Confessions of a ShowBiz Junkie: Chapter One (in part)
A surreal but true comedy memoir by Steven Alan Green
This is the first few pages of a book I wrote back in the early 90’s when I was living in New York at The Chelsea Hotel. I had a great literary agent and he sent it round to the big publishers like Random House and Little Brown. And, although there was “interest”, it never sold. Looking at it now 25 years later, it seems naïve (but in a good way) and some of it actually makes me cringe. Having said that, I think it’s the perfect time capsule of who I was back in those days and what The Comedy Store was as well.
The idea came about from when in October 1986, after 5 years slogging it out on the Comedy Store stages, I simply went up on stage when my name was called and announced to the audience that this was “my last show”. That I was fed up with struggling and wanted to go back to so-called normal life, which I had before I became a comedian. A job, a house, a life. But, something indeed magical happened that night. Because it was my last show, I was no longer under pressure. And because I didn’t care anymore, I had fun. And because I had fun, I was funny. I literally had the best set of my life and at the end of it, I told the crowd present: “You guys have been so great, I’m going to come back tomorrow night and do one more farewell performance!” The crowd cheered and gave me a standing ovation. I soon tied my quitting into being addicted to performing and for the book, interviewed comedians, including the great Alan King and my namesake, the one and only Steve Allen. I also got a great interview with Norman Cousins, the author of Anatomy of an Illness, which chronicled his recovery from a severe arthritic condition through large doses of Vitamin C and what he called “laughter therapy”.
The book is a mixture of real interviews, true anecdotes, and fantasy. Steve Allen himself, said of Confessions of a ShowBiz Junkie:
“A fascinating narrative and an important look inside the mind of the comedic artist.”
As I said, the book was never published and since it was written on the cusp of the computer era, I only have a printed copy. Of which I am transposing bit by bit. Here’s the first few pages. Let me know what you think. I’d like to be encouraged to finally get this book out.
Thank you and enjoy,
Steven Alan Green
Confessions of a Showbiz Junkie
All I know is this is it. The chamber is loaded and the cold end of the barrel kisses my sweaty temple. What makes this suicide different from all the rest you read about is that mine is a public happening. And, unlike the poor unsuspecting reporters at R. “Bud” Dwyer’s press conference a few years ago, this was a paying crowd. They thought the eight dollar cover and five dollar beer was their only cost to laugh all night. They were dead wrong. Soon they would be wiping blood off their faces and it wouldn’t be their own. They would be removing brain fragments out of their Piña Colada like some sort of Jackie Kennedy pimento picker.
I suppose you wonder why the fuck you should care? Who am I? Just some self-serving sophisticate slob who’s a little bored and very pissed at life Some white Jew whose ego’s larger than his penis? Maybe some of the above — maybe none — I don’t really care to analyze myself just yet. Nonetheless, here I am at age 30, the prime of my life (hopefully) and on stage at a packed house at the world famous Comedy Store, the club whose tattered black rug has been caressed by beings of laughter over the years with names like Pryor, Martin, Williams, Barr, Dangerfield, Murphy, Bruce even — and now moi. I don’t think anyone’s ever died on stage quite like this. How did I get here? It’s a simple story that’s only a side note to what I really want to say. I love this stage. I love it like a baby loves his mommy’s nipple — like a man loves a whore who fucks him and then pays him. Like anything under God’s moon. Comedians — who are we? The only time you can see their real soul is when they are crying, asleep, or in love. The rest of the time, we’re all a bunch of self-involved, self-deprecating, self-serving indigents who wouldn’t know a moral from a holy sin. But, for some odd set of reasons, stand-up comedians have become the poet jesters of the late 20th Century. Is society really gone that far? Are we doomed? Or is the doom over and this is some lounge show in the waiting room of hell?
I know something’s wrong in my life. I went from making an indecent living in telemarketing selling pens (a highly overrated line of 1980’s corruption) to practically living out of my car — just so I could be at The Comedy Store 24 hours a day. You never know who you might meet…Robin Williams, Sam Kinison, and others, myself included, would hang out at Ben Frank’s late night diner after the show till 4 in the morning. Eddie Murphy is just another one of the guys, who happens to have a 12 piece entourage. He’s there a lot. Richard Pryor — let’s get him high — yeah, that’s hip. But, why is it so hard fro me? I think people think I’m disturbed in some way. Ever since I became a regular comedian here 5 years ago, I’ve been a fish not only out of water, but a dead fish at that. I never belonged. I didn’t belong in grade school either. Moving back and forth from Show-Biz insulated Beverly Hills to the then backwoods of Phoenix was a mind splitter. My parents’ divorce — a cousin’s suicide — my business doomed and now this — I’ve got a gun at my head and two –hundred paying customers want to believe it’s a joke. It ain’t.
They say your whole life can flash before you when you die. If this is true — it better hurry — my trigger finger’s a getting’ antsy.
But, why suicide you ask? Good question. I guess I finally decided to be honest not only with myself, but with the world. I’ve come to the realization that it’s time for a desperate measure. Sure, it would have done my career a whole lot of good to previously announce my intentions of personal demise — maybe I could have gotten an HBO deal, giving them exclusive rights to a worldwide satellite feed. Play by play color might be done by Marv Albert. That way, I know Letterman would ask him about that “Wacky guy with the gun — what’s his deal?”
The truth is that I feel as desperate as an addict — a shaking, puking, sorrowful heroin addict. Only, I’m not addicted to heroin, or cocaine, or even alcohol. My “high” has been the laughter. I have literally become addicted to it and it has ruined my life. I have spent my soul and a lot of time and money on acting lessons, comedy routines, jokes, my Martin guitar, and a dumb-fucking outfit that includes baggy tuxedo pants held up by think suspenders, old 40’s colorful times, and red Converse All-Stars high-tops sneakers (my trademark). I have deluded myself over the years into believing that I could become a world famous comedy star. And, all I’ve got left is my self-proclaimed farewell performance. My last show. My last stand. Am I correct thought? Is it possible to get addicted to laughter? Who would answer such an absurd question? Suddenly, the spotlight blur of the crowd becomes just a bit weaker as lone face insists on an outline. I cover my eyebrows with a parallel hand like Tonto surveying the back lot of whatever studio the Lone Ranger was filmed at. It helps focus in on that face. As I see who it is, the trigger on the gun suddenly becomes less the focus of my attention as my hand pulls the barrel slowly away from the skin on my right temple, leaving an odd ring-like impression, somewhat akin to those mysterious circles in the English wheat fields that up until recently, when they were revealed to be nothing less than a hoax, put thoughts into the minds of the sometimes downtrodden UFO sympathizer.
That face — I know it somehow. It seems all too familiar….No, don’t tell me… wait… wait…. I think… maybe…. Could it be?… No… Yes, I think maybe it is! Yes! Indeed in fact it is! It is in fact Steve Allen! Steve Fucking Allen! The first host of The Tonight Show and the father of the talk-show. Jonny, Joan, Arsenio, Dave, Jay, and pardon the expression) a host of others all owe their lives, not to mention their souls, to Mr. Allen. He created their world. He’s great! He’s known almost all the greats. He’s the one who gave Lenny Bruce his first television push. He’s first class. He’s knowledgeable. He’s very very funny. Steve is absolutely, in my humbled opinion, the best ad lib artist around, bar none, thank you. Is he really there? Am I really seeing an angel sent forth to save me, or am I just projecting my mixed emotional state into a fleshed out fantasy of my namesake? I wonder what he thinks of all this. That is, if he’s really there! My eyes get droopy as my mind begins to wander. I’m under a lot of stress. I quickly snap back. But, it’s no use. I’m falling and falling rather quickly. Things get really fuzzy here. Am I asleep? Or did I actually have the guts, and pulled the trigger? Suddenly, a hear thunderous laughter followed by a rousing supportive wave of applause. I jerk my head awake. I am now seated. But, I am no longer on The Comedy Store stage. In fact, I am no longer even in a comedy club. I am, in fact, sitting down on a panel in a television studio with a full crowd of strangely dressed adults. And, there’s some bizarre quality about it all… I can’t quite put my finger on it…. It’s some weird trait of reality that I’ve never experience quite this way, yet is so vaguely familiar. I know what it is! Everything’s in Black and White! There’s no color — how odd! It’s like having a pair of those cheap comic book sunglasses on, yet at the same time — everything has never been clearer. I look around me — all I see are technicians and stage hands and three huge antique live television cameras. The kind I used to see as a kid when Kennedy debated Nixon. Then, I turn my head to my left and it all beings to make sense to me. Because, just to the left of my peripheral — just out of visual reach, yet somehow always within psychic territory, I see the connection. Sitting behind the desk is none other than a very young black haired and bespectacled Steve Allen. Smiling and laughing the way he does. And, apparently — he and everyone else has been laughing at one of my anecdotes or jokes or bon mots or whatever! This is no dream. This reality, and I’m on live television. I’m on The Steve Allen Show. And, this is the most bizarre thing of all… it’s the year of my birth — 1956 — yet I’m a full-fledged adult, still wearing the black tux pants, 40’s tie an red sneaks I had on at The Comedy Store. God, this is fucking BIZARRE! And, just when I think I might just be able to quickly close my eyes and shake my had back to 1991, Mr. Allen Asks me a question, or in fact repeats the question I just posed to him.
STEVE ALLEN: “Do I know anyone who has experienced actual getting on stage from the laughter?… I cannot honestly say that I HAVE< BUT THERE IS something that pops out of my computer that has relevance I think. I have discovered the ability of the act of performing as a pain killer, so to speak. Back in 1950, I was going through pretty much the worst part of my life personally — my first marriage was falling apart, I was the father of three young children and it was constant suffering — but the one hour a day I no such problems was the hour I was on the air every night in front of 400 adoring fans laughing their head off at everything I said. If somebody had said ‘Wait a minute — we’re stopping the show, how do you feel about your (pause)’, you know, I’d say, ‘Oh yeah, I feel terrible about that, but that’s obviously fantasy’. So, I was in great shape for that hour and it would even last — what you might describe as ‘the high’ — would last for maybe five, then minutes until I got out to the parking lot and then everything would come crashing down on me again and suicidal depression and all that….”
Interview continues…..
Plus interviews with comedy legend Alan King, Adjunct U.C.L.A Professor and author Norman Cousins and comedian Steve Kravitz. Plus, further fantastical adventures inside the mind of comedian Steven Alan Green onstage, with a gun to his head.
