He'd be wondering why the New York Post had to luridly headline that Lenny Bruce died on the "can," and why they think that because somebody does a show at The Cutting Room, an obscure local club, there's a REVIVAL of Lenny Bruce interest. There isn't.
As you can easily tell from the lack of any new stand-ups the average person can name (Seinfeld is not new, Kathy Griffin is not new, Norm MacDonald is not new, Chris Rock is not new...) stand-up is almost as dead as Lenny.
In this PC age, almost NOBODY is performing the kind of things that got Lenny persecuted and prosecuted. We're living in times when a comedian who became a politician (Al Franken) had to resign because HE TOUCHED A TUSHY. We're living in times when Jeffrey Tambor, clumsily talking-up a transwoman on a TV set, got FIRED from his show. We're living in times when there won't even be a comedian at the Correspondent's Dinner because the last one said something too bitchy and insulting to another bitch.
Nice, huh?
"HE DIED ON THE CAN."
Actually, there's just a smidge of controversy on exactly how Lenny died. Phil Spector was widely quoted as saying it was from "an overdose of police." Aside from whether it was an accidental death or a conspiracy of some kind, there are people who will tell you that the cops came in and stripped Lenny down for some good camera shots and stuck a needle in his arm. Dustin Hoffman's film version of "Lenny" used one of the actual "lying on the bathroom" photos, rather than recreate the scene with the actor. I saw the Broadway show original. In that "Lenny," with the late great Cliff Gorman, the cops staged a gag photo, hauling Lenny up from the bathroom floor and onto the toilet, like a king on the throne.
But, no, there's no evidence that Lenny actually died "on the can" and was found there. But this is The New York Post.
The actual article? A strange mish-mash promoting a soon-to-close obscure show with quotes from...NEWSDAY.
Since WHEN does a writer for the New York Post quote somebody from Newsday? How hard is it to go find the guy who is in the show and get a fresh quote from him? You're saying, "Hey Pal, you're getting good publicity. TALK TO ME."
I guess the new journalism is "Aw, use an old quote, give attribution, and..." and, what, the New York Post is no better than NEWSER?
I remember seeing Joan Rivers play Lenny's mother Sally Marr in a one-woman show ON BROADWAY. Not at the fucking CUTTING ROOM.
Nobody said there was a Lenny Bruce revival going on.
Somebody named Luke Kirby played Lenny in something called "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" so that, and a CUTTING ROOM gig, make for a revival?
I never heard of Kriby OR that TV show, but pardon me for not keeping up with the three thousand fucking shows that are now on Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, the four major networks, or the 200 or more cable channels you can get even if you don't want them.
We hear that the creator of this Maisel thing had a father who was a stand-up comic.
Shall we NAME that comedian? Ah, nevermind.
If the woman isn't married, and her last name, hyphen or not, is Paladino, my guess is her father was Joey Faye, nee Joey Paladino? Right. Who heard of Joey Faye? But come on, if we're talking about who cares about some guy doing a show at the CUTTING ROOM, why not add the little tidbit of who the great Mrs. Maisel producer Sherman-Paladino's dad was?
Oh yeah. Another sign that there's a massive revival in Lenny Bruce, is that a museum nobody visits has an exhibit on him. I'm sure they have an exhibit on a dozen other people too. The museum is located in Jamestown, New York, which is where even people from Jamestown don't want to be.
WHY would anyone open a museum in Jamestown, which is somewhere about a four hour drive from the nearest pile of deer shit?
Lucille Ball was born there.
The Three Stooges were born in Brooklyn. MY choice would've been Brooklyn.
Part three of this doleful piece on Lenny's non-revival is loaded with Newsday quotes. And why isn't there a photo of this one-man-show guy, to tell us if he looks like Lenny Bruce or more like Murray Roman or Sandy Baron?
Say, do you suppose more proof of the Lenny Bruce revival is that somebody dug up Bernie Travis' "Dirtymouth" movie and hoisted it to YOUTUBE?
Yeah, I saw that thing when it came out. It was when there actually WAS a Lenny Bruce revival...one that included a bunch of re-discovered tapes that were put on vinyl ("What I Was Arrested For," "Thank You Masked Man," "Curran Concert"). Bernie's film didn't exactly rival Dustin Hoffman's, but there actually was enough interest in Lenny at the time for two movies to appear, and for various people to stage regional versions of "Lenny," the play that dared not name all the names (like HONEY BRUCE and MILTON BERLE, both given new monickers to prevent possible lawsuits).
OH, I left out the "FILE UNDER" part of the POST piece. Hey gang, if you enjoy collecting press clips that reference OVERDOSES, be sure to FILE this under OVERDOSES...
I could go on in talking about the early 70's revival, and Bernie Travis, and all that, but the Lenny Bruce revival is OVER.
Oh. Some good news. Valerie Perrine, who played Lenny's wife in the Hoffman movie, and slid into obscurity (because the Lenny Bruce revival didn't last that long?) was recently fitted with new teeth. No kidding. She was in bad physical and mental shape, but is being cared for.
She is not, however, going to be doing a solo show at The Cutting Room. She's not THAT down and out.
No comments:
Post a Comment