“Jackass” co-star and infamous MTV clown Steve-O would seem to symbolize all things sarcastic and mindless. This is, after all, a man best known for casually huffing paint on camera and stapling his scrotum to his leg.
But the 36-year-old (born Stephen Glover) has spent the past three years both living down his SoCal party-boy reputation and profiting from it, having gotten sober and spun his ordeals into a TV documentary, stand-up material and, soon, a book.
Far from glorifying his exploits, the efforts offer a sad, funny, often terrifyingly frank window into addiction that at times portrays his party years as “absolutely miserable and pathetic,” as Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker once wrote.
We chatted with Steve-O in advance of his headlining shows at the Denver Improv today and Saturday.
Q: How have your stand- up shows been going?
A: It’s crazy, and it’s been going really well. I’ve been doing it on and off since 2006, but it’s difficult because a lot of people don’t think about me as a stand-up comic. A lot of people would be disappointed if I didn’t do some wild and crazy (stuff) on stage — like lighting my head on fire, which I do. But if anyone’s doubting whether or not it’s worth coming, it’s easy to get a consensus from the response on the Internet.
Q: Is that a good thing?
A: Yeah, at least from what everybody’s been saying. I never leave a show until I’ve taken a picture with every last person that wants one.
Q: Do you ever cringe watching old footage of yourself, whether it’s doing insane stunts or drugs (as in his MTV documentary “Steve-O: Demise and Rise”)?
A: I watched a rough cut of that (documentary) early on, and it made me want to get high, if you could believe it. Some of the footage in there was pretty shocking, but truthfully it did no justice to what a mess I really was. It didn’t even scratch the surface. Luckily, I just finished a book, “Professional Idiot,” a memoir.
Q: How did that come about?
A: I was real new in sobriety, maybe two or three months, and there was this guy from Spin magazine (David Peisner) who wanted to write an article about me. I was like, “No, no, I don’t want to do it.” And I remember being really grateful I said that, because had I taken him up on it, he would have been interviewing me when I was on my way to my second psych ward.
Q: But he didn’t give up?
A: I had one year of sobriety and was on “Dancing with the Stars” when he came out again to interview me. He way over-researched everything, and I remember being really scared and embarrassed of all this stuff. I had posted so much embarrassing (stuff) on the Internet and I just wanted to bury it. But we wound up going through all of it. The article wasn’t flattering, but it was truthful, and I called him and said, “Hey, dude, let’s do a book.”
Q: And what was that experience like?
A: It’s unbelievable how much work it is. We did like 75 hours of interviews plus writing and editing. I’m psyched we did all the work and made it great, but it just occurs to me that so many books have to suck, man.
Read more of our Steve-O interview in ‘s “Why So Serious?” column. John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
“STEVE-O”
Stand-up comedy. The Improv at Northfield Stapleton, 8246 E. 49th Ave. # 1400. Today-Saturday. 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. today; 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday. $22-$25. 303-307-1777 or
