The cultural and comic legacy of Lenny Bruce
The thread of Lenny Bruce runs through not only the history of stand-up comedy, but through American culture, as well. To his friends and fellow comedians in the 1960s, he was a talented, funny guy on the road to self-destruction. To those who came after his death, he was an icon, the man who invented stand-up comedy as it came to be practiced in nightclubs and on television as the art form exploded in the '70s and '80s.
People may disagree about the details, but he left an indelible mark on peers like Mort Sahl, Paul Krassner, and George Carlin, as well as contemporary locals like Jimmy Tingle and Reverend Tim McIntire.
"Although he wasn't a big commercial success, he was a cultural success, and he was known and thought well of critically by those who took the time to look at it honestly and not look at it from a frightened and prejudiced perspective. That encouraged me; the doors he's opened, I can walk through them." -- George Carlin, comedian and Bruce contemporary.
"He was very funny, not profound. That was all read into it later. Just funny. Really funny, and a good guy. People made him into a metaphor later because it suited their purposes. Which they love to do." -- Mort Sahl, comedian and friend of Lenny Bruce.
"To me, Lenny Bruce's comedy was not only very funny, but it showed extraordinary courage, because he insisted on going outside established boundaries, both political and cultural. His language was deliberately outrageous, because he believed that not only the substance of his monologues, but the form of them, should refuse to be contained by existing rules." -- Howard Zinn, historian, author.
"I don't think 95 out of 100 people ever heard Lenny Bruce. He's almost become shorthand for `angry, dirty comic.' Which I think is a discredit to what he was all about. He was notorious because of his language and his subject matter, but I think what was important was he took comedy from this really goofy, vaudevillian, stilted, horrible, phony thing and turned it into a hipster conversation." -- Reverend Tim McIntire, local comedian.
"It's almost like saying Babe Ruth, people reference Babe Ruth now. Do people know everything about Babe Ruth? No. They know he was the greatest home run hitter and things like that. He's kind of in that league as a comic." -- Jimmy Tingle, local comedian and theater owner.
"First of all, he had a breakthrough with style because it wasn't just plain stand-up now, it was like a little theater where he would play all the parts. And also, his satirical targets were all taboo, from organized religion to nuclear testing to racism to abortion rights. This wasn't just an act. It was the way that he would be in his nonprofessional life. Ultimately, he just wanted the same freedom to talk onstage that he had in his living room." -- Paul Krassner, publisher of "The Realist," co-founder of the yippies, and a friend of Lenny. Bruce.
