To this day, to this very day, except for television, I've never had a writer. Anything I've ever done on the stage, happened on the stage and I developed it from there. It started doing impressions and jokes - which I did very poorly. To this day I can't tell a joke. That sounds nuts, but it's true. I exaggerate it and it becomes a joke. Everything I've ever done I've done out on the stage and it became a performance over many many years.
What I do is, I make fun of people and I make fun of myself and things around us and exaggerate things. And I'm never mean-spirited. See, the word insult means some guy who's a real unkind human being. But I don't do that, because otherwise I wouldn't be headlining all these years, thank god, and all these people showing up to see me.
When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.
That I walk around calling people 'dummy' and 'hockey puck'. I do have a different life apart from being sarcastic on stage. I might kibitz around with my friends, but I'm nothing like the person who does stand up. Nothing like that.
I still think funny, and people young and old still come and see me. That's flattering. The day comes that they stop coming, then I'll know that it's time to retire to the Jewish ranch.
My health, thank God, has kept my brain alive.
You got to have a lot of courage. Secondly, whatever it is you're doing you have to believe in it wholeheartedly. Thirdly, you have to be able to stand up in front of people and know that they'll laugh.
It's just to break things up between stand-up gigs. I would only do it periodically. Maybe just an East Coast thing.
We show a lot of film [with Regis Philbin] from my career which is most enjoyable. I enjoy watching it.
Regis Philbin is very successful in his own right. We have a new thing where he have chairs and we sit and talk to each other about my career and his career. It works pretty well if I do say so.
Who am I to judge is what I say. I'm 90 years old, for crying out loud, and I don't sit in any chariot.
I don't get into politics. I know [Donald] Trump, but I don't follow that. That's just an aside for him when he has nothing else to say. He never involved me in any of that stuff.
My main success was an attitude. Always an attitude.
In the old days, that was my ad-lib for hecklers in the joints I worked. It stuck with me. I hardly say it now, say, to fans, even though people do send me hockey pucks.
Hell, do I remember the first joke? I was never a jokester.
I was with George Washington at Valley Forge, sitting around before an attack... gimme a break. That's over 70 years ago already.
My father when walked into a room, you could tell that everybody loved him. They really did. He was quite a man. My mother was more into the show biz atmosphere than he was.
My father wasn't much for show business. He was an insurance man - very well-liked, very warm. He had a lot of friends.
Frank Sinatra enjoyed my humor, so I could say almost anything to him. I mean, within reason.
I knew most of the people there who ran the places, a lot of wiseguys. They're all gone now. All good people.
I think they [Martin Scorsese, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra] liked my honesty. My personality. For that, they always treated me great. I, in turn, treated them great. No secret about it. My being who I am - that is that.
Al Capone's my uncle. The old days were a lot different. The Latin Casino was the big time. When I got there I figured that I was doing pretty good, because remember, I started in nothing but after hours joints. I can't even name them now, but that's how I got noticed.
I've never gambled a dime. Never, in all my years in Vegas.
I never could tell a joke. I just started talking to the audience, and when the drunks would yell, "Hey, when do the broads come on?" I got good at saying, "Relax. Clear your skin up first." They called me "the insult guy," but it's never mean-spirited. I'm just exaggerating everything about us and about life.
When you're 18, you're just so busy being scared and having fun - a crazy mixture - that you never thought of dying.
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