Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Steve-O Part 1: There is Nothing a Clown Can’t Do

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

The first part of our interview with Steve-O (Jackass, A Hard Kick in the Nuts book, Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast), who stops by to discuss his amazing journey to overcome countless odds against him, becoming one of the most well-known, talented stuntmen of all time. He details his family history of substance abuse, failing out of college, and the origins of his affinity for stunt work. He opens up about his own struggles with addiction and road toward sobriety. Steve-O shares his unbelievable experiences in clown college, including auditioning for the exclusive program and breaking down the different types of clowns. See Steve-O on Tour: https://www.steveo.com/pages/tour-dates Pre-Order Steve-O's New Book: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/stephen-steve-o-glover/a-hard-kick-in-the-nuts/9780306826771/ Steve-O's Podcast: https://www.steveo.com/pages/podcast BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They said, so what we're going to do to start the audition, every, all of you will line up against the wall. And one by one, you will jump in front of the camera, state your name, and why you want to be a clown. And then when it was my turn, I jumped in front of the camera. I said, my name is Steve Glover. I am an aspiring stuntman from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I just got done hitchhiking all the way from Albuquerque, to Denver because I do not want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I would have missed out

on the biggest opportunity I ever had. It's Miami-Biolic's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. Hi, I'm Miami-Biolic and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. We're going to talk to someone today whose name is Steveo, and you may know him from the jackass franchise.

But first, what am I going to say? No. Not my favorite jackass, my favorite clown, Jonathan Cohen. You saved yourself there. I knew where you were going first, and it was a little wag of the finger that put you in a different direction. Jonathan, this is a case of I made a friend

separate from you, and then I brought him to us. I did Steve O's podcast and I like vaguely knew of the Jackass franchise, just being super honest here. It was not really my jam. I don't like watching people get hurt. Since having my first child, 17 years ago, I have a very difficult time actually watching people get hurt. I do like to watch people falling down, but only if I know that they didn't get hurt.

Like I couldn't watch football anymore when I was a new mom because I used to love football. I was like, that's someone's chat. His brain, like I became that mom. But Jackass also came about at a time in my life when I was like actively in grad school. Like it's just, it was not my jam. And I know it's a lot of people's jam. But when Steve-O asked me to be on his podcast, I had an amazing time. He had so many interesting questions and like he wanted to know all about me.

But I just loved him and his like crew of dudes. And we were like in his magic RV, which doesn't sound strange at all. And I asked him to come speak. to us and the reason I introduced you as my favorite clown is because among all the amazing things that Steve-O has done, he's been to clown college and I want to talk about all the things. What's your jackass experience? I didn't really watch jackass. They didn't have it in Canada?

It was too mean. They had it, but it was like, I don't know, I was like concerned. I was like, doesn't that hurt? Like it's since actually speaking to him, my 14-year-old has put it on and we've watched it together. And it's been funny to see his reaction to some of this stuff, which is like, you know, he just thinks it's crazy, which it is. And I kind of explained to him that, you know, some of these things are actually quite painful. And he has, I feel like an appropriate appreciation for what they're doing. I mean, I am fascinated by the drive that gets people to do

that stuff and also concern for serious injuries. You're that mom too. Exactly. Well, I think this might be then the first episode. that you let your son watch. So, hi, Shaden. I will also say that, you know, the, the conversation that unfolds is a really introspective portrait of a guy and what is driving him through life and his challenges and struggles. And, you know, while his material professionally can be broad, he is actually a fantastic storyteller and extremely introspective. And I think people are in for a treat. Yeah. And also, like, first of all, his first of all, his first language is Portuguese, like keep listening to find out. And his dad was like a very, very fancy

corporate executive. Like, this is not the story that I thought we were going to get from Steve-O. So that being said, it is so, so exciting to welcome Steve-o to The Breakdown. Break it down. Steve, welcome to The Break-Dade. We're very excited to get to talk to you. Well, thank you for having me. I had a really good time talking to you and getting to know you a little bit. And honestly, I wanted to have you on this podcast because I want to know about clown college. Okay, good. But there's many other things about you that are super awesome.

You just, you're recording an audio book. Is that correct? I am. Yeah, I spent my whole day to day for the second day in a row recording the audio book for what is my second book. You can go ahead and keep plugging. What's it called? Yeah, I mean, it's not going to come out.

until September 27th. Okay. But the title of the book is a hard kick in the nuts, what I've learned from a lifetime of terrible decisions. That's an incredible title. Well, thank you. And it's, like I said, it's my second book. And I think my first book is my proudest achievement.

And on my second book, a hard kick in the nuts is, it is available for pre-order. And if you know about books, the day that it actually is published, all of the pre-orders are credited to that first week. So I love to encourage people to pre-order. But yeah, enough of all that. So I'm going to be very honest.

You came into a lot of people's consciousness at a time in my life when I was getting a degree in neuroscience. I knew of you, but there are many people who know your work incredibly well and your jackassness, as it were. But I'm very curious, just from what I've learned about you, you've been clean and sober for 14 years. You have a love for animals, which is really awesome. And you've had this whole kind of presence in the public as a certain kind of person who's very, out there and gets kicked in the nuts and staples your ball sack to your leg. But there's a lot more to

you. And just even in the time that I've gotten to talk to you, you're a very, very interesting person. Tell us where you're from. Were you the guy who was always doing stuff and getting hurt as a kid? What were you like as a kid? Well, where I'm from, I'd say is maybe one of the more shocking things about me. I was born in England to a mother who was born in Canada and a father who was born in America. So I'm actually out of the gate triple national. I have three valid passports for England, Canada, and America. At the age of six months old, my family moved to Brazil where I spoke my first words in Portuguese and my father was the president of Pepsi. Cola in all of Brazil.

Stop it right now. Are you kidding? 100%. It's totally true. And then when I was two years old, my father got promoted to, I think he was like the president of Pepsi Cola and some like larger region of South America. We moved to Caracas, Venezuela when I was two years old. And I spoke fluent Spanish in nursery school.

Then when I was four years old, my dad, I believe still working for Pepsi, we moved to Dary Ann, Connecticut. And that was when I essentially became American, I suppose. I attended kindergarten in Daryon, Connecticut. And then when I was six years old, my dad became a corporate executive for our job. J. Reynolds Tobacco and the family moved to Miami, Florida. And this was at the beginning of the 1980s, I moved to Miami, Florida. And at the time, science was exposing cigarettes for not actually being good for you. Yeah, I think that the link to cancer was made very, very official.

And America was very litigious. So tobacco companies got kind of scared, and they went about buying up food companies. And that was why R.J. Reynolds' tobacco was involved in the largest corporate merger slash takeover in history, which was when R.J. Reynolds' tobacco became R.J.R. Nabisco. It was called the KKR takeover. And I know that's a lot of minutia, but the point is that when I was eight or nine years old, my dad had an aberrationally good year in the KKR takeover where the Nabisco is merged with the tobacco company. And we moved to England when I was nine years old.

At this point, like I said, it was an aberrationally good year from my dad. We really saw the size of the houses that I grew up in growing substantially. Is this your way of saying you were like you got super rich, like you had a rich life? I was, yeah, I was actually pretty embarrassed. I was very self-conscious about the growing size of the homes I lived in. And, you know, I was always seeking to be like on and overnight at someone else's house rather than bring anyone over to my house to see the size of it. I attended high school in London, England. And my dad was chauffeur driven to school every day.

And if I overslept or for any reason I couldn't skateboard to school in time, I would be forced to ride with my dad and his chauffeur. and when I would ride in the passenger seat, my dad would be in the backseat, like with his newspaper reading it. And when they dropped me up at school, I would hug the driver and then get out to try to create the impression that the driver was my dad and that I wasn't like a spoiled rich kid. But yeah, it's pretty funny how my dad was this wildly successful corporate executive. And he went from soda to cigarettes to cookies. I mean, that's like the standard American diet right there. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. My Ambialx breakdown is supported by Superpower.

We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what superpower is doing. They send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab.

One simple blood draw with over 100 biomarkers. That's way more than you usually get. It unlocks a true understanding of your body. Their app has detailed information on heart, liver, thyroid hormones, metabolism, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. From disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog or simply optimizing your gym game, superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system out there. I've been super tired of constantly guessing or just trying to read articles online about what to do for

health. Superpower gives you an actionable health plan based on personal results. It's a real game changer. Plus, they have an on-demand clinician team to answer questions. Supplement or prescription suggestions can be directly bought through superpower so you don't have to go anywhere else. They also have nutritional guidance, tips for lifestyle and behavioral adjustments. You even get your true biological age that you can track over time. Superpower used to cost $499.99. Right now, it's $199 for the full experience, which is much more affordable than anything else out there. Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership.

And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my ambiolics breakdown to help support the show. I think most people wouldn't really guess that I had this privileged upbringing that I was raised in the finest schools. In fact, I went to such an obnoxiously privileged high school in England. It was called the American School in London. You know, I was in class with the son of the American ambassador to England. And I actually sold weed to the son of the American. That's American ingenuity. You brought it all the way across the ocean.

Right. You know, there's one interview I misspoke and actually said, I sold weed to the ambassador. No, it was. But no, it was to his son. It was to the son of the American ambassador to England or the United Kingdom or whatever it was called. I got arrested the night before graduation of high school for a drunk and disorderly. You don't do that the night before you graduate.

That's like amateur. Come on. I did. I did. And I was locked up in what they called the drunk tank until like five o'clock in the morning or something. And I was released and went virtually from a jail cell straight to my high school graduation. And what's more notable about that graduation, is that I believe 80% of my senior class in high school went on to Ivy League universities.

I was considered a loser for going to the University of Miami. Within two weeks of class starting, I was placed on final disciplinary probation. I mean, we're laughing, but I'm sure your parents didn't think this was funny. They did. And it is funny. It's absolutely funny. I'm curious what the expectations were going to that high school. Like, did your parents...

To go to an Ivy League, Jonathan, 80% of the people did that. But to go to an Ivy League, but like, were there already plans that, you know, you should be a lawyer or like an executive? It was absolutely understood that I would go to some type of university and get a college education. The nature of the career I would pursue, I kind of. have stumbled on because I grew up as a skateboarder in, you know, my first half of high school. And my dad won a video camera in a corporate golf tournament when I was 15 years old. And he came home with this video camera, stuffed it in his closet. And I, like, very quickly stole it from his closet and said about making skateboarding videos

when I was 15 in, it was March of 1990. And I just fell in love with the video camera, like in such an intense way. And I knew I wasn't that great at skateboarding. It's not like I was going to become a pro skateboarder. But I just loved the video camera. I loved the way that you could like manipulate a story with it. And I came up with the idea that I wanted to be an, a creative. native advertising executive. I thought I loved making videos so much that I would be really good at making

TV commercials and stuff like that. So I went to the University of Miami in the School of Communications and, you know, like I had like advertising 101, like this kind of stuff. And I believe it was actually advertising 101 that like on the first day of class they said, you know, it's such a competitive world. want to get ahead, you're going to have to work for free, you're going to have to make coffee for people. You know, you're going to kiss people's butts. And I just thought, is this what I'm going to college to learn? And I had a lot of trouble making it to class very often. And as such, I failed out. I was kicked out of the dorms and I dropped out. So it was like the full trifecta of failure at the University of Miami.

And on my way out, you know, people were kind of asking me, well, what are you going to do now? And my story was, well, I'm going to become a crazy famous stuntman with my home video camera. It's going to be great. And everybody who I told that to in 1993 just felt sorry for me. Like it was said, there was no precedent for what I was talking about doing. And it just seemed that I was tragically headed for miserable failure in life. And I was absolutely homeless for three years after leaving the University of Miami. Did you consider going home?

Like, where were your parents at that point? Where was home? My dad was still in England. And my mom had moved to. Florida. My parents were divorced when I was a senior in high school. There were times when I would stay with my mom, but she would invariably kick me out. Yeah. That leads to my second question. If you can just talk a little bit more, kind of about, you know, when, I don't want to say partying, you know, when you started partying, but when I guess you discovered, you know, liquid courage

as it were, how old were you? Did that start in junior high? Did it start in high school? And was that kind of part of the problems with sort of showing up, as it were? Yes, absolutely. It was part of the problems. And I think that my journey

with alcohol and drugs, I almost believe that it was a genetic inevitability. You know, certainly on my mom's side of the family, like it's never skipped a generation. It's never even skipped a leaf on the family tree. It's a, you know, like my dad said the chance of being alcoholic is like playing Russian roulette with a completely loaded gun. You know, and so I came by my alcoholism. I believe to an extent genetically it was, you know, mom's drinking was was really, really gnarly.

And, you know, I think a lot of people would be deterred. heard by that, you know, like, oh, I saw horrible alcoholism in my family growing up. Like, I better not do that. But I felt more like, wow, every single member of the family, you know, is alcoholic. And whenever any, whenever anybody tries to stop drinking, like, it's very short-lived and they always end up drunk again. So I just kind of felt like, uh, I, I, my, My goal was to just not even try to fight it, you know, like to embrace it and do my best to enjoy it. The first time I got drunk on my own initiative, I was 12 and I drank until I vomited. But I didn't really regularly, you know, like I didn't like drink or smoke pot or anything like that on a daily basis until I was 16.

When I was 16, I kind of traded in my skateboard for like alcohol and weed and acid. And at that point, my grades just took a serious nose dive. I'm going to ask a question that might sound stupid, but I think it's helpful, you know, for people to hear this. What did that do for you? Meaning, you know, some people want to not be the person that they are and they want to feel like someone else. some people want to numb out, some people want to, you know, feel bliss. Like, can adult you look back and kind of define what it did for you? It's tough.

It's a great question. And certainly a lot of alcoholics will describe that they felt totally uncomfortable in their own skin. And then when they took their first sip of alcohol, it fixed them. And all of a sudden, they felt comfortable. And I don't know that that was even the case for. me like I um I mean I it it got me fucked up you know like I I drank because I wanted to get fucked up and and I don't know that I ever that it ever made me feel like at ease or anything like that I just I don't know it the sad reality is that as I think of it and try to

put my finger on what it did for me I can't even honestly say I believe that it it did anything that great. Right. I just got fucked up. Did it make you more fearless? Yeah. In some cases, absolutely, yeah. Mm-hmm.

You know, like being a sober guy, it's, you know, it might seem counterintuitive to, like, sing praises of drugs and alcohol. But, man, it worked for me. It didn't work wonder from my grades, but as I left the University of Miami and really committed myself to this goal of becoming a crazy, famous stuntman, you know, like as that career started to take shape, I think being this reckless, drunk, you know, crazy guy, I think that there was a lot about drugs and alcohol that worked very well for me until it didn't. Right. Well, they say first it's fun, then it's fun with problems and then it's just problems. you know, there's something, I honestly wasn't really planning to share this, but, you know, there's

something when I kind of think about your, you know, persona and when I think about, you know, all the notoriety that you achieved and all the incredible things that you've done, you know, with your career, there's something that makes me, I don't want to say sad, like, it's not like pity sad, but there's something that makes me feel sad that they're, that they're, there was a part of you that wasn't able to just kind of like be you and do all those things. Is there any, like, do you have any awareness of that? Well, I think that I need to understand the question better because just to allow, you know, for me to be just me, I think first off, you know, whoever I am and whatever my natural, healthy, disposition might be would not lead me to do any of those things. So I think it's almost

it's it's oxymoronic to suggest that the real me could do these things, which is arguably even sadder than the initial observation. Well, that's where I, what I wondered was you're at the university and you leave and you have this realization I'm going to become this professional stunt person. And like I'm wondering where that comes from. Like you were doing skateboard videos. Where does the clarity of like transition from skateboard to stunt person come into your mind? I was at the University of Miami for a total of three semesters. I made it through the first year. and during that first year, I had my first serious girlfriend. And this girl was like super driven.

You know, she went to all of her classes, got good grades. You know, she routinely kept. She sounds like a perfect Alonon. There's a chair for that woman in Alonon who saw this guy and was like, this one. Yeah. I mean, she routinely held two jobs. the, you know, this and that. But at the same time, she really liked to party, too. I mean, she just knew, like, when, you know, to switch it off and I did not. But we effectively lived

together in her dorm room for the second semester of my freshman year. And as she noticed my class attendance just fall off a cliff, my grades, you know, clearly were going to hell. She, I think was legitimately horrified by by what was going on and um in her words she looked into her future and could not see me in it and uh so when that relationship ended uh i experienced like real emotional distress on a level that i had not previously experienced you know i was uh i was genuinely devastated and heartbroken. And my way of coping with that was to act out, you know, act out in ways that that made it seem like I just didn't care about my life, you know, and that was really where the stunts began. I had inherited a video camera from my late

grandfather or step grandfather. And, you know, I just had gotten this video camera. And I was just so filled with angst and wanting to lash out and been going to the pool at the University of Miami and learning different flips and jumps on the diving boards. But, you know, I started to look to doing my jumps and flips from rooftops. And, you know, a logical thing to do next. Yeah. So I started jumping off roofs and climbing on all sorts of things. And this is like pre-parkour.

Like parkour didn't exist. Oh, yeah. Parkour did not exist. And interestingly, my one trip to the library at the University of Miami ever was to tie a rope to the banister at the top of the stairwell and repel from it. As you do. which my buddies and I did very drunk. And one night, one of our late night repelling missions was, we were actually on acid,

tripping on LSD. I like that you call it a mission. Yeah, that's where it kicked in. And what it was about the difference. When I had been making my half-ass skateboarding videos in high school, I would inundate people with them, sit them down and force them. to watch my crappy skateboarding videos. And it was clearly evident that nobody gave a rat's ass about my half-ass skateboarding. You were that guy.

I know that guy. You were that guy. Uh-huh, for sure. And nobody even tried to pretend that they were, like, legitimately impressed. But then when I started videotaping footage of myself, like, dangling from a 12th, floor balcony by my bare hands, you know, like literally hanging over certain death and then swinging out and letting go and dropping onto the 11th floor balcony. When people saw that, they freaked the fuck out. They were like, ugh, you know, and just to see like the stark difference

in the reactions from my skateboarding videos to, you know, these angst driven stuff. gunned videos. I just got a sense from the way people reacted to the footage that I was on to something, that there was really something here. After I got kicked out and I was homeless, I actually spent the greater part of two years, I would say, living as a homeless person on the campus of the University of Miami, which I had, which I wasn't even, I don't think I was even legally allowed to be on it. And, you know, I was the homeless couch surfer who like wasn't in school, but lived there. And the University of Miami was like a bona fide Olympic factory for swimming and diving. And the pool had like the diving towers with, you know, all the diving boards.

They had Greg Luganis's mural painted on the wall of the pool, and they just dominated diving. So they had the number one, number two, and number three ranked NCAA platform divers at the University of Miami. And all three of those guys lived in the same athletic department or athletic apartment. In like the apartment area, they had like the student athlete. apartments and uh in this one apartment was number one number two and number three in the nation and they had stevo living on their living room floor for a time because they just got a kick out of the way this civilian dip shit was so compelled to do flips off of roofs and shit and and and they a little bit took me under their wing and you know taught me um how to uh walk up and

downstairs on my hands, how to do like a fairly clean standing backflip on flat ground. And, you know, as soon as they taught me how to do a like a solid backflip, I immediately learned how to light my skin on fire with rubbing alcohol and simultaneously do a backflip while blowing a fireball off of my flaming flesh using my hand as a torch. It was something I invented, the simultaneous fire-breathing backflip, which would be a signature move for me.

Steve, let's go back 10,000 years in history. What would you be doing in the village? Like, I think of history, and there was always a court gesture. I'd be a jester. You would be the gesture. So speaking of gestures, so after three years of this existence, you end up going to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College.

Right. The way it worked, I was kind of bouncing around and mostly bouncing around South Florida. And I got to a point where after my second drunk. driving arrest, living out of my car wasn't working that great. I was, I got arrested for my second DUI. I was still living out of my car. I was, it just, life was not going well. And my sister had moved to New Mexico where she, um, is she younger?

I was gonna ask about siblings. She's older. Yeah. Three and a half years older. Wow. And she graduated with a journalism degree and was working in New Mexico for a newspaper there. But she didn't really know anybody in New Mexico. And she felt kind of lonely.

And I reached out to her telling her like how miserable I was. And we came up with the idea for me to move out to New Mexico to live with my sister. And my dad had a deal. I think all of these three years, like I didn't reach out for help. You know, like I had enough pride that I just sort of suffered through it and, you know, kind of found my way. But there was a standing deal that if I was ever willing to go back to university and maintain an A's and B's in my classes that dad would pay for my rent. And so that's what I did. I went to the University of New Mexico.

I lived with my sister. I actually managed to get nothing below a B. And still, I was just a maniac. And my sister one day, was it the Albuquerque Journal? She was at work, taking a dump. And while taking a dump at work, she was reading a book of trivia that they had sitting on the toilet. And one of the questions that she came across was, what is the only college that has no tuition?

And interested, she flipped to the answer and it said, Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Clown College is completely free if you can get in, but it's like very difficult to get in. It's like a real prestigious thing. And so my sister's first thought was that this would be perfect for me because even though I was going to class and getting decent grade, totally my focus was on my stunts and my videos and all of that, as well as on weed and being drunk all the time and eating all my sister's food and being a slob and making a mess of her house.

So she thought that clown college would be perfect for me and probably a pretty good way to get me the fuck out of her house. Where is Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Clown College? It was in Florida. It bounced around a little bit. It was in Sarasota. But I came home and found on the kitchen table this note from my sister. It said Ringling Brothers, you know, Barnum and Billy Clown College,

apparently free if you can get in. And it had the phone number. I ended up hitchhiking from Albuquerque to Denver to make it to an audition for the class of 1997. because if I had waited for the Albuquerque audition, that would have been for the class of 1998. And it's a good thing I did that because not only did I get into the Clown College class of 1997, but after my class graduated,

they shut down Clown College and it has never existed ever since. You shut down Clown College. I think that's what happened. I graduated in the final ever class of Ringley. brothers and barnum ably clown college they've never had it ever since the whole freaking what was that audition like did the what a great question man the audition was was uh it was it was fucking fascinating at the time and for a long time before that and a long time after that there were two units of the wringling brothers and barnum and billy circus there was the red

unit and the blue unit each unit had a a scale of 50 different cities. They would spend one week per city for 50 cities. And there were two weeks that were off. And after, and then after each year, they would switch. So if you lived in a city, you could go to see the circus. You'd be seeing the red unit maybe. But the next year, you would see a different show because the blue unit was coming. And as such, they had The circus went to a full 100 cities every year in America. And in each of those 100 cities, they held auditions for clown college. How many clowns do we need?

Like, that sounds insane. Right. But that's where it gets really interesting and somewhat prestigious because of all these auditions, of all these, you know, for starters, in order to get an application to Clown College, you had to audition. You couldn't just get an application and apply. Like, they would only give out the application at the end of the audition. It was intense, too, the way that they, like, intimidated you kind of, you know,

like, don't even bother filling out this application unless you want to live in a closet on a train, 50 weeks out of the year and make like $230 a week. Also, 30% of the people who see you will cry and shriek and have to go to therapy. And he's like, yes, that's me. I mean, I was super intimidated by the end of it when they gave me the application. Statistically speaking, because so many people audition and so many people apply, and then only 33 clowns were accepted. Statistically speaking, it was significantly more difficult

to get into clown college than Harvard. It was arguably like the most exclusive. I'm sorry, I'm trying to keep a straight face while listening to you saying this. It was a big deal. No, it is a very big deal. And also, some of my earliest memories of my life are going to the Ringling Brothers in Barnman Bailey.

The circus, I lived right across the street from the Hollywood Bowl as a kid, and the circus would set up in the huge parking lot there. I remember I got to have a Mars bar. It was like the best candy bar I had ever had. And I remember the clowns. Like they were phenomenal. I mean, in the 70s and 80s, this was it. But like we've seen the SNL audition videos,

so we kind of know what that's like. What did they make you do in order to like break through? and get that invitation. The instruction that you got, and I think it was the only instruction that you got before attending the audition, was that they did not want anybody to show up with clown makeup on.

No clown makeup. Do not show up with clown makeup. They absolutely did not. They were not looking for people who had clowning experience because I think the idea was more to have like a blank canvas to start with. You don't get to pick your clown persona.

We'll tell you what clown persona you are. Well, yeah, right. They didn't want birthday party clowns or anything like that. They're very, very snooty about that, you know. And they felt strongly, too, that you not have like a goofy name, like snuggles the clown because they had an intense pride in their art. They said, we're proud of what we are. We're professional clowns.

We're real like, you know, we really care about what we do. We take this seriously. We use our real names. And I said, cool. So I'm Steveo with the clown. They're like, dude, you have a clown name. Right. Were you sober at this audition?

I'm sure that I had been smoking pot all day. That's a no. That's just a simple no. Yeah. I didn't draw many sober breasts in those years. I was going to say maybe I shouldn't ask at all. But okay. Go ahead. So you go. The circus would have been at, you know, whatever the arena is, presumably

where the basketball team plays. But the audition was held at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. And there were about 60 people who showed up and just two people leading the whole thing. And everybody walked in when it began, the two people identified themselves as circus clowns. They said, you know, don't be in. intimidated by us. We're not particularly important at all. We're just clowns in the circus. But this camera we're holding is the eyes and ears of someone who is very important, whose time we are not going to waste. So were they in full clown makeup? I also need to know. They were not. They were not. So they started off by, you know, instilling this sort of, uh, respect and fear and the attention of this camera.

And, you know, as an exercise and not wasting any time of the eyes and ears. Right. We're not here to clown around. That's what they meant. They said, so what we're going to do to start the audition, all of you will line up against the wall. And one by one, you will jump in front of the camera, state your name and why you want to be a clown. very quickly and concisely.

Everybody lines up against the wall, one by one, you know, step in front of the camera, jump in front of the camera, whatever the case may be. And people were just, I remember thinking, man, because people would say like, oh, hi, my name's so-and-so, and I'd just like to have a pair of really big shoes. Bad answer. I know, very bad answer.

And I was looking at these people, like, who are just devoid of passion and just be like, just chomping at the bit. And then when it was my turn, And I jumped in front of the camera. I said, my name is Steve Glover. I am an aspiring stuntman from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I just got done hitchhiking all the way from Albuquerque to Denver

because I do not want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I would have missed out on the biggest opportunity I ever had. And I did a perfect standing back flip. No, you did not. Yeah, 100%. I nailed it, too, which was rare for me. to do when I had sneakers on. You know, I did, I did better backflips barefoot.

But this one, I hucked it with sneakers on and I landed it clean. And so I, so my initial impression, I think, what was strong, you know, I had urgency. Then after everybody did that exercise, then they moved on to the actual performance, you know, exercises. And clearly the singular purpose, if there was one, of the exercises that they had us perform was to weed out inhibited people. You know, they gave us impossible tasks, which no inhibited person would even attempt. The first was they said there is an invisible line going down the center of your body. I'm doing it right now.

And this half of your body is a lazy cow grazing. in a field while the other half of your body is a wild baboon throwing a temper tantrum. Do it. Do it right now. And wait. What are my directions and what do I have to do now? Oh. For people who are only listening, Mime is standing up.

Stivo, tell her again. Give it to her again. I mean, it's impossible. And the only thing you can do is just... Says you! Right. Okay, I'll do it later. I'll do it later.

There was that. And then there was another one where they put a cardboard box on the ground. And you are supposed to, without using any words, you are supposed to discover... I had to try. I really quinked. They put this car. It wasn't a cardboard box. I think it was a paper bag.

But either way, you know, like you were supposed to kind of like walk towards it. And we were supposed to see you, discover it. And then just from your actions alone, we were supposed to be able to determine what was in there. What it was, like whether what was in it or just what it was. So that was kind of the gist of it. And then at the end of, um, the. audition, they, you know, like I said, they said, okay, now you all have become eligible to receive an application to Clown College. And we want you to know that it is eight pages. It is very, I mean,

frankly, it was intrusive, really. I mean, like, you had to answer, you had to fill out on these eight pages. When was the last time you cried and why? It was gnarly. I mean, it was. I mean, It, you know, it got really personal and just random, too. They wanted to know what your three favorite albums were, you know, your whole drug history, like, you know, all this crazy stuff. It was eight pages long. And then when they gave it to us, they said also, don't even bother filling out this application unless you are passionate about the idea of working essentially for free in terrible conditions. You know, like, on the circus train, a clown's room literally measured, I think, like six feet by three feet. It was like, it was insane.

And like what your bed was basically sofa cushions, which you would, you know, have like flipped up or flipped down. And they would cover the entire floor. and that was your bed. And yeah, they didn't pay you anything that you worked all year long on the road. Like, what kind of people besides you? What kind of people do you think want that kind of lifestyle? Do you know what I mean? It's a great question.

But ultimately, the people who get in there, there's something special about them. You know, like whatever it is. Like they really went to great lengths. to recruit legitimately talented people. And then when clown college actually began, I think it was largely for tax write-off purposes for somebody. They spent like a good million bucks on it. The whole program lasted just eight weeks.

It was much more like boot camp than college. For those eight weeks, you know, it was in the gym at eight in the morning for, you know, for stretching and, you know, like working out or whatever. And then, and then it kicked into hour long classes essentially. And, you know, classes were, you know, you would do an hour of acrobatics, an hour of dance, an hour of improvisation, you know, like. Did they teach you how to do your makeup? That was the best part was that they were.

very, very particular that nobody was, they would give us zero instruction on how to apply clown makeup. What they did on the very first day of clown college, they handed out makeup kits to all of us. You know, we all got our own makeup kit and specifically zero instruction. They said, now you're going to go into the makeup room and you're just going to go for it, whether we're not going to tell you anything about it. What did you do? The general consensus or the, you know, the norm was for people to have no idea how far just a little bit of grease paint really goes, you know, so everybody just, it was just a disaster. It was an absolute train wreck. And the, the clown college instructors like gleefully, you know, like you had like an hour, whatever,

the amount of time. And then when the time was up, like, everybody filed out of the makeup room and on their way out, the instructors, you know, gleefully snapped a photo of everybody. So there is a photo of my first attempt. Everybody got a photo of their first attempt ever at putting on clown makeup. And, you know, true to their word, the next day, you went back to the makeup room and tried it again and and nobody ever gave you any instruction whatsoever. It was just by the virtue of just doing it and just trying it and doing it every day and every day that by the end of eight weeks, everybody had legitimately designed their own clown makeup. Who were you as a clown? Now, they did explain to us the different styles of clowns. Of course, there's really like traditionally

three styles. There's like a, you know, for lack of a better word, like a hobo clown, which, you know, and then there's a white face clown, and then there's what's called an august clown. And they were very, very clear that the white face and august clowns were relatable to cartoon characters, where one is like Tom and Jerry or, you know, anything. like one is like more the like the goofy like kind of dip shit while the other one is more the smarter like straight you know so so the white face clown is like the straight lace you know kind of has it act together and the august clown is like the dumb more fall down and so if you can believe it i was the august clown they had this other kind of kind of fun cool thing was

that they had a wardrobe department which kind of got to know you over the course of the time. And based on what they learned about you and how your sort of clown persona developed, they designed your clown suit sort of to match you. And my clown costume, which they designed for me, was like Doc Martin combat boot clown shoes and like big spiky, like kind of punk rock wig and a leather jacket like, like, you know, like I was like that like kind of like a punk rock. I was going to say a little bit of like a Tim Burton like a Beetlejuice kind of vibe. Yeah, a little bit more like, you know, I was like a punk rocker clown, like as much as they could As edgy as it could be. Yeah.

And it was great. But we would have the, you know, so we put on clown makeup every single day. We had, you know, like all of these, you know, classes. We do classes through the morning, then an hour for lunch, then classes, you know, into the afternoon. And come five or six, we would have like more of just a free. like three, three hours, that time was devoted to just practicing whatever you wanted, writing what's called gags, which is clown skits, you know, because every week for eight weeks on the Saturday, we would put up a show. And everyone would, you know, everybody,

everybody would perform a skit or a gag that they had written and kind of to give us actual experience in performing. So it was like a pretty, and on those Saturday nights, they opened, it was at the Sarasota Opera House in Florida. And the entire community was welcome to come. It was a free show. So we would have an actual audience in the house and we would perform our gags. And I loved it. You know, I genuinely loved it.

But the thing was, you know, going from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. Then when we finally got done, that's when I would start drinking and like and doing all my stupid like fire breathing and like hey everyone check me out and skateboarding. In the very first week of Clown College, while drunk, I jumped my skateboard down this flight of stairs but hit my head on like this ledge that came down from the from the ceiling and um i really gashed my head open like pretty badly it was bleeding they said you have to go to the hospital and i thought god like i don't want to go to the hospital it's going to make me look terrible you know like and and they said no you got to go to the hospital and then i said i'm not going anywhere unless someone finds a camera right

now to get a cool picture of me covered in blood you know and said that someone took a picture of me going I'm like, which I actually just made into a t-shirt. I want that t-shirt. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, the t-shirt is at stebo.com. And it's an epic shirt of me just covered in blood. But they took me to the hospital in the first week where I got five staples in my head. And I remember, too, because it was like, fuck, it was like 12 midnight, one in the morning.

morning, you know, and here they're having to take me to the fucking hospital. It's like the last thing that they want from, you know, and the doctor says, oh, you're going to need staples. So let me, you know, I'm going to give you like a shot of anesthesia. And then when, you know, and then when it like sort of takes effect, then I'm going to put it in the staples. And I was like, dude, I do not have time for that, man. There's important people in the waiting room, and I cannot have them waiting. Fuck the anesthesia, just pump in the staples. And I talked the guy into doing that.

And like, he pumped in the staples with no anesthesia, and I was super proud of myself that that was the case. And then he said that the staples, it would be physically impossible for me to remove the staples on my own and that if they stayed in after they were supposed to come out that like the it would heal over you know it would like yeah and they would get infected it would be all bad yeah so on that but I didn't want another trip to the hospital to go get them out because like I'm fucking competing for a contract only 10 you know 33 clowns got in but only 10 we're going to get contracts so it was like a reality competition

show before they had reality TV. That's just called life, Steve. That's just life. Right. And, you know, when it came time, like a couple weeks later, you know, that the stables were supposed to come out, I'm trying to get them out. Oh, God. What is with you?

I'm trying to get them out. And I'm not having any luck. And then it turns into. Because you're not a doctor in a hospital. Says you. Then it turned into like a game, like on a nightly basis. Like, you know, a few clowns would be getting together trying to get my staples out and like nobody having any luck. This is why the college closed everyone because things like this happened.

Right. But then we figured it out that with like wire cuters, we were able if you cut the if you like crimped it like kind of like cut the staple in half. Then we were able to take out the two halves separately. So we got them out and I proved the doctor wrong. There's nothing a clown can't do. Yeah. Thank you so much. So far, this is like you're freaking amazing and it's so much fun.

So we look forward to speaking with you and we can do part two that ends with after the Staples came out. I love it. Do part two. And in the meantime, all of the listeners, go to stevo.com and get yourself my signed book, pre-order my new book, and get yourself one of my cool clown college covered in blood T-shirts. I'm so excited. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Awesome. Thank you. I just learned everything that I wanted to know about clown college. But there's a tremendous amount more to Stivo's life and his journey that I want to talk about. If you're watching us,

you might notice that we look differently than we did in that episode because we have pieced together Steve-ho's availability to be able to bring you two episodes. So if you have enjoyed hearing about how Steve-O got to Clown College, make sure to tune in next time for Part 2, where we learn about everything that happened after and the rest of his life. Jonathan, anything else? You don't even have to wait until next time. It's going to be a special Thursday release.

Just two days from now, you're going to get to hear more. The rest of the story. So tune in for our very special 2.5. part episode, tune in for the second part of Steve-O and from our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and Bea-Ollix breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience Ph.D. or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break.