Flower, repowered

Friends solicit support for Oracle founder Allen Cohen. By Cara Bruce

San Francisco

ALLEN COHEN CONCEIVED the psychedelic, underground newspaper the San Francisco Oracle – the city's age-of-McLuhan medium-is-the-message bible – in a dream. "I was flying over Earth like a satellite. Everywhere I looked there were people reading newspapers covered with rainbows," he says. "The next morning, I went out and told people about the dream, and everyone said, 'Let's do it.' "

They did. The San Francisco Oracle redefined the newspaper as a medium, helped usher in a new generation of underground publishing, and was a forerunner in magazine design. "The Oracle was one of the most amazing-looking papers I had ever seen, and the articles were from another dimension," cyberpunk vet RU Sirius says.

These days, however, Cohen the dreamer is living something of a nightmare. A bio of Cohen on the Web site for Chet Helms's Family Dog says the editor, poet, and onetime baby-delivering "mid-husband" "receives improbable impulses to save the world and celebrate life" from his basement apartment in Oakland. The word "improbable" is the clue to Cohen's current state. He's got hepatitis C, the liver-destroying virus for which there is no cure. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hepatitis C is the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the United States. One in 50 Americans is infected. And liver failure is now the second leading cause of death nationwide. The disease may lie dormant for 20 years or more – meaning one could have hepatitis C and not know it for many decades.

That's what Cohen thinks happened to him. He believes he contracted hepatitis C in the mid '60s, and now he has liver cancer and is in desperate need of a transplant. Cohen has tumors that have been very responsive to localized chemotherapy, but this is a stopgap measure designed to keep his tumors small enough so that he will remain a candidate for a liver transplant when an organ donor becomes available. Cohen's tumors have been reduced, but if he develops more than three tumors, he won't qualify for a new liver. Due to the severity of his situation, in December, he'll be put at the top of the organ-donor list.

It just so happens there's a critical shortage of livers in the Bay Area. Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, who also has hepatitis C, moved to Florida because, well, they have more livers than they need. "Even with a new liver," he tells me, "I will always have hepatitis C. I've seen it flare up twice since my transplant." The first time, he says, was because of steroids doctors gave him to prevent the liver from being rejected. The second, after his fall 2000 musical tour, came after a sore throat he couldn't shake. "I'm more susceptible to fungal infections because my long-term antibiotic and antirejection medication protocols suppress my immune system. It took so long to identify and treat the infection that my immune system was stressed to the point that the virus flared up." A recent biopsy showed that his liver is doing well.

Yet not everyone has the means to move to another part of the country. What Cohen has going for him, however, are wonderful friends. Helms, the storied Family Dog producer, has put together a star-studded benefit for Cohen called the HepCats Ball. Helms, who was Cohen's roommate and best friend, said they shared everything – and Helms also has hepatitis C. "The important thing about Allen," he says, "is that Allen is a truth teller, regardless of the consequences. He has a strong conscience and gives a voice to it. I feel lucky to be able to do this for him."

Lesh and the Hep Kats, Ram Dass, Don't Push the Clown, and other special guests will perform. Helms is hoping to be able to give every cent earned to Cohen, who until recently was a teacher in public schools in Berkeley and Oakland but who is now too sick to work.

Cohen's other work, his writing, has continued as well, in the years since the Oracle ceased publication. He's written two groundbreaking books of poetry – Childbirth Is Ecstasy and The Reagan Poems. In 1990 he produced a compilation of Oracle issues titled The San Francisco Oracle Facsimile Edition. In 2002 he edited an anthology of poems on Sept. 11, 2001, An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind, which won a 2003 PEN Oakland award. His newest book, The Book of Hats, is just out.

David Getz of Big Brother and the Holding Company most cherishes Cohen's personal touches. "One of the things I love about Allen," Getz says, "is that every year for Christmas or Hanukkah he sends out a card with a poem. I love his poems. The hippie movement didn't always produce the best writing, but the Oracle had good writing. And after Sept. 11, Allen put out a book of incredible poems. It was an amazing book, a real testament to his skill as a writer and an editor."

The year 2003 may be a long way from 1966, when Cohen and 2,999 other people showed up in the Panhandle for the Love Pageant Rally to protest California's outlawing of LSD, then delivered flowers, along with a few 'shrooms, to the mayor, police chief, and district attorney. It may also be a long way from the Human Be-In of '67, which led to the antiwar march in which those famous flowers found a home inside Pentagon guards' rifles. For Cohen, it has been a continuum. The principles that have guided his life for four decades are still relevant. "The ideals of the '60s – peace, love, compassion, community – are both necessary and active in our culture today," he says. "You find them in the rave scene, Burning Man, the Internet. The same need, the same yearnings are there. These ideals have manifested in this event – where friends are helping me out where I am right now in needing material things, the things I never worried about."

Tax-deductible financial contributions to the Allen Cohen Fund may be sent to Arts and Education Media Inc. (a 501c3 foundation). Checks should be made out to Arts and Education Media Inc., with "Allen Cohen Fund" on the memo line. Mail to Allen Cohen, 399 Orange St., Oakland, CA 94610. Cohen will send a signed image from The San Francisco Oracle Facsimile Edition to each contributor. HepCats Ball, with Phil Lesh and the Hep Kats, Ram Dass, Don't Push the Clown, takes place Wed/29, 7 p.m., Great American Music Hall, 859 O'Farrell, S.F. (415) 885-0750. $35, $100 benefactors (benefactors receive three limited-edition posters celebrating the event). For more information go to www.familydog.com. Cara Bruce is the coauthor of The First Year – Hepatitis C. Read her previous articles on hepatitis C for the Bay Guardian at www.sfbg.com/SFLife/35/25/lead.html.

Hepatitis C resource list

American Liver Foundation 1-800-GO-LIVER, www.liverfoundation.org.

National Hepatitis C Coalition Inc. (909) 658-4414 (national HepLine), nationalhepatitis-c.org.

HCV Info Hepatitis C resources and information. www.hcvinfo.com.

HCV Advocate Hepatitis C support project. www.hcvadvocate.org.

HCV Anonymous Hotline (949) 218-6793.

Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic Confidential, free HCV testing. (415) 487-5632.

Hepatitis C Helpline Peer support for persons afflicted with hepatitis C. (415) 834-4100.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/c.

C.B.