Conversations with a Ghost: The Abbie Hoffman Interview, Conclusion

In 1986 I interviewed 60s radical Abbie Hoffman. Never before published, the edited transcript now appears through the magic of the Internet. This is the final installment.

Introduction

Part 1

Part 2

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Mission2Moscow: Do you ever get tired of being ABBIE HOFFMAN, in capital letters?

Hoffman: Very much, yes. Being underground, if I heard the name I just ducked immediately, I got scared. So I still don’t like to hear it today, to this minute I don’t like to hear the name. But fame can give you access. You can call up people, they don’t hang up. Well, it’s an OK name. I’m proud of what I do – and did.

Mission2Moscow: How do you like to relax?

Hoffman: Orgasms. I’m trying to figure out how to make it last longer than three hours (shrieks of laughter). Believe me, international revolution, that’s how you do it – three-hour orgasms.

Mission2Moscow: Your mother called you an excellent bowler. You were a jock back at Brandeis.

Hoffman: Sports? Let’s see, tennis. I love playing pool, going to pool halls and shooting pool. And I like watching sports on TV. I love arguing with the television. I spend about three hours shouting at the TV. It gets me in good shape.

Mission2Moscow: Are you a vegetarian?

Hoffman: No, do I want to see my shit green all the rest of my life? I’ve been on long fasts. In prison it’s very easy. If you’ve had burrito surprise in a maximum security prison, you’re ready to fast. But I’m not a vegetarian and I’m not sure I’d let my daughter marry one.

Mission2Moscow: In other times we’ve talked, you’ve always brought up the networking person’s name. Have you ever wanted, in your juvenile delinquency moments, to go down to the Palladium and put a cream pie in his face? [2006 note: The Palladium was a night club in New York where Jerry Rubin held networking parties in the 1980s.]

Hoffman: It’s funny about that. I’ve only been cream pied once and he did it to me. And I hated it. It happened in a debate.

Mission2Moscow: In your autobiography you described the two of you as still close friends then. Does that still apply?

Hoffman: What I wrote about Jerry Rubin, being friendly with him, that’s a mistake. We’re not friendly. This is not because of what he does. I don’t even know what the hell it is. Networking? It’s got people coming and they exchange business cards and they want to get laid, I guess. So that’s cool. But he has decided to put his ideas into the political arena, and I have to deal with him as a public personality, not just as a private person. What am I supposed to do about somebody who says he picked out his wife because she wouldn’t feel guilty about wearing a fur coat and getting in and out of limousines? Now I’ve got 30 or 40 quotes like that from Jerry Rubin that I would just whip out in the debates and he’d say that’s a lie – but they’re all true. He will say that thing and then he will turn around and not connect it. There are no connections. That’s what’s so lousy about being born again.

I just couldn’t believe that introduction (to the Whole Life interview with Rubin). It said the book he wrote about his insights were sincere. Every single chapter was the latest fad. If it was Werner Erhard [2006 note: Erhard was the founder of the est training] it was in, if it was Rolfing that was in, and then that was wrong and this was it. This is so crass, so petty, so nouveau riche, so disgusting.

Mission2Moscow: You sound disappointed.

Hoffman: People who want to make money in this society are literally a dime a dozen. It’s not that I’m disappointed in Jerry as a human being. He paid his dues. I’m disappointed in the kind of political things he feels he has to do to make his way and brag about going to restaurants where George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump hang out. God, I’d be afraid I’d get some kind of disease.

Mission2Moscow: Is Judaism part of your mentality?

Hoffman: I’m not about to deny my Judaism, and I’m not about to let B’nai B’rith and real hawks on Israel define what Judaism is.

Mission2Moscow: How do you define it?

Hoffman: A way of life. A way of championing the cause of the underdog, of not being afraid of being a dissident, almost a permanent outsider.

Mission2Moscow: Like a prophet.

Hoffman: You mean “et.” Proph-ETS.

Mission2Moscow: Proph-ETS, right, the Jeremiahs and Isaiahs of the world.

Hoffman: The ones who went for broke, as opposed to . . .

Mission2Moscow: The ones who wound up broke.

Hoffman: Who wound up broke. I cannot conceive of winding up any other way but broke.

Mission2Moscow: Is there anything you haven’t done, that you would like to do?

Hoffman: I want to go to Bali, and I want to go back to the Amazon. I never want to go to Europe again, that’s for sure. I want to go to Africa and Asia, the developing worlds. If I had my way, right now, OK, no shit, all things considered, if I was financially secure I would be out of this country. I would be gone, you wouldn’t know Abbie Hoffman. Now we’re dealing with the truth. He has enough money, he’s out of there. I’d be in Nicaragua, that’s where I’d be. I don’t know if I’d be carrying a gun or driving an ambulance, but I’d like going there. I like Nicaragua.