Speaker 1: Somebody dot TV New Metal aid a strong style, sa Son,
you're gonna ring a ball water you going over the
top like talking about Salon.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the laps fan man number one in the ring.
Speaker 1: Forget about Osada with a real king of swing when
the bell goes in and the kicked like men throwing
in the corner with its rash like sting. Even Jerry
King and take off the crowd nodded in his head
like his tean low Brown were just getting low down.
Speaker 2: For the goat even higher flipping you on your head.
Speaker 1: But you no cool drive more knowledge and dragon spits fire.
Give you more shot than when the air tree tire
dropping more truth than the con of sniper.
Speaker 3: Bless you with a coconut Roddy Piper checking JP.
Speaker 2: He like j y D drop the cupcakes and got
the brain.
Speaker 3: Bove means the best podcast frost start to close cloud
if you all better fit this flaw sick and polls well.
Speaker 4: By Now you know and in case you don't, It's
August third, ty Noon Comedy Village Tie Square, not a
fucking game. The Lapsed Fan Live. We take to the
stage smack dab in the middle of the biggest and
first to night SummerSlam in WWE history, Because you know, Boss,
there's just sometimes you've got to gather wrestling fans around
and just have a talk about why it is we're
still watching this stuff if none of it's.
Speaker 5: Real, listen and why? And where better? But what better
place to do it than in the middle of New
York City on fucking Broadway. Essentially all right, taking care,
taking care of business the way we do there.
Speaker 4: It goes the neighborhood, you know the deal Comedy Village
dot com for tickets, please join us as we bring
together the Laps. And this is huge because we're joined
now by the proprietor of Seid Establishment, someone really in
the firmament of New York City comedy and we're really
privileged to work with him. Coming up on August third
PJ Landers Season New York comedian, actor, writer, owner of
the Comedy Village. Is he your ton of experience in
the industry and a queen's boy.
Speaker 5: PJ.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Labs.
Speaker 2: Fan, Thank you guys for having me. I'm so excited
to be here.
Speaker 4: So first get our listeners. If you could acquainted with
the history of the venue. This is a really cool
place that we're going to be playing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're excited to have you. I mean, we're coming
from a friend of ours, Ray, who always is a
comedy and wrestling fan since I've known him, Ray Goots,
and he introduced me to you guys, And this place
is exciting. We're in the heart of the village, excuse me,
your heart of Times Square right now on West forty
forth Street, just like a couple of blocks from the
train station and the bus station, so it's real easy
to get to. And I've been doing comedy for over
thirty years in New York City. We originally started on
West third Street at a place called the Boston Comedy Club.
I know now a bunch of of your fans will
know this because this is the place where Dave Chappelle started,
Louis c. K started, David tel started. Is more all
the guys we know.
Speaker 5: Now, isn't there a little bit of irony that there's
a Boston, that there's the Boston Comedy Club in New
York given the sports rivalries of the of the cities.
Speaker 2: It's so great that you say that because the guy
who started it was a guy named Barry Katz. Okay,
Barry Katz was from Boston and there was another company
called New York Comedy Club, so he wanted to put
a twist on it. That's how many people thought it
was stupid. They're like, what a stupid idea for the
Boston Comedy Club on West third Street. But you know what,
it was genius because everybody talked about it, and now
we're talking about it forty years later.
Speaker 5: Amzing.
Speaker 2: But I got very lucky. Barry was deciding to go
out to Los Angeles and they were going to close
the club, and I had no experience running a full
time club, but this was two thousand and five, and
they said, hey, do you want to do it? And
we took gover and within a year we were successful.
We had Chappelle, who had just come out of like
Recluse with the with the whole Chapelle show thing. He
came down to our place one night and he performed
for the first time that anybody had ever seen him
do it. He performed for four hours on my stage.
Speaker 4: Wow. Wow, so this is this is hollowed ground. That's wild. Well,
we're a couple, we're both Bostonians PJ. And we grew
up going to the New York Comedy Club. No, I'm
kidding it. We could we can switch to the switch
the joke around.
Speaker 5: You know, we do.
Speaker 4: We do a thing where we find a wrestler has
been in a movie, okay, and we review the movie.
We call it qualifying for one of the shows we
do if there's a wrestler involved somehow, or if it's
about a wrestler. You know, by virtue of working with us,
you might help qualify Spike Lee's She's Got to Have
It because I understand that you played a role. Perhaps
there can you tell us about that film, maybe it'll
help us qualify that great picture.
Speaker 2: Well it's that was actually the series that was on Netflix.
Speaker 4: Oh got it?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was a little bit different.
I actually played a nice, nice, good old Spike Lee
racist cop.
Speaker 4: How how how naturally did that come to you? I'm kidding,
but no, no, it's it's it's funny.
Speaker 2: It's because listen in my neighborhood, Sunnyside Woodside, which let
me tell you, and you'll tell me when to stop.
Speaker 4: And I'll please go ahead.
Speaker 2: By the way, I'll be listening to you carefully to
uh to break in obviously I'm not going to be
talking the whole time. But I grew up in Sunnyside Woodside. Now,
for a bunch of wrestling fans out there, you'll know,
Sunnyside Gardens is a world famous place, and I lived
there and I actually got That's where I first got
my taste for wrestling from from you know, undercards, And
I don't even note of the names that I saw.
And we'll talk about the big guys later, but none
of the names that I saw I can remember. But
it was real wrestling. You know. I love what people
say like fake. Like I don't understand how you think
a two hundred and twenty five pound man slapping you
in the face, whether it's real or fake, is not real, right.
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean, listen, I'm want to let you
know that PJ. So, I've gotten in the ring twice, okay,
and I will tell you that the next morning after
I wrestled, the pain was undeniably real. How sore I was.
It's fucking real.
Speaker 2: Man. What was the girl's name? Who beats me?
Speaker 4: Well, now we're not talking about wrestling anymore. That's a
whole different thing exactly. Hello, major concern there well, I'm
glad you went right there, PJ.
Speaker 5: Because we do.
Speaker 4: We always covet the opportunity to talk to fans who
remember by gone eras we focus a lot on recollecting
the nostalgia that wrestling, the special nostalgic place wrestling can
hold in a lot of people's minds. So what are
we talking about? Were talking about the Pedro Morales era
or the Bob Backland era, or the Bruno San Martino era,
the Hogan era.
Speaker 2: We're talking like with those two ladder names, the Bruno,
the later part Hogan, but Salmonino, the Big Boy Andre,
the Giants. Yes, you know these guys, These guys I
got very lucky to see. We all kind of liked wrestling.
We would watch it on w O Wall in New
York City. If I can recall, it was on later
either like a ten or eleven o'clock where we had
to do a sleepover, yes kind of thing, and you
know there was no I can't remember because I'm, like
I said, I'm a little older than you guys, but
in the seventies, I can't recall it. Like overall, like
people saying, oh, it's fake, it's this and that. I
think It was just fun to watch. It was something
different than anything that you ever saw. Nobody in your
neighborhood was wrestling like that. Everybody was either boxing or
you know, doing a karate kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, it catches the eye in a way, like
if you have any m JP. We talked about this
all the time, if you have any like proclivity towards
like hand to hand combat as a kid, like if
you're into hinjas or anything, wrestling is just like this
fascinating representation of what a fight might look like. You
don't know, you know, you haven't been in a hundred fights,
you know, this could very well be what a fight
looks like you especially before UFC existed.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'll tell you no, no, you go oh.
Speaker 5: I was just going to say that. You know, as
a as a kid, one of the things that always
attracted me to wrestling was the idea that this is
what I wanted sports to be. I wanted sports to
be people just hating on each other for no reason
and just beating the crap out of each other. Like,
to me, that's what sports were all about.
Speaker 2: No rules, my family life, all right, you were going
to say, Pa, I was going to add on to
it that, you know, in my neighborhood, wrestling saved my life. Wow,
it saved my life a bunch of times, like like
in fights, right. I remember this one time, and I
didn't even know how to do it, but I got
a guy. We had a fight, and I got a
guy in a headlock, you know, and more than likely
it was completely incorrect, it was, but I you know,
I thought I was like I was Bob Backling at
that moment. You know, I was like, Oh, I got
this guy, you know. And then another time I thought
this guy was much bigger than I was, you know,
maybe I was, you know, ten or ten, eleven years old,
whatever it was, and I go to my friends. I
go it was maybe like six foot two hundred pounds.
I say to my guys, I got this one. And
I go up to him and I grab him in
the headlock, and just like a scene like in the middle,
like like we had planned it, he grabs me by
my ass, He flips me over, throws me into a car,
and slaps the shit out of me.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that's that's so true. You would never
Your point, I think is you would never think to
grab a headlock. If you didn't watch wrestling, that'd be
the last instinct you'd have in the middle of a fight.
But you're like, it just I don't know, you kind
of download it in your head in a way.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to admit that it is an exciting sport.
You know, it's really a certain people, a certain type
of person that watches it. You know, if you're a
golf guy, you might like it, but maybe you won't.
Maybe you want the excitement. You like, like you just said,
the bullshit that goes back and forth and back in
the day was even worse. You know, they were saying
racial slurs and all about their wives, and you know,
well maybe they do it now. I know, I think
it's a little different now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a lot more passive aggressive, but yeah, they
do try to do mic drop things on the light
like that. But all right, this is great, what a
great foundation. Now I'm coming in JP and I are
coming in hot because we know there's a couple of
things that you're going to be able to talk about
when it comes to this era of wrestling in New
York and coming of age during this time. One is
Bob Beckland. You already mentioned him. He of course reigned
for years his WWWF champion, kind of taking the mantle
of the babyface champion at the Garden, after Bruno and
then Pedro and then Superstar, and then it was Backland.
There is a story. When I first heard it PJ,
and I'd like you to share it with our listeners.
I thought this had to have been the era where
Bob Eckland in the nineties turned into a psychopathic bad
guy because of what I was hearing. But no, this
story happened when Bob Backlin was the squeakiest, clean good
guy in all of wrestling. Tell us what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm at the Garden. I can't remember the year,
forgive me for it. I actually called up because when
we talk about the other things, I called three other
people to firm up my story. But we were at
the Garden and this guy, which we'll talk to or
unless you want to bring it up there, I'll just
say for now, this guy mel got us like seats
that were in the area, you know, and Bob macklean
came out of the flying off of the ring, flying
off the ring like let me tell you when you
watch it on TV. It's one thing, but when you're
five and ten fifteen feet away as a young kid,
and you see a two hundred pound man flying ten
feet into the air, and I forgot who he was
going against, but he gave when to give the guy
a shot, and the guy ducked, and my beautiful red
head freckle face took the punch right in the jaw.
Speaker 4: Oh, you took it for real.
Speaker 2: I took it for real. Whether he was really gonna
hit the guy or anything, it's just like it was
a flying's arm. The guy ducked. My dumb ass face
was there. Pow. I go back on my back. I
shake it off. I jump up as if I'm gonna wrestle,
and he looks at me and he laughed his ass
off because I had popped up so quickly.
Speaker 4: You're looking for the comeback. So what happened. Did they
come over and kiss your ass and try to make
sure you didn't sue them? Or was that before? That
was a thing?
Speaker 2: That was before that. They didn't even give me a coke.
They were like, get out of here again. You know,
as a matter of fact, this is what actually happened.
I think, Bob, like they came back and came over
a little maybe slightly concerned. But this is now, you're
talking thousands of a second. That's all of this is happening, right,
So so I get hit, I go back, I pop
up him, and I have that exchange. He comes over
a little closer to realize I'm okay. He grabs my
shirt and throws me back again. Wow, it was great,
It was great.
Speaker 4: Why did he throw you back again?
Speaker 2: It's just the way, you know what, like not hard enough,
but just like, get out of here, kid, you know
you're okay, stop stop whining or whatever you thought you
were going to do. So there was no security, there
was no you know, and McMahon didn't come down and
give me a pat on the back. You know, there
was no autograph picture of me in the back with him.
Speaker 4: You know, that's what a what a different world. And
not only had that happened, but for like the superhero
of the territory to do that to you and and
and kind of brush it off like that, it's this
is tremendous. So when he when he hit you, did
you did you fall back in your chair? I think
you said that, or did you hit the deck or
did you just stagger.
Speaker 2: We were I think I just staggered back because it
was a decent shot because we we had stood up
right because we were had those the folding chairs are
right in the front, so the bar was like literally
right in front of us. So we were like holding
onto that that excitement. And then he came off and
then we all I kind of stood up and then
I took the punch and the chair went back a
little bit, and then uh uh he just he just
like looked and again it was like right there. Now
there was no no video of this. I would love
I love to find that video. Oh my god, that
would be great. But irregardless of that situation, that's that's
a reference to uh, what's that movie? I'm sorry. I
thought you guys would get it from Boss from Boston.
You know the movie were Matt Damon.
Speaker 5: Oh you're talking about to depart it?
Speaker 2: No, the other one move.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm I'm sewing like I'm sewing like uh,
you know, Bob Backman hitting fans thing that I'm not
even thinking about Boston references.
Speaker 6: I didn't mean to go I didn't mean to go
too deep to great reference because you know, Ben Affleck
goes in dressed with a high he runs a high suit.
Speaker 2: He's got you know, and he says to these guys, hey,
you guys are suspect and irregardless of that situation.
Speaker 4: Okay, now I'm with you. I remember exactly. I don't
remember seeing regardless, you know what I thought.
Speaker 5: Of with the white sox and everything. That's the best party,
those white white the short like the pants are like
like a size or too too short, and so they're
just exposed white sox. Hilarious.
Speaker 4: Well that that reminded me, PJ. Of some of the
overly verbose words that Vince McMahon would use when he
was ringside with the microphone. Right, he'd say, nonetheless that, notwithstanding,
regardless of.
Speaker 5: The regardless of the fact of the not with standing
that information, and we will indeed provide further entertainment. Does
we prolong the excess of wrestling for the audience?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Something like that. What did you think of Vince growing up?
Speaker 2: You know, I guess you know, we learned to hate
some of them because they you know, they were programming
us to hate this one or that one. You know,
it's easy. So I don't think I had a real
understanding of what was happening in his and when you
look at it like one of my Oh my god,
I just I whoever's gonna hate whoever loved me, any
of your fans who love me right now just because
of who I am, you might hate me when I'm
about to say this, But I just watched The Iron
Claw from beginning to end. Oh, like like a week ago.
I got home from the club it was on. I
was like, oh, let me finally watch this, and it
drew me in and drew me in and drew me
into the to the everything about that movie.
Speaker 4: You know absolutely the Iron Claw was. It means something
to us because we did a series on World Class
and the guy who plays Fritz van Eric listen to
a lot of the shows that we did. He said
that in an interview to prepare for the character. So
we've got we've got some skin in that game. Yeah,
we pick up what you're throwing down there. We know
the story almost too well, but yeah, we'll leave that
to the second.
Speaker 5: Is that as part of the problem we know we
do know the story a little too well, go a
little too attached to that one.
Speaker 4: We'll have to talk about that. Bja one day, but
you said the name, you said Mel, and this took
shape because our mutual friend Ray was talking to you
about your memories growing up as a wrestling fan in
New York City as a kid in the seventies, and
you started telling him about this guy. I'll let you
tell a story. But who would you know, sort of
recruit kids, for lack of a better term, to come
to the matches. And you had no idea that this
is like something that's deeply embedded in like wrestling conversation
right now, So can you take us through that that
gentleman you mentioned.
Speaker 2: Mel, Absolutely that you know when I say it's funny,
it's like sexual abuse and all of these things power
over people is not funny. But in our neighborhood, none
of us were attacked. We had a bunch of we're
all Catholics. We didn't get there was no priests that
were attacking us as a matter of fact of anything.
They were a little rough on us because that's how
they were taught. You know, they were taught in the
fifties and sixties when Latin and there was real respect
for the religion. And you know, we were always growing
up second and third generation Italian and Irish and Jewish.
We were always wise asses. So the priest never attacked us.
It was never like that, but we were aware of things.
There was one priest, this father Rodriguez, who was a
little friendly with all of us, you know. And I
will tell your audience if there's any gay kids out there,
just so you understand, I am not gay. But what
I'm about to say might sound a little strange. But
I was a tap dancer at an early age, from
like three to seven years old. And my mother in
the seventies, she had to explain to me that there
was going to be a lot of guys around that
like to kiss other guys, right, you know. And there
was a yeah, I'm going everything, and she said, look,
there's a very good friend on the circuit. Yeah, the
tap dancing circuit of New York City. I was on
town I was town Hall singing Annie, Annie gets your guns,
you know. But what happened was, you know, my mother
would tell me, look, you know, you know your buddy Freddie, right,
that's my good friend. I said, yes, of course, you know,
Freddie likes to kiss guys. And I said, ow. She
said to me, do you like my mother? Do you
like to kiss other boys? I said, no, I like
to kiss girls. And she said to me, good, she goes,
just remember nobody's ever allowed to touch you, right, Yeah,
that's right right, So and we'll go. We'll go later.
I have two adult children, but I've told them the
same thing. But so Anne. Anyway, we're kind of aware
of all this, right, it's the seventies, even though it's
you know, pedophilia, and all this stuff is all hidden.
So one day we're working at the pizza place. We're
about all twelve thirteen years old, and we can't even
and believe me, I called people last two days trying
to find out how this guy appeared in our lives,
and we can't figure it out. But there was a guy, Mel,
who used to come to the pizza place, who was
friends with the owner, let's say. And we were all
friendly there, and all of us were into wrestling. And
one day somebody says, hey, you know, Mel sets up
the ring or does something at Madison Square Garden and
we were like, no way, hey, what's up? You know,
So we start talking to him, and you know, I'm
somewhat paraphrasing because this story happened to me and probably
about eight other kids in the neighborhood, including the three
I spoke to in the last couple of days to
refresh everything. But this guy, Mel's a harmless looking black dude,
you know, nothing like looking. He was like, hey, guys,
who wants to who wants to drive my car? You
know what? And we were like, oh, okay, yeah, let's
let's do it. You know, we're at that age you're like,
come on, we'll go down there here, you know. And
nobody thought anything of it. And then the second time
we all did it, he said, whoever, whoever's doing the driver,
next time, you gotta let me put you in a
wrestling move with your foot. Oh no, right. It was like,
all right, well, still maybe not too strange, you know.
So my buddy gets in the front seat and he's
about to drive. He goes, all right, give me a foot.
So he gave him his right leg, and we're all noticing,
because we're all seeing what's going on. He puts it
between his grint. Oh, and he crosses his leg over
and you know, I don't know what's going on really really,
you know, but we know it's fucking completely strange, you know.
But all of us did it like we did it
all at least one time. Not that he had anything
too sexual. There was never anything like, you know, a
rape or anything. I know one of my other friends
definitely got touched on his private parts. But yeah, I mean,
the crazy thing about this guy is he wasn't really charismatic.
I think it was simply the fact that he was
able to bring us places. You know, So the one
day he comes and he's like, all right, who wants
to go to the garden And we're like, all right,
we'll go. And about five of us went, and we
got to go to the ring as it was getting
set up. And now we hear about the ring boys.
You know, it's insane, you know that a guy like
this was allowed either by fans because just like the
priests and just like teachers, and just like you always
know the guy who's the fuck up. Yep, this guy
mel wasn't hiding in plain sight. Somebody knew. Somebody who's
a father, somebody who's a wrestler, somebody's a man who's
a racist who says that how come this black dude
is with those kids all the time, Like somebody knew
something with these things. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well that's that's a lot. And I do
want to ask you back, running back when we talked
about that first offer of drive my car. So you
guys are like, how old at this point?
Speaker 2: I think we're we're averaging twelve to thirteen, because that's
when we all started at the uh at this pizza place,
Sal's Pizzeria, a great place that's no longer there.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, I can see at that age definitely being
an intrigue by some adults write JP, let you try
their car.
Speaker 5: I mean right, I mean that's yeah, some guys like
coming over and say, hey, can you drive my my
my vehicle? That's like at that age, I mean I
would probably I probably would have been I mean definitely
was a pussy when I was you know, that age.
I would have been horrified, probably ran the other direction
and and cried myself to sleep. But like that's that's
crazy to think that. I mean, I mean, I'm just
trying to fathom, like, what the idea did he know
that you were guys with that age. I mean, it's
that's kind of.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely this is this is a controlled thing that
he probably did in twelve cities. Like I didn't look
completely to see how many cities he was with them
if he was just the East coast with this wrestling thing.
But I can imagine he was so good at this
because it's so easy, you know, it really was, especially
like let's say, even city kids, it's not like we're done,
but maybe in a smaller town. Hey, guys, you want
to take a ride in my car? You know. And
by the way, the car was a like a like
a like a seventy nine Chevrolet, a station wagon, you know, wow.
And it was like three of us were in the back,
two of us were in the front, you know. Oh,
And that was the other kind of sort of weird thing.
So there would be somebody in the middle and then
him on the drive on the passenger side. So the
person who had to do the leg went over the
other because you short, I had to do it.
Speaker 5: That's crazy, you know.
Speaker 2: Now here's another quick story. So one of my friends
is doing it, it gets the leg move, bah blah
blah blah blah. We're all talking about. He goes, that
was weird, man, I go, yeah, I know, right, I know,
I said it because I did it once, I said,
I think I felt as nuts Oh my god, Oh
my god. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should really
add to the story with this, so you know what
kind of abuse it was. It wasn't just grabbing my foot.
He took no, he didn't take off our socks, but
he took off our shoes to do the move.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm ashamed to say I was going to
ask you for that detail because I'm trying to picture this.
So this is happening in the front seat of the car,
You're saying.
Speaker 2: While everybody's there, And it's not even like all right, guys,
you go over there and I'm gonna grab this guy's
fast in full yep, in full plain view of everybody,
like there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 4: So the car, the cars parked somewhere, and yeah, yeah, sometimes.
Speaker 2: It was literally like parked in front of the pizza place.
All right, who's first? You know? Sometimes he goes, all right,
I'm gonna do you. You know, I'm gonna do JP
and PJ, you two are first, and then the rest
of you go later. And then we were get in
the car. So so that happened. And then one day
my friend he gets the he gets the move on
the leg and he and and he's putting a shoe
back on. He goes like, my ankle, heart's really bad. Like,
oh man, all right, because you want I said, you
want to be driving, because now I'll drive, I'll be
all right. So he saw him pulling out and mel says,
go ahead, go fast, no faster. So he goes faster
and he tries to make a left hand turn and
we lose control. Why we go crashing into a warehouse wall.
Speaker 4: Did the cops come?
Speaker 2: No? We all go flying. The front of the car
was like it was one of those old you know tanks,
you know, and uh no, the cops didn't come. But
that was kind of like weird because he's like, man,
my ankle really hurt. I think he was doing something
weird to me. And we talked about it more at
that point, and then about maybe about a couple of
months later, we didn't see him at all ever again
ever again. And let me say this, the other thing
that I was telling you about going to the garden,
that was amazing because we actually as soon as the
ring guys finished it, we were allowed to go there.
Maybe it was a half hour, maybe it was ten minutes.
We got to bang off the thing. I got to
go to the top of the ring and jump off. Really,
you know, Oh, it was amazing. It was the whole
experience was amazing. It was a shame that that's something.
And now I'm reading these stories and and anybody who's
out there that that's possibly being triggered by this, I
just wanted you to understand my laughter about it is
probably a self mechanism that I've had my whole existence.
So if you're out there listening to, like somebody who
who really got abused, you know it's I got you know,
listen in my erat my penis got touched a couple
of times. The guy tried to put his penis in
my mind mouth one time when I was younger. But
people who really got abuse, who are listening today, I
want you to know, like it's not a funny matter,
and we're there for you, you know, the show here,
these guys, they're bringing this up for a reason. They
want you to feel comfortable talking about it to somebody,
because it is painful. And I'm in my fifties and
I'm still talking about it thirty forty years later. Yeah,
and maybe it just happened to you. Maybe there's a
fifteen year old that's been listening to this show for
a little bit and he's out there. He doesn't know
what to do, but you know, call the show, contact us,
there's some help for you. He's a lapsed fan wrestling
podcast with Jack and Corn, SEO and JPISO.
Speaker 4: He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. PJ tell us you
were how you were thinking what seventy late seventies on
this when this was happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seventies, early early eighties, seventeen. I'm thinking like seventy
nine to eighty two, like around there those times.
Speaker 4: You know, So listeners should know that as we you know,
as you looked into it, because you had mentioned because
you were talking to Ray knowing that we were coming
about your wrestling memories and you bring up this this
this guy in this part of the story that you remember.
But you had no idea, right that this was such
a big wrestling scandal.
Speaker 2: You had no idea, right, So you know right now,
in my life, you know, wrestling is not as as
a major part as my friend Ray Goots. Ray has
a little podcast that he does. He's friends with you guys.
He goes to these Wrestling Masters matches, he buys the paraphernalia.
He loves this, right, So I told him, Hey, we're
doing this wrestling show and they said, hey, blah blah blah.
And I told him a story. I said, hey, right,
you know, we used to be in wrestling, into this
and that, and there was this guy Mel who used
to give us weird massages. And Ray goes, what Mel?
I go, yeah, I go why, He goes, Oh, man,
you don't know what's going on. And I did the
Google search, and you know, I know he's gone since
twenty twelve or whatever. But it's a horrible story that
this has happened to a bunch of community. I mean,
Maryland is where where the lawsuit is, but I'm assuming
it should be in every city up and down the
East coast.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The read there is that Maryland has a looser statute
of limitations on this kind of stuff. So that's like
one of the jurisdictions where you still have a chance
as too much time hasn't passed by the state law.
But I think you're exactly right. Yeah, there was you know,
there were claims against him in the early nineties. There
was a you know, they would call him ring boys,
These kids. They wouldn't just be picked up and brought
to the show, but they would actually get sort of
part time jobs with the WWF. They would help set
up rings and things like that. There was a kid
named Tom Cole who was who went public with a
series of allegations and I believe nineteen ninety one the
early nineties that WWF had had to battle, you know,
Vince getting asked about it on Larry King Live and
all this stuff, and you know, they were trying to
create some distance from Meil Phillips and trying to you know,
put him in a different category than somebody that they
had as an employee. But yeah, your story echoes across
any wrestling fan who's heard of this thing big time.
And and so yeah, you're reading this, and what are
you thinking as you're seeing this this fact pattern emerge.
Speaker 2: I called up a couple of friends to make sure
everybody was kind of horderbakay, right, because it's the shock first, sure,
and then you think, okay, let me ask the three
friends or four friends that are still around me make
sure that they weren't attacks. And you know, nobody was,
you know, because we're close enough and in our fifties,
now that we would have said, yeah, you know what
the guy, like I said, the one guy, you know,
I felt Mel's ball. Well that's as far as I went.
Speaker 4: Right, you know, but you weren't sure about all your friends.
Speaker 2: Right, right, So before I wanted, you know, I took
it really easy. I like, look, I'm gonna be on
this show. I gotta ask you a few questions. You know,
you're gonna be okay with this, you know, and and
even like we said, with what we should say about
this show, like some of the things that we're saying.
You know, here's the thing about when women get abused,
right when when women get abused, they hold it in
and it affects them. But when a man gets abused,
especially by another man, it's it's much deeper. Yeah, the
scars in us can can take us and ruin relationships
for tens and twenties, thirty years. So you know, this
kind of control, I it pisces me off, right because again,
people know that there was a problem. Yes, so I
know we're talking about thirty years ago, but you know, look,
it's it's horrible what happened to the uh to the
what we'll call it the you know, like the the people,
the girls who the gymnastics.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, the doctor.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Like you think about these things. You know,
there's there's a guy. Oh my god, here I go
with the leffing. There's guys. There's a guy in New
York City and proctologists that was like doing stuff the
guys with their fingers. And now there's a huge lawsuit
on the radio everything did you have you been ever
treated by doctor dubblebo? Right?
Speaker 4: The post headline rights itself to begin with, it's true.
Speaker 2: I mean you have to post. You're a post up
there or mine here, and they're both the sh So
when this guy, now, you know, I would have loved
to be able to confront him in a way. And
you know, because it's you know, I don't feel weird
about it, like I'm saying it to you somewhat. But again,
my abuse is whatever is in my head. It wasn't
bad enough for me to continually think about it. It's
almost like understood a story of like, oh remember when
we got you know, finger, you know, foot held by
that guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just it was just outside of and
and from what I understand, you know, it in some cases,
it did get more graduated than that with some With
some kids, I think that, you know, you can find
allegations like that, But but in terms of that, I
can understand what you mean because it's like, at that
age it doesn't even really seem necessarily sexual. And I
think that's kind of if I'm reading all the things
that people are saying about what happened correctly or people
are alledging happen, that's kind of like how he started.
You know, these things that you hear the same thing
about a lot of celebrities that get involved with allegations
like this. You know, it doesn't necessarily start as overly sexual.
So when this is you know, when this is happening
in the car and things like that, is he part
Pardon me for asking this, but I'm trying to figure
out like how it hits you guys in terms of
how he's acting. Is he like playing it like straight,
like you look at his face and you don't you
can't tell he's getting any gratification out of this, or
is it like he is sort of signaling to you
that this this is why he's doing this.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess my first thing is when I
got in the car one day he was totally naked.
I was like, okay, that's that's a.
Speaker 4: Oh hey man, I don't know. I don't know how
much we're gonna unearthlier in this conversation. So maybe I
was sorry, you're buried the lead there. If that was
the case, Oh my god, that was wow.
Speaker 2: He was in a red flamingos suit and hard audiena
you know what, man, Like I think one of my buddies,
like he was a little bigger than us and he
was like fifteen. He's like, I'm gonna kick his ass. Man,
Oh yeah, go for what what did he you know?
What did he do? And it's like, I don't know,
this is like who this is weird. I'm not going
back into the car anymore. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah he could tell, but yeah he could tell.
Speaker 2: Like they look, I don't even know if I can
hear something about it, Like was it sexual for him? Yes, immediately,
But again, sexual and dominance and all of that to
people like that is what they get off on. Was
it getting off on a thirteen year old kid because
he grabbed his foot? Was it the pain that he
gave us? Was it the control of the pain squeezing
the foot, letting it go, squeezing the foot? Was it
because it was between his cock and he was getting excited? Right?
You know I didn't look enough into him even for
this story. I apologize. I really should have to see
a family. Was he was he a father? Was he
an uncle? Was he a you know, let's find out
about this guy, you know, because listen, you know, let
me just say this. There's probably let's say, not in
my group, but if he did this, let's ass whom
he did this every city up and down, wherever they
went to, what worked? This was the www WW. So
let's say wherever they go, there's some town that there
was one or two guys that were like, Yeah, I'm
gonna go beat I'm gonna go meet mel Oh, yeah,
I'm gonna let him up, I'm gonna let him rub
my foot, and I'm gonna go sit in the front
row and watch a championship wrestling.
Speaker 4: Match, right, you know, right right?
Speaker 2: So you know, he's definitely somebody. These other people who
have been abused, you know, hopefully they can get over it,
but it's it's definitely in this society. People don't look
at it now, like the way you know, they're more important.
It's more important now than it was twenty five thirty
years ago.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, that's kind of what the environment that
allowed him to keep doing it over and over again.
I mean, we'd like to think that if someone tried
to do something like this today, they'd be found out
so quickly as opposed to having the environment where they
could keep doing it. Did you have the impression, PJ,
that he that he picked the pizza parlor for any
particular reason that you guys hung out at. You think
like he lived around there. I'm not even sure like
where he lived, And it sounds to me when you
told the story like he was sort of like just
coming to the pizza shop anyway, as opposed to being
on the prow. Well, I don't know how to think
about that.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing, right the way you said that,
and again I kind of know what I'm talking about,
but don't. But even the way you just said that,
I feel a guy like the him always on the
prow got it right, because that's the type of that person.
Is he went to get a piece of pizza. Maybe
he was a Jehovah witness. There used to be a
huge Jehovah witness place that's still there on my block
in Sunnyside took over a huge movie theater that was
there since the twenties called the Bliss Theater. So maybe
he was a Jehovah witness. Maybe he came driving from LaGuardia.
You know, maybe he used to go to Sunnyside Gardens
and was and knows the pizza place, you know, because
the Sunnyside Gardens didn't get out of there untill the eighties,
the building itself. So maybe it's all of that. And
and when when when you think about that, where do
where do where do you? Where do you see people?
You know, you'll see them at a pizza place? And
if you see a whole bunch of kids, maybe he
just goes in there and starts talking to the owner. Hey,
how you doing. Oh my name is mel I do
Oh yeah, the kids love wrestling. Hey, PJ. Come on, yeah,
got it? Go go go say helo to this guy. Right,
it's it's not like, oh what, it's like, oh what
do you do? All right? Oh? You like you guys
like wrestling? Yeah, oh you should come to the You
should come to the garden one time and see Bob
Backlan and this one or that one. Wouldn't that be great?
You know? And again I'm not saying it like I'm
some naive kids. So you know, I had no no
father growing up, no brothers and sisters. I had a mother,
was five ten, one hundred and sixty pounds, solid, big
Irish woman, didn't take shift from nobody like. That was
the other thing. I was protected because I think even
guys who probably wanted to try to rape me were like, oh,
if I do, I'm gonna have to deal with his mother.
So no, I'd rather not.
Speaker 4: Wow. Did you talk to her about it ever? Your mom?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, after we kind of I was like because
she was like, oh, I was that wrestling thing, you know,
and I was like, well, this is kind of this
kind of strange he goes and she's like, oh, that
is kind of strange. Maybe you shouldn't do that, you know,
does it hurt your foot? And I was like yeah,
she goes, yeah, maybe that's not a good idea. And
then I was like, wait, is it like you don't
say the way she just said it just because it
hurt my foot. Jeves must have been reading into every
line that I'm saying going instead of going what she
usually would do. She might even say, hey, hey, dummy,
get your foot out of the black dudes crash and
don't go in the car anymore, you know, But she
kind of said it like in such a way that
it was like, hey, man, get out of that car.
Don't go back to this idiot.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, sort of like a suggestion that wouldn't set
off too many alarms. But like you said, you realized
there was more to it than just you know, that
could be trouble.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like she was kind of reading the situation because
so this only he only got you in once or
did it happen multiple times? As far as going to
the matches with him?
Speaker 2: Going to the matches? We went? If I went three times?
If I can remember?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, so and you're saying three times you
went with him or a.
Speaker 2: Bunch of people like like he would he would sometimes
come by the the pizza place at like five o'clock
and whoever was there. It's like, who wants to take
a ride to the city, Yes, yes, and go check
this out. It's like, oh, I'll go, I'm here, got it, Hey,
I use it? Can I use the phone. I got
to call my mom. Hey, I'm going I'm going to
the city. Okay, when do you be back? What time
we'll be back? Probably eleven o'clock, you know.
Speaker 5: And that was the time you said three times you
went in with him.
Speaker 2: Three times? I think, yeah, I'm trying to really like
it's a kind of thing because I've been to the
wrestling so many times, but specifically I think three times.
Two times we really did like jumped on the on
the we got to jump on the ring and the
ring and everything. And then the third time we just
got to go.
Speaker 4: Right, does he have like an entrance to the building,
Like how do you make the approach? Like he doesn't
just walk in the front door? Like what's that like?
Like arriving with somebody that's kind of giving you that
that VIP treatment.
Speaker 2: Well, we all had to wear like these little white
hats and suck on lollipops before we were in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that should have set off some alarms. But okay, yeah,
I'm starting to say.
Speaker 2: To Yeah, you're right. I was said to myself, Damn,
that was my first thing. There was a garage. Actually,
if you if you know the garden, there's it's it's
the same setup, like it's closed off. Now they've made
a like a no pedestrian pathway. But on thirty third
Street you used to be able to like drive right
down below the thing. So I'm remembering that. And then
like two of the other times we actually like like, oh,
meet us over there, and we would meet him like
at a side gate kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Oh, I see, it was a meet us there thing,
as opposed to he drives you there, Well, he drives
you there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I would say one time we got driven.
I remember all of us were in the car, Hey,
he wants to go. And then another time we got
in the car again, and I think the third time
it's like, hey, we're gonna go see mel once again
on the train. Let's go, and a bunch of us
went and met him at the gate.
Speaker 4: Got it? Got it? Okay, that's understand now, because you know,
I'm in my mind, I'm thinking, like, you know, how
obvious is this to people around that this guy is
like a pied piper being followed by six seven teenage
boys all the time. To your point about someone had
to know. I'm trying to picture how you know obvious
it was?
Speaker 5: Perhaps, but I mean that's also part of the problem
is that people probably did know, and it's like it's
a it's a really almost a systemic type of situation
where it's like, well, okay, you know, just gonna there
goes Mel. Mel's doing his thing.
Speaker 2: Now again, I've said the black guy five or six
and seven times. So if there's any brothers out there
who think I'm a racist, I'm not. I'm a realist.
There's a big difference when you're in the fifties you
grew up in In my neighborhood, we had everybody I
have And when I say I have black friends, I
mean that I have the people that I talk to.
These are these are childhood friends. We have Spanish, and
and and Italian and every race that Indian doing in
my neighborhood. We have all of it. But when I
say this the way you just asked me that question,
let me ask you a question. If you're a WWF,
you're a wrestler, you're getting your clothes on and you
see Mel, the black dude walking in with five white
kids with shorts and T shirts, you know you don't
ask a question, well, what is this? Just like you said,
Pied Piper, what is it? What is happening here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, well, it's clear that he's not you know,
perhaps it's clear that he's not someone's dad, you know,
or someone's brother, or whatever the case might be. But
it's also I think I think it's useful for identification
because there weren't I don't think any I can't think
of another black wrestling announcer because he worked as an
announcer or he was ringside in that time period. So
when we're thinking, you know, when someone like yourself like
I remember that guy to say the black guy puts
you right there, you know exactly that we're talking about
the same guy, which I think is part of the
reason that that that's useful shorthand in the situation. But no,
I totally, I totally take your point. Did you said
a couple of times, you know, then your mom was
asking you did it hurt? And things like that, So
I really understand that, you know, he's literally putting the
you know, you and your friend's feet in his crotch.
But is he like try to pretend it's like a
wrestling thing and also like grabbing the foot with his
hand and twisting like how did it hurt in that way.
I'm trying to picture like if you tried to you know,
mask it is like wrestling fooling around, or if it
was just like as gratuitous as it.
Speaker 2: Sounds, it definitely sounds like you're getting off on this.
By the way, Well.
Speaker 4: That's this is going to have to be my last
question on that front for fear of coming off that way.
But you know, these are the questions others don't ask you, Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I love it. I love it, but you
know I will tell you that. You know, that's what
I was saying, right because I think of the pain.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I was like wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. Like like when he says, all right,
I'm gonna put you in a wrestling movie. There was
that was it. I'm going to give you a wrestling move.
If you wanted, you got to take this wrestling move, okay,
and he did it. He would like he would take
his left hand like again, right, It's it's kind of
weird because I'm I'm, I'm. There was one of those
you know, it was a long bench kind of thing, right,
so they weren't bucket seats. It's the old fashioned you know,
what did I say before the long cars station wagon, ye,
station wagon. Right, so you know those fronts right, it's
three right, there's like you can so so so somebody
for me specifically, there wasn't anybody in the front. We
had my three buddies in the back. I take my
left leg. There might have been a little hump or something.
So now before the car starts, my left leg is over.
I'm trying to do it, and now it's over, and
now he's grabbed it, and now I'm twisted. So so
now everybody you can you can envision this. I'm in
the driver's seat, I'm looking forward. I take my left leg,
I move it to the right to the passenger side
where this man is seated. He takes my foot and
twist it in such a way that now my body
is contoured completely to the left towards the door. Right.
So now I'm I'm weirdly looking away from him. My
foot is in his crotch and he's putting on a
move by his left hand under pushing down into the
crotch and then doing something squeezing the toes going forward.
Got it, you know, and and sometimes you do, you know,
we make you do it for a minute sometimes you know,
you yell too loud. He let you go, but it
was weird. You know. It's like again like I guess
after oh, let's do it. Yeah that was that was fun,
and then the next time it's like, like, for instance,
this guy blew it. If he if he would have
done it softer, we would have we would have all
been there like for three weeks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that that's kind of that. That's why I
asked the question because it was like, I'm trying to
like understand how it didn't immediately set off like this
guy that's hurts like fuck this, you know, but that's
this This now starts to make sense to me in
terms of how he would kind of gradually go to
that weird place. Like you said, it happened you know,
three times, so you guys got the hint eventually.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I was going to say, I don't know
if you mentioned before and I forget, but like, what
made did he stop coming to you? Did you guys
stop decide no, we don't want to do this anymore,
or what was like what what kind of stopped it
after three weeks?
Speaker 2: I think it was a combination of such that like
maybe we all started you know, I have this thing
in my head that my my guy was he was
an Italian from Sicily, the owner of the place. Yeah,
and salad Tommy to it. And I really feel and
you know, now that I'm talking about it, I'm even
saying it out loud, strongly, strongly to you too, because
you're only two that listening to me right now, except
the rest of the fans. But the fans will understand
that this place in Queen's was a really family place
and we all work there, and we all bought pizza there,
and it was like there was two pizza places in
the whole neighborhood. It was that place in another place,
and we chose this one. So I think there was
a combination of maybe, you know, people started complaining about it,
all of us like, oh, I'm not going that, no,
because we did. I remember saying, yeah, I'm not going
you hurt my foot last time. You know, I'll come on,
you know, your little your little redheaded pussy, come on.
You know, I'm like, no, man, I don't want to
do that anymore, you know. And then and then all
of a sudden, you know, maybe a couple of us
were talking about it, and maybe in my head. You know,
I'm noticing that, you know, because Tommy and Steve, they
were always there. Tommy would know, what are you guys
talking about? What's going on? And maybe one of us
said something and then because it was it was a
sudden disappearance, like you know, maybe Tommy talked to him.
Maybe he went a little further with one of the
kids than usual and decided to hit the town.
Speaker 5: Yeah, crazy, I mean exactly, that totally makes sense.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Still, if he noticed something like that, something that's kind
of just a little bit off, he's uh, you know,
I imagine he's gonna fuck with somebody.
Speaker 2: It's a little yeah, even if it's a little look,
don't come around the more. I don't like what you're
doing with my boys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: Did you know him as mel did you? Is that
how he asked you you introduce himself to you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, I don't remember the Phillips thing,
and I really can't remember too much of the the
announcing things. You know, I thought he was at a
different level in the organization, like that's a high level
in a sense of things. You know. I'm wondering, like
how that even happened. I even thought there was another
I know what you said, and thank you actually for
clarifying this, and here I go back to the thing again.
But I thought, no, it can't. There must be a
whole bunch of black dudes who had access like this.
And it was like, when I talked to Ray, I
was like, no way, man, there's too much of a
coincidence that this and my story, you know, are different.
You know they're the same, obviously, So no, I knew
him as mal and that's all we knew.
Speaker 4: Did you have a sense that, in addition to being like,
I guess this like vip at the wrestling company, what
it actually is that he did, because to your point,
fans would know him because at a certain point they
put him in the ring as a ring announcer. I'm
not sure that for the entirety of his time with
that company that he was a ring announcer per se.
What did you think he did for them?
Speaker 2: I think we all, literally, even though I think I
even mentioned it earlier, I think we understood that he
had something to do with setting up the ring.
Speaker 5: That's what it was, Okay, That's where it all happened.
It was ring Boys was the thing, right, it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Ring Boys is like the shortthand version of the
how to refer to the scandal, the Ring Boys scandal,
because that was sort of yeah, yeah, well man, this
is I really really appreciate you talking about it and
keeping it as light as can be.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: That's that's the tricky balance, you know as a comedian,
like there's there's comedy, gold and tragedy. But what a
hard balance to strike to talk about it with a
smile on your face, you know. At the same time,
it's almost I wonder like when you see this and
you see like that lawsuits came of it, and a
lot of people came forward, like does it make you
feel differently about what happened or do you still kind
of you know, you feel the same, and it's just
like this these other experiences just are sort of foreigned,
you know what I mean. Does it make you think, wow,
that that might have been more fucked up than even
I realized?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I'm not a person that wants to be
retigious and right right, and you know, but yeah, maybe
my one buddy, the guy who did the crashing, he's
the one who said he goes man, we should be sewing.
We should have sued, you know, so, so yeah, like
and it's also a pissed off kind of thing, and
like like, right now, the two of you have to
send me a VEMO of thirty eight dollars because I
have to go to therapy now because.
Speaker 4: You bought years, we do paid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I hope you are fans of the show
appreciate what I'm bringing to you to you all today.
I love the show. I love the idea of listened
to a bunch of the episodes to see you guys.
And but yeah, it's it's it's something that thank god,
it wasn't as painful as some of these other dudes
are dealing with, right Yeah, And I'm in the sense that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because so many people when they, you know, when
they deal with sexual abuse like this, I mean, they
go to all different lengths that could be addiction or
any other kind of abuse on their end, or suicide,
you know. So it's it's really it's amazing that you're
not only here talking about it, but that you're able
to again say, talk about it with such good spirits essentially,
you know, and and and make light of it as
best you can.
Speaker 2: Well again, I'll lend it at this on my part
about this particular object is you know, people out there,
if you have especially men, if you have a situation
and you've been holding it in for a month, a year,
ten years, do yourself a favor in everybody around you.
Go talk to somebody, because more than likely, I'm throwing
out the statistic, it's probably bullshit. Seven out of ten
people have probably been touched in some way. And you're
not alone, and we're here and there's somebody out there
who will listen, whether it's a priest, a rabbi, or
this show. You have to stop what's happening, because that's
what happens they you allow that person, You allow fucking
nell to be in your head, and you start drinking
and you have relationship problems and was I gay? Am
I straight? Because this guy hit on me? You know,
there's a whole bunch of shit that happens with abuse.
And I don't mean I'm getting a little deep under
this flo it's you have to realize that if you
have that out there, if one of your listeners has
any situation, there is a call for you. There is
somebody that's listening. I'm an email away. The show is
an email away to you people and break the cycle.
Break the cycle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's that's powerful stuff.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for going down those roads with us, and
we look forward seeing you. It's going to get a
lot lighter, I can assure folks August third at the
at Comedy Village. But really a pleasure to talk to you, PJ.
Can't wait to collaborate further here coming up in August
and take care man.
Speaker 2: You guys are fantastic. Thanks to the fans, and we'll
see you August third.
Speaker 4: This email it is a production of the Lab Entertainment Group.
Speaker 5: Its content is intended for reven use only.
Speaker 2: We want