In the winter of 1964, stoned on a combination of DMT and LSD, Lenny fell backward through the window of his San Francisco hotel room. At the precise moment that he was suspended in midair, he uttered: “Man shall rise above the rule!” Then he surrendered to the law of gravity and plummeted to the sidewalk below. Both legs had to be put in casts and for a while he became the Hermit of Hollywood Hills. Around that time, Jerry Hopkins- who had opened the first head shop in L.A., and later became the biographer of Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison was producing the Steve Allen show. He arranged for me to do a one-night stand at the Steve Allen Theater. Lenny Bruce was in the audience, and so was Groucho Marx. At one point in the show, I was talking about the importance of having empathy for other people’s perversions.. During a question-and answer session that followed, Lenny stood up on his crutches and asked what I had meant by that. “Well, once I was sitting in the subway-it was rush hour and really crowded-and an elderly lady’s buttocks kept rubbing against my shoulder, and I began to get aroused. . .” “You’re sick! Lenny yelled. “Thank you, Mr. President, “I responded, ending the show right there. Later, I met Groucho Marx for the first time. “That was very smart, the way you finished,’ he said. “Besides, I was getting fidgety in my seat.” – a book

via Facebook