Looking for Lenny Page #9

they could get to him.

That's what I think.

I think had he kept clean,

he could literally have changed

comedy

100 times more

than he did.

He got f***ed

by the law,

a law which he respected.

But when you really look

at his body of work,

he loved the law.

And it was so sad

to me once I read

and found out more

about him

that he got f***ed

by the law

that he respected

so much.

Because the puritanical way

they looked at things

back then

had no concept of what

this guy was doing on stage.

I mean, this guy was...

This guy was not just

a genius,

but he was

saying things

that no one

before him said,

said things then

about certain things

that were going on then

that he would say now

that no one would say.

No one will be

like Lenny Bruce again.

No one was before him.

And, you know,

it's a very simple thing to say,

but guys like myself

and thousands

of other comedians

with different styles,

they have to owe everything

to Lenny,

because even Richie pryor

who I knew and I loved,

because without Lenny

getting f***ed,

nobody else would have

had the right to go on stage.

Who knows what laws

would have been passed.

It would have been insane.

So Lenny died,

basically, for us.

In a lot of ways,

it sounds hokey,

but he died

for the rest of us

to be able to say

what we wanted to say.

And I wish he was

hanging out with winters

now at 83.

You know, in the last

20 years.

You know,

everyone says that.

I wish hendrix played

another 35 years--

my God, imagine?

And on and on.

The list is endless.

But he set the bar,

he did it first,

and he got crucified...

By the first amendment,

which is something he respected

more than almost anybody

I can think of.

So it's a real tragedy.

Shakespearian.

For me, all comedy

comes from the heart.

And if you're going

to make social commentary,

it should be very personal.

You know, one of the reasons

I go on these trips to Iraq

is so I can be a witness

to what I'm talking about

and thinking about.

Not just reading it

in the paper

and commenting on it.

For me, when Lenny

was feeling his pain

and putting his pain

out there in his comedy,

that was the best stuff.

I really wonder if anybody

listened to early rush limbaugh

the way I did.

He was off his--

I mean, the stuff

that he would say

would be like,

"did you hear that?

That's insane."

And, uh, you know,

the Ann coulters of the world

frighten me because

he and-- Ann coulter

and rush limbaugh

don't have any jokes

on the end of that.

No, there's no comedy there.

They're actually serious.

Bill maher is not.

Howard stern is not.

I respect what anybody says,

don imus, spent his career

telling jokes.

As did Michael Richards.

You want to persecute somebody?

Go listen to what

Ann coulter's saying.

Go examine what,

you know,

limbaugh has said.

There are people worth

examining who are not joking.

We have our crosshairs

on the wrong people.

We really,

we truly do.

I mean, bill O'Reilly's

saying some very

interesting stuff.

No one seems to care.

It's okay if he says it.

Not okay--

the double standard

is alive and well, you know.

It makes me sad

on a certain level,

that Lenny could have died

for naught.

But I feel like moments

like this,

in situations like this,

where a group of people

come along

and want to talk about something

that is truly important

and interesting

and real and noteworthy,

is exactly why

I'm sitting here,

because I'm convinced

double standard killed him.

And tried to silence--

and trying to silence him.

Well, the thing

that was so bad

when they started arresting him

two or three times a week--

it just broke my heart

when he'd come home at night.

I just wanted to hug him

and let him cry on my shoulder,

things like that,

it was so pitiful.

When he came back from London,

it was even worse.

When they wouldn't

let him perform in London.

He flew over there

and then had to

come back the next day.

He was just broken hearted.

And I thought how f***ing

unjustcan you be in this world?

What's wrong

with these people?

But he was very upset by it,

very hurt by it.

My favorite thing was that

he had that kind of courage.

I just loved that.

I love it.

Because one person

can change the world.

One person.

People don't realize.

They think that it has to be

a group of people, you know,

but one person

can do it.

It was Harriet tubman.

It wasn't Harriet tubman

and her Uncle Joe.

You know?

One person can change--

it can change the world.

It wasn't Martin Luther King

and the temptations.

It was Martin Luther King,

you know.

So people have

to be brave.

They have to stand

for something.

They have to just

stand up.

And have courage.

He made, he ennobled

what I already think

is a nice high calling,

making people laugh.

He went beyond that,

he ennobled it.

He was like,

this guy is a genius,

this guy is out of sight.

He's just unbelievable.

He's not like

the ordinary comedian,

and yet he was

hilariously funny.

I think they were more

open-minded then,

it was a decade of hope,

you know what Kennedy said,

you know, at the end

of this decade,

we'll put someone

on the moon.

That's not where

we are now.

Now we're all closed off

and afraid

because of terrorism.

And so, at that time,

people felt like they

could do anything.

So I think that allowed

Lenny to say, as a comic,

and this is from my own head

as a comic,

you always want to try to find

the next level of your art,

if you look at it

as an art, right?

So, okay, I'm doing jokes

about shoes.

Nah, I'm not really

pushing the envelope,

I want to up it

a little bit.

As you get more confident

on stage, and as a performer,

you feel you can free

yourself up

to really go for something.

And so with

mort Saul and Shelly,

but mainly mort Saul,

kind of really being

the guy to go after

the politicians

before anybody

was really doing it

that way--

it was, like, unheard of

to go after the president.

Um, my bet is that Lenny

looked at that and go,

"I want to push

the envelope a little bit,"

you know.

And um, you know,

Lenny kind of really

pushed the envelope

about life.

Richard pryor pushed

the envelope

about his life.

You look at pryor,

it always comes back to him,

through him as

the prism,

there's a lot of

interesting observations

about mankind.

Lenny, like in terms

of you understood

how he thought,

but like not what he felt

and what he

was really about,

because it was always

observations

about outside forces--

religion, politics,

the ku klux klan,

whatever it might be, so.

So I think the time

allowed him,

combination of him

feeling like,

probably like

a good artist feels

like I want to push

the envelope of the art,

I want to be

the guy on top,

and the time-- combination

of that and the time

allowing him to do that,

you know,

where people were sort of

open-minded

to that kind of thing.

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