Tom Forcade
Thomas King Forçade (September 11, 1945 – November 17, 1978), aka John Thomas Moore and Kenneth Goodson Jr.,[1] was an American underground journalist and activist in the 1970s. For many years he ran the Underground Press Syndicate (later called the Alternative Press Syndicate), and was the founder in summer 1974, along with several anonymous associates, of High Times magazine. High Times ran articles calling marijuana a "medical wonder drug" and ridiculing the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
[edit] Life and career
He was born in Phoenix, Arizona. His father, hot rod enthusiast Kenneth Goodson Sr., died in a car crash when Forçade was a child.
Tom graduated from the University of Utah in 1967 with a degree in business administration. He went into the United States Air Force but was discharged after a few months, after which he moved to New York City.[2] In 1970, Forcade became one of the first people to use pieing as a form of protest, hitting Chairman Otto Larsen during the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.[3]
According to the 1990 nonfiction book 12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols and America, by Noel E. Monk and Jimmy Guterman, Forcade and his film crew followed the Sex Pistols through their chaotic January 1978 concerts of the U.S. South and West, using high-pressure tactics in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the band's management and record company to let him document the tour. He committed suicide in November 1978 in his Greenwich Village apartment after the death of his best friend, Jack Coombs.[4] Forcade bequeathed trusts to benefit High Times and NORML.
[edit] References
- ^ Gross, Michael (February 18, 1991). Ivana's avenger. New York Magazine
- ^ Armstrong, David (1981). A trumpet to arms: alternative media in America. J.P. Tarcher, ISBN 9780874771589
- ^ Staff report (May 13, 1970). Witness Presents Pornography Commissioner With a Pie (in the Face). New York Times
- ^ Torgoff, Martin (2004). Can't find my way home: America in the great stoned age, 1945-2000. Simon and Schuster, ISBN 9780743230100
[edit] External links
- Biography of Forcade from World War 4 Report
- Thomas King Forcade profile on NNDB
- The Early Years of Tom Forcade via YouTube
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