a nearby metal
object for grounding.
Put a dime in the phone, dial the operator and tell her you
have ten cents credit. She'll return your dime and get your call
for free. If she asks why, say you made a call on another pay
phone, lost the money, and the operator told you to switch phones
and call the credit operator.
This same method works for long distance calls. Call the
operator and find out the rate for your call. Hang up and call
another operator telling her you just dialed San Francisco direct,
got a wrong number and lost $.95 or whatever it is. She will get
your call free of charge.
If there are two pay phones next to each other, you can call
long distance on one and put the coins in the other. When the
operator cuts in and asks you to deposit money, drop the coins into
the one you are not using, but hold the receiver up to the slots so
the operator can hear the bells ring. When you've finished, you can
simply press the return button on the phone with the coins in it
and out they come. If you have a good tape recorder you can record
the sounds of a quarter, dime and nickel going into a pay phone and
play them for the operator in various combinations when she asks
for the money. Turn the volume up as loud as you can get it.
You can make a long distance call and charge it to a phone
number. Simply tell the operator you want to bill the call to your
home phone because you don't have the correct change. Tell her
there is no one there now to verify the call, but you will be home
in an hour and she can call you then if there is any question. Make
sure the exchange goes with the area you say it does.
Always have a number of made-up credit card numbers. The code
letter for 1970 is S, then seven digits of the phone number and a
three digit district number (not the same as area code). The
district number should be under 599. Example: S-573-2100-421 or
S-537-3402-035. Look up the phone numbers for your area by simply
requesting a credit card for your home phone which is very easy to
get and then using the last three numbers with another phone
number. Usually making up exotic numbers from far away places will
work quite well as it would be impossible for an operator to spot a
phony number in the short time she has to check her list.
We advise against making phony credit card calls on a home
phone. We have seen a gadget that you install between the wall
socket and the cord which not only allows you to receive all the
calls you want for free, but eliminates the most common form of
electronic bugging. They are being manufactured and sold for fifty
dollars by a disgruntled telephone engineer in Massachusetts.
Unfortunately you are going to have to find him on your own or
duplicate his efforts, for he has sworn us to secrecy. If someone
does, however, offer you such a device, it probably does work. Test
it by installing it and having someone call you from a pay phone.
If it's working, the person should get their dime back at the end
of the call.
Actually if you know the slightest information about wiring,
you can have your present phone disconnected on the excuse that
you'll be leaving town for a few months and then connect the wires
into the main trunk lines on your own. Extensions can easily be
attached to your main line without the phone company knowing about
it.
You can make all the free long distance calls you want by
calling your party collect at a pay phone. Just have your friend go
to a prearranged phone booth at a prearranged time. This can be
done on the spot by having the friend call you person to person.
Say you're not in, but ask for the number calling you since you'll
be "back" in five minutes. Once you get the number simply hang up,
wait a moment and call back your friend collect. The call has to be
out of the state to work, since operators are familiar with the
special extension numbers assigned to pay phones for her area and
possibly for nearby areas as well. If she asks you if it is a pay
phone say no. If she finds out during the call (which rarely
happens) and informs you of this, simply say you didn't expect the
party to have a pay phone in his house and accept the charges. We
have never heard of this happening though. The trick of calling
person-to-person collect should always be used when calling long
distance on home-to-home phones also. You can hear the voice of
your friend saying that he'll be back in a few minutes. Simply hang
up, wait a moment and call station to station, thereby getting a
person-to-person call without the extra charges which can be
considerable on a long call during business hours.
If you plan to stay at your present address for only a few
more months, stop paying the bill and call like crazy. After a
month you get the regular bill which you avoid paying. Another
month goes by and the next bill comes with last month's balance
added to it. Shortly thereafter you get a note advising you that
your service will be terminated in ten days if you don't pay the
bill. Wait a few days and send them a five or ten dollar money
order with a note saying you've had an accident and are pressed for
funds because of large medical bills, but you'll send them the
balance as soon as you are up and around again. That will hold them
for another month. In all, you can stretch it out for four or five
months with a variety of excuses and small payments. This also
works with the gas and electric companies and with any department
stores you conned into letting you charge.
You can get the service deposit reduced to half of the normal
rate if you are a student or have other special qualifications.
Surprisingly, these rates and discounts vary from area to area, so
check around before you go into the business office for your phone.
There is an incredible 50 cents charge per month for not having
your phone listed. If you want an unlisted phone, you can avoid
this fee by having the phone listed in a fictitious name, even if
the bill is sent to you. Just say you want your roommate's name
listed instead of your own.
FREE PLAY
MOVIES AND CONCERTS
There are many ways to sneak into theaters, concerts, stadiums
and other entertainment houses. All these places have numerous fire
exits with push-bar doors that open easily from the inside. Arrive
early with a group of friends, after casing the joint and selecting
the most convenient exit. Pay for one person to get in. When he
does he simply opens the designated exit door when the ushers are
out of the area and everyone rushes inside.
For theatrical chains in large cities, call their home office
and ask to speak to the vice-president in charge of publicity,
sales, or personnel. Ask what his name is so you'll know who you're
talking to. When you get the information you want, hang up. Now you
have the name of a high official in the company. Compile a short
list of officials in the various film, theater and sporting event
companies. Next all the various theaters and do the same thing for
the theater managers. Once you have the two lists you are ready to
proceed. Call the theater you want to attend. When someone answers
say you're Mr. __________ from the home office calling Mr. __________
(manager's name) and you'd like to have two passes O.K'd for two
important people from out of town. Invariably she'll just ask their
names or tell them to mention your name at the box office. Not only
will you get in free, but you can avoid waiting in line with this
fake-out.
In Los Angeles and New York, the studios hold pre-release
screenings for all movies. If you know roughly when a movie is
about to come out, call the publicity department of the studio
producing the film and say you're the critic for a newspaper or
magazine (give the name) and ask them when you can screen the film.
They'll give you the time and place of various screenings. When you
go, ask them to put you on their list and you'll get notices of all
future screenings.
One of our favorite ways to sneak into a theater with
continuously running shows is the following. Arrive just as the
show is emptying out and join the line leaving the theater.
Exclaiming, "Oh, my gosh!" you slap your forehead, turn around and
return, tell the usher you left your hat, pocketbook, etc. inside.
Once you're inside the theater, just swipe some popcorn and wait
for the next show.
RECORDS AND BOOKS
If you have access to a few addresses, you can get all kinds
of records and books from clubs on introductory offers. Since the
cards you mail back are not signed there is no legal way you can be
held for the bill. You get all sorts of threatening mail, which, by
the way, also comes free.
If you have a friend who is a member of a record club, ask him
to submit your name as a free member. He gets 4 free records for
getting you signed up. A soon as you get the letter saying how
lucky you are to be a member, quit. Your friend's free records have
already been shipped. We used to have at least 10 different names
and addresses working on all the record and book companies. Every
other day we would ride around collecting the big packages. To cap
it off, we opened a credit account at a large department store and
used to return most of the records and books to the store saying
that they were gifts and we wanted something else. Since we had an
account at the store, they always took the merchandise and gave
credit for future purchases.
You can always use the public libraries. Find out when they do
their yearly housecleaning. Every library discards thousands of
books on this day. Just show up and ask if you can take some.
Almost anything you might want to know from plans for
constructing a sundial to a complete blueprint for building a house
may be obtained free from the Government Printing Office. Write: to
Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington
D.C. 20402. Most publication are free. Those that are not are dirt
cheap. Ask to be put on the list to receive the free biweekly list
of Selected U.S. Government Publications.
One of the best ways to receive records and books free is to
invest twenty dollars and print up some stationery with an artistic
logo for some non-existent publication. Write to all the public
relations departments of record companies, publishing houses, and
movie studios. Say you are a newspaper with a large youth
readership and have regular reviews of books, or records, or
movies, and would like to be placed on their mailing list. Say that
you would be glad to send them any reviews of their records that
appear in the paper. That adds a note of authenticity to the
letter. After a month or so you'll be receiving more records and
books than you can use.
If you really want a book badly enough, follow the title of
this one-Dig!
FREE MONEY
No book on survival should fail to give you some good tips on
how to rip-off bread. Really horning in on this chapter will put
you on Free-loader Street life, 'cause with all the money in
Amerika, the only thing you'll have trouble getting is poor.
WELFARE
It's easy to get on welfare that anyone who is broke and
doesn't have a regular relief check coming in is nothing but a
goddamn lazy bum! Each state has a different set up. The racist
penny-pinchers of Mississippi dole out