Pleas McNeel Interview, Part 1 of 2

DT: My name is David Todd. I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. We're in San Antonio, Texas at the home of Pleas McNeel and it's April 18th, year 2002 and we're here today to talk about his life and career and interests and primarily about communications and media and about his interest in-in planning and-and design and I imagine we'll touch on other issues as well, but that's where the starting point is. Thanks very much for spending time with us. 2:25 - 2202

PM: I'm really looking forward to this. It's an unfettered opportunity to talk about things I care about.DT: We'll, let's see if we can find a starting point for this. Can you say that there was any beginning point, any early exposure to the outdoors, to nature, to the environment in general that might have interested you in this field?2:54 - 2202

PM: Well, my family was always very outdoorsy. I mean they were hunters. I mean that was-that was what they called outdoorsy-was to go out and kill things, but they were ranchers and-and-and stuff like that. So, I grew up with a healthy respect for nature and-and the environment.

When I was a-I think about six or seventh-sixth grade I took a backpack trip with a bunch of k-other kids through Yellowstone Park starting north and then we went all the way through Yellowstone Park and down into Jackson Hole and that was kind of mind blowing.

And one of the adults I grew up with was a man Tom Slick who has become-was famous at the-at the time for leading expeditions to search for the 3:42 - 2202abominable snowman and they-it was kind of a cover for his search for s-eastern mysticisms and spirituality and so forth. You know Texans go hunting. They don't go to talk to gurus in India, but he was extremely interested in-for instance, he would talk about the snowman as a way of trying to figure out-if you could figure out how the snowman adapts to climate, we might be able to figure out how we could better adapt to cold weather conditions and high altitude stuff and so forth. So, they had a pretty scientific way-it wasn't you know like they weren't just goofing on the abominable snowman, but that all had a pretty big influence on me. I-I think the main thing was that I just sort of fell into 4:41 - 2202environmentalism by accident.

I was a black sheep in my family, kind of an outcast. I-I got involved sort of peripherally, but involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 50's and it totally took me out of-of-of-of the social situation that I grew up in. I grew up in a-in-in-in a upper class Texas family and I became really, really sensitized and-and-and good friends with-with black people and that just-I mean all of a sudden I was no longer a member of my peer group. I mean I-I-I couldn't-I-I couldn't talk to them 5:41 - 2202about what I really felt and I-and I wasn't a peer with the black people either, but I-I continued that on through the-through my-my whole life and-and-and I became more and more estranged. I-I-I was never-I never fit in anywhere. I didn't fit in with the people that I grew up with and-and certainly I didn't fit in with Black people that-that I was working with. I got really good friendships and-and had a, you know, deep relationships and so forth, but I was kind of in a cultural limbo, you know, like-and so forth. And I went out searching for sanity. During the 60's I was a hippy and I went to communes and I went all over and-and did al-all the stuff that people do in the 60's and

came back to San Antonio and some friends of mine were starting a-an underground newspaper and I helped name it. Actually Allen Ginsberg named it. I took Allen Ginsberg down to the Institute of Texan Cultures and he found an eagle bone whistle in a-in a-in a little case and that became the name for the-for the newspaper. The-The Eagle Bone Whistle was a little flute made out of an eagle bone. It was the last thing that Custard 6:35 - 2202heard-the-the sound of thundering hooves and the shrill cry of eagle bone whistles and-and so forth. But we started out with a newspaper that was-we called it an alternative newspaper a-and I just s-got involved in it to-to do movie reviews. I kind of thought that would be fun and everybody sort of flaked out and I found myself within three issues as the Publisher and Editor of the thing. And so what we tried to do was to talk about things that nobody-that wasn't getting any press. We considered ourselves alternatives press. We were advocacy journalisms-journalists, which meant that we did go out and write stories, but we would go into-to-to-to different places and get people to write stories about what they believed in.

And one of the big things that was in-becoming 7:37 - 2202in play in Texas at that time was the environment and oh, I-there was a professor at Our Lady of the Lake named Dale Winegar. He taught me how to say the word aquifer. I didn't know-I couldn't pronounce it. It took me three or four days-of the Edwards Aquifer-I mean we had done-I mean it was difficult and-and like you couldn't-nobody said-there were a dozen people around or probably a few more than that. I mean if you consider hydraulics engineers and stuff like that, but just people on the street. Not many people knew that there was such a thing as an aquifer or could pronounce it. I couldn't pronounce it.

Anyway, we began to start-he started the a-the-the-in-introducing me to that and oh, people like David Brower would come and-and since I was the editor of the 8:31 - 2202underground newspaper I would go and hang out. So, I hung out with the-day and a half with David Brower and he would wander around very gloomy about how the only way that we can save the planet is to halve the population. This was in 1970 or 71, you know, and-and there was no-there were no suggestions about how we'd do that, but he was very persuasive and-and most of the people that I talk to would talk about well, you know, like unless we half the population, in other words, get rid of half the people that live here, we were doomed. And so that-that really gets your attention and-and so that was kind of the beginning of it for me. A kind of apocalyptic vision of the end of the earth as we know it.

One of the things that Brower use to-I think the thing that-one of the things that Brower 9:25 - 2202did and I think one of his great understandings was that it-environmental action is-is done with beautiful pictures. I mean he-I met him right after he'd started the Friends of Earth in-in-in-in the Sierra-Save the Sierra Club by printing all those beautiful books and calendars and stuff like that. And that helped sensitized the peop-people to, you know, like what we have to lose, but it was the sense of apocalypse that-that-that-that-that was one of the things that got me really, really interested in it. And-and so we ran environmental issues in-in the-Eagle Bone Whistle. We talked about the aquifer and we talked about air pollution and-and-and-and we did a lot of that and it was very 10:24 - 2202interesting.

The Eagle Bone Whistle as an under direct quote-underground newspaper here-we're-we're-we're here in-in-in a town whose economy was basically devoted to the military an-and so forth and you would think that it would be very dangerous to do that. Well, it wasn't particularly. They-the people let us talk about the Civil Rights Movement. We were-we were an-anti war-paper that was our major focus-was against the war in Vietnam. We were pro Civil Rights, blacks, browns, gays whatever.

We-we-we touched on all the hot buttons, but it wasn't until we opposed the North Expressway, which went through Olmos Park. It-it's right south of here. It wasn't 11:12 - 2202until that, that the Chamber of Commerce-north side Chamber-I guess all of them did, but they-they talked to our advertisers and we lost all of our institutional sponsors; big department stores. All these people were willing to go because they, you know, like they just wanted to make a buck off the hippies, you know, like we're going to sell them the clothes, we're going to sell them, you know, it's lifestyle stuff. But when we came out against dr-building an Expressway through a urban park-boom. We lost a-we lost a great deal of the revenue. It became very difficult to-to-so we had, you know, like head shops and-and-and concerts and-and we had, you know, like the staple of underground newspapers was record ads. Right? You know, like you'd have a half page for-maybe a full page from Capital or-or whatever. So, we had those and-and we had boutiques 12:00 - 2202and-and-and so on. But it was environmentalism that-that-that f-I think-it wasn't environmentalism it was-it was opposing an expensive project that did it. Since the Expressway ha-has-since we oppose that Expressway it-I-I-one of the things that happened was that we won. We-we-we challenged it in the courts. I don't remember the laws. You can ask my sister. She might remember, but I'm-I'm sure some of the people that-that you interview on this will know exactly case and-and so forth. But we-we challenged the law and we took it all the way and won an-and won and loss-anyway, it was a-we won and won and won and finally we won at the Fifth Circuit, which was an 13:01 - 2202appeal-the-the-the Appeals Court in-in-in New Orleans. And that was it. We'd won a-a decisive victory and the Congress just passed a rider on the Highway Appropriations Bill exempting that little stretch of-of-of the highway from the regulations-the federal law and boom they built it. They've never built another one through an urban park so it was the last one. It was kind of like the sacrificial lamb, but one of the things that it did was that it dispirited all the-not all of them, but I'd say most of-of really bright young people who had been fervent about opposition and-and environmentalism and suddenly they-they just sort of had their winds tak-taken out of their sails. They-they-they thought well, the game's rigged. We can't win and-and-and over the years we'd try to get those people back on other things and they just-we could never do it. We-it just blasted the coalition apart.13:58 - 2202DT: You said The Eagle Bone Whistle also covered some issues regarding air pollution and I think the aquifer as well. Could you mention some of the controversies in those areas?14:15 - 2202

PM: Well, San Antonio has pretty good air, but one of the things that everybody was doing was they were running the numbers. That was the-like I hung out with scientists and environmentalists-I mean the professionals an-and they would run the statistics. The-for instance, like on the flood, you know, like just irregardless of-of protecting the aquifer. If you seal, you know, like if you seal off the environment the-you increase the-the power and the pressure of runic-runoff. So, that like one guy ran us some statistics and-and found out that if X amount of houses were built; roofs, driveways, etc., of streets, drainage. That wall of water would come to-s-there would-it-in one theoretical 15:11 - 2202circumstance a wall of water would hit and it would go over the Olmos Dam and wipe out downtown San Antonio. It-the numbers were taken extremely seriously by people and-and although nobody really talked about it very much a lot of retention dams and things like this were built to-to make that not happen.

Air pollution was-basically came from city planning studies that we would do that-one of the things that we were interested in was architecture and planning and-and another one of my mentors, O'Neil Ford, use to say well, you know, like where-we're going to-before so-before too many years, we'll have built so many highways there'll be no place to go. The world will be covered with 16:00 - 2202parking lots and-and-and so forth. And-and it became obvious that like in an esthetic sense. Right? The automobile was wrecking the landscape. It was taking huge chunks-you look at these-I don't know there was some planner, I-I forget his name, but it's a good image to have that-like a-these great cloverleaves that you see in these highway interchanges and so forth. They're bigger than an Italian renaissance city. You could put the whole s-you could put all of Florida in-in-in-in one of those things. And-and you know like it's-so then the idea was, you know, like we were trying to figure out the 16:49 - 2202numbers again. You know like and so well what do automobiles do aside from, you know, like I mean like it's the transportation wrecking the landscape. It's-it's-it's-it's-they're-they're-they're bulldozing trees, they're taking land out of-out of service, they're dividing up neighborhoods, they're-they're doing this and they're pumping hydrocarbons into the air and that stuff is deadly to you. It-like-so much lead in the soil next to highways that it's actually poisonous. It's, you know, don't let your children eat mud from the, you know, next to the street or don't try to grow a vegetable garden on a-right next to a highway because you're running a risk there. But we ran the numbers and we could see that like-it-from 1970 that like by now that we would have dangerous 17:39 - 2202levels of all sorts of things. That like we would have our water quality being threatened by the pollution of the aquifer. We would have the air quality going down. We'd have heat island from all the built up stuff.

They-they build-I mean we-we just have-like Albertson's-there was a cartoon in the newspaper, Albertson's shut down. Well, there was a lovely cartoon in the newspapers. This little girl s-standing in this huge parking lot in front of this little Albertson's-on the front of this Albertson's and she's saying, "Do we get our trees back now?" Albertson's has gone out of business so are they just going to 18:23 - 2202unpeel those parking lots back and put the live oak trees back in there and so forth. And-and-and-and it's the heat island effect-this-all of this concrete and stuff-this-holds and radiates heat and makes the ambient temperature. San Antonio-the weather patterns actually move around it. If-if you pay attention you can see how your rising heat from cities will-will-will actually displace. You know, the weather will come and you'll have-there will be a column of heat and the wea-weather will go like that an-and-and so forth. This is one of the things that-th-these kind of modeling and-and-and-and s-developing scenarios and so forth can be very persuasive and I'm sitting in The Eagle 19:11 - 2202Bone Whistle.

I didn't really want to know all this, but once you do know it, right? You can't go back because it's like you're living in a place with starving children and you become obsessed with feeding them. It-w-and-my whole thing-I-I-I-my father committed suicide and I had a somewhat dysfunctional s-family and-and so when I was younger and still-I mean this is the major focus of my life. I think is the search for sanity. And I was trying to figure out well, what does it mean? What does it mean to be a sane human being? How can you live, be comfortable, experience love, joy, have a really good time? We're all tourists here and so as we're going through how do we enjoy this and-and 20:06 - 2202so forth and we look to the great mentors; Christ, and Buddha, and Mohammed and-and they all had this experience of-of-of the, you know, like it's called the one God, but this great oneness. This acceptance of this-that the totality of everything where if you see it and you feel it, you can feel the animals and the-the-the nature and all of this and this is the reason I think for living or it's-it's what we're wired for. We can have that experience, but we can't have it if we're harming stuff.

I mean we-we have to open ourselves up to love it and when we do that, then the respect for all living creatures in the web of life becomes very important and-and once you've got that I mean you've got to figure out ways to-to-to mitigate the harm and if you have, you know, like I was doing 20:56 - 2202an underground newspaper and-and we were reaching about 35,000 people and we-we got real intense about environmentalism as a kind of ex-spiritual experience that you have to-this web of life was not something of a abstract thing, but it was the basic foundation of our existence. It was why we live here and why-well, what we can become if we're open to it and so forth.

And then after we lost the funding I-I-I began to get a little-I mean really burned out because we were doing as volunteers and I was putting the newspaper-almost every issue had a different crew on it by-towards the end. And-and 21:47 - 2202finally I put together a crew, but I was losing it. I mean I was losing-it wasn't the idea of the horror, but it was the-it was just the sheer work of-of-of going against the stream.DT: The reason for Whistle-Eagle Bone Whistle being in San Antonio was I guess to-to address the issues that weren't being dealt with in the Express News or in the conventional...22:20 - 2202

PM: The hippies were getting bad press.DT: Can you talk about some of the shortcomings you saw in the conventional media that-that led to the Alternative Weekly being put together?22:32 - 2202

PM: Well, the Alternative Weekly was really put together by a guy who wanted to start a pornographic magazine and he suddenly found out that like he'd gotten the wrong people an-and so for his dreams of starting a pornographic magazine just went down the tubes because none of us would even do adult film theater ads. Right? Much less personals, you know, meet me for whatever. But the-it was just a-again it was the 60's and the-there was no conspir-I, you know, people always talk about me running an underground newspaper as though, you know, like I was in touch with this conspiracy and so none of the people who were doing this ever really met any-e-each other. I mean we-we-we were not in 23:21 - 2202communication. It was all grass roots. It was all extremely site-site specific. But it was in the air.

The idea is that we were against the war in Vietnam and we were against death and we were for life. And-it-the reason that it was all very, very not too difficult to organize and put together things like that, it's because we had lots and lots of-of-of young people with graduate degrees who didn't want to go to Vietnam and they needed justification. They needed etc., etc., there's a whole lot of reasons. But like if you're going to oppo-your government says we're going to war and if you're against it, you're a traitor. Right? Well, if you're all by yourself it's really hard to stand up to the government, but if people 24:18 - 2202are all together all over the country are saying yes, we feel that way too, then it makes a difference and it allows people to be braver than they would have been and so all these other issues came along with that. And so we began to open ourselves to-I mean the whole idea of environmentalism a-and-and-and doing action, going to the streets. I-I would-I remember once standing in front of a group of guys dressed up as skeletons in front of the draft board and reading a poem by somebody that-I-a guy handed me the poem-a guy-a political activist named Tom Flower asked me to read the poem. But it put-it got my name in the pic-in-in the newspaper and so everywhere I went now I'm 25:05 - 2202identified as a leader of the antiwar movement and so forth. Well, I'm getting more and more estranged from my family and from-from all the, you know, like and so forth. I'm letting my hair grow it's-it's just-I-I'm becoming a total outsider and-and so forth and I'm beginning to-it really actually wasn't until a couple of years ago that I figured what a blessing it is to be a black sheep in a dysfunctional family, you know, like you don't want to be, you know, like you don't want to be successful in the environment because that means you become a dysfunctional person with it. 25:39 - 2202DT: (Inaudible) as an outsider, as a black sheep, that weren't apparent to the establishment at least as regards to the environment?25:47 - 2202

PM: Absolutely. I mean the-the-the-like say for instance, I mean you asked about the press. Well, the press goes along with and the local press went along with the developer community, with the conventional wisdom and so forth and-and they were really, really frightened of any kind of information about environmentalism because they thought that, you know, like they were a threat to-to their income, that these people were after them and so forth. Some years later we did the Environmental Design Charrette. I had developers come up to me and say, "Pleas, you got to understand that like we want to do this now because we've discovered that like if we design with nature and do it properly, right, we can make more money, but the people want what we sold them."

You know, and it was 26:36 - 2202something that Disney and General Motors and remember all those films about the world of the future and so forth filled with electrical appliances? It was all stuff that you could buy with a credit card, keep you in debt, it would, you know, like etc., etc., etc. We have this world of the future and we live there now. I mean it's-it-it's amazing that the big cloverleaves that eat up so much land. Right? Well, those were part of, you know, like projections built by large corporations by-by-Walt Disney did the articulation of-Epcot was a great sale to peace, the media. I use to do a graduate school lecture called Bewitched in the Company Store and Bewitched was a popular television show. It was 27:20 - 2202about the-this woman who was a witch who fors-forswears sorcery and her husband who was an advertising executive. I mean this is-this is all really all American, but the thing that you-if you look deeply into it you would see that everything that they had was off the rack. And like if you watched it very closely, within an hour of that show almost everything they had was offered in an advertisement for sale. Credit again was the-wa-was the key and a materialistic kind of culture and they-an-and-and the big spiritual thing. An-and this is what the newspapers do-it wasn't an evil conspiracy. It was just 28:08 - 2202that this is what people want. They want the quote "American Dream." Well, the American Dream was based on having all these things and these things had built into them planned obsolescence lessons, which meant that you buy these things and they end up in a landfill five years later and you had to get a new one an-and-and-and so on. And so everybody is-is scrambling after the American Dream and they're blinding themselves to the consequences, the co-true cost of these things, which was the environmental degradation and the degradation of society. Neighborhoods, you know, before television, you know, people would sit on their porches and talk to each other. Now you walk down streets and 28:52 - 2202you don't see anybody out on-there's no street life at all. People are inside watching TV. Air conditioning of course made a big difference around here too.

But, no, I mean when we first came out-the first issue of The Eagle Bone Whistle had an interview with Allen Ginsberg on it. And Allen Ginsberg talked about how-like Americans are material junkies-as if you tried to take away their material from them, they'll do just what a junkie will do. They'll lie, they'll steal, they'll cheat, they'll kill you, you know, and-and-and one of the incorporators of the newspapers was a-was an aspiring politician and one of his opponents used that quote to run against him. I mean accused him of being a communism-communist because he had supported this newspaper that-in which Allen 29:46 - 2202Ginsberg accused Americans of being materialist junkies. That enraged people, absolutely enraged them, I mean the-there were a lot of things that Allen said that could of enraged people a lot more, but that's what they-that's what they picked on. And I've noticed all my life it's been this whole idea of the American Dream. It's the right to own stuff and irregardle-without knowing-you don't want to know the cost because once you do, you know, like there's a guilt thing or-or whatever, you know, like we all know about sweat shops and so forth. I just bought a new printer and it's made in China, you know, I don't know what that means, but I mean I think I know what it means, but-but and I'm not against globalization. I-I think that one of the things that can probably s-possibly say 30:39 - 2202this is that-but we were always swimming up against the stream and the one thing that w-that-that we did that-at-that-well, the two or three, but-but one of them was attacking materialism. People don't like that. They don't want to be said that their lifestyle's wrong, that their, you know, like that they're making bad choices with their lives. And so that's where, you know, like that's where a lot of the tension came from. It was, you know, like they always talked about-they've never shown hippies as spiritual people in-in-in films period. I mean it was Maynard G. Krebs as a b-I was lead man. Maynard G. Krebs as a beatnik. He was able-wore a little beret and he, you know, had-played bongos. Well, that had nothing to do with the beatniks as I lived it in San Francisco. 31:26 - 2202But the thing that we were really about was the beginning of this assault on American materialism.

I mean you remember all the old beat poetry, you know, like your tail fins daddy and your cheap plastic this and that and you live in your little ticky tacky houses and you live your sterile empty little lives and so forth and a lot of beat poetry. Superficial beat poetry really concentrated on that. It was a rebellion against the 50's materialism and that became the celebration of life in the 60's, which opened, I think, a whole generation up to seeing things more than just get mine, live in my little place an-and-and-and fill my life up with materialism and so on.

Yeah, the newspapers never ever would write a good story about antiw-antiwar movement and they, you know, like they would portray the 32:23 - 2202antiwar movement as a bunch of-at best unwashed stupid, you know, people who were afr-just chicken. We had, you know, remember the peace symbol the-we call it the footprint of the American chicken and when they would yell things like hippy, I mean, that meant it was like the word nigger. The-the word hippy meant I have the right to kill you if I want to if I can get away with it. I mean-I, you know, like I could shoot you and-and-and there-no Texas-every, every, you know, a Texas jury understands. So, it-it-it-it's not like-we still don't know-I mean the public doesn't know just exactly what-what-what the youth rebellion in the 60's was. And-and-and they all say, well, of 33:11 - 2202course it failed. Well, of course it didn't, you know, like there's no people wearing long hair, oh, there are people wi-a lot of people can wear hair any way they want to now. It doesn't matter, but the-it-it's like we kept losing fighting these battles and losing them. We lost all.

Everything we-I mean we won the w-ultimately we won the war in Vietnam and we got them to stop and people who look at this right now I'm sure would-some of us-some of them would call me a traitor for having done that. I was a veteran by the way. I had been in the Army. I knew what armies did. I had no illusions and most of America 34:00 - 2202didn't. During that time we got to see the war on TV and so forth, but we-here in San Antonio we're never disrespectful of soldiers. We considered ourselves trying to save their lives. To-to-try and keep them from making the horrible mistake of going and-and-and-and killing people. It-it's-it's not a light thing to kill another person an-and especially in a kind of dubious context.34:26 - 2202DT: Why do you think the antiwar movement peace effort got packaged together with support from environmental protection? What was the connection there?34:42 - 2202

PM: It was just the respect for life. The-the-the idea is that once you-you make a stand for life then all the rest of the things that go along with that. I mean you-you-we bega-it-you see how cynical people could be by sending people off to kill people, and then you can see how cynical they were about cutting down forest, or how negligent they were about polluting the rivers and so forth. How incredibly suicidal our society was becoming. We were matil-materializing our-our-the way we thought. The-the consensual reality was descending. Consensual reality as I see it is-is-is really the kind of world that we all 35:37 - 2202live in. It-it's-it's the agreements that we all make of-of what a life is and-and-and what you need to be successful an-and so forth and these-this consensual reality was moving down. When it happens in war, people start becoming more bestial and they become-they-they get lower and lower.

It-if you assume that like evolution means that like we are evolving and that, you know, like and-and-and-and-and you can't say that we're finished. Right? Because we haven't been here that long-that we're evolving. There's a great potential for us somewhere as-as sentient beings with-with-with the power to-to do good, wonderful, unimaginably, spectacular, beautiful things, but we see this evolution and-and-and we see it moving up. We see-you look at the history of mankind. We've been getting better and better and better and better and better. We live 37:26 - 2202better. We treat each better and-and so forth. It's-it's a historic curve and-and so forth and-and in America it really took off, you know, people living better and better and better and better.

But then this war thing comes and you sings-you begin to see the mental consensus be going-going back down again, you know. And-and the-it-it was-like the war made the word communist-gave the word communist a lot. I mean it-it always had a lot of caché because it was politically useful to a lot of people. But the thing that brought us all together was the, I think, was that anybody that did anything that disturbed the establishment any way was called a communist or something like that. They'd figure out some dirty word that meant that you were a left wing, no good, radical nasty and so forth. And there weren't that damn many of us and there were environmentalists, there were Civil Rights people, there were all these people and they were using the same bloody word, communist. I mean they used a lot of words and so forth and all those words were delivered by people and you could tell that one of the things that was behind what they were saying was that I'd kill you if I could, you know.

So, I like-I mean we-we lived in an environment where the FBI was running a thing called COINTELPRO, which the-like 38:13 - 2202half the people that I-I-people use to come and sleep on my living room floor and as-they were deserters and they were going to-to Canada and so forth and we helped them do that. An-and after all-things sort of settled down-we found out that half of them were undercover agents of various kinds. They were all kinds of flavors and we use to get on the telephone and-and we'd talk to the FBI agents. I don't think anybody ever really tapped my phone, but you know, like we always treated telephone conversations as though they were being tapped by somebody and we were all in the drug culture too, which meant you know like everything was s-secret and coded and you were out of, you know, we were 38:57 - 2202really, really, you know, like lived in an outlaw kind of culture. And there weren't very many of us and we were-that's where the whole thing began to come together with the activists and the environmentalists and all of that. At least that's my suspicion.DT: Do you think that's the link? That there's an activist, advocacy, promoter, agitator, you know, political sense that-that joined all these people together-they-they felt that there was something wrong with the status quo of the establishment?39:20 - 2202

PM: Yeah, it was self-preservation. We felt something was wrong with the status quo for sure and that we've discovered that like we had better music, and that we put together great concerts and-and-and so forth. And we could bring all these-these issues together and there would be critical masses of people together an-and-and so forth and people who probably-I don't know I-I-it-it-the-the war was a great catalyst for change and it-I-it-it changed the Vietnam War and others now. But the Vietnam War was a great catalyst for-for change in America, but it did solat-make a solidarity out of all the old-out of all the outsiders.

And I think, you know, like pot smokers and so forth and-and 40:23 - 2202people who took LSD and-and so forth who were also a big part of that because psychedelics altered the way you-you looked at conventional reality as well. I-some of the scientific says it doesn't really-what it does is it just puts you more in finely touch with your-your true self. Helps you shed, you know, like layers of-of-of consciousness that you've built up. We all sort of-we-we construct ourselves out of our experiences and out of our desires and so forth and-and we become at any given moment the sum of a lot of, you know, just habit's and-and-and all sorts of things that-that-the-the drug experience would-would just t-would just take that away and this t-let the-let the big 41:23 - 2202experience. And so that was a big part of it as well-was the drug culture and the antiwar movement and then environmentalism.

But at the root cause of it I think was just that the-the-the sensitization to the brotherhood of all living things and-and-and the f-the, you know, like once you find out that-like-well, you know like they're talking about the Daisy Cutter Bomb now that they're dropping on Afghanistan as a fuel air bomb thing. The-when I was doing the-the newspaper we would look at these weapon systems and we would think about, you know, like-well, you know the Spooky-that-the big old 42:07 - 2202airplane that has the chain guns and everything. If flies around and just-well these things can-can put f-ex-it can make everything in the size of a football stadium just explode. I mean rabbits, bunnies, trees, flowers-I mean everything dies. It's gone. It's shredded and so forth and-and once-I mean talk about this-these realities-I mean this is-this is an environmental impact of-of incredible ferocity and-and-and-and-and-and-I don't, you know, like I don't even go-quite-it-it-it's unspeakable. It-that-that-the-that we use our science to do this sort of thing. But I mean we have these capabilities and now we're of course t-spending more money to have-I mean we've-j-once 43:04 - 2202you've got these things then you use them. Right? And they've been very effective in Afghanistan and-and so forth, but you know, like get it-and the body counts. We don't count rabbits or gazelle, you know. We don't count trees and plants and stuff like this, but if you're going to have a successful life on this planet, you have to be aware. You have to be connected to those things. It's spiritual, it's-it's a dynamic, that enriches life beyond anything that we can talk about. I-I-I think it's the peace that, you know, passes understanding, perhaps, but it's the-the ability to feel like you really live here and you-and-and your life is-it's okay, you're here, it's important, it's-it's-it's a privilege and-and so forth and I want you...44:05 - 2202DT: Can I ask you about something related about building this awareness sentence not just through the newspapers, but I understood that it's-it's the 70's (?) you also helped set up of other ways of communicating such as through public radio.44:24 - 2202

PM: Well, that was the-that the-the next step for me when I understood that the-the power of being able-I mean because like we changed a generation in the way people thought. I mean we had hundreds of thousands of people affected by The Eagle Bone Whistle. I mean there were 35,000 readers and they would pass it around. It just changed the dialogue and-and we found that like there was a hard core 40,000 people around here that all had shared the same beliefs. But then it became obvious that we had hit a wall and a guy named Lorenzo Milam wrote a book called Sex in Broadcasting. It was a handbook in starting a community radio station and I read one of the-somebody handed me a copy of it 45:01 - 2202and-so, we went off to set up a Public Radio station and that up-as a matter of fact we were pretty-in-in those days-and we didn't call it Public Radio, we called it community radio because it-Public Radio sounded like a government press handout. But community radio was something grass roots and it was indigenous. It-it-it didn't pump information from outside and-and mess with our minds with other peoples ideas, which was okay, but we at least would be able to-to share our-our-our own-our own thoughts.

So, I-we-I put together a corporation called San Antonio Community Radio Corporation and w-and-and we filed-it was a long, long process. We-we set out to file an FCC application for FM frequency 89.1 and it-the process of getting it to appl-46:09 - 2202getting the application through the FCC took about seven years-seven, eight years and lots of adventure stories along the way. But we finally got the FCC application or no I think when it started going weird was-Henry Gonzales got us a $25,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cover expenses and then all of a sudden everybody in town wanted to do it. And-and so like we had a dozen competitors and so I spent all my time for a year or so just going around getting the competitors to join us. At one place the people just-they were so obnoxious that I said to hell with you. You just go and take it to-we'll have a hearing; we'll blow you out of the water. And they-and-and by doing 47:12 - 2202that they'd finally came around and-and so forth.

But then we get the FCC application, we're ready to go, we're building a-now this is my own personal hunch. I-the community radio station was going to be called KURU for you are you, y-you know, and a friend of mine had a persona, the uru guru and you are you and we thought it was kind of cute. But-and we were going to put it in San Antonio Museum of Art. We rehabilitated a building over there and-and so forth and we were ready to go. We had this Class A Board Of Directors: some of the very best people in San Antonio and so forth and a guy named John Burnett, wonderful guy, he's a stringer for NPR. Yeah, John-John was writing for the Express News at the time and he came to the warehouse and he interviewed our little crew-our hard-core crew. And he wrote his article and the first part of the article was 48:11 - 2202about me and it was about how impressed with it that he was with me and how I reminded him of Allen Ginsberg and the free speech movement in Berkeley. And it like-that-and then-then he talked about the plans, right, but after that article the-the San Antonio power elite wouldn't return the phone calls or honor the $50,000 pledges and all the rest of that and so forth and so it went into a kind of a tail spin,

until it was gathered up in another in-in-in-in a final attempt, which put together the classic radio station with this one and put on Texas Public bec-became to-became-came together as Texas Public Radio. Using the appli-KSTX, which is the Public Radio station here now was the application that I wrote for the FCC, and the front money that we had raised for it from the federal 49:06 - 2202government and some other stuff. But it-it-it's now on the air and one of the things that-that we were-aside from that-I mean we were very, very much interested in-in-in-in-in creating local production. We wanted to use the radio as an art form for-for local creative people. It's basically an a-NPR station now. It doesn't do that much local production, but the other thing that it does do and it does do very, very well what we consider the really desirable thing, was it upped the level of discourse. And-and-and f-what you need in a community in South Texas especially, I mean the radio and-and the radio is run by rednecks and I-I mean they were-they were low rent and so forth and I-50:01 - 2202I mean like you could go into the-you could listen to the broadcasting and-and then it was all mired in-in old ideas and these-this again the white supremacist heritage of-of Texas, which sort of got its birth here at the Alamo.

But Public Radio has changed the way people talk to one another now. Before you'd have guys that'd sit there and they'd talk about cars and they were all right wingers and, you know, and so forth. Not with conviction, but just with a lot of energy and-but now people who I think the-the most important thing that it does is that it takes people who are sensitive to things like the environment to-to intellectual pursuits to the arts. It-it-it makes them feel like they're not alone anymore and they're not living in the savage town that can turn on KSTX and 51:10 - 2202they can listen to the-the wonderful shows that are piped in that-and it makes them feel more comfortable. It gives them more-and it just raises the level of discourse and-and so forth. But I didn't get to go the last mile. I was the-the our board of directors was-was totally dispirited when we began to lose our funding sources and I think they were blaming me and nobody said it. They were all really good polite people, but that was a kind of turning-I may have blamed myself a little bit, but-and it was nothing that I did. It was, you know, like again it was a perception that was created by-by John who's a lovely person and a good writer. He's a very good writer. He was just the...51:58 - 2202DT: Could you explain a little bit more about how a Public Radio station you think creates not just a discourse but a community that-that is having this conversation among itself? I mean it seems like a lot of the environmental initiatives that I've seen come about because of a few environmentalists have joined together and they make a group. And it seems like through your efforts that the newspaper and then later the radio station you managed to put together sort of a virtual group through the radio waves. Does that compare in a sense?52:38 - 2202

PM: Yeah. It's a-it's again I-I think that a-a lot of what, you know, like activism is-is-is costly and-and-and it, you know, like you-you have to step out of the-out-out-out of the regional local consensual reality. You-you-you oppose the-what everybody thinks is so and things like public radio help you to understand that you're not alone and virtual groups maybe, maybe not. The plans that we had for radio station was to actually enable to do that and-and perhaps one of the reasons that it didn't succeed. But I think that, you know, like again what I've learned is that it doesn't so much matter whe-with what-what-about-well, content does, but-but it's what's important is that we 53:42 - 2202grow up a little bit. That we begin to think and talk at high-at a higher and higher and higher level and-and, you know, like we use to talk about consciousness raising and it-I mean that's basically what it's all about. Is it, you know, like you raise up consciousness and then all of the things that are at risk and at catastrophic risk especially are more easily understandable. And again before-well, like Public Radio-one of the things that Public Radio did was that before Public Radio the media was kind of like the media is becoming today. You know people would shout at each other and then people would call in and they would rag a right wing radio commentator and he'd put them down and so forth. And-and 54:29 - 2202discourse was extremely uncivilized and-and I mean people couldn't talk. They would talk in these little boxes that, you know, like well, you said one key phrase and that means you're a communist, right? I don't know now that there are no communist I'm not sure what it is, a terrorist I guess. But the-but-the-the idea is that, you know, like they'll have some ist, some way to define you. An environmentalist is-is a kind of way of pigeon-holing people u-up. But we-we would have these inane combats that-that-that went no-nowhere. Now people actually will talk things through on a higher level. We got a 55:08 - 2202long way to go, but boy it's-it-it-it s-upped the level of-of civilized conversation by 20 percent. I'm being, I think, very conservative. I-I-I think it-it really changed the way people dealt with one another. DT: Let's see if I'm getting this right. You're saying that part of what a community radio station and maybe even a Public Radio station that's satellited NPR does is that it-it creates a more civilized discourse between people who aren't necessarily like-minded. I mean it's not like putting all of the environmentalists or communists or the right-wingers in one room and they all agree (?). It sounds like you're creating a forum where people who want to have a civilized conversation, some of them can do that. Is that...56:02 - 2202

PM: Yeah, it's a milieu. It-it-it-it-it-it's a, you know, like it-it's a-it's-it's-you're-you're-it's-it's just the place that you live is a little gentler or a little more intelligent and-and so forth. And-and-and of course like in South Texas we're very cut off, you know, from-from mainstream thinking. I mean you guys come from Austin, right? People in Austin tha-tha-that I talk to a lot of times think of San Antonio as a third world country. The-as far as technology's concerned, Austin is on the charts as up in 56:34 - 2202two-two or three. It's very high. San Antonio on the-on a Yahoo survey recently-we had gone down from 67 to 69. Now we're 80 miles from Austin. That's a big difference and there's a labor force here. It could be, you know, like it-it could be useful, but it's not being tapped by Austin because they think that they're-they're behind the times. So, I mean we live in a little bit of a different world and-and part of what we've been trying to do is to bring that world up a little bit, you know, to-to make it a little more sophisticated. A lot of things have-have-have been the-I think a very important thing-I mean this is 57:15 - 2202not ne-well, to me environmentalism means not just dealing with nature, but it's environment is the people you live with. It's everything and the light is blinking.[End of Reel 2202]