While teaching, he became involved in the peace movement and he was arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with other anti-war protesters while blowing "America the Beautiful" on the trumpet. In 1972, he set up a trailer during the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida, calling it the "American Lobotomy Machine". He and other peace demonstrators sat in it for hours, pretending to be brainwashed into being "good Americans."