Comedy has lost its eloquence.
— Robert Klein
Comedy is still alive, and there are still funny people. Jews are still overrepresented in comedy and psychiatry and underrepresented in the priesthood. That immigrant Jewish humor is still with us.
I did the first HBO special ever in 1975 at Haverford College. Cable was new then: HBO was a Time-Life entity, with maybe 400,000 or 500,000 subscribers and maybe 50 employees.
One of my greatest inspirations for stand-up was Jonathan Winters. He was a genius. One thing about him, and also Lenny Bruce, is that they were in the tradition of the one-man show. That's why Richard Pryor was so great, and George Carlin, too. They prowled the stage, they used voices, they were really talents.
There are certain families who absolutely incorporate their nanny as part of the family, and there are other people, and there are codes for this, when they call in, they say, 'I am really not looking for a friend.' It is clear they will not be members of the family.
I was a class clown. My father was a class clown. My son has been a class clown, and it sort of ran in the family.
I have what we call a 'symphony act.' I'm the only comedian, I think, in the country that does it.
Regis and I were inducted into the original Bronx Walk of Fame.
I was a class clown.
And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.
In some articles written about me, writers have said I'm a link between the old and the new, and I think, in a certain sense, that's legitimate.
I guess I'm pleased and proud of the respect of my peers, and that when I disappear from the scene or from this earth, I will have left a mark. They'll say, 'He did it well.' I like being funny; it opens people up.
I was brought up at 3525 Decatur Avenue, in the north Bronx, right next to Woodlawn Cemetery.
When I started, there was no comedy community, no comedy industry; there were comedians.
What makes a good nanny? A good nanny is someone who really wants to do the job. Someone who loves children, who really values what she does and, of course, is valued by her employer.
I wrote my book 'The Amorous Busboy Of Decatur Avenue' completely like a writer does, writing it down, re-writing everything. But in my stand-up, I improvise initially, never questioning it too closely.
The Broad research center represents the highest quality model of what Proposition 71 should be funding.
My son has been a class clown and it sort of ran in the family.
But to do it professionally is a quantum leap difference and my father had to be persuaded by these kind of Ivy League professors that I should go to the Yale Drama School, another one of the stories in there.
I'm not against profanity. It's an important part of the language when used properly.
There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the spotlight making a huge audience keel over with laughter.
I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.
I have a work-out regime; I am not a maniac. It sounds cliche, but stand-up comedy, doing a one-man show, helps keep me young, and yes, it is exhausting, but I don't collapse.
The '50s were terrifying with nuclear bomb stuff but boring in a social way, and then the '60s were happening, and remember, there was no AIDS.
My 1974 album 'Mind Over Matter' was a detailed thing about Watergate. I always had some righteous indignation.
So it took me five years because in the interim I have been doing a lot of personal appearances and movies and some television series that went into the plumbing and I stopped writing for a while.
In the fifties I had dreams about touching a naked woman and she would turn to bronze or the dream about hot dogs chasing donuts through the Lincoln Tunnel.
But I think the other is a little more like bullfighting, a little more daring and although I appreciate good acting and I liked being versatile my whole career, it kept me working.
