Don’t miss this one! Paul Krassner on Rag Radio Tuesday, 2-3 pm (CST), KOOP 91.7 FM in Austin. The legendary social satirist and Realist editor is my guest, and we’ll discuss Tuli Kupferberg, The Realist, the Yippies, Lenny Bruce, the drug war, the media, and more… See link for streaming…

Paul Krassner, according to The New York Times, is “an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.” The FBI is less generous: Krassner has “purported to be humorous,” but is in fact “a nut, a raving, unconfined nut.”

An author, journalist, and stand-up comedian, Krassner was the founder and editor of the legendary journal of social and political satire, The Realist – published irregularly in the 60s and more irregularly thereafter — which was a major inspiration for those of us working in the underground press. However, when People Magazine called him the “father of the underground press,” he immediately demanded a paternity suit.

Krassner, who claims to have taken LSD with Groucho Marx, was a founder of the Youth International Party (the Yippies), and was a member of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. He was a radio personality in San Francisco, known as “Rumpleforeskin.” His writing has appeared in major publications, including Playboy, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, National Lampoon, Mad Magazine, and The Village Voice. He is a contributor to High Times and The Huffington Post. A close friend of comic and social critic Lenny Bruce, Paul edited his biography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.

Paul Krassner has written several critically-acclaimed books and compilations, including his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, an expanded edition of which will be released soon. He was honored by the ACLU for his dedication to freedom of expression, and was recently inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame.

Paul Krassner is a contributor to The Rag Blog, where he recently wrote about the death of his friend and colleague, Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs.