Paul Krassner's style of personal journalism constantly blurs the line between observer and participant. Nowhere is this more apparent than this collection of essays and interviews culled from his columns at AVN Online. Whether being interviewed by Susie Bright, or imagining a conversation between Pee-Wee Herman and Pete Townshend about their busts by overzealous cops, or reminiscing about his friend Lenny Bruce, Krassner shines his keen satirical mind on the so-called taboos of today’s society and breaks them down to show the hypocrisy of the world’s "culture warriors." With a biting wit and tongue firmly planted in cheek, Mr. Krassner reveals the absurdity of our oppressive social mores in this stark, funny, and ultimately thought-provoking collection.

Uncensored, uncontained, and thoroughly demented, the memoirs of Paul Krassner are back in an updated and expanded edition. Paul Krassner, "father of the underground press" (People magazine), founder of the Realist, political radical, Yippie, and award-winning stand-up satirist, shares his stark raving adventures with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Abbie Hoffman, Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, Groucho Marx, and Squeaky Fromme, revealing the patriarch of counterculture's ultimate, intimate, uproarious life on the fringes of society. Whether he's writing about his friendship with controversial comic Lenny Bruce, introducing Groucho Marx to LSD, his investigation of Scientology, or John Kennedy's cadaver, no subject is too sacred to be skewered by Krassner. And yet his stories are soulful and philosophical, always authentic to his iconoclastic brand of personal journalism.As Art Spiegelman said, "Krassner is one of the best minds of his generational to be destroyed by madness,...

The pieces in Pot Stories for the Soul are funny, whimsical, bizarre, poignant, informational, shocking, and, yeah, soulful. They are about love, hate, escape, reality, the paranormal, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Michelle Phillips, Hunter Thompson, Abbie Hoffman, Wavy Gravy and peanut butter. Ultimately, these stories reveal the wide, weird, and wonderful subculture of stoners, where the reefers are mad, the joints are fat, and the buzz lasts for six-and-a-half days.Mainstream America has had an uneasy relationship with marijuana. Once a legal substance, the 1930s saw a massive campaign against the "Devil's Harvest" that led to pot being rendered illegal. In the 1960s, marijuana became one of the defining elements of the counterculture before once again being shunted to the sidelines. Over the last decade, however, marijuana has gone mainstream and has been the topic of seminars, expos, concerts, comedy routines, movies, TV shows, and college courses across the...

Fans of The Daily Show and will appreciate this timely collection of satirical essays by counterculture icon Paul Krassner.With irreverence and an often X-rated wit, Krassner writes with a unique perspective on comedy and obscenity in politics and culture, from "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banners to scenes cut out of recent movies, including Borat and Milk.In his essay "Don Imus Meets Michael Richards," Krassner examines racism in comdey, from Lenny Bruce to Dave Chapelle, on The Sarah Silverman Snow and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and in controversial comic strips like The Bookdocks. In his piece "The Great Muhammad Cartoon Controversy," he looks at free speech and self-censorship in the face of threats–real and perceived–from religious fundamentalists. Throughout, Krassner riffs about busted public figures, counterculture, free speech, late-night talk shows, censorship, sex, and the current state of satire."These are times of repression," says Krassner,"...

Patty Hearst & The Twinkie Murders is darkly satiric take on two of the most famous cases of our era: the kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst and the shocking assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and gay leader Harvey Milk. As a reporter for the Berkeley Barb, Paul Krassner was ringside at the spectacular California trials, and his hilarious deadpan style captures the nightmare reality behind the absurdities of the courtroom circus. Using his infamous satiric pen and investigative chops, Krassner gets to the truth behind the events: the role of the police and FBI, the real deal with Patty and the SLA, and what really happened in Patty's infamous closet. Also included is a merciless exposé of the "Taliban" wing of the Gay Movement and their scandalous attacks on alt-rock star Michelle Shocked. The Outspoken Interview features an irreverent and fascinating romp through the secret history of America's radical underground—names will be named.

Counterculture legend Paul Krassner gazes on the fires of pop culture, politics and celebrity and returns unscathed to help us make sense of our senseless world, with an introduction by Lewis Black (The Daily Show) and a foreword by Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, Le Show).From cults to pornography, from Charles Manson to Homer Simpson, from the war on drugs to the invasion of Iraq, from Dolly Parton to Lenny Bruce, from circumcision to propaganda, this collection epitomizes Krassner's credo, "Irreverence is our only sacred cow."