SAN FRANSISCO, JAZZ WORKSHOP, October 4th 1961
A PRETTY BIZARRE SHOW
The Hungry i has a Gray Line tour and American Legion
convention tonight. They took all the bricks out and put in Saran Wrap.
That's it. And Ferlinghetti is going to the Fairmont.
You know, this was a little snobby for me to work. I just wanted to go
back to Ann's. You don't know about that, do you? Do you share that recall
with me? The first gig I ever worked up here was a place called Ann's 440,
which was across the street. And I got a call, and I was working a burlesque
gig with Paul Moore in the Valley. That's the cat on piano here, which
is really strange, seeing him after all these years, and working together.
And the guy says, "There's a place in San Fransisco but, er, they've changed
the policy."
"Well what's the policy?"
"Well, I'm not there anymore, that's the main thing."
"Well, what kind of a show is it, man?"
"Well, you know."
"Well, no, I don't know, man, I...you sound...kind of a weird show."
"Well it's not a show, a bunch of cocksuckers, that's all. A damned
fag show."
"Oh, well, that is a pretty bizarre show. I don't know what I could do in
that kind of a show."
"Well, no, it's...we want you to change all that."
"Aw, Chr...I don't...that's a big gig. I can just tell them to stop
doing it."
DIRTY TOILET
Oh, I like you, and if sometimes I take poetic license with you and you are
offended...now this is just with semantics, dirty words. Believe me, I'm not
profound, this is something that I assume someone must have laid on me,
because I do not have an original thought. I am screwed. I speak English.
That's it. I was not born in a vacuum. Every thought I have belongs to
somebody else. Then I must just take, ding ding ding, somewhere.
So I am not placating you by making the following statement. I want to help
you if you have a dirty word problem. There are none, and I'll spell it out
logically to you.
Here is a toilet. Specifically - that's all we're concerned with, specifics
- if I can tell you a dirty toilet joke, we must have a dirty toilet.
That's what we're talking about, a toilet. If we take this toilet and boil
it, and it is clean clean, I can never tell you specifically a dirty toilet
joke about this toilet. I can tell you a dirty toilet joke in the Milner
Hotel, or something like that, but this toilet is a clean toilet now.
Obscenity is a human manifestation. This toilet has no central nervous
system, no level of consciousness. It is not aware - it is a dumb toilet -
it cannot be obscene - it's impossible. if it could be obscene, it could be
cranky, it could be a Communist toilet, a traitorous toilet.
It can do none of these things. This is a dopey toilet, Jim.
So nobody can ever offend you by telling you a dirty toilet story. They can
offend you from the area that it's trite - you have heard it many, many
times. Now all of us have had a bad early toilet training - that's why we
are hung up with it. All of us at the same time got two zingers - one for
the police department and one for the toilet. "All right he made a kahkah,
call a policeman. All right, OK. Are you going to do that anymore?
OK, tell the policeman he doesn't have to come up now."
All right, now we all got the "Policeman, policeman, policeman," and we had
a few psychotic parents who took it and rubbed it in our face, and those
people for the most, if you search it out, are censors. Oh, true, they hate
toilets with a passion, man. Do you realize if you got that ranked around
with a toilet, you'll hate it, and anyone who refers to it? It is dirty
and uncomfortable to you.
Now if the bedroom is dirty to you, then you are a true atheist, because if
you have any of the mores, the superstitions, if anyone in this audience
believes that God made his body, and your body is dirty, the fault lies
with the manufacturer. It's that cold, Jim, yeah.
You can do anything with the body that God made, and then you want to get
definitive and tell me of the parts He made, I don't see that anywhere in
any reference to any Bible. Yeah, He made it all. It's all clean, or all
dirty.
But the ambivalence comes from the religious leaders, who are celibates.
The religious leaders are "what should be." They say they do not involve
themselves with the physical. If we are good, we will be like our rabbi,
our nun, our priests, and absolve, and finally put down the carnal
and stop the race.
Now, dig, this is strange here. Everybody today in the hotel was bugged with
Knight and Nixon. Let me tell you the truth. The truth is "what is."
If "what is" - you have to sleep eight, ten hours a day, that is the
truth. A lie will be: People need no sleep at all. Truth is "what is."
If every politician from the beginning is crooked, there is no crooked.
But if you are concerned with a lie, "what should be" - and "what should
be" is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people
long ago: This is what should be - and no one ever saw what should be,
that you don't need any sleep and you can go seven years without sleep,
so all the people were made to measure up to that dirty lie.
No, there's no crooked politicians. There is never a lie because
there is never a truth.
C. E. HOXIE
I sent to the Thomas Burns Detective Agency. They are bonded and you know
what that means: anybody who is bonded could never steal from you, nor could
Earl Long. Ha! If the governor can, then the bond is really...yeah, that's
some bond.
Write the letter. Blah, blah, blah, "I want this," blah, blah, blah,
"I want ticket taker"
Get a letter back, get an answer back, from St. Louis, Missouri.
"Dear Mr. Bruce: I received your letter," blah, blah, blah. "We have ticket
sellers, bonded. We charge two and a half dollars per ticket seller per
hour. We would have to have some more details," blah, blah, blah,
"Yours truly, C. E. Hoxie."
C. E. Hoxie.... C. E. Hoxie.... Hoxie, buddy.
C. E. Hoxie from the criminal correctional Florida institution for the
criminally insane, and beat up a spade-fag-junkie before he was thrown off
the police force, and then became a Pinkerton man and was arrested for
schtupping his stepdaughter. C. E. Hoxie. Hmmmm.
All right, now, because I have a sense of the ludicrous, I sent him back an
answer, Mr. Hoxie. Dig, Ha! Because I'm gonna miss some of the really
goodies I had in the letter, you know. He wants to know details.
"Dear Mr. Hoxie. It would be useless to go into the definitive, er,
breakdown of what the duties will be, unless I can be sure that the
incidents that have happened in the past will not be reiterated, such as
ticket takers I have hired, who claimed they were harassed by customers
who wanted their money back, such as the fop in San Jose who is suing me
for being stabbed. Claims he was stabbed by an irate customer, and it was
a lie - it was just a manicuring scissor, and you couldn't see it because
it was below the eyebrow, and when his eye was open, you couldn't see it
anyway. So, er... And er... We have a lot of problems like that.
And - oh yes, oh yeah - my father Solomon Ostero... My father Solomon
Ostero has been in three mental institutions, and detests the fact that I
am in the industry and really abhors the fact that I have been successful
economically, and has harassed some ticket sellers, like in Sacramento he
stood in line posing as a customer and, lightning flash, grabbed a handful
of human faeces and crammed it in the ticket takers face. And once in
Detroit he posed as a customer and he leaned against the booth so the
ticket seller could not see him, and he was exposing himself, and had a
sign hanging from it saying `When we hit $1500, The guy inside the booth
is going to kiss it.'"
Alright, now, you'd assume C. E. Hoxie, reading the letter, would just
reject that and have enough validity to grab him in again.
"Dear Mr. Hoxie: You know, of course, that if these facts were to fall into
the hands of some yellow journalist, this would prove a deterrent to my
career. So I am giving you, you know, my confessor, you know." blah, blah,
blah. "Also, this is not a requisite of a ticket seller, but I was wondering
if I could have a ticket seller who could be more than a ticket seller - a
companion."
Really light now. This is really subtle.
"A companion, someone who I could have coffee with, someone who is not
narrowminded like the - I had a stunning Danish seaman type in Oregon, who
misinterpreted me and stole my watch."
Ha Ha! Is that heavy?
"Stole my watch. Am hoping to hear from you," blah, blah, blah,
"Lenny Bruce."
OK. Now I send him a booster letter.
"Dear Mr. Hoxie: My attorney said I was mad for ever confessing what has
happened to me, you know, so I know that I can trust you, and I have sent
you some cologne."
Ha!
"Sent you some cologne, and I don't know what's happened..."
Dig this, beautiful.
"And I don't know what's happened to that naughty postman... naughty..."
Good phraseology. I hadn't heard from you, ok...
Now I get an answer from him:
"Dear Mr. Bruce. We cannot insure the incidents that have happened in
the past will not reoccur. A ticket seller that would socialize is out
of the question."
Dig! This is beautiful.
"And I did not receive any cologne nor do we care for any. C. E. Hoxie."
So I just can't... Oh I gotta tell you about Solomon Ostero. The Solomon
Ostero, this is that reference, "My father Solomon Ostero".
After I sent the letter, A thing in the paper and it says - "Solomon Ostero,
who is standing trial." Dig Solomon Ostero, 72 years old.
When Solomon Ostero, when I was, let's see, I'm 36. When I was a year old,
in nine... No less than, no it was before I was born, 1924.
Solomon Ostero went into a schule, dig him in a synagogue in Hollywood, and
shot up six people.
"Solomon Ostero," this is in the paper, "has been in mental institutions for
37 years. The state declared him sane, he's out. Now he has to stand trial,
after doing 37 years."
"You're sane Solomon, get in the court there."
Then the people... Would you assume that they would have any eye witnesses
that the state could get up the case after thir... is this beautiful they
got up a witness! Dig the name. He shot Ha... This is a beautiful...
If you're... Only people who are Jewish will really dig this because it's
really an attempt to be anglo-saxon even then, to be white.
Jews! Dig this! One of the jews who was killed - Harry Danny, typical
bronx mach trick to be goyish, Harry Danny...Harry Danny was killed...
Harry Danny was killed while davvining, and, er, dig the witness though.
This kid was in schule with his mother who got shot.
Row something, fifty-seven. And he remembered all these years that he was
in schule with his mother and that nut came in, did everybody in, y'know -
"Sic semper goyim!" (imitates sound of gunfire) Y'know, and just did
everybody in and...
So I have adopted Solomon Ostero in the letter now, you dig?
He is my father as far as Hoxie is concerned. I sent a flick so it looks
legit. First I send a letter, then I send a clipping of Solomon Ostero,
y'know. And he's really sweet, he looks like a little bird.
Seventy-two he's still nutso like that, he's looking around at everybody.
- "Go on, give me your gun again, zugnisht."
So there he is I send the picture, y'know. So I send just the picture,
photostat it, thinking about him. "He's out again. I don't know what
we're gonna do Hoxie, but rest assure I'm behind you, he has your name."
That's really... That really makes it bizarre, yeah. 'Cos Hoxie doesn't
even know about jews unless they got horns here. That's all, y'know.
"Damn Queer. Rubbing peoples face in.... Jew..."
And then....the old....Mix up the Hoxie. Hoxie just go davvin, and do
schlep, and go to a mustard seed kisser, and that's all.
TO COME
Toooooo is a preposition.
To is a preposition, Come is a verb.
To is a preposition, Come is a verb.
To is a preposition, Come is a verb.
The verb intransitive.
To Come.
To Come.
I've heard these two words my whole adult life,
and as a kid when I thought I was sleeping.
To Come.
To Come.
It's been like a big drum solo.
Did you come? Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
Did you come good?
I come better with you sweetheart than anyone in the whole goddamn world.
I really came so good.
Really came so good, 'cos I love you.
Really came so good.
I come better with you sweetheart than anyone in the whole world.
I really came so good.
So good.
But don't come in me
Don't come in me
Don't come i-me mi-me mi-me
Don't come i-me mi-me mi-me
Don't come in me
Don't come i-me mi-me
Don't come i-me mi-me
I can't come!
'Cos you don't love me that's why you can't come
I love you I just can't come that's my hang-up
I can't come when I'm loaded, alright
'Cos you don't love me, just what the hell is the matter with you.
What is that got to do with loving you I just can't come that's all.
Now if anyone in this room or the world finds those two words decadent,
obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual, the words "to come" really make you
feel uncomfortable. If you think I'm rank for saying it to you.
The ear of the beholder gets ranked for listening to it -
you probably can't come!
And then you're of no use.
'Cos that's the purpose of life - to recreate it.