a polite interview\
“Skin So Thin,\
It’s Inside Out”\
Ethan Persoff talks with Paul Krassner about running The Realist,\
hacking The New York Times Bestseller list, and that\
“true, extraordinary liar,” Donald Trump.\
In the late Fifties, three things radically changed the course\
of American comedy: Lenny Bruce, The Second City, and\
The Realist. From its first issue in the Spring of 1958, Paul\
Krassner’s iconoclastic “journal of freethought and satire”\
created a comedic template that is still being followed today; its\
mix of fact and intelligent opinion delivered with a mordant,\
knowing skepticism, is as current as John Oliver and as\
omnipresent as the entire internet. But you don’t hear much\
about The Realist these days — it’s the fate of truly seminal\
sources to seem inevitable, when in fact they reshaped the\
world in their own image.\
Fortunately, in 2006 Krassner teamed with archivist/comic\
artist Ethan Persoff on The Realist Archive Project (http://\
www.ep.tc/realist/), a free online repository of every issue of\
the magazine from its 43-year run. They recently collaborated\
again on a deluxe coffee table book, The Realist Cartoons,\
published by Fantagraphics.\
The election of Donald Trump seemed to be a particularly\
Krassnerian moment, so I asked Ethan to call Paul and ask\
a few leading questions. — MG\
ETHAN PERSOFF: Paul, what’s your opinion of Trump?\
PAUL KRASSNER: Where to begin? Personally, for me, it goes\
back to when George Bush won the presidency in 2000. That\
was due to the electoral college, even though Al Gore had won\
the popular vote.\
That same time, Hillary Clinton was elected Senator. She\
announced, publicly, the first thing she was going to do was\
get rid of the electoral college.\
Years later, I was doing a column for The New York Press,\
and I sent Clinton a letter asking her about the status of her\
promise. She didn’t reply.\
During the campaign, Trump called Clinton a crook —\
EP: Right, “Lock her up”.\
PK: —he called her a crooked businessperson. But that’s what\
he was. Everything he says about anybody is really about him.\
He’s a true, extraordinary liar.\
EP: What’s your opinion of his “fake news” media scolding?\
PK: Another example of projection. He calls the newspapers\
dishonest, because he is, in fact, the most dishonest.\
Trump became an insanely narcissistic dictator once he\
won, bragging about his electoral numbers as proof. But prior\
to that, he endlessly insisted the electoral college was a sham.\
That, to me, wins the prize for irony.\
EP: I have to wonder, what if Clinton had won the electoral\
count, but lost the popular vote?\
PK: Oh, then he would have said it was rigged.\
EP: Lock her up!\
PK: When I wrote the letter to her, it was partly because I’d\
heard the electoral college was based on slavery.\
EP: And there’s gerrymandering, which is also racist.\
PK: Yes. You know, the thing with Trump, is there’s talk of\
anything from impeachment, assassination, treason ... But\
that leads to more irony, because that would leave President\
Pence. Pence has just as much an interest in turning evolution\
around, and going back to barbaric times, but has the ability\
to pass as sane. Trump can’t do that.\
EP: Do you think Trump’s madness is an asset to his opposition?\
He’s such an easily identifiable lunatic, does that provide for\
a sense of protection, as opposed to Pence, who is so much\
more canny and quiet?\
PK: There’s fear of Trump, and then there’s dictatorship in\
action. The things he’s been doing are disgusting -- these appointments!\
Like Rick Perry for Dept of Energy. It’s so insane.\
And then, Betsy DeVos. No education experience ... I think\
even starting in kindergarten. (Laughter)\
EP: Yes. Everyone has their own personal thing that they’re\
scared about with Trump. Me, it’s the environment. I can’t\
believe his appointment of Scott Pruitt with the EPA.\
PK: They’re all horrible. Then there’s Michael Flynn. He\
is the core of the hypocrisy of the relationship between\
Trumpo the Elephant and Putin.\
(continued) f\
93\
EP: What’s your take on Trump and\
Russia?\
PK: I read one article where an unidentified\
Russian official used the phrase\
“useful idiot”. That’s really what it is.\
It’s like J. Edgar Hoover; he stayed\
around for decades [via] blackmail. I\
think it’s the same thing. You don’t have\
to say it, you know. Hoover would just go\
to JFK and say, “We found some photo\
of you in bed with Marilyn Monroe. But\
don’t you worry, we’ll keep it in our safe.”\
EP: You’ve lived through some Red scares;\
can you imagine any other time where\
this Russia stuff would be forgiven?\
PK: I think foreign countries may have\
influenced previous elections.\
I don’t know, but it was mostly\
before the technology of the\
Internet. So, if there’s no Internet,\
there ain’t no hackin’.\
It’s like there ain’t no divorce\
if you don’t have no marriage!\
Whatever deal was made, or\
hacked, I think Trump decided\
to run the night of the 2011\
Washington Correspondent’s\
Dinner. Obama had such\
good jokes that night. But the\
camera was on Trump, and you\
could see that he was foaming.\
EP: That shot of him is amazing.\
The video of Trump’s boiling\
back head. It’s really gorgeous.\
PK: Humiliation makes a difference.\
You know, years before\
any of this, Trump developed\
his modus operandi for media/\
political success: You cheat.\
What pushed him into public profile was\
the stated success of his book, The Art of\
the Deal. But what I found out that is that\
he bought 20,000 copies of his own book\
from Random House, and that made it a\
New York Times Best Seller.\
Similarly, L Ron Hubbard had his book\
Dianetics. He had a Scientologist working\
at The New York Times who had access\
to the details of their best sellers lists.\
Back then, there was a list of cities that\
the Times measured sales at particular\
book stores. So, Hubbard didn’t have to\
buy 20,000 copies, he just had his spy tell\
him where to buy several copies at those\
locations, and the Church of Scientology\
had an instant “Best Seller”.\
EP: Earlier you mentioned two interesting\
words: “assassination” and “impeachment”.\
You have the benefit of having\
lived through Kennedy and Nixon.\
PK: My earliest remembrance of a President\
was Franklin D Roosevelt.\
EP: Do you remember him on the radio?\
PK: Yes. He was famous for having his\
Fireside Chats. Which, through these\
decades, has evolved into tweets.\
EP: Here’s a very pointed question: When\
Kennedy got shot — what’s your memory\
of that?\
PK: Several memories. One was my first\
wife was out shopping, heard it on somebody’s\
radio, and immediately bought a\
TV set. That’s one thing I remember, just\
being glued to the television…And I was\
getting calls, maybe not that day, but from\
Cartoon by Wende, from The Realist #37, Sept. 1962.\
people wanting to write an article about\
the conspiracy aspect of it. You know of\
Jean Shepherd, right?\
EP: Of course.\
PK: He was a big influence on me. He said,\
“This will change the whole country.” He\
thought it was a coup. And it turned out\
that the CIA had the Mafia do it. After\
all of my studying about it, that’s what it\
was. The Mafia were the puppets of the\
puppeteer in that.\
I would listen to Jean Shepherd every\
night, and he said — he predicted – that\
America would have a dictator who won\
the presidency because he came out of\
show business. And it happened. You\
know, [Trump’s] not like Ronald Reagan,\
who came out of Hollywood, of course.\
But in Reagan’s case, he couldn’t make\
the distinction between reality and his\
94\
movie roles. But he did say he was willing\
to take a senility test! Of course, the suggestion\
that he’d take a senility test is a\
suggestion that you already are senile.\
EP: Right. That’s very funny.\
PK: Jumping back to Trump. Along the\
same lines of the buying the 20,000\
copies of his book, the first day of his\
presidential campaign, he came down\
the Trump Tower elevator. There were\
people with placards, saying “TRUMP\
2016” — but they were all hired actors.\
Fifty of ‘em.\
EP: You know, the success of that red hat\
really disturbs me. It’s so idiotic — but it\
really seemed to work.\
PK: I agree. No other presidential\
candidate had a cap like\
that. And a slogan. I’ve seen\
people on TV asked, “What do\
you think about the election?”\
One elderly woman said, “Oh\
it’s wonderful! We’re going to\
Make America Great Again!”\
EP: How could they win on a\
campaign of awful messages?\
Maybe Steve Bannon is some\
AD&D wizard, casting a spell\
that everything negative\
becomes positive. “Trust me\
Trump: kick babies instead of\
kiss them. It’ll work!”\
PK: I agree that’s possible.\
But it’s narcissism that made\
Trump do this. Narcissism with\
skin so thin, it’s inside out.\
That’s what he was\
doing, too, during the campaign.\
If your skin is inside out,\
then it’s projecting. Hillary “was a crook,”\
but he was. He called Bernie Sanders\
“crazy” and he was. “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”...\
EP: Why do you think those nicknames\
were so effective? It seemed, once you\
were labelled by him, you were done.\
PK: Bush had his nicknames, but they\
were favorable. He called Karl Rove his —\
EP: “Turd Blossom”!\
PK: Right, “Turd Blossom” ...and he was.\
EP: The prettiest turd.\
PK: Regarding Trump’s narcissism, here’s\
my favorite joke: Trump was in the elevator\
of Trump Tower. It stopped on one\
floor and a woman got in. She said, “Oh!\
You’re Donald Trump! Oh my, I would\
love to give you a blow job. I really would.\
I have a great reputation. I will make it\
that you will never forget this blow job.\
I really am good. I practice a lot. And I\
want to give you a blow job so much.”\
And Trump says, “Yeah, but what’s in\
it for me?”\
(laughter)\
There’s an old saying in psychology.\
In order to deceive people, you have\
to deceive yourself. Here’s the thing:\
Trump has instant belief. He just believes\
whatever he says. With Obama’s\
birth certificate controversy, he would\
believe it, even though he had to know\
it wasn’t true. Then, he said he’d hired\
investigators to go to Hawaii.\
EP: (embarrassed for history) I remember\
that.\
PK: I think that was a lie, too! I don’t think\
he ever sent them. Or, if he did\
send them, and they didn’t find\
any “evidence,” then he lied by\
omission...of facts.\
EP: I wonder if these lies are\
going to have consequences —\
if impeachment will happen.\
Getting Congress to do it will\
be nearly impossible.\
PK: There’s little hints that\
the Republicans — their conscience\
is gettin ‘em. Those are\
my hopes.\
EP: The fear I have is we’re going\
to lose this country through this\
motherfucker. That we’re going\
to have a police state – that we\
won’t have a free press. Do you\
think these are real fears?\
PK: Oh, yeah. Well, you know,\
a police state has a bad reputation.\
I mean, cops love it!\
The thing is — ever since I\
took a lot of acid — I have become an\
over-doer of being optimistic. You can\
pick your metaphor, but I think Trump’s\
a blessing in disguise.\
With these scares, he’s the monster —\
The Frankenstein — that we’ve created.\
It’s from the country’s dumbing-down\
of the media. Especially with the commercials.\
You know, when they first had\
TV news, they didn’t have commercials.\
EP: I’ve been trying to get more into the\
habit of watching PBS News Hour. It’s\
amazing to have a full hour of commercial-free\
news, and not looping news,\
like CNN. What’s sad is I find I have to\
build up the stamina for it. I actually find\
myself wanting commercial breaks. PBS\
had less coverage of Trump’s campaign,\
too. Probably because there were no ads\
to sell.\
PK: The epitome of it, regarding coverage\
of Trump, was CEO Leslie Moonves, who\
said “It may not be good for America, but\
it’s damn good for CBS!”\
EP: You know, the week Trump won, to\
deal with shock, my mind started remembering\
things that made me laugh.\
One of your stories showed up: The one\
when you met Bob Dylan and asked for\
his opinion about the Holocaust.\
PK: I was at a radio show. And he was\
watching in the room. It was me, Abbie\
Hoffman, a rabbi, and some others.\
During the panel, the Holocaust was\
integrated into the dialogue. Dylan was\
there watching, sitting in a dark corner in\
Cartoon by Mort Gerberg, from The Realist #50, May 1964.\
95\
the back of the room. When the program\
was over, he walked up and said to me,\
“You didn’t say much.” And I thought\
that was funny, because he was such a\
minimalist.\
Then I held up my fist, like a microphone,\
and asked, “So, what do you think\
about the Holocaust?” He offered his\
minimalistic reply: “I resent it.”\
EP: That’s just too good a joke.\
PK: I remember that, more than the radio\
panel, because it had such an essence\
of itself.\
EP: That’s the benefit of minimalism,\
right? It’s like these insane Trump tweets.\
In some way, they’re stronger because\
they’re just 140 characters.\
PK: By the way, did you see Anderson\
Cooper laugh for five minutes when\
Kellyanne Conway used the phrase “alternative\
facts”? It was such a bizarre\
oxymoron, he couldn’t stop laughing.\
EP: My favorite one of her’s is the Bowling\
Green Massacre. The Internet was hilarious\
on that. For the Holocaust, of course,\
it’s “Never Forget”; so, for the Bowling\
Green Massacre, people were posting\
pictures of green bowling balls, with the\
phrase “Never Remember”.\
PK: Oh, that’s good. It’s like what I was\
mentioning about optimism. The answer\
is what we saw right after the inauguration,\
with the march and the rallies.\
Trump is essentially the monster we’ve\
created. Whereas Frankenstein was\
made from corpses, Trump was made\
from fringe subcultures: First\
from the white supremacists\
... Trump was on the radio\
with some insane conspiracy\
theorist, and the host said, “My\
listeners, they really love you.”\
Trump then went to the Evangelists,\
‘cause that was another\
subculture. He couldn’t think\
of anything, the first time, from\
the Bible. Next time, though,\
he brought a Bible with him.\
He was smart enough to take\
the cellophane off it.\
EP: I think for the most part,\
you’ve always been on the\
right side of history, actions\
you’ve taken and political/\
moral positions — everything\
from civil rights, to women’s\
rights, to drug freedom. But I\
don’t know how you decided\
to do some of this shit. For\
example, you ran an abortion referral\
service inside The Realist. No reward\
beyond a moral victory.\
PK: Back then, when it was illegal, people\
thought doctors who performed abortions\
should be arrested and convicted.\
EP: Let’s discuss the development of your\
ethics. What’s your internal compass?\
Have you always had these instincts?\
PK: It happens organically. I remember\
when LOOK Magazine said about abortion,\
“There are no humane doctors ...\
all of them are just in it for the money.”\
And I knew of one: Doctor Spencer in\
Ashland, Pennsylvania. He had a reputation.\
It turned out, to be, also, that he\
was a subscriber.\
So, I wrote him a letter, asking for an\
interview, because I wanted to point out\
that LOOK’s statement was a lie. And I\
The Disneyland Memorial Orgy, by Paul Krassner and Wallace Wood, published in the May, 1967 issue of The Realist. Readers\
with annoying bare patches on their wall can buy a copy at www.paulkrassner.com for \$35.00 plus shipping and handling.\
promised him that I would go to prison\
sooner than identify him.\
EP: Was that a concern of his?\
PK: I just volunteered it. So that he would\
know. And he allowed me to interview\
him, albeit anonymously. 1\
When I published the interview, I\
started to get calls. Women who were\
pregnant that didn’t want to be, and didn’t\
know where to go. These were different\
ages, different classes. I remember\
one that really had the most force to it:\
A nurse called. And she couldn’t get a\
doctor to help her. From a hospital, or\
even privately.\
So, I referred her to Dr. Spencer. And\
she sent me a gift. She knew I had a little\
daughter. And she sent me a doll. A lion.\
Holly, my daughter, named it Lenny the\
Lion, after Lenny Bruce.\
EP: Oh, that’s great.\
PK: I began to get more and more calls,\
and I couldn’t say no. You know this is\
not an abstract placard saying “Peace\
Now”, this was somebody that I could\
help. I couldn’t say no -- ‘cause there are\
so many things going on in the world that\
you can’t help.\
I never thought I’d become an underground\
abortion referral service. But, you\
know, it became my calling, in a way.\
EP: How long did you continue to help\
people out?\
PK: I stopped when I moved to San Francisco\
[in 1971]. By that time there were\
others doing referrals -- Protestant ministers.\
So, I left my practice behind me.\
EP: The Realist was one of the first, if\
not the first, news sources to talk about\
Enovid [the first birth control pill].\
PK: In the first few issues! And the pill\
was just a rumor. This guy, a journalist\
-- I didn’t pay him much – he did a twopart\
article, I think I paid him \$100 for\
each. He went to Puerto Rico, where they\
were testing women. I had mixed feelings\
about this, because they were testing\
them like guinea pigs. But it worked, and\
it became known as “the Pill.”\
EP: Since we’re referring to a lot of\
issues of The Realist, we should probably\
mention the online archive. I recall,\
with some humor and business sense, you\
only asked one thing: That we edit the\
image to the Disneyland Orgy to include\
a link to your site, saying a poster was\
available for sale on your website.\
PK: Oh yeah, that was a pure ad.\
1\
“An Impolite Interview With An Abortionist,”\
The Realist #35, June 1962.\
96\
EP: The first ad to run in The Realist,\
probably?\
PK: Well, sure. (laughs) It was letting\
people know the poster existed.\
EP: In the ten years that the archive’s been\
up, it’s enjoyed a lot of regular traffic and\
is now referenced in many dissertations.\
By the way, did you see the Washington\
Post article linking to the archive, specifically\
the LBJ story? 2\
PK: Oh, yeah. I heard about that from\
Harry Shearer. He sent me the link to\
the article, where they refer to me as\
an “obscure 1960s figure.” The subject\
line of Harry’s email was “It’s official!”\
and then in the message, a link to the\
article and the words “you’re obscure!”\
I laughed hysterically.\
I think the LBJ piece (“The Parts Left\
Out of the Kennedy Book,” The Realist\
#74, May 1967) is still the most notorious\
article; people remember it. Lewis Black\
said he was fifteen when he read it and\
said he was shocked! You know, because\
the article was written as a seduction, in\
a way. To the culmination, to the... what\
do they call it in sex? The climax!\
And then I published the anagram for\
Nixon’s veep’s name, Spiro Agnew.\
EP: “Grow a penis.” Do you remember\
2\
“Trump’s Presidency is Doomed,” The\
Washington Post, January 16, 2017.\
how that got published?\
PK: It was originally a guy from LIFE. He’d\
interviewed me, and mentioned some of\
the staffers had seen Rosemary’s Baby,\
where there’s an anagram moment with\
Scrabble pieces, something to do with\
witchcraft —\
EP: “Steven Marcato”.\
PK: Yeah. Staffers had discovered this joke\
about the Vice President’s name, based\
on that scene. They couldn’t use it in\
LIFE, but it had to go somewhere. So, I\
ran it in the four-page comic that Richard\
Guindon and I did together. 3\
EP: Both the LBJ piece and Rosemerica\
comic clearly bend into surrealism. The\
response of readers, delighted and infuriated,\
had to be one of the best moments\
of your life.\
PK: Many many people believed \[the LBJ\
piece\], even for just a moment. It was\
something I’d learned from Joseph Heller,\
when I interviewed him (Realist #39). I\
asked about one of the patients in Catch-\
22, who is in a veteran’s hospital. The\
patient was wrapped up like a mummy,\
fed through IV’s, excreting through tubes\
— he was just a middleman for digestion.\
I asked Heller, and he said, “Well you\
know, it’s possible, but not probable.”\
EP: “Possible but not probable” explains\
these last fifteen months on Earth.\
PK: Regarding the LBJ piece, there were\
people who claimed to remember a photograph!\
(laughs)\
People who said they believed the\
article, if only for a moment, included\
Daniel Ellsberg, who released The Pentagon\
Papers. He said the reason he believed\
it, was because he just so much\
wanted it to be true.\
EP: Speaking of Ellsberg, and now Trump,\
how do you feel about leaking?\
PK: Well, I leak several times a day.\
(Shared laughter)\
EP: It’s very good for you.\
PK: That’s bladder control.\
EP: It’s funny that the Russian sex blackmail\
was Trump having a urine party with\
a bunch of hookers.\
PK: That was a fake. But it became a\
perfect image for comedians worldwide.\
EP: But it’s like the LBJ issue — maybe it\
will stick. People also remember The Disneyland\
Orgy from the magazine. And the\
wonderful FUCK COMMUNISM poster.\
PK: You know, I use a walker, but I go to\
the gym three times a week, to use the\
treadmill. I had my FUCK COMMUNISM\
t-shirt on, you know, the red white and\
blue. As I was walking out, there was a\
policeman who held the door open for\
me. And he saw the t-shirt.\
EP: Oh, god —\
PK: He said, “Hey, that’s a great t-shirt!”\
He took it literally!\
EP: I know the poster was said to be the\
perfect confluence of two banned terms.\
PK: Kurt Vonnegut praised it for that.\
EP: “Fuck” has kind of won, right? You\
can say “Fuck” anything now, and it’s\
fine. That is one experience I don’t have,\
growing up when that word was so verboten.\
I understand how saying “Fire” in\
a crowded theater is illegal, but I don’t\
have an understanding of a world where\
1\
“Roseamerica’s Baby,” The Realist #93,\
August 1972.\
saying “Fuck” could get your arrested.\
How did Lenny Bruce work around it?\
PK: He had to use a euphemism. He’d\
have to say “frig.”\
The first time I met Lenny, he came to\
New York, and he called — because The\
Realist was his favorite magazine.\
EP: That had to feel great.\
PK: It did. Steve Allen was the first subscriber.\
He would give subscription gifts\
to several friends, and Lenny was one\
of them.\
Lenny then sent a lot of subscriptions\
to his friends. That’s how it started, and\
how it grew — word of mouth — which\
is better than advertising, because it’s\
free and you’re getting it from someone\
you know, an individual.\
When I met Lenny for the first time,\
I gave him an advance copy of an interview\
with Dr Albert Ellis, a psychologist.\
Lenny was reading and said “He used\
the word [‘fuck’]!” I explained to him\
that Ellis had a campaign that “fucking\
was good” therefore, if you wanted to\
say something unfriendly, you should\
say “unfuck you”...\
Lenny asked, “How does he get away\
with this?” I told him, “The Supreme\
Court said use of the word wasn’t obscene\
in a magazine if it was a redeeming social\
value, and no prurient interest.”\
Lenny asked, “What’s that? Prurient?”\
He went to his suitcase on his bed in the\
hotel room. Inside was a huge unabridged\
dictionary. At first, it said something like\
“itching” — and Lenny asked, “Is this\
something like a novelty store?”\
EP: Where they sell the powder!\
PK: Or the dribble glasses. But the second\
Created in 1963 by Paul Krassner and John Francis Putnam, this poster was a staple of dorm rooms for decades. Kurt Vonnegut\
called it “a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein¹s e=mc 2 .”\
97\
definition was “arousal of sexuality.”\
Lenny was performing that night at\
Town Hall. He asked me to hand out\
copies of The Realist, with the Ellis interview,\
in front of the theater. From then\
on, Lenny thought that his act would\
be protected, because it had redeemable\
social value. But that’s not the way\
prosecutors felt about it.\
EP: Right. The conspiracy theory I’ve\
heard is that it’s because he took on the\
Catholic Church.\
PK: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely right. His\
“Religions, Inc” piece got him in a lot\
of trouble. The reason he got busted for\
obscenity was there wasn’t a law against\
blasphemy, but that’s what he was really\
arrested for.\
EP: You know when Scott Marshall and I\
were putting together the Lenny Bruce\
tribute in the Wilcock comic, we included\
John’s experience with Lenny. You’re\
in a few panels. It’s been fun to find opportunities\
to include you in the comic\
-- you’re in five scenes now.\
I have sort of a funny agreement with\
John: If he can’t recall the full story, or\
dialogue, I can fill in the details.\
PK: Oh (laughs) well that’s trusting.\
EP: You both are very trusting people! He\
couldn’t remember verbatim exchanges\
with you from 1961. So, we gave the joke\
from you to be “Lenny would be a big fan\
of your couch, John.”\
PK: That’s funny. When I saw that in your\
comic, I remembered saying it! I remembered\
something that didn’t happen. Now\
I have something in common with Kellyanne\
Conway.\
It’s something I would have done. You\
made up something real.\
EP: Thank you. I only do that in a few\
panels to keep everything glued together\
as a story. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of\
disconnected fragments.\
PK: Too close to reality, then.\
EP: How do you think Lenny would\
respond to Trump?\
PK: I think he would do it as a really high\
form of satire. He would make Trump a\
hero -- in the sense that he would take\
a different approach. I’m saying that\
because he did that about Adolf Eichmann,\
the Nazi organizer. Lenny would\
say “He was doing his job!” He would\
just take an approach like that. Lenny\
would “appreciate” the defined tragedy.\
1\
See The American Bystander #1, Dec. 2015.\
I think Bill Maher’s show, February\
17, was terrific. Lenny would have really\
appreciated it. Just the same way Lenny\
got serious sometimes, and the audience\
would say, “Hey, you’re honest!”\
instead of “Hey, you’re funny.” Maher’s\
monologue that night was really beautiful.\
Because he’s well informed, and he\
couldn’t just do jokes about it. He talked\
about the fascism. He talked about the\
dangers. It was just brilliant presentation\
of the seriousness of fascism in action.\
EP: What do you think Abbie Hoffman\
would do about Trump?\
PK: Oh, I think he would do the same\
thing as Maher. Abbie really had a sense of\
humor that was spontaneous. And it was\
based on being well informed. Bill Maher\
was doing that. He was rabble-rousing.\
He was trying to let people know how\
serious it was.\
EP: I can’t help but feel such sadness that\
Abbie is gone. You mentioned Shepherd\
as an influence, for me it’s Abbie, who\
I regret never knowing personally. You\
read his books and every page glows. He’s\
such a wonderful soul and gifted writer.\
Do you recall going to rallies with Abbie?\
PK: I remember we had taken some acid\
in his home, and got a call that some\
Puerto Rican kids had gotten busted for\
pot. Abbie said “Okay, we gotta go there.”\
Show them the hippies respected the\
kids who were busted. Because they were\
Puerto Rican kids. So, as we’re walking\
there Anita, Abbie’s wife at the time, mentioned\
she was going to regurgitate from\
the acid. And I said to her, “You can just\
vomit over by the curb over there, and\
we’ll stand around you.” That we’d hide\
her. Abbie said, “Now that’s community!”\
There were lots of things like that. We\
saw a police car, full of four cops, two in\
the front and two in the back, and Abbie\
yelled, “You guys on a double date?”\
I told him he reminded me of Lenny,\
and he said, “Oh really? He’s my God!”\
EP: That’s an amazing story, partly\
because there’s no way you can talk like\
that to police now without being confronted.\
I have this terrible habit where\
I thank cops. I got tackled once because\
a cop thought I was someone else, and,\
partly out of fear, I thanked him. I always\
feel like an asshole when I do it, too.\
PK: I did the same thing (laughs) when\
they frisked me. They frisked the reporters\
because they didn’t want the reporters\
to have guns in court.\
98\
EP: Was this for the Harvey Milk trial?\
PK: Yeah.\
EP: During that trial, you coined the\
phrase “The Twinkie Defense”. You’ve\
done this a couple of times, creating an\
expression or a term, that becomes a\
permanent part of the language.\
PK: I once started a list: Yippies, Twinkie\
Defense, jilling off — that’s a woman\
masturbating, instead of jacking off.\
EP: “Soft-core porn,” you coined that.\
PK: Yes.\
EP: What do you think Robert Anton\
Wilson would say about Trump?\
PK: He would be very analytical about\
him. You know, he would talk about the\
insanity of it. He would just get to the\
core of Trump. He’d be fascinated by it.\
EP: He does like “mind fuckers.”\
PK: Exactly, yeah. He would be a great\
analyst of how we all have some narcissism\
in us, but Trump is the king of — oh,\
you know I’m doing now what you did —\
when you made up what you think what\
I would have said, there. And now I’m\
saying what Robert ... what Bob Wilson\
would say.\
EP: But that’s totally correct, I think.\
PK: But he would, because — there was\
a European order of priests who got\
married, or something like that. And I\
gave Bob the assignment of writing about\
that convention of the priests, as if he\
was there. He loved doing that; he made\
it seem real.\
That was a very good form of his satire,\
because once again, it was not only possible,\
it was probable.\
EP: What about Terry Southern? A lot\
of people see The Magic Christian happening\
right now with Trump — Trump\
is living out that description of the book.\
He’s “making it hot for them.”\
PK: Terry Southern was — he put a lot\
of words in italics when he wrote. And\
he talked the same way. He talked with\
italics.\
EP: Maybe he’d italicize Trump. Finally,\
how do you think George Carlin would\
respond to Trump?\
PK: He might make a list. George loved to\
make lists. He could make a list of lies,\
of Trump’s lies.\
EP: Paul, this has been so good talking\
with you. Any closing advice to Donald\
Trump, if he’s reading?\
PK: I got my philosophy from \[the comic\
strip\] Mary Worth: “When in doubt, do\
the kindest thing.”