#61 Steve Bluestein Makes Me Laugh

Announcer 0:00

Looking to sound like you know what's going on in the world, pop culture, social strategy, comedy and other funny stuff. Well join the club and settle in for the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's not the podcast we deserve. But the podcast we all need with your host, Jeff Dwoskin.

Jeff Dwoskin 0:15

All right, Bruce, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get that show going each and every week and this week is no exception. Welcome, everybody, to Episode 61 of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for another incredible episode. That's right. I said incredible. I have redrawn the line. We have doubled down on incredible and move beyond the normal amazing that we bring you week to week. We're now in incredible territory and excited to be here with you. It's gonna be a doozy. We've got an amazing guest for you today. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the funniest people around Steve Bluestein. Ladies and gentlemen, regular in Las Vegas. He's open for Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller. You've seen him on HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central. He's a writer, playwright, comedian. he's a he's a triple threat. We had an amazing conversation about comedy, his career and life. And that is coming up in just a few minutes.

I do want to thank everyone who shares likes follow subscribes to the podcast on their favorite podcast app. We're everywhere, folks, Apple, Google, Amazon, you name it. We're there. Jeff, how did you become so famous that you're on every podcast app, it's the same way I got to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice. So now that I've done my bar, you could do your bar, just subscribe like it but also tell all your friends and family about live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show this podcast is music to our ears. They're gonna love it also. And frankly, giving the gift of this podcast to your friends and family is probably the best birthday present, anniversary present Christmas present you can give anyone and that's just science is just science. It's been proven in laboratories. So thank you in advance for that. I appreciate you. If you're like Jeff, I don't know what podcast app to use. Well, there's so many go to Jeff is funny.com. That's my website for the show. And I link to all of the podcast apps from there. They'll take your right to my show on their apps and you can follow it's so easy. It's so easy. And while you're at Jeff it's funny comm sign up for my mailing list. I send out emails every week I don't want you to miss out I don't want you crying and when you see someone else enjoying my email and you're like why not me? Why not me just take a second and sign up and it will be you it will be you It's yours to have totally free This is all free I give it away while you're at Jeff is funny calm there's a link to buy me a coffee calm if you want to buy me coffee. I'm always thirsty so never hurts. Also, follow me on all the social medias at Jeff Dwoskin show on Instagram and Twitter. I love to hear from you. When you listen to the show, tweet me Instagram at me something Do you know, let me let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear what you thought of the episodes and all that kind of good stuff.

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I think just me. I do want to thank everyone for supporting the sponsors week after week after week. I can't thank you enough when you support the sponsors. You're supporting us live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show and it means the world to me this is how we keep the lights on this week sponsor from the creative minds that brought you the spork comes the latest and you can't live without cutlery. Are you ready for the Knork that's right part knife part fork. ALL cutlery don't let the silent k fool ya cuz the Knork is taken the world by storm slicing and stab in your food has never been easier or more convenient with the Knork need a fork time for the Knork need to cut something time for the Knork that's right then nor kids up perfect utensil For all your stabbing and slicing and let's face it slurping soup is for the week you need I know work. If I can break for one second from the commercial. I did find this fascinating this whole product fascinating. So I did reach out to the creators and I asked them why the Knork and why now,

Knork Expert 5:18

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Jeff Dwoskin 5:32

Makes sense to me. And let me tell you something, I encourage everyone here to jump on this trend. You don't have a Knork you got to ask yourself, what are you doing with your life? Are you really headed down the right path? Google it, they're everywhere. You can buy them everywhere. It's a silent K, it looks like Knork. But it's pronounced NORK. Check it out. All right, well, hey, look, I totally encourage you guys. I'm sure like y'all love your sporks. But I think if you check out the nork it's gonna be a game changer for you. So check that out.

And now it's time for the social media tip! Okay, this is the exciting part of the show where I share it on my social media knowledge with you. I have spent way too much time on social media when I pick up a thing here or there. And I'd like to share it with all of you. It's my way of giving back. So my favorite feature on Twitter is bookmarks. You're like Why? What's that? Jeff? I've never heard of that. Ah ha, well, let me tell you, it's the greatest feature in a world I've circled the world and I have found no greater feature bookmarks allows you to bookmark a tweet, I know you shouldn't use the word in the sentence. But it basically lets you save any tweet that you want to do something with show someone later read an article later or anything like that, when you see such a tweet in the share section, there's a area where you'll be able to bookmark it, and that'll add it to your bookmarks. You find your bookmarks when you click on your API on mobile, where you would go to get to your profile. And there's like a list of profile list topics and bookmarks. And so if you click there, it'll show you all your bookmarks. When you're done with a tweet that's in your bookmark, you just remove it from your bookmark, so you don't have to clutter it all up. Instagram has a very similar feature, they actually use the same icon as Twitter, it's a square with a triangle cut out of the bottom. Apparently that means bookmark, but on Instagram, it means save to collection. So why would you save to a collection on Instagram, same reason, really, as on Twitter, you want to remember something later, but you know how it is when you're scrolling, a social media feed and all of a sudden, it refreshes and everything you were looking at is gone. Alright, so when you see something you want to remember it jump on it real quick save to collection added to a bookmark, you'll thank me later you'll write to me, I'm gonna say you're welcome in advance so that you don't feel like I didn't get back to you quick enough checkout bookmarks, checkout, save to collections, all the social media platforms have a version of this use it. It's amazing, I promise. And that's the social media tip.

All right, well, it's time for the interview portion of the show. If you haven't listened to last week's episode, I talked to Mark farner former front man of grand funk railroad. We're American band high right. No more singing for me. Anyway, lots of great episodes in the live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin backlog and we're about to add one more amazing interview to the bio, everyone. I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Steve Bluestein citing guests coming up here. He's toured coast to coast. He's a regular in Las Vegas. He's open for Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller and Kenny Loggins, you've seen him on HBO, Showtime and Comedy Central. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for writer, playwright, actor and other areas. Comedian Steve Bluestein. Hello, hello. Oh, yeah. I'm good. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. You've done so, so much. I think the logical place to start would be you wrote The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Oh, sure. Start with that. Did you work with Bruce Vilanch on that?

Steve Bluestein 9:13

Of course I did. Yeah. Bruce. I had known Bruce prior to working on the Brady Bunch because I also wrote lists for us. I was a good attributing writer to Liz Torres's nightclub act. And Bruce was a friend of Liz's. And so we met there. So when I got the Brady Bunch, it was like having a friend there. It was, it was it was like it was a party writing. Hey, hi, the mo even we knew at the time that it was insane what we were doing, but we were having a great time. great bunch of guys. All of them stoned most of the time.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:52

was the only way we can get through it. It's amazing. It was amazing. Was it which was the one was the Jan that wasn't Was it fake jan

Steve Bluestein 10:01

jan fake can eve plum had done a movie of the week called something about a teenage prostitute. And she had some heat as an actress in town. And her management felt that connecting her to the Brady Bunch, again would be wrong for the Career Career. And of course they were 100% correct. And so she refused to do the show. She turned the show down. And we got another Jan for the part.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:27

The boys always came back. It was always it's, I think one one of the girls it always had seen always be replaced. The boys are great. I'm still friends with most of them. Oh, that's cool. I met Barry Williams at a comic con once he was pretty cool.

Steve Bluestein 10:41

Barry hasn't changed centimeters since last since I've known him. He's always been open and friendly and nice and warm.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:50

It seems like I could be a good crew.

Steve Bluestein 10:53

It was because we all knew that we were we're in this together. You know?

Jeff Dwoskin 10:58

I watched one of the clips on your website. So which one? It was some like Christopher Columbus skill. Yeah, that's right. I was in that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was the guy with the big Afro. I may not have made it that far. But

Steve Bluestein 11:16

we did a Brady Bunch variety, our like retrospective in LA. And we had to sit there and watch the clips. And when one of them finished, I turned to the audience and said, I'm so very sorry. To put you through that.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:34

It's nostalgia. It's its highest. Who would have guessed

Steve Bluestein 11:37

that that show would have a shelf life now just surfacing again on YouTube and on Tick Tock as a matter of fact, digit so a Brady Bunch doing shake your booty on Tick tock, which I remember, like it happened yesterday, being on the set watching them do that.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:57

That's funny. And then you were in they call me Bruce, which is one of those movies I think I must have seen a million times because it was like that early 80s period. Yeah, like they just played everything on cable, like over and over and over.

Steve Bluestein 12:10

And that was so no Johnny Yun, who just passed away god bless his soul was one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. He was just always happy, always friendly, always open and very funny and very talented. And he got the money together to do this movie. And what he did was he called all his friends. I didn't even have to audition. He just called me up one night and said, Hey, Steve, we're doing a movie you want to secure? Where do I go? So I said I got the Brady Bunch for our variety out. I have they call me Bruce and rabbit test, three of the biggest flops in showbusiness.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:50

Well, they call me Bruce. I think it was a cable hit. It was a camp hit. So razzmatazz was was that the only movie Joan Rivers maybe ever wrote? And she directed

Steve Bluestein 13:00

the route she ever wrote. But it's the only movie shiver directed. Okay, and again, I was managed at the time by the Joan's manager, Joan, KC and the sunshine band, Florence Henderson. We're all managed by the same group. And that's how you get into these things. It's very closed family.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:24

But why can I say I ever saw a rabbit test? It's with Billy Crystal and he's pregnant right so this is this way predates Arnold Schwarzenegger

Steve Bluestein 13:32

have a baby. Right? And Joan because of Joan's reputation, she got every funny person in Los Angeles to do the movie. I mean, I think imaging Coke is in it every single funny even the small bit parts are by the funny people in LA

Jeff Dwoskin 13:49

viewer to watch it now does it hold up? Like is it worth it? Is it like one of those things that Oh, you should watch it if you can watch it. It didn't know what it was new. Okay, moving on a rabbit. So you had a huge career as a comedian, I was in your very, very, very funny, I'll post some clips and link some clips from that.

Steve Bluestein 14:11

Or they could go to my website, Steve Bluestein dot biz.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:14

You must have some amazing stories. You You open for Gabe Kaplan, Dennis Miller, I'm guessing years ago, right. And then Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller. You were open for Phyllis Diller.

Steve Bluestein 14:24

I was in a three comedian show at Caesar's Palace. Pat Cooper, Phyllis Diller and myself. From that show, Phyllis Diller and I remained friends for over 40 years until she passed away. She was just a lovely, lovely person. And Pat Cooper, who has a reputation of being angry could not have been nicer to me. And here's a funny story. I had 100% building on the marquee, it said Phyllis Diller. Pat Cooper Stiebel is dying all in the same size letters on the marquee at Caesar's Palace and as well pulling into the driveway at Caesar's Palace. The cab driver says Who the hell is see boost.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:08

Liza got your name, right.

Steve Bluestein 15:09

Yeah. And I was sitting there with my manager and I said, you want to tell him or should I

Jeff Dwoskin 15:17

feel like I know less than no when I'm in the bathroom before a show and someone's like, boy, these other guys. Like, I don't know, I hear they're pretty good.

Steve Bluestein 15:26

Do you do stand up to? Yes, Everyone stand up. My cleaning woman can do five minutes. You know, it's like, when I started, literally when I started, they were maybe 3040 new comedians, tops, tops, there must be 10,000. Comedians, now, everybody wants to be a comedian.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:49

I've been doing it for about 18 years. So it's fun, mostly around the Detroit area. We used to have a ton of clubs here a ton. And then I saw they all kind of went away. We saw one in our Broadway Mark release comedy and Royal Oak are the two big ones.

Steve Bluestein 16:03

I worked at circuit for years at the height of the comedies comedy club, boom. I was traveling 40 weeks a year in the late 80s or early 90s. I started to see one comedy club after another in each city start to close where we would have sold out houses, I would end up with half houses. I kept telling all my Canadian friends, it's not going to last forever. Remember vaudeville, they said it would last forever. It's dead. This is going to die sometime. So you must have an ulterior plan. And I did I started writing. I've written seven plays for books. And that's kept me busy all these years. And of course I wrote television as well for Norman Lear and I wrote for Playboy. Yeah, I did a lot of television writing.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:58

What project did you work on with Norman Lear, who was

Steve Bluestein 17:00

called a year at the top with Greg evergen. And David Letterman's musical conductor, which is Schaefer and Paul Shaffer, of course, we call the year at the flop, because at that point, Norman Lear could have put a phonebook on the air and it would have been a big hit. huge hit. So I get I was so excited to be working with Norman Lear. Of course, I get an Norman Lear show, and it's canceled in four episodes. Ah,

Jeff Dwoskin 17:31

and you could have been one of the Jimmy Kimmel things that they were redoing. I liked Jimmy Kimmel. He's a very nice man. He loves Norman Lear he could have could have been good times. And you're show.

Steve Bluestein 17:44

He also loves Fred Willard, and Fred and Mary Willard, were two of my dearest friends. And so when Fred passed away, he devoted the whole show to Fred, which is amazing.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:55

Fred Willard is one of the funniest people, because he's just one of those people that just who is is funny.

Steve Bluestein 18:01

I was in the trucking company, with Fred, when Billy saluda dropped out, I replaced him. And I traveled on the road with Fred for a couple of years. And we became very close friends. As a matter of fact, in my book memoir of a nobody, there's a whole chapter devoted to Fred and Mary's Christmas parties, which are universally revered. It was every celebrity in town, at this party, you know, there was no egos. As a matter of fact, the party remained the same every year, there was a format to it. And Joanne warli was one that always wanted the invited guests friend who would be standing up and all of a sudden, Joanne Orly, who had been at the party all evening, would be outside tapping on the window. And Fred would say, oh, oh, look, I think Joanne worldly is here. And Joanne would come in, and she was a Fred, Fred, I was just walking through the neighborhood. And I happen to see we're having a party, and I brought my piano player, would you mind if I perform, and then Joanne would perform and then I would get up with a bunch of guys and we do the Jerry Lewis choir, Samurai limni every year, the big highlight of that party was the club nights of Christmas wherever Mary would divide everybody up into groups and the most prestigious one was to have Five golden rings. Because you had to invent a funny way to say Five golden rings 12 times it was just hilarious. Hilarious. When you're in the middle of it, I I ran out of the room and got Mary's vacuum cleaner, and I plugged it in and when it came to Five golden rings, I turned the vacuum cleaner on I started vacuuming through the party, you know, singing Five golden rings, and it brought the house down. So many funny people and you know in memory But nobody, I document all these kinds of stories, like opening for Kenny Loggins and having one of the band members come down says, Come on, we're gonna stay, we're gonna have a steam bath and I said, Oh, okay, so I go down and I walk in everybody's naked. Kenny Loggins, the whole group is men who are naked. And I who, you know, wear underwear in the shower, I had to get dressed and get in there with a towel on my, on my lap sitting there. And I just kept saying that when I was in high school who would believe that someday I'd be in a steam room naked With any luck?

Jeff Dwoskin 20:37

I mean, it's something you could dream about. But I mean, the odds of it coming true. Yeah, really, really mava nobody, that's one of four books that you have. That's a story after story after story.

Steve Bluestein 20:49

It's a series of essays that I wrote with a stream of consciousness, you know, they're not in a chronological order, it would be I would write, and then something would happen in my life. So I write about that. And then that would bring me to a memory of something else. And I would write about that. And then I write about working with Joan Rivers. And they weren't like that, how it turned out was like a, you know, an AA, they have inventories, where you sit down and you write everything out. And I said, this was like a big a inventory. Right now. The book has 95 star reviews on Amazon. That's really good. Actually, the first week it was out, it was in the top seller list. So I was really flattered. And I am flabbergasted and could not believe the feedback I was getting on book because as a comedy writer, you sit at home, and you write stuff. As a comedian. I'm used to saying something and then hearing an incident response. But when you're a writer, you write it down. You put it out there, and you don't know if people are laughing at it until they tell you and they were telling me that it was funny. And I was thrilled you're in the Detroit area.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:09

Yes. Just outside of Detroit.

Steve Bluestein 22:11

So I was working at a comedy club in Detroit. My two memories are there was nothing to do during the day in Detroit at the time I was there. And I was walking around and I saw a sign that said, tunnel to Canada. I said, What a great idea. Get me a shovel. I said that on stage when and the other thing was that it was at that period when comedy clubs were dying. And so there was no crowds. We had 20 people a night in the club. And every night I'd get onstage as I would say, you know, if we don't get crowds here, the fire will be on Friday. And so I was sitting in the dressing room of the green room wherever I was on Friday night, and a friend of mine from LA happened to be in Detroit. And she comes into the dressing room and she says Steve, well, I said get out the buildings. And it was true. There was a fire on Friday night. That was hilarious.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:11

And you're the main says I had the plastic bags, you know, I could burn I could burn this place down now. Do you remember the name of the club? No, no. Okay. Was there a club called the Detroit comedy club? Not that I recall.

Steve Bluestein 23:26

When you work these comedy clubs for so many years, you know, they're all high highs and T ease and yucky acts and I truly hated working those clubs. My career was going backwards. I was at the Comedy Store and the improv, working every night. And then one night I was working the improv in Las Vegas. And my agents called and said, get on a plane. You're opening for Kenny Loggins tomorrow night in Lake town. And that's what happened. I went from the comedy clubs, right to the big stages. And from that period on, I was working in Las Vegas. I worked to Caesars Palace and and the MGM Grand the Hacienda sparks, the sand, all these big clubs that was working in sparks, Nevada, and Reno and Tom, and I was doing that circuit. And then because of the economy, the big clubs, stopped using an opening app and started using co headliners. So Joan Rivers would work with Johnny Carson, mother's brothers would work with Johnny Carson, you know, so as they cut out the opening, and so my manager shifted over into these comedy clubs. So I went from big clubs that had immaculate facilities with the finest equipment to I swear to God to you, a club in Seattle, who had garden lights for the state, a Christmas lights, the one that rotated around, but they kept it on red, which is the worst color for comedy. and stayed in modestly say I have always had magnificent homes. One of my homes was in the la times because of the design and stuff. I'm sleeping in these Can I say shitholes where you don't eat the band aids because you're afraid that someone is jerked off into it the week before, though those were the rumors that were going around, don't eat demand. So the first thing I would do is throw the Manet's that wherever I was living, and it was a nightmare. I hated it. I absolutely hated. And then I was working in Albuquerque, the guy on two clubs, he owned the club in Tucson, and he owns a club in Albuquerque. I worked in club in Tucson for a week. And then there were three days off, got we're going to work, the Albuquerque club, and club owner owner called me and said, Look, I'm going to do benefit and AIDS benefit for those three days that you're awful. You work it and I said, Absolutely. I get there. I'm not being paid for this. I get there, the opening act, the middle act, we're all there. We're not being paid. But the club owner is charging covers and minimums. So the club owner is making money. We're working for free. And I don't know who got the money to the AIDS benefit. Well, the middle act was livid and quit right there on the spot. I said, What are you going to do? And he said, Don't worry, I'll find another. So he called me up the next day. And he said, All right, I hired somebody else. The new Act and his girlfriend are going to stay with you in your room. And I said, No, they're not. He said, Yeah, they are. I said, No, they're not. I'm not sharing my room with two other people, especially people I don't know. And he said, Well, you better get get done. So I got down. It was Thanksgiving Eve, the club was packed, like 300 400 people. And we had a huge fight. And he said to me, look, either you allow those people to go in your room, or you're fired. I said, I'm fired. He said, yeah. I said, Okay, you do the show. And I walked I left the club, because at that point, I had just had it, you know, it'd been 10 years of this crap. And I was up to up to here with it. That was the beginning of the end. For me. That was when my manager it. When I got back to LA, my manager called and said, Okay, I have a gig for you in Atlantic City. I said, What time are the shows? He said three and five. I said in the morning, he said, Oh, in the afternoon, I said, Oh, no, those are bus tours from New York. Do you know what that's little old ladies with with knit hats and purses sitting on? That's not my audience. He said, Look, you don't take this gig, because it's a lot of money. There's a lot of you didn't take this kid. I'm gonna drop you. I said, You know what, thank you. I needed somebody to throw me out. Because I would have been, I would have still been in those comedy clubs to this day. And it wasn't the life that I wanted. I'm very much a homebody. You know, when I when my mother was alive, she said, Well, you have two weeks off, I wanted to fly to Florida. And I said, on the two weeks I have off. The last thing I want to do is get on a plane and fly someplace, then she never understood. So because I very much like to stay home and I still I'm still like that to this day feel the same way.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:21

I love being home.

Steve Bluestein 28:22

I left Los Angeles because Los Angeles had become unlivable for me. I've been there 40 years. And it went from a big little town to a big, big town because of the apps now when they show you show shortcuts, my little street became a main freeway. It just became a nightmare to live there. And I couldn't take it. So I moved to just outside of Palm Springs, because this is where Osho business goes to die. When I first got here where I was at a restaurant I was because I said everybody in Palm Springs was in showbusiness at one point or another, and I went to a restaurant and the hostess came up to me to table for two. I said, Yeah, she says walk this way. You know, when I was helping him physique felt. It's literally old show that but the best the best story. I met a friend out here, and I said to Johnny, how's it going? He says, oh, Steve, it's wonderful. It's when I have a new manager. I've got new pictures. I've a new headshot, and I'm going to start working again. I'm so thrilled Oh, hold on a second. Welcome to Walmart.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:29

Let's go back in time to the seven early seven days. The Groundlings

Steve Bluestein 29:34

Oh sure. So when I first walked into the Comedy Store in 1971, there was an improv group and it was Pat Croft, Bo Kaprow, Valerie curtain and Archie Hahn, and the four of them were the comedy group and the first night I was there, I approached Valerie, who is still a friend to this day, I said to her, do you know of any workshops that I can join and she She said, Well, I think Gary is starting a class. And I said, Okay, so I approached Jerry and I said, Can I join your class? I have no experience. He said, Yes, absolutely. Well, that class became the Groundlings. And in that class was Cindy Williams, Lorraine Newman. Who else? Oh, the guy from Star Wars with the scar on his chin, Harrison Ford, this is my life. Now, I could remember no names. I said, in my act, one that I said that I was talking to someone I said, Who is that woman, you know, with the blonde hair, and she and she had that dress with a rip on the side, but she still went to the wedding. And then she she had a loud mouth. And the other person said, Mom, I can tell you everything about the person I get, what they're wearing, where they went to school, who they're married to, I can't tell you their name. And I was in the very first show that Gary produced for the Groundlings. And of course, the Groundlings then went on to be the premier place in Los Angeles to find talent. And it started with Lorraine going to Saturday Night Live. And that validated the ground lights. And so then everybody in LA, I was doing improvisational comedy wanted to be in the Groundlings. And that's how we got the wealth of talent there. And you know, if you saw my act, I was I was in I was working in Las Vegas, I think I was opening for Donna Summer. And I was at the MGM Grand, there were 4000 people in the audience. And I was talking and I stopped and I looked at the audience and I said, if I have to say these words, one more night, I'm going to slit my wrists. And they laughed because it was like doing a stage play over and over and over. So I just stopped and I looked at the guy sitting up front. And I said what do you do. And that's how it started. And I started using all my improvisational skills that I had learned at the Groundlings. And so my act then became me talking to the audience with an hour's worth of material in my head. If he said I'm a dog groomer, I would pull out my dog chunk. If he said I were I'm a nurse, I pulled up my nurse chunk. So you can see me every night. And the Act would be completely different every night because I had to have it that way to stimulate myself. And it also like especially when you're on tour with the big name, usually the big name is followed by fans, fanatic fans, they don't laugh the second time so by changing the act every show, it made it interesting for them and they and they loved it. You know I got fans to this day touring with Barry Manilow. I wrote a joke for you know, rah rahs kindness, Roz kinds of Barbra Streisand sister, she's a wonderful singer. I've had a really terrific human being. She has a fan. Let's call it Phyllis. And Phyllis follows Roz all over the country where bras performed. So I said, you know what you should do you should stop the show and introduce bill is from the audience. And so she said, this is Phyllis, Phyllis comes to every show I'm ever in. And then she looks, she stops and she looks at those. And she said, I'm sorry, but I won't be able to pick you up in Detroit. At the airport, you're gonna have to find somebody.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:30

That is pretty cool to have been at the beginning of that.

Steve Bluestein 33:32

You know, it really it really is awesome. I often say that those years trying to get into show business were more fun than actually being in show business. Because every night you would get up and perform with the excitement of maybe tonight I'll be discovered. And then after you were discovered, it became a job. It was no excitement anymore. You had this core of people that you worked with every single night, you went from club to club to club in Los Angeles with the same group of people Charlie Fleischer, David Letterman, Jay Leno. And then you get discovered in your work, and now you're on your own and you don't see these people again for maybe 10 years. And that is the hardest part of being in showbiz is because I was on a TV show talk show. And Rita Marino was one of the other guests and read it and I read it. You meet with a producer prior to the show. The producer says What do you want to say you tell him what you want to talk about so that the host can give you the lead in for the job. Well, this time, Mel Tillis was the host he wasn't looking at the cards. He wasn't giving me the lead and I was floundering because I didn't know what to say. I was new. Rita was sitting on the other side of them and she saw the cards She reached over and she said, Steve, I understand you just had a baby, which was the lead into this. And I said, Yes, read. And then I was back on track. Well, after the show, I said, I love you, I will follow you to the ends of the earth. We were friends, I opened for her in Chicago. And then she took me to a Playboy Mansion, and told them how terrific I was to work with and I got the Playboy clubs all across the country. And then we would run into each other from time to time, you know, doing shows and TV shows. And then I haven't seen return 30 years. And that's the hardest part of being in showbiz, become close to somebody, you work with them. You think you have a friend for life, and then you never see them again. And that was really hard for me. There have been exceptions. And then there have been people, there's one magician who remain anonymous, who I was really tight with. I was at a party and he was there. I said, Hey, how you doing? and his assistant said, We're fine. And then are you in town? Yes, we'll be here till Tuesday. The system said no. And he did. The Magician didn't talk. But the assistant did. And then I said, Oh, okay, well then go fuck yourself.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:17

I for you. Yeah. As my podcast gets more famous. I become just unbearable in the house. Yeah. I feel you. I hear you. I feel in addition to memoir, I have a nobody you wrote. 49 and a half shades of blue. That's sort of like a sequel. That's a sequel. Yeah. And then take my prostate, please. You're a cancer survivor. Right. And so you wrote about that journey.

Steve Bluestein 36:42

I just finished my fourth book called point of pines had a really traumatic childhood, really dramatic. With two parents who fought physically fought, they battled physically. It was really a horrible childhood. And the point of pines, was it a place of friends, high school friends of my mother's left. And those people adopted me into their family, but not legally adopted me, but emotionally adopted me to the family. It was the only happy time in my life. And I wanted to write about it. So So I sat down, and I started writing all these memories of my childhood. And I ended up with 25,000 words, and I sent it to my agent. She loved it. She said, Steve, this is the best book you've ever written. There's not a joke in it. The other books, every other line is a joke. But this one is serious. She sent it out to publishers. And they all said the same thing. We want more, we want more.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:44

Did you have another book hard to type with a gun in my mouth?

Steve Bluestein 37:47

Well, it's interesting, a memoir of a nobody is it's hard to tell with a gun in my mouth. When I was first starting, I self published my book it took off. So because it became so popular, an agent signed me and she got a publisher that the publisher didn't want to write didn't want to publish a book with a gun in the title. So I had to come up with a new title, the new title, she said like this, she said, quick, give me a title for the book. And I went memoir of a nobody into a perfect

Jeff Dwoskin 38:24

boom. That's how the magic is.

Steve Bluestein 38:26

And it's funny, my manager I lived in before this house, I lived in bel air. And we had a mudslide at my house, the house on the hill above me the swimming pool gave way and 60,000 gallons of water came pouring down the mouth pushing ahead of it a debris field, which ended up in my house, not next to my house. But in my house. I was really depressed. I had flood insurance. So it was covered. But I was really depressed because it wiped out my office. I lost every videotape. Every review, every photograph, it was all gone. It's like my career was completely wiped out. And I was really, really depressed. My manager called he said, he knew I was down and he said he knew that way to get me out of that was to have me working. And he said to me, are you writing? I said yes, I am. But it's hard to type with a gun in my mouth. And he said, and that's the title of your book is a great title. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:30

I mean, it's dark, but I know but it says it all. Was there a point when you were kind of reflecting on like day you wanted to just channel these things and become a comedian. Well,

Steve Bluestein 39:43

I was always the funny person. Another interesting, sir. I have a Russian travel agent. You know, real Russian will talk like this. Okay, Steve, we got we're going to Paris. I got to talking to him. And I said you're my family's from Russia. And he said to me where I said Odessa, and he said, Oh, well, you must have a good sense of humor. And I said, What are you talking about? He said, Oh dessins are known for their sense of humor. And there is a comedy festival, which has gone on for centuries. I said, Do you know what I do for a living? He said, No, I said, I'm a comedy writer. He said, Go, that makes perfect sense. So I was always that funny guy. In high school. If you look at my high school yearbook, it's into the funniest person for all the labs, you know, so I was always that guy. But I never had, I had zero support from my family from my mother, who quite frankly, after 35 years of doing stand up, never came to a single show, not one, because I just don't find it funny. That's my mother. I was working as an assistant buyer at the main company in Los Angeles, and was completely miserable, just horribly miserable. This is a this is a fascinating story. I had a buyer who did not like me, because I couldn't, she never taught me about the systems, you know, so I couldn't do reports and stuff. And she needed those done. And so she had me fired. And there I was fired. I had an assistant. And I was talking to him, and he said, What are you going to do? I said to him, I think this is a god shot. I think this is God is telling me, I need to be doing something else. And so I'm going to be a comedian, guy. I'm going to get into showbusiness. Because if I don't, to the rest of my life, I will say maybe I could have an even if I don't become successful, I can say at least I tried. So and that's what happened. I was living in an apartment in an apartment house in Hollywood. And Dave Madden, who was Rubin on the Partridge Family was living in the same building. He used to hear me around the pool making everybody laugh, and he pulled me aside one day and he said, Look, there's a new club that just opened up. It's called The Comedy Store. You should go down there. So Dave Madden, and Albert Hammond, the songwriter, he wasn't the songwriter then he was trying to be the songwriter. He's presently in the Songwriters Hall of Fame within me. They took me to the Comedy Store. And that's my introduction to the comedy. So it was because I was always funny. It just came naturally to me to be funny. That's the first night I was there. When I got up on stage, Sammy shore came up to me. He said, you come back, you have the sound. I didn't know what he meant, but I knew what he meant. I sounded like I should be on stage.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:40

That's a fabulous compliment.

Steve Bluestein 42:42

Yeah. Well, the thing is, if Sammy hadn't said anything to me that night, I would have left and never come back. But because I got that much encouragement in a life where I had gotten no encouragement from anybody. It made me want to go back. I remember talking to Mitzi shore one night and said, I just want send me the lightning bits. He said, Why? And I thought it was a strange response. But 40 years later, I understand what you meant. Why did I need Sammy to like me? Is everyone to me to like him?

Jeff Dwoskin 43:16

You didn't need it, but you needed it. Yeah, man. It's a one. I get it. I get it.

Steve Bluestein 43:20

It was a wonderful time. There's this documentary, but the Comedy Store friends have called me and said, Are you watching it? And I said, No, I can't watch it. Because I got to the Comedy Store in 1971. Johnny dark, Dave Letterman, Elaine boozer, Tom driessen. George Miller, Valerie curtly, all these people that we all were there together at the very beginning and kept the club going when it was dying, because it was dying until Mitzi took it over and structure to show and it took off when Jimmy good times, Jimmy. He was famous on the TV show, and he was working out at the Comedy Store every night. And he brought the crowds in. And that's what started. That's what started the comedy. Still, those beginning years were eliminated from the documentary, they only need the names because they need to bring in ratings. And they called me when they were doing the documentary. And they said, Yeah, we're going to interview for the show, and then never did, because I was not in, you know that what they're calling the golden years of the comments that I was pre golden years. I was watching when we were establishing what the comedy club business was going to be, you know, impact Croft, who wrote airplane, and all those Zucker films pack was there. We were there. And Pat and I we reminisce and I remember saying that at the time in the 70s. We should be writing this down because we're witnessing history. And we didn't because we didn't think that it was going to be History. This was just our lives at the time. And we never thought it would be important. But red fox and Flip Wilson, they were in there every night and David Brenner and Gabe, Kaplan and all these guys were coming down to the club in the beginning, in those beginning years, it's not as glamorous as what they're showing, but it is important. I just couldn't watch the show. And I understand it's wonderful. And I'm not bitter. And I'm not angry. And I'm very happy for the producer, who I knew as a kid, and has become a famous director now, my binder, I'm thrilled for him. It's just personally emotionally I don't want to watch it.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:42

The story behind the story, but we released this, turn this episode into a movie.

Steve Bluestein 45:47

Exactly right. And the strangest thing to me was, I moved to Los Angeles and I knew that that's where I was going to get you. I remember going there the first time and thinking, I feel like I've been here before in another life. It was just so easy for me to get into that lifestyle. It was so different from anything I had been growing up and having all the meeting all these hundreds and hundreds of people on the way up people that never made it never had any success and have left and gone back to their hometowns and me thinking there's no way in hell that I would go back No way. And as a matter of fact, in my will, it is stipulated that I cannot be buried in Boston because I hated it there so much wonderful people wonderful town, horrible childhood, terrible memories. I'm not spending eternity. Here's a funny story. Here's a fun so I had a friend blossom folk who was it is an artist. She was an artist, a wonderful artist, and she is buried next to her husband in a cemetery in Westwood, California. And it's the cemetery where Marilyn Monroe is buried next to from playboy.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:02

Oh Hugh Hefner,

Steve Bluestein 47:03

next to Hugh after every huge name in show business is bury the Fanny Brice. And they're all there. So I went to visit blossoms grave one day, and I said I should really start planning for my demise and went into the office and I said, I want to be buried in the wall. She said, Sure. I can show you around. So she takes me to this building. It's outside. And it's just a wall of squares. And she said, this one's available. And I said, Oh, how much is that? And she said it's $100,000? And I said, No, no, I don't need the whole building. I just want this one little square right here. You know, this little this little box? She said, yeah, that little box is $100,000. I said, Are you out of your mind? So I said, Do you have anything less than 100,000? And she said, Well, we have a we do have a cemetery in Corona. And I said, I'm not spending eternity in Corona. So I'll probably be buried in Palm Springs. It's funny, you know, I'm 73. I feel 28 I realized my father died at 78. So maybe I have five years left. It's like being hit in the face with a shovel. And I have quite a collection. Getting over the years. I never bought garbage. If I had $100 I would buy something that was worth $500. But I found that a bargain for $100. Joshua Greene was visiting his father was the famous photographer of Marilyn Monroe. And he was walking around the house and he said, I love to sit here and just look at your artifacts. And I went artifacts like it's King Tut's tomb. It got me thinking that when I die, this is just going to be a pile of junk to somebody else. But each one of these things has a specific meaning to me. So I've started giving away things to people who will understand the history of what it is and where it came from. I've started doing that now, so that when I'm gone, all this stuff, like for instance, there's a cane that I have in the foyer that was made by my father, he cut a branch off a plum tree in my other house, skimmed it, took the bark off, sanded it, and made it into a cane. And it's this gorgeous cane. And I have a friend who collects canes and I called her and I said I'm going to give you this cane and I told her the history of it because they know that you will take care of it and you will appreciate where it came from. And she said I would love that. So she's getting

Jeff Dwoskin 49:44

you know when my mom died and then my dad got remarried and then they moved in together. And so I inherited all the stuff that that my dad would have had have died for me to get at some point, right? So it was nice to be able to enjoy something that's handed down No one else had the, you know, it's I get it, I get it. People are giving this to you when you can give it to them. Yeah, well, that's actually pretty cool.

Steve Bluestein 50:08

My mother had two homes. My father had a home, and I'm the only child, my father died. I had to empty his apartment. But I always have to do it in 10 days when I'm in Boston. So people were coming to the house for the shiver for the week. And I say, I'd like to give you something for my father to remember my father back. So Oh, I'd love that. So people were leaving the shipper with chairs and oil paintings and carrying trays of silver up. And at the end of the week, there was nothing left and this woman came. And she said, I said, I'd love to give you something to remember my father by and she said, Oh, that's great. What would you like? I said, Would you like a microwave?

My mother at a house in Boston, and I was in Florida. And she called me up one day. And she said, I've decided I'm going to stay in Florida. And I said, well, who's going to empty the Boston house? And she said, Oh, I'll find somebody. And I said, Okay, and then that night, I started thinking, no, no, that there's stuff there that I you know, would only be important to me, they won't know what it is. I have to go. So I called my mother back and said, Look, I'll fly to Boston, I'll empty dies. And she said, Oh, you will. Oh, that's so nice. And I said, motherfucker got me again. gotta buy to Boston to empty your goddamn mouth

Jeff Dwoskin 51:34

manipulated. One part time, hook, line and sinker.

Steve Bluestein 51:39

So I got to Boston in the there's a big sign on the front door of those. It said the water will be shut off on Friday. And it went downhill from there. He had cut off the cable, he had sold 90% of the furniture either. So there wasn't a bed for me to sleep on. So for a week, I was sleeping on a loveseat shut up the cables and shut off the gas. So there was no beat. It was literally the worst week of my life. And I had to hold an estate sale. So she had this break front and a guy was interested in the break friend. I hung up I said to the guy 100 bucks. Just get it. Just get it out of here.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:20

Man, that's so many great stories, so many great stories. I thank you for spending all this time with me.

Steve Bluestein 52:26

I love it. You're really easy to talk to and it was fun. We want to remind the audience that memoir of a nobody is available on amazon.com. Kindle. And nook and iBooks ebooks and Barnes and Noble and for enough money. I'll come to the house and read it to you.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:47

All right, we'll post that price. I have a thank you so much. I can't thank you. Thank you. It's been really it's really been fun. Steve Bluestein. Right. Check out his books. Check out his website. Lots of great clips. Lots of funny to explore with Steve Bluestein. I'll put all the links in the show notes for you to check out.

Well, I'm sad to report we're nearing the end of Episode 61. Don't be sad. You say why? Oh yes, that means it's time for the trending hashtag from hashtag round up. That's right. This is where we spotlight a fun hashtag on the family of games of hashtag round up what's hashtag Roundup, you say? It's a super fun place to play hashtag games on twitter at hashtag Roundup. We also have a free app hashtag roundup on Apple and Google stores download it play along with us all day every day. And one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show this week's hashtag is #SomeAdviceYouNeedToHear from aha tags a weekly game on hashtag round up I already are you sitting down because this is #SomeAdviceYouNeedToHear.

Okay, grab a paper and pencil some of these are gonna hit you right in the heart and some of these you may never use number one don't go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. Number two two wrongs don't make a right but three left's do solid advice if you're ever lost in a city or unfamiliar with number three know when to hold them know when to fold them know when to walk away and if I may add know when to run number four. I smile goes a long way. Yeah, does number vibe. Don't mess with the food prepare, at least not until after you've already gotten your food. Number six. You're not fooling anyone on that group video call. Everyone knows you're Hi, try wearing sunglasses. Number seven. if they'll cheat with you. They'll eventually cheat on you. This is true. I once cheated with ice cream and later that ice cream cheated on me. Number eight. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and you don't know firsthand about it. You can always keep your mouth shut. Oh, this advice might as well read. Don't go on social media. Number nine never be on an electric fence. That one's pretty obvious why. Number 10. She isn't fine. She may say she's fine, but she isn't fine. Number 11. Those who promote their perfect life. newsflash, it's not perfect. That's right. Don't get sucked into people's Instagram and Facebook. ads. And the final piece of advice something you need to hear tell all your friends subscribe and follow live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show podcast tell them their lives will not be complete without it.

And with that, I bet you were at the end of Episode 61 can't believe come and gone. But here we are. I want to thank once again, my guest, Steve Bluestein. I want to thank all of you means the world to me that you come back week after week after week, and I'll see you next time.

Announcer 56:09

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. Now Go repeat everything you've heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai