First we lose DIKSHIT.
And then THIS shit. Paul Krassner died today (July 21st) in Desert Hot Springs. Hell.
A few old hipsters are pissed off.
It's a bit weird Paul Krassner wasn't better known.
Groucho Marx, after the passing of Lenny Bruce:
"I predict that in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce."
But George Carlin became the heir to Lenny in the eyes of the public. Even if George said:
"The FBI was right, this man is dangerous – and funny; and necessary."
Kurt Vonnegut took time to praise one of Paul's two-word suggestions, a poster in "THE REALIST" that simply said: "FUCK COMMUNISM."
Quoth Kurt:
"....a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein's e=mc2."
Krassner, considered father of the "underground newspaper," was a clown prince in other media, too, experimenting with stand-up as early as 1961, and creating the "Youth International Party." But other stand-up comics got more attention, and the YIPPIES developed better known celebrities in Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. And by the time "The Merry Pranksters" came long, Paul was just another member of the team.
Paul made a notorious appearance on abrasive conservative talk show host Joe Pyne's syndicated program, and got the better of him, but he still didn't get a lot of media attention.
He was known in a medium that does not usually get you well known: WRITING.
After what you'd expect (editing a cheeky college paper that appalled most teachers and amused most students), Paul began freelancing for MAD magazine (which really didn't out-live Paul). Then he started a humor/satire magazine for adults: "THE REALIST." He also edited Lenny Bruce's book, "How To Talk Dirty and Influence People." Of course, the attention went to Lenny, not the editor.
As editor of "THE REALIST," Paul offered cartoons, interviews with all the right people (Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce) and a place for other humorous odd people with no following (Robert Paul Smith for instance, no relation).
All through the years, "THE REALIST" remained a true underground paper. Even his best efforts didn't really make it expand. One treasured issue had former MAD magazine cartoonist Wally Wood drawing a "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" poster. Another wiseguy trick was not only doing the "Fuck Communism" poster, but sending a copy directly to squinty, block-headed FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover adding "I hope you get a chuckle out of the enclosed..."
No, Krassner did not get that many chuckles or as much notoriety as those he influenced and championed, from Lenny to George and back. Even one of his best examples of bad taste is more a minor legend and not as famous as the "seven words you can't say on TV." This was "That Parts That Were Left Out Of the Kennedy Book."
Krassner imagined that "The Death of a President" (as the best-selling William Manchester tome was called) didn't quite get it right. He wrote about LBJ fucking the hole in Kennedy's neck made by one of the bullets.
"People across the country believed – if only for a moment – that an act of presidential necrophilia had taken place," Paul would later insist. "...what I wrote was a metaphorical truth about LBJ's personality presented in a literary context...it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men."
What's the deal? Some guys are deliberately NOT made to be martyrs? The Kennedy assassination led to the temporary demise of Mort Sahl. Mort didn't die a Lenny Bruce death, he just got blacklisted. He put out only ONE record during the reign of LBJ. Krassner, for all his attempts at rattling the cage, was a prisoner of "THE REALIST." It faded, and Paul was embraced by the "stroke book" world -- selling articles to Playboy and having a column in Cavalier. (Lenny had briefly written a column for Rogue, so again, Paul was following Lenny's lead, but to nowhere.) He did bring "The Realist" back in the 80's, to the delight of a small circle of friends.
Paul also contributed some strange articles to "High Times" in the 80's, including "My Acid Trip with Groucho," which was later re-published in chap book form. Frankly, by the 80's and into the 90's, there was plenty of competition even in the world of satire magazines. "National Lampoon" was hip for a while. So was "Spy." And while Krassner still did some stand-up, he was no match for an ever-saltier George Carlin, or for the new wave of bad boys that included Sam Kinison and "Dice" Clay. Some fairly saucy political satire was even available in "Tonight Show" monologues.
Chuck Barris wrote a book, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," which, if Jimmy Durante was still alive, would've had the Schnozzola gasping "Everybody's tryin' to get inta da act!"
Paul countered with the 1994 memoir "Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture." There was also a low-selling book "Impolite Interviews" compiling 21 celebrity Q&A from "THE REALIST," including chapters for Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer, Ram Dass, George Lincoln Rockwell, Dick Gregory,Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Timothy Leary, and of course, Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.
With Lenny long gone, sometimes Paul would be called on to talk about him. I remember meeting Paul at some Lenny salute deal, held maybe at Town Hall or some other typical venue, with Kitty Bruce in attendance. It was a nice little slap on the back that probably was promoting a documentary about Lenny.
[Since I stuck a credit on it, I don't mind if the average putz uses this image, sticks it on a blog etc. The credit is mainly so that if some very hip documentary-maker, TV station, author etc. wants to use it, and can actually afford to pay for usage, they'll know how to contact me!]
In 2005, Paul got a Grammy nomination for the album notes to the six CD set "Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware." It sold to the converted. By 2005, people had to be reminded that even if Lenny wasn't funny (to Gen X'rs) and wasn't Carlin, he was still IMPORTANT. Paul did his part, with a High Times article in 2004, "Lenny & the Law, Together Again."
In 2002 and 2004, on Artemis, the label that courageously supported Warren Zevon, Paul issued his last two albums, "Irony Lives" and "The Zen Bastard Rides Again."
2005 was the last year for a Krassner tome: "One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist," which didn't exactly do much even with Harry Shearer and Lewis Black both contributing introductory pieces.
Krassner was proudly a Yippie, a boat rocker, and through the years, a thorn of varying size in the side of American complacency and stupidity.
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