Conversation about Lenny Bruce, 1960s counterculture, and hypothetical reactions to Trump

definition was “arousal of sexuality.” Lenny was performing that night at Town Hall. He asked me to hand out copies of The Realist, with the Ellis in- terview, in front of the theater. From then on, Lenny thought that his act would be protected, because it had redeem- able social value. But that’s not the way prosecutors felt about it. EP: Right. The conspiracy theory I’ve heard is that it’s because he took on the Catholic Church. PK: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely right. His “Religions, Inc” piece got him in a lot of trouble. The reason he got busted for obscenity was there wasn’t a law against blasphemy, but that’s what he was really arrested for. EP: You know when Scott Marshall and I were putting together the Lenny Bruce tribute in the Wilcock comic, we included John’s experience with Lenny. You’re in a few panels. It’s been fun to find op- portunities to include you in the comic -- you're in five scenes now. Ihave sort of a funny agreement with John: If he can’t recall the full story, or dialogue, I can fill in the details. PK: Oh (laughs) well that’s trusting. EP: You both are very trusting people! He couldn’t remember verbatim exchanges with you from 1961. So, we gave the joke from you to be “Lenny would be a big fan of your couch, John.” PK: That’s funny. When I saw that in your comic, I remembered saying it! I remem- bered something that didn’t happen. Now I have something in common with Kel- lyanne Conway. It’s something I would have done. You made up something real. EP: Thank you. I only do that in a few panels to keep everything glued together as a story. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of disconnected fragments. PK: Too close to reality, then. EP: How do you think Lenny would respond to Trump? PK: I think he would do it as a really high form of satire. He would make Trump a hero -- in the sense that he would take a different approach. ’m saying that because he did that about Adolf Eich- mann, the Nazi organizer. Lenny would say “He was doing his job!” He would just take an approach like that. Lenny would “appreciate” the defined tragedy. 1See The American Bystander #1, Dec. 2015. I think Bill Maher’s show, February 17, was terrific. Lenny would have really appreciated it. Just the same way Lenny got serious sometimes, and the audi- ence would say, “Hey, you’re honest!” instead of “Hey, you’re funny.” Maher’s monologue that night was really beauti- ful. Because he’s well informed, and he couldn’t just do jokes about it. He talked about the fascism. He talked about the dangers. It was just brilliant presentation of the seriousness of fascism in action. EP: What do you think Abbie Hoffman would do about Trump? PK: Oh, I think he would do the same thing as Maher. Abbie really had a sense of humor that was spontaneous. And it was based on being well informed. Bill Maher was doing that. He was rabble-rousing. He was trying to let people know how serious it was. EP: I can’t help but feel such sadness that Abbie is gone. You mentioned Shepherd as an influence, for me it’s Abbie, who I regret never knowing personally. You read his books and every page glows. He’s such a wonderful soul and gifted writer. Do you recall going to rallies with Abbie? PK: I remember we had taken some acid in his home, and got a call that some Puerto Rican kids had gotten busted for pot. Abbie said “Okay, we gotta go there.” Show them the hippies respected the kids who were busted. Because they were Puerto Rican kids. So, as we’re walking there Anita, Abbie’s wife at the time, men- tioned she was going to regurgitate from the acid. And I said to her, “You can just vomit over by the curb over there, and we'll stand around you.” That we’d hide her. Abbie said, “Now that’s community!” There were lots of things like that. We saw a police car, full of four cops, two in the front and two in the back, and Abbie yelled, “You guys on a double date?” I told him he reminded me of Lenny, and he said, “Oh really? He’s my God!” EP: That’s an amazing story, partly because there’s no way you can talk like that to police now without being con- fronted. I have this terrible habit where I thank cops. I got tackled once because a cop thought I was someone else, and, partly out of fear, I thanked him. I always feel like an asshole when I do it, too. PK: I did the same thing (laughs) when they frisked me. They frisked the report- ers because they didn’t want the reporters to have guns in court. EP: Was this for the Harvey Milk trial? PK: Yeah. EP: During that trial, you coined the phrase “The Twinkie Defense”. You’ve done this a couple of times, creating an expression or a term, that becomes a permanent part of the language. PK: I once started a list: Yippies, Twinkie Defense, jilling off — that’s a woman masturbating, instead of jacking off. EP: “Soft-core porn,” you coined that. PK: Yes. EP: What do you think Robert Anton Wilson would say about Trump? PK: He would be very analytical about him. You know, he would talk about the insanity of it. He would just get to the core of Trump. He’d be fascinated by it. EP: He does like “mind fuckers.” PK: Exactly, yeah. He would be a great analyst of how we all have some narcis- sism in us, but Trump is the king of — oh, you know I’m doing now what you did — when you made up what you think what I would have said, there. And now ’m saying what Robert ... what Bob Wilson would say. EP: But that’s totally correct, I think. PK: But he would, because — there was a European order of priests who got married, or something like that. And I gave Bob the assignment of writing about that convention of the priests, as if he was there. He loved doing that; he made it seem real. That was a very good form of his satire, because once again, it was not only pos- sible, it was probable. EP: What about Terry Southern? A lot of people see The Magie Christian hap- pening right now with Trump — Trump is living out that description of the book. He’s “making it hot for them.” PK: Terry Southern was — he put a lot of words in italics when he wrote. And he talked the same way. He talked with italics. EP: Maybe he’d italicize Trump. Finally, how do you think George Carlin would respond to Trump? PK: He might make a list. George loved to make lists. He could make a list of lies, of Trump’s lies. EP: Paul, this has been so good talking with you. Any closing advice to Donald Trump, if he’s reading? PK: | got my philosophy from [the comic strip] Mary Worth: “When in doubt, do the kindest thing.” B I — WwW HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023643