Archive for September 14th, 2006

Would Lenny Bruce be proud of the homage to him that was held on Wednesday night at the 92 St Y?

Maybe.

Everyone was shocking. Eugene Mirman punctuated each joke with the word ‘cocksucker’. Julie Goldman and Judy Gold spoke openly about their lesbianism, much to the dismay of the elderly group behind me. Lewis Black went on one of his trademark tirades about the state of our union. Surprise guest Sarah Silverman won the gold prize (and the audience’s heart) for her sexually scandalous remarks. Jeff Garlin and Todd Barry didn’t have shocking subject material, but did make ample use of the word fuck and I believe cunnilingus was also mentioned. But it was the author of the evening, Jonathan Ames, that I think paid the biggest tribute when he told a story about ending up in a run-down motel with a black transexual, smoking crack on Christmas Eve.

Lenny Bruce was the first comic that shocked people — sometimes it was just to be shocking — but most of the time it was done with sensitivity, intellect, insightfullness and passion. Most of the performers last night were just going through the motions; Black rehashed jokes from his show at Carnegie Hall, Mirman played a phone conversation that has been on his website for a year and Barry did his entire set that’s on MySpace right now, word for word (I think he even had on the same outfit). Ames alone seemed to tap into that special something that made Bruce legendary.

But that’s not to say that I didn’t like the show. One of my problems is that I love all of these comedians and go see them every chance I get, so of course it starts to feel stale. The crowd, mostly older, seemed to appreciate the evening — and since most of them probably saw Lenny Bruce live I should just shut the fuck up and defer to their opinion.