Swami X

Harry W. Hart, known by the stage name Swami X, (November 1925, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—August 29, 2015, Los Angeles, California) was an American boardwalk performer and stand-up comedian. Active from the 1970s to 1985, he performed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, and New York. He was known for bawdy sexual humor and political invective.

Biography Hart was born in mid-November 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He died at age 89 on August 29, 2015 at the home of former Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

Career Swami X's act was a monologue mixing pithy sociopolitical observations with poetry, sarcasm and humor, which typically included blasphemy, profanity, and attacking "sacred cows"—producing "pleased shock and delighted outrage" in observers. "How do we know Jesus Christ was Jewish? Because he went into His Father's business." In 2009 the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, presented him with an official proclamation.

Swami X appears as a character in Roger L. Simon's mystery novel, The Straight Man and is referenced in Pat Hartman's volume of Venice vignettes, Call Someplace Paradise.