The Lenny Bruce Story

                             

                                                The Lenny Bruce Story

                                                               1956

                               A true story, about the comedian Lenny Bruce

                                  Written in 2010 and Re-written 04/13/2016

                                                      Howard Yasgar

Had it not been for my Grandfather I might never have known anything about Florida, Miami Beach, or anything about a guy named Lenny Bruce.

My Grandfather Eddie, had moved to Miami Beach in the 1950’s, and that was when no one really knew too much about Florida.

All of Grandpa’s family in New Haven Connecticut constantly talked about his retiring to Florida.

They talked as if my Grandfather was crazy, but I found out that he was anything but crazy, Grandpa  called Florida the land of milk and honey.

Back in the 1950’s everyone living in New Haven said that Miami Beach was nothing more than  swamps, mosquitoes and giant cockroaches.

I found that they were only fifty percent correct.

By the time we first went to visit my grandfather, most of the swamps had already been filled in and houses were being built, but the cockroaches were still there.

We first started visiting my grandparents around 1952, that’s when they were renting a small cottage on Miami Beach.

I remember the cottage well as it had palmetto bugs (Cockroaches) that were so big they would scare you to death, some were more than two inches long.

But by 1954, both my Grandpa Eddie and my Grandma Molly had moved to a brand new one family house in Perrine Florida, it had cost them only $4000.00,

In 1954, Perrine was sort of like the end of the world, a last frontier in Florida.

All that was there were palmetto’s and dried out looking farm land.

Their house was in a new development that was built on former farmland.

I will always remember that house, because when you were inside and looked at where the roof met the walls you could see daylight from outdoors coming in.

The other thing I remember was, back then  there were no speed limits in Perrine so I could drive our rented 1954 Ford convertible as fast as I wanted.  

My parents couldn’t figure out why Grandpa bought the house in such a remote place, and I don’t think my Grandfather could figure it out either, possibly because it was a such a bargain.

Eventually Grandpa said he was bored to death.

Grandpa said that when they lived on Miami Beach there were always lots of people around and in the evening there was free music and dancing at the Miami Beach bandstands.

So by 1955 Grandpa Eddie finally got tired of Perrine and announced that he had decided to move back to Miami Beach where there was some life and activity.

So next Grandpa Eddie purchased a very modern condominium on South Miami Beach.

The condo was located on Collins Avenue, right between 5th Street and 6th Street.

Their  unit was on the second floor on the far left rear of the building, and that condo unit is still there today just as it was in 1955, when my Grandfather was there.

Now that my Grandparents lived on Collins Avenue, it meant that when we would visit them, we all stayed in the Corsair Hotel.

The Corsair hotel was the very first one in the line of Art Deco hotels, that were oceanside on Ocean Drive.

The Corsair hotel is no longer there.

Anyway, when the Corsair Hotel was there, we stayed there for $8.00 per night and another $1.50 if you wanted an oscillating fan for your room.

The hotel was ideal as we could walk around two blocks to my Grandparents condo.

Also the Corsair hotel was in an ideal location, it was right on the ocean, and only a short walking distance to the South Beach fishing pier.

Grandpa Eddie told me why he bought the condominium on Collins Avenue, he said it had cost him $8000.00 but he could walk to the bandstand located right next to the Corsair Hotel, and Grandma could sit and talk to friends and Grandpa  could always find a lady to dance with.

In 1956, I was sixteen years old and we came to Florida to see Grandpa and Grandma and their new condominium.

My parents checked into the Corsair Hotel and we all went to visit my Grandparents.

Naturally, I soon got bored so I got permission to walk back to the hotel.

By the next evening, I didn’t even go with my parents, I told them I was going to fish off the South Beach fishing pier.

The hotel manager lent me a junky fishing rod, it didn’t matter I had no bait anyway.

What I really wanted to do was walk up Ocean Drive and look at all the Art Deco hotels, and walk past all the people sitting in front of them. Possibly someone had a granddaughter.

I went to our room and I dressed up in the clothes my mother always brought for me that I never wanted to wear, I even put on a new sport jacket.

I started walking up Ocean Drive, but it was getting pretty dark and there was little activity, the people were going inside.

After I had walked several blocks, I realized it was way too dark, there were very few lights on anywhere.

As I stood on a street corner I started considering the idea of turning around and walking back to the Corsair hotel.

Then I spotted some neon lights flashing, they were across Ocean Drive and down a side street.

The light changed, and I crossed the street and headed for the neon lights.

I could hear music and as I walked by, the open front door I could smell stale beer.

I quickly glanced inside.

It was pretty dark and looked a little scary, but I could see it was some type of a bar or nightclub.

From the doorway I could see there was a stage and liquor bar.

I also could see there were just a few people sitting at tables, but most of the tables and the bar appeared to be empty.

I kept walking, and when I reached the next corner, I built up my nerve and I turned around, and headed for the night clubs open front door.

I knew that joints like this existed, especially in tourist areas, but I had never ever been in one.      

Well, it took a lot of courage, but I walked in and sat on a stool at the bar.

The bartender eyeballed me and came over and he asked me what I wanted to drink. so I asked for a Rheingold beer, it was the only beer I knew the name of.

The reason I knew about Rheingold beer was because my father’s best friend drove a Rheingold beer truck in New Haven, and sometimes my father would bring me with him to the Rheingold brewery where he and friend drank mugs of Rheingold beer with a raw egg in it.

The bartender never asked me for my ID, and I had no idea how much a beer cost.

So I  tossed a dollar bill on the bar, I did it like I did it all the time.

The bartender returned with my glass of beer, I still expected him to ask for my ID but he didn’t, but he saw the dollar and he took it.

I took another sip of beer and suddenly there was a drum roll, and the lights on the stage lighted up right in front of me, nearly scared me to death.

The lights were very bright, as a young fellow walked out on the stage.

I heard several people sitting nearby clapping their hands, so I did the same.

I looked at his face, the guy appeared young, perhaps in his 20’s. He was well dressed in a dark suit and had a microphone and cord that he carried around on the stage with him.

For a while he was standing so close to me, that I could count the laces on his shiny pointy black shoes.

As the fellow introduced himself, I felt a little embarrassed for him as there wasn’t more than six people in the whole place listening to him.

He started talking very loudly, and he was telling some dirty jokes.

I had never heard anyone swearing in public before, and this guy was looking right at me as he was doing it.

I really didn’t understand what he was joking about but heard people laughing so it must have been funny.

As I tried to understand what he was talking about, I hardly noticed, but a very pretty blonde girl, came and sat in the seat next to me.

She said “Hello.” so I said hello, to her.

I tried not to look at her, making believe I was listening to the guy on the stage.

But when I did look, I saw she wasn’t much older than twenty five. She asked for me to buy her a drink, so what was I to do, say no, so I said, OK.

The bartender brought her a cocktail glass with something pink in it and he waited for me to pay up.

I put another dollar on the bar but he still waited looking at me. I took the hint and put up another two dollar on the bar, it was my last three dollars.

The girl asked, “Are you on business or vacation?”

Now I was really getting nervous, as here I was sitting on a bar stool, listening to a not so funny comedian telling dirty jokes, and now there was a girl sitting next to me, and I had no more money in my wallet.

I knew, that the girl and the bartender both knew I had no more money as they had looked at my wallet when I paid for her drink.

So I did the only thing a smart, and embarrassingly broke 16 year old kid could do, I said good evening to the girl, and simply turned on my stool, and walked out of the place.

Back at the Corsair Hotel, as I walked in, I saw the night clerk was there.

I asked him what kind of place night club that I had just come from was.

He said, “That’s a really hot joint its called the “South Beach Club”, and the comedian there is Lenny Bruce”.

He said, “What did you think, that Lenny Bruce is a pretty funny guy and he’s well known everywhere.”

I said, I’m from Connecticut and how come I never heard of him.

The desk clerk just stared at me. Then he said, “What’s up with you man, Lenny Bruce is known everywhere”.  

When I returned to New Haven from our vacation a strange thing happened, everytime I turned on the television someone was talking about this outrageous comedian named Lenny Bruce, every time I read the paper there was something about Lenny Bruce.

I had never noticed it before.

I couldn’t  believe it, here was this guy that I had never ever even heard of before, and I had walked out on him.

From that day on, not a week went by without there being a story about Lenny Bruce being arrested somewhere.

So I now started reading the news articles on him.

I learned his real name was Leonard Alfred Schneider, and in 1945 he was kicked out of the Navy for putting on an act dressed in drag.

Then in 1947, he changed his name to Lenny Bruce because his mom’s stage name was Bruce.

In 1961, Lenny married a stripper, and he also made his first recording telling nothing but dirty jokes, and when he did that, he was arrested for obscenity.

Lenny told a reporter, “Hey, I just want to make a lot of money.”

So he dressed up as a priest and started collecting money for a Leper Colony in Guyana.

They said he collected $8000.00 in three weeks, then sent $2500.00 to the Leper Colony and kept the rest of the money for himself, they arrested in Miami for impersonating a priest.

From 1961 on, I read about him, Lenny was constantly arrested for obscenity and drug possession,

In 1962 he was arrested in Australia for obscenity.

In 1964 he was arrested twice in Greenwich Village, New York for obscenity, and by 1966 Lenny Bruce was blacklisted by most every night club in the United States.

I couldn’t read a newspaper or listen to a newscast without someone mentioning  Lenny Bruce, he was the guy I walked out on.

But in 1966 it all stopped short, Lenny was found dead of a drug overdose in his Hollywood hills bathroom.

Who would think that in 1956, at age 16, I was drinking Rheingold beer and counting Lenny Bruce’s shoe laces.