Remembering Kurt Vonnegut
by Paul Krassner

Months before Timothy Leary died, he told me, “I watch words now. It’s an obsession. I learned it from Marshall McLuhan, of course. A terrible vice. Had it for years, but not actually telling people about it. I watch the words that people use. The medium is the message, you recall. The brain creates the realities she wants. When we see the prisms of these words that come through, we can understand.”

Hysteria over the word “Communist” was the forerunner of current hysteria over the word “terrorist.” The attorney general of Arizona rejected the Communist Party’s request for a place on the ballot because state law “prohibits official representation” for the Communists and, in addition, “The subversive nature of your organization is even more clearly designated by the fact that you do not even include your zip code.” Alvin Dark, manager of the Giants, announced that “Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist.” And singer Pat Boone declared at the Greater New York Anti-Communism Rally in Madison Square Garden: “I would rather see my four daughters shot before my eyes than have them grow up in a Communist United States. I would rather see those kids blown into Heaven than taught into Hell by the Communists.”

In a foreword to one of my books, Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “Paul Krassner in 1963 created a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opiniion, as Einstein’s e=mc2. With the Vietnam War going on, and its critics discounted and scorned by the goverment and the mass media, Krassner put on sale a red, white and blue poster that said FUCK COMMUNISM.

“At the beginning of the 1960s, FUCK was believed to be so full of bad magic as to be unprintable. In the most humanely influential American novel of this half century, *The Catcher in the Rye,* Holden Caulfield, it will be remembered, was shocked to see that word on a subway-station wall. He wondered what seeing it might do to the mind of a little kid. COMMUNISM was to millions the name of the most loathsome evil imaginable. To call an American a communist was like calling somebody a Jew in Nazi Germany. By having FUCK and COMMUNISM fight it out in a single sentence, Krassner wasn’t merely being funny as heck. He was demonstrating how preposterous it was for so many people to be responding to both words with such cockamamie Pavlovian fear and alarm.”

On the evening of March 14, at about 8:15, Vonnegut was sitting on the stoop in front of his house–smoking a cigarette, of course. When he stood up, he lost his balance and fell. Although he was supposedly brain dead at the precise moment his head hit the steps, he was kept on life support for the next few weeks. When it became clear that he could never be revived, the decision was made to remove life support, as he had requested.

The news of his actual death on April 11 was, in the words of a close friend, “merely a postscript–a relief, actually–which is not to say it was so easy to process. I’d equate it to losing a family member, albeit one who had a long, incredible life–one who changed the lives and world-view of countless people who had never met him, and who remained entirely lucid and kept his miraculous sense of humor to the very end.”

Vonnegut loved to make people laugh at his own despair over the way the American dream has morphed into the American nightmare. The obituaries all seemed to stress how depressed he was, never failing to mention his failed attempt at committing suicide. So naturally I was surprised when such a pessimist told me that my satire made him feel *hopeful.*

“You made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous,” he explained, “and this inspired many of your readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that people were doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.”

The first time I met Vonnegut was at a memorial for Abbie Hoffman, whom he referred to as “the holy anti-war clown.” The last time I saw him was at a panel on humor and satire at the Ethical Culture Society of New York. The panelists were Vonnegut, the late columnist Art Buchwald, stand-up comic Barry Crimmins, and myself. Of course, Vonnegut talked about the hellishness of living on earth. So, later that evening, my wife Nancy handed him a parody Monopoly card showing the rich-guy logo jumping away from flames, with this caption: “Get Out of Hell Free.” A year-and-a-half later, he finally accomplished that goal.

———–

Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available from www.paulkrassner.com

“Stop drinking Vodka! Get some shrooms!”

HEAT: How to Stop the Planet From Burning
by George Monbiot
Pages: 304
ISBN: 978-0-89608-779-8
Release Date: 2007-04-23
Publisher: South End Press

Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning marks an important moment in our civilization’s thinking about global warming. The question is no longer Is climate change actually happening? but What do we do about it? George Monbiot offers an ambitious and far-reaching program to cut our carbon dioxide emissions to the point where the environmental scales start tipping back—away from catastrophe.

Though writing with a “spirit of optimism,” Monbiot does not pretend it will be easy. The only way to avoid further devastation, he argues, is a 90% cut in CO2 emissions in the rich nations of the world by 2030. In other words, our response will have to be immediate, and it will have to be decisive.

In every case he supports his proposals with a rigorous investigation into what works, what doesn’t, how much it costs, and what the problems might be. He wages war on bad ideas as energetically as he promotes good ones. And he is not afraid to attack anyone—friend or foe—whose claims are false or whose figures have been fudged.

After all, there is no time to waste. As Monbiot has said himself, “we are the last generation that can make this happen, and this is the last possible moment at which we can make it happen.”

“Avoiding disastrous climate change is the central challenge of our time. George Monbiot addresses it with wit, verve, and rigor. He shows that all of our excuses for inaction are just that—excuses. If you care about the future of the planet, you should read Heat, and then give a copy to a friend.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

“George Monbiot is one of the real heroes of the fight against global warming; he has faced the reality of climate change much more squarely than most, and written a book that offers true hope precisely because it deals with the true facts, not a make-believe set that would be easier to work around. A courageous and a necessary book!”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

George Monbiot is the best-selling author of The Age of Consent and Captive State, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed, and No Man’s Land. In 1995, Nelson Mandela presented Monbiot with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), and East London (environmental science). Currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University, Monbiot writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper.

Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

20 April, Friday – OPENING 7:30 PM

PAMELA MOSHER aka KAMERA ZIE — Poets/Punks: Late 1970s San Francisco

PAMELA MOSHER, aka KAMERA ZIE, documented poets and punks, the poetes maudits, in San Francisco in the late 1970s. Her subjects: BUKOWSKI, GINSBERG, BURROUGHS, JAMES LAUGHLIN, FERLINGHETTI, CODRESCU, MICHELINE, MCCLURE, JACK HIRSCHMAN, AL HANSEN, WERNER SCHROETER, ROSA VON PRAUNHEIM, NICO, CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE, THE SCREAMERS, and more. She began shooting for V.Vale’s Search and Destroy in 1977. Her work appeared in The Bay Guardian, Rolling Stone, and New Musical Express.

21 April, Saturday – 7:30 PM
ED DORN, one of America’s great, courageous poets, began at Black Mountain with Creeley and Olson. He wrote such classics as Gunslinger (Duke), with its critique of the Vietnam War and America’s “Shortage Industry,” Hello La Jolla, Some Business Recently Transacted in the White World, the groundbreaking Shoshoneans, and much more. MICHAEL ROTHENBERG has edited a Selected Poems for the prestigious Penguin Poets series (following Kyger and Whalen), and co-hosts this tribute with Dorn’s widow JENNIFER DUNBAR DORN. With JOHN DALEY, GERRY CASALLE, PHOEBE MACADAMS, JASON HORWITCH, JOE SAFDIE, LEWIS MACADAMS, and MAYA DORN.

27 April, Friday – 7:30 PM
JOHN SINCLAIR and FRIENDS – GUITAR ARMY, with ADAM PARFREY, WAYNE KRAMER, M. L. LIEBLER, PUN PLAMONDON, MICHAEL SIMMONS, JODI WILLE, a PANEL and PERFORMANCES

One of the most groundbreaking books to come out of ‘60s music/protest/art/community world was the legendary GUITAR ARMY, by JOHN SINCLAIR, manager of the legendary rock band the MC5 and founder of the WHITE PANTHER PARTY. The rainbow-colored 1972 book compiled essays, posters, and Sinclair’s Street and Prison Writings. ADAM PARFREY and JODI WILLE’S PROCESS is reprinting an expanded edition with an intro by MICHAEL SIMMONS, 40 new photos, and a CD with rare recordings of folks like Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, White Panther Party members, the MC5, etc.. Also present will be WAYNE KRAMER (MC5 guitarist), PUN PLAMONDON (White Panther vet), and M. L. LIEBLER (Detroit poetry organizer).

28 April, Saturday – 7:30 PM

RE/Search’s 2007 Edition of the INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK with GRAEME REVELL, JOHANNA WENT, FILMS, and SURPRISE GUESTS!

A Celebration, Reunion, Film Showing, Panel Discussion, and Q&A with three local LA artists in RE/Search’s reprint of the INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK. GRAEME REVELL, JOHANNA WENT, and other SPECIAL GUESTS will be present to autograph copies. “This book was an inspiration not only to subsequent ‘Industrial’ musicians but to the ‘Goth’ movement as well. The early Industrial Culture Movement involved far more than just making ‘noise music,’ but sought to infuse subliminals, cut-ups, randomness and enlightening memes into all cultural production” -Leslie Hodgkins. $10 (includes $5 coupon towards purchase of an autographed INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK).