Episode 151 - Carl LaBove
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this, what-the-fuckers, what-the-fuck-buddies, what-the-fuck-ineers, what-the-fuck-nicks, what-the-fuck-a-ricans, whatever the fuck you want to call yourselves.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:I am Marc Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am here.
Marc:This is a big show for me.
Marc:Today's guest is Carl LeBeau.
Marc:If you don't know who Carl LeBeau is...
Marc:He was Sam Kennison's best friend in Sam Kennison's opening act and one of my mortal enemies for a brief period in time in my mind that I will explain in a minute.
Marc:So where am I today?
Marc:I have not slept.
Marc:It was a rough two days.
Marc:I did the show in upstate New York with Huge and...
Marc:Kurt Braun-Haller.
Marc:I can't pronounce his last name.
Marc:I feel bad.
Marc:Very funny guy.
Marc:We had a great show up there at State of Ithaca.
Marc:Ithaca State, the theater.
Marc:The State Theater in Ithaca.
Marc:Holy fuck.
Marc:Very good times.
Marc:Thank you all you WTFers that came out.
Marc:All you what the fuckers.
Marc:I don't have to say WTFers.
Marc:I'm here and I'm on the mic.
Marc:I'm not writing it down.
Marc:A lot of nice gifts, cupcakes, candied pears, very lovely homemade chocolate maple things that a woman gave me with a beautiful poem.
Marc:And I talked to you guys before the show.
Marc:Lovely night.
Marc:And then the next day I was to fly out from Ithaca Airport at noon, got snowed in.
Marc:There are two flights leaving Ithaca Airport, two flights that seat about 40 people operated by Delta, operated by another airline, snowed in, no flights.
Marc:Best they could do the next day.
Marc:But those two flights were packed.
Marc:How about Syracuse?
Marc:Fine.
Marc:How about a 636 out of Syracuse?
Marc:Great.
Marc:How about I get up to take a cab at 3 in the morning?
Marc:Didn't sleep.
Marc:That would be last night.
Marc:Spent the entire night.
Marc:Swept for three hours from 8 to 11.
Marc:That was dumb.
Marc:Woke up.
Marc:Turned on the cooking channel.
Marc:Watched about four or five drive-ins, diners, and dives.
Marc:One Iron Chef.
Marc:Just food porn all night.
Marc:Took the cab up, had an amazing cab ride for $145 an hour and a half.
Marc:Got an amazing story from the cab driver about being a musician, being divorced, being in Katrina, coming back to Ithaca.
Marc:Just a heartbreak of the artistic life.
Marc:Great guy, Leo.
Marc:Made it from Syracuse to Atlanta, got to Atlanta, get to the gate, waited two hours before the flight.
Marc:Sorry, plane's broken.
Marc:What?
Marc:Three hours.
Marc:Wait.
Marc:Another plane.
Marc:Another gate.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Hour into that.
Marc:Got on the plane.
Marc:Hold on a minute.
Marc:There's barf on a seat in the back.
Marc:Someone's not going to sit down.
Marc:So I'm thinking someone barfed on the plane.
Marc:No.
Marc:It was barf from the previous flight that was left on the plane by the cleaning crew.
Marc:Two hours.
Marc:They had to replace the carpet.
Marc:Delta Airlines.
Marc:Thank you for eating two days of my life.
Marc:Those of you who witnessed my tweeting and enough with the rules about tweeting.
Marc:Who the fuck makes rules?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:What's it all about?
Marc:Oh, let me let me just deliver like three or four, you know, wrought over turns of phrases a day and maybe three snarky word doodles for you to enjoy that have hash marks to things that are also funny hash mark punchlines.
Marc:And then I'm adorable.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:If I can't blast away, then I won't do it.
Marc:If you don't like me blasting away on Twitter, go somewhere else.
Marc:Listen to me making a stand about my Twitter freedom.
Marc:Fucking ridiculous.
Marc:There are people fighting for righteous endeavors in Wisconsin.
Marc:Here I am.
Marc:I can say whatever I want on Twitter.
Marc:Yeah, I'm a real, real man.
Marc:Got real labor issues.
Marc:Fucking shameful.
Marc:All right, let's get to today's episode.
Marc:I'm tired.
Marc:I'm worked up.
Marc:And this is an important episode for me because Carl Lebeau played an important part of my life, played an important part of my comedy life, played an important part in my maturing as a person in some way.
Marc:The first time I came to Los Angeles, I was 22 years old.
Marc:I just spent five years as an undergrad.
Marc:The last year basically working on building my alcoholism and drug problem into something formidable.
Marc:Something I could be proud of.
Marc:Went home for three months after school.
Marc:And I was like, I'm going to be a comic.
Marc:I'm going to L.A.
Marc:So I left New Mexico with an eight ball, some booze.
Marc:drove to los angeles within a couple months i got a job at the comedy store as a doorman thought i was king shit didn't have much material but knew i wanted to do it had five minutes six minutes but i was i was there i was uh i was sort of a drug king in my mind like i could handle my shit i'm fucking mr rock and roll i'm at the comedy store maybe a month carl labove was uh
Marc:Was back from the road.
Marc:He was opening for Kennison.
Marc:Who, who minds you at the beginning?
Marc:I was not a fan of when I first saw Kennison on TV.
Marc:I didn't, uh, didn't do much for me.
Marc:I said, all right, I get it.
Marc:He screams.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I meet Carl.
Marc:And he looks into my eyes and says, you're, you're a doorman.
Marc:Oh, I was a doorman.
Marc:Sam was a doorman.
Marc:We were all doorman.
Marc:You're all right, Marin.
Marc:I'm going to give you my watch.
Okay.
Marc:I don't know what the hell that meant.
Marc:I'm going to tell Sam about you, he said.
Marc:I didn't know what that meant.
Marc:What did it mean?
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:Was it an initiation?
Marc:So Sam comes back and I ended up sitting up all night with him doing coke.
Marc:And then I get sucked into this world of cocaine and Kenison.
Marc:The guy was like a human meteor.
Marc:Blast right into your synapses, into your soul.
Marc:Take over your body.
Marc:You will just be a Kenison puppet, an anger puppet.
Marc:You're in the school of the Sam.
Marc:And looking back on it, I was one of those guys.
Marc:You know, my dad wasn't around.
Marc:I'm not complaining.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:But there was some part of me that I always looked up to people that had a lot of fucking momentum, that had a lot of personality.
Marc:I was like, yeah, I want to be like that guy.
Marc:I want to be around that guy.
Marc:So I got sucked into this mess, 22 years old, fucked up on the yayo,
Marc:Lost my mind.
Marc:Legitimately lost my mind.
Marc:Coked myself into psychosis.
Marc:Was drifting away.
Marc:And I became aware that these guys were fucking with my head.
Marc:Whether they knew it or not.
Marc:Whether it was on purpose.
Marc:It just became a big mind fuck.
Marc:And Carl and Sam were in on it.
Marc:In my mind.
Marc:And I resented them when I left LA.
Marc:With everything that would fit into my car.
Marc:Hearing voices in my head.
Marc:Paid off the drug dealer, bought some cocaine, got the fuck out.
Marc:And I thought things were chasing me.
Marc:And I thought two of those things were going to be Sam and Carl.
Marc:I didn't know what was going to happen, but I was fucking out.
Marc:I had given them some sort of mystical power because I was nuts.
Marc:And man, after Sam died, all I wanted to do was go piss on his grave and get it on tape.
Marc:But that went away.
Marc:And Carl I ran into a couple times and that went away.
Marc:But these guys were part of the most difficult, fucked up part of my life.
Marc:I almost lost my mind for good.
Marc:I almost lost my life.
Marc:And this guy I'm going to talk to today was part of it.
Marc:It was a long time ago.
Marc:24 years or so ago.
Marc:And now Sam's dead.
Marc:Carl's got something else he wants to talk about.
Marc:I am going to talk to him about some of the stuff that's on my mind, some of the stuff I felt.
Marc:Get a little closure there and talk about his issue.
Marc:He's on a quest for his own justice around something that you'll find out on the show if you don't know already.
Marc:And I needed a little closure just to find out whether or not these guys set out to destroy me.
Marc:Honestly.
Marc:So that's going to happen right now when I talk to Carl LeBeau.
Marc:It's weird that this is relatively emotional for me.
Marc:Carl LeBeau is in the garage.
Marc:Carl LeBeau...
Marc:Who I never thought I'd talk to again.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Why not?
Marc:Move that thing in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like it's radio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I mean, the weird thing is, is that, you know, my memories of that time and, you know, Carl was, you were Sam's, Sam Kennison's opening act and best friend for years.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And when I met you, we were all just comics, I think, at that time, right?
Guest:Or Sam was just hit.
Marc:Yeah, I think he was just about to hit.
Marc:And I came into the comedy store, long-haired, fresh out of college, thinking I knew everything.
Marc:And I got a job as a doorman.
Marc:And everybody was talking about Sam.
Marc:And at that time, I really had no idea the impact of Sam or what it even meant, what Kennison meant.
Right.
Marc:and i'm at the comedy store must have been the first or second week i'm there and then i meet you you're sam's opening guy and we start talking and then uh you know you guys and you're intense you know sam was intense but you got right into my head somehow and you're like oh yeah man we were all doormen uh-huh and then you gave me your watch
Marc:I don't know why, but because I was so out of my fucking mind, I'm like, all right, he's trusting me with the watch.
Marc:What does this imply?
Marc:And it was like, you were like, Sam was on the road, you'd come back early, and he had gone somewhere else, and you were like, well, you're gonna have to have this sit down with Sam.
Marc:and there was this element to it now and i saw you perform and of course like after i saw you perform i was like because i had no idea what it meant to be a comic i saw your stuff i saw you know the adventures of red west elvis's best friend i saw the aging actor bit and i was like dude you should be a performance artist like i was all college you know and you guys all fucking just indulge me but then i got sucked into probably the most confusing chaotic fucked up time of my life okay
Guest:I've heard many stories out there, but I've never got to talk to you about that.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:No, uh-uh.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Well, I just heard that you left L.A.
Guest:because of us and a hit on you or something like that.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:The myth has gotten that big that there was a hit out on me by the Kennison clan?
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:Well, no, I mean, the interesting thing was I was I was fairly impressionable, but fairly cocky.
Marc:And and I, you know, right away, the dynamic between you and Sam, it was primarily you and Sam, you know, and Christy was around your wife at the time.
Marc:I didn't meet her.
Marc:But there was definitely a sort of loaded, dark, mystical brotherhood dynamic.
Marc:Was there not?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we started together and shook hands and said, no one's going to take us down.
Guest:We're going to make it.
Guest:We're going to be Blush and Ackroyd.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So to move from, you know, Texas, from Houston where we were at.
Guest:We were there a year and we were the big fish in a small pond, you know.
Guest:At the workshop.
Guest:We had done it.
Guest:Yeah, we'd done it.
Guest:And we moved out and got jobs as doormen.
Guest:And so we had to walk 10 miles to that job from the Barham Oakwood Garden Apartments.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had no gas for the car.
Guest:So me and Sam would walk that 10-mile stretch, which took a little over two hours, and we started carrying guns and knives because we walked through some pretty bad neighborhoods.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we were the only doorman.
Guest:No.
Guest:Pull a knife out every once in a while.
Guest:But Mitzi found out, and that's what started the bad boy's image for us at the club, is that we weren't allowed to carry knives and guns, which is something you don't usually say to comics.
Guest:You guys aren't allowed to carry knives and guns here, Andy.
Marc:But didn't you have an outlaw image in the sense that when you guys were at the Houston workshop, for people who don't know, that I think that this period of comedy that you and Sam and the outlaws... Well, Hicks obviously gets celebrated a lot.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it seems that Sam on some level gets a little bit dismissed as being some product of the 80s and not getting really...
Marc:fully reckoning with the momentum of what you guys were doing.
Marc:But what was that like, I mean, in Houston?
Marc:Because that was an important chunk of time.
Marc:You guys toured as outlaws.
Guest:Well, actually, they called us that.
Guest:You know, we'd come in and do our set.
Guest:There was only 12 of us at the time.
Guest:And who was that?
Marc:The bulk of them, if you can remember.
Marc:Oh, gosh, okay.
Marc:Well, there was you and Sam and Epstein, Steve Epstein.
Marc:Hicks was like 12.
Marc:Bob Barber.
Marc:Bob Barber.
Marc:How old was Bill?
Marc:Riley Barber.
Marc:Riley Barber and Tracy.
Marc:Well, let's see.
Guest:I was 19 or 20, so Bill was three or four years younger than me.
Marc:And he was there with you guys.
Guest:Yeah, and what was funny about him is that he did a set and it had to be done by 930 because somebody had to drive him home by 10 because he had school the next day.
Guest:So that was that was, you know, you love that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Funny, too.
Guest:But, you know, there was guys that were like Ronald McDonald's that did stand up.
Guest:There was guys that did it for a year and quit.
Guest:There was just that that that group.
Marc:But that workshop got Herman, you know, had a mythic sort of like reputation because of you guys.
Guest:Well, because we didn't want to go by the rules.
Guest:They hired a guy to come in and teach us comedy.
Guest:And he was our artistic director.
Guest:And his name was Steve Moore.
Guest:And he had toured colleges and stuff like that.
Guest:So he would set everybody down and tell them, you have to do the same thing every night so I can approve it so you can perform on the weekend in front of a paying crowd.
Guest:And we didn't believe that.
Guest:I mean, we were artists.
Guest:And it's like, no, aren't we supposed to go up and create every night?
Guest:Aren't we supposed to bring something new to it every time?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so we would show a set, he'd agree to it, and on the weekend we'd do whatever we wanted to.
Guest:Because we had confidence.
Guest:We brought in this, not a gang mentality, but we were all in it for the same reason.
Guest:So it would, me and Sam brought that in.
Guest:And we would push each other every night.
Guest:You can't, you know, don't do the same thing.
Guest:Improvise as much as possible.
Guest:And if you get lost, one of us would save the other from offstage.
Guest:And the other guy started picking up on it, and those guys that got in with us did the same.
Guest:And that caused a dissension between management and us, which eventually led to us being kicked out.
Marc:Oh, that's a good story.
Guest:Now, was Sam still preaching?
Guest:I met him two weeks after he quit preaching.
Guest:So as our friendship developed, I'm from the same ministry.
Guest:My family was from the same churches.
Guest:So when we met each other- Which was what?
Guest:Pentecostal, Holy Roller, speaking in tongues, laying on of hands.
Yeah.
Guest:I have a bit in my act where I go, it was great entertainment as a five-year-old to watch adults slap around like salmon on Sunday because they just lose it.
Guest:Plus, it's a big black band and they're playing music and it just hits you right in the spirit.
Guest:So it's really a dance.
Guest:It's a happening.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so these people work hard all week and then they get to go hang out together and listen to this great music and some brimstone and fire preacher who's going to rile them out and they're going to leave and have another great week and come back.
Guest:And you grew up in that.
Guest:I grew up in that.
Guest:So that's entertainment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I grew up in performance.
Marc:So now when you and Sam would talk about that or when he came out of that, I mean, was there a sense...
Marc:One of the things I never quite understood about either of you, because you really were somewhat mystical people to me at the time.
Marc:Because the way I lost my mind on all that blow and all that insanity was like, I got very paranoid.
Marc:Which is where some of the stories might have come from.
Marc:I don't believe that.
Marc:I believe that I left L.A.
Marc:because...
Marc:I didn't know.
Marc:I didn't think there was a hit out on me, but I do know that I was, you know, too psychologically vulnerable to deal with the rejection.
Marc:OK, but we can get to that.
Marc:That doesn't matter.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But was there a sense that you guys Sam believed to didn't he?
Marc:I mean, I mean, he did not turn on Christ.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:It's just that, you know, I asked him all these questions, too, because you got to realize the guy I met that the first guy, I thought he was the club owner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First time I did my set there when we were all there to see if this is what we're going to do.
Guest:I did my five minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm from an acting background.
Guest:I had studied acting for three years out here in Los Angeles.
Guest:And so when I did my set, I wrote out scene work.
Guest:And so I went and did this scene work.
Guest:And when it got done, I was, you know, it was well received and made me decide to be a stand up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I walked off and sat down and this guy walks up to me.
Guest:Hey, you're really great.
Guest:Are you going to be performing here from now on?
Guest:And I thought it was the owner.
Guest:I went, yeah, I think I found what I like to do tonight.
Marc:You're trying to get a job.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, because I found that I love standup.
Guest:I love that expression.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just found it.
Guest:That's, you know, 10 minutes late.
Guest:I'm sitting there going, wow, this is what I want to do for my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he goes, are you going to do it?
Guest:I go, yeah, I'm going to do it.
Guest:I'm going to be back next week.
Guest:He goes, good.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:And I went, wait a minute, that's something an owner wouldn't say.
Guest:And he goes, matter of fact, I'm on in three more.
Guest:Are you going to stay and watch me?
Guest:I went, oh, yeah, I'm Sam.
Guest:He was in a suit and he wore that church and he had that church thing about him.
Guest:He was very powerful in a suit.
Guest:And he knew who he was as an individual.
Guest:He's five years older than me.
Guest:And I assumed he owned the club.
Guest:And then he went on and he did these great bits and they were all religious based.
Guest:Jesus in a hurry and all these other old bits that he did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just thought it was so dark and so different and such a different twist.
Guest:And I wasn't even in the art of stand-up yet.
Guest:I didn't know anything about writing and putting together your life experience into your stand-up.
Guest:And we became buddies.
Guest:And I saw him every week and we slowly became friends.
Guest:And then we became the two guys that had to battle it out each night who was going to have the best set.
Guest:And then we became conversations.
Guest:We'd sit and talk comedy at night.
Guest:And then we started talking spiritualism.
Guest:Then his younger brother and I became very close.
Guest:He was my age, Kevin.
Guest:And one day they found out I was sleeping in my car and invited me into their apartment.
Guest:I slept in Kevin's closet for six months.
Guest:So he emptied out this giant closet.
Guest:And the three of us were roommates.
Guest:All we did was live, eat, and sleep comedy.
Marc:But what was the talk about?
Marc:Because it was always a question in my mind that because I was not brought up religious.
Marc:I'm just a Jew.
Marc:I am a fairly godless guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there was this idea that Sam was, and I would have to put you in there too because of what you come from, was pushing the envelope in terms of whether or not you would be forgiven.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Was that ever a conversation?
Guest:Yeah, that was.
Guest:Later on, actually, when his life turned to another direction, I asked him these questions.
Guest:But when it was- The other direction?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The drugs and the complete out of control bullshit?
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:And a lot of people's lives were destroyed because of the behavior back then.
Guest:the people he heard everybody he heard everybody around that edge but i um and i'll get to that because i think i've figured that part out uh but back in the early days he had been the good guy for so long he was raised in church yeah and uh i was raised in church i was the oldest uh sam was held responsible his father handed the mantle down to him as a preacher and said i want you to preach so he went preach for seven years on the road as a traveling comic slash evangelist he was that young 21 year old who'd come marjo gortner
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:And so he went to all these towns and he started preaching that, you know, that story of Jesus on the boat when he was resting after weeks of preaching and they wrote him out and the storm started and all the disciples for the first time were carrying that conversation like, oh, my God, this guy's healing people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's doing all this great stuff.
Guest:And then the storm started, oh, we're going to die.
Guest:And Sam started preaching this whole story.
Guest:And he said, and Jesus got up and said, don't you know who you're with?
Guest:He goes, guys, look.
Guest:And he gets out of the boat and he walks on the water like 15 pages, turns around and goes, this is what you can do if you believe in the impossible, which is what I believe in, the impossible.
Guest:And so Peter, one of the younger ones, goes, I believe you too.
Guest:And he gets out and walks on the water.
Guest:And then all the other disciples go, hey, you're walking on the water.
Guest:As soon as he realized he was doing something impossible, splash.
Guest:He went down.
Guest:Well, then Jesus grabbed him by the hand, pulled him back up and said, because you believe, I'm walking you back to a boat of safety.
Guest:So they walked back.
Guest:So Sam goes, I'm preaching that, and it's all up for interpretation.
Guest:It's like your act.
Guest:Something happens in the news, then you just twist it and turn it into your particular style of humor.
Guest:So as a preacher, he would take that biblical story, and he said, in life, we all get in these boats of safety.
Guest:Let's say it's a job that pays good money, but you don't really like it, but...
Guest:You know, you're making your money and you're taking care of your family, blah, blah.
Guest:But inside you is a dream.
Guest:I've always wanted to do that.
Guest:And you won't do it because now you're in safety.
Guest:So you turn to one of those people that judges everybody else out there and you're not doing it.
Guest:And so he goes, I think that we need to stand out if we really believe in the power of Christ, which is in us, not a religion.
Guest:That belief system is up.
Guest:He just came here to show us a better way.
Guest:He didn't say write a book about it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's just one of those cats that lived it out, but he was...
Guest:The guy of his time.
Marc:So eventually Sam reinterpreted that story as meaning that he was Jesus.
Guest:No, he interpreted it to say, I'm tired of preaching.
Guest:I want to be a stand-up comedian.
Guest:And the next day he quit and became a stand-up comic.
Guest:And I met him two weeks later.
Marc:He went for his dream.
Marc:But was there a sense of, you know, God, I hope I did the right thing.
Marc:oh plenty yeah oh plenty because i remember him paying i remember you and i and a couple other dudes ralphie the backdoor guy were up at his house i can't remember what the hell we were doing up there the one uh up in the hills not the one in malibu but you know every once in a while you never knew you sam would sleep on the floor and we'd all be up for three or four days and we were there and he was pretty he played an old tape of him preaching of him going back to try to preach like at some point he'd started doing comedy that first year right first actually for
Marc:And the whole sermon was about someone breaking his guitar or something.
Marc:You could tell he had lost his way a little bit on the pulpit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you lose your chops.
Guest:You don't perform.
Guest:The message wasn't so clear.
Guest:But, you know, I listen to many Christian shows.
Guest:I have a bit that I've done for several years.
Guest:I save it.
Guest:But it's called the Christian comic.
Guest:And it's where I'll go on stage and pretend to be.
Guest:a Christian comic who I know you heard about my past, outlaws, drugs, those stories, but I found God recently and he's changed my life.
Guest:So it's great to be working in this club as the only born-again Christian comic.
Guest:And the crowd just staring at me.
Guest:But it's an acting piece.
Guest:I'm so there and it's so real.
Guest:And I go, please don't come up to this show and thank me because I'm being used as a vessel.
Guest:The Lord's working through.
Guest:How does that go over?
Guest:Oh, it's in stunt.
Guest:I've had people walk out after about 10 minutes.
Guest:No.
Guest:And the owner has to chase them down and go, wait till he pops this.
Guest:You're leaving too early.
Guest:You got caught up in it.
Guest:You think it's real.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you guys, you know, you're kind of, and so you come out here and I remember like one of the missing pieces in my personal history of comedy is what the hell happened between him and Bill, you know, when, when Bill came out here and you guys were all together.
Guest:Bill also went into his drug phase and got paranoid also and thought that.
Marc:So it was the second one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so we'd already been through one.
Guest:So you were nothing.
Guest:At least I'm in good company.
Guest:Yeah, Bill got lost himself.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:Yeah, and he was younger than us.
Guest:And so he just thought that we didn't like him and all this stuff.
Guest:I didn't find out until 10 years later.
Guest:I ran into him in Houston, and we went out and had some drinks.
Guest:And he goes, let me ask you something.
Guest:What do you guys hate me?
Guest:I go, we don't hate you.
Guest:We love you, man.
Guest:Are you kidding me?
Guest:And I disavowed that whole story he had created in his head.
Marc:Well, yeah, it was helped along by the blow.
Marc:Oh, it takes one bad acid trip, brother, and you don't talk to friends for a long time.
Marc:You know what it was?
Marc:It was the fucking sleep deprivation.
Marc:That's what gets you.
Marc:It's not one event.
Marc:It's just that you start to come unhinged.
Guest:Of all those times.
Marc:But that was also an interesting point, you know.
Marc:There's always this idea, though, that once things got fucked up, and I don't know how in on it you were, but there was this sort of brotherhood thing.
Marc:involved and and there was this idea that you know there were sort of parameters you could you work within but once you fucked off you know once you crossed a line with sam or with you that that you know you're gonna have to be punished a little bit right and and then reabsorbed right they and that was sort of a little brain fucking in a way wasn't it
Guest:For us, it was street mentality because we just survived for five years.
Guest:So at the Comedy Store, you got to realize we were doormen like you were.
Guest:And we got picked on.
Guest:We got pushed down and all that stuff.
Guest:And then when we started to make a little noise and we started to get people that got to know us and liked us, then we started fighting back.
Guest:And one of our laws was if you mess with any one of us, this particular group, we're all coming after you.
Guest:And that's how we flipped it on the Comedy Store back then.
Guest:Because those comics weren't as cohesive.
Marc:So there was a code.
Guest:There were laws.
Guest:There was laws.
Guest:What were the other ones?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Well, we ended up breaking them, too.
Marc:I just remember, man, it was just always this kind of, because it was my job at that time, you know, you'd come up to me or Sam would come up to me and give me a few hundred bucks, and then I'd go buy a bunch of shit at Pink Dot, you know, get booze and cigarettes.
Guest:Paying your dues, being around the guys.
Marc:Well, I guess it was paying my dues for you guys.
Marc:It was not standard comic paying the dues.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But, you know, and then I'd bring them all back up to the house, and you guys would show up with the freaks, and then someone would get mad that I'd get the wrong kind of cigarettes.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But that was sort of the idea.
Marc:I saw it as some sort of internship.
Guest:It was.
Marc:It was an internship.
Guest:I knew there was a plan.
Guest:That's like when we created the Outlaws and we started traveling around.
Guest:We let Schubert and Sparky.
Marc:That was after.
Guest:Yes, but we still kept that.
Guest:Those guys still had to pay their dues on the road, but they got rewarded with five minutes in front of 5,000 people.
Marc:And what were some of those dues?
Marc:Because I remember there were certain things I couldn't handle.
Marc:I certainly probably couldn't handle a lot of it.
Marc:I remember there were a couple.
Guest:Well, we were looking for our own kind.
Guest:I mean, because we were from the doorman, so we loved the doorman.
Guest:So when we came back, we always were big tippers.
Guest:We were always making sure the guys ate.
Guest:Remember all the pizzas we used to buy for all those parties?
Marc:Oh, hell yeah, dude.
Marc:We used to have those parties.
Guest:That was just for the doorman.
Guest:That was for the bar staff.
Guest:Because we were all starving guys for five years, and we knew what it was like not to eat all day or two days in a row.
Marc:Yeah, I remember.
Marc:Some of that was instilled in me because I'll always bring food to the comedy store.
Marc:If I go out to dinner and then go do a spot, I'm like, door guy's going to eat it.
Guest:Those doormen, their families don't believe in what they're doing.
Guest:Why you got an education?
Guest:What are you doing out there living on the streets or in your car?
Guest:We were from that too.
Guest:So we returned it.
Guest:So then when we liked guys and we started hanging, we'd been burned a couple of times where guys would come up and hang twice and then go back and tell these horrific stories on us that weren't true about the gang.
Guest:Yo, they're up there and all this crap's happening.
Guest:It wasn't.
Guest:And they were just getting away from us and trying to make up stories.
Guest:So they looked good.
Guest:Look, it's scary up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it actually wasn't.
Marc:You just stayed up too long and you talked, what, philosophy, religion, and comedy.
Marc:So you were like, okay, so now we're coming up to around, this is like most of my memories are 1987.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So that's, I mean, you know, I hit the wall.
Guest:So we're two years into...
Marc:Yeah, because we came to your house.
Marc:I missed all that.
Guest:Did you go to my Malibu house?
Marc:No, I fell apart before you guys went big.
Marc:I was actually at the party at your house for the premiere of the HBO special, for Sam's HBO special.
Marc:There was sushi that no one could eat because we're all gacked.
Marc:Yes, right.
Marc:There's a lot...
Guest:We used to go to Ben Frank's, and we used to eat the biggest steak, and then the dealer would show up.
Guest:We'd all do coke and go vomit in the bathroom.
Marc:It made no sense.
Marc:Or the Roxy.
Marc:80 bucks a steak.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The Roxy was that.
Marc:And so I was there for that.
Marc:And then things started to get weird.
Marc:You know, I remember there was one.
Marc:I'm just going to get some of this off my chest because it's good to see you.
Marc:There was a couple of stories I'll never forget.
Marc:The whole never deny, never confirm thing.
Marc:That was like you guys' favorite saying.
Marc:What did that mean to you?
Marc:What was the point of it?
Guest:Well, because you couldn't control the stories that were out there, true or false.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we just figured, hey, if they're talking about us and it turns even bigger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What?
Guest:They carried guns.
Guest:They put a gun to your throat.
Guest:A gun to your throat as opposed to a knife.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And that's all it was was a knife.
Guest:It was simple.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But does it take and turn it into a gun?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there was this one time where things started to get weird, and it actually started between me and you.
Marc:Here's what happened.
Marc:Yeah, I'm sorry if I'm bringing this stuff up.
Marc:It's not that big of a deal.
Guest:I don't even know what it is.
Marc:It's all minor shit.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:But I'll never forget it, because there was a time I was in the parking lot of the comedy store, because I was living at Crest Hill, and I would go live down.
Marc:I'd go make coffee at the comedy store and listen to music in the OR, because I lived there.
Marc:It's a giant living room.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So I'm out in the parking lot and your ex-wife, Christy, comes driving up in a new red RX-7.
Marc:Says, you want to go for a ride?
Marc:And I'm like, fuck yeah, let's go.
Marc:So we get high, we drive around the hills.
Guest:We made that mistake.
Marc:We never get in Carla Bo's wife's car, brother.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a mistake.
Marc:Well, so we drive around.
Marc:We get high.
Marc:She drops me back off.
Marc:And then, like, I see you later that night.
Marc:And I say, that's a great new car you got.
Marc:And you said, really?
Marc:I wish I'd gotten a ride in it before you.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, what do you mean?
Marc:He's like, well, I didn't fucking get to write.
Marc:And I'm like, what happened?
Marc:Then you storm off and it's bad.
Marc:And I'm like, you know, what's happening to my friends?
Marc:And then I'm freaking out.
Marc:And then Sam pulls me aside and starts walking me around the park going, well, you never want to put a man in a position where he has to trust you.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, fuck.
Marc:What am I in a Sam Peckinpah movie?
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:And then all of a sudden I'm like, this is cowboy land.
Guest:I mean, I've broken some sort of weird code.
Guest:You know what you accidentally walked into?
Marc:No.
Guest:It was a guy who was married to the nastiest woman he'd ever met.
Guest:So I didn't trust her out of my eyesight.
Guest:So that's all that was.
Marc:Okay, well, I feel better about that.
Guest:I mean, I'd buy her cars and stuff, but drive her around the parking lot.
Marc:Right where I can see you.
Marc:I see you, baby.
Guest:Yeah, you're doing great.
Guest:You're doing great.
Guest:Honk it.
Guest:Isn't that fun?
Marc:Now come back in the house.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, so that's where things started to disintegrate around my relationship with you guys.
Marc:And eventually I hit the wall.
Marc:And in the story, what happened was there was that night where I think you were there.
Marc:I've told the story before where I brought that guy in after three days and Sam had pissed on my bed because of the Satanist.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I love that story.
Marc:Thank God for that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because the way you stared at Sam and he goes, I just pissed off your bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause you owe me a thousand bucks.
Guest:So I thought I'd just take it out of your bed.
Guest:And there was like 10 of us standing there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought you'd gone to pick up your brother or something.
Marc:It was, it was my buddy who would come in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you stand in there and both of you are just staring at us.
Guest:Cause it was weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you go, well, yeah, they'll have a door open and a guy go, Hey, I just pissed all over your bed.
Guest:Cause I fucked up his guitars.
Guest:And you just slowly turned to your buddy and go, see, I told you I knew it.
Guest:And man, we all fell on the floor.
Guest:It ended the whole weirdness of the moment.
Guest:It was all tense for that second, but we all laughed our asses off.
Guest:I mean, it was great.
Marc:That's comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I got weird and then I left.
Marc:And then all I heard back was that things got huge, that there were, I heard myths that, you know, there were guns around, you know, someone had, you know, hit Mark Goldstein.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That did happen.
Guest:And that was just after Sam's brother committed suicide, Sam just went off the deep end.
Guest:He felt guilty for not watching over his brothers.
Guest:So that was the start of Sam's trip down into the deepest parts of himself where we lost him.
Marc:OK, well, let's talk about that because you were there.
Marc:And, you know, in needless to say, I mean, you've been doing great comedy all along the way.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And that, you know, that, you know, even though.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But I know you're talking about we're talking about me, but we are talking about our past.
Marc:But there is something.
Marc:about this thing and there's a lesson I learned you know through a couple of things right there were a lot of hard lessons in that weird cowboy time and that insanity was that you know there are satellite comics there are people that attach themselves to people with the larger careers in them and the one thing I learned from Sam is that you know there was this idea that he was going to save everybody some time yeah
Marc:And it was something he would say.
Marc:And you'd be sitting there.
Marc:I'm going to take eight years off your career.
Marc:And I didn't realize off my life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But but it was all contingent on your proximity to him.
Marc:And I'm just curious because this happens still.
Marc:I mean, there are posses.
Marc:There are people that that latch on.
Marc:And Mike Becker, who was Mitzi's assistant at the time, called them satellite comics.
Marc:And, you know, obviously, like someone like Jim Schubert, who I'm going to have on, who I talked to, was initially a Dice satellite comic.
Marc:And then somehow or another, you found his way.
Marc:But he also found his way into the Sam orbit.
Marc:Now, in retrospect, in looking at your career, do you feel that you were overshadowed or the proximity to him was ultimately something negative or?
Guest:Well, no, I mean, look at what I've learned in life.
Guest:Look what I've been through in life.
Guest:I've got to live out my dreams.
Guest:And I met another guy that was going for his, too.
Guest:It was just a time.
Guest:I mean, it was a band was formed, basically.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you don't control it.
Guest:You go to play your music somewhere and you run into your band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:John Lennon, Paul McCartney.
Guest:You know, I mean, what do you do?
Guest:There's your writing partner.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's the guy you bounce off.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You're so opposite that it works.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And that's what happened.
Guest:So I was just going for my dream and ran into my Paul McCartney.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So now we're getting to midway through the story.
Marc:You've made a lot of money with Sam.
Marc:And then I think that the bit.
Marc:Earned every dollar.
Guest:I was the wealthiest unknown there was.
Yeah.
Guest:I was the only thousandaire in Malibu.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:My neighbors were these phenomenal homes.
Guest:There was these mansions.
Guest:But you knew the price of this.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Not yet I didn't.
Marc:No, but your bit, and this was like when you guys were still tight, the Adventures of Red West was so specific.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That was created in 87 because we had a big party at Malibu.
Guest:And in the middle of this party, Sam walked up to me and said, hey, listen, here's 300 bucks.
Guest:Do me a favor.
Guest:Go to the store and get this, get that, and get that.
Guest:And I looked at him and just stared him down.
Guest:And he got it.
Guest:He knew exactly what I was saying.
Guest:I was like, Sam, I have a thousand bucks in my pocket.
Guest:Why don't I have one of the guys that does that go do it?
Guest:And it just hit him.
Guest:He was trying to pull it on me, and I wouldn't let him.
Guest:And so two weeks later, we were playing in Vegas, and I went up to everybody and said, we all have to write an Elvis joke because it was the anniversary of Elvis's death.
Guest:And that's when I created Inside Stories of Red West.
Guest:We do what?
Guest:Now it's time for a true inside story about Red West, Elvis's best friend.
Guest:Elvis, I don't feel like doing this, man.
Guest:This is kind of embarrassing.
Guest:Can't you get someone else to do it?
Guest:You got to do it, man.
Guest:I'm the king.
Guest:I know, but I just don't feel like leaving.
Guest:Hey, man, I bought you a car.
Guest:You better do it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Priscilla, what kind?
Guest:Stay free?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, God, that was his drum kick again.
Guest:What's he on?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He's got pills and needles sticking out of his back, and he wants us to do something for him.
Guest:Ursula!
Guest:Ursula!
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Oh, God, he just vomited on his belt.
Guest:Somebody clean my belt, Rad!
Guest:Clean my belt!
Guest:I got shit on the biggie.
Guest:I forgot that one, man.
Guest:Oh, that was a great one.
Guest:Where you just like, you lean back and you flick something off of the belt.
Guest:Red, get that sprack off the floor, man.
Guest:Appreciate it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that was all based on him telling me to, he put me in a position of being Red West.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't allow it.
Guest:I was like, no, we come too far, dude.
Guest:We met as equals and we're going to stay there.
Guest:I don't care how big you get, you know?
Guest:And that's what made it special.
Marc:Tell me what you've learned.
Marc:Now, Kenison, Sam, and his brother Bill, their father was a preacher.
Marc:They come from preachers.
Marc:They are preachers.
Marc:And this is its own world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a different business altogether.
Marc:And it's a macho.
Marc:Because I remember that there was a conversation that I remember Sam having saying that I was going for the big, I was going for the satellite station.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That there was an agenda there that he was the next in line as a preacher and he was going to make it, he was going to take the family business global.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:now there's a personality that is very because this is the one thing i know about sam and the one thing that you know you wrote on to only because you were part of it that there was some charisma that motherfucker had where he would take hold of you sure and he knew he had it uh-huh and and find your weakness and he'd pull you right it wasn't hard i'm a fucking my i'm a walking
Marc:With comics?
Marc:How hard is that to find your weakness, watch your act one?
Guest:I saw him do it with the greatest.
Guest:I saw him do it with people that we wouldn't think would have a weakness.
Guest:And he'd just talk to him for a couple of days and he'd find that one thing, whatever it was.
Guest:One little spiritual... Don't think about it, mister.
Guest:Yeah, don't even... That one little spiritual weakness.
Guest:And as soon as he found it, he'd get in there...
Guest:And bam, then he'd own the guy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Fuck, great.
Marc:So I was a bitch.
Marc:I knew that.
Marc:I talk about having done my graduate work in cutting cocaine.
Marc:But we loved comedy.
Marc:So that time period, it wasn't him using.
Marc:I mean, look.
Marc:Yeah, but wait, wait, wait.
Marc:We loved comedy.
Marc:But also, like you said about comics, we're guys that we've made a tremendous sacrifice with our life.
Marc:Yes, right.
Marc:tremendous amount of support there's a lot of fear on behalf on behalf of our family and ourselves that we're entering a life that we basically live like fucking gypsies that's right and we're willing to take that that risk and then this guy comes along with all that fucking confidence and all these big answers so i mean yeah we all loved comedy but like some of us were like he can lead us yes you're right there was a leader and then and then you were talking a little bit about
Marc:The nature of the preacher personality.
Marc:Having grown up in the church, I mean, what did you learn about that?
Guest:Well, you know, I saw these guys with 400 to 500 people in front of them every night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So their job is to teach that congregation that they are the go-between between those people, their dreams, and the truth with God himself.
Guest:So you come to me.
Guest:The middleman.
Guest:And I will pray for you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You come to me, and I will heal you.
Wow.
Guest:You come to me and bring your daughter who won't go to school.
Guest:She's what, 16?
Guest:Starting to develop.
Guest:You bring her to me and I will talk to her.
Guest:You bring your son.
Guest:Nine?
Guest:With the shorts.
Guest:You bring him to me.
Guest:Dan's too old.
Guest:They start to talk a lot.
Guest:They start to question things.
Guest:Yeah, you know?
Guest:So that's why all these guys have these problems.
Guest:You know, you see Jim Baker and all these other guys.
Guest:And they have these problems with the prostitutes and the boys and the girls and all that.
Guest:It's because they get used to having the power over their congregation.
Guest:And everyone comes to them for everything.
Marc:And the phone rings all night.
Marc:And the way that megalomaniacal, you know, possession breaks down is something that you saw at the end with Sam.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Like, you know, he was a guy that would, that because of his ego.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And because he had this charisma, which comes from somewhat of a fragile ego.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Marc:To begin with, was vengeful, petty.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:You know, hurtful.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So the other side of that, that prideful charisma is this horrendously insecure and vindictive and dark motherfucker.
Guest:So when they pass away and you get to grow up 20 years past that, you get to see all that.
Guest:But boy, when it was happening, we didn't.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now let's talk about the collapse.
Marc:So, OK, so you guys go on this massive tour.
Marc:You bring Sparky and Jimmy Schubert and just Selka.
Marc:I was not part of I literally it took me a year to shake the paranoid bullshit out of my head.
Marc:I left L.A.
Marc:and I went to New Mexico and I got my passport renewed because I didn't know if I was going to have to leave.
Marc:It wasn't clear to me what you guys were going to do.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You thought we were going to do something?
Marc:I did.
Guest:You were always cool.
Guest:There was no big deal.
Marc:He got weird.
Marc:Sam was a powerful man.
Guest:No, you created it more than that.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Guest:I promise you.
Guest:Sam never had a thing against you.
Marc:I was back in L.A.
Marc:I'd gotten my shit together.
Marc:I was doing something.
Marc:I went by the comedy store and Sam was in the main room.
Marc:I saw Madge.
Marc:I said, I'd like to have a few words with him because I needed some closure.
Marc:I felt that there was something fucking I had to say something.
Marc:And, uh, and he just said, you know, I don't know if it's good.
Marc:And it was because Sam was a mess.
Marc:He was bloated.
Marc:Like he came out and it was, it's a weird realization that I'd never had when I was younger because I was so impressionable when he came out, just bloated off his game, uh, you know, clearly fucked up, but different.
Marc:Like it was not like, you know, the clarity of the fucked upness back in the day.
Marc:It was like, you know, he had lost control of something.
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Marc:And I had this weird realization.
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck, he's just a comic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And because of when I was 21 and I went through all that shit with you guys, I mean, it was bigger than life to me.
Marc:But then after a few years in the game, I'm like, I don't need to.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's done.
Marc:I don't need to salute anymore.
Marc:Or expect him to be a savior.
Guest:Or apologize.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Well, he didn't remember a lot of his actions, too.
Marc:Well, that's the benefit of being fucked up.
Guest:You've been there.
Guest:I mean, I've been there.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:There's a few chunks of time I missed out.
Guest:There's nothing we find out later we did.
Guest:What to who?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Let me put you on the list.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We had long cleanup lists, man.
Marc:Yeah, I've still got a few.
Guest:Let me get to this one.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:When people come up to you and go, that night that we, and I'm like, oh, I'm not sure I know about this night.
Guest:Especially with the confirm or deny crap that's still out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you don't know if you really did that to somebody.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, there was some shit.
Marc:Oh, people have said some shit.
Marc:But all right, so things started to go bad.
Marc:When did you know that was happening?
Marc:So it was the death of Kenison's brother?
Guest:Yeah, that was 87.
Marc:So right after I left?
Guest:Right after you left, that's when we rolled around town and beat some people up because they were talking.
Guest:And it was really me being with Sam trying to stop him, but he was just out of control looking for someone to punch.
Guest:He was angry at life, not at anybody in particular.
Guest:And then Mitzi called the DEA and set us up for, do you hear about that bust?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, we're out in Malibu and I hear a helicopter and I got this glass wall that looks out of a football field and in the ocean forever in this house I'm renting.
Guest:And I hear, and I go, what the?
Guest:And I'm on the phone with Sam because we're going to leave in like an hour in a limo to go to the airport for three weeks.
Guest:And I go, I hear a helicopter.
Guest:He goes, I saw one earlier.
Guest:And I go, but really close.
Guest:And right from the bottom of my cliff.
Guest:comes this black helicopter.
Guest:I mean, 100 feet from here.
Guest:And they just kind of stop right there.
Guest:I go, well, someone's rented a helicopter out here on our private beach.
Guest:They must have been laying out.
Guest:Now they're flying out.
Guest:That's pretty cool.
Guest:So we get to the airport.
Guest:And we got all these.
Guest:We'd sent the guys earlier, all the outlaws earlier.
Guest:So they're all there.
Guest:But they're standing there with their luggage as we pull up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we get to all these baggage handler guys.
Guest:They go, okay, which one's our bag?
Guest:I go, everything in the trunk.
Guest:And then there's two inside the car.
Guest:And me and Sam get out with the girls.
Guest:And he goes, okay, which one's your bag, sir?
Guest:And I go, that bag there's mine.
Guest:He goes, okay.
Guest:And Sam, hey, buddy, how's you?
Guest:Which one's your bag?
Guest:And Sam goes, those two bags, everything.
Guest:He goes, great.
Guest:Hands up in the air.
Guest:DEA.
Guest:What?
Guest:Oh, hands on the car.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Frisk us down and and pulled us aside.
Guest:And then they knew which ones were our bags and took us down into this because a cop station at the LAX and went through every one of our bags and looking for Coke.
Guest:Supposedly we were delivering, you know, kilos of Coke.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But it was Mitzi's way of getting him busted so that he could get help.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That's what we found out later.
Marc:But at the time.
Marc:God forbid.
Marc:Thank God you didn't have any Coke.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That was waiting for us.
Marc:Oh, it was.
Guest:No, we just had pot.
Guest:Thinking ahead.
Guest:Just had pot.
Guest:Got to plan ahead.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Guest:Plan ahead.
Guest:That was the tourist.
Guest:You don't travel with the stuff.
Guest:I mean, just a little mile.
Marc:Something you can throw away quickly.
Guest:I mean, that was back then when you used to get the stewardesses high on a flight.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:So that was her way of getting someone help.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:And did that work?
Guest:No.
Guest:And that was the tirade that we went on afterwards where we went on trying to find out who did it, who set us up, and then that was.
Marc:I heard there was a story.
Marc:Didn't they have DEA agents at the store?
Marc:And I'd heard that pictures were taken.
Marc:And the joke that I had heard, or whether it's true or not, was they thought that Mitchell Walters was one of the kingpins because there were actually photos of him with every drug dealer that came to the store.
Guest:That's the perfect guy, too.
Guest:That's the perfect guy.
Guest:It must be him.
Guest:Hey, got a little taste.
Guest:Hey, hey, got a little taste.
Guest:Remember that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that he would be the guy that, like, because he actually was with all of them, like, he must be the delivery guy.
Guest:We'd do, like, Atlantic City or Vegas or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we'd get done with the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we'd all get together.
Guest:And then all the celebrities that came to see us would come hang out.
Guest:So we'd meet in Clint Howard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all these folks.
Guest:Fun people, right?
Guest:And then you go, hey, where's Mitchell?
Guest:And he goes, he just borrowed $400 from me.
Guest:So he went off stage five minutes, and instead of meeting all these fun people, he borrowed from somebody who was already at the tables.
Guest:And you see him an hour later in the room, and he come in and he goes, anybody got some taste?
Guest:Anybody got some taste?
Guest:I got $800 on me.
Guest:So he won his four.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I hope we don't get in trouble for talking about that.
Guest:No, he changed his life, too.
Guest:Oh, he's good?
Guest:He's real good.
Guest:He's real good.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:You keep in touch with everybody?
Guest:No, just that I keep in touch with him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And, of course, Jimmy Schubert.
Marc:All right, so now the real shit hits the fan.
Marc:Like, he tries to get clean.
Marc:He doesn't get clean.
Marc:You're part of that.
Guest:He tries to get clean.
Guest:He does get clean for a while.
Guest:And then my dad dies, and that spins him out again.
Guest:So I go home to- He knew your dad?
Guest:Very well.
Guest:So I go home to bury my father, and he goes off the deep end and causes more trouble in his life.
Guest:So when I come back, there's a train wreck.
Guest:Oh, God, gunshots at the house and all this other stuff.
Marc:So he's losing it.
Guest:He's totally losing it.
Marc:A lot of coke.
Guest:A lot of coke.
Guest:And I took him to AA, and we ended up meeting Ozzy Osbourne.
Guest:And Ozzy goes, I'd love to hang with you guys.
Guest:So we scored some shit, and we partied for four days with Ozzy.
Guest:From a meeting.
Guest:We went from a meeting to a four-day binge.
Guest:And I called up Schubert.
Guest:I go, you got to come over here.
Guest:None of us can drive and we want to go out, but we need more Coke.
Guest:Oh, where you guys at?
Guest:I can't, I, you know, I'm a huge fan.
Guest:I can't, you know, I'm serious.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:So it's just you guys hang out.
Guest:I see.
Guest:I saw I see for 86.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I go, listen, don't bring that shit with you.
Guest:Don't come in and be a fan.
Guest:Do not come in and be a fan.
Guest:Come in and be really cool because we've been up four days.
Guest:We know each other now.
Guest:We trust each other.
Guest:Don't come bring that energy in here.
Guest:Okay, Carl, I trust you.
Guest:I won't.
Guest:So he shows up.
Guest:I go, Ozzy, this is a friend of ours, Jimmy.
Guest:And Jimmy goes, nice to meet you, Ozzy.
Guest:I go, very cool.
Guest:We get in the limo.
Guest:We start to drive.
Guest:So Jimmy's just boiling.
Guest:His little head's bopping.
Guest:He can't help it.
Guest:He goes, I'm sorry.
Guest:I gotta say this.
Guest:Ozzy, you know what you mean to me.
Guest:I mean, I saw you, you got 83, 84, the stuff you did, you know, it was unbelievable.
Guest:And here I am in a car sitting right next to you.
Guest:And Ozzy looks at me and he looks at me and goes, let me ask you something, Jimmy.
Guest:Do you believe in the devil?
Guest:He goes, I believe in the devil.
Guest:You know, I believe in us.
Guest:I believe right and wrong.
Guest:I believe what you put out comes back.
Guest:So, no, I don't really believe in the devil per se, like as a person sitting in a chair.
Guest:No, no, I don't believe in the devil.
Guest:He goes, that's interesting, because for the next three days, you'll have the most horrible of nightmares.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:And then he turns to me and winks.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And Jimmy goes...
Guest:and never said a word the rest of the hang so 20 minutes 20 minutes we get to this restaurant we order some food get the bar and come over and Ozzy gets to pee and Jimmy turns to me and goes how do you get rid of a hex
Guest:Jimmy.
Marc:Yeah, I made that mistake a couple times with you guys, where stars would come.
Marc:I remember with Clapton, and I was too much of a fanboy, and I got the shit look for that.
Guest:Got the stink eye for not to... Be cool, act like you know him.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, there was that whole rule, and I remember you were backstage with Clapton, of all people, and I shake hands with Clapton, and I go, I touched the hands of God.
Marc:Yeah, and boy, that was a heavy Sammy stink eye on that one.
Yeah.
Marc:i think i was sent outside but they're ruining he won't come back we all fan him all right so so he's fucking spinning out of control shooting guns and shit and uh i've got a crazy marriage and i've got you know i've got christy yeah yeah yeah i've got all that craziness going on and your dad just passed away and you've got it and it's like you're the only guy that can manage that fucking monster that sam right right right
Guest:So one of the interesting stories is Bill Kinison comes to me.
Guest:Bill was our tour manager last week.
Guest:Sam's older brother.
Guest:Sam's older brother.
Guest:And he comes to me and he says, do me a favor.
Guest:Sam won't sign a living will.
Guest:So I'm going to sign it.
Guest:I'm going to sign his will.
Guest:And you witness for me.
Guest:Because if he dies, the state gets everything.
Guest:And the family gets nothing.
Guest:And we've all been through a lot with him.
Guest:And I'd hate to have it all lost.
Guest:We don't own his comedy.
Guest:We don't own anything.
Guest:And I go, that makes sense.
Guest:Yeah, I'll sign it.
Guest:So I sign that.
Marc:yeah uh and then a year later sam died now okay so the story that i got is that you were in a car behind him yeah is that true yeah we were on our way to laughlin so it was uh bill was driving magic was in the passenger seat and i was in the back seat so the drug the drug dealer was back on board yes okay yes that's right he comes in and out of the picture many times the doctor was uh was in session yes yes
Guest:and um and what happens uh i lay down the back seat and i hear i go to sleep and i hear the the someone yelling you know watch out in a distant voice in my brain yeah i'm gone and um
Guest:And then I realized it's Bill and watch the guy saying, watch the guy saying, watch the guy, Sam.
Guest:And then I just heard two automobiles at very high speed smash and stop instantly.
Guest:And our van stopped, turned into slow motion.
Guest:There's a timing to near death.
Guest:Oh, no doubt.
Guest:I've been in it many times myself.
Guest:And I just felt that free fall from the seat into the floor.
Guest:You hit a car too?
Guest:We stomped our brakes behind them and everything went forward.
Guest:And when I pulled that door open, all that was in the air was smoke and the sound of glass still hitting the cement.
Guest:And it was that fast.
Guest:But it was just timelessness.
Guest:And my first thought was somebody's dying here because I'd been in it myself.
Guest:When were you in it?
Guest:I had a car that I flipped in eight times that I was driving back when I was a young comic before I moved to LA.
Guest:Yeah, an actor.
Guest:I flipped a car, came off a mountaintop.
Guest:Someone die?
Guest:No.
Guest:Close.
Guest:I had no seatbelt on, and I flipped eight times.
Guest:And you're just waiting for it.
Guest:I had to have that conversation with myself whether I was going to live or not.
Guest:That's how timeless it got.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:But I realized, and I go, I'm not getting hurt.
Guest:And the glass is flying all around me, but I felt like I was just absolutely protected.
Marc:But you've got a sense.
Marc:So there's smoke, slow motion.
Marc:You get out of the car.
Guest:I walk up to the passenger seat of the car, and I don't see Sam.
Guest:Was it smashed?
Guest:The front end was smashed up.
Marc:It was a head-on collision.
Guest:A head-on collision.
Guest:It was a pickup truck that was doing, I think, 80 or 90 by the time they hit Sam.
Guest:And then Sam had slowed down to 25.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So his front end of his car was just crushed and I couldn't see him.
Guest:And then I saw Malika in his passenger seat and she was in the fetal position, not moving.
Guest:And I thought she was dead instantly.
Guest:So my first eyesight said she's dead.
Guest:And then I heard, oh, and I looked in the back seat and Sam was in the back seat with his legs in between the two seats of the front seat.
Guest:So he'd been blown back there.
Guest:And he had just a little cut, a little blood on his, I said, okay, you stay still.
Guest:And I turned around to a truck drive by and said, hey, you know, get on the horn.
Guest:He goes, I'm on it.
Guest:And he called the hospital.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when I turned around, Sam had moved into the seat of the car.
Marc:On his own.
Guest:Yeah, on his own.
Guest:But he was crushed.
Guest:The steering wheel was gone.
Guest:He took out the steering wheel with his chest and the glass was broken and dented where his head.
Guest:So he broke his neck, crushed his chest and put bones through his heart.
Guest:But he was talking.
Guest:He was, well, yeah, he was going, I don't want to die.
Guest:I don't want to die.
Guest:I said, you're not going to die, buddy.
Guest:You just be quiet.
Guest:Stay calm.
Guest:You're not going to die.
Guest:There's no blood on him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just don't move.
Guest:And I turned back around to get somebody to move this stuff out of the way.
Guest:And when I did, he came pushing himself out of the car.
Guest:I caught him.
Guest:I fell on my butt.
Guest:He laid across my lap and looked up to the right and just started talking to somebody and said, I don't want to die now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I, you know, I've been to this story many times, uh,
Guest:where whoever came, somebody came to greet him and he saw them very clearly and had that conversation.
Guest:My dad saw somebody, my Sam's stepfather who I was there at his death, he saw somebody and was talking when he died.
Guest:So this was that experience.
Guest:I found a little boy that got hit by a car in 87.
Guest:I was the first person on the scene and I put my jacket on and held him and he talked to someone, his grandfather thanking him
Guest:for his bike.
Guest:And when I went to the hospital and I told the parents, I said, I found your, I was the first one there, I found your boy.
Guest:And he was talking to Papa John and thanking him for the bike.
Guest:They go, oh my God, that's his grandfather.
Guest:His grandfather died a month ago and the bike was the gift he had just given him.
Guest:So I knew I was in that moment of death and that Sam was having that conversation of, am I gonna live or die?
Guest:And he goes, but why now?
Guest:Why do I have to die now?
Guest:That was his big question.
Guest:He lit up as soon as he got, he got an answer and he just lit up his face, turned into a 10 year old.
Guest:He was smiling and his eyes lit all up.
Guest:He goes, Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And just drifted back into my arms and, and, and I felt him go and he was gone.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So I tell people, you know, from that experience and then time started happening again, you know, everything.
Guest:Hey, how's he doing?
Guest:I go, he's gone.
Guest:But at that moment, something that I got out of Sam's death that came to me in words later was that I didn't realize this, but I'd always had a fear of living.
Guest:I always thought I had a fear of death.
Guest:But in that instance, I realized I'd never given 100% to my life.
Guest:Sam had, good or bad.
Guest:He was 100% into every movement he did.
Guest:Any decision he made, he was in it.
Guest:And I hadn't.
Guest:And at his death, and I got that over the course of the next couple of months, that he got me over my fear of living.
Guest:seeing him die yeah because we all get one shot and it's going to happen to every single one of us you know right so it really put that spiritual side to me and it changed me you know in a way i had i had closure for sam's death now do you think that on some level he knew he would be forgiven if he still believed in jesus
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He didn't believe in religion.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He believed in your own personal relationship with truth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever that voice you talk to when you go to sleep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you hope things are going to work out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all you can do is have trust in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's your relationship.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's no name for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He didn't have a name.
Guest:Religion created a name for it.
Guest:No.
Guest:Not anymore.
Guest:No.
Guest:That was a belief that we all had.
Guest:He and I had from very early on.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Now.
Marc:So now things get weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, what happened?
Marc:At the time that he died, your wife was pregnant?
Guest:No.
Guest:At the time he died, I had a three-year-old.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And she was three years old.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I had a year.
Guest:I had to start my whole life over again.
Guest:I mean, Sam had a 14-year story here.
Guest:So I didn't know any club owners before.
Guest:I had only done theaters for the last eight years.
Guest:I knew promoters, but I knew none of the clubs.
Guest:So I had to find a way.
Guest:I went from making hundreds of thousands a year to making 6,000 a year Sam died.
Marc:Well, this is that thing.
Marc:This is the wave crashing.
Marc:You were Sam's opening at.
Guest:The whole machine stopped.
Guest:Yes, right.
Guest:So the whole thing stopped.
Guest:So I'm on the survival mode.
Guest:And I went from paying $25,000 to $3,000 a month in child support.
Marc:How long had you been divorced?
Guest:I divorced three years.
Guest:So I had Angelica the first year of her life.
Guest:And then I got to see her maybe 10 days over the course of the next three years.
Guest:A mother didn't let me see her much.
Guest:She lived in New York.
Guest:So I would do gigs out there and then go spend maybe a day or two with her.
Marc:I remember running into her once in Times Square.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You know, just like frenetic and crazy.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:You want to see a picture of the baby?
Guest:She really lost herself.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And later was, you know, she got doctor's help and is bipolar manic.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But back then we thought she was a great party chick.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:No, she was something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, well, by the time I'd run into her in Times Square, I'd heard rumors of things.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:So and like that the rumor was that that it was Sam's baby.
Marc:And I'd already heard that.
Marc:And when she showed me the picture, I was like, oh, my God.
Guest:Well, my mom's blonde and her hair changed at five.
Guest:And my sister's a blonde.
Marc:Right.
Guest:OK.
Guest:So in my, in my family lineage, that's there.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:It was okay.
Guest:And then, and then, uh, Sam approached me after she was born anyway and said, listen, that's your kid.
Guest:Don't let any of these rumors.
Guest:That's a part of our stuff.
Guest:Let it, let the rumors be out there.
Guest:But had you guys shared her?
Guest:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We were all, uh, you know, but not during, not when I kicked him away from our family so we can start a family.
Marc:But at the time, there was a lot of, you know, everyone was fucking everybody.
Guest:It was rock and roll.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It was rock and roll.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, so, but not at the time of us conceiving to start a family.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because that was one of my things, too, is I knew that if we got off the rock and roll bandwagon, then it would help change Sam.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I was his closest compadre.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I didn't want to be around him anymore.
Guest:He had to make a decision.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's what I got to.
Guest:And plus, you know, I was in my late 20s.
Guest:It's like, it's time to have a kid.
Guest:You know, I got money.
Guest:I got a house.
Guest:Let's do it.
Guest:This is the perfect time.
Guest:So in doing that, making that decision, he was all gung ho for it.
Marc:Now, what what what transpired to make you question the the the you know, who the father was?
Guest:Well, a year after he died, right after that tribute show aired, I couldn't make a child support payment.
Guest:So I called my ex to talk to her about how we could work this out.
Guest:And in that conversation, she started crying.
Guest:And she said, I've got something to tell you.
Guest:We never meant to hit you.
Guest:We never meant to hurt you.
Guest:Carl, it just got so convoluted.
Guest:And I go, what are you saying?
Guest:She's not yours.
Guest:Angelica's not yours.
Guest:It's Sam's.
Guest:We didn't know what to do.
Guest:do you know the biggest fist in the face yeah you could ever imagine i can't imagine it it took my whole i mean in one moment i spun back to every single memory i ever had with sam yeah you know from day one of meeting him i mean it just what all were the lies you know i couldn't believe i couldn't believe that that had happened never deny never confirm kind of bitchy in the ass exactly
Guest:And exactly.
Guest:They've been other people, but not me.
Guest:Now you need some confirmation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I got off the phone with her and I called Bill Kennison.
Guest:And I said, Christy just said that this is Sam's child.
Guest:Did you know that?
Guest:And he goes, yeah, I did, buddy.
Guest:Uh, she called, uh, the day of, of your, of her birth, your daughter's birth, Sam pulled me aside and said, uh, buddy, I don't know what to do, but that's my baby.
Guest:And I can't tell Carl cause if I do, I ruin everything we've ever worked for and I can't lose him.
Guest:That's my friend.
Guest:I screwed up and I don't know how to deal with this.
Guest:I go, he said that he goes, yeah.
Guest:So now I went into a whole self-sabotage.
Guest:I started drinking.
Guest:And everywhere I went, people wanted to tell me these great stories of me and Sam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How we treated them, how we'd loaned them money, how we took care of them, how nice we were to their families, and fans.
Guest:Thank you for that show.
Guest:I needed it back and then, back there.
Marc:And you're just fighting the desire to go, fuck that guy.
Guest:Yeah, I'm stuck in the middle because I helped create the career that
Guest:And that was my friend.
Guest:But and I'm looking at his fan who's so happy to meet me because they saw us perform.
Guest:And I can't say, you know, the guy fathered my child.
Guest:If he was here, I would kill him right now.
Guest:I want to kill him.
Guest:I couldn't.
Guest:So I had to bite it and drink through it every night.
Guest:And that's when my road appearances change.
Guest:That's when I sabotage myself for five, six years.
Marc:Was there ever a moment where you looked at your relationship with Sam, you looked at your life, you understood the life you led, that there was any empathy in you that it could have happened?
Marc:I mean, you'd both been in, you know, we've all been on the moral.
Marc:Certainly you guys pushed the moral.
Guest:Well, what I found is I went to a friend's house and spent the night getting high with him once.
Guest:And...
Guest:I woke up the next day and he goes, you're not invited over here unless you clean up.
Guest:You know, get off drugs.
Guest:I go, what were you doing?
Guest:Just blowing booze?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I go, what are you talking about?
Guest:He goes, you went into my girlfriend's bedroom last night and you tried to seduce her.
Guest:He told her you're a better lover than me and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:I have no recollection of that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He goes, exactly.
Guest:So you're not a welcome over here till you get off drugs.
Guest:And I drove home from that going, who am I to blame Sam for
Guest:when I just did the same thing.
Marc:Well, goddamn, there were rumors, dude, there were rumors like, you know, that you and Sam slept together.
Marc:They're like, that's the ones you actually can't deny.
Marc:We'll confirm that that's not true.
Guest:Oh, I remember Sam wrote that one joke.
Guest:He goes, you know,
Guest:Somebody thinks it's funny to run these rumors that Carl and I are gay.
Guest:He goes, listen, we are spiritually gay.
Guest:We'll get on our knees for each other, but we won't give head.
Guest:We'll give thanks.
Marc:But okay, so now, okay, even with the...
Marc:So you were able to process that after how many years of just getting fucked up?
Marc:Probably seven years.
Marc:Of really not being able to let go.
Guest:And not still being divorced.
Guest:I mean, I'm still in a court battle to get a divorce.
Guest:It took me seven years to get a divorce.
Guest:I had no money.
Guest:There was no property to split up.
Guest:I had a lawyer that Bill Kennison had gotten me.
Guest:And he got you the lawyer before he told you that he knew?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So I put it all together and realized we forged a will.
Guest:He got the estate.
Guest:He screwed Sam's daughter and wife out of their airness, if that's the right way to say it.
Guest:They were they were do those things.
Guest:Christie was no Malika.
Guest:OK, Malika was his wife of a week when he died.
Guest:Did she have a baby?
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:She was his wife.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:She got married that week.
Marc:So she was screwed out.
Marc:And at that moment when he had you sign that will, did he know that that kid?
Marc:So he already knew the kid.
Marc:He already knew the kid.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:He had me sign.
Marc:He knew the kid was Sam's.
Marc:There's your villain.
Guest:Had me sign the will.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then got me the lawyer that did it for free.
Guest:And I would get calls every six months for the next meeting.
Guest:So in your mind.
Guest:So it took me seven years to divorce.
Marc:And in legal mind that the action that he took was to make sure you or this daughter that he had with Christie would not get any money.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:We were buried and he got to have the estate.
Guest:Now, is that estate still kicking?
Guest:I mean, the chances are.
Guest:And yes, it's still kicking.
Guest:But I mean, he has a deal with HBO for a film and all these things.
Guest:And this should go to his daughter.
Marc:Alright, so now, how did it affect, like, how did all this, you know, once you started, like, I have to assume that when you were going through this pressure from the law to pay these child support payments, how did that affect your working life?
Guest:Well, liens went on all my checks.
Guest:So, anything I get from Screen Actors Guild, any movie, any TV show I've ever done, all of a sudden, you know, 80% of my check's gone.
Marc:Because I know you talked about this on Stern like four, what, four years ago?
Guest:Yeah, about four years ago.
Marc:And you basically said that that's Sam's kid, but you had no proof.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had no DNA proof, so just the story kind of went and left.
Guest:But I had a website, and it had all my dates on there of all the clubs that I was working.
Guest:And the next thing I know, Child Services attacks all these dates that I'm doing and really harassed the club so much that the clubs quit working me.
Guest:So I lost a lot of work years ago, like four years ago, five years ago.
Guest:that was on my, you know, my calendar for years in a row that I counted on.
Guest:They got scared.
Guest:They got scared.
Marc:So it was like a fucking shakedown.
Guest:They were like the mob.
Guest:It was A, a big shakedown there.
Guest:And then they took my, you know, with no driver's license, no passport, I couldn't start driving to gigs.
Guest:So L.A.
Guest:became obsolete to me.
Guest:I couldn't show up on an audition.
Guest:I couldn't go to my club dates at night.
Guest:I had to have people drive me.
Guest:All of a sudden, I'm the 16-year-old.
Guest:I need a road.
Marc:All of a sudden, you're right back where you were when you were a doorman at the beginning.
Guest:You were walking the gigs with a knife.
Guest:And that's when I said, if I have to go through all this hell, then I'm going to move away from here since L.A.
Guest:is no good for me.
Guest:It's a driving city.
Guest:You've got to go to auditions.
Guest:And if I can't have a life in show business, I'm going to go forever.
Guest:Find out how to get my life, and that's how the pursuit of getting the DNA started.
Guest:And where'd you end up?
Guest:I ended up in New York City.
Guest:I went to New York for a year and did the clubs and worked around there and met up with all the New York and Washington guys from my family rights groups.
Guest:And I started being around those men and being around those families.
Guest:Alec Baldwin?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I met all these cats that had been through the system.
Guest:And we've spoke together in public and shared these family rights meetings.
Guest:And I've learned a lot from the pain of families that go through what I go through because I'm kind of by myself.
Guest:It's me and my girlfriend.
Guest:But then I realized, wait a minute, my family's affected.
Guest:I moved to Texas two years ago and my brother and his wife moved from Michigan to live in an apartment near me so that my brother can drive me around and make sure I have a life.
Marc:That's a real brother family.
Marc:Yeah, that's a real brother now.
Marc:OK, so you're in town now.
Marc:What's happening now with this?
Guest:Well, now I'm doing a I'm going to the courthouse to file new papers.
Guest:It took me six years to get the DNA from the whole family.
Guest:How do you do that?
Guest:Well, first of all, I met my Angelica.
Guest:She came into my life three years ago, introduced herself to me, and we became close.
Marc:This is?
Guest:This is the girl.
Marc:Your daughter?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:His daughter?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It's kind of odd.
Guest:It's an odd spot.
Marc:But this is after not really having contact with her?
Guest:I haven't seen her since she was almost four.
Guest:Now, was part of that because you didn't want to see her?
Guest:Well, I made the decision for the mother to raise herself and to go after the Kenison estate and to leave me out since I wasn't the father.
Marc:For Christy to go.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:To take it.
Guest:And since the little girl didn't know me, it was always a frightful thing when I showed up because she didn't even know me.
Marc:But you were still the only one given child support for how many years?
Guest:Well, for those three years.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then later on, I was forced to pay after I gave up on my court case because I was...
Guest:I had no money.
Guest:So she had a very wealthy father that just pursued it.
Guest:It took seven years to split it up.
Guest:And I just gave up one day.
Guest:So I had that court case put on me to pay for her.
Guest:And then a year later found out that all these lies had been a part of my life.
Guest:And I just quit paying.
Guest:And I started my binge toward my suicide attempt in 2000.
Marc:You tried to kill yourself for real?
Guest:Yeah, I tried to hang myself.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah, from all these lies, all these stories.
Guest:And I wasn't having a life.
Guest:They took my driver's license and my passport away in 97.
Marc:Because you couldn't pay child support.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Sam was my friend.
Guest:And that's his daughter.
Guest:And she's not recognized.
Guest:She doesn't get any financial help.
Guest:And it's not just on me.
Guest:Sam should be taking care of his daughter if Sam's spinning right now in his grave.
Guest:So I'm going to tell this whole story this week.
Guest:I'm filing new papers.
Guest:I've got DNA from everybody.
Guest:It's a phenomenal story.
Guest:That's another show altogether on the DNA chase.
Guest:But I got them all.
Guest:I got Richard Kennison's DNA six weeks before he died.
Guest:He found out that Sam had a daughter and didn't even know it.
Guest:Bill never told him.
Marc:So the only one you weren't able to get was Bill, I imagine.
Guest:And Bill was the holdout.
Guest:So when I went to Richard's funeral, Bill showed up.
Guest:And after I spoke about his brother came up to me, said, I'm sorry for all these years.
Guest:I want Angelica in our life.
Guest:That's Sam's daughter.
Guest:That's my niece.
Guest:And I want to take care of her.
Guest:And I promise I will.
Guest:And what does she want?
Guest:And I said, I'll forgive you only if you give me DNA to give that girl proof that she's Sam's daughter.
Guest:And he said, I'll do it.
Guest:And he did it.
Guest:Oh man.
Guest:And that's how I got it.
Guest:So I'm going to go in and explain to the courts what happened, how there was a fraud from the very beginning that the state was fraudulently possessed and gotten and how all this worked out and let the court decide and let the public decide.
Guest:How a guy like me or millions of guys like me, we're not the fathers of our children.
Guest:And the courts really don't help out that much.
Guest:You only get a year or two to find out or else the DNA is no good.
Guest:That's what I was told back then.
Guest:You only had a year or two to find out.
Guest:Now we're looking at six years later, seven, eight years later.
Marc:But it's conclusive.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The stuff I have is absolutely conclusive.
Guest:I am 0% the father, and then I've got the two Kenison brothers, the ex-wife and the daughter, and it's all compared.
Guest:And she is a Kenison.
Guest:Now, legally, I don't think I can say it's Sam.
Guest:So it's either Richard's, Bill's, or Sam's.
Guest:But Sam was the only one that had a key to my house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So everybody gets their cross to Carrie and this is mine.
Guest:Now, how's the girl?
Guest:She's 21.
Guest:She's really bright.
Guest:She's now the spitting image of Sam, which cracks her up and me.
Guest:But she was raised in New Jersey and she's known this since she was 12th.
Guest:Her mom told her when she was 12.
Guest:And she's got a lot of sides of sand, which is that aggressive going for it thing.
Guest:She wasn't afraid to meet me.
Guest:But she's very friendly.
Guest:And she's got that little face.
Guest:Little hands come up like this when she talks to you.
Guest:And you fall in love with her.
Marc:And you've got a relationship with her.
Marc:Yeah, I have a relationship with her.
Guest:I told her her dad's gone, but I'm here.
Guest:So I answer all of her questions for her.
Marc:About him?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She wants to know everything about him.
Guest:She doesn't know her father.
Marc:And what about with Christy?
Guest:uh christy i've talked to once and uh she's moody because you know that mental illness is pretty tough and this this suicide attempt carl i mean it just seems so so unlike you you must have gotten pretty fucking far down you had nothing huh i had nothing no and i didn't have a child i didn't have a friend i didn't trust anybody uh
Guest:The you know, I have my bank account was being robbed every every couple months They just go nothing you can do about it.
Guest:No, and you couldn't afford to do anything about me.
Guest:No, exactly So I couldn't afford to fight it.
Guest:You know, I'm like the regular guy I make enough money to pay my bills But I don't have the money to buy an extra car or take a vacation, but I'm not working comic so That's what really affected my life is that they kept taking from me So I had called those shit gigs.
Guest:We don't want to do and you have me next weekend.
Guest:Yeah
Guest:And you go in there and work for it just to pay your bills and get by.
Guest:And it took its stress on me and Sarah, the girl I've been with for 14 years when I left her four years ago.
Guest:So you're in a room with a rope?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm in a room with actually two belts.
Guest:I put them together in Vegas.
Guest:Were you high?
Guest:I had to get high to do it.
Guest:I mean, I'm drunk, not high.
Guest:I got drunk to do it.
Guest:But I was downstairs, and that night somebody came up and gave me another Sam story.
Guest:And you guys did this.
Guest:I'll never forget it.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Wasn't he a great guy?
Guest:I mean, just tell me another story about Sam.
Guest:And I went, I'll be right back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I took that walk down.
Guest:I was at the MGM Grand.
Guest:I took that long walk down the hall.
Guest:I got on the elevator with a family and a kid.
Guest:And they were going up the elevator, and I just watched them love all over this little girl.
Guest:And I just started crying.
Guest:And my family was stolen from me.
Guest:All my dreams were stolen from me.
Guest:And I went to the room, and I hooked the whole thing up.
Guest:And I just tied it.
Guest:And I said, I'm not going to think about it.
Guest:I'm just going to jump off the edge of this bed and just let it break my neck.
Guest:And I jumped off.
Guest:And bam, my knees hit first.
Guest:And then I kind of slid into the belt.
Guest:And I went, oh, god.
Guest:This hurts.
This hurts.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It was horrible.
Guest:And I couldn't undo it, but I wasn't choking.
Guest:I was just breaking my talking box.
Guest:And I finally got it unhooked.
Guest:And then I just laid there and just saw it all.
Guest:It all became so clear.
Guest:I go, oh, my God, they almost won.
Guest:Bill almost won.
Guest:If I would have died, Bill would have had everything.
Guest:And this girl never would have got her acknowledged.
Guest:And that's when I made the promise I was going to change.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I totally changed that day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went into AA to get the start of my cleanliness.
Guest:And I started making my amends to people.
Guest:And I just slowly got back into who Carl was and where he was from.
Guest:And I brought that back into my life.
Guest:And I left here four years ago, went out to New York with just a bag and found friends to stay with, started a career, spoke out in Washington, found these family rights people.
Guest:And I did Lincoln Memorial and hosted.
Guest:I met judges and lawyers and I met hundreds of guys, thousands of guys like me that found out they weren't the fathers of their children and got into that cause.
Marc:You became an activist.
Guest:You became an activist.
Marc:Well, fuck, I'm glad you didn't die.
Marc:It's great to see you.
Marc:And the one thing I know that you didn't say when you went to fall off the bed with belts on your neck, there was no slow motion.
Marc:No.
Guest:Not a no trick.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:It's only when you see it coming.
Guest:Well, I thought you might because you made the decision.
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:Eyes are shut when you jump from a bed, by the way.
Marc:Well, fuck, Carl.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me, and thanks for being honest, and I hope this all works out in your favor.
Guest:It's already worked out.
Guest:My life has worked out.
Guest:You're sober, too?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:My life has worked out, so this is the other stuff.
Guest:This will be the firestorm that I'm going to start.
Guest:Other people have to stand up for their lies that they created.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Someone's going to have to acknowledge.
Guest:And I know Sam's on the other side of this pushing for the goodness of it too.
Guest:That's his daughter.
Guest:So I'm fighting for her.
Guest:I'm fighting for him and his memory and I've forgiven everybody.
Guest:I'm just mad at the law.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I'm mad at Bill.
Guest:So I just want to work this thing out.
Guest:Thanks for being here.
Guest:You guys welcome.
Guest:Nice to see you too.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That was a great conversation.
Marc:Take from it what you will think what you want.
Marc:That was good for me.
Marc:It got me a little closure for myself.
Marc:It also introduced me to a whole other series of Carl's problems and the world that he's been living in.
Marc:But I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
Marc:If you can, go to WTFPod.com.
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Marc:Coming up on Thursday, very excited, the Comedy Film Nerds.
Marc:I don't know if you listened to that podcast, but me and Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini are going to talk Oscars.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Still means something to me.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Think what you want.
Marc:And I'll see you in Salt Lake City this Wednesday.
Marc:on the 23rd, or Kirkland, Washington on the 25th and 26th, Friday and Saturday, right near Seattle.
Marc:Okay, I gotta go.
Marc:I really do.