WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1060 - Argus Hamilton

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

Argus Hamilton is the human embodiment of The Comedy Store, with the distinction of being one of the original Comedy Store comics and the only person of his generation who still works there today. In other words, he’s the perfect guest for WTF, as Marc continues building a comprehensive oral history of the infamous club. Argus tells some stories and dispels some myths about The Store’s origins, about the comics who really put the place on the map, about the big names like Pryor, Williams and Kinison who made the place their playground, and about his unique relationship with Mitzi Shore, the woman behind it all. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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All right, let's do this. How are you? fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it how's it going are you okay is everybody all right i mean are we hanging in as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter? You know, again, don't want to sound selfish or detached or condescending or judgmental, but I could not be happier to not have children. I had nothing against them, just never thought about it. And now, I don't know, they're going to have to hopefully in a couple of generations, these children could somehow evolve into cold blooded animals, perhaps with scales, something survivable in the climate as we enter the end times. the end times, but I'm sorry. Is this too much? How are you? Happy Monday. I think I'm just overcompensating in some way. My cat, as you know, Monkey, the old asshole, that's not true. Monkey is actually not an asshole. Monkey is a sweetheart. He's nervous. Definitely not an asshole. La Fonda is a bit of an unpredictable, I would say, borderline personality cat. And Buster is a bit of an asshole. But Monkey is kind of an old sweet guy that's just a little nervous. hyperthyroid. I'm glad I diagnosed him or I got him to the vet to find out. No kidney disease,

no kidney failure, no diabetes. He's 15 years old and changed and he's got hyperthyroid. And I had a few options. I went with the pills. And generally, you know, most people are like, how are you going to give pills to a cat? You know, there are these things called pill pockets, which fucking work. I even snuck one into a piece of chicken today but he's on to a day and there was a couple of days there where i was like oh shit i think he's going down he was like lethargic he was kind of pukey uh did not seem happy in any way and he was still he's thin as fuck and i'm like well this is it and i'm just gonna have to deal with this either he's gonna die on his own or I'm going to have to do it. And that's I think maybe that's how I'm overcompensating. But my cats are getting old and my parents are getting old and something's got to give. as they grow up and as I talk to my peers with children, it's never a great story. It's usually half a great story. Yeah, the one's great, but the other one kind of got away from us. And

I think I've said that before, but with the cats, they remain pretty consistent. And if they live a long time, they can live anywhere from 15 to 25 years, I think, but they still, they stay pretty steady, but as difficult as it is to have kids, the best you can hope for with a cat is that it'll get to the point where you can voluntarily say, this cat has had enough. I'm going to, I'm going to put it down. And that's a decision you have to make about something you love. You know, I know it's hard to have kids, but like, you know, eventually not probably not not too long. I'm going to have to put my cat down.

And I understand your kid 17 and having some issues, but my cat is 16. I'm going to have to kill it. So, you know, spare me the sad story is what I'm saying. OK, false equivalence, but I'm just dealing with it. You know, I'm dealing with the fact that, you know, my cats are getting old. I'm getting old. My parents are getting old. I think I might have to put my dad down. Can you do that? I don't think you can do that. Uh, yeah, I mean, you can do it in some States, not exactly, but wouldn't it be easier? You know, I mean, to, to be able to just sort of, I got to put him down. My dad's getting,

he's 80 and, you know, he's still got most of his marbles and stuff, but he's not happy and he's having a hard time walking. And I just, I don't know if his quality of life is holding up. So I'd like to put him down. Yeah. No, I don't think he can do that in any state. Maybe if I brought him to the vet and maybe just bring him in. Yeah. It's my dad. How you doing? Can I help you with anything? I'm like, yeah, I just want to put my dad down. doing can i help you with anything i'm like yeah my i just want to put my dad down my dad's like what are we doing i just want i want you to meet my vet can we put him down i mean can't you tell he's not having great quality of life no i can't i can't we don't do that we can't put people down i don't know i think i think maybe you can make an exception

i'll be there i'll hold him while you do it and it'll be there. I'll hold him while you do it, and it'll be all right. I'll hold him and pat his head. And I think we're good. My father's like, what are we doing? I'm like, it's over, Dad. It's over. Is that too dark? Too cynical? Wouldn't it be easier?

And at this point, I kind of am okay with my dad. I'm just looking out for him. I just think people, maybe we should look into that. Maybe we could, you know, put our parents down when it's necessary. You know, and sadly, some people have done that. It's usually not like that. It's an unplugging situation. But, hey, happy Monday.

Did I mention Argus Hamilton is on the show? Finally, Argus Hamilton is here. Quick email. This is from Eileen. Subject line, competition and conflict and shutting that shit down. Mark, thank you for your generalization of who your people are. I literally had to put my mascara down to laugh as you listed off all of my traits. I say generally that I don't have a demographic. I have a disposition, the usually sensitive, aggravated, creative types. And I assume that's what she's talking about. She goes on to say, I've tried to explain to my buff bartender younger brother by 12 years why Mark Maron is my guy. And please stop telling me to listen to Joe Rogan. He acts like it's a competition. Of course he does in parentheses. And i'm more of the type that puts competition

and conflict in the same mental bucket not my jam that's why i like to shut it down by saying mark got obama totally works okay back to getting ready love eileen ps come to phoenix eileen i was in phoenix oh you're right i'm probably due for a trip back to phoenix thank you for the email i understand what you're saying look i, I run a show here. I'm the same way. I think that there's part of me that naturally competes, but I think there's something

about this culture. Certainly some people within it, certainly because of the kind of frenetic, compulsive social media landscape that people are always trying to engage people and trying to you know

put things against one another even if but you know obviously you know joe's people are going to be competitive i mean he's a competitive guy he's a sports guy everything's all right i'm just i'm at a point in my life where it's like i do what i do i got my people. I make a living. It's fine. And I'm good. You hear that? I'm good. But I appreciate the email. Today, Argus Hamilton is here. And he's been mentioned quite a bit over the history of the show. Before I get into that, I just want to say thank you to the people that came out to the Dynasty Typewriter last night. It's a small, intense little room, but I'm working stuff out. It's amazing how long I've been working this material.

I originally put it together because I took a gig at the New York Comedy Festival a year ago for the Beacon Theater and then the special came later and now I've been honing and kind of crafting other pieces and different parts of it, but it's been a long while, over a year that I've been working this stuff

and I am ready to dump it. And I went down and looked at the theater where I'm going to be doing the special. It's going to be a different look for a special, really. This is a fairly classic, large black box theater. It's not one of these proscenium theaters, one of these vaudeville houses, one of these places where you see all the specials shot.

And this kind of fluke kind of might have worked in our benefit that we we have full control over how the thing's going to look and how we're going to lay it out and the vibe and it's pretty exciting and it's going to be a relatively small house in terms of crowd size couple hundred each show and very intimate so i'm excited i went down to the tech meeting and the set's looking good and it's going to be it's going to be a unique show still considering calling it jeremiah ad which is not an upbeat title i don't know i think it's a pretty upbeat show it's an honest show about where we are in the world right now, maybe where I'm at in my life right now.

And it's definitely funny. Some of the best funny I've generated in all my years of funny. But I'm excited about that. So Argus Hamilton, who is he? Why do you know him? Why does it ring a bell? Argus Hamilton is a mainstay at the Comedy Store. He's been there since the beginning of the Comedy Store, pretty much.

He was there for the strike. He was there to get screwed up on drugs. He was there to date Mitzi for years. There's mythology about him. He's mentioned by almost everybody. He's one of the few comics of his generation i think probably the only one that still does spots at the store that can still do spots at the store i'm gonna ask him how that happened but most notoriously you know i when i got to the store in the 80s when i worked the

door there and i got fucked up on drugs. He was sort of this mythic being that you heard about. I lived up in Crest Hill, which was a house that Mitzi owned behind the store. She didn't live there. She rented it out to comics. There was a picture of him on the wall up there because he used to live there, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did. I talked to him about that, of him on The Tonight Show. He'd done so many so many tonight shows he was like an heir apparent he was the guy and was just like one of those cautionary tales not even a cautionary tale just a fucking you know bottom-hitting mythology a bottom-hitting myth of this guy when i got there in the 80s you know he was just notorious as this insane drug person. But this guy from Oklahoma, you know, like almost like a Will Rogers type of dude.

And he just it all went south because of coke and booze. And he came back from rehab when I was at the store. And I just I'll talk to him about that, too. But for those of you who've been following along you know this show for the last decade the intention of this show was for me to reconnect with comics and to connect with comics and to talk honestly with comics and obviously because of the place the comedy store held in my mind and in my heart and in my soul you know i was mildly obsessed with kind of getting the history of that place and argus has always been elusive.

He's always been around. And I was a little nervous about it. I didn't know what was in there or what was going on or, you know, what's that guy made out of. I just, I still see him. I follow him, you know, most of the time when I do the comedy store, because I like doing the fourth or fifth spot, keep it early. And he's always doing the second or third spot. And he brings me up on stage more so than not when I work at the store and he's been there forever. And, and I never knew, I just didn't know what was in there. And I remember years ago, I said, when can I talk to you? Cause I think you're an important part of it. And he said, uh, I can't do it while Mitzi's still alive. I won't do it. Out of respect. Well, she's dead.

And he wanted to do it. So we got to do it. Now, one of the things we get to clear up. How you doing? Everybody all right? One of the things we get to clear up is, you know, for years, the story was that Sam Kennison, you know, the reason he got spots at the store or was able to manage the Westwood store, the comedy store in Westwood, Mitzi opened there, was because he saved Mitzi's life because Argus Hamilton, my guest today, was choking her in the parking lot of the comedy store. And Sam Kenison pulled Argus off of her,

saved her, and sealed the deal with his place at the comedy store. She owed him a life and gave him the Westwood store. And that's part of the mythology. Now, mythology kind of happens pretty quickly at the comedy store. I don't know if it's just the nature of the dark den of comics, just the sort of frenetic, weird kind of

competitive insecurity and darkness that the comic community has and then that place. But it happens immediately, even on the managerial side. I mean, Jesus Christ, I've got this driver's license, Mitzi's driver's license that I found on the floor during the shooting of the documentary that Mike Binder's making. And I took it and then I okayed it with Mitzi's son, Peter. And I have it here and it's very important to me. It has a lot of meaning to me and I'm looking at it right now. And once I talked about it, the manager over there, Eric, at the Just for Laughs festival, started saying that I stole Mitzi's driver's license from her purse. And all of a sudden, someone comes up to me who I don't even know.

I heard you stole Mitzi's driver's license from her purse. I'm like, how the fuck does that even happen? There's just something about the Comedy Store that churns out, I guess it's not unlike any den of evil, insecure fuckers, like the Republican Party and conspiracy theories. It's just, that's the title pool of conspiracy theories and bullshit mythology is just a festering insecurity among vindictive, competitive fuckers. That's where it comes from.

vindictive competitive fuckers that's where it comes from but anyways long story longer I'm able to talk about this story with Argus and you know many people have mentioned Argus on this show and many a few people have mentioned that story this is actually Robin Williams mentioning it in my talk with him years ago. Those are crazy times because Sam, you know, Sam's first night up was just, I remember seeing, who's the guy screaming? Yeah.

And supposedly Sam got on because he rescued Mitzi from Argus. Right, it was Argus Hamilton who was strangling her in some sort of drunk frenzy. And then, wow, get away. Yeah, yeah. Sam rescued her and then they put Sam out. All right, so that was Robin Williams

and this is part of the mythology. But, you. Sam rescued her and then they put Sam up. All right, so that was Robin Williams. And this is part of the mythology. But there's a bigger story here about the comedy story about Argus' place in it. And it's not just about him supposedly choking Mitzi. This guy is a veteran. He's still at it. He still gets big laughs. He's still at the comedy store every weekend. And he has been since the 70s.

and he has been since the 70s. And he is almost the singular presence of that generation at that place holding up that end of it. And it's taken years for me to get him in here. And this is me talking to Argus Hamilton. And you can listen to Argus or watch him, actually. He's got a talk show called The Comedy Store Tonight. It's on YouTube.

You can watch new episodes every Tuesday night. Plus, the old episodes are up right now. They're up there now. I believe it goes live on Tuesdays. But this is me talking to Argus Hamlin. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed,

how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Argus Hamilton. Nice to see you, buddy.

Nice to see you. Thank you so much for having me on the show, Mark. It's a real pleasure. Sure, man. You know, it seemed like it was destined to happen at some point, but there was a moment there a while back where I was like, let's do it. Let's talk. And you're like, you couldn't do it with Mitzi still alive. You literally said that, that I can't do it while she's still alive. Well, I appreciate the ride out here this morning because I got to come by Forest Lawn Drive and Mount Sinai Cemetery and got to wave to her up at the top of the hill. Oh, is that where she's buried? So she's still on my ass about coming here.

Yeah, well, I don't think she is. I'm kidding. She loved you. She loves us all. I don't know. I guess she loved me. You know, it's weird. She loved you.

She loves us all. I don't know. I guess she loved me. You know, it's weird. When I got to the store, my recollections of you, because I didn't spend that long a time. I wasn't at the comedy store that long the first time. What year? Well, I think I got there. When I was there, I'd gotten there and I was working the door.

And I remember it was actually probably, it was like, when did you get out of rehab? You got out of rehab when I was there uh 86 I went in in November of 86 28 days at Betty Ford and then 90 days in Scottsdale I arrived back in LA with six months of sobriety in April of 87 yeah so that's that's where that's where I first saw you okay because I remember Belzer, we were out on the patio, and Belzer saw you walking up, and he goes, Is this an apparition? They can't kill me. They never could.

And I remember because it was weird, these weird memories, because I was all fucked up on drugs and doing blow. And we had gotten these little vitamin B squirty things that you could put in your nose. Oh, yeah. And I remember offering you one, and you're like, things that you could put in your nose. Oh, yeah. And I remember offering you one, and you're like, I'm not putting anything in my nose ever again. But my nasal hairs would experience euphoric recall. Sure they would, yeah. I lived in Cresthill,

and there was pictures of you up there on The Tonight Show in Cresthill, in the house where I was living. And I didn't know who you were and i didn't like know the whole history of things and then the weird thing about this comedy store is that you start picking up little bits and pieces of the mythology right so i was hanging to spend a lot of time with kennison right right and there was the the sort of the idea was the the story the the existing myth was that he pulled you off of Mitzi when you were attacking her. Right. And because of that, he was able to manage Westwood.

Yeah. Is that the story? Total crock, of course. That requires, well, let's go back. Let's lead up to it. All right. So when did you get to L.A. to begin with? Right out of the University of Oklahoma.

I came out March of 76. So you're from Oklahoma? Yes. And your parents, your family's in the preaching racket? Yeah, my father's preaching racket. Yeah. The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Methodist ministers. Really? Yeah. How does a Methodist minister approach the ministry? It's Church of England, just like the Episcopal Church. They are sister churches, and they're about to reunite. But it's very mainline, very conservative, very traditional upper middle class, high class.

Oh, so it's not fire and brimstone. No, not like Kenneson. No, not that group from Oklahoma. No, not that group at all. There's country club Protestants, and then there's Salt of the Earth. Right. And then there's the Baptists. The Baptists.

Yeah, the Cromwell's Army. Yeah. Since 1640s, the enemy of the Hamiltons and the Cavaliers even beheaded one of my ancestors. Oh, really? The day before they beheaded King Charles I. Really? Yeah. So you tracked your genealogy back that far? Oh, really? The day before they beheaded King Charles I. Really? Yeah. So you tracked your genealogy back that far? Oh, way farther than that. We married into the house of Stuart in 1487. How did you find all that stuff out? My grandmother and father

tipped me off to it, and then people have let me know, and then genealogists have tracked my family line. Why? Why your family? Well, the Hamiltons are very, we've got 28 Hamiltons in the House of Lords. It's a very noble English family. Is Alexander Hamilton of it? Yeah, he's a cousin of mine. We're from the same ambuscene line from the Duke of Hamilton. However, if he is a Hamilton, there's a chance he was a Stevens because he looked just like a Stevens and his mother slept around.

But he's believed to have been a Hamilton. But he was the black sheep of the family because he fought for Washington. Really? Yeah. Against the king. The king. Yeah. All right.

So you grew up there with big family? No, no. Just a brother and sister. That's it? Yeah. And so your father's a minister, your grandfather's a minister. So you spend, like, growing up, you're at the church. Well, my great-grandfather owned a huge plantation in Alabama. as a minister, your grandfather's a minister. So you spend like growing up, you're at the church.

Well, my great grandfather owned a huge plantation in Alabama. But during the Civil War, right in the middle of the Battle of Shiloh, he made a deal with the Lord. And that's how we got into the ministry. Did he lose the plantation? Oh, yes. He lost it all 40 40 000 acres on on the tennessee river uh he gave 20 000 acres to the town and it was named hamilton alabama and it's still on us 78 between birmingham and memphis it's still called hamilton yeah and that's your great-grandfather great great yeah yeah after john hamilton what's it did your brother uh there you have a brother and sister? Uh-huh. Did they end up in the church?

Yeah, my brother ended up in the ministry, and my sister is a president of a computer company. Oh, wow. Here in town? No, in Washington State. And you got family in Oklahoma still? No, not anymore. No one's there. No reason to go back. No, I go back a lot for corporate events, uh there's a brand new big club opening up in

bricktown that's about a 350 seater really you might be hearing about really yeah in bricktown where's that it's a renovated area you know how a lot of cities have renovated areas sure this is the one in oklahoma city and it's just beautiful along the river there i i did a gig in uh in oklahoma city uh uh once and it was jokers no it wasn't it wasn't a comedy club i did a gig in Oklahoma City once. Jokers? No, it wasn't a comedy club. I did a little theater thing. Somebody brought me out there for some reason. It was a great crowd, though, wasn't it?

Yeah, no, I like it. Yeah, I like it. And there's some freaky people out in Oklahoma. Oh, yeah. I mean, I grew up in New Mexico. I think we share a corner with Oklahoma. Yeah. Don't we?

Doesn't New Mexico up there on the northeast side have a little piece of the panhandle? Something up there in the panhandle. Yeah. Yeah. It's really the panhandle is more like New Mexico than it is Oklahoma. All right. So now what was the plan in college? So you're in college. You're at Oklahoma State. No, no, no. Oklahoma University. Oklahoma University. Oh, yes. You know, you're not going to go into the ministry. Yeah. And how do you end up like when is the decision to do comedy? go into the ministry yeah and how do you end up like when is the decision to do comedy why because like you're you're the only guy of your generation that seems to be able to work at the store anymore like and i know there's politics around that or whatever but you're the only one left man well to answer your first question yeah uh since the second one was an observation

the uh what i did was i went into the University of Oklahoma. And the only time I'd ever really connected, since I'm a real alcoholic like a lot of us, there was this time I could connect with people without alcohol, and it was when I was on stage. Doing what? High school, grade school. The very first time when I was on stage i was six years old it was the christmas pageant in oklahoma city yeah thousand people in the church auditorium and i'm supposed to walk out there with the angels and the shepherds and everybody and the tableau and i'm supposed to

sing acapella away in a manger but i'd heard a perry como song on the way to church yeah and i liked it better. Yeah. And I had a real good memory. So I stood before the baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph. Yeah. And I opened up my arms and started singing. Oh, hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom, what you do to me.

It's so new to me, what you do to me. Hot diggity, dog ziggity, boom, what you do to me. When you're holding me tight. And the crowd just went wild yeah they went oh they were you killed and i got i killed yeah at six years old man that's all you need to know yeah and so the next thing i knew my father would allow me to watch jack parr's monologue before i went to bed and of course johnny carson's monologue later on before i went to bed and jack parr yeah he was he kind of did long form.

Yes, he did. Yeah, it was good. But nevertheless, it was the introduction to the New York society of wit and sparkle. Sure, sure. You know, and not prairie grade school. And it was a great escape because these people were smart and witty and funny, and I was determined, well, I'm that way too. Were you growing up in Oklahoma City?

Yes. I was in Oklahoma City until the fourth grade, and my father got promoted to a bigger church in Ponca City, Oklahoma. And Ponca City is a very wealthy old oil town, the world headquarters for Conoco. And it was very sophisticated. Yeah. So I was never in that kind of situation, this crystal meth redneck situation. I was never in that. No.

My parents didn't need a babysitter. They had me on the country club every day playing golf. Yeah, right. But to get back to the point about the University of Oklahoma, after going through Rush Week and pledging ATO Alpha Tau Omega just made me because we uh we had a a thing called good of the order at the end of our first chapter meeting after initiation and I just started talking and everybody's falling over laughing and I thought I was pre-law and my best friend at the time and still Greg Hall an Oklahoma City oil man came up

to me pledge brother we've been initiated yeah he said said, Argus, you're not going to be a lawyer. You're a stand-up comedian. And that just validated every secret thing I'd ever told myself. Interesting because, I mean, you could have used those skills as a lawyer. You could. Yeah. But I had this compulsion at the time to be a campus personality. Yeah.

And before you knew it, this was all during the Watergate era. to be a campus personality. And before you knew it, this was all during the Watergate era. I had a, we had the University of Oklahoma had a newspaper called the Oklahoma Daily. Yeah.

40,000 circulation. Yeah. Everybody read it every day. There was no handhelds back then. Yeah. And I was on the editorial page two or three times a week with a column called Okie Dokie.

Yeah. Okay, with my name and my picture as big as the copy they gave called Okie Dokie. Yeah. With my name and my picture as big as the copy they gave me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, and it's all political humor. Yeah. It's all jokes. This is the era of the early national lampoon. Right. There's so much freedom. Sure. Everybody's just joking their butts off. Yeah. Because it's the Nixon era. High, it's the high mark of political satire. Exactly. Exactly. And so we were with the Michael O'Donohue. Yeah. Sure. And so I'm doing this at the University of Oklahoma. And so we were with the Michael O'Donohue. Yeah, sure. And so I'm doing this at the University of Oklahoma. And then every Thursday night on Campus Corner,

I host a show called Trivia Night. And I pack this place called Across the Street Restaurant on Campus Corner. Yeah. Downstairs and upstairs. They all have phones on each booth. And I ask trivia questions. And if they get it right, they phone it in. I give them a free pitcher of beer or punchlines to jokes and stuff like this. And we really had a roaring time. So you're doing bits and stuff? Yeah. And this is all for three years at

OU with Trivia Night and three and a half years with the column. So I was the best known personality on OU besides the athletes. on ou besides the athlete and you're writing jokes and you're and you're being on stage in a way and riffing a little bit and drinking yeah we sure it's all you did in that it was three two beer it took you forever to get drunk three two like coors yeah yeah was it coors yeah yeah yeah yeah so you weren't drinking hard you

know yes i was because by the time you're a junior and a senior, you discover wild turkey. Right. Because I know you talk a lot about being sober, and it's been a long time for you. Because it sounds like once you got to L.A. and the cocaine started, that's when you shifted gears. But it was always part of your trip. Shifting gears is a great way to put it, Mark. Downshifting even. Downshifting and upshifting at the same time.

You bet. Downshifting, upshifting. So when you graduated college, you just immediately come out here? How did your parents react? Well, my parents were just fine with it. My father was kind of grateful to get me out of the state. I'm kidding.

Were you causing trouble? No, no, no. It was just I had a good time yeah and uh they were tremendously tolerant of me uh my mother never get arrested my mother didn't know my mother my mother wanted didn't want me to come out she said what if they don't laugh at you and i've never forgotten that really when your mother says what if they don't laugh at you when you get out here sure so you you've basically said to them like I'm gonna go be a comic yeah well I'm gonna go be what I am right but you did not do any comedy outside of college before you came out

you know but my talisman was one afternoon at one evening I should say at the ATO house living room we're sitting around watching the Tonight Show. This was the key. The one thing I didn't like about going into stand-up was the prospect of going to New York and freezing my ass off in the winter. I hated cold weather. And I just didn't like the idea of New York. It was a seedy town at that time anyway, in the 70s. And I'm watching the Tonight Show with a bunch of guys in the living room at the ATO house. And Sammy Davis Jr. comes on. And Johnny and Sammy always do great together. And Sammy says to Johnny, listen, Johnny, welcome to LA.

I know you've just gotten here. But there's this young kid I want you to see tonight. I brought here. His name is Freddie Prinze. Yeah. And Johnny said, let's bring him out. And so Freddie Prinze came out, brought down the house. Didn't stand up. And sat down.

Yeah. Johnny waved him over. And Freddie Prinze sat down and started talking about this brand new place on the strip called the Comedy Store. I said, Los Angeles has a Comedy Store. That's where I'm going. Oh, really? So what year was that?

I think it was the spring of 73. Oh, so it really was just starting out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when did you graduate? Graduated in December of 75. Uh-huh. And you were like, that's it. That's where I'm going.

And you didn't know how you were going to start or what you were going to do. You were just going to go out there. Yeah, absolutely. So what did you do? Well, I jumped into my MG convertible. Oh yeah. And drove this little thing over the Kiber Pass to get to Los Angeles and got into town. And I started coming to the open mic night surreptitiously on Monday night. So where'd you get the place? Where were you living first?

Oh, I had a cousin who lived in Manhattan Beach. Oh, wow. It's a hall. An older cousin, 20 years older. And I stayed at his house for about a month while I was coming to the comedy store and getting my bearings. And I went up on March 8, 1976. So happened the same night Marshall Warfield went up right after me, her first night.

Yeah. That was your audition night or that was the first time you played on the stage? That was my audition night. So you'd already been coming to open mics? No, no. That launched my open mic. Okay, got it. Yeah.

That launched because I would go around with B.J. Douglas and Joey Gaynor all over town doing our open mics together. Where'd you meet those guys? At the comedy store that night. Oh, okay. Okay. And so I went on stage, and I stood up. I had all this fresh stage presence.

Yeah. And I said, I just left Oklahoma. We're smoking pots of federal crime. Traveled through Colorado. We're smoking pots of federal crime. Traveled through Colorado. We're smoking pots illegal. Finally got to California where it's mandatory. Oh, they just laughed. I said, I got my secret.

Always open with a drug joke in Los Angeles. Never failed. Still do it to this day. And then I struggled through a bunch of stuff. I'm talking to get jokes off Humphrey and Ford and stuff like this. Were you like a Moritz Saul fan? I didn't know who I was. But you decided on politics yourself.

Oh, yeah, of course. That's what Gentiles do, or at least Protestants. Anyway, because we don't have enough self-honesty to talk about ourselves on stage. Okay. But there was something interesting because I got toward the end, self-honesty to talk about ourselves on stage. Okay. So, um, uh, but I got, there was something interesting cause I got toward the end and I remembered,

I picked up something. You can always kill with a drug joke in LA. And at the time you could always kill with a Nixon joke. Yeah. Okay. Right. And you still do both. Yeah.

At the time, Nixon had just gone to China. Yeah. This is two years after he resigned a year and and a half, for some goodwill mission. And it was in all the papers. And at the end, I said, you know, why did Nixon bother taking a jet to China? Why didn't he go in a rickshaw pulled by a mule? That got a laugh.

And I said, Spiro could have used the exercise. Oh, man. Oh, Agnew and Nixon joke. Oh, boy. Tremendous joke. And two things happened from that. First of all, there was a reporter from Orbit Magazine. Do you remember Orbit? I don't.

It was a Sunday supplement that was in all the Sunday papers all around the country. And it was a little mini newspaper-looking magazine with color pictures and stuff. And articles. Like the Parade Magazine? magazine with color pictures and stuff and articles. Like the Parade magazine? Exactly like Parade. And it had an article about the comedy store, and it quoted that Nixon joke.

And my fraternity brothers read this the next Sunday in the Daily Oklahoman and thought I'd made it. Yeah, yeah. He did it. He did it. And the second thing that happened was the most important thing that happened in my life. And that is that Mitzi had Ollie Joe Prater standing by her. The great bearded Ollie Joe Prater. Our Falstaff. Our Gleason.

Our Jackie Gleason. That's all you can say about him. The late, great Ollie Joe Prater. And he was running Comedy Store Westwood at the time. And trying to appear late at night there. And she said, make him a doorman. She took one look at me and she saw doorman. Me too.

And so, and I didn't, I wasn't sure if that was a promotion, but I knew it was my foot in the door. I didn't realize I was getting admitted to graduate school. Right. That was the system. Yeah. Yeah, I started out as a doorman. And at that time, the Comedy Store was, as Julius Caesar would say, es divisa in tres partes, divided into three parts, like a gall.

There were the TV stars, the draws, Freddie Prinze, Gabe Kaplan, who both got their shows from the comedy store. Pryor's that special case. And then Jimmy Walker was the big one. Yeah.

Jimmy Walker packed the room on Sunset on weekends and he would drive over to Westwood and pack Westwood. Both shows, both nights. Because he was on

What's Happening? Good Times. Good Times, yeah. Because he was on What's Happening? Good Times. Good Times, yeah. Good Times was on CBS seven years. I just talked to Byron Allen. He was a gag writer for Jimmy. When he was like 16. Jimmy would have Byron Allen, Jay Leno, David Letterman, and a couple of other

guys, Gene and Wayne Klein, would have them at his house every week, pay them $100 a week. And then this is back when Letterman was paying $117 a month rent across the street from the Comedy Store, $117 a month. All right. And they would write all this brilliant material for Jimmy. Okay.

And then Jimmy would have it all on note cards. Yeah. And every night of the week, Jimmy would do his regular act, except Sunday. And then Jimmy would sit on a bar stool and read these jokes. The crowd would laugh, and Jimmy would throw them over his shoulder, like, okay, that was funny, that was funny, that was funny.

And it's the last he would ever hear of these jokes. It was the last. He would never add it to his act. That's weird. He would pay him for them, and he'd never add them. He just enjoyed the company, I guess, and seeing if had him. He just enjoyed the company, I guess. And seeing if they worked. But that time, Jimmy Walker, Freddie Prince, Gabe Kaplan were the TV star guys. And then

there was a group of guys that were in and out of the comedy store because they were working Vegas. Right, on the road. Kip Adada, Steve Blustein, Steve Landsberg. These guys that were doing really working. Didn't Kip just die? Yeah. But he was just taking off at that time. Yeah. And he was very popular.

And Steve Bluestein? Yeah, Steve Bluestein. Yeah. Brilliant. And they were working. That was the other level. There were a lot of them at that level, but those are the ones off the top of my head. And then there was the heart and soul of the comedy store. The heart and soul were, I would say, four guys.

Yeah. That would be Letterman, George Miller, Tom Dreesen. Oh, and Leno. Yeah. And Leno. Yeah. Okay. Those four guys were there every night, and they were the ones that you gathered around.

Comics, comics. The young comics would gather around. They were encouraging. They would suggest punchlines, give you lines, and you would just laugh it up, all in different areas. Letterman was like a god. Everybody saw Future Carson in him at the time.

And this is 76? Yeah. George Miller was doing The Tonight Show and murdering at the time, and he was just in his sardonic wit height at that time. Tom Dreesen, the nicest guy in the history of stand-up comedy. I talk to him. I talk to him. was wasn't so much approachable but he was nice to everybody but Leno gave you the example you needed to follow if you wanted to be a success. Leno

was a work junkie. Work work work. So the smart guys aped Leno. Right. So who were the guys you know those were the guys that the comics were looking up to so who was your little crew of weirdos? Well I've got to add, there were two superstars at the time, too.

One of them was my idol. That was Tim Thomerson. Oh, yeah. Tim Thomerson is the only guy who could follow Pryor. He was a tremendous stage presence. There was nothing like him before or since. I mean, he had it. I always thought that Harrison Ford

had the career Tim Thomerson should have had. How's Tim doing? He's surfing. He has some back problems, but I hear from him from time to time. He stays in touch with his good friend Letterman. But Timmy was a star. And then Richard Pryor was God.

And he would come in, and everything that he did is well known. Right. So he kind of put that place on the map in a lot of ways, right? Because he would do the weekend shows? No, that's how it's remembered now. But the guy that put the place on the map was Jimmy Walker and Gabe Kaplan and Freddie Prince. Those guys got it going.

What happened to Pryor was that Pryor cracked up on stage in Las Vegas in the early 70s. Yeah. Just cracked up. Right. And Paul Mooney. He got fired, right? He lost it. Yeah.

Paul Mooney is the other God. Paul Mooney would race across town at one o'clock from Westwood to watch his hour-long set at sunset. Yeah, at one in the morning. Yeah, he was my artistic god. I love Paul Moonies. Sitting in the back of the room watching Paul. And Paul would always have, at the time,

he would have proteges like Sandra Bernhardt or Jackson Perdue, and he helped build them up. So what Richard would do is, Paul kind of rescued Richard, all right, and got him, and they worked together, and they sold some scripts to Red Fox, you know, for the Red Fox thing. Yeah.

For which, he had a production company? No. Oh, Sanford and Son. Sanford and Son. Okay. So Paul in 72, 73, Pryor started putting it back together. Yeah. And it was, at the time,

Richard Pryor did these cute little impressions and stuff like this like exactly like Jim Carrey started yeah okay and then just like Jim Carrey had his epiphany through Sam Kinison and became his roaring self yeah it was Paul Mooney who turned Richard Pryor into Dark Twain yeah okay. And Richard did that, his first huge album, that In Words Crazy. Yeah. And it was such a huge success around campus. It made him a movie star, even though he was not allowed to be on Blazing Saddles. That was written for him.

Oh, so when he had the identity crisis, you know, because he was just sort of a Cosby clone, and he kind of hit the wall, and then he went to San Francisco for a while, and then Paul kind of befriended him, or they were aligned together and started writing together, and Paul sort of helped him inform the new socially relevant prior. Exactly. And they were nothing alike, because Paul was a Robert Klein-ish bit comic,

and they were both derivatives of Lenny Bruce and Dick Gregory. Yeah. Okay. But Pryor was a storyteller in the Mark Twain. I begged him to title his album Dark Twain because that's what he was. Right. He was a great storyteller.

And what he would do is he would come to the Comedy Store Sunset, and during the maybe two or three months, he would put together an album. And he would go on every night at 10 o'clock. And Mitzi would have two shows, before him and then him. And Pryor would schedule his own show. He would have David Letterman or Johnny Witherspoon to start, Marshall Warfield, then himself, and then Mooney afterwards would clean up. And it was just tremendous. And he would work out. And he would never do a joke

he'd ever done on a previous album. He started from scratch. It was painful at the start. You would just, like Harris Peet and Johnny Witherspoon would sit in the back with Mitzi and just watch him build it. It was so beautiful to watch. I'm pretty sure Bill Burr is the closest who works the closest like that. And it was just probably Louis C.K. as well.

And you might do that as well. Yeah. You start from scratch and that's what he did. That's the only way I can do it. And you work just like Pryor. Okay. Yeah. scratch and you just you and that's that's what he did the only way i can do it and you work just like prior okay yeah and that's and you you have the advantage as well mark of being a you're the best storyteller along with alan steven i've ever met you know and i mean you guys are just naturals you were on my podcast argus hamilton's comedy store tonight and i could have listened to you for three hours because you know me i go home right after my set. I never see anybody's work.

Yeah, I know. Right. You just mesmerize me, man. Oh, good. And so Pryor would come in, and the line would be around the block. Johnny Witherspoon and Harris Peet at the door would make $100 at the table. Back when rent was $200 a month. Sure.

Nobody had a phone bill. It was unbelievable. The table hustling was something that we did, too. Didn't you do it when you were a doorman? No. Well, no. Mike Binder and I were doormen at Westwood for a while. And the Comedy Store Westwood was a 235-seat.

This is a good point about the Comedy Store Westwood. 235-seat room, Mark. Brick walls. Tremendous acoustics. Yeah. Right? And the original room at the Comedy Store was terrible because it had been the old holding room at Ciro's Nightclub. Yeah.

And they had padded walls. Yeah. Where the laughter just died. Right. Okay. And so you had to earn every laugh in the original room. And then did they take those out? No. It's still that way.

It's still a tough room. That's why it's a tough room. You go from the original room to the main room, it's like you're released from jail. It does take a while to learn how to work the or but it's i like it yeah yeah you do but you just learn to not let any air go between your punchline and your next setup gotta stay on top of them yeah and so uh but there's a good point about westwood yeah it was it was there from 1975 to 84 binder and i would sell the best tables for five dollars a piece we didn't know what we were doing yeah we could have gotten 20 yeah sure and but the thing about westwood is interesting to 84, Binder and I would sell the best tables for $5 a piece. We didn't know what we were doing.

We could have gotten $20. Yeah, sure. But the thing about Westwood is interesting because it was such a good room that, first of all, all the big shots, the big comics, the New York comics, would come to Westwood on Thursday night because that was showcase night. William Morris night, your managers, the producers, and everybody would come in and showcase for the industry. They wanted Westwood because it was such a great room. It's a hot room, yeah.

But for us regulars, us baby boomers that Mitzi put over there, my class of 76, myself, Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, Marshall Warfield, Bob Saget, Arsenio Hall, Mike Binder, Alan Steven, Mitchell Walters, Ollie Joe Prater, Vic Dunlop. Oh, my God. Where does Craig T. Nelson fit into it? Craig T. Nelson is much earlier. Oh, yeah, yeah. 72, 73.

And he's in a partnership with Barry Levinson, the director. They did a team thing? Yeah, and they go their own way. Oh, right. But the point about Westwood is something I bet you'd never thought of. It just occurred to me in the last couple of weeks. It made us, see, Mitzi would send us over there to make us ready for sunset.

Yeah. It was such a great room. Right. And we were able to create so much. Yeah. That by the time we'd been there for two or three years, we weren't ready for sunset. We were ready for the Tonight Show.

Yeah. And we would just hop skid right over sunset and go right to Johnny, okay? Yeah. And we would just hop skid right over sunset and go right to Johnny. Okay. Yeah. But the problem is there's a bunch of crazy ass baby boomers. All right. And we're technically, we're just great, but emotionally we're not ready. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And Westwood made you ready too fast. You mean, Oh, you got it. Cause it was such a good room. It was such a good room. And you got so good, so fast, your emotional edge didn't catch up with you. So these doormen at the comedy store now have to wait five, six, seven years to become regular.

That's the right pace to go. Because that's hot shots that got, you know, too fast, too good. So, okay, so that's your crew. And so you're at Westwood, but you're also working the original room. You're also coming back. Mitzi would have me come over like on Sunday nights and work the door there and host a show. Now when does the cocaine start?

Interesting. I had a roommate named Dale Reese. He was a bartender at the Comedy Store from Pennsylvania. Who's the big movie star that plays John McClane? Oh, Bruce Willis. Yeah, Bruce Willis. He's Bruce Willis' cousin. Bruce Willis was a bartender at the Improv at the time,

along with Les Moonves, the CBS chairman. So it was a Randy group, let's put it that way. And let's see, Dale Reese had an eighth of an ounce, an eight ball, I guess you'd call it, in one of those vials. And I turned it down the first three times. I'm still angry at myself over that. Yeah, for turning it down? For turning it down. Come on.

I didn't even know I was an addict yet. Come on. And he gave me this eight ball for some reason. And the next thing I knew, four or five days had gone by, and I was in La Mirada. Why, I don't know. Coming out of a blackout at a Denny's, talking to a policeman across the table from me, just chatting up, having a good time, having no idea how I got there. Wow. It was nuts.

Yeah. And I've loved it ever since. It was nuts. Yeah. And I've loved it ever since. Now, but so when does this align with, when did you get your, how many times did you do Carson? About 15 times. You did a lot, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

So you were in the regular rotation. So when does that start for you? Well, it was in, what happened was, is interesting. And what happened is interesting. In the fall of 79, Mitzi had a showcase with myself, Joey Kamen, Jimmy Brogan, and four or five others for this Today Show shot. Okay. And it's a Today Show feature story on who's going to be the hot new comic of the 1980s. Wow.

Okay. Jim McCauley, The Tonight Show. It's funny because Brogan went on to book The Tonight Show. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And Mitzi had a big crowd there on a Thursday night, Jim McCauley. And McCauley had been bringing us all along for the Tonight Show. He just nurtured us all for years before we did our first shot. Really? Oh, yeah.

So you got there in 75? 76. All right, so it's been a few years. He's been looking at you. Yeah, and I have one of those sets. Whenever I get to go at 10 o'clock, it's like easy for me. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

I just murdered the room, and I found out the next day the story was going to be about me. I was going to be the comic who can't miss in the 80s. You're the guy. Okay. Yeah. And so they come over to Crest Hill, all right, and we stay up partying. Are you living up there? I was the first one.

You were at Crest Hill? Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize that. living up there? I was the first one. You were at Crest Hill? Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize that. Who do you think would be the first one? You see, Crest Hill came with the purchase of the Comedy Store when Mitzi bought the Comedy Store in 1976. She was a sub-Lisi from 72 to 76.

She got a balloon loan, bought Crest Hill from the old Ciro's owner and he owned the house above it and it was a spectacular view, as you know, of Los Angeles. What, at Crest Hill? At Crest Hill. Yeah, yeah. He owned that.

Oh, so that's where she got it? Yeah, that was Frank Sendes' house. Yeah. And so as soon as she bought it, she had me, Yakov Smirnoff, and Andrew Dice Clay move into it. I was in Dice's old room. You were in Dice's old bathroom. With its own bathroom.

Off the kitchen. Yeah. Okay, so the NBC Today show, it's like in October, comes to Crest Hill to shoot me. That's why your picture was up there. And we'd been up partying all night, as always. With Dice? No, no, no. Dice and Yakov never partied.

Right. It's just you and some freaks. Dice would take a wet sponge and take all the coke off the table and just break our hearts when we wake up anyway it just killed us so NBC Today Show shows up and they have to wake me up at 2 in the afternoon to come downstairs for my Today Show interview so I shower real quick I come down and I have a great interview it just knock it out of the park.

And so I get the air date. And so we stay up all night, November 3rd, to see it on November 4th. So it's an excuse to party and stay up and snow and go. And we turn on NBC today. And the Iranians have just taken 52 Americans hostage. Ah. November 4th, 1979. The 100th anniversary

of Will Rogers' birthday. Preempted. Preempted. And they put the story off on me for like seven agonizing weeks. But they put it on

in late December and Fred DeCordova sees it, The Tonight Show, and they say, boom, let's have Argus on The Tonight Show. So on January 8th,

I make my debut. In 1977? 1980. Oh, 1980. 1980. This is from 79 to 80. Yeah. And I start out

and I just had a tremendous time. Johnny came over and shook my hand, put his arm around me. It was fantastic. So you guys are getting jacked, though.

You're in it. You're partying all night. No, but not on The Tonight Show. No, no, I know that. But I mean in general. Yeah, but we didn't know any better.'ve been doing this since college this is how you live no no the cocaine is not how you live oh that's right well now cocaine accelerated sure i mean drinking i mean i know the difference but like when you're up in that house and you're going for

two days you know i mean it's different yeah it is different and you know you do get used to it but i had a i had an experience experience where when I was in there, when I was living at that house doing that life, some woman came out and visited me that I knew in college. Oh, no. And I was sitting around. We were on the floor. There was a bunch of dudes.

We're doing everything. We're playing guitar. We're doing coke. And I'm like, isn't this amazing? It was just against the normies. They don't know how to live. This is how you live. No one lives like this.

And then this woman writes me this letter two weeks later. She goes, no one would want to live like that. What a square. You haven't been east of La Brea since. Right. I just remember that moment where it's sort of like it is an insulated thing. You think that everyone's living like that, and you see those people going to work the next day or running or jogging. At some point when

you get sober, you realize it was a freaky life. In the summer of 80, my parents came out to surprise me. I got that one too. They came by Crest Hill at 10, 30 in the morning and everybody's laid out drunk and lying out over the

floor. Waitresses passed out face down on the floor. God knows. And Mother was just furious. But they were coming to the Comedy Store that night in the main room to see me. It was a Saturday. So Mitzi lined up the show just perfect so that the right Bishop Hamilton and Lady Hamilton come in to see their little boy. They had Ronnie Kenny open the show, then Mike Binder, then myself, then Shanling.

Okay? Yeah. So Binder comes on, does a clean set, kills the crowd, and asks for a round of applause from my parents. And everybody in the main room, tremendous crowd. They all clap. Ronnie Kenny does it. Mike Binder does the same thing.

Tremendous clean set. And then Binder does the same thing. Tremendous clean set, and then Binder introduces my parents again. I walk up, kill the crowd, and everybody's proud of my parents. So Shanling walks out on stage, and Shanling says, yeah, I guess your parents are here. Yeah, nice to have you here.

I think you should know something. I fucked him. And the crowd just went berserk. They just had enough of Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton. Oh, the roof just came down. And my mother jumped up, grabbed dad. They took out of Mitzi's booth and led my dad down the hall. And she goes by poor Daily Pike, who's standing there strumming his guitar,

getting ready for his guitar guitar in the original room. Right. And my mother waves her finger at Daley, says, you boys are never going to go anywhere with your filth. Oh. And you know what? They didn't. Somehow she knew.

Shanley did all right. Shanley did just fine. Rest his soul. When did you start dating Mitzi? When was that happening? Well, the night of the comedy, my first Tonight Show shot, I was the last one to leave Mitzi's house when we were partying all night long to celebrate the first shot.

Yeah, at Mitzi's. Well, about once or twice a week we would party at Mitzi's house. Who was in that crew? Biff Maynard, Tim Thomerson, Diane Ogden, wonderful, wonderful talent coordinator. Richard, whoever Richard's wife was at the time. Pryor? Yeah, Pryor. His wife, Deborah, would sometimes be there.

So this is when Mitzi was in her partying phase. Yeah, Mitchell, Walter. Yeah, Mitzi didn't do coke. Mitzi liked pot. Yeah. But the rest of us would cook. And we'd drink, and we'd sit there, and it would be Robin Williams and Valerie would be there. Yeah. And we would just solve the problems sit there and it would be Robin Williams and Valerie would be there.

And we would just solve the problems of the world, talk about everything. It was like a reverse AA meeting. You stay up all night and you exchange your truth. You know, you need this lubrication to be truthful with each other. And Mitzi was there with her too? Uh-huh. Mitzi would hang out too? Oh, yeah.

We were up until about 6.30, sometimes 7 in the morning. And then Peter and Pauly would come downstairs. It would be time to go to school.30, sometimes 7 in the morning, and then Peter and Polly would come downstairs. It would be time to go to school, and that would break up the party. That's hilarious. Isn't it interesting how it's all played out that Peter has turned the place around? Yeah, it really is. Peter and the people for whom you and I, I know, are most grateful, and that is these millennials who come in and they buy up the tickets uh on websites and the and the shows are sold out ahead of time it's pretty diverse though

they're not all young people you know it's a like it's just a i think over the course of the last few years with people you know big acts kind of supporting the place and putting it out in the world and talking about it that it's become notorious again in a good way. I mean, for a while, there was infamous. Now it's great. But for a while, there was like, no one goes there anymore. After Kenneson, when I left in 87 or 88, right when you got back, it went through a pretty nasty time for a while.

Well, I've got another explanation for that. There were 75 million baby boomers and there's 80 million millennials. Yeah. But for your group, there were only about 35 or 40 million generation Xers. Yeah. Okay. And I'm 1963. I'm like, maybe the tail end of the baby boom. Okay. And one of the security guys told me just the other night, I was talking to him about this and he said, well, one reason was one of the big, big security just the other night, I was talking to him about this, and he said, well, one reason was, one of the big security guys, he says, I'm a Gen Xer. We weren't into comedy. We were into music and violence. Yeah, interesting.

And there just weren't enough of them to fill the clubs, to fill the comedy clubs. Really? You think so? That was my experience. I was there. Well, no, I get it. But didn't Mitzi get a little dark? Didn't The Place get dark? That's the way. I was there. Well, no, I get it. But didn't it get, but didn't, you know, Mitzi get a little dark? Didn't the place get dark?

That's the way people look at it. But I'm telling you, during the OJ, okay, let's think out loud here for a second together. In Los Angeles in the 90s, we went to this glorious comedy time of the flooding, okay, the earthquakes. We had Rodney King. We had OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton's impeachment. We had from 92 to 99 a glorious time in comedy, stand-up, okay? And the rooms, I would just say there was just no way to completely fill up the rooms because the comics were great, the crowds were good, and I wouldn't say that there was really a dark time until the

early 2000s uh 2001 2002 2003 and then also you know man the business of comedy clubs kind of took a dent made a dent in it because people could see comedy in their home in their cities i hadn't thought of that that's a good i mean like jesus i mean everybody was out there on the road i mean there was no the the the imperative to to sort of see comedy in L.A. was diminished a bit. If you could see it in Denver or you could see it in Columbus. Did you see the same people? Sure. The headliners.

Right. And the interesting thing about those comedy clubs was there was this show in Los Angeles in 1978. I forgot to tell you about it. I'm sure you heard about it, Make Me Laugh. Yeah. Okay. What people today don't know, they need to Google Make Me Laugh because it was huge. All you guys did it, right?

Yeah. Bruce Babyman, bomb. Yeah. And Biff Maynard, Mr. Bitchin'. Yeah. Kip Adada. But all of us did it, okay? And it was fantastic.

What was the name of the host? Bobby Vann? Bobby Vann? Bobby Vann, the MGM dancer. A wonderful guy. And George Foster was the producer, and he had produced the show in 1958 when it got kicked off the air for a Nixon joke, okay? And so it came back in syndication. And here's the important thing.

Two things happened. First of all, it was on at 11 o'clock. It was syndicated, I think, Metromedia, right? happened. First of all, it was on at 11 o'clock. It was syndicated, I think, Metromedia, right? And all across the country, you know, any area that had four or five TV stations would take Make Me Laugh, and it was on up against the local news. And we were kicking the news' ass in LA. You were one of the regulars? Yeah, yeah. And what it did was it made stand-up, like for the casual listener right now, Make Me Laugh went like this. There's a crowd of 300 people in the studio audience.

I'm facing Marc Maron. I do material here on Marc, secretly hoping he doesn't laugh because the crowd is laughing and giving me air time. Yeah, right, right. And so we're looking at you and playing to the crowd at the same time. The crowd's going berserk. And, of course, the person at home is seeing these fresh Baby Boomer comics. They're just fantastic. That's funny.

So you were all aware that you didn't want the guy to laugh? No, you didn't. Well, you wanted that airtime, okay? And so it became popular. It kicked ass. And that is what started all the comedy clubs around the country. It came from Make Me Laugh, and that came with its own reward and poison mark

because once these comedy clubs sprang up, with which you're well familiar, in the early 80s, mid-80s, what happened was they would give the headliner $5,000 a week or a door deal, and everybody would just take off for it. It's kind of like cruise ships now. The money's so good, you just keep doing it and pretty soon LA forgets about you. Right. So there were

guys who would be on the road for months. For months, even longer. And they would fall in love with the waitress. They decide to buy a home somewhere here and there. And pretty soon they had a kid and they were locked into that lifestyle and gone from L.A. They just self-exiled. So you're saying that people started to diminish? They diminished themselves just by— And they disappeared from L.A. When they disappeared from L.A., the town and the industry forgot about you.

Enjoy your money, because in about 1986 and 87, every single one of these cities is going to have a second and third comedy club. Yeah. And then they start competing, having paper wars, giving away tickets. The revenue goes down, and these guys are stuck out there. Right. Making one-fifth of the money they were making. Yep. And, yeah, that was a sad crash of the boom.

But now it's interesting because if you can find your people, you can just play anywhere. You need the fucking comedy club. Well, you're the one that's just led the way with this show. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I'm happy that people were able to get the hang of me and I could sell a few tickets eventually. Yeah, it worked out. Yeah. So now how does it get progressively bad for you? How many years did you see Mitzi for? About two. And then while I was off to my first rehab, Yakov Smirnoff introduced Mitzi to a Russian psychiatrist and she fell for him. And then while I was off to my first rehab, Yakov Smirnoff introduced Mitzi to a Russian psychiatrist. And she fell for him. And I was out.

Russian psychiatrist. Yeah. A handsome guy, too. How long did she date that guy? Until he drank himself to death. You know, once an Al-Anon, always an Al-Anon. Sure, yeah. Wait, so were you there for the strike?

Oh, was I? That was 76? I caused it. You caused it. Yeah. I caused the strike. Yeah. Well, in the summer of 78, Mitzi's really disconsolate because she has purchased a comedy store.

She had a dream for the main room, Mark. Yeah. And you guys aren't together yet. No, no, no, no. I'm sitting there at 2 30 in the morning with her and biff maynard and biff and i are snorting coke yeah and mitzi smoking a joint we're in the main room by herself yeah and she's crying because her whole idea about the main room this 400 seat room yeah was for her peers to come back and play yeah okay her peers

buddy hackett don rickles all that group it was mitzi's dream to have these comics come back and play. Yeah. Okay? Her peers, Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, all that group, it was Mitzi's dream to have these comics come back and play the main room. Weren't they Sammy's friends? Yeah. But Mitzi was the den mother in Vegas. Mitzi knew all of them. They all loved Mitzi. Elvis loved Mitzi.

Yeah. Okay? They all loved her. Yeah. And she could pick up the phone and get any of them on the line. Right. So that was her dream. Shecky. Okay. The she could pick up the phone and get any of them on the line. Right. So that was her dream. Shecky.

Okay. The problem was their agents. Their agents would not let them play the Comedy Store main room because they were afraid it would hurt their Vegas draw. Yeah, cut into the draw. Because Vegas was these super salaries at the time. Yeah. And Vegas is 90% L.A. on the weekends. Right.

Okay. So they wouldn't let them do it. And Mitzi just couldn't.A. on the weekends. Right. Okay. So they wouldn't let them do it. And Mitzi just couldn't. She had tried Tiny Tim. She had had the great Dick Gregory in. She could get, you know, some spot things. Buddy Rich and his band would bring Johnny Carson out. It would be exciting for a night.

But she couldn't get it filled. And so Biff and I are sitting there saying, look, you've got these great comics, okay, And so Biff and I are sitting there saying, look, you've got these great comics, okay, with Mooney and Dreesen and Letterman, Leno, Elaine Boosler, all the mule deer. My God, it's incredible. The guys that are now out working. You can have them in the main room, and then we can do the original room in Westwood, and our goal is to be in the main room. Yeah. And this is summer of 78. And Mitzi said, well i that would turn

this into a professional room and uh and uh this is a this i see the comedy store as an art colony and as a place to where you get ready to go out and work right in the oar yeah yeah but not the main room she wanted big shows and then biff and i said to her to hell with it split the ticket money and give half to the comics and half to yourself. I said, Mitzi, over at Westwood right now, when I'm at the door, I'm sending 150 people every Saturday night over to the improv because of the spillover. Yeah. Okay? And I'm telling you, we can do it. Yeah.

And she tried to devise a little ticket purchase thing where you buy six tickets for $25 for six shows. It was some crazy idea. It didn't work. And this was all about the main room comics. There's about 25 of them. Right. And I talked Mitzi into doing this. Putting the comics in the main room.

Yeah, putting comics in the main room yeah putting comics in the main room and she balked on a couple of the payment things and so tom dreeson uh wanted to of course he tom knew a professional room when he see one yeah and so he he wanted the 25 comics to come in and and talk about it and take some action. The problem was 200 comics joined the meeting that had no business being there. They weren't main room comics. And all of a sudden, before you knew it, it became a movement, and it's off to the barricades.

And the strike of May of 79 occurred, and all your listeners, all they have to do is Amazon buy William Needles Cedar's book, I'm Dying Up Here, that HBO made the series out of. Or was it Showtime? Oh, they know about it. I talked to Dreesen about it. I've talked to a lot of people about it.

And so it happened. And there were about a dozen of us that stood by Mitzi during the strike. It's just in my DNA going back 400 years to stand by the queen. So you crossed the picket Yeah. And so I did. So you crossed the picket line. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I stood out there and talked people into walking through. Yeah.

All right. So there was tension between you and the other comics. No, no. If you look at the book, they say Argus was always a gentleman. Yeah. I was always happy. But you were a loyalist and you were not going to let this fuck up the business. No, I wasn't.

At one point, Mitzi was so angry when David Letterman, bless his heart, came down after his very first night of guest hosting the Tonight Show in the middle of the strike. He came walking down the ramp of the Hyatt House with the picket line out front. And the picketeers all started singing the tonight show theme song. Yeah. And he joined them instead of going into see Mitch and to Mitzi. Mitzi was sitting at the original room window looking out and saw that she was sitting there with Alan Steven and it broke her heart because two years

earlier or five years earlier, she had talked Letterman out of going back home to Indiana when he was discouraged. No, I get it. I get it. So who were the loyalists? You and Stevens? Alan Stevens, Alan Berski, Lois Bromfield, Yakov Smirnoff, Frank Caraschio, Biff Maynard joined a little later. And a lot of people that were loyal to Mitzi simply stayed away, both from the picket line.

Right. Because nobody knew which way this was going to break because the firebrands on the picket side said, we're going to join AGVA, and AGVA is going to keep you from ever joining AFTRA, and you're never going to get to do television. That was their threat. And that was Lonow and Dreesen? That was really from the left wing of it.

Dreesen was just trying to manage things. Well, who's the left wing of it? Mark Lano? No, Lano and I came up with the solution. I'll get to that. There were some, let's just say, open micers that were really good at union stuff. And they were the ones that were trying to threaten union cards. And two weeks into the strike, I met with Mark Lano next door at the Hyatt house. Yeah.

On the mezzanine. Yeah. And we came up with a pay scale for the main room, for the original room in Westwood. Okay. I came back and presented it to Mitzi. And she said, I'll think about it. And that's the night that Letterman walked down. And she said, I will never settle with those bastards.

And it was just, it was lights. that Letterman walked down, and she said, I will never settle with those bastards, okay? And it was just, it was lights. Mitzi was so angry for two weeks. There was no dealing with her. And finally, finally she just sort of came to. My other thing that I did was- Didn't the improv agree to do it?

The improv wasn't paying, and they got to be strike headquarters. Bud Friedman played this very cleverly. Yeah. But the most important thing that happened in the middle, if I had a role in it, was that Glendale Federal stepped in and offered Mitzi $15 million for the entire building and the whole location, okay, which was a lot of money back in 1979.

Yeah. And she was back and forth on it and a couple of us gave her a serious talk about it. She's not going down in history. If she's gonna be another rich Jewish woman at the tennis club, this is her mark on history. She's gotta stay with it. Oh really, so you talked her out of selling?

To Glendale Federal for 15 million. I was always good with somebody else's money. So she finally resolved it. Yeah, finally resolved it. The strike lasted five weeks. So once it's resolved, then there was either real or thought to be real reprisals for being disloyal, correct? That was their perception, and I'm here to say no. There were just a couple of guys like Labetkin

who weren't really that regular of regulars that she just didn't give any spots for two weeks to, and he jumped off the Hyatt over it. Yeah, well, he had some mental problems. And it was detailed in the L.A. Times by William Needleseder again about the problems he had. What was interesting was that Dreesen told me that, you know, when he was on his way out after the strike, you know,

he was going out to Vegas or somewhere to work, and LeBec was concerned he wasn't going to get spots, and Dreesen had said to him, you know, well, I'm not going to do spots here until you get spots. And then he killed himself. And Dreesen didn't go back for 40 years. I know. I introduced him. Remember? Yeah. You were there that didn't go back for 40 years. I know. I introduced him. Remember?

Yeah. You were there that night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. But I talked to him. I didn't know that part of the story, though, that the reason that it was this, not a shame thing,

but sort of a haunted thing about Lubeckin saying that. Yeah. That he made this promise to Lubeckin that couldn't be, could never be altered because the guy killed himself, and he stood by it. Well, of the comics that we've mentioned, Mitzi was hurt by Letterman, and then she was spited by George Miller for a while. Miller eventually came back,

but that hurt her too because she loved George, But George could turn his wit on you and it wouldn't be pretty. And Mitzi always suspected that George's mother had a hand in the strike because she had been Mitzi's accountant, okay, in 78 and 79. And Mitzi moved her office up to the third floor, which is a long walk for a 75-year-old lady. Oh, yeah. And so Mitzi always suspected that george's mother leaked how much money mitzi was making to george oh really who leaked it to the strikers interesting oh it was

it was i mean it was the right thing though man it was good policy to pay the fucking comics right well once once the see everyone accepted the the lay of the land as we found it that these showcase clubs were places that you showcase for the industry, which is where you got work. Fine. We didn't know any better. We didn't know it was a nightclub. Right. Okay.

But the main room's the main room. But the main room's the main room, and that turned everything into a nightclub. Right. Okay. And then- And the deal still holds today. It still does. I never understood.

I begged Mitzi, just double the cover charge. We've got plenty of money. Yeah. You know, double the cover charge and your problems are over. But she really, you have to remember that Mitzi Shore was an early to mid-1950s bohemian. Yeah. Okay. And I mean to the core of artists.

And when she said artist colony, meant artist colony i didn't show you my souvenir oh my oh my mitzi's driver's license did were you a runner for her too i did but this is no i found this on the floor in her office when i was in there with binder mark is showing me mitzi shore's driver's license and when i was her runner and doorman mitzi and she was uh buying all the materials to redecorate the main room in the summer of 76, I was running all over town in her little Pinto with her driver's license and her checkbook to buy all the paint and this, that, this, that, and the other. And it was so cute because driver's licenses were still paper back then. Right.

Okay? And I would hand the check to the paint store yeah and give him Mitzi's driver's license and she would have her birth you're marked over in pencils because it's none of their fucking business and of course all the the merchants they knew her they sure that was the biggest laugh of the day give him a story for dinner so now how does it all come on unglued man how do you hit the wall? And was it dramatic? And like, let's go now to like, you know, you, so you're pretty steadily,

what doing two tonight shows a year? Uh, no, I'm just going up and down, doing a lot, doing a little, doing a lot, doing a little. And where are you working almost exclusively with the store? Of course. Yeah. But you, are you, where are you opening for musical acts or anything? Well, after my first tonight Show shot, Jeff Walt, the manager, Helen Reddy's husband, took me on. And I would open for Helen Reddy across the country. Right. And not emotionally ready for that either.

But there was nothing like it. Are you emotionally ready now? No. All right. So you never get emotionally ready. No, no, no. All I want to have is fun and give joy to the crowd. That's all that matters to me.

And I notice things that are fun. Like when the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana comes backstage to say hi and give Helen Reddy the key to the city. And it's 1980 and she's locked in her dressing room smoking a joint. Yeah. And he's standing there with two Louisiana cops wanting to give her the key to the city. Oh, God. Just wait. Come back key to the city. Oh, boy. Oh, God. Just wait.

Come back. Come back later. Oh, my God. So anyway, you get those great stories. Yeah. But what happened to me was by 1981, I started to bottom out. And I would just start my day and end my day partying.

And the telltale sign, as you'll know, is I stopped writing new material. Sure. Well, you stopped sleeping, too. Yeah, that doesn't help. Your brain starts to go a little nutty. And so in the fall of 81, they send me back to a famous Episcopal hospital in Tulsa. And I go back. Your folks did?

No, no, Mitzi does. And it's a tremendous St. John's Hospital there. But it was one of the first of the rehabs. Yeah. And I loved AA as soon as I got to it. Man, this was fantastic. Just great. And I'd get...

Made sense to you. 45, 50 days. I love the laughter in the rooms. Yeah. And the rooms. The crowd. Yeah, and I'm spiritually involved and connected anyway. So I got it early on that my connection with God is just as good a buzz as any blow that I ever did if I'm helping somebody.

Right. That's the key. Right. And so I loved it. But when I got back, I didn't have enough sobriety under my belt to withstand a week at the comedy store. Who pulled you out? Which monster gave you the line? A good friend from Nebraska named Dave, who's dead now. And so I would hide for a while, and then it became apparent again. And I would go to the Cedars-Sinai, had a care unit in 84 and 85,

and then care unit Orange in March of 86. Care unit The Chain? Yeah, at the time it was. I went to care unit. That's when I left LA. And so finally to Betty Ford Center in 86, and that's because Mitzi got together with Johnny and my father. The three of them got together.

Johnny Carson? Yeah. Johnny and my dad corresponded. They intervened? Yeah. Well, in a way. Mitzi said no more stand-up. Johnny says no more TV.

Daddy said no more money. And I got willing. My sobriety was somebody else's idea. They got you. Yeah, but they got me. And then I found out that it's the best buzz of all. It really is. But it's just like becoming a great stand-up comic like you or however good I am. You have to go through those open mics. You have to go through all that pain in order to become bulletproof and irresistible up there. You have to.

If you don't do it, the crowd is going to sense the weakness. They're going to sense it. And you just have to go through whatever it takes to get to your bottom in order to be fully convinced. It's weird, that bulletproof business. Because that doesn't mean you're going to win all the time. No. It just means you can take it.

You can take it. You know tomorrow is another day. I do, yeah. Because I follow you most of the time in the main room. And you always come off, you're like, you've got to stay on top of them. Or it's like, you're going to love them. Yeah, it's one of the two.

If it's Joe Rogan's crowd,, you have to stay on top of them. Or it's like, you're going to love them. Yeah, it's one of the two. You know, if it's Joe Rogan's crowd, you got to stay on top of them. Yeah, to keep their attention. Yeah. But if it's a regular crowd and they just show up and they've got money, then they're on your side. Yeah, no, it's very funny how often I see you and how often I follow you in there and how we had kind of that changing of the exchanging of the baton business.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just telling you, you know, don't go dancing between jokes with this crowd. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. Got to do the job. So, all right. So let's clear up.

So what was your relationship with Cannison? Oh, fantastic. I discovered him in Houston. You did? I did. mcannison oh fantastic i discovered him in houston you did i did yeah in uh 1979 uh showtime had uh their uh their comedian of the year things that were regional yeah okay right and the southern comedians uh were in uh houston they said they were going to fly us back to houston so me ollie joe prater and jim varney were were flown to Houston for this big Showtime special.

Jim Varney, Ernest? Yeah, Ernest. Varney, brilliant actor. And then they would have two local comics, and then they would have three TV stars from Hollywood judge. Right. So we went back there at this room called Rockefeller's in Houston. It was a redone bank with marble walls and tremendous acoustics.

We just murdered the show. And Ollie Joe won something. He didn't know how to handle it. But after the show. Wasn't Ollie Joe known for taking other people's bits? There's a great story about Ollie Joe Prater. Yes, he, but the problem was he was like Gleason. Gleason did the same thing.

Right. He did him so well that you didn't really mind. Right. Okay. And what they said. If it was your bit, you mean? Yeah. Here's the joke.

It says it perfectly. The comics in the early 80s, they came up with this joke. They said, Ollie Joe, if you come into the club a night early, and it's Sunday night, okay, and you just want to see the previous week's show. Ollie Joe comes up to you. If he offers you a beer, it means he did one of your jokes. Right. If he offers you a joint, he did one of your bits.

Yeah. If he offers you a line of cocaine, it means you just played Pittsburgh. So anyway, Ollie Joe wins this Southern thing, and we go backstage, and there's this huge real estate agent in Houston with a softball in his hand. It's actually a cocaine, a ball of cocaine the size of a softball with a runway scraped off. And we all have to sit around and wait our turn, and I'm looking. We're all like the RCA Victor dog, you know, his master's voice. We're just staring at that ball. And I'm looking straight across, and the's voice, which is staring at that ball. And I'm

looking straight across and the other pair of eyes is Sam Kinison. And we met across a ball of cocaine and I canceled my flight back to LA to hang out with Sam for three or four nights. And I told him, I said, you guys, you guys are so damn funny. We talking Jesus talk. No, no, no, no. Well, when we'd get real poked up, he would talk about praise and singing, and I would say, no, it's the ritual. I mean, it's the high church, low church argument. But we're both Arminians, so we both believe in you can come back from sin and be saved. Well, I think that was his – I think he was always counting on that.

Yeah, me too. Right up until the end. Grace can be earned and lost is the point. So Sam and I, we would talk a lot of theology, and I just loved him. I just loved him. And he sent out the kid that became famous, that died with his- Hicks? Yeah, Bill Hicks.

Hicks came out first. Hicks ran away from home at age 19, and I put him up at Crest Hill in one of the rooms. It's 1980. Got him a doorman's job, and he would showcase for Mitzi, and it would drive Mitzi crazy because he took so much time between jokes, standing up there preening. It drove her nuts.

jokes, standing up there preening. And it just drove her nuts. But Sam followed out, and we would be just thick as thieves all the way through. But the incident you were talking about. How did Hicks get? Did Hicks have a falling out with him and then left? I don't know. I just know that Hicks took off on the road and went to Britain, and that's where he got. That was later, yeah. Hicks took off on the road and went to Britain, and that's where he got, you know. That was later, yeah.

Yeah, but just took off. Yeah, because when he got there, it was like, what, 80? But, you know, I never, I lost, he just disappeared as far as I was concerned. And when I heard some of Hicks' stuff, I could hear Sam's setup. I could hear Sam's voice in him. There was some continuity there. And Sam's calm joke, when he was calm. How he built.

The calm joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could hear that in Hicks' voice. The build. Yeah, yeah. I tell that story about what Sam told me when I was asking him, how'd you figure it out, man? Where'd you get your style?

Yeah. Like, what was it that inspired you? And he goes, Gene Wilder. Really? Yeah, because, well, think about how Gene builds. Oh, that's right! That's right! That's very Jewish, Sam.

No kidding. No kidding. You're just, oy! Yeah, but there's that slow build he does. That's right. You know? Oh, and he was so wonderful. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. And he would take, he could, he was like Charles Fleischer. Fleischer could break down a molecule into what was called molydes. Yeah, I know, molydes. And Fleischer could get a crowd going talking about molecular structure. I know. It's all about your belief and commitment, what you're talking about. Yeah.

And Sam could get him going on theology. He could. He'd be up there. He would say, you know, he'd look up at the sky and say, when are you coming home, Jesus? Well could get him going on theology. He'd be up there. He would say, you know, he'd look up at the sky and say, when are you coming home, Jesus? Well, he knows how to preach. When are you coming home, Jesus? When are you coming back, Jesus? He says, I'll be glad to come back as soon as I can no longer whistle through my hand. Oh, my God.

And so he would just have me on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, it was something. I mean, he was, yeah, I met him right when I got there and I got tangled up with those guys pretty quickly. He was a bit of a bully and a mind fucker, but he definitely is a charismatic dude. Well, every other day you'd just have to say, that's the cocaine talking. I guess.

I mean, I don't know. I was never led into the inner sanctum, really, because I was just up in Cresthill, and I was the guy that set up the parties. He'd give me money. I'd go to Pink Dot and buy booze and cigarettes and wait for the freak show. He brought the coke and the weirdos. You both did your part.

Exactly. But what was this mythological incident where you were- Well, one afternoon and it was in August of 82. Okay. So before you got sober oh yeah yeah uh and it was uh falstaff was one of the uh comedy actors who who dealt coke at the comedy store and he dropped by in the afternoon and i got a gram from him and robin dropped by and robin and i are upstairs uh doing coke in the middle of the day in the green room yeah yeah and and for some reason I get a call from Alan Stevens and Alan is just angry at the time because Mitzi won't give him any time slots at Westwood and he's making hamburgers

making at six in the morning and making a dollar ninety an an hour, he said. And I said, he was loyal to Mitzi during the strike. This can't happen. Yeah. So I said, Robin, I've got to go in and talk to Mitzi. And Robin says, I'm leaving, Argus. So this is during the day. Mitzi's in her office. You're doing blow in the green room with Robin in the middle of the afternoon.

Late afternoon. Wait a minute. That's because she's going to leave in a minute. Okay. I burst into her office. And she's sitting there with Meg. And you're jacked. Yeah. And she's sitting there with Meg jacked yeah and she's sitting there with meg stall her longtime assistant yeah the perfect lady meg stall and i

go into this missy alan steven's starving he can't pay his rent he's making hamburgers and he stood by us and he's the funniest guy you have in la jolla you've got to give him some time slots it's over westwood what's the big goddamn deal? And she says, Argus, you're high again. God damn it, Argus. You slipped. And so she got mad. All of a sudden I go, I'm in trouble. So I follow her to her car.

And I've got my hand on her car. she's telling me, Argus, get well. Get help. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And and she's telling me, Argus, get well, get help. And Sam comes over and says, Argus, get over it. This isn't any good. So he pulls me away, but I wasn't hitting her.

And I said, Mincy, I love you, but you've got to help Alan. Well, Sam's pulling me away. So what I'd done was she'd tried to make up with me and wanted to make up with me and take me to Paris the next day. This was all planned. I was supposed to stay with Mitzi for a week at the George Sank Hotel. Just for fun?

Yeah. And this canceled my trip. She went to Paris herself. Because you guys were dating at the time. No, no, we weren't really dating. She just wanted to hang out with me. because I was a really good political advisor. And so we were going to go to the George Sank Hotel for, I think, two weeks, it turned out. And she flew off to Paris by herself. And I wake up the next morning. I still have the passport I got for that trip. And I wake up and I go, oh, man, I've blown it.

Oh, what have I done? I go to the comedy store and Mike Becker is at the phone. He says, Argus, you just got this letter today. And it's an official-looking brown envelope. And it's a rebate check from the IRS for $5,000. Mitzi's out of town for two weeks, $5,000. You paint in the picture. And I said, God, I'll be good after this.

So that's the way that went down, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I lost my shit in that parking lot. It's just interesting about the place to me where I don't know. My history there early on was short, and it was after yours. But you're either connected to that place or you're not. And when I lived in Cresthill, I used to go down there during the day and make coffee and start my day there.

And I'd listen to music in the original room and fuck around in the parking lot. Either you have some part of your heart that lives at that place, for better or for worse, or you don't yeah as a comic you know well but there's a there's 5 000 places where you can fit in now i guess but like the store is is still the store and it's really interesting now to see it well managed with security with bathrooms that are fucking decent you know like you know with a staff that sort of, I mean, it's a little, it doesn't feel corporate really, but it feels well operated for the first time I've ever seen it. And Mitzi, oddly enough, Mitzi would be happiest of all.

Oh, for sure. With the bathrooms. Yeah. Because she always said, it's the, she always said, it's the women who decide where you're going and they decide on the bathrooms. Yeah. She always said that. It took a long time to get those bathrooms fixed, dude. And she also put a big bowl of Spanish peanuts on every single table.

So you'd eat those Spanish peanuts, get that salt in your mouth, and order another drink. Sure. Well, I remember the old bathrooms. The only thing you missed is we don't do Coke anymore, so you don't need that single occupancy bathroom. Those two bathrooms in the hallway were the best Coke bathrooms in town. Oh, God, yeah. And you had the coke bathrooms oh god yeah and you have to pay phone right there in case you need to run over to debbie's so now what is it that uh because i know you know there's still cats you know from your generation around that you know that are not that

are kind of um you know locked out of the club now in a way and you're the guy that like was there like was it like you're the one who works you always kill i'm not begrudging you anything and you're you're a great comic but you are the only one of your generation that can still work at that place was that in her will or something i i have no idea i have no idea i just know that here's here's what happened um i read something by Mort Saul in his 1976 book called Heartland. Mm-hmm. Okay? And he was talking about how he made it big at the club in San Francisco in the 1950s.

Hungry Eye? At the Hungry Eye. Yeah. And he said, regarding that, he said he learned something important. He said, if I'll just stay in one place and become great, the world will find me. Okay? Yeah. And so when I started doing The Tonight Show,

there was a serious side to me as well. And I was offered 36 sitcoms, okay, in 80, 81, and 82. 36. Mitzi counted them. I had holding deal offers from Lord Lou Grade, from Maddie Simmons at Universal for National Lampoon. They were offering me $50,000, $7,500,000 holding deals. And I turned them all down.

Frankly, because I wanted to host a talk show like I finally wound up doing. In the basement. In the basement. But we're on our way up. And thanks for the basement remark. It is in the basement, but we're on our way up. Thanks for the basement remark. It is in the basement. Dude, I started in the garage. I'm not being condescending.

Well, I'm debating whether or not to say that's where it all ended for the Romanovs was the basement. That's your big last show. The last time I stand up to those fucking socialists. So that was the plan. You were holding out because you wanted to do a talk show. Yeah, I was loyal to the comedy store, and the comedy store was loyal to me through the strike and through this, the other.

And my payback to the comedy store is I write 13 jokes a day for all these newspapers that take my newspaper monologue. Still? Yeah. And I take those 75 jokes a week or whatever it is and pick out the best 20 of them. And I use that for my monologue on Argus Hamilton's Comedy Store Tonight, which I'd love for you viewers to check out. I really would. Argus Hamilton's Comedy Store Tonight.

I give them that six, seven-minute monologue. As you know, we have a great crowd down there. Because Mark Maron came and I'm telling you, he destroyed that crowd and the acoustics are great down there. The basements are made for entertainment. You'll have 20 people down there and the laughter just rocks all over the place. And we're going to be moving up to the Belly Room in about six to eight weeks when the Comedy Channel gets launched. Mitzi very shrewdly trademarked the Comedy Channel in 1978 or 79. HBO tried to buy it from her. They bribed her with specials and, you know, $500,000. And she said no.

They said, okay, we'll just call it Comedy Central. Yeah. And we kept the trademark. And so the Comedy Channel will be launching in about six weeks. Streaming. I don't know. It has something to do with Amazon

and all this other stuff they're doing. But it's going to be a big deal. Oh, yeah? And my show is like the linchpin of it. And if we get comics comics like you keep coming back if you'll do it and uh we we had joe rogan on yeah and then uh we've got daryl hammond next week and the week after that we got bill burr on oh great and so if i can keep guys on like you with followers you know real followers we can generate the following and and try to you know

make enough money to pay our freight. Yeah, for sure, man. Yeah, I'll come down again. Ben, if you folks have not come to see Mark perform stand-up, I'm telling you, I've never heard a better storyteller. Well, thank you so much. Who was your hero as a storyteller? You know, I don't know how i evolved my my style but the guys

i liked when i was younger were i listened to uh to richard pryor a lot i think that first movie really changed my life did you ever listen to david steinberg i was never a david steinberg fan or a robert klein fan i was really like you know carlin pryor Woody Allen, Cheech and Chong, and then the older guys, Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles. I loved early Leno when I used to see him on the talk shows when I was a kid. When he was trying. Yeah, yeah. We all have that time when we're trying. But it was sort of a mixture of Pryor and Woody Allen and some of the older guys.

I used to love Jackie Vernon. Oh, I loved him. Yeah. He had a good stick. Yeah, it's his deadpan, the slideshow thing. Any of the guys that can do deadpan just kill me. There's this New York comic named Mark Norman who was on my show last night. Yeah.

He can deadpan. He just cracked me up. He's the one who used to open for Schumer, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that guy, yeah. He's the one who used to open for Schumer, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know that guy, yeah.

But I think that deadpan goes from George Goebel to Tommy Smothers to Steve Martin. All these guys that can deadpan just always kill me. Jack Benny. Oh, the king of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's where Goebel got it. Yeah, I like deadpan guys. I like cranks.

Yeah. Cranks are always good. Yeah, Mark Norman's both. He's really funny. All right, man. Well, you always do a great job, and I'm glad we got to talk finally. Well, Mark, it's a pleasure being on your show, man, and I love you and look forward to working with you every weekend you're in town. I see you every weekend I'm there.

All right, thanks for having me on. Yeah, buddy. Argus Hamilton. There you go. One of the, this was like, we're getting to the bottom of it. We're getting a lot of the Comedy Store stories and a lot of the Comedy Store history. Look. It still fascinates me.

So, I'm going to play some guitar. I'm going to tell you to go to WTFpod.com for all those upcoming shows. The Red Cat Theater, the live taping is happening on October 30th. I've got San Francisco. We've got Nashville. We've got Atlanta. I've got D.C., Boston, and Philly. All those tickets are available at WTFpod.com.

There's new swag there. I'm excited. I'm getting, I didn't do any posters for this tour and I'm having one done for San Francisco. That's exciting. And I've got a new recipe that I invented. Remind me to tell you about it. It's a garam masala hash browns made with purple sweet potatoes. Enough said. I'm going to play with some uh i'm gonna play i pulled out the gold top and this is the gold top through an echoplex straight into the 58 deluxe Thank you. Boomer lives. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

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