 You're listening to highlights from The David Feldman Show, heard nationwide on Pacifica Radio, or as a podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and now YouTube. Please subscribe to this channel. For more information, go to davidfeldmanshow.com. Thank you for listening. The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad pathetic humps. Alright, now we have to plug your movie. So no trips down memory lane. You're a movie auteur now, Michael Meehan. Yes. So they're going to talk about your art. Michael Meehan is a self-taught comic painter, sculptor, writer, and now he's a movie auteur. His first film, Hey Monster. Sorry, I love this title. Hey Monster, Hands Off My City just wrapped up a record-setting run at the four-star theater in San Francisco. Let me read you what Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle says about Hey Monster, Hands Off My City, which you can now rent on Vimeo. This is what Mick LaSalle writes. Hey Monster is not a nostalgic look back and it's not all about the laughs. This is a work of art made on a budget, a beautiful looking movie with a particular sensibility that mixes absurdity and zany humor with sober concerns. Scene after scene impresses with its comic inventiveness, its arresting brand of lunacy. We get this completely bizarre element of a 15-foot furry spider roaming the city in the dead of night and then there's this other idea at work. The notion that the city's real monsters are wearing suits. Welcome, Michael Meehan. Thank you, David. It's so wonderful to be on your podcast. San Francisco is where you're from and you're joining us from San Francisco. You never left San Francisco. I did not. You did the Dennis Miller show when it was on the Tribune. This was back in 1992 and you killed and Bernie Brillstein, who makes stars, walked up to you and said, come stay here, stay here, I'll make you a star. You just walked away from it because you're an artist who sticks to his vision. You have never compromised. Very true, but I didn't compromise because I didn't know what I was doing. I certainly made foolish mistakes as well. But I did have a meeting with Bernie Brillstein and with Brad Gray, who eventually went on to run Paramount and who actually just passed away this year. He was the guy from the Sopranos, but they were asking me, what do you want to do? I want to do a musical with Robert Mitchum and Christopher Walken. I was like, that's what I want to do. When does that happen? When do we start? I had no idea that all the other sort of manipulations and ass-kissings that you had to do. So I didn't even have enough money to make it to the airport after the Dennis Miller show. I had to give the cab driver all my money and then I think I had like a radio and a tie. So you are an incredibly talented artist. I go up to Kevin Rooney's house and I see these amazing paintings. Who did that? Michael Meehan. No, Michael Meehan is the brilliant comedian I started with back. Yeah, well he's also a painter. He's also an actor, a writer, a poet, and now a filmmaker. This movie, Hey Monster, Hands Off My City, is based on a one-man play that you did in the Fringe Festival back in 2011. What Fringe Festival? Where was this done? That was in San Francisco as well. I don't stray too far. And that was a fun show to do and I just put it together and I played about eight characters. But, you know, that's a quick change. I was just pouring sweat by the end of it. But it was a good idea, which came out of just workshopping stuff. You know, as a comedian, you have tons of ideas that will never see the stage. But this was an opportunity that I was finally like, OK, I got to do something. So I just took like this eight-week solo performance class with Charlie Varend at the Marsh Theater. And I was like, I just kept trying out crazy stuff. And it was funny because you're in a class of like eight other people, like in an acting class. I remember you were talking about acting classes. You know, as a comedian, you always want to land the last mug to the audience type of thing. I remember talking to you about that, you know. But this was just, I just kept coming up with more and more ideas. And I remember I got some great advice from Charlie Varend because I did this joke. I said, how can cows speak of injustice if I ordered the beef lips? And Charlie Varend was like, some people are going to get that joke, leave them behind. And it was just like the most greatest piece of advice of sort of like, yeah, just be yourself type of stuff. So out of that, the absurdity was able to get into the one-man show as well as the story. So I had to keep coming back. So I had to learn about making a story work. The absurdity and the jokes, that was all there. So I just had to sort of form it in and take out stuff and put in stuff. And that was just the process. So it was an eight-week course taught by Charlie Varend, who I knew through Marty Higgins. Remind my audience who Charlie Varend is. Charlie Varend did a solo show, Rush Limbaugh in night school, which had a good run. And he did a couple of the things. But as a teacher, he was phenomenal. He could really draw out. And it didn't matter who you were. And Marty Higgins, by the way, was another brilliant cat. I mean, oh my goodness. I always remember his speaking different languages. But, you know, he'd go, is that he is over there? Wavos Rancheros. Yeah, Wavos Rancheros. The farm workers are saying hello. Wavos Rancheros. Yes, yes. Is that an imaginary pickup truck? El Camino Real. El Camino Real. I don't want to talk about Marty. It's too difficult because I was very, very... Do you see him at all? Do you speak to him? I haven't seen Marty in forever. Yeah, so Charlie... I remember he took me to see Rush Limbaugh at night school with Charlie Varen and Charlie was brilliant. I remember this must have been... God, this had to have been more than 20 years ago. Yeah, easily. And I do remember going to see Eric Bogosian with Marty. And I like Eric Bogosian, okay? You know, nothing against him. I think he's very talented. This was 20 years ago. We were stand-up comics. We've had a lot of conversations on this show about Broadway plays, and these $250 a seat laughs that really don't deserve laughs, but everybody paid $250 for their ticket so they're gonna laugh. And I've had a couple of friends who have been in Broadway plays, and I just want to stand up and scream, no, stop laughing. This is not funny. Stop it. Stop it. And Marty Higgins and our wives, we tried the couple's night. We wanted to be normal. So we did a couple's night, and we went to see Eric Bogosian, and it was pretty... I like Eric Bogosian, but when you're a stand-up comic watch and some guy doing a one-man show, and he starts doing the heroin addict, you know, you put the needle in your arm and you're seeing God, and his face is melting into Jesus, and Marty screams, why? Why? And everybody turns around thinking Marty is so absorbed by the heroin addict that he's so moved. They think he's like... That Eric Bogosian has moved Marty Higgins to scream, why is this guy doing this to him? So even my then-wife was glad that Marty did it. It was so bad. Marty was, you know... So, yes, so you took the class with Charlie Varen, and so it took eight weeks, and after you took the class, how long did it take you to write the one-man show? I think... I think the class in the spring, so about three months in the summer, and then I put it up in early September. Did you have a director? Yeah, I had a director. I think Charlie helped me out a little bit, and then I had another guy. Kenny Jung helped me out with some stuff. So, yeah, it was good to work with a director to sort of have the objectivity of somebody else's eye. And they just kind of guided me a little bit. And, you know, it's... I made a set that I could fold down, and I had a bunch of stuff, because I'm always making stuff. I'm kind of a... I don't know. If that helps me out to get into a character, so I had like a suit that I could jump in to play the mayor Duchet. Duchet? Duchet, yeah. So I gave cards to the audience during the press conference about the monster. Audience members would ask about stuff, and I would, you know, have all these answers. Typical double-speak stuff. So it's a play, and you were all the characters. You said seven or eight characters that you inhabited. Yeah, so I played the monster. I played the mayor. I played the detective character who's trying to figure out what everything was. I played a couple of victims that are going about their business. I played his Irish neighbor who is always talking about how he got his... He got smacked in the balls, which is based on an Irish carpenter. I worked with this young kid, Ken, who was just so damn funny. He would just go, oh! He'd just be talking about people. Oh! There's farmers! There's farmers, you know. And so that character, and Ken in real life would always cruise up in this truck that was like a glaciers truck that had no glass on it, but it was a glaciers truck with the same rave music playing. I think he had one rave tape and he was always pulling up. But he was a hilarious character. So I started imitating him. And he was saying, I see your mom, George Bush is doing things. Oh, I see your mom, Harrison Farbs in a new movie. So I started imitating him going, well, I see your mom, Dr. Renee Richards. I mean... I see your mom, Bruce Jenner. Caitlyn Jenner is up there. Dr. Renee Richards. You got to tell the... I haven't heard Dr. Renee Richards. She was the tennis player who used to be a man, right? Yes, yes. Some references go in deep and they're there for good. Dr. Renee Richards was one of those. Because it was so bizarre. You know, that was like 1980, right? Early 80s? Yes. And so you did this one... We have to move on. You know, we've... Moving along. And that's how I started the show, too. I came out of the cop with the caution tape, the police line. All right, folks, show's over, move along. Go on home. I have a theory about San Francisco that the audiences there are no longer as politically correct as they used to be. The politically correct movement started in San Francisco in 1988. I remember it. I remember when it started. It was 1988. Yeah, it was the end of the Reagan era and it was all over. Comedy was over and yeah, you were hilarious because you would just get these audiences just to revolt against you. Hey, I'm pro chick here. But I think the audiences in San Francisco now have just given up. They've become so accepting that they're even accepting now of the Bobby Slatens of the world that they've moved beyond language. Do you find when you're doing like a Dr. Renee Richards joke up in San Francisco or Caitlyn Jenner nobody's hissing the way they would say you know, Tampa or Oklahoma? Yeah, I mean there's pockets of it. It depends on where you're playing. Some of the crappier clubs that I've been playing they'll still give you a hiss or they'll look at their phone or whatever. But yeah, it's certainly I think people were much more engaged. The internet has been a phenomenal distractor of attention. So you go to a show as engaged in like you would go to a show to get the issues. You're a political comedian so you would go and talk about issues and people would get their information that way. But they'd get the laughs too. Which now you get your you know, your run down on everything. Hey monster, let's talk about the movie. Sure. Okay so you made the movie you did it by yourself nobody came to you like Bernie Brillstein did and said this is fantastic here's $20 million go make this movie. You believed in this piece you knew it was good and you made it on a what do they say shoe string budget? Is that what it's called? Yeah, it was it was definitely a definitely a budget. We got enormous I mean it cost it took like four years to make cost about $100,000 That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money but if you break it down it's $25,000 a year it's like okay that's that's a that's a doable sum and that's what I did was Did you have a plan? I had a I had a vision and then the plan filled that in. I had to get a plan so what would happen? Hang on for one second I don't want to get into the financials and the mechanics let's first talk about why people should see this movie tell me what it's about we'll get to that in a second because you know how you did it but I want to talk about who's in it Kevin Meany is in it Larry Bubbles Brown Johnnie Steele and Reggie Steele are some of the main characters your mother Greg Proups my mother-in-law they're heavily armed grandmothers looking for the monster and Guy and Amos the Pintall lady sings a rap song in the movie as the grannies are cruising around in a convertible Volkswagen what is the movie about? the movie is about a monster that comes to the city the movie starts out in Romania where a monster eats a boy's mother and then later he wheels into town on a unicycle and it's present day San Francisco and now he's hunting the monster in the meantime a company introduced a dangerous new drink called Crazy Cola which is ravaging the city and they've paid off the politicians and no one's really concerned about the monster but other people are tracking the monster so it's creating panic but also it's sort of two monsters at once terrorizing the city and then it comes into a showdown at the end um so it's a comedy it sounds like it's a comedy horror film with a film noir bent yeah exactly I would say yes I'm always I'm learning how to pitch it and say things but I'm still not really good at it so I was well if Nicholas Sal gave you a great review in the Chronicle you're doing something right and we can all watch it on Vimeo right now right yes how do we do that you go to Hey Monster hands off my city website and then it's kind of Vimeo Lincoln you can get it for you can see for three bucks or own it for five bucks okay and let's talk about some of the people who you put in the movie Greg Proups was on last week so a genius yeah total genius I mean I just ran into a woman who used to work with him when he was just doing stand-up and he used to always try out his material on her she said he was so funny but Proups was hilariously fun but we did a show at the other cafe me, Proups and Michael McChain who's a phenomenal improvisational Shakespearean actor comedian and Kathy Sorbo who was also the sympathy cards the sympathy cards her and Nan were in the sympathy cards I met them in Seattle and they used to they used to stay at my apartment when I was sleeping over at my then ex wife when we were dating I would sleep there and they would stay at my place where is Kathy now she's still in Seattle she's doing stuff up there but we did a show together at the other cafe the four of us and so we came up with all these crazy we came up with this the heaviest acapella band Priest's Fist and we all did there's no instruments we're all just so that was a lot of fun but one of the characters we came up with was Mr. Paranoid and he was like a wolfman Jack character and there was conspiracy everywhere but the catchphrase was people would reel off a conspiracy and then Mr. Paranoid would go which bigger than that baby bigger than that and then launch into a huge even larger conspiracy and so Greg Proust plays that character in the film and then it's so funny we filmed it in this bunker basement at my mom's house and so it had all the survivalist stuff in there but Proust was so funny and then he just went on riffs of course that were just brilliant riffs you know let's talk about Michael Pritchard who if you're from San Francisco Michael Pritchard well I don't want to embarrass him but he's a saint he truly is a saint yeah he's on a completely higher wavelength than everybody else he opened for the Pope yes when the Pope came to town but not only that he had to turn down Paul Newman because Paul Newman wanted him to work at his summer camp and he goes I can't I got open for the Pope that day which was a hilarious story and he blew the Pope off the stage because the Pope would have let him blow him on the stage because the Pope would have let him blow him on the stage follow that we haven't done Bobby Bitter for some reason Larry and I have not done Bobby Bitter on this show I don't know I'm worried that if we start doing Bobby Bitter show it'll take off and then I'll get caught in that web again yes yes oh that was the funniest the Bobby Bitter one I mean that was just oh that's a whole it was Forrest Gump before Forrest Gump existed yeah it was Bobby Bitter was this aging comedian who had done it all he'd been everywhere and I would interview Bobby Bitter he had a telethon where he began he began to remember the line Barry Lang came up with this I don't remember the line but you know folks you know folks cerebral palsy ain't as funny as it looks we used to do we used to we would go on Alex Bennett's show and it was just so offensive and so horrible and people would come out to see it and they'd stay for about 10 minutes and start walking out and there'd be like three guys left who would be laughing hysterically right no it would definitely niche market comedy but oh my god it was hilarious my fourth wife my Korean wife tell me who Michael Pritchard is then we'll talk about Larry Brown ok, Michael Pritchard was this huge 6'6'' he is he's still with us yes huge comedian and he would take over the stage and just do incredible animal noises and many tell stories about being a probation officer for kids and do goofy stuff and you know he he won an Emmy on Taxi he played a huge gay guy who dances with Judd Hirsch this huge tango with him it was just hilarious and he's also saved a lot of comedians and then he quit drinking and then he also helped a lot of other people quit drinking and doing drugs he's a Vietnam vet Vietnam vet he's talked people off jumping off bridges he's gone into drug dens and rescued people I mean it's just kind of an all around superhero type of person if you want to know what he sounds like listens to Cardinal Dolan he's the is Dolan the Archbishop of New York City I think so yeah he was I'm not sure I don't know if he's the Archbishop or the Cardinal I think he's called Cardinal Dolan listen to Cardinal Dolan that's what Michael Pritchard sounds like because they used to be friends they grew up together did you know that? yeah I didn't know that great guy any time I got into trouble I'd call him he would take care of it you know he just took care of us to any kind of trouble Michael was there he watched over the community he really did he was unbelievable and through that example he passed it on some people didn't get it but there's a whole bunch of people who did and I remain his incredible friend today yeah you knew there was like a hierarchy when we were starting out and there were certain high priests it was God and depending on how much trouble you were getting in it would filter up if it got really bad and then Robin would take care you had to go through this ad hoc hierarchy of priests when you were messing up and if it got really bad Robin would step in I'm not trying to idealize this thing but we had this thing of ours it was it was an incredible community and I think they had the same sort of community in Boston as well before and yeah it was an incredible thing and I certainly I started 1984 and it felt like I just jumped into this thing that was just like oh my goodness this is it and it was phenomenal you had to buy into the premise and the premise was Erwin there were certain you know Jeremy Kramer Kevin there were certain you either bought into it or you didn't if you didn't buy into it you were passing through but if you intended to stay there and be part of this community you know a lot wasn't expected of you other than just being decent you didn't have to hang out every night and you just had to be a decent human being and accept this cyst of the dursts and you know Jim said you had to be respectful of it like it's like the pizzeria and the Sopranos yes yeah there were certain yeah you had to fit into the protocol of it and you know it's hilarious is the guy who didn't quite fit into all of that went on to become the biggest success Rob Becker who I who I just saw a couple weeks ago Dan St. Paul did a Holy City Zoo reunion show and there's a ton of people for that and Rob Becker popped into it and it was hilarious to see him because it was like oh my god yeah there were people I always felt we were I want to get back to the movie I want to talk about San Francisco later so tell us about Johnny Steele who is Johnny Steele and what part does he play Johnny Steele is a hilariously sarcastic motormouth comedian who he's an ex football college football lineman guy big burly just sharp-witted hilarious sarcastic he plays Detective Steele San Francisco homicide detective and partnered with him is Reggie Steele who's a big tall ex African-American he used to be an African-American he used to be an African-American now he's just black now he's just black but he's a hilarious cat as well together because Reggie's much more laid back and soft spoken so I worked with both of these guys and it was like when I started writing the thing I was like oh my goodness these guys would be great together and Johnny Steele was an impetus to get the movie going because he was going hey we're not going to make it we're not the young bucks who are going to LA to make it we gotta get busy and do our own thing and so that really motivated me and so Johnny jumped on board and he was phenomenal to work with because it didn't matter who was there he would just be talking and just working on refs and just you know talking and you know just going on and on it should be different but hilarious oh when you were trying to direct he was telling you how to direct no no he'd be talking to the camera crew he'd be talking to whatever and like the first scene that we filmed and I'm filming without permits and just whatever I'm just out there but I'm up on the top of this hill in San Francisco Golden Gate Heights and we call it Turtle Hill it's just a big hill over looks at the city and there's nothing up there and so I got Johnny Steele Reggie Steele I got a dead body I got a crime scene crew Johnny Steele has a documentary crew following him around and I've got a couple camera guys and we're all up there and then the city inspector car pulls up and we're like oh my god we're busted we can't do it oh man to see you know there's probably 15 people there and this guy gets out of the car he walks around below us and then gets back in his car and we're like alright let's shoot let's shoot this thing and he was not interested in what we're doing but for a moment I thought we were totally screwed but Johnny Steele was just so cool about everything so he was a great guy to just be this to follow him and Reggie through the movie to find out what's going on with the monster and everything so I should mention that the documentary crew following him around I would assume they're Robert Campos and Tim Diddy and making the documentary three still standing absolutely starring Will Durst, Larry Brown and Johnny Steele and that's a movie about the demise of the middle class journeyman comic in the Bay Area and all those guys are in my film as well Will Durst plays Smokey on Smokey's Jim the only Jim for Smoker Is Debbie in it? Is Debbie in it? Debbie's in it, she plays a in fact Debbie's in it we filmed this at Comedy Day we got a couple thousand people in which was so awesome but Debbie Durst was a city official going calm down everyone and then the whole crowd goes we want answers she's going your city is taking care of you and everyone in the crowd is going what about the monster so it was really cool Debbie played a city official trying to placate a couple thousand people and then the character I played I played two roles the guy on the the mute assassin on the unicycle and then I also played the TV reporter Gweeb Simpson and what I would do is I'd always just go to these events like the Gay Pride Parade you know it's a festive event here blah blah blah in other news a mangled body's been found so I would just show up whatever event one of the gags we did in the film which usually gets a pretty laugh is I showed up at the San Francisco half marathon at least people are running behind me and I'm there with the reporter outfit going there's panic in the streets and people can see their homes many in just their underwear great great so it was always using stuff like that and we ended up not even using a ton of those but I was out all the time you know when the blue angels were over I was doing that they're bringing in the Air Force to fight the monster that kind of stuff great so it was always just goofing on that type of stuff sounds like a great way to make another movie just to use what's going on in the city and build a story around it let's go over some other people who are in the movie who is Kevin Meany Kevin Meany plays Mayor Duchay and he was just so all over yes you know and so we had this whole campaign and Meany was had come out from New York to play Vegas and had got a hold of him so I got him a ticket from Vegas to San Francisco so he came into town for a couple days and we shot a bunch of stuff and he was just so hilarious so does Mayor Duchay not acknowledge that there's a problem oh yeah no he doesn't he's kind of like Trump was on the campaign thing of like you know you can do whatever you want as long as you vote for me you know Duchay with Duchay and so all these people are chanting Duchay and how do you spell the last name yes it's D-O-U-C-A-T so it says Duch you know and you know the political officer on TV this city needs Duchay and this city needs and Mayor Duchay is just the mayor for it so to clean it up and so he's always up so Mimi was in town for only a couple days but we got a ton of stuff and oh my god he was just so funny and then so then we had more scenes with him so we got him on the phone and we recorded some stuff because he's we had Dan Spencer who his wife Rebecca or Spencer was Robin Williams personal assistant for I don't know years or something funny Rebecca is the heart and soul of the San Francisco comedy scene yeah absolutely if you can make her laugh you knew that you were on to something you also had to be a good person you also had to be a good person yeah you couldn't get on her bad list yeah she's like this if you don't if Rebecca didn't approve of you as a person in the 80s because we were all bad we moved to LA yeah we were all bad we were all bad boys as I remember it but if we did and it was okay but you had to behave when you came into the zoo or when Rebecca this is I'm not mythologizing this is a fact we were all bad but there were certain people like Rebecca that you had to behave around and if you didn't behave properly you were shunned right? oh yeah you're on the outs then forget it and we were all bad we were all bad boys and girls yes yes and troubled an unhappy and desperate and it was alright to be that people with respect you could be unhappy you could have outbursts but you had to apologize and you had to work on your act and be funny and work on being kind you know that I think you know San Francisco anyway let's go back to the movie Kevin Maney no it was it's very true it was about you know here's some behavioral rules that will serve you well otherwise you get out of town not necessarily for show business but for life yeah yeah for just being a human being and it didn't matter of course like guys like Ken Samori who were you know hilariously brilliant but you know you know off stage it was difficult to have a conversation with him but he was also he knew the rules and but he would show up he always got stage time because he was funny he followed things you know he knew the rules and you some people didn't but you were supposed to treat him with respect because he was funny and he wasn't hurting anybody yeah you couldn't bully you couldn't be a bully if somebody right no you had to behave like I said but you know within that parameter you could be zany and wacky and do all kinds of crazy stuff but you had to have your yeah you had the basic human skills of being nice to people regardless of if you're a maniac on stage or not you had to be able to be a human being that got along with other people and some of us hang on for a second we'll get to me some of us learned how to be human beings in the community some of us came to San Francisco from New York and knew that they were horrible human beings and broken and San Francisco was basic training where it broke you down and rebuilt you into a gentler kinder more social human being you're a marine right I was in the Marine Corps yeah and they break you down right beautiful years yeah they break you down what do they do to you well they yell at you and make you do all kinds of stuff for three months in boot camp shave your head the first couple weeks you're you're in shell shock you're going oh my god what did I do how do I get out of here there's a guy right when it happened he tried to get out by claiming he was a homosexual and after three months we went through training and at the end we're all like charging marines we're graduating and he's just starting again with a new platoon so I was like oh my god that guy just created his own living hell instead of just going through it and just except they're going to break you down and they're going to give you all the new stuff and then here you go and the Marine Corps was a perfect straight man for comedy I learned so much from the Marine Corps about comedy as well because they're very serious but inside I'm like okay yeah and then once you get out in the world to a base or whatever then you have some more latitude you joined the Marines why well I was getting in a lot of trouble as a as a teenage punk doing lots of stealing and vandalism so my father didn't trust me yeah so my father didn't trust me so this was a way to straighten the accounts up I was like I'm going to join the Marine Corps was it his idea or yours no no it was my idea what kind of shape were you in I know you smoked at the time were you smoking at the time were you smoking during the Marine years oh yeah I was in real good shape but yeah you could smoke were you an athlete before you joined the Marines yeah I mean I played sports in high school but I smoked in high school I mean we had a smoking square in our high school the coach would take my cigarettes away before the game because you knew at half time I'd run in the bushes and have a smoke at soccer games all right so you joined the Marines and what are you thinking is going to happen well it's going to straighten me out like you said and that was straightened out yeah okay that's interesting and it was also a proving ground I was like okay I got to prove something to myself I got to you know join the Marine Corps is it's almost the in a way it was like okay this is the easiest way to unscrew myself here is join the Marines because they kind of will take care of all the stuff that I need to do I just have to go along with it but you don't have to go to the forest and get moral forwarded okay your first day in the Marines what happens you come in they tell you if you have any drugs, knives, guns paraphernalia just you know exactly how it starts out in full metal jacket that's exactly how the Marine Corps boot camp starts out they shave your head they make you you know you have 20 guys around one faucet trying to shave your face you're all nicked up and then about they're giving you your green outfits and a sea bag full of all the stuff you need and they're yelling at you and then at like 2 o'clock in the morning you're in the bunk with 80 other guys rubbing your head that's been shaved and you're going oh my god what did I do and and then they yell at you for about a month straight where you know your garbage your maggots blah blah blah do you begin to believe that no you just learn how to respond faster it's like okay this is what they want and then everything you do is wrong so they just keep messing with you but then after a while you kind of get it so what do you mean you kind of get it what do you mean you kind of get it well they always they march you for hours and hours and hours so you learn how to march so instead of screwing up you you learn how to do the maneuvers yeah and then you go up to the rifle range and then you're in the rifle range and they teach you the first week how to clean your weapon break it down and everything else and of course it's all wrong so then they take you out into this fine red talcum powder up a camp penalty and with your weapons and you have to do you know jumping jacks and bends and thrusts and roll around the dirt and you just get filthy and then it's like I want these weapons clean so then you got to clean them again and it's just over and over this sort of throat thing but you know I went to Catholic schools my dad was a combat vet from World War II so it was somewhat familiar was it fun yeah then I mean it starts to get fun after a little bit some sense of accomplishment come rotary for sure you start getting some jokes going so MacArthur says the core the core the core it's all about the core the brotherhood right yes you stop being competitive because you're all in it together but are you enjoying other guys weakness I mean do you enjoy when somebody falls by the wayside and can't do it do you feel bad that he's falling behind or do you laugh at him sometimes both because I remember we you know we'd be running and you know we're not running that far we're running a couple of miles but this guys were just falling out that had never run really a lot so they're you know we had a ton of guys from the south too and you know they're just oh sweet Jesus sweet Jesus and you're just like oh my god and of course you've heard and you want to be saying all that stuff but just it's so funny you know what happens if you what happens you're running like five miles in the morning right yeah I don't know if we were in five miles but three miles was kind of the standard did they wake you up in the middle of the night and say it's time to run oh yeah they would just you know turn on the lights and the yelling immediately I mean suppose you go excuse me I'm I'll run in a second I need to I need to get a cup of coffee I'd like to pee and I don't want to do this on an empty stomach I'm afraid of my hypoglycemia acting up well one time and this was like I had been we had been in boot camp for like two months I get up and it's early in the morning and I go in and take a leak and one of the drill instructors is in the the head the bathroom shaving and they go and I go oh excuse me he goes get your stinking you know he just starts ripping into me but I'm thinking you know just a normal polite thing of it oh excuse me I just have to go to the bathroom here like get your make it yes of course in hindsight you you're laughing hysterically at that because it's just so funny I mean well what happens hang on for one second so what what happens we've all experienced that moment where we see our high school teacher at the supermarket with his family and you go oh my god he's hen pecked and he's afraid of his kids did you ever see the DI later in that kind of situation and is he polite does he smile and say you know that was just an act where is it does he go back into the character it's acting right is it acting for a drill yeah but they're they're hardcore they are committed dudes they don't they don't break character I mean at the end after you have been with them for three months they'll begrudgingly give you like all right your Marines now go out there and go do it but they stayed locked in you know and we had with a couple drill instructors that had to be like demoted because they were hitting private and just you know being extremely cruel but it was just in hindsight so stinking are they are they sadists oh I'm sure some of them were sadists and we had one and this is the guy I think his name was Alvarez but he got demoted from sergeant down the corporal lost his drill instructor ship and then was in charge of the laundry so they busted him down a rank but still kept them employed on the base but he couldn't supervise training recruits to be Marines and I don't know if he had to do some sort of probation he got reinstated or whatever but he would sit there and he'd say at the at the end of night you're all there in your white t-shirts and white boxer shorts in front of your bunk beds and he's going sing my song and make me search my shorts you know because then we'd sing the Marine Corps him and but they would just come in and just call you all kinds of names and now when they call let me ask you this they call you all kinds of names were they politically incorrect everybody was a maggot everybody was a effing dildos were you called the effort did they question your sexuality oh yeah yeah I don't know if they still do that but this was 1977 did they make fun of we're getting yeah I mean they would they would say are you queer for my gear what are you looking at are you queer for my gear where are you from Texas I don't feel safe I don't feel safe what about like if did they make fun of Jews and blacks and Mexicans um it wasn't really specifically that too much because they they're all you're all just green you're all green maggots there's no there's no color here that everybody was just a green maggot so in that way it was very democratic so you kind of all know that you're in the same boat right I always say there was a perfect training ground I mean it was hilarious in hindsight it was some of the and boot camp yeah boot camp is how long it's three months and what happens what happens to your body after three months do you notice a complete complete change yeah you're in shape I mean guys that were really overweight would drop 50 pounds I mean these guys that were just this you know big old blubbery guys they'd be slim and trim and beefy and I put on 15 pounds because I was a real skinny kid so it was good are you going to a weight room or is it just the jogging and the pushups and the calisthenics yeah it's calisthenics and lugging stuff around lots of lots of running around and carrying stuff and you know push-ups sit-ups pull-ups running they would do is they they would have everyone makes their bed their racks in this rack inspection and then they come around they'd find one thing wrong and they'd go they'd make you tear apart your entire everything and then bring it all into the front where they call it the classroom so you bring in all you know 50 you know 80 sheets 80 blankets 80 foot lockers dump out everything from the foot lockers and then they go I want this place squared away and then just so then you're just running around you know and you're just pouring sweat and you're just trying to make the bed and do it again and again so but and my brother Howard joined a year later and Howard became the secretary of the platoon which follows around the drill instructor and whatever you know whatever recruit has a problem he's a secretary and so but Howard didn't know how to make his bed and so their place would get torn up eventually he just had somebody making his own bed so the brilliance of my brother Howard is he joined the Marine Corps and he didn't have to make his bed the me and brothers were on was it America's Got Talent where you were doing an Irish rap what what show were you on it was an NBC show that was last comic standing that was one of the funniest things I remember you sent it to me and I laughed hysterically you were Irish rappers right yeah yeah we did this whole thing the Irish tanning heroes is the piece so we would just talk about brave men and women who went on into the sun and never came back could forget you know then we go on and on I took an acting class with your brother he's a brilliant actor is he in the movie yes my brother Howard he's in a small part he plays a cop he was busy doing a bunch of other stuff but my other brother Chris who is in the trio with me he's got a bigger part he plays a sort of a general Patton-esque scout leader who sends out my nephew James they weren't called Boy Scouts we couldn't call them Boy Scouts and so he has to get his scat badge and so he follows the scat around he finds the monster scat and then he doesn't know what it is but he follows it around town and he finds the monster and befriends the monster so well before you go it's great to hear your voice and it stirs up memories likewise David is this a hate letter a love letter or both to San Francisco you know it's a love letter certainly for the city that we know and love and a lot of it's sort of like hey you know things are changing and even some of the places we filmed started going away so it's very nostalgic in that sense but it's also sort of addresses sort of the sort of the way things are in cities certainly the city of San Francisco you know politicians are swayed by huge amounts of money and ignore the public good so that's not a new problem is San Francisco is it an unlivable city if your middle class can you stay in San Francisco if you got deep roots and you got family and a place to live you can make it but you get assaulted all along the way by every sort of threat that you can whether it's just trying to park or I mean all the people who are in the trades so few of them live in the city anymore there's no shops there's very few shops before in the neighborhood there'd always be oh there's a shop over here so and that's very middle class profession but I think everybody works downtown they just I don't know what people do now that they breeze off to some computer job which is even a misnomer I don't know what they do some tech job yeah I get very upset when I think about San Francisco because it's a beautiful city and you get there and you're breathing pure oxygen and you're just surrounded by the ocean and the fog and it's just fantastic and every rich kid and his parents want to live there so it's just innovated with retirees who have money or trust fund babies who have money or the latest business fad now it's computers or social media and they just raise the rents and if you don't have money you can't live in San Francisco but I moved to San Francisco 30 years ago more than 30 years ago I saw a whiff of it I kept wondering where do people work I would walk around San Francisco and I didn't understand it it's it doesn't make sense where why do these people have money it never occurred to me that there was such a thing as inherited wealth or trust fund babies people who don't have to work and I just go how do they have the time and the money to go to a movie during the day that kind of stuff and now the whole city it seems is like that it's tourists or people who are living their on permanent vacation or whose fault is that it's Steve Jobs he invented this phone that caused people to stop communicating face to face like we're doing now exactly exactly the massive tech came in and it was all about this innovation and that innovation but then you just flush out the cultural people that are holding things together very San Francisco right now is kind of like Paris was in 1940 when the Germans invaded because all you see driving around are these gigantic German staff car Audi BMWs people speak another language and they're entitled and they blow off the locals who wear berets or whatever they get kicked off to wherever they are and then you have the indentured servants who drive around in the Uber lift cars and they just block the roads and then they're the collaborators who think they can move up but they're not going to does it make you angry? does it make you angry? yeah but I can't live angry that's a crazy way to live I mean they screwed with the water we stole that water a hundred years ago now they're mixing it with groundwater and it's a big campaign of like two sources are better so it's like obvious yes 1984 speak before you go what is the big issue now in San Francisco is it the water? no no that's just the crime against nature and that's that's not it that's just one of the things people say it's housing building these massive amounts of housing and I don't know what the problem is other than they got rid of the old San Francisco and they replaced it with something not as good like in Men in Black when the wife says it's not the same Edgar that's what San Francisco is like it's like this alien creature that's disguised as San Francisco hmm yeah because they don't have they don't have the historical reference everyone's skipping around like it's the latest fraternity hangout you kind of pinheads doing pub crawls who knows where they're from they're not from here there's a great story I don't know if you remember Bobby Corona he owned what was the name of the club rock club and anyway he booked Chuck Berry and Chuck Berry shows up and he's about to go on he says give me my money and Corona hands him a check and Chuck Berry picks up the check and goes this looks like money it says it's money but it don't smell like money he rips the check he rips the check up and he says go get me my money you had to go get cash and so to me I always think of that when I come to San Francisco where I go this looks like San Francisco it sounds like San Francisco but it don't smell like San Francisco it's just and the audiences comedy audiences if I were to fulfill a fantasy of leaving New York moving to San Francisco and becoming a born again comic and start all over where would I perform because there's cobs in the punchline but they're owned by Clear Channel or Live Nation where do you go to work out there's Mill Valley but you go to work out every night are there places yeah I mean there's tons of open mics but there's no there's not money like it was back in the day when you could actually you know supplement or kind of make a stab at making a living you know we do a show with Johnny Steele, Stephen Pearl and Larry Bubbles Brown we call it the dinosaurs of comedy and we work the punchline three or four times a year and the crowds that come out for it are awesome there it's generally an older crowd you know we get some younger kids in there for sure but it's a rockest great show because we've all been doing comedy for 30 plus years so it's joke joke joke joke joke joke you know we're not just going up with an attitude about this and that we've we're attacking with premises and punchlines and a lot of deep bench humor and it's so fun to do that and then to connect to the crowd and the crowds like that over at the Throckmorton in Mill Valley too so you know it's the crowds are a little more organized there's an explosion everybody's a stand up comic now is there an explosion in San Francisco the way there is in New York in LA where everybody's getting up yeah yeah oh yeah everyone and you know if you're tech savvy you rally your people to come to a show um and I hate to be like some of this grumpy old comics that have missed the boat well I did this but um I remember you know you'd see a young guy that was really tearing it up you're like oh my god that's so damn funny and then you'd see somebody else but I haven't seen I see so much more comedy done with profanity and that's sort of the language that's acceptable and it's like you take away all that profanity and you really you know you have a couple of personal experiences that's about it no great premise never you know guys like Jeremy Cramy were just crack the sky open and you know a new new idea would come down and you know 20 comics to go jump on that new idea and make their own spin off from it go on about the profanity because I ran into trouble with a lot of young San Francisco comics because when I played the punchline they weren't allowed to say the F word and a lot of guys got really pissed off at me I think it's I think it's a creative uh plus to not say the F word if you take F you take the F bomb out of your act and your act's not funny you're not funny you're just being uh you're just kind of being stupid but if you really craft a joke and you make it work and you sell it without profanity that's craftsmanship and that's how you do it that's how you write a good joke I don't see the mentorship that we got we certainly we got so much mentorship because we saw bolder established comics go up there and slay with unbelievable material and then you're like oh that's where I want to go I don't see that with the profanity of young comics or even uh older comics that use tons of profanity it's like there's nothing to be learned there other than like oh hey this works you know hit them over the head with a sledgehammer they love that I have this compliment that I give to comics I'll walk into a club and if I hear the profanity I don't want to be a comedian I don't want to play to that audience I'm laughing at profanity and I go I want to go home I don't want to get up now because I'm not famous and I have to go work this crowd and they've been poisoned and then when I see an act when they're working to their better angels I say to myself wow I want to be a comic but the greatest compliment I can give a fellow comic is watching them and say you make me want to be a comic yeah yeah when I see when I see somebody being vulgar I just say this is a strip show I might as well just go watch a live sex act and I've seen that happen I've there were there was a club that I used to play in Austin and eventually it they started bringing in strippers to to watch the shows and their pimps and then I look in the paper what happened the club it turned into a strip joint and then they have male strippers thunder down under is playing here I don't want to I don't mind starting out in a strip club but when you've been doing it for a while it would be nice to play to an audience that expects something that's been thought out well Michael mean how do people I would assume you don't have Twitter right you know I have it but I never use it I don't spend any time doing any of that my sister set it up for me but I don't know how to use it I mean I'm definitely a caveman do you ever feel pressured to do the do that kind of stuff it just doesn't nag at you the way it nags at other since I've known you in the early eighties everybody was hustling wanted to be funny but for a reason you just wanted to be funny and good right you are a painter and a poet you're the pompadist of love do you like not that self promotion stuff that's especially in Sanford when we were starting out being a self promoter was people disdain that right people went far now they have huge mansions in Beverly Hills but they're not happy right no but we were we were told you had to be funny that's all that mattered yeah and I still think that's true on a base level I mean I enjoy being funny I can be funny in just about any situation it's that's kind of that's a gift for me you know it's like hey this is a gift you know I accepted at a certain point I was like oh okay I accept this you know I remember scoffing hearing someone said oh it takes courage to be an artist and I would scoff at that going oh shit I'm using profanity but then I realized oh if you have a gift you just have to use it and not be afraid to use it and it's like that was funny you're funny David Feldman very funny person I think of your bits and I laugh other people who are comedians who I think about I laugh they're funny people they say funny things they come up with funny things that's a gift so doing that yeah the I was never but you know here's the thing it's very nice it's a great comment but I was never as funny as you we would drive to a gig and I would this constipated brick layer here's a joke here's another joke I'm gonna slap some cement around it and lay this brick here's another brick you would just ooze comedy all the time and I was the guy save it for the stage I'm that kind of guy I wasn't that much fun to be around you're just always funny always looking for the laughs you live your life being funny I'm more of I always think like you know I'm calculated I'm oh that's a funny idea I'm gonna write that down you know but you kind of lived and breathed it like Kevin Rooney for example where you just can't help yourself but be funny all the time yeah Rooney Rooney is just in fact I went down with my son and my wife to see Rooney last year and he was just goofing on a joke well my son was eight at the time picked it up and now he does the Rooney bits and Rooney was just talking about his condition you know oh I do something I can't do it oh there's a hundred dollar bill I'm going to reach for oh I can't quite reach it well my son's doing that around the house he's doing Rooney bits he had a profound effect on my kids I mean I can't even I remember oh my god I shouldn't well Kevin Rooney is a the most literate profane human being on the planet I mean he goes high and low in a way that just I can't even repeat half the things but there well I don't know if I should tell this story but I will there was I can't do it well I can't do it I'll have to tell you it involves it anyway Michael Meehan your movie is called Hey Monster Hands off my city Hands off my city and we can watch it on Vimeo and then I assume it's going to be streaming wherever right yeah so you can get it on Vimeo and eventually I may get some sort of distribution thing happening for it and it may play in some other markets cities even whatever's maybe even another streaming service and then enter into the pantheon of films that people go oh yeah that was a funny film because the response I got and this is a small sample plus it's very local but people seem to enjoy the movie so that was always a good sign because I will tell you this my daughter and son and their friends were like 10, 12 and Kevin Rooney came up with a euphemism for a vagina calling it the mooshma and he started telling my kids about how Santa Santa Claus if you're a good kid Santa Claus slides down your mooshma and leaves little gifts and we were laughing there were adults there just on the floor laughing in front of 10 year olds and 12 year olds he never said vagina but he would just tell you have to take care of your mooshma because that's where Santa Claus likes and you don't want him to leave coal in your mooshma and so then you know for 5 years all the kids in the neighborhood are talking about their mooshmas but they don't know what a mooshma is but they they know that we were laughing at the word mooshma and Kevin Rooney made up the word mooshma so there's no way there's no way the kids parents can say you know my child was over at your house and he learned the word mooshma and I don't think that's appropriate and it was just genius on Kevin Rooney's part because he would be saying kids make sure to take care of your mooshma laughing laughing Rooney is just so funny I mean he's right up there with Robin Williams as far as just an endless genius supply of just the wrists there's a look there's a look that I saw in what I used to love and it makes me feel young is I would sit next to Kevin Rooney just like at the comedy manager club just go to drive down to the comedy manager club and he would hold court and Jay Leno would be there or Dennis Miller or Bill Mar and they all had the same look in their eyes they all deferred to Kevin Rooney and they all had just this awe and that was the other thing that I loved I knew my place at the table I knew that I was sitting with the adults and I'm just going to sit here I don't have to say anything I just have to listen and anyway I miss those days where getting to sit at the adults table I love you buddy we'll do this again I hope David I love you too thank you so much I'd love to yeah we could talk endlessly and bore people with tears with everything but thank you so much it's a real pleasure and I love your podcast you're phenomenal hey say hello to your mom and stay on the line for one second okay you're listening to highlights from best on iTunes, Stitcher and now YouTube please subscribe to this channel for more information go to davidfeldmanshow.com thank you for listening the David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you you sad pathetic humps