Zapped By The God Of Absurdity: The Best Of Paul Krassner

I NT R OD U CT I ON BY

A N DY B O R OW I TZ

Introduction

by Andy Borowitz

Is satire dead?

When the President of the United States is a former game-show host with the self-control of an incontinent hamster, that’s a reasonable question.

With satire under daily assault from an increasingly absurd reality, satirists can’t be blamed if they sink into a slough of despond, or consider driving for Uber. How can you satirize a world this moronic? But maybe that’s the wrong question to ask. Maybe, instead, satirists should ask themselves, “What would Paul Krassner do?”

This collection of Krassner’s work couldn’t have come at a better time. It serves as a welcome reminder that satire has been under threat from reality before — almost continuously, it seems — and as a bracing demonstration of how an indefatigable satirist faced down that threat and won, again and again.

It’s undeniable that the current leader of the free world, through his uniquely demented brand of infantile performance art, has raised the bar for satire to an almost unreachable height. But over the past sixty years, Paul Krassner faced similar challenges from such daunting surrealists as Richard Nixon, O.J. Simpson, and Charles Manson — and never blinked.

At this point, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking, “Wait. Things have been fucked up before — but never this fucked up. Things are so fucked up now that readers can’t tell the difference between a fake OPPOSITE: Paul Krassner. Photo illustration by Justin Allan-Spencer and Ethan Persoff. Original photo by Linda Grossman.

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news story and a real one.” It might be reassuring to know that this supposedly new problem is not, in fact, new at all. In 1967, when the historian William Manchester was preparing to publish a book about JFK’s assassination, The Death of a President, members of the Kennedy family succeeded in having sections of the manuscript removed before publication.

Always trying to be helpful, Krassner published a satire, “The Parts That Were Left Out of the Kennedy Book,” which was outlandish, ridiculous, pornographic and, naturally, widely believed to be true. There are at least two lessons in this episode: first, that a satirist cannot be held responsible for others’ reading comprehension skills; and second, if satire has become indistinguishable from reality, it’s probably reality’s fault.

It’s impossible to overstate Paul Krassner’s impact on American comedy. He has influenced everyone from George Carlin to Harry Shearer to Lewis Black and will continue to inspire the satirists of the future — assuming, of course, that there is a future. But as tempting as it is to enshrine Krassner as a comic legend, worthy of our reverence and genuflection, let’s not. That would mean saddling him with the kind of respectability that, in his work, he reflexively mocks. Given the choice between respect and laughter, Krassner always goes for the laugh.

And, finally, that’s the most important reason why this book couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s full of laughs when we need them most, the kind of laughs that lift us out of despair and help us see the world more clearly. Somehow, through the alchemy of his genius, Paul Krassner, the pot-smoking Yippie provocateur, emerges from these pages sounding like the sanest man in the world.

If only there were some way to give him control of the nuclear codes.

We’d all sleep better at night.

New York City, November 2017

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The Early Years

From Carnegie Hall to Mad Magazine

I first woke up at the age of 6.

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 that 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 3

PAUL KRASSNER

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 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 my ears popped, and suddenly 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 had accomplished before I woke up.

If it hadn’t been for that itch, I might still be asleep.

There is, 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.

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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.

A couple of decades later, as if it was inevitable, I sold a few freelance pieces to Mad magazine. But when I suggested a satire on the pros and cons of unions, the editor wasn’t interested in even seeing it because the subject was “too adult.” Since Mad’s circulation had already gone over the million mark, publisher Bill Gaines intended to keep aiming the magazine at teenagers.

“I guess you don’t wanna change horses in midstream,” I said.

“Not when the horse has a rocket up its ass,” Gaines replied.

And that moment served as the conception of an irreverent magazine for grown-ups, The Realist …

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