Before We Forget 2 (Lenny Bruce)

....is considered a crusader, a martyr, a moralist as well as a preacher, a saint as well as a sinner. Bruce paved the best way for comics like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Bill Hicks, among others, all of whom consider Lenny a comedic genius and visionary.

"In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls."

But in 1966, 40-year-old Lenny Bruce was blacklisted by nearly every comedy club in America. His profanity-laced act offered fearless monologues and vulgar word-pictures which tickled the edges belonging to the First Amendment, got him arrested numerous times, and rendered him nearly un-bookable.

Clubs were threatened with stiff fines or the revocation of their licenses whenever they chose to feature him as a headliner. He was also regularly getting busted for drug-related offenses. He provoked the wrath of the Catholic Church, the police, and the political structures which protected them both.

Thus, unable to do his thing and provide for his family, his reason for life; he was found naked and dead of that year, of an overdose.

*and ya know, I really hated seeing those pictures on Google. I feel for you Kitty. It must suck to high heaven havin this one out there. Your Dad may have a chuckle: I found those pictures of your Father, on the bathroom floor, to be obscene ~.)

"A lot of people say to me, 'Why did you kill Christ?' I dunno, it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know."

"Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God."

"I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do."

"I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like: What I'm going to be if I grow up."

"I'll die young, but it's like kissing God."

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."