“Comedy Saved My Life” - A Rhode Island Story
GoLocalProv News Team
“Comedy Saved My Life” - A Rhode Island Story
Perotta has faced alcohol and drug addiction, a severe gambling problem, two bankruptcies, homelessness, and cancer, and remarkably, each time he has come back swinging.
In many ways, it seems like Perrotta has lived a multitude of lives all wrapped into one. He grew up in Cranston, graduated from the Community College of Rhode Island and Roger Williams University, served in the U.S. Navy for six years, and then worked at the Adult Correctional Institution in Rhode Island for over 30 years.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAll the while, he was battling a near-endless number of issues tied to addiction, and he was just trying to keep his life together. Often, it just spiraled. Perrotta said, “I lived in a motel room at one point. I lost my family. I lived in a motel room on Hartford Avenue for $200 a week. Snow used to come in under the door, and I would put a towel down to block it from coming into the room.”
He estimates that combined, he has spent more than a year in rehab facilities.
And during all of this, he started a career in comedy. “I did it for a brief period in 1983, stopped for eight years, and then I came back in 1991. I was at a comedy show. So I got the bug again, [and I said] I got to try this one more time. And Frank O'Donnell was a local comedian at Periwinkle's Comedy Club," said Perrotta.
“He had a comedy class. So I wound up taking that class in October of 1991. And I've been at it ever since, except for COVID. And even during COVID, we did a bunch of Zoom talk shows. We did about 130 of them just to keep our minds going,” said Perrotta, who now works full-time.
During all this chaos, he continued to be a comedian that other comedians loved.
Rhode Island native Tom Cotter, a comedian who has a national reputation, has known Perrotta for years.
“So I met John, God, it's gotta be 30 years ago. I think he was a prison guard, I believe, at the Adult Correctional Institute, if I'm not mistaken. And somehow John Perrotta convinced us to go perform at the Medium Security ACI for a Christmas show. So that was the one and only time I've ever told jokes in prison, but it was a lot of fun. And I was amazed that he was able to get us to go there,” said Cotter.
“I was very nervous. And there was a friend of ours named Eddie Galvin who at the time was incarcerated, who was also a comedian. We went, because John said, if we did this, a) you're a mensch for doing something nice, and b) you're helping out Eddie Galvin, because you know Eddie, and prison culture is weird and he wanted to get some credit, and by showing them he could be funny by being on the show with us, you know, the prisoners were less likely to hassle him and to accept him. So we did that and mission accomplished, apparently, because Galvin killed it and they loved him after that, or they may have liked him before him, but it definitely allegedly helped him,” said Cotter.
Now Perrotta is working all over Rhode Island — Lemongrass, 39 West Restaurant, and the Carriage Inn to name a few in the state. He also does shows in Connecticut and Massachusetts and has now published a book.
The book “How Comedy Saved My Life: My Wild Journey of Addiction, Recovery & Making the Ultimate Comeback - Tales of a Navy Sailor, Prison Guard, Stand-Up Comic & Father” is now available.
Now, Back to the Beginning of the Journey
“See, my father was a bad drinker and mixed with pills and depression, and I said I'd never drink like him, and then I picked up a quarter of wine at 14, and I was off and running. I was in my first rehab at 16,” said Perrotta.
“I battled it. I battled it. I almost made it. I kept getting off the mat. I hit a lot of bottoms, a lot of bottoms, a lot of a couple of bankruptcies, a couple of divorces. You know, the crazy story in this whole thing, too, is my second wife, we got divorced then, she learned she needed a transplant because she had a rare lung disease, she needed a double lung transplant. She got one in 2013. It was a miracle. She had a 2% chance of survival. She was on life support over at our hospital. She flew to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where she was lifted for a double lung transplant,” said Perrotta.
“She went out there, and a week went by, and they were going to take off life support the next day. At 2.30 in the morning, the phone rang and they told me that, sadly, someone had passed away. Miraculously, it's a perfect match to your ex-wife,” said Perrotta. Today, he says his ex-wife is his third wife.
To follow Perrotta’s life, you probably need a scorecard.
Comedy - The Positive Addiction
Perrotta said comedy pretty much saved him.
"It's crazy, it's the whole crazy story, the whole thing. I have a big passion for stand-up comedy and I've helped a lot, I worked with Bill Burr when he started, I've helped a lot of comics, hundreds of comics along the way./ I like to help new comics get started," said Perrotta. "We have three open mics a week —Steve DeNuccio was one of the comics — and then help a lot of the new comics and we get work for the veteran comics and so we really, my comedy saved my life."
"I hate the title because I have a passion for it, it became another addiction, but a positive addiction because I do everything, shoot the nuts. I book the shows, I take the reservations," added Perrotta.
Cotter said Perrotta has had a big impact on the local comedy scene.
“Not only did we work together a lot, but he started booking some things, becoming kind of an entrepreneur and booking different gigs around southeastern New England. And so I would work with him and I would work for him quite often and just a great salt of the earth kind of guy you know and he has been dealt some shitty hands pardon my language,” said Cotter.
“He's this phoenix that rises from the ashes. Comics are not normal people; we're kind of mentally challenged. I'm lumping us all together, but comics, are you know, anytime you need that much attention, you've got something wrong...we're just hardwired differently,” added Cotter.
Both Cotter and Perrotta get the joke.
“I kept getting off the mat, and I would accomplish things. I was an underdog, and I kept fighting back,” said Perrotta.