Rich Vos’ Comedy Club Graveyard and Other Scary Gigs

Published by Interrobang Staff at October 31, 2016

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Rich Vos has a brand new album out. You might not know it because Rich is shy about promoting, but if you haven’t heard, Rich Vos Five hit stores on Friday, October 28th. It’s a fantastic album that focuses more on material than crowd work this time around. Rich taped the hour at the Albany Funny Bone. There is nobody like Rich Vos– not only his comedy, but just the way he navigates the universe on a day to day basis. Just being Rich Vos makes for great comedy and Rich always knows how to exploit his own Vos-ness to make his audience laugh. On the album, he shares plenty of his signature cheapness and mistrust of others– there’s a great piece on the album about Rich’s weirdness with cans of soda that is the kind of funny that makes you spit up your own coffee and then hit rewind to make sure you heard him right. There are also stories about his attempts to negotiate with a funeral director after his brother died, trying to get around the rules when adopting a dog for his daughter, and possibly the best answer ever for why women should stop trying to change the men they are in love with.

We talked with Rich to promote the new album, and since it’s Halloween today, we talked about the shitty scary hell gigs and long dead clubs that Rich’s career has long out lived. We’re sharing our top 5 stories about clubs from Rich’s past- some good, but mostly bad of course. “Clubs close most of the time ’cause they’re trying to cut back and especially with the talent,” Rich said. “I’m grateful for all the nice club owners I really am. There’s a lot of them,” he said name-checking just a few that he loves like The Cellar in New York, The Stand, Gotham, Helium, and Brad Garrett’s room in Vegas that he calls the best comedy room in Las Vegas. “They treat you with respect.” Respecting the comics, Rich said, is one of the keys to a good club. “Club owners that respect their talent and don’t cut back are the clubs that get better shows and usually last longer. Why do you think the Comedy Cellar does so well? Cause they take care of the comics. Manny, when he was alive, would sit every night with the comics. He loved comics. And we would eat and talk politics and we would talk comedy and that’s why the club does so well. The owner was involved with everybody.”

Buy Rich Vos Five on iTunes or on Amazon.com now. On to the stories…..

Rich Vos, Prop Comic and Other Ghosts of New Jersey Comedy

“Rascals, both Rascals– and I loved Rascals. Those were my favorite,” he said referring to the clubs that started in West Orange, NJ and expanded to Monmouth County. Performing comedy at Rascals was an early goal for Rich Vos and so was the Penny Arcade in Clark, NJ. “My first dream was to work the Penny Arcade,” he remembered. It’s gone now of course. “I remember going down there and watching comics and going, these guys are fucking the funniest. They’re hacks, now. I know who they are, and they’re fucking hacks. But I thought they were the funniest people alive. And that’s when I started doing comedy and I go, someday I’ll work this place, the Penny Arcade.” And he ended up working there, at the club near his house. “It was the best weekend comedy club in NJ at the time.”

Before Rascals and the Penny Arcade, there was the Charter House. “I remember when I first started, I was so bad. It was my fourth time on stage at the time. Everybody that knew me from in town was there and I was so bad. I had props.” Pause here to just picture that. Rich Vos. Props. Rich was booking the room for extra money at the time- one nighters- and would bring in headliners from New York. “It was like my fifth or sixth time on stage. And I was so bad– I had these props, and it was so racist– I couldn’t believe that I did this.” He continued, “I did a black person’s Christmas stocking. I took this gigantic sweat sock, and I pulled out an Afro pick, a chicken wing, a watermelon rind. I took out the most racists stuff- it was so bad, I was so bad, the props were so bad.” He described another one of his props as the arms he had cut off of a big doll. “I would put my hands in my sleeve and I would hold onto the doll arms and I’d come out with these little hands and I’d go, ‘let’s have a big hand for the other comic!’ And you’d see these little doll hands. I was so fucking bad. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know! I saw this prop guy Lenny Schultz right? And I thought that was what you were supposed to do. I had the worst props.” He also described inhaling a cigarette, putting the smoke in a jar and call it Farrah Fawcett’s fart that he had saved as a prop.

Bill Hicks on the first Rascals Stage

He also described other nightmares. A guy who wouldn’t pay him, so Rich went into where he was staying, took his TV- which was gigantic in those days- and took it home as payment. “It was fucking gigantic. If it was a car, it would be a paneled station wagon. But the TV lasted us for like eight fucking years!” And he describes another club owner that shared his coke with Rich, but then wanted to blow Rich. “And I go….’oh noooooo.’ No. I felt weird cause I did all his coke. I didn’t know he wanted to blow me.”

It wasn’t all bad. He described Rascals as his favorite club before it changed owners and was run into the ground. “My dream was to someday work Rascals. It was THE fucking club. They had Rascals Comedy Hour. I did that a few times. You can look at those pictures online, I had the long hair. My wife was watching my set and she said, ‘man, you were so confident for someone that looked like you.’ They were the best clubs. They were packed on the weekends. Packed. They were great clubs and then someone bought them and some stock thing, took them from the owners and ran them into the ground. It was sad to see Rascals go because they were great fucking clubs, both of them.”

Ghosts of the Florida One-Nighters

Rich told the story of a particularly awful weekend earlier on in his career, which based on some markers in the story, we’re guessing this was 1992. “I was married, so I was doing these one-nighters in Florida. I just had to earn money; I had a family, I had kids. So I was doing this place in Florida, it was basically in the day, a Chuck E. Cheese. And at night they had comedy shows.” Rich described the curtains that would open and you would see mechanical puppets, and it was just bad. “Now, I’m already depressed because I drove all the way down there, to Florida from Jersey. So I’m doing this fucking place, and all I keep hearing on the radio in the Miami area is Colin Quinn and Mario Joyner taping their HBO special at some theater. “Come watch their taping…of the special,” and I’m fucking already depressed cause I’m working a fucking puppet– I’m working at Chuck E Cheese and I’m thinking to myself, what happens if they tape the special and decide to go for pizza after? So I do two nights there, and it was fucking horrible. I’m not a great comic either at the time, but it was horrible. All these clubs are closed, now.” Rich didn’t remember the name of the club, but said he would call it “Rich Vos wants to commit suicide.”

“So the next night I’m doing a club in Homestead, Florida before their big tornado. It’s some fucking hillbilly joint. So I’m on stage and I’m not bombing, but I’m just getting through it. It’s a fucking battle. I do 45 minutes, and I’m the headliner…” Here he pauses to wonder whether he was actually the headliner or just the guy who went on last. “Anyway, I’m like thank God this is over with. The owner of the club, an ex-cop about 6’4 comes walking on stage– swear to god holds my hand– and says to the audience, you guys were rude. I think you were very rude to the comic. I think you should apologize and he’ll do another 20 minutes. I’m like WHAT!? I don’t even think I had another twenty fucking minutes.”

The next night, Vos described driving to Key Largo, just depressed beyond belief, and a song comes on the radio. “Homeward Bound by Paul Simon comes on. So now tears are pouring from my face. I’m crying on my way to a gig. Like what’s going on in my life? I’ve got kids, I’m doing these shitty one-nighters, and I wish I was Homeward Bound. I get to the shitty one-nighter, I’m on stage and a girl walks by, with hot pants on and a false leg. She starts heckling me, drunk, and her leg attached to whatever the fuck it attached to in her hot pants and I just snapped at her, Bitch I”ll beat you with your own leg you, horrible human being. I got in the car and drove back to New Jersey. Fucking misery.”

Mac’s Famous Bar Cocktail Lounge in Daytona Beach

He also tells a story from the infamous Mac’s Bar and Grill in Daytona Beach about a really hot waitress and a bag of coke that’s probably best left unshared, and said he used to play Bennington’s comedy club, but he always bombed.

There is a caveat. “The good thing is, years later I saw the special Colin taped, and he fucking pretty much ate it, so that was a little reward. It’s the one where he sat on the end of the stage in his sport leather coat. So when I bring back the horrible memories of that fucking weekend, I can always think well at least I wasn’t bombing on HBO either.” The Colin Quinn special he references is “One Night Stand” and yes, you can watch it on YouTube.

Nightmare in the Poconos

For anyone who didn’t grow up in the Northeast, the Poconos are full of all inclusive ‘couples’ resorts which, particularly in the 80’s, were these little honeymoon factories that just jammed love and sex into every corner of their hotels. They were expensive, but still pretty shabby and advertised themselves to be grand and romantic with champagne glass bathtubs and heart-shaped Jacuzzi tubs. They also had entertainment at night, including comedy. Rich didn’t name the resort he was talking about, but some of the famous ones included Caesar’s, Penn Hills, Pocono Palace, and a predecessor to Mount Airy Lodge.

Rich told a story about going to the honeymoon capital of the world, alone, to perform while going through a bad divorce. “I drive into the place and it’s nothing, but couples on horses and buggies or chariots or whatever you call them. Heart shaped fucking lights, and they go, we’re all sold out, you have to stay across the street. And it’s a shady, one of these horrible motels. I gotta go on stage and I’m sitting in front of my hotel crying my eyes out. And then I have to go make 150 couples laugh as my wife is packing her stuff. At the end of the night, I’m sitting in some heart shaped tub jerking off and crying and looking at myself in front of eight mirrors. Jacuzzi tub, mirrors, jizz in my eyes as I look at myself in disgust, while my wife is packing.”

A heart-shaped bathtub at a honeymoon getaway in the Poconos

The same weekend, there was also a guy with a terrible toupee giving Rich a hard time who ended up throwing his toupee across the room at Rich. He also had a fight with the entertainment director of the resort who he says called him one of the worst comics. “I was making $600 a weekend to headline. A few couples walk out on me and the program director or whatever you call him, the entertainment director came up to me after the show and said I hate everything you do.” Vos went back to the same resort years later after doing Last Comic Standing. “I went back there and for one show I was getting $5,000. He was in the audience and I go, you know what’s weird? I worked this place maybe 7 years ago, for $600 and the entertainment director who is sitting in the room now said I was the worst comic he’s ever seen. I’m making $5K right now and I’m basically doing the same shit.”

The Comedy Stop at the Tropicana

There was a club in Atlantic City that closed recently that Rich was definitely not a fan of, mostly because of the club’s owner. “In my opinion, he wasn’t a good person. Let’s just say that.” Rich remembered one night he was booked to show up as the middle act. “So I get there, and I see on the poster, an impressionist and a magic act. And I go. obviously, I’m going to have to host now. So I’m furious and arguing with his daughter who runs the club. ‘He told me I was gonna middle.’ So he calls me yelling at me, you don’t talk to my daughter this way. I go look, you told me one thing, so whatever.” Rich says he handled the situation by going to pick up his $200 advance. “So he puts the $200 in my hand, I go ‘tell Bob I quit,’ and I took my $200 went to my room, got my fucking suitcase and I left. A year or two later, I called him again for work and he goes ‘man this guy’s got a lot of nerve’, laughs. I’m the one who always goes let bygones by bygones.”

Another Fallen Club in the Northeast

There was a club outside of a major East Coast city, and Rich remembered middling there once. The club owner told him he could headline the next time he came back, and even booked him as a headliner. “Then calls me a week before and says you can’t headline, you’re not working this week. I go ‘why?’ He goes ‘I don’t think you’re good enough.’ I go ‘don’t bullshit, you just got someone cheaper, go fuck yourself. When your club is closed and you’re sticking your dumb fucking face in a mirror, snorting it up, I’ll still be doing comedy.’ So his club closed and I saw him at a function, and I was like ‘oh fuck remember that? Remember when you fired me?'”

The Comic Strip in Ft. Lauderdale

“I used to love, love the Comic Strip in Ft. Lauderdale. It was a good room, it was crowded, I played golf, and girls– in Florida, there were so many girls. I was sober, but it was so much fun to just work in the Comic Strip.” But the Strip, Rich said was typical of what can happen with a great club. It went downhill, and now it’s gone. “It started off, you stayed in a condo which was nice, they had, then it went to some hotel, and then it worked its way to a cheaper hotel,” he said. “The club owners get greedy. They drink, they party, then they bring cheaper acts, and crappier places, trying every which way to cut costs, and that’s why they don’t last.”

“Here’s my last thing. If you don’t cut back and you respect your comics and they respect you back, hopefully, your club will stay open.” A perfect ender, but he wanted to add one more thought.

“And if you don’t pay me what I deserve, go fuck your mother.”