How to Talk Dirty and Influence People

by Lenny Bruce

A. No, sir.

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I’m going to object to this and move to strike the answer as incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, if your Honor please.

  THE COURT: The answer is in; it may remain.

  MR. BENDICH: Were you sexually stimulated when you witnessed Lenny Bruce’s performance?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: Irrelevant and immaterial, especially as to this officer, your Honor.

  THE COURT: Overruled.

  THE WITNESS: No, sir.

  MR. BENDICH: Did you have any conversation with anyone in the Jazz Workshop on the night that you arrested Mr. Lenny Bruce?

  A. No.

  Q. Officer Ryan, you’re quite familiar with the term “cocksucker” are you not?

  A. I have heard it used, yes.

  Q. As a matter of fact, Officer Ryan, it was used in the police station on the night that Lenny Bruce was booked there, was it not?

  A. No, not to my knowledge.

  Q. As a matter of fact, it is frequently used in the police station, is it not?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: That’s irrelevant and immaterial, if your Honor please. What’s used in a police station or in private conversation between two people is completely different from what’s used on a stage in the theater.

  THE COURT: Well, a police station, of course, is a public place.

  MR. WOLLENBERG: That’s correct, your Honor.

  THE COURT: As to the police station, the objection is overruled.

  MR. BENDICH: You may answer, Officer.

  A. Yes, I have heard it used.

  Q. Yes, you have heard the term used in a public place known as the police station. Now, Officer Ryan, there is nothing obscene in and of itself about the word “cock,” is there?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I’m going to object to this as being irrelevant and immaterial, what this man feels.

  THE COURT: Sustained.

  MR. BENDICH: Just two last questions, Officer Ryan. You laughed at Lenny Bruce’s performance the night that you watched, did you not?

  A. No, I didn’t.

  Q. You didn’t have occasion to laugh?

  A. No, I didn’t.

  Q. Did you observe whether the audience was laughing?

  A. Yes, I did.

  Q. And they were laughing, were they not?

  A. At times, yes.

  Q. And no one in the audience made any complaint to you, though you were in uniform standing in the club?

  A. No one, no.

  MR. BENDICH: No further questions.

  Mr. Wollenberg re-examined the witness.

  Q. Now, Officer, when the word, “cocksucker,” was used during the performance, did anybody laugh?

  A. Not right at that instant, no.

  Q. . . . Now, in Finocchio’s, have you ever heard the word “cock-sucker” used from the stage?

  A. No, sir, I never have.

  Q. . . . Now, at the Moulin Rouge, Officer, they do have a comedian as well as a strip show, isn’t that right?

  A. That’s right.

  Q. Have you ever heard the comedian at the Moulin Rouge use the term, “cocksucker”?

  A. No, sir, never.

  Q. Did you have a conversation with the defendant Bruce after his performance?

  A. Yes, I did.

  Q. And where was that?

  A. In front of the Jazz Workshop.

  Q. . . . Was that in relation to any of the terms used?

  A. Yes, it was.

  Q. And what was that?

  A. I asked the defendant at that time, “Didn’t I hear you use the word ‘cocksucker’ in your performance? And he says, ‘Yes, I did.’”

  Later, Mr. Wollenberg examined the other police officer, Sergeant James Solden.

  Q. . . . And did you have occasion while in that area (the Jazz Workshop) to see the defendant Bruce? . . . Did you have a conversation with him?

  A. I had a conversation with Mr. Bruce as we led—took him from the Jazz Workshop to the patrol wagon . . . I spoke to Mr. Bruce and said, “Why do you feel that you have to use the word ‘cocksucker’ to entertain people in a public night spot?” And Mr. Bruce’s reply to me, was, “Well there are a lot of cocksuckers around, aren’t there? What’s wrong with talking about them?”

  Mr. Bendich made his opening statement to the jury, “to tell you what it is that I am going to attempt to prove to you in the course of the presentation of the defense case. . . . I am going to prove through the testimony of several witnesses who will take the stand before you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that Mr. Bruce gave a performance in the Jazz Workshop on the night of October fourth last year which was a show based on the themes of social criticism, based upon an analysis of various forms of conventional hypocrisy, based upon the technique of satire which is common in the heritage of English letters and, as a matter of fact, in the heritage of world literature. We are going to prove, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the nature of Mr. Bruce’s performance on the night of October the fourth was in the great tradition of social satire, related intimately to the kind of social satire to be found in the works of such great authors at Aristophanes, Jonathan Swift . . .”

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I’m going to object. Aristophanes is not testifying here, your Honor, or any other authors, and I’m going to object to that at this time as improper argument.

  MR. BENDICH: Your Honor, I didn’t say I would call Mr. Aristophanes.

  THE COURT: I don’t think you could, very well . . .

  Chapter Nineteen

  It seems fitting that the first witness for the defense was Ralph J. Gleason, a brilliant jazz critic and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Gleason was my first real supporter, the first one who really went out on a limb for me, to help my career.

  Mr. Bendich examined him.

  Q. . . . Mr. Gleason, will you describe for us, if you will, please, what the themes of Mr. Bruce’s work were during the appearance in the Workshop for which he was arrested?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I will object to just the themes, your Honor. He can give the performance or recite what was said, but the “themes” is ambiguous.

  THE COURT: Overruled.

  THE WITNESS: The theme of the performance on the night in question was a social criticism of stereotypes and of the hypocrisy of contemporary society. . . . He attempted to demonstrate to the audience a proposition that’s familiar to students of semantics, which is that words have been given, in our society, almost a magic meaning that has no relation to the facts, and I think that he tried in the course of this show that evening to demonstrate that there is no harm inherent in words themselves.

  Q. . . . How important, if at all, was the theme of semantics with reference to the entire show given on the evening in question?

  A. In my opinion, it was very important—vital to it.

  Q. And what dominance or predominance, if any, did the theme of semantics occupy with respect to the content of the entire show on the night in question?

  A. Well, it occupied an important part in the entire performance, not only in the individual routines, but in the totality of the program.

  Q. Yes. Now, with respect to the rest of the program, Mr. Gleason, would you tell us about some of the other themes, and perhaps illustrate something about them if you can, in addition to the theme of semantics which Mr. Bruce worked with?

  A. Well, to the best of my recollection there was a portion of the show in which he attempted to show satirically the hypocrisy inherent in the licensing of a ticket taker who had a criminal record for particularly abhorrent criminal acts and demanding a bond for him . . .

  Mr. Gleason was asked to read to the jury an excerpt from an article in Commonweal, a Catholic magazine. The article was by Nat Hentoff, who’s Jewish, so it doesn’t really count. Gleason read:

  “It is in Lenny Bruce—and only in him—that there has emerged a cohesively ‘new’ comedy of nakedly honest moral rage at the deceptions all down the line in our society. Bruce thinks of himself as an ethical relativist and shares Pirandello’s
preoccupation with the elusiveness of any absolute, including absolute truth.

  “His comedy ranges through religion-in-practice (‘What would happen if Christ and Moses appeared one Sunday at Saint Patrick’s?’); the ultimate limitations of the white liberal; the night life of the hooker and her view of the day; and his own often scarifying attempts to make sense of his life in a society where the quicksand may lie just underneath the sign that says: TAKE SHELTER WHEN THE CIVILIAN DEFENSE ALARM SOUNDS.

  “Bruce, however, does not turn a night club into Savonarola’s church. More than any others of the ‘new wave,’ Bruce is a thoroughly experienced performer, and his relentless challenges to his audience and to himself are intertwined with explosive pantomime, hilarious ‘bits,’ and an evocative spray of Yiddishisms, Negro and show-business argot, and his own operational semantics. Coursing through everything he does, however, is a serious search for values that are more than security blankets. In discussing the film The Story of Esther Costello, Bruce tells of the climactic rape scene: ‘It’s obvious the girl has been violated. . . . She’s been deaf and dumb throughout the whole picture. . . . All of a sudden she can hear again . . . and she can speak again. So what’s the moral?’”

  Later—after the judge had pointed something out to the Deputy District Attorney (“Mr. Wollenberg,” he said, “. . . your shirttail is out.”)—Mr. Gleason was asked to read to the jury a portion of an article by Arthur Gelb in The New York Times.

  “The controversial Mr. Bruce, whose third visit to Manhattan this is, is the prize exhibit of the menagerie, and his act is billed ‘for adults only.’

  “Presumably the management wishes to safeguard the dubious innocence of underage New Yorkers against Mr. Bruce’s vocabulary, which runs to four-letter words, of which the most printable is Y.M.C.A. But there are probably a good many adults who will find him offensive, less perhaps for his Anglo-Saxon phrases than for his vitriolic attacks on such subjects as facile religion, the medical profession, the law, pseudo-liberalism and Jack Paar. (‘Paar has a God complex. He thinks he can create performers in six days,’ Mr. Bruce is apt to confide.)

  “Although he seems at times to be doing his utmost to antagonize his audience, Mr. Bruce displays such a patent air of morality beneath the brashness that his lapses in taste are often forgivable.

  “The question, though, is whether the kind of derisive shock therapy he administers and the introspective free-form patter in which he indulges are legitimate night-club fare, as far as the typical customer is concerned.

  “It is necessary, before lauding Mr. Bruce for his virtues, to warn the sensitive and the easily shocked that no holds are barred at Basin Street East. Mr. Bruce regards the night-club stage as the ‘last frontier’ of uninhibited entertainment. He often carries his theories to their naked and personal conclusions and has earned for his pains the sobriquet ‘sick.’ He is a ferocious man who does not believe in the sanctity of motherhood or the American Medical Association. He even has an unkind word to say for Smokey the Bear. True, Smokey doesn’t set forest fires, Mr. Bruce concedes. But he eats boy scouts for their hats.

  “Mr. Bruce expresses relief at what he sees as a trend of ‘people leaving the church and going back to God,’ and he has nothing but sneers for what he considers the sanctimonious liberal who preaches but cannot practice genuine integration.

  “Being on cozy terms with history and psychology, he can illustrate his point with the example of the early Romans, who thought there was ‘something dirty’ about Christians. ‘Could you want your sister to marry one?’—he has one Roman ask another—and so on, down to the logical conclusion in present-day prejudice.

  “At times Mr. Bruce’s act, devoid of the running series of staccato jokes that are traditional to the night-club comic, seems like a salvationist lecture; it is biting, sardonic, certainly stimulating and quite often funny—but never in a jovial way. His mocking diatribe rarely elicits a comfortable belly laugh. It requires concentration. But there is much in it to wring a rueful smile and appreciative chuckle. There is even more to evoke a fighting gleam in the eye. There are also spells of total confusion.

  “Since Mr. Bruce operates in a spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness fashion a good deal of the time, he is likely to tell you what he’s thinking about telling you before he gets around to telling you anything at all . . .”

  Mr. Bendich resumed his line of questioning.

  Q. Mr. Gleason, would you tell us, please, what in your judgment the predominant theme of the evening’s performance for which Mr. Bruce was arrested was?

  A. Well, in a very real sense it’s semantics—the search for the ultimate truth that lies beneath the social hypocrisy in which we live. All his performances relate to this.

  Q. Mr. Gleason, as an expert in this field, would you characterize the performance in question as serious in intent and socially significant?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I will object to this as irrelevant and immaterial.

  THE COURT: Overruled.

  THE WITNESS: Yes, I would characterize it as serious.

  MR. BENDICH: And how would you characterize the social significance, if any, of that performance?

  A. Well, I would characterize this performance as being of high social significance, in line with the rest of his performances.

  Q. Mr. Gleason, what in your opinion, based upon your professional activity and experience in the field of popular culture, and particularly with reference to humor, what in your opinion is the relation between the humor of Lenny Bruce and that of other contemporary humorists, such as Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Mike and Elaine?

  MR. WOLLENBERG: That’s immaterial, your Honor, what the comparison is between him and any other comedian.

  THE COURT: Objection overruled.

  THE WITNESS: Mr. Bruce attacks the fundamental structure of society and these other comedians deal with it superficially.

  MR. BENDICH: Mr. Gleason, you have already testified that you have seen personally a great many Lenny Bruce performances, and you are also intimately familiar with his recorded works and other comic productions. Has your prurient interest ever been stimulated by any of Mr. Bruce’s work?

  A. Not in the slightest.

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I will object to that as calling for the ultimate issue before this jury.

  THE COURT: The objection will be overruled. . . . You may answer the question.

  THE WITNESS: I have not been excited, my prurient or sexual interest has not been aroused by any of Mr. Bruce’s performances.

  The complete transcript of my San Francisco trail runs 350 pages. The witnesses—not one of whose sexual interest had ever been aroused by any of my night-club performances—described one after another, what they remembered of my performance on the night in question at the Jazz Workshop, and interpreted its social significance according to his or her own subjectivity.

  For example, during the cross-examination, the following dialog ensued between Mr. Wollenberg and Lou Gottlieb, a Ph.D. who’s with the Limeliters:

  Q. Doctor, you say you have heard Mr. Bruce in Los Angeles?

  A. Yes.

  Q. And what was the last remark he makes on leaving the stage in his show in Los Angeles?

  A. I must say that Mr. Bruce’s last remarks have varied at every performance that I have ever witnessed.

  Q. Did he make any reference to eating something in his last remarks in Los Angeles when you heard him perform?

  A. No.

  Q. . . . Now, Doctor, you say the main theme of Mr. Bruce is to get laughter?

  A. That’s the professional comedian’s duty.

  Q. I see. And do you see anything funny in the word “cocksucker”?

  A. . . . To answer that question with “Yes” or “No” is impossible, your Honor.

  MR. WOLLENBERG: I asked you if you saw anything funny in that word.

  THE COURT: You may answer it “Yes” or “No” and then explain your answer.

  THE WITNESS: I found it extremely u
nfunny as presented by Mr. Wollenberg, I must say, but I can also———

  THE COURT: All right, wait a minute, wait a minute. I have tolerated a certain amount of activity from the audience because I knew that it is difficult not to react at times, but this is not a show, you are not here to be entertained. Now, if there’s any more of this sustained levity, the courtroom will be cleared. And the witness is instructed not to argue with counsel but to answer the questions . . .

  THE WITNESS: I do not (see anything funny in that word), but as Mr. Bruce presents his performances he creates a world in which normal dimensions . . . become—how shall I say? Well, they are transmuted into a grotesque panorama of contemporary society, into which he places slices of life, phonographically accurate statements that come out of the show-business world . . . and sometimes the juxtaposition of the generally fantastic frame of reference that he is able to create and the startling intrusion of slices of life in terms of language that is used in these kinds of areas, has extremely comic effect.

  Q. . . . Doctor, because an agent uses that term when he talks to his talent, you find nothing wrong with using it in a public place because you’re relating a conversation between yourself and your agent? This excuses the use of that term?

  A. What excuses the use of that term, Mr. Wollenberg, in my opinion, is its unexpectedness in the fantastic world that is the frame of reference, the world which includes many grotesqueries that Mr. Bruce is able to establish. Then when you get a phonographic reproduction of a snatch of a conversation, I find that this has comic effect very frequently.

  Q. Do you mean “phonographic” or “photographic”?

  A. “Phonographic.” I mean reproducing the actual speech verbatim with the same intonation and same attitudes and everything else that would be characteristic of, let’s say, a talent agent of some kind.

  Q. I see. In other words, the changing of the words to more—well, we might use genteel—terms, would take everything away from that, is that right?

  A. It wouldn’t be phonographically accurate. It would lose its real feel; there would be almost no point.

  Q. . . . And taking out that word and putting in the word “homosexual” or “fairy,” that would take away completely, in your opinion, from this story and make it just completely another one?