Fitzdog Radio - Greg Fitzsimmons (Fitzdog Radio #1133) | Greg Fitzsimmons

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Subscribe to Greg Fitzsimmons: https://bit.ly/subGregFitz Greg goes solo this week to catch up on life, turning 60, and the wild birthday party that brought together friends, family, and a few unforgettable moments. He talks about seeing Bruce Springsteen live, navigating friendships across political differences, and what it feels like to hit a milestone age while still feeling young. Greg also shares stories from his past, including getting arrested as a kid and some chaotic teenage adventures, before wrapping up with a few “Fastballs with Fitz.” This episode is brought to you by Tempo. Get fresh, chef-crafted meals delivered right to your door and take the stress out of eating well. Go to https://tempomeals.com/fitsdogand use promo code FITZDOG for 60% off your first box. This show is produced by Gotham Production Studios and part of the Gotham Network. https://www.gothamproductionstudios.com/studios/ Follow Greg Fitzsimmons: Facebook: https://facebook.com/FitzdogRadio Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregfitzsimmons Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregfitzshow Official Website: http://gregfitzsimmons.com Tour Dates: https://bit.ly/GregFitzTour Merch: https://bit.ly/GregFitzMerch “Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons” Book: https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82 “Life on Stage” Comedy Special: https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial Listen to Greg Fitzsimmons: Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio Sunday Papers: http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod Childish: http://childishpod.com Watch more Greg Fitzsimmons: Latest Uploads: https://bit.ly/latestGregFitz Fitzdog Radio: https://bit.ly/radioGregFitz Sunday Papers: https://bit.ly/sundayGregFitz Stand Up Comedy: https://bit.ly/comedyGregFitz Popular Videos: https://bit.ly/popGregFitz About Greg Fitzsimmons: Mixing an incisive wit with scathing sarcasm, Greg Fitzsimmons is an accomplished stand-up, an Emmy Award winning writer, and a host on TV, radio and his own podcasts. Greg is host of the popular “FitzDog Radio” podcast (https://bit.ly/FitzdogRadio), as well as “Sunday Papers” with co-host Mike Gibbons (http://bit.ly/SundayPapersPod) and “Childish” with co-host Alison Rosen (http://childishpod.com). A regular with Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel, Greg also frequents “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Lights Out with David Spade,” and has made more than 50 visits to “The Howard Stern Show.” Howard gave Greg his own show on Sirius/XM which lasted more than 10 years. Greg’s one-hour standup special, “Life On Stage,” was named a Top 10 Comedy Release by LA Weekly. The special premiered on Comedy Central and is now available on Amazon Prime, as a DVD, or a download (https://bit.ly/GregFitzSpecial). Greg’s 2011 book, Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons (https://amzn.to/2Z2bB82), climbed the best-seller charts and garnered outstanding reviews from NPR and Vanity Fair. Greg appeared in the Netflix series “Santa Clarita Diet,” the Emmy-winning FX series “Louie,” spent five years as a panelist on VH1’s “Best Week Ever,” was a reoccurring panelist on “Chelsea Lately,” and starred in two half-hour stand-up specials on Comedy Central. Greg wrote and appeared on the Judd Apatow HBO series “Crashing.” Writing credits include HBO’s “Lucky Louie,” “Cedric the Entertainer Presents,” “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Man Show” and many others. On his mantle beside the four Daytime Emmys he won as a writer and producer on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” sit “The Jury Award for Best Comedian” from The HBO Comedy Arts Festival and a Cable Ace Award for hosting the MTV game show "Idiot Savants." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Hi, welcome to Fitzdog Radio. I'll be your host for the next, I don't know, 45 minutes.

minutes, 50 minutes, 51. We don't really plan it. Once in a while, I like to talk to you guys solo, especially when a lot has been going on in my life. And I can't, you know, my guests are great. I love having them on. But sometimes I like to just shoot the shit for an hour. So let's get to it. Dates coming up, Bakersfield at the well. April 18th, Escondido, Grand Comedy Club, April 24, 25. Brea Improv, May 8th, Boston, at Laugh, Boston, May 29th and 30th. Then I'm coming up to New Hampshire, Rochester, at the Opera House, June 5th, a gunquit at Jonathan's Theater on June 6th. So go to Fitzdog.com, get tickets.

The dates may not be linked there, but you can find your way to these gigs, can't you? Also, this time of the year, I'm trying to stay consistent. I'm trying to eat better. Summer's coming. You want to look good. You want to work out, which means you have less time. Tough to cook. That's where Tempo has stepped in and let me accomplish all my goals.

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That's Tempomeels.com slash Fitzdog for 60% off your first box. Tempomeels.com slash Fitzdog. Rules and restrictions apply. And get in there. Enjoy yourself. Okay. Let's talk about my voice is gone. I'm sorry if I'm a little bit flammy.

I was supposed to record this yesterday, but I completely lost my voice after doing another podcast during the day. And so we're cranking it out. I'm actually going to do this, and then I'm heading right off to do the Adam Carolla show for the 107th time, I think. I am the most frequent guest in the history of the show. and I love Adam.

He's a brother. I've known him for a lot of years. And, you know, he gets shit from the left because his politics have become very conservative. He's very outspoken. Our politics do not align. We don't talk politics very often. And I'm in that situation where you go like, well, are you supposed to even sit with somebody who you disagree with? I hope so.

And when politics come up, I don't pull my punches. I talk. I mean, I saw Bruce Springsteen last night. I'll talk about that. And it's a very political concert that Bruce is doing. And I think that's well known. And maybe we talk about politics. Maybe that's some kind of an entree into that. I don't care. I'm not scared because I know that we respect each other. And maybe it's a discourse.

Maybe some ideas are shared. I hope so. The concert was unbelievable last night. It was down at the Kia Center. About 12 of us went down together and just smile on my... I've been a Bruce fanatic since I was a kid. Since I was probably about 13 years old. I've been just captured by his lyrics.

screen door slams Mary's dress waves Like a vision She dances across the floor As the radio plays Roy Orbison is singing for the lonely Hey that's me and I want you only I mean come on

And just the music He's a showman He's one of these guys that fucking Like maybe the greatest frontman of all time He is out there He's set I think he's 75. He's got to be 76, something like that. But God damn, the voice is good. Tom Arello came out and shredded on guitar. And, you know, the whole East Street band was there.

And they all have interesting takes on music. They all play in an interesting way. But just a party. My wife had never been to a Bruce concert. She's not a huge fan of the music. She had the best time of her life. It's just so much. fun. So go do it. If you're still, if he's coming to your town, I suggest it. And you know, yeah, it's political, but so what? You can't handle somebody fucking putting out somebody. It wasn't, it was really, it was really just about the music and then the, the, the political stuff was there as a, as another layer to it. Um, my first Bruce concert was in 1980. I was trapped after high school

I worked for six months. I saved up $3,000 by parking cars at a country club and working as a cook at TGI Fridays. And then I got a backpack and a trench coat and I went to Europe for six months on my own. Well, I was with my buddy for half the time. And when I was in Greece about halfway through the trip,

I met a guy who said, I have one ticket for Bruce Springsteen on the 4th of July. This is the Born in the USA Tour in London, England on the 4th of July. I mean, can you fucking script a better show? Meanwhile, I am scheduled to fly home on July 5th the next morning.

So I hobble into London with no money left. I just remember being hungry at the concert because I had just enough money to get to the airport on the train the next day. And I went to a four-hour daytime show at Wembley. And it was unbelievable. It was just, I was hooked at a whole other level. And then, and then the last concert I went to of his was about a year ago, maybe it was two years ago. And the tickets in L.A. were $1,000 each. And I was like, fuck this. So then Mike Gibbons, who's always got an angle.

Mike is a guy who, even last night when we pulled into the parking lot, it was $85 to park your car at the arena. $85. And meanwhile, Ticketmaster, there's a $50 ticket fee. So right out of the gate, before you've bought your ticket, you're spending $130 to go to the fucking concert. And so Mike Gibbons, kind of talks to the guy and we end up giving him 50 bucks cash under the table.

He's always working at angle. So anyway, he calls us up and he's like, hey, Tulsa, Oklahoma tickets are $110 right now. Flights are 140 round trip and we can get an Airbnb for 10 of us where it'll cost us each about $60 a night. meanwhile the bob dillon museum has just opened in tulsa oklahoma which we've been dying to go to the woody guthrie museum is in tulsa oklahoma um so we said fuck it and we got tickets and we flew to tulsa oklahoma and we started out the seats were not good but because it's oklahoma we just walked down i mean L.A you're not going anywhere they got security every five feet to make sure you're not trying to move down. Oklahoma, we walked right, we walked to the front

of the stage. Bruce came by, he didn't high five us, but he high five the guy in front of us. That's how close we were. And it was, it was great. Anyway, the worst is, I got this guy behind me last night, and he is a big Bruce Springsteen fan. It was not a young crowd. These people were up there. They were up there. But they were passionate. And they knew every word. And the guy behind me

especially knew every word. I know this because I paid the ticket was $2.40. Plus all this parking bullshit. And I had a gentleman behind me singing loudly every word. I paid to hear Bruce Springsteen.

sing dancing in the dark. Not fucking Johnny Dipshit from Jersey. We get it. You're from New Jersey. Yeah. Okay. So, anyway, he stopped. This went on for like four or five songs.

I was like, all right, we're going to have to change seats. And then I think his voice must have worn out, but he stopped, and it was fine. I could not sing along, which was driving me crazy, because I wanted to sing. I knew every word to every song in the entire three-hour concert. But I was mouthing the words because I had to save my voice because I'm doing this podcast this morning. I got Carolla at noon. And then I'm doing Ryan Sickler's podcast at 4 o'clock. So I had to conserve.

And anyway, it was great. Highly recommend it. I turned 60, two days ago, 60 years old, which is incredible. I do not feel 60. I am in good shape. I can bench press my weights. I can run five miles at a pretty good pace. Penis is all, it's thumbs up.

The penis is working well. I sleep well I don't have to pee often at all my energy's down I don't have the energy that I used to have my memory is shits but but and you know and

I have fun I have fun we had a party for my 60th and if you're listening to this and you were not invited it was an oversight because I really did want to invite all my my good friends and I really didn't spend enough time working on the invite list. But anyway, we had about a hundred people. And at one point,

I was like, I got to cut the list because that's too many people. And I looked at the list. There wasn't a single person on that list that I didn't consider a good friend who is going to be a great guest at a party, who's fun, who can tell a story, who can laugh, who parties. They were all there. And I mean, people were partying. Like, I have. I had seven bars of mushrooms, chocolate bars, and I handed out pieces to most of the people that came in. A lot of people bought their own mushrooms. And then two people were sneaking off to the bathroom, and I'm proud to say this at my 60th birthday party. Two people were sneaking off to the bathroom and snorting a little drug called cocaine in 2006.

So that happened. And then a couple who will remain nameless snuck into the bathroom and made love to one another. And then I was standing there with three other people when they came out. And I said, did you guys just have sex in the bathroom? And they just started laughing. And they said, yes. And this is a couple that's been together for 25 years.

We still were keeping the same. dream alive people why not why not we had dancing i put up mirrored balls it was a 60 themed party so all the tablecloths were tied we had drink you know feather dream catchers we had everybody dressed in 60s outfits um from from tie die and bell bottoms to some people dressed mod like madmen 60s um there was it was everybody show i'm not everybody a couple people showed up without the costumes on and they kind of stood out like a sore thumb so i had a bunch of peace signed necklaces and we had headbands and we had stuff for people to put stuff together um it gave the party and a sense of fun and freedom and gave people something to break the ice and

talk to strangers about the music. I put together a playlist over the last couple weeks of great 60s dance songs from Motown to the Jackson 5 to Beach Boys, some early Beatles. And people danced, people talked, people laughed, people gave speeches. And it was a warm. We got a summer night. It was unbelievable. My buddy Matt Malloy is an actor, but as an actor, he had many incarnations of life to put himself through being a struggling actor. One of which, well, first of all, he was a licensed taxi driver in New York, which if you don't know, takes so much study. You have to know every side street of every of the five boroughs. This is before GPS. He was a licensed massage therapist, and he was a licensed blackjack dealer in Atlantic City. So he bought a 300. I was so touched by the effort that my friends made helping this party be everything it could be. He bought a $350 blackjack table.

He got a tuxedo. He tied-died the white tuxedo shirt, and he dealt from 630 until, one o'clock in the morning, nonstop. And we had people buy in. It was real, real money. People bought in. I was the bank. People bought in on Venmo.

They played. And then if they won, they requested the money on Venmo and I paid them back. The house came out about $280 ahead at the end of the night, which I'm going to use that money to take Malloy and the Dunskies, this other couple. They made the cake. did a bunch of other nice stuff. We take them out to dinner with the earnings. But there were some people that were a little bit rude at the table.

People get caught up in blackjack and they forget that my dealer is not a paid dealer. He is a friend. And he is not to be fucked with. And so I'm a little upset with one of my friends who made a scene. My daughter's friend lost a lot of money and she left really bummed out. So then the next day I refunded her money and she was over the moon because she works in a pet store. She doesn't make a lot of money. We had a massage chair set up in one of the bedrooms with candles and soft music and everybody got a 15 minute massage that wanted one.

And we had a food. truck, not a food truck. We had a Mexican food setup in the yard. The food was unbelievable. And neighbors came. Lots of comedians were there. Chris McGuire, Frank Sebastiano, Bill Burr, and everybody mixed with people they didn't know. And then, yeah, and then my kids' friends showed up. And my son flew in from New York for the party. My sister flew in from New York with her husband and son and the son's girlfriend. My friend Dimples Liz flew in from New York. My friend Mary Fitzgerald flew in from Boston.

It was huge. It was so meaningful. And I only have a party once every 10 years. I had one for 40, had one for 50, had one now for 60. And I realize that's it. Not having a 70th birthday. That's pathetic. No one's going to be fucking and snorting in the bathroom on my 70th.

It's going to end at 9 o'clock. This thing ended at 2.45 a.m. You fucking kidding me. At 2.15 people sent out for Taco Bell delivery. My mom was not there and that was very sad. We felt heaviness that she was missing. She should have been there, but she didn't want to fly because the flights weren't direct, blah, blah, blah.

I get it. She's 83 now. It's hard. It's just we wish she was there. Erica Rhodes, comedian Erica Rhodes, we have the same birthday. She used to open for me. We're good friends. And people started showing up to my party that I didn't recognize.

And we realized that her party was around the corner and people heard my party, which was much bigger and louder, and they started coming into my party. And so eventually, Erica just came over to my party. And she took mushrooms and had sex in the bathroom. No, she did not. We had speeches, which was really nice. There was a toast. First off, my friend Mary Fitzgerald, who I have known for 30.

eight years. When I was in college, she was a graduate from a different college. We met and we stayed close friends through both of us living in New York, both of us moving out to L.A. at the same time. She's a TV writer, very successful TV writer, and we ended up writing on Lucky Louie together. Total coincidence. Like we, you know, she was, she studied creative writing, in college. She got a master's at NYU, and then she ended up writing for TV. Her first TV writing job was actually from my ex-girlfriend, or at the time she was my girlfriend, and she got a sitcom on CBS, and she hired Mary to write for it. And then that kind of brought Mary out to L.A. And then we have just, she's like a soulmate. You know, she gave this speech talking about how we have

just had the most effortless, drama-free, fun. We have a thing called the hotline, which means when we call each other over the last 38 years, the other person must pick up on the first ring. It's called the hotline. You don't send it to, no matter what you're doing, you answer the phone. And it's usually a one-hour conversation.

And, you know, I've just been through, we've been through deaths. We've been through marriages, and she's just an incredible person. She grew up in Boston, tough broad. And so she was there. She made a toast that was very moving. And then my buddy Tom O'Neill, author of Chaos, got up, talked about how he put a roof over my head. This would have been 35 years ago.

He put a roof over my head in Little Italy and New York. And we've been buddies ever since. And I had to remind him while he was up there that I got him on the Joe Rogan show, which sold his book, put it on the bestsellers list. And he gave us very funny gifts. Anyway, I hope this isn't boring. I was very touched by this party. My daughter got up and spoke. And then Mike Gibbons, who's been my best friend for 35 years.

It was a history of friendship and community. My family, my friends, everybody was there. and then Mike gave this speech that really brought me to tears. And then I had to go up and speak. And I got out maybe three minutes of speaking. And then I got choked up. And I bit it back, you know. I bit back on the tears.

I straightened out for about 10 seconds. And then I started crying kind of hard. And I felt like, I felt so embarrassed because this is what I do. This is what I do for a living. I stay cool and deliver speeches. And Dave Rath, who is there, one of the greats, he said to me afterwards, he goes,

you know what's amazing about you? He goes, you can go up in front of a hostile crowd in a red city and deal with hecklers and not lose your shit. And then you get up here in front of your friends and you sob. And he goes, that's why we love you. And that made me realize, yeah, maybe people got it. I didn't have to say the words, but I wanted to. I wanted to tell my sister, my sister got up and spoke,

and she talked about how she followed me to college in life. And she was my best friend, my whole childhood. And it was too much. It was too much love. And I am not a guy that shows emotions very well. I try to tell people that I love them but I don't know that it always feels like it's coming from a vulnerable place

and so I just started crying I just cried and so the next day I sent my friends a text telling them what they mean to me and four of them wrote back so yeah that's it I mean because the way people show me love

is action you know, making me a cake, getting a blackjack table, flying in. And it's not about the words. And I think that was what they were telling me. Um, what else. Uh, so I, whatever, turning 60 for me was, um, not a big deal. I, my wife is 60. That's a bigger deal. Because I always wanted to have sex with an older woman. I didn't want to be an older guy having sex with an older woman. I wanted to be the young guy having sex with the older woman. It's not as much fun when the older woman is younger than you. You know what I'm saying? And this is for me, and actually my wife is four months older than me, but this is, hold on, let me get some water. This marks 30 years that I have been,

literally, next month will be 30 years that I met my wife, which means we have now been together for 50% of our lives. Isn't that amazing? And I've seen her grow from, she used to be Julia Roberts assistant and she worked in development for Julia. I saw her have a hot shot career. I saw her give it all up to raise two kids because that was her priority, become an amazing mom. And then once the kids grew up, started a new career as a doula. And just to see her studying and getting these degrees and watching the breastfeeding videos and me sitting there by her side, supporting her and watching these women breastfeed on the videos, watching the full round heaving bosom of a pregnant woman or a new mom,

putting that breast with the elongated nipple into the baby's mouth and sucking on it as the milk dribbles down the underside of the breast. Just being there for her in a way that she knew that I cared about her. That's the important thing. And being 60, I don't feel old because I feel my kids keep me young. And they're good kids. Neither one of them became a comedian, so I know it didn't completely fuck up. My son and daughter were so social.

It was one of the things where every person that left the party was like, your kids blew me away tonight. They are so mature. They are so funny. They are so caring. So it was really nice. And it reminded me in my 50th birthday. One of the most moving moments of my life was I'm a huge Led Zeppelin fan.

And my kids came into my room. we always do breakfast in bed. If you're in this family and you have a birthday, you get breakfast in bed. And then you get given your gifts. So my 50th birthday, they gave me breakfast in bed. And then my son and daughter came in. They were probably 18 and 15. Would that be right?

10 years ago? No, they would have been 15 and 12. And they came in and my son played guitar. and my daughter plays flute and they played stairway to heaven for me while I sat in bed eating eggs and maybe crying. So that was nice.

And it just feels like at 60 it's borrowed time for me. My father died at 53. His parents died in their 40s. All heart stuff. Every time I get a sharp pain in my chest, I just feel like, finally.

Finally, I don't have to do three podcasts this week. I don't have to worry about the mortgage. I can just go, but it doesn't happen. I just keep going. So at this point, I don't want to die as much as I used to. I used to, I didn't want to die. I just didn't want to live sometimes. And I'm over that hump.

I'm in a good place. So I'm enjoying my bonus time. And now I'm looking at, what am I going to retire? What, 65, 63? Start drinking again? Who knows? We went out, but my sister came out a week early, and we went out to Joshua Tree,

which is out in the desert, and we rented this big Airbnb as it was like five bedrooms. It had a big pool and a hot tub and a cornhole court and a pool table and a ping pong table and a poker table. and we just hung. The weather was perfect. For the first time, everyone in my family took mushrooms together, all of us. And there was what they call a full pink moon, which is the first full moon of the spring.

And it was pink. It came up really fast and it was big. And when you're in the desert, you can see every star. And my sister showed me this app, which you got to, you got to, you got to, try this. It's, it's an app where you hold it up to the sky and it shows you the constellations. You know, Taurus and Ares and the big dipper and it was incredible because, you know, here we are. We're tripping. We're looking at a pink moon. We're looking at the sky. It's warm out. And there's this cricket. There was this one cricket that was like with us the whole time. And it was this beautiful.

I love crickets. And he was the happiest cricket. And I just had this feeling of peace. And we got the Strokes playlist. That's, you know how you're on Spotify? You can put down like a band and their radio, which means you hear their music mixed in with bands that are similar. The Strokes playlist is fucking gold.

And we've got these sketchbooks out and we've got colored pencils. and everybody's smiling from the shrooms and connecting. And the weirdest part was that I had gotten very sick before we left, and I lost my voice entirely. I had laryngitis, and I'm freaking out. Part of it was just the stress of throwing the party, the stress of my family all flying out, and I just got off 10 weekends in a row on the road.

and I think my stress kind of collects in my throat. So I got this raw throat. When I coughed, it felt like ground glass in my lungs. And my body ached. And I was like, fuck, we're going to the desert tomorrow. So we go out and I go to the doctor and he puts me on a steroid to bring down the swelling and some antibiotics. And he goes, do not talk for the next 48 hours. And I'm like, perfect.

So the entire trip to Joshua Tree don't talk. And it was really hard not to talk. But something happened that was transformative for me, which is I sat with everybody. And I normally feel this pressure to be on and to be funny. That's always been my role since I was a kid at the dinner table. Make everybody laugh. Make everything okay. Make sure everybody's having a good time.

Be funny. And instead, I had to sit on the couch with the sketch pad my hand and just watch everybody. I'm drinking hot tea with ginger and honey. And I'm just watching everybody. And guess what? They all had a good time. It wasn't necessary for me to do heavy lifting. Not that it's heavy lifting.

It's fun. But there's a layer of pressure to being that guy all the time. And it took me out of the center. And it put me on the edges watching. And I suddenly just started smiling and sitting and realizing that I can just be, you know? And my family was entertaining on their own. And I was appreciating the shit out of them. And it was just a lesson.

It was like, it was like, you know, part of it was like 80s. and if I'm not engaged and on, I tend to shut down and disassociate. And so I'm always afraid of doing that, so I stay on. I stay, you know, so it was just, it was a lesson to me that I can be like that more. I can just chill. And it's the same thing with my stand. I was thinking about my stand-up is sometimes I feel like it's a little sweaty. I live laugh to laugh.

I'm constantly grinding for the next laugh. and not taking enough time to just be up there. And that's something I'm going to start working on when I'm on stage. So it made me think about my life, my narrative, that life is an evolution, and that this is this next step in my life is about just accepting. And Mike Gibbons gave this speech. about not looking up. He talked about how I can be a little bit resentful

that I didn't make it as big as some other people and that each of the speeches were pointing out that I had balance in my life and that my career actually for 35 years has been solid, you know? Yeah, I'm not playing arenas, but... And I just, I think this next iteration of my life is about acceptance and, you know, still having my passion and still being creative, but not feeling like it's going to all go away. So anyway, what else I want to talk about?

I had going to crawl. All right, let's do this. We have asked our games. We have asked our guests questions at every podcast. At the end of the podcast, I do fastballs with fits. But I never say my fastballs with fits. So I thought I'd do three or four of the fastballs with fits questions to myself and see, and you can see what, what, what, what, uh, what, uh, what my answers are. So, uh, the one thing I always ask people is, have you ever been arrested? So I've been arrested. three or four times. I was a juvenile delinquent. I vandalized a pool.

My friends and I one summer snuck into a house where nobody was home and we took potted plants and big pots and we threw them in the pool and a neighbor saw us and fucking ratted us out

a girl in my class fucking rated us out and so the cops came to my house and we were arrested and I had to pay I can't remember the amount but I had to pay a fair amount of money

I think about half my summer because they had to repair a crack in the bottom of the pool and so there were like four of us and we all had to chip in and have it fixed so that got me a JD card which is a juvenile delinquent card when you get three JD cards

they send you all off to a special school with other juvenile delinquents. So that was my first. My second JD card, it was me and my buddy Sneaky Pete and then this kid Rick Fenneck, who I was friends with from high school. And Rick was kind of a nerd that I was hanging out with. I don't know why. It was one of those things where I would hang out with everybody.

I was that guy. I wasn't clicky. And so we were hanging out. And we had a slingshot. They called it a wrist rocket because it attached your wrist and then you would shoot it. So we were hiding in the woods next to there was a Catholic Girls College called Marymount in Tarytown where I grew up. And so cars would drive by and we would shoot the side of the car with the slingshot, you know, with pebbles. and then we would run.

So this car drives by, and I guess the pebble might have been a little bit too big, and I blew out the side window of this car, like shattered it. And the car screeches to a halt, and there was three people in the car. There was a woman in the passenger seat, and then there was two dudes,

and they get out, and it was these two Puerto Rican guys, and they start chasing the three of us. And they're adults. And they start chasing us through the woods. And Sneaky Pete was fast. And he took off like a fucking jackrabbit. He was serpentining between trees and through ditches.

And it just takes off. And then I'm running. And I'm pretty fast in the woods. But Rick Veneck, this fucker, got so scared that he had an asthma attack. And so I'm trying to drag him through the woods. These guys are getting closer and closer. It's two big Puerto Rican guys, and they get up and they fucking grab us and they throw us on the ground. I'm like, all right, we're dead.

We're dead. I've seen West Side Story. These guys have switchblades. I know how this ends. And we're in the woods. We're going to get buried. And instead they go, uh, get the fuck up. We're taking you to the police.

Which is weird that they had Cuban accents because they were Puerto Rican. And they took us to the car. and they put us in the car and they drove us to the fucking police station. And the police grilled us and they knew there were three people. And so the cops were asking us who the third person was. And I wouldn't talk. I said he was some kid. We just ran into him.

I said, I think he was from the next town over. I think his name was Tommy. and so they literally brought out yearbooks from Irvington and Austin, which were the towns next to us. And we had to keep going back to the police station. And we'd have to go through these books and look at mug shots and yearbook photos

trying to identify who this other guy was that took off. Meanwhile, Rick Veneck, Johnny fucking asthma, rats Pete out to his parents. And so Pete got hauled. in and then we had to pay for the window and I had my second juvenile delinquent cards. All I need is one more

and I'm going away. So, cut to about four months later and we were breaking into cars we'd steal sunglasses and change and whatever and I remember I stole

some cassettes from a car and one of of them was Moth the Hoople and one of them was ACDC back in black and we stole it from the car and then a guy came running out and he fucking chased us and we ran up to the high school and then a cop car came up to the high school and then put on the fucking siren and we had to run and so that would have been it but but we got away did not get caught um didn't go to jail Second time I was arrested was in Tarrytown. I was in a bar fight.

Oh, wait, no, this was my, is this my second JD card? Did I get? No, this was, for some reason, this didn't count as a JD card. But me and my buddy, Brian Van Horn, I had a moped, and we used to go to the next town and take taekwondo lessons. And so we're in the Tarry Inn. which would let anybody in because the bartender was this guy, Gay Joe. And so we were about 16 years old, and he would let us in, and he would give us beers.

And then at the end of the night, every night, he would say, Hey, you boys are too drunk to be walking home. You'll come upstairs to my apartment. You'll spend the night with me. And we would always go, nah, Joe, we're good. We'd beg off and say, no, we're good. So this night, a kid named Eddie Flakos hanging out in the bar with us. And he starts a fight.

with us. I forget how the fight started, but Gayjo threw Eddie Flacco out. And then he bought us another round of beers. He goes, I let him go away. You'll stay with me tonight. And so we drink another beer, and then about a half hour later, we leave. And we walk outside and Eddie Flacco comes running around the corner. And he comes at us. And he pulls out a switchblade, but it wasn't a switch blade. It was a switch comb. Remember those combs that were like switchblade? He pulls that on us. and Brian, we go into a fucking Taekwondo stance. And I forgot to mention, Eddie Flacco's like 30 years old. And so we grab Eddie and we throw him on the roof of a car and we're all fighting.

And what we forgot was that the North Tarry Town Police Station is about 20 yards from the Tarry Inn. So these cops come out. They don't even get a car. They literally walk out of the station and come over and arrest the three of us. and put us in jail. And so we're in jail. I'm wise enough to the cop.

The cop reaches in, grabs my hair, and went back when I had hair. It was beautiful. And started bashing my head against the wall. And I was bleeding down my face. And then we got one phone call. I don't want to call my parents.

So I called my buddy Johnny Trubbles's mother. She was a waitress. And so she came in. single mom waitress no fucking money and she bales me out i think it was like two hundred dollar bail and she paid it with like singles from her waitressing job so we get out and i think we got out at like nine o'clock in the morning and then i walked home and i had snuck out the night before my parents didn't even know i was out and so i snuck in and uh i went up to my room and then i came down and my mother's like uh she's like uh oh no no no i walked in and she saw me walking in

she goes where were you and i said uh oh i just met i just met up with brian i walked his dog and uh and she's like oh okay that's weird and then the newspaper comes out the next day and they have a thing called the police blotter where they list local crimes and it said gregg fit Simmons and Brian Van Horn arrested at 134 a.m. outside the tarry in for disorderly conduct. And so I was busted. And then I was arrested for fighting again in Providence, Rhode Island. Whatever. I don't want to get too into the story. But I was arrested in Providence, Rhode Island. Me and my buddy, Sean Bergoin from Northern Ireland and my brother were walking down the street and these local, were in Newport or Providence. I can't remember. But we got

kind of jumped and ended up in jail, which I got out of because my friend's dad was a DA in Providence. And so I got out of jail without any charges and then proceeded to drive back to Boston. I'd been up the whole night the night before and I was exhausted in court, hung over. And then I drove from Providence back to Boston and my ex-girlfriend's car fell asleep. on 95 north and crashed into a truck and then a guardrail at 70 miles an hour and somehow hobbled the car off the road. Car was totaled, towed it back to Boston and I had to pay for that. So that's my arrested story. Where did you lose your virginity?

Okay, I lost my virginity to a girl named Linda. We were hanging out on the benches. And the bench is where you sat when you were a teenager, and you would hope that one of your friends who either owned a car or had their parents' car would drive by and pick you up, and you'd go down to the Spanish bodega downtown, and you'd buy beer, you'd buy some Boons Farm strawberry wine, maybe some Mad Dog 2020, and you'd go to,

one of about eight different spots that we would hang out at at night. There was the loading dock. There was the hot spot. There was the Zoc. There was the gazebo. There was Frog Rock. And so you would just bong bridge. And so you would go to, you would just go on a route and you'd run into other people and smoke weed.

And maybe, maybe if it was a big night, you'd going out of the Bronx and buy some Coke. And so, so I'm sitting on the bench that night, and Linda pulls up with this other girl, Mary, and she's got a Camaro. And I'm with Johnny Trouble, and we drive off and we buy some wine. And we drive to there were, it was drizzling out. There was a drizzle. And we pulled off the, there was the power lines, which, you know, anytime you see power lines is always a trail underneath them for utility. to go in and do any repairs. So we open up the gate and we drive down the power line and we start fooling around.

And I'm on the front hood with my pants around my ankles in the rain, feet sliding in the mud, performing what can only be considered a dash. It was not a marathon. It was not a 440. It was a dash. And Johnny Trouble was on the back hood with Mary having sex with her. Well, I'm on the front. And the car was rocking.

We were rocking the car together. And that was it. Pants never came off. That was my first time. All right. Last one. Have you ever won any awards? Yes, I have won when I was a kid.

I was on the swim team. And I was awful, but my mother made me do it. I hated cold water. I was afraid of. breathing. Like I didn't know how to do the freestyle and breathe. And so I just did like doggy paddle and I always came in last. And there was an award ceremony and they were giving out trophies.

I got one of those participation trophies, you know, Mr. D, who was a swim coach, all our parents were there. And I was probably about nine years old, maybe 10 years old. And I win third place in breaststroke because I was. thing that was closest to doggy paddle. I won. So last place in breaststroke. And so everybody would just go up, you'd get

your trophy, you'd shake his hand, you'd sit down. I go up, I take the trophy, and then I take the microphone out of Mr. D's hands and I start thanking everybody in the room. I thanked President Jimmy Carter.

I put a peanut in my nose and I killed. I fucking destroyed. So I didn't make it as a swimmer, but I may have launched my career that night. All right, that'll do it. Thank you guys for hanging out. I hope this wasn't boring.

I didn't really prepare it as much as I should have. I didn't do a lot of jokes, but the important thing is Tempo Meals. If you go to Tempomeals.com slash Fitzdog, you can get 60% off your first box. It's amazing. Highly recommend it. Also, Bakersfield and Escondido coming up, Brea, Boston. Go to Fitzdog.com, get some tickets, so we'll see you there. Thank you very much to Gotham Podcast Studios.

They do an amazing job producing the show. And I guess we'll just catch you guys next time. God bless America.