highly recommended
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_paul_conrad_20100905/a few excerpts (but worth reading the whole thing):
. . .. .
I met one of these few remaining 20th century radicals in February 2007, a man whom Time magazine called “an acid-penned liberal” in 1960, and had a conversation with him that was not particularly radical or even humorous and was barely political, but why should it have been? Why should any artist be expected to mirror the heightened fury or the magnanimous joy of his art when he’s not actively engaged in creating it? I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s surprising description of Groucho Marx upon meeting him at a restaurant in the late 1970s, when he said that Marx was no funnier than anybody’s elderly uncle whom you might get stuck talking to at a family reunion. Translation: Groucho Marx is not so ethereal that he doesn’t fit into humanity with the rest of us; his magnificent talent doesn’t so much separate him from everybody else as it elevates the cachet of us all, the same way that listening to a recording of Chet Baker singing So che ti perdero and lighting a candle might elevate the cachet of a lousy plate of spaghetti. What was remarkable, I told myself after meeting Paul Conrad, this 20th century establishment radical, and recording two hours of a conversation filled largely with meandering twaddle and reminiscences so worn out that much of their exquisite detail had been obliterated by years of affectionate caressing, was his deep humanity, infectious calm and endearing exhaustion, which is precisely where the greatest art, radical or otherwise, is supposed to eventually lead all of us—isn’t it? Aside from his white-hot contempt for television, George Bush, the death of the environment, the gun lobby and the war in Iraq, the 20th century hell raiser was at peace, finally.
That said, asking Conrad, winner of three Pulitzer Prizes and staff cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times during its heyday and, by some people’s account, the greatest editorial cartoonist ever produced by the United States of America, to talk about his cartooning is like asking Thelonious Monk to talk about his musicianship: It’s stupid, particularly because a cartoonist, like a musician, has already found the most eloquent means of expressing himself and it’s definitely not through conversation with a stranger. And while I was aware that no amount of talk could reveal more about the man than simply looking at his enormous body of work, I was thankful to discover, after five minutes of bullshitting with him while I set up the microphone for our interview, that at least Conrad made more sense and was eminently more gracious than I’d heard Monk ever was.
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“ is a f***** nut,” Conrad continued, packing his pipe. “I think he borders on the insane.”
“Worse than Nixon?” I said, being too young to have any real memory of the man beyond the Rich Little version that was as benign as Arte Johnson’s Nazi on “Laugh-In.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, knowing better.
I should say, also, that I brought up Nixon, not because I’m such a lazy student of American history that I’m only capable of comparing one alleged worst president of all time! with another, but because Nixon was to Paul Conrad what the unshaven, slouched and disillusioned G.I. was to famed WWII cartoonist Bill Mauldin: not just his bread and butter but also his mortgage and the college tuitions for his children.
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