LENNY BRUCE: A First Amendment Hero!

[Victor Pross]

LENNY BRUCE: A First Amendment Hero!

This is an expanded article that was first posted at SOLOPASSION.

** ** **

(“Please don’t lock up these words”)

He was a man with a disquieting sense of humor every step of the way.*(1.1) He entertained America with a disturbing frankness. His words crossed the law and those in it. He became intolerable to people in power.*(1.2) Words were his catalyst to fame…and failure.*(1.3) He tore into the planks of conventional morality like a buzz-saw.*(1.4) His life became a hamstring of censorship, arrests, trials, persecutions, convictions and appeals.*(1.5) When it was over, not even the First Amendment saved him. He died convicted—a comedian condemned for his words.

His name was Lenny Bruce.*(1.6)

He was a legendary comic, social satirist, free-speech crusader and martyr to the uptight social and moral repressions of the Age of Conformity.**(2.1)

Lenny Bruce was not a philosopher who plunged the deepest issues of ethics and epistemology. However, he was a deep man in his own way. Sometimes his comedy contained a very simple moral message: “You can’t do anything with anybody’s body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person---you can only do one thing to make it dirty: kill it.” Lenny Bruce, the moralist, criticized the society that would eschew the women who had “a belly full of baby”---merely because some witch doctor didn’t sprinkle water on her or simply because she didn’t have a “hoop on her finger.” It takes a certain mindset that believes that this woman should be stoned to death.

Lenny Bruce was persecuted by that very same society---because he had the balls to tell them so that they were wrong. (“You need that mad man to stand up and tell you when you’re blowing it, man!”)

It was Lenny Bruce who was killed—driven to an early grave by relentless persecution. The charge: Word crimes. The very idea seems foreign to us.***(3.1) It strikes us a ridiculous farce. He lampooned popes, preachers, politicians, and judges. He wanted to expose “the lie” in life – all of those respectable cover-ups used to hide the dirty truth. His words – comical, critical, and profane – put America’s First-Amendment principle to the test: can offensive speech really be free?***(3.2)

Philosophically, he aspired for the best in humankind (maybe), while prepared to accept the worst (definitely). In fact, he was honest with himself and others: “I am heinously guilty of the paradoxes I assail in our society.”

Bruce could have been left alone had he not said certain things in certain ways, but his personality and his sense of mission made that impossible.****(4.1) Utilizing obscenity as a miner uses dynamite to blow up the deeply impacted prejudices and repressions of middle-class society, Lenny eventually goaded the fury of the Catholic Church, the police and a lot of people who knew nothing at all about him except that he had a dirty mouth. Arrested as many as seven times in a single city, he eventually abandoned his stage career to become a free-speech crusader, employing a score of famous attorneys in a history-making series of trials that ended finally with the defendant exonerated but the man utterly destroyed.**(2.2)

Lenny Bruce was a crusading comic who tore into ridiculous social taboos. He was also a comic innovator. He smashed archaic mother-in-law jokes with his own version: “My mother-in-law broke up my marriage. My wife came home and found us in bed together.” When a patron confronted Bruce telling him that he regarded that sick, Bruce retorted: I said my wife’s mother—not mine!”

It was a radical head-on clash of old and new comedy, of Yiddish and bebop, of burlesque and bohemia. Bruce arrived as a one-man backlash against the tired mainstream 1950s entertainers—-the Lone individualist confronting tradition. His whole act was an impressionistic view of a seamy 1950s America, such as the funny bit on the teenage glue-sniffling fad.

Nobody but Bruce could recycle old premises and crush them into comedic gold, like his used car salesman trying to sell a car that has been damaged in a suicide pack (“There’s a little lipstick on the exhaust pipe. Jes’ wipe if off there”). His comedy moved on from zany fun-house antics to angry rallying against hypocrisy and organized religion. And sometimes he blended the two--serious commentary with fanciful comedy. He had a particular genius for that.

Lenny Bruce is the old story of the individual versus the state. He fought for the right for free speech. He was called “blasphemous,” “obscene” and “sick.” He was also called “the Earl of Angst” and “the Duke of Dissent.” He was a radical, a free-wheeling Jew who employed the argot of the hipster. He punctuated his act with jive-speak (“like wow,” “man,” “dig this,” “cat”) and Yiddish (“schumuck,” “putz,” “shtup”). He was cool incarnate.

Bruce mocked the whole sentimental show-business monolith. He loathed showbiz’s desperate whoring after status, its preposterous smugness, its crybaby sentimentality, and its secret contempt for the public it fawns upon. “Oh, the healthy comedians would never offend…unless you happen to be fat, bald, skinny, deaf, dumb, or blind.” He had broken free the of the traditional comedy cadre. “I don’t have an act,” he exclaimed,” I just talk. I’m just Lenny Bruce.”

In this sense, he was a first-hander. He invented "comic realism."

One of Bruce’s most famous monologues was “Religions, Inc.” where he laid to waste organized religion. The commands of God and man could not countenance such a comic. The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras was cast into a dungeon when he mocked the popular gods as fanciful playthings. It was history being repeated in the story of Lenny Bruce.

Bruce also dealt with race issues: Dick Gregory, a black comedian of the times, saw Bruce’s show once. On stage, Bruce peered into the audience: “Are there any niggers here tonight?” he asked, with matter-of-fact candor. Bruce then rattled off a string of ethnic insults, trying to defuse brutal hate words like nigger, kike, wop, gook, sheenie and jigaboo. He thus stunned listeners into thinking about unthinkable things. Gregory later said, after the show: “If they don’t kill him or throw him in jail he’s liable to shake up this whole fuckin’ country.”

As it played out, those events transpired. “You say those words enough times,” Bruce exclaimed, “and you break the violence down in them. That way you won’t have some eight-year-old coming crying because someone in the school yard called him a nigger. The point? That the word’s suppression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.”

Bruce also tackled the issue of anti-Semitism with a direct left hook: “I am of Semitic background…I assume I’m Jewish. Now, a Jew, dictionary style, is one who descended from the ancient tribes of Judea or one who is regarded to have descended from that tribe. But you and I know what a Jew is: "ONE WHO KILLED OUR LORD!”

The time came to shut this guy up.

The authorities swooped in to shut the mouth of the dirty comic. The First Amendment was under attack. Bruce fought like a Christian tossed to the lions. "I have a right to say the things I'm saying, I'm not hurting anybody. They're just words."

But the issue here is not if one agrees with the words of Lenny Bruce—but to fight to the death his right to say them. The First Amendment is here to protect even the most so-called “offensive” words—-for if we all agreed and loved everything uttered and heard, there would be no need for the First Amendment! Without freedom of speech, we might as well fold tent and forget about this culture. Are we to ignore the Lenny Bruce story and toss him off as a mere "dirty comic" from the by-gone age of 1950s America?

In the end, it was Lenny Bruce who was judging us: “I’m not a comedian. And I’m not sick,” Bruce cried out during one of his many trials. “The world is sick and I’m the doctor. I’m a surgeon with a scalpel for false values.”

Lenny Bruce on the question of politics: “With the choice between communism and capitalism, I’m for freedom, man. Under capitalism, if I don’t dig company A, I can say ‘screw you’ and walk across the street to company B. Communism is like the phone company, man. I can’t say ‘screw you phone company, I’m gonna'---yeah, going to what, putz? Forget it, man. You’ll end up with two empty tin-cans tied to a string.” (‘Hello? Hello? Hello?’)

We must pay the toll to travel the roads of freedom. And Lenny Bruce did. He was his own Socratic maxim was that the unobjectionable life is not worth living. Lenny Bruce fought to liberate words. Don't hold back, don't sugarcoat, and don't be hypocritical. Speak of life--as it is. That was the reason and risk of his humor.

As one Lenny Bruce trial juror said: “The authors of First Amendment knew that novel and unconventional ideas might disturb the complacent, but they chose to encourage a freedom which they believed essential if a vigorous enlightenment was ever to triumph over slothful ignorance.”

He spoke about things that upset all philosophical perspectives, and came to conclusions that would leave one feeling cold. When Bruce was ribald, raunchy, irreverent, and tasteless, he was American standing on his rights.*****(1.7) “Show me the average sex maniac,” he challenged his audience once, “the one that takes your eight-year-old, schtups her in the parking lot, and then kills her--and I’ll show you a guy who’s had a good religious upbringing.”

He was a troubled and dire man, a drug-addled comedian. Part of Bruce’s posthumous fame is that he died young and tragically—-found dead and naked on his bathroom floor from a drug overdose. He was 40 years-old. Said one observer: "Lenny died of an over-does of police."*****(5.1) When he died, it became instantly clear how enormously the nation had erred.

He was a misunderstood path-blazer, a ground-breaker--he was an alienated neo conservative or rather a "Liberal" in the old sense of the word--a satirist seeking revenge for outraged moral idealism through techniques of shock and obscenity—this being as old as Aristophanes. To simply trash Bruce as a "dirty comic" is to miss the whole point of his "sermons”, which were ferociously ethical in their thrust.

Lenny Bruce, to his credit, did create new free speech zones for Americans.*(1.8) He mocked the hypocrisy of religious faiths, of political beliefs, of cloaked liberal racism, and of puritan ethics. He was brilliantly funny. He did not shrink from stating his mind and defended his right to do so. Lenny Bruce "held his truth against all men" and he paid the price. But that’s the old story of the individual against the collective.

Lenny was at the end of his ropes, but his sense of humor remained, however it was in tatters: "Fighting my persecution seems as futile as asking Barry Goldwater to speak at a memorial to send the Rosenberg kids to college."

"The ideas I have are now imprisoned within me, and unless this court acts, will not be permitted expression..." Even though Lenny's satire was brutal, he still had many childlike qualities. One of these was his faith that he would eventually find justice. This was evident by his appearance at the San Francisco field office of the FBI on October 10, 1965. He lodged a complaint that the courts of New York and California were conspiring to violate his rights. As the lower courts were failing to abide by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court with regard to obscenity, no action was taken by the FBI in this matter. In fact, in internal memos, the Feds referred to Lenny as a sick, obscene entertainer.*****(5.2)

Nearly almost forty years after Bruce’s death, he got a pardon—forty years too late! The best epitaph would be a quote from George Pataki: "Freedom of speech is one of the great American values, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terrorism."****(4.2)

The Lenny Bruce story is a sobering example of what can go horribly wrong when citizens and others are persecuted for word crimes – for speaking their minds in their own way and by the light of their own reason.***(3.3)

Make no mistake about it: Lenny Bruce was a First Amendment hero.

**

NOTE FROM ADMINISTRATOR:

For other identification, please see here.

* Plagiarized from The Trials of Lenny Bruce The Fall and Rise of an American Icon by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover. The original passages read as follows:

(1.1) (

Chapter One online

)

He was a man with an unsettling sense of humor.

(1.2) (Chapter One online)

He entertained America with disturbing frankness. His words crossed the law and those in it. He became intolerable to people too powerful to ignore.

(1.3) (Chapter One online)

Words were his catalyst to fame; to failure, as well.

(1.4) (Chapter One online)

He tore into the planks of conventional morality like a furious buzz-saw...

(1.5) (Chapter One online)

Censorship, arrests, trials, convictions, and appeals.

(1.6) (Chapter One online)

When it was over, not even the First Amendment saved him. He died convicted-a comedian condemned for his words. He was Lenny Bruce.

(1.7) (quoted in a review by Heather Joslyn

here

)

When Lenny was ribald, raunchy, irreverent and tasteless, he was an American standing on his rights...

(1.8) (quoted in a review by Nick Gillespie

here

)

Lenny Bruce...create[d] new free speech zones for Americans.

** Plagiarized from Ladies and Gentlemen - Lenny Bruce!!! by Albert Goldman. The original passages read as follows:

(2.1) (

Synopsis from jacket cover online

)

Such a man was Lenny Bruce, the legendary comic, social satirist, free-speech crusader and martyr to the uptight social and moral repressions of the Age of Conformity.

(2.2) (Synopsis from jacket cover online)

Using obscenity as a miner uses dynamite to blow up the deeply impacted prejudices and repressions of middle-class society, Lenny eventually provoked the wrath of the Catholic Church, the police and a lot of people who knew nothing at all about him except that he had a dirty mouth. Arrested as many as seven times in a single city, he eventually abandoned his stage career to become a free-speech crusader, employing a score of famous attorneys in a history-making series of trials that ended finally with the defendant exonerated but the man utterly destroyed.

*** Plagiarized from Pardon Lenny Bruce by Ronald K.L. Collins & Robert Corn-Revere. The original passages read as follows:

(3.1)

Word crimes. The very idea seems foreign to us.

(3.2)

He lampooned popes, preachers, politicians, and judges. He wanted to expose “the lie” in life – all of those respectable cover-ups used to hide the dirty truth. His words – comical, critical, and profane – put America’s First-Amendment principle to the test: can offensive speech really be free?

(3.3)

It is a sobering example of what can go horribly wrong when citizens and others are persecuted for word crimes – for speaking their minds in their own way and by the light of their own reason.

**** Plagiarized from review of Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware! by Shelton Hull. The original passages read as follows:

(4.1)

He'd have prospered into old age had he simply shut up with certain things said in certain ways, but his personality and his sense of mission made that impossible.

(4.2)

The best epitaph would be a quote from George Pataki, on the occasion of the pardon that brought Lenny Bruce's story full circle and sparked this recent wave of fine products available: "Freedom of speech is one of the great American values, and I hope this pardon serves as a reminder of the precious freedoms we are fighting to preserve as we continue to wage the war on terrorism."

***** Plagiarized from Lenny by Gordon Williams. The original passages read as follows:

(5.1)

My mother once told me that it wasn't an overdose of drugs that killed Lenny; it was an overdose of cops.

(5.2)

Even though Lenny's satire was brutal, he still had many childlike qualities. One of these was his faith that he would eventually find justice. This was evident by his appearance at the San Francisco field office of the FBI on October 10, 1965. He lodged a complaint that the courts of New York and California were conspiring to violate his rights. As the lower courts were failing to abide by decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court with regard to obscenity, no action was taken by the FBI in this matter. In fact, in internal memos, the Feds referred to Lenny as a sick, obscene entertainer.

OL extends its deepest apologies to Ronald K.L. Collins, David M. Skover, Robert Corn-Revere, Shelton Hull, Gordon Williams, and the heir or heirs of Albert Goldman.

NOTE: There are obviously many more plagiarized passages, especially from the Collins and Skover book, but they were not available online. They will be identified once the book and other sources are consulted.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Michael Stuart Kelly

[Victor Pross]

A little bit of interesting trivia here: Ayn Rand's Playboy interview also had an article about Lenny Bruce. How how about that? Lenny Bruce and and Ayn Rand in the same issue of Playboy [that's rather surreal!]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

Here is a copy of a reply I had on my hard disk from the July 17-27 black hole.

When I was growing up, I never paid much attention to comedians who did not appear regularly on TV, so I only became aware of Lenny Bruce (years ago) because of the Bob Fosse film of his life starring Dustin Hoffman. I am a big fan of both Bob Fosse (Star 80, All That Jazz, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, etc.) and Dustin Hoffman (who really doesn't need examples). I remember coming away from the film with a tremendous sense of admiration for Lenny, despite his dumb manner of dying.

I just did some online searching because of your article. I think it is worthwhile to take a hard look at this guy from an Objectivist standpoint.

America produces some strange heroes and Lenny certainly is that ("hero" and "strange" that is). What strikes me the most about his satirical comments and uneven life is not the dirty words or drug use. That was important back then—back when he lived. What I see is that Lenny stood up to repressive authority and he meant it. He was constantly in and out of jail to prove it. He also hated hypocrisy with a burning passion. I personally feel a strong kinship with these values.

Notice that the people in charge back then crucified Lenny because of his obscene language, but the real issue was his irreverence for their authority. If he could say the things he did about them, they feared other people would not respect them. They would lose their privilege, which was protected by public ignorance and a bluff.

That was especially true of the church. An all Catholic jury in Chicago did not find any amusement in Lenny holding up a picture of a naked woman and saying, “God, your Jesus Christ, made these tits.” The frontal attack on the church was too apparent. Those same jury members did tolerate members of the congregation masturbating to that same picture (which was a serious sin for them), or, say, molesting children, then going to confessional to submit themselves to the church's authority. Nailing Lenny to the obscenity cross was a mere subterfuge for protecting their power and public image.

With that kind of publicly accepted hypocrisy covering the encroachment of the First Amendment, only obscenity can cut through the thick web of false piety. How would an Objectivist who did not use obscene language do it? Hmmm… Lemee see… Maybe give an interview in Playboy Magazine about philosophy—a magazine full of pictures of tits and ass? Damn right. And that’s exactly what Ayn Rand did, back when that publication was considered a “dirty magazine” by respectable church-goers.

For those interested, here is a good overview of Lenny’s creative growth by Cub Koda, All Music Guide on the Internet:

His work went through three basic phases of development, starting with the bits and routines that lampooned show business conventions and often caused audiences to walk out. Tiring of the sheer drudgery of regurgitating the same material on a nightly basis, Lenny entered his second phase, abandoning all format onstage, free forming his entire performance. His final phase at the end of his career were slow moving, obsessive shows centered around the contradictions in the American legal system.

Notice that the issues he dealt with in his work got more and more serious as he got older. I like that. But what I really like about Lenny is that he had the courage to do in life what he presented on stage. He was dead serious about his First Amendment rights and he turned into a royal pain in the butt for authorities who breached them. For example, as you mentioned in your article, he filed a conspiracy charge with the FBI against the New York and California court systems. For those interested in seeing his FBI file, here is the link. It might have been doomed to failure at that time, but he still did it. He latched on to those violating his rights like an angry watchdog on the seat of a mailman’s pants. How many did not do something like that back then?

Even in Objectivism today, how many Objectivists, not all, I mean only those who condemn this man for things like nihilism, obscenity, drug use or whatever, do not stand up for their convictions in their safe little lives? How many have the courage? Victor, believe it or not, I have heard criticism against Lenny from some Objectivists because of your article. But mostly I have heard silence.

This may not be a theme that excites visions of Roark or Galt, but let me join you and be another one to say out loud: “THANK YOU, LENNY BRUCE!” We have our freedom of speech today because crazy bastards like Lenny Bruce have protected it.

He was outrageously funny, too. I really like some of his quotes, so here are a few that resonate with me in no particular order.

When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.

Communism is like one big phone company.

The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them.

"You know there's no crooked politicians. There's never a lie because there is never any truth..."

"Fuck you." Never understood that insult, because fucking someone is actually really pleasant. If we're trying to be mean, we should say "unfuck you!"

Take away the right to say “fuck” and you take away the right to say “Fuck the Government.”

Michael

[Victor Pross]

It seems like you expanded here. I like a lot of the links you dug up on Lenny.

[Michael Russell]

Victor, Lenny Bruce would be a great subject for a Victor Pross caricature. Have you already painted him?

[Victor Pross]

Lenny Bruce? I use to draw him a lot as a teenager--I was a Lenny Bruce fanatic. In high school, I would draw him and others like him--dudes with atitude, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. I would draw on my note books, books, on the walls.

Of course, I still dig Lenny. He's very much like me. Hmmm, how do you like that? I'm still to do a serious and cool painting of him. He is on the list, there is no question about that. Why I haven't yet, don't ask.

[RaviKissoon]

Hey My name is ravi Kissoon i found out about Lenny Bruce after I finished a show back in 1994. I went on this funny rant about racial slurs and the audience went crazy but the strange thing is that Al Martin owns New York Comedy Club and he shut the lights on me. I ended doing even better with the lights and the mic off. After I asked him why he did that and he said." were not gonna have any of that in my club" Up to this day I find it strange. Then they started doing black comedy night, latino comedy night and so on. I am so sick of that shit. Comedy is comedy, who gives a shit what nationality the person is, if its funny its funny. Well I have pretty much been black listed for speaking my mind. after that particular show a few people that really enjoyed my show alot asked me if I knew who Lenny Bruce was, I said no and asked if I should know him. I thought they were referring to a lawyer or something. I have to say I am very happy for those people introducing me to him. I keep pluggin away in what I believe and now i follow alot of what Noam Chompsky says. I like him too and BIll Hicks and George Carlin these are my influences. well if you wanna check out one of my clips. check here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK1hsKm4bbY

Enjoy Ravi Kissoon

[Chris Grieb]

Michael and Victor; The movie Lenny is Dustin Hoffman's best work. That being the case he did not win an Oscar. Bruce was driven to an early grave but he sometimes helped. Thanks for reminding us of his story.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ravi,

Welcome to OL.

A comedian, huh?

Hmmmmmmm...

Michael

[RaviKissoon]

Hey Thank You its a priviledge to talk about Lenny with the same feeling. I love the guy and he will always be an influence. It is sad how some people have the power to force people into changing their minds or actions. I wish he was still around. If you like at I can point you to a video of my show.

[RaviKissoon]

I was just wondering you know like what would Lenny say about the current affairs today and all this tension racially and just the whole stew of things. It would be so great to hear him on these topics. I am sure he would have and insight that would enlighten us in some way. What would he say about Kramer or racial tensions and what would he say about Iraq and Bin Laden or Bush. I wish I could just sit down and spend hours talking with him to see what his unique perspective is on these and many other subjects. Any one know someone who can channel Lenny Bruce?

[Victor Pross]

I was just wondering you know like what would Lenny say about the current affairs today and all this tension racially and just the whole stew of things. It would be so great to hear him on these topics. I am sure he would have and insight that would enlighten us in some way. What would he say about Kramer or racial tensions and what would he say about Iraq and Bin Laden or Bush. I wish I could just sit down and spend hours talking with him to see what his unique perspective is on these and many other subjects. Any one know someone who can channel Lenny Bruce?

Channel Lenny? That would be me. I'll get back to you later tonight once I do. Hold on.

[Victor Pross]

Lenny Bruce Documentary: Swear To Tell The Truth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVaBfUMYhR8...ted&search= (Part one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7AnPCV4sZU...ted&search= (Part two)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dGD6idVShI...ted&search= (Part three)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT996-WQ2hE...ted&search= (Part four)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT996-WQ2hE...ted&search= (Part five)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT996-WQ2hE...ted&search= (Part six)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1gcrGcmiQ...ted&search= (Part seven)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UMf_yRcpv4...ted&search= (Part eight)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47HUqYlXLms...ted&search= (Part nine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqp4lwGKaJg...ted&search= (Part ten)

*****

Edited February 13, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

One of the sources for the opening article has been identified on another web site here. (I never thought I would say this, but a hat tip for the information is in order.) Although not outright plagiary, the first paragraph is too close for comfort. A shell-like method of following the same sequence of sentences, but replacing some words and expressions, is evident.

More research is necessary to find the same shortcoming in other parts of the essay, so my comment is limited for now to the opening paragraph. This does not mean that I do not find the possibility of more instances likely. I do. But I merely want to confine my remarks to the facts when mentioning this here and in other places.

The source is The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon by Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover. This work is from 2002.

Michael