-Over the years, one of my favorite things
about having you on the show -- You have had many odd jobs.
And yet every time you´re here, I discover a new one about you.
You worked at a carnival? -Yes.
As a matter of fact, so did the guy in that clip,
Smokey Putnam, the guy with the elephants.
He didn´t work at a carnival, but he --
Anyway, he worked for the circus.
But we go to the carnival to try and find him.
-Did that bring back memories for you?
-Uh, it did.
I worked at a carnival
for a very short time when I was quite young.
I ran the Whack-The-Cats.
-Uh-huh. Is that like Whack-A-Mole?
-No, nothing like it at all. I mean, you´ve seen it.
The cats are, like, lion faces. -Okay.
-And they´re fabric. It´s about this big.
And, then, behind the fabric
is a little board that´s about this wide.
-Uh-huh.
-Soft on the sides, like that. -Got it.
-And then you´re given baseballs, and you throw them
to try and knock the cat faces down.
Whack-The-Cats.
But, of course, you miss so much because it´s actually
a very thin board behind the larger face.
-Oh, I see. It tricks you into throwing at the soft part.
-Yeah, I mean, you can´t -- You have to hit the middle of it.
Anyway, I did the Whack-The-Cats at this carnival.
I even roped a friend of mine
into working at the carnival, as well.
He worked the fishing well.
And it´s not called a fishing well.
What is it? A wishing well maybe or something?
Anyway, you fish for things. But anyway --
[ Laughter ]
It was an abysmal carnival. -Really?
-It was so bleak. But, also, I worked the day shift.
And so -- I think probably the night
is the better shift to work there maybe.
-For carnivals? Sure, yeah. -I mean, I guess.
It´s not like you get tips, though.
But it´s just busier, so you pass the time.
Like, I did teach myself how to juggle,
which I no longer know how to do.
It´d be great if I said that I did that
and then I could come out here and juggle for you all.
But I can´t. But I can´t even bring that to the table.
All I have is the bathroom story.
Anyway --
And a clip. -Yeah. You brought the clip.
Thank you. -I brought the clip.
Someone else sent the clip.
-Okay. Gotcha. You didn´t even do that.
-I didn´t even do that.
-When did you know your time at the carnival was done?
Did you ever say, "This isn´t the life for me"?
-[ Laughs ] Oh, yes.
I used to drive up there with my buddy
in my little VW Bug that had no floor.
And we would go there, and we´d --
Anyway, I would be standing there, and I´d be there for --
You know, there´ be a half-hour
in between people coming to the Whack-The-Cats.
It was not a very popular thing.
-And then you just got close to the cats, I´m imagining.
-And the prizes stunk, sort of.
Anyway, but I was standing there one day,
and all of a sudden, I see the guy
who ran the ride that was next to me.
And the ride was one of those -- I don´t know --
Tilt-A-Whirl or Cups -- something spinning.
And it was next to me there.
And I used to actually pick him up hitchhiking
to come to the carnival.
-So this place obviously paid real well.
-It was so -- It was so bleak.
Anyway, one day, I was staying there --
So I had gotten to know the guy,
you know, pick him up hitchhiking,
and all of a sudden, he´s walking by.
This is after I´ve only been working there a few weeks.
And he´s walking by, and he´s just got
this sort of demoralized look and sort of hanging his head
and wandering up towards, you know, the office,
which was a shed.
And headed that way.
And I said, "Everything all right?"
He said, "Kid fell off the ride."
[ Laughter ]
I don´t even know if they heard that.
I said it too quietly.
-A kid fell off the ride. -Kid fell off the ride.
Anyway, and it just -- He said it --
The way he said it, I just thought,
"I got to get the hell out of here."
I mean, the way he said it was just like, "Again."
-Yeah.
Not shock. -No, not --
-He´s been worn down.
-It was about the paperwork or the report
or whatever the thing, you know,
that he was going to have to fill out.
-He had to mark -- "Who fell off the ride? Kid."
-It was a really brutal job. I didn´t last very long.
Only, you know, a couple months or less.
Like a month or month and a half.
But I had so many, you know, odd jobs and manual-labor jobs
and ones that were really hard --
like, you know, loading and unloading
freight cars and tractor-trailer trucks.
I worked in a meat-packing plant, unloading sides of beef.
-If you had to choose --
-But that job was so calcifyingly boring.
It was like retail. Retail --
-But it´s so funny because I feel like
people write books about working at a carnival.
No one writes -- They´re working at the meat place.
But you´re saying the meat job was better.
-Well, I was busy. -Yeah.
-I was working at a carnival that people weren´t coming to.
And it was also during the day. And no one´s there.
And doesn´t a carnival live at night?
It was like --
It´s actually like my job, television.
You know, I got into this business
´cause it was a night job. -Yeah.
-And then it turned out that it wasn´t.
-Yeah.
-And that was a rude awakening.
-So you got ripped off. -No pun intended.
-One of these days, you´re going to find a job you like,
and I really hope that -- -No, no, no.
I do. I love my job.
But I was counting on the later hour.
I´m not a morning person. -Yeah.
-And -- This wouldn´t be bad.
But you show up in the morning, don´t you?
-Yeah, I do show up in the morning, yeah.
-Count me out. -Okay.
-Well, please come back again, though.