When I heard about how Phillies broadcaster and Hall of Fame third baseman caught flack and had to apologize for making a joke about his wife washing dishes, I wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one who thought that it was ridiculous. So, I called Artie Lange who's performing this month at the Comedy Cove in Springfield.

Artie's losing weight, feeling better, and lives in Hoboken to be near his mom's sausage and peppers. Artie says, "she will not go through the tunnel with hot peppers." When asked about Schmidt's attempt at humor...

"Who cares, who gets upset at that?" Artie adds, "who is really getting hurt by Mike Schmidt, the acne ridden third baseman of the Phillies who cried when he retired- and this is not by far the most embarrassing moment compared to calling his wife a dishwasher." When told Schmidt had to apologize to the #metoo movement, Lange said, "you can't say a thing, this is a guy in his sixties who grew up in the sixties and who played baseball in the seventies and makes a joke about a woman who over the years might have washed a dish or two. It's crazy!"

Artie's all about loyalty and that comes through when he talks about his HBO show "Crashing" and Judd Apatow. "It's very left wing liberal and I'm not a political guy. A lot of people may think with my views I might not be in that category politically and I don't know where I am, but I know that friends are friends and Judd Apatow and Pete Holmes gave me a job. I don't care what difference I have with opinion on anything, no one bad mouths those two guys around me because they gave me a job. It's about a Jersey friendship to me."

So many people really care about Artie and he says a lot of that comes from his time on the Howard Stern show. "Radio fans are the most intimate fans, it's different than a sitcom or a movie star. Being on that show for 8 and a half years and having my own show, I got thousands of hours of stuff." How is Artie getting along with Stern?

'Howard and I haven't spoken in years. He's got an issue with me and everybody who used to work for him. I don't know what happened then. The guy I knew was a generous, nice, good man- great kisser," he jokes. Artie thinks he'a being brainwashed by a woman who works there now named Marci Turk. "This woman's clearly a con artist and she landed the biggest whale there is- a billion dollar DJ," he said.

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