The Apollo Story | Motivated

What was I gonna do, I aren’t had nowhere to stay, so I lived in the car. I’ve been trying to make this dream come true. You done left me out here like this. And I was crying so hard that He just said,  didn’t like hear a voice or nothing,

But He spoke to me in however He said, If you get up, Ima take you places you aren’t never been. Now, I was fitting to quit, so I said, Skip it, Ima quit anyway. So I got in my car, I went to a pay phone. And I was gonna call my dad.

You remember back in the day where you could and get your messages?

So I call, and I punched in the code, and the machine said, Doot. He said, Hey, Steve, this is Chuck Sutton with Showtime at the Apollo. We saw a tape of you, you’re very funny. If you could get here Sunday night, we’d love to put you on television. Call me back, let me know if you can make it. So I hung the phone up, I’m crushed, cause my whole dream of being on TV, and I couldn’t get to New York, I got $35. How Ima get to New York?

I can’t make it. So I’m standing there at the phone booth, and tears just coming down my face. I said, God, so that must be a sign for me to go home. Cause this it, I aren’t even got the money to go the Apollo. My whole thing wanting to be on TV, I couldn’t even make the dream come true. This is the most messed up moment. And so I said, Let me call this dude back and see if he said this Sunday, cause maybe he said next Sunday and I could hustle up a little bit of money or something. I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but let me just call him back. So I called him back, Steve, this is Chuck Sutton, Showtime at the Apollo, we saw a tape of yours, you’re very, very funny.

Look, we have an opening Sunday night at Showtime at the Apollo. If you can make it, we’d love to put you on TV. I said, It’s this Sunday. Before I hit the button I heard, doot, you have another message. Now, wasn’t there before, so I punched my code in, I listened to the second message. Said, Steve Harvey, this is Tom Sobel from the Comedy Caravan. This was a Thursday. He said, I have a gig in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday night that pays $150. If you can get there Friday night, you’ll make $150. So I called him back and I said, Hey Tom, did you give the gig away?

He said, No, it’s still available. He said, Can you get there?

I said, I’m in Pensacola, Florida. I’m three and a half hours away. So I drive to Jacksonville, Florida, Club owner said, Man, you funnier than the guy we hired. If you stay tomorrow night, I’m gonna give you another $150. So now I got $300 now. So I get on the phone, I call Chuck Sutton. I say, Hey man, is the gig still available at Showtime at the Apollo?

He said, Yeah, we got one opening left. I said, I’ll be there. So I called Eastern Airlines, who used to be open back then, they had a special for $99 going from Jacksonville, Florida to New York round trip. So I parked my car at the airport. I got on the plane, flew. Everything I had was in two bags.

I got to the Apollo, I said, Hey man, I’m here. I got there at 11:00 in the morning. He said, You can’t stay here, cause you don’t come on till the late show tonight. I said, I aren’t got nowhere to go. I said, If you just let me stay in this building, I aren’t gonna move around, nothing. I aren’t got nowhere to go.

I’m in Harlem, I can’t go back out here, I got these two bags. I got victim wrote all over me, man. So he said, All right, if you go upstairs, don’t come down. That’s where all the comedians was, so I stayed up there. I got hungry around 3:00, I couldn’t take it no more. So I went back downstairs, dude named Alter Liston. I said, Hey man, he said, I thought I told you don’t come down them damn steps. I said, Hey man, I’m just hungry. Let me go to that KFC I saw on the corner. Just let me get some chicken, I’ll come right back. He said, Man, if you aren’t back in 20 minutes, you aren’t getting in this building.

So I went, bought me some chicken, came back. So the comedians started coming in the building. They start coming up on the sixth floor. So I meet this guy named D.L. Hugely. I introduced myself, he introduced himself. I’m sitting there, another guy come in named Dwayne Johnson. Then this other dude walked in named Jamie Foxx. And I introduced myself, we don’t know each other, aren’t none of us famous, its 1991, man. They gave everybody the lineup. I was on the last show of the night. I don’t go on until 11 at night. I done had this four pieces of chicken, I’m starving, that chicken done wore off.

I’m nervous, I’m about to throw up. D.L. Hugely went downstairs. D.L. Hugely got booed off. Dwayne Johnson got booed off. Jamie Foxx went down there and got booed. They booed Jamie, then Jamie started singing. And then they start clapping. and they got his ass. So I’m walking down the steps and I see Jamie sitting on the steps, I said, Hey man, hang in there.

He said, Man, that aren’t never happened to me before. This crazy, this Jamie Foxx, You don’t even know how nervous I am.  I can’t even, my breathing is shot cause these dudes been booed. So I walk out, I had wrote this joke. with this heavyweight named Mitch Green. Now, he was on the news, his eye was swollen. Mitch Green, and he was telling everybody what happened, but his eye took over the interview.

And I wrote this joke that his eye started talking and was just, I’ll tell you what happened. The heavyweight champs fist is coming towards my face. I just said, Lord, Lord, Lord. And I wrote this whole joke about this dudes eyeball talking.

And when the punch came and all this here. The Apollo, man, they went crazy, they lost they mind. I got a standing ovation, man. I walked offstage, I walked offstage, just started crying. I couldn’t believe it, and they paid me, I made $750 for being on TV for one night. I had never made $750 telling jokes in one night. So that was my first television appearance. Couple weeks later, Sinbad was the host of the show.

He got this job on Different World, and so he quit, and so Mark Curry became the host, and then Mark Curry got Hanging With Mr. Cooper, and he quit, and they came to me and said, Would you come back to New York and host amateur night for us to just try you out?

Oh, aren’t no problem. So I went to New York, I hosted amateur night, and I was killing, but every time we went to commercial break I was supposed to let the warm up act take over like Reuben does. But I knew not to let the warm up act do that cause he would change the attitude of the crowd. Cause the Apollo was a wild place. So I stayed out there, I did the warm up and the hosting, and I created a bond with that audience. And that’s how I got on TV with my very first TV show.

I hosted Showtime at the Apollo and ended up being the longest running host in the history of Showtime, I did that show for eight years. Nobody ever did it for eight years. And that was my turn back moment. See, in your life, everybody has a turn back moment. You have a moment where you could go forward or you can give up, but the thing you have to keep in mind, before you give up is that, if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. That’s the guarantee of quitting. That it will never happen, no way under the sun. The only way the possibility remains that it can happen is if you never give up no matter what.

Because God is always coming, He’s never too late. At your worst moment, look man, when they told me I had to be in New York, I saw no way I could get there. But that God though, He make the phone ring. I end up in Florida, I made $300. Then I go to New York, I make $750. I almost got a thousand dollars out of nowhere. That’s what happened to me, that was my moment of never giving up. That’s when I first learned that faith was everything, that you have to remain faithful.

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