Confessions of a raving, unconfined nut

This is no ordinary memoir. Paul Krassner started out as a child-prodigy violinist, the youngest concert artist ever to perform at Carnegie Hall, but he lost his real virginity - literally and figuratively - at Mad magazine. However, Mad's humor was aimed at teenagers; America had no satirical magazine for adults, so in 1958 Krassner launched The Realist. Irreverence was his only sacred cow. When People magazine called him "father of the underground press," he immediately demanded a paternity test. Nevertheless, The Realist was indeed a forerunner of the alternative media, serving as both an influence on and a chronicler of the burgeoning counter-culture. His life story is enhanced by encounters with such folk heroes as Norman Mailer, Dick Gregory, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Jerry Garcia.

Krassner never identified anything as either reportage or satire in The Realist, and it was often hard to tell the difference. His most infamous such piece, "The Parts Left Out of the Kennedy Book," has become a modern classic, and its complete text is included in these pages, along with the story behind his "Fuck Communism!" poster and the Disneyland Memorial Orgy. All his readers see Krassner through their own subjective filters. Joseph Heller told him, "You practically write Catch-22 with every issue of The Realist." And Kurt Vonnegut said, "You make me hopeful." But the FBI sent a poison-pen letter to Life magazine: "To classify Krassner as a 'social rebel' is far too cute.