The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 453 - Abbie Hoffman - Part Three

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine radical Abbie HoffmanSourcesTour DatesRed Bubble Merch

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Network. This is a bi-racial American History podcast where each week I, Dave Anthony, an Irish guy, reads a story from American history to his friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about and is a pasty English guy. Bi-racial. Yep. Two colors of white. Our ancestors are from different islands. Yep. No and I mean if you I mean if you go to England you know that's you look at the Irish and you go look at that they've been to the beach all weekend they look absolutely lovely they do yeah and the Irish like oh get out of the way look look out we've got our tan lines. That's

right. Watch yourself. That was basically like taking a trip to that area of the world the United Kingdom and the former United Kingdom parts. I can take you to all the parts of the United Kingdom the ones that are gonna stay like England all of it won't stay like the others. All of the all of the United Kingdom parts which are the bad parts and then the good which is the and then the good X what happens Ireland and I guess let's not choose because Scotland's pretty great so let's say they're all great yeah okay let's narrow it down English sucks right is that here's here's here's what's gonna be yeah go

ahead what will happen. Boris Johnson. Brexit. He's great. Let's do this. He's great. He's great. It's always I've always wanted to see Margaret Thatcher with a penis. What's great you have as you've seen Margaret Thatcher. All right let's slow it down we're early in the show. She's known as the tiger penis lady. Well I can't save it for the episode. They called her old steel balls. But what happens when Scotland, Wales and Ireland leave and then is it this England just then called Kingdom. And called it quote is jam-packed. Jam-packed. I'm the fucking hippo guy. Okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tiggly Podcast. Okay. This is like an up five part coefficient. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep down hippo. Actually, my friend. No.

Part three. Okay. Abbie Hoffman dollop. Okay. Interesting. At the end of part two, Abbie Hoffman had been convicted of inciting a riot while crossing state lines but then the verdict was thrown out by an appellate court. Right after the crazy judge. And that's right the crazy judge and then Hoffman. And then last we heard the FBI had distributed a memo saying they were going to mail a leaflet that would lead to the destruction of the yippee movement. As well as Abbie was getting a lot of offers to kind of go mainstream and he shirked those and rejected those. That's right. And then I also liked how in the last episode it ended and you were like basically he he got 25 grand

for something and he used that to bail out a black panther like so thinking about anyone who was around him like there you go Abbie 25 and it's a you can get back up on your feet again for a second he's like I'm gonna bail out a black panther they're like Abbie maybe it's time can you just focus a little bit is that possible he can't help it he's the real deal yeah so this memo that the FBI distributes it's handwritten and it has doodles on it which was what a traditional yippee document looks like right oh god okay yeah and then sometimes you hate them and this is what it said quote Abbie Oink Hoffman wanted

for ripping off the street people for pissing on the revolution for shitting on the revolution for fucking Jerry Rubin and yep so it goes on like that and this is this is really in the language of the appease it's classic Cointel Pro to set the left against each other and it's really and this is just they essentially they forged a document to make it seem like the left has turned on Abbie Hoffman to people within the organization are calling him out for being a piece of shit right right right so bookstores are not not carrying Abbie's book steal this book this book right because title that's right

because people are stealing the book yeah so they can't actually keep it on the shelf because people would just take it some stores would have one copy behind the counter and you could ask for it if you wanted but yeah you just got to do though you just got to do the blockbuster thing that's right they would do with popular movies empty and then you just go up there and be like can I have sphere the Michael Crichton movie yeah it's really sad that blockbuster didn't make it because I love I've always loved a source for my films that edited them for me and that is it is it safe to say that our handling of climate change

is pretty blockbusterian yes where we're like it'll be fine Netflix yeah people don't want to watch movies without having to go somewhere so so Canada banned the book Oklahoma filed a lawsuit against Abbie for contributing for corrupting the youth sure right in Oklahoma only this after school were chronicle would run an ad for the book but all this led to publicity and then more people trying to get copies and getting copies so it just dry sand effect yeah yeah now the publicity and Cointel prose the smears did hurt Abbie's reputation in the counterculture movement okay leftists were now asking

how many of his antics made made people aware of the revolution and how many promoted just Abbie himself okay which is exactly what Cointel pro wanted but the government at the same time is very worried about Abbie so much so that in May 71 there's a march in DC and the day before the March president Nixon and his chief of staff Halderman discussed having men beat up Abbie Hoffman goddamn Nixon was out of I mean out of his mind yeah no I love the people like Trump's brand new okay so yeah Nixon quote they've got guys who will go in and knock their heads off Halderman quote sure sure murderers guys that really you

know that's what they want to do and they're gonna beat the shit out of some of these people and and hope they really heard them you know I mean go in with some real and smash some noses I think getting Abbie Hoffman and this John the other year they got another the Chicago seven guys it's amazing how what was normalized in the Nixon Oval Office it's it's just like so I think we beat them up could we guys a convert them oh yeah we got guys okay great like it's just like it was like it's like improv everything's yes and like oh yeah they'll kill them and then they'll burn them sure enough the next day at the

protest Abbie was very badly beaten quote to got the arms pinned back while another snarling administered the crushing blow a Billy club full force straight across my face I could hear the bones crack out of the blow and I knew my street fighting days were over oh hearing your own skull fragment it's not great no that's right yeah so after he recovered a bit he came back to New York and he was immediately arrested for crossing state lines to participate in a riot and assaulting a cop you broke that cops club you know Abbie you always get charged with assaulting a cop if a cop assaults you

always always well that but I mean that is why the the biggest cop tell is they just shout stop resisting stop resisting yeah yeah well that's like yeah well they beat the shit out of people that's what they always do eight eight cops one dude wrestling they're all beating him shouting stop resisting it's like I feel like you're the ones pushing back so interviewers now start acting like the lies Cointel pro are spreading are actually true so Abbie goes on a local TV show in Chicago and the interviewer keeps calling Abbie well off which is one of things Cointel pro is pushing because they know that if he

if people see him making money it fractures everything yeah but Abbie's completely broke and one caller calls in and asks if Abbie is working with the CIA and then the interviewer jumps in and corrects the caller and says no Renny Davis is the one but he's working with the FBI so there's just all these lies being thrown around and Abbie just thinks it's also crazy he's just laughing at it and laughing it off but there's significant damage being done god damn while all this is going on there are ads in magazines like GQ with models who look exactly like Abbie Hoffman and they're in ads for liberated hairstyles

and black black fashions and what campus counterculture is wearing Abbie and Anita have a son named they name America but with a lowercase a my god Lord bits after bits Anita quote because we didn't want to be pretentious we chose that name because he was our vision of what the country could be that's cool now further hurting Abbie with the left a book researcher comes out and says Abbie had not paid him 5,000 forest research on the book okay and so it goes to arbitration and Abbie wins okay he's ordered to pay the guy a smaller amount than they originally agreed upon okay so the guys like you

didn't pay me enough it goes to arbitration in the courts like he actually should have paid you less right okay so Abbie's like a twist so Abbie's like I won and then the researcher holds a press conference and makes it seem like he'd won because Abbie was ordered to pay him money but it's a smaller amount so it's it's Trumpian yeah sorry this is fucking FBI shit right so the media goes with that story they love and then right after that a guy comes out and says Abbie stole steal this book from him well the dude shouldn't have called it that fuck you expect bro Abbie's like cut steal this book huh

yeah where is it Abbie oh no that's also a lie both of these guys are counterculture guys on the inside so everyone just assumes that Abbie's lying the two guys could have easily been FBI this is literally what the FBI does this is the FBI so easy it's just too easy yeah so then Abbie is attacked in a long article in Liberation magazine and he is fucking pissed and he writes a response saying he's done with the movement and he calls them a group of vultures he says it's a divorce okay Cointel pro has gotten everything I wanted exactly what they set out to do they did and pretty and again really

not that hard no it's not people people just yeah it's just people believe so much shit jack Hoffman quote the tide of popular perception against Abbie was now pretty much a tidal wave many in the young feminist and gay rights movements considered him to be more or less irrelevant to their goals there was a sense that Abbie no longer represented anybody but himself and it's not just the FBI Abbie is under attack must be so gutting to be him sorry oh yeah he's also on a attack he's being watched constantly jack quote the security forces of various government bodies including FBI CIA Army Navy IRS the Bureau of

Tobacco and Firearms the New York Bureau of Special Services they followed him everywhere they harassed his friends and family they told lies about him and made sure those lies were widely disseminated they tapped his phone they made him afraid all the time they not infrequently made sure that he got beaten up pretty bad and they didn't back off they never backed off and they wore him out yeah I mean yeah how how are you expected to to fight that you know right like it's it's it's too massive yeah so Abbie just needed needs a break and he takes his family and they go to the Virgin Islands for three months he used

the name Frank Edward Cressetti very specific so when he comes back he and Jerry Rubin and Ed Sanders write a book about the RNC and DNC conventions and it's called vote which is obviously not the most counterculture title they were saying work within the system now oh wow wow Abbie supports McGovern for president and now he's trying to do everything not to embarrass the presidential candidate democratic presidential candidate wow that's so yippie leaders yippie leaders told all yippies not to go to the DNC to avoid embarrassing him the yippies are it's four years after forming just to cause

shit at the DNC and now they have a nice office in a nice office building with a youth international nameplate in Miami there are no yippie activists there they were not making news they were purposely trying to hide and avoid making news god damn it is just it's just crazy what what money and property does it's so corrupting but he doesn't have money this is I know no but I mean the yippies like yeah you know it's just quite central it's just yeah I know yes and it's I mean yes it's very effective so Abbie was still sought out at the DNC for interviews but he spent most of the convention just high on hash oil okay he

even just started getting tons of delegates high on hash oil it almost like it was his job at the convention Democrats nominate McGovern Nixon wins in a landslide yeah Abbie Hoffman moves to East Hampton and that's where he really gets in a cocaine oh god oh no so one day he calls up Abbie sorry one day Abbie calls up Jack and asks him to send six pounds of pro cane six pounds pro cane is used by Dennis to it numbs the inside of it of the you know mouth right and it's also used to cut cocaine a lot and Jack works in a family medical supply business so yeah he wants six pounds and then three weeks later Abbie

is arrested with three pounds of blow god damn that is I mean but that's that's not an eight ball the blow is so diluted if a dealer had bought it Abbie might have been killed that's an amazing thing like to like for them to be like it's cocaine but it's so shitty we might not be able to charge it I mean that's actually like a gram at the end of the day like I remember one time when my my wallet got stolen and the bank called me and someone tried to put three hundred dollars on my on my debit card at Target and I have like a hundred forty dollars in the bank and so like the card got declined so I was like oh okay I

win you know like you know it feels like that so so that's the official story on the arrest there's a lot of lying by the cops for instance it's for instance they said he left a protest in a chauffeur limo before the drug deal driver take me to my cocaine arrangement I have a narcotic rendezvous and then left up here that man in the trench coat right there's perfect right on the corner can you put the trunk please I've got to get the pounds out the bust hits the news Abbie denies it his friends don't believe he did it Abbie told Jack he didn't think he could make it through a long time in prison and Abbie says at least one of the

cops is a defendant one of the defendants is a cop hmm and there is evidence he's been entrapped and with the FBI trailing him constantly there isn't a word about cocaine while they're on him 24-7 in any of the reports and there's 15,000 pages of reports yeah I would show up yeah so his bail gets lowered at 10,000 and leftist like dr. Benjamin Spock Paul Newman and Daniel Ellsberg pitch in to get him bail damn Paul Newman really did some shit yeah now there's a yeah these names in this when you when you find out all the people that were you know involved it's pretty interesting yeah so Abbie met

with some of the weather underground in a dark movie theater to get advice on living as a fugitive he's facing 15 to 25 years and he reaches out to Albania Algeria Cuba Israel North Korea North Vietnam and Sweden for asylum oh Mike you cross your fingers for Sweden on that list only Israel said no really yeah well I told you without like when yeah out there like there are a lot of like leftist havens but the problem but the problem with that too is that you know you don't know how long those governments I mean it's what happened to Assange it's what happened to a lot of people where you know the second the

government changes that asylum is yeah and you know gone threat that's why you go to Cuba yeah he found out the Justice Department was North Korea is the only one like you feel oh man well all right everybody about North Korea then word comes of the Justice Department was not going to retry the Chicago 7 Abbie that goes to California and he gets a nose job and yeah hide his identity and 10 days I want to have bigger nostrils real big kind of cavernous yeah like the size of one of those pixie stick straws the big what that's what I want like the size of like the big ones yeah yeah like the big ones you can get at home depot

like I want each nostril hold on let me finish I'm telling you what I want please sir I want each one to basically be like a mug like a standard mug hole is that called a mug hole where you put the coffee so two of those chop chop we don't have those kind of materials like we're talking let's just do this yeah yeah no I know let's just do this but I don't need the whatever the in the in between part of your nostrils is called I don't need that the I can't remember what they call it begins with an S but I don't need that so we can just basically make it one big hole so I don't need the the in between yeah you want one hole

for your nose yeah but it should be like a salad bowl size if you can't do the mugs then just give me a big kind of you know like a bird bath the other way around you know I'm saying something that something you could put cereal in and fill with milk but I won't be using milk and cereal obviously it'll be for you know shooting the devil's dandruff down okay yeah you know I'm saying I want to yeah yeah I hear what you're saying I'm just I I'm just not it's not something I here's what I want you to do punch through my nose like it's a wall and that'll be good so you came here wanting surgery but now I just get to

punch you you know now that I'm thinking about it do you guys do trunks yeah we actually our specialty is we do I would love a big sort of trunk sort of thing that would be great then I can do some blow and like an elephant if I want to throw a little on my back I can sort of splash some on my back use the whole you know make it real versatile I could shoot cocaine at other people yeah okay yeah just give me give me a flesh-colored trunk you decide on the nostril thing I would love it to sort of have a Hoover attachment quality but you guys decide and then I'll use that and then that'll be good and then I'll have

that and that's gonna be better I'll tell you what I'm gonna do is save a lot of money on straws can I get a low five all righty all right so get to work and I'm numb already by the way you don't need to numb me I don't feel a fucking thing this is it does not exist as far as I'm concerned I've got what I called ghost nose so ten days after the surgery Abby is in Mexico City obviously doesn't show up for his pre-child hearing and two days after the hearing his dad dies of a heart attack I Abby is declared a fugitive on April 16th which of course is big news so pretty soon very quickly he's living near Guadalajara he's

teaching English he's going by the name Howie Samuels he bumps into a model friend who's doing a shoot there named Joanna Lawrence and and they hit it off and they start living together in a village okay Jack went to visit and said Abby looked more at peace than he had ever seen in his life right okay okay so Abby and Joanna start making trips to the US and back he's he's traveling with the trunk of disguises good lord but he's also having like an identity crisis at the same time so the disguises will do you're like am I the professor or am I Abby am I the fake doctor who am I anymore that's when you look at like he

just catches a glimpse of himself in the stethoscope and just goes who's the real Abby why going back and forth so much I I think they just want to just want I mean they're Americans yeah yeah it's not very hard to avoid the FBI the FBI had not caught one leftist that they've been looking for by 1974 five it's five years in they haven't caught one but then in 1975 they actually start catching some Pat Swinton Cameron Bishop Susan Sacks but they caught them because it was hard to stay underground so long not because they were good at catching people who are underground it's because the people would start to come

out and just go I can't fucking do this right five years was the time period usually when people start coming up Abby gave an interview on camera in Sacramento which led to a two-part article in the New York Times and then the interview was put on public television so right after Abby has hemorrhoid surgery oh good Lord Jesus Christ before he recovers it's not not even a week goes by he starts saying they have to go to Vegas and he takes not by plane not by plane he takes to run into Vegas and this all of this shit together leads to a nervous breakdown okay in Vegas in the hotel he's up all

night long screaming his real name as loud as he can okay sure well I've done that that's Dave that's Vegas baby you know you've never been there just no I've done a little bit let's call it a night around 1 30 a.m. go shout your name for nine hours and then have brunch by the pool it doesn't whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right yeah yeah cuz I'm gonna break down every half man like I mean you know like all those hotels you got it every night then you get screwed with your neighbor but man being next to like yeah he's shy no you don't need to I think I don't need to give you the room number I

know the name it's under Abby Hoffman I'm a hundred percent so a couple of friends rush down from San Francisco driving back up to San Francisco where a doctor medicates him known as Abby Hoffman a lot of Abby's get it I've never seen one quite so bad though so he's manic depressive and he's had a manic break he's gonna have a couple of manic depressive breaks in 1975 okay so he does an interview for Playboy it takes place over a couple of days and so never get and so the interviewers with Abby in different places and when the article comes out Abby is convinced Playboy smeared him and also gave up all

of his hiding places so he's in a total fucking panic but the article did not did not do that at all no okay it okay I mean is that he's I mean it's just total paranoia yeah it's total yeah okay interesting so he flees to Canada okay without Joanna and in a panic from the Canadian motel he checks into he starts calling people tons of people and he runs up a huge phone bill and then he can't pay it and he's arrested oh Jesus Christ it's like what a simple blind spot I mean but he's again he's manic so yeah but they don't connect him to who he is right he's still got a fake ID and everything so alright howie the phone

call man so he calls the Canadian Embassy to get asylum in Cuba okay and the Canadian Embassy thinks that Abby is a CIA CIA is a CIA agent posing as Abby Hoffman what a great power situation for him yeah well look you blew my cover now send me to Cuba all right no more BS you got it I'm Detective Hargrove nice work gentlemen Bravo you know a lot of people think you Canadians are simple but obviously you do your research you do your homework you busted me Abby Hoffman has a much bigger nose and doesn't have a band-aid on his ass so they they deny it right they're like no you can't get asylum so Detective

Hoffman Abby is now completely paranoid and manic he's all alone in Canada Dave Dellinger drives up to try to help Abby but it's impossible okay Abby moves into a shitty Montreal motel and gets a job tarring the roof wow wow what a weird twist so it's crazy Abby quote I alternated between being manic staying up all night and extremely depressed not getting out of bed for long periods not talking to anyone for the first time in my life I contemplated suicide so the Olympics come to Montreal and Abby is watching the Olympics on TV and one of the Canadian runner runners is named Abby okay and the announcer says come to

Montreal and see Abby run oh I mean Jesus cry it's a reach but if you're in that state you're like oh my god he flips the fuck out he cries uncontrollably he starts to think he's chased away everyone who was close to him quote tear crept through my bones every day began with thoughts of suicide and turning or turning myself in and then one day he goes to look at an apartment that a medical student is subletting and they're looking at the place and Abby sees that the dude has a copy of steal this book okay and Abby picks it up and says quote I'm him I'm in trouble I'm very depressed I need I need help so it's a

one-bedroom it's well what'd you say no I ain't I need I'm the guy who wrote this I need I need help I'm I'm trying to get you well the what I what I can do is I can I I don't necessarily need you to cover the security deposit as long as you promise you'd know you're not gonna have to talk to me they talk to me through the Olympics you can keep talking those can be yours telling me mattress as far as a mattress let me just get this out because I really want to get this right as far as a mattress you can rent this one for ten bucks a month or you can get your own you can figure that out it's up to you am I

able to screen my name here for like 24 hours that's not okay no no no there's totally I didn't even know I needed to set a rule about that there's no happy hop no no happy hop man happy hop well all right I be happy are you supposed to disappear all right I don't I'm not getting a good fit with this one to be happy man candy man candy man so go gone that's a candy man great now the candy man's here what do you guys need why'd you call me hey Abbey yeah I love your book oh thanks man yeah yeah I guess I just got to kill this guy huh yeah all right gonna kill this guy now okay it's awesome to be here yeah yeah he's

dead it's good I should probably get back in the mirror where I live yep love it on that side of the mirror guys place really open how many square feet is this it's about that 780 you don't need a roommate damn I mean I could use some I'm gonna talk to you about stuff I'll go back in the mirror not gonna great not getting a great vibe over here I'll just alright don't don't call my name as much take care buddy thank you so the medical student has Abbey has the medical student has Abbey go see a psychiatrist he knows Abbey starts seeing the psychiatrist every day and after a bit Abbey becomes a psychiatrist tennis

partner what a weird how did you guys meet why we're not allowed to say 30 love there was a lot of experimental mental health stuff going on back then okay so Joanna drives up and because he's better right he's on drugs he's getting better and she brings him back to the US I don't mean street drugs that psychiatrist has so much right right okay now we gave him a hundred ccs of tennis pretty good huh that's right now Joanna's family just coincidentally is from a place called fine view New York fine view is on Wellesley Island in the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border okay and that's where they go and

stay and they stay there and they're just living there he starts using the name Barry freed okay wow that's interesting he gets a job writing for craw daddy magazine as a travel editor using his real name so he's now going take a trip until craw daddy has said yes personally that's just how I've approached travel so he he's now just taking trips and writing about them okay they set up a very complicated system to send in his writing so it can't be traced to where he is and then he just kind of stopped being on high alert right he stops being freaked out all the time so he he's just calmer now

he's not on high alert he's just like friend he's starting to get comfortable right right yeah well he goes I mean you there there are like there are you can you can be like obviously like if you have depression I mean it gets worse with circumstances like this like you can't imagine what it's like to have to like you know there go through this so the second that you actually are like oh I can have like some stability and some calm like I can live with this not you know well with stuff like with stuff like manic depression you really stability is really helpful yeah routine and stuff so we magazine hires him to go to Jimmy

Carter's inauguration and write about it okay during the ceremony he ends up standing next to Paul Krasner and then afterwards they meet up with Jerry Rubin so it's like three old guys from the Chicago seven right and Carter actually walks past them on the way to the White House please take my brother when he's there Abby almost took a tour of the brand new FBI headquarters he gets in line oh my lord and then he's in line for a little while and then he just bails yes right call but he's also been on the run for three years the FBI is nowhere close to him so he's trying to wonder if they're even really after him

okay he starts to live much more of a long normal life he takes his son to Disney World on the way back he and Jack go to a Red Sox game he and Joanna take a six-month European vacation where they posed as food critics so they could eat at all the fancy restaurants it's not really my style I'll finish it though and in fine view he's he's becoming a good carpenter he's considered a local now then in the summer of 1978 a neighbor tells Abby the Army Corps of Engineers are planning an operation that includes ice breaking and flooding to allow winter ship navigation okay and that's going to destroy the river's

ecology okay right the boggy eagles the wetlands the aquatic life chain it's all just gonna be fucked up by this the and this is when people cared about that stuff that's right so the activists and Abby you know is rekindled and he talks to Joanna and asks if it's okay if he gets involved in fighting this and she says what an amazing what an amazing thing to have that do you mind if I do another revolution I guess thanks a small one it's a small revolution Barry's doing it this time it's different so he goes into activist mode okay quote saving the river became his obsession at a public hearing on the project he

announced the creation of an organization to protect the St. Louis River but he hadn't created this organization yet so he has to start putting it together after the meeting okay he starts holding small meetings on his lawn they call the group save the river he then starts writing weekly articles in the paper to inform people people start putting out protesting banners like save the river army go home on their boats and in other places so the next public hearing is full of protesters regularly a meeting we get 30 people and now there are hundreds okay so he's still got it he's still got

it and the army car is not ready for it right they're just totally shocked a man got up and explained how a ship that came through the ice felt like an earthquake it tossed out clumps of vegetation dead fish debris all these people are standing up and just and just testifying and the meeting is just a complete victory for Abby the army carb engineers is just rolled over they had no idea what's coming okay so now people all over the area are saying save the river they're saying it as a greeting instead of hello they saved the river no morning so he starts reaching out to experts a stand for economists shows

Abby that the core are falsely claiming feasibility it's actually gonna cost hundred hundreds of millions of dollars Abby's group prints up pamphlets to educate people he said the biggest challenge was quote convincing people it wasn't rude to protest oh that's beautiful Canadians I mean it is America he is on the American side so it is but they're American Canadians are right there that's right the more and more the group grew the more Abby was out in the public okay starts he starts giving speeches he's now being interviewed on local TV local politicians start to support him okay now the river is he's

is he Abby or is he Barry now he's very freed so he has undercover Barry people like was Barry very reminiscent of that up Abby Hoffman character yes the save the river then gets the governors of New York support Wow in the summer of 1978 what the fuck it's like yeah okay so we don't need you to support it the next step oh no it's our it's the army against the okay right it's totally different animals so in the summer of 1978 his old activist friends decided to organize a bring Abby home night at Madison Square Garden for the 10th anniversary of the Chicago DNC oh wow Abby really wanted to go but he was talked out of it man that's

tempting as fuck though man oh yeah yeah John Voight was there Bobby Seale Rennie Davis so all the like left activists of the future yeah Paul Krasner Bill Kuntzler Rip Torn William Burroughs like this just a shitload of people there well John Voight said he'll have a shift there's music they do a mock trial of Nixon people were wearing Abby masks and then Abby sent a tape at the end that they played and everyone heard thanking them okay so Abby and Joanna start going to New York City now more and more they and then they stop switching safe houses when they go there and they just go there and stay in

Joanna's Midtown apartment the whole time on trips boy oh dear they think they're taking they think they're taking a risk but this is how bad the FBI is the FBI still doesn't know that he has a girlfriend and that that girlfriend is Joanna what's how what are they doing by November when he went to a show and dinner with Jack in New York Abby wasn't even wearing a disguise anymore boy they went to a Patriots game together and about half the people sitting all around them knew exactly who he was nobody did a thing nothing happened he hung out with Jack Nicholson and a Hollywood producer it's just he's just

living life at this point and it's not like not just living life but he's hanging out with famous people yeah the Army Corps put off their tests on the River ice so now they're getting victories right okay universal pictures gives Abby 250,000 for the rights to his life story and his to be released autobiography wow and then he gives most of that away he gave a hundred K to Joanna 38 K to Anita and his first wife Sheila he gave five K to Jack at the end of it he has about 25,000 after taxes and fees and everything else okay and then in 1979 a Save the River group went to DC to testify in front of Congress and Abby

went with them Jesus Abby and Abby testified in front of Congress as Barry as Barry freed oh so he'd like took an oath like they're like you purge yourself he's like no Barry did Abby was introduced as Barry freed by a congressman and then he testifies in front of a panel led by New York Senator Daniel Moynihan and then after this that led to Moynihan coming up to find view for a field hearing he rode the river on a paddle boat and then afterwards Abby stood up and gave a big speech right in front of Moynihan Moynihan is 20 feet away the whole time

he's just like I'm going to get arrested now this is fucking crazy I can't imagine at the end of the speech he got a standing ovation and Moynihan said quote now I know where the 60s have gone everyone in New York State owes Barry freed a debt of gratitude for his organizing ability oh my lord he's just got to be like very on the nose very on the nose real on the nose dare I say this Barry's very reminiscent of another I name Abby Abby Hoffman unbelievable just I think if I look at you I see Abby in you and in your actions even though I know it's not you because your name's Barry for sure

god if you're nose if you didn't have an elephant trunk I would be like I have an elephant trunk so I don't know what to tell you exactly but I've never really liked that Abby Hoffman guy too much personally it just seems mm like if the other trunk wasn't there well it is I told you my father was an elephant so I don't want to keep going through this my dad was an elephant so you know he was a Democrat so it's just odd that's all I'm saying it's odd it's odd but it's odd and you know with the rivers odd everything's odd I mean a lot of stuff odds happening I mean look at the stars you ever looked at Cassiopeia what the

hell's going on that little dipper good lord it's odd I mean you go to the grocery store they got magazines there's odd why they sell magazines it's not food a lot of things are odd things are odd I mean there's a three-wheeled car you see that what the who wants that it's odd I'm just saying the world is full of oddities a man with a trunk who resembles someone your name Gary Hoffman I believe Abbey Abbey Abbey I mean the weird things happen they have invisible ink now things are very very strange now you know kids are doing cake stands it's it's bizarre it's just it's not what it used to be things are

different things are odd so sitting here going hey you got an elephant trunk and we resemble someone I think I didn't get me there's no time for that things are too strange right now you know things are very good we're sending people to space for God's sake I mean let's talk about that before we talk about how I look like someone you sort of know from somewhere and I have a trunk and that's the only thing throwing you off of the scent speaking of scent I could smell a pie cooling from five miles away I have to kill him anyway nice speech I'm gonna kill you I'm Abbey what huh no happy who oh god you are you do belong in

government so now Abbey is a big part of the environmentalist movement he goes to DC for an anti-nuclear rally there he bumped into an old TV and radio producer friend and that leads to a couple months later at midnight on November 2nd he goes through the back door of a Boston studio for an interview oh wow the producer said he was both his old witty wise self but quote in trouble right now had trouble so in the interview he says he had regrets quote I used to think of the 60s as the second American Revolution but now I think of it as the second Civil War because it turned brother against

brother and family against family yeah in 1979 he had a meeting with a group in LA kind of like advisors to discuss coming out of hiding okay they don't they don't come to a decision while he's there he sees a psychiatrist who puts him on lithium oh dear now lithium causes him a lot of physical problems but it's good for his mental health okay and in the spray of 1980 the Army Corps of Engineers announced it was stopping all work on the St. Lawrence River so he won he beat the army he's the first person with words right he's the first person using organizing and activism to beat the Army Corps of Engineer the

only way anybody had done it previously was with lawsuits well they must have just been like this the meeting at the Pentagon must have been like how do we make a weapon that runs on words come on boys let's put our heads together we need a word bomb we need to some some convincing guns things like that I would argue that if the FBI and Cointel Pro had left him alone he would he would have been more ineffective right yeah then no they I mean it I that they do that too you know or it's like they yeah they blow back they raise a profile yeah Abby's grandmother died and he went to see her on her deathbed she told him to

stay underground she said quote Jews were meant to be underground it's the history of our family but her words had the opposite effect because Abby now decided running away and staying underground was the old way of doing things and when he left Worcester he was set on reappearing and coming out as Abby Hoffman again the question was just when well not while grandma's alive that's right a little while later at the end of a town council meeting an off-duty border guard walks up to him and says quote I agree with you Barry but what are we going to do when everyone finds out you're Abby Hoffman

I imagine my sighs are wild wild wild to get this guy on stage I'm at the window. Here Dave, hold on, I'm taking my shirt off, I just want to make the podcast a little sexy. Yeah, here it is, here it is, now daddy's podcasting. All right, I'm back, sexy. Nothing comes to that, but he knows he, he knows he has to come out on his own instead of being arrested. So his lawyers start negotiating with prosecutors on a deal and they come to one.

And then they reach out to newsplaces, 60 minutes offers $10,000 for an interview, but Abby picks 2020 instead. Okay. He then tells all of his local friends who he is, they're very upset, they didn't want to lose Barry and felt like this had been one of Abby's pranks. And some of them had even quoted Abby Hoffman to him in conversations. Oh, that's the greatest. Got so hard to bite your tongue, this Abby Hoffman guy was brilliant, you're like, yep,

he's pretty cool. Barbara Walters came to find you to interview him before he turned himself in. They had 35 people doing security. And they had elaborate escape routes set up. No one from the 2020 crew was allowed near a phone. The interview lasted for three hours. He stressed the whole time because if word gets out and he's arrested before he turns himself in, the sentence is going to be much worse.

Oh shit, right. So of course, once Barbara Walters is in fine view, everybody knows about it, the FBI finds out. I mean, I love the FBI. Hey, something's happening. Barbara Walters is in fair view. We're the FBI. Well, they, they realize that she's interviewing Barry, they look into Barry, they quickly

realize Barry is Abby, and then police are sent to arrest Abby as they were about to break in and make the arrest. Please tell me, tell me Barbara Walters, Barbara Walters calmed everything down. No. What you're not going to do is go in there and arrest Abby Hoffman. Abby Hoffman. Abby Hoffman. No, the FBI realizes that Abby has a deal and if they bust in and arrest him during

an interview discussing that he's turning himself in in front of Barbara Walters, well, that's going to be huge news. And it's all going to blow back against the FBI and make them look terrible. So they tell the cops to stand down. Yeah, they're like, if anyone's going to make us look terrible, it's us. So after Abby and afterwards Abby and Joanna, right, it's on an island. So they hop on a boat, they take a boat to a plane and they fly to Manhattan to spend their final night together.

Reporters pour into Fairview. He gives interviews from the hotel room calling different papers. Every single one, he told them they were getting an exclusive and they told them all the same stories. So he had all, every newspaper that he could fucking call in the country printing his side of the story. That's great. And by the way, it's so great to take advantage of that like salacious angle of like newspapers

where they're gonna obviously be like, well, Abby, we appreciate the hell out of this. Obviously it's front page. It's just lying to everybody. So the next morning at 930 AM, well, the, the, the 2020 interview airs that night. And then the next morning at 930 AM, September 4th, 1980, he turned himself in. There are 200 reporters outside as he's taken out in handcuffs. The media starts fighting each other to get a quote or a picture. And then the cops start fighting the media and the result was,

That's a battle. I'm okay with watching from like the, right now, if I were to watch like the cops beat up MSNBC, I'd be like, okay, this is fine. So no one, what the result is, no one gets a good picture or a quote. There's not a picture of him making that. Is there a better, I mean, that's just in a microcosm. It's just, it's fitting. It's perfect.

It is pretty perfect. So Abby is released later in the day without bail. The post and daily news just go after him relentlessly saying, you know, whatever. He's rich. He's a piece of shit. His new book comes out a couple weeks later. The New York Times gives it a, gives it a really good review. Abby starts speaking at colleges again and now he's in demand.

Right. He and Joanna. Yeah. He and Joanna are living in Manhattan. His court date is set for early April. He thought he'd get a lenient sentence, but he got a one to three year sentence. He is sent to Fishkill, which is the worst prison in New York state. The name.

He is the, he is the only nonviolent prisoner in the prison. Jesus Christ. One time Abby told Jack he craved cherries. So Joanna wove them into her hair like a decoration and he ate them out of her hair. Should we be concerned about, uh, what's happening in cell nine one? It's like that guy's eating his girlfriend's hair. That's all right. He's really done that.

And I have a girl's asked me to eat their hair and never been comfortable with it personally. I don't like that. My hair, nor eat hair. No, you got to really get in there. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. He's really getting in there. Yeah.

Yeah. Of course, eating a big thing of hay. Once you start, man, you can't stop. You just get a mouthful of hair. That's what I don't want to start. That's what I don't want to start. I get, I don't want to get hooked. It's a slippery slope.

My dad died from hair. He, uh, he had a lethal dose of heroin. All right, by the way, did I tell you that he's my last day here? I quit, uh, about a week ago, so I'm done here now. Take care, asshole. Best last lie, never jerk off. But, uh, Abby actually did well in fish kill because he was a very good softball player, and that got him enough respect.

Well, Dave, if you told me that his softball abilities in the most violent prison in the country were going to be what, uh, thawed the tension, I would have said, sure. We should kill him. Hold on a second. Let's see how he hits a softball. Whack. Wow. We should just kill him after the season.

So he ends up serving just four months, and then he's out. Okay. Uh, he holds a fundraiser at Studio 54 for a community drug clinic to help addicts, tons of celebrities show up who, if you're hosting a fundraiser for drug addicts at Studio 54, it's complicated. I mean, that is like holding interventions at Larry Kudlow's bar. It's got, it's had, there's some issues for sure. All right.

Let's just smoke some PCP and then we'll get this thing started. Um, tons of celebrities show up, Cher, Robert De Niro, Carly Simon. Abby is now getting $5,000 per speaking gig. We wanted him to do an interview, but Abby said, no, he didn't like how the press treated him. And then the magazine allowed Abby to interview himself. Wow. What great, what a, he's just owning them.

He's just owning the media. By the way, the whole thing is about a guy just owning the media. Yeah. And, and what's so funny is how he's an enemy and that would be Trump's best case scenario if he could get that going. Yeah. Mr. President, you've done an unbelievable job. I'd have done an unbelievable job.

Some people are saying you're the greatest one of all time. A lot of people are saying that. What's your first question? How are you so crazily unbelievable? It's unbelievable how tough it is to, to be me. And you inherited such a mess. I did. Obama gave me such a mess.

Yeah. And then he debated G Gordon Liddy in New Mexico in front of 1600 at a university. Jesus Christ. G Gordon Liddy. The back end of G Gordon Liddy's life is so puzzling. It's amazing. It's just like. It's amazing.

It's, it's, I mean, it's, it's upsetting because you're like, oh, there was actually like a person in there who did have understanding and all he needed. I mean, truly just needed to know what it's like to feel like a fugitive and a criminal to empathize with the people that he'd been putting in jail for. Does he empathize though? I mean, he's not empathetic in this debate. He doesn't like Abbie Hoffman. In the ones that he did with, with Tim Leary, and I think Hunter has time, I mean, he,

he seemed to be regretful at least about what he did to Leary. Like he liked Leary at the end, you know. Yeah. Well, the debate went really well. And then Ab, because Abbie looked really good, because G Gordon Liddy didn't really have a sense of humor and Abbie did. So he starts issuing challenges to other right-wing celebrities. He keeps working as an anti-nuclear activist.

He had a, he had, he's having manic episodes. He had one in November 1982 that lasted months and it led to him moving out of Joanna's apartment. But here's the thing about his manic episodes. He's incredibly productive during them. Sometimes he hung out with a new activist friend, Al Giordano, who apparently didn't care that Abbie was manic and thought that was cool to hang out with him at that time. He organized a 2,000 strong protest against a Delaware nuclear plant. The company spokesman said, quote, no one had ever heard of the damn place before Abbie

Hoffman arrived. This psychiatrist died and his taking of medication became a lot more careless. And in March 1983, he turned on all the gas in his apartment and took 40 tranquilizers. Holy shit. Someone found, I mean, he was taken to the hospital and survived, but he was kept in a mental ward for several weeks. While he was in the mental ward, he would make bets over the phone with a bookie on the Celtics.

What a crazy thing to, yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah. But he improved and he got out and started doing speaking gigs again. He was taking his lithium. He was getting requests to be the bad guy on shows like Miami Vice, but he always turned them down. Miami Vice is, who's casting Miami Vice? They're insane. I've heard a number of things Miami Vice is going like, you're just like, what are you

doing? They're like, there's no rules to TV. This episode, Don Johnson plays Don Johnson. Fuck it. So Abbie is a fan of the San Anistas in Nicaragua and he takes a trip to Nicaragua and soon his local bookie in Worcester calls Jack and he's angry because Abbie is in the president Daniel Ortega's home and a bunch of Nicaraguans are wanting to place bets on the Celtics game. Wow.

They must have been having quite a good time for them to be like, yes, Abbie, we also want to bet on the Celtics. So his bookie is worried about the FBI because he's calling from Nicaragua and the San Anistas fucking house, the president's house. So the FBI is already targeting people from Nicaragua. So it's just a bad, it's a bad idea. Sure. Sure.

Sure. But it's also a very manic thing that he has. It's also great to picture like these, the Nicaraguan people just being like, oh, come on, Mikhail, ah, he's useless. So in 1984, Abbie starts debating Jerry Rubin and they set up a tour. Okay. Well, the reason he's debating Jerry Rubin, who was, of course, his old leftist Yipi cohort is because Jerry Rubin has completely sold out is now a Wall Street man through and through.

Jesus Christ. Jack, quote, Abbie agreed to the tour initially because he saw it as an opportunity to show how far superior his point of view was to Jerry's newfound conformism. Abbie thought he could stop college students from becoming what Jerry called young urban professionals or yuppies. Right. So he's disdainful of what Jerry has become. But he tries to show him respect because of what they had done together in the 60s.

Jack, quote, no matter how many sarcastic remarks he might be willing to make about it on stage, Jerry's conversion caused him spiritual pain. He felt it mocked Jerry's prior political commitments and those they had shared. What Abbie thought was is that Jerry was the worst betrayal of his life. Yeah. That's got to be very, I mean, you know, it has to be, yeah, that's extremely upsetting. So the first debates are successful, Abbie thought he was crushing Jerry every time. But as the tour went on, Abbie starts to think it looks like he's just doing it for the money,

which is obviously a hypocritical because that's what he's talking against, right? It's hypocritical. Yippe-critical. He starts to feel used. His name is bringing out crowds, but it's about making money. And that's Jerry's thing. They do about 50 to 60 debates over 18 months. And Abbie over this time realized that he does not like Jerry.

He never said anything bad in public, but he thought Jerry had just completely gone to the dark side and was just bad. One of the big problems with Abbie's manic depressive disorder is that the mania played into who he was. He actually did accomplish things in a manic state. He could speak for hours and entertain people in a manic state. Common delusions of sufferers is that they have special skills or are famous, which is what Abbie had.

Right. So yeah. Right. He was their object. Yeah, he was the object of attention. People did whisper about him, like all of those things that are part of the mental illness are what was his actual reality. Yeah.

So his uncle died and Jack and Abbie went to the service and their uncle Sam walked up to Abbie and said, quote, wasn't it bad enough that you killed one of my brothers? What are you doing here? Uncle Sam fucked him over and over again. So Abbie for once had absolutely nothing to say. On April 24th, 1986, Abbie and others were part of a sit-in at the University of Massachusetts to protest CIA campus recruitment. Abbie, Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy Carter, and others were arrested.

I'm also a Carter. My name is Amy Carter. That's you, Amy? I'm Amy Carter. Yeah. You sound so much like your dad. That's the weird thing. Yeah.

You sound completely different. There's no resemblance in the voice at all. No, it's not even like it's almost the same voice. No, no. I'll do an impression of Jimmy for you. I'm former president of Jimmy Carter. Okay. I see that.

Now that you hear me say it, now you must feel foolish to think I sound anything like a... Yeah, no, I apologize. No, it's different. I also do an impression of my uncle Billy. Okay. Hi, I'm Billy Carter. I'm standing right here at the Jimmy Carter. Hi, I'm Jimmy Carter.

This is my daughter, Amy. Hi, I'm Amy Carter. Yeah. Obviously, you could tell I'm not like them. I'm different. I'm a girl with a different voice. Okay? Yeah, now I hear it.

Now it's... It's vastly different. Yeah. I'm not insulted, but I do not hear that very often, sir. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so it does fail. Fast fail.

All right? Thank you so much. To what? Thank you so much. Yeah, that's right. Amy Carter, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Nothing like on dance.

Okay? Thank you so much. So, Abby is... He's almost 50. He's like six days away from being 50 when he's arrested. When he's arrested, the cops come in full force. They have dogs. They have gas.

They have helmets. They have clubs. Good. And this is the small town of Amherst. They're all put in. They're arrested. They're put in buses. And he is upset that the students were singing songs from hair, the musical on the bus instead

of freedom songs. And he's like, oh, you guys don't even actually have any songs for your own movement. Which is a complaint I've heard from people now, which I think is true. There's just not a lot of like... There's not a lot right now for the music. Music does not... I mean, music is... I mean, you listen to some like bands from the 60s, you're like, holy shit, there's such

powerful message here. I mean, hip hop does a lot of it, but as far as like rock music and shit, that doesn't happen anymore. No, rock music's turned into party music. So they have a trial. And at the trial, people like Howard Zinn, Daniel Ellsberg, Ramsey Clark are witnesses. They put the CIA on trial. The prosecutor was very bad.

There's a lot of media coverage because of Abby and Amy Carter. And unlike Chicago, Abby is now being treated as a hero by locals. And he's found not guilty. Wow. Um, he's... I also was found not guilty. Yeah, everybody was. I was as well.

Amy. Jimmy. Oh, Amy. No, not Jimmy. No, this has to stop. No, nothing like Billy. Listen, Billy talks like this. Jimmy talks more like this.

I'm Amy and I talk like this. Okay. I see it now. It's far different. Would you like a pecan? No. Good. Thank you.

Anybody here want a pecan? No. Okay. That's from my pocket. I got a bunch of pecans. Yeah. Why? Okay.

Okay. Well, I should probably be following you. So don't think that this is going to stop. Okay. Great. I'm going to go where you are. Keep talking. Go ahead.

You had a story you were in the middle of, I understand. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to go back to that. Get back into it then. I'd love to hear some of it. No, it's all fine. You'll pick it up. Okay.

Jump right in. Okay. So Abby Hoffman starts writing a book with Jonathan Silvers and about Bush and George Bush and the elections. And they keep coming across info about Reagan trying to work, trying to fix the election against Carter by working with Iran, not freeing the hostages. And so Abby writes, just writes a letter to Jimmy Carter, and Carter responds right away, quote, we have had reports since late summer, 1980 about Reagan campaign officials

dealing with Iranians concerning delaying release of the American hostages. I chose to ignore the reports later. As you know, former Iranian president Bani Seder gave several interviews stating that such an agreement was made involving Bud McFarlane, George Bush, and perhaps Bill Casey. By this time the elections were over and the results could not be changed, I have never tried to obtain any evidence about these allegations, but have trusted that investigations and historical records would someday let the truth be known. And they didn't.

So Abby and this guy end up working on an article for Playboy about this stuff and the Iran-Contra scandal. But at the same time Abby starts becoming apathetic. And even though Dukakis was way ahead of the time, he didn't think Dukakis had a shot. Jack, quote, Abby thought Dukakis was just another establishment liberal who was going to lose just like McCarthy in 68, McGovern in 72, and Mondale in 84. Good Lord. It's almost like you don't even want to give someone credit.

It's not like pression if you're like, the Democrats will fuck it up. It's almost just like, you know, it's a given away. Dukakis. God. I don't really remember. I mean, I remember him. But it was epic, right? Like it was just like.

But he looked like he was going to win for a while. Yes. And then he got into a tank. And he looked like a shithole. And then Bush put out a, maybe there was, the Willie Horton ad? Willie Horton. Oh, wow. Maybe a crush.

But he also had very non-ideological sort of all over the place positions. Right. No, a lot of people call him the karma sutra of politics because he had a lot of weird positions on June 16th. Abby was driving to the airport to Flottish cargo to meet with Playboy when he rear ended a truck and totaled the car. He had injuries to his hands, feet and ribs. But he was in the middle of a manic episode.

So he just jumped out of the car and left it and went to the airport. What? He would not go to the hospital. So he goes to the Playboy meeting. He does the meeting. What? In a manic state. He doesn't go to the, he flies back.

He doesn't go to the hospital for 10 days. And he finally went because he couldn't take the pain in his foot. Turns out it is badly broken in several places and his hands are broken. Oh, 10. Those are very important parts of the body that get a lot of use. Yeah. So he starts taking painkillers. They calm him down.

They also slur his speech. At the same time, the usual offers for his speaking gigs, they're not really coming in. And then Abby started talking to Jack about doing stand up comedy. Oh dear. No. This is what Leary did at the end. I know. It's very strange.

I saw that Stormy Daniels was like, she's at like Good Nights in Carolina this weekend. But no, that's very strange too. It feels like that was one of the last places where like counterculture felt like it could still be itself in a way. You know, it was one of the few places where, yeah, you could, I mean, I don't even know if you would categorize what Leary did as stand up as much as it was just at the improv, you know, but still it's like a venue that will allow for free speech. Well, he told Jack, quote, it is what I've always really wanted to do.

So he took funny parts from his speeches and put them together as an act. His first gig was August 29th in New York City at Stand Up New York. His brother said the comedy was lowbrow. Jack Hoffman watched it and he started crying while watching it. He said Abby seemed like a buffoon making a total fool of himself. So the Playboy issue with the article drops in October, it's the first one that tries to connect George Bush to Iran Contra, which now we know he ran Iran Contra and should have been in prison and was and was not convicted of treason because of a guy named Bill Barr,

who some Democrats voted for years later to be Trump's AG anyway. The article is pretty much ignored. He's still on the painkillers. He decides he's not politically effective and is not sure if he's even still famous. He's always been optimistic, but that's now gone. He starts spending a lot of time just lying on Joanna's couch or in his bed. He didn't watch the Super Bowl for the first time in his life. He stops going out.

Current events no longer interest him, right? So he's in a massive depressive episode. In mid-January, sorry, mid-February, he told his psychiatrist his medications weren't working and he was given Prozac. Now, in some cases, Prozac, when combined with Percocet, can increase depression and he is taking a lot of Percocet. And that's what seems like happened. There's no speaking gig offers.

The pain, he's still in pain from the accident. The casts are off, but he's still in excruciating pain. His psychiatrist wants to hospitalize him. Abby refuses. Jack and Joanna are scared he's going to kill himself. On Tuesday, April 11th, 1988, Abby sent his quarterly payment to the IRS and then he sent a check to his accountant to cover the rest of his yearly payments. And then he went home and drank over 150, 30 milligram phenobarbitols in a glass of Glenn

limit. The next evening, someone went to check on him and found him dead. I'm also very thrown by finishing paying your year's taxes. No, isn't that bizarre? It's weird. I kind of get it, but it's also very to have the clarity of thought to do something so kind of logistical is, I don't know. But it's so weird that he set up his taxes for the year and then killed himself.

I mean, look, you're talking about someone and you're talking about the medications gotten a lot better. It's still not great. It's still not great. It's still hard. It's very hard. But this is the result of he's self-medicating and taking Prozac. And self-medicating is a really common thing for people with mental depression.

Dude, completely, I mean, as well as at times like medication when, yeah, I mean, really when your medication does become ineffective, it's not like you just go on something new and it works. It's like you've got to figure out what a combination you need. But it is also kind of telling because it's like fearing the government when you know you're going to leave your body. It's like still, you know, want to play by the rules. They've gotten that bad, you know.

So let's cover the other Chicago stuff. And Jay Rubin became an investor, businessman, and stockbroker. He went in early on Apple. He was a millionaire by the end of the 70s. So he was hit by a car and died in 1994. Maybe the biggest sell-out, I mean, just an incredible sell-out. Roy Seal ran for mayor of Oakland in 1973. He didn't win.

In 1974, he walked away from the Black Panthers. He has continued to be an advocate for Black rights and has given speeches at hundreds of campuses about being an activist. He's a real one. Tom Hayden married Jane Fonda in 73. He joined the system as a politician in the California legislature. He taught political science classes and fought for green policies and animal rights. But he was pretty, by the end, he was pretty much the standard liberal.

He died in 2016. Rennie Davis got into a religion or a cult called the Divine Light Mission in which a teenager, a teenager from India was considered a god. Rennie then became a venture capitalist as well as a self-awareness and meditation speaker. Venture capitalist, meditative speaker. David Dellinger stayed an activist mostly out of the public eye. He wrote six books and he was 85 in 2001. He hitchhiked from Vermont to Quebec to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He died in 2004. He was a real one. John Froynes went back to teaching chemistry in Vermont. He is a professor emeritus at UCLA. John Froynes is a real one also. Lee Weiner went on to protest for AIDS research funding, worked for the Anti-Defamation League and recently published a book, Conspiracy to Riot. He told Medium, quote, my hopes for the book are that it prompts a hard left revolution

in the United States and ends up with every fourth banker being strung up on lampposts and taunted and starved until they die. That is my hope. Don't put that in your fucking article. Lee Weiner is a real one. What a quote. Don't put that in your fucking article. All right.

It's in there. In 1982, Judge Hoffman was ordered not to take any more cases because he was becoming a radic but he somehow still did take cases and was a judge until he died in 1983. Oh, my god, damn jelly beans. In 1987, Abby Hoffman said, quote, you are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country on

earth and I believe that we should not have a CIA that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home. So he's a leftist and he and the Democratic Party currently does not believe in any of those things. No. All right. Well, always, always fun.

We sign cats. Yep. I'll sign my cat to anybody. Okay. Love you, Dave. Hold me. Hold me. I'm scared.

I will not hold you. I'm scared and need to be held by you. This is Jack Hoffman, run, run, run, the lives of Abby Hoffman, John Schultz, the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven, Rick Pearlstein, and Nixonland, the rise of a president and the fracturing of America, and then there's just a bunch of articles you can go check out on our sources page.