biographies

Comedian has Lenny Bruce always been something of an enigma.
Some compared him to the famous satirist Jonathan Swift, who was a moralist and who endeavoured to uncover the hypocrisy of various situations arising out of society.
His defence attorneys even pointed out "he was not a mad man writing dirty words on the walls of a public toilet. He was an original social critic with an unconventional vocabulary."

Others, however, including some well known journalists, perceived him as a "sick comedian" with a foul mouth, whose commentaries using filthy, obnoxious, depraved and obscene language pertaining to religion, race, sex, and government were of no social value.

The dilemma-was he not protected under the First Amendment of the American Constitution pertaining to freedom of speech, notwithstanding his shocking language?

Authors Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover, two attorneys and experts on the First Amendment, have authored a book entitled The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon.

This is the first comprehensive and carefully documented account of Lenny Bruce's career and free speech struggles.

Bruce had been involved in at least eight obscenity arrests, and had been subjected to six-obscenity court cases conducted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York over a span of four years involving some 3, 500 pages of trial transcripts.

For the most part, they all focused on so called "word crimes" concentrating on the following principal legal issues:

Were his routines steeped in "bitter social criticism" of unquestionable value?

Was his use of course language sexually arousing to the audience?

If the words were non-erotic, how could they have been obscene? As mentioned, something is not necessarily obscene merely because it is in bad taste, shocking, disgusting, stupid, vulgar, embarrassing, immoral or offensive?

Does the dominant appeal of the material used, taken as a whole, have a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt the average person by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desires?

Did his use of "dirty words" corrupt the morals of youth or others, when you consider that under age persons were not permitted to attend the performances?

Should an artist's use of word-taboos be judged, at least in significant part, by community standards?

To better understand the power of Bruce's performances and all of the above legal questions, the authors have cleverly included a CD narrated by one of Bruce's most adamant supporters, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, highlighting some of his performances and trials. The CD also contains interviews with some of his ardent defenders, George Carlin, Hugh Hefner and Margaret Cho, and as a contrast, interviews with some of his prosecutors.

Lenny Bruce died a tragic figure. He never lived to see the day where the courts recognized that comedians should not be imprisoned for their words. As the authors state, "the life of Lenny Bruce is a great cautionary tale about why First Amendment freedom must be the rule rather than the exception."

This is a must read book for defenders of the First Amendment, who will not be disappointed with its meticulous research and easy to understand analysis of the pertinent legal issues.

Norm Goldman-bookpleasures.com

Let me start by saying that I'm a fan of the First Amendment, and of the idea of and ideas of courageous people like Lenny Bruce who stand up for it in the face of considerable and outrageous persecution. Before getting this book, I knew very little about Lenny Bruce apart from the standard accolades to his artistic integrity and courage; after getting this book, the only additional information I have is that Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover have spent a considerable number of pages in creating a shrine to someone whom they clearly admire greatly.

There's no problem with admiring someone, even in a biography, but the way this book is packaged makes it sound as if it's a penetrating legal analysis offering some enlightening picture of Lenny's life. Maybe I didn't read this deeply enough, but what I saw was page after page of `Good ol' Lenny, and the things he did. Then the cops came in.' Yes, as I say, what Lenny was doing (onstage, if not in his private life) was basically right, and certainly impressive; yes, the legal harrassment he received was absurd, and hounded him to his death -- but surely that's not all there is to the picture. I wanted to find out about the life of an important, if largely indirect, fight for the First Amendment; I found only a testament that Free Speech Good, coupled with a few timid caveats that the subject was not a saint.

That said, how about the writing? Well, again, I picked up the book for some sort of insight into the legal twists and tangles of the matter, something to make me really begin to understand the cases; what I found was the work of someone who I think has great insight, but who was more concerned with showing that he was as cool as Lenny than with sharing that insight with his readers.

By the way, the CD is great, although it takes a few listens to see how it hangs together.

Lenny Bruce lived to shock people. His nightclub routines, full of the worst of the four letter words, made fun of stuff which people, especially his contemporaries, were supposed to take seriously: religion, marriage, intimacy. However, _The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon_ (Sourcebooks) by Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover, makes plain that the iconoclastic Bruce had enormous respect for the law. His rooms were cluttered with tapes, court transcripts, and legal research efforts, and he wrote letters to judges trying to explain how his comedy was legally protected speech. He even showed civic respect for the policemen who were so often out to get him. Bruce saw that it was his job to change the law, and while he never really managed that, he made historic changes by fighting battles that those after him would not have to fight. The authors of this engrossing book have found that his story is virtually absent from the history of the First Amendment; this is a corrective.

Bruce was arrested many times for obscenity, but particularly interesting in this book is the demonstration that what often drove the arrests was irritation about his blasphemy. Bruce had routines that could bother any denomination. After mockingly accepting Jewish responsibility for killing Jesus, he roared, "We Jews killed Christ, and if he comes back, we'll kill him again!" He had a hilarious routine in which Christ and Moses come into the back of St. Patrick's Cathedral, to the embarrassment of Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Sheen, who have to telephone the pope to explain ("_Of course they're white!_"). We have no blasphemy laws in this country (to the dismay, still, of some), but he was literally brought up on blasphemy charges. Blasphemy could not stick, but obscenity might. The problem Bruce had was that according to the Supreme Court decision in _Roth_, a work had to be taken as a whole, but the cops and prosecutors always concentrated on the specific words. The vice squad informers could, during a performance, tally every naughty synonym Bruce used for genitalia or coitus, and then present the list for consideration by the grand jury. Consideration to the sweep of Bruce's satire was seldom given.

As demonstrated in this comprehensive and well referenced volume, by two lawyers who obviously love their subject and enjoy explaining First Amendment issues, Bruce has had a resurrection. There have been plays and movies, but more importantly, as George Carlin (who was once arrested for attending a Bruce performance) said, "Lenny opened all the doors, or kicked them down." The nightclubs and comedy clubs are now open for anyone, with the sensible idea that if you might be offended by what you hear, don't pay to go in. A stand-up comic might fear bombing on stage, or getting heckled, but because Bruce has already taken the heat, no comic has to fear getting arrested. Within this book is a CD of Bruce giving some of his most famous routines, and commentary by admirers and detractors. On it, Margaret Cho, who continues in the tradition of offering outrageous satirical commentary, says that she knows part of her job, as Bruce's descendant, is to disrupt polite society, but she knows what has gone before: "I don't want to end up like him, but I want to be like him."