Tom Sexton & Janet Sexton
Anyway, Tom did a few shows with me and my ex-wife Carol (she briefly did stand-up in LA), and part of his act was to eat flames and shoot them across the stage. We were performing at the University of California at Irvine, and Tom asked me to help him with his flame throwing act. He had me stand 10 to 15 feet away and hold up an unlit torch. Then after he lit another torch and ate the flames, he took a mouthful of lighter fluid and held the lit torch about a foot from his face and spit out the light fluid, sending a ball of fire across the stage. It not only lit the torch I was holding, but my arm as well.
I immediately let out a manly high pitched scream (which I am widely known for) and shook my arm as rapidly as I could. The audience thought that was part of the act and it got a big laugh. Fortunately, only the hair on my arm was singed - I didn't suffer any burns. However, that was the last time I offered to help Tom with his fire act.
Comedy Memories: Tom
Sexton was a psychic as well as his wife Janet. He accurately predicted the
birth of our first son Ben even before we knew Carol was pregnant. One night I
decided to have Janet do a reading for me. Janet told me she was going to do
the reading using I Ching, which is based on Chinese philosophy that pre-dates
recorded history.
As part of the reading Janet directed me to take
3 pennies, shake them in my closed hand, and then drop them on the table six
times. Amazingly, and against all odds, I ended up with 3 heads all six times!
As she interpreted this, she informed me (with
my then wife Carol sitting right next to me),
“You're either
having an affair, or you have a drinking problem.”
I decided on the ride home it was in my best
interests to stop and get a fifth of Jack Daniels and drink the entire bottle
as soon as we got in the house. This is a true story, except for the Jack
Daniels, and no, I wasn't having an affair.
Axles
Comedy Memories: I never achieved national fame when I pursued a career in stand-up comedy, but I did get the chance to open for some notable comics. One of them was Pat Paulsen, and in a most unique setting. It was around 1980 and I and several other Detroit comics were booked at a strip club called Axles on 8 Mile Road. The club booked Pat Paulsen and I was one of his warm-up acts. He was as hilarious as he usually was when he appeared on the Smothers Brothers Show, and quite a nice man off stage. A side anecdote about Axles: They had a gorgeous 6 foot tall (taller in her high heels) hostess named "Mickey". Not have the sense to be properly intimidated by her statuesque beauty, I boldly marched my 5'5" body over to her and said, "I think you're gorgeous - may I buy you a drink, wax your car, or simply grovel at your feet?" She laughed and by the end of the night gave me her phone number. We dated for a few months and made quite the sight, her being 7 inches taller than me.
Comedy Memories: In the late 70's I left Detroit and drove to St. Louis on my way to L.A. where I hoped to break into the big time. I had planned to spend a few weeks visiting relatives and friends before I headed to the West Coast. While in town I reconnected with my college sweetheart who I hadn't seen or spoken to in 14 years. We ended up dating and ultimately became engaged to be married (wife number 2). I decided to stay in St. Louis a year while my fiance finished her nuclear med tech studies. During this time I lined up 6 weeks of comedy work on the road, including 2 weeks in Sarasota, FLorida and a week in Gainesville, Florida. Before I got the booking in Sarasota at a club called Giggles, I had to call the manager no less the 16 times before he'd give me the booking. Apparently, another Detroit comic who didn't like me had bad mouthed me to the manager and he was afraid to take a chance on me. He did eventually give in to my persistence and booked me for 2 weeks. The first night he told me to only do 10 minutes because he was still thinking about what the other comic said about me. I killed and the next night he told me to do 20 minutes for the rest of my booking. He said he was glad I didn't give up, because it was my persistence that made him change his mind about me. Comedy has always been very political as anyone who has done it professionally will tell you.
Each week I performed at Giggles in Sarasota I opened for a different headliner. The first week I opened for Mike McDonald, who I believe was from Canada. He was very funny on stage but kind of a prima dona off stage. We were supposed to share a bedroom and he insisted he had to have it to himself and for the week he was in town I was forced to take my mattress into the living room and sleep on the floor. The following week, Paul Kelly, from Chicago was the headliner. I knew Paul from working with him in Detroit and he was a hell of a nice guy and did not mind sharing the bedroom. During this time I was around a fair amount of drugs. The club owner, his regular MC and just about everyone but me smoked grass. While I was there someone was doing coke off of the dining room table and I was offered some. I passed and I think I probably didn't get rebooked because I wasn't part of that culture. Truly, I didn't mind, it made me uncomfortable to be around people that did drugs - still does. On a more positive note, while I was there a friend of the club manager came to visit. I wish I could remember his full name. I only remember Pete. Pete played for the Cincinati Bengals and he drove a beautiful red Corvette. We became kind of friends while we were in town together and Pete lent me his car to go shopping one day. It was the first time I ever drove a Corvette, not to mention it belonged to a professional football player to boot!
I share additional
comedy memories in my book, "5 Tight Minutes," available on Amazon at
popular prices.
Comments
Post a Comment