FYI – The author of the article informed me that the “update” at the end was from a month ago. So fairly recent.
Artie Lange made a career of transforming his personal demons into comedy, but can he do the same with his January 2010 suicide attempt? Our extraordinary interview with the Howard Stern sidekick suggests there’s hope.
Artie Lange has worn several hats during his 17-year career—stand-up comic, actor, author—but he made his biggest mark as radio pioneer Howard Stern’s debauched and foul-mouthed sidekick and, on occasion, whipping boy. On Stern’s show, Lange frequently rambled about his various vices and demons: prostitutes, gambling, heroin, cocaine, punishingly low self esteem, and his struggle to stay sober. Sometimes his fellow Stern-menagerie members decided to eat their own kind, making Lange the target of pitiless insults and commentary, especially on mornings when, say, he fell asleep at the microphone on the heels of whatever he did the night before.
Part of the fun of listening to it all was that it revitalized the tired comedy cliché—it’s funny because it’s true. Artie’s tales of debauchery were true, listeners knew, and all the more funny—and, let’s face it, titillating—for it.
But the comedy came grinding to a terrifying and grisly halt on the night of January 2, 2010, when Lange’s mother entered her son’s Hoboken, New Jersey, condo carrying a bag of groceries, including Lange’s favorite dish—chicken Parmesan—and found Lange on the kitchen floor bleeding from multiple stab wounds to his abdomen. He was rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center, where doctors found nine wounds to the comic’s torso—all of them self-inflicted with a 13-inch kitchen knife.
Lange’s doctors cleaned up the wounds and operated, and he was released ten days later, but he kept a low profile after the incident. Although Sirius XM Radio, which hosts the Stern show, says he is welcome back to the program any time, it’s hard to predict how Lange will handle his comeback. He has always succeeded in turning his self-destructive low points into comedic bits, but this one, obviously, belongs in a different category.
We visited with Lange months before his suicide attempt, when things were looking up for him. He had been clean for a while, and appeared to have a healthy perspective on—if not total mastery over—the various pitfalls of his multiple addictions.
He told us that he’d kicked heroin and had been clean for months, though he’d gotten hooked on a drug called Subutex to
keep him off the junk. He had just finished shooting a pilot for an Artie Lange reality show on A&E, and was working on a sequel to his best-selling book, Too Fat to Fish.
We spent a whirlwind week with him, visiting his Hoboken condo, riding with him and his entourage to a stand-up gig in Niagara Falls, and cruising down to the Jersey shore. It was not a visit we’d have soon forgotten, in any case, but after his suicide attempt, some of his comments took on an astounding resonance. He discussed, in sober terms, the gloomy fates of fellow “fat-man” comedians John Belushi and Chris Farley. He talked about avoiding the triggers for his addictions, previous rumors of his death, and, incredibly, his concern that a reality show based on his life might be “boring.”
“Welcome to my gindaloon-fuck-you house!” Lange announced by way of greeting when we entered the beach condo. “It’s the guinea dream! I feel like Rodney Dangerfield saying that. I bought it in 2007—it took two years too long, but my mother is proud, and I am happy. Fuck you, I didn’t go to college, and look at this place.”
Lange delivered his wisecracks while giving us the grand tour of the seven-bedroom, six-bath bachelor pad. The house also contains a media room and an elevator he installed for his mother. It is spotless, mostly white, with carefully color-coordinated accessories—from the white leather couches to the frilly cloth napkins to matching towels in every bathroom.
This place looks like a Martha Stewart catalog.
It’s known as the man-cave, but my mom did the whole place; it kind of looks like a gay guy’s place, it’s so neat. All I asked is that she keep it under $5 million—God, I sound like an asshole!
Well, there’s nothing “manly” about it. Your mom may have gone overboard.
No! There are kegs on the deck, a boat pier with four boat lifts and room for Jet Skis, and a heated pool. Come see the bedroom that she did for me—even though you’ll probably get the sense that my mother is too involved in my life. The remote-control blinds up there cost me $18,000. I guess they’re worth it.
Do you feel like you’ve made it at this point in your career?
I never feel that way. In the beginning all I wanted was to make $70k working on the docks [Lange was a longshoreman before entering show business]. The truth is, if I retired I would be fine, but I wouldn’t have much to do. I always want more. I can’t help it; it’s like a drug.
So money is another one of your vices?
It’s true. “One day at a time” is what I have been told to say to myself. The thing is, there are friends of mine who I prefer to be sober with, because I want to listen and bond—it’s fun. If I was always with those people, I could be sober, no problem. I have nothing to be passionate about.
Nothing? There must be something.
Work. I have nothing else to be excited about. It sucks.
You’re not ready to start dating?
I see this one girl from time to time, but there are always issues, it seems. The broad I see now, she’s 25, works in pharmaceuticals. I met her at the Funny Bone, after a gig I did in Pittsburgh. I’ll have to see what happens with her—she’s “the Neil Young chick” when Howard talks about her on-air, because I mentioned that the first time I went over to her apartment, she had a Neil Young poster, and that’s as far as she will let me go, describing her. It’s rather pathetic. I don’t even know the name of the company where she works. It’s a humiliating job, being a comedian.
How so?
It can really get you down. The best thing one comedian can see is another comedian bombing—we relish it. But still, I never rooted for a friend to fail. One of the best stories I have is from the Comedy Cellar in ’94. There were people yelling over setups, and Dave Attell just barreled through—he was completely fearless. Norm MacDonald is like that, too. The definition of a hack is a comedian giving the audience what they want. When Attell realized that he was making me laugh in the back every couple of minutes, he kept at it, regardless of the audience: “David, why do you do comedy—the fame, the pussy? No, I need to find my daughter.” Then he shouts, “Nadine?!” Another dead end. The crowd was ready to throw a beer at him. And he wouldn’t stop. “Nadine?!” I was dying in the back. But, you know, with my luck, I can make money, while these guys have to hustle. It’s part of the business.
I know you love being on The Howard Stern Show, but is there anything that frustrates you about it?
The show changed my life. Really, I have no complaints. All the rumors about me leaving, dying, I can’t let it affect me. I guess the one thing is Howard’s [lack of] sports knowledge. When I start talking about baseball, basketball, any sport—he has no idea what I’m talking about, and neither does Robin [Quivers]. But a lot of the fans know, so he lets me do it. I can’t believe the way the Stern show gets you this rock-star image. It’s an extraordinary relationship that you have with the fans. I never experienced it before the show. In the past, a few people might have known my movie work, or MADtv. But now, because of the Stern show, in every city I go to while touring, I feel like I’ve got a place to crash.
Are you close with everyone on the show?
Definitely; it’s like family. And this summer I will use the beach house to entertain everyone from the show, along with my close friends—all the guys I grew up with in Jersey. It’s going to be more low-key.
Do you mind being the butt of so many jokes?
People relate to someone who screws up, and they admire you if you are honest about it. It’s one area where I am confident. I still feel like a regular schmo. Rather than being phony about it, I go with it. I guess I was at the right place, at the right time. Getting on The Howard Stern Show is the greatest thing that happened to me. I am sitting in a $2 million shore house, with a hot reporter chick interviewing me—I am lucky. This summer will be a turning point for me: I’ll be in shape, maybe I’ll even get laid.
Tell me about your upcoming reality show.
I received money up front just to shoot the pilot—$50k—but it’s depressing me. With stand-up I can perfect my act, but in the “reality” format I get self-conscious sometimes, and I get frustrated and depressed. Reality-TV producers like train wrecks, but I think it will be more of a bore. I am not going to purposely fuck up for them.
When was your addiction most severe?
In 2005, during [the shooting of the 2006 comedy] Beer League, I got to a point where I had numbers in every city for guys that could get me heroin. There was a guy in Boston, let’s call him Joey—shady guy; he was one of them. Colin Quinn was onstage once, and Joey was in the audience. That night, four big goons out of nowhere beat Joey up and everyone in the crowd was freaking out. Quinn played it off: “That’s my closing joke, guys, thanks.” Joey was a bad gambler, he owed a bookie $150,000. I haven’t seen Joey since 2005. I hope he’s alive.
Do you still have all those numbers?
I purposely got rid of most of them, and I changed my number. I remember visiting John Belushi’s grave on Martha’s Vineyard, and it was trashed—people left bags of blow and cans of beer. It’s rumored that they removed John’s actual body [to protect it]. The chaos that drugs cause is not romantic or glamorous—it’s assholes creating would-be grave diggers. Belushi and Farley died from coke and heroin—it’s just so pathetic. Thinking about this, I am so appalled by my old lifestyle.
How do you avoid your triggers to prevent a relapse?
Grown men come to my shows with my book—it’s like what an eight-year-old kid does with Miley Cyrus. Construction workers with dust on their asses. It’s eerie, but it blows me away. I’ve got a solid structure and the best people around me for the first time in my life—my blue-collar extended family. It’s redeeming. It helps me get up in the morning, knowing how dedicated the fans are. I get a good feeling when I meet fans who quote me. It’s rather touching. You don’t get that even if you are a movie star.
UPDATE
Lange has been laying low since the suicide attempt, spending time at home with his mother, Judy, and his sister, Stacey, who reports that Artie is “still in bed, and not speaking more than five words a day.” Artie’s sister canceled his comedy shows in Las Vegas and at Foxwoods, as well as a few club dates in New York that were scheduled for June and July.
Lange, who had a book deal and a reality show in the offing (they’ve been postponed), told our reporter, “I like to think people like me because I’m funny and talented, but it goes beyond that because I have done a lot of fucking-up in my life. I am not trying to lie about my past to get a Miller Lite commercial and be part of that whole hypocrisy.”
In addition to relying on support from his mother and his sister, Artie reached out to Stern, telling Howard then that he had been sober for 54 days. Stern reported on his show that Artie sounded like “up Artie” (Lange has had symptoms of manic depression), and says he has no plans to replace Lange.
Link: Original Source
