Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
OTHER BOOKS BY PAUL KRASSNER
Dedication
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER 1 - HOW DO YOU ESCAPE FROM CARNEGIE HALL?
CHAPTER 2 - THE FIRE HYDRANT OF THE UNDERDOG
CHAPTER 3 - LENNY THE LAWYER
CHAPTER 4 - QUEEN JEANNE
CHAPTER 5 - MY ACID TRIP WITH GROUCHO MARX
CHAPTER 6 - THE PARTS LEFT OUT OF THE KENNEDY BOOK
CHAPTER 7 - THE RISE AND FALL OF THE YIPPIE EMPIRE
CHAPTER 8 - BURNING BRAS AND BRIDGES
CHAPTER 9 - ONE FLEW INTO THE CUCKOO’S NEST
CHAPTER 10 - SHOWING PINK
CHAPTER 11 - HOLLY TOMOLLY
CHAPTER 12 - I WAS A COMEDIAN FOR THE FBI
CHAPTER 13 - PRANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
CHAPTER 14 - BLOOPERS AND OUTTAKES: THE PARTS LEFT OUT OF THIS BOOK
Copyright Page
PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“Thanks to Paul Krassner for continuing to be the lobster claw in the tuna casserole of modern America.”
—Tom Robbins
“Krassner is one of the best minds of his generation to be destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked—but mainly hysterical. His true wacky, wackily true autobiography is the definitive book on the sixties.”
—Art Spiegelman
“Paul’s own writing, in particular, seemed daring and adventurous to me; it took big chances and made important arguments in relentlessly funny ways. I felt, down deep, that maybe I had some of that in me, too; that maybe I could be using my skills to better express my beliefs. The Realist was the inspiration that kept pushing me to the next level; there was no way I could continue reading it and remain the same.”
—George Carlin
“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
“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
“Father of the underground press.”
—People
“This is one funniest book. Flip on, boot up any page and you’ll be instantly sassed-out, Krassed-out by this excruciatingly honest, accurately demented, twisted underground history of our times.”
—Timothy Leary
“Enjoy this transcendent experience of compassionate acerbity served on dark wry.”
—Ram Dass
“As counterculture revives and breathes again, Paul Krassner’s personal histories and inside-dope anecdotes chronicle the national nuttiness of America’s last decades before a new millennium.”
—Allen Ginsberg
“The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey-filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald . . . and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society’s saddle. The pains in the ass.”
—Harlan Ellison
“Krassner says he lost his sanity when he lost his sense of humor; his Confessions prove he’s got them back.”
—Newsweek
“He is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.”
—The New York Times
“Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Wickedly funny . . . Chillingly funny . . . A convincing look at a man who knows how to wield absurdity.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Uproarious and mostly delightful . . . There is so much soulful humor and precious daffiness in this book.”
—The Village Voice
“Sheds wild light on what could be called America’s psychotic episode.”
—Spin
“The dean of countercultural journalism.”
—High Times
“Ranks with Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as one of the most informative and entertaining studies of a time and place that now seem, like it or not, long ago and far away.”
The Baltimore Sun
“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 haven’t, 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
“I predict in time Paul Krassner will wind up as the only live Lenny Bruce.”
—Groucho Marx
“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 drugs—in other words, the land where all of us, were we really honest with ourselves, would choose to dwell.”
—Harry Shearer
“Paul Krassner—confidant of Lenny Bruce, cofounder of the Yippies, defiler of Disney characters, publisher of The Realist, investigative satirist extraordinaire —as soon as we decided to create The Huffington Post, I knew I wanted Paul involved. His irreverence was just what the blog doctor ordered.”
—Arianna Huffington
“Krassner lives in a world where Truth and Satire are swingers, changing partners so often you never know who belongs with whom.”
—Playboy
OTHER BOOKS BY PAUL KRASSNER
How a Satirical Editor Became a Yippie Conspirator in Ten Easy Years
Tales of Tongue Fu
Best of The Realist [Editor]
The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race:
The Satirical Writings of Paul Krassner
Impolite Interviews
Pot Stories for the Soul [Editor]
Sex, Drugs, and the Twinkie Murders:
40 Years of Countercultural Journalism
Psychedelic Trips for the Mind [Editor]
Murder at the Conspiracy Convention and Other American Absurdities
Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs:
From Toad Slime to Ecstasy [Editor]
One Hand Jerking: Reports from an Investigative Satirist
In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches from the Valley of Porn
Who’s to Say What’s Obscene?: Politics,
Culture and Comedy in America Today
To the Unknown Reporter—
who brought romance to a press conference once
by asking the widow of a slain voter registration worker
whose mutilated body had just been found in a Mississippi swamp:
“Did you love your husband?”
“It is quite true that I have invented for myself a good many experiences which I never really had. But they were all experiences which belonged to me by right of temperament and character. I should have had them, if I had but had my rights. I was despoiled of them by the rough tyranny of Circumstance. On the other hand, I have suppressed a number of incidents which actually happened, because I did not, upon mature reflection, find them in consonance with my nature as I like to think it is—they were lies that were told about me by
the slinking facts of life. Evangelists of various descriptions assure us that we can make the future what we will, if we can but attain a sufficient degree of spirituality. It has been my endeavor to attain such a degree of spirituality that I may be able to influence the past as well as the future.”
—Don Marquis
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut was originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1993. All rights have since been reverted back to me, providing an opportunity to correct, clarify, expand, and update this new and improved edition. Also, I’ve added a couple of new chapters. So, enjoy your ass off.
CHAPTER 1
HOW DO YOU ESCAPE FROM CARNEGIE HALL?
I first woke up at the age of six.
It began with an itch in my leg. My left leg. But somehow I knew I wasn’t supposed to scratch it. Although my eyes were closed, I was standing up. In fact, I was standing on a huge stage. And I was playing the violin. I was in the middle of playing the “Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor.” I was wearing a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit—ruffled white silk shirt with puffy sleeves, black velvet short pants with ivory buttons and matching vest—white socks and black patent-leather shoes. My hair was platinum blond and wavy. On this particular Saturday evening—January 14, 1939—I was in the process of becoming the youngest concert artist in any field ever to perform at Carnegie Hall. But all I knew was that I was being taunted by an itch. An itch that had become my adversary.
I was tempted to stop playing the violin, just for a second, and scratch my leg with the bow, yet I was vaguely aware that this would not be appropriate. I had been well trained. I was a true professional. But that itch kept getting fiercer and fiercer. Then, suddenly, an impulse surfaced from my hidden laboratory of alternative possibilities, and I surrendered to it. Balancing on my left foot, I scratched my left leg with my right foot, without missing a note of the “Vivaldi Concerto.”
Between the impulse and the surrender, there was a choice—I had decided to balance on one foot—and it was that simple act of choosing which triggered the precise moment of my awakening to the mystery of consciousness. This is me! The relief of scratching my leg was overshadowed by a surge of energy throughout my body. I was being engulfed by some kind of spiritual orgasm. By a wave of born-again ecstasy with no ideological context. No doctrine to explain the shock of my own existence. No dogma to function as a metaphor for the mystery. Instead, I woke up to the sound of laughter.
I had heard that sound before, sweet and comforting, but never like this. Now I could hear a whole symphony of delight and reassurance, like clarinets and guitars harmonizing with saxophones and drums. It was the audience laughing. I opened my eyes. There were rows upon rows of people sitting out there in the dark, and they were all laughing together.
They had understood my plight. It was easier for them to identify with the urge to scratch than with a little freak playing the violin. And I could identify with them identifying with me. I knew that laughter felt good, and I was pleased that it made the audience feel good—but I hadn’t intended to make them laugh. I was merely trying to solve a personal dilemma. So the lesson I woke up to—this totally nonverbal, internal buzz—would serve as my lifetime filter for perceiving reality and its rules. If you could somehow translate that buzz into words, it would spell out: One person’s logic is another person’s humor.
I finished playing “Vivaldi” by rote. Then I bowed to the audience and walked off stage. The applause continued, and I was pushed back on stage by my violin teacher, Mischa Goodman, to play an encore, “Orientale.” I had previously asked him—while rehearsing the encore—why it wasn’t listed on the program since we already knew that I would play it at the concert. But instead of answering my question, he poked me in the chest, verbalizing each poke: “Violin up! Violin up!” Now, while playing “Orientale,” I heard the echo of his voice, and I automatically raised my violin higher.
Then I popped my ears and the music sounded clearer. I wondered if it sounded clearer to the audience too. They had no idea that their laughter had woken me up. I was overwhelmed by the notion that everybody in the audience had their own individual this-is-me, but maybe some of them were still asleep and didn’t know it. How could you tell who was awake and who was asleep? After all, I hadn’t known that I was asleep, and look what I accomplished before I woke up. If it hadn’t been for that itch, I might still be asleep.
There was, of course, an objective, scientific explanation for what happened on the stage of Carnegie Hall. According to a textbook, Physiological Psychology, “It is now rather well accepted that ‘itch’ is a variant of the pain experience and employs the same sensory mechanisms.” But for me, something beyond an ordinary itch had occurred that night.
It was as though I had been zapped by the god of Absurdity. I didn’t even know there was such a concept as absurdity. I simply experienced an overpowering awareness of something when the audience applauded me for doing what I had learned while I was asleep. But it was only when they laughed that we had really connected, and I imprinted on that sound. I wanted to hear it again. I was hooked. And the first laugh was free.
My mother, Ida, was born in Russia. Her family came to the United States when she was one year old. Her first and only job was legal secretary for the district attorney of Queens County in New York. My father, Michael, was born in America, his family having come from Hungary. He was a printer. When my mother told him she liked his mustache, he shaved it off, put the hair in an envelope, and presented it to her as a gift.
On April 9, 1932, my mother having been knocked out for the occasion, I emerged from her womb in a terrible drug stupor. There are those who claim that an individual soul chooses the specific parents of the fetus it will occupy. I had no such recollection. But even if I decided to be born, I was circumcised against my will.
It was an act of anti-Semitism by a kosher butcher—a moyl who not only practiced surgery without a license but also was slightly drunk that afternoon. He accidentally left an extra flap of foreskin clinging to the underside of my pippy. (That was our family name for penis.) As a child, because the rumpled foreskin on my pippy stuck uncomfortably to the loose skin of my scrotum, I would occasionally be observed trying to separate them through my clothing. Grown-ups became extremely concerned that I was playing with myself, and they offered various diversions. Among these was the violin. However, the program notes for that Carnegie Hall recital implied a certain basic sibling rivalry as my own motivation:Paul Krassner, six years old, was born in New York City. While his older brother, George, took violin lessons from Mischa Goodman, Paul’s interest impressed Mr. Goodman, who then decided to start the youngster seriously. Paul was barely three years old.
The compositions he now plays are far removed from the student’s repertoire.
But it all seemed extremely hazy to me. There’s a classic joke: Somebody stops a man on the street and says, “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?” And the man answers, “Practice, practice, practice.”
But I didn’t have the slightest idea of how I had gotten to Carnegie Hall.
I must’ve practiced myself right out of childhood. I did have a few specific memories, though. The earliest was my fourth birthday party. I was just about to blow out the candles on my cake when my brother stood right behind me and blew them out before I could. When I made a fuss about this, I was the one who got in trouble.
My father, who had been a semipro prizefighter, bought boxing gloves for my brother and me to settle our disputes. A few months later, my sister, Marjorie, was born—or, as I had been led to believe, purchased at the hospital. She was sleeping in her crib while my brother and I were boxing in an adjoining room. I threw a wild punch, and the glove flew off my fist, sailed across the room, through the open doorway, into the next room, hitting my baby sister on the head. She started crying and I got in trouble again.
That Christmas, my brother and I played our violins for a children’s party at
a hospital, but because I had been a bad boy that year, my parents stuffed my stocking with several lumps of coal. I didn’t take it personally. Somehow I understood that it was their problem, and they were doing the best they could.
I could read music before I could read words, but I did know how to recite the alphabet backward. I had learned to read music with notes on wooden toy blocks. I had perfect pitch, but that didn’t seem like anything special to me. All I did was memorize different tones, so that I could recognize the sound of A or B the same way I recognized the color orange or red.
People considered me a child prodigy because I had an advanced technique, but I had no real passion for the violin. I just didn’t feel I had any options. Playing the violin was simply what I did. Mischa Goodman would keep yelling, “Violin up!” “Elbow in!” “Shoulder down!” “Wrist out!”—with jabs and slaps and punches to mark each particular spot. That was simply what he did.
Each week my brother and I would take the subway from Queens to Manhattan for our lessons at his studio in the Metropolitan Opera House. People in the train would stare at us with our violin cases, and we would do “owl eyes”—staring back until they looked away. I was fascinated by a blind man who played the accordion as his Seeing-Eye dog guided him through the subway cars. He sang “When Irish Eyes are Smiling,” and passengers dropped coins into a tin cup attached to the dog’s harness.
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