School of Humans.
Oh, it's the spookiest time of year, isn't it. And I'm not talking about Halloween filth heads, No, no, no, I mean it's almost the election. I hope you guys have voted, unless you're voting for the person who I don't want you to vote for. Yes, I'm using this podcast for voter suppression. Also, by the way, my voice is a little hoarse because I was doing a lot of karaoke to Nickelback songs and I wish that was
a lie, but it's not. Anyway, It's been a wild week, especially in the world of stand up comedy, and I am going to go on a bit of a rant now. I'm so sorry, but don't worry. We'll get to the history soon. So Tony Hinchcliffe he is a comic known for his amazing podcast called Kill Tony. And by amazing, I mean it more in the context like, wow, that amount of shit my dog shat is amazing.
Wow. Well, the news is that he.
Mister Tony Hinchecliff, was at the Donald Trump rally are they called rallies or events? I don't know, at Madison Square Garden earlier this week, and Tony did a speech, specifically a hate speech. At the event, he punched down upon various groups. For example, he called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage, which first of all, is a rude way to characterize a territory of the United States that has been routinely neglected by the government, you know, with.
Hurricane relief and other resources.
And secondly, Tony Hinchecliff islands don't float, freaking idiot. The silver lining of his speech though, is that I'm sure many Trump supporters are now learning for the first time that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States. In the past few years, in the world of stand up, Tony Hinchcliff has become one of the supreme edge lord comedians living in Austin, Texas, which is the holy place of the Joe Rogan cinematic universe.
Tony, he's a.
God to in cells and sexual predators alike. And he said a lot of racist stuff in the past, notably making fun of an Asian comedian who opened for him, and by making fun, I mean using mini slurs against him. So honestly, it was not surprising that he said some horrific stuff at the Trump event. But the sad thing about the comedians who adhere to the Austin, Texas Code of Comedian Ethics, which by the way, is a blank sheet of paper, is that they really think they're doing
something revolutionary. They consider themselves the punks, the rock and rollers, the counter culture of today, fighting against the oppressiveness of things like diversity, equity and inclusion and political correctness, and what they deliver is shock comedy, jokes that often don't have a punchline. And why can they say stuff like this, Well, freedom of speech. It's the first amendment, the very first one.
The founding fathers were like, yes, we must have the right to talk shit upon everyone and not be thrown in jail. And yeah, freedom of speech, it's great. It's great to be able to say what you want. And then is free.
Speech versus hate speech.
It's a whole complicated mess because freedom of speech is not straightforward. Throughout history, free speech hasn't been completely free. Even today, politicians are suppressing speech in the form of bills like Florida's Don't Stay Gay, And throughout our country's histories there have been a lot of trials, laws, court decisions, protests that have led US to this moment where a professional comedian can get on stage in clubs and venues across the country and say truly offensive and or obscene
stuff without being hauled off to prison. So let's go back in time to when Tony Hinchcliff wasn't even a lump of cells. Yet, back to the nineteen sixties, and let's take a look at a different comedian, a comedian who has arrested multiple times, went through multiple obscenity trials and became a central figure and the conversation around free speech. A comedian who paved the way for people like me to be able to talk about abortions and vaginas at an open mic at a coffee shop at five pm.
Who am I talking about, of course, the great Lenny Bruce. This is American filth and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story for American history. This week's episode free speech and Lenny Bruce. For those of you who don't know who Lenny Bruce is, he was a big time stand up comedian in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and back then Americans had some pretty conservative ideas of what you should be allowed to say in
public performances. Back then, Tony Henchcliff would have been arrested on the spot, and so would Donald Trump probably, And if I'm being honest, me too if anybody saw my
stand up. Back then, the standard for what constituted obscenity was often rooted in moral beliefs and societal norms of the time, and also based on the nineteen thirty three Supreme Court decision United States versus Ulysses, a book by James Joyce, which permitted greater latitude in literature but not in public performances, basically being like, yeah, you can say bad words and say obscene things in a book, but if you're doing a stand upset, if you did in
the theater, no no, no, no no, you got to keep your mouth shut. You got to be appropriate. And under the framework from this Supreme Court decision, any material deemed to offend the moral sensibilities of the average person could be classified as obscene, making it illegal for public
distribution or performance. Lenny Bruce was born in nineteen twenty five as Leonard Schneider, but he changed his name and since he was young, he was a silly yet provocative goose like at age twenty and nineteen forty five, he was kicked out of the army because he would wear women's clothing.
That's huge to be kicked out.
Of the army at that point, because if you recall in nineteen forty five, there was this little war that was kind of winding down that needed man you know, explicitly man power. When he got into stand up comedy, he did observational humor, he did some social criticism, and woohoo,
he used explicit language. He also talked about taboo subject like sex, politics, religion, race, topics that at that point were considered largely off limits for public discussion, even though today I'm like, those are the only subjects you're supposed to talk.
About in stand up What are we talking about?
And it makes sense that he developed this style because he started his career doing burlesque comedy, which means that he was honing his act in strip clubs in southern California, and at a strip club, you know, not much as off limits, though it would be funny to get arrested at a strip club for obscenity like saying titties is more offensive than actual titties, and yes, on this podcast,
American filth. We are considering titties very obscene. Lenny Bruce wrote an autobiography called How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
Which is a haha. He he a satirization.
Of how to win friends and influence people. And in his book, Lenny talked about how he developed his style.
He said, four years working in clubs.
That's what really made it for me. Every night doing it, doing it, doing it, getting bored and doing different ways. No pressure on you, and all the other comedians are drunken bums who don't show up, So I could try anything. And oh boy, for the time, he really did try anything. And because of that, his stand up career was marked by numerous arrests and legal battles that had a lasting impact on the rights of artists and the interpretation of free speech in the United States today. So let's get
to his first arrest, why don't we. It was in nineteen sixty one. At that point, Lenny Bruce was mega successful. He'd appeared on television, He'd done a huge show at Carnegie Hall. He'd been called by television host Steve Allen the most shocking comedian of our time. A young man who was scared rocketing to fame. Time magazine called his act sick comedy, social criticism liberally.
Laced with cyanide.
His act was characterized by a personal and highly disturbing hostility toward all the world. Well, what's an example of some of these poisonous bits by Lenny Bruce. Well, let's hear me butcher some of them.
We got this gym from nineteen fifty eight.
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. Haha, he he. He had a lot of things criticizing religion. For example, he had if you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish, or people are leaving the church and going back to God. Of course Lenny Bruce he had some classic material about men versus women, which honestly is most comedy.
One of his jokes goes, a.
Lady can't go through a plate glass window and go to bed with you five seconds later, but guys can have head on collisions with greyhound buses, and on the way of the hospital in the ambulance, the guy makes a play for the nurse Wow, isn't he speaking the truth?
Dudes are horny. He'd also talk about current events celebrities, like one joke he did was about Elizabeth Taylor, who was about to marry the Jewish actor and singer Eddie Fisher, and Lenny Bruce said, will Elizabeth Taylor become bar mitzvud?
Whoa, whoa woe?
Apparently this was very scandalous. And he had a lot of bits about race. He had one bit where he just yelled the end word a lot. I know, not great, but here's one of his bits about race that I think holds up. I mean, it's still kind of crazy, but here it is. You have a choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman, fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights with a black black woman or a white white woman. The white woman is Kate
Smith and the black woman is Lena Horn. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore?
Are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty.
Then let's get basic and persecute ugly people.
What a fun bit. And for context in.
The joke, Kate Smith was a white singer who many people thought was very unattractive, and Lena Horne was a black actress and singer who was considered very attractive. And then, of course Lenny Bruce. He used a lot of obscene language and his bits, like one he had was take away the right to say fuck, and you take away the right to say fuck the government. So true, Lenny Bruce.
So yes, Lenny was skyrocketing to fame. But as he was making his jokes being provocative, he was also getting hooked on drugs.
In the fall of.
Nineteen sixty one, Bruce was thirty five and on September twenty ninth, he was in Philadelphia. There he was arrested for possessing narcotics, and that same week he got that first obscenity arrest. So on October third and fourth, nineteen sixty one, he was performing at the Jazz Workshop, a popular nightclub in San Francisco.
He was doing some of his usual bits.
One employed the word cocksucker, and then you guys aren't going to be able to handle this. He started talking about coming. You guys know coming what happens when you have sex. Allegedly, he said two is a preposition come is a verb, the verb intransitive. I've heard these two words my whole adult life.
To come.
It's been like a big drum. So did you come? Did you come good? Did you come good? Now, if anyone in this room or the world finds these two words decadent, obscene and moral a sexual, the words to come really make you feel uncomfortable, you probably can't come, and then you're of no use because the purpose of life is to recreate it. The bits better when he
says it, I think it's funnier. I'm just I'm just saying it, you know, But the whole thing anyway, both nights of the Jazz Workshop, the audiences were rolling their say and he he ha ha looel this is so good, so fun, so provocative. Also, he just made a good point about those who are uncomfortable about coming, they probably can't come.
That's probably true.
But there was one person in the crowd who wasn't laughing, and that was an undercover police officer of the San Francisco Police Department. He was there to be the literal fun police and see if Lenny Bruce said anything too crazy and whoa with cocksucker with coming, He sure did once he'd seen enough lewdness, this undercover cop left the show to tell his sergeant, and this is what he said about Lenny's show. Geez, you know, I can hardly
believe this myself. The man is up there on stage and he's performing, and he's taken the term cocksucker and using it. Wow, doesn't this guy seem like so much fun? But anyway, the sergeant was like, I've heard enough, and so he and the boys went down to the Jazz Workshop and arrested Lenny Bruce for violating California's obscenity laws. But don't worry, Lenny Bruce made bail and he got out in time to perform his one AM show that night.
A month later, Lenny Bruce was on Try and in his defense, he and his lawyer were like, Hey, you got to look at the stand up set as a whole, not just pick and choose obscene language, because if you see it as the whole, it's important social satire. Yeah, when Lenny say and cocksucker, it's for a very important artistic and intellectual reason. They called witnesses to the stand who are arts critics and literature professors who are like, yes,
he's doing important work. And the reason they made this argument was because of this Supreme Court decision from nineteen fifty seven Roth versus the United States, which basically said, yeah, if the work has social value, it's not obscene. The jury side with Lenny Bruce on this one. But that was just the beginning of his legal troubles. In nineteen sixty two, Lenny Bruce was arrested twice, once in Los Angeles and once in Chicago for violating obscenity laws.
He managed to beat.
The charges in LA but things did go his way in Chicago, where he was convicted the following year. In nineteen sixty three, he was kicked out of England after British authorities caught wind of some of the stuff he said at a performance he did in London. Literally, they seized him, took him to the airport, and deported his ass Then in nineteen sixty four, Bruce's legal problems continued when California authorities arrested him yet again, claiming he'd broken the state's obscenity laws.
For a third time.
So at that point, Lenny Bruce was fed up with California and a growing number of clubs and venues didn't want to work with him, fearing legal action against them, and along with dealing with these obscenity trials, Lennie Bruce was still doing drugs. In nineteen sixty three, he was
confined to a rehab center for his drug addiction. But in sixty four, Lenny Bruce decided to take his act to the last bastion of free speech in the country, New York City, Or at least that's what he thought, because that same year he'd be arrested multiple times, and that legal battle led to a swift decline of his health, his well being, his money, and his career be right
back after these soothing advertisements. In nineteen sixty four, Lenny Bruce was doing shows at Cafe O Go Go in Greenwich Village to a three hundred and fifty capacity crowd, most nights selling out. As I was saying earlier, Lenny wasn't in great shape. He'd been strung through the ringer with all these obscenity trials. He was getting older, he was out of shape. He had his addictions to deal with.
He was also suffering with bouts of inflammation around the lungs called pleurisy, which would make his chest hurt like a motherfucker. Don't tell the State of California that I said that. And unfortunately, New York City was gonna treat Lenny Bruce just the same as California.
On March three first.
In April first, the New York City District Attorney's Office sent some undercover agents to go spy on Lenny and write down any offensive stuff he said. Lenny, being Lenny, was doing some of his classic jokes, the hits.
You know. He did that coming joke.
He did another one called Infidelity, another one called red hot Enema.
He also had a joke called Guyser Carnal.
And from these titles alone, you can imagine they might be considered obscene by the nineteen sixty sensibility. Here's some of the offensive stuff that one of the undercover agents noted in his notebook. Lenny said things like jack me off, nice tits, and go come in a chicken. The nice tits was from a joke about Eleanor Roosevelt. He said, Eleanor Roosevelt has the nicest tits of any lady in office. He also had a bit called Pissing in the Sink.
The bit starts now, I wonder how many of you and the audience have ever performed an unnatural act like pissing in the sink? And it ends with I can't, Mama, there are too many people looking.
I can't piss when all these people are looking so.
Want some water down there tun on the hoses. Can't you see the boy wants to peepee? Comedy is amazing anyway, So with all of these bits, Lenny Bruce got arrested yet again on April third, nineteen sixty four. The charges against Bruce focused on his use of vulgar language and what authorities labeled in decent subject matter, and they particularly focused on his criticisms of organized religion and the government. He got out on bail the next day and returned
to the stage to a sold out crowd. He continued performing for the next few days, and then on April seventh, he was arrested again. The obscenity trial began on June sixteenth, nineteen sixty four. It was postponed a few times because Lenny Bruce had other trials to deal with and also
had some hospitalizations with his chest pain. In the meantime, his arrest had become a focal point for debates on censorship, as Lenny Bruce's defenders argued that his language was an essential tool for challenging social.
Norms and hypocrisy.
A bunch of celebrities signed a petition in defensive Lady Bruce, including Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Taylor, and she'd even beend the butt.
Of some of his jokes.
In this trial, Bruce had two lawyers, the renowned First Amendment defender Eve from London and his protege Martin Garbis, and they were going to do the same thing that Bruce had been doing in his other trials, being like, hey, according to Roth versus USA, if what you're saying has a redeeming social value, it can't be considered obscene. But the prosecutor was like, ugh, that's dumb. Bruce's show doesn't have redeeming value.
Oh No.
In fact, the prosecutor said the show was nauseating word pictures interspersed with all the three and four letter words and more acrid ten and twelve letter hyphenated ones spewed directly at the audience. I think he's just saying that Lenny Bruce has a great vocabulary. The trial lasted almost two months, and this one wasn't going to be determined by a jury, but by a panel of three judges.
And the stakes, you know, they couldn't be higher. He was there with three charges, each carrying a potential sentence of three years in prison. Now Lenny, as I said, wasn't doing too good. He wasn't in the best physical shape. He was also losing a lot of money having to defend himself at these trials. He was losing work. But the bigger issue was that his bits were going to be read aloud by one of the agents and the prosecutor. Lenny was like, they're not going to be able to
deliver it correctly. He said, I'm going to be judged by his bad timing, his ego, his garbled language. Lenny Bruce's lawyers presented a lot of witnesses, psychiatrists who are like, Bruce's stand up isn't obscene, as it's not sexually arousing. They had media experts who are like, hey, people in New York aren't offended by this stuff. There are intellectuals and critics being like, oh, his work is literarily important. One journalist even compared him to James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams.
Despite all of these witnesses, despite sighting Wroth versus the United States, Lenny Bruce was found guilty, which, honestly, I feel like it's not fair that he had those three judges instead of like a jury.
I feel like he had a jury, they'd be like, oh, yeah, no, his bits are great, it's fine.
And the punishment for his conviction, he was sentenced to four months in a workhouse. This conviction took a heavy toll on Lenny Bruce's career in health. These legal battles had left him emotionally drained and, as I was saying, also financially. In nineteen sixty five, he declared bankruptcy. He appealed the verdict, but before a decision could be made, in nineteen sixty six, he died of a morphine overdose. Lenny Bruce's relentless fight against obscenity laws, however, had a profound.
Impact on American society.
Following his death, public sentiment began to shift toward greater acceptance of controversial speech. Another comedian, Howard Solomon, was also arrested at Cafe Gogo at the same time as Lenny Bruce, and he was able to get his obscenity conviction reversed
in nineteen sixty eight. In nineteen seventy three, the Supreme Court's decision in Miller versus California clarified the definition of obscenity, establishing the Miller test to assess whether material had artistic, literary, or political value, and if this criteria had existed during Lenny Bruce's career, he might have been protected. Thirty seven years after Lenny Bruce's death, on December twenty third, two thousand and three, the New York Governor pardoned him. So, yeah,
he had a big, important legacy. And in comedy today you can really say whatever you want comparatively to Lenny Bruce's time, and it's nice not to be arrested.
I mean it also.
Opens the door for people like Tony Hinchcliff, where you can be racist, homophobic, just a big old piece of shit and still sell tickets. What a great artistic field,
you know, what high integrity stand up comedy has. But here we are on American filth where every episode we learn a lesson, and I think the lesson here is perhaps comedians we should revisit Roth versus the United States, the Supreme Court decision that built most of Lenny Bruce's defense, and really ask ourselves when we comedians say something obscene, offensive, or vulgar doesn't have a redeeming value, and if it doesn't,
you know, maybe you shouldn't say what you're thinking. Again here I am trying to suppress people, but specifically Tony Hinchcliff.
Maybe you should ask yourself.
Is calling Porto Rico a floating island of garbage helpful to anyone at all?
Really?
In my opinion, the only floating island of garbage is whatever Tony Hinchcliff and has killed. Tony Brethren, take a swim in the sea.
Whoops. I have so many opinions this episode.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my rant and I'll talk at you guys next time. By American Film is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. This episode was written and hosted by me Gabby Watts. Jesse Niswanger wrote our theme song. Our executive producers are Elsie Croley, Brandon Barr, and Virginia Prescott, and you can follow along with the pod at American filth Pod, and you guys know what to do.
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Wooo. School of Humans