Don Gavin Remembers a Wild Night at Boston Comedy Club Ding Ho

When you were in the mid 80s, early 80s, if you weren't a drinker, you were the exception of the rule. Wow. So, you weren't a drinker before. Not really. Did you just start hanging out with these guys? I'm not blaming any of them on it. No, hey, look, I'm not even. Was it right away? Like, just you walked into this lion's den of people doing drugs? Who was the fucking, who's patient zero? Like who, because it wasn't that many of you, right? Well, I think that, I think that it came to a culmination at the Dinghole because we basically ran and owned the place and we'd stay there until, I can't remember walking on there many times going, ah, beautiful, it's not even light out yet. It'd be 6.30 in the morning. But we were serving drinks and half the people, there'd be 10, 12 comedians sitting around and four or five other guys, the other guys are cops. They're in there drinking with us too. So we weren't going to get bused or anything. I mean, Kenny Risen first got there. He walked in the door there. He got there, I don't know how, but he got there around two in the morning. And there's 67 of us, you know, they read the smoking joints, doing some lines and drinking, and we're up on the stage playing cards, you know, for money. And he goes, what is this place? Paradise. Paradise. He had no idea. He goes, someone said, well, what do you want for a drink? He goes, who would the healer drink this? And everybody goes, nobody you asked for. So then he's getting into other stuff. He made up for lost time too. That was what we'd always heard about the Ding Ho. It was like some legendary place. When we were starting out, it closed in like 1984 or something? I don't know about the, maybe, yeah, right around that moment later. I started in 1988 and we had heard about the Ding Ho. It was like, it was spoken in hushed tones. It was like, you know, that's where it started. So it closed in a heartbeat because the owner lost the club and playing Chinese dominoes. No, he lost $240,000 in one night. And it was my night. Then I had my show there on Fridays. I come in and I never saw chains or padlocks bigger than that in the front and back door. Never to be reopened as a comedy club. It became an Indian restaurant, but it just went, phew. Playing Chinese dominoes? I don't even know what Chinese dominoes are. That's good, probably. God, I mean, it's crazy how something like that can happen where there is just this one place and one core group of people and then the comedy club scene branches out from that. Like Houston used to have this place called the Laff Stop. Did you ever watch that? Sure, yeah. Yeah. That was the same thing for Houston. Houston had a great scene. Houston was a little crazy. It was wild. It was wild. Yeah. And when I first went there, it was when it was at its wildest. It was after Kenison had gone and Bill Hicks had left and all those guys were gone. Yeah, Colla Bow was another name. Yeah, Jimmy Pineapple. Jimmy worked with me the first time I ever did a weekend there. And the first time I was ever there, I was like, wow, this place is like a lot like Boston. Like these are a bunch of wild fucks. They had a show going on in the main room and then in the bar area, they had another stage and the open mic night started at eight, went till two o'clock in the morning. So you get done with your show, the show will be over at 10 and you go out to the bar and you'd be fucking hanging out there for another four hours because the show's still going on. Yeah. It was crazy. It wasn't crazy. I remember a good story there. I was, you used to walk from the hotel to the venue and it was all the, you know, cowboys basically down there. And so I get, I'm walking, I get hit in the back with the water balloon, but you would have thought I was shot with, shot by a rhino gun, you know, bang. I was soaking wet. When I get there, I had to put on one of their t-shirts and I'm going, I can't believe how this guy hit me. That could. So when I get to the club, I see the car, it was recognizable. I go, oh, they're coming to see me. So I went inside, got a hammer and went out during the show in the opening hours and broke every window in their car, including the directionals, the side thing. And I come and I understand you both. I got hit by this water balloon. I said, whoever did it, nobody took climate. I said, what, but what a great aim you had. But I didn't mention about the car. That's hilarious. Did you go out and watch? Oh yeah. Check to their window what they do. I mean, I put, I brought those little tiny, uh, you know, directions on the side of the car. I mean, every window, if anybody can flatten it. Yeah. If you break every single one of that, that's an accomplishment. That is an accomplishment and that's a lot of work to get that fixed. Yeah. It was especially with no lookouts. You change a tire pretty quick. Yeah. You had no lookouts. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.