Have you ever seen a fat woman getting whipped into shape at an S&M club? What about a Mexican man with a house shaped like a naked lady? Well, maybe you would, if you'd stay up late like stand-up comedian Dave Attell. He's seen it all, and is now sharing his experiences with the world through his show Insomniac on Comedy Central. The Daily sat down to talk with Attell, who will perform tonight in Cohen Auditorium.
Were your high school days more Fast Times at Ridgemont High, <I>Saved by the Bell, or Lean on Me?
"It definitely was not like Lean on Me because I went to a suburban high school, but I think it was more like Saved by the Bell if they could use words like 'bitch,' or if they could curse. But my high school experience would be more like watching those things at home with a bottle of really cheap gin that I stole from my dad and eating way too many chips and sitting there going like 'I'm gonna steal the car and go into town and get pizza or Taco Bell' or something like that."
Would you look back at your high school days and consider yourself the sad clown secretly crying on the inside?
"I don't know, but I think the problem is that everyone is looking for their own drama. These kids, if I can call them that, think that their world is the whole world and its not. It's like such a non-part of your life. Once you get out of it, it's just over. I consider myself the guy in high school who was the most likely to get his nipples squeezed in gym class... 'cause I got a bit of a beer rack on me."Were you in ever in a marching band?
"Yeah."What instrument did you play?
"The buffoon. No I played the drums. I was the fattest kid so I played the big bass drum... and the tritoms, which were the ultimate."Did you get made fun of at all for being in the marching band?
"I'm sure I did, but I didn't care. This was before, when if you got made fun of you took it out on a bottle of your parents Seagram's and played some Ouija Board with a fat girl in a drainage ditch. We had a thing called Devil Worship back then, not like today with the kids with the guns going into the high school causing trouble. Back then the band kids just made fun of the kids who worked on the yearbook..."And I know that you're a big drinker but do you remember the first time that you had a drink?
"Well, the first time that I ever blacked out was at my friend's Confirmation party, or Holy Communion or whatever that is. I threw up all over his yard, and then all over his den, and then I think in another room. I came to one time and his mom went, 'I'm not gonna f***ing clean this shit up again. You do it, he's your friend!' And that's when I realized that women can be c***s. No, that's when I realized that this stuff is a powerful medicine. I think I was drunk off of wine and that weird Cr??me de Menthe, but you can't be choosy when you're underage."Do you ever get dumb drunk?
"No, but I've gotten in trouble drunk. More importantly than thinking 'Oh, I didn't kill anybody' when you're drunk is all the apologies that you have to leave on messages the next day. You always have to watch that."So what kind of drunk are you: the mean drunk, the sloppy drunk, the slutty drunk?
"I'm the phone call making drunk. After one drink I'm leaving obscene messages on the answering machine of every girl that I've ever talked to."Generally speaking were you the heartbreaker or the heartbroken back in those days?
"Well, the girl that I was in love with in high school is now divorced and everything, but I don't think that I ever really got the chance to get all screwed up over those girls because they were all so unattainable. But then you see them years later (and you will, you know)... I'm 36, so I run into these girls all over the country and they're all divorced and everything and are like 'Oh I saw you on TV,' but by that point you really don't care. You're like 'Oh that's cool.' But I did get to have sex with the girl I did like in high school years later so that was good."Did she see a show of yours on TV?
"Well yeah, how do you think it happened? What do you think, she was sitting at home looking through her year book wondering "I wonder if he still has that 'Chico and the Man' mustache?"
