Paul Krassner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Paul Krassner
|
|
|---|---|
Krassner at City Lights Bookstore in 2009
|
|
| Born | April 9, 1932 New York City, U.S.
|
| Died | July 21, 2019 (aged 87) |
| Occupation | Author, journalist, comedian |
Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine The Realist, first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s and a founding member of the Yippies, a term he is credited with coining. He died on July 21, 2019, in Desert Hot Springs, California.
Early life
Krassner was a child violin prodigy and performed at Carnegie Hall in 1939, at age six. His parents practiced Judaism, but Krassner chose to be firmly secular, considering religion "organized superstition". He majored in journalism at Baruch College (then a branch of the City College of New York) and began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul.
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." He was a close protégé of the comedian Lenny Bruce. With the encouragement of Bruce, Krassner started to perform standup comedy in 1961 at the Village Gate in New York.
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."
The Realist
The Realist was published on a fairly regular schedule during the 1960s, then on an irregular schedule after the early 1970s.
Krassner revived The Realist as a much smaller newsletter during the mid-1980s when material from the magazine was collected in The Best of the Realist: The 60's Most Outrageously Irreverent Magazine (Running Press, 1985). The final issue of The Realist was #146 (Spring, 2001).
Books
Krassner was a prolific writer. In 1971, he published a collection of his favourite works for The Realist, as How A Satirical Editor Became A Yippie Conspirator In Ten Easy Years. In 1981 he published the satirical story Tales of Tongue Fu, in which the hilarious misadventures of the Japanese-American man Tongue Fu are mixed with a wicked social commentary. In 1994, he published his autobiography Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture.
Other activities
In 1968, Krassner signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In 1971, Krassner worked as a weekend radio personality and disk jockey at San Francisco's ABC-FM radio affiliate, KSFX, (subsequently KGO-FM). Under the pseudonym "Rumpelforeskin", he satirized culture and politics while espousing his atheism. He was also a contributor to early issues of Mad magazine. He often appeared as a stand-up comedian, and he was among those featured in the 2005 documentary The Aristocrats. Krassner was also a prolific lecturer and was a frequent speaker at both the Starwood Festival and the WinterStar Symposium. In 1998 he was featured at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Wavy Gravy. He was a columnist for The Nation, and High Times Magazine. He also blogged at The Huffington Post and The Rag Blog.
Awards
Krassner was the first living man to be inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame. He received an American Civil Liberties Union Uppie (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression. In 2005 he received a Grammy nomination for Best Album Notes for his essay on the 6-CD package Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware.
Personal life and death
In 1985, Paul Krassner moved to Venice, CA where he met his wife of 32 years, artist and videographer, Nancy Cain, one of the original Videofreex and founder of Camnet. They moved to Desert Hot Springs, CA in 2002. Krassner suffered for several years from a neurological disease, and died on July 21, 2019, at age 87. He had one daughter, Holly Krassner Dawson, from a previous marriage.
See also
In Spanish: Paul Krassner para niños
- Camp Summerlane
- List of peace activists
