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20th out of 80 books
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31 voters
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
Castigated in his time for breaching such American conversational taboos as religion, sex, censorship, and racism, Lenny Bruce proved to be a pioneer in exposing hypocrisies, the impact of which still echoes on both sides of censorship controversies. This book and soon-to-be-released private tapes are sure to bring the extent of Bruce's influence into sharp focus. Photo in...more
Paperback, 188 pages
Published
May 1st 1992
by Fireside
(first published January 1st 1965)
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Lenny Bruce is a cultural icon, and like most cultural icons, I knew nothing about him before picking up this book. As it turns out, he was arrested multiple times for his comedy act, in which he pokes fun at Catholics, WWII, and himself. The books meanders through stories about his life and larger cultural issues, which makes it an interesting read. It also demonstrates what the limits of free speech in the 50's-60's which, as the bookcover points out, is still relevant today.
I gave it 4 stars,...more
I gave it 4 stars,...more
An entertaining book for anyone already kindly disposed towards Lenny though the only moment that it really teeters into (his usual) greatness is when he, disguised as a priest in order to collect money for a fake charity (fun guy), passes a Rabbi, who nods at him and he is forced to wonder whether they are always doing this, like bus drivers.
**Spoiler Alert!!**
It isn't hard to understand why Lenny Bruce was once the greatest comic in America. He was just beginning his career when he wrote this book.
It not only chronicles his early life as a comic but also shows the evolution of his nightclub routines. One piece at a time, you can see how Bruce's upbeat approach to life as a young man.
Even after his first wife was run over in a horrible accident he managed to rebound and find some solace that became a strength. Even after he went thr...more
It isn't hard to understand why Lenny Bruce was once the greatest comic in America. He was just beginning his career when he wrote this book.
It not only chronicles his early life as a comic but also shows the evolution of his nightclub routines. One piece at a time, you can see how Bruce's upbeat approach to life as a young man.
Even after his first wife was run over in a horrible accident he managed to rebound and find some solace that became a strength. Even after he went thr...more
Oct 27, 2012
Dave Keays
added it
This morning I showed someone this old book from the back of my closet. She said "he had brains and didn't need to be vulgar". Well, maybe. But maybe he was pushing an envelope that needed to be pushed. Our complacency and willingness to accept the authorities without question was even more vulgar than his chosen topics and play on words.
Some of the reviews here questioned the truthfulness of many stories in this book. But I don't question the ideas. Did one of my heroes of past, Hedy Lamar, rea...more
Some of the reviews here questioned the truthfulness of many stories in this book. But I don't question the ideas. Did one of my heroes of past, Hedy Lamar, rea...more
I received a copy of "How to Talk Dirty..." from, of all people, my English professor and thesis advisor at Amherst, Professor Bill Pritchard. It was an enlightened gift, and since I was going into the Peace Corps, I would have a lot of time and solitude in which to absorb it. I had ambivalent feelings about Lenny Bruce. I related to the pain of his personal life, his broken home, and poverty, his outsider status and hatred of authority, which ultimately led to his dishonorable discharge from th...more
May 18, 2012
Gabriel
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
EVERYONE who wants to know why comedians care about Bruce
There is an ebb and flow to the tale of classic comics. People are brought up on a basis similar to comets passing through the atmosphere. Someone dies and the comet appears a little quicker ("X lived in the shadow of Y who had paved the way for X to do their most famous bits ...").
Lenny Bruce's comet comes every 5 or ten years, it seems. He's been labeled a martyr and a genius and one of the most important comedians to ever come across a stage. Just a couple of weeks ago, another website was lo...more
Lenny Bruce's comet comes every 5 or ten years, it seems. He's been labeled a martyr and a genius and one of the most important comedians to ever come across a stage. Just a couple of weeks ago, another website was lo...more
I love Lenny Bruce and I respect what he was able to accomplish, regarding free speech and the position of the satirist in the modern world. Every comic- every. single. one.- who has come after is in some sense trailing in his wake.
I got really into reading this in high school. I relished noticing that other people got into it, too, and saw what happened when the American legal structure decided to try and take him down. A landmark case for defenders of free speech and dissent.
Only trouble is: a...more
I personally loved this book. I recognized that there were some mixed reviews about it because of the politics-oriented last third of the book, but having read such play-by-play court hearings as the PMRC ordeal, I have become accustomed to this sort of reading. Lenny Bruce is an incredibly articulate, satirical, and often outright hilarious writer. Of course that was his job, but it is one thing to make that stuff sound good on stage and a complete other thing to make hilarity apparent in a boo...more
Well! This book is where I happened to pick up a good deal of my own philosophy of life, beginning at age twelve. Precociously, as I happened to have parents who most fortunately were very lassiez-faire as to my own reading habits. I doubt I'd have changed my own personal opinions on war and the values of society if not for encountering Lenny. Sure, the title obviously drew me (and several of my adolescent pals) to this book originally, but once inside...
Bruce was a major critic of society's hy...more
Bruce was a major critic of society's hy...more
How To Talk About Lenny Bruce And Influence People
Lenny Bruce was one of the most controversial comedians of all time. But not a lot of people nowadays seems to remember him.
Is that because so much that is censored today is freely talked about tomorrow?
This is part of my takeaway from this autobiography, originally a series of articles in Playboy magazine, which starts one way and ends in another.
How To Talk Dirty And Influence People is a very R rated book written by Lenny Bruce and begins with...more
Lenny Bruce was one of the most controversial comedians of all time. But not a lot of people nowadays seems to remember him.
Is that because so much that is censored today is freely talked about tomorrow?
This is part of my takeaway from this autobiography, originally a series of articles in Playboy magazine, which starts one way and ends in another.
How To Talk Dirty And Influence People is a very R rated book written by Lenny Bruce and begins with...more
This was a rare book left behind by the overweight and greasy lead singer of a band I booked once when I used to do that. I read it immediately and furiously like a masturbating teenager adopting Bruce's jargon as my own and made many decisions based on what I thought Lenny Bruce would do. When those decisions went up in flames I thought to myself; "well, fuck, it could be worse, I coulda been Lenny Bruce". Reading this book at times made feel overwhelmingly dirty, disgusted and guilty (like por...more
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Another one of those books that's just too unrefined in tone and word for me to really recommend to anyone, but well worth reading nonetheless. I borrowstole this from Paul Dinin (of consumptionjunction fame) during AP Statistics back when we were both 16, and between the two of us its back broke out by 1999...I remember obscene pages flapping up and out of the Crown Vic. Kenneth Tynan's foreward is well worth the price of admission.
When you think about comedians, especially stand up comedians, a few come immediately to mind which seem to push the limits of comedy and humor by challenging social constructs. Eddie Murphy was one such comedian who in the hay day of his stand up pushed the boundaries of racial humor, suddenly making it acceptable to have a laugh at our own prejudices, and the real tragedy of the civil rights movement that emerged in the late 60's and early 70's. Lenny Bruce is the "godfather" of this type of h...more
The saddest thing about this book is the premature death of Lenny, whose path cleared the way for the mighty George Carlin and Bill Hicks. The odd thing is, one really has to struggle to remember how radical, revolutionary and extreme this book was in the context of the 1960s, pre-Beatles, the era of Fabian, Pat Boone, and so forth. Funny, insightful, and an alternate voice on the history of the 1940s to the 1960s. Highly recommended.
There is another book called "Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce". In it Lenny is challenged on the truthfulness of the stories in How to Talk Dirty. Lenny responds "I know what my public likes." Even though largely fiction, I loved it. I have to cop to the fact that I found out about this book from the Christian Slater movie "Pump up the Volume" I'm sure that's how Lenny would have wanted it.
Reading this book is just like watching a history of Lenny Bruce's standup act. It's funny and interesting in the beginning and then becomes bogged down in boring legal issues towards the end. Was he victimised by people in power? Sure, I can see that. But I don't need to read a verbatim account of the many trials. That stuff just doesn't interest me. My opinion - read the first half of the book and then give it to a Lenny Bruce fan.
It's Lenny Bruce writing about what it was like being Lenny Bruce. Of course it's awesome. The book shows its age in certain places, but it's obvious that Lenny Bruce could have gut-punched just as many people today with his comedy and observations about the world as he did in the 50's and early 60's. Lenny Bruce just being Lenny Bruce is still amazingly relevant almost 50 years after his death.
This book is fantastic! I have a ton of respect for those who push the envelope and challenge the First Amendment. Lenny Bruce was arrested several times because of his comedy act and the things that he said, but he was influential in breaking some barriers for comedians who followed him. I wasn't expecting much from it, but well worth reading.
This autobiography gives you insight into a comic genius. Yeah, I find that his stand-up routine is dated but this book spoke to me. His life was somewhat tragic but Lenny is cool enough to keep it together and finds ways to beat the system that will make you spontaneously burst out in laughter. I couldn't recommend it more.
This book strongly influenced me. Lenny Bruce is an American icon who died for free speech. Read his own (hysterically funny) words and know his story in this age of political correctness.
"When you take away the right to say "fuck," you take away the right to say "fuck the government."
"When you take away the right to say "fuck," you take away the right to say "fuck the government."
Man, did I read me some Lenny Bruce. I listened to the albums, too, even the later unfunny ones. And I read the excerpted stuff. The dude had problems, for sure, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't half as funny as Richard Pryor, but this book and his act was a huge influence in my teens.
This is an awesome book that traces Lenny Bruce's upbringing and rise to comedy fame, all while fighting for his right to use the power of words. It's great to read about him from his own point of view, in his own words. Any true stand-up comedy fan should read this.
I was just a couple of year too young to be influenced by Lenny Bruce.I know of him, and his work, but what an eye opener this read was.He was not about profanity, he was about semantics. He pushed the envelope that needed pushing. Quick read, highly recommended.
Read this a long time ago and with very little exposure to the author's work. What little I had heard was impressive. It is a permanent blot on our society that the bluenoses where allowed to effectively hound him to death. It is interesting that this has not occurred again despite onslaught of many more and truly filthier comics whose work shocks briefly but seldom has any of the redeeming intellectual quality or actual wit found in Lenny Bruce. (The late Sam Kinison comes to mind, not much to...more
Jun 25, 2010
David Schilling
is currently reading it
They called him "Saint Lenny". He rose to fame at age 40 in 1966. His trashing of organized religion and other social conventions are what he is remembered for. Very good inside story of his life and the path he took to get to where he got.
Ok, so I'm just making my way up the Best 100 list from the bottom, finding things I would like to read, but also adding things I liked a lot at the time as I come across them. Lenny had that hypomanic gleam that said it was ok to be hypomanic.
There are saints and there are sinners. My favorite world shaking saint is Lenny Bruce. What a time he had. his philosophically acute sense of the artist standing in opposition to the prevailing conventions is priceless.
I think he tried to be honest, but just couldn't come out and admit to the drug use that ultimately killed him. It was a very open look at the obscenity trials that he was subjected to, though.
This is one of my favorite memoirs. It's a funny, tragic, and fascinating story - but in the end offer a lot of insight into what made Bruce tick.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Lenny Bruce | 1 | 16 | Mar 01, 2008 11:09am |
Lenny Bruce, born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was also controversial, eventually leading to the first posthumous pardon in New York history.
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“I am influenced by every second of my waking hour. ”
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“There is only what is and that's it. What should be is a dirty lie.”
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