Joe Rogan Experience #1270 - Lenny Clarke

Joe Rogan 0:02 Five, four, three, two, one. Fucking yeehaw. (clapping) Lenny Clarke, ladies and gentlemen-

Lenny Clarke 0:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:11 ... and his brother, Mike. Mike Clarke, the second man to ever give me paid work ever in my entire professional career-

Lenny Clarke 0:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:17 ... opening up for Lenny at Jay's in Pittsfield.

Lenny Clarke 0:20 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:21 Right?

Lenny Clarke 0:21 Right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:22 Shit, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 0:23 Yeah, I remember that place, yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:24 Norm the Foe gig.

Lenny Clarke 0:25 For... And I don't even know if Norm's around anymore, but I remember that gig like it was yesterday.

Joe Rogan 0:30 That guy paid my rent many times, many times.

Lenny Clarke 0:34 Mm-hmm. Good guy.

Joe Rogan 0:35 And you did too.

Lenny Clarke 0:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:36 Working for you paid my rent ma-... I worked for- (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 0:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:39 I worked for Mike one of the craziest gigs I ever did. Yeah, I think it was a one-and-done. You never did it again. It was a restaurant. And I was in the seating area. And the microphone for the people when they announce their table was tied-

Lenny Clarke 0:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:50 ... to the PA system.

Lenny Clarke 0:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:52 So you'd be in the middle of this punchline. You'd be like, "So I said to the guy, 'Clarke, party of two.'"

Lenny Clarke 0:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:58 "Party of two, Clarke, your table's ready."

Lenny Clarke 1:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00 Like, oh, no.

Lenny Clarke 1:02 Was that... That was at the Mexican place down at the Cape, wasn't it?

Joe Rogan 1:04 Down at the Cape? No, it wasn't a Mexican place.

Lenny Clarke 1:06 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 1:06 It was a seafood place.

Lenny Clarke 1:07 Oh.

Joe Rogan 1:08 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 1:08 Oh, I, I had a lot of one-nighters back in the day.

Joe Rogan 1:10 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 1:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10 Well, that was the beautiful thing about being a comic in Boston is that if you lived in Boston, you could go anywhere within, like, an hour or two hours outside the city and work basically every weekend.

Lenny Clarke 1:20 Yeah, it was-

Joe Rogan 1:21 That w-

Lenny Clarke 1:21 It was Tuesday through Sunday, Joe.

Joe Rogan 1:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 1:23 You know? There w- w- we were working seven nights a week at one point.

Joe Rogan 1:28 That's crazy.

Lenny Clarke 1:28 There was so much b-... You know? And, and cash.

Joe Rogan 1:31 Yeah, cash.

Lenny Clarke 1:31 Very cash. Cash is king.

Joe Rogan 1:33 Cash. Well, it was amazing, but it was also terrible because a lot of people were very bad with the taxes.

Lenny Clarke 1:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:38 And they, uh, they-

Lenny Clarke 1:39 I always p-... My mother told me, "Don't fool around with the taxes or the mob."

Joe Rogan 1:43 You might've been the only guy.

Lenny Clarke 1:44 Oh, I paid. I, I paid.

Joe Rogan 1:45 But you might've been the only guy. Everybody else got hamstringing.

Lenny Clarke 1:48 Yup, Noxie got killed. Kenny got killed. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:50 Yeah, they all got killed. And then when they got killed, it was like hundreds of thousands.

Lenny Clarke 1:54 Oh, it was bad.

Joe Rogan 1:54 'Cause it was years and years. And, you know, and you gotta make that up, like fuck.

Lenny Clarke 1:59 Oh, yeah. There's no getting out.

Joe Rogan 2:01 Yeah, there's no getting out.

Lenny Clarke 2:01 No getting out.

Joe Rogan 2:02 You wind up paying it for the rest of your life. It's like student loans or something, you know? What are you doing out here? What's going on?

Lenny Clarke 2:08 Uh, I, well, I came out to do this.

Joe Rogan 2:11 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 2:11 And-

Joe Rogan 2:11 Justice? No, you're doing something else.

Lenny Clarke 2:12 Well, no, a little bit more. Uh, uh, w- I was gonna do, uh, Kimmel, but, uh, SMILF got canceled. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:19 What is SMILF?

Lenny Clarke 2:20 Single Mother I'd Like to Fuck. It was on Showtime.

Joe Rogan 2:22 It was a show on Showtime?

Lenny Clarke 2:22 It was a show you were doing? It's coming to this, yeah. Uh-

Joe Rogan 2:24 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 2:25 ... and, and, and, and, and I played Rosie O'Donnell's love interest.

Joe Rogan 2:29 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 2:29 And I love, I love Rosie. You know-

Joe Rogan 2:31 I do too.

Lenny Clarke 2:31 ... I gave Rosie a break 35 years ago. She never forgot it, you know? And she's-

Joe Rogan 2:35 Oh, that's great.

Lenny Clarke 2:35 ... always been great to me. So we were gonna do that and then that didn't pan out and then the show got canceled, so... For sexual impropriety or something. It had nothing to do with me.

Joe Rogan 2:44 Oh, really?

Lenny Clarke 2:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:44 That's why it got canceled?

Lenny Clarke 2:45 Yeah, evidently. I don't know. I, you know-

Joe Rogan 2:47 Someone behind the scenes?

Lenny Clarke 2:48 Yeah, yeah, I don't know what happened.

Joe Rogan 2:50 Used to be that was the norm, you know?

Lenny Clarke 2:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:52 And now shows get canceled for that.

Lenny Clarke 2:53 I... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:54 It's crazy.

Lenny Clarke 2:55 Uh, and now w-... Oh, thank God they didn't have cameras. Cellphones weren't-

Joe Rogan 2:58 Oh, uh-oh.

Lenny Clarke 2:58 ... early on. I'd still be doing time.

Joe Rogan 3:00 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 3:00 I'd be in forever. Are you kidding me? Uh, then we're going down to, uh, to do the Navy SEALS Family Foundation, a big fundraiser we do every year. Uh, gr-

Joe Rogan 3:08 Is that in San Diego?

Lenny Clarke 3:09 Yes.

Joe Rogan 3:09 Oh, cool.

Lenny Clarke 3:09 Yeah, yeah, down in Coronado with a good buddy of ours, Kerry Jackson. He's a Navy SEAL that we golfed with one day and we've been in touch with ever since. He's, he's a- They're the real badassess.

Joe Rogan 3:18 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 3:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:19 Coronado's that island, right?

Lenny Clarke 3:20 Yeah. Yes.

Joe Rogan 3:21 I've never been.

Lenny Clarke 3:22 Oh, yeah, it's, it's-

Joe Rogan 3:22 Supposed to be beautiful.

Lenny Clarke 3:23 I went down and, and Mike said, uh, "Do the obstacle course." I said, "All right." So I climbed the rope, that was a... Then there's these logs and I got on the logs. I figure I'd run ac-... They were spinning logs. No one told... I nearly broke my back. That was it, I was out.

Joe Rogan 3:35 You had to step on them?

Lenny Clarke 3:35 Y- yeah, step... Run across them.

Joe Rogan 3:37 On spinning logs?

Lenny Clarke 3:37 But they're rolling as you're running across. But they're rolling as you run it across. Yeah, it's not easy. Not easy.

Joe Rogan 3:42 Did you have a mouthpiece?

Lenny Clarke 3:43 No, I had noth-... Uh-

Joe Rogan 3:45 (laughs) 'Cause it seems like (mouthing word) .

Lenny Clarke 3:47 Oh, yeah. (laughs) Well, thank God we were the only ones out there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:50 Yeah. Well, that Coronado Island, I think that's where Dick Cheney lives.

Lenny Clarke 3:53 Oh. Is that right?

Joe Rogan 3:53 Yeah, a lot of... Or Donald Rumsfeld, one of them rich warmonger type dudes.

Lenny Clarke 3:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:57 There's a lot of, uh, a lot of money out there.

Lenny Clarke 3:59 Yeah. I was in Rumsfeld's office.

Joe Rogan 4:01 Uh-oh.

Lenny Clarke 4:01 At, at the Pentagon.

Joe Rogan 4:02 Did you have the cross on you?

Lenny Clarke 4:03 Well, no. (laughs) But, you know, my buddy who was with me was reading the stuff on his desk 'cause he, he's a contractor and he can read upside down, you know. And so-

Joe Rogan 4:12 Oh, really? (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 4:12 And so this, this guy, Marine or whatever, realized what he was doing, came over and covered it up.

Joe Rogan 4:18 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 4:19 I said, "What'd you see?" He goes, "Not good, not good." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:23 (laughs) It's amazing that those guys are still alive.

Lenny Clarke 4:25 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:26 Especially Cheney. He's got somebody else's heart inside of him.

Lenny Clarke 4:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:30 Like, whew.

Lenny Clarke 4:30 Yeah, it was... I, I mean, and he, and he had the person killed for that heart.

Joe Rogan 4:34 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 4:34 That's what I used to do, I used to do a bit about how he had an extra Secret Service agent that was only eating, like, vegetables and real clean. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:41 Had to jog every day. He's like, "What the fuck?"

Lenny Clarke 4:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:44 "Why do I have to do all this stuff?"

Lenny Clarke 4:45 It's good.

Joe Rogan 4:46 No, it'll be good.

Lenny Clarke 4:47 And then one day-

Joe Rogan 4:47 Everything will be revealed, relax.

Lenny Clarke 4:49 ... when, when Dick has a heart attack, they open that guy up like a fish and pull his still-beating heart out. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:54 Yeah, he wa- he had a pump inside of his body at one point in time where he didn't have a heartbeat.

Lenny Clarke 4:59 Wow.

Joe Rogan 4:59 Because he had this crazy pump that would just circle the blood, but there was no... Don't, don't, don't, don't. So if someone checked his heartbeat, they would think he's dead.

Lenny Clarke 5:07 Wow.

Joe Rogan 5:07 There was no heartbeat.

Lenny Clarke 5:08 Wow, so he could fake dead.

Joe Rogan 5:10 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 5:10 He could-

Joe Rogan 5:10 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 5:10 ... like that. In a bad situation.

Joe Rogan 5:12 Yeah, in a monster movie.

Lenny Clarke 5:13 Wow. I had a... I had the opposite problem. I had... I w- I was doing a show and they made... You know, years ago when you did a network show, they made you, uh, um, have a-

Joe Rogan 5:22 Physical.

Lenny Clarke 5:23 ... physical. Yeah, right. So I went in and the guy goes, "Oh my God." He goes, what? He goes, "Are you feeling okay?" "I feel great." He goes, "Your heart is beating 283 beats a minute." And I go, "Isn't that like a, a professional..." He goes, "That's like a dead man, you moron." So he said, uh, "This is horrible." And I s-

Joe Rogan 5:38 283 beats a minute?

Lenny Clarke 5:39 Yeah, yeah, like your pu... Like, like crazy beat, like-

Joe Rogan 5:42 It would go up and down?

Lenny Clarke 5:44 Yeah. Wh- what... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:45 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 5:45 Yeah, yeah, like-

Joe Rogan 5:46 That's a lot.

Lenny Clarke 5:46 Oh, uh, they, they rushed me to a hospital. But before they did, I said, "Hey man, I really need this job." He said, you know, "Uh, if I give you some money." He goes, "Are you trying to bribe me?" I go, "Yeah."

Joe Rogan 5:55 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 5:55 He goes, (laughs) he goes, "We g- you're gonna be dead." And I go, "If I don't have this job, I don't wanna live. I, I need the job." You know?

Joe Rogan 6:00 Jesus.

Lenny Clarke 6:01 And they, yeah, yeah... So they rushed me in and then they, uh, I had trivial fibrillation and then it was both sides. And I hold the record for being jumpstarted, you know, when they... Defibrillations, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:11 Yeah?

Lenny Clarke 6:11 At Mass General. Oh, yeah, it's like a phone book.

Joe Rogan 6:13 How many times did they do you?

Lenny Clarke 6:14 Over 100.

Joe Rogan 6:15 They restarted you 100 times?

Lenny Clarke 6:16 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:17 Whoa.

Lenny Clarke 6:17 And-

Joe Rogan 6:17 Can you see the future?

Lenny Clarke 6:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:19 (laughs)

Mike Clarke 6:20 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 6:21 There is no future, Joe.

Joe Rogan 6:22 Oh, Jesus.

Lenny Clarke 6:23 This, this... Yeah. Well, they finally-

Joe Rogan 6:24 Is life the terminator?

Lenny Clarke 6:24 ... they finally did the ablation where they go in and they, they burn the part that's flapping. And they found out the other side was flapping too, so they... It was like eight hours on the table. I had this great doctor.

Joe Rogan 6:34 (Joe exhales) My friend, uh, Ever- you know Everlast from the House of Pain?

Lenny Clarke 6:37 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:38 He's got a, a fake one. So he takes the microphone and puts it up to his chest and it goes click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's got like a fake valve in there.

Lenny Clarke 6:47 Wow.

Joe Rogan 6:48 Like a titanium valve. It's really creepy.

Lenny Clarke 6:50 Wow.

Joe Rogan 6:51 And he puts the microphone like right there on his chest.

Lenny Clarke 6:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:53 And you can hear it, you can hear it through the mic. It's loud as fuck.

Lenny Clarke 6:55 Oh my God. Mine used to go (imitates heart monitor) .

Joe Rogan 6:59 Ugh.

Lenny Clarke 6:59 It was crazy.

Joe Rogan 7:00 It was crazy.

Lenny Clarke 7:00 But I didn't know. I was... It was asymptomatic, you know? And I said to the doctor, I said, "Well, what do you think it is?" He goes, "Well, you know, your weight probably has something to do." I said, "Well, I did a lot of blow." He goes, "You have to do incredible amounts of blow." I goes, "Well, there's a small mountain in Peru missing."

Joe Rogan 7:13 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 7:13 And, uh... He goes, "That much, Lenny?" I go, "That much, yeah."

Joe Rogan 7:16 Oh, that fucking whole crew. I mean, Sweeney and I talked about it when, uh, he did a show. That whole crew, that Nick Comedy Stop crew was a cocaine-

Lenny Clarke 7:24 Oh.

Joe Rogan 7:24 ... fucking extravaganza.

Lenny Clarke 7:25 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:26 I was very fortunate that I didn't... I didn't... Still haven't, never did coke.

Lenny Clarke 7:30 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 7:30 It was not my thing.

Lenny Clarke 7:30 Joe, Joe, I went to-

Joe Rogan 7:32 I won't.

Lenny Clarke 7:32 I went to Colombia to see where it was made.

Joe Rogan 7:34 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 7:34 I, I really did. I went-

Joe Rogan 7:36 Really? (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 7:36 Yeah, yeah. I was going...

Joe Rogan 7:38 It's 'cause you're a connoisseur.

Lenny Clarke 7:39 Oh, oh my God.

Joe Rogan 7:39 Like doing a wine tour?

Lenny Clarke 7:40 I went there. It took me two days to score because... I said, "Wait, no."

Joe Rogan 7:43 Really? (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 7:43 They said, "Where you going to blow?" Yeah, they said, "We sent it all to America, Mr. Lenny." I go-

Joe Rogan 7:46 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 7:46 ... "Well, hold on. There's gotta be a new shipment." And then I got an ounce of blow for $200. You know, I had...

Joe Rogan 7:52 Is that a lot?

Lenny Clarke 7:52 I go, I couldn't even finish it in a week, you know, but I tried.

Joe Rogan 7:56 How much is an ounce of blow? What does it look like?

Lenny Clarke 7:58 You know the Scarface thing?

Joe Rogan 7:59 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 7:59 You know Scarfa-... Bigger than that.

Joe Rogan 8:01 That's like 28 grams.

Lenny Clarke 8:03 An ounce?

Joe Rogan 8:03 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 8:03 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:03 An ounce of blow. But like an... But an ounce of pot is like...

Lenny Clarke 8:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:07 Like... Yeah. Like that much.

Lenny Clarke 8:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:09 How many... Is that the same thing with coke? Bigger?

Lenny Clarke 8:11 It seemed bigger to me.

Joe Rogan 8:12 Really?

Lenny Clarke 8:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:13 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 8:13 I had it everywhere. You know, I remember the girl said, "Lenny, you have to decide whether it's the coke or me." I said, "Do you want a line for the road?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:20 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 8:20 I don't know what happened to her.

Joe Rogan 8:21 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 8:21 But it was, it was, it was amazing. (laughs) I really enjoyed Colombia. But, uh...

Joe Rogan 8:26 Did you go there just for coke?

Lenny Clarke 8:28 Yeah. Yeah. No-

Joe Rogan 8:29 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 8:29 Yeah. No, no. I went back recently. A couple years ago I went to do, uh, uh, a burn notice. They were filming a movie.

Joe Rogan 8:37 Okay.

Lenny Clarke 8:37 And, uh, they asked me to come down. And I went down there, and I went, "I remember some of this." You know? But I... Well, I wasn't doing it now, but I saw a Spanish note. I had no one to run lines with. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:48 (laughs) When did you stop doing it?

Lenny Clarke 8:51 22 years ago.

Joe Rogan 8:52 Three years. Wow.

Lenny Clarke 8:53 23. I mean, uh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:55 Wow. That's a good amount of time.

Lenny Clarke 8:57 Well, I had to. You know, I was doing this movie and, uh, I finished. Uh, uh, the guy... I, I had to throw this guy through a wall. And I really liked the guy, you know, and, and I didn't wanna hurt him. And they said, "No, no, you gotta..." 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 Whitey Bulger's place." I go, "Hey man, I'm done after today. You know, someone's gotta pay Whitey." So the guy... I got... I finished and I bought a bag of blow and whiskey and a bag of dope and some beers. And the guy says, "You happy?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Wanna get real happy?" I said, "You don't scare me." He said, "Well, pick you up at 6:00 AM." So I went back to the hotel and met my buddy, my childhood buddy. We went out and he said, "Let's see how many bars we can go to before they charge us for booze." You know, say, "Hey, Lenny." Yeah. He saw us. So we ended up at the Tall Ships down at, uh, uh, Faneuil Hall. And the guy didn't know me, so we paid. We said, "We'll stay here." Then he realized who I was, then we drank free. Went back-

Joe Rogan 9:51 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 9:51 ... and we're doing blow when the door bangs open and we go... He freaked out. He said, "What is..." He said, "Guys, come on. We're going to... We're going to like a rave." (laughs) And he took me to an AA meeting in South Boston and, uh, it just... It clicked. You know, I thought it was a gag. I said, "Why do you have the blow with me?" And he said, "Come on. We're running some more lines." I go, "Just listen, listen, listen."

Joe Rogan 10:11 This is after a bender?

Lenny Clarke 10:12 After... Well, I... During a bender.

Joe Rogan 10:14 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 10:14 I still had the blow on me. And I, I thought it was a rave. I thought we were going... You know, with the church bass-

Joe Rogan 10:19 Who took you?

Lenny Clarke 10:19 My... Phil Baronau. He was my... He's still my sponsor today, you know.

Joe Rogan 10:22 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 10:23 And he's a young kid. And, you know, I said, "Well, how'd you get..." I said, "Did you have a problem?" He says, "I used to go into banks with a shotgun." (imitates cocking a gun) "Everyone on the floor." I go, "Yeah, you can be my sponsor."

Joe Rogan 10:34 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 10:34 Yeah, see.

Mike Clarke 10:34 And the best thing, Joe, we got sober together.

Joe Rogan 10:37 Uh-huh.

Mike Clarke 10:37 Lenny and I.

Joe Rogan 10:38 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 10:38 The same day.

Joe Rogan 10:39 Oh, wow.

Lenny Clarke 10:39 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 10:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:41 Wow. 23 years, huh?

Lenny Clarke 10:43 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:44 It's... That was... The thing about that whole Boston crew is that it was all kinda tied to drugs.

Lenny Clarke 10:49 Oh.

Joe Rogan 10:49 And the comedy had that feel to it.

Lenny Clarke 10:52 Oh.

Joe Rogan 10:52 Because the comedy was frantic, you know. And there was a thing...

Mike Clarke 10:56 Bang, bang, bang.

Joe Rogan 10:57 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.

Lenny Clarke 11:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:04 And the audiences there were used to that.

Lenny Clarke 11:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:06 So they didn't want any bullshit.

Lenny Clarke 11:08 Well, and they would tell you.

Joe Rogan 11:09 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 11:09 They would tell... If you weren't good, they go, "You suck tonight. Get off."

Joe Rogan 11:12 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 11:13 And, and, and we would have... There were, there were times when I'd say, "This is gonna 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 Rog would be sitting at the back and some... "You've done that thing." And he'd throw a shot glass, it would shatter on the wall. He'd go, "Next." You know, it was just...

Joe Rogan 11:31 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 11:31 And it made you come... And the, the people, like you said, the audiences that came in there would come every week.

Joe Rogan 11:37 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 11:38 So you'd have to... And they would not settle for any bullshit, you know. "That, that blows." "That's no good."... stuff down.

Joe Rogan 11:43 Yeah, there was a, there was a whole scene there. It wasn't just the comics, it was like comedy connoisseurs. There were so many people that came to those clubs.

Lenny Clarke 11:51 But the shows... (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 11:52 Pull it up, Mike. Pull it-

Lenny Clarke 11:53 The shows that were legendary were the Ding Ho on Wednesday night.

Joe Rogan 11:57 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 11:57 Lenny would put, like, 32 acts on.

Joe Rogan 12:00 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 12:01 And, and, and of all di- I'd go, "Len, you know, we gotta get this show over."

Joe Rogan 12:04 We got to close.

Lenny Clarke 12:04 "Hey, hey, shut up, I got a couple more guys I wanna give a break too."

Joe Rogan 12:08 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 12:09 And, and, and I'd have guys going on till 2:00 in the morning.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 12:11 And we got our liquor license at 2:00. The cops are com- "Lenny, you got, you gotta stop." And I go, "Have a drink and we'll finish up." You know?

Joe Rogan 12:18 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 12:18 But the first, the first night he took over, when Kremens left, Kremens was leaving, and, uh-

Joe Rogan 12:24 What year was this?

Lenny Clarke 12:25 Jesus, Joe. Um, '85, '86, somewhere around there.

Joe Rogan 12:30 Shouldn't, he shouldn't have went. I thought it closed at '84, no?

Lenny Clarke 12:32 I could be wrong on the age. It don't-

Joe Rogan 12:34 I don't know.

Lenny Clarke 12:34 It was shut-

Joe Rogan 12:35 It closed before my... I came in '88.

Lenny Clarke 12:37 You know, you know what, Joe? You're right, probably around '84. I took over from Barry and, uh- So, Shun Lee 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 $15 to $30, right, at the time, you know. And he says, "You, you run the club." I go (laughs) "Oh, no, man. I c- I'm not... I'll get a guy." He goes, "Who?" I goes, "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."

Joe Rogan 13:02 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 13:02 So, he comes in and the first thing he says to Shun is, "All right. The food sucks. Close the back room. Close the restaurant. We're gonna make that a, a showroom too." So, he'd open the front room, you'd go through the kitchen and do a show in the back room. Then you'd come back there and wait till it... And we'd start a... 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 my 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 the cooler and we'll do a line." So, we're in the cooler, we're doing lines and Gav goes, "I'll be right back." I go out here, click, the pricks locked me (wheezes) in. They locked me in- He was so high. He said, "You're not going on tonight."

Joe Rogan 13:43 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 13:43 They lock me in the cooler and I'm back.

Joe Rogan 13:45 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 13:46 And, and so I said, "I'll show them." I started fucking drinking everything in there.

Joe Rogan 13:50 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 13:50 I passed out. They had to get me out of there.

Joe Rogan 13:52 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 13:53 They're like... I can't do it. I said, "I apologize." "Okay, you were right." But he turned it into a gold mine. We've been doing six shows a night, three in the front, three in the back.

Joe Rogan 14:00 Well, Sweeney said that the guy lost it in a gambling debt?

Lenny Clarke 14:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:03 Yeah?

Lenny Clarke 14:03 Well, yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:03 Played dominoes.

Lenny Clarke 14:03 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, but- Well, first they came and h- he would send a kid out to a liquor store to buy booze 'cause they took all the booze. So, we'd have to buy booze for that night. And then after that, they, they (laughs) came and they took the chairs, they took the tables.

Joe Rogan 14:27 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 14:27 It was incredible. Yeah, he lost everything. But it was Wednesday night, Lenny, Thursday night, DJ Hazard, Friday night, Don Gavin, Saturday night, Kremens, and Sweeney on Sunday night.

Joe Rogan 14:38 (sighs)

Lenny Clarke 14:39 Hey, just killer shows.

Joe Rogan 14:40 And what people don't know is that Boston had a different way of doing it. So, if it was the Lenny Clarke show, Lenny would host the show.

Lenny Clarke 14:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 14:46 Lenny would go on, he would do like, what, 10, 15 minutes or something like that?

Lenny Clarke 14:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:50 Right.

Lenny Clarke 14:50 Supposed to. He'd open with 40.

Joe Rogan 14:52 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 14:53 But you know, you know why... you know when I came up with that joke? That was my idea because-

Joe Rogan 14:58 Was it?

Lenny Clarke 14:58 Yeah. Because it used to be, you know, mid- opening, mid act, closer.

Joe Rogan 15:03 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 15:03 And I was always the closer and I'm going, "Hey man, if I host it, I can do lines and smoke dope in between the guys."

Joe Rogan 15:10 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 15:10 And I said, "Well, if someone has a bad set, I could pick it up or I can..."

Joe Rogan 15:13 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 15:13 "... you know, be the buffer while they get over that guy." And it just took off.

Joe Rogan 15:18 Well, it was a great way of doing it.

Lenny Clarke 15:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:20 It really was. And then you would kind of close it too, right?

Lenny Clarke 15:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:23 Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you know, there were different nights, different crowds too. Like Gav, like I, I was always working Wednesdays and I'd be other clubs at... But I always wanted to work Gav's show because Gav had a great show and, and they didn't like me. It was like Gav's crowd did not go for me. They hated me and I said, "What the fu-" You know what I mean? It was a whole... And I had to learn to adapt to different audiences- Mm-hmm.

Lenny Clarke 15:46 ... because-

Joe Rogan 15:46 What was the difference between Gavin's crowd?

Lenny Clarke 15:49 Gav used to say it was more, uh, they were smart (laughs) They were smart.

Joe Rogan 15:53 They were smarter?

Lenny Clarke 15:54 They were smart.

Joe Rogan 15:55 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 15:56 Well, he was a smart motherfucker. Oh yeah, he's got more degrees than a momma. He's got a couple of master's, yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:01 Yeah. Yeah, he's a genius.

Lenny Clarke 16:02 Oh, man, we used to-

Joe Rogan 16:03 His fucking comedy was so sharp. He would have punch lines you never saw coming-

Lenny Clarke 16:07 Right.

Joe Rogan 16:07 ... on top of punch lines you never saw coming. You were recovering-

Lenny Clarke 16:10 Killer.

Joe Rogan 16:10 ... from the last punch line, then he would hit you with another one.

Lenny Clarke 16:12 Oh, yeah. It was-

Joe Rogan 16:13 Ugh.

Lenny Clarke 16:14 The first time I saw him, he came on and I, I watched him and I said to him after the show, "How long have you been doing this?" He goes, "It's my first time." I go, "You're fucking lying." Gav goes, "We're not off to a good start," right?

Joe Rogan 16:24 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 16:24 And, and, and like, it was like competitive, you know, it was real competitive. And one night, uh, 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, "Damn it, that was pretty cool." He goes, "I got your back." And then we drove home to his place and it was like three days getting high and we've been friends ever since.

Joe Rogan 16:45 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 16:46 But it was funny because he said to me, he goes, "Lenny, I got to ask you a question." He goes, "If you could be, uh, 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, "Okay." Six weeks later, it's "Gav, I thought about it. You're right. I'd rather be the richest. The fame shit's a bunch of bullshit." And he goes, "Well, I'm glad you came around." See what I mean by smarter? Yeah, he's nuts.

Joe Rogan 17:09 Yeah. If you're the most famous person, you're just going to get stalked everywhere.

Lenny Clarke 17:12 Oh, it's horrible.

Joe Rogan 17:13 You'd rather be that dude that nobody knows is rich.

Lenny Clarke 17:15 Of course. You know, I have, I have five billionaire friends. Billionaire, not millionaire, billionaire friends.

Joe Rogan 17:21 Really?

Lenny Clarke 17:21 Yeah. And I, I think I'm like their, you know, their pet, (laughs) pet, pet project. You know? But, I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, the, to, to live like that. You know that show Billions? Have you ever seen that?

Joe Rogan 17:33 No, I've never seen it.

Lenny Clarke 17:33 It's... These guys are just like that. More money than you could spend. More than you could spend.

Joe Rogan 17:38 Yeah, that's a weird life.

Lenny Clarke 17:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:39 A weird life where everybody else is struggling and scratching-

Lenny Clarke 17:42 But no one knows them. No, you know, these people-

Joe Rogan 17:44 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 17:44 Well, some of them, people know, you know. But-... these people are like anonymous, and if more money, then you could have jets-

Mike Clarke 17:50 That's very clever.

Lenny Clarke 17:51 ... yachts. Oh, yeah. That's... Oh, that's what I... I would like that.

Joe Rogan 17:53 Yeah, that's the way to go.

Lenny Clarke 17:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:55 And e- even if you were a comic, you'd rather just do clubs, just show up and do clubs and just do a set. Once you're on stage telling jokes, either they laugh or they don't laugh. If you're funny, you'll kill. It doesn't matter if you're famous.

Lenny Clarke 18:05 You know, I would like to... (clears throat) I would like to be... I like doing theaters now because it's a different crowd. You know, I, I, I still do a lot of clubs. I work Mike's club all the time. Thank God for him, but-

Mike Clarke 18:17 And thank God for me.

Lenny Clarke 18:18 Yeah, yeah.

Mike Clarke 18:18 He keeps me open (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 18:19 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 18:20 There's some, there's some people... You know how when you work a club you get some drunk a- a- all it takes is one person.

Joe Rogan 18:25 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 18:25 You, you... 'Cause I still go with the flow.

Joe Rogan 18:27 Sure.

Lenny Clarke 18:27 I mean, I really don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna go, and I try to keep it, you know, with what's happening in the news today. And someone will just (babbling) and you go, "Oh, man." They break the rhythm, you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 18:38 Yep.

Lenny Clarke 18:38 And I, and I want to stab them, you know, but you can't.

Joe Rogan 18:40 Well, it doesn't always happen though. That's the thing. It does happen, but it doesn't always happen.

Lenny Clarke 18:44 No, you're right. He-

Joe Rogan 18:45 Most of the time it's great.

Mike Clarke 18:45 But Len just can't block it out, you know.

Joe Rogan 18:48 Mm.

Mike Clarke 18:48 It's, it's... He's doing it, and it's there-

Joe Rogan 18:50 No one blocks it out worse than DePaulo.

Mike Clarke 18:53 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 18:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:54 He's the worst. You don't even have to say anything. You just have a look on your face that he doesn't like, "What? You don't think this is funny? What are you, fucking what?"

Mike Clarke 19:01 Where'd you learn to whisper, in a sawmill?

Joe Rogan 19:03 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 19:04 I'm working, I'm working with Nick. We're doing some comedy tour up in Toronto or some... Maybe Ottawa, some, sh- sh- some shit all... And I was looking at him. Uh, I was hosting, I'm looking at him. And he, he, he was... I think he was smoking at the time. And it was a, a, a dark dingy club, and it looked like watching Lenny Bruce. It was just like that. So I'm laughing, so I, I step outside the room and there's this woman, a pregnant woman who goes, "Oh my God. Oh my God. He... I really enjoyed you, but he's gonna make me have my baby." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:36 (laughs)

Mike Clarke 19:36 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 19:37 Oh, but he is so funny.

Joe Rogan 19:39 He's so funny.

Mike Clarke 19:39 Oh, God.

Joe Rogan 19:39 He's a funny motherfucker. And he, he, he's been going crazy lately 'cause the mu- Mueller report got released.

Mike Clarke 19:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:44 And they said that there was no collusion between Trump and the Russians, so all of his Twitter, all of his Instagram was just attacking liberals. He's like, "Why do you fucking care?"

Lenny Clarke 19:53 Oh my God (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 19:53 "Why do you care?"

Mike Clarke 19:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't win.

Joe Rogan 19:55 Like, "Retire, you lying cocksucker."

Lenny Clarke 19:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:58 It's just like so crazy. Resign.

Mike Clarke 20:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:01 He's, he's so crazy. Put a gun... He's telling people to put a gun in their mouth. Like, that didn't... Isn't that how he got kicked off of Twitter in the first place?

Mike Clarke 20:07 Oh, serious.

Joe Rogan 20:08 Oh, oh yeah, yeah.

Mike Clarke 20:09 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:09 He was telling people to kill themselves.

Mike Clarke 20:11 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:11 Yeah, he's doing that now on Twitter (laughs) .

Lenny Clarke 20:13 (laughs)

Mike Clarke 20:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:13 He's such a fucking animal. He's always been that way too.

Mike Clarke 20:15 Funny guy though.

Joe Rogan 20:16 Oh, hilarious.

Lenny Clarke 20:17 Oh, God. He kills me every time.

Joe Rogan 20:19 Bri- brilliant joker.

Mike Clarke 20:20 Yeah, he's awesome.

Lenny Clarke 20:22 Yeah, always has been.

Joe Rogan 20:22 He was the guy that made me think like, "Oh, okay, you don't have to be like a, a little skinny guy to do standup."

Lenny Clarke 20:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 20:28 'Cause like he was this... Back, back in the day, he was playing football.

Mike Clarke 20:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:31 He was a handsome guy.

Lenny Clarke 20:32 Right, good-looking.

Joe Rogan 20:33 Fucking jacked.

Lenny Clarke 20:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:34 And I was like, "Oh, all you have to do is be funny."

Lenny Clarke 20:36 And, and women loved him.

Joe Rogan 20:37 Yeah?

Lenny Clarke 20:37 And he would just shit on them, and they love him even more now.

Joe Rogan 20:40 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 20:40 It's, it's brilliant.

Mike Clarke 20:41 And, and Nikki, Nikki was pretty funny to start, you know.

Joe Rogan 20:44 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 20:44 He... I, I always have them s- you know, he was having good shows and he just... He, he was out at the clubs every night a- and, uh, he just put... And he was always angry from the beginning.

Joe Rogan 20:54 Always.

Mike Clarke 20:54 From the beginning.

Joe Rogan 20:55 Always. I had him on News Radio, he played my brother. And, you know, DePaolo's always had this attitude that everyone's trying to fuck him over, you know.

Mike Clarke 21:02 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 21:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:02 And even then, we... I got him this gig and it's almost like he made it happen. Like, uh, it was him and Brian Callen and Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter! were playing my brothers. And on the episode, every... They beat the fuck out of me. We all beat the fuck out-

Mike Clarke 21:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:15 ... of each other. Broke bottles over our head. Uh, Brian Callen threw me through a window. And w- before the thing was cast, uh, I had told the producer, I said, "I got this comic. He's hilarious." I go, "He looks like he could be my brother. Let's, let's hire him." And he goes, "Yeah, perfect." He goes, "Can he read? So I can see the read?"

Mike Clarke 21:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 21:34 So he comes in and reads, and he goes, "Yeah, he's great. Perfect." But the casting agent had different ideas.

Mike Clarke 21:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:38 She had a friend who she wanted to get in the room.

Mike Clarke 21:40 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 21:40 Right.

Mike Clarke 21:40 She brought in, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:42 So she, she cast this other guy, unbeknownst that I had already made a deal with the producer (clears throat) and the showrunner. And so, um, they call Nick up and tell them that he didn't get the gig.

Mike Clarke 21:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:52 He's like, "What the fuck? I didn't get the fucking gig."

Mike Clarke 21:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:55 And I go, "No, no, no. You got the gig." He goes, "They fucking just told me I don't have the fucking gig."

Lenny Clarke 21:58 (laughs)

Mike Clarke 21:58 Someone's lying.

Joe Rogan 21:59 So I make the phone call and find out what happened. And, you know, and she's like, "Well, I already hired my friend." I go, "You weren't supposed to hire your friend." Like, "What are you doing?"

Mike Clarke 22:07 Right.

Joe Rogan 22:08 And she's like, "Well, I just... You know, I don't know what to do. I already hired this guy." I go, "Well, tell him he's fired."

Mike Clarke 22:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:13 Like, this is real simple. Like, the producer wants it, the network wants him. And so Nick came back and Nick got the part, and he couldn't believe it. He was like, "It worked out?"

Mike Clarke 22:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:22 Like, he was on the set, he's like, "You mean the world's not fucking me over? I go, "Dude, I told you."

Lenny Clarke 22:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:26 "You're my friend. I wanted you on the show." And it worked out, but it was like he was convinced he was gonna get fucked over. He got fucked over.

Mike Clarke 22:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:33 He's like, "I knew it."

Lenny Clarke 22:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:34 And then, and then he got the gig and he is like, "What? What is happening?"

Mike Clarke 22:38 Yeah. Ah, he's a great guy.

Joe Rogan 22:39 I'm glad to see him on the show.

Lenny Clarke 22:40 Great guy.

Mike Clarke 22:40 I love him. I love that guy to death.

Lenny Clarke 22:41 You know, I, I enjoy when you hear stories about people remembering where they came from and they help people out. And when I was doing, uh, I was doing the Sunday comics at Fox, and, uh, it wasn't... It didn't start out well. I, I always wanted to go in Entertain the Troops, but when I got Lenny with CBS, they said, "No, you're a million-dollar prop, you're not going anywhere." So when the troops came home, my show, it got canceled. That's a whole nother different story.

Joe Rogan 23:06 I want to talk about that story though.

Lenny Clarke 23:07 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Mike Clarke 23:08 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 23:08 Oh, it's, it's interesting.

Joe Rogan 23:09 It's a great story.

Lenny Clarke 23:10 So I, uh, I go to the, to 29 pounds Marine base. We pull up in a limo. We blow anything up, down and anything down, up. And I said, "I'm gonna like this place." So we go in and George Lopez there and George Miller, a couple of comics, nice guy. So I go up to Jeff Altman and he's the host, and I go to shake his hand and he blows me away. He gives me the high hat, walks away and I go, "Oh, you know, what's this?" So they say, um... Uh, later in the show, they said, "Listen, Jeff, we have this kid who got a Purple Heart. He's back now, and we want to unite him with his mother." And he goes, "That's kind of corny." And he walks off. I go, "I'll do it." And so I go, "Hey, how you doing? Uh, uh, Corporal?" He goes, "Well, you know, I miss my family." "Well, that's great 'cause we brought your mother in to be like..." Yeah!... and the crowd goes crazy. And they said, uh, "Do you want his job?" I said, "Yeah, give me a dollar more than him." And I took over the Sunday comics that night.

Joe Rogan 23:58 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 23:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean-

Joe Rogan 24:00 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 24:00 And th- so then they say, (clears throat) we go from, like, 100 to 70 in the ratings. And they said, "What do you want?" I said, "I want you to hire this kid, Kenny Rogers in as my head writer." And they go, "What's he written?" I said, "Well, he wrote me a couple pr- uh, letters from prison and one from the nunnery."

Joe Rogan 24:14 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 24:14 I said, "And he w-" "No, I'm serious." I went, "You told me what I want. This is what I want." So, they hire him, and they fly him out. I pick him up at the airport and we drive to my place in Marina Del Rey. And he goes, "Which floor was yours?" I go, "All of 'em." You know, I was living in, like, a $3 million place at the time. And he goes, "This is incredible." So, we get jammed up for three days with coke and drinking.

Joe Rogan 24:31 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 24:31 And the third day, he comes down, he's all banged up, he goes, "Lenny," he goes, "I love you, man," but he goes, "I got a wife and kid now, I can't fuck this up. I- I really need the job." I said, "Okay, all right, we'll go to work."

Joe Rogan 24:41 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 24:41 So, we drive, we drive down to Fox and we p- I've got my parking space at the top of the roof, it's great. And we're going by A Current Affair, which used to be Murray Polvirch's used to be.

Joe Rogan 24:52 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 24:52 I said, "You people suck. You shouldn't even have all these officers."

Joe Rogan 24:55 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 24:55 And Kenny goes, "Which ones?" I said, "We're killing them in the ratings." They get all the spen- So, we go down and, uh, I said to my secretary, "Hold all my calls." We go in my office and there's three couches. He said, "Why three couches?" I said, "When people come over, they might want to nap," right? So, they said, "Okay, Mr. Clarke, they're ready for Kenny." So, I bring Kenny in to meet the producers and I said, "Just come by the office when you're done." So, 20 minutes later, he comes bursting into my office, he goes, "You're not gonna believe it. You're the fucking boss! You know what they told me? My job is to make you happy." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:22 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 25:25 Oh, God, he was great.

Joe Rogan 25:26 Well, that show was a great show. But there was a crazy thing attached to that with your agent that wound up fucking over, not just you, but a slew of people. One guy-

Lenny Clarke 25:37 Oh, Bob Williams.

Joe Rogan 25:38 Bob Williams.

Lenny Clarke 25:38 Bob Williams.

Joe Rogan 25:38 What was the star agency? Is that what it- What the fuck was the name of it?

Lenny Clarke 25:42 Spotlight.

Joe Rogan 25:43 Spotlight.

Lenny Clarke 25:43 Spotlight, yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:43 Spotlight, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 25:43 Oh, he fucked everybody. And a lot-

Joe Rogan 25:45 Jerry Seinfeld too, right?

Lenny Clarke 25:46 Yeah, but Sein-

Joe Rogan 25:46 Like, a million dollars.

Lenny Clarke 25:47 But I think Seinfeld-

Joe Rogan 25:49 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 25:49 And, well- well, I popped, when I got Lenny and I was making all sorts of money, they said, "Well, you need an agent." I said, "I want Seinfeld and Leno's agent." You know, b- and at the same time, they- he was doing both of them. So, I figured, these guys are the biggest guys in the business. And he screwed them, but they got their money back. I was like, the- the lowest guy on the totem pole. So, I got-

Joe Rogan 26:09 Ah.

Lenny Clarke 26:09 I got screwed for, like, $2 million.

Joe Rogan 26:11 Jesus Christ.

Lenny Clarke 26:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and I, it- it was bad. I found-

Joe Rogan 26:14 I remember people were trying to keep you from killing him.

Lenny Clarke 26:15 Yeah, I went, I found out where his kids went to school and everything, you know, but you can't do that.

Joe Rogan 26:19 Hmm.

Lenny Clarke 26:19 You know, you gotta let it go, so.

Joe Rogan 26:20 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 26:20 And, but it took a long, long time.

Joe Rogan 26:22 Whatever happ- is that guy still in the business?

Lenny Clarke 26:24 (smacks lips) Country.

Joe Rogan 26:25 Uh-

Lenny Clarke 26:25 He's in country music now.

Joe Rogan 26:26 Oh, they didn't know?

Lenny Clarke 26:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:27 They didn't get the memo? (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 26:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:30 Fuck.

Lenny Clarke 26:30 Oh, yeah. It was b- I was, I was, I was so pissed. I mean, 'cause not only did I- I- I have this show, but w- when I went there, um, everything was going good. And, uh, I invited, um, Barry Diller to, to, to, at Fox, he was the head of Fox at the time. I would throw a party for the entire cast, the crew, everyone at Fox. And they w- they all showed up. And w- you know, I had, I showcased a bunch of my friends so they could get jobs. And, uh, Barry Diller goes, y- "You've really done a great job for us. We re-" I said, "I really love, you know, working with you, m- Mr. Diller." He said, "Okay." So, later in the night, this, uh, this Asian man came up to me, he goes, "You know, everyone likes you, but I don't get it." And I said, "Well, stick around, Hop Sing, you'll catch on."

Joe Rogan 27:17 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 27:18 And I didn't think anything of it. The next morning, I had just m- they had given me, like, a m- million dollar bonus. And they raised my, uh, my weekly salary. I mean, it was a lot of money. It was, like, over 2 million bucks. And I was going to Dallas to do the Te- De- Texas State Fair with one of the Mandrell s- s. It's not m- not, um, Earlene or the other one, it's just some crazy name. And I land in Dallas and he calls me. He says, "I got good news and bad news." I said, "Give me the bad news." He goes, "Did you have a problem with a Chinese guy last night?" I said, "No, uh, oh, yeah, yeah, I guess so. Why?" He goes, "Well, that's Barry Diller's right-hand man. You're done." He's, "They, you, they threw you off the lot." They said, I said, "Well, what's the good news?" He went, "We got your money." And I go, "Um, I, I want my job." I said, "Let me apologize to the guy. I didn't mean it, I didn't know." And they go, "No, they've already taken all the stuff out of your office and put it in boxes."

Joe Rogan 28:07 Wow.

Lenny Clarke 28:07 "And you're- you're done." And now I do the State Fair, and I'm going, "Man, this- this sucks." You know, I mean, I wanna get back to LA to try and salvage the, you know, the career, you know, 'cause I mean, this is another (laughs) network that I'm no longer welcome at. Uh-

Joe Rogan 28:21 Just from one conversation?

Lenny Clarke 28:23 One con- Oh, I've- I've got stories of, I wish I'd never opened my mouth. I mean, I've- I've screwed-

Joe Rogan 28:27 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 28:27 Yeah, no one's, has- has fucked up my life more than myself. And it- and unintentional, you know?

Joe Rogan 28:32 Right.

Lenny Clarke 28:32 So, uh, we're- we're doing the State Fair and this horse with a buckboard goes out of control.

Joe Rogan 28:40 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 28:40 And the horse is swinging and the buckboard's coming towards the r- viewing stand. So, I grabbed the m- (laughs) the Mandrell girl-

Joe Rogan 28:46 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 28:47 ... (laughs) and get her out of it just as the whole thing is wiped out. And I'm saying, "Did you get that? Did they get that on tape, you know?" But that was, uh, that was the end of my career at Fox.

Joe Rogan 28:55 That's crazy, from one conversation where a guy said he didn't like you.

Lenny Clarke 28:58 How about this? How about when I'm- I'm at, uh, I have Lenny at CBS and, uh, it- it was doing good. And then the g- of course, the Gulf War came out. That- that- that killed me. And then they brought me back and we were hanging on by a thread. And they said, "Listen, forget about the show. We- we think you're a great actor. Let's give you a- a movie deal." And I went, "Really?" He says, "Yeah, we're gonna give you, first m- picture, $2 million. And then the- the next picture will be, uh, uh, uh..." No, first of, a million, and then 2 million, then 2 million, $5 million, three-picture deal. I'm going, "Re-," you know, I'm go- I can't believe this happened. Is that one question, "Can you act?" And they said, "Hey, I'm making believe I'm having fun with you, aren't I?"... "Get out." I went, "Hey, man, I was only kidding. That was, that was pretty g-" "Get out." And I, and I go, "I just cost myself $5 million by just-"

Joe Rogan 29:40 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 29:40 "... by being funny." And, and it- and I said, "I'll never do that again." So I read-

Joe Rogan 29:45 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 29:45 ... I read-

Joe Rogan 29:46 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 29:47 ... (laughs) Yeah, but like that's gonna happen, right?

Joe Rogan 29:48 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 29:48 So wait, Joe, it gets better. I read for this movie, True Romance, you know?

Joe Rogan 29:52 Oh, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 29:53 Remember that movie? It was... So I mean, I get s- I get clean, I get straight. I, I work on the lines. I'm ready. So I go over and it's Ridley Scott or his brother, one of the famous Scott directors. And a kid comes out. I say, "How many people are in there?" He goes, "13." I said, 'cause I always like to know how many are in the room 'cause you don't wanna go in there. So I walk in and, uh, a- and I look at the paper. He goes, "You ready?" I go, "Yeah." I throw the script on the floor. He goes, "I guess you are ready." He goes, "Hit it." Dimes was hitting from the left, I was hitting from right. And I said, "You better like it 'cause you're never gonna lick pussy again." He goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where does it say lick pussy?" I said, "Right in the script." He picks it up, he says, "Like pussy." I said, "Well, if you like it, you lick it, right?"

Joe Rogan 30:28 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 30:28 Everyone in the room breaks out laughing. He goes, "Get out! Get out of my office!"

Joe Rogan 30:31 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 30:31 I say, "Well, that was great." So I'm driving home-

Joe Rogan 30:34 Ugh.

Lenny Clarke 30:34 ... and my agent calls me and says, "What did you do to Ridley Scott?"

Joe Rogan 30:37 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 30:37 I go, "What?" He go, he said, "You're a brilliant actor, but you gotta get off the drugs." I said, "I haven't done coke in two weeks! I was serious for this part!" Who's he giving it to? Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn!

Joe Rogan 30:47 Aah!

Lenny Clarke 30:47 They get the job! So there's no justice.

Joe Rogan 30:49 That's hilarious.

Lenny Clarke 30:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:50 It's the guys who were like-

Lenny Clarke 30:52 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:52 ... up to their neck in coke. (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 30:54 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:55 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 30:56 Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 30:57 That's crazy that they got that upset. I'm having fun. I'm pretending I'm having fun with you, all right?

Lenny Clarke 31:01 I, I, I make them believe I'm having fun with you.

Joe Rogan 31:02 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 31:02 It just all it took-

Joe Rogan 31:03 No, 'cause I thought we were-

Lenny Clarke 31:04 ... pow!

Joe Rogan 31:04 ... back, you know, having fun.

Lenny Clarke 31:05 They, they reel you in, they're giving you, offering you millions of dollars. And I'm thinking, "Oh, i- isn't this nice?" You know?

Joe Rogan 31:11 (clears throat) That's the problem with people that have so much power, they want you to suck their dick every second of the day.

Lenny Clarke 31:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:16 And as soon as there's any deviation at all, they think you're, "Oh, you think you're a smartass? You're done in this town."

Lenny Clarke 31:21 Yes, well, you know how-

Joe Rogan 31:22 You don't have a lot of power, you know?

Lenny Clarke 31:23 You know how guys sleep with women, you know, to get head? I had a woman told me she wanted to fuck me, but she was hideous.

Joe Rogan 31:31 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 31:31 And it was at night and the morning, you know? I'm going, "Jesus, I'm not even drunk." I gotta-

Joe Rogan 31:36 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 31:37 ... I, I, I'm trying, I'm trying to back out of it and go, "No, no." (laughs) I didn't get that job either. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:42 Pshh.

Lenny Clarke 31:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:42 Jesus Christ. Yeah, I mean, there was... Look, there, there was casting couches for both sides. There was-

Lenny Clarke 31:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:48 I knew a lady who'd bang all these, like, sad little actor guys. She was always... Uh, she was a casting lady and she'd have these little sad actor guys. They're all like, look all squeamish and shit. And you're like, "Oh, look at her. She's got that guy on a rope too." And she would bang them all. She would, uh, get these guys parts-

Lenny Clarke 32:03 "Get in here."

Joe Rogan 32:03 ... and she would fuck them all.

Lenny Clarke 32:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:04 And she was r- she was aggressive. Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 32:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:07 You know?

Lenny Clarke 32:07 No, this woman's aggressive. But I'd... I'm going, "Ah, it's, it's creeping me out." You know? Not because I, I, I... It's the dead. It's not what I wanted.

Joe Rogan 32:14 The thing is though, there's no victim there.

Lenny Clarke 32:16 No.

Joe Rogan 32:17 Like, nobody feels sorry for those guys at all.

Lenny Clarke 32:19 No.

Joe Rogan 32:19 Not even for a second. A guy that fucks a lady who's a casting director, like, hey, he decided to do what he wanted to do. It's like, it's a, such a different thing than a guy being a casting agent that fucks the actress.

Lenny Clarke 32:31 I would fuck a dry cleaner for free dry cleaning.

Joe Rogan 32:34 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 32:34 I mean, I mean, (laughs) it's, it's not, you know, it's just a matter of what, what, what do you wanna do, you know? How bad is that?

Joe Rogan 32:39 It's not, it's not that bad at all.

Lenny Clarke 32:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:41 Yeah. It's a different animal. It's funny. Yeah. The, the, but that whole model is out the window now with all this Me Too stuff and after Weinstein got shot down. I don't act. I've retired from acting, so I'd, I'd, I'd like to see what it's like now and wonder how much different it is and how much it's changed, you know?

Lenny Clarke 32:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:57 I bet it's changed quite a bit.

Mike Clarke 32:58 Well, recently, Joe, I gave Louie a shot at the club, you know, after his little-

Joe Rogan 33:03 Yeah, I heard about that.

Mike Clarke 33:04 And, you know, Louie called me up and said, "Hey, do you mind if I do a spot?" And I thought about it and I said, "Yeah, sure, no problem." You know, I like Louie. He wasn't-

Joe Rogan 33:12 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 33:12 ... arrested or convicted of anything and-

Joe Rogan 33:14 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 33:15 ... so I put him in. He did fantastic and-

Lenny Clarke 33:17 He goes, "Amazing. What do you think?" I said, "Yeah! Put him on."

Mike Clarke 33:20 And a- after that evening, the backlash was just unbelievable.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 33:24 You know, just, I go, "How long is enough?" What does this guy have to do to try to get his career back up?

Joe Rogan 33:29 Right, but what is the backlash though? Because the backlash is not your, your, the actual customers, right?

Mike Clarke 33:35 No, it, it-

Joe Rogan 33:36 They're not, they're not complaining.

Mike Clarke 33:36 ... it was, they grabbed some female comics that-

Joe Rogan 33:39 Who aren't working.

Mike Clarke 33:40 ... that aren't working for me.

Joe Rogan 33:41 Mm-hmm.

Mike Clarke 33:41 And that s- said that Mike locked the doors and put a sexual predator on stage. And you know, it was like-

Joe Rogan 33:48 (clears throat)

Mike Clarke 33:48 Everyone there enjoyed Louie and, you know, I'm just trying-

Joe Rogan 33:51 Coughs ] .

Mike Clarke 33:51 ... to help a friend get his life back.

Lenny Clarke 33:53 He, he ca- he came in (clears throat) and he walked over to me. I give him a big hug and he goes, "We got, we got no problem?" I go, "No, you nitwit." I said, "I would have called you if that prick Wright had given me your number. He didn't give me a number."

Joe Rogan 34:02 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 34:03 He goes, "That's not Wright." I go, "I know! That's what I told him." They said... So I bring him on stage, I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, you know, this Me Too thing and everything. Here's a guy who, who didn't touch any women." Matter of fact, he touched himself, that was the problem. They just happened to be in the room. And I said, "You could have jerked off in front of me as long as you didn't get on my shirt."

Joe Rogan 34:18 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 34:18 "My shirts are pretty expensive." I said, "But these are people you gave a job to!"

Joe Rogan 34:23 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 34:23 The people that, that turned on him, he gave jobs to! And yeah, that's not right.

Joe Rogan 34:28 Well, there's a lot to that story.

Lenny Clarke 34:30 I don't know it.

Mike Clarke 34:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:31 There's a lot to that story that would make him look very different than a lot of these people that are accusing him. And one day, I think he's gonna tell it. So he, I had a conversation with him about it. It's, it's not as cut and dry as everybody thinks.

Mike Clarke 34:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 34:43 Everybody thinks he had power over these women and he pulled his dick out and started... No, there was a lot of, there was a lot of sex talk.

Mike Clarke 34:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:50 There was a lot of flirting. There was a lot going on. It wasn't that simple. And he's very conv-

Mike Clarke 34:56 He's very contrite about it, yes.

Joe Rogan 34:58 Yes, very, very. And he knows he fucked up. And by the way, he hadn't done anything like that in more than a decade.

Mike Clarke 35:04 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:04 It was a long time. He just, he's ju- he's got a kinky thing, he likes showing off in front of people.

Lenny Clarke 35:08 This is... 'Cause I said, "I- I can't, I can't even, I can't even jerk off if, if the neighbors are home."

Joe Rogan 35:13 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 35:13 I'm a wreck.

Joe Rogan 35:13 But here's the point.

Lenny Clarke 35:14 You know, 'cause I make weird faces and everything. So it wouldn't be fun for anyone, but he's-

Joe Rogan 35:17 He's not a bad guy.

Mike Clarke 35:18 No.

Joe Rogan 35:18 No, he's a good guy.

Mike Clarke 35:19 He's not a rapist, he's not a sexual predator.

Lenny Clarke 35:21 No, no, he didn't touch anybody. No touch.

Joe Rogan 35:23 He, he caught the worst part of the wave.

Mike Clarke 35:25 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:25 You know, like if you're in the ocean and you could be in the ocean on a, on a fucking surfboard and you just catch this little tiny wave and everything's fine. Or you could fuck up and be in the right spot when that giant wave comes and slams you in the head and you have the same intention and the same person. And other, and other times in history, he would have been fine. He might, he would probably be fine today.Because everything is kinda ... There's enough of the females that have come out, that have been full of shit like Asia Argento and the girl who accused Chris Hardwick. And then Chris Hardwick released all these text messages that show that she actually cheated on him and she-

Lenny Clarke 35:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 35:59 ... wanted him back. And she's just trying to punish him for all this. But these, there's a, a few of those situations now where people realize, well, well there's, there's definitely sexual predators and there's definitely bad men and ... But there's also women who are taking advantage of this movement.

Lenny Clarke 36:13 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:14 And I think the w- the world is sort of like calmed down a little. Like the Asia Argento one was a big one.

Lenny Clarke 36:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:20 You know, when she ... It turned out that she was calling Harvey Weinstein a rapist while she was fucking a 17-year-old.

Lenny Clarke 36:27 Right. Right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 36:27 That she was ... She played his mom in a movie 10 years ago-

Lenny Clarke 36:31 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 36:31 ... when he was seven. It's like Jesus Christ ... Like how could you, how could you have that kind of hypocrisy? But there's a lot of that in, in people that are screaming for attention-

Lenny Clarke 36:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 36:40 ... at the front line of a lot of these things. And a lot of them have like dark secrets themselves.

Lenny Clarke 36:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:45 You know? And th- th- like wha- uh- h- uh ... These people that don't want a guy like Louie to have a road to redemption, they don't want him to work.

Lenny Clarke 36:52 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 36:52 Or even a guy like Aziz Ansari, which is even worse, he had a bad date with a girl.

Lenny Clarke 36:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:57 Like a bad date where she blew him like three different times and didn't want to keep going. And he kept pushing it.

Lenny Clarke 37:01 Well, wait, wait, wait. You said bad date. That sounds pretty good to me. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:05 It's pretty good.

Lenny Clarke 37:06 No, I-

Joe Rogan 37:07 It's better than no blowing, right?

Lenny Clarke 37:08 The backlash. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:09 Yeah. But it's ... The whole thing was so crazy. It's like y- y- y- there's o- ... There's more than one side to every story like that. And to take someone's opinion or someone's perception of something as 100% the actual event that happened without any other evidence-

Lenny Clarke 37:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 37:25 ... is kind of crazy. I mean, I don't think ... Uh, I, I just, I just think people have to recognize that Louie, in particular, he's been out of work. He was out of work for 10 months.

Lenny Clarke 37:36 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 37:36 He lost all of his shows, lost all his ... People think he didn't suffer from that.

Lenny Clarke 37:39 Oh, no, I suffered. He lost 30 million dollars, Joe.

Joe Rogan 37:41 Yeah. People that think he didn't suffer are crazy.

Lenny Clarke 37:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:43 You're crazy if you think he should never be allowed to work again. Well, he's not a criminal.

Lenny Clarke 37:48 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 37:48 He's not in jail.

Lenny Clarke 37:49 Right. Right, right.

Joe Rogan 37:49 So what are you saying? Like, he, he shouldn't be able to do standup?

Lenny Clarke 37:52 Everyone, everyone deserves a second chance. And that was my point. I, I said, "Sure, Louie, come ... You know what?"

Joe Rogan 37:57 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 37:57 I wanted to give him a fighting chance and he ... I guess he is back doing clubs now and, you know-

Joe Rogan 38:01 He's doing a lot of clubs.

Lenny Clarke 38:02 ... and, uh, he was very-

Joe Rogan 38:03 But that's it. It's all he's trying to do. He's, he's trying to do clubs.

Lenny Clarke 38:06 He's trying to get his life back.

Joe Rogan 38:07 Yes.

Lenny Clarke 38:07 You know?

Joe Rogan 38:08 He's bui- building his act again, doing clubs, and some fucking asshole releases his whole act on YouTube, so now all that material he has to chuck away.

Lenny Clarke 38:15 Right. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:16 So he was writing during the time he was gone-

Lenny Clarke 38:18 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 38:18 ... but not performing. And then he puts together, you know, an act that, you know ... Look, you know as well as anybody, when you have new shit, it's got some goddamn holes in it.

Lenny Clarke 38:27 Right. Right, right. Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:27 No way it comes up ... I've never written a bit ever, maybe one or two in my whole career that was th- that was the finished bit when I first did it on stage.

Lenny Clarke 38:35 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:35 Maybe one or two ever. They're always clunky and t- ... And sometimes you have ideas, you're like, "Why the fuck did I even try that one?"

Lenny Clarke 38:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:41 Like the Parkland shooter bit.

Lenny Clarke 38:42 No.

Joe Rogan 38:43 Like w- w- he was doing that bit.

Lenny Clarke 38:44 Right, right, right.

Joe Rogan 38:45 Which is, you know, it's a very unfortunate bit.

Lenny Clarke 38:47 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:47 Especially when people who aren't in the club hear it and then ...

Lenny Clarke 38:50 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:50 But who knows what that bit would have been if he gave them-

Lenny Clarke 38:53 If someone didn't tape it and ...

Joe Rogan 38:54 Yeah, if you gave him a year to work it out-

Lenny Clarke 38:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:57 ... he probably would have figured out a way to make it s- where it wasn't offensive and it didn't shit on those kids in the same way.

Lenny Clarke 39:03 Right. My best stuff was, was, was years ago before cellphones and before- Yeah. ... because I didn't know. Yeah. I just, I just went out there. And now when I'm on stage I'm constantly thinking, "Oh, don't go there. Don't do that." Right. "Don't cross that line-" Yep. "... because some ..." You know? And, and-

Joe Rogan 39:17 But that's a terrible feeling for a comic.

Lenny Clarke 39:18 Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible.

Joe Rogan 39:20 Because half the funny shit that you and I have laughed at hard was something that someone definitely shouldn't have said.

Lenny Clarke 39:26 Oh, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 39:26 But they knew they shouldn't have said it, that's why they were saying it. They were saying it to make the audience laugh 'cause they were like, "I can't believe he fucking said that."

Lenny Clarke 39:33 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:33 Not like he means it.

Lenny Clarke 39:34 No.

Joe Rogan 39:35 Like that's his actual thoughts.

Lenny Clarke 39:36 There's no, there's no, there's no maliciousness behind it.

Joe Rogan 39:38 No.

Lenny Clarke 39:38 I have no ... You think I, I want people to spend 30, 40 bucks to go out and have me piss them off and ruin your night with your wife or your date?

Joe Rogan 39:45 Exactly.

Lenny Clarke 39:45 No, you idiot. I'm just trying to make you laugh.

Joe Rogan 39:47 Exactly.

Lenny Clarke 39:48 So now it's a ... You know, it, it's just so- Joe, I can remember back with you and Mike McCarthy.

Joe Rogan 39:54 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 39:54 It was like, who could work the dirtiest? (laughs) You guys would be in the back just dying.

Joe Rogan 39:59 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 39:59 You know?

Joe Rogan 40:00 Yeah. Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 40:01 There were, there were, there were nights ... (laughs) ... where me and Kenny would get high and say, "Let's see if we can walk the room." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:08 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 40:08 On purpose. You know, I've seen people suck and have a room. But I mean, we would ... There were ... We- we'd li- there ... Oh my god. I remember one night I was doing great and I said, "Ah, let me d-" And I was getting fucked up. And I threw it on the crowd and then I, I felt bad 'cause they were just so upset and so disgusted with me. (laughs) And these were like regulars who usually come. (laughs) They started trying to win them back, win them back. (laughs) It took me an hour and a half just to get them back. I couldn't handle it. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:32 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 40:32 But there was a ... I remember I did a show in Orlando and there was a guy heckling me. I said, "Listen, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna come down there and pop you right in the fucking face." And I did. I went, I went off- Oh, no. ... the stage and popped this fucking guy, right? He was bleeding and everything. And the crowd was on his side. (laughs) It was ... "He's attacking us." And it took me 45 minutes just to, to break even. You know, and then that was-

Joe Rogan 40:56 Wait, you kept going after you punched the guy in the face?

Lenny Clarke 40:58 Yeah. (laughs) (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:01 (laughs) That's amazing in and of itself.

Lenny Clarke 41:03 Oh, oh, god. I, uh, uh ... In Orlando. Oh. I don't know what ... I know it was in Orlando. It was or- ... You know, I was doing a bunch of one-nighters in with ... And I was ... 'Cause the crowd was a big crowd. Must have been like 300 people in there. Well, I love being with ... This guy just ... And I fucking hate it and I went right, I put the mic down, right, bang, right in the f- ... And he went down, he was screaming and crying. I go, "Wow." And I went up and the people are like ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:24 That's the difference between Boston and Orlando.

Lenny Clarke 41:29 Oh, j- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:31 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 41:31 ... you, you, you can't do that.

Joe Rogan 41:33 You gave me the best advice anybody ever gave me when I was starting out. You did.

Lenny Clarke 41:37 What?

Joe Rogan 41:37 Uh, and right after your brother gave me the worst advice. (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 41:39 True, true.

Joe Rogan 41:40 Mike, Mike told me to work... But it was, it was good advice at the time. It was smart advice.

Lenny Clarke 41:44 I liked you. Yeah. (laughs) I, I, I just said, "Joe, I, I think maybe you should try to clean it up a bit." And you're like, "Yeah." And Lenny comes over-

Joe Rogan 41:50 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 41:50 ... and says, "Fuck him."

Joe Rogan 41:52 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 41:52 (laughs) And he goes, "Don't listen to him. You were great, kid. I love you. Don't change a thing."

Joe Rogan 41:56 Yeah, you bumped me up, man.

Lenny Clarke 41:57 Well, well- Well, you know, the thing was, you made me laugh, you know, 'cause I mean, I s- I, I've seen everybody. I s- w- when I started doing comedy, about 41 years ago, there was only 100 comedians, maybe, in the whole country. You know, what, the, the... I, I... If I heard of someone, I would fly to their town t- to go on stage and say, "Let's get on..." You know, Kenison, you know. Wow. And, uh, you know, uh, b- Slayton in San Francisco, you know, people that... Dom in, in, in Philadelphia, c-... People I, I thought were really good and admired. You know, I would like to see what it is, you know. Yeah. And then I became friends with all of them, you know? Oh, that's awesome. And then, n- then it just blew up. I mean, you know. Now, you don't even have to have an act. You're on YouTube or, or, uh-

Joe Rogan 42:35 Yeah, you still have to have an act when you get in front of those live audiences.

Lenny Clarke 42:38 Oh, you think so? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:39 I've seen it. I've seen those YouTube guys eat shit, you know.

Lenny Clarke 42:42 Yeah. But they've, they've, they've taken up for it. But, but they do draw people out to the club at ni-... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:47 For a while.

Lenny Clarke 42:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:48 They'll do it for a wh-... They trick people for a little bit.

Lenny Clarke 42:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:50 Unless they become good.

Lenny Clarke 42:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:52 I mean, they keep putting in the work and do the act, I mean, and, and, re- and, you know, m- develop an act. But y- y- you either can do it or you don't. Like, uh, Jerry Seinfeld once said (coughs) very famously that if you're famous, you have... It, it buys you 30 seconds.

Lenny Clarke 43:05 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:06 It buys you 30 seconds in front of a crowd. They're happy you're there. They'll give you 30 seconds. And after that, like, "Okay, what do you got?"

Lenny Clarke 43:12 What the... What the country.

Joe Rogan 43:14 "Where's the jokes?"

Lenny Clarke 43:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:15 Hey, he's a fucking good joke writer.

Lenny Clarke 43:17 Yeah. That guy is still slinging it.

Joe Rogan 43:19 He's still a ki-... He's still up there.

Lenny Clarke 43:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yakov Smirnoff, still slinging it. What, what... Wow.

Joe Rogan 43:22 He's at the Comedy Store every now and again. I think he's still in Branson.

Lenny Clarke 43:25 Branson. He has a theater in Branson.

Joe Rogan 43:26 Yeah, but he comes down to the store. And, and he... I worked with him a couple of times.

Lenny Clarke 43:30 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:30 He's good.

Lenny Clarke 43:31 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:31 This guy, he writes. He's got new material. He looks good too. He's healthy and thin.

Lenny Clarke 43:35 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:37 But, um, y- y-... Like, y- if those YouTube guys, (coughs) they have a, they have a shortcut, right? You know, just they're, they make funny videos on YouTube.

Lenny Clarke 43:45 Yep.

Joe Rogan 43:45 And they, they, they'll get a crowd, even though they're not really funny. But if they put in the work, they can pull it off.

Lenny Clarke 43:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:51 Like, it, it has been done.

Lenny Clarke 43:53 Mm.

Joe Rogan 43:53 The most courageous guy I ever saw was Charlie Murphy.

Lenny Clarke 43:56 Yep.

Joe Rogan 43:56 'Cause Charlie Murphy was essentially a famous open mic-er.

Lenny Clarke 43:59 Mm. Mm-hmm. Right.

Joe Rogan 44:00 And that fucking guy would... He started out hosting. It would be him and Donnell and Bill Burr, and they would do these shows together. And Charlie had never done standup.

Lenny Clarke 44:09 Mm.

Joe Rogan 44:09 But he had the most famous brother ever.

Lenny Clarke 44:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 44:12 I mean, his brother was fucking Eddie Murphy.

Lenny Clarke 44:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:14 And people had saw him on The Chappelle Show, and they-

Lenny Clarke 44:15 Chappelle Show really set him up.

Joe Rogan 44:18 ... they loved him from that. So he became famous. And then the guy had balls of fucking steel, man.

Lenny Clarke 44:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:23 I did a 22-show tour with him, and he had only been doing comedy for two years.

Lenny Clarke 44:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:29 And I had been doing comedy for more than 20.

Lenny Clarke 44:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:32 And we were co-headlining.

Lenny Clarke 44:33 Mm.

Joe Rogan 44:34 So I would headline one night, he would headline the other night. And, uh, I mean, to, to, to be able to go on after a guy has been doing comedy 24 years-

Lenny Clarke 44:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:42 ... whatever the fuck it was-

Lenny Clarke 44:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:44 ... and go on after him and do 40 minutes-

Lenny Clarke 44:47 Never listen.

Joe Rogan 44:47 ... when you've only been doing... Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 44:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:49 And th- just the balls that guy had.

Lenny Clarke 44:51 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he was just- Malice. ... going out there like he owned the place. Yeah. He passed away, right? Yeah. Geez, yeah. Wow. He passed away, uh, (sighs) yeah, about a little over a year ago, I think it was. Wow. I think all the people that we worked with th- that, they're not here anymore. A lot of them gone. Mm.

Joe Rogan 45:08 Man.

Lenny Clarke 45:08 My good god. Except the ones that suck.

Joe Rogan 45:10 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 45:10 Still out there fucking still kicking. Hey, I worked... You know, (coughs) you always make it a point... And, uh, but people stealing material. One of the biggest thieves that ever lived was Ali Joe Prata. I never met him. All right. Uh, he was this big red- big, fat, redneck guy, right? And we're working down south someplace, maybe Florida. And we're in the green room, and he watches The Tonight Show. And it's on, and we're doing the late show. And Carson comes out and does his monologue. And after his monologue, "All right, ladies and gentlemen, Ali Joe Prata." He went out and did Carson's (laughs) monologue and got robbed a standing ovation. I'm going, "No one will ever know." There was no VCIs back then. There were no tapes. There were nothing. I go, "Unbel- Wow. And he stole one of my jokes. "Man, you stole my joke." He said, "Yeah, but I do it better." I go, "No, you don't." Ah! "You just add a sudden twang to it, man. That's all."

Joe Rogan 45:57 "Yeah, but I do it better."

Lenny Clarke 45:58 Yeah, yeah. That's what... That's what he would say to these young kids. "Yeah, man, but I do it better."

Joe Rogan 46:02 Well, you know, back in the day, in the Catskills times, they all stole.

Lenny Clarke 46:05 Mm.

Joe Rogan 46:06 Like, there was, there was no honor amongst thieves back then. And everyone just had jokes. There were just joke-jokes. Like, you almost had like a toolbox. Like, "Oh, I needed three-eighths."

Lenny Clarke 46:15 Mm-hmm. You know?

Joe Rogan 46:16 Yeah, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 46:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:17 And they... And then as television came along and then people started getting in trouble for stealing.

Lenny Clarke 46:22 Mm.

Joe Rogan 46:22 You know, Robin got in trouble.

Lenny Clarke 46:23 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:23 And a few other guys got in trouble. And then it sort of died off until, like... I mean, when YouTube came along, then it kinda killed it. There's a... still a few thieves that are still running around to this day, and some of them are famous.

Lenny Clarke 46:36 Mm.

Joe Rogan 46:37 But most of the audience knows now.

Lenny Clarke 46:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:40 And if you, like, look at someone who's a thief and then you look at their Instagram comments, like, holy shit, people go after them.

Lenny Clarke 46:45 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:45 And people know now. They know it's the darkest thing you can do-

Lenny Clarke 46:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:48 ... when a guy works or a girl works forever on a bit, and then you just come along with a finished product and snatch it and switch a couple words around.

Lenny Clarke 46:55 Oh. Ah.

Joe Rogan 46:55 And pretend, pretend you came up with it on your own.

Lenny Clarke 46:58 Well, when I started, I, I, I was working as a janitor in City Hall at Cambridge. And I took the other janitors out for beers. We went to the Springfield Station when we saw Sweeney. And we saw Sweeney and Bill Campbell, and I'm going, "Oh, my God, Sweeney was just... He was..." I said, "Wow, this guy, I've never seen anything like it." And a couple of guys, uh, um, just a couple other comics went on to make... The, the janitor said, "You're funnier than these guys. You should do it." So I talked to George MacDonald about it at school the next day, and he goes, "Yeah, man." He says, "You should be a comedian." I go, "What's that?" He goes, "That's what you saw last night."

Joe Rogan 47:28 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 47:28 So we went over to his house, and we listened to Woody Allen albums.And I didn't even know Woody... I knew Woody Allen from his movie, but I didn't know he was a comedian. And he did that joke about hitting a moose up in Maine. So I went on. I'd never been on stage before. And I went on at the... uh, at the thing called Springfield Street Saloon, and I did this, and it was unbelievable. I changed all my... It was thunderous applause, like a standing ovation. And afterwards this little old guy comes in the back and says, "Mr. Clarke, you're very funny but you shouldn't use Woody Allen material." I go, "Woody who? Fuck you, get outta here." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:55 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 47:55 And I go, "Oh, man." The gig... And that was it, that was it. And I sucked for months. I said, "But it was all mine." You know what I mean? It was crazy, uh...

Joe Rogan 48:02 Yeah, there's a lotta guys in the beginning that's... Uh, Greg Fitzsimmons and I used to steal from each other.

Lenny Clarke 48:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:07 We had a deal though, like if he was on... Because we both only had like 15 minutes, and we had to do a half.

Lenny Clarke 48:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 48:13 So I would steal 15 of his, he'd steal 15 of mine, and we were best friends.

Lenny Clarke 48:16 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:17 So we'd go... He'd go, "Aw dude, that blowjob material killed in fucking Pawtucket." (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 48:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:22 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 48:23 So, um... I- I said to Kenny one night, I said, "Kenny, that- that was fucking brilliant. Was that you? Was you fucking Marty? I did that three weeks ago." (laughs) 'Cause I never... I didn't know what I was doing. I had- They can't remember it back.

Joe Rogan 48:32 Ugh.

Lenny Clarke 48:32 I can't... I can't remember it, you know what I mean? I just... You know what I mean? I just... (imitates snare drum)

Joe Rogan 48:35 See, the best guys don't.

Lenny Clarke 48:36 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Like Joey Diaz, you gotta be waiting-

Lenny Clarke 48:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:37 ... for Joey offstage with a notebook.

Lenny Clarke 48:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:39 And you gotta go, "Say that again."

Lenny Clarke 48:41 You do this. You know what I say? You know who... (laughs) What the fuck did I say? What the fuck did I say?

Joe Rogan 48:43 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 48:43 You know who used to do that? Uh, Mike Donovan. Mike Donovan- Oh, yeah. ... was so good to me 'cause Mike Donovan, when I saw him, I go, "Wow this guy is so... just brilliant, real technical- Yeah. ... about everything." And I used to take him out after shows and take him to breakfast, and he would tell me, he says, "Listen, I'm gonna tell you everything you did wrong. There's no need for me to tell you what you did right, 'cause you can tell, but everything you did wrong." And he would listen and I would go, "Oh my God," you know? Wow. And he helped mold me and he helped make me technically a better com... He... he... I owe him a lot. Every... Uh, Mike Donovan was great.

Joe Rogan 49:13 He helped me as well. He told me to record all my sets.

Lenny Clarke 49:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:15 He told me to get a tape recorder.

Lenny Clarke 49:16 He still tapes- Yeah. ... to this day, Joe.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 49:18 Every show.

Joe Rogan 49:19 Every show.

Lenny Clarke 49:19 Joe, he was like, "You never know."

Joe Rogan 49:20 You know what I mean?

Lenny Clarke 49:20 Well, I know-

Joe Rogan 49:21 You might say one thing and you forget you say it, but that one thing might be... make the bit 10 times better.

Lenny Clarke 49:26 Joe, I listened to him, and I taped everything. (laughs) There's boxes of shit in my garage still. Never listened to it once? I never listen to it. (laughs) Oh. Now I think about it. How about... But... I was reading a Lenny Bruce thing, and he used to tape, you know. And so I didn't realize (laughs) he was taping his act. I thought he was taping talking into a microphone, right? That's hilarious. So I would say, "So, you know, hey man, uh..." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:46 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 49:47 So I would write... When I first started doing it, I would write for hours and I would go down to the kitchen and say, "Hey Ma, what do you think of this?" And I'd tell her a joke, she goes, "I don't know. I g- I guess it's good." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:56 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 49:56 "What do you mean you guess it's good? Who do you like?" She said, "Why, I really like that Rip Taylor." I go, "Rip Taylor? (slaps desk) Fuck him." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:02 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 50:02 "You know what I mean? He's a piece of... Petri all of his shit right now." I rip him in... She goes, "That's why Heinz makes 57 varieties. Get over it." (laughs) "You're not the only funny person in the world, all right?" Whoa. So la-... Oh yeah, she was... She didn't take any shit. (laughs) So later... I'm working at the Dunes one day, and Pauly Shore... I'm out by the pool and Pauly says, "Hey Lenny." I turn around, who is he with but Rip Taylor, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:19 Ah.

Lenny Clarke 50:19 And Rip is going, "Ooh, look at that one." And he's... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:22 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 50:22 I mean, Joe, he's- he's killing me. And I said, I said-

Joe Rogan 50:25 Oh.

Lenny Clarke 50:25 I said, "Mr. Taylor." He goes, "Call me Rip." I goes, "Oh yeah." He's... "Is that who you like?" (laughs) So I said, "Would you cau- talk to my mother?" So they bring a phone out to the pool, this is- No way. ... yeah, yeah. And he said, uh, "Hello Gene, it's Rip Taylor and you're hearing ah..." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:40 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 50:40 So he- he's so nice to her, right? Oh. And then he gives me the phone, she goes, "I told you he was funny, you idiot." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:47 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 50:47 But I- I- I apprec- he... I ended up doing Hollywood Squares with him, got to be friends with... A good guy, good guy.

Joe Rogan 50:52 Oh, that's amazing.

Lenny Clarke 50:53 And he made me laugh, like I... He was funny, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:56 Oh, he was a hilarious guy.

Lenny Clarke 50:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:57 He was... Well, the Hollywood Squares, I mean, he took over that show.

Lenny Clarke 50:59 Yeah. Oh yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:00 You want... If you saw Hollywood Squares and Rip Taylor wasn't on, you're like, "What the fuck is this?"

Lenny Clarke 51:03 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what is Rip? I don't... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:04 "Where is he? He's the funny one."

Lenny Clarke 51:06 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:06 "He's the guy you wanna hear talk." Yeah, Donovan told me to record all my sets and he... uh, you know, he would... He would explain to you the fuck meter too.

Lenny Clarke 51:14 Oh. Oh. (coughs) (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:15 That was something that young comics, to this day, don't understand.

Lenny Clarke 51:18 Yep. First time I ever heard that. He goes, "Well- Yeah. ... you broke the fuck meter." I go, "What?" And- and I didn't even realize I was doing it, you know?

Joe Rogan 51:23 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 51:24 And- and now when I'm working with guys that I like there, yeah, I say, "You know what? Listen, you don't need the fuck there. Dr- drop the fuck there. You don't- you don't need that. The joke's fine without it," You know?

Joe Rogan 51:33 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 51:33 And I mean... They go, "You..." And I go, "Don't- don't do what I do. Do- do what I-"

Joe Rogan 51:36 But- but you can do it when it's necessary, and when it's necessary it'll mean more if you don't have 10 other unusual or unnecessary fucks.

Lenny Clarke 51:43 And well, with Mike, you know, he- he tends to use it where he- he wants to use it.

Joe Rogan 51:48 Mm-hmm.

Lenny Clarke 51:48 And he worries about the guys on in front of him. You know, he goes, "I don't want you doing it just-

Joe Rogan 51:53 Right.

Lenny Clarke 51:53 ... for the sake of doing it."

Joe Rogan 51:54 Right.

Lenny Clarke 51:54 You know? And he was... You know, he's... Mike's a great guy, and he still tapes every show.

Joe Rogan 51:59 Well, he's a great comic.

Lenny Clarke 52:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:01 And he- he's just very aware that you can... the audience will get numb to that word-

Lenny Clarke 52:04 No.

Joe Rogan 52:04 ... where it doesn't mean anything.

Lenny Clarke 52:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 52:06 Where if you don't hear it until he goes up, and then when he goes up you only hear it when it's necessary-

Lenny Clarke 52:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 52:11 ... it makes... It's- it's a presentation issue.

Lenny Clarke 52:14 Yep.

Joe Rogan 52:14 'Cause if there's a guy in front of you, some comics will use the word fuck the same way they use the word um. They're like, "That fucking-

Lenny Clarke 52:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:20 ... liking guy with the fucking thing with the fucking-"

Lenny Clarke 52:22 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 52:22 "He's got his fucking hat on."

Lenny Clarke 52:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:24 "And his fucking shoes are tied and his fucking..."

Lenny Clarke 52:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:27 And he's just... By the time you say... And I'm like, "Fuck you," it doesn't mean anything.

Lenny Clarke 52:31 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:31 Yeah, I used to open... I used to open for Leno, and he would say to me, "You know, you're really funny but you don't have to be that filthy. You don't have to..." I said, "Yeah, but I- but I feel like I'm selling out." He goes, "You're not selling out. You're cashing in." And my mother always used to say, "You can get more work." And then I started doing corporate gigs and people said, "Listen, Lenny, we don't care if you're mildly amusing as long as you don't say fuck or anything." And I went, "Yeah." You know, they fly you on a jet-

Lenny Clarke 52:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:56 ... and they pay 20, 30 grand, "And you sign some autographs?" "Yeah, yeah." So I mean...

Lenny Clarke 53:01 So you did sell out? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:03 Yeah. Those are- those are tempting. That's the siren song-

Lenny Clarke 53:05 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:06 ... is corporate gigs.

Lenny Clarke 53:06 Oh yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:07 'Cause I remember, uh, like that's like...... that's where Jay made most of his money.

Lenny Clarke 53:12 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:12 I mean, he would make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Lenny Clarke 53:15 Well, he needs it, you know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:16 Well, that's what he says.

Lenny Clarke 53:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:17 You know, he, uh, he never spent his Tonight Show money.

Lenny Clarke 53:20 No. He never spent any money.

Mike Clarke 53:21 No.

Joe Rogan 53:21 All of his money went to cars.

Mike Clarke 53:23 Cars. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:23 And all that money came from gigs.

Lenny Clarke 53:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:25 And he never put out a special.

Lenny Clarke 53:26 No.

Joe Rogan 53:26 He had one special on Showtime way back in the day.

Lenny Clarke 53:29 In Philly.

Joe Rogan 53:30 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 53:30 In Philly.

Joe Rogan 53:31 That's right.

Lenny Clarke 53:31 I remember that. ...

Joe Rogan 53:32 It was a good sh- It was a good special.

Lenny Clarke 53:33 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:33 And I talked to him about it, he goes, "Hey, why, why would I do that?" He goes, "I put on my act." He goes, uh, "They give me... Even if they give me a million dollars," he goes, "that's gonna cost me money."

Mike Clarke 53:41 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 53:41 But his whole thing was he didn't wanna do it because that material was gone.

Joe Rogan 53:45 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 53:45 Once he did it.

Mike Clarke 53:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:46 But d- But he would go to these places and do the same act, like, two years later.

Lenny Clarke 53:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:51 And people would be like, "What the fuck?"

Lenny Clarke 53:53 Mm.

Joe Rogan 53:53 But he just had this polished...

Lenny Clarke 53:54 Oh, people would say to me, "Hey, man, I really don't care for my..." I said, "Listen to me," I said... I used to open for him, and one night I was at Nick's, and I was, I was supposed to do 20 minutes. And whenever I was opening for someone, I'd do my time and get off. That's just respect. And he came in and he goes... Oh, I said, "Okay," so, uh, the crowd liked me anyway.

Mike Clarke 54:13 Stretch. Keep going.

Lenny Clarke 54:13 And so now I do about 45, and I... Stand-up, crowd's going crazy. And I'm walking off. In my mind, I'm going, "Follow that fucker." You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 54:22 Right.

Lenny Clarke 54:22 He gets on stage. Within two minutes, it was like, Lenny who? He was that good on his exit stage.

Joe Rogan 54:26 A, as a star.

Mike Clarke 54:27 He was the Springsteen of comedy.

Lenny Clarke 54:28 He was amaze-

Joe Rogan 54:29 People don't know.

Lenny Clarke 54:31 They don't know great stand-up.

Joe Rogan 54:31 They don't know, because when he used to go on Letterman back when he was young, they had the crazy dark hair.

Lenny Clarke 54:35 Yeah. Yeah, they was.

Joe Rogan 54:36 He was the edgy comic.

Lenny Clarke 54:38 Oh, yeah.

Mike Clarke 54:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:39 Which is hard for young guys to wrap their head around.

Lenny Clarke 54:40 It... Joe, he had... He would do a two-hour show and it wasn't too much.

Mike Clarke 54:44 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:45 Yeah, yeah.

Lenny Clarke 54:45 You know? It was, it was killer.

Joe Rogan 54:46 Yeah. Yeah, he's e- extremely underrated as a, as a comic.

Mike Clarke 54:50 I agree.

Joe Rogan 54:51 And I think it's unfortunate that he doesn't have, like, a great body of work.

Lenny Clarke 54:54 Mm.

Joe Rogan 54:54 Other than Tonight Show monologues.

Lenny Clarke 54:56 Mm.

Joe Rogan 54:56 P- People think of him as the guy with Tonight Show mono-... He's a great stand-up guy still.

Lenny Clarke 55:00 Great stand-up.

Joe Rogan 55:00 He is, yeah.

Mike Clarke 55:02 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 55:02 And a- And anyone that, that I see that is, is really thr-... I give it up, you know? It's... But here's the thing. You make me laugh, you know, I like... If you're, if you're successful and it's, "I'm not getting..." I'm going, "Nah," you know?

Lenny Clarke 55:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:15 It's good for you, you know? I mean, I don't, I don't belittle anybody for, for their success. I'm the same way.

Lenny Clarke 55:20 You know? But, but if you make me laugh, then I... I'll pay, I'll pay to go see you.

Joe Rogan 55:24 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 55:24 If you make me laugh.

Joe Rogan 55:25 It's a waste of time to worry about something you don't like, 'cause obviously other people like it.

Mike Clarke 55:29 Right.

Joe Rogan 55:29 What do you give a shit?

Lenny Clarke 55:30 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:30 It's like... I feel the same way about music. Like, I don't... There's a lot of music I don't like. It's fu-... They sell millions of albums.

Lenny Clarke 55:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 55:36 I don't care.

Lenny Clarke 55:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:38 There's no room.

Lenny Clarke 55:39 I, I, I just wanna... I just wanna laugh. If you can make me laugh.

Joe Rogan 55:43 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 55:43 That's... That's why some of the people I, I, I hang around with just give... When we go out, we go out to dinner, everyone puts their cellphones on the table, off.

Joe Rogan 55:50 Beautiful.

Lenny Clarke 55:51 You know? 'Cause it's, you know...

Joe Rogan 55:52 That's nice.

Lenny Clarke 55:53 You gotta... Yeah, but you can't... All you need is some nitwit to take you down on you. "Oh, God."

Joe Rogan 55:58 So many people are fucking interested in just looking at their phone all day.

Lenny Clarke 56:01 Right. Now, if I wasn't a- as, as old as I am, if I was a young kid coming up now, I'd be an animal.

Joe Rogan 56:07 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 56:07 Because I wouldn't care. And if, "Oh, you can't say that? Well, let me tell you this right now," You know? And I... And the thing was, when... You know, when I started, people would say, "Oh my God, what a funny take on that." And I... It wasn't a funny take. It was what I actually thought.

Joe Rogan 56:19 Right.

Lenny Clarke 56:19 But rather than, you know, pop their balloon and take... Let 'em know I'm crazy, I just, "Oh, yeah," because I... That's what I... I've never thought I was funnier than anybody. I just know that I'm sick.

Mike Clarke 56:30 (laughs)

Lenny Clarke 56:30 And I just use that to... As, as the... Under the guise of humor.

Joe Rogan 56:35 It works.

Mike Clarke 56:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:36 We know it works. Well, we were very lucky that in those days in Boston, I mean, I started in '88, but in, in those days there was... Remember in Warrington Street?

Lenny Clarke 56:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:47 You had, you had the Comedy at the Charles up the theater, uh, above.

Lenny Clarke 56:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:51 Downstairs was The Connection.

Lenny Clarke 56:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:53 Over here was Nick's.

Lenny Clarke 56:54 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:55 And over there was Duck Soup.

Lenny Clarke 56:56 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 56:56 It was fucking crazy. It was crazy.

Lenny Clarke 56:58 Oh, my God, he opened one club. What was that club in the... In the Bradford?

Mike Clarke 57:01 Oh, that was at the Hotel Bradford.

Joe Rogan 57:03 Yeah.

Mike Clarke 57:03 With the-

Joe Rogan 57:03 What was in the basement?

Lenny Clarke 57:04 Jokers.

Joe Rogan 57:04 Okay. This place would hold over 350 people.

Lenny Clarke 57:06 Oh, it was a beautiful room.

Joe Rogan 57:07 And one night, I had Mike Binder come on. You know Mike.

Lenny Clarke 57:10 Sure.

Joe Rogan 57:10 And Mike Binder... I says, "Do some...

Mike Clarke 57:12 He's doing a documentary right now on The Storm.

Joe Rogan 57:14 I said, "Do some time." I'm in the back, at backstage, doing lines.

Mike Clarke 57:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:17 And he brought the entire audience up on stage-

Lenny Clarke 57:20 Through the, through the dressing room.

Joe Rogan 57:21 ... through the dressing rooms. And this is how the comedians are hard at work while the other comedians are on. I'm chopping up like, "Hey, how you doing?" (laughs)

Mike Clarke 57:30 (laughs) Jesus Christ.

Joe Rogan 57:32 I used to do blow on stage and people go, "Relax, relax. It's just stunt coke. It's not real." You know?

Mike Clarke 57:36 No.

Joe Rogan 57:37 There's no other place like that. Like, the scene in New York was very different. The scene in New York, there's... They never, they never did the hosting thing the way they did it in Boston. There wasn't as many clubs that were, like, close together.

Lenny Clarke 57:48 And they would talk to the crowd.

Joe Rogan 57:50 Yeah.

Lenny Clarke 57:51 There were no jokes.

Joe Rogan 57:51 Right, right, right.

Lenny Clarke 57:52 Where you from? And, you know-

Joe Rogan 57:53 Well, back then there was.

Lenny Clarke 57:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:55 It's a little different now, and now there's a lot of jokes, but the... I think I attribute that to the size of the rooms.

Lenny Clarke 58:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:01 In New York, you're on top of people.

Lenny Clarke 58:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:02 That's the first thing I noticed when I moved to New York. I was like, "God, the fucking audiences." It literally would be, like, I would be standing on stage and you would be the front row.

Lenny Clarke 58:10 Right then-... Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:10 And everyone's so close.

Lenny Clarke 58:12 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:12 'Cause there's no space.

Lenny Clarke 58:13 The old Catch a Rising Star.

Joe Rogan 58:14 Yes.

Lenny Clarke 58:15 Dangerfield.

Joe Rogan 58:15 Yes.

Lenny Clarke 58:15 The Comic Strip.

Joe Rogan 58:16 They're on, on the... Stand Up New York.

Lenny Clarke 58:18 Stand Up New York.

Joe Rogan 58:19 They're on top of you.

Lenny Clarke 58:20 They used to go down, I'd take the train down and stand in line, wait for a number to go on at Catch. And they'd put me on last 'cause I was from Boston. And I'd go up and I burned it down. And they'd go, "Hey, man," you know, "Here's your $10." I'd go, "$10?" I'd give it to the bartender and I'm out. And I'd get on the Night Owl and go back. And I did that for years, and finally some... Like, Belzer was good to me, and even Piscopo gave me a break, and some other guys. But Mike said, "Why don't you go to New York for it?" I said, "What do I do it here? Let's... Why, why go to New York? Let's, let's have them come to us." And the thing always... Just like an explosion. It was great.

Joe Rogan 58:52 Yeah, there was, there was no place like that scene. And I, I feel so lucky that I started stand-up in '88 in Boston.

Lenny Clarke 59:00 Mm.

Joe Rogan 59:00 I feel like I just caught this wave.

Lenny Clarke 59:02 Oh, yeah, it was great.

Mike Clarke 59:03 When did you leave