Who is Paul Krassner? Good motherfucking question. Krassner or who we call "the krazz" (as in Lord Buckley's The Nazz) started the Underground Press in 1958 with the self-published Realist Magazine which I read in the corridors of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn when I was 14 in 1959. This was before I could get pot - I was in my pre-potbesant period. But the krazz must have been getting high by then, dat fo' sure. The Realist could best be described as Leftwing Libertarian. There wasn't a hint of Marxism, yet it was revolutionary, and eventually would prove more dangerous to the cultural and then political status quo than the Daily Worker or Daily World. I couldn't believe some of the shit in that magazine, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and crazy shit that boggled my mind and made me aware of the absurdity of existence. Like letters asking if semen had a lot of calories, stuff ridiculing the Catholic Church, who the fuck remembers? A poster that read, FUCK COMMUNISM. I mean the F word was taboo back then. But what was going through Krassner's mind other than THC when he invented this. He was thinking how would the establishment deal with this? They hate Communism but also hate dirty words. Which will they consider worse? Or on another level was Krassner beginning to realize that Communism was not the way for the beatnick generation. This guy dropped acid with Groucho Marx. I will tell you one thing, Krassner was a player in the underground abortion movement and was not afraid of getting busted. Krassner was a child prodigy violin player - and it took a prodigy to invent a version of the underground that did not involve being gay and shooting junk as Burroughs and Ginsberg version worked out in practice. The inate musical abilility is why I consider Krassner to be Robert Allen 'Al' Zimmerman with a conscious. For that matter I consider Leonard Cohen to be Bob Dylan on Prozac and Tom Petty to be a goiasha Bob Dylan. For Krassner's website click HERE The New York Free Press dropped his column after they recently changed hands.

PAUL KRASSNER SUBMITS TO WILL OF ALLAH
MARK FELT IS A LOWLIFE TRAITOR EVEN TO HIS OWN PEOPLE
KRASSNER ON THE POT SCENE
CHET HELMS
SCIENTOLOGY
THE HONORABLE PAUL KRASSNER SPEAKS
MORE TALKING KRASS
MORE OF THE KRAS
EAT THE PRESS
THE KRASSNER ABORTION RING MIGHT HAVE TO RESURFACE