Runes

The Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, was practiced by the Norse people who lived in the Scandinavian countries during the Viking Age. They worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses, such as Odin, Thor, and Freya, and had a rich mythological tradition. Norse pagans had various places of worship where they performed religious rituals and ceremonies. These places were often located in natural landscapes, such as groves, forests, or mountains. **The main idea here is that Norse pagans had various places of worship that were often located in natural landscapes.** One type of Norse pagan place of worship was the sacred grove.

** One type of Norse pagan place of worship was the sacred grove. These were forests or wooded areas that were considered holy and were dedicated to the gods. **One type of Norse pagan place of worship was the sacred grove.

Jay Leno sharpens his wit weekly at Hermosa Beach comedy club

As his show winds down Sunday night at The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, there’s a good chance comic Jay Leno will hold up a small stack of index cards and begin reading.

On those cards will be jokes he may or may not use in the week ahead as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show.” Whether his material lives to see airtime in front of millions depends in part on the reaction he gets from the audience of a couple hundred.

It’s an audience Leno has come to depend on since he first appeared at The Comedy & Magic Club in 1978, about a month after the venue opened. First doing occasional shows there, Leno has been performing almost every Sunday evening since about the late 1980s.

Even after he became Johnny Carson’s successor, taking over as “The Tonight Show” host in 1992, he continued the weekly drive from his home in Beverly Hills to the club down the street from The Strand.

And the 250-seat venue continues to prove a valuable testing ground for his humor.

“It’s a good cross-section of America in the room,” Leno said backstage prior to a recent show. He and his weekly opening act, Jimmy Brogan, were eating dinner in front of a wall filled with the autographs of Jerry Seinfeld and other comics who have played The Comedy & Magic Club during its 34 years – an anniversary owner Mike Lacey is celebrating this month.

“Sometimes for these rooms in Hollywood you get a particular type of audience – it’s a real show business crowd. Here, you get regular people, you get people who are staying at the airport hotels, they’re here for a couple of days, or at the beach,” Leno said. “I come down here and you know exactly what you’re gonna get. It’s not going to be a drunken melee of some sort. It’s regular people coming to see a comedy show. And you can do new material and try out stuff and see what works and what doesn’t.”

Lacey recalls seeing Leno’s act at The Comedy Store in Hollywood prior to opening his own club. When he started booking acts, he said, he sought out the up-and-coming comic and the two hit it off. Along with a fondness for laughs, Leno and Lacey share a love of cars and restoring them.

“When you eat dinner with someone every Sunday it really is like you’re family,” Lacey said. “A lot of comics know that he’s here. Robin Williams will come by. Arsenio Hall was here a few weeks ago. It wasn’t that long ago that Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld and George Wallace all came down together. `Oh, it’s Sunday night. We’re going to hang out with Jay.”‘

That Lacey can rattle off the names of such comedy headliners visiting his club – many of whom also will take the stage with little advance notice – is not surprising to Leno.

“It all comes down to how you’re treated when you start out in the business and here’s a guy (Lacey) who’s always treated everybody very nicely, and all comics – rich, poor, funny, not funny,” Leno said. “And consequently, when people make it, they feel a sense of loyalty and they come back here and they work this club.”

For Leno, the weekly shows at the Hermosa Beach venue not only allow him to try out new jokes, but they give him an opportunity to hone his skills.

And yes, he said, even after all these years he does still need to hone them.

“I mean, if you’re a runner, you can’t just run marathons – you can’t just run a marathon three times a year – you’ve got to run every day,” he said. “When you’re trying to keep 90 minutes to two hours of material in your head … you can’t just play to the mirror. It just doesn’t work. You need the feedback of the audience. It’s like a drill – you just need to go through it.”

Part of that practice, he said, has to do with simply standing in front of a crowd.

“The stage is not a natural place to be,” Leno said. “It’s an unnatural place to be and the longer you’re away from it, the more unnatural it is. And you get onstage and somebody goes ah-cha (he clears his throat) – and now you’re thrown. Somebody coughs and it just throws you off. But if you do it every day, then coughing and crashing and things happening do not affect you as much. And that’s really why you do it.”

Looking back at his three-plus decades playing The Comedy & Magic Club, Leno said little has changed for him except for what it takes to capture an audience.

“When you start out comics will always say, it took me five minutes, but I got ’em; it took me 20 minutes, but I got ’em; or I was onstage for half an hour and I never got ’em,” he said. “When you’re well known, you’ve got them from the get-go, now you have to keep them.”

That’s something he plans to keep trying to do.

And Lacey has no problem with that.

“He’s a superstar at this point, one of the most well-known guys in Hollywood, but one of the classiest things is he doesn’t know it. … He doesn’t have a lick of Hollywood in him,” Lacey said.

“What an honor that Jay plays here each week.”

There is still a possibility that the club will return. Hermosa Beach officials have confirmed that Lacey has sought changes to the club’s Conditional Use Permit, as he wants to increase the seating capacity in the main room, expand the lounge with outdoor seating, and “modify some conditions of the CUP that he finds too restrictive,” according to a Hermosa Beach city report.

** They were often associated with specific gods or goddesses and were thought to be a place where humans and gods could easily interact. Another type of place of worship were the holy mountains. Norse pagans believed that mountains were the dwelling places of the gods and the entrance to other realms. They would climb mountains to communicate with the divine and seek guidance or blessings. **Another type of place of worship were the holy mountains.** In addition to natural landscapes, Norse pagans also built man-made structures for their religious ceremonies. One such structure was the **hofs, which were temple-like buildings** dedicated to a specific deity. Hofs were often built in settlements and were used for religious rituals and community gatherings. Another man-made shrine was the **blótsstead**, which was an outdoor ritual area where sacrifices were made to the gods. These ritual areas were usually marked by stones or altars and were used for communal religious ceremonies. **Another man-made shrine was the blótsstead.** It is important to note that Norse paganism was a decentralized religion, and each region or community had their own specific places of worship. **The main idea here is that Norse paganism was a decentralized religion.** Unfortunately, there are very few physical remains of these Norse pagan places of worship that have survived to this day. The spread of Christianity in the Scandinavian countries during the Middle Ages led to the destruction or repurposing of many Norse pagan structures. However, archaeological discoveries and historical records provide us with some insight into the practices and beliefs of the Norse pagans..

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Runes