Mark Schiff & "The Funniest Men in the Universe" – New York Comedy at Its Best

A $5,000 lunch. A 30-year promise. A frozen walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to make the new year feel real. R. Scott Edwards sits down with comedian Mark Schiff for a warm, hilarious time-capsule of stand-up comedy history that starts in New York at The Comic Strip and stretches all the way to arena-sized shows with Jerry Seinfeld. If you love comedy stories that actually explain how this business works, you’re going to get a ton out of Mark’s memories and the hard-earned lessons underneath them.

We talk about the crew Mark called “the funniest men in the universe” and the New Year’s Day breakfast tradition that kept friendships alive through careers, travel, and chaos, including one year that turns into an international adventure. Then the tone shifts to something more personal: Mark shares how he quit drinking during a booked week at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sacramento, and we dig into that strange truth every working comic knows, the stage adrenaline that can carry you through sickness, stress, and doubt when the audience is waiting.

From there it’s pure “life on the road” gold: comedy condo disasters, long-distance phone scandals from the pre-cellphone era, and prank stories from touring. We also get a behind-the-scenes moment from the Seinfeld tour when Jerry gets food poisoning before a packed theater and Mark is told to go out and keep the show alive. Plus, you’ll hear a full Mark Schiff stand-up set with sharp bits on 99 cent stores, Costco, parenting grown kids, and marriage.

If you enjoy the show, subscribe, share it with a comedy fan, and leave a review so more people can find it. What’s the best or weirdest tradition you’ve kept with old friends?

Hosted by: R. Scott Edwards

Transcript

Announcer 0:04

This is another episode of Stand Up Comedy, your host and MC, celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business. Stories, interviews, and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and MC, Scott Edwards.

Scott Edwards 0:22

Hey, welcome to this week's episode. I am so excited. I am thrilled to be talking to an old friend in comedy, one of the funniest

Welcome And Mark Schiff Returns

Scott Edwards 0:29

men in the universe. It's Mark Schiff. Hey, hey, Mark. Well long time no talk, man. It's so great to uh hear your voice. And uh uh and I meant what I said. I know you're part of an official group, the funniest men in the universe, but it is true in your case.

Mark Schiff 0:48

Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure uh re-hooking up with you. You know, uh you just remind me of how little money I used to make, and I really appreciate you bringing that up again. I'm shivering just thinking about it.

Scott Edwards 1:03

Ouch, let me get that out of my back. Uh hey, so it is true though that didn't you and uh a few other guys form the funniest men in the universe, and I know it includes uh Jerry Seinfeld, and I know it includes Larry Miller, but I'm missing somebody, aren't I?

Mark Schiff 1:18

Okay, so it's Paul Riser. Oh, Paul Riser, okay Jerry Seinfeld, me, and Bill Maher was a part of it for one uh one year. There was a guy named Mark Senner who was part of it for a couple years, and uh Steve Middleman was part of it for one year, but the the core group was Seinfeld, Schiff, Riser, Larry Miller, and the guy named Michael Hampton came. Wow. And um how it started was one year we were all at the comic strip. We were all young comedians out of work, not making any money at all. We're hanging out at New Year's Eve at the club at the Comic Strip.

Scott Edwards 1:56

And we all decided I don't want to interrupt, just say let people know that you guys were all in New York at the time.

Mark Schiff 2:02

Right. Right, we were all in New York at the Comic Strip on 82nd and 2nd in New York, and uh

The New Year Breakfast Pact

Mark Schiff 2:08

hanging out on New Year's Eve, and um we all decided let's have breakfast the next day. And uh, you know, we'll have a New Year's breakfast, and we went to this place, we met for breakfast, we had such a good time, we decided let's do this every New Year's Day for the rest of our life. And uh yeah, sorry to say we're not doing it these days, but we did it for thirty years. And um that's it became what I called the twenty five hundred dollar breakfast because I was living in LA and we always had it in New York. So I would have to fly in, put myself up in a hotel for three days, pay my airfare. It was only like twenty five hundred dollars for uh lunch.

Scott Edwards 2:51

For breakfast and lunch with uh with uh your buddies from the days.

Mark Schiff 2:55

Right. But what happened was the person that made the most money for the year paid for lunch, and the uh person that made the second amount paid for the limousine for the day. So uh hence to say me and uh I never had to pay for lunch for the limousine. But uh well uh listen to this cool thing. One year Riser was in London uh shooting a movie and uh he was gonna be there over New Year's, so he couldn't come back to New York. So we decided we'll fly to London and we'll have lunch New Year's Day in London.

Speaker 1 3:30

No way.

Mark Schiff 3:31

So we all flew to London, we met Riser, and we tried to rent a uh a Rolls Royce, but it was like three thousand dollars for the day to run

London Plans Become Paris Lunch

Mark Schiff 3:39

to Rolls Royce, and we all decided rather than rent the Rolls Royce, let's fly to Paris and have lunch across from Notre Dame. So five of us get on the plane and we fly to uh France and uh we take the subway into town and we have lunch across from Notre Dame, and uh that was our New Year's Day.

Scott Edwards 3:59

Man, oh man. Now get uh that's an amazing commitment story.

Mark Schiff 4:04

By the way, that cost me $5,000 that lunch. That was a $5,000 lunch.

Scott Edwards 4:07

Yeah, these are expensive meals. But what's interesting is not only that camaraderie and that long, long, deep-seated friendship, but aren't a lot of you working on New Year's Eve? So didn't that make that a little bit more difficult?

Mark Schiff 4:21

Well, that that's true too. And one year, Jerry was working down in uh Fort Lauderdale at the Sunrise Theater. It's about 3,000 seats. We all flew down and opened for him. Oh, did you really? Riser went on, Larry Miller went on, I went on, and uh he went on.

Scott Edwards 4:41

That would have been a killer show.

Mark Schiff 4:44

Killer show. And that lunch cost me 4,000. So it was unbelievable. Wow, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Scott Edwards 4:53

And uh it's sad it ended, but for 30 years, that's quite uh an amazing feat. And uh you're all very successful top-of-the-line comics, and I just think it's amazing.

Mark Schiff 5:04

Yeah, we all we all end up working in in and doing stuff, and uh you know, interesting enough, with with that uh and then at the end of the day after the lunch there, we would go for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We started out in Brooklyn, we would we would take the limo to Brooklyn. The limo drive, we'd go across to Bridge Middleseu on the other side by uh City Hall, and the five

Brooklyn Bridge Walk And Meaning

Mark Schiff 5:29

of us or four of us would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge every year, no matter how cold it was, even if it was like fifteen below up there, we would do it. And we got to the other side, we really felt we started the new year. That was very symbolic for us.

Scott Edwards 5:40

Oh, that is cool. And I bet it made you feel good.

Speaker 3 5:43

Yeah, and then we would go and have another lunch, usually at a kosher deli or a Jewish deli somewhere. Wow. That is and uh the whole thing was about friendship and chatting and talking, and uh when we first came to the uh club, we all had all these uh you know dating stories. And then as we got married, there were no more stories.

Scott Edwards 6:02

Well, uh yes, well, you know, so as it should be.

Speaker 3 6:05

I want to thank you personally for some of those stories.

Scott Edwards 6:09

Well, uh let's use that as a lead-in. How did you end up uh working for uh with me at Laughs?

Speaker 3 6:16

You know, i I don't I and I saw that th that was uh something you were interested in knowing. I can't put my finger on it, but when you you laugh started what year?

Scott Edwards 6:26

1980.

Speaker 3 6:28

Okay. So in 1980, around 1980, eighty one I

How Mark Started At Laughs

Speaker 3 6:35

was part of the wave of these new comics coming out. We had been doing it a number of years, you know, through and we got pretty good, and we immediately went right to headliner. Because there were no middle acts, and there was no, you know, your clubs, these clubs were new. There were no real comedy clubs like this across the country.

Scott Edwards 6:55

Yeah, mine was the same.

Speaker 3 6:56

So when you guys opened up, when you opened your club, you said who's good in New York and who's this, and then they would send uh some of the top New York guys who never really headlined at these places. But we immediately went to that position, so we never had to do middle or opener.

Scott Edwards 7:12

Well, and you guys did had already in New York built up enough material and enough funniness that it worked. Absolutely. And I'm not sure who introduced me you to the club either, but I was very blessed to have worked with Paul Riser, uh Larry Miller many, many times, and Jerry Seinfeld several times. And I am sure that one of those introduced you to me, and and that's how we got you in. But regardless, we always felt blessed to have you on our stage. And like the other uh guys from New York, you were definitely always one of the funniest. So thank you for being a part of that uh help make laughs a little bit. Thank you.

Speaker 3 7:48

And you had that little backstage, you go up the ramp, right? Yes.

Scott Edwards 7:52

Exactly.

Speaker 3 7:54

Yeah, a little curtain. You had a did you have a machine back there? Was it a coke machine or something?

Scott Edwards 7:58

Yes, we did.

Speaker 3 8:00

We did. You had a machine back there. I'll tell you a story about do you remember Jeannie McBride? Yes, I do. Because I worked with her for you one year. It was a really interesting uh time. I you know, I had a uh a drinking thing going on. I was drinking too much and I decided to quit and I was booked to do your club for a week. Yeah. So I just quit drinking and I haven't had a drink now in thirty five years, by the way.

Scott Edwards 8:32

And it all started with laughs, got it.

Speaker 3 8:34

Well,

Quitting Drinking On A Club Week

Speaker 3 8:35

let me tell you, th that was um that was when I quit that week. So um I I met Jeannie at the airport in LAX and she saw I was really chumpy and shaky and all that stuff, and she said, What's the matter? I said, I can't quit drinking and um you know and luckily she knew about this stuff because her father had stopped and he had stopped for 17 years at that point. So she helped me that week get through well it was the weekend, it was a long weekend you did, right? Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Yes. Right. So um she walked me through that week and I was kinda shaky, but for some reason I still was able to really perform at uh top speed. I don't know how I did it. And uh it was funny because you had like did you keep like the boxes of beer back there too, like where we were?

Scott Edwards 9:23

Well, we would sometimes yeah, we would sometimes store beer for the bar back in the back.

Speaker 3 9:30

Yeah, I remember sitting there, I quit drinking, and there I am surrounded by cases of beer. We're there to support. It was unbelievable. Thank you for all the help. So uh anyway, so I want to thank you because that was the weekend that I uh put the plug in the jug and have an A for 35 years.

Scott Edwards 9:47

Well, I I I know that laughs didn't have anything to do with it, but the fact that you were able to work the club and work with somebody good like Jeannie and and get you through it obviously made a difference, or you wouldn't have remembered it. And I didn't know the story. I probably just thought, oh great, here's Mark and he's all jittery. But uh making reference to how you said you still had great sets, I'm gonna sidetrack a little and say one of the interesting things about uh stand-up comedy that I wanted to share with the audience is that we get sick, we we have sometimes issues with uh drugs or alcohol or whatever might be going on, whether you're an entertainer or me, a club owner that would go on stage at the MC. And what I found is almost always,

Adrenaline And The Duty To Deliver

Scott Edwards 10:28

there's a few exceptions, but something about the magic and the energy and the adrenaline of being on stage in front of a fresh new crowd energizes you and allows you to perform and almost excel even though your body is crashing.

Speaker 3 10:46

Yeah, I totally agree with you. You're you you know, there were some days on the road where I couldn't even talk in the morning, and I would sit in these hotel rooms and you get some honey and some tea and just stick my head over the you know hot showers and just get my throat back enough to get through the show and do a good job and then boom back again and then you just get through it.

Scott Edwards 11:09

Yeah, well, it was our job, but it was a job that really meant something to us. And I I don't know, I don't want to speak for you, but I think a lot of entertainers um and me as an MC club owner, I felt a commitment to the audience that had paid to see what we were presenting, and I took that commitment seriously, that responsibility.

Speaker 3 11:32

And I did too, and that's why uh as uh Jerry and I we talked sometimes, that's why we're still working. Because we didn't ever we never abused the audience and and treated them like uh they were less than.

Scott Edwards 11:45

Right. And and I have a few examples that uh I've shared other stories that uh uh people that did abuse that trust and responsibility, but obviously uh people, the quality and nature of you and Jerry and Larry, even Paul Riser would would not do that. Um now you've done a lot of road work, uh starting in New York and now out of Los Angeles. Uh do you have any great stories from uh The Road or anything that uh uh uh makes you laugh still or haunt you to this day?

Speaker 3 12:14

Road stories, you know, I wrote the book on road stories. No, you haven't, uh, with Rich Scheidner. It's the quintessential road stories book. It's uh Random House published it. It's called I Killed True Stories of the Road by America's Great Comics.

Scott Edwards 12:31

I'm gonna have to pick that up. I would love that. You do you have any short ones you remember?

Speaker 3 12:37

It's called uh I killed Mark Schiff, Rich Scheidner, and you'll uh you'll get it. You know, one thing I do remember, it's not a great story, but you had you had a condo. You didn't have a hotel for us. Yeah, you had it like a house.

Scott Edwards 12:50

Yes.

Speaker 3 12:51

Right?

Scott Edwards 12:51

Yeah, house and a car.

Speaker 3 12:53

And for some reason, tell me if I'm right about this. You had plastic sheets under the sheet.

Scott Edwards 13:00

Well, uh, yes, but that was due to Do you remember that? Yes.

Speaker 3 13:06

I never

Road Condos And Comic Damage

Speaker 3 13:07

saw that in my entire life except in your place. It was the thing with crinkle all night. It was like this is it was like having sleeping on a raincoat.

Scott Edwards 13:19

Well, I should apologize, but that was for some of the other less tried and true to entertainers that uh weren't were still drinking, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 13:28

And they were bed wedding and stuff like that?

Scott Edwards 13:31

Bed wedding, throw up. Our maids had a lot to deal with.

Speaker 3 13:35

I always wondered about that. I I, you know, I said, what the hell is going on here? Well, you know, is everybody being bed except for me?

Scott Edwards 13:43

And uh Well, a lot of clubs provide hotel rooms or maybe an apartment or something, but uh we always had a a paid condo or house, and what that means is that we were responsible for cleaning it up every week and and keeping the various furniture livable, and it was not always easy.

Speaker 3 14:04

Yeah, no, no, I believe well, you know, in um Fort Lauderdale, the comic strip had a uh condo. They had a uh cleaning lady there that used to like to do cocaine and have sex with all the comics.

Speaker 1 14:15

No.

Speaker 3 14:15

And um the comics sometimes would get so frunk or angry about their sets. This was never my my issue, but they would do things to the condos. Like uh this one TV set, there was a big chunk of glass missing out of the screen. And uh the guy had thrown a like a brick and the TV still worked, but there was a big piece of glass with and then one guy they had a pool and one guy crapped in the pool 'cause he was so angry and uh nobody goes through him for like four months. But the story about me that people people a lot of people hated me. Uh because what happened was, you know, these condos used to have phones in 'em. And sometimes the comics would take advantage sometimes of you know long distance calls or whatever. So um I used to be one of those people. And I remember I had some f friends in Germany. I called Germany during the week that I was there, maybe about forty, fifty times. The guy got the bill, it was like five hundred dollars. And uh he ripped the phone out of the condo. So when the the comics would come in, they go, where's the phone? He would go, Mark Schiff. Blame it on him.

Scott Edwards 15:30

So that made you very popular.

Speaker 3 15:33

Very popular. Other people, if they knew I was coming in, they would take the phone out of the uh you had a reputation. Yeah. So all these comics are go they go, you know, some because of you, I couldn't call my family for an entire week. This is before cell phones, so I was uh really hated for a long time there.

Scott Edwards 15:59

Oh, that's funny. Well, I was not aware of that, and I don't remember any exceptional bills. I mean, we certainly got them, but I would not have been able to pinpoint uh which comics were involved. But uh if if you did it at my condo, uh you're forgiven. Uh your comedy on stage is worth whatever happened.

Speaker 3 16:17

You're very kind. But uh yeah, the the road was always uh I had fun with Jimmy Brogan on the road, I'll tell you what I did. Okay.

Scott Edwards 16:24

We well let's uh let's give everybody a little background. Jimmy Brogan is a great stand-up comic, but he was also one of the uh head writers for uh uh Leno. Jay Leno, yeah. Yeah, and the Tonight Show. So I just wanted to look at it.

Speaker 3 16:36

And he just passed working 28 years with Jay every Sunday night at the Comedy Magic Club. Wow in Hermosa Beach, California. They worked together practically every Sunday night that Jay was in town for 28 years.

Scott Edwards 16:48

I saw a plant.

Speaker 3 16:48

So Jimmy and I used to uh I used to pull pranks on Jimmy. And one of the my favorite ones was Jimmy used to like to sleep late. So um he would go to sleep late and he would sleep to twelve one in the afternoon. So we put the do not disturb on his hotel door. So I would remove the sign and then I would put a sign on his door that says, I am deaf.

Jimmy Brogan Pranks On Tour

Speaker 3 17:13

Please knock as hard as you can. Yeah. And the maid would just pound on the door. Boom, boom, boom. Oh, I bet he loved that. And he would come, what? What? And uh she, you know, poor little Spanish lady, yeah, and then she would point to the sign there, I don't know, yeah, it says the sign there in death.

Scott Edwards 17:38

And uh I didn't know you were such a uh rambunctious guy. I mean, you're hilarious on stage, but you're a bit of a prankster off. I was not aware of that.

Speaker 3 17:48

Yeah, we did a couple of those. I I put a sign on Jimmy's door, said also that if you have uh cleaning you want done today, leave it in front of room, you know, this room here. And people who drop off their suits and shirts in front of Jimmy's door. Oh, that's right. That's hilarious. So he comes out to be a whole violet dry cleaning, ready to go.

Scott Edwards 18:08

And uh Well, that's uh that's a great story, and Jimmy Brogan's a good comic. Now, you also, in fact, to this day, still do a lot of work with uh Jerry. Um interesting.

Speaker 3 18:18

I'm on the road to him for the with him the last 15 years.

Scott Edwards 18:21

I think that's incredible. And the two of you together would be a dynamite show. I never could afford that in my club because to me you were both headliners, but I imagine on the tour you were doing very well together.

Speaker 3 18:33

Just uh two weeks ago, we were in um in Port Lauderdale at the Seminole Indian Hard Rock Casino. It was 13,000 people, two shows,

Touring With Seinfeld Under Pressure

Speaker 3 18:42

6,500 people each show.

Scott Edwards 18:43

Wow.

Speaker 3 18:44

Three people came to see me. Um 6,400, 997 came to see him each show. It was uh an amazing yeah, and that's what the gigs are. They're usually two, three thousand seats, and we go all over the world. We went to Israel twice together.

Scott Edwards 19:01

Man, that's amazing. Well, I know that your friendship goes way, way back, and the fact that you're both uh tremendous clean and funny stand-ups.

Speaker 3 19:10

We were clean, we still do, and uh it's in our bones. You know, I had a thing with Jerry when I, you know, very s uh scary thing for a uh comic. We were in um Davenport, Iowa. We're in Davenport, Iowa. So we have lunch and then we go back to the room, clean up. I go to my room, he goes to his room, I go to his room to pick him up to go to the show. We always made it his room, and he's got his head down on the table, he's sweating, he's shaking. And I go, What's Matt? He goes, I got food poisoning. And he's he's and there's a producer on the show too. So we're standing there, we go, What you know, he he can't even stand up. So he goes, uh they go, What do you want to do? Because uh I want to do the show, I gotta do the show. And we take him down to the car and his legs collapse as we're walking down. He can't even walk. He's so sick. So we get to the theater, we get to the dressing room, and they say to me, Jerry and the producer say, Okay, you go out there and just stay out there until he's ready. Now, you gotta remember there's three thousand people and he's telling me to just I don't know if it's gonna be twenty minutes, forty minutes, an hour and twenty minutes. I have no idea. But that is a a a frightening uh thing for somebody to tell a comment.

Scott Edwards 20:33

That puts a lot of pressure on you for sure.

Speaker 3 20:35

Yeah, just just go out there and stay out there.

Scott Edwards 20:39

Oh, I was just saying.

Speaker 3 20:40

Anyway, after about 40 minutes, I got the sign and he went out and he actually did one of the best shows that ever.

Scott Edwards 20:45

I was just gonna say it goes back to what we talked about earlier, is that I'm sure that for his set he was able to bounce back and nobody in the audience knew he was dying of food poisoning.

Speaker 3 20:54

They had no idea, and uh it was really quite remarkable. But that's another great uh evening that we had there.

Scott Edwards 21:01

Well, that shows uh the quality of your comedy entertainment, so I want to share a little bit of that with you if it's okay, Mark. Ladies and gentlemen, uh sit back and relax. I got uh a great short uh comedy step from Mark Schiff. Enjoy this.

Speaker 2 21:15

Thank you. Nice to be hello, hi yeah. All right, good to be here. It's uh actually been a good day. I did some uh shopping today with my favorite store, which is a 99

Mark Schiff Stand-Up Set Begins

Speaker 2 21:26

cent store. I love this place more than anything in the world. If you read 20 things instead of 99 cents tour, that's if you have the card.

The 99 Cent Store Lies

Speaker 2 21:41

I really do. I walk around, I'm looking, I think, I can buy anything I want here. Man, I'm doing good in life. I can buy this whole row for $9. It's phenomenal. And they always have stuff that sound like the original items. I like Del Monte Peaches. I'm looking at this can and says Del Monkey Peaches. I bought some shaving cream. 99 cents is a pretty good deal, right? I get home, I shake the can, I go, no shaving cream comes out. Just the sound. And I'm actually thinking, like an idiot, that's not a bad deal for 99 cents. I love this little thing. You know, then that men's underwear. 40 pair, 99 cents. I'm looking at some country that doesn't even exist, is making this stuff. And I'm thinking, don't buy this. Somehow they've got to be ripping you off. So I bought it. I get home, I put a pair on, the fly is on the side. One hole for both legs. I'm walking around. Incredible. I went to Costco recently. There's another fantastic place. I go there, I think, all right, I'm just gonna spend like $80, $90, $1,100 later. You should know because the shopping cart, there's families that live in these carts, they are so gigantic. It's like nine people sleeping in it. But you know, at certain times in your life, you need 200 years worth of mustard at the same time. That's it. I'm buying for life now. That's it. I'm never going out again. Forty years of ketchup. Come on, just pile it in there. And they have these things, they sell everything. They sell surfboards there. They sell coffins. Is this some sort of impulse buy? I said to my wife, honey, why don't you get a blender? I'm gonna get a couple of coffins for us. You're not looking great these days. And uh, you know, it's cheaper here, you know. Hey, Costco, you can return anything. Imagine returning a coffin. I I wouldn't open that if I were you. It's uh my uncle is in there, but uh he doesn't seem to like it. So we give it back to you if I just keep that closed for a while. It's crazy. I uh see her. I think it's some I got uh three boys, three kids. I got three boys, a uh 25-year-old, a 22-year-old, and a 19-year-old, and they all live with us. Because that's the type of parenting we've done. These idiots aren't going anywhere, I'll tell you. It's awful. Awful. You know what we have essentially is we don't have three children

Parenting Grown Kids At Home

Speaker 2 25:10

living with us, we have three very poor people. Incredibly poor people. It don't look like they're ever gonna get a job. Just sit around and go, bring me grapes. It's sad. And they're not nice people. You know, most poor people, you know, you uh give them money, they say thank you. God bless you. Not these three. Give them twenty. Come on, give me the whole wallet. And they're food terrorists. When I buy something I like to eat, I have to eat the whole thing in one sitting. The other day I ate an entire chocolate chip cheesecake in the car. Because I know I would just be attacked the second I walk in the house. Actually, my oldest son is getting married. She's not working either. This is a great deal. I don't know what the hell is going to happen with these two. But uh you know, people say, you know, you talk to people who have children, they go, you know, there's my kid's childhood just went like this, and a second went by. Not mine. Every day, an ordeal.

Speaker 3 26:27

Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 26:29

That's a good deal. I'm married for 26 years. It went by like 10 minutes underwater. It was really uh day. I'm gonna kill him. I've got to choke him in the death money now. I just can't I can't I can't have breakfast with this person anymore.

Marriage Fights And Snoring Laws

Speaker 2 26:56

I can't kill. I had a fight with my wife uh a couple months ago. I don't know why I did this. As she was walking away, I mumbled the word psycho. Psycho. And she's not, but when you call somebody a psycho, they actually turn into one. She just turned around like psycho? I'll show you psycho. You learn a lot about yourself when you're married and live with someone. I didn't know that I snored. Do you know there's a law that if you snore, they have to wake you and tell you? I don't need this information. I'm out cold roaming around having a fantastic time. She's like, honey, get up. You're snoring. You snoring, really? And when you wake up, somebody tell them they're snoring, they're shocked. I didn't hear anything. How can a person actually sleep through themselves snoring? How can you sleep through it's in the middle of your head? And you wake up, hey, I don't know. How likely you tell you when you're drooling, all right? You know, being married is like living on the floor of the Senate. Every day, a new speech and new law is being passed. My wife walks around like some English barrister from now on. Things will be different in this family. There'd be no dinner for the rest of your life. I didn't know I had so many problems until I got married. But thank God, she's there to point those things out. I thought I was doing well. I was hanging by a fingernail. I got a name of the guy's been married 61 years. I said to the guy, Erwin, what's the secret? 61 years. He said, just keep your mouth shut. Open your mouth, you're gonna start a fight. Just come out from work, wave your hand. Sit on the couch, put the TV on. One day you'll fall over dead, it'll all be over. So hang in there. Just relax. Keep your mouth shut and don't start any fights. Good. Good. It's crazy. But I do enjoy it. I do enjoy being married. The dating thing for me was, you know, I was finished. I couldn't talk to another human being. I was just uh You know, you ever break up with somebody, now somebody always says something like this the last thing I want to do is hurt you. Which means it's on the list. But it's the last thing I want to do. I got some other things to do first. Figure this one out. My parents were married a long time. They've been married so long my mother's actually sucked the brain out of my father's head. Poor guy just smokes around going, just do what she says. God in heaven, I gotta lay down for a month. When I was a kid, you know, growing up, you could really threaten your kids. When my mother would threaten me, the threats were enormous. You got kids now, you cannot threaten them anymore. They will get a lawyer and just sue you. When I was a kid, my mother would say things like, Go ahead, touch that door, I will break your hands off. Open your mouth again, I'll rip the tongue right out of your head. Get in here right now, break every bone in your body. If I have to come in

Old School Parenting Threats

Speaker 2 31:17

there, I will kill you. That was love when I was growing up. My mother threatened to strangle me. I knew how much she cared. See, the problem was my mother's a very confused woman, unbelievably confused. She didn't think that I had any idea who she was. Because she'd look at me and go, who do you think you're talking to? Who the hell do you think you're talking to? Do you have any idea who I am? I don't think you do. And she didn't think I knew who I was. But she looked at me and go, who do you think you are? You're not my child. And then you guys mean great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 32:01

Thank you. Great time.

Scott Edwards 32:07

Well, Mark, uh, as usual, uh a stand-up funny guy. Thanks so much for sharing that with us.

Speaker 3 32:14

Thank you, Scott. It's fantastic talking with you. You know, I uh you not only are responsible for many of my wonderful evenings having that club, but you're responsible for my horrible curly mornings. Because you had us do radio shows, and comedians hate doing radio shows

Radio Morning Misery And Club Vibes

Speaker 3 32:33

more than having polio. This is uh It's true.

Scott Edwards 32:37

It's to market the club. We we we get these comics that would work until late in the evening, and then we'd have to be on the TV set or the radio set sometimes at 6-7 a.m.

Speaker 3 32:48

Yeah, I mean you would you go, I'll pick you up at 5 30, we'll go do the radio show, and then I'll take you out for 79 breakfast. Thank you very much for that. Be very kind. Take us out. I was always saying, you know, when you're really young, you can actually have breakfast, have like breakfast, three cups of coffee, and then go right back to sleep. It's quite an extraordinary thing to be able to do.

Scott Edwards 33:10

Yeah, I've never been a coffee drinker, but I am an iced tea holic, and my wife is always amazed that I'll drink iced tea day and night, and it never affects me going to sleep. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 33:19

Yeah, it is amazing. I'm not like that. But uh yeah, we used to do those radio shows and one of the things I used to like about your club world was it was an old fact.

Scott Edwards 33:29

That's right.

Speaker 3 33:30

And I used to like walking on those wooden, you know, like historic wooden sidewalks, right? Yeah, yeah, historic wooden sidewalks is really, really cool. And you had that long walkway down to the club from the street.

Scott Edwards 33:47

Exactly. That's when we were in Firehouse Alley, and um that location, which was our best and longest lasting location, uh, out of three, actually, in Old Sack, uh, was my favorite room, and I got to develop it. What was nice about it, and I've mentioned this before, is it had a low ceiling, we were in a basement, it had the uh a ubiquitous brick wall, and it just had that kind of nightclub jazz club feel to it. And I think that was perfect for stand-up.

Speaker 3 34:15

It was perfect. You had some really great crowds, and even on sometimes when they wasn't filled and stuff, they were great laughers. I mean, I really I don't remember people laughing at a lot of the clubs sometimes, but at your club in particular, there were some really great ones.

Scott Edwards 34:29

Well, that's good to uh I appreciate you saying that, and we worked hard for that. Now, it's been a while since we've had a chance to uh work together over 20 years, and you've been busy touring with Jerry, and you mentioned your book, I Killed, with you and Rich Scheidner. Uh, and you can get that on Amazon, everybody. Go out and buy this book.

Speaker 3 34:47

I'm gonna do that because Yeah, I killed True Stories of the Road by America's Comics.

Scott Edwards 34:51

Okay. Well, that was too long for me to remember, but I will re uh I Killed True Stories by Mark Schiff and Rich Scheidner. Yeah. Got it. Okay, everybody make sure.

Speaker 3 35:00

You'll know a lot of people in the book.

Scott Edwards 35:01

Oh, yeah. No, I think it'd be perfect for me. I hope the audience agrees and gets a chance to buy it, but I'm definitely going to. I love books like that. I've

The Book I Killed And New Writing

Scott Edwards 35:09

read uh most of the books out there by uh comics that I worked with, and it's always great to uh reminisce about uh and hear their stories from other clubs, but also sometimes experiences at my club are in there. What else have you uh been working on or anything that's exciting coming up for you?

Speaker 3 35:24

Well, I write a lot. I write I I've been writing a lot of articles. I write uh reporting articles for a paper here called the Jewish Journal in uh LA. And I write a lot of articles for them. I'm writing a short story book.

Scott Edwards 35:40

Oh, cool.

Speaker 3 35:41

And uh I wrote uh two plays. No way that time. Yeah. One is called The Comic, it's called Larry Miller, two person play. And he was unbelievable. It went too Aspen actually to the uh comedy festival, HBO Comedy Festival.

Scott Edwards 35:56

Well, you picked a great guy, he's one of the best guys out there, and if you give him the right material, there's no holding.

Speaker 3 36:01

He was unbelievable. And then I wrote another play with a guy named Steve Shaper. You remember Steve Shaper?

Scott Edwards 36:06

I remember the name, he didn't work for me. I knew what he was doing in the business, but uh uh you picked a couple good guys.

Speaker 3 36:13

So, yeah, so we uh I wrote a couple plays and uh a lot of stories, and uh what you should do is I got a wife of thirty years and uh three kids that are out of the house. Oh my son is an agent at CAA.

Scott Edwards 36:27

No way.

Speaker 3 36:28

And I I know that he's a great agent because he won't even return my calls anymore. Just like a young agent.

Scott Edwards 36:36

Oh, that's funny, and that's interesting that he's g get went into the business, but on that side of the fence.

Speaker 3 36:42

Yeah, and I have no performers. I have three kids in uh two in the business in uh production and uh one in finance.

Scott Edwards 36:49

Wow. Well, congratulations. You are certainly uh one of the funniest men in the universe. You've had a great uh wealth of success in your life in comedy. I know that you're one of the uh not only funniest performers out there, but you're also uh a great writer. And I didn't know about the plays in the book, but we're gonna take advantage of that. And I thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast.

Speaker 3 37:13

Thank you, Scott. My pleasure. Pleasure here at catching up with you. A lot of good memories from uh working your club. I really uh appreciate every uh time you hired me.

Scott Edwards 37:22

Well, you're welcome, and and it was a pleasure for us too. Ladies and gentlemen, uh make sure to check out Mark's book, and also um, we hope you enjoyed the set and the information today. We have another podcast coming out next Sunday. In the meantime, be sure to listen, rate, and share. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's show. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. All right, everybody, have a great one. Bye.

Announcer 37:49

We hope you enjoyed this episode

Final Thanks And Listener Requests

Announcer 37:51

of Stand Up Comedy, your host and MC. For information on the show, merchandise, and our sponsors, or to send comments to Scott, visit our website at www.standupyourhost and mc dot com. Look for more episodes soon and enjoy the world of stand up comedy. Visit a comedy showroom near you