March 2021 Bankruptcy
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The Society Page In 1961 Bruce performed some risqué jokes SAN FRANCISCO at a nightclub in San Francisco’s North By Gene Mahoney Beach and was arrested on obscenity charges. He was later acquitted. However, Russian Hill Upholstery & Décor is still his arrests in Chicago and New York on located in Nob Hill, not Russian Hill. similar charges resulted in convictions. San HERALD Francisco became the only city he could XXXXXXXXXX perform in, and his legal bills caused A national minimum wage of $15 per hour March 2021 bankruptcy. According to Paul Krassner, in the U.S. was being pushed by Vermont publisher of esteemed alternative senator Bernie Sanders, which is ironic, SanFranciscoHerald.Net periodical The Realist, Bruce went to the because he never had a steady job until he F.B.I. office in San Francisco and asked became mayor of Burlington at age 39. “Serving Nob Hill & Beyond” them to look into a conspiracy by various police departments to investigate him. Krassner claims a New York cop admitted Many media reports have had a feel-good ___________________________ vibe about them, where workers make this to be true. Lenny Bruce died of a more money and the story ends there. No XXXXXXXXXX heroin overdose in 1966 at age 40. mention is made of employers firing workers because they can’t afford to pay Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium: Dead Can A decade before the Lenny Bruce phase, in all their employees $15 per hour. Dance & Agnes Obel, 5/5. The Go-Go’s, 6/18. 1976 and 1977, when I was 11 and 12, I Alicia Keys, 9/3 & 4. The Warfield: would obediently go to bed at 9 p.m. While in office, President Barack Obama Achievement Hunter Live, 3/28. Kaleo, 4/15. That’s because laying in bed listening to called for an increase in the minimum Ministry, 5/1. Chicano Batman, 5/14. Jean Shepherd on the radio was more wage, claiming it wasn’t possible to live enjoyable than anything on TV. XXXXXXXXXX on. But only 1% of American workers currently earn the minimum wage. About Lenny Bruce was from Long Island, where I half those who earn it are young people grew up. Jean Shepherd was from working their first jobs. America’s heartland, Indiana, and moved to America’s bohemian capital, Greenwich Getting back to irony, Barack Obama, our Village in New York City, where he got his first black president, endorsed the start writing for the then-newborn Village minimum wage, which has its roots in Voice. Shepherd wasn’t a shock comedian racism. (Actual racism.) like Bruce. He was a storyteller, holding his audience’s rapt attention with tales of th At the end of the 19 Century, blacks were childhood trauma, experiences in college heavily employed by the railroad industry. and the army, as well as general The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen observations about society and life in couldn’t stop railroad companies from general. A Christmas Story has pretty hiring blacks, so in 1909 they compromised much replaced It’s a Wonderful Life as the on a minimum wage for all races. This led country’s preeminent movie during the to less hiring, and with the racism of the holiday season. It’s based on Shepherd’s times, whites being hired over blacks. By radio stories about him wanting a BB gun the 1960s, many black Americans had for Christmas. That’s his voice narrating it. become farmers, as agriculture was free of federal minimum wage laws. In 1967 Jean Shepherd meant a lot more to me President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on than Lenny Bruce did. So it was Poverty” changed that, and black farm Lenny Bruce bittersweet to read his biography by workers lost their livelihoods. Eugene Bergmann and discover he was a It was the spring of 1986, I was 20 going on much better storyteller than he was a The minimum wage is a product of the 21, had been living in the Bay Area for man. eugenics movement, a program designed almost a year, and was going through the to decrease the population of targeted obligatory Lenny Bruce phase (a Starting seventh grade in 1977 sucked demographics deemed by the powers that requirement for every wannabe hipster enough, but Jean Shepherd being taken off be to be inferior. back then). Bruce, as you probably know, the air around the same time added insult was a controversial comedian in the to injury. Luckily, the local Public The minimum wage was first promoted in beatnik era, infamous for his political Television station began airing reruns of Great Britain by the Fabian Socialists, a satire and dirty jokes. I never bought any Ernie Kovacs’ 1950s comedy sketch show. “democratic socialist” organization. Along of his comedy albums, though I did buy a Ernie Kovacs was doing Saturday Night Live with sterilization, the minimum wage book, The Unpublished Lenny Bruce, at a before Saturday Night Live existed. The would make the “feeble minded” among bookstore on Polk Street that isn’t around show’s dark humor and visual others less likely to get jobs, and hence anymore. Then I bought a postcard at experimentation made it a hit with the raise families and reproduce. Royal Fisherman’s Wharf that had his picture on critics, not so much with the general Meeker, future labor commissioner for U.S. it. Then I rented Lenny, the 1974 movie public. It was ahead of its time. Kovacs’ president Woodrow Wilson, made similar starring Dustin Hoffman as Bruce. Then I most popular character was probably Percy arguments in 1910. saw a film of his stand-up routine that Dovetonsils, an extremely flamboyant poet. A new federal minimum wage will force KQED aired. I watched it with my new roommate/future best friend who, many employers to fire workers and Kovacs’ wife, the lovely Edie Adams, was a ironically, was a dead ringer for the “sick replace them with machines. Too bad we regular on his program. Kovacs had gained comic.” Then that was it. can’t do that with politicians trying to custody of his two daughters from his first “help” us. wife, a mentally disturbed dancer. (It was the first time in U.S. history that a court This is a common story, especially for a guy Holly, my girlfriend at the time, had asked sided with the father, not the mother, in a who lived in San Francisco, and I beg you to me to look around for someone to take the custody battle.) Kovacs continued his take a few minutes to read it, so that you room. I told Joe that it was only a small room may not make the same mistakes that I did. in a 4-bedroom apartment with 3 other comedy show throughout this. He even As I wrote this in 2000, I was no longer a people, but he could have it if he wanted. I continued it after his first wife kidnapped man, but a weak, nervous, emotional wreck. mean, I knew him for about a month now, I the daughters and he spent two years Let the story start here. (The name of the had never seen him do anything but work at trying to locate them. person this story is about has been his computer, and go outside to smoke every changed). now and then. I had never seen him drunk or They were found in Florida, and Ernie, display any signs of being a freak or psychotic, so I felt comfortable in offering Edie, and the girls lived happily until a few This tale takes place back in the late 1990s, rd him the room. Hell, he was wearing a $1,000 days before Kovacs’ 43 birthday, when he when I was a poor student living in San suit! He had been interviewed by Terry Gross died in a car crash. Francisco, contributing to the San Francisco on NPR! He had taken a call from a Herald. I liked to go to coffee shops to sit and Hollywood producer about a movie to be XXXXXXXXXX read, have an espresso, etc. One day in based on his book! After I told him about the November, I walked into a cafe in North room, he looked at me like he was surprised, There’s something nice happening in Russian Beach, and sat at a small table in a corner. A and said, "Really?" Hill. Bright colored post-it notes with “Love man came up to my table and asked me yourself” and “You are beautiful inside and something about the book I was reading, so I out” written on them are being taped to chatted with him for a while. He seemed like I said "Sure, why not? You and I and Gene are buildings... And if you want to contact Kurth, a nice guy, about 60 years old. He was all working on the web site, and we all hang the guy who stands on the corner of Bush and dressed in a rather expensive looking black out together anyway. It’ll be fun!" Jones making giant bubbles with those two suit, with a black trench coat. He was wearing thick black glasses, the kind you see big sticks held together with elastic at the Well, he said he would come over later in the nerds wear, but they looked cool on him. He tops, bubble stuff, and the wind, he’s at week to check it out, which he did, and he introduced himself as Joe. We talked for a [email protected].