“At the Second Fret, Philadelphia coffeehouse, Jim Kweskin and Jug Band produce carefree musical cookery from compound of such miscellaneous instruments as kazoos, washtubs, hubcaps, washboards and jugs.”

My grandfather, Royal Rosamond, founded Gem Publishing, and published several books. I just ordered three of them: Ozark Moonshiners, Bound In This Clay. and Bad Medicine.

Jessie Benton Lyman used some of her father’s legacy to found ‘The Avatar’ newspaper that was attacked by censors worse then the ones they got in North Korea. The famous artist, Thomas Hart Benton, connected with the folks of the Ozarks.

Royal Rosamond Press was attacked by crazy Anarchists. My newspaper was inspired by ‘The Germ’ a Pre-Raphaelite magazine.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/pre-raphaelite-journal-the-germ

What I am proposing is a Underground Newspaper Museum in Crockett California that will include the early California papers and Magazines. I want to see a Jug Band Music School, along with a class on ‘The Thirteen Story Elevators’. With the recent declaration ‘The Media is the enemy of the people’ by the President, who has revived ‘The Nixon-Agnew Era’ it is wise to restore the Music and Literature Era that successfully toppled the The Gnewxon Empire’. Let’s return to our roots. I envision a Jug Band Festival, and, Psychedelic Rock Contest in the city where by Bohemian grandfather lived on a houseboat.

My Bohemian House will be a B&B for guest artists and writers from all over the world who will give Front Porch Lectures. I see picnickers on the terraces siting on blankets. I will speak to you about Meher Baba. If there is going to be a New Nation of California, then we need a National Culture Center with Library and History Room. There are two generations that have not heard of this revolution, and music! They need a hands-on experience. I see goats and chickens.

Jon Presco

Her father approved of the family, Mrs. Benton Lyman says — indeed, some family members served as models for figures in the mural “The Sources of Country Music,” on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn. Family members also helped Mr. Benton build a stone wall on the Chilmark property.
“My father thought it was great, but my father, you know, was an extraordinary person,” she says. “He liked new ideas. He thought it was a wonderful idea because he said the worst thing about being young and creative was the loneliness you have to endure.
“He thought we had figured out a way to avoid the loneliness, and he approved of it.”
As for her mother, Mrs. Benton Lyman says: “She was a very conservative Italian woman and thought we were . . . far out. She thought it was a strange way to live your life, that it wasn’t a normal thing to do. She thought it was a scary way to live. ‘How can you be sure your children will have enough to eat in 10 years?’ But she adored the children so much she was willing to accept anything. ”
Thomas Hart Benton died in January 1975; his wife about three months later. A plaque to her mother from Jessie stands to the south of the Benton Home on Belleview Avenue.
“We lost some good friends,” Mrs. Benton Lyman says, referring to her parents. “They were nice to us when most people weren’t.”
Nearly, 20 years ago, family members and others selling the Avatar in Boston were arrested on felony obscenity charges. They would later be set free and the incident helped define the First Amendment freedom in Massachusetts.
“Like many other people selling underground papers, they would get selectively arrested on various vendor laws,” Mr. Peck of Northwestern says. “As a result of that, Mel Lyman put out an issue with a colorful centerfold that had various four-letter words spelled out in an artful, Gothic way.
“By exercising both freedom of expression and occasional bad taste, the underground press was more than willing to take on the censors,” Mr. Peck says. “Almost every town had this particular battle. They were the ones in Boston.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(newspaper)

http://www.trussel.com/f_mel.htm

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/12/7/stop-the-war-on-avatar-piavatari/

Avatar was an American underground newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1967-1968. The newspaper’s first issues were published from the headquarters of Broadside magazine in Cambridge.^[1] During its brief existence Avatar was considered one of the best underground papers in the country, largely for its excellent content, layout, printing, and design.

Publication history[edit]

Avatar was started by a varied group of people from different parts of the Boston countercultural scene, but quickly came to be dominated by the Fort Hill Community, led by Mel Lyman, a charismatic banjo and harmonica-playing folk musician who had, over some years in Boston and Cambridge, become the center of a group called the Lyman Family.^[2] Owing to their work ethic and dependability, the Lyman Family (aka the Fort Hill Community) and many sympathetic to its ethos became the core of the production, distribution, and content of the paper.

Over time, disputes between the Fort Hill Community and other factions involved in putting out the paper led to an irreconcilable split, which ended that cycle of the paper.^{[citation needed]}

A total of 24 issues were printed bi-weekly from June 9, 1967, through April 26, 1968.^[3] Toward the end of its run, six issues (nos. 18-23) were published in large-size broadsheet newspaper format, with a tabloid size magazine insert. A “25th issue,” dated May 9, 1968, was haphazardly assembled and printed by opposition factions, but all but 1,000 copies of the 45,000-copy press run were sequestered and disposed of.^{[citation needed]}

Spin-offs[edit]

There were three short-lived spinoffs of Avatar:

• New York Avatar (7 issues, March 29 – August 1968) — edited by Brian Keating out of a SoHo loft and featuring contributions by Paul Williams and Peter Stafford of Crawdaddy magazine and underground cartoonist The Mad Peck. Print run of 7,500.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/ozark-moonshiners/oclc/8834834

http://www.worldcat.org/title/no-milk-famine-in-arkansas/oclc/40537170&referer=brief_results

http://www.worldcat.org/title/ripsnorter/oclc/40537132&referer=brief_results

http://www.worldcat.org/title/ravola-of-thunder-mountain/oclc/5987755&referer=brief_results

http://www.worldcat.org/title/bad-medicine/oclc/5987815&referer=brief_results

http://www.worldcat.org/title/saga-of-the-rhyming-miner/oclc/16670558&referer=brief_results

http://www.worldcat.org/title/humor-of-the-states-series/oclc/320159675&referer=brief_results