Readers seemed to enjoy the Q & A I did with Krassner. So, I sent him some more questions and these are his responses. Thanks for all the comments on the AVA website. They helped me frame the second round of questions. I think this is it for the time being...
Q: Where Is the Humor in the Middle East?
A: There are comedians there, not to mention innumerable individuals who make families and friends laugh.
Q: Are you becoming more sentimental as you age?
A: Not really. I live in the present, though I do miss old friends like Tim Leary and Dick Gregory and my first wife Jeanne with whom my current wife Nancy became a fine friend.
Q: Your fans expect you to be brilliantly funny all the time. Does that help or hinder your creativity?
A: I don’t take criticism personally and therefore I don’t take praise personally though of course it’s appreciated. Years ago I quit Facebook when I reached 5000 “Friends” mostly those I never met who might have liked my work, but ironically they distracted me from my work.
Q: What, if anything, do you regret saying or doing?
A: I try to avoid that by soul-searching first. I do regret having watched too much TV and hardly dancing.
Q: What would you do or say if someone made fun of you because you were born into a Jewish family?
A: It’s their problem, not mine.
Q: Someone said that the satirist loves the things and people he/she ridicules. Is that true or false and why?
A: My targets are triggered by hypocrisy, smugness, dishonesty, and my own foibles. I love when others enjoy my books. My favorite is my autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture, available at my website or more inexpensive at Amazon, expanded & updated edition of 2012.
Q: You made fun of the bomb decades ago. Would you make fun of it today in light of North Korea and Trump saber rattling?
A: The competitive insanity of Trump and Kim is provided by their ultra-absurdity and tragedy as two sides of the same coin.
Q: Shouldn’t hurricanes be named after real villains like Mussolini and Idi Amin?
A: More appropriate would be those who deny climate change.
Q: If the U.S. is an Empire do you wish that it would decline and fall already?
A: We can only hope.
Q: Don’t you think that Ken Burns ought to have a sense of humor, especially in light of his Vietnam documentary?
A: He deleted Tom Hayden’s important antiwar role.
Q: Shouldn’t hurricanes be named after real villains like Netanyahu, Abrams, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Silverstein, Kurshner, Saban, Yellin, Wiesel, etc. ad nauseum?
“America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars –
Shouldn’t they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?”:
— [ http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars/ ]
Q: If Israel is an Empire do you wish that it would decline and fall already?
— [ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column ]
Pat,
I am in agreement with your condemnations of Israel and Zionists.
Alison Weir accuses the Zionists of influencing America’s entry into World War I in AGAINST OUR BETTER JUDGEMENT—a book I recommend for everyone. I blame them for many things—including the blocking of Holocaust victims from going to the United States or Europe and obliging them to serve as soldiers in Israel.
However, I’m a big fan of Paul Krassner: I am grateful to Jonah for the two interviews he’s published and hope he does a 3rd 4th, 5th, and 6th. Your justifiable diatribes against Israel and Zionists are out of place here.
Keep up the fight, Pat, but choose your battles and battlegrounds.
This space is for Paul and his fans.
Thanks again, Jonah.
Krassner & Raskin freely use their Jewish privilege* in their thinly-veiled attacks on & mockery of us lowly goyim.
This goy freely calls them on it.
*Yes, Jewish privilege! Take the Jews out of “White privilege” and there’s not much “White privilege” left. I realize stating FACTS like these is “antisemitic.”
You & I recently discussed Alison Weir’s “AGAINST OUR BETTER JUDGEMENT.” At that time I assured you that I too highly recommend it:
— [ https://www.amazon.com/review/R14A9BOTXH4S7B ]
Cheers!
Shalom Goyim and ((((Alison Weir)))) LOL