Lenny Clarke Tells Boston Comedy Stories | Joe Rogan

When did you stop doing it? 22 years ago. Wow. 23. Wow. That's a good amount of time. Well, I had to. You know, I was doing this movie and I finished it. I had to throw this guy through a wall and I really liked the guy, you know, and I didn't want to hurt him. And I said, no, no, you got to. So I put him through the wall and took a door off the hinges and they said, Lenny, we don't own that door. This is why he bulges place. I'm done after today. You know, someone's going to pay whitey. So the guy I got, I finished and I bought a bag of blow and whiskey and bag of dope and some beers and guys, you're happy. I said, yeah, you want to get real happy? I said, you don't scare me. So we'll pick up at 6 a.m. So I went back to the hotel and met my buddy, my childhood buddy. We went out. He said, let's see how many bars we can go to before they charge us for booze. You know, so he ended up at the tall ships down at the Faneuil Hall. And the guy didn't know me. So we paid. We said, we'll stay here. Then he realized where I was. Then we drank free, went back and we're doing blow and the door bags open and we go free. He said, what? He said, the guys, come on, we're going to go into like a rave. And he took me to an AA meeting in South Boston. And it just it clicked. You know, I thought it was a gag. I said, I had to blow with me. It's come on. Once in all lines. Just listen, listen. This is after a bender after what? During a bender. I still had to blow on me. And I thought it was a rave. I thought we're going, you know, with the church. My Phil Baranow. He was my he's still my sponsor today. You know, and he's a young kid. And you know, I said, how did you get? I said, did you have a problem? He says, I used to go into banks with a shotgun. Everyone on the floor. I go, you can be my sponsor. Wow. That's the best thing. Joe, we got sober together. Yeah. And he and I the same day. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. 23 years. Yeah. That was a thing about that whole Boston cruise. It was all kind of tied to drugs. Oh. And the comedy had that feel to it because the comedy was frantic, you know, and there was a thing. Yeah. Bang, bang, bang. There was a thing about the guys who came out of Boston, like still to this day, they had like the fastest pace, the most punchlines, and the audiences there were used to that. Yeah. So they didn't want any bullshit. And they would tell you. Yeah. They would tell you, if you weren't good, you suck tonight. Get off. And we would have, there were times when I'd say, this is going to be new material tonight. Anyone who doesn't do new material, the minute you do anything you've done before, get off the stage. So Roger's going to be sitting at the back and you've done that. He'd throw a shot glass, he'd shatter on the wall. Next. And it made you come. And the people, like you said, the audiences that came in there would come every week. So you'd have to. And they would not settle for any bullshit. That blows. No good. Yeah. There was a whole scene there. It wasn't just the comics. It was like comedy connoisseurs. There was so many people that came to those clubs. The shows. Pull it up, Mike. The shows that were legendary were The Ding Ho on a Wednesday night. Lenny would put like 32 acts on. And of all the, I'd go, Len, you know, we got to get this show over. We got to close. Shut up. I got a couple more guys I want to give a break to. And I'd have guys going on till two in the morning. And we'd go on a liquor license and say, dude, the cops are complaining. You got to stop. And I'd go, have a drink and we'll finish up. The first night he took over, when Cremins left, Cremins was leaving. And she was this. Jesus, Joe. 85, 86, somewhere around there. I thought it closed at 84. I could be wrong on the... I don't know. It was short. It closed before I came in 88. You know what, Joe? You're right. Probably around 84. I took over from Barry. So Shunly says to me, hey, man, Barry's leaving. Will you stay for me? I'll double your pay. And I go, yeah, all right. I'll stay. It was at $15 to $30 at the time. And he says, you run the club. I go, oh, no, man. I'll get a guy. He goes, oh, my little brother, he just got laid off at Polaroid. And he goes, well, what if he screws us? I said, if he screws us, I'll tell my mother. We'll be fine. So he comes in. And the first thing he says to Shunly, he goes, all right, the food sucks. Close the back room. Close the restaurant. Make that a showroom, too. So you open the front room. You go through the kitchen and do a show in the back room. Then you come back there and wait till it. And we started. We were doing six shows a night. But the first night he comes in, I was pretty lit up. He goes, you're not going on tonight. You're drunk. And I go, fuck you, man. You're not a little brother. I just got you the fucking job. You fuck you. I'll do whatever I want. Blah, blah, blah. So he gets Gavin. And they go, come on, man. Let's go in and cool them with the lines. We're in the cool of doing lines. And Gavin goes, I'll be right back. I go out in here. Click. They locked me. He was so high. I said, you're not going on tonight. They locked me in the cooler. And I'm back. And so I said, I'll show them. I started fucking drinking everything in there. I passed out. They had to get me out of there. I kept, I apologize. OK, you were right. But he turned it into a goldmine. We were doing six shows a night. Three in the front, three in the back. Well, Sweeney said that the guy lost it in a gambling game. Yeah. Well, yeah. He used to play Chinese Dominoes over in Chinatown. And he didn't pay his food tax. And so I guess a year and a half later, they came and locked it up. Well, first they came and he would send a kid out to a liquor store to buy booze because they took all the booze. So we have to buy booze for that night. And then after that, they came and they took the chairs. They took the tables. It was incredible. Yeah, he lost everything. But it was Wednesday night, Lenny. Thursday night, DJ Hazard. Friday night, Don Gavin. Saturday night, Cremins and Sweeney on Sunday night. And you know, just kill a show. And what people don't know is that Boston had a different way of doing it. So if it was the Lenny Clark show, Lenny would host the show. Right. Lenny would go on. You would do like what, 10, 15 minutes or something like that? Supposed to. He'd open with 40. You know what? You know what? You know, when I came up with that joke, that was my idea because, yeah, because it used to be, you know, opening mid-life closer. And I was always at close. I went, hey, man, if I host it, I can do lines and smoke dope in between the guys. And I said, well, if someone has a bad set, I can pick it up or I can be the buffer while they get over that guy. And it just took off. Well, it was a great way of doing it. Yeah, it really was. And then you would kind of close it too, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, there were different nights, different crowds too, like Gav. Like I was always working Wednesdays and I'd be other clubs. But I was wondering what Gav showed, because Gav had a great show and they didn't like me. I was like, Gav's crowd did not go for me. They hated me. And I said, what the fuck? You know what I mean? It was a whole, and I had to learn to adapt to different audiences because... What was the difference between Gav and his crowd? Gav used to say it was more, uh, they were smarter. They were smarter. Well, he was a smart motherfucker. Oh, yeah. He's got more than me. He's got a couple of masters. Yeah. Yeah. He's a genius. His fucking comedy was so sharp. He would have punch lines you never saw coming on top of punch lines you never saw coming. You were recovering from the last punch line. Then he would hit you with another one. Oh, yeah. It was... The first time I saw him, he came on and I watched him and I said to him after, I don't know how long you been doing this? This is my first time. I'm like, you know, fucking lying. Gav goes, well, not after a good start. Right? And like, it was like competitive. He was really competitive. And one night I was doing a show with him and some guy came on stage behind me. He was coming behind me and Gav jumped over this railing and escorted the guy off. And I said, man, that was pretty cool. He goes, I got you back. And then we drove home to his place and it was like three days getting high and we've been friends ever since. But it was funny because he said to me, he goes, Lenny, I got to ask you a question. If you could be the richest person or the most famous person, what would it be? I said, oh, without a doubt, the most famous. He goes, really? He goes, OK. Six weeks later, it's Gav. I thought about it. You're right. I'd rather be the richest, the famous shit, a bunch of bullshit. He goes, well, I'm glad you came around. See what I mean by smarter? He's nuts. Yeah. If you're the most famous person, you're just going to get stalked everywhere. Oh, it's horrible. You'd rather be that dude that nobody knows is rich. Of course. You know, I have five billionaire friends, billion and a million and a billion friends. Really? Yeah. And I think I'm like the pet project. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, to live like that, you know what I'm not sure, billions? I don't know if you've ever seen that. No, I've never seen that. These guys are just like that. More money than you could spend. More than you could spend. Yeah, that's a weird life. Yeah. A weird life where everybody else is struggling and scratching. But no one knows them. Well, some of them people know. But these people are like anonymous and have more money than you could ever. That's very clever. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's what I'm... I've been like that.