Ladies and gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!
Thank you! Thank you, thank you! Ha ha ha ha . . . You like this? . . . wearing no pants on, TA-DAH!
The Ecumenical Council has given the Pope permission to become a nun. Just on Fridays, though. I can't work with these things. Ain't that funny? Backstage I really loved it, I fooled around with them, but I can't, it's too uh . . . I work around it. Does it look religious? It looks sort of religious, doesn't it?
(Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States)
That's it. That's faith and goodness. And veneer.
There's more churches and people work for the church than I think there are courthouses and judges. So actually, what it is, Catholicism is like Howard Johnson, and what they have are these franchises and they give all these people different franchises in the different countries but they have one government, and when you buy the Howard Johnson franchise you can apply it to the geography—whatever's cool for that area—and then you, you know, pay the bread to the main office. And you have to, you know, keep a certain standard. Which is cool. But it is definitely a government by itself. And I think that's what we're doing in Vietnam. Because the Communists are a threat to those jobs. That's where it's at, man, you know? And I think that's what it's always been—that those two factions are always bitching and fighting with each other, and so actually we have the Catholic government inside our government, and they have this bitch with the Communists, because they're always fighting over the work, you know, and they, when they take over they do them out of their gig.
So what happens is that, 'cause, you know, Catholicism is like, it's here and the people who work for are here. And that's another big problem, that people can't separate the authority and the people who have the authority vested in them. I think you see that a lot in the demonstrations. Cause actually the people are demonstrating not against Vietnam, they're demonstrating against the police department. Actually, against policemen. Because they have that concept that the law and the law enforcement are one.
When it started, they said, "Well, we're gonna have to have some rules"—that's how the law starts, out of that fact. "Let's see. I tell you what we'll do. We'll have a vote. We'll sleep in Area A. Is that cool?" "OK, good." "We'll eat in Area B. Good?" "Good." "We'll throw our crap in area C."
So, everything went along pretty cool, you know, everybody's very happy. One night everybody's sleeping, a guy woke up, POW! He got a faceful of crap, and he said, "Hey, what's the deal here, I thought we had a rule: Eat, Sleep, and Crap, and I was sleeping and I got a faceful of crap." So they said, "Well, ah, the rule was substantive—" See, that's what the Fourteenth Amendment is. It regulates the rights but it doesn't do anything about it. It just says, That's where it's at. "We'll have to do something to enforce the provisions, to give it some teeth. Here's the deal: If everybody throws any crap on us while we're sleeping, they get thrown in the craphouse. Agreed?" "Guess, well . . . " "Everybody?" "Yeah." "But what if it's my mother?" "You don't understand. Your mother would be the fact. That Doesn't have anything to do with it. It's just the rule, Eat, Sleep and Crap. Anybody throws any crap on us they get thrown in the craphouse. Your mother doesn't enter into it at all. Everybody gets thrown in the craphouse—priests, rabbis, they'll all go. Agreed?" "OK, agreed."
OK. Now, it's going along very cool, guy's sleeping. POW! Gets a faceful of crap. Now he wakes up and sees he's all alone, and he looks, and everyone's giving a big party. He says, "Hey, what's the deal? I thought we had a rule, Eat, Sleep, and Crap, and you just threw a faceful of crap on me." They said, "Oh, it's our religious holiday, and we told you many times that if you're going to live your indecent life and sleep all day, you deserve to be thrown crap on you while you're sleeping. You're gonna sleep all day?" And the guy says, "Bullshit, the rule's the rule." And this guy started to separate the church and the state, right down the middle, Pow! Here's the church rule, and here's the federal rule.
OK, everything's going along cool, then the guy says, "Hey, wait a minute. Though we made the rule, how're we going to get somebody to throw somebody in the craphouse? We need somebody to enforce it—law enforcement." Now they put up this sign on the wall, "WANTED, LAW ENFORCEMENT." Guys applied for the job: "Look. Here's our problem, see, we're trying to get some sleep asnd people keep throwing crap on us. Now we want somebody to throw them right in the craphouse. And I'm delegated to do the hiring here, and, ah, here's what the job is. You see, they won't go in the craphouse by themselves. And we all agreed on the rule, now, and we firmed it up, so there's nobody gets out of it, everybody's vulnerable, we're gonna throw them right in the craphouse. But ya see, I can't do it cause I do business with these assholes, and it looks bad for me, you know, ah . . . so I want somebody to do it for me, you know? So I tell you what: Here's a stick and a gun and you do it—but wait till I'm out of the room. And, whenever it happens, see, I'll wait back here and I'll watch, you know, and you make sure you kick 'em in the ass and throw 'em in there. Now you'll hear me say alotta times that it takes a certain kind of mentality to do that work, you know, and all that bullshit, you know, but you understand, it's all horseshit and you just kick em in the ass and make sure it's done."
So what happens is that uh, now comes the riot, or the marches—everybody's wailing and "plop, plop, plop, plop." And then you got a cop there, who's standing with a short-sleeved shirt on and a stick in his hand, and the people are yelling, "Gestapo!" at him: "Gestapo? You asshole, I'm the mailman! Gestapo?"
Now, what it is, I think, is that people really want to beat the devil. The way that it started was with the early, early missionaries, you know. I think they didn't really . . . That's why the people never could really separate the authority and the people with the authority vested in them. 'Cause, you know, with the savages, you know, they were teaching the religion, and after the speech the savages go, "Well, are you GOD?" "Well, no, but uh, hah, hah . . . What the hell, you know, just uh, well, never mind, and uh, I can do you a favor, you do me a favor, that's uh . . . "
And that's, I think that's a hangup in our country right now. 'Cause you always hear that kind of a story, about the peace officer who pulled a speeder over, and the speeder turned out to be the governor. And he had the audacity to give him a ticket. So the fact that people repeat that story so much, that means that people don't believe that the governor could ever get a ticket, man. So then it's just the degree of the law that the governor could break. That means he could kick you in the ass or anything. But that's bullshit. It's really not that way. 'Cause everybody's vulnerable. Yeah. Everybody's ass is up for grabs. And it's really a groovy, a groovy system.
And I think that, well, the problem I had a long time of understanding the law, was because of the language in the law, and the fact that instead of taking each word and finding out the case that the word related to, once in a while I got lazy and I would apply common sense. And then I got really screwed up. (...9:25...)
(...13:05...) when this people told me in the book jacket that this is ART. So, the intent has to be there, so the Law Court says, "Bullshit," the Supreme Court says, "Bullshit" to the Law Court. And that's when I started getting into trouble. (...13:21...)
(...26:06...) You know what I do investigate? Zig-Zag cigarette papers. (...26:11...)
(...29:09...) Lyndon Johnson, they didn't let him talk for the first six months. It took 'em six months to learn him how to say "Negro." "Ni-gger-O." (...29:28...)
(...35:30...) Ruby came from Texas (...35:35...)
All compositions by Frank Zappa except as noted