People always want to know how you get started on this job
I guess they ask musicians too, and actors and everything
But they always want to know how you get started
They say, "How'd you get started?"
They say to you, "Did you always want to be a comedian?"
Well, not in the womb, but right after that, yes
Sure, I did
But class clown is when you really do get
A chance to kind of work out, you know
'Cause the classroom is the best place
The classroom is best because, well, no one's allowed to laugh there
And suppressed laughter, you know, is the easiest to get the most fun
You know, like when you're kneeling in front of a casket
During the sermon, whatever it is
And in the classroom
Class clown always sounds like there was only one of them, you know?
Always sounds like the class clown, but that's not true, really
There was, you know, quite often there
Were two or three or four of them
Sometimes you'd have a whole classroom full of them, man
If the main guy was absent, second banana would fill in, right?
And the class clown wasn't really so unique, you know
He didn't necessarily do things that were real different
It was just, he learned things first
He discovered things first and passed
Them on to the other guys, right?
Class clown was the first to discover a lot of musical things
He was the first one to get into Hawaiian nose humming, right?
Well, if you're gonna play, play, you know
And then playing head
You had to be a little maso for that anyway, man, you know?
That and throat
Found out later in life the beard acts as a mute for soft passages
Well, anyway
Class clown was the first guy to discover
This, usually in gym class, right?
Yeah, the old artificial fart under the arm
Or as we called it in New York, the artificial fart under the arm
There were a lot of ways to make the fart sound when you were a kid
Remember you had this one too
And then the crook of your arm
It was an important sound, you know?
We found so many ways to make it, you know?
I didn't need any of those fancy ones 'cause I could
I was into the bilabial fricative, you know?
I was so glad when I found out that
Had a real official name to it, man
Bronx cheer and raspberry never made it for me
Bilabial fricative
Do one from the back?
It would probably be an SBD today, man
Remember that? Silent but deadly, wow
It's true, most of the time in class I was tempted to fool around, man
Get someone's, that's what it was, yeah
You'd be bored and you'd figure, well, why
Not deprive someone else of their education?
And you would set about disrupting the
Class by attracting attention to yourself
That is the name of this job, you know?
It's called "Dig Me"
Yeah, it was like, "Hey guys, didn't make the team but"
They'd say, "Hey, he's crazy, man
Hey, wanna go to a party?"
Yeah, you went to all the parties
Got the last girl, but you went to all the parties, man
When I would try to attract attention in class, it was
I wasn't really like a very daring and bold youth
I was a little timid, really
I didn't get right into fake epileptic seizures in the aisle, you know
Just start out and test the water a little bit
I used to start with little sounds like
That's a good one 'cause no one can really
See where it's coming from, you know
You can even look around like you don't know, right?
That's of course the pigeon
You recognize the pigeon
That was my only bird call
'Cause that was our only bird, man
I was from a real New York part of New York, you know?
We had pigeons and sparrows
Had sparrows
Sparrows, though, you could never pin a sparrow, you know?
They would leave too fast
You try to go over to a sparrowPigeons would walk
Out of your way and give you a bad look, right?
Poor pigeons, man. Their song is stuck in their throat, you know?
That's what living in the city does
Man. Sticks your song in your throat
I'm sure when the pigeons first got
To the city they had a nice song, man
A few years in the city
And then that little oil slick we laid on 'em
You've seen that oil slick on their neck
I'm sure we gave 'em that
Pidgeys
I had one sound that was my own
Not completely my own, I stole it from a Spike Jones record
None of the other guys could do that one
I added a little something to it
No one really cared, you know
"Get him out of here, will you?"
"Get him out of here"
And then of course there was popping the cheek
Which everyone had to do
Just to be a kid you had to be able to do that, right?
Yeah, it was part of the credentials
"Can he pop his cheek?"
"Okay, he's a kid, let him in, go on"
Let me hear all of you do that
I love when a whole auditorium does it
Everybody do it like that, just pop
Now do it without giving in to the temptation to laugh
Everybody do it without laughing
But we take that for granted, you know
We think it's so simple
You say to yourself
"Well, I think I'll put my finger in my cheek and pop it"
It's not that easy, man
There's a lot of things to think about
You gotta know how much finger to put in there for one, right?
You can't do it like that, man
You have to judge the amount of finger
You have to know how much air pressure against the cheek
How much cheek pressure against the air
And when to release
Yeah, you see old guys in the park now
Can't get it on anymore
That's the first thing that goes on a class clown
The cheeks, man
They never did issue microphones to the class clowns
That would have been a big help
But you had ones like this
And you remember this one?
Old men always used to do this to you
Remember your grandfather would always do that
"Hey, come here"
I was, my specialty was knuckle cracking
I was into it on kind of an esoteric level, really
For instance, I could crack all 28 knuckles, you know
28 Plus, actually
Only 28 are officially recognized by the Knuckle Institute
But you aficionados know that down at the ends of the fingers
You have a lot of multiples and repeaters
If you wake up and think about it first thing in the morning
You can do 50 or more of them, man
A little more knuckle lore for you
The smaller the knuckle, the higher the pitch
Something we just don't stop to think about, you know
For instance, this last knuckle on the
Pinky is the highest pitched knuckle
You'll hear it now
That was a double
Let's see if I can go for the double on the other pinky
I don't often get two doubles in performance
I'd like to try
And that was down a little lower than it should have been
That's a higher pitched and much more gentle knuckle usually
Let's give the right one on the end of the pinky a chance
Let's see if the other one's in there too
Ah, two doubles is far out, yeah
The best reason for cracking your knuckles was to make the girls sick
I mean, that's all you wanted to do when you were nine or ten
Was make the girls sick
If you could get Margaret Mary to throw up on her desk in the morning
You knew it would be a good day
You picked the most squeamish girl, right?
Margaret Mary was susceptible to the knuckles
"Hey, Margaret Mary!"
Remember that feeling? Like wiping off snot
Somebody else's
You'd wipe it on flaming wood if you had to
"Get it off me, it got on me by accident!"
'Cause nobody really likes your bodily fluids, you know?
That's true, unless you keep 'em to yourself
People don't want 'em
Really, think of it
Any fluids or semi-fluids
That you secrete or excrete or whatever
People don't wanna hear it, you know?
Earwax, blood, sweat, get it out of here, man
Sometimes they'll take your blood if they're in trouble, you know
Otherwise, keep things inside
People want you to keep things inside
Anything you could do disgusting was good for class clown
Ernest Cruz could turn his upper eyelids inside out, man
Remember those guys? Man
Even I would go, "Ugh! Don't do that, Ernest
You look like the devil, man"
John Pigman could belch at will
Not just the ordinary belch
I mean, we all learned to swallow a little air, you know
And do the fraternity burp
But John Pigman was an artist, man
He would save air for like half an hour, man
You'd see him over in the corner
"Hey, John"
"No, no, man"
And when he would finally let go
Oh, wow
Oh, ladies
Oh, ladies would puke for blocks around
He would talk when he burped
Remember those guys?
"How do you do, son of a bitch?"
He'd try to go through the whole alphabet on one burp, right?
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W"
Sometimes John would be in the movie theater
And you didn't know he was there
And then you found out, man
If anybody on the screen opened their mouth without saying anything
John would provide the dialogue
"Hey, John's here, man"
Class clown used to save his best stuff for lunchtime
When you were drinking your milk
And he'd try to make the milk come out your nose
"Hey, Colin, you bastard, I'll get you, man"
It was even better with 7 Up or root beer, you know?
Get all those bubbles up in your sinuses, man
One time Michael Davey passed an entire
Cheese sandwich through his nose
Sister Enunciata thought it was a miracle, you know?
"Come with me, mister
And don't talk to the other boys and girls"
You're not allowed to talk to anyone right after a miracle, you know?
You have to wait and be debriefed by a priest, right?
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