PAUL KRASSNER
Sex, Drugs and the Anti-Christ: Live at MIT (Artemis)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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Paul Krassner is well known in the circles of satire and politics. He started the legendary satire magazine, The Realist, long before the National Lampoon and other satirical wannabes. He was in the front lines of the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention as a founder of the Yippies and was prosecuted with Phil Ochs, Abbie Hoffman and the others of the Chicago 7. His credentials are impeccable, but he's a relative newcomer to comic monologues, starting with We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh in 1996 and Brain Damage Control in 1997. Live at MIT is his third album of standup and easily the best.

The university crowd is exactly the same kind of young, hip audience Krassner used to play to as a rabble rouser. 30 years evaporates. They get behind Krassner as he covers a wide range of subjects--medical marijuana, the war in Kosovo, Monica Lewinski and of course his days with the Yippies, Alan Ginsberg and Tim Leary. There's also some brilliant barbs about Bob Dole and Viagra, Al Gore and "mature" (not premature) ejaculations, and Ken Starr's Puritan witch hunting, but he saves the best for last. The set piece is a hilarious send up of Baz Luhrman's hit Everyone Please Wear Sunscreen called "Fuck Sunscreen." There's no orchestration behind it, only Krassner's expert satirical wordcraft, but it doesn't need anything more. The MIT'ers are rolling in the aisles.

Paul is an unreconstructed throwback to an age of revolutionary thinking and his words still ring true. All his albums are great but this one is an extra special delight.

© 2000 - Rusty Pipes