Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today by Paul Krassner

Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today Reviews

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  City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

  [Krassner reminds:] his readers that politics without humor is boring and that laughter without a moral compass is lame."
  — Danny Goldberg, The Nation
  
  
  "For readers unfamiliar with Krassner, his credentials--author, journalist, editor, talk show guest--seem fairly safe. But combine those with his role as a co-founder of the Yippie movement, his membership in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, and his X-rated standup comedy routine and those initial credentials sound downright dangerous. Krassner is a satirist and he uses that skill here with his irreverent takes on the hypocrisies and absurdities in politics, comedy, and other aspects of American life. Offensive or funny? It's a matter of taste."
  —Book News Inc
  
  "Krassner writes on anything that catches his eye: the war on drugs, stand-up comedy, Don Imus, to mention just three topics. . . . The collection also includes a number of touching memorials to cultural icons Krassner has known, including Allen Ginsberg, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robert Anton Wilson."
  —Jack Helbig, Booklist
  
  "All of the essays in Krassner's new book have been published before--in High Times, The Huffington Post, The Nation and The L.A. Weekly--but they all read as though they were written yesterday. That's because Krassner is always shocking, always provocative and for all his shenanigans, amazingly serious about the pornography of power and the obscenity of war (as well as Somali pirates and piracy on the web)."
  —Jonah Raskin, The Bohemian
  
  "Krassner (Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut), publisher of the Realist magazine, ruminates on American social and political hypocrisy in these essays that drift between current events and the heyday of the 1960s counterculture when the author dropped acid with the Merry Pranksters and palled around with Abbie Hoffman. Krassner weighs in on the last election cycle, the decriminalization of marijuana, and racism, with a stated (and largely achieved) goal of illuminating the gulf between what society says and what it does."
  —Publishers Weekly
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  Angela

  I picked this book up in a bookstore in San Francisco. But that was after I had an Irish coffee in one cafe, and a few drinks in another bar in the middle of the afternoon, and that was after I convinced myself I was a lot smarter than I was.
  
  This book makes me feel dumb. It rambles on and on, and I occasionally understood an intelligent political joke, but it was rare. I even started the book over again a few months later. And it still wasn't that great.
  
  I'm keeping it more as a souvenir of my drunken book shopping, and for that brief time I thought I was as awesome as Bukowski and Kerouac. And the cover art is pretty funny.
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  Theresa

  What a meandering windbag. Same old, "Bush sucked and the criminalization of weed is akin to living in Nazi Germany, Lenny Bruce was a god; I was big news in the 60's, let me remind you over and OVER." blah, blah, blaaaaaah. Yawn.
  
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  Jiselle Lee

  Shoutout pop culture. Shoutout comedy. Shoutout “Bong Hits For Jesus”.
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  Michele Bolay

  This was a book group selection, and should generate a good discussion, if nothing else.
  
  Krassner is obviously intelligent, well-informed, and passionate, but he's all over the place. It comes off as just one anecdote after another, with not enough commentary and focus to link it all together. It felt disjointed and it lacked the focus I wanted. He started off with a thesis of anti-hypocrisy (which I am fully behind), but lost it along the way. I also felt like, at times, he got into the dangerous trap of assuming that no one who wasn't an activist in the 60s knows anything about social change, and that radicalism is the only valid, honorable, and effective solution.
  
  Also, while I believe that marijuana should be legalized (and decriminalized), I can't get behind all of his drug-related "statistics" and anecdotes. On p. 88, "You mean like prescription drugs, which result in 100,000 deaths a year while marijuana has caused none?" I'm no fan of the pharmaceutical industry, but where's the support for these figures? "I ate a chocolate candy loaded with psilocybin to enhance the experience, unaware that Brett planned to bring me onstage to speak," and, later, "...when I was a guest on [Tom Snyder's] show in Los Angeles, I ingested magic mushrooms in order to enhance the experience." Well, your experience may have been enhanced, Mr. Krassner, but I'm in sympathy with your hosts and the audiences who had to deal with your drugged-out ass. Seems a bit on the selfish side to me.
  
  The upshot is, I expected essays on obscenity and culture, and instead got an often-rambling memoir and history of counterculture. A commenter here said it best: "quickly deconstructs into self-mythologizing and ego stroking."
  
  P.S. And this book had several copy-editing mistakes as well, for those who get annoyed by that sort of thing. ;-)
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  Delta Q

  "Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today" is a book of satirical comedy. And the funniest part about it are the trust bits. "Trashing the right to read" is one such chapter. Books are routinely censored in prisons all over the world, and fairly rigorously in Japan as well. Krassner's article let me have laughs about how real such inane behavior is by Justice authorities.
  
  Many of Krassner's books are already out of print. I could not find a copy of "The Best of the Realist" the last time I checked. "Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today" is a good primer that is easy to get your hands on to get a quick laugh on Prison, Weed, and Americana.
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  James

  In an attempt to stay relevant, Krassner's otherwise enjoyable and funny tome about modern censorship and hypocrisy, quickly deconstructs into self-mythologizing and ego stroking.
  
  The first half is excellent, filled with keen observations, deleted scenes from Borat, and amusing anecdotes.
  
  The second half is a vanity project. Mr. Krassner, I would just like to say: Yippies was a horrible name. Horrible.
  
  If there is one thing I can learn from you, it is to not name my generation.
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  John

  A collection of short essays from Krassner that covers the first decade of the new century (with a lot of looking back at the 60s). A very quick read on how the government and culture are out of control. Perfect for the conspiracy theorist and left-leaning socialist who wants affirmation on fighting the good fight. Not sure those who need to read this ever will.
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  Kw Estes

  A fairly enjoyable collection of stories both from Krassner's time in the early counterculture and observations on events of a more recent vintage. Nothing mindblowing, but then I didn't expect it to be.
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  Jason Payne

  Interesting if self-congratulatory. Not quite what I expected it to be, which was disappointing. Laughs throughout, though too many too rueful.