by Robert Wilkinson
Today we celebrate the birthday of a legendary wit who skewered the pompous.
Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an author, editor, journalist, standup comedian, a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, and a founding member of the Yippies. From wikipedia, "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," 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. With the encouragement of Bruce, Krassner started to perform standup comedy in 1961 at the Village Gate in New York.
In 1963, he created what Kurt Vonnegut described as
"a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein's e=mc2." Vonnegut explained: "With the Vietnam War going on, and with its critics discounted and scorned by the government and the mass media, Krassner put on sale a red, white and blue poster that said FUCK COMMUNISM. At the beginning of the 1960s, FUCK was believed to be so full of bad magic as to be unprintable. ... By having FUCK and COMMUNISM fight it out in a single sentence, Krassner wasn't merely being funny as heck. He was demonstrating how preposterous it was for so many people to be responding to both words with such cockamamie Pavlovian fear and alarm.
In 1971, five years after Lenny Bruce's death, Groucho Marx said, "I predict that in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce."
He did this gig in 2005 with Kurt Vonnegut, Art Buchwald, and Barry Crimmins. Here’s Paul’s 10 minutes. Paul Krassner on Political Satire in America
From 7 years later, Comin Fest 2012 – An Hour with Paul Krassner
Here’s a 7 minute interview from 1967 with Joe Pyne, the pioneer of broadcast hate speech. Paul Krassner interview with Joe Pyne
Here’s 10 minutes of Paul weighing in on “Who’s To Say What’s Obscene?”
You can find out more about this amazing being by checking out his bio on Wikipedia at Paul Krassner. In previous years at his website (currently off line) we were greeted with a classic poster he published years ago in the 60s, showing all the Disney characters in sexualized NSFW depictions. Of course the artist was sued by Disney, so the poster has been out of print for years. But that's Paul.
I had the good fortune to produce and direct a couple of television pieces of him performing in Austin during Iran-Contra with me doing the voiceover in a brick wall interview afterwards. Someday I'll have to find that piece of history.....
© Copyright 2025 Robert Wilkinson
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