Talk:Berkeley Barb

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Sniff. I miss reading the Barb. Good times, good times.68.13.191.153 21:09, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] content dispute

Max Scherr Dead from Cancer Max Scherr (1916-1981), radical founder and editor of The Berkeley Barb, which was a leading underground newspaper in the 1960's, has died of cancer less than a year after the tabloid ceased publication. He was 47 [65] years old. Mr. Scherr, who died in October, 1981 at his home, founded the paper in 1965 as a sounding board for criticisms of the establishment. It was an outspoken advocate of political, social and sexual revolution. The paper, which claimed a weekly circulation of 90,000 at its peak in 1968, survived charges of obscenity, external political storms and internal power struggles. It was distributed on street corners by the flower children. In 1970, Mr. Scherr sold the paper Allan Coult, a professor of anthropology. The Barb never survived the changed social climate after the 60's and folded last year, publishing only about 2,000 issues weekly. Burton Stone

CORRECTION NOTE: The above obituary is undated and inaccurate. Max was 53 in 1969. I spoke with him in November 1980, following Reagan's election, and I believe he died two years later, at age 65. He owned the paper long after I stopped writing for it, which was in 1971. The paper's ownership and assets came under dispute in 1975, during Max's divorce trial. According to an April 14, 2007 article by Fred Gardner in CounterPunch, http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner04142007.html, the Barb went through multiple ownership changes in 1973. Gardner states, "(Attorney Fay)Stender revealed that on Nov. 1, 1973, at a paper-signing ceremony ... the Barb was sold to a Panamanian company, Presentaciones Musicales, S.A. for $250,000. PMSA immediately sold the physical assets of the Barb to Artesia Convalescent Hospital Enterprises (ACHE), which thereafter changed its name to International News Keyus, Inc. (INK, Inc.) The Barb's intangible assets, such as the name and publishing rights were sold to EST International, a company based in Tortola, the British Virgin Islands. Then EST licensed INK to publish the Barb in exchange for a royalty payment of 20¢ per issue sold." In the mid-1990's I tried to contact INK regarding preservation and archiving of the Barb. My calls were never returned. - Jef Jaisun

for my 2¢, he would be 65 in 1981. The above needs to be wikified, if it's really appropriate for this article Potatoswatter 09:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

See original text, dated 1981 and giving age as 47 but not giving birth year. Potatoswatter 09:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

This art corroborates 53 in 1969. Potatoswatter 09:36, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] We need a Max Scherr bio page

All of this information on Max Scherr should be collated, referenced, and placed on a Max Scherr page.

See also "West of the West: Imagining California by Leonard Michaels, David Reid, Raquel L. Scherr", a compilation of memoirs about California, which contains material about Max by his daughter, Raquel Scherr, on pages 219-220, viewable here if you scroll a bit: [1]

Raquel Scherr mentions that Max was Jewish and from Baltimore, a lawyer who was travelling in Mexico when he met her mother, Juana Estela Salgado, a medical student who spoke no English. They married and moved to California. They lived in both Albany and Berkeley, California when Raquel Scherr was young.

It is a real shame that Max Scherr has no page at Wikipedia. He was not only the founder of the Barb, but also the founder of the Steppenwolf bar. I knew him, but not closely -- i sold the Barb on the streets as a teen and he was a friend of my mother and step-father. Surely someone who knew him better than i did can put together a page for him. cat Catherineyronwode 13:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)