is going to be talking about pork that's my right you see as an american citizen to discuss poor penn state although disgust all of you vegetarians and jews and muslims that is my right and if you communist would like to here in new york the country is still trying to figure out how to respond to the authoritarian narcissism chaotic cruelty and lying hypocrisy that has become the daily grind of living under a donald trump regime we're experiencing an american version of neo fascism contributing to the sad history of oppression and ate that as we deviled humankind around the world for thousands of years gets you guys a minute but there's also a vibrant history in the country of resistance mocking and satirizing the pretentiousness of the rich and powerful mark twain pointed out that politicians and diapers must be changed often and for the same reason mel brooks in the producers was committed to making fun of hitler saying that if you have people laugh at him you win groucho marx as rufus t firefly in the marx brothers classic anti war movie duck soup plays the appointed leader of the small bankrupt fictional country a for donia involved in absurd this nonsensical war how and thinking what a sucker you are and this is where the comedians come in we're learning that the best cognitive defense against trump era falls is satirical comedy the comedians protect us against the rotting of our brains the comedy becomes a useful tool to process lies and keep our analytic thinking on why such are farce you more burlesque comedy all work as a foil to trump era manipulations and goes after the three main ways he constantly try to do pose his lies and name logic and bullshit right as a top of this historical his open critical free style in a way like no other he's a one of a kind and he paved the way for the careers of such comedians as richard pryor george carlin and more recently bill maher jo stewart stephen called baron alec baldwin's to rethink spoofs of from saturday night live world thrilled to again welcome to the radical imagination the creator and star of the off broadway hit i'm not a comedian i'm lenny bruce if we ever needed lenny's voice and disarming humor it's today ronnie marmo has brought that voice back in a riveting tour de force performance of a lifetime as he puts it lenny bruce is more relevant than ever when you can so the state of the country his biggest thing was how he hated a pop rissi brawny has also brought with him pearls daily a terrific actress comedienne and burlesque artist who into the show by ronnie well basically i'm opening up the show with a ten minute burlesque if it's the style and the timing really sets the tone for the show because you know burlesque and comedy go hand in hand and especially in this time an era right yeah she can't give away the of the treat yes you got it ok but that's only happened you can't tell me i can't tell you but i can tell you that i wanted i wanted pros to do this because i just thought it would add such a beautiful element and those who have besides the fact you know beautiful meaning also you know we take people back authentically to the sixty's and i think give people an experience that they really they're not going to find anymore between lenny between the show between what happens at the top of the show and just just put people back in a really special time in the yeah and something they probably want to experience so those who have seen the show you really haven't seen it yet so you should see it because it's actually very different young and so the burlesque angle of it as you say sets the tone and sets the the era that you're trying to bring us back to because i there's that's true and i have to tell you do you think it's easy to tattoos and she has no trust which is a big treat and i really wanted the authenticity of somebody from that time to really set the world you know so you've done this and you've done this and you are also  specifically maybe about eight years ago i was acting mainly focused on stage and i audition for a replacement contract in an off broadway show called play dead and it was directed by teller of penn and teller and the role required full nudity which i had never done before but i was like you only live once so i kind of went for it and i booked it and so my first you know my first kind of special to me about the show was all of the people that i met doing it in particular you know my best friend miss cherry delight who was also a wonderful burlesque performer and singer and we hit it off right away and you know just backstage just being silly and fun and she was at the time she was hosting a show and she was like listen you need to do burlesque have you ever seen a show like i've been to a few and she was like you're doing my show there's no question about it come kick in for me straight when i started burlesque and then people started asking you know when are you going to do an act and i was like you know when i when i feel it's right and i created my first acts that i started performing and kidney less and less and then here i am i've  a joke comic and then he started to make it was in these clubs and he started making the band laugh tell them stories about his life and he's playing these kind of seedy clubs there were strippers there and but he did meet his wife there he met his wife at this at this coffee shop essentially but so he just kind of fell in love with that world and you know they just celebrated it was come to him and he was able to really developed his material there his persona because he was actually playing to the band he wasn't playing to the audience if you know what i mean you know he's making these guys laugh and and telling stories i mean lenny was the master of like going to get a pack of cigarettes and then he come back and they tell you the twenty minute story what happened on the way to cigarettes you know and nobody else was doing that or talking about his wife or his family you know and as does the importance you said trying to bring us back to that era why is that so important in the age of trump these things yeah because i just think it's a different time and i think people don't realize first of all i think a lot of people take for granted the everything they get to do now all these comics who get to make a living bill maher's and maybe they don't take for granted but there are comics who are fifty years old making a living headlining comedy clubs who don't know lenny bruce was and that's very alarming to me that he's the reason they get to make a living they do it will probably a lot of people still don't know certainly of the of college age generation and i think it's so important was before my time so he you know i love george carlin richard pryor i wasn't alive who we influenced yeah i love those guys and i saw carlin live many they have to sometimes you know he's great so so he represented to me though you know he he was the voice of the being of the poets of the brown people the black people he was the voice of the are as yeah he was as he was it was incredible no way like he had a huge problem with hypocrisy he was a truth teller which is why it's so relevant now because we're living in a country where the truth doesn't matter and that's what the intel is just doesn't matter right right it doesn't matter you can say anything and you go ok i accept this guy's behavior meaning the guy in charge of the country right now but lenny would have you know but if i mean he would have a field day now in the sense the burlesque artist is by taking off one's clothes in a sense is showing a certain truth to the world absolutely not phony baloney stuff this is yeah i mean me the real thing  it in that way and to be fearless about sharing that with other people and i'm very very proud and very honored to be able to do what i do because i think that it it makes people burlesque crowd can be a little wilder the inner theater crowds have to want to clap when they're allowed to clap but with burlesque you know you're free to express yourself however you choose and it is really interesting to kind of circling back to  burlesque and lenny bruce and like one thing i think you know if i encountered lenny bruce in that time why like this stripping with comedy thing is so great is that i think you have to have a certain sense of humor to do burlesque mean i mean i i and i it's always really fun to me i always love with this show with my act because it can be a little quiet people kind of don't know what to do but then they do laugh because there are certain moments that  so absurd you know you have a woman coming out who looks super go amorous and it's just kind of silly and it makes them feel it makes them feel good but the history of this is very obvious i mean milton i i know everything and i know nothing oh i do i'm always i'm always reading and always studying about things and you know since burlesque had its resurgence in the ninety's it's really interesting to see how it's constantly evolving and growing performances at the cutting room so now i'm on my one hundred seventy six performance but i say all that because it took one hundred seventy two performances to finally do what i wanted to do which was put this element into the show because i always wanted to really set the stage because we do it in a nontraditional theater which is the box and i just thought wow would it be great to set the table in such a beautiful way and have everyone have this experience specifically like she's talking about because they're theater goers a lot of these people so they wait to be instructed on how to how to behave and i'd rather them be a little on the quiet side it's not fun for you but to have had that experience and then you teach you how did how to play in that world yet you know what i mean absolutely because i find myself doing that on stage every not transitioned out here so the show's continuing to evolve and i play right i'm lucky i get to keep tweaking it although joe montana my brilliant beautiful director and how he gets mad at me when i keep writing so i had to stop and i had we had a skype with him for the rest in san francisco for saying no i'm not going to repeat that letter hyphenated word to tell the story and not try to there's not and you can even hear a pin drop when you do these three bits in the show and i know if you was me because i try to put myself where lenny was in one nine hundred sixty four doing this material which was shocking really shocking then and it's really shocking today actually it's the suppression of the speech all these kinds of things so so many different issues but lenny bruce is well as is the clip said i mean he was a trailblazer in running is the little i think a remarkable job of putting this piece together writing his piece and and channeling lenny bruce well thank you i you know lenny bruce to me like we think about carlin and pryor and all these guys but out lenny they don't exist and actually if you don't know carlin and pryor you know louis c k chris rock all these guys right and he just you know it's amazing how this man was arrested and sent on the whole this other element into this terrific play in the air of a missile the sodgers donald trump the me two era young people leading safe places and so on how do you respond to know i think a lot of people are for me i am just me i'm just myself i think me showing up and doing what i do and loving it and owning it it brings a lot of  empowerment to people women specifically so for me i just i just love my job i do write you my job and i just i put so much into it and also one thing with this piece like that i love to a lot of burlesque now is pretty quick meaning if you have an act usually doesn't go more than five minutes tops but in this time period you know yeah yeah but i really want to say i know pros and i had a few meetings about what the what it should look like and what we should do is write something that i love and we took a piece of that and then i said well maybe because i really wanted to just be a slow burn you know he can tell us about that load i really put her down no no i really miss her i don't want some sharp chick but can call carol and walk with boys i just want to hear my lady say get up and beautiful it's a very cathartic piece for me and and i love doing it but quite honestly every word every word in the piece means something me i've had some really great reviewers and writers that i believe in because i believe this play i'm a decent playwright but this play was divinely inspired and then i really feel like i love when people tell me you know there's not a wasted word in this you know and i get it and i feel that way and every word is just i'm not playing up to you either on this it was fantastic it's absolutely beautiful and  lenny bruce was a very me and a very strong voice and i think for him to be to see him because he was always brave but i think it's really interesting to see him be brave in that way which he was he was  when i'm out on stage i owe the audience every moment to moment every bit of my open heart and a vulnerability i i really believe that when i do this show i belong to anyone sitting in the audience and i don't belong to myself for those ninety minutes i give them me i turn myself over to them just like when he did to his people and i feel that way just before i go on stage i just asked for for the willingness to be as open as possible and to to expose myself in a way that people can feel like they they they have ownership over b and i mean there's you know so desperately needed in a world that is so hypocritical and phony that's why people were so attracted to lenny they ran to him because he offered that told the truth  today we're even more need of it doesn't seem like there's some ways we progress other ways we've regressed i mean it's unbelievable where we're at and he was such a you know it's just a man of the truth and even if you didn't believe and he was  talk about it wasn't his way or the highway he wanted to have a conversation so that's the thing you know i mean some of his bits want to talk about i start to sound like oh it's funny i don't want to know but we you know but guess what happened like even like you know the famous the famous and word bit that i do in the show that some people stand and applaud people of color other people getting mad it's really i know you keep it in for the i do it because i tell it back to the authenticity of the sixty's that's why it's still in because i want to take ample back to that time you know just before the summer of love in sixty seven when he died in sixty sixty six he was the voice of the brown people the black people the poets the musicians he was the voice of everyone and so the the  n word bit was beautifully intended and if you listen how did he do it do you have a couple of well basically what it is basically what he was trying to say was if we take the power out of the word if we just walk around the stadium had a whole funny bit about kennedy saying i like to introduce all that in my cabinet and then and so if he if he takes the words the power out of the words it would make a little black kid cry when somebody called him the n word in school and quite honestly i think of lenny was here today he would not do that but i don't i think he will use yeah he was too smart he would understood that it's inappropriate now but i but i feel like i have to do it in order to be authentic authentic to the desire and to try to show what lenny was trying to do i e lenny would not have done that bit today because he was just he would have found another clever way to express himself you know and because yeah i don't think he would have done it because i think whe he probably would have felt like i feel and how i feel about that word is that is that it's not ours to use you know if there is and it would hello i think i am that i get to use it when he was smarter than me so i have to imagine that he would have had a lot of respect  and understood that in the sixty's it was a different time today it's off limits and he would have found another way to make that point what else do you think he would think is off limits what he did then and now i honestly don't know besides that born in twenty five george carlin who knows what his career would look like right because he passed the baton that lenny you know he took the baton from lenny so calling fire to a prior to but really carlin because he opened the door for prior to do his thing but  carlin really talked about politics and and he kind of really followed lenny's lead there and so i wonder what carlin would end up looking like you know and his but i just think he was so smart and so ahead of his time and they were offended and they were scared because you know there's always the guy that gets persecute you know that people are fear of they have fear of change and here comes a smart guy was going to change the way we do things and that guy always kind of gets and he took our old conflicts and in the american justice system till till the last day he really believed he you know there's a scene in the play where i go up to the judge and i said i so badly want your respect you know he did that he felt that way he said if he really believed if you just hear me you really open your heart and hear me you're going to go oh ok no more is of course we're sorry you could say what have you i say we know you have great intentions so he really believed in it wasn't like he was and i say wasn't angry or bitter because  a range of emotions but but i think he still believed in that we had the best system in the world that well one day they were going to see how it plays out right in the possible legal action pataki pardoned him in two thousand and three we'll see how the system is working is working and do you do you see yourself also as a feminist you see yourself as a feminist as a political spokes person for that even though they never they credit him with it and that's not the point but the point is all his work and who he was as a person he had something to do with the fact that woodstock you understand i think he influenced everything a little bit a little bit play and so the answer is of course i hope so and i think we're doing that a few hundred people at a time i know that we've changed some hearts and minds i've talked to people after shows and seen there's been a profound chang people because of the show i've also pissed a lot of people off and then it was banned and they let rand ice write yeah it's not my show but but but but a play about lenny yeah it was it was a band and they called me the chicago tribune and asked my opinion which i have a whole layout of his stuff there so what's the deal why did they they allow this i mean it's a fairly it's up for grabs you know i cause we're not sex you know jewish university i can't answer for them to try the play there well i'm going to try to play the whole world i mean for this man to be keeper said to me recently she said thank you for giving my dad his voice back i hear that i don't care i'm good for another three months you know what i mean like because you know because you saw the show it's really taxing and  it takes so much out of me and then when i hear kitty say that i go camera you go knock on the wall to let you know fifteen you know because i feel like i'm very lucky and that i have somehow been anointed this responsibility and and i don't and i don't joke around with it you know well i seriously will i would like to help out as much as i can i'm going to get this out on this show here and it's going to reach this is going to go around the world it's a first class work it was great at the cutting room and now it box it's another level i mean these people know how to do it at the boxes place is incredible first of all like they bring in the greatest acts there it's amazing the lower east side always side with letters i have it on now in this he was yeah the whole environment from the minute you get to the front door it's we're taking you back to a very special time so if you're looking for some new to do this is you know it's really special and i'm not just saying the show the whole experience right pros yes do you really think that it political cartoons in my life and would be the you know he's very sound so you know i grew up i lucked out i mean my family really knew i wanted to be on stage from a young age they encouraged me to be who i was w great communication you know i they know everything they've known my whole journey and they've been in my corner you know and your corner with this play yeah they're really excited they're really really excited and very very proud are they going to come i hope my life and so one thing that i've loved is to be able to combine the two honestly like with my burlesque i dreaded the same way i break it down the same way like when i create my relationship to music you know i treated to the same and i've lived and weddings have been all kinds of things so with that yeah so i create in that way too but i love the freedom of being able to tell whatever story i want which is what burlesque is but in the new here i was like i really love  combining the two you know from every aspect you know the historical you know points for me i love that challenge you know i love the actual you know doing burlesque having that and having like kind of marrying the two and so last year i got to be on the marvelous mrs may's all and i had a small role on the which i really that was a dream come true and it was really exciting because that was like oh this is believer in god or something that tells you something right gentleman well i mean we don't know when this except that the word she's here and she was in this thing before you know it's funny when i one when i was looking for the right girl i talked to a few people and then i had heard from a friend a new friend suggested pearls and then someone else suggested pearls and i was i kept making lists of people and then i was like i got to have some of these really authentic who doesn't have any tattoos is really important me and then i you know it sounds like a complete hypocrite but you know i'm not the one doing the act so and lenny did have a tattoo so that's why it works for me that's why he couldn't be buried in jewish cemetery but like larry david's while he had a funny joke lennie said bury my arm he said angeles and i saw some videos and i had a whole plan on auditioning and callbacks i was going to the whole thing for this burlesque and after i saw something and then we spoke i was like it's done i don't need any of that and so you know really way yeah it really really felt right and it was really you know and also you know the comedy thing too is really important to me i you know grew up loving stand up comedy and i loved george carlin so much and you know i remember discovering like all these cassette tapes of comedy that my dad had and listening to like eddie murphy and all this stuff and telling speaking it because i didn't know if i was allowed to do it or not so to just to have all of these anything and what's beautiful is you don't know what's around the corner and so that's what i love about what's been my career for the last twenty years and and she's just another example of how that is you wake up one morning something's not happening an hour later your life is different that's just the way it goes it's a good way of living you know and i think it is to open this to life and you talk about a higher being and all that you know whether we can get into that for two hours but the reality is i have too many examples of there not being some sort of divine power helping me along because i've got one hundred examples of how that is the case you know what i mean so it's terrific so it's a it's a mission it is this is an important piece and we're just getting started people say one hundred seventy five performers aren't you sick of it i said no i'm just it's just you know started you can tell and i will just have to tell you your energy and the connection here both of you separately and together is just amazing and i really i mean i can't wait huge upgrade from where we've been with the show and i keep saying we're moving on up downtown that's my i have a little tim in there yeah and it's really a night out it's a heck of an experience and if you go to crazy so if you want to do something different and get behind lenny's voice which we need more than ever right now come check it out you know thank you guys so much as you've really been a pleasure i am here great oh man this is thank you so nice to me to see you guys on the show and listen i don't want to be here i don't want to conquer anyone i should like to help everyone if possible to gentile black man white we all want to help one another human beings are like that we want to live by each other's happiness not by each other's misery we don't want to hate and despise one another in this world there's room for every one of the good this rich and can provide for everyone the way of life can be free and beautiful but we have lost the way lost the airplane and the radio have brought us closer together the very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the word millions of despairing men women little children victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people to those who can hear me i say do not despair the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish soldiers don't give yoursel liberty in the seventeenth chapter of sense look at this written the kingdom of god is within man not one man not a group of men but you know me and you you the people have the power the power to create machines the power to create happiness you the people have the power to make this soldiers in the name of democracy