Slam Dunking In The Pop-A-Shot

Drake Witham guides ups on a hilarious journey through his progression

from a young Bob Woodward, to the headlining musical act at one of Beverly Hills most exclusive restaurants. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I'm recording. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. This is uh Drake with him. As you know, I'm Lawrence Thomas, and this is the Overserved Podcast. It's a bartender's podcast. Talk to comics who've been in the service industry, and you know, it's just a jumping off point, really.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Good to see you. I've been all those things. Service industry, comedian.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

So uh what uh first of all, I'll give a little background. We were just talking. You're getting ready to leave tomorrow for the East Coast.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I'm going to the East Coast. I grew up in the DC area, so I'll go see my mother uh with my family for about four days, and then we're gonna go up to Maine, which is where my father's from, and my cousin is a lobsterman. Uh uncles that are lobstermen that are still doing it in their 80s. And it's a tough industry, but uh did you ever do ever do the lobster thing? No, most I did was just take it take it, you know, go on go out of the boat.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Go on the boat. They use you for chum.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Not yet, not yet. But you but you get you can't turn your back. You never know. And then you went to uh you went to Washington. Went to University of Washington, Seattle. That's where my dad uh lived. He lived out in Seattle, so I had Seattle connections from the time I was eight. My parents split up. And my older brother and I would go out to Seattle, spend the summers out there. Um, and then when it came time to go to college, I wanted to get out of the South. I mean, I grew up in DC, but it's right on the edge there. Right, yeah. So you go a little further south, you start getting into the rebel flags.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Well, the uh the uh they think they're in the south, but I think like most southern people are like, eh, it's not a way in the south.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

But I was doing it, here's a say that it's it was the capital of the South. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Well, that's true. That's but it just DC doesn't feel like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, it doesn't, that's what I'm saying. You go like 20 minutes out. We played against teams in high school that were the rebels.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

That were had the rebel flags on the city. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, I mean, that was so yeah, that was that was in Louisville, too. I was doing a gig. I this is a true story. I did a gig in uh and uh was it Springfield, a Gaylax? I can't, not a Gaylax, it was up north, it was like and uh this guy came up to me after the show and he goes, uh, hey man, uh I enjoyed your show. And thanks for not making fun of the southern people, and we appreciate your help in the war. And I was like, are we talking about the Civil War? He goes, Yes. He goes, Y'all were a non-committal state over there in Kentucky, but uh you sent a lot of boys over on the way over. Appreciate it. I was like, I don't know, like 130 years ago or something, you know. It's kind of crazy, but uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So then you at Washington I didn't realize Kentucky was a non-committal state just I'm reading this book on the history of the Klan, and I talked about Kentucky and it not being uh Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

But as a matter of fact, do you remember Tori and Hughes, T. S. Hughes? Uh uh. He's a great comic. And he had a bit, he goes, basically, Kentucky was a non-committal state, which means you know we don't want slavery, but somebody's gotta pick the damn cock, you know. So yeah, we were kind of wimps, and you know, but uh yeah, so we didn't we didn't do any of that. I mean we did plenty of that, of course. Sure, sure. It wasn't official, so yeah. That's uh well that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

And then you moved to Washington and went to school in Seattle, and then I was in newspapers for many years. Uh Dallas Morning News, Providence Journal, that's where I got my start. So I was in Rhode Island, I was all over the place, and uh did that. But along the way, I worked a lot of jobs, including, you know, Seattle, you have to be a barista at some point. So I I did that.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So now the barista, did you do it, were you like at the original Starbucks?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

No, no, Starbucks was kind of frowned upon in Seattle. It's it was the dorm coffee because I went there in 1990 and it was awful, but you drank it all day because there was no fancy coffee, it was just whatever you got out of like those old things. You go into the dorm and you get it, and it was terrible. And then within like five years it blew up and it was like this elite thing. Oh, you gotta have a Starbucks. Now we now where we are now, where it's all in every corner. Yeah. Still, still not very good coffee.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

So did you become like, are you are you get are you like a coffee snob? Do you like No?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

I will drink gas station coffee and people make fun of me for it, but like I'm not drinking it for the taste. I like the I like the feeling. Yeah, right? Yeah, that's that's why I'm drinking it. Right. Yeah and you can put all the sugar and cream in. I mean, I'll tell I'll have a latte, I love it, you know, and I'll have a spice latte or whatever, all those things. Um, but I go back to my Borise Todays, and someone came in and ordered a double tall, non-fat half calf, and I just wanted a bunch of commit or don't, the half calf. The half calf you're just making me go into two different places.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Just drink less of it. Yes. Just have a smaller cup. Sure. Yeah, I don't know, man. I uh I didn't even drink coffee until I moved to California. Okay. I mean, I was 40, almost 40. I mean, I mean, my parents, there was always a cup, a pot of coffee, like the percolator. You know, we actually had the big one with the thing on it, and they drank coffee all day in the middle of the summer. And my dad would be like, oh, if you're warm on the inside, you're cooler on the outside. I'm like, you're just an addict.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Oh, we didn't know that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

You know. But uh, and then I was, you know, I drank for a couple of like all-nighters when I was in college. Yeah. I had to, you know, uh study all night. And you know, I did, but I didn't like it. And then when I came out here, started hanging out in coffee clubs and stuff. I mean, in coffee shops doing comedy, I started drinking coffee. Now I I crush it all day long. Yes, yeah. It's like, you know, which it can't be great for you, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I don't know, but there's there's so many things that seem to be worse. You know, yeah. Part of the reason I drank coffee is because I was not handling the uh booze well. I mean, I was too good at it. You know the story, it's a common story, but like I I uh finally had to retire at the age of 21 in Seattle. 21, man. 21. I had just gotten. I started drinking when I was probably 14, right? Like most of us. I mean, you grew up uh dipping and drinking all through high school. I mean, remember the high schools that we go to, no spitting, something in the waffle, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

And so is that much? And you're inside the beltway?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right in DC. But that's what I'm saying. It's not that far. Right. We're playing teams called the Rebels, and you know, it's a southern culture, um, and uh drinking and all that, and then by the time I was 21, turned 21, got kicked out of three bars. You'd you'd have loved me, but just amateur guy. Oh, absolutely. Climbing into the Papa Shot and dunking all that, and just out of control. And then um, we were on our way back from a party that we'd gotten thrown out of, and we're walking back, and there was a YMCA, and everyone else just walked by, and I remember climbing up the letters, YMCA, onto the roof of this building, not a tall building, and everyone followed me up, and we're up there and just kind of looking at Seattle, and then that wasn't enough. And there was a flagpole six feet away. And I dove out, caught the pole, and the pole snapped, and I went down 25 feet and landed right on the, I don't know if you can see that, but right on the edge is where my neck hit. So I broke three vertebrae here, and then three in my lower back. Jesus. And uh they all snapped, all six vertebrae I broke, all popped. And if they'd broken like that, then it would have interrupt, I would have been paralyzed. And so the police were already on the way because someone had called and said there's some idiots up on the roof here in the YMCA, and and uh so uh that was kind of it. I had to retire after that. But I was in a body brace for uh uh six months and hospital for a month, and damn, you know, yeah, it was rough.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Yeah, that's the hard you got the best drug story of anybody I've had on the podcast. Oh yeah, you want to know you want to hear something? You listen to drink.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Of course, right? I mean, I I also at the at the prom, this is warning sign, I I went down and uh did the worm and didn't get up. Just stayed down. And the next thing I know, I got the uh the principal and the school cop there who both knew me well. And there's they got me sitting at the table and they said, Son, have you been drinking? And I said to the wrong guy, the principal's name was Durso, and the cop's name was Sholmes in the right here. And I looked at Durso and I said, Sholms, are we allowed to curse on this thing? Yeah, I say, Shoams. He said, Son, have you been drinking? I was like, Sholms, I'm so fucking good. Sholmes. Sholms over here. I'm talking to Dirso. I called him Sholmes. That was it. My buddy was trying to help me out to say, hey, it's just the prom, he's having fun. He bailed on it. And then my parents had to come pick me up from the prom. We had a nice hotel. I mean, I was all set up and woke up in my own bed in the tux, still couldn't even take me out of the tux. Tie still on. And just knowing this is not how the night was supposed to end. Oh, no, no. So anyway, that was my you know, several wake-up calls along the way, and still not fully heeding the message, right? This didn't apply to me.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

I like the worm though, man. I was that was my deal in in uh at weddings. I would do a handstand into the split. No, I'd do the worm and end up in the splits. And I was, you know, 280. You know, my the last time I did it was at my buddy Duke's wedding. His best friend came in and he goes, What's your wedding move? I go, Well, I do the worm and I'd do a handstand into the worm and into the splits. He goes, I always empty the centerpiece and drink beer out of the centerpiece.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Everybody's got a wedding move, man. I would do the the, you know, grab the leg, kick it back and forth, do that, and then I would come in to jump over the leg. Oh that physical comedy. Saw a guy do that, and uh I tried, I officiated a wedding uh two weeks ago and went to do that move and was like, I don't have I don't have it anymore. That's that's a young man's game.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

When did you graduate from high school? 1990. 90. Yeah. So you're 10 years younger than me. So you're 54. Yeah, that turned I turned 64 in December. Okay. But we both look good. Yeah, man. You got plenty of hair. I got plenty of hair.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

So bless you.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

I got plenty of extra. Yeah. Extra going on. So then you just stayed in in uh in Seattle. So I was in Seattle, but then I was in the newspaper business.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So I went to you had to get uh internships. I went all over the country. I worked at newspapers all over the place. Went to a place called Night Ridder in D.C. They were kind of like an AP, like a new service, and they fed all the papers. So I was in D.C. doing that for three months.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Um just like writing headlines and and bylaws.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

So I started out in college. I was like a sports writer, and I got a little bored with that. So then I became the editor of the student paper, 30,000 circulation. So it was you know, a decent sized paper. And then I was working for Seattle Times, Seattle PI, writing for them. And then I got a job working at a place called the Chronicle of Higher Education. The newspaper in DC that just did nothing but cover academic institutions, which was going great. So my name appeared in their issue right before. They'd just give me the internship. The next week, I got caught sneaking a recording device into a uh a private meeting. What did they call it? Executive session? Executive session. They were trying to find a new president for the university, and I'm covering the story and I'm on it, right? And I'm talking to people and all this, and they'd go to the meetings and they kick them out. I'm tired of getting kicked out. And they were doing stuff, like turning back the fax machine. They had to give us 24 hours notice. So they would turn it back, and they we a meeting is starting at five minutes. But they had it dated the day before, so they could say, now we gave you 24 hours notice. So you're running over there. So I was like, whatever. So I slipped a recorder into my jacket. I like it. They kick us out. I'm waiting outside the meeting, and then a cop shows up at the back. I was like, that's not good.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

This is like all the president's mentioned. The best for the for the college newspaper digest.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

That's what that's what I was supposed to do. But uh you got, you know, you're not supposed to get caught. Right. So then in the Seattle Times, there's a story with my name, and they call me up and say that police say you intended to. I was like, how do you know what my intentions were? That's the only defendant. So then I gotta go to this other. It's the only internship I had, and they're calling me up, but like, why is your name showing up here? I was like, Well, this is what I did, and you know, they you know, I was able to talk my way out of it. I kept that internship, got to the Baltimore Sun, got to Night Raider, got to Providence Journal, and then ultimately I was at the Dallas Morning News doing nightcops. So police reporter. Oh, really? Listening to scanners, seeing all kinds of murder in Mayhem and all that. But along the way, I'm doing comedy here and there. Right. You know, I did some open mics in Boston and I did some go down to New York. That was a big deal. Go down to New York, do the comedy seller, right? Bringer shows. Not real shows, but like, you know, go down and do them and get a couple people in there and build that set that was pretty good. And then um, as at the morning news, I was like, you know, I'm tired of telling other people's stories. And then, you know, I mean, I was I was okay at it. I wasn't great at it. I was pretty good at it. There was one story about a guy who this isn't really comedy stuff. This guy killed his whole story.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

No, no, no, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Um and I got this story where he had um the what happened? It was um a guy. Oh, we just get a call. There's been there's been a the corners was down there. Part of town where this usually didn't happen, right? So I go down there and all the media is around and all the TV people, and I'm just a news guy, and I'm just standing there, and this woman comes up and asks me if I'm a cop. I said, No. I said, What do you know about it? She's the mother of the woman who's just been killed, along with her two children. She tells me that the dad, who's estranged, on the phone with the wife, he's got uh daughters there, that custody, but they're with him for that time, kills them on the phone, and then tells the wife, I just killed them, shoot them, shoots them, and then runs off into the town. So I get there and I know that part. No one else knows that, but we're able to get the names, we're able to figure out how to get pictures, and then at 2 a.m. they arrest him. He's gone to get two tattoos, Rose tattoos, and then he went into a bar. And so at 2 a.m. I add this other part, and you just keep working and keep working. I go to this bar and I find the people, I talk to the bartender, serve them, and they give a good tip. He's like, it's okay. And then the rose tattoos, and it was weird. And then the um shortly after I moved out here, that guy was, you know, killed. Put to the you know, Texas, so they mess around with that. Yeah, it didn't mess around. Yeah, so not a real not a real light story. That was kind of like the stuff that I was doing. Right. I feel like I mean I always wanted to do comedy, but I love history too, and I love journalism, and um that's why I was more of a writer as a comedian, less of a performer. Right. Like people say, oh, you you you write good jokes, but it's um you know, and it's weird because my dad was a theater guy. Oh, yeah? Yeah, he was a theater professor at the University of Washington, which meant I never went near that building, but didn't get the you didn't get the theater degree. That whole like, you know, like I I was terrible at improv. You know, and and people don't realize this, but comedy and improv are not just different, they're opposites, right? Yes, and and no, but right comedian says no, this is what's wrong, right? Right, right, right. And so I took a couple improv classes because I figured I need to get this performance point out. And it just it just didn't take it. It didn't allow you. I just saw flipping through the channels and I saw my groundlings instructor on TV, and he was there, and this was the guy who had I had I'd taken a couple of these crap classes at the improv at uh groundlings, and I said, um, so what do you think? You think I should continue? His one job. His one job is to yes and me, man, and say, Yes, keep paying us money. We gotta keep the system going. I was like, so what do you think? And he just goes, eh.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

You can't even sell you on an improv classes.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

He's got a guy here. I got my money, I'm ready to pay. You're bringing the rest of the stuff. Who loves it? This guy named Steve Little. Steve, I think I know Steve. Steve Little, and I saw him in, you know, he'd be in shows. You know what he was in? He was in Eastbound and Down later. Okay. And then I just saw him on St. Denis. St. I don't know how to say it. It's a it's a David Allen Greer show. It's a hospital show. Oh, okay, yeah. St. Denis. It's D E N I S. St. Denis. I don't know how to say it. But I'm looking through it, and I'm just flipping through the channels like no one does anymore. I still love old school TV cable, right? I go through it. And uh I said, I'm like, who is this guy? And then I recognized him. I looked him up and it was saying, I texted all my buddies and they were just I took I took a bringing.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Uh which is the McCarthy? Uh the the one that was in uh not the one that's uh anti-vaxxer, the her cousin, the Jane McCarthy? Oh Melissa, Melissa McCarthy. Melissa McCarthy. I took it from her. She was around. I took her from her. No, no, no. I had her husband. Okay. Uh, who I've seen on stuff. He's a great guy. Nice guy. He was like my level two guy.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Yeah, yeah. But he sh he shows up in a lot of the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah, he's always on something. Yeah. Uh and uh you know Johnny Beener? You know, yeah, yeah. Scott Beener, his brother's a was an instructor there, I think. Oh, I didn't know that. He's a grammar, yeah, man. Yeah. But uh I was always on the edge of being good, but then, you know, it's just like it's a totally different thing. It's a different bubble. But I think it does help with your acting, you know. Absolutely and it helps you with, you know, being on stage and being I was always in and out of the audience. Like people would go, what are you gonna end on? And I'm not saying I was, you know, but I would use the audience to get into other bits a lot. I would talk to the audience a lot. And somebody go, What do you end on? I don't know. If I've sold my t-shirt, stay close to the stage. You know, uh, but yeah, but but and I think I don't know. I mean, you just said what you were just saying. To me, I was always jealous of guys like you. That was just, you know, the jokes were so precise and they were, you know, uh, and then I had a couple of them go, oh, I wish, you know, I wish I could be like you, you know, out there on the on the wire and all that stuff. So I think that, you know, those are the two levels in comedy that, you know, and you know, there's shades of gray and all that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

But it's classic grass is greener than that, right? And you do try to work on it. So I remember when we would go overseas and they would have me open up, but I would just try to just talk to everybody and keep the crowd. Because it was these shows were so bizarre, right? You'd be in a helicopter hangar and like, hey, these are the pilots, they haven't had to see a show. And like, all right, everyone get the circle and we'll just do a show. And I get up and just start talking to people, which wasn't really my thing, but as I I got better at it, you know, I could do it and then set it up, and then other guys could just come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when you had when I would do the cruise ships and you got to have those five shows, right? Right? And it's because when you get the gig, they're like, you need a clean one and a and a and an adult one.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And I go up the first night, clean goes great, adult one goes great. I'm like, this is easy, right? The next night I got one clean and two adults. And I started on the clean stuff, nothing, nothing. Like, how many people came to this first show?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Every hand goes up.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

How many people came to the second show? Oh, every hand goes up. And now I gotta do an hour and a half, and they've seen everything I got. So you figure out one, how to write, but also how to just go out there, be on the wire, like you said, and it's it's gonna fall, but then you gotta pull it back down. Sometimes you did, sometimes I was talking to the other day about my worst shows. So I didn't one was on a cruise ship where they had seen everything I had, and you're also down, right? Once your confidence gets changed, you don't have everything and they are walking out. And I said something like it someone call a bandit ship. You know, something like that. That many people are like, ah, just eating the like I hid in my room for two days.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

You got I mean, on a cruise ship, you can't you've gotta stay in your room. Where are you gonna go?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Well, I mean, no, because I would go, I'm gonna go get all the free food and all that.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

No, but I mean, if you if you tank it, I mean you'd have to hide. I mean, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It's terrible. It's it's so I did, and just that feeling doesn't go.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

And then you're in a room. I mean, they're not giving you the room with the balcony and the whistle. I see.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

That room was crammed up near the front, so it might have had a little window, but it also had a pole beam. And um, yeah, it was it was it was not good. And but then you you figure I had a couple, like you gotta do it, you gotta show up and do the job. Um, and then the other worst one I had was uh it was at a restaurant and you know Wolfgang Puck. Yeah, so I used to do catering for him. You come to LA, you do whatever you can, right? Whatever job. And so he had this woman named Bella, this Russian woman, and she would grab people and we cater, right? And I was okay at it. I mean, I get in trouble sometimes. The chefs don't like it. If they prepare something and it's bringing a plate out if you just do one of the just fall like an hungry, man of a comic. It's like a thing for that, right? So I'm doing that, and Bella also runs the restaurant, right? And so she's looking for a Halloween show. I'm like, I can do that, I don't do a show. She's like, but I don't want just straight stand-up. So already it's it's terrible, right? I don't want straight stand-up. We've all done the bar gig where people are like, Well, what's going on? There's a show, right? The T, you know, the pool table's gonna close down and turn off hopefully. This is a this is a fancy restaurant, and all of a sudden I said, Okay, well, we're gonna do inside the monster studio. And I'll bring my wife up, and I had just come off the road. So this is like beyond the days of like I don't have an act. Right. Right? I'd done some TV at this point. I, you know, I had I had an act, I was fine, right? But she didn't want that. So um I bring it back. Bring my wife along. I dress up like Dracula. There you go. We'll do inside the monster studio. So I got a couple things written out, but I had just gotten back from this tour of military bases in Europe. Right off the plane, exhausted. Walk in. My wife picks me up at the airport and we go straight to the game, right? Okay, we're gonna do inside the monster studio. We need to do 20 minutes every hour for three hours, right? Oh my god. So we go up, we do 20 minutes. And it's not good. It's awful. It's people that look at they're like, what? It's just not good, right? Then you have 40. So usually you bomb and then you go hide in your room for three minutes, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Or the or your damn berth and the cruise ship.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Right. So I couldn't do that. And I'm now I have to share it with my wife. So we're sitting there, I'm like, now we got 40 minutes to think about it, then we gotta go back and do it again. So that feeling in your stomach, just that awful feeling's there. And so then I come back with and I'm like, I'll just do my act, right? I'll have her bring me up and I'll do my act for 20 minutes. They're not in time. These people are eating at Wolfgang pux. They're spending like hundreds and hundreds. They're not um then we gotta do a third one. And Bella comes back and says, uh, well, maybe uh maybe a song.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Maybe a song.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Maybe you got that? Bella knows entertainment, she sing shows sometimes a little song and dance numbers. Maybe that'll and for some reason uh I'd already eaten it doing my idea. I'd already eaten it doing like my act. So I said yeah. So uh we come out. What hold on a second? Are you a singer? No! I can't sing at all. Take a little second, like a karaoke, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

And there's no accompaniment, so just I'm going out.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Just flat a cappella, just be bad acapella. That's what bad improv, man. Oh no, Western Bay that serves a hundred ships that I did the whole song.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

You did brain.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

You butchered one of the great one-hit wonders. That's what I do. Now you gotta do the ones you know, man. Yeah, that's all I could do. So uh you had a microphone. Please tell me you had a microphone. I think there was a mic at least. You're not just it's like a mic that's attached to the thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Enough of a stage, like you wouldn't be injured if you fell off of it, but they were still like, okay, this is a clear area. Oh my god, I'm crying. And and then people that are in the kitchen that who cater with me are coming out because they want to see, right? Some of them are the chefs that are eating their food and corporate and they come out and they just see them walk. Let's do a song, man. That's how about a how about a song, she said.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Like what why would I do that?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah. I'm okay. Well, I mean, by that time you're so beat up that you're gonna go do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

And it's like you have to do the gig, right? You gotta do the time to get the check. And I think it was a decent gig. Yeah, but Wolfgang Bunker had to be a good check. But it was like 750 bucks, and then we were gonna get uh I think 250 in credits.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Right, right. We did. And you got the you didn't get one. We didn't ever during that place again. No mashed potatoes. No. Didn't even whatever food we had there, we didn't. But you've got a good tape. Right, right. Do you say? Well, let me show you that.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

It was, it was like uh, you know, that that uh America's got town, right? Right. It's the opening rally, these are the obvious people that aren't gonna get that's that is so funny. I still remember a guy, and that's like kind of where I'm I started to really rely on crowd work. And I do remember a guy, because I did jokes about being a temp. Right. And this guy just goes, We're not temps.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

All right, there you go. Oh my god, that's hilarious. Uh and now you teach? Yeah, so I was uh How'd you make that change? Was that a hard change?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Was that just a temp thing at first? No, I never wanted to be a teacher. And my wife, who is a teacher and loves teaching, is like thinking about lesson plans and all that, the way we would think about bids. So that'd be a good bit. Or does anyone do that bit or teacher? It doesn't matter. Someone else does it, you can take it and do it. She's thinking about uh that all the time. And I just needed a job.

unknown 26:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I say, I was not about options. Right. So I'll I'll become a bartender. Yeah. I mean, I had done these different things, and then I got a job working at uh so I was on the cruise ships, starting to have kids, wasn't you know, one going great. Right. And um the gigs I was getting, I was made, I was middling. Yeah, you know, I mean I had TV spots, but like you said, what am I gonna end on? I was like, uh, I'm still trying to I'm 20 years in, I'm still trying to figure out what that closer is. Right. That's huge, huge thing. I mean, I can clever, clever, clever, clever. I can do a TV set, but like what's the big bang at the end? That's what I didn't have. And um brandy. Yeah, right, right. Driven people away from comedy. It's like one of those shows like these people, you're never gonna see comedy again anywhere. Um, but um, I got a job. Uh, an old newspaper friend of mine got me a job at uh Time Warner is now Spectrum, the Lakers and the Dodgers Channel. So I got that job for two years, and it was great making documentaries on old Lakers stories, uh the Lakers plane crash in 1960. Most people don't know anything about it, but the whole franchise almost went down. And I tracked down the pilot who was 94 in a nursing home in Minneapolis. And just had to hire some. We got we got uh there was a kid who was on the plane, his dad was the coach, Hall of Famer Jim Pollard. The dad was had passed, but the son, it was his first flight ever, and I had to track him down. He's a chiropractor in Tennessee. I'm like, well, I gotta we gotta get this guy, right? So I call a wedding photographer. I'm like, you got video stuff. He's like, yeah, it'll be $2,000. What are you doing on Tuesday? You don't have any weddings off Tuesday, right? I got $200 for it. So, like that kind of stuff, just putting it together and and we put out good stuff. And um then they just cut it. Just came in one day because they bought the Dodgers TV rights for two billion. They could have bought the teens, they were billions, but they bought the TV rights for two. So they were struggling for a while. I mean, there's they're obviously still around, so it's all right. But that whole thing, so we I got cut out cut out, we got about 50 of us got laid off, and I looked around and didn't have anything. So my wife told me about this teaching program. We can go for the summer and then you go to classes for two years, and you get a job immediately, and then at the end of that, then you're a teacher. All right. So now I've been a teacher for 10 years and I'm the head of the teachers' union at Venice High School. Oh really? Yeah. Three uh hundred and thirty-nine members, and you know that's what I'm doing. Special ed teacher. There you go. Now, do the uh as the union rep, do you like do you have to go talk to the it's it's dealing with 139 different small fires all the time, whatever the issue is. And do you get paid more? No, you they give you one extra period off. Oh you teach one fewer class, one last time do your business in there. And then during that time you're calling and checking in with teachers and this and trying to get people signed up. So I got everybody signed up except for one guy. Working on that one guy for a while. Oh, what didn't you do? I don't know. You take you're taking all the benefits, right? Right, yeah. I'm not doing that. Yeah, I got then, you know, so I answer all those points, but anyway, it's it's just an ongoing thing. But overall, it's a lot of like stuff where it just gets you infuriated, and then the next day you can't even remember what it's about.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah. When I lived out here the first time, I lived out here in 86, 87. Okay. They were shooting the original Masters of the Universe, and they landed Skeletor's ship in the parking lot at Venice High School.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Oh, no way, I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

We got a ton of stuff there. We went and saw it that night. We're like, you know, this crane lower now. It was pretty cool, you know. Okay. I was this idiot, you know, young kid trying to break into the film business working as a chef at the hard drop cafe back then. Okay. But I lived right in Venice.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

So you were checking it out or you doing extra work?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

No, no, we just went rode up there and checked it out. Okay. No, I hadn't, I I didn't even know about extra work. I was out here for like a year and a half. Yeah. And, you know, I was cutting my, I'm gonna be a film guy, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then you know, I like gripped on one or two things. I didn't know anybody except the chick I moved in with, ended up being a chef at the Hard Rock Cafe. Back when it was like I met Mark Mothersbaum from uh from uh from Devo, and we had the party for Amnesty International. I mean, every, you know, I met John Matuzak. I met, you know, it was just crazy at the people that were in that place. When I was working there, it was the busiest place in California, man. There was a liner out the door one way for food and the other day for merchandise, other way for merchandise. Right. It was great. But I was just, you know. You were the main chef? No, no, no. I was a chef. They called, I was a fry cook. Okay. Basically, they called a chef. So I was cooking burgers and salads, and you know, I mean, we made like steaks and that back then was swordfish, was the biggest thing in the world. I don't know why. Swordfish. Whatever happened to swordfish, but I heard somebody order it for the first time in years the other night. It was like, but like, I was like, you know, swordfish, nobody orders swordfish anymore, but it was huge, man. Yeah, yeah. And it was just, yeah, it was great. Like all our waitresses were dating, you know, Brad Pack guys. Okay. Charlie Sexton was hanging out. Where was that?

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Where was this one?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Where was our it was right uh right in the corner of the Beverly Center. Had the Cadillac sticking out of it. All right, uh, right across the street was Cedar Sinai. Okay. And uh yeah, this was 86, man. Okay. And uh then I got the uh but my buddy had said, hey, we need an assistive editor in Nashville. So then I moved to Nashville and was making country music videos, and then four years later I quit my job and went on the road for 20 years, and now I'm back in the restaurant business, you know. So I don't know if I'm enunciating very well for this one microphone show. I realized I was doing that large, you know, starting to get the thick southern right?

SPEAKER_01 32:32

No, it happens, and I it's probably rubbing off on me too.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

So let's enunciate.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

I get told I mumble and left.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Oh, my ex-wife is deaf and you know, not completely deaf, but yeah, bad of hearing. What why why did I have to, you know. So I've you forget about that. Yeah, attractive. But you think as a comedian, you make your life rather than performing for some of the years, you speak up. But anyway. So now the uh to the sports reporting. Well, first can I go back to the the night? How many did you see a lot of dead bodies? Did you see murder victims when you were that night?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Yeah, you could see like because you'd go out on pretty much any homicide, and sometimes they were in the street, so you'd see him. Um I remember uh a bus had hit a guy. Oh good lord. And it was just shoulders down. I mean, it had been a you know, and that was like, you know, that's probably like a thing this long, you know. 44-year-old man, everybody, you know, whatever it was. Um but on things that were big, you know, oftentimes that meant if it was in a white neighborhood, or it wasn't usually happened, then it became a bigger thing. And there were, you know, there were murders. Um you'd go out and you just know there was something, and it ended up being a suicide. And unless it was a prominent person, you didn't do as much with that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Um I just keep thinking about the television show The Night Stalker with Kolchak. Did you ever see that? Uh uh uh Oh my god, it's the greatest. It was like it was kind of the X-Files before the X-Files. You know, the dad on A Christmas Story, Darren McGavin, right? He's he's like the night crime reporter, and he's running into vampires and mummies. It was phenomenal. I loved it. It was like 1974 or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Probably I think it started off as uh as one of those ABC Saturday night movies, and then they then they turned it into this. We got it. We like this, and it was phenomenal. I loved it as a kid. Yeah, I could just imagine you out there fighting vampires and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would um it was in the old Dallas police station. So at night, they walk, you know, first of all, you'd walk over the spot where Oswald got shot. Right. Yeah, you'd drive down those two ramps and you'd walk right over. That was the spot, and then they took me up to the cell where they held him because the jailhouse used to be right on the roof. And so you'd go in there, and it was you know, it was a little creepy. It was all like filing now. They had like just it was all they didn't put prisoners in there anymore. It was just like an old filing system. But there was this one padded cell, and they said that's where they kept them. Uh huh. I don't know, but it was, yeah, it was a weird thing. And that's I mean, that's basically all Dallas is, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

That's that's all I've got. Sorry if you're Dallas. Sorry about that old tradition of the Dallas Cowboys.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

No, you come down, you see, like, you know, uh, I mean it was, it was America's team, and then you get to tell it's like, oh, it's the Steele Plaza, right? Right. We'll go down and see that. Yeah, you can take tours, you could actually get in the car and drive the route. Really? A car that was similar, yeah. And I did that tour too. I mean, it's you go up and you see it out there.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

The bunk depositors depositors.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Oh man, that that's uh I have you been have you ever did you in your youth when you were yelling at your trunk and like yelling at your teachers and going and breaking your neck, did you ever go to jail?

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I did. I did. I went to jail in Seattle. Um I went to a frat party, and I had an I had a some relative that was uh, I don't know, some kind of officer in one of the frats. So we got us invited, me and this other buddy. We didn't really have any interest in the frats. Yeah. But we wanted to drink. Right. We went there and we drank, and we were just kind of joking around, and then someone said the cops are outside. And to most people, that meant go this way, and I went right to it, you know. And I walked up and I'm just kind of and I'm sort of like heckling the cops a little bit, you know, just find out. Yeah, right. It's always good. Makes sense. Yeah. Something, you know, a couple comments. As much as you climb on a flank bowl on top of a 25-foot building. Just poor decision making, right? And um, I something about winchels, I don't know, and then um I'm walking away and I was like, all right, I'm out of here. And there was a trunk of one of the squad cars, it was open, and I just kind of flicked it, and it went up and bounced like this, and I'm walking away, and the next thing I know, it's like just that hand. Oh my hand pulling me back. I had a big old dip in, and the guys put me in the back of the car. I'm like, you know, I'm there and I'm trying to like spit, but I don't want to spit in the car. I'm trying to talk my way out of it at the same time, what's gonna happen? And then I get down there to the King County Police Station, downtown Seattle, and then it just kicked right back into just being a, you know, being an asshole. Oh, I'll book them down over.

unknown 37:16

Stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

I'm sure they saw it every weekend. Oh, yeah, man. And then I wake up Sunday morning in a cell, and what you learn when you first come out to the West Coast is the NFL games are on 9 a.m. So I wake up and like the games are on, like, all right, this isn't too bad. I mean, it's a cement slab, it ain't great, but it's better than you know. And pretty much that lasts about five minutes, and then they put me in the holding cell. I guess since I was kind of asleep past that, they didn't want to just put me, but then you're just in with like all the all-stars. I still remember this guy who had jeans that were all torn up in blood. Like, I don't think that's gonna pass like standards now. They'd been attacked by police dogs, he said, in some in some trumped up charges. It was they're always trumped up. And there was one little toilet over in the corner with a little half wall in front of it, and you there was a few benches, but mainly you were just getting floor spaces. Yeah. And just sitting there, just keeping quiet, and just and uh call my dad. My you know, I had hello dad, I'm in jail. Did you ever see that short? That's a great short, really. Hello dad, I'm in jail, and it's like a song, and they just keep anyway. I had to make that call. He made some calls, I was able to get out, and you know, but like that was you know, one of linking along with the prom and all that, just several wake-up calls, but still had to go out and do a little more research before breaking the neck.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Yeah, and no one else. How's the last time I was in jail? I was here, man, at the beach. It was like I just booked a booked a gig, man, like an acting gig. I'm at the bar and I'm walking, I come out of the bar, I'm carrying a motor scooter helmet because I'm even though I live six blocks away, yeah. I was late for work, and I drove the motor scooter to the parking structure, which is two blocks away. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. And it's like 1 30 in the morning, and uh, and um I'm carrying a pie. That's how I remember because buying a helmet? Those two things. That's the man. And so the uh uh the girl across that used to run the bakery right up the street. Yeah, I heard you got a gig. I heard you booked an acting gig. Yeah, she baked me this pie. Okay, and so I've carrying a pie and a thing. And it's 1:30 in the morning. And I step down, you know, just walk and I step down, put one foot in the street, and then I realized, oh, the light's not changed yet, and there's a car sitting over there out, you know. So I get back up on the thing, on the curb, and the cop pulls up and woo! It starts. He goes, What are you doing, man? I go, nothing. I just stepped down into the street, and then I had stepped up. I go, I did, you know, I didn't cross. What do you and he just starts? Yes, yeah, you know, how many you know how many people I've seen almost lose their lives? I go, really none, I don't think. I don't think you ever saw anybody do that. And then it was just, and it just built and built and built, and it was just, look, man, I didn't do shit. You know, and I was sober. And it's it's the anger thing. I was like, I don't give a fuck, you know, and shit like that. And about these two times this uh we it was really getting heated. He uh these two black girls are walking across the street to go to Sharki's. Like they had I was like, y'all aren't anybody to make it. I mean, it was that late at night. And I just heard one of them going, that white boy going to jail. And finally he just had enough, and he just I wouldn't give him my wallet. I was I'd watched some of that shit on TV. I didn't do anything, man. What am I being arrested for? And he just had nothing, he didn't care, he just reached in my back pocket, pulled my wallet out of my back. I'm like, hey, that's gotta be illegal, you know. And and they just put me in handcuffs and took me downtown. And I will say this, they were pretty cool about it. They were like, they put me uh like he goes, give me a second hand set of handcuffs, you know, this guy's big, you know, and so they did that. And when he got in the current goes, man, what's wrong with you? He goes, I gave you so many change. And he did, I he kept going, you know, and I was not, I was not having him like I was just my brain gets locked in that conflict, you know. Are you Irish? Yeah, Irish, Welsh, Scottish.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Yeah, and it was just and like the big deal.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Okay, we're gonna fight about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Right, yeah, yeah, exactly. I could have just gone, okay. I think the one this young cop came up and he kept going, what kind of pie is that? I go, no fucking dungeon. And then it turned into this thing about the pie, and I was just getting furious. I go, fuck the pie, man. I don't care about the fucking pie. I think it looks pretty good. Somebody spent a lot of time on the pie. Oh my god. And then when they put me in the handcuffs, he's like, What should I do with the pie sauce? I was just like, oh, god damn it. But they took me in and I and they like when we're walking in. He goes, You got any weed or anything in your pocket? I go, No, motherfucker, I don't have weed. I've gone the bartender though bees. I was at work, you know, blah, blah. He goes, hey man, I'm just asking so we can throw it in the bush, because if you carry it in there, you're in trouble if you're not in something. Then you're like, uh, you know, and I was like, okay, so then, you know, they take your belt away. I'm gonna kill myself. Yes. Where's the box? Yeah, that was the last time I went to you.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

But that part of your brain kicks in and says, I have to have this argument, right? Uh oh, yeah. And I think that's one thing I always have. It's like once they, you know, I was a great apologizer from a young age. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Just back right out of it, right? I'm not sure. I got none of that, man.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

I got no, it's just yeah, and then if they have a badge, my my dad uh taught me it's like the it's the librarian rule, right? In that scenario, they've got all the power. Uh that can go in your way. The librarian rule. If they're in their place, they're in their office, right? You're not gonna go and say, hey, can I do no, no, no? Shh, pay your late fees. That's it. Just shut up and listen to them. They're the boss right there. And then later, then you bitch about it.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, see, that you you'd think I would know that I've I've got the bartender rule. Right? But I think I don't care, you have no say here. This is my world, right? I'm in charge of this world. Which I've never understood um about the people who who go crazy on a plane, man. Or post office.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

But I'd love to go to a post office. Sir, sir, do not reach across this counter. I turn into like an assistant manager at the post office. I kind of like it. Maybe a problem. But I go there with my wife, and she's always Like what what in what would be the problem with just this bang? Here we go. Like almost like a bang, and it's got this stick and that we're doing that, and I'll reach across scraps and sir, can I reach for the tape sure? And then I turn in the middle and I start telling other people like guys, don't reach across for the tape.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Oh my god. That's great. Oh my God. Yeah. The post office and I was my daughter would always be playing with shit and stuff. They love that. You've got a kid. They were like, you know, but some of them. She's getting the wrong. I got I got no fight with the postman. Our postman. I didn't really get in a fight. I was like, I misplaced everything. And I had this new 49er hat. And he'd come up wearing a brand new 49er hat, man. And I was like, where's my 49er hat? I think it's still mad. I think I left it on the porch. And that fucked it. Because I'd been looking for it for three days. And Duke is like, man, he didn't stick your hat. I go, it looks just like it. He goes, 49er hats throughout the world. And uh and he was a nice guy, super nice guy. I'd always kind of loved him. But where do you get that hat? Oh man, I thought the porch and he found it. And I was just like, then I found it. Just right in with another hat? Who do you think? Who the hell do you think you are, man? I was a 49er fan. Before Joe Mike. Oh yeah, the uh I, you know, that old people. Look, I'm gonna no no no no no no. No, no, no. Yeah, so you get it on the other end of it. Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm told. I had this girl that's uh she used to have this, she's totally not age appropriate. She's this young girl that this is married, she goes, but God in COVID, I would call to order a hamburger, and you would be so strict with me on the 12th that I was like, had this big crush on you. Yes, I was got daddy. I'd be like, come on, I'm busy, I got nine tables outside. It's COVID, there's a goddamn pandemic. Order your hamburger. She'd be like, Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

That's it. That's the post office thing. Like it's that Danny issues, but like this part of me, like, I want to be told what to do. I need a job.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Yeah, there you go, man. Oh, yeah, that's funny, man. Uh so you didn't never seen Colts. This is great.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

So what's happening with uh football this year?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Um, so I am uh I'm not a huge Seahawks fan, but that's my team. Right, right? So like it's I'm a I'm a University of Washington Huskies. Right. I knew you were a Husky.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

You got the best garage in the world.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yeah, yeah, I do, I do. Thank you for that. Um and poker games every month. So you get poker games in there in the garage, the Human Cave. Can't call it the Man Cave, it's the Human Cave modern times, don't try to do it.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Um But does she have a She-Shat?

SPEAKER_01 46:59

No, no, it's the Human Cave. But I go out there and it's it's perfect. Just go out there and watch games, whatever. World Cup now. But uh Seahawks, I was definitely into it, you know, and it's hard to get, you know, I gotta get the old newspaper stuff. It's hard to get the newspapers anymore. I got a friend in Seattle that sends them to me. Newspaper costs like five dollars now.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

I mean, your garage is shrine. Yeah, it's great. That's a great garage into poker and everything.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Um, and so yeah, I got behind them last year and it was good. And then, of course, you know, they're big rivals with the Rams. So I go into school with my students, and I got my Seahawks gear on. I'm able to, you know, brag for that year. You know, we got pulled up a couple lucky plays in there. Um, but yeah, I was able to able to do that. And then, you know, can they go back to back? I don't know. Why not? You know.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Did the uh did it take you a long time, or you uh did you did you used to be a Redskins?

SPEAKER_01 47:53

No, I grew up as a Cowboys fan because this goes to my like in Northern Virginia. Yes, because everyone else was was uh skins or commanders, but you know we always I this this is this is one of my everyone was Redskins fans. Right, yeah. And so I worked at the uh growing up, I was just Cowboys fan because I was you know anti-everything. I love Dorset. You know, the Americas team thing. Yeah, the first Super Bowl I watched was Cowboys Broncos, Cowboys blew them out, you know, just like five. Right. So that was my team through the 80s, and it was good. And I worked at the Washington Post before I was able to write anything, I was what they called a copy age. Right. And you would give people their mail essentially. And then if you were, you know, had a little hustle to you, you could maybe write a story here or there. And sometimes I was in the mailroom downstairs, and they did mail for the whole building, advertising, you know, anyone that's getting mail for anything, and it was a ton of mail coming in. And there was a guy in there who was a Cowboys fan that would heckle all of the Redskins fans, and I would just, it was my favorite thing. He would just say, um, Dexter Manley. And they were all talking about you know, Cowboys skins weeks coming out that they're playing this week, everyone's talking about it. And he was like, uh, who is the only NFL player who has testified before Congress that he cannot read? Washington skins. Man, shut up, and I'm over your diet live. Uh there was a tight end named Jerry Smith. Yeah. And he said, Who is the only who leads who leads the league? That's what I was saying. Who leads the league and NFL players who have died of the AIDS five? Wash the Rand scans. Awful, horrible thing. But just to say it that way, just be so matter of fact about it. And it I just loved it because I saw what he was doing. He's just poking at all these words, bro. I think I learned more from that guy just about how to.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Well, wait a second, wasn't Jerry Smith? Didn't he the guy that missed the No, that was Jackie Smith. Jackie Smith. Okay, yeah, that missed the bounced off the bounced to the worst. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

The sickest man in America.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Yeah. You know, and he had like an all-pro career. Yeah, you know. I uh this is how old I am. The first Super Bowl I watched was the Dallas Cowboys and the Baltimore Colts. Oh, turnover one, it was all cold. Chuck Howley? I I thought was Earl Morrill, the quarterback. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like my buddy Randy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was uh yeah, being from Louisville, man. You know, you and I and Johnny went to Louisville, baby. And I mean my dad was a Colts fan, Randy's dad was a Colts fan. And I remember it was the first time I ever saw anybody cuss about something that was on TV. Randy's dad, I forgot what play it was that Randy's dad went, God damn it! I was like four like, oh the what I barely remember, you know, the game. I just remember, you know, I was on probably a black and white TV this big, you know. Right. Sitting on a Sunday afternoon at Randy Raisle's house watching the Super Bowl, man. That's the first one I remember. Yeah, and that was just like five or six.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Full of turnovers. That was another it could have been any number of places. Yeah, so but uh yeah, so I did that, and then when I was working at the Baltimore Sun, is when the Browns came to Baltimore. So that's a huge thing. There's still there's still a Baltimore Colts marching beat. That team left in what 82 or something like that, middle of the night, you know, many flower truck and all that. And so then they turn around and they steal Cleveland's team. But to the Baltimore, that was huge news. So I did a bunch of those stories about then kind of the history part of it, you know, what the Browns had meant and what it would be in Baltimore.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

So Giver worked slab sticks in Baltimore, it was like in the inner harbor. No, they had there was another one there that maybe it was slab sticks. I worked it. Uh I did one week in there coming off a ship because I got a ship. I don't know if a ship in the ship was. Now, this one, I don't know, I maybe. It was like in the it was in the brokerage, which was like this kind of weird little mall. The UB Blake Museum was in the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

It was near inner harbor and it wasn't right in it.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

When I went, I but I used to, when I was on the road, I would take everything. My ex-wife hated it. I had a damn Volvo wagon. I would take, you know, a hundred CDs and a case, you know, tapes, football, frisbee, you know. I was like, hey, I'm gonna be gone three weeks, man. I'm what I wanna when I want to do something. I had a bike with me on this trip hanging on a rack, and I rode from the inner harbor up to the old stadium.

unknown 52:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

And went in and the gate was open. Yeah, and I went up and I went in and like stood and looked at at words shot of you and all those games. Old Memorial Stadium. Yeah, old Memorial Stadium. Yeah, I went to the state. It was like a it was ghost town already. This was probably I was featuring. Okay. This is probably, you know, 2000. No, no, 90. 91 or two, maybe. Because I quit my day job in ninety.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Because we went to one of the last O's getting in out of the O's. Got that terrible accent. Balmer. Give Balmore, get a glass of water. What? That's kind of so. Um but yeah, I got a little bit of dirt from that old memorial station. Oh, yeah. Like reached over and just grabbed it from the because they knew they were right there.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Camden came in. Which was nice. Yeah, I went to Camden. I played a did I just hit that? Um I've been to Camden. That was cool. Um But I liked uh I'm getting hooked up and stuff. Uh but uh yeah, man, I I liked Baltimore. I had uh uh you know, it was always you know to see the wire, and it's the worst city in the world, you know. But uh We did a wire tour though, we started driving through some of the streets. It's probably not a good idea to drive through, but it was I love that.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

I think the wire, I think the wire might be the best show ever on TV. Season five kind of fell apart a little bit to me. That's where they they have a reporter, right? Maybe planning a story about a murderer, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:20

Some comment from the guy that snuck the recorder.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Right. And it wasn't totally unheard of. I mean, there there have been journalists that have made stuff up, but like, you know, it was a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 54:30

That that third season with the the middle school kids, man, that was all of them, yeah. Yeah, it was unreal, man. Great show. Yeah. Yeah. So now you're doing any comedy?

SPEAKER_01 54:42

I I would say mostly retired. Yeah. Um I did um, you know, I still do the Doug James gigs. Shout out Doug James, though he's a probably a regular listener. Dr. Zayas. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

I haven't done a Doug James game.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

I mean, I haven't done, I'm not doing a lot of gig gigs, but I haven't done one in a in a while, but I did one and we drove down there and he needed me to find somebody to open. Uh a couple people I just grabbed this other guy who would, you know, great improv guy, commercial actor, done all this stuff. And he's writing his stuff on the way down there. So his didn't go great. And then I went up and, you know, I'm like, I'll get these guys back. I'd done this gig a bunch of times, almost going well. Didn't go great. Didn't go great. You know, you made it. And so, you know, but that's you know, it's been a little while, and then sometimes um I will go do a gig. I went up to um Sacramento, I think it was just last year. Uh-huh. We did a weekend there. I was working with cash. So it's, you know, in the middle spot, you know, you can do cover 30 minutes. It's not that's the best spot, man.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Yeah. It's the right chair one. Yeah, yeah. Don't have to open. Don't have to be a good one. No, he said that you know, the New York thing was all was it the New York or the Boston style where the headliner goes up first? Yeah. You know. I always thought that was a better. You know. But I was pretty good. I was the house, kind of the house. I mean, I emceed a lot before ever went on the road as Ainies. You know, Nashville's like the hardest club going. It everybody would come, they're starting. You know, they just work at Atlanta and then they worked in Chicago or something. And then they get to Nashville and the jokes are just like it's well, the ceiling was high. Um it's a weird mix of Vanderbilt. This is back, you know, this is back before it became, you know, the conservative capital of the year, you know, the world. It's like uh it was like, you know, hip industry people, music industry people, rednecks, Vanderbilt students. It's just like a weird mix. Plus the ceiling was high as shit, you know. Right. And it was just, I don't know, but I mean I saw a lot of comics go, God damn.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

You know, I just did this show and it was just, you know, blowing the doors off at the Columbus Funny Bone or the Atlanta Punchline, you know. And then you got to Zanies and it was just like you're just like, holy shit. You know, and uh I was like, what are you crazy? Because that was the only club I'd ever done. And then I went to like the Atlanta Punchline. I was like, you know, I'm a golden god. This is right. This is comedy. This is gonna be awesome. You know, so yeah, but it was uh it's uh it's a great uh but it was a great place to learn, you know. I did uh Off Broadway in Lexington. Comedy off Broadway a couple times. Yeah. Do you ever did Louisville? I don't think I ever did Louisville.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

I mean, I know I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

I think I flew in there once. Yeah, you didn't fly into Lexington. Well, no, they got a pretty good airport. I mean, you can fly.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Sometimes it's cheaper to fly into Lexington, everyone's I think I did it twice, but the first time I did it was with uh Jay Scott Holman. Oh. And uh that was that was fun because I didn't do great. I did okay, and then I went up and just saw him just kind of just blow it up, and he was he was in between things. And then we went back to the hotel room and and just hung out and just laughed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Such a great guy, fun guy. So good. Now we were sort of talking about it. Did you ever see us done about girls' soccer? Since we're in the FIFA thing, she goes, I'm watching a game, yeah. You know, I'm watching a soccer game. My mom's knocking on the door, and the girl scores a girl, like, was a brandy chance thing. Leave me alone in here, mom! I'm watching girls' soccer. I was so funny, man. So funny, man. Yeah. Every time he picked me up and was like we were doing a co-headline thing or something, and uh he picked me up in the longest car. It was like this giant station wagon and had everything in it. I forgot what he called it. Just had a great time. Yeah. Just you know, for five days driving around. Right. You know. If you you when you do the road, if you uh if you got it good, it's the best thing in the world.

SPEAKER_02 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

You know? I mean, yeah, of course it's tiresome sometimes and everything. But like, I mean I my ex-wife still talks about John Floyd. You know John Floyd?

SPEAKER_02 59:18

Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

He's uh he looks like a shaved Ewok. He's this little short guy, funny as shit, southern as hell. Right, right. And you know, plaid shirts, didn't get into North Carolina, so he went to Elon, that Southern Country Club. But he's just the nicest guy in the world and just so fun to be with. And we did like a Muller run, and like my wife was pregnant. We're sharing a hotel, like he's not making any money, so we're letting him sleep in the hotel with us on the off night, you know. And I got sick and I'm throwing up just like, and you can just hear my wife and this friend of mine just making fun of me. Just like you just hear him giggle and shit. You know, going to the buddy Holly crash, like whatever, you know, just hanging out with comics on the road. Maybe the best it gets, man. Right. You know, it's just, you know, like I said, it's kind of tough sometimes and all that, you know. You know, you want to be home or whatever, but it was always a great time. If you're with the right comic.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Right, but you're still chasing it. Even if you're not, it's still it's still good stories. Yeah, yeah. You're gonna get good stuff either way. Yeah, but then it just hits a point where you're like, oh, I'm going back to Ohio again. Right, right. Go back to Des Moines again. Right. You know, and it's it's just what was your favorite club? I always liked um Hilarities in Cleveland. Oh, it's a great club, man. And it was just that mix of like old school entertainment, you go in this room, and there's like, you know, what essentially felt like showgirls. Right. A dance number, yeah. And then a nice restaurant upstairs, and then this cool little bar over here, and then there's just this cavernous room, high ceilings, but still you did well. Yeah, that was a good club. It was they were smart crowds, and I remember it being one of those. Was it Nick Constance's? I think that's yeah, yeah. And I remember you could go back to the room and write stuff, and it would work. Yeah, you know, and and the and they just treated you well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

Ah, they treated you greatly.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

Okay, I'm not like getting in people's way. Right, yeah. Oh, you were like, yeah. And the the way that the the wait staff seated people, there was this whole like salesman thing to it, you know. That was a great club. Um, you know, I watch uh been watching The Bear and that guy, the guy that's the host, that guy Richie. Right. Like I haven't seen it since season two. Okay, it's a stressful show. Oh, yeah. Why am I doing it? You have to remind yourself you enjoy it. It's like I'm watching sports. I like this, right? Whole bodies like this, you tetz your deck. But um, I still remember this one guy seating people, his name was Arthur, and he was he was so gifted at it. He just make these people feel like a million dollars, bring them in, you know, whatever line of you know shit he's giving them at the time. But he didn't feel like it at all. And he didn't he wasn't sounding like that. I was like, wait a minute, this is I just heard him say this to this guy, but he was great at it. And that whole feeling was like that, and then the and then the crowds you would always do well. Um, until you didn't. But I mean, for the most part, it was good. Uh I like that one. Um, I always loved Seattle, the old underground.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

I never worked Seattle. I still never worked Seattle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

Yeah, the comedy underground. That's what I always heard, man. The low ceilings, and that was like one of the few places where I would just crush just go in there, and the place would be rock, and you'd have to wait. Yeah. You know, those were you know, but I mean I had a lot of Seattle roots. It's not like I had all these Seattle jokes, but like I knew, right, yeah, of course. You know, so um I always did well there. Um, and then there are other places where you just would would struggle. Like I could do well in Des Moines or you know, you never know. No, that's good. Yeah, you know, and I did all the different versions of the Des Moines one.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

Now, did you ever work? You were talking about, did you ever work the Hilarities in Akron? No. Oh my god. That was on uh two Lebanese guys, Pete and Tony. You know, and they were uh it was a trip, but it was an Ernest Angely, the his old preacher, like where they recorded his religious delegation. Okay. And before that it had been a like a grocery store and stuff, he slept in the back. Okay, and it was just the worst condo in the world. Yeah, yeah. But it was uh I mean, and it was a split room, like you walked, there was like a uh a runway to get to the stage, and you would be you'd have to walk, and the w part of the audience that was on one side of that runway was three feet down over here, and then this side was even with the stage, and so you're like performing down and performing up, and if you look straight ahead, there's no tables at all. It was uh and you know, you just I remember, you know, Michael Chaseelka? Uh-huh. He's he's a great guy. And we were back there, and we would and he used to work with Kennison, and they would listen to we were sitting in the back of the and he made a it was like one of those guys, this is show business, and you're sitting there in what used to be the produce department of A and B. But he was like, hey man, and we would listen to Tweeter and the Monkey Man, because he said that's what Kennison used to listen to when he went on stage, and we'd walk out and it was but it was you were literally when you would be in the back, they would you would hear him go, come, and close this big metal door, and you had to go out like the like the back entrance to the you know it was it was crazy, but it was all you know, it was the difference between the two hilarities. Hilarity's an actor in Cuyahoga Falls and then Hilarity's Cleveland, downtown, it was great, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

Was there was there one where was that the one where you were you stayed under the stage?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

There was a there was a club, I thought, where you they locked you in at night. Well, they lock you in at night, but you did have uh like the back grocery store door you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

I think it did burn down.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Okay, all right. That's but you weren't under the stage. That's a little the thing was is that depending on what little cubicle room you had, headliner feature, you know, and you learned it, if it was like cold, if it was winter, and you know, winter in Akron, Ohio could be bitterly cold, and you had the wrong room, it'd have that, you know, that air con that heat vent or an air conditioner vent you see in the roof of a in the ceiling of a grocery store. It's like it looks like a bunch of cones all like concentric circles. That fucker, half of them was in your room. And you'd have to like the meat would be falling on the poney like, Oh my god. But the other guy's down there freezing with one like, you know, Dollar General Store blanket, you know, and you're like, Oh my god, I'm dying in there, you know. Uh was the worst comment.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

She called me at my house in LA, whoever was booking it, and asked if I was um Pablo Francisco. And I said, No, I'm um I'm not, but I'm I'm available. Didn't work out. But I don't know what happened. She just I'd set a tape and she got the wrong whatever. I mean, I probably should have said I was handsome. Yeah, but and this is when he was like Of course I'm Pablo's hands.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

You should hear me sing Brandy. This is gonna be great. He doesn't sound like him. Where's the little tortilla boy? Why is he not doing the little tortilla boy? Why is he singing brandy? Oh my god. Yeah, I was good. I missed that kind of you know, that part of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

But and then I like the uh the comedy cave. Yeah. Up in uh Calgary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:53

Calgary Comedy Cave. Yeah, I did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

That was one where I I think I did it like maybe you gave me their number. Yeah, I don't know. Or I uh yeah. I like them, and I had fun up there, and it was one where they liked my acting when I was doing and they would headline me, right? Not all these places would headline me. And um I remember doing a show there once, and uh I said something, there was a guy sitting over here, it was a tiny stage, right? About the size of this table. Yeah, yeah. Right. And uh I say something to this guy, and I step this way, and then I just hear a bottle go crashing into the wall behind me. And I'm like, what? And I'm just sort of shocked, and they come up, take the guy out, right? And I'm like, oh, I have to, you know. All right, imagine my shock 20 minutes later when they resean it. No same scene, right? Right? And Jack, the guy who runs it, I love Jack. Jack was great. He would do this thing where he was like, you know, like good cop and bad cop. You know, he could be he could seem like he was a dick, but he, you know, I could tell he liked me, right? So and he'd prepare a meal for you and all that, and he would talk comedy with you, and always, you know, the next. And uh he's and I'm like, what what does it take to get thrown out of this room, right? And he says, let it go, my friend. Let it go. I'm like, all right, and I you know, I didn't completely ignore it because there's a room full of people that are like, yeah, what happened? This guy just threw a bottle at you. Excuse me. And we get through the show, and then of course later the guy's drunk and he's in a he ends up stealing stuff from the back. I'm like, well, yeah, that's what that's what happens. I'm like, why didn't you throw that guy out? Why didn't you call the police? He's like, the police always escalate dates. I remember thinking, like, all right, that's a different take up, right? I mean, Jack was uh he might have was he Lebanese? Was he? I don't know, it was something.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:43

I only worked at one time. It was like kind of towards the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

And it was always good to me, and it was a family thing, and I remember the daughters would always be fighting with the sun, but it was like a you know, it was good, it was a family thing. Um, but I yeah, I remember that one. I loved that club, other than that, and even that night, it's like, yeah, whatever. You know, it's a good story.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

Um, and they had good crowds there. I got I got the glass thrown at me. Uh I was working with Maison. Yeah. And Maison had come off stage in the eating the Stev O'Keevel gear. You know, he's got on the I never get to see it live. You never knew.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

I remember coming back from the gig and just drawing it out on a napkin and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

It was I loved it. And it was Steve O'Keevel's birthday on 4th of July. I got a uh notification on Facebook and I wrote him. Anyway, he comes up like that. Mzid gun up on this table, and then Steve comes up on that table down front. Stage right, goddamn. He goes, We're gonna have trouble. Like, I went up there in like three minutes in and I just couldn't. I'm just like, you know, did Lawrence's pissed off comic thing. Exactly. Talking about a pie and about motorcycle. Oh, yeah, man. That's been great, man. I yeah. Did you so did you did he throw something at you? Yeah, he threw a glass of sconch at me. I ducked it.

unknown 1:10:01

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

It's head high. I have one on videotapes I'm playing. He's going for a headshot. Oh, yeah. It was so I came up there and his wife, and I may have already told this story on the podcast, but I don't know. Anyway, uh and they didn't talk, it was Christmas time. And I go, the the guys were gone, they were just talking, just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And I'm like, I went, hey man. I go, what are you doing? I go, this is there's a show here. You know, I tried to be funny at first.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:29

You know, I remember one part I go, hey, you know, that's a great sweater, but you know, just because you go to Michaels doesn't mean you have to put everything on one fucking sweater or something like that. But this came from oh that's right. This came from uh Macy's. They go, well, if you take a shit at Macy's or you take a shit at the Goodwill, it's still a piece of shit or something like that. And then the husbands came back, and everybody in the audience is like, good. And what did I say? I go, look, man, here's the deal. I go, you're gonna get kicked out. And it was the the kid, the the the uh it was the bus boy who was the only person left to the club. It was Friday night second show. And he picked up a glass of scotch and threw it at me, and I ducked it and hit the wall, and they fucking drug his ass out and took him to jail, but then he he lawyered up so much. He shot he tased the bus boy with a taser when he got out there. He was a dentist. He was a fucking dentist. He was a dentist with a taser? With a taser. Oh my god. Fled in a limo. And the next time I came back to the club, I asked him because hey, he got so much lawyers that we couldn't really find it. So oh my god. Yeah? Dentist with a taser. That's crazy. You should have just pulled out a drill. Oh well man, I had a great time. Will you come back? Absolutely. Yes, yes. I had a wonderful time. Have a great time in uh Virginia. Yep. I've never been to Maine. Maine is one of three states I've never been to. What part of Maine? Rockland. It's right off the right on the coast. Is it Haunted? Probably.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Stephen King, man. Everything in Maine. Stephen King's up there. I think he's more inland. I think he's because Maine is like your woodsy people. Right. And then the coast people. And your lobster men. Oh, yeah, the lobsters. Bring me a lobster, man. Oh, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

Or a a a spoon.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:24

Um and then there's certain there's a word they say in Maine. I up. Oh yeah? And you can just say for no matter what it is. You just add that and you can fit right in. I mean, yes, you can mean no.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

That's great. Uh Caroline Ray lived. They got a house there. Oh, yeah? And uh, where's the the Kennedys? Not the Kennedys. Canabunk, the bushes. Canabunk port, the bushes. Yeah. Canabunk and the Cannebunk port. Oh, I don't know which one's which. Was one's on the port, I'm guessing. I know. We drive by them on the way up to Rockland. So it's the coast all along. Yeah. I'd like to go. I was gonna knock all those off. Maine, Montana, and Hawaii. Hawaii? I've never been. You know, because I was always doing, I did the Bahamas every year for, you know, two weeks and you know at the Atlantis Resort, and that was my tropical thing. You know, I could spend money to go. And that was before I left here. And so then when I left here, I was still going to the Bahamas every year. And I was married, and I'm the only idiot comedian that ever moved to California and bought a fucking house at the beach, you know. So fucking under the gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I just never went. And then right when uh I that was my New Year's resolution, and then COVID hit. I was gonna knock off the final three. Okay and then COVID hit, and I didn't do anything for four years, three and a half years. So I still wanted to do COVID's done though. I mean you can I know, but since then I went to Thailand and Europe and so no, I went to Europe before, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:55

So I need to know We We went to Japan for spring break. I heard it's great. It's a it's amazing, but the kids are dictating these vacations now. Like we didn't we didn't have that. Yeah, no. Vacation for us, we got to get in the back of the van, the four of us, back in the station wagon. Station wagon. We got to go see Grandma Phillips and Ed. That was it. It's the whole thing. In Ohio.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:15

In Ohio Portsmouth, Ohio. Yeah. Portsmouth. It was, yeah, it was pro I mean, it's proof. Oh man, we drove when I was 1969. Okay. My mom, my dad, my two big sisters, and my big brother and me in a 66 Country Squire station wagon, towing a trailer that my dad built. Okay. Carrying our giant tent in it, you know, and all that shit, you know, across the country. Stayed in Durango at my dad's boss's cabin and we camped all around. You know, it's great, you know. But yeah, those I mean, I've driven, I took I've driven across America probably four times with my daughter in the back since we moved in California. And never hit Montana? You gotta take it? Never. I mean, I was always going a southern route. Right. And I've been all around it, just never went. Yeah, yeah. You know, so yeah, it's I mean, everybody wants you to go. I've been to Alaska, I did the gig in Alaska. Did you ever do Pierce Triana?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:11

I didn't do I had friends because I was in Seattle. So they they they would cut that's like their state schools kind of washing it. So um I was in Alaska and we're gonna go probably again next summer.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

But yeah, it's uh it's I'd love where you go up there. I mean just Anchorage and then we'll go off to a little place. Chilcoot Charlie's get the uh reindeer sausage and all that. Yeah. Ventu Chilcoots.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:32

Uh vent to uh the Bush Company. Uh what's the other one?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:36

Humpys. There used to be the birdhouse that sank. It was like one end of it was sunken down from the earthquake. Okay. And you would sit at the bar, and it was like this, you know, big. And it was they had like these eggs, and you would like go to reach them. They like pickled eggs and you open up, and it was like with fucking wolverine pheromones or something, and you breathe it, you just be like, What the fuck? And they had a ptarmigan horn, you know what that is? But no, but they never like it. No, no, it was just something I mean, it was famous. You know, the insides were covered with dollar bills and bras and all kinds of shit. I mean, literally, it looked like a cave of stalagmites, but it was all shit people stapled up in there. It was a small bar. We used to we would do the show and then drive down to the Portage Glacier, and on the way there was this bar and done that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:28

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

And uh I think it may have burned down from all the dry panties in there that were stapled stapled to the ceiling. But it was great. I love Alaska. Uh Duke, the the you know, my buddy that lives in the backhouse, he's got a piece of property in Cooper's Landing. Okay. And he goes up there. It's like where the two rivers run together and they fish and all that. Okay. So man, it's great. I I I'd I'd love it to Alaska. Yeah. So I'm gonna hit Hawaii this year, I think. Just for a couple of days.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:02

I heard it's amazing. It yeah, it's it's nice. It's not outside stuff.

unknown 1:17:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

I can get out, son. Okay, cool. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thank you so much, man. Great, man. That was it. Uh, if you get a chance to see this guy anywhere, I will have be having him if I get this gig at uh Gladstones, he will be one of the comics I hire because he's a very funny guy and makes me laugh. Uh that's it for Overserved. Uh thank you very much. We'll see you next time. Fade to black.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:33

Drop my hat.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:36

There you go. Cool, man. That was great.