Rubin and The Yippies

In 1964 he was a working class hippie student crossing Haight Street, a road in San Francscso, when hit by a vision  - and life as he knew it was over

In 1994, he was a multi-millionaire new-age entrepeneur crossing Wilshire Boulevard, a road in Los Angeles, when hit by a car - and life as he knew it was over.

In the years in between, along with the co-founder of The Yippies Abbie Hoffman, counter-culture icon, anti-war activist, new age/self-help proponent, social-networking pioneer and all round troublemaker JERRY RUBIN helped articulate the voice of young America in the '60s and early '70s.

 

He was arrested countless times, carried out many extrardinary protests that used performance art, pranks and provocation including an attempt to levitate The Pentagon and regularly hung out with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York.

Unlike Hoffman, who lived off grid for several years following a drug bust, died by suicide in 1989 and was canonized as a countercultural saint, Rubin was accused by many of “selling out" - the worst thing a 1960s radical could do - and as a consequence got written out of the hippie history books.

 

Well that is until our guest for this episode wrote the biography, 'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary'

 

PAT THOMAS, archivist, uber re-issue producer, countercultral author and music journalist returned for the third timr to the Bureau.

 

Previously he was here to talk about The Black Panthers and Allen Ginsberg,and this time, he traced  Jerry Rubin's journey from high school journalist to stoned political freak and multi-millionaire entrepeneur.

 

Along the way, we hear about The Yippies(the Youth International Party), The Chicago 8, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the early 70s, EST training - and selling out

 

And we debate the question:

'Once a revolutionary always a revolutionary?'

 

Pat's book:

 'Did It! From Yippie To Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, An American Revolutionary'

 

 

Check out this Rubin related playlist

 

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