Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's the spookiest time of year, isn't it. And
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Halloween filth heads, No, no, no,
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost the election. I hope you guys
Speaker 2: have voted, unless you're voting for the person who I
Speaker 2: don't want you to vote for. Yes, I'm using this
Speaker 2: podcast for voter suppression. Also, by the way, my voice
Speaker 2: is a little hoarse because I was doing a lot
Speaker 2: of karaoke to Nickelback songs and I wish that was
Speaker 2: a lie, but it's not. Anyway, It's been a wild week,
Speaker 2: especially in the world of stand up comedy, and I
Speaker 2: am going to go on a bit of a rant now.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, but don't worry. We'll get to the
Speaker 2: history soon. So Tony Hinchcliffe he is a comic known
Speaker 2: for his amazing podcast called Kill Tony. And by amazing,
Speaker 2: I mean it more in the context like, wow, that
Speaker 2: amount of shit my dog shat is amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, the news is that he.
Speaker 2: Mister Tony Hinchecliff, was at the Donald Trump rally are
Speaker 2: they called rallies or events? I don't know, at Madison
Speaker 2: Square Garden earlier this week, and Tony did a speech,
Speaker 2: specifically a hate speech. At the event, he punched down
Speaker 2: upon various groups. For example, he called Puerto Rico a
Speaker 2: floating island of garbage, which first of all, is a
Speaker 2: rude way to characterize a territory of the United States
Speaker 2: that has been routinely neglected by the government, you know, with.
Speaker 1: Hurricane relief and other resources.
Speaker 2: And secondly, Tony Hinchecliff islands don't float, freaking idiot. The
Speaker 2: silver lining of his speech though, is that I'm sure
Speaker 2: many Trump supporters are now learning for the first time
Speaker 2: that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States.
Speaker 2: In the past few years, in the world of stand up,
Speaker 2: Tony Hinchcliff has become one of the supreme edge lord
Speaker 2: comedians living in Austin, Texas, which is the holy place
Speaker 2: of the Joe Rogan cinematic universe.
Speaker 1: Tony, he's a.
Speaker 2: God to in cells and sexual predators alike. And he
Speaker 2: said a lot of racist stuff in the past, notably
Speaker 2: making fun of an Asian comedian who opened for him,
Speaker 2: and by making fun, I mean using mini slurs against him.
Speaker 2: So honestly, it was not surprising that he said some
Speaker 2: horrific stuff at the Trump event. But the sad thing
Speaker 2: about the comedians who adhere to the Austin, Texas Code
Speaker 2: of Comedian Ethics, which by the way, is a blank
Speaker 2: sheet of paper, is that they really think they're doing
Speaker 2: something revolutionary. They consider themselves the punks, the rock and rollers,
Speaker 2: the counter culture of today, fighting against the oppressiveness of
Speaker 2: things like diversity, equity and inclusion and political correctness, and
Speaker 2: what they deliver is shock comedy, jokes that often don't
Speaker 2: have a punchline. And why can they say stuff like this, Well,
Speaker 2: freedom of speech. It's the first amendment, the very first one.
Speaker 2: The founding fathers were like, yes, we must have the
Speaker 2: right to talk shit upon everyone and not be thrown
Speaker 2: in jail. And yeah, freedom of speech, it's great. It's
Speaker 2: great to be able to say what you want. And
Speaker 2: then is free.
Speaker 1: Speech versus hate speech.
Speaker 2: It's a whole complicated mess because freedom of speech is
Speaker 2: not straightforward. Throughout history, free speech hasn't been completely free.
Speaker 2: Even today, politicians are suppressing speech in the form of
Speaker 2: bills like Florida's Don't Stay Gay, And throughout our country's
Speaker 2: histories there have been a lot of trials, laws, court decisions,
Speaker 2: protests that have led US to this moment where a
Speaker 2: professional comedian can get on stage in clubs and venues
Speaker 2: across the country and say truly offensive and or obscene
Speaker 2: stuff without being hauled off to prison. So let's go
Speaker 2: back in time to when Tony Hinchcliff wasn't even a
Speaker 2: lump of cells. Yet, back to the nineteen sixties, and
Speaker 2: let's take a look at a different comedian, a comedian
Speaker 2: who has arrested multiple times, went through multiple obscenity trials
Speaker 2: and became a central figure and the conversation around free speech.
Speaker 2: A comedian who paved the way for people like me
Speaker 2: to be able to talk about abortions and vaginas at
Speaker 2: an open mic at a coffee shop at five pm.
Speaker 2: Who am I talking about, of course, the great Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 2: This is American filth and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week
Speaker 2: I tell you a filthy story for American history. This
Speaker 2: week's episode free speech and Lenny Bruce. For those of
Speaker 2: you who don't know who Lenny Bruce is, he was
Speaker 2: a big time stand up comedian in the nineteen fifties
Speaker 2: and sixties, and back then Americans had some pretty conservative
Speaker 2: ideas of what you should be allowed to say in
Speaker 2: public performances. Back then, Tony Henchcliff would have been arrested
Speaker 2: on the spot, and so would Donald Trump probably, And
Speaker 2: if I'm being honest, me too if anybody saw my
Speaker 2: stand up. Back then, the standard for what constituted obscenity
Speaker 2: was often rooted in moral beliefs and societal norms of
Speaker 2: the time, and also based on the nineteen thirty three
Speaker 2: Supreme Court decision United States versus Ulysses, a book by
Speaker 2: James Joyce, which permitted greater latitude in literature but not
Speaker 2: in public performances, basically being like, yeah, you can say
Speaker 2: bad words and say obscene things in a book, but
Speaker 2: if you're doing a stand upset, if you did in
Speaker 2: the theater, no no, no, no no, you got to
Speaker 2: keep your mouth shut. You got to be appropriate. And
Speaker 2: under the framework from this Supreme Court decision, any material
Speaker 2: deemed to offend the moral sensibilities of the average person
Speaker 2: could be classified as obscene, making it illegal for public
Speaker 2: distribution or performance. Lenny Bruce was born in nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: five as Leonard Schneider, but he changed his name and
Speaker 2: since he was young, he was a silly yet provocative
Speaker 2: goose like at age twenty and nineteen forty five, he
Speaker 2: was kicked out of the army because he would wear
Speaker 2: women's clothing.
Speaker 1: That's huge to be kicked out.
Speaker 2: Of the army at that point, because if you recall
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five, there was this little war that
Speaker 2: was kind of winding down that needed man you know,
Speaker 2: explicitly man power. When he got into stand up comedy,
Speaker 2: he did observational humor, he did some social criticism, and woohoo,
Speaker 2: he used explicit language. He also talked about taboo subject
Speaker 2: like sex, politics, religion, race, topics that at that point
Speaker 2: were considered largely off limits for public discussion, even though
Speaker 2: today I'm like, those are the only subjects you're supposed
Speaker 2: to talk.
Speaker 1: About in stand up What are we talking about?
Speaker 2: And it makes sense that he developed this style because
Speaker 2: he started his career doing burlesque comedy, which means that
Speaker 2: he was honing his act in strip clubs in southern California,
Speaker 2: and at a strip club, you know, not much as
Speaker 2: off limits, though it would be funny to get arrested
Speaker 2: at a strip club for obscenity like saying titties is
Speaker 2: more offensive than actual titties, and yes, on this podcast,
Speaker 2: American filth. We are considering titties very obscene. Lenny Bruce
Speaker 2: wrote an autobiography called How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
Speaker 1: Which is a haha. He he a satirization.
Speaker 2: Of how to win friends and influence people. And in
Speaker 2: his book, Lenny talked about how he developed his style.
Speaker 1: He said, four years working in clubs.
Speaker 2: That's what really made it for me. Every night doing it,
Speaker 2: doing it, doing it, getting bored and doing different ways.
Speaker 2: No pressure on you, and all the other comedians are
Speaker 2: drunken bums who don't show up, So I could try anything.
Speaker 2: And oh boy, for the time, he really did try anything.
Speaker 2: And because of that, his stand up career was marked
Speaker 2: by numerous arrests and legal battles that had a lasting
Speaker 2: impact on the rights of artists and the interpretation of
Speaker 2: free speech in the United States today. So let's get
Speaker 2: to his first arrest, why don't we. It was in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one. At that point, Lenny Bruce was mega successful.
Speaker 2: He'd appeared on television, He'd done a huge show at
Speaker 2: Carnegie Hall. He'd been called by television host Steve Allen
Speaker 2: the most shocking comedian of our time. A young man
Speaker 2: who was scared rocketing to fame. Time magazine called his
Speaker 2: act sick comedy, social criticism liberally.
Speaker 1: Laced with cyanide.
Speaker 2: His act was characterized by a personal and highly disturbing
Speaker 2: hostility toward all the world. Well, what's an example of
Speaker 2: some of these poisonous bits by Lenny Bruce. Well, let's
Speaker 2: hear me butcher some of them.
Speaker 1: We got this gym from nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 2: If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school
Speaker 2: children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks
Speaker 2: instead of crosses. Haha, he he. He had a lot
Speaker 2: of things criticizing religion. For example, he had if you
Speaker 2: live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish,
Speaker 2: or people are leaving the church and going back to God.
Speaker 2: Of course Lenny Bruce he had some classic material about
Speaker 2: men versus women, which honestly is most comedy.
Speaker 1: One of his jokes goes, a.
Speaker 2: Lady can't go through a plate glass window and go
Speaker 2: to bed with you five seconds later, but guys can
Speaker 2: have head on collisions with greyhound buses, and on the
Speaker 2: way of the hospital in the ambulance, the guy makes
Speaker 2: a play for the nurse Wow, isn't he speaking the truth?
Speaker 2: Dudes are horny. He'd also talk about current events celebrities,
Speaker 2: like one joke he did was about Elizabeth Taylor, who
Speaker 2: was about to marry the Jewish actor and singer Eddie Fisher,
Speaker 2: and Lenny Bruce said, will Elizabeth Taylor become bar mitzvud?
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa woe?
Speaker 2: Apparently this was very scandalous. And he had a lot
Speaker 2: of bits about race. He had one bit where he
Speaker 2: just yelled the end word a lot. I know, not great,
Speaker 2: but here's one of his bits about race that I
Speaker 2: think holds up. I mean, it's still kind of crazy,
Speaker 2: but here it is. You have a choice of spending
Speaker 2: fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or
Speaker 2: a white woman, fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping
Speaker 2: real close on hot nights with a black black woman
Speaker 2: or a white white woman. The white woman is Kate
Speaker 2: Smith and the black woman is Lena Horn. So you're
Speaker 2: not concerned with black or white anymore?
Speaker 1: Are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty.
Speaker 2: Then let's get basic and persecute ugly people.
Speaker 1: What a fun bit. And for context in.
Speaker 2: The joke, Kate Smith was a white singer who many
Speaker 2: people thought was very unattractive, and Lena Horne was a
Speaker 2: black actress and singer who was considered very attractive. And then,
Speaker 2: of course Lenny Bruce. He used a lot of obscene
Speaker 2: language and his bits, like one he had was take
Speaker 2: away the right to say fuck, and you take away
Speaker 2: the right to say fuck the government. So true, Lenny Bruce.
Speaker 2: So yes, Lenny was skyrocketing to fame. But as he
Speaker 2: was making his jokes being provocative, he was also getting
Speaker 2: hooked on drugs.
Speaker 1: In the fall of.
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty one, Bruce was thirty five and on September
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, he was in Philadelphia. There he was arrested
Speaker 2: for possessing narcotics, and that same week he got that
Speaker 2: first obscenity arrest. So on October third and fourth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty one, he was performing at the Jazz Workshop, a
Speaker 2: popular nightclub in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: He was doing some of his usual bits.
Speaker 2: One employed the word cocksucker, and then you guys aren't
Speaker 2: going to be able to handle this. He started talking
Speaker 2: about coming. You guys know coming what happens when you
Speaker 2: have sex. Allegedly, he said two is a preposition come
Speaker 2: is a verb, the verb intransitive. I've heard these two
Speaker 2: words my whole adult life.
Speaker 1: To come.
Speaker 2: It's been like a big drum. So did you come?
Speaker 2: Did you come good? Did you come good? Now, if
Speaker 2: anyone in this room or the world finds these two
Speaker 2: words decadent, obscene and moral a sexual, the words to
Speaker 2: come really make you feel uncomfortable, you probably can't come,
Speaker 2: and then you're of no use because the purpose of
Speaker 2: life is to recreate it. The bits better when he
Speaker 2: says it, I think it's funnier. I'm just I'm just
Speaker 2: saying it, you know, But the whole thing anyway, both
Speaker 2: nights of the Jazz Workshop, the audiences were rolling their
Speaker 2: say and he he ha ha looel this is so good,
Speaker 2: so fun, so provocative. Also, he just made a good
Speaker 2: point about those who are uncomfortable about coming, they probably
Speaker 2: can't come.
Speaker 1: That's probably true.
Speaker 2: But there was one person in the crowd who wasn't laughing,
Speaker 2: and that was an undercover police officer of the San
Speaker 2: Francisco Police Department. He was there to be the literal
Speaker 2: fun police and see if Lenny Bruce said anything too
Speaker 2: crazy and whoa with cocksucker with coming, He sure did
Speaker 2: once he'd seen enough lewdness, this undercover cop left the
Speaker 2: show to tell his sergeant, and this is what he
Speaker 2: said about Lenny's show. Geez, you know, I can hardly
Speaker 2: believe this myself. The man is up there on stage
Speaker 2: and he's performing, and he's taken the term cocksucker and
Speaker 2: using it. Wow, doesn't this guy seem like so much fun?
Speaker 2: But anyway, the sergeant was like, I've heard enough, and
Speaker 2: so he and the boys went down to the Jazz
Speaker 2: Workshop and arrested Lenny Bruce for violating California's obscenity laws.
Speaker 2: But don't worry, Lenny Bruce made bail and he got
Speaker 2: out in time to perform his one AM show that night.
Speaker 2: A month later, Lenny Bruce was on Try and in
Speaker 2: his defense, he and his lawyer were like, Hey, you
Speaker 2: got to look at the stand up set as a whole,
Speaker 2: not just pick and choose obscene language, because if you
Speaker 2: see it as the whole, it's important social satire. Yeah,
Speaker 2: when Lenny say and cocksucker, it's for a very important
Speaker 2: artistic and intellectual reason. They called witnesses to the stand
Speaker 2: who are arts critics and literature professors who are like, yes,
Speaker 2: he's doing important work. And the reason they made this
Speaker 2: argument was because of this Supreme Court decision from nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven Roth versus the United States, which basically said, yeah,
Speaker 2: if the work has social value, it's not obscene. The
Speaker 2: jury side with Lenny Bruce on this one. But that
Speaker 2: was just the beginning of his legal troubles. In nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty two, Lenny Bruce was arrested twice, once in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and once in Chicago for violating obscenity laws.
Speaker 1: He managed to beat.
Speaker 2: The charges in LA but things did go his way
Speaker 2: in Chicago, where he was convicted the following year. In
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three, he was kicked out of England after
Speaker 2: British authorities caught wind of some of the stuff he
Speaker 2: said at a performance he did in London. Literally, they
Speaker 2: seized him, took him to the airport, and deported his
Speaker 2: ass Then in nineteen sixty four, Bruce's legal problems continued
Speaker 2: when California authorities arrested him yet again, claiming he'd broken
Speaker 2: the state's obscenity laws.
Speaker 1: For a third time.
Speaker 2: So at that point, Lenny Bruce was fed up with
Speaker 2: California and a growing number of clubs and venues didn't
Speaker 2: want to work with him, fearing legal action against them,
Speaker 2: and along with dealing with these obscenity trials, Lennie Bruce
Speaker 2: was still doing drugs. In nineteen sixty three, he was
Speaker 2: confined to a rehab center for his drug addiction. But
Speaker 2: in sixty four, Lenny Bruce decided to take his act
Speaker 2: to the last bastion of free speech in the country,
Speaker 2: New York City, Or at least that's what he thought,
Speaker 2: because that same year he'd be arrested multiple times, and
Speaker 2: that legal battle led to a swift decline of his health,
Speaker 2: his well being, his money, and his career be right
Speaker 2: back after these soothing advertisements. In nineteen sixty four, Lenny
Speaker 2: Bruce was doing shows at Cafe O Go Go in
Speaker 2: Greenwich Village to a three hundred and fifty capacity crowd,
Speaker 2: most nights selling out. As I was saying earlier, Lenny
Speaker 2: wasn't in great shape. He'd been strung through the ringer
Speaker 2: with all these obscenity trials. He was getting older, he
Speaker 2: was out of shape. He had his addictions to deal with.
Speaker 2: He was also suffering with bouts of inflammation around the
Speaker 2: lungs called pleurisy, which would make his chest hurt like
Speaker 2: a motherfucker. Don't tell the State of California that I
Speaker 2: said that. And unfortunately, New York City was gonna treat
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce just the same as California.
Speaker 1: On March three first.
Speaker 2: In April first, the New York City District Attorney's Office
Speaker 2: sent some undercover agents to go spy on Lenny and
Speaker 2: write down any offensive stuff he said. Lenny, being Lenny,
Speaker 2: was doing some of his classic jokes, the hits.
Speaker 1: You know. He did that coming joke.
Speaker 2: He did another one called Infidelity, another one called red
Speaker 2: hot Enema.
Speaker 1: He also had a joke called Guyser Carnal.
Speaker 2: And from these titles alone, you can imagine they might
Speaker 2: be considered obscene by the nineteen sixty sensibility. Here's some
Speaker 2: of the offensive stuff that one of the undercover agents
Speaker 2: noted in his notebook. Lenny said things like jack me off,
Speaker 2: nice tits, and go come in a chicken. The nice
Speaker 2: tits was from a joke about Eleanor Roosevelt. He said,
Speaker 2: Eleanor Roosevelt has the nicest tits of any lady in office.
Speaker 2: He also had a bit called Pissing in the Sink.
Speaker 2: The bit starts now, I wonder how many of you
Speaker 2: and the audience have ever performed an unnatural act like
Speaker 2: pissing in the sink? And it ends with I can't, Mama,
Speaker 2: there are too many people looking.
Speaker 1: I can't piss when all these people are looking so.
Speaker 2: Want some water down there tun on the hoses. Can't
Speaker 2: you see the boy wants to peepee? Comedy is amazing anyway,
Speaker 2: So with all of these bits, Lenny Bruce got arrested
Speaker 2: yet again on April third, nineteen sixty four. The charges
Speaker 2: against Bruce focused on his use of vulgar language and
Speaker 2: what authorities labeled in decent subject matter, and they particularly
Speaker 2: focused on his criticisms of organized religion and the government.
Speaker 2: He got out on bail the next day and returned
Speaker 2: to the stage to a sold out crowd. He continued
Speaker 2: performing for the next few days, and then on April seventh,
Speaker 2: he was arrested again. The obscenity trial began on June sixteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. It was postponed a few times because
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce had other trials to deal with and also
Speaker 2: had some hospitalizations with his chest pain. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: his arrest had become a focal point for debates on censorship,
Speaker 2: as Lenny Bruce's defenders argued that his language was an
Speaker 2: essential tool for challenging social.
Speaker 1: Norms and hypocrisy.
Speaker 2: A bunch of celebrities signed a petition in defensive Lady Bruce,
Speaker 2: including Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Taylor, and
Speaker 2: she'd even beend the butt.
Speaker 1: Of some of his jokes.
Speaker 2: In this trial, Bruce had two lawyers, the renowned First
Speaker 2: Amendment defender Eve from London and his protege Martin Garbis,
Speaker 2: and they were going to do the same thing that
Speaker 2: Bruce had been doing in his other trials, being like, hey,
Speaker 2: according to Roth versus USA, if what you're saying has
Speaker 2: a redeeming social value, it can't be considered obscene. But
Speaker 2: the prosecutor was like, ugh, that's dumb. Bruce's show doesn't
Speaker 2: have redeeming value.
Speaker 1: Oh No.
Speaker 2: In fact, the prosecutor said the show was nauseating word
Speaker 2: pictures interspersed with all the three and four letter words
Speaker 2: and more acrid ten and twelve letter hyphenated ones spewed
Speaker 2: directly at the audience. I think he's just saying that
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce has a great vocabulary. The trial lasted almost
Speaker 2: two months, and this one wasn't going to be determined
Speaker 2: by a jury, but by a panel of three judges.
Speaker 2: And the stakes, you know, they couldn't be higher. He
Speaker 2: was there with three charges, each carrying a potential sentence
Speaker 2: of three years in prison. Now Lenny, as I said,
Speaker 2: wasn't doing too good. He wasn't in the best physical shape.
Speaker 2: He was also losing a lot of money having to
Speaker 2: defend himself at these trials. He was losing work. But
Speaker 2: the bigger issue was that his bits were going to
Speaker 2: be read aloud by one of the agents and the prosecutor.
Speaker 2: Lenny was like, they're not going to be able to
Speaker 2: deliver it correctly. He said, I'm going to be judged
Speaker 2: by his bad timing, his ego, his garbled language. Lenny
Speaker 2: Bruce's lawyers presented a lot of witnesses, psychiatrists who are like,
Speaker 2: Bruce's stand up isn't obscene, as it's not sexually arousing.
Speaker 2: They had media experts who are like, hey, people in
Speaker 2: New York aren't offended by this stuff. There are intellectuals
Speaker 2: and critics being like, oh, his work is literarily important.
Speaker 2: One journalist even compared him to James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams.
Speaker 2: Despite all of these witnesses, despite sighting Wroth versus the
Speaker 2: United States, Lenny Bruce was found guilty, which, honestly, I
Speaker 2: feel like it's not fair that he had those three
Speaker 2: judges instead of like a jury.
Speaker 1: I feel like he had a jury, they'd be like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: his bits are great, it's fine.
Speaker 2: And the punishment for his conviction, he was sentenced to
Speaker 2: four months in a workhouse. This conviction took a heavy
Speaker 2: toll on Lenny Bruce's career in health. These legal battles
Speaker 2: had left him emotionally drained and, as I was saying,
Speaker 2: also financially. In nineteen sixty five, he declared bankruptcy. He
Speaker 2: appealed the verdict, but before a decision could be made,
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty six, he died of a morphine overdose.
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce's relentless fight against obscenity laws, however, had a profound.
Speaker 1: Impact on American society.
Speaker 2: Following his death, public sentiment began to shift toward greater
Speaker 2: acceptance of controversial speech. Another comedian, Howard Solomon, was also
Speaker 2: arrested at Cafe Gogo at the same time as Lenny Bruce,
Speaker 2: and he was able to get his obscenity conviction reversed
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty eight. In nineteen seventy three, the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court's decision in Miller versus California clarified the definition of obscenity,
Speaker 2: establishing the Miller test to assess whether material had artistic, literary,
Speaker 2: or political value, and if this criteria had existed during
Speaker 2: Lenny Bruce's career, he might have been protected. Thirty seven
Speaker 2: years after Lenny Bruce's death, on December twenty third, two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, the New York Governor pardoned him. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: he had a big, important legacy. And in comedy today
Speaker 2: you can really say whatever you want comparatively to Lenny
Speaker 2: Bruce's time, and it's nice not to be arrested.
Speaker 1: I mean it also.
Speaker 2: Opens the door for people like Tony Hinchcliff, where you
Speaker 2: can be racist, homophobic, just a big old piece of
Speaker 2: shit and still sell tickets. What a great artistic field,
Speaker 2: you know, what high integrity stand up comedy has. But
Speaker 2: here we are on American filth where every episode we
Speaker 2: learn a lesson, and I think the lesson here is
Speaker 2: perhaps comedians we should revisit Roth versus the United States,
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court decision that built most of Lenny Bruce's defense,
Speaker 2: and really ask ourselves when we comedians say something obscene, offensive,
Speaker 2: or vulgar doesn't have a redeeming value, and if it doesn't,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe you shouldn't say what you're thinking. Again
Speaker 2: here I am trying to suppress people, but specifically Tony Hinchcliff.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should ask yourself.
Speaker 2: Is calling Porto Rico a floating island of garbage helpful
Speaker 2: to anyone at all?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: In my opinion, the only floating island of garbage is
Speaker 2: whatever Tony Hinchcliff and has killed. Tony Brethren, take a
Speaker 2: swim in the sea.
Speaker 1: Whoops. I have so many opinions this episode.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed my rant and I'll
Speaker 2: talk at you guys next time. By American Film is
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. This
Speaker 2: episode was written and hosted by me Gabby Watts. Jesse
Speaker 2: Niswanger wrote our theme song. Our executive producers are Elsie Croley,
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and Virginia Prescott, and you can follow along
Speaker 2: with the pod at American filth Pod, and you guys
Speaker 2: know what to do.
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Speaker 2: All right, guys, Happy Halloween and happy Election. Talk at
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Speaker 2: is in.
Speaker 1: Wooo. School of Humans