A Radically Funny Abbie Hoffman Takes to the Stage

Robert Friedman, his full beard flecked with gray and his hair pulled back in a ponytail, sat at the Coach House bar Tuesday and marveled at those gathering to listen to ‘60s counterculture legend Abbie Hoffman.

He pointed out the guy sitting alone in a Western shirt and black cowboy hat--and the fashionably dressed, well-coiffed couples sipping imported beers at a nearby table. There were college students, ‘60s veterans and even whole families--overall, an eclectic mix of the curious and the faithful, filling about a quarter of the 400-seat house.

Clearly amused, Friedman said he was “digging on the fact that he has the chutzpah to come here and play the Coach House,” a pop/rock club deep in conservative Orange County. “Abbie has always been pretty dear to me,” added the Manhattan Beach resident who carried a copy of Hoffman’s “Revolution for the Hell of It” when he wandered through Europe and India after graduating from high school in 1968. “He was a good, strong role model.”

Hoffman was in San Juan Capistrano in the latest, and perhaps the strangest, of his many incarnations: stand-up comedian. Taking to the stage in a Boston Celtics jacket, he launched into a fairly straightforward act, complete with scripted jokes, routines and even a few props, including a Reagan mask and a “JUST SAY NO!” T-shirt.

You probably won’t see him on Star Search--he seemed uncomfortable at times, stopping frequently to remember his place in the set. Still, his jokes took aim at some favorite targets with the traditional Hoffman zing. Some examples:

On astrology and the White House: “They gave (Reagan) three different dates to invade Grenada. Aren’t we lucky he picked the right one--we could have lost that war!”

On Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug crusade: “Telling an addict to ‘just say no’ is like saying ‘just cheer up’ to a chronic depressive.”

On Israeli clashes with West Bank Palestinians: “ ‘You know all the tricks, Abbie,’ ” he said his mother told him. “ ‘They (the Palestinians) got themselves buried alive on purpose, just to get on television.’ ”

On the 1960s: “The ‘60s will never come back because the sex will never be that free, the dope will never be that cheap, and the rock ‘n’ roll. . . will never be that good.”

Hoffman, who told the crowd that this was only his fourth outing as a comic, came to an abrupt end of his prepared material after about half an hour, and stood silently at the mike for a few moments before off-handedly asking for questions. That launched the liveliest part of the evening: Hoffman loosened up and offered a free-association barrage of anecdotes and opinion, punctuated by questions, challenges and a few incoherent rantings from the audience.

He touched on all aspects of his counterculture career, from his beginnings as a civil rights activist in the early 1960s to his later notoriety as a defendant in the widely publicized “Chicago Seven” conspiracy trial.

Hoffman talked about his six years on the lam after jumping bail on drug charges in 1973. (“One of the advantages of being a fugitive (is) you get to travel a lot.”) He spent a year in prison after turning himself in, and has since been speaking at universities and staying in trouble--he was arrested last year at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with Amy Carter and 58 others who occupied a building to protest CIA recruiting on campus.

He joked about his arrest--”Nowadays, (the police) call me ‘Mr.’ “--and discounted the media image of today’s universities as “yuppie training grounds.” He has seen a rise in campus activism, he said. Still, he joked that his young proteges are often in need of a little direction: “They say, ‘Mr. Hoffman, we just kicked the CIA off campus. What do we do now?’ ”

There were jabs at the complacency of young urban professionals: “Twenty years ago there was caring; now there’s concern. Concern is a yuppie emotion.” There were jokes about new-age consciousness, drug testing (“drop your zipper for the Gipper”), even AIDS and abortion. A routine on the parallels between the ‘50s and the ‘80s was a hit, as was a brief rumination on Albert Einstein appearing on a modern-day TV talk show.

Finally, after about two hours on stage, Hoffman ended with a quiet, “Why don’t we just mingle now.” Half an hour later, after the chairs had long been put up on the tables, the activist was still selling and signing his self-published books and talking with the audience.

Robert Friedman stood in line to buy some books and shake the hand of his long-time hero. He confessed that he enjoyed the show more when Hoffman dropped the stand-up shtick and talked about his experiences. Mostly, Friedman said, he was glad to see that Hoffman was still in there swinging.

“We need him. We’ll always need him,” Friedman said. “He sees things with an eye for the truth.”