 By 1966 Vale received a bachelor's degree in English Literature at University of California, Berkeley and moved to Haight-Ashbury.In 1970, he moved to an apartment in North Beach, where he continues to live today.In 1977, while working at City Lights Bookstore, with $100 donated each by Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he began publication of "Search and Destroy", a San Francisco-based zine documenting the then-current punk subculture.