Episode 1261 - Tim Reid
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's everybody doing tim reed is my guest today tim reed uh i imagine most of you know him
Marc:as venus flytrap from wkrp in cincinnati i don't know that my younger listeners would know that he also had a show uh a fairly uh revolutionary show just in the sense it was a black lead but that was uh frank's place and uh i mean he's been on dozens of tv shows and he's a director as well but he's been working for you know at least 50 years and he started as a comic
Marc:This is the intent.
Marc:This is what brought me to him.
Marc:Tom Dreesen, who was on this show, also a comic lifer, was in a comedy team with Tim Reed at the in the 70s.
Marc:And they performed at the Comedy Store, and Dreesen went on to live a life in stand-up, and Tim went on to act.
Marc:And the reason he's on is he's part of this new documentary called Live at Mr. Kelly's, and it's about the iconic...
Marc:Chicago nightclub, Mr. Kelly's, which has been mentioned on this show by several old timers.
Marc:Shelley Berman comes to mind.
Marc:But it was this very popular but progressive and interesting nightclub in Chicago.
Marc:I think it was it was started maybe in the 50s or 60s.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Watch the documentary when it comes out.
Marc:But, you know, getting back into that old comedy talk, old comedy store talk, I just love it.
Marc:And I'm so weirdly, not weirdly, but I am definitely born again comedy store.
Marc:But I never left.
Marc:I mean, you know, the pandemic, you know, I wasn't there, but I am there every night.
Marc:I mean, if you get excited, if you work at a place every night and all of a sudden you're like excited to get the new T-shirts.
Marc:You are part of that place.
Marc:I've been an appendage of that place since I was 21 years old, 22 years old.
Marc:I just wasn't around for a few years.
Marc:But, you know, you know the story about me in that place.
Marc:I'm just fucking happy about the new T-shirts.
Marc:Come on, the world is ending.
Marc:Buy yourself some pants.
Marc:Went out and bought some pants.
Marc:Slightly fat pants.
Marc:Not totally fat pants.
Marc:Slightly fat pants.
Marc:We'll see what happens.
Marc:And I went to this place because I wanted to get these weird-ass pants.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:I'm just saying, treat yourself.
Marc:Throw away those underpants.
Marc:They're nasty.
Marc:But what I was saying is, I've had a couple weeks downtime between my last gig.
Marc:One was at Salt Lake City and St.
Marc:Louis, which is this week.
Marc:Come on down.
Marc:There are some tickets left, certainly for the late shows, which would be nice if you come.
Marc:And I promise I won't dump on the state too much when I'm there.
Marc:I'll do the other stuff.
Marc:I'll do a broader dumpage, funny dumpage.
Marc:I spoke to my father.
Marc:He's losing his mind a little bit.
Marc:It's starting to happen.
Marc:And it's sad and scary, but it does make him a little more vulnerable, which is kind of nice in an emotional way.
Marc:I mean, I'm just looking for a silver lining, you know what I mean?
Marc:Don't miss that sweet spot at the beginning of whatever breakdown is happening mentally to your loved ones.
Marc:But I've forgotten that he and his wife, Rosie, sometimes spend the day at the movies, either watching the same movie again and again or going from theater to theater in a multiplex.
Marc:And my dad and his wife went to see the card counter.
Marc:The new Paul Schrader film, which looks pretty good.
Marc:But, you know, Paul Schrader is not an easy filmmaker to process and digest.
Marc:There's been some Paul Schrader movies that defy narrative standards.
Marc:There's been some great ones.
Marc:Schrader's heavy, man.
Marc:So I guess I get on the phone with my dad and he and his wife had gone to see the card counter.
Marc:My father was like, I don't know.
Marc:I couldn't follow it.
Marc:I didn't understand it.
Marc:And even when Rosie explained it to me, I didn't I still couldn't I couldn't get it.
Marc:I didn't understand it.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I mean, you know, maybe, you know, maybe it's just the way it's going to be from now on, Dad.
Marc:Some of these things are going to get by you.
Marc:He's like, no, we saw it again.
Marc:I still didn't understand.
Marc:So they sat there and watched it twice.
Marc:And my father couldn't wrap his brain around.
Marc:He seemed to just seem too complicated.
Marc:And then when I realized it was a Paul Schrader movie, I realized, like, you know what?
Marc:It might be might not be my father's mental state right now.
Marc:It might actually be the film.
Marc:So I'm going to give my dad the benefit of the doubt until I see the movie.
Marc:And I will see the movie.
Marc:It's playing down the street.
Marc:I always like his movie.
Marc:Autofocus, really, autofocus is a masterpiece.
Marc:And obviously, some of the movies he's written were quite good.
Marc:You know, people enjoy The Taxi Driver.
Marc:Blue Collar, that was an amazing movie.
Marc:He wrote and directed that with Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel.
Marc:Hardcore, that weird George C. Scott movie where he goes to, like, rescue his daughter from the world of porn.
Marc:That was written and directed by Schrader.
Marc:Great.
Marc:He wrote Raging Bull.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Jeez, man.
Marc:Wrote The Last Temptation of Christ.
Marc:Heavy hitter, man.
Marc:But the review for my father was the card counter is complicated.
Marc:I couldn't follow it.
Marc:Barry Marin.
Marc:All right, folks.
Marc:Let's talk to Tim Reed.
Marc:The documentary Live at Mr. Kelly's will be released next month on VOD and DVD.
Marc:But, you know, Tim has had a life in show business and a life in comedy early on in his career.
Marc:And I was curious about that.
Marc:And it was a...
Marc:It was nice talking to this guy.
Marc:So where are you, down there in Virginia?
Guest:Yeah, Richmond.
Guest:My office at Richmond.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:I've been there.
Marc:I did comedy there a million years ago.
Guest:What place then?
Guest:I don't know what was happening then.
Marc:There was a small club there.
Marc:God, I wish I could remember the name of it.
Marc:I did it a couple of times because I knew I had a friend down there.
Marc:You come from there?
Guest:I have no sense of Virginia.
Guest:On the ocean, where all the ships are built.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:But as a state, would you say it's a good state?
Guest:Oh, gosh, yes.
Guest:Right now, economically, it's the most economically sound state in the Union.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's the business?
Guest:Oh, you name it.
Guest:I mean, we have several military operations here, the Pentagon, Langley.
Guest:But we also have the shipbuilding part for the armed forces.
Guest:All the carriers and ships are built down in Norfolk, Hampton Roads area.
Marc:Was that what business your family was in?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I was born and raised in what we would call nowadays Colortown.
Guest:So that wasn't...
Guest:We weren't allowed to work in those industries at that time.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:So what did your folks do?
Guest:Neighborers.
Guest:My mother and my grandmother started out working in white folks' homes.
Guest:And then my grandmother was a businesswoman on a boarding house, sold whiskey illegal, and ran the numbers.
Guest:So she did very well.
Guest:Did you remember her?
Guest:Very much.
Guest:I was raised by her.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So she did what was necessary.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and in a very interesting way, to say the least.
Guest:She was a very tough woman.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:Had great character, but not to be fooled with by anyone.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Tough.
Guest:If you didn't pay the rent, you might get knocked out.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That song, one of my favorite songs was Betty Davis' Eyes, because my grandmother had Betty Davis' Eyes, sort of like an attitude like Humphrey Bogart, but she was a tough woman.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So how come you were raised by her?
Guest:Well, my mother couldn't handle me at that point.
Guest:She was going through some very difficult times.
Guest:And she was living in Baltimore.
Guest:I was in Baltimore with her at that time.
Guest:And around the age nine, I didn't know who my father was at that time.
Guest:But around the age nine, she said, maybe it's best that you go live with your grandmother.
Guest:And she can take better care of you.
Guest:And so I did.
Guest:And I stayed with my grandmother for my teen years.
Guest:Wonderful, exciting life, to say the least.
Guest:It's one of the reasons I'm in the business I'm in today, because my grandmother designated me as the family storyteller.
Guest:So she would force me to reiterate what was happening in the family.
Guest:Or if I went to church, you know, I had to go to church on Sundays to get my allowance.
Guest:If I didn't go, I didn't get my 25 cents.
Guest:So, um, but I would also have to tell the stories of what happened in the choir on Thursday rehearsals and what was going on in the neighborhood.
Guest:As I said, we lived in a segregated, very, uh, busy and interesting, uh, community at that time prior to civil rights.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:Uh, most of the people in my area, uh, or workers, post office, educators.
Guest:And, uh, very interesting.
Guest:I never spoke social to a white person, uh, work for one till I was a freshman in college.
Guest:Really segregated.
Marc:So was that out of fear or just the way it was?
Guest:No, out of choice.
Guest:It was our neighborhood.
Guest:You know, white folks didn't come down to where we were.
Guest:They did.
Guest:They were wearing a badge or trying to collect, uh,
Guest:insurance money for some bogus policy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But a few, you know, we had some a few merchants, Jewish merchants who who ran small shops or but by and large, all the businesses from my growing up were owned or operated by blacks.
Guest:We had about seven movie theaters and walking distance of my house.
Guest:And they were all managed or owned by black drugstores.
Guest:It was an interesting community at that time.
Guest:Self-efficient and sufficient, I should say.
Guest:And whenever we went uptown, we put on a whole different...
Guest:swagger a whole different uh face but uh it was uh it was an interesting community to be it was all sort of changed and lost uh much of it lost um in terms of its self-sufficiency you know our dollar didn't leave our neighborhood till about maybe seven or eight times turning over before it left our neighborhood would you return back to that neighborhood did it just sort of dissipate or what happened to it well it just uh well you know when uh
Guest:When the dominant culture realizes you've got a good thing, of course, they want to take a part of it and soon take it over.
Guest:It's all gone.
Guest:I have a photo that was taken at this time.
Guest:I lived in my grandmother's house.
Guest:This is my grandmother's third house.
Guest:And because they took the first two in eminent domain when they wanted to bring, as they did in all the segregated communities in the South, they ran the freeway system through it or built new thoroughfares for other folks to move through it quickly.
Guest:And of course, they tore down or took over the housing.
Guest:So in this picture, you might see, I would say maybe three to 4,000 homes from this aerial photograph in 1958.
Guest:three, 54.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Today, you might only see 30 or 40.
Marc:It's so amazing you bring that up because, you know, I was watching the Mr. Kelly's documentary yesterday.
Marc:Dick Gregory does a joke about it, about the freeway.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then I read an article today that it's happening again in South Carolina.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You either bring the railroad system or the freeway system through.
Guest:And of course, you destroy, divide the community.
Guest:It happened in New Orleans, Memphis, Chicago, the Dan Ryan, all of that.
Guest:ASU was designated because, first of all, they wanted to keep the value of their communities high and putting a freeway system right through the predominantly Black-owned homes and places where they lived.
Guest:But I guess they called themselves doing us a favor.
Guest:They built the project.
Guest:Of course, you can't own them.
Guest:But it was an interesting life.
Guest:not something I say was, it's not a point of better than, or it was in context of how we lived.
Guest:And out of that, many people such as myself carried on a successful life thereafter, uh, from a lot of the survival training we received in those communities.
Marc:Did you have a sense of not, not, I mean, you know, storytelling is one thing, but were you a comedy fan?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, in terms of, of the people who in our neighborhood, uh, were successful comedians, um,
Guest:I think the first coming of age comic that I saw that I followed throughout my career until his end was Richard Pryor.
Guest:But when I saw him, he was doing like the Ed Sullivan show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a different comic back then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And which leads me to Mr. Kelly's because it was seeing him at Mr. Kelly's that changed my life and got me in entertainment.
Guest:But.
Guest:Back in those days, there was Moms Maybelline, there was Mantan Moreland, there was these wonderful comics who would come through our communities because they had to stay in our communities.
Guest:So the Black owned hotels.
Guest:There was a woman there, a very successful Black woman called Bonnie McGeechie, and she owned a hotel in Norfolk and a few bars and all the celebrities from Countdown.
Guest:Count Basie, Cab Calloway, they all had to stay.
Guest:They couldn't stay in the white neighborhood.
Guest:So they stayed in these black communities.
Guest:And they performed there?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They performed at one of the two of the theaters.
Guest:They would have a thing called the Midnight Ramble.
Guest:And the Midnight Ramble would go on after whatever movie that was showing.
Guest:After it would start, a movie would be over around 930, and they would empty the theaters of all the kids.
Guest:And then the adults would come in for the midnight ramble and you would see, uh, live shows, moms, maybe the whole bit, you know?
Marc:So you remember seeing that?
Marc:Did you see them?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We used to sneak in, we'd hide, sneak in and get caught, get thrown out.
Guest:But, uh,
Guest:And then, you know, again, they would stay in the neighborhood if they were there for a day or two.
Guest:They would just be passing through not only black performers, but even some of the white performers, especially in doing the craze of cowboy movies back in the late 50s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, what is it?
Guest:Whip Wilson.
Guest:All these guys should come through.
Guest:Gabby Hayes almost killed me.
Guest:He came through and we would have these matinees, afternoon matinees, cost you 10 cents.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you'd sit in there with hundreds of screaming children.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they would show the movie, whatever it was, Outlaws or whatever the movie was.
Guest:And then they would break in between because we would double features in those days.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And they would break and then out would come this celebrity.
Guest:In this case, it was Gabby Hayes.
Guest:Gabby and Ace.
Guest:And he got up and, you know, he was, hello, kids, or whatever he would say.
Guest:And he'd be up there for about, at most, 10 to 15 minutes.
Guest:And then he was taken off to some other thing.
Guest:They made that extra money.
Guest:He asked once, I'll bring two kids up here.
Guest:And I happened to be one of the kids he brought up.
Guest:And for some reason, in his act, he said, I bet you I can lift you with two fingers.
Guest:And I went, huh?
Guest:And when I said that, he sat that and hit me right under my throat.
Guest:and literally lift me right off the stage because I was in shock.
Guest:But he pushed back in my throat.
Guest:I couldn't breathe.
Guest:I couldn't get another air.
Guest:And he noticed that and had one of his guys saw that it was a problem.
Guest:This kid was probably going to choke to death.
Guest:So they grabbed me and took me to the side of the wall and threw me out into the street.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The door opened and I went out and the sun was so bright because I'd come out that it awakened me.
Guest:I mean, it caused me to get a gasp of air.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was able to breathe.
Guest:And I went back in to try it again.
Guest:They wouldn't let me in.
Guest:I didn't have 10 cents.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:First time on stage.
Marc:That was your big break.
Guest:My big break was over in about a matter of a minute.
Marc:Was being physically abused by a white cowboy actor.
Guest:Yeah, I can't believe it.
Marc:That's crazy, man.
Guest:But it's, you know, it's the lesson that you learn in those days stuck with you and you would survive.
Guest:One of the reasons I'm so happy to be a part of the discussion of Mr. Kelly's is because when I left that community I'm telling you about after graduating from college, my first job after the civil rights era,
Guest:was being hired by E.I.
Guest:DuPont.
Guest:And I was the first black hired in their management training program.
Guest:They had blacks working in factories and stuff, but not in management training.
Marc:Now, that's what brought you to Chicago?
Guest:That's what brought me to Chicago.
Guest:I arrived in Chicago in 68, a few days after the assassination of Dr. King.
Guest:And of course, the streets were filled with military vehicles and the city was burning.
Guest:And I got my first home.
Guest:I was literally living in the projects in that February of that year.
Guest:And then April of that year, I moved into the first house I ever owned.
Guest:And about a few months later on New Year's Eve, I will never forget as long as I live.
Guest:this was 68, New Year's Eve, I happened to pick up the paper and I saw an ad from Mr. Kelly that said, tonight, Richard Pryor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Bring in the new you.
Guest:And I'm going, Richard Pryor, I want to see him.
Guest:I'd seen him on the Ed Sullivan show.
Guest:So I looked at my wife.
Guest:Remember, I'm a country boy coming from a little...
Guest:A closed community.
Guest:I don't understand the big time.
Guest:Never been in a nightclub in my life.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Oh, no, no.
Guest:I said, let's go down to see Mr. Kelly's.
Guest:And my wife said, OK, so we dressed up.
Guest:This is New Year's Eve around four o'clock.
Guest:We dress up to drive down to see Mr. Kelly's.
Guest:I get down to Rush Street.
Guest:It's nine degrees below zero.
Guest:It is so cold.
Guest:Oh, God, it was cold.
Guest:And I don't want to get out and stand in line.
Guest:I see this line.
Guest:I'm going, that's the way I'm not standing in line.
Guest:And luckily, I was trying to find a place to park.
Guest:We must have circled about eight times.
Guest:But finally, someone took a sign and flipped it from full to womb.
Guest:There was one spot somebody left early.
Guest:And we pulled in.
Guest:I walked around to the front door, banging on the door because I didn't want to stand in line.
Guest:I didn't have a ticket.
Guest:trying to figure out how do I get in?
Guest:And Major D comes to the door and says, what?
Guest:What do you want?
Guest:I said, we'd like to see Mr. Kellett.
Guest:He said, what?
Guest:I said, we'd like to get a ticket to see Richard Pryor.
Guest:He said, young man, what?
Guest:do you understand?
Guest:You see all those people?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:He said, they've been, some of them had reservations a year ago.
Guest:You think you can just, now he's a little angry with you, right?
Guest:So where are you from?
Guest:And I said, I'm from Virginia.
Guest:So now he said, all right, let me give this guy a lesson in show business.
Guest:So he said, and about that time, they let out the first show.
Guest:So he had let me in because he didn't want to stand in the cold.
Guest:So he let me in and chastised me.
Guest:But we were blocking the exit for other people.
Guest:So he said, stand over there out of the way.
Guest:Just stand over there.
Guest:So we get over there.
Guest:They emptied the whole room.
Guest:And by the time they entered the room, he turned to say something to me.
Guest:And he said, just stay there.
Guest:And he let everybody else in.
Guest:So now they let everybody off the street in.
Guest:And now he can tell me how stupid I am.
Guest:About that time, a fight broke out right at the bar.
Guest:I don't know if you've ever been Mr. Kelly, but you come in the door and the bar was elevated up.
Guest:As soon as you come in, the bar was to your left, elevated.
Guest:A woman and I guess her husband got into a big brawl at the bar and they struggled and she threw a drink and threw it on him and broke the glass and everybody paid attention, of course, to B.J.
Guest:D. And they just left the club yelling.
Guest:And he said, are you coming back?
Guest:The guy said no.
Guest:And they left.
Guest:They looked at me and said, take those two seats at the bar.
Guest:We sit at the bar and and the first singer or whatever.
Guest:And then out came Richard Pryor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What a performance.
Guest:I'd never seen anything live like that.
Guest:And he just he had the room in hysterics.
Guest:He did an incredible show.
Guest:And when he finished, I looked at my first wife.
Guest:I said, Rita, I said, you know what?
Guest:I want to do that.
Guest:I want to do it on that stage, and I want to do it on New Year's Eve.
Guest:Well, as you know, Mr. Kelly's shut down in 75, I think, or 76.
Guest:But I was the last comic to work
Marc:mr kelly's on new year's eve before it closed you did it i did it i worked as well we worked tom and i worked as a team very successfully for for several years yeah how did because i've talked to i talked to tom not too long ago i don't he said i knew he was from chicago but how did you guys come together
Guest:Well, ironically, as I said, New Year's Eve, I was watching at Kelly's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then 69, I happened to meet Tom for the first time in a JC meeting.
Guest:I wanted to... The company really...
Guest:wanted the employees to get involved with their community and i just bought a house in markham illinois which is right next to harvey where tom's from yeah and uh i went to the jc meeting i said i want to join the jc what is the jc chamber of junior chamber of commerce i never understood what that is about what is that what do they do it was a community organization that worked in community tried to uh
Guest:uh, raise awareness of, of the business opportunities economically, but also help with the community.
Guest:They did things like fun, uh, fundraiser drives to help kids buy things for pencils and stuff and all kinds of programs.
Guest:Um, and so that night, uh, that I joined, they mentioned that there were some issues in the community that they needed to pay some attention to.
Guest:It was drug abuse that was happening in these young and these, with these young students in elementary schools.
Guest:And they want to,
Guest:some of us to go and just talk to these kids yeah tom being from the streets me being from the streets uh i volunteered but he said i don't i i'm sorry but i got everybody he said but give me your name if anybody drops out i'll call you literally three days later someone dropped out he and i started this program with a police officer right and we remember this yeah and the program became so successful
Guest:that it was adopted by J.C.
Guest:Chapters throughout America and 16 foreign countries.
Marc:The one that you and Tom did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a very successful program.
Guest:And we used humor.
Guest:And we tried because, again, we were street kids.
Guest:And we knew a little bit about that.
Guest:My stepfather at that time was a heroin addict.
Guest:Not at that time.
Guest:proud of me growing up with a heroin addict and so i knew i knew a lot about the dark side of drug abuse did you find out where your your real dad was yes i found out my real dad was he was he was he was my uncle that's who i thought he was all those years later found out he was my father and we became we became dear friends so he was around
Guest:Yeah, he was around, but he was my uncle, I thought.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No one told you, huh?
Guest:Never told me until I was 10 years old and was living with my grandmother, his mother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they got me together and they sat down and told me.
Guest:And I was happy for it.
Guest:He was a cool dude.
Guest:I liked him.
Marc:But the man your mom was with when you were really young was a junkie?
Guest:Yeah, that's the one that I had to leave.
Guest:I couldn't stay with my mother because he was a very difficult man to live with.
Guest:And there were always economic problems.
Guest:And he would be there and, you know, a very difficult life.
Guest:So my grandmother came up to get me with my uncle, trying to save me from what they thought was going to be a pretty bad life.
Marc:What happened to your mother?
Guest:She went on.
Guest:I mean, she finally was smart enough to leave that man.
Guest:She ended up...
Guest:having a very difficult life till i started making money in show business and i brought her took care of her for the rest of her life you did yeah yeah that must have felt good yeah it was good it was i mean certainly happy to take care of my family but um it was it was a difficult time i am my um my grandmother who i who again raised me yeah and so much of her is in me um
Guest:And my father, they passed away in the same year.
Guest:So I lost the two most important people in my life.
Guest:And then my mother was having some very difficult times.
Guest:So I was thrust into head of the family long before I was ready to go.
Guest:To take that mantle.
Guest:That's why I think Tom and I got along so well together because of his difficult past, my difficult past.
Marc:Well, he had the weird thing, too, where he didn't know who was who.
Marc:And then he found out.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:And I think that's one of the reasons Richard Pryor and I got along so well after we finally met him a few years later.
Guest:And we became, I would say, I wouldn't say deep friends, but acquaintances and always I had the opportunity to spend a little time with him occasionally.
Guest:And his past and my past, there were some similarities.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we came out of that era.
Guest:And so did Tom.
Marc:So you and Tom do this.
Marc:You do that.
Marc:You put together this shtick to help the kids.
Guest:Yeah, we do that.
Guest:And finally, one day in our doing our program in the morning,
Guest:One of the kids said to us, you guys are funny.
Guest:You ought to be a comedy team.
Guest:And we'd never thought about it.
Guest:And we thought, oh.
Guest:So one night at the bar having a drink, he said, you think of what I'm thinking?
Guest:I said, yeah, you want to try it?
Guest:He said, why not?
Guest:And that was in late 69s.
Guest:And we started performing in local spots and everywhere we could work and ended up at Mr. Kelly's, I think, in 70.
Guest:Our first time was 72, I believe.
Marc:So what's the scene, though?
Marc:So what do you do with DuPont?
Marc:You just say you're holding both jobs.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:I was working, I stayed with DuPont for about a year, year and a half, and moonlighted as a comic.
Guest:It wasn't that much work at that time.
Guest:There were no comedy clubs back in those days.
Marc:Right, yeah, of course, yeah.
Guest:So we had to kind of, you know, you end up working everywhere.
Guest:The chitlin circuit, the...
Guest:the Polish circuit, the Italian circuit.
Marc:But are you opening for musical acts or what are you doing?
Guest:You go in, you hustle, you, you know, wherever there's a restaurant with a singer, they might be using comic.
Guest:We got lucky.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:We opened for Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, all those people.
Guest:When they would come through the community, you know, they would need somebody to be sort of an empty comic.
Guest:And they give you a few dollars, not a lot.
Guest:And but it gave us an opportunity to work.
Guest:And then we worked those those clubs at that time, the Burning Spear, all those black clubs that were interested in going black and white guy.
Guest:Let's see what they're up to.
Guest:And then we we worked ourselves to the north side, start working things up there.
Guest:And then finally, one day we got Mr. Kelly.
Marc:Well, what what was it like for you guys?
Marc:I mean, how did they receive, you know, Tom?
Marc:And, you know, I mean, what was there ever tension?
Guest:Oh, gosh, yes.
Guest:This fight at Tenton, I got poisoned.
Guest:They chased Tom out of a place.
Guest:You got poisoned?
Guest:Yeah, I got poisoned.
Guest:I think it was in North Dakota somewhere.
Guest:But anyway, the thing about that era.
Guest:was that whenever we walked out on stage and we opened for some of the most unusual, we opened for Sha Na Na Na Na.
Guest:We opened for Clinton and the Funkadelic.
Guest:We opened for the Dells.
Guest:I mean, we opened for really interesting groups and we were never expected.
Guest:So whenever we walked out there for our career, the first few seconds, say 40 seconds to a minute, it was complete silence.
Guest:No matter whether it was a black audience, white audience or mixed audience.
Marc:They didn't know what to do with it.
Guest:They were.
Guest:Well, they were afraid.
Guest:They were inquisitive.
Guest:Like, what is going to happen now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you had to get them and you had to get them quickly.
Guest:Now, if you were successful, and we weren't always successful in getting them, we had to build some time.
Guest:But if you got them early on, it was a heck of a show.
Guest:We challenged, we didn't write, quote, race jokes.
Guest:There was no race jokes.
Guest:Basically, what we did was be ourselves and take the world through the world that as we saw it and as we responded to it.
Guest:And again, places like the Playboy Clubs and Mr. Kelly's,
Guest:We're going through the same kind of thing.
Guest:You know, it's hard to think about Kelly's and not think about contextual lifestyle at that time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Mr. Kelly's were breaking ground.
Guest:And but in Chicago, it was just taken as part of the part of the deal.
Guest:Once you were in the club, outside the club, these whole different things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You didn't want to go to Cicero and you didn't want to go to these places and they didn't want to go down to the south side.
Guest:But in that club, it had an atmosphere of
Guest:that is hard to find if at all today in a club.
Guest:You knew you were going to see something interesting.
Guest:You knew the performers, whether they were singers.
Guest:You knew you were seeing, in many cases, the first time that someone ever really got, quote, in the beginning of the big time.
Guest:See, Kelly's
Guest:You know, if you were a performer, you dreamed of working Kelly's.
Guest:I mean, like I said, the first time I went in there, I wanted to be in that place.
Marc:Who was like, who was doing the circuit when you were around?
Marc:Who were your contemporaries that you'd see out and about?
Guest:Gosh.
Guest:Well, of course, I wouldn't call them contemporaries, but who would work in a club at that time was, of course, Dave Gregory.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stoy Mitchell.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Billy Wallace.
Guest:All the top comics we opened for at Kelly's.
Guest:We opened for...
Guest:uh, some of the great, you know, uh, as I said, Sarah Vaughn, we opened, uh, for Della Reese, but I saw in there, Bette Middleton's first, uh, foray into nightclub business when she left the bath in New York, one of her first club gigs was Mr. Kelly.
Guest:You know, you would see anyone, you see the Smothers Brothers, you see anybody there.
Guest:I mean, if you were entertainment and you were quote, making your way and rising above the
Guest:the fray, that level of I'm going near the big time, you wanted to and had to work Mr. Kelly's.
Guest:I mean, you just, you weren't in show business until you really did it.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And then you were doing The Road.
Marc:I mean, how'd you get to get poisoned in South Dakota?
Guest:Well, you know, luckily we hooked up with a group out of Chicago that were doing colleges and
Guest:putting together college bills.
Guest:And there weren't many, but we went to Mankato.
Guest:We went to Fargo, North Dakota.
Guest:We went to these places, these Chadron State.
Guest:We went to these small colleges and we opened for Neil Diamond.
Guest:We opened for musical group Bread.
Guest:Whoever was there, we'd get a few bucks and we'd open for them.
Guest:But of course, they didn't give you a lot and we had to get there.
Guest:So we didn't make a lot of money.
Guest:We had to drive wherever we were.
Guest:If in the case of North Dakota, you know, you sometimes you spend seven, eight hours in a car.
Marc:Oh, I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I've done it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we stopped to eat.
Guest:And sometimes the places that we stopped in, people didn't didn't take kindly to either my presence or his presence.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:And so we got I got poisoned up in that area and he got attacked in a
Guest:place in Missouri.
Guest:We had worked a prison down in Missouri.
Guest:I think Joplin.
Guest:Anyway, we worked in prison.
Guest:We were coming back and hungry.
Guest:Oh, man, I was doing it just before Thanksgiving.
Guest:I'll never forget.
Guest:We went to this bar to eat.
Guest:The only thing open roadside, about four or five motorcycles parked outside.
Guest:But hunger will force you to do things.
Guest:Sometimes your brain tells you not to do.
Guest:And we were very hungry.
Guest:We went in there and it was funny.
Guest:He was giving me a lecture.
Guest:He said, now, look, keep your attitude down.
Guest:Don't let your temper get, you know, because we can get hurt in here.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I know what I'm doing.
Guest:I'll handle these crackers.
Guest:He was he was coaching me.
Guest:We go in there.
Guest:At that time, he had long hair.
Guest:Oh, no shit.
Guest:And as soon as we sat down, a few of these tough bikers said, look at that long haired weirdo over there.
Guest:And we're paying no attention.
Guest:But they didn't like Tom.
Guest:And they were giving him a hard time.
Guest:And we were waiting to have our food come, but we realized that it was time to leave.
Guest:Oh, no, yeah.
Guest:No food.
Guest:So he said, he said, do me a favor.
Guest:He said, you go start the car and turn it around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, no.
Guest:He said, no, no, go, go.
Guest:I said, don't start.
Guest:He said, I'm not going to start anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go out and get the car, pull it around by the door.
Guest:flip his door open, and he gets up and really gives these guys an interesting discussion about who they are and how they call certain parts of their bodies.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:When they finally went after him, he rushed out the door, slammed it,
Guest:And jumped in my car and we took out about three motorcycles and got away.
Marc:Oh, you had to take out the motorcycles.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Back up.
Guest:Oh, geez.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just I mean, we got attacked on stage, throwing things at us, you know.
Guest:And it was an interesting, but again, two guys from the street who believed that they had an idea that would work.
Guest:We were funny at times.
Guest:We worked our act strong enough to be in places like Mr. Kelly's in the Playboy circuit.
Guest:We worked the Playboy circuit at that time all over America.
Marc:Playboy clubs?
Guest:Yeah, all of them.
Guest:You know, we worked those, Boston, L.A.
Guest:Were those nice?
Yeah.
Guest:was very nice it gave you a chance uh to work your act you know back in those days unlike today you know kids
Guest:can use language more than words.
Guest:A four-letter word is a punchline.
Guest:But back when we were doing it, you had to have an act.
Guest:I mean, you had to be able, you couldn't say those things.
Guest:You couldn't curse.
Marc:What was the headlining show?
Marc:Was it like 35, 40 minutes?
Guest:Depending on the place.
Guest:If we were headliners, which we were a few times, we had to do anywhere from 40 to 45, 40 to 60 minutes.
Guest:If we were, of course, most of the time we were opening act,
Guest:And we would do, depending if it was a Playboy Club, 18 minutes.
Guest:And they meant 18 minutes.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Under 18, you didn't get paid.
Guest:You went over 20, and they would bring the hook.
Guest:So we do Playboy Clubs, and we were 18 minutes.
Guest:Kelly's, we had almost 30 minutes.
Guest:They were very strict about time, very strict about language.
Guest:Racially, we never had any issues because, you know,
Guest:We were racial just by standing up on stage next to one another.
Guest:I mean, you didn't back in the day see a whole lot of integrated conversation.
Marc:But you guys, you addressed it though, right?
Guest:Well, yeah, we did, but we did it in our own way.
Guest:We did, you know, it wasn't, it was, it was putting each other in situations where race,
Guest:uh, was the, was the elephant in the room, you know, but we didn't talk about the elephant.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so they would, they would, we did things like, uh, um, we had a couple of routines that I went to visit his Italian family and the things that I was saying in the wrong way.
Guest:And, and then we did one where he had, we had to go somewhere in a black community.
Guest:He wanted me to teach him how to be black.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:And I would, you know, things like that, that the audience could really relate to because many of them
Guest:we're thinking or thinking about maybe I'll have a black friend or a white friend.
Guest:I wonder how that would be.
Guest:And then we did things like the dating game where I played three characters and he played the young lady, you know, and it was always going to be a brother, one of those characters.
Guest:And so it was those kinds of things that we did and we worked wherever we worked.
Guest:And, and we had a predominant, Mr. Kelly was always an angry audience, but if we worked a club where it was predominantly black,
Guest:the first few minutes or seconds were always the same.
Guest:Whether it was all black or all white, it was all, what is this?
Guest:What's going to happen here?
Guest:As soon as you could see that you were going to have fun,
Marc:and the audience could see that okay they're going to have fun with this this is different you would always win them over i mean i think it's really difficult for me you know just as a as a white guy my age you know to sort of you know really kind of like try to put myself in the place that that you came up in in the sense that this is you know this is not this is not ancient history this is recently it's recently
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:You know, I tell people when I was living in the community in which I explained, we couldn't vote.
Guest:They had poll tax.
Guest:You know, this is this is not long ago.
Guest:This is like you say, it's been my lifetime.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where I had to get on a bus and sit in the back because the science had colored back here.
Guest:All those things.
Guest:I went to all black school.
Guest:Tom was actually my first white friend.
Guest:the first white person I had any social discussion with was Tom.
Guest:I had none before that.
Guest:And I wasn't quote looking for any, just that was not in my peripheral life.
Marc:So, you know, when did you guys come out here, California?
Guest:Oh, California.
Guest:We went out there first time to work the playboy club.
Guest:And, uh, then we had a, uh, Della Reese's manager, a gentleman by the name of Lee maggot.
Guest:He, um,
Guest:decided he was going to manage us and, uh, and put us in a few things.
Guest:And, uh, so I would say 74, then 75 as a team, then we split up in the early part of 76.
Marc:Now, what now, what was the decision there?
Marc:Was it acrimonious?
Guest:No, no, I don't, I don't think it was, it was for me.
Guest:Um, um,
Guest:If you read our book, Tim and Tom, a comedy in black and white, you'll see dueling versions of why.
Guest:But as I think back on it many years ago, what I was feeling, you know, we weren't making any money.
Guest:And I had left DuPont.
Guest:And I mean, we were not, we were in financially difficult times.
Guest:And so I'm going, if this is show business, maybe I made the wrong choice.
Guest:Poverty was never anything I was ever going to be.
Guest:I had lived through that as a young person and I didn't want it in my life.
Guest:I was like, this thing could end up being a bad mistake.
Guest:Although the company, DuPont, had always offered me a job if I wanted to return.
Guest:I looked at it, I'm going, this is not working.
Guest:I'm not making any money here.
Guest:I'm not, you know, I got two kids at that time.
Guest:He had three kids.
Guest:And it was very difficult.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I can't do this.
Guest:I got to make some things.
Guest:So I began to look at other options, not from comedy, but I started acting, doing commercials, any way that I could make some money in this field of entertainment.
Marc:Did you guys do the, but did you, were you at the comedy store?
Guest:No.
Guest:At that time we hadn't, the comedy store back then, comedy store didn't really start as what it became until 75.
Marc:But you guys were already broken up by then?
Guest:Yeah, we split up in 76.
Guest:We worked there with Sammy, did our stuff together, but it was nobody.
Guest:I mean, had no crowds.
Guest:And then when we split up, it became more and more successful.
Guest:And I worked there as a solo.
Guest:I was working at those times.
Guest:Who were the solos?
Guest:Of course, David Letterman, Jay Leno.
Guest:All of us were struggling trying to make it.
Guest:And then some new ones come in like George Wallace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All these new people.
Guest:But Shirley Hemphill, Paul, of course, Paul Mooney and Johnny Witherspoon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My good buddy.
Guest:I mean, but we were all struggling.
Guest:All of us were there at that time struggling.
Guest:I think the first person to break out was Jimmy Walker.
Guest:And then after that, Freddie Prinze came through.
Guest:But he never really spent a lot of time at a comedy show.
Guest:He came from New York, hit the big time, got Chico and the Man, and went straight to stardom, who worked, of course, at Mr. Kelly's.
Guest:Matter of fact, he did his first comedy album at Mr. Kelly's.
Marc:Yeah, I saw that in the movie.
Guest:I wrote one of his routines.
Guest:He liked one of my routines and he called me.
Guest:I was living in California at the time.
Guest:He called me and he said, man, I need some more material.
Guest:I'm running out of material.
Guest:Can I take your piece?
Guest:One of the pieces I did.
Guest:And I said, yeah, man, because I love Freddie.
He was
Guest:We knew Freddie when he was breaking in, in New York, when he was like six, 17 years old, 18, he was a very good guy.
Guest:He was wonderful.
Guest:I had a, I mean, he was just had an energy about it that you couldn't help, but just, you know, love his, his, his view of life.
Guest:He was a fun guy and very funny man on and off stage.
Guest:Um, and, um,
Guest:so we went out then when we got out there to work um what was the bit oh the bit was about um i used to do a bit about uh as a stand-up about how the voice of a black man would change uh when he's talking to his his brothers arguing and i care and all and then when a beautiful woman walked by you know when his brother he was like uh
Guest:you know, very high boy.
Guest:Hey man, I don't take this.
Guest:As soon as the woman walked by, I was like, hey baby, how you doing?
Guest:And it was a long thing in the front line.
Guest:He really liked that.
Guest:And of course he did it and changed it into his culture.
Guest:And if you look at the back of that album, you'll see my name.
Guest:He gave me credit for it.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:That's a great story.
Marc:So you're out here with all these guys.
Marc:It's so sad because so many of those guys you mentioned passed away pretty recently.
Marc:I talked to George Wallace.
Marc:He's okay, but Mooney's gone and Witherspoon's gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, a lot of them, George Miller.
Guest:He's gone, yeah.
Guest:So many of them.
Guest:who back then, comedy is a hard business.
Guest:I mean, comedy is not to be taken lightly.
Guest:I'm sorry to use that euphemism.
Guest:And it's not so much busy and difficult in terms of what you do.
Guest:It's what it does to you on the inside.
Guest:And if you're not strong enough on the inside to take the downside of it,
Guest:it can really wreck your life.
Guest:I mean, it can drive you into drugs, alcohol, whatever it is.
Guest:You know, it is so many of them.
Guest:Oh, I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't have to tell you.
Guest:To have survived.
Guest:Tom and I were together recently talking about it.
Guest:And of course, I say to him and he says to me, neither of us would be where we are today had we not come together.
Guest:and gone in the trenches together and fought for six years uh and taken the defeat and taken the victories together the defeats are i have i've had some horrible things happen to me losing
Guest:people I love, but not many of them have ever reached the depths of the pain you feel when you bomb and it doesn't go well and your life is on it.
Guest:I mean, it's a deep pain or the euphoria.
Guest:of when you hit.
Guest:I mean, when you hit, I mean, when you've got that, you're in that zone and you know you rule the room.
Guest:You've got these people that are living off of your energy.
Guest:And the high from that is not a drug ever invented that can top the high.
Guest:And so when you have to live with those kinds of rollercoaster rides in the profession,
Guest:if you're not strong enough, it can change your life in ways that you would hope it would.
Marc:You never got screwed up, though?
Guest:No, we were, again, you know, I keep saying, Tom and I had a few things in common.
Guest:One of them was
Guest:we had seen so much of tragedy as young people, as kids, poverty, drug abuse, alcoholism.
Guest:We'd seen, I lived, my grandma had a rooming house.
Guest:My aunt had one of the biggest whorehouses in Norfolk.
Guest:And I stayed there for a year.
Marc:And that's the thing you had in common with Richard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Richard would talk about that.
Guest:Well, you know, he did the same thing I did.
Guest:You know, John's would be waiting.
Guest:I danced with Nichols.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know and then you see uh transit people the lives of transit people my grandmother's room and house people would come and go and and you would see these broken men you know who just hanging in there yeah you know a few of them i got to know not deeply but i got to talk to them and you hear their stories world war ii veterans um
Guest:whoever they are, things that had gone bad for them.
Guest:So when you see that, you come away and you live through segregation.
Guest:You know, you get chased by the Klan or dogs turned on you.
Guest:When you get to Hollywood and they start throwing heavy things to that, it ain't quite so bad.
Guest:You go, that's all you got?
Guest:You got to come a little stronger than that white guy.
Guest:I'm not afraid of you.
Guest:And Tom and I were able to, at the weakest part of our venture, when things weren't going well, we would look at each other.
Guest:And one thing we knew was we weren't going to let whatever that was stop us.
Guest:And we'd get into arguments.
Guest:um uh and everything i'm one of my favorite mr kelly argument we had the first show didn't go as well as we had hoped and of course what two comics will do um is blame the other sure so we had this big argument of blaming you know i'm blaming him he's blaming me and
Guest:And we were just shouting at each other.
Guest:The energy of that first show and the negative energy of that first show.
Guest:And somebody knocked at the door.
Guest:Now, I don't know if you ever heard of a gentleman by the name of Irv Kupsinit.
Guest:But Irv Kupsinit was Mr. Entertainment.
Guest:He was the male head of Hopper of Chicago.
Guest:He had a column in Chicago, Suntime.
Guest:And if you were entertained and you didn't get in his column, you didn't get reviewed by him, he could literally help a career.
Guest:And he took a liking to Tom and I very early on.
Guest:We did Purple Heart Cruise he would have every year for war veterans.
Guest:And we got some very favorable reviews from him.
Guest:Well, he would always come up to meet us before the show.
Guest:I don't know that's him.
Guest:And we're yelling and scrambling.
Guest:And Tom knew he was coming.
Guest:And he bam, bam, bam.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:Tom said, be quiet.
Guest:That's probably cut.
Guest:And me not believing him
Guest:uh said something very uh nasty and while i was saying it because i didn't think he was there yeah you know like yeah and open the door and he was standing right there looking at me in my face and i'm thinking my career is over my career and he just looked at me he said damn his wife was calm down and they came in and sat us down and talked to us and uh
Guest:I will never forget that.
Guest:And then we went down and had a great show.
Marc:So when you were at the store, like, and you were going solo, was that when he started acting more?
Marc:Was that when Richard was around?
Guest:Yeah, I would, I would like, I have to say I was, I always thought I could, I could make an audience laugh.
Guest:That wasn't a problem, but I didn't love standup.
Guest:Tom loves standup.
Guest:And Tom is and was,
Guest:a better comic than I was.
Guest:He understood the mechanism of comedy.
Guest:He understood how to structure it in his favor.
Guest:And he also loved it.
Guest:He would work all every night.
Guest:He'd go somewhere.
Guest:Me, I was like, nah, I'd rather be an actor.
Guest:I don't really want people, you know, make me laugh.
Guest:So my heart wasn't in it, to say the least.
Guest:And I started acting a lot.
Guest:And I remember Richard saying to me one night, I had performed at the comedy store in the main room and done well.
Guest:And when I was coming down, Richard was sitting in the back.
Guest:He often would just come in sometime and just watch whoever was working.
Guest:And he said, come in, man.
Guest:He said, you're doing well in the, I forgot what show I was on.
Guest:I think I was on KRP.
Guest:He said, you're doing well?
Guest:I said, yeah, Rich, I'm doing well, man.
Guest:He said, yeah.
Guest:He said, but let me tell you something.
Guest:He said, don't ever give up the stand-up.
Guest:Don't ever give it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, don't ever give it up.
Guest:And he was a little ticked with me because I whenever I saw him later and he was a little ticked, but I didn't stick with the stand up.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, didn't you were you on that show he did with all those comedy store people?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That was before that was in 76.
Guest:We'd only I just finished L.A.
Guest:about a year, year and a half when that happened.
Marc:He used everybody, right?
Marc:Robin and Sarah Burry.
Guest:Everybody.
Guest:He needed an ensemble.
Guest:And Paul Mooney went to him and said, look, Richard, you work best when you're working off other people.
Guest:So let me put together a team.
Guest:And so he put together the team, brought us all on.
Guest:Paul Mooney did.
Guest:And those shows were probably 80% improv.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They would come out.
Guest:Here's the sketch.
Guest:Here's the costumes.
Guest:This is a setup.
Guest:You're at the Star Wars bar.
Guest:Go for it.
Guest:And it was like being in boot camp for comedy.
Guest:It was unbelievable.
Guest:Somebody should write a book.
Guest:About the Richard Pryor show.
Guest:About the behind the scenes of the Richard Pryor show.
Guest:It was phenomenal.
Guest:I mean, the things that went on and the people involved.
Guest:It's never been anything like it in my career.
Guest:I've done about 26, 27 shows.
Guest:television series in my in my career the last 50 years and while all of them have been unique nothing has been as unique as those four episodes we've done on the prior show you think it was a good like entry into thinking on your feet and being on camera and all that stuff i think it was it was not only just that but it also gave all of us a sense of power
Guest:It wasn't just that we were funny or individually could do improvisation.
Guest:It made all of us, especially myself, Robin Williams, all of us, it made us realize the power that we had as a comic, the kind of presentation that could change the face of what people thought about comedy.
Guest:I mean, prior to that, Robin was funny, but he wasn't quite as...
Guest:as dominant as he was after that, you know, he found his, his, his power.
Guest:And I think I found a certain amount in mine and certainly the spoon.
Guest:All of us did.
Guest:It was, we never had that kind of freedom before.
Marc:And Richard was there to drive the whole thing.
Guest:Richard was there and he was the leader.
Guest:And as I said, it was bootcamp and we had the best drill and structure in the history of comedy.
Yeah.
Guest:that's amazing but yeah you know um like all of us we loved him for who he was we loved him for what he did and we loved him for how he thought about uh humanity you know it was it was um there are few people who ever been able to walk that path the way he did what do you think it was exactly how do you characterize that path oh boy oh a path of of
Guest:truth.
Guest:Um, uh, uh, storytellers must understand the path of truth.
Guest:I don't care how your medium, whether it's writing, singing, dance, whatever, however you tell a story, however you use your body, your mind, you must have an understanding of the power of truth and use it, uh, uh, to, for your purpose.
Guest:And he did that.
Guest:Um, matter of fact, when, when he was, he was, um,
Guest:forced out of the business for a brief period after he had started working in Vegas.
Guest:Like I say, when I first saw him at television, that wasn't the same company who did Craps, the album Craps.
Marc:You mean after he hit the wall in Vegas and blew it up?
Guest:Yeah, well, they took him out.
Guest:They didn't want him there.
Guest:He could not become who they wanted him to become.
Guest:He didn't want to lose his truth.
Guest:And his truth was born in his existence at his
Guest:at his grandmother's uh whorehouse existence with the people he had seen the characters that you see when you were at the depths of struggle and you survive you can't that that makes you a little bit aware more aware than the average person well it gives you at that that empathy yeah yeah and also that that anger and that truth that power that you want to
Guest:you want to use your power to change, to affect people, to shock people, to get them to understand the depths of their deeds.
Guest:And if you look at his routines, even back before Craps, but when you get Craps, that album, I remember the first time you had to buy it and you go to the record store and you had to buy it, they had it under the counter.
Guest:They didn't even have it out.
Guest:And when you sit down and listen to the routine, um,
Guest:It was such truth that I had never heard that kind of truth before in a very, in a funny way.
Guest:I never heard it.
Guest:Never heard that kind of truth.
Guest:And I think that that was after him leaving Vegas, hanging out in Oakland, going back to the source, being around the people that he had grown up with and realizing that he owed them their truth.
Guest:And then when he started coming back and he did craps and a few of the albums after that,
Guest:uh, he was, he, he found his base.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As a comic, I never found my base.
Guest:Uh, Tom found his base and you've got to have that base.
Guest:You got to know what, what your platform is.
Guest:And I know what it is in life.
Guest:I know what it is when I speak to people.
Guest:I know what it is when I act, but as a comic, I never really took the time to, to, to discover my base.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:I didn't have that, that Vegas moment that Richard had, you know?
Marc:Well, you know, you know, in your heart, if you, if, if, if, if you want to live on that stage, it's not just living.
Guest:It's, I could make some money on the stage as a comic.
Guest:Um, but again, it's back to truth, a comic, uh, today, the closest I know to that kind of truth is Dave Chappelle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, he's flying close to the sun and, uh, I pray that, uh,
Guest:He doesn't crash into it.
Guest:I mean, because his truth, he's being propelled by his place, his truth.
Guest:And it's a very difficult platform to maintain, as you saw with Richard, you saw with Lenny Bruce.
Guest:You know, you name those people, and there aren't that many.
Guest:You name those people who sacrificed
Guest:uh, their being for truth.
Guest:And, um, it's, it's a noble and incredible life to choose on stage.
Guest:Um,
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:I think maybe my anger, I jokingly tell people I suffer from PSSD, which is post-segregation stress disorder.
Guest:And it is in my life.
Guest:And it comes out sometimes in a funny way, a positive way, but I can't shake it.
Guest:And I don't think...
Guest:I just couldn't shake it on stage the way Richard found a place for, but he, he, it, it, it exercised him in another way.
Guest:You know, he found a place for it on stage.
Guest:He could, you know, I was with, with him, uh, the night myself, Paul Mooney's spoon, a bunch of us with it night at the sunset live on the sunset strip.
Guest:And he, the first night he bombed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh, I mean, it was, it was very painful to watch because this is our hero.
Guest:Um, but we all, we all knew that that was just that night.
Guest:It just didn't, his groove, he just didn't get there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he came, we were there the next night when he came back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's one of the funniest shows that I've ever seen.
Guest:When you go that deep, you go that far, and you're able to come back and do it.
Guest:It doesn't destroy you.
Guest:That says a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's interesting that you kind of carry that with you, that you felt like he was disappointed in you.
Guest:Yeah, he was.
Guest:I had no question about it.
Guest:But he was always nice to me.
Guest:Richard was always...
Guest:was always, I guess the word nice is the best way to say it.
Guest:He always treated me in a very cordial or warm way without being, you know, that was just between us.
Guest:And again, it had to do with our background.
Guest:It had to do with how we both witnessed things at an early age.
Guest:And you don't share those wounds.
Guest:And not anybody else who's had it can spot it in someone.
Guest:I could have, I'd spot it in Tom
Marc:you don't you don't forget that you respect that anybody who goes through that can provide you respect and and when you when you were on WKRP I mean that I mean that was one of those shows that people loved it and you know I have to assume that not unlike your comedy family those people must have been become a family with you and Hessman and those people it was a family and many of us um
Guest:still are connected today i mean it was back in the days when uh ensemble comedy was at its height of acceptance in our in our business um and it was a wonderful experience um it's funny uh howard hessman who played johnny fever howard hessman used to be with a group called the ace trucking yeah with fred willard was it
Guest:Yeah, Fred Willard, a dear friend who we lost.
Guest:And they did a routine.
Guest:When Tom and I decided to go in the show business, we had no idea what our act was going to be.
Guest:We just started writing stuff.
Guest:And one night, I was watching the Carson show, and out came the Ace Trucking Company.
Guest:And they did a routine of teaching the black gentleman, teaching one of the white gentlemen how to be black.
Guest:And it was hysterical.
Guest:Now,
Guest:I saw it.
Guest:I told Tom, I said, now, I don't know.
Guest:I know we're not supposed to steal, but it's a natural.
Guest:We've got to find a way to work that routine.
Guest:Hide the stuff that we've stolen and work that routine.
Guest:And sure enough, we trotted into it.
Guest:And we did it as close to what we could do that wasn't quite like theirs.
Guest:But any comic knows.
Guest:where the germ, the seed of the routine.
Guest:So when I got KRP, and I'm sure word had gotten back to them at that time because we were becoming a quite, not quite successful, but more successful than people, any other black and white comedy team.
Guest:So when I got on the set and I saw Howard Hess, when he looked at me, I looked at him and I said,
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I had to be a couple moments when I confessed our sins.
Guest:And I think we laughed because they had broken up at that time.
Guest:And we became, of course, dear friends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you did it.
Marc:You told the truth.
Guest:I had to.
Guest:I had to.
Marc:You still talk to him?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we're different.
Marc:That's nice, man.
Marc:You know, because I talk to a lot of people.
Marc:They don't hold on to those relationships, you know, but you guys were together for years.
Marc:I mean, how many years?
Guest:Yeah, we're actually four years.
Guest:It seems longer, but we're there four years.
Guest:And but it was, again, a different kind of experience.
Guest:We were more involved in the making of that show because of the creator, Hugh Wilson, who passed away a couple of years ago and
Guest:It was through his guidance and his openness to allow us.
Guest:That's how I got in the writing field.
Guest:I wrote a few of the episodes.
Guest:Richard wrote.
Guest:Some of us directed.
Guest:And we cut our teeth behind the scene and behind the camera.
Guest:I produced a couple of the shows, taking it all the way through delivery to the network.
Guest:So I learned a lot about the business industry.
Guest:and the power of the business behind the scenes, uh, that I never would have had the opportunity to do.
Marc:And did you, you had your own show, didn't you for a while?
Guest:I've had several.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I did a couple of shows.
Guest:Some I created and, um, got, got one that was probably one of the more interesting shows in the history of television.
Guest:Frank's place nominated for nine Emmys.
Marc:I remember that.
Guest:Yeah, it was, um, it was quite, quite a show.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:I actually had Tom on KRP.
Guest:He came on and he played a white guy working at an all-black radio station.
Marc:That's funny.
Guest:And it was a great, great episode.
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:And you worked with, you did a lot of episodic TV.
Marc:You worked with Ed Asner.
Guest:Yeah, we worked with, I worked with, I worked with, like I said, I don't think there's,
Guest:And somebody would have to prove me wrong, but I don't think there's anyone who's done as many television series as I have in the history of television.
Guest:Yeah, really?
Guest:I would have liked for one to go on 12 years as opposed to having 12.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Over a period of 12 years.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But now, where are you at now with work?
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Right now, I am behind the scenes more.
Guest:I just directed a feature film, not a feature film, a TV movie that'll be out in November.
Guest:I am launching a streaming service for the African diaspora covering Africa, Europe, and North America, about two or three channels.
Guest:I had it up, tested it for about eight months.
Guest:Now we're going to go broad with it.
Guest:I spent a lot of time in Africa, Ethiopia, in particular South Africa.
Guest:and uh cape verde and the history there is so rich what draws you to that um i've always been a lover of travel and i've always been someone who just delves into history that that goes back to my segregated community although we were segregated in a sense from the dominant culture we were very much involved with the history of the african diaspora because
Guest:I had teachers.
Guest:We had an incredible education at that time.
Guest:My high school, my elementary school, and my college.
Guest:I went to all black teachers, all black.
Guest:And many of them were young, World War II veterans, Vietnam, it was just beginning.
Guest:And these young folks had gone to these historically black colleges.
Guest:It's turned out so many important
Guest:leaders and business people in this country.
Guest:And so their love for history, love for
Guest:or culture that wasn't in our history books, filtered through their program.
Guest:So I was exposed to a lot of stuff that I normally would not have been exposed to in an integrated community, especially nowadays when you can't even, you know, now we got Texas and saying you can't even teach that kind of stuff anymore.
Guest:So I decided since the public school system won't be teaching it the way it should, there has to be an outlet for it so that young people get a sense of
Guest:of history other than just slavery africa is a lot more than just slavery and minerals uh there are people there 1.3 billion people and they have a history in the culture yeah and let's learn as much about it as we can that's great and also what i also love about uh the people of uh diaspora no matter whether it comes from italy
Guest:Israel, when people leave their country and come and settle in another country, they change the way people live there.
Guest:They bring their food, they bring their culture, their dance, their music, and it's integrated in this wonderful place called America.
Guest:Well, I think we need to know how those things are integrated into the community.
Guest:How did life change in these countries?
Guest:So when I travel,
Guest:I was in the Marshall Islands, lived in the military.
Guest:And I'm on a flight, short flight from, I forgot what, one of these small islands somewhere else.
Guest:And everybody in the plane looked like they came from Detroit.
Guest:And I'm looking at them and said, where are you from?
Guest:They said, no, no, we're from the Marshall Islands.
Guest:I said, what do you mean you're from the Marshall Islands?
Guest:You look like somebody that I know from Detroit.
Guest:We were joking about it.
Guest:And then I get there and I see this incredible culture.
Guest:And I'm intrigued.
Guest:How did you get here?
Guest:Would you come over with Captain Cook?
Guest:I mean, where did this culture come from?
Guest:And the history and the story of it is quite unique.
Guest:Like when I went to Brazil for the first time, I love Brazil and I go to Brazil, Bahia and places like that.
Guest:And I'm looking at people who look more like me than they do here in Virginia.
Guest:And I'm going, and then I find out that the majority of slaves coming from the continent of Africa settled in Brazil, South America.
Guest:I mean, that's the majority of, I guess it was Bush that went to Brazil for the first time when he was president.
Guest:And he was shocked that there were so many black people.
Guest:I think out of a country of 150 million, 80 to 90 million Afro-Brazilian.
Guest:Let's talk about that culture.
Guest:Let's talk about Condomble.
Guest:Let's talk about that stuff.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:It's so important now, too, because it's being threatened.
Guest:But also, I think one of the reasons it's being threatened is because
Guest:To protect it, you know, the dominant culture, whoever they may be at any country, the dominant culture wants to protect this position.
Guest:And it doesn't want everybody to think that they want everybody to think that they did everything.
Guest:Of course, that's just the nature of egotistical nature of a human being.
Guest:But when you look at the other involvement of people, I was when I was in Ethiopia, I mentioned to them something that they did not know.
Guest:It's a country that for over 3000 years has never been ruled by anybody but a African.
Guest:It's never been conquered.
Guest:It was occupied for a couple of years by the Italians before they defeated them, but it's never been conquered.
Guest:It has an interesting history.
Guest:So I was telling them, I said, you know, Ethiopians are warriors.
Guest:They are like
Guest:You know, they go off and fight.
Guest:They fought in Korea.
Guest:The majority of people that fought in Korea were not just Americans, were Ethiopians.
Guest:Many of them settled in Korea.
Guest:But did you know that the first battle won in 1775, before Washington defeated anybody, was won by a troop of Ethiopians?
Guest:they won the first battle of our War of Independence.
Guest:They were mercenaries?
Guest:A group of mercenaries over here fought and won the first battle.
Guest:You know, and you look at stuff like that and say, why is that interesting?
Guest:Well, it's just interesting to show how cultures
Guest:despite all the negative racist history of countries, there are people who have managed to work together to do things, to change history.
Guest:That to me is interesting.
Guest:And those people who do it, I know we came together today to talk about the incredible club called Mr. Kelly.
Guest:But when you look back, if I were to do history of entertainment,
Guest:You have to do what's being done with this documentary.
Guest:You have to talk about this club during the time of the early 50s all the way up through the 70s that what was going on contextually not only in race but in
Guest:gangsters in Chicago.
Guest:This club was almost like a watering hole where all species would come.
Guest:You know, all races would come and perform and sit.
Guest:And they allowed people into the room that most folks didn't want to go in the room.
Guest:Women.
Guest:I mean, Lily Tomlin up talking about sexism and stuff like that, you know, and going after it.
Guest:Where else could she do that?
Guest:You couldn't do it in Vegas.
Guest:So Mr. Kelly, why I'm pleased to not only be a part of it, but to see it come out now is because I think the country needs to see more of that kind of history as opposed to, you know, everything about the worst of us.
Guest:or the tragedy of us.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's good.
Marc:That's a hopeful message.
Marc:I'm not always able to find hope, but I think that's true.
Marc:I think that's a good way to find it.
Guest:Well, again, my life changed.
Guest:Sitting in that bar one night watching a person perform, that inspired me so that I went after that dream.
Guest:And lo and behold, I'm sitting here talking today
Guest:and it happened in a very short amount of time.
Guest:Had I not gone that night, had I not been so stupid to believe I could get in a club without reservations on New Year's Eve, I wouldn't attempt that today.
Guest:My life has changed.
Marc:It's a beautiful thing.
Marc:Beautiful thing, Tim.
Marc:It was great talking to you, buddy.
Guest:My pleasure, man.
Guest:I enjoyed it.
Marc:Yeah, take care of yourself.
Guest:I will.
Guest:You too.
Marc:That was Tim Reed.
Marc:The documentary is live at Mr. Kelly's.
Marc:You can check out some of the other things he mentioned.
Marc:Lovely gentleman.
Marc:Nice guy.
Marc:Nice to get back into the history.
Marc:I like the old comedy store stuff.
Marc:That place, Mr. Kelly's, must have been amazing.
Marc:Must have been amazing.
Marc:Nothing is ever going to get better ever again.
Marc:There are no more tunnels to get through.
Marc:This is how it's going to be.
Marc:Ride it out.
Marc:Adapt.
Marc:Fixing might be over.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Is that negative?
Marc:Here's my attempt at some metal.
guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere, man.