Paul Krassner - Whos to Say Whats Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today

Paul Krassners FBI files indicate that after Life magazine published a favorable profile of him, the FBI sent a poison-pen letter to the editor, complaining: To classify Krassner as a social rebel is far too cute. Hes a nut, a raving, unconfined nut. The FBI was right, said George Carlin. This man is dangerousand funny, and necessary.

When People magazine called Krassner father of the underground press, he immediately demanded a paternity test. He published the groundbreaking satirical magazine the Realist from 1958 to 1974, reincarnating it as a newsletter in 1985. The taboos may have changed, he wrote, but irreverence is still our only sacred cow. The final issue was published in Spring 2001.

His style of personal journalism constantly blurred the line between observer and participant. He interviewed a doctor who performed abortions when it was illegal, then ran an underground abortion referral service. He published material on the psychedelic revolution, then took LSD with Tim Leary, Ram Dass and Ken Kesey, later accompanying Groucho Marx on his first acid trip. He covered the antiwar movement, then co-founded the Yippies with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (writing a few animated reenactment scenes for the documentary Chicago four decades later).

He edited Lenny Bruces autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People and, with Lennys encouragement, eventually became an award-winning stand-up comic himself, beginning at the Village Gate in 1961. Ten years laterfive years after Lennys deathGroucho said, I predict that in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce. He was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award in the Album Notes category for his 5,000-word essay accompanying a 6-CD package, Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware .

Krassners venues have ranged from the New Age Expo to the Skeptics Conference, from a Neo-Pagan Festival to the L.A. County Bar Association, from a Swingers Convention to the Brentwood Bakery, where members of the audience were each given a free pastry of their choice. Over the years, he has built up a cult following that has steadily been edging into mainstream awareness. The New York Times: He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture. The Los Angeles Times : He has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently. The San Francisco Chronicle : Krassner is absolutely compelling. He has lived on the edge so long he gets his mail delivered there.

In 1980, he was head writer for an HBO special satirizing the presidential election campaign starring Ronald Reagan, and a decade later was a writer on Ron Reagan Jr.s late-night TV talk show. He currently writes columns for High Times and AVN [Adult Video News] Online , and is an occasional contributor to The Nation and the Los Angeles Times . He is updating and expanding his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture , and working on his first novel.

Krassner is the only person in the world ever to win awards from both Playboy (for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism). He received an ACLU Uppie (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression. And at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, he was inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Famemy ambition, he claims, since I was three years old.

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

How a Satirical Editor Became a Yippie Conspirator in Ten Easy Years

Best of The Realist EDITOR

Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture

The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race: The Satirical Writings of Paul Krassner

Sex, Drugs and the Twinkie Murders: 40 Years of Countercultural Journalism

Impolite Interviews

Pot Stories for the Soul EDITOR

Psychedelic Trips for the Mind EDITOR

Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs: From Toad Slime to Ecstasy EDITOR

Murder at the Conspiracy Convention and Other American Absurdities

One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist

Tales of Tongue Fu

In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches From the Valley of Porn

PRAISE FOR PAUL KRASSNER

Thanks to Paul Krassner for continuing to be the lobster claw in the tuna casserole of modern America.

Tom Robbins

The FBI was right; this man is dangerousand funny, and necessary.

George Carlin

Krassner is one of the best minds of his generation to be destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, nakedbut mainly hysterical.

Art Spiegelman

I have been a fan of his since I was a snot-nosed kid, and his words have been a driving force and influence on my life.... If you have read his work before, you know the joys that you are in for. If you havent, start reading, and consider this your lucky day. For Paul Krassner is an activist, a philosopher, a lunatic and a saint, but most of all he is funny.

Lewis Black

Paul taught me that extreme stylistic accuracy could make even the most bizarre comedic concept credible.... He is a unique character on the American landscape. A self-described investigative satirist, he straddles the lines between politics, culture, pornography and drugsin other words, the land where all of us, were we really honest with ourselves, would choose to dwell.

Harry Shearer

Krassner loves ironies, especially stinging ironies that nettle public figures. He would rather savor a piquant irony about a public figure than eat a bowl of fresh strawberries and ice cream.

Ken Kesey

Krassner is absolutely compelling. He has lived on the edge so long he gets his mail delivered there.

San Francisco Chronicle

He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.

New York Times

Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.

Los Angeles Times

I told Krassner one time that his writings made me hopeful. He found this an odd compliment to offer a satirist. I explained that he made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous, and that this inspired many of his readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that there were people doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.

Kurt Vonnegut

WHOS TO SAY

WHATS OBSCENE?

Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today

PAUL KRASSNER

Foreword by Arianna Huffington

City Lights Books San Francisco

Copyright 2009 by Paul Krassner

Foreword 2009 by Arianna Huffington

All the pieces in this book were originally published in High Times, AVN Online, Season in the Sun, Huffington Post, Counterpunch , Reality Sandwich and ArthurMag.com except for the following: Fear and Laughing in Las Vegas and Strange Bedfellows Among the Yippies were published in The Nation . Great Moments in Memory Loss was published in the New York Press. A shorter version of Whos to Say Whats Obscene? was published in Funny Times . A shorter version of The Disneyland Memorial Orgy was published in the LA Weekly . A shorter version of The Parts Left Out of Chicago 10 was published in the Los Angeles Times.

Cover design: Pollen

Cover image: Wally Wood, The Disneyland Memorial Orgy,

Copyright 2006 by Paul Krassner.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krassner, Paul.

Whos to say whats obscene : politics, culture and comedy in America today / by Paul Krassner ; foreword by Arianna Huffington.