Paul Krassner

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"Krassner" redirects here. For the musician, see Michael Krassner. For other people with similar names, see Krasner.

Paul Krassner
An elderly man reading from a lectern
Krassner at City Lights Bookstore in 2009
Born(1932-04-09)April 9, 1932
New York City, U.S.
DiedJuly 21, 2019(2019-07-21) (aged 87)
Desert Hot Springs, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Writer, satirist, activist, comedian
Spouse
Jeanne Johnson
​
​
(m. 1963, divorced)​
Nancy Cain
​
(m. 1987)​
Children1
Websitewww.paulkrassner.com Edit this at Wikidata

Paul Krassner[1] (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American writer and satirist. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and a founding member of the Yippies, a term he is credited with coining.[2][3][4]

Early life

Krassner was a child violin prodigy and performed at Carnegie Hall in 1939 at age six.[5][6] His parents practiced Judaism,[7][8] but Krassner chose to be firmly secular, considering religion "organized superstition".[9] He majored in journalism at Baruch College (then a branch of the City College of New York) and began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul. He recalled:

While in college, I started working for an anti-censorship paper, The Independent. After I left college I started working there full time. So, I never had a normal job where I had to be interviewed and wear a suit and tie. I became their managing editor and also did freelance stuff for Mad magazine. But Mad was aimed at a teenage audience, and there was no satirical magazine for adults. So it was a kind of organic evolution toward The Realist, which was essentially a combination of satire and alternative journalism.[10]

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was active in politically edged humor and satire. Krassner was a founder of the Youth International Party (Yippies) in 1967, even credited with coining the word "Yippie,"[2][3][4] and a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, famous for prankster activism. He was a close protégé of the controversial comedian Lenny Bruce, and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.[11] With the encouragement of Bruce, Krassner started to perform standup comedy in 1961 at the Village Gate in New York.[11]

In 1963, he created what Kurt Vonnegut described as

"a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as

Pavlovian fear and alarm.[12][13]

The Realist

Main article: The Realist

Disneyland Memorial Orgy" poster, illustrated by Wally Wood (he later made this famed black-and-white poster available in a digital color version). Krassner published a red, white and blue poster that read "Fuck Communism", and enclosed copies with an issue of The Realist. He also mailed one to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover with a note that said "I hope you get a chuckle out of the enclosed patriotic poster." Krassner's hope was that he would be arrested for sending obscene material through the mail, which would allow him to get publicity for his magazine. He was disappointed when no prosecution resulted.[14]

Krassner's most notorious satire was the article "

Jackie Kennedy had created so much curiosity by censoring the book she authorized – William Manchester's The Death Of A President – because what I wrote was a metaphorical truth about LBJ's personality presented in a literary context, and because the imagery was so shocking, it broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men."[17]

In 1966, he reprinted in The Realist an excerpt from the

Journal of the American Medical Association, but presenting it as original material. The article dealt with drinking glasses, tennis balls and other foreign bodies found in patients' rectums.[18] Some accused him of having a perverted mind, and a subscriber wrote "I found the article thoroughly repellent. I trust you know what you can do with your magazine."[18]

Krassner revived The Realist as a much smaller newsletter during the mid-1980s when material from the magazine was collected in The Best of the Realist: The 60's Most Outrageously Irreverent Magazine (Running Press, 1985). The final issue of The Realist was #146 (Spring, 2001).

Books

Krassner was a prolific writer. In 1971, he published a collection of his favorite works for The Realist, as How A Satirical Editor Became A Yippie Conspirator In Ten Easy Years.

City Lights Publishers
released Who's to Say What's Obscene?, a collection of satirical essays that explore contemporary comedy and obscenity in politics and culture.

He published three collections of drug stories. The first collection, Pot Stories for the Soul (1999), is from other authors and is about

marijuana. Psychedelic Trips for the Mind (2001), is written by Krassner himself and collects stories on LSD. The third, Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs (2004), is by Krassner too, and deals with magic mushrooms, ecstasy, peyote, mescaline, THC, opium, cocaine, ayahuasca, belladonna, ketamine, PCP, STP, "toad slime
", and more.

Other activities

In 1962 Krassner published an anonymous interview with

grand juries
investigating abortion crime.

In 1965 he contributed to the

Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[22]

In the 1960s, Krassner was a regular contributor to several men's magazines including

The Rag Blog
.

Krassner wrote about the Patty Hearst trial and possible connections between the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[30]

Krassner's legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1971 film Up Your Legs Forever.[31] Singer

Yippies
or write about anything; just write what you would like people to read, it doesn't have to do with the album."

Awards

Krassner is the only person to have won awards from both

Grammy nomination for Best Album Notes for his essay on the 6-CD package Lenny Bruce
: Let the Buyer Beware.

Criticism

Krassner was criticized, along with many males on the Left, in Robin Morgan's feminist manifesto, "Goodbye to All That":[35][36][37][38]

Goodbye to lovely "pro-Women's Liberationist" Paul Krassner, with all his astonished anger that women have lost their sense of humor "on this issue" and don't laugh any more at little funnies that degrade and hurt them: farewell to the memory of his "Instant Pussy" aerosol-can poster, to his column for the woman-hating men's magazine Cavalier, to his dream of a Rape-In against legislators' wives, to his Scapegoats and Realist Nuns and cute anecdotes about the little daughter he sees as often as any properly divorced

Scarsdale
middle-aged father; goodbye forever to the notion that a man is my brother who, like Paul, buys a prostitute for the night as a birthday gift for a male friend, or who, like Paul, reels off the names in alphabetical order of people in the women's movement he has fucked, reels off names in the best locker-room tradition—as proof that he's no sexist oppressor.

Personal life and death

Krassner married Jeanne Johnson in 1963[39] and had one daughter named Holly. They later divorced.[6] In 1985, Krassner moved to Venice, California where he met his wife of 32 years, artist and videographer Nancy Cain, one of the original Videofreex and founder of Camnet. They moved to Desert Hot Springs, California in 2002. Krassner suffered for several years from a neurological disease, and died on July 21, 2019, at his home in Desert Hot Springs.[40]

Writings

Books

  • 1981: Tales of Tongue Fu (And/Or Press)
  • 1994: Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counter-Culture (Touchstone)
    ISBN 0-671-89843-4
  • 2000: Sex, Drugs, and the Twinkie Murders (
    ISBN 1-55950-206-1
  • 2005: One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist, Foreword by
    ISBN 1-58322-696-6

Collections of drug stories

Articles collections books

Articles

Interviews

Discography

Stand-up comedy recordings:

  • 1996: We Have Ways of Making You Laugh (Mercury Records)
  • 1997: Brain Damage Control (Mercury Records)
  • 1999: Sex, Drugs and the Antichrist: Paul Krassner at MIT (Sheridan Square Entertainment)
  • 2000: Campaign In the Ass (Artemis Records)
  • 2002: Irony Lives (Artemis Records)
  • 2004: The Zen Bastard Rides Again (Artemis Records)

Filmography

See also

References

  1. ^ Krassner, P.; Jacobsen, S.D. (August 15, 2014). "Paul Krassner: Founder, Editor, & Contributor, The Realist". In-Sight (6.A).
  2. ^ a b "Paul Krassner, counterculture satirist who coined the term "Yippie," dies at 87 – Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 14, 2019. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
  3. ^ a b Smith, Harrison (July 22, 2019). "Paul Krassner, countercultural ringmaster and leader of the Yippies, dies at 87". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "60s Activist Paul Krassner, Who Coined The Term "Yippies," Dead At 87 – CBS Los Angeles". Losangeles.cbslocal.com. July 21, 2019. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  5. ^ "Recital by Violin Pupils". The New York Times. January 15, 1939.
  6. ^ a b "Paul Krassner, Anarchist, Prankster and a Yippies Founder, Dies at 87". The New York Times. July 22, 2019. p. A21. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
  7. ISBN 978-0-520-25913-3
    .
  8. ^ Brian A. Pace. ""An IMC Interview with Paul Krassner" by Brian A. Pace, 06. May.2004 14:05". Portland.indymedia.org. Archived from the original on June 10, 2004. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
  9. ISBN 0-671-89843-4
  10. ^ Loompanics: Paul Krassner Archived July 18, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ a b c d Krassner bio Archived May 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine at paulkrassner.com
  12. ^ The original FUCK COMMUNISM banner Ep.tc
  13. ^ Kurt Vonnegut's Foreword to Krassner's The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race
  14. ^ The Realist Cartoons, edited by Paul Krassner, p. 9.
  15. ^ The Parts That Were Left Out of the Kennedy Book – The Realist, Issue No. 74 – May 1967, cover page and page 18
  16. ^ Paul Krassner and The Realist by Elliot Feldman
  17. Adbusters Quarterly
    " Journal of the Mental Environment (Winter 1995 Vol. 3 No. 3).
  18. ^ a b Here Lies Paul Krassner Archived May 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Reprinted from AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, vol.18, no. 2, 2000.
  19. ^ Krassner, Paul (1971). How A Satirical Editor Became A Yippie Conspirator In Ten Easy Years. Putnam.
  20. ^ "How the realist popped americas cherry". Nypress.com. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
  21. ^ Ferment Magazine by Roy lisker, accessed July 16, 2012
  22. ^ "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968 New York Post
  23. ISBN 0-226-23800-8
    .
  24. ^ Krassner, Paul (July 16, 2019). "Paul Krassner Recalls Lenny Bruce, Cavalier Magazine 50 Years Later". Variety. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  25. ^ Freetimes.com
  26. ^ Kates, Bill (1997). Best of the Fests: Starwood Festival in High Times, 1997
  27. ^ Association for Consciousness Exploration. Paul Krassner Archived June 4, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ Association for Consciousness Exploration. WinterStar Symposium 1998
  29. ^ "The Psychedelic Era". Archived from the original on September 5, 2007.
  30. ^ "Double Agent by Paul Krassner". Emptymirrorbooks.com. June 21, 1972. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
  31. ISBN 978-1-78323-048-8
    .
  32. ^ Jerry Hopkins (October 26, 1968). "Cass Elliot of Mamas and Papas: The Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  33. ^ Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles (April 9, 2002). "Website". Guardian. London. Retrieved December 5, 2013.
  34. ^ Reflections on the Art of the Put-on Archived May 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine by Michael Dooley July 3, 2007
  35. ISBN 0-313-27523-8
    .
  36. ISBN 0-7425-2236-9
    .
  37. S2CID 57566909
    .
  38. ISBN 0-275-96575-9
    .
  39. ^ "Close Calls : Paul Krassner". brian nation: the hot dog palace never closes. May 22, 2005. Retrieved October 29, 2023.
  40. ^ "1960s prankster Paul Krassner, who named Yippies, dies at 87". The Seattle Times. July 21, 2019.
  41. ^ Eichsteadt, James (August 2007). "Jeff Kisseloff. Generation on Fire: Voices of Protest from the 1960s--An Oral History". H-Net. Retrieved April 12, 2022.

External links

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