Detroit Free Press Mike Wendland Column.

By Mike Wendland, Detroit Free Press Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Aug. 11--A BLAST FROM PAST, ZUDFUNCK IS ONLINE: Zudfunck is back.

He's an icon from the Detroit hippie scene of the 1970s with a nationwide following of self-described Zuddies who dialed in to hear his philosophical ramblings delivered via telephone answering machine.

This time, he's doing it in streaming audio on the Internet, at www.zudfunck.com.

The unkempt beard and uncombed shoulder-length black hair are gone, replaced by a distinguished, well-combed and respectable collar-length mantle of gray. Gone too is the cornucopia of drugs that fueled his monotone monologues, thanks to a 12-step program that saw him swear off mind-altering substances for good.

Zudfunck's real name is Jim Kurtagh. He's a polite and surprisingly shy and reclusive man, agreeing reluctantly to an interview as long as his face wasn't shown in the accompanying photograph.

"Times sure have changed," says the 52-year-old Kurtagh. "Everyone is so into themselves and blind to anything beyond their immediate needs."

Not like the '70s when life was a trip, the world was cosmic and revolution and rebellion against anything that smacked of authority was celebrated.

Ah, the good old days. In early 1970, Kurtagh -- then 19 and living with his parents in Highland Park -- started using sound effects, a reel-to-reel tape recorder and a telephone answering machine to chronicle the thoughts of his alter ego, known simply as Zudfunck because "it was a cool-sounding name." He called the service "Dial-a-Trip."

The hippie underground spread the message far and wide. By the mid-'70s, 20,000 people a week were calling in from all over the world. The telephone company was so overwhelmed that it actually pulled the plug on the service for a while.

It all ended in 1983. It was time to grow up -- and sober up. Zudfunck disappeared.

"I was a mess," he says. "I was living the lifestyle. I really became Zudfunck." The drugs -- marijuana, amphetamines, anything and everything else he could find -- had taken their toll.

He entered a treatment program. Settled down. Met a woman and got married. Had kids. Divorced.

For 20 years, Kurtagh has lived a pretty normal life. By trade he is a telecommunications consultant. Which figures, right?

"My life is pretty ...uiet," says the soft-spoken Kurtagh, who looks, well, almost distinguished. He attends 12-step meetings every week, and seldom goes out to socialize. Big entertainment for him is renting a DVD movie. But one day, he did a Google search and found that while the old Zud may have been gone, he was hardly forgotten.

He found he was the subject of a Zudfunck fan site (http://homepacbell.net/dbrett/zudfunk.htm) run by Dave Richardson, an ex-Detroiter who lives in Berkeley, Calif., where he helps operate the synchrotron particle accelerator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"He e-mailed me and we later met when I came back to visit family," says Richardson. "It was an honor. I considered him a prophet of a uni...ue time in American society." Richardson encouraged Kurtagh to turn to the Web.

And so, for the past two months, Kurtagh uses a microphone and his computer to make new digital files that comment on everything from the shallowness of Internet chat rooms to the president's domestic policy.

So far, with little publicity, about 6,000 people have discovered the new Web site.

Zudfunck has fast-forwarded to the 21st Century.

Contact Mike Wendland at 313-222-8861 or mwendland@freepress.com.

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(c) 2003, Detroit Free Press. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.