Jack Hoffman - Run run run: The lives of Abbie Hoffman/Jack Hoffman and Daniel Simon

Copyright 1994 by Jack Homan and Daniel M. Simon
Foreword 2019 by Paul Krassner

Excerpts of Howl and America from Allen Ginsbergs
Collected Poems 1947-1980, copyright 1988, used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Excerpt of In Goyas Greatest Scenes We Seem to See from Lawrence Ferlinghettis A Coney Island of the Mind. Copyright 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Names: Homan, Jack, 1939-author. | Simon, Daniel, 1957- author.

Title: Run run run : the lives of Abbie Homan/Jack Homan and Daniel Simon. Other titles: Lives of Abbie Homan

Description: [Second edition] | New York : Seven Stories Press, [2019] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019030561 | ISBN 9781609809461 (paperback) | ISBN 9781609809478 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Homan, Abbie. | Radicals--United States--Biography. | Radicalism--United States.

Classification: LCC HN90.R3 H577 2019 | DDC 303.48/4092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030561

Text design by Dror Cohen

Printed in the USA.

246897531

To Dad and Abbie

I know youre out there somewhere fishing
and Abbs is about to rock the boat

Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.

abbie

Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture

Run run run

Fast as you can

Cant catch me

Im the gingerbread man

nursery rhyme

I think it was 1963.

What is this, were huddled together like in a fuckin ghetto, afraid to watch a fuckin parade, Abbie Homan was saying.

Wed decided to confront the Armed Forces Day Parade coming down FifthAvenue. There were a lot of us.

But then a police captain approached someone in our group and said, Im gonna have to give you a summons for holding a meeting without a permit.

Were merely having a conversation, Ocer. And why are you singling me out?

You seem to be leading the meeting, the captain replied.

Although I was there as a reporter covering this action for the Realist, at that moment I crossed the line that separated observer from participant:Excuse me, Ocer, were both leading the meeting. Youd better give me a summons too.

Right away, Abbie looked around and spoke up: Who else is leading this meeting?

Hands went up.

I am.

More hands.

I am.

I am.

I am.

It turned out that about fifty people were leading the meeting.

Okay, Im not gonna give you a summons, but the next time you hold a meeting

You mean, I interjected, the next time we dont hold a meeting

you better have a permit.

Im sorry, Ocer, we cant continue this meeting any longer without a permit.

The Armed Forces Day Parade began making its way down Fifth Avenue.The marines marched by and we chanted, Get a girl, not a gun.

The navy marched by and we sang Yellow Submarine.

Green Berets marched by and we shouted, Thou shalt not kill!

The Red Cross marched by and we applauded.

A missile rolled by and we called out, Shame!

Military cadets rode by on horseback and we advised, Drop out now!

The Department of Sanitation swept past and we cheered.

Then this horde of pacifists and hippies left the area and entered CentralPark, followed by what seemed like a whole division of police. We romped past the statue of Alice and her friends playing around a giant mushroom; some lingered to present flowers to the Mad Hatter. The cops ordered them o the statue, surrounding Alice as if they were guarding a fortress.

When it was all over, I left with Abbie. Our paths had crossed at various meetings and events, but wed never really hung around together. Now, over soup, he was telling me about the time he had taken one of my FuckCommunism posters to a symposium on communism, and how influenced he was by the Realist, the satirical magazine I had founded.

I asked, Do you think its an ego trip for me to be concerned about whether the readers of the Realist think Im on an ego trip?

He laughed and said, You only ask a question like that because youre Jewish.

But I dont think of myself as Jewish. Im an atheist. I mean, Christ was Jewish.

When I was at Brandeis, Abbie said thoughtfully, I asked this professor, How come in one part of the Bible Jesus says to God, Why hast thou forsaken me? But in another part of the Bible, Jesus says to God, Forgive them, for they know not what they do? And the professor says, You gotta remember, the Bible was written by a lot of dierent guys.

Abbie tempered his fearlessness with a gift for humor that was sharp and spontaneous.

On a particularly tense night on the Lower East Side, we were standing on a street corner when a patrol car with four police in it cruised by. Abbie called out, Hey, fellas, you goin out on a double date? These were some of the same cops from the Ninth Precinct that he liked to beat at pool at what I call the laughing pool table because of how Abbie made the cops laugh.

Run Run Run: The Lives of Abbie Homan does a meticulous job of capturing the marvel that was Abbie Homan as I knew him. Its an indispensable book about an indispensable hero of the sixties near-revolution in America thatAbbie helped lead with such incredible imagination. Dan caught the tale end of the movement as a red-diaper baby growing up in Boston: his mom taught with Howard Zinn at BU, and his dad once joined a mission to deliver medical equipment to Bach Mai Hospital after it was bombed during the VietnamWar. With Abbie as one of his heroes, Dan worked with the Attica BrothersLegal Defense while in high school. Later, he edited and published The Best of Abbie Homan, Abbies last book. Jack of course was Abbies little brother and sidekick through the years, more a businessman than an activist, but he loved his older brother and lived in his shadow.

Back on that first day of our long friendship, I told Abbie, Youre the first one whos really made me laugh since Lenny Bruce died. Lenny Bruce had been in many ways my closest friend, and I had written his autobiography with him.

Really? Abbie replied, genuinely impressed. Lenny Bruce was my god.

desert hot springs, ca, july 2019

paul krassner (19322019) was co-founder with Abbie of the Yippies and one of Abbies longest standing friends and collaborators. The founder and longtime editor of the Realist and the author of many books, including TheWinner of the Slow Bicycle Race, One Hand Jerking, and Impolite Interviews, he lived with his partner, Nancy Cain, in the desert in Southern California. Paul Krassner died on Sunday, July 21, 2019, in Desert Hot Springs, California.