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“Ignoring the mandate of Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Lenny observed, “‘is a great deal more offensive than saying Eleanor has lovely nay-nays.” On October 13, 1965 (Lenny's 40" birthday), instead of surrendering to the authorities in New York, he filed suit at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco to keep out of prison, and he got himself officially declared a pauper. Two months before his death in 1966, Lenny wrote to me: “I'm still working on the bust of the government of New York State.” And he included his doodle of Christ nailed to a crucifix, with a speech balloon asking, “Where the hell is the ACLU? After he died, at a séance, his mother brought his old faded denim jacket. That large safety pin was still attached to it. And at the funeral, his sound engineer friend dropped Lenny's microphone into his grave before the dirt was piled on. Lenny's problem had been that he wanted to talk on stage with the same freedom that he had in his living room. That problem doesn’ t happen to stand-up comedians any more. As for me, I’ m working on my long awaited (by me) first novel. It’s about a contemporary Lenny Bruce-type satirist. Those scenes where my protagonist performs, I’ve developed onstage myself, although at times it felt like I was actually channeling Lenny, until the day that he said, ““C’mon, Paul, HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030195