Kristen (2:00)

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Greg Proops (2:38)

Hello folks, this is Risk. The show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and every Thursday we release these special episodes where we look back at content from earlier years. This week we have a story from Greg Proops that he first shared when Rhys did the San Francisco Sketchfest in 2013. So going all the way back to 2013, here is Greg Proops now with a story we call Strange Days in the Chicken Room.

Kevin (3:23)

Wa.

Greg Proops (4:08)

Hello, kids. This is Extra Risk, where we give you just a little bit more of the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and this is Moodya Dupley behind me now. Now, today on the show, we're going to hear from the great Greg Proops. Here, he has a podcast you may already know, called the Smartest man in the World. You know that I love distinct voices. And here is a man with an unforgettable voice, not to mention all the sound effects he includes in his stories. And so here it is, the last of our offerings from San Francisco Sketchfest this year, it's Greg Proops with a story we call Strange Days in the Chicken Room.

Kevin (5:07)

I'm from San Carlos, California, and, yeah, the whitest place on the face of the earth. Home of the Plain Yogurt Festival. And take out the fruit. The powerful taste is burning our tongues. We're not used to your spicy ethnic fare. So I grew up here, right, in the 70s. I'm a little older than you, and I was a teenager, and I graduated early from San Carlos High School, which isn't there anymore. I remember going to a meeting with my advisor. What do they call them there? Advisor? And the older centurion fellow. His name was Mr. Ireland, and he looked like Burl Ives. If you remember what Burl Ives looked like. He had a white beard and little spectacles. And he said, Mrs. Lee in Foods class says you're often high. And I said, well, yeah, but Mrs. Lee's an alcoholic because when she would pour the vanilla in the cake, she was like. Like that and shit. So I graduated early, and I didn't have nothing to do, and I didn't have a job, and I wasn't feeling so hot. And I was living with my mom and dad in apartments in Carlos, and I was looking in the want ads in the newspaper. Now, I realized this is like saying to this generation of people, I was walking through the town square of Babylonia and I saw a stela with a carving in it that had my name right all over it. Bushel of wheat. Bushel of wheat. Ox head. Ox head, Greg, is what it said. I think it was the San Mateo Times. And it said, driver needed pizza parlor. Must have car with stroke insurance. Right up here at this address in Burlingame. Pizza man, Chicken Delight on Burlingame Avenue, right? So I rolls up in my Vega and oh yeah, I tricked it though, because I had a little cassette deck in it in those days. Yeah, because then you didn't have to wait for the eight track to turn over at the end of the track. The cassette deck was Smoot and it had an FM radio which was big shit and the heat worked and whatnot. So in any case, I pitches up to the pizza man and I walks in Ling Ling, right? And it's a big glass door. Place hasn't been different in 100 years. It once was a Chicken Delight when that was a popular chain in America. And the theme song went down kit tonight called Chicken Delight. And there was a giant plastic chicken on top of the building, like kind of in a delightful, like holding a platter of chicken, wearing a chef's hat as if it had just cooked its own progeny. And like really not the same taste set that we have now. I guess in the 60s people went, fucking that chicken. Must have beat those chicken up. Let's get in there. So I goes in and Lonnie owns the place and he's got pockmarks and bangs and Fu Manchu. And he goes, am I drawing a picture for you? He's wearing a white apron and a wife beater and has a gold chain. And he says, proops, huh? And I can tell he thinks I'm a fruit, right? Cause I have giant Diane Keaton Annie hall glasses, this is the seventies. And a V neck fucking like long sleeve T shirt and like a groovy belt buckle, you know. And he goes, uh huh, you got a car? I go, yeah. He goes, you got insurance? I go, yeah. He goes, all right, so you start tonight at 4. If you get in an accident, don't tell the fucking cops you work here. So I comes back and he gives me a pizza oven, right? Which was a big styrofoam case like that that all the pizzas went. And then he goes up, big map of San Mateo, Burlingame on the wall. Like Churchill's war room. This is way before gps. So there's like literally a wall with Burlingame and Northern San Mateo on it and pins in it that I couldn't determine why the pins were in there. Like we Were doing strategic strikes on certain areas. Truesdale needs a pepperoni, you know, like. So I meet the rest of the staff, right? There's an older fellow, older by my standards. Then I was a teenager. He was probably 40. He looked like Rodney Dangerfield. If Rodney Dangerfield suffered from an all consuming sort of pellagra type illness, right? Like, he was a bit wasted and he had white hair, and he was wearing what appeared to be a ups outf. Like he had brown, like a uniform. And I go, hey. And I'm introduced. His name was Stubby. And I go, stubby May Adventure. Why do you wear a uniform? I thought we were free. Cause I'm like, now it's nighttime, I'm wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. And he goes, you get more respect, you get more tips. Some insight into the tipping world. Evidently, if you wore a brown uniform when delivering pizzas, it shocked people into realizing your status was higher than they'd imagined. When you rang the bell, oh, my God, you're in a uniform. Why not have epaulettes and a fucking, like, Italian policeman hat on? You know, let's go the whole. Why not do a comic opera? You know, let's just do the whole. I'm gonna wear a sword if it's gonna get me tipped. I have your cannelloni. I've asked. And so I meet Lonnie's mother, and her name's Tina, and she takes the orders, right? And it was on one of those big old phones, right? One of those Bakelite ones that weighed a thousand pounds, that had the plastic ear thing screwed into it, right? If anybody remembers those. So that you could cradle it like that in your ear, right? So you could take the orders. And she'd write the orders down on a slip and then put them on one of those heinous spikes that I always thought were so dangerous, that were in every restaurant in the world for a million years. You see them in the old movies. American Charlie with red pants, burn 50 and no name tag. Cold pig on a green sea. And she's in a wheelchair. So later in the evening, after a few deliveries, I'm set free, right? And I'm delivering pizzas all over San Mateo and shit. And I go, tina, may I ask, why are you in the wheelchair? And she goes, oh, I don't need it. I just don't like walking around.

Greg Proops (11:36)

We'll be right back. Did you ever wonder what it's like to live alone, hidden in the woods, not speaking to a single soul for 30 years? Or wander the desert, uncover A hidden well, and dive to the bottom of the deepest water hole for 2,000 miles. The snap Judgment podcast takes you there with amazing stories told by the people who live them with an original soundscape that drops you directly into their shoes. Snap Judgment. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

Kevin (12:22)

We're back. So I deliver, like, 30 pieces my first night, and we adjourn at the end of the night. The doors are closed, the lock is put on, and Lonnie goes, hey, probs, you did 30. That's pretty good, man. It was a buck a run and tips a buck. So I made $30 and probably another $10. People used to tip in 1979, 50 cents or a quarter and shit for a pizza, which I took a jaundiced view at. Even then, a dollar or dollar two. That was cool. A quarter. My gum went on your fucking car. Less than a quarter. And there, like, I might pour a Pepsi all over your shit. And like, he goes, you smoke weed? And I go, yeah, man. Cause I had long hair. Like, I loved Ian Hunter from Mottahupo, so I had, like, long, golden hair and shit. I go, yeah, man. And he goes, all right, come back. Back. So we go back in the chicken room, where the chickens are sawed and put in milk and put in bread and stuff. Like, the most horrifying. I can't even describe to you. It should have been in black and white. You know what I mean? The chicken room is one of the most horrible scenes you'll ever. So you light up a joint, and he goes, I sell weed, man. I also sell crank. Well, if y'all don't know what crank is, let me hip you to the jive. Nowadays we would call it methamphetamine. In the 70s, it was called crank, and it was quite yellow, and it smelled like the bottom of a case of cabbages. If you've ever worked in a restaurant and unloaded produce at the bottom of a case of cabbages, there's a distinct smell. And as soon as you took a line of this crank, your eyes exploded in fury and the back of your nasal cavity fucking just sent shock waves all the way up into your spine. Your cerebral cortex was on mad alert, and you were just cheering ammonia the minute you snorted it because of whatever it was cut with. Because this was meth, God damn it. When America was great, you could. You could smoke indoors, you could have sex without a condom, and you could do meth that made your head explode. That was made in a biker sink, God damn it. The way America was built in biker sinks. So I buy some weed, I buy some meth. I'm on my way home. I'm like, this is the best job I've ever had. How did I not know this job fucking existed, right? So I come in at like 4 or 3:30, and he'd go, I hear him upstairs, right? I can't make a clicking. He'd walk in and the bell would ring. Ling, Ling. And you'd hear, upstairs, right, Right. Nobody. He's chopping fucking rails of meth, right? And he's just got a huge mirror in his arm. His office upstairs. And he just. And then you hear proof. Let me just also alert you to another thing. When someone takes a crank every day, their personality tends to be a little ropey. Sometimes they're not easygoing. Yoga. They can be agitated, okay? His complexion looked like some. As if his face had been on fire and someone put it out with a bicycle chain dipped in oil. He worked over a deep fryer all day and made pizzas and snorted as much crank as you could possibly fold some boxes, which was a horrible job. You had to fold the pizza boxes. So we do that. Then round four, the pizza started coming in. Well, there's regulars, right? A lady lived across the tracks in San Mateo. And every night I had to deliver her a box of chicken and I'd have to go to the store and buy her a pack of Palm Walls and a quart of milk. I went to this one lady's house and she goes, I died two weeks ago. I fell off a hill. And I'm like, does that mean a gratuity is out of the question? I wonder, in the afterworld, do they remunerate young swains such as myself, who shown the mettle to come into your home and listen to your sad tale? Two children would pull up about 5:00 every afternoon. Timmy and Eddie on their little stingrays. Remember stingrays With a little bell on them and whatnot. A red one and a purple one. And they'd chuck them in the alley and they'd come inside and they'd put all the chicken in the milk and shit. And then Lonnie would pay them with bags of weed. And I knew you guys would go judgmental. There's no telling this story now because everyone thinks that, like, oh, my God, the world's so fucked up. They got paid in weed. By the way, kids are still being paid in weed now, okay? Whatever little bourgeois NPR world you're living in, I want to tell you, I'M here to tell you that kids are being paid in weed and they loved it. They fucking loved it. So when we would convene at the end of the night, Steve would fuck off. And me and Tina and Lonnie's sister Lisa, who had her hair in that awesome. What do they call that dye job? Super peroxide slut. Where the roots are dark as fuck and the rest is white as can be. And the 70s, also jeans with the little leather cross hatchings on the butt. And her boyfriend Bobby. And he was a piece of work we would put on. He had two records in the back room, in the chicken room. He had a phonograph and he had a stereo. He had a stereo and he had two records. Rod Stewart's Footloose and Fancy Free and James Brown's Greatest Hits, on a label I've never been able to identify. It was one of those fucking 2.99. What? On the Fawcett label. Fawcett, where fine funk is formed. Like, I don't know what this fucking record. So it would be I Feel Good by James Brown. And we'd all stand around, smoke joints and dance, right? The little kids, everybody, Tina fucking dancing to James Brown. And then Lonnie goes, hey, probs, you want some of this? And Bobby, the brother in law, pulls me aside and goes, if Lonnie offers you a hit, don't fucking take it. I'm like, why, man? He goes, cause he smokes angel dust. He does a lot of cranking. He can't really get a hit off weed, so he has to fucking. I'm like, okay, right? I'm good, I'm good. Cause I don't know if you ever smoked angel dust. Evidently not, because you've gone so fucking quiet and judgmental. I feel like I'm telling this story in Utah in the 40s. A little kid gets high in a dude, smoke some pcp, and you guys come all afluttering, shit, I feel good. I knew that I would. And every once in a while his dealer would come in, right? And that was the only time I ever saw Lonnie Brighton, because generally he was grumpy. I learned that he had been the guest of several penal institutions in the state of California and had also been in the Marine Corps. It was undetermined whether he had finished his hitch. And he had a Marine tattoo, right? He had a Semper Fi tattoo and several other creative tattoos that I imagine other fellows had drawn on him during his time as a guest of the state. And he was often as I say agitated, but every once in a while his dealer would come in and his dealer's name, I can't remember, Kanang or some fucking shit, I'm not kidding. He drove a black Firebird with an enormous fucking busy. You know, the busy body, the custom paint eagle on the front, right? And he had a Doberman pinscher and a girlfriend who weighed 11 pounds, right? And the fucking 70s shoes, right? And the little wispy jeans and shit. And she had the blonde hair that went around her face. And he'd come in, no shirt, leather vest, Civil War hat. Remember that look? And the Doberman right in the shop. And then Lonnie be like, hey, man, probs, watch the counter. We're gonna go upstairs. And then he was as happy as he could be. Cause he knew he was getting the most crank he could possibly get. Every once in a while I'd go over to the dealer's house to deliver a pizza, which were always complimentary. And I'd come in and go, hey, it's you, the pizza dude. You want a bump? And I like, yeah, I want a bump. Fucking go into it. He goes in the back, man. Go in the bedroom. One of those little two bedroom apartments in fucking San Mateo. And on the Broyhill fucking bureau, yeah, you heard me. On the Broy Hill bureau would be a rail the size of like the median of the i5, right? So I. The Doberman, right? I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's like, he's all right. He don't bite. Ignore him. Fucking Doberman right up there. You want to hang around and get high? No, I got to go back, man. I got to go back. If I can get in the car, light up A cool and fucking put on K Soul. And I was. You and I, we've been together since the six was nine. That's right. Rick James and shit. Eventually, I grew. We went to several concerts on Mad Mountain Meth. Went to one over here at the Fillmore in San Francisco. And this is the end. I went with my friend Janice, you know, we went to see Richie Blackmore's Rainbow. Yeah. And we're parking the car. And if you recall what the Fillmore was like in the 70s, it was like kind of like Warsaw right after the war. We're parking the car and I get out of the car so he can park the Toyota, right? We've come up from San Carlos, two dudes pull up in a black Cadillac, right? And they just, you know, I'm standing in the street drumming back in Cadillac Two fucking Samoan dudes with eyes like fucking insane volcanoes. And the window goes down and they go, everything cool? And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, everything's cool, man. They got their problem. Because if there's a problem, we'll fucking deal with that. And I'm like, there's a problem. Everything's as cool as it can be. Because if there's a problem, I'm like, no. Windows go by. They fucking pull off. I'm like, oh, my God. I'm on so much cranking beer. Sit down on the sidewalk. I'm like, I almost got fucking shot for being a fucking dickwad from the Peninsula for flipping off two fucking gangsters who are clearly strapped and shit. They're like holding them under the seats. My friend Jay gets out of the car and goes, what's happening? He missed the whole fucking thing. I'm like, I can't. Let's go see Richie Blackmore, man. And that is my story, and I thank you. Good night.

Kristen (24:00)

Today's Independence Day. My independence on its way. I'm independent from my life your independence from your wife. I'm independent from my life and point of view. I'm independent from him. I'm independent from you.

Kevin (24:26)

They say you.

Kristen (24:27)

Gotta love your neighbor oh, only if they knew. I'd rather donate all my blood than be nice to you I'd rather jump from the wings no, that's a kind word to you. I'd rather see a love than be loving you this is true.

Kevin (25:00)

Oh, my sweet mama, this is true.

Greg Proops (25:09)

Well, that is all for this week, folks. This is Persephone's Bees behind me now with a song that takes me right back to the heyday of Blondie and Talking Heads. And I got nothing bad to say about that. Now. Greg Proop's story there was the last of the stories from our appearance at the San Francisco Sketchfest. We've got another live episode coming soon of our appearance at the North Carolina Comedy Festival. We've been going from festival to festival and just having the best time. If you want to bring risk to your town, write to us. Write to me at kevinrisk-show.com. let's figure out how to get us there. Oh, and your school, we want to do more college shows. We love doing shows at colleges with the professors and the students jumping in and telling stories. Always amazing. And don't forget, you can pitch us your own stories at risk-show.com submissions. We also welcome our fans ideas about where we might find an investor, where we might find some help with our web programming and design where we might find someone who knows something about entertainment law. And we're looking for a sponsor for our April 20th show in Philadelphia. We're expecting about 400 people in attendance. It's at the Free Library and First Person Arts is helping us put the show on. Write to us@KevinRisk-Show.com about any of those things and don't miss the next Risk live shows in New York and Los Angeles. On February 28th in New York at the Pit we will have Rob Delaney. In Los Angeles at Nerdmelt, we will have Kurt Braunaller. Just go to risk-show.com tour to find out about our live shows. And once again, you know where to find that phenomenal Storytelling for Business video course including 30 pages of workbook exercises. You just go to thestorystudio.org and click on the button that says send me the videos. You will get 50% off@thestorystudio.org if you act now. Risk is a maximum fun podcast and we are listener supported. In order to help keep us running, please go to maximumfund.org donate folks, today's the day. Take a risk.

Kevin (27:49)

The earth is here inside me.

Greg Proops (27:53)

This is Risk. Well I'll tell you. Oh.