Lenny Bruce

For more than 30 years I’ve had some Lenny Bruce albums: “Thank You Masked Man”, “The Berkeley Concert”, “The Law, the Language and Lenny Bruce”. I think I also had “The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce”, but I believe that got stolen and sold by a heroin addict I used to live with in New York back in 1985.

Ah, those were great days.

Inspired by my friend Dennis Perrin’s stand-up comedy endeavors, and my desire to re-experience my nostalgia-colored “better times”, lately I’ve been buying late-50s early-60s comedy records. There is something about the times. Despite the racism, sexism and other isms back then, there was a sense of style and sophistication in the air. Nightclubs were not discos. Men wore suits and ties, women wore dresses. The ever-present swirl of cigarette smoke gave everything a mystique that Mad Men captures very well, but you had to be there to really understand. Going out then had a specialness to it that seems to be missing in today’s miasmic culture.

The comedians of the time were considered by Time Magazine in an article titled, “COMEDIANS: The Third Campaign”, to be intelligent, insightful and funny. That may seem shocking today, but that’s because it’s been a whole half century of comedy between now and then. And it was those comedians who first inspired and created a more cerebral approach to comedy that led to Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and  others.

I have three Mort Sahl albums with another on the way. And I’m seeing, thirty years after falling in love with Lenny Bruce, that I never gave Mort Sahl the credit or exploration he was due. A comparison of Lenny and Mort can be made which would easily complement both. Both were intelligent, instinctual, philosophical, Jewish and quick, but Lenny was more conceptual while Mort was more of a straight commentator and analyst. Lenny did voices and characters. Mort did not. Lenny did heroin. Mort did not.

The world is different today. But it hasn’t changed that much in fifty years. And there are enough problems of today that comedy today would have enough material to talk about with meaning and laughs. I would love to see a renaissance of a type of comedy that was intelligent and philosophical and funny. But comedy today is ruled by forces I don’t understand. It’s too controlled and sanitized in this 21st century way. Comedy in the Fifties was sanitized too. My point is maybe that renaissance of intelligent, topical, philosophical comedy may be just over the horizon.

So, for all you future comedians of the renaissance, let me do my part by saying: explore Mort Sahl, Dick Gregory and Lenny Bruce see how they did it. I will write a post about Sahl and Gregory in the near future, but this is about Lenny.

Lenny was impish. He had a child-like quality about him. He had fun being in front of an audience. He did funny voices and made himself laugh. But Lenny was deep. He would do bits about kids sniffing airplane glue to get high. No one did that back then. That gave Lenny an air of danger that made him—what that’s word everyone loves to use?—oh, yeah, Lenny was “controversial”.

Lenny did bits about religion, racism, sex, drugs and popular culture. And these were structured bits with a narrative. Observational humor is great, but Lenny’s “Religions Incorporated” is a classic comedy bit no matter who did it. “How to Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties” was genius because the character Lenny played in the bit said everything every white person was thinking who went to an integrated party in the late 50s, early 60s. The Carnegie Hall Concert is my favorite because Lenny is so relaxed and philosophical. And he isn’t chasing after laughs. He is preaching with humor.

Lenny became a target of the popular culture and they drove him to his death. As detailed in the HBO documentary Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth, Lenny exposed an offer of a bribe, which was a basis of the persecution he suffered. However, his ideas must have been the wood society built at his feet when they burned Lenny at the stake. That’s what they did to heretics in the old days. And they considered Lenny a heretic because Lenny was effective.

So much has been written about Lenny, there is nothing I can add of value. All I can say is Lenny feels very comfortable like an old friend. He reminds me of a time when I was young and hopeful and amazed by so much of the world.

Here are a few of what is available of Lenny on YouTube. The first is Lenny on Steve Allen.

This is the first of seven parts of the Lenny Bruce Performance Film which was performed shortly before Lenny died and is available on DVD.

Remi Gaillard

In my opinion, the best humor has an element of anarchy to it. About a month ago, my friend Guillaume wanted me to watch some videos of Remi Gaillard, beginning more than ten years ago. I’m naturally skeptical when someone wants me to see something because they think I will like it, but, as with my friend Dennis and Lily Tomlin’s “Glenna--A Child of the 60s” back in the winter of 1982, I found myself laughing very hard.

Gaillard is French and very talented with a soccer ball. In fact, his most notable prank was participating in the victorious celebrations from a soccer game disguised as a player and meeting then-president of France, Jacques Chirac. And as this video, titled “Foot”, shows, his talent for kicking a ball is in many ways as skilled and amazing as Will Rogers talent with a rope.

 

But the anarchy comes when Gaillard takes his talent for kicking a soccer ball and applies it to the police. Watch the Montpelier gendarmes chase Gaillard down the street, only to give up.

Gaillard has been arrested many times. But he doesn’t rely solely on his skill with a ball to get laughs or amaze. And, like good slapstick, what makes Gaillard’s comedy so funny is that the pain is real, as you will see with the police at the end of this video.

The sight of two policemen tackling and restraining a man dressed in a butterfly outfit is hilarious. But the seriousness of the situation, which is even funnier to me, is underscored when the cameraman begins running away.

But Gaillard’s anarchy is not just perpetrated upon the police; it has also been perpetrated upon one of America’s most world-famous multi-national corporations.

Even French people and establishments were targets of Gaillard and his associates. And again, it’s funnier when you know the pain is real.

It beats the hell out of “Jackass”, don’t ya think?

If you’re interested in seeing more Remi Gaillard videos, visit his website.

Johnny Carson

It is customary in blogland to honor someone on the day they died rather than on the anniversary of their birth. But who knows if I will be doing this in January and I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to someone who I admired greatly as a child and young man, someone who helped determine the direction of my life.

Two hosts of the Tonight Show and nearly seventeen and a half years ago, Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show and I cried. Nearly six years ago he died and I cried again. I had a few male role models when I was growing up and Johnny Carson was one of the biggest.

As I mentioned here once before, I first heard the sounds of the Tonight Show from the other room when my father would come home from work more than forty years ago and settle in front of our old 16 inch black and white television with the antenna and bad reception with a Pepsi and a box of Cheezits and laugh.

Carson began the Tonight Show when America was a completely different country.

He was on television every night before the Civil Rights movement was subjected to the violence it endured in Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the March on Washington. The same day Carson took over the Tonight Show, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi—the resulting riots about which caused JFK to send 5,000 federal troops to quell the violence.

He was on every night before JFK was assassinated and while all the assassinations that followed throughout the 60s, including the murder of Lennon (who he knew) in 1980 and the attempt on Reagan in 1981.

He was on every night before JFK ramped up Vietnam and through its end in 1975 and all the years after while America came to terms with exactly what Vietnam was and what it meant to our divided country.

He was on before JFK made us all aware of the Cuban Missile Crisis and left the Tonight Show several months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

He was on before the 60s counterculture grew and on to the early-90s nostalgia of 60s counterculture.

In this space, I have written about the power of popular culture to transform our world politically—especially specific entertainers, like Michael Jackson and the Beatles. The same can be said for Carson. His easy humor and gentle charm got us through all the difficult moments during his thirty years on the air mentioned above and many more.
And it is for having enabled us to cope by being there every night (except Mondays, guest hosts and vacations) that Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and honored by the Kennedy Center in 1993 for his contribution to American culture.

Carson saw America through one of the more difficult periods in our history, save for the Revolution, the Civil War, the Depression and World War Two.

It can be argued that Carson helped facilitate some of the transformation America went through with regards to Civil Rights because he launched the careers and gave valuable national exposure to so many black entertainers like Bill Cosby, Redd Foxx, Flip Wilson, Richard Pryor—and that’s just comedy. Let’s not forget Sammy Davis Jr., Ike and Tina Turner, Muhammad Ali.

Carson was the last Tonight Show host, and one of the last talk shows hosts other than Dick Cavett, to feature authors and scientists and thinkers back when the Tonight Show was 90 minutes and some even after it became an hour long.

While Carson did showcase some members of the counterculture, his biggest contribution in this area was helping to launch or strengthen the careers of those like the Smothers Brothers who would feature the alternative mindset through humor and music.

Had the nameless (and brainless) NBC executive not decided to erase the entire Tonight Show tapes from the 60s, we would obviously had a better idea of Carson’s 60s legacy. Instead, the legacy with which we are most familiar is after the show moved from New York to Burbank and became more focused on Hollywood entertainment for its guest list, and may be deemed as more showbizzy. If we had his 60s Tonight Shows, we may have had a better idea of how great his achievement on American television really was.

Perhaps the closest we can come to that is the show with Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Judy Carne and George Gobel from 1969. The segment where Gobel is doing his bit and Dean Martin keeps flicking his cigarette ashes in Gobel’s plastic cup without his knowledge is at the end of this post.

At one time, he was the highest paid person on television and its most powerful person. As Jackie Mason said upon Carson’s death, “He will go down as the most powerful personality in the history of that whole damn box.”

Carson owned the Tonight Show while hosting it and he never let NBC executives control him as Leno and O’Brien were forced to tolerate. Carson walked in 1967 for more money and when he returned after NBC caved to his demands, he remarked that NBC stood for “Nobody But Carson”.

Carson monologue was the daily group therapy session for the country as we navigated 30 years of turmoil and recovery. Carson’s gentle humor appealed to so many on almost all sides of the political spectrum.

Many people allayed their fears during his monologues, conceived their hopes and made plans to realize their dreams by seeing others do it through their first appearance on his show.

While I did not think all of Carson’s attempts at sketches and characters fit his style and some of his conceptual humor was obviously borrowed from Letterman’s Late Night show, and may have been an obvious stretch to capture younger viewers, his comedic strength was obviously his conversational wit and ability to poke fun at himself and his failed monologue jokes.

Carson was an intelligent man who had a tremendous appreciation for the comedy and show business icons and institutions that came before. Because of the length of his tenure, he was a bridge to almost all that came before.

He had an easy-going style and charm, a handsome face with soothing, twinkling eyes. Everything about Carson to me as a kid when I regularly started watching him in the early 70s was perfect. There was no other place to find spontaneous humor. He was kind and quick with guests.

He mocked Watergate almost mercilessly in his own style. He may have done the same with Iran Contra but I was unable to watch him regularly then because of the tenuousness of my daily existence in New York back then.

I was so taken by Carson that I sent him Carnak jokes when I was 13 and did oil portraits of he, McMahon and Severinsen also when I was 13 or 14 and was going to send them but didn’t.

I became a disc jockey at the age of 19 because Carson started in radio. I developed a comic style long ago first borrowed from Carson, then others.

In 1980 I told Jay Leno in his dressing room where a bunch of local comics, including former “Family Feud” host, Ray Combs, were discussing comedy and show business when Leno was opening for Perry Como when he asked what my career aspirations were, that I wanted to take over the Tonight Show, but not from Carson—I wanted to take over from the person who took over from Carson.

Obviously I blew that opportunity this past June, or way back in 1993, or way back in 1980, depending on how you think show business works and what you know of me.

A dream came true in 1984 when I appeared on the Tonight Show in March of that year via videotape as a Bad Mime character for a Robert Klein segment from New York for “NBC’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes”. The part was created by a former David Letterman writer and friend. Carson laughed loudly at my only line and that filled me with endless joy and a sense of accomplishment. I sent the videotape to a former performer friend and never got it back.

Because of Carson’s gentle style and institutional status he was mocked by some in the 70s who did a harder-edged comedy and mocked as well in his later years on the Tonight Show because he was an older institution and therefore a target of ridicule by some younger comedians who now don’t seem to even have a career.

Carson’s wit, timing and encyclopedic memory always made him better than his material. He almost always stepped outside the material, mostly with just a look. Had he trusted newer comedy writers his could have expanded his appeal in later years. But he always trusted older comedy and never seemed to want to explore. His older writers did not seem to be able to handle the Letterman style of humor.

I wish those who release the Best of Carson DVDs would just repeat the shows as they were on Comedy Central or some other cable channel. I also wish they would go back into the early 70s and release more material from those shows.

Watching a Best of DVD right now, the comedy seems timely, like the shows I am watching that are thirty years old now were taped this evening.

The genius of Carson’s longevity is that his humor was witty, spontaneous and intelligent with just enough playful silliness on good nights. That’s why he worked well with animals, children, old people and average Americans.

And he was more than just a comedian he was also a showman as well as an intelligent conversationalist. He had a personality which was magnetic and with which one could easily identify, which harkens back to old show business, rather than simply being a performer. You knew Carson, or wanted to know him.

He understood what entertainment really was and he endeavored to bring the best to his audiences for thirty years. He loved to laugh which helped him as an entertainer because he entertained himself. He also admired clever and inventive comedians and gave them every break he could.

He left when he knew it was time and he never looked back. That made his legacy even greater because he had integrity, while single-handedly spawning the next generation of late night American television talk show comedy.

He’d be 84 today.

October Fifth Throughout History

This day is important—at least in this post—for three reasons: the Beatles released their first record, “Love Me Do”, on this day in 1962, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” premiered their first show on this day in 1969, and I breathed my first breath on a Saturday night on this day in 1957.

For the longest time I thought these two events were signs of some greatest that I would achieve. Let it be understood from this day onward that God is definitely a practical joker.

But I’m not writing about me and Python and the Beatles sharing this day. This is written to introduce you readers to the man with whom the Beatles and Python share a connection and without whom they arguably may not have existed or would have been different—perhaps even detrimentally different.

Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan, otherwise known as “Spike”, is also one of my comic heroes.

In America, Spike Milligan is largely unknown even though his contribution to the Beatles and Python is easily recognizable. It seems some smart PBS or syndication executive would have run Spike’s “Q” series over here back in the 70s as “the Goons” as they are affectionately referred were aired on many public broadcasting stations. After all, Benny Hill made it to America.

Silly American programming executives.

Milligan, along with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe (and Michael Bentine at the beginning), created The Goon Show, which was a BBC radio show that ran from 1951 to 1960 and was not only hilarious, it was revolutionary.

Before the Goons, British comedy was largely the music hall variety with baggy pants, silly hats and joke jokes, similar to our early vaudeville. The Goons shaped a type of humor that has inspired much of British humor today. It was surreal, it was silly, it lampooned contemporary events as well as the stuffy, upper class British culture of the day.

How the Goons inspired Python is easier to see because both are comedy. In fact, Milligan’s Q5 series was broadcast months before the premiere of the Pythons, and in the Q link above, John Cleese recalls telephoning Terry Jones and discussing with him how terrified they were because Milligan was already doing the show they wanted to do.

Not only that, but all the Pythons were schoolboys when the Goons were influencing all of Britain in the 50s.

Another school boy influenced by the Goons in the 50s was John Lennon. Back in 1972 Lennon wrote a review for a book of Goon Show Scripts. Lennon was also a big fan of Lewis Carroll. But the Goons contributed much to Beatle humor, not to mention personnel.

George Martin, the man who brought the Beatles music alive—along with the Beatles, of course—produced records for Peter Sellers and the Goons. In fact, recognizing Martin’s connection with the Goons was one of the things that endeared Martin to the Beatles, according to Martin in, perhaps, several interviews. In fact, George Martin served as Milligan’s best man for his 1962 wedding.

Richard Lester, who directed “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help” also directed “The Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film” with Sellers and Milligan. The same high-speed silliness in “A Hard Day’s Night” was first explored in “The Running, Jumping, Standing Still Film”.

Milligan suffered several mental breakdowns, a true example of the fine line between madness and genius.

It is no accident that the root of the word “funny” is “fun”. And despite Milligan’s manic depression, The Goons are pure escapist fun. The silliness is contagious. And the genius can be influential as well.

The Goons had fun doing the show as the adlibs and off-mike laughter will attest. One cannot help but get carried away with them. If you’ve had a bad day, the Goons will soon make you better. My two favorite characters are Bluebottle (Sellers) and Eccles (Milligan).

So, my birthday present to all of you is Spike Milligan. I hope he brings you as much joy and pleasure as he has me. I was introduced to him by an ex-writer for Late Night with David Letterman.

I haven’t been the sane since.

Below is the first link to what sitting in the audience for a Goon broadcast must have looked like. It was filmed in 1966 for a show for Harry Secombe, the rotund Goon.

Embedding was disabled, but you can access part 1 through this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd0ONww0rrw

This is part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtcmewIJU2U

Explore Milligan and the Goons and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Another Comedy Hero is Gone

As I write this, it is the 37th anniversary of the premiere of “M*A*S*H”, one of the more progressive comedies to come from American television in the history of American television.

I wrote a script for “M*A*S*H” when I was about 16 or 17 that dealt with the acceptance of a prostitute who lived and worked just outside the 4077th. Frank wanted her removed and Hawkeye championed her not for his own sexual gratification, but for her humanity.

“M*A*S*H” was one of my favorite comedy TV series of all time. I especially loved the first four years from 1972 to 1976. The man who created that exceptional bit of TV comedy, Larry Gelbart, died last Friday.

For those not in the know, Gelbart was a giant in comedy. He began at the age of 16 writing for Danny Thomas. He wrote for Bob Hope and Jack Paar. He was one of the writers for Sid Caesar 50 years ago when Caesar had arguably the most genius writing staff of anyone which included, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Gelbart and Carl Reiner.

He wrote the award-winning Broadway hit, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. He wrote the screenplays for “Tootsie” and “Oh, God”. He wrote many other things, but perhaps he is best remembered for “M*A*S*H”.

Military-based comedies on American TV before “M*A*S*H” were “McHale’s Navy”, “Gomer Pyle”, “Sgt. Bilko” and “Hogan’s Heroes” among others.

“M*A*S*H” was the first military comedy to rail against war in a serious way, although utilizing comedy. Granted “MA*S*H” the TV show had “MA*S*H” the movie to set the tone for its anti-war sentiments. Had the film not succeeded it is doubtful Gelbart and Reynolds would have been able to make “M*A*S*H” the success it was. But what Gelbart did with “M*A*S*H” could not have been duplicated by a lesser talent no matter what the success Altman’s film had.

Throughout the history of comedy, those who did social commentary first worked in straight comedy, with the exception of Mort Sahl and perhaps a few others later on, although Lenny Bruce seemed to be bent early on.

But even Lenny started on the Arthur Godfrey talent show doing impersonations and working in the Catskills and early New York television. George Carlin did straight comedy before becoming the counter culture icon he became. Early Richard Pryor did Bill Cosby-type comedy, before the classic, groundbreaking “That Nigger’s Crazy” followed by his follow-up albums.

Obviously there is a big difference between Larry Gelbart and Richard Pryor, but the same was true with Gelbert. He honed his comic craft in the straight comedy of the day before he began utilizing everything he learned to satirize war and warmakers.

“M*A*S*H” was set against the backdrop of America’s “military action” in Korea a little more than 20 years earlier, but at the time America was still in Vietnam. Therefore, the anti-war sentiments in “M*A*S*H” fit nicely with the anti-war sentiment in America and Gelbart exploited that nexus as no one had before. No other sitcom had been so anti-war with the obvious exception of “All in the Family”.

Gelbart’s genius was to entertain while educating. Of course, Gelbart alone was not responsible for the genius that was “M*A*S*H”. He could not have found a better partner to produce such a subversive show than Gene Reynolds who, like Gelbart, had quite an extensive resume in mainstream Hollywood product.

Alan Alda’s “Hawkeye” became iconic and “M*A*S*H” owed much to Alda’s comic acting talent. Larry Linville brought us a Frank Burns that seemed more like a real person rather than the creation of an actor.

The anti-authoritarian banter between Hawkeye and Trapper was very Marxian—Groucho, that is. The well-defined characters helped present a show that lampooned military authority and their desire for and organization of war, juxtaposed with the very human aspect of war, i.e., saving lives and dying, therefore becoming nearly as subversively counter culture as John and Yoko introducing America to the Yippies and the Black Panthers on the Mike Douglas show back in 1972.

Gelbart created the character of cross-dressing Corporal Max Klinger after Lenny Bruce’s own stories of dressing up in WAVE’s uniforms to get out of the Navy in which he served during WWII.

After Gelbart’s departure, “M*A*S*H” would continue and become one of the highest-rated TV series of all time. In fact, the finale of “M*A*S*H” would become the most watched TV show in history.

In his career, Gelbart won an Emmy for ““M*A*S*H” and two Tony’s for the books for “Forum” and “City of Angels” and was nominated for an Oscar for “Oh, God” and “Tootsie”.

I watched a couple of first season Gelbart-scripted “M*A*S*H” episodes tonight and the humor is as funny today as it was 37 years ago. That is a testament to the comic genius of Gelbart as a writer, script consultant and series creator.

Most comedy writers are intelligent and articulate people. Gelbart was one of the most intelligent and most articulate. There is an eight-part interview series from the Archive of American Television on You Tube. This video is part four where Gelbart talks about the creation of “M*A*S*H”.

For those not familiar with Gelbart, I suggest you watch the video. Larry Gelbart is American comedy history.