How is it that you got in debt?
The way the booking agency presented it to me was that I would pay a flat fee of one hundred dollars per booking, but they'd get me in Harrah's in Reno, The Copacabana in New York, and other prestigious venues. They said I could earn upwards of tens of thousands of dollars a week as a comedian. That sounded like good money and if I'm doing 6 shows per week, making that much money, and all I owe them is $600, then that's fantastic. But the reality of it was that the fee went up after the first year and when I signed the contract the fine print said, "The venues that we offer on the flyer are for illustration purposes only. Actual bookings may vary." So when I started doing the shows, they were sending me into pizza parlors to do, essentially, free shows. I'd often be paid with a pizza, a pitcher of Coca Cola, or a small stipend of five or six dollars. The problem is that if I'm getting paid with a pizza I still owe them a hundred dollars and in my first few months I never made near a hundred dollars at a show. I tried to get out of it, but the contract said that I couldn't and that if I didn't do a minimum of six shows a week over the course of five years, I'd still owe the hundred dollars per show regardless of whether I did the shows or not. That gets compounded, plus there's 24% interest, plus the accounting fee for sending out statements, and then another percentage that goes to legal fees. They have a lawyer on retainer. I'm losing another 4% to have this lawyer on retainer but guess what? The lawyer on retainer that I'm paying is the lawyer that sends me all the threatening letters. I'm paying for their counsel!

How much money would this one show have to make for you to be debt free?
I believe I owe these guys about $200,000. If any of these readers have that much money, they can send it in and I'll give them a piece of the pie in the future. They'll get a percentage of all my future earnings in perpetuity because I'll tell you what, if I had to give 25% of everything to someone else for the rest of my life, that would be better than having to give it all to these sons of bitches with the compounding interest. This is a nightmare. You don't realize how unhappy you'd be to get involved in show business. It's not all laughter and applause. In fact, it's usually not laughter or applause. It's usually lawsuits, threats, and eating poorly.

Would a good meal be of some comfort to you?
Sure, but what would really be of comfort to me right now would be one of those twelve count bags of socks that you see for sale for 7.99 or 8.99. That would be very comfortable. The socks I have now are worn out in the heels, the toes are poking through, and the elastic is gone so they bunch up and fall down.

This took a turn for the dire. Let's give the readers a silver lining in the Neil Hamburger cloud. What are some positive things that have been going on in your life so that we know it's not all dark and gloomy in your world.
We've had some interest from various television networks. They showed false interest. In fact, they were not interested. I'd gotten a series of discount coupons mailed to me by one of my fans. These are two for one offers, ten percent off, that sort of thing. Dry cleaning discounts, Olive Garden, and just great deals in general that will make touring a lot easier for me in the future

Have you been approached by Superdeluxe.com?
I have talked with some of their agents, but I don't see how what anything they have to say can be helpful.

It's got a very large audience and a great pool of talent, including some people you've shared the stage with.
Do they have a great pool of cash?

I believe they do.
That's what you've got to look for. I've done interviews on a lot of these websites and it's pretty demeaning. You've got people watching these things and the next thing you know they're running some sort of sick gang bang video or someone having sex with a dog and it's all going out in your name. You can use computers to piece together a whole program and you wouldn't want to be associated with that. Bestiality is illegal.

You could also use the Internet as a marketing tool.
In terms of becoming a Myspace celebrity or a Youtube celebrity, I don't know if I can keep up with that.

Why's that?
A lot of them are naked girls. Girls who are dancing around in their bras and that's always going to sell more than some carefully crafted jokes. Do you think I can compete with that?

Not everybody wants naked girls and bestiality. There's definitely an audience looking for the sort of well-crafted and astute observations that you deliver.
That's good to know. I hope they don't find me too late. That's something to keep in mind too, that by the time they discover me there might be nothing left. That's what happened to Jesus. That guy was not as popular when he was around as he is now.