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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 834 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: jd-d-recovery-humor-georgetown-ca-birthday-bash-2011-11-12.mp3 Duration: 00:23:25
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How you guys doing? My name's Greg, I'm a recovered drug addict. I get the honor of introducing J.D., or I'm not sure, this might be a disclaimer in case he offends any of you guys. J.D. does have a tendency to be a little edgy. You know, he did comedy in his younger days and he's been kicked off a lot of tours. He's actually been kicked off more comedy tours than Charlie Sheen's been to rehab. So, you know, I've heard a lot of his stories and I get a little nervous because I know the group of people we got here is probably the most sensitive group of individuals in the country, drug addicts and alcoholics. But guys, he's great, he's funny. I know when I got here as a resident and J.D. was a program director, the way he really embodied that we are not a glum lot and made me laugh even when I didn't want anything to do with that, it really did something. I think it's all important, as much as the tragedy can come with this disease, it's important that we be able to take a step back and kind of laugh and have a good time. I'm honored right now to introduce my friend and mentor and hilariously funny comedian, Mr. J.D. D..
That felt good. I don't want to get big headed though because I'm in a room full of recovered alcoholics and drug addicts and you guys will applaud for anything. Somebody walks into a room and goes, I got spent 10 minutes since I had my last drink. Hell yeah. We come by it honest though, the reality of it is we had a lot to, we had very low standards when it came to applauding for stuff. I remember one time in particular, I woke up one morning out of an alcoholic stupor, as I often did, and I looked over and not only did I recognize the girl that was laying next to me, I remembered her name. And then I looked through the curtains and my car was actually in the driveway and there were no dents and I went, you got to applaud for yourself. You've been there.
How about the fur balls, man? Let's give them a round of applause. Made me a little nervous because one of them looked like my mom. I think I dated one or two of them too, actually. In and out of recovery. Different time. I like to tell stories, man. I'm not so much a comedian as I am a storyteller, as I like to put it. I like to have there to be a moral to the story or a life lesson. Let's see if we can find a life lesson in this story. How many people in here, and don't be afraid, are in a healthy relationship? Give them a round of applause.
Come on. Good. The guy was way quieter. Most people are like, oh, shh. And there's one or two people, the girl's looking over at the guy staring at him and he's like, hell no. So anyway, in college, I went to college. It took me like seven and a half years to graduate. Going full Tom. I got a degree. I got two of them, actually, and what happened was, I finally answered the phone one day and they told me I had to come into the office and I came in there and they said, you got to go. You've got two degrees and you're going to graduate. And I said, sweet. I think I applauded. But anyway, in college, dating and the social scene and all that kind of stuff, it is what it is. But I had a buddy of mine come up to me one time and he said, I really want to go out with this girl and the only way she'll go out with me is if you go out with her friend. See, that should have set the tone right there. Because what that means is she's scared to go out with you and there needs to be two other people with her, but she doesn't want to pay for Friday night. And so this is the best thing that you can pull off. So most people would say, no, I saw this as an opportunity. I said, absolutely. That's what we're going to do. So they show up and let me give you the, you can put too much into a date,
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right? You can make it a little too much. This was a putt-putt dinner. I'm not lying about this. A Billy Ray Cyrus concert. And I don't mean like Miley Cyrus' dad. I mean, mullet wearing, achy breaky heart at the beginning, achy breaky in the middle, achy breaky at the end. Somewhere in between these boots were made for walking. Billy Ray Cyrus. That's what I'm talking about. So when he presented that to me, I was like, hell yeah.
Be good. So I realized I was in trouble about 30 minutes into the date when I realized I couldn't remember the girl's name I was with. And I'm sitting there at the putt-putt thing staring at the windmill going around and around because it was awfully interesting at that moment. And someone suddenly said her name. They said, hey, nice shot, Susan. And see, sometimes you shouldn't, there's things that go inside your head that come out of your mouth when you don't realize it. And I'm like, hell yes, Susan, that's your name. And I said that out loud. She was not pleased. And I'm good at lying. Alcoholics and drug addicts are good at lying.
Aren't we? We got those lies down. When you're messed up, like the first one is like speed loaded. It comes right out of you like God gave it to you. But the second one is a little more difficult to come up with. And so she said, why are your eyes so bloodshot? Are you on drugs? I was like, no, that's my allergies. She goes, what are you allergic to? I went, marijuana. She caught me checking out this girl too. She came walking by as they do.
And I'm staring and she looks over at me and I said, I wasn't doing nothing. And she goes, um, she goes, what were you looking at? I wasn't looking at anything. I was, um, I was looking at her shoes. First lie came right out, man. It was cool. Right? Second lie. Oh yeah. What color was her shoes? Ass colored. There's a life lesson in here somewhere. I hope you're waiting for it. So, uh, so then she asked me this question. We went to dinner and we're sitting there and, and I'm blootered. And, uh, she, uh, she goes, what kind of drugs do you like? And I thought, bang, finally, I've connected to this girl. I've connected to this girl on a level that I can understand. Her parents must be very, very proud of her. I said, okay, now we got it. Uh, I smoke weed pretty much every second of the day that I have available. I prefer cocaine over coffee as a pick me up. I'm always down for a little ecstasy and psychedelics, psychedelics, I'm shrooming right now. And she looked at me and she said, I said, what kind of dogs do you like?
So I told her I didn't fucking like dogs. So there's a moral to this story, a little life lesson. I hope you were paying attention. If you ever have to go to a Billy Ray Cyrus concert, he's badass on shrooms, man. Take that with you. Yeah, I did comedy, man. I did comedy in the real world, uh, for three and a half years in late, in the late nineties and made a goal of it, uh, in the late nineties and made a goal of it, uh, with that. And there's, there's certain reasons why I'm not a comedian anymore. And I don't do it, uh, in the mainstream that way anymore. And I don't really do it this way anymore, but I'll get to that. Um, uh, but anyway, I'll tell you a story, an interesting story that you might find interesting and life story with a moral to it. Uh, one of the reasons why JD is not in comedy anymore. You want to hear
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it? Yeah. Some of you've heard it already, but it's always fun. All right. So, uh, I was doing, uh, off the strip comedy club in Vegas. Anybody from Vegas for four Queens comedy club off strip. Okay. And I was opening for, for, for a comedian by the name of Mitch Hedberg, who's, who's not one of us anymore. I mean, not, he's one of us. He's one of us, but he's not with us anymore. Um, near and dear friend of mine has passed away. And, uh, I noticed this guy in one of the, one of the night sets, he was sitting in there and he was watching the show. And afterwards he pulled me aside and he said, uh, he said, look, I, uh, I'm, I'm the manager for, for an act here in town called the amazing Jonathan. You guys ever heard of the amazing Jonathan? Okay. The amazing Jonathan. And, uh, he, uh, his, his warmup act, which comes out and does, you know, warmup act. There's somebody that warms up the audience and gets people going. Not like you guys. I mean, we had the fur balls, jump started. You write the hell up, you know, but, uh, his warmup act had walking pneumonia. And, uh, he, he, he asked me if I was willing to fill in for the next two weeks for the amazing Jonathan's warmup act.
And he paid me $5,000 and he would set me up in a hotel with an open bar tab. Pinnacle of my career. So I accepted. Now the amazing Jonathan, if you've never heard of the amazing Jonathan, he has a, a regular show in a, in about six, seven, 800 person theater called the Hanover street theater. And, uh, he is a magician comedian. See, there was a big trend in the late nineties that if you were a really crappy comedian and really crappy magician, and you put the two together, then you had an act. I don't have a lot of respect for these acts, but it was $5,000. Follow me. All right. So I played it straight for four straight nights, went out there, did my little thing, 10 minutes, warmed them up. They're good. Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing job. Yay. Comes out in a headband. He's overweight. He's got a jacket on spectacular.
On the fifth night, on the fifth night, I got towards the end of my spiel and I said, I said, uh, and the only thing this man hasn't been able to make disappears, his own virginity, the amazing Jonathan. I thought it was hilarious. The amazing Jonathan didn't find it so funny. He came back and he asked me a question that was asked many, many times in my career. And remember, there's a life lesson. I'm old to this story.
He asked me the question that I've been asked many times in my career. He said, I don't know who the F you are. Do you know who the F I am? Which, you know, when you think about that, it sounds like a stupid question. Cause I figure I know who I am and I'm pretty sure I know who he is, but I didn't have a smart remark. I said, you know what, Mr. Amazing, can I call you amazing? I said, I'd like to apologize. It was very rude of me to have upset you so. And I really do appreciate you tossing me these crumbs of bread and allowing me to open for someone as amazing as you are. So I'll be a good boy. So I went out the sixth night and I might have cleaned out the mini bar before doing so. And I did my act and good response. And the whole time I was doing it, I had a deck of cards in my hand. I'm doing this one hand cut thing that I'd learned as a kid. Cause I was always in the car. Cause we were always going somewhere. So I'd learn how to cut the cards with one hand. It looks really cool. And it's not, I can't do it anymore. I don't know what happened to that, but I was doing it. I'm doing my act and doing the thing. And I get to the end of it and I said, I know magic too.
And you see at this point, that's when you start asking questions about where is it going to go. And so I said, it's actually a riddle really. What do you get, and I had this deck of cards, when you cross a two-bit
[00:15:23]
magician with a second-rate hat comic and I fanned those cards across the front row of the stage and I went, the amazing Geeseback. As I walked past him I went, now clean that shit off. He was like, you can see the headband throttling. But there is more to the story ladies and gentlemen, a life lesson. If you ever hire an opening act, don't give them the whole $5,000 up front. I appreciate the opportunity to come up here and do this. Laughter is cool. We haven't been given a lot of things to laugh about, right? But now we got some stuff to laugh about. Laughter is cleansing. It comes from the soul. It's like washing everything away. People get mad at us because we start laughing, right? Because everybody in our lives, and there's family members here, and if I've upset you, well, sorry. That's just how I am. But we've been through a lot and we've experienced a lot. And laughing is a beautiful, beautiful thing that we're allowed to do. And whenever I sobered up finally and got into this, for those of you who care, tomorrow when I'm looking more normal and acting more normal and whatever, I'm the executive director of Benchmark Recovery.
You're welcome. Laughter. I slacked my way into this job just like I slacked my way into every other job. But I'm effective. Laughter. What do we always say? Less than conventional. That's why I have to work for a non-licensed facility so I can do whatever I want. But I don't know. People get sobered. That's crazy, isn't it? It's funny, man. All the education in the world and we are part of a thing that gets people sober. That's crazy. I don't want to come down on them. I'm sure they have a lot of letters at the end of their name they need to carry around with them.
And that's cool. Laughter. I got letters too. I just choose to not use them. It's okay. But anyway, I retired from comedy a year before I even thought about stopping drinking and doing drugs. A lot of people are like, so you quit comedy because you're in clubs and you couldn't be around drinking and drugs. See, if anyone ever is in the entertainment field and they say they quit because of the fact that being around that might make them drink or do drugs, then number one, you're going to have to probably take a hard look at their recovery and number two, they're probably a shitty entertainer. I mean, honestly. But I've watched people come, people who didn't have a comedy career. I'm going to get serious for a moment here. People who did not have a comedy career at all stand up in the podiums and try to make a career out of comedy off of you guys. And I swore to God that I would never do that. I watched these people that are recovery comedians and I go, you never really could make it doing the real thing, could you? And if you're one of them, call them 1JD. Write some inventory. Because the real comedians that are out there busting their ass playing six nights a week, Tuesday nights in Hattiesburg, Mississippi getting
[00:20:00]
beer bottles thrown at them because it was supposed to be a comedy club, but apparently it was a biker bar. Busting their ass to do it. So the reason I'm up here tonight is because of Brian C. and Sarah P.. I love these two people right here very much. Very much. And Sarah is the driving force. Seeing strong females in recovery. Round of applause for strong females in recovery. After tonight, except for the yearly alumni deal that I do, because the old man up here in the picture told me one time I was going to do it. And he didn't ask you for anything. He told you you were going to do it. I'm retired. So if anyone is looking for a comedian to do your sober event or whatever, there's a whole bunch of them out there on the internet that apparently they're not happy with me. Probably right now. So check them out. So I want to finish this little shindig and I appreciate you guys a lot. You guys are great. I want to finish this more of a serious note. I had a unique opportunity in 99. The holiness, the Dalai Lama was visiting the United States and he was a Louis Black fan. Do you guys know Louis Black? Yeah? Apparently his holiness is a Louis Black fan. He wanted to see Louis Black perform and Mitch Hepburn was at the time and Louis scrambled for an opening act for this particular state thing and I was opening for Mitch. So by proxy, I had the opportunity to perform before the Dalai Lama. And I remember it man. I remember it. I'm going to get spiritual on you for a minute so you guys pay attention.
I did my thing, Mitch did his thing, Louis did his thing. I played it cool. I had 10 minutes and Clinton was there and that was hard. I stayed away from Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater and anything that's Bill Clinton, I stayed away from it. So I played it out and there was a reception afterwards and a receiving line and I'll never remember it. We're standing there and his holiness made his way through the crowd and everybody got real hush and he came up to us and he was looking at us and just in his presence, the serenity around it and I'll never, he took off his glasses and kind of held them down and he was just cleaning them with his robe and I'll never forget those words he said to me and I'm going to give them to you so you guys can take it with you.
He cleaned his glasses and he put them back on and he looked at us and he went, you fuckers are alright. And you guys are alright too man. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.