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street roots
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Feb. 14,2014
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R.L.: I’ve been a comedian for 45 years,
Back then there were only really about 100
comedians and I would say only about 10 or
15 of us were doing better than the other
85: Crystal and Leno and me and Kaufman
and Freddie Prince and Elayne Booster and
a handful of others. You know, we were the
ones who got the first breaks. Then Jimmy .
Walker got the series and it was all pretty
trippy. Freddy got $ series; We felt like
dreamers.
I remember, a great comedian, Robert
Klein, called us gypsies because most of us
didn’t come from show business. Here we
were: working for free, hanging out in the
Village, hanging out in downtown
Manhattan, always going out and eating and
drinking and talking about each other’s
work. It was like a real sisterhood/
brotherhood. And then there was the
comedy boom and there were a half a
million comedians. Which is fine with me,
but the only downside with that is the vast
majority were so derivative that you had to
really think about who you were going to
spend time with at a club or on TV. It got
increasingly difficult. Those people - hot
Just the masters like Lenny and Pryor arid
Shelley Berman and Jonathan Winters and
Mel Brooks and those people— they were
driven only to be funny. Nothing else
mattered.
‘ Of bourse a lot of my life went south
because of that. I didn’t have much balance.
I never went insane and I aril not in the
street, thank God. I still have my home and
I married a wonderful woman many years
ago - nay first marriage - we’ve been
together for 15 years. So I’ve dodged huge
bullets. I’m in my mid 60s. When I started,
all of these really famous, iconic comedians
were in their late 40s who I used to watch
on TV. And they were fans of mine. It
tripped me out. It also gave me tremendous
incentive - as broke as I was - to keep
going up . I felt like a true artist. Thi^ is what
an a rtist d o e s, ,
S.Z.: Have the audiences changed, too?
R
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_ P H Q T O B Y P H IL P R O V E N G IO
With 4 5 years in the spotlight, the tireless comedian
reflects on his life in comedy and recovery
BY SUE ZALOKAR
Club in Portland.
STAFF W R IT E R
Sue Zalokar: Why stand-up? I
lot has changed since Richard Lewis
first hit the comedy scene in 1971,
Richard Lewis: Comedyis a booh to my
but Lewis’s oristage.persona has
psyche.
I don’t go on stage rantirig and
stayed point-on: neurotic, obsessive and
about stuff like (the work) Street
cathartically using fodder from his life on talking
?
the analyst’s couch. Performance as therapy. Roots does. I do know this: it seems like
those who don’t need help, get more help.
Therapy as performance.
Maybe it’s just the nature of the beast.
Lewis spent many years ignoring, and
Maybe it’s just the way people are. It takes
then facing his multiple drug and alcohol
more than a handful of Nobel Peace Prize
addictions. Now, almost 20 years sober,
Lewis says he still has to take it one day at a winners to change society’s viewpoints.
a
time. But there has always been one
addiction that has served him well:
Performing before live audiences. In
addition to his success in film and television,
he has spent the past four decades of
touring the comedy circuit and currently
enjoys the rote of — well, essentially himself
— in the wildly popular HBO series “Curb h
Your Enthusiasm.”
Last year, Lewis took a much needed and
doctor-ordered vacation, a six-month break
from comedy touring after 45 years.
He is back on the road, and he will appear
in two shows on each night, Friday, Feb. 21
and Saturday, Feb. 22 at Helium Comedy
S.Z.: You have often made reference to hard
times or lean times in your past. What were
those times like for you?
R.L.: I never went into the arts to make any
money. I went, into the arts because I was
on a mission to express myself. Most artists
will tell you th at Then when the money
comes, I never thought about how much I
wanted to make. I just thought about my
next show, but I always wanted to pay the
biUs.
I felt like a millionaire, every night
exhausted after two or three part time jobs,
living in shitholes. My father had died right
after I graduated Ohio State and never saw
me perform. And my brother and sister
were much older than me and they weren’t
around. My mother, she had all sorts of stuff
, - things that didn’t make us great friends,
to put it mildly. So I really was sort of
tethered to no one/and really had no
i support.
Understandably; it made it easier for me
to latch onto drugs and alcohol. I’ve been
sober almost 20 years. One day at a time.
It’s really true. -
S.Z.: Can you speak to the challenges o f.
being an addict in recovery?
R. L.: I ’ve stayed away from those drugs.
But I have buried a lot of friends. Addicts
are wired in a really bizarre way and it
doesn’t have to be meth or heroin - which is
really just becoming insane. People who are
obese are addicts. People who smoke
cigarettes are addicts. You can be addicted
to anything.
S. Z.: How has the comedy business
changed?
R. L,: In an odd way, because of “Curb,” :
I’ve got three generations coming to my
shows whether it’s at Helium in Portland or
in a concert hall. The demographic: There
will be a 13-year-old and then there will be a
guy on a gurney saying, “I wanted to see you
before I die*”
Louis C.K. actually flew me and a couple
of other comedians out to do sets because
we had influenced him when he was playing
Chicago Theater. And it was very sweet of
him. It was a sort of a lovely surprise for the
audience as well.
There are a whole load of amazingly great
young comics now: Sarah (Silverman) and
Jeffrey Ross and comics in their 30s and
40s. The thing is, they are fans of mine. I
know this because I’m friends with them. It
really makes me feel cool. I’m grateful that I
don’t have any health issues - at least today
— except being old and aging.
I was best friends with Jonathan Winters.
He waslike a father to me. And there was
Phyllis Diller. They both died very late in
life, but to be able to hang with them for a
decade.... I really had the best mother and
father — surrogate — that I could possibly
have. All of the great comedians from Pryor
to Carlin — all of them. I know them, I knew
them. Some of them have passed away,
some of them are still alive, I hang out with
them and with the younger generation.
So I really feel pretty fortunate, because
whatever I do on stage - and I’m not sure, I
don’t have an act - but whatever the hell
I m doing, it’s one thing with an audience. I
never wanted to be liked by everybody
because I don’t like people who are. It’s4
very commercial. I’d rather be a little more
on the edge and I am. So people will either
really go, “Wow! I dig him.” Or they’ll go,
“What the fuck is he talking about?”
S. Z.: You talk about music a lot.
R.L.: On the rock-n-roll side of things,
music has always been a mantra for me
See LEWIS, page 5