ed rapping to some older guerrillantheater guys, and John moved to thenfront of the stage where he began tonpull the latest Maoist communiquesnfrom his briefcase. Andy found a groupnpassing around a gallon of Red Mountainnwine under a tree. Sue hung outnwith Dave for awhile, then walked overnmy way. A group of women camenbetween us, chanting something aboutn”peace, power, and sisterhood.” Suenmarched up and down in place afternthey passed and sang:nMarch on,nMarch on,nMarch on Suffragettes!n”What’s that?” I said.nSue smiled. “It’s from MarynPoppins.”nAfter awhile she wandered oflF. I sawnFrank Ortiz passing out flyers in frontnof a booth marked “Chicano StudentnUnion.” When I walked over, he noddednwithout smiling, then turned andnstarted talking in Spanish with somenother guys standing around. Frank wasnborn in the valley and I’d never heardnhim speak anything but English before,neven to his parents. I used to go over tonhis house all the time; he was a couplenof years older and always our baseballnteam captain. He was married now tonmy friend Tim’s sister Mandie; theynhad a baby and lived at Tim’s folks’nhouse. Tim said that since Frank startedncollege and got into this Chicanonstuff, he’d really changed. “It’s like henjust got here from Mexico all of ansudden, all this Spanish and ‘gringonimperialist’ stuff all the time. Mandienand Frank aren’t getting along toongood.”nSince I couldn’t join the conversation,nI walked over and sat down innfront of the stage. A couple of localnbands played, and The Committee tonResist the Draft did a symbolic cardnburning. Then a couple of professorsntalked about Vietnam and how it wasnsimply a combination of venture capitalismnand white racism.nI was drinking wine with Andynwhen Phil Ochs came on, the bignname on the program. He’d playednwith Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, PetenSeeger—all my heroes. We all stoodnup to cheer as he sat down to tune hisnguitar. He seemed older than on hisnalbum covers; his body was soft andnfleshy and his face was flushed, he wasnsweating and he squinted out at us likenhe had a bad headache. I remembernthinking that he looked a lot more likenmy Uncle Don the drunk than anyonenin the audience. But he seemed to perknup once he started playing and singing.nHe had a high, whiny voice that madenBob Dylan sound like an opera star,nbut once you got used to it it was OK.nHe did “Small Circle of Friends” and anfew of his other hits; then he introducedna brand new one, all about hownwe had to stop being passive, how wenhad to let go of the whole bourgeois,nnonviolent protest scene and fight fornthe world revolution in progress. Thenchorus went:nYou’re supporting Nixonnbut I’m supporting Maonand I’ve got something tonsay here, sir,nand I’m gonna say it now!nEveryone cheered and John Newtonnlooked happier than I’d ever seen him.nDave raised his toy gun and Andynhefted his bottle in salute. Ochs went offnwaving and it looked like the end of thenshow, but a couple of minutes later thenyippie-looking guy who’d introducedneveryone was at the microphone.n”Old Prof Summers wants to turn usnon to a few words,” he said, grinning.n”So lets give him a b-i-i-i-g hand.” Indidn’t know who Old Prof Summersnwas, but I cheered along with everybodynelse. From the tongue-in-cheek intro, Inthought he must be a comedy act—nsomething on the order of GeneralnWaste-More-Land and GeneralnHershey-Bar, two Unitarian church pastorsnwho dressed in caricature uniformsnand gave caricature promilitary speechesnat all the peace festivals and love-ins.nThe old man who stepped up really didnlook like the perfect parody of an absentmindednprofessor as he cleared hisnthroat and fumbled with the microphone,nand his voice seemed faint andnwavery after Phil and the yippie.n”Mr. Ochs has said, Tve got somethingnto say here, sir, and I’m going tonsay it now,'” he began. “Well, I havensomething to say to you, Mr. Ochs, andnto all the good students in your audience.”nI didn’t pay much attention atnfirst. I was watching Sue; she wasnstanding to the side of the edge of thenstage, smoking a joint with some blackndudes. I started to fade in as the old profnstarted talking about freedom; how onlynnnin this country could a dissenter likenOchs have the freedom to speak hisnmind. Everybody fake-yawned andnmade snorting noises, but he went rightnon, his voice getting stronger all thentime. He said he had been a socialist innhis youth and a card-carrying communistnin the 30’s, but he was a communistnno longer. We gave a big fake cheer atnthis and Dave yelled “God bless J.nEdgar Hoover!”nThe old man waited until the laughterndied down, then began to talk history,nstarting with the Revolution in thenSoviet Union. According to him, socialismndied in 1918; as soon as the Bolsheviksnconsolidated their power, they murderednall the socialists in Russia, andnafter that they liquidated all the liberals.nHe said that Hitler’s National Socialismnwas a natural outgrowth of Stalin’snImperial Socialism, that Stalin had murderedn11 million of his own countrymennbefore Hitler even dreamed of thendeath camps. Stalin’s and Hitler’s joiningnforces to “rape Europe” in 1939nwas what finally turned him away fromnthe Communist Party in “shock andnhorror,” but he said that it should havenbeen no surprise to him since they werenboth international gangsters hiding behindnsocialist rhetoric.n”And the modern, ‘reasonable’ socialistsnare no different,” he added. “Fornall their denouncements of Stalin, theynshare his voracious appetite for power.”nDave and his friends gave him thenNazi salute and chanted “Seig heil!nSeig heil,” but it didn’t slow the oldnman down. He got on “Mr. Ochs’snmentor, Mao Tse-tung,” and went onnabout how the “so-called agrarian reformer”nhad actually been a protege ofnStalin, and had passed his apprenticeshipnby killing hundreds of thousands ofnhis people in religious and politicalnpurges at home and countless more innimperialist slaughter in Tibet and Korea.nHe pointed at posters of Castro and HonChi Mihn on the side of the stage. “Ohnyes, I know all about those ‘heroes ofnthe revolution.'” He almost spat the lastnword. “It is a sad comment on humannnature that some Americans continuento idolize them even after it has becomensickeningly clear that they are puppetsnof the communist butchers.”nHe looked directly at a woman with anbaby in a papoose backpack. She wasnholding a Che Guevara picket. “Myndear, are you aware that in Cuba today.nOCTOBER 1988147n