Ed Sanders was a new father who needed a steady stream of income—publishing a mimeo literary magazine and fronting the Fugs certainly didn’t pay the bills—and in 1964 he opened the Peace Eye Bookstore on 383 East Tenth Street. It served the East Village in much the same way Paperbook Gallery and Eighth Street Bookshop did Greenwich Village. By this point Sanders was friends with Andy Warhol, who was working on a popular new flower print series that anticipated the “flower power movement three years ahead of its time,” as the Peace Eye proprietor recalled. After Warhol agreed to print flower banners for the grand opening of his store, Sanders bought some colored cloths from one of the many fabric vendors on Orchard Street and carried them to the Factory. Warhol silkscreened red, yellow, and blue banners for the bookstore’s walls—though Sanders certainly didn’t treat them as precious works of art made by a famous artist. He used one banner as a rain cape, which he accidentally left at a deli, and ripped apart another onstage during a frenzied performance with the Fugs. The store’s grand opening attracted Time magazine reporters and even middlebrow celebrity author James Michener, who was dropped off in a limousine in his evening attire. While the occasional famous figure might drop by, Poet Andrei Codrescu described Peace Eye as a neighborhood bookstore for poets, activists, street riffraff, travelers, visionaries, and crazies. “It was a scene,” he said, “because Sanders’s mimeograph machine was right in the middle of the store, and Abbie Hoffman hung out there a lot. It was a hanging-out place for various activists of the age.”

From Chapter 5 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

In 1967, Ed Sanders began collaborating with Shirley Clarke and fellow filmmaker Barbara Rubin on a satirical anti-Vietnam project, Fugs Go to Saigon. (Sanders also suggested several alternative titles: Eagle Shit, Aluminum Sphinx, Oxen of the Sun, America Bongo, Vampire Ass, Gobble Gobble, Moon Brain, and It’s Eating Me!) After Rubin took Sanders to see the Velvet Underground at Café Bizarre in late 1965, they began discussing ideas for the film, which was to star the Fugs alongside William Burroughs, LeRoi Jones, Allen Ginsberg, and a host of other downtown denizens. Clarke attempted to fundraise from summer to fall of 1967, but she still wasn’t being taken seriously as a filmmaker, despite her previous successes with The Connection and The Cool World. Clarke’s inability to get funding for Fugs Go to Saigon may have also had to do with the outrageous “plot” ideas supplied by Sanders: “William Burroughs dressed as Carrie Nation attacks opium den with axe,” he wrote. “LeRoi Jones as homosexual cia agent. naked viet cong orgasm donuts suck off gi’s with poisoned teeth. . . . horny priests disguised as penguins fight savagely for captured viet cong grope boy. . . . Shower of candy canes comes from sky over us headquarters in Saigon.”

From Chapter 10 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

“The Fugs, the Holy Modal Rounders, and the Velvet Underground were the only authentic Lower East Side bands,” guitarist Sterling Morrison said, perhaps with a bit of exaggeration. “We were real bands playing for real people in a real scene. We helped each other out if we could and generally hung out at the same places.” Poet and provocateur Ed Sanders had already formed the Fugs in late 1964, a few months before the Velvets coalesced. “I felt camaraderie towards The Velvets,” Sanders recalled. “We overlapped. So people would come to both shows. Nico used to come to my bookstore, the Peace Eye.” The connections among this lowly trinity of bands ran deep. The Holy Modal Rounders first emerged on the Lower East Side in May 1963, and about a year later Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber joined the Fugs—contributing radio-unfriendly songs to the group’s repertoire (like Stampfel’s “New Amphetamine Shriek” and Weber’s “Boobs a Lot”).

From Chapter 15 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

When the Yippies, Fugs and other coconspirators arrived at that antiwar rally in the nation’s capital, the New York underground stood center stage in American politics and popular culture. Peace Eye proprietor Ed Sanders and the rest of the Fugs flew there in time to perform a show the night before the big protest, and Shirley Clarke was at the airport to document their arrival. She also filmed the exorcism ritual Sanders performed at the Pentagon with musical accompaniment from the Fugs. “In the name of the Amulets of Touching, Seeing, Groping, Hearing, and Loving, we call upon the powers of the Cosmos to protect our ceremonies,” Sanders said, reciting his tongue-in-cheek incantations. “For the first time in the history of the Pentagon, there will be a grope-in within a hundred feet of this place.” It was the largest antiwar protest in the nation’s history, and a major turning point in the shifting opinion against the Vietnam War. The East Village Other described it as a “mystic revolution” led by protesters who “cast mighty words of white light against the demon-controlled structure”—that is, until the riot police descended on them in full force later that night.

From Chapter 15 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

Soon after Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg formed the Fugs, the Holy Modal Rounders teamed up with them to create the first incarnation of the Fugs. “Someone told me Sanders and Tuli had written a bunch of songs like ‘Coca-Cola Douche’ and ‘Bull Tongue Clit,’ ” Peter Stampfel recalled. “So I went to listen at the Peace Eye Bookstore, and I saw that the only instrument was Ken Weaver playing a hand drum. So I said, ‘Hey, you can use a backup band.’ It was an obvious thing to put together, so that’s how Steve Weber and I started playing with them.” After signing a deal with Folkways Records, the band recorded their first album in April 1965. Along with several original songs, the Fugs included two Blake poem adaptations on their Harry Smith–produced debut, The Village Fugs Sing Ballads of Contemporary Protest, Point of Views, and General Dissatisfaction. In addition to live gigs and vinyl records, the group could also be heard on free-form radio shows. Their performance of “Carpe Diem” at a Judson Church memorial service for comedian Lenny Bruce, for example, was recorded by Bob Fass and aired on WBAI (Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and many other musicians, poets, and political activists also made appearances on Fass’s show over the years).

From Chapter 15 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore

The New York Police Department raided Ed Sanders’s Peace Eye Bookstore early in the morning on January 1, 1966, for allegedly distributing obscene materials. Ironically, Sanders had been selling Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts via the United States Postal Service since 1962 without being hassled, despite regularly receiving mail addressed to “Ed Sanders, Fuck You, Stuyvesant Station, New York” or “Fuck You, Peace Eye.” Sanders observed, “It made me proud of being in a free country and having a tolerant post office branch.” Apparently, that tolerance didn’t extend to the local police precinct; Sanders was placed under arrest, and boxes full of printed matter were carted away to the station. “Indeed, there was a marked contrast of facial expressions between the grumpy arresting officer and the policemen at the station house,” he recalled. “For being such a serious matter—that is, booking of a likely criminal, me—there certainly was a lot of mirth in the Ninth Precinct. ‘Hey, you’re Peace Eye!’ one officer boomed. I nodded. ‘Hello, Peace Eye!’ another exclaimed. I nodded. ‘Let me take a look!’ another commented and smiled, and laughing officers passed magazines hand to hand.” Sanders was charged with possession of obscene literature with intent to sell, a misdemeanor. The trial finally began May 22, 1967, and the legal battle would be among the last in a wave of obscenity trials that resulted in expanded boundaries regarding free speech in America.

From Chapter 19 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore