In your bio material, you say that Jack Benny was your comedy hero. What was it about Mr. Benny that made him your idol? Were you ever lucky enough to meet him?

Jack Benny was such an influence because of his dry delivery and timing. He made me use my imagination on the radio and then later on television. I got to see his deadpan delivery. He saw me at a Playboy Club with my partner moondogg (sic) in 1973 and he invited us to be on Kup's Show (Irv Kupcinet-hosted syndicated talker) in Chicago on his 83rd birthday. I have a picture of him and me sitting on a panel together and I have such a big afro all you can see is my nose. He told me I had the best delivery of anyone he had seen in years and he usually didn't care for props but in my case he didn't really notice them.

You were born and raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota and, after living in Los Angeles, you now make your home in the area once again. What is it about South Dakota that made you want to return? Does living in South Dakota hurt your show business career in any way?

I came back to South Dakota because I could see where the comedy business was going. I had been in nightclubs for 25 years and was making as much money as you could make at that time without having a television show or a hit record or a movie career, so I bailed out and decided to re-start my career.

I ran into Johnny Mathis at a golf tournament and he invited me to come and work with him. That appealed to me because I could go on in the middle of his show rather than open and I could do my music with a 36-piece orchestra and people paid a lot of money and came dressed up and it was theater seating and I didn't have to put up with an emcee doing dick jokes or a middle act doing dick jokes to a comedy audience who was only in a comedy club to begin with because of free passes (which comedy clubs were beginning to hand out by the basketful since they had stopped paying headliners like myself who had built up their clubs in the beginning because the owners got greedy and thought "What the hell, let's headline middle acts and charge the same price , no one will notice for a while, we can lower the pay standard and then we can bring back the headliners for half the money.")

I made the right decision to move because, within six months, comedy club owners were calling me and wondering why I hadn't called in for my next year's dates. And before I could answer they were saying in the next breath, "Oh, by the way, we're cutting back on the money this year, and then I would say, "Gee, I guess that's why I haven't called."

Then I made my deal with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Some people in the business think cruise lines are the last resort in a career. Well, I have state of the art lighting, sound and great technicians to run them and magnificent theaters. I've always worked clean, so if there are a few kids or older people in the audience I don't have to make any concessions in my show because I've always worked that way. I only work one night per week, I have great opening acts and wonderful musical conductors and musicians, and I stay in beautiful hotels going to and from the ships with first class travel arrangements. I also began performing on The Grand Ole Opry one weekend every three months which is a dream come true for someone in South Dakota to work with some of the best musicians ever. My only worry is that more entertainers will begin moving to South Dakota.

After moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1970's, you became roommates with Steve Martin. How did the two of you meet? Were you supportive of each other or did being in the same business make you competitive?

Steve Martin and I began perfecting our comedy acts at the same time at Ledbetter's Club and even worked as a duo for a short time and shared a house with Michael Johnson. (An incredible musician and one of the top ten funniest people I have ever seen in live performance.)

Steve and I were very supportive of each other and after he bcame successful he was always there for me, even after I became a big disappointment to him. He was always bailing me out of dumb things that were a direct result of my twenty-year drug addiction. After not hearing from me for years I called him from rehab and he sent money along with my parents so I was able to stay and finish my treatment.

I just got a note from him recently and he said he played my CD "Old Glory" all the way down and back in the car when he went to visit his mother--A great friend.

How did the comedy scene of 1976 differ from the comedy scene of today?

The comedy scene today, except for some extreme examples, differs from the comedy scene of 1976 only in that, in 1976, we developed our skills off genuine laughter. Today it gets it's timing from shock reaction, whoops and yells-- very little sustained applause or genuine, deep belly laughs. I might be mistaken but I don't think we yelled our delivery at audiences all that much and we could actually deliver five to ten minutes of material without once uttering the phrase, "You know what I'm sayin'?"

You were one of the few comics who was a regular at both the Improv and the Comedy Store? Which club hired you first and why were you permitted to play both?

The Comedy Store hired me first. Muledeer and moondogg first appeared there for Sammy Shore. The improv group was Barry Levinson, Craig T. Nelson and Rudy DeLuca. I was permitted to work both clubs because from 1975 on, I was doing a lot of TV appearances and after the strike we had a little more leverage.

You've made over 250 television appearances. Which one was your first?

My first television show was Art Linkletter's Talent Scouts. I was in a group on RCA Records called The New Society. This was in 1966. My first television show as a comedian was The John Byner Comedy Hour on CBS in 1970. I was a cast regular.

Which television appearances had the biggest impact on your career?

The television shows that had the biggest impact were probably my first Tonight Shows and the first HBO comedy special, Freddie Prinze & Friends, all in 1976. Dinah And Her New Best Friends on CBS in 1977 got me my host duties on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert through 1980 and that got me tons of exposure following Saturday Night Live on NBC every weekend for three years.

At one point in your career, you were traveling around the country lugging 300 pounds of props, two guitars and 15 audio tapes. Did you travel with a roadie? Have you scaled back your act any?

I had several roadies/musicians/sound techs/good friends. Billy Heaslip was the first and he went off to become a very succesful lighting director. Barry Bookin for about five years and he is a great friend and now manages several comedians and musicians. Randy Hart I met when he was Roger Miller's conductor and keyboard player. I travelled with Roger extensively in the '80s and Randy and I worked up an act where he worked on and off the stage during a performance and we did incredible musical numbers together, thanks to his musicianship, and he was one of the best strraight men I've ever seen.

I have scaled my act back from 300 pounds of props to 30 pounds of props. I try to lose ablout two to three pounds a year as I keep adding more and more musical numbers.

Before becoming a standup comic, you were in several bands and you also performed as part of the comedy duo The Muledeer and Moondog Medicine Show. Do you prefer working alone? Would you ever consider working with someone else again?

I prefer working alone, but I really am looking forward to having a fulltime sound technician and a musical director sometime soon. Being able to have my own band again would be the absolute dream for me.

Was there any one person in particular who hepled your comedy career?

David Letterman took me on several of my first Tonight Shows when he hosted and on his NBC show a lot. David Brenner got me on my first Tonight Shows. David Letterman was always my favorite act. I would never miss his performances whenever we worked together. People who never saw him as a standup comic have no idea how good he was. When I talk about who really helped my comedy career I guess I would have to say that one of my best friends ever, Valery Pappas, and my beautiful wife, Nita, who got me through rehab and aftercare so I am still alive to perform and have a career.

There are some folks in the business who criticize any comic who isn't a pure monologist. What would you say to these people?

I don't know about "pure" or "monologist." I just enjoy getting the BIG laughs. I guess I'm just too spoiled and too set in my ways to change.

You've been in the business for 30 years. Aside from updating and writing new material, has your act changed significantly over the years?

My act has change about 70 per cent over the years, but I have been accused of not changing my act a lot. The reason for this being that I have six or seven pieces in my act that keep working better and better every year and I'll be damned if I am going to give them up if I still see people really enjoying them. I have four jokes in my act that I actually wrote 30 to 35 years ago that practically everyone has used or heard someone else do for years and years. After awhile you just give up trying to defend yourself or your material and you just have to be satisfied that you do your own material better than anyone else does it and just let it go.

These days, you're described more as a "Country Comedian." Was this a conscious change on your part or was it something that just occurred naturally? Is it even an apt description of what you do?

I am a country comedian only in the fact that I have over one hundred appearances on The Nashville Network. I was a regular on Hee Haw for a year-and-a-half, I do several appearances on The Grand Ole Opry every year and have appeared hundreds of times with everyone from Brooks and Dunn and Willie Nelson to Roger Miller and Merle Haggard. I also taped The History Of Country Comedy with Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall this year and have a country CD out entitled "Old Glory," but I don't think that makes me a country comedian does it?

Seriously, country television has just been more open to me and my guitar than network television. After variety shows dried up I wasn't welcome in the industry. Actually I never was truly welcomed on any TV show without first getting hassled about my guitar or wanting a stage monitor or a sound check before taping. Consequently I had a lot of unsatisfactory performances, in my opinion, because I KNOW how good it could have been musically if they would have taken the time to sound check me properly, but I never had a hit record, so I was always told that comics only need a microphone and a stool with a glass of water. My live act, at it's technical peak in 1976 through 1985, had nine audio cues and thirty minutes of rock 'n' roll and country music of which none was ever allowed on television.

Once you become a comic who makes the big bucks (and we're assuming you make the big bucks) does it become harder to break in new material or are you so confident at this point in your career that you feel comfortable doing whatever you want?

I can't wait to get on stage and try out new material. Plus I have always liked to do it on live television or big concerts when I really had to make it work. Some of my best lines came off my first Tonight Shows when I threw in things I'd never rehearsed or told them about beforehand. I liked to rehearse during the real gigs. Muledeer and Moondogg met on stage and developed the act up there. We never even saw each other between engagements.

I guess I made the big bucks for awhile. Anyway, it loooked like it on my tax returns from the mid 70's through the mid 80's. However, when you are in rehab and they have you figure up stuff in your using days, I don't think 2.3 million dollars on drugs and gambling in 25 years is very impressive, so we won't talk about that anymore except to say no alcohol and drugs for 14 years. And no cigarettes for two-and-a-half years and gambling is now just a recreational activity to be done anytime I feel like it. (Unless I am depressed or frustrated, then I just go for the food because I am an obsessive compulsive--which didn't help growing up in the food business with my father, so I remember when I was four years old being able to duck down behind the candy case and devour a Mars bar in two bites or kill a bottle of coke in two gulps or eat two or three raw weiners out of the meatcase in about 30 seconds and get away with it...and then graduating to working behind the theater concession stand in my early teens and ducking down behind the candy case and doing the same thing and trying not to get caught by my mother (who had a rear view mirror mounted in the ticket booth so she could monitor my actions while I dispensed candy, drinks and popcorn) and then having my father build the first super market in our area. (That's when my compulosions went big time--I mean I had a whole city of food, liquor and cigarettes at my disposal and my own key and, until I got caught, running my own steak and cigarette and liquor business to my friends.) I had a nice income to play pinball machines and go to the dog races.

The only thing I can say in my defense today is at least I never get distracted when answering questions--and you can go to the bank on that...Okay...back to the question...I don't think I make big bucks now. I know I have a much better quality of life than other comedians at my level do that, say, still live in New York or Los Angeles. And after what I see and hear about a lot of other guys like myself that came up in the clubs (at the same time as I did) and did Tonight Shows when they really meant something, but didn't achieve the Jerry Seinfeld, Letterman, Robin Williams, Shandling, etc. status.

I think I am very lucky to not have to go back into those clubs I mentioned earlier that we helped to build, and have to work now for club money. So in that respect I am quite rich. But big bucks? I don't think so. Jay Leno makes more money in three nights doing corporate gigs than I do going out on the road 220 days a year.

In answer to the rest of the question: I have no qualms about breaking in new material at this stage of my life but I always looked forward to it. Look, if you know it's funny do it..If you're just trying to be hip, cool or clever and using your germs of wisdom to establish an attitude up there, you pretty much deserve what you get up there. I've never gone along with the bad audience theory. If it's technically right for me (sound,stage,lights,monitors etc.), it's your responsibility to be funny. It's not that hard to figure out what's funny or should be funny up there. I'm lucky--a long time ago I decided to be funny with funny material instead of attitude, image and profane crutches and decided I would rather time off a laugh instead of a whoop or a reaction. So how hard can it be for me at this stage of my career to do anything new?

As far as new material, I finally have a writing partner after 40 years. His name is Blakeslee Teach and he is a fine musician and has a great comedic mind. During the late '70s he performed at The Comedy Store under the name Festival Twang and did quite well but got distrracted like I did and opted for the life of a rock star. But now, after 20 years, we have renewed our friendship, we are both sober and he now joins me on the road whenever possible to write and work on music and he helps with my sound tech and prop needs. He also services my website and, since he makes a good part of his living with computers in Seattle, he is invaluable to me in lots of other capacities and he is very patient with both me and my wife, Nita, who joined the web generation much later than one probably should have.

Do you still enjoy doing standup? How is your attitude about the business different from when you first started?

Yes I still enjoy performing. In fact I pretty much envy anyone that could work at least 40 to 45 weeks a year. Like all my other compulsions I need to work, but not anything just to be working. Is the business different than when I first started? I wish I wasn't so tired from typing I would go into detail. Let's just leave it at this: The only thing that hasn't changed is a lot of this business is still who you know, who you're related to, who you are dating and if their mother, father, uncle, lover, etc. is in the business, or your parents' best friends are producers or agents or you can just hang out. I mean really hang out in the right places at the right time. If I hear one more actor, musician or producer, director, etc. whine about how extra hard it was for them to get in to the business because their mother, father or whatever was a big star, director, producer-- whatever-- in this business and so they had so much more to prove than anyone else?!!!! GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Pull out a bunch of movie and television credits sometime and do a "Roots" That is the only thing that has never changed and must have something to do with at least 60per cent of show business and AT LEAST 80 per cent of the really, really sucessful part of it today.

You've opened for the biggest of the big in the music industy, invluding Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson and currently, Johnny Mathis. We wouldn't dare ask you who is your favorite, but we would like to know which musical act attracts the most appreciative comedy crowds?

The funniest musicians that I have ever known are Roger Miller, Michael Johnson and Vince Gill. I work a lot with The Smothers Brothers a lot now and they still have great taste and delivery and were a great inspiration to me and hundreds of others when we first got in the business. My audiences with Johnny Mathis couldn't be any better. I know I'm doing something right because his fans are legendary and they let me come out and do Country music and rockabilly songs in the middle of his show. As I said before, they dress up, pay a lot of money to get in, they read. They remember me fromm the '70s and '80s, and, because of the nature of my material, they feel safe and not threatened and there's not a tatoo or a pierced digit in the bunch. They're REAL individuals.

You will be the envy of many when they discover you perform and participate regularly in celebrity pro-am golf tournaments. Have you ever thought about putting together your own tournament, perhaps one that features standup comics?

I do about ten to twelve great celebrity and pro-am tournaments a year. Golf was my new addiction when I got straight and it opened up a whole new career for me. Everything I do now work-wise is indirectly related to golf. My wife and I do our own tournament in Spearfish South Dakota every year for Artemis House, a shelter for battered women and children. Through my winnings at The Crosby for the past 10 years we have been able to subsidize their meager budget with our fundraising endeavors. Although I got shut out this year, several friends of the Crosby sent us money and at another tournament in Reno this past July, John O'Hurley helped me raise an extra $17,000, so it's been another great year for an 18 handicapper.

As to whether I like to do my own tournament with other comics, I hung out backstage at The Comedy Store and The Improv for over 20 years with comics and I think someone else should have a golf tournament just stuffed with all of those great comic minds and I'll just be one of the participants.

How many benefit shows do you do each year?

I do a dozen or so golf tournaments a year and about six other fundraisers. Occasionally I even get paid to do a fundraiser. It took a while for me to catch on. I remember coming offstage at a huge fundraiser once and the audience reaction was quite good and the chairman of the fundraising committee said to me, "Wow! We gave The Oakridge Boys $35,000 dollars to do this last year and your show went over twice as good." Since I was standing there after doing a show for free I said, "Great! Then how about giving me $5,000?" The chairman froze, stammered and stuttered and then kind of slipped away. I never got asked back to that particular tournament but I learned that all charity fundraisers aren't strictly charity, but for some reason charitiers seem to think that if you're a comedian and a golfer you can work for free and provide endless entertainment. Yet all the other celebs there are never called upon to act, direct, throw a pass, do a reprise of their commercials or reminisce about that semi-recurring role they had on that soap opera 20 years ago in front of an audience of a couple of thousand corporate sponsors who are putting up all the big bucks for the event in the first place. I won't name names but there are a couple of golf events that I entertained at the past couple of years and I was one of only two entertainers on the formal show night and, after being used in that capacity, was never asked back. Yet I was incredibly responsible for making the event a success to the point where several million dollars were raised both nights. A word of warning out there to you late 40's- and early 50's-something comics out there who have been hanging out at the driving range a lot lately in hopes of getting into this line of "work": Always make sure there are at least five or six acts on the show. Singers do two songs, comics do eight minutes and the emcee shouldn't sing OR do comedy. Occasionally you'll run into a comic or musician that thinks he's doing an audition for The Tonight Show and ends up doing 15 or 20 minutes too long. Then they give you that wide-eyed look of wonder that only desperate and inconsiderate comedians can do when you tell them they were on too long. Easy solution-- They never get to come back.

Since you seem to be focusing on casinos, corporate, cruise ships and fundraisers, will you ever again work a comedy club? Do you have any desire to return?

I don't think I could work a comedy club again..I am not a big enough draw to go in for one night and take the door and frankly, I think I am too clean to ever work clubs again. Why? Are they running out of comics?

Does having your own production company (Duck and Cover) mean you know longer have an agent or a manager?

No more agent and manager. I had the same manager for almost 20 years and God bless him. I got him a lot of work the last ten years. I guess I wasn't the easiest act to book, but I also have to remember that a good part of that time I was high and so I was content just to be left alone out on the road with my addictions and never push for the really important things. As long as I thought I had the respect of my peers I thought that was all you needed to feel put upon and blame every one but yourself for your career running along rather smoothly in the "stall" mode.

I work with lots of agents and some now with William Morris, but really Nita is what keeps everything going. Through my golf tournaments we do our corporate networking and I am constantly ever-hopeful that something in television or film will come up but I don't know how I can think that, since I am working on it from Spearfish South Dakota. So I just go along and wait for the next little surge. This is an honest-to-God fact about my career: Every seven years I get hot for about three months.. Had it happen again about two months ago but it was such a setback I'm not quite ready to talk about it at any length yet. Let's just say it was one of the lifetime breaks of my career. And I had even completed filming one segment before I was cut...so...anyway...Back to happier stuff.

You said your new CD "Old Glory" is taking your career in a whole new direction. Have you wanted to be a "legitimate" recording artist all along?

"Old Glory" has been a Godsend. Written by a songwriter named Cinda and with music and production by Grammy-winning Carl Jackson in Nashville and recorded with Ben Hall, Buddy Holly's original engineer on all of his first sessions. I've performed on The Grand Ole Opry a half dozen times this year and now I have charts so I can do it with a full 36-piece orchestra with Johhny Mathis. It's great!. I mean what more could I want? There is an agent right now that is trying to arrange for me to do it with The Boston Pops in front of 400,000 people next Fourth of July. Have I always wanted to be a legitimate recording artist all along? Nothing else! Almost made it. I'm a funny musician with a brand new single CD. No record company or distribution as yet but I can still sell all I can carry after a live performance. Thirty-five minutes of my one-hour show is straight music now; more or less depending on whatever accompaniment I have at my disposal from job to job.

You're probably tired of giving out advice to up and coming comedians so, instead, what advice would you give to up-and-coming fly fishermen?

Same advice I give to any up and coming golfer: Swing slowly and keep your head still.

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