Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Let me answer that question !!



....you would still be their fan....that's what !


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3 comments:

Eugene Costa said...

Brilliantly done, Monsieur Robo--one of your very best.

The last segment is, in addition the peak of original modeling fit to voice and subject.

Bruce transcended comedy and tragedy, likes or dislikes, writing and speaking--in himself and others.

The "Power of Now" naifs, whether they are well-heeled promoters of oatmeal mysticism or just the young kicking up their heels, are uncomfortable finding the past in their "present".

With Bruce, there is the uncompromising nihilism of Rousseau, whom Hume called, "a man without a skin."

Hume was right for his time, and hitting the target helps tell us who Bruce is.

The rest--perhaps all too tinged with "entertainment", however great they were.

Thorndike Pickledish said...

Thanks Sir !! I appreciate your compliments on the work itself and on your true and perfect observation of Lenny Bruce....always insightful words when you comment here. much appreciated !

As a DJ many years back--I was AT FIRST in it just to be 'funny' on the air and the music was in some cases,to me (OUCH) secondary...

I looked for content in pop music...and sometimes found it..other times -my true feelings mirrored Steve Allen's mocking of the lyrics by reading them in 'dramatic' ( bad actor poet) setting...

As I now become a bonafide geezer--I look back and see some "entertainment" based acts could be heroes...for the INVENTION of a sound or a unique voice...Altho in my teens (and early radiohood) I liked Duane Eddy-Dick Dale -Eddie Cochran--Ersel Hickey -Billy Lee Riley --Roy Orbison--Bo Diddley etc.

I did not YET see the MARVELOUS voices that were in the 'wimpier' HIT PARADE songs (the ones I stupidly ignored)---voice only now...who could INVENT a voice like Jackie Wilson --Roy Brown...or the main lead singer of the Platters..

or a bombastic Little Richard ...where did that come from??...Brenda Lee actually a super POP (country derived) star...was just considered a child prodigy...stack up her work today and it's wildly artistic..as is Hank Ballard -Louie Jordan...god --even Rick Nelson had a voice no one could sound like...so heroes can be heros for their originality--

and taking sound somewhere it's never been before..

(have ever heard the Rene Hall 45 called Twitchy?)

I keep thinkin of a line from Mose Allison's song Swingin machine--

that sums up entertainment hero's art -voice or style-

" It's much More Felt than seen...my little swingin machine !!"

Eugene Costa said...

"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 worshipped 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!"

Albert Goldman (from the liner notes of the Carnegie Hall performance, also quoted by wikipedia, s.v. "Lenny Bruce")