Heavy Metal, Rap, and the First Amendment

Abstract

If the Messiah were indeed to return and…do away with all man's inhumanity to man, then I, Lenny Bruce—a comedian who has thrived both economically and egotistically upon the corruption and cruelty he condemns with humor—would know that I had been a parasite whose whole structure of success depended on despair: like J. Edgar Hoover…; like the trustees, wardens, death-house maintenance men, millions of policemen, uniform makers, court recorders, criminal-court judges, probation officers and district attorneys whose children joyously unwrap Christmas presents under the tree bought with money earned by keeping other men from seeing their child's face beam at a cotton angel, who would have been without jobs if no one in the world had ever violated the law….