Comments on: "I'll die young, but it's like kissing God"

"I'll die young, but it's like kissing God"

hortense — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 23:58:51 -0800

Lenny Bruce -Swear to Tell the Truth 1995 documentary of the rise and fall of the patron saint of samizdat 1:40 nsfw language nudity via

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:02:34 -0800

Long Live Lenny! And thanks for the post, hortense.

By: stavrogin

stavrogin — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 01:19:37 -0800

I thought that was Solzhenitsyn.

By: hortense

hortense — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 02:00:04 -0800

"by popular acclaim, Lenny Bruce is the new patron saint of American Samizdat" amberglow gets a mention there

By: toffee

toffee — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:53:06 -0800

yeah - i saw this on BBC4 in the UK a few years back, and been looking for a repeat since. it's a great documentary

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 06:19:29 -0800

Lenny is great but that American Samizdat site simply takes a strong leftist view (nothing wrong with that per se) without offering any solutions to anything. It is what I call the Ralph Nader approach: this and that are bad but I can not tell you what I would do that would change things. Bruce got in real trouble when the Church came down on him in Chiocago, with of course cooperation via the police and elected officials. Little has changed. This being said, I now wait for my detractors to denounce me. Hint: go to the site and show me where I am wrong.

By: Kerim

Kerim — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 06:43:05 -0800

The 1974 Bob Fosse film, Lenny, with Dustin Hoffman in the lead, is a classic.

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:38:14 -0800

Postroad writes "It is what I call the Ralph Nader approach: this and that are bad but I can not tell you what I would do that would change things." Not to derail ... Say what you will about Nader, but one thing that did set him apart was his practical solutions to the problems he outlined.

By: Creosote

Creosote — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:50:09 -0800

A week or so ago Newsweek ran a feature article on "Boomer Humor" that cited Mad magazine and the Three Stooges as major influences but didn't even mention Lenny Bruce. I sent them a letter basically saying that if Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato (as Whitehead said), post-Vietnam American humor is a series of footnotes to Bruce.

By: donfactor

donfactor — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:05:36 -0800

Well, western humor since VN may as you say be a series of footnotes to Bruce, but don't forget Richard Pryor.

By: donfactor

donfactor — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:05:59 -0800

Well, western humor since VN may as you say be a series of footnotes to Bruce, but don't forget Richard Pryor.

By: donfactor

donfactor — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:06:31 -0800

Sorry about that, don't know how it happened.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:02:53 -0800

Wow - thanks, hortense - I need to bookmark for viewing another time, but this is a great find.

By: hell toupee

hell toupee — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:28:00 -0800

I just want to recommend Tony Hendra's book Going Too Far as both an excellent overview of "Boomer Humor" and as a source of some interesting observations about Bruce. Oh, and thanks for the post!

By: amberglow

amberglow — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:36:39 -0800

Post, AmSam does what you and i and many do---alerts and connects you to information/sites you might want to know about. That's enough, especially when it's things we otherwise wouldn't have heard.

By: hortense

hortense — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:50:28 -0800

Postroad, AmSam posted an apology to you.