Document Text Content
60 Years of Investigative Satire:
The Best of Paul Krassner
Introduction by Andy Borowitz
Blurb by Art Spiegelman
Click on this for a High Res Photo.
What They Say About the Author
“Paul’s own writing, in particular, seemed daring and adventurous to me; it took big chances and made important arguments in relentlessly funny ways. I felt, down deep, that maybe I had some of that in me, too; that maybe I could be using my skills to better express my beliefs. The Realist was the inspiration that kept pushing me to the next level; there was no way I could continue reading it and remain the same.”
--George Carlin
“Paul Krassner--confidant of Lenny Bruce, co-founder of the Yippies, defiler of Disney characters, publisher of The Realist, and investigative satirist extraordinaire. As soon as we decided to create the Huffington Post, I knew I wanted him involved. His irreverence was just what the blog doctor ordered.”
--Arianna Huffington
“Thanks to Paul Krassner for continuing to be the lobster claw in the tuna casserole of modern America.”
--Tom Robbins
“Krassner loves ironies, especially stinging ironies that nettle public figures. He would rather savor a piquant irony about a public figure than eat a bowl of fresh strawberries and ice cream.”
--Ken Kesey
“I told Krassner one time that his writings made me hopeful. He found this an odd compliment to offer a satirist. I explained that he made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous, and that this inspired many of his readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that there were people doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.”
--Kurt Vonnegut
“Mr. Krassner is an expert at ferreting out hypocrisy and absurdism from the more solemn crannies of American culture.”
--The New York Times
“Krassner has the uncanny ability to alter your perceptions permanently.”
--The Los Angeles Times
“He has lived on the edge so long, he gets his mailed delivered there.”
--San Francisco Chronicle
“Krassner lives in a world where Truth and Satire are swingers, changing partners so often you never know who belongs with whom.”
--Playboy
“Perhaps the satire magazine that most closely resembles Charlie Hebdo in terms of inflammatory imagery was The Realist, created by Paul Krassner…”
--Time
“Paul taught me that extreme stylistic accuracy could make even the most bizarre comedic concept credible. He is a unique character on the American landscape. A self-described ‘investigative satirist,’ he straddles the lines between politics, culture, pornography and drugs -- in other words, the land where all of us, were we really honest with ourselves, would choose to dwell.”
--Harry Shearer
“I have been a fan of his since I was a snot-nosed kid, and his words have been a driving force and influence on my life. If you have read his work before, you know the joys that you are in for. If you haven’t, start reading, and consider this your lucky day. For Paul Krassner is an activist, a philosopher, a lunatic and a saint, but most of all he is funny.”
--Lewis Black
Many of the pieces in this collection originally appeared in The Realist, High Times, AVN, N.Y. Press, National Lampoon, The Nation, L.A. Times, Whole Earth Review, Huffington Post, Alternet, CounterPunch, and Truthdig. Several pieces have not been published before, but only for this collection.
For George Carlin, who continues to serve as a satirical touchstone
* * *
“Hypocrisy is better than having no values at all.”
--William Bennett, former education czar, drug czar, morality czar and gambling czar
“MTV actually told us, ‘You can make fun of God because he doesn’t
exist, but you can’t make fun of Jesus because he’s God’s son.’”
--Vernon Chatman & John Lee,
quoted in Satiristas!
* * *
Other Books by Paul Krassner
How a Satirical Editor Became a Yippie Conspirator in Ten Easy Years
Best of The Realist [Editor]
The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race
Impolite Interviews
Psychedelic Trips For the Mind [Editor]
Magic Mushrooms and Other Highs: From Toad Slime to Ecstasy [Editor]
Murder At the Conspiracy Convention and Other American Absurdities
One Hand Jerking
Tales of Tongue Fu
In Praise of Indecency: Dispatches From the Valley of Porn
Who’s to Say What’s Obscene: Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today
Pot Stories for the Soul: An Updated Edition for a Stoned America [Editor]
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture
Patty Hearst and the Twinkie Murders: A Tale of Two Trials
The Realist Cartoons [Editor]
About the Author
Paul Krassner published The Realist (1958-2001), but when People magazine labeled him “father of the underground press," he immediately demanded a paternity test. And when Life magazine published a favorable article about him, the FBI sent a poison-pen letter to the editor calling Krassner “a raving, unconfined nut.” George Carlin responded, “The FBI was right. This man is dangerous—and funny; and necessary.” While abortion was illegal, Krassner ran an underground referral service, and as an antiwar activist, he became a co-founder of the Yippies (Youth International Party). Krassner's one-person show won an award from the L.A. Weekly. He received an ACLU (Upton Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression. At the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, he was inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame — “my ambition,” he claims, “since I was three years old.” He’s won awards from Playboy, the Feminist Party Media Workshop, and in 2010 the Oakland branch of the writers organization PEN honored him with their Lifetime Achievement Award. “I’m very happy to receive this award,” he concluded in his acceptance speech, “and even happier that it wasn’t posthumous."--paulkrassner.com
Introduction by Andy Borowitz
To come . . .
Table of Contents
THE EARLY YEARS--
From Carnegie Hall to MAD Magazine
A Child’s Primer on Telethons—
Sex Education For the Modern Catholic Child—
A Children’s Primer on Fighting Communism--
A Child’s Primer on Divorce—
RELIGION FOR DUMMIES--
Pope Endorses Condoms—
I Ran an Underground Abortion Referral Service—
There Are No Atheists in the White House—
THE SEX LIFE OF PRESIDENTS & OTHERS--
The Parts Left Out of the Kennedy Book—
A Sneak Preview of Richard Nixon’s Memoir—
Why I Leaked the Anita Hill Affidavit—
President Clinton’s Private Confession—
The Autobiography of Monica Lewinsky—
Sarah Palin’s Reality Sitcom—
SUBCULTURES --
And Whose Little Monkey Are You?—
The Mime and the Pacer—
Johnnie Cochran Meets Dr. Hip—
Jealousy At the Swingers Convention—
Life Among the Neo-Pagans—
Murder At the Conspiracy Convention—
Swimming in the Dead Pool--
Trashing the Right to Read--
Welcome to Camp Mogul—
HIGHER THAN THOU—
Checkmating With Pawns—
Tim Leary, Ram Dass, and Me—
Remembering Scott Kelman—
The 20th Anniversary of the Summer of Love—
POLITICS—
The Last Election—
A Letter to Barack Obama—
Unsafe at Safeway—
The Yippies and the Occupiers—
PORN AGAIN—
Remembering Pubic Hair--
The Taste of Sperm—
Eating Shit For Fun and Profit—
“I Fuck Dead People”—
COMEDIANS
Remembering Lenny Bruce--
My Acid Trip With Groucho Marx--
Remembering George Carlin--
Roasting With Robin--
Remembering Dick Gregory--
The Missing Episode of Seinfeld--
THE LATER YEARS—
Are Rape Jokes Funny?
Words and Phrases That I’ve Coined—
My Brother’s Secret Space Communication Projects—
The Six Dumbest Decisions of My Life—
Alternative Facts—
I Played Thomas Jefferson’s Violin—
THE EARLY YEARS
From Carnegie Hall to MAD Magazine
I first woke up at the age of six.
It began with an itch in my leg. My left leg. But somehow I knew I wasn't supposed to scratch it. Although my eyes were closed, I was standing up. In fact, I was standing on a huge stage. And I was playing the violin. I was in the middle of playing the “Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor.” I was wearing a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit–ruffled white silk shirt with puffy sleeves, black velvet short pants with ivory buttons and matching vest–white socks and black patent-leather shoes. My hair was platinum blond and wavy. On this particular Saturday evening–January 14, 1939–I was in the process of becoming the youngest concert artist in any field ever to perform at Carnegie Hall. But all I knew was that I was being taunted by an itch. An itch that had become my adversary.
I was tempted to stop playing the violin, just for a second, and scratch my leg with the bow, yet I was vaguely aware that this would not be appropriate. I had been well trained. I was a true professional. But that itch kept getting fiercer and fiercer. Then, suddenly, an impulse surfaced from my hidden laboratory of alternative possibilities, and I surrendered to it. Balancing on my left foot, I scratched my left leg with my right foot, without missing a note of the “Vivaldi Concerto.”
Between the impulse and the surrender, there was a choice–-I had decided to balance on one foot–and it was that simple act of choosing which triggered the precise moment of my awakening to the mystery of consciousness. This is me! The relief of scratching my leg was overshadowed by a surge of energy throughout my body. I was being engulfed by some kind of spiritual orgasm. By a wave of born-again ecstasy with no ideological context. No doctrine to explain the shock of my own existence. No dogma to function as a metaphor for the mystery. Instead, I woke up to the sound of laughter.
I had heard that sound before, sweet and comforting, but never like this. Now I could hear a whole symphony of delight and reassurance, like clarinets and guitars harmonizing with saxophones and drums. It was the audience laughing. I opened my eyes. There were rows upon rows of people sitting out there in the dark, and they were all laughing together.
They had understood my plight. It was easier for them to identify with the urge to scratch than with a little freak playing the violin. And I could identify with them identifying with me. I knew that laughter felt good, and I was pleased that it made the audience feel good–but I hadn't intended to make them laugh. I was merely trying to solve a personal dilemma. So the lesson I woke up to–this totally nonverbal, internal buzz–would serve as my lifetime filter for perceiving reality and its rules. If you could somehow translate that buzz into words, it would spell out: One person's logic is another person's humor.
I finished playing “Vivaldi” by rote. Then I bowed to the audience and walked off stage. The applause continued, and I was pushed back on stage by my violin teacher, to play an encore, “Orientale.” I had previously asked him–while rehearsing the encore–why it wasn't listed on the program since we already knew that I would play it at the concert. But instead of answering my question, he poked me in the chest, verbalizing each poke: “Violin up! Violin up!” Now, while playing “Orientale,” I heard the echo of his voice, and I automatically raised my violin higher.
Then I popped my ears and the music sounded clearer. I wondered if it sounded clearer to the audience too. They had no idea that their laughter had woken me up. I was overwhelmed by the notion that everybody in the audience had their own individual This-is-me, but maybe some of them were still asleep and didn't know it. How could you tell who was awake and who was asleep? After all, I hadn't known that I was asleep, and look what I accomplished before I woke up. If it hadn't been for that itch, I might still be asleep.
There was, of course, an objective, scientific explanation for what happened on the stage of Carnegie Hall. According to a textbook, Physiological Psychology, “It is now rather well accepted that 'itch' is a variant of the pain experience and employs the same sensory mechanisms.” But for me, something beyond an ordinary itch had occurred that night.
It was as though I had been zapped by the god of Absurdity. I didn't even know there was such a concept as absurdity. I simply experienced an overpowering awareness of something when the audience applauded me for doing what I had learned while I was asleep. But it was only when they laughed that we had really connected, and I imprinted on that sound. I wanted to hear it again. I was hooked. And the first laugh was free.
A couple of decades later, as if it was inevitable, I sold a few freelance pieces to Mad magazine. But when I suggested a satire on the pros and cons of unions, the editor wasn't interested in even seeing it because the subject was “too adult.” Since Mad's circulation had already gone over the million mark, publisher Bill Gaines intended to keep aiming the magazine at teenagers.
“I guess you don't wanna change horses in midstream,” I said.
“Not when the horse has a rocket up its ass,” Gaines replied.
And that moment served as the conception of an irreverent magazine for grown-ups, The Realist . . .
A Child’s Primer on Telethons
See the tired man. He has been up all night. He is running a telethon. He wants the people to send money. It is for leukemia. That is a disease. Little children like you can catch it. Evil.
See the sexy girl. She is a singer. She doesn't know whether the telethon is for leukemia or dystrophy or gonorrhea. Her agent got her the booking. She needs the exposure. Notice her cleavage.
See the handsome man. He does know that it's for leukemia. You can tell. He is singing a calypso melody. Listen to the lyrics. “Give-your-money,” he sings, “to-leukemia. Give-your-money, to-leukemia.” Listen to the audience applaud. He is very talented.
See the sincere politician. He is running for reelection in November. He is against leukemia. He is willing to take an oath against it. That proves he is against it.
See the wealthy businessman. He is making a donation. He wants his company's name mentioned. Then we can buy his product. Then he will make profits. Then he can make another donation next year. Splendid.
See the little boy. He has leukemia. Too bad for him. The nice lady is holding him up to the TV camera. Aren't you glad it's not you? But wouldn't you like to be on television? Maybe you can fall down a well.
See the pretty scoreboard. It tells how much money they get. They want a million dollars. Uncle Sam has many millions of dollars. He cuts medical research funds by more than seven million dollars. Why? He needs the money for more important things.
See the mushroom cloud. That costs lots of money. It has loads of particles. They cause leukemia. Money might help to find a cure. That is why we have telethons.
See the tired man . . .
Sex Education For the Modern Catholic Child
This is a diaphragm. Women use it when they don’t want to have a baby. That is very immoral. Why, you ask? Because it is artificial, that’s why. But never fear. There are other methods to prevent conception. They are very moral. Why, you ask? Because they are natural, that’s why.
This is big brother’s pajama bottoms. He had a nocturnal emission last night. What a shame. It woke him up. But see the semen stain. It has millions of dead sperms. They were killed the natural way.
This is his sister’s sanitary napkin. It doesn’t look very sanitary any more, does it? There is an ovum somewhere in that bloody mess. But it will never be fertilized. It will be flushed down the toilet bowl. That’s the natural way, too.
This is a baby. It was born dead. Every day in the U.S.A., 136,000 infants are stillborn or die within a month. Now suppose their Mommies and Daddies had interfered artificially with the process of procreation. God’s purpose would never have been achieved. Just think what a tragedy that would’ve been. But at least some of the dead babies were baptized. That’s the natural way.
This is a special calendar. It marks off menstrual periods. That’s for the rhythm system of not having babies. A husband and his wife are in bed. They start to make love. Then they get out of bed. Because they have to look at the calendar. That’s the natural way.
This is a husband and wife who don’t want to have a baby yet. But the calendar says that the time is fertile. So they stop making love. Because one thing would lead to another. Ask [advice columnist] Dorothy Dix. She should know. She tried it once with [advice columnist] Dr. Crane. Just to prove her theory. Later she had to write to his Worry Clinic. She was worried because she missed her period. She missed it very much.
This is a husband and wife who do want to have a baby. But the calendar says that the time is sterile. Lucky for them they have a calendar. It saves them from having unnecessary intercourse. Unless they like to gamble on having unwanted babies. That’s the natural way.
This is a confessional booth. There is a screen in the middle. The person on one side is a priest. The person on the other side is a confessor. He is confessing that he has had evil thoughts. The priest tells him that to have an evil thought is evil. It is just as evil as committing the evil act that the evil thought is about. Priests never have evil thoughts themselves. They don’t have to. They have an ample supply of other people’s evil thoughts to draw upon.
This is the husband and his wife again. The ones who don’t want to have a baby yet. Now the calendar says that the time is sterile. How convenient. Now they can make love without stopping. And without worrying. But they’re good, consistent Catholics. And so they are worrying. Because they know that evil thoughts are evil. Their evil thought is to have intercourse but to avoid having a baby. They can’t be sure they won’t have a baby--that’s why the rhythm system is moral--but the intention is there. Tomorrow they will go to confession.
Postscript:
I wrote the above piece in 1958 (before the Pill), and it turned out to be theologically correct in 1984, when Pope John Paul II warned that the rhythm method of birth control can be “an abuse if the couple is seeking in this way to avoid children for unworthy reasons.”
A Child’s Primer on Fighting Communism
Now we are going to have some fun fighting Communism. Let us play a game of Make Believe. Close your eyes and concentrate. We are going to pretend that Red China doesn’t exist. They are the Bad Guys. Because they make people slaves.
Nationalist China is different. They are the Good Guys. There, hundreds of thousands of little unwanted children are sold. They work in coal mines. Then they are wanted. The older girls work in brothels. How nice to be so wanted. Open your eyes now. Anyone around our base is it.
Fidel Castro says Cuba is a socialist state. That proves they are Communists. But we knew it before. You could tell by the way Castro and Khrushchev hugged each other. So we stopped buying sugar from Cuba. Now other countries buy sugar from Cuba.
Iran has bought 10,000 tons of sugar from Cuba. Iran gets a lot of economic and military aid from us. So we are helping Cuba anyway. Maybe we should trade tractors for prisoners then. But we will fool them. We will put treads on all the old Edsels that didn’t sell.
There are Communists in the United States too. They are dangerous. So the Supreme Court says they have to register as foreign agents. Otherwise they have to go to jail. So they register as foreign agents. Then they have to go to jail under the Smith Act.
So the Communist Party isn’t very much fun to belong to any more. But there’s a way to belong without going to jail. You have to join the FBI first. Most of the members do it that way. J. Edgar Hoover is the head of the Communist Party.
Why are Communists such a threat to us? Because they advocate the violent overthrow of the government. That is why Governor Rockefeller wrote his name on the bottom of a new law. Now anyone who gets convicted in Federal Court for advocating the violent overthrow of the government will lose his driver’s license.
That law was passed in April 1961. But on the 4th of July holiday the United States broke all previous traffic accident records. More people got killed in cars than ever before. The roads are still full of dangerous Communist spies.
How can we defeat Communism all over the world? By foreign aid. That turns Neutral Guys into Good Guys. Meanwhile there is a great big famine in Red China. So Canada will ship wheat to them. But special machinery is needed for this. It is made in America. And the U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allow such sales. Because Bad Guys deserve to starve. Everybody knows that. Especially the Neutral Guys.
So Canada shouldn’t be mad at us. Didn’t President Kennedy plant a tree there? That’s personal diplomacy. It has nothing to do with hungry human beings in Red China. The way to avoid feeling guilty about suffering people is just don’t recognize them.
A Child’s Primer on Divorce
Oh, look. Mommy and Daddy are having another fight. Is it just an attention-getting device this time? Listen. They are having an adult discussion. They are agreeing on a separation. That means you will come from a broken home. What a shame. Even if they fight all the time they should stay together for your sake. Now you will be insecure.
Mommy and Daddy are modern people. They drink Pepsi-Cola. They also have a modern marriage. They left the word “obey” out of their wedding ceremony. Wasn’t that modern? But they didn’t leave out the words “love” and “honor.” Mommy and Daddy are only modern, not avant-garde. They left “till death do us part” in the ceremony, too. But they are going to get a divorce anyway. They don’t have to obey their marriage vows. Lucky thing they left out that word.
What is to be done to keep Mommy and Daddy together? The Ladies’ Home Journal will help. They have a regular feature in their magazine. It is called “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” Readers send in Betty Crocker boxtops and try to guess the correct answer.
Maybe Mommy and Daddy will go on television. There is a program all about Divorce Court. Dr. Paul Popenoe is the master of ceremonies. He wears glasses. Sometimes while the commercial is on, the actors have reconciliation. It is a real fun show.
Mommy and Daddy live in New York State. To get a divorce there, one of them has to commit adultery. Daddy has a tryst with a girl. Mommy raids the joint. She brings along a photographer. Mommy has secretly been having an affair with the photographer. What Daddy doesn’t know won’t hurt him. He always wanted to be on Page 3 of the Daily News anyhow. Mommy made sure that his undershorts were ironed.
Benjamin Brenner lives in Brooklyn. He is a Supreme Court Justice there. He makes decisions. He decided that raiding the joint is illegal from now on. Unless you have a search warrant. Then it’s legal, but you have to knock first and say, “Benny sent me.” This new rule doesn’t count for hotel rooms. Then it’s okay to raid the joint. So Daddy better get his own apartment. Judge Brenner is really under the thumb of real-estate agents.
There is another way. Mommy can go to Reno. She lives there for six weeks. That is called “establishing residence.” Reno is Keno but Alabama is Clamor. Same-day service. The Chamber of Commerce invites lawyers to practice there. They are promised the run of the divorce mill. More people are traveling to Alabama than ever before. They are called Freedom Riders.
Here comes the governor of New York. See him eat the potato knish. He wants to get a divorce. He will establish residence in another state. But then he can’t be governor. Instead he will get a divorce in New York. But you know what that means. Dirty, dirty. Some deserving Young Republican girl will get the assignment. This is known as political patronage. The governor has a horny dilemma, though. Either he commits scandal or he commits perjury. Maybe he will propose a new law.
RELIGION FOR DUMMIES
Pope Endorses Condoms
When I was a kid, condoms were called prophylactics, prophylactics were called rubbers, and rubbers were called scumbags. My friends and I would find used scumbags in a vacant lot or in the alley between buildings. Once, while snooping, I found a large package of unused prophylactics in my father’s sock drawer. It must have held a dozen. Now there were nine left. Each was tightly rolled, bound by a miniature cigar-like band. I selected one, took the band off, and carefully unrolled it.
There was a legend imprinted on the prophylactic: “Sold in Drug Stores Only For the Prevention of Disease.” What hypocrisy! They were sold for the prevention of pregnancy, which is a condition, not a disease. The irony is that now condoms don’t carry that message but they are used for the prevention of disease. Anyway, I tried to re-roll my father’s prophylactic and stuff it back into the band, but it was a losing battle, so I decided not to put it back in the package, figuring that my dad wasn’t counting his condoms and would never know.
As an adolescent, I found that purchasing condoms was a traumatic experience. I would buy other stuff to avoid being embarrassed. “I’d like a Batman comic book, and this Snickers candy bar, and [whispering] a pack of Trojans, and a tube of Crest toothpaste, please.” But four decades later there were huge billboards, warning: “If you can’t say no, use condoms.” However, an executive of the Gannett Outdoor Advertising Company confirmed that they held off putting up those signs until after a visit by the Pope.
Members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy have been faced with an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, they are opposed to condoms as an artificial method of birth control. On the other hand, they are aware that condoms can serve as a protection against AIDS. But a group of bishops issued a statement that educational programs which include information about condoms should also stress that they are morally incorrect.
That’s sort of like in the Watergate scandal when Richard Nixon said, “We could get the million dollars—but that would be wrong.”
Coincidentally, in November 2010, while the porn industry in California was being pressured to require all male actors to wear condoms to prevent AIDS, in the Vatican it was revealed that, for the exact same reason, Pope Benedict--in his official capacity as the Church’s chief spin doctor--went on record proclaiming that under some circumstances it might be acceptable for a (male) prostitute to use a condom.
“There can be single justified cases,” he rationalized, “for example, when a prostitute uses a condom, and this can be a first step toward a moralization, a first act of responsibility in developing anew an awareness of the fact that not everything is permissible and that we cannot do everything we want. However, this is not the best way to overcome the infection of HIV. It is really necessary to humanize sexuality.”
Daniel Maguire, author of Sacred Rights: The Case for Contraception and Abortion in World Religions, observed that the pope’s change in policy represents a significant “crack in the dike” of Catholic opposition to condom use. The opposition stems from Catholic dogma that sex is for reproduction, and nothing should interfere with that.
An issue of The Realist reprinted an article from the London Observer, which began: “Three Roman Catholic theologians have expressed the opinion that, in times of revolution and violence, it is lawful for women, particularly for nuns, to take contraceptive pills and precautions against the danger of becoming pregnant through rape.”
On that same page was our Rumor of the Month: “So-called ‘flying saucers’ are actually diaphragms being dropped by nuns on their way to Heaven.”
I Ran an Underground Abortion Referral Service
When abortion was illegal, women had no choice but to seek out back-alley butchers for what should have been a medical procedure in a sterile environment. If there was a botched surgery and the victim went to a hospital, the police were called and they wouldn’t allow the doctor to provide a painkiller until the patient gave them the information they sought.
In 1962, there was an article in Look magazine that stated, “There is no such thing as a 'good' abortionist. All of them are in business strictly for money.” But in an issue of The Realist, I published an anonymous interview with Dr. Robert Spencer, a truly humane abortionist, promising that I would go to prison sooner than reveal his identity.
He had served as an Army doctor in World War I, then became a pathologist at a hospital in Ashland, Pennsylvania. He went down into the shafts after a mine accident, and aided miners to obtain Workmen’s Compensation for lung disease. At a time when 5,000 women were killed each year by criminal abortionists who charged as much as $1500, his reputation had spread by word-of-mouth, and he was known as “The Saint.” Patients came to his clinic in Ashland from around the country.
I took the five-hour bus trip from New York to Ashland with my gigantic Webcor tape recorder. Dr. Spencer was the cheerful personification of an old-fashioned physician. He wore a red beret and used folksy expressions like “by golly.” He had been performing abortions for 40 years. He started out charging $5, and never more than $100. He rarely used the word pregnant. Rather, he would say, “She was that way, and she came to me for help.”
Ashland was a small town, and Dr. Spencer's work was not merely tolerated; the community depended on it–-the hotel, the restaurant, the dress shop–-all thrived on the extra business that came from his out-of-town patients. However, he built facilities at his clinic for African-American patients who weren't allowed to obtain overnight lodgings elsewhere. The walls of his office were decorated with those little wooden signs that tourists like to buy. A sign on the ceiling over his operating table said Keep Calm.
Here’s an excerpt from our dialogue:
Q. Do you have any idea about how many actual abortions you’re performed during all these years?
A. To be accurate, it’s 27,006
Q. Have medical people come to you, who would otherwise shun you?
A. Oh, yes, I’ve had medical people who bring me their wives, and I’ve had quite a few medical people send me patients.
Q. But they wouldn’t perform the operation themselves?
A. No, they’d never perform it, and just exactly what their attitude would be, I don’t really know. Some of them, I presume, were absolutely against it, because I’ve had ministers, and they’d bring me their daughters or their nieces.
Q. Have police come to you for professional services?
A. Oh, yes, I’ve had police in here, too. I’ve helped them out. I’ve helped a hell of a lot police out. I’ve helped a lot of FBI men out. They would be here, and they had me a little bit scared--I didn’t know whether they were just in to get me or not.
Q. What would you say is the most significant lesson you’ve learned in all your years as a practicing abortionist?
A. You’ve got to be careful. That’s the most important thing. And you’ve got to be cocksure that everything’s removed. And even the uterus speaks to you and tells you. I could be blind. You see, this is an operation no eye sees. You go by the sense of feel and touch. The voice of the uterus. But the only thing I can see is hypocrisy, hypocrisy. Everywhere I look is hypocrisy, Because the politicians--and I’ve had politicians in here--they still keep those laws in existence, but yet, if some friend of theirs is in trouble…
Even priests came to his clinic with the housekeepers they had impregnated. As if to retroactively approve of such hypocrisy, the Colorado Independent reported in 2013 that “A chain of Catholic hospitals has beaten a malpractice lawsuit by saying that fetuses are not equivalent to human lives.” Their attorneys argued that in cases of wrongful death, the term “person” only applies to individuals born alive, and not those who die in utero.
After the issue of The Realist featuring that interview with Dr. Spencer was published, I began to get phone calls from scared female voices. They were all in desperate search of a safe abortionist. It was preposterous that they should have to seek out the editor of a satirical magazine, but their quest so far had been futile, and they simply didn't know where else to turn.
With Dr. Spencer's permission, I referred them to him. At first there were only a few calls each week, then several every day. I had never intended to become an underground abortion referral service, but it wasn't going to stop just because in the next issue of The Realist I would publish an interview with somebody else.
A few years later, state police raided Dr. Spencer's clinic and arrested him. He remained out of jail only by the grace of political pressure from those he'd helped. He was finally forced to retire from his practice, but I continued mine, referring callers to other physicians that he had recommended. Occasionally I would be offered money by a patient, but I never accepted it. And whenever a doctor offered me a kickback, I refused, but I also insisted that he give a discount for the same amount to those patients referred by me.
Eventually, I was subpoenaed by district attorneys in two cities to appear before grand juries investigating criminal charges against abortionists. On both occasions I refused to testify, and each time the D.A. tried to frighten me into cooperating with the threat of arrest.
In Liberty, New York, my name had been extorted from a patient by threatening her with arrest. The D.A. told me that the doctor had confessed everything and they got it all on tape. He gave me until two o'clock that afternoon to change my mind about testifying, or else the police would come to take me away.
“I'd better call my lawyer,” I told him.
I went outside to a public phone booth and called, not a lawyer, but the doctor.
“That never happened,” he said.
I returned to the D.A.'s office and told him that my lawyer said to continue being uncooperative. Then I just sat there waiting for the cops.
“They're on their way,” the D.A. kept warning me. But at two o'clock, he simply said, “Okay, you can go home now.”
Bronx District Attorney (later Judge) Burton Roberts took a different approach. In September 1969, he told me that his staff had found an abortionist's financial records, which showed all the money that I had received, but he would grant me immunity from prosecution if I cooperated with the grand jury. He extended his hand as a gesture of trust.
“That's not true,” I said, refusing to shake hands with him.
If I had ever accepted any money, I'd have no way of knowing that he was bluffing. The D.A. was angry, but he finally had to let me go.
Attorney Gerald Lefcourt (later president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers) filed a suit on my behalf, challenging the constitutionality of the abortion law. He pointed out that the district attorney had no power to investigate the violation of an unconstitutional law, and therefore he could not force me to testify.
In 1970, I became the only plaintiff in the first lawsuit to declare the abortion laws unconstitutional in New York State. “Later, various women’s groups joined the suit,” Lefcourt recalls, “and ultimately the New York legislature repealed the criminal sanctions against abortion, prior to the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs. Wade.”
Dr. Spencer never knew about that. He had died in 1969. The obituary in the New York Times acknowledged the existence of his abortion clinic. The obituary in the local paper in Ashland did not.
I continued to carry on my underground abortion referral service. Each time, though, I would flash on the notion that this was my own mother asking for help, and that she was pregnant with me. I would try to identify with the fetus that was going to be aborted even while I was serving as a conduit to the performance of that very abortion. Every day I would think about the possibility of never having existed, and I would only appreciate being alive all the more.
Of course, I couldn’t possibly have known the difference if my fetus had been aborted. Pretending to be the fetus was just a way of focusing on my role as a referral service. I didn't want it to become so casual that I would grow unaware of the implications. By personalizing it, I had to accept my own responsibility for each fetus whose potential I was helping to disappear. That was about as mystical as I got. Maybe I was simply projecting my own ego.
In any case, by the time these women came to me for help, they had already searched their souls and made up their minds. This was not some abstract cause far away–-these were real people in real distress--and I just couldn't say no. For nearly a decade, that became my fetal yoga. And, in the process, I had evolved from a satirist into an activist.
There Are No Atheists in the White House
It was God who instructed Bill O’Reilly to consider every utterance of “Happy Holidays” to be a verbalization of “the war on Christmas.” Whenever anybody claims that God talks directly to them, I think they’re totally delusional. George W. Bush is no exception. Not only was he told by his senior adviser, Karen Hughes, not to refer to terrorists as “folks,” but Bush was also being prompted by God Him-Her-or-Itself: “God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.’ And I did.” As if he were merely following divine orders.
In July 2003, during a meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Bush told the newly elected leader, “God told me to strike at Al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did. And now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”
Abu Bakar Bashir, an Islamic cleric and accused terrorist leader, has said that “America’s aim in attacking Iraq is to attack Islam, so it is justified for Muslims to target America to defend themselves.” That’s exactly interchangeable with this description of Bush by an unidentified family member, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “George sees [the war on terror] as a religious war. His view is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know.”
Indeed, General William Boykin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, said that “George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States, he was appointed by God.” Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin explained, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.”
Apparently, religious bigotry runs in the family. Bush’s father, the former president: “I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” And before him, there was Ronald Reagan: “For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.” Not to mention Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, responsible for national policy on the environment: “We don't have to protect the environment--the Second Coming is at hand.”
In 1966, Lyndon Johnson told the Austrian ambassador that the diety “comes and speaks to me about two o’clock in the morning when I have to give the word to the boys, and I get the word from God whether to bomb or not.” So maybe there’s some kind of bipartisan theological tradition going on in the White House.
But if these leaders are not delusional, then they’re deceptive. And in order to deceive others, one must first deceive oneself until self-deception morphs into virtual reality. In any case, we have our religious fanatics, and they have theirs. In September 2007, on the eve of the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden warned the American people that they should reject their capitalist way of life and embrace Islam to end the Iraq war, or else his followers would “escalate the killing and fighting against you.”
George Bush once proclaimed, “God is not neutral,” which is the antithesis of my own spiritual path, my own peculiar relationship with the universe--based on the notion that God is totally neutral--though I’ve learned that whatever people believe in, works for them.
My own belief in a deity disappeared when I was thirteen. I was working early mornings in a candy store across the street from our apartment building. My job was to insert different sections of the newspaper into the main section. On the day after the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, I would read that headline over and over and over again while I was working. That afternoon, I told God I couldn’t believe in him any more because--even though he was supposed to be a loving and all-powerful being--he had allowed such devastation to happen. And then I heard the voice of God:
“ALLOWED? WHY DO YOU THINK I GAVE HUMANS FREE WILL?”
“Okay, well, I’m exercising my free will to believe that you don’t exist.”
“ALL RIGHT, PAL, IT’S YOUR LOSS!”
At least we would remain on speaking terms. But I knew it was a game. I enjoyed the paradox of developing a dialogue with a being whose reality now ranked with that of Santa Claus. Our previous relationship had instilled in me a touchstone of objectivity that could still serve to help keep me honest. I realized, though, that whenever I prayed, I was only talking to myself.
The only thing I can remember from my entire college education is a definition of philosophy as “the rationalization of life.” For my term paper, I decided to write a dialogue between Plato and an atheist. On a whim, I looked up Atheism in the Manhattan phone book, and there it was: “Atheism, American Association for the Advancement of.” I went to their office for background material.
The AAAA sponsored the Ism Forum, where anybody could speak about any “ism” of their choice. I invited a few friends to meet me there. The event was held in a dingy hotel ballroom. There was a small platform with a podium at one end of the room and heavy wooden folding chairs lined around the perimeter. My favorite speaker declared the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not take thyself too goddamned seriously.” Taking that as my unspoken theme, I got up and parodied the previous speakers. The folks there were mostly middle-aged and elderly. They seemed to relish the notion of fresh young blood in their movement.
However, my companions weren’t interested in staying. If I had left with them that evening in 1953, the rest of my life could have taken a totally different path. Instead, I went along with a group to a nearby cafeteria, where I learned about the New York Rationalist Society. A whole new world of disbelief was opening up to me. That Saturday night I went to their meeting. The emcee was a former circus performer who entertained his fellow rationalists by putting four golf balls into his mouth. He also recommended an anti-censorship paper, The Independent.
The next week, I went to their office to subscribe and get back issues. I ended up with a part-time job, stuffing envelopes for a dollar an hour. My apprenticeship had begun. The editor, Lyle Stuart, was the most dynamic individual I’d ever met. His integrity was such that if he possessed information that he had a vested interest in keeping quiet--say, corruption involving a corporation in which he owned stock--it would become top priority for him to publish. Lyle became my media mentor, my unrelenting guru, and my closest friend. He was responsible for launching The Realist. The masthead announced, “Freethought Criticism and Satire.”
* * *
In the words of the late Jerry Falwell--who once said that God is pro-war--“If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.” We salute, then, a few successful human beings:
*The individual who placed the winning bid of $1800 on eBay for a slab of concrete with a smudge of driveway sealant resembling the face of Jesus.
*The man who tried to crucify himself after seeing “pictures of God on the computer.” He took two pieces of wood, nailed them together in the form of a cross and placed it on his living-room floor. He proceeded to hammer one of his hands to the crucifix, using a 14-penny nail. According to a county sheriff spokesperson, “When he realized that he was unable to nail his other hand to the board, he called 911.” It was unclear whether he was seeking assistance for his injury or help in nailing his other hand.
*The Sunday School teacher who advised one of his students to write on his penis, “What would Jesus do?” Presumably, “Masturbate” was not considered to be the correct answer.
*And, of course, the anonymous authors of the following quotes from various state constitutions. Arkansas: “No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office.” Mississippi: “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.” North Carolina: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” South Carolina: “No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being.” Tennessee: “No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.” Texas: “Nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”
Rick Warren, pastor of America’s fourth-largest church, told his congregation, “I could not vote for an atheist because an atheist says, ‘I don’t need God.’”
In 2006, the Secular Coalition of America offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who identified the highest-ranking non-theist public official in the country. Almost 60 members of Congress were nominated, out of which 22 confided that they didn’t believe in a Supreme Being, but they wanted their disbelief kept secret. Only Pete Stark admitted that he was a nonbeliever, and in 2007, he became the first member of Congress ever to identify himself publicly as a nonbeliever.
In the week following that announcement, he received over 5,000 emails from around the globe, almost all congratulating him for his courage. “Like our nation’s founders,” he stated, “I strongly support the separation of church and state. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services.” In 2008, he was elected to his 19th term with 76.5% of the votes.
In the 2008 primaries, three presidential wannabes raised their hands during a Republican “debate” to signify that they didn’t believe in evolution, although one of them, Mike Huckabee, admitted, “I don’t know if the world was created in six days. I wasn’t there.” He has also said that, “If there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment, and I deserve clemency.’”
Such western fundamentalists have been waging a battle against the teaching of meditation in publicly funded schools, as though slow, deep breathing is inextricably connected with the practice of eastern religious disciplines. What’s next, forbidding the teaching of empathy because that’s what Christians and Jews are supposed to practice?
It was a pleasant surprise when Barack Obama acknowledged “unbelievers” among others in his inauguration speech. However, I don’t exempt unbelievers from criticism.
I ridicule officially atheist China’s leaders for banning Tibet’s living Buddhas from reincarnation without permission. According to the order, issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, “The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid.” That regulation is aimed at limiting the influence of the Dalai Lama, even though China officially denies the possibility of reincarnation. (I used to believe in reincarnation, but that was in a previous lifetime.)
China is a Big-Brother, slave-labor-driven, human-rights-violator, Maoist dictatorship, from which the United States borrows trillions, then proceeds to purchase their poisoned food, leaded Christmas toys, and “Made in China” American flags.
America remains a living paradox, where our citizens are force-fed misinformation and disinformation, so that we can continue to fund incompetent and illegal activities in the U.S.--even though our revolution was fought because of taxation without representation. And yet I live in this country where at least I still have complete freedom to openly condemn the government, the corporations and organized religions that continue enabling each other to reek with greed, corruption, and inhumanity.
THE SEX LIFE OF PRESIDENTS & OTHERS
The Parts Left Out of the Kennedy Book
An executive in the publishing industry, who obviously must remain anonymous, has made available to The Realist a photostat copy of the original manuscript of William Manchester's book, The Death of a President. Those passages which are printed here were marked for deletion months before Harper & Row sold the serialization rights to Look magazine; hence they do not appear even in the so-called “complete” version published by the German magazine Stern.
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At the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1960, Los Angeles was the scene of a political visitation of the alleged sins of the father upon the son. Lyndon Johnson found himself battling for the presidential nomination with a young, handsome, charming and witty adversary, John F. Kennedy.
The Texan in his understandable anxiety degenerated to a strange campaign tactic. He attacked his opponent on the grounds that his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was a Nazi sympathizer during the time he was United States Ambassador to Great Britain, from 1938 to 1940. The senior Kennedy had predicted that Germany would defeat England and he therefore urged President Franklin D. Roosevelt to wi