I want to send my best wishes and hopes to Artie Lange for a speedy recovery from the news reports that he is in the hospital after stabbing himself.

The comedian has always been able to sell out any room in Vegas. He is beloved here. And, he is one of the few celebrities to ever just hand me his various phone numbers the first time I ever met him. He just wanted to make it easy should I ever want to give him a ring. It was never easy with Artie Lange. Those phone numbers were constantly changing until I lost track of him after he stopped coming to Vegas regularly. Or, at least, performing here. I had hoped that was a good sign as this town has always been toxic to him. This is a point he would freely admit along with his drinking and gambling problems.

I have had the pleasure of hanging out with Lange a couple times in Vegas, and he is one of the few celebrities I have dealt with where I felt I had a sense of the actual person. That was probably not a good thing.  Artie Lange is an openly very self destructive person. I will never forget the casualness with which he could talk about a then very, very recent and not entirely won battle with heroin addiction.

In person Lange always struck me for the almost shy way he could carefully elucidate how his life was falling apart, These exchanges were always heart breaking to record. I want to wish Artie a speedy recovery in body and mind! (Photo: Sarah Gerke)