5-23-24 *INTERVIEW* Old School Comedian Rocky LaPorte at Comedy Works South

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Often I have comics in from ComedyWorks on Friday, but I got Rocky
Laporte today on Thursday, and Rockyis playing at Comedy Works South at the
Landmark tonight all the way through Sundaynight. So you're a hard working dude,
which I guess not not surprising fora guy who was a truck driver
in Chicago or something. Dock worker, dock worker, dock worker where in

(00:24):
Chicago? Wait? Wait, sowhere are the docks? I mean I
lived in Chicago, telling I livedin Chicago for a long time, and
I saw that in your resume dockworker in Chicago. But you don't really
think about Chicago and dock working.Oh no, it's it's not so much
like on the waterfront or anything likethat. It's free, you know Thursday,
that kind of All these trains bringin stuff, we put them on

(00:46):
semis or delivering them to the companies. So yeah, I actually was loading
the cattle hides for because we hadthe stockyards there. Yeah, and we
used to load cattle hides and thenthese containers and they'd ship them overseas make
leather goods out of them. Andthat was a that makes sense, that
kind of doc my mother wouldn't evenlet me in. I had to change
my clothes outside because I stunk sobad. Cow blood all over you.

(01:07):
And it's like, oh man,you're you're wearing a a Bears hat,
Yes, sir, so big Bearsfan. Oh yeah, yeah, a
lifelong Bears fan. Yeah, allthe way back to Gail Sayers. Buck
really is Walter Payton? Yeah?Yeah, I remember there was a kid
watching my little thirteen inch black andwhite television. Wow, that's when they
could like tear your head off andall that. Remember before it was rules,

(01:32):
remember those each other? I Ido remember, Folk. I gotta
say, I really your comedy isgreat, not only the whole Chicago thing
that I particularly like because I livedthere, but you you work clean,
which I really appreciate. I mean, I like dirty jokes too, but
I think there's a particular skill inin in working clean and uh. And

(01:53):
there's something about your persona that remindsme a little of like a like a
Hago Rodney Dangerfield. People have toldme that, so I'm not the first
one to say that, right,yeah, or just say like he's like
Sylvester stillone with jokes. Yeah thattoo, that too, Rocky with jokes
rocky So, but how do yougo from being a truck driver and like

(02:15):
loading cattle to comedy? You know, I wasn't good at anything else,
you know, and I was alwaysmaking people laugh and actually coming up.
When I was a kid, myuncle was on the radio. We used
to listen to my uncle on theradio all the time. And uh,
it wasn't a little it was likea police scanner, you know, it
was a police scanner. And uhhe was known as the Purp. I

(02:38):
don't know if I ever heard ofhim. No, it was my introduction
show business. But I don't know. It was just like I couldn't do
anything else, Like I didn't youknow, I didn't do good in school,
and you know, I remember fifthgrade. This is the true stuff
I got all laughs. I failedeverything and they promote, they go,

(02:59):
you're going to like you on probationor whatever, like I went to sixth
grade on like I think they weregoing to kids getting too big for the
desk, Like we got to movethem on like it making him uh huh.
We used to make him go homeat recess and shave. So I
don't know, but I love Chicago. It's a great town. To grow
up in, and I grew upin a big Italian like My neighborhood was

(03:22):
all Italian was like is that bybridge down by Bridgeport? Yeah? Yeah,
okay, Taylor Street? Yeah,who I mean? It was right?
The ice cream truck used to drivearound and play Godfather music. Yeah,
that ten out windows pushing at theice cream and by fifty bucks.
This is kind of a long shot, but one of the guys that I
used to trade I was a traderon the options exchange in Chicago, and

(03:46):
one of the guys I used totrade with had a big trading group called
Bridgeport Trading. His name is PatJirandi sometimes goes by Pat Finley. Do
you know him by any chance?I've heard of the name like a the
name was U you knew it inthe neighborhood, but I never met oh
wow, yeah, and he justrecently wrote some books that are actually quite
interesting. Folks. I think Ididn't mention. I didn't say comedyworks dot

(04:06):
com. You want to go buytickets to see Rockets playing tonight and then
let me make sure I get thetimes right. So tonight seven thirty Friday
Night seven fifteen, two shows onSaturday at seven fifteen and nine forty five
and then a Sunday show at sevenpm so Comedyworks dot com. I love
that bit that you did, AndI don't usually like ask comics to tell

(04:28):
jokes, but I just loved thisstory about the Las Vegas Zoo. Could
you just tell us a little bitabout the Las Vegas Zoo because I loved
that story so much. First ofall, I didn't know they had a
zooter. Like it was like,you know, who's gonna have a zoo
in one hundred and fifteen degree weather? Yeah, and uh it was they
had like four birds in a squirrellike. It was just the guy could

(04:51):
just see the bird exhibit. I'mlike, it's a nice duck and it
was all. And they charged youto get in there. That was the
crazy thing they charged. It waslike eight dollars that came out to like
a bucket animal. And I rememberI gave the guy a tanning because you
want change. I'm like, no, once you put a down payment on
a turtle or something. There waslike a lizard or something ran by.

(05:12):
I'm like, what the hell isthat? The guy goes, that's not
ours. I think they closed it. Actually, yeah, you just go.
I thank god, it was horrible. Oh my gosh, I just
love that story. So I noticedon your website that you do a lot
of corporate cakes, right, Sothe companies are going to do their Christmas

(05:35):
party or whatever, and they'll bringcomedian in And I'm what is that?
What's what's the difference in the experiencebetween doing that kind of show versus going
to comedy works. Oh, yougotta be very uh you know pee And
I'm pretty clean anyway. Yeah,well you can't have anything suggestive or you

(05:56):
know, you know, off coloror anything like that. I wear suit,
So it's like a whole different thing, you know. But they're getting
bombed anyway. But and you know, because their boss is there. Yeah,
but they want to make sure.So as long as you entertain the
guy that's paying the check, likethat's all you gotta worry, like make
him happy, and then they followhis lead kind of. You know.

(06:17):
There was a show that I wentto. So one of my friends and
morning show partners is the John Elwaygroup of car dealers, and they had
I'm sure you know Brad Williams.Yeah, and he came in and did
a show for them, and Iand I went to the party, and
what what I noticed was that justa lot of people around the sides of

(06:40):
the room were just talking and drinkingand making noise and not really and Brad's
freaking hilarious, as you know.Is is that an extra challenge in those
environments, like you, people aren'tpaying attention and you got to somehow stay
focused. Yeah, sometimes they're brutal, like they're really like, uh,
this happened just in the fall.Like I was in Cleveland. I had

(07:02):
great shows, I got a standingovation, and then in between they I
had to fly out to Palm Desertand do a gig for I had to
run a tosedo and these guys werelike they sold satellite parts to different countries
and they haven't been together for twoyears because of COVID. Right, and
it was a thousand people in theroom. Wow. They flew in a
band from Europe. That guy sellAltano. The voice he was on the

(07:27):
voice he won. They didn't listento nobody, Like I was just like
talking. It was like trying totalk in a bar with everybody talking and
no one's paying attention to you.I mean, it paid good money,
but man, it like it's abeating like you take a it's kind of
brutal one here, yeah, Psyche, you know, like you're thinking that
I lose my funny or then Iwent back to the Chicago when I did

(07:50):
a show and I got a standingovation. So it's like, you know,
each crowd is its own animal,and right, anybody thinks comedy it's
easy, it ain't like it.You know, you make it look easy,
but it's it's hard. How doyou like playing Denver? How do
you like commet Denver? The crowdthey're smart, they get it, do
you do you? And they're wellbehaved, you know, like you know,

(08:11):
who's got the worst behaved audiences thewhole the whole South? Really,
because I thought you were gonna sayPhilly based on some of the sports stuff
we were talking about before. Jerseycan get a little rode on Staten Island.
But uh, I don't know,like no, I like Texas is
good in Atlanta and stuff. Butwhen you get like over in the Mississippi

(08:33):
Alabama and they always tell you,they always give you crap from being from
the north, you know, andthey go to, let me ask you
this, if the South is somuch better than the North, I'll come
every time something bad happens. Peopleman craft went south real fast, you
know, true, right, ifthey use that as they do, they

(08:54):
do. I hadn't thought of itthat way, but all right, fine,
I usually think of Southerners being sopolite. But because I thought you
were gonna say Philly, Jersey,you know a little bit, a little
bit. But the Bible Belts couldthey're polite, you know, in there,
and then when you get out tothe other areas, you know,
and the real religious downer too,yeah, you know. And the guy

(09:16):
was going, what I I'm Italian? He was religion, I go Catholic,
Like, what about you? BecauseI'm Southern Baptist. I'm like,
what's the difference? He goes,well, our religion, we don't recognize
the pope, like he's the guywith the hat. Where you been?

(09:37):
Uh huh? I wanted to askyou about going to entertain military troops if
you did with Drew Carrey, right, And I always appreciate the guys who
do that. Can you just tellus a little about that experience and why
it was important to you? Itwas, well, my dad served in
World War Two. I was inthe army and my unserved in Iraq.

(10:01):
Really yeah. So we're like abig army family and it was like an
honor, like they were going,oh, I thank you for coming over,
and I'm like, you know,we we get to leave like you
guys, like it's an honor toperform for you guys, you know.
And we were there about two weeksbefore they caught Saddam Hussin, you know,
And we're into krit and it's hometownand we're on a flatbed trailer and

(10:22):
you here just gunfire, artillery goeslike around the clock, and uh,
I mean you think it's bad,here I go. I was just in
Detroit for two weeks and all theMichigan people brewed, but everybody else left.
That's a great line. It reallyhappened. But it was amazing to

(10:43):
go over there, you know,and what a hardship. Like there's a
lady there that, uh, Iguess you had a baby and they sent
her over there anyway, so heryou know, because I haven't seen my
kid in nine months. It wasa new born. And you know,
just the stories, you know,one guy at a hardware store in why
because I don't have no family andmy employees are running egause, I don't
even know what it's gonna it's gonnabe there when I get back. I

(11:07):
don't know, I'm gonna get robbedor you know. Yeah, yeah,
it was. It was a lotof interesting stories, you know, and
the things that they go through.We owe them a lot, you know,
our military did Did you entertain somegroup that included your son at the
time? Was he there? No? I was trying to make it when
he was there, you know.Yeah, I went in two thousand and

(11:28):
three and then six and yeah hewent in right after that, you know,
and I was trying to get backthere, but he was. He
was a combat engineer, and theywere always out in the field like eighteen
twenty hours and then whenever they gotthey just wanted to sleep, you know,
short hours before they got sent outagain. You know. Wow.

(11:48):
Yeah, we're talking with Rocky Laporte. He's playing tonight Friday, Saturday,
two shows on Saturday and Sunday nightComedy Works South at the Landmark. All
right, I'm I mean a dothis again, because there was just another
bit that I loved and you'll probablyget where I'm going here, But so
do you know, Mike Anderson,I know Flip Gunderson. That is such

(12:13):
a great bit. People do thatall the time, though you know they
do. People don't know what I'mtalking about, so tell what are we
talking about? Like you ask someoneif they know someone and then they tell
you someone else's name. But it'slike, I don't even know how that's
possible. Like sometimes they don't evenhave the right they don't even have the
right. Secks go you know MikeSmith, he goes, h, he

(12:33):
goes, we know Denise Smith.I'm like, yeah, that's the guy
I gotta plate in your head.What the hell's the matter with you?
And I think people come up tome after the show and they go that,
really, you know, that reallyhappened. You know, that's like
relatable, you know. And Ido another bit too about and this is
true, Like you know, whensomeone passes away, there's always some nitwith

(12:56):
that comes up, you know,the poor guys in the casket and there's
always somebody up They go, helooks good like he's dead, Like how
how bad did you look when youwere alive? That people think you look
better dressed up like Count Chocula.You know what I'm saying, And this
really happened. Some friends of minein Ohio of a friend that theres passed

(13:18):
away. He was only fifty twoand it was from alcoholism. The guy
died from drinking. To this truestory. So his brother's standing there and
some guy comes up says he looksgood, and his brother goes it's because
he hasn't had a drink in threedays. I think the truth is the
funniest stuff. And what I'm saying, yeah, yeah, folks. I

(13:41):
don't know if you've heard Rocky's stuffbefore, but it's really really funny.
This stuff is all linked on myblog at Rosskaminski dot com and of course
Rocky's website Rocky Laporte dot com.So Rocky l A P O R t
e dot com. And he's playingtonight at seven thirty Friday, seven fifteen,

(14:01):
and then two shows on Saturday,seven fifteen, ninety five, and
then a seven pm show on Sunday. So what is that? One?
Two, three, five shows,five shows over four days. That's that's
a lot hard work in Chicago,dude. Yes, sure, I'm ready
for it, and I love cominghere. You know, people treat me
great. We're glad to have you. It's pleasure to meet your rocky break
the Leg and hopefully I'll come seeyou in person. And because you're a

(14:24):
very funny dude, I pretty carefulabout who I go see because I can
go see a lot of them,but a good chance I'm gonna come see
you. Appreciate that, So thanksfor coming in to see you. Yeah
you too, Thanks, you too.