http://hightimes.com en-us 0.4 By Paul Krassner   There were more than four hundred authors at the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The participants ranged from Rodney King (whose video taped severe beating twenty years ago by sadistic police officers resulted in a riot that caused over 50 deaths and devastating destruction) to Judy Blume (her books for children and adults have sold more than 80 million copies) to T.C. Boyle (the author of more than twenty …More]]> http://hightimes.com/entertainment/pkrassner/7657?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:12:43 -0400 http://hightimes.com/entertainment/pkrassner/7657?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner As the 2012 election approaches, the similarities between candidates are troubling.   By Paul Krassner   What do Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich have in common? They were both pot smokers.   “When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently,” Obama said. “That was the point.”   Gingrich said, “That was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era.”   What else do Obama and Gingrich have in common? They …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7464?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:30:01 -0500 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7464?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner By Paul Krassner   Although Ken Kesey and I originally met in May 1965 at the first Vietnam Day Teach-In on the Berkeley campus of the University of California, we already knew each other’s work: I had read his novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while he’d read my countercultural magazine, The Realist, as the Merry Pranksters …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7397?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:45:58 -0500 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7397?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner Corporations do not have the same rights as people.   I was fortunate enough to accompany Ken Kesey and his psychedelic band of Merry Pranksters when the Grateful Dead played the Pyramids – and won – at a series of outdoor concerts in 1978. During that week, Kesey and I were dinner guests at the home of an Egyptian family in Cairo. Later, the men smoked hashish from a huge hookah while the women stayed in the kitchen. I grumbled to Kesey about this gender …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7193?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:54:02 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7193?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7085?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Tue, 03 May 2011 15:05:27 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/7085?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner By Paul Krassner   At the Winnipeg Comedy Festival, I participated in a fake debate played strictly for laughs. The resolution: “Whereas they were mostly disheveled, disorganized and doped up, be it resolved that the hippies of the ’60s accomplished nothing.”             Comedian Bruce Clark took the affirmative position. “Don’t get me wrong,” he argued, “I like hippies. Some of my …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6872?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Mon, 20 Dec 2010 18:02:42 -0500 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6872?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner By Paul Krassner   It’s really ironic that California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s current bill to legalize and tax marijuana – much like the legalization initiative that state residents will be voting on this November – are both opposed by some pro-pot activists.             For example, Dennis Peron – the co-author of Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana in California over a …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6767?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:00:19 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6767?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner By Paul Krassner   In 1973, “Captain” Ed Adair, Jack’s partner in the marketing of countercultural items, insisted that they take a joint oath: “We swear by our life, and our love for it, that we will work every day of our lives, all day, all night, to legalize pot – until we’re dead, or it’s legal, or we can quit when we’ve turned 84.”   In 1980, they began a series of protests on the front lawn of the Los Angeles …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6638?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:05:59 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6638?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner By Paul Krassner   First, Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez wrote: “The excesses of the ’60s gave rise to a conservative counterrevolution. Abbie Hoffman begat Ronald Reagan …. ” Next, New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote that Connecticut millionaire Ned Lamont – then challenging Joe Lieberman for his Senate seat – wasn’t “easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman or an ally of Osama bin …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6573?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:11:59 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6573?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner Stories Done: Writings on the 1960s and Its Discontents. “For more than half of the subjects here,” he states, “including Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary and the Haight-Ashbury, psychedelics were a major factor in their lives …. ” But recently Gilmore himself had a bad trip resulting from an overdose of that modern drug …More]]> http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6448?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Fri, 14 May 2010 18:06:01 -0400 http://hightimes.com/lounge/pkrassner/6448?utm_source=rss_section_Paul Krassner Paul Krassner