I had the satisfaction of a rare phone call waking me up during my mid-afternoon nap yesterday. This was the third phone call that had received while I was trying to get some shuteye before my “beer league” softball game tonight. I wasn’t going to answer it but when I looked at the screen and it read: “Ted” on it, I knew it could only be one person.

So I answered the phone and was ecstatic to hear that it in fact was Teddy, Artie’s former assistant and now live show producer. He said he just happened to be browsing my website, reading some stuff and thought he would give me a ring. Throughout the chat [which lasted over 40 minutes], Ted was very candid about everything and as always a pleasure to speak with.

The New Assistant

Ted said the new assistant, Hillary, is working out pretty well. She is now doing all the stuff that Ted was terrible at doing and never really wanted to do. As you guys know, Teddy works full time at Sirius on the Stern show but he was also taking Artie’s messages, emails as well as dealing with the live shows and traveling. In the end, Ted couldn’t do it all and now with Hillary on board it has made Ted’s job more enjoyable. I should note that Hillary doesn’t go on the road.

Ted also said that he was really happy Hillary is the new assistant because she is good for Artie, he is very nice to her and he is now more respectful to the position of an assistant [because she is a girl].

What is Teddy’s role?

Teddy is now doing what he always loved about working with Artie, in his words “I just wanted to go with him on the road”. Teddy is kind of like Artie’s live show producer. He makes sure the sound check, lighting, backstage and dressing room are all just right for the show. He also handles the details for the gig including the line-up, how much time each comedian has, the show starting on time, being at the side of the stage during the set if Artie needs anything and tracking ticket numbers at the end of the night. He is the producer.

JD has joined the road crew recently as well, documenting all the behind the scenes stuff at the shows and blogging on artie-lange.com. Ted said him and JD work really well together.

Artie on Drugs

As reported earlier, Artie slept through half the show yesterday which again sparked the concerns / rumors of Artie back on the heroin. So I asked Ted about it. He told me that Artie wasn’t on drugs and felt it could be a combination of things. He said, “Maybe it is the Hawaiian punch” but quickly went into how Artie was feeling the pressure from a lot of things recently including building a house, but mainly, the USO shows. Ted explained that Artie doesn’t really feel stressed about going over to Iraq [besides the fact that who wants to be traveling for a day] but that Artie was more concerned about putting on a good show for the soldiers. Ted said he has been saying recently that he “doesn’t want to bomb”.

Artie vs. Teddy Fight

I asked Ted about the day everyone either heard on the air, watched on Howard TV or read about in the newspaper: Artie quitting. He described it as his “single scariest day ever”. He told me that Howard pulled him aside and talked to him after the show. Ted was apologizing to Howard, feeling that he was responsible for ruining the show by Artie getting pissed and quitting. Ted offered to quit if that would help things but Howard insisted that he stay and that things would work out.

After everything that went down that day both guys still managed to get on the same plane and go to Amsterdam. Ted said that they didn’t talk at all until sometime after they returned from the trip. The day after Ted new that it wasn’t the real Artie talking the day before – the one that was throwing things at him, calling him a thief and threatening to beat him up.

Reconciliation

After Amsterdam Artie came to Ted, apologized and asked him to come back to work with him. Ted said that he was nervous about working with him, he certainly didn’t want to put Artie in that position again and have everything blow up. At first Ted said no but changed his mind after Artie agreed to some ground rules that Ted set forth.

Ultimately Artie and Ted are close. They have spent a lot of time with each other on the road and although it was a pretty crazy situation that went down, these guys are friends and were able to return to working together. Things are running relatively smooth these days and there are no hard feelings.

Ted also said at the time of the fight tension had really been building between them both. There were a bunch of things eating at each other and it needed to come out. So really, the fight was the letting out of a lot of built up steam. Ted said he was glad it happened because it enabled them to deal with some stuff and get over it.

What about Teddy stealing from Artie?

One of the things that stuck out to me during the Artie vs. Teddy fight was the accusation of Teddy stealing money from Artie. I asked Ted about that. He told me that he wasn’t in a good place financially when he started to work with Artie on the road. In the beginning he was dependant on his own credit card while traveling from gig to gig. It got to the point where the monthly charges were very high, he was in a ton of debt and he couldn’t afford to keep working with Artie. It wasn’t like he was getting a per diem. The conversation brought to mind a recent show stint with Eric the midget and Johnny Frado.

Of course Artie being the generous guy he is, he lent Ted some money to help with the credit card and reimbursements for day-to-day costs of being on tour. Ted referred to it as a “loan with no interest and no due date”.

Fast forward to the fight. Artie came down on Ted some pretty hard talk like “Stop robbing my money” and “He is ripping off my fucking money”. Ted explained that Artie had just got done with his taxes and “got bombarded with other dead beats” that Artie lent money to. Ted insists that he never stole money. Artie’s anger was really with a lot of different things but Ted was the target that day and probably received some collateral damage.

High Pitch Mike

Being that High Pitch Mike has been my target a few times, I asked Ted about the Artie vs. Mike stuff. He told me that things have calmed down but Artie and HPM really don’t talk. I told Ted that it seemed a bit contrived and that at times maybe Mike just wanted to get on the air.

Ted explained that it was supposed to be a bit. The show thought it would be funny if Mike could come up with some rants that he would say on the show [in his weird voice]. They weren’t supposed to be on Artie but it’s just the direction he wound up going. Then of course he started crossing the line on his own. Talking about Artie’s father falling off the roof, etc… Ted described HPM as a smart guy that knew how to push Artie’s buttons and by Artie knowing how to push Mike’s buttons they just got at each other.

Ted asked me if there were anything else I wanted to know but being that I was unprepared, I couldn’t come up with much else. I thanked him for calling and we hung up. I must apologize here for saying that “Teddy went Hollywood a long time ago”. I have had a few phone conversations with Teddy in the past and he has always been very nice to me besides not coming through on a couple things but I can’t really blame him for that.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under The Foundation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.