People have been asking if I’m in any way connected to dark horse mayoral candidate Richard Goldberger. Now that the primary runoff is over, with Mr. Goldberger collecting slightly more than half of one percent of the votes, I suppose it’s safe to confess that I’ve been in cahoots with the candidate now for some fifty years.
Our paths first crossed back in 1969 at a rooming house called The Gavel, which stands directly across the street from the University of Utah’s law school. I was not a law student; in fact, I wasn’t even a student—having been denied admission to the university by the dean of the English department, Dr. Kenneth Eble, who cited “high standards” in his rejection letter.
Goldberger, meantime, had suffered rejection by the editors of Pen–the university’s official literary magazine. This after his poem, “Ode to a Toad,” had also failed to measure up to the university’s oh-so-lofty standards.
In retaliation, Richard launched his own literary magazine, Pen Rejects. In order to be accepted by Pen Rejects, your submission first had to be rejected by Pen.
As two souls who had suffered nothing but rejection up to that point, it was inevitable that we would end up collaborating on a publishing project of some sort; thus was born The Salt Flat News.
As a publishing team, we were the odd couple. Richard is a brash, fast-talking hustler from New York, while I’m a mild-mannered introvert from rural Utah. To say we worked well together would be a stretch, so let’s just say the relationship was symbiotic. Richard would barge through doors when I was afraid to knock. Everywhere he went, he’d make a mess. My job was to clean up after him as best I could and impose some semblance of order. I can sit behind a desk for hours on end, whereas Richard Goldberger always has to be on the move, or on the phone. Let’s just say he’s an “idea man”—or “idear” man, as he’d mispronounce it.
To name just a few of Richard Goldberger’s “big idears,” he once opened a bookstore on Ninth South, hoping to draw business away from the popular Waking Owl. The first thing I noticed about the Read An Owl To Sleep bookstore was the absence of books. Turns out Richard wasn’t interested in selling books; he just wanted a good view of a dress shop across the street run by a hippie chick named Terrell Starr.
Richard knew all the hippie chicks in the valley, many of whom he’d lure to various offbeat locations—junkyards and slag piles and the like—for fashion shoots. His camera of choice was a twin lens Rolleiflex, which enabled him to photograph girls in miniskirts from ground level. I’d define his technique as somewhere between Philippe Halsman and Arthur Felig, aka Weegee.
Although Richard never did drugs or dressed as a hippie, he knew everyone in the counterculture movement in Salt Lake City. Think of him as the Eugene Jelesnik of hip—or, better still, Salt Lake’s version of Andy Warhol. Whoever came along looking to upend the established order sooner or later would find himself in Goldberger’s orbit. In no time at all, you’d go from a stranger in town with no friends to a person of interest.
Following the collapse of Salt Lake City’s so-called cultural revolution, which my friend Tom Luebben describes as “a minor, powderless skirmish,” Richard has tried on various hats at a realtor, perpetual student, missionary to the homeless, junk dealer and professional “finder” of rare and unusual things. I can attest that he is a master at digging up startling information and usual items. Over the years Richard has found a lot of things for me before I even realized I was looking.
But evidently he’s not what Salt Lakers are looking for to run their city. Which is not to say Richard Goldberger is finished running. My impression is, he’s been on the run ever since the day he fled Scarsdale.
