Episode 912 - Drew Carey

Episode 912 • Released May 2, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:00:11Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuck sticks?

00:00:16Marc:What the fuck minster fullers?

00:00:18Marc:That's a classic.

00:00:19Marc:What's happening?

00:00:20Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:21Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:00:23Marc:It's a show that you listen to on your device or your computer.

00:00:27Marc:And you can do it through earbuds or headphones.

00:00:30Marc:Or you can listen to it right out of the speakers on whatever your... You know what it is.

00:00:34Marc:I'm back from Europe.

00:00:36Marc:Been back a couple days now.

00:00:38Marc:By the way, Drew Carey is on the show, and it was a whopper.

00:00:44Marc:Yeah, it's a big talk, and I had no idea.

00:00:48Marc:I had no idea about anything about that guy, and he just wanted to come by, and it was great.

00:00:54Marc:I'd met him once before, but you just never know.

00:00:57Marc:I don't.

00:00:59Marc:I don't know about you, but I never know, and it was great.

00:01:02Marc:We had some laughs.

00:01:03Marc:I learned some stuff.

00:01:04Marc:There was some inspiration to it.

00:01:07Marc:It was a great talk, and I was happy to meet him.

00:01:09Marc:And I'm happy to be back home.

00:01:13Marc:What have I missed since I last talked to you?

00:01:15Marc:Oh, Michelle Wolf, I think, did a great job sticking it to the man.

00:01:19Marc:Sticking it to the man.

00:01:22Marc:Yeah, I don't know what the backlash is.

00:01:24Marc:There's no backlash.

00:01:25Marc:It's just a bunch of press idiots threw her under the bus out of fear for their own goddamn connections, among other things.

00:01:33Marc:And then there, of course, was the predictable right, who are a bunch of self-proclaimed victims.

00:01:40Marc:For people that complain about a welfare state or treating people the less fortunate with any respect whatsoever, boy...

00:01:49Marc:Do they do the fucking victim thing?

00:01:52Marc:Woo-hoo-hoo!

00:01:53Marc:Yeah, real sad sacks to a lot of them.

00:01:56Marc:Just real thin-skinned.

00:01:59Marc:Ugh, what a bunch of cowards.

00:02:01Marc:Cowards and babies.

00:02:03Marc:Armies of them.

00:02:04Marc:Armies of cowards and babies.

00:02:07Marc:So back from Europe, look, I travel a lot.

00:02:09Marc:And I was just on the road for two weeks.

00:02:11Marc:And I was with Sarah the painter with a lovely time.

00:02:16Marc:But just between us, I mean, do you like... Do you... How do you shit on the road?

00:02:23Marc:I mean, is it... I'm sorry.

00:02:24Marc:This is...

00:02:26Marc:unnecessary maybe, but does your body naturally hold back what's in it when you're not at home?

00:02:33Marc:I mean, I find this even when I travel myself, but I guess what I'm trying to tell you is a lot happened when I got back after two and a half weeks or however long as I got.

00:02:43Marc:I don't know if it's a normal consequence of traveling or maybe that I'm inherently a colon shy.

00:02:50Marc:I don't know.

00:02:50Marc:I don't know what the story is.

00:02:51Marc:I don't know if this is a common situation, but

00:02:55Marc:But it happened to me.

00:02:56Marc:I guess I'm just... Can I get a witness?

00:02:59Marc:I think is where I'm at with this.

00:03:02Marc:Am I unusual?

00:03:05Marc:I know I am.

00:03:06Marc:I know, and I know this is not breakfast talk or table talk or even necessarily podcast talk, not this podcast, but it was on my mind.

00:03:14Marc:I never really noticed it as much as I did this time.

00:03:16Marc:And then again, I was traveling with Sarah.

00:03:19Marc:I wanted to keep something mysterious...

00:03:24Marc:You know, you cross a line with intimacy where there's just there's no mystery anymore.

00:03:30Marc:And it's more comfortable, but it's all out there.

00:03:33Marc:You know what I mean?

00:03:34Marc:So maybe maybe my insides are saying, you know what, let's let's keep this a secret for a little while longer.

00:03:41Marc:All of this.

00:03:42Marc:Let's not go all out.

00:03:44Marc:But I did have a lovely time.

00:03:46Marc:I'm happy to be home.

00:03:48Marc:I think it sounds pretty good right now.

00:03:50Marc:And I think this garage is really starting to work out.

00:03:52Marc:I've been having longer conversations in here.

00:03:55Marc:It feels like more consistently than I was at the old place.

00:04:00Marc:And this kid, Julian...

00:04:02Marc:who I had hand-build me some sound platforms, and I had him just build me some stuff, and he built it.

00:04:08Marc:It's got a nice homemade feel to it, but they look good, and they sort of encase me in these platforms that he built, and I think they're working, and I kind of like it in here.

00:04:20Marc:I'm glad I do.

00:04:22Marc:I didn't know if it was going to happen, but I'm glad I do.

00:04:25Marc:So I get home, immediately start worrying.

00:04:28Marc:The jet lag's been kind of fucked up, but then I woke up,

00:04:32Marc:Today in La Fonda is having a hard time peeing.

00:04:35Marc:Then I'm finding puddles of bloody pee everywhere and there's blood here and there.

00:04:39Marc:I don't know how long it's going on for.

00:04:40Marc:I was away for two weeks.

00:04:41Marc:I asked a guy who was staying at my house if he noticed anything.

00:04:45Marc:She's been a little crying a bit.

00:04:48Marc:But it was just all, I don't know, today she waited to get this ill till this morning, and I took her in and put her through that.

00:04:57Marc:She's a 14-year-old cat, she's a little cat, and I gotta get her in the box, which is a fucking nightmare, and hopefully it's just a bladder infection, that's where we're at.

00:05:06Marc:But the drama of getting a cat to a vet, me stressing out, me knowing they're getting old,

00:05:13Marc:You know, they've been so happy over here at the new house, you know.

00:05:17Marc:And then the vet said something to Sarah about how when you leave, they go through it like a horrendous grief.

00:05:24Marc:You know, it's very stressful.

00:05:25Marc:And I was away for two weeks.

00:05:28Marc:You know, I can't... You know, I've...

00:05:32Marc:You can't just build your life completely around the cats.

00:05:35Marc:You know, you got to go out and live, and I learned that a long time ago, but it's, you know, it's sort of sad, and I hope she's going to be okay.

00:05:41Marc:Thank you.

00:05:41Marc:I'm not asking for hopes and prayers or anything, but she seems all right.

00:05:46Marc:She's a little loopy, but I'll let you know.

00:05:49Marc:That's what happened today.

00:05:50Marc:It was stressful, but I'm okay.

00:05:53Marc:I'm back in town.

00:05:55Marc:Got some new sound panels going.

00:05:57Marc:everything's all right watched a rat lumber across my front yard yesterday I just saw this little guy like a little look like a torpedo going through the grass in my front yard I was probably about 30 40 feet away and I'm like what the fuck and I run over and I just watch this rat kind of move through the yard and look for a place to go into the house around the side in the walls and

00:06:22Marc:Didn't look like he lived there.

00:06:24Marc:It looked like he was on his.

00:06:25Marc:I don't know.

00:06:25Marc:He didn't seem well.

00:06:27Marc:It was daytime and I followed him and he looked at me.

00:06:30Marc:I looked at him.

00:06:31Marc:He didn't seem that there was an urgency there.

00:06:34Marc:And that usually means that's a sick fucking rat.

00:06:36Marc:A rat with no urgency is a sick rat.

00:06:41Marc:There's a quotable.

00:06:43Marc:Here's another one that I wrote down for some reason.

00:06:46Marc:There's too much to watch.

00:06:48Marc:You know, when people say that about TV and what's on streaming and everything, too much to watch, I think is today's version of there's nothing on.

00:06:58Marc:Think about it.

00:06:59Marc:Maybe it works.

00:07:00Marc:Maybe it doesn't.

00:07:00Marc:Drew Carey is a nice guy.

00:07:03Marc:He's a funny guy.

00:07:04Marc:He's a guy that's got a hell of a job in show business.

00:07:07Marc:He's the host of The Price is Right, which is still on weekdays at 11 a.m.

00:07:12Marc:on CBS forever.

00:07:13Marc:And it will be forever.

00:07:15Marc:And we get up to that point.

00:07:16Marc:We talk about how he got that gig.

00:07:18Marc:But I was completely surprised with this chat, and I really enjoyed it, and I think he did too.

00:07:23Marc:We had some laughs.

00:07:23Marc:He's a laugher.

00:07:25Marc:This is me and Drew Carey.

00:07:33Marc:I'm trying to remember the first time I met you, and I think it was an Alex Bennett show.

00:07:37Marc:uh a remote alex bennett show oh wow yeah in san francisco a bar yeah at a bar or something i remember it was really crowded it was like dark wood place with right right yeah yeah yeah and it was like a place we put peanuts on the floor but that weird thing when you do the radio in the morning at the place everyone's eating like full dinners you know like yeah there's always like this weird buffet of food it's like seven in the morning and people are eating like you know like stew and chili and nachos and burgers it was what the rest it was what the place had to offer

00:08:05Marc:right right and for some reason when you're doing morning radio you're sort of like this is the way we live i remember dinner now i remember people were drinking beer sure of course at 10 in the morning right because you were probably commenting on it i'm like really is this happening you're i was that was weird yeah but like i i i mean christ you're you like that was a long time ago that must have been like 91 92 probably still on the air

00:08:28Marc:I think he's on Sirius.

00:08:30Marc:Oh, okay.

00:08:30Marc:Oh, another thing I have to tell you is I got to apologize for something that you probably don't remember.

00:08:35Marc:If you have to go through that step, are you in the program?

00:08:38Marc:I am, but it's not that big of a deal.

00:08:41Marc:It's not one of those.

00:08:43Guest:I'm in the program, but this is not... Do you want to do the seventh step where you do your resentment towards me?

00:08:48Guest:It's a eighth step, a ninth step, I think.

00:08:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:08:50Marc:Yeah, no, it's not one of those, but years ago...

00:08:55Marc:I'm pretty sure you're at the Montreal comedy festival.

00:08:59Marc:Okay.

00:08:59Marc:And, uh, you know, you, you were there and you had a room and I was like, I, I want to think, I believe it was rich Jenny that was, you know, that was down in the bar and I was talking to him and he was talking to this girl who was with a dude.

00:09:13Marc:And then he, you know, I don't know how it happened or what transpired.

00:09:16Marc:I'm pretty sure it was Jenny.

00:09:17Marc:I, that's possible, right?

00:09:20Marc:You guys were friends.

00:09:20Guest:Yeah.

00:09:21Marc:Yeah.

00:09:22Marc:So, but whatever the fact is, is that you had people up in your room and it was like a very small gathering, you know, like, and I brought these two kids up, like this girl and this dude, you know, who you didn't know.

00:09:33Marc:And I knew in my mind, I'm like, I don't know how many people are going to be up there.

00:09:36Marc:Why am I in it?

00:09:37Marc:And when I brought them up there, it was clear that it was like just you and Rich and maybe one, maybe Rick Messina or somebody.

00:09:43Marc:Oh.

00:09:43Marc:And I brought these strangers into your room.

00:09:47Marc:And it was one of those moments where you're just looking at me like, what's happening?

00:09:50Marc:Did I?

00:09:51Marc:Why are these people here?

00:09:52Marc:Oh, I'm sorry.

00:09:52Guest:No, no, no.

00:09:53Guest:It was my fault.

00:09:54Guest:No, I should have been more welcoming if that was the case.

00:09:56Marc:No, but it wasn't that big a party.

00:09:57Marc:And I know what that's like to have just sort of like, who brought these?

00:10:01Marc:Why are these fans just in here looking for drugs?

00:10:06Marc:Were they not that cool?

00:10:07Marc:Is that what it was?

00:10:08Marc:Well, yeah, they were just clearly just, you know, civilians.

00:10:11Guest:Oh, okay.

00:10:12Guest:I mean, if sometimes you bring civilians to place, and if they're super cool, then you're glad they were brought.

00:10:16Marc:Right.

00:10:17Guest:Like, oh, I'm so glad you brought these fun people, but if you brought a couple of duds... Well, they were just there, and it was just... An apology accepted.

00:10:22Marc:Yeah, okay.

00:10:23Guest:that's what i apologize for bringing the duds anybody who's listening it's totally fine i think to bring like an uninvited i mean not all but for a casual thing yeah you know where there's only so many seats sure bring an uninvited thing but just better make sure they're cool

00:10:40Guest:Like if I showed up right now and I said, hey, I know it's supposed to be you and me, but look, Mick Jagger was hanging out with me.

00:10:46Guest:You don't mind if he comes in, right?

00:10:48Guest:And you were like, hey, dude.

00:10:50Guest:It was just you and me.

00:10:51Guest:What are you bringing fucking Mick Jagger for?

00:10:53Guest:Who's the asshole then?

00:10:55Guest:Yeah, me.

00:10:56Marc:Yeah.

00:10:56Marc:I'd be the asshole.

00:10:57Marc:Not Mick Jagger.

00:10:58Marc:No.

00:10:59Marc:So I want to talk about the journey, man.

00:11:03Marc:I mean, you've been around a long time.

00:11:05Marc:Another story I need to ask real quick because I heard a rumor about you and I want to know if it's true.

00:11:09Marc:Sure.

00:11:09Marc:Like the day before you were supposed to shoot the pilot of your television show.

00:11:13Marc:Did you shave your head?

00:11:14Guest:Oh, it wasn't the day before.

00:11:17Guest:No, it wasn't the pilot.

00:11:19Guest:I had already been on the Drew Carey show.

00:11:21Guest:I was about to start the second season.

00:11:25Guest:Oh, okay.

00:11:26Guest:Because I was still living in my apartment in Hollywood above...

00:11:31Guest:I lived a block up from the Rock and Roll Ralphs.

00:11:33Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:11:34Guest:I lived in an apartment there.

00:11:35Marc:What was that, Western?

00:11:37Guest:Right by Fuller.

00:11:38Guest:On Sunset, down the street from the Guitar Center.

00:11:42Guest:Oh, yeah, okay.

00:11:43Guest:People call it the Rock and Roll Ralphs.

00:11:44Guest:Yeah.

00:11:45Guest:And the one side street is called Fuller, and I lived at Fuller and whatever the cross street was.

00:11:49Guest:There was a Fuller something apartment.

00:11:51Guest:yeah i lived in dice clay's old apartment really yeah i lived in dice clay's old room in crest hill well i was glad that i had he had a third floor apartment at this place i actually talked about it how did you get it just coincidentally oh coincidence yeah because they said when i was gonna rent it out yeah i said oh dice clay used to live in this apartment and i was like okay but i guess it was like a lucky place to live uh-huh you know yeah because you know worked out for dice it worked out for me

00:12:16Guest:Yeah.

00:12:16Guest:And I had a lot of good times in that apartment.

00:12:19Guest:And but I was living there.

00:12:21Guest:And so I remember a picture that I had of me with my head shaved.

00:12:26Guest:And I don't know why.

00:12:26Guest:I just felt like shaving my head for, I don't know.

00:12:30Guest:And we'll see how it looked or something.

00:12:31Guest:Yeah.

00:12:31Guest:Right before you were supposed to shoot.

00:12:33Guest:It was like a month before.

00:12:35Guest:It was like during the summer break.

00:12:36Guest:Okay.

00:12:37Guest:And I shaved my head and it just didn't grow back fast enough.

00:12:40Guest:So even though I had this short crew cut haircut.

00:12:42Marc:It was too short.

00:12:43Guest:It was still too short.

00:12:44Guest:And I had to get a wig made.

00:12:45Guest:I came back.

00:12:46Guest:I was like, man, my hair's not growing back.

00:12:48Guest:So they had a production.

00:12:49Guest:They had to send me to a wig maker and make me a wig that was short.

00:12:53Guest:A Drew Carey wig.

00:12:54Guest:Yeah.

00:12:55Guest:It was just a real drag, man, the whole thing.

00:12:58Guest:But I was like, that wasn't the day before.

00:12:59Guest:I'm not Britney Spears.

00:13:02Marc:Okay.

00:13:02Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:13:04Guest:That's what was going on in my mind.

00:13:05Marc:I'm like, what happened that day?

00:13:07Guest:Paparazzi were chasing me.

00:13:08Guest:I couldn't take it.

00:13:09Marc:You just lost it.

00:13:10Marc:That was the day Drew lost it.

00:13:13Marc:So Cleveland, I appreciate Cleveland a little more than I used to.

00:13:20Marc:Because on that one block.

00:13:23Marc:Yeah, you do?

00:13:24Marc:Yeah.

00:13:25Marc:There's that one block that has some good restaurants on it.

00:13:27Guest:Yeah, that's the one thing, though, that bugs me about... They do have, like, this one... It's right across the street from Hilarity's.

00:13:35Guest:Like, to be fair... Isn't it Hilarity's?

00:13:37Guest:Is that the club?

00:13:38Guest:To be fair, it's, like, two or three blocks.

00:13:40Guest:Okay, right.

00:13:41Guest:But it's, like, this one section... Is it 3rd Street or 6th Street?

00:13:44Guest:Yeah, right around there.

00:13:45Marc:Yeah, like, the Greenhouse Tavern?

00:13:47Guest:Yeah.

00:13:47Guest:Excellent.

00:13:48Guest:All around there.

00:13:49Guest:But then you walk onto Euclid after that, and it's, like, you'll see a building, like, boarded up.

00:13:53Yeah.

00:13:53Marc:Yeah, there's a hotel I stayed at across the street in this old atrium building.

00:13:57Marc:Oh, you stayed there?

00:13:59Marc:Yeah, the atrium building's cool, isn't it?

00:14:01Marc:It's a cool building, but whatever was supposed to happen there didn't work out.

00:14:04Marc:Yeah, the attempt to revitalize that mall didn't quite catch on.

00:14:09Marc:No, there was never an honest attempt.

00:14:12Guest:Well, even when I was growing up, that was like the... It was always like that my whole life growing up.

00:14:17Guest:Yeah.

00:14:18Guest:It's like four stores in there?

00:14:19Guest:Because it's like... First of all, it's an old place.

00:14:21Guest:It's a pretty old place.

00:14:22Guest:It's cool.

00:14:23Guest:Yeah.

00:14:24Guest:But you have to be downtown to use it.

00:14:28Guest:But when you were a kid... You can't just like, hey, I'm going to this place.

00:14:31Guest:I'm going to park and go in and get out.

00:14:34Guest:Right.

00:14:34Guest:That's not the vibe of the place.

00:14:36Guest:That's the place where you go to or from after work.

00:14:39Guest:But were there stores in there when you were a kid?

00:14:40Guest:There was the same kind of stores.

00:14:42Guest:There was these small little... Oh, really?

00:14:45Guest:Yeah, I remember when I was in junior high, I was in Pirates and Penzance at my junior high school.

00:14:50Guest:You did theater in high school?

00:14:52Guest:Just that one.

00:14:53Guest:That was the choir's big... Yeah, yeah.

00:14:55Guest:That was his big thing.

00:14:57Guest:And I was in band.

00:15:00Guest:Yeah.

00:15:00Guest:uh-huh so what'd you play in band trumpet really oh that's good marching band yeah marching band and stage band and so you wore the outfit so you're a musical guy yeah yeah yeah can you still play the trumpet i can play a scale oh really yeah you let it go though and even a chromatic yeah i don't play anything i i really when i was real little i played accordion and i keep threatening to learn accordion again

00:15:21Guest:It's a practical instrument.

00:15:23Marc:You'd be fun at parties.

00:15:24Guest:It is if you're a comedian.

00:15:25Guest:Sure.

00:15:26Guest:Like, there's a lot of guitar.

00:15:27Guest:There's a few guitar acts out there.

00:15:28Guest:There's a few left.

00:15:29Guest:Yeah, there's a few left.

00:15:30Marc:There were more back in the day, though, right?

00:15:32Guest:Yeah, and I had no problem with them.

00:15:34Guest:No?

00:15:35Guest:No.

00:15:35Guest:I mean, do you remember comics used to complain about, oh, this guy's a guitar act?

00:15:38Guest:Guitar act, yeah.

00:15:40Guest:But there's a couple of them that were really funny.

00:15:42Guest:Yeah.

00:15:42Guest:Bob Saget had a guitar act.

00:15:44Guest:The Smothers Brothers were a guitar act.

00:15:45Guest:Sure.

00:15:46Guest:And I idolized the Smothers Brothers.

00:15:48Guest:Right.

00:15:48Guest:Well, one of them had a guitar.

00:15:50Guest:They both played.

00:15:51Guest:Did they?

00:15:51Guest:Oh, guitar and a bass.

00:15:52Guest:Okay.

00:15:52Guest:That's right.

00:15:53Guest:Let's call them a guitar act.

00:15:54Guest:Okay, fine.

00:15:55Guest:So there's... I don't care what you use as long as you're funny.

00:15:58Guest:I think... Judy Tenuto used an accordion.

00:16:00Marc:No, I think you're right.

00:16:01Marc:You know, Emo Phillips used to come on stage with the trombone.

00:16:03Marc:He didn't play.

00:16:04Marc:He just would hold it.

00:16:05Guest:Oh.

00:16:06Marc:For like the entire act.

00:16:07Guest:One guy, I'm trying to remember this guy's name.

00:16:08Guest:I think about him all the time.

00:16:10Guest:I'm blanking on his... I apologize, dude.

00:16:11Marc:I hope I can remember.

00:16:12Guest:Wherever you are, I apologize.

00:16:13Guest:But he was really funny.

00:16:15Guest:Go ahead.

00:16:15Guest:And a really good, and not just a guitar, but a really funny, like, thoughtful one.

00:16:19Guest:And he had a thing in his act where he would have the audience do a sing-along, like a typical guitar guy sing-along.

00:16:25Guest:Yeah.

00:16:26Guest:Like, okay, three-hour tour, have him do that.

00:16:29Guest:Yeah.

00:16:30Guest:And then, you know, plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

00:16:32Guest:Oh, whatever.

00:16:32Guest:Yeah.

00:16:33Guest:And then he would go to the crowd and go, okay, name your congressman.

00:16:36Yeah.

00:16:38Guest:Everybody would just like, yeah, and then they'd all laugh because like, who knows?

00:16:46Guest:As political as you think everybody, like it's different now, I think people are more political now than they were four years ago or whatever.

00:16:53Marc:Yeah, because they're freaking out and they realize like, maybe I should engage in this process.

00:16:57Guest:Paying a little more attention.

00:16:59Guest:Yeah.

00:16:59Guest:But right before I did Price is Right, the reason I was on the Price is Right's radar is because there was a guy named...

00:17:07Guest:Michael Davies, who does Men in Blazers now.

00:17:11Guest:He's a TV producer guy.

00:17:13Guest:And now he does Men in Blazers, a soccer thing, plus other stuff.

00:17:17Guest:But he approached me.

00:17:18Guest:I did a project with him before, and he used to be an executive at ABC.

00:17:23Guest:And he was doing a game show called The Power of 10, where you could win up to $10 million.

00:17:27Guest:And what you had to do is you had to...

00:17:31Guest:They would do Rasmussen.

00:17:32Guest:They hired Rasmussen to do surveys about things.

00:17:35Guest:Yeah, polling places.

00:17:36Guest:They would do surveys about things and you had to guess the percentage of the survey within a certain amount.

00:17:42Guest:And if it was a wide margin, you'd win a thousand and then the margins got narrower and narrower.

00:17:47Guest:And then if you got it within like two percentage or three percentage points, you'd win $10 million.

00:17:50Guest:It was like that.

00:17:51Guest:The percentages got harder and harder.

00:17:54Guest:But it was things like, what percentage of people think you have a right to own a gun?

00:17:58Guest:What percentage of people don't wear underwear to wear?

00:18:01Marc:And you gotta guess?

00:18:03Guest:Yeah.

00:18:03Guest:And some would be funny, and some would be serious political things that I would discuss with the contestant, and then they would try to answer.

00:18:13Guest:So when he pitched me the idea, I got a call from him.

00:18:17Guest:I was retired and I didn't want to do anything unless it was fun.

00:18:19Marc:That was my thing.

00:18:20Guest:I said, if it's fun, I'll do it.

00:18:21Guest:If I think it's cool, I'll do it.

00:18:22Marc:I remember that.

00:18:23Marc:I remember that, Drew Carey.

00:18:24Marc:But I don't want to.

00:18:24Guest:I'm done.

00:18:25Guest:But I don't need money.

00:18:26Guest:Yeah.

00:18:26Guest:So if you have a project, it's not about money.

00:18:28Guest:It's just about if I think it's goofy or fun enough to do.

00:18:31Guest:So my manager calls and says, oh, he wants to pitch you a show.

00:18:34Guest:It looks pretty good.

00:18:35Guest:You think you might like it.

00:18:36Guest:I go, okay.

00:18:37Guest:So I was friends with George Voinovich and his best friends with his daughter, Betsy.

00:18:44Guest:And so I got to know the family.

00:18:46Guest:And George Voinovich was mayor of Cleveland, two-term governor, two-term senator, very popular politician.

00:18:52Guest:He was a senator at the time.

00:18:54Guest:He was in LA, California for something.

00:18:56Guest:And he was staying at the Beverly Hilton.

00:18:59Guest:And I was going to meet him for lunch.

00:19:01Guest:So while I'm waiting for him, I get the call about the show and the sample question he gives me is what percentage of people know the name of their governor?

00:19:09Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:19:09Guest:Do you know?

00:19:10Marc:I would say 22%.

00:19:12Marc:No, it's 11%.

00:19:12Guest:14% if you included California because of Governor Schwarzenegger.

00:19:20Guest:Huh.

00:19:20Guest:And that's it.

00:19:21Guest:Yeah.

00:19:22Guest:You'd think more.

00:19:22Guest:And so I was like, wow, that's amazing that so many people don't even know the name of their governor.

00:19:26Guest:That's true.

00:19:27Guest:Because every once in a while you see a survey about people don't know the name of the president.

00:19:29Guest:You're like, what are you crazy?

00:19:31Guest:You know?

00:19:32Guest:So then this guy shows up, Voynovich, who was a governor and is a senator.

00:19:36Guest:And I tell him that, and he's eating salad.

00:19:38Guest:And I go, what percentage of people know the name of their governor?

00:19:40Guest:And he goes, 10%.

00:19:42Guest:I go, oh my God, it's like 11%.

00:19:44Guest:How did you know that?

00:19:45Guest:And he goes, well, you know, and he goes, I go, isn't that amazing?

00:19:48Guest:You're in the paper every day and people don't know your name.

00:19:50Guest:And he didn't even look up.

00:19:51Guest:He goes, people don't read the paper.

00:19:54Guest:Just keeps hating.

00:19:55Guest:That's it.

00:19:55Guest:Yeah.

00:19:56Guest:They're just doing their own life.

00:19:58Marc:And here's a guy who's been a politician his whole life.

00:20:00Marc:And he's like, people don't read the paper.

00:20:01Marc:And I wonder it's such a cynical system and so fucking strangely dysfunctional.

00:20:06Marc:Because people don't give a shit.

00:20:07Marc:It seems like the only people that give a shit are the politicians who are looking to get something.

00:20:11Guest:Well, I think more people are paying attention now, but even then- Yeah, hell yeah.

00:20:14Guest:A lot of things go over.

00:20:15Guest:I mean, there's days where I just don't even want to look, man.

00:20:19Marc:I know, dude.

00:20:20Guest:But I'm not as worried as everybody else because I think everybody, I now have this- You got an inside line?

00:20:27Guest:No, I now have this Buddhist philosophy about the Dhamma wheel, about how everything comes and goes and things come to the top and go to the bottom again.

00:20:34Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:20:35Guest:Everything's born and they die.

00:20:36Marc:You're doing the Buddhist thing?

00:20:37Guest:Yeah.

00:20:37Guest:Yeah, but honestly, things are changing so fast.

00:20:41Guest:I'm listening to the news and there's like a woman host on NPR and like that used to be, it used to be where that would be a remarkable thing.

00:20:49Guest:A female host of a radio show that was nationwide.

00:20:52Marc:On NPR even?

00:20:54Guest:Yeah, even, you know.

00:20:55Guest:40 years ago.

00:20:56Guest:Sure.

00:20:57Guest:Like in the fifties.

00:20:58Guest:Yeah.

00:20:58Guest:A lot of things that would have been amazing.

00:20:59Marc:Yeah.

00:21:00Marc:A lot of things have changed very recently.

00:21:01Marc:We just don't really think about how recently things are.

00:21:04Guest:It changes fast and it changes slow.

00:21:05Guest:Right.

00:21:06Guest:Right.

00:21:06Guest:So like, if you think for a minute that a hundred years from now, there's going to be people like Trump around in any kind of power, I think you're out of your mind.

00:21:17Guest:Yeah.

00:21:17Guest:This is like the last scream of a dying breed of thought.

00:21:22Guest:Well, I hope so.

00:21:23Guest:It is.

00:21:23Marc:But the problem is, I hope you're right.

00:21:27Marc:It totally is.

00:21:27Marc:I don't know what's going to happen in that 100 years that you're talking about to get to where there's no more Trump people around.

00:21:34Marc:But I will tell you this.

00:21:35Marc:It was less than 100 years ago where Europe was almost German.

00:21:40Guest:Yeah.

00:21:41Guest:No.

00:21:42Guest:And it takes millions of people were killed.

00:21:44Guest:Things don't happen overnight.

00:21:45Guest:Right.

00:21:45Guest:And then things change and they don't change.

00:21:47Guest:Like, you know, end of the Civil War, slavery is outlawed.

00:21:52Guest:But then it took like about 100 years for the Civil Rights Act to pass.

00:21:57Guest:Yeah.

00:21:58Guest:We were like, OK, let's get serious about this.

00:22:00Guest:Right.

00:22:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:22:02Guest:And then after that, still racism, still racism, like still dealing with it, but getting better and better and better.

00:22:09Guest:Right.

00:22:09Guest:Arguably.

00:22:10Guest:Sure.

00:22:11Guest:You know, not gone totally, but still getting better.

00:22:13Guest:And so it's going to be this.

00:22:14Guest:I have like a comet theory that I use all the time.

00:22:17Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:22:17Marc:Yeah.

00:22:18Guest:yeah so like a lot of change is like a comet yeah the shape of a comet so the people in front of the comet take all the heat yeah you know yeah and get all that right get all the damage sure and then it gets popular and the comet gets big yeah and there's that tail end of the comet yeah of people that are just left behind and catching up and not quite there and they get the they get all the benefits because they're like by the time they get there not even the benefits like they don't even know what's going on in front sure sure

00:22:40Marc:Right.

00:22:41Guest:So they're still like, oh, that's changed now because I don't feel like that.

00:22:44Guest:That's not me.

00:22:45Guest:Yeah.

00:22:46Guest:Around here, we still think.

00:22:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:47Guest:So it takes them a while.

00:22:49Marc:Yeah.

00:22:49Guest:Catch up.

00:22:50Guest:Like, people don't like to.

00:22:52Guest:I hope you're right.

00:22:53Guest:Look how many people don't have computers, don't have proper internet access.

00:22:59Guest:That's right.

00:23:00Guest:people think today like wow everybody's streaming thing they use the term everybody yeah you know all of us are like you read an article all of us are nowadays we all yeah that's not true there's like 20 percent or some really high percentage of people without decent internet access all they apparently all they get is uh conservative facebook yeah

00:23:22Guest:Well, if you get a Facebook feed or text or some kind of textual thing, you're not going to get a streaming video.

00:23:31Guest:It's really hard for them to get the kind of information.

00:23:34Guest:People have to go to the library still to get online.

00:23:37Guest:I mean, there's a lot of large percentage of people out there that don't have...

00:23:41Marc:cable because they can't afford it they don't have direct tv they can't afford it you know yeah yes it is something that we don't really realize or think about yeah not everybody is like all hooked up no definitely so you grew up in Cleveland altogether yeah right in the city right in it

00:23:58Guest:Yeah.

00:23:59Guest:I went to Cleveland Public High School.

00:24:01Guest:Really?

00:24:01Marc:Yeah.

00:24:02Marc:What was the city like then?

00:24:03Marc:Because now you get the feeling like they got the grilled cheese place.

00:24:06Marc:They got Slimans corned beef.

00:24:07Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:08Marc:They got the fancy restaurants, and that's a good comedy club there, and there's a stadium.

00:24:13Guest:There was only a couple of hotels downtown you could really go to and stay there.

00:24:16Marc:But was it a thriving city that you remember?

00:24:18Guest:No.

00:24:19Guest:It was already dead.

00:24:20Guest:No, this was river on fire days when I was growing up.

00:24:24Guest:Yeah, Mayor Perk caught us in.

00:24:26Guest:I remember the river caught on fire when I was growing up there.

00:24:29Guest:Mayor Perk was doing a... We had a mayor called Mayor Perk, and he was doing something about an opening with a blowtorch, some kind of constructive thing, and his hair caught on fire.

00:24:36Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:24:37Guest:His wife, they had a chance to go meet the president and his wife.

00:24:40Guest:It was his wife's bowling league night.

00:24:41Guest:They had a bowling league championship, so they didn't go.

00:24:43Guest:Oh, really?

00:24:44Guest:Yeah.

00:24:45Guest:They didn't like the president?

00:24:46Guest:Was it a...

00:24:46Guest:No, I think it was honestly just like a bowling.

00:24:49Guest:A bowling issue?

00:24:50Guest:Yeah, a bowling issue.

00:24:52Guest:You know, when I was growing up, like Johnny Carson would be making Cleveland jokes.

00:24:57Guest:Well, it was always sort of a punchline, no?

00:24:59Guest:Yeah, but it was like especially big then.

00:25:02Marc:I think Paul Thomas Anderson's father used to host a weirdo show.

00:25:06Guest:He was the ghoul.

00:25:07Guest:The ghoul.

00:25:09Guest:Yes.

00:25:09Guest:Yeah.

00:25:10Guest:The most popular movie show host in Cleveland history, probably.

00:25:14Guest:And that was in Cleveland.

00:25:15Guest:Yeah.

00:25:16Guest:Oh, actually, no, he was Goularty.

00:25:18Guest:Goularty.

00:25:19Guest:That was it.

00:25:19Guest:The ghoul was after Goularty.

00:25:20Guest:Yeah, Goularty.

00:25:21Guest:Yeah, so in the late 60s.

00:25:23Marc:You remember him?

00:25:24Guest:Oh, man, are you kidding me?

00:25:26Guest:He was like a king then.

00:25:28Guest:Well, the ghoul was, I was more, the Gulardi was when I was little and then he moved out to come to LA.

00:25:34Guest:Yeah.

00:25:34Guest:He was friends with Tim Conway.

00:25:36Guest:Tim Conway.

00:25:37Guest:Yeah.

00:25:38Guest:They were like a comedy writing team in Cleveland and they used to do little comedy bits and Tim Conway moved to LA, got McHale's Navy and he told Gulardi.

00:25:47Guest:Gulardi, yeah.

00:25:48Guest:What's his real name?

00:25:49Guest:Ernie Anderson.

00:25:50Guest:Ernie Anderson.

00:25:51Guest:Yeah, Ernie Anderson.

00:25:52Guest:Father of the genius.

00:25:53Guest:Yeah.

00:25:53Guest:He might be a genius too.

00:25:54Guest:Ernie Anderson was great.

00:25:55Guest:He worked at the station and he would do a,

00:25:58Guest:Like an after school movie show and he would wear like the Van Dyke goatee thing that you would get in the back of the comic books.

00:26:06Guest:And he wore a beetle wig.

00:26:07Guest:You would be able to buy this thing called a beetle wig, which is like a, I don't know, this weird hair wig that you would buy.

00:26:12Guest:And you wear the lab coat with kind of like buttons with sayings on it, like Sakatumi and stuff like that on his button, Band the Bomb and all those buttons that were popular then.

00:26:20Guest:Yeah.

00:26:20Guest:and uh he wore sunglasses with one eye one of the sunglass things busted out yeah and he would say things hey kids over there scratch glass turn blue and uh he had all these like catch phrases and uh he would um i love that those guys do gigs like you know it's like a local radio too they they do shows they yeah he his thing was he had he had the gulardi all-stars they it was like a it was a

00:26:44Guest:softball and basketball so he would like come to your high school or junior high and play against your teachers and faculty to raise money for charity so they would come like hey we're gonna be at Euclid High School this Friday playing our all stars playing Euclid High School faculty and every kid would show up and Gilardi the Gould did that especially and I think Gilardi did too but Gilardi would when he was on like Friday nights he would get like an 80 share yeah

00:27:11Guest:The kids were watching.

00:27:13Guest:Everybody watched.

00:27:14Guest:Like, go to school on Monday, everybody was talking about what Goularty did or what the ghoul did after him.

00:27:19Guest:The ghoul worked for Goularty.

00:27:20Guest:He was the guy in the monkey suit that would be around in the back ranks.

00:27:24Guest:He would do all these stupid sketches and interrupt the movies.

00:27:26Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:27:27Guest:You know?

00:27:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:27:28Guest:Like, it would be like Creature from the Black Lagoon, let's say he was showing.

00:27:30Guest:Yeah, right.

00:27:31Guest:And then when the Creature came up, he would start playing Papa Umaumao.

00:27:35Guest:Right, okay.

00:27:35Guest:And then he'd pop up like in the screen like he was being attacked by the creature and he would just like do that.

00:27:41Marc:So it was like pre-Mystery Science Theater.

00:27:43Guest:Yeah, he would do crazy stuff and then he would read like letters.

00:27:45Guest:But one of his main things that he would do is people would send in models that they made of like cars, ships, like whatever the model was.

00:27:54Guest:Right.

00:27:54Guest:And he would blow up the model with an M80.

00:27:57Guest:Or firecrackers.

00:27:58Guest:Like he would light an M80 and step off and it would blow up on camera.

00:28:00Guest:And that's why they'd send him in?

00:28:02Guest:Well, no, he would just like, that was one of the bits that he would do.

00:28:05Guest:Like, we're going to, hey, so-and-so, 15 years old from Parma, send in this model kit card.

00:28:12Guest:We all decked out and he would like,

00:28:14Guest:put an M-80 and just blow it up.

00:28:15Guest:It was really fun to watch.

00:28:16Guest:But then he got so popular doing that.

00:28:19Guest:I read a book about him.

00:28:20Guest:Somebody in a local Cleveland wrote a book about him.

00:28:22Guest:Somebody back then, and this is like in the late 60s, made a stick of dynamite at home out of M-80 and stuff.

00:28:32Guest:And just took all the gunpowder, made their own stick of dynamite, got on the fucking public bus,

00:28:38Guest:took it down to the TV station.

00:28:40Guest:Hey, I have something for the ghoul that I want to drop off to him.

00:28:44Guest:You make sure he gets it.

00:28:45Guest:Sure thing.

00:28:47Guest:They get him this stick of dynamite.

00:28:49Guest:Can you imagine?

00:28:50Guest:Yeah.

00:28:50Guest:They get him the stick of dynamite.

00:28:51Guest:He's this pretty cool.

00:28:53Guest:Yeah.

00:28:53Guest:And he goes to blow up a model and he lights it and he like runs away and it blows the glass out of the sound booth.

00:29:01Guest:Oh my God.

00:29:01Guest:It blows up so big the glass in the sound booth shattered.

00:29:04Guest:Yeah.

00:29:05Yeah.

00:29:05Guest:That's the kind of shit he did.

00:29:06Guest:I think he got suspended or something for that.

00:29:08Guest:He's lucky he didn't kill people.

00:29:10Guest:I think Ghilardi, the guy that took off from him, got suspended for blowing up a mouse with a firecracker.

00:29:15Guest:Oh, my God.

00:29:16Guest:He blew up a mouse because he thought it would be funny.

00:29:18Marc:Yeah.

00:29:18Marc:You know, that tradition of radio still exists.

00:29:22Marc:and it happened in cleveland dude i was in cleveland doing a i believe this is on tv i know yeah but like i was in cleveland doing a morning show i just it's just strange that i just realized this might i think it was cleveland where you know i you know when you do morning shows you don't know what the crew is going to be like you don't know what their their angle is you know if they're

00:29:38Marc:But I get there and everyone, there's panic.

00:29:41Marc:There's a guy running down the hall.

00:29:43Marc:You know, he's got no shirt on.

00:29:44Marc:And I'm like, what the fuck is happening?

00:29:46Marc:You know, it's 730, you know?

00:29:47Marc:And like, I'm like, what's going on?

00:29:49Marc:It's noon to them.

00:29:49Marc:But apparently some guy going like, oh, the puke cannon didn't work.

00:29:53Marc:Oh, my God.

00:29:54Marc:Yeah.

00:29:56Marc:This is radio.

00:29:57Marc:I guess there's a video element.

00:29:58Marc:But they'd taken a weed blower and some guy was going to make himself vomit milk into this weed blower.

00:30:03Marc:And it was going to the idea.

00:30:04Marc:But everything there was puke all over the ceiling.

00:30:07Marc:I had to go to another studio.

00:30:08Marc:And I'm like, is this really where radio is at?

00:30:10Guest:Man, it's unbelievable.

00:30:12Guest:People in Cleveland had the real... Because the city was getting made fun of so much, like, everybody, like, Cleveland was exactly the punchline.

00:30:19Guest:Like, a full Cleveland outfit was, like, a leisure suit.

00:30:24Guest:Right.

00:30:24Guest:Like, a light blue leisure suit, head to toe.

00:30:26Guest:They called that a full Cleveland.

00:30:28Guest:They did?

00:30:29Guest:That's what it's called.

00:30:30Guest:Yeah.

00:30:30Guest:Look it up.

00:30:30Guest:That's a full Cleveland.

00:30:31Marc:I wore a full Cleveland on this first night of my bar mitzvah.

00:30:35Marc:So you grew up... On Friday night, I wore a full Cleveland in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

00:30:38Marc:Right.

00:30:38Guest:And at the time, like, the Indians were, like, the...

00:30:41Guest:the last place team every year the cleveland indians never won anything they would play at cleveland municipal stadium which held like 70 000 people that's where the browns played the browns were decent yeah of the cleveland indians always suck so i would go to it would have like seriously seat like 70 000 people 68 000 something like that yeah and they would have 5 000 people there yeah totally empty oh i would go with my friends when i was in high school and we would buy a bleacher ticket and then just walk up to like the box seats yeah just have a seat

00:31:11Guest:Or wherever we wanted.

00:31:12Guest:Or wherever we wanted.

00:31:12Guest:Drink beers.

00:31:13Guest:Like, who would stop us?

00:31:14Guest:Yeah.

00:31:15Marc:They're barely looking at tickets.

00:31:16Marc:It was just something to do, right?

00:31:18Marc:Just something to do.

00:31:19Marc:But so, like, how many brothers and sisters do you have?

00:31:21Marc:Two older brothers.

00:31:22Marc:It was the three of you?

00:31:24Marc:And my mom.

00:31:25Guest:And your mom.

00:31:25Guest:My dad died when I was eight years old.

00:31:27Guest:Really?

00:31:28Guest:Yeah.

00:31:28Guest:I don't know why I'm questioning that.

00:31:30Marc:No, yeah.

00:31:30Marc:That's pretty horrible.

00:31:31Guest:I made it up.

00:31:32Guest:Makes me look more pathetic.

00:31:34Marc:I don't know why I always... I do that all the time.

00:31:36Guest:I'm like, really?

00:31:37Guest:Well, I barely remember him, too, because he was always sick.

00:31:39Guest:He had, like...

00:31:40Guest:Heart attack, stroke, blood clots.

00:31:42Guest:He had a brain tumor.

00:31:44Guest:He had all kinds of problems.

00:31:45Guest:Was it genetic?

00:31:46Guest:Are you all right?

00:31:47Guest:Yeah, I'm good.

00:31:47Guest:Oh, good.

00:31:48Guest:He just didn't, I mean, I don't know.

00:31:49Guest:Didn't eat right or whatever.

00:31:51Marc:He was just eating beer and steak.

00:31:53Guest:So, you know.

00:31:55Guest:He drank a lot.

00:31:56Guest:He was a big drinker.

00:31:59Guest:My mom used to tell me funny stories.

00:32:00Guest:I don't tell this to a lot of people in public anyway, but what the hell.

00:32:04Guest:My mom used to tell me these funny stories about my dad.

00:32:07Guest:Right.

00:32:07Guest:And...

00:32:08Guest:One of the fun... Quote, unquote funny.

00:32:10Guest:Yes.

00:32:11Guest:Here's one of my mom's funny stories about my dad.

00:32:13Guest:And they were all like her funny, woe is me stories.

00:32:16Guest:Right.

00:32:17Guest:Like these, can you believe my luck stories that are supposed to be funny.

00:32:20Guest:Yeah.

00:32:22Guest:Or amusing.

00:32:22Marc:Yeah.

00:32:22Guest:But it's not like, let me tell you this story about your asshole dad.

00:32:25Marc:Right.

00:32:25Marc:It was sort of cute.

00:32:26Guest:Can you believe my luck?

00:32:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:32:27Guest:Here's what happened to me.

00:32:29Guest:So she told my dad once, ha, ha, ha.

00:32:33Guest:Yeah.

00:32:33Guest:That if he ever came home drunk again, she was going to call the police.

00:32:37Guest:Right.

00:32:37Right.

00:32:37Guest:Ha, ha, ha.

00:32:38Guest:And he comes home drunk.

00:32:44Guest:Yeah.

00:32:44Guest:He calls the police.

00:32:45Guest:Yeah.

00:32:45Guest:The cop that shows up is a drinking buddy of my dad's.

00:32:48Guest:Right.

00:32:49Guest:And says, sees my dad and goes, oh my God, Lou, are you okay?

00:32:53Yeah.

00:32:54Guest:That's my mom's funny story.

00:32:56Guest:And I always thought like, oh, yeah, haha.

00:32:58Marc:That was like a funny fit.

00:32:58Guest:And then I like lately I've been thinking like, wow, how bad does it have to get with a couple?

00:33:05Guest:Right.

00:33:05Guest:Where the woman goes, do that again, motherfucker.

00:33:09Guest:I'm calling the cops.

00:33:11Guest:behave like this again in my house in front of the kids with me i'm gonna call because i don't know what else to do i've screamed at you i've done everything else that the kids probably didn't see yeah i'm gonna call the police what do you think of that and then she finally has to call the police and it doesn't work out and it's a cute story years later story yeah and or he uh was one time my dad lost his job he got laid off he was a uh draftsman for general motors he worked at the tank plant on brook park

00:33:38Guest:and he lost, he got laid off, and it was around Christmas time, so him and his buddy decided they were gonna sell Christmas trees at the gas station.

00:33:48Guest:So they paid, he got a bunch of Christmas trees, and every night he would come home, how's it going?

00:33:52Guest:Ah, we're not doing so good.

00:33:54Guest:Ah, Christmas trees aren't, this is one of our funny stories.

00:33:56Guest:Turns out, they were doing well, and he would take all the money he made in cash selling the Christmas trees and go out drinking with his friends instead of bringing it home.

00:34:05Guest:Isn't that hilarious?

00:34:06Yeah.

00:34:08Guest:He's out of work.

00:34:09Marc:He's got three kids.

00:34:10Marc:He's drinking the Christmas tree money.

00:34:12Marc:Yeah.

00:34:13Marc:It's hilarious.

00:34:15Marc:But you had to put all this together later to really assess it.

00:34:18Guest:Yeah.

00:34:19Guest:And you don't have any real recollection of the guy.

00:34:21Guest:No, to me, that's like, no, and I don't have any real recollection.

00:34:24Guest:And oh, this, the whole family, even like his side of the family told me this funny story about my dad.

00:34:30Guest:The time he was out drinking with his friends and he threw up out of the car.

00:34:33Guest:Yeah.

00:34:35Guest:And he threw up his false teeth.

00:34:37Guest:So his false teeth went flying out of his mouth when he threw it at the side of the car.

00:34:40Guest:So he wanted to put an ad in the paper to try to get his false teeth back.

00:34:45Guest:Yeah.

00:34:45Guest:So he calls the Cleveland Plain dealer.

00:34:47Guest:Hey, this is Woo.

00:34:49Guest:Kelly, I lost false teeth.

00:34:52Guest:And they didn't even put false teeth in the ad.

00:34:56Guest:It was something like lost sheep or something like that instead of false teeth.

00:35:00Guest:It wasn't lost sheep.

00:35:00Guest:It was something else.

00:35:01Marc:Because of the way he was talking?

00:35:02Guest:Yeah.

00:35:02Guest:And it was like, isn't that funny how your dad couldn't put the right ad in the paper because he threw up his false teeth?

00:35:07Guest:It sounds like you might have been better off not knowing this guy.

00:35:12Guest:I mean, we did barely.

00:35:15Guest:I remember playing catch with him in the yard one time, and he took me to a Cleveland Barons hockey game once.

00:35:20Guest:So I did a few things with him.

00:35:21Marc:Are your brothers older or younger?

00:35:23Guest:Both the older, six and 12 years older.

00:35:24Guest:Do they remember him?

00:35:26Guest:Yeah, he was a real disciplinarian.

00:35:27Guest:He used to beat the hell out of him.

00:35:29Guest:Oh, man.

00:35:29Guest:Yeah, he kept a strap hanging up on a hook on top of the basement stairs.

00:35:32Marc:A drunken disciplinarian, the worst.

00:35:35Guest:Yeah, so my oldest brother, Neil, when he turned 18, he just left.

00:35:38Marc:That's a, that's a sure sign.

00:35:40Guest:It wasn't great.

00:35:40Marc:Yeah.

00:35:41Guest:And then my middle brother had a little, and I, they would like talked about how I got spoiled.

00:35:45Guest:Yeah.

00:35:46Guest:Cause I didn't get beat up as much as they did.

00:35:47Marc:Cause there's a six year difference between you and the youngest one.

00:35:50Guest:Yeah.

00:35:50Guest:It was six years, six years and six years.

00:35:52Marc:So yeah.

00:35:53Guest:So when my brother, when he turned 18, I was six.

00:35:56Guest:And when I turned 12, my brother Roger was off to college.

00:35:58Guest:So it's just like me and my mom.

00:36:00Guest:Right.

00:36:00Guest:Those formative years.

00:36:01Marc:So your mom had to hold the ship down.

00:36:03Guest:Yeah, another funny story.

00:36:04Guest:My dad, we were having spaghetti dinner and I didn't want to eat my dinner.

00:36:09Guest:I was little.

00:36:10Guest:I had to be five or something.

00:36:12Guest:Didn't want to eat four years old, whatever old I was.

00:36:16Guest:And my dad was like, you're not getting up out of this chair until you eat your dinner.

00:36:21Guest:And that's it.

00:36:22Guest:He's gonna make me sit there until I ate.

00:36:24Guest:So, hey dad, I cleared my plate.

00:36:27Guest:It's all taken care of.

00:36:29Guest:Good.

00:36:30Guest:Months later, two, three months later, he's going down to the basement where he kept his paint cans because he has to touch up the molding or whatever.

00:36:36Guest:He opens up the paint can.

00:36:37Guest:There's the spaghetti.

00:36:39Guest:I dumped all the spaghetti in the paint can to hide it.

00:36:42Guest:Oh, I'll tell you this is one of my favorite funny dad stories that my mom used to tell me.

00:36:46Guest:There was a Dairy Queen in my neighborhood that was within walking distance.

00:36:49Guest:It was like a 15-minute walk, but we drove there that day.

00:36:52Guest:I was like three.

00:36:54Guest:So my brother Neil was 14.

00:36:58Guest:My brother Roger was eight.

00:36:59Guest:I was two.

00:37:00Guest:So...

00:37:02Guest:My dad and Neil, who's 14, get in line at this Dairy Queen because they're having a sale on Sundays.

00:37:07Guest:So there's a big line, and my mom said it was like a 40-minute line, but a big, long waiting line.

00:37:12Guest:So she sat in the car with the eight-year-old and me, and I was only two, keeping them busy, keeping us busy while my dad waited in line this whole time.

00:37:20Guest:They buy four Sundays, two and two, Neil and my dad, who's 14.

00:37:26Guest:My brother Neil's 14.

00:37:27Guest:When they get to the car, my mom tells me, for some reason, my dad yells at Neil, give me those, because he think Neil's gonna drop them or something.

00:37:36Guest:So now he has four Sundays, and he's trying to open the car door at the same time.

00:37:41Guest:He drops three of the Sundays.

00:37:44Guest:Then what does he do?

00:37:45Guest:He takes the fourth Sunday and he throws it.

00:37:46Guest:They get in the car, they go home, nobody gets it.

00:37:56Guest:Nobody gets a Sunday.

00:37:58Guest:No.

00:38:01Guest:Fuck it.

00:38:01Guest:Nobody gets anything.

00:38:03Guest:Fuck it.

00:38:04Guest:I would have done that.

00:38:07Guest:I might have done that.

00:38:07Guest:In front of the whole family.

00:38:09Guest:Oh, man.

00:38:11Guest:I'm going out for a drink.

00:38:12Guest:Slam.

00:38:13Guest:If you do that again, I'm calling the police.

00:38:15Guest:Call them.

00:38:16Guest:See if I give a fuck, bitch.

00:38:18Guest:So your mother must have been tough.

00:38:20Guest:She was like a church lady.

00:38:21Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:38:22Guest:Yeah, like a sweet church lady.

00:38:25Marc:She just took it, I guess, huh?

00:38:27Marc:Yeah.

00:38:27Marc:But once he was gone, your relationship with her must have been solid.

00:38:31Guest:Yeah, well, she was like... I remember I was a latchkey kid.

00:38:34Guest:Right.

00:38:35Guest:And I remember when I first heard of latchkey kids, they were like, oh, these poor latchkey kids coming home by themselves.

00:38:41Guest:Nobody at home.

00:38:42Guest:Yeah.

00:38:43Guest:Man, I loved being a latchkey kid.

00:38:44Guest:Are you kidding me?

00:38:45Guest:From what age?

00:38:45Guest:From like eight, nine?

00:38:47Guest:From like...

00:38:47Guest:like 12, 13, I would come home.

00:38:50Marc:Because she was working?

00:38:51Marc:She had to work.

00:38:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:52Guest:You know, so I'd come home and there was a, you know, I had, there's a key hidden or I had a key, I don't know how it worked, but I would come home, there'd be nobody there and I'd make my own sandwich.

00:39:00Guest:Watch TV.

00:39:00Guest:Or whatever, watch cartoons, Three Stooges.

00:39:03Guest:Yeah.

00:39:03Guest:You know?

00:39:03Guest:Yeah.

00:39:04Guest:I loved it.

00:39:06Guest:Yeah.

00:39:07Guest:It's like, God bless Latchkey kids, man.

00:39:10Marc:Sure.

00:39:10Marc:So what drove you to music?

00:39:12Marc:I mean, like, how'd you get involved with the band stuff?

00:39:14Guest:Oh, there was a guy that came to my house who was selling music lessons from the local music place.

00:39:20Guest:Yeah.

00:39:20Guest:Yeah, it was like a music store in Memphis Avenue.

00:39:22Guest:Yeah.

00:39:23Guest:some guy showed up and like, hey, let's talk about music last.

00:39:26Guest:I don't know if she went to them and he showed up.

00:39:28Marc:I don't know how it happened.

00:39:29Guest:My mom played piano.

00:39:30Guest:Okay.

00:39:31Guest:And we had a piano in the house.

00:39:32Guest:My dad liked to fool around with the ukulele and stuff.

00:39:35Guest:So they were kind of, you know.

00:39:36Guest:Yeah, there was music around.

00:39:37Guest:Yeah, back then, you know, you had to entertain yourself.

00:39:39Guest:Sure.

00:39:40Guest:And so TVs were only like 10 inches.

00:39:43Guest:Yeah, small.

00:39:44Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure.

00:39:45Guest:Black and white.

00:39:46Guest:Yeah.

00:39:47Guest:So he asked us what we wanted to play, and I was five.

00:39:53Guest:Yeah.

00:39:53Guest:And my brother, Neil, wanted to learn to play guitar.

00:39:55Guest:My brother, Roger, said drums.

00:39:59Guest:And I had just seen there was a local talent show that was on Saturdays or Sunday.

00:40:04Guest:It was on Sundays on Cleveland TV.

00:40:07Guest:Yeah.

00:40:07Guest:and uh i saw some accordion guy on this talent show poker bands and stuff are really big in cleveland sure yeah there was always like some local tap dance group or you know guy playing the accordion was a big like a polish community ukrainian community yeah a lot of big years a lot of german europeans yeah yeah yeah there was a lot of skis yeah yeah sure yeah yeah and issuance's yeah stuff like that yeah tons of them

00:40:29Guest:And so I said, oh, I'd love to play the accordion.

00:40:31Guest:So I was, I play an accordion.

00:40:33Guest:I remember when I was like second grade, first grade, having to go like at Christmas time, having to go like class to class playing like the two Christmas songs I knew on the accordion.

00:40:44Guest:Like, oh, here's, this is Drew Carey from this other class.

00:40:47Guest:He knows how to play the accordion.

00:40:48Guest:He's going to play Silent Night.

00:40:49Guest:And then, okay, get out of here and go to the next class.

00:40:53Guest:I remember that.

00:40:54Guest:Did you like that?

00:40:56Guest:Do you remember liking that?

00:40:57Guest:I don't know if I liked it or didn't like it.

00:41:01Guest:It was just I had to do it.

00:41:03Guest:It was like homework.

00:41:05Marc:But when you play music publicly, I'm just trying to track where you're like, oh, an audience.

00:41:10Guest:I remember grade school.

00:41:11Guest:I was like in college.

00:41:13Guest:Choir and band and we'd, you know, I wasn't shy about getting up in front of people.

00:41:18Guest:So I remember being in like a, we had a barbershop quartet number.

00:41:22Guest:We sang Give My Regards to Broadway.

00:41:24Guest:There you go.

00:41:25Guest:You know, and some other song and it was like eight of us.

00:41:28Guest:Yeah.

00:41:28Guest:So like I was one of the eight kids that wasn't afraid to get up in front of somebody and sing.

00:41:33Guest:Yeah.

00:41:34Guest:And when I did Pirates of Benzance, the only reason I had a, I played Frederick.

00:41:38Guest:And the only reason I had that part was like the lead part.

00:41:40Guest:And the only reason I got it because I volunteered for it because nobody else would do it.

00:41:44Guest:Right.

00:41:45Guest:Like I'll do it.

00:41:46Guest:Yeah.

00:41:46Guest:Like I wasn't afraid to get up there.

00:41:47Marc:But you didn't like, were you compelled or, or interested in comedy or performing or you just sort of like, no, but I always, no, but I was in choir and they had a,

00:41:58Guest:I wouldn't do that on my own.

00:42:00Guest:I didn't say to everybody, hey, we should do a play.

00:42:02Guest:I just happened to be in choir and this guy, the teacher was like, happened to want to do that.

00:42:07Guest:And he goes, anybody want to do this part?

00:42:08Guest:And I went, hey, I'll do it.

00:42:09Guest:And that was it.

00:42:10Guest:And that was it.

00:42:11Guest:That's why I made all my decisions back then.

00:42:14Guest:Okay.

00:42:15Guest:Yeah, I'll do it.

00:42:16Marc:Why not?

00:42:17Marc:But did you watch comedy?

00:42:18Marc:Were you a fan?

00:42:19Guest:Yeah, when I would, I was one of those kids that would get the TV guide and I would highlight my shows for the week.

00:42:24Guest:Oh yeah, where were they?

00:42:25Guest:I would highlight them or circle them.

00:42:28Guest:Wild Wild West, Man From U.N.C.L.E., F Troop, that was one of my shows.

00:42:31Marc:Mission Impossible?

00:42:32Guest:Mission Impossible, yeah, I liked that show.

00:42:34Guest:F Troop was funny.

00:42:34Guest:Larry Storch was funny.

00:42:35Guest:I loved F Troop, man.

00:42:36Guest:If I looked on The Tonight Show and there was a comedian and it said, like, comedian Steve Martin or comedian so-and-so, comedy group the committee, you know?

00:42:45Guest:Oh, right, right.

00:42:45Guest:I would go like, oh, I want to watch that.

00:42:47Guest:You liked him.

00:42:48Guest:So I would stay up extra to watch whatever the comedy act was on The Tonight Show.

00:42:52Guest:Right.

00:42:53Guest:Maybe I wouldn't watch the full 90 minutes, which is what it used to be back then.

00:42:56Guest:Right.

00:42:56Guest:I wouldn't have to imagine.

00:42:57Guest:Yeah.

00:42:58Guest:And then, like, last 30 minutes, we're talking about it to a guy that wrote a book.

00:43:01Guest:Yeah.

00:43:02Yeah.

00:43:02Guest:It's gonna be you, like, who the hell is this guy?

00:43:04Guest:About the book.

00:43:05Guest:Wrote a book.

00:43:05Guest:I just wrote a book, this guy.

00:43:07Guest:Like, it's crazy.

00:43:08Guest:Yeah.

00:43:08Guest:That people were like, I don't know.

00:43:10Marc:Norman Mailer's on for 25 minutes.

00:43:12Marc:I can't imagine that now.

00:43:14Marc:It would be great.

00:43:15Marc:It would be great, but that's what podcasts are for now.

00:43:17Marc:I guess so, but I think the nature of entertainment became intensified with attention spans and the ability they needed to hold people.

00:43:26Marc:I think when there was three stations and it was 12 at night, they were like, we can put Norman Mailer on.

00:43:31Marc:The ability to hold people was a little easier.

00:43:37Guest:I was explaining to somebody that I would watch TV until the TV station went off the air.

00:43:41Guest:And they were like...

00:43:43Guest:till the TV station did what?

00:43:45Guest:And I go, they would go off the air.

00:43:46Guest:Yeah, the colors would come on.

00:43:47Guest:They would stop broadcasting from like one in the morning till six in the morning.

00:43:52Guest:Yeah.

00:43:52Guest:Because there was nobody to, what?

00:43:54Guest:Yeah, there was nothing on.

00:43:54Guest:I mean, there would just be nothing there?

00:43:55Guest:The color bars.

00:43:56Guest:No, they would play the national anthem.

00:43:58Guest:Yeah, and then the color bars, right?

00:44:00Yeah.

00:44:00Guest:That'd be that.

00:44:01Guest:Yeah, I remember that.

00:44:03Guest:Yeah, and there were three networks.

00:44:04Guest:No TV after a UHF.

00:44:07Guest:Yeah, UHF.

00:44:08Guest:What was on the UHF?

00:44:09Guest:Channel 43 and Channel 61 in Cleveland.

00:44:11Marc:Were there three studio stations?

00:44:13Marc:Yeah.

00:44:13Guest:Yeah, right.

00:44:14Guest:Yeah, that's a good name for them.

00:44:16Guest:Bowery Boys and the Three Stooges.

00:44:17Guest:Yeah.

00:44:18Guest:All day long.

00:44:18Guest:Yes.

00:44:19Guest:Maybe a Laurel and Hardy.

00:44:20Guest:Wow.

00:44:21Guest:Yeah.

00:44:22Marc:Yeah.

00:44:22Guest:I used to love the Bowery Boys, but I guess they were just like the cheapest one to get, right?

00:44:25Marc:Dead End Kids.

00:44:26Marc:I don't know why.

00:44:27Marc:I used to watch it at my grandparents' house.

00:44:29Marc:It used to be like Channel 11 or something.

00:44:31Marc:I don't know if it was UHF, but they definitely ran the hell out of all that stuff.

00:44:36Marc:You could watch Laurel and Hardy.

00:44:37Marc:You could watch the Three Stooges.

00:44:38Marc:Little Rascals.

00:44:39Marc:You could watch Little Rascals, yeah.

00:44:40Marc:You could watch Dead End Boys, Bowery Boys.

00:44:42Marc:I think they became one.

00:44:43Marc:One became the other.

00:44:44Marc:Yeah, it was great to be able to see that stuff.

00:44:48Marc:I guess it was closer to the source.

00:44:50Marc:I mean, you're in your late 50s.

00:44:51Marc:I'm in my mid-50s.

00:44:53Marc:So at that time, I mean, those things weren't that far behind us.

00:44:56Guest:No, even Saturday morning, I would highlight my favorite cartoon shows.

00:44:59Guest:Yeah, like what was those?

00:45:00Guest:Like Johnny Quest?

00:45:02Guest:I love Johnny Quest.

00:45:03Guest:Yeah.

00:45:03Guest:The Johnny Quest theme song is a great piece of orchestral jazz.

00:45:07Guest:I don't remember it.

00:45:09Guest:I don't remember it.

00:45:09Guest:It's great, man.

00:45:10Guest:Really?

00:45:11Guest:Oh, my God.

00:45:11Guest:God, now I want to hear it.

00:45:13Guest:And hard to play.

00:45:14Guest:Really?

00:45:14Marc:Yeah.

00:45:14Guest:You tried with your trumpet?

00:45:15Guest:No, there was a band I see in Vegas all the time, Lon Bronson Band.

00:45:19Guest:I've never seen Vegas, and they learned it and played it for me once.

00:45:22Guest:Oh, that's great.

00:45:23Guest:And they're all like these horn session guys, and it's just like hearing it live with a full 16-piece horn band.

00:45:28Guest:That Johnny Quest theme is great.

00:45:31Marc:So do you go to college?

00:45:32Marc:Do you do the whole college thing?

00:45:33Guest:Yeah, so I skipped my senior year in high school because I had enough credits to graduate, and all I needed to do was take senior English in the summer.

00:45:42Marc:Okay.

00:45:42Guest:So I took senior English in the summer because I was like, why would I stick around?

00:45:46Guest:I'm already bored.

00:45:47Marc:Yeah.

00:45:47Guest:Took senior English, didn't have a commencement or anything.

00:45:49Guest:I just went to the principal's office, got my diploma.

00:45:51Guest:Yeah.

00:45:52Guest:And I applied to Kent State and I got in.

00:45:54Guest:And my first major was criminal justice studies because I used to watch a lot of cop shows back then.

00:46:00Guest:There was a show called Police Story.

00:46:02Guest:Joseph Wamba's Police Story.

00:46:04Guest:He was a big... Joseph Wamba, yeah, yeah.

00:46:06Guest:He was a big famous crime writer.

00:46:07Marc:The Hell Street Blues, right?

00:46:09Marc:Was that him or Joseph Wamba?

00:46:10Marc:No, no, no.

00:46:11Marc:The Onion Field?

00:46:12Guest:Yeah.

00:46:13Guest:Okay.

00:46:13Guest:He wrote The Onion Field and The Choir Boys.

00:46:15Guest:The Choir Boys, right.

00:46:16Guest:Yeah, and a couple other ones.

00:46:17Guest:He was an LAPD cop, and he was famous for writing books about the LAPD and being a cop.

00:46:24Guest:The dark side.

00:46:25Guest:Yeah, they're always like, you know, cops with drinking problems, cops with things, like in the inner field, like those guys.

00:46:31Guest:They always had this bad back, you know, like, psychologically how damaged they were after the event or whatever happened.

00:46:38Marc:That's what compelled you to do that.

00:46:40Guest:Yeah, so I thought, oh, I'll be a criminal justice.

00:46:43Guest:That looks like a fun job.

00:46:44Guest:Yeah.

00:46:45Guest:Cop, because that's all I like reading about.

00:46:47Guest:And because I like reading crime stories.

00:46:50Guest:What a fucking idiot.

00:46:52Guest:Makes sense.

00:46:53Guest:Yeah, it doesn't really.

00:46:54Guest:But I didn't know anything about setting goals or believing in myself.

00:46:58Guest:And I just, you know, somebody would suggest something and I would do it.

00:47:01Guest:Why do you think that is?

00:47:02Guest:Do you think it's the... Well, that was my family.

00:47:03Guest:It was just like... No dad around.

00:47:05Guest:He was a disaster.

00:47:06Guest:Yeah.

00:47:06Guest:And my mom just had to get a job to pay bills.

00:47:10Guest:So that's what she did.

00:47:11Guest:And she was a school secretary.

00:47:16Guest:I bet if she had her druthers, she could do something else.

00:47:19Guest:But she had a family to raise.

00:47:21Marc:It wasn't a bad impulse to go into criminal justice.

00:47:24Marc:It was interesting.

00:47:25Marc:You were interested in it.

00:47:26Marc:Well, my first grade point average was a 0.5.

00:47:28Guest:Oh, good work.

00:47:29Guest:Yeah.

00:47:30Guest:Yeah.

00:47:30Guest:So you didn't take to college.

00:47:31Guest:No.

00:47:32No.

00:47:34Guest:Well, I loved college.

00:47:36Guest:Yeah.

00:47:36Guest:I loved it.

00:47:37Guest:Yeah.

00:47:37Guest:I love being in fraternity.

00:47:39Guest:I love partying.

00:47:40Guest:Sure.

00:47:41Guest:I smoked marijuana for the first time.

00:47:43Marc:Were you a popular guy?

00:47:44Guest:Yeah.

00:47:45Guest:Super popular.

00:47:46Guest:You know, parties.

00:47:47Guest:I was social director of my fraternity.

00:47:49Guest:But as far as like...

00:47:51Guest:What you're supposed to be at college for?

00:47:53Guest:Yeah.

00:47:53Guest:To get a degree?

00:47:54Guest:Yeah.

00:47:55Guest:Did you finish college?

00:47:56Guest:No.

00:47:57Guest:I got kicked out twice.

00:47:59Guest:And then what'd you do?

00:48:00Guest:I worked as a waiter.

00:48:02Guest:I never had a job for more than a year.

00:48:04Guest:Yeah.

00:48:05Guest:Or if I did, it was like 14 months.

00:48:07Guest:Was it miserable?

00:48:08Guest:Were you drinking a lot?

00:48:09Guest:What was going on?

00:48:10Guest:I was like a functioning alcoholic in college when I think about it.

00:48:15Guest:I probably didn't help with the studies.

00:48:18Guest:The weekend started on Thursday.

00:48:19Guest:I was one of those guys.

00:48:21Guest:Happy hour starts on Thursday, maybe even Wednesday.

00:48:23Guest:And Thursday was like half price.

00:48:27Guest:Wednesday was ladies night.

00:48:28Guest:Thursday was half off.

00:48:29Guest:And I knew every night of the week which bar to be at.

00:48:31Guest:Yeah.

00:48:32Guest:you know yeah tuesdays this is the spot that's hot right you know yeah and friday and saturday it was just like a lost weekend every weekend all right so so you're doing that and then you get jobs and then my yeah my future doesn't got me i wasn't a big stoner but i would you know they got me high for the first time yeah did that stick not i mean you know here and there yeah yeah so what'd you end up how'd you end up coming what'd you end up doing so you're working as a waiter and you're just

00:48:57Guest:Yeah, doing nothing.

00:49:00Guest:When I was in college, I always watch these comics on TV and stuff.

00:49:05Guest:I lived in Las Vegas.

00:49:06Guest:I moved back and forth to Las Vegas.

00:49:08Guest:Yeah.

00:49:09Guest:One time I was in... When you were in college?

00:49:12Guest:Yeah, after the first... When I was 18 and in college, I tried to...

00:49:18Guest:Minor suicide attempt where, yeah, it wasn't a serious one.

00:49:22Guest:I took, you're supposed to take sleeping pills, right?

00:49:26Guest:If you want to kill yourself.

00:49:27Guest:So I took sleepies or something like that.

00:49:31Marc:Were you depressed?

00:49:33Guest:Yeah.

00:49:34Guest:I should have been not drinking antidepressants and I should have met with somebody about what aptitude I have and what goals I want to do.

00:49:41Guest:I should have sat down with somebody like that.

00:49:43Marc:Did you have depression problems your whole life?

00:49:48Guest:Maybe that's why you were sort of... Like I was a nail biter all through junior high and high school.

00:49:53Guest:Like I used to bite the skin of the pads of my fingers and strip the skin off the pads of my fingers where like my fingers would be bloody and I could barely hold a pencil.

00:50:03Guest:All right.

00:50:03Guest:Like it would hurt to hold a pencil or pen in my hand.

00:50:05Guest:Yeah.

00:50:06Guest:So I used to like destroy my fingers and, you know, as a form of like self-hate.

00:50:10Guest:Sure.

00:50:11Guest:And when I would walk through...

00:50:14Guest:I tell this to be when I walk through like the hall in like junior high and high school and you're trying to get around kids and I would never say excuse me.

00:50:20Guest:Yeah.

00:50:21Guest:I would always say I'm sorry.

00:50:22Marc:Yeah.

00:50:23Guest:Sorry.

00:50:24Guest:Sorry.

00:50:25Guest:Right.

00:50:26Guest:Sorry.

00:50:26Guest:Yeah.

00:50:27Guest:And I would never, like I'm looking you in the eye right now.

00:50:29Guest:I would be like, yeah, I would be talking to you like here.

00:50:32Guest:I wouldn't look at you in the eye.

00:50:33Guest:Wow.

00:50:34Guest:I'd be embarrassed to look at you in the eye or like it wouldn't feel like I would, I don't know.

00:50:38Marc:So alcohol must have just loosened you up to kind of make you feel better.

00:50:43Guest:yeah i was and i always had like i was one of those guys that had jokes memorized yeah like i would buy like larry wilder you know joke books yeah yeah that's his name right yeah i think so he had like 10 000 jokes or had it or no he had like the official polish joke book the official irish joke book official jewish official italian joke book yeah oh yeah i remember those with the cartoons on front

00:51:05Guest:Yeah, Larry Wilder, I think was his name.

00:51:07Guest:Then I also had 2,000 insults for all occasions.

00:51:09Marc:2,000 insults with the court jester on front.

00:51:11Guest:Yeah, and I had 2,000 more insults for all occasions.

00:51:13Guest:He had a follow-up one.

00:51:14Guest:Yeah, yeah, I remember those.

00:51:15Guest:She was so ugly, she could make a train, took a dirt road.

00:51:18Guest:So this was... This is how you... That was one of them.

00:51:21Marc:A way to communicate.

00:51:22Guest:Yeah, I had all these jokes memorized.

00:51:24Guest:And if I... Just to get through life.

00:51:26Guest:I'd listen to morning radio, or I'd hear a comic on TV, on The Tonight Show, and I would hear the jokes they had, and I would like, oh, that's a good joke.

00:51:32Guest:And I would say...

00:51:34Guest:I would credit them.

00:51:35Guest:I wouldn't make it my joke.

00:51:36Guest:I would go, oh, so-and-so was on TV.

00:51:38Guest:This is just in a social environment, like when you're working at the restaurant?

00:51:41Guest:Yeah, and I remember there was a time where I really hated Steve Martin.

00:51:45Guest:When he first came out, I was such a huge fan.

00:51:48Guest:He's great.

00:51:49Guest:He's one of the most innovative comedians that ever lived.

00:51:52Guest:But then, when I was in college and in my fraternity, you could not go anywhere, to any party,

00:51:59Guest:Without somebody going, excuse me.

00:52:02Guest:You couldn't get away from it.

00:52:02Guest:Yeah.

00:52:03Guest:Everybody.

00:52:04Guest:Or they would be rolling a joint and go, hey, let's get small.

00:52:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:52:07Guest:They would do that.

00:52:08Guest:Right.

00:52:09Guest:And I was just like, what the fuck with this guy already?

00:52:12Guest:Enough.

00:52:13Guest:Enough.

00:52:13Guest:Well, when did you try to kill yourself?

00:52:15Guest:So it was like that.

00:52:17Guest:I was like just about.

00:52:18Guest:I was 18, I turned, my birthday's in May, so it was like in the spring when I was 18.

00:52:24Guest:So I took these like over-the-counter sleeping pills.

00:52:28Guest:I could have swallowed the whole bottle.

00:52:30Guest:I just would have slept 10 hours.

00:52:31Guest:Yeah, right.

00:52:33Marc:So no one knew that you tried to kill yourself?

00:52:36Guest:Well, there was a party downstairs.

00:52:38Guest:I would just get, I remember being mad that they were at a party and mad that they were enjoying themselves.

00:52:43Guest:I remember being really angry, like, who the fuck are these people having fun?

00:52:46Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:52:47Guest:You know?

00:52:48Guest:No, I used to feel that.

00:52:48Guest:What the fuck is with these people with dates?

00:52:50Guest:Don't they know?

00:52:51Guest:Having fun.

00:52:52Guest:Yeah.

00:52:52Guest:The fuck is wrong with them?

00:52:53Guest:Yeah.

00:52:54Guest:You know, just thinking like that generally.

00:52:55Guest:And I went and I swallowed a bunch of these over-the-counter sleeping pills.

00:53:00Yeah.

00:53:00Guest:washed it down with a beer, laid in bed, and I was a big Christian kid when I was in junior, I was a Pentecostal Christian when I was in junior high in high school.

00:53:08Guest:That really fucked me up royal, to be honest.

00:53:13Guest:Cause your mom?

00:53:14Guest:No, my mom was a Presbyterian, like a regular Presbyterian church.

00:53:18Guest:And then, um, I, there was a friend of mine in junior high that belonged to a Pentecostal church and assembly of God church.

00:53:24Guest:And he invited me to one of his youth group meetings and I ended up going to the church service and I got saved.

00:53:30Guest:They had, they're really powerful preachers at all these churches and they, you know, they make a case, you know, and if you're a sinner and if you're feeling bad and you want Jesus to help you, you know, do you feel bad about yourself?

00:53:41Guest:You're feeling lost and lonely.

00:53:42Guest:Yeah.

00:53:43Guest:12 year old.

00:53:44Guest:Yeah.

00:53:44Guest:12 and a half year old, 13, confused about things.

00:53:46Guest:Yeah, I'm scared.

00:53:47Guest:Come on up here.

00:53:47Guest:Jesus will save you.

00:53:48Guest:Jesus loves you.

00:53:49Guest:Oh my God, what's happening?

00:53:49Guest:Come on up here and pray with us and it'll be all right.

00:53:52Marc:And then they dip you in the water and grab your head?

00:53:54Guest:No, it wasn't water.

00:53:54Guest:It was like I'd stood in front and you'd lay a hand on your head and I was like crying on the ground, talking in tongues, like all that stuff.

00:54:02Marc:Oh my God.

00:54:03Guest:Like right before I turned 13.

00:54:05Guest:It got you.

00:54:05Guest:Yeah.

00:54:06Guest:And then I was going to this church all the time and I wouldn't go to my mom's church anymore.

00:54:09Guest:I would just go to this Pentecostal church and I would go like, you know, I would try to save kids at school.

00:54:17Guest:I got in trouble at Bible camp.

00:54:19Guest:I went to like a regular Bible camp at Presbyterian and I got in trouble cause I saved like three of the kids and they were all emotional and crying and they pulled me aside and they told me not to do that anymore.

00:54:27Marc:Stop saving people.

00:54:28Guest:Yeah.

00:54:29Guest:And I want, I really want people would ask me what I wanted to do for when I grow up and I want to be a preacher.

00:54:34Guest:I want to be a minister and tell people about Jesus.

00:54:36Marc:Yeah.

00:54:36Guest:You know, that's what I wanted to do.

00:54:39Guest:And I would, and I would like, I would pass out chick tracks in my high school.

00:54:43Guest:Sure.

00:54:43Marc:I love that.

00:54:44Marc:Yeah.

00:54:44Marc:The little comic.

00:54:44Guest:Well, I read them, and they weren't like kitschy, ha-ha to me.

00:54:48Guest:I was like, fuck, man, look at this.

00:54:50Guest:The world's going to end.

00:54:51Guest:You better get right, or you're going to go to hell and burn.

00:54:53Guest:And I remember there was a thing I bought at one of the youth group things.

00:54:58Guest:You used to go to these overnight things.

00:54:59Guest:It was a thing in Columbus, and they had Andre Crouch and the Disciples were playing.

00:55:04Guest:They were the big headlining band.

00:55:06Guest:Uh-huh.

00:55:06Guest:So the whole youth group went down there and we were all like 13, 14, we just tore up the hotel and pet burping contest and stuff like that.

00:55:16Guest:And like, hey, look how big a shit I took.

00:55:18Guest:You know, look at that.

00:55:19Guest:I remember that.

00:55:21Guest:I feel like bragging about the size of their shit.

00:55:24Marc:That's a big, exciting thing.

00:55:26Guest:When you're a 14-year-old boy.

00:55:26Guest:Yeah, when you're 14.

00:55:27Guest:Yeah.

00:55:27Marc:So when did this start to fall apart on you?

00:55:30Guest:I bought this thing called the Jesus Person Maturity Manual and it was like an 8x11 booklet

00:55:35Guest:you know, it was like, you know, 50 pages maybe.

00:55:38Guest:And it had a chapter on like, you know, responsibility and obeying your parents.

00:55:41Guest:And they had a chapter on masturbation and how masturbation was bad for you and you shouldn't masturbate, which was like, oh, I thought I was going to hell.

00:55:51Guest:Yeah.

00:55:51Marc:Every day, all day.

00:55:53Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:55:53Guest:I'd be on the bus going to school and get a boner.

00:55:56Guest:Yeah.

00:55:56Guest:For no reason.

00:55:57Guest:Right, sure.

00:55:58Guest:Out of nowhere, I wouldn't even be thinking about sex or anything.

00:56:00Guest:I'd just get a boner.

00:56:01Guest:I miss those days.

00:56:02Guest:And I'd have to cover with my trapper keeper.

00:56:04Guest:Yeah.

00:56:06Guest:Thank God for the mead trapper keeper, man.

00:56:08Guest:The boner cover.

00:56:09Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:56:09Marc:That's what it is.

00:56:10Marc:Both hands, walking weird.

00:56:11Marc:Yeah.

00:56:12Marc:Yeah.

00:56:13Marc:So you just thought you were going to hell all the time?

00:56:15Marc:Yeah.

00:56:16Marc:But when you were 18 and you got into the dark place, had Jesus left by then?

00:56:20Guest:No, I was still confused.

00:56:21Guest:I remember I went to see a counselor.

00:56:24Guest:I can't believe I'm telling you all this stuff.

00:56:26Guest:I remember I had to see a counselor in college because I was feeling guilty about masturbating still.

00:56:31Guest:Oh, really?

00:56:32Guest:Every time I jerked off, I was like, fuck, I got to quit doing this.

00:56:34Guest:Because I'm going to hell.

00:56:35Guest:Yeah.

00:56:35Marc:And what did the counselor in college say?

00:56:37Guest:This has got to be bad.

00:56:38What did he say?

00:56:38Guest:Well, I saw they had like a mental health counselor that you could see at the college.

00:56:42Guest:I went to see that guy.

00:56:43Guest:And he goes, oh, go see this friend of mine who's a Methodist minister near the campus.

00:56:47Guest:So I went to see a Methodist minister.

00:56:49Guest:And he was like, don't worry about it.

00:56:51Guest:I masturbate.

00:56:52Guest:My wife masturbates.

00:56:54Guest:It's not against the Bible at all.

00:56:55Guest:And he showed me the verses where it's fine.

00:56:58Guest:Oh, good.

00:56:59Guest:And I was like, okay.

00:57:00Guest:Then I didn't feel bad about it.

00:57:01Marc:You seem to be qualified.

00:57:03Marc:You know what you're talking about.

00:57:05Guest:But then he was a Methodist.

00:57:06Guest:He wasn't really a Pentecostal guy.

00:57:07Guest:Right, sure.

00:57:08Guest:So he wasn't as hardcore.

00:57:09Marc:Of course, he went to the right guy.

00:57:11Guest:Well, that would cause some doubt in my head.

00:57:14Guest:Like this guy's like a lightweight because he's a Methodist.

00:57:16Guest:Yeah, he's not really playing by the old school rule book.

00:57:18Guest:He's not really as full Christian as the... So you just didn't let yourself off the hook, huh?

00:57:23Guest:You were beating off and beating yourself up.

00:57:25Guest:Biting my nails, feeling bad about beating off.

00:57:28Guest:And that was it.

00:57:28Guest:Failing college.

00:57:29Guest:And then some people were having...

00:57:31Guest:And then the people having a good time pushed you over the edge.

00:57:35Guest:Pushed me over the edge.

00:57:36Guest:And then I took this beer and then I was like, well, what's gonna happen to me now that I took this pills?

00:57:41Guest:In like 10 minutes, I'm like, fuck, am I gonna go to hell?

00:57:43Guest:What happens after I die?

00:57:45Guest:I have no idea and it scared the shit out of me.

00:57:47Guest:And I got up and I found one of my fraternity brothers.

00:57:50Guest:I go, hey man, I just took some sleeping pills and I tried to kill myself.

00:57:53Guest:And they got me in a car and they drove me to the Kent State Health Center.

00:57:57Guest:There was like the little like clinic that they had.

00:57:59Guest:And they gave me Epicac.

00:58:01Guest:Yeah.

00:58:02Guest:And made me throw up.

00:58:02Guest:Yeah.

00:58:03Guest:Yeah.

00:58:03Guest:Sominex.

00:58:03Guest:That's what I took.

00:58:04Guest:Sominex.

00:58:04Guest:Yeah.

00:58:05Guest:And I remember clearly because I'm not going to say his name, but I don't want to embarrass him, but he's a lawyer in Pittsburgh now.

00:58:11Guest:I want to say hi.

00:58:12Guest:How you doing?

00:58:12Guest:Hi, Paul.

00:58:13Guest:Yeah.

00:58:13Guest:If you're out there, I'm not going to say your last name.

00:58:15Guest:I don't want to embarrass you.

00:58:15Guest:but he was a really good friend of mine, and I used his fake ID to get into bars, and I was really close with him, so he went with, I think he's the one I found, he was older than me.

00:58:27Guest:Took me to the clinic, and I was throwing up Epicac on the toilet, and he was behind me, like holding my shoulders and holding me up, I think he had his knees on my back, like holding me up, and he was singing, take some of next to night and sleep.

00:58:43Guest:While I was thrown up.

00:58:47Guest:So that was that.

00:58:47Guest:And then I had to see a counselor.

00:58:48Guest:I went to see a counselor for a few sessions and, you know, I get kicked out of school.

00:58:54Guest:And you're working as a waiter.

00:58:55Guest:Yeah, just... And then you joined the military?

00:58:57Guest:Yeah, I joined the Marine Corps at one point.

00:58:59Guest:I was...

00:59:02Guest:I was living in Las Vegas and I... Why'd you choose Vegas?

00:59:06Guest:Oh, after I tried to kill myself, I didn't know what to do.

00:59:10Guest:I was like, well, I can't go back to college or anything.

00:59:12Guest:So my dad was dead and I was still getting his social security checks.

00:59:17Guest:And they had a thing back there in Greyhound called an Ameripass.

00:59:21Guest:And you could buy a, I don't know how much it was, but you buy a thing for like a month, a 30-day Ameripass, and you could ride any Greyhound bus,

00:59:30Guest:anywhere by just showing that pass and hopping on.

00:59:32Guest:So you can see America.

00:59:34Guest:That was the ad.

00:59:34Guest:And so I bought an AmeriPass and I had money for my dad's social security checks that I was getting.

00:59:43Guest:So I took that money and I had a backpack, a nylon backpack.

00:59:46Guest:I think it was orange.

00:59:47Guest:And I hopped a Greyhound bus.

00:59:50Guest:I remember it'd be like,

00:59:51Guest:my mom at the greyhound station just like crying hoping i'd be okay and i was like crying i was don't worry mom i'll be fine you just picked vegas out of nowhere sobbing in the car i didn't pick vegas at all my brother lived out in california my brother neil lived in dana point yeah uh my oldest brother neil and i hardly ever saw him so i thought i'd just go out and see neil right so i have to greyhound west uh i think i stopped in indianapolis on my aunt uh and then i would what i would do is i would um

01:00:17Guest:Sleep on the bus at night.

01:00:20Guest:I didn't, not one hotel room.

01:00:22Guest:I would sleep on the, I was 19 years, I just turned 19.

01:00:24Guest:Sleep on the bus at night and whenever I woke up in the morning, I would get off the bus and I would go to the men's room and I would wash my pits and my crotch and just like do a little like core bath, put on a fresh shirt, whatever, and then hang out.

01:00:37Guest:I would find a diner near the Greyhound station.

01:00:39Guest:I would have a cup of coffee and whatever breakfast I could afford.

01:00:42Guest:And I would just like walk around, you know, sit on a bench, watch people.

01:00:48Guest:Yeah.

01:00:49Guest:I might have had a book to read or something probably.

01:00:52Guest:Yeah.

01:00:53Guest:And then around dinner time-ish, I would see when the next bus was coming through, going west.

01:01:00Marc:Just get on.

01:01:00Guest:I would show my pass, hop on the bus, store my shit.

01:01:04Guest:Crash.

01:01:04Guest:Watch the scenery.

01:01:05Guest:And when it got dark, I would sleep.

01:01:07Guest:And then I would sleep till the morning.

01:01:09Guest:I would do that.

01:01:09Guest:I went that all the way across country.

01:01:11Guest:And I stopped in Vegas.

01:01:13Guest:And I got off the bus in Vegas and I was like, holy shit, this place is amazing.

01:01:17Guest:I remember I stayed at a hotel.

01:01:19Guest:It was down by the Hacienda, which is not there anymore.

01:01:22Guest:It was now Mandalay Bay, like out by there.

01:01:25Guest:It used to be the Hacienda.

01:01:26Guest:And it was a motel across the street and I stayed there because I had adult movies.

01:01:30Guest:Yeah.

01:01:32Guest:I thought, oh, great, porn in the room.

01:01:34Guest:That's what I need after a long bus trip.

01:01:36Guest:And it was like the worst.

01:01:36Guest:I remember, I think I watched like five minutes of it.

01:01:38Guest:It was like the worst.

01:01:39Marc:Yeah.

01:01:40Guest:Like unbeat-off-able to me.

01:01:41Guest:Yeah, yeah, because nothing happens.

01:01:42Guest:Like you couldn't beat off to this.

01:01:43Guest:If you're the horniest guy in the world, you wouldn't want to beat off to this porn.

01:01:46Marc:So that was disappointing.

01:01:47Guest:Yeah.

01:01:47Guest:And I left my shit there, and it was a nasty room too.

01:01:50Guest:Wasn't that great?

01:01:51Guest:Yeah.

01:01:51Guest:You know, of course.

01:01:52Marc:Of course, yeah.

01:01:53Guest:Yeah.

01:01:53Guest:With the free porn in the room.

01:01:54Guest:What did I know?

01:01:55Guest:Yeah.

01:01:56Guest:And...

01:01:57Guest:Then I just, I walked from there all the way down the strip, all the way downtown.

01:02:02Guest:Wow.

01:02:03Guest:And back.

01:02:04Guest:And just marveled at how big it was and the signs.

01:02:07Guest:All the lights, yeah.

01:02:08Guest:Man.

01:02:09Guest:It's hypnotizing.

01:02:09Guest:And then I'd walk in and be like, the cocktail waitresses were all like the most beautiful women I'd ever seen in my life.

01:02:14Guest:Yeah.

01:02:15Guest:Like, what is going on here?

01:02:16Guest:And people are paying for 25 bucks a hand.

01:02:19Guest:Are you kidding me?

01:02:20Guest:Right.

01:02:20Guest:What?

01:02:21Guest:Yeah.

01:02:21Guest:What are these rich people wasting their money out there?

01:02:24Yeah.

01:02:24Guest:But you loved it.

01:02:25Guest:I was blown away.

01:02:26Guest:Yeah.

01:02:27Guest:And I just fell in love with it.

01:02:28Guest:And then I saw my brother in California.

01:02:30Guest:Took the bus back.

01:02:31Guest:Same thing.

01:02:32Guest:Washing up.

01:02:33Guest:The same thing.

01:02:34Guest:No money.

01:02:35Guest:Right.

01:02:35Guest:No hotel room.

01:02:36Guest:And when I got back, I said, I'm moving to Las Vegas.

01:02:38Guest:To your mom.

01:02:39Guest:Yeah.

01:02:40Guest:And I saved up whatever money I had.

01:02:42Marc:Did she knew you tried to kill herself?

01:02:44Marc:Did they tell her?

01:02:45Guest:Yeah.

01:02:45Guest:Oh.

01:02:46Guest:I think she knew.

01:02:46Guest:Oh.

01:02:47Guest:But it was like not as serious.

01:02:48Guest:If I really wanted, I would have done something.

01:02:50Guest:But it was more like a crying out.

01:02:51Marc:Crying for help.

01:02:52Marc:Yes.

01:02:53Marc:Yes.

01:02:53Marc:So she said, okay, you can go to Vegas.

01:02:56Guest:Well, I just was 19.

01:02:57Guest:I said, I'm going to that and ask her permission.

01:02:59Guest:I just told her I was leaving again.

01:03:01Marc:And how long did you live there?

01:03:02Guest:She was really worried about me.

01:03:03Marc:Yeah, it would sound like she should have been.

01:03:06Guest:She's still around?

01:03:07Guest:No, she died.

01:03:07Guest:She was really worried about me.

01:03:08Guest:When I got to be famous and got the Tonight Show and Drew Carey Show and all this stuff, she...

01:03:14Guest:i think she was in denial she couldn't believe it oh really i remember telling her one time i was like third season already like set for life yeah pretty much yeah i wasn't syndicated yet but right if i would live like a modest life the rest of my life i'm done yeah like you could really like sure i mean i couldn't be driving a bmw 7 series or whatever but i could live yeah and not have to worry about shit yeah um

01:03:39Guest:She didn't believe it?

01:03:41Guest:Couldn't believe it.

01:03:42Guest:And she, that's what she, I can't believe it.

01:03:43Guest:And I go, mom.

01:03:44Guest:And at one point.

01:03:45Marc:And she saw you on TV.

01:03:45Guest:I was like, I was like, mom, this is how much money I'm making every year.

01:03:50Guest:Yeah.

01:03:51Guest:And I think she started crying.

01:03:52Guest:She almost like fell out of her chair.

01:03:53Guest:She's like, I never heard of that.

01:03:55Guest:And I go, I go, whatever you want, just tell me and it's yours.

01:04:00Guest:Like, you want a car?

01:04:01Guest:You want to travel?

01:04:02Guest:You want to take a cruise around the world?

01:04:04Guest:You want a free cable?

01:04:07Guest:Whatever.

01:04:07Guest:And this is a person who grew up under depression.

01:04:11Guest:I remember getting mad.

01:04:12Guest:She remarried this guy, George.

01:04:15Guest:And I remember going over there, and that was a stand-up comic and successful at it.

01:04:19Guest:This was before The Tonight Show.

01:04:20Guest:But you want to, like, you're booking yourself, and you have to keep in touch, waiting for a booker to call you back.

01:04:26Guest:And there was no cell phones back then, so I had an 800 number.

01:04:28Guest:that I rented, that they could call, some kind of service.

01:04:32Guest:And my mom didn't have a touch tone phone because she didn't want to pay the money for touch tone service.

01:04:40Guest:And I was like, are you fucking, I really was like, how much is it a month?

01:04:44Guest:I was really like my arms out like this.

01:04:46Guest:How much is it a month?

01:04:48Guest:It's like an extra 10 or $12.

01:04:49Guest:And I reached in my pocket and I think I grabbed $200 bills and I threw it at her.

01:04:56Guest:I go here.

01:04:56Guest:Get yourself some buttons.

01:04:57Guest:Yeah, get yourself some buttons because I'm not losing work because you don't have a touchstone phone when I come see you.

01:05:03Guest:Otherwise, I can't come see you for an afternoon because I'm going to miss a call and I'm not going to be at work.

01:05:07Marc:Yeah.

01:05:08Marc:Well, when you offered her anything she wanted, did she take you up on it?

01:05:11Guest:I think she, yeah, she took a trip with one of her lady friends.

01:05:14Guest:Oh, that's sweet.

01:05:15Guest:But she just wouldn't, like the whole idea of it, like if I were to fly her out first class.

01:05:20Guest:Here's my mom.

01:05:22Guest:She came out to see me in LA.

01:05:23Guest:We went to the Beverly Center, which is a nice mall.

01:05:27Guest:Not the nicest mall in town.

01:05:29Guest:They're remodeling it now.

01:05:30Guest:It might be.

01:05:31Guest:But it was a great mall.

01:05:32Guest:It's tough for malls right now.

01:05:33Guest:Yeah.

01:05:34Guest:But at the time, it was the place to go.

01:05:36Guest:Went to the Beverly Center, and my mom said this in the parking lot.

01:05:39Guest:Oh, look, there's one of those BMWs.

01:05:44Guest:Yeah.

01:05:45Guest:Yeah.

01:05:45Guest:And there's one of those Range Rovers and there's one of those Mercedes and there's one of those Jaguars.

01:05:49Guest:Yeah.

01:05:50Guest:Like she just, there was a BMW parked in the parking lot.

01:05:53Guest:What?

01:05:54Guest:Yeah.

01:05:54Guest:Oh, right.

01:05:54Guest:So you'd never seen, like she'd heard about them.

01:05:56Guest:There's one of those BMWs.

01:05:58Guest:Yeah.

01:05:58Guest:In my neighborhood growing up, if somebody said, Hey, I got a new car, you would ask, Oh really?

01:06:03Guest:What year is it?

01:06:04Guest:Right.

01:06:06Yeah.

01:06:06Guest:Nobody got a new car.

01:06:10Guest:New to them.

01:06:12Guest:Okay, so when you're in Vegas, what do you do there?

01:06:14Guest:Do you just hang out for a while?

01:06:15Guest:I worked as a bank teller, worked at a Denny's.

01:06:20Guest:So what made you join the Marines?

01:06:22Guest:Well, I lost my one job that I had and I got... In Vegas.

01:06:26Guest:Yeah, and I was living in this motel that's been torn down, unfortunately, because I used to like to go back and visit it.

01:06:31Guest:It was by Fremont and Charleston.

01:06:33Guest:Yeah.

01:06:34Guest:If you're not familiar with Las Vegas, Fremont and Charleston is not...

01:06:38Guest:It's not the greatest neighborhood in the world.

01:06:42Guest:There's worse, surely.

01:06:44Guest:So I'm not saying I was in the worst neighborhood ever.

01:06:46Guest:It wasn't like I was living in Cabrini Green in the 60s.

01:06:50Guest:But not a great neighborhood.

01:06:52Guest:Not a great neighborhood.

01:06:53Guest:And I actually got shot at once when I was there.

01:06:56Guest:Somebody shot at me from a car with a gun.

01:06:59Guest:Yeah.

01:07:00Guest:Yeah, they said something to me, and I was in the Marines then, and I had my jacket, and I said...

01:07:04Guest:What the fuck did you say to the people in the car?

01:07:07Guest:I can't remember.

01:07:08Guest:It was at night and I never could see what was in the car.

01:07:12Guest:And I heard, how would you like a hole in your glasses?

01:07:14Guest:And I said, why don't you suck my dick?

01:07:17Guest:Words to that effect.

01:07:19Guest:And then bang.

01:07:21Guest:And you ran.

01:07:21Guest:No.

01:07:22Guest:There was a shot and I'm in the Marine Corps.

01:07:26Guest:I know what a fucking gun sounds like.

01:07:28Guest:They shoot at me.

01:07:29Guest:The car takes off and I ran after them to get a license plate number.

01:07:33Marc:That's what the Marines do to you.

01:07:34Guest:Like a moron.

01:07:35Guest:Yeah.

01:07:35Guest:But you're probably all jacked up.

01:07:37Guest:I was all jacked up.

01:07:37Guest:On Marine-ness.

01:07:38Guest:Yes, I was.

01:07:39Guest:And I was like, oh, you fucking with me?

01:07:41Guest:I'm bulletproof.

01:07:42Guest:I really was like out of my mind.

01:07:43Guest:And it was an empty lot behind me at this place.

01:07:46Guest:So it didn't hit anything.

01:07:48Guest:I don't think.

01:07:48Guest:I mean, I don't know.

01:07:49Guest:I didn't hear it hit anything.

01:07:50Guest:so you just joined the marines because you'd like hit some sort of bottom and decided yeah and i needed a job and i was staying at my did you think you needed discipline and you needed no i was at my i lost i lost my job in in la i was living in vegas i was playing staying at this place that cost me 55 a week yeah in rent it was a motel cockroaches everywhere miserable i was washing washing my clothes in the tub yeah god hanging them up you know really living it yeah rough days and then um uh

01:08:18Guest:I lost my job, couldn't pay for the $55 a month, put everything in my car that had already been totaled, barely ran.

01:08:23Guest:And I had to steer it sideways to even get like a block.

01:08:27Guest:I shouldn't even be driving it.

01:08:29Guest:So I put all the stuff I had, like I had yearbooks and old love letters and pictures and all that kind of shit.

01:08:35Guest:And I put it all in the car and my friend said, hey, come stay at my place overnight.

01:08:39Guest:So I went to my friends.

01:08:40Guest:I remember I walked into McDonald's.

01:08:42Guest:They were having a, they were doing a, they had the Monopoly contest going on.

01:08:47Guest:Yeah, sure.

01:08:49Guest:And it said no purchase necessary.

01:08:51Guest:And I was starving.

01:08:52Guest:Yeah.

01:08:52Guest:So I go, I have to buy anything to get a card?

01:08:55Guest:They go, nope.

01:08:55Guest:I go, can I just get a card then?

01:08:56Guest:They have me a Monopoly card and I ripped it.

01:08:58Guest:I want a Coke.

01:08:58Guest:Yeah.

01:08:59Guest:And I was like, all right.

01:09:01Guest:Yeah.

01:09:03Guest:I savored every piece of ice.

01:09:05Guest:Yeah.

01:09:06Guest:Yeah.

01:09:07Guest:Tough days.

01:09:08Guest:My friend made me like, I think my friend made me like, like SpaghettiOs or something.

01:09:13Guest:Sure.

01:09:13Guest:Chili in a can.

01:09:14Guest:Yeah.

01:09:14Guest:When I got to his place.

01:09:16Guest:And I was like so grateful.

01:09:17Guest:And I went back to my place the next day.

01:09:18Guest:I walked back to my place and somebody smashed the windows out of my car and stole everything.

01:09:23Guest:So I don't have any of my high school yearbooks or my original love letters from my first girlfriend or any of that stuff anymore.

01:09:29Guest:And they haven't showed up?

01:09:30Guest:No.

01:09:31Guest:Somebody was looking for her or whatever, and they stole it all, trashed it.

01:09:34Guest:Who knows?

01:09:35Guest:I looked in the garbage, and everything was gone.

01:09:37Marc:And that was one of those moments where you're just like, what is my life?

01:09:39Guest:Yeah.

01:09:40Guest:So then I called the guy and I was crying.

01:09:42Guest:I had a couple of chains, like a quarter of my pocket.

01:09:44Guest:He goes, well, I'm about to go to Vegas or I'm about to drive to LA with this other friend that we knew.

01:09:50Guest:Why don't you come with us?

01:09:50Guest:And I go, okay, I got a brother out there.

01:09:52Guest:So I got ahold of my brother and he said I could stay there.

01:09:54Guest:So I stayed at my brother Neal's.

01:09:56Guest:We drove out there.

01:09:57Guest:I got to stay at my brother Neal's within Mission Viejo, Dana Point area.

01:10:00Guest:And, uh,

01:10:03Guest:He got me a job driving a van for a... He worked at a Porsche Audi dealer.

01:10:07Guest:He was the parts manager.

01:10:08Guest:Yeah.

01:10:09Guest:And he got me a job driving the van delivering parts around Southern California, which was a great job.

01:10:13Marc:Yeah.

01:10:13Guest:Because everybody's like, oh, they need a Porsche muffler at this repair place.

01:10:16Marc:Get your Thompson guide?

01:10:18Marc:Yeah.

01:10:18Guest:And I had a Zenyatta Mandata, the police.

01:10:22Guest:I would listen to that tape over and over again and listen to K-Rock.

01:10:24Guest:And I was just like, I was in heaven.

01:10:26Guest:And then the owner of the place found out that we were related and he didn't want a relative working for a relative because it'd be too easy to steal if he was the parts manager and I was delivering parts.

01:10:38Guest:So my brother goes, sorry.

01:10:39Guest:He found out that you were my brother.

01:10:41Guest:So I have to let you go.

01:10:42Guest:So then I was like sleeping on my brother's couch and I didn't have anything.

01:10:46Guest:When I got there, I had like...

01:10:47Guest:That guy, whoever broke into my car took clothes.

01:10:50Guest:All I had was the clothes on my back, literally.

01:10:53Guest:No underwear, socks, nothing.

01:10:55Guest:You could have bought stuff.

01:10:56Guest:I didn't have any money.

01:10:57Guest:Your brother didn't give you money?

01:10:58Guest:My brother got me stuff.

01:11:01Guest:Him and his wife took me out shopping for...

01:11:03Guest:Underwear and socks.

01:11:04Guest:Yeah.

01:11:05Guest:Like basic shit.

01:11:06Guest:Yeah.

01:11:06Guest:Toothbrush.

01:11:07Guest:Yeah.

01:11:07Guest:Deodorant.

01:11:07Guest:Like I had nothing.

01:11:09Guest:Right.

01:11:09Guest:And I was sleeping on the couch.

01:11:11Guest:I said, well, what am I going to do now?

01:11:13Guest:I guess I'll just join the military.

01:11:14Guest:And I went to the recruiter's office and I was afraid to join the full on military because I was like, what if I don't like it?

01:11:18Guest:Then I'm stuck.

01:11:19Guest:Yeah.

01:11:20Guest:So I just joined the reserves.

01:11:21Guest:And the first guy I met.

01:11:22Guest:The Marine Reserves?

01:11:24Guest:Yeah.

01:11:24Guest:So the first guy I met was the Marines.

01:11:26Guest:And I went to the, I looked in the Navy first and

01:11:28Guest:and the Army first, and the Marine guy was so together, and their office was so together, and he was like, I just, I don't know.

01:11:36Marc:Yeah, Marines are pretty together.

01:11:37Guest:And I thought, if I'm gonna do this, just go for it.

01:11:41Guest:Don't go halfway, just join the hardest one.

01:11:45Guest:So you did.

01:11:45Guest:Yeah, and I was like, honestly.

01:11:48Guest:Thousands of people do it every year.

01:11:51Guest:It's not that bad.

01:11:52Marc:But did you enjoy it?

01:11:54Marc:Loved it.

01:11:54Marc:Did you change your life?

01:11:56Marc:You trained?

01:11:56Marc:Loved it.

01:11:57Guest:Got any shape?

01:11:58Guest:Got three squares a day.

01:11:59Guest:I was in great shape.

01:12:02Guest:Did you have to go anywhere?

01:12:03Guest:No, I was in the reserves.

01:12:05Guest:Yeah.

01:12:05Guest:We went to two weeks training every summer.

01:12:07Guest:But did you- To Germany one summer.

01:12:09Marc:But was there a weekly thing you had to do?

01:12:11Guest:One weekend a month, two weeks during the summer.

01:12:14Guest:But what was the training like?

01:12:17Guest:I went to boot camp and I went to school.

01:12:19Guest:Boot camp was like three months altogether.

01:12:20Guest:It's like 11 and a half weeks, but then there's an orientation period and stuff.

01:12:24Guest:So in total, you're in boot camp for like three months.

01:12:27Guest:So where does comedy start?

01:12:29Marc:How old were you?

01:12:30Guest:40?

01:12:31Guest:No, I was already like 28 years old or something when I started doing comedy.

01:12:35Guest:But how did it start?

01:12:36Guest:Oh, so I was in college and I would always like, before the Marines, I would always like comics.

01:12:42Guest:When I was living in Vegas, or I also had another suicide attempt when I was in Vegas.

01:12:48Guest:You did?

01:12:48Guest:Yeah.

01:12:50Marc:What was that?

01:12:50Marc:How'd you do it that time?

01:12:51Guest:The same kind of thing.

01:12:53Guest:Yeah.

01:12:53Guest:Just depressed.

01:12:54Guest:Drunk?

01:12:56Guest:I wasn't like an alcoholic, but I was just depressed all the time.

01:12:58Guest:I mean, I was by myself.

01:12:59Guest:Are you on medication now?

01:13:01Guest:No.

01:13:02Guest:Huh.

01:13:02Guest:No.

01:13:03Guest:No, now I'm like the happiest guy in the world.

01:13:05Guest:huh it just changed super positive and you know it just happened because you made it a lot of reasons like i wouldn't have made it unless i was found a way to be happy but did you do the suicide moment was that during the marines or after i was after i was in the marines yeah i remember getting the ambulance bill

01:13:23Guest:And not having money to pay it.

01:13:25Guest:I was like, ah, fuck.

01:13:27Guest:Five, $300.

01:13:27Guest:Why did I wake up?

01:13:29Guest:Why did I wake up?

01:13:30Guest:I know.

01:13:31Guest:I know.

01:13:32Guest:So, but they had like, there was a, at the Sahara, they had a thing called the Sahara Talent Showcase.

01:13:38Guest:Yeah.

01:13:38Guest:And you could just sign up.

01:13:39Guest:Yeah.

01:13:40Guest:So the first time I ever, like there was a talent show in college, right?

01:13:43Guest:Got up.

01:13:44Guest:I told jokes.

01:13:45Guest:right that i knew yeah but bar jokes it went good it went okay i got laughs from friends and they it was not unexpected of me and then when i was in vegas uh i signed up for the talents sahara talent showcase and i did a it was terrible yeah awful like the worst yeah it was just stuff i thought was funny that i wrote down i didn't know anything about writing jokes or anything oh i don't know what i was doing people were just staring at me and then um there was a

01:14:09Guest:There was a guy that had a local, Joe Behar was his name.

01:14:14Guest:He had a local talent thing that would be at like a Karo's.

01:14:18Guest:Right.

01:14:18Guest:Like literally.

01:14:19Marc:Yeah.

01:14:20Guest:In the corner.

01:14:21Guest:And it would last for like, it would be like once a week for like six weeks.

01:14:25Guest:Then he would like, oh, they don't want us there anymore.

01:14:26Guest:Then he would move to Mountain Jacks.

01:14:28Guest:Yeah.

01:14:29Yeah.

01:14:30Guest:then it would be someplace else similar Vegas yeah and he would have this you know Joe Behar's talent corner or something like your comedy corner Joe Behar's comedy corner yeah but you could be a talent you could get up and sing sure if you had a little tape like an open mic almost a total open mic every week in the corner of a caros I remember trying to stand up there again still terrible that's how I met the guy that gave me the ride to LA yeah because he was trying to do comedy and there was another guy that was trying to do something too and that's how I met those guys

01:14:58Marc:Oh, okay.

01:14:59Guest:When you lost everything.

01:15:00Guest:Oh, Mike Lovell.

01:15:01Guest:Yeah.

01:15:02Guest:And when I got to Cleveland, this is before the Marine Corps.

01:15:06Guest:I moved back and forth a few times from Vegas.

01:15:09Guest:I would go out there and fail and come back to Cleveland and go out and fail and come back to Cleveland.

01:15:13Guest:Sure.

01:15:13Guest:And I got back in the local comedy.

01:15:16Guest:A local guy was starting a comedy club in Cleveland.

01:15:19Guest:Yeah.

01:15:19Guest:And they were looking.

01:15:20Guest:He was going to do it.

01:15:20Guest:His idea was to do it with all local talent.

01:15:22Guest:Yeah.

01:15:23Guest:Which is a mistake.

01:15:26Yeah.

01:15:27Guest:So he's looking for people to audition.

01:15:29Guest:So I went and I auditioned on a Saturday.

01:15:30Guest:I remember we saw an Indians-Yankees game.

01:15:33Guest:And after the game, I went to audition at the end of the day.

01:15:35Guest:And that was awful, I got to say.

01:15:37Guest:And this is how bad it was.

01:15:38Guest:But he hired me as an emcee because he needed people.

01:15:41Guest:Sure.

01:15:42Guest:Like I said, I was just willing to do it.

01:15:43Guest:Same thing all my life, pretty much.

01:15:45Guest:Yeah, I'll do it.

01:15:46Guest:Okay.

01:15:47Guest:So Wednesday, the first Wednesday, I had 10 minutes.

01:15:52Guest:Then I introduced the middle act and the headliner.

01:15:54Okay.

01:15:54Guest:Thursday, they cut me to five minutes.

01:15:57Guest:And on Friday, they said, just introduce the axe.

01:16:01Guest:I wasn't allowed to do anything.

01:16:02Guest:Right.

01:16:03Guest:Because I was destroying any hope of fun.

01:16:07Guest:Oh, right.

01:16:11Guest:You had that vibe.

01:16:14Guest:I read a book that Freud wrote about humor.

01:16:15Guest:There has to be a sense of play for comedy to take place.

01:16:19Guest:Everybody has to be in a playful mood.

01:16:21Guest:And that's why you can't tell certain jokes are like, they call it crossing the line because you take people out of their playful mood.

01:16:26Guest:If you make a cancer joke and somebody recently had a cancer,

01:16:29Guest:thing they won't be playful anymore Freud said this Freud yeah Freud wrote a book about humor Wit and the Unconscious I don't know I can't remember Wit and its relation to the unconscious is that what it's called I think so yeah okay well there you go I saw it in college I didn't read the whole book I remember but that part is very true sure you know that's why they have fun music and drinks to get you in a playful mood and that's why you can talk about cancer you can joke about rape you can talk about murder you can joke around about incest but everybody has to know you don't mean it and everybody's in a playful mood about it and everybody doesn't

01:16:58Guest:that nobody's taking it seriously.

01:17:00Guest:You gotta make all those things fun.

01:17:01Guest:Yeah, and if you're in the room with 100 people and everybody knows like, okay, we're all joking around and this guy's sick, so it's all sick humor.

01:17:10Guest:I get it, and they're in that mindset.

01:17:11Guest:I get it, yeah.

01:17:11Guest:It sounds good, but if somebody takes a tape of it and shows it on TV later, look at this fucking guy.

01:17:15Guest:Yeah.

01:17:16Guest:Like people watching at home are going to go, this guy's a fucking monster.

01:17:19Guest:Monster.

01:17:20Guest:Yeah.

01:17:21Guest:That happens all the time.

01:17:22Guest:People are doing, that's the chance you take when you do that kind of joke.

01:17:25Guest:Anywho, they cut me and then I tried a couple of times.

01:17:29Guest:I was no good, so I stopped.

01:17:31Guest:And then later on when I was always, and this was like later on when I'm 28 now, this was like eight years later or seven years later or something like that, six years, seven years later.

01:17:42Yeah.

01:17:42Guest:You know, I thought, well, that was the thing I tried that I'm no good at.

01:17:44Guest:Yeah.

01:17:45Guest:But I would go to the comedy club all the time to see people.

01:17:47Guest:Like when Bob Saget would play, I would see him on Wednesday when the tickets were half price.

01:17:51Guest:Yeah.

01:17:51Guest:Then I would take a date on Friday to see him again.

01:17:54Guest:Oh, really?

01:17:54Guest:And then I'd take another friend of mine on Saturday to see him a third time.

01:17:57Marc:So you were addicted.

01:17:57Guest:You have Bob Saget.

01:17:58Guest:I was a comedy aficionado.

01:18:01Guest:I would go to that club constantly just as a fan.

01:18:03Guest:Yeah.

01:18:04Guest:And it was somebody like a Richard Jenny or a Bob Saget or somebody who was a really murderer.

01:18:07Guest:Yeah.

01:18:08Guest:where I'd be falling down, I would go back twice a week to see him.

01:18:12Guest:I would just really be like, oh, comics.

01:18:14Guest:I was like a comedy groupie.

01:18:16Guest:And so I would watch these guys, and I remember it's because I saw him already that I kind of took a lot of information in through osmosis.

01:18:25Guest:And I was working as a waiter, and the owner of the place got mad at me one time.

01:18:30Guest:And all of a sudden, I wasn't working good dinner shifts.

01:18:33Guest:I was working lunch shifts instead.

01:18:34Guest:And when I did work, I would get the bad section that wasn't enough money.

01:18:37Marc:Right.

01:18:38Guest:And at the time, I had this friend of mine who was a disc jockey who knew me from back in the day.

01:18:43Guest:Right.

01:18:43Guest:And I was telling him about my troubles.

01:18:44Guest:And he goes, well, if you ever think of any jokes from my radio show, I'll pay you.

01:18:47Marc:Was he on a popular radio show?

01:18:49Guest:He was a working disc jockey.

01:18:50Guest:Sure.

01:18:50Guest:Made a living.

01:18:51Guest:Morning show?

01:18:52Guest:Sometimes.

01:18:52Guest:Yeah.

01:18:52Guest:Sometimes afternoons, whatever.

01:18:54Guest:Yeah.

01:18:54Guest:He said, well, if he ever thinks of any jokes from my radio show, I'll pay you.

01:18:56Guest:Because he always thought it was funny from back then.

01:18:57Guest:And we always kept in touch.

01:18:58Guest:Yeah.

01:18:59Guest:And I go, how much will you pay me?

01:19:00Guest:And he said, I'll give you $10 or $15 a joke.

01:19:02Guest:Oh, wow.

01:19:02Guest:And I thought, oh, shit.

01:19:03Guest:I could make $100 a week.

01:19:04Guest:Yeah.

01:19:05Guest:Yeah.

01:19:05Guest:Thinking up jokes.

01:19:06Guest:But I didn't know how to think of jokes.

01:19:08Guest:All I knew is if I thought of something, write it down.

01:19:10Guest:So I went to the library in Cleveland and I got a book on how to write jokes.

01:19:14Guest:You did?

01:19:14Guest:Well, whose book?

01:19:15Guest:I think it was called How to Write Jokes by some British guy.

01:19:17Guest:I can't remember the name of the guy who wrote it, but it was like the only... Thank God.

01:19:20Guest:It was the only book in the library about how to write jokes.

01:19:22Marc:Oh my God.

01:19:23Guest:And it did all the, it did all the things about, you know, making a list about a topic and, you know, exaggerating this and minimizing, you know, like all the standard things you do when you write a joke.

01:19:31Marc:Yeah.

01:19:32Guest:And, but it had all the information and I was like, Oh, this is what you do.

01:19:35Guest:Yeah.

01:19:35Guest:It was like a miracle to me.

01:19:36Guest:So I started writing jokes and I made, this is like in the fall.

01:19:40Guest:I know I want them.

01:19:40Guest:I want that book.

01:19:41Guest:And I made a, well now I have a bunch of joke writing books.

01:19:44Guest:I have like all the,

01:19:45Guest:oh you do yeah i bought them all gene puree and all those book guy that work you don't have any of those no any of the books oh my god they're great they are well you don't have that kind of you don't have that kind of act anyway why do i like to do that kind of act well then she gets in the joke writing books i will you gotta tell me what they are i will okay um so anyway the uh january i made a goal for myself so i'm gonna try these jokes on amateur night yeah and see how they do because i'm now i know how to write jokes right

01:20:09Guest:and i went to amateur night that january and at the time i stopped making sense had come out like a year or two before yeah and i thought oh people are wearing like those kind of like it was like the wave style people wearing those suits yeah and the glasses i had were from the marines uh-huh uh i couldn't afford any other glasses i wore contact lenses sometimes but otherwise those are the glasses i had because i didn't have any money yeah that's the free glasses i got from the marines and

01:20:32Guest:And I had my hair cut short because I was in the Marine Reserves.

01:20:35Guest:And I bought the suit at a sale at the Goodwill.

01:20:37Guest:All you can fit in a bag for $20.

01:20:39Guest:And I bought it because, oh, that was a suit that I had.

01:20:42Guest:I thought it was a hip suit.

01:20:45Guest:So I wore the suit and I had the glasses and the crew cut and I got up an amateur night and people laughed at me when I walked on stage.

01:20:50Guest:That was my first laugh.

01:20:51Guest:And I got 50 bucks.

01:20:53Guest:Yeah.

01:20:53Guest:And I was like, fuck, here we go.

01:20:54Guest:And people thought it was funny.

01:20:55Guest:And they gave me advice.

01:20:56Guest:And I wrote jokes.

01:20:58Guest:And everybody, every time I saw a comic, I thought it was good.

01:21:00Guest:I'd say, hey, can you give me some advice?

01:21:01Guest:And they would give me more advice.

01:21:02Guest:And I'd write more jokes.

01:21:03Guest:Who gave you the best advice?

01:21:05Guest:Everybody gave me good advice.

01:21:06Marc:Yeah.

01:21:06Guest:Yeah.

01:21:07Guest:Vic Dunlop told me, talk to people like you're talking to them in the living room.

01:21:10Guest:Yeah.

01:21:11Guest:Like I was, I didn't know where to look when I was on stage.

01:21:13Guest:What do I do?

01:21:14Guest:I can't look at people in the eye.

01:21:15Guest:Do I look at the ceiling?

01:21:16Guest:Yeah.

01:21:16Guest:He goes, just look at people in the face and pretend you're in the living room.

01:21:19Guest:That's what I do.

01:21:20Guest:Yeah.

01:21:20Marc:That was a great tip.

01:21:21Marc:Yeah.

01:21:21Guest:He passed away, didn't he?

01:21:22Guest:Yeah.

01:21:23Guest:Somebody else told me a great technique.

01:21:27Guest:Tell the joke and then act out the joke.

01:21:29Marc:Oh, yeah?

01:21:31Marc:Yeah.

01:21:31Marc:What do you mean?

01:21:32Guest:Tell us, set it up.

01:21:38Guest:So here's one I just thought up.

01:21:41Guest:If you're not in a relationship, and I'm in a relationship.

01:21:44Guest:Right.

01:21:44Guest:So if you're not in a relationship, you want to feel what it's like to be in a relationship without being in a relationship.

01:21:47Guest:Here's what you do.

01:21:49Guest:all the fun things you like to do when you're by yourself stop doing them that's the joke yeah and then you act out the joke right honey i was just getting high i was just sorry i didn't mean to but you do that yeah that's i get it you see people do that examples a list of examples that you act out you see people do that all the time right tell the joke act out the joke yeah yeah very common yeah i didn't know anything about that

01:22:12Marc:Yeah, well, it's supposed to happen instinctively, I think.

01:22:14Guest:Yeah, also, tell the joke and don't move.

01:22:17Guest:That was another thing I learned.

01:22:18Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:22:19Guest:Tell the joke.

01:22:22Guest:And because as soon as you start moving, that's a visual cue for the audience to let them know that another joke's on the way.

01:22:27Marc:Oh, okay.

01:22:27Guest:So the laugh starts to die down.

01:22:29Marc:Oh, okay.

01:22:29Guest:So just let it sit.

01:22:30Guest:Like all these vaudeville fucking tips that people learned in Chicago.

01:22:34Guest:There's a lot of Chicago comics coming in that I would go to Chicago and do sets too that I would learn from people.

01:22:40Guest:That's great.

01:22:41Guest:I mean, I just picked everybody's brain about every fucking thing and read every book I could find about how to write jokes.

01:22:45Guest:And then I just started working and it all blew up from there.

01:22:48Marc:And that's how you built your act and that's how you started?

01:22:50Guest:Yeah.

01:22:51Guest:I even came up with a formula about like writing 10 jokes a day to get one joke.

01:22:55Guest:That was my percentage.

01:22:57Guest:If I had like 10 thoughts, 10 funny thoughts.

01:22:58Marc:It's like a monologue writer's job.

01:23:00Guest:That's what I would do.

01:23:01Guest:Yeah.

01:23:02Guest:But I wasn't like Seinfeld where I had to think, oh, I have to write eight hours a day because that's my job.

01:23:05Guest:Right.

01:23:06Guest:I figured out in my head that if I think of one funny joke a day,

01:23:10Guest:telling it getting the punchline getting the laugh that's x number of seconds that's maybe that's like 20 seconds 25 seconds yeah and i'll also think of tags for it when i act it out and tag it that'll be another five or ten seconds including the laugh right and if i wrote one joke a day five days a week all year round i could get about 45 minutes a year right of material oh so you had it all worked out i worked it out yeah like a math problem did you follow that yes yes

01:23:36Guest:that's great and i would write like like writing 10 jokes a day though you could be anywhere you could be in your car you could be like whatever whatever the brains work and then the the the kicker of it was yeah they didn't have to be 10 good jokes i just needed one good joke right so it'd be like nine thoughts yeah and then one good joke right and then i could tag it and work on it and that would be turn into something and that's all i did

01:23:55Guest:And the rules were they couldn't be dirty.

01:23:59Guest:Yeah.

01:23:59Guest:I could write dirty jokes.

01:24:00Guest:Right.

01:24:00Guest:But they couldn't count towards the 10.

01:24:02Marc:Okay.

01:24:03Guest:So we were extra.

01:24:04Guest:Yeah.

01:24:05Guest:That'd be stuff that I'd be clean enough to do on The Tonight Show.

01:24:07Marc:Right.

01:24:07Guest:And then you got to do The Tonight Show with Carson.

01:24:09Guest:Yeah.

01:24:09Guest:And they couldn't be topical because I wanted to be... I could write topical jokes.

01:24:13Guest:Yeah.

01:24:13Guest:Like, oh, that Carter.

01:24:15Guest:Right.

01:24:16Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:17Guest:Oh, that Clinton.

01:24:18Guest:Right.

01:24:18Guest:Oh, that whoever's the politician.

01:24:20Guest:Right.

01:24:21Guest:But I...

01:24:22Guest:They didn't count towards the 10.

01:24:23Marc:But you did your first Tonight Show with Johnny, right?

01:24:26Marc:Yeah.

01:24:27Guest:Johnny and Doc.

01:24:28Guest:That's great.

01:24:28Guest:And Ed.

01:24:29Guest:That was my dream.

01:24:30Guest:And you did it.

01:24:32Guest:I wanted to have all the starters there.

01:24:34Guest:Yeah.

01:24:34Guest:Nothing against Tommy Newsom.

01:24:36Marc:What do you mean?

01:24:37Marc:Oh, you want the first team.

01:24:37Marc:I love Tommy Newsom.

01:24:38Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:40Guest:I didn't want a guest star.

01:24:41Guest:I love Gary Shandling, but I didn't want him to be the guest star when I was doing my first Tonight Show.

01:24:46Guest:Yeah, of course.

01:24:46Guest:Had to be Carson.

01:24:47Marc:So you, you know, you, you obviously came up, you got your headlining set and you got your, you got your show.

01:24:53Marc:Yeah.

01:24:53Marc:And then my question was really, is that, you know, you did, you said you went into, you did retire to some degree.

01:24:59Marc:Yeah.

01:25:00Marc:And then they made, was, was the prices right and offer you couldn't refuse or something you really thought was.

01:25:04Marc:Well, I did that.

01:25:05Guest:I did that power at 10 show.

01:25:06Marc:Right.

01:25:07Guest:You like toasting?

01:25:08Guest:When I, yeah, when I did the, well, it was an interesting show to me.

01:25:11Guest:Yeah.

01:25:11Guest:Like I thought, wow, what an interesting thing.

01:25:13Guest:Oh, the polling show.

01:25:14Guest:Yeah.

01:25:14Guest:You get polling and it's like, that sounds like fun.

01:25:17Guest:And you know, I go to New York.

01:25:19Guest:Yeah.

01:25:19Guest:You know, cup for a couple of weekends a month.

01:25:21Guest:Big deal.

01:25:22Guest:Yeah.

01:25:22Guest:You know, all of my other time.

01:25:23Guest:Oh, you knock them out that you strip them.

01:25:25Guest:Yeah.

01:25:25Marc:Yeah.

01:25:25Guest:All my other time is free.

01:25:26Guest:Sure.

01:25:27Guest:Fucking why not?

01:25:27Guest:Yeah.

01:25:29Yeah.

01:25:29Guest:fuck it yeah so and i liked michael davies and the guy that was doing it so fuck yeah and you did it yeah and then i did the pilot and then it was for cbs yeah and then i was driving on a driving trip out of new york at then in a rental car and i got a call from cbs how would you like to do the my agent called me yeah i got a really interesting call from cbs yeah yeah yeah and i had been taking acting lessons because i thought maybe i'll do some movies or something small parts and uh i thought maybe a little small part here and there

01:25:56Guest:And I thought, oh, did they want me for a CSI?

01:26:00Guest:I really did.

01:26:01Guest:Like, oh, I can act.

01:26:02Guest:And he goes, how would you like to take over from Bob Barker and do the prices right?

01:26:05Guest:And I was like, I think I said, like, what?

01:26:08Guest:Fuck no.

01:26:09Guest:I think that's the first thing I said.

01:26:10Guest:Yeah.

01:26:11Guest:Yeah.

01:26:11Guest:It's like that old man show.

01:26:12Guest:I'm going to do that.

01:26:13Marc:Yeah.

01:26:13Guest:I didn't know anything about prices.

01:26:14Marc:Sure.

01:26:15Marc:Yeah.

01:26:15Marc:And you knew it was a part of the like an integrated part of American culture.

01:26:20Marc:Yeah.

01:26:20Guest:But I thought I'm not going to be like that's like they might as well ask me if I want to do a cruise ship.

01:26:24Marc:Sure.

01:26:24Marc:Yeah.

01:26:24Marc:Right.

01:26:25Guest:That's what I was wondering.

01:26:25Guest:Yeah.

01:26:25Guest:Like no.

01:26:26Marc:Yeah.

01:26:26Marc:And then they said that's the number they're throwing around.

01:26:29Guest:no not even then then they picked up power 10 and i'm back i was at bob's big boy now i'm back now they picked up the show one in like burbank over there yeah yeah and i'm eating there used to go there all the time and then uh my agent calls again or and he goes hey cbs called again uh-huh and i go really they go they still want you to do the prices right and i was like well what does it pay yeah and he goes i don't know i go what are the hours because i'm doing this other show yes i don't know

01:26:53Guest:And I go, well, I at least owe him a meeting now.

01:26:56Guest:Right.

01:26:56Guest:Yeah, you're on the air.

01:26:58Guest:Now they're my family.

01:26:59Guest:I have to take a meeting.

01:27:00Guest:Right.

01:27:01Guest:So they go, find out what you can.

01:27:02Guest:I'll find out what I can.

01:27:03Guest:They had no website.

01:27:05Guest:They had no anything.

01:27:06Guest:I found out as much as I could.

01:27:08Guest:I had a meeting with him.

01:27:09Guest:By the end of the meeting, I wanted to do the show.

01:27:11Guest:Really?

01:27:11Guest:Yeah.

01:27:12Guest:Why?

01:27:12Guest:What was it about it?

01:27:15Guest:Well...

01:27:16Guest:I still didn't know exactly how much you paid or what the hours were, but they filled me in when I took the meeting.

01:27:21Guest:Right.

01:27:22Guest:And it was like the head of CBS daytime and one of the producers and president of CBS and one of the producers on the Price is Right.

01:27:28Guest:They were getting to know me and I was asking questions like, do the show ever travel?

01:27:32Guest:And they go, oh, we'll work around your schedule.

01:27:33Guest:If you need time off, don't worry about it.

01:27:35Guest:Ask us in far in advance.

01:27:36Guest:We get the time off, which is true.

01:27:37Guest:Finally, the one guy, Sid Vintage is his name.

01:27:40Guest:he was sipping a beer and he looked at me, he goes, what's the thing you like to do most in life?

01:27:44Guest:And I go, I love leaving big tips.

01:27:46Guest:I really do get a thrill of like throwing a hundred bucks at people.

01:27:50Marc:Yeah.

01:27:51Guest:Like a valet or a cup of coffee.

01:27:53Marc:That's what you told him?

01:27:54Guest:When I used to drink coffee, I would like just leave a hundred bucks for everything.

01:27:56Guest:Yeah.

01:27:57Guest:And I've had, on road trips, I've had people chase me out of the restaurant, like at a Denny's.

01:28:00Guest:Yeah.

01:28:01Guest:Sir, sir, you love too much.

01:28:02Guest:I go, no, no.

01:28:03Guest:They don't recognize me.

01:28:03Guest:I go, no, keep it.

01:28:04Guest:Keep it.

01:28:05Guest:What?

01:28:05Guest:Like people, I love it.

01:28:07Guest:Yeah.

01:28:07Guest:I love over tipping.

01:28:09Guest:And, um,

01:28:10Guest:i love leaving big tips and he looks at me he goes well if you do the prices right you can do that every day for a living and i was like wow that's right and that's what sold me the feeling of that feeling of like changing someone's life have a car yeah there's nothing like it oh my god that's true there's nothing like it and it's not my money yeah that's the best part

01:28:37Guest:It's somebody else's money.

01:28:39Guest:That makes sense.

01:28:40Guest:Yeah, it makes sense.

01:28:41Guest:I just love it.

01:28:42Guest:I love people like are freaking out because they get the like a free thing because I know how I know how broke I was.

01:28:47Guest:Right.

01:28:48Guest:Like I gave plasma when I lived in Vegas.

01:28:50Guest:I live in this roach motel.

01:28:51Guest:Right.

01:28:52Guest:So when people even win like 500 bucks, which is not a lot on the prices, right?

01:28:56Guest:But I'm like 500 bucks is great.

01:28:59Guest:Yeah.

01:28:59Guest:My joke is like if you want a scratcher on five, if you want 500 bucks on a scratcher, you wouldn't shut up about it.

01:29:04Marc:yeah that's right you know yeah wow that's great that makes sense yeah so well great and you and you're you're doing it forever are you there for life or how does it work i don't see i don't have any reason to leave and is it does it do well does it hold its numbers and everything it's the number one show in daytime second half hour we get like six million people watching that's unbelievable if it was on prime time with those numbers we'd be like a top 25 show that's crazy and

01:29:30Marc:And what about this?

01:29:32Marc:And you're not depressed and you found a way to be happy.

01:29:34Marc:You enjoy sports.

01:29:35Marc:I know my friend Dave Anthony sometimes travels with you to soccer games and whatnot.

01:29:40Marc:And when did Buddhism come into play?

01:29:44Guest:I started practicing and learning about it like right around when the Drew Carey show ended.

01:29:51Guest:Right around there.

01:29:52Guest:And then I really came home when I was, I took the Vipashana meditation course where you go for 10 days without talking.

01:30:00Marc:Oh yeah?

01:30:00Guest:I did that.

01:30:01Guest:Wow.

01:30:02Guest:A couple of years ago.

01:30:03Guest:And that did it?

01:30:03Guest:That was a life changer.

01:30:04Guest:Oh.

01:30:05Guest:Yeah, because every night you do like, you get a lesson in Buddhist philosophy along with the meditation.

01:30:10Guest:And then you meditate the whole rest of the day.

01:30:12Guest:You get up at four in the morning and you meditate all day.

01:30:14Guest:And then like around 8.30, there's like a 45 minute lesson in Buddhist philosophy.

01:30:20Marc:Interesting.

01:30:20Guest:No talking.

01:30:21Marc:And that's and I guess the combination of that and, you know, making a living and having, you know, validated yourself in so many different ways, you know, kind of pushed back that shitty sense of self and all the depression.

01:30:37Marc:Yeah.

01:30:37Marc:Because you don't feel like you were biologically depressed.

01:30:39Marc:It was conditional in some way.

01:30:41Marc:I think so, yeah.

01:30:43Guest:The place you grow up in is like a punchline.

01:30:45Guest:Right, and the situation you grew up with your dad missing.

01:30:48Guest:And everybody from that era of Cleveland that grew up has a really self-depreciating sense of humor.

01:30:56Marc:It wasn't just the home life.

01:30:57Guest:It was just like, yes, Cleveland.

01:30:59Marc:That's where I live.

01:30:59Guest:Everybody in the town is like, oh, hey, we suck kind of a sense of humor.

01:31:03Guest:Yeah.

01:31:03Guest:You know, like that whole, even like the local disc jockeys, the local TV people, everybody had this like, of course it sucks.

01:31:12Guest:We're doing it.

01:31:13Guest:Yeah, low self-esteem, the entire city.

01:31:16Guest:You know how, and Mad Magazine was really popular.

01:31:17Guest:You know how Mad Magazine goes.

01:31:19Guest:Here's some other...

01:31:20Guest:bullshit we thought of that's their whole thing yeah right here's some more garbage from that magazine yeah yeah that was the whole point of view of the whole city when they would go yeah we're doing this thing of course it's gotta suck because we're doing it oh of course i suck because i'm from here they would always have that kind of sense of humor about us sure sure right you know well i'm glad everything worked out man it's great talking to you yeah our shit doesn't stink and our shit stinks in cleveland yeah that's the you know yeah we don't we have the opposite attitude of hoity-toity

01:31:44Marc:Yeah.

01:31:46Marc:Yeah.

01:31:46Marc:But I tell you, it's what that, like there's a couple of restaurants in Cleveland, the best restaurants in the world.

01:31:50Marc:Yeah.

01:31:51Marc:Greenhouse Tavern and Michael Simon's place down the street.

01:31:54Marc:Yeah.

01:31:54Marc:Great.

01:31:55Marc:Yeah.

01:31:55Marc:And then there's a grilled cheese restaurant.

01:31:57Marc:Do you ever go to that corned beef place?

01:31:59Marc:I don't like corned beef.

01:32:00Guest:I don't like corned beef, which is weird.

01:32:02Guest:It's a big, huge thing.

01:32:03Guest:There was a really famous corned beef place right in my neighborhood that you could walk to.

01:32:07Guest:It wasn't Simon's?

01:32:09Guest:No, it was something else.

01:32:10Guest:It was like a local place.

01:32:11Guest:I've been there forever.

01:32:12Marc:We can have different opinions about corned beef.

01:32:14Marc:It was great talking to you, man.

01:32:15Marc:Nice talking to you.

01:32:16Marc:Nice seeing you again.

01:32:18Marc:That was fun.

01:32:19Marc:That's great.

01:32:22Guest:Cut it down to 25 minutes.

01:32:23Marc:Yeah.

01:32:24Marc:Looking for 12.

01:32:25Marc:Did I tell you that?

01:32:25Marc:I don't know if you understood what we were doing.

01:32:35Guest:I hated to be impolite.

01:32:36Guest:I didn't want to cut you.

01:32:40Marc:I don't know what you thought you were coming for.

01:32:42Guest:I hope you feel better.

01:32:50Guest:I should pay you $150 an hour.

01:32:54Guest:Oh, boy.

01:33:03Marc:That was such a satisfying hit for me.

01:33:06Marc:Drew Carey was amazing.

01:33:08Marc:That was amazing.

01:33:10Marc:I really enjoyed talking to him.

01:33:11Marc:Hope you did.

01:33:12Marc:Hope you liked that too.

01:33:13Marc:Soon I will be playing guitar in here.

01:33:15Marc:We're not far away from that.

01:33:16Marc:Just hang.

01:33:17Marc:I know there are a lot of you who are like, when?

01:33:19Marc:When?

01:33:20Marc:When, Mark, when do we get you working out riffs at the end of your broadcast?

01:33:26Marc:When does that happen again?

01:33:27Marc:Soon, folks.

01:33:28Marc:Soon.

01:33:30Marc:That's all I'm going to say.

01:33:32Marc:I got to get the guitars out.

01:33:33Marc:I just got my sound panels up.

01:33:35Marc:Did I tell you about my sound panels?

01:33:37Marc:Boomer lives!

01:33:38Marc:Boomer lives!

01:33:45you