My conspiracy with Abbie Hoffman

In the late 1960s a group of 19-year-olds, including me, started a pop music paper for Australia. It was mostly music but as the 60s raced toward the 70s, politics took a grip on everything. This is a story about how my days as editor of that youthy newspaper came to an end. It was Abbie Hoffman’s fault.

* * *

One sunny afternoon I’m sitting in my upstairs office in the Go-Set terrace house in Drummond Street when a cop wearing jeans and a black leather jacket walks in, smiles, and sits in a guest chair next to the marble fireplace.

“G’day Phillip,” he says, “I’m Detective Sgt. Jeff Coote, and aah, I’ve been told I have to talk to you about an article you put in Go-Set dated the 13th of February, 1971,” sliding a sheet of paper out of his leather document bag, “and this article says it has ‘a few suggestions from American writer Abbie Hoffman for people who are trying to live on nothing.’”

“Okay,” I say, “and…?”

“Well, you see mate,” says DS Jeff, scratching his slightly roguish beard, “I’m supposed to be in charge of robbery in and around the CBD here in Melbourne, and someone higher up in the power structure told me I have to serve you with this summons,” and he hands me several pages from his document bag, “which requires you to show up for a committal hearing to determine if you have a case to answer for printing Mr. Hoffman’s suggestions, which include going into a supermarket that sells record albums and sliding two LPs into a frozen pizza box and then proceeding to the cash register where they will ring up just the cost of the pizza. Remember this article?” He says.

“Maybe,” I say, quickly scanning the business end of the summons on the desk in front of me.

“So this says that what I’m charged with, is ‘unlawfully inciting diverse persons unknown to commit larceny at supermarkets?’”

I raise my eyes to look directly at DS Jeff, and we each indulge a tiny smile.

“For printing some cheeky tips by Abbie Hoffman, a defendant in the Chicago trial where he and seven others were charged with inciting riots at last year’s Democratic Party nomination event, in protest against America’s invasion of Vetnam? A riot by tens of thousands of diverse persons unknown.”

Jeff wriggles in his seat, looking at his Cuban heel boots, then leans forward to tell me a secret.

“I think, just between you and me, this might have something to do with the fact that Mr Rupert Hamer,” I nod – I know Hamer is Victoria’s Chief Secretary, like being minister of police – “Dick, as his friends call him, has two teenage daughters and I hear they read Go-Set, and daddy might not be pleased that his kids are reading Abbie Hoffman, in between the Johnny Farnham pinup and Molly’s gossip column, know what I mean?”

Abbie Hoffman’s latest book, which included these tips on living on nothing, is ironically titled Steal This Book. I suspect cops, magistrates, and Chief Secretaries tend to be low on irony.

#

Seven months later, in the courthouse across Russell Street from D24, Detective Sgt. Coote reads out facts from his record of interview: Frazer is editor of Go-Set, managing director, age 25, the paper sells 50,000 copies a week – then my lawyer Peter Heerey asks Coote how this issue of Go-Set came to his notice and Coote says it came from the Chief Secretary’s department, so Heerey says, not in the course of normal police business? and Coote agrees. Then Heerey asks if there’s been a rash of stealing from supermarkets in the 12 months since this issue went on sale and Coote says he wouldn’t know about that. You’d expect he would though, wouldn’t you?

Then Heerey points out that this section of Go-Set, called Link-Up, is designed for kids living on their wits, and today’s teenagers might just get it, that Abbie Hoffman “is writing in a sardonically humorous style", which the police prosecutor (let’s call him PP) reckons is also something DS Coote wouldn’t know about.

Next, I take the witness stand and reiterate that Link-Up was a section for our more worldly readers, who would definitely get that Hoffman was provoking us, in his sardonically humorous way, to consider the relative moralities and legalities of corporate and governmental authorities… as evidenced by the paragraph headed PAY TOILETS under which Abbie’s advice is just two words: Sneak under.

Once court decorum has been restored I point out that Link-Up mostly gives serious advice, for example, the section headlined THREE WAYS TO SAVE THE EARTH, which lectures our readers never to use dyed dunny paper, to boycott drycleaners who won’t take the hangers back, and to use only biodegradable containers.

I continue, seriously: “Abbie’s provoking people to rethink their concepts of who’s thieving what from whom, and it’s most unlikely anybody reading this article would take Abby’s hints literally”, to which the PP asks “Why not?” and I say “because our readers have the intelligence to make the inference themselves, about the business of theft,” and the PP asks how old our readers are and I say the average is 17 ½ and that’s old enough to know about the legalized robbery that goes on throughout society. Which sets the PP off again...

PP (in pouncing mode): Your magazine sells for twenty cents right? It’s full of advertisements right? Sells 50,000 copies an issue? So you make a very good profit out of it?

Me: No.

PP: Why Not?

Me: Because the costs over six years since startup have been enormous, and we are an independent company with paid up capital of exactly 3 dollars.

PP: It’s still going isn’t it?

Me: Since this article came out Go-Set has been taken over by our printers, as compensation for the very large debt we owe them.

This appears to have exhausted the PP, but he gives it one last shot:

PP: Why didn’t you make the first paragraph an explanation that you did not endorse any of the ideas of the author, that you put them out as a matter of interest on how the head of the Yippies thinks?

Me: What we said was that Abbie’s words could be of some use to you, the reader. It may be that the only use you can find for them is to wrap rubbish in ... it’s your choice.

* * *

The magistrate committed me to trial but the trial never happened, because Rupert Hamer became Premier of Victoria, and maybe his daughters told him to grow up, and Gough Whitlam became PM, and everyone moved forward. The times were a’changin’.

Several years later we learn that Detective Sgt. Jeff Coote had been, before, during and after the hearing, the cop in charge of a secret Victoria Police infiltration of dangerous political groups project, spying on the usual working class suspects, plus the new breed of hippie-Yippie troublemakers being incited by unscrupulous conspiracy-maestros like me and diverse persons I conspire with.

On the afternoon the magistrate committed me to trial he released me into the custody of DS Coote pending $200 cash bail, and since I had no money on me the hipster cop took me to his office in D24 to hang out until our printers’ accountants showed up with 200 bucks, which I thought they should front since they are named as co-defendants twice, as owners of GoSet and as printers of the offending issue.

Grudgingly, they send me a cheque, in a taxi, but you can’t post bail with a cheque so I ring Tez and he says he’ll take up a collection at the Albion, or auction off a Russell Morris singlet on Lygon St. Anyway, he shows up, gives DS Coote the $200 and gives me the envelope from the accountants with the useless cheque. Also inside the envelope is a letter telling me I’m fired and should not re-enter the Go-Set office unless I have a very good reason.

I can’t think of one, so that’s how it ended, my six years of Go-Setting. The magazine will carry on without me; Molly Meldrum will remain the figurehead columnist, pouring his stream of consciousness into an ocean of ellipses, god bless him. As for me, I’m broke, not a cent of severance pay, but Stone is already rolling toward its third issue and, like I said, Whitlam’s crew is changing everything, ordering all Aussie troops out of Vietnam for starters.