This Saturday night (2/21) at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia, comedians Artie Lange and Jim Norton will share the stage for the first time. Two comics getting together for a show is nothing new, but when you consider this duo are third mics on Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony, the pairing comes with a bit of drama due to the relationship between their bosses. Both will tell you they leave that drama behind on the dial, as they should since each is highly successful in their own right. FMQB caught up with Jimmy on his birthday in New York City for a conversation about the Philly show and exactly why a highly successful comedian continues to play around on the radio every day.
by Michael Parrish
This Saturday night (2/21) at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia, comedians Artie Lange and Jim Norton will share the stage for the first time. Two comics getting together for a show is nothing new, but when you consider this duo are third mics on Howard Stern and Opie & Anthony, the pairing comes with a bit of drama due to the relationship between their bosses. Both will tell you they leave that drama behind on the dial, as they should since each is highly successful in their own right. Lange just saw his book, Too Fat to Fish, hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. Norton has also appeared on the Best Seller list with I Hate Your Guts and Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch. He also recently hosted HBO’s hit comedy series, Down and Dirty with Jim Norton, which had one episode that featured an appearance by Lange. FMQB caught up with Jimmy on his birthday in New York City for a conversation about the Philly show and exactly why a highly successful comedian continues to play around on the radio every day.
Let’s start with the plug and talk about how the show with Artie came to happen.
I became friends with Artie after we got thrown off the air in 2002. He’s always been cool with me and we’ve never exchanged bad words. My agent came to me with Live Nation’s idea of doing a show with Artie and I was dying to do shows with him. Why not? We’re in the same kind of gig. He’s got a great gig with Howard and I’ve got a great gig here. For comedians, it’s a dream job. I’m really happy to be doing it and most of our fans crossover.
Why was Philly chosen for the show?
We both do well in Philly. I’ve done the Tower Theatre on my own and I’m sure he’s done it, so we should be able to sell out together. Hopefully it sells out because I would love to be able to do more. I would love to do Cleveland, Boston and a bunch of other markets. There should be a good mixture of Howard and O&A fans, who are all very similar in their make-up. They are all kind of animals… very vocal fans. If you are good, they are going to love you and if you are not good, you are in trouble.
Why is it important for you to be waking up at 4 a.m. every day to be on the radio?
It’s a great job and creatively very satisfying. I’m getting to hang out with my dumb friends for five hours a day and make money. We can talk about whatever we want to talk about and it never gets old. The content is fresh every day, whereas with stand up, you repeat content, which is fine, but in here it has to be fresh. We can rail on whatever we want to rail on and we know people are listening. It’s like performing for five hours a day.
Which one is easier for you – coming in here every day or putting together your stage show?
[The radio show] is a little easier because the pressure is not only on me. We’ve got Opie, Anthony, sound clips and the guys, where the stage show is just me, so if something goes wrong, it’s my fault. If something falls flat, you can tell directly from the crowd’s response. If something falls flat on the radio, you can’t tell immediately because you don’t see the audience. And if something falls flat on the radio, at least I’m in the trenches with other people.
You’re comedy has a certain edge to it. Talk about the challenge of reigning in that edge for the CBS portion of the O&A show.
I just can’t curse and you know certain content and racial issues they are going to panic about, but the meanness is still there. I am still me. It’s always more fun to be uncensored. There’s this stupid rumor that radio guys tell themselves that half the fun is dancing around subjects. Bullshit. Dancing around content is never fun. Richard Pryor was never as funny when he was on the Tonight Show as he was uncensored. Whenever you limit your language or content it is never funny. Look, it’s a reality in radio and they have to do it, but this thing where they tell themselves it is half the fun… no, it’s really not.
You open your latest book, I Hate Your Guts, by talking about George Carlin. Why do comedians revere him the way they do?
Because he was so prolific, never lazy and was fearless. The guy would say anything and he stopped groveling for the audience’s approval. He wanted them to laugh, but I don’t think he ever cared about their approval. He was a very pure comic that said what he wanted to say. He didn’t pander or use soft terminology and would spit it right in your face.
When you were writing your book, did you ever stop yourself thinking you went too far with a subject?
No. Never. No one asked Stephen King to write about murdering children. I love Stephen King, but people have this really weird thing with comedy about where the line should be and yet if you are writing a horror novel, all bets are off. Or if you are writing a crime drama, you can have this horrible rape in it. These people are allowed to use this stuff under the umbrella of their art, but comedians get shit for it. The only one I wish I had written different was Hillary Clinton because I like her more now than I did then, but I don’t feel bad that I brutalized her.
You guys were already on satellite radio when the line was starting to be drawn of what you could say and couldn’t say on the radio. Stern went through it, then subsequently what happened with Imus, or even JV & Elvis. Was that frustrating for you as a comic to see that happening on the airwaves?
It was, because it is a special interest pussies who want to be heard. When they complain about something it is a mock and pseudo outrage. The same people that were outraged at Imus don’t seem to be outraged over Jesse Jackson offering to pay the tuition of a girl that lied about being raped by three white Duke students. It’s phony and fraudulent. It’s really a sign of white executives being pandering and condescending that they will not call out black activists.
Are you surprised by how well your book has done?
Yeah, and then Artie came along and hit #1. He was a fucking wrecking ball. I sold more copies than I did of Happy Endings, but the highest I made it was #13 while Happy Endings topped out at fourth.
You recently laid some seeds of peace by helping bring Andrew Dice Clay back to the O&A show. Is this another step in the process of working things out between the two shows?
Nah, it’s not my place to do it, because there is nothing I can do about it. I would love to see it work out, because to me, it’s in everyone’s best interest for it to work out. We all need Sirius XM to work in order to survive. It’s stupid for our show not to push Howard’s package or for Howard’s show not to push our package. It’s financially in the interest of everybody to succeed. So I would love to see things work out because we all want to have a gig. – See more at: http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=1171927#sthash.K3adhRey.dpuf
