Buffalo News
August 24, 2003

 

TIME TO FORGIVE
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Forty-seven years after his death, New York State has been asked to pardon the foul-mouthed entertainer Lenny Bruce

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By ANTHONY VIOLANTI
News Staff Reporter
8/24/2003

In life, Lenny Bruce's crude language and biting social and political commentary turned the nightclub comic into a one-man test of the First Amendment.


In death, Bruce is still playing that role.

 

Bruce was convicted for a April 1964 performance in a Greenwich Village nightclub when he used language deemed offensive. This year, 47 years after his death, First Amendment and Bruce supporters have asked Gov. George E. Pataki to pardon him.

 

New York State has never issued a posthumous pardon, "to our knowledge," according to Lynn Rasic, a spokesman for Pataki. The petition to pardon Bruce "is being considered," Rasic said, adding that no date has been set for the governor to announce a decision.

 

Why does it matter if New York State cleans up the record of a foul-mouthed drug-abusing nightclub comedian who has been dead for nearly half a century?

 

"It matters because our country is based on the Bill of Rights," said Robert Corn-Revere, a Washington, D.C., attorney who prepared Bruce's pardon petition. "One of those rights is free expression. It's time we cleared up the historical record and reaffirmed a principle our country was founded on."

 

Floyd Abrams, the famed media lawyer who has argued many First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said Bruce "was convicted of charges he should never have been asked to respond to."

 

"For many of us, the prosecution of Lenny Bruce was a persecution of him because of his views on American life," Abrams said in a telephone interview.

 

But that was so long ago.

 

"It's important to remember the past," Abrams said, "and the message it sends to the future."

In 2003, the ghost of Lenny Bruce would find that free speech remains a hot topic in this country.

 

Consider:

 

• Comic Bill Maher eventually lost his late night network television talk show after criticizing the United States after the 9/11 attacks.

• Country singers the Dixie Chicks had their records pulled off dozens of radio stations after they criticized President Bush earlier this year during the war with Iraq.

• The shock radio team of Opie and Anthony was fired after broadcasting an alleged sexual act in New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

• Michael Savage, a right wing commentator, was dropped from the MSNBC television cable network after insulting gays.

• Liberal commentator and author Al Franken is being sued by the Fox News network over the contents of a new book Franken has written.

 

Like Lenny Bruce, people are still being challenged for their words.

 

"That's why this pardon is so important," said Ronald K.L. Collins, a legal scholar with the First Amendment Institute in Arlington, Va., who has co-written a book called "The Trials of Lenny Bruce."

 

"This is a time when free speech is being challenged," Collins said, noting what happened to Maher and the Dixie Chicks. "Prosecutors needed a hook to get Lenny Bruce and "colorful language' was that hook. The First Amendment is supposed to protect against that happening. If this could happen to Lenny Bruce in New York, it could happen to anyone and it could happen again."

 

Bruce, who died of a drug overdose at 40, in some ways seems an ironic figure to play such a noble role in the quest for free speech. Some critics called him a sexist. Others said he was just dirty.

 

"I found him talented but pretentious," Woody Allen told author and journalist Gerald Nachman. "Many middle-class people and squares followed him very avidly, because he was - at a time when it was forbidden - talking dirty, and clearly on dope."

 

Bruce was busted for his routines in other cities, such as San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles, but New York was the only place where he was tried, convicted and sentenced.

 

During his New York performance in 1964, Bruce used sexual expressions in his act, and also made crass jokes about Eleanor Roosevelt and Jacqueline Kennedy, only a few months after President John F. Kennedy's murder.

 

Bruce's trial was before a three-judge panel in New York Criminal Court. He was found guilty of a misdemeanor in 1966 for "giving an indecent performance." The judges stated that Bruce's performance was "patently offensive to the average person in the community, as judged by present-day standards." Howard Solomon, owner of the nightclub, also was convicted.

 

Solomon's conviction was reversed on appeal and the same was expected for Bruce. But Bruce, battling drugs and earning little money due to his legal battles, acted as his own lawyer. He botched his appeal and then unexpectedly died.

 

"Lenny was a great comic but a lousy lawyer," Collins said.

 

"It's the only time in history of this nation that a comedian was tried, convicted and sentenced for word crimes," Collins added. "I'm talking about a guy doing a routine in a club that offended people not just with language, but content."

 

Bruce was always interested in more than just telling jokes. "I'm sorry I haven't been funny. I am not a comedian. I am Lenny Bruce," was one of his staple lines. He also once said: "It's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness."

 

Like him or not, Bruce was the individual who broke down the barriers of language and subject matter for a generation of entertainers to follow.

 

"Lenny Bruce is one of the founding fathers of modern-day stand-up comedy," said local comic "Airborne" Eddy Dobosiewicz. "He wasn't up there just telling jokes like Bob Hope or Jack Benny. You could tell they were comics, they would laugh and smile.

 

"Lenny didn't smile. He had this feeling of real anger, but he found humor in his anger. He was brilliant. He took on the whole political system and the man. Nobody did that back then."

Bruce's conviction "is really more a blight on the laws of New York than Lenny Bruce," Anthony Lewis, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his legal coverage and was a columnist with the New York Times, said in a telephone interview. "What an outrage.

 

"This pardon is important because it's a way society can say, "We made a mistake with Lenny Bruce.' I'd be pressing for this pardon. I think it's entirely legitimate to say that we, as a society, were wrong."

The Bruce legend became firmly entrenched in mainstream American culture when Dustin Hoffman portrayed the comic in the hit 1974 movie called "Lenny." Singer/songwriter Paul Simon wrote a song lyric that went: "I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce." Bob Dylan also wrote a song in tribute to Bruce.

The comedian/philosopher worked under a far different standard than today's entertainers.

 

It seems like artists such as Eminem, Howard Stern and Andrew Dice Clay can say just about anything. Watch Jerry Springer or Maury Povich television shows and you will see and hear language and antics often more outrageous than any Lenny Bruce routine.

 

"If Lenny Bruce did the same stuff Drew Carey does, they would have put Bruce in jail for life," Dobosiewicz said. "Another show ("Queer Eye for the Straight Guy') has a group of homosexuals turning a straight guy into a drag queen.

 

"Think about it. Lenny Bruce was working in some small, smoky nightclub. People like Drew Carey and Howard Stern reach millions of people every day right in their own homes. Hell, instead of pardoning Lenny Bruce, they should put up a monument to him. He changed everything."

 

The list of those supporting the pardon of Bruce includes comics Robin Williams, the Smothers Brothers, Penn and Teller and Margaret Cho.

 

Richard H. Kuh was the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted Bruce. "Everything is different than it was then," Kuh told New York Newsday. "I don't know anyone who would try him now."

So Lenny Bruce, as his fans believe, died a martyr for freedom of speech - or maybe for nightclub comics.

 

"You can hear Lenny Bruce's legacy every time you walk into a comedy club," Collins said. "Whatever you think about him, Lenny changed the architecture of American comedy. He almost single-handedly turned comedy clubs into free-speech zones."

 

Now, the lawyer who prepared Bruce's pardon believes it's time for New York to give Lenny his just due and clear his name.

 

"It's never to late," Robert Corn-Revere said, repeating one of his favorite sayings, "to do the right thing."


e-mail: aviolanti@buffnews.com


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