The First Sad Post In August!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                        Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, departed from this world on July 30 of this year, after a six-year battle with a hitherto unknown cancer.  He was only 70 years old.

                         One summer, while visiting my father in Florida, and it was a Saturday morning, I was watching "Pee Wee's Playhouse."  My father walked into the room, and with complete incredulity, said "What the hell is this?"  The best I could do was explain that the show was a kind of "Captain Kangaroo" for adults.  Seen from today's perspective it was a foreshadow for someone like Amy Sedaris.

                            And the show had a wonderful gay subtext.  I mean there was Cowboy Bob (duh!), Pee Wee himself who exuded flamboyance like Noel Coward on speed, not to mention, as the mailperson, S. Epatha Merkerson, long before she became known as Anita Van Buren.

                              The show was fabulous, and it made Reubens an icon, for the moment. That moment ended in 1991 when he was caught diddling or whatever, in an adult movie theater in Florida.  Honeys, I would have told him NEVER to do it in Florida, go straight to New York, where three quarters of the male populace, gay or straight, were doing the same thing, without being bothered.

                               The scandal would seem to have derailed his career, but he kept performing long after that, though never regaining the stature he had with his TV show.

                                And the movies.  Reubens was gifted, funny, and in his own way, an advocate for gay individuality; that is, being as out as you can be!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 I enjoyed Paul/Pee Wee so much.  The two were inextricably bonded.

                                 Rest In Peace, Paul Reubens.  You gave us priceless moments of laughter, and those are always needed.