{{Short description|American journalist (1945–1978)}} {{Infobox person | name = Tom Forçade | image = | caption = Tom Forçade in 1973 for a Boulder, Colorado meeting of the Underground Press | birth_name = Kenneth Gary Goodson | birth_date = {{Birth date|1945|9|11|mf=y}} | birth_place = Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|mf=y|1978|11|17|1945|9|11}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | education = University of Utah, 1967 | height = | occupation = Underground journalist, publisher, activist | years_active = 1966–1978 | alias = | known_for = Underground Press Syndicate<br />''High Times'' magazine | website = }} '''Thomas King Forçade''' (born Kenneth Gary Goodson, September 11, 1945 – November 17, 1978) was an American underground journalist and cannabis rights activist in the 1970s.<ref name="gross">{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-gCAAAAMBAJ&q=tom+Forçade&pg=PA40|author=Gross, Michael|date=February 18, 1991|title=Ivana's Avenger|magazine=New York}}</ref> He was the founder of ''High Times'' magazine and for many years ran the Underground Press Syndicate (later called the Alternative Press Syndicate)<ref>Bienenstock, David; and editors of ''High Times'' magazine (2008). [http://www.hightimes.com/microsites/handbook/chap1p3.inc.php Chapter 1 HIGHstory] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407062624/http://www.hightimes.com/microsites/handbook/chap1p3.inc.php |date=2014-04-07 }}. ''The Official High Times Pot Smokers Handbook: Featuring 420 Things to do When You're Stoned.'' Chronicle Books. {{ISBN|0811862054}}. {{ISBN|9780811862059}}.</ref>
Forçade published several other publications, such as ''Stoned'', ''National Weed'', ''Dealer'' and others, that, veiled as counterculture entertainment magazines, were laced with humor and savvy coverage of politics and popular culture, and served as a forum for some of the industry's best writers and artists.{{cn|date=December 2022}} Many of Forçade's publications' writers went on to be published in premiere papers and magazines in North America.{{cn|date=December 2022}}
==Life and career== Forçade was born as Kenneth Gary Goodson in Phoenix, Arizona on September 11, 1945. He graduated from the University of Utah in 1967 with a degree in business administration. After being quickly discharged from the United States Air Force, Forçade used the skills he learned to traffic drugs across the Mexico–United States border by plane.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column68b.html|title=Tom Forçade, Social Architect|author=Al Aronowitz|author-link=Al Aronowitz|website=The Blacklisted Journalist|access-date=2002-02-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://thestonedsociety.com/featured/dana-beal-hippies-yippies-zippies-beatnicks/|title=Hippies, Yippies, Zippies and Beatnicks – A Conversation with Dana Beal|author=Arnett, Andrew|website=TheStonedSociety.com|publisher=The Stoned Society|access-date=21 July 2015|archive-date=21 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221230442/https://thestonedsociety.com/featured/dana-beal-hippies-yippies-zippies-beatnicks/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Nation2013" /> He used the proceeds to form a hippie commune and underground magazine called ''Orpheus''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Dufton |first=Emily |title=Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America |publisher=Basic Books |year=2017 |isbn=9780465096169 |location=New York City |pages=75-80}}</ref>
After this, he moved to New York City and officially changed his name to Thomas King Forçade to avoid associating his family name with counterculture and play on the word ''façade''.<ref name=":0" /> There. he first took over management of the Underground Press Syndicate, a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines that he helped found.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JroUDAAAQBAJ&q=tom+Forçade |title=Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America |author=John McMillian |isbn=978-0195319927 |date=February 17, 2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=120–126}}</ref><ref name="Yippie" /> The name was changed to the Alternative Press Syndicate in 1973. Forçade was instrumental in the microfilming of the Underground Newspaper Collection.<ref>Charnigo, Laurie. "Prisoners of Microfilm: Freeing Voices of Dissent in the Underground Newspaper Collection." ''Progressive Librarian'' (2012): 41-90.</ref> In 1970, Forçade was the first documented activist to use pieing as a form of protest, hitting Chairman Otto Larsen during the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/weekinreview/take-sugar-eggs-beliefs-and-aim.html|website=New York Times|title=Take Sugar, Eggs, Beliefs . . . And Aim|author=Vinciguerra, Thomas|date=10 December 2000}}</ref><ref name="nytpie">{{cite news|author=Staff report |date=May 13, 1970 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/14/archives/witness-presents-pornography-commissioner-with-a-pie-in-the-face.html |title=Witness Presents Pornography Commissioner With a Pie (in the Face)|work=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Weiner |first=Rex |date=April 1, 2014 |url=http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/04/01/heres-pie-in-your-eye |title=Here's Pie in Your Eye|work=The Paris Review}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/throwing-custard-pies-looks-like-fun-its-also-art|title=Throwing Custard Pies Looks Like Fun. It's Also Art.|first=Anthony |last=Haden-Guest|author-link=Anthony Haden-Guest|website=The Daily Beast|date=18 February 2018 |access-date=18 February 2018}}</ref>
In summer 1974, Forçade founded ''High Times'',<ref name="Nation2013">{{cite news|date=Oct 30, 2013|title=Baking Bad: A Potted History of 'High Times': The editors of the nation's most popular pot magazine on its four decades-long fight to end cannabis prohibition|first=Atossa Araxia |last=Abrahamian |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/baking-bad-potted-history-high-times/|work=The Nation}}</ref> and contributed funding to the Yippie newspaper, ''Yipster Times'',<ref name="Yippie">{{Cite book|title=Blacklisted News: Secret Histories from Chicago, '68, to 1984 | author=New Yippie Book Collective | isbn=9780912873008 |publisher=Bleecker Publishing|date=1983}} (Chapter titled "''Zeitgeist: The Ballad of Tom Forçade''" by Steve Conliff)</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n-SG3oWUjhMC&q=yippie+concerts&pg=PA152|title=Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana - Medical, Recreational and Scientific|author=Martin A. Lee|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1536620085|date=2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://thevillager.com/2018/02/25/yippies-vs-zippies-new-jerry-rubin-book-reveals-70s-counterculture-feud/|title=Yippies vs. Zippies: New Rubin book reveals '70s counterculture feud|author=Reinholz, Mary|website=TheVillager.com|publisher=The Villager (Manhattan)|access-date=25 February 2018}}</ref> while also bankrolling the ailing ''Punk'' magazine.<ref name="armstrong1981">Armstrong, David (1981). ''A trumpet to arms: alternative media in America.'' J.P. Tarcher, {{ISBN|978-0-87477-158-9}}</ref> ''High Times'' ran articles calling marijuana a "medical wonder drug" and ridiculing the US Drug Enforcement Administration. It became a huge success, with a circulation of more than 500,000 copies a month and revenues approaching $10 million by 1977, and was embraced by the young adult market as the bible of the alternative life culture. By 1977 ''High Times'' was selling as many copies an issue as'' Rolling Stone ''and ''National Lampoon''.
According to the 1990 nonfiction book ''12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols and America'', by Noel E. Monk,<ref>{{cite book|isbn=978-0688112745|publisher=William Morrow and Company|title=12 Days on the Road : The Sex Pistols and America|author=Noel Monk|date=November 25, 1992}}</ref> Forçade and his film crew followed the Sex Pistols through their chaotic January 1978 concerts of the U.S. South and West, using high-pressure tactics in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade the band's management and record company to let him document the tour.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=POIVBgAAQBAJ&q=tom+Forçade&pg=PT200|title=The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night|author-first=Anthony |last=Haden-Guest|author-link=Anthony Haden-Guest|isbn=978-0061723742|publisher=It Books|date=December 8, 2009}}</ref>
==Death== Forçade died by suicide by gunshot to the head in November 1978 in his Greenwich Village apartment after the death of his best friend, Jack Coombs.<ref name="Torgoff2004">{{cite book |first=Martin |last=Torgoff |author-link=Martin Torgoff |title=Can't Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945–2000 |year=2004 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7432-5863-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cantfindmywayhom00torg/page/269 269] |url=https://archive.org/details/cantfindmywayhom00torg |url-access=registration }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Resistance: A Radical Political and Social History of the Lower East Side|author=Clayton Patterson|isbn=9781583227459|publisher=Seven Stories Press|date=2007|pages=514–517}}</ref> Forçade had attempted suicide before and bequeathed trusts to benefit ''High Times'' and NORML.{{cn|date=December 2022}} ''High Times''<nowiki>'</nowiki> former associate publisher, Rick Cusick, claims that, at Forçade's memorial — held on the roof of the World Trade Center — mourners mixed a small amount of ashes from Forcade's cremation into a marijuana cigarette and they smoked it.<ref name=Nation2013 />
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://ww4report.com/node/3495 Biography of Forçade from World War 4 Report] *{{YouTube|6KMMRZxY-e0|The Early Years of Tom Forçade}} *[https://potent.media/tom-Forçade-interview Tom Forçade Interview] (published posthumously in HiLife magazine, Sept 1979) *[http://thevillager.com/2018/02/25/yippies-vs-zippies-new-jerry-rubin-book-reveals-70s-counterculture-feud/ Yippies vs. Zippies: New Rubin book reveals ’70s counterculture feud] (''The Villager'' article by Mary Reinholz, 25 February 2018) *[https://www.amazon.com/Agents-Chaos-Thomas-For%C3%A7ade-Paranoid/dp/0306923912 ''Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s''] by Sean Howe (book published August 29, 2023)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Forçade, Tom}} Category:1945 births Category:1978 deaths Category:1978 suicides Category:20th-century American journalists Category:20th-century American writers Category:American cannabis activists Category:American political writers Category:Cannabis writers Category:American free speech activists Category:Suicides by firearm in New York City Category:University of Utah alumni Category:Writers from Phoenix, Arizona Category:Yippies Category:20th-century American male journalists Category:20th-century American publishers (people)