Why I'll Always Like Jay Leno

My father always told me that the best way to judge a person's character was to watch how they dealt with waitresses and other service personnel. Anyone can be nice to coworker or friend. But the true test of their soul comes when they deal with people they don't HAVE to respect or treat fairly. If you meet someone who's a jerk to a waiter, then that's probably their default for all of their interactions.

That's an observation that also holds up when it comes to being a celebrity. For all the talk of how money and success can change someone, the truth is that celebrity usually just amplifies a person's flaws. I did stand-up comedy for more than a decade and as a result I know a few pretty successful people. The ones that were nice back in the day are still pretty kind - at least in their private lives. And the ones who were jerks when they were nobodies are still asses, they're just well-known enough that their behavior is tolerated and thought of as the result of the pressures of work and celebrity.

I don't know Jay Leno. I've met him a few times over the years and written about him a lot. I know people who are friends with him, so I suppose I have some second-hand sense of the type of guy he is. But I do have a real fondness for the guy, no matter what I think of anything else he's done. And that fondness goes back to a moment he probably forgot the day after it took place.

I started doing stand-up when I was going to college in L.A. in the late 1970s and even early on I was a pretty decent writer. But I was a terrible performer, absolutely horrific early on. I used to spend nights standing at the back of the smaller room at the Sunset Comedy Store and watch comedians, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. I saw Jay Leno quite a bit back then and watching him do stand-up was like watching Michael Jordan play basketball. He was effortless on stage and had a poise and likeability that made him easily the best comic in town. When Letterman was still wearing lumberjack shirts and snapping at hecklers, Leno seemed destined for big things.

It didn't take long before I realized that if I was serious about comedy I needed to be somewhere where I could get a lot of stage time and I eventually ended up in Chicago. I worked as much as I could, but my home base was the Comedy Cottage, a teeny club in suburban Rosemont. Every time slot was vital for me, even when there wasn't a big crowd. So I took even the terrible times very seriously.

One weeknight Jay Leno happened to be playing down the street at a club called the Blue Max and the owner of the Cottage convinced him to come over. He showed up just after midnight, right before I'm set to go on stage. The club held maybe 100-120 people if it was jammed but late on a weeknight the crowd was maybe 6-8 stragglers in the audience and another dozen or so comics sitting at the bar. Leno walked into the club just before I'm set to be introduced and of course the club owner asked if he would do a few minutes.

Leno went onstage and he was hilarious, but of course all I could think about was that once he's offstage, I am going up and I am doomed.

But when he finished, he asked for the name of the next act and the MC mentioned me and that I'm the final comic of the evening. So Leno introduced me and then he made a point of walking over to a table on the aisle and sitting down to watch.

It was an incredibly thoughtful gesture and even though I'm sure my act at the time didn't deserve it, he watched intently for the entire set. He brushed away attempts to talk to him until I was finished, then he stopped me as I was exiting to shake my hand.

Later that night, as all the comics were hanging out with him, he made a point of finding me to mention a joke from my act and tell me how clever the punchline was. He was nice when he didn't need to be and nice to someone in all likelihood he would never see again.

A lot is going to be written about Jay Leno in the next few days and much of it will simply recap his accomplishments. But what I'll remember is a guy who was kind when he didn't need to be and respectful of the craft of comedy no matter who happened to be giving it a try.