Hey Bob,
Checked out Lenny Bruce. Thank you for bringing him to my attention. Guess I never heard of him because it was all news to me.
Here are some parts that stood out to me:
***
On February 3, 1961, in the midst of a severe blizzard, he gave a famous performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. It was recorded and later released as a three-disc set, titled The Carnegie Hall Concert. In the liner notes, Albert Goldman described it as follows:
This was the moment that an obscure yet rapidly rising young comedian named Lenny Bruce chose to give one of the greatest performances of his career. ... The performance contained in this album is that of a child of the jazz age. Lenny worshiped the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association. He fancied himself an oral jazzman. His ideal was to walk out there like Charlie Parker, take that mike in his hand like a horn and blow, blow, blow everything that came into his head just as it came into his head with nothing censored, nothing translated, nothing mediated, until he was pure mind, pure head sending out brainwaves like radio waves into the heads of every man and woman seated in that vast hall. Sending, sending, sending, he would finally reach a point of clairvoyance where he was no longer a performer but rather a medium transmitting messages that just came to him from out there — from recall, fantasy, prophecy.A point at which, like the practitioners of automatic writing, his tongue would outrun his mind and he would be saying things he didn't plan to say, things that surprised, delighted him, cracked him up — as if he were a spectator at his own performance!
***
Despite his prominence as a comedian, Bruce appeared on network television only six times in his life. In his later club performances Bruce was known for relating the details of his encounters with the police directly in his comedy routine. These performances often included rants about his court battles over obscenity charges, tirades against fascism and complaints that he was being denied his right to freedom of speech.
He was banned outright from several U.S. cities, and in 1962 an interview he was scheduled to give on Australian television was banned in advance by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
Increasing drug use also affected his health. By 1966 he had been blacklisted by nearly every nightclub in the United States, as owners feared prosecution for obscenity. Bruce did give a famous performance at the Berkeley Community Theatre in December 1965. It was recorded and became his last live album, titled The Berkeley Concert; his performance here has been described as lucid, clear and calm, and one of his best. His last performance took place on June 25, 1966 at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, on a bill with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.The performance was not remembered fondly by Bill Graham, whose memoir describes Bruce as "whacked out on amphetamine"; Graham thought that Bruce finished his set emotionally disturbed. Zappa asked Bruce to sign his draft card, but the suspicious Bruce refused.
At the request of Hugh Hefner and with the aid of Paul Krassner, Bruce wrote an autobiography. Serialized in Playboy in 1964 and 1965, this material was later published as the book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Hefner had long assisted Bruce's career, featuring him in the television debut of Playboy's Penthouse in October 1959.
***
Having come across a quote in defense of Lenny Bruce by Dorothy Kilgallen that clicked with me for some reason:
***
In 1964, Kilgallen was one of four witnesses who testified for the defense of comedian Lenny Bruce, who was being prosecuted for obscenity in New York City.
***
Kilgallen became a panelist on the American television game show What's My Line? in 1950, which was telecast from New York City on the CBS television network from 1950 to 1967. She remained on the show for 15 years (until her death). Fellow panelist Bennett Cerf claimed, that unlike the rest of the panel members, whose priority was getting a laugh and entertaining the audience, Kilgallen was interested mainly in guessing the correct answers. Cerf claimed she would extend her time on camera by asking more questions than necessary, the answers to which she knew would be affirmative.
Cerf said after Kilgallen's death that she had a politically conservative point of view, that of a "Hearst girl", which differed from the more liberal views of himself and others who worked on their television show.
In the same interview, Cerf specified that her opinion of Joseph McCarthy, United States senator from Wisconsin, had contrasted with opinions held by him and their television colleagues. He added that all four What's My Line? panelists had shared a dressing room every Sunday, and Kilgallen published in her column information that her colleagues had revealed in their weekly conversations. Cerf, speaking for his fellow panelists, the panel moderator, John Daly and himself in an audio-tape-recorded interview at Columbia University two years and two months after Kilgallen's death, said "We didn't like that."
***
Have you added to my mailing list. Hope you've been reading them! And don't forget to include them in my file with DeKalb Regional Crisis Center. They are windows to my soul.
Sincerely yours,
James E. Avery, D.V.M.
~(8!0)~
As opposed to God being indifference (infinite), I consider myself a "Classic Eight"; or a different way of say the same thing...I think...not defined,undefined, or unidentified.
Attachments
- 17ddfecbc77b86eb828a3fd6301e89f2.jpg (19.62KB)
- d77896fe4975c04d54cae3d9b4c323ce.jpg (8.90KB)
- quote-lenny-bruce-is-a-very-moral-man-trying-to-improve-the-world-and-trying-to-make-audiences-dorothy-kilgallen-62-3-0329.jpg (44.92KB)
No comments:
Post a Comment