Remembering Lenny Bruce August 3rd, 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of groundbreaking comedian Lenny Bruce’s death from an overdose of morphine, while his New York obscenity conviction at Café Au Go Go was still on appeal. On that same day he received a foreclosure notice at his Los Angeles home. But it wasn’t a suicide. In the kitchen, a kettle of water was still boiling, and in his office, the electric typewriter was still humming. He had stopped typing in mid-word: “Conspiracy to interfere with the 4th Amendment const”…constitutes what, I wondered. Lenny was a subscriber to my satirical magazine, The Realist, and in 1959 we met for the first time at the funky Hotel America in Times Square. He was amazed that I got away with publishing those profane words for which other periodicals used asterisks or dashes. He had been using euphemisms like “frig” and asked, “Are you telling me this is legal to sell on the newsstands?” I replied, “The Supreme Court's definition of obscenity is that it has to be material which appeals to your prurient interest.” He magically produced an unabridged dictionary from the suitcase on his bed, and looked up the word “pruient.” He closed the dictionary, clenching his jaw and nodding his head in affirmation of a new discovery. “So,” he observed, “it’s against the law to get you horny.” When we were about to leave the room, he stood in the doorway. “Did you steal anything?” he asked furtively. I took my watch out of my pocket since I didn't like to wear it on my wrist, and without saying a word I placed it on the bureau. Lenny laughed one loud staccato “Ha” and kissed me on the forehead. We developed a friendship integrated with stand-up comedy. In his act Lenny had broken through traditional stereotypical jokes about airplane food, nagging wives, Chinese drivers, annoying mothers-in-law. Instead he weaved his taboo-breaking targets--teachers' low salaries versus show-business celebs, religious leaders’ hypocrisy, cruel abortion laws, racial injustice, the double standard between illegal and prescription drugs--into stream-of-consciousness vignettes.