I don't think I ever told this story. Maybe I did, because I can forget what I've posted here over the 10+ years this site has been up, and I sometimes forget what I've previously said on radio.
But in case I haven't, here's what occurred...
Some of you might remember Dave Lerman from his appearances on radio. Dave was a character actor and comedian. He's about 5 years older than me. In the 1990s, he went around with fellow comedian Doug Bady, who was less than 3 feet tall and had muscular dystrophy. They toured with Sam Kinison in the 1980s until Kinison's untimely death, and then made the rounds on Howard Stern and other quirky '90s shows. The gimmick was that the pathetic-looking Bady was incredibly rude and foul-mouthed, which shocked people.
Unfortunately, Bady passed away at the age of 31 in 1996, and Lerman was left without his unique comedy partner. At that point, he started taking odd jobs in Hollywood as a character actor, mostly on "reality" type daytime shows and news reports which needed people to either tell bullshit stories or act as stand-ins for real people who didn't want to appear on TV.
In later years, Dave found it harder to find work, and also suffered from various health issues.
At some point in the early '90s, Dave befriended rapper Biz Markie, who was best known for his weird 1989 hit "Just a Friend". They maintained occasional contact over the years, and in 2015 Dave told Biz that he was having a hard time getting work, and asked for any possible leads to jobs. Markie told Dave that he had just signed to perform on the inaugural Sirius XM '80s Cruise, which was to take place in February 2016. While the announcement linked here doesn't mention Markie, you can google it and indeed see that Markie was on that cruise and performed. (Markie passed away last year, by the way.)
Anyway, Markie decided to help a buddy out, and talked the '80s Cruise people into hiring Dave. He pointed out that Dave had appeared on various trivia/pop culture game shows, had a lot of Hollywood knowledge/connections from the '80s era, and would be a great host for '80s trivia and karaoke. The '80s Cruise people contacted Dave, and told him that the job was his.
So how did I come into this?
Dave was told that he could bring a "plus 1" on the cruise with him. This is an expensive cruise because of the '80s/Sirius XM theme, and Dave was basically getting a free stateroom for two people, as well as compensation for the work he'd do onboard. It wasn't going to be big money, but at least he'd get a free cruise out of it, and could bring a friend or a date. Well, since he wasn't dating anyone at the time, he invited me to go, figuring I could also help him with the '80s trivia and karaoke stuff. He asked me if he could pitch the idea to the '80s Cruise people to hire me, as well, and not simply have me as the +1. I told him I'd like that, and he inquired about it. They came back and told him it was fine -- especially since this incurred very little expense for them (he could already bring a second person anyway), and this way they'd have another person doing it, also providing backup in case Dave got sick or whatever. So he and I unofficially had the job.
We are also slated to appear on the Sirius XM '80s on 8 Channel, for some kind of segment related to the onboard trivia game. This was never fully explained to me, but given my love of radio, I was very happy to do it.
So why didn't you ever hear about my doing this? It fell through, and I'll explain why in the next post...
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Originally Posted by Entropy
