An Interview with Terry Southern

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Number 132 Editor: Paul Krassner

An Interview with Terry Southern military people come out thinking, “Yes, w e’ve got a son-of-a-bitch Editor's note: This issue is dedicated to the memory of Terry like that in our outfit.” . . . . . Southern, an old friend and contributor to The Realist. What follows Q. What originally led to the writing o/Thc Magic Christian. is an interview I conducted with him (gulp!) three decades ago: A. The notion, “Wouldn’t it be funny if...” Q. Recently I went to a meeting of the John Birch Society, and dur Q. Can you think of any actual occurrences that you ve been in ing the coffee break, people broke up into little clusters. One cluster volved in that would seem to be related to the modus operands o) The was discussing the Communist conspiracy behind the fluoridation of Magic Christian? water. I asked what the Communists’ motivation would be. The guy A. Various kinds of lies, I suppose ... for no particular reason, ex who was leading the discussion said i t ’s to slow down our reflexes. I cept perhaps to cheer someone up . . . Now wait, here’s something. asked if he had seen Dr. Strangclovc, because th a t’s pretty much what We were living in Geneva once, on the 3rd floor — in one of those General Ripper says in the film. And this guy at the John Birch Society very modern apartments, and they had a garbage-disposal chute, and said, with a straight face: “Yeah, well, I d o n ’t know who wrote that at the bottom was this fantastic Swiss mechanism ... thousands of di movie, but I think.he’s one of us." amond-edged blades, I always imagined it ... moving at the speed of A. I have the feeling you made that up. light. Anyway, you could put your head in this chute and hear it Q. No, it really happened. down there — a soft whirring sound, and it would take anything, man A. In any case, I d on ’t think their opinions arc relevant. I suspect — bottles, tin cans, knives, forks, spoons. I was always testing it. that you sec dynamic forces where, in my opinion, there arc none. I Nothing fazed it. Once I took a coffee-pot, put a lot of forks and see no dynamic forces in our society. The strongest force is psychia spoons in it, put the pot in a paper bag so it wouldn’t make too much try, and that has undone the others. I heard, incidentally, and on fairly racket when it hit, and dropped it in — you know, like “What do you good authority, that the Birchers were all syphed up — they're all el make of this, Mister Swiss Machine!” Then I listened. Nothing, man. derly, you know, that's when the syph hits the brain. So it’s like a club. Just a slight smooth crunch and back to old soft whir. Under the guise of political action, it’s a brain-syph club. So! Well, as it happened, I had just bought a new typewriter, and I Q. Yes, I ’ve seen that in the Journal of the American Medical Asso still had the old one — Royal Portable, pre-war, sturdy stuff. So I ciation. rushed right out, bought 50 feet of clothesline, came back, tied one A. It is true that people fail to recognize themselves in the film ... (Continued on Page 2)

blow COULV HE VO THIS TO US ? we're Helpless without him. Just THink. About it, Hobbes, o u r own creator has literally forced us o u r OP HAVING CUR VAILY A V VENTURE. X MEAN WWY SHOULD HE Have all the powef?. it 's simply not\ FAIR.'X Don't UNDERSTAND...X Ju5r don't understand. . •

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comes this nut. No, no, if I had been a doctor, 1 would have been a general practitioner. All the others arc inhuman. Or a gynecologist — COURT JESTER that's the thing, of course. How about a combination gynecologist- Personal Propaganda psychiatrist? I guess that would be about as boss as you could get. Wow, what power! In April, Reprise Records will release my comedy CD/casscttc, We Q. Some readers have felt that, in a couple of things you've written Have Ways o f Making You Laugh. In May, Seven Stories Press will for The Realist, you have an underlying hostility toward homosexuals. publish The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race: The Satirical Writings of Do you? Paul Krassner, with a foreword by Kurt Vonncgut. My book tour will A. No, I do not, Paul, but def! Some of my best friends, in fact, arc include the following readings and stand-up performances: absolutely insanely raving gay. “Prancing gay,” it’s sometimes called • May 30, New York City — at Exit Art Gallery, 7 p.m. — that’s the gayest there is. My notion of homosexuality, by the way • May 31-Junc 2, New York City — possibly at Stand-Up N.Y. — I mean the area of interest it holds for me — is in the manner, • June 4, Minneapolis — for information call (612) 874-7715. speech, and implicit outlook, and has nothing to do with the person’s • June 7, Portland — for information call (503) 626-8713. sex life. • June 8, San Francisco — at Marsh Theater, 10:30 p.m. I know guys, for example, who arc actually married to boys, but • June 9, Berkeley — at Freight & Salvage, 8 p.m. they w ouldn’t be homosexual in my mind because their manner and • June 14, Santa Monica — at L.A. the Bookstore, 8 p.m. so on is non-gay. On the other hand, there docs exist a very definite gay syndrome, and anyone who has not observed this is simply too TERRY SOUTHERN INTERVIEW busy playing the fool. Now if you want to say that the very aware (Continued from Cover) ness of the syndrome is hostility, I could not argue that — though I end to the carriage of the typewriter, and lowered it down very gently, hasten to add that by no means do I find it an unpleasant syndrome. taking care, dig, not to bump the walls on the way. That was supposed As for its significance, I would certainly say that persons who arc to be so the concierge or somebody w ouldn’t hear it, you know, quite openly and freely gay have more in common, or believe they something strange going down the chute — but I think it was also the have, than persons who say they arc Catholic or Jewish have. idea of surprising the machine at the last minute ... I must have been In fact, if you were to compile a list of group-identifications which about half off my nut. have any internal strength left, I would say the gay would rank fairly Anyway, when I figured it was just about right, I said, “Okay, you high. The highest, of course, would be the junkies — they have a smug son-of-a-bitch! Dig this!" And let the clothesline out very sense of togetherness, a common frame of reference, and so on, that quickly. Well, man! I mean, I just wish I’d had a tape-recorder. Christ, surpasseth all. Jewish is finished, Negro is rapidly falling to pieces. what sounds! Fantastic! And then it stopped — and of course I im The Gurdjicff people, Actors Studio people — I think they’re fairly mediately felt very bad. It was like I had killed it. “What a silly, kid tight, but of course they’re both tiny groups. thing to do. And bla, bla, bla.” Big remorse, and then, of course, great But you take the gay — well, I d on ’t want to go too far out on a apprehension — like: An American typewriter! They’ll trace it to limb here, prediction-wise, but by God, I’ll just bet that if someone, a you! Damages! Fantastic damages — five thousand dollars! Can’t smart politician, really used his head — no pun intended there, Paul, pay! Prison! har, har — and made a strong, very direct bid for the huge gay vote — But it all had a happy ending. The machine was running again the well! next day, and there was a little note in the lobby that read something Q. As a matter of fact, there is a gay politician who, when a reporter like, “Residents arc requested not to overload the disposal unit.” asked him off the record if he thought his homosexuality would affect Overload! And they say the Swiss d on ’t have a sense of humor. the election, he replied that he was hoping for the latent vote. Anyway, it was the smugness of the machine, Paul... I mean you can A. Anyway, if I may return to your question, I say no, I am not understand how a thing like that could, well, be disturbing? anti-gay, and, in fact, I say moreover that only a non-gay could have Q. There, there, Terry — yes, of course. interpreted my articles as such. A. Do you think I did the right thing? Q. The Realist hasn't pulled off a hoax for some time now. What Q. You had no choice. . . . Do you remember anything from, say, (Continued on Page 6) your adolescent days in Texas that you might consider a turning point as far as your current outlook is concerned? A. Well, one thing does stand out. I mean I was pretty much a reg The Realist, Dept. 132 ular guy in most respects — played quarterback and first base, used to Box 1230, Venice, CA 90294 go with the boys over to Niggertown on Saturday nights and make it with “One-Armed Annie" she was called — for a quarter, or five milk Enclosed please find: bottles. And so on, you know, just a good ordinary Texas boy. But □ $12 for a six-issue subscription to The Realist. there was this wild story by Poe — The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym. I used to rewrite this story and try to make it wilder. And then once I □ $23 for a twelve-issue subscription to The Realist. showed it to my friend Big Lawrence. “God damn, you must be □ $10 for The (Almost) Unpublished Lenny Bruce — a crazy,” he said. I think that’s when we began to drift apart — I mean, collection of the controversial com ic’s articles, columns, Texas and me. stories, essays, bits and pieces. Q. Is it true that you were once studying to be a doctor? □ $25 for Paul Krassner’s autobiography, Confessions of a A. Right again, Paul! How about a TV show called Right Again, Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counter- Paul! A very simple format — you pose knotty problems, prefaced Culture. “Uproarious ... soulful humor" — Village Voice by “Is it true that. . .” And then the Answer Man — some weird- looking guy — consults his big book and shouts, “Right again, Paul!” □ $30 for both of the above books. Then, your smiling announcer comes on: “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Paul is right again!” Then he makes his pitch: “And you can be right, Name______A pt______too if bla, bla, bla.” I think it might catch on. You’d have to wear a tic. Q. Is Dr. Eichner in Flash and Filigree an extension of your medical Address______ego? A. No, Eichncr is like that Swiss machine. Smug, highly special C ity______State______Z ip ______ized. Everything is supposed to go very smoothly — then along

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“Toy Story” — the Same Old Story for the Disabled is stepped on but instantly reforms itself. The heroes of the film, a toy Western Sheriff and a by Bill Bolt freaks from a circus that Browning used), one Space-suited Ranger, both uncoincidentally The most dramatic part of Disney S tu dio’s of whom has no lower body and moves on his white, non-disabled males, experience all Toy Story is about toys that have been “tor hands, sneak up on the unsuspecting lovers in manner of batterings and crushing, but al tured” by a neighborhood child. His grim their circus caravan, is the model for repeated ways emerge unscathed. room is equipped with steel vices, cutting scenes in Toy Story. Strange whispers, noises, Why the freak toys stay freaks is never ex torches, drills and pliers — much like the op and signals pass between the freaks in this plained. Is it to suggest that some people arc erating rooms, leg brace workshops and 1932 film, though in the remainder of the film fated to be freaks and to help them is point physical therapy clinics that this writer has the freaks arc shown as intelligent and verbal less? Is it that some levels of physical differ experienced in his life. This young villain spe human beings. ence fall beyond the pale of humanity and can cializes in taking parts of one toy and com In Toy Story the freak toys never emit rec never be accepted? bining them with parts of others to create ognizable words and contrast sharply with Let us shift from the word “freak” to phys freaks. For those even vaguely familiar with the “normal" toys who usually communicate ically different, which is often labeled dis the history of films, particularly films dealing in words or understandable signs or signals. abled today, even though the so-called with disabilities, the profound influence of These freaks frighten the “normal” toys — disabled may be able to do many things better Tod B row n in g’s Freaks is obvious in Toy normal in that they either resemble people or than the so-called “able-bodied.” In this toy Story. In Freaks a cast of circus freaks revenge arc familiar and friendly toys — until the world it is the same. One toy, for example, themselves on a brutal and insulting Ger freaks show themselves as good-willed and seems to be made of a pair of beautiful female manic circus performer and his girlfriend. wanting the same thing that the “normies” legs combined with a fishing rod growing Hercules, the performer, is murdered and the want: to seek revenge on the vicious torturer. from the waist. Her special ability, vital to the girlfriend Cleopatra is turned into a chicken- Interestingly, the “normie” toys are repeat plot, is to do the many hauling, lifting, and like freak in a nest for the public to stare at. edly mangled along the way yet never seem to lowering jobs. But that does not translate into The scene where the freaks (actually real become permanently maimed. A toy soldier acceptance. In Tod Browning's film, the freaks seem to live normal lives and are treated with dignity within the circus community, except by the two villains. They are not isolated or left be hind. They arc making a living and have wives, husbands, and some laughs. Even their revenge is put forth as understandable. In Toy Story, the freak toys get no such dig nity. They seem to live in a nether world of dark hiding places, with no toy life left. The lack of language moves their image to the ani mal level. The leader, a one-eyed d o ll’s head mounted spidcr-likc on chrome Erector Set tentacles, creeps around, capturing the root of the word cripple. Among the freaks is a toy that seems to be a person in a wheelchair and another that seems to be propelling himself on a stretcher. In the denouement the two AB (able-bod ied) males and the other toys escape to a new and better life. The freak toys arc casually left behind to an unspecified fate after they have served the purpose of helping the “normal” toys make a successful escape. Not even a “token crip” — or Tiny Tim, as they arc called in the disabled world — is taken along Great Moments in Countercultural History to symbolize acceptance. This photo was taken 25 years ago at the great tension in the auditorium. He lambasted Toy Story is actually a regression in film so University of Kansas. From left to right: nov the panel members for their negativity. “I for cial values toward the disabled from Brown elist and Merry Prankster chief Ken Kcscy; one am very optimistic,” he said, and began in g’s Freaks. Integration of the physically sidekick and co-author of Last Go Round delineating the creative ways in which citizens different is now not even considered. It is as Ken Babbs; and Realist editor Paul Krassner. were fighting the system. Kesey, Sanders, though the profoundly physically disabled The occasion was the Robert F. Kennedy Lerner and I didn ’t argue with him. Only the Franklin Roosevelt, elected to the presidency Memorial Symposium. Kcscy and Krassner Chicano professor rose, walked to the front of in the year that Browning’s film was released, were on a panel with poet Ed Sanders, colum the stage, and pointed his finger at the dwarf, would be much more unacceptable today nist Max Lerner and a Chicano professor of leaning on his crutches. than then. languages. Their discussion was conspirator “So y ou ’re optimistic,” he said. “That’s The invidious nature o f current film atti ial and pessimistic. easy for you to say — y o u ’re white!” tudes to the disabled reflect the regressive at During the question-and-answer session The stunned silence was broken by Babbs titude by the white male Establishment to all that followed, a crippled dwarf walked, with — who stood up in the front row and said, threats to their hegemony. Toy Story's Little the aid of crutches, to the microphone in front “Well, if that fellow says things are all right, Bo Peep is pictured as an oversexed man- of the stage. The disabled liberation move I'm with him!” — and the audience ap hunter. The sister of the brutal boy is shown ment was not visibly active yet, and there was plauded and cheered wildly. as a worm who gets a single moment of turn-

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The Search for the Manchurian Pre-Schooler Reich.” Other symptoms of the survivors in cluded grand mal epileptic seizures with a by Alex Constantine Advisory Committee on Radiation Experi temporary cessation of breathing. Doctors The debris of Berlin smoldered. With a lit ments in March 1995, “clickers, metronomes managed to strap one survivor to an EEG ma tle practice, Richard Nixon, an obscure black or just clicking the tongue or hand clapping. chine in the midst of a seizure — his brain market rubber dealer, mastered the V for Vic Patients would vacillate from calm to roboti waves registered normal. The fit was not a tory salute. cally asking, 'Who do you want me to kill?’" true grand mal, but a body memory o f elec And the American intelligence “sendees” They were triggered to attempt suicide and tric shocks. ECT, the invention of Dr. Ugo quietly courted Nazis and their Quislings in attack the therapist, or march out of the office Ccrlctti, another Spanish fascist, was often the Soviet satellites. Some 5,000 European in a fugue state to assassinate somebody. used on various pans of the body, Wolf says, fascists, according the the Washington Post, Claudia Mullens, a survivor of the experi “usually the physical places that do not read June 9, 1982, quietly emigrated to the United ments, testified at the Advisory Committee ily show or in tissue that heals quickly.” States. In the nascent days of television, hearings about a trip in 1959 to the Deer High technology was combined with young Ronald Reagan’s fund-raising acumen Creek camp in Maryland, then used to train drugs, hypnosis and tonure to create alter was tapped by the Crusade for Freedom, a child prostitutes for sexual blackmail opera personalities. Years before Silicon Valley in CIA front. The “conservative” celluloid cut tions. At the camp, she was the “guest” of a troduced virtual-reality computcrwarc, for out appeared in a cameo spot to talk viewers Mr. Sheiber, an alias of the C IA ’s notorious example, children by the score told psy out of their hard-earned dollars to fund the LSDmeister Dr. Sidney Gottlieb: chotherapists they’d been forced to wear gog migration of East European “freedom fight Most of the men I came to know well, were gles that flashed 3-D images of horror and ers” to the United States — these paragons cither there as observers or volunteer targets. death. were really diehard Nazis. The CIA, Penta We were taught different ways to please men In the m id-’60s, the oligarchs of the gon and an army of Nazi recruits have since and at the same time ask questions to get them Agency feared exposure. Newspaper re consummated an ideological bond that has to talk about themselves. Then we had to re porters had caught wind of Auschwitzian be held in sickness and in stealth. call everything about them--- havioral modification research funded by the In 1950 the Agency geared up for a battery After this trip, I mainly went to hospitals, government. Congress was asking questions. of mind control experiments on human Army or Air Force bases or universities or the The thugs at Langley scratched their heads. It guinea pigs, underwritten by a network of hotels in New Orleans and a place called the was only a matter of time before an inquisi scientific foundations and academic fronts. TRIMS facility in Texas. tive reporter exposed the rot of mind control. Neuropsychiatrists at Tulanc, McGill, Yale, The sole CIA official not briefed on the The solution: CIA scientists bugged out of UCLA and Harvard, some of them laboring cabin and Dr. G o ttlieb ’s child sex ring was the laboratory and the experiments were beside Nazi imports, researched the use of John McCone, a former director who might moved into the community. Eccentric reli brain implants to control behavior. Dozens of have objected to the use of 7-ycar-old girls to gious groups were organized or co-opted by books and articles have since appeared de gather information and ply their training in intelligence operatives, including the Peoples’ scribing grim laboratory experiments — none sexual “coercive techniques.” Temple, the Symbioncsc \Libcration Army, chronicle the use o f children in the Firm ’s’s Weeping in the Playtime of Others, by for the O rdo Tcmplis Oricntis (OTO), Finders, mind control initiative (possibly because mer Princeton scholar Ken Wooden, de Michael A qu in o’s Temple o f Set, the Bhag- journalists never imagined children could be scribes a mental institution near Dallas, Texas wan Shrcc Rajnecsh Movement, Switzerland’s used in such a bloodthirsty manner). that conducted freakish sensory deprivation Solar Temple, and Subud, among others. A monograph written in the 1960s by Dr. experiments on retarded children: Subud is a religious sect with roots in In Jose Delgado, a Yale psychiatrist hailing from On the grounds I noticed a strange struc donesia and the UK, according to confiden F ranco’s Spain, detailed his experiments on an ture with heavy black plastic covering all the tial informants (active members who 11-year-old boy with electrodes implanted in windows. That evening, a former house par submitted to injections of sodium pcntothal his brain. Dr. Delgado stimulated his young ent told me it was the private domain of a Dr. before questioning). The cult is a cut-out of su bject’s synapses with a radio transmitter at Snapp, who believes that the children are not the American security elite’s mind control a range of 100 feet. The boy immediately lost retarded, but that their intellectual develop frat. One o f Subu d’s leading lights is Janet his sexual identity, reporting that he w asn’t ment has been aborted by birth. Dr. Snapp be Morris, a science-fiction writer and charter sure if he was male or female. One child said lieves he has restructured the mother’s womb member of the Association for Electronic De that sh e’d been instructed to address her CIA with totally darkened rooms, and he places fense. She is also research director of the U.S. programmer as “Herr Doctor.” the child there to grow. Global Strategy Council, a Washington think Some of the children subjected to the ex Donna Parrish came dose to dying in her tank founded by ultra-conservatives Claire perimentation, according to New Orleans “womb.” When her parents removed her after Booth Luce, General Maxwell Taylor, Gen psychologist Valeric Wolf, were fragmented four weeks in this atmosphere, they found her eral Richard Stillwell, former CIA Deputy by trauma-based programming into a spate of body covered with sores. Director Ray Cline, and the abrasive Jeane alternate personalities. “Most of these pa “Most patients,” Wolf testified at the hear Kirkpatrick, among others. tients responded to certain sounds,” Wolf re ings, “reported neo-Nazi alter personalities In 1991 Ms. Morris traveled to Russia to ported in testimony to the President’s who believed in the coming of the next study a technological marvel that transmits subliminal command messages over the low ing, but is nevertheless a passive-aggressive other AB white male, the Sheriff. N o other frequency infrasound band. Political re wimp. The mothers in the films fulfill the tra toys do any growing or have any complexity. searcher Armen Victorian discovered that ditional role of being kindly, but not too For the disabled, Toy Story is just another with the Russian “psycho-correction” trans bright about what is actually going on around blow disguised as beneficence. We arc there to mitter, “subliminal messages bypass the con them. The two male, human-looking heroes be useful to the Real People and then be scious level and arc effective almost grow and learn. Even the rather simple- shoved back into the closet — a feeling we immediately.” minded and pompous Space Ranger realizes often get in real life when dealing with the Another leading light o f the Subud sect is at last that he is merely a toy to please chil many able-bodied professionals who make a an executive of a major toy company — a dren and his laser beam is no more than a living off disabilities. The intelligent, mature leading maker of virtual-reality computer blinking red light. He changes and improves veneer and funny script — and the marvelous games for children, like the ones used by CIA by admitting that he cannot really fly, but can technology — only make the film that much scientists to traumatize young subjects. only “fall with style,” an insight made by the more of a threat to progress. On September 30, 1995, about 100 psy- 4 http://www.ep.tc/realist THE REALIST ARCHIVE PROJECT The REALIST Issue Number 132 - Spring, 1996 - P a ge 05 sca n s of this entire issu e found at: http://www.ep.tc/reallst/132

chologists, mostly from the western states, sometimes inaudible ones. The alter personal of Colorado received almost 7,000, and Look convened at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Ange ities frequently “live" in the part of the body ing Up Maine handled around 6,000.” les for a three-day conference on “Mind Con that has been traumatized. If a child was tor Ranking scientists in the C IA ’s mind con trol, Multiplicity and Ritual Abuse.” Each of tured in the shoulder, this is where an alter trol academy have all at one time or other the therapists have patients who have been lives. “The psychologist’s job,” Gould says, spoken of creating a “psychocivilizcd” soci tormented by cult cut-outs. Conference orga "is to map the alters and neutralize booby ety. If this is the grand design, it is built on a nizer Catherine Gould, a child psychothera traps — including suicidal impulses — left by bed of torture. Civilization is not the idea. pist from Encino, California, gave the the programmer to stop the therapeutic The captains o f industry want our heads. keynote tour of a programmed m ultiple’s process. The patient is ready to work with “landscape of alters.” conscious memories of the trauma and begin “In most instances," Dr. Gould explained, healing when he can move around freely in R o b in ’s Last Rights “the alter personalities are cult aligned. They the system of alters.” by Dawna Kaufmann are caught up in the underworld of mind con Vicki Graham-Costain, Ph.D., a clinical trol and know no other life. It isn’t unusual child psychologist, discussed the treatment of Robin isn ’t a relative or close friend, just a for a patient to have an alter who reports to character pathologies that accompany mind lifelong acquaintance. Through a court deci the cult everything said in the last therapy control conditioning, and the sudden “flood sion, I was made the legal determinant for session.” ing” of memories of childhood torture lurk R obin ’s life — and what happens afterward. But programmed alters arc not the enemy. ing behind post-hypnotic obstacles to recall, This was R ob in ’s desire, and I agreed to it. “They have experienced horror. Sexual abuse and in some cases, repression. Dr. David If life is a supermarket, Robin is in the may be only one part of the traumatization Ncswald took up programming neutraliza quickie check-out lane, with fewer than 12 pattern. Mind control is originally established tion strategies, and common roadblocks to items. The Grim Reaper may not yet be when the victim is a child under six years old. overcoming mind control conditioning. “Sur knocking at R ob in ’s door, but he’s in the During this formative stage of development, vivors arc told they will be shunned by ‘de neighborhood, looking for a parking space. the perpetrator systematically combines dis cent’ people,” Ncswald says, "that people will N ow , Robin wants a fancy funeral and sociation-enhancing drugs, pain, sexual as be repulsed by them and never accept them.” proper burial. 1 want a Ferrari. You d o n ’t al sault, terror and other forms of psychological The treatment of mind controlled kids is a ways get what you want. Neither Robin nor I abuse is such a way that the child dissociates growing field. Cult abuse of children, Gould have sufficient money for our respective the intolerable traumatic experience. The ex wrote in The Journal o f Psychohistory early wishes; matter o f fact, Robin is flat broke. ception is the child who cannot dissociate and last year, “is considerable in scope and ex How broke is Robin? Robin would have to was exposed to horror, disintegration and tremely grave in its consequences. Among borrow money to raise to the status of pau psychological death. The mother herself may 2,709 members of the American Psychological per. Call me cheap and insensitive, but I d on ’t be a cult multiple and an amnocstic. The Association who responded to a poll, 2,292 think I should be spending my foreign-car worst perpetrator is rage-based, disconnected cases of ritual abuse were reported. In 1992 savings on an elaborate funeral and burial for from the core personality, and the alter may alone, Childhclp USA logged 1,741 calls per someone no longer around to appreciate it. well feel disdain for the victim.” taining to ritual abuse, Monarch Resources of So, I have a plan that is practical, humane Mind control pVogramming is deeply en Los Angeles logged 5,000, Real Active Sur and politically correct in a recycling kind of coded, triggered by code words and sounds, vivors tallied nearly 3,600, Justus Unlimited way. I am donating R ob in ’s body to medical science. Not until Robin is dead, of course. They'll be no Final Exit tricks used, no speed- dial to Dr. Kevorkian and no snuff film made. But immediately after Robin shuffles off the mortal coil, I will contact the local university and say, “Com e and get it!” Ecologically too, my plan makes sense. The earth is simply too small to accommodate all the dead people who want to get buried in it. Hardly a month goes by when we d o n ’t hear about some godawful cemetery under investi gation for “grave offenses,” like commingling the last remains of men and women w h o’vc never as much met for coffee when they were above ground. Grave sites arc routinely reused for burials, with the former occu pan t’s headstone and bones stashed in a gardener’s tool shed until sold as jewelry to punk rockers. People bury their dead and walk away from the cemeter ies, never imagining that the potential for ghoulish acts is an ever-increasing reality. Even stupider is the notion of burying peo Richard Corc> Invin Corey Meets Fidel Castro N,dcob> ple in family cemetery plots. Mostly, these are Professor Irwin Corey, master o f absurdity, bestows on Fidel Castro a bag of relatives that you never even wanted to spend California-grown pistachio nuts (Castro: “California, hmmm, good climate there Thanksgiving with. N ow y o u ’re supposed to for nuts"); a book on the Rosenberg controversy; and a crcdit-card-sizc calculator rot with them into Eternity? Yeah, right. (Castro: “I’ll have to use my little pinky to push the b u tton s”). Corey was on a But back to Robin. Robin has spent a prof diplomatic mission to lift the embargo on health supplies to Cuba. He visited a ligate life of alcohol and drug abuse, having Cuban hospital that is providing sophisticated treatment for the survivors of Cher worked only about six months over more nobyl. Cuban health care provides for more radiation victims than does the U.S. than 70 years, depending on the kindness of — Dave Channon state welfare and federal aid. This hasn’t 5 http://www.ep.tc/realist THE REALIST ARCHIVE PROJECT The REALIST Issue Number 132 - Spring, 1996 - Page 06 scans of this entire Issue found at: http://www.ep.tc/reallst/132

stopped Robin from criticizing other unfor for billiard balls? I doubt that’ll happen, and ing. The Los Angeles County C o ro n er’s of tunate folks in the same boat. Robin will win it’s a gamble I’m willing to take. fice charges $164 for transportation and stor no prize for Humanitarianism, having always Anyway, I've worked in restaurants and if age of a deceased body, and cremation had a wicked sense of humor, usually directed you knew' what went on there, y o u ’d never through the county morgue adds another at minorities, gays, the poor, the old, the eat out again. When I was a teenager, 1 $228. I could “stiff" them for these charges, young and basically everyone besides Robin. worked at a Sizzler, with a vile cook named and R ob in ’s ashes, if unclaimed after three Not once has Robin ever volunteered ser Hawk. Every time he got a steak back for years, would wind up in a mass burial in vices to assist another individual. Nope, com “more fire," he’d cook it another few sec scenic P otter’s Field. But that w ou ld n ’t be passion is something to which Robin solely onds, plop it on the ground, jump up and very nice. feels entitled. down on it with his greasy army boots, then Certainly, if I left R obin ’s corpse some Donating a body to the Anatomy depart put it back on the plate for the waitress. And where for an anonymous disposal, there’s a ment of a medical school will help train doc that was one of the less gross things that hap chance I could be arrested and charged with tors, and give something back to the pened there. who-knows-what. So, it appears that the pru community — and no money is exchanged in Any trepidations about mcd-school high- dent deed is calling a medical school and ask the transaction. T here’ll be no silly and un jinks d on ’t compare against the real good ing them to schedule a free pickup. The necessary ritual of a funeral to contend with, that’s served to all of humanity by donating facility I called is hot to trot. Even gave me which can get quite expensive. Burial, crema bodies. People sign up as organ donors be their special phone number. They told me if I tion, and even scattering ashes at sea, all entail cause they want to do something valuable. So w asn’t sure, stick a mirror under R obin ’s nose. some expenditure of funds. My funds. Funds why the queasy feeling about donating an en If I thought it would be worthwhile to take that’ll be better spent on keeping my Ferrari tire body? Same thing. up a collection to indulge R o b in ’s last wishes, dream alive, or at least pay my bills. Could religion be the reason why there’s I would. But I have to be honest. I’d just Have I told Robin o f my plan? No, why not a more progressive attitude here? Some spend the money on skunk weed. Robin should I? I’d hate to speed up the inevitable, kind of fear of cosmic punishment? Medical would too, were the situation reversed. and I d o n ’t want to be cruel. I really love and schools arc desperate for new meat. I’m Maybe that’s why we get along. will miss Robin a lot. happy to oblige. Besides, no one complains Oh, maybe if Robin had been a Democrat, What made me come to my decision? And when obstetric wards donate fetal sacs to I could see charging up to $100 on my Visa, did it have anything to do with R obin ’s slav hair-care companies for their placenta sham but, really, w hat’s the point? T here’s nothing ish devotion to the Republican Party? Is this, poo. It’s probably one of those things that wrong with a body going to an anatomy lab. I indeed, a Democrat's revenge? Apparently so. happens late at night, without any paper like the idea. But it’s also a decision I plan to make for my work. That’s what I’d guess. Frankly, Robin should be glad I'm giving self, so at least I'm not being two-faced. Seeing as I’m the only person with the pa that carcass to medical science, instead of sell Friends warn my about the horror stories tience to even deal with Robin, any expenses ing it to some sleazy operator of a carnival of medical students desecrating dead bodies, for the />ojf-post-mortcm would come out of sideshow. I do have some integrity, and be and ask how could I want this for myself. But my pocket. Robin, of course, envisions one of sides, no carny owner has offered me a fair I figure, w hat’s the worst that can happen? those New Orlcans-stylc jazz funerals — price. Robin, who dropped out of high school Som eone’ll have sex with my cadaver? I'm with the horse-drawn caisson, Louie Arm and always had disdain for higher education not getting that much action being alive, and strong back from the dead, and throngs of as a “refuge for people too lazy to get into the at least there w o n ’t be the fear of pregnancy professional mourners who can jitterbug work force," will finally be going to college. I or sexually transmitted diseases. And what if while sobbing. I checked, and that exceeds the think even Robin would enjoy the irony in they play catch with my liver, or use my eyes $20 limit I’ll allot for this, so it ain’t happen that.

TERRY SOUTHERN INTERVIEW think it’s as simple as that. You sec, in order to want to mold opinion, (Continued from Page 2) you have to have strong and definite values, and then to succeed in molding opinion, you must be able to appeal to strong and definite would you suggest our readers do? values in the society. Well, these people have no particular values, nor A. I would ask your groovy girl readers to call up the Catholic do they sec any in the present society. Or, put it another way: they Book Store and begin pleading in a kind of gurgling sex-crazed ur have no particular preconceptions. I mean it sounds like a put-down to gency: “Can you please... get me a copy of Candy ? I ’ve got to have it! say someone “has no values,” but I d o n ’t mean it like that. I’m sure Please . . . please ... oh ... oh .. . oh!” And just sort of swoon, as they would love to have some values. Goodness, who w ou ld n ’t? though in sheer lust and confusion. I think that might actually snap Q. Recently the publisher o f Newsweek took a full-page ad in his their minds. own magazine. Let me read this: “Does Every Man Have His Price? Q. How did you and Mason Hoffcnhcrg originally go about collab H ow much would you take to sell out your country ? Your employer? orating on the writing of Candy? Your ideals t Your beliefs? You hear all about you that the moral fiber A. Well, that happens very easily — I mean if there arc two, ahem, o f America is weakening, that every man ‘has his price.’ However, we interesting minds at work. It’s like two friends telling each other jokes are confident that most men, no matter how great the temptation, put — there’s a built-in incentive to do it — and of course if y ou ’re a bet principle before price. I f you have a ‘price,’ would you kindly fill it in ter writer than you arc a talker, then there’s also a nice strong incentive here: (My price is: ) Have you filled it in yet? America’s strength lies to actually get it down on paper. I would say it’s the purest form of in the strength of you who didn ’t. * writing there is, like a letter to your best friend, because it’s writing to A. I think w e’d have to take those questions and prices one at a time, an audience of one, and that one is a reflection of yourself. I mean you Paul. What was the first? do of course have to have that sort of regard for the other person. Q. How much would you take to sell out your country ? Q. Aren’t you surprised that Candy is being given positive critical A. Well, for giving away my government secrets, I’d take... You sec status by the likes of Life magazine and Newsweek? the sheer sophistry of it? I think I’m going to repudiate Newsweek’s re A. No, I am not. One of the most naive misconceptions is that these view of Candy. people any longer try to mold opinion. The opposite is true . . . they Q. Y o u ’re against censorship, right — well, would you be for public have feelers out, they swim with the tide. They like to back winners, I screenings of outright pornographic films ?

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A. Of course. That would be the only way to improve their quality. apply if you had to define hipness? After the novelty wore off, people wouldn't support them unless they A. Well, in the strictest sense of the word, I’d say ... a certain death were really good — and then you w ou ld n ’t call them pornographic. of something, somewhere near the center. It’s the clandestine nature of the thing that causes those films to be so Q. H ow does this develop? lousy and yet so expensive. It’s analogous to prostitution. A. Obviously it begins with an awareness far beyond the ordinary, In London, for example, you can get laid for 30 shillings — what’s and a kind of emotional hypersensitiveness, or empathy, so acute that that, about four bucks? Well, I mean you wonder how is it possible to it’s unbearably painful and has to be anesthetized — so what is left in see a strange, interesting-looking chick, know you can make it with the end is “iron in the so u l”. . . awareness but total insulation from her for 30 shillings, and then just walk on by? Christ, y o u ’d think a emotion. The big trick, of course — and I d o n ’t know that it’s ever re guy with money would simply lay one chick after another right ally been done — is to eliminate all negative emotion and retain posi straight through the day. Right? Well, not a bit o f it, old chap. The tive. About the hippest anyone has gotten so far, I suppose, is to be reason is they’re used to it by now. And I’m sure that soon happens permanently on the nod. with anything that isn’t forced underground ... dirty movies, dope, Q. But is n ’t that an escape from life rather than an attempt to meet anything. Y ou’ll notice, by the way, it takes more than a scattering of the challenge to o n e ’s psyche? “fuck, piss, shits” these days to make a best-selling novel. That’s old- A. These people arc prepared to risk sacrificing the positive em o hat now, and almost no one will lay out for an old hat. tions because the negative emotions arc so painful. I do think, however, there is an interesting consideration as to how Q. D o you think that the Beat movement accomplished anything erotic a film can be. I’m actually working on a novel now, called Blue constructive? Movie, about a very strong filmmaker — a Bergman-Fcllini-Kubrick A. Yes, indeed — and something far greater than anyone seems to type-who sets out to solve this problem, namely: “At what point docs realize. N o one, insofar as I know, has recognized that the Beat Gen the acsthctically-crotic, extended indefinitely, become offensive?" eration is the source or origin of the great wave of Civil Rights action. Offensive, not to the audience, you understand, but to this film White participation is, o f course, the thing that gave the Civil maker himself. Interesting stuff. Rights movement its real center of momentum, in terms o f scope, Q. One o f the most memorable scenes in Candy is her sexual en vastness of scope — Martin Luther King stressed this time and again, counter with the hunchback. I f you were to make a movie of the book the necessity of not alienating the whites who were part of it — and — today — how would you treat this scene? this participation can be traced directly to the spirit first engendered A. I w ou ldn ’t have him take his shirt off. by books like On the Road . . . that kind of personal, impulsive, do- Q. Does Candy Christian represent an actual contemporary proto somcthing-crazy-and-impossiblc spirit — setting out for California type? with only three gallons of gas, or walking through Georgia armed A. Yes, it’s one o f the most common and disturbing phenomena with nothing but a beard and a guitar. going. You see a groovy chick, and sh e’s with some kind of nut, creep The first Freedom Ride, and all the subsequent marches and or crackpot. “What the devil do you sec in him}" you ask. “Oh, you demonstrations, were due to this attitude ... this idea of doing some d o n ’t understand!” she says. And then, when really pressed, it comes thing personal, impulsive, unconventional, something that the same down to “He needs me.” Beauty and the beast, simple as that, Paul. person would have previously thought idiotic and impossible, or at Q. D o you think there’s an inconsistency between the sexual free best as some kind of ne’er-do-well vagrancy. dom in your writing and your real-life monogamy ? There was a certain cloying sentimentality in On the Road that A. There is certainly a difference, if that's what you mean — though stuck in my craw, so to speak, but its significance as a moving force I must say I think your question is impertinent and smacks of hate- which has had these great effects seems obvious. sheet and crackpot. Why should a p erso n ’s life be like what he writes? Q. D id the assassination o f President Kennedy change you in any I should think that obviously the opposite would be probable — un way? less it’s a political pamphlet or a philosophical thing he’s writing. A. Only in that it put the absolute absurdity of things on a wider Otherwise w here’s the old imagination o f it, Paul? Locked in the screen in my mind. And the assassination of Oswald added another sugar-scoop? Stuck in the fur-pudding? No, one could not be more inch or two. I remember I began to indulge in a compelling fantasy misled than to try to relate the work to its author — in the end it sim then, something to compound the absurdity . . . the idea that the as ply leads to a kind of infantile hero-worship. sassinations would set off an uncontrollable wave of indiscriminate Q. Would you mind going into the etiology of your short story, “Red assassinations — long-range snipers knocking off dignitaries as they Dirt Marijuana m? stepped from the plane. Bing! DeGaullc! Bing! Haille Selassie! And A. Gladly, Paul — if that is, in fact, your name — it was what we so on. And each time the TV announcer would say: "Ladies and gen pros call an “exercise in form.” I was browsing through my big Web tlemen, a really incredible thing has just happened ...” The interest ster’s one day, and my eye fell, quite by chance, on the word etiology. ing thing would be at what point would he stop using the word I said, “What the devil, y o u ’ve mastered every other dang form — incredible? And what word would he use instead? Christ, that word what about an etiological story? Hmmmm?” Well, I hopped to it, really got a workout that week. Paul, and it was downhill all the way. Q. Would you call yourself an existentialist? No, as a matter of fact, it is not a short story, but a part of a novel A. Call me anything you want, Paul. As long as you d o n ’t call me called The Hipsters, and that is a scene from the h ero’s youth — his late for chow! Har, har. An old Army joke, Paul — Sartre told it to first exposure to certain insights of the great cool spade world. It is me. No, as a matter of fact, I am an existentialist. Yes, Mimi Sartre — interesting that in the rural south, or southwest — this was in Texas you know, Jean-Paul has a 17-year-old daughter, Mimi, she lives on — there’s a very free and easy association of white and Negro chil Grove Street, cute as a button and a real swinger — anyway, sh e’s the dren, which does not seem to occur anywhere else in the country. I one who signs the cards now. I ’ve got mine here, somewhere ... well, doubt if there is anyone from such an area who hasn’t had a very anyway, it’s true, and you can check it out with Mimi. I definitely am strong spade influence in his past, and to my mind that is the great an existentialist. teaching of our time — any really profound wisdom that may be Q. How does it a f f e c t the way you live? found among whites necessarily stems from the southern Negro, as A. Well, let’s see now. I d o n ’t believe in God, and I d o n ’t think in well, of course, as A m erica’s one great art, and the only art indigenous tentions, opinions, expressions of attitude, that sort of thing, count to it — jazz. for anything at all. Talk is cheap. And what else . .. Mimi and I were Q. I think that white people have also contributed an indigenous just talking about it .. . oh, yes, every night is Saturday night. I guess American art form: the jazz audience. ... What standards would you that’s about it, Paul. http://www.ep.tc/realist THE REALIST ARCHIVE PROJECT The REALIST Issue Number 132 - Spring, 1996 - Back Cover sca n s of this entire issu e found at: http://www.ep.tc/reallst/132

One free-lance journalist — echoing a sen MEDIA FREAK timent expressed to Koch by three reporters, (The following poem was rejected by including one with a major wire service — the editors o f Cigar, Cigar World and True or False? wrote to Koch: “It’s because of people like me Cigar Aficionado magazines, without • Comic-imprcssionist Jim Morris was a that shmucks like Ovitz arc able to get away comment.) guest on C N N ’s Crossfire — appearing in the with the things they do. Maybe your article role of President Clinton, being asked and an will give other journalists and publications a A Good Cigar swering serious questions about domestic is little more backbone when it comes to report is a tightly-wrapped cylinder sues and foreign policy — and the next day ing on this guy — and the whole industry, for of the finest Cuban tobacco the real Bill C lin to n ’s approval rating went up that matter.” burning imperceptibly three points. On the other hand, some public relations and held • A man doing 55 milcs-per-hour in a 55 executives took to using the article as a with confidence milcs-per-hour zone on a highway was pulled primer. And someone with technological between the second over and ticketed by a police officer for going skills managed to change K och ’s telephone and third fingers of too slow, because most of the traffic was answering machine’s message from the out rich white men moving about 70 milcs-per-hour; he was side so that it stated, “Do n ’t talk to Neal.” who gather in charged with endangering drivers and imped There was no way to connect this dirty trick exclusive clubs and sit ing traffic. to Ovitz, although the voice sounded suspi in high-backed chairs • When Apollo Mission astronaut Neil ciously like the Abraham Lincoln robot from and drink fine cognac Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not Disneyland. served to them by only said “One small step for man, one giant descendants of slaves. step for mankind,” but also, just before re-en — Matt Neuman tering the landing craft, he uttered, enigmati cally, “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.” At NASA they thought it referred to a rival Soviet cos Leary Updates Health on Internet monaut, but there was no Gorsky in either From Timothy Leary’s web-site: the Russian or American space program. For Mental status: Excellent. G ood spirits. 26 years Armstrong never answered ques Swimming webs o f wise friendship. Very tions about that remark, but finally — on July happy. Exultant, actually. Physical status: 5, 1995 in Tampa Bay, Florida — he gave in. Mademoiselle Cancer has moved in to share Gorsky had died and so Armstrong felt it “my” body. So far she is taking Room & would not be inappropriate to respond. Board in “my” prostate and “my” back When he was a young boy, playing baseball in bones. “I” feel minimal pain. Recent tests the back yard, his brother hit a fly ball that have shown a 50% leap in “my” liver func Photo by Kevin Hein landed in front of a n eigh b or’s bedroom win tioning. (The “I” speaking here is my Brain.) dow — the Gorskys. As Armstrong was re The Mouse that Soared Neuro-active drugs: 3 cups of coffee, 36 ciga trieving the ball, he heard Mrs. Gorsky From the N. Y. Daily News: “The latest rettes, 4 glasses of champagne, 1 midnight shouting: “Oral sex? You want oral sex? medical breakthrough has little mouse eyes, brownie, 12 balloons of Nitrous Oxide, 3 Y ou’ll get oral sex when the kid next door little mouse feet and a big ol’ human ear lines of cocaine, 4 Leary biscuits [Ritz crack walks on the moon!” growing on its back. This mouse freak — and ers spread with green marijuana butter]. others like it — arc at the cutting edge of a sci Net vs Management News ence known as tissue engineering....” Filler Items New York Times contributor Neal Koch From Screw: “Thanks to the latest advance • America Online purged the word breast wrote an article for the Columbia Journalism in medical technology, your new penis will be from profiles o f women seeking to share in Review titled “What Michael Ovitz Knows grown on the back of a cute, cuddly little lab formation about breast cancer, prompting About Managing the News,” delineating the oratory' mouse. Available in three sizes: Big, one irate subscriber to ask, “Must we have mainstream m edia’s ass-kissing frenzy over Bigger and [porn star] Ron Jeremy....” ‘hooter cancer survivors'?” this much-touted deal-maker who has been • Realist correspondent Bob Bloom re labeled “the most powerful man in Holly Fowl Play in the Courtroom ports that Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man wood"; when the Walt Disney Company From the Houston Chronicle: March was estimated by Washington officials hired him, their stock-market value jumped A defense attorney in a Northern Califor to be 4O0.0C0 strong because the government by $1 billion in a single day. nia murder case says he believes Max the par has always believed that blacks are only two- The article — which documented how the rot may hold the answer to who smothered fifths human. press had ignored the fact that Ovitz's biggest Jane Gill to death in her bedroom two years • A woman who was mistaken for a juror deals had actually been flops, and how he had ago. But an attempt to get the African gray in the O.J. Simpson trial was offered $5,000 failed to dispute federal charges of misusing parrot’s testimony into evidence last week by a news organization just to talk about pension funds — was circulated all over H ol was blocked by the judge. Max was found de being mistaken for a Simpson juror. lywood by fax and photocopy. It was being hydrated and hungry' in his cage two days • NPR/ABC commentator Harry Shearer read at the highest levels of the entertainment after G ill’s murder. observes that Hillary Rodham C lin to n ’s pri industry, with C E O s and even O v itz ’s own After the parrot was coaxed back to health vate attorney, David Kendall, has been using associate gloating over the revelations. at a pet shop, the sh o p ’s owner said the bird an unfortunate metaphor — “a dry hole” — Movie mogul David Gcffen was on a panel began to cry out, “Richard, no, no, no!” The to describe the search for his clien t’s White- at a national magazine editors convention in man charged in the case is G ill’s business water misdeeds. Meanwhile, different folks Miami and discussed the article, lambasting partner, and his name is not Richard. He says have their own subjective versions of her journalists for not doing a better job. “The he is innocent. Gary' Dixon, a private investi book on child raising. Radical columnist irony,” Koch says, “is that the consensus gator working on the case, surmised that the Alexander Cockburn's title: It Takes a Police among journalists is that Gcffen tries to ma bird is now in a witness protection program. State. Satiric shaman Darryl Hcnriqucs: It nipulate the media just as Ovitz docs, h e ’s “Max’s identity has been changed, and he is Takes a Nanny. And the new telecommunica simply not as good at it.” now a macaw,” he said. tions bill: It Takes a V-Chip. http://www.ep.tc/realist THE REALIST ARCHIVE PROJECT