MEETING LENNY BRUCE

Once upon a time, long long ago, there were places where people would congregate to watch movies under the stars.  The screens were huge an it was a little difficult for the projectionist to focus the image of the film very sharply.

People would drive to these theaters and park upon little hills that resembled speed bumps.  The people would park their cars in an arc around the huge screen and park the car on the hill so that they could see the screen sitting back in a comfortable position without the rear view mirror getting in the way.

They were called drive in theaters.  At one time I can remember approximately twenty to thirty drive in theaters in the Kansas City area.  As the popularity of the drive ins grew, some of them added a second screen.  This would allow you to watch two movies at one time.  The problem was you could only listen to one of the movies.  There were poles sticking out of the ground every where that a car could park.  The speaker would be taken off the pole and hung on the window of the car.  It had a little knob that controlled the volume.  The sound quality was horrible.  You could get better sound from an AM radio then you could from one of these speakers.

Sometime late in the last century the popularity of the drive ins began to fall off.  They would soon try all kinds of things to keep making money.  One of the drive ins in Kansas City began to show X-rated movies.  It was a drive in theater that was located in what use to be Fairyland Park, a very popular amusement park long before in Kansas City.  A place where families use to go to all the time to ride the Wildcat roller coaster and other rides and would stay for a movie was now an adult film house under the stars.  They were able to get away with it because the screen was hidden back in the woods in the midst of lots of trees.

Other drive ins began trying to bring back the younger set to their screens.   They began showing films that had run through the new multi-screen theaters that were going up all through the suburbs drawing the movie watchers back inside.  There were advantages to going back inside to watch movies.  The seats were more comfortable, you didn't have to deal with rain storms that would blur the screens and, of course they were air conditioned.

Still there was a certain magic that the drive ins had and young people.  You could take all the snacks in with you that you wanted.  You could expect a little privacy when you were with your girl.  You could talk back to the movie when you were with a lot of friends or not have to listen to others talking back to the movie in other cars.

The biggest draw to the younger set was the midnight showings of old cult movies.  One of our favorite theaters to show Saturday night midnight flicks was the old 63rd street drive in.  They would come up with some of the strangest movies that you had never seen and probably would not see again.  They showed the classics of course like "Reefer Madness" and the like along with lots of shorts. among these you would likely be able to see the Three Stooges on the big big screen.

It was at the 63rd Street Drive In where I first met Lenny Bruce.  There were several of us in the car that night.  Mike was driving while Larry, Barb and myself rode along.  When you went to a midnight showing, you had to wait until the regular movie goers had left after watching the feature.  The entrance to the 63rd Street was long and it was steep.  Mike had a car that did not have a parking brake and so as we waited to get into the drive in, we had to put rocks under the back wheels to keep the car from rolling back down.

We finally made it into the theater and before long the midnight cult movies began to be shown.  This particular night would be a night that would add to my lifetime philosophy in a very big way.  They started off with a couple of shorts followed by a so called "Feature" film.  Then the moment I would long remember happened.

It was an animated short called "Thank You Masked Man".  It was a satirical look at the Lone Ranger and Tonto.  It was meant to be funny with a little bit of shock value.  I watched it and I enjoyed it a lot.  Larry and I began to quote some of the lines on a routine basis from that day forward.  As the credits for the little cartoon rolled I noticed a name that was given credit for writing, producing, and all of the voices in the short.  The name was that of Lenny Bruce.  It was the first time I had heard of Lenny Bruce and the first bit of his that I had heard and I liked what I had heard.

I did not go looking for more Lenny Bruce material after that night but I never forgot it either.  Then Dustin Hoffman did a film called simply "Lenny".  I read the ads about the film.  The story of one of the modern ages tragedies.  The story of a philosopher for the ages.  The story of Lenny Bruce and his trials and tribulations.

I went and saw it on it's first run.  Hoffman brought Lenny Bruce to life in one of his better performances.  In the film I heard more of Lenny's routines for the first time.  He had fought the system for freedom of speech and freedom of thought.  Between my first introduction to him back at the drive in and the eye opening film that told what Lenny was all about I became very interested in him.  When I heard George Carlin say that his main influence was Lenny Bruce, I became a fan.

Lenny and I share a birthday. We were both born on October 13.  Lenny was born 31 years before I was.  He died on August third when I was ten years old.  Lenny's intellect and philosophy spanned the generations though and it still does.  He fought for constitutional freedoms that were promised but suppressed.  Thanks to Lenny Bruce we were given George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Sam Kinison and Kevin Smith.  Doors were opened and doors were walked through.

The 63rd Street Drive In still is there but there is no screen and there are no movies shown.  It is a swap and shop on the weekends now.  But the old sign that use to light up the night still stands indicating that it is indeed still the 63rd Street Drive In.

Still today when I drive by the 63rd Street Drive In on my way to the office, I often think of the night I met Lenny Bruce for the first time.

ONE LAST POSTING IN JULY

July is coming to a rapid close.  This month has seemed to fly by at a record pace  So many things popping up to keep me from posting and this makes me a little sad.  What July coming to a close really means.

The majority of holidays are now behind us for the year 2011.  The holidays that I treasure so much because they signal at least a day that I can try to forget about the hectic schedule at the office.  We now have only Labor Day, Halloween (holiday of a sort), Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I include Halloween because even though I do not get a day off of work, it is what now triggers the Christmas Season.  Lewis Black said that anymore Halloween kicks off the Christmas Season and Thanksgiving is Christmas halftime.  I dread both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The moving up of the kick off season just makes that much more time for me to be in a state of dread.

I don't care much for Halloween either.  Strange kids and people coming to my door all evening, upsetting the dog and stealing candy from me.  Candy that I could use myself as I prepare for Christmas.  Nothing gets you through a rough day like a good sugar high.

The end of July also signals that in just a few weeks school will start.  Mind you I don't mind the fact that school is starting, I think it is good to put the kids away for a few hours every day.  Makes the neighborhood quieter and you don't have to worry during the day what is actually happening on your block.  The problem with school starting is now I will have to be fighting kids walking to school in the middle of the street as well as trying to get around those school buses that stop every ten feet to pick another of the little hooligans.  Between the walkers and these yellow monstrosities, I have to add a minimum of five minutes on my drive to work and arrive home as late as ten minutes later than I do during the summer.

Also with school starting, it brings about fundraisers.  Fundraisers for band, for football, for the school, and a host of other needy organizations that want my money.  Look kids, I vote for school taxes and bond issues every time they are on the ballot because I think it is important to support the local schools with my tax dollars.  I don't want to be paying a surplus on my taxes because the school board does not know how to budget.  In other words, I gave at the office.

The end of July marks the start of the last phase of the baseball season.  It is usually about this time that I look at the standing and for the first time admit that the Royals more than likely will not see post season play again this year.  I hold out hope for them all summer long but at around the first of August you finally have to admit that there is really no way they are going to do it.  It is also about this time that I look at the Cubs standing and realize that once again St. Louis is going to end up ahead of the Cubs and probably go into post season play.  This is a double whammy having the Cards go into post season almost every year while the Royals and the Cubs sit at home and watch the playoffs in local bars.It is a rude awakening indeed.

On the other hand the end of July marks the beginning football training camps both on the college and the pro level.  One thing that this means is that along the first of August or so, the stores start to put out Mizzou inventory.  Unfortunately they also put out Kansas inventory.  By the end of August I am sick of looking at that stupid looking little red and blue  disturbingly malformed thing they call a "Jayhawk"  My spell check doesn't even recognize "Jayhawk" as a real word or thing.  I was in a target store on the Missouri side of course, and noticed that the Mizzou inventory was out.  Two whole aisles of black and gold shirts, flip flops, hankies, just about anything you can imagine.  The thing that really impressed me though was I did not see one red and blue KU or Jayhawk in the whole place.  This Target store has my business for life.

The beginning of August also marks just a few weeks until fall arrives.  When August is over the temperatures will begin to drop to a tolerable level and the trees that color the State of Missouri so beautiful will begin their artwork. Fall is truly my favorite season here.  There is only two three things that interfere with my total enjoyment of fall.  Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.Why couldn't they plop these miserable days into a part of the year that I already don't like??  Then I could get all the misery over at one time.

It is like I am cursed by watching the baseball season come to an end followed by Halloween right behind it.  As if that isn't enough I have to watch the racing season come to and end followed immediately by Thanksgiving.  COME ON PEOPLE!!!  Have you no mercy at all??  At least let me grieve the loss of two of my favorite sports without slamming me afterwards with these two worthless holidays.  It isn't right and it isn't nice.

Then comes those weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas where I worry about what different gifts I have to come up with for different people.  Thankfully the internet is here and I can shop from my desk at the office avoiding crowds and stores who hire temporary cashiers who have forgotten how to make change.

Then there are the dreaded days themselves.  Wasting a perfectly good day from work by having to spend it in a noisy foodfest that has the same menu every single year.  That is only thanksgiving.  Christmas is even worse because we have to decorate the house, put a tree in my living room where there is no room for it and then go out in the cold for another foodfest with, again, the exact menu every year.

You can't avoid these annual booby traps that life sets up for us.  John Grisham wrote a short novella on trying to skip Christmas for just one year.  ONE SINGLE YEAR.  Nope, turns out that the main characters in the story were not allowed to skip Christmas.  It is impossible to run away from.  A lot of it has to do with it's religious importance, which you will never find me bad mouth.  But they take that religious meaning and before you know it you are in someone else's house with out a place to sit down trying to eat a bland dinner that you have had fifty times before.

There is a good part to Christmas,  The cookie and candy dishes my mother prepares for me to chow down on for the week before New Years.  I do not mind that at all!  I imagine that if I could get a plate full of pecan tassies every holiday of the year, federal holidays included, you may find my protests against these holidays a little less caustic.

 It's okay though.  When all is said and done and I find myself having survived another year of the madness, I always seem to be able to look back and find some good things that happened during the fight.  A special moment with any number of family members.  The ham may have been a little more moist and the turkey a little less dry this year.

I can look back at the time I was able to spend with my nephews and nieces and realize how special each of them are in their own little way.

I suppose the holidays does have its merits and its reasons.  It is just too bad we have to fight through all the garbage to get to the good stuff after it is all over.

See y'all in August

Lewis Black - Quote 1

The most important part of travel, is when you come home. Because, that's when you see your country with new eyes. I was amazed to realize that we're - we're the only country that - that tells the rest of the world, on a nearly constant basis, that we're the greatest country on Earth. And that is a little obnoxious! And they know it's obnoxious. Because, if you were in an office, and there was someone there, who came in every day and said; "I'm the greatest person here! And you snivelling idiots would die without me! AHAHAHAHA!" I can guarantee that by the end of the week, you'd have killed him! And eaten him, just to try to possess his power!


(some words have been changed in the quote as to not offend anyone who might read this quote).