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Callaroga Shark Media.
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Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack and on Saturdays this summer,
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I've been doing comedy deep dives. Today we'll take a
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look at Ralphie May, who was a friend of mine.
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Two days before he died, Ralphie May won Casino Comedian
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of the Year at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas.
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He was performing a residency at Harris. Ralphie was also sick.
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He was battling pneumonia. He had to cancel a few shows.
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He went to the ceremony anyway, accepted the award and
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posted about it on social media with the hashtag no apologies,
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which was close enough to a personal philosophy for Ralphie
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May that it functions as his epitaph. Two days later,
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October sixth, twenty seventeen, he was found dead in his
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Las Vegas home at forty five years old. The way
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Ralphie May died, having just been honored for a career
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built in casinos and clubs rather than on streaming formers
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or podcast empires at age forty five is a summary
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of a career that didn't get the recognition it deserved
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when it was happening, and it has gotten even less
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since had Ralphie been around now with streaming and podcasts,
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the guy was amazing. Ralphie doesn't come up in the
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rotation of names when people talk about the great comedians
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of his era, and I'm going to talk about those
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folks for the next few weeks. Let's start at the beginning.
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Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised in Clarksville, Arkansas, and by
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age sixteen, had been in a car accident serious enough
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to put him in a coma for ten days and
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leave him with multiple broken bones. At age seventeen, he
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won a radio contest that gave him a chance to
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open for Sam Kennison. Opening for Sam Kennison at seventeen,
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Perhaps if you're younger, you don't understand the power of
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Sam Kennison. Sam was one of the most combustible and
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important comedians of that era, a former preacher who turned
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his entire religious background into fuel for one of the
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most ferocious stand up styles anybody had ever seen.
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And No, Jesus was never married. Guy never had a wife.
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No one I was never married because no wife would
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buy this story. In one hundred years, the disciples will,
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the believers will, No wife would buy this story. Good luck,
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good luck with this story. First of all, he leaves
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on Friday afternoon with twelve other guys.
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He's gone.
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He's gone for three days, no message, no way to
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get in touch with her. He comes home Monday afternoon
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looking like he has a slapped It seems like he's
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partied out. Man, Missus Jesus just waiting. Well, I'm glad
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you can find your way home, Sada.
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Where's your twelve friends? Won't get a job? How are
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the Yeah Disciples?
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My hash?
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They're loser.
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The first time you saw Sam Kinnison, you were absolutely
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like Wow. Sam was playing in big rooms and generating controversy.
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The comedy world was paying attention, and a seventeen year
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old kid from Arkansas opened up for him.
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That time, Sam was the hottest comic in the country.
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I mean it was like def Leppard coming to town.
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It was huge, and so I entered the contest. I
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won the contest. On the way over, Sam was like, hey, kid,
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are you nervous. I'm like, no, I'm not nervous.
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Kid.
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There's going to be thirty five hundred people there to night,
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and nobody paid to see you.
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That kid, Ralphie made did well enough that Sam referred
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him to Sam's home club, the Comedy Workshop in Houston.
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But the Comedy Workshop a close by the time Ralphie
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could get there, so Ralphie wounded up at the Comedy
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Showcase of Houston club that catered primarily to black audiences.
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It was at the Comedy Showcase where Ralphie May learned
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how to perform. And now that you have that nugget,
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if you've seen Ralphie's performances, you can see it in
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the performance right. It was a white kid from Arkansas
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playing a black room, developing timing and crowd work skills
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in a context that's more demanding and more direct than
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most of the rooms where white comedians of his generation
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were cutting their teeth. He talked about what that did
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for him. He said, you can't hide in that room.
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The crowd tells you immediately and honestly whether something's working,
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and the standard for being genuinely funny rather than technically
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competent was higher and less forgiving. Then in two thousand
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and three, Last Comic Standing, that's probably where most people
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first encountered Ralphie May. If you don't remember that show,
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I hated it. It was NBC's attempt to do for
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stand up comedy what American Idol had done for singing,
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a competition format with a live audience, real comedians, weekly eliminations,
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the whole thing. I'll progress for a second. Why I
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hated it is there were people doing well on that
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show because they had a good twenty seconds. They had
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a good minute. That's different than having five or eight
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or an hour. And I was programming the comedy channels
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that's serious, and people would walk down the hole and
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be like, Hey, how come you never play so and so?
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And I'd be like, because so and so has twenty
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seconds of material. I was not a fan.
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Ladies and gentlemen, how about a big round of applause
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from Houston, Texas for mister Ralphie May.
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Hey, what's up.
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My name is Rolfey May. I'm from Houston, Texas. I
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now live in a place called the Hood. I like
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living in the Hood. And my resolution this here, because
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I'm living in the Hood, is it was not to
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lose weight, because at this point, screw it, you know what.
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I mean said, this is more than a diet coke fixed.
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You know what I'm saying. Kids? My thinging this year
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was to.
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Be correct, not politically correct anymore, Okay, because I'm tired
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of it.
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You got to think about what group, and it's too much.
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It changes all the time.
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I just want to be correct, Like I don't say
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African American, okay, because I don't say European American for
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white people.
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I say black folks, right, what you're right? Right?
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Plus I live in the hood. I ain't never met
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black people. Hear any y'all been to Africa, That's what
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I thought, Morgan Dame, yacht or someplace. Y'all being like
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Compton Americans, right, Inglewood swap me to American Vietnamese New
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Salon American.
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Ralphie was an audience favorite. He was funny every week.
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He was likable. Note had more than twenty seconds. But
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who won? Dad Fan? You remember Dad Fan? Right?
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Okay, come down here. I want to pack joke for you.
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We'll got to do it right now here we'll go.
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I'm just gonna speak English. I'm just later her parents. Hey,
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don't want to do that. My mom's like, fang, that's
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not funny. Do you want to make fun of us?
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You want to find it? You wanna make fun of
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ancient time? Do you want to be a smock Iley?
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Do you want the smock check?
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And a PA's a beil.
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Like mom, chill out? I know to you, I know,
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chill that fang. Don't tell me what to Q. I
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do want to want to che I till now because
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I want.
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To chew I kill you. See this is what I'm
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saying about that show. Remember dad Fan? Have you heard
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of dad Fan? In twenty years?
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No?
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Dad Fan? Vietnamese American comedian from San Diego, who's fine.
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He has said in interviews since that he was as
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surprised as anyone that he one. The audience vote didn't
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go to Ralphie. Ralphie thought his weight was a factor
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that audiences at the voting stage made a calculation about
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who they wanted to be the face of the show,
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and the fat guy from Arkansas lost that calculation. Is
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that right? Is it wrong? Who knows? But Ralphie finished second.
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So a random memory of Ralphie that I have was
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I was watching the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon which
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I'm actually gonna do a deep dive on that as well.
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And my father loved that thing, and I remember putting
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it on late at night Millanite, and on comes Ralphie May,
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and I can't believe the clip is actually online. I'm
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gonna play somewhat for you now. I want you to
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pay attention here. So this is not a Ralphie May crowd, right,
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this is whoever's at the telethon late at night and
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outwalks this comedian. So it's not his people. And if
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you listen here, you'll listen to him. This struggles a
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bit of a word. But like the crowd's not like
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hooting and hollering. They're not really reacting early on here
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he's not really getting laughs. But listen to the laughs
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as he just fights through it. I can't believe this
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clip exists. And here's Ralphie May on the Jerry Lewis Telethon.
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Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to laugh. We welcome Ralphie May.
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Thank you for having me, and thank you for almost
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applauding till I got my big ass to the microphone.
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Appreciate that.
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Thank you, Thank you everyone watching at home the vampires
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on the East Coast, thank you for watching the telethon
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instead of the girls going wild Info Marshall one handed.
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Appreciate that trying to make the wad a better place.
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You know what I'm saying. I've had a great week
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here in Vegas. I had a great time at the
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South Point Casino.
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It's hilarious here.
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It's I'm from the South, so for me, the amount
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of mullets that are here are tremendous.
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There are a lot. Oh my gosh.
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I set up at Dearstown, not in front of the
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South Point Cassina away for him to come in. I
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haunt the mullet Ida, I'll call him. I'm like Mala Mala, Mala, Mala,
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Mala Mala Nascar, Nascar, Nascar. I sprinkle little crystal math
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on the ground. They'll come right to you. They really well.
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If you work with them and build up a trust,
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they'll take the tobacco right out of your hand.
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It's awesome. They are tremendous.
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Now about slipping into a bit of a naughty joke
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there on Labor Day, that's great. His debut album Just
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Correct in two thousand and five went platinum. That doesn't happen.
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It happened for Richard Pryor and Steve Martin a handful
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of others, and it happened for Ralphie May in two
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thousand and five, then Comedy Central specials Griffa a Nation
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in two thousand and six, Prime Cut in two thousand
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and seven, Austentatious in two thousand and eight, too Big
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to Ignore in twenty twelve. Four full hours for Comedy
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Central in six years. There were also two Netflix specials,
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Unruly in twenty fifteen and Imperfectly Yours in twenty sixteen.
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It was named one of Variety's ten Comics to Watch
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in two thousand and eight. We do have to talk
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about Raffie's weight, because that is part of the story.
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At one point he weighed as much as eight hundred pounds.
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He talked about his body on stage constantly and brilliantly.
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The self deprecation was genuine rather than performed. Some think
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the comedy industry, at its gatekeeping levels makes esthetic judgments
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about who gets to be taken seriously, who gets the
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premium booking, who gets talked about at festivals and industry
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events as the future of comedy. Ralphie may, by any
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objective measure of audience size and the quality of his output,
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belonging to those conversations, but never really broke through. His
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crowd work was extraordinary probably the best of his generation
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at the specific skill of taking what was going on
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in the room and turning it into comedy in real time.
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But crowd work back in those days didn't make the
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highlight reels. I'm telling you, I saw this guy perform
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live more than once, and every time I saw him,
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he killed. He was amazing. The casino years are the
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most misunderstood part of his career. Ralphie May, for roughly
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the last decade of his life, built his career around
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casino residencies and theaters markets that the prestige comedy circuit
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doesn't prioritize. The casino circuit done right is one of
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the most demanding and lucrative ways to build a sustainable
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stand up career. You're performing for large rooms multiple nights
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a week, you're developing material at a big pace, and
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you're reaching an audience that's not the usual comedy club crowd,
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which means you're actually doing harder work in front of
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rooms than aren't. Automatically in your corner, you know, somebody goes, hey,
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here's two tickets to go see the comedian. They're not
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necessarily going to see Ralphie May. They're seeing a comedian
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who happens to be Ralphie May and Ralphie was good
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at it. I knew Ralphie personally. At one point we
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were doing some radio shows on Serious and I hung
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out with him in La I've told the story on
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the main podcast a few times, but I will tell
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it again here today. I know at some point I
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was hooking up with them. Maybe you picked me up
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at the hotel. I don't really remember. I do remember
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that we were driving around in his car and we
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were eventually going to go to the radio studio, and
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he asked if I minded if we got some food
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while he got his car detailed, and we did exactly that.
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We went and got his car detailed, and then we
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got Mexican food somewhere, and just like an awesome guy,
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cool guy to hang out with. I always enjoyed my
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time with him. And then every year at Christmas time,