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Kip's Review in the Chicago Tribune “Addotta seems to be a genuine HIPSTER — a man whose vision of life has always been askew...” Larry Cart Entertainment Writer

Kip's Biography

Las Vegas Sun, interview with Kip Addotta

Kip Addotta

Kip Addotta is an American comedian. He is a Stand-up comedian, recording artist and song writer known for his songs, "Wet Dream" (The fish song), Big Cock Roach, Life In The Slaw Lane, I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus, Captain of the Sofa Team, "Hung Over All Over Again" "I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Just Like Having You Around and many others. He has recorded for Laff Records, Rhino Records and is now with Warner Music.

Kip Addotta at the Comedy Store

Kip started doing short sets at the Comedy Store and eighteen months later he was asked to appear on "The Tonight Show". Appearances on "Midnight Special", "The Mike Douglas Show", "The Merve Griffin Show", "Rock Concert", "Make Me Laugh" and thirty more "Tonight Shows" followed. Since then Kip has traveled the world gaining a vast following of fans and was named Comedian of the year by "The Entertainment Writers Association of America".

Kip has also written hit songs like "Wet Dream" (The Fish Song} and many others. The CDs of live performances and his songs remain among the top selling comedy CD's in the world.

Kip Addotta is very funny and different. This is a funny man!

Kip

How much time do you spend on your website? It has really grown since the last time I visited. You must have a secretary to do all of that research. It is very good Kip. How was your Thanksgiving? I have just shown my entire biology class your website. They have a hard time believing that you are my cousin. That is the fun part about it. Damn kip where did you all of that intelligence? From Uncle Frank? Hey, I have probably written you about this but I will say it again. The things I remember about Uncle Frank when I was very young. I chewed or dipped Copenhagen. I still remember the first smell of it when he showed me his can.]

He was also a musician of a sort. He played the harmonica and also the Xylophone (sp). At that time I really liked him at the time but later on he just didn't communicate when anyone. That was sad for me or maybe a blessing in disguise. Who knows for sure.

Things I remember about you. One of the first things that always comes to my mind is how fair skinned you were compared to the rest of us. (please no offense). The next thing that comes to mind is how dammed smart you were, and your vocabulary was huge. I was, as a young boy, very intimated by you. The next thing I remember is that you had a great sense of humor with jokes to abound and amuse everyone. You would drive Grandma crazy, and all of the aunts loved you. Why did we ever lose touch, Kip? I think that so much was lost over the years.

Kip, you have done so well over your lifetime and in my opinion it was your humor and your energetic drive to succeed at the highest level is secret of how you came to be where you are today. There is no luck in what you have accomplished, believe that. Looking back over your childhood, limited as my knowledge is, one could have predicted success for you.

What are you doing over the Xmas? Besides spending it with your family? Are you staying in town? The reason I am asking, I would like to come out and visit you for a couple of days, if you don't mind.

Hey, another thing I need to tell you. Uncle Vic was the only member of the family that could read, write and speak Italian. I remember him writing letters to Italy on a very regular basis. I even saw a couple of his letters and asked him what the scribbling was all about. Well, for me, that really closed the circle on Uncle Vic's life. I am sure he was writing the MAFIA back then. During the 50's and 60's the Mafia bosses were recruiting Sicilian men to come work for them in the U.S. That can be verified. Our Uncle Vic was something else, he was a very shrewd, and calculating man. He could be funny, accommodating, and pleasant. However, he could be very, very mean as well. I saw both sides.

Your Couzin Tony

Preface

To my former wife and beautiful children, do not read this book.

Chapter One

They say that comedians usually come from sad childhoods. In my case this is true! My parents didn’t like me. When I would take a bath they didn’t give me a rubber duck to play with. They gave me a toaster. And my bicycle, my bicycles had mouse traps on the cross bar.

"To tell you the truth, I’d have to lie to you." I’ve always enjoyed that line but I have made a promise to myself and I promise you to be brutally honest in this book! So here goes.

I was born on the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth of June. I was an unusually long baby.

I was suckling my mothers nipple. Her breasts were white, her nipples were pink and her hair was red. This is my last and only memory of her.

Before my father, my mother had been married to a pilot who was shot down and killed during the Second World War.

Cinders are what are left when coal is burned and were a popular method of creating an inexpensive driveway. They were spread along the side of the house and eventually the cars tires would crush them into a kind of asphalt. I do remember playing in the cinders with my step sister, Kathy. She had a cherub face and red curly hair. This is my first memory of her. When I was two years old my mother, Josephine, left and my step sister left with her.

I followed in my father’s footsteps until, one day he whirled around and ordered me to stop.

I remember the smell of my father, the smell of perspiration and machine oil. He wasn’t drafted into the second world war because he was a skilled laborer and did strategic war-time work at home, running a turret lathe (a lathe cuts things into round shapes. Canon barrels are made by turret lathes). He worked at places named Extrom Carlson, Rockford Screw Products, and Woodward Governor. "We build machines that build machines." The turret lath that my father ran was forty feet long. I am truly the son of a blue-collar man.

He worked the eleven to seven shift and slept during the day so I had to be very quiet. I have always believed that I am near-sighted because I had to keep the volume on the TV set very low and sit very close to the screen to watch "Winky Dink," my favorite cartoon show.

On weekends he smelled of cologne. He would dress in sharkskin suits and go dancing. I loved watching my father get dressed and he seemed to like an audience. First your shirt, then your cuff links, then your tie, then your tie clasp, then your pants, then your belt, then your socks, then your shoes and finally your jacket. He had black wavy hair and was handsome. My father was the youngest of eight children and as my grandmother would say, "The rest of my boys are good boys but that Frank has shit in his veins."

My grandmother and grandfather were Frances and Jasper Addotta. Jasper had fled to the United States in 1915 from Portinico, Sicily, to avoid being drafted into Mussolini’s army. When things got better he returned to Sicily to get his sweetheart, Frances, who by then was living in a convent. The story goes that he arrived at the Convent of Carmine, of the Carmelite monks, in the middle of the night and began to shout my grandmother’s name. After a few loud stubborn shouts the shutters on the second floor opened and the mother superior stuck her head out. "What do you want, young man? Go Away!" He stood his ground. "I am Jasper Addotta and I have come for Frances! I am going to marry her and we are going to America." The old nun thought for a moment and said, "I will ask Frances if she wants to go with you. If she says yes you can take her with you now." She said yes!

My mother used to crap in my diapers and blame it on me.

When my mother flew the co op I was two years old. That hurt! I’ve never been able to come to terms with a mother that could leave me behind. My mother is dead now and although I have told people that it it was probably the best thing that could have happened. The truth is that I have never comes to terms with it. This is, I thinks, the driving force behind my existence.

My father and I moved in with my grandparents. My father had not been out of the house and married for very long. (He was nineteen years old) I could see how this would make sense so my grandmother took my Father back in and took me on as her own.

Soon after, to my grandmother‘s disgust, my father had me put up for adoption and I was sent to The Rockford Home For Children, which was right next door to the Rockford Sock Factory. I was there for less than a year but I remember it well. It was run by a Mrs. Ratts. She was a nice enough person and I liked her. (Boy, did we have fun with her name) She put me on a regimen of vitamins. At six every morning the ward would blare with light and fast moving attendant would come into my ward with carrying a large pot full of hypodermic needles. Each one with a child’s name on it. One of them had my name on it. So the first thing, every morning, I was awakened with a shake and a needle was plunged into my butt. That’s the way vitamins were given. I am wary of needles.

Well, I was so young that I didn’t really understand what was going on. (That’s a lie! I new everything that was going on and I was only three) When I was put in the orphanage, I don’t remember being morose about it. I thought it was great. You know, three meals a day, a nice place to sleep, and I was away from the tough guy. So I was away from him. So I kind of looked at it, gee, I lucked out again. I’ve had many sad, so-called "sad things" happen in my life, but at the time, the experience, for me, it was just fine, I’m fine with it.

While I was there I had a crush on a little wheelchair-bound girl named Kathy. She was a freckle faced cutie with red curly hair. Every day I would go to her ward and visit her crib. (I think she was four) Visiting that little paralyzed girl was one of the things I looked forward to. We would talk.

One day on the upper sun porch I tied my own shoes for the first time. My socks were multicolored with horizontal bands.

One day I found my way out onto the front lawn and freedom. I was running around and around when all of a sudden a guard dog had my left knee in his jaws. I still have its teeth marks as a memento. But it was worth it because I got a lot of attention over it. St Anthony’s even sent a priest over to put me on his knee and bless me and pronounce me alright. He then shook his finger at me and scolded for leaving the building. After that we all had ice cream and cake in the main dinning room. It was the first time I felt cool.

My grandmother visited often and hated having me up for adoption but there was nothing she could do but bide her time. That time came eleven months later. My father went to her for a favor. My grandmother told him that she would co-sign on the note if he got me out of the orphanage and brought me back home to her. He did.

It’s amazing to me that, at only three, I was aware of these things going on around me. Children know more than we think they know. Parents should understand that. The early years are important! Tiny little children are affected by what their parents do and say. One of my earliest memories is of being wary of my father. He was not a friend!

I think that the reason for this was that I favored my mother and was a constant reminder to him. She had left my father for another man and that was something a Sicilian did not tolerate well. It was a macho thing. It was, in our culture, believed that if a man’s wife left him for another it was because her husband could not satisfy her in the bedroom. A tremendous loss of face and my father would never forgive her or me for it.

Throughout my childhood I was brutally beaten for any infringement of the rules. However, my father couldn’t do this in front of my grandmother because she had the key to the finances and would have thrown him out into the street for being cruel to her little Kippy. His solution was to wait, sometime for weeks, until a convenient Saturday. Rockford was a factory town and on Saturdays and Sundays the factory sections of town were deserted. He would say, "Get in the car." I liked going for car rides and his demeanor would fool me every time. We would be driving along enjoying the ride and then he would make a turn into a factory section, and I would realize what was coming and immediately begin to wet my pants. He would stop the car in some dreary alley between two industrial buildings and inform me of what I had done. It could be something as minor as staring at him during dinner or as serious as losing the screw driver. He would pull me out of the car from the driver’s side and throw me to the ground. Then he would take his belt off and begin to whip me like he didn‘t know me. I would try to defend myself but that only heightened his fury and my dad could wield a belt like a circus act. I would scream and beg him to stop; He would yell at the top of his lungs, "Do you want some more, cause I’ve got plenty more for you! I would think, sure dad. There are a couple of ribs, on my left side, you haven’t cracked yet". No one came to my aid because in that section of town, on Saturday, there was no one to hear. When he was finished with these whippings he would throw me back into the car and point his finger at me saying, "If you tell your grandmother you‘ll get worse than this." I never told.

There is nothing funnier than someone else getting hurt. As long as you know they’re not hurt permanently and as long as you know it hurts a lot. One day I was watching my father get some things out of the trunk of his car. He loaded what he needed into one arm and with his other hand he slammed the trunk lid closed, right on his thumb. Well I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I was laughing and he was hopping around like a wounded clown. Now there is nothing that makes you madder than someone laughing at you when you’re hurt. But he was in so much pain he couldn’t speak. He ran into the house and came back a short time later with a big cloth bandage wrapped around his wounded thumb and he was still fuming. As a gesture of his anger he grabbed that trunk lid and slammed it as hard as he could, on the same thumb. I didn’t laugh that time. You have to know when not to laugh. I remember getting a piece of ash in my eye at my uncle’s cremation. You just can’t laugh at a time like that!

At the same time I was terrified of my father I also pitied him for being crippled by archaic rules of behavior. In some ways he was a good man but mostly Frank Emo Addotta was a tyrant. Again, I felt this way at a very early age. I also didn’t like the way other people acted. I can remember being seven years old and thinking how tight assed the people of my town were. Afraid to take chances or do anything that might be looked upon as odd. I guess that’s what you get when you live in a factory town.

"If you live slow you’ve got to go!" "If you live fast you’ll never last!" These were some of my Uncle Victor’s favorite sayings.

I suppose my favorite relative was my uncle Victor Addotta. He and my aunt Eileen and their children lived in Brooklyn, New York and every year they would come to Rockford to vacation. He would take my cousin Ron and me hunting. We would laugh and joke and have a high old time. There would be family picnics and foot races (which I would always win. I was small and thin and very fast). I loved my uncle Victor for many reasons. He had style. He knew how to dress. He always drove a beautiful new Lincoln, one time he even let me drive. I could relax around him. If you want to know my uncle Victor, rent an Edward G. Robinson movie called "Easy Money." The similarities are remarkable. They not only looked alike but in the movie Edward G. plays a barber named Tony. My uncle was a barber. Edward G’s character was a gambler. My uncle ran a notorious poker game in Brooklyn for forty years. Everyone who was anyone, and liked to play poker, came to my uncles flat once a week for a game that would last three days and sometimes all week. There was the infamous gangland family, the Banano brothers and Black Sam Columbo, Little Joe; Nick "The Prick" Palermo (once bashed a guy’s head in for cheating, in reality it was for winning).

An old women, we called her, "Sleazy eyed" Dora, the owner and CEO of Helen Curtis cosmetics, "Gorgeous" Johnny Morano and many, many more. There was twenty thousand dollars on the table at any one time and no drinking was allowed. If someone showed up in a drunken condition Uncle Victor would take them by the nape of the neck and the back of the pants and literally usher them back out onto Flatbush Ave. There were two reasons for this. One was that drunks meant trouble and two, and I think this was the main reason, was that it was hard to beat a drunk at poker. A drunk just couldn’t be bluffed. My uncle would always say that you can never beat a drunk! He would take five percent of each pot and also play. There would be a professional dealer, John Deegan, and a sumptuous buffet and I would learn the expression, "Rat Cock Sucker." You see, when I was in the second and third grade my grandmother and I lived in Brooklyn with my uncle Victor and family (she had taken me there to get me away from the brutality of my father) and many was the night that I heard the losers passing my door on their way out exclaiming, "Rat Cock Sucker."

My uncle Victor had a sense of humor and a great way of saying things. Referring to his shoe size he once said, "I wear an eight, but a nine felt so good I bought a ten. Now, I wear the box!" Years later my uncle Victor, now an old man, visited my father. He knocked on the door of my father’s home and my dad opened it just a crack. "I thought you were dead," my father said. Victor bellowed, "Open that door you ass hole or I’ll break it down!" My father opened the door and my uncle Victor said, "So you thought I was dead, huh. And you didn’t even come to my funeral, you shit head!" This was the last time they saw each other!

Today I drove to Twentieth Century Fox studios to read for a role in a Brad Pitt movie called "Mr. And Mrs. Smith." The director loved me in the role, but by the time I got home the role I had read for had been cut from the movie. Life goes on. Show Business is shit and to quote Phyllis Diller, "I have a teaspoon of it everyday, just so I don’t lose my taste".

After two years in Brooklyn my grandmother and I took the train back to Chicago and then on to Rockford. I was enrolled in St Mary’s school and began my indoctrination into the Catholic Church. My blessed grandmother, Frances, had plans for me. I was to be prepared and influenced toward becoming the first priest to come out of the Addotta family. And what a trip it was. I was brought to church, for mass, seven days a week and twice on Thursdays. On Thursdays we would go at night, too, for Benediction and the Stations of the Cross. And every night at five we would kneel at the old trunk in my grandmother’s bedroom and say the rosary.

Look but don’t touch

My grandmother, Frances, is an un-canonized saint! In those days grocery stores didn’t have refrigeration. Fish was kept fresh with ice; meat was kept cool in the same case on the shelf above the fish. Chickens were either butchered after they were purchased or, if you wanted to save money, you could take the bird home live and butcher it yourself. My grandmother chose the later, which was not uncommon for the older generation. Most people would kill a chicken by wringing its neck or by chopping its head off with a cleaver. But my grandmother Frances was too genteel for such brutality. So she would tie the live chicken’s feet to her apron strings and let it hang upside down and go about her business until it was dead. I can remember many an afternoon hearing my grandmother calling me home from the front porch. As I rounded the corner at a full sprint, there she was, standing on the porch with a half dead chicken flapping its wings on her apron.

I was sheltered in every way. I was not even allowed to have cold milk for fear that I might get a chill. On the rare occasion that I would have a bowl of cereal, with cold milk, at a friends home it was a banner day. I was protected from outside influences. I was allowed to leave the house for one half hour after school and for two hours on Saturday, and then only if she knew where I was. If I was caught somewhere where I wasn’t supposed to be I would suffer the wrath of grandma. Grandma Frances Addotta’s weapon of choice was a broom stick and she wielded it to great effect. I would cower from her swings and jabs but she really never hurt me. I truly loved this woman!

The rest of my time was spent cleaning the house, doing the laundry, ironing and learning the inner workings of the Catholic church. And I couldn’t have had a better teacher for Frances Addotta knew more about the church and knew more prayers than even the priests, who would often call or visit the house to ask for guidance in a particular aspect or protocol. This went on until she died. I was fifteen.

I was lost without her. However, I also felt relieved because I secretly had no intention of going into the priesthood. I was a naughty kid in spite of all the control and influence. I smoked, drank "altar wine" when I could sneak it, and generally looked for every opportunity to sin.

My first sex was at the age of eleven. Bobby Southard and I were playing on the swings at Fair Grounds Park, just two blocks from our homes. A pretty, short-haired girl of about 12 walked up to us and started a conversation. It wasn’t long before she announced that she was trying to decide which one of us she was going to fuck. Our little pricks almost ripped through our pants as we waited for her verdict, when all of a sudden she turned and pointed at me. She took my hand and led me to the hey loft of a near-by barn. There in that loft, lying in mounds of hay, I lost my virginity. And although I never saw her again I will never forget the warm and moist Penny Gotterd.

It didn’t take long after my grandmother’s death for my father to make his move. One day he announced that it was time for me to be on my own and that I should get my own place. I acted like I was disappointed but in truth I couldn’t wait to get away from him and enjoy freedom for the first time in my life. I was almost sixteen.

I needed to find a job and a place to live. I bought the first newspaper I had ever owned, The Rockford Morning Star, and found my way to the classifieds. Since I had very little in the way of education and was still a minor my choices were few, but the choices there were and the ones I made would send me on a road I could not have imagined. In the rental section I found a room for rent in a beautiful old Victorian home about a mile from my neighborhood. It was run by Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson, an ancient couple who had had the house built themselves a thousand years ago. It was a white, wooden structure with a wide porch gracing the entire front of the building. Inside were flowered carpets and drapes and the most beautiful furnishings I had ever seen. My room was upstairs and was appointed as lavishly as the rest of the house. Down the hall there was a huge bathroom done in one inch white and black tiles, a wonderful art deco sink and a toilet and tub to match. Sixteen dollars a week. I had never lived so well.

In the same classified section I found a help wanted ad for The Steak & Shake drive-in, in Loves Park, a small community just north of Rockford. I hopped on a bus and within 20 minutes I was in the presence of Huey Myers, the manager of Steak & Shack and one of the toughest and most colorful people I have ever met! Huey was a hair-lipped, barrel-chested, red haired, drill sergeant of a man who believed, as he put it, that a man ought to be able to do anything he was big enough to do. And Huey was tough enough to do anything. One night Huey was fishing at Rock Cut State Park. Well he wasn’t really there to fish for catfish. What he was really there to do was to sit on the shore of the lake and drink Jim Beam, but he did have a line in the water for appearances. Huey had polished off about a fifth and a half when he was approached by a uniformed officer from park security. The security officer informed Huey that he would have to leave because the park had been closed for several hours. "Like hell I will," Huey exclaimed! "I’m not doing’ anyone any harm and by God I ain’t leaving’ you son of a bitch." With that Huey dragged out his equalizer. Something he always kept near by. A four foot length of logging chain. He began to twirl this logging chain and advance on the officer, cussing a blue streak. With that the officer drew his service revolver and began shooting. The first round met its mark but only pissed Huey off even more. The second two rounds slowed him up a bit, the next three stopped him in his tracks, but it took one more to drop him. Huey took seven forty-five slugs, in the chest, before he finally dropped.

I met Huey Myers six months later. He was standing at the blanching machine in a small building out back of the Steak & Shake drive in. (Blanching was the process of half cooking French fries in advance so that they could be finished and delivered to the customer much faster.) That would be my job. He only looked over at me once, to size me up. I was skinny and young and that’s what he was looking for. Someone to run the food out to the cars. And so I began the first career of my life. I was a car hop.

I live in a bungalow, in the Hollywood Hills, over looking Capital records. There is an alley that runs behind my bungalow and for the last few nights I have been startled by people tapping at my bathroom window and yelling the name Randy. Evidently there is some guy named Randy selling cocaine out of the bathroom window of a bungalow two doors down from mine. Pretty slick!

Most people think of a car hop as a girl but there were a few guys who did it too. I was good at it and before long, and to everyone’s amazement, I could, when called upon, handle the entire lot of fifty cars by myself. This didn’t happen very often but when the rest of the Hops didn’t show up for work it was nice to have little Kip around and Huey Myers respected me for that. I cherished his respect for I’ve never known a man who was feared by so many people as Huey was and the fact that he treated me with deference was a feather in my cap and the rest of the tough guys, that hung around, left me alone because of it. At least most of the time. One night a car load of boys from another part of town came in drunk. I ran out to their car and started my pitch. "What can I bring you gentlemen?" From the back seat came the slurring voice of an Arkansas red neck. "How bout you giving us all a good cock sucking, skinny." All six boys had a good laugh at that one and the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. It wasn’t the cock sucking reference that made me mad; it was the skinny reference that got to me. You see all though I had heard of men sucking other men’s cocks I had never done it so I didn’t take it personal, but, I was surely skinny and I hated it when anyone called me skinny. The truth hurts! I put my order book and pencil in my shirt pocket and leaned on the driver’s door with both hands. (A trick Huey had taught me. If you‘ve got both hands on the door it was hard for the guy to swing it out and slam you with it.) I said, "Well I heard you boys down in Arkansas like to suck each others cocks but, you see, I’m from Illinois and up here we like girls!" With that all four doors opened and I was thrown to the ground. Those boys were on me like flies on shit. I never got such a whipping. Although I got in a couple licks, I was no match for the six of them. Then I heard a wonderful sound. It was the sound of a four foot long piece of logging chain being dragged across the asphalt. Huey’s voice was gritty and not one to be ignored. "What in fucking Christ’s sake are you boys doing to my man?" I watched all six boys look up from the beating they were giving me. I watched their eyes size Huey up and then lower to consider the logging chain. They all quickly jumped back in their rod and sped off, the driver with a good two inches of my pencil jammed into his right pectoral region. "There ain’t nothing wrong with getting your ass kicked, kid. As long as you get your licks in! They won’t be back."

Huey took me under his wing and taught me a lot about how to handle people and how to merchandise our products. On the inside of Steak & Shake we had a rectangular counter and along the walls surrounding the counter there were framed signs with menu items on them. I was up on a ladder just about to finish cleaning and straightening those signs when Huey walked up behind me and shook the ladder. "Now listen kid, you go back and make all those signs crooked again. If you leave those signs straight no one will ever notice them, you got it?" I got it and I have used that rule all my life. "No one notices things that are in order. It is the skewed that catch their eye, or ear!"

Huey had another trick that I liked. If business was slow he would have us all pull our cars up close to the building and then we would take our uniforms off and sit at the inside counter. "No one wants to eat alone, kid. Remember that!" I loved that guy.

I owe a lot to Steak & Shake! One day my rent was due and all I had was two dollars. I was off that day but I pulled in to have a free lunch. There were a bunch of cars pulled up around the back building so I rolled over to have a look inside. On the floor, kneeling in a circle, shooting craps were Huey and four or five regulars. Huey signaled for me to get in the game and when I knelt down beside him he whispered that I should just follow his bets. Within fifteen minutes I had my rent money, gas money and enough left over to take my girlfriend to the Top Hat drive in. We were seventeen.

One night I was working the lot alone when a 1958 black Chevy sedan pulled up. The driver was an older woman and her passenger was a young, dark haired, beauty that I had seen before. She worked at the Steak & Shake too, but she worked day shift on the weekends so I didn’t see her much and didn’t even know her name.

Before I could get to the drivers side of the car the pretty young passenger said, "Hi, my name is Mary and this is my mother Maxine." I found out later that Mary had been telling her mother about me for weeks and had convinced her mother to drive Mary in from their country home to have a look. This little girl had the most beautiful dark eyes and a smile that drew you in to her. She was quite aggressive, as I remember, and made no bones about the fact that she thought I was cute and that we should go to the movie together in the near future. (She said movie because her mother was there but I knew she meant Drive in movie and I was all for it.)

One early spring night we were parked in a corn field, necking and more. When we were finished we realized that while we were making love the car had sunk axle deep into the mud. We were stuck. Mary said, "Wait here I’ll get help." With that she was out of the car and gone. A short time later a farm tractor pulled up behind me. A large man climbed down, hooked a chain to my car and pulled me out of the mud. He undid the chain and chugged away and out of sight. Mary hoped back into my car and said, "Let’s go to the Top Hat for a burger." I said, "Who was that guy?" She said, "Oh, that was my father, Lester." Lester never brought that evening up to me but I knew that he knew what we were up to. Lester was a good, hard working farmer and I liked him, but he never really warmed up to me. After all what did this little pip squeak of a car hop have to offer his daughter. But she was determined that I was the guy for her and Lester tolerated me. He’s gone now and I have a daughter of my own. I understand Lester much better now!

I walked in on my son and said, "Son, that will cause blindness!" He said, "Dad, I’m over here!" Our first born was named after my favorite uncle, Victor, and for my godfather Michael. Victor Michael Addotta. I was eighteen years old. As I looked at Victor through the glass in the maternity ward I began a long journey to becoming a man. There are really no other words to describe it, but if you’ve been there you know what I mean. I was scared to death! I had been out of work for months when Victor was born and wouldn’t you know it, on the very day he arrived I got a job on the night shift at Inter City Box and Plastics. That was a close one!

But, I knew that as the head of a family, I would need something a bit more dependable to make a living at. I decided to follow in my uncle Victor’s footsteps and become a hairdresser. Ultimately this was a bad decision because as I would find out, there aren’t enough hours in the day to support a family as a hairdresser unless, of course, you ran a poker game on the side. But I did enroll into Rockford Beauty Academy and spent the next two years working eleven to seven, in the morning at the factory, and eight in the morning to two in the afternoon at the Beauty Academy. In between I would sleep and the ordeal would start over again, five days a week. On weekends I would make dreary attempts at being a husband and father. I’m afraid I didn’t do very well at either. When I was twenty three my wife, Mary, and I traveled to Buffalo, NY for further training at Martha Harpers Beauty Care, near Niagara Falls. While there, my daughter Kathryn was conceived. This was a blessing and a tragedy at the same time for although Mary didn’t seem to have any trouble with the birth of our daughter, she was never the same. Over the next months Mary grew steadily weaker and eventually it was determined that she had complete kidney failure. The movie "Love Story" had just been released. The parallels between that movie and our lives were too many and too cruel.

Mary was twenty three. I couldn’t bring myself to tears. My childhood had trained me to internalize me feelings, not to show weaknesses. I was certainly sad enough and I knew that people expected me to show my grief but I just couldn’t produce the tears. Finally, at the funeral, held in the same church where Mary and I had been wed, I broke down. The tears flowed for hours and I was relieved. Not just for the release, but also because everyone around me saw that I was not an emotionless cold fish. I loved Mary and I still miss her!

After her funeral, my father in-law Lester came to me and told me that he knew that, as a young man, I had to do what I had to do and that until I was ready, he and his wife Maxine would take care of my children Victor and Kathryn. I accepted his offer and have always admired the Bennett family for being so understanding and kind.

For the next year and a half I dated frequently, but, there was one girl in particular that caught my eye. I first noticed her while Mary was still alive. She lived across the street from us and I would see her mowing her lawn, wearing only an orange bikini. She was very cute! Then, one day, after Mary was gone, this same young girl walked into the beauty salon where I was working. She was there to have her hair done for her high school prom. I stepped right up to ensure that I would be the one that worked on her. Lynn was a tough nut to crack, but several months later Lynn was pregnant and she and I, along with her mother, were standing in the courthouse before a justice of the peace. After the ceremony Lynn Addotta and I got into our car and drove out to the Bennett farm to pick up my children. Yes, we spent our honeymoon night with my, or should I say our, two children.

Months later, my wife, Lynn and I had a boy. Frank James Addotta. Lynn and I had many problems, but I will always think of her as a godsend. Lynn raised all of our children as if they were her own and if you ask any one of them who their mother was, or is, they will, without hesitation, say, "My mothers name is Lynn." We all love and respect Lynn Addotta because without her we would not be a family.

But my finances did not improve. Things were always tough, but never once did I hear that cute little girl mowing the lawn, in her bikini, complain. Not once! One night I was out alone getting drunk at a bowling alley. Here I was, in Rockford, with a wife and three children that I could not support. As I saw it, I had nothing to lose. I was going to have to do something drastic. Way back in the recesses of my mind I had always fantasized about being a comedian. I had told Lynn all about this dream of mine and she never acted like it was silly. At that same time The Tonight Show was moving from New York to Los Angeles. I went to the phone and called Lynn. I said, "Baby there’s nothing for us here. How would you like to join me on an adventure?" I explained my plan and without hesitation she said, "Let’s go for it!"

Two weeks later the five of us were packed into our old Pontiac and on our way to Hollywood, with twelve hundred dollars to our name.

Chapter Two

Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said, "If you can’t say anything nice about anybody, come and sit with me."

I said I would tell you the truth and I will but don’t kill the messenger. If it were up to me everyone would be a good and honorable person. I’ve spent the first half of my life expecting people to be wonderful. Now I am surprised if anyone is.

As it turns out, our timing was, in moving to Los Angeles, was perfect. At the same time we were driving to California there was a new nightclub opening in Hollywood, The Comedy Store. We heard about it as soon as we hit town. Sammy Shore and Rudy Deluca were the proprietors. Rudy, a very funny comedy writer, ran the place and Sammy would, mostly, just show up and perform. He was funny. Rudy had written all of his material and Sammy was a good performer. The reason Sammy had opened The Comedy Store was the same reason we were driving to Hollywood. The Tonight Show had permanently moved into NBC studios, in Burbank, and I’m sure Sammy Shore saw this as his big chance to become a regular on the show. That would never happen! But many other people did make it out of The Comedy Store. Besides myself there was Robin Williams, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Al Frankin and many, many more. By the time Lay Leno and David Letterman arrived on the scene I was already doing regular shots on The Carson Show, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Both Jay and David tripped over themselves trying to get next to me. It was Mr. Addotta this and Mr. Addotta that. This wouldn’t last long! They both turned out to be first rate vipers.

The Comedy Store quickly became the place to go. Everyone came into the joint. Diana Ross, Johnny Carson, Redd Foxx, Buddy Hacket, Norman Lear, Johnny Cash, Steve Martin. The list goes on. You name them and if they were alive they would come to The Comedy Store for a few laughs. The big time comics would get up and do a few minutes and I would watch. I would soak them up. Not their jokes but the way they staged themselves. Beginners always think it’s the jokes and although they are important the most important thing is how you present the material. Buddy Hacket once said that every six months he wonders how he had the nerve to go on six months before.

Before I moved to Los Angeles I met Buddy at a party, in my home town. I told him that I was thinking about getting into comedy and he invited me to his show at The Mill Run Theater, in Chicago. At that time, Buddy Hacket was the highest paid comedian in the world, making fifty thousand dollars a night. I went to his show and there was a ticket waiting for me. His show was awesome! Afterwards I went to the backstage door and sure enough my name had been left with the guard. I was ushered to his dressing room and there he was seated on a couch, wearing a black and white striped, silk bathrobe. He was beautiful. He sat there, answering my silly questions for over an hour. I have met Buddy on several occasions since then and he was always a gentleman. I miss him.

I’m delighted to be able to tell a story about a great guy like Buddy Hacket, because, people like him are few and far between. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that everyone in show business is an ass hole. There is good and bad in everyone and where I have the chance, I will take pleasure in telling you the good and the displeasure of telling you the bad. But, rest assured what I say on these pages is true! What have I got to lose?

Redd Foxx taught me a little trick to use when there was a heckler in the room. If you choose to insult someone, you never insult them to their face. You always insult him to someone else. Rather than say, "Sir, you’re a real ass hole," you say to someone else "This guys a real ass hole." But contrary to common belief hecklers are few and far between and they’re usually not a him but a her. And she’s almost always drunk. Men are generally better behaved, in clubs, than women. Women know they can get real drunk and say or do anything and get away with it. A man always knows that if he goes too far he can get punched in the nose. That would never occur to women. She can go wild. The best advice is not to create a heckler in the first place. That’s right, I said "Create a heckler," which is what actually happens. The inexperienced comic will ask the audience questions, to stall for time, because he or she doesn’t have enough material to do the gig. I never ever ask an audience a question. I use declarative sentences. "When I die I want to die peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not kicking and screaming like the people in his car!" When you get laughs you don’t need segues. You can go anywhere from a laugh. "You show me a beautiful women and I’ll show you a guy that’s tired of fucking her!" Anywhere!

Oh, I did want to mention Al Frankin, who also started at The Comedy Store as half of the comedy team of Frankin & Davis. They went on to be writers and once in a while performers on Saturday Night Live. We performed at The Comedy Store together for years and I watched Frankin & Davis every night because they went on before me. The weaker acts always went on early. I must say that all of us other comedians used Frankin & Davis as a barometer. If they were getting laughs the audience was considered a push over. If they weren’t getting laughs we considered the audience normal. Also, I had the great displeasure of socializing with Mr. Frankin on one occasion. A bunch of us went to his apartment because Al wanted to get high and we had some pot. We were all sitting around, on the floor, Indian style. I was sitting directly across from Al Frankin, who was barefoot. He had a plate of cauliflower on the floor in front of him and would alternately eat the cauliflower and clean his toes, with the same fingers. My point is this! Al Frankin wrote a book entitled, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Slob." I’m here to tell you that Al Frankin is a small, chubby, slob. I have spoken!

The owner of The Comedy Store, Sammy Shore, was noted for traveling and opening for Elvis. Someone wrote a book about Elvis, on the road, (Careless Love, The unmaking of Elvis Presley") and in it, mentioned this guy, Sammy Shore who worked with Elvis and how he hit on and shagged every women that would let him. Mitsi Shore, Sammy’s wife, read the book and filed for divorce. In the settlement Sammy took the apartment buildings that they owned and Mitsi settled for ownership of The Comedy Store. As far as I know, that is the first and only intelligent decision she ever made. Although, Mitsi was married to a comic she knew nothing about comedy. Before Mitsi took over The Comedy Store, she was selling pickles, on Sunset Boulevard. No. I did not make that up! She had the idea that what Hollywood needed was a shop that specialized in local art and pickles. So, there she sat, in her little shop, waiting for people to come in and buy bad oil paintings and kosher pickles. The trouble was there was no parking and as you’ve heard, no one walks in Los Angeles. She could have been selling tap shoes for a nickel a pair and no one would have come in. So much for business acumen! So now she takes over, running, The Comedy Store and comedy was on such a role that her stupidity was covered up by the fact that people were flocking to see comedy in droves. Elmer Fudd could have been running the place and looked like a genius. CBS once paid, Mitsi Shore, eighty thousand dollars to consult them for a year. After three months they paid her off and asked to stop calling them. She was also a bigot! She always favored the Jewish comics, even if they were terrible on stage. It was worst if you were non-Jewish and male, then, you hardly ever got on stage. She also used The Comedy Store as her own little sex stable. It is well known, by people that worked there, that Mitsi slept with all of the comics, that came through. The few that didn’t sleep with take great pride, in the fact. However, the people she was sleeping with, at any particular time, got the best spots. (They went on when there were important people in the room) Now, no one goes to The Comedy Store any more, certainly no one from any of the networks or production companies. Mitsi chased them all away by insisting that they pay for their drinks like anyone else! This is just not done. Mitsi is old now and it gives me no pleasure to say these things about anyone, but, she did so much damage to a profession that I love that I can not forgive her for it!

Mitsi Shore dressed like a gypsy with layers and layers of things that didn’t match. Bandanas, sashes, feathers and beads. I used to tell a mean joke about her. "The fire marshal went to The Comedy Store and really caused a stir. He mistook Mitsi for a pile of oily rags."

The first time I went on stage, at The Comedy Store, (Before Mitsi took over) I was terrified. I could hardly speak. I only did five minutes and even managed to get a couple of laughs. But, I was terrible! Thank god it was late at night and not many people saw me. Hell, I was there to be bad and I abused the privilege. I was very bad. But I wasn’t ready for the big time and I knew it. I was there to learn and try new material. As soon as a bit started working well I would stop doing it, put it away, in my files and go on to new stuff. This process enabled me to stock pile a lot of material and at the same time not draw to much attention to myself. When the time was right I would pull out the big guns. I also worked other clubs. I would usually do five clubs a night, to different kinds of audiences. Country bars, biker bars, sophisticated clubs. I worked them all. This made me sure that my material would work no matter where I used it. In sixteen months I had an hour of original material and the balls to make my move.

I called a guy that I had heard about. Marty Pitchinson. Marti had nothing to do with comedy but he was with a super powerful management company, B.N.B. Bernard, Newfeld and Bash. I threw him my pitch and he said he would come and see the show.

He did and liked what he saw. The next day I signed with one of the most powerful companies in show business. They managed people like Neil Sedaka, John Davison, Jim Crochet, The Captain & Tenille, Mick Fleetwood many writers and producers who’s names you wouldn’t know and now Kip Addotta too.

A friend, at the time, Kenny Kramer is the guy that Seinfeld modeled the character of the same name from. Kenny and I hung around together a lot. We would go to different clubs and work out. He wasn’t naturally funny and would use mostly stolen material. When he was on the west coast he would use material he had stolen on the east coast and when he was on the east coast he would use material he had stolen on the west coast. And when he moved to Florida he took my act with him. A real rogue! But, about a year later he sent me a letter. It said that he had met an agent that liked him doing my material and that this agent was moving to Hollywood and that if this agent liked Kramer doing my material he would probably love me doing my material. How can I not like a guy like Kramer? That’s how I met my first agent, Fred Lawrence. He and his wife saw me at the Ice House, in Pasadena and the next day I was on my way to my first real gig. It was at The Sahara Tahoe, in the main room, opening for The Fifth Dimension, a big act at the time. I had to buy cloths for the gig when I landed in Tahoe. The shows went well and I spent the next two weeks there working to twelve hundred people a show, twice a night. There were two reasons why I got the gig. One, that I was clean and funny. Two, that the guy that was doing the gig, Sandy Baron, burned out and gotten fired.

Nothing happens, in show business unless there’s a reason and that reason is seldom talent. If you think there are people out there looking for fresh young talent to bring to Hollywood I‘ve got some Martha Stewart stock you might like to buy. It’s all about favors and trade offs. That’s why I needed a powerful management company. I knew that they could call a TV show and say that the show could have Neil Sedaka but they would have to take Kip Addotta too. I had found my water! You might say, "What about those shows like The Last Comic Standing or American Idle? They send talent scouts across the country looking for people!" Yes they do. But, they don’t send people searching for winners. They send people out across the country looking for the losers. (People to be eliminated during the run of the contest) You only need one winner, but, you need dozens of losers.

I can hear my neighbor vacuuming his carpet. This guy has the loudest Hoover in the world. Two years ago it sucked up a penny and it’s been rattling around in there ever since.

After my first big gig in Lake Tahoe came a two week stint in Boulder, Colorado, at a club called Telagies, working with The Average White Band and Graham Central Station, a funk group. The leader of Graham Central Station, Larry Graham, would always come in with the shakes and would have to down a half a fifth of Courvoisier before he went on. I had not yet started to drink. Then, came the longest five weeks of my life. I was working at the Pagoda Hotel in Oahu, Hawaii with Jim Bailey, the female impersonator who was hotter than a three dollar pistol, in the mid seventies. He would never leave his hotel suite except to do the shows. He said it was because he didn’t like being recognized, but, I think he was afraid of not being recognized. By this time I had been on the road for nine weeks. I missed my wife, Lynn and my kids and I had Island fever. Being on an Island for that long makes me claustrophobic! I was still being faithful to my wife, at the time. While I was there I met Ronna Wallace a young lady that would play a funny role, in my life later on.

Drinking and drugs are part of the road. Everyone I knew was doing one or the other or both. It’s the schedule and time zone changes that do it to you. You can’t fly out of one city at midnight and land in another city with a three hour time change and do radio and newspaper interviews all day to promote the show later that same night without some sort of stimulus. I knew the guy who supplied the cocaine for Frank Sinatra’s Fiftieth Anniversary in show business. He claimed to be a rug dealer, but, what he really did was sell cocaine. So, this guy, Sy, shows up, at the party, holding two ounces of pure Peruvian Flake. (About five thousand dollars worth) But, he was so high that he caused a problem, at the door and got busted by the security guards and turned over to the police. A real rat fuck! Some strings were pulled and the Judge let him off. As he was walking out of the court room he passed the arresting officer, leans over and says, "Fuck you!" The officer notices a gold plated razor blade hanging around Sy’s neck. This is considered drug paraphernalia! The officer throws Sy up against the wall and searches him. He finds a gram of cocaine. Sy did seven years for being a smart ass and later died when his private plane crashed off the coast of Florida. Get it?

One night I was sitting, at home, watching The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson. After his monolog Johnny went to his desk and sat down. He opened his eyes real wide, took a deep breath through his nose and said, "Wow, Doc Severinson gave me a vitamin before the show and boy it really woke me up! I knew what he meant! The Doc had given me the same vitamin several times. Maybe, that’s why they called him Doc. One night, after taping a Tonight Show (I did thirty one, in all) Doc Severinson came up to me and asked me to join him in his dressing room. His dressing room was located on the second floor, above the stage. I didn’t know what he wanted but I went up and was greeted at the door by a half undressed Doc Severinson. I sat down and he produced a baggy containing at least an ounce of the best vitamin C I have ever had. It cleared my sinuses and numbed my face almost immediately! This happened several times during my relationship with The Tonight Show. Then I ran into Doc at an airport, in Dallas. He was running, like a mad man for the plane. I thought this was odd because the plane didn’t take of for another hour. We sat together, on the flight, and snorted little spoonfuls of vitamin C all the way back to L.A. The next time I saw him was back stage, before a taping of The Tonight Show. He rushed by my open dressing room door and said, "Hey, Kip. I said, "Hey it’s the speed king!" As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. I was referring to him rushing through the airport, in Dallas, but, I know he thought I was talking about that bag he kept with him. Anyway, it was a dumb thing to say and he avoided me from then on. God, I can be stupid!

It was about this time that David Letterman showed up from Indiana. He had been a funny weather man there, at a local TV station. The first time I met him is when he came running up to me exclaiming, "Mr. Addotta, I’m a big fan of yours. You’re great! I always watch you when you’re on TV. I thanked him and he went right into, "Could you give me some advice? Can you help me with my act?" I liked David and was open to helping, but, David turned out to be a user! I gave him advice on several occasions. He would even call me, at my home, with questions about this or that. Once, when he got his first paying gig, he approached me about this job he had opening for Helen Reddy. She worked big venues of as many as fifteen thousand people and he wanted to know how to work to a large crowd. I told him to work bigger. Instead of just standing at the microphone, turning your head from side to side, you must use your whole body. Move from one end of the stage to another. Work each section of the audience alternately. He took my advice and reported that the shows went very well. A little later on, Johnny Carson went on strike at NBC. Freddy Silverman, the then head of NBC, wanted to teach Johnny a lesson, so, he put David Letterman (Another boy from the Midwest) in as Johnny’s replacement. From that moment on David never spoke to me again. His head swelled immediately and he was too good to talk to the likes of Mr. Addotta. As a matter of fact, the bigger David got, the more he would do to damage me and my career. You see, David Letterman is a mean little boy and takes great pleasure, if not glee, in pulling nasty, damaging tricks on people. (I will get into this more, later on) Of all the shows I have been a guest on and I have been a guest on most, I have never been asked to appear on the David Letterman shows. Although, he enjoys mentioning my name now and then, just to taunt me. He’ll say, "Tomorrow night Kip Addotta will be on the show!" He is a rotten bastard and I only hope his new son turns out well, because, David will not be a good example to this child.

As you travel, you pick up things. Someone once told me that traveling salesmen buy dirty magazines and they don’t dare go home, to the wife, with them. So, when they check out of their hotel they put the dirty magazines under the mattress for the next guy to enjoy. So, when I check into a hotel room, I always look under the mattress and, you know, I find dirty magazines there about a quarter of the time. Enjoy!

Tipping is very important! I tip the baggage guy, at the airport, and my bags have always reached my destination. When I get to my hotel I tip the guy who takes my bags from the taxi, two dollars and I tip the guy who brings my bags to my room five dollars. Believe me, the word that you’re a Good Joe travels through a hotel like wild fire and the service you get reflects it. And if you’re a cheap skate the reverse is true. If you want great service, in a restaurant, let me give you a hint. Tips stands for To Insure Prompt Service, which, infers that you do it ahead of time. The next time you’re in a restaurant, instead of giving the waiter the tip at the end of the meal, give the same tip to him or her before you order your food. You will be amazed at the difference in your service! You say," But I always put my tip one the credit card. Shmuck! Carry some cash with you! If you want to be treated like a mench (A stand up guy), act like one! You can always add the tip to your receipt to keep track of what you‘ve spent.

If you travel as much as I do you begin to realize that all Holyday Inn rooms are the same. Travel long enough and you begin to get the impression that it actually is the same room. That they’re moving this room around the country with you. You get suspicious when you check into a hotel room and find your own toe nail on the floor! I slept in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale Florida, once that had the biggest cock roaches I’ve ever seen! I’ve slept in rooms, with roaches before but I’ve never had one hop in bed and throw one leg over me. And, then, whisper, "Hey, we’ve got ants!"

In 1976 I was booked to perform with Sonny & Cher. It was to be their last tour, together. We traveled all over the country and, of course, worked to, huge, sold out houses. The people were wild with excitement wherever Sonny and Cher performed and it was fun to open the show for them. The people went crazy for me too. Sonny and Cher created the sizzle and I took advantage of it. Every night, I would hand those audiences to Sonny & Cher on a silver platter. Not that they needed any help from me, but, I was proud of the shows I was doing and people took notice. I don’t think they had ever seen a relatively unknown performer get the kind of reaction I was getting. I was killing them! I made a lot of important friends during the east coast leg of that tour. While Sonny & Cher where doing their show, all the big time agents, from New York, would hang out in my dressing room. I was considered cool! Then, they would run out and take their seats, just before Sonny & Cher’s encore.

Cher was very shy and a nervous performer. That sleepy eyed character with the limp, slinky style was more valium than personality. It took a lot of valium to get her on stage! I know this because Cher had a habit of leaving her, empty, prescription bottles all over the back stage area. I didn’t have to be a snoop to know about it. Cher and Greg Allman had just broken up and she was seeing her lead guitarist and I‘m sure he was a big help in consoling her. She seemed to love guitar players. (You know what to throw to a drowning guitar player? His amp! After the shows, this guitar player, Cher and I would ride back, to the hotel, in the same limo, she was always very quite. Sonny would ride in a different in limo with his new girlfriend, Susie.

This particular week we were playing The Valley Forge Music Fare in, Valley Forge, PA and staying at The Valley Forge Hilton. One night, after the show, I was bored and decided to go down to the bar. As I was walking through the bar a hand grabbed my left elbow. I looked around and there was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. (We‘ll call her B. Bop) If Rita Heyworth had been Irish she would have looked like B. Bop. "Aren’t you Kip Addotta, the comedian I saw, tonight, with Sonny & Cher?" "Yes I am!" Her eyes widened and she said, "God, you were funny, my girlfriend and I split a gut! Would you like to smoke a joint?" I said yes and she suggested that we go to my room. After we got high, we returned to the bar and had drinks. B. Bop was twenty three, a graduate of Penn. State and the most aggressive women I had ever met. During our fist drink, she let me know that I could fuck her, if I wanted to and if not, maybe I would like a nice suck job. I was very tempted, but, I told her that I was married and that I loved my wife. She said, "That’s great, I’m not looking to get between you and your wife. But, I would love to suck your cock! I squirmed a lot and begged off. I was being a good boy!

The next day, around eleven, the phone in my room rang. It was B. Bop. "Hi, big boy, can I by you lunch?" I said. "I never leave the hotel except to go to the theater." (I liked to save my energy for the shows) She said, "Well, then, let’s have lunch in your hotel." We set the time for twelve noon and as soon as I hung up, I called Sonny Bono. I told him that I had met this girl, B. Bop and invited him and his girlfriend, Susie, to join us for lunch. (A safety precaution) Sonny told me that he had met B. Bop, back stage, the night before and didn’t want to be around her. "She was trouble!" Sonny was a wise man and I was a babe in the woods. I had never met anyone like B. Bop before. She was wild, beautiful and seemed to have all the money she needed to do whatever she wanted. She also drank a lot. She told me that she had been with the same boyfriend since highs cool and that he was in the import, export business. I did not know, at the time, that this was code for drug dealer. Had I known that I would have ended it right there, or, at least I like to think so. Whenever I would appear, on the east coast, B. Bop would show up. She, somehow, always new where I was playing and where I was staying. Sometimes I wouldn’t answer my room phone for fear that it would be her. But, B. Bop was a determined girl and would wait in the lobby until I would come down to leave for the theater. "Hey, big boy, where do you think your going?" I’m going to work and then I’d would hop in the limo and be off. But, that didn’t deter B. Bop. She would simply hop into her car and follow me to the show. When I would travel to Philadelphia, to do the Mike Douglas Show, I would walk out on stage and there she would be, sitting in the first row, cheering me on and laughing at all my jokes. After the show she would be waiting, at the stage door. "C’mon I’ll buy you lunch." This sort of temptation went on for a year and, still, I was faithful to, my wife, Lynn. No, I don’t deserve a medal!

My wife was the perfect person for that part of my life. She ran our home and raised our children with complete dedication. I was constantly on the road or taping a TV show. It must have looked, to her, like I was having a wonderful time but I was always worn out. I was worn out by the constant pressure of traveling, writing material, testing it and doing Television and then more travel. I hated traveling. Something I hadn’t figured on! The time changes and the flying from one place to another were eating me from the inside out. I wasn’t being a father to my children and had tremendous guilt about B. Bop, because, I was beginning to fall for her. However, I was not falling out of love with my wife. I would find out that being in love with two women, at the same time, is a living hell! You can’t live two lives!

On one occasion I was asked to appear on a show that was taping at The Improv, in West Hollywood. It was called "Freddy & Friends, hosted by Freddy Prinze. I was well prepared and Freddy gave me a great intro. As I mounted the stage a fight broke out between two men, at a ringside table. I knew that tape was rolling so I tried to begin my set. But, the two men, at the ring side table, were very drunk and completely unconscious of anything going on around them. They were, "Fuck you, No fuck you, Fuck your mother, man, no fuck your mother." The entire audience was focused on these two louts mother fucking each other, at the ringside table. Now, this is not a movie shoot where you can yell cut, remove the drunks and redo the shot. This was a live TV show shot in real time and this audience and been, totally demoralized and could give a shit about my routine about traffic in Los Angeles. Mean time, these two large gentlemen had accelerated their argument from a sit down argument to a stand up shouting match. I know that if I continued my set the director might actually air this donnybrook. I would love to watch this happen to another Comic, but, not to me! So, I simply turned from the microphone and split, in a 94 Huff. As I passed the director I said, "Get rid of the drunks, bring in a new audience and I’ll come back and do my thing. Otherwise, good luck! From the moment the fight started there was no way for any comic to perform in that room! Though, several did and when the show was aired they all looked like idiots!

Believe it or not, about a year later, I met those two drunks again and we became long time friends. One of them, Brion James was an actor, of note, in movies like Bound For Glory, Blade Runner, Forty Eight Hours I & II, Southern Comfort and many more. For a while, Brion lived with me at my Santa Monica home. (Maids quarters) Brion was a rough tough rowdy fucker who, if he needed money, would simply pull up in front of an expensive dress shop, walk in and grab an entire rack of the best stuff and walk right out with it. Brion was also a recovering heroin addict who died of an overdose of cocaine in 1998.

The other guy was Biff Manard, a roustabout who would do and still does anything for a buck. When I met him, the second time, he was writing on a show called Make Me Laugh. At least that was his title. What he really did was sit around all day snorting cocaine and drinking beer. Occasionally he would write something but only after someone else had said it. Although I have known Biff for many years I must say that I have never met a lower person than Biff Manard, a scoundrel of the highest rank. There is nothing, I can think of, that he would not do except an honest days work. He will steal the change off your dresser, hit on your girlfriend, swindle your children, drink your liqueur, short your package, throw up on your couch, lie, cheat and steal. He even cheats at pool! Why has he been a friend for so long? I think it was that time I spent in an orphanage. Orphans don’t give up on people easily. Now, an old man who has burnt all his bridges, Biff has to work as a tree trimmer. Karma did get him in the end.

I toured a lot with John Davidson. He was a media darling. A very pretty man that the ladies went crazy for. He had appeared on Broadway, Television, Movies and all the TV shows. He would also fill in for Johnny Carson on The Tonight show. But the real money was to be made on public appearances, and we made a killing. We would travel from on theater to the next and performed in every major venue, in the country. John had the uncanny ability to sing any song you could think of. At a certain point, in his show he would go out into the audience and ask people what their favorite song is. They would tell him and no sooner did they mention the name of the song and the band would go right into in. It was a great bit and I never saw him get stumped. John Davidson taught me a lot about how to stage yourself, how to stand, project and move. He didn’t drink, do drugs or cheat on his wife. I liked him!

One night, at the Memphis Hilton, I was walking through the lobby, after the show. An attractive lady of about forty approached me and complimented me on my show. She was wearing an expensive looking pink suite and a pill box hat. (The picture of a southern conservative) She introduced herself as Mrs. So & So the wife of a doctor So & So from Boonville Kentucky. "That’s where Daniel Boon was born." She then informed me that she wanted to suck my Yankee dick. I admired her brazen attitude and granted her wish in near by stairwell.

My greatest teacher was Diana Ross! What a showman! First you wow them, then you bring them to their feet, then you say hello. When I first began with Diana, she wouldn’t allow my name or anyone else’s name on the billboard. Just, DIANA ROSS. I worked with her for two weeks before we met. I avoided her because I was upset about not getting my name on the billboards. After all, it was in my contract! I figured I’d let her hear the laughter but not see the man. Fuck her! I also had trouble getting sound checks, before the shows. Sound checks are important especially in large rooms. If an audience can’t see you well, you can survive, but if they can’t hear, clearly, you’re sunk. Diana would finish her rehearsal and by the time I could get to the stage everyone would be gone. After all, compared to Diana Ross, I was a nobody. So, I asked, my friend, Ronna Wallace to do me a favor. She went out and rented a nuns costume. Every night Diana Ross would finish her rehearsal and Ronna, wearing the nuns outfit would hurry on stage and remind the crew that Mr. Addotta needed a sound check. They could ignore me, but, they couldn’t ignore a nun! It worked every night! The very first time we pulled our little trick there was a knock at my dressing room door. I opened it to find this little black woman in a chenille robe and her hair in rollers. She said, "Hello, Kip, I’m Diana Ross and I think it’s about time we met. She had heard about the nun and the sound checks. From then on, I got sound checks every night and seventy five percent billing wherever Diana and I worked. She admired my ingenuity and my cocky attitude.

Powerful people like Diana Ross have to be control all day long! But being in control gets old and needs to be released. This release usually shows up in the bedroom. Powerful people usually want to be dominated. They want to revert to their childhood. They want to give control over to someone else. I made her laugh the night she asked me if I go out with black girls. I said, "Diana, you don’t go out with black people, why should I." She thought that was very funny.

Diana loved to gamble. She liked to play craps and she played with gusto. She would stand six feet away from the table, let out a whoop and throw the dice as hard as she could. It was quit a show. We were working outside of Philadelphia during the week that Atlantic City opened for gambling at Resorts International. I was staying in New Your at my friend Kenny’s apartment. Diana was staying in her apartment at The Sherry Netherlands. I called her and left a message and Kenny’s phone number. A few minutes later Kenny’s phone rang and when he answered it. He was amazed that Diana Ross was calling little old me. I invited her to join me in Atlantic City for the opening night of Resorts. She said she couldn’t do that because people would mob her. I said, "No, they wouldn’t. I suggested that she take off your Diana Ross persona, leave the body guards at home and we would just go as a white guy and his little black girlfriend. She liked that idea and the next night we walked into Resorts International hand in hand. We gambled and cocktailed all night long and no one new who we were. What a gas! Diana is very cool and I admire her greatly but I always treated her as an equal and she found that refreshing.

One of Diana’s body guards was special. He was, Pierre, a black martial artist from France. He would crawl around in the audience during the show. If anyone came towards Diana he would be right there. One night, in San Francisco, a man got past Pierre, walked on stage and walked up to Diana holding a butcher knife. The audience gasped. Diana didn’t see the knife and instead of running she put her arms around the guy and gave him a big hug. The guy with the butcher knife was so overcome that he fainted and was promptly disarmed and carried from the stage.

Tonight, Jay Leno talked about me on The Tonight Show. He said he was a big fan of my work. That’s interesting since he has never had me on his show. As a matter of fact he seldom, if ever, has comedians on his show. When he got that job he closed the door behind him.

Andy Williams was the wildest man I’ve ever met! I’ve heard about and lived through some pretty wild times but nothing and no Rock Band or Rapp Artist can hold a candle to the master of disaster, Andy Williams. I worked a lot with Andy and we toured the world and I am lucky to have survived. In his hey day (Which I came in towards the end of) Andy Williams was the most powerful man in showbiz. Wherever he went the waters parted and he was allowed to pass no matter what condition he was in. The booze, the drugs, the women! It was unbelievable, and this, with a man who had a blue chip reputation. Someone who was welcomed into the highest echelon of society and was even a close friend of the Kennedy family. He drank nothing but the most expensive champagne, sniffed the finest cocaine and slept with the most beautiful women. I loved this guy. And he loved me!

Andy Williams had a posse of people from all over the world who traveled to be at every one of his shows. They were big money groupies who could afford to travel where he did and stay where he stayed and where he stayed was at the finest hotels in the world. I’m glad to have been a part of it.

I once, back stage at Caesar’s Palace, I asked him what it was like to be a star. He told me this story. One of Andy’s closest friends was Billy Pearson, a man who’s bald head and curly, bushy side hair maid him look like a clown. Except that Billy’s hair was gray and, as Andy would tell him, it needed to be red if he really wanted to look like a clown. This would soon be corrected. Our crew checked into the Plaza Hotel and naturally Andy was given their finest suite. It was the bridal suite and was white and everything in it was white. After checking in Andy sent Billy on a errand and as soon as Billy had left Andy got on the horn to the local drug store to have some red hair dye delivered. When the hair dye arrived Andy quickly prepared the mixture and laid in wait. When Billy returned Andy was on him like yellow on a school bus. He grabbed Billy and began squirting hair dye on Billy, on the carpet and on everything else in sight. Billy escaped from Andy’s grip and ran into a bathroom locking the door behind him. The two of them made so much noise that the police were called and fearing that Andy was being attacked burst into the suite. What they found was Andy down on his knees trying to lure Billy out of the bathroom by slipping a saucer of champagne under the door. When the police asked Andy what was going on Andy told them that his friend must be removed from the bathroom so that Andy could dye his hair the proper shade of red. With that the police broke down the bathroom door and held Billy down while Andy finished the job.

Once we were working in Hawaii and Andy Williams, who was in his late fifties, met a eighteen year old girl, Jill Wright. He wanted her so he simply had his limo driver take him to her parents home and asked them if he could take her to Hollywood with him. The quickly packed their daughters bags and sent her along with Andy. That’s what it’s like to be a real star.

"You’ll never work in this town again, until we need you." I have had the great misfortune to have worked with Ben Vareen. This baby faced viper was and, I’m sure, is the lowest of the low. We toured together for about a year and everything went fine, although I did see that Mr. Vareen had a predator’s yen for white women. He was married, at the time, and had several children with a wife that I have never met. But, being married didn’t make any difference to Ben. He was a most veracious sex addict. And, as I have said, was only interested in white women. This was none of my business so I observed it without comment until we reached Reno, Nevada. We were playing Harrah’s and B. Bop had come to visit me. Well Ben Vareen got one look at B. Bop and started salivating.

B. Bop would report back to me every time Mr. Vareen would make a move on her. His usual tactic was to wait until I was on stage and send one of his body guards to my dressing room where B. Bop was waiting. The body guard would tell B. Bop that Ben Vareen would like to party with her and invite her up to Ben’s suite after the show. This routine would go on during every one of my shows, twice a night, seven nights a week. One evening B. Bop was waiting in my dressing room with the same old story. I decided that this had to stop so I told B. Bop that the next time an offer was maid she should accept and when she shoed up at his rooms I would be with her. She did and that very night she rang the doorbell to his suite with me standing just out of range of the peep hole. Ben answered the door with a toothy smile that changed to a grimace at the sight of me. But, he invited us in and started to make lines of white powder on the bar. I say white powder because I could tell by its texture that it was not cocaine but speed or angel dust instead. Both of these things are poison and can render one helpless and out of control. I grabbed B. Bop’s arm and made some last minute excuse as to why we had to leave and I could tell that Ben was furious that his plan didn’t work. Two nights’ later I was fired. Ben had complained to the casino that I was difficult and had an attitude. He was enraged that I had caught him at his game. Ben considered all white women his property and would not hesitate to make a move on any women no matter whom she was with.

Mr. Vareen got his just desserts, one night, a few years later while jogging along Pacific Coast Highway, in Malibu. It was about eleven at night when for no apparent reason a large SUV veered off the road and ran Mr. Vareen down causing severe bodily injury that took years to heel and leaving Mr. Vareen permanently damaged. But the news accounts of this incident left out one interesting fact. That fact was that the driver of the SUV was the producer of a TV show that Ben had done just the week before. And I know that Ben had been up to his old tricks, probably hitting on or actually sleeping with this producers wife or girlfriend but this time he had fucked with the wrong guy. Soon after this incident there was a joke going around. "How do you get to Malibu? You turn right on Pacific Coast Highway and keep going until you hit Ben Vareen". You have to be very careful who you fuck with!

I know a guy that I will call Julio. Julio had lost his wife to Aids the night before his next door neighbor decided to throw a loud and raucous party. Julio, being a patient fellow, put up with the loud music and blood curdling screams until three in the mourning at which point he went next door to ask the host to settle it down. He was greeted with a "fuck you" and a "get off of my property." Julio returned to the party an hour later to make his plea again but it did no good. So, Julio came back with an ax and severed this mans power line then he threw seventeen cherry bombs through an open window. This put a stop to the noise and sent the partiers scattering. But Julio wasn’t done! The next day, while his neighbor was away Julio returned and climbed into the attic with a large bag of rat chow, spreading it liberally throughout. Within a week his neighbor had a rat infestation of record proportion and never again threw a loud party. By the way, Julio (Who has since also died of Aids) was just over five feet tall.

Show people are, by definition, self centered and glutens for gratification. I do not fault us for this. What bothers me are the ones who pretend to be kind and caring individuals. I have met very few truly kind people in show business and I have met them all. A good example of this is Vicky Carr. A good singer but if you’ve ever seen her perform you know that honey virtually drips off the stage and she goes on and on about family and God and how caring and noble she is. I had been touring with Vicky only a few days when her road manager informed me that she wanted to see me in her hotel suite. I arrived and rang the bell to hear a female voice from inside, "Come in". I went in and there was no one there and then I heard a voice from the bedroom, "I’m back here". I went into the bedroom and there she was sprawled across the bed in a see through negligee. She might as well have worn nothing at all because I could see everything.

I don’t know about you but when I see women the first thing I think of is their crotch. I always wonder what it looks like. I used to deny this fascination, even to myself, but, I have long since given in to this occupation. I can’t help it! It’s just the way it is. And if you ask me every man and boy has the same obsession. It’s primal! If it were up to me I would see every woman’s pussy. And if now and then I am repulsed, well, those are the chances one takes. I am not writing this because I think it is a great revelation, because, I believe that you, man or women, already know this. But, isn’t it refreshing to have someone admit to what most people hide.

I bring this up as a little side trip to tell you about a few remarkable pussies I have seen.

Of late, it has become popular for women to shave their pussy. I wish this would stop! When I go out with women I assume that I am with a fully grown adult female. We have dinner, cocktails and if I’m lucky, I end up in her bedroom. A few minutes later she comes out of the bathroom looking pre pubescent. Now, how does a good man maintain an erection in a situation like this? We’re not supposed to be aroused by pre pubescent females and yet these ladies seem to want to appear under aged. A word of warning, ladies, if your boyfriend or husband insists that you shave your pussy, I wouldn’t leave him alone with the kids, if I were you. Don’t kill the messenger!

Then there is the other end of the spectrum. I once dated women who had a bush like a bakers apron. "Check your flairs men, we’re going in". "Look for a clearing, I hear a copter". The largest, most densely haired bush I have ever seen and she would not groom it in any way. I hear that some men find this irresistible. I do not! I find it unattractive and unsanitary. But, no matter how much I would complain, she would not trim one hair of it. On one occasion we were in Las Vegas and I thought I had stumbled on to a solution. One mourning I noticed the tiniest bikini in her luggage. I suggested that we spend the day at the pool. I new she would never wear that little bikini to a public pool without trimming her pubic hair back. I suggested that I go down to the pool and get some lounges and a newspaper and that she could join me at her leisure, thereby, giving her time to do what was necessary. I was settled at the pool and reading the paper when I sensed a commotion. I looked up from my paper and to my horror I say this women walking toward me with pubic hair bursting from every side of that tiny bikini bottom. Every head at the pool whipped in her direction. Mothers threw towels over their children’s heads and there was a general gasp in the air. At this point my date dove into the pool and swam towards me.

Predicting the result of this, parents began ushering their children away from the pool area and sure enough when my date emerged from the pool, her crotch hair was hanging down to her knees and several single men were closing in on her with large pool towels. She laid down on the lounge next to mine. I hid behind my paper and the incident was never mentioned.

From the ridicules to the sublime. I knew a red head in Cleveland who shaved her pussy and then had the full frontal view of a lions head tattooed around her labia’s. When her pubic hair grew back, it was really quite effective.

By the way, Vicky Carr’s pussy was gruesome and as she lay there, in her hotel suite she told me that she didn’t think I should talk about marijuana, in my show. She said she felt that it was demeaning to Mexican people. (She is of Hispanic decent) I told her that I do not mention Mexican people, in my show, and really didn’t think marijuana was related solely to Hispanics. However, I went on, it was no problem for me to eliminate that piece from the show. She thanked me and then asked me how everything was going. You see, her inviting me to her room had nothing to do with marijuana. It had to do with her wanting to get screwed. So she concocted this objection as a reason to get me to visit her. I guess she figured that one of my duties, as her supporting act, was to be her little sex toy. I told her that everything was going well and asked her if there would be anything else. A smile of embarrassment came over her face and she said that I could stay a while if I liked. I said thank you but I have to rearrange my show for that evening’s performance. I turned and left and when that short tour was over I was never again asked to work with Vicky Carr.

Next to Ben Vareen, Lou Rauls, has to have the biggest balls of any act I have ever worked with. I was a big fan of Lou’s for a long time and still think he is one of the best singers of all time and the only singer that I have ever worked with who did not use stage sound monitors. If you know anything about singing you know that without stage monitors you can’t hear yourself and you can’t sing on key, unless your Lou Rauls. But he is also a man who considers everyone around him to be chattel. We worked together for a long time and I got to know him very well. He would hit on anything female. A habit he, no doubt, got from his mentor Sam Cook a great singer who was shot to death by a jealous husband when he caught Sam in bed with his wife. Lou Rauls would come on to women in front of their husband and on one occasion walked into a hotel room where a mother was nursing her baby. He whipped his cock out and shook it in her face. She waved him away, in shock and he turned to walk out only to spin around and repeat this outrage. When she rebuffed him again he said, "I just had to be sure"! I know this happened `because I was there!

On another occasion Lou threw a party in his suite. We were working at a Hotel, in Concord California. Lou wanted some cocaine for the party so he made a call to a dealer in San Francisco. He told the dealer to get on a plane and fly an ounce of marching powder to us. The dealer got there a couple of hours later, just as the party was beginning to jump. Lou took the bag of cocaine, worth about eighteen hundred dollars and passed it around to his guests. (About fifty people) By the time everyone had gotten high there was only a little left in the bag. Lou returned the bag to the dealer and told him that he wasn’t going to pay for it because it wasn’t any good, then, sent him packing. Mr. Rauls must have a charmed man because if anyone else would have pulled the stunts he has they would be dead by now. On the other hand there were times when this same man could be a real stand up guy. One time we were working in New York city, at Buddy Rich’s place. (The famous drummer) Buddy was well known for not paying people and sure enough, at the end of the week, Buddy didn’t want to pay us. Now Buddy Rich was a tough customer and not easy to deal with. I don’t know how Lou did it but somehow he got Buddy to pay me and the band but didn’t get a penny for himself. I thought that was a class move and I never heard Lou say anything negative about Buddy Rich.

All of these remembrances are fun but what about Stand Up Comedy? With the exception of some special piece of business one might use to open the show there are a couple of moves that will always pay off big. Remember, chances are that the people sitting out there do not know who you are. They have no context to put you in. No reference as to where your coming from. And they are, most likely, afraid that you may attack or single them out to pick on them. This is their prime concern! If you do single someone out and pick on them you are setting yourself up for a disaster for whatever you have heard or seen it is never going to help you win them over and you are telling them that you are afraid. Now, you might walk up to a table of friends and say, "How's it going shit heads and get a big laugh but if you did the same thing with a table of strangers you could very well get punched in the nose. It’s the same on stage. Even if you are a well known TV personality it is wise to follow certain protocols. Remember, for forty years, Johnny Carson began every monolog with, "Good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Johnny Carson. This humility endeared him to each audience and proved to them that he was a real pro. I always begin my shows the same way!

If you follow certain rules you will always be miles ahead. The first one is to bow. Now, you don’t have to make a big deal out of it. A nod to the center, left and right will do. It is a gesture of submission. Your telling them that you are not a threat. And then there is something called palming. (Showing the audience the palms of your hands) You’ve seen entertainers do it and it is no accident. Showing the audience the palms of your hands is a very primal move. It assures them that you are not carrying a weapon. I know this sounds strange but believe me a nod and the showing of ones palms is guaranteed to put the audience at ease and get the show off to a good start.

Don’t be so quick to grab the microphone. I see so many entertainers make this mistake. They run on stage and the first thing they do is grab that mic and take it out of the stand like a baby running for it’s security blanket. And that is exactly what their audience sees. Someone who is insecure and not really up to the task of leading a show. When the audience senses this insecurity they are much more likely to turn on you like a pack of wolves. Leave the microphone alone. Don’t fiddle with it. This goes for the mic stand too! I’ve seen nervous performers fiddle with the mic stand so much that it actually came completely disassembled and fall to the floor in pieces. The only reason to touch a mic stand is to move it up stage (Or Back away from the lip of the stage) Standing too close to the audience is another popular mistake and again sends the subliminal message that you are afraid. No matter how big or small the stage or room is the sweet spot is four feet back and dead center. If you want to address the left side of the room step around to the right side of the mic and speak to the across the mic to them. Do the same in reverse for the right side of the room.

Most speakers are so concerned about the material that they ignore the most important thing. Likeability. Likeability will take you farther than the most clever material.

Demon Wilson

Roseanne Barr

George Miller

David Letterman

David Letterman & George Miller

According to my email, my penis needs enlarging!

Gamblers

Man w tits

Two fat men

The A List!

In 1972 there were fifty comedians, in the United States. It is now 2004 and there are still only fifty comedians in the United States! The rest are just people who got tired of selling shoes Whenever I’m asked who my favorite comedian is, I say Jack Benny. And I am telling them the truth. However, Jack Benny is only one comedian. There are many others who I would call Journeymen Comics. People who are actually professional, first rate Artists in their craft and alive at this writing!! In my opinion! These people are worth the money it costs to see them! This is a tough one! For those not on the list?

Better luck next time!

In no particular order:

Bill Cosby
Jackie Mason
Johnny Carson
Kip Addotta
Steve Martin
Dennis Miller
The Smothers Brothers
Ray Stevens
Wendy Liebman
Carrot Top
Gary Muledeer
Gary Shandling
Albert Brooks
Steven Wright
Ellen Degeneres
Sinbad
Bob Newhart
Kevin Nealon
George Carlin
George Wallace
Gallagher, Leo
Phil Palisoul
Kelly Montieth
Bill Hildebrandt
Chris Rock
Pat Cooper

Wet Dream

(The Fish Song)
It was April the 41st, being a quadruple leap year
I was driving in downtown Atlantis
My barracuda was in the shop
So I was in a rented stingray, and it was overheating
So I pulled into a Shell Station
They said I'd blown a seal
I said, "Fix the damn thing, and leave my private life out of it, okay, pal?"
While they were doing that I walked over to a place called the Oyster Bar
A real dive, but I knew the owner
He used to play for the Dolphins
I said "Hi, Gil!"
You have to yell, he's hard of herring
Gil was also down on his luck
Fact is he was barely keeping his head below water
I bellied up to the sandbar, he poured me the usual
Rusty snail, hold the grunion, shaken not stirred
With a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich on the side, heavy on the mako
I slipped him a fin, on porpoise
I was feeling good
I even dropped a sand dollar in the box for Jerry's squids, just for the halibut
Well the place was crowded
We were packed in like sardines
They were all there to listen to the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsal
What sole!
Tommy was rocking' the place with a very popular tuna
"Salmon Chanted Evening"
And the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers
Probably there to see the bass player
One of them was this cute little yellowtail, and she's giving me the eye So I figured this is my chance -- You know, a piece of Pisces!?!
But she said things I just couldn't fathom
She was too deep, seemed to be under a lot of pressure
Boy, could she drink!
She drank like a.......She drank a lot
I said, "What's your sign?"
She said, "Aquarium."
I said, "Let's Get Tanked!"
Think I had a wet dream
Cruising' thru the Gulf Stream
Ohhh Ohhh Ohhh
Wet Dream!!!
I invited her to my place for a midnight bait
I said, "Come on baby, it'll only take a few minnows."
She threw me that same old line, "Not tonight, I gotta haddock."
And she wasn't kidding either
Cause in came the biggest, meanest looking haddock
I'd ever seen come down the pike
He was covered with mussels
He came over to me and said,
"Listen, shrimp, don't you come trollin' around here!"
What a crab! This guy was steamed!
I could see the anchor in his eyes
I turned to him, I said, "A-balone! You're just being shellfish!"
Well, I knew it was going to be trouble, and so did Gil
Because he was already on the phone to the cods
The haddock hits me with a sucker punch
I catch him with a left hook
He eels over...it was a fluke...but there he was
Flat as a mackerel...kelpless
I said, "Forget the cods Gil, this guy's gonna need a sturgeon!"
Well, the yellowtail was impressed with the way I landed her boyfriend
She came over to me
She said, "Hey, big boy, you're really a game fish. What's your name?"
I said, "Marlin."
I think I had a wet dream
Cruisin' thru the Gulf Stream
Ohhh Ohhh Ohhh
Wet Dream!!!
Well from then on we had a whale of a time
I took her to dinner, I took her to dance
I bought her a bouquet of flounders
I went home with her
And what did I get for my trouble?
A case of the clams!!!
"Being a stand-up comedian is a martial art!
It is an art performed with both the mind and body.

An art that can never be perfected!"

The jokes Kip pens, go through a process of tweaking and adjusting. The joke goes into the show! On stage, the joke will be given three chances to pop. Aftree three hsake downs, the joke either works or it shoughd be put back into the shede, maybe to be brought out again at another time and worked again. I work untils the joke pops every time. Kip Addotta, figures about 80 percent make the grade with his audiences in night clubs and other venues that vary from corporate shows to state fairs. "I like them all and each venue has its own solutions. Choosing the right material is the key. I do all of my writing while imagining myself sitting in the audience. In other words I write my material from the prospective of the audience. I feel this gives me an advantage when picking bits that an audience will enjoy. Remember. I'm here to entertain. I want people to leave with the feeling that they have seen a great show by someone who truly cares about them. I do! It's fun and it has responsibility."

"I believe that humor should not only be funny, it should be honest. I am concerned about people who get their political views from comedians! Comedians do not always base their humor on the truth. Some comedians will say anything (Truth or not) about our leaders as long as it gets a laugh. I avoid political humor, even though it is the easiest humor to write. Most comedians (Including myself) are not qualified to critique political leaders. When I hear comedians using half truths or out right lies about someone I am embarrassed. There is so much out there to be funny about without dragging someone's name through the mud."

Example: "A guy sticks his head into a barber shop and says, "Bob Peters here?" The barber says, "No, just shave and hair cuts!"

"There's always that unknown factor," says Addotta, who takes the stage in Las Vegas. "I do all my new material first! That is the toughest part of the show. If it works there I am confident in putting it in a more protected spot where it might set off a sharp laugh. I'll tell a joke three times onstage, and if it doesn't work, I put it away, in a file, and try it again in three months. Over time and hard work I have writen seven and a half hours of stage material. So that I can bring a bit up as it becomes appropriate. It seems like I'm speaking off the top of my head but in reality it has been polished to the point that it sounds like an ad-lib." That's why they call it an act!

He knows he has a hit on his hands after listening to the tapes he makes of each of his performances. That's also when he calculates the distance between laughs (about seven seconds) he receives onstage. It's quality -- not quantity -- that counts.

"It has to be a full laugh. It can't be some guy in the corner who just swallowed his straw!" Addotta explained during a recent call from his Hollywood, Calif., home.

Kip Addotta attention to detail

After 30-plus years in the comedy business, such attention to detail is to be expected. Or is it? Addotta clearly has an axe to grind when it comes to his perceived lack of dedication to the craft of comedy he says is exhibited by most of his fellow stand-up comics.

"I don't consider everyone that says, 'I'm a comedian.' a comedian at all because they're not. They don't know the first thing about it."

What makes 59-year-old Addotta an expert on the subject? After all, this is a guy who, as a teenager, was groomed by his grandmother to enter the priesthood. Following her death, he built a career as a hairdresser. In the early '70s, when he "got bored" teasing tresses, he packed up his wife and three kids and headed for Los Angeles, where he took a job parking cars while attempting to break into comedy.

"I knew I was funny," Addotta recalls. "What I didn't know was, 'Can I do this?' Being funny is one thing; knowing how to entertain an audience is a whole other thing."

Kip Addotta God-given talent

Turned out, he had "God-given talent" on both fronts: After three decades and -- count 'em -- 32 guest spots on "The Tonight Show," he's still entertaining crowds at clubs and on the radio. His original "novelty songs," including the ditties, "Wet Dreams (The Fish Song)," "Big Cock Roach" and "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus," are favorites with drive-time disc jockeys throughout the country. His most recent CD, released earlier this year, is titled, "Jokes To Go."

In his music and his stand-up act, Addotta says, "I talk about relationships. I talk about my own human foibles, my fears, my triumphs," as well as some less-pressing topics. A few examples of his quips are featured on kipaddotta.com:

• "Why does my garbage always weigh more than my groceries did?"
• "How deep would the ocean be if there were no sponges?"
• "When I die, I want to die peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not kicking and screaming like the passengers in his car."

Kip Addotta take the audience down little roads

"I like to take the audience down little roads, then pull the rug out from under them," Addotta says. "Entertaining is a surprise. It's 'Gee, I didn't know I was gonna see that or hear that."

While his approach to comedy may be traditional, he balks at being lumped into the "old-school" category of comics. "That's inaccurate. I'm cutting-edge. I'm an old guy, but I'm not old-school. People who say that have never seen my act or wouldn't have the balls to try the things I do."

Addotta says he, sometimes, spends up to six months writing a single joke. Kip Addotta also has the most popular novelty songs in the world such as Wet Dream (The Fish Song), Life In The Slaw Lane, Big Cock Roach, I'm So Miserable without you, It's Just Like Having You Around, I saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus and the stand-up comedy CDs I Hope I'm Not Out Of Line and The Trouble Hole. "I put so much work into my material and into my show that I have disdain for comics who go onstage and create images about bodily functions and such. "That's not art."

Kip Addotta Comedy, as a profession

Spewing obscenities and spinning indiscreet tales does not a comic make, he explains. "These jokers that come out and they're saying one word after another, and they're using scatological references and they're talking about things that really shouldn't be discussed in public, those are not comedians - those are charlatans."

Comedy, as a profession, has been "devalued to the point now where I don't hear guys even admitting they're comedians anymore," he says. "We used to take pride. Now they kind of avoid it because comedians have lost the public's respect."

Kip Addotta favorite fellow comics

Don't get him wrong: Addotta does have some favorite fellow comics, including legends Steve Martin and Richard Pryor, as well as Vegas frequenters Dennis Miller and Wendy Liebman. "I'm delighted when I see someone I can appreciate and laugh at. I'm not intimidated at all. I'm proud of someone who can make me laugh"

Still, he's not about to rest on his laurels.

"If I don't do something new in every show, to me the show is work. If I do something new the show is challenging, fun." Addotta says. "I'm proud of myself when I take the chance; that I suffered the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach of fear. A comedian, worth his salt, takes chances! Puts his ego away and bears his soul to the public."

Kip Addotta, Bio

Kip was born in Rockford, IL of Sicilian parents. His father, Frank, worked as a machinist his mother, Josephine, remains a mystery having left the home when Kip was two years old. Kip was put in an orphanage at the age of three and remained there until his Grandmother took fulltime custody when he was five. "I have always felt lucky to have been raised by a saintly woman. She spent a lot of time with me, teaching me the difference between right and wrong."

His Grandmother, Don na Cicca, Francisca Addotta raised Kip in a strict religious environment, going to Mass every morning and saying the rosary and making The Stations Of The Cross every night. He was being groomed to be a priest.

At the same time Kip was also being isolated from the influence of the outside world. His Grandmother, closely, screened his friends and he was only allowed to leave the house for a half hour a day. "Some might think that this was cruel but I knew that was done from love and that I was being treated as someone special. Someone, who was going to spend his life serving God. I didn't feel this about myself but I did go along with it out of respect for my Grandmother."

His grandmother died when Kip was fifteen and all thoughts of the priesthood went the way of the wind. Kip, was placed in the charge of his father until he moved out on his own at sixteen.

It was at this time that Kip met Mary Bennett, a beautiful brunette who was totally dedicated to him. They were married at the age of eighteen and produced two children, Victor and Kathy. Six years later Mary was taken by kidney failure. "This was a brutal lesson on how short life can be and that one should follow ones dreams while there is time."

Two years later, Kip, married, the lovely, Lynn Johnson and they had a son, Frank. "My wife Lynn took up the responsibility our new baby and the two children from my former marriage. I don't know how she did it but we are all lucky to have Lynn Addotta as the maternal head of our family." But Kip never forgot that lesson in mortality and he confided something, to his new wife that he had never admitted to anyone. He had always dreamed of doing Stand-Up Comedy. To his amazement she encourage him and a short time later they packed up the kids and moved to Los Angeles.

Kip started doing short sets at the Comedy Store and eighteen months later he was asked to appear on "The Tonight Show". Appearances on "Midnight Special", "The Mike Douglas Show", "The Merve Griffin Show", "Rock Concert", "Make Me Laugh" and thirty more "Tonight Shows" followed. Since then Kip has traveled the world gaining a vast following of fans and was named Comedian of the year by "The Entertainment Writers Association of America".

Kip has also written hit songs like "Wet Dream" (The Fish Song} and many others. The CDs of live performances and his songs remain among the top selling comedy works in the world.

He is very funny and different. This is a funny man!

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