Looking for Lenny Page #6

It's funny to watch

the way the media,

will, you know,

these f***ing vultures,

like Al roker saying

imus should be fired,

and meanwhile

those c*nts at nbc

two weeks later

show the Cho manifesto,

even though that type

of sh*t

has been proven

to spawn copycats.

And Al roker

had nothing to say about that.

It was like,

"where's your anger?"

Where's the integrity

of the news department

with that, motherf***er?

Where is it?

I think it was overblown.

For the first three days,

there was no life to it.

And then some of the sponsors

started to get edgy.

And then Al sharpton

met with the CBS president,

and the day after,

he was fired.

Rumor has it. I heard from

a couple of good sources

that they fired him

after what Barack Obama said.

I don't think he should be

working for nbc

and have access to the public

airwaves after

making what were profoundly

derogatory statements.

Ann coulter.

She even thought

that firing him

was a little bit

too strong.

You know, good lord,

when Ann coulter defends

freedom of speech,

I'm just going to go

kill myself.

It's bad to the point

of scary frightening bad.

That you could just fire someone

for a dumb comment on the air.

I went to Iraq this year,

and we did shows for the troops,

and the week after

we left, 167 guys died.

And I think the day

the imus thing came out,

it was on the cover

of time magazine or something.

Are we really f***ing worried

about the word "n*gger"?

Are we really worried

about someone being called

a redneck or a cracker

or a kike?

What the f***?

What's wrong?

And Lenny, it's weird,

because Lenny when

you watch him,

is so far ahead

of his time,

just so far ahead

of his time.

And, you know,

and he's dead now.

And that's what happens

to all those people

that are ahead

of their time.

Hi, welcome to

the comedy documentary.

[Laughs]

Holy sh*t.

You have Lenny Bruce

being censored by

the government

and by district attorneys

in the 1960s.

And you flash forward

40 years,

and you have don imus

who's being censored

by corporate America.

The argument is

is like,

should imus be allowed

to say what he's saying?

Yes, but that doesn't mean

that nbc has to put him on,

or anybody has

to put him on.

But he's put on not because

nbc thinks he's great,

or whatever, infinity

or whatever the hell it was,

'cause he was making money,

that's why.

That's not free speech

or no free speech,

that's just the marketplace.

The whole thing about imus

has to do with money.

Staples, the big office

supply chain,

telling our sister network,

cnbc, that quote:

"Recent comments on

the show

"have caused it

to discontinue

"its advertising

on 'imus in the morning.'"

Al sharpton actually said

something

that was very interesting

which was

he didn't try

and fire him.

He goes, "I never tried

to get don imus fired."

There was no federal

or government regulators

that fired him.

What fired him was when

advertisers were told

by their customers

that they're not going to

support them if they support

this kind of stuff.

Those advertisers were riled up

by media people.

I remember because

I went through this.

The people you are

referring to, bill,

had the ability

to rile up advertisers,

they would have--

I mean, you can't tell people

that don imus has the right

to say what he wants

but we don't have the right

to respond.

Free speech goes

both ways.

In the imus case,

this was public broadcasting

across the country.

And it's very different,

I think,

than when you have someone

at a club, speaking.

But even in that case,

the action wasn't taken

by government,

the action was taken

by his broadcast company.

I think you have corporate

sponsors and all that,

you got to be so freakin'

careful, it would make me sick.

And then you're a pandering,

watered-down douchebag

like Bob and tom,

it's horrible.

The special interest groups,

which under the guise

of sort of

caring about America,

are really driven by commerce

and money and big business.

And the sponsors directly,

have an incredible amount

of influence over what,

you know, over what

the powers that be

want to put in their film,

in their movies,

in their television shows,

and their radio broadcasts.

And I don't think things

have changed very much.

For a different set of reasons,

it's the same result,

and that's scary.

And so, you know,

I don't know where

that leaves, you know,

where that puts

Lenny's legacy, you know.

[Perelli]

I don't hear from him

for a long time,

it's August,

it's very hot.

And he calls up,

he says, "Frank?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what I got

a taste for?

"I got a taste for

that pasta...

That your mother

used to make."

"Yeah?" I said, "do you know

it's 7:
00 in the morning?"

'Cause those guys

have no hours.

And he says, "yeah,"

he says, "but tell Mary--"

my mother, you know,

"that I'd appreciate it,"

so now I gotta wake up

my mother.

Right over here,

down the street here.

I said, "ma, would you

do me a favor?"

She says, "why certainly,

you're my son."

My mother was

a little wacky that way.

"Of course I would do that."

And she started

making the pasta

at seven in the morning,

packed it real nice,

went there,

and he pulls the bowl

out of my hand,

and like a horse eating oats,

puts his head in there...

[Eating sounds]

And when he came up,

he had all pasta here.

And then he says, "Frank,

I promise you next time..."

I said, "okay," but I wasn't

paying any attention.

And I says, "okay,"

and then I started to laugh.

He says, "schmuck,

what are you laughing at?"

I says, "you got all

that gravy around there."

He says, "well, what's

funny about that?"

"Oh, nothing.

Everybody does that."

But it does remind me

in an Italian neighborhood,

every Sunday

when you went out to play,

all the kids had pasta,

and they all had that

gravy around their mouth.

So I told him then he started

laughing and everything,

he said, "well,

I'll talk to you later.

We're going to do

something."

I went home,

and it was real hot.

And my father had some

homemade Italian wine,

he said,

"take a glass of this,"

and it knocked me out,

I fell on the bed,

went to sleep.

I get a call from

jojo d'amore.

And too bad he's

not alive,

'cause he could really

tell you a lot of things

about Lenny.

And he says, "Frank?"

"Yeah."

He says, "Lenny's dead."

I said, "what?"

He says, "he died

in the bathroom.

Somebody brought him

uncut heroin or something,"

and they didn't tell him,

and he was, uh...

One of those guys who

pumped it into his arm

and all that.

And he was dead.

And that was the end

of Lenny.

[Guitar music]

[Kaur]

I think Frankie called me,

and he asked me

to go tell Sally.

And Sally was staying

out at the beach

at that time

with kitty.

[Kitty bruce]

I was at singer sewing

in Santa Monica, California,

in a sewing class,

and I remember coming out

and seeing satsimran.

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