American Fun (64 page)

89.
“
surreal harmony
”: Ibid., 285.

90.
“
Permission was the rule
”: Coyote,
Sleeping Where I Fall,
79.

91.
“
it was simply like letting steam out
”: Ibid.

92.
“
disastrous Summer of Love
”: Alice Echols,
Shake Ground: The Sixties and Its Aftershocks
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 44, 45.

93.
“
how many times you been raped”
: Quotations in this and the following paragraph are from
Joan Didion, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” in
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), 124–27. David Cavallo reads the
Diggers’ mid-sixties activities and “life-acts” as a riff on America’s tradition of “self-reliant individualism” and the “malleable” sense of self that it often engenders. While Americans often exercise this individualism in “ ‘Free’ enterprise—the ‘performance’ of buying and selling,” as Cavallo puts it, “Grogan, Coyote, Berg, other Diggers and serious
hippies did more than challenge this equation. They reversed it … They substituted a free life for free enterprise. Their versions of self-reliance and of becoming self-made had nothing to do with work, careers, economic competition, possessions or status-seeking.”
A Fiction of the Past: The Sixties in American History
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 102, 144.

1.
“
holy clown
”: Howard Zinn, “Remembering Abbie,” afterword to Abbie Hoffman,
The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman
(New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000), 305.

2.
“
a born rascal
”: Hoffman,
Autobiography,
91.

3.
“
waves of immigrants
”: Ibid., 87.

4.
“
strait jackets
”: Ibid., 93.

5.
“
Flatbush Conservative Club contingent
”: Free [Abbie Hoffman],
Revolution for the Hell of It
(1968; New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005), 25.

6.
“
money should be abolished
”: Jason Epstein,
The Great Conspiracy Trial
(New York: Random House, 1970), 335.

7.
“
got the point
”: Free [Abbie Hoffman],
Revolution for the Hell of It,
33.

8.
“
the Wedge
”: For a detailed account, see Norman Mailer,
The Armies of the Night
(1968; New York: Penguin, 1994), 272–78.

9.
“
We would
be
a party
”: Paul Krassner,
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 157.

10.
“
the kind of party you had fun at
”: Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
338.

11.
“
Yippies say if it’s not fun
”: Jerry Rubin,
Do It!
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), 85.

12.
“
Energy—excitement—fun—fierceness—exclamation point!
”: Free [Abbie Hoffman],
Revolution for the Hell of It,
81.

13.
“
eternal bliss
”: Hoffman,
Autobiography,
165.

14.
“
naked swim-ins in the gym pool
”: Abbie Hoffman,
Woodstock Nation
(New York: Vintage, 1969), 34.

15.
“
With Yippism
”: Hoffman,
Autobiography,
165.

16.
“
For Fun and Freedom
”: Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
340.

17.
“
If you gave good quote
”: Krassner,
Confessions,
160–61.

18.
“
a direct threat to our theater-in-the-streets
”: “The Yippies Are Going to Chicago,” reprinted in Free [Abbie Hoffman],
Revolution for the Hell of It,
104.

19.
“
a huge rock-folk festival
”: Ibid., 105–7.

20.
“
slow-motion car chase
”: Krassner,
Confessions,
162–63.

21.
“
peace offerings of apple pies
”: Hoffman,
Autobiography,
152.

22.
his “wife,” a sow named Piggy Wiggy
: Ibid., 153.

23.
“
Perfect Mess
”: Free [Abbie Hoffman],
Revolution for the Hell of It,
122.

24.
“ ‘greasers,’ motorcycle toughs”
: Todd Gitlin,
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
(New York: Bantam, 1987), 329.

25.
“
They charged, clubbed, gassed, and mauled
”: Ibid., 327.

26.
“
right across the table
”: Hoffman,
Autobiography,
159, 160.

27.
“
Conspire, hell
”: J. Anthony Lukas,
The Barnyard Epithet and Other Obscenities: Notes on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial
(New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 12.

28.
“
illegitimate father
”: Ibid., 16.

29.
“
the country’s top Yippie
”: Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
429.

30.
“
self-serving
”: Lukas,
Barnyard Epithet,
73, 74. See also Schultz,
Motion Will Be Denied: A New Report on the Chicago Conspiracy Trial
(New York: William Morrow, 1972), 217.

31.
“
regarded himself as the embodiment
”: Lukas,
Barnyard Epithet,
45.

32.
“
in a silent dare to the court
”: Ibid., 27. See also Schultz,
Motion Will Be Denied,
128.

33.
“
allegiances
”: Schultz,
Motion Will Be Denied,
14.

34.
“
Why don’t we settle this right here and now
”: Lukas,
Barnyard Epithet,
72; see also Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
361.

35.
When an undercover cop denied
: Schultz,
Motion Will Be Denied,
143.

36.
“
seriously Abbie and Jerry’s statement
”: Ibid., 128–29.

37.
“Fineglass,” “Weintraub,” “Weinrus,” and “Weinrub”
: Ibid., 173.

38.
“
mirth
”: Ibid., 164.

39.
“
revolutionary discipline
”: Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
256.

40.
“
constitutional rights
”: Ibid., 252.

41.
“
the kind of party you had fun at
”: Ibid., 338.

42.
“
I know those guys on the wall
”: Ibid., 428. See also Lukas,
Barnyard Epithet,
78.

43.
“
to show that we were in the tradition
”: 445 F.2d 226:
Abbie Hoffman, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee,
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. 445 F.2d 226. Argued December 18, 1970. Decided March 29, 1971. As Amended April 1, 1971. Paragraph IV.

44.
“
P. T. Barnum of the Revolution
”: Rubin,
Do It!,
unnumbered front matter.

45.
“
The recipe for revolution
”: Gerard J. DeGroot,
The Sixties Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 264.

1.
“
14 interlocking companies
,” “
a leader of men
”: “The Entourage,”
Wild in the Streets
. Dir. Barry Shearer. Perf. Shelly Winters, Christopher Jones. United States: American International Pictures, 1968.

2.
“
We’re 52
%
”: “Fourteen or Fight,”
Wild in the Streets
.

3.
“
the biggest block party in history
”: “Heeding the Call,”
Wild in the Streets
.

4.
“
the pursuit of happiness
”: “Victory,”
Wild in the Streets
.

5.
“
America’s greatest contribution
”: “Maiden Speech,”
Wild in the Streets
.

6.
“
good old patriotic drunk
”: “High Crimes,”
Wild in the Streets
.

7.
“
a happy trip, a
voting
trip,” “They’ve been looking”
: “Switching Sides,”
Wild in the Streets
.

8.
“
retirement homes
”: “Golden Years,”
Wild in the Streets
.

9.
“
immense wealth
,” “
We’re going to put everyone
”: “Over 10,”
Wild in the Streets
.

10.
“
So will you all do me a favor
”: Gerald Nachman,
Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the
1950s and
1960s
(New York: Pantheon, 2003), 487; italics in original.

11.
“
things and attitudes
”: Quoted in William J. Stanton et al.,
Fundamentals of Marketing
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 153. Circulation figure also on p. 153.

12.
“
personal power
”: Stewart Brand, “Purpose,”
Whole Earth Catalog,
Fall 1968, 2.

13.
“
God is a verb
”: R. Buckminster Fuller, “God Is a Verb,”
Whole Earth Catalog,
Fall 1968, 4.

14.
“
act out our fantasies
”: Unattributed poem from the
Realist,
Whole Earth Catalog,
Fall 1968, 44.

15.
“
Come alive!
”: Pepsi Generation Advertisement, Description: Come Alive, You’re the Pepsi Generation, Agency: Batton, Barton, Durstine & Osborn; National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Coll. 111, Box 1, Folder 13.

16.
“
Un-Cola
,” “
Dodge Rebellion
,” “
Mustangers
,” “
Today, millions
”: Advertisements cited in Thomas Frank,
The Conquest of Cool
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 82–87, 101–2.

17.
“
Sugar swings
”: Sugar advertisement,
Time,
March 4, 1966, 3.

18.
“
Happenings Are Happening
”: “Happenings Are Happening,”
Time,
March 4, 1966, 76–77. Consistent with Bill Graham’s commercial wishes for the Trips Festival, this article takes the form of an “entertainment” review.

19.
“
a stripped-down, flexible, ‘democratic’ arrangement
”: Frank,
Conquest of Cool,
101.

20.
“
These hip outlaws
”: Gitlin,
The Sixties,
386.

21.
“
We Shall Overcome
”: David Carter,
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
(New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2004), 150.

22.
“
insane hippie drag queens
”:
Http://www.cockettes.com/history1.html
. Accessed August 27, 2012.

23.
“
Yellow Submarine
”: Perry,
The Haight-Ashbury,
106.

24.
“
rock and roll music
”: John Sinclair, “Rock and Roll Is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution,” in Bloom,
“Takin’ It to the Streets,”
301. David Cavallo writes of the era, “Relatively little of the music composed by the Grateful Dead, the Band, Zappa, Young, Hendrix or Dylan, in his post-folk music incarnation, contained explicit political ‘messages.’ In his autobiography,
Levon Helm of the Band said, with some exaggeration, ‘none of us ever thought to write a song about all the shit that was going on back then: war, revolution, civil war, turmoil’ ” (168).

25.
Yippies staged a mock police raid
: Hoffman,
Woodstock Nation,
128–29.

26.
“
the old America
”: “The days of audience died with the old America,” in “The Yippies Are Going to Chicago,” 106.

27.
“
For the most part
”: Ellen Willis, “The Cultural Revolution Saved from Drowning,”
The New Yorker
(September 1969), reprinted in
Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music,
ed. Nona Willis Aronowitz (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 184.

28.
“
crumpl[ing]
” to the stage: Hoffman,
Woodstock Nation,
143.

29.
“
real leaders
”: Epstein,
Great Conspiracy Trial,
350.

30.
“
the za-za world
”: This and subsequent quotes in this paragraph are from Hoffman,
Woodstock Nation,
5–7. In his recent memoir,
Who I Am
(New York: HarperCollins, 2012), Townshend himself takes a sober look at the episode, seems to regret his violent onstage reactions (both to Hoffman and to filmmaker Michael Wadleigh), and claims to share the Yippie! opinion of the za-za world the festival created: “Woodstock—a crock of shit in the estimation of at least two grouchy folk who had
taken the stage: Abbie Hoffman and me—came to represent a revolution for musicians and music lovers.” Unlike Hoffman, however, this member of what he himself calls rock’s “aristocracy” refrains from saying
why
this seeming revolution may have been a “crock of shit” (180–83).

31.
“
Sly’s ecstatic exuberance
”: Steve Lake’s liner notes quoted in Rickey Vincent,
Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One
(New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), 94.

32.
“
There were whites as well as blacks
”: Greil Marcus,
Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music
(1975; New York: Penguin, 2008), 69.

33.
“
Sly Stone
owned
pop music
”: Vincent,
Funk,
90; emphasis in original.

34.
“
Who needs the bullet when you’ve got the ballot?
”: “Chocolate City,” George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrel. Parliament. Casablanca 831, May 1975. It bears mentioning that George Clinton offered
himself
in 1992 as the alternative presidential candidate to George (H. W. Bush and Bill) Clinton.