How to Talk Dirty and Influence People

by Lenny Bruce

  For self-protection, I now carry with me at all times a small bound booklet consisting of photostats of statements made by physicians, and prescriptions and bottle labels. For example, here is a letter written December 29, 1961 by a Beverly Hills doctor:

  To Whom It May Concern:

  Mr. Lenny Bruce has been under my professional care for the past two years for various minor orthopedic conditions. In addition, Mr. Bruce suffers from episodes of severe depression and lethargy.

  His response to oral amphetamine has not been particularly satisfactory, so he has been instructed in the proper use of intravenous injections of Methedrine (methamphetamine hydrochloride). This has given a satisfactory response.

  Methedrine in ampules of 10cc(20mg), together with disposable syringes, has been prescribed for intravenous use as needed.

  Mr. Bruce has asked that I write this letter in order that any peace officer observing fresh needle marks on Mr. Bruce’s arm may be assured that they are the result of Methedrine injections for therapeutic reasons.

  Norman P. Rotenberg, M.D.

  I might add that historically there was quite a problem in England where the king’s men were stopping people on the street to see if they were fit for burning—i.e., if they had rejected the Anglican church. So these malcontents, later known as the Pilgrim Fathers, cowards that they were, fled to escape persecution.

  Upon arriving here, they entered into their illegal beliefs, these Protestants, and formed their sinister doctrine that is at this late date still interfering with law-enforcement agencies, still obstructing justice throughout our land, because of technicalities such as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees that persons will be safe in their homes against unreasonable searches and seizures.

  I guess what happens is, if you get arrested in Town A (Philadelphia) and then Town B (San Francisco)—with a lot of publicity—then when you get to Town C they have to arrest you or what kind of a shithouse town are they running?

  It’s a pattern of unintentional harassment.

  Town C: Chicago. In December 1962 I was working at the Gate of Horn. During one of my performances, I was arrested for obscenity.

  The police report starts out with some incestuous data.

  Victim’s Name: Arresting Officers.

  Person Reporting Crime to Police: Officer Cavanaugh.

  Person Who Discovered Crime: Arresting Officers.

  Witnesses’ Names: Reporting Officers.

  Victim’s Occupation: Police Officers.

  Coincidentally, PLAYBOY was tape-recording some of my shows, and what follows is a study in contrast: quotes from the police report on my arrest, as opposed to excerpts from the transcript of what I actually said onstage that night.

  POLICE REPORT: “Mr. Bruce held up a colored photograph showing the naked breast of a woman and said ‘God, your Jesus Christ, made these tits.’”

  THE TAPE: A Chicago newspaper columnist who is sort of, to the out-of-towners, is sort of a Christ in Concrete, and he’s got a thing going: what’s decent, indecent; what is good, and good is God, is Danny Thomas, and so I said I’ll show you pictures of tramps, these are bums . . .” (Holding up a page from a calendar which was for sale at several newsstands and stores on the arresting officer’s beat.) “Let’s see, here’s an indecent woman—you’re kidding! Indecent? How can that pretty lady be indecent? Whew! Ah, what kind of flower is that? Those are, they’re lilacs, yeah, they’re pretty. Lilies-of-the-valley and lilacs are my favorite flowers, I really dig them. That is a shiksa, there’s a pink-nippled lady: that’s one thing about the goyim, boy, they’ve got winner chicks. The real bums you can spot. They usually have babies in their bellies—that’s the real tramps—and no rings on their fingers. And they get their just deserts by bleeding to death in the back of taxicabs. . . . ‘You don’t love me, you just want to ball me’—that’s the usual cry. How about doing it, how do you feel about that, you people, is that about the dirtiest thing we could do to each other? Priests don’t do it, nuns don’t do it, Patamonza Yoganunda doesn’t do it, rabbis are close to celibacy—it’s really not very nice, is it, doing it . . . ?” (Couple walks out.) “They were very nice people, they could have been very ugly about it, they could have been. No, they were cool, gentle—they didn’t like it and they split. Before all of you escape, let me explain something to you. You see, you defeat your purpose. It’s God, your filthy Jesus Christ, made these tits, that’s all. Now you’ve got to make up your mind, you’ve got to stand up to Jesus, and you’ve got to say, ‘Look, I admit that doing it is filthy, I will stop doing it.’ And, believe me, if you’ll just set the rules, I will obey them. But . . . stop living the paradox. Tell me that it’s filthy, that fags are the best people; I will live up to the misogynist, I will be the woman-hater, I will be the nice guy that takes your daughter out. ‘He’s a nice guy, he didn’t try to fool around with me, he was a nice faggot.’”

  POLICE REPORT: “They say we fuck our mothers for Hershey bars.”

  THE TAPE: “I realize that my mother’s body is dirty; I realize that I’m a second-rate power; I realize that you have sold out my country. Do you know why they hate Americans anywhere, everywhere? I think I did a little more traveling than anyone in this audience. I think I’ve been in more invasions than anyone in this audience. I made six. I made some real daddies. I was on a cruiser called the U.S.S. Brooklyn. I was second-best gunner’s mate. I was mating it from 1942 to 1945, July—that’s when Germany fell, in July. Doing it is dirty. They hate Americans everywhere. You know why? Because we fucked all of their mothers for chocolate bars, and don’t you forget that, Jim.”

  POLICE REPORT: “I want to fuck your mothers. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  THE TAPE: “You don’t think those kids who have heard it since 1942—’You know what those Americans did to your poor mother, they lined her up, those bastards, your poor father had to throw his guts up in the kitchen; while he waited out there, that Master Sergeant schtupped your mother for their stinking coffee and their eggs and their frigging cigarettes, those Americans!’ That’s it, Jim, that’s all they’ve heard, those kids. Those kids now, at 23–25 years old: ‘The Americans, there’s the guy that did it to my mother!’ Would you assume that this is sizably correct . . . ? ‘There’s the fellow who fucked my mother—oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for that, and for giving us candy.’”

  POLICE REPORT: Then talking about the War he stated, “If we would have lost the War, they would have strung Truman up by the balls . . .”

  THE TAPE: “Priests and rabbis walk with guys in death row. There’s a clergyman, he’s willing to be the hangman in Australia. No one else will do it. He couldn’t get a brown suit, though. It’s amazing. Priest or rabbi: ‘Yes, my son, you must be brave.’ ‘Sure, schmuck, you’re splitting, he’s sitting.’ . . . (into German accent.) ‘And people say Adolf Eichmann should have been hung. Nein. Do you recognize the whore in the middle of you—that you would have done the same if you were there yourselves? My defense: I was a soldier. I saw the end of a conscientious day’s effort. I saw all of the work that I did. 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.’ (German accent ends.) If we would have lost the War, they would have strung Truman up by the balls, Jim. Are you kidding with that? Not what kid told kid told kid. They would just schlep out all those Japanese mutants. ‘Here they did; there they are.’ And Truman said they’d do it again.”

  POLICE REPORT: Then referring to the good sisters of the Church, he stated, “The sisters cannot like to do it to sisters, fuck, good, good.”

  THE TAPE: “All right, now—’How to Relax the Colored People at Parties.’ The party is in motion.” (In this bit I do a dialog between a Caucasian and a Negro, taking both parts myself; the white man is speaking.):

 
; “. . . Anyway, you know, I’d like to have you over to the house, you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Be dark soon. Tell you what, I’d like to have you over to the house—I tell you this, you know, because I know you people get offensive—but I got a sister, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell is it with you guys? What do you want to hump everybody’s sister for?”

  “Well, that’s—we’re born that way. You see, it’s natural—that’s where the rhythm comes in, see, we have this natural sense of rhythm control, the Margaret Sanger clinic, and we never knock them up, that’s the thing about it.”

  “And you really like to do it to everybody’s sister?”

  “Well, no, you missed the vernacular; it’s not everybody’s sister—we like to do it to sisters.”

  “What do you mean, sisters?”

  “Just that—sisters.”

  “Oh, you don’t mean sister sisters?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ah, that’s impossible—I never knew that—oh, that’s a lot of horseshit, you can’t do that to the sisters! No kidding, do they put out, those sisters?”

  “Well, I mean, if you’re built the way we are—you know, we’re built abnormally large. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I heard you guys got a wang on, you son-of-a-gun.”

  “Yes. To use the vernacular, it is sort of like a baby’s arm with an apple in its fist—I think that’s what Tennessee Williams said.”

  “Well, you mind if I see it?”

  “No, I couldn’t do that. I’m just playing guitar at this party.”

  “What the hell, just whip it out there; let’s see that roll of tar paper you got there, Chonga . . .”

  POLICE REPORT: “Sure, who does it; nothing wrong. Everybody’s barring somebody. I bug three married women. All you people out there have at some time or another bugged someone’s wife.”

  THE TAPE: “Now I am not particularly proud of this, but in my life I have been intimate with maybe three married ladies that are still happily married, and they convinced me that they never made it with anybody else but their husband and me. . . . Now if I did—and, Christ, I’m not that unique—I bet probably every guy in this audience has made it with one married chick or two that’s still married. And both of us, we didn’t pull out. No offense, mind you. So when I see brothers and sisters that don’t look alike, that’s it Jim. I wouldn’t swear for nobody. Uh-uh. It just takes that one . . .”

  POLICE REPORT: Then talking about God and Jesus Christ, he led into a mockery of the Catholic Church and other religious organizations by using the Pope’s name and Cardinal Spellman and Bishop Sheen’s name . . .

  THE TAPE (This bit is based on a visit to earth by Christ and Moses.): “Come on down to the West Coast and visit the schuls. There are no schuls. Yes, there is a reform temple where the rabbi—no, it’s a doctor, he is a doctor of law. His beard is gone. . . . ‘You know, someone had the chutzpah to ask me the other day—they said, “Tell me something, Doctor of Law, is there a God or not?” What cheek to ask this in a temple! We’re not here to talk of God—we’re here to sell bonds for Israel. Remember that. A pox upon you, Christ and Moses . . .’

  “Christ and Moses are confused. They go to New York . . . Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. There is Bishop Sheen, played by Ed Begley. Cardinal Spellman, played by Hugh Herbert—‘Woooo, woooo, terrible, terrible, terrible.’ Christ and Moses standing in the back of Saint Pat’s. Confused, Christ is, at the grandeur of the interior, the baroque interior, the rococo baroque interior. His route took him through Spanish Harlem. He would wonder what fifty Puerto Ricans were doing living in one room. That stained glass window is worth nine grand! Hmmmmm. . . . (Spellman and Sheen decide to call the Pope long distance.) ‘Will you get me Rome? Hello. Hey, woppo, what’s happening? You were sick, weren’t you, fatso? If you’d stop fressing so much. . . .’ Now, dig—we’re in Chicago—fifty miles away from here I got punched in the face for doing that. Milwaukee . . .”

  POLICE REPORT: “He used a Jewish word, ‘smuck’, numerous times.”

  I had already been arrested on the West Coast for saying schmuck—by a Yiddish undercover agent who had been placed in the club several nights running to determine if my use of Yiddish terms was a cover for profanity. The officer said it was. I asked the judge if I could bring my Aunt Mema to court to cross-examine him.

  It’s interesting, though, that the Chicago police report did not make an) mention of the following excerpt from my performance that night:

  There’s an article here in Chicago’s American about these transvestites that are posing as policemen, and how they’re thwarting the rapists. . . . According to Sergeant Dolan, one of the original members of the gang, the rough and ready policemen go to great lengths to appear as fascinating females—only, you’ve got to really go through all of it, right? “Well, I’ll put it between my legs once and that’s all; I’ll try it and—now frig that method acting.” (Reading.) “The most hazardous part of the preparation for duty, said Dolan, is learning how to walk on high-heeled shoes. Attackers have a sharp eye, Dolan said, and will shy away from an amateur, wobbly ankle. . . .” Now dig, the beautiful part about this is that they don’t know that some of these rapists are that dedicated—they find out they’re cops, they don’t care, they’ll schtup anyway, man. “I’m a peace officer.” “I don’t care, you got a cute ass, that’s all I know.” And that’s it. Would you assume that there is the slightest bit of entrapment involved in this thing? That’s not very nice, to incite. . . .

  I was released on bail and continued working at the Gate of Horn. Meanwhile a police official, who had originally ordered the arrest, came into the Gate of Horn and with two waitresses witnessing, he conducted the following conversation with the manager:

  POLICE OFFICIAL: I want to tell you that if this man ever uses a four-letter word in this club again, I’m going to pinch you and everyone in here. If he ever speaks against religion, I’m going to pinch you and everyone in here. Do you understand?

  MANAGER: I don’t have anything against any religion.

  POLICE OFFICIAL: Maybe I’m not talking to the right person. Are you the man who hired Lenny Bruce?

  MANAGER: Yes, I am. I’m Alan Ribback.

  POLICE OFFICIAL: Well, I don’t know why you ever hired him. You’ve had good people here. But he mocks the Pope—and I’m speaking as a Catholic—I’m here to tell you your license is in danger. We’re going to have someone here watching every show. Do you understand?

  MANAGER: Yes.

  True, I had been taking advantage of something we used to be famous for. It’s known as the right to worship as you please—and criticize as you please.

  Chicago (population, 3,550,404) has the largest membership in the Roman Catholic Church—2,163,380—of any archdiocese in the country. Even so, that the panel of 50 persons from which the jury for my trial was to be selected should include 47 Catholics, was an interesting coincidence. Moreover, their names were not drawn out of a drum, as is the customary procedure, but rather, jurors were chosen according to where they were seated. And they kept changing seats.

  The eventual jury consisted entirely of Catholics.

  The judge was Catholic.

  The prosecutor and his assistant were Catholic.

  On Ash Wednesday, the judge removed the spot of ash from his forehead and told the bailiff to instruct the others to go and do likewise. I could never conjure up a more bizarre satire than the reality of a judge, two prosecutors and twelve jurors, each with a spot of ash on his forehead.

  When the late Brendan Behan heard about this, he said: “That scares me—and I’m Catholic!”

  At the very beginning of the trial, Judge Daniel J. Ryan ordered all children to be escorted from the courtroom. And, on the fourth day, thirty girls from Holy Rosary, a Catholic college, dropped in on a tour of the court, and Judge Ryan asked them to leave because of the nature of the testimony
. This was the sort of thing that really did me in with the jury.

  Not to mention the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, which provides for a public trial. Of course, only gangsters and Communists make reference to that document.

  The Assistant State’s Attorney, in his opening statement to the jury, declared: “Truthfully, I am not permitted to say what I feel [but] I am sure that you have noticed the perspiration on my nose and my upper lip.”

  Thus was the tone of the trial set.

  In San Francisco, where I was acquitted on the same charge, the arresting officers admitted that my material didn’t arouse their prurient interest. In Chicago, Judge Ryan refused to permit that line of cross-examination by the defense.

  An officer testified that I had said: “Cardinal Spellman, Fulton Sheen, and the Pope, they must do it to the sisters.”

  And that I held up the Chicago’s American, and said: “These are police officers dressed up in women’s clothes. You have to be a fag to be a police officer.”

  And that I said, “The sisters like to do it to sisters. Umm, umm, fuck, good, good.”

  In his summation, the Prosecutor stated: “During the course of his performance the defendant . . . made various references to different acts which all people, I assume—I know—consider sacred, a sacred part of marriage. . . . He also made reference to a photograph . . . as you recall, of a woman, a nude woman’s body . . . He pointed to a portion of this picture, which is part of a woman which is beautiful, useful, but not something that I, Mr. Bruce, or anyone else should comment on in a manner in which he did. . . . Mr. Bruce, at another time, made certain statements in which he gave a story about Germany, I believe soldiers in Germany. During this story, certain terms—he used a particular term in a particular way. I don’t think I have to tell you the term, I think that you recall it. Basically it was a term that was aptly put . . . as a word that started with an ‘F’ and ended with a ‘K’ and sounded like ‘truck.’ Basically you heard the word, you know it, and heard the way it was used.”

  At one point the trial had been adjourned, and with the judge’s knowledge I left for a booking in Los Angeles. My intention was to return to Chicago for the rest of the trial, but not long after I landed in Los Angeles (Town D), I was arrested on a narcotics charge. It was my fifth arrest in that city alone. The international grand total of arrests is nineteen. At this writing.