Artie
Lange has had an interesting career and an interesting
life. Born in 1967 and raised in Union Township, New
Jersey, he grew up in a blue collar town with blue collar
parents. After an accident crippled and eventually killed
his father, Lange decided that instead of being the funniest
guy down at the docks, he would try his hand at the New York
comedy scene.
 Slowly
building his reputation in stand-up and improv, Artie landed
a role as a founding cast member of Fox’s new show, Mad
TV. For many, Lange was the break-out star
of the show, bringing to the screen his own lovable, average
guy persona mixed with more than a little bit of John
Belushi’s ghost.
Extreme fame is sometimes a dangerous thing for a funny guy
with a humble background. Like his hero Belushi and
his contemporary Chris Farley, Lange found himself embroiled
in the dangerous downward spiral of substance abuse.
That, combined with rapid weight gain and a battle with depression,
led Artie to stints in rehab, effectively halting his emerging
star power.
Rescued from near obscurity by Saturday
Night Live alum Norm MacDonald, Lange teamed
up with Norm for the cult comedy Dirty Work and the ABC sitcom The Norm Show. Lange
continued to battle his demons although he was working steadily.
In addition to acting as the replacement for the late Chris
Farley in another David Spade buddy comedy, Lost &
Found, Lange has appeared in several high profile
films, such as The Bachelor, Mystery
Men, Boat Trip, Old School,
and Elf. Artie will also appear in
an episode of next season’s HBO show Entourage,
has a semi-recurring role on FX’s Rescue
Me, has been the highlight of Comedy’s
Central’s roasts of Hugh Hefner and William Shatner,
and sells out stand-up shows around the country (the latest
set has been preserved in his current DVD It’s
The Whiskey Talkin’.)
 The
one move that has really set Lange’s star ablaze brighter
than ever before has been his permanent place as a member
of The Howard
Stern Show. Once nationally syndicated
in radio markets all over the US, The Howard Stern
Show is now on Sirius
Satellite Radio broadcasting to the entirety of the United
States and Canada.
Lange is currently out promoting
his upcoming film Artie
Lange’s Beer League, in which he stars,
co-wrote and produced.
On the day of Artie’s interview with DVD In My Pants,
he had just completed a week that proves the entertainment
industry isn’t for the faint of heart. Artie and The Howard Stern Show goes on the air live
at 6:00 AM Monday through Friday, with the average broadcast
lasting a little over five hours. After that Artie usually
seems to pop up on a number of different Sirius shows that
broadcast after the Stern Show on Howard 100 and Howard 101.
On Thursday, as soon as the New York broadcast ended, Artie
left for Philadelphia for a gig and to do press for Beer
League. He returned to New York to do the Stern
Show for Friday. It’s currently 5:30 in the afternoon
in a downtown Cleveland Ohio Marriott hotel lounge, and in
front on me is one Artie Lange. He is committed to doing
press for the rest of the afternoon and then he has a DVD
signing in the morning here in Cleveland, as well as a sold-out
show to perform that evening here.
 In person, Lange is as genial, kind, and engaging as he seems
he would be. No matter his film and television career
and being an integral part of what is arguably the most influential
radio comedy show on the air today, he seems no different than
any normal, blue collar guy you would find at your local watering
hole. Except that this guy just happens to be the funniest
guy in the room, no matter the room he is in.
I express my amazement that Lange is not only here, but welcoming
and pretty damn cool. Although obviously tired, Lange
makes great conversation and is simply laugh-out-loud funny.
Nevertheless, Artie looks like a man who has been
a punching bag for the past week. With a week’s
worth of salt-and-pepper stubble, messed hair, a Yankee’s
t-shirt, and a cup of hot coffee (booze free, although I pound through a couple of cocktails during the interview,)
Artie settles in to chat with  .
: Artie how has life on the Stern
Show, and especially its hours,
been working out for someone, as a stand-up comic, whose schedule
used to be exactly the opposite?
Artie Lange: The only part of the job that feels like work is getting up
early. The rest is like being in third grade throwing spitballs
all day. That early schedule dominates your life. Then
I go weekends and I got to do a turnaround. Now I am
nocturnal for the weekend, then Monday I have to get back
to it. Probably to tell you the truth, I will be dead
soon if I don’t stop this. (laughing)
(An awful lot of the banter on
the Stern Show involves the cast busting
one another’s chops. Artie, due to his self-effacing
sense of humor and comments like the one above, mostly gets
hit regarding his weight, drinking, smoking, eating, and general
lack of good health.)
: How much of that really gets under your
skin?
 Artie
Lange: Some days, you’re
just in the mood where nothing can fuck with you. Some
days, you’re not in the mood to hear anything. You get
angry. Howard’s good at pushing those buttons.
But everybody gets it. It’s fun dishing it out, but
if you dish it out you have to take it. If you can’t
take you should really leave the show. Some comics said
when I got the gig, being funny is just one of the qualifications.
You’ve got to have a thick skin. There are some
comics who can’t deal with this ball breaking; they’d
hit someone with a bat. I’ve had a lot of training
in getting insulted over the years. I’m fine with
it. But some days you’re not into it, you could
lose it.
: Yeah, sometimes those feelings tend to
bleed out over the air.
Artie Lange: Well everybody does… some days, like Fred (Norris)
can’t deal. Plus the fact it’s so early and the
crankiness, hell I’ve wanted to strangle everybody on
the show. Stuttering John (Melendez -- current announcer for The Tonight Show With Jay Leno) was the biggest.
He would get to you, he could get under your skin and I mean
I almost punched him in the face on the air, several times.
John got under everyone’s skin…he’s a
good guy, a friend of mine, yeah I love John, I did the road
with him for awhile…I still talk to him and I wish
him the best. He’s good, he’s got a great family,
his wife’s awesome…but John can get under your
skin, especially if you’re workin’ with him all
week, and then you do the road with him. You’re in some
motel in Cincinnati after a shitty gig and you have to share
a room for whatever reason…John comes up with one of
them famous awful farts that makes you wanna like, you know,
put a gas mask on…it’s like “what’s
stopping me from throwing you out a window right now?!?”
(laughing)
(Artie, like everyone else on the
Stern show, seems to have no problem sharing the most intimate
of details about his life. Artie has told stories of
some of the awful things that have happened to him and that
he has done, stories most people would tend to forget ever
happened, usually resulting in some of the show’s funniest
moments.)
: Has Howard (Stern) or anyone has ever
declared something “off limits” on the air.
Artie Lange: You don’t know, and Howard never had a conversation
with me like that either. It’s so weird…everyone
asked me when I got the gig “did he sit you down and
go ‘don’t talk about it?’” It’s
never happened; he just lets stuff get worked out on the air.
He really likes doing it…he likes walking that line.
Somebody says something on the air he doesn’t like,
he’ll just, you know, push the button, and then we have
a little delay now in case someone says something and then
you have to know not to ever bring it up again. He just lets
you figure it out for yourself.
To certain people, you know, certain actors, there are rumors
about them being gay, and some people are very litigious with
that. Like Tom Cruise sues everybody, so Howard is very conscious
of that. He’s a high profile guy and one of the first
jokes I told when I got the job on the air, it’s still
one of my favorite jokes ever told on the air, but Howard
had to hit the button. He (Cruise) was married to Nicole
Kidman, and I said “Nicole Kidman…Australian
for beard;” obviously implying Tom Cruise was gay, and
he (Howard) laughed but he hit the button and afterwards he
said I can’t have any inference…or else he’ll
sue us, and I said “you know, okay”… you
live and you learn. But he never sat me down off the air and
said “don’t do it” he let me find out on
the air.
 : So, there are no secrets? The cast
has nothing to hide?
Artie Lange: Well, I mean, the truth is, there are. I mean,
obviously there’s things in our personal lives that
just aren’t brought up on the air… but we do
bring up a ton of shit more than the average people do. The
show is about our life and I’ve offered up stories and
it’s like therapy. Afterwards I’m walking
up Sixth Avenue in a daze like “what did I just say?!?”
And my uncles and aunts and stuff are hearing stories for
the first time; that I shit my pants in a gas station, they
never heard it before I was on the radio. It took awhile to
get that chemistry too…they (Howard, Fred, Robin) were
already like a jazz band. For me it took awhile to learn like,
when your solo is, when you come in and talk…he (Howard)
hates when you talk over people. I figured it out now
and it’s a good on air team. The truth is, I wouldn’t
leave to do another radio show. I’m on the New York
Yankees of radio, why go to the Devil Rays? If I left it would
be for television or a movie career.
: Has that general openness about your
life affected your career outside of the show?
Artie Lange: Yeah well first of all, I made a conscious decision when I
got on the show that I had all of these fucked up loser stories
and, I said in the vein of Richard Pryor, I’m going
to try and be funny by telling them on the air in a funny
way. I might as well turn a negative into a positive.
My agent says, if you do that, you might lose a chance for
some endorsements. I made a conscious decision to say screw
it, and I’ll try to be funny in an honest way, and hope
the money would come in a different way. The first three months
I was on the show, 7/11 came up with a campaign…they
were putting in a new hotdog machine, and they wanted me to
be the new hotdog guy. Wearing a goofy 7/11 outfit, it was
like total sellout. (laughing) For three days of work,
$500,000. My agent said, it’s on the table man, ready
for you to sign; and I was like “fuck it, that’s
money I can’t turn down.” So a day before I actually
signed the contract, the CEO, head muckity-muck of 7/11 turns
on the Stern show and they said, “this is the guy we’re
going with! Listen to him he’s funny.”
So he puts it on his way to work in the back of the limo or
whatever, and he’s listening to me tell this story about
getting thrown off of MadTV for possession
of cocaine and swinging at a cop, and the guy’s jawed
dropped and he called the people under him and said “What,
are you fuckin’ crazy? This guy is gonna be our spokesperson
and he was in jail for five days?!? Immediately fire
him.” It was a funny story, I got a lot of calls saying
it was funny as hell, but I lost 500 g’s for three days
of work…they fired me. My agent called me and said,
“You just blew it.” To tell you the truth I’d
rather be the guy telling a funny edgy story than the “hotdog
guy” at 7/11, I really would.
(Historically, films and television
shows have a difficult time getting insurance for actors who
have had “troubles” in their recent past, affecting
their ability to be cast or getting a project made.)
: Are you in one of those “Robert
Downey Jr. situations?
Artie Lange: Um, it’s not as bad as him yet, like I haven’t
lost…obviously this movie (Artie
Lange’s Beer League) was a big deal…
independent movie guys putting up money, it was a big part
of this hedge fund, it all depends on me showing up everyday.
And I just had a nervous breakdown on the air (laughing)…so
the guys signing the checks were like, “What am I going
to do?” And there were insurance issues, so I sat them
down and guaranteed, “Guys, the month it takes to do
this, I can get through it, I’ll do it, I promise you.”
And they paid a bigger premium and insured me and I got through
it. I’ve lost actual life insurance in real life because
of these deathwatch things and stories I tell. It hasn’t
affected me with a gig yet… Entourage,
stuff like that. Hollywood is very forgiving, man. They have
to be. If they didn’t work with every fucked up druggie
in Hollywood, there would be no movies.
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