Al Bendich, Defender of ‘Howl’ and Lenny Bruce’s Comedy, Is Dead at 85

Reading this makes me proud to be a lawyer.

"At his death Mr. Bendich was a co-president of the Saul Zaentz Company, an entertainment concern in Berkeley. He joined the company, originally Fantasy Records, in the late 1960s ..."

John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival must be all broken-hearted over the news:

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/oct/23/entertainment/et-baker23a

Fabulous piece of history by Margalit Fox. And this was in San Francisco. Hard to believe today when even the Right Wing Christian movement has liberalized. Back then the judge was the fiduciary of moral intent. Judge Horn was interpreting the ethical content of Ginsburg. It was in the era of the blacklisting of artists. As young persons, we found the banning made the works that much more attractive to us. And Bruce was bigger than life.

Margalit's writing reminds us that someone had to be in the forefront of the freedoms that we enjoy today. Although it was titilating to read "Howl" in the age of prudishly moral sanctions, it is a magnificent stream of consciousness that is better to read when people aren't going to jail for harboring it.

Today I think the opening line applies to Millennials: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..."

And today we confront the murderous censure of Charlie Hebdo. Al Bendich's work continues. May his work inspire us all.

It’s also a flaw of our system, I’d say, that even to “test” a law in the courts, you have to break that law first.

Bendich was on the side of freedom when he defended Lenny Bruce. He won an acquittal for Bruce, and won true freedom of speech for all the rest of us. But that was then, and this is now. Where does free speech stand today? Imagine Lenny Bruce performing one of his comedy routines today on, say, the UC Berkeley campus, where Bendich himself taught. Police and judges would yawn and ignore him. Unfortunately the university and its student body would hang him in effigy, if not physically assault him. Lenny Bruce used the n word hundreds of times in his shows, along with racial epithets for Jews, Hispanics, Italians, Irish and everyone else. And Lenny Bruce was no racist, far from it. His point in using racist language was to take the stigma out of the n word, the k word, and all the other words that are now forbidden, and make racism ridiculous instead. He succeeded, and on an epic scale. Go back and read some of the transcripts of his shows, they're hysterical, even on a printed page rather than being delivered with his comic timing. After you manage to stop laughing, think about how impossible it would be for a white comedian to deliver those routines today. Bendich won his battle, but unfortunately it was censorship that won the war. We are all much poorer now that honest laughter is forbidden.

as a freshman at Columbia in the fall of 1985, my professor assigned the English class a lengthy term paper with a weighty impact on our final grades. the paper had to involve much research and footnotes, and somehow include NYC as a corollary theme. initially I thought I'd write about Walt Whitman and the Brooklyn Bridge, but I developed an early fascination with the counterculture. Grateful Dead, beatniks, protests against Vietnam, civil rights marches. so I shifted to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and the beatnik scene in NYC.
Thanks, Al Bendich. (almost rhymes with mensch- Ginsberg could make that work.) May your memory be for a blessing, and your family be comforted.

this is brilliant: “Your Honor,” Mr. Bendich shot back, “I didn’t say I would call Mr. Aristophanes.” RIP. Certainly no one with a cellphone is going to be that smart or clever.

In 1969, Al Bendich was one of my first professors at Berkeley. His Speech/Rhetoric class helped me connect the dots -- between the historical fight for fairness and equal justice in America and the then contemporary fight for fairness, justice and peace on campus – and around the world . May you rest in peace, Professor Bendich – and thank you.

For me it was George Carlin who really paved the way for talking dirty.

He defended free speech and now, all these years years later, a popular TV show starts its new season with a man sticking his face between a woman's bare, jiggling buttocks, something that was once reserved for porn theaters, if there.

I'm not sure this is progress. If the law no longer demands restraint, perhaps some self-restraint is called for.

Reading a poem produces images made in the mind of the reader. Therefore each reader will have different images. And attending a live reading of Howl by Ginsberg will produce a different flow of images in the mind of each listener. And listening once again but with the eyes closed will produce more different images. It is all in the mind of the beholder. And that is what the Judge knew when he said “In considering material claimed to be obscene it is well to remember the motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense.’ (Evil to him who evil thinks.) He was a wise man.

I will ever be grateful to Mr. Bendich for defending our right to "Howl". That is about the only relief we are likely to have during the next two years.

I shudder to think what would have happen had Al defended the rights of satirists to publish cartoons that highlight the irony and hypocrisy in certain religions. Would this defender of free speech have lived to 85 in this day in age?

A giant.

Oh, how the wind blows now. The killings in Paris, the threats, people retreating into silence or short, anonymous pleas for tolerance in an age where it is not given. His work was the earliest underpinnings of trying to stop what we are seeing run amok at this moment.

I simply can't get over this passage:

“We are going to prove, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the nature of Mr. Bruce’s performance on the night of October the fourth was in the great tradition of social satire, related intimately to the kind of social satire to be found in the works of such great authors as Aristophanes, Jonathan Swift——”

The prosecutor would have none of this. “I’m going to object,” he interrupted. “Aristophanes is not testifying here.”

"Your Honor,” Mr. Bendich shot back, “I didn’t say I would call Mr. Aristophanes.”

I can only imagine what had been going though his vaunted, valued, constructive, literate mind lately.

Rest in free speeh peace, dear fellow.

Thank god for Al Bendich and Marshall Krause at the ACLU.
Without them Ron Boise's Kama Sutra sculptures would have never been seen.

Al Bendich was a great friend and colleague of my father's at UC Berkeley in the 50's and 60's, an intellectual giant but a genuinely nice man as well. Al took my father to a Lenny Bruce show once and my father, a relatively conservative political philosopher, was in stitches all night.

Timely, the news of this fighter for free speech's death. the power of satire is why it makes so many crazy with outrage.

There is an irony here. Fantasy Records muzzled John Fogarty, then licensed "Fortunate Son" for a commercial. Yep, the is no such thing as free speech in corporate-owned America.

Margalit Fox works among the very best writes of obituary. In this stiff competition, and reaches for the stars and delivers, again and again.

Witness, “Your Honor,” Mr. Bendich shot back, “I didn’t say I would call Mr. Aristophanes.”

Pity Socrates did not have Al Bendich at his trial.

Pity Margalit Fox may retire before I die.... as I am nearing 76.

This lady is simply wonderful. Almost makes dying an experience to consider.

More from Jean Paul Sartre, Les Jeux Sont Fait... And Albert Camus - in The Stranger.

Those two would have enjoyed Mr. Bendich in trial - and Margalit Fox's approach for them.

i read lenny bruce's memoir as a teenager but do not remember al's role...... nice to hear about it now. what a rich time the 60's were.... with the support for freedom of speech we have seen in the last week or so? we may be getting back to a better place.

Al Bendich was my faculty advisor and professor as a freshman at Cal. His use of the Socratic method was elegant, challenging and surprisingly, fun. He could convince you of ANYTHING; then, effortlessly, proceed to convince you of the polar opposite. He taught me the meaning of intellectual curiosity, a lifelong gift.

What an important legacy. I loved reading Howl in college. I had a very animated professor who read it aloud and I can still see the faces of some of the more ah, sheltered, students as we discussed it. I hadn't picked up my Beat Reader in awhile. Thanks to Mr. Bendich, I can.

Interesting that such a defender of free speech and an advocate for understanding, even when we believe we are offended, should be taken from us at this highly charged political moment.

I loved Lenny Bruce and am grateful he had such a capable, skilled legal tactician to aid him and the wider cause of free expression. Nice to hear about that slice of the past.

Lenny wanted us to be a little more magnanimous and less prone to finding umbrage in interaction between us.
There are apparently some very thin-skinned, wounded souls among us. Some with seemingly little capacity for rational thought.

To paraphrase Rodney King, "Can't we all just relax?"

Today Je suis Allen Ginsberg and je suis Lenny Bruce.

Thank you, Mr. Bendich.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Bendich a few years ago through his son. He was an incredibly generous, humble, humorous and gentle person who loved to engage in conversation. He was an excellent listener who was open to different points of view and had a deep understanding of history. He will be sorely missed.