Just published… This is an effective comedian. Not just being the best, but attacking real power, not … whatever they do now (get along with their corporate sponsors)…
Not hard to imagine Hoover and the FBI in general go after a comedian. He had power. You don’t write for Presidents without that skill.
“The feds ultimately decided not to talk to Sahl about his offending jokes, fearing he would publicly roast them.” – which is hilarious and I wonder how Mort would have relayed this story and HOW he’d roast them.
It’s interesting to see how broadly the term “sick comedy” was used back then. It was applied at various times to Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Tom Lehrer, Mad Magazine, Jules Feiffer, Charles Addams, and Dick Gregory. It was applied to anything even slightly more controversial than the usual comedians. If the FBI thought they could somehow isolate any sick comedian (by their standards) from any position in organizations like the FBI, they didn’t do a very good job of it. Tom Lehrer worked both for NSA and Los Alamos National Laboratory:
Not today. But when they were alive and working, Hoover could make or break careers and at least subject them to constant harassment. He had enormous power.
Hoover tried to use the FBI to police culture and politics when it should have just been policing actual criminal behavior. He also used it to try to stop talk about his personal life.
Not that I would care or find anything wrong with it, but Hoover had to be gay, right? He definitely was dating or more or less married to that Tolson guy?
Despite enormous amounts of speculation, piles of gossipy books, and the facts of his close relationship with Clyde Tolson, there isn’t a shred of actual evidence that the two were lovers.
So, had to be? No. Quite possibly were? Yes. Just intimate but platonic friends? Also yes. Saying anything else isn’t good history.
This is my take on it. Also, the stuff about him dressing in drag was apparently based on one incident described in a book that was of questionable veracity.
What’s not questionable is that he was a fascist asshole.
This is true. The 1990s rumors about Hoover cross dressing were based on an unreliable source (IIRC the wife of a reputed mobster).
In a fascinating twist, these rumors may have their origin in a disinformation campaign conducted by the Soviets. Going back to the 1960s, an arm of the KGB known as “Service A” sent letters to American newspapers claiming Hoover was gay, and a cross dresser, the long-term goal being to exacerbate U.S political and racial divisions. Such antics didn’t start in 2016.
Source: “In Deep”, by American author and journalist David Rohde, 2020.
Assuming Rohde’s account is accurate, it would seem to further weaken any claims about Hoover’s cross dressing.
As to the truth about Hoover, as stated upthread, no one knows about his sexuality or gender ID. But there is no doubt that he was a racist, authoritarian asshole.
You’re right that we can’t prove that they were lovers. But while there isn’t any conclusive evidence that Hoover was gay, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to speculate that he was:
As mentioned, Hoover had a very close relationship with his second in command, Clyde Tolson. They rode to work together, took vacations together, and spent holidays together, to the exclusion of other people. Even though Tolson had a stroke in the 60’s, and eventually passed retirement age, Hoover kept him on at the Bureau through the remainder of Hoover’s life. When Hoover died, Tolson inherited his estate and moved into his home.
Other than this clearly close relationship, Hoover had no other known intimate partners. He lived with his mother until he died, and was otherwise a lifetime celibate.
Hoover had a preoccupation with the sexual activities of high profile people, and devoted considerable Bureau resources to obtaining such information, discounting theories that he was asexual.
(The cross dressing, meanwhile? I don’t buy it. It’s entirely just a rumor, and hasn’t been corroborated at all).
I get the stake/steak pun, but surely there’s more to the joke than just that. Maybe he was saying that the FBI was incompetent, and that an FBI stakeout was no more useful to enforcing laws than a backyard cookout?
The joke just doesn’t seem to be up to Carlin’s usual quality.
I think he told it better. And maybe you’re used to hearing only his best. He had shows to fill like other comics, it can’t all be his best work. This one is a small joke, a simple pun that he can make more of with other jokes, or just let it stand on it’s own as a brief chuckle.
-out.