Quote

First paying gig, I got 20 bucks. I played at some really weird venue. I don't remember the venue; I just remember it was the last stop on the A train. It was, like, the Far Rockaways, Queens, and it was an audience of, like, three people.

I've had money thrown onstage, dollars, couple of five-dollar bills. I took the money, but it wasn't much.

I was involved with my theater program in high school, and I was involved in a festival where I could audition for a lot of different schools.

I started performing music about the age of 16. I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and this thing called the Flatbush Fair comes once a year. That was my first time on stage.

My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.

I was in New York for a little while, doing some really bad theater. I did some great stuff, too, but there were Saturday morning theater performances in one-third-filled church basements. So, I paid my dues.

What happened was, my parents after 'Circus Boy' decided to take me out of show business for two years to go back to normal school. It was the smartest thing they ever did.

My father was a promoter of Fresh Fest, and they needed an opening act. He got me a slot as a dancer. We tried it out the first time in Atlanta and the crowd went crazy. I was the opening clown.

I had a theatre company years ago when I was a young man, and we would do street theater. This guy did a workshop one day on fire eating, and I participated, and it was just one of those party tricks that you learn. My last endeavor doing that was with the Muppets, back in 1995 or something like that. And I haven't done it since.