There was a time when I was horrified to see photos of myself, or hear recordings of my voice. That changed in 1973.
Why? I lost 60 pounds. It was my freshman year of college. Suddenly I was attractive. My whole life problem of being lonely and never having a girlfriend was solved. (So I thought. Erroneously.)
I wound up becoming a performer, a funny guy. I called attention to myself and craved applause and laughter at my (hopefully) funny antics. When I landed an opportunity to be on camera for a strange video I devised called Rent -a-Friend, The Original Video Companion, I was absolutely thrilled! This was in 1986.
During the production of RAF, I was committed to the idea of doing the entire program in one continuous take, without stopping, without edits. We did four takes over two days. The third take was the one we went with, the one that was released into the world on VHS, and ultimately became a Cult Classic.
But you know, Take 2 was pretty good too. And it’s from Take 2 that I’m now sharing moments never seen before in the media.
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