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Question21: Lord Carrett

In which we quiz a comedian
on matters both earth-shattering and inconsequential...


Carrett, who has been described as "a cross between Sid Caesar and Sid Vicious," is a regular guest on the wildly popular Bob & Tom radio show, heard in 120 U.S. markets.

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1. Is there anything that you wish that you'd invented?

The Edsel. I think it's a cool car, even if it went over like "Cat Shit Lip Gloss." Which was MY IDEA, by the way... Hey, it was ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED. I'm not an idiot...

2. What cable TV show would you most like to host?

I have an idea for a TV show that I'd like to host. Well, to tell the truth, I don't have the WHOLE SHOW worked out, just the TITLE. But with a title like this, that's all you need! Here it is: "Naked Women IN HEELS."
Because you get EVERYONE with that!
MEN say: "NAKED WOMEN?... " WOMEN say: "HEELS?... "
GAY women would say: "NAKED WOMEN?" Gay MEN would say "HEELS?" It can't miss! The demographic is staggering!

3. Where do you go to get away from it all?

I lock myself in my room and play a few of my 4,000 records and the rest of the world disappears, or is at least "drowned out."

4. What was your favorite toy as a child?

After records, it was probably a "Creeple People" set. They were like "Creepy Crawlers" and you "cooked" these rubber faces that folded over and went over the eraser of your pencil turning it into a 4-D monster. You could give them arms and legs, too. The burns you got from the little stove were even more horrific than the monsters themselves.

5. If you could be a guest editor of any magazine, which one would you choose?

The "Fredericks of Hollywood" catalogue. Not EXACTLY a magazine, but if you think about it, it IS essentially MAXIM without the articles.

6. What is a good name for a pet fish?

"Gil" seems an obvious choice. "Jaws" would be a good name for a pet fish, but only if you could to teach it to attack a tiny Robert Shaw. How about "Sushi?"

7. When is it a good time to say "when?"

Before your hand is wet.

8. What is the most embarrassing item in your medicine cabinet?

Why? What have you heard...
It would have to be desensitizing cream. But, it's not what you think. Being in show business, I rub it on my ego.

9. What recording is the appropriate theme song for your life?

"Six Days on the Road" by Dave Dudley. When you're a comic, you're basically a "trucker hauling jokes".

10. In the "It Occurred Onstage Category" what Lord Carrett story is most often retold by you or others?

Vic Henley tells this story about a gig we did together in Dothan Alabama. I'd actually forgotten about it until, years later, he told me that it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen onstage.
To set it up, I must say that I was arguably the first comic to dress like a rock star. There were those that had a "rock 'n' roll sensibility" before me, but I was the first to really look the part.
I had long Roger Daltrey hair, zebra pants, a Misfits "skull" T-shirt, leather chaps and a leather-fringed jacket with a colorful denim "biker" vest over it--the WORKS! Keep in mind, this was the early eighties, and looking like Bon Jovi was COOL! But, since it was unusual back then, some audiences ESPECIALLY in Alabama were slow to embrace it.
We were doing a one-nighter in a hotel bar and the DJ stacked the deck against me from the word go. Forget about an UPBEAT song to open the show. No "Curly Shuffle" for this guy... This idiot plays Harry Chapin's "TAXI" right before he introduces me... A seven-minute song of LOVE LOST and THEN-- JOKES!
By the time the DJ introduces me every hillbilly in the place is "thinkin' on the one what got away." Through tears of regret, every audience member that was paying any attention at all hated me on sight.
In those days, my attitude was that if the audience was gonna hate me for no reason, I was gonna give them one. So, fifteen minutes into it, I told them: "I wasn't gonna mention this... but BEAR BRYANT blew my dad..."
IN ALABAMA! Vic literally fell off his barstool.
I actually did better after that, finally having everyone's undivided attention, and I was walked to my room by hotel security after the show to boot! I felt very special.

11. In the "It Occurred Offstage Category" what Lord Carrett story is most often retold by you or others?

Not since Homer's "Odyssey" have there been as many different versions of a story as I've heard of this one, but it's MY story, so here it is straight from the proverbial horse's mouth. Get comfy, this is gonna take awhile...
It was the first three months of my professional career, and I'd been working in the New York area with the late Frankie Bastille, an infamous comedian that was, at the time, my mentor, friend, and a notorious heroin addict. He has since "ceased to be;" i.e. he's an "ex-parrot."
I'd driven him into New York's "Alphabet City" earlier that night to score some horse. He "fixed" coming across the bridge, and I left him "nodding" in my Honda Civic while I emceed a show in Jersey at a place called Broadway Betty's Fireside. To this day, it's regarded as the worst gig EVER by those that have survived it.
The good thing about it was that you got a free meal before the show. Sort of a last meal for the condemned.
The show was held in the lounge. There was a small horseshoe-shaped bar with a wrought iron rail enclosing the tiny stage behind it. The rumor was, that it used to be a topless bar and that the girls would dance behind the railing, behind the bar, presumably for their own protection. Since then the clientele had gotten tougher.
There was no cover charge and people were standing around you on three sides, packed in four or five deep with others standing in the booths lining the walls. But they didn't come to listen to comedy... they came to heckle comedians, and I was the first of the night.
Someone introduced me as the opening act/emcee, and I was ALMOST to the microphone before they started yelling "You suck!" en masse. It was like being a guest speaker at a heckler's anonymous meeting.
At the time, I had a solid twenty minutes of material, which I burned through in FIVE. Every joke that wasn't a one-liner was slapped to the ground in the basest manner.
I'd go into a joke; "My sister... " and someone would yell; "FUCK your sister!"
I look over and see the manager running his finger across his neck in a throat-cutting gesture, and I thought to myself; "THERE's an idea--SUICIDE!" as I bailed out and brought up the next act.
There was no way offstage except right through the crowd and as I squeezed past, I remember someone saying: "Good job!" with what seemed to be complete sincerity! Apparently, it was nothing personal. We were like Wile E. Coyote and the Sheep Dog in the Warner Bros. cartoons, exchanging pleasantries as they punch the time clock, and seconds later inflicting grievous harm on one another.
The feature act, a much more experienced comic, gets up and goes right into the crapper as well, although he managed to get through MOST of his allotted time. That made me feel a little better about myself.
The headliner took the stage with a brilliant approach. He knew from watching our sets that the crowd was going to be screaming, so he got them screaming about a single subject: sports. For about thirty-five minutes he had them shout baseball trivia, and if he couldn't answer your question, he'd buy you a drink. Not the set you'd send to Letterman, but he did his time and a little comedy to boot. He didn't buy a single drink, either.
After the show, I got my money and slunk back to my car where the junkie was still in and out of consciousness. Back then, I had a single prop, a toy gun.
I got in the car and slid the gun out of my belt, and stuck it between the bucket seat and the console. The still horizontal Bastille opens one bloodshot eye long enough to ask how it went. "I sucked," I said, "I ate it BAD!"
So I'm driving Frank, who's still "sleeping" through Jersey. I've been driving all day, and I'm starting to nod out myself, so I decide to pull into a rest area for a little shut-eye. Not just any rest area though... unknown to me, the only GAY rest area in all of New Jersey! I parked, reclined my seat, and cracked my window a couple of inches like Frank's and fell asleep.
A few hours later we were jolted awake by the shotgun barrels being pressed into our chins through the partially opened windows. EIGHT of "New Jersey's Finest" were surrounding my tiny car. There was one cop on each side with shotguns, and three on each side with revolvers drawn. Police cruisers were everywhere with lights flashing.
We both went to sit up, and were pushed back down by the shotgun barrels and firmly told not to move. The visibly nervous cops were trying to reach in and open our locked doors. We were instructed to slowly unlock the doors after which we were dragged from the car and forced to kneel facing the open doors with our hands behind our heads.
I remember that the cop who had the gun in my back was shaking so badly that he could hardly keep the barrel between my shoulder blades. Had he accidentally blown one of my lungs through my chest, I'm sure we'd have had guns we'd never seen and narcotics we'd never used planted on us, and the headlines would have told of the drug-crazed and gun-toting comedians that were shot to death in a gay rest area in New Jersey. Sorry, mom!
With all that's going on, we look through the car at one another, and Bastille says to me, "Boy you really must have sucked tonight!"
I don't know if my toy gun started it all, or if we matched the description of dangerous characters, but, after that night, I never used props again.

12. Who made you laugh hardest when you were ten years old?

At ten, it was a tie between Jerry Lewis and farts but I've matured. I no longer think Jerry Lewis is funny. Around four years old, the thing that made me laugh the hardest was a game my big sister and I made up where you'd pick up ANY book and start reading it, but you'd randomly replace words with the word "diarrhea." The Bible was never that much fun again. "And on the third day, He made DIARRHEA." My sister will hate that I told you that, because these days, she's SUPER religious. And by SUPER RELIGIOUS I mean, she's got a cape with a crucifix on it. She's so religious, that GOD actually spoke to her! He said: "I need my space." "I know I said not to worship false gods, but YOU pray to anyone you want." "I just need a minute to myself."

13. Cat person or dog person?

I'm a cat person, hands down, and I finally figured out why cats LICK THEMSELVES so much... They're DELICIOUS!

14. What do you like to wear on your days off?

Low-Rider jeans with the top cut off. I like the way they show off my appendix scar.
While we're on the subject, ladies, those jeans with the top cut off look great IF you have the right build. But, if you have big, bone-y childbearing hips, you look like a Tyrannosaurus wearing a sarong.

15. What food should be sold at a movie concession stand?

Is tequila technically "food"? They already have the salt...

16. What food should never be sold at a movie concession stand?

Nachos. I'd like to know whose idea it was to serve snacks that MAKE NOISE in a movie theater, and where were they off to next... to vacuum around a mime?

17. What would you like to magically appear in front of you?

How about a beautiful blonde woman who whispers in my ear: "I've got a clever answer to that question tattooed somewhere on my body... would you like to come back to my place and phone it in later?"
But, that's the ONLY situation where I'd be interested in a woman with a tattoo. I'm sorry, but I just don't see my SOULMATE having a tattoo. My CELLmate, maybe.

18. What would you put into a Suggestion Box?

Suggestions. What was that, a trick question?

19. What really pisses you off?

Comics that use "stock lines," ESPECIALLY to deal with hecklers. I've seen a lot of good, otherwise original, comedians use them without shame, and let's face it, stock lines are theft. SOMEone wrote them! Moses didn't come down from the mountain with Ten Commandments and "a few good lines in case you get in a jam."

20. Why is the sky blue?

Ask your mother.

Here's where we turn the interview over to the interviewee:

21. "Where did you learn to KISS like that?"




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