WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 508 - Craig Gass

Episode Date: June 22, 2014

Comedian Craig Gass visits the garage and spooks Marc with an uncanny Sam Kinison impression. Craig explains why growing up in a family where everyone was deaf helped him develop a talent for doing impersonations. Craig also takes Marc through the chain of events that led to the end of his time working with Howard Stern. 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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Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City

at TorontoRock.com Lock the gates! Are we doing this? Really? Wait for it. Are we doing this? Really? Wait for it. Are we doing this? Wait for it. Pow!

What the fuck? And it's also, eh, what the fuck? What's wrong with me? It's time for WTF. What the fuck? With Mark Maron. All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck buddies? What the fuck sticks? What the fuck nicks? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck sticks? What the fuck nicks? What the fucksters? What the fuckrakers? How about that? How about that? This is Mark Maron.

You're listening to WTF. This is my podcast. Hey, Craig Gass is on the show. Craig Gass, known for his work on the Howard Stern Show and also known for one of the, I think, probably the best Sam Kennison impression in the business, if that means anything to you, which it does to me. And also has a hell of a story. He'll be here later. He'll be here.

He'll be just ahead, just minutes ahead on your machine, on your equipment. He's here later on your equipment, just minutes ahead. Thank you all for all the amazing feedback on the new season of Marin on your equipment. He's here later on your equipment, just minutes ahead. Thank you all for all the amazing feedback on the new season of Marin on IFC. I appreciate you watching it. I'm very proud of it. And as I've told you before, it's a little tricky for me to be proud.

And it's hard for me to buttress criticism. There hasn't been a lot of criticism, but it's interesting to me that almost every episode of the new season, someone will say, like, this is the best episode yet and then some other idiot will go well this one wasn't that great and and i start to realize that a lot of criticism is not criticism at all it's very tricky to support it with some logic or intelligence it took a long time for me to realize a lot of criticism is not unlike projecting. They're just projecting their shitty life onto you, you know, in order to make a point. Why does something strike somebody one way and something strike somebody so completely different?

Well, obviously, the random factor there is they're both individuals bringing their own truckload of garbage to the table. And how do we arrange that garbage? And what garbage in me does this trigger? Now, obviously, I'm referring to garbage to the table and how do we arrange that garbage and what uh what garbage in me does this trigger now obviously i'm referring to garbage as the bad things the good things are just ice cream and cotton candy and jelly beans so if you're bringing ice cream cotton candy jelly beans and uh and and maybe some some patchouli to the table that's different you can organize that however you'd like but if you're bringing just a big truckload of garbage like you're just a garbage barge floating through your personal ocean of self lost where does this garbage go well i think i'll dump some of it on marin's show even though i dumped jelly beans and cotton candy and and ice cream on it last week this one this

one deserves some garbage and i think i'll go i'm gonna dig around a little bit to the bottom of this barge and find the oldest garbage I can find. Because that seems to be what's being irritated. Here you go. Here's some garbage from my past on the table. And that's my criticism. Bleh. I'm not saying I prefer cotton candy, ice cream, and jelly beans.

But, you know, it's funner. So I did some things this weekend. I did some things this weekend because i had a friend in from out of town pow look out just shit my pants just coffee.com available at wtfpod.com uh i've been uh i've been dating somebody and and a a bit and it started uh in texas and then it became uh then we Skyped, and then she came out for a couple of days a couple of weeks ago, and we had a nice weekend, and then we Skyped,

and then she came out for a couple of days this weekend, and we do things. That's the interesting thing. When you have someone in from out of town, you realize, holy fuck, I don't do anything in the city I live in. Nothing. I do nothing. Do I go to shows? No. Do I go to museums? Not really. Do I go to shows? No. Do I go to museums? Not really.

Do I go to tourist attractions? Nah. So she comes into town. And I want to talk about this, the interesting thing I found about the future and the future we're living in. For a period of time there, when we were Skyping almost every night,

you spend more time talking without distraction or weirdness when you're actually not there you're actually just on the on the computers together just talking and i found that like wow this is a serious boundary this is like this is one of the best this is a this is a modern boundary for a while there it was we were categorizing it as a sad future movie but it's sort of a it's it's a real boundary it. It enables you to actually have a conversation and then, you know, kind of go away. But anyways, she came to town and we we went to the movies. We went to Venice Beach. I've been to Venice Beach in a while.

I wanted an ice cream. I wanted a soft serve ice cream. I wanted to go to Venice Beach. And I'd forgotten what's amazing about Venice Beach. It's like it's not like a beach anywhere else. It's not like a beach in Florida or Hawaii or even in Texas. Venice Beach is some sort of strange, multi-ethnic, global clusterfuck of weirdness. The beautiful thing about Venice is it's just packed out with people of all kinds,

not giving a fuck what they look like. And some people pushing the edge of not giving a fuck of what they look like. Some people being complete, full-on freaks. A lot of things for sale. Hey, would you like a sage bundle? How about a shitty painting? How about a henna for your face? Hey, look, look, here's another shitty painting. How about some of these? This is my big idea about sculpture. How about one of those? You want one of those? How about an ice cream? Yeah, I have an ice cream. And then we walked on the beach and there's those moments where you're like, well, this man this is the big payoff this is what we're doing this is what makes life worthwhile to be able to walk on the beach without too many worries unless i make them happen that's the

interesting thing about me if you want to call it interesting is that even when i'm walking on the beach if my mind has any free time even though it's beautiful out and i can see malibu in the distance and i'm with somebody i like and i'm just walking on the beach uh my brain will go like fuck what's wrong my computer how does that play into it fuck what's wrong with my computer why don't they how come my backup drives aren't showing up in my finder dude you're on the beach look at look you see infinity you see the horizon line you see where it just falls off the edge of at look you see infinity you see the horizon line you see where it just falls off the edge of the earth you see the one thing that uh that's been provided us by

the universe that's supposed to be a calming influence and and sort of spread your shit out in your brain kind of make it float for a while or go away look at that look at the sailboat fuck i gotta call jeremy over at mac man dude look at the beach no maybe i should text jeremy at mac man now now dude dude relax no it's nice i mean i like it and everything but i don't understand my computer so i'm walking on the beach and we're doing things and i'm just sticking my head in stores like i got you know i don't even like this necessarily like the stores on fairfax boulevard here in los angeles there's just uh there seems to be like nine or ten stores that only sell skateboards and and baseball hats of different

kinds there's literally five stores there did skateboards and baseball hats and skate t-shirts but i'm still sort of fascinated with that for some reason i like hats i would never wear a hat but i want to see the hat it was like looking in galleries so I just as we were walking down Fairfax I'm sticking my head into places and she's like you're weird I'm like why she's like well you just stick your head in you're just sort of like you know hi I don't really want to come in I just you know I want to just kind of judge and just you know not uh engage but just stick my head in yeah I mean that's that's what it's that's what I do and and I go well why did you think uh why did you think I was weird and she goes well yeah because you know I said what's

the difference between me and you she goes I have boundaries and you're like I have questions and and that really is that is the sort of difference the questions over boundaries if I go into a restaurant I see something I like you know I'm gonna be that guy I'm gonna be that old Jew I've always been that guy. It took me a while to jump that line. I mean, you can pull the server aside and go, what's that person eating? Or if they're close enough, you can go like, what is that? What is that you're eating?

And it's such like an old Jewish lady thing to do. But, you know, maybe I'm an old Jewish lady. You know, like, what's that you're eating? Is it good? Is it good? It's nice? You like it? I don't know.

Maybe I'll get that. Maybe I'll get one of those uh-huh and i'm that guy i don't have boundaries i have questions and that's what i learned from from my weekend all right my friends all right i've done enough. Things are fine. I'm happy. My show is on Thursdays. I'm going to share with you now my conversation with Craig Gatlin. Calgary is an opportunity-rich city, home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve

some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look out at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of kids night when the Toronto rock take on the Colorado mammoth at a special 5. PM start time on Saturday, March 9th at first Ontario center in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance. We'll get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of backley construction.

Punch your ticket to kids night on Saturday, March 9th at 5. PM in rock city at torontorock.com so you walk into a morning show and you're like what do you guys uh who do you like having on and they go we love um wait michael winsinslow. We love Michael Winslow. You know who really kills air? Pablo Francisco.

We like Pablo. We like him. Well, you know whose name comes up, and it really blows me away, the amount of preparation that he has. Brian Regan not only pays attention to he he does on somebody's morning show he has a notebook uh-huh that he travels with and he makes a note in every city that he goes to what bits he did what bits he did on what show right and so when he comes back to make sure he does

new bits he doesn't repeat it. Well, I mean, that's, well, he's a professional. Yeah. That guy is, you know, because as you know, a lot of times local morning radio is what's going to determine whether you get people. Yeah, that's where the business is. Right. Even with Twitter and with everything else, it's still, like, if you kill it, you have a chance of bringing in people that have no idea who the fuck you are. Yeah.

That are just driving and they're laughing. They're like, oh, I'm going to go. I'm going to go see that guy. And you always hear from people after the shows when they come by to say hi, they go, man, a couple of days ago I heard you and I was like, I don't know who the fuck this guy is. Yeah. But honey, we got to buy tickets.

Right. And they come. Yeah. And it's changed a lot because radio and content in radio has gotten tighter and tighter in terrestrial radio. And less and less reach. Less and less reach because people are turning to satellite radio, podcast. I was going to say podcast, satellite radio, their iPod.

Yeah. And so there's less and less of an audience out there. But it's still, I like getting up in the morning and going out. I like going to do morning radio sometimes. I mean, I sort of dread it. But if the crew is good, it can be a good time. I mean, there's some guys you're kind of happy to see when you go out there. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And there's some people who want to see if they can fuck with you a little bit when you come in, and that's fun, too. Is it? Yeah, of course. Because I've been working with guys who fuck with people for years. Yeah.

Like Howard? Like Howard. So I'm okay to roll with it. I don't take myself that seriously. I think it's a lesson you learn is to not take yourself that seriously. Oh, you've never gotten pissed off over something that you've never been sandbagged? No. Oh, that's good.

Because as soon as they start insulting me, I have enough humility to step in and go, you know what? I don't even like me either. Do you generally just snap into a voice? No. It depends on what kind of radio it is. Top 40 radio, I'll go in and I'll do voices because that's what they like to hear. Yeah.

If I go into a rock station where i'm more comfortable yeah i'll tell stories about the people who uh who we all listen to that i've managed to have some really uh embarrassing moments with and uh like who um like uh like gene simmons yeah from kiss who i do an impression of that on the Howard Stern Show, every time we had a music guest in the studio, I would constantly interrupt them as Gene Simmons and try to sell them shitty Kiss products, which was just like a goofy thing. of everyone from Coldplay to big rappers to Paul McCartney. And in the middle of their interviews, I would interrupt them and start jumping in with Gene Simmons saying, you know, if you go to kissonline.com right now, we can show you with a pie chart how the Beatles stole everything from Kiss.

And Paul McCartney would look at me and go, who the fuck are you? Because you're on the radio, but you're still sitting there, and you've got to bust balls on the genius. That's like, I did a show. You ever had people come out to your show? I actually have a story like this with you, where you have somebody come out,

and they're watching you perform, and you really respect them, and so you want to do really well, and then you don't and then you remember like that guy probably hates me now tension me and you did was no i i i walked up to you at the boston comedy club and i go mark maron and you go yeah and i go hey my name is craig gas i'm a comedian um i'm going on a little bit after you do you mind sticking around and watching you're like yeah sure and I think I even told you I go

I do an impression of Sam Kinison yeah yeah yeah and you go well yeah sure and I'm like oh my god Mark Mancer

Mark Mancer Mark Mancer and I decided that well Mark's not just gonna like any stupid voice I gotta go up and do something

hardcore and I had an idea that I'd never tried on stage before yeah and i thought that's what i'm gonna do yeah i'm gonna go up and and go fucking over the edge yeah and march and be like man this guy's got balls and i ate my nuts yeah for like 10 minutes yeah and respectfully you sat there the whole time watching me but you closed with sam right i think i did close with sam because i remember hearing the first time i heard sam our first time i heard you do sam i'm like holy fuck

that's too creepy yeah that's sam uh your relationship with sam i i never knew him oh yeah yeah well yeah to me like it probably at that point i was like probably give me bad flashbacks to actually hear it's really about the way he talked. You know, it's funny that you say that because in L.A., when I do Sam on stage, people don't they especially when I do at the comedy store, they don't they don't go like, well, like there's always like a Jesus Christ. People just kind of feel weird about it. Well, yeah. Well, you mean like the people that work there?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's that place is haunted with him. And I wonder how I mean, I guess a lot of people remember him. I don't think he really gets a fair shake in terms of the guys that should be remembered. I think he sort of outlived his thing in a way, even though he died young. He became sort of pathetic towards the end. Yeah.

And I don't think people really remember him as the amazing comic that he was. That first record, dude. That first fucking record is crazy. Yeah, and there's guys who at the comedy store will come up to me and say, Hey, I got a story for you. And the stories are fucking insane. There was a guy that used to play piano there named Kelly Moran. Yeah, I remember Kelly.

Kelly came up and said, I got a great story for you. Sam and I had a party one night. Yeah. And Sam had a mirror piled high with coke and sam uh was talking to me and not intentionally but he passed the coke to a woman behind him who was eight months pregnant and they everyone goes sam what are you doing and he goes i'm sorry i'm sorry man it's not intentional i didn't fucking you know. Everyone goes, Sam, she's giving birth next month. And he goes, well, yeah, well, that.

And plus, you don't want the kid coming out next month going, where's the dealer's pager? Oh, oh. And he goes, the next day, I'm with Sam. How do you do that? It's too close. He said, the next day, I'm with Sam. We you do that it's too close he said the next day I'm with Sam we're driving over the Hollywood Hills and Kelly

says to Sam dude remember that moment last night where he tried to hand the coke to that girl that was pregnant

Sam's voice completely or his face completely blank and he goes remember the girl she was pregnant

and you tried to give her the coke and what was the line you said you had a great line. You said, yeah, plus you don't want the kid coming out going, where's the dealer's pager? And he said, Sam just looked at it and went, oh, did I say that?

I'm going to write that down. I'm doing that on stage tonight. That's a great bet. Yeah. Yeah. It's that fucking weird cadence. Because he really talked like that. It's not so much the screaming part which you know which people can do but you've got the whole the the

cadence of that weird accent that voice we go wait a second wait a second yeah where's my sponsor yeah yeah yeah i i always had uh and i don't know if you know this i'm just gonna your gene simmons is pretty solid too, man. I mean, he sounds like an old Jew. And it's weird that what I find with impressionists is that if they're really good, they'll make me notice something about the person they're doing where you can actually,

because I think your brain naturally does that. In order to do an efficient impression, I think you find what characterizes them and you know through their voice and a lot of people who just see the person are not going to notice that stuff but when someone does an impression of them like there's some kid who's got a uh some youtubes up of of him doing louis you know with a bald wig and everything i was like louis doing classic uh jokes and it's him doing louis on stage he does it okay but I never noticed you know how deliberate Louie's cadence was and how sort of strangely um a song that is rooted

in Woody Allen I wouldn't notice it just from knowing Louie because I'm too close to Louie but when I see someone do an impression I'm like oh that really is he does do that. Yeah. And that's, sometimes somebody will do an impression where they don't, it's not strong. Right. But they exaggerate one thing that you go, shit, yeah, that guy does do that a lot. Somebody, you know. As somebody who does impressions,

do you, when you see a bad impression, I mean, because I think like a lot of times bad impressions are marked by the fact that they overhit a thing. Right. But sometimes that still resonates so huge that that becomes the standard to go by. Like Dana Carvey has impressions that he's done of George Bush and of Regis Philbin that to this day, people kind of go from Dana Carvey out. They start with, you know, not going to do it, not going to do it, and build out from that. Or from Regis, it's Dana's Regis that people start with.

Right, right. But that's not really doing your own work in a way. Yeah, it's true. Who do you think the best impressionist was? Well, there's some impressions that are amazing. Frank Caliendo's John Madden impression is flawless. And I love hearing great impressions. It's like beautiful music to me.

And you know who does great impressions? Who? Norm Macdonald. Oh, yeah? Norm Macdonald does an impression of, and I love random impressions, Super Dave Osborne. Uh-huh. Norm MacDonald does an impression of Super Dave Osborne. And I think he even does an impression of Mitch.

Uh-huh. Because I remember Mitch told me that Norm did an impression of him. But I've always been able to do any kind of voice that I hear because of how I grew up. My entire family is deaf. Wait, now, so what do you mean your entire family? My mom, my dad, my sister. They're all deaf?

They're all deaf. Congenital deafness. My mom was born congenitally. She was born completely deaf. I've only talked to one other person that has this. Whose family is that? Is it a comic? Yeah. Is it?

Moshe. Oh, okay, yeah. Moshe Kasher's parents were not only Hasidic or Orthodox, but they were deaf as well. But he didn't become an Impressionist, though. But he does, his laughter is really loud and deliberate. Wow. I don't know what it must be like.

What kind of household was it? Did they meet each other at deaf school? Yeah, my mom was born completely deaf from a birth defect. My dad was born with all of his hearing and then lost it when he was a kid. He got into an accident that popped out his eardrums. Oh, my God. And so he had to go to deaf schools. That's horrible.

For the rest of his life. Yeah. Where he met my mom at an all-deaf high school. They fell in love, got married, had my sister first. My sister's born with my mom at an all-deaf high school they fell in love got married had my sister first my sister's born with my mom's genes completely deaf and then i'm born with my dad's genes with all my hearing yeah so uh i don't know if i just over explained that but no no no no but i mean but what but what what was it like i can't imagine what that would be like i mean in a sense of like when did you first realize it?

How did you learn how to talk initially? Well, I just learned sign language and it wasn't until late. But you're a child. At some point, someone has to walk you through the English language to talk. Who taught you how to talk? Well, that's where TV came in and I started mimicking all the voices on TV. No, I get that, but before that. And my grandparents lived in the same building.

So it was like a mixture of signing and speaking and signing and speaking. But your grandparents taught you how to talk. Yeah, it was my grandparents and watching TV, watching a lot of TV. But it didn't seem unusual to me until, you know, I guess it never really seemed unusual to me, except, you know, people would go like, wow, that's unusual. Your grandparents, where'd you grow up? I grew up in New York, outside the Bronx in Mount Vernon. Okay, so you grew up up there, up at the top of the island there.

Yeah, just like 10 miles from Yankee Stadium. Right, and you grew up in an apartment building, and your grandparents were upstairs, and these are whose parents, your mother's or your father's? My mother's grandparents were upstairs. And these are whose parents? Your mother's or your father's? My mother's parents were upstairs. Okay. So they brought up a deaf child. Yes. So they knew how to sign.

Yep. But so you were the first child that they actually were able to kind of raise to speak. Yes. Yeah. Was it a bunch of Jews? Are you Jewish? Yeah, I'm Jewish. But my mom was, even though she's Jewish, we'd celebrate Christmas every year.

So they like the lights, right? Yeah, the Hanukkah and the tree. Get a tree. I had a little of that. At times, there were trees. Yeah, I always enjoyed being able to dip into both holidays. Yeah, why not? All right, so there you are.

You're growing up in Mount Vernon. Your parents are deaf. So signing is second nature to you yeah it's uh although i spell everything out almost everything oh so you're not hip to the the new symbols i i don't get added later yeah i i started doing fucked up symbols and my mom never corrected me because she understood what i was saying so she never so whenever i see deaf people in distress, I always like to help. I always like to come up and go,

and I'll start signing. Has this happened to you? Yeah, yeah. Well, like deaf people trying to communicate with police officers. And I'll walk in and go, hey, I know sign language. Okay.

And I'll go, hi, I know sign language. And I'll sign it to them and they'll go, oh, and they'll start signing really fast. And I'll go, hold on, what? I go, oh. And they'll start signing really fast, and I'll go, hold on. What? I don't understand. Go back. Can you spell it?

Okay. S-T. Wait, can you bet? S. No, can you start again? S-T. Oh, because some, like, well, my question is, since you learned sign, have there been, have they updated?

I imagine they update symbols. Like, they tighten it up at some point. Well, there's kind of like a regional thing around the country. Get out of here. There's like regional sign language. There's accents. Accents. Exactly.

Yeah. And like around the world, there's different signs for different words. That must be confusing. Yeah. The best was, I don't know where I was. I had a TV on in a hotel room and I saw the funeral going on in South Africa for Mandela. And I see this guy signing and I thought, wow, I'm watching him for a second. Well, it doesn't make any sense to me, but maybe it's different in South Africa.

It wasn't until later that I found out the guy was clinically insane. Yeah. And none of his signs made any sense to any deaf people. Yeah, yeah. And that was hilarious to me. Some of the best deaf jokes I've ever heard were from deaf people. What are they? My sister took her out to dinner a couple weeks ago and she said, she signed to me,

do you want to hear a good joke? I said, yeah. And she goes, me too. And I was like, oh, that's great. And she goes, yeah, it's whatever. She kind of waved it off like, yeah, it's kind of hacky. And I was like, that's great and she goes yeah it's you know it's whatever she kind of waved it off like that's kind of hacky and i was like hacky that's that's awesome you know and uh and it's funny to me that people want to be protective of people with handicaps yeah yet people with handicaps are making jokes about their handicaps well that that is an interesting

thing i think that on some level that it's sort of like some sort of guilt, you know, that people diminish the handicapped person's entire identity by protecting them preemptively or, you know, thinking that they they know. I mean, they've got to have a sense of humor about it. Of course. And they've got a certain pride in it after a certain point, I would imagine. Yeah, there's there is something about laughter getting you through things that people don't understand. They want to be protective and say, well, these people need protection. Nobody needs protection. Or that you need to be polite in a way that you wouldn't necessarily be polite in deference to them.

Yeah. Which I think is condescending and a little demeaning. I agree. know we're not always the greatest judge of sensitivity comics i mean if we were i think we're all very sensitive but it's hard to know man i think we're all sensitive but i think even even someone like brian regan can tell you a really fucked up joke i remember brian regan uh on ona uh they pointed out you know brian the thing about about you is you're hilarious, but you never curse.

And he said, no, I actually, I do say motherfucker in one of my jokes. And they said, you do? And he said, yeah, it's a joke about butterflies. And it's like, you know, it's goofy, but it's like everyone, I think comedians have sensitivity, but it's very strange. I think things have changed in the last 10 years especially with twitter because everyone has a voice and everyone can contact you and go you know you suck or that's not cool you can't say that uh how dare you yeah there's there's more of an immediate

you know cultural dialogue about uh offenses you know what mean? It's still up to the comedian. If you want to fight the fight, you fight the fight. No one's denying you the right to do that. Have you ever gotten exhausted for fighting the fight on a thought that you either did on a radio show or on stage? Have you ever had to fight to where you just thought, it's too much? Yeah, over the retard. Really?

Yeah. I mean, it wasn't so much a fight but you know i had to really weigh it out you know yeah the question you have to ask yourself is what's it worth what's the point you're trying to make are you just saying something because you can say it are you saying something to provoke a reaction or or are are you uh you know honestly think that it's a you know it's an important joke and and my joke was really about the word retard and what it used to mean to us and what it's grown to mean to that community is that, you know, like the angle was, I would never call a retard a retard, you know, but it's wrong, but like it's wrong-minded because

the truth is, is that I think mostly it's a family of people who are who are I don't even know what the proper word is for people that were once called retarded, intellectually challenged or whatever it is, mentally challenged. But, you know, they it hurts them. So is it really worth it, you know, to do it? But, you know, that word is like it's so it was so part of the culture, but that doesn't mean it's right. It's like the word tranny now. It's tricky, man. Tranny is offensive to people? Yeah.

First I'm hearing that. It's offensive to the transgender community. See, what you're talking about is true, that once these channels of communication are open and public and more accessible is that communities that may have been overlooked or or gotten short shrift or or not identified as communities now have a voice so transgender people find tranny to be insulting but they'll call each other trannies well maybe i i don't know and black people call each other the n-word well i mean but i don't know if they all do that i I mean, occasionally I'll call a Jew a filthy Jew or a Jew bastard.

But it's not by, you know, I don't do it often. I just feel like that you can say anything as long as you make a strong argument for it. If you want to make the argument. If you want to make the argument. And yeah, it can be exhausting. You can, from the jump with that word. Have you had the problem before? Yeah, with me, I mean, it's like, I don't think I go into anything on stage that's that controversial.

I like to just be silly. Yeah. Well, when did you start? So you say that the knack for impression started from actually gravitating towards speech in general because of the environment you grew up in. So when do you identify, were they originally cartoon characters? No, it would be like just people who I really admired and watched a lot of would get stuck in my head, like Muhammad Ali, the Fonz. Oh, really?

Yeah. And then over time, and I would always just- How old are you? I just turned 44. Okay. And over time, I just had this knack for picking up weird voices, and I never got an accent. When did you realize that? I mean, when did you start using it to your advantage, so to speak?

From the time I was like four or five years old i would do impressions for my family who are deaf but the impressions tough crowd tough crowd but the impressions didn't involve voices they would involve just mannerisms yeah mannerisms i would just do like all right here's grandpa oh so you do waiting so i would do manner and every time i do an impression i never think of um I never think of the voice. I think of the person. Yeah. Like Tracy Morgan kind of looks spacing and just, hey, man, that's crazy.

I like you. You're very sexy. That's crazy. Adam Sandler doesn't look you in the eye, and he likes to tell silly doody jokes. Or Al Pacino who... Well, look you right in the eye. This guy. Why does this guy never avert his eyes?

Yeah. I never think of the voice. I think of the way they are as a person. Yeah, I've had that moment where I used to be able to do about a second of Dustin Hoffman. Really? But I can only do it reflexively, like in a moment. If I think about it too much, it won't happen. So you have to think about it and then register it into your sense memory so you can repeat it.

Yeah, and I'm very lazy. So it's either right there and and it sticks with me or have you lost some no i just uh if i don't like i haven't done sam in a while until i just did it earlier in this conversation but uh um but it's usually just kind of stuck in there somewhere i just i just picture the person um or when i tell stories about people like i uh mitch headberg was my first roommate in new york and when i tell stories about living with Mitch, the voice will come back and it'll just be right there. Oh, really? Yeah.

And like when I first moved in- He couldn't look you in the eye either. Yeah, that kind of bummed me out. He- He's moving from side to side. Yeah. My first day in Mitch's apartment, I put my stuff down and I'm trying to get my bearing straight. And he's telling me a million, because he's going to leave and I'm going to have

the apartment to myself that first weekend. And so he's telling me where everything is in the neighborhood. And then he goes, oh, hey, Craig, this is a map of the New York City subway. And on the back of his front door was this huge map of the New York City subway, which the first time you look at it, it's very intimidating. There's a lot of yellow and blue and red lines going every direction. So I'm staring at the map and he goes, so that's how that works.

And then he walked away and I was like, what the fuck? How'd you meet Mitch? What year was that? I met Mitch in- I remember when he moved to New York. I met him in 95 in Seattle. I opened for him in probably 94, 95.

There were guys that would come to town like you, Patton Oswalt, and Mitch Hedberg. The people would go, oh, you got to watch these guys, these guys. So I would always try to campaign, not even knowing anything about those people. I go, can I open that show? They're supposed to be an amazing comedian. I want to open that show. You lived in Seattle? I lived in Seattle.

That's where my career started, was in Seattle in 1993. I started at Comedy Underground. The original one. The original one. Yeah, it was a good room, man. I was there for a year. How the fuck did you end up there, man?

I had friends who had moved up to Seattle. So you were in New York. You wanted to start doing comedy. I was in New York, first 10 years of my life in New York, then I moved to Arizona, where all my formative years were, where I started doing comedy I was in New York first 10 years of my life in New York then I moved to Arizona where all my formative years were where I started doing drugs uh was in Arizona did you go to college there I didn't even finish high school and I went to high school for

a long time I went to high school for five years I still don't have the Bronx uh in in Tucson Arizona is where your family moved there yeah my family moved there because they have a good school for the deaf in Tucson Arizona sister yeah for my sister so you started doing stand-up in tucson yeah my first couple open mics was in tucson then i moved to seattle with no idea of how great of a comedy scene there was in seattle i just moved to seattle because some friends of mine had moved to seattle and i wanted to be a stand-up comedian i thought i was funny i thought I thought that I was funny enough to try it. Well, what were you doing in Tucson when you say you were doing drugs? You didn't finish high school?

How is that possible? I just can't pay attention to save my life. So what do you mean? How far did you get in high school? I had a couple senior years, and I never got my diploma, but I went on two senior trips. I go to the high school reunions for each of my senior years. I attend all my reunions for each of my seniors.

I know. I enjoyed the social aspect of going to school. So people were happy to see you. You weren't some sort of wallflower. They all knew you as the guy that went two senior years. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I feel like I don't relate to a lot of comedians. I love people. I love being around people. Now, wait a minute. I mean't relate to a lot of comedians, I love people. I love being around people.

Now, wait a minute. I mean, you know, some of them do, right? I feel like a lot of comedians are introverts. They're like hanging around with comedians. Yeah, they're like hanging around with other comedians. But socially, a lot of comedians are not, you know, as enjoyable to be around as you would think they would be. Well, I think a lot of comedians think like they,

what I noticed not too recently is that, you know, we have a shorthand about what we can talk about and how we talk about things. And, you know, really more, 90% of the time, if you're hanging around with comics, you're hanging around with brilliant guys. Yeah. It's just, it's a fact.

Yeah. And there's quick, there's smart, and there,'s smart, and then when you start hanging around with civilians and they're making jokes and stuff, you're like, all right. Well, especially when they make jokes along the lines of, I know Jim Norton has made a couple observations about the people who say like, oh, watch out for this guy. This guy's a real cut up over here. And it's like, oh, you know. And by the way way hanging around with other

comedians i think is the greatest benefit and joy of doing yeah what yeah i get to do i i can't believe that i get to hang around uh these people who i admire so much and get to spend time with but um but yeah it was in arizona that i got a really bad drug habit that uh what kind uh cocaine was really cheap. Yeah. Really cheap and really good. It was really pure. Like what, 60 bucks a gram?

Oh, 40 bucks a gram. 40, 50 bucks a gram and pure. Really, really pure. And so I just started doing tons of coke. And then I moved to Seattle. So you're like what, 18, 19 years old? 14 is when I started. 14 and then I moved to Seattle. So you're like what, 18, 19 years old? 14 is when I started. 14 and then I moved to Seattle and then it gets heavier.

How old were you when you moved to Seattle? 23. So for nine years in Tucson, what did your poor parents do with this fucking drug adult high school dropout who can talk? Well, like anybody else with drug addicts, you kind of turn the other cheek and you kind of like- You didn't go to rehab? Not until I moved to Seattle and I got a job with insurance.

And I had this embarrassing moment where I called- I had insurance for the first time. I was working a job that had insurance and I said, I have a drug problem. What was the job? I worked at GameWorks, which is like a- It's a glorified video game arcade. But they had this great benefit. If you work here, we'll give you health insurance. Really? Yeah. So I got health insurance. It might've been six months before

the health insurance kicked in, but I had health insurance for the first time. In Seattle? In Seattle. Was that at a mall? It's in downtown on 7th and Pike. And I called my insurance, said, I have a problem with drugs. I said, okay, we'll talk to the mental health line. Mental health line picks up and I got a problem. I'm a drug addict. And they said, okay, where are you at? And I was in this really specific neighborhood. I was in Capitol Hill dating this girl. I know Capitol Hill, yeah. And they said, oh, you know what? There's a rehab a few blocks from you. And I said, great. And so I called that

location. The guy picks up the phone. As soon as he picks up the phone, I know something about the guy as soon as he picks up the phone, but it's irrelevant. It has nothing to do with the conversation. So I confess all my sins. It's the first time... What do you mean you know something about the guy? You can tell as soon as he picks up the phone you already know something about the guy as soon as he picks up and at the end

of the conversation he says all right well i think we're ready uh i do have one more question craig um you are a homosexual right and i said i'm a homosexual and he said yeah you know this is this rehab is for homosexuals and i said i i didn't know that and he said your insurance didn't tell you and i said no they just said you I didn't know that. And he said, your insurance didn't tell you? And I said, no, they just said you're the closest one to me. And he said, well, there should be some kind of a note on their screen that we, I mean, we're not gay and lesbian exclusive, but we are gay and lesbian friendly. So are you a homosexual?

And I said, no. And he said, do you have a problem with homosexuals? And I said, no. And he said, all right, we'll see you on Monday. And I checked into gay rehab and i i was there and it was the best place i could have been i i was so fragile and i was around the most sensitive people i had ever met and um the toughest person in that rehab was a lumberjack chick from oregon who had choked out her girlfriend in a blackout. Yeah.

And so I did six months of outpatient treatment, and then I moved in with Mitch Hedberg in New York. And I just completely – and I didn't tell Mitch. There was actually a really embarrassing moment when I moved in with Mitch. I'm trying to stay in recovery and i know that uh when i get to mitch that that mitch doesn't know and if i want to yeah i can just fuck up when i get to mitch's place right and um one day i was out doing something in the city i came back to the apartment and mitch was really uh uh just oh man i'm sorry man i i thought i saw some magazines in your bag i was

just grabbing a magazine man i'm sorry i got into your stuff and i was like that's fine man you can take magazines and then i noticed that in between the magazines yeah was this aa book and i was like oh man yeah and and i had already started drinking again by the time i got back to mitch's place and i was like ah fuck yeah you know and i kind of felt embarrassed and you felt embarrassed about being sober yeah and did he make you feel bad uh yeah i mean it was because when you first realize you have a problem it's part of the thing you have to go through is is and for some reason it's it's like it's tough to actually admit it that i have a problem you know it's like i know something's wrong and my nose is bleeding all the time. This is in Seattle.

Yeah, and I'm not... Well, that... I mean, it started from way back. It was fucking up shit. I mean, I can't tell you how many times when I was living in Seattle. This is really embarrassing to admit, but I can tell you how many times I would start out a date by sending the girl to the comedy club and I'd go, hey just meet me at the comedy club and uh because we'll get some free drinks at the comedy club and it'd be a hot beautiful girl would show up at the comedy club i'd hang out with her

we'd drink we start to get to know each other laughing and then the door would open and the fucking coke dealer the local neighborhood pioneer square coke dealer would walk through and i'd go fuck and then my heart would start racing i go uh hey i'll be right back hang on a second and i go talk to the guy yeah i come back and i can't tell you how many times i did this i'd walk back to the girl and go hey i just realized something um i have to get up tomorrow at 6 a.m i didn't even realize this um so i gotta get out of here i can't even hang out with you right now i need to listen i'm gonna walk you to your car and I'm going to get you. Are you done

with your drink? All right, we'll finish your drink and I'm going to get you out of here. I'm sorry. And they look at me like, what are you talking about? I'm going to make it up to you. When's your next day off? Is it Thursday? Okay, I'll go out with you on Thursday. But finish your drink. Go ahead and pound that and let me walk to your car and let me get you out of here. And I'd walk them to their car, give them a kiss and one out of every

five girls would come back to the bar later an hour just to see and i'd be in there jacked jacked out of my mind and avoiding eye contact like oh shit they're back you know and i i can't i can't even tell you how many times i did that that you're bringing back memories for me. Just the sort of excitement of knowing you're going to get blow. Yeah. That was almost better than the blow. Yeah, and when I found out

that there were people at the Comedy Underground that had cocaine, like it was like a year, at least a year or two years of doing stand-up at the Comedy Underground before an employee asked me,

hey, can you help me with something back here? And I said, help you with what? I want you to help me carry a keg. And I'm like, carry a keg? I'm not helping you. And he goes, Craig, just come back here. And I was like, oh, man, I don't want to do any manual labor.

And I come back, and he's got lines cut out on a mirror. And I was like, oh, my God. And come to find out that there are people that work here that have it. And I was like like i really at that moment i found my home yeah home and i had succeeded this is the level of success i was looking for coke around there's coke here and they're willing to share it with me and i was like oh my god and for the next couple years i was in complete ecstasy that these people if i was funny enough that night on stage that people people would just give me drugs and drinks.

Were you doing all impressions? Well, I didn't do impressions at all the first couple years. I was embarrassed to do impressions because... You thought it was hacky? Yeah, because I heard from all the other comedians. All the other comedians were like, oh, this fucking guy. And I would go, wow, okay, yeah, I guess that's kind of hacky.

And there was this feeling that if you do an impression, that you could really just get laughs with no material. Yeah. And so I avoided doing impressions for a long time until Ron Reed heard me having conversations with people and said, well, when did you learn how to do these voices? I go, I've always been able to do these voices. And he said, you should do it on stage.

I said, it's hacky. And he goes, it doesn't have to be hacky. Yeah. If you just do it in a way that's just unique, I mean, you don't have to, but just put your own touch to it, but make it conversational like you're doing right now. Just don't make it like, I think it would go a little something like this. Right. And just put your own spin on it.

So I started kind of dipping in a little bit here and there. Instead of setting it up like that. Right. But man, it was drugs. Being able to have drugs. So what's the longest you had sober? Right now, nine. Are you sober now?

Yeah, nine years. Really? Well, I had a heart attack, so. Jesus. Yeah. Well, I had a heart attack and then I kept doing coke. I had a heart attack and- Maybe we should work up to that.

Sorry. So you're in seattle you hit the wall you go into gay rehab i go into gay rehab then i move in with mitch in new york you left seattle because you didn't want to get sucked back into the blow no i left seattle because i had started uh i was i was doing stuff on the howard stern show i was on the phone on the phone i would do so he finds? I sent them a tape with a bunch of voices on it and the one they zeroed in on

was Sam Kinison and they said, wow, you know we knew Sam better than anybody and man, that voice. They can't tell the difference. They actually had a meeting about it. This is after Sam's dead already? After Sam's dead. They had a meeting about it um this is after sam's dead already after sam's dead they

had a meeting about it to try to listen to the tape to hear like how did this guy edit a tape of sam to make it sound like he's talking about current events yeah and they said man that's sam impression uh we you know we we uh really love the tape and i said well i'd love to work with you guys and they had an idea for me so i calling in. And every time a huge asshole would die, I would put together a piece, and I'd call in as Sam Kinison, live from the gates of hell, welcoming this asshole into the afternoon. Oh, like who? Like who'd you do? I remember Jeffrey Dahmer when he died.

And then there were some weird ones. I remember when Princess Diana died, I said, you know, this is really sad, but thanks to Princess Diana dying, I have the most kick-ass limo driver, this guy. This guy gets me to my gigs on time. He fucking speeds. He's actually going to be the lead driver in the Thanksgiving Day Parade in hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was so out there. And I started writing for the Stern Show. From Seattle. From Seattle. So once I started writing for the show, I called Mitch and said, hey, do you mind if I move in with you? And you knew him a little bit or you'd open for him or what? That's the embarrassing thing is I didn't know him that well at the time. Yeah. bit or you'd open for him or what that's the embarrassing thing is i didn't know him that well at the time yeah and mitch was such uh a agreeable guy what year was that 1998 is when

i moved in with so it was before he really broke big right before while i was living with him yeah he went on the road and um i googled his name one, and there was all these articles. Mitch Hedberg signs a half-million-dollar deal with Fox. And I'm in his apartment going, what? Half a million dollars? So we make plans to go to a concert when he gets home. I said, hey, do you want to go see Rob Zombie? He's going to be here the day that you get back. And he's like, yeah, man, that would be a lot of fun.

And he ended up getting material that night that um the opening act was monster magnet and he used to do a joke about monster magnet on stage so we meet up at this bar across the street from the letterman show the the concert we're gonna go see is at the roseland ballroom next to the letterman show and i go uh uh so how's it going man what's new and he goes oh man you know same old same old you know oh yeah hey I read a thing online that you signed a deal with Fox and he goes yeah man that's true and I go yeah I also read that you've got they're paying you a half million dollars and he goes and his reaction was yeah man can you believe that they actually print that shit and I was like wow so that's true and he really wasn't that excited about the money he's like my only goal and i get it now he said my only goal is i want to make sure

i end up on tv yeah i said yeah but financially you don't have to worry about anything anymore you can just you can be creative yeah not have to worry about working at ralph's he was that way anyways though right yeah he was yeah he was he was was going to work at Ralph's no matter what. Alright, so you're writing for the Stern Show. What does that mean when you say you're writing for it? You were doing other stuff besides your bits? What happened was Jackie Martling and Fred Norris would write my stuff.

And Jackie's style, especially with Sam Kinison, Jackie would write jokes for Sam Kinison that didn't sound like Sam jokes. They said sounded more like Jackie jokes. Right. And I said, hey, do you guys mind if I write? I feel like I have a better idea of what Sam would actually say.

Yeah. And so I started writing stuff, and they said, oh, this is great. You should start writing for the show. So I thought, well, I should probably move to New York if I'm writing for the show. So I asked Mitch, is it okay if I stay at your place until I find a place? Yes. So I move in with him, and I start writing for Howard.

I started writing for Colin Quinn was doing Weekend Update. Yeah. I started contributing material to Weekend Update and started hitting all the clubs in New York when I started seeing you. Yeah. And I started, you know, Tom Rhodes. Yeah. And I started seeing you and I started, uh, you know, Tom Rhodes and I started seeing all these great comedy. It was, it was really intimidating and it was a real trip, um, to be around so many

great comics. And you know what? I had a really bad idea every time I would actually get a spot on Tuesday night at 12 or one o'clock in the morning. Yeah. I was so thrilled to be working at a club in New York, even if it was not getting paid or getting 10 bucks, that I wanted to show up at 8 o'clock at night and watch the whole night of comedy because I get to perform tonight.

Sure. And that was horrifying because there's so many great comics in New York that I ended up just being really sad. So that's 98? 98, yeah. So it was Bill Burr, Patrice O'Neill. Yeah, Attell. Attell.

You doing Attell? I did a little bit. I did it on a cartoon once, and I can't remember how it went. It was like a ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that's really fun. Yeah. I do one more Attell impression. What?

Those are my favorites. So I move moving with mitch and drug addictions back on so you were but you'd already started drinking how long did you stay sober that first round a few months yeah yeah i think i made it to uh 100 days which was such a big deal to me like wow i'm sober for 100 days and uh and then i remember when i moved in with mitch we uh mitch took me to a bunch of comedy clubs at night and uh and he was it was so awesome like with Mitch, Mitch took me to a bunch of comedy clubs at night. And he was so awesome. He was trying to introduce me to people. One guy that was kind of an asshole was Lucian. I had this funny moment.

At the comic strip. At the comic strip. He goes- I've already got an impression. He didn't even get that far. Mitch, really just being polite said oh hey Lucian hey this is my friend Craig Gass

he just moved here from Seattle and Lucian looked at me and said Mitch you know how we do things here and he said

no I'm just saying this is my friend maybe you should shake his hand and I was like holy shit I just felt I didn't know

who Lucian was I didn't know what his relationship to the club was I just felt really uncomfortable and Mitch was doing me a solid. That's funny, though. No, it's just respect.

Yeah, I'm just trying to be fucking polite here. And that night at the comic strip, Mitch said, hey, man, I'm going to get some drinks. You want something? And I said, yeah. And I looked around. I hadn't drank in a few months. And I said, can i have a jack and coke please and he goes yeah man and then i kind of i was looking around the room like is

someone going to catch me is someone going to stop me from drinking and then mitch walked up to the bar ordered it put it in my hand and i'm still kind of looking around took my first sip no no whistles went off nobody yelled at me and then i was back on you know and for another what was it 10 years yeah so now though you're going now are you going into the studio with Howard when did that start um first it started with calling in then I started writing for the show and I didn't come in until the day that Jackie had quit I got a phone call uh I got a bunch of phone calls, actually. There was three or four voicemails on my answer machine. There was a couple messages on my answer machine.

Yeah. I pushed play, and the first message was, Dude, Howard Stern, Jackie Martley just quit the show. They're looking for new comedians. You should call them. Right. Hey, man. Dude, Howard Stern just announced they're looking for comedians.

Boop. Hey, Craig, it's Gary DeLaBonte. Give me a call as soon as you get this. Okay? It's fucking fine. I call him up, and I say, Hey, Gary, I got your message, man. And he goes, hey, Craig, how you been? The first time Gary's ever asked me how I've been.

Yeah. And I said, I've been great, man. I heard that Jackie quit the show. Yes, he did. And I go, is that what this call's about? And he goes, yes, it is. And I was like, holy shit. All right, so what do you want me to do

and he said uh we just want you to come in just kind of see if there's some chemistry and we'll kind of take it from there man so you'd never been in the studio i've never been in the studio i've been working for the show getting paid by the show for eight years wow at that point and i'd never been in the studio it's serious yet when did that start this is at k rock right k rock and then i went in and sat next to Howard. Yeah. Were you freaking out? You know what? It was kind of like doing... My goal was the same as doing every radio show

where it was like, I just want the three people in the room to just laugh. That's all I want. Yeah. And if you make everyone in the room laugh, then everybody listening will be laughing. Yeah, yeah. But my only goal is to make these three people laugh.

And I had so much fun. I really only thought it was going to last two days. Maybe that's why I didn't feel any pressure for it. I was like, ah, two days. Finally, I get to come in and it'll be fun. Yeah. And that turned into two days a week every week for the next seven, eight months. Uh-huh.

And it turned- Was Artie there yet? Artie started coming in and they would have, by the end of it, I was in every Monday and Tuesday. Artie was in every Thursday and Friday. And Wednesdays, they would rotate somebody out on Wednesdays. And everybody, Chappelle, Doug would come in, Attell. Stanhope? Stanhope would come in, Richard Chenney, Kimmel.

And it was mostly known comics. known comics I never went in there I just did it for the first time last year I heard it were you nervous? my only nervousness is what's he got on me and you know what he had was something I could certainly handle like I didn't know what I think he was going to pull up I remember what it was

that was an asshole and I was a jealous asshole that was what he sort of focused on but we ended up getting into a pretty serious conversation about you know family and fathers and narcissism and this and that i mean it was good i mean you know you know no one chimed in for an hour yeah it's it's definitely something where you have that kind of feeling going in like like you prepare like you you're going to the principal's office, like I just want to be prepared for this subject to come up.

I just didn't know if it would be a conversation or whether he was going to hammer me. And, you know, it was a, I don't know why I overthought it because I'm not a huge Stern listener. So it was just like meeting a guy on radio. It wasn't, it was only intimidating by name. You know, I didn't have any sort of real idea

of what he was going to do because I didn't grow up with him. Did you get a lot of feedback after you did the show? Yeah, everyone thought it went great. I think we had a pretty decent conversation. I was happy that he wasn't wearing his sunglasses. It was very relaxed.

I enjoy talking to him. Yeah, he's... The feedback I get every time I do his show is... I mean, there's an audience out there listening that you don't realize how huge that audience is. And he gave me my career. I mean, every TV role I've ever gotten, almost every TV role has been from people who are fans of his show that are writers for TV shows. Right. They say, hey, I got an idea for you.

I got an idea for you. And I still get residual stuff from that because people who know the stuff that I did with Hal. You don't have a relationship with him anymore i mean we still like we email each other from time to time i send them ideas for stuff what happened um i just i never tried i never why well why'd you stop why'd you stop having me on the show well when they made the decision they said we're gonna have arty do the show arty's gonna be the guy arty's gonna be that's after eight months it's after eight months yeah eight or nine months of being on the show. Artie's going to be the guy. Artie's going to be the person. That's after eight months. That's after eight months. Yeah. Eight or nine months of being on the show.

Were you friends with Artie? Yeah. Artie and I always got along and it was actually weird to be in something of a competition with somebody who you liked. Right.

You know? And what's going on with you and Mitch? Mitch is on the road all the time at this point, right? So I imagine as a roommate he was mostly gone, right? Well, I was only with him

for a few months. That was like when I first moved in. And then the stories about Mitch started getting, especially right at that time when he got all the money, he moved into the Chelsea Hotel. Right. And that's when the stories started getting weird.

And I'd go, Mitch? And they'd go, yeah, I heard Mitch. Strung out? I'd be like, no. Because I had only drank with Mitch and occasionally done coke with Mitch. I'd never heard or seen heroin. I think he hid that shit. Yeah. Because I hung out and done coke with mitch i never heard or seen heroin i think he hid that shit yeah because i i hung out and done coke with him but but i didn't you know i didn't i didn't know how deep in he was that's all it is yeah and i hadn't uh yeah occasionally it's funny

as a drug addict to call another drug addict and go uh hey man you doing okay over there yeah yeah and he'd go what are you up to yeah yeah man i'm doing all right man how you been yeah i'm doing are you sure you're okay yeah like yeah because that's our line i mean we're if you're if you're not crossing the heroin line yeah then everything's cool yeah you're still doing coke you're drinking anything else going on you've been up for three days all right that's cool but anything else you're just snorting coke right just for a few days and having some heart problems but no heroin no heroin because we you know we got we got rules here yeah i don't want you to be an addict you know yeah and uh so yeah so uh when arty got the

job they said hey um uh the door is open right you can come in anytime you want but i was so exhausted at that point that i just kind of- Were you doing coke at that point again? Yeah, I was doing coke. I did coke all night and slept through the show. I actually slept through the show. In the studio? In the studio. They let you sleep?

No, they made fun of me. Right, that's what I mean. I was in Philly over the weekend doing a show at the Comedy Cabaret. Somebody showed up with a bunch of coke and I just kept going through Saturday and Sunday. And then showed up on Monday morning having not slapped, and I thought, oh, man, you know what? We get these long breaks, like these 15, 20-minute commercial breaks. I'll just take a little, yeah.

And then I woke up with the whole country listening to me snoring on the show. That ended up happening again later with Artie, and they made material out of it with arty but howard was pissed yeah and that it felt like a nail in my he's not a drug guy he's not a drug well the weird thing people don't understand if they they i don't think people understand what it means to when you're up for three days on fucking blow i think a lot of people are like what are you doing it's like that's a really good question we're just talking to some idiot usually you're just talking to an idiot well you're wired wrong like when i had my heart attack i ended up uh in the hospital for a week um what the fuck happened

man i was up for several days and i just stopped breathing and um i went in you like you were sitting there and you're like i'm not breathing um there was a buddy buddy of mine. I was at his place and I knocked on his door. It's like 8 o'clock in the morning. I said, hey, man, I got a problem, I think. I'm not breathing. And he said, let's go to the hospital and went to the hospital. And then they did all these tests. Were you jacked?

Yeah, I was. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, I was in bad shape. What do you mean? What happened? I'm just thinking about how I would feel these heart palpitations and I'd be like, holy shit, what is that?

I better do another line. Yeah. And I just kept doing lines. Yeah. And- Like a flutter? I get those occasionally now. Yeah.

But then my chest is getting tighter. Yeah. That's something I've never experienced before. And I'm having trouble breathing. And I go to the hospital and they run all these tests and I hear them yelling for a cardiologist. We need a cardiologist. They say, you say, cardiologist asap uh and i go what's going on they said your enzyme levels are supposed to be this they're you know 20 times that and i said okay well what does that mean and they said

you're having a heart attack and then um i started crying i because i don't know like what i never heard the word yeah like what does that mean am i dying am i dying right now and uh you know my buddy that's with me i'm holding his hand and crying yeah you know and uh uh they keep me in the hospital for a week and my trips used to end uh in cities around the country working at whatever comedy club my trips used to end uh on a sunday morning i would slowly get all my stuff together you'd been awake you're like yeah it's the worst feeling in the world and like people just left and you're like i gotta get ready to go i still gotta yeah there's like three people you don't know yep all right man we'll see you man you're all right yeah

and i and there was this process where i put pull all my stuff together in my hotel room. Yeah. Then I had to get a hand towel and wet the hand towel, and I'd had to clean all the surfaces of my hotel room. And then I had to take my money out and unroll, wash all the blood off my money. Yeah. And unroll, and then blow dry my money so that they could fold normally instead of rolling up. And then- What were you so paranoid about?

I was always paranoid that the Coke that was left on all the surfaces would be seen by the maids and the maids would contact the police. Oh, okay. So it was the cops. Yeah, it was the cops. Or maybe at the airport, they'd see rolled up money and give me a search. Sure. And so now my trip ends in a hospital where I'm given my clothes back and I have to give them the hospital gown I've been in.

For a week? Yeah, I was there for a week. So you're sitting there with your friend holding his hand and you're crying because this was really like you've gone too far. I've gone way too far. And you always know that when you're already been sober. So you knew all along that it wasn't going to end well. But for some reason, I don't know why we think we're going to cheat death.

But then when all of a sudden it comes, it must be just horrifying. Like, just sort of like you're like a child. Like, what? Yeah, you know you're doing. You got caught. You know you're doing something wrong this whole time. Yeah. And then when you get caught is when it really hits home.

Like, I'm sorry. Yeah. And it's getting caught that you suddenly, you go, I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And so I get released from the hospital coincidentally, and it was the day that my return trip back to New York was. Yeah.

So I actually still have- Where were you? I was in Seattle. I was going to surprise my friends and show up at a Christmas party in Seattle, and I ended up in the hospital. So all my friends who I was going to surprise came to visit me in the hospital. There was a lot of tears. How bad was the heart attack?

I mean, did you need surgery or- No, but I ended up with pericarditis, which was the inflammation of the sac of the heart. Does that go away or is that with you? The discomfort went away, but I damaged my heart. And so this- From blow. From blow, yeah. So after this whole week of realizing that I'm wrong

and knowing like, all right, this is it. I got five hours to kill and I go out to spend time with friends. There's still more crying and we want to see you live. I want to live. And I get in my car, the sun's going down. I got a red eye back to New York and I thought, well, what am I going to do now? I got a couple hours here. You know what? I'll go downtown. You know what? I'll go back to the common underground and have a beer I mean this has been a rough week and I said oh you know what you know it'd be great you know it'd be really great right now after the week

that I've had if I could have a little bit of blow like not enough to kill me or have another heart attack but just like just like a couple beers and like a bump that would and then and for the first time in my life a voice came on in my head that said there's something really really wrong with you and i

was scared straight for a year and two weeks until i got in a relationship with this awful awful girl who was begging me to do coke with her she She was like hot, a model. Were you doing the thing for a year? I mean, were you? Yeah, well, no. I wasn't. It's called turkey. You were just like, you heard the voice, and that was that.

Scared straight. No drinking or nothing? No drinking, nothing. No. And for the first time in my life, I realized I got to stop everything. Right. Because everything leads back to this.

Oh, yeah. And so i was scared straight and then i ended up with this girl that um who was just uh someone who i just uh thought was so beautiful and so hot and she was begging me to do coke with her knowing that i had the heart attack and we got in a big fight one night and i was like fuck it and i started doing coke again for 11 and a half months and um until the two-year anniversary of my heart attack. And the greatest thing that's ever happened to me, I'm at a metal school performance. The band became Steel Panther.

I'm at a Steel Panther show at the Roxy, and it's now December 14th, the anniversary of my heart attack. And I'm not fucked up. I'm not really partying too hard that night. I'm not doing any Coke. I just have my heart attack. Yeah. And I'm not fucked up. I'm not really partying too hard that night. I'm not doing any coke. I just have a beer in my hand. And I hit the lottery. I just, a light switch came on, and I said, I'm killing myself.

And I threw the beer out, and I was like, that's it. And that was it. And it's like- This is the second time the voice talked to you. Yeah. The first time it was like are you out of your mind yeah and the thing that's cool is that when you think you're going to be alone because like oh i'm so flawed i'm so uh outside of society i'm not a normal person the thing that's

cool is to go down that road and admit it and just say i'm gonna fucking die if i keep treating myself like this yeah and to find out that you're that there's tons of comics there's tons of people in the business that you work in in all aspects of this business who are there too and it's and it opened my eyes up i didn't realize how many people were not partying like i was i thought everyone was partying like I was. Yeah, we did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like if you survive that, you know, the only hope you have in a lot of ways is getting clean. Because you're just not going to make it. And after a certain age, the regular people don't want to hang out with you. That's always the way. You know what I mean?

True. You're only going to hang out with these fucking idiots if you've decided everybody is like i remember one time i was i was with the at the comedy store in the late 80s where some chick came to visit me uh you know for the weekend a girl i went to college with and we were doing fucking two three nighters just like drinking and holing up in a house and fucking playing guitar and doing blow and stuff and she's hanging out there watching all this and at some point i turned to her. It's like, you know, no one lives like this, man. This is it, man.

This is it. And then she wrote me a letter like weeks later saying like, no one would want to. And I'm like, what? And I couldn't even understand it. I couldn't understand it. Like, what are you talking about? We're the winners.

But yeah. You said something once. I don't remember where it was or whose show it was on. But you said something once i don't remember where it was yeah or what whose show it was on but you said something once that really scared me yeah you said um uh i always believed in my head that when the drugs got to a point where i was becoming psychotic that i would stop yeah but it never dawned on you that you would never know that you were psychotic yeah right and that was like i had never even thought of that thought until you said it.

And I thought, holy shit, because there are people who along the way that I've known that have no idea what we're all thinking about them. Well, that's the weird thing is like, you can't fix a bad brain with the brain. Yeah. You know, like hearing it framed that way,

that only happened to me recently. It's like, you know, it's like, I got this. No, you don't. How is the same thing that you're fucked up with going to get it? Yeah. It's a very tricky thing with that, with the denial business and the delusion that comes from that. You know, like, come on, everyone's like this. Yeah, it was, it bummed me out because the first year after I had that epiphany, like, all right, I'm

dying and I need to stop. Yeah. And I really need to stop. Tell me what I need. I don't give a fuck. Anybody. I'm open to suggestions. Tell me how to stop.

Seven of my friends, all comedians, died that first year. Nine years ago? Nine years ago. Yep. Mitch was the first one to go. And then who? And then there was a guy who, Kelly Moran, died that year. But not from drugs.

That was my understanding was that prescription pills. Oh, yeah. I vaguely remember that. Yeah. Who else? A friend of mine that I went to high school, a really tragic story, a guy that I went to high school with whose name was Brian Corrigan. He had become an open miker.

When we were in high school, Brian Corrigan was drunk and took his parents' car out for a joyride, flipped it, and paralyzed himself and his best friend. So you would see these two together that you always saw together hanging out. Now they're both hanging out together all the time in wheelchairs. And then 20 years later... I heard about this. He killed himself?

Well, he's doing stand-up comedy now in Tucson. He's working at Laffs, and he loves doing stand-up. And they're all partying at Laffs one night, like, hey, let's take it to the bartender's house. So they all jump in the cars. Brian has one of those cars that you can operate with your hand and uh he's driving through an intersection at 35 miles an hour going through a green light and a guy who had just robbed a 7-eleven that was also drunk uh was going through the red light at

70 miles an hour and hit him and t-boned him so um so did you write about that online or something or did you yeah i i uh i always well i've written about that and i've all i've also uh once a year that'll be the only personal thing that i'll write is when i get another year i remember yeah i'll say hey uh you know i'll just say if if if you need help this is only going to resonate with you if you need help if you need help i did it uh you have to love yourself and and then you can be free and and that's the only personal thing i'll put on and i it's very tough for me to click post on that because that's so personal yeah and the feedback that i'll get from that is the most intense of anything i'll put put all year long. You know, I hear it a lot myself.

It's just that, you know, people need to hear it. I don't know what the hell it is. So you don't want to say it? No, no, I do say it. Sure. I mean, you know, there's help on the way. There's help available. There's help always there, you know, if you're willing to reach out and ask for it.

You know, and it's just I think that everybody, especially people who are involved in that, you know, are very stubborn. And, you know, there's some part of them that wants to protect their ability ask for it. You know, and it's just, I think that everybody, especially people who are involved in that, you know, very stubborn. And, you know, there's some part of them that wants to protect their ability to do it. Yeah. Well, that's what keeps us going in that circle is that there's this, you know, man, fuck, something's wrong, I need help.

And so you start dipping into getting help and then you look around and you go, ah, yeah, I'll figure it out. It's okay. I don't want to be one of you people. Yeah, I don't want to be one of you. And that's from the very beginning, it like man these people are fucked up and then a couple years later i come back all right maybe i need to listen a little more and i go all right

all right you know what that guy he's all right i get him and that guy's all right but the rest of these people are but i'm out of here yeah i'll hang out with them and then come back and i find myself relating more and more to people until i had to just swallow my pride so much. I had to go, all right. And there's nothing better than arriving at a moment where you go, just tell me what I need to do. I don't give a fuck. I'm listening to you. I just don't want to live like this.

And, man, I can't tell you how much of a joy it is to be able to travel around the country. And I remember you had a a thing that you did once on uh on conan i think i've seen you do this a couple times about how the demons used to be oh yeah ice cream yeah yeah all right uh how about some ice cream some porn and it's funny how i ended up on that path like you know like wow you know and and um i still have intensity about like you know things that I've always loved, like chocolate milk. Sure.

And then I'll find myself now, I'll check out of a hotel, and I'll look down the hall and I'll see the maid's in the next room. She's coming to my room next, and I'll look back in my room and I'll go, should I clean this up? Because there's like 10, 12 empty chocolate milk cartons in my room. And it looks like I had a party for a bunch of eight-year-olds in my room. And I'm like, oh, this looks weird. This looks really weird and then i'll be kind of embarrassed and but it's it's so much

better than being than crying and being completely demoralized on a plane thinking like what the hell is wrong with me you know well congratulations on the chocolate milk thing yeah i still have a lot of love for for these little things in life. And I'm glad you had me on. And I was just looking forward to just connecting with you. So thank you. I think we did all right. Thank you for having me on, Mark. It was great talking to you.

That's it. That is the show. I love that guy, Kenison. I mean, having known Sam, it gave me flashbacks. But I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you for listening. I love that guy, Kenison. I mean, like, having known Sam, it gave me flashbacks. But I hope you enjoyed that. Thank you for listening. I love you. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod stuff. Get the free app.

Upgrade. You can stream all of them. All of them. I just said that like a New Yorker. What else? Leave comments. Do whatever you want, man. Check the calendar.

Check the schedule. I'm at Mark Maron on twitter with a c well i've never said that before does that matter 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 at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley

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