Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (10 page)

Corey: How often have you used your status or your act to get a girl?

Dane: Oh man. I started in ’90. The first couple of years you’re trying to figure how to take the mic out of the stand without looking like a dummy. Once I started getting laughs and learning that girls really like to laugh—comedy is really a turn-on for girls. I never knew there was a thing as female groupies. I had my Motley Crue circa 1986 years before I finally was like, I can’t go that hard—that’s not a good word—for too much longer. I definitely had my mid-’90s. The Nirvana years were good to me.

Corey: Instead of turning on a Journey CD, you would turn on your ‘Harmful’ CD and that was the aphrodisiac there?

Dane: Yeah, I’d be like, ‘I’ve got this CD I just released. It sold a couple hundred thousand copies. You want to hear it?’ ‘Yeah I want to hear it.’ Ten minutes later they’re dyin’ and you’re like, ‘I got ’em.’ I tell you right now when you look out in the crowd and you see you’ve got girls laughing, you know 80 percent of the work is done right there. The rest of it is not walking up and saying something in complete idiocy that makes her uncomfortable. But at the same time there’s no worse feeling than seeing a couple and you’re cracking his girl up. Because I can look down and a little part of that guy knows that another guy is making his girl laugh that hard. I know because I have felt that way—been with girls—and it hurts. You never want your chick laughing harder than you can make her laugh. Never bring a girl to a comedy club. Never. Even when I’m married, I will not bring my wife to a comedy club. Weezer said it best, ‘I want a girl that will laugh for no one else.’

Corey: Do you temper your act if certain people are going to be in the house, like your mother? Would you not do the cashew?

Dane: When I was first in Boston, she would come all the time. She loved coming to the show. My mother’s really cool. She has a truck driver mouth herself. Some nights she would have a couple Kaluha Sombreros, and she would be yelling from the back, heckling me. People would be like, ‘Shut up.’ ‘No, no, no, that’s my mom. Don’t tell her to shut up.’ And she would always be like, ‘Tell the sex stories about me and your father.’ Just nutty.

Getting zinged by the king of insult comics is a rare treat.

Fans in the front row of his shows wait with nervous smiles on their mugs, anticipating a verbal smack down from “Mr. Warmth,” Don Rickles. After more than 50 years of slaying in Vegas and theatres around the country, it’s second nature for the master—not slowing at all in his 80s.

He got me quick—mainly for not reading his book before the interview.

Aptly dubbed “Rickles’ Book,” the effort finds the comic riffing through his life, dubbing his member “Spider,” performing in strip joints, Don’s long friendship with Bob Newhart and into his movie career up through the classic turn as Mr. Potato Head in the “Toy Story” series.

(I have read the book since this interview, because Rickles threatened bodily harm if I didn’t.)

The book is not packed with any shockers but is a quick, enjoyable read—mainly because it’s written in Rickles’ rat-a-tat voice. He’s a class act, though quick to rattle the cages of celebrity pals like Frank Sinatra—who dubbed the bald comic “Bullet-head.”

Frank Sinatra Jr. told me that Rickles is a terrific guy, “one of the few real men in the whole business, too. He has integrity, has honor. He’s devoted to his to family, his wife, his children, his grandchildren. He’s a decent man.”

I was excited to speak with “His Decency,” so I jumped right in with the questions after a quick exchange of “Hello. How are you?”

Corey: What can we look forward to in your upcoming show in St. Louis?

Don Rickles: Oh, you’re ready to go, eh? OK, boom. You’re Charlie-Fire-the-Bullets. What’s your name?

Corey: Corey.

Rickles: Corey, jeez, hit me, bang, bang, bang. OK, I’ll go as fast as you. I’m gonna do some jokes, make people laugh, ‘Ha ha ha,’ then I’m gonna say goodbye. Boom. That’s it.

Corey: Do you remember the last time you were in St. Louis?

Rickles: The last time, Corey, I was in St. Louis, I was with Sinatra. That’s the only time, and I’m looking forward to it.

Corey: You know, Frank Sinatra Jr.’s gonna be playing the same theatre that you are.

Rickles: That’s wonderful. Maybe I can get an autographed picture of him.

Corey: Do you have any words of wisdom to share with him?

Rickles: Just tell him to send me some of his father’s money.

Corey: I imagine you’re pretty pleased with the success of the book.

Rickles: Oh yeah, you know it was a New York Times Bestseller. I’m the Jewish Mark Twain. I never dreamed that I’d have a book. Have you read it?

Corey: I’ve read snippets.

Rickles: You haven’t read it. Don’t lie. I hate that. Don’t lie to me, Corey. Now, I have to come to St. Louis and I have to slap ya’ in front of people. Can’t believe you didn’t read the book. You better start reading the book, because if we bump into each other in St. Louis and you haven’t read the book, I’m gonna have to hurt you.

Corey: I’m gonna read the book.

Rickles: Anyway, what was the question?

Corey: I just commented that you must be pleased by how the book is doing.

Rickles: Oh yeah, sure. Simon and Schuster came to me and said, ‘Write a book.’ To David Rosenthal, (the publisher) of Simon and Schuster, I said, ‘David, why? Everybody is writing a book.’ He said, ‘Because it’s you.’ What I did, which turned out to be great, I did memoirs. I didn’t do my life story in order. I’ve done highlights of my life that I think people would be interested in. And it’s been very successful to this day.

Corey: If it continues to be a hit, they could ask for a follow-up.

Rickles: Yeah, they could ask for that, too, but first I’ll wait and see if Corey reads my first one. I don’t want to push it until Corey knows what the hell I’m doing.

Corey: When you go into a show now, do you look for something in the crowd or do you just know?

Rickles: Oh no, after all these years, it’s part of my personality. And the show is not based only on having fun with the audience. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance, because there is music to it now. There’s a little bit of dance. There’s stories. It’s not exactly a stand-up guy walking out there, and saying, ‘Two Jews got off a bus’ or ‘Two Irish guys had a drink,’ you know what I’m saying? It’s more of a storytelling performance with music and dancing and conversation. And thank God it’s kept me going pretty damn good all these years.

Corey: You probably haven’t had to deal with a heckler in a long time then.

Rickles: Oh no, those days are over, when I worked in joints, you know. Thank God, anybody that heckles me now better have a lot of Blue Cross.

Corey: What do you think of the ones they show on Comedy Central?

Rickles: You’ve seen the Dean Martin roasts that they showed on television, and they were great. Now it’s a new generation that’s doing it, and I think they’ll never top them, in my opinion, because they were very special, and the people that were on it were big, big heavyweights and it was fun to do.

Corey: What do you think about people trying to carry on your torch, like Lisa Lampanelli?

Rickles: More power to them. I like to think that I’m one of a kind—and I am. No one can take that away from me. The original is always the best. People that are impersonating Frank Sinatra, you can never be Frank Sinatra, you know what I’m saying? That’s how I feel about that.

Corey: You definitely come across as one of the nice guys of show business. What’s the secret, the long marriage?

Rickles: I don’t know about that, but I’m married 42 years to a wonderful lady that keeps my head straight if I ever get out of gear. I think being a nice guy is just part of your personality. I was brought up with a wonderful mom and dad. I’m an only child. I’ve made some nice friends. I’ve never been in the position of being envious. I’ve never been in trouble, if you know about my career. You’ve never heard stories, ‘Rickles did this’ or was terrible or was mean. I’ve never had ever that kind of remark about me, so there it is.

Corey: This might be in the book—and I’m going to find out soon if it is—but where did the origin of ‘hockey puck’ begin?

Rickles: That’s a good question, Corey. If you find out, you call me, because we’ve never been able to track it down. In my joint days—I call them my joint days, because today they have comedy clubs—but in my day, it was striptease places. Believe me, striptease—they were dressed compared to what they do today. I worked at places where they had four, five girls entertaining, and I was the comedian in between.

Those were tough places because they were there to see the girls. When guys heckled me—and there were hecklers in those days, for some dumb reason—best of my recollection, I said, ‘Don’t be a hockey puck.’ I don’t know why I said that, but I did. And to this day, when I walk down the street, with love and warmth, in New York City, where I come from originally, guys will yell, ‘Hey, hockey puck! How are you?’ Ask me how that stuck, I don’t know.

Corey: Do people want you to insult them in the street?

Rickles: Somebody will come up to me and maybe see me before the show and will say, ‘Don, if you’d call my mother a moron, that would mean so much to me.’ To myself, I’d say, ‘Go away; are you crazy?’

Corey: What’s the status of this documentary that John Landis is involved with?

Rickles: Oh, it’s wonderful. God, I’m blowing my own horn, but John Landis and I go way back to a picture called ‘Kelly’s Heroes.’ He was a gofer then. He was 18 years old, and we’ve remained friends. Then I did a picture with him called ‘Innocent Blood,’ which was pretty good. Then my son decided to do a documentary about my career, and John heard about it and said, ‘I want to be part of it.’ He really took it over with my son and really made it great.

There’s so many major stars in it. It’s a little about my life, and it’s a little about my vacations with Newhart. It’s a little about my relationships with different stars. And they all talk about me, and I talk about my career.

Corey: Is there footage in there of the roasts and from Johnny Carson?

Rickles: Oh yeah, lots of stuff about Johnny and the Martin roasts—it’s all there. I can’t make it up. It’s gonna be on HBO, too, so you’ll get to see it if you have a television set. I don’t know. You talk so fast; you’re so busy. You didn’t read my book, and you don’t have a television set, so you don’t have to worry about me.

Corey: One of the things I really enjoyed seeing you in was ‘Casino.’ Did you do your own stunt where Joe Pesci hit you over the head with the telephone?

Rickles: They had me covered up with a suit, but Joe got carried away and really thought he was one of the mob.

Corey: What was it like working with Martin Scorsese?

Rickles: Oh terrific, except he mumbles too much. I told him that. ‘I’m not gonna carry you anymore in these movies if you’re gonna mumble all the time.’ It was a great trip for me.