i want to buy a t-shirt but i live in australia. they say you don’t ship here and there’s no contact address on the web page. i don’t know what to do. making this post is a last resort. please contact me and delete this.

When I first heard your father it was on a recording that he made called (I think) Lenny Bruce Live. At first I just laughed so hard I thought I’d burst. Lenny had such great timing and the way in which he used the dynamics of his voice was particularly effective.

As it was a vinyl recording it was played repeatedly (is it still available?). Even before Monty Python, my friends and I could quote, verbatim, long passages of your Father’s routines: much to our own amusement.

Later I read a book, the title of which escapes me, and I began to reconsider Lenny as a pure comedian. My attitude all these years later is that, aside from his excellent sense of humour and the ridiculous, Lenny was part of the American civil rights movement, as much as Martin Luther King. He was the white man who proclaimed the prevailing wisdom was a joke (literally). That he was persecuted for it should put the American system of justice to shame and those who supported that persecution should be forgotten as surely as your Father should be remembered.

I miss Lenny’s voice most of all and hope that, one day, America throws up a genius of your Father’s calibre. I might buy a T-shirt of help build the House

Regards,

Jeremy.

what a lovely idea. Your dad would be very proud of your contribution to making the world a better place.

Bless your heart

laugh muchly

pete

When I was younger, I had become interested in Bill Hicks, a comic barely known in the U.S., but whatever… His words and messages were something that I recognized and were impacted by and if he had been alive for longer, he would have changed certain regulations in the world of pop culture.

Only moments ago, I finished watching the film about your father after a 2-year-long search. It baffles me how films that can actually open up the viewer’s mind (films with a message) are so hard to find and aren’t carried in a Best Buy or a Blockbuster or are even backed-up to order on Netflix. Yet, banal films can be found anywhere and people gobble it up. To me, the search is gratifying, but it’s ridiculous. A film of that emotional impact should be on hand.

Another thing I take issue with is the fact that a Larry the Cable the Guy C.D. or DVD is easily on hand as well, yet one of your Father’s releases, I have to fight tooth-and-nail to get. Sure, other comics have their rights to say what they want, but they are culturally insignificant. They don’t contribute, they don’t help, they don’t advance us evolutionarily, while your Father did… or he at least attempted it.

I’ve been doing comedy for almost 3 years… I’m 17, and I live in Michigan, so I’m in a rut. I’m restricted to open-mics by school and my job, and I hate to say restricted, but at an open-mic, one only gets a couple of minutes – not enough to develop a point-of-view. I feel sometimes that I am doing banal material and again, not taking the audience anywhere. Sure, I was funny, but funny ain’t everything.

I want to do that same kind of material Lenny did. I want to do the kind that Lewis Black is doing now, and what Hicks did back then. I want to break down barriers, and I want to expose the truth. The film industry, law system, government, etc., to me, are the worst offenders of hypocrisy today, and the way the government can’t even balance its own checkbook baffles me. Our debt is in the trillions, our country is in the shitter and it is only a matter of time before we’re affected 100%. The law still exhibits hypocrisy and NO ONE stands up to it, and it deserves to be challenged. I want to be one of those people though WORDS, rather than protests and marches because that does nothing now. Words are all that can change us.

Now… how do I convey that to comedy in 3 minutes?

I guess you are the closest person I can contact to your Father. I wish I could thank him for changing my life and opening my eyes just a little bit more. I commend him, and I just feel I needed to say all that.

Thank you for this site.

-Gerrit Elzinga

Please allow me to introduce myself…I am a musician, producer, artist, writer and disc jockey and I have been a huge fan of your father’s work and his ideas for the last three decades. It is so wonderful that you have created this forum online for Lenny.

I am writing to inform you that I produce and host a weekly two-hour radio program on the internet entitled State Controlled Radio and on October 12th (at noon PDT) and on October 13th (10 PM PDT) I will be sending out a program called Ladies And Gentlemen…Lenny Bruce, in honor of what would have been Lenny’s 80th birthday.

I would be happy to send you any information on the program if you are at all interested.

Peace to all souls. And happy birthday Lenny!

Sincerely,
Jon Kanis

State Controlled Radio encourages you to promote Independent Music, Progressive Free Thought & to create PEACE! (War Is Over If You Want It)…SCR is heard every Sunday at noon & Monday at 10 pm PDT on BZoO Worldwide Radio [www.bzoo.org].

jon kanis * musician, producer, writer, artist & disc jockey
p.o. box 84653, san diego, ca 92138
http://www.jonkanis.com * http://www.myspace.com/jonkanis

GOD BLESS,JIM WELSH [PHILLY]

I’m working for Serious Films in the Netherlands and we’re making a documentary of a famous singer who died several years ago and he was always talking about Lenny. That’s why we want to add some footage of in total a little bit less than one minute. Two stills and two short clips of three sentences… I’m searching for the right person to discuss the conditions and terms of agreement with. Would that be you or could you help me with that? Thank you already!

Warm regards,

Renate Bergsma
Serious Films
+31-6-41486247
r.bergsma11@chello.nl

Here is something to ponder: At the exact time I was discovereing the magic of Lenny Bruce, I purchaced an LP of an extended interview John Lennon did in 1969 with a British journalist named David Wigg. At the time, I remember thinking, “This guy is so hip! He’s a guru!” Recently, I dropped that record on the old turntable. The passage of time and hindsight forces me to conclude that Lennon was terribly naive in some of the subjects that he chose to tackle.

Such is NOT the case with Lenny Bruce. I’ll be fifty on August 16 – ten years older than Lenny was when he breathed his last breath. And yet, in spite of that, the passage of time only reinforces my admiration and awe of the wisdom and artistry which personified his body of work,

Lenny Bruce is dead and he’s not coming back. That very fact diminishes us all.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net