Berkeley Barb

The Berkeley Barb was a weekly

The newspaper was founded in August 1965 by Max Scherr,^[2] a middle-aged radical who had earlier been the owner of the Steppenwolf bar in Berkeley. Scherr was the editor and publisher from the newspaper's inception until the mid-1970s.

The Barb carried a great deal of political news, mainly concerning opposition to the

In 1969, under pressure from an underpaid and rebellious staff which believed, based primarily on information from an accountant, that Scherr was making windfall profits (the Barb may have been the only underground newspaper of which this could be said), Scherr sold the paper for $200,000 to Allan Coult, a professor of anthropology. The deal fell apart shortly afterwards and Scherr resumed ownership, cancelling the agreement after Coult failed to make the initial payment. At this point almost all of the 40 person staff, including managing editor James A. Schreiber, walked out and formed the "Red Mountain Tribe". After putting out a special Barb on Strike issue, they launched their own rival newspaper, the Berkeley Tribe, which soon claimed a circulation of 53,000 copies.^[3] Meanwhile, Scherr, who had locked the doors and then taken the files and equipment out of his own offices, continued publishing the Barb out of new offices with a new staff. The paper continued to be successful for a few years but the heyday of the underground press was passing. The Barb was caught up in the general downward trend, with contributor burnout and slowly falling circulation and ad revenues leading to a vicious circle of decline.

In 1978, with circulation down to 20,000 copies and dropping, the numerous sex ads were spun off into a separate publication, Spectator Magazine. Freed of the stigma of "adults only" but deprived of advertising income, the Barb went out of business within a year and a half. The final issue was dated July 3, 1980.^[4] Spectator Magazine ceased publication in October 2005.^[5]

Underground comix

The Barb was one of the first papers to print

One victim of an Albert prank was Max Scherr, editor of the Berkeley Barb, that legendary paper of the days of the Movement. "A lot of Jewish kids were converting to Buddhism then", Paul Glusman said, "so Albert cooked up a hoax, getting a letter mailed from Japan to the paper reporting that all the Buddhist kids in Japan were converting to Judaism". Scherr ran the letter.^[10]

Street sales of The Barb

The Barb was used to earn money by scores of Berkeley's early hippies, denizens of "The Ave" (Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, on the south side of campus), locals, runaways, and later street people. The paper originally sold for 10 cents and later for 25 cents. Every Thursday night around 9 pm, a Volkswagen truck would arrive from the printer, pulling up to the paper's offices. The waiting street vendors would help unload the papers. The papers would be purchased at half-price or obtained for collateral. The vendor who wished to obtain papers on collateral would show Scherr something of value. As soon as their papers were in hand, vendors would go and spend the night waiting on a curb so that no other vendor would steal their spot. The first vendor to get to The Pic coffee house was guaranteed sales of up to 25 papers. The vendor kept half of the money, so when that bundle of papers was sold, they would return to the office, buy back the collateral and possibly buy more papers with cash, and then return to the street corner to sell more papers. The cost of living was low, so sales of the paper kept homeless people afloat.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture

References