Who the Hell is Stew Albert? [Paperback]

STEW ALBERT (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1888996633 | ISBN-13: 978-1888996630 | Publication Date: January 1, 2004

Stew Albert is an almost-nice Jewish boy who grew up in Brooklyn between World War II and the Cold War. Many of us remember hiding under desks during practice nuclear attacks, but Stew remembers the brass pail in his vestibule filled with white sand in case the Japanese bombed his house and there was a fire. Yes, Stew grew up very bored in Brooklyn-and got out in a hurry. His was the unspectacular childhood of a not-especially-promising kid. He wasn t good at punch ball, spelling, math, geography, or kick-the-can; although he did have some surprising skill swinging a stick at a spaldeen. He wasn t particularly popular nor was he disliked he was invisibly normal. He did, however, have one very distinguishing characteristic: he was, and still is, a very blond Jew. Stew frequently daydreamed about outlaws and tough guys, as did his father, who worked as a city clerk for fifty years. By all rights, Stew should have followed in his old man s footsteps. But instead, we find a young man stoned and hanging-out, in bed with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, shvitzing in the Luxor Turkish Baths with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, drunk in Santiago, Chile with Phil Ochs and blasted with Allan Ginsberg on a manic drive through San Francisco s hills. An alert CIA agent would have easily recognized our former loser on an Algerian beach acid-tripping with Timothy Leary. Can this childhood mediocrity-outstanding only for his hair color-be the same guy showing off his Chicago riot head wounds to William S. Burroughs? Can it be him amidst the chaotic siege on the Pentagon in 1967, giving a speech to the 82nd Airborne about the Lone Ranger? How did this putz kid reinvent himself? Instead of taking a civil service test, he started taking his daydreams seriously. But why? It must have been the sixties-that brief period of time when everything seemed possible and the future was up for grabs . . .

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Red Hen Press (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888996633
• ISBN-13: 978-1888996630
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,790,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book!, March 7, 2004

By 

Hammond Guthrie (Portlan, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who the Hell is Stew Albert? (Paperback)

Author Larry "Ratso" Sloman was appearing on 'The Howard Stern Show' plugging his book
"Steal This Dream," a biography of activist Abbie Hoffman. During the course of the interview, Sloman declared, "Well Stew Albert likes my book," to which Stern replied, "Who the hell is Stew Albert?" Answering this question in full would take me well beyond the scope of this thought provoking memoir. In retrospect, 'Stew might have continued to be an "almost"-nice, blonde haired, Jewish boy living in the basement of his mother's house in Brooklyn, but something very important happened' - we called it "The Sixties," and no one has ever been the same. It has been suggested that "if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there," - Stew Albert was most certainly there, and "there" for all of us who longed for social change. Change is hardly the most descriptive word for the complete dismemberment of the existing socio-political hierarchy, and Stew placed himself squarely on then radical front line in Berkeley. Those of us who were there in any capacity can well remember the smell and feel of the intriguing air surrounding the little card tables set up along Sproul plaza. Madeline Murray (O'Hare) was there in the first support for abortion rights, Mario Savio was there warming up for the moments that would freeze the university system and much of the nation in free speech, as Stew was there representing The Vietnam Day Committee (VDC), which became the prototype to anyone and everyone with the sand and heart to step up against our government's illegal war in Southeast Asia. The trenches were not very deep in those days and suffering the consequences of freedom at the end of a billy club breathing tear gas was not an uncommon way to end the day. Stew was there for the rest of us - and didn't give in to the strain of being under the gun. The fun was only just beginning.

It was the Pranksters, the Hippies, Diggers, Yippies, Pacifists, Provocateurs, Black Panthers, Alternative Press, Beat poets, the Weather Underground, the FBI and finally, the CIA who were making and molding the scene, LSD was the sacred ritual of transit, money was a grand illusion, a pig named "Pigasus" was about to make a run on the presidency, and Chicago was just around the corner. All history now, well documented in the past, yet as I read Stew's more than reasonable accounting I became so incredibly angry I had to put the book down at least twice - remembering so clearly how I felt about the government, conscription, the war and its benefactors at a time when my own revulsion was far more than an emotional rebound. Stew's personal rendering of socio-polical upheaval, as an anti-establishment consort standing up for the betterment of mankind with his shoulder hard pressed to the wheel brings back to life the emotional roller coaster experienced on so many levels throughout the sixties and seventies. And there is a rejoicing here as well, tempered to the page in humorous vignettes including many of the visionaries, poets and pundits of the day, all garnered from out Stew's unrelenting participation, and courageous leadership in the agit-prop bringing down the house within the rather psychedelic comedia del arté that filled our lives on a daily basis.

This is a timely and important memoir.

So who the hell is Stew Albert?" He is a gentle and honest man of his times, harboring a politically astute, intuitive mind - a collaborative man with a Marxist's edge on the past, and a Futurist's eye on the heartbeat of (r)evolutionary change.

READ THIS BOOK!

© 2004 - Hammond Guthrie

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Political Party Animal, November 7, 2005

By 

Michael Simmons (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who the Hell is Stew Albert? (Paperback)

For the Youth International Party-YIP or Yippies-the word "party" meant
both political group and outrageously good time. The Yippies merged progressive activism and freak culture in the late 1960s. Their most infamous "non-leaders" were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and Paul Krassner, but the other party animal---equally irresponsible for the chaos and comedy---was Stew Albert. A fierce soldier for justice as well as subversive prankster, Albert `s exploits have been recounted in dozens of other books by, among others, Hoffman, Rubin, Krassner and Larry Ratso Sloman. He's finally written this autobiography and recounted an adventure story brimming with thrills and troublemakers. (Note: Albert also co-edited the finest collection of documents from that era with his wife Judy Albert called The Sixties Papers.)

Albert was actively involved in all the major Yippie stunts: the showering of
money onto the floor of the Stock Exchange while stockbrokers stopped trading to catch it, the attempted levitation of the Pentagon, and the running of a pig for President in Chicago in 1968 and the police riots that ensued. With his pal Rubin, they enlisted John and Yoko in a "Beatle/Yippie pact" that resulted in Lennon's radicalization and near-deportation.

Beyond YIP, he became one of the few white revolutionaries befriended by the
Black Panthers' inner circle, he ran for Sheriff of Alameda County (and lost,
but carried Berkeley), and tripped on a beach in Algeria with Tim Leary after
the latter's escape from prison. With comrade and folksinger Phil Ochs, he
traveled to Chile before the CIA-backed coup. When he implemented DIY
egalitarianism by helping create People's Park in Berkeley, then-Governor Ronald Reagan responded to the unsanctioned green space by bringing in the National Guard and shooting at Park supporters (killing one).

He eventually sued the FBI for harassment -- and won. Though the `60s
momentum dissipated, this memoir serves as powerful inspiration for contemporary merde stirrers. Motivated by "an uncontainable need to test my bravery," Albert perfectly captures the time when "eros and courage came together in an unbeatable combination."

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, where's the other 600 pages?, January 28, 2004

By 

M. Wagner - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Who the Hell is Stew Albert? (Paperback)

This individual was active and in the eye of the storm of chaos during the second revolutionary war. Who the hell is Stew Albert? well he was one the founding members of the Yippies, as well as an amazing organizer, writer, teacher, and of course revolutionary, activist, and socialist. The book reads kinda like a good dream. I was grabbed from page one. one minute your with stew getting his head bashed in by the army of u.s. imperialists, and the next minute your dropping acid in Algeria with Timothy Leary. It is heavy and informative. It strikes a mighty blow against all the corporate, capitalist, slanted, re-writing of this powerfull era. That said there were a couple of things I dis-agree'd with, one was the length, I was left salty for more. Teach this book in your school, please, Stew is an american hero. I am so happy to read a book about someone who stood up to the white male capitalist war mongers and lived to tell the tale, many other authors of the period are NOT so lucky.