English Studies Forum

Hip To It

Maggie Jaffe

            The suppression of words gives them the power, the violence, the viciousness.

Holding Pen, San Fran, '61

—What they pop you for?

—Using a ten-letter dirty word in my act.

—'the fuck?

—That, too.  They're hung up on numbers,

the cops.  It's a Kabbala thing.

—A what?

—Jewish joke.  Are you Jewish?

—Me?  Hell, no.  Clue me in, Jack,

what's the dirtiest ten-letter . . .

—Cocksucker.

—That's rich.  I wish I had

a quarter every time some cock-

sucking screw barked that word

six inches from my face.

Hungry I

After he's bailed out, Lenny

hops a cab to the club

where he theorizes about

repressive toilet training and fascism.

As infants, we want to play

with our caca, spread

the walls with it,

on our mother's

tits, in our father's

face, but there's always

a tight-ass that don't.

His Scatological Shtick

lasts 40 minutes.  Ringside,

an old broad with freckled boobs

and a diamond ring the size of a baby's

turd, walks out in a huff,

her husband trailing behind her.

The Audience, Mostly Hipsters, are Dharma

Bums in black: it's a groove to get high

and hear Lenny dexedrine-fueled.

It's like I can feel his brain and my brain

connect on the next level.

Two undercover cops order ginger ale

and wait for the asshole at the mike

to open his sewer.

What Did Lenny Mean, It's a Kabbala Thing?

A long-standing custom is that when it comes

to counting Jews—don't.  Whether for a national

census or to determine if a minyan of ten men

are present, count, instead, glasses, skull-

caps, coats, etc.  You dig?

The Jewish Joke

In Freud's Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,

he credits the derogatory Jewish joke to the Jews

themselves, thus counteracting anti-Semitism

by humorously appropriating it.  To illustrate,

Freud quotes the "dirty Jew" witticism

popular in Vienna at that time:

—Have you taken a bath?

—Why, is there one missing?

Lenny-as-Tonto Counts Coup

Are there any Niggers here tonight? 

I know there's one Nigger here because I see

him working.  There's two Niggers

and between them sits a Kike, a Wop,

two Polacks, three Spicks and a couple

of Greaseballs.  I got three Kikes,

do I hear five Kikes? I got six Spicks,

do I hear seven Spicks? Do I hear seven Niggers?

I got seven Niggers.  Sold American!

When He Bums a Cigarette from Wilt

Chamberlain, he insists that Wilt "nigger-

lipped" it.  Chamberlain, seven-foot one,

instinctively stands up and the audience

holds its collective breath—

Will the Negro Deck Him?

Wilt's companion, a striking

blonde 20 years his junior, reminds

Lenny of Sammy Davis, one ugly

spade and a pushy Jew to boot,

married to the Swede with gold-

silk hair and brooding demeanor.

What man wouldn't give his one

nut to thaw her?  In truth, Lenny doesn't cop

to Black women—his thing is honey-colored, moon-

pale, definitely front-of-the-bus material.

Honey Harlowe

Well, I grew up in Florida, busted

at 15, youngest girl in the joint.

That's when I became, um, a dyke. 

Women are kind of different. 

That sounds obvious, but with women

it's more like sisters.  Lenny I fell

for the first time I saw his curly

dark hair and cow-brown eyes

just like King David from my Children's

Illustrated Bible.

He Had the Hots for Me Too

In those years I was built. 

Terrific at first.  We had our gigs,

friends to get high

with, but then the car

crash messed up my face

and when Kitty was born,

what the hell happened? 

I don't know. 

For a Hip Guy, Lenny's Awfully Judgmental 

We needed the dough, but he wouldn't

let me strip.  Then he bugged me

about women and this black guy,

but Lenny screwed around a lot.

Yeah, I was into heroin, but shit,

he would shoot ups, downs, any damn

thing.  Only difference is he found a Dr. Feel-

good who'd write scrips for "the genius."

What really hurts is when Lenny set me up

—one year for seven lousy joints—

so they'd give him custody of Kitty.

Sally Marr Wasn't Your Typical Jewish

mother.  When she divorced Mickey Schneider,

she left Lenny with him while she gigged

as a comedian in a few rough joints in Brooklyn.

When her career nose-dived, and Lenny was making

it, she hooked up with him again. 

Lenny and Sally used to double date,

but he nearly flipped when she married

a 21-year old Puerto Rican—his dad

in diapers—as Lenny'd say. 

After he married Honey,

you guessed it, Sally bleached her frizzed-

blonde hair fire-engine red.  Yeah, Sally,

the wicked Bitch of the North.

Paradise is L.A. with Closed Blinds

Inside, soft lights and a scrubbed-clean American

Standard.  Stroke mags, girl-girl, peaches 'n' cream,

a California dump: high, wide and lonesome. 

Works loaded with speedballs.

Stroke, shoot, stroke, shoot: a red-

headed hooker on her bare knees.

Lenny wasted on the can.

He Had a Thing About High Colonics

Like most Jews, Lenny was obsessed with regularity,

and everyone knows that junkies can't shit. 

When I was his road manager, he'd make me

bring along one of those red, old-fashioned

enema bags.  And the hotel room had to have

Dufy-blue walls, whatever the fuck

that is.  If the room wasn't his blue,

they had to re-paint it.

Penal Code

Sprawled out near the throne,

naked, except for his works

loaded with morphine, his rigor-

mortised grin.  But who's laughing?

It was the tension that killed him. 

Every buck he made went to lawyers.

I warned him, "Lenny, don't be a martyr,"

but it was the courts who reamed him.

In the End, His Followers Thought

he was a drag.  Instead of his right-

on social commentaries, the poor shmuck

would just read them his briefs.  On some level,

Lenny must have believed his own bullshit.