how that got published? PK: It was originally a guy from LIFE. He’d interviewed me, and mentioned some of the staffers had seen Rosemary's Baby, where there’s an anagram moment with Scrabble pieces, something to do with witcheraft — EP: “Steven Marcato”. PK: Yeah. Staffers had discovered this joke about the Vice President’s name, based on that scene. They couldn’t use it in LIFE, but it had to 0 somewhere. So, I ran it in the four-page comic that Richard Guindon and I did together. EP: Both the LBJ piece and Rosemerica comic clearly bend into surrealism. The response of readers, delighted and infuri- ated, had to be one of the best moments of yout life. PK: Many many people believed [the LBJ piece], even for just a moment. It was something I’d learned from Joseph Heller, when I interviewed him (Realist #39). I asked about one of the patients in Catch- 22, who is in a veteran’s hospital. The patient was wrapped up like a mummy, fed through IV's, excreting through tubes — he was just a middleman for digestion. I asked Heller, and he said, “Well you know, it’s possible, but not probable.” EP: “Possible but not probable” explains these last fifteen months on Earth. PK: Regarding the LBJ piece, there were people who claimed to remember a pho- tograph! (laughs)
People who said they believed the article, if only for a moment, included Daniel Ellsberg, who released The Pen-
2“Trump’s Presidency is Doomed,” The Washington Post, January 16, 2017.
tagon Papers. He said the reason he be- lieved it, was because he just so much wanted it to be true.
EP: Speaking of Ellsberg, and now Trump, how do you feel about leaking?
PK: Well, I leak several times a day. (Shared laughter)
EP: It’s very good for you.
PK: That’s bladder control.
EP: It’s funny that the Russian sex black- mail was Trump having a urine party with a bunch of hookers.
PK: That was a fake. But it became a perfect image for comedians worldwide. EP: But it’s like the LBJ issue — maybe it will stick. People also remember The Dis- neyland Orgy from the magazine. And the wonderful FUCK COMMUNISM poster. PK: You know, I use a walker, but I go to the gym three times a week, to use the treadmill. I had my FUCK GOMMUNISM t-shirt on, you know, the red white and blue. As I was walking out, there was a policeman who held the door open for me. And he saw the t-shirt.
EP: Oh, god —
PK: He said, “Hey, that’s a great t-shirt!” He took it literally!
EP: | know the poster was said to be the perfect confluence of two banned terms. PK: Kurt Vonnegut praised it for that. EP: “Fuck” has kind of won, right? You can say “Fuck” anything now, and it’s fine. That is one experience I don’t have, growing up when that word was so ver- boten. I understand how saying “Fire” in a crowded theater is illegal, but I don’t have an understanding of a world where
1“Roseamerica’s Baby,” The Realist #93, August 1972.
saying “Fuck” could get your arrested. How did Lenny Bruce work around it? PK: He had to use a euphemism. He’d have to say “frig.”
The first time I met Lenny, he came to New York, and he called — because The Realist was his favorite magazine.
EP: That had to feel great.
PE: It did. Steve Allen was the first sub- scriber. He would give subscription gifts to several friends, and Lenny was one of them.
Lenny then sent a lot of subscriptions to his friends. That’s how it started, and how it grew — word of mouth — which is better than advertising, because it’s free and you're getting it from someone you know, an individual.
When I met Lenny for the first time, I gave him an advance copy of an inter- view with Dr Albert Ellis, a psychologist. Lenny was reading and said “He used the word [‘fuck’]!” I explained to him that Ellis had a campaign that “fucking was good” therefore, if you wanted to say something unfriendly, you should say “unfuck you”...
Lenny asked, “How does he get away with this?” I told him, “The Supreme Court said use of the word wasn’t obscene in a magazine if it was a redeeming social value, and no prurient interest.”
Lenny asked, “What’s that? Prurient?” He went to his suitcase on his bed in the hotel room. Inside was a huge unabridged dictionary. At first, it said something like “itching” — and Lenny asked, “Is this something like a novelty store?”
EP: Where they sell the powder! PK: Or the dribble glasses. But the second
Created in 1963 by Paul Krassner and John Francis Putnam, this poster was a staple of dorm rooms for decades. Kurt Vonnegut called it “a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opinion, as Einstein's e=mc?.”
Lh ft COMMUNISM!
ADDITIONAL COPIES AVAILABLE FROM THE MOTHERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
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