Tom Scharpling once auditioned for the New Monkees (and other tales from ‘The Best Show’ host’s new memoir)
"The Best Show" host talked to The Inquirer about some surprising revelations from his funny, touching new memoir, "It Never Ends."
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To his many listeners, it’s OK when Tom Scharpling isn’t having a good time. The host of the long-running The Best Show — which started on the radio at WFMU in Jersey City and continues as a listener-supported, call-in comedy podcast — keeps ‘em laughing even when the phone lines are glitchy and the callers are duds and the whole world seems to be in the toilet.
It’s also pretty sweet when New Jersey-born Scharpling is riding high, playing off his Philly-born comedy partner Jon Wurster and letting the show follow its own unpredictable path. That shaky, underdog energy has kept The Best Show on the air in one form or another for more than 20 years.
Judging by Scharpling’s hilarious, touching, and serpentine new memoir It Never Ends: A Memoir with Nice Memories! (Abrams Press), his whole life has been like that. There are the undeniable highs, like writing and producing the TV show Monk, and the lows, which include bouts of mental illness that led to him being institutionalized as a teen.
Then there’s the delightfully offbeat stuff, like the time he unsuccessfully auditioned for the New Monkees band/TV show in the late ’80s. Even longtime listeners will be surprised by much of what they read in It Never Ends.
Scharpling lives in L.A. these days. He spoke by phone with The Inquirer recently. The interview has been edited and condensed.
There are a lot of Philly connections in your life, like Wurster and his Philly Boy Roy character, and all the callers from Philly. And now there’s this triumphant chapter in the book about doing a live version of “The Best Show” at Union Transfer in 2015, with appearances by Kurt Vile and the Dead Milkmen.
Philly casts a pretty, pretty, pretty big shadow over the show because it kind of did over my life. It’s definitely influential. I’ve always enjoyed going to Philly to see shows more than New York. If a band is playing both, I’ll try to go to the Philly show, because it’s just more enjoyable.
You write about the indignities of growing up between New York and Philadelphia.
New Jersey is getting it from both sides. Getting the ‘tude, from both sides.
You’ve worked with Jon Wurster for years. Were there any parts of the book that were a surprise to him?
Yeah. A lot of my personal stuff was a surprise to him. He didn’t know some of those things, because nobody did. I didn’t tell anybody.
Do you feel different, now that it’s out there?
It’s exciting and it’s also scary, because it’s stuff that I kept to myself forever. I could have died and nobody would have known these things. And now it’s the opposite. Now that people know it, it’s almost like they’re not mine anymore. They’re just out there in the world.
Some of the book’s biggest revelations were about your mental illness. Unlike some comedians might, you chose to minimize that experience, or undercut it with jokes.
I didn’t want to shortchange what happened, but I also didn’t want to feel like [the book] was just sad or some kind of pity party. I wanted to try to find a balance between those two points. I think I did.
I think so.
And it’s funny, right? The book’s funny. You laughed.
I did. Auditioning for the New Monkees — why have you never told that story before?
It was so embarrassing. That’s why. It’s next level. When some people heard that this happened, when I was assembling the book, they said, “Maybe you call it I Auditioned for the New Monkees,” or something like that. That’s how ridiculous it is. It’s almost like a story that can be like identity-changing.
Really? Even though you’ve got this popular show and all the other things you’ve done in showbiz?
Look, it definitely struck a chord with a bunch of people where they’re just like, “That’s the story, dude.” And I’m like, “Oh, no. I don’t want that to be the centerpiece.”
You spoke on the air many times about writing a book. Is this the book you thought you’d write?
I thought I’d end up somewhere like this. I had thought about doing something that was more just straight fiction, [but] it didn’t feel like the right one to start with. If I only get one shot, I wanted it to be this. I felt like anything else would be a slight avoidance. I really wanted to go deep with it.
It’s not a typical comedian’s book.
It’s a weird combination of a lot of things. It’s part memoir, part career thing, part mental health book, part advice. But it’s very representative ultimately, I guess, of what my life is like. It’s been like bouncing from thing to thing and juggling a bunch of stuff. But it kind of makes sense in the flow of the book. It’s like OK, my life made a little more sense than I thought.
Scharpling’s virtual book tour includes conversations with Jon Wurster on July 12 and John Hodgman on July 13. More info at tomwroteabook.com and thebestshow.net.