Artie Lange: Life in the Corrections System

Me, one, again, this is something, things you wish you had on tape. About 1998-ish, me, Mitch Hedberg and Greg Gerardo both did sets. We all, three of us did sets at the Comedy Center. And there was an old diner on 9th and 23rd called Chelsea Square Diner. I don't know if it's still there anymore. The three of us was me, Greg and Mitch. And if you ask why God spared me out of that three, I have no idea. It's just sheer luck. But God spared me for some reason. I don't know why. And I remember talking, the three of us were talking about about drugs. And Hedberg, he told us to a couple of people. And I didn't know Mitch as well. I did a couple of gigs with him. But, you know, he said, you know, a lot of people are trying to get me to stop. I'm never going to stop. He said, I'm just just don't waste your time. I'm never going to stop doing it. I love it that much. And, you know, at the time, I didn't realize how dark that was. And he died. You know, he's been dead almost 15 years now. You talk about a real genius, you know, and like he just was like, I just I know I can never stop. Like that's how much it takes. It takes over to the point where, you know, you know, you might die. He goes, I don't care. I want to do it this way. Jesus. You know, so so again, well, he remember when he almost died from gangrene. Yeah, he was shooting into the same hole that he was going through. He might have been with a towel. I don't know. And Lewis Black, they did a tour together. And again, that's one of the sadder stories. Yet the security at the airport smelled the gangrene. Oh, that's how they found out. Yeah. And they found shit. I think he beat the case. I think they felt like paraphernalia or stuff. But you're talking about, you know, one of the best, maybe the best joke writer ever. And he just doesn't he just like I just want again, when you live in this life, like standups, most of us dreamed of doing this our whole lives. And now you're doing it. Who's going to tell you to stop anything? I think with him, too, they were inseparable. The standup and the heroin together. Yeah, like Miles Davis said, like we're playing the trumpet, you know, stuff like that. Again, you're talking about extreme personalities. Yeah, John Belushi. Yeah. And again, like you say, you have the same personality, but it just manifested itself in different ways. I was lucky when I was a kid. I knew junkies. And I had my friend Jimmy's cousin was selling coke when I was in high school and I watched him rot away. I watched him shrivel up and and I remember I was also I was very paranoid. Right. And I didn't I didn't want to ruin my life. I was always worried about ruining my life. Yeah. So I'd see things like that. I'm like, all right, stay the fuck away from drugs. That's an amazing, amazingly mature attitude at that point, because I was a direct option. I said that's going to be part of the success. Yeah, for me, it was self-preservation. And look, that's a smart way to think. But I tell I tell when I speak, I tell these kids because they're like, how did you make it, man? Like, how did you make it in showbiz? Like they Google me and they see me, you know, on the Tonight Show. They go, how did you do that? Like in rehab, they were like, you know, they're watching my movies on YouTube. These kids are magicians with the fucking thing. And I stand up and they go, how did you do this? Like being a junkie? And I'm like, I don't know. I can't even remember. Well, that's part of the problem is that you're kind of rewarded for being so wild. And being wild, you're it's an accentuated. Yes. By the drugs. Yes. And by the craziness and gambling and all of it. Well, the way I say the way Ray Romano wrote new jokes about having kids and a family, you know, a lot of comics you comment on your life. Yes. That's how you get new material. So my life was not a wife and kids. My life was this craziness with drugs and gambling. And that's that's where I sort of I mind that for material. And it's also the audience loved it. They loved the fact that you're out there living that life like Kukowski or Hunter Thompson. Anyone who's out there living that life. There's like it's romantic. Yes. Yes. Yes. The you're not living like the average Shlub. No, but really Otis says it a good fellas like, you know, we were rock stars. Yeah, you know, all these guys who had to wake up and go to a nine to five job. We don't know that life, you know, and I do it. I saw the other side when I was at this halfway house. With all these crazy motherfuckers. I had to get a job as part of the program. So I pump gas and I I worked on the back of a garbage truck for a while throwing garbage and I pump gas as a kid and you know, you know the money we make for being on stage. I'm going for you know from that money. I may I pump gas 40 hours one week. I got a check for 280 dollars. You know, so that's what that's life. Yeah, that's real life. That's real life. Yeah. Okay. Start by this kid in the halfway house. I had three roommates. One was a carjacker. The other one was an arsonist. Okay. This other kid was a was a joke. This kid was my bunkmate. He lived on the top bunk. I was on the bottom. He's like 22 year old. He had some form of Tourette's every 11 seconds. My hand to God. He made this sound. Hey every 11 seconds. All night. All right. To get to sleep. He watched porn on his on his phone. So he loved the specific kind of porn. And he would keep showing it to me. He's jerking off on the top bunk and I got to go pump gas the next day. I'm like my life is fucking over and he loved watching these really fat black jigs get fucked by small white guys. Okay. So this is what you hear all night. You hear this. Fuck me with that. Honky dick. Hey, you little white pussy. Hi. I'm political correctness is even in like jails like because he's in the old days people would just lit him on fire right and throw him in a dumpster. Right. But now it's a disease. Right. So he's got a disease. So but he the kid I go you're on a fucking internet. You can watch the hottest chicks on the planet. He would jerk off these chicks. I go those chicks look like the 86 Celtics. That looks like Bill Walton. But then it's like this enormous like Oprah looking chick with a little like Richard Simmons looking guy and he goes, hey, did you ever ask him why he's into that? Sort of but no explanation made any sense. Okay, the other kid I was in jail with I was in protective custody. So if you're in protective custody at jail, you you it means you're a murderer a snitch or some sort of celebrity. So you're up there with hardcore motherfuckers. So this this black kid who is next to me in the cell great kid. I love them. I love them. But when me and him were both out of the cell together for wreck time. I noticed the guards were real protective of me. Like now they would make him go in the shower and lock the shower while I walk past them. He had some sort of ghetto Tourette's or something like because every okay, he'd ask you a question about your life and then he would interrupt you by going word up like every so I'm gonna ask you a question just start to answer. Okay. Okay. What's your name? Joe. Word up. Where you from word up born of Jersey word up. He get every 11 seconds. He went word up word up. I love the guy. I was at okay because I'm locked in myself 23 hours a day. One of the guards told me he got chopped up three women. Oh, word up. Cut up. Yeah. So that's the you're rubbing elbows with these guys Jesus. I think he chopped up three girls the most affable. I like the kid. I still basketball with him like the pay the Golden State was playing and yeah, cuz you're you're in solitary confinement was able to have conversation. He was mentally ill obviously but but he kept he kept like I heard him on a phone the other thing about jail man. They have tablets now. They have the technology. So for one hour a day, I was out of my cell and you can play basketball or whatever but you're in these cages. So they give these young kids who are in jail for a long time tablets. They could call anybody on the outside. So they call their girlfriends, which is always a bad thing. Like it starts out nice, but you hear the build like how you do a baby. Wait, who's that? Who's that in the background? Who the fuck is out? And they start screaming at him and they get violent and I go don't call your girlfriend. And when this kid would talk to anybody's life, he kept saying, word up every five seconds.