Episode 624 - Sinbad
Guest:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:This is WTF, the podcast.
Marc:Today on the show, Sinbad.
Marc:Don't dismiss the Sinbad.
Sinbad.
Marc:I ran into him at the airport a while back and we talked about him being on the show.
Marc:And it's interesting how you identify Sinbad in your mind or what you think of Sinbad.
Marc:My associations were a guy that will definitely wear some outfits.
Marc:And he'll move around the stage a bit and always seemed somewhat off the cuff.
Marc:He's a fucking comedy monster, man.
Marc:The real deal.
Marc:And it was an amazing chat.
Marc:It was amazing to get to know him and get to talk to him.
Marc:Solid dude.
Marc:And if you want to see him live, he'll be in New York City at the Resorts World Casino in Queens this Saturday, August 1st.
Marc:The next weekend, he's at the Florida Theater in Jacksonville on Friday, August 7th, and the Capitol Theater in Clearwater, Florida on Saturday, August 8th.
Marc:He's still out there, man, and he's in good form.
Marc:We talked about him doing some music, doing just this whole process.
Marc:Yeah, it's weird that I can do this show for as long as I've done it.
Marc:But actually meet comedians that that have a very specific journey that may be similar to others, but is uniquely theirs.
Marc:And I've been having a lot of conversations, a lot of great conversations lately that I'll share with you, obviously, on the show.
Marc:A lot of great people coming up, a lot of emotional conversations.
Marc:I think I've cried the more in the last two days for reasons that are beyond me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:If something's giving way, I've heard of this male menopause idea.
Marc:I don't know really what that means.
Marc:I know that I've been very emotionally close to the surface, but I was talking to a woman in here and she was just telling me her story.
Marc:It wasn't even necessarily that emotional.
Marc:Maybe it was emotional, but I was listening to it and I'm just squirting out tears to the point where she had to stop and take notice of it.
Marc:What is going on?
Marc:These are not sadness tears.
Marc:I don't know how to explain it, but I think it's a good thing.
Marc:I'm not afraid of squirting out a few tears appropriately.
Marc:An emotional response to a visceral stimuli in the form of a story.
Marc:That someone is sharing with me.
Marc:I feel it.
Marc:I feel these transitions.
Marc:I feel the emotion of it.
Marc:I guess I'm sort of.
Marc:I don't know if I'm starved for it.
Marc:Or if it's just because I'm connected.
Marc:Or empathetic in that moment.
Marc:But man.
Marc:It overwhelms me.
Marc:It overwhelms me.
Marc:It's just like weird moments I'm finding extremely touching.
Marc:You know, some dude, just an hour ago, some homeless dude eating a slice of pizza outdoors, sitting there.
Marc:I'm putting a quarter of my meter.
Marc:He goes, hey, you got a cigarette?
Marc:I go, I don't smoke.
Marc:He goes, yeah, not many of them do anymore.
Marc:And I don't know how he was separating us.
Marc:You know, I don't know how I became them.
Marc:And I'm not sure where he thought he was from, but not many of them.
Marc:Me being one of them smoke.
Marc:And I said, yeah, I gave it up, man.
Marc:I used to.
Marc:He goes, good for you.
Marc:Save you five dollars a day.
Marc:Not the health thing, but the money thing.
Marc:And I understood that.
Marc:And I laughed in that weird laugh that you laugh when you acknowledge you're having a moment with somebody that is kind of awkward, but nonetheless a human moment.
Marc:But you want to somehow close that moment up in a nice way.
Marc:So you're like, hey, yeah, man.
Marc:And you walk off.
Marc:And I felt a little bit of emotion.
Marc:My brother's here.
Marc:My real brother is here.
Marc:Whew, boy, that's something, isn't it?
Marc:Isn't it weird?
Marc:Isn't it weird, people?
Marc:I'm a 51-year-old man, 52 in September.
Marc:My brother is 49, almost 50 years old.
Marc:We're a couple of middle-aged men sitting.
Marc:Who the fuck ever thought that would happen?
Marc:And it's weird when you don't see your brother much, which I don't, and he shows up.
Marc:It's like I can barely identify the dynamic sometimes, but it's the exact same dynamic.
Marc:There's that, you know, at any moment, it can just crumble into a competitive nightmare of misunderstanding and defensiveness.
Marc:And then we have to, you know, work through it.
Marc:And one of us will cry a little bit and be like, I'm just happy you're here.
Marc:And, you know, it's good to see you.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:Such an intense family I come from.
Marc:Just emotions right on the surface at all times, except for my mother, who is perpetually, I think, 14 years old emotionally.
Marc:That's what I'm living with.
Marc:Before I forget, I have a few dates coming up in the UK and in Ireland.
Marc:Wednesday, September 2nd, Vickers Street, Dublin, Ireland.
Marc:Thursday, September 3rd at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England.
Marc:And Friday, September 4th, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash calendar for those links to those tickets.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I haven't been there in years.
Marc:I don't think I've ever been to Dublin ever.
Marc:Very exciting.
Marc:Also, I don't want to forget this because I haven't really mentioned it, but I'll be at Podcast Movement.
Marc:Yes, I will be at Podcast Movement in Fort Worth, Texas with Aisha Tyler, Roman Mars.
Marc:So, yeah, so if you know what that is, you can go to podcastmovement.com.
Marc:It is in Fort Worth, Texas, and I will be there.
Marc:I will be speaking on the 2nd, on August 2nd.
Marc:I believe I'm filling in for Glenn Beck.
Marc:So, yeah, that's going to surprise some of his fans if they don't know I'm coming.
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:I'm not, I didn't know that was filling in 10 o'clock on, um, on Sunday, August 2nd.
Marc:Uh, I am in conversation with Adam Sachs of mid roll media at podcast movement.
Marc:You can go to podcast movement.com for, for tickets.
Marc:Uh, if you're, if you're in that area, if you're in Texas, yeah.
Marc:Or you want to come to Texas on short notice.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So that's, that's what's going on.
Marc:There's a couple of things happening.
Uh,
Marc:I'm going to New York.
Marc:I'm going to appear on the Charlie Rose show.
Marc:Charlie Rose is going to interview me and I'm very excited about it.
Marc:I'm a little nervous.
Marc:He's like the real deal.
Marc:I'll be taking mental notes while he's talking to me.
Marc:And I don't know if you've listened to me carefully when I'm interviewed by people who interview.
Marc:Generally, I tend to try to shift it onto them at some point during the interview.
Marc:I'm not saying that's a tactic or it's my plan, but I find it interesting to do that in the middle of an interview of me.
Marc:i wonder if i'll do that with charlie i don't know when it's going to air i will let you know deal deal so i think i'm just going to go to now to my conversation with sinbad is that okay because i'm feeling vulnerable feeling choked up okay i'm feeling oh boy the struggle continues all right let's now enjoy a very uh fun and engaging conversation with sinbad
Guest:Yeah, my daughter started doing a podcast, man.
Guest:Oh, she started doing one?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:She's a singing musician.
Guest:They asked her over at the guys over at Levity, man, asked her to do this podcast.
Guest:She started doing music.
Guest:I took her on the road.
Guest:I said, look, I put everything in the backpack because I'm a tech freak.
Guest:I said, all the equipment.
Guest:I said, let's do some test runs.
Guest:So she really, man, she was good at it, man.
Guest:Doing interviews and keeping it flow and all that shit she taught works for her on the podcast.
Guest:So what does she talk about?
Guest:You know what she's talking about?
Guest:Pop culture, music.
Guest:What's her name?
Guest:Paige Bryan.
Guest:It's called Keeping It PC.
Guest:I was impressed, man.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:You didn't know she had it in her or what?
Guest:I knew she had it, but I didn't know she would do it.
Guest:How old is she?
Guest:She's 29 now.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And she just took to like Dr. Water.
Guest:I was like, damn, girl.
Guest:How many kids you got?
Guest:Three.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:She the oldest?
Guest:Yeah, she's the oldest one.
Guest:My son is 26.
Guest:My other daughter's 20.
Guest:And are they all in show business?
Guest:My son just finished film school.
Guest:Dude, he's a hell of a filmmaker.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But he's a renaissance man.
Guest:He went to school for audio engineering.
Guest:He can rap.
Guest:He can play piano.
Guest:He can produce music.
Guest:Dude, he's just... And they all grew up in it.
Guest:They all grew up with you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I grew up with the thing, man.
Guest:They weren't going to work nine to five.
Guest:I knew that.
Marc:Do you come from a big family?
Guest:Six of us.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Six kids.
Guest:Six kids.
Guest:Where did you grow up?
Guest:Michigan, man.
Guest:Where in Michigan?
Guest:Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Guest:It's on the west side, closer to Chicago.
Guest:I was on the Chicago-South Bend border.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:And what kind of world was that when you grew up in this?
Marc:Crazy world.
Guest:You know, it's funny, man.
Guest:It's a small town, but my town ain't no joke, brother.
Guest:Yeah?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so I think everything that I am, everything I became as far as comedy-wise, is from being there.
Guest:From being a kid in the Midwest, man.
Guest:I can't pay for that enough.
Guest:In what way?
Guest:Everybody was working.
Guest:My dad worked.
Guest:We worked factories.
Guest:We had big dreams.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:My dad was working in factories.
Guest:My dad was a preacher.
Guest:He worked two or three jobs.
Guest:Did he come to preaching later?
Guest:As a kid, man, he was kind of tossed away by his mother.
Guest:She gave away all the boys and girls.
Guest:Gave them away?
Guest:She got remarried like puppies because the new man didn't want them.
Guest:How the hell did that happen?
Guest:Like puppies?
Guest:Dude, like it was nothing.
Guest:To relatives, though?
Guest:No.
Guest:To anybody?
Guest:To anybody.
Marc:Here's a kid in the neighborhood.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then so I can probably just down the street maybe.
Marc:The woman said, I'll take him.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you know that woman?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was not a nice woman.
Guest:I think she thought my dad was going to work for her as to her old age.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Didn't work out.
Marc:No.
Marc:So your grandmother just gave him away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then when did he start preaching?
Guest:That was like in his 20s.
Guest:He was ready to become a wrestler.
Guest:My dad did all this kind of stuff.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:He was ready to wrestle.
Guest:And then he said, God called him to preach.
Guest:And he became this dude.
Guest:He wanted to play to bigger audiences.
Guest:He was ready to wrestle.
Guest:This is the Elkhart, Indiana area, brother.
Guest:This is the home of the Bruiser, the Crusher.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Prince Pull and all that stuff.
Guest:So when he became that man,
Guest:I don't know how I became this man with no skills at being a father, was a great father, a great man, was one of the most respected cats, but he never judged anyone.
Guest:I see pimps, hustlers, doctors, lawyers, I saw everything in my house.
Guest:So I didn't see the difference because I found everybody had problems.
Guest:I didn't see the difference in people because they had money or not money.
Guest:Because they all were jacked up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my dad was probably the most honest man and one of the hardest working men, but he didn't take no mess.
Guest:He was that breed between, he didn't take no mess, but he'd give you a chance to straighten your stuff out.
Guest:A reasonable deal.
Guest:Yeah, practical, but not.
Guest:Yeah, but I ain't playing with you, man.
Guest:You got a little time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To figure it out.
Guest:Yeah, a little time to figure this out.
Guest:My dad, you figure this out.
Guest:I'll be back in 15 minutes.
Guest:You figure this out.
Marc:So you saw pimps and all kinds of people at the house?
Guest:Yeah, because I all came to my dad constantly.
Guest:I all came to my dad when they needed a constant, when they needed to help, or somebody was in trouble, or somebody had a kid in jail, or somebody was sick.
Guest:He was the man.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:He was the cat that could make things happen.
Guest:Did he have a church?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:How big of the congregation?
Guest:Do you remember?
Guest:It was like these mega churches.
Guest:I don't think my dad, I look at him, I don't think he wanted a megachurch.
Guest:I think when he got older, he saw these megachurches like, maybe I could have done more.
Guest:I said, no, man, because everybody in your church knew you.
Guest:His church, everybody knew him.
Guest:He was the cat.
Guest:He was the dude that would come to your house.
Guest:He was the one that if your kid was in trouble, his word was strong.
Guest:So if my dad spoke up for somebody, it meant something.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:You know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he was a respected community leader.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did any of your siblings go into the church?
Marc:No.
Marc:Huh.
Guest:After seeing that, I said, I'm doing this.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You didn't think it didn't look like it?
Guest:No.
Guest:I was like this because, man, people are hard to deal with.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Man, people are congregations and things like that.
Guest:Especially if you're that guy, you got to take that.
Guest:Yeah, I know, man.
Guest:Are you awake?
Guest:And I'm crazy.
Guest:I'll leave you in jail.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I think all of us were influenced by what he was as a man, him and my mother.
Guest:So we're all influenced by that.
Guest:Did you see him preach?
Guest:Oh, yeah, all the time.
Guest:So is he a good performer?
Guest:He was the best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Played basketball.
Guest:He was 60.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Dude, he was a renaissance.
Guest:They don't call that.
Guest:That's that dinosaur, man.
Guest:They don't make no more.
Guest:We are not that guy.
Guest:We are not.
Guest:No, we were just talking about not fixing our roof.
Guest:We're like the 70s hippies dropout.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Black Panthers.
Guest:We became that next generation.
Guest:It was different because we still all hustle kids younger than us.
Guest:I look at young comics.
Guest:I said, I don't even know how to hustle.
Guest:They think they're hustling.
Guest:I like how everybody goes, man, I'm grinding.
Guest:Dude, that's just a word.
Guest:They don't mean nothing to me.
Guest:I'm on the grind.
Guest:I'm on the grind.
Guest:I said, not really.
Guest:You don't know what it's like to be going to comedy clubs with five guys in a car.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And just rolling.
Guest:No car, no plane.
Guest:Ain't no hotel.
Guest:Comedy condo.
Guest:I said, y'all don't grind.
Marc:Well, I think that idea of what you came up with in me maybe just a little later was this idea of, you know, this is a job.
Marc:The job is comic, not I do comedy to get something else.
Guest:This is my career.
Guest:This is who I am.
Guest:This is the job, right.
Guest:No, because I don't want a job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I did this because I don't want a job.
Guest:Yeah, I don't even think I would know how to do it.
Guest:Did you have any jobs?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I had many jobs.
Guest:But like real jobs, like before comedy?
Guest:Yeah, worked in factories, worked...
Guest:Nothing that was career like I worked in an office.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm walking away for comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Once I got kicked out the military, I was done with jobs.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:You know, like I did restaurant shit.
Marc:I did stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But nothing was like, hey, man, I was working at IBM and I decided to walk away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I knew that was going to work out for me.
Guest:I knew that was not my right.
Guest:You were just waiting for something to reveal itself.
Guest:I can't be that guy like, Simba, can we talk to you?
Guest:I couldn't have a boss.
Guest:Can I talk to you?
Guest:No, I quit.
Guest:I quit.
Guest:I don't want to talk to you.
Guest:I don't want to have a better attitude.
Guest:Can I talk to you?
Guest:No.
Guest:I don't want to work harder.
Guest:I don't want to work harder.
Guest:I hate this place.
Marc:I hate you.
Marc:Yeah, I'm just pretending.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Trying to get by.
Marc:I know, I can't stand it.
Guest:For fundamental authority.
Guest:I wanted to play pro basketball.
Guest:I was in bands growing up.
Guest:I played drums.
Guest:I wanted to be that thing that was different.
Guest:I wanted to be the thing that people that work are like, oh, I wish I was him.
Marc:I wanted to be that guy.
Marc:It's funny, though, because you weren't sure what it was going to be.
Guest:Yeah, I wasn't.
Marc:But you knew it was going to be about you.
Guest:Yeah, it was going to be.
Guest:It is going to be about me.
Marc:I'm going to be, and I'm going to be, I said, and I'm going to be the best.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But when you were drumming, were you like, they can't see me?
Guest:No, I said, man, I should play guitar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I gotta be up front.
Guest:That's why I picked up a guitar five years ago.
Guest:So now I play guitar.
Guest:I was at guitar camp with my kids.
Guest:So I went to guitar camp, so I learned how to play bass.
Guest:I said, man, and I'm playing trombone and trumpet now.
Guest:I'm talk boxing, keyboard.
Guest:Plus I have ADD, so I can't play one instrument.
Guest:I got to play nine.
Marc:Sure, but you do pretty good with them?
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Music comes to me.
Marc:Well, that's a gift.
Marc:I love music.
Marc:I love playing guitar.
Guest:More important than comedy.
Guest:I think music is more important.
Guest:It's magic.
Guest:My thing is comedy and music are cousins.
Guest:I always wanted to open for bands.
Guest:I didn't even want to work with other comics.
Guest:I wanted to work with...
Guest:bands.
Guest:Did you do some of that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You did a lot of it, right?
Guest:Dude, I would show up at venues that had a band, and I would wait outside and say, look, man, if you need somebody to kill time, I'm a comedian.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And they would leave me outside.
Guest:Then they'd go, comedian, come in here.
Guest:Go get the guy.
Guest:So they go get him, put him on the mic.
Guest:Dude, I live for that.
Marc:All right, so let's track it.
Marc:Where do you figure into the six kids?
Marc:In the middle?
Guest:Second.
Marc:You're second?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're almost the oldest?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is everybody still around?
Guest:Everybody's still around.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:I think my older brother, he lives not too far from here.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He's like Eagle Rock, man.
Guest:That's right there.
Guest:He's not too far from here.
Marc:What's his racket?
Guest:You know, my brother was classical pianist.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Summa cum laude, straight A student.
Guest:My brother was like, so when I went to school, they go, oh, you're Michael's little brother.
Guest:I said, oh, no, it's not that kind of part.
Guest:I'm the one there.
Guest:I'm the one that makes the parents real.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So he was a musician.
Guest:So now he does business and finance stuff.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:My brother should be playing piano.
Guest:So I said, man, why don't you, he should be playing.
Guest:Isn't that weird when that's- He should be teaching piano.
Guest:He should be working piano music therapy.
Guest:He's just best heart in the world.
Guest:He's the most patient dude that ever lived.
Marc:Does he lose the love for the music or what?
Guest:No, I just think, I think you think you have to go do this job.
Marc:Again with the job.
Guest:Yeah, you think you have your job.
Guest:I said, man, come back and do music, man.
Marc:But maybe he's making some money with the job.
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:No, because you're not making crazy money because this is California.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Man, unless you do this, this is the weirdest place.
Guest:Either you're making a little bit of money or a lot of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's no in-between money.
Marc:No, no, no, no, no.
Marc:There's no room for that.
Guest:No.
Marc:All right, so you're the second oldest.
Marc:What's the breakdown?
Marc:There's four boys.
Marc:So me, my older brother, me, my two other brothers, and my sisters.
Marc:When did you start entertaining?
Marc:You went to the middle?
Guest:About 83.
Marc:That's when you started doing comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But before that, what were you doing?
Marc:You were in the surf.
Guest:Playing basketball.
Guest:I played college basketball.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Were you good?
Guest:I was good, man.
Guest:I had problems.
Guest:The University of Denver probably was the worst four years of my life.
Marc:Fucking Denver.
Guest:Yeah, it was worse.
Guest:Why?
Marc:Why was it so bad?
Guest:Picked the wrong school.
Guest:But it was all part of the education.
Guest:I call it the voyage of Sinbad.
Guest:Places I was at, I was not supposed to be at.
Guest:Think about it.
Guest:I got recruited to the Air Force Academy.
Guest:Popovich was at the Air Force Academy.
Guest:I turned down the Air Force cab because I didn't want to cut my afro off.
Guest:So then, joining the military.
Marc:So you got your afro.
Guest:So this was a black power thing.
Guest:I'm not going to the Air Force again.
Guest:Nah, I ain't, dude.
Guest:I can't cut the fro.
Guest:I can't spend this.
Guest:This is the hottest time in the 70s, and I'm going to have a no fro?
Guest:You had your priorities.
Guest:I can't be that dude.
Guest:Oh, I had an Afro pick.
Guest:Stayed in my hair.
Guest:Stayed in my hair.
Marc:So you had an issue with Denver.
Marc:What was the problem in Denver?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:A lot of us came out there.
Marc:Who's us?
Guest:The guys I played with, man.
Guest:And it was just a bad experience.
Guest:Remember, racism was still hard.
Marc:It's a little white, Colorado.
Guest:It's still hard now, isn't it?
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It's not near what it was before.
Guest:But we see it.
Guest:Look, you watch the news.
Guest:You read the papers.
Guest:You see what's happening.
Guest:That's an old vanguard.
Guest:It has to die.
Guest:I always said, I like to see what this, I wish I could see what this world's gonna be like when the generation before me dies and my generation dies.
Guest:Because even when we talk to our kids about racism, you know, you can be as mild as you want, they're like, dad, the world's changed.
Guest:I said, they have no concept.
Marc:Of what you went through.
Guest:That's why racism throws them off like, wow, you see what happened?
Guest:I said, it's not dead.
Guest:It's not as big as it was, but they have no clue.
Guest:They read about civil rights.
Guest:They read about things, but they didn't go through it.
Marc:Well, I think that's sort of the complaint of the generation for a lot of reasons.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not just sort of like with the internet, they don't know that we had answering machines.
Guest:Before that, there was no answer machine.
Guest:Somebody had to call you.
Guest:Yo, man, Bob, I'm trying to find you.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:Okay, that's it.
Marc:I don't want to trivialize anything, but I think that their experience is limited to just pictures.
Guest:It's instant gratification, instant text message.
Guest:I said, look, man, if we'd had it, we'd done the same thing, but I thank God we didn't.
Guest:We'd have never had the music we had.
Guest:Or we wouldn't spend time with people the way we do.
Guest:Oh, what happens is we call it social media now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, dude, we were social.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We were social.
Guest:Y'all are the least social.
Guest:I don't even know why they call it social media.
Guest:No one talks to each other.
Guest:You dog each other.
Guest:I hate you.
Guest:I saw you.
Guest:She fell on stage.
Guest:Dude, they can't wait.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They go in.
Guest:I call them keyboard gangsters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They can't wait to go in, you little gutless cowards behind the keyboard.
Marc:Predatory.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sorry, so you go to Denver and it's still racist.
Marc:It's bad.
Guest:Anyways, college was, school was, you know what?
Guest:It just was what it was.
Guest:Me and my guys, I played ball with.
Guest:We talked about it.
Guest:Some of the guys that really affected, I was lucky because I got this.
Marc:But what, you didn't get out, you were benched or what?
Guest:We played, but remember that time, back in 1974.
Guest:That's when you were in college.
Guest:Not just my college.
Guest:At any given time, you didn't have three black players on the floor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If there was two players, black players on the floor, and a third one was coming in, one of us was coming out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we both run to the bench.
Marc:Why was that?
Marc:Because they didn't want to be outshined?
Guest:No, the world wasn't ready to see.
Guest:They just weren't ready to see it.
Guest:The blackening of college basketball.
Guest:Remember, these were sports that were still kind of white sports.
Guest:We were in there, but being a black point guard, we weren't supposed to be quarterbacks.
Guest:We weren't supposed to be point guards because we're not smart enough to bring the ball up court.
Guest:So dude, it was stupid stuff when you look at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what did you experience there?
Guest:And the kids, oh, God, the rich kids.
Guest:It was called the Harvard of the West, the way rich kids would talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, dude, you just want to like, man, I'm about to slap you, I think.
Guest:You can't say that to me.
Guest:They touch your braids.
Guest:My hair was braided.
Guest:What does that feel like?
Guest:Post-pro, you were braided?
Guest:Yeah, dude.
Guest:What's wrong with you?
Guest:You just want to touch your head?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then also I was going through my thing trying to find myself and who I was.
Marc:So you're playing ball.
Marc:And now how'd you end up in the military?
Marc:Was that the next thing?
Guest:I was at home.
Guest:I came home.
Guest:You quit college?
Guest:I quit college last year with like six, seven months left.
Marc:Out of anger or what?
Guest:Yeah, I said I'm out.
Guest:I said I don't want nothing from the man.
Guest:I don't want this school to ever say I went here.
Guest:So I threw my books in the air and made this big statement.
Guest:Then I realized, oh, I ain't got nowhere to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And no one gives a shit about your story.
Guest:And nobody saw it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I can't pick the books back up.
Guest:So I was drama back then already.
Guest:So, but I said, I'm going to be famous.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:I said, they'll discover me somewhere.
Guest:Yeah, somehow.
Guest:So I come home.
Guest:Yeah, you're the guy that threw the books up in the air.
Guest:Yeah, threw the books in the air, man.
Guest:They had to sit at the bus stop and go, man, I should have thought that move out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I need more of an audience.
Guest:I need to go like, so people could talk about, I remember that time that dude threw the book in the air.
Guest:So when I got famous, I mean, he threw his books in the air.
Guest:That was a statement.
Guest:Yeah, he made a statement.
Marc:No one was looking, man.
Guest:No, but you can't stay in my room so bad.
Guest:I appreciate what you did.
Guest:And I found out, a lot of times you do stuff that's bold, and people look at you, hey man, that was cool.
Guest:Yeah, but you can't stay with me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you gotta get off my yard.
Guest:Yeah, but you know what it does?
Guest:It makes you stronger.
Guest:Yeah, sure it does.
Guest:So I go home, I'm in the basement,
Guest:My dad's at the house.
Guest:My mom's in the basement.
Guest:My dad comes down.
Guest:And I think we're going to go at it.
Guest:But this is how my dad is.
Guest:My dad goes, look, hey, man.
Guest:Let's blame everything on that coach.
Guest:Let's blame everything on everybody else.
Guest:He said, what you do with this from this moment on, it's your fault.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Now they want the responsibility speech.
Guest:I already have the anger speech.
Guest:And I said it like this.
Guest:I wasn't ready for this.
Guest:And I started reading all these books on positive thinking, the power of positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, Magic of Believing, stuff that's still the whole philosophy has not changed.
Guest:The bullshit philosophy?
Guest:No, what the mind can do.
Guest:To me, it's never been bullshit because
Guest:We can be anything we want to be.
Guest:And once you decide to make a turn, how many people have you said, man, well, look at you.
Guest:I'm tired of this.
Guest:I'm doing something else.
Guest:Sometimes out of anger, we make a turn.
Guest:We even know we're making a turn.
Guest:You just did something.
Marc:You know where that becomes a problem?
Marc:When?
Marc:With comedy.
Marc:Like if you get far enough down the road, you're like, fuck this.
Marc:I'm going to.
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:No, I can't do anything else.
Guest:No, but you know what you can do?
Guest:You can say, I'm going to do it a different way.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So you don't quit doing it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So you don't quit doing it.
Guest:You go like this.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:Going to grow.
Guest:Going to grow.
Guest:Like Richard Pryor on stage in Vegas.
Guest:He was a clean comic.
Guest:He said he did Cosby better than Cosby.
Guest:And he's standing on stage in Vegas.
Guest:And he's looking at the audience.
Guest:He goes, he says, what the fuck am I doing?
Guest:Fuck y'all.
Guest:Whoa!
Guest:Everybody went nuts.
Guest:And he said he had to sneak off to the wrong side of the stage because the dudes were waiting for him.
Guest:So he had to go through this pipe and it tore his jacket off.
Guest:And he made that statement.
Guest:And then he went to Oakland.
Guest:He paid a price, which I love about it.
Guest:I look at cats now, when cats are being vulgar or whatever stage, you ain't paying no price.
Guest:You're getting rewarded for it.
Guest:Cosby.
Guest:George Carlin, Lenny Bruce paid a price.
Guest:Cosby didn't.
Guest:Well, Cosby did.
Guest:Cosby came out, man.
Guest:His first review that's about Cosby, he was this angry black man.
Guest:He said... Really?
Guest:His first... Dude, I was just talking.
Guest:So he said, okay, I got something for you.
Guest:I got something for you.
Guest:He started doing stuff.
Guest:They couldn't touch him.
Guest:It couldn't touch what he was doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I look at what he did.
Guest:This is funny.
Guest:Cats act like he was not as deep as Richard.
Guest:I said, please, man.
Guest:Kaz was one of the most militant cats I ever met.
Guest:He was one of the smartest guys I ever met.
Guest:He was not what people thought because of the way he did comedy.
Marc:Because he knew the game.
Marc:And he worked within it.
Marc:So how are you feeling about yesterday with that news?
Guest:Man, you know what?
Guest:My...
Guest:I can't even comprehend my mind because I know him.
Guest:You know, when you know somebody, even if when you know somebody and not just know somebody, but all the stuff he did, colleges, giving $20 million to college and all the things he did, I can't throw that.
Guest:Dude, I can't negate that.
Guest:I can't.
Marc:It's hard, right?
Guest:What he did for me, I can't.
Marc:I can't negate that.
Marc:My experience with Bill Cosby's work is relatively new.
Marc:I knew of him, but I was a Richard guy, and I didn't grow up black.
Marc:You have the familiarity.
Marc:But I had that experience five, six years ago where I watched Cosby himself, and I'm like,
Guest:that dude was real yeah right yeah and then i go back and i listen you know i knew he was great but i didn't know why and the reasons like he decided what was funny yeah he's gonna sit out thank you i'm gonna sit that's right i'm gonna sit and you're gonna wait and you're gonna wait for me to get to the punch line bill said don't be scared of silence right he could go for seven minutes yeah with no laughter all of a sudden boom boom boom boom i said
Guest:Who does that?
Guest:It's not a person, it's not a young person.
Marc:Right, so the challenge becomes, as somebody who grew up with him and respects him, you gotta separate now.
Marc:You got Bill Cosby, the comic you love, and Bill Cosby, the guy who raped women.
Guest:And you're like, man, whoa, it just, dude, I can't even say it.
Guest:I can't say it.
Guest:And the thing is, but all these young comics, Oswald Patton said something once.
Guest:He said, we all knew it.
Guest:Liar.
Guest:I'm just saying he's right here, liar.
Guest:Tell me it was a joke among comics.
Guest:Bull.
Guest:Bullshit, man.
Guest:That's a lie.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know it.
Guest:That's a lie.
Guest:I didn't know it.
Guest:He said, well, we knew it.
Guest:You didn't even hang with Bill, man.
Marc:Shut up.
Marc:Now, what's your relationship with him?
Marc:What was it, like with Bill?
Guest:Yeah, he started you out?
Guest:Dude, this is the cat that put me on a different world.
Guest:This is a guy I got to hang out with and talk with.
Guest:He's still my guy, man.
Guest:He was, I watched how he worked.
Guest:He showed me how the game worked.
Guest:See, Bill showed me
Guest:When I just found how militant he was, the stuff he had put up with, the stuff that he had to do, I said, man, y'all don't know.
Guest:It's like there's a movie called The Spook Who Sat By The Door.
Guest:This movie came out in the 60s about a black cat they thought was an Uncle Tom, but he was the most militant, crazy cat and started blowing up buildings and stuff.
Guest:Because people just decide what a black man.
Guest:This is the funny part.
Guest:Oh, if a black man wears a suit, he ain't black.
Guest:If he wears a dashiki, he's black.
Guest:I said, well, a lot of cats who infiltrated the Black Panthers were police officers who wore dashikis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you can't always go about what a cat's wearing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or how a guy talks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because some guys talk the most trash, do the least.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Bill gave a college $20 million.
Guest:I tell brothers, how much more blacker can that be than give Spelman College $20 million?
Guest:How do you frame what's happening now in your mind?
Guest:See what got me?
Guest:You know what the part that got me?
Guest:How quickly people turned on him.
Guest:Before they knew anything, people just turned like they wanted it to be true.
Guest:But now that we kind of know it is, how do you frame it?
Guest:I haven't framed it yet.
Guest:I'll never turn my back on it.
Guest:Never.
Guest:I won't.
Guest:I know what it is is wrong, but I won't.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Because I saw so much writing.
Guest:It's hard to explain what I'm saying.
Marc:No, it's not.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:It's got to be a horrendous conflict because I think everybody had the same experience.
Marc:Even people who are outspoken about it is that they have to deal with the same thing you are.
Marc:They didn't know him, but they're like, I love that guy.
Marc:Now he's a monster.
Guest:What do I do?
Guest:and i know i look more at i see damn i hope it's like does his legacy mean nothing does everything he did positive the tv shows different world does it all mean nothing now like oj you know i think that's what's happening and that's the part that makes me cry inside yeah you know that that's how you'll be perceived man he fucked it up especially by the ones who don't know him you know
Marc:Well, you knew him, but there was obviously something you didn't know.
Marc:Dude, there's something about me.
Marc:People don't know him.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I've killed a couple people.
Marc:We've been talking about it for years.
Marc:Comics know, Sinbad.
Guest:We all knew.
Guest:We all knew he killed a couple people.
Guest:But that was the road.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:You can kill people on the road back in the 70s.
Yeah.
Marc:So, all right, so what was the military experience?
Marc:So you decided when your father laid it down, you're like, I'm going to join the service?
Guest:No, it was, I was going to, I'm at my high school, I was thinking about finishing school, becoming a coach.
Guest:And I'm eating cereal.
Guest:Doing the last semester.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Maybe back home.
Guest:I'm eating cereal, man, and I see a helicopter.
Guest:I said, I think I want to fly helicopters.
Guest:It was a Coast Guard ad on a box of cereal.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So I was inspired by cereal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We all were.
Guest:So I'm eating the cereal, man.
Guest:I said, but you know what?
Guest:I'm going to go to the Coast Guard.
Guest:I'm going to know how to fly.
Guest:But when I get out, I'm going to start my own service.
Guest:No questions asked.
Guest:I'll fly you anywhere, and I will deliver anything.
Guest:So once again, I still went to my crazy world.
Guest:I'm going to be this midnight, I was going to call it midnight flyers.
Guest:You call us, we ask no questions.
Guest:We'll get you, because I had the adventure.
Guest:If you got a body.
Guest:It was that movie in my mind.
Guest:Body, drugs, whatever.
Guest:I'll get you there.
Guest:Just don't tell me what you got.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was the plan.
Guest:No questions asked.
Guest:And a helicopter?
Guest:It's called no helicopters, jets.
Guest:I'm going to do all this.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So now, but I go to the AFES, where all the military stuff is at.
Guest:AFES is for Marines, Army, Coast Guard.
Guest:And the guy goes, Air Force dude.
Guest:I was like, man, you want to...
Guest:Why you want to fly on the Coast Guard?
Guest:If you want to fly, you should be with the flyers.
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:I said, man, but I can't be a pilot until I finish college.
Guest:No, man.
Guest:We'll send you to college.
Guest:The lie.
Guest:We'll send you to college.
Guest:Really, man?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Finish basic training.
Guest:We'll send you to college to fly.
Marc:Basic training.
Marc:That's the deal.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:I'm joining the Air Force.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I joined the Air Force, man.
Guest:I go to Air Force Man.
Guest:I realize, oh, God, I have so messed up.
Guest:I have jacked up.
Guest:I'm the first week of business training.
Guest:I got to get thrown out now.
Guest:That quickly?
Guest:That quickly.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:First day we got everybody screaming, everybody shout out, everybody shout out.
Guest:All this hollering.
Guest:All this hollering.
Guest:But know what messed me up?
Guest:It wasn't the hollering.
Guest:It was the younger cats.
Guest:Because remember, I was like 21.
Guest:She had kids 18, 19.
Guest:Dude, they were like, they were crying.
Guest:I said, are you crying?
Guest:Are you crying?
Guest:All they're doing is hollering to get off the bus.
Guest:This ain't real.
Guest:This ain't real, man.
Guest:We just look, look, man.
Guest:I'm like, I'm out.
Guest:I was going to walk off the base.
Guest:I was going to walk off the base.
Guest:But then you wouldn't have been AWOL, right?
Guest:I figured there's only been a day here.
Guest:They let it go.
Guest:That's my mind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So...
Guest:I found out you have to dumb it down for the dumbest person.
Guest:So you go in the first day, pick up your pencils.
Guest:Do not pick up the pencils till we say pick up the pencils.
Guest:Pick them up with your right or left hand.
Guest:Already cast a pick up the pencils messing up, I said.
Guest:So he gets mad as I said.
Guest:I can't get jacked up because of dumb cats.
Guest:I can get out.
Guest:So now, when basic training, you're in your squadron.
Guest:I said, I'm going to be that guy.
Guest:I'm going to be everybody's friend.
Guest:I'm going to be the funny dude.
Guest:I want no responsibility.
Guest:I don't know how Tech Sergeant Parks knew.
Guest:He called me in his office.
Guest:He said, you're a little older than the rest of the cats.
Guest:I need you to be my dorm chief.
Guest:No, sir.
Guest:No, sir.
Guest:No, sir.
Guest:Don't put me in charge, sir.
Guest:He said, I'm not asking you.
Guest:I said, I can't be in charge of these people because they're going to hate me now.
Guest:I want to have fun.
Guest:I want to be the fun dude.
Guest:I'm the fun dude.
Guest:So he knew that I was going to be the one.
Marc:He's taking you down.
Guest:So, dude, he put me in charge.
Marc:He was inside.
Marc:He's punching you from the inside.
Guest:So I had to be in charge of my guys, man.
Guest:But I got some of the guys, too.
Guest:I got some of the guys, too.
Guest:But when the six weeks are over, you kind of hang out.
Guest:You got a couple days downtime.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now they find out how crazy, and they're like, oh man, I wish you weren't the dorm chief.
Guest:Man, you're so damn cool.
Guest:I said, I know, I know.
Guest:But y'all are crying.
Guest:I keep thinking of my bed.
Guest:I said, man, I had to deal with all that crap.
Guest:And then how did you get kicked out?
Guest:So, I mean, I'm a boom operator.
Guest:I feel airplanes in the air.
Guest:From the moment I was in, dude.
Marc:You were flying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I flew.
Marc:You were in the plane, but you had to run the other one.
Guest:I was in the back of the plane flying the boom down, but I learned to fly.
Guest:I was in Wichita, Kansas.
Marc:You flew the thing to the hole in the other plane?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The nozzle?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:That was your thing?
Marc:That was my thing.
Marc:Up in the air?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:I was good at it.
Guest:And I had coordination.
Guest:Basketball, bro.
Marc:Did you do it?
Marc:But you didn't see any action, right?
Guest:Oh, no, no.
Guest:I came in after right after Vietnam.
Guest:So what happens is...
Guest:I'm like, I'm crazy, man.
Guest:I'm growing an afro.
Guest:I use a stocking cap to keep it small.
Guest:I'm not saluting officers.
Guest:I'm wearing the wrong outfits.
Guest:I impersonated officers.
Guest:I had captain's bars.
Guest:I just want to see what it feels like to be a captain.
Marc:And you got in trouble for that shit.
Guest:I got busted, man.
Guest:I had no strike.
Guest:It took everything, dude.
Guest:But Noah got me kicked out.
Guest:There was an Air Force talent show.
Guest:That's how I became a comedian.
Guest:That's what I always will thank the military.
Guest:Tops in blue.
Guest:Look it up.
Guest:They performed at Super Bowls.
Guest:It was the Oscars of the military.
Guest:And I was like, I saw the comedian.
Guest:I said, I'm winning that next year.
Guest:I'm winning.
Guest:I'm winning.
Guest:I ran out with an epiphany.
Guest:I told my friends, I'm winning that.
Guest:They go, man, you funny.
Guest:You ain't that damn funny.
Guest:I said, no, I'm funny.
Guest:And then it was at the Recreation Center.
Guest:I would hang around the Recreation Center and they did plays.
Guest:And I started doing plays.
Guest:I did One Floor Over Cuckoo's Nest.
Guest:I got the bug, the acting bug.
Guest:Who'd you play in that?
Guest:I played Chief Brompton.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted to be the main character.
Guest:Murph.
Guest:I wanted to be Murph so bad.
Guest:She said, no.
Guest:You got to learn how to be quiet and silent and strong.
Guest:I said, I don't want to be there.
Guest:So you started crying.
Guest:I was crying.
Guest:She said, well, if you don't, you won't be in the play.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But she knew, like I say, sometimes people know better.
Guest:How did you do?
Guest:Oh, we killed it.
Guest:We killed it.
Guest:I got down, bro.
Guest:So what, this is like 75?
Guest:Yeah, this is like, no, this is 78 after college, four years of college.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So this is 78.
Guest:So now you got to wait.
Guest:79.
Guest:You got to wait a year before you're going to do the contest?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So year goes by.
Guest:I'm doing plays and stuff.
Guest:Contest comes.
Guest:Dude.
Guest:Not only do I... Okay, there's two categories.
Guest:MC and comedian.
Guest:I wrote all these jokes.
Guest:I did this Devo thing for the comedy category.
Guest:I was the only one in the comedy category.
Guest:What do you mean Devo thing?
Guest:Devo.
Guest:Remember Devo, the band?
Guest:I did this whole little... Because I didn't know this was comedy.
Guest:What I do, I thought you had to write a sketch.
Guest:So I did the Devo thing and I had silver paint on my face and everything.
Guest:I committed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't get enough points to beat me.
Guest:I lost in the comedy competition and I was the only one in it.
Guest:But the MC category came up and John Salem, who was doing the music from Nashville, and I always hang out and talk crazy.
Guest:He said, man, let me see your jokes.
Guest:He balled them up through the trash.
Guest:That's what he's doing.
Guest:He goes, man, that ain't funny.
Guest:You're funny.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:That ain't funny.
You're funny.
Guest:You're funny.
Guest:And then the curtain's open.
Guest:I said, oh no!
Guest:And I just started talking trash.
Guest:And the base commander's falling out.
Guest:Everybody's falling out.
Guest:So I won.
Guest:So now you go command level.
Guest:So we drive, all of us.
Guest:We go to command level.
Guest:I drive the whole way because I'm talking.
Guest:I got ADD so I don't need to sleep.
Guest:So we get there.
Guest:I won.
Guest:I set a record.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:For points, score.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You killed it.
Guest:So now the rest of my crew has to go home because none of them made it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I go to worldwide competition.
Marc:In the Air Force?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Worldwide competition, Boxdale, Louisiana.
Guest:So, man, sure how life works out.
Guest:I didn't even know this world existed.
Marc:Oh, God, man.
Marc:The entertainment world of the Air Force.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It's real, baby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:Luckily, I'm the last, I think how fate works out, I'm the last MC of the week.
Guest:Well, there's a guy there who's done it.
Guest:He's won three years in a row.
Guest:When they all got there, they're like, what's up?
Guest:They're all hugging each other because they haven't seen each other in years.
Guest:So I hug people too.
Guest:Girl, I ain't seen you.
Guest:And they're pulling back.
Guest:Girl, I ain't seen you.
Guest:Who's this crazy dude?
Guest:That's psyching him out, right?
Guest:Yeah, I'm a singer.
Guest:Not until I was a singer.
Guest:So you have rehearsal time.
Guest:Man, I'm in there singing terrible.
Guest:And I'm telling the piano player, you are not following my key changes.
Guest:He goes, I can't, you follow, you want me to fail.
Guest:So they're like, that guy's a jerk, he's a nut.
Guest:And then Edlene Bailey, Phillip Bailey's sister from Earth and Fire, says, you can't possibly be a singer.
Guest:She said, what do you do?
Guest:I said, I'm a comic.
Guest:I'm just messing with people because I don't like how they hug each other like they were special.
Guest:She says, I'm a comic.
Guest:I'm watching your show.
Guest:So, man, Willie the Wiz.
Guest:Willie the Wiz is the emcee.
Guest:Man, you got to have a gimmick, man.
Guest:You got to have a gimmick.
Guest:So, Willie the Wiz, he would wear wigs and stuff.
Guest:He goes, man, you got to have a gimmick.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:We go to a costume shop in New Orleans.
Guest:He got to Willie the Wiz.
Guest:He said, man, you got to wear this cape.
Guest:I said, no, I think I'm wearing that Playboy costume.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, man.
Guest:No, no, that's what I'm saying, man.
Guest:Like a bunny costume?
Guest:Yeah, I got a bunny costume.
Guest:I said, I'm wearing a bunny costume.
Guest:Man, you can't, man.
Guest:Dude, you can't.
Guest:Forget it.
Guest:Don't get a costume.
Guest:No.
Guest:You told me I need a costume.
Guest:I'm wearing the bunny costume.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:Bobby was a dancer.
Guest:Bobby was about 6'2", cut up.
Guest:Bobby was gay.
Guest:So nobody wanted to room with Bobby.
Guest:So all the guys, I said, I room with Bobby.
Guest:Man, you gay?
Guest:I said, y'all so stupid.
Guest:Did you see the girls he danced with?
Guest:He's gay, he don't want none of them.
Guest:They all belong to me.
Guest:So now they go, oh, I said, no, no, too late, because y'all don't think it out.
Guest:So Bobby, man, is showing me some dance moves.
Guest:But I put on the Playboy Bunny costume.
Guest:I said, Bobby, man, my butt's out.
Guest:He goes, I got some tights.
Guest:So he gave me some white tights to wear.
Guest:So I got these white tights.
Guest:So I'm the last one up.
Guest:I walk out there to get ready to go out.
Guest:I got this Playboy Bunny costume on.
Guest:Tom Edwards is still in charge.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:I said, this is my gimmick.
Guest:Willie the Wiz told me I needed a gimmick.
Guest:Willie said, I didn't tell him that.
Guest:He said, you can't wear that.
Guest:I said, then I have to be naked because I have nothing else to wear.
Guest:So I just wore it for the intro.
Guest:I went out and wore it for the intro.
Guest:Man, and I did a whole thing about being a male playable bunny, how we're sexually exploited.
Guest:Dude, they fell out.
Guest:But the guy in charge, when I saw that show the year before, he was sitting in a bar at the NCO club.
Guest:I ran in.
Guest:I said, man, how do you win the MC category?
Guest:He goes, how do you win?
Guest:He said, he wrote it on a piece of paper, say the name of the act, say what category it in, tell us a couple jokes, say the name of the act and get the F off the stage.
Guest:I wrote it down.
Guest:So I came back the next year, I wrote it to him and said, this is what you wrote for me.
Guest:He said, man, you're the first kid.
Guest:So dude, I went out there and did exactly what he did.
Guest:He said, do you have a routine?
Guest:I said, no, liar.
Guest:I said, give me anything to talk about.
Guest:So right before I walk on stage, they would give me a word or two words.
Guest:I would go out and do routine on that.
Guest:And they're like this.
Guest:Tom Edward goes, I don't care if you win or lose, I'm taking you.
Guest:So dude, they scored everybody so high.
Guest:I had a perfect score, but they said they scored everybody so high they said they had to re-look at it without looking at me.
Guest:So they ran the tape back, but they wouldn't look at me bringing intros just so they could see the act.
Marc:Oh, too funny.
Guest:Yeah, so I was like this.
Guest:But I didn't pay any attention, man.
Guest:They got Bob Hope's manager.
Guest:He's one of the judges.
Guest:All these people do it.
Guest:I'm just doing what I do.
Marc:It's funny because years ago, Norm MacDonald was in here.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:And he's great.
Marc:And he told a story about you two working together, I think, in Vegas or somewhere.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It might have been a double bill.
Marc:He might have been opening for you.
Marc:And he said, before the show, you guys went, you need to buy socks or something.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Socks, dude.
Guest:Socks.
Marc:he said he said he said he went up there and just ate shit got nothing and you went out there and you said you know how hard it is to buy socks and just killed that was always the thing then my whole life has always been i see stories you know what i read but it happens impulsively it's reactive like you know pictures man i see i actually see it
Marc:But when you get on stage, the difference between having an actor wearing a silver face is that when you're on stage with nothing but your wits, your natural reaction when you're cornered like that, it's almost like you're cornering yourself.
Marc:And you gotta be funny.
Guest:And I relive.
Guest:I relive.
Guest:I'll write on a piece of paper.
Guest:Talk about riding my bike.
Guest:That's not what I'm talking about.
Guest:Talk about riding my bike.
Marc:But you remember what's funny about it.
Guest:I remember riding, and then I remember other people riding, and then you tweak it.
Guest:The whole thing is I lied well.
Guest:All those things that got me in trouble growing up made me a great comic.
Guest:Well, how'd you get kicked out of the service?
Guest:Oh, last and final straw, I come back.
Guest:I win.
Guest:I met Worldwide.
Guest:I'm gonna... You're going back?
Guest:No, no, I'm coming back to the base.
Guest:No, I was gonna travel with him.
Guest:If I travel with him, my time would have been up in the military.
Guest:I was gonna travel, so I called my base.
Guest:He said, call your commander up.
Guest:I said, look, man.
Guest:I said, I won.
Guest:I said, I'm the best.
Guest:He let me go because he thought I was gonna make a fool of myself.
Guest:I said, I'm the best.
Guest:I said, it's good for the base.
Guest:It looks good for the base and the command.
Guest:He says to me, well, you know, sometimes we know we're supposed to win an award and we have to suck it up inside, know what we're worth.
Guest:I said, why don't you suck up then if somebody says you can be a general and they don't let you be a general, why don't you suck that up?
Guest:He said that.
Guest:He said, I'll see you.
Guest:I said, maybe.
Guest:And I went AWOL.
Guest:I left.
Guest:I went to Atlanta, Georgia, enrolled at Georgia Tech.
Guest:I said, I'm going to grow a beard.
Guest:I'm a black man with a beard.
Guest:They'll never find me.
Guest:And my mother and my father call me, what have you done?
Guest:I said, I'm in college.
Guest:So you dropped out of college.
Guest:We was in college.
Guest:You joined the Air Force.
Guest:Have you turned the Air Force down?
Guest:He said, son, have you seen the pattern?
Guest:My dad said, have you seen the pattern?
Guest:Yeah, I'm just a little behind.
Guest:I said, but I'm going to do computer science.
Guest:He's like this, I need you.
Guest:I've never asked you to do it.
Guest:Would you please go back for your mother?
Marc:I was back to the military.
Guest:I said, man, I got it figured out this time.
Guest:He said, just please, please, no more schemes.
Guest:So I go back to the base, man.
Guest:I got his beard.
Guest:How many months later?
Guest:I was gone three months, man.
Guest:So I go back to the base, dude.
Guest:And all the SPs, the security police are my friends like this.
Guest:Dude, man, we supposed to arrest you.
Guest:They didn't arrest me.
Guest:Do you want to change clothes?
Guest:No.
Guest:So I get back.
Guest:This is a new base commander.
Guest:I get there.
Guest:He goes, man, he goes, do you know this?
Guest:You don't military.
Guest:I'm like, yes, sir.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:And all the guys are watching.
Guest:Damn, he broke somebody down.
Guest:I said, yes, sir.
Guest:And I said, now, that was a good speech.
Guest:And see, I was like, I did my part like it affected me.
Guest:And you did your part.
Guest:Then I did my part like it affected me.
Guest:I said, now, can I go get some sleep?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He goes, what?
Guest:I said, that was good.
Guest:You did your thing.
Guest:And I said, oh, God, please don't hurt me.
Guest:Yeah, I did my role.
Guest:I said, can I go sleep now?
Guest:So they locked me up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I said, cool.
Guest:They put me in stockade.
Guest:That's sleep for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they got me locked up.
Guest:So the next morning, you're supposed to get up early, go clean the base.
Guest:Well, they ain't gonna kill me.
Guest:So I'm like, I'm not going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They go, what?
Guest:I'm not going.
Guest:They go, come on, Sinbad.
Guest:Don't make me be the one.
Guest:I'm not going.
Guest:The rest of the person, we're not going.
Guest:Sinbad's not going.
Guest:No, we're not going.
Guest:They said, get him out.
Guest:Get him out.
Guest:Get him out.
Marc:So all the other guys in the stockade said they're not going?
Guest:They said they weren't going.
Marc:This is a prison revolt.
Guest:Yeah, yes.
Guest:So they took me out of the thing and put me back.
Guest:And they said, you will sit here.
Guest:And you will do duties.
Guest:And they started to initiate kicking me out of the military.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But fortunately, you know, what you did was just belligerent.
Marc:It wasn't criminal.
Guest:No, I was always short of criminal.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Then I wanted to get a Section 8 because I always like M.A.S.H.
Guest:I thought it'd be cool to get a Section 8 and be crazy.
Guest:And Colonel Brooks, brother man, saved my life.
Guest:He was, you want a Section 8?
Guest:He put me where the mental people were at.
Guest:And mental people know when you're not mental because they all gathered around me.
Guest:I said, I got to get out.
Guest:I said, okay, okay, okay, you win.
Guest:I don't want a section A. Really, he put you in the hospital?
Guest:Yeah, he said, okay, you want to be a section A?
Guest:I'll show you how that works.
Guest:They're all like this.
Guest:I was like, oh my God, I'm going to lose my mind in here.
Guest:You really need a section A. So he said, I need you to shave.
Guest:It's called 3510.
Guest:I said, get some new pants.
Guest:And me and you're going to talk every day.
Guest:Now, you're not going to get a...
Guest:Honorable you don't get a general under honorable conditions because I can't get you an honorable discharge, but not dishonorable No, so I got general honorable conditions which means he just a smart it just means you got issues.
Guest:Yeah, it's smart.
Guest:Yeah, so you know when I got kicked out
Guest:I said, they threw me out.
Guest:I'm sitting across the street.
Guest:I got my duffel bag, everything in it.
Guest:I said, you know what?
Guest:This is the lowest I can go.
Guest:So I can't go nowhere but up.
Guest:I said, this is the lowest I can be.
Marc:You had to work.
Marc:You had to literally put your mind to getting kicked out of the military.
Marc:When you were doing fine, you just didn't want to deal with it anymore.
Guest:No, I got kicked out.
Guest:He said, my boy, there's another cat there.
Guest:Man, you want to get kicked out?
Guest:Quick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Say you want to stay.
Guest:That's the military.
Guest:In the middle of it.
Guest:So I went to my commanding officer.
Guest:I just seemed to err in my ways.
Guest:I'd like to stay and go to school and become an officer.
Guest:My paperwork was through in three days.
Guest:It kicked me out in three days.
Guest:Because you could have made us think about it in a way.
Guest:No.
Guest:They were like this.
Guest:They thought I wanted to stay so they thought they could hurt me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:By kicking me out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I said, I really want to be an officer.
Guest:It was.
Guest:I said, I've seen the error of my ways.
Guest:I said, I just realized.
Marc:Oh, so you think you acted that up.
Marc:So you thought, like, we're going to really crush this guy.
Guest:I said, I think I could be an officer like you guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He said, what?
Guest:And I want to fly.
Guest:I said, so I'd like to, we could work this out.
Guest:I could work hard.
Guest:Man, my paperwork was through in three days.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:So then, OK, so then you do that.
Marc:And what did your father say after all that bullshit?
Guest:Oh, I just couldn't go home.
Guest:I was like.
Guest:I said, I'll be home when I can buy your house.
Guest:I said, I'm a comedian.
Guest:He goes, you're what?
Guest:I'm a comedian.
Guest:He said, so is this a hobby?
Guest:Because I would call home, I'm a comedian.
Guest:Could you send me $25?
Marc:My parents just stopped saying that like last year.
Guest:They don't know.
Guest:They're scared.
Guest:They're worried.
Guest:To be an entertainer, especially talking about in the 70s and 80s when there was no HBO, how do you make it out of the small-time Midwest?
Guest:I said, Dad, well, Bill Cosby was somebody's son.
Guest:He goes, yeah, but you're not Bill Cosby.
Guest:I said, and that's what his mother probably said to him when he said he was somebody else.
Guest:So...
Guest:I ended up going out.
Guest:I would just show up at places.
Guest:It's a comic.
Guest:I would show up.
Guest:At the rock play?
Guest:At the music clubs?
Guest:No, I would show up.
Guest:Comedy clubs?
Guest:I would show up.
Guest:I would call first and say I had a name for a guy who was my manager.
Guest:So I would call like I was my manager and they said we can't book him.
Guest:Then I would show up and say my manager said I was booked here.
Guest:And they'd go like, no, we told your manager no.
Guest:I'd go like,
Guest:Oh, man, it's the third time this week.
Guest:And they go, well, look, man, you can go up and do three minutes.
Guest:But I knew if I did three minutes and I killed, I'd get a place to stay and maybe some food.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So what were these clubs?
Marc:This is before the- Everywhere.
Guest:John Cocker's Club, Giggles, Comedy Clubs, Nashville, everywhere.
Guest:I was just showing up at Comedy Clubs.
Guest:Where were you living?
Guest:Nowhere.
Guest:I ride the bus.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We just had a bag of shit.
Marc:I had a bag of shit.
Marc:And you get on pay phones at bus stations and do this manager scheme.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The hustle.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:And that's how it started.
Guest:I had a little list of where comedy clubs were at.
Marc:And this was before the boom, right before or right at the same, right about.
Guest:I went to Kansas City.
Guest:Oh, I got kicked out of the military in Wichita and I saw this comedy club in Kansas City.
Guest:My brothers live in Kansas City.
Guest:But these aren't black clubs.
Guest:No.
Guest:There were no black clubs.
Guest:There were no black clubs then.
No.
Guest:No?
Guest:No.
Guest:The first black club I ever saw was Maurice Gold Coast in St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:But this is after I became a comic.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was only one night a week.
Marc:So this was like just the 80s clubs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Remember, they were everywhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All over the South.
Guest:The clubs were... Dude, if a club didn't work as a club, they made a comedy club.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They always had a night for comedy because comedy was booming.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So Kansas City...
Guest:I get to Kansas City.
Guest:But before I get there, though, I'm just short of places.
Guest:Now, what I did do earlier, short of nightclubs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one guy said, man, I can get you in.
Guest:I can manage you.
Guest:Dude, we can sit at the club, nightclub.
Guest:Hey, look, they didn't even know him.
Guest:I said, dude, stop.
Guest:Stop.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:This dude is funny.
Guest:He needs me on stage.
Guest:I said, man, stop.
Guest:Just stop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They go, okay, man, he can do some time.
Guest:I want to do time.
Guest:I want to do time.
Guest:I said, dude, you're fired.
Guest:You weren't even hired, and you're fired.
Guest:So the DJ, DJ Starchild, man, he's DJing.
Guest:He got the headphones on.
Guest:There's a microphone with a cord about this long.
Guest:And all of a sudden, the guy whispers to him, cutie pie, number one song in the country.
Guest:Yo, dude think he's funny.
Guest:Y'all want to hear him?
Guest:Hell no.
Guest:I said, oh, Jesus Christ.
Guest:He comes, Sebastian.
Guest:I said, my name is Sinbad.
Guest:Sebastian.
Guest:So I get up on the mic.
Guest:Hey, how y'all doing?
Guest:We're doing good till you got here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the girl said, get off the mic.
Guest:I said, don't worry, anybody dancing with you anyway.
Guest:Some said duck and a kvassi bottle flew by my head.
Guest:I said, thank you very much.
Guest:And I left the DJ booth.
Guest:But I went out the wrong door.
Guest:I thought it was the door to get out.
Guest:It was the door to where the alcohol was.
Guest:I just sat down the alcohol set.
Guest:I'm not coming out this door again.
Guest:I'm staying here.
Guest:I sat there from midnight to 3 in the morning.
Guest:And the waitress would come in.
Guest:Do you want anything?
Guest:No, I'll just sit here.
Guest:Mr. Comedian, we know you in there, man.
Guest:Come on out, Mr. Comedian, man.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:So, dude, those are the kind of places I played.
Guest:When I saw a comedy club, people were sitting down and listening.
Guest:I said, people sit down and listen to comedy?
Guest:Dude, that was such a foreign concept to me.
Guest:So, I get to this comedy club.
Guest:My car broke down three times.
Guest:Three times.
Guest:Were you booked?
Guest:No.
Guest:I found when open mic night was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, I get there finally.
Guest:I catch the bus.
Guest:I said, forget my car.
Guest:I catch my... No.
Guest:I got to Empire, Kansas.
Guest:The car broke down.
Guest:I jumped on the bus.
Guest:I ain't turning around.
Marc:What kind of car was that?
Guest:It was a...
Guest:Dude, I got a Saab.
Guest:I had just bought a Saab.
Marc:Should have made it.
Guest:No, the guy showed me a piece of crap Saab that the glue on the headliner would fall on my face while I was driving.
Guest:So I put pins up to hold it up.
Guest:I thought I was cool.
Guest:I thought I had this cool Saab.
Marc:No, you didn't.
Guest:No, it stayed at Empire.
Guest:I never went back to get it.
Guest:He just left it.
Marc:I left it there, man.
Marc:So you get to Kansas City.
Guest:I get to Kansas City.
Guest:I get to the comedy club, and all the comics are there, and I remember my man John Penny, and they were like, look, dude, well, you do three minutes, or if you can't do three minutes.
Guest:I go, and my girlfriend was my wife now.
Guest:I said, three minutes?
Guest:I can talk.
Guest:I didn't know what I was doing.
Guest:What a set was or what?
Guest:I didn't know that was special.
Guest:I've been doing it for like two weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, man, three minutes.
Guest:I can go forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm like this.
Guest:They let me get on stage.
Guest:I took a newspaper.
Guest:I remember Mort Saul used to do it.
Guest:I threw it to the audience, pick anything.
Guest:And I did a routine on it.
Guest:And the club owner did this, keep going.
Guest:So I went from three minutes to half an hour.
Guest:He goes, I came off stage.
Guest:He booked me for that weekend.
Guest:The comics didn't tell me until like four weeks later, we hated you.
Guest:So we can't get, we've been here for a year.
Guest:If a year he might, David Naster might give you time.
Guest:I didn't realize what I was doing was different.
Guest:I didn't realize that.
Marc:All the other guys were doing jokes.
Guest:Comics were like this.
Guest:Man, we don't get you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I would show up anywhere.
Guest:And then, dude, the test was we're at Half Moon Bay.
Marc:Right, up there, yeah.
Guest:Robin Williams wants to do 15 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, this is an idol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a moment.
Guest:And then.
Guest:85?
Guest:What is it, 89?
Guest:Yeah, 85.
Guest:85.
Guest:So, man, all the other comics.
Guest:My man, he's going to steal material.
Guest:He's going to take out material.
Guest:I'll be like this.
Guest:y'all don't want to work with Robin Williams they're like this no man he's like he's a sponge if he hears something it becomes his I'm like this he can take my stuff so they're like this man so Robin he said he won't do 15 minutes and he didn't he did 45 minutes and then who wants to go next I said me
Guest:They go, why?
Guest:Oh, you think you're funny?
Guest:I said, dude, y'all were never my competition.
Guest:He is.
Guest:Him.
Guest:Bill Cosby.
Guest:Richard Pryor said, why are we competing with dudes nobody knows?
Guest:I said, nobody knows you guys.
Guest:I said, and they didn't get where I was coming from.
Guest:I said, if I can't stand on stage with these dudes, I'm not a comic.
Guest:so robin williams from the stage i said man just i'm like gush i love you man he goes that cool he's leaving i started doing my thing he stayed within three minutes i had to stand ovation and after he goes man why aren't you in la i said robin williams i should go to la i said i'm gonna be all right i was like this i don't care if i win this competition robin williams said i should go to la yeah and did you huh right after the competition yeah
Marc:That's when you moved down here?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:85.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:I went to improv first.
Marc:Bud still had it?
Guest:No, Bud still had it.
Guest:And then I went to the comedy store.
Guest:I couldn't get on it.
Guest:I couldn't get it, man.
Guest:We'll get somebody to sit with her.
Guest:Somebody has to sit with her.
Guest:So I think it was Louie Anderson that did it.
Guest:I think Louie sat with her.
Guest:So Louie did it for me.
Guest:Louie said, somebody has to sit with her.
Marc:And tell her this guy's good.
Marc:The system was crazy.
Guest:So dude, remember I was on the road.
Guest:Dude, I already had made, I was headlining.
Guest:And people were planning vacations around me with no TV, nothing.
Marc:By 85, 86.
Guest:In one year.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I got to L.A.
Guest:I'm like, I ain't here to prove nothing.
Guest:I'm funny.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's why I didn't come here right away.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But the comedy store is its own world.
Guest:So I got through the comedy store.
Guest:I don't understand your style.
Guest:I said, don't worry, I'll never be back.
Guest:And Bud Freeman offered me a day.
Guest:He goes, look, if you don't go back to the comedy store, you can come here.
Guest:You can showcase whatever you want.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:He said.
Guest:Kevin Dillon said, man, that's crazy.
Guest:I remember Kevin Dillon.
Guest:Man, that's crazy.
Guest:That doesn't happen.
Marc:Well, it did happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Happened with Jimmy Walker.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Because Jimmy Walker fucked him in his mind.
Marc:Like, you know, Jimmy Walker betrayed him.
Marc:This still exists between those two guys.
Marc:Like, I had Jimmy Walker in here.
Marc:And we're talking about a comic store and everything else.
Marc:And back in the 70s, there was a real tension.
Marc:Dude, it was tension in the 80s.
Marc:You couldn't work both.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:But Jimmy was one of Bud's first guys from New York like he knew Jimmy.
Marc:And Jimmy started working at both and they're still fucked up about it.
Marc:What?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Bud Freeman said the only thing that pisses him off is that one thing.
Marc:Fucking Jimmy Walker.
Guest:betrayed him from the 70s he couldn't let it go he hasn't let it go and jimmy knew it it's kind of trippy man wow because who gives a shit now no man right nobody remembers the address of the place anymore it's crazy man so bud but bud said to you like don't work for her no he but do it wasn't like that he said dude bud said i'll let you show bud let me
Guest:And Kevin Nealon was like, man, that doesn't happen, man.
Marc:Well, I think we've got to make people understand that at that time, before it became just a world of bringer shows.
Guest:I wouldn't be a comic now that bringer.
Guest:You got to pay to bring.
Guest:That's so stupid.
Guest:The reason I come to the comedy store, the reason you come to a comedy club is because you're supposed to have an audience.
Marc:Well, they do, but there's also the bringer thing.
Marc:But the point being is that at that time, it was one night, and it was a showcase.
Marc:You saw 20 guys.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:So he basically said, I'll give you a spot anytime you want to showcase, which could be every night of the week.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And just stay exclusive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's how it started.
Guest:But the thing is, I didn't really need Holly to do that because that's when I found Hollywood was never going to get me.
Guest:I would showcase for stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And kill.
Guest:And these young, and I'll never forget, these young agents, these young agents were like, whoa.
Guest:They went back to the agency, this guy Sinbad, and I'll never forget what she told me.
Guest:They said anybody but him.
Guest:I thought I was going to be the next Richard.
Guest:I'm going to be the next Bill.
Guest:In my mind, I'm going to be the next Robin Williams, Bill Murray.
Guest:I'm like, and they said, anybody but him.
Guest:And that's my mind.
Guest:What is it about me that they couldn't figure out what I was?
Guest:Is he the good news?
Guest:Is he militant?
Guest:What is he?
Guest:They couldn't figure out what he was.
Guest:And plus, you know what?
Guest:I didn't take much junk.
Guest:Well, that's it.
Marc:It was the same thing that that superior officer did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was honest.
Guest:Dude, you can't say stupid stuff to me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Honest and also it's sort of like you knew.
Marc:See, there's a weird thing.
Marc:Is that like if you're just fundamentally incapable of playing by, of taking any sort of like authority problem.
Guest:Well, not even authority.
Guest:Some sound stupid.
Guest:I said, dude, let me do this.
Guest:I can do this.
Guest:I didn't realize, even saying, hey, man, I was talking about cameras.
Guest:I was talking about editing stuff.
Guest:We can do it this way.
Guest:They were like this.
Guest:I had a point of view.
Guest:They really just want you to, somebody go, man, you're funny.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:I know I'm funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's not about tripping.
Guest:If you play ball, I got to know I can score.
Guest:I got to know you put the rock in my hand.
Guest:I want the ball at the end of the game.
Guest:Don't hobble me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, don't hobble me.
Guest:Give me the ball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was almost like a double-edged sword I couldn't figure out.
Guest:And then because I was, oh, dude, this is what happened.
Guest:I got to Hollywood.
Yeah.
Guest:They said he's clean.
Guest:Then they say he's clean.
Guest:He's all American clean.
Guest:He's a father.
Guest:I said, y'all just kept my career like there was no funk about me.
Guest:Like there was nothing controversial.
Guest:These people never even saw me.
Guest:The word clean threw them off.
Guest:I said, I hate when somebody says I'm a clean comic.
Guest:No, I'm a comedian, man, because I put my stuff against anybody.
Guest:I don't care who you are.
Guest:I don't care who gets in front of me, behind me.
Guest:I don't care what you do.
Guest:I can do your dirty material dirtier than you.
Guest:I can do your dirty material clean.
Guest:I said, dude, you don't get it.
Guest:And then I thought they'll get it because I'm doing movies.
Guest:I'm going to play everything.
Guest:It's not going to be no limits.
Guest:So they'll say there's more than one side to send back.
Guest:Then the movies, they wouldn't even want me for the movie because they're like, well, I don't think he'll do that.
Guest:So you thought... So they were projecting.
Marc:They were like, no, he's his own thing.
Guest:He ain't gonna... And I made a mistake.
Guest:I should have kept writing my own movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I should have... I should have... I got mad instead of just doing what I do.
Guest:So what was the first big opportunity?
Guest:Well, you know what it was?
Guest:Like, I can't remember.
Guest:It was... I'm trying... Well, you know, the first movie was Joe Roth, man, gave me a chance to do Houseguest.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And I got a chance to help punch the script up and make it funny and stuff.
Guest:But I think what happened is the director, his girlfriend wrote it.
Guest:And I told the crew, look, I'm not going to be doing anything that's in here.
Guest:So the first day, I'm with Phil Hartman.
Guest:I said, Phil, look at me.
Guest:Just go with me, my brother.
Guest:He goes, what?
Guest:I said, Phil, go with me, my brother.
Guest:And I could see over there.
Guest:She was mouthing the words.
Guest:She had a script.
Guest:And I wasn't doing it.
Guest:Those aren't the words.
Guest:I said, all right.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But I'm being funny.
Guest:I said, but you'll get all the credit for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She goes, but you're not, so you think it's funny what you're doing?
Guest:I said, oh, I know mine's funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know what happens?
Guest:It became kind of a fight.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So I really, dude, I would sit and watch the dailies, and I was worried about the dailies, and I was, you know, I was tired as hell because I'd be back the next morning to go shoot.
Guest:One Sunday, we're off.
Guest:We're in Pittsburgh shooting it.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:Eric Sears was the editor.
Guest:His daughter's, hey, and she sees me.
Guest:My dad's the editor.
Guest:I see him when she come over here.
Guest:So I come in the building.
Guest:I watch the edit.
Guest:He's like this.
Guest:He said, I see what you're doing.
Guest:You don't have to come any more dailies.
Guest:I got you.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was like this.
Guest:He said, it's funny.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:He goes, dude, it's funny.
Guest:I'm only sending the funny stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:It's always guys like that.
Guest:It was always the other cats that got me.
Guest:The girl who answered the phone.
Guest:The girl when I go to go for audition, and the girl's like this, like, oh my God, you're so funny.
Guest:But you go on like, you know, I understand you're funny.
Guest:I could have played the game.
Guest:I could have been like, you know, my thing is this.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I can't hide from what I am, I am what I am.
Guest:That was like, that was way after you did TV and shit.
Guest:Oh yeah, first TV, oh first TV was, well first TV since I got here I did a thing called Club Med.
Guest:First we got here.
Guest:Bob Girald is directing who did Beated video.
Guest:And all of us are sitting there.
Guest:You know, it's the same five black people for every movie.
Guest:You see Arsenio Hawsey.
Guest:It was Robert Townsend.
Guest:It was me, Mario Van Peebles.
Guest:Bill Maher's in a movie with me, too.
Guest:So, man, when we auditioning, though,
Guest:What made me know, I said, God, I wonder if I, you always wonder if you can act.
Guest:I said, the kiss of death when a comic can't act.
Guest:So dude, I went in and I read and Giraldi says this, because the part is for the part of this guy, he's a comedian also.
Guest:So he says to me after I read, the problem is not your acting,
Guest:He said, if you're funny, you got this.
Guest:I said, wait a minute.
Guest:So all this determines if I'm funny.
Guest:I said, dude, Sam Beryl's home.
Guest:So I just did my thing.
Guest:He said, oh, so when we get to Club Med, dude, I wasn't supposed to be in certain scenes, but dude, I'm clowning.
Guest:What is it, a TV show?
Guest:It was a TV show, Movie of the Week, with my man Linda Hamilton from Terminator.
Guest:She was in it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Miami Sound Machine was in it doing the music.
Guest:And Bill Maher was in it.
Guest:Jack Scalia was the... So Bill Maher played the bartender.
Guest:So while we're down there doing this movie, he says, look, man, I know you're not supposed to be on set today.
Guest:You just keep everybody laughing so hard.
Guest:So, dude, he's put me in scenes.
Guest:We're doing funny stuff.
Guest:And then the assistant sits me down three days later and says, I want to show you something.
Guest:It was a letter from Lorimar.
Guest:Lorimar was a production company.
Guest:Remember back in the day?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They said, this is not a Sinbad movie.
Guest:Because they said he was putting me in there too much.
Guest:All right.
Guest:He says, man, you get a kid, I don't even tell you.
Guest:He said, I've never got anything like this.
Guest:He calls, this kid is killing.
Guest:He goes, this is not a Sinbad movie.
Marc:He said.
Marc:You have one of those personalities.
Guest:People want to take you down a notch.
Guest:He said, will you still come hang out?
Guest:I said, well, I'll come every day.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Just in clown.
Marc:Isn't that weird, though, that they're like, we got to take him down a notch.
Guest:It is, no there was.
Guest:And my dad was so frustrated.
Guest:He said, dude, you walk in the room, you're 6'5".
Guest:He said, you know what you're talking about.
Guest:You don't back down.
Guest:And they're like this, most comics aren't like that.
Guest:We'll do, we'll get a job, you know comics.
Guest:We'll get a job, I'll do it.
Guest:I'll do it.
Guest:They try to outfund each other.
Guest:I said, I'm not here to outfund you.
Guest:I'm here to be me.
Guest:I'm not here to outfund another comic.
Guest:And I'm not here hoping you find me funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I've gone into meetings.
Guest:I said, dude, I'm not here.
Guest:Like, oh, even now, my agent, I go and play, do you still have it?
Guest:Okay, who do you know lost it?
Guest:Who lost it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That wasn't doing drugs or alcohol or something.
Guest:What comic, did Milton Berle lose it?
Guest:Did George Burns lose it?
Guest:Who lost it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Don Rickles, did somebody lose it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they don't realize you're on the road every week.
Guest:I don't know if y'all realize this, I work every weekend.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:Yeah, I saw you at the airport.
Guest:I saw you at the airport with your guitar case.
Guest:I got my guitar case and my horn.
Guest:I said, I work every weekend.
Guest:I'm having a ball being a comedian and playing music.
Guest:I'm probably having more fun playing music because I run to a club to play music right after.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you work with Red Fox?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:First show, first TV show.
Guest:I play Red Fox Sun.
Marc:God damn it.
Guest:So I got a chance with Red Fox, I got a chance with Bill Cosby.
Marc:But wait, tell me about Red because Red is like, because I've talked to so many guys and I think about comedy a lot and the history of it.
Marc:He's like the black Rodney.
Marc:They don't get the respect that he deserves.
Guest:He was the funniest one.
Guest:Dude, he saved CBS.
Guest:Dude, Cosby saved NBC, Philip Wilson saved ABC, and Red Fox saved CBS.
Marc:But you know those guys that don't get the historical respect they deserve?
Guest:Because it was too far back.
Guest:See, Red came from a time that's too far back that people understand.
Guest:He owned a club on La Cienega.
Guest:Not just owned a club.
Guest:Dude, he had boxers.
Guest:Red was a beast, man.
Guest:You know what Red wanted you to do?
Guest:Was hang out with you.
Guest:We watched boxing films, watched movies.
Guest:Red liked hanging with people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that thing about his mother making him break out in hives was real.
Guest:Really?
Guest:His mother showed her one time, saying, man, is Red in there?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:And so I led her on to the lot.
Guest:I said, your mother's outside.
Guest:Boy!
Guest:Dude, he broke out.
Guest:I said, oh my God.
Guest:This ain't no routine.
Guest:He broke out.
Guest:He said, man, just give it his money.
Guest:He loved his mom to definitely drove him crazy.
Guest:Give her this money.
Guest:And you had to pay rent in cash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You had to pay him his weekly salary in cash.
Marc:But he's one of those guys that was so like, like, you know, they're those guys, you know, and you're funny, obviously, but he was one of those guys that like, you know, he couldn't help but be funny if he was just eating.
Guest:No, he was, because they're brutally honest.
Guest:Red was, Red taught me how to do TV.
Guest:When they put me, when they made me his son, they revamped the show.
Guest:He had this adopted daughter.
Guest:It wasn't working, so they brought me in as his son, Byron, who was playing pro football, came back home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, dude, Red, my first day, dude, I'm doing my thing.
Guest:I'm doing my lines.
Guest:I remember I was like, that's good.
Guest:I like how you did that.
Guest:But, you know, you all over the place.
Guest:They got tape down here so you can stand the tape.
Guest:Now, you know, you damn near white, I can get a white boy to play your part.
Yeah.
Guest:I laughed so hard.
Guest:And he became my friend.
Guest:He said, tell me how to do stuff.
Guest:And then the guys that produced it, man, you make him come alive.
Guest:I said, man, how about this?
Guest:We'll try this.
Guest:We did a scene where the oven was supposed to blow up and I was supposed to jump over the counter blown up.
Guest:Dude, Red pushed me down and jumped over the counter for the laugh.
Guest:I said, I love that.
Guest:He said, I couldn't let you have that one.
Guest:I was like this.
Guest:It was just so cool that he showed me that he was excited.
Guest:And he held me down.
Guest:I got ready to jump up.
Guest:He held me down.
Guest:He jumped over the counter, blown up.
Guest:He did his thing.
Guest:He said, yo, man, you made it look fun.
Guest:In rehearsal, you made that look fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That was something, huh?
Guest:So I loved it, man.
Guest:I love Red Fox.
Guest:One of the greats.
Guest:Yeah, I love Red Fox.
Guest:So I got to cut my teeth.
Guest:And then there became an argument.
Guest:One of the Smothers brothers, not the one with the mustache, Tommy Smothers was directing.
Guest:The Red Fox show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's directing the episode.
Guest:I'm like, oh, God, it's one of the Smothers brothers.
Guest:So I was doing some little stuff, improv thing.
Guest:He goes, that's not funny.
Guest:And I didn't know how to say it.
Guest:I said, oh, no, no.
Guest:The cast and crew, I mean, the crew, if you let the camera people laugh.
Marc:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:I said, well, everybody's kind of laughing.
Guest:He said, I said, that's not funny, and it won't be in the show.
Guest:And he stopped being Tommy Smothers to me at that point.
Guest:And I did this.
Guest:I said, then maybe you don't know what funny is.
Guest:And I said, Ray are probably going to fire me.
Guest:And the whole room just got quiet.
Guest:He said, you know who I am?
Guest:I said, if you forgot who you are, I can write it down for you.
Guest:I'll even get directions to your house for you.
Guest:So you really pushed it.
Guest:I said, plus I never saw you do nothing without your brother.
Guest:So I truly don't know how funny you are.
Guest:You're saying this shit?
Guest:I'm saying this shit.
Guest:Because now I'm going in.
Guest:Now I'm going in.
Guest:Now the other side of me comes out.
Guest:Boom, boom, boom.
Guest:I'm throwing my, I'm slinging.
Guest:I said, how was that?
Guest:Was that funny?
Guest:And Red comes over.
Guest:All right, all right.
Guest:He said, Tommy, we're going to keep what he did.
Guest:Because you about to get knocked out, I think, by this young man.
Guest:And Red Fog says to me, don't ever change and don't ever back up.
Guest:He says, because it was funny.
Guest:He said, I just want to see how far you would go to stand up for yourself.
Guest:And then Leon, Leon, my boy, the stage manager, said, don't end your career this week.
Guest:He said, man, it's going to get worse than this sometimes.
Guest:I said, but dude, why would somebody fight you about being funny?
Guest:I didn't get it yet.
Guest:I didn't understand the egos.
Marc:And what happened?
Marc:What was the outcome of that?
Guest:Oh, it was in the show.
Guest:It was funny as hell.
Marc:And he only directed one episode?
Guest:He only directed one episode.
Marc:Oh, so it wasn't like he wasn't there every day.
Marc:This is my shot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:This guy's just a day player.
Marc:I'm going to take him down.
Guest:I don't care who he is.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:He look at me, man.
Guest:I mean, it's the way he said it to me.
Guest:It's the way he said to me.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I said it's not funny.
Guest:It'll get cut out.
Guest:I said, well, cut it out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You think that scares me?
Guest:You cut me out?
Marc:The show didn't last.
Guest:No, the show made it through a whole season.
Marc:Did you remain friends with Red?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Till he died?
Marc:Till the day he died.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:He would do a show, tape on Friday, catch a flight, and go do a show, midnight show.
Guest:In Vegas?
Guest:Midnight show he did in Vegas.
Guest:And if his mother showed up, he wouldn't cuss.
Guest:His mother never saw him cuss on stage.
Guest:And that's what he would.
Guest:If someone told him his mother was in the audience, he would not curse.
Marc:That's incredible.
Guest:She never saw him do a dirty show.
Marc:Because I got some of those party records.
Guest:That shows you that he can work.
Guest:I tell guys who are dirty, if you can't work dirty and clean, you're really not funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure.
Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, dirty and clean is the same thing.
Guest:It's just a choice of words.
Guest:But was Red funny or dirty?
Guest:No, he was funny both ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:I said, oh, man.
Marc:I said, man, he was just as funny the other way.
Marc:Well, this is interesting, though, because when you started doing comedy,
Marc:Who were your main guys?
Marc:It was Cosby and Pryor?
Marc:Cosby, Pryor, Robin Williams.
Marc:Because we didn't see Red doing standouts.
Marc:Jonathan Winters.
Marc:That was way before us.
Guest:I had all of his albums.
Guest:Oh, you had the records.
Guest:And I watched.
Guest:I had old, you see old footage of Red.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You could see stuff.
Marc:His timing, man.
Guest:His timing was incredible, man.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:Right?
Guest:He was the cat.
Marc:Flip Wilson was one of my idols.
Marc:So after Redd Fox Show, that's when the relationship with Cosby starts?
Guest:Well, then after Redd Fox Show, they auditioned for this show for Different World.
Guest:And to get the show, now I wouldn't remember, I couldn't audition for the show.
Guest:It was a spinoff show from the Cosby Show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They already had to cast.
Marc:Oh, but he's producing it.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:They were looking for a comic to warm up the audience.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Now remember, those jobs are hard jobs to get because it's a very closed job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the comic that gets it never gives to anybody else because you don't have to be that dang funny.
Guest:You make good money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you get the union coverage.
Guest:So I had to come.
Guest:I had to audition.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I had to lie.
Guest:So I go in.
Guest:Carsey Warner, I started talking about all these shows I've done and I've warmed up the audience for this show and that show.
Guest:And I could have just stopped, but the lie couldn't stop.
Guest:I couldn't stop the lie.
Guest:And I said, I also warmed up for Magnum P.I.
Guest:And they said, was it on location?
Guest:I said, yes.
Guest:And I said, but let me ask you this.
Guest:Up to this point, how good was I doing?
Ha!
Guest:So I get up, I said, why can't you stop lying?
Guest:Dude, you didn't need the last, and so I'm walking out, and George Crosby, he's a guy about six, seven, six, eight, worked with Crosby.
Guest:He said, man, come here, man.
Guest:Magnum P.I., man.
Guest:Dude, you was in there.
Guest:He said, look, either you're very talented, or dude, you're mental.
Guest:I'm gonna air on the side of a mixture of both, and I'm gonna go in there and tell them, give you this job.
Guest:Man, don't make me look stupid.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:Don't make me, because I figured if I warm up at the show, Cosby will put me on the show.
Guest:See, it was never the warm-up.
Guest:I didn't come to be a warm-up comic.
Guest:They didn't know that.
Guest:So now, first day, the day of taping coming, I'm gonna be Bill Cosby.
Guest:Man, I can't even talk.
Guest:I boo him.
Guest:The social producer comes up to me.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:What are you doing standing here?
Guest:I said, well, I'm waiting for Cosby.
Guest:You don't wait for Cosby.
Guest:You get out there and get ready.
Guest:I said, no, my name is Sinbad and I'm a comedian.
Guest:I don't think you understand what's going on right now.
Guest:She said, what?
Guest:I don't think you understand what's going on.
Guest:I need you to get out my face.
Guest:Well, I'm getting someone to replace you.
Guest:Go ahead and get them.
Guest:Here comes Cosby now.
Guest:I just want to say hello.
Guest:So Cosby comes up.
Guest:He says, I got this gone.
Guest:I couldn't speak to him.
Guest:I was like this.
Guest:He said, are you mute?
Guest:I'll never forget.
Guest:Then I shook his hand.
Guest:He goes, you must be left-handed because you don't have any strength in your right.
Guest:Dude, I'm like, I can't say.
Guest:Are you left-handed?
Guest:No.
Guest:I couldn't shake his hand.
Guest:He was shaking my hand.
Guest:I couldn't grip it.
Guest:And I said, man, I just want to say, no, we're going to do all that.
Guest:Don't do all that.
Guest:about liking, don't do that, we gonna do this, man.
Guest:You go out there, you just, you don't try to be friendly, you do your thing, and you do it, you be cool, and you do your thing.
Guest:And I'm like this, oh, he don't realize, I'm gonna show off every, so dude, I'm out there.
Guest:For warmup.
Guest:Yeah, so I'm warming up the audience, and I'm doing my thing, but there's a woman,
Guest:Sitting in the aisle, I said, it might be easier if I sit in the aisle.
Guest:And she goes like this.
Guest:I'm 6'3".
Guest:She stood up.
Guest:Kimber Rickerball, who ended up producing my first stand-up special.
Guest:She said, I'm going to sit in the aisle because I'm a tall woman.
Guest:Kimber Rickerball.
Guest:Yeah, I know her.
Guest:Kimber, man.
Guest:So Kimber, that's how we met.
Guest:And I got another gig because of that night.
Guest:So I'm warm up to the audience for two days.
Guest:Cosby takes the mic and said, this man should be on TV.
Guest:As he goes, and I don't play.
Guest:He hands me the mic back.
Guest:Dude, Kimber Rickerball goes to Dick Clark and there's a show called Keep On Cruisin', and said, I knew you weren't looking for a black host, but I found the guy who's the host of the show.
Guest:So...
Guest:I'm like this.
Guest:If nothing comes out of this, Cosby said I should be on TV.
Guest:Well, two weeks later, man, I get a... How do you find my address?
Guest:I got a ticket and an invite.
Guest:I'm doing the Cosby show.
Guest:I'm like this.
Guest:How did he find my house?
Guest:It was a ticket, hotel information, come to the Cosby show.
Guest:And I did the Cosby show.
Guest:It was the highest rated episode in TV history since the Beverly Hillbillies.
Marc:The one you were on.
Guest:I was blessed.
Guest:With Gilbert Gottfried.
Guest:I played a car salesman selling him a car.
Guest:So I get there.
Guest:He goes, huh?
Guest:What'd you think?
Guest:I said, man, I appreciate this opportunity.
Guest:He goes, no, you ain't going to act like this the whole time, right?
Guest:You're going to be funny, right?
Guest:So, dude, I'm doing the scene with him and I'm trying to be respectful.
Guest:You don't want to be out funny.
Guest:During the break, me and him start clowning.
Guest:See, that's what a boy, that's what I want.
Guest:Give me that.
Guest:He goes, Jay, we're going to reshoot that.
Guest:He said, go loose.
Guest:You know what Bill's thing is?
Guest:And I look for him.
Guest:You can't be out funny.
Guest:You can't out funny me.
Guest:Give me all you got because you don't intimidate me.
Guest:And I stole that from him.
Guest:I stole that from him.
Guest:I stole that from him.
Guest:I want the comic in front of me.
Guest:I want you to make me go like, uh-oh.
Guest:I want you to make me leave my dressing room so I can be in my A game.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I saw that from Cosby.
Guest:So he said, go loose.
Guest:Go loose.
Guest:And then he did one for the audience.
Guest:He told Gilbert Godfrey, for the audience, give me Gilbert.
Guest:He let Gilbert go ballistic.
Marc:So from that, you got a different world.
Marc:And he put me on a different world.
Marc:And that was big for you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a lot of episodes.
Marc:You were working.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Had a job.
Guest:And I was doing a different world.
Guest:And I was hosting Showtime at Apollo.
Guest:And I was doing the Luther Vandross tour all at the same time.
Marc:Opening for Luther.
Marc:Yes.
Yes.
Guest:And that's how I used to think as a comic.
Guest:I said, I did the first year for almost no money.
Guest:I said, look, it's like $500 a gig.
Guest:I said, I will go back into them same cities, into smaller theaters.
Guest:And that's how I did my first tour.
Marc:Yeah, you knew you'd build an audience.
Guest:You're building an audience.
Guest:It was the highest rated stand-up on HBO.
Guest:The brain damage.
Marc:Yeah, everyone knows who you are.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:People know who I am, but they don't.
Guest:I'm six years old next year.
Guest:I remember you wearing an orange jumpsuit.
Guest:Oh, yeah, brother.
Guest:I wore colors.
Guest:I wore colors.
Guest:No, I did.
Guest:I used to tell my mother.
Guest:Oh, they're not going to say, I think that's Sinbad.
Guest:If I'm walking down the street, it's not going to be, I think I saw Sinbad.
Guest:That can't be nobody but Sinbad.
Marc:Right.
Guest:yeah so uh yeah so you were you were huge but what were you saying that people don't remember people don't it's it's still i don't think people really even know who i i mean there's so much more that i got to movie wise and stuff i wanted to do it was such a box
Guest:Everybody keeps so busy talking about the clean, clean comedy.
Marc:Why'd you pick the name Sinbad?
Guest:That was my nickname.
Guest:That was the nickname I had from college.
Guest:So it just worked.
Guest:For movies and TV, dude, it was perfect.
Guest:So the Sinbad show, what happened with that?
Guest:Sinbad show, 13 episodes.
Guest:I pitched something.
Guest:Okay, this is how it happened.
Guest:I wasn't supposed to do a TV show.
Guest:Joe Roth said, let's do some more movies.
Guest:But Disney gave me a deal.
Guest:I had to pitch a TV show to him.
Guest:I made it up as I was going in the pitch.
Guest:And Joe Roth called me and said, you can't fake a suck pitch, can you?
Guest:I said, what do you mean?
Guest:They bought the show.
Guest:I said, the show's not real.
Guest:It's not what?
Guest:He said, they bought the show.
Guest:Now you're stuck doing a TV show.
Guest:I said, man, no, I should have flubbed that pitch.
Guest:So now, but the bad thing that happened is I had to go get produced.
Guest:I was on the road doing a tour.
Marc:So wait, so they reach out to you.
Marc:They say you got anything and you wanted- No, I had a deal.
Guest:The deal was with Disney to do movies, but I had to pitch a TV show.
Marc:One TV show.
Marc:That's part of the deal.
Guest:And you had to get picked up.
Guest:And Roth said, throw the fight.
Guest:He said, throw the fight, man.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just, let's go make movies.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And man, I pitched it.
Guest:I ain't gonna buy this.
Guest:I bought a guy, he adopts two kids, a black man, and he does the internet.
Guest:This is the internet.
Guest:Dude, I'm talking about 1994.
Guest:I'm telling these dudes about the internet.
Guest:They go, what?
Guest:He does video games.
Guest:He programs video games.
Guest:Because I'm a tech freak, man.
Guest:So it's like this.
Guest:What?
Guest:I said, trust me, six months will be hot.
Guest:So they ain't gonna buy this.
Guest:They call.
Guest:Congratulations.
Guest:You messed up.
Guest:You got the TV show.
Guest:I'm like, what?
Guest:So now, because we're on the road, they started developing this show without me.
Guest:So then when I get there, I'm like this, wait a minute, hold up.
Guest:You know, so already I'm like, oh God.
Guest:You didn't want to do it in the first place.
Guest:I'm going to be the guy I'm hard to work with.
Guest:Now I'm going to be the guy that's labeled the hard to work with.
Guest:I think every comic's first show is the one they think you're hard to work with because you fight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you thought writers were funny and they would hang out with you.
Guest:You don't really like writers.
Guest:They're some of the most anti-social people in the world, but they're good writers.
Guest:They could be good comedy writers, but they have no life.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So I didn't know that.
Guest:I thought it was gonna be cool.
Guest:And the writers were told not to talk to me.
Guest:And I was like, what?
Guest:Don't talk to him.
Guest:I wasn't supposed to come off the plantation.
Guest:I wasn't coming up to the main house.
Guest:I wasn't supposed to come up to the master house where all the producers were at.
Guest:But see, but that was the thing then.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They were like, we know his point of view.
Marc:Let us just fucking write the show.
Marc:Don't get him involved.
Guest:Wait, they're like this.
Guest:We don't know his point of view.
Guest:Some of them would never say we do stand-up.
Guest:They don't even know your point of view.
Guest:They're writing from their point of view.
Guest:They go, oh, I have a sister kind of like that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Except for one writer would sneak to the window at my dress room and say, what else you got?
Guest:I said, do this and that.
Guest:So he would sneak and get my ideas.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he'd take credit for it.
Marc:I said, take it.
Marc:No, I said, take it.
Marc:But you weren't on as a creator.
Marc:You weren't on as a... Yeah, I was.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:But they give you that credit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because now they're scared you'll abuse it.
Guest:Then I did this.
Guest:Hey, guys.
Guest:I said, now we can really do this faster.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, we can set up an editing bay right here on the set.
Guest:They said, that's not possible.
Guest:I said, oh, no.
Guest:So I showed them the technology.
Guest:I didn't realize they knew it was possible.
Guest:They didn't want me in the editing room.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Guest:So, dude, they... And this is your worst nightmare.
Guest:So, I'm not figuring out what's going on.
Guest:We got this funny stuff that won't do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm a guy who adopts two kids who are brothers and sisters.
Guest:I didn't want to adopt them.
Guest:I used them for... I would let them test my video games.
Guest:And the woman goes like, well, you don't mind using these kids.
Guest:Why don't you adopt them?
Guest:I'm a playboy.
Guest:He's a single dude.
Guest:He can't adopt these kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He ends up adopting these kids.
Guest:And I said, this is how it should work.
Guest:The first year, he's a fish out of water with these kids.
Guest:Second year, he has to give her some friends and stuff.
Guest:The third year, he starts looking at a woman.
Guest:Guess who the girl was on the show with me that they let go?
Guest:Who?
Guest:Summer Hayek.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:We have Summer Hike here.
Guest:And they let her go.
Guest:I said, dude, I need y'all to write her name down.
Guest:Because y'all is the dumbest move I've ever seen in my life.
Guest:I said, she's Aladdin Halle Berry.
Guest:Are y'all crazy?
Guest:I don't think so.
Marc:So you feel in that process of that show that you didn't really want to do that you lost control of it and fucked it up?
Guest:Well, it got so crazy.
Guest:It could have been so funny.
Guest:And then over the end of writing in the Hollywood Reporter.
Yeah.
Guest:He knew what he wanted.
Guest:We should have left him alone.
Guest:They just didn't want you to have control.
Guest:Just saying something like this, hey, guys, I got an idea.
Guest:It's not that you're not hard to work with.
Guest:You're like this.
Guest:I'm bouncing ideas.
Guest:They didn't want your ideas to say, hey, why don't we try this because it's so scary you're going to take control.
Guest:Remember Roseanne Barr?
Guest:Started giving her writers numbers.
Guest:Look what it took.
Guest:They called her crazy.
Guest:But remember, they wanted her to be a rich woman.
Guest:Roseanne used to ride with me on the road.
Guest:Roseanne said no.
Guest:I lived in a trailer park.
Guest:Can't we show a person who don't have money to buy good clothes and stuff?
Guest:That's why that show worked.
Guest:She can't stay true to herself.
Guest:She stayed true to who she was.
Guest:And remember, they tried to fire her.
Guest:And they told John Goodman he could have it.
Guest:And John Goodman was smart for real life.
Guest:This don't work without her.
Guest:Some people would have jumped at the chance to make it their show.
Guest:yeah you uh you spent a lot of time with her oh god i met rosie when i was in colorado i came through there and she was even talking about quitting yeah and i said you know why these comics hate you because when you get done women don't let them say stupid stuff i said you're killing it when she came to la man she said i'm out in la i said so she went to do the johnny carson show killed he called her over bam
Guest:Bam.
Marc:She was at the store.
Marc:She was at the store.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:She only been there two days.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Dude, she only been there two days.
Marc:Amazing time, then.
Marc:Amazing time.
Marc:So you got a lot of friends over at the store anyway, right?
Guest:Yeah, you know, I know everybody.
Guest:I think I just worked so much, I never really hung.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you did a lot of TV.
Marc:You do big parts still.
Marc:You do some big parts.
Marc:You're here and there, but you're working your ass off because you want to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what, though?
Guest:I don't like doing some... I'm doing some things I did back in the day.
Guest:I don't like... Like I said, I've been doing more comedy clubs than I've ever done, which is good and bad.
Guest:You got to do more days, but it also gives me a chance to rest and be somewhere and kind of bond with people.
Marc:It's nice sometimes to stay for a few days.
Guest:So I do.
Guest:So I'll do it every couple, three months I do a comedy club.
Marc:Is it humbling or are you okay?
Guest:No, I'm okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:But what's humbling is when other comics think...
Guest:they're the same look I ain't trying to trip yeah but they think because you did the same clubs yeah hey man maybe we all do something together now you really don't know who I am I mean it's like it's like you want to play with Allen Iverson man maybe because we played in the summer league together nah that's Allen Iverson but you don't think like sometimes like when I hear what young comics do that's sort of like well who the fuck do they think yeah wouldn't we have done that I mean like no because I respected cats I knew it was funny
Guest:But I mean, maybe it was easier for us to know who was who.
Guest:No, I knew who was funny.
Guest:I knew who was funny.
Guest:I knew that guy.
Guest:I knew Jay Leno.
Guest:Jay Leno was a legend.
Guest:Jay was doing, remember, just before Jay got the show.
Guest:Jay was this legend at comedy clubs.
Guest:Jay was getting the door.
Guest:Jay was a legend.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I got a chance to work with Jay at Zaney's in Nashville.
Guest:that little place that's a great place I'm going there dude I'm going to Zaney's I love Zaney's man sometimes I do the theater in Nashville and sometimes I do Zaney's Zaney's is great I have one last you know that last run I got one last run what do you mean before I go out and play blues you look like you're 40 I'm 60 but I'm going off to play blues whatever instrument they don't have in the band I'm going to play
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got a band.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I have a band.
Guest:I have a band called the Stank Nasty Band.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dude, we do funk.
Marc:But I never played with people.
Marc:I was sitting here and playing with people.
Marc:But then like when I start playing with people, I'm like.
Guest:Your life changed, didn't it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I tell people, you got to get out your room and go play with people.
Guest:It's great, because you realize, not all about me.
Guest:How guitar will travel.
Guest:Right, but it's also the- How they stay off them top two strings, because the bass player, you gotta realize, I don't need to hit all this.
Guest:The piano player's got chords.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:You gotta find space.
Marc:But see, for people like me and you, for fucking egotistical fucking- Comics?
Guest:I don't need nobody.
Guest:I don't need nobody.
Guest:And we're the worst leader of bands.
Guest:I tell you know the key to my band was, I'm the worst one in my band.
Guest:I got guys playing with Rick James.
Guest:These guys are so good, they make me good because I'm not the man.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's the best thing to realize.
Marc:I'm not the man.
Marc:I can just do what I do.
Marc:I got such good guys behind me.
Marc:I look like a fucking genius.
Guest:I get away with murder.
Guest:I'm playing stuff.
Guest:I'm talking trash.
Guest:Dude, I get away with murder.
Guest:I jump on percussion for a second.
Guest:Dude, my daughter sings with us.
Guest:Dude, I'm having a ball.
Uh-huh.
Guest:Now, after all, did your folks live to see your success?
Guest:Yeah, my mom's alive.
Guest:My dad, too.
Guest:I took my dad with me.
Guest:My dad, too.
Guest:When I finally, when I did Star Search, my dad was sitting next to Miles Davis, man.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And Miles Davis said to me, I did Star Search.
Guest:He set in motion what was going to happen in my life.
Guest:He said...
Guest:And I watch you on stage.
Guest:Do you play music?
Guest:I said, yeah, because that's jazz.
Guest:You know all the notes, but you play them the way you want to play them.
Guest:They ain't going to like you.
Marc:Really?
Guest:He said, you're going to have to keep moving forward.
Marc:What year was that?
Guest:That was 1985, doing our first guy here.
Marc:The first day of the Starship back then?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, they're not going to like you, but you got to do it anyway.
Guest:He said, because you ain't paying attention, no rules.
Guest:And I didn't know.
Guest:I said, what?
Marc:Not too loud, though, Miles Davis.
Guest:No, I was like this.
Guest:He says, you got what I'm saying?
Guest:I said, wow.
Guest:He says, you make this look like you ain't doing nothing.
Guest:He said, you make it look like it's easy because you're just flowing with it.
Guest:But then I realized your backstory, even though you're a new comic, your backstory, big.
Guest:Your life is right.
Guest:Because when I became a comic, by the time I became a comic,
Guest:I just wasn't some kid 18 who wanted to be funny.
Guest:I was a kid being kicked out of the military, dropped out of college, went through jobs, went through all this.
Guest:By the time I came to comic, you couldn't wound me.
Guest:You can't hurt me.
Guest:That's what guys understand.
Guest:I didn't need to go up on stage at the comedy store or improv to work out jokes.
Guest:Work out a joke.
Guest:I'm working.
Guest:If I'm on stage, I'm working.
Guest:I ain't working a routine.
Guest:I ain't bringing no legal pad up so you know, hey, if this sucks, hey, I got this legal pad.
Guest:So it sucks because I got it on this pad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Man, have some heart, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do the joke.
Guest:If it sucks, don't bring a legal pad up, man.
Guest:That's like saying, oh, see, there's a reason it sucks.
Guest:My legal pad.
Guest:I've done some legal pad work.
Guest:Yeah, but man, you know what?
Guest:If you do it, you do it, but don't.
Guest:I've seen guys like this.
Guest:Oh, no, no, no.
Marc:I just put it up there because it reminded me I thought of shit.
Guest:I know.
Yeah.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:I knew I have that shit I thought about.
Guest:I have a napkin.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, right.
Guest:Talk about running.
Marc:Yeah, no, I do that.
Guest:That's what mine looks like, too.
Marc:I got millions of fucking pieces of paper.
Marc:I went through a box of shit.
Marc:I'm like, do I need to save this napkin, dude?
Guest:I take...
Guest:Type write paper.
Guest:I cut it in half.
Guest:Dude, that's it.
Guest:Dude, that's my sheets.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:Dude, that's my sheets, man.
Guest:That's my sheets.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And I go, where did I put that sheet at?
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:So what I do now, I take pictures of it.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:With my phone.
Guest:That way, if I ever lose a sheet, I always have it.
Guest:Oh, shit, that's a good idea.
Guest:Take a picture with your phone.
Guest:That way, if you ever lose it, you got it.
Marc:Oh, that's a good idea.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Why can't we write on paper?
Guest:We write, but we lose it.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There's always this part of me.
Guest:Because it goes to the book bag.
Guest:It goes to the book bag and go like this.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I put it in the book bag.
Guest:Then I put it inside this book.
Guest:Then I got on the plane.
Guest:Yeah, it's gone.
Guest:Now I don't know where the sheet of paper is.
Marc:Right, but for my entire life, I've been like, I should get more organized with this shit.
Guest:Did you ever get to it?
Guest:If we were ever organized with it, we'd be comedians.
Guest:We'd lose the action.
Guest:I know that sounds like a cop-out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every one of us has ADHD, all comics.
Guest:I read a book for the first time ever said, it's not a disease, it's a gift.
Guest:They've been telling people that ADHD, it doesn't mean you can't focus.
Guest:It means you won't focus on nothing you don't like.
Guest:And that's what makes comics special.
Guest:Don't like it, ain't dealing with it.
Guest:Don't like it, ain't dealing with it.
Guest:it is a gift to be able to know i don't want to do this it's a gift yeah no i i agree did you ever do that thing though it's like i'm gonna sit down with this stack of shitty napkins and i'm just gonna put it all in one place like i've gone yeah i did i did i moved it i moved it yeah then i tried to type it out but i thought about something else as i was typing it up a tv show came on man yeah i was typing it up yeah and then i said wait a minute oh i was gonna type it up before no now it's nine o'clock at night i typed up one yeah
Marc:Right, but the thing is, even if you type it out, it's like, okay, but I'm never gonna look at that shit again.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:When am I gonna go get it?
Marc:I typed it up.
Marc:Yeah, I'm done.
Marc:Like, you know, the napkin, it's like, I save them and they're around, but once you do the bit, it's done, you're done, it's in.
Guest:The best thing about the napkin thing is, I tell people, this is how organized, as organized to be.
Guest:You got a box for the napkins.
Guest:If you walk into the comedy club, just grab some napkins.
Guest:I don't know which ones you grab.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's what I do tonight.
Guest:I actually stand on stage every time before a performer said, I have no problem talking about.
Guest:As I'm walking on stage, my first joke is coming.
Guest:Yeah, I like that.
Guest:I've walked on stage like this.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Got nothing.
Guest:Got nothing.
Guest:So I know I've done.
Guest:I'm honest.
Guest:I tell my audience, I have nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you want me to start?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And say something.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Boom, boom, boom.
Guest:They love it.
Guest:Then it goes.
Guest:Then it goes.
Guest:They love it.
Guest:I said, tonight you are my writers.
Guest:I'm not paying y'all.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they like it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They love it.
Guest:Tell me where to go.
Guest:Now, the audience loves it.
Guest:It's always comic.
Guest:I tell comics.
Guest:Don't ever listen to comics about your bits.
Guest:And look at their little comic face.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like with sort of like, that's what you got.
Guest:I'm not impressed.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, you know, I love comics, though.
Guest:I like comics when they're not on stage with me.
Guest:I like comics when we're eating breakfast.
Guest:I like comics when the car goes to work.
Guest:I like comics when somebody tries to lock us out of a club we can't get in.
Guest:Oh, we coming here.
Guest:I like the boldness of comics when we ain't doing stand-up.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:We living life.
Marc:But that's the funny thing about it.
Marc:It's like, you know, we get this privilege.
Marc:You hang around with all these brilliant motherfuckers and just go eat.
Marc:You go to the movie with some brilliant motherfuckers.
Marc:They're talking about everybody we hate.
Guest:They're talking about everything we hate and the people who brought up food that we hate.
Guest:We get to talk about everything.
Guest:That's why we shouldn't have to get therapy.
Guest:We are therapy, man.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:For everybody.
Guest:We are therapy, bro.
Guest:Yeah, that's our job for the culture.
Guest:Yes, that's what we do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're the court jester.
Guest:That means we can get killed at any moment.
Guest:At any moment, the king offered his head.
Guest:So we got to go like, we're almost like this, man, I hope he don't call me up today.
Guest:He's having a bad day.
Guest:Oh, let me go do my thing.
Guest:Because only comedy, comedy is the only art form that the act of doing it is the act of learning it.
Guest:This is the only art form.
Guest:You can't go to Berkeley School of Comedy.
Guest:There is no Berkeley School.
Guest:And if people take comedy classes, I do.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Good luck with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But my thing is this.
Guest:This is the only art form.
Guest:I think I'm funny.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Okay, get up on stage Monday for three minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:What?
Guest:What?
Guest:Dude, it's like saying, I think you can drive.
Guest:Look, man, I'm going to give you the keys.
Guest:For three minutes, drive as good as you can.
Guest:And then tomorrow we'll do some more driving.
Guest:Learn to play an instrument.
Guest:I can practice before I jump on stage with my guitar.
Guest:Comedy?
Guest:Dude, I think I'm funny.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Hey, guys, is there a guy who thinks he's funny?
Guest:No, no!
Guest:And they put you on stage.
Guest:It's the act of doing.
Guest:It's a boldness that nobody, no other art form has our boldness.
Guest:Great talking to you.
Guest:Right on, man.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:What a great story and what a good dude.
Marc:It was interesting to hear him wrestle with images of Cosby.
Marc:It's something that will come up in other interviews soon.
Marc:It's hard to acknowledge what a horrible...
Marc:person he is, and contrast that with somebody you may have respected your entire life.
Marc:It's an interesting struggle for some people.
Marc:But I was glad I talked to him, and I really had a nice time with Sinbad.
Marc:Go see him if you can.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs to get on that mailing list.
Marc:I do put a little energy into...
Marc:Writing that email for you.
Marc:And also justcoffee.coop.
Marc:I haven't done that one in a while.
Marc:Get the WTF blend.
Marc:Get a little, you know, I get a little bit of something, something with that.
Marc:And I get coffee.
Marc:I'm out of my mind right now.
Marc:Out of my mind.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:I will let you know on Monday when Charlie Rose is going to be on and how it went before it's on, maybe.
Marc:I'll give you a little teaser.
Marc:What?
Marc:Guitar?
Marc:Sure, I can do that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives!