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Wars of the World. Perhaps the most successful of the newer sickniks, Bruce somehow recalls the kid in Saroyan's The Time of Your Life who keeps thinking that he is a comedian but succeeds only in spouting his miseries. Although audiences unquestionably laugh at Bruce, much of the time he merely shouts angrily and tastelessly at the way of the world (on religious leaders: "They have missed the boat. 'Thou shall no kill.' they say, and then one of them walks comfortingly to the death chamber with Caryl Chessman.''). Some of the material springs from his own checkered life (the son of divorced parents, he ran away from home at twelve). His political routines recall Of Thee I Sing with some venom added, as when Ike says to Sherman Adams: "All right, Sherm, you can level with me, baby. What else did you take? . . . Delaware? How could you do a thing like that!''
In one of his weirder routines, Bruce imagines Evangelist Oral Roberts putting in a long-distance call to the Vatican: "Hello, John, what's shaking, baby? Say, that puff of white smoke was genius. By the way, Billy Graham wants to know if you can get him a deal on those Eyetalian sports cars." Appearing at San Francisco's hungry i last week (at $2,500 a week), Bruce seemed to amuse most of the customers, outraged many, and quickly got into a feud with the San Francisco Chronicle's celebrated columnist Herb Caen, who called Bruce a bore. Lenny retaliated by announcing elaborately during his act that Herb Caen "is not a transvestite, not a Commie, does not tint his hair."
Threatening Sanity. Short of Bruce's extremes are a host of other comedians displaying varying degrees of sickness or satire. Among them: ¶ Tom Lehrer, 31, onetime Harvard mathematics instructor and still the college boy's delight. Lehrer is that rare amateur who turned professional and who did so successfully; in his last engagement he threatened the sanity of S.R.O. crowds at London's Royal Festival Hall. Sample Lehrer lyric:
I ache for the touch of your lips, dear, But much more for the touch of your
whips, dear. You can raise welts Like nobody else As we dance the masochism tango.