Allen Ginsberg's Accountant

In the early sixties, Don Wilen had just one tax client—Mrs. Sheftel, who ran the candy store on his corner. When Paul Krassner, radical prankster and editor of the satirical journal The Realist, printed an interview with George Lincoln Rockwell, the American Nazi Party founder, Wilen wrote in to complain.

“I said,” Wilen recently recalled, “‘I’m a Jewish accountant, and respect your right to free speech, but hate—’” Krassner rang him up. “An accountant! I need an accountant.” Now Wilen had two clients.

One day Wilen’s mother, babysitting, picked up the phone. “Some friend of yours, making believe he’s the famous poet Allen Ginsberg.” Wilen now had three.

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