Bruce is a beat magician, a Yiddish Ariel whose hesitant, mumbling, slipped-gear technique, full of breaks and riffs, untunes the ear of the conventional night-club audience who are used to getting their entertainment in a smooth flow of glossy chatter. He is not a public utility though. He mines his material from odd, irregular veins, surprising himself, as often as not, when he strikes a seam of original humor…. Following his act is like reading [James Joyce's] Finnegan's Wake over and over. (p. 150)

He has been called a sick comedian and yet I don't think the label could have been applied more inappropriately. He deals, it is true, with sex and disease, sometimes with unsettling frankness, but never with relish or just for kicks. He is a collagist, assembling the fragments of urban consciousness without much regard for conventions or taboo. He is almost a verbal Pop artist...