(soothing instrumental music)
- The worst I ever did ever,
I did a jazz club out on Queens,
and my dad had to drive me to the gig.
And I bombed horribly,
and I was supposed to have
enough money to get a cab back home,
and I did so bad that the guy wouldn't pay me.
- Oh my God.
- Gerald's.
I was supposed to get 50 bucks, right?
- Right.
- So I was supposed to do two shows, I go in,
he says, "Yeah, you're gonna do one set,
"and then the band's gonna come on,
"then you have a break, then you come on again."
I was like, "Okay."
So I go on, and I'm so bad,
and there was no dressing room, so I bombed,
then afterwards, had to go sit in the room
with the people you just bombed with.
(laughing)
You're sitting there,
people are walking by going, "Aw, shit."
You just sit there.
I'm like 17.
And they say, "Okay, we're gonna bring that comedian back,"
then you would hear people go, "Aw, shit."
(soothing instrumental music)
And then afterwards, I go up to Gerald.
He's a grown man too.
It was really mean to be like this to me.
And I went up, I was like,
"Yes, I was supposed to get $50 for the night."
He turned around and said,
"You better get the (beep) out my face."
(both chortling heartily)
Then my father had to drive out to Queens
at two in the morning and drive me back.
"Oh, you a comedian, huh?
"Comedian, man, you gonna get you a job,
"and you gon' get out at nine in the morning
"and you come back after five.
"Mother (beep) comedian.
"Comedian my ass."
(soothing instrumental music)
(coffee pouring into cup)
I'm a careful man.
- Yes you are.
But not in your comedy.
You are definitely a fearless comedian.
- I wouldn't say I was fearless though.
I wasn't just, I'd just say anything.
You too.
You're really confident.
- Not like you.
- That's what you had, I'm telling you,
you were the first comic that seemed like you knew it.
Like, you got it,
and you seemed like you had all the--
- Well, if I did, that was just me acting like that
'cause I know that's what works.
But to me, when I watched you,
I thought, this guy is not scared of anything.
- Nothing is more fun than seeing someone you know bomb
and them knowing you're in the audience and watching them.
And it also, it makes the experience more fun
for the comic that's on stage.
- Anytime I'm dying and it's somebody in the back
and that knowing laugh, that always makes it easier to bomb.
- Right.
- When is the last time you had to use RAID?
- It's been a while.
And by the way, I'm not interested in any other brands.
It's RAID.
- D-CON works too.
- Forget d-CON.
All these companies that are in second place,
that they hang in there, why don't you just quit?
- D-CON is in second place to you.
- Yes.
Avis, Colgate, just quit.
- RC Cola.
How sad is it to work at these places?
You're never gonna catch 'em.
Pepsi.
You're never gonna catch 'em.
You ever have somebody come on stage?
- Yeah, I had somebody come on stage once.
He was so formal.
This young whippersnapper stepped over the line.
You're a marvelous audience.
Thank you and goodnight.
- [Jerry] Oh my God.
- Oh, and how we left on the way home.
We just laughed and laughed.
- What people don't understand about us is,
there's nothing that's not funny to us.
Nothing.
All this careful thing, that's just for the audience
and for the public.
Amongst ourselves, we don't care about anything.
Somebody died, it's funny two minutes after they died.
- Oh, we see the joke in everything.
- I've had people say to me so and so died,
and I went, eh, that's enough of him anyway.
- That's funny.
Now Richard Pryor is kinda like, you know,
that's who I wanna be.
But I also, equally fascinated with Elvis.
I was a big Elvis fan.
The suits and the way I was rolling
with the bodyguards and the house in Jersey kinda.
I bought it 'cause it reminded me of Graceland.
Elvis, Richard Pryor, Bruce Lee, and Muhammad Ali.
- I could see it.
It's like a recipe.
I take those four guys, I put 'em in a blender,
and you come out.
- Yeah, that's it.
Tracy Morgan told me, what'd he say?
Growing up, he said, you know,
my three favorite was you, Bruce Lee and Evel Knievel.
I was like, wow.
Evel Knievel was the most, 'cause his body,
he's putting his body on the line
and he never, ever lands it.
It seems like every jump,
and he's on a regular motorcycle
that he beefed up the springs on,
and it explodes on impact.
- They didn't even measure out what it could do.
He just eyeballed it.
- Evel Knievel, there's nobody like Evel Knievel.
(upbeat instrumental music)