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EPISODE 1: WHOS THAT GUY?!

Look at this. You know what this is? This is a blister from me lifting weights and like getting my hand pinched in
between the weight?

I go for a workout three times a week now. Afterwards I have to drive home and there’s a whole bunch of junk food restaurants on the way back.

I ended up going to Hennessey’s a couple of weeks ago. This is the first time I went there since they opened up and they turned into a bar. So I walked in. I was just looking around because they had changed it so much. There was this big bar in the middle of the room and off to the side was this popcorn machine.

I went over to the popcorn machine automatically and I just started filling up the basket. And and I looked around and the bartender who was a woman, was talking to the manager and she pointed to me. And she goes “Who’s that guy?”

Automatically, I just felt alienated because I thought what bartender would say “Who’s that guy” within earshot of of a paying customer?

The manager came over to me and I started explaining to him: “Well, sir, I haven’t been to this place. I don’t know the conduct and I’m sorry for taking your popcorn. Its like “OK you can sit down and order if you’d like.”

So I sat at the bar and immediately this woman comes over to me, the bartender, and she goes “OK what’ll ya have?”

So I go “I don’t want a drink yet, thank you, I just wanna look at the menu.” So I’m looking at the menu and there’s probably about five guys sitting at the bar and she’s the only woman in the place. So I finally order the steak sandwich.

Meanwhile a couple other guys come in and they order and they get their orders while I’m waiting for my food. And I’m just waiting I was simmering about it.

Finally, I get my steak sandwich which was probably about half an hour later. I guess on the menu it said it’s supposed to come with mashed potatoes corn bread and a cucumber salad but after half hour of waiting it came with fries.

So I go “Could you check on this? And I’m supposed to be getting mashed potatoes, cornbread and a cucumber salad.” So she goes “Oh OK.” She comes back with the cucumber salad and the mashed potatoes but no cornbread. So I go “I’m going to forget the cornbread.” I ordered a beer and she ended up giving me the tab. It was a dollar more than I thought it was going to be.

So I said “I hate to be a pain but can you tell me why this sandwich is 8.50 instead of 7.50?” she goes “Yeah, If you order onions and grilled onions, they charge you a dollar extra.” – Awright, whatever and I ate the uh cucumber salad, I ate the uh mashed potatoes and the sandwich was good. I didn’t touch the fries though so I asked her to pack it up. And she goes- “You want to pack up the fries!?” And I go “Yeah!” Yknow?

I was debating on what kind of a tip I was gonna give ‘er cuz she was kinda rude! And they didn’t give me good service, and she was trying to rush me and she wanted me to buy stuff.

It was a twelve dollar tab, which I’m not used to paying when I go out by myself. So I gave her a couple bucks. I didn’t know what was fair. I was thinking about giving her a dollar So I gave her a couple’a dollars which isn’t a vote either way, but I don’t think I’m gonna go back there.

To walk into a place and automatically get hounded by the manager for taking a little thing of popcorn is, it’s so wrong.

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EPISODE 2: THE LANDLORD

So, uh, let me tell you about my landlord.

When I first moved in here about five years ago, the second day that I was living in my apartment, my refrigerator door fell off. It was like this old rusted refrigerator that they gave me and… Anyway I called, uh, my landlord and I asked him if he could help me out with it and he said “No, we’re not responsible for your refrigerator. You’re going to have to haul it out to the curb yourself and get a replacement.”

I didn’t picture myself hauling that thing out by myself, so, I ended up calling my neighbor, who’s a mechanic, and he ended up reattaching the door with a, uh, coffee can that he cut up.

That was the beginning of the relationship with my landlord.

A few months back, I was having a plumbing problem. I first, uh, noticed it while I was doing dishes. I heard this torrential downpour going on in the basement. I didn’t really make the connection, that it had anything to do with the dishes, but it kept happening, so it sunk in.

I went downstairs and tried to duct tape the pipes, but, uh, to no avail. There was all this crap from, like, not only the water but the oil and the food and all that kinda junk.

So I called my landlord about my leak. I left a message, and I didn’t hear back from him.

One day I was taking a shower and I heard this, uh, rumbling downstairs. It dawned on me that somebody was in my apartment while I was taking a shower. The landlord sent his handyman.

So I started going: “GET OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW!” The place was a mess. I didn’t want him to be lurking around. You just don’t break into somebody’s apartment while they’re taking a shower, you know?

He got out and he was waiting outside the apartment for about fifteen minutes. I told him to wait, while I cleaned up the place. And then, the uh landlord and his henchman came in about fifteen minutes later.

So the landlord proceeded to tell me what a pigstye this place was. It was like, he was telling me, “You’re living in filth. There’s all this filth all over the place and you’re filthy!” And you know, it really hurt my feelings.

All three of us went into the basement, which was a disaster, because the basement is just a place for me to throw my stuff, and I don’t even attempt to make any order of it. As the landlord was passing through the basement, he was taking uh, snapshots of the piles of junk I had down there with this instamatic camera.

And then after all this, he told me that “We’re not responsible for any leaks or clogs in your apartment. You can look it up in the lease.”

So, ahhh, it’s kind of like why did you make all this effort in order to tell me that you’re not responsible?

I was forced to hire a plumber and he fixed it in about half an hour and I ended up paying him eighty five dollars. And after everything was done, I wanted to call my landlord to make peace, to tell him I cleaned up the basement, the plumbing is fixed. Why don’t you come down for a visit and take a look.

So my landlord got all indignant and he said “I never gave you permission to hire a plumber.”

And that’s where we left it.

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EPISODE 3: JAILTIME FOR JERRY

It all started when I was working at this ad agency downtown. I was hired by the Print Production Manager. At the original interview, he had this big gash on his head. I heard he was at a bar the night before, and he got hit in the head with a bottle.

I was working there for a few months and I thought things were going pretty well…All of a sudden the work started diminishing, you know? They weren’t bringing me any work. So I was just sitting there.

Then one day he like called me into his office and he said “We-we’ve run outta work for ya so you have ta clean out yer
desk an’ get out.”

So I did know this Art Director there and and he said that he had another job opportunity. “All you have to do is you have to drive a truck around for eight hours a day. You’re like this moving billboard.”

So I go “Why not?” you know, so…

I went to um sign up and I guess the company was set up in a local motel. So I went to this motel and I got hired and I’d punch in and punch out. And like they’d give me like ten bucks an hour, you know? Sixty or eighty bucks a day. Eh, that was pretty good money for me.

So a few weeks on the job ah it was like in the middle of winter? I was driving around the city, and I made this right-hand turn into this uh street. I noticed from far away like all these cars were coming at me. You know, it was like this One Way Street?

So I realized this and I hadta get outta there so I made a turn to get outta traffic. And it was into like this Drive-In Teller at a bank? So I thought I’d just go around the semi-circle and get back into traffic.

I hit what I thought was a speed bump. I thought it was a speed bump anyway. All of a sudden the um the Bank Manager comes running outta the building. And he was like pointing at my truck and yelling at me. It’s like “Wait! Wait! Wait a minute!” And I’m going like – “Yeah?”

I guess the truck didn’t have enough clearance and knocked off part of of his archway? He called the cops huh and the cops came down to inspect the damage…. and … I guess um they asked for my license and I didn’t have it. You know?

They said like “OK, Get in the car.” So I had ta get in the car and and like uh the policewoman was balling me out the whole way down to the station? You know, she was going like “ What kind of BEEP idiot goes around with a rented truck, gets it into an BEEP accident and then, doesn’t have his BEEP-BEEP license?”

So I was um they I got to the station., they told me I had one phone call to make so I made it to a friend of mine who’s like this reporter for The Wall Street Journal? And fortunately he was there, and he said he’d come right over but it took awhile and I was just like waiting there in the pen?

So he finally came by and he posted fifty bucks bail and and I got outta there. And I took the truck back to the motel. I told the guy the story and…they didn’t really…he didn’t get visibly upset, but he he told me not to report back.

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EPISODE 4: JERRY STRIKES BACK

Please excuse my rendition because because I have some ear wax. Um, FOR this waxy build-up, you know? And I’m trying to get rid of it, but I still can’t hear out of one ear right now.

I hate moths.

Last summer like my apartment was attacked by those flying vermin? I can’t tell you how it started. Ahem. I was first catching ‘em in mid-air with my hand and letting them out. You know because, they’re slow and you can see them pretty clearly against the white walls of my apartment. I was compassionate about it but they started to become more frequent so then I’d like clap my hands together and and like smash them up against my hands you know? And of course I’d wash my hands later.

Then they started to lay eggs on my ceiling. I’ve got one of those stucco ceilings with the millions of bumps and sparkles on it?
So the next thing you know these these eggs start to hatch and they became like these little yellow worms. They’re like these tiny little maggots. So every morning I’d get up and I’d go to my uh kitchen to fix myself breakfast and I’d be greeted by like two or three or these tiny little maggots on my ceiling.

(song)
Oh boy Oh joy
Do –do-de-oh-de-oh
Do –do-de-oh-de-oh
Oh boy I’m lucky
I say I’m lucky
This is my lucky day

I tried different methods of dealing with ‘em. With the heat of the summer, I started to get really crazy. I called the exterminator to get some advice and they told me that they were Indian Meal Moths. That I had to insulate my food. It would take about five hundred bucks to take care of the problem. Of course my landlord wouldn’t take care of it, so it was my problem.

As the summer went on, these moths started crashing up against my kitchen from the outside. They were trying to get in. It’s kind of like they had some kind of homing device. And they weren’t doing this to any other apartment but mine. It was pretty terrifying.

At about this time, I found something called a bug wand in one of those catalogs that you you get in the mail, you know, with those crazy- type products? And it’s kind of like a Darth Vader type of um wand. I could have gotten the Deluxe Model, which actually when you vacuum the moths in there, it shreds them, in this like rotary shredding device. But I thought that was kinda cruel, so I just got the regular model for nine ninety five. I actually bought two of them because I thought I did have a real problem.

So what I’d do is I’d vacuum ‘em in there, and then like I’d go outside and tap up the tube against the front steps. I’d just stomp on ‘em and ground them into the cement.

Ahem, so this went on through the winter and I did start to insulate my food and slowly but surely, the problem got to be less and less until finally they they completely disappeared.

The following spring, I was doing some shopping in an outdoor plaza near me. And I was startled because I heard like this fluttering against the tin roof of the walkway. So I looked up and there was the biggest moth I had ever seen. It was like a small bat. This creature was doing crazy eights. It it was flying completely out of control. So I was just standing there watching this thing stunned, and all of a sudden it nosedived and it uh landed on it’s back under a mailbox. So I was just looking at it, it was like it was trying to right itself but it couldn’t, you know? And like in a second, I went over there and I stomped on it. That was the end of King Moth.

As I said before, I really hate them.

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EPISODE 5: THE REPAIRMAN

Last week my uh computer broke down. So I was trying everything to to bring it back up,
but nothing was happening so I had to uh look in the yellow pages and try to find
a um computer repair person.

So you know how you look up uh, you you look up in the yellow pages, right? You go to the page and then you don’t go to the ads but you go to the small people, like in the small print?

So I looked one up and there was one in my town and it was like “Info Systems” or something like that. So I found this number and I called it and this old lady answered.

I go: “I looked it up in the uh yellow pages and I found your number there. Are you connected with a computer repair place?” And she says “ Uh no, but if you hang on a second, I- I know of one.” So I go, “Well, it’s an old woman, so I might need a little more patience.”

You know I might as well just hang on. So I held on, I held on. And it seemed more
like five minutes I think. I could just picture her rustling through her papers and
stuff.

So she comes back on the phone finally and she goes: “ Well it took me a long time
To find this computer repair person, but he’s the best. Okay, uh here’s the number, and
Um ask for Peter DeSimone.”

You know I figured that she probably gave me a pretty good thing.

Allright. I tried the number, and another old lady answered. And I asked if there
Was any Peter DeSimone there and and she said uh, there isn’t.

So I said “Well let me check the number, is this the number?” And she goes “Yes it is.”
I-I go it must be a mistaken number, and I hung up.

So there was no Peter DeSimone and it was a totally wrong number. I think I was just the pawn of these two old ladies, ya’know?.

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EPISODE 6: THE KARATE DATE

Well I was dating a woman who owned a dojo. And I didn’t even know what a dojo was before I I dated her.

So at first, she kind of tried to convert me into what she was, a little bit. For example, she tried to get me to wear spandex jogging pants. So that didn’t go well. And she also tried to get me into Birkenstocks, which I didn’t take to because you know I feel like I should be on some commune in the Sixties, you know?

Anyway, she also owned two cats, which is one of the things that happen to Me when I date women. They always end up owning cats and I’m allergic To cats. So I end up like my eyeballs kind of like pop out because they start itching and stuff.

I don’t know. We spent more time together. And finally, uh, we we took a weekend together to Toronto.

So of course she drove there.

Her thing was, she was involved in some kind of uh Akido tournament. I guess Akido is the ancient art of Chinese, er Japanese swordsmanship. I think that’s what it is.

We finally entered this big gym. And it’s a large gym floor with alot of people just practicing with their swords and their karate moves. She introduced me to her Sensay. He was like this small Asian guy. And he looked at me and I felt kind of Uncomfortable. Like he shook my hand and I think he bowed and I didn’t Know whether to bow back. I I did. I tried to be like them.

She ended up going in the middle of the gym floor and practicing her Akido. And she told me that it was going to take a long time so maybe I could like Go out and check out the city and stuff.

So I was going around and I came back about three hours later with like a used Newspaper that I found from a café that was closing. So after three hours of walking around, I thought “Hey, you know? It probably won’t be too long until she comes back and then we could go out and stuff like that.” But an hour and a half later, I was still there. So um I was increasingly getting restless. I started reading the paper and I put my feet up on an adjacent chair.because the chairs those plastic f fold-up things were uncomfortable.

As soon as that happened she saw this and she immediately came over to me and started Yelling at me for violating the rules of the dojo. “You can’t behave this way in a dojo, it’s sacred!” So She got all pissed off. She humiliated me in front of everybody. I felt like you know what am I doing here, you know?

That’s when the relationship kind of went downhill . And I guess there was this other time that I kinda getting amorous when she didn’t want to, and she threatened to break my neck. I knew it was over then.

I learned something from this experience. After this, I really believe that people Who are heavily into the martial arts, they don’t really talk to you as much as they observe you. Because I think secretly and deep down inside they’re just looking for the killshot.

So, if that’s the case, I really don’t know where I fit in there.

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EPISODE 7: THE BRUTE

I’ve been playing hockey ever since I was a little kid. I used to spend hours outside shooting tennis balls at the garage.

I’ve played in floor hockey leagues ever since I was about twenty. So after I Turned forty, I figured I couldn’t keep up with these guys who were just running circles around me. They like these twenty year olds, so I ended up Joining up pick up leagues, which is basically a bunch of you know rag tag guys over forty and it’s kind of like you pick up teams.

We had this one guy who came in and he brought his a Buddy of his.

(song)

You better lock up your doors today.
Because Abu Hassan is on his way.
Though in hiding, I’ go riding,
Me and my forty thieves.

And this guy could shoot the ball probably at least a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Meanwhile these goalies are like, one of them’s like 45 or something, and he’s like “Huh?” And he doesn’t know what hit him.

The thing that I noticed about him was -this guy would spit on the walls. Okay? This is kind of shocking, even by my standards, mean I’ve I’ve been playing for years. I haven’t seen that before.

The next thing I know is, he’s drinking out of My water bottle. And not only that, but you know he’s got his lips on it. I’m Just looking on in horror because it’s this is not in my vocabulary that somebody else doesn’t really care about hygiene or anything.

I ended up coming over to him and asking him nicely to not drink out of my water bottle. I thought that was the end of it. The next week I came back, same thing. I was horrified, and I asked him again. I was starting to get perturbed and I carry this stuff around with me all week. Whoever I come into contact I go: ‘There’s this guy in my hockey league, he’s drinking out of my water bottle. And I’m getting upset about it. – I mean all week long.

I think this happened about four weeks in a row and I finally said ‘OK that’s it. I’m going to have to think of something how to stop it.’ I was debating all Week long like what kind of mix I’d be putting in there. One of my friends Said ‘Why doncha put urine in there?’ uhhhhhhh. I go Nah, I can’t do that. I mean it’s like a felony.

What I did is, I had a dummy bottle of gatorade. Same exact bottle. And I loaded it up with vinegar. I put maybe ten percent water in it. Then I stuck it on the Bench I just waited.

I didn’t see it happen. That would have been a priceless moment. I did see that it was in a different place. There was part of it that was empty. So I am assuming that he drank from it, which is a great thing. So after that I went back to get my water bottle which was in my gym bag. And I reached in there and my gym bag was drenched with the vinegar.

But you know, I guess you can say that you can’t win against the big guy. But on the other hand, I consider it a small victory.

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EPISODE 8: THE STRANGE TRIP

Once in a blue moon I go on vacation amd sometimes I go by myself.

This time I went to Gettysburg and I was looking for some kind of spiritual reawakening.

So the first thing I did when I got into town is I took one of those guided tours on a tour bus. They had one of those doubledecker buses and um I sat on the second deck in order to take it all in. We started driving down Main Street and then people on the sidewalk stopped to stare at the tour bus and they started waving to us. And it looked like they were waving in slow motion.

That night I slept right out on the battlefield instead of going to motel. I just wanted to get the full Civil War experience., I took this blanket and I tried to sleep under a picnic table. From the distance, I kept hearing an echoing noise of this baby crying. It was really weird. I was thinking about getting up to take a look, but then I thought twice and I just pulled the covers over my head.

So I woke up the next day and I took a shower, I guess they have one of these public showers?

I decided to take a walk. I ended up getting disoriented in the woods because you know, one tree looks like another. I mean, I was walking around the woods and I thought I knew the general direction how to get back but I just thought I’ll take a walk, survey the scene. So I was kind of getting a little panicky because I didn’t know one tree from another and I ended up going into this clearing where , there was like this long path and there?s headstones on either side. Way off in the distance I saw this woman taking a power walk, walking military style. Looked kind of funny.

I was lost. It was pretty far away from my car, so what I ended up doing was waiting for her to get to me. When she finally got to me minutes later, I asked her Can you tell me how to get back to the main road so I can get back to my car? I don?t think I told her I got lost. So she goes “Yeah, you just uh, walk over there and uh its about half a mile and no problem.”

I ended up walking there and I thought Great, you know, I finally know where I?m going.? I get up to the top of the hill and there were three police cars waiting for me with the flashing lights. And then they asked for my identification. “Sorry I don’t have any.” They said, “Get up against the car.” And they started frisking me.

You know, Im totally shaking! And I told them who I am, where I live, and they said, ?OK, were going to check this in the police car.? I mean, three police cars! Finally they said, “OK, You’re OK. You are who you say are, go ahead.” And so I high-tailed it outta there. I mean I dont think I walked that fast ever before.

I found out later that I matched the description of someone who shot somebody at a bar a couple weeks earlier. Even down to the clothes I was wearing. And this person ended up being on Americas Most Wanted two weeks later.

I havent been back to Gettysburg since.

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EPISODE 9: THE BIG TIME

You know, I’ve always thought I had a gift for expression. So at the beginning of my career, I went to New York to try to break into show business.

One of the first places I went to was The Joey Parker Show. And I went up to Joey and I asked him if he had any spots for me and he said, “Why don’t you look up my old friend Don Maxwell.”

So I went over to uh Don Maxwell’s office and he hired me right on the spot. He was like this publicity agent and a publicist and a talk show host. And the more I worked around Don, the more I found out that he was a New York show Business legend. He had been broadcasting for about fifty years and he featured some of the most obscure entertainers that you could imagine.

Some of the these people included:

Dante: Swami of the Accordion and master of the invisible handshake.

Fabrini: The singing psychic.

And Tony Moreno: The society troubadour, raconteur, character actor, artist, fashion designer, singer, guitarist, bicyclist, lecturer, producer-director and the busiest man of quality around.

So I was Maxwell’s talent coordinator which meant I kind of uh followed him around and did what ever needed to be done. But because he had a Cable Access TV Show, there was really like low budget so sometimes I got paid off in meals.

I was still pursuing other acting jobs. Maxwell introduced me to a friend of his, this German photographer, who took me up on some Manhattan rooftops and took pictures of me for headshots. I thought the he was kind of weird but the shots turned out okay so I started sending ‘em out for different auditions.

One of the first auditions I went to is they were looking for a young Jerry Lewis. I went over there and and the Casting Director goes “Show me what you can do.” I was kind of panicky cause I didn’t prepare anything. He had a bunch of Papers on his desk so I took the papers, and I started shuffling em around and then I don’t know what happened but the papers all like went flying. After all that he goes “You know something? You’re pretty good!” You know, and I was pretty like hopeful after that. But he never called me back, you know?

Shortly after that I got another audition and I actually got the job as a sheep in a commercial. It was like a commercial for a bedding company and in the commercial there was this guy having trouble sleeping so he was counting sheep jumping over a white picket fence. So they had about six of us you know dressed up as sheep, you know with the um big fluffy white outfit and the floppy ears and I was the shortest one there.

When it came time, the director yelled “Action” and everybody started to jump over the fence. When it came to my turn, I couldn’t jump over because the fence was too high. My uniform was a little big on me too and my legs were too short. You know, I was mortified that I couldn’t jump over the fence and then the director yelled “Cut!” And he said “You know, I kind of like that, I think we’re going to leave that in the commercial.”

From what I hear there are still people who remember that commercial with the uh sheep that can’t jump over the fence. And that was my start in show business.

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EPISODE 10: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW CUSTOMER

I don’t want to give you the impression that I’ve had like a lot of jobs in my life. I worked ten years at this one place. It was a
camera store in Buffalo.

And we had a lot of odd people who walked through the door. One of the oddest Was this guy who hated the two owners for some reason. Every so often, he’d Go in the back of the building and he’d break the window. We have a basement Window there, and he’d pee in it.

We had a lot of odd people kinda just like that and one of the odder people was One of our top salesmen actually. His name was Artie. He had a pretty big Following because he was a local celebrity with the cameras. He was always Doing seminars and stuff like that about cameras and people like really trusted him.

One of his followers you might have heard of. He actually was the basis for a movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No kidding.
Before he came to the store, we read about him in the paper. He was convicted of killing a couple people in Texas and cutting their bodies up with a chainsaw. Then he was on Texas’ Death Row for a couple years. They let him off because of some technicality. He went to Rochester. And they kicked him out of Rochester and he came to Buffalo for a short time.

Anyway one day he came in and he was asking for Artie and he wasn’t there. So I had the task of telling him that “Artie was late and if you’d like to wait, you could wait for him here.”

So he was waiting for a few minutes and then the few minutes became fifteen minutes and then half an hour. And Artie still had not arrived. We offered him a chair. The guy was sitting there for the better part of two hours. I would say that those two hours were the longest two hours of my life.

I kept flashing back to what I read in the paper. I guess he had a history of violent behavior. And his third wife discovered him taking a bath with a dead deer. The marriage ended after that one. So I kept looking at him and he was sitting there. Staring at me. He had like this weird stare. Huh, I was going nuts because I had no idea what he was thinking.

So after two hours, Artie finally saunters in. And the Texas Chainsaw Murderer came Over to him and they started talking. He ended up buying a couple of rolls of film from him and he left. A happy customer.

So it just goes to show ya that if you work in retail you should be nice to people because you never know who’s standing across the counter from you.

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EPISODE 11: TRAFFIC TROUBLE

Hi. I’ve gotta apologize in advance for the sound of my voice. I must sound terrible. I’ve had this really bad cold and I’ve been horkin’ all over the place.

Back when I was in Manhattan scuffling for a job, there was this one day that I got laid off from my temporary job. And I was kind of wandering the streets because it was like I was in shock. I thought the job was more secure than that.

So I was crossing Eighth Avenue and all of a sudden from out of nowhere a cab comes by and hits me. It was like it came whizzing by and before I knew it, it was right on top of me. Later on, people told me that I flew thirty feet in the air.

The next thing I knew, I was on the street unconscious. People started to crowd Around me. And you know your life does flash in front of your eyes. When I came To, the first thing that was on my mind was to prove to myself that I could get up.

I got up and I brushed myself off. You know it was kind of like one of those superhuman Reflexes where like the mother lifts up the car to get her child out from underneath. In the meantime, they called an ambulance and they took me to Belleview Hospital. Now Bellevue, you might have heard, used to be an Insane Asylum.

So I was in the waiting room there for about eight hours, then they finally checked me Into my room. My roommate was in bed with two broken legs. You know, it was kind of Like “What happened to you?” He was telling me that he was in trouble with the police all the time, so the police ran him over with their car and broke both of his legs. And he was pretty much crying out in pain a lot. This continued through the night so I gave him my pain pills because all I ended up having was a deeply bruised back.

The next day they let me out of the hospital and I decided to take a little vacation and Go to Florida, so I can have some beach time and maybe I can look up some jobs over there.

I rented this car, it was like a tank. I think it was about twenty bucks a day so I didn’t bother with the insurance. So I was at this stop light. I was kind of creeping forward And all of a sudden I found myself in the middle of this three car collision. I was hit on both sides. It was a real scene. I couldn’t believe it.

I was looking for a witness and the only witness I could find was this homeless person who lived under a bridge. Finally we exchanged all of our papers, we were all driving away and as I was about to drive away I noticed – that the uh circus was in town because there was this parade of elephants on the side of the road and they had all stopped to look at my car because my car was like an accordion. It was smashed up on two sides.

They were all stopping and looking at my car as if to say “ what’s wrong with this picture?”

That’s my bizarre experience. It all happened within a two week span. This whole series of events reminds Me of an old joke. How many elephants fit into an uninsured rental car? None.

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EPISODE 12: THE HYPNOTIST

I’ve gotta admit, I have a problem when it comes to food. I like to eat. Some people don’t like to to eat. I love to eat. And I love to eat all the wrong things. Top on the list is donuts. I have a problem with donuts. I love donuts, candy, gum, chocolate and pizza. I love pizza. I like it all, and I like it too much.

Sure I play hockey and lift weights three times a week, but it doesn’t seem to help take off the weight.

I tried to cure it so I went to a hypnotist. Basically you have to sign up. So I went to his office and I signed up. The receptionist was pretty imposing. I was waiting around the lobby with alle these overweight people and they were a lot more overweight than I was. So I was feeling pretty good about myself. We all filed into this room and we sat down.

What the hypnotist does is he gives lectures. He claims to have the power to erase bad habits by suggestion. One person said “I have a hurt shoulder.” So he flicks his finger at him and he asks “OK, do you feel better now?” Most of the time, they said no. It was kind of embarrassing.

Then he started lecturing. It was kind of a puzzling speech. It seemed like a disjointed series of stories and opinions. After his lecture—I didn’t even know what he was talking about – he led us back into the waiting room and we waited to have our two minutes with him individually. So I was waiting there awhile, kind of stressed out. And I went back there and it was pretty uncomfortable.

So he asked me “What is the problem?” I personally think that eating problems are basically self-esteem problems so I said “Well, I’ve – ahem – I’ve got a lack of self-esteem.” And he looked at me and he said “What, are you crazy?” I felt kind of stupid.

Then he told me to close my eyes and envision in as much detail as possible the habit that I wanted to be free of. And then he told me to picture the perfect moment of eating. So I closed my eyes and I kind of kept one open, and I saw him kind of flick his wrist at me and he goes: “Fffffffffftttttt!!” Then he blew on my face. Shortly after that, I was dismissed.

I didn’t really want to linger or anything so we all went our separate ways into the night. I got in my car and I tried to evaluate the experience as I was driving. The next thing I knew, I was at a fast food restaurant eating fried chicken. So I guess it didn’t last long.

I think the power of junk food overrules the power of suggestion.

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EPISODE 13: THE NAKED SWIM

Have you ever had such a painful experience that you blocked it out for years and years?

When I was fourteen, I went to Middle School in Buffalo New York. I was a pretty happy kid, but I had my problems too, like gym class. It wasn’t like today’s gym classes where they try not to hurt the kid’s feelings by playing PC, non-competitive sports like interpretive dance.

Our gym teacher was this old guy we called “The Coach.” The coach wanted to toughen us up. Like in the winter, he made us wear shorts and go outside and play football. And he’d be out there hitting golfballs dressed in a parka.

The worst by far though was swimming. In our school, they had boys taking swimming class naked. The girls were allowed to wear their bathing suits but we weren’t. And if you tried to wear one, you were ostracized. We protested but the coach told us the reasons why we had to swim naked were: A. Hygiene B. The lint from the swimming suits would clog up the pool filters C. The school couldn’t afford to do laundry and D. The Romans did it that way.

So once or twice a week we’d go swimming and they always had us line up lengthwise, with our backs against the wall, in alphabetical order. And they’d give us like these decaying kickboards and we’d dive in and do laps. I remember the water was always lukewarm.

Besides the coach, who watched us like a hawk, there were like weird kids too. Like there was this one kid who liked to swim underwater and bite the other kids. And then there were the chicken fights which I didn’t participate in.

But the worst was the one day they had us all lined up and I noticed that there were shadows under the girl’s lockerroom door. Suddenly the door cracked open and the girls walked in. They just stood there screaming. You never saw thirty boys jump into a pool faster. Some of ‘em landed on each others’ heads. Everybody jumped in, but me.

I thought it was a better idea to take off and run and hide behind the diving board. But because I was last in alphabetical order, I was like running forever. I finally reached the diving board and hid behind it, completely humiliated. The coach finally got a handle on the situation and he corralled the girls back into their lockerroom and locked the door. But it was too late, the damage was done.

I don’t think the Romans did it that way.

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EPISODE 14: ROOMMATE HELL

When I went to college, I was roped into being in a play. I was like this last minute replacement in West Side Story and it was put on by the African American Society. I was about the only white guy in the play. It was fun and I met a black stand-up comic there and we became friends.

I decided to take summer sessions, which was immediately after the play, and I started to look for uh an apartment and I asked my friend if he knew of anyone and he referred me to a group of people who were looking for a roommate. They all knew each other and they lived in this off-campus house.

So I went there and I met the people and they seemed pretty nice. It was a mix of guys and girls and it seemed like a pretty nice place, a big place. So I said allright, so I moved in.

For the first few weeks, everything seemed to be going well. I felt like I was fitting in but I started to get little hints that they weren’t pleased with me, especially after I burned some Jiffy pop. Then we started to get cockroaches, which is an awful thing if you’re ever living in an apartment.

I started to get the feeling that I wasn’t liked. I just had this nagging feeling that something was going on behind my back. One of the girls started giving me the silent treatment.

At the time, I was dating this really attractive young woman from Kuwait. There was this one afternoon that I came back to the house, in order to prepare for, we were going out to see a Rodney Dangerfield concert.

The door to my room was closed and when I opened it, I discovered that someone had dumped garbage all over my room. You know that wet, smelly garbage from the kitchen, with all the coffee grinds and everything. It was really disgusting and I was totally shocked but because I only had about an hour, I picked up the garbage and then I picked
up my date.

So we went to the theatre downtown and it was kind of weird because while watching Dangerfield, I was thinking about garbage. That’s all I could think about. Afterwards, my date was telling me that she couldn’t understand why they were laughing at what Rodney was saying and why he was making fun of his wife.

So I came home and I just felt that something was happening. And sure enough, the ringleader, who was this red-haired guy from Pittsburgh, told me that they all wanted To have a meeting with me that night.

At about seven o’clock, we were all sitting in the living room, and it was really uncomfortable. They all started to like accuse me of stuff. You know, like not being clean And being unfriendly and all this kind of stuff. After awhile it was so shocking that they were all ganging up on me, it was like in slow motion with the sound turned off.

And you know how sometimes you’re so shocked that you can’t really say anything or react.

So I packed up my stuff and I left. It wasn’t too sad of a goodbye, I’ll tell you.

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EPISODE 15: THE GOBBLER

It’s JerryTime! Created by Jerry and Orrin Zucker

It was really weird. One day we had this turkey just show up at our apartment complex. I wonder if the turkey got lost from its flock. Or maybe it was a reject

It was kind of shocking. You know you heard this like high-pitched, shrill regurgitating sound. It kind of irritated me.

It was a novelty at first. People were following the turkey ,and taking pictures of it. I’d give him these chocolate wafers and he’d wolf it down. It looked like he was a pretty voracious eater. One time it must have went down the wrong way because he got the hiccups. Have you ever seen a turkey having hiccups?

He was a pretty familiar figure around the neighborhood. He was hanging out at the Village Square. They knew him at the restaurant there, you know the one across the street from the Police Station.

One of the neighbors even gave him a nickname.

Tom.

One day I saved the turkey actually. He was strutting around in the parking lot and I saw this hooligan-looking guy who was coming after him with a pole with a noose at the end of it. Then I decided to step up and I asked him “What are you doing here? You’re not trying to hurt the turkey, are ya?” And he just kinda slinked away.

So the turkey just kept getting more and more comfortable and even a little bit on the bold side. He’d mark its territory. After awhile, he strutted around like he owned the place.

One thing led to another and the neighbors started to talk against the turkey. It started when the woman who has a truck said she said she wanted to have him for dinner.

My next door neighbor said that he jumped out from behind a parked car and startled his pregnant wife. There was also reports of the turkey being on top of the shed and on top of one of my neighbors cars.

One of my other neighbors was having a barbecue and they were talking about the turkey in rather derragatory terms. One of them said that the turkey had a brain the size of a marble. Other people said it looked like a freak.

He gradually became an unwelcome figure. He got mangy looking. And he started holding up traffic and showing up in places he wasn’t supposed to be.

So one day after breakfast I was going out to my car, and I noticed that there was this like, large feather stuck to my drivers side window. It felt like an ominous sign, and sure enough, I never saw the turkey again.

I felt sorry for Tom. I don’t think he was treated fairly. That’s why I’m having spaghetti for Thanksgiving dinner.

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EPISODE 17: The Casting Call

After I got hit by a car and then got into a three car accident two weeks later, I went into rehab for my back. By the end, I got stronger and more motivated, so I decided to move to Chicago where I could reinvent myself.

Once I got there, I found some cheap filmmaking equipment so I decided to produce a movie. It would be loosely based on my life, about a hard luck character who’s got a knife stuck in his back. I went looking for actors and I met this one rubber-faced comic named George.

GEORGE: Well, when I first met Jerry, Jerry proposed that we do a film together about me. And I have no regrets.

JERRY: First time out, I filmed George dropping a bag of grapefruits. I had him crawling through alleyways and we even did some stuff in a laundromate.

After the films were done, I took em to the local nightclubs. At Clubland, actually, they played it on one hundred foot tall screens while people danced in front of it. George was becoming a cult sensation.

I got an idea of making a Bride of George. I looked for an actress in all the usual places but I couldn’t find one. Then I went to this concert by The Residents and I met this performance artist named Violette Moon.

VIOLETTE: So I met Jerry at the concert and I was really surprised that he asked me to be an actress because my medium is the streets. Im not really meant to be captured, you know,
forever on film.

JERRY: I liked her for the part and we agreed to meet later.

A day before the meeting, I was out in a grocery store parking lot and I slipped and fell on a patch of ice and I separated my elbow. It hurt and eh I had to go to the hospital and they
put me in a cast.

The next day Violette came over and she brought a male friend who waited outside the door. It was pretty awkward and there was definitely some tension and it was hot in my apartment,
so I went over to the window and I tried to open it, but it was stuck. And I pulled my elbow back out of the socket again.

(Scream)

VIOLETTE: And he started screaming and I didn’t understand why. I I felt like this was the point where I would get murdered, so I left.

JERRY: My question is, how do you reinvent yourself without the parts falling off?

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EPISODE 18: Plane Insane

Well the day I was supposed to fly out of Florida, there was tornado warning all along the east coast. I got through security no problem.

We took off and we landed in Raleigh, North Carolina. And there was this three hour layover that turned into a five hour layover because of weather. So I was looking for things to do. I was thinking about a lower lumbar back massage but then I decided on just getting a chocolate ice cream cone. A few hours later, I ate a um fried chicken dinner.
Right before I got on the plane, they told me that we had to touch down in Philadelphia to pick up some passengers.

On the way up, the steward sang us a song. It was kind of annoying but it got the babies to stop crying. On the descent down to Philadelphia, there was some turbulence and one of the stewardesses actually got sick. After we landed, I went to see if she was okay and she said she was fine, and gave me a coupon for a free drink with the name David Berkowitz on it.

We had to wait for about forty-five minutes on the tarmac and in the meantime there was this lightning storm that started up. We finally took off. It was very shaky on the way up.
I though we were all going to die. But all of a sudden we were through it and we leveled off.

On the way down there was a wind storm and the plane was bucking like a broncho. I started to get sick. I haven?t reached for a barf bag since I was about eight or so but I remembered the words of a self-help book which advised me to breathe deep in times of stress and I held it in. My neighbor told me that this experience reminded him of his helicopter days in Vietnam, except for they weren?t shooting at us. To top it off, I looked up and there was this priest coming out of the cockpit area.

We finally landed at about midnight. The ice cream and the fried chicken were not a good idea. Later on, I picked up my bag, which was busted. I drove home half asleep through the rainstorm. I finally got back after my long sixteen hour journey and I went straight to bed.

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Episode 19: The Party Crasher

JERRY:

I don’t get invited to many parties. I’m a nice guy. I don’t know why. But the other day I was invited to one.

I showed up on time. It seemed like everyone else was late. There was two dogs there running around upstairs barking. I was milling around and the place starting filling up. People started piling into this tiny apartment. The room was getting so crowded, you couldn’t even move. One of the dogs got loose. It was barking and was running around, and I started getting clausterphobic and panicky. I started hyperventilating.

Finally, I retreated to the corner where I sat down on the piano bench. The bench was covered with with a bedsheet. Then I heard like this pop coming from underneath from where I was sitting. So I uncovered the bedsheet and it was actually a glass coffee table. I cracked the table. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, the hostess was an imposing looking woman. What I did was I went outside to think about what I was going to do.

When I came back inside, there was this big commotion going on between the hostess and her sister. They were accusing each other of stuff and they were yelling really loudly. One said, “ You’re not supposed to sit down on that, that’s why I covered it up with a bedsheet.
And the other one was like: “If I knew that it was glass, I wouldn’t have sat down on it .”

I found out that the other sister sat down on the same coffee table and shattered it. So there it was, the perfect escape. I couldn’t believe my luck. But I just couldn’t do it. I went over to the hostess and I sheepishly admitted that I cracked it. I offered to pay for it and then the argument was over.

She asked me why I didn’t tell her about it when it happened And she goes, “What are you, six years old or something?” I didn’t have an answer for that.

I once heard this story of a guy who sat on a glass coffee table. Then a girl came over to sit in his lap and the coffee table shattered and it severed his spine and he died. I think there was a bit of an injustice here, but paying thirty seven dollars for broken glass sure beats getting cut in half, I guess.

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Episode 20: Speed Dating

KRISTEN Um… so….um…I’ve I’ve had at least nintey boyfriends. Like how many girlfriends have you had?

JERRY Seven.

KRISTEN Oh, that’s good. Um do you like um, you know, ice cream, or…? Oh God, I can’t believe I’m wasting my time on an ice cream question. Don’t answer that, don’t answer that.

JERRY OK

KRISTEN Uh, what is your ideal uh date? Um, like where would you take me for dinner?

JERRY I’d take you to a uh coffee shop, and then we’d have some coffee.

KRISTEN Oh wow, really thrown’ out the big bucks.

JERRY Then we’d go out for a walk and talk and see if we have anything in common.

KRISTEN Wouldn’t we be talking at the coffee shop? We have to walk and talk. Is that where you get your best ideas? When you’re on the move?

JERRY I like to move, yeah. MM-hmmm

KRISTEN Yeah? OK, that’s good to know. How much money do you make?

JERRY Um, well…do you really want to know? I mean I…

KRISTEN Is it enough, Is it enough to care for my three kids?

JERRY Three? Ummm…

KRISTEN Yeah, do you like children?

JERRY Three kids. I mean that’s like, that’s alot of carpooling and stuff, right?

KRISTEN That was a trick question. I just wanted to see if you were nurturing in any way.

JERRY Oh.

KRISTEN I can’t tell if you passed or not. Who’s your favorite artist?

JERRY What kind of artist. Music or..?

KRISTEN Who’s your favorite

JERRY Painter…

KRISTEN No. Not music. Not painting. The other kind of art. The other kind. You know, um…It’s not music, it’s not painting…it’s the other thing. The other thing that you can do that’s artistic.

JERRY My favorite artist is Picasso. I saw this exhibiit of his where it was all nude women.

KRISTEN Oh that. You liked that?

JERRY It was great. He loved women.

KRISTEN Oh you don’t think anyone’s ever seen that before? I guess that’s pretty hot.

JERRY Well, tell me about…tell me about yourself. You know…I mean…Where do you live? Like do you live in the city or something?

KRISTEN I live on the wrong side of the tracks. What do you think about that?

JERRY Umm, what do you do for a living.

KRISTEN I’m a freelancer.

JERRY A freelancer?

KRISTEN Yeah, I freelanced. Full-time freelancer. Yep.

JERRY What do you freelance at?

KRISTEN Whatever. Whatever you want me to do.

JERRY Did you go to college?

KRISTEN Did you go to college?

JERRY Uh yeah. Yeah, for for a few years, for three years.

KRISTEN That’s fancy. I just I consider the world college.

JERRY So you, you didn’t…

KRISTEN I go to freelancer’s college. It’s very loose. I call the shots. I give the grades.
4.0

JERRY Wow.

KRISTEN …currently. Ummm hmmm. With a thesis on the way. Due whenever.

JERRY That’s impressive. Let’s see, what else? What do you like to do for fun?

KRISTEN Umm, I don’t know. Sometimes I just like to watch “Deal or No Deal” and I’ll just take a shot everytime someone says “Deal” on the show. A shot of tequila.

JERRY I haven’t watched it.

KRISTEN Harvey Mandel is on it. Harvey Mandel and and then he has all these retired models from The Price is Right.

JERRY Oh. So do you watch alot of TV?

KRISTEN Yeah. Sometimes I’ll I’ll watch The Price is Right, you know? And they have that that new guy, Andrew Carr? He..

JERRY I guess our time is up. I guess my time is up.

KRISTEN Yeah your time’s up. My time’s just getting started.