---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 22:18:46 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Ira pal remembers '70s
Ira pal remembers '70s
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/2002/10/09/news/local/4243251.htm
Harry Jay Katz partied with a 'smelly' Einhorn, and shared many of the same
female conquests
Oct. 09, 2002
By DAN GERINGER
geringd@phillynews.com
AS FORMER hippie-guru Ira Einhorn finally gets the murder trial he had
eluded for 20 years, Harry Jay Katz, the Philadelphia party animal who
palled around with him in the shagadelic '70s, leafed through some old
Einhorn letters, sighed and said:
"If you gave this stuff to a bunch of psychiatrists and they read it, they'd
say, 'This guy is one sick s---.' "
Einhorn reviewed books for Katz's entertainment weekly, "ELECTRICity" in
1980-81, before avoiding trial in the killing of girlfriend Holly Maddux by
going on the lam for 20 years.
But as Katz leafed through the neatly hand-printed letters and reviews that
Einhorn had mailed him from Canada back then, he made it clear that Einhorn
was more pal than pundit.
"We both loved to f--- shiksehs [non-Jewish girls]," Katz said,
"particularly shiksehs whose families would plotz [bust a gut] if they knew
their daughters were f------ Jewish guys. We both went after society women
because they were hot, they were beautiful and they were shiksehs.
"And because Philadelphia is a small world, Ira and I dated a lot of the
same women. The trouble was, Ira smelled. I'll tell you how bad he smelled.
You know how you'll have a bunch of guys over, order hoagies with raw
onions, and leave the leftover hoagies out all night? You come down the next
morning and that smell hits you? That's how Ira smelled. So if I had a date
with a woman who had dated Ira, the first thing I'd do is, I'd throw her in
the tub and tell her, 'Soak.' "
Katz, who smells good, chose an Aug. 7, 1980, Einhorn letter from Canada and
read from it in deep, melodious tones.
"One complaint - I'm getting a bit tired handling 3 women," Einhorn wrote,
"so if your lovely wife would release you for a while I sure would
appreciate some friendly male help."
Katz chuckled and chose a July 24, 1980, letter from Cape Breton Island,
Nova Scotia.
"We're ensconced in a 5-room cabin by a stream surrounded on all 4 sides by
very green wooded hills... coldest June in record... nothing but fog and
rain... However, the indoor sports flourish in such an environment and we
are taking full advantage of the opportunity. I'm glad I brought my
illustrated 'Kama Sutra' with me."
As twilight gave way to night, Katz paused in his reading of the letters and
gazed out a rear window at the large decoy doe laying on its side in his
lush East Falls back yard.
He reminded himself to stand the faux-doe upright in time to spend the
evening watching the neighborhood's trophy bucks - "Ten points, 12 points,
whatever," Katz said - mounting their artificial sexual partner.
"Night after night the same bucks hump her," Katz said, raising his
prominent eyebrows in amazement, shaking his head. "I mean, they never
figure out that she's not real."
In a sense, Katz said, neither was Einhorn. "You guys created Ira," Katz
told a reporter and a photographer. "The press wrote that Ira invented Earth
Day. Ira didn't invent Earth Day. Ira would hug a tree, the press would go,
"Look at that! A Jewish guy hugging a tree! That's fabulous!' Next thing you
know, Ira invented Earth Day."
The night before he "took off" for 20 years, Katz said, Einhorn asked his
fellow-swinger for advice.
"He said to me, 'Harry, what do you think?' I told him, 'Ira, I think you're
a middle-aged, hairy, smelly Jewish hippie with dirty feet, and they say you
killed a blonde-haired, blue-eyed shikseh former cheerleader. Zay gezunt.
["Stay well; goodbye."] Take a hike, Ira. You're f---ed.' "
After a 20-year hike, Einhorn was caught in France, extradited and is
standing trial for murder.
"Back in 1981, he didn't plead insanity," Katz mused. "If he had, with all
the drugs he took, he might have gotten off. As many cheeseburgers as I've
eaten in my life, Ira's eaten that many Quaaludes. I've got to say he's one
bright guy. But not that bright - because he got caught."
Before going out to tend to his fallen decoy-doe, Katz shared one final fond
memory from the girl-crazy years. He's 61 now, married but still partying
nightly. Einhorn is 62 and will soon be on the stand, fighting for his life.
But back in the '70s, Katz said, life was one simple, sexually charged
dream.
"We'd all hang out together - Ira, myself, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg,
Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, once in a while Isaac Asimov. Wearing our
dashikis. Talking about transcendental meditation. I didn't understand
transcendental meditation. I had no idea what they were talking about. And
Ira didn't know s---. All Ira wanted to do is get his photo in the paper and
get laid. That's all any of us wanted to do. And we did."
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