Certain people became martyrs of the sixties, people who actually killed themselves when the ideals of the times didn't turn into reality. The folksinger Phil Ochs was one of them. I met Phil briefly in the mid-1970s when he came to a birthday party for my dad at John Fischer's loft. He came late as I recall, and he seemed very nice; we had a good rapport, but we didn't get to talk too much. My image of him is just at that party, very beautiful. Later I read his biography, and I was surprised to learn that when he was young he was a very talented classical clarinet player.He's one of the guys that you can call a martyr in a sense, because he died for his beliefs; he hung himself in April 1976 because he felt there was no hope. But even after Phil died Bob Bonick kept the tradition going, and Changes was still a revolutionary kind of place. They used to go up in the balcony and have seances for Phil, but I didn't hear that they ever got him.
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