One Hand Jerking

by Paul Krassner

  The story had already been reported by various local media and Internet listservs. Harry Shearer read it on his syndicated radio program, Le Show. When I informed him of its fictional nature, he thanked me for the heads-up and added, “Interesting that they’ll run it on their wire before checking it.”

  Especially since it’s “obviously fabricated.”

  The most significant aspect of this hoax is that, in the wake of an increasing incredibility of real news, there is an increasing credibility of fake news.

  KARL ROVE LOVES JEFF GANNON

  “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” —Henry Kissinger

  Although The Daily Show is my favorite daily show, I’m occasionally disappointed in Jon Stewart as an interviewer. When former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was a guest, Stewart obsequiously lobbed softball questions at him. More recently, when former press secretary Ari Fleischer was a guest, Stewart didn’t ask him anything about Jeff Gannon, the $200-an-hour gay prostitute-cum-Bush administration propagandist in the guise of a journalist, sitting in the fourth row at White House press conferences and asking ass-kissing questions.

  When that same subject came up on HBO’s Real Time, Bill Maher speculated that Gannon must have been getting it on with somebody in the White House. Then Robin Williams filled in the blanks with an implication that this somebody in the White House was actually Karl Rove. And Walter Storch, editor of the Barnes Review News, reported that “Karl Rove was seen by one of my people entering a private homosexual orgy at a five-star Washington hotel over the Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend last year [2004].”

  Stand-up comic Barry Crimmins envisions Gannon at a presidential press conference, wearing pink panties with a dog collar on his neck, and asking, “Who do you have to blow to get a seat in the front row?”

  Crimmins, a political satirist and activist, has gone from writing for Dennis Miller to writing for Air America Radio. Now, about Miller, he says, “Listening to his act is no longer something we look forward to; it is more like getting stuck in the back seat of your pop’s station wagon while he lectures you on ‘Americanism’ through 30 miles of heavy traffic. . . . He has carved a place for himself on the Mount Rushmore of wrong-headedness, and there he will stay for years to come, a glowering, reactionary oaf for the ages.”

  As a performer, Crimmins told me, “I’ve felt pain as I’ve watched hacks succeed in places where I was not welcome, but what the hell? Why should I expect them to allow me to stand on their soapbox to announce that their suds are polluting the river?”

  In 1988, Crimmins was at CNN’s New York studio to contribute commentary on the presidential campaign. He was chatting with CNN anchor Norma Quarles in the Green Room. “Suddenly she looked right past me and began sucking up to someone at a clip that was fantastic even for a corporate news anchor.” It was Henry Kissinger. Crimmins refused to shake hands with him. Later, Quarles asked him why. “Because,” he replied, “I have a strict policy of never shaking hands with war criminals.” The title of his new book—published, as is this book, by Seven Stories Press—is Never Shake Hands With a War Criminal. L.

  FAST FOOD IN THE FAST LANE

  According to Advertising Age, McDonald’s has offered to pay popular hip-hop performers to infiltrate the fast-food chain’s Big Mac into their lyrics. They will not receive an advance on royalties, but rather they’ll be paid $5 every time such a song is played. Although the company will have final say over the appropriateness of lyrics, the singers will retain artistic control over how they’re incorporated into the track.

  Spokesperson Walt Riker explained that this concept is in line with McDonald’s 2003 global marketing campaign aimed at 18-to-34-year-olds, which launched the I’m lovin’ it slogan. “Each McDonald’s market,” he said, “has the freedom within the I’m lovin’ it framework to design programs that best resonate with customers.” Already, Kanye West and Busta Rhymes have agreed to promote the Big Mac by mentioning it in their rhymes.

  Ever since MC Hammer did it for KFC’s popcorn chicken campaign in the early ’90s, this radio version of product placement has continued to ooze its way into rap music. The BBC reports that “A whole string of products has enjoyed huge success in the United States after rappers started dropping brand names into songs—although not for marketing purposes but bling boasting. Among the happy beneficiaries were brands like Courvoisier, Gucci, Dom Perignon, Bentley and Porsche. Artists who have ‘referenced’ well-known products include Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg.”

  Thus, only ten airplays of a song including a brand name plug for the two-all-beef-patty burger would net $50 for 50 Cent. The implications of this whole practice are, er um, just delicious. Price wars, for example. What’s to prevent Burger King from upping the payment to $7 per play? Would McDonald’s then make a counter-offer of $10?

  Or how about candidates running for political office who are desperately trying to reach that desirable demographic? I can hear it now, stuck into the middle of a rap: “Hillary Clinton was married to the first Negro president I mean this is what they used to call ol’ Slick Willy with his little slick willy bein’ the answer to the question ‘Wassup?’ and you know for damn sure that’s who we wanna see in the Black House is Hillary ’cause she’s a real nigger lover you know what I mean dawg?”

  In recent years, an alliance of hip-hop and the porn industry has been developing, and therein lies another possibility. Can’t you envision a computer screen with Snoop performing anal sex on a voluptuous blonde—a common theme in the world of Internet pornography—and, accompanied by a heavy drumbeat, he is rhythmically chanting, “Ooh ooh ooh ain’t ya glad I mixed some Preparation H with the Astroglide so who’s your product-placement daddy now?”

  But please, gentlemen, try not to come on the keyboard.

  JOHNNIE COCHRAN MEETS DR. HIP

  Tragedy and absurdity were two sides of the same coin, from O. J. Simpson’s “suicide” note with a smiley face in the O of his signature, to the woman who pinched lawyer Robert Shapiro’s ass because “I wanted to be part of history,” to Simpson walking into the courtroom humming the melody of “Touch Me” from the Broadway hit Cats and explaining to reporters that he was thinking about his children.

  Of course, I’m reminded of that criminal trial because of Johnnie Cochran’s death. I met him once. Shortly before Simpson’s civil trial began in 1997, Cochran was the guest of honor and luncheon speaker at a national convention of criminal defense attorneys held in a huge banquet hall at a hotel in Santa Monica. No media were allowed.

  One of the attendees was Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld, also known as Dr. Hip from his days as a syndicated columnist for the underground press. He now testifies occasionally as an expert witness, and was at this event for that reason. Nancy and I were his guests.

  Cochran’s speech reassured the enthusiastic audience: “In the Simpson matter, we just did what you do every day”—that is, defend their clients by any means necessary and chalk up a bunch of billable hours in the process—and he received a standing ovation.

  In the afterglow of his speech, colleagues came up to Cochran to shake his hand and get in a little banter. One well-wisher shared this joke: “If Chris Darden spent as much time trying to nail O. J. Simpson as he did trying to nail Marcia Clark, he might’ve won the case.” The other defense attorneys all had a good laugh at that one.

  Schoenfeld joined the line of lawyers waiting to have photos taken of themselves standing alongside Cochran. When it was Schoenfeld’s turn, Nancy focused her camera. For this particular occasion, Schoenfeld had stashed a hand printed card underneath the standard, plastic encased ID lapel card. As in the previous poses, Cochran and Schoenfeld put their arms around each other though they were looking, not at each other, but straight ahead and smiling at the camera.

  Thus, Cochran didn’t notice how, just before Nancy snapped their picture, Schoenfeld subtly managed to pull away the ID card and reveal the hand printed card, which d
eclared, in large printed letters, “O. J. DID IT!” I published that photo on the front cover of The Realist that spring. It was the result of a good, old-fashioned guerrilla action.

  ACQUITTING WATERMELON

  Ever since I was three years old, I wanted to be inducted into the Countercultural Hall of Fame. It finally happened, at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. I joined such luminaries as Bob Marley, Louis Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Ina May Gaskin, founder of the modern midwife movement.

  The previous year, the emcee of this event was San Francisco stand-up comic Ngaio Bealum, whose parents were both in the Black Panther Party. “You know,” he said, “when we were kids, we didn’t have bongs. We just had to fill our mouths with water and suck real slowly.” He described smoking pot while drinking coffee as “the poor man’s speedball.”

  Ths time, the emcee was stand-up comic Watermelon, who lives in Vancouver, where she sells marijuana-laced gingersnap cookies at a nude beach. She describes herself as “the only nudist, pot-dealing comedienne in the world.” She presented me with a silver cup, a framed plaque—and a three-foot-long bud of marijuana.

  “That’s for you to tickle your wife with,” she said.

  “Thank you. Y’know, Watermelon, you have very nice pits. Somebody had to say that.”

  “And I’ve got a brain that just won’t quit, Paul.”

  “Well, let’s see, this cup will be great for keeping my stash in. This plaque will be great for rolling joints on. And this big giant bud—‘It’s a French tickler,’ I’ll say, and I’m sure that will get me through Customs without any problem.”

  Watermelon has just been acquitted of all charges relating to her arrest for selling gingersnap cookies laced with cannabis resin at, yes, Wreck Beach, because, it was explained, “It is no longer in the public interest to continue with the prosecution.” The judge admitted having “reasonable doubt,” due to the unquantifiable traces of cannabis in the cookies.

  Watermelon’s attorney had argued that resin wasn’t found in the cookies when examined by forensic experts—just cannabinoids—and she wasn’t charged with possession of cannabinoids. He said that she regards the beach as her church, adding that now “she’ll be able to attend her church again.”

  “And I thought my cookies tasted good,” Watermelon told me, “but victory tastes sweeter.”

  She plans to focus on extending her cookie brand and newfound legal expertise to the medical marijuana market for patients who’d rather ingest than smoke.

  Meanwhile, in an article for Razor magazine, Martin Lee writes, “No American has ever been granted Canadian refugee status because of the war on drugs, but the times they may be changing.”

  ORAL SEX ON THE RISE

  “I think the stereotypes don’t exist as much any more—girls and boys both see oral sex as not being a big deal,” says Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, head of a study at two California schools which concludes that about one in five ninth-graders (average age 14-1/2) have practiced oral sex, and almost one-third say they intend to try it during the next six months. Could this be why a state report shows that teen birth rates continue to decline across California?

  Ironically, the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health cites a study of 12,000 youngsters indicating that teens who pledge virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had vaginal intercourse. The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

  In one high school, where free condoms are available for students, there is a sign proclaiming that “The Peppermint Condoms Are For Oral Sex Only.” Yet there is a certain twisted sense of continuity. We used to practice oral sex as a way of preventing pregnancy. Young people today mistakenly do it as a means of preventing AIDS.

  Oral sex is so much in the air these days, it’s hard to remember what a tremendous taboo it once was. But in the wake of blow jobs in the White House, kids began embarrassing their parents by asking, “What’s oral sex?” Biblical scholars got busy checking to see where God said that oral sex is not adultery.

  An entire episode of Seinfeld was devoted to oral sex. Moreover, an entire episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was concerned with Seinfeld creator Larry David having a pubic hair stuck in his throat as a result of performing oral sex on his wife. And incredible hype from the distributor of Inside Deep Throat, General Electric’s NBC Universal, claims that Deep Throat is the most profitable picture ever made, falsifying its gross as $600 million. That’s more than Star Wars, which has grossed “only” $461 million.

  Surprisingly, oral sex was missing from a proposed amendment on sexual misconduct in the Student Council Code at the University of Oregon. In an effort to prevent date rape, a motion was presented to the University Senate, defining rape as “an offense committed by a student who engages in penetration of another person, and who does not obtain explicit consent.” Penetration means “any degee of insertion, however slight, of the penis or any material object into the vagina or anus.”

  Hey, what about somebody’s mouth? Forcible fellatio is rape.

  THE UPSIDE OF OUTRAGE

  Even while you’re laughing at Lewis Black ranting and raving about cultural and political insanities, his physical fury fuels his comedy so blatantly that you worry he’s going to burst a blood vessel any second. When I asked him over lunch how he originally adopted that angry persona, he responded in a very calm manner.

  “I was working one night with Dan Ballard, a very funny and very huge albino comic from Michigan,” he recalled. “After I came off stage, he grabbed me and said, ‘Listen to me, I am on stage screaming like an idiot and I am not even angry, and you are angry and you’re not yelling, so when you go back on stage I want you to start yelling.’ So I did, and my persona was born.”

  In his new book, Nothing’s Sacred, Black writes about a heckler who “felt I was being too hard on Vice President Cheney. He informed me in no uncertain terms that the vice president was serving his country, and asked what was I doing for my country. I paused and said, ‘I do this. This is what I do.’”

  Recently, though, he performed at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, and sat next to Dick Cheney. A situation like that can make any comedian uncomfortable, except maybe for Don Rickles.

  “It truly was hell preparing for the event,” Black told me, “like taking a comic’s SAT test. President Bush was supposed to be seated to my right while I performed, but divine intervention from the pope saved me from that, so I was now staring at Vice President Cheney—which was bizarre, to say the least. It is an out of body experience. And I am supposed to make him laugh, which I actually did, which also freaked me out, as it made me wonder what was wrong with my comedy. He went on before me, which means that I can now put on my resumé that the vice president opened for me. And he was funny. Then he got serious. I felt sick for a week before this event, because this is one of the most uptight group of folks you could ever perform for.

  “It worked out fine, as I had destroyed my usual act, in the name of entertainment. As long as you take the gig, you should be good at it, and I feel that nothing would have been accomplished if I had pissed all over them. I didn’t want to spend the next week talking to reporters about it. I stopped and talked to the vice president as I left the dais. One of his closest friends is the brother of a close friend of mine who passed away a number of years ago. I asked him to please say hi to his friend for me—I hadn’t seen him in quite some time. So basically I asked the vice president to be my messenger boy, and hopefully it would keep him out of trouble for a few minutes.”

  But that’s what Cheney does.

  PRIDE AND PARANOIA

  In connection with the 10th anniversary of thebombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, I’ve managed to obtain an exclusive prison interview with Terry Nichols.

  Q. What are your th
oughts today about that horrific act of domestic terrorism in which you participated?

  A. Oh, I’d say, the irony of how we got caught.

  Q. What do you mean?

  A. Well, think about the odds. Timothy McVeigh was against the United States government. He didn’t want to have anything to do with this government. He didn’t even want to have a driver’s license. He didn’t want to have a license plate on his car. But the reason he got caught was because some traffic cop happened to notice that the license plate was missing from his car.

  Q. And what about you?

  A. Well, just like Tim, I hated the federal government. I refused to pay taxes. And yet the reason I got caught was because they found a six-months-old receipt for a couple of tons of fertilizer. I can’t explain rationally why I ever saved that receipt. I mean I wasn’t gonna pay my taxes. And what would I do if the bombing failed? Go back to the store where I bought it, show my receipt and say, “I’m sorry, but your fertilizer didn’t work. I’d like to get a refund, please?”

  Q. I understand that you believe there was a certain relationship between the bombing and the O.J. Simpson murders.

  A. Yes, there was some guy, it was his job, his mission in life, to determine that the disembodied leg which was found in the rubble of the Federal Building did not belong to a white man but to a black woman, and furthermore, just like the glove that was planted in the Simpson case, that leg was planted in the rubble by Detective Mark Furhman.

  Q. Aha! But whatever the defense and the prosecution and the judge did in that trial, there was also the media fallout. I have a friend who has two young daughters, and they said to him, “Daddy, we have a question to ask you. If you ever killed Mommy—and we’re not saying you would ever do a thing like that—but if you ever killed Mommy and we asked you if you did it, would you tell us the truth?”