WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 514 - The Amazing Johnathan

Episode Date: July 13, 2014

The Amazing Johnathan is known for his unique blend of comedy and magic. But the current situation he finds himself in is not an illusion, it's deadly serious. Johnathan tells Marc why he retired from a career filled with blood, coke, speed and wild performances, and how he's soldiering on in spite of the circumstances he faces. 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.

Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fuck sticks? This is WTF. I am Mark Maron. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. I think I just got through a three-day period of mild mania. I'm admitting it. I'm fessing up. I have mild mania sometimes. Maybe it's just allergies. Maybe it's too much coffee. Maybe it's because I'm out of my fucking mind most of the time with bullshit because that's what relaxes me. Too much information right out of the gate. I apologize. Welcome to the show. Everyone take a breath. Oh my God. Okay. I'm

better. I'm better. I'm better'm better he said convincing himself and no one else today on the show the amazing jonathan i'm sure many of you remember him from your childhood the crazy over-the-top magic guy i have a very specific memory of jonathan and jonathan's dealing with some pretty heavy shit right now and uh he'll get into that when we talk but I have a very specific memory of Jonathan I bring it up with him a bit but uh early on when I was just starting out doing comedy I maybe it wasn't that early maybe it was like 90 I don't know 92 or. I was in Los Angeles. I had broken up with my girlfriend at the time. She was in San Francisco. And I had somehow gotten into cahoots with this publicist who eventually tried to ruin my life because I didn't like her.

But her name was Stacy. And I remember I was at her house. She lived with a couple of people. And I got a gig. I got a TV gig. I got a spot on the A-list. I don't know if she got me that spot or not. I don't think so, but I do know I was in trouble because I wasn't expecting to do TV. So I had no jacket. So I had to borrow her roommate's jacket. It was this Navy jacket. I remember I was sort of panicked about the whole thing and it was shooting the next day.

And at that time, I don't remember who was hosting. I think Richard Lewis was hosting the A-list at that time. And for some reason, they would put the big act first and then the smaller act second. Amazing Jonathan was my show. I was on with Amazing Jonathan. So he was going first. And I'm freaking out. I'm wearing borrowed clothing. i'm standing in the wings and i'm watching amazing jonathan kill with this huge

closer where he cuts his arm off he cuts his arm off to close a 10 minute set eight minutes set and i'm like how the fuck am I going to follow that? And it was the first time I ever heard this. And I don't think I'll ever hear it again. Unless entertainment changes drastically. A guy came up to me, the stage manager said, look,

we're going to, we're going to get you right out there as soon as we clean up the blood. And that was one of my early baptisms into televised comedy. I did okay. I was a little panicked. The jacket didn't fit right, but that's the breaks. So we'll talk to Amazing Jonathan momentarily. Also, Denver, Colorado.

I'll be there this weekend, July 18th and 19th. Is that the date? Are those the dates? I'll be at the Comedy Works. I enjoy working at the Comedy Works. If we could get enough of my fans out there to sort of keep out the profound drunkies Denver is one of the drunkest fucking cities I've ever been in my life I think it's the altitude I don't know but second shows there

in that area downtown after a certain hour it just it's a type of blotto that uh it's rare to see outside of Glasgow. But Denver's pretty fucking drunky. I'm going to attribute it to the altitude. So how am I? How am I doing? I'm okay. I've had the week off for the most part.

The last time I talked to you, I was on a mountaintop. And the week off's been going pretty good. I've been trying to get my brain back in. I'm trying to get to get grounded man I got a lot of stuff going on all the time don't know how to pace myself so I took that two-day trip and within hours of being out of the trip on the way back I think I lost my shit on the phone over bullshit and I had some other like my brain I I got a lot of work coming up. I got things to do. And there's some part of me, I don't know if I've really talked about this specifically before, that my brain would like to get like literally consumed, consumed with trivial little things and make them monumental as opposed to feel the stress or dread or panic of what might be coming on a bigger level.

Like my inability to compartmentalize things makes everything sort of percolate along at the same level. So everything is pretty much all or nothing, man. All in or not in at all. I get consumed with bullshit as a distraction. I think I put it in place where most people put a spiritual practice perhaps how can i make this easier to understand okay for instance so i'm driving back from the desert on that journey back uh there's an outlet situation and why wouldn't i stop at an outlet i was very proud of my time in the desert to be honest with you because i don't i travel alone

to work a lot but but I'm working. This is really one of the first trips I've taken alone voluntarily and didn't get there and sit around saying, like, I'm an idiot. Look, I'm alone. I'm a loser. I really was happy. Couldn't be happier, actually, to be alone. But I'm driving back, and I'm like, hey, I'm still alone. I'm in my car, and I could use some clothes.

I could always go see what they have. So I pull over. I go to the outlets. It's early. It's a weekday. It's beautiful. There's nobody there. First store in, the Levi's store.

I don't know about you, but I got a thing. I'm wired for Levi's. I never, rarely do I get things that fit at Levi's, but there's something that compels me. There's some part of me that believes deeply in that label, in Levi's. So I go in. I'm running around. I'm already in some sort of weird, hyper hypnotized state that happens at outlet malls. Like, Oh, like you're some part of your brain. It's like, this is unlike stealing, but you're

not. Most of the stuff is made for the outlet mall, but there was actually a real bargain at the Levi's store. They had these Levi jackets, but they were sort of a, a fine, uh, a fine corduroy. And I like a nice Levi's jacket i've bought several that i don't wear and i was like holy shit these are cool man i can make these work i can make these me so i try them on quickly i'm like a large is probably what i need though i wear medium sometimes but it's hard to tell but i just threw the larges on i looked in the mirror my perfect and then i'm on to the shirts boom I'm trying that shit on. Buying shirts. Bought the two jackets.

Had a lot invested in the jackets. Really wanted the jackets. Thought they were really great. So I'm driving home. Everything's fine. I'm on the phone. I'm getting back into the panic of my life. I get home and I immediately throw those jackets in the washer to get them ready to wear.

And then I get out of the washer and I put them on. They're too fucking big. Both of them are too fucking big. And they were on sale at an i put them on they're too fucking big both of them are too fucking big and they were on sale in an outlet store so they're not returnable and the outlet store is an hour and a half away so for two days i was like i'm a fucking idiot why didn't i just buy a goddamn clown outfit why can't i buy clothing for myself and it took i was consumed with the self-flagellation it took everything i had for two days not to drive back there angrily and just buy two mediums out of spite against myself and then would have had four jackets and

who knows if the mediums would even even have fit so then i'm like well should i just throw them away because i don't want them just hanging in my closet calling me an asshole and then i decided with some guidance uh you know just relax not that big a deal it isn't that big a deal so why did my brain get hung up on it because that's what it wants to do that's how it's going to ground itself it's going to be it's going to be consumed with with trivial things that i'm going to make myself nuts at to avoid feeling deeper things or perhaps getting overwhelmed about what's coming in the future. It's my spiritual system.

It's the little things. That's the system. That's the Marc Maron spiritual system. It's the little things that will consume you and bring you down. I was almost going down a bad path where I was committing to not exercising and giving up on health in general.

I had this fantasy. I created a straw man in my mind. I decided, well, look, I don't want to be one of those 50 year old dudes who are just in overly good shape. Have you seen those guys that are like 50 or 60 years old? And I invented this guy as a comparison. Like their faces are drawn and their bodies are ripped, but they're not really ripped because their muscles are just sort of, they're almost like curtain rods holding up drapes of sagging skin.

It's not, it doesn't look healthy. It looks like it was a body built by panic and vanity. I built that guy. That was the guy. That was the overly fit old guy that I would see in my mind. And I would say, that doesn't look good. That guy thinks he looks good, but he doesn't look good. He looks like all he does is run from death and lift weights and eat no fat.

Is that a life to live? As I eat my cake, is that a life to live? But eat my cake is that a life to live but thank god i ran that guy off and i realized look dude uh maybe you could just you know get back into the swing of things get healthy so i'll see if i can hold on to that i'm very happy that many of you like the radio cowboy episode of marin on ifFC. I was thrilled to work with the Honorable Phil Hendry, who is a genius, a radio genius. It was my sort of homage and tip of the hat and act of respect towards an industry that gets short shrift.

There's a lot of great people in radio, and radio was the heart of American entertainment for a long time. And I'm glad so many people saw the poetry of that episode and it got a lot of feedback. There's a few episodes that have gotten a tremendous amount of feedback. That one, the boomer lives episode, the mouth cancer episode.

But it's interesting to see which ones resonate with people. And obviously I'm only getting certain amount of feedback through Twitter and whatever, but, but people really seem to dig that. And radio people seem to dig that episode. And I appreciate that. This week's episode is a sort of, it's a troubled sexual dynamic that was based on some truth.

But is seriously fictionalized. But it's a very compelling episode written by my friend Jerry Stahl. The Dark Prince, it is Jerry Stahl. And it's a little bit cringy, but there's some heavy boy stuff in this one. Some male things. And records. And records. And Dave Alvin song.

Yeah. A lot of things going on on and then there's two more episodes coming up after this the one i directed that was very important for me to uh to helm because i needed it to be right it's called uh i think it's i think we landed on a stolen joke or maybe the joke it is about it is about joke stealing which is a very loaded topic as you all know who followed the pulse of the comedy community. And then the final episode is called Desert Road Trip, which features Andy Kindler, Dave Anthony, and a little bit of Eddie Pepitone. And also a surprise guest, and I'm not going to spoil that.

There's no fucking way I'm going to spoil that. But okay, so let's do this. Let's talk to Amazing Jonathan. Prepare yourself. There's a little weightiness to it. But this. Let's talk to Amazing Jonathan. Prepare yourself. There's a little weightiness to it. But this guy was a huge act, man. He was a huge act. And I had to follow him after he cut his arm off.

And I'll never forget that. So let's go now to my conversation with Amazing Jonathan. One of my first TV sets was Following You. I do remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the A-list, they used to put the headliner on first, and then the new guy. And the reason I remember it is I'm waiting to go on,

and some guy comes up. He's like, we'll bring you right out after we clean up the blood. Yeah, that's why I headlined, because nobody could follow me, not because of the material, but because of the mess. Right, but I had to. You'd cut your because of the material, but because of the mess. Right. But I had to. You'd cut your arm off. Yeah.

I always used stage blood. Cut my arm off or drooling blood out of my mouth or something, you know. Was it always that? I mean, was it magic first? Or was it, I mean, where'd you start out? I started out doing magic, but I was not really good at it. You I did my high school talent shows the last show I ever did as a magician yeah it bombed so horribly what'd you do uh listen where'd you go to high school I went to Fraser Michigan um you're from Michigan right outside of Detroit oh really that's

where you grew up yeah yeah wow so like like and you're a little older than me yeah maybe I'm 50 yeah I'm 50 55 I am I'm 50, I am. I'm 50. Are you? So like when you were growing up in Michigan, were you into rock and roll? Yeah, yeah, Bob Seger. You saw them when they were coming out? Oh, yeah, I know Bob Seger. He used to own part of the Comedy Castle.

Oh, really? Yeah, he'd come in once in a while and watch his investment. I remember him saying to me, I'll buy as much cocaine as you can find. That's what he said. And he said, you're talking to the wrong guy, man. You just lost your money.

And I couldn't find any. Bad night? Yeah, nobody had a thing. I felt so bad. Nobody's ever said that to me since. You were one of the sort of like the mythology around Amazing Jonathan. And cocaine is epic. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I is epic yeah yeah it was i did a lot of it i did a lot of it and and for a long time i wasn't i wasn't one of the guys who who

quit after robin williams and no pelushi's party yeah uh were you at that party no but that's when everybody quit around that year right right everyone got thought well this is serious right right right people are going down kill you yeah no i kept going man i didn't that didn't phase me at all well you eventually ended up smoking it right yeah i did and i was smoking it and then you know what got me off of it what speed a little crystal meth yeah man i couldn't get coke one night someone said that speed is the only thing left to do so i actually smoked that too after yeah just just jammed you for like days it wasn't like like it is today

it was like speed it was like you don't smoke that you snort it but I smoked it anyway right and I would write like a fiend

I'd go in my garage and I would write get things organized yeah just build all kinds of great props for my show really?

yeah the whole show was written on that and then it stopped I stopped being creative on it and learned how to eat again and it was just like now i was a normal guy would just with a habit you know yeah it wasn't the same but it took a while to get there didn't i mean so you start in michigan you're growing up wait what's your real name uh john zealous and zealous and i changed it to jonathan didn't drop the h because i didn't know you were

supposed to drop the what is zealous hungarian yeah good call yeah so your parents were they actually hungarian no my dad was parents my dad was hungarian but he was born here his parents are from hungary did he work in the auto industry he designed tanks really machine guns yeah he designed he was a draftsman so he i would get to watch the tanks go to work. When he went to work, there was a big test track in the backyard of this place, and it was a straight-up incline of cement. It must have gone 60, 70 feet, and the tanks would try to get to the top of that hill. And he was like a tank engineer? Yeah, he was a tank draftsman.

He just drew the plans out and stuff. Wow. Yeah, and he did that. He hated his job, and he for for 30 years at this job and finally he retired and he died a week later man oh really yeah he never got to get one on a retirement damn it yeah i know and he hated he was looking forward to it he's going to travel a little bit and how old was he uh i think he was around 60 how old were you i was uh i was god i had to be about 24 because i was playing at the Jeff Valdez's Club comedy.

In Denver? In Colorado Springs. I was in Colorado Springs with Ollie Joe Prater, who was- Ollie Joe Prater? Yeah. And his gout and his cane? And where is he? No, he was still walking at this time.

Yeah, Ollie Joe Prater. I saw him fall off a bar stool completely backwards, just tip his head back and bang, down he went. One of the great joke thieves, Ollie Joe Prater. I saw him fall off a bar stool completely backwards. Just tip his head back and bang, down he went. One of the great joke thieves. Oh, Joe Prater. Yeah, he was a great joke. And proud of it. Yeah. Yeah, that's when you didn't get into trouble. He didn't

take shit for it. I think it was before. He made a lot of money being a joke. I think he was stealing hacky jokes. But he would kill, though. He would drink all night during the set. By the time I saw him, it was like i was well i was a doorman at the comedy store in 87 and he was already on a cane and he you know mitzi would had was putting him up at the top when she owned that little house at the top of the ramp of the parking lot of the hyatt there was a little house there yeah you know i lived in crest hill but she had that one too and he was up

in there when he wasn't on the road he was already kind of ill yeah he got sick yeah he got sick pretty pretty bad but i remember watching the very he's the first guy i ever saw do cocaine really him and a whitney brown and me went to the jack tar hotel in san francisco and uh i watched him snort coke and put water up his nose he used to just snort cup water in his hand and snorted i'm like what what the hell it's a pretty amazing day that first day you see somebody when was your first i think i was in high school and i think it was where i was working at a at a bagel place and the owner was sort of a blow monkey and uh and i believe the first time i did it was because he turned me on to it i was probably 14 or 15 you take to it really fast well if you're into it i mean i think some people see that shit and they're like what the fuck and other people like i need to be part of that yeah i think that

once you decide to do the first time you're into it right away but when you were a kid you weren't into it not really no i wouldn't i never did coke i did other stuff i did like mescaline and stuff like that you know people even never you never hear mescaline anymore no it's a it's a that's a rare one yeah nobody makes mescaline i don't think mescaline anymore. No, that's a rare one. Yeah, nobody makes mescaline anymore. I don't think mescaline's around. I wouldn't take it anyway. You put a line of Coke in front of me right now, and I'd freak out. I wouldn't do it.

The smell of it makes me just like... All these memories come flooding back. How long have you been off, though? Oh, a long time. Really? Yeah, yeah. Are you clean of everything? No, not...

You know what? Well, I'll tell you the story. I just got diagnosed... About six years ago, I got diagnosed with a heart condition. Is it like, it's congenital or did you do it? It's degenerative. But did you do it? Well, I could have very well done it. I mean, no one would be shocked if I said, you know what I mean?

Yeah, everyone. What they said is because I might have had a virus when I was a kid and it caused cardiomyopathy. But I didn't tell the doctors what I was doing. Sure. You can fool an x-ray with speed, I'm sure. So you were on it when you got the x-ray? Yeah. No, I wasn't on it when I got the x-ray.

But after I found out the results, I said, you know what? If I'm dying, why not? And now I've been given like a time stamp. Like you got two years. Really? Yeah. It tops. Maybe a year to two years.

Because right now my heart is failing. And they can't give me a transplant because I'm diabetic and they won't give it to a diabetic. Were you always diabetic? For the last maybe 15, 20 years. Type 2 though. But never took care of it. Never took care of it to a diabetic. Were you always diabetic? For the last maybe 15, 20 years. Type 2, though. But never took care of it. Never took care of it, you know. So what's going on?

If I did my medicine like I did my medicine, then I'd be, you know. So you could die any minute? Yeah, I could. Right now, within the last seven or eight months, I found out that, you know, if these drugs we're giving you don't work, you have about a year to two years. But you know what, know what mark i mean do you have a pacemaker or something no i have a

whole thing i gotta wear that's a defibrillator that's over my heart you have it on now no i took it off before i came in why'd you take it off now because it'd be so cool to die on your show okay all right come on it's so great it'd be better than Gallagher walking out yeah it sure would yep so no because it's a real pain in the ass to wear it it's all over the place

I got electrodes all over the place you have to wear a defibrillator that what kicks in yeah this thing will

if I pass out this thing will detect that and if I have 30 seconds to shut it off if I don't shut it off it shoots this blue jelly all over me

and conductive jelly and zaps me and it warns yeah it i don't shut it off it shoots this blue jelly all over me and conductive jelly and zaps me and it warrants yeah it warns people stay away from it because people will start to touch you and shake you are you all right yeah it'll stop their heart and start mine so it's kind of like the ultimate practical joke oh my i know you go on stage with that on uh yeah i have i i did my last show last weekend. I announced that I was retiring from doing shows. I did my last shows in Toledo, and I'm done now. I'm finished.

Really? Yeah, I'm going to go to the Magic Castle and shoot a special. Do six shows there in two nights and shoot a special. And that's not for the public, though. But my last show for the public's over. Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm done, man. So you're asking me if I'm partying?

Fuck, yeah, man. I'll get my hands on anything right now and I'll do it. Because the pain level. Yeah, because the pain in my hands and my feet right now, it's so bad. From what? From my heart not pumping blood to my extremities. Oh, really?

Yeah. My hands are always tingling. I always feel like my feet, I can't walk more than 20 feet, they lock up. The last few shows I did halfway through, I started locking up. Everything started seizing up. My hands were like a claw, you know when you get cramps? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so yeah, you'll Yeah, so yeah. You'll see me looking for heroin in about two months. Come on. Wouldn't you if you were dying? I don't know. I mean, it depends what quality of life you want to have. Well, this is no quality of life.

But you're awake. I'm getting married, too. That's the sad part. You're getting married? I'm getting married, too. But so we don't want to be doing heroin when you're married? No, but if I start feeling really bad pain, I start going, I've never tried it and I would definitely try it.

You've never tried heroin? No. Have you? Yeah. Well, how is it? I didn't boot it. I just snorted it. That's what I would do.

Yeah, it kind of made me nauseous and I fell asleep. I didn't get the full effect. I didn't lock in. That sounds great. Nauseous and sleep. That's how I'm feeling now. But I'm like you, man. I like to go fast.

I like la, la, la, la, la, la. I like focus drugs. I never was a drinker. I never drank. Yeah. and sleep that's how i'm feeling now but i'm like you man i like to go fast i like i like i like focus drugs i never was a drinker i never drank yeah never drank i always did drugs that make you focused and not sleep you know be awake all the time so but so you start and you start as a kid as a magician yeah and then the talent show stopped me from doing that the talent show that i did at my high school yeah went so horribly wrong that the next day in school the kids didn't tease me they didn't tease me kids get cruel about that stuff yeah it was so bad they just they didn't say a word they avoided me man it just avoided all i can take so bad you couldn't find that coin all right listen to that it's six tricks and all six tricks went wrong i

mean the girl in the sword box had a leg cramp and she said i have to get out i have to get out of this stop it i seriously yeah so she got out of the sword box halfway through the trick and knocked all the sides off and the two mirrors two mirrors smashed yeah uh uh i killed my dove i produced i produced a dove and it ran it got out of my hand and was running and i chased it and it stopped real fast and i couldn't stop that fast you killed the bird i ran right over it i squashed that with my foot. That's why they didn't make fun of you. Yeah, and then I exposed the levitation.

You could see the steel bar holding the girl up in the air the whole entire time. It was supposed to be hidden until I got right in front of it. Well, you had some pretty big tricks for a teenager. Yeah, I had illusions.

This was going to be my big, you know, this could get me into chicks in high school. This was going to be, it made me from an idiot. You killed the bird. You showed the trick. The chick wouldn't stay in the box.

And then the final thing was the guillotine. And I said, that can't go wrong because the blade falls. It goes, penetrates the neck and doesn't cut the head off. And that's the trick. And then they shut the lights off. Well, they shut the lights off just as the blade started to drop. So you never saw it penetrate the guy's neck. He just went blacked out.

And that was it. All done to Elton John's funeral for a friend and i'm dressed like a dick from godspell with this rainbow suspenders and the heart on my forehead come on i thought that was so cool yeah i thought my hair permed like doug heading and i just tanked man and i got went to toronto and got so shit faced after that night i said i'll never do magic again and i never. Never did a serious magic show after that. So how many brothers and sisters do you have? I had two sisters, two older sisters, no brothers. Are they still around? Yeah, they are. Yeah, they're around. And so now, all right. So how do you decide to get into show business after that disaster? All right. Well, listen, this is funny. This is really, really funny. I used to be able

to bend spoons. I figured out how to bend a spoon using my mind, but it was just misdirection. I would make them look away for a second, and I would bend it. Is that what most swiping hand is? Yeah, yeah. But I did it really well, and I did it for my physics teacher, who I really admired. And he said to me, is that real? Are you really doing this, or is it a trick? And I was really unpopular in school.

I was not standing out at all. So I lied, and I said, yeah, I can really really do it thinking that that would be the end of it yeah no it's the next hour i'm sitting in class i hear on the speak jonathan john zell is please come to the principal's hall i'm shit this has something to do with the spoon bending i know it does yeah i walk in there there's my mom and my dad who they call out of work it's a bunch of spoons on the desk and a local reporter from the macomb daily paper yeah i'm like fuck this is not good so the physics teacher set you up to this yeah he asked me if it was real and i lied to him and said yeah so yeah call he told and they got a reporter to come down they wanted me to demonstrate my powers my mom took me aside before this i said

can you really do this are you just lying and i her straight in the eye and I said, I can really do it. This is like a snowball going down. I said, I can really do it. And so I proceeded to bend all the spoons and they freaked out. And then I thought. You succeeded in the trick at all times. Yeah. I bent everything and the reporters, he's chomping at the bit to do this great story about a psychic kid.

But I had to figure a way out of it because I figured that the magicians, local magicians would bust me on it and make me a fraud. But they can't give away the trick. Why would they? They would say I'm lying. This is what he's doing. Like magicians do. You know, magicians they bust Uri Geller for doing it. They'll bust me too. I mean, if

it's in the paper, you can bet someone's going to come forward and go, that's bullshit. He's just tricking. So I had to figure a way out of it, and this is how I got out of it. I told my mom that I wanted to be a normal kid. I didn't want to be a freak in school. I just wanted to be a normal kid. I didn't want everyone looking at me like I was weird. And she bought it.

They all bought it, and nobody did the story. But it leaked. This is the good part. It leaked out, and I didn't get that that press which i didn't want but everyone thought i was this mysterious and i got mad pussy i got mad pussy my senior year i did yeah okay you're like that yeah i was like man who fell to earth yeah yeah so and that's when you knew show business was the thing yeah yeah man if a chick thinks that you can read her mind or anything like that you're in did you try to do that with chicks oh yeah

would they go to the bathroom i'd go in through their purse take their license out get their birth date you know there's zodiac sign i have all the details we could put it back faster in their purse they come back and we'd be doing lines let me touch your forehead for a minute boom you're a virgo boom you were born're a... And then she... That's it, man. So you were doing lines in high school? Yeah. Well, no, lines of speed and lines of PCP. PCP in high school?

Yeah. I know. PCP's a funny one, isn't it? I don't know. I didn't do that one. No, don't, man. Yeah, I used to do PCP. Isn't that crazy time?

Yeah, I remember trying to hang the Christmas lights up, being on PCP with my mom and dad in the living room looking at me, knowing what's wrong with them. What does it do to you? Not be able to hang Christmas tree lights. That's the list of things you can't do. Well, it depends on what you're doing. Sometimes you want to just go to the hospital sometimes,

but my friends would never take me to the hospital. Because you're just freaking out? I would lie. They're going to take me to the hospital.'m freaking out and they're they're fucking with me and they're saying let's they're dividing my shit up i want his bike i want a stereo you know doing that kind of stuff they're tripping me out even more you know so uh yeah so how'd you start performing um i went to san francisco uh the whole trip was going to be we're going to look for peyote in the

desert we're going to go to who who went we just read those Carlos Castadina books right but you were with a friend I was with my cousin and a guy from high school and a girl who went in ended up teaming up with and we we went out we drove out from Michigan to California yeah I'm found an Indian and a guy yeah we found peyote and we also found poppers, which I've never tried before. Yeah. And amyl nitrate.

So the Indian had peyote and poppers. Yeah. A well-versed Indian. No, the Indian had peyote and another Indian had the poppers. The disco Indian

had the poppers. It was an all-Indian deal, though. Yeah. We knew to look for Indians. I guess. Yeah. The poppers are sort of outside the box, I think. Yeah i think yeah poppers yeah i don't know why he had poppers i'd never seen them before real ones real yeah the ones that were like a little white break yeah break them open yeah and uh and so

learning the self-discovery uh trip that we had made us discover that we we all fucking hated each other and by the time we got to california they had dropped me off on the side of the road with this girl and they took off back home they want to go home and i didn't want to go home my whole thing my whole thing was i was going to build a tree house this is how stupid i was naive i thought i could build a tree house in malibu or california up in the woods right live in the tree house rent free that was my whole plan so no plan to be an entertainer no no i just wanted to live in a tree house in Malibu or California up in the woods. Right. Live in the tree house, rent free. That was my whole plan. So no plan to be an entertainer? No, no.

I just wanted to live in a tree house and I didn't have plans to do anything. You know, I just wanted to build a tree house. Yeah. Swiss Family Robbins. Sure. I figured that'd be the cheapest way to go. You and this girl. Yeah.

Yeah. And of course that never happened. No. No. I don't think anyone's really built a tree house and lived in it that was over 17. Yeah. And so we just hitchhiked around uh and we ended up in san francisco and we were so broke that i needed money and i started doing street performing

what was that in the 70s 77 78 i was a street performer so who was on the street way whitney brown was a whitney brown was on the street and uh harry anderson he's the first one i saw that really blew my mind out there harry anderson um I set my stuff up and was doing my show, and I went to grab a bite, and I came back, and Harry had packed all my stuff up and was in my spot. Harry Anderson was a street performer in San Francisco. And A. Whitney Brown, because no one knows Whitney is that. No, no, A. Whitney Brown had a dog act.

He had a great dog act, a comedy dog act. He inherited this dog from his partner who shot himself in the head. He was with A. Whitney and he was gay and he really liked Whitney and Whitney wasn't gay. Right. And it frustrated this guy so much that he shot himself in the head. Oh, my God. In front of Whitney. Really?

Yeah. And so Whitney got this guy's dog and this dog was trained to do everything, man. It could do everything. His name was Brownie Breezebottom. That's what he called him. A. Whitney Brown and this dog was trained to do everything man it could do everything his name was brownie breezebottom that's what he called him a whitney brown and his dog of renown that's that was the name of the show and this was where like in this was down in the wharf yeah he was working in the cannery inside the cannery on the little outdoor stage and uh it was a great act it was a you know he would the dog would jump up and take the hat off his head and and go to through the audience getting money and oh really yeah and every time that he would tell a dog joke the dog would jump up and take the hat off his head and go through the audience getting money. Oh, really?

Yeah, and every time he would tell a dog joke, the dog would run into the doghouse and slam the door closed. Like he was mad. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was great. And was he sort of a hippie kind of dude? Like long hair? Yeah.

He didn't have long, long hair, but he was a hippie because he ate all natural foods. And Harry Anderson, what was he like? Harry was a hustler. Harry was doing three card money on the street, sidewalk shuffle and stuff like that. And he was great, though. He got the crowd.

And close-up magic? Yeah. And he got, like, doing close-up magic, he would get, like, 200 people standing on the street as opposed to me, like, you know, 40 or 50 people. But what was your act then if you didn't know magic? I did know magic, but I wasn't good at it. So that was the joke.

Yeah. Watching all these other acts, they were all doing comedy. They were all putting comedy in their shows. Right. I put comedy in my show. A. Whitney took me under his wing and showed me how to write a joke. Oh, really? The formula.

He gave me Robert Orban books. Do you remember those? Sure. Yeah. I think he's still alive, actually. Yeah, I think he is, too. I think he was a speechwriter Oh really? The formula. He gave me Robert Orban books. Do you remember those? Sure. Yeah. I think he's still alive actually. Yeah I think he is too. I think he was a speech writer for the president. Right. He was a great joke writer and he writes for radio stations. But I remember I'd go into the library and you couldn't check them out but you could take copy jokes from them and I learned how the style of writing a joke from that. Right. Because the jokes were so old you had to update them all you know. That's i learned and i might the street act made me really good really fast because that's what the

streets do because you got to pull people in oh yeah if you're bad for a second they'll you'll lose their whole crowd will walk or walk away where did penn and teller start because they were street performers too right well when i was street performing they were on off broadway in san francisco uh doing a show There were three of them originally. They were called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. That's what they were called. It was Penn, Teller, and a guy called Weir Chrissimer, who was a musician. And they did basically what they're doing now

with three people. But they got one guy to leave. The Pete Best of... Right. But he was a street performer. I remember talking to Penn. Yeah, they did Renaissance Fairs and stuff. Well, I think, wasn't he solo for a while this pen and yeah and yeah they he pended

was a juggler oh right and he did renaissance festivals and and they've worked a lot of san francisco street fairs and stuff but they were had a pretty good run in off broadway show yeah and i used to go watch them when i was just 19 or 20 i used to watch them so when was the first you know sort of spectacle when when what did you when did you start to develop the style of uh kind of over the top um insanity somebody once gave me a blood capsule i used to do the razor blade trick where i would swallow razor blades and swallow thread and bring them up all on a thread yeah but uh someone said you know try this doing that with the blood capsule freak them out pretend like you cut yourself so that's the first thing.

The reaction from that, when I started drooling the blood and pretending like I cut myself, people would come around. It's like an accident. You can't take your eyes off it. Did you ever admit to that it wasn't real blood? Oh, yeah. I think they knew it wasn't real blood because I would smirk and laugh about it. So that was the portal. Yeah. So smirk on it and laugh about it.

So that was the portal. Yeah, so every trick after that had blood in it. Even cut and restored rope I would put somewhere there would be blood in it. So yeah, I learned how to do shock stuff on the street. And there was a water drought. I remember you couldn't use a lot of water because it was a huge drought. And I would tell the crowd if they didn't stop, I was going to pour, I had all these buckets of water, I'd pour them out and say, if you don't stop, I'm wasting all this water. I'd grab a little kid and hold a knife to his throat.

I would do anything. And I learned on the street. And then Shields and Yernel were just leaving the streets at that time. The mimes. The mimes. Yeah. Right. They were in San Francisco?

Yeah. Wow. This is this whole world of comedy. It was a. The Mimes. Yeah. Right. They were in San Francisco? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. This is this whole world of comedy. It was a whole generation of comedy out there and who else was out there?

Waylon Flowers and Madame came out a few times. Really? Yeah. I was just saying, I wrote a funny joke the other day. I was just saying

this would be funny to get Waylon Flowers and Madame if he was still alive and Willie Tyler and Lester and book them in a show, a big country show. Yeah. Call it Waylon and Willie Tyler and Lester, and booked them in a show, a big country show. We call it Waylon and Willie, right?

You get 1,000 country people in there, and it's a gay guy and a black guy doing pep with puppets. We'll watch that show. That would be so fun. You just wrote that joke recently? Yeah, I just wrote that. So how do you make the break from the street? All right, so I made the break from the street

because they kept getting arrested. When I started getting really good, the crowds would get really big and they would go out into the street. I would try to rein them in, but I couldn't do it because it was like 200 people. And they bust you for that? Yeah. They bust me for it because I was the one causing it. So they get you for obstruction. Right.

And the businesses down in the Fisherman's Wharf didn't really want street performers, so they made sure the cops, whenever they could bust us, would bust us. So I was spending weekends in jail all the time, and Whitney was coming to bail me out all the time. And it just got to be ridiculous. And then- Now had the drug started? Yeah.

I was doing, buying sugar cubes on the street. Of acid? Yeah. Union Square, there'd be a guy that sells sugar cubes. The late 70s, so it was a good acid? 77. No, half the time it was fake and half the time it was real. You never knew if- So you'd be tripping and street performing?

No, I didn't really perform when I was high back then. I would wait until that nighttime and stuff and do it. I always could perform. I never did a drug that would hamper my performance like like i said i like focused drugs uh i've seen guys in san francisco do acid go on stage and i'm how the hell do you like ray booker and those guys yeah yeah how the fuck are you doing that so did you do clubs in san francisco yeah that's what i did i at when the streets were over for me when i decided i had to get off the streets then i went in i went to the holy city zoo auditioned for tony depaul and cantu yeah they gave me regular spots because i mean a street

act doing that with that energy put on a little tiny stage they they never seen anything like that tiny room yeah they had never seen an act like that now who was around then steve pearl yeah steve pearl dana carvey uh um ellen degeneres i was with with Bob Rubin Bob Rubin Bob was my opening act in Vegas not too long ago like two three years ago

was he alright yeah Bob was great man I mean I love I love his act me too he's trying they don't know

how to take him you know yeah and I think that's funny to watch the audience not know how to take him the old Rube yeah

he's so tall taller than the tallest yeah yeah he's just I would love I would love the more he didn't go over the more I laughed The old Rube. He's so tall, taller than the tallest. Yeah, yeah. He's just, I would love, I would love, the more he didn't go over, the more I laughed. It's nice to be with somebody you like to watch. Yeah. Yeah, he's trying to come back around. Is he?

Yeah. Well, he was in that movie. I was watching Boondock Saints. Yeah, yeah. He had a huge part. He was a villain in that. Yeah, I think he kind of had some rough times. He always does.

He's always up and he's down. He's up and he's down. That's his problem. Mostly down, mostly down, but he'll never give up, man. So you're doing the zoo. Yeah, so I'm doing the zoo. And I remember Robin Williams came in and was showing everybody his Morgan Mindy contracts. And he was making five grand a week.

Wow. We were all pouring over that. And he would come in and do sets almost every night. And then Cobb's Pub was around. And then there's a lot of rooms back then outside of San Francisco that I would do. The Country Store Tavern. Yeah. Remember that Country Store Tavern?

I don't know. That was before my time. It was Rooster Teeth Feathers. Yeah. That's what it turned into, Rooster Teeth. Yeah, that's still around. Yeah. That's a good room.

It is a great room. The energy in those rooms were fantastic. It's a nice setup. It's a nice setup. So I did that for years and years. I played San Francisco and developed my show and then did the comedy competition and stuff like that. For John Fox? Yeah. You did? Yeah. John Fox is the guy that got me my first big break. Really? Yeah. He took three

comics from San Francisco to the Improv in LA. They were doing a showcase industry night. None of us had ever played in LA before. Who were the comics? It was me, it was Will Durst, and it was was it Billy Jay? Probably. Maybe. What happened to that guy? I don't know. I don't either. I saw him in New York for years and I just don't know what happened to him.

Yeah, so the three of us showcased at the improv and I did a killer set that night and after I got off stage, all these producers came up and I got a killer set that night and after I got off stage all these producers came up and I got three TV shows in one night. That's what started.

What were you closing with? I got thick. I was closing with putting a bucket on my head, taking the bucket off and my head was shaped like a bucket after that.

Yeah. It was a cartoon effect. How'd you do that? I had a bucket inside of a bucket. It was like a shit. You know, it didn't really,

it was the stupidest thing. Do I look pale? No. Yeah, so. So John Fox, it's nice to hear a nice story about John Fox. Yeah, I owe him that. And then after that, I got Thick of the Night. Remember that show?

Mm-hmm. The show that was going to replace Carson. Right. Right. I got Thick of the Night. I got HBO's Young Comedian special. Which one? The eighth annual.

Who was on with you? John Candy. I was on with Steve Sweeney, the guy that does Mystery Science, Joe Hodgson, Paula Poundstone, myself. And Poundstone was San Francisco at that time, wasn't she? Or no? Yeah. She was.

Paula was. She'd left Boston already. Yeah, yeah, she was with us. So it was you and Paula and Joel and Steve Sweeney. Steve Sweeney and Carol Siskind. Oh, really? I can't think of who else. I think there was maybe one or two.

Kenny Rogerson was supposed to be on it, but he got too drunk before the show, and they didn't use his set. And you could see him in the background. If you watch that special, you'll see him back there by himself at a table looking down like, I know, I blew it. So sad, man. I know, and he was so good.

All the Boston comics. He's still funny, man. Yeah, they were all fucking drunks. Boston probably contributed a lot to my use. Oh, yeah? There was a guy there. He was in, yeah? There was a guy there. He was in the mafia. He was a hit man.

Everybody knew him. He was the guy that used to deal the coke in Boston to everybody. He said he sold church bells, but we all know what he really did. Down at Nick's? Yeah, down at Nick's. Exactly right. He was good, man. It's with the nostalgic warm memories.

Well, I mean, two times he offered to lend his services to me. And two times I was tempted to do it. Yeah, I was going to. It's scary how easy that is. Well, somebody stole $300,000 from me. That's a lot of money. Yeah, so he said, do you want me to take care of him? And I'm like, fuck yeah, I do.

But he's going to come back and get me. He's going to come back and haunt me. He will haunt you. So I told him no. I said. Well, he was just going to work him over or he was going to do him in? No, he was just going to come back and get me. He's going to come back and haunt me. He will haunt you. So I told him no. I said... Well, he was just going to work him over or he was going to do him in? No, he was just going to do him in.

But I kind of thought maybe just doing him over, I wouldn't get in so much trouble. Right. But I didn't do it. Did you get the money back? No, I never did. How the fuck did he steal $300,000? No, it was...

My agency did it. Do you remember Spotlight? Yeah. They had every comment. Yeah, I remember. They went bankrupt and everybody lost all their money. And they had collected deposits from all these clubs and put them, instead of escrow, they put them to the general funds to try to keep the company alive.

Right. So when they did finally close, we had to go out there and do all the dates that we had to honor, all the dates that they took the money for. Right. I'm talking like Jay Leno and Lenny Clark. Right, they had everybody. They had everybody. So we all got pimped. I lost $300,000 because I had a game show at the time.

Merv Griffin wrote me a game show, and I was doing a game show. So now, wait, did you move down to L.A. then? Yeah, I did. I went from San Francisco, then I moved down to L.A. Now, when does the cocaine you start picking up? During that part, it never stopped. And you loved it. I always had a good time with it. I always had a good time with it.

I never had bad experience with it, you know. Never? Well, what do you consider, I mean, the next morning, the lights come on and the birds are saying. No. Only never thought I was going to die. But here I am. Dying.

Yeah. So. That's funny, isn't it? I laugh at it, man. I'm like, of course I'm dying. I thought I'd be dying. I'm always thinking I'm dying, you know, the way I lived. But it never happened.

Never happened. It happened this time. I mean, the doctors told me six years ago I was going to, you know, but. From this, right. Yeah, but I'm still kicking. Now, what is this, like, I was told there was a a period where you went to alaska yeah yeah that's that was before you went to la yeah michael davis the juggler yeah he said that the alaska date was was an amazing gig to play because that taught me how to do cocaine proper

oh really yeah like what do you mean these guys would come off the pipeline with so much cash in their pockets not knowing what to do with it and and and then spend it on all the strippers and that's where i worked i was an mc at a strip club yeah so this is before you made the break yeah this is before i had my break but but how long would you go up there they wanted me up there for because i uh but probably three four weeks at a time right maybe once in the summer once in the winter so i get all dark at one time and all light one time yeah but i lived in a trailer in the parking lot of the strip club right so the strippers when they were done in between sets would come to the trailer and do

coke and fuck me so that's how i learned how to fuck right stripper will tell you if you're fucking wrong yeah they don't have no patience for that but if i can here it is mother so you put your hand there yeah learn how to fuck and And I learned how not to be picky at that time. Right. Because they were strippers. And some of them were really beautiful. Because they worked in Alaska. They get the best strippers in the business.

But where would you, but it was just for these pipeline guys, for these riggers, huh? Oh, yeah. They would milk these guys. They would come down off the pipeline. And they would take every penny they had. And you were doing magic? Yeah. Yeah yeah i was just trying to do mad my intro would be something like you want to see some titties yeah but first here's a magician and and they hated me

they would literally had guns pulling that you could wear guns on sidearms in alaska i had a gun pulled on me i got beat up and but i i wrote to a whitney brown i said i'm dying up here man i need to send me every book on heckler lines every heckler line book you can send me give it to me and he sent me all these books and i copied them on paper and i would just read them i didn't bother to hide the paper or memorize them it was too fast and furious and i would just like boom boom and i got really good i committed to my head still to this day i could do 100 heckler lines right off the top of my head and i got good at it and then i got i became actually witty i mean that's got your timing that's when the timing but more importantly the lightning fast response

right to anything that somebody could yell right and that was the best i think that was the best experience uh for my show is doing that strip club. The streets were rough. The strip clubs were rough. And by the time I was done with that, I had a polished show that worked anyway. And you could do cocaine professional. Yeah. And I could do cocaine.

I used to do it on stage, Mark. I would say, it's time for some coke. And I would pretend like I was snorting coke off my table. But I wasn't pretending. I was doing it. But you did that for years. Yeah. The cocaine thing. Well, I would just snort that big, huge table, but I wasn't pretending I was doing it. But you did that for years. Yeah. The cocaine thing.

Oh, I would just snort that big, huge jug of it. Yeah. That was fake. Yeah. But I would literally snort lines off the table. Everyone thought I was fucking around. But the guy on stage knew I wasn't because he saw it going off the straw,

but nobody else did. Oh, my God. Yeah, man. I used to write bits to keep me off stage. So when I started smoking it, I had to get offstage. I wrote a bit that I had an audience member up there following directions, taped instructions on how to do a trick.

And I was in the back hitting the pipe. Freebasing? Yeah, I was like, oh, my God. I was a loser. I was a loser. But I never missed a gig. I never missed a gig by oversleeping. I never did a gig that uh wasn't

worth what they were paying me to do i mean i mean money wise so i mean i kept it together what was the merv griffin show well merv merv saw me do uh uh some of the late night tv show right um but he hired me to do uh in atlantic city he owned resorts international a casino and i i did a show for him there yeah a live show yeah i replaced uh rip uh what was the name rip uh rip taylor yeah i replaced rip taylor you replaced yeah it was called red hot and rowdy the show yeah so i was the headliner in that and i and i brought in a lot of business at that time i was starting to get a good draw so i brought in a lot of business and he called me up after it was over and said oh i got a great idea he says you want to do a game show you want to host a game show

and i went well i'm not really the game show type you know and he went well this one you're the you that you're because i based it off your shows right so we want to do it with the game is going to be different every time every day there's the game will be different. We will never play the same game twice. Right. That was the whole thing. So I said, yeah. And we went and we worked on it. We wrote it.

Remember that I and some writers I hired? The guys I hired to write, one of them now is the president or vice president of ABC. Which guy? Mike Davies. Oh, really? Yeah. His brother wrote Lethal Weapon. And he was just a guy that used to pick my audience contestants now he's like big big guy yeah he's the guy man yeah

yeah yeah all these guys have gone to become really huge i've never asked them for favors and they've never offered them yeah but you did all right i did all right myself yeah i never really wanted to be an actor did you uh maybe a little you did well i'm doing a show now yeah i mean i can you act i'm okay i mean i'm i i can be present like i like i did a season like first season of my show i did okay this season i'm a little better it's just like listening i do all right how are you at memorizing the lines i'm good at that really yeah have you always been good at memorizing yeah i seem to be able to do it that's what scares me the most it's not the fact that the acting is that memorizing the lines yeah well how did the game show go did you have a good run yeah it well we

did we did the pilot and it was really really cool and uh nbc loved it and they picked it up and we shot 65 episodes of it we we did wow yeah we did 65 and that was that your big payday the first big payday well it was going to be if Well, it was going to be. If that's the $300,000 that got ripped off, that was like maybe a quarter of the check. Oh, wow. Yeah, but they stole all of that money. But yeah, we did 65 episodes, and I made some money off of that one.

And then I quit the show because Merv, I did two episodes they never aired, and they didn't pay me for them. And my contract said even though if they air or not, I still get paid for them. Well, they didn't want to pay me for them, and I walked off the show. And then when NBC found that out, they dropped the show, and Merv lost the show. So there's no love between you and Merv. Well, yeah, we made up.

I saw him at the – Rodney used to live at the Beverly Hilton. He used to come down all the time with his bathrobe on. He lived there at the hotel. And I saw him at the pool, and then I went over to have lunch. You were friends with Rodney? No, I just saw him there. I knew he lived there, and I saw him at the pool, and I talked to him for a little bit.

I'd never met him before. So I introduced myself, and then I went to have lunch, and Murb was there having lunch with some of the bigwigs. So I took all the silverware from all the tables secretly and put it up my sleeves and I had it all ready to go and this big gag.

And I said, Merv, no hard feelings. I want you to know I'm doing fine right now. And all the silverware just dropped. I made the loudest noise in the world in the middle of this restaurant and he died laughing. I thank God he died laughing and that kind of was all right after that but uh yeah it was it was great working with merv because

he was there every single day man he would tell the best stories man because he had that show for so long he's met everybody yeah and i would listen every morning i go down there i couldn't wait to go to work you know and get up and tape another game show you know and listen to merv talk yeah and you're doing the blow then too? No, I stopped doing the blow then. I didn't do it. I had to be real focused for that one because there was so much to do on memorizing the rules since the games were different every day. The games, I had new rules every day.

Couldn't be out of your mind. And we only gave away cash, which was Merv's brainchild because it was at his casino. And anyone who won the cash would have to walk through the casino to get to their car and basically put it back right in Merv's brainchild because it was at his casino. And anyone who won the cash would have to walk through the casino to get to their car and basically put it back right in Merv's pocket. So we only gave cash away. And we played the coolest games. Whatever we came up with, Merv would build it for us. I mean, we came up with some wild shit.

We were the first ones to do the Velcro wall, you know. Right. And we got in trouble with the gaming commission because we kind of cheated on a lot of the things. We would cheat on the games. It would be rigged. We didn't know you weren't allowed to rig the games if there was money involved and stuff. So I would be like a block stacking contest with somebody under the table pushing a rod up through my blocks.

Mine would always be one higher than theirs, you know. And they couldn't figure it out. So we got a lot of letters of complaint, and we would answer them by taping a quarter to the paper and say, here's a quarter. Go call someone who gives a fuck. Murr found out we were sending out these letters, and he just blew his stack. And then we got to get legit.

Yeah, so it was a fun show. It was fun. But after that, after the money being stolen from me and quitting the show, that was the downward spiral. That started the drug use again. And then were you just doing clubs and stuff? Yeah. I was doing clubs, but I wasn't healthy.

It was a bad state of mind. Two times I've been in a bad state of mind. That and when I got divorced yeah both times i i i never ever think about suicide ever but i was just kind of contemplating like when i got divorced i was sitting there with a gun in my mouth not it wasn't loaded but i just wanted to feel the drama sure i wanted to divorce is horrible it was it was really bad because mine mine was really bad because she just didn't tell me why she just said i'm going back to australia i'm leaving i'm leaving she just didn't tell me why. She just said, I'm going back to Australia. I'm leaving you.

She wouldn't tell me why, really. And I thought we had a good marriage. But were you out of control? No, I was not out of control. I'm never out of control. Even though I've done drugs, drugs don't make me out of control. I've always been there paying my bills and always been doing my shows. So after you lost the $300,000, what happened?

What, did you just go back to the road? Yeah, it was kind of like... Now, you worked with a lot of people. I mean, everyone knew you. You were a respected guy. You worked with Seinfeld. Yeah, yeah. I was with Jerry when his dad died.

We did a show that night. Oh, really? It was for the president of the United States. Really? Get the fuck out of here. Yeah, we got a call. I got a call from the Secret Service. I was in the hotel room in Atlanta,

and I got a call, and I was like, this is the Secret Service. Do you want to do a show for the president and i just hung up you know thinking i was like you know my friends because they do that shit all the time yeah so uh my agent calls back and says what what the fuck are you doing that was really the secret service so they did a background check and found out i didn't have any arrests and my background was clean and so they told me if you want to do the show, be at the corner of 58th and Broadway at like 7.30 in the morning and we'll pick you up and a black van will pull up.

We can't tell you where you're going or where the location is. Real hush-hush. So I went and I paid for everything. They didn't pay for anything. So when I got there, there was Seinfeld and Yakov Smirnoff. What were they doing in Atlanta?

No, I got the call in Atlanta. Oh, okay. We had to go to New York. Okay. And we got in this van. The three of you. Yeah, and they took us under this tunnel, under the Hudson Bay, Governor's Island, which is like a military base.

Right. And that's where the president was going to be. And they flew him in a helicopter and we all we did a show for him he was way far back in a reviewing stand they kept us away from him was there a crowd yeah there was a crowd and there was kids and then there was a big lawn and then there was the president did you meet him it was the president of france was there too president minaran did you meet him no they kept us away from him they kept me away from maybe you said kept me away from him. Maybe you signed with him. What year was that? So that was- This was a bicentennial year for the Statue of Liberty's fireworks show. Okay, okay. Yeah. So I decided, well, this is the first time I ever did Ecstasy, right? Yeah. I'm going to do a hit of Ecstasy and do a show for the

president. Well, that's only natural, right? Yeah. And so I started getting off on it and never done it before. And the Secret Service just was beating down on me. You felt it. I felt their eyes on me. Every second I felt them fucking staring at me and I'm getting really paranoid.

Yeah. And then my road manager shoot tests my blank gun off like an idiot. He shoots off my gun backstage. And they freak out? Oh, they materialize like out of Star Trek, man. They just came out of nowhere and tackled his ass to the ground.

Really? Yeah. They knew it was fake. They wanted to prove a point. Right. So he's like a 400-pound guy. They had him down like a hog. So you're out of your mind on ecstasy performing for Reagan.

Yeah, watching my road manager get beefed down to the ground. Oh, I got to clear something up. Now, the one rumor that was always around was that you got banned from Letterman because you flipped somebody off. I did. Yeah, I got banned from Letterman because I made a bet with a DJ named Kevin Matthews who worked in Chicago. And I bet him that I wouldn't flip him off sometime during the show. It was like a $100 bet. And that cost me.

It was your first Letterman. First Letterman. off sometime during the show it was like a hundred dollar bet yeah and that cost me is your first letterman first letterman uh i he called me over to sit down and i scratched my nose with my middle finger right thinking that that's that's the winning bet yeah and it wouldn't look obvious but i mean it looked really bad i'd watch it now today and i see it and i go and it was robert morton who who was producing the show then and he thought i did it to him right because he had cut my time back down by a whole minute and i was mad and he thought I did it to him. Right. Because he had cut my time down by a whole minute and I was mad and he thought

I was flipping him off. And so he told me you'll never be on the show ever again. Did he say I knew what you were doing? Yeah. Yeah, he knew exactly what I was doing and I couldn't convince him that I wasn't doing it to him, you know. You tried to tell him that it was a bet. Yeah, I said it was a bet. And it was. And so I never

I didn't do the show. Then he got fired. Maybe 15 years later, he got fired and Letterman saw my Comedy Central special and personally called. He himself called to have me on the show. Yeah. And I said, I wonder if he remembers

that I had done a show before. Yeah. Now, if you watch me come out on the second time I did Letterman, you see me laugh my head off when I'm walking out after the intro. It's because he stood up behind his desk and did this to me, like flip me off.

And then I started laughing. No, it's all he does remember this, right? So listen to this. I did probably the best set I've ever done on Letterman. It kicked ass. And I was in my dressing room, I'm getting undressed and I was so happy. Producers came back there and said to me,

we can't air that, what that set you just did did and i'm like what are you talking about i just killed it and i said well i stabbed a girl in the head my assistant was girl and i stabbed her in the head with a pair of scissors and it looks really extremely real and uh he took offense to that day and and who did well he's the guy said, Dave wants to see you up in his office. Yeah. He'll explain why. Yeah. And he says, I don't know why, but nobody goes up to his office.

He doesn't want anybody up in his office. So I go up to Dave's office, and he said, I want to explain something to you. I have a real strong position against violence towards women. And I went, well, Dave, it's slapstick is what it is. So what you're doing basically is you're, because it's a woman. Right. It's also the classic sort of assistant, the magician's assistant. Yeah.

And it was a slapstick gig. But then he said, the way he started it, he says, nobody's a bigger fan of yours than I am. And after he said that, he could have said anything. It didn't matter. Right. Because after I heard that, I'm like, well, that's all I could I am. And after he said that, he could have said anything. It didn't matter. Right. Because after I heard that, I'm like, well, that's all I could think about. And they pulled it. No, they said, we're going to hold the same audience for 15 minutes.

If you can come up with another set and get out there, and we'll tape another set. I don't have my props. I'm a prop comic. I don't have another five minutes. So I went out and did the same material except for I took the bit with the stabbing out and put something else in there.

So the audience was watching the same set laughing, trying to make it sound like it was nowhere near as good. Did they run that? Yeah, they ran that. And you can see the discrepancy is because the audience, they're kind of stunned by me coming back out again and watching me do the show again. They didn't explain it.

Yeah, and so every time I do Letterman, it's surrealistic. And then I did a show at Foxwoods Casino, and we were sold out, and he snuck in to see my show. Really? Yeah, and they told me he was there, but he didn't come up to me and say anything. So I called his office the next day, and he snuck in to see my show. Really? Yeah, and they told me he was there, but he didn't come up to me and say anything. So I called his office the next day, and I said, were you at my show last night?

And he went, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was there. He loves you. Yeah, he does like the show a lot. Yeah, he's a big fan. So that's good, because not a lot of people like PropCon. It's amazing. Who called you that you're most impressed with that found out that they loved your show?

Who was the biggest celebrity that called you out of the blue that said, you know what, I really love what you're doing? Well, Robin's been a pretty good fan of mine. Robin Williams? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Did he see you live and call up to you?

Well, he's seen me live, and he's left messages before. Yeah? It's weird. It's nice when somebody calls you like that. I got a call from Carlin. And then you don't know if you're supposed to call back. I never know. I'm like, what do I do? If they leave their number and say call back i would never

call back yeah i never would i'm bashful like carlin called you yeah when i when i was in vegas when i started my run in vegas um i was just supposed to do two weeks for brenner to fill in while he was on vacation at the gold nugget and two weeks turned into 13 years that's where so you had like you were you had tenure there you just i did i was there for 13 years i just last january i is when i quit doing that's big like so you're all set oh yeah after that i mean that was like three to four million a year man that was that was big money big money because i was filling up up the rooms and uh uh was that carlin called me and left a 20 minute message he must have been tweaking or

something yeah but he examined my whole show he took the whole show apart and said why it's funny and why he thought this was great and he was dissecting it all in his head as he was talking on the phone and it just it wasn't rambling it actually if you listen to it it made sense but i mean it was to the layman. He really took it in. Oh, he loved it. He said, oh, I just love you, man. I just love your stuff. And after that, there was nothing that anybody, no review,

nothing that anyone could say that would falter my confidence in my show. Right. Because after Carlin says that, who do you have to fucking prove it? Yeah, it's like being knighted. It is like being knighted. Yeah, man. Because, God, damn, I'm sure he didn't do that.

He did that once when I was sitting with Lenny Clark. He called Lenny Clark and did that to him when I was in the room once. And 10 years later, it happened to me. That's sweet, man.

Yeah. Vegas is good in the fact that people come out and see you. You know, a lot of stars go to Vegas and they'll come out and see you.

Right, yeah. In the audience, they'll say, Kevin Spacey's in the audience come out and see you. Right, yeah. In the audience, they'll say, Kevin Spacey's in the audience. Really? It's really fun, yeah. That was cool. I like playing Vegas for that reason, yeah.

And you live there. I'm starstruck too. I'm like you. I like to see stars. Oh yeah, me too. Yeah. But you live there so you set up shop there

and that was the big payoff. I lived at the Gold Nugget for two years. I lived inside the casino. They gave me the suite, you know, the Frank Sinatra suite. And they feed you and whatever you want. Oh, you when you're doing business in vegas no you don't pay for anything you sign you sign your name on so that

was like that you won i did win i did win the first two years i was there at the gold nugget i made more money than probably i've ever saved in my whole that whole career and what'd you do with it uh i put it in the bank because I've always been taught to save money. So I lived on my merchandise money, my t-shirt money, and put my paycheck in the bank. And what about the blow? I wasn't doing blow back then.

No? You think that coincides with whenever I was making the most money? Like the game show, I wasn't doing blow. You had this reputation. Yeah, no, the reputation, I don't think that really bugged anybody because there wasn't any bad shows

or didn't show up. No, no, I just was wondering if that was true, like how much you were doing. No, I wasn't doing any blow when I was doing the Nugget. I was clean. I go through bouts of cleanliness. I go for two, three years without doing it

and then start up again. Yeah, it hasn't been the entire time. Right. And then I put all drugs away and it hasn't been the entire time. Right. And then I put all drugs away and was just, I didn't do a lot of different ones. I was just doing coke for a while and then switched to speed for a while. But it never affected me except for now I'm dying of a heart condition. But when you were in Vegas for 13 years, what did you end up like? How extravagant did things get?

You bought a house in Vegas? Oh, yeah. I bought a beautiful house. I bought a mansion, man. It's like a castle. Yeah. And I got 27 cars. Yeah.

What kind of cars? Muscle cars, mostly muscle cars. American muscle cars. Yeah, nothing foreign. No foreign cars. Yeah. Some of them are back from the 30s, a Pierce Arrow, 32 Pierce Arrow, beautiful car. What's your favorite one to drive?

It depends on what kind of mood I'm in and how fast i got to be there like i like driving to work that's what i liked about vegas is my show was at 10 and i would leave the house at quarter to 10 right you know people would think i'm backstage getting ready but i'm still at home you know finishing dinner yeah and i i i could make it to the strip and in my corvette at 61 corvette yeah i could i could pull that in 10 minutes man i could be there yeah yeah and all the cops knew me so i if i did get pulled over uh i didn't get searched i didn't because they knew you yeah they knew who i was and so living in vegas it's a really small community is you know we're your buddies although actually at carrot top i would hang out with him and chris angel are um they were all my friends we all have a group that we hang out with oh yeah yeah yeah

and uh it's it was about the old guard are there any left wayne newton or anybody i never hung out with wayne newton no i'm trying to think of the old guard no i didn't hang out with any of the old ones they're they're slayton? Bobby Slayton? Yeah. He was there for a year or two. Yeah, he tried. A lot of comics came and tried to get their act permanently there, but it's not, I don't know what it is. It's not easy to do.

It's not easy. First of all, the marketing, I'm spending 30 grand a month on advertising. Right. Just on ads, you know, billboards. You personally? Yeah. Yeah, my deals have always been four wall deals. You know, I take whatever comes in.

All in, yeah. Since I had to draw and I was filling the rooms, I like that deal the best because all the money goes to me, you know. So you would market however you wanted to. No, they'll tell you how to market. They want control over you. They totally want control over you. Right.

That's the problem with the casinos. I had a real rough time. When I was leaving the Gold Nugget to go to the Flamingo, they were pissed off that I was leaving because I had really done a good job. I made their demographic younger and they were happy and I got a better offer. So I went and they just slammed me.

The Gold Nugget bad-mouthed me and said it was hard to work with. Just try to destroy me. And other casinos listen to that shit you know they believe it but the flamingo took me and i made more money at the flamingo what they say about you oh they just said i was hard to work with and and and all this crap and then then they had to eat crow because after it was done at the nugget they uh flamingo they made me a big offer to come back there oh really they made me yeah i got three they offered me three million dollars to come back uh i didn't have to pay for any advertising yeah i didn't it was a straight three million million in your pocket and so that after saying i was hard to work with they had to

i you know if i'm so hard i work with why are you making me this deal but to come back you know yeah yeah so i was ready to go i was ready to go back and and i got to sign the deal and then the week before i was to open they sold mgm grand sold the gold nugget to uh these two dickheads uh tim and tom they own they started a travel travelocity or something internet money and they bought the gold nugget and my deal went away yeah went away they were supposed to honor the contract anyway, but they didn't. So what else did you do with your money? You bought cars, you bought a mansion. I did stupid things.

You got a plane? No, I recreated a drive-in movie theater I used to work at when I was a kid in Michigan. I used to always work at drive-ins. And I had all these cars, and I said, how am I going to store these cars? So I got this giant warehouse at the airport, and I built a drive-in movie theater,

an indoor one. But you would swear that you were outdoors, because I have a planetarium projector that projects stars up in the sky. And who goes to this thing? Oh, well, I do, and my friends do, and I rent it out once in a while.

Copperfields use it. Pantera's used it a few times, you know? And, yeah people I just I was going to rent it out to the public but I decided I don't want people sitting in my car so but uh yeah it was it's amazing I I had murals painted on each warehouse wall of more cars so it looks like you're sitting in the long row of cars now like you hang out with copperfield and chris yeah. Do they look at you as a magician? Not really, no. Do magicians play? If I fooled them,

they get mad. If I learn a trick and show Copperfield, I just showed him recently, he got mad because it was me. He couldn't figure it out?

Yeah, he couldn't figure it out. Really? Yeah. No magician could figure it out. And you made the trick up? No, I didn't make the trick up. I was shown it. Someone showed it to me

and I showed it. Every magician I showed to, but professional i didn't make the trick up i was showing it someone showed it to me and i showed every magician i showed to but professional didn't have a clue how it was done really yeah i'll show it to you afterwards it'll blow your mind okay but uh yeah they they look at me more as a friend see i'm a neutral guy yeah i'm not a threat to them so that's why they'll all hang out with me because you're like they hate each other different type of entertainment they hate each other like oh so you can't hang out with angel no no no you know if Chris Angel hates Copperfield

I advise first they have a big feud going on you know Copperfield doesn't want to give up the crown right

nor should he you know and Chris wants it and so they're making up titles left and right the magician of the millennium

and the magician of the century really yeah these are like bought do you guys ever bust each other's balls?

Do you ever play tricks on each other? Me and Chris. Yeah. Copperfield's got a good sense. They all have sick sense of humor. And I'm a- Well, Copperfield's boyhood friend was a comedian, right? Ted Bloomberg.

Do you know? Was it? Alan Berski was. He made him cry. Berski made David cry. He did? When David was little, he came into the magic shop with a business card and he stole this logo from Alan, this rabbit that Alan had copyrighted.

And Alan yelled at Copperfield at the magic shop and made Dave cry. Yeah, Dave, I'll never forget that one. Really? Yeah. But do you guys do pranks on each other? Oh yeah, I do elaborate pranks, man. I'm a practical joker. So I have a book out of practical joking.

What's your best prank? Oh, I've got people on some amazing shit, man. I've sent people to do gigs that weren't even real. Yeah. I've done some really good stuff. That's horrible. Do you pay them at least? Well, my whole house is rigged up.

So I build these things and put them in my house. And then they come over and see i build these things and put them in my house and then they come over and see them and they want to have them i have a i put this in chris's angel's bathroom i put a shelf and on the shelf's a cremation urn and it says this is my lucky wrap my rabbit lucky always in my heart you know and when people are in the bathroom all you have to do is hit this remote control and the shelf drops down and the cre cremation room falls on the ground and all this ashes spill on the ground people in the bathroom They freaked man because yeah, yeah, Chris is at the door going is everything okay in there and they're Trying to clean this mess up and and some of them don't come out and some of them come out and not like what?

I don't know what you're talking about It's so funny just to put people in that spot man And I yeah, and I built stuff like that for them. And the Copperfields, I built some wild shit for him too, man. To put in his house? Yeah, he's got a room with the ventriloquist dolls. He's got all the famous ones. Whale and Flowers, he's got Madame in there.

Charlie McCarthy. Charlie McCarthy. And he's got the Cliff Robertson one from Twilight Zone. Oh, wow. There's a whole room of them. They're great. And I had rigged up so when people come near the room, it activates the sound.

You can hear them talking. You hear them going, shh, shh, shh. They're coming, they're coming. And then you hear glass breaking. And then when you come in the room, there's a broken glass on the ground and no one moved. Nothing's moving. It's really eerie.

So I like that kind of stuff. I like scaring people a lot. Like haunted houses eerie. So I like that kind of stuff. I like scaring people a lot. Like haunted houses? Oh, I built a haunted house in Vegas. That's another thing I did with my money. On your property? Two years ago, the plaza downtown, they gave me a hotel to trick out. They said, you can have two floors of this hotel to build a haunted house. Do whatever you want.

Yeah. And I said, are you serious? And I had the use of the elevator. I built the state-of-the-art haunted house, man. And two years ago, we opened it, and it was great. It was such a good haunted house. I mean, there wasn't those rules that you can't touch. Right. You got touched.

Yeah. You know, you had your ankles grabbed. So you just like designing this shit. Oh, yeah. I designed it. It took me a year. Do you do all the machine work on this stuff, too? I build stuff.

Yeah, I help build stuff. But now I'm delegating most of it. I go in there and oversee. You design it? I design it and oversee it being done. But I have most of it. My house is turked out. I mean, my house has been on TV a bunch of times on different shows, house shows.

People come over, and I've got a doll in a glass case hanging on the wall, house shows, people come over and I've got a doll in a glass case hanging on the wall, a display case, and this girl's doll is in there, but I have it chained. The arms are chained in the case and I put some blood on the dress. Yeah. And they're like, right away, they're drawn to that. Well, why do you have that? And I said, well, it's from a famous movie, a director, read the inscription on the foot.

And when they get close to it, this doll comes alive and starts thrashing inside this case, and the door opens, and it's just the horror on their face, man. I mean, just to see this doll. You like shocking people. Yeah. Where do you think that came from? I don't know.

Ever since I was a kid, my family was kind of like that. If someone said, I'm going to go take a bath, you would run to the bathroom, and I'd be on the door. Just to freak them out? Yeah, yeah. We liked scaring each other, you would run to the bathroom and I'd be on the door, you know. Just to freak them out? Yeah, yeah. We liked scaring each other, you know. Yeah. And I always was building spook houses when I was a kid.

I never played sports. You play sports? No. A lot of comics, they don't play sports. I never did. I'm not a sports guy at all. I'm not a sports guy at all either. So when they were all playing football on the street, I was building haunted houses

and I would get them to come on and do that, you know. So have you, now with this heart condition, have you had any problems? I mean, have you gone down? Have I gone down what, had a heart attack? Yeah. No, but I've fainted, three times I've fainted in the last year because of the medicine.

They're thinning my blood right now. Keeping it really thin so that my heart doesn't strain. Right. So when I stand up real fast, sometimes I get dizzy and I faint. It's happened to me three times and it's scary as hell. One time I woke up, I had a gas pump handle in my hand

and then all my money was blowing down the street and I woke up and I'm like, What the fuck? I was pumping gas. I must have been pumping gas. Yeah. You don't remember what you were doing and it's really disorienting and you get mad.

And then I hit my head once I passed out in my bedroom and it smacked my head. Yeah, but that's just from the medicine, I think. That's what's causing that. Well, you look good. I do. You know, I feel all right except for, like I said, if I try to do something, my legs lock up

and my hands lock up. But other than that but other than that yeah other than that you feel alright yeah I do feel alright I feel fine man I feel fine

and I don't think anything's gonna happen I don't see me going out that way well good I see me going out maybe in an accident leaving here

okay in the limo no don't do that don't attach it to my show I don't want to have attached to your show I should fake it right now if I faked it

you have to believe me that's my biggest fear is people think i'm fucking around so on stage since i'm a big practical joker everybody always you know there's a set hesitancy about helping me up well you just got to tell them you're sick that's what i do to the audience i tell them look i if i fall i'm not kidding around come get me because a lot of people died that way tommy cooper died that way dick shawn dick sha people died that way Tommy Cooper died that way Dick Sean Dick Sean died that way yeah I don't want to be I want to do it here

in this studio no it's not going to happen well so this is it you're retiring I'm done man I'm done if you want to see the show now it's going to be

reruns or you have to buy the tapes or I I got to figure out what I'm going to do for money now you know I got enough to live on

but I want I want money coming in why don't you design some state of the art haunted houses I am no I have a practical joke company I think I'm I'm going to live on, but I want money coming in. Why don't you design some state-of-the-art haunted houses? I have a practical jail company. I think I'm going to start up. That's it? Oh, yeah? Yeah.

Well, I hope your health holds steady. I think it will. Well, thanks for talking to me, man. Oh, it's just as fun as I thought it would be. It's great to see you. All right, man. Heavy shit, right? jonathan hanging on hanging on and moving forward but it literally could end at any minute any second oh my god that was heavy man go to wtfpod.com

for all your wtf pod needs get that app folks if you're just getting on board get the uh free app upgrade to premium you can stream all 500 plus episodes it's fucking jackets man seriously consumed boomer lives