Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!

Author:Lawrence Schiller & Albert Goldman [Schiller, Lawrence & Goldman, Albert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Arts & Literature, Biographies & Memoirs, Actors & Entertainers, Comedians
Amazon: B00C1LMQ2Q
Published: 2013-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

With the heat off his back and the steam coming steady up his pipes night after night, Lenny set to work in his old stronghold and literally created an entire new nightclub act. It may not sound like a great achievement to those who know little about the business and its terrible tendency to repeat itself. It may strike Lenny Bruce worshipers as just another example of Lenny's remarkable facility and creativity. But the truth is that the creation of forty-five minutes of absolutely fresh material is the entertainment world's equivalent of writing a major novel. It's something that even a genius like Lenny Bruce could do only a few times in a lifetime. During this hot August he poured out the material that was to carry him for the next two years——and beyond. Practically all the great second-wave Bruce routines date from this engagement: Tits 'n' Ass, Lennys revenge on Vegas; Christ and Moses, the next turn of the satiric screw on organized religion; To Is A Preposition, Come Is A Verb, the symphony of sex sounds.

When Lenny got ready to go out on the road again in the fall of 1960 to open a season that would cap every other expedition he had mounted up to this time, he hated to part with all his wonderful California friends, his gang. Faced with the prospect of living for months in dreary hotels without any assured companionship, he offered Richey a generous salary to go along with him. Richey was willing to travel, but he wanted Lenny to take Ted also. He told him that Ted was going to be an important new comic because he presented a fresh image. Instead of the usual Jewish jazz, he was tall, blond and gentile. The idea interested Lenny. He saw himself as a molder of talent. He knew there was a market for "a funny goy". Indeed, the first time he saw Bob Newhart at Mr. Kelly's, Lenny had told Art Steuer: "He'll make more money than me, Sahl and Berman because Paar, Sullivan and Moore need a goy comic so bad their teeth ache!” So Lenny made a deal with both men: he would go out and play his dates in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dayton and Philly; when he got to New York, where he was going to do three weeks at Basin Street East, the boys would join him and stay with him for the rest of the tour. Ted and Shack were delighted.

Most of the stops on Lenny's route were familiar; one, however, was a ringer: Milwaukee. The origin of this odd date was a direct invitation from the owner of the club. He had caught Lenny's act at the Crescendo and enjoyed it so much, he wanted to present it to his own people back in the land of championship bowling and free brewery wars.

The folly of the idea becomes apparent to Lenny the moment he arrives in town: the dinner show is at six-thirty and the men's room

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