Dear Subscriber,
As Abbie Hoffman used to say, “Steal this book!”
Jim Musgrave’s coming of age novel, “Freak Story: 1967-1969,” shows us Buddy Hartman, a sober and clean music promoter in Minneapolis, who discovers his biological mother is a freak, but he is incomplete.
Buddy’s life is changed forever when he takes his mother and aunt, the Hilton Siamese Twins, to the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention in an attempt to resurrect their entertainment careers and realize his own identity. Buddy learns what being a freak really means, as the power of the State meets the power of the counterculture heroes.
I never cared much for the Hippies (too phony), but I dug the hell out of the Yippies, and Abbie was an important character in my book. In fact, I included his quote at the beginning:“You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.”–Abbie Hoffman
To this day, I believe we can learn a great deal from this quote. Guys that want to take charge and make us believe freedom is like a fire hose that can be squirted on folks like the Blacks in Alabama (DeSantis/Trump), need to read that quote and think deeply about it.
Thanks for your continuing support.
James Musgrave
