Seven months out of rehab, 'humbled' Artie Lange talks Hoboken -- the parade, the cannolis, the view -- with The Jersey Journal

Artie Lange is no fan of parades.

The former Howard Stern sidekick loves Hoboken, where he's called a one-bedroom condo home for the past decade, but he sees the town's annual St. Patrick's Day march down Washington St. -- notorious for straddling the barricade between raging all-night orgy and major boon for the local economy -- as a nuisance, if not for that reason.

"I've been saying this forever. Parades are a concept people came up with before cars. Every nationality has their own parade now and you've got to realize if somebody throws out a refrigerator on 38th Street, there's traffic in Brooklyn because of it," he told The Jersey Journal.

However, he can understand some local business owners taking issue.

"The bars in Hoboken, it's still one of those towns, where the fellas still get a piece of stuff, it's all Irish-named bars owned by Italian guys," he said, half-kidding. "It's like you're in Eddie O'Reilly's and this is the owner Anthony, and therefore they still have a lot of influence -- in any city."

Lange wouldn't mind if New York City canceled its parades, too, although, for more than a decade, all his memories of the holiday have been after the crowds broke up and the punching broke out, a few blocks west of Fifth Avenue.

"From the time I was 17 to almost 28, almost every year, I was at the Blarney Stone, fighting, God knows what. I remember the Knicks played the Celtics, St Patrick's Day at the Garden, and we're at the Blarney Stone across the street after the parade. We watched the first two quarters at the bar before realizing we had tickets, we were so drunk."

Lange isn't drunk anymore. He's been off booze, drugs, gambling and prostitutes since leaving rehab last June, the first time he attempted recovery for more than eight days, and says what he's now experiencing is his fifth second chance at life.

That second chance brought Lange to Atlantic City last weekend, where he joined his friends, and fellow sober comics, Jim Norton and Dave Attell, for a sold-out weekend run of their annual Anti Social Comedy Tour at the Borgata Events Center. It was Lange's first time before such a large crowd -- 6,000 fans over two nights -- in more than two and a half years, performing material he'd been honing for months, first at Manhattan's Comedy Cellar then in appearances on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and "Jimmy Kimmel Live.''

Before he could tell his first joke he'd already received a standing ovation, and once the crowd calmed he summarized his current situation.

"You guys probably know I'm not allowed to gamble, drink, do drugs or f*** whores anymore, so its great to be here at the Borgata. Tomorrow, if you want to see me, I'll be doing the only thing I'm allowed to do according to my sponsor in AA, and that's browse the gift shop for eighteen hours."

Lange's only remaining vices are smoking and food, but even those he can resist if the situation calls for it, asking us first before lighting up, and offering us the opportunity to indulge in his minibar, even take a Toblerone for the road.

Asked about his decade-old craving for the cannolis at Carlo's Bakery, home to Hoboken's next most famous resident, the Cake Boss, Lange shows even more restraint.

"I'm so jaded, I'm a Yankee fan, I hate that they're good -- 1989 they sucked, there was no traffic, you can get in and get out. Now I'm sort of bored with it. I just want to go to a game, I don't want them to be good anymore," he joked.

And on the topic of overexposed local athletes, Lange sympathizes with Hoboken's occasional star athlete, Kris Humphries, who he suggested may soon be moving just forty feet down the hall. That may not have been where Humphries imagined himself a year ago, but it isn't where Lange imagined himself either.

"When I came out of the daze coming out of rehab, everything came back much quicker than I thought, and I remember coming back to Hoboken and looking at the view and appreciating it with a clear head for the first time. I should be in a f***ing studio apartment in Newark right now trying to get ready for my job at Applebee's, instead I'm in a suite still talking to you, and I'm just f***ing lucky, man. I'm very humbled by everything."