Episode 1334 - Joey Camen
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck steams what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it how's everybody holding up what a fucking travesty what a fucking murderous shit show this country is
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Hard to have hope sometimes.
Marc:I'm the fucking shame to myself because I feel like I'm losing hope in this idea that we can get some reasonable gun control laws on the books so murderous psychopathic killers can't get guns when they turn 18.
Marc:Happy birthday, killer.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:Something's got to happen, man.
Marc:My heart goes out to all the people that lost people.
Marc:It's fucking terrible.
Marc:God, every day, man.
Marc:Every day.
Marc:You got to check in with it.
Marc:You can't just live in a shell or live in your circle or live in your four block radius.
Marc:This affects everybody.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I just spent two days cooking.
Marc:Today on the show, Joey Kamen is here.
Marc:He's one of the Comedy Store originals.
Marc:He's a guy that I remember watching when I was a doorman at the Comedy Store.
Marc:He was there a couple years after it started in the mid-'70s.
Marc:I ran into him.
Marc:For some reason, it sticks in my head, this Joey Kamen fellow, like what happened to him.
Marc:He was actually on the old Richard Pryor show.
Marc:There was a whole bunch of those...
Marc:those comics from the mid 70s that showed up on that show because Richard booked them on there.
Marc:And I just saw Joey at the Comedy Store birthday party and I was excited.
Marc:I was like, oh my God, Joey Kamen.
Marc:I don't know if he's seen that much excitement to see him in a while.
Marc:But he also wrote two books, My Life with Snoopy and his autobiography, Laughing Through the Pain, Stories from the Trenches of Hollywood Stand-Up Comedy and Beyond.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I just wanted to talk to Joey Kamen.
Marc:It turned out to be kind of interesting and a little odd.
Marc:But that'll be happening.
Marc:Also, look, we announced earlier this week that starting in July, we begin a new partnership with a cast.
Marc:Some of you saw that tweet.
Marc:Some of you saw the announcement.
Marc:Some of you read the articles.
Marc:But let's go over what it means for you as a listener.
Marc:If you listen to the free version of this show, the way you listen doesn't change.
Marc:Do you hear me?
Marc:Does not change.
Marc:A big reason we decided to partner with ACAST is we're able to keep the show on all its current platforms.
Marc:So however you listen to WTF, you can keep listening the way you listen to it.
Marc:What you will get is many more episodes from the archives for free.
Marc:We're going to bring a majority of the episodes out from behind the paywall so everybody has access to them.
Marc:That's going to be a first.
Marc:Now, for people who have subscribed to Stitcher Premium to get our back catalog, WTF will be leaving Stitcher Premium on June 30th.
Marc:So that's a little heads up if you're on a monthly plan there or you want to make any changes to your account.
Marc:Okay, June 30, we're out of Stitcher Premium.
Marc:Starting July 1st, there will be a monthly subscription option through ACAST+.
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Marc:You do not.
Marc:When you sign up for Acast Plus, you get your subscription content on your current apps.
Marc:For Acast Plus subscribers, you'll get every episode in our back catalog ad-free plus weekly bonus content that we're going to produce exclusively for subscribers.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Now, look, we'll get you more details on all this as we get closer to the launch date.
Marc:But to recap, here's the deal.
Marc:If you listen to the show for free, just keep listening.
Marc:Nothing changes except you'll get a lot more episodes in your feed.
Marc:If you are a Stitcher Premium subscriber, we'll be off that service on June 30th and we'll have subscriptions available on Acast Plus starting July 1st.
Marc:We want to thank Stitcher for their partnership over the years and
Marc:And a big thanks to Acast for these new options.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:Brendan and I are very happy.
Marc:I hope you'll be happy.
Marc:It's a nice incentive for us to create more stuff.
Marc:So I've been home for a few days.
Marc:I go back out tomorrow.
Marc:I'll be at the Vogue Theater in Vancouver on Saturday night.
Marc:I'm looking forward to spending a day in Vancouver.
Marc:I would have spent more time there.
Marc:I would have gone out to the islands, but I've been away so much.
Marc:And the cats are always...
Marc:Something's going on with the cats.
Marc:The weird thing about cats is cats are fucking weird.
Marc:They change.
Marc:They do weird shit as they get older.
Marc:Or they just decide different things.
Marc:It's like, oh, I guess you're sleeping there now.
Marc:When did that happen?
Marc:All right.
Marc:And they're a lot more friendly.
Marc:I think they really, it's hard to tell with cats sometimes, but I think my cats miss me when I'm gone.
Marc:It's nice.
Marc:I think I'm happy there's two of them.
Marc:But, you know, in and out of town.
Marc:So now the work begins to shave this two hour set into something very tight, into like a tight 70 minutes as we approach the fall.
Marc:And hopefully we'll have something for HBO to record.
Marc:So Joey Kamen.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:You know, there's still, after we talked on mic, there was off mic stuff.
Marc:There's just gossip that's gone back in that place since what?
Marc:75, 85, 95, 2005, 2005, like 50 years, 50 years.
Marc:There's some, there's still some like, it's weird.
Marc:You know, it wasn't on mic, but there's still, you know, small beefs.
Marc:They can last forever, man.
Marc:Life is short.
Marc:And if you got a problem with somebody and you can't shake it, you might not.
Marc:Write that down.
Marc:Life is short.
Marc:If you can't muster up an apology, you're just going to have to live with that thing.
Marc:You're going to take that resentment to your grave.
Marc:Might not even be real.
Marc:Anyway, Joey Kamen is here.
Marc:His books, My Life with Snoopy, and the other book, Laughing Through the Pain, Stories from the Trenches of Hollywood Stand-Up Comedy and Beyond.
Marc:You can get both wherever you get books.
Marc:And this is me talking to Joey Kamen.
Joey Kamen
Marc:Yeah, I thought when you were doing that voice at the beginning, it almost sounded like Sam, like Kennison.
Marc:And I was like... Oh, Kennison?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it was a Sam Elliott voice.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You want to talk about that piece of shit?
Guest:I'm about to put my foot up your ass, Morin'.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:I tell you, I wasn't talking about Power of the Dog.
Guest:I was talking about Joker.
Marc:My few minutes.
Marc:My two minutes in Joker.
Guest:Now, how did you... You got to actually see Robert De Niro get his brains blown out, son.
Guest:I did.
Guest:Right in front of me.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:It was awesome.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:That's a pretty good one.
Marc:But you weren't... I don't remember...
Marc:Like, I've mentioned you on the show before.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I guess that got back to you?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was very nice of Mark to do that.
Guest:I'm like, wow.
Guest:Who told you?
Guest:A buddy of mine, a guy named Adam.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, he says he listens to your show all the time.
Guest:Is he in the business?
Marc:Yeah, he's a producer.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he said, you know Marc Maron?
Guest:He goes, Marc Maron mentions you on the show all the time.
Guest:I said, you're kidding me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Why does Marc Maron mention me on the show?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm like, really?
Marc:I have no recollection of Marc Maron.
Guest:No, no, no, I do.
Guest:But it's like we ran in different circles.
Guest:I was a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a few years older than you.
Guest:How old are you, Joe?
Guest:I'm 65.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've been doing this since I'm 17.
Marc:Well, here's the thing, and I'll tell you, and we'll go back to 17.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that when I was a doorman, I was very impressionable.
Marc:I was not quite defined as a human, right?
Marc:So I was like 21, 22 out of college.
Marc:And I get that job at that weird-ass fucking place in 1980.
Marc:It must have been 87, early 87.
Marc:87.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I'm just a door guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And so I, you know, I'm working all the rooms.
Marc:She made me head door guy.
Marc:Mitzi did.
Marc:So I'm seeing the people that are on.
Marc:And you at that time were kind of in the rotation.
Marc:In 87, it was like you, Jan Hart, Karen Haber, Karen Babbitt, Steve Odenkirk, Damon Wayans, Dice.
Marc:Sam was kind of rising and Dice was kind of rising.
Marc:Who else was there?
Marc:Fleischer occasionally.
Marc:I developed some sort of Altman.
Guest:Yeah, Jeff.
Marc:Jack Perdue, Tim Jones, Johnny Dark, Larry Scarano.
Marc:But there was this whole crew of these guys that not a lot of people know, but I got very ... I'd see you twice a week, three times a week.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And so whoever you were and whoever you are, it stuck in my brain.
Marc:So you were always a guy that I was like, what happened to that guy?
Marc:Where's that guy at?
Marc:You do all those characters.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:So where did you start comedy?
Marc:At the store?
Marc:At the store.
Marc:So how did you get, where'd you grow up?
Marc:I grew up in Detroit.
Marc:In the city.
Marc:Are you a Jew from Detroit?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A Jew from Detroit.
Marc:Yeah, Jew from Detroit.
Marc:Russian, Romanian Jew.
Marc:Where in the city, though?
Marc:I was just in Detroit.
Marc:Not that I would know.
Guest:No, I grew up on like Six Mile on Rose Lawn, which is like went to Bagley Elementary School, Henry Ford High School.
Guest:Henry Ford High School where they taught anti-Semitism?
Guest:Where they taught anti-Semitism.
Guest:I know because of Henry Ford.
Guest:No, but everything's called... Henry Ford's got all the shit named after him in Detroit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I stayed at a hotel that was at the fire headquarters in Detroit.
Marc:This huge fire headquarters right on Learned Street, I think.
Marc:It's Learned or something like that.
Guest:I think that's in Detroit.
Marc:Yeah, right in the city.
Guest:I wasn't a suburbanite.
Guest:Most of the comedians that said they were from Detroit were not.
Guest:They're from the suburbs, except for like- Binder.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm not sure where he grew up.
Guest:He's a Detroit guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Willie Tyler is from Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a friend.
Guest:And Johnny Witherspoon's from Detroit, who I used to hang out with.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're recently.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're in Detroit as a kid.
Marc:Now, was your dad in the auto industry?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:My father was a, he just was like a upholstery salesman.
Marc:A upholstery salesman.
Marc:And was he like born in the States?
Guest:Yeah, Detroit.
Guest:He's from Detroit.
Guest:Oh, full Detroit.
Guest:Yeah, Detroit.
Guest:My grandparents are from Russia and Romania.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And your mom too?
Guest:My mom's from Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there you are in what you just did in the late 60s?
Guest:At 15, I made a plan to leave Detroit.
Guest:At 15?
Guest:At 15, I had a very horrible childhood.
Guest:Why?
Guest:It was really bad.
Guest:It was not good.
Guest:My parents, it was not good.
Marc:In which way?
Guest:In which way?
Guest:In the way that, you know, my parents were not that bright, you know, and I was always, you know, fighting with them and just, you know, it was just, it was not good, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was pretty dysfunctional like most comedians.
Guest:No booze or violence?
Guest:No, not with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, there was no... No, I mean, with the folks?
Guest:No, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:It was more just, you know...
Guest:Other kinds of abuse.
Guest:Emotional.
Guest:Emotional and, you know, I won't get into the other.
Guest:Are they both gone?
Guest:Yeah, they're both gone.
Guest:They're both gone.
Guest:You can talk about them.
Guest:Oh, I can talk about them.
Guest:I can talk about them.
Guest:Oh, no, no, I can talk about, you know, like a lot of comedians, you know, are, you know, drug addicts and recovering addicts and all that kind of stuff.
Guest:And mine's more of a sex addiction.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Most people don't like to talk about that.
Guest:It's like, oh, hey, how many years of recovery you got in alcohol?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, congratulations.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What about that?
Guest:A sex addict?
Guest:Oh, what the fuck?
Guest:You got, oh yeah, no whores for how many years?
Guest:What the fuck?
Marc:You know, it's like no one talks about it.
Marc:No one talks about it.
Marc:Well, I just read an interesting little bit about, you know, because I've had arguments with that with sex workers about, you know, whether or not, you know, porn addiction exists.
Marc:Oh, I'll guarantee you 1,000% it exists.
Marc:Well, I mean, but it's framing it that way.
Marc:The reason why sex industry people don't want to frame it that way is it's easy to exploit it then by the wrong people, by the right wing or religious fanatics that, you know, it's like, you know, that means they look at their work as some, you know, horrible thing.
Marc:like a drug.
Marc:So they're, they kind of are defensive about that.
Marc:But the truth of the matter is dopamine is dopamine and how you get it is how you get it.
Marc:And if you're jacking your dopamine up to get off, then it's an addiction period.
Guest:Oh, it's a total addiction.
Guest:I mean, if you go into the, you know, if you, most people have never been into like a recovery room with, with sex addicts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You see these kids, they've been addicted to porn on the internet since they're like 10, 11 years old.
Guest:They're so fucked up.
Guest:And it's so sad.
Guest:And they have to stay away from it to get out of it.
Marc:Well, I think that's the tricky thing about food and sex addictions is that you have to figure out what your bottom line is.
Marc:You have to figure out what your line is.
Marc:And there's programs that they have.
Marc:I have this law book.
Guest:Yeah, there's Sex Addicts Anonymous, there's Sex and Love Addicts.
Guest:That's a whole different thing, but it's more of a lot of those people are more love addiction and sex combined.
Guest:But the sex addiction, boy, I can't believe I'm talking about this.
Guest:And how are you doing with it, all right?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I've got like- How many years?
Guest:28.
Marc:Wow, that's pretty good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you ran away from home, basically?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I didn't run away from home.
Guest:I made a plan.
Guest:I mean, who plans at 15?
Guest:What was the plan?
Guest:At 15, I bought a van and I moved out here.
Guest:What was the plan?
Guest:The plan was to become a stand-up comedian.
Marc:Based on why'd you decide that?
Marc:Who was it that made you feel better?
Marc:Jonathan Winters was my idol.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, that makes sense.
Marc:Yeah, you kind of did that kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah, that kind of stand-up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I actually got to work with him, too.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I got to work with my idol back in 94.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Working on this animated show called Little Dracula.
Guest:Got riffing?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was the most fun I've ever had.
Marc:So you drive the car out.
Marc:You drive your van out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The VW van?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was a big Ford Conno line.
Marc:Oh, the Conno.
Guest:It was actually...
Guest:It was a mini home.
Marc:It was a mini home.
Marc:I bought it myself.
Marc:You bought it used?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And your parents were like, get the fuck out of here?
Guest:No, no, not at all.
Guest:I had to leave.
Guest:It was just so dysfunctional.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I had to go.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I had to go.
Guest:It was just so bad.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I had to get the fuck out of there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but back then, you know, and I looked so young, you know, I mean, it was really, you know, I remember being, I remember being on Hollywood Boulevard and I just turned 18 and I had my ID on and they were Troon officers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's near Hollywood High School.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember they were like...
Guest:I got all this stuff to come back to me.
Guest:They were, let me see your ID.
Guest:Cause they were like, you know, getting kids in trouble cause they were skipping school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just turned 18.
Guest:I showed him my card.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't get in trouble cause I thought it was from the high school.
Guest:It was weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I can't,
Guest:And here's how I did the comedy store.
Guest:I auditioned and Mitzi liked me immediately.
Guest:And within four times of ever being at the comedy store, I was a regular.
Guest:How do you know to go there?
Guest:How do I know to go there?
Guest:This is how I discovered the comedy store.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I was working in a furniture store in Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For your dad?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:This is a real high-end furniture store.
Guest:And I was this horny kid, and they had Playboy magazine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go up into the loft to look at the magazine, you know.
Marc:So you're jerking off upstairs.
Guest:No, I didn't jerk off.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I didn't jerk off.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But I started reading this article, and there was an article about the comedy store.
Guest:And it said, sure, in Playboy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I call her.
Guest:I call her.
Guest:I was a ballsy kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I think I was 16.
Guest:Call her from Detroit.
Guest:Yeah, I call her and I said, she goes, well, you know, you can come on out and you can audition.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:And she was from, Sammy and her lived in Detroit.
Guest:I don't know if you knew that.
Guest:No.
Guest:Mitzi and Sammy lived in Detroit and actually lived on a street called Littlefield and I lived on a street called- After Minneapolis or wherever she was from?
Marc:Wisconsin.
Marc:Wisconsin.
Marc:That's why she talks like this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:People don't realize she's not whiny.
Guest:That's the Wisconsin accent.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But it's also a little nasally.
Guest:Yeah, it's nasally too, but it's also Wisconsin.
Marc:So she tells you to come out, so was that part of the reason?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're like, I'm in with Mitzi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you get out here, where do you live at 16 or 17?
Guest:I placed an ad.
Guest:This is really freaky.
Guest:When I look back on it, how do I have the balls to do this so young?
Marc:I look back on myself too.
Marc:I don't know how I did half this.
Guest:I put an ad in the LA Times.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Young man, 18, looking for room for rent.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:In the LA Times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was really 17.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or 16 at the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh my God, I got letters from all these gay guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like sending me their pictures and shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can live in my pool house.
Guest:I didn't know what it was.
Guest:I mean, I'm from the Midwest.
Guest:You didn't know what a gay person was even then.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And people had to send you actual photographs.
Guest:They would send me photos of themselves and stuff.
Guest:I'm like, I was freaked out.
Guest:And then there was one letter from some chick who said, you could stay with me and my son in the room.
Guest:And I ended up staying there and I ended up getting scabies from the fucking bed I was sleeping in.
Guest:Great times.
Marc:Welcome to LA.
Guest:I have one chapter in my book about scabies.
Guest:I got scabies from staying in the room.
Guest:Welcome to LA.
Guest:Yeah, I got scabies.
Guest:They're like, oh my God, it's horrible.
Guest:So you go- And then I stay in this room, okay?
Guest:And then I go to the- I'm living in this room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The scabies room.
Guest:It's a scabies room.
Guest:And then I go to the comedy store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I audition, and Mitzi likes me.
Guest:75.
Guest:No, 74.
Guest:74.
Guest:Come back next week, she says.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So who do you see that first night you're there?
Guest:Me and- You want to know who started the same exact day as me?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Shirley Hemphill.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:She was my buddy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:The day she died, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's sweet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was great.
Guest:Yeah, she was great.
Guest:She was hilarious.
Marc:So you go back the next week and you got a spot?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're working?
Guest:No, I performed.
Guest:And I only worked about four times.
Guest:Then she said, you're a regular.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Four times?
Guest:Four times.
Guest:My whole life.
Guest:I was like a natural, I guess.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But you're just doing the voices?
Guest:Yeah, doing the voices and the characters from the streets of Detroit.
Guest:And I was wild yesterday.
Guest:I'd say whatever I wanted.
Guest:Because the voices didn't look like they could come out of me.
Guest:In fact, I've sounded like I do right now since I was 17 years old.
Guest:My voice has not changed.
Marc:So when you start working there, how many spots do you get in a week?
Marc:I mean, how many?
Guest:Oh, afterwards, they weren't paying you then.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:I was working like four nights a week.
Guest:And actually, I was a doorman, too.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I was a doorman when I was 18.
Guest:And I got fired for gossiping about some waitress who was screwing this old dude.
Guest:It turns out the old dude owned the fucking building.
Guest:Oh, really?
Yeah.
Guest:And Mitzi fired you?
Guest:Oh, the guy scared the shit out of me.
Guest:He came up to me.
Guest:I don't want to say his name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a gangster.
Guest:He's dead.
Guest:He didn't scare me that much at all because I used to work in Detroit.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I used to work in this furniture store I worked in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like Stone Cold Mafia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and these guys- Who was the guy?
Guest:Frank Senes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He was a mobster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jewish mobster.
Marc:Who owned the building.
Guest:He owned the whole Ciro's building.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He owned the comedy store building.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And I was like, I said, you know, and I was talking about this waitress chick.
Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, because I had a crush on her, and she was like, what's she sleeping with that old dude for?
Guest:And then she's like, Joey's gossiping about me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then Mitzi found out about it, and she's like, holy fuck.
Guest:It's this guy.
Guest:And he goes, I don't like what you're saying about her.
Guest:And I'm like, holy fuck.
Guest:He scared me a little bit, but I'm like, you know, this guy's nothing.
Guest:This guy's not nothing next to it.
Guest:This guy's what I grew up with.
Guest:He didn't scare me that bad, because there was serious fucking mafios.
Guest:He just reminded me of the- Mafiosos I used to deal with.
Marc:The Lenny Bruce Mafioso voice at the Shelley Berman show.
Guest:Hey, what the fuck?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, so, all right, so you get fired from the door job, but you're still doing spots, right?
Guest:Yeah, I'm still doing spots.
Guest:Yeah, Mitzi thought it was funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, she was like, I had a love-hate relationship with her anyway.
Guest:Who doesn't?
Guest:I mean, she was really mean to me.
Guest:I mean, really fucking mean.
Guest:In what way?
Guest:You know, I mean, she would just insult me.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:She was just mean.
Marc:She was mean.
Marc:But who's on the... So, like, at that time, you're friends with Shirley.
Marc:Oh, me and Paul Mooney were really good friends.
Marc:Right, but this is before the strike, right?
Marc:It'll be way before the strike.
Marc:So, who's working every night?
Marc:Like, who are you seeing?
Marc:Was Barry Levinson there, Craig T. Nelson?
Guest:You know, those guys were... They stopped... You know, they stopped working... I think I used to see their pictures there.
Guest:I never really watched... Boy, you have a really good memory.
Marc:I lived at the place for almost a year, and I used to look at the pictures and wonder how everybody fit in.
Guest:No, I never saw those guys.
Guest:You know who was there?
Guest:But Sammy was out.
Guest:Sammy was definitely out.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Who was also there was like-
Guest:Charlie Fleischer was there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Mooney was there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All the time.
Guest:Me and him used to work for years.
Guest:I'd do one, two in the morning.
Guest:I'd go along like at 1.30.
Guest:He'd close the show for like an hour at the end.
Marc:But Pryor was coming around then too, right?
Guest:Pryor was definitely.
Guest:Pryor was there like 75 and on.
Guest:I watched him do hundreds of shows.
Marc:Hundreds of shows.
Marc:But when did...
Marc:But he was sort of the first major star that kind of the place made its living on.
Guest:Well, you know, the guy that really made that place was Jimmy Walker.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was a big star and he put his name on the marquee and we filmed every night.
Guest:People don't know that.
Guest:If it wasn't for him.
Guest:He knows that.
Marc:I know that.
Guest:He'll tell you that.
Guest:He'll tell you that.
Guest:But it's true.
Guest:It's true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:But Letterman and Leno were hanging around.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Leno and Letterman were there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Leno was great.
Guest:Jay Leno could do 90 minutes in a clip and make it look like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Guest:He's a great stand-up comedian.
Guest:He was like the best.
Marc:Letterman's there.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:David was there.
Guest:He was like the guy from Indianapolis.
Guest:I saw him a couple years ago at Johnny Witherspoon's memorial.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's still a good guy.
Marc:He's gotten very sweet, I think, in his old age.
Marc:I don't know him as a young man, but I've done his show and I'm like, he's just very, he's got a big heart these days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:David's a, I've always liked David.
Marc:So who are your friends?
Marc:Shirley and Mooney and who else?
Guest:Oh God.
Marc:Or did you, you were living at the place.
Guest:You had to, you were there all the time.
Guest:I hung out with, who else did I hang out with back then?
Guest:I hung out with Johnny Witherspoon a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It's like my life from like when I was a kid in Detroit was the same.
Guest:I hang out with mostly the black comedians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it was weird.
Marc:You grew up hanging out with mostly black people?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:From the age of up to 11, I only had black friends and then I moved into a white neighborhood and it was the worst.
Guest:I was bullied and it was like the worst thing.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:People thought it was like, you know, it was really funny because like when I mentioned my old life to people and I say, well, I was like the only white kid in my fifth grade English class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They'd whisper, weren't you scared?
Guest:And I'm like, what do you mean wasn't I scared?
Guest:That's all I knew.
Guest:And then when I moved into the white neighborhood because I was a tiny kid, white kids beat the shit out of me.
Guest:It was like in the black neighborhoods, I was like fun.
Guest:I was cool to hang out with.
Guest:I was a cute little kid.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You were like a novelty, a mascot.
Guest:I was fun.
Marc:I was fun, you know, to hang out with.
Marc:So when you get out here, so you're doing comedy.
Marc:So what's the plan?
Marc:I mean, you know, you're getting spots.
Marc:So what are you going on auditions?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I was going on auditions.
Guest:I was when I was Alan Bursky.
Guest:What about Bursky?
Guest:What about him?
Guest:He was around, right?
Guest:Yeah, he was around.
Guest:Freddie Prince?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Freddie Prince, I didn't know.
Guest:Just to say hello, I saw him there.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I would see him there.
Guest:I'd see all these guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:But when I was 18, I was... Actually, today is his 34th year of his death.
Guest:My mentor, Dawes Butler.
Guest:Dawes Butler was the voice of Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Joe McGraw, Snagglepuss, Jinx, Pixie, Oggy Doggy, Captain Crutch, Wally the Gator.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He saw me at 18 at the comedy store.
Marc:Get the fuck out of here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was hanging around.
Marc:He wasn't a comic.
Guest:No.
Guest:But get this.
Guest:My roommate at that time, I moved into this other house and I've had a roommate.
Marc:Out of the Scabies house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Out of the Scabies house.
Guest:And I got roommates.
Guest:And one of the roommates was writing for some radio show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dawes was on the radio show.
Guest:And he goes, you got to meet my roommate, Joey.
Guest:He's a stand-up comedian.
Guest:There's all these voices and characters and stuff.
Guest:And it turns out Dawes had started as a stand-up comic in Ohio doing voices and characters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, all that stuff.
Guest:So he comes to the comedy store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, it used to be Monday night potluck.
Marc:So he started doing his voices on stage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So he comes to the comedy store, sees my act, likes me.
Guest:I go, hey, Mitzi, Dawes Butler is here.
Guest:And I go, Dawes, you want to go on stage?
Guest:And he says, Mitzi...
Guest:Dawes Butler.
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:I go, he's Yogi Beer, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw, Snaggle, Puzzle.
Guest:Tell the MC to put him in next.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he goes on and the place goes and he hasn't been on stage in front of a live audience and God knows how long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mark.
Guest:So he's going, he's doing all the characters.
Guest:The audience is, how often do you get to see Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Beer and Quaker?
Guest:And he's doing all these characters on stage.
Guest:And they're his.
Guest:It's him.
Guest:And he's only like five feet tall.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What is it with these short guys and the voices?
Marc:Yeah, these short guys and the voices.
Marc:I'm serious.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Big voice.
Guest:Paul Freeze was who's like the voice of all the Haunted Mansion and all that stuff.
Guest:He was only like 5'2".
Guest:Big, deep voice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so he's going nuts.
Guest:He kills?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're only supposed to do five minutes.
Guest:He's on like 40 minutes and the crowd's going nuts.
Guest:And then the black dude yells out, do Bugs Bunny, motherfucker.
Guest:And he goes, that's not me.
Guest:That's not me.
Guest:And then get him off.
Guest:Then they finally got him off.
Guest:And then he went on the second night.
Guest:And I remember, yeah, he went on.
Guest:He came back this next week and did it again.
Guest:Killed?
Guest:Yeah, killed.
Marc:No Mel Blanc voices.
Guest:No Mel Blanc voices.
Guest:But it was pretty funny when the guy yelled out, do Bugs Bunny.
Guest:Because they were the two most famous voiceover people in the world.
Guest:Him and Mel.
Guest:Yeah, him and Mel.
Guest:So Dawes asks me to be his protege.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And just like that.
Marc:How does that work?
Marc:What's that relationship?
Marc:How do you be a protege?
Marc:You're hired.
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:He had a little house in Beverly Hills, like a garage like this, where he had a class and I would just study with him privately.
Marc:Oh, he had a class.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He taught.
Guest:He taught.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was, uh, even on his tombstone, it says mentor.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you start doing that and you're 19 or 18, 18.
Marc:And what are you, what are you learning as a voice?
Marc:Well, you know what, here's what he did for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they talk about, well, you know, cause I had a very good ear.
Guest:I could do any type of accent, you know, um, um, dialect and all that kind of stuff.
Guest:He gave me confidence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's, it's like, you know, you know, you don't, you know, you're that young, you don't, you're insecure, you know, he gave me confidence.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:He would teach me some accent, but basically, it was an acting class, basically what it was, about characters.
Guest:It was an acting class.
Guest:It was my first acting class, and I loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was great.
Guest:I really didn't appreciate it back then.
Guest:You know, when you're young and cocky, you don't really appreciate what you have.
Marc:But you're a big fan of his, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, God.
Guest:I mean, he would just...
Marc:So you're doing comedy, but you still, like, if you were still doing comedy in, like, the 80s when I got there, I mean, you were doing comedy.
Marc:So did you go out on the road?
Marc:Yeah, I did do the road a little bit.
Marc:I did do the... But there was no real comedy clubs then, so would you open for musical acts?
Guest:I did do some of that, and I did, you know, God, what is that?
Guest:You know, I'd have to look up on my, you know, my mind's going crazy.
Guest:Yeah, I did open for musical acts, Jan and Dean and Badfinger and...
Marc:You opened for Badfinger?
Marc:Yeah, once.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I opened for Oingo Boingo once.
Guest:Oingo Boingo, that's a little later than Jan and Dean.
Marc:Yeah, that was a little later.
Guest:Yeah, that was some stadium somewhere.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:You know, my mind's a sieve.
Marc:That's a hard give.
Guest:gig right yeah those gigs are hard you opening up for those kind of guys yeah you know i mean well one story i didn't open for him but one time joe cocker came to see me sure at the comedy store i was dating this girl who was who was joe cocker's babysitter uh-huh joe cocker comes to see me yeah and he likes me yeah so and he was the most egoless guy i've ever seen in my life he was the nicest and he goes he after he sees my actor let's go
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:Come on, Joey, let's go.
Guest:And he takes me like this.
Guest:And we go to, he takes me to all these Hollywood parties.
Guest:And he makes me out to be the star.
Guest:I'm like 19.
Guest:He makes me out to be the star.
Guest:Joe Cocker.
Guest:And he's taking me to all these parties.
Guest:And he goes, you gotta see Joey.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He's fucking great.
Guest:And he's like, we're at this party.
Guest:And we're about 20 minutes.
Guest:He goes,
Guest:Let's get the fuck out of here.
Guest:I go, what's going on?
Guest:He goes, there's Scientologists.
Guest:I don't like it.
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:He didn't want to be around Scientologists.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's one that was kind of new, too.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we went to a party at his house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're all doing coke and all this stuff.
Guest:And I didn't do anything.
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:I didn't do drugs at all.
Guest:Yeah, ever.
Guest:I didn't like drugs.
Guest:I go into the... It's like three in the morning.
Guest:And he was so nice.
Guest:Everybody's doing all his coke and everything.
Guest:So I'm sitting there and...
Guest:He goes, I said, Joe, I'm going to go.
Guest:He goes, no, no, no, no, no, sit down.
Guest:He kicks everybody out of the bathroom with me and he's all loaded out of his fucking mind.
Guest:And he goes, he wants to play me this cassette tape.
Marc:In the bathroom?
Guest:In the bathroom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Out of his fucking mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Out of this new album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he hits the play button and it's like from that Luxury You Can Afford album, I think, or something.
Guest:It was some new album from the 70s or whatever it was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, sounds good.
Guest:Sounds like shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's when he goes, it sounds like shit.
Guest:I go, oh, just shut more.
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to say anything.
Guest:He just had done other drugs.
Guest:I thought it sounded good.
Guest:But he was the nicest guy.
Guest:He didn't want me to leave.
Marc:And I had to leave.
Guest:It was like four.
Marc:Hard on himself.
Marc:Yeah, it was very hard on himself.
Marc:But it was Joe Cocker.
Marc:That's wild, man.
Marc:I mean, isn't that wild?
Marc:Yeah, you're like 18, 19 years old.
Guest:Yeah, 19 years old.
Guest:And he's the nicest guy.
Guest:I mean, it was like, he was just a sweetheart.
Marc:So where does the career go?
Marc:Like, how do you like stay, like you're 19, you're doing the voices, you're doing this and that, you're doing the spot.
Guest:Well, I did voiceover work, you know.
Marc:Starting then?
Guest:Yeah, around 1920, I started doing stuff like Smurfs in the early 80s and stuff like that.
Guest:Yeah, I was a Smurf for about a year.
Guest:A year, that's pretty good.
Guest:Yeah, and just character voices and things like that, animation.
Marc:And I remember, didn't you have one of those composite headshots?
Marc:Yeah, different characters.
Marc:There's like a big lollipop one.
Marc:A guy holding a big lollipop with a little hat on like a little kid.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh my God, you have a great memory, Mark.
Guest:I don't even remember half the shit I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you do some weird kid character?
Guest:Yeah, I did a little kid character.
Guest:Yeah, a little boy character.
Guest:Who was that guy?
Guest:There was a little boy character.
Guest:And that ended up being the voice of one of the Smurfs.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:There's a voice like this.
Guest:His name was Natural Summer if you talk like that, okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, man, my voices would go from little tiny voices to, you know, I did Space Jam back in the 90s.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, it was the voice of, what do you call, Bang the Monstar, and his voice was like, you're all washed up, Baldy.
Guest:You know, that was like, you know, and that was Patrick Ewing.
Guest:I was playing Patrick Ewing as a giant goon.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, in Space Jam.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what was your first big break then with the voices?
Marc:I guess it was the Smurfs.
Marc:Smurfs, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And did you get that?
Marc:Who'd you get that through?
Marc:You had an agent?
Marc:Yeah, I had an agent.
Guest:Yeah, agent and all that kind of stuff.
Marc:So, like, how does that unfold for you if it's such a big part of your life?
Marc:I mean, you're doing, like, you never stopped doing comedy.
Marc:When did you stop?
Marc:Like, when did you feel like you stopped doing comedy?
Yeah.
Marc:I mean, stop doing stand-up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I got bored with it back in the late 90s, and I started doing... I did a one-man show for a while.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was that an honest one or just character-driven?
Guest:No, it was called...
Guest:in the hood with mrs aronovitz and it was about uh a uh it was one man i didn't do i you know a lot of people's comedians go i'm doing a one-man show what they do they do they stand up in the theater yeah the same act they've been doing forever yeah and that's a one-man show right what this was was it was an actual play that i wrote yeah you know because i've been writing for a very long time yeah
Guest:And it was about a woman, an old Jewish woman who had an apartment house and a real estate developer's son tried to screw her out of the building and tear it down and pull the parking lot.
Guest:All the tenants get together and rally her around the building back for her.
Guest:So I played like nine different characters.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:How'd that go over?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was pretty good.
Marc:Where'd you do it?
Guest:Pretty good reviews.
Guest:I did it in LA, a couple places, and I did it in a couple places in New York.
Marc:Well, what happened with the... So you're at the store still.
Marc:So where were you during the strike?
Marc:I was there performing.
Guest:I didn't cross the line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't cross the line at all.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:The strike was wild.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How'd that unfold?
Marc:I've heard a couple points of view on it.
Marc:Was that 75 or 76?
Marc:Something like that.
Marc:So everybody's just doing work for nothing.
Guest:Everybody's working for free.
Guest:And Mitzi, I remember this fact, and it kind of freaked me out because it was a lot of money.
Guest:She spent like a half a million dollars not to let anybody during the strike, supposedly.
Marc:Not to let anyone what?
Marc:Not to have to pay anyone.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, ridiculous amounts of money.
Marc:How'd that work?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I remember a figure that I had heard.
Marc:So there were people that were striking to get some sort of wage for performing, and then there were people that crossed the line, a few people.
Marc:Yeah, quite a few people.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did they ended up getting fucked?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I didn't pay too much attention to it.
Guest:There are more people that were into that than I was.
Guest:I just, I didn't want to deal with all the politics and all that crap.
Guest:So you didn't work?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:I just, you know, collected unemployment or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you don't like you, but it did resolve itself eventually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, there's more guys that know about the whole history of that.
Guest:Like Tom Dreesen knows the whole history.
Marc:No, yeah.
Marc:I talked to him about it.
Marc:But you were just one of the guys like, I'm just going to avoid the place till they get this settled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't want to deal with all that.
Guest:Those guys were fucking nuts.
Guest:They were?
Guest:Yeah, fighting and screaming at each other on the line and all that.
Guest:Comics.
Guest:Comics.
Guest:They were like angry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and just going nuts at each other.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like who?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He wants to hear all the dirt.
Marc:Well, no, but I mean, it's like a million years old.
Marc:It doesn't really matter.
Marc:I mean, I've talked to Dreesen about it.
Marc:I've talked to Leno about it.
Marc:I've talked to... Oh, you talked to Leno about it?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Ollie Joe Prater.
Marc:Remember him?
Marc:Yeah, he's dead.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:He's dead.
Guest:But he was... What?
Guest:He crossed the line?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He crossed the line and people were like going ape shit on his ass.
Guest:So he was on Team Mitzi.
Guest:Oh, he was on Team Mitzi for a long time.
Guest:And Mitzi helped him out, go to rehab a couple of times.
Marc:I know.
Marc:When I was a doorman, he lived up in that house that she had at the top of the parking lot there.
Marc:You know, he'd hobble around with his gout and like, yeah, he's like, like he was this notorious joke thief that was, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:People didn't like him for doing that at all.
Guest:Ollie had a lot of demons, you know, I mean.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he.
Marc:Yeah, by the time I saw him, he looked like he was going to die.
Marc:He must have weighed 200, 300 pounds.
Guest:Well, you want to know why he was like that, too?
Guest:I mean, he's from Jackson, Michigan, which is like a shithole.
Guest:People don't know this story.
Guest:Ali...
Guest:When I met him, he was driving a meat truck.
Guest:That's what he did for a living.
Guest:And he'd bring back a whole... He'd go, you guys want to... Hey, Joey, you want to... He gave me a box of Delmonico steaks.
Guest:Because he would just take them off the truck and give them to me.
Guest:It's a very tragic story.
Guest:He was driving a truck, and one of the wheels fell off.
Guest:And he got in a car accident.
Guest:And he hit a car and two kids were killed, little boys.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And he killed two kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:And that ruined him.
Guest:Forever.
Guest:That ruined him forever.
Guest:That's why he got high a lot and gained weight and all that stuff.
Guest:Never could process it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even though it was an accident.
Guest:It was an accident, yeah.
Guest:And that was one reason that he was the way he was.
Guest:Oh, that's terrible.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Most people don't know that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, most people don't know him.
Guest:They don't know him, period.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that was a sad thing for the guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So when the strike finally resolves itself, you start working again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You started going on and you paid your little $25 or whatever.
Marc:Yeah, because you were doing the main room a lot when I was the doorman.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I did the main room.
Guest:Now you get a little piece of the door.
Guest:Yeah, you got a piece of the door and you could make good money.
Guest:So when did this addiction start to reveal itself?
Guest:For me?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That revealed itself for me in the 94.
Marc:Oh, 94 was when you got hip to it?
Marc:Not when I got into recovery.
Marc:When you got into recovery.
Marc:Oh, so you didn't know you were doing anything wrong.
Marc:How did your life get out of control?
Marc:What was the process?
Marc:Oh, fuck me.
Guest:What?
Guest:I mean, it was like a process.
Guest:I don't, do I really want to hear, I should talk about this shit.
Guest:I mean, don't you talk about it?
Marc:Yeah, I do, and yeah, not that much, but yeah.
Marc:I mean, it seems to be part of your story.
Guest:It is part of my story, yeah, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
Marc:Because you're in Hollywood, you're 19, 20 years old.
Guest:Yeah, you're, you know, you're cruising for horrors, and you know, I'm there everywhere.
Guest:That's what you were doing on Sunset Strip.
Guest:Oh, fuck yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just like in Alcoholics, you know, like, where do I get my next drink?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Where do I get my next hit of Coke?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where do I get my next hooker?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're a hooker guy.
Guest:Yeah, I was.
Guest:Oh, but my wife's going to really like hearing this.
Marc:But she knows.
Marc:Yeah, she knows.
Marc:But it's interesting, because I don't know that I've talked to too many sort of sex addicts that can frame it in a way that...
Marc:You know, that is a recovery story.
Marc:You know, like, I don't know that people know.
Marc:Look, everyone knows, you know, there's gambling addicts.
Marc:You know, Mitchell Walter.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:What?
Guest:You know what I have to say?
Guest:Because when you talk to comedians, I like to be a positive person, you know?
Guest:But when you start talking about these people, you know, it can get you into this negative mode.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:You know, it's like, you know, it's like, fuck that guy.
Guest:That guy's a fucking asshole.
Marc:I know that mode well.
Guest:You know, it's like, you know, comedians, when you get around and you start talking about people from the past, it's like a...
Guest:That guy's a dick.
Guest:Because comedians are like some of those negative people you could ever meet.
Guest:And they get up on stage and they're saying all this negative, depressing shit.
Guest:But it's like, yeah.
Guest:In fact, Mitchell Walters was the last guy that Steve LeBeckin saw before he died.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Yes, he is.
Guest:How do you know that?
Guest:I know it for a fact.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Because he said, hey, how's it going?
Guest:And he saw him in the lobby of the Continental Hyatt house when he was going up.
Guest:I said, well, shit, I'd jump too if I had to see with that son of a bitch before.
Marc:Now they're both gone.
Marc:Now they're both gone.
Marc:I didn't know him that well.
Marc:I just knew that.
Marc:I knew him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was a gambling addict and just a... Yeah.
Guest:He used to come over to my house and they had a card game once and tried to cheat people.
Guest:He'd borrow money from waitresses.
Guest:He was a low life.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Never pay them back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Waitresses don't make any money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just horrible shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you remember when Sam showed up?
Guest:Sam, oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How was that for you?
Guest:You know, he grew on me.
Guest:You know, Sam, you know, at first I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:This guy's just screaming the shit out?
Guest:You know, when you have to scream your punchlines, I mean, it's like, you know, come on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and after a while, I thought it was funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was he nice to you?
Guest:When he wasn't high.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:When he was high, he was not a nice person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What about Dice?
Guest:He's all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Andy Silverstein.
Marc:Andrew Silverstein.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But how about Damon Wayans?
Marc:I remember seeing him when he was a kid over there.
Marc:You guys get along all right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Mark wants all the dirt.
Marc:No, I don't want any dirt.
Marc:I mean, the weird thing about this particular dirt is it's so small.
Marc:It's so small.
Marc:No one knows.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So like it's all it's always fascinates me when I talk to guys from the store because like, you know, like I have my experience there and I've talked to all the old guys, you know, about it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, and Jimmy Walker is very lucid about, you know, that management company he had and, you know, working with the Letterman and Leno and writing for those like, you know, there's a whole world there that a few people care about.
Marc:But it's just sort of interesting to me for my own experience.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:To know what these guys were like back then, because I missed a lot of it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I worked with these guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you worked with them all the time.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, Damon was pretty funny.
Guest:I mean, actually, Mitzi made us a comedy team for about six weeks.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, we were called- She was kind of weird like that.
Guest:Mitzi would do weird shit, like-
Guest:You know, comedians worshipped her.
Guest:I mean, they'd come from around the country.
Marc:From Chicago, New York.
Guest:They wanted the opportunity.
Guest:They wanted to be on the comedy.
Guest:They were scared of her like you are of a leader.
Guest:They were scared of her.
Guest:I just thought she was a nut job.
Guest:You know, because I'd known her since I was like 17 years old.
Guest:She's just a wacky lady.
Guest:She'd be in the booth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and she's like, hey, get him off, turn the light.
Guest:nut job you know and and she had all this power yeah you know and um you know and uh she says damon yeah you and so she made you made us made us a comedy team we would do sketches we were called chocolate mousse and we did it for like six weeks uh-huh and we she gave us prime time spots for six were you getting laughs yeah big laughs
Guest:You know, it was like we were doing sketch comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, then we just said, you know.
Guest:In the main room?
Guest:Main room, whatever.
Guest:And I'm like, all right, that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It didn't stick.
Guest:No, we said, we don't want to do this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, okay, we're done.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do notice that you brought a paper.
Guest:I was talking about this film that I have been trying to get made.
Guest:It's called Pieces of Strange.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's about a sex addiction.
Guest:It's in the vein of leaving Las Vegas except the drug of choice is... Prostitutes.
Guest:Yeah, sex addiction.
Guest:It's based on my old life, but it's about a guy who's an auto dealer.
Guest:He has a used auto dealership in Las Vegas, and he's trying to maintain a normal life.
Guest:Wife and kids.
Guest:Wife and kids, and he's a sex addiction, sex addict.
Marc:Well, that sounds pretty menacing.
Guest:Yeah, so we're trying to raise like 1.4 mil for it.
Guest:That's not bad.
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty cheap.
Marc:So like going back to that, so like you're 20, 21 years old and you're just living the life and you think like, well, this is Hollywood, this is what we do, this is the 70s and you're just running around getting hookers and stuff.
Marc:You know, I had girlfriends and stuff too.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, but so that was the double life element.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that's really where... Because in the language of recovery, what determines whether you have a problem or not is when your life becomes unmanageable.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So not having that, not being a hooker guy and not having that particular addiction in that way... I've experienced my share of porn and sort of love addiction, but how does that start to spiral?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It spiraled... It just gets worse and worse.
Guest:You start...
Guest:you know you're on the streets and you're cruising for hours oh really yeah okay or you're yeah or you're you know masturbating yourself into a fucking frenzy yeah yeah you know sure you know pornography and you know there's no internet then and yeah you know so you got to go to the stores and the stores and videotapes videotapes and you know you're sitting there looking at fucking videos for hours yeah yeah
Guest:And you can't stop.
Guest:And it's really a very depressing life.
Guest:Now it's like these people are on the internet for like fucking 17 hours a day.
Marc:I know a guy that was deep in and yeah, just they can't get out of the loop.
Guest:It's really horrible.
Guest:It's very depressing.
Guest:And it's like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Guest:You just sit there and you go, this is not the life I signed up for.
Marc:Well, it's interesting when things get away from you.
Marc:In terms of that particular one...
Marc:I imagine that if you're trying to have regular relationships, but you're compelled towards hookers and porn, how many times did you have to have that conversation with a regular person who was wanting to have a relationship with you?
Marc:You don't have that conversation.
Marc:Cause you can't explain it.
Marc:They just leave.
Marc:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or I mean, or if you, if you, you know, you know, I had was dating one girl once and I showed her something that I had a magazine.
Guest:She fucking freaked out and didn't want to have nothing to do with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's like, you know, it's like, okay, then you're going to yourself.
Guest:This is not, I'm not saying.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Something wrong with me.
Marc:So we finally hit the wall in 94.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was like, you know, what was your bottom?
Guest:What made, what made you go?
Guest:I'm not talking about that.
Guest:What's my bottom?
Guest:What are you, my fucking therapist?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:No, actually, I had a conversation with somebody, a comedian, and they were talking about some, I think it was SLA.
Guest:And I go, what is that?
Guest:Slap?
Guest:I go, does that mean you slap your meat?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:You're talking about sex and love addicts.
Guest:I thought it was slap.
Guest:No, it's sex and love addicts.
Guest:I go, oh, I thought it was slap.
Guest:He's trying to help you out.
Guest:So I went to a meeting of that sex and love addicts anonymous.
Guest:And then I turn to some guy, I go, eh.
Guest:I thought this was for sex addiction.
Guest:Oh, no, man, you don't want this.
Guest:You want SAA, Sex Addicts Anonymous.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So I go, okay, I'm getting the fuck out of here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I barely laughed in that one meeting, so I found a Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting, and I went in there, and I was like,
Guest:Okay, I'm home.
Marc:So you went and found a room full of seven guys who were like, ugh.
Guest:No, but they're not like that.
Guest:They look like, you know, you always think that it's like, you're going to go say, some guy like that.
Guest:I mean, there are a couple guys that look like that.
Guest:But most of them just look like your next door neighbor.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Guest:That look like, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:whoever sure so were you able to so you figured out what you're sort of like you know you were able to put a figure out your bottom line around sex and not act out yeah yeah they have like a program you know of what you stay away from and you're doing it yeah and did it a long time and you're able to find a relationship
Marc:Yeah, I've been married almost 20 years.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:You have kids?
Marc:No kids.
Marc:No kids.
Marc:No kids.
Marc:But you worked it out, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And through that program, though, were you able to sort of track the evolution of why you ended up there?
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, you realize, you know, it's all from childhood.
Guest:Most people that have that addiction have some sort of, not all, but a lot of them have some sort of sexual abuse type situation going on.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Guest:In most of the...
Guest:You know, in porn and all that stuff, you know, I remember there used to be these porn stars that would come to the comedy store all the time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Christy Canyon.
Marc:What was the other one?
Guest:Amber Lynn used to come.
Marc:Amber Lynn, right.
Guest:I remember meeting them and stuff and talking to them and everything.
Guest:Ron Jeremy was around.
Guest:Oh, I used to talk.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:He's in jail now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Strange guy.
Marc:I remember he used to have me talk to these.
Guest:Kind of a bad guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I got stories about him, but, but anyway, he used to have these girls come on and I used to like, you know, oh my God, porn stars.
Guest:You know, I would talk to them and after, you know, like they're hot looking and everything.
Guest:And after I got through talking to him, he was like, oh my God, I don't want to do anything with them.
Guest:They're just, they were like
Guest:So depressing and messed up.
Guest:I remember driving one girl home to her.
Guest:She was staying at a hotel on Sepulveda Boulevard and gave her a ride home.
Guest:She was so depressed.
Guest:She was so sweet, though.
Guest:She was gorgeous.
Guest:But she was so sweet.
Guest:She only did scenes with women for the money.
Guest:I mean, with guys for the money.
Guest:It was just so sad.
Marc:Yeah, they're sad people.
Marc:They're sad.
Guest:They were all sexually abused.
Marc:every single one of them so i guess at some point the the reason you start to get sober is you kind of like it's that's sort of like an empathetic breakthrough to not objectify somebody and understand the the tragedy of it all yeah you understand that you don't want to contribute to that yeah that that that abuse because everyone i'm out there is abused i mean you think people it's their goal in life to be on the street you know sucking off guys in cars yeah yeah
Guest:you know i mean oh it's my goal in life yeah yeah you know i mean it's like you know you know i mean it is all self-absorbed stuff you know you know so are you working through all this too right i mean you know you're you're living this life but you're doing a lot of voice work and you're doing all this yeah i'm still making a living yeah making a living and yeah doing all that shit and you know and you know you you just boy i can't believe i'm talking about this mark
Marc:Well, I mean, it sort of happens.
Marc:We talk about recovery a lot on this.
Marc:It comes up.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So do you ever do any live performing anymore?
Marc:No, I haven't.
Guest:The live performing I've been doing lately is at people's memorials.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, speaking at the memorials and stuff.
Guest:Who have you done?
Guest:People we know?
Guest:Mooney.
Guest:I did a couple of Mooney's.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, Mooney's.
Guest:I spoke at his.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He had one at the Laugh Factory, but it's a huge thing at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Guest:They had me speak at because I was one of his oldest friends.
Guest:Really?
Guest:How was that for you?
Guest:That was really great, you know, because at least I was one of the one people that knew him very well.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All through his life?
Guest:The last 10 or more years, we didn't have much communication.
Guest:But the earlier years, I was one of like, you know, it's really weird with Paul because Paul, you know, he would do all that racist stuff on stage, you know, about the white man.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was all an act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I told him at the Laugh Factor, I go, this is bullshit.
Guest:I go, you know, you guys are all thinking, I go, Paul lived in white neighborhoods.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had, well, I never saw one black person at his house.
Guest:It was all, you know, and he's befriending me.
Guest:I had no idea how old he was.
Guest:I mean, his kids, you know, were like- The Mooney twins?
Guest:Yeah, they're like a year younger than me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did not know how Paul was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just liked me.
Guest:He was a great guy, and he always kept his word.
Guest:He put me on The Richard Pryor Show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, tell me about that show.
Marc:Like, how did that happen?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The Richard Pryor Show, that's 1977.
Guest:It was only four episodes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, Paul...
Guest:This has never happened in the history of network television.
Guest:No one on that cast had to audition.
Guest:No one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was just given the part.
Marc:They knew you could do it.
Marc:And they pulled them all from the comedy store.
Marc:It was you, Bernhard, Robin.
Guest:Robin Williams with Johnny Witherspoon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tim Reed.
Guest:Yeah, Tim Reed.
Guest:Who else?
Guest:You'd have to look it up on Wikipedia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot, a lot of guys.
Guest:Oh, Vic Dunlap.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Vic Dunlap.
Marc:Who passed away.
Guest:He was sweet guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Known him since I was 18.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Those guys, uh, yeah.
Guest:And, and we didn't have to audition.
Guest:He just put me in a couple of sketches and, and, you know, hanging out.
Guest:Who was writing Paul and, and Paul and prior.
Guest:And, um, I, I don't know who else was, what other writers were.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, and, uh,
Guest:But it was a lot of fun.
Guest:It was a good learning experience.
Guest:And Paul would write a sketch for me.
Guest:The white guy who wants to be black.
Guest:That was your part over and over again?
Guest:One of the parts.
Marc:That's funny.
Guest:A little sketch.
Guest:And I remember I did one sketch, and I ad-libbed something, and I got a huge laugh, and it was cut out.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:That's happened to me a few times in stuff where I got a huge laugh right off.
Guest:Or I upstaged somebody and it would be gone.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Was that at CBS?
Marc:Where was it?
Marc:At NBC.
Marc:At NBC.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I remember watching it pretty recently because there was a bunch of stuff of Richard showing up at the show, right?
Marc:Isn't there like bits and pieces where- It's been so long since I've seen that stuff.
Marc:Oh, oh, oh.
Marc:But that was the first big TV show, right?
Guest:Yeah, the first thing I did.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And Paul, what about that roast?
Guest:Oh, that roast was insane.
Guest:I didn't get to be in that.
Guest:I didn't get to be in that.
Guest:That seemed like crazy.
Guest:I just had small little sketches, like two or three.
Marc:Right, because that was the roast.
Marc:The roast was fucking insane.
Marc:It's hard to find.
Marc:It was not television.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, because they were all talking about him real sweet.
Guest:And then he gets up there and rips everybody a new fucking.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Richard.
Guest:Richard rips everybody a new fucking asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like it was on fucking believe.
Guest:Pryor was funny.
Guest:Richard was just as funny offstage as he was on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I mean, just talking to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you make you laugh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, he would do shit.
Guest:I remember one time we were in the hallway of the comedy store.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he starts telling this story about this white guy that was performing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is all coming back to me.
Guest:People don't know these.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:We're standing in the hallway at the back of the comedy store there.
Guest:By the phone.
Guest:By the phone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, and Richard's telling us this story.
Guest:Me, I'm standing there.
Guest:I think Mooney's there.
Guest:And he starts telling us this story about some white guy who was auditioning at the Apollo Theater playing guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some redneck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's going, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, my guitar.
Guest:And he said they didn't like him.
Guest:They're booing him.
Guest:And they had the microphone.
Guest:He said it went down into the floor.
Guest:to get him off, and he starts pretending he's the guy, and he's singing all the way down to the floor with the microphone.
Guest:And just the way he did it, it was so fucking funny.
Guest:Acting it out.
Guest:Acting it out.
Guest:And it would just make me laugh so hard.
Guest:He just made me laugh.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:Just hanging out.
Guest:But I wasn't one of the guys that got to go to his house or anything.
Guest:There was a house he had in Northrop.
Guest:He was the opposite of Paul.
Guest:Paul had mostly white friends.
Guest:Richard, I don't really think, hung out with too many people.
Marc:White dudes.
Guest:White chicks, but not white dudes.
Marc:But you and Paul, like, you know, Paul was always interesting.
Marc:You know, he had an act, but he seemed like a different kind of guy off stage.
Marc:I can only imagine what he would have been personally.
Guest:Very sweet guy.
Guest:He did it on purpose.
Marc:I know.
Guest:He would scare white guys on purpose.
Guest:And I knew this from the beginning.
Guest:So, like, people would say, Joe, you hang out with Mooney?
Guest:I'm like, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Because he knew I was a real guy from Detroit.
Guest:He wouldn't have hung out with me if I wasn't.
Guest:So here's a story.
Guest:I actually told this at the Laugh Factory during the thing.
Guest:For one of the first gigs I ever had, paying gigs as a stand-up, I was like, this is before the Richard Pryor show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Paul, there was no clubs to play.
Guest:So Paul was from the Bay Area.
Guest:And he always pretended like I'm from the ghetto and all this stuff.
Guest:So he got these little one-nighters.
Guest:He'd book them out?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:They'd hire them.
Guest:No, he booked it for me and him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:That he found up in the Bay Area.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So we drive up.
Guest:He had this old Jaguar that fucking sucked up oil every fucking- I remember the Cadillac.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He should drive Mitzi's Cadillac.
Marc:That one with the Comedy Store logo on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, go ahead.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So we go up there to the Bay Area.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I stay at his mom's house.
Guest:We stay at his mom's house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His mom's house.
Guest:It's a nicer neighborhood than I ever lived in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, you know, he pretended he was like from the ghetto or something.
Yeah.
Guest:It was like, you know, leave it to Beaver Home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like in like Presidio Heights or some shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like a really nice neighborhood.
Guest:And his mom looked young as him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like his sister.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we go to these gigs and there's this comedian and there was this one comedian.
Guest:I'm not going to say his name because I don't like him.
Guest:But he's still an asshole.
Guest:And he's like, he was just starting out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like a real cocky fuck.
Guest:And Mooney just grabs him and goes, no, no, no, you introduced me like this, brother.
Guest:No, no, no, no, no, and don't say anything, don't deviate from what I tell you.
Guest:And he goes, okay, yes, yes, Mr. Mooney, yes, Mr. Mooney.
Guest:And then he walks away and Paul goes, Joey, did I scare him?
Guest:He goes, like, just like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he was always doing that because he didn't like the guy.
Guest:The guy was a dick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's still a dick.
Guest:He's still a dick.
Guest:And we went and did these little gigs.
Guest:It was a lot of fun.
Guest:And I don't even remember what I got paid.
Guest:And on the way back, we went to his grandmother's house and she made us fried chicken.
Guest:She lived like in Oakland.
Guest:She made us a big bag of fried chicken.
Guest:It was a...
Guest:She put it in a paper bag, and we're eating the fried chicken on the freeway and throwing the bones out the window at the way back.
Guest:And he goes, Joey, give me that bag.
Guest:Don't eat all that chicken, Joey.
Guest:It was pretty funny.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, it's interesting that he was able to, like, you know, he was, like, I guess at that point, you know, learning how to be scary.
Guest:Well, he was doing that.
Guest:It was just an intimidation thing, and he would laugh about it.
Guest:But those guys were, you know, they just couldn't spot it.
Guest:You know, they just were intimidated by black.
Marc:Well, that was it became his tone.
Marc:His comedic tone was really that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, he would do the, you know, the white man, black guy thing.
Guest:And, you know, I mean, he was married to a white lady, you know, he had one white wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I don't know what his private life.
Marc:Oh, I know all about it.
Marc:It seems to be, you know, a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But, no, you know, he was married several times.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And he had a bunch of different kids.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And, you know.
Marc:And what about Robin?
Marc:Did you have a relationship with Robin?
Guest:Yeah, well, Robin, you know, I stayed away from the guy.
Guest:I mean, he used to steal material.
Guest:I mean, he stole my material.
Guest:He stole one of my bits and did it on the Mork and Mindy pilot.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, it was on the pilot.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And I got really pissed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he gave me a check for $300, and I'll never forget.
Guest:He goes, don't cash it till Tuesday.
Guest:And I was really fucking angry at the guy.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Really angry at the guy.
Marc:Did you guys get into a big fight?
Guest:Well, I didn't, I'm not going to, I don't, I'm not physical.
Guest:I'm not a big guy.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:You know, but, uh, no, I just didn't, you know, I just didn't, you know, you know, it was the fact, you know, you know, he did that a lot then he stole from a lot of people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and he just give people checks and think that was, but the thing is he only stole from people that he could get it away from.
Guest:You didn't see him stealing from George Carlin or, you know, or, um, Oh, you're saying people that no one knew.
Guest:No one knew or people that needed money.
Guest:And some people pay their rent just from him stealing their jokes.
Guest:But the whole thing is, and I talk about this in the book, he would steal jokes.
Guest:He would steal your joke, do it on a Tonight Show.
Guest:Then you do your joke and people think you stole from Robin Williams.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's like Stephen King doing... Comedians, the worst thing you can do to a comedian, as you know, is steal your material.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, especially when the world was that small where it's like there were three TV shows.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So people knew.
Marc:Millions of people were watching The Tonight Show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there's your joke on The Tonight Show.
Marc:And then you do it in a club.
Guest:Oh, you stole Robin Williams' material.
Guest:No, fuck you.
Guest:He stole my shit.
Guest:Did he ever make it right with you?
Guest:He just gave me a check.
Guest:Oh, so that was that.
Marc:And that was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just like, you know, kind of like stayed away from the guy.
Marc:After all, this is like, you know, the one-man show.
Marc:Now you got these books.
Marc:Tell me about My Life with Snoopy.
Guest:My Life with Snoopy is a book I wrote about my shelter dog.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I adopted a shelter dog.
Guest:See, I had a really bad problem when I was a little boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a puppy when I was 10 years old.
Guest:His name was Snoopy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my...
Guest:Parents took them away from me.
Guest:Who does that to a kid, a 10-year-old boy?
Guest:Why'd they take them away?
Guest:They just said, well, you can't feed them or something.
Guest:They made some bullshit excuse.
Guest:It's devastated.
Guest:Can you imagine if you have a puppy?
Guest:They give you a puppy, and then they tell you, we're taking it away.
Marc:Is this what led to the sex addiction and everything?
Guest:Oh, no, more than that.
Guest:More than that.
Marc:Horrible shit.
Guest:So at the age of 40, I adopted this dog from the Burbank Animal Shelter.
Guest:And the book is called My Life with Snoopy.
Guest:How One Shelter Dog's Love Changed a Man's Life and Other Tales of Adventure.
Guest:It's about my 13-year relationship.
Guest:Because when he died, it was like my kid died.
Guest:It's like you and your cats.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:I was devastated.
Guest:I was suicidal.
Guest:So I wrote this book about him and it's all my adventures with him.
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:It's a very...
Guest:kid-friendly book.
Guest:Oh, that's sweet.
Guest:My autobiography is not a kid-friendly book, but The Life with Snoopy is a- And what's this video with The Life with Snoopy?
Guest:No, that's the audio book.
Marc:Oh, it's just the audio book.
Guest:Yeah, on CDs.
Marc:Oh, well, when did you do that?
Guest:After I wrote the book, I did it on audio.
Guest:Well, when did you write the book?
Guest:How long ago?
Guest:That was 2013.
Guest:Oh, you got a new dog?
Guest:No, I haven't got a dog since.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I know I was so devastated.
Guest:It's like I'm scared.
Guest:I should get another dog.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Marc:You should.
Marc:So what do you spend your days doing, Joey?
Marc:Voice over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, writing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Trying to get this movie made.
Guest:And trying to get this movie made.
Guest:Yeah, get this movie made.
Guest:So if you know anybody with 1.4 million wants to make a sex addiction movie, just let me know.
Marc:We'll put our feelers out there.
Marc:We'll put our feelers out there.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's been challenging.
Guest:It's different, it's good.
Guest:I've been writing screenplays for a very long time.
Marc:And he sold a few and that never got made?
Guest:Just options and that kind of thing.
Guest:Show business.
Guest:Show business.
Marc:I mean, you've written, so you know.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's just interesting to talk to a guy where you're a big comic for a long time, but show business, there's a million different things that we do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, it's a great story.
Marc:Cause I talked to like, you know who I talked to?
Marc:You remember Billy Braver?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was not the greatest story.
Marc:It was a little sad, you know, but like, you know, like you, you just keep chipping away.
Marc:You seem well.
Guest:No, I'm doing great.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I feel great.
Guest:You know, I mean, uh, uh, it's, it's show business.
Guest:I chose it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I could have been a stockbroker making a lot of money, but, uh, I don't want to do that shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course not.
Marc:Well, I'm glad we did this.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Marc:You too.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Thank you for having me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was Joey Kamen.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Glad I got a chance to talk to him.
Marc:For all Mark Maron related things, go to wtfpod.com slash tour if you want to know the tour dates.
Marc:Now I'm going to play my new guitar in the same old way that I always play the guitar.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I do.
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Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey LaFonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.