The spirit of Lenny Bruce hovered over the festival. Robert Klein said Bruce was “good, funny, socially important—the best and highest a comedian could do.” Perhaps Bruce’s most audacious onstage moment was in 1962 when he became the voice of Holocaust orchestrator Adolf Eichmann, in a German accent: “My defense—I was a soldier. I saw the end of a conscientious day’s effort. I watched through the portholes. I saw every Jew burned and turned into soap. Do you people think yourselves better because you burned your enemies at long distance with missiles without ever seeing what you had done to them? Hiroshima auf Wiedersehen. . . .”
Bruce was arrested for obscenity that night.
That controversial portrayal of Eichmann had particularly inspired Bill Maher, who lost his ABC show, Politically Incorrect , because six days after 9/11 he said, “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away—that’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” Of course, the hijackers couldn’t have gotten out of the plane at that point even if they wanted to.
After the terrorist attacks, Larry King asked Maher how soon it would be all right to be funny again. “So like two months, that’s a good time? One month is a good time?” King also asked Dr. Andrew Weil, “Are bulimics throwing up more often?”
Less than three weeks after 9/11, at a roast for Hugh Hefner, Gilbert Gottfried began, “Tonight I’m going to perform under my Muslim name, Hasn’t bin Laid.” He got a big laugh, but when he closed with, “I have to catch a flight to Los Angeles—I can’t get a direct flight—they said they have to stop at the Empire State Building first,” the audience booed.
Which brings us to Homeland Security. I had gone through a metal detector at the airport, and again, along with 4,145 others, at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace. I had to take my shoes off before I could fly, and now I got wanded to preserve the safety of comedians. My weapon, a tape recorder, was temporarily confiscated. There was even a sign warning “Heckling Will Not Be Tolerated.” Would-be hecklers were informed that they’d be removed from the concert hall if they heckled a performer and would not be given refunds.
Jon Stewart was in top form: “That suicide-bomb married couple were gonna blow themselves up at a wedding in Jordan. I’d say—relationship issues.” “The Emergency Broadcast System is a test of your remote control.” “Posting the Ten Commandments is as effective as posting ‘Employees Must Wash Hands.’ ” “Senator Bill Frist, he’s a doctor and he says that AIDS could be transmitted from sweat and tears. Not unless your penis weeps while you’re fucking somebody.”
Although Stewart was used to the TV audiences who virtually all agreed with his stance on Iraq, here, when he talked about George Bush’s renewed push to justify the war, he couldn’t help but notice that those in the front rows were not laughing and applauding like those “in the less expensive seats. You like the way things are going just fine.” He began pointing at different sections of the orchestra: “You run Halliburton. . . . You make bombs. . . . You own NASCAR.”
Lewis Black, seen periodically on The Daily Show, is an incisive and outspoken stand-up comic, but when he performed at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, he found himself sitting next to Dick Cheney, one of his favorite targets. I asked Black how that went.
“It worked out fine,” he told me, “as I had destroyed my usual act, in the name of entertainment. As long as you take the gig, you should be good at it, and I feel that nothing would have been accomplished if I had pissed all over them. I didn’t want to spend the next week talking to reporters about it. I stopped and talked to the vice president as I left the dais. One of his closest friends is the brother of a close friend of mine who passed away a number of years ago. I asked him to please say ‘Hi’ to his friend for me. I hadn’t seen him in quite some time. So basically I asked the vice president to be my messenger boy, and hopefully it would keep him out of trouble for a few minutes.”
There had been a rumor that Dave Chappelle would do a three-hour set, but he did just one hour. “You can’t do three hours in Las Vegas,” Chris Rock remarked. “They want people to get out to the casinos and gamble.” Chappelle’s appearance at the festival was the first event to be sold out. After all, he had fled to South Africa, leaving behind his successful Chappelle’s Show and a $50 million development deal. Now there were six security guards in red jackets sitting on the floor at the foot of the stage, facing the audience.
“Holy shit,” were Chappelle’s first words in response to the ovation when he walked on stage. “Bottom line: If you haven’t heard about me, I’m fucking insane!” And later: “Kanye did the bravest thing.” (After Hurricane Katrina, rapper Kanye West said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”) “The bravest. I’m gonna miss him. I’m not gonna risk my career to tell white people obvious things. I saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks.” Still later: “We have to work on our vocabulary. ‘Minorities’: a high-class way of calling you a nigger to your face. ‘Get away from my car, you minority!’ ” “Vicente Fox said that Mexican immigrants do jobs that not even blacks do. He is right. Till I see a nigger selling oranges on the street, I can’t talk.” “I’m not a crackhead. I was only living out my dream: to get to the top of show business and go back to Africa.”
Unlike Richard Pryor’s confessional comedy, Chappelle did not say what precipitated his departure to fulfill his “dream.” Pryor had the ability to reach into his unconscious and turn himself inside out for the benefit of an audience. Like a comedic alchemist transforming pain into laughter, he revealed on stage the anguished private dialogues he’d held—with his heart during an attack, and with the pipe through which he had freebased cocaine—balancing on the cusp of tragedy and absurdity.
Pryor was self-educated, and on his television show he advised children to turn off their TV sets and read books. On the day Pryor died in December 2005, Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl performed at McCabe’s in Los Angeles. Gregory eulogized Pryor as “a true genius,” and Sahl reminisced about Gene McCarthy, who had died that same day.
After the invasion of Iraq, the late-night talk-show monologues—by Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien—helped demonize Saddam Hussein and these hosts served as cheerleaders for the war. But as the un-brainwashing of America goes, so goes the late-night talk-show monologue. O’Brien, for example: “Congress stepped up the pressure on President Bush to come up with an exit strategy for Iraq. Today, Bush said, ‘I have an exit strategy—I’m leaving office in 2008.’ ” And sleazy government officials are now easy-listening joke references. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: “What does Karl Rove have for breakfast? . . . Bagel with a smear.”
What’s shocking about Lenny Bruce these days is the fact that he was punished for his political and religious views in the guise of violating obscenity laws. What’s obscene by current standards is that his comment after channeling Adolf Eichmann would end up in a police report as follows: “Then talking about the war he stated, ‘If we would have lost the war, they would have strung [President Harry] Truman up by the balls.’ ”
Lenny was a lone voice back then, but irreverence has since become an industry.
DON IMUS MEETS MICHAEL RICHARDS
In the early 1960s, Dick Gregory called his autobiography Nigger, because, he explained, “I told my mama if she hears anybody shout ‘nigger,’ they’re just advertising my book.” Richard Pryor called one of his albums That Crazy Nigger, and wrote an article for The Realist about the disproportionate number of blacks fighting and dying in Vietnam, titled “Uncle Sam Wants You Dead, Nigger!” After a visit to Africa, he reclaimed his heritage, promising not to use that word again. And then there was Lenny Bruce, on stage one night, riding an invisible unicycle as he balanced his way along a tightrope into uncharted comedic territory:
“The reason I don’t get hung up with, well, say, integration, is that by the time Bob Newhart is integrated, I’m bigoted. And anyway, Martin Luther
King, Bayard Rustin are geniuses, the battle’s won. By the way, are there any niggers here tonight? [In outraged whisper, as if an audience member] ‘What did he say? Are there any niggers here tonight? Jesus Christ! Is that cruel. Does he have to get that low for laughs? Wow! Have I ever talked about the schwarzes when the schwarzes had gone home? Or spoken about the Moulonjohns when they’d left? Or placated some Southerner by absence of voice when he ranted and raved about nigger nigger nigger?’
“[In his own voice]: Are there any niggers here tonight? I know that one nigger who works here, I see him back there. Oh, there’s two niggers, customers, and, ah, aha! Between those two niggers sits one kike—man, thank God for the kike! Uh, two kikes. That’s two kikes, and three niggers, and one spic. One spic—two, three spics. One mick. One mick, one spic, one hick, thick, funky, spunky boogey. And there’s another kike. Three kikes. Three kikes, one guinea, one greaseball. Three greaseballs, two guineas. Two guineas, one hunky funky lace-curtain Irish mick. That mick spic hunky funky boogey. Two guineas plus three greaseballs and four boogeys makes usually three spics. Minus two Yid spic Polack funky spunky Polacks. [Auctioneer’s voice] ‘Five more niggers! Five more niggers!’ [Gambler’s voice] ‘I pass with six niggers and eight micks and four spics.’
“[In his own voice] The point? That the word’s suppression gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. If President Kennedy got on television and said, ‘Tonight I’d like to introduce the niggers in my cabinet,’ and he yelled ‘nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger’ at every nigger he saw, ‘boogey-boogey-boogey-boogey-boogey-nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger’ till nigger didn’t mean anything any more, till nigger lost its meaning, you’d never make any four-year-old nigger cry when he came home from school. Screw ‘Negro!’ Oh, it’s so good to say ‘Nigger!’ Boy! ‘Hello, Mr. Nigger, how’re you?’”
Four decades later, Dave Chappelle on his TV show played a man delivering milk to the all-white family, the Niggars, and he did indeed say, “Hello, Mr. Niggar, how’re you?” But consider the contrast between Lenny’s good-natured, poetic routine and Michael Richards’ mean-spirited, uncontrollable outburst. In November 2006, at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, in response to heckling from a table of four African Americans (three men and a woman), he suddenly became enraged with repressed hatred:
“Shut up! Fifty years ago we’d hang you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass! [Laughter in the audience, apparently unaware of the heckler’s race and that the reference is to lynching] You can talk, you can talk, you can talk, now you’re brave, motherfucker! Throw his ass out! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger! He’s a nigger!”
A WOMAN IN THE AUDIENCE: “Oh my God!”
“A nigger! Look, there’s a nigger! [Imitating reactions in the audience] ‘Oooh! Oooh!’ All right, you see, this shocks you, it shocks you to see what lies beneath your stupid motherfuckers!”
A MAN AT THE HECKLER TABLE: “That wasn’t called for.”
“What was uncalled-for? It’s uncalled-for for you to interrupt my ass, you cheap motherfucker! You guys have been talking and talking and talking.”
VOICE FROM THE AUDIENCE: “Calm down.”
“What’s the matter with you? Is this too much for you to handle?”
“I said calm down.”
“They’re gonna arrest me for calling a black man a nigger? Wait a minute, where’s he going?”
“That was uncalled-for, you fucking cracker-ass motherfucker!”
“You calling me cracker-ass, nigger?
“Fucking white boy!”
“Are you threatening me?”
“We’ll see what’s up.”
“Oh, it’s a big threat. That’s how you get back at the man.”
“You’re just not funny. That’s why you’re a reject. Never had no shows, never had no movies. Seinfeld, that’s it.”
“Oh, I guess you got me there. You’re absolutely right. I’m just a wash-up. Gotta stand on this stage.”
“That’s it, we’ve had it. Niggers—that’s un-fucking-called-for. That ain’t necessary.”
“Well, you interrupted me, pal. That’s what you get when you interrupt the white man, don’t you know.”
“Uncalled-for, that was uncalled-for.”
“You see, there’s still those words, those words, those words.”
Richards then walked off stage. In the days that followed, seemingly stunned at his own racist rage, he apologized on the media again and again as best he could. Meanwhile, the n-word was banned at the Laugh Factory. On a Sunday night there, at the weekly “Chocolate Sundaes” showcase of mostly African American performers, Damon Wayans announced, “Welcome to Nigger Night.” He proceeded to say “nigger” fifteen more times in a twenty-minute routine, and was fined $20 for each one, plus he was banned from performing there for three months. Contrariwise, the Comedy Union club in Hollywood actually encouraged comics to say “nigger” at least once during their set on a particular night.
Paul Mooney used to say, “Well, white folks, you shouldn’t have ever made up the word. I say nigger 100 times every morning. It makes my teeth white.” But now he vowed never to resort to that word again. “I’ve used it and abused it,” he explained, “and I never thought I’d say this, but Michael Richards is Dr. Phil—he cured me.” On the HBO show Real Time, Chris Rock responded to Bill Maher’s mention of Richards’ use of “the n-word” with mock innocence: “He said nigger? Nicotine?”
Jamie Foxx defended the use of “nigger,” but only by black people. On the night before Martin Luther King Day in 2007, he began his monologue at the Borgata in Atlantic City: “I’m an Oscar winner, but I’m a nigger too.” Referring to the Richards incident, Foxx said, “He was just calling us niggers like it was the ’50s. Nigger, nigger, with a ‘e-r.’ Then they said we can’t use the word ‘nigger’ any more. That’s my shit. I need it. I need the word to describe certain things, because at a certain level of excitement, I need to tell you how the shit was, and there ain’t no other word that helps me say that better than that word. White people, you can’t use it.”
However, at the Improv, white comic Andy Dick was in the audience, busy heckling fellow performer Ian Bagg, when he got out of his seat, jumped onstage and began joking with Bagg. The subject of Michael Richards came up, but they quickly moved past it. As Dick exited the stage, though, he suddenly grabbed the microphone and shouted at the audience, “You’re all a bunch of niggers!” The club issued this statement: “The Improv is aware of Andy Dick’s behavior on Saturday night. Our policy is that material deemed offensive by both famous and up-and-coming comedians is judged on a case-by-case basis. In this particular case, Mr. Dick was commenting on a current event. Was it intelligent? No. Was it funny? No. But was it racist? No. It was not directed at any audience member in particular and although it was in bad taste, it was a comment on the Michael Richards fiasco.”
Patti Smith’s song “Rock N Roll Nigger” was later covered by Marilyn Manson. Rapper Nas decided to title his album Nigger. On Mad TV, a sketch about black actors dressed like pimps waiting to audition for a part turned out to be a commercial for a candy bar called “Sniggers.” And in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm titled “The N-Word,” Larry David was in a bathroom stall when he happened to overhear somebody on a cell phone refer to a “300-pound nigger.” David was shocked, and later, on a couple of occasions when he was describing that incident—and quoting the offending phrase—a different black person happened to overhear him each time and became furious.
The NAACP Philadelphia Youth Council held a mock funeral for the n-word. And, at the NAACP annual convention in Detroit, a horse-drawn carriage pulled a pine casket with a black wreath on top, signifying the death of the n-word. In February 2007, a historically black school in Alabama held a four-day event titled the ‘N’ Surrection Conference at Stillman College. Its goal was to challenge the use of the n-word “through the use of intelligent dialogue and a thorough examination of black history.
” Kovan Flowers, co-founder of AbolishTheNWord.com, said that striking the word “nigger” from use would help set an example for other races. “We can’t say anything to Hispanics, or whites or whoever unless we stop using it ourselves,” he said. “It’s the root of the mindset that’s affecting why people are low, from housing to jobs to education.”
Community activist Tim Robinson pointed out that blacks don’t have a problem using the word “nigga” because it’s distinctly different and is considered a term of endearment when they say it to each other. He said, “It was ‘nigger’ which was the bad word, but you’ve got our people that just went and changed it up a bit.” The late rapper Tupac Shakur was credited with legitimizing “nigga” with his song “N.I.G.G.A.” which stood for “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.” In an interview in the June 2008 issue of Blender magazine, rapper Lil Wayne used the word “nigga” twelve times.
The first season of Aaron McGruder’s TV adaptation of his controversial comic strip The Boondocks on the Cartoon Network angered Al Sharpton and other black activists by the show’s frequent use of “nigger.” The second season was scheduled to devote an entire episode to “The N-Word.” Co-executive producer Rodney Barnes explained, “You can’t bury ‘nigger.’ It’s like a vampire. It’s going to live forever. And we can’t let the fans down. Why be responsible now?” On the other hand, on the short-lived series Cavemen, the cavemen referred to themselves as “maggers,” but this was considered racist, and the word “magger” quickly disappeared from the sitcom’s scripts.
Attorney Gloria Allred tried to arrange an informal three-member “jury” of a retired judge and two lawyers to decide “whether they think, under the facts and the law, Michael Richards should be accountable and, if so, in what way. We want accountability, and we want the public to understand the significance of the n-word and how it has hurt” her clients. Richards’ lawyer, Douglas Mirell, said that while Richards’ comments were “inappropriate, they are not legally actionable” and that if Richards faced mediation or a lawsuit, he intended to oppose a cash settlement under his constitutional right to free speech—an incorrect claim, since the First Amendment applies only to censorship by the government.
Who's to Say What's Obscene? Page 4