In 1982, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I belonged to a student group that brought Paul Krassner, the former editor of The Realist and the person who coined the term Yippies, to campus. He appeared onstage along with Woodstock veteran Country Joe McDonald in the UWM ballroom, in an event we billed, presciently, as “A Reality Sandwich.”
I say “presciently” because that’s what the event actually turned out to be: a sandwich, with Krassner serving as the two slices of bread. He opened the set and closed it, with Country Joe performing solo in-between.
Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner, and his publication The Realist, set the standard for irreverence.
That wasn’t the way it was planned. Krassner was supposed to open for Country Joe and then leave the stage for good. But, as it turned out, his brand of over-the-top humor generated a hostile reaction, especially among a group of Vietnam veterans who had come for Country Joe and found Krassner offensive.
I forget the details—it was thirty-seven years ago—but, in short, Krassner responded to blowback from the vets by giving it right back to them, until he was booed off the stage. He returned after Country Joe’s set to finish his own, to a room that had a few more empty chairs than it did earlier.
On Sunday, Krassner died in his home in Desert Hot Springs, California, from an unspecified illness. He had recently been transferred to hospice care. He was eight-seven.
Paul Krassner was an underground journalist and raconteur, a committed activist, a gifted public speaker, a stand-up comedian (that was the role he was performing at “A Reality Sandwich” that night in Milwaukee, although the dearth of laughter made it hard to tell), and the author of nearly a dozen books, including his classic Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut. (His final book, Zapped by the God of Absurdity, is set to be released later this year.)
A signed copy of a 2012 reissue of Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut in the office of The Progressive includes this note to Norman Stockwell, now the magazine’s publisher: “Hope you have as much pleasure reading this book as I did plagiari[zing] it.”
Krassner was a child prodigy musician who played violin at Carnegie Hall at age six. He eventually traded music for words, studying journalism at Baruch College in New York before landing a job at Mad Magazine. It was while working there in 1958 that Krassner founded The Realist, a magazine that would publish, sometimes irregularly, into the 1970s. He revived it as a newsletter in the mid-1980s; the final issue came out in spring 2001.
The Realist set the standard for irreverence. One famous story—a spoof that some people thought was real—claimed that one passage from a censored book on the JFK assassination was about how President Lyndon Johnson sexually penetrated the bullet wound in the neck of John F. Kennedy’s corpse. He later reflected that this horrific narrative was believed—including, reportedly, by Pentagon Papers-leaker Danial Ellsberg—because it “broke through the notion that the war in Vietnam was being conducted by sane men.”
Krassner was also a master of what he liked to call “impolite interviews.” His subjects over the years, for The Realist and other publications, included Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, George Lincoln Rockwell, and Arianna Huffington.
The Yippies, which Krassner named and helped found, was shorthand for Youth International Party, which included Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. The group merged protest with comedy and performance art, as when it ran a pig for President at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, tossed dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (unleashing frenzied bill-grabbing among the traders), and levitated the Pentagon, at least in the minds of the believers.
In an interview with David Kupfer, published in The Progressive in November 1993, Krassner was asked about his use of humor for political ends. His reply: “I just look at the political system and then report on it. The humor's already there. Sometimes it's just pointing out things. I’ve used humor to make a point, to say the truth, doing it in my own poetic way.”
“I just look at the political system and then report on it. The humor's already there.”
Krassner went on to describe himself as “an investigative satirist, and a Zen Bastard, and WILL BE LAZY FOR FOOD. That’s my sign.” He said he felt fortunate “not to be working for somebody else, presenting their warped vision instead of my own warped vision.”
Asked at the end of the interview whether there was anything else he wished to add, Krassner said this: “Just keep the shower curtain inside the tub when you're taking a shower so it doesn't get the bathroom floor all wet. That's pretty much it. Have a sense of cause and effect. Know your endorser. Don't kiss your cat when it's spitting up a hairball. And don’t swallow watermelon seeds or you'll get pregnant.”
Back in 1982, Krassner and Hoffman were among the cultural icons we looked to for guidance because we, too, wanted activism to be fun.
That’s why my classmates and I founded the group that brought Krassner to campus. It was called the Society for a Better Society, a purposely redundant name that could be abbreviated to SBS, a play off of SDS but with a bit more BS. It consisted of four members, including myself as president.
During the year or so we were an officially recognized student organization, we staged an all-day teach-in, and held two successful campus events: A Reality Sandwich featuring Krassner and Country Joe, and a show in the same packed room with Allen Ginsberg, backed at one point by a live band.
After A Reality Sandwich concluded, it emerged that Krassner had neglected to make arrangements for a place to stay. So I brought him back to my house late that night. I was, at the time, living at home with my parents. My mom, having had no forewarning of a house guest, got up around 3 a.m. to find Krassner standing by an open freezer door, eating ice cream out of a container with a spoon.
That’s my Paul Krassner story. I’m sure there are others.