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The Jester Interview: Carl LaBove
By Michael Shashoua / Jester Editor-In-Chief
Carl
LaBove is a veteran comic who experienced the heights of fame in the
1980s as a compatriot of Sam Kinison. LaBove has lived a life more
unbelievable than most fictional stories, which he is currently
recounting on stage (see review, 5/9/12)
at venues in Queens and Long Island as he works out parts of a
one-man solo show that promises to be more than only stand-up
comedy. He will perform the show again at the Producers Club on June
15. Jester recently spoke to him about
his experiences and the process of developing the show, over a meal
at the Gramercy Diner in Manhattan. LaBove can speak at length with
great enthusiasm, so he opens this conversation, before even any
questions are asked.
Carl LaBove:
A friend told me once that the only way you can have a breakthrough
in life is if you’re completely broken down. That made so much sense
to me. I had to go to the bottom of my emotional state, that close
to losing it, giving up and quitting, and going somewhere else. [In
short, LaBove lost an alimony battle with his ex-wife, who bore a
daughter that was actually Kinison’s, but LaBove reconnected with
the child after she turned 18].
To survive it, meet this girl and have her realize that she was the baby
I held for a year and see it in her face -- to see her face, dying
to know me -- I had loved her my whole life and you can’t throw that
away. What I threw away was raising her so she could be raised with
the truth that I wasn’t her father. For her to look at me the way
she did and want me to be part of her life, which I instantly
became, it hit me that my responsibility is that’s my best friend’s
child and I have to make sure she’s OK. That started a three-year
process of us breaking through what she’d been told her whole life
and me telling her the truth.
My job was to give her the truth because she was old enough to hear
it and she was seeking it. So that relationship changed me because
it gave me a lot of closure. I started to remember all the good
things about Sam. In life, our friends do a lot of horrible things
to us. Some of them are drug addicts, some aren’t in their right
minds, some just broke up or got divorced and they’re crazy for
awhile. That’s how I look at that particular time. So I was able to
let it go.
Jester: Since you started together, would you say that Sam’s style
of performing influenced you or was it the other way around?
LaBove:
I learned a lot from him about not being afraid to tell the truth in
a joke and let it stop the moment, and then go from there. That’s
how we influenced each other. He was fearless and older than me and
lived a lot more. He was fearless into topics that I wasn’t going
into yet.
People sometimes confuse the fact that I scream and yell, but I
always have. We all did – all the Texas guys did. But Sam found the
anger with the relationship humor. He was known as the screaming
comic. Not that I scream my whole show, but when I do pull it up,
it’s reminiscent of him, but it’s always been me. … So I remind
people in a way of Sam, but it’s not the act. It’s the spirit that I
remind them of – that spirit on stage.
Jester: How are you choosing stories for the show?
LaBove:
I have a giant puzzle of stories. I have a storyboard at home. It’s
emotional topics – the happiest times of my life, the worst times of
my life. They’re 2- to 5-minute vignettes – acting pieces, but real
stories. They’re in the moment of what I was going and growing
through. They’re things that I’ve lived.
Go through your life and try to figure out the thing that absolutely
changed your life. What was that one thing that someone said or that
incident that happened to you in either a good way or bad way, that
absolutely changed you for the rest of your life? If it was bad,
what did you learn from it and how did it envelop into your persona
and personality that now as adult, you can say, “Wow, I’m this way
because that happened to me.” To dig into yourself that deep and try
to pull that stuff up, and make it entertaining so people say, “Wow,
that happened to me,” or “I get what he’s saying” or “my sister went
through that” or “my brother…” If you tie all those things in so
they’re real and from the heart, then everyone else is going to get
it too. That’s what I’m searching for – the stories that are the
realest and have the most soul. |
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Feedback? Email shashouamedia@gmail.com or michael.shashoua@jesterjournal.com
© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua