Vivian McPeak, The original Peace Heathen

You've always reminded me of one of my other heroes, Abbie Hoffman. Do you see any kind of direct connection between your style of cultural politics and that of the Yippies?

Abbie Hoffman was a huge inspiration, a huge influence on me, mostly through his kind of Barnum & Bailey theatrical politics. I believe there's really only two ways to do guerrilla politics: to be so low profile that you don't exist, or to be so high-profile that there's a circus around you. Obviously, I took the latter. I think it's worked well.

Besides Abbie, I was also inspired by the Diggers in San Francisco, and by The Farm in Tennessee. Stephen Gaskin [Farm founder] was a huge inspiration in terms of the hippie work ethic. I discovered the Farm when I was about 16, and that's when I first saw that you could get a huge group of alternative culture people together to all work their asses off for nothing towards something they believed in. That's kind of a model I've used - at least, that was the inspiration for starting the Peace Heathens.

What was the beginning of your political activism? How did you get started?

I grew up living with my grandparents. My grandfather was senior national representative for the largest federal government labor union in America, the American Federation of Government Employees. He took me everywhere. I met Hubert Humphrey when I was 10; I met the head of the United Nations; I was honorary member of several locals at 10 years old. So growing up in an extremely political family - an Irish-liberal-labor-union family - was a big influence.

My own involvement? In the '80s I was a musician, a hippie butt-rocker. I went to some anti-nuke rallies and anti-contra aid rallies and stuff like that, but it wasn't until about '87 and I was living in Bellevue when a series of events happened that gave me the inspiration to move to the U District specifically to start a group called the Peace Heathens.

One purpose was to make a statement about alternative culture folks by our very existence. The name heathens, according to Webster's Dictionary, means "a person or group of people considered by society to be irreligious, unenlightened, or uncivilized." I figured that was the moniker that my culture had been labeled with, so we were going to come and defy the stereotypes.

A second purpose was to pose a positive role model for at-risk alternative culture street youth - well, it was targeted at street youth, but people ended up coming from all ages - to give these people a vehicle so they could become involved in positive social change and community service. I figured that if we were able to create a multi-issue group that was able to do things that were fun and exciting and have a direct, immediate, tangible result, that people would come rushing to it. It turned out I was right.

After starting the Peace Heathens, I started getting asked to emcee events. The first thing we did was the Freakers' Ball, which was a benefit for Teen Feed, and then we did a series of subsequent benefits for Big Mountain Support Group, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and NW AIDS Foundation.

Then we started working on the Crisis Guide, which is really I think our biggest claim to fame in our 11 years. We're working on the fifth edition right now. The Crisis Guide is a free publication. It's got 250 listings in 28 service provider categories. We've given out over 21,700 copies for free. We give them out at street level, but we also have formal requests from the Seattle Police Department Advanced Training Unit, the Dept. of Corrections, HUD, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Northwest Hospital, Harborview Hospital, and Stonewall Recovery Services.

I think it's a huge coup that we've got the Seattle Police Department handing out materials that were put together by the same people that put on the Hempfest. I don't think they realize it. And on the cover is a peace sign and anarchy symbol, and inside is a socialist manifesto saying how we believe in equal wealth distribution, and we've got Mothers Against Police Harassment listed in it, but the cops are giving them out.

With the Crisis Guide, we were able to do something that was more than a symbolic gesture by putting this information in a user-friendly format, and putting it freely into people's hands. No money has exchanged hands in any relationship to the project since its inception in 1990. It's been all pro bono, everything's been donated.

How is the Peace Heathens structured as an organization?

We call it a "community-action tribe." We're not registered with any government agency. We don't exist on that level. It's really an urban guerrilla group who operate with a very loose hierarchy. Those of us who have been around a long time have a little seniority in the decision-making process. Over the years literally several thousand people have come through the Peace Heathens. We staffed the Peace Concerts in the late '80s and early '90s, we staffed Snoqualmie Moondances, the Star-light Mountain Festival, and Hempfests. We've done the Freakers' Ball, Operation Cleansweep on the Ave., the free table and then the storefront we used to have on the Ave. Different people come forward for different projects.

So it's remained a very loose organization: very easy to get in, very easy to get out. Over the years we've gotten some really good people. Now, gosh, we've got people working at Microsoft, and Starwave, and ABCnews.com--in the Peace Heathens!

Talk about Hempfest. How did that get started?

While we were doing the Peace Vigil, the six-month occupation of Gas Works Park during the Persian Gulf War, somebody organized a big meeting to start up a Washington State NORML chapter. Well, everybody showed up at the meeting except the guy that organized it. My buddy Gary was so disappointed by the no-show of the organizer that he decided to put together something himself. He came to me and asked if I wanted to emcee it. I said I would, and offered that the Peace Heathens would staff and promote it.

It was at Volunteer Park in '91. It had a humble attendance of about 500 people. The next year was 2,000; the next year, 8,000. It moved to Gas Works in '94 with 15,000; moved to Myrtle Edwards in '95 with 55,000 people. We took 1996 off to produce the first-ever state-wide Hemp Voters' Guide. We came back in '97 and got seriously rained out with 22,000 people; then came back this year with 45,000 people, and with what I believe was definitely our most politically successful event. We finally got respect in the local and national media as a legitimate political event, instead of a "smokescreen for pot party" like the P-I said four years ago.

You got national media, too, right?

A lot. ABCnews.com, Sidewalk.com; we've been on MTV News; we were covered by CNN. USA Weekend, with 3.1 million readership, had us on the front cover. We've become the second largest hemp event in the nation.

Talk about your legal battle with the anti-postering ordinance.

Okay. A couple years ago I got a $250 ticket for taping a paper flyer to a metal pole in the University District. I did it on purpose. I continued to defy that law hoping to get caught, and I did. I saw that as my chance to challenge the law constitutionally. I marked "Not Guilty" on the ticket and demanded a trial by judge. My first trial was extremely high-profile, with Chris Novoselic from Nirvana, Paul Dorpat, and various other luminaries in Seattle testifying in my defense. The Stranger put out a special edition devoted to it. I got television and newspaper coverage. I lost, as I predicted I would at the city level. I never expected to beat the city in the city's court with the city's judge and the city's law.

And then I appealed and had a day in Superior Court which lasted about 45 minutes, and I lost there. My next step is State Supreme Court, where I feel I have a considerably better chance, now that I'm out of the city's jurisdiction.

Any other comments?

Yeah, I'd like to say that the Seattle alternative community has absolutely no excuse to be politically lethargic or apathetic. Nowhere is there a greater concentration of people who know the extent of injustice and corruption in our society, and I'm repulsed by the apparent lack of participation in social change that's going on in this city right now. I want to shame as many people as possible into action by whatever means it takes.

The Peace Heathens can be contacted at 206-547-0846 (press 1) or PO Box 95123, Seattle, WA 98145.