Joe Eszterhas

It's like we learn for a little while, and then we forget.

Yeah.

He also said history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.

Yeah, I mean, he was essentially the original stand-up comedian.

He was the originator because he was essentially a very witty author who wrote very provocative things, very hilarious things, and then would read them publicly.

And when he was doing these speeches where he would go and, you know, whatever you call it, poetry or whatever it was, there was no stand-up comedy back then.

There was no name for it.

But he was just riotously funny.

People loved him.

And they would go to see them because they were funny.

with all these things I think would be a lot of fun it would be a lot of fun the only problem would be like the cultural context was so different back then it's almost like did you see Lenny the Dustin Hoffman film great film I mean I think Dustin Hoffman fucking nailed it it was as close to Lenny Bruce as you're ever going to see someone portray Lenny Bruce

The problem is the world has changed so much since 1960 that a lot of the outrageousness is gone and it seems very pedestrian.

Like the things that he is saying, because he was such a groundbreaker and society was so locked down and so conservative and so –

You know, just the way people communicated was much different back then.

The understanding of culture and of race relations and sexual relations was very different back then.

And so the outrageousness of what he was saying back then, it just doesn't really translate.

Because in many ways I think stand-up comedy in particular is a window in time.

It's a window into the way people behave.

Films are that way as well, especially if you go and watch a lot of old films.

It's a window into how people perceived reality back then.