Without question, the most exciting media event of the summer was a rare Portland appearance by a rare individual: 60s iconoclast and political gadfly, status-quo annihilator and all-around provocateur, Paul Krassner.

Krassner, of course, is the founder and editor of The Realist (don't worry, I don't know or give a flying care what it is, either), goombah of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin (they weren't annoying smacked asses and self-promoting charlatans, were they?), and editor of Lenny Bruce's autobiography.

What's that mean? "Let's go with a semicolon here, Len. Len? Lenny? For the love of God, Lenny, wake up!"

He appeared at the "Artichoke" something-or-other and also in the basement of some church. Each venue holds twelve
people, and there wasn't
an empty seat in the house.

The Portland Alliance's Dave "Overeating for Social Justice" Mazza occupied four seats himself. There was an unfortunate incident when a member of WAD (Women Against Dicks) tripped over the wheelbarrow Mazza keeps with him at all times in case he comes across a food co-op.

Food was provided by Cassidy's, a sinister bohemian outpost for political dissidents and the radical fringe. Isn't it interesting that the lovely ladies of the SLA and that former militant broad who turned up in Eugene a few years back would all be involved in chi chi restaurants where "workers" are so welcome? Why does a flip from pipe bombs to place settings not surprise this observer of class, culture, and entitled 60s wackjobs?

I learned of Krassner's appearance in the underground paper The Portland Tribune in a column penned by sixty-something subversive Phil Stanford.

Phil later shared this highlight: "Counter culture icon Paul Krassner was struck by that announcement for arriving passengers at P-town International: 'Please keep forward motion as you exit.'...Contrarian that he is, Paul tried a couple steps backward. 'But it didn't work,' he says."

Oookay. Great story. What do you do for a living?

In the media blip preceding seventy-something Krassner's coming, we also learned that he and Oregon native son Ken Kesey were "lifelong friends."

I think we already knew that. When judging Ken Kesey and histie-dyed company as thinkers, revolutionaries, visionaries, whatevers, I'm afraid we have to take one disturbing fact into consideration: He thought the Grateful Dead made good music.