Steal this LP: here's Abbie Hoffman's 1969 record album, Wake Up America! in MP3 format.
This reminded me of the time I met Hoffman. It was around 1985 or 1986, when Carla and I went to a 1960s conference in San Francisco. (Tom Robbins, Timothy Leary, Paul Krassner, and so on, were there. We went mainly to see Leary.)
Some reporter from a paper up in Marin or Sonoma spotted us and decided to write an article about us — still not sure why. Anyway, he insisted on introducing us to Abbie Hoffman, who was there. I think he had recently come out of hiding. I hate meeting famous people in situations like this, and I wasn't looking forward to meeting but Carla and I meekly went along at the reporter's insistence. Hoffman was standing in the lobby, looking very grumpy. We were introduced, and he gruffly shook our hands, but avoided eye contact. He then announced to us, without looking at any of us, that he needed to find a payphone to get the score to a ball game, because he had money riding on the outcome. He walked away without saying anything else.
I don't blame him for not wanting to be bothered, but I learned something. To this day, when I have the opportunity to meet a famous person, I almost always decline. I usually don't have anything to say to them and they don't have anything to say to me.
