Unmasked: With Comic Dom Irrera

Veteran stand-up comic Dom Irrera was the special guest on the series, Unmasked, this week at Sirius XM. In addition to having a long career of performing comedy around the country and internationally, Dom Irrera has had several stand up specials, and has appeared on most talk shows including Letterman, The Tonight Show, The Daily Show, and The View.

Ron Bennington: Hi Dom. [audience applauds wildly]

Dom Irrera: Geez- I just woke up. I didn’t expect this. From my Xanax-induced nap.

Ron Bennington: This is sounding like the most-loved comic, ever, the way they’re crazy about you.

Dom Irrera: That’s nice. They know I’m close to the end, that’s why.

Ron Bennington: It’s good to have you here. You joked about being near the end, but before you got out here, we were joking about people we outlived. To stay on the road, and stay alive- you’re pulling something off.

Dom Irrera: I didn’t start drinking until a couple of years ago, which helped. All those years, I didn’t drink. Now I drink. I keep arguing with people that I’m an alcoholic. They say “You’re not an alcoholic” I go “I am!”. Usually it’s the other way around. “I’m telling you, I’m an alcoholic. Look at me- I’m bloated, I retain water! I retain pizza! I retain!” Did I slip a joke in there?

Ron Bennington: So you’re actually saying, if it’s a lunch you’re acting like it’s an intervention. And the other people are like, “No, we’re just here to have cocktails.” So, did you really wait to start drinking?

Dom Irrera: Yeah, I started drinking- I don’t want to get maudlin on you, but my sister died, breast cancer, and my mom, and just things… I mean, this is good for comedy someday. You know, tragedy plus time equals comedy. But really, that’s when I started drinking. And I forgot how much I liked it. That’s the thing. I mean, it’s not like it’s not fun.

Ron Bennington: So, you think you’re an alcoholic, but no one else does.

Dom Irrera: Everybody I know is in denial. But I do, I drink every day, and I time it between my Xanax and I feel great. I don’t look as good, and I forget I don’t look as good. A friend of mine’s daughter came to see me, and her girlfriends- and they’re really bright, college girls- and we’re out, and we’re laughing, and she’s a concert pianist, this great girl. And all of a sudden, I look in the reflection in the window, and I see my big lollipop head, compared to these beautiful young girls. I thought, “What hath time wrought?” Oh, Lord. But we were talking about Dangerfield and those guys. Dangerfield was really good to me. He was always like, “What can I do for ya, kid?” And he was a guy, like unbelieveable- doing coke in his 80s. He said to me- it was his 80th birthday, he goes, “You wanna get fucked-up, kid?” And he used those beatnik terms. I was like, “Rodney, I don’t do drugs, “ and he goes “Okay, I’ll see you in fifteen, okay, daddy-o?” He called me Daddy-O. Alright, Pops.

Ron Bennington: It’s kinda scary if you’re doing rails, and the guy’s got this big heart scar going. Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this?

Dom Irrera: People doing lines ON the scar, like navel shots.

Ron Bennington: You grew up in Philadelphia- South Philadelphia. Which, when you grew up, it was kind of a tough town, Philly. It was one of the most segregated places that I’ve ever seen – white people segregated themselves, like Italians and Polish and Irish.

Dom Irrera: When my mother was a kid, she went to the Italian Catholic school. She couldn’t go to the Irish Catholic school. That’s how much segregation there was. The City of Brotherly Love. We actually moved to a black neighborhood, which was groundbreaking at the time. The wanted to see how fast I was, apparently, my parents. That was a tough adjustment. Luckily I played basketball, believe it or not. For a comedian, I was really good. And that helped me in high school. I was the only white Italian kid- we had race riots, and I was the only white Italian kid that could go to school. Because I played basketball.

Ron Bennington: Did you realize at an early age that humor could work for you, that you started being funny?

Dom Irrera: I was always funny as a kid, and it was so easy to be funny because you didn’t have to worry about an act. The hardest transition I made as a comedian was because I came out of an improv/acting background, and I couldn’t believe these guys honed it. Which means, said the same shit every night. That was the hardest part for me. “I gotta say the same stuff until it gets good?” That was the most boring part of standup, but now I’ve learned to appreciate that you can do a little bit of both- you can have some improv.

Ron Bennington: When you first started, it was just improv-ing?

Dom Irrera: I was already a polished performer, I just didn’t have an act. I was very lucky – in college, I was in a Children’s Theater group, and I got my Equity card in Children’s Theater, playing the beloved part of Billy Bones in Treasure Island. I was the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. And I remember these young, hot mothers, and I’m only 21, and I’m dressed up as the White Rabbit and they’re bringing their kids – these 18, 20 year old mothers, and I’m going like “Arrggghhhh – give to rabbit!”

Ron Bennington: That’s one of the most uncomfortable stories I’ve ever heard, to tell you the truth.

Dom Irrera: You’re like Oprah- pretty soon you’re gonna have me crying.

Ron Bennington: You taught for a while, too, right?

Dom Irrera: I taught Catholic Grade School- I taught kids improv, and it was very rewarding.

Ron Bennington: So, how did you make that transition? You’re teaching, you’re doing improv. How do you make the transition into standup?

Dom Irrera: I got hired for Saturday Night Live in 1980, when Eddie Murphy got the show. I got hired for 3 shows, and I got on one of them, but just as an extra. I had a bit called The Mean Grocer, where I was just angry with fruit. And they fired the producer. And when they fired the producer, we all got fired. We got paid and all. But I thought, you’re giving up so much power when you just act. And I thought, I could do stand-up, I knew I could. And I was a terrible waiter. My girlfriend, I used to be with this French-Canadian girl, and she was like Benjamin Franklin in being good at everything. But I wasn’t good at anything but one thing. So it’s so much easier to focus when you’re mildly retarded, but have one strong point. And I have such confidence because I know I’m not good at anything else. It’s not like “Well, if I didn’t do this, I could certainly do this.” No, I couldn’t.

Ron Bennington: You know he’s such a natural comic because even when he’s being serious the audience is laughing. He’s opening his heart to you.

Dom Irrera: I’m just another joke monkey to these bastards.

Ron Bennington: Here you are, this young kid, you got SNL- you knew what it had done for Belushi and Chevy and all of them. At some point, you must have thought that this could be it for me.

Dom Irrera: Do you wanna hear how naïve I was? I didn’t even have an agent. I went up there and auditioned, and kept passing auditions and writing stuff. I’m amazed at the naïveté that I would think- I mean, I did get something. I got three $800 checks. But just the idea that I was getting paid for it. Can you imagine, trying to get something without an agent in this business?

Ron Bennington: No, it’s impossible. Even then it was impossible, and you managed to pull it off. But it just didn’t matter to you.

Dom Irrera: But that’s what got me into standup, because I’d rather play basketball then tennis. And I like playing with a team more than playing individual. I was in an improv group called the Broadway Local, and we were really hot, had a good draw. And Michael Patrick King, the producer for Sex & The City was in it, and some other really talented people. We weren’t making any money, and someone’s got to start making money, so I started doing standup. And it went very well. It went very quickly, I think because I had already worked so hard at other things.

Ron Bennington: And you brought those improv characters to the stage,right?

Dom Irrera: At first, all I did was characters. I didn’t do any of that kind of conversational standup, I just did one character after another. And the first character was a guy named Lena Romano, who was a Matre’D at Smith & Wollensky’s. You know Smith & Wollensky’s? If you ever go in there, there’s a picture in the vestibule of all the waiters, and there’s me, holding a pot of coffee. It says that waiters have at least 10 years experience- I had no experience. In fact, the only time I bartended, the guy wouldn’t let me handle glass. Just plastic cups on the third floor. But I made the transition from that to standup.

Ron Bennington: So, when you first started to get on, it felt like it went kinda fast for you. A lot of guys it takes years, but you were ready.

Dom Irrera: I was ready in the sense of performance-wise. I wasn’t ready as a standup. I never thought I’d do the Tonight Show. I never thought I’d do Vegas. I thought I was going to be connected to improv and doing some form of standup. Eddie Murphy helped me, because when he did characters, it opened it up for comedians to do characters. Before that, all they wanted at The Comic Strip was monologists. “You ever notice…?”

Ron Bennington: Everybody was kind of doing Brenner or Richard Lewis at the time, and everybody that came behind those guys just kind of picked up their style.

Dom Irrera: And the character of Leeno, which came from a real guy who you never knew when he was done, his speech. Because he was the Matre’d, we’d have to listen to his bullshit every day, “The boys, in Sicily, they suffered and they died in the war. “ And we’d go, “Oh, boy.” “But then they laughed! And they danced!” Am I supposed to be sad, or happy? And that was the character. And the character I did was this really juvenile thing where I made it this really sophisticated guy who talked about the most base things. Like “Did you ever have to poop? You don’t have to pee, but you poop and you pee anyway?” I don’t know if you remember that run I used to have, but then he’d say, “Why do they have to say vulgar, vile things- to pinch a loaf, to cop a squat. I say I have to poop, I have to pee, not I have to shake my monster or to drain my lizard, to squeeze the weeze.” Just this run on. And then those different characters would come out.

Ron Bennington: Were you improv-ing those lines onstage?

Dom Irrera: That was improv, and then I wrote it down. I’m not a good writer, as far as sitting down and writing, like for three hours. I do much better doing it the other way.

Ron Bennington: That is funny about you, too, because with all the standup that you’ve done, a lot of people know you from sitcom shots or The Big Lebowski, which is always amazing to me, because that happens with standups all the time. That they’ll just know them from a sitcom or whatever.

Dom Irrera: First of all, Seinfeld is so powerful, it’s unbelievable. I was in New Zealand, I had a hood on and I was jogging in the rain and this guy goes,”Hey, mate, you were on Seinfeld!” Isn’t that incredible? I’m amazed at the power, and Lebowski, too. The first time I saw Lebowski, I didn’t even like it. Then I saw it again and I really liked it. It was like Scarface in the sense that when I first saw Scarface it was like, well, that’s disgusting. Then I looked at it like it was a comedy.

Ron Bennington: So, when you did Seinfeld, you had no idea.

Dom Irrera: I had no idea. First of all, I never saw the show. Jerry was always doing standup, so I saw him. Larry was not a good standup. Brilliant, he’s a genius, but not a good standup. Larry kept calling me to do different episodes, but I was always out of town. Now this is really funny, thinking of how it all turns out. He had asked me to do the one with the Barber, and I couldn’t do it. Finally, he wanted me to do the Prop Comedian, and I was up for Comedian of the Year against Carrot Top. He actually said to me, “Dom, have you seen the show? It’s a pretty good show.” Larry David is telling me, like I’m Al Pacino. So I canceled Slappy Bananas.

Ron Bennington: It’s funny that these little things that you don’t know are going to are the ones that stick to you.

Dom Irrera: Well, Lebowski, they saw me at Caroline’s. The Coen Brothers saw me at Carolines. I got the script, and I never read a script- movie scripts are such a drag with all the directions. And I read the sides and I call my agent and I go, “It’s fucking brilliant! It’s genius!” He said, “You really think it’s funny?” I said, “Yes, because I wrote it! I wrote every line that’s in the sides- it’s a bit of mine. I did it on the Tonight Show already.” He goes “really? Let me call the casting director.” So he calls the casting director and the Coens said “We wrote it for him, it’s his bit.” Thank God I got the part. “You know, we don’t like the way that you do you.”

Ron Bennington: There seems to be an easiness about you. Were you ever nervous about doing any gigs? It just seems like it’s somewhat comfortable for you. When you did your first Tonight Show or your first HBO special, were you able to handle that?

Dom Irrera: The Tonight Show is horrible, because it’s so much pressure. At the time, it was 1986, there wasn’t nearly the media that we have today. So, really, the whole country was watching it. I looked out the window of the studio in Burbank- I wanted to run into the hills. I wanted to run through the wall like a cartoon character and just start a new life. But it was a stamp of approval from Johnny Carson at the time. You know what helped me, was opening for Cher. Because she had such an eclectic group- she had transvestites and families. The whole gamut of society. Doing those arenas really helped me. And the only time I got nervous was because my sister was nervous, and it rubbed off on me. It was at Madison Square Garden, and I didn’t want to look up because I knew that all the Knicks and Rangers banners were there, Sinatra played there, the Beatles. Did the Beatles play Madison Square Garden?

Ron Bennington: No, but Walt Frasier did.

Dom Irrera: You know what’s funny, is how relative it is. The next day we were in the Pepsi Center in Denver, and I wasn’t nervous at all, and it was bigger than the Garden. But because it was The Garden, because of the history, my heart was beating fast. Now, it takes a lot for me to get nervous.

Ron Bennington: One of the funny things, too, about humor, is that the comedians aren’t always the funniest ones. They’re just the ones that get on stage and train and get out and work the road. South Philadelphia is a really funny town, and everybody knows that they’re funny there, too.

Dom Irrera: Standup comedy and being funny are two completely different things. It helps if you’re a funny standup comedian, but you don’t necessarily have to be the funniest guy. You can be a brilliant writer, or have an act, or have something quirky – like Emo. And then there’s guys like Zach Galifianakis, who’s really a bright standup, but then you think how’d he become such a brilliant actor? There’s hidden treasures like that. He’s got such a good memory Zach, because I saw him in Tribeca a few months ago, and I brought him up, I said, “Here’s a guy, he brings up notes like he’s being creative. Let me tell you something, I’ve seen him many times, it’s always the same shit. Give a big hand, Zach Galifianakis.” And he loved that. I’m busting his balls, but I only do it to people I like. I don’t bust Dice Clay’s balls.

Ron Bennington: Not crazy about Dice?

Dom Irrera: I don’t like Dice. I don’t want to get into negativity.

Ron Bennington: You don’t have to, but you did bring it up.

Dom Irrera: Who was doing that? Oh, Michael Vick. He was talking about how bad the refs were, “I’m not putting down the refs or saying they were bad”. But you just said it!

Ron Bennington: But you get along with most people, right?

Dom Irrera: Yeah, I get along with the comics.

Ron Bennington: Do you feel competitive, particularly with the early guys you came up with?

Dom Irrera: I never thought that anybody else’s success diminished me. I am what I am and I do what I do. I really don’t have that. I’m telling you, like Tosh – he’s like my retarded brother, or retarded son. I love that guy. I’m so proud of him for being number one. I’m not going like “oh man, that could’ve been Irrera 101”.

Ron Bennington: But you can do something, that really, I don’t think a lot of people know, is working those casinos. Because that’s a totally different audience. And you’ve always, even as a young guy, been able to work that crowd, right? What do you have to do special to win those folks over?

Dom Irrera: Talk about gambling. Sex and gambling. That’s a different crowd. Atlantic City is much different than Vegas. Atlantic City is blue collar, they drive there. How many people drive to Vegas? But Vegas, you never know what you’re going to get. The crowd changes more there. In Atlantic City, you’ve got to really change your material. And that’s a tricky thing, with the material. Because you can’t please everybody. I’ll have people going, “How come you didn’t do the Little Petey/Big Petey bit?” And I’ll go, “I try to do different things.” “I drove with my brother-in-law here. I told him it was funny and you stiffed us.” Then if I do it every time, they go, “What are you, the Beach Boys? Let it go. Did you lose your pen?” But you just have to make choices. I’ve been heckled with my own act. “Joey Bag-O-Donuts!” Let me get to that.

Ron Bennington: What is it, you think, about that bit? You wrote it so long ago, and it still follows you to this day.

Dom Irrera: It’s the rhythm of it. Because I can’t write jokes. I can write rhythm and cadence. One of my first jokes was about Ed McMahon on Star Search, and I was on Star Search and I won one and lost the second one. And I said, after all these years, what do I say to him? Do I call him Ed? Do I call him Mr. Ed? Do I call him Mr. Eddie McMahon? Mr. E? Mr. You Big Fat Lucky Talentless Hump Kissing Johnny’s Ass for the Last Thirty Years You Budweiser-sucking Alpo-slinging Nothing? What do you do? I don’t mean that in a bad way, Ed. And that was all rhythm, not really a jokey-joke, you know?

Ron Bennington: Do you remember who you beat in Star Search and who you lost to?

Dom Irrera: I beat a guy named Mark Miller, who was a writer. He was a dead duck. He was so bad that I thought I could do my act backwards. Then they guy that beat me was a really competitive guy with me, and he hated me because I wasn’t really competitive with him. Ron Darian was his name. It’s still his name, he just never went anywhere. That was the apex of his career. Fuck you, Ron, if you’re listening!

Ron Bennington: He’s working as a telemarketer.

Dom Irrera: Star Search was the Dancing with the Stars of its day. We were supposed to do a minute an forty-five seconds. You know how hard it is, unless you’re like a prop act and come out juggling, to do a minute and forty-five seconds and get them warmed up? And he did like three or four minutes, and they didn’t want to turn the mic off on him, and he won. I was mad, but it didn’t really matter. If I had won another Star Search, it wouldn’t have changed my whole life. How did he ever get in the movies? Did you see his second Star Search??? It was killer!

Ron Bennington: You could be today’s Ron Darian. But instead, we’ve got Dom Irrera.  Thank you Dom.

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You can hear this interview in its entirety on Unmasked which airs on Raw Dog on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.  Not a subscriber yet?  Click here for a free trial.

For more information on Dom Irrera and his touring dates, visit DomIrrera.com or his twitter @DomIrrera.