Episode 918 - Paul Rodriguez

Episode 918 • Released May 23, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:13Marc:What's happening?

00:00:15Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:15Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:16Marc:WTF?

00:00:17Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:19Marc:How are you?

00:00:19Marc:It's a sad day, really.

00:00:22Marc:I have not because of this.

00:00:23Marc:Well, you know, let me just set up the show.

00:00:25Marc:I Paul Rodriguez is on the show today and I've actually I never met him.

00:00:30Marc:I know nothing about him.

00:00:33Marc:And that's rare because he's a comic.

00:00:35Marc:He's of a certain generation of dudes that I either knew about or ran into or looked up to at some point or another.

00:00:42Marc:But I really never talked to Paul.

00:00:44Marc:I never knew many of his friends.

00:00:45Marc:So when I got the opportunity, when he sort of came up, I thought it'd be nice to get to know that guy.

00:00:50Marc:So Paul Rodriguez is going to be on the show today.

00:00:54Marc:And the reason it's a sad day, I'm sort of breathy.

00:00:56Marc:I just woke up.

00:00:57Marc:I don't know why I'm exasperated.

00:00:58Marc:Maybe it's because I'm still in Birmingham.

00:01:01Marc:And yesterday I just held back, tried to, you know, hold back.

00:01:07Marc:Don't eat that.

00:01:09Marc:That's the secret slogan of the South.

00:01:15Marc:Hey, maybe don't eat that.

00:01:17Marc:It's not that it's bad.

00:01:18Marc:It's that it's too fucking good.

00:01:20Marc:But yesterday, I basically had the day off down here for the work, and I found an interesting little smoke shop, old school, place where a guy carves his own pipes.

00:01:33Marc:Has pipe tobaccos, some cigars.

00:01:36Marc:I'm having the occasional cigar.

00:01:37Marc:I know some of you know that means that maybe I'm drifting back into the nicotine.

00:01:40Marc:But hey, man, you got to have something, right?

00:01:46Marc:No, I'm not committed.

00:01:48Marc:But I went down there.

00:01:49Marc:It was actually in like an old house.

00:01:52Marc:And it was called the Briery.

00:01:54Marc:And the guy hooked me up.

00:01:55Marc:The guy working there, I think his name is Aubrey.

00:01:58Marc:And I just walked in.

00:02:00Marc:He was just like, Chipper, I had to be the first customer of the day.

00:02:02Marc:And I just walked in.

00:02:03Marc:He's like, how you doing?

00:02:04Marc:You know, like very, you know, it was just so congenial.

00:02:07Marc:And so you seem so excited to be working in a pipe shop.

00:02:12Marc:And there's certain I realized, you know, he started talking pipes.

00:02:15Marc:He's talking cigars.

00:02:16Marc:We went in the humidor.

00:02:17Marc:We talked some cigars.

00:02:18Marc:You know, for me, I'm just, you know, I'm just kind of a run of the mill, you know, attic person.

00:02:25Marc:you know what i mean i like the strong ones make me feel things what do you got that's strong and makes me feel things that's how that's how life's got to be for me what is it strong it'll make me feel things all right i'm in but i don't want to feel things for too long maybe you know an hour hour and a half i don't want to be up all night i don't want to be sad after i don't want to throw up what do you got strong makes me feel things good hopefully makes me feel good things

00:02:49Marc:Actually shuts out most things and just leaves the good thing or something.

00:02:53Marc:Just a little hum.

00:02:55Marc:Can you get me humming?

00:02:56Marc:Is there something that you got here that'll get me humming for the morning?

00:03:00Marc:But no, and I never really met a guy like him.

00:03:02Marc:He's a full-on pipe tobacco cigar nerd and very helpful.

00:03:07Marc:Hooked me up with a massive cigar that I just sat on the porch in Homewood, Alabama, I think it's in.

00:03:14Marc:and uh and and smoked that thing with a cat on the porch i read uh got into about 100 pages of the new uh it's cough uh book on robin williams because i'm going to talk to it's cough uh it's very good it's so interesting to read that uh that stuff but i'll talk i'll talk to you about that when i talk to him you know but the robin williams book is uh

00:03:36Marc:It's good.

00:03:37Marc:For me, it goes far back, and it starts mentioning people I've known or I've talked to or I've worked with, and I get a little glimpse of their beginnings.

00:03:47Marc:But here's the thing.

00:03:51Marc:Philip Roth died the day before yesterday, and I'd be remiss if I didn't...

00:03:58Marc:say something because he was one of the few guys who's, whose books I would, you know, read pretty compulsively.

00:04:05Marc:I, I, maybe it's being a Jew.

00:04:07Marc:Maybe it's because he made being a Jew, American sort of a middle-class, uh,

00:04:14Marc:Jew, thoroughly interesting and defined and exciting in some ways, kind of pathetic in some ways, but fully rounded.

00:04:28Marc:I think as much as American Jewishness affected Philip Roth, Philip Roth affected American Jewishness.

00:04:36Marc:And the guy has written...

00:04:37Marc:So many books.

00:04:38Marc:And he's one of those guys that just, he was good all the way to the end, man.

00:04:45Marc:It's just, you know, it's not a tragedy to some degree because he lived a good long life.

00:04:52Marc:Yeah, 85 years old.

00:04:53Marc:But it is, he's gone.

00:04:55Marc:And it's one of those things where I don't think he's written anything in a few years.

00:04:58Marc:And obviously, all the material is here if you want.

00:05:02Marc:And there's one book that you should certainly read.

00:05:05Marc:Like, I mean, go out and get it.

00:05:07Marc:asap if you can i mean if you want to with yourself but i'll tell you in a minute but the thing is not not unlike david bowie who probably had a couple records in him and i don't know if philip roth had any more books in him i don't know i think it's been a while since he's written i don't know the situation around his death or how sick he was i know he's sick a few years ago but he was 85. bowie was too young but it's like

00:05:29Marc:When these people that you've grown to have a relationship with their work and you see it on your bookshelf or you pick it up and read a few lines or you listen to it on a record or on your thing...

00:05:44Marc:You know, it's comforting or it's something feels like home about it or feels defining or feels like something that defines you or something that, you know, is always there for you.

00:05:56Marc:And it is to some level as a reminder or something that, you know, you evolve with over time.

00:06:01Marc:I've always thought that great works of genius sort of evolve with you as you get older.

00:06:05Marc:You go back to them and they take on a new life.

00:06:08Marc:They imply something different.

00:06:09Marc:They affect you in a different way.

00:06:11Marc:But when these guys go off the physical plane, when they shuffle off the mortal coil, paraphrasing wrong probably, but don't know much about Shakespeare.

00:06:21Marc:So, you know, their absence, you feel in those days, the absence, and then, you know, sort of the absence kind of, you know, hangs over the work.

00:06:31Marc:And it's not, it's not terrible.

00:06:33Marc:I mean, it's, it's sad that they're not around, but it's, it's sort of nice knowing that these guys are on the plane with us here.

00:06:39Marc:They're,

00:06:39Marc:terra firma if that's used properly or whatever and then when they go they're like oh is that guy yeah he's not here anymore oh the books and the records and whatever it's all here but there's something permanent about the the mortality thing because so many of these cats who who do the big work who do the art you know are really sort of you know fighting against the dying of the light you know I mean the weight of of mortality and

00:07:09Marc:And, well, he's dead.

00:07:14Marc:But the shit is here, and it's some of the best shit ever written.

00:07:18Marc:And the book, you know, it's sort of an outlier.

00:07:20Marc:Is that the right word?

00:07:21Marc:Like, I just woke up, man.

00:07:22Marc:I got to go to work.

00:07:24Marc:The Outlier, a unique book for him, was something he wrote in 2004 called The Plot Against America.

00:07:31Marc:And it's a fictional history story.

00:07:35Marc:infused with his real history as a child or a boy in Newark, New Jersey, growing up in the, I don't know, probably the 30s and 40s.

00:07:45Marc:But it really is about, it's an alternative American history where Charles Lindbergh, on a sort of isolationist perspective,

00:07:57Marc:platform, one becomes the president.

00:08:02Marc:At the 1940 Republican National Convention, he's nominated and he's elected president.

00:08:08Marc:And he was pretty anti-Semitic.

00:08:14Marc:He was sympathetic to Hitler's government.

00:08:18Marc:And it sort of plays out like that, where you have an anti-Semitic president who is aligned with an anti-Semitic government abroad and how that changes the country and what happens to the world.

00:08:33Marc:And it's a reaction from Jews.

00:08:34Marc:It's a very detailed book.

00:08:37Marc:well thought out, terrifying, and so elaborately done fictionally that it's believable.

00:08:45Marc:And certainly, living through what we're living through now, I think it's certainly worth reading.

00:08:53Marc:But maybe it's not something people can handle now, given that

00:08:56Marc:We're sort of seeing a slow drift towards something awful in the government in terms of what democracy will look like if it survives or even if we ever had it really.

00:09:11Marc:Not to get morose, but rest in peace, Philip Roth.

00:09:15Marc:He had a very profound impact on my life, and I don't know who I'm talking to right now.

00:09:23Marc:But get into those books.

00:09:27Marc:Okay, this is a funny little thing that I had with Sam Lipsight, my buddy, the novelist, who I didn't bring up the other day, but he's finished a new novel, which is fucking, I'm just thrilled.

00:09:41Marc:Because I need it.

00:09:44Marc:I need a new Sam Lipsight novel.

00:09:46Marc:But Lipsight lends me his copy of Sabbath's Theater, which is a great Philip Roth book.

00:09:56Marc:Again, it's not one of the ones that a lot of people read or know.

00:10:00Marc:It's about a...

00:10:01Marc:It's about a former, the guy's a puppeteer.

00:10:06Marc:He's a political satire puppeteer, Mickey Sabbath.

00:10:09Marc:But it's one of the great sort of morally corrupt characters.

00:10:13Marc:But it's got to be 300, 400 pages.

00:10:17Marc:And I just love it.

00:10:19Marc:It's one of my favorite Philip Roth books, Sabbath Theater.

00:10:22Marc:And Lipsight had lent me his hard copy edition when we were living in New York.

00:10:28Marc:And I read the whole book.

00:10:29Marc:And in the book, now, you know, Sam, he's a novel.

00:10:34Marc:He's a writer.

00:10:34Marc:He's a great writer.

00:10:36Marc:So in the book, there's one sentence underlined.

00:10:40Marc:Out of like 300 or 400 pages, there's one sentence underlined.

00:10:47Marc:And I gave back the book.

00:10:48Marc:I gave Sam back the book.

00:10:49Marc:And I said, you know, why is that one sentence underlined?

00:10:52Marc:And Sam says, well, that's the best sentence in the book.

00:10:59Marc:Completely serious.

00:11:00Marc:He was completely serious.

00:11:03Marc:All right, folks.

00:11:03Marc:Look.

00:11:05Marc:Paul Rodriguez, a veteran comic.

00:11:07Marc:He's been around.

00:11:08Marc:Many of you know him.

00:11:10Marc:He was one of the original-ish Latino comics, post-Freddie Prince.

00:11:16Marc:And it's just a life I don't know anything about.

00:11:18Marc:You'd see him here and there on TV, but he's always been working.

00:11:21Marc:He's always been out there, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk to him.

00:11:24Marc:Paul Rodriguez, The Here and Wow is a new special.

00:11:27Marc:It's available to stream now on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and most on-demand platforms.

00:11:32Marc:And I thought maybe I'd get to know them.

00:11:33Marc:So this is me and Paul Rodriguez back in the new garage.

00:11:45Marc:it's weird because like i i was at the store i never saw you around back then but you were always a guy like paul rodriguez was always a guy but i don't know where you where'd you where'd you come from uh off the bus really i i came uh from compton i had just gotten out of the air force but i was there early i was there earlier than that i

00:12:05Guest:No, no, I know, I know.

00:12:06Guest:But where'd you grow up?

00:12:08Guest:Compton?

00:12:08Guest:Well, in Compton, really.

00:12:09Guest:But my parents were migrant farm workers, so they stayed in Fresno.

00:12:14Guest:And I'm the only one that left Fresno.

00:12:16Guest:I left Fresno because I had to go.

00:12:17Guest:So I moved in with an aunt.

00:12:19Guest:And then later on, my father had a farming accident.

00:12:22Guest:So it just so happens that Compton was one of the cheapest places to live.

00:12:26Marc:Yeah.

00:12:26Guest:So I wound up going to a school right there in Compton.

00:12:30Guest:I went to Ralph Bunch.

00:12:33Guest:Yeah.

00:12:33Guest:Ralph Bunch right there on Willowbrook.

00:12:35Marc:Yeah.

00:12:35Guest:And three months after we moved in, the riots broke out.

00:12:39Guest:It was 1968, wasn't it yet?

00:12:41Marc:Oh, wow.

00:12:41Guest:Yeah, the original Compton riots.

00:12:43Guest:The riots broke out.

00:12:45Guest:I remember one of my earliest memories seeing a Sherman tank parked right there in El Segundo in Willowbrook.

00:12:52Guest:And I have pictures of myself being the white guy in my school.

00:12:58Guest:Yeah.

00:12:59Guest:That's how black it was.

00:13:00Guest:I'm brown, and I was the white guy.

00:13:02Guest:Right.

00:13:02Guest:And I guess that's really what made me be a comic.

00:13:06Guest:I talked my way out of a lot of situations.

00:13:08Guest:Did you have brothers and sisters?

00:13:10Guest:I did.

00:13:10Guest:Yeah.

00:13:11Guest:And my brother George was a fighter, man.

00:13:13Guest:He looked exactly like this world champion, Canelo Alvarez, my friend.

00:13:16Guest:My brother George has had, he's not much to look at now, but he had flaming red hair and freckles.

00:13:22Guest:He looked the furthest thing from what you would stereotype a typical Mexican.

00:13:27Guest:Because my mom's German.

00:13:28Guest:She's of German ancestry.

00:13:29Marc:But she was in Mexico.

00:13:31Marc:They met in Mexico?

00:13:32Marc:I guess there was a lot of Germans in Mexico at one time.

00:13:35Guest:A lot.

00:13:35Guest:In the state where I was born, in Sinaloa, in Culiacan.

00:13:39Guest:where now it's famous because of narco trafficking and all that.

00:13:43Guest:But I was born in Culiacán, and there were a lot of German migration during the first, after the First World War, they moved in there.

00:13:51Guest:And they brought the accordions.

00:13:54Guest:The accordion?

00:13:54Guest:Yeah.

00:13:55Guest:They brought the accordion and the tubas.

00:13:57Guest:And that's been incorporated into the mariachi.

00:14:02Guest:Conjunto music.

00:14:03Guest:Yeah, conjunto music.

00:14:04Guest:The umpapa is, you know, a lot of those songs, if you listen to them, they do sound alike.

00:14:12Guest:I love it.

00:14:13Guest:And it was, that's where the German influence come from.

00:14:17Marc:So your mom was a part of that immigration?

00:14:19Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:14:19Guest:My mom, every once in a while, when she would get mad, she'd scream at me in German, you know.

00:14:24Guest:Raus!

00:14:25Guest:I was a Chica Nazi.

00:14:31Guest:But, you know, they're not really known for stand-up comedy, so I didn't get it from her side.

00:14:36Guest:The Germans?

00:14:37Guest:Not that I know of, but not directly.

00:14:40Marc:Not a lot of stand up.

00:14:41Marc:Yeah.

00:14:42Marc:Yeah.

00:14:42Marc:But it's weird because I guess there I don't know if there's more tension between Mexicans blacks, but but there seems to be tension.

00:14:50Guest:There was a lot of tension.

00:14:51Guest:Yeah.

00:14:51Guest:I tell you, it was easy to be prejudiced and racist.

00:14:56Guest:Yeah.

00:14:56Guest:But as as time went on.

00:14:59Guest:I made a lot of friends.

00:15:01Guest:For example, Kenny Landro from the Dodgers was my schoolmate.

00:15:05Guest:He made it all the way.

00:15:06Guest:And I joined the football team.

00:15:09Guest:I was the kicker.

00:15:10Guest:And I have a picture of myself and the football team.

00:15:14Guest:Everyone's black by myself and the football coach.

00:15:18Guest:I wanted to quit because when I signed up, I thought it was football soccer.

00:15:22Guest:Uh-huh.

00:15:23Guest:Oh, really?

00:15:23Guest:Yeah.

00:15:24Guest:Because that's what you grew up with?

00:15:25Guest:Yeah, well, that's what I said.

00:15:26Guest:Football, you know, a foot and a ball.

00:15:29Guest:And I remember looking at the first time I looked at an American football, it seemed like the ball was oblong, you know?

00:15:37Guest:Squished, yeah.

00:15:38Guest:I remember telling my mom, I said, you think we got it bad?

00:15:41Guest:Their balls aren't even round.

00:15:42Guest:It was like a deformed thing.

00:15:45Guest:And they would run with that.

00:15:46Guest:I didn't understand the game, but I could kick.

00:15:48Guest:And I kicked and I... How old were you when you moved to the States?

00:15:53Guest:I was two and a half, three years old.

00:15:55Guest:I have memories of it, very faint memories.

00:15:57Guest:Yeah.

00:15:58Guest:And your brother's older or younger?

00:15:59Guest:My brother's the oldest.

00:16:00Guest:He was the oldest.

00:16:01Guest:Yeah, my brother's... I'm 63 now.

00:16:04Guest:My brother's got to be close to 74 now.

00:16:07Guest:And it's just the two of you?

00:16:08Guest:No, no, no.

00:16:10Guest:What kind of Mexicans would I be?

00:16:11Guest:There's a whole bunch of sisters in between us.

00:16:13Guest:There's my brother Mario, my brother Javier, and my sister Ada there.

00:16:18Marc:And you all grew up in Compton.

00:16:19Marc:You were all in the same house at the same time?

00:16:22Marc:No.

00:16:23Marc:Because there's a big enough age difference where some people are out.

00:16:26Guest:They were out.

00:16:27Guest:I grew up with five siblings in Compton that were still at home.

00:16:32Guest:And the others had married and moved on and stayed in the ranch in Fresno where

00:16:37Guest:where eventually, as soon as I made money, I bought my parents a farm there.

00:16:41Guest:You did, in Fresno?

00:16:42Guest:I bought them a farm in Fresno.

00:16:44Marc:Yeah, and they just came over, just straight up migrant workers.

00:16:49Marc:They just came to farm someone else's land.

00:16:52Guest:You know, I'll say this, because I've never talked about this before.

00:16:56Guest:We weren't really economic...

00:17:00Guest:We didn't immigrate for economic reasons.

00:17:02Guest:We immigrated for more of religious reasons.

00:17:05Guest:See, my father, my mother was Protestant.

00:17:08Guest:It's very, very rare to have a Mexican-American who's a Protestant.

00:17:12Guest:So I hated that because I lived a double life.

00:17:15Guest:I was Protestant at home.

00:17:17Guest:And very religious Mennonite Protestants.

00:17:20Guest:Oh, really?

00:17:20Guest:Yes.

00:17:21Guest:And my father was a minister.

00:17:24Guest:But I didn't want to get picked on in school, so I had a crucifix that I would put under a rock outside the house.

00:17:28Guest:I wore a crucifix to be Catholic in school.

00:17:33Guest:And I was Protestant at home.

00:17:36Guest:But eventually that would come out.

00:17:37Guest:And I remember my father was a pastor there at the Second Apostolic Church of Compton.

00:17:43Guest:He was a Protestant pastor?

00:17:46Marc:Yeah.

00:17:46Marc:So did he convert or do you not need to convert?

00:17:50Marc:Because was he originally Catholic or no?

00:17:52Marc:Yes.

00:17:52Guest:Yes, he was born Catholic.

00:17:53Guest:Right.

00:17:54Guest:And he converted.

00:17:55Marc:Yeah.

00:17:55Guest:He converted to this faith.

00:17:59Guest:Right.

00:17:59Guest:And they believe, you know, they're very strict.

00:18:02Guest:The women don't wear makeup.

00:18:04Guest:They have to wear long dresses.

00:18:06Guest:They don't smoke.

00:18:07Guest:They don't drink.

00:18:09Guest:They don't dance.

00:18:11Guest:They're very strict, you know, and Amish type of thing.

00:18:15Guest:And I...

00:18:17Guest:I love music and I love dancing.

00:18:20Guest:I love the girls.

00:18:20Guest:I love drinking.

00:18:21Guest:I did everything my father didn't want to.

00:18:24Guest:So my dad took me out of Compton because it was dangerous and stuff.

00:18:28Guest:And he sent me to Hayward Bible College in Hayward, California to be a minister.

00:18:33Guest:Oh my God.

00:18:34Guest:To be a preacher.

00:18:35Guest:And when I went over there, I ran into a lot of problems because...

00:18:41Guest:We were all sexually frustrated.

00:18:42Guest:All the girls there and all the guys there.

00:18:45Guest:Because it was apostolic Protestants.

00:18:47Guest:You couldn't do anything.

00:18:48Guest:Nothing.

00:18:49Guest:You'd go to hell if you touch yourself.

00:18:51Guest:Right.

00:18:51Guest:And every night, all you could do is... And of course, everybody was having sex.

00:18:55Guest:Sure.

00:18:56Guest:Of course.

00:18:56Guest:And I was having sex also.

00:18:58Guest:Yeah.

00:18:59Guest:And I got busted.

00:19:00Guest:I got caught.

00:19:01Guest:Got busted.

00:19:02Guest:Yeah.

00:19:02Guest:with a girl naked yeah butt naked having sex and the guy that busted me really wanted that girl like that girl yeah and uh and i got thrown out so and he got the girl i i don't know i never saw him again but uh it it my it caused my father a lot of consternation and and then i had to go to before the church board and i was considered a backslider and by that time

00:19:28Guest:I said, you know, dad, I said, this is too strict.

00:19:31Guest:I can't live like this.

00:19:32Guest:I'm sorry to break your heart.

00:19:33Guest:And I got drafted and I joined the Air Force and I left.

00:19:36Marc:Yeah, it's better to be Catholic where you can come fuck and drink and then just ask for your apology.

00:19:41Marc:I'm sorry.

00:19:42Marc:I fucked it.

00:19:43Guest:You know, I'm Catholic now.

00:19:44Guest:And I always said that it's wonderful because Catholicism, you're allowed to fuck and to sin and to all these things.

00:19:51Guest:All you got to do is just

00:19:52Guest:Confess.

00:19:54Guest:Tell the priest who probably lives vicariously through you.

00:19:57Guest:Sure.

00:19:58Guest:Apologize later.

00:19:59Guest:It's all good.

00:19:59Guest:You can do it.

00:20:01Guest:It is.

00:20:01Guest:It's one of the few religions that absolves all your sins.

00:20:04Guest:I had to learn how to give myself the sign of the cross.

00:20:07Guest:I had to go to catechism.

00:20:10Guest:At what age?

00:20:11Guest:Well, I didn't formally do it until my parents passed away.

00:20:15Guest:Okay.

00:20:15Marc:Really?

00:20:16Marc:So you came into Catholicism late.

00:20:19Marc:Your birthright as a Mexican.

00:20:21Marc:You should have known it all along.

00:20:24Guest:Finally, you come back to the church.

00:20:25Guest:I remember telling my parents, wanting to tell my mom and dad, I said, I want to talk to you.

00:20:31Guest:And I said, sit down, let me tell you.

00:20:34Guest:And right away, my mom said, oh, my God, he's gay.

00:20:37Guest:He said, he's gay.

00:20:38Guest:I said, no, Ma.

00:20:41Guest:I'm not gay.

00:20:42Guest:And I do a joke about that, but it wasn't due to religion.

00:20:46Guest:The joke was that I sat down and I said, you know, I'm thinking about being a Republican.

00:20:50Guest:And they said, oh, a Republican.

00:20:53Guest:I wish you were gay instead, you know.

00:20:57Guest:But that was the real reason.

00:20:59Guest:Very strict.

00:21:00Guest:No drinking.

00:21:01Guest:You'd go to hell for every reason.

00:21:03Guest:But that's why they left Mexico, you think?

00:21:05Guest:Yeah, they did because my father was shot at and persecuted.

00:21:09Guest:For being a Protestant.

00:21:10Guest:Yeah, very, very.

00:21:11Guest:No kidding.

00:21:12Guest:Yeah.

00:21:12Guest:Well, a lot of people don't know Mexico had a war.

00:21:15Guest:It was called The War of the Cristeros.

00:21:17Guest:I think Andy Garcia did a movie where the clergy in Mexico was so powerful.

00:21:23Guest:They had a stranglehold in government.

00:21:24Guest:So these forces, the anti-cristeros, they fought.

00:21:28Guest:And eventually, Alvaro Obregón, a president there, won the war.

00:21:34Guest:And he was killed by a priest.

00:21:36Guest:Oh, wow.

00:21:37Guest:He was assassinated by a priest.

00:21:39Guest:But it has a very dark history of Mexico.

00:21:40Guest:Mexico still remains one of the most Catholic countries in the world.

00:21:45Guest:There's a city called Cholula where there are 365 churches in that one city, one for every day of the year.

00:21:54Guest:And they will tell the Indians who would make these churches that the angels at night would come in and build these churches completely.

00:21:59Guest:The Catholic Church, the problems that I've had, the only reason I call myself a Catholic is because if we are going to hell, that's where all the Mexicans are going to be.

00:22:10Guest:I want to join them.

00:22:11Guest:Religion has a very, very powerful hold on the psyche of

00:22:16Guest:Yours?

00:22:18Guest:Mine and of us because most Mexicans who come to America come for economic reasons.

00:22:23Guest:We came because my father was assigned to be the pastor in San Pedro, California, the first apostolic church of Compton.

00:22:31Guest:Then he got assigned to Fresno.

00:22:34Guest:And then from there, just in time for the riots, he established the church in Compton.

00:22:39Guest:It's still there.

00:22:40Guest:The Apostolic Church in Compton on Rosecrans.

00:22:42Marc:So they probably thought this was a great deal because I would assume that as a Mexican to do missionary work, to get Mexicans to come to this church.

00:22:54Guest:And it was hard convincing them because, you know, we love to drink.

00:22:57Guest:And the Catholic thing's deep, man.

00:22:59Marc:It is deep.

00:23:00Marc:It is to the point where like... There's a lot of saints.

00:23:03Marc:There's a lot of elaborate paintings.

00:23:06Marc:The churches are beautiful.

00:23:07Marc:It's a thousand years old shooting.

00:23:09Marc:Shootings.

00:23:09Guest:Well, I'll tell you another story that's quite interesting.

00:23:11Guest:El Chapo, the famous- Be careful now.

00:23:15Guest:I don't want to get shot.

00:23:16Guest:The infamous drug lord.

00:23:18Guest:Yeah.

00:23:18Guest:Actually, how I am related to him is because his mother is also an apostolic.

00:23:25Guest:Really?

00:23:25Guest:An apostolic.

00:23:26Guest:And my mother and her are very good friends.

00:23:28Guest:And I remember meeting him when he was a kid.

00:23:32Guest:So your mother's friends with El Chapo's mother.

00:23:36Guest:They went to the same church and everything.

00:23:38Guest:Is your mom still around?

00:23:39Guest:My mom passed away about four years ago on Mother's Day.

00:23:44Guest:She lived to be 93, 93 years old.

00:23:47Guest:So now you're practicing Catholic.

00:23:49Guest:I'm not.

00:23:49Guest:I'm not practicing.

00:23:50Guest:But I've made a commitment to the jewelry.

00:23:55Guest:So I'd have to get rid of all the jewelry.

00:23:58Guest:The truth be told, the older I've gotten, I believe that mostly,

00:24:02Guest:mostly I believe in religion out of peer pressure, really.

00:24:06Guest:Uh-huh.

00:24:06Guest:You know, it's a sense of belonging.

00:24:08Guest:Right.

00:24:09Guest:But do I believe the dogma?

00:24:10Guest:Have I gotten to confession and all that?

00:24:13Guest:No, no.

00:24:14Marc:So when... Okay, so you tell your folks, you get sent home from the school for fucking...

00:24:19Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:20Marc:And then you got to sit down.

00:24:22Marc:Your dad's upset.

00:24:23Marc:And then you said you joined the service?

00:24:26Guest:Well, at the time, I'm 63 at the time.

00:24:29Guest:Yeah.

00:24:30Guest:I was drafted, actually.

00:24:32Guest:Oh, it must have been towards the end, huh?

00:24:33Guest:Yeah, very end.

00:24:34Guest:And six months later, Nixon did away with the draft in 73?

00:24:37Guest:Yeah, 72, 73.

00:24:40Guest:By then, I had already, you know, back then you had to sign at 17 before your 18th birthday.

00:24:45Guest:And lucky me, I was born in January, so my number was high.

00:24:50Guest:Yeah.

00:24:51Guest:So I got in.

00:24:52Guest:They give you the physical.

00:24:53Guest:And I went.

00:24:54Guest:I didn't want to go to the Marines.

00:24:55Guest:I didn't want to go.

00:24:56Guest:So I took a test.

00:24:57Guest:They gave you this little test, and I went to the Air Force.

00:25:00Guest:I figured, you know, if I have to go, the Air Force was – you kill people from far away, I guess.

00:25:05Marc:Yeah, that was the plan.

00:25:07Marc:But what ultimately – what did you end up doing?

00:25:10Guest:I got into communications.

00:25:11Guest:I was a –

00:25:13Guest:a communications operator, and then I crossed her and I became a load master.

00:25:19Guest:Where were you stationed?

00:25:20Guest:I was stationed in Iceland, Keflubik, Iceland.

00:25:22Guest:You saw a lot of action, huh?

00:25:26Guest:I saw a lot of seals and Icelandic women.

00:25:31Guest:I was stationed in a remote area in Iceland, which is remote enough, called Hornafjador, which was a radar sergeant with 90 men.

00:25:39Guest:And way at the very, if you look at the Iceland, it has like a little, like a peninsula.

00:25:45Guest:And we had a lot of, we still do I think, radar sites that would track a Russian bear, the big U2s that would fly to Cuba, that's where they would track them, you know.

00:25:57Guest:Well, it was a lot of boring hours, but what it did for me, it got me from the craziness of Compton and all of that.

00:26:04Guest:And I was lucky enough to meet my commanding officer who took an interest, not in a gay way, but he took an interest in me and he...

00:26:12Guest:He gave me books to read.

00:26:14Guest:He said, listen, if you want to go to college, use the GI Bill.

00:26:18Guest:All you really need to do is to read voraciously.

00:26:22Guest:And he gave me a lot of books that were very difficult.

00:26:25Guest:I read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.

00:26:28Guest:I had to read it a couple of times.

00:26:29Guest:I didn't understand, but it was about the Stalinist.

00:26:31Guest:Prison system, right?

00:26:32Guest:The prison system.

00:26:33Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Guest:And I read the ones at the Animal Farm.

00:26:37Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:26:37Guest:And I read War and Peace.

00:26:39Guest:There was nothing to do.

00:26:40Guest:There's no TV or anything.

00:26:41Guest:So you would read.

00:26:43Guest:And after a while, you enjoyed it.

00:26:44Guest:I must have, for the year and a half I was there, I must have read a couple hundred books.

00:26:49Guest:Really?

00:26:49Guest:Yeah.

00:26:50Guest:Well, I can't imagine.

00:26:51Guest:I'd never been to Iceland.

00:26:52Guest:Iceland's quite a place.

00:26:53Guest:It was established by Leif Eriksson.

00:26:55Guest:Yeah.

00:26:56Guest:And they still speak the most original Icelandic, which is the original Viking language.

00:27:04Guest:And it's a very, very difficult language.

00:27:07Guest:It sounds like, I knew a couple of words.

00:27:11Guest:Because where we were at, there was a little town, Hoffen.

00:27:15Marc:Yeah.

00:27:15Guest:And we were allowed to go into the city there.

00:27:20Guest:Blacks had to leave by noon and Latinos could stay there till three and then whites can stay there forever.

00:27:26Guest:And that had been going on for a while until we got a black colonel who was commanding and he made it off limits to all the servicemen.

00:27:36Guest:And within three months, the Icelandics were at our gates begging us for alcohol and please come back.

00:27:42Guest:And, you know, nobody ever thought about doing that until we got a black colonel and he put racism to rest there.

00:27:48Guest:Because you guys were important to the economy.

00:27:50Guest:Well, yeah, not only that, but at the time, liquor was outlawed in Iceland.

00:27:55Guest:So we were the only ones that had Jack Daniels, had these bottles.

00:27:58Marc:So you guys would just drive in with the booze?

00:28:00Marc:And the girls would go just lay down.

00:28:04Guest:Yeah.

00:28:04Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:28:04Guest:Yeah.

00:28:05Guest:That was the intention?

00:28:06Guest:You know, the thing about Iceland is that alcohol was illegal at the time, any kind of alcohol, but everybody was drunk.

00:28:13Guest:They would make their own stuff, a horrible tasting stump called kurdus or something like that, made out of goat balls or whatever it was, fermented something.

00:28:22Guest:And that's what they would drink.

00:28:24Guest:They would drink and it tasted awful.

00:28:27Guest:Iceland was, they had a lot of Icelandic ponies and a lot of goat and a lot of fish.

00:28:33Guest:And it was boring.

00:28:36Guest:It snowed terribly and it was not a place for any tropical camp.

00:28:39Marc:It was like the opposite from what you grew up in.

00:28:41Marc:And I guess on some level that was probably a nice mind-blowing experience.

00:28:45Marc:It was.

00:28:46Marc:A palate cleanser.

00:28:47Marc:Yeah, I got to do a lot of fishing.

00:28:49Guest:You did?

00:28:49Guest:We did a lot of fishing, but you know, there was... Is that a hobby you've kept up with, Paul?

00:28:54Guest:No, no, I let that go right away.

00:28:56Guest:If I don't ever see another cod, I'll be all right.

00:29:00Guest:Yeah.

00:29:00Guest:it was just uh yeah it was you have to find something to do and luckily enough i i got into uh you know i had someone that interested the reading the reading the reading it helped a lot so how long were you in the service total i did four years active and two years reserve and uh two years out back here yeah back here which is which is one of the one of the reasons how i got to know carlin yeah carlin was air force and so was sinbad and so a couple other uh well-known comics were were air force and uh

00:29:27Guest:I first got signed... Before you started doing comedy, you got to know... No, no, after I did.

00:29:32Guest:I got signed by a guy named Murray Becker, who was a legendary... He was supposedly the character that Woody Allen did about... Oh, no, Broadway Danny Rose?

00:29:43Guest:Broadway Danny Rose.

00:29:44Guest:Yeah.

00:29:45Guest:At the time, he had George Carlin.

00:29:46Guest:He managed Carlin's and Burns and Carlin.

00:29:48Guest:Leno was with him.

00:29:50Guest:Oh, this was the guy, huh?

00:29:52Guest:What was his name?

00:29:52Guest:Murray Becker.

00:29:53Guest:Murray Becker.

00:29:54Marc:Leno was with him.

00:29:56Marc:Shannon was with him.

00:29:57Marc:Murray Becker.

00:29:57Marc:Okay, so you come back from the service and you're back home.

00:30:00Marc:You're back in Compton.

00:30:02Marc:When do you start doing comedy?

00:30:03Marc:How does that unfold?

00:30:04Marc:I mean, did you do jobs, other jobs?

00:30:06Guest:Oh yeah, I used to work at a furniture store in Gardena.

00:30:09Guest:What I did is I used the GI Bill and I went to Long Beach City College, which is basically doing high school all over again.

00:30:16Guest:I didn't graduate from high school.

00:30:17Guest:It was impossible to graduate there.

00:30:20Guest:Two years at City College?

00:30:22Guest:Two years of City College.

00:30:23Guest:I got an AA and then I enrolled in Long Beach State.

00:30:26Guest:And I went there, Spielberg's alma mater.

00:30:29Guest:I went there and I had a counselor there that said that if I wanted to be a trial lawyer, which I wanted to be, to take acting.

00:30:38Guest:Because basically all a lawyer does is you act in front of 12 people.

00:30:43Marc:So you were doing like pre-law.

00:30:44Marc:Yeah, right.

00:30:46Marc:And this guy, one of your teachers recommends go to acting class.

00:30:49Guest:Right, and it just so happens that her name, Anita Cano, I had a teacher that also taught Spanish, because I was reading Cervantes.

00:30:59Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:30:59Guest:And I was reading all of those classics.

00:31:02Guest:And she, her husband, I think was a...

00:31:05Guest:worked at a firm that did accounting for the comedy store.

00:31:10Guest:And I used to make people laugh in the classroom, and Anita Cano was the one that said, you know what, you should go to the comedy store.

00:31:18Guest:And she took me there to Westwood on amateur night, and the minute I got on stage, it was an epiphany.

00:31:26Guest:I remember I had no material, but at the time, the Los Angeles Police Department had shot a black woman named Eula Love,

00:31:33Guest:Oh, I remember that.

00:31:34Guest:In her front yard.

00:31:35Guest:In her front yard.

00:31:36Guest:She had a butter knife and they shot her something like 38 times or something like that.

00:31:40Guest:And the observational joke that I did at the time was they were saying, was this excessive force?

00:31:48Guest:And I'm saying, you know, they only hit her 17 times.

00:31:52Guest:They shot at her 38 times.

00:31:53Guest:So I think if you have to reload...

00:31:56Guest:That is excessive.

00:31:59Guest:The cops had to reload and shoot this large black woman.

00:32:01Guest:It's a sad situation, but ironically enough, it just happened again in Sacramento.

00:32:06Marc:In Sacramento, yeah, that poor kid.

00:32:08Guest:18 times.

00:32:09Guest:And I think the reason is because...

00:32:12Guest:The police officers don't come from that community, so they go in there with their stereotypes, and they're afraid.

00:32:18Guest:These are young.

00:32:19Guest:They're afraid.

00:32:19Guest:They see a black man in the darkness.

00:32:22Guest:They're going to shoot first.

00:32:23Guest:They want to go home to their family.

00:32:25Guest:It's not good.

00:32:26Guest:Yeah, it's not good.

00:32:27Guest:It's indefensible, but they'll probably be absolved.

00:32:30Marc:They seem to always get absolved.

00:32:34Marc:It feels like the system protects itself.

00:32:37Guest:And I think a lot of us who just listen to it as a news story, we have a tendency to bring our own prejudices in there.

00:32:44Guest:We go, well, what's he doing?

00:32:45Guest:He's black.

00:32:46Guest:He's in the backyard.

00:32:47Guest:It's dark.

00:32:48Guest:He's holding a cell phone.

00:32:50Guest:All these things come into thought.

00:32:51Marc:In his yard using a cell phone, clearly a threat to everybody.

00:32:55Guest:Right, and what the police commission would probably say, well, they had reasonable fear for their lives.

00:33:02Guest:I mean, in the darkness, they put themselves, but in reality, after they let go of those shots, I have a friend of mine who's a police officer who told me that when an officer shoots, he's gonna empty the gun.

00:33:15Guest:He wants this person to die.

00:33:16Guest:He doesn't want this person to survive and sue him.

00:33:18Guest:Oh, that's it?

00:33:19Marc:It's about lawsuits?

00:33:21Guest:It's about you don't want this person to survive.

00:33:23Guest:If they survive, they have the right to sue you.

00:33:25Guest:But really, that's what's behind it, not just- Well, that's what he told me.

00:33:30Guest:They're not taught this at the academy, but it's like something that's unsaid, but they tell you that's why police officers, they'll empty that.

00:33:36Guest:Once they shoot, they're not going to shoot once and stop.

00:33:39Guest:They're going to empty their gun.

00:33:41Guest:Think about all these shootings that have been going on.

00:33:43Guest:Brown in Missouri, they emptied their gun.

00:33:45Guest:They don't shoot just once and go, maybe that's enough, maybe he got it.

00:33:49Guest:No, they shoot the kill.

00:33:50Guest:They don't shoot the maim or these things about shooting a gun off.

00:33:54Marc:I guess the real question is the decision to shoot.

00:33:58Marc:Yeah, once that first bullet goes, all of them are gonna go.

00:34:01Marc:No, that's clear.

00:34:03Marc:Yeah, once it starts, it goes.

00:34:05Marc:And that's it.

00:34:05Marc:They don't want this person to survive.

00:34:07Marc:You're shot, you should be dead.

00:34:09Marc:What year was it that you went down the Westwood store?

00:34:13Guest:It had to be, well, let's see.

00:34:15Guest:I got out of service in 77 and 81, 80, 81.

00:34:19Guest:So it was late.

00:34:21Marc:The store had been around since 73.

00:34:23Marc:It was like 81.

00:34:25Marc:So was Kennison managing the Westwood store at the time?

00:34:28Guest:Kennison was there.

00:34:29Guest:Yeah, Kennison was there at the time.

00:34:31Guest:He would hold court there.

00:34:32Guest:when everybody was gone, and he was in the kitchen, and he would do these long sets, and after a while, people started to know about it, and people left from the Hollywood store to go see Kenneth.

00:34:44Marc:But when you started, you were just doing the open mic nights, and you took to it right away.

00:34:50Guest:I did, but I figured, I got big laughs the first time I went in there, and it was intoxicating.

00:34:56Guest:The second time, I died.

00:34:59Guest:terrible so I the third time and I was taking a bus that was during the time they had the Jimmy Carter had the gas prices so my father had to stand in line to get gas and it was hell to get him to lend me the car so I had to take a bus and it was really hard so by the time you went there you didn't get on it was really really a bitch and then you you go to the improv where you had to put your name in a hat and Bud would pull out the name and I went there three or four times and he wasn't pulling out my name

00:35:24Guest:I finally told Bud, I said, look, let me go on.

00:35:27Guest:If I suck, you don't see my face no more.

00:35:30Guest:And he goes, that sounds like a deal.

00:35:32Guest:And he put me on.

00:35:35Guest:I had a good set, and he let me on after that.

00:35:39Guest:So you were primarily an improv guy?

00:35:41Guest:At that time I was, but I'm one of the few guys that was allowed to go back and forth.

00:35:46Guest:Why there weren't enough Mexicans?

00:35:49Guest:I was a three-headed mule, I guess.

00:35:50Guest:I was the oddity, you know, I was the, and you know,

00:35:55Guest:Frankly, I make no bones about it.

00:35:57Guest:I used that.

00:35:58Guest:I made my bed, and I'm happy to lay in it because at the time, I used to have a mustache.

00:36:03Guest:I favored Freddie Prinze, and girls used to tell me that, and you kind of look like Freddie Prinze, and really, that's what really impulsed me to.

00:36:11Guest:A lot of guys said, well, I went into comedy.

00:36:14Guest:We go in there to get laid.

00:36:16Guest:There's something about the stage that attracts females or whatever, but I had a mustache, and I kind of favored Freddie Prinze.

00:36:24Guest:And Bud was the first one to go, take it off.

00:36:27Guest:Take off that mustache.

00:36:29Guest:He says, you can't compete with a dead guy.

00:36:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:36:33Guest:So I took it off.

00:36:34Guest:And then I was going to the comedy store on Monday nights.

00:36:37Guest:Were you a fan of Freddie Princes?

00:36:38Guest:I was.

00:36:39Guest:I was a fan.

00:36:40Marc:It's weird that at that time, if you think about it, I mean, how many Latino comics were there?

00:36:44Marc:There weren't that many, right?

00:36:46Guest:No, there weren't any at all.

00:36:48Guest:I mean, there was Bobby Aguayo.

00:36:49Guest:I don't know where he is, but he was a nice guy.

00:36:51Marc:Yeah.

00:36:51Guest:Bobby White and Danny Mora.

00:36:53Guest:Danny Mora, right.

00:36:54Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:54Guest:He had a class and I still look up to him, but none of them ever got their shot.

00:37:00Guest:Unfairly too, I think.

00:37:01Marc:Well, at the time, okay, so you go, so you did some open mics in Westwood, then you get in at the improv.

00:37:06Marc:Right.

00:37:06Marc:And then what is, how do you get in, how do you get in front of Mitzi?

00:37:09Marc:How does that happen?

00:37:10Marc:Argus Hamilton.

00:37:11Marc:Oh yeah, Argus.

00:37:11Guest:Argus Hamilton had seen me and he says, I'm going to talk to Mitzi.

00:37:15Guest:And he did.

00:37:17Guest:He talked to her in bed, I think.

00:37:18Guest:Sure.

00:37:19Guest:And it worked.

00:37:21Guest:I went out there.

00:37:21Guest:At the time, I was a prop comic.

00:37:23Guest:I used to have the knife.

00:37:25Guest:My joke was the American Express card.

00:37:28Guest:And it was cheap.

00:37:30Guest:And you look back, you know, like most comic yourself, you might look at your tape of your early stuff and you go, you cringe, right?

00:37:35Guest:But it worked.

00:37:37Guest:It worked back then.

00:37:37Marc:And who could argue with success?

00:37:39Marc:Did you have like a suitcase full of props?

00:37:40Marc:Was that?

00:37:41Guest:No, I wasn't quite the carrot top or I had a knife.

00:37:45Guest:And the joke was at the time there was a very popular commercial about American Express.

00:37:49Guest:They used to go, hi, my name is so-and-so.

00:37:51Guest:And when I travel, people don't know my name.

00:37:53Guest:That's why I carry the American Express card.

00:37:54Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:37:55Guest:I would say, my name is Paul Rodriguez, and when I travel, people don't know who I am, but I carry the Mexican Express card, and I pull out this big old knife, and I go, it's recognized and respected all over the world.

00:38:06Guest:Don't leave home without it.

00:38:08Guest:And an audience would howl.

00:38:10Guest:The Mexican-Americans would go, oh, you're making fun of us, that's chibi, all kinds of criticism.

00:38:15Guest:But I said, hey, fuck you.

00:38:17Guest:I'm not representing Mexicans.

00:38:19Guest:I'm trying to get a job here.

00:38:20Guest:Yeah.

00:38:20Guest:And that got me noticed and Mitzi liked it and she made me a regular and I thought, oh, I'm a success now.

00:38:27Guest:But it wasn't like that.

00:38:28Guest:I was in charge of the parking lot.

00:38:31Marc:Sure, I had that job once.

00:38:32Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:33Marc:So you were a regular and she gave you a job in the lot.

00:38:36Guest:And I said, oh man, I thought I was angry.

00:38:39Guest:I said, oh man, what am I doing?

00:38:40Guest:And then Harris Pete, a legendary guy, he said, listen, Rodriguez, come here, let me tell you something.

00:38:46Guest:That's a great job.

00:38:47Guest:That's a really, really good job.

00:38:48Guest:Because if Richard Pryor or all these guys with these fancy cars, if they're going to come and give you the keys to their car, they want to know all about you.

00:38:56Guest:They want to know who you are.

00:38:57Guest:What are you doing?

00:38:59Guest:Who's this guy?

00:38:59Guest:You know?

00:39:00Guest:And true enough, I...

00:39:03Guest:It happened to be.

00:39:04Guest:Richard Pryor was one of the guys.

00:39:05Guest:And I remember he sent me down to this liquor store to go get him a pack of Marlboro Reds.

00:39:11Guest:He gave me 100 bucks in his car.

00:39:13Guest:And there I was, man, in his car.

00:39:14Guest:And I went there.

00:39:15Guest:I got him.

00:39:16Guest:Did you go down the pink dot on Sunset?

00:39:18Guest:It wasn't pink dot then.

00:39:19Guest:I forget what it was.

00:39:20Guest:It was a...

00:39:20Guest:three guys from Italy or something like that.

00:39:23Guest:It was a liquor store though?

00:39:24Guest:It was a liquor store.

00:39:25Guest:I went over there and I remember he gave me a $100 bill and I bought two packs of Marlboro box and the change and I went over there and I parked the car and he was sitting there at that little table where Mitzi Shore sat.

00:39:40Guest:And I said, here you go, Mr. Pryor.

00:39:43Guest:And I started to count out the change and he looked at me like, what the fuck are you doing?

00:39:48Guest:I said, 20, 30, 40.

00:39:51Guest:He goes, get the fuck out of here, keep it.

00:39:53Guest:I said, you know, you gave me 100.

00:39:55Guest:I know what I gave you.

00:39:56Guest:He almost annoyed him, but I couldn't believe nobody ever tipped me.

00:40:00Guest:I think the cigarettes were maybe six bucks.

00:40:04Guest:Right, yeah.

00:40:04Guest:And I got to keep all this.

00:40:06Guest:That was more than I was making at the company store all week.

00:40:08Guest:Yeah, and he was just hanging around then, huh?

00:40:10Guest:It was the mid-'80s?

00:40:11Guest:What was it, 82?

00:40:12Guest:Yeah, he was working, but they weren't announcing it.

00:40:15Guest:He was preparing to do the show.

00:40:17Guest:Live on the Sunset Strip, I think.

00:40:19Guest:And everybody would come, as you would remember.

00:40:21Guest:Everybody would come, and they would all sit there and watch him struggle on Monday.

00:40:26Guest:He'd go up there, and he'd start on a bid.

00:40:29Guest:It wasn't quite done.

00:40:32Guest:You got to watch that?

00:40:34Guest:Yeah, but as the week went along, by the time Friday, he'd add a little piece to it, a little piece to it, and he would do Mudbone, he did the Dracula bit, he did all this, and Mooney really was the brains behind all that.

00:40:49Guest:Paul Mooney was working with him then, huh?

00:40:51Marc:Like he would sit there and watch him and make notes and do that whole thing.

00:40:54Guest:I always thought that Mooney really was the, I mean, Pryor had talent, of course, but I always thought that Mooney was really, the material was Mooney's.

00:41:04Guest:Yeah, he got it into shape.

00:41:06Guest:Yeah, he did.

00:41:07Guest:He would basically give it, and then Pryor would put it together, and it was magic, you know?

00:41:12Marc:Wow, so that partnership was pretty solid.

00:41:15Marc:Pretty solid.

00:41:16Marc:How is Paul doing?

00:41:17Guest:Paul, the last time I saw Paul, I hear he's not doing well, and that's going to be sad because when he goes, and Paul, if you're listening, I hope you're around forever, but when he goes, that will really be a milestone.

00:41:30Guest:I mean, Pryor got all the...

00:41:32Guest:You know, not to be corny, but really the wind beneath his wings, really, because Paul Mooney was on Richard's show and he was, but really the material, the genius, the biting, the...

00:41:47Guest:He was like the guy that would, he was like half of Richard's brain.

00:41:52Guest:I think so, because if you listen to Mooney, you hear a lot of Pryor stuff.

00:41:57Guest:And even some comics will accuse Mooney, goes, oh man, he's just doing Pryor.

00:42:02Guest:The truth is, Pryor was doing Mooney.

00:42:04Guest:Yeah, I believe, yeah, obviously.

00:42:05Guest:And then he co-wrote that movie, right?

00:42:07Guest:The Jojo Dancer movie, didn't he?

00:42:08Guest:He wrote a lot of stuff.

00:42:09Guest:He and I wrote a script called Blacksigans.

00:42:13Guest:And we were almost, we went down to Magnolia, to the films.

00:42:18Guest:We had a deal.

00:42:19Guest:And then Mooney saw another black guy there that he didn't like.

00:42:25Guest:And he blew the deal on that.

00:42:26Guest:And I begged him, I said, man, who the fuck is that guy?

00:42:30Guest:He goes, nah, brother, nah, this ain't gonna go nowhere.

00:42:33Guest:So we had a deal for this movie and then it wasn't and it's still out there if anybody cares.

00:42:38Marc:Because he got pissed off at somebody?

00:42:39Guest:You know, Mooney's still a very particular person.

00:42:42Marc:He don't suffer no fools, you know?

00:42:43Marc:But when you were there in 82 or 83 parking cars, I mean, who were the people that you saw all the time?

00:42:49Guest:Well, the big ones was Williams.

00:42:52Guest:The late, great Robin Williams was there all the time.

00:42:54Guest:Roseanne?

00:42:55Guest:Roseanne.

00:42:55Guest:No, not really.

00:42:56Guest:Not right at that time.

00:42:57Guest:You know who was big at the time?

00:42:59Guest:The unknown comic, Murray Langston.

00:43:00Guest:Oh, really?

00:43:01Guest:Believe it or not, Murray Langston was the man.

00:43:02Guest:With the bag on his head?

00:43:03Guest:With the bag on his head.

00:43:04Guest:He was the man.

00:43:06Guest:Also, Letterman.

00:43:09Guest:Sure.

00:43:09Guest:Letterman was emceeing a lot.

00:43:11Guest:Really?

00:43:11Guest:When you were there in the 80s still?

00:43:14Guest:Yeah, but he had gone out with Helen Reddy.

00:43:16Guest:Yeah.

00:43:17Guest:Jeff Wall had taken up, but he would come, he was hosting.

00:43:20Guest:He was doing hosting.

00:43:22Guest:I guess you see a lot of the things that made him famous.

00:43:26Guest:His sarcasm was right there.

00:43:29Guest:He was hosting in the OR?

00:43:31Guest:In the OR.

00:43:32Guest:No kidding.

00:43:33Guest:They don't even have hosts anymore.

00:43:35Guest:They don't.

00:43:35Guest:Shanlin?

00:43:36Guest:Shanlin?

00:43:36Guest:Shanlin, yeah.

00:43:37Guest:Shanlin a lot.

00:43:37Guest:Who else was there?

00:43:39Guest:That was the heyday.

00:43:40Guest:As far as women, Elaine Boosler was the main one.

00:43:44Guest:No kidding.

00:43:44Guest:Yeah, Elaine Boosler, I've always thought.

00:43:46Guest:Sandra Bernhardt.

00:43:47Guest:Sandra Bernhardt.

00:43:47Guest:I always thought Elaine Boosler, of all the comedians, she's the least underappreciated.

00:43:54Guest:Underrated, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:43:56Guest:Because she really took her job seriously.

00:43:58Guest:She really had good, solid material, you know?

00:44:01Marc:So you were going on, what, like every night and doing the lot?

00:44:03Marc:Was it one of those things where you were working the lot, then you have to go do your spot and then go back out to the lot, people be waiting for their car?

00:44:08Marc:Yeah.

00:44:08Guest:Mike Binder would get drunk.

00:44:10Guest:Binder.

00:44:11Guest:Binder.

00:44:12Guest:What a great guy.

00:44:12Guest:You saw him the other night.

00:44:14Guest:Yeah.

00:44:15Guest:He's a good guy.

00:44:17Guest:I owe him so much.

00:44:18Guest:We hung out for a long time, you know, and I did.

00:44:21Guest:He's the first one that took me to Detroit.

00:44:24Guest:He did the Detroit Comedy Jam.

00:44:25Guest:That's where he's from.

00:44:26Guest:Right.

00:44:27Guest:That was right.

00:44:27Guest:That was his show.

00:44:28Guest:He put that together, right?

00:44:30Guest:Dave Coulier, Howie Mandel, and myself.

00:44:31Guest:Yeah.

00:44:32Guest:And I had a great time there.

00:44:34Guest:Yeah.

00:44:35Guest:So you knew him before he got sober?

00:44:37Guest:Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'd party with him.

00:44:38Guest:He was a vacuum cleaner.

00:44:41Guest:I had an apartment right there on, what's that street?

00:44:47Guest:There's a high tall apartment buildings.

00:44:51Guest:Right there, right on Sunset Boulevard.

00:44:53Guest:Were it forks?

00:44:54Guest:And you go up the hill there?

00:44:55Guest:No, the one that goes, the very next street where the Sky Bar is, the apartment's behind there.

00:45:01Guest:Oh, okay.

00:45:01Guest:I had all my money, put it together, and I got an apartment.

00:45:04Guest:On Olive?

00:45:05Guest:Right, right there.

00:45:06Guest:And we'll go down, Argus Hamilton will go down there.

00:45:09Guest:They were all banging girls in my apartment, giving me coke.

00:45:13Guest:Because you could walk from the comedy store?

00:45:14Guest:Right, you can walk there.

00:45:15Guest:You take a girl there, you walk there.

00:45:17Guest:You know the usual...

00:45:18Guest:hey i just saw your show you were wonderful did you see the first or the second yeah yeah that sort of thing yeah yeah which which set yeah right exactly uh who else was a a viable uh guy that louie anderson yeah he came in later but howie mandel was a huge huge yeah he had he was doing saint elsewhere right those were happy days howie was probably uh he wasn't big druggie though

00:45:42Guest:No, no, I could say that, I never did, which maybe he should have, you know?

00:45:47Guest:Because he wouldn't be so phobic now, you know?

00:45:50Guest:He's got a little germ problem.

00:45:52Guest:Yeah.

00:45:52Guest:Shanlin was probably the most amazing guy.

00:45:56Guest:I remember Murray Becker booking Shanlin and myself to do a Catholic college in San Diego.

00:46:02Guest:he picked us up and all the way down there he kept saying look these are these are these goyim they you know no it's clean it's clean i think i was getting paid 200 bucks a lot of money gary come on you can do i've seen you do clean sets i've seen to do do that thing about uh about how people repeat their names at the airport you know looking for so-and-so the mr so-and-so you know he's you don't do that they're clean please this is a very important account yeah

00:46:27Guest:He must have said it 200 times.

00:46:28Guest:By the time I went over there, I did my set.

00:46:30Guest:And then he opened up with, there were some nuns there.

00:46:33Guest:And he goes, so sister, you're going to tell me in your whole life, you've never sucked a cock.

00:46:40Guest:Gary Shanling did that?

00:46:41He did that.

00:46:42Guest:He said, but in his own way, he did it.

00:46:47Guest:You never sucked a cock.

00:46:49Guest:He said, your whole life, you don't know, you never sucked a cock.

00:46:54Guest:And there was just a sucking, a silence death.

00:46:59Guest:Yeah, that vacuum silence.

00:47:01Guest:It seemed like an eternity, and then the room just blew up.

00:47:04Guest:Oh, really?

00:47:04Guest:Big laugh.

00:47:06Guest:All the way back, I think they held a check.

00:47:09Guest:They didn't pay him or something.

00:47:10Guest:All the way back, Murray Becker's going,

00:47:11Guest:I told you, Gary, this is an important account.

00:47:14Guest:I told you, please don't use that filth.

00:47:17Guest:Where are you going with that?

00:47:18Guest:And then he goes, you never mentioned it.

00:47:21Guest:I don't remember you saying that.

00:47:22Guest:Paul, did you hear?

00:47:23Guest:I go, I may have.

00:47:27Guest:I don't know what to do.

00:47:28Guest:He goes, no, if you said that, you should have told me.

00:47:31Guest:You know I can work clean.

00:47:33Guest:He busted his balls.

00:47:34Guest:And Murray was a beloved guy.

00:47:37Guest:When he passed away at his funeral,

00:47:39Guest:I think only Leno and Carl and about two or three.

00:47:43Guest:Even I was late to that, because he had sent me off to Boston, I think.

00:47:49Guest:Yeah, he was a wonderful guy.

00:47:52Guest:I think he should be remembered.

00:47:54Guest:I hope he's on the web or something.

00:47:55Marc:Murray Becker, he was a... So that was who Shaolin was with before he went with like Brillstein Gray and whatever?

00:48:01Guest:He was the guy that would find you.

00:48:05Guest:Yeah.

00:48:05Guest:And then some other, then Brillstein or somebody else would come and take you.

00:48:08Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:48:09Guest:He was a stepping stone.

00:48:10Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:48:11Guest:And it happened to him over and over and over.

00:48:14Guest:In my case, I got picked up by Sandy Gallen.

00:48:16Marc:Sure.

00:48:17Guest:And then I...

00:48:18Guest:It was really hard.

00:48:19Guest:But what was your experience with Carlin?

00:48:22Guest:Carlin was a different guy off set.

00:48:26Guest:I remember I was on Venice Beach one time and this guy with this hat and hair came up to me and goes, I saw you on The Tonight Show.

00:48:40Guest:Look, it was a good set.

00:48:43Guest:I was just gonna blow him off and I go, oh shit, it's Carlin.

00:48:46Guest:He was very warm to me.

00:48:48Guest:He lived down Venice, right?

00:48:50Guest:I don't know where he lived.

00:48:51Guest:I never went to his house, but I know that he supported Murray Becker with money many times.

00:48:55Guest:Murray was always going, you need money for a plane ticket?

00:48:59Guest:I'll get it.

00:48:59Guest:I'll talk to Carlin.

00:49:00Guest:I'll talk to Carlin.

00:49:01Guest:And Carlin, he was always good for money for Murray.

00:49:04Marc:Oh, that's sweet.

00:49:04Marc:Yeah, he took care of it.

00:49:05Marc:Even after he wasn't with them anymore.

00:49:07Marc:Yeah.

00:49:08Guest:I said, when are you going to ask Leno?

00:49:10Guest:He goes, that guy's tight.

00:49:12Yeah.

00:49:13Marc:So what was your break?

00:49:14Marc:What was your big break?

00:49:16Marc:The night show?

00:49:17Marc:Oh, tell me about like, I don't know if you talk about it, but like you said you remember the night that Belushi died?

00:49:22Marc:I remember being there, yeah.

00:49:24Marc:At the store?

00:49:25Marc:At the store.

00:49:25Marc:Because that's where it started?

00:49:26Guest:Well, every time a big star like De Niro was there, and Kathy was a staple.

00:49:32Guest:Everybody knew her.

00:49:33Marc:The manager, Kathy?

00:49:35Guest:No, Kathy, she was a dealer.

00:49:37Guest:There was a lot of dealers there.

00:49:38Guest:Oh, the one that had, right.

00:49:40Guest:There was a...

00:49:40Guest:There were a lot of dealers there that some of them were comedians, quote unquote comedians.

00:49:44Guest:Sure.

00:49:44Marc:They're always, yeah.

00:49:45Guest:And Mitzi knew all of them because they would supply Argus.

00:49:48Marc:Yeah.

00:49:49Guest:And Argus at the time had a problem.

00:49:50Guest:We all had a problem.

00:49:51Marc:Sure, but they're always around.

00:49:53Marc:I don't know who they are now, but yeah, that was the case when I was there.

00:49:56Marc:There was a few.

00:49:57Guest:Everybody knew who they were.

00:49:58Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:49:58Guest:And of course, Belushi was, he was God at the time.

00:50:02Guest:I remember I got him a pack of Vantage cigarettes.

00:50:06Guest:That's what he smoked.

00:50:06Guest:Vantage.

00:50:07Guest:Vantage cigarettes.

00:50:09Guest:Huh.

00:50:09Marc:You were the cigarette guy.

00:50:11Guest:Yeah, you know, whatever they wanted.

00:50:12Marc:Vantage had the target on it.

00:50:14Guest:Yeah, I never heard of him, but I got him, and I gave him his pack, and he kept the change.

00:50:21Guest:He didn't give me no money.

00:50:23Marc:Let's just say that for the record.

00:50:25Yeah.

00:50:25Marc:So Kathy was the dealer that was implicated in John's death?

00:50:30Guest:I don't know that, I guess.

00:50:31Guest:I don't know that to be a fact that she was a dealer or not.

00:50:34Guest:I knew that.

00:50:35Guest:You know how everybody knows.

00:50:36Guest:Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:37Marc:Somebody's looking for- So she got the dope.

00:50:39Guest:Yeah.

00:50:39Marc:Yeah.

00:50:40Marc:Yeah.

00:50:40Guest:Yeah, and that's sort of an interesting element of the story.

00:50:43Guest:I went home.

00:50:44Guest:I went home, and the next day, it was the biggest news, you know, that he had died.

00:50:47Guest:And then you go... It's like if you were at a party, and you go home, and then you find out that the place burned down.

00:50:53Marc:You go, whoa.

00:50:54Marc:Well, the saddest thing about that is, like, having been around...

00:50:58Marc:people doing drugs is that I imagine by the time it got to the point where he was doing that, like that, whatever the party was, at some point it takes a turn and people are like, that's getting a little weird.

00:51:09Marc:I never saw heroin though.

00:51:11Guest:I know, I never saw heroin.

00:51:12Guest:Yeah.

00:51:13Guest:Heroin was such a, heroin was a drug that the Vatos used in Compton or, you know, heroin was like, that was drugs.

00:51:21Guest:Coke wasn't considered a drug and I didn't know about mixing or none of that stuff.

00:51:25Marc:Yeah, I think that some people were like, I think some people secretly used it to come down.

00:51:30Guest:It was innocence.

00:51:31Guest:It's robbed us of so many brilliant guys.

00:51:34Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:51:35Guest:The guy that everybody pretty much knew.

00:51:37Guest:He was with Three Arts.

00:51:39Guest:Hedberg.

00:51:40Guest:Hedberg, who's a legend now.

00:51:42Guest:So many people.

00:51:43Guest:But you kind of...

00:51:45Guest:You kind of knew because Heroin was a jazz player's kind of thing, you know?

00:51:49Guest:And he had that kind of rhythmic, that kind of thing, you know?

00:51:52Guest:Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

00:51:53Guest:Mitch, I knew Mitch, yeah.

00:51:56Guest:I knew him in passing, but people knew that he used, but you never imagined him to do that.

00:52:04Guest:I mean, a guy's been doing that so long, you would think that they'd have control of it.

00:52:07Marc:Nah, it got away from him.

00:52:12Marc:People didn't know until later, I don't think, but yeah.

00:52:14Guest:Coke was kind of a comics drug, really, because it hyped you up.

00:52:20Guest:It made you happier.

00:52:20Guest:Yeah, and it was everywhere.

00:52:21Guest:Yeah.

00:52:22Guest:You could tell the guys who were on Coke up there because their jaw was moving back and forth.

00:52:27Guest:And I remember Kennison and all of us putting our dollars together.

00:52:31Guest:You know, hey, here, buy a quarter.

00:52:33Guest:Sure.

00:52:33Guest:I remember the first time I saw $50 worth of Coke, I couldn't believe it.

00:52:37Guest:I kept telling them, come on, don't fuck around.

00:52:39Guest:Where's the rest of it?

00:52:40Guest:It was this little...

00:52:41Guest:Yeah, a little pile.

00:52:43Guest:That's it?

00:52:44Guest:That was it.

00:52:44Guest:I said, damn.

00:52:44Guest:Where were you?

00:52:45Guest:It was too expensive.

00:52:47Guest:Yeah.

00:52:48Guest:We weren't making no money at the time.

00:52:49Guest:But the minute you did make money, the thing was you're supposed to come back and party everybody out.

00:52:55Marc:Yeah.

00:52:55Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:52:56Marc:Right.

00:52:56Marc:Yeah.

00:52:56Marc:It's your turn to share.

00:52:57Guest:Yeah.

00:52:58Marc:To give back to the community.

00:52:59Guest:When I got my ideal, I went back there and I had a bag and I remember all those guys.

00:53:05Guest:When was your first Tonight Show?

00:53:07Guest:Oh, it was after the premiere, a.k.a.

00:53:09Guest:Pablo.

00:53:10Guest:That's when I got it.

00:53:11Marc:That was your big break, your sitcom.

00:53:12Guest:Yeah, I had tried to audition before and Macaulay in the Cordoba said, well, you know, I don't know, I was too Mexican.

00:53:20Guest:But Norman Lear had a lot of pull and him and he told him and I did the set and of course it was my dream because that's the first time I ever saw Freddie Prinze was when Johnny called him over.

00:53:31Guest:And I went out there and I did and he called me over and I sat down and I did the Tonight Show 12 times.

00:53:36Guest:with johnny with johnny yeah well once with uh with a guest host uh she's still alive the the old what's her name uh uh betty white oh she had oh really yeah i did a part on on um golden girls golden girls and uh and then she was doing the tonight show she invited me she's a sweet lady she's still around and man it's unbelievable

00:53:58Marc:She's like 100, I think, now.

00:53:59Guest:I don't know what she is, but just to be all there.

00:54:02Guest:I mean, she's not... Her mind is all there.

00:54:05Guest:You talk to her.

00:54:06Guest:Same with Lear.

00:54:07Guest:Yeah, I saw Lear not too long ago.

00:54:09Marc:Mel Brooks.

00:54:10Marc:Some of them, the old people, they got the brains on fire.

00:54:14Guest:The comedy has to have something to do with that, I think, because they're not the only ones.

00:54:18Guest:Some comedians, they either die really young or really old.

00:54:22Guest:Yeah, so what happened with AKA Pablo?

00:54:24Guest:That was a Norman Lear show?

00:54:25Guest:A Norman Lear show.

00:54:26Guest:In hindsight, a lot of things.

00:54:28Guest:I knew there was problems at the beginning.

00:54:30Guest:First of all, to white America, we all sound the same.

00:54:35Guest:But to Latinos, we know the difference between a Puerto Rican accent and a Cuban accent and a Mexican accent.

00:54:40Guest:And they cross-casted.

00:54:44Guest:My father was Joe Santos, Italian.

00:54:46Guest:And then my mother was...

00:54:48Guest:Katie Jurado, Mexican.

00:54:50Guest:It didn't work, but the attempt was good.

00:54:53Guest:They honored Norman Lear not too long ago in downtown, and I was there.

00:54:57Guest:I still thank him, and he took me from sleeping in the car of the parking lot of the comedy store to put me in a tax bracket.

00:55:06Guest:I'll always thank him for that.

00:55:07Guest:He gave me a pay-or-play deal for lots of money.

00:55:10Guest:He was a very generous man.

00:55:12Guest:He wrote a script that's really funny.

00:55:14Guest:It's about these older people.

00:55:17Guest:It's called Guess Who Died?

00:55:18Guest:It's about these guys.

00:55:19Guest:I read for a part, and I hope I get it.

00:55:23Marc:It's a new project?

00:55:24Guest:Well, yeah.

00:55:25Guest:It's a new project.

00:55:25Guest:I don't think I will, but just the fact that I was allowed to read for it.

00:55:29Marc:So over the years after that, you did some other TV stuff, but you didn't have the long run.

00:55:35Guest:No, I had no long run at all.

00:55:36Guest:I did eight episodes.

00:55:38Guest:It's so ironic because I got canceled with a 28th share.

00:55:41Guest:You know what a 28th share is now?

00:55:42Guest:I know, that's unheard of.

00:55:43Guest:Unheard of, but back then you had to have them in the 30s or 40s.

00:55:46Guest:Really?

00:55:47Guest:Yeah.

00:55:48Guest:and i and i could it could have gone on but it i i wanted to to tell norman look you're not doing this right but i didn't want to come off as a smart ass but i knew that it wasn't gonna work yeah because still it doesn't work to this day latinos are a nebulous crowd you know to find a show that cubans like that puerto ricans like the mexicans like is the only thing that they like is soccer that's the only thing we have in common you know

00:56:12Guest:It's very hard.

00:56:13Guest:Jane the Virgin is doing okay.

00:56:14Guest:Jane the Virgin, that girl is... She's great.

00:56:17Guest:But if you notice, it's not Latino-based.

00:56:20Guest:She just happens to be Latino, but her humor crosses over.

00:56:23Marc:She's a very nice... It seems like the family situation is pretty Latino-based.

00:56:28Guest:You know, I'll be honest with you, I don't see it all the time, but she went to my house and I knew she was, Eddie almost introduced me to her, and certainly I wish her well.

00:56:41Guest:I did a play about the lack of, I did a play called The Pitch at the Los Angeles Theater about that, about the absence of Latinos seeing as how we're more numerous than African-Americans.

00:56:53Guest:Why do you think it is?

00:56:56Guest:it's our passivity i think we don't we don't protest not that protesting is necessary but you know african americans complained a couple years ago that that the oscars are too white the the business does have that that uh it will respond to that criticism

00:57:12Guest:But I don't think our day is going to come like that.

00:57:15Guest:I think there are shows that are hit, but there are hit, secret hit among our community.

00:57:21Guest:But for a crossover show, it hasn't been since the Lopez show.

00:57:25Guest:Right now there's one on YouTube about a Cuban family.

00:57:28Guest:I hope it does well.

00:57:29Guest:But there should be more.

00:57:30Guest:I mean, there's more channels.

00:57:32Guest:George did okay, huh?

00:57:33Guest:George did okay for several years.

00:57:36Guest:He had great writers, showrunners, probably one of the best.

00:57:39Guest:And it was funny, if you look at it, ultimately I think nobody sits down to see a show about blacks or about Jews or about that.

00:57:47Guest:They sit down to see something that's funny.

00:57:48Guest:If it's funny, it works.

00:57:49Guest:Yeah.

00:57:50Guest:You know, and I hope to try again.

00:57:52Marc:I'm sure you will.

00:57:54Marc:So like over the years, though, like you just kind of chipped away.

00:57:57Marc:You just kind of did gigs.

00:57:58Marc:You did specials.

00:57:59Marc:You hosted things like it's not.

00:58:01Marc:It's interesting because you're pretty much a household name.

00:58:03Marc:Everyone knows who you are, but you didn't.

00:58:05Marc:It's not like you did a Seinfeld.

00:58:07Guest:No, no, no.

00:58:08Marc:We just never went away.

00:58:10Guest:No, I just, you know, it's.

00:58:12Guest:It's fairly, I wouldn't say easy, but it's fairly possible to be famous for a year or two and then just fade away.

00:58:22Guest:The hardest thing is to remain in the eye.

00:58:24Guest:You're always looking for some trick, some way, you know, almost ambulance chasing, you know, if there's a hurricane relief, you're there, you know.

00:58:34Guest:And you feel like some kind of a media whore.

00:58:38Guest:But if you don't do that, you're not going to sell tickets.

00:58:41Guest:And my whole drive was always to have enough of a name that when you're out in some city and your name's out there, people will come and see you.

00:58:48Guest:Even if they don't know much about you, but if they heard your name, they'll come to see you.

00:58:52Guest:Then you got to do it.

00:58:53Marc:But you also feel bad for the victims of the hurricane.

00:58:56Guest:Of course, yeah.

00:58:58Guest:I hope Puerto Rico recovers right away.

00:59:00Guest:Every hurricane, every comic relief.

00:59:05Guest:When Chris Albrecht was president of HBO, he was my agent at ICM, and he was very good to me.

00:59:12Guest:He gave me HBO specials that perhaps I didn't deserve.

00:59:14Guest:I wasn't prepared for that, but I took him.

00:59:17Guest:You learn.

00:59:19Guest:i'm i'm comfortable with being the mexican comic although if you look at my act now it'll it works in in rochester new york you know you learn that uh but i don't complain if that's all you're known for yeah you're known for something well this is definitely a latino comic scene now i mean they're there and we lost uh freddie a few years ago freddie soto right he was great

00:59:42Marc:He was doing good.

00:59:43Marc:Yeah, and Madrigal.

00:59:44Marc:But there's a whole bunch of them.

00:59:46Marc:I need to get out more.

00:59:47Guest:One of the saddest ones was he was great in The Roast.

00:59:53Guest:Oh, Geraldo?

00:59:54Guest:Harbor educated, very intelligent.

00:59:56Guest:But again, he had some series.

00:59:58Guest:It didn't work.

00:59:59Guest:But his talent was amazing.

01:00:01Guest:He's great.

01:00:02Guest:I'm sorry.

01:00:02Marc:Great comic.

01:00:03Marc:He was really, really good.

01:00:04Marc:Sharp guy.

01:00:05Marc:He did.

01:00:05Marc:He had very astute points of view.

01:00:08Marc:So when you did the special, like I just, I was, before you came over, I was thinking about it.

01:00:12Marc:You did, I remember seeing the special you did at San Quentin.

01:00:15Marc:Right.

01:00:16Marc:And I thought that was crazy.

01:00:18Guest:Well, it was, but I had it, how that happened was the Sunday comics, remember that they had that show?

01:00:24Guest:They decided to go to San Quentin.

01:00:26Guest:And I went there with Richard Jenny, Elaine Boosler, George Wallace,

01:00:31Guest:I forget who the other guy was.

01:00:33Guest:Anyways, and they told you don't jump out into the audience.

01:00:37Guest:Well, I was the second to the last and they had all done very well and I said, what am I gonna do?

01:00:43Guest:So I saw this huge Samoan guy and I just jumped off stage and I just took a chance and I walked up to him and I go, I hope never to land here but if I ever do,

01:00:52Guest:I want to be your bitch, you know?

01:00:54Guest:And he stood up and he was a towering guy and he left and that caught the imagination.

01:01:00Guest:Somehow people remember that, you know?

01:01:02Guest:It was kind of like when you did the Rodney Dangerfield special.

01:01:04Guest:Sure, sure, right, I get it.

01:01:05Guest:It was always one that stood out, you know?

01:01:07Guest:Right, right.

01:01:07Guest:It's a very gimmicky kind of thing, but it didn't really matter what you did as long as they remember.

01:01:11Guest:You see a whole show and then you go, oh, so-and-so was good or so-and-so did this or you did that.

01:01:16Guest:Yeah.

01:01:17Guest:When Bobcat, who's a brilliant guy, when he set the chair on fire on The Tonight Show.

01:01:22Guest:Yeah.

01:01:22Guest:He never went back, but everybody remembers that.

01:01:24Guest:So sometimes you almost feel like you have to be like P.T.

01:01:29Guest:Barnum in a sense.

01:01:30Marc:Yeah.

01:01:30Marc:But you weren't thinking that when you did it, were you?

01:01:32Guest:You just sort of... Well, I just saw Richard Jenney destroyed.

01:01:35Guest:You need to do some crowd work.

01:01:37Guest:You gotta do a little recon.

01:01:38Guest:Yeah, Elaine Boosler had a vagina.

01:01:41Guest:That was very popular in prison.

01:01:43Guest:So I saw this and I said, man, I don't know.

01:01:46Guest:I got nothing to lose.

01:01:47Guest:I jumped out there.

01:01:48Guest:And it worked.

01:01:49Guest:40% of the audience is Latino.

01:01:52Guest:So, you know, it was like a high school reunion.

01:01:54Guest:And I squeezed that out.

01:01:55Guest:You know, I got, I did three HBO specials.

01:01:58Marc:Well, I remember that.

01:01:58Marc:I just remember the special.

01:01:59Marc:It was crazy.

01:02:00Marc:I think Jeff Ross did one later at the prison, but like you did, like the first one I'd seen in a prison.

01:02:06Marc:I just, the moment I remember is that, you know, it's, it's,

01:02:09Marc:prisons when you're inside there.

01:02:11Marc:Cause I did a show at a women's prison once.

01:02:13Marc:It's a different world.

01:02:14Marc:It's not comfortable.

01:02:15Marc:And it's, it's, it's a little visceral and weird.

01:02:18Marc:And like, I just remember on, when I'm watching yours, they kept cutting to the audience.

01:02:23Marc:And I, you know, there were definitely some, you know, some men who were dressed as women.

01:02:26Marc:And there was a moment where I'm like, I'm not sure they want to be seen in the audience.

01:02:31Guest:You know what I mean?

01:02:32Guest:You know, the, the, the, the camera is a weird thing.

01:02:35Guest:The camera, uh,

01:02:37Guest:it is a drug, it's a luring to them.

01:02:41Guest:There are people that would confess a crime just to be on TV.

01:02:45Guest:And I remember what I did, I did a dramedy.

01:02:48Guest:I tried to do interviews, and I got an opportunity to interview some of the guys from the M.A., the Mexican Mafia, who really run the show.

01:02:56Guest:How, I don't know, but they do.

01:02:58Guest:The cards will tell you.

01:03:00Guest:And I interviewed these guys, and these are guys that

01:03:03Guest:that have done whatever they've done to get there.

01:03:07Guest:But what really astonished me about all these guys that I interviewed is that they're parents.

01:03:12Guest:You know, they're in jail, and they're concerned about their kids.

01:03:15Guest:They don't want their kids to follow them in the family business, and they use whatever powers they have to try to do that.

01:03:23Guest:And I remember them saying, look, one of them, I got a word, says, look, I wanna be on your show.

01:03:28Guest:I wanna say this to all the kids out there.

01:03:30Guest:And he said, listen, you, if you ever come in here, I will fuck you in the ass, and you can, you know, all this thread in them.

01:03:36Guest:And he goes, thanks, Paul.

01:03:37Guest:And I go, am I gonna put this on?

01:03:40Guest:And I go, I told my producer, I said, I don't know.

01:03:43Guest:He goes, fuck yeah, I'm gonna put it on because he told me this better be on.

01:03:46Guest:I said, it's gonna be on.

01:03:47Guest:Here's your PSA, yeah.

01:03:49Guest:So, and that hit a chord with a lot of people.

01:03:53Guest:Got a lot of mail and stuff like that.

01:03:54Guest:And he goes, some of it was like, how can you put this killer, this guy did this, this guy did that.

01:03:59Guest:But I also got mail from, you know, my kid respects and admires that guy.

01:04:04Guest:That's what they wanna be.

01:04:05Guest:And it straightened him out.

01:04:07Guest:And what show was this for?

01:04:08Guest:It was for the San Quentin Live.

01:04:09Marc:Oh, you interviewed guys.

01:04:11Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:04:11Guest:I went over there and I took Ice-T.

01:04:13Guest:He was a rapper.

01:04:14Guest:He wasn't all that well-known, but he did that.

01:04:17Guest:And then I did a show, but mostly I walked around the yard and I interviewed guys.

01:04:21Guest:I interviewed some of the Black Gorilla family, some of the guys from the MA.

01:04:28Guest:It's very segregated in prison.

01:04:30Guest:I don't know if you're aware of that.

01:04:31Guest:I didn't have no guards, and they respected that.

01:04:33Guest:I have no guards looking after me.

01:04:35Guest:Because I figured, look, if they're going to get you, they can get you in there.

01:04:38Guest:They can get you out there.

01:04:40Guest:They got a long reach out there.

01:04:41Guest:And I interviewed some of the guys from the Aryan.

01:04:45Guest:And they all wanted to talk.

01:04:47Guest:And these guys are, you know, I said to them, I said, what am I going to ask these guys?

01:04:51Guest:And I remember asking them, do you have kids?

01:04:54Guest:He goes, yeah.

01:04:55Guest:Do you have parents?

01:04:56Guest:Yeah.

01:04:57Guest:Would you like, and then just mention their kids, they become human again.

01:05:00Marc:Uh-huh.

01:05:00Guest:They start talking about, yeah, you know, I worry about this and I worry about that.

01:05:06Guest:Because they must feel guilty about being admired in a morbid way.

01:05:11Guest:I remember Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, running my autograph.

01:05:16Guest:He was there?

01:05:17Guest:He was there at the time.

01:05:18Guest:He later moved.

01:05:19Guest:He said, hey, Holmes, hey, I'm famous too.

01:05:22Marc:That was it, huh?

01:05:23Guest:He wanted my autograph and I said, ah, you're not famous.

01:05:27Marc:You're not famous.

01:05:28Marc:You're not famous for the right reasons.

01:05:30Guest:You're infamous.

01:05:30Guest:I'll get back to you.

01:05:32Guest:Infamous, right.

01:05:32Guest:I didn't get nasty with him because he just had a really weird way.

01:05:37Guest:I met Charles Manson.

01:05:38Guest:You did?

01:05:39Guest:But he didn't want to go on camera.

01:05:41Guest:He didn't want to go on camera.

01:05:42Guest:No, no.

01:05:43Guest:He wanted to get paid a certain amount.

01:05:45Guest:He'd become real famous.

01:05:47Guest:Sure.

01:05:47Guest:He got married and everything.

01:05:49Guest:They told me that he had...

01:05:52Guest:like a whole male section just for him that there were offerings of marriage and stuff.

01:05:58Guest:That is just.

01:06:00Guest:Did you talk to Manson at all?

01:06:01Guest:I mean, or not really?

01:06:03Guest:I said a couple of words, but he had nothing to do with me.

01:06:06Guest:You do them.

01:06:06Guest:You're the Mexican guy.

01:06:08Guest:Apparently he got beaten up or something.

01:06:10Guest:He had a fight with some other Latino.

01:06:14Guest:He even got beat up.

01:06:16Marc:I can't imagine being around those.

01:06:18Marc:It's just too weird.

01:06:19Guest:But it was weird.

01:06:20Guest:It was weird because you see these guys and there's a part of you that goes, wow, this is a good story.

01:06:26Guest:And then there's another part of you go, this motherfucker stabbed a pregnant woman.

01:06:30Guest:Well, he didn't actually do it, but he ordered that done.

01:06:32Marc:Yeah, he's real evil in there.

01:06:33Guest:So you go, fuck, I don't know how you feel about them.

01:06:36Marc:Yeah, it's just the survival element in jail, just what people need to do to survive in jail.

01:06:44Marc:There's an electricity to being in there that was a little overwhelming for me.

01:06:50Guest:It is so unbelievable.

01:06:52Guest:For example, Edward Olmos, who's a very good friend of mine, did a movie about the Mexican mafia.

01:07:00Guest:The alleged.

01:07:00Guest:There's no such thing, by the way.

01:07:01Marc:Let me just say that.

01:07:02Marc:Yeah, I hear you.

01:07:03Guest:But they had wanted his death.

01:07:07Guest:And I remember taking the opportunity to talk to a couple of guys and go, why would you want to do that?

01:07:12Guest:And the thing that bothered them the most was in the movie, there's a scene where they have sex, anal sex there.

01:07:20Guest:That's all there is.

01:07:21Guest:In jail.

01:07:22Guest:But these are very, very macho guys.

01:07:25Guest:That's prison pussy, I guess.

01:07:29Guest:But they don't want that to go out.

01:07:30Guest:And they thought he had broken that rule.

01:07:33Guest:And I said, you guys like to do your business in the dark, in the quiet.

01:07:36Guest:If you ever hit Eddie Olmos, I mean,

01:07:39Guest:Talk about the heat.

01:07:41Guest:But on the other hand, what can they do?

01:07:42Guest:They're already in there.

01:07:43Guest:Is he still around?

01:07:44Guest:Eddie?

01:07:44Guest:Yeah.

01:07:44Guest:Oh, very much so.

01:07:46Guest:Eddie's a good guy.

01:07:47Guest:As a matter of fact, we have a project together that we hope to do.

01:07:52Guest:It's three generations.

01:07:53Guest:I've been pitching it for the last nine, ten years.

01:07:56Guest:Since there were only two generations?

01:07:58Guest:There's three of them.

01:08:00Marc:You've been pitching it since it was two generations?

01:08:02Guest:I'm trying to use my kid.

01:08:03Guest:My kid is a very popular X game guy.

01:08:07Guest:So we actually shot a sizzle reel that Eddie plays a very racist guy stuck in his own time period.

01:08:17Guest:It's three guys in therapy is what it is.

01:08:19Guest:That sounds interesting.

01:08:21Guest:So what's the new special?

01:08:22Guest:It's my au revoir.

01:08:26Guest:It's my goodbye, really.

01:08:27Guest:To be honest, I think that's it for me.

01:08:30Guest:I'm going to do something that I've always wanted to do.

01:08:33Guest:And the next year or so, I plan to just cash in my chips and travel.

01:08:38Guest:I always wanted to go to Tibet.

01:08:40Guest:I mean, I've been around the world, but I've never seen it.

01:08:42Guest:I land there, I do a movie, whatever it is, and then I have to.

01:08:45Marc:Then you leave, yeah.

01:08:45Guest:But there's a lot of places I like to go without no time schedule.

01:08:48Guest:It's just to go there and travel all through South America.

01:08:51Guest:Go to Tibet would be my first place.

01:08:53Guest:Where, Tibet?

01:08:54Guest:I don't know why Tibet, but I want to go there.

01:08:57Guest:I've always had a thing about going.

01:08:59Guest:And where'd you shoot the special?

01:09:01Guest:I shot in farthest place from Tibet in downtown Los Angeles, right on Skid Row.

01:09:06Guest:Yeah?

01:09:06Guest:Yeah.

01:09:07Guest:And then people came out.

01:09:08Guest:People came out.

01:09:09Guest:You did it outside?

01:09:09Guest:No, no.

01:09:10Guest:It was an old theater, the old Pan Pacific.

01:09:14Guest:You know, there's a lot of theaters that have Art Deco and stuff.

01:09:16Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:09:17Guest:They shoot movies there.

01:09:18Guest:And I remember doing a movie called with Mario Van Peoples.

01:09:22Guest:It was Sweetback's Badass Song.

01:09:25Marc:You were in Sweetback's?

01:09:26Guest:You were in that?

01:09:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:09:27Guest:I was in that.

01:09:28Guest:And I was the Jose, the filmographer.

01:09:32Guest:Real good movie if you get a chance.

01:09:33Guest:yeah i saw it they filmed there and i looked at this place and it's it's got story because back in the day people used to dress up going to the movies was a was a was a thing yeah yeah now you know some guys jerking off and no one goes to movies no one goes to movies but the theaters that were art deco and beautiful and we shot it there and that's great came out good yeah that's great man so so you're gonna travel with no cameras just gonna go experience it just just gonna go man just you know you got a wife no i have no wife okay that's why i'm gonna go yeah

01:10:02Guest:I just wanna go, I read the motorcycle diaries, I read Kerouac, and I read a lot of things, and I'm not doing this for any other artistic reason other than I wanna spend time in Argentina.

01:10:15Guest:I wanna sell the house and sell whatever properties, I wanna liquefy myself.

01:10:21Guest:And I'm not going to go ritzy.

01:10:23Guest:I'm just a backpack in American Express or whatever, you know.

01:10:26Guest:Sure.

01:10:26Guest:I'm in a hostel here.

01:10:27Guest:Yeah.

01:10:28Guest:And, you know, I've been told that it's dangerous.

01:10:30Guest:But if I wait any longer, I'll be too old and too feeble, you know.

01:10:33Guest:Yeah.

01:10:34Guest:Right now, I'm still healthy.

01:10:35Guest:I can still walk.

01:10:37Guest:Well, that sounds like a great idea.

01:10:39Guest:But it's not for sure.

01:10:40Guest:There's no taping or nothing.

01:10:42Guest:Maybe you'll write something.

01:10:43Guest:If I could write, I would.

01:10:46Guest:Maybe I'll... I want to go down to... Take some notes.

01:10:49Guest:I want to go all over Latin America.

01:10:51Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:10:52Guest:I want to go to Belize.

01:10:54Guest:I want to go to Estapa.

01:10:57Guest:I want to go to all those places.

01:10:58Guest:Not as a tourist, but walk around and...

01:11:00Guest:See where death catches me, you know?

01:11:03Marc:Yeah.

01:11:03Marc:Well, I mean, hopefully, you know, maybe you want to catch death somewhere out on the road.

01:11:08Guest:Well, my kid is always telling me, he goes, why do you want to do that?

01:11:12Guest:If you're going to talk like that, make sure it's nearby where they have an airport.

01:11:16Guest:I don't want to have to fly to Brazil in some jungle and find bits and pieces of you.

01:11:22Guest:But it's not going to be like that.

01:11:23Guest:I've always dreamed about going somewhere.

01:11:26Guest:And dying.

01:11:28Guest:Right.

01:11:29Guest:Right.

01:11:29Guest:I've died plenty of times on stage, you know, for me to get a heart attack in Lithuania.

01:11:35Marc:Oh, not Lithuania.

01:11:36Marc:Make it nicer than Lithuania.

01:11:38Guest:I want to go to the Czech Republic.

01:11:39Guest:I hear the babes there are.

01:11:40Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:11:40Guest:There's a lot of porn there.

01:11:42Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:11:42Guest:You want to go get involved in the Baltic porn business?

01:11:45Guest:Yeah, you know what?

01:11:46Guest:I could just say, I bet I could, I don't know, maybe I could star in some, you know, porn in East LA.

01:11:53Marc:Paul Rodriguez, his comeback is in Lithuanian porn.

01:11:57Marc:Yeah.

01:11:57Marc:It could be worse.

01:11:59Guest:He plays the Mexican guy.

01:12:00Guest:Yeah, you'll notice.

01:12:01Guest:You know, that'd be a challenge, but I'd like to get a role.

01:12:06Guest:I'd like to play a role, a Chinese guy, which actually I did in a movie with Burt Reynolds.

01:12:12Guest:You did?

01:12:12Guest:Yeah, a very forgettable movie called...

01:12:14Guest:About volleyball team.

01:12:16Guest:I don't even know if it got released.

01:12:18Guest:But I would like to play someone that's not Latino.

01:12:23Guest:That would be the name of the movie.

01:12:24Guest:Yeah, not Latino.

01:12:25Guest:Rodriguez is not the Latino guy.

01:12:26Guest:That's a showcase for you.

01:12:26Guest:Actually, I played Pacheco, but he was Latino, but not really.

01:12:31Guest:Dr. Freddy Pacheco and Ali.

01:12:33Guest:Yeah.

01:12:33Guest:A lot of makeup and stuff.

01:12:35Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:12:36Guest:And...

01:12:36Guest:I've been very fortunate.

01:12:38Guest:I'm not going to win no Oscar.

01:12:40Guest:There's no danger of that.

01:12:41Guest:But I've done quite a few films that I got to meet a lot of people, you know?

01:12:44Marc:Yeah, it seems like you had a good career overall.

01:12:47Guest:You know, the pool's in, the patio's dry.

01:12:49Guest:Yeah.

01:12:50Guest:But I'm one of those guys that, you know, I never really hit, but I never went away.

01:12:54Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:12:55Guest:That's all right.

01:12:56Guest:It's good.

01:12:57Guest:Yeah, because you're still alive and you didn't have to deal with all that pressure.

01:13:01Guest:And there's no sexual harassment.

01:13:03Guest:There's no women coming out going, he fingered me without my permission.

01:13:06Guest:I did figure somebody, but I had to pay.

01:13:10Guest:I did the old-fashioned way.

01:13:11Guest:I paid for it.

01:13:14Marc:All right, man.

01:13:14Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.

01:13:15Marc:Thanks, man.

01:13:16Marc:Thanks for this opportunity.

01:13:17Marc:Yeah, and try not to die in the jungle.

01:13:20Marc:I think your kid's right.

01:13:23Guest:I think I'm going to travel, and then if I can remember what I did, I'll write a road story or something.

01:13:31Marc:Great.

01:13:31Marc:Thanks, Paul.

01:13:32Guest:Thank you.

01:13:34Thank you.

01:13:37Marc:All right, so that was me and Paul.

01:13:40Marc:Seems like an okay fella.

01:13:41Marc:Paul Rodriguez of The Hero and Wow is available to stream now on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and most on-demand platforms.

01:13:48Marc:Dig it.

01:13:48Marc:Folks, I'm ready to get home.

01:13:49Marc:And when I get home, I'll tell you what I did here.

01:13:52Marc:Boomer lives!

01:14:07Boomer lives!

Episode 918 - ​Paul Rodriguez

Episode 918 - Paul Rodriguez