Yippie Yippie! Pie Aye! Pie Pie Pie Days!

aron-kay-celebrating-the-4th-anniversary-of-occupy-wall-street-with-dana-beal-and-benny-zable-at-zuccoti2

Meet Aron Kay champion pie thrower, grassroots activist, professional agitator and ‘unrepentant hippie Yippie Jewish world warrior.’

Saira Viola talks  pies, politics and  pot with the original ‘Pie Man,’ a beloved and mischievous figure from the American counter culture era of the 60s and 70s, who continues to exert his unflinching exuberance influence, and passion for the evolving activist movements today.

S.V. Who or what inspired you to become chief pie thrower?

A.K. I happen to be a Vietnam war child and a child of the holocausts my mother was a graduate of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, my father hid from the Nazis in a polish forest for three years so I was very aware of  political situations. I grew up watching Abbot & Costello, and Marx brothers movies, you know, The Three Stooges and my heritage, my Jewish sense of humour is part of my survival. It’s in me, that kind of warped sense of fun. I actually witnessed Tom Forcade pie a member of the President’s Commission of Obscenity and Pornography in 1970  and that was the moment, and it all just followed on from that.

S.V. Have you always been involved with the underground movement and counter culture politics?

A.K. Yes, I explained my background, you know where I’m from and my parents, and back in the 60s I was living in LA and I was part of the Griffin Park Love Ins we gave away free food to the community, I was always a rebel. Even when I was a kid I used to drive my parents crazy like the time I got back from a Grateful Dead concert tripping on acid and snuck  a young lady into my room. Later on I became very focused on radical politics and believe you have to protest you have to challenge what’s unjust with society. I protested the Vietnam war,  went to all the black panther rallies and witnessed the protest at the courthouse  in favour of Bobby Seal (Former Black Panther), campaigned for the legalisation of marijuana with other activists and was  part of a wave of underground radicals that really made a difference.

And I’m not done yet, as a cancer survivor, I have a fresh cause to fight for, I believe that health care is an inalienable  human right for everybody. And there should be a constitutional amendment on it, quality healthcare is a right everyone should be entitled to. As someone who has suffered on the frontline with cancer enduring endless rounds of chemo, having my beard and hair fall out we need a mass amnesty on marijuana, I was lucky I had pot edibles to get me through my cancer treatment, but others aren’t so lucky. We need to de-schedule it so everyone can benefit from treatment. And not give in to corporactocracy.

S.V. Turning back to pie days – who was the very first person you pied?

A.K. I  popped my pie cherry by attempting to pie Rennie Davis  who was a defendant in the case of the Chicago 8…Rennie had sold out to the fifteen year old “perfect master” guru maharaj ji….the pie was thrown during his rally at the Anderson Theater in NYC.

phyllis-schlafyAnti-feminist Phyliss Schlafly receives apple pie

S.V. You’ve said and most people would agree that everybody knows somebody who needs to be pied. You’ve successfully pied all kinds of people including William Buckley Jr., (conservative author), Senator Pan Monihan, former New York mayor Abraham Beame, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy (Nixon operatives), Quinton Kopp, Steve Rubella (Studio 54), Jerry Brown, McGeorge Bundy, Edward Teller, Randal Terry and Andy Warhol. Most of these targets were political, ultra right wing, well known, authority figures. Why did you pie Andy Warhol?

A.K. I believe Warhol had dinner with the Shah of Iran who was a bloodthirsty dictator. It pissed me off.

warhol Andy Warhol gets a cherry pie at a High Times bash

S.V. What do you think the pie achieves that other protests lack?

A.K. Well it brings a sense of humour into the political debate and as a political statement it creates immediate impact, deflates the victim’s ego and humanises them in a way. Some people take it really badly and are offended, others just laugh it off, but it creates an impact.

S.V. Why do you think pie throwing is becoming an increasingly rare form of political  protest?

A.K. The short answer to that is people are too candy assed  to take a risk. It creates legal problems for people and people nowadays don’t want to take that risk. You could end up behind bars, in some places it’s deemed assault and you could get a stiff fine or jail time.

S.V. Who would you most like to pie now?

A.K. The Queen, she needs a drastic pieing – Irish pudding flavour; David Duke (leader of the Klu Klux Klan) he needs a knuckle kosher fist pie; Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O Reilly. And of course paedophiles, Nazis, extreme right wingers – they all need pieing.

S.V.What about the Donald?

A.K.Trump? He needs a female to pie him, he’d feel castrated then.

S.V.Is there anyone you wouldn’t pie?

A.K.There is a pieman etiquette I adhere to. I would never pie anyone disabled, or in a wheelchair, anyone hurt or blind. There’s ethics involved.

S.V. And finally, as someone who’s lived it, been there and done it do you think the alternative culture of the underground has been successful?

A.K. I’m positive we made changes, but there’s still so much more we have to do and can do. Fifty years have passed since the era of the Summer of Love began …it ain’t over till it’s over!!!

pie6Venice activist Jerry Rubin lands one on pro-nuker Edward Teller.

pie19 Rex Weiner and Deanne Stillman, founders of Piekill pie David Frost

pie1 See it fly toward ex-Mayor Beame of NYC

aron-kay-a-k-a-yippie-pie-man-joined-the-4th-aniiversary-gathering-of-occupy-wall-street-with-andrew-ryan
Occupy Wall Street

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Aron Kay with the late Jerry Rubin Chicago 8 Defendant


the-pieman-cometh
The Pie Man cometh JPG Aron Kay In Action

pieman
Pieman Aron Kay Gets Ed Koch out of Joint

pie-1
High Times founder Tom Forcade lands a faceful

http://www.pieman.info/

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16 Responses to Yippie Yippie! Pie Aye! Pie Pie Pie Days!

    1. Fantastic Interview, Saira!

      Comment by Dave Allen on 15 September, 2016 at 12:39 pm
    2. very cool, been a fan for years…………. and sad such activism no longer exists…. to attempt it now would be greeted by instant death via police.

      Comment by stevyn ironfeather on 15 September, 2016 at 4:44 pm
    3. Aron Kay – firmly rooted in US counter culture. Keep on keepin’ on, Aron!

      Comment by Karen O'Mara Swett on 15 September, 2016 at 5:11 pm
    4. hi long time no see….
      still in mourning for the great paulette…..we all loved her

      Comment by aron pieman kay on 15 September, 2016 at 10:48 pm
    5. So true.

      Comment by Donna Englund on 16 September, 2016 at 12:16 am
    6. I’m shocked that the legendary Kay, who also has a legendary memory, made NO mention of Zippie Co-founder Pat Small, who shot to fame in 1972 with his “direct hit” of Miami Beach politician Harold Rosen during the run-up to that year’s national political conventions in Miami Beach. It was the first pieing seen around the world.

      Forcade’s pie fusillade, flung at a pious faux moral-majorite interrogating Forcade during a 1971 silly congressional investigation of the “pornorgraphic” underground press, was certainly a breathtaking moment in congressional blow-harding, but the act was only reported on the East Coast.

      Mr. Kay has previously acknowlegted that Small was the REAL insPIEration for his Hall of Meringue career. Sure, Tom Forcade was the first to politically pie in Washington DC, but Small put pie-throwing on the front pages, elevating it to the tartiest standard of oh-so-sweet satire. Where would Babe Ruth/Aron Kay be without Abner Doubleday/Pat Small? I expect historical revisionism from pie-hard Bolsheviks, not ZipPIEs!

      To be Fair, Kay, Forcade and Small are ALL true American Pie-on-Ears (and faces)!!!

      Pete Mingle,
      Somewhere in Mid-Western Pie-Over Country

      Comment by Pete Mingle on 15 September, 2016 at 6:14 pm
    7. pat was one of my inspirations!!! i saw him a few months ago when he traveles thru nyc….he made a special trip to see me in rehab while i was fighting cancer….definitely a great guy

      Comment by aron pieman kay on 15 September, 2016 at 8:45 pm
    8. A “cupla” more things: Pat Small was the first (and maybe only) pie-thrower arrested and charged for injecting good-taste into the political process. He was convicted of disorderly conduct and sentenced by Miami Beach Judge Nolan SWEET (for real) to 90 days in the Miami/Dade County Stockade–but was released early on “humor-itarian” grounds after serving nearly two months. He retired at the PIEnnacle of his career, and never tossed another tart.

      Comment by Pete Mingle on 15 September, 2016 at 6:31 pm
    9. pieman forever

      Comment by john bessa on 15 September, 2016 at 7:02 pm
    10. Honoured to meet and spend some time talking to Aron in The Yippee Cafe in Greenwich Village a few years back. Aron’s a really nice gentle guy, almost shy. Saw Dana Beal at The Yippee Cafe too, but he was upset about something and didn’t want to talk to Aron, let alone me… I was hoping to meet Aron’s good friend A.J. Weberman at The Yippee Cafe, but when I rang him he said it was too cold to come outdoors. (He was right – it was freezing…) However, I met A.J the next day, which was fascinating – the king of the Dylanologists and inventor of Garbology. gave me permission to privately publish his book “Weberman On Dylan ” – I was given the rough manuscript by the late John Bauldie, the editor of the top Dylan magazine “The Telegraph”. There’s some great footage of Aron, A.J and Dana – and David Peel (and more…) in the film “The Ballad Of A.J Weberman”. It’s on youtube

      Comment by John Roberts on 15 September, 2016 at 8:56 pm
    11. This is a correction: Aron Key never pied William Shatner. It was Rex Weiner that pied William Shatner. Below is an article by Rex We I need raking credit for that. Alan, as a friend of Aron Kay I called him and confined that he did not pie Shatner. Please print a correction.

      http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/04/01/heres-pie-in-your-eye/

      Comment by Joseph Pena on 15 September, 2016 at 9:49 pm
    12. Steven E. Conliff was also arrested, charged, and found not guilty by a jury in Columbus, Ohio for pieing Governor James Rhodes. He was fined $100 for disorderly conduct by the judge. A more complete set of details is available in “Blacklisted News”, a Yippie book.

      Comment by Froggy Smith on 15 September, 2016 at 10:20 pm
    13. I apologize for not remembering that Ohio’s late great Steve Conliff delivered just desserts to the murderous Governor Rhodes. Conliff possessed tremendous courage, humor and tenacity. And he was whip smart. Pat Small was fortunate to have known Steve, and was overjoyed when a jury of his peers found him not guilty. Steve went on to a storied career in community journalism in Columbus. He died in 2006 less than a month after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

      Comment by Pete Mingle on 16 September, 2016 at 3:19 am
    14. That was an excellent piece! Thanks for publishing it.
      Aron didn’t mention the only pieing that I ever saw, a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) minion who was addressing the annual convention of NORML (National Organization for Reform of Mariluana Laws), somewhere back in the 70s or 80s.
      Glad to have met him, way back in ’69 in Chicago.

      Comment by Roy B. Scherer on 17 September, 2016 at 12:37 am
    15. Are u referring to.joe Nelli’s ?

      Comment by aron kay on 17 September, 2016 at 1:42 pm
    16. And happy late Pi day!

      Comment by Liza Nanni on 24 March, 2019 at 7:26 pm

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