December 1968
My grandmother and her sister live in a rent-controlled walk-up on East Fourth Street between First and Second. The Hells Angels are headquartered around the block. Through the school playground across the street, you can see the police station used for Kojak exteriors. Almost directly across the street is the campaign headquarters/studio of Louis Abolafia, an artist who recently lost the Presidency to Richard Nixon by more than 31 million votes (no matter, Abolafia at 27 was far too young to serve).
When I stop by Abolafia’s tiny storefront, I mention that my grandmother appreciates how he always smiles and waves. “Yes, the old people like me,” Abolafia says, but he is distracted. “I must have been out of my head to not show him that one.” He shakes his flowing hair in disgust and explains that he just showed a potential buyer several of his paintings but forgot one of his favorites.
Louis Abolafia: self-proclaimed Renaissance Man, the Patron Saint of Fourth Street, The Caped Crusader for Peace, and the Love Candidate for President. His nearly-nude campaign poster proclaims “What have I got to hide” but reveals a typical politician’s proclivity to conceal at least part of the truth.
The New York Times covered his campaign kick-off in May 1967, a marathon Cosmic Love-In at the Village Theater (later the Fillmore East) with the likes of Allen Ginsberg, The Blues Project, and Timothy Leary.
Abolafia is not new to the media piñata of the 60s. In December 1964 he was arrested for putting up one of his paintings on the balcony of the Metropolitan Museum.
Abolafia’s friendliness with the elders on the block is not the only way he bridges generation gaps. His headquarters also serves as the Runaway Clearing House, where Abolafia acts as an intermediary between runaway kids and their parents.
Today, Abolafia is hiding much more than on his poster, wearing a plain white turtleneck and brown slacks. He excuses himself to “make some bread,” and resumes sorting out the paintings he showed the buyer, still upset about the one he forgot. The phone rings and he asks me to take a message. I search for the phone amidst the unsold canvases, periodicals (from Life to the East Village Other), and half empty Coke cans. I know I am getting close when I come across a waste paper basket covered with telephone numbers. I add a new name and number and we start our interview.
I ask about his platform and he makes an Oh-that-again face. As he starts his rote answer (love means “being open hearted”), I mouth I’m sorry and he smiles. The rest of the interview is conversational. His campaign didn’t “make a move financially but did well spiritually,” and he garnered plenty of free publicity because “freakiness is almost as good as money on today’s market.” He did all the big TV shows (Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson) and was written up in magazines all over the world. At a party, Ruth Dayan—wife of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan—asked his brother Oscar if he was related to Louis Abolafia.
Abolafia sees his political action as an attempt to counteract the tendency toward fascism in this country. It is not an ideological conflict but rather a philosophical one of love versus hate. He believes in a grassroots cultural revolution but feels that politicians should play a part. “A politician can voice the view that all men are really the same and brotherhood is beautiful and spread this message around the world. Cultural missionaries all over the world. Mix, marry, mingle. Break down nationalism. Prevent the spread of communism or any ideology. We’ll be part of an assimilated world. This is the only way you’re going to achieve world union.”
Notable among Abolafia's skeptics is Li'l Abner cartoonist (and right-winger) Al Capp:
Lou puts down the effectiveness of the revolutionaries, feeling that the beyond-expectations success of the George Wallace candidacy is evidence that reaction is setting in.
“Tell me, revolutionary out there, who’s winning? Every time I speak to a revolutionary they say, ‘Oh, we’re winning, we’re getting more people on our side.’ Well, if you cannot find a common bond between man, you’re gonna fight them, and I’m not sure of the intelligence of the hippie-yippie community to take over this country. I can’t see a bunch of ignoramuses running the country.”
We talk about the violence at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and I mention my recent visit with Abbie Hoffman. “Rebellion is going to cause reaction which is going to cause a lot of bloodshed. I can’t get into violence. I think it’s gotta be done through love or charm or straightening out our Karma, but it can’t be done through violence.”
Abolafia disagrees with Abbie Hoffman that the people going to Chicago knew there would be violence. “There were conflicting reports on what was going to happen. The L.A. Free Press wrote that they were going to have to give us permits because of all the people that would be going. I was at one of the big rallies and Allen Ginsberg started “Om-ing everybody to death. I pushed him aside on stage and I said, ‘Goddamnit, Ginsberg, stop Om-ing everybody to death and tell them they’re going to have their heads broken in!’ And he said, ‘Abolafia, Abolafia, Abolafia.’ And I said, ‘Ginsberg, shut up!’ This after he had fed me goat’s milk up in the country. But Allen’s all right. He’s a poetic rebel, right? He’s love.”
[A few months later at the trial of the Chicago Seven—originally the Chicago Eight—Ginsberg described Abolafia as “kind of a Bohemian trickster” who crashed the rally: “He just appeared from nowhere and got up to the microphone and started yelling into it. ‘The police out there are armed and violent. You are walking into a death trap.’ I went over and sat next to him, and grabbed his leg, and started tickling him, and said, “Hare Krishna, Louis.”]
So, how would Abolafia bring the country together? “I’m gonna do it by starting cultural centers in every part of this country. To bring out every talented kid and hope that these intellectuals and painters and artists will help the society.” His ideal cabinet would have “intellectuals, writers.” They would sit around and draw up offensive policies for “extending America” not defensive “what are you gonna do about communism” policies. “Take all the money from the war and buy out the ghetto problem. We have the greatest weapon in the world, economics, and we can do anything we want with it. We can make beautiful things happen. We have been brought down so much since the Second World War. We’re losing the greatest chess game in the history of the world.”
Postscript:
This post is based on contemporaneous notes.
At the 1967 Cosmic Love-In, you could buy a banana from an artist for 15 cents, and get 3 cents back if you returned the peel. At 2019 Art Basel, the price of a banana went up considerably.
Louis Abolafia relocated to the West Coast, where he co-created the Exotic Erotic Ball in San Francisco in 1979. He died of a drug overdose in 1995. He was 54.
Two people who make cameo appearances are still with us. Louis’s brother, Oscar Abolafia, has had a notable career as a photographer. Here he is at a showing of his work in July 2018.
And here is Ruth Dayan (who divorced Moshe in 1971) a couple of weeks ago, at the age of 102.