Overcoming Past Trauma to Help Others with Laughter | Craig Shoemaker

Craig Shoemaker has done it all... toured the country, starred in films, won awards, but most of all he has dealt with his past trauma and turning it into a way to help others! Craig joins Jeff to talk about old road stories and what decades in the comedy business has taught them!

👇 In this episode:
Coming to Terms with 'The Gift of Funny'
Working Through Past Trauma
Helping Others Through Trauma
Forgiving Our Parents

How to find Craig
https://www.craigshoemaker.com/

🎧 More episodes: Who Gave Jeff Allen a Podcast?
🎟️ Tickets at JeffAllenComedy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

But I I wouldn't give up any of this stuff because honestly, even if just people are listening right now or watching, if I'm helping somebody, that's my life. So if somebody goes, Oh wow, I'm not alone, they're dealing with something like that. And to me, that's a gift. Because I not only got through I I did it in a way that was really significant and had a lot of integrity and really grew into stuff. And I learned things, you know, from the Bible or whatever, from meetings. Yeah. The tools that I need. I was not gonna have those tools if these things didn't happen, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Welcome to Who Gave Jeff Allen a podcast? We are looking for you. We have no idea where you're at, but we're gonna find you and we are gonna punish you. Uh and if not me, the rest of the world for having me on this thing here. Um, what else is going on? Real quick, um, uh Nordic wave cold plunge. Uh, we're still looking to sell one. It's been weeks. But uh, I just took a cold plunge today. I hit balls, golf balls this morning, got a little stiff and sore, sat in the cold water, got out, and I'm still stiff and sore. Not exactly a rousing uh uh sales pitch, but no, I actually I'm 70 years old for God's sake because I'm gonna be stiff and sore the rest of my life. Uh but anyway, cold plunge, Nordic wave, go there, Jeff 150, save 150 bucks. Um I am we're working on a new sponsor. Uh this is uh I get no money for this, but I just purchased their product uh called Arcos. Um it's an AI um um uh laser uh for for golf. And uh it reads wind, it reads temperature, it reads all this stuff, puts it through. And as if you enter your information into this Arcos uh AI thing, over time it will learn your tendencies. It will club you like a caddy, it will be like a like a tour caddy without an attitude. So uh it's a personal thing, and we're working on getting them as a sponsor, are we not? Yes. Um I am uh I bought the product, I used the product, and I will not pitch anything on this uh podcast that I don't use or purchase for my own uh self. Uh that way I I don't have to whore myself out like so many other podcasters do, not mention in any names. Um and uh we have the uh we just filmed the pilot for based on the book, Are We There Yet? We're doing donations. We're we we've already filmed it, we got it locked in, we got it edited, we're doing the sound and the lighting now, and uh we could we're crowdfunding the last bit of it. Um and you can go to my website and get the QR code, come on down, anything $10, $15, $20, $25. The beauty of this, the the world we live in today creatively is that you do not have to crawl on your hands and knees to New York or LA to get projects made. And when you can crowdfund, you hold on to creative control, and that's why we're doing this. Um there's some uh things that we're gonna cover, uh, hopefully, if the show gets picked up, that Hollywood would push us away from, um, certainly when it comes to the faith side of the story we're gonna tell. So uh give us an opportunity, and believe me, you get what you pay for in this culture. So all we're asking for is just to give you give it a shot, go to our website, look at this, and um go to the QR code, and anything will help. Well, it'll all add up. We have the numbers. Anyway, today's guest. I can't wait for this. I've been waiting for this man for a while. Um uh Craig Shoemaker, uh, and uh uh my God, we're peers, man. We started pretty close to much the same time. Today's guest, I'm gonna read this because uh um it's been written and it's better than anything I can come up with off the top of my head. Since I have very little brain left, uh, is a stand-up comedy legend. I love that. Don't you know you live long enough you become a legend? Somebody said that? Yeah. It wasn't me. With a career spanning more than 40 years, you probably know him as the Love Master. We'll get into that because I was always curious of uh where that came from. How do you get into that? But Craig's done just about everything stand-up movies, TV, radio, writing, uh, speaking, and somehow uh survived Hollywood with a soul intact. That's that in itself is a major accomplishment. He was named Comedian of the Year at the American Comedy Awards, uh, appeared on the Tonight Show. Uh was it back with Jay or uh with uh Johnny? That's the wrong credit. Uh uh I didn't do that show. You didn't do the tonight show?

SPEAKER_05 4:53

I don't know where that came from. Oh, wow. So good. You and I both had the late show, but not that show.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Oh, okay. Well, that's great because uh I I've had people come to me after my show and tell me, I I saw you on the tonight show. I absolutely loved it. I go, you didn't see me. And they go, No, we did. They they argue with me. I'm telling you, I said, you know what? It's not one of those credits. It's not like I saw you at a at a brothel, right?

SPEAKER_05 5:15

You know, um you know, and then you want to deny it. Well, it wasn't me. You need to mean something, though. It doesn't even mean much anymore. You can have any credits. I should I think they should put credits on how you became a comedian. Like his father left when he was one day old. His mother belly dances, high school graduation party. It's all true stories.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Here he is, Craig Shoemaker. I mean, that's the stuff that's well then we'll we'll just can this because obviously it's full of crap. Were you on parks and retrograde? Yes, all the rest of the stuff I'm sure is true. Uh Scream 2?

SPEAKER_05 5:42

Yeah. Okay. Played the professor, the phone program. There's seven now. I I lived and he promised me that I would uh be in more because I was but he died. West Craven died. Oh, yeah. The director died, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

So didn't fulfill the promise. Well, the next time I'm in LA, why don't you and I go over there and we'll spit on his grave? You and me. You know. Uh yeah, and you've become a strong voice for recovering, healing, and helping people laugh through hard things. We're going to talk about that because I I love that laugh therapy thing we were done. So today we're talking comedy, faith, recovery, getting older in the business, um, and probably a few stories we shouldn't legally tell. Uh please welcome Craig Shoemaker, man.

SPEAKER_05 6:25

There's no like uh you have a applause track or anything? Not at all. Usually they say please welcome there's something. Please welcome. Yeah. So great to be here, man. I I've been wanting to contact you for a while, and uh and I did. Or you contacted me.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, I reached out on Facebook. You wrote something prolific, which you don't even remember writing, which is Well, I write a lot of things. I'm just wondering which one it was. Yeah. Yeah, but it was really profound. And I uh we'll we'll we'll attach it, we'll find it, and then we'll attach it because again, if you want to know what road life is like um from a comics point of view, it was really well written and um you didn't throw anybody under the bus, which is great because you're a bitter jaded human being. I think by the way I work on that. I'm you're you're sober uh as long as I am. Yes, 38 years. So um uh this is one of the funniest things was when I hung up, I told Tammy, I said, I haven't sponsored anybody in the program in decades just because I travel so much and you know normally a sponsor.

SPEAKER_05 7:32

There they live nearby, but these days, ever since COVID, you realize anyone could be anywhere. Right. Uh you gotta get a zoom or a call or text or whatever it is, and you know, so I just said oh So I was honored that you would ask me. Yeah, my well, my sponsor went out after 44 years. He went out and used again. He did on pain pills. That's when a lot of people go out with a lot of time. That's what they go out on, is pain pills. So I'm gonna make sure I don't get hurt. I won't be on any motorcycles.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Well, anyway, I had my hips replaced and they gave me oxy. And um I I took it for a day and I already doubled up. You know, I was double up. My kid saw me. My kid never saw me drunk or high. Yeah. And he comes in and I'm wheyzy-wheozy. He goes, Oh, Pops, I've never seen you like that. I go, Yeah, this isn't good. This isn't good. Yeah. So I tell Tammy the next day, I'm I'm going on, I'm not taking any more pain pills. And she says, What are you gonna do for the pain? And I said, Nothing. And that's when she started taking the oxygen.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

You can always do like a tile it all though.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Well, that's what I did. I did ibuprofen. But again, that didn't even touch it. You take that in every time you golf. But the thing about the pain of a surgery is you know it will go away. I mean, it you'll heal and it'll go away. Yeah, yeah. Unlike a chronic uh you know, my dad was addicted to Vicodin for the last decade of his life. Really. And I'd call him up and I'd go, Dad, you can't be doing he goes, Why? I don't hurt. And then you call him later and like, my dad was one of these guys, you know, he he'd pick up the phone and you'd hear this. It's like he just said to himself, crap, it's my son.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

You know, you know what's so weird about our age is everybody's got ailments. And now they're all canceling. Like, like today, I just as soon as I got in, I contacted Dorfman. I said, Do you want to golf? He's oh, I got to work on my back, you with your hips. I said, Yeah, it's uh you know I'm gonna start hanging out with only young people.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Well, we have an over-under in our group on how how many holes we can go before someone brings up a surgery or an ailment. That's exactly right. It's the ailment whole three. Everybody looks and goes, I said a hole and a half. I said four. I said, you know, but that is.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

I'm in this men's group. Uh well, unbelievable. And they're and they do pass around, you know, pills or whatever, you know, to deal with the pain. I I just uh I'm a real natural guy. That's been going on for a long time. I'm natural healing. I believe in laughter healing. You do you know uh you might have read the story, but no one else has here that's watching. But my my friend, a very close friend, Philly guy, we used to watch games together and everything, and he wrote Cool Runnings, Little Giants, real comedy guy. We had a lot of fun together, and he directed my first movie called The Love Master. And with Farah Fawcett and everything. And and then Wow, you work with Farah Foss? Yeah, I'll tell you that story. But he is put a pin in it.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I think of all the I think it's the only poster I ever had on my bedroom wall.

SPEAKER_05 10:23

Same here, same here, and I couldn't believe it. Well, you want to hear so she worked with me on the film, and I was practically calling her Miss Foss. So thanks for doing my movie. She did it for like a hundred dollars. And we get in this car and we're rehearsing, and she goes, I'm just here because I want to know if that love master is real. And she reaches over and there was no horn in my crotch, my carrot top. And I wasn't ready for my close-up. That was the worst part. So, what gave me so nervous? How'd you create the character? I mean, what it's a character because I was a geek in high school. I was five foot one, 92 pounds in high school, and I was always a geek. And the girls would use the F-word with me, friend. I was always the friend. You know, they pee together, women pee together. You know, they took me with them. That's what a geek I was. I'm just a guy. They'd be smoking cigarettes, I'm sitting on the tub, they're talking to me, peeing in front of me. They didn't care because I was like, I didn't think I was gay, but I was just such a friend. I'm I was in gay zone. So then they were gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Charla can speak to that. She's a woman. Yeah. Did you have male friends like that?

unknown 11:19

They were asking me if I was a gay man.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

She's like that. That was a hell of a segue. No.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

She's from California. Um yeah, I had friends that I didn't realize had feelings for me that I thought were just full-blown friend zone.

SPEAKER_05 11:34

Well, you're that age. I had feelings for everyone. Anything, any woman, any girl. I always say woman because my sister trained me. So what was the hook? What was the hook? So, so anyway, so they would always talk about Tommy's so hot, George's hot, and I'd go, I'll fix you up. No, yeah, I'll fix you up. I always fix people up, but I had this little high voice, and I'm thinking, just give the geek a chance.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

The love master, baby. Yeah, I love you so good. Your neighbor will have a smoke, baby. Oh, yeah, that's right, bird. You heard a naked and afraid. I get naked, you'll be afraid, baby.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

That's that's how he came out. Um he channels, literally channels through me. It's this Lithario guy that a lot of women, like I haven't met women that only want to be with him. Right. I I swear to you, they want that bad guy. I'm not that guy. I am not that guy. I'm a nice guy. I fix people up, I've fixed nine different weddings up, marriages up, I put probably hundreds of jobs. I like making people happy. That's my thing. My mom, I always try to fix her up. I used to write her letters. I used to write letters to famous people to fix them up with my mother. Like one guy, I used to collect baseball cards. I didn't care what they hit. I looked for one thing, marital status on the back. Like so I threw out Mike Schmidt, Hall of Famer, threw out. Oh my god. He was married to Donna Schmidt. He was married. I was not interested. Larry Boa married to Shanna Boa. I still remember their wives' names. That's how obsessed I was. I had to had to get a husband for my mom. There's a guy, Tim McCarver. Remember Tim McCarver? Oh, sure. I I think he's from Tennessee. I said, Mom, here's your future husband. Wasn't he a catcher? Yeah, he's a catcher. I said, he's a catcher. I'm a pitcher. He could teach me how to pitch in the backyard. He doesn't want me. I go, yes, he does. I wrote him letters to Veteran Stadium. Dear Tim McCarver, you should meet my mother. Here's her picture in her belly dancing outfit. That's a true story. Anyway, he never wrote me back. But things take time. Joe Buck, that was his longtime partner, broadcast partner. He comes to my show. I got to know him, told him the whole story. He laughed. Next time I see Joe Buck, he hands me a ball from Tim McCarver and it says, Dear son, time to grow up. Love dad, aka Tim McCarve. That's great. Yeah. And he he actually died the same time my dad did, my real dad. Isn't that weird? Yeah. My dad left when I was born. Somebody said, Wow. And uh yeah, so I I've always been this guy that's like a rescuer. It's there, it got in my way a lot of times too, but you know, nice to people, but they always want a bad guy. At least back then they did.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

That's that's who the Love Master is. That was Tammy. It's very funny when we were shooting the pilot. Um, Jeff Dye, who was a handsome guy. Tammy walks in and says, He's an alcoholic. I go, Yeah, he's two and a half years sober. She goes, Oh, I would have been all over that four years ago. You know, because Tammy said she goes, every guy she ever dated was just bad and you know, and and yeah, you know, I was. I'm shocked she stayed with me because I'm really a nice guy.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

Yeah, yeah, you're not that bad. Well, maybe you were, but uh, we all were at one time. But I was bad in a different way. When was that first? Oh, that that was early. That was really early. I I mean, I it's kind of a tough story, but I was kidnapped when I was uh uh 13. Holy cow, where's this? That's not that's not where's that in the bio?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

That's not in the bio. We got a Netflix show here.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

Yeah, I'm actually I'm actually crowdfunding for my show called Still Standing Up because it's it's hard to believe I'm still standing up through all this. I mean, it really was a very difficult we used to get evicted all the time. I thought the word evict meant move. I go, mom, here's the eviction truck. She just she would like to read a letter, she'd cry, and when we'd pack it up and go again. We lived in all these different places, different different people and stuff. So it was no structure, there's no stability, no security. And this was this kid absorbing in this tiny little kid, and I was just beaten, and you know, but you moved to a different neighborhood, beaten up again.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

And that was your mom and with with with uh with men at the time.

SPEAKER_05 15:23

No, no, my mom never was with a guy. I mean, she tried to date, but who is how's she supposed to date? She's 10 hours a day with work and then comes home, she's exhausted, and there's us. You know, it's a and it was siblings. Uh just my sister.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Where do you fit?

SPEAKER_05 15:36

Youngest, oldest? I'm the oldest, uh oldest brother. I have a sister. I've just found another one, by the way, another sister. So you're the only one. I have another one, another sister that we found each other. Oh, really? Yes. And then it turns out.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Through your dad? Obviously, that's your mom.

SPEAKER_05 15:52

So it's yeah, my mom I would have known about it. Yeah, you wouldn't have seen it. Maybe, but uh no in my family. Uh so yeah, it's it's it was just a very difficult life. And then I've got this father figure guy that I met him after an Eagles game. Because that's what you do when you're a kid. You get into sports. I wanted to be a guy, you know. And I did everything to be a guy, including drink, drug. That's what you do, right? And um, so I this guy he befriended me and he took me to Washington, D.C. for an Eagles game, and it was just awful. It was the worst day of my life. And then he kept me there for five days at his ghetto pedo hotel. Holy cow, how old were you? Yeah, I was 13. I hadn't even had puberty yet, but uh but I have to tell you something, you know, not to get too deep. But that guy doing that really made my life significant and magnificent because I learned true forgiveness. I learned how to work through those types of things. Eventually, at first I just drank. I tried to kill myself. I was just it was my because my mom says I told her about what happened, and she says, Don't you ever tell anyone. And yeah, they say you're only as sick as your secrets. Right. And I was sick.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Well, that's it. And and people, you know, we talk about this a lot on this show, but uh there are root causes to why we do what we do. Yeah. And when till you get to those roots, you'll continue. And and even if you give up one substance, um, did you find yourself uh uh how how many years or how many weeks, how many days, or did you do work before you got into the program? When you got into the pro uh uh before you started really getting to the roots of all of this. Oh, that took a while. Yeah, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_05 17:29

It took a while. Sure it does. You have to keep unpeeling and unpeel, you find something else to do. You got sober when I did in the 80s.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

So that was all the self-help.

SPEAKER_05 17:37

Um inner child. Yeah, the inner child, right? Remember that Bradshaw?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

I used to say that. That was a very popular thing of meeting. My inner child apparently is a whiner. Yeah, I read all of Bradshaw's stuff. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:51

Melody Beatty's uh you had to heal from stuff like that. And even my mom, I had to heal from my mom. Yeah, I'll give you an example. I I try to kill myself, you know, when I came back from Washington, D.C. 13. And my yeah, my mom uh my mom uh used to make sure that's the one thing she'd always make sure I looked good for for church. I always had nice ties. So you're a church kid. Not really. She'd drop us off, you know. She'd drop no Protestant. So she'd drop us off, and you know, I got communion and all that kind of stuff, but I wasn't really getting it. I'd never got it. But uh I always had nice ties, and then but she was always paranoid about money too. So I put them, tied them together, and I put them over a closet door, and I tied them on the knob, and I put a noose I learned in Boy Scouts, and I put a noose around. I started dangling, I was choking, and I did it really loud so she would hear me. She comes running in the room. This is typical for my mom. She goes, Oh my god, what are you doing? Those are new neckties. I just bought those for you. Get up.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And that that's it in a nutshell, man. That's my mom. I I do it right. I gash my knee and I'm bleeding in the living room. My mother walks in. First words, stop bleeding on the rug. Exactly. Get in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Yeah, because when you're poor, everything's about the money. Right. And so that's her first instinct. Not that her son's dangling, right? Having problems, that he was just kidnapped by a serial pedophile. No, it wasn't that. It's like, what are you doing to my ties, those new Easter neckties? But uh, I always looked good. Everything was about looking good. Yeah, but I was suffering inside, man. Well, absolutely. But I I wouldn't give up any of this stuff because honestly, even people who are listening right now or watching, if I'm helping somebody, that's my life. So if somebody goes, Oh wow, I'm not alone, they're dealing with something like that. And to me, that's a gift because I not only got through, I I did it in a way that was really significant and had a lot of integrity and really grew and stuff. And I learned things, you know, from the Bible or whatever, from meetings. Yeah. The tools that I need. I was not gonna have those tools if these things didn't happen, right? Right. You go without a map. Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

You know, when when I first got into the program, um they told me at some point you will thank God for this um allergy, you know. And I said, You're nuts. I'll never be grateful. I'll never be grateful for that.

SPEAKER_05 20:18

How about the people that said I'm a grateful alcoholic? I know I wanted to shoot them. I know. What are you grateful for? Right. I can't party with everybody anymore. I'm not grateful for that. Right. And now I'm looking at going, oh my god. If I didn't have it, yeah, why would I want to drink now? That's I I'm so far from it now. Now it's just about life. Now it's really about working it, making sure I'm clear of resentments, do the forgiveness, do the amends whenever I need to. That's that's what it's about now. It's just living life, but that is not included in the thoughts. As a matter of fact, I I'm I'm repulsed. How about people that come up with they have like wine breath like after your show? The red wine breath. Red wine's the worst. And they come up, you were great. And I'm like, oh my God, I just got a contact. I'm a newcomer. I mean, it's unbelievable. The the smell that and and just the and and how they're so out of it. I love being present. Yeah, like I just I have a long night last night. I was in Pittsburgh. I was in Pittsburgh a few hours ago. You know, I just flew in here to Nashville, and but I can just be present. I don't need something to do.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Well, that explains the slav slovenly uh attire. Yeah. Yes. Well thank you for forgiving me.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

I'm kidding. I know you. You're one of the better dressed guests I have. Really? Oh, yeah. I have a button because there's a big stain on my t-shirt. I've been on the road. You know what it's like on the road. Yeah. I have to find somebody literally in town that has a washer dryer.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Well, I have a trad wife who does laundry, and she'll look at my shirts and go, Oh, you ate a Taco Bell again. I go, damn. Oh, I have a story about that. I've never told this before.

SPEAKER_05 21:54

There was a show called, oh God, it was one of those comedy shows back in the late 80s. It shot out. Of New York. Do you remember what it was? Bill Rafferty hosted it. It was Comics Tonight or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Oh, uh, was it the one with the John Biner that was not AE? Was it an A E thing?

SPEAKER_05 22:10

It was something where, but they flew me there. I'll never forget. I was so Kenneth Rosie had a show called Stand Up Spotify. Oh, sure, sure. I was on we were on all those shows. But this is out of San Francisco. And I was on the road for a while, and I I had a big duffel bag just stuffed with all my clothes from the 80s. You know what I mean? Akka Joe, remember Akka A-C-A-Joe, uh Gerbeau, all those things with little knick shirts. The little label.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, knick-nicks. Yeah, when my beer gut would push the buttons out, you know, you know, and just scratch my navel through the with a with, you know. But we thought we were happy. Do you have platform shoes that anyone doing?

SPEAKER_05 22:51

Oh, I was a platform shoe guy, absolutely. So I go and I stuffed everything into a duffel bag. I was late, and my manager, my brand new manager is waiting for me. I was brand new sober, too. And he meets me at the plane. This is the day's no security. Pilot waits for you. Yeah, remember those. I love those days. And so we go to San Francisco. And yeah, I'm a poor kid from Philadelphia. We're at the Fairmont Hotel. They had my name in gold embossing on the on the matches. Remember when you wanted matches? It was unbelievable. So I get in there and I was dirty, and I had all my clothes were dirty. And so we go into the room. He's in the room uh with me, this manager. And you know, it's San Francisco, and you know what goes on in San Francisco. It's pretty gay. So his robe has like pink trim. He's got the woman's robe, and I got the blue trim robe. And we're sitting there and we get room service, we got the table, and I called down, I said, Um, I said, uh, I need my clothes washed and I need it from the next day. And a guy comes in and he's really queenie, but like efficient queenie. And he goes, and he's like, he practically had he practically had tweezers picking my dirty clothes out of and putting them into a bag. He's like this. He should have put a clothespin on his nose. He's like this. And this is a true story, strike me dead. And he goes, he calls me back, right? I said, just take all the take your Armani. And he goes, he goes, Sir, hi, this is your valet. He goes, I just thought you want to know that your bill's gonna come to $700.29. And I don't think we want to spend that on Aka Joe. Now I said to him, uh Mr. B because I'm poor. I just I just just keep the one pair of pants, just clean one pair of pants and a pair of socks. He goes, I assume you mean the socks that match. I've never told that story before. Yeah, yeah. That's another road story, though. Remember the road to just load up the duffel bag, but you find some somebody help me with my laundry.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Well, you were one of the first guys that was a true headliner to do the clubs.

SPEAKER_05 24:59

I headlined early. Matter of fact, Dave Chappelle, his first headliner was me. He was 15 years old. I kind of predicted it too. I said, he's got something else. Yeah. He made $150 comedy cafe in Washington, D.C. And I think I booked you there. Remember the comedy cafe in D.C. That was above the strip joint? Above the strip joint. I booked you at Archibald's. Oh, I'll tell you. Remember the remember the women would walk by that Dan Harris, remember him, the Jewish Marine? Yeah. Green Beret or whatever. And they would walk by the strippers while while you're doing the show, because it was like an alleyway kind of thing. And they would walk right in front of you. And he they always had a kit, and it was Windex. Remember, he had he all they all had to have a bottle of Windex because when they finished their set, they had to clean the mirror because they pressed up their nude body on the mirror. So they had to he had them clean them. So they all walk by with the winds. You always knew it was a stripper downstairs.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

I'll tell you when I was working there, I'll never forget this. I booked you there. Yeah. Where's my commish?

SPEAKER_05 25:57

I have a photographic memory. I could tell you what you made. Honest to God. I'll tell you when you worked there and what you made. I have a photo because if I write it, I have a photographic memory. Really? But I do remember booking. That's a curse, isn't it? No, no, that comes into money, actually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

So if you read something, you you retain it?

SPEAKER_05 26:12

If it's written in my writing. Oh, in your writing. I would purposely a lot of times do block writing, this writing, that writing, but I can still remember you we worked a weekend there as in April. Yeah. Anyway, so go ahead. Yes, in April.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

All I know is that there were two guys chatting the whole time I was on stage. There were maybe 20 people in the room. I was I was not doing well. And these two guys were just chatting. And I stopped my show, I put the mic in the stand, and I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk out on a ledge here and guess from New York. He goes, Yeah, Brooklyn. And I said, You know how I know that? Because there's no ruder set of DNA on the planet than New Yorkers. 17 million square feet of bar space within this area. And you two congregate right in front of me to have a well, you ain't funny. I go, these people don't think I'm funny either, but they're showing me enough respect to listen to me and make a judgment call.

SPEAKER_05 27:06

You on the other hand, yeah, you know you can't be funny with the rudeness, because that's interrupting it. Can I can I curse on here?

SPEAKER_02 27:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:14

Okay. Talk about New Yorkers.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

I love the fact that you asked permission to.

unknown 27:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:20

Well, there's another thing. I've been doing radio for years. Now we're gonna have to put a warning on this one. No, I I will not curse much, but for the story, I have to because it happened. Talk about New Yorkers. I went back to Philadelphia with my son. I raised my kids to all be Eagles, Sixers, Flyers, Phillies. And you know, Philly are nasty too. Those fans, they make Raider fans look like Amish people. They're nasty. So we're sitting there, a little 10-year-old, isn't this great? We flew in. They found a New Yorker around us and they started a chant. 200 people.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

You suck cock, you suck cock, everybody.

SPEAKER_05 27:55

You my son's sitting there going, What are they saying, Dad? And I go, I'm not sure. I don't know how to answer. He goes, Then he goes, I think they're saying you smoke pot. That's exactly what they're saying. New Yorkers are stoners, just like your great grandmother. My great-grandmother, oh my grandmother smoked a lot of a lot of weed. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Come on, let me give you a shotgun. Remember the shotgun? Yeah. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah. I took my kid to see the Rangers. Uh, one of the uh first agents I had in New York uh had two season tickets, calls me up, he goes, You want to take your boy to the Rangers? I go, sure. So he's six years old. We take him to New York City. First thing we did is we're trying to inch into traffic, and some guy gets out of his car, puts it in park, and starts beating on the hood of my car. Keep going, keep going. My son is in the front speedlight. I go, wait, we're not even in the stadium yet. There were more fights in the stadium. It was Rangers Islanders. Oh. Yeah. So there were more fights in the stands. And I'm telling him, my son goes, What's the what's this game? I said, just follow the puck. He goes, What's the puck? I go, it's a little black thing. You'll see it on the ice. No lie. Halfway through the first period, my son goes, I saw it!

SPEAKER_03 29:08

Dad, I saw the puck!

SPEAKER_05 29:10

You know, there you go. New York is a different breed, and I used to live there and I survived that. That was not one of my best. Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

I was just a governor's. You like it? I was just a governor. I like to visit. It's not New York. I work.

SPEAKER_05 29:23

Well, New York, New York, you have to have money. Now that I have money, it's nice to be there. But when I didn't have money, I remember interviewing for an apartment. This guy's going, you know, do you clean up after yourself? I felt like saying to him, Do you pee in the corner? It smells like urine over here. And I'm not kidding you. It's it was complete, it was a stain and urine. And I'm interviewing to be his roommate. Because it's so expensive there to apartments. So expensive. And it's everything's confined. If you do Jersey or Long Island, I lived in New Long Island for a little bit. I started comedy actually with Rosie O'Donnell. We were in an improv group together. Really? Me and her, Bob Nelson. Bob Nelson? Love Bob. He was a legend back then. Jiffy Jeff. Yeah. He was a legend back then. Dave Hawthorne, Vinny Mark. We're all in this thing called the Laughter Company.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Vinny Mark was in there too.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Vinny was in it too. That's where I got to know him. Great guy. He's such a great guy.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

I worked with my fate, one of my favorite comics of all time was Dennis Wolfberg. Oh, yeah. Loved him, man. And I worked a series of one-nighters in Jersey with him. And um, see, I don't even remember the other guy. There were three of us. Jerry Stanley was. Jerry Stanley. Jerry.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

Jerry Stanley was the booker. Yeah, Jerry. You know how you could get a gig back then is if you drove a car, if you had your own car.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Well, that's that was it. I had a cut. Oh, you had a car. You're automatic. You don't even have to be.

SPEAKER_05 30:43

You may have to do comedy. Because you would meet at the improv on like 45th and 9th or whatever it was, and you pull the car up and you're you you got you had an automatic spot. It's kind of like in Little League. If the if the guy had a catcher's mitt or a first baseman's mitt, you're automatically in the game. You got the equivalent. Yeah, but that would if if you drove the comics there, that's how I got to know so many comedians.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

It ended up to be one of my favorite things about New York too was if somebody got beat up or mugged on the street, first thing a New Yorker asks is, Where were you? And then they tell them 44th and 9th, and they go, What time? 11. You don't go to 44th and 9th. It's like this unwritten rule sheet of where you go to avoid getting mugged. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, they blame you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And having a car there was not good either. They would always break it.

SPEAKER_05 31:30

It'd take radio that would go out to care.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

That's when I finally just rolled the windows down when I parked. Um late 80s, early 90s.

SPEAKER_05 31:39

Oh, so they didn't smash the window. So smash the window.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

And I've I came in more than once where my radio was half out when I got in the car. So somebody was in the midst of ripping it off, and somebody came by.

SPEAKER_05 31:50

People listening to this right now, they're going, What's a radio?

SPEAKER_02 31:54

What's a radio? I was working in the village one night, it was pouring rain, and you know, uh catch paid 50 bucks, right? Yeah. And I I'm running late. I of course it's raining. You can't get a cab because everybody's using cabs now. So I literally almost ran from the east side to uh catch. Um and uh I come running through the door, I'm soaking wet. Richard Belzer's at the at the bar, and I look at him and I go, You ever get a point in your career where you don't need 50 bucks this bad? And Richard goes, I'm here for the 50.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

Even him. Yeah, even him. He was big back then, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was big. It's just amazing to me all the things that they take for granted today. You know what I mean? Our Uber, you know, Philly, Chicago, was a cop. That was my Uber. I just steal something, I'm gonna have to take your parents. That's where I'm going. Thank you. I wanted to ask you something growing up in Chicago. I was talking about this the other day. Uh I talk to my kids all the time about the differences, but you know, they're Wussify in this generation, too. Oh. The things that we did then survived. Bumper hopping. Did you do bumper hopping? Do you know what that is? I don't know what that is. Oh man, Chicago, I'm surprised. If you wanted to go somewhere and it was snowing.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Oh, snowing. Okay, I know what that is. Yeah, where you grab the back of the bottom.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

You grab the bumper and you just get slippery shoes and you could go anywhere. Right. You just, oh, I'm getting out here. But that stuff is never good. You're like cruising off the horizon all the time. It was like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

But you talk about this uh the whissifying.

SPEAKER_05 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Uh what was your first concert that you ever went to? Fog hat. Fog hat. Okay. How old were you?

SPEAKER_05 33:26

Um probably 14. Okay. Something like that. Now did you go by yourself? Oh no, a bunch of people actually one of the guys got arrested on the way. We all ran from the cop. He he actually spent the entire concert in the police station. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah. We had so much. Well, Tammy, my wife and I were talking about this. Um uh her first concert, she was 15 years old. Yeah. Was uh Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult. I saw it. Her mother dropped her off at the concert. Yeah. Can you imagine having a 15-year-old daughter today? And you're going, oh no, oh no. You're going together. And Kiss, that was quite a crowd. I went to that. Well, she came out, she said she was reeking of weed. Oh I said, Did you partake? She goes, No. And I said, uh, you didn't partake. She goes, No, but my mother knew when I got in the car. You know, I was just, I just reeked of reefer, you know.

SPEAKER_05 34:15

Here's another thing we did to save money. My mom was, we were very poor. We had a Volkswagen Beetle. Ah. Yeah. Has an engine in the track in the back, right? That's a small trunk. That was your first car? Yeah. The trunk was in the hood. The trunk was in the hood. Well, five miles short of the drive-in, because they charge by the head. She pulls over, she goes, get in the trunk. Swear to God. I'm in the trunk of the car. Wedged against the radio speaker, talking to her through the radio speaker. She, I'm Are we almost there? Quiet. We're pulling up. The guy goes, How many? She goes, Well, there's me, my daughter. I said, How about your son in the trunk? And she never let me out. She would she was mad at me. My first Star Wars, all here through the trunk. And but can you imagine all of this stuff that would go on today? We used to hop trains. Oh, yeah. A freight train until Doug Boker, this idiot, got his foot run over and he blew it for everybody. I wonder if he still has half a foot. He has to. I don't think it grows back.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Well, he could kick for the uh NFL.

SPEAKER_05 35:15

John Denton up to Tom Dempsey. That's a 61-yard field goal. I can tell you his holder. Take people sawing their foot off so they can just be in the NFL. Yeah, yeah. Joe Scarpatty was his holder. I remember that. Because he was a trivia question for a while. A long time he was the answer to the longest field goal. Longest field goal. Right. But uh we just did so many dangerous things and survived all of it, you know, made bows and arrows. I used to love making bows and arrows and slingshots, homemade slingshots, and and yet here we are. You know, I was just with all my friends the other day talking about it. We we survived all those things, but I think it taught us things. And that's the bummer about being a father these days. I have nothing to teach my kids anymore. I want to teach them how to whistle. They'll go to YouTube. Well, that's true. They go to YouTube, they don't need us anymore. Yeah I want to be needed. And no, like they don't they they don't need anything because it's all done for them, first of all. They don't have to buy their own car. You know, I we you what was your first car? How much did you spend on it?

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Um uh it's funny because Carolyn, um, her son just got his first car, but he bought that. He saved. He did. Good friends. Every dollar he saved. And the coolest thing, too, is a Mini Cooper. Oh, yeah. And it's so funny. We leave the studio Saturday, and there's two cars in the lot. There's the Mini Cooper, and then there's this beat-up car. Uh it's probably Hayden's, I don't know. But anyway, he goes, uh she says, You want to see Hayden uh uh uh her son's new car? And I said, I'd love to see that. Anyway, I start walking to the beater, and she said it made his day. Made his day. This is good for him. Oh my gosh, my first car, 67 Volkswagen bugs. Oh, you had a bug. I had a bug, yeah. I bought three of them because I couldn't believe what pieces of crap the first two were. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but they started. Remember Woody Allen's movie Sleeper? Of course. It starts out with the VW. I jumped all these people in the winter in Chicago, all these people with nice cars. That's hilarious. My bug started.

SPEAKER_05 37:28

And if it didn't, you would push it and pop the clutch. They called it popping the clutch.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

My first funny, I was gonna ask you this too. Uh the first routine. That was the first routine I ever did that got a laugh. I was bombing every night for weeks. I never had I it's very funny. I saw Leary Reed writing in a notebook and I go, What are you doing? He goes, I'm preparing my set. I go, You prepare this stuff? He goes, You don't? I go, no. He goes, that explains a lot. So anyway, I I was late for an open mic night. Uh I used to have to park on a hill. So I'd run the car down. So the car would go down the Yeah, you had to park on a hill. Strategic parking, yeah. So anyway, the car died right about a half mile before the club. So I come barreling through the door, and I just got there in time for the MC to walk up and he saw me. So he brings me up. I hit the stage full of angst and screaming in this piece of garbage car, and I just laid in about the VW bug. And that was your beat. You got the heater going, it'll burn every hair off your angle. It's like driving around with a flamethrower on the floorboard. Exactly right. There's no regulation. The frosters, your breath, and a rag. I mean, it's a piece of you know, just you know, driving around with a little Nazi tank slit in a snowstorm. The whole thing, man. The whole thing. The little cubby in the back.

SPEAKER_05 38:37

Yeah, the uh you know My mom had them all the time. My mom would have uh a Beetle and uh one time we put it Well, what was the first routine you ever did that you can remember? Celebrity smoking pot in Maybury. You know how I wrote it. I wrote it, my friends would pass me the joint, and I would do a different character, and and that's how my first bit was. You know, like here you go, Barney. You know, Barney Five, I have some good weed right there. I'll tell you, I'm high as five people. How about it, Andy? My damn good reefer right there, Floyd. I got the money. Andy, there are seeds in my marijuana. Andy. Floyd, I'm I'm high as it brought that one back. It's still working. It's still working. If you know what I'm doing, I had a kid in the audience last night. I swear it's true. I go, I said, I said, Andy Griffith. No, I had no idea. I said, Oh, that's so sad. You don't know who Barney is? Oh, yeah, Barney, the dinosaur. Place lost it. I said, how many just felt like a dinosaur? Right. So I did a mashup. I did Barney Fife as Barney the Dinosaur to bring the generations together. Oh, how cool is that? I love you. You love me. We're happy. How about it there, baby? But you know, I looped them in the movie Pleasantville. I did not know that. Yeah. A lot of people don't know. It's not like it's not in the credits, they still get paid for it. But uh the movie Pleasantville. Who's the producer then?

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Uh the director was uh the director was the guy that made the decision not to put your name in the credits.

SPEAKER_05 40:21

Oh, no. I think I'm in the credits as the narrator. I was a narrator also. No, no, they were good to me. They were good. But they brought me in knowing I could do it. He was sick. Don Knotts was sick. Yeah. I think it was his last movie. So not only did I imitate him, I had to become him as an old person because he was really old. Yeah. So uh, if you watch carefully, if we listen carefully in the movie, he circles the apple in a telestrate. It's my voice going, Boom! What they call that route there, bud, the forbidden fruit here in Pleasantville. I'm your TV repair man, bud. Oh, that's great. I met him too, and that was a big day for me. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was one I say, never meet your heroes, and he's always been my hero. I told you I was a geek growing up. He was just my man, this is like my idol. So I became him. So um he's sitting there. I and we I did comic relief, and people tell me this story about him backstage. He was doing this, the Steve Allen show they did a retrospective. So all the Steve Allen showcasts was there for comic relief in 1997, 98. Oh, yeah. And this is Universal Studios, and there's a big tent, and he's backstage watching me do him live in the other room in the theater. How cool is that? And he's like, watching, and Steve Allen stand, he's sitting there, he has bad eyes, he's looking at the at the thing. Everybody said, they were all fascinated watching him watch me. And then they brought me up for a press conference. I did really well. It's like my breakout show. Me and Chris Rock. Have you ever heard of him? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:52

He did all right. I saw Chris. We were the two breakouts. Uh and uh stand-up, uh no, um comic strip in New York. He was 15.

SPEAKER_05 41:59

He's amazing. So they bring, I'm doing a press conference. It was so weird. They're shouting questions at me. All of a sudden went from complete unknown to press conference. Then they bring him up real gingerly, he walks up on stage, and I'm standing next to him, oh my god, it's Don Nuts. And he said, dude, dueling Barney's. And he goes, I can't do it anymore. You do me better than me. I have a picture of me and him hanging out for an hour afterwards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

I'll tell you what impressionists do. Uh they used to do. I don't I don't see much comedy anymore, but I remember Frank Gorshin. Yeah. I never was able to look at Kirk Douglas without going, right?

SPEAKER_05 42:41

Well, there's a bunch of them. There was a bunch of them. They they would like uh like I can't think of Richard Nixon without peace signs. Yeah. Where are the tapes? Yeah. Yeah, they would have certain uh then they they they would like make up things, and then you would think that I was uh I think there was Judy Judy Judy. They would do um they would do um Cary Grant, but he never said Judy Judy Judy. So you're watching the Impressions, Judy, Judy, Judy. Yeah, it never happened. Never happened. No, I it's yeah, we used to watch those impressionists. I had I have a story actually related to an impressionist who you will remember. Do you remember Fred Travellina? Oh, absolutely, yeah. So this is a this can I tell a story now? It's it's kind of it's kind of a deep story, and also has to do with my faith. Yeah. So I was speaking at this church um during the right around the pandemic. Uh close to me, I was asked to be by by this minister who I happen to know, but it was on a Saturday morning.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

Did you open with the story about being in the stadium with the New Yorkers?

SPEAKER_05 43:49

A lot was out. And no Love Master either. Oh yeah, baby. So uh no, I was and I actually, you know. You got nightclub head and now you got church head. Absolutely. And it's a technical.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

And that's the way guys were raised. I mean, all those borschtbelt comics and stuff, they could do both.

SPEAKER_05 44:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's it's not the easiest transition, but m what I was speaking about was the healing powers of laughter, which I'll get to you about, my friend with the brain cancer. Yeah. I was telling that story. That's typical comics. We we went like nine different routes. We'll get back to it. So I'm speaking uh and uh it was all Christian men. And this guy comes up to you afterwards, he goes, uh well, he goes, Well, I'll get back to that. One guy comes up and he goes, You were great. And he goes, You know who my father was? He goes, My Fred Travellina. Oh, wow. And he's a real man of faith. This guy, he became my friend, or my good friend, Corey Travellina. And I said, Your dad meant so much to me because he has an effect on me to this day. You know what it was? He hosted me and my grandmother. I'm a complete unknown kid backstage in Atlantic City. And he spent like an hour with us. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

And on there, my grandmother was like, Fred, I see him on I see him on Merv. I see him on Merv. Here we are. It made my grandmother happy. And I was so happy. He was the nicest guy.

SPEAKER_05 45:08

And from that moment forward, every show I do, I do meet and greets. I meet people all the time. I'm friends with people all over the country. They're my family, they're my friends from meeting them afterwards. I love that. And Fred Travellina did that for me. So now I became good friends with his son. So the pastor then comes up to me right after I met him. He goes, I'm Rob McCoy. And he goes, I'm the pastor here. And I said, I've heard about you. Because of his pandemic response, which that's what I was a big lefty, by the way. I was a big lefty. And this was my I sore out of there during the pandemic because I could not believe the way they were lying to us. So I mean, I was what in the world? I was like blown away by what I was discovering from my friend who also left the left, my friend Mickey Willis, who did the movie Plandemic. He's the one he's the really one that you should have him as a guest. He's unbelievable. I totally can get him for him. He's like my brother. So he was the first. We argued at first. I was like, what's wrong with you? Because there's a right winner.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Make sure we get that name.

SPEAKER_05 46:07

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Pandemic. Watch Plandemic. It's an unbelievable movie. He just has reveals everything about what happened. But Rob, what he would not do that indoor thing. Oh, you can't go to church. He opened up his church during the pandemic. He had the FBI after him. I heard about him.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

I love brave people. I did a church in Southern Cal in the middle of that pandemic. In Southern Cal was. Nobody had a mask on. And I walked on stage and said, apparently you people don't listen to your governor. Right. I don't know. And the governor was after him. Was it that church? I don't know. Five, six hundred people unmasked. We had a chance to play.

SPEAKER_05 46:41

Yeah, it was probably that church.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Absolutely had a place.

SPEAKER_05 46:43

It's called Godspeak. So Pastor Rob McCoy, so he says, We used to stay around for they prayed for me backstage. I was going through, you know, hell with my my now ex-wife. So he tells this story. He goes, 36 years ago, studying to be a pastor, and I had this best friend who was my mentor, and I wanted to be, I wanted to have what he had. He had a wife and three kids, and I had a fiance, and she was in Christianity. I took her back to my parents to introduce them. She was pregnant. And he said, Get out of this house. You either abort that child or get out of this house. We disown you. He says, I can't do that. I'm a Christian. He leaves the house. They disowned him. Then weeks later, she takes a ring, puts it on the dashboard. She goes, I can't marry you. It's not your baby. It's his best friend's baby, the guy who's mentoring him. Holy cow. Yeah, can you imagine that? So he's telling this story. I'm like, oh my God, it's unbelievable what this guy went through. So now he lost his best friend in Christianity, his mentor. He lost his fiance and lost his family all in a couple weeks. So he's distraught. He's going to kill himself. He knows exactly how he's going to do. He's going to go down this road and drive off and perish to the left down this cliff. He's driving along a miracle occurred and he made the right. And a week later he met his wife. So he doesn't tell us what the miracle is. And that night I go to uh this is a very profound story for me personally, by the way, for my faith. I go to Kenny Loggins. You know Kenny Loggins? You know, the singer. Yeah, he's his last night with Loggins on the scene. I used to tour with Kenny, so I had great seeds. He'd shout me out and everything. He's doing this song literally called Peace of Mind. I was really feeling prayed for and just feeling that divine spirit inside of me. And I get a text during the song. And it's from Rob McCoy, the pastor. And he goes, The reason I didn't drive off the cliff is someone had just handed me a CD from a comedian named Craig Schumacher. I laughed until I cried. Life is worth living. You save my life. I'm your best friend forever. Oh my gosh. Is that crazy? That is cool, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

And and from that you probably get this coming out of the pandemic. Um I I didn't I never looked at what I did as anything more than a job, you know. Um but coming out of the pandemic, I would have husbands while their wives went to the bathroom tearing up, telling me it's the first time I've heard my wife laugh in two years. Exactly. You know, and you start realizing that maybe the clowns were we we were put here for 100% for a purpose.

SPEAKER_05 49:10

And you know what's really weird. I'm sure you have this voice inside of you that wants to be humble. I think you even open up the show being humble, like nobody, you know, you know, I mean we do that all the time, but that's programmed into us because we don't want to be cocky or not, you know, give the glory where it belongs. But we really are we have a gift. And I have to own that all the time. I'd say it's okay to own that, to own that we have a gift of happiness and joy and laughter that is going to help people. I've had people that were going to commit suicide. All other people have told me. Other people have told me my best friend got brain cancer. They said, You have three months to live, and that's the day I started these programs: guided laffitation, chuckle chatter, intentional laughing. Because jokes are subjective, laughter's not. So I did these programs in his cancer facility. He gave him three months to live, he showed up for all of it. I was making up as I went along, and I came up with this whole new system. He lived 15 years past that prognosis. Wow. Fifteen years. I made him laugh on his deathbed. He was in a coma. And I was like, yeah, 15 years. We were with him all the way. Golds. Golds, he was always dying, and we'd get him together again, put them back together again. And finally it was the end. He was in his old folks' home. He was staring. He was just he was in a coma. We filmed it. I said, Are you doing do you even know him here? I'm like waving my hands. Nope, just staring. He's in a total coma. I said, What can I do for you? I was so frustrated. I just wanted this boy, this guy to live. You know what I mean? And I leaned in and I said, Let me give you a handy. I said, I've never done anybody but my own. I'll give you a handy. He came out of a coma and he goes, He laughed. And I felt like that's my gift. I made him laugh on his deathbed. He'd die a few days later. But I feel so good about all of the laughter that we bring. You just have to own it and be okay with it. It's like, it's okay. Maybe that's why we're here. Yeah. It's turning pain into punch lines. I mean, that's that's the way it goes.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

My sister, when my mother passed, uh, they both my sisters lost their best friend. My mom, my mom and my sisters were very, very close. And um a year and a half after she passed, um, you know, Vic was still mourning. I mean, the loss. Yeah. And we were down, I was down there for uh my nephew's wedding. So I had my arm around her for a picture. And I said, uh, you remember when we were in hospice with mom and she slipped into the coma. We all went in to say our goodbyes. We knew she was she was leaving this earth. Vicki goes, Yeah, I remember that. I said, I just want you to know that uh she said I was her favorite. And the picture of my sister just laughing. Umerals.

SPEAKER_05 51:50

I think they should be called funerals.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Well, we were we were at the hospice telling mom stories. Yeah. We're hollering. We were in that place hollering, and some nurse came over and said, Not everybody here is having a the time of their life. But I said, Well, you have to know my mom. Why not?

SPEAKER_05 52:08

Yeah, she she I tell people this, you know, I do these guided laffitations and things. I have this thing called a laugh bath, and I'll have them say have them say, What's your obstacle? What's your fear? What's getting in your way of your bliss? And once in a while they'll say something deep, like a death.

SPEAKER_03 52:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:23

The way I approach it, as we're laughing, because you can't laugh about that. Yeah, you can laugh about anything because it's for your own good, your own health. You just laugh for the health of it. So, what I say in the chuckle chat, I say out loud, is it is they want you to be happy. Who's ever passed away? Right. You think they want you grieving all the time? No, that's a burden on them. That's guilt. Yeah. If it they're thinking to themselves, no, please go be happy. Please make enjoy yourselves, even if it's my expense. Yeah, can't I want people to laugh at me till I'm long, long gone, you know?

SPEAKER_02 52:56

Yeah, we're we're making uh make a joke about it, but it's it's also, you know, Tammy. Oh that's our pillow talk now. You know, what do you want to do with the ashes? I mean, you know, we used to kiss every now and then. Now it's just like whatever you die first. What do you want me to do with your ashes and stuff? So I made the joke. I said, I and I'm serious. I I now I want them in an Amazon box and I want them thrown in a grave, and you can take a picture and let everyone know I've been delivered.

SPEAKER_06 53:22

It's like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Um but Kenny Rogerson had one of the best uh uh funeral jokes. He wants the a cardboard imprint of him next to the casket, uh just waving and laughing, tipping a beer, waving and laughing, tipping a beer so we can all come and say goodbye to Kenny, you know, and remember him the way we you know we remembered him.

SPEAKER_05 53:47

I used to think that it was so stupid to do the ashes thing. Now I'm like, yeah, why would I waste all this in a big giant box that cost a fortune and everything? I might my dad cremated, put his ashes where he went fishing.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Well, you're a golfer, you'll love this. My dad, every year we'd play in the memorial tournament in Kentucky. And now it's flighted, and he was always in the the the highest flight. Uh they call him dewdroppers. He would hit there at 6 30 in the morning. And he was good. And no, it was it was terrible.

SPEAKER_05 54:15

You mean the highest flights, the worst people?

SPEAKER_02 54:17

No, though the the yeah, the 14th flight. You know, there's the first flight, which are the best players and the 14th. He was like the 14th. I'd be with your dad, but so anyway, he says uh uh for years. Uh it was Memorial Weekend. So if you win Saturday, lose Sunday, you don't play Monday. But if you lose Saturday, win Sunday, you play Monday. The key was to win your match on Sunday. Years. Never played Monday. Never played Monday. So I pull into the court, you know, I always teed off four hours after he did. So I'm I'm pulling in the lot. Somebody comes out, your dad's in a playoff to play Monday. So I hop in a cart and I'm driving out and it's a par five. And uh I'm seeing him coming off the green, shoulders are slumped, he's dragging the putter behind him, and I wanted to turn around because I, you know, I figured, okay, he got beat. Yeah, but he saw me and he gives me one of these half-ass waves. And then uh I pull up with the cart and I go, So how'd you do? He goes, I won. You won? And he goes, Yeah, with an 11. The other guy made a 13. Oh, wow. So when he died, my nephews came up from Texas. My sister uh was living down there. She she took care of all the ashes and stuff. I said, Give me some ashes, and then uh let Brian and Michael come up and we'll we'll celebrate. We'll play in the memorial tournament. And then the practice round, all three of us hit two balls out of bounds on that hole in honor of dad, and we dumped his ashes in the sand trap.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

Really? Yeah, it was really kind of cool, man.

SPEAKER_05 55:42

Really kind of cool. I play in these celebrity golf tournaments. It's you know what it is, the celebrities are athletes. They're trained from birth to be an athlete. I don't have that kind of mentality. Even their wives are trained that sports are number one, everything about them. So I got I got a trophy for closer to the car on the on the last I hit a wedding. But it's so embarrassing. And then they they mic me up and they have cameras on me because they think I'm gonna be funny. And it's me and Ray Romano, who's also not funny on the court.

SPEAKER_02 56:14

Right, me neither. Oh, you're not funny either. Oh my gosh, man. My cousin, my cousin was a pro and get us in these money games. Yeah. I can play golf. I used to play better, but yeah. Anyway, we're in a money game. And he says, I always try to figure out what hole it would be in the back nine. My friends would come over and go, Your cousin's not funny. You know. So yeah, they're expecting it. Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_05 56:36

I'll tell you a funny story. I'm the opposite of funny, by the way. I'm too, I'm too uptight. Well, I'll tell you a funny story. We played the Marshall Falk tournament. You know Marshall Falk the Running Back. Thank God he was there because I could curse on TV. I go, Marshall Fuck!

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Marshall Falk!

SPEAKER_05 56:52

You don't have to edit that.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Yeah, we don't Falk is Falk. Yeah. So anyway, I played uh I I open I did I opened for Glenn Campbell at the Traditions Golf Tournament in Arizona, right? Yeah. So some businessman comes over to me and he says, uh Glenn and I are playing Phoenix Country Club tomorrow. Would you like to join us? I go, Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, 12th hole, at some point, Glenn walks over to me and he says, I guess because you're a professional, we have to pay to get a joke out of you. And I said, I don't hear any rhinestone compact falling around. I'm telling you, he bolted it, he didn't speak another word to me the rest of the day. Really? Yeah. Wow. Talk about thin skin. I played that. But that was I thought that was very funny. And the other guys laughed. I go, there's your joke, man. I played with him. He had Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_05 57:34

Oh, really? Yeah, literally. Yeah. He's really weird because uh He loved that game, though. I mean, yeah. I was playing also with uh Paul Williams, and they go way back. Remember Paul Williams?

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Did you I got a great story? Did you ever Paul Williams was on a tonight show? And Johnny says to him, I understand you quit smoking pot. What's the reason? And Paul Williams says, I was smoking weed in my closet one day. And I was convinced the guy mowing his lawn two blocks away knew I was in my closet smoking weed.

SPEAKER_05 58:03

What if I remember that story? He's I call him Paul Lama. He's one of my boys. Oh, really? Oh, he's my Paulama. Big time, yes. Oh, right? Sober, long time. Oh. Has a book about it. Uh called something about it. Get him on the podcast. I'll get him on here in a minute. He's a great guest. He loves to tell stories. He's got them. He's in a documentary called Paul Williams Still Alive and asking the same question you just did.

SPEAKER_02 58:27

You just said the title of it. It's so funny. You see him everywhere.

SPEAKER_05 58:31

He was everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 58:32

You don't see him anywhere.

SPEAKER_05 58:33

Yeah. He's always on a tonight show, Cannonball runs, all those things. You know, he's like Grammy winner. This dude has an unbelievable career. It's like uh Martin Mole. I mean, we saw him. Is he still with us? No, Martin Mole's not. Oh, okay. He's been gone for a while, but uh no, Paul, he's he's still he plays golf, candidate out of his shadow. Don't tell him I said that. Yeah, yeah, it's a little watching this. So sure he will when he's prepping to be on it. Oh, okay. When he's gonna look at my episode, all right, Paul. I'll give your book a plug. Yeah. So he's a good book, you know, about sobriety. Yeah, he's real it's uh Gratitude and Trust, it's called. Gratitude and Trust. Yeah, that's what it's called. Yeah, yeah. He's he's a great guy. A lot of people don't know who he is, but he was a huge songwriter. He wrote most of the carpenter stuff. But the hell with him. I'm on here now. Let's go. What a what are we read my resume? Right.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Well, we have questions that people uh people posed. Oh, they did. Wow. Uh and usually about uh it's about recovery. Don't give the tricks of the train. It's probably chat.

SPEAKER_05 59:42

I phone up. It's my boyfriend. Yeah. Do you use grok or chat? I use chat, but I'm gonna switch to grok. I I'm a little mad at chatting right now. I actually I actually have had some words with chat recently. Oh, really? I said, why are you doing this to me? It's like being with my ex-wife. It's like challenging me. And I'm like it's doing what I'm not asking with my ex-wife. I suffer from correctile dysfunction. I'm always I'm never right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that because uh I I I live with a uh Tammy is this close to clinically OCD. Yeah. So I've I've said that if Carolyn described her as an Amish woman who carries a Louis Vuitton purse. She digs in the soil, but she likes nice things. That's great. I've always said if she went to the Louvre, if there was one picture that was slightly askew, that would ruin the entire trip to Paris for her. You know, for five days I'd hear about it. Don't they have people? They don't have people. I mean, like, I let the you know her mother came to visit for Christmas one year, and our church had a band. It's Nashville. They had a band. Yeah. And for five days, all I heard was, How do you go to a place that doesn't have a choir? There's no choir. How do you not have a choir? I go, Did you hear the message of the baby Jesus, Ma? So uh yeah, but she'll spot. I mean, I'll go to give her a kiss in the morning. I'll be walking towards her, and she'll pull back and then flick something off my face. And I go, Can I just kiss you before you like correct me?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:15

My mom, I call my mom Rain Girl. Remember Rain Man? Then we all watched Rain Man together. And now that is her. That is. Oh, she's unbelievable. She's still belly dancing? She doesn't belly dance anymore. She's a little past that. But she didn't do the moves though. She she hula, she she was something else. But she was a divorcee, so all my friends wanted her. She bought us a keg. Isn't that funny? From my graduation. Yeah. My dad had his own cult. He ended up with a cult of women. He had 14 women, he called his harem. And he ran mule rides in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. That's what he did. You're serious? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. My dad was quite a character. And talk about the Love Master. One time he was an entrepreneur, which is a French word for scam artists. He always had a new scheme, usually pyramid. He says, Barbara.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:06

That was the high heyday of the pyramid.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

Oh, yeah. Fuller brushes. He started a full brush man. Then he calls, he goes, This is uh Barbara. If you want your child support check, which he never gave ever once, he brought he dangled a carrot. Invite your big breasted friends over. I'm selling bras. He had bras meets Amway, right? So I hadn't seen him in years. And there he is in the living room. Now you got friends. So he goes, no flatsies. Now she's got no flatsies. No flatsies. I'm with the big ones.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

She's got friends that weren't invited and they're ticked off. Why wasn't it?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:43

So there I'm looking in the living room. I'm like seven years old, and there he is, smoking a pipe with my Aunt Barbara, Aunt Fran, Aunt Dottie. They weren't real aunts, but you know, there they were in bras. He's a turn around, Dottie. Show how it lifts and separates. Don't be shy. It's just you women and me. This is the three-class model for the full-figured woman. This is only one of his jobs. And then he ended up in the mule business. And he had a harem. One of my great moments in stand-up was I went to the house.