Not Him Again

It was the 10th day of Jerry Rubin’s (Not Him Again) latest fast, so naturally food was on his mind.

“I can’t understand why they took the name off,” he was saying, studying the menu at Venice’s Sidewalk Cafe. A light mist dampened the ocean front.

“You’re on a fast,” I said, taking a nice bite of pancake. “What do you care what’s on the menu?”

“There was a Jerry Rubin Pizza here,” he said, “and now it’s gone. I don’t get it. Jane Fonda’s name is still here.”

“Maybe they took it off for the duration of the fast,” I said, chewing slowly on a sausage. “I’m sure it will be returned, unless, of course, you fast to death, in which case they will no doubt drop it.”

It was Rubin’s 13th hunger strike.

Over the years, he has fasted for everything from peace to the return of real butter on movie house popcorn.

His latest fast is against regulating the psychics, artists, astrologers and healers along the Venice boardwalk. The city wants donation-takers to be licensed or get out.

Rubin believes the right to read a Tarot card for whatever the market will bear is God-given. So he has jumped right in to the middle of the fray.

A media manipulator second only to feminist Gloria Allred, he knows a fast always gets attention. He has fasted so often, and been publicized for it so often, some have taken to calling Rubin old Not-Him-Again.

He may have even surpassed Allred’s media obsession with his concern over the disappearance of the Jerry Rubin Pizza. Allred has, at least, never agonized over her name on a menu.

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Such is the degree of his media addiction that many of us have taken solemn vows never to use Rubin’s name again in print or publicize his voice or image on radio or television. But you can’t trust a columnist to keep a vow when he’s in need.

Anyhow, it’s difficult to pass up an opportunity to take Not-Him-Again to breakfast during one of his fasts. It satisfies something inside to test an activist’s commitment in a manner beyond polemics.

The look in Rubin’s eyes when food appears before him during a hunger strike leaves no doubt as to his dedication. There is a longing in him for food that claws at the heart.

He watches every bite I take and bobs unconsciously to the rhythms of my chewing. Sometimes I hum and move my head happily as I eat, the way Michael Douglas did in “War of the Roses.” Rubin seems to hum along with me.

I don’t do it out of a sense of cruelty but out of a need to challenge the veracity of those who proclaim a willingness to die for their causes.

If he doesn’t strangle me for my bagel, I know he’s sincere.

This was not one of Rubin’s better days. The LAPD was continuing to cite and sometimes arrest those who peddle their wares, services or thoughts along the boardwalk.

In addition to which, a man who described himself as a sand artist challenged Rubin’s right to represent the beachfront people and accused him of using them to prepare a race for the City Council.

Rubin frowned and said, “I don’t need this,” and headed for the Sidewalk Cafe, where he learned the Jerry Rubin Pizza was gone from the menu and no one seemed to know why. It was almost too much for him to take.

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Rubin has been a fixture on the beach for 25 years. I helped turn him into a media freak by profiling him in the days before I began writing a column.

Now, anytime I pass he jumps up and down and shouts, “Look at me, look at me!”

And while one might easily turn away from Rubin, it is less easy to turn one’s back on the causes he represents as director of the Westside’s Alliance for Survival.

In his current campaign, he has gathered 3,000 signatures on a petition opposing any restrictions on the boardwalk people, whether it is the need for a license or simply their right to exist.

“Tourists come to see them,” Rubin said, watching me eat. “They bring in $10 million a year. Why restrict them? What’s going on?”

What’s going on is a complaint by local residents that freaks are taking over their beach. They feel as though they are living in a cartoon.

Others complain that scam artists are infiltrating the legitimate boardwalk solicitors, asking for donations to nonexistent causes.

Well, hell.

There’s more unreality and scamming going on east of the ocean than ever takes place on Venice Beach. Try television’s network offices for unreality. Try a City Council meeting for scamming.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Leave Venice alone. It may be the only thing around that works. And, hey, let’s get old Not-Him-Again Pizza back on the menu.