 In classic '60s style, he dropped out of college in 1970 to work full-time on the "Gargoyle," the Hudson Valley's first alternative or "underground" newspaper, which he helped to start in 1969 in New Paltz, Ulster County, NY — then a major center of student action, antiwar protest, assisted psychotropics, and artistic renaissance.While working on the "Gargoyle" Horowitz changed his name to Mikhail ("Mik") Horowitz, as he was often confused with Michael Horovitz, a widely published post-Beat British poet who was enamored of jazz and who orchestrated the Poetry Olympics in London, and Michael Horowitz, author, activist, friend of Timothy Leary and later father of Winona Ryder.The deciding straw was receiving a mistakenly delivered packet of galley proofs from one of Michael Horovitz’s publishers.