How to Talk Dirty and Influence People

by Lenny Bruce

  Georgie Winslow starts using this gun—like when a car’s going to run over him—Pchewwwww!—he stops the car. And that was the whole different twist I gave the picture: the magic space gun.

  They gave me a contract and I was so proud. My God, a writer at 20th Century-Fox! My own secretary! Man, I just couldn’t believe it. It was one of the most thrilling things in my life, because all the other things that have happened to me have happened gradually.

  Anyway, I wanted to produce my own picture. At the time I was sort of swept up with the story of Christ—this big, beautiful man—and the picture I had in mind was about a handicapped bum who wore a hearing aid. His whole ambition in life was to save enough money to buy a black-leather motorcycle jacket. Some day the motorcycle, but first he just wanted to get enough money together to buy the jacket.

  There was to be a scene in the picture where he was really disappointed, and his hand was caught in the door and had to be all wrapped up in a bandage, and he was struggling with his suitcase . . . and he passes this statue of Christ. It’s a beautiful statue. It doesn’t show Christ being crucified; it shows him very stately, on top of the world, standing there, and he’s King of Kings.

  The shot was to be this: I walk up to the statue, pass it, look back, gaze at it for a while. There are some flowers on the ground at the foot of this ball which is the earth. I pick up the flowers. I can just about reach His toes, and I put the flowers at His feet, and then I just sort of fall on the globe, embracing it. When we go back to a long shot, showing my arms outstretched while I’m falling there, it looks like a cross.

  Now I had searched and searched for a statue of Christ. It took me two days to find the right one. I found it outside in this big churchyard, on Melrose and Vine Streets in Hollywood.

  I still had a concept of priests that stemmed from all the Pat O’Brien movies. You know: you’re in trouble, they just come and comfort you.

  Well, I couldn’t get to talk to one of them.

  So I went directly to the headquarters, on Alvarado Street, the center where all these different priests go.

  At the rectory, I got this kind of answer: “It’s not my parish.”

  They’d all close their windows, and they wouldn’t even talk to me. True, I was dressed as a bum, because I was doing the picture, but still. . . . They just wouldn’t talk to me.

  Finally—and this part didn’t actually happen, but I made a joke out of it on the stage that night—I said: “I tried to find a statue of Christ today, and I tried to talk to priests, and no one would talk to me, but I finally got a chance to talk to one, and he sold me a chance on a Plymouth.”

  That was the first joke I ever did on religion. It was only a joke, but it really related to the rejection and disappointment I had felt that day.

  Then came the extension. I abstracted to: “The Dodge-Plymouth dealers had a convention, and they raffled off a 1958 Catholic Church.”

  And that was the beginning of Religions, Inc.:

  And now we go to the headquarters of Religions, Inc., where the Dodge-Plymouth dealers have just had their annual raffle, and they have just given away a 1958 Catholic Church. And seated around the desk are the religious leaders of our country.

  We hear one of them. He’s addressing the tight little group in Little-town, Connecticut (Madison Avenue is getting a little trite). “Well, as you know, this year we’ve got a tie-in with Oldsmobile. Now, gentlemen, I don’t expect any of you boys to get out there in the pulpit and hard-sell an automobile. That is ridiculous. But I was thinking now. What do you say to this? If just every once in a while, if we’d throw in a few little terms, just little things like, uh, ‘Drive the car that He’d drive!’—and you know, you don’t have to lay it on, just zing it in there once in a while and then jump maybe to the Philistines.”

  In December of 1962, I was arrested at The Gate of Horn in Chicago for “obscenity.” But, according to Variety, “. . . the prosecutor is at least equally concerned with Bruce’s indictments of organized religion as he is with the more obvious sexual content of the comic’s act. It’s possible that Bruce’s comments on the Catholic Church have hit sensitive nerves in Chicago’s Catholic-oriented administration and police department . . .”

  And actually I had praised the Catholic Church.

  “Remember the freak shows,” I asked—“the alligator lady and the guy who could typewrite with his toes? The irony is that the generation now that is really offended by ‘sick humor’—talking about people that are deformed—they’re the generation that bought tickets to see the freaks: Zip & Pip, the onion-head boy, Lolly & Lulu, all these terrible, bizarre-looking freaks.

  “Now,” I said, “dig the difference between the generation today and my father’s generation. These young people today, the ones who are ‘going to hell in a basket,’ they’re really better Christians and more spiritual than that last, perverse generation, because this new generation not only rejected but doesn’t support freak attractions—that’s not their entertainment shtick—they like rock ‘n’ roll as opposed to the freak shows. But, Thank God for the Catholic Church, there’ll still be freaks—the thalidomide babies—they’ll grow up and get a good tie-in with Barnum & Bailey.”

  A group of my North Bellmore schoolmates who may someday turn up on a jury.

  “How come your name is Schneider and you use the name Bruce?” Because Leonard Alfred Schneider sounded too Hollywood.

  A girl in every port.

  Portrait of a post-War vagrant. I wanted to look like Warner Baxter or Roland Young but, alas, the comment from Aunt Mema was: “You look like a pimp.”

  This Sabu shot was taken during my mystical period—so mystical I can’t even remember where or why it was taken.

  At last! My name in lights: S-T-R-A-N-D . . .

  Honey Harlowe was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life . . .

  . . . and she still is.

  But the week that I met her, I shipped out in the merchant marine.

  The fuzz figured a priest in Miami Beach had to be up to something. But it was OK—I had a license to practice.

  They charged me with panhandling . . .

  . . . I ask you — is this the pose of a panhandler?

  Honey was making it as a singer, at last, and we were doing fine.

  That was the day I left the priesthood.

  Honey didn’t take another step for four months.

  Here I am in my famous impression of a faith healer. Yes, friends, drop your bread in the collection box or I’ll throw this right in your faith.

  Hefner? Hefner? I can’t seem to find your name in my dance card.

  Clowning for the camera in one of my grave moments, I cross up a friend.

  Another in my series of famous impressions. Red Buttons? Eddie Cantor? Jonah describing the whale?

  Here I am in my guise as a mild-mannered charity promoter.

  I forget who the other two guys are, but that’s not Shirley Temple on your right. For years I dreamed of a situation like this, but I finally had to set up my own cop and judge. P.S. I was acquitted.

  We Americans love nonconformity and often award it the metal of honor.

  An introspective moment: Isn’t it about time I weaned myself from the bottle?

  Writing this historic opus, I thought it appropriate to wear a period costume.

  Here I am, living up to my public image. A true professional never disappoints his public.

  Ever since I started using that greasy kid stuff, my head keeps slipping out of sight.

  My love for California is flagging. Attempting to escape autograph hounds, I employ a standard ruse.

  The efficient gas-station attendant, at right, has not only Simonized my car, but cleaned out the back seat as well; I wonder what the service charge will be.

  “Whaddaya mean, that’s aspirin on your dresser,” the fuzz said. What’s the needle for? I can’t stand the taste of the stuff.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Are yo
u a sick comic?”

  “Why do they call you a sick comic?”

  “Do you mind being called a sick comic?”

  It is impossible to label me. I develop, on the average, four minutes of new material a night, constantly growing and changing my point of view; I am heinously guilty of the paradoxes I assail in our society.

  The reason for the label “sick comic” is the lack of creativity among journalists and critics. There is a comedy actor from England with a definite Chaplinesque quality. “Mr. Guinness, do you mind being called a Chaplinesque comic?” There is a comedian by the name of Peter Sellers who has a definite Guinnessesque quality. “Mr. Sellers, why do they say you have a Guinnessesque quality?”

  The motivation of the interviewer is not to get a terse, accurate answer, but rather to write an interesting, slanted article within the boundaries of the editorial outlook of his particular publication, so that he will be given the wherewithal to make the payment on his MG. Therefore this writer prostitutes his integrity by asking questions, the answers to which he already has, much like a cook who follows a recipe and mixes the ingredients properly.

  The way I speak, the words with which I relate are more correct in effect than those of a previous pedantic generation.

  If I talk about a chick onstage and say, “She was a hooker,” an uncontemporary person would say, “Lenny Bruce, you are coarse and crude.”

  “What should I have said?”

  “If you must be specific, you should have said ‘prostitute.’”

  “But wait a minute; shouldn’t the purpose of a word be to get close to the object the user is describing?”

  “Yes, and correct English can do this; ‘hooker’ is incorrect.”

  The word has become too general. He prostituted his art. He prostituted the very thing he loved. Can he write anymore? Not like he used to—he has prostituted his work.

  So the word “prostitute” doesn’t mean anymore what the word “hooker” does. If a man were to send out for a $100 prostitute, a writer with a beard might show up.

  Concomitant with the “sick comic” label is the carbon cry, “What happened to the healthy comedian who just got up there and showed everybody a good time and didn’t preach, didn’t have to resort to knocking religion, mocking physical handicaps and telling dirty toilet jokes?”

  Yes, what did happen to the wholesome trauma of the 1930s and 1940s—the honeymoon jokes, concerned not only with what they did but also with how many times they did it; the distorted wedding-night tales, supported visually by the trite vacationland postcards of an elephant with his trunk searching through the opening of a pup tent, and a woman’s head straining out the other end, hysterically screaming, “George!”—whatever happened to all this wholesomeness?

  What happened to the healthy comedian who at least had good taste? . . . Ask the comedians who used to do the harelip jokes, or the moron jokes—“The moron who went to the orphans’ picnic,” etc.—the healthy comedians who told good-natured religious jokes that found Pat and Abie and Rastus outside of Saint Peter’s gate all listening to those angels harping in stereotype.

  Whatever happened to Joe E. Lewis? His contribution to comedy consisted of returning Bacchus to his godlike pose with an implicit social message: “If you’re going to be a swinger and fun to be with, always have a glass of booze in your hand; even if you don’t become part swinger, you’re sure to end up with part liver.”

  Whatever happened to Henny Youngman? He involved himself with a nightly psychodrama named Sally, or sometimes Laura. She possessed features not sexually but economically stimulating. Mr. Youngman’s Uglivac cross-filed and classified diabolic deformities definitively. “Her nose was so big that every time she sneezed. . . .” “She was so bowlegged that every time. . . .” “One leg was shorter than the other . . .” and Mr. Youngman’s mutant reaped financial harvest for him. Other comedians followed suit with Cockeyed Jennies, et al., until the Ugly Girl routines became classics. I assume this fondness for atrophy gave the night-club patron a sense of well-being.

  And whatever happened to Jerry Lewis? His neorealistic impression of the Japanese male captured all the subtleties of the Japanese physiognomy. The buck-teeth malocclusion was caricatured to surrealistic proportions until the teeth matched the blades that extended from Ben-Hur’s chariot. Highlighting the absence of the iris with Coke-bottle-thick lenses, this satire has added to the fanatical devotion which Japanese students have for the United States. Just ask Eisenhower.

  Whatever happened to Milton Berle? He brought transvestitism to championship bowling and upset a hard-core culture of dykes that control the field. From Charlie’s Aunt and Some Like It Hot and Milton Berle, the pervert has been taken out of Krafft-Ebing and made into a sometimes-fun fag.

  Berle never lost his sense of duty to the public, though. Although he gave homosexuals a peek out of the damp cellar of unfavorable public opinion, he didn’t go all the way; he left a stigma of menace on his fag—“I sweah I’w kiw you.”

  I was labeled a “sicknik” by Time magazine, whose editorial policy still finds humor in a person’s physical shortcomings: “Shelly Berman has a face like a hastily sculptured hamburger.” The healthy comic would never offend . . . unless you happen to be fat, bald, skinny, deaf or blind. The proxy vote from purgatory has not yet been counted.

  Let’s say I’m working at the Crescendo on the coast. There’ll be Arlene Dahl with some New Wave writer from Algiers and on the whole it’s a cooking kind of audience. But I’ll finish a show, and some guy will come up to me and say, “I—I’m a club owner, and I’d like you to work for me. It’s a beautiful club. You ever work in Milwaukee? Lots of people like you there, and you’ll really do great. You’ll kill ’em. You’ll have a lot of fun. Do you bowl?”

  The only thing is, I know that in those clubs, between Los Angeles and New York, the people in the audience are a little older than me. The most I can say to people over 50 or 55 is, “Thank you, I’ve had enough to eat.”

  I get to Milwaukee, and the first thing that frightens me to death is that they’ve got a 6:30 dinner show . . . 6:30 in the afternoon and people go to a night club! It’s not even dark out yet. I don’t wanna go in the house, it’s not dark yet, man. If the dinner show is held up, it’s only because the Jell-o’s not hard.

  The people look familiar, but I’ve never been to Milwaukee before. Then I realize—these are the Grayline Sight-seeing Bus Tours before they leave—this is where they live. They’re like 40-year-old chicks with prom gowns on.

  They don’t laugh, they don’t heckle, they just stare at me in disbelief. And there are walkouts, walkouts, every night, walkouts. The owner says to me, “Well, I never saw you do that religious bit . . . and those words you use!” The chef is confused—the desserts aren’t moving.

  I go to the men’s room, and I see kids in there. Kids four years old, six years old. These kids are in awe of this men’s room. It’s the first time they’ve ever been in a place their mother isn’t allowed in. Not even for a minute. Not even to get something, is she allowed in there. And the kids stay in there for hours.

  “Come out of there!”

  “No. Uh-uh.”

  “I’m going to come in and get you.”

  “No, you’re not allowed in here, ’cause everybody’s doing, making wet in here.”

  In between shows I’m a walker, and I’m getting nudgy and nervous. The owner decides to cushion me with his introduction: “Ladies and gentlemen, the star of our show, Lenny Bruce, who, incidentally, is an ex-GI and, uh, a hell of a good performer, folks, and a great kidder, know what I mean? It’s all a bunch of silliness up here and he doesn’t mean what he says. He kids about the Pope and about the Jewish religion, too, and the colored people and the white people—it’s all a silly, make-believe world. And he’s a hell of a nice guy, folks. He was at the Veterans Hospital today doing a show for the boys. And here he is—his mom’s out here tonight, too, she hasn’t seen him in a couple of years�
�she lives here in town. . . . Now, a joke is a joke, right, folks? What the hell. I wish that you’d try to cooperate. And whoever has been sticking ice picks in the tires outside, he’s not funny. Now Lenny may kid about narcotics, homosexuality, and things like that . . .”

  And he gets walkouts.

  I get off the floor, and a waitress says to me, “Listen, there’s a couple, they want to meet you.” It’s a nice couple, about 50 years old. The guy asks me, “You from New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “I recognized that accent.” And he’s looking at me, with a sort of searching hope in his eyes, and then he says, “Are you Jewish?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing in a place like this?”

  “I’m passing.”

  He says, “Listen, I know you show people eat all that crap on the road. . . .” (Of course. What did you eat tonight? Crap on the road.) And they invite me to have a nice dinner at their house the next day. He writes out the address, you know, with the ball-point pen on the wet cocktail napkin.

  That night I go to my hotel—I’m staying at the local show-business hotel; the other show people consist of two people, the guy who runs the movie projector and another guy who sells Capezio shoes—and I read a little, write a little. I finally get to sleep about seven o’clock in the morning.