Episode 768 - Billy West

Episode 768 • Released December 15, 2016 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksicles what's happening i'm mark maron the what the fucksicles was for the winter weather i'm mark maron welcome to my show this is my podcast this is wtf

00:00:25Marc:The podcast.

00:00:26Marc:Did I say that twice?

00:00:27Marc:It's a podcast.

00:00:29Marc:Hope you're having a good day wherever you are.

00:00:31Marc:My guest today is voiceover artist extraordinaire Billy West.

00:00:38Marc:For those of you who were brought up on Ren and Stimpy, he was both of them for a time.

00:00:44Marc:So that's exciting.

00:00:45Marc:It was exciting to talk to him.

00:00:47Marc:I knew him from back in the day in Boston.

00:00:48Marc:So that's who's on in a little bit.

00:00:53Marc:Also,

00:00:55Marc:I want to apologize to the denizens.

00:00:59Marc:Is that the right word?

00:01:00Marc:To the people of Manchester, Massachusetts, because in my conversation with Casey Affleck, I referred to Manchester by the sea as Manchester, New Hampshire.

00:01:09Marc:And God damn it.

00:01:11Marc:I am sorry.

00:01:12Marc:Okay?

00:01:14Marc:That's all I can say.

00:01:15Marc:There is a Manchester, New Hampshire, and I've been there.

00:01:17Marc:I'm not sure I've been to Manchester, Massachusetts, but I know it exists, and I know I fucked up.

00:01:22Marc:All right.

00:01:22Marc:There.

00:01:23Marc:That's out of the way.

00:01:24Marc:Good.

00:01:25Marc:Okay.

00:01:26Marc:I do want to mention, because a lot of people asked me about my last special, More Later, which I did for Epics, and...

00:01:33Marc:A lot of people didn't see it, but I'd like you to see it.

00:01:36Marc:So it's now available on iTunes.

00:01:39Marc:If you just look up Marc Maron more later, you should be able to grab one of those.

00:01:44Marc:I worked hard on it.

00:01:45Marc:I think you can still see it at Epix, but go get that.

00:01:50Marc:Also Marc Maron related.

00:01:52Marc:The big two-reel tour that I had to postpone a bit of is going to be in action starting January 24th, kind of.

00:02:01Marc:I'll be at the Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee.

00:02:04Marc:But after that, I'll be heading to Durham, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, Ridgefield, Connecticut, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Montreal, Toronto, New Haven, Troy, New York, Burlington, Oakland, Seattle, Vancouver, Austin, Portland.

00:02:20Marc:Boulder, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.

00:02:30Marc:Throughout the spring, you can go to WTFPod.com slash tour and get hooked up with some tickets.

00:02:42Marc:Oh, my God, what is happening?

00:02:43Marc:I had to go to the doctor.

00:02:45Marc:I was having trouble breathing, getting the deep breath.

00:02:51Marc:You know, that feeling when you're like, oh, it's just not satisfying.

00:02:54Marc:It's not getting all the way in there.

00:02:55Marc:What's going on?

00:02:56Marc:And I'm at an age 53 where, you know, peers drop dead or have heart attacks.

00:03:00Marc:And I talked to Dana Carvey about his heart.

00:03:02Marc:And, you know, I've certainly experienced panic ridden, anxiety induced depression.

00:03:08Marc:I've had chest compression before, but I was having a little shooting pains, a little this and a little that.

00:03:12Marc:And also, I know that because of my role in the upcoming Netflix show, Glow, that I've been smoking a lot of fake cigarettes, which are nonetheless cigarettes of some sort.

00:03:22Marc:I don't even know what the fuck is in them.

00:03:24Marc:Here's the weird thing.

00:03:24Marc:They're herbal cigarettes.

00:03:25Marc:Okay, good.

00:03:26Marc:You can't get tobacco.

00:03:28Marc:You can't get nicotine, which I'm getting from my lozenges anyways, too much.

00:03:32Marc:But you're smoking something.

00:03:34Marc:You're breathing hot shit into your lungs, burning the little tissues, you know, making the little Celia cringe and get pasted up against your passages.

00:03:42Marc:But...

00:03:43Marc:I don't know what's in him.

00:03:44Marc:I don't know why.

00:03:44Marc:We take everything for fucking granted.

00:03:46Marc:I just sort of like, I don't know why the brain works like that.

00:03:50Marc:But now we've all had to put some special filters on to sort of protect us from bullshit at every turn.

00:03:57Marc:Hearsay and bullshit.

00:03:59Marc:Clickbait in bullshit.

00:04:01Marc:Memes and bullshit.

00:04:02Marc:There just has to be a little filter.

00:04:04Marc:But I realize that it affects my whole life.

00:04:06Marc:I'm just smoking these things.

00:04:08Marc:They're herbal.

00:04:09Marc:I'm just burning leaves.

00:04:11Marc:sucking them into my lungs i mean there's a broader point about not knowing things and taking things for granted obviously or else just believing bullshit in general but nonetheless my my lungs were irritated and i went in there and of course i i went to my my insurance my health carrier my clinic the bob hope clinic which you know its namesake does not instill confidence but but it's good it's a great uh i have a great health coverage and i'm lucky and fortunate

00:04:38Marc:So I go see the doctor.

00:04:39Marc:They do the blood pressure.

00:04:41Marc:They do the pulse.

00:04:42Marc:They do an EKG.

00:04:44Marc:Everything looks good.

00:04:45Marc:I breathe a bit.

00:04:46Marc:They do the stethoscope.

00:04:48Marc:It's fine.

00:04:49Marc:And then the next day I go back.

00:04:50Marc:I get chest x-rays.

00:04:52Marc:I'm panicky.

00:04:53Marc:I smoked for, what, shit, 25 years.

00:04:56Marc:So I don't know when that's going to kick me in the ass or the balls or the lungs or the pancreas, whatever.

00:05:03Marc:But I, you know, I'm prone to panic.

00:05:05Marc:And when I can't breathe, it makes me panic more.

00:05:06Marc:And I got the chest x-rays.

00:05:08Marc:They come back clean.

00:05:10Marc:So what's that tell you?

00:05:11Marc:That tells me that in this time of panic for some of us, where we feel like there's somewhat of a cultural and political freefall going on, I wanted a little reassurance.

00:05:24Marc:You know, I've been enjoying every sandwich, but I would like a little bit of like just something in the life to go like, yeah, you're okay.

00:05:31Marc:So I, of course, gravitate to the medical arts because my old man was a medicine man.

00:05:39Marc:And when there was an emotional stoppage, which was usually or I couldn't get his attention, which was always if I had some sort of suspected medical issue, I got a lot of attention and focus.

00:05:49Marc:So I sometimes think occasionally I'll go to the doctor just to on some level in the hospital.

00:05:55Marc:in the psycho-emotional sphere to have my dad say everything's okay.

00:05:59Marc:So everything's okay.

00:06:01Marc:But then I wondered, in terms of being out here in Los Angeles and being in show business and going to the clinic that services us, you know, that these symptoms that I had, which were specifically could be attached to anxiety.

00:06:15Marc:I don't know why one of the questions when they were looking at my chart was, how do you feel about the election?

00:06:21Marc:I think I might have had a Trump-related breathing disorder.

00:06:25Marc:And if that's what it is, I'm glad I've identified it and I'm over it and I got the reassurance I wanted, but I'm still in a free fall of panic.

00:06:35Marc:But but something is weird, you know, something is weirder than just what's already weird and disturbing is that I'm losing faith in the shadow government, the shadow government.

00:06:46Marc:What's up?

00:06:48Marc:What is up, shadow government?

00:06:50Marc:You know, I'm no stranger to the conspiracy theory.

00:06:53Marc:I know that is something that gets attached to the other side these days.

00:06:58Marc:But those of us on the left side of things have a nice long history of beautiful conspiratorial thinking, wide ranging.

00:07:07Marc:You know, I think the the pivotal one, which I don't think is partisan, is the the JFK conspiracy.

00:07:14Marc:I was never one of those, but I certainly have dipped into the Illuminati New World Order conspiracy at different junctures in my life.

00:07:22Marc:I'll I'll go ahead and let my brain run with that bullshit, because, you know, in a pinch.

00:07:27Marc:where things get confusing and you have no God in place, why not get mystical and paranoid?

00:07:33Marc:Why not do that and just attach it to signs and symbols that surround us on a day-to-day basis?

00:07:38Marc:Perhaps someone's name, perhaps the logo, maybe even some event in the news that seems to have happened nearby something that was connected to something else in your strange fucking head.

00:07:49Marc:Why not do that?

00:07:50Marc:But the one thing I can tell you for sure, and I think that has always played in to the...

00:07:56Marc:To the big conspiracy umbrella is, of course, the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency.

00:08:04Marc:God knows they were involved in, you know, many coups, secret foreign adventures and overthrows.

00:08:12Marc:I always believe there was a shadow government, that there was somebody pulling the strings, whether it was through the intelligence agencies or through the global banks.

00:08:20Marc:business network the uh the new world order is uh as cousin alex calls it and then you know you have uh the illuminati which is a little bit more of a ornate and elaborate set of symbols but uh there's an interconnectivity towards the you know kind of movement towards the totalitarian possibilities of a one world government and whatnot

00:08:42Marc:I've thrown my head in that direction.

00:08:44Marc:I've skipped that rock on that pond.

00:08:48Marc:Thankfully, I've kerplunked out enough to realize what's for lunch.

00:08:53Marc:But here's my point, is that one of the things that this Trump president-elect is doing by being who he is, he called out the CIA in public, in front of the world.

00:09:09Marc:And the CIA did what?

00:09:11Marc:nothing yet but i gotta tell you being a you know an old lefty conspiracy theorist and not even as old as the original ones and not even as committed in any way but the shadow government the cia he called him out so in my mind if he's not taken out or something dreadful doesn't happen to him then that's about 50 years of hippie thinking that's just out the fucking window

00:09:39Marc:And all we got is like, ah, the CIA, that's just people who work in an office building.

00:09:45Marc:Just out the window.

00:09:48Marc:I just took you down a fucking portal.

00:09:51Marc:That's all, all right?

00:09:53Marc:So before I bring on Billy West, a real nice little email.

00:09:59Marc:Subject line, Pink Floyd in New Mexico.

00:10:01Marc:Mark, I've been meaning to tell you this for a few weeks now.

00:10:03Marc:I was in New Mexico at the beginning of November teaching a photography workshop in Santa Fe.

00:10:08Marc:When the workshop was over, I was very excited and jazzed up about all things creative.

00:10:12Marc:My students took the ideas I presented them and ran with them.

00:10:15Marc:At the end of the class, one student told me, now I have a lot to think about.

00:10:18Marc:Doesn't get any better than that.

00:10:20Marc:Plus, I love New Mexico.

00:10:21Marc:My wife and I have been going out there at least once a year for a decade now.

00:10:25Marc:After the workshop, I booked a few days to myself so I could photograph.

00:10:28Marc:The night before I left Santa Fe, I was listening to your interview with Roger Waters.

00:10:32Marc:Who's not a big fan of Pink Floyd?

00:10:34Marc:What got me was at the end when he talked about getting messed up with a friend and driving Route 14, the turquoise trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

00:10:43Marc:That night, I loaded up my iPhone with Pink Floyd.

00:10:46Marc:Pipers at the gates of dawn, a saucer full of secrets, wish you were here, animals in the wall.

00:10:51Marc:I spent the next two days driving around New Mexico in a Dodge something or other with my 1949 speed graphic camera and no agenda.

00:11:00Marc:I just roamed, photographed, and listened to Floyd.

00:11:03Marc:It was the most relaxed in my own head in a good way I've been in years.

00:11:07Marc:It was a great way to end a great trip.

00:11:09Marc:Big fan, Rob.

00:11:11Marc:Glad to inspire, Rob.

00:11:13Marc:Glad to inspire.

00:11:15Marc:All right.

00:11:15Marc:My my guest today is Billy West, and he's an amazing voiceover actor.

00:11:20Marc:He was on WBCN back when I was in Boston.

00:11:23Marc:I remember him from then.

00:11:24Marc:And we've I've sort of known him on the periphery for a long time.

00:11:28Marc:Voiceover is a very unique thing.

00:11:29Marc:And now you get to meet one of the fellas who does a lot of the voices.

00:11:34Marc:They're interesting people.

00:11:36Marc:All right.

00:11:36Marc:This is me and Billy West.

00:11:37Marc:He also has a podcast.

00:11:40Marc:You can go check it out at BillyWestPodcast.com or anywhere you get podcasts.

00:11:45Marc:This is me and Billy West.

00:11:53Marc:This is a recollection I have.

00:11:55Marc:I got to Boston in 19... I went to college there.

00:11:58Marc:I left in 87, and then I went back in like 88.

00:12:02Marc:I think you were just leaving.

00:12:05Yeah.

00:12:05Marc:By the time I got to Boston, and I met you a couple times.

00:12:07Marc:I remember that I'm sometimes confusing memories of you and a comic I knew.

00:12:14Marc:But you were sweaty?

00:12:17Guest:Well, because I was high as a rat.

00:12:19Guest:I was on coke for a long time.

00:12:21Guest:Exactly.

00:12:22Guest:And did you wear a hat a lot?

00:12:23Guest:Yes, I did.

00:12:24Guest:And I was nothing but trouble.

00:12:26Marc:Right.

00:12:26Guest:180 pounds of trouble.

00:12:28Marc:And yeah, you were kind of a bastard, right?

00:12:31Marc:Yes.

00:12:32Marc:Yeah.

00:12:33Marc:And I knew that.

00:12:35Marc:Because you were part of the BCN thing.

00:12:37Guest:Yes, but I can see it in my mind, and I have this, like, there's a governor on my laugh, but I should be laughing my balls off because I survived.

00:12:45Marc:Right.

00:12:46Marc:But you started out, like, because you were a radio guy, and you were with La Quodera, and then, but it was after, it was the Big Mattress Show, right?

00:12:55Marc:Yes.

00:12:56Marc:And then, but Dwayne Ingalls Glanscock was a different thing, right?

00:12:58Marc:Yes, it was sort of, it was under the same roof.

00:13:01Marc:Right.

00:13:02Marc:It was Charles's alter ego.

00:13:03Marc:Dwayne Ingalls Glasscock.

00:13:05Marc:Yeah.

00:13:05Marc:And he was the morning guy in the New England area in Boston for years.

00:13:09Marc:Right.

00:13:10Marc:Charles was sort of, I think, I felt like he was phasing out, like the heyday had gone.

00:13:14Marc:But let's track it back.

00:13:15Marc:So you're born in Detroit, Motor City, you remember it.

00:13:19Marc:Yes.

00:13:19Marc:What'd your old man do?

00:13:21Guest:Oh, boy.

00:13:22Guest:Well, you know, there's a difference between a job and a career.

00:13:25Guest:Yeah.

00:13:25Guest:He went from job to job to job.

00:13:28Guest:Yeah.

00:13:28Guest:And it was like delivering soda pop.

00:13:31Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:13:31Guest:For Canada Dry.

00:13:32Guest:And it was my eighth birthday.

00:13:35Guest:Yeah.

00:13:36Guest:And we used to get cases of Canada Dry.

00:13:38Guest:Right.

00:13:38Guest:At the house.

00:13:39Guest:Yeah.

00:13:39Guest:And...

00:13:41Guest:I took all the flavors and poured them in a punch bowl.

00:13:44Guest:It's like, who couldn't figure that out?

00:13:45Guest:I don't have a beautiful mind.

00:13:47Guest:I mean, I just figured it out.

00:13:49Guest:And everybody raved over it.

00:13:52Guest:Wow, it was a carbonated punch, which didn't exist.

00:13:55Marc:Come on.

00:13:56Marc:There was only Hawaiian punch.

00:13:57Marc:Are you about to tell me you invented carbonated punch?

00:13:59Marc:Hold on.

00:14:01Guest:Wait for it.

00:14:02Guest:I know, you're sitting there.

00:14:03Guest:What, pray tell, divulge?

00:14:07Guest:No, my mom said to my father,

00:14:10Guest:Bill, take this and bring it to your boss.

00:14:15Guest:And he was like, I don't know.

00:14:17Guest:And she said, go on in.

00:14:18Guest:Tell him what your son did.

00:14:20Guest:So he brings it in, and it's like the typical, you know, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, sort of.

00:14:27Guest:I don't know how assertive I should be.

00:14:31Guest:And he says to his boss, you know, my son, he's eight years old, and we had a party, and we used all the flavors that we make that actually exist.

00:14:39Guest:Uh-huh.

00:14:40Guest:And he said, but he put them all together in a punch ball.

00:14:43Guest:And that's all, Bill.

00:14:45Guest:But, you know, you should... That's all, Bill.

00:14:48Guest:And he walked out.

00:14:50Guest:And then the next thing you know, they came out with a carbonated punch.

00:14:54Guest:And me and my mom invented names like Hawaiian Dry.

00:14:58Guest:And we finally came up with Tahitian Treat.

00:15:00Guest:Yeah.

00:15:01Guest:And bang.

00:15:03Guest:It was their biggest seller.

00:15:04Guest:Come on.

00:15:05Guest:Yeah, forever.

00:15:06Guest:And have you been credited...

00:15:08Guest:Well, you know what that's like.

00:15:14Marc:Canada Dry, the top dogs didn't give you the credit you deserved.

00:15:19Guest:No, this was 1954.

00:15:23Guest:I don't know, seven, eight?

00:15:24Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:26Guest:Yeah, they just stole it.

00:15:27Marc:Those were cold, dark days, man.

00:15:29Marc:They'll just take it from a kid.

00:15:31Guest:Take a kid's idea, not give him the... Dad, am I going to get anything from this?

00:15:35Guest:You know what?

00:15:36Guest:I changed jobs.

00:15:37Guest:I work for the home tea company now.

00:15:40Guest:That's where he went next?

00:15:41Guest:Yeah.

00:15:42Guest:What shall I invent next?

00:15:45Ha, ha, ha.

00:15:45Guest:That's, but I'll tell you, I was a weird kid like that.

00:15:49Marc:Yeah, I think you're still a weird kid.

00:15:51Guest:Well, yeah, I am.

00:15:52Guest:Yeah.

00:15:53Guest:But you used to invent shit?

00:15:55Guest:Well, yeah, I was always looking to invent stuff.

00:15:58Guest:Like, you know, I loved Rube Goldberg.

00:16:01Guest:Yeah.

00:16:01Guest:Who built these crazy-ass inventions that one thing would trigger the other.

00:16:06Guest:There was a wheel and a bird.

00:16:07Guest:By leverage and gravity and, what do they call it, velocity.

00:16:12Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:16:13Guest:All those things.

00:16:14Guest:And I didn't know that I was trying to understand physics.

00:16:17Guest:Yeah.

00:16:18Guest:But physics is really interesting.

00:16:21Guest:Did you study physics?

00:16:22Guest:Nope.

00:16:22Guest:Yeah.

00:16:23Guest:It is interesting.

00:16:24Guest:But I understood some stuff when I read it.

00:16:26Guest:Yeah.

00:16:26Guest:But then I watched The Three Stooges every morning before I went to school.

00:16:30Guest:Yeah.

00:16:31Guest:Yeah, I stopped going to church.

00:16:32Guest:I found my saints, you know?

00:16:33Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.

00:16:34Guest:And so...

00:16:36Guest:Moe put out the best explanation of E equals MC squared when he said, we ain't getting no place fast.

00:16:45Marc:That put it all together for you?

00:16:48Marc:It did.

00:16:48Marc:Yeah.

00:16:49Marc:I said, oh.

00:16:52Marc:I get it now.

00:16:52Marc:I understand, Einstein.

00:16:54Marc:Thanks, Mo.

00:16:55Marc:Yeah.

00:16:56Marc:So you're in Detroit, and your dad's doing all these other jobs.

00:16:59Marc:Yep.

00:17:00Marc:And then you end up in New England.

00:17:02Guest:How did that happen?

00:17:03Guest:Well, my dad was certifiable.

00:17:06Guest:He was a drunk and a crazy, and he was very abusive.

00:17:09Guest:I was the whipping boy.

00:17:10Guest:How many kids?

00:17:11Guest:Three boys.

00:17:13Guest:Yeah.

00:17:13Guest:and uh you got it oh did i ever every day it was a way of life yeah dickens wishes that he had the kind of childhood you know really i wish i had his childhood physical abuse well yeah yeah just beat the shit out of you yeah all the time because it was a kick at the cat yeah he was angry he had secrets yeah he's drunk drunk oh man and so um that's kind of what i grew up with so i grew up hyper vigilant

00:17:39Marc:Hypervigilant and I imagine, you know, looking for an out.

00:17:44Guest:Looking for a world that did not exist anywhere near me.

00:17:47Guest:Right.

00:17:48Guest:So you could visualize them.

00:17:50Guest:Yeah.

00:17:50Guest:I remember we had this old, do you remember the ancient Plymouth DeSoto car?

00:17:55Guest:Yeah.

00:17:56Guest:It's a big...

00:17:57Guest:Big, chunky, funky old car.

00:17:59Guest:And back in those days, right in the back of the back seat, there was a ledge.

00:18:04Guest:Yeah.

00:18:05Guest:And then there was this curved glass, and a kid could fit it up there.

00:18:08Guest:Yeah.

00:18:09Guest:So we'd be driving along at night, and I would crawl up there, and I'd lay down on that ledge and look straight up through the curved glass, and all the lights were...

00:18:17Guest:It was like going through a black hole.

00:18:19Guest:Yeah.

00:18:20Guest:Except I really didn't know but I said this is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life because it was like I was in a glass enclosure.

00:18:27Guest:Yeah.

00:18:28Guest:And looking at these lights smashing into each other and...

00:18:32Guest:Hard to explain that stuff.

00:18:34Marc:But I imagine like being in a, you were the oldest or no?

00:18:38Marc:Oldest.

00:18:38Marc:Oh, so, oh God.

00:18:39Marc:So there was just that never ending competition with you and the old man of some kind in his mind?

00:18:44Marc:I'm going to tell you a secret.

00:18:45Guest:Yeah.

00:18:47Guest:I took my first beating in utero.

00:18:50Guest:Really?

00:18:50Guest:Yeah.

00:18:51Guest:Jesus.

00:18:52Guest:My mom came home one day.

00:18:54Guest:She was 20.

00:18:55Guest:Yeah.

00:18:56Guest:And she said to him, you know, guess what, honey?

00:18:58Guest:I'm pregnant.

00:18:59Guest:Yeah.

00:18:59Guest:And he was smashed.

00:19:01Guest:Yeah.

00:19:01Guest:And he got up, and he started beating the crap out of her in the kitchen, and he kicked her in the stomach.

00:19:07Guest:You know, this guy did not want me to be born.

00:19:10Guest:Yeah.

00:19:11Guest:Because it was grow-up time.

00:19:12Guest:Right.

00:19:12Guest:He was one of those guys that never stopped being 18.

00:19:14Marc:Right.

00:19:15Marc:Yeah.

00:19:16Marc:How old was he when you were born?

00:19:18Marc:Yeah.

00:19:18Guest:Maybe 24 or five.

00:19:21Guest:Fucking kid.

00:19:22Marc:Could you imagine that?

00:19:23Marc:I mean, do you have kids?

00:19:24Marc:No, I don't.

00:19:25Marc:Yeah, I don't either.

00:19:26Marc:But like, you know, when you see a 20-year-old, like my mom was 22.

00:19:29Marc:I see a 22-year-old, it's like, what?

00:19:32Marc:How do you have any?

00:19:32Marc:Like, they were kids.

00:19:33Marc:Yeah, you're still eating Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers.

00:19:38Marc:Well, do you think that that, you know, I don't know when you started finding the talent to find these other voices, but do you connect it to your need to escape from the abuse?

00:19:51Marc:Nothing but.

00:19:52Guest:I was a loner.

00:19:53Guest:Yeah.

00:19:54Guest:Because if I tried to do stuff that I thought my peer group, the other kids, you know, I was like in the middle.

00:20:01Guest:Yeah.

00:20:01Guest:I would be either king of the little kids.

00:20:02Guest:Yeah.

00:20:03Guest:Or hang along with the big kids.

00:20:05Guest:Right.

00:20:06Guest:And there was really nobody my age.

00:20:08Guest:Yeah.

00:20:08Guest:So I was kind of like odd man out.

00:20:10Guest:Right.

00:20:10Guest:And I would go for walks, and I would narrate what I was doing.

00:20:15Guest:Yeah.

00:20:16Guest:Yeah, and I... To the other kids.

00:20:18Marc:Yeah, an audience.

00:20:19Guest:Yeah, and I tried to explain why, and I didn't even know why.

00:20:23Guest:Right.

00:20:25Guest:You know... Because you were, like, having a disassociation.

00:20:28Guest:Yeah, because I'd be... You know, I'd take up in progress with them, and I'd go, as you remember...

00:20:33Guest:You know, only in like a kid voice.

00:20:35Guest:Sure, sure.

00:20:37Guest:And me and my cousin used to play.

00:20:39Guest:We'd put up like the camera.

00:20:40Guest:His dad was a photographer, so we put up cameras like they were movie cameras.

00:20:44Guest:Yeah.

00:20:45Guest:And I have a picture of me and him, and he's adjusting a camera, and I'm holding a script.

00:20:51Guest:Yeah.

00:20:52Guest:But I don't think that's what I meant.

00:20:55Guest:Yeah.

00:20:56Guest:But it sure looks like the future.

00:20:57Guest:You know how the future stares you in the face every single day?

00:21:00Guest:You just don't know what it is.

00:21:01Guest:Yeah, I like that.

00:21:03Guest:Yeah, I mean, anything.

00:21:05Guest:Your brothers are still around?

00:21:06Guest:We lost my middle brother.

00:21:08Guest:Yeah.

00:21:08Guest:Yeah, the three of us became alcoholics.

00:21:11Guest:All of you.

00:21:12Guest:And my mother was not.

00:21:14Guest:She kept away from all that stuff, but here it was, you know, growing around her.

00:21:19Guest:And I feel horrible that that turned out that way.

00:21:23Guest:It's like, you know, I think of the Three Stooges, I go, you know, like Steve Sweeney, the comedian, he used to go, poor Mrs. Stooge.

00:21:29Sure.

00:21:31Guest:So you moved with your whole family to- My mom left Detroit to get away from my dad and she brought the three of us to Boston.

00:21:41Guest:Did that work?

00:21:42Guest:And I went to elementary school there.

00:21:44Guest:Did that work?

00:21:44Guest:Well, you know what it is?

00:21:45Guest:It's like you spend your whole life trying to do battle with the guy you swore you'd never be.

00:21:52Guest:Yeah.

00:21:52Guest:Do you know what I mean?

00:21:53Guest:Did he ever come back around?

00:21:54Guest:No, he was gone a few years.

00:21:57Guest:He was gone about a decade after that.

00:22:00Marc:Yeah?

00:22:01Guest:Yeah.

00:22:02Marc:After she split?

00:22:02Marc:Oh, he died?

00:22:03Marc:Yeah.

00:22:04Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:22:04Guest:Pancreatitis.

00:22:05Guest:You know, he just did himself in.

00:22:07Guest:Really?

00:22:07Guest:He didn't want responsibility because he knew that it would go down the drain.

00:22:12Guest:And when did you start playing music?

00:22:15Guest:Well, I had a trumpet when I was 10 in Detroit.

00:22:17Guest:Yeah.

00:22:18Guest:So I could play, and I played with other kids.

00:22:20Guest:There were a few notes.

00:22:21Guest:Yeah.

00:22:21Guest:I could hold a note longer than the teacher.

00:22:23Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:22:24Guest:You know, that was the little contest.

00:22:25Guest:If anybody in here thinks that they can...

00:22:28Guest:You know, hold a note longer than me.

00:22:33Guest:How about it?

00:22:34Guest:You know, and I'd be up there, and he would hold a note.

00:22:36Guest:He played clarinet, and he would hold it and hold it and hold it, and I thought, that's nothing.

00:22:41Guest:You know, because I was a swimmer at the time.

00:22:44Guest:I mean, not a professional, but I loved swimming, and I could hold my breath like a whale.

00:22:50Guest:And I get up there, and I'm like...

00:22:55Guest:You know, and he was, like, trying to get me to stop, and it was going into a minute.

00:22:59Guest:Yeah.

00:22:59Guest:Yeah, because I was born with this weird chest, huge chest for somebody my size and a big inner cavern or something.

00:23:09Guest:And you need that for voices, too, kind of, don't you?

00:23:12Guest:I don't know if you do.

00:23:13Guest:It's the only thing I ever could judge anything else by.

00:23:16Marc:Yeah.

00:23:17Marc:So, but when did you start doing the band thing?

00:23:20Marc:The band thing.

00:23:21Marc:Were you in Boston?

00:23:22Marc:Yeah, 60s.

00:23:23Marc:Yeah.

00:23:23Marc:So, like, you know, Boston's pretty heavy, man.

00:23:25Guest:Yeah.

00:23:26Guest:I started playing guitar in 61 in Detroit because we had an old Stella down in the basement.

00:23:32Guest:And I would plunk on it and stuff.

00:23:34Guest:Didn't really grab me because I could draw.

00:23:36Guest:I wanted to be an artist.

00:23:38Guest:You were just a creative guy in general.

00:23:40Guest:I was screaming some way to find a way to express myself.

00:23:44Guest:Right.

00:23:45Guest:Right.

00:23:45Guest:Yeah.

00:23:47Guest:And my dad was an artist.

00:23:49Guest:He was?

00:23:49Guest:He was one of those guys that would torment me.

00:23:53Guest:You know what I mean?

00:23:54Guest:Yeah.

00:23:54Guest:He started out as Mozart to me, and then he just became Salieri long after he was dead.

00:24:00Guest:Yeah.

00:24:00Guest:But he could sit down at the piano and not know what he was doing and start playing.

00:24:04Guest:Really?

00:24:04Guest:Good, talented guy, gifted guy.

00:24:06Guest:He was a draftsman.

00:24:07Guest:He went to...

00:24:08Guest:Cass Tech, which was a mechanical drawing and all that stuff.

00:24:15Guest:And he could draw.

00:24:17Guest:And I tried to impress him.

00:24:19Guest:And so I grew up thinking everything I did was nothing or no big deal.

00:24:23Marc:Ugh, it's so sad, man.

00:24:24Marc:I mean, you know, it's like that weird competitiveness between emotionally fucked up fathers and their sons is the worst.

00:24:32Marc:They just annihilate your ability to develop a sense of self.

00:24:36Guest:Yeah, it's an Irish-German thing or something.

00:24:39Guest:I don't know.

00:24:39Marc:It's just a narcissistic fuckhead thing.

00:24:41Guest:Well, yeah, but I didn't learn those words till later.

00:24:44Guest:But I knew something about Germans, and I knew something about Irish.

00:24:48Guest:Yeah.

00:24:49Marc:Where were you located when you got to Boston?

00:24:51Marc:Roslindale, Massachusetts.

00:24:53Marc:So you weren't in, like, Southie or nothing.

00:24:54Guest:You weren't in... No, but I used to go down there.

00:24:57Guest:We used to go to...

00:24:58Guest:We used to go to Carson Beach and City Point.

00:25:03Guest:Yeah.

00:25:03Guest:Yeah, and I remember this was when I was getting ready to start playing music.

00:25:09Guest:I couldn't wait to graduate school.

00:25:11Guest:Yeah, high school.

00:25:12Guest:I never had any use for academia.

00:25:14Guest:I have to tell you honestly.

00:25:16Guest:Yeah.

00:25:16Guest:I'd go to school every day with a head full of fantasy and made-up music.

00:25:23Guest:I don't know, entities.

00:25:25Guest:Yeah.

00:25:26Guest:You know, and I could hear them.

00:25:27Guest:I could hear how they went.

00:25:28Guest:And that's really how I started doing, you know, voices.

00:25:31Guest:Yeah.

00:25:32Guest:I was just, I would turret out noises and voices, you know, and it was just an urge.

00:25:36Guest:Did you have friends?

00:25:37Guest:I had about one and a half friends.

00:25:40Marc:Yeah.

00:25:41Marc:Yeah.

00:25:41Guest:Yeah.

00:25:42Marc:So you're an oddball.

00:25:43Guest:Yeah.

00:25:43Marc:Didn't fit in.

00:25:44Guest:But there's also somebody across town.

00:25:47Guest:In those days, it had to be somebody far away from you.

00:25:50Guest:And I would find whoever it was who had comic books.

00:25:53Guest:You're a comic book guy.

00:25:54Guest:I was like a homing pigeon.

00:25:56Guest:Yeah.

00:25:57Guest:There's someone in this area that has comic books.

00:26:03Guest:And this is like the 60s.

00:26:05Marc:Yeah.

00:26:06Guest:Early 60s.

00:26:07Marc:So these were the basics, the comics.

00:26:10Marc:Like what were the comics that you had to have?

00:26:13Guest:Well, I had the issue where the Flash meets the India Rubberman.

00:26:20Guest:Or was it?

00:26:21Guest:I forget.

00:26:22Guest:Yeah, the elongated man.

00:26:24Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Guest:Wasn't he the enemy of the Flash?

00:26:26Marc:You're asking the wrong guy, but I'll go with you on it.

00:26:28Guest:Well, what happened is he went to a carnival and he sees this old swami drinking something called Gin Gold.

00:26:34Guest:Yeah.

00:26:35Guest:Or Gingold.

00:26:35Guest:Yeah.

00:26:36Guest:And that's what the guy said.

00:26:38Guest:That's his secret.

00:26:39Guest:That's how he gets in those rubbery like that.

00:26:42Guest:And so the guy created a hybrid of Gingold.

00:26:45Guest:Yeah.

00:26:46Guest:And what are these?

00:26:47Guest:DC Comics?

00:26:48Guest:Uh-huh.

00:26:48Guest:You know, the plots, you know.

00:26:49Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:50Guest:Sure.

00:26:50Guest:But it still fascinated me because this guy could stretch and he was all over the flash.

00:26:56Marc:Yeah.

00:26:56Marc:Yeah, he was like... Oh, he wrapped him.

00:26:57Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:58Marc:Yeah, or his arm would go up and... Wasn't there a good guy that could do that?

00:27:02Marc:Mr. Stretch?

00:27:03Marc:Wasn't there like a good one?

00:27:05Marc:Mr. Fantastic.

00:27:06Marc:Yeah, he could stretch, right?

00:27:07Guest:Yeah.

00:27:07Marc:Yeah.

00:27:08Guest:Imagine the ego, somebody calling themselves Mr. Fantastic.

00:27:12Guest:Lucky he was just a comic book guy.

00:27:14Guest:Yeah, really.

00:27:15Guest:And now it's all post-modern art.

00:27:17Guest:Yeah.

00:27:18Guest:You know, a comic book can sell for upwards of 900 bucks sometimes.

00:27:22Guest:Did you save any?

00:27:23Guest:No.

00:27:25Guest:No, because we had to jettison a lot of stuff just to get out of the house in Detroit, get on a plane and go to Boston.

00:27:30Guest:My mom started shipping stuff, luckily.

00:27:33Guest:To her family.

00:27:34Guest:Yes.

00:27:34Guest:Yeah.

00:27:35Guest:And this was all done on the sneak.

00:27:37Guest:But I got to tell you something.

00:27:38Guest:I'm not irreligious, but I just, I'm...

00:27:43Guest:I believe in a higher power.

00:27:45Guest:Sure.

00:27:46Guest:I believe in a force that makes nothing but sense to me.

00:27:49Guest:Right.

00:27:49Guest:It's pure physics.

00:27:50Guest:Right.

00:27:51Guest:If you put out a certain kind of energy.

00:27:53Guest:Yep.

00:27:54Guest:Other energy like it will find it because like energy attracts.

00:27:59Guest:Yeah.

00:27:59Guest:If you put out like this pissy money piss cloud.

00:28:02Guest:Yeah.

00:28:03Guest:All energy like that is going to come shooting for you like a javelin.

00:28:06Guest:Right.

00:28:07Guest:And I didn't understand that stuff till later on.

00:28:10Marc:yeah i believe that i think that's a good way to do it but um good way to frame it but i believe that the higher power was just like the force of the world and our relationship to the universe yeah and that somebody hears me yeah some things you can see that later what's that that's what you pulled together later when you needed to do you had that when you were a kid or no

00:28:32Guest:um no i had religion shoved down my throat catholic yeah irish catholic so i know i used to know more about religion than most people yeah we knew the mass was in latin then yeah so that you couldn't figure out what they were talking about keep it coded yes weird what's he saying mom that doesn't matter yeah you know so you believed that you you were afraid of hell

00:29:01Guest:was afraid of hell yeah yeah and and like a kid takes it on face value because these are adults yeah that's how you think when you're a kid yeah I wasn't delinquent right I just took all this stuff under consideration yeah and my leanings were stuff that had nothing to do with God yeah and I don't mean like

00:29:23Guest:bad stuff right or criminal stuff right it's just that um i was interested in creating characters and i wanted to play music so bad so you when did you start playing guitar 61 yeah and then you started a band um by 66 when i moved to boston the actual city

00:29:41Guest:Yes.

00:29:42Guest:Yeah.

00:29:42Guest:And I found a kid who was my friend and he was kind of a drummer but we used to sit and play together and I played guitar.

00:29:49Guest:Yeah.

00:29:50Guest:What little I could play.

00:29:51Guest:Yeah.

00:29:52Guest:And I realized geez this is for me because you could go downtown.

00:29:57Guest:Yeah.

00:29:58Guest:To this place Mod Close.

00:30:00Guest:Yeah.

00:30:01Guest:Carnaby Street.

00:30:01Guest:Right.

00:30:02Guest:Only in Boston.

00:30:03Guest:Right.

00:30:03Guest:In the combat zone.

00:30:04Guest:Right.

00:30:05Guest:Yeah, where the strip clubs were.

00:30:07Guest:Yeah, down by Nick's.

00:30:08Guest:Yeah, and it was like, ooh, I felt weird, like, even being in that area.

00:30:12Guest:But it was adventurous, you know?

00:30:13Guest:I'm going to go buy the coolest clothes in the world.

00:30:15Guest:Yeah, try bringing them back to Rosalindale and putting them on someday.

00:30:21Guest:I was in school, and I had flowers all over my shirt with white cuffs and white collar.

00:30:26Guest:You can just picture this.

00:30:27Guest:And some kid goes, hey, your flowers need watering.

00:30:31Ah!

00:30:32Pfft!

00:30:32Guest:really i'm seriously but it was all that kind of stuff like i couldn't figure out why people would have this instant like fear that turned into anger yeah yeah no one ever tells you back then that if you're able to do something cool and you can't wait to share it with others you'll get no props

00:30:55Guest:You'll get bullied.

00:30:57Guest:You'll get nothing.

00:30:58Guest:And so I figured whatever I did just is not making it.

00:31:02Guest:I figured I have to be so much better than this for them to respond.

00:31:06Marc:Or at least it's good that you didn't feel like you had to be more like them, whatever that was.

00:31:11Guest:I never went that way.

00:31:12Guest:I mean, it was at the risk of being alone or finding some other kid with peripheral interests.

00:31:19Yeah.

00:31:19Guest:But that's kind of the way it always was.

00:31:21Guest:Yeah.

00:31:21Guest:I think it might be different now.

00:31:23Marc:Yeah.

00:31:23Guest:That we live in a media, entertainment- Sure.

00:31:26Marc:You can kind of find your people easier.

00:31:28Guest:You can find them a lot easier.

00:31:29Marc:Yeah.

00:31:29Guest:And plus, you had no way to get to another town.

00:31:32Guest:Yeah.

00:31:32Guest:That was unthinkable.

00:31:33Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:31:34Marc:You got to take a bus.

00:31:35Marc:You got to get someone else to drive you.

00:31:36Guest:You got to- If you had permission.

00:31:38Marc:Yeah.

00:31:39Marc:Right.

00:31:39Marc:So what- So I started playing.

00:31:42Guest:Yeah.

00:31:42Guest:And I met this guy, and we started playing music, and-

00:31:47Guest:I started meeting other kids.

00:31:49Guest:They were very few and far between, but they were already in bands, and I would go hang around them.

00:31:53Guest:Sure.

00:31:54Guest:Just to see how it's done.

00:31:55Guest:Yeah.

00:31:56Guest:And I had what it took at the time.

00:31:58Guest:I could play, and I became this little guitar gunslinger eventually.

00:32:03Guest:Yeah?

00:32:04Guest:Yeah, and I could sing.

00:32:07Guest:But we were always doing cover songs.

00:32:09Guest:So when the kids at the dance are applauding for you, they're applauding for the Rolling Stones.

00:32:16Guest:Right.

00:32:16Guest:So when does the booze start?

00:32:18Guest:The booze started in...

00:32:21Guest:72 71 or 72 like you're 21 22 yeah and i was like i was a model boy yeah you know i kept my drawers straightened with the clothes in them and everything and i i was tidy and it was like a boy scout sort of thing and then at 21 i went b fucking zerker yeah having my childhood that i never had yeah

00:32:45Guest:That's, you know, I figured that out as I never really had a child.

00:32:48Guest:I was like a, I mean, childhood.

00:32:50Guest:I was an old kid.

00:32:52Guest:Yeah.

00:32:53Guest:Who had to take care of the full-grown adults sometimes.

00:32:56Guest:Yeah.

00:32:56Guest:Falling asleep.

00:32:57Guest:And your brothers too?

00:32:59Guest:Yeah, my brothers.

00:32:59Guest:I was man of the house at 10.

00:33:01Guest:When did you get the gig on radio?

00:33:03Guest:How'd that sort of happen?

00:33:04Guest:Oh, the band days were coming to a close.

00:33:07Guest:Was it late 70s?

00:33:08Guest:Yeah, because I was incorrigible.

00:33:10Guest:Drunk?

00:33:11Guest:Nobody wanted to take me home.

00:33:13Guest:Nobody wanted to pick me up.

00:33:14Marc:Were you doing blow at that point?

00:33:16Guest:Yes, and drinking.

00:33:17Marc:Yeah.

00:33:17Guest:Yeah, it was horrifying.

00:33:18Marc:Those were the things.

00:33:20Guest:Those were the things.

00:33:21Guest:And once I found blow, I said, this is great.

00:33:24Guest:I don't have to drink anymore.

00:33:27Guest:Famous last words.

00:33:27Marc:Yeah, just makes you drink more.

00:33:30Guest:Yeah, I felt this is a classy high.

00:33:32Guest:And then an hour or two later, you're looking at people, how do I look?

00:33:38Guest:With your teeth gritted and this Renhoic, Ren and Stimpy face.

00:33:43Marc:How do I look?

00:33:44Marc:Does anything show?

00:33:47Marc:Am I clean?

00:33:48Marc:Is my nose clean?

00:33:49Guest:Yeah, and then you're sitting at a party and everybody runs out of shit to say at the same time because the coke is wearing off and they all look like, you know that picture of Al Pacino sitting in the chair in the Godfather?

00:34:02Guest:Sort of looking down like this pissed off little crow.

00:34:07Guest:That's what we looked like and I'd see a crumb on the floor.

00:34:10Guest:I'm going to snort that.

00:34:11Guest:And I would be searching the floor, and everybody, all these civilized young adults would be searching the floor.

00:34:18Marc:For rocks.

00:34:19Guest:Yeah, and you look up, and it's a plaster ceiling that has that surface on it.

00:34:23Marc:The popcorn surface?

00:34:24Guest:Yeah, so stuff had fallen.

00:34:25Marc:In Boston, though, you're all jacked up and you're hanging around with those borderline criminals and drug dealers and they're all those sort of Boston dudes.

00:34:34Guest:It's a little scary.

00:34:35Guest:It was scary because when I got into that, I would just spend whatever money I had on that and I'd always owe somebody money.

00:34:44Guest:I'd wake up the next morning and I'd say...

00:34:47Guest:You know, and I'd reach into my pocket and he crumpled up pieces of paper.

00:34:51Guest:Yeah.

00:34:52Guest:Not the snow seals that the blow came in.

00:34:54Guest:Snow seals.

00:34:55Guest:But notes like, you know, call this number.

00:34:58Guest:Call Jeff.

00:34:59Guest:You know, you owe him $300.

00:35:00Guest:Right.

00:35:02Guest:I promised somebody that.

00:35:04Guest:The guy with the blow.

00:35:05Guest:Because you're in your right mind the next day.

00:35:07Guest:Right.

00:35:08Guest:And you realize he's going to come down.

00:35:09Marc:Yeah.

00:35:10Guest:Because you willingly tell him where you live just to get it.

00:35:13Marc:Yeah.

00:35:13Marc:Now all of a sudden you got Whitey Bulger's guys coming over.

00:35:16Guest:yeah really so um the group that i was doing blow with we got sick of bad blow yeah you know it's like oh it tastes like baby powder yeah or laxative yeah uh the whole peruvian army marched through it so um pancake batter so somebody says why don't we go where they make the shit

00:35:38Guest:Now you've said something.

00:35:40Guest:Yeah.

00:35:40Guest:I was like, yes.

00:35:42Guest:So we put together our dough.

00:35:43Guest:We get on a plane.

00:35:45Marc:Get the fuck out of here.

00:35:46Guest:Yeah.

00:35:46Guest:To go from Boston to Lima, Peru.

00:35:51Guest:Five chowder heads.

00:35:53Guest:Yeah.

00:35:54Guest:you know, thinking that they're going on a drug vacation.

00:35:57Guest:And we get down there.

00:36:00Marc:Peru, not Bolivia.

00:36:01Guest:No, Peru.

00:36:02Marc:Why?

00:36:02Marc:How'd you decide that?

00:36:04Guest:Because that's the home of the winking white stuff.

00:36:07Marc:It is?

00:36:07Guest:Yes.

00:36:08Guest:All right.

00:36:09Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, it was big.

00:36:11Marc:Yeah.

00:36:11Guest:And that's kind of what you knew about Peru.

00:36:13Guest:Right.

00:36:13Marc:Yeah, so you go down there.

00:36:15Guest:We go down there, we're on our way, and I'm so drunk on the plane, some guy turns around and goes, hey, you think you might want to see your way clear to being quiet for a while?

00:36:23Guest:And I took that as a sucker punch.

00:36:26Guest:Yeah.

00:36:26Guest:I started beating his seat with my two feet.

00:36:29Guest:You know, I was like...

00:36:30Guest:and they were gonna stop in Orlando to get me out, but for some reason they didn't do it in those days.

00:36:38Guest:They figured they could come by and say, please, sir, please.

00:36:43Guest:So we get down to Peru, we have our hotel, we get there, and everybody is pretty friendly.

00:36:52Guest:I had been drinking, and we started having this adventure.

00:36:59Guest:Separately.

00:37:00Guest:Yeah.

00:37:01Guest:Everybody was off on their own little adventure.

00:37:03Guest:I met a couple of girls, Peruvian girls.

00:37:06Guest:One's name was Doris.

00:37:08Guest:Doris.

00:37:09Guest:Yeah.

00:37:10Guest:And I would be talking to them, and in my mind, I thought they could understand me.

00:37:14Guest:Right.

00:37:15Guest:And it was weird, because I had lunch with two Peruvian girls and a guy from another country.

00:37:23Right.

00:37:23Guest:And I'm explaining my stories to these people and I'm acting them out, you know, and it was like charades.

00:37:28Guest:Yeah.

00:37:31Guest:But it was crazy.

00:37:32Guest:I mean, I thought they understood.

00:37:34Guest:Did you find the blow?

00:37:36Guest:Well, eventually, we ran into a guy.

00:37:41Guest:He worked, like, at the hotel.

00:37:43Guest:Yeah.

00:37:44Guest:Or he was a cab driver.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah.

00:37:46Guest:And he said, you know, he pointed to his nose and I said,

00:37:48Guest:Glad to see you.

00:37:50Guest:You know, like Bilko.

00:37:51Guest:Glad to see you.

00:37:52Guest:Don't kick the tires.

00:37:53Guest:And so I go with him.

00:37:58Guest:This is the guy.

00:37:59Guest:This is my man.

00:38:00Guest:And then later, the girls told me,

00:38:03Guest:No, no, no, no, no.

00:38:05Guest:Policia.

00:38:07Guest:You know, so he had been monitoring us.

00:38:08Guest:Plus he was getting stuff.

00:38:10Guest:So I was like confused.

00:38:11Guest:Yeah.

00:38:12Guest:And what blow?

00:38:13Guest:Yeah.

00:38:14Guest:Yeah.

00:38:14Guest:So I was getting better.

00:38:16Guest:Yeah.

00:38:17Guest:Yeah.

00:38:17Guest:It was like 95% pure.

00:38:19Guest:Yeah.

00:38:20Guest:It was $11 a gram.

00:38:22Guest:Yeah.

00:38:22Guest:This is just drug talk for those were the days.

00:38:25Guest:Yeah.

00:38:26Guest:You know, anybody listening.

00:38:27Guest:Yeah.

00:38:29Guest:So I had my room and I laid in there and I was ordering cervezas and cervezas and room service.

00:38:37Guest:And, you know, I'd lock the door.

00:38:39Guest:There was a bolt in the chain and there was a little glass hole so you could see.

00:38:42Guest:And one night I drank myself almost into paralysis because I got a Quaalude from somebody.

00:38:50Guest:But it was bathtub Quaaludes.

00:38:52Guest:In other words, you could take one, nothing.

00:38:56Guest:You could take another one, nothing.

00:38:58Guest:And the full Lollapalooza would be in the third one.

00:39:02Guest:So I get on the third one and all of a sudden I was like...

00:39:06Guest:narcolepsy i was paralyzed lying in the bed yeah still trying to reach for a cerveza and everything and um earlier that day i was out walking around town and i went into a little crafts booth yeah and these people were nice and i was like the fucking you know bad news yeah yeah and i go in and i go you know what do you got you know speaking too loud and messy and sloppy and i said you got any guitars

00:39:34Guest:And the guy shows me a guitar.

00:39:38Guest:And I'm looking at it and I go, this neck is as crooked as a ram's horn.

00:39:44Guest:How much you want for this?

00:39:46Guest:And he told me, I said, this is a piece of shit.

00:39:49Guest:And I was being so insulting.

00:39:51Guest:I can barely remember, but I do remember like the...

00:39:55Guest:The main little things is I'm lucky I didn't get shot to death.

00:40:00Guest:Yeah.

00:40:01Guest:So somehow I passed out in that store, but I was standing up.

00:40:05Guest:Yeah.

00:40:06Guest:And the next thing you know, they threw me in a vat of unmixed orange paint.

00:40:11Guest:What?

00:40:12Guest:Yeah, I was covered with orange pigment.

00:40:14Guest:Yeah.

00:40:15Guest:Hands, shoes, legs, hair.

00:40:18Guest:Yeah.

00:40:19Guest:And I guess I got out of there, but I don't remember it, and walked back to the hotel.

00:40:23Marc:Orange.

00:40:24Guest:Yeah, fully orange, long before Trump.

00:40:27Guest:And full frontal orange.

00:40:30Guest:Yeah.

00:40:30Guest:Yeah, so I woke up standing on my feet in front of the hotel with orange all over me.

00:40:36Guest:And that's when I went back up to my room and took the quaaludes.

00:40:39Guest:Right.

00:40:40Guest:And then ordered cervezas.

00:40:41Guest:Yeah.

00:40:42Guest:Yeah.

00:40:42Guest:Bolted the door.

00:40:43Guest:I was paranoid.

00:40:44Guest:I was belligerent.

00:40:46Guest:You know, because I'm working both ends.

00:40:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:40:49Guest:And we're your friends.

00:40:50Guest:And the blow.

00:40:50Guest:They were off on their own adventures.

00:40:52Guest:So I get up and I see someone standing at my door in the light crack.

00:41:02Guest:And the door was locked by that time, double locked.

00:41:05Guest:And I said, who is this?

00:41:08Guest:And I found out, I knew already that they had a house detective.

00:41:12Guest:Yeah.

00:41:12Guest:And I says, this stupid dick thinks he's going to bust me and, you know, he'd be like the crime buster of the year down there.

00:41:21Guest:And I'm going, that motherfucker.

00:41:23Guest:And I said, I'll just wait him out.

00:41:25Guest:Yeah.

00:41:26Guest:Didn't move.

00:41:27Guest:He's still, like, looking through that thing, trying to see me.

00:41:30Guest:Maybe he has a reverse thing.

00:41:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:41:32Guest:You know, where he can see in somehow.

00:41:35Guest:And I was like...

00:41:37Guest:I was getting angry.

00:41:39Guest:I said, this motherfucker, he won't leave.

00:41:41Guest:It's been like three hours.

00:41:43Guest:He's standing there.

00:41:45Guest:So I creep across the floor.

00:41:47Guest:It took me like 20 minutes to go from the bed to the door so I could not make a sound.

00:41:54Guest:I was totally paranoid.

00:41:56Guest:And I'm like, oh.

00:42:00Guest:So I go up to the door, and I stand on my head, and I'm looking underneath the crack just to see if I can get some more information.

00:42:08Guest:Can you imagine a full-grown man?

00:42:10Guest:Yeah, just out of his mind.

00:42:13Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:14Guest:Like Trump now.

00:42:15Marc:Yeah.

00:42:17Marc:What'd you find?

00:42:18Guest:No, so I said, this motherfucker.

00:42:21Guest:I got to get rid of this guy or he's going to take care of me.

00:42:25Guest:Yeah.

00:42:28Guest:So I undid the lock.

00:42:29Guest:That took me like 15 minutes.

00:42:31Guest:Yeah.

00:42:31Guest:And the other one slowly, quietly took me about 10.

00:42:34Guest:Yeah.

00:42:35Guest:I mean, this is all in slow-mo because I didn't want to give this guy a clue.

00:42:39Guest:Yeah.

00:42:40Guest:But there he is.

00:42:41Guest:And so off come the locks.

00:42:44Guest:I doubled back and I opened the door.

00:42:45Guest:Ah!

00:42:48Guest:And in front of me on the mat was my pair of orange-covered shoes that I didn't want to come in the room with.

00:42:57Guest:And I was swinging, and I went, psst, fuck.

00:43:01Marc:You know, right back to, you know, you'd think you'd learn something.

00:43:04Marc:So you come back from Peru, and you're still working at the record store.

00:43:07Guest:Well, we came back to Peru, but we were so well-known as, you know, ugly Americans that they had phoned Logan Airport.

00:43:15Yeah.

00:43:15Guest:And they had 50 U.S.

00:43:17Guest:Marshals waiting for us.

00:43:19Guest:Really?

00:43:19Guest:Yeah, because there was five of us.

00:43:21Guest:And they were all ready.

00:43:22Guest:And they were doing strip searches and everything.

00:43:24Marc:Oh, they thought you were bringing shit back?

00:43:26Marc:Yeah.

00:43:27Guest:And I almost did.

00:43:28Guest:Because I did buy a guitar and I was going to carve out.

00:43:31Guest:See, no one will know.

00:43:33Guest:Yeah, right.

00:43:34Guest:I figured it out.

00:43:35Guest:This is where you put the blow.

00:43:36Guest:The world's most stupid criminal.

00:43:39Guest:So I'm going, I can put it in there.

00:43:40Guest:Because I met two gangsters when I was down there.

00:43:43Guest:Yeah.

00:43:43Guest:In an alleyway near a bar.

00:43:45Guest:Yeah.

00:43:46Guest:And he's like you know.

00:43:47Guest:Hey, you know, no paranoia, mi amigo.

00:43:50Guest:You know, and he's got like bullet wounds healed on his chest.

00:43:53Guest:Yeah.

00:43:54Guest:And I'm not scared of him because he gives me some blow.

00:43:57Guest:Yeah.

00:43:58Guest:Hey, you know.

00:43:59Guest:Yeah, it's my buddy.

00:44:00Guest:Me llamo Carlos, you know, and he's Larrabee.

00:44:04Guest:And the name struck me so funny because it sounded like two names from the old Jack Benny radio show or something.

00:44:11Guest:So I started doing the routine to them and I went, oh, Carlos, oh, Larrabee.

00:44:17Guest:You know, and they started doing it and cracking up laughing.

00:44:21Guest:Oh, Carlos, oh, Larrabee.

00:44:23Guest:And they didn't know that they were imitating an American comedic icon.

00:44:28Guest:Right.

00:44:28Guest:But it didn't matter because what's funny is funny.

00:44:31Guest:Yeah.

00:44:31Guest:And that proved it right then and there to me.

00:44:33Guest:Yeah.

00:44:34Guest:If something is funny, they picked up right on it and I was going to bring some back that they had given me.

00:44:41Guest:Right.

00:44:42Right.

00:44:42Guest:And, you know, so the strip search at Logan Airport and everything.

00:44:46Guest:I came home in a daze.

00:44:47Guest:This was 1983.

00:44:48Guest:Yeah.

00:44:48Guest:I was still at... I pretty much was new still at BCN.

00:44:53Guest:So you were already a character on the radio.

00:44:57Guest:People knew who I was.

00:44:58Guest:I didn't get much credit.

00:44:59Guest:You know, they didn't want to say my name a lot.

00:45:03Marc:But when did that start?

00:45:04Marc:So when did you make the jump from the guitar shop to BCN?

00:45:08Marc:How'd that happen?

00:45:09Guest:I had already...

00:45:10Guest:was a winner of one of their contests when I lived outside of Boston with my mom, which those were frequent recidivism visits to my mom.

00:45:20Guest:A comedy contest?

00:45:22Guest:No, well, on the radio one morning, and you might know this guy, Eddie Gordatsky.

00:45:26Marc:Yeah.

00:45:27Guest:He was one of my first friends there, and we're talking 32 years ago at BCN.

00:45:33Guest:Eddie was at BCN?

00:45:34Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:45:34Guest:He was the comedy guy.

00:45:36Guest:You know, he used to take that blank piece of paper and get on the typewriter.

00:45:40Guest:Next thing you know.

00:45:41Marc:He's like a part of everything.

00:45:43Marc:He came over here with Elvis Costello when they came over.

00:45:45Marc:He knows everybody.

00:45:46Marc:Doesn't he?

00:45:47Marc:And he's like on every show.

00:45:49Guest:I used to say, Eddie, when they finally send something up to Mars and you might be the first guy to go because you're so cool.

00:45:55Guest:You're going to get out and they're going to know who you are.

00:45:58Guest:Eddie.

00:45:58Guest:Look, Eddie.

00:46:00Marc:Well, he knows Dylan and he knows he's got all those great 78s.

00:46:05Marc:He's a huge record collector.

00:46:07Marc:But he was there at the beginning of the comedy channel.

00:46:11Guest:That's right.

00:46:11Guest:And I worked for him.

00:46:13Guest:At BCN.

00:46:14Guest:I was the announcer.

00:46:15Guest:For the comedy channel.

00:46:16Guest:This was after I left BCN.

00:46:18Marc:Well, let's get there.

00:46:18Marc:So I didn't realize this.

00:46:19Marc:So now it's all coming together.

00:46:20Marc:Eddie Gordeski.

00:46:21Guest:I sobered up is what happened.

00:46:23Guest:So I moved to New York.

00:46:25Guest:But I knew Eddie from Boston, but he was writing for Saturday Night Live and Letterman.

00:46:30Marc:Okay, so wait.

00:46:30Marc:So you win the contest.

00:46:33Marc:You're at your mother's.

00:46:33Marc:Eddie Gordetsky is doing the bits of BCN.

00:46:36Marc:So they knew you because of this concert.

00:46:38Marc:What kind of contest was it?

00:46:40Guest:I remember my friend called me up and said, Hey, WBCN's looking for a guy who can sound like Mel Blanc.

00:46:48Guest:Yeah.

00:46:49Guest:And you win or something.

00:46:50Guest:Yeah.

00:46:51Guest:And he said, call him up.

00:46:53Guest:But you hadn't been doing voices in any real way.

00:46:56Guest:Just fooling around myself or on stage.

00:46:59Guest:If you broke a string in those days or your amp blew up, you had to sit there like a fried egg and try to figure out what you're going to do to entertain people.

00:47:06Guest:And you would do what?

00:47:07Guest:Bugs Bunny or what?

00:47:08Guest:I would just launch into stuff.

00:47:10Guest:Yeah.

00:47:10Guest:Like what was your favorite go-to?

00:47:12Guest:And there's a final word.

00:47:16Mmm.

00:47:16Guest:Goodbye.

00:47:18Guest:You know, stuff like that.

00:47:20Guest:Yeah.

00:47:21Guest:Or anything.

00:47:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:47:24Guest:So, all right.

00:47:24Guest:Whoa, blow me down.

00:47:26Guest:You know.

00:47:27Guest:Yeah.

00:47:27Guest:Oh, olive oil, olive oil.

00:47:29Guest:I used to be able to do it better.

00:47:31Guest:My mouth is like a buzzsaw this morning.

00:47:33Guest:What, Popeye?

00:47:34Guest:Yoo-hoo, olive oil.

00:47:37Guest:I bring you some flowers.

00:47:39Boop, boop.

00:47:41Guest:There.

00:47:42Marc:I redeem myself in the eyes of voice purists.

00:47:47Marc:All right, so you win this contest or whatever, because you were like, when did they put you on to the morning crew?

00:47:52Marc:Because there was something about radio at that time, so this was 80 what?

00:47:56Marc:When I won, and then I knew to sign off with, that's all for air, folks.

00:48:03Guest:you know and it's like we got a live one yeah so they invited me to come up to the prue where they were broadcasting from prudential building the prudential building and uh so i go up there and everybody's super cool like too cool to talk to me yeah but i won yeah and this is what did well what did you win

00:48:23Marc:Was it La Cordera show?

00:48:25Guest:Yeah.

00:48:25Guest:Yep.

00:48:26Guest:But when Eddie picked me off the listener line, when I called in, he went, hold on.

00:48:32Guest:And that was the beginning of that whole thing.

00:48:34Guest:Yeah.

00:48:35Guest:Yeah.

00:48:35Guest:Eddie and Charles and Oedipus.

00:48:38Guest:Yeah.

00:48:39Guest:Yeah.

00:48:39Marc:So you're there.

00:48:41Marc:So now you got a job.

00:48:42Guest:I have a job, but I was getting increasingly out of control.

00:48:46Marc:But you were doing the morning show.

00:48:47Guest:Yes, I was.

00:48:48Marc:So that's six o'clock.

00:48:50Guest:Yes.

00:48:51Marc:I'm just getting in from the night before at 4.15.

00:48:54Marc:Right.

00:48:55Marc:But everybody was doing that, right?

00:48:57Marc:How, though?

00:48:58Marc:How did we do those things?

00:48:59Marc:I don't know, but you're at BCN, so I imagine you're going to concerts, you're hanging out with whoever's in town.

00:49:03Guest:I'd always be obliterated.

00:49:05Guest:I couldn't tell you what happened after 7 o'clock at night most of the time.

00:49:08Guest:Really?

00:49:09Guest:For a majority of my adult life at the time.

00:49:11Guest:And you were showing up, and what were the voices you were doing for Charles?

00:49:14Guest:Oh, God, I'd have to pick something.

00:49:16Guest:Yeah.

00:49:17Guest:And I would mimic, like, types.

00:49:18Guest:Yeah.

00:49:19Guest:You know, like wobbly wizards and, you know, demonic creatures.

00:49:25Marc:And you just make them up spontaneously?

00:49:26Marc:Accents, yeah.

00:49:28Marc:What was your favorite one?

00:49:29Guest:I don't know.

00:49:29Guest:It's just something funny about an Indian guy calling someone else.

00:49:32Guest:You're hammerhead.

00:49:33Guest:I'm using stooge ad hominems for people standing right next to me.

00:49:42Marc:You are a hammerhead.

00:49:44Marc:So you'd be the weird, crazy, sweaty, fucked up guy.

00:49:48Marc:You're not going to let go of that, are you?

00:49:51Marc:Well, no, Charles would be driving the show.

00:49:53Marc:I'm just trying to see what the crew looked like.

00:49:54Marc:Yeah, he'd be driving the bus.

00:49:55Marc:And how many people would be in the room?

00:49:56Guest:Eddie would be next to me, and he would have...

00:49:59Guest:Bits.

00:50:00Guest:Written words.

00:50:01Guest:Yeah.

00:50:01Guest:Bits.

00:50:01Guest:Yeah.

00:50:02Guest:Wrap-ups to contestants like, you know, you win.

00:50:05Guest:So you weren't that much, you weren't live on the mic all the time.

00:50:09Guest:No.

00:50:09Guest:But I was voicing my own stuff.

00:50:11Guest:Right.

00:50:11Guest:We didn't have any actors, you know.

00:50:13Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:13Guest:No, I was like, I had to learn.

00:50:15Guest:So it was a fluke you got into this.

00:50:18Guest:Yeah, but you know what I acted like?

00:50:20Guest:Like I could care less about being there because I couldn't wait to get out and take care of my ossification.

00:50:27Guest:You started to make money though, right?

00:50:29Guest:A little bit, but there was a low, low ceiling there.

00:50:33Guest:And, you know, I knew why I didn't, because how could they?

00:50:38Guest:They would point up, you know, number one, you're like an insurance liability.

00:50:43Guest:Yeah.

00:50:44Guest:You know, for starters.

00:50:45Guest:Yeah.

00:50:46Guest:And, you know, it was all that kind of stuff, but I sobered up in 85.

00:50:50Guest:Yeah.

00:50:51Guest:What happened to make you sober up?

00:50:55Guest:I had flipped a car on the Massachusetts Turnpike, you know, east and west, and there's a guardrail in the middle.

00:51:02Guest:I was coming home towards Boston, and I fell asleep doing about 90 miles an hour.

00:51:07Guest:Yeah.

00:51:08Guest:And next thing you know, what woke me up was the sound of the guardrail lifting me over it, and the car was upside down and landed on the fast lane of the westbound mass turnpike.

00:51:20Right.

00:51:20Guest:And I was like, I didn't know what to do, and I could feel the engine, like I could smell it.

00:51:27Guest:Yeah.

00:51:27Guest:Probably going to blow up.

00:51:28Guest:Right.

00:51:29Guest:So I'm standing in there, I'm trying to figure out what to do.

00:51:33Guest:Yeah.

00:51:34Guest:And as soon as I realized what happened, I just didn't take it that seriously.

00:51:39Right.

00:51:39Guest:You know what I mean?

00:51:40Guest:You didn't care.

00:51:40Guest:Like invulnerable.

00:51:42Marc:Yeah.

00:51:42Guest:Kind of magical thinking.

00:51:44Guest:Yeah.

00:51:44Guest:Hey, what's meant to happen is meant to happen.

00:51:46Marc:You weren't hurt.

00:51:47Guest:I wasn't.

00:51:48Guest:I had probably a little bit of, you know, joint problem in my heel.

00:51:54Guest:Yeah.

00:51:54Guest:That was about it.

00:51:55Marc:And you were shit faced.

00:51:55Guest:Yep, and a mass statey, state patrol trooper pulls up.

00:52:00Guest:It's like late, late at night.

00:52:02Guest:And he comes over and he gets me out of that window that is now laying on the ground.

00:52:09Guest:And he said, before I arrest you,

00:52:12Guest:I just want you to know that I've been working this shit for 12 years.

00:52:15Guest:And every time we come out there, we come with shovels and plastic bags to scrape the blood pudding that's left of you into them.

00:52:26Guest:He says, you're one lucky bastard.

00:52:28Guest:And I was just, yeah?

00:52:30Guest:And he wanted to beat the crap out of me.

00:52:33Guest:So I spent the night in the station.

00:52:36Guest:Somehow I was let go home.

00:52:38Guest:But what happened was I never showed up to court.

00:52:42Guest:Over that.

00:52:43Guest:Yeah.

00:52:43Guest:And a year later, they recontacted, because I was non-payment of rent, and the judge had my record earlier, and he goes, wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be... You're going to jail for this non-payment of rent.

00:52:56Guest:I don't care about this...

00:52:58Guest:Accident, yeah.

00:52:59Guest:Yeah, and so they put me in Charles Street Jail, which is a pissy, smelly, 300-year-old Bastille, which is now luxury condominiums.

00:53:10Guest:Of course.

00:53:10Guest:But on a warm Boston night, you can still smell 300-year-old piss.

00:53:19Guest:Yeah.

00:53:20Guest:How long were you in jail for?

00:53:23Guest:Probably close to two weeks, I think.

00:53:25Guest:Yeah.

00:53:25Guest:And I just figured it out right then and there.

00:53:28Guest:I'm a quick study.

00:53:29Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:Yeah.

00:53:31Guest:It takes me the hard way to learn everything, but I figured it out.

00:53:34Guest:I said, you know, because you have to go, how did I get here?

00:53:38Guest:And I can't go anywhere.

00:53:39Yeah.

00:53:39Guest:And I've got people bugging me for anything I have in my hand.

00:53:42Guest:If you have a comb in your hand, gone.

00:53:44Guest:Yeah.

00:53:45Guest:You read the sports page, gone.

00:53:47Guest:You know, anything you had was somebody else's.

00:53:50Guest:Yeah.

00:53:51Guest:And I realized it.

00:53:52Guest:I leaned into it.

00:53:53Guest:No, I wasn't scared because I was in a daze.

00:53:56Guest:Yeah.

00:53:56Guest:You know, like you just got hit in the head and you're waking up.

00:54:00Guest:Right.

00:54:00Right.

00:54:01Guest:So I get out of there and I come back and people saw this guy who the devil had been cast out or purged totally from me.

00:54:10Guest:You were just like this crazy man.

00:54:12Guest:Yeah.

00:54:13Guest:And alcohol, well, being Irish, I know that there's way more to it than alcohol and being an alcoholic.

00:54:18Guest:Yeah.

00:54:19Guest:It is a psychedelic experience.

00:54:22Guest:Yeah.

00:54:22Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:54:23Guest:It's the drug of Irish poets.

00:54:25Guest:Yeah.

00:54:26Marc:You know, Madame Bottle, that was your muse.

00:54:28Marc:Yeah.

00:54:29Marc:Because, like, you were infamous by the time I got there, and you were already sober, but, like, you were this known wild man.

00:54:37Marc:Yeah.

00:54:38Marc:But you don't remember most of it.

00:54:39Guest:No, my legend loomed large, but I didn't know what it was about.

00:54:43Guest:But you were, like, this voice guy.

00:54:45Guest:You were the voice guy.

00:54:47Yeah.

00:54:47Guest:Yes.

00:54:48Guest:Yeah.

00:54:48Guest:But I happened to be good.

00:54:49Guest:Yeah.

00:54:50Guest:Even in a blackout.

00:54:51Guest:Yeah.

00:54:51Guest:I would do stuff.

00:54:52Guest:Yeah.

00:54:53Guest:And I wouldn't even remember doing it.

00:54:55Guest:Yeah.

00:54:56Guest:Yeah, it was like the talent part just totally took over.

00:54:59Guest:Yeah.

00:54:59Guest:And overrode the whatever part of the brain makes you act like a shit fuck.

00:55:04Guest:Yeah.

00:55:04Guest:You know?

00:55:05Guest:Yeah.

00:55:06Guest:So when you got sober, what'd you do?

00:55:08Guest:Um...

00:55:09Guest:I wanted to take an assessment of myself and figure out where I am in relation to the business and the world and everything.

00:55:17Guest:And a guy named Howard Stern was starting to make noise out of Washington, DC.

00:55:23Guest:Then he was syndicated in Philly and New York.

00:55:25Marc:And you'd only been at BCN doing those bits.

00:55:28Guest:Yeah, since I was there from 81 to 89.

00:55:32Guest:So yeah, I was working on the Howard Stern Show when I moved to New York.

00:55:37Guest:How'd you get that gig?

00:55:38Guest:It was our sister station.

00:55:40Guest:Right.

00:55:40Guest:And I went there to work in production.

00:55:42Guest:And this is before Stern is Stern.

00:55:45Guest:He was starting to make a big noise.

00:55:48Guest:Yeah.

00:55:48Guest:Yeah, real quick.

00:55:49Guest:I mean, he would say, no, what are you talking about, man?

00:55:52Guest:It took me forever.

00:55:54Guest:Yeah.

00:55:54Guest:And, you know, he was pretty cool.

00:55:56Guest:Like when I first met him, he'd be like, you know, whatever you, you know, I know you're new in town.

00:56:00Guest:If you need to get acclimated, I'll help you out and all that.

00:56:03Guest:In New York or D.C.?

00:56:04Guest:Yeah, when I would meet him, they were just getting off the air.

00:56:07Guest:Yeah.

00:56:07Guest:And I was coming in.

00:56:08Guest:But it was in New York?

00:56:09Guest:In New York City on West 57th.

00:56:12Marc:Yeah.

00:56:12Marc:You were coming in to do... East 57th or something.

00:56:15Marc:And you were doing the next show?

00:56:17Marc:What do you mean?

00:56:18Guest:No, I would go in and do production.

00:56:20Marc:Okay.

00:56:20Marc:Station business.

00:56:21Marc:Right.

00:56:22Guest:You know, like... And, you know, because I had a head full of big, dumb announcers.

00:56:26Guest:Yeah.

00:56:27Guest:And if you wanted to be a pro, you had to sound like these big, dumb announcers who loved far and away above everything else in the universe, the sound of their own balls vibrating and carrying them on a wheelbarrow.

00:56:37Guest:Yeah.

00:56:38Guest:You know, coming to the Worcester Centrum.

00:56:41Guest:Yeah.

00:56:41Guest:and they would like add that hamburger helper you know it's 11 15 right here a lot of them were still doing that yeah and it was like madison nav was filled with these big dumb dinosaurs that were about to go extinct yeah and then the breed came along they were raptor like they were more facile they were quicker they were more versatile

00:57:03Guest:enter little dumb announcer like me and the guys that I came up with.

00:57:09Guest:What was that sound?

00:57:11Guest:It was just like, let's try to stay away from that because by then people knew that if you were talking on the radio, someone's lying to you.

00:57:19Guest:They put that together by then in the 80s.

00:57:23Guest:I just started doing commercials and I would put my own spin.

00:57:26Guest:I made off the nose choices for everything.

00:57:30Guest:Then I got this job

00:57:32Guest:You know, I was auditioning for everything.

00:57:34Guest:And I was sneaking in and out of work.

00:57:36Guest:What was your relationship with Stern?

00:57:37Guest:Oh, I used to be on the show like three days a week.

00:57:41Guest:And you'd be in the room with him.

00:57:42Guest:I'd be in the room.

00:57:43Guest:Yeah.

00:57:44Guest:You know, and he would just... Something would come up in the news.

00:57:47Guest:Yeah.

00:57:47Guest:And he would have heard me ruminating before...

00:57:51Guest:the show yeah like uh what was that thing you were doing you know yeah like the first time he called me i was at home because the day before he was getting off the air and he's eating his baked potato and i came in and lucy was like at the cedar sinai you know it was almost uh good night funny lady yeah and they were showing the bonbon clips on tv grape stomping yeah i said oh you know poor lucy yeah

00:58:17Guest:So I come in and I started doing the no estrogen Lucy for Stern.

00:58:21Guest:Yeah.

00:58:21Guest:And I was like, why are you people bothering me?

00:58:25Guest:He says, shit starts coming out of his nose, potato and snot.

00:58:31Guest:Yeah.

00:58:31Guest:Yeah, he's choking.

00:58:33Guest:Yeah.

00:58:33Guest:I lived a very long and prosperous life.

00:58:37Guest:You know, instead of, oh, Ricky, it was, oh, Ricky.

00:58:43Guest:So he was doing that, and he goes, I'm going to call you tomorrow morning, man.

00:58:47Guest:I'm going to have Gary call you tomorrow morning, and you do that.

00:58:50Guest:Just do that.

00:58:51Guest:So we get there, and the first call was like a...

00:58:55Guest:Is this the Cedar Sinai?

00:58:57Guest:Yes, it is.

00:58:58Guest:You know, I was just like ad-libbing instead of searching for words.

00:59:01Guest:Yeah.

00:59:02Guest:Yes, it is.

00:59:03Guest:We want to talk to Lucy.

00:59:04Guest:Is Lucy a ball there?

00:59:06Guest:So it turned into, hey, Robin, we're going to call Lucy.

00:59:10Guest:You know, and it sounded very real as if it were happening in the here.

00:59:14Sure.

00:59:16Guest:Hello?

00:59:18Guest:Lucy!

00:59:19Guest:Yes?

00:59:20Guest:You know, and you have to hear the entire bit.

00:59:23Guest:It was so dark, but it was like irresistibly funny.

00:59:27Marc:Yeah, no, live radio and doing that stuff where you have just a, it's like it's all theater of the mind shit.

00:59:32Guest:So Lucy, your parents, you're saying your parents, when we read that when you were a little girl, they used to chain you to the clothesline.

00:59:38Guest:And put a dog harness around here.

00:59:40Guest:And Lucy would say, you say it like it's a bad thing.

00:59:45Guest:And Stern was like, he was just wanted to play, play to the very bitter end.

00:59:51Guest:And boy, oh boy, the next morning, this gossip columnist, this bitty named Kay Gardella in the Daily News is going,

00:59:58Guest:I heard the most horrifying thing on the radio, and it was like, shame on you, Stern.

01:00:03Guest:Yeah.

01:00:04Guest:And he was like, he loved it.

01:00:06Guest:And he loved it.

01:00:07Guest:Yeah.

01:00:07Guest:He loved it.

01:00:08Guest:And I would, characters would evolve.

01:00:10Guest:Yeah.

01:00:10Guest:Because I would do those Boston women.

01:00:12Guest:Yeah.

01:00:13Guest:That were screaming about busing and, get off our beach.

01:00:17Guest:This is Carson Beach.

01:00:18Guest:It was always a nice white beach.

01:00:21Guest:Get off.

01:00:22Guest:It wasn't meant for yous.

01:00:24Guest:This is City Point.

01:00:26Guest:The bus comes from white neighborhoods to come to a white beach.

01:00:29Guest:Get out!

01:00:31Guest:You know, I grew up hearing all this stuff.

01:00:35Guest:You know, and then a black guy would call in and he'd go, I know that's Billy West.

01:00:39Guest:I know that's Billy West.

01:00:41Guest:Oh my God, Howard, you bad.

01:00:42Guest:You know, so most people...

01:00:47Guest:understood that it was pointing up the grotesqueness of racism.

01:00:50Guest:Yeah.

01:00:51Guest:How long were you with Stern?

01:00:53Guest:For a few years, I left in 95.

01:00:57Guest:To come out here?

01:00:58Guest:Yes, so I got to do a lot of stuff, but I auditioned for Ren and Stimpy.

01:01:04Guest:Yeah.

01:01:04Guest:And I worked with John K. when he was doing Beanie and Cecil, which lasted six episodes, and I was playing Cecil, the sea serpent.

01:01:11Guest:Yeah.

01:01:11Guest:John K. created Ren and Stimpy.

01:01:13Guest:And this is also where I met my today partner in creativity is Jim Gomez.

01:01:18Guest:Yeah.

01:01:18Guest:And we have a podcast.

01:01:20Guest:Do you mind if I talk about it?

01:01:21Guest:Sure.

01:01:22Guest:While we're... Yeah.

01:01:23Guest:I'm all over the map, man.

01:01:24Guest:It's all right, buddy.

01:01:24Guest:I'm sorry.

01:01:25Guest:It's all right.

01:01:27Guest:I found out I had ADHD.

01:01:28Guest:Yeah.

01:01:29Guest:Like about a year ago.

01:01:30Guest:Uh-huh.

01:01:31Guest:I couldn't wait to tell my friends I was like,

01:01:33Guest:Hey, guess what?

01:01:33Guest:I got that stupid ADHD.

01:01:36Guest:And this guy looks at me and he goes, you paid someone to tell you that?

01:01:40Guest:We knew.

01:01:41Guest:Yeah.

01:01:42Guest:Oh, everybody knew.

01:01:43Guest:But anyway, we thought it would be a funny idea just to create something.

01:01:48Guest:Just for fun.

01:01:49Guest:I mean, just for the fun of it.

01:01:50Guest:The podcast.

01:01:51Guest:Yes.

01:01:51Guest:And it's BillyWestPodcast.com.

01:01:54Guest:And there's barely time for me on my own show because there's all these disruptions and distractions, people coming in, you know, arrest warrants or somebody calling on the phone or whatever.

01:02:08Guest:But it's me.

01:02:08Marc:Yeah, of course.

01:02:09Guest:Yes.

01:02:10Guest:But I also bring in my voiceover friends, not to interview them.

01:02:15Guest:Yeah.

01:02:16Guest:Let them work.

01:02:17Guest:That would be more of the same.

01:02:18Guest:It was like, okay, that's my interview, and I didn't have to put anything into it.

01:02:22Guest:Right.

01:02:23Guest:So I created content, and I wanted these guys to play people from my real life.

01:02:27Guest:Yeah.

01:02:27Guest:And I have just priceless performances from my very own friends that inspire me to this day.

01:02:34Marc:And it's all produced.

01:02:35Marc:You guys spend time with it.

01:02:36Guest:Yeah, we have to.

01:02:37Guest:And the problem with that is that people want to keep them coming.

01:02:42Guest:Every week.

01:02:43Guest:And it's difficult to produce it.

01:02:47Guest:I mean, I can talk, but I'll hang myself if I'm allowed to be me and talk.

01:02:50Marc:Yeah.

01:02:51Marc:So you're better off doing bits.

01:02:52Guest:It's better off creating characters.

01:02:56Guest:Yeah.

01:02:56Guest:You know, we created a character named Billy Bastard.

01:02:59Guest:I don't know who I named that after, but the way I was in the old days.

01:03:03Guest:Oh, really?

01:03:04Guest:Yeah.

01:03:04Guest:What's that guy sound like?

01:03:05Guest:And he sounds like Buddy Rich.

01:03:07Guest:You ever hear those Buddy Rich bus tapes?

01:03:09Guest:You guys are blowing clams.

01:03:10Guest:You guys are playing clams for me up here.

01:03:12Guest:Well, I wrote the chart to I'll Take Manhattan.

01:03:15Guest:Well, you can take Manhattan and get the fuck off this bus right now, tonight.

01:03:20Yeah.

01:03:20Guest:and it's sort of like that yeah and he's billy bastard but do you remember do you remember that guy billy bastard i mean sure i do were you a yeller i would scream and yell and i and i had like the lung capacity and certainly the vocal yeah yeah i can't say my gentleness belied my great strength i think it was just you know demon power yeah

01:03:46Guest:I mean, that's like saying, I have the blood sugar of 81 seagulls.

01:03:50Guest:Don't mess with me.

01:03:51Guest:Yeah.

01:03:52Guest:That's the guy.

01:03:53Guest:Yeah.

01:03:54Guest:Yeah.

01:03:54Guest:Or I would say shit like that.

01:03:55Guest:Yeah.

01:03:56Guest:Yeah.

01:03:56Marc:Just because I was, the silliness was always there.

01:04:00Marc:So when you did Ren and Stimpy, that was your big break.

01:04:04Marc:I mean, that was this weird kind of rebirth of animation for a new generation of young people.

01:04:09Marc:Yes.

01:04:09Marc:It was on MTV, right?

01:04:10Marc:MTV.

01:04:11Marc:And it was huge.

01:04:12Guest:Yes.

01:04:12Guest:And originally, I auditioned for both voices.

01:04:15Guest:Yeah.

01:04:15Guest:That's what John Crispelusi wanted.

01:04:18Guest:And we actually went to MTV to do a live pitch.

01:04:22Guest:Yeah.

01:04:22Guest:In front of the women at Nickelodeon.

01:04:24Guest:At Nickelodeon?

01:04:26Guest:This is right out of the movies, like out of the Stooges, out of the 30s.

01:04:29Guest:Yeah.

01:04:29Guest:There's a broom, and we get a little mic on it, and we're in a closet up the street from Kurt Loder's office.

01:04:34Guest:Right.

01:04:35Guest:And...

01:04:36Guest:And we're in there and I'm reading the script as both voices.

01:04:39Guest:He goes in, he comes out a half hour later and he says, congratulations, what you just did sold the show.

01:04:45Guest:Who said that?

01:04:46Guest:John Chris Lucey.

01:04:47Guest:And I said, wow.

01:04:49Guest:So they get the show in production, they sold the show, and John decided that he was going to do the voice of Wren.

01:04:57Guest:Right.

01:04:57Guest:Yeah.

01:04:57Guest:And I didn't give a fat frog's ass who did what.

01:05:00Guest:I was lucky to have a job.

01:05:01Guest:Yeah.

01:05:01Guest:You know, I was thrilled to death.

01:05:03Guest:So I did Stimpy originally, who was based on Larry from The Three Stooges.

01:05:06Guest:Except you couldn't make him sound like a depressed old Jewish guy.

01:05:09Guest:Yeah.

01:05:10Guest:You know, hey, Mo, mine hernia.

01:05:12Yeah.

01:05:13Guest:I don't know how big of a stooge guy you are, but Larry is the most sublime, peripheral voice I've ever heard in my life.

01:05:21Guest:Be careful, Mo.

01:05:24Guest:You know.

01:05:25Guest:Hey, Mo, you took my money, didn't you?

01:05:27Guest:Yeah.

01:05:27Guest:Then it's Shemp.

01:05:28Guest:He's come back to haunt us.

01:05:30Guest:You know, it was priceless.

01:05:32Guest:The little that he said, I'd be like, you know, because I watched the Stooges' every little frame, everything, and it was like somebody trying to get more out of the lobster long after it's done, like sucking the legs and looking for green shit.

01:05:48Guest:You know, maybe that's edible.

01:05:50Guest:And I began to watch the corners of the pictures instead of the obvious focal points and the gags.

01:05:55Guest:And Larry was always making faces and, oh, no, you know, chewing up scenery.

01:05:59Guest:Yeah.

01:06:00Guest:Do you like that?

01:06:02Guest:Oh, I love that, but I fell in love with this voice that I didn't care about.

01:06:07Guest:I mean, I didn't early on care about it.

01:06:10Guest:Everybody knew Moe and everybody could do Curly.

01:06:13Guest:They could do the voices, but nobody gave a damn about Larry.

01:06:17Guest:So John Chris Feluci heard that.

01:06:19Guest:um earlier on when we were recording beanie and cecil and i was doing larry and he he said uh you know that larry fine voices you did stooges yeah so i want you to do that for stimpy and what happened was you can't have him sound like larry because it's not a spark right that really adhered to a cartoon character that had to adhere to a cartoon universe

01:06:45Guest:Um, so he sped him up, you know, and then it became like a sped up Larry, like, you know, Hey, Ren, will you button me?

01:06:53Guest:You know, and Ren would be like, you shut up.

01:06:56Guest:You fool.

01:06:57Guest:Yes, I shall kill you.

01:06:59Guest:Um,

01:07:00Guest:And John got fired after the first season.

01:07:03Guest:And I wasn't his partner.

01:07:04Guest:I wasn't like his creative partner or anything.

01:07:08Guest:I was a hired gun.

01:07:09Guest:Yeah.

01:07:10Guest:And they came and auditioned.

01:07:12Guest:They came back to me and they thought, hey, wasn't he supposed to do it in the first place?

01:07:17Guest:So I re-auditioned and I did both parts.

01:07:21Guest:You know, I had nothing to do with their battle.

01:07:23Guest:Nothing.

01:07:25Guest:And he called me and he said, I said, I'm sorry that you got dumped.

01:07:32Guest:And he's like, well, you don't have to do the show.

01:07:36Guest:And I'm like, I don't think it works like that.

01:07:39Guest:You know, because he was offering nothing.

01:07:42Marc:He just wanted you to do his bidding because he got fucked.

01:07:45Guest:Yes.

01:07:46Marc:Yeah.

01:07:46Guest:Yeah.

01:07:47Guest:And he was trying to use me as a weapon against them.

01:07:49Guest:Like, you know, if you quit, they'll never be able to do the show without you.

01:07:53Guest:Yeah.

01:07:53Guest:You know, so then I can, my bargaining chip would be him.

01:07:57Marc:Yeah.

01:07:58Marc:You know, but you don't use me.

01:07:59Marc:Right, you've got nothing to gain from that, and you'd probably be the one that takes the hit.

01:08:03Marc:Of course.

01:08:03Marc:Yeah.

01:08:05Guest:You know what it is?

01:08:07Guest:I had all these bad things happen to me, but when I grew up, I realized, you know what?

01:08:13Guest:I never went to asshole school.

01:08:14Marc:Yeah.

01:08:15Guest:Yeah, so I don't know sometimes what anybody's talking about.

01:08:18Marc:You were an impulsive asshole, not a political asshole.

01:08:22Marc:Like your business asshole.

01:08:24Guest:Or one machination asshole.

01:08:27Guest:Right.

01:08:27Guest:I'll play this one against this one, and then I'll lie.

01:08:31Marc:Calculating.

01:08:32Guest:Yeah, nothing like that.

01:08:34Guest:I was innocent of it.

01:08:35Guest:So you took the gig?

01:08:37Guest:So I just took the gig, yeah.

01:08:39Guest:And you did both voices for all those seasons?

01:08:40Guest:For three seasons after that.

01:08:42Guest:Yeah, and it was a lot of screaming and yelling.

01:08:45Guest:It was great.

01:08:46Guest:And I did those incidental voices like the announcer.

01:08:49Guest:Yeah.

01:08:49Guest:You know, how long can Stippy hold out?

01:08:52Guest:Can he hold out?

01:08:54Guest:Will he press the button that will erase his very existence?

01:08:57Guest:You know, and I would put the emphasis on wrong words.

01:09:00Guest:Yeah.

01:09:01Guest:You know, like, in the next target adventure.

01:09:05Guest:That was your device.

01:09:07Guest:Yeah, but I got it from Colonel Bleep.

01:09:08Guest:Did you ever see Colonel Bleep when you were a kid?

01:09:11Guest:See, I grew up in the 50s.

01:09:13Guest:Yeah.

01:09:13Guest:Colonel Bleep was this alien who was like an astronaut or a commander, and he had a caveman with him and a puppet.

01:09:20Guest:And it was animated really early, primitive.

01:09:24Guest:And the announcer on the show was at this fever pitch all the time.

01:09:28Guest:Yeah.

01:09:29Guest:Yeah.

01:09:29Guest:And it was like, how does this guy not pass out?

01:09:32Guest:Yeah.

01:09:32Yeah.

01:09:33Guest:Cause he's always up here.

01:09:35Guest:Yeah.

01:09:35Guest:Oh no.

01:09:37Guest:Yeah.

01:09:37Guest:And, uh, you know, all that stuff kind of works in it.

01:09:40Guest:All of it goes in your percolator.

01:09:42Guest:Yeah.

01:09:42Guest:And whatever you spit out is, is not like you clip something from somebody.

01:09:47Guest:It's a, it's a hybrid.

01:09:49Guest:Yeah.

01:09:49Guest:Of what you're in.

01:09:50Guest:Well, yeah.

01:09:51Marc:And you're also integrating cause you grew up like, you know, you brought up Bilko and you, I mean that stuff and Jack Manny.

01:09:56Marc:I mean that stuff was stuff that you saw as a kid.

01:09:58Marc:Yes.

01:09:58Marc:Yeah.

01:09:58Guest:And I was really influenced by that.

01:10:01Guest:But when I saw cartoons for the first time and I was able to read, I looked at the credits.

01:10:06Guest:Yeah.

01:10:07Guest:And I'd just have heard 10 voices or so, and I'd see two names in the credits.

01:10:11Marc:But like, what, the Tex Avery stuff?

01:10:13Guest:All of it.

01:10:13Marc:Yeah.

01:10:14Guest:Yeah, Mel Blanc, one voice.

01:10:15Guest:Yeah.

01:10:16Guest:And he was the first guy, I guess, that got credited on the title cards.

01:10:20Marc:Did you ever meet him?

01:10:21Guest:Yes, I did.

01:10:22Guest:Yeah.

01:10:22Guest:In 1980.

01:10:22Guest:Yeah?

01:10:23Marc:Yeah.

01:10:24Marc:Did you guys do dual voices?

01:10:26Guest:No, he got mad at me.

01:10:27Marc:Oh, he did?

01:10:28Guest:Yeah, I was yelled at by Mel Blanc.

01:10:30Guest:I didn't get yelled at.

01:10:31Marc:How'd that sound?

01:10:32Guest:We were in Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

01:10:35Guest:It's an old wooden hall.

01:10:38Guest:I don't know about now.

01:10:39Guest:But here comes Mel Blanc.

01:10:40Guest:I just happened to find out about it.

01:10:41Marc:Was it some sort of conference or panel?

01:10:44Marc:Oh, you mean you went to see him?

01:10:45Guest:Went to see him and it was a voice and slideshow.

01:10:48Marc:Yeah.

01:10:48Guest:He was given a lecture.

01:10:50Guest:And he eventually showed a cartoon.

01:10:52Marc:Yeah.

01:10:52Guest:But he, there he was.

01:10:54Guest:The guy, you know.

01:10:56Marc:He was Bugs.

01:10:57Marc:He was Elmer Fudd.

01:10:58Guest:Who was he?

01:10:59Guest:Everybody.

01:10:59Guest:He was Barney Rubble.

01:11:01Guest:He was Pepe Le Pew, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat.

01:11:05Guest:Yeah.

01:11:05Guest:Yeah, and he wasn't just a collection of witty little voices.

01:11:09Guest:Right.

01:11:09Guest:He could really act his ass off on every one of those characters.

01:11:13Guest:Yeah.

01:11:13Guest:Like they were separate entities.

01:11:15Guest:Yeah.

01:11:15Guest:Which is what you're supposed to aim for.

01:11:17Guest:Right.

01:11:19Guest:So you go see him.

01:11:20Guest:And he's all done.

01:11:21Guest:And I said, oh, man, there he goes.

01:11:23Guest:He's going to be...

01:11:24Guest:If anybody wants autographs, can you make a line over here?

01:11:28Guest:That's what he sort of really sounded like.

01:11:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:11:30Guest:And so I get up and I'm body slamming little kids and checking them into the boards and all this and that.

01:11:37Guest:And he looks up and he goes, could you let the little kids go first?

01:11:40Yeah.

01:11:40Guest:you know and when I met him it was like it was like that is it a painting I guess it is yeah where where man is reaching up yeah pointing his finger and then there's God the Michelangelo with his with his index finger oh yeah and this earthbound dude is trying to get some of that DNA yeah that's what it was like meeting him yeah oh what was it like to like when you got the opportunity to play characters that were established by Mel Blanc um I did Space Jam yeah

01:12:08Guest:And I got to work with Michael Jordan.

01:12:10Guest:Too dark.

01:12:11Guest:The closest thing to a religious figure that we have.

01:12:17Guest:Oh, and I got paid in carrots.

01:12:20Guest:You know, I was just doing it to be faithful.

01:12:22Guest:Yeah.

01:12:23Guest:But see, everybody has their own perception of what faithful is.

01:12:26Guest:They might be thinking about one decade or another decade because the directors were different.

01:12:31Guest:Yeah.

01:12:32Guest:You know, and one person would lean in.

01:12:33Guest:Ivan Reitman was directing me.

01:12:35Guest:And somebody over at Warner Brothers would lean in the door and go, he sounds too Jewish.

01:12:41Guest:Okay, thank you for that update.

01:12:43Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:43Guest:And then somebody else would poke in and he goes, he's not tough enough.

01:12:46Guest:He's got to be more Brooklyn.

01:12:48Guest:Okay.

01:12:49Guest:With Buggs or with anybody?

01:12:51Guest:They were doing what they thought he was.

01:12:54Guest:Like everybody had a different perception, it seemed like to me.

01:12:56Guest:Of Buggs.

01:12:57Guest:And I was trying to please Ivan Reitman.

01:12:59Guest:Right.

01:12:59Guest:That's the only name that mattered to me.

01:13:02Guest:um so i was doing it that way and you know it wasn't everybody's cup of tea there's people that are stuck on a certain kind of bugs or you know he should have been the one that was really irreverent like you know eating a carrot like hey screwy yeah you know that kind of yeah what you doing screwy

01:13:21Guest:And I sound like Maury Amsterdam.

01:13:24Guest:Yeah, a little bit.

01:13:24Guest:Hey, Rob, here's the comedy spot.

01:13:29Guest:So I had moved to California from New York, got out of the Stern Show.

01:13:34Guest:Yeah.

01:13:35Guest:And I got out here and everybody knew who I was.

01:13:37Marc:Right.

01:13:38Guest:It was like an electronic business card.

01:13:39Marc:From Red and Stimpy.

01:13:40Guest:Yeah.

01:13:42Guest:Oh, and before I left New York, I had been doing the Red M&M that I get cast for.

01:13:47Guest:On the commercial?

01:13:48Guest:Part of the American landscape.

01:13:49Guest:Yeah.

01:13:49Guest:What was that guy sound like?

01:13:50Guest:Have you ever eaten me?

01:13:53Guest:You know, it's basically like my wise-ass voice.

01:13:56Guest:Yeah.

01:13:56Guest:Yellow.

01:13:58Guest:You know, and the commercials are great.

01:14:00Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:01Guest:They're very artistic and funny, I think.

01:14:03Guest:And I've heard from a lot of people.

01:14:05Guest:And it plays every day in some theater somewhere.

01:14:08Guest:And it's like, we're sick of you, man.

01:14:10Guest:But the commercials on TV are good.

01:14:12Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:12Guest:I'm sick of me.

01:14:15Guest:Did you do a lot of commercials?

01:14:18Guest:Yeah, when I moved to LA, I did tons of them.

01:14:20Marc:And what was the next big, for you, the big event in your life, career-wise?

01:14:28Guest:1999.

01:14:30Guest:Matt Groening was going to do a new cartoon outside The Simpsons.

01:14:34Guest:Yeah.

01:14:34Guest:So he created this show called Futurama.

01:14:36Guest:Yeah.

01:14:37Guest:And that's all I knew about it.

01:14:38Guest:Yeah.

01:14:38Guest:And he said they're doing auditions, so I get some sides as Philip J. Fry.

01:14:43Guest:Right.

01:14:44Guest:Zoidberg and The Professor and Bender the Robot.

01:14:49Guest:Yeah.

01:14:49Yeah.

01:14:49Guest:So I went in and I just did instinctively.

01:14:52Guest:People go, how do you know what to do?

01:14:54Guest:I said, they give you enough information about the character so that you can formulate what it should be.

01:15:02Guest:And you just throw shit against the wall and hopefully one of them will be dead on on the bullseye and they'll go, that's what we're looking for.

01:15:08Guest:Yeah.

01:15:09Guest:So I did something I never did before.

01:15:11Guest:I sort of used my own voice for that.

01:15:14Guest:Yeah.

01:15:14Guest:Yeah, only when I was 25 and I was whiny and complainy.

01:15:19Guest:For which character?

01:15:19Guest:Oh, man, I just broke a string for Fry.

01:15:21Guest:Yeah.

01:15:22Guest:Oh, man, I just broke a string.

01:15:23Guest:Now what am I going to do?

01:15:25Guest:You know, that's exactly what I sounded like.

01:15:27Guest:I was like, oh, man, we don't have any tubes.

01:15:30Guest:The amp just blew up.

01:15:31Guest:Now what the fuck am I going to do?

01:15:33Guest:Yeah.

01:15:33Guest:And so I just injected that in there.

01:15:39Guest:And I did Zap Rannigan, which Phil Hartman was supposed to do.

01:15:44Guest:And I met Phil Hartman when I first moved out here.

01:15:47Guest:But in New York, he called looking for me before I left.

01:15:50Guest:And my wife, I called in coming from New York.

01:15:52Guest:And she said, guess who called here looking for you?

01:15:54Guest:I said, who?

01:15:55Guest:So, Phil Hartman, I said, do you know how many guys I know that could pull an elaborate prank like that on you?

01:16:00Guest:And she goes, no, it was him, and he left his number.

01:16:02Guest:He wanted to say hi.

01:16:04Guest:Yeah.

01:16:04Guest:And I'm like, okay, we'll see.

01:16:06Guest:And he was on the set of news radio.

01:16:07Guest:Yeah.

01:16:08Guest:I call him back, and it's him, and he goes, no, I just wanted to just say hi.

01:16:12Guest:I'm a fan of your work.

01:16:13Guest:And I was like, well, I kind of know who you are, too, you know?

01:16:16Yeah.

01:16:16Guest:And I eventually met him.

01:16:19Guest:Yeah.

01:16:19Guest:And he was eager to help me get acclimated.

01:16:21Guest:Yeah.

01:16:22Guest:He was the most generous of spirit person.

01:16:25Guest:He had no, like, was coveting anybody else's talent or performance.

01:16:29Guest:Right, right.

01:16:30Guest:No, he was secure and he knew who and what he was.

01:16:33Guest:Yeah.

01:16:34Guest:And so we found out we had that big dumb announcer love.

01:16:38Guest:Yeah.

01:16:38Guest:You know, because he had done them.

01:16:39Guest:Yeah.

01:16:40Guest:And we talked about those guys and we found out, you know, it's like, oh, you remember a guy named Alex Dreyer?

01:16:46Guest:You know, we're pulling out names.

01:16:49Guest:Jackson Beck.

01:16:50Guest:You know, a few of them sounded a little the same.

01:16:52Guest:Yeah.

01:16:52Guest:And then there was, you know, the old-fashioned guys that would come on the radio and say, I have to update the info because I don't remember any old commercials, but.

01:17:02Guest:Today's program is brought to you by Bluetooth.

01:17:05Guest:Now brain cancer comes in a new color.

01:17:08Guest:Blue.

01:17:09Guest:Bluetooth.

01:17:12Guest:You know, and who talks like that?

01:17:14Guest:Only those guys.

01:17:15Guest:But when you did see it in person or something, they stuck with the act.

01:17:19Marc:Yeah.

01:17:20Guest:Yeah, because it gave them, you know, people would go.

01:17:22Marc:That's who they were.

01:17:22Marc:Wow.

01:17:23Marc:Look at that.

01:17:24Marc:That's the weird thing about radio is that, you know, when you do see the radio guy, you're like, you're the guy?

01:17:28Marc:Yeah.

01:17:29Marc:That probably still happens to you.

01:17:31Guest:Like, you're the guy.

01:17:31Guest:You're this little nebbish.

01:17:33Guest:I'll tell you a story.

01:17:34Guest:One time I auditioned for a character from Dinosaurs, the movie.

01:17:37Guest:Yeah.

01:17:37Guest:And they were going to do the home game, and they couldn't find anybody to do Della Reese's character.

01:17:42Guest:Yeah.

01:17:43Guest:And they searched high and low.

01:17:46Guest:They had black actresses come in.

01:17:49Guest:Yeah.

01:17:49Guest:You know, anybody with like a masculinized female voice.

01:17:53Guest:Right.

01:17:54Guest:And they weren't finding it.

01:17:55Guest:So the guy at Disney calls my agent and says, do you think Willie could just come in and maybe just.

01:18:02Guest:And I go in and I nail it.

01:18:04Guest:You know, because she had this big voice, Bailene Honey, you know, and she was a holy roller, too.

01:18:11Guest:So she had that religious, you know, hellfire rolling around in her voice.

01:18:15Guest:And so I'm in there.

01:18:18Guest:People are like looking like to see who the hell it is.

01:18:20Guest:We got somebody and they see this white guy sitting there.

01:18:24Yeah.

01:18:24Guest:But, you know, I was up for trying out anything.

01:18:27Guest:Yeah.

01:18:28Guest:Anything you threw at me.

01:18:30Guest:What's the worst that can happen?

01:18:32Guest:They don't use it.

01:18:33Guest:But on Futurama, Zap was going to be done by Phil, but, you know, he died.

01:18:37Guest:Yeah.

01:18:39Guest:And it was such a shock.

01:18:40Guest:It was horrifying.

01:18:41Guest:Horrible way.

01:18:43Guest:But then they started thinking about the character again and they said, do you want to try it?

01:18:47Guest:And I said, well, I have my own version of Big Dumb Announcers that sounds similar to what Phil would call upon.

01:18:55Guest:And, you know, I really wasn't trying to mimic him because I had to create a new character.

01:19:00Guest:Yeah.

01:19:00Guest:So I based him on a few disc jockeys that I grew up working with or listened to.

01:19:07Guest:And one of them had this voice like this.

01:19:10Guest:And he used to use big words like serendipity.

01:19:15Guest:Yeah.

01:19:15Guest:You know, serendipity.

01:19:17Guest:And they used the hamburger helper, you know, with that, you know, well, it's seven past five in the morning.

01:19:23Guest:Yeah.

01:19:25Guest:Good morning, everybody.

01:19:26Guest:Yeah.

01:19:27Guest:You know, and that just, that's the hook.

01:19:31Guest:Yeah.

01:19:31Guest:I put that in the character.

01:19:32Guest:Yeah.

01:19:33Guest:Careful, alert the men.

01:19:34Guest:I made it with a woman.

01:19:36Yeah.

01:19:38Guest:You know, that kind of crap.

01:19:39Guest:She's a beautiful ship.

01:19:41Guest:I'm going to fly her brains out.

01:19:44Guest:That was it.

01:19:45Guest:It puts this button on it that makes him more important than anybody.

01:19:49Guest:Like, that's the last word.

01:19:50Guest:Yeah.

01:19:51Guest:No one can top that.

01:19:52Guest:Right.

01:19:52Marc:It was beautiful, but it came from something real.

01:19:55Marc:Now, when you do that, because, like, you know, I've done just very little voiceover, and it's not much different than me.

01:20:01Marc:It's just different pitches of me.

01:20:03Marc:But it's interesting when you're on a mic and you've got your cans on.

01:20:06Mm-hmm.

01:20:06Marc:because you know i'm i'm also an addict you know that there is a complete departure of self that happens yes right yes and you can feel it like you know it's the only thing i know how to do right except play music but but when you're in it when you're in those words and you're you're just completely all your momentum is into whatever those choices you made you're completely departed from yourself you're it's out of body experience in a way

01:20:31Marc:There's this idea that we came up with earlier about having to, I imagine when you got sober, I don't know if you got sober the way we get sober, but the idea of having a higher power that will function for you, this idea of these forces or that these things, these energies that come and go and that everything's sort of integrated, it seems like the manifestations of all these different voices are part of a continuum of time and place and people and frequencies that you've absorbed over time.

01:21:01Guest:Well, the stakes are higher with those things because I wasn't left to run wild.

01:21:06Guest:This was a character that was worked on for probably a few years.

01:21:11Marc:Which one?

01:21:12Guest:All of them on Futurama.

01:21:14Guest:And to get to the point where they chose you to interpret their work...

01:21:18Guest:yeah i have to have nothing but respect for the artists intentions yeah they're all artists all artists musicians everybody are my bros you know something my heroes were never fucking celebrities yeah still yeah you know i mean uh my heroes were composers yeah and da vinci's and yeah you know architects sure you know people who did something real important

01:21:41Marc:Yeah, pulled it out of the thin air.

01:21:43Guest:Yeah, I never worshiped celebrity.

01:21:45Guest:I didn't give a damn about it.

01:21:46Guest:You know, all I knew is that I was bursting to bring something to the table.

01:21:51Guest:Yeah.

01:21:51Guest:That's all I cared about.

01:21:52Guest:I didn't know you could make money or be famous.

01:21:55Guest:I just said, you know what, I think in all my cockiness early on, I said, I think if they put me in something, I'll find a way to make it better.

01:22:04Guest:Yeah.

01:22:04Guest:And it was.

01:22:04Guest:Yeah.

01:22:05Guest:And I lived kind of by that, but I took the responsibility real carefully.

01:22:10Guest:So you had to create a character.

01:22:12Guest:You had to craft it the same way they did to arrive at this character.

01:22:16Guest:You know what I mean?

01:22:17Guest:It's like there's no vigilante.

01:22:18Guest:There's no Lone Ranger in this process.

01:22:21Guest:And there's no swathing it off.

01:22:23Guest:no yeah no and uh so in other words you say you see this thing happening in front of you it's like because they're real to me i took them very seriously yeah yeah and it's paid off yeah it's um it's really special it's like you know it's a hard feeling to describe every mostly every day i walk in a room full of genius level performers yeah and a lot of people don't even know who they are but yeah thanks

01:22:47Guest:To the internet that lately, or not lately, I'd say in the past 15, 16 years, people are starting to know who does what.

01:22:56Guest:Right.

01:22:57Guest:And that is the coolest thing in the world.

01:22:59Guest:Yeah.

01:22:59Guest:Because I do these comic book conventions.

01:23:01Guest:I'm going to Australia.

01:23:02Guest:Yeah.

01:23:03Guest:All these people knew me from Nicktoons.

01:23:06Guest:Yeah.

01:23:06Guest:And the little kids know me from something that I just did, like the 7D for Disney.

01:23:10Guest:Yeah.

01:23:11Guest:These are beautiful kids because they were me.

01:23:13Guest:Yeah.

01:23:14Guest:Yeah, that have this obsession with something that mostly nobody else cares about except the people you're with.

01:23:21Marc:Right.

01:23:22Marc:Yeah, real nerd stuff.

01:23:23Guest:I recognized the energy and I said, that was me.

01:23:27Guest:And I, uh... I don't even know what that noise is.

01:23:30Guest:That's a dentist who left his door open.

01:23:33Guest:Yeah.

01:23:33Guest:He's working on Sundays.

01:23:34Guest:On a very big mouth.

01:23:43Marc:Like Shemp.

01:23:44Marc:Yeah.

01:23:46Marc:Do some more Larry.

01:23:49Marc:Let's end on some Larry.

01:23:50Marc:Hey, Mo, I pissed on my shoe.

01:23:55Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

01:23:57Guest:Isn't there something just about that voice that makes you... I love that you love it because I wouldn't have ever looked at it that way.

01:24:02Guest:But go back and watch it.

01:24:04Guest:I'm gonna now.

01:24:04Guest:And the little that he says is like, you know, makes him Keith Richard of the Stooges.

01:24:09Guest:Suddenly he's who Charlie now, he's a big important guy.

01:24:13Guest:Yeah.

01:24:14Guest:Yeah.

01:24:15Guest:You know, they're all bells, all these women.

01:24:17Guest:Bell of the ball.

01:24:18Guest:Yeah.

01:24:21Guest:Anything you say.

01:24:22Guest:I think he lived the longest.

01:24:23Guest:Be careful, Mo.

01:24:26Guest:He was in a nursing home in Woodland Hills.

01:24:28Marc:Yeah.

01:24:29Guest:Yeah.

01:24:30Guest:And I had a friend from Boston.

01:24:31Marc:One of the guys from the Stooges, the band, went to visit him.

01:24:35Guest:Yes.

01:24:35Guest:Regularly.

01:24:35Guest:And he took a big beta machine.

01:24:38Guest:And made a beta tape of Larry sitting there.

01:24:40Guest:It's black and white.

01:24:41Guest:You've seen it?

01:24:42Guest:I have seen it.

01:24:43Guest:And Larry's sitting there, and they set up the interview, and he's like, okay.

01:24:47Guest:You know, because he had had like three strokes.

01:24:49Guest:Yeah.

01:24:49Guest:And there was a picture that he created that he drew of Mo behind him in an old firehouse short that they did.

01:24:55Guest:Yeah.

01:24:56Guest:Yeah, and he's like, you know, he's stroked out, but he still had his sense of humor.

01:25:02Guest:Yeah.

01:25:03Guest:And the guy says, what was Mo like?

01:25:06Guest:Well, you know, he was a very sweet man, and he picked me out of a vaudeville act, you know, because the Stooges were looking for one guy to fit in with the crazy man and the boss man.

01:25:20Guest:Yeah.

01:25:21Guest:So he said, I was playing violin and did a stage act with the Haney sisters.

01:25:26Guest:Yeah.

01:25:27Guest:You know, we never heard of these people.

01:25:29Guest:Thank God he got out of there.

01:25:30Guest:Yeah.

01:25:30Guest:Mo just picked him.

01:25:32Guest:Yeah.

01:25:32Guest:And said, you're going to be a Stooge.

01:25:33Guest:Yeah.

01:25:34Guest:And so there he was, and...

01:25:36Guest:Oh, my God.

01:25:38Guest:It's like, you know what?

01:25:39Guest:People used to say, what are you getting out of this?

01:25:42Guest:Okay, we know you're not big on school.

01:25:45Guest:What are you getting?

01:25:46Guest:I couldn't explain it, but here I was learning comedic timing, comedic performance, and acting.

01:25:52Guest:Yeah.

01:25:52Guest:You know, where you act as a voiceover guy, I act on those words.

01:25:56Guest:Sure, of course.

01:25:57Guest:You know, I was smart enough to, I went to Stella Adler while I was in New York on Stern.

01:26:01Guest:And, oh my God, I was cramming like a super college student.

01:26:06Guest:I remember reading Man and Superman almost overnight.

01:26:10Guest:Bernard Shaw?

01:26:10Guest:Bernard Shaw.

01:26:11Guest:Yeah.

01:26:12Guest:Almost overnight.

01:26:13Guest:And I had to learn the prologue to Henry V overnight.

01:26:17Guest:Yeah.

01:26:17Guest:Yeah, because I was too busy during the day running around New York.

01:26:20Guest:How'd that go for you at the class?

01:26:22Guest:Do you learn anything?

01:26:24Guest:Went to some stuff I could not do right by this particular teacher.

01:26:27Guest:Yeah.

01:26:28Guest:Because she said to me, all right, we're going to have you do examples of a covered entrance.

01:26:34Guest:And I said, wonder what that is?

01:26:35Guest:Is it like to slip in and be invisible?

01:26:37Guest:Yeah.

01:26:38Guest:In plain sight?

01:26:39Guest:Yeah.

01:26:39Guest:No, it wasn't even that.

01:26:41Guest:I never understood what it was.

01:26:43Guest:No, I never could get it right.

01:26:46Guest:Right.

01:26:46Guest:So, you know, and then I meet real actors and celebrities that are my friends.

01:26:51Guest:And I mentioned that and they said, I never heard of that.

01:26:55Guest:You know, it's like when I worked at the Boston Naval, I worked at the Boston Naval Shipyard when I was like 17, 18.

01:27:02Guest:No, I was a little more than 15.

01:27:04Guest:And I was a carpenter's apprentice working in the building shops that made stuff for wartime.

01:27:10Guest:And I was putting together a sawhorse.

01:27:12Guest:And this one guy comes in, one carpenter goes, hey, what are you doing?

01:27:15Guest:I said, I'm pounding a nail.

01:27:17Guest:Who the fuck taught you how to pound a nail?

01:27:19Guest:You know, and so he shows me his way.

01:27:22Guest:Yeah.

01:27:22Guest:And I go, okay, okay.

01:27:24Guest:I'm not going to hit my thumb.

01:27:25Guest:I was doing okay.

01:27:26Guest:And then another schmo comes in and he goes, you know, like, what the fuck are you doing?

01:27:31Guest:You know, same exact thing.

01:27:32Guest:He says, who taught you how to do that?

01:27:34Guest:You know, I said this other... And he did it his way.

01:27:39Guest:Yeah.

01:27:40Guest:So I learned something that I knew when I inherently, in my heart of hearts, I learned at 10 years old that adults were full of shit.

01:27:49Guest:Yeah.

01:27:50Guest:Everyone's got to be right.

01:27:51Guest:They got the way.

01:27:52Guest:Everybody's got to be right and random.

01:27:54Guest:Yep.

01:27:55Guest:Yep.

01:27:55Guest:I never thought of the adults like that.

01:27:57Guest:Yeah.

01:27:58Guest:Oh, that's a good lesson to learn.

01:27:59Guest:But I realized deep inside when I'm seeing hypocrisy and double standards and I'm going...

01:28:04Guest:I didn't use the phrase, but I just said, these people are full of shit, just like me.

01:28:08Marc:Yeah.

01:28:09Marc:Yeah.

01:28:10Marc:And that's an important lesson to learn.

01:28:11Marc:It is, isn't it?

01:28:12Marc:Yep.

01:28:13Marc:It was great talking to you.

01:28:14Guest:Great talking to you, too.

01:28:15Guest:I wanted to meet you for a long time.

01:28:17Marc:Yeah, I'm glad we did.

01:28:18Guest:Because I followed you from Boston doing your stage stuff.

01:28:21Guest:I came and saw you.

01:28:22Guest:Yeah.

01:28:23Guest:And then Air America.

01:28:25Guest:Yep.

01:28:25Guest:You were on there, and I tell people today when they use the word sheeple, I said, I know the man.

01:28:31Guest:Well, I don't know you, but there's a guy that made that up, and it just catches on.

01:28:36Marc:I wonder if it was me.

01:28:37Marc:It was you.

01:28:38Marc:I know I used it, and I used... Sheeple.

01:28:41Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:28:42Marc:I love that thing.

01:28:43Marc:but it's but it's like lemmings yep yep i loved it i love doing air america and i i that's i'd never done radio before and uh yeah i i i'm insecure about my skills on these mics but i know that uh my personality comes through it doesn't matter that's right no your wit yeah your skill is like undefined to everybody else until you define it yeah it's a i i love these mics

01:29:07Guest:Yeah.

01:29:08Guest:These are... You can put your whole mouth around the front of it.

01:29:14Guest:Wow!

01:29:14Guest:Yeah.

01:29:16Guest:Wow!

01:29:18Guest:All right.

01:29:18Guest:I turned into a jungle cat.

01:29:19Guest:It was beautiful.

01:29:25Marc:All right, that was Billy West.

01:29:28Marc:Ooh, that was like a rollercoaster ride of an interview.

01:29:32Marc:So, yeah, we've got some more WTF Uncovered.

01:29:39Marc:Uncovered WTF's coming up.

01:29:40Marc:There'll be one up tomorrow.

01:29:43Marc:And what else?

01:29:44Marc:I can play some guitar.

01:29:45Marc:I don't want to hurt my ear, though.

01:29:47Marc:I'm getting old.

01:29:53guitar solo

01:30:16Marc:A little messy.

01:30:35Marc:Didn't quite come together as I'd hoped.

01:30:37Marc:Boomer lives!