Your Mother’s on the Roof
Lennie Watts is staying with us for a week in San Diego. He and Kim are heading up to Los Angeles tonight for two days supposedly for work, but I know its mostly so Lennie can go to Disneyland for two days. There will be a meeting with a fellow Singnasium board member in L.A., but Lennie’s not kidding me. He’s a Disneyholic who can’t get enough of the teacups. I understand passion. I have one tattoo and it’s dedicated to my motorcycle jones, so why should I be surprised that a guy with a Mickey Mouse tattoo on his calf will say or do anything to get a few extra days at Disneyland. I am not Disney addict, but I imagine that going to the mother ship in Anaheim is extra special. It’s the Wallyworld to those of Lennie’s ilk. Kim will go with him and she is generally game for a thrill ride here or there. That’s handy for me so that my youngest son and other family thrill-seekers have someone to join them on rides since I am strictly out of that program by dint of preference, size and age. We still all laugh at the video clip of Kim and Thomas going on the Coney Island Slingshot Ball ride that tossed the two of them 200 feet into the air.
Lennie is a performer. Technically, he is mostly a cabaret performer more than anything else since he is President of the MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) and the Executive Director of Singnasium, which is a singing school mostly for cabaret performers. I have become quite an observer of the cabaret world, which was quite foreign to me before I met Kim fifteen years ago. Since then I have seen lots of cabaret and cabaret performers and I certainly know what I like. As biased as this sounds, I know that no cabaret performer appeals to me as much as Kim does. She has a wonderful stage presence and a great voice. The audience always responds well to her and I find myself thinking whomever she is on stage with is less good at it than she is. She and Lennie are in the midst of putting on a show called Hometown Heroes that they have done four times so far since September. They have another show in early February, one in March in Wabash, Indiana and probably a few more after that in St. Louis and L.A./San Diego perhaps. This is a team effort with Kim and Lennie and may be the only time I feel that Kim has a true equal on stage. Generally I rag on Lennie, because he is so easy to rag on and has a grumbly Eeyore-like disposition that makes it particularly fun. But truth be told, Lennie sings powerfully, arranges brilliantly and riffs in between songs with the best of them. He doesn’t have Kim’s great stage presence, but he can out-riff anyone when he is on…and he is usually on.
Today, before I left for my transcontinental flight to NYC, we were sitting around our sun-filled kitchen talking about nothing in particular. The subject of jokes came up. To be more precise, I found it necessary to tell a few jokes since Lennie had never heard this particular material of mine. I was in a joke-telling mood since I met with some people at the University of San Diego yesterday and had the occasion to tell a few jokes during a casual luncheon. I told the Augustus Busch Goes to the Vatican joke (perfect for a Catholic University Business School Dean) and the Einstein Goes to Heaven joke (perfect deprecation humor about Wall Street). I know everyone probably thinks that’s a bad idea, but I can’t help myself…it’s who I am and I was in a good mood. That mood carried over to this morning for some reason so I launched into several oldies but goodies including the Your Mother’s On the Roof story. Lennie thought the jokes were funny (or he was being polite to his host) and we got talking about the art of comedy and riffing in cabaret.
What I learned about Lennie is that he, like me, is a bit of a storyteller. He has a very different repertoire of stories that I have for obvious reasons. His stories are about the cabaret and performance life and my stories about funny things that people do and that happen in business. He told one story about when he was doing the Korean tour of The Wizard of Oz. Lennie was cast as the Cowardly Lion and had to wear a furry lion suit during the hot and humid Typhoon season in Korea. It’s probably hard to be funny in a very different language and culture, but it is undoubtedly harder to be funny when you are hot and sticky with fake fur creeping into your crevices. Lennie was a natural for the casting of the Lion when you look at his face and the face of Bert Lahr, the original lion from the 1939 movie classic. He tells the story of the Korean cast member who saw no shame in asking Lennie where his neck was (Lennie has a body-type that apparently does not require a proper neck per se). He also tells the story of the Korean Sumo wrestler who was cast as the grasshopper/narrator, a role specifically designed for Korean children to help bridge the culture gap in this strange American fantasy production. This giant took a liking to Lennie and would chase him around the dressing room sans shirt, slapping his stomach in good Korean Sumo Kabuki saying, “Oh, Lion, me Lesbian”. There are so very many places from a storytelling perspective that one can take that set-up. I like that Lennie could appreciate and share that.
Mostly, what this told me about Lennie is that he understands that the best humor is that which draws innocently on the worst of our own human frailties. Lennie is a bit of a cowardly and lonely lion figure in his appearance and superficial demeanor, but he is much more a courageous person who is struggling hard to live a life and do what his heart tells him to do. He garners huge respect for his professionalism as a director, producer and arranger of cabaret shows. There are only a few cabaret teachers with the strength of reputation he enjoys. Those are all important kudos that make Lennie the accomplished professional he is in the cabaret world. But what may be his greatest strength is his core as a performer. His musical abilities stem directly from his love of singing and his ability to laugh at himself and the world around him makes him a great comedian as well.
I have asked Kim many times in the past about why she is such good friends with Lennie and she has tried to explain to me why he is so much fun to be with and such a good friend. I’m glad I got a chance to spend some time outside the cabaret room with him this week (he’s always Eeyore with a sore ass when he’s in situ). Now, if he could just find his neck, he could take over SNL.