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How to Talk Dirty and Influence Pataki In the closing-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-was-used-for-glue department this past week, New York Governor George Pataki issued a pardon to comedian Lenny Bruce. Thing is, Bruce has been deceased about as long as Chris Rock has been alive. It’s nice to know our government is hard at work meting out justice in a timely fashion. You hope Pataki didn’t step away too long from a briefing with Tom Ridge to sign the papers. Next time, Gov—that is, if you happen to get the chance--try dropping the charges before the accused OD’s and slides off the toilet bowl into a fatal coma. This pardon is about as practical as Bill Clinton’s 1997 apology to African-Americans for the institution of slavery. Look for Ethel Rosenberg to be get a walk any month now. But give Pataki some credit. Though the statute of limitations ran out five consecutive times with a couple of years to spare, in some sort of bizarre third-term epiphany, the governor has apparently embraced a body of work that could still give John Ashcroft a knipshin. In an age when even virginity is reclaimed, anything is possible. But the real irony here is that official treatment of Lenny Bruce has never been worse. In perhaps the cruelest act the government ever perpetrated on Bruce, they handed him the material of a lifetime when he was dead. One of Lenny’s most famous routines depicted the return of Jesus and Moses. You can imagine Lenny’s ghost last week in a limited engagement before the New York State Parole Board, saying how he was a good boy, Governor, and didn’t curse for 37 years. Not even when the maggots were eating him. How Nixon beat him to a pardon by 29 years. His plans to go golfing with Robert Durst. How Nelson Mandela got a better shake. Demanding the Monday following his bris be a federal holiday. How he waited for the governor’s call but still got the chair. He played Carnegie Hall and sounded like the Carnegie Deli. Yet Lenny Bruce’s legacy transcends comedy. He did more than merely make the world a safer place for talent-starved comedians telling a dick joke at open mic night. In fact, he rarely told dick jokes. Instead, he analyzed them, breaking them down into absurd components until they became funny, but for reasons you would never have guessed. With the exception of a few of Strom Thurmond’s kids, it’s a much hipper world today thanks in part to Bruce. Some will recall that Lenny Bruce got into trouble for, among other things, using the F-word. Today, the Sopranos use it fifty times an episode. The cast of Sex and the City does it fifty times an episode. Those law enforcement officials up in arms a few years back over Ice T’s Cop Killer song wouldn’t blink before hiring Lenny Bruce to do their awards banquet. This is a nation that yawns when Madonna and Britney Spears swap spit. Poor Lenny. For someone who served in the Merchant Marines, he really missed the boat. Only thirty-five months after he died, pretty flower children were running around naked and unencumbered on Yasgur’s Farm while being filmed for a documentary called Woodstock. Perhaps Lenny’s biggest problem was that he had a social conscience. Forget comedians not having one anymore. The three branches of government don’t have one. If Lenny Bruce were around to accept, he’d be offering up his pardon to the hundreds of pot smokers doing life without parole on a three-strikes law. The biggest fear comics have today is that their pilot won’t be picked up. Hey, here’s one: What do you call a provocative, foul-mouthed Jewish comic without a cause? Howard Stern. The official line is there was no conspiracy to kill Lenny Bruce--that he poisoned himself with morphine. We sardonic conspiracy theorists call this the single needle theory. Let this be a consolation to anyone thinking of breaking new artistic ground in the United States of America—though you will be badgered, banned, slandered, libeled, censored, tailed, stalked, set up, fined, prosecuted, jailed, vilified, and ultimately ruined, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But all this is a moot point anyway for the real Lenny Bruce. Personally, I believe Lenny Bruce reincarnated as Adam Sandler so he could make some serious money. Click here to rant back. |