Strained through vinegar sometimes disguised as syrup, giving life's nuances a different spin, invisibly hoiking out the carpet from underneath the feet of the straights and hypocrites. And yeah, slowly becoming more slurred and incomprehensible.

The obscenity busts continued and along with the pressure of continual court appearances Lenny began to crack up. A most interested innovator in the art of '60's English satire, Peter Cook (at that time the comic partner of Dudley Moore) ran the only 'stand-up' show place for satire in England at the time 'The Establishment' Club in London's Soho. Together with Jonathan Miller (today, a critic, director, innovator etc.) they tried with full on energy to get Lenny over to London to play this most underground and outrageous club. However, the Home Secretary prevented him with equal full on energy, refusing such a dangerously influential conscience raiser to remain in England. After only one performance, the tour was cancelled and Lenny deported back to the US with the option of getting a visa to enter the UK ever-ever-ever again, denied.

Lenny, back in N.Y. continued with his stage shows but now was so oppressed by his 'censorious' opponents that his whole performances were about how 'they' were out to get him. His drug use spun further out of control. He used all up all his money on legal and heroin needs.
The audiences who'd come to hear Lenny Bruce's seething wit, now walked out on his drug slurred ravings about his legal cases, using whole performances reading out his court papers and appeals, his letters to his lawyers and detractors. He became boring and no one wanted to hear, or hire him.

He fell into a doomed affair with the wife of Tim Hardin. Timmy was also into opiates in a big way writing tragic, depressive, heart breaking pieces (another drug inspired genius who, in his short life wrote 'If I wre a carpenter', and other songs of sweet soul fullness, and other superb poemsongs). Lenny now was deep into stoned out madness.

The affair, his use of sexual references in his performances and his obvious drug use all conspired to cut him down. In a time of being unable to continue as the famous, outrageous, larger than life, make it up as you go along hero of iconoclastic social perceptions, Lenny came to an abrupt end when he OD'd and died, like others both before and after him, in a toilet, with 'the- needle-still-in-his-arm'. With deep irony, the very place he named the small venues and clubs he worked, the 'toilets' where he made his living: in this place, lay his most intimate and lonely last performance.

Written by Caro Stanford

References. How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Written by Lenny Bruce. Playboy Press. HMH Publishing Co. 1963, 1964,1965, 1966. From my memory of both the book and the film of 'Ladies and Gentlemen - Lenny Bruce' Written by Albert Goldman, film starring Hoffman

The funny, beautiful and sarcastic 'stream of conscience' stand up comedian, American Lenny Bruce (1924-1966) would hang his skinny, black dressed frame over the microphone in the darkest corner of the stage and start his monologue. He'd talk, mumble, ramble, gesticulate, throw his hands in the air and finally, finding his rhythm, move towards centre stage and bring his unscripted 'stream of consciousness' rap towards a final, glorious end, neatly tying up every point which he'd wandered past on his way.

Lenny Bruce was the first, the granddaddy of the art of stream of consciousness comedy, raving about anything and everything, calling for topics from the audience, 'ad libbing' from stuff he'd read in the papers that day, or anything else in his brilliant inventive head. Lenny Bruce. The 'ole man' of all the stand ups, Baddell, Carrott, the Big Yin, Ben Elton, his namesake Lenny Henry. All the 'talkers', Rappsters and social conscience benders owe him deep respect for their livelihoods.
And this man was a very serious junky. Inspired by the poppy?

In the early nineteen fifties as a comic and social commentator, Lenny Bruce would work in the New York City 'toilets', the small, stinking clubs so prophetically tied to his end place. His verbal juggling would take social conventions, stand them on their heads, pull them inside out and spin them around in a mix of satire, teachers' wagging finger, free flow thoughts, comedy and a ton of verbal cartooning.

He'd start a story at point A and in the second it takes to draw a breath be into an intimate discussion about point B, suddenly getting crazed about point Z coz he'd already thrown us from A-Z but by the time you'd caught up with his direction he'd be

right back on point B and adding it to point W! Then, just like magic, be all tied back into point A leaving the audience breathless. Brilliant, glittering. The special, inspired genius of a very serious doper, heroin user.
Lenny, a Yiddische boy from New York was brought up entirely by women. He was more familiar with the paraphernalia of women than that of his own sex and married accordingly, to a delectably fluffy 'Shiksa' (non-Jewish woman) Honey Harlowe, exotic dancer and sometime stripper who also worked the 'toilets'.
Lenny had already tasted the delights of opiates in the form of morphine as a merchant seaman, working on the ships and docks. There he discovered the freeing effect of drugs and the special mysteries of the poppy. He introduced Honey to heroin. (I feel the need to suggest something like 'as a Bee to honey, so Honey took to heroin' but will resist!). Life on the road with Honey, stopping off to work the various 'toilets' needed to be reassessed when their daughter Kitty was born in 1947.

Honey needed the security of hearth and home in which to bring up their child and with an almighty effort, finally sorted her majorly outta control drug use and settled down.

Lenny continued to travel, do his thing, and outrage the people. However, his stories became so outrageous and loaded with obscenities that under cover cops used to be hidden at his performances (who were so obvious that Lenny'd habitually greet them from the stage). They listened and noted down his every word - every shit, fuck, piss, and every gesticulation that could be considered obscene in the legal confines of 1950's USA. Finally he was busted for obscenity by suggesting that the Priest fucked the Nun, or the Rabbi, or the Priest and the Bishop all met in the whore house one day … or the story about the man who was caught by his wife fucking a chicken. 'A chicken!' She shrieked. 'Oi, you're sthupping with a chicken!' 'You're making a fuss' remarks the husband, 'Why get so freaked about a chicken…I was horney!…It's not like we're having a relationship; I'm only fucking it already, it's not like we're planning to set up home together, have a family, and anyway, I had a hard-on and there was only this ole chicken around…' And so it went; observations turned inside out (can you REALLY get jealous of a CHICKEN 'fr godssake!!!)