Vincent Johnson (II)

Mount Shasta

Over the past few months I've repeatedly put off writing this post because, although I had no problem admitting my ignorance, for some reason I thought I had to give an explanation for it. But I don’t; I just have to use ignorance as a starting point.

Prior to a month or so ago, I had no idea who the underground cartoonist and author Ace Backwards (Peter Labriola) was, so when he posted a comment to the blog last summer, I did not give the comment the level of respect it deserved.  For those unfamiliar with his work, Ace Backwards published Twisted Image in the early 80's.  He's authored two books:  Acid Heroes: The Legends of LSD, and Surviving on the Streets: How to Go DOWN without Going OUT.  He also writes a blog entitled Acid Heroes : The Psychedelic Sixties and Its Aftermath.  According to Wikipedia, he "sleeps rough on the streets of Berkeley, but is not indigent."  Kevin Fagan,* a long-time reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote a piece about Ace Backwords 13 years ago.  Here's how Fagan described Backwords's work:

"Telegraph Avenue artist Ace Backwords was once one of the princes of the underground comics world, with his street-smart strip running in a host of periodicals from High Times to the Bay Guardian.  His calendars and books depicting gutter life through a similar bottom-up lens sold in the thousands. (San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 2010)

Vincent Johnson, perhaps the last person to see Greg and Mary alive in the early hours of August 16. In the 80's, Ace Backwords had a close friendship with Johnson, and they roomed together for a time.  Backwords tells us something about Johnson that sheds light (at least it does for me) on what I've read about an exchange between him and Chaffey in Ms. Gioia's book.  Here's what Backwords has to say:

“Vincent Johnson was one of my best friends. He passed away in 2009.  Half black, half white, raised in Watts in the 60s. All the black guys hated him because he was white. All the white guys hated him because he was black. So he came to Berkeley to be a hippie (Berkeley used to get all the ones who didn’t fit in anywhere else. That’s how I ended up there.)”**

Now here's what Ms. Gioia reports about two similar exchanges between Chaffee and Johnson during the preliminary hearing and the trial.  First the preliminary hearing: 

"The Public Defender asked Johnson whether there had been bad feelings between himself and International. 'No, just disagreements.'

'You don't like each other?'

'Yes, we do. Just disagreements.' He said their arguments were over living conditions at Rainbow Village." (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 113)

Next the trial:

"'You and [Thomas] did not get along.  You didn't like him.'

Johnson replied, 'No, I didn't dislike him.'

When Chaffee cross-examined Johnson, he insinuated Johnson was upset with International because he didn't want the Midlins to move in as it would be too crowded with so many vehicles close together." (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 137)

It seem to me that, during a trial of a black man accused having murdered two white persons, a witness who self-identified as "half-black," this fact gives us an interesting backdrop to think about this line of questioning.

The person Backwords describes in several blog posts is the same one described in the papers around the time Rainbow Village was moved to the old dump: "One of the most amazing things about Vince: he was one of the most purely idealistic people I've ever met.  He never once wavered in his idealism. Never go cynical or bitter.  Never stopped trying to make the world a better place.  Even as he had a realism to him.  He was never surprised—or even very disappointed—when everything went wrong.  He accepted that that was basically how life worked on planet earth.  Yet he never stopped aspiring toward the heavens.  A rare guy."

After reading through several of Ace Backwords fond reminiscences of Vince Johnson, I’ve come away with a positive impression of Johnson’s character, and this means having a positive impression of the prosecution’s main witness.

*Fagan was interviewed for an episode in the second season of Dead and Gone.

** In the next paragraph Backwords confirms what I already suspected: Johnson as a Deadhead: "For years Vincent lived in his '57 Chevy--this bomb of a car painted in psychedelic colors with a Grateful Dead skull, the 'Steal Your Face' logo, painted on the front hood."  I wonder if he and Randy Turley were friends...