The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Al Martin

Episode Date: October 25, 2020

Al Martin is the owner of New York Comedy Club, Greenwich Village Comedy Club and Broadway Comedy Club. His new book is called, I Did it on A Dare: How I Created a Comedy Empire in 30 Short Years. 

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM Raw Dog 99 and on the Ridecast podcast network. Dan Natterman speaking. And with us, Noam Dwarman, the owner of the world-famous comedy cellar, Periel, has a family matter to attend to.

She may be joining us later. We hope to see her. And we have with us, Al Martin, comedy legend. Al started off as a touring headliner until opening up the New York comedy club in 1988. While still doing comedy also became a,

if you will, what's the word I'm looking for, a sponsor of Young Up and Coming Comics, and subsequently he has purchased two other clubs. He now owns the Greenwich Village Comedy Club, as well as the Broadway Comedy Club. Please welcome Al Martin. Hello, everybody. That was a wonderful introduction. I had to do it on the fly. No, everybody. Hello. How are you, Al? Okay, very, very busy. Why are you so busy? No, I'm just kidding. And Al's also the writer of a new book, I Did It on a Dare, which chronicles his foray into the world of comedy club ownership and we will discuss

that yes so noam yeah uh what's on your mind i know you wanted to discuss the al's a book with him yeah i want to hear about al's book i i i didn't know i didn't know someone like us could write a book. Yes, yes. Well, you could definitely write a great book for sure. Let's face it, I didn't have a lot to do. I'm so used to working every day and being involved in nonsense every day. And, you know, all of a sudden this nightmare occurred and I had time on my hands. And I took 25-30 years of notes and put it to paper and got this thing published. So first of all you keep notes? Well you know, in my brain. So tell us about it. Well you know there's a chapter on the comedy seller. Oh, no. Our whole thing. Our fight?

Yes. Is there an apology there? I'd like to read it. You know what? I do feel very bad for it. I'm kidding. But, yeah, we have a chapter on that and all sorts of goodies in there. And this is available at Amazon.com?

Amazon.com amazon.com correct uh so i was supposed to hit some bookstores with it and autograph signings and at the clubs but we're not open so you know can't do anything on that end so tell us like what what you know like give us a couple a couple anecdotes so you you know people always ask me for like funny stories about people when they're starting out and stuff like that i can never think of anything nothing but uh you must have something well you know it all really happened on a dare for me um i was dating a girl that was doing some stand-up comedy at the time i never had any interest other than taking dates to comedy clubs when I first, you know, when I was younger. And then this girl told me that she was doing an open mic at a club. And I said, okay, I'll go in Brooklyn. And she was on stage.

And I had to endure, you know, seven minutes of an open mic for her and two hours of other open micers till they got there. And it was a disaster for me. You know, I might have even been traumatized from it. Later on, she says to me, as women are apt to do, how did I do? You know, how was I? And I kept telling her, you were great. You were funny. You know,

anything to get her off my back from nagging me with the question. And then after the 20th time of her asking me, I finally told her, you know, you suck. You're horrible. It's hard to listen to. And, you know, I couldn't take, I couldn't take her asking me about it. And then we got into a 15 minute argument where we went back and forth. And she said, you know, you're pretty funny. Why don't you get on the stage, Big Mouth? And she dared me. And a week later, I got on stage. And it was right around the time, Noam and Dan, that Andrew Dice Clay walked into the comedy club to run through his uh hbo special that he was doing i think in 89 and i got bumped at about uh 12 30 11 30 in the morning at night and he did 45 minutes he blew the room out the

mc introduces me forgets my name just said some fat kid uh wants to go up on stage and do some time. And I went up and I just show you how delusional I was. I decided on the spur of the moment, since Dice came in, this is my first time ever on stage. I decided I'm going to change my entire act and do all dirty stuff with some kind of delusion that Dice is going to take me on the road as an opening act. And of course, I bombed about as bad as a person could bomb on stage, which served me later on because I was able to identify with some of the delusional thoughts that comics have when they come into my club and want to perform on the nine o'clock Saturday show.

I, I, you know, thought that I would be a touring headliner within a couple of years. And I know I speak to young comics and they're, you know, that are a year in and they, they all think the same thing. Pretty much everybody, when they start out, thinks it's going to be a much quicker path than it is. That's sort of universal, I think, amongst people starting out, is a warped sense of the length of the process.

But if Perrielle is back with us, I just want to real quickly. Perrielle, are you back for good? I mean, we'll see. All right. Well, she has some family issues, but hopefully all is well. Al, you were saying? Yeah, I was going to say, it's along the lines, I always tell comics that want to go up right away,

that think they're that funny. I said, you know, Derek Jeter didn't become Derek Jeter overnight, you know, with one at bat. You know, he had to go to Little Leagues, and he had to throw balls with his dad seven days a week while other people were having fun. And, you know, the minor leagues and college ball and whatever he did to become Derek Jeter, same thing here, he'd become a successful comic. And I know, Dan, because you spent a lot

of time at New York Comedy Club starting out, it's a nightly process of going up and bombing and going up and bombing till you get to play a room like the comedy cellar you know that could take years well here's the thing though sometimes in the early days for me and for many other people we brought our friends to come see us and we did kill oftentimes even at the beginning so we had that sense that oh well we're we're you know good enough but that was mostly because the audience was filled with either our friends or other new comedians' friends who were very warm and receptive to almost anything we had to say.

So that helped to give us a skewed sense of reality as well. Yeah, one of the things we talk about in the book is, you know, basically the beginner of the bringer show, you know, and how that pretty much started in my room, for better or worse, you know, and basically how that happened, I had a few comics talking to me at the bar one night, the early 1990s, maybe around 1990. And they said to me, Al, how do we get on stage here? And I said to me, Al, how, how do we get on stage here? And I said, well, you know, at that time,

the lineup was, you know, Bill Hicks and Brett Butler and Liz Winstead and, you know, Mike Royce and guys like that. I said, you're just not ready to get on that nine o'clock show. And basically one of them said, well, what if we took an earlier time spot and, you know, did a show and brought our own audience? And a light went off in my head, because at that time, my competition was really the improv, the comic strip, Dangerfields. I was sort of the new kid on the block, and I had to come up with an idea as to how I get people into this room, as opposed to them going to the normal rooms that they're going to. And it turned out to be a great, you know, a great side hustle, I guess, the New Talent Show.

Well, the New Talent Show, you know, I mean, it gets a bad reputation sometimes because people feel, well, why should I bring my own audience? But it's a win-win. The club gets an audience and the comic gets people to perform in front of that he never would have gotten otherwise. Right. There are some people that might exploit it and do it unfairly and tell comics you've got to bring 30 people and, you know, take advantage. But, you know, if done properly and done honestly, I think it's appropriate and win-win. It's a tool, you know, and a lot of comedy is tools, you know, but it's a tool.

I tell comics when they start out, listen, if you can't bring, you can't bring. Then just go through the traditional ways of either interning or open mics and getting good enough at open mics to make friends that eventually are doing things or running a little open mic of your own and trading off spots. But if you work in an office or a law firm or a medical office, and you've got friends that want to see you, then it's definitely another tool. And as you say, it's a win-win. Somebody can get up on stage and bring their friends. And yes, and you're right, there is a lot of exploitation. Some of the things I've always hated about New Talent Show is when you're the one person bringing, you know, 90% of the audience,

and they hold you for last when people are ordering their checks, that's very exploitive and very unfair, you know, and I make sure we don't do that, if at all possible. And, you know, other things like cutting the time because they're the last act up and, you know, the manager wants to go home or somebody wants to go home. So yeah, there can be an exploitive element to it. But we've always tried to be fair with it

and offer other stuff like to the comedians that are doing those shows that are beneficial to them. Well, first of all, I have a lot of respect for you, Al.

And I, I want to put it the right way without it seem like a backhanded compliment because it's, it's not a backhanded compliment at all. What's that? No, I'm giving you the best shot. No,

because, because you, you, you run your club and you're a survivor i think is is uh the best way to put it and and um that's that's a that's a um something to take a lot of pride in people people who've never done it truly don't understand it's so easy they sit they criticize decisions, why you do it this way, why you do it that way, whatever it is that you're doing. And I used to get flack for how you made food in the old club, whatever it was, with the George Foreman grill. Yes, the famous George Foreman grill.

Whatever it was. And you don't know this, but I might've told you this one time, and I used to push back at the comedians when they would kind of chuckle about that. And I never, and I, and you don't know this, but I, I might've told you this one time and I, and I used to push back at the comedians when they would kind of, you know, chuckle about that. And I would say basically say, you know, yeah, but look at all the guys who fucking went out of business. I mean, one after another, after another, and Al doesn't, he's in there and he's making a living and he's staying open and he, and he grows. And, um, you guys may bitch and moan about this or that, but you're all going to work there.

And, you know, you've had it in many ways much tougher than we've had it at the Comedy Cellar. And I think you make a good living and you're established and, like I said, you're a survivor. And I really, honestly, despite the problems that we had, I do very much respect your

talent and ability. That's honest. You know, it's yes, of course, we have the George Foreman Grill at that time. You know, one of the things, Noam, is that, you know, a lot of clubs that you hear about opening in the modern era

all seem to have partners, lots of partners, you know. And it's very easy when you have partners to really piss a lot of money into an operation and having this fancy thing and that fancy thing and, you know, golden bathrooms and, you know, and, you know, basically I started as a comic and I sort of stumbled into running a room. That whole story's in the book. But, you know, I never really had into the, you know, at least 10 years of owning a club. Then is when I started getting more and more comfortable financially.

But in the early years, especially when I lost my first room and had to rebuild a whole new room with my own money, I didn't have the money to spend $30,000 on an Ansel system for the kitchen and all that sort of thing. So I had to go, you know, innovative and do the George Foreman grill. And the funny thing is, we came out with some great wings on that thing, you know. And yeah, the comics are going to laugh about it. I take a ribbing for it. But yeah, I wear it proudly. It paid for my kids' colleges and it paid for my life. So like you said, I roll with it now. And I'm not going to say that in those years I didn't get sensitive about it.

I remember a time before all of that when someone said to me hey yeah you know um the comics will come into my room and talk about silver friedman and you know at the improv and trash talk her and lucian hold and trash talk him and i said to a comic one day like you know they're all talking about these people you know they're joking about them but you know when i don't does anybody ever talk about me? And he said, stay under the radar. It's the best thing in the world. You don't want anybody talking about you. And then as the years went on and I opened up Broadway and, you know, opened up a club in Florida and all that, all of a sudden I was the guy with the radar, with the initial comedy coalition when it

was comedy based um and then i became a target and i regretted that saying wait tell the listeners what what that what you're referring to with the comedy coalition sure so the early in the early 2000s the comics had decided that they were not getting paid enough money and they wanted a raise. And I, if I remember correctly at the time, we might've been paying them 50 or $60 a set and they wanted to go to a hundred dollars a set, I think, if I remember correctly. And there were a couple of clubs that kind of did it right away and said, yes, we'll do it. And I sort of held out because, you know, the way I calculate things, if I'm giving someone an extra $20 a set, and I've got, you know, five or six comics on a show, and I'm doing that five, seven nights a week,

all of a sudden, you know, 20 bucks is, you know, 50, $60,000 a year for me. And that's coming out of my pocket. Because at that time, you know, one of the reasons I was thinking was, that was a time when we were doing a lot of comp admissions. And, you know, so i couldn't really raise the admission price much i think i had just raised it at the time our drink prices were sort of maxed out uh at the time so where am i getting this 50 or 60 000 it's coming out of my pocket so i tried to fight that you know uh as much as i could not with any dislike for the comics, you know. And I had always grown up in the ensuing years with the thought that, you know, New York City clubs were not necessarily to make a living, but were to learn your craft. So you got good enough to either get a sitcom or write on a sitcom or, you know, go out in the road and do, you know,

bigger venues where you make your money. So I was sort of a little old school in that thinking. And, you know, it, I think it cost me popularity for a while with comedians. And, you know, it was a rough time, you know, mentally, because I had been a comic. And I understood to some extent where they were coming from. But I was, at that time, in a little bit of, I just built out Broadway at that time, I think. We had opened as the improv. We had secured the rights to the name from Silver. And that was a funny story in itself. uh and i would you know i just built

out the room and uh things were a little tight financially at that time yeah i i think people were entirely too judgmental i mean you know for the record the comedy seller i think has always paid the most right we always paid we've always been able to. And that's been our strategy. We pay the most and we don't comp admissions. And that's been our formula, right? But in business, if you're dishonorable, if you cheat somebody, if you don't pay after you promise to pay, things like this, then somebody has a right to criticize your practices. But if you don't pay after you promise to pay things like this and somebody has a right to to criticize your practices but if you say listen i'll pay you x and somebody accepts you didn't twist their arm you know it's like it's like right right um but people also have the right to say but we would want i mean but you do agree that people have the right to get together and decide in a union format that we want Y instead of X?

Of course you have the right. What I'm saying is that rather than judge Al as somehow a bad person because he didn't want to pay, I never understood that. Like, he doesn't want it. So you know what? Don't go play his club or do play his club. You know, when he asks you to perform at his club, if you say no, he doesn't say you're a shithead because you refuse to play at his club. Like, you know, it's an even exchange. And people are entirely too judgmental of other people in this regard.

Having said that, like I said, we try to pay the most. But let me tell you something, if it meant sending my kids to college, of course, I would lower the pay. Of course, you know, of course, I would. So right at that time, it was very rough. You know, I'll, I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think there are two different generations of attitude towards Al Martin now that I, you know, I like to analyze things and I have way too much time on my hands now. And as I was writing the book, I started thinking about it. But there's a group of comics, I guess, from the early 90s, all, you know, into the maybe early 2000s in that area that have one view of me. And then there are comics from the later years

that completely have a different view. And because of things being a little more comfortable for me, we were able to go with the flow on certain things and pay the amounts that we should be paying or could be paying. And also, 20 years of therapy probably helped. I don't, I don't hold anger like I used to. I don't, um, keep grudges, uh, which is, you know, uh,

very prevalent in our business. You know, I, I, I let go of a lot of things. So I became a little bit of a different person. Yeah. There is one thing that goes on. I don't understand. I got rid. I don't want to speak incorrectly about anybody. But UCB, even though I've never been there, am I correct? They weren't paying anything. Is that right? That's what I heard. And they had big money behind them, right? Right. And that's a little worthy of criticism, maybe. You know, I don't know the details, but. Well, from my perspective, it is because not only were they not paying, but they had a sterling reputation within the community of comedians.

So I'm saying to myself, OK, some people have a right to, you know, aim a bullet towards me for certain things, but I do pay. Other than your venues, I pay probably pretty close to what everybody else is paying. Sometimes I don't pay the MC as much, but that's my own personal opinion on how I run things, but, you know, I don't think I'm far off the other clubs, and I might be even a few bucks more than the others. And you're paying a lot of money out of the drinks. Anyway, I don't want to get too in the weeds. Can I say something?

Yeah. Sure. Oh, no, I'm so upset. Oh, no, sure. I mean, as somebody who, you know, started out in this industry, not so long ago, something that you just said out really resonates, which is the opportunity to get on stage at a club in New York for is a really big deal so that makes sense to me I mean I understand that somebody who's been performing for 20 years you know

probably has a different opinion about that but there is something to be said for that I think. Yeah I mean yeah go ahead no go ahead i i go ahead you're talking about the uh the new talent shows uh perry oh i think just in general people who aren't like super well known and who aren't you know traveling around the country i mean making a lot of money. I think the opportunity to get on stage at like a real place in the city is a big deal. And to be able to like hone their craft and work a room and start to build a career. And also occasional sex with waitstaff. No, I never did that. Never?

Never? I never did. You never? I think that comedians, you know, I never did that. Never? Never did. You never? I think that comedians, you know, maybe once I did. They, they,

I mean, there is such a thing as kind of a fairness, you know, and, but the fact is, first of all, like,

in our rooms, we have one room that holds over 200 people. So, you know, of course we're able to pay more, right? We were sold out. And we're getting covered charge on every ticket. So first question is how many seats, how much are they bringing? Second question is,

are you part of the draw? And you're right, if you're just, you know, just starting out, then you have nothing to do really with the fact that people are coming into the club. That's, that's basically 100% the, the product of the labor of the owners. So you have to lower your expectations there. And I, but I've never gotten the feeling, as a matter of fact, I've never quite understood how making money. I mean, do you, are you really on top of like the,

the number of ounces that go into your drinks and the liquor inventory? I mean, this is like to make the bar business, which is I'm really bad at that. I mean, for people who don't know, like it's a game of inches. Like when you are trying to make money off alcohol and not cover charge, every drop of alcohol adds up over the course of the year to your you know 30 grand and and

people stealing i mean it's it's a nightmare business really we're just talking about you know about all that stuff oh me yeah yes that's you know that that's actually my gig in the place i i'll tell you in the early days we used to, and we still do, although at Broadway, we do have a dishwashing unit now. But in the early days, I used to be the one personally to take the inventory in my business. And not only that, I used to take inventory two ways. I would do a physical inventory of the liquor and always strive to reach a certain percentage of the liquor to the sales of the liquor. But what I was really doing, people would laugh at me, and I'll give away a little Al Martin secret, but at the time, I used to calculate how many sleeves of plastic cups into a case and how many cases I ordered a week versus how many drinks I sold a week.

And, you know, I'm probably blowing your mind now trying to figure out the math on this. But, you know, each drink was X amount of ounces. How many drinks was I getting out of a case of cups? And I kind of learned that because in an earlier lifetime, before I got into comedy, I used to do lie detector tests. I was a polygraphist. And one of my biggest clients was Lowe's movie theaters. And Lowe's movie theaters would take their inventory on the cups that they sold. Like if they started the week with 20 cases of, let's say 1,000 cases of cups,

they started the week with 20,000. Then they would subtract how many cups were left at the end of the week, and compare it versus the drinks that they sold. And they should have some kind of gross figure as to what they should be making. Now, one of the things I learned and one of the big, big scams in the movie business was that in between shows, ushers would run around the room, pick up the air. And use them again to steal it.

That's right. They would clean them, reuse them, and that was free money. So, you know. So let me tell you. So what you're telling me doesn't surprise me because, and this is really why I respect you. Because, I mean, I didn't know the details and I don't know all this but I

work backwards knowing enough about the business that the only way you could be doing what you're doing is by sweating a lot of little details and I I don't have the personality to be good at that it's not and and maybe because of that I shaped my business in a different way. But you're essentially, you know, you can have a store that has like a deli that sells small ticket items and makes a small margin on every one. You have a store that makes like a selling car as a big ticket item. You need to maybe sell one car a day, right? And that's an exaggeration. But I'm trying to sell comedy as a big ticket item. We get a cover charge and the cover charges is pow. I mean, that's real money, a cover charge, right?

But you're doing the same thing in a small ticket item way, a drink here, a drink there, a drink here, get them in, get them out. And it has to add up to what I, and that is a much more impressive accomplishment, I'm telling you, than anything that I've ever done. And people do not understand. They just don't understand how few people could pull that rabbit out of a hat as you're doing. It's very tough. And we were talking just last night, I was talking with some people about how you don't get robbed more because you spend a lot of time not at the club.

I credited Liz Ferriati. I said, well, he's got a manager there that's very good and keeps an eye on everything. I don't know if that's true. Robbed by the bartenders? Robbed by whomever. You're never there. We're closed for COVID for Christ's sake. I know, but even when you're never there not we're closed for covid for christ's sake i know but even when

when you're open you know i listen first of all i spent years years and years and years of being there all the time i mean all the time now the liz is there i'm there less but no we have we have pretty good systems but the you know there's first of all there's not that much cash around anymore so it's much oh yeah that's a big thing i'll tell you an interesting thing i probably spend almost the entire winter in florida uh for the last three years and you know those were three great years uh bottom line wise and because of a number of things one there is less cash there's very little cash uh for people to, you know, if I was at the club personally, you know, I can only be at one place at one time. There's a lot of times on a Saturday night,

I'll be in my place and I'll turn on the cameras and I could be at, you know, 16 or 17 or 18 different locations at one time watching what's going on in two separate, you know, venues. So if there's anything like, I literally on certain nights. Don't get caught masturbating. Yeah, right. That's true. But on a Tuesday night or a Wednesday night, you know,

I'll literally sit down at the cameras and watch my box office from like 8 to 9 o'clock. I count the heads coming into one room. I count the heads going into the other. With the old-fashioned pen and paper and doing hash marks. And I'll say, okay, in the downstairs room, there's 76 people. Then I'll call in at 9.30 and I'll ask, hey, what's the count? You know, and it's usually between, you know, 74 and 70. You know, there are people that go in.

They don't like what's there. They leave or whatever. But, you know, this is the kind of detail you talk about that I kind of do. And I've done this sitting at poker tables and casinos. I actually sit there and count bodies coming in, you know. And I don't know if I can ever really change. That's just my brain.

Our listeners are sizing this up as Jews, but, you know, they're not completely wrong. So listen, what do you think about the COVID stuff? So behind the scenes,

we can talk about this. There's a lawsuit, a class action lawsuit that's going to go scenes, we can talk about this. There's a lawsuit, a class action lawsuit that's going to go on. Can I talk about this? Listen, I would. Why not? There's a class action lawsuit

by the comedy. You're involved in it, right? Yes. All the comedy clubs are getting together. They want to pressure the governor to, I think,

to at least treat comedy clubs as they treat indoor dining in the same way. Is that correct? Yes, yes. And to be honest with you, I don't, you know, unless I'm missing something other than a person on a stage, what is the difference? I'm baffled by it. And they've also categorized us with karaoke and adult entertainment. That's where they have us officially. Now, you missed it yesterday, but we were on a conference call with, you know, New York City Nightlife. And we were trying to get some answers from them. And, you know, they're playing it off on the state. The state assemblyman, actually, Gennaris, who's been a champion for us,

basically, he said, listen, let's cut the nonsense. It's all on Cuomo's desk. We have submitted a proposal of how we would reopen, and it's sitting on his desk, and he's just not moving on it, you know? And I basically, after yesterday's conference call, I said to the other club owners, I said, listen, you know, we're getting thrown back and forth between the state and the city and the state and the city, and they're blaming each other. The bottom line is, you know, without any pressure, I don't think they're going to open us. very set on these numbers, even though in New Jersey, they just announced that there's no, even though they have a slightly increasing COVID rate, they don't have any reason to believe that it's because of indoor dining, which has been going on in that state, I think now for a couple of months. And New York has not had any outbreaks in restaurants in Nassau County or Suffolk County or Westchester County and counties going north. It's all coming from college campuses when their kids are coming back to college or certain religious communities or private house parties that people were having in the summer.

You know, I just dodged a bullet. I was supposed to have dinner with someone Saturday night that's basically been in their apartment for the last six months, and they had to cancel. They called us to cancel this morning. The guy is end-stage Parkinson's, the husband, and they found out that their housekeeper was tested positive for COVID. So they were exposed to the housekeeper.

So now they've got to get tests. Now, if that person, you know, didn't find out in time and we met them on Saturday, then I would have been exposed to them who were exposed to COVID. And then who knows what could have happened. Were you going to meet them inside or outside, though? What was that? Were you going to meet them inside or outside, though? What was that? Were you going to meet them?

Oh, we were going to go at my building on the beach. We were just going to go right on the beach and just hang out six feet apart. So we probably would have been okay, you know, because they were very paranoid. Because they've got two people, you know, I mean, the husband. Neither of them could be exposed because then the husband would get exposed. And he can't. And my wife has COPD and asthma. And basically I'm a fat tub of lard and high blood pressure. So, you know, I've got to be careful. So let's play devil's advocate from the governor's point of view.

Sure. From the governor's point of view, what if he says, look, we're going into the winter now, and it's just not practical to expect everybody to stay home another winter. That's not going to happen. So we're going to have to give them something, and people have to eat. So let's give them some place to eat, because that actually is a necessity. Every person that goes out into an indoor place increases the risk in some way. Why should we have comedy clubs or movies or whatever it is when that's really not essential? What we want to do is keep it to a minimum rather than be forced to go to the maximum simply because we're opening it a little bit.

And why should that be? Just to counter your point, I mean, you know, it's not really a necessity. You can have, I mean, food is a necessity, but is indoor dining a necessity? You can do takeout. Well, you're going to have to have some, but I'm saying is that something's got to give. People are not going to just be holed up in their apartment all winter again. You will have real resistance from the citizenry.

People are really going to object. They're going to demand something that they're allowed to do, I think. So the governor says, we're going to let you go in small groups to restaurants. We're not going to let you go to a nightclub where there's, you know, people are up against each other

and everybody leaving at the same time and performers. And it's just not worth the risk. I don't know. What do you think about that? Well, I think personally, the governor is in a real tight spot. You have now gone seven months

with very limited payroll money coming into the city and state coffers, because a lot of people are not working or a lot of people have left New York. So they have very decreased revenue coming in from the payroll perspective. I know a lot of people that are landlords now. Look at the position that landlords are in. They cannot evict. Now commercial evictions have been pushed back to January. God knows where they've pushed back the residential. So, you know, landlords are crying that they're choking.

So I think there's a property tax due in November. November 1 is property taxes due. And I think a lot of people are going to have a hard time, especially the smaller landlords who are not collecting their rents are going to have trouble with that. So that's going to affect the bottom line. And sales tax. Noam, you've got to know, and i know especially from broadway that i was sending a monthly uh i wasn't doing it quarterly i had to send them monthly sales tax figures now if i add

up what i haven't paid in seven months of not doing business and sales tax multiply that all over the city god knows what a nightmare that would be. So the revenues, you know, my gut feeling is the state is doing a Hail Mary. They are praying that Biden gets elected president, that they take the Senate, and they'll get a bailout. That's why Pelosi has been fighting so hard for the blue state bailouts in these stimulus negotiations. Because I believe New York's got to – I don't see how they have any money. So wouldn't it make sense then to – rather than getting everybody open, to give us – like there was a Save Our Stages thing, whatever was going around.

Give the show business places, some sort of a bailout because Al can you make money on 25% capacity? I don't think so. You can't make it. You're going to lose more money. I talked to a lot of restaurateurs that told me they're not even opening at 25%. They're hoping that November 1st comes with the numbers reduced and they'll there's a,

they were supposedly promised if the numbers are down that they'll be able to get 50% November 1. So, you know, I think that's what they're hoping for, and then there they might figure out something. I'll tell you, I opened up in the olive tree, and I think I can say it out loud. The main reason I'm open, cause we're losing way more money now that we're open than when we were

closed. But you know, the comedians all come and hang out there. And I was just very scared that if, if it went on for months and the comedians got in the habit of hanging out somewhere else that, that I wouldn't be able to, you know, that habit would, would stay after. So after. So I can't take that risk. So I keep the place open essentially as a central location for the comedians to come hang. A clubhouse. A clubhouse.

And I mean, on top of that, comedians, you know, some of them eat and drink for free, some for half price. So it's a financial disaster. But I feel like I got to do it because I have to protect, I have to play the long game. I have to protect my most important important asset which are comedian relationships but i don't like so but all the comedy clubs are suing to be open to 25 capacity i'm like what are they what do they want to be over 25 capacity for i don't even well so i i do i must say i disagree with a couple of the people in our group who were very heavily as as part of all of this, pushing the outdoor thing.

And it was about a month ago they were pushing it. And I said, why confuse the issue outdoors, indoors? Because outdoors is going to be non-existent in two or three weeks from now. So we really got to, whatever we're fighting for has to be, you know, indoors and the ability to do it and at least get the chance to do that. You know, now what's frustrating the hell out of me is there is a club that I won't mention the name that is open. Their website is clearly selling tickets to stand-up comedy shows. And now they've been doing it since September 30th. So we're three weeks into this. They're operating. And it's

really disturbing me because we're being good players now going on eight months. And these folks are opening up and not only are they opening up there, they're starting to get bold about it. They're approaching people that have been producing shows in my venues for years and trying to get them to, and listen, I get it with comics. They're going to want to go wherever they can make money or producers, the same thing. So I'm sitting here like a schmuck, you know, trying to obey the law. These guys are open full glass.

What, at full capacity? No, they're opening, listen, I don't know the particulars, but I think I guess at 25% capacity or whatever. They're trying to follow the restaurant model. They're claiming they're a restaurant, and all they serve is nachos, I think, you know, or popcorn. I don't even think they have a kitchen so i think it's meaningless let them do it it's i mean it's it's how many people are we talking about 20 people that i mean i don't know which room it is but 30 people yeah it might be you know nothing it's nothing well i listen it

just kind of bothers me you know but but that's just the competitive nature in me, I suppose. But it's a shit show. I mean, I really feel it is. I also, you know, again, this is strictly rumor, but it could very well, I was told that there's a running feud between the governor and Schumer, Chuck Schumer, and that when Schumer made that whole hullabaloo a couple of weeks ago. Tell people, people don't know what you're referring to. Well, the governor, Senator Schumer came to a comedy club, Gotham Comedy Club, had a big press conference. I think Jerry Seinfeld was there for that one. And just, you know, said know said look we need

to open the clubs we're going to do legislation on a federal level to get the comedy clubs and other entertainment venues money and you know he made it you know it was a sunday morning usual press conference he does and made a big deal about it and i don't know somehow i think that maybe this irked the governor i don't know you know i'm just like there's got to be a reason why you know one of the things we were told yesterday at this is that it's the state department of health that's putting the ideas in the governor's ear and uh that that comedy clubs are unsafe for some reason. And I just don't completely understand it. And maybe I'm biased because I have a comedy club.

Noam, you were saying that, you know, you were playing devil's advocate and saying, well, we're trying to minimize it because people at least need some outlet to go out. If that's the case, well, then why don't they say that? What they're saying is that comedy clubs are inherently more dangerous. So do you believe that to be the case?

No. Comedy clubs are not inherently... Well, I mean, there is a time when the show ends, if you're going to have shows like that, where everybody gets up at the same time, and it would be hard to keep people distanced as they're exiting. I don't even

know if that has anything to do with the thinking. Entrance and exit at a set time is a challenge, as opposed to restaurants where everything is pretty much staggered, right? Other than that, no, on the contrary. At comedy clubs, people are not talking at all in the audience. And if you have one comedian who's talking maybe behind a plexi stage, like we had built in the audience. And if you have one comedian who's talking maybe behind a plexi stage like we had built in the Olive Tree,

that sounds like it's probably safer than multiple room with many, many people talking at the same time. And his laughter projects a certain amount of viruses,

which may be the case. I don't know. Al wouldn't have to worry about that. Couldn't everybody in the audience wear a mask, though? You could do that. Wouldn't everybody, couldn't everybody in the audience wear a mask, though? You could do that.

You'd have to police that, of course, but... Well, sure, but I mean, you could police that and then you could also have staggered entrance and exits.

You could do it like the airlines, you know, you'd have... I mean, I doubt... Go ahead, Al, I'm sorry. Talking about airlines, I came down here to Florida, and they're carrying on about comedy clubs.

There were 200 people on this flight. I just took advantage of the fact that it's a little cheaper than it's ever been to go first class, so I just said, let's go first class, Carolyn. I don't want to be sitting with someone, you know, right next to us on top of us.

But how do you justify putting 200 people into a plane, you know, in close quarters like that, and then tell me I can't open my company club, you know, at Greenwich, which is, you know, 25% capacity is 15. Again, you justify it. It's very complex. You know, I don't think you can simply lay out a few principles and then just apply them across the board. I think that the reality of the airline industry is that it's so important that we're going to allow a little bit it all in the pot keeps you at below or around

1% in your testing numbers until the vaccine comes along. And as part of that strategy, I do kind of understand like, well, yeah, I mean, people have to fly. People have to get around. Airlines can't fly. That would be essential to our economy. I get that. If that were the strategy, they should say, look, we need the airlines. Sorry, comedy clubs, you're not essential. But they're not saying that. So either that's... Well, I think the governor has said that once or twice, that he just doesn't see us as being essential.

But, you know, there's another side to all of this. And that is, you know, my employees uh um and small businesses look i'm 62 so i'm closer to the end of my reign where my kids will hopefully take over so i'm okay i'll survive you know but there are small businesses and even comedy clubs that people just put everything they had into this and and their partners everything they had into it whatever and they're really feeling a lot of pain right now and you know you multiply that all over the city but you know the people that are just being destroyed and people have bought properties and whatever because they had faith in the city and then they're getting crushed.

And not only that, at the end of the day, the economy here is we're heading for either we got to get a bailout, which is not going to happen if one side wins, or the other side's got to win and is going to bail us out. But if the other side that doesn't want the bailout wins, we're heading for financial Armageddon unless we open. Which side does not want the bailout? Oh, I'm pretty sure the Republicans, if they get control or keep control of the Senate, and if the president is reelected, he's going to give a big F you to New York. He's not going to think twice about it.

And then I suspect you might see things start to open up or there's going to be a bankruptcy. What choice do they have? Are you in accord with that prediction? If Trump gets reelected and the Republicans stay in control, that they're going to say, fuck you to New York? No, that's not my gut instinct, but I don't feel strongly about it. Al could certainly be right. I think that whoever wins another bailout is coming

because Trump doesn't give a shit about spending money. Why hasn't it come yet? He wants the economy to roar back. And the thing is that when you start printing a lot of money and giving it out, the consequences are down the road, right? And Trump doesn't give a shit about

that. So I think he will. Listen, I think he's wanted, he offered a bailout now you know they're they're they're bickering between them but it's not like trump said i think trump order offered 1.8 trillion dollars or something you know i mean it's like you know there's real money they're 400 billion apart i think and uh it's mind-boggling that they haven't reached that deal unless someone really deep down doesn't want the deal. I don't know. My gut tells me kind of that,

and this is not a knock on her, even though it is a knock on her, but that's not what's leading me there, is that Nancy Pelosi would think that the bailout coming now would help Trump in the presidential election. I agree. And I think, so he could say, look,

and Trump thinks that the bailout now would help him in the presidential election. I agree. And I think, you know, so he could say, look, you know, and Trump thinks that the bailout now would help him in the presidential election. So I think she's resist, she's, she's, she's finding a way to resist it, which is kind of reprehensible because people are really suffering, but that's the way these fucking politicians are. And I don't want to put it on her because both sides, in my opinion, are exactly the same. Now, Noam was very upset when Dangerfield's closed. Oh, terrible. Because he felt that small businessmen are being left out to dry. I don't know.

He's right. You know, I mean, Dangerfield, I think, had some issues already. And it was really kind of teetering. But I think, you know, it gets down to a club by club situation. You know, I mean, Dangerfields, the owner was in his late 80s. So I mean, you know, does he need this aggravation anymore? What was business? He probably looked at the landscape and said, you know, what am I doing here? You know, the governor is going to open me at, at 25%, maybe in six months, I'll be 50%, you know, uh, what am I doing here? It's just easier for me to close it. And then it

was a great run. I did okay. You know, other, other owners, you know, just put everything they got into their clubs and they're going to be really hurt. You know, they're still maybe in their, you know, 40 years old or 42, you know, 45. And they're going, what the hell? What am I going to do now? You know, I'm going to lose everything if I don't do, you know. So it all depends. Each situation is different. Others might have negotiated something with their landlords so they're okay.

Others might have have you know um have partners with deep pockets you know but every situation is different you know and uh that's what you know that's why i'm not sure we're done yet with the carnage in the comedy business you know danger fields and ucb might be the first two but you just don't know yeah well they really need to help i mean even these ppp loans for people who are interested in this stuff they gave us significant money what seems significant at the time two and a half months expenses but it was it's all conditioned on spending it on employees and since you can't open you can't the money becomes not forgivable it It's ill-conceived, which I don't blame them because, you know, things are hard to predict

prospectively, but they don't correct it. They don't rewrite it. They don't change the rule. They don't give a shit, it seems like. Well, here's the situation. I took the money to help out my employees. I gave, you know, one of my employees, and I was resistant to, you know, I took the loans. I was very resistant to do anything with it because I,

you know, I don't want debt at this point in my life, you know, and, you know, so I was holding it, you know, and then finally I had employees come to me and say, look out, I need to work, you know, and I need to do something. And I'm not making it on this, you know, little unemployment that, you know, someone on an hourly wage at a restaurant gets. So, you know, they're turning around and, you know, saying to me, well, I'm going to go here where it's open and I can make money. And I'm losing employees that I've had for 20 years between my two clubs. And I'm saying, you know, I don't want that. So finally I pulled the trigger

and took one of the loans to pay them. So like you said, was it eight weeks we paid them for? That ran out. Now he's contacting me again. He waited three more months before he contacted me and said, look, do you have any idea when we're going to open? I said, no, I really take the job.

I said to him, because unless there's something drastic that happens, i.e. the lawsuit, you know, he had to take the job for five months before he was taking it. I said, there's a good chance in five months we'll probably be still in this nightmare. I don't know. It really sucks. Yeah, it's one guy. It's one guy. If you were to listen to the discussions

that were taking place yesterday, the city representatives intimated it and the state senator just flat out said it. It's all on Cuomo's desk. And it's his decision. And he doesn't seem to be budging yeah which is bad

yeah but I just want to say again that even though it seems like he's being harder on the comedy clubs to me having let restaurants open at 25% that might even be worse

it sounds like he hasn't helped the restaurants at all he's helped people because they need to go that restaurant is open to 25%, that might even be worse. You know, like, it sounds like he hasn't helped the restaurants at all. He's helped people because they need to go out and eat, but... If you have a good takeout business, you're surviving. You know, a diner, especially. Right.

There's always some special cases, but for the most part, 25%, a restaurant that does 25% business goes bankrupt instantly. You can't you can't survive on 25 yeah i mean listen i i get these i get these things every day from the city about you know changes and this and regulations and things that they're doing for the restaurant industry i've never heard such a crazy idea like this outdoor dining.

They're talking like outdoor dining in New York City in the winter is going to be such a normal experience for people. I mean, you know, when you get the regulations and you read them, you can have certain space heaters right next to the building. But if you're going to do it on the street, you have to have another type of space heater. You got to run the electrical in a certain

way. And you'll provide them with blankets. I mean, what idiot is going to go out to eat in Manhattan, you know, wearing a blanket? You know, it's just crazy. It makes no sense. Makes no sense. Oh, is there anything else miserable we could talk about? You sent out an email. You were hopping. I don't know if you were mad. Actually, I think you were kind of happy because the Wall Street Journal plagiarized you or something like that. Oh, I don't want to talk about that.

I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to get anybody. Yes. Well, you saw it, right? Well, you say you wrote a letter to a journalist and he basically used exactly your words. So I communicate with various people. And many times I've been actually, you could Google it,

cited in the journal as a source for ideas and stuff on the editorial page by this one guy. But this time, it could just be an oversight. He pretty much, it's not verbatim, but he used keywords and the argument is verbatim of what I'd written him. And he didn't cite me at all.

He didn't give me any credit. Can I just briefly say what your argument was? Yes, sure. If you get it right. Your argument was is that if, beware people now saying that the Biden emails weren't that big a deal. If they weren't that big a deal, then why were they fighting tooth and nail

to keep it silent? No, that's not quite. What I said was that it's going to be hard for them to now say that they're not that big a deal. Because the initial reaction that this is Russian disinformation and this is a smear and blah, blah, blah. I mean, how do you smear somebody with something that's not that big a deal? Everything about the initial reaction bought into the idea that these were serious revelations here. That's why they had to be disinformation.

They had to be a smear, whatever it is. And now that you can't get out from under it, basically, we're sure that they are real. Now they're pivoting to, oh, these emails don't say anything. Well, they didn't say anything. Then why the fuck were you freaking out? Why didn't you say they don't say anything?

Why wasn't that your initial response? Move on, right? So I just think that, you know, that was basically the point I made. I think the point is correct. I don't think it matters. I don't think anybody, I don't think Biden's going to win. Can I have a counter? But I guess even better because this guy, Tony, Tony Babalito,

that wrote the thing today about Biden, I know him. By total coincidence, I know this guy and he's the guy who got me in the Trump, in the Biden, Hunter Biden email thing now, just by total coincidence, was a guy who was a friend of a friend. And he introduced me to somebody who helped me get into the door and Caesar's thing. So I'm one degree of separation away from this major scandal. Were the revelations today from this guy, Babalito or whatever? Yeah. And by the way, he's a serious guy. I mean, they're going to try to attack him. This guy is not a flake. All right?

What was the nature of the new revelations? That he witnessed Hunter coordinating with his dad,

warehousing equity for his dad without putting it in paper. That is said that his dad was always involved in Hunter's projects. He viewed it as part of the Biden legacy and stuff like that. So, I mean. And how fatal is that to the Biden campaign?

You don't feel that that's fatal to the Biden campaign anyway? I don't think so. I mean. It depends if it gets reported to enough people. That's the thing, you know. I think one of the big... I think this is all significant. Listen, we impeached the president

because he was trying to look into the debunked idea that Hunter and Joe were into, blah, blah, blah, right? I mean, it seems to me if this laptop had come to light during the impeachment time, it would to me if this laptop had come to light during the impeachment time, it would have been hard to impeach him for looking into this stuff or for pressuring Ukraine to give him information about this stuff, given the fact that there was so much more smoke from this laptop. So, you know, that's significant. The idea that all these politicians make money on their name or look the other way

when their kid is making money on their name. I mean, you know, I wish it weren't so, but it's just, it's just the way it is. And I don't think anybody's going to vote for the other guy, especially not Trump, who doesn't have clean hands because of something like this. I think it's, I think if I, if I had to get a gun to my head and I had to say what the truth is, I would say that Biden, that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $2 million, whatever it is, clearly for influence. And I think it's pretty clear that Joe Biden must have known about it. I think when Biden fired this prosecutor, Shulkin, he had good reason to fire him. The guy was bad news, but it was also opportunistic and he must have known it was going to help his son. The relationship between a father and son is extremely intimate and loyal.

There's just no way that they would put a Chinese wall between themselves, not Hunter and Joe. I don't believe that. And I don't think he sacrificed the national interest in any way, but it's, you know, technically could even be criminal. It's definitely the appearance of impropriety. And I don't think anybody's going to give a shit. I think the pushback,

I think people are much more outraged by the fact that the press and social media are closing ranks to protect the Bidens. I think that really does bother people. It bothers me a lot. But that's also, that's going to favor Trump because Trump is associated with taking a stand against the media and social media as well. It outrages me. The idea that the Twitter censored a story in the New York Post because they decided it was bullshit. And then 50 former ex-intelligence officials write a letter saying that this is probably Russian disinformation with no facts whatsoever.

I mean, you can really see how they got us into the Iraq war, jump into conclusions about WMD. So here they do it again. 50 of them, big guys, Clapper, Brennan, write a letter saying that these emails and everything are Russian disinformation. And 48 hours later, we know, actually, no, they really are his emails. So much for the Russians' disinformation. And maybe the Russians, you know, had them too, and were selling them. But the point is that they're true. I read Al's Facebook feed. I'm having trouble getting a bead on his political leanings. Sometimes I think he's a Trump supporter. Sometimes I think he's a Biden supporter. But I guess he just revealed that he's a Biden supporter by his issue with the bailout money. Well, it's a little complicated for me. And I'll be honest about that. And it's a little complicated for me and I'll be honest about that and it's

complicated because I have a child that started gay and now she's transgendered so I worry about that I have another child that suffers from epilepsy and seizures

and she's very reliant on medical aid and stuff like that. So from that perspective, you could say Al Martin leans blue. On the other side of the coin, I'm very concerned about a lot of the old status quo, what Trump calls the swamp. And some of that concerns me. I'm concerned about border security. I'm concerned that our military is strong. So from that perspective, I tend to lean, you know, towards Trump. So it's not an, you know, like my kid is very firmly, you know, blue and for Biden, and she can't understand why I waffle, but I waffle because I have a lot of more responsibilities than just my kid has. My kid's worried about my kid.

I'm worried about myself, my wife, my kid, you know, my other kid, my businesses. So it's very complicated for me in certain respects. But just to get back to one point that will tie in my concern with all of this and with what Noam said about news media sometimes. When we were, two days before we were forced to close on, I think it was March 16th, a Monday, we were given till 9am. The New York Times ran a very bad, you know, someone got one of these gotcha moments. They took a picture outside of the comedy cellar. I think it was probably five or six comedians. It could have been hanging out for a second saying hello, smoking a cigarette, whatever. And the capsule was crowds of people at comedy clubs in New York. And I said, this is going to be very bad. Two days, you know, the next day we were given the 50%.

No, I think we were already at 50%. We were already at 50%. Right. And I know for a fact that your club was at 50% and honoring that. That's why we had a crowd outside. Right. Well, the crowd, yeah. But it wasn't like three quarters down the block.

I know for a fact that comics were telling. Like I asked them, did the comedy cellar go over the 50%? Let's face it, I'm going to ask. And every one of them said, absolutely not. But some, and this is something we got to be very concerned about when we open, because now everybody's a news reporter. Everybody's going to be, they're going to wait for that moment to take a picture of our lines outside. And, and, you know, it's not going to tell the correct picture, you know, and a lot, you know, there could be 50 people, let's say you go 25% at the village on the, you know, it's not going to tell the correct picture, you know, and a lot, you know, there could be 50 people, let's say you go 25% at the village on the, you know, 50% of the village

underground. So at some point, you're going to have 100 people walking out 100 people waiting to go in, and someone is going to snap that picture. And nobody walks out of a club and says, Hey, you know, to be honest with you, where are we? You know, they have a five-minute conversation where they're going next. And it tends to create that bottleneck at the front of your place. And you can have security all day moving along people. But now you're like yelling at your customers who just spent all this money in your venue to walk down the block. We have no authority over them once they're outside.

We barely have authority over them when they're outside. We barely have authority over them when they're inside. By the way, it wasn't the Times. I forget what it was, but to their credit, if anybody has Google, they actually did change. I called them and complained and I said, listen, the crowd is out there because we're at 50% capacity. We're turning people away. And to her

credit, the reporter actually changed the caption. So that was very, very unusual. Usually, they tell me to go fuck myself. By the way, would you agree with this? Because nobody understands. Every business, almost every business owner

feels like, to the Democrats, we are the enemy. This is a bottom line. Small business, not big business, not Google and the big businesses with huge money that the politicians kiss their asses. The actual guy out there in his store, rolling up the gate in the morning, closing it at night, they view us as the enemy. They assume you're making money.

They assume you're ripping people off. God forbid the economy is good. You're never paying enough. And people don't understand why, like how could you possibly vote for the Republicans and Trump? Don't you know how they feel about transgender? It's like, you know, yes, but they fucking hate me. Who votes for somebody who hates them?

Right. You know, when, but they fucking hate me. Who votes for somebody who hates them? Right. You know, when my kid first moved into Manhattan, someone was paying her rent in the beginning when she couldn't afford it for a year, two years, three years, subsidizing her rent, you know, paying for her college education. You know, somebody was doing that. It was me, you know. But, you know, then my kid says to me and we've had this like she'll walk away from me at the table dad how can you support

you know republicans they're the enemy and you know all this other stuff and it's complicated for me like i said i i get where she's coming from but but where am I coming from? Let me give you an example of how our nice government treats us. This is a classic example. So, you know, for years you would have straws and they would take the straw and they would hold like the top sixth of it and pull the paper down, right? And they'd fill up a pitcher with a bunch of straws with just wrappers right on top and then we'd serve it to you with just, so apparently they got the idea that some, this was somehow not sanitary. So it becomes a health department violation, but they

never tell anybody. They never tell the restaurants, actually we've changed the rules about straws. You have to keep them in the wrappers. So what they do is they send everybody out, the health inspectors, and this is what they do. They don't just give you a violation for the fact that you have these straws, which now have to be housed in a different manner than they've been for the last 30 years. They count how many straws, and they give you a violation for each one, times that by the amount of the fine, and give it to you. In other words, they look at you like a fucking, you know, just as something to abuse. Like, let's go. And they all have their marching orders. Everybody, let's go out to the

restaurants now. This is the new violation that nobody knows about. We're not going to tell them. We all got to go out on the same day because we don't want them to get wind of it so they can collect our fines. And that's their strategy. And you know, you should vote for me, Norm. You know, no, well, you know, it's tough.

It's tough for me to vote for you if that's your strategy. Right. Am I lying out? People will be rolling their eyes. Am I making something up? No, you're not making anything up. I'll give you another one.

They tell us, they tell, I'm a night business, right? I don't get open most of the time, unless it's Saturday and we're doing some afternoon shows. But, you get open most of the time unless it's saturday we're doing some afternoon shows but you know most of the time we're open at night i don't get there my people don't get there till five six o'clock if someone is walking down the block and is drinking a cup of coffee and throw a dunkin it says dunkin donuts on it or Starbucks. They throw it on the floor in front of my club at 1.30 in the afternoon. And a sanitation inspector walks by.

I get a summons for that. And they tell me, you're responsible to keep your front area clean. So what am I supposed to bring someone in five hours a day at the new minimum wage, which they raise now, right? So it's like I'm supposed to spend $100 a day for someone just to sweep the streets, you know? And, you know, there's $25,000 a year right off the bat. It's madness.

And, of course, when there's a city trash can on the corner, it's always overflowing. Always, always, always. And that is just, you know. Great point. Yes, yes, always, always. And that itches, you know. Great point. Yes, yes. It's great. It's great.

You get health department inspectors that come in, and they all have a different stuff they're looking for. Now, I'm blessed with two clubs, so I know when there's a mandate coming from somewhere, because both clubs get hit with suddenly the new thing that they're looking for, like you say, they don't tell us about it. I've had inspectors come in. And these guys will pull 50 cases of beer out from against the wall.

And suddenly, supposedly, even though we're always cleaning, I always have the same 62 pounds of excretia that winds up getting dismissed later on. But it's insane. Go ahead, Raphael. of excretia that winds up getting dismissed later on, but it's insane. Yeah. Go ahead, Narelle. The two of you are kvetching so fucking much for like a fucking hour. You guys get to do like the coolest thing in the entire world.

No, you get, you comedians get to do the coolest thing. Yeah, but you guys, and Al is a comedian also, but you guys, not only creative, but like you get to be part of this magic and you're sitting here fucking going on about the bar and the glasses and the this and the that. I mean, can we pull out a little bit here?

No. asses and the this and the that i mean can we pull out a little bit here no because that's sort of our reality i mean we we love i mean i can't speak for no man i'm assuming because he has certainly the greatest comedy club in the world and and well known for it i mean that's kind of you to say it's the truth truth. So, I mean, you know, yes, there's a fun time to it. There's always a magic when I'm at my clubs and a star comes in and someone comes in to work out their material, you know, or when I'm standing at the door of a show that I've helped book and people come out and say what an awesome show it is. Or when I come to the club and I see a long line down the block, I feel like those are the fun moments.

I've done something right. But when you get that, you know, on a Tuesday night at 11 o'clock at night, a health, like, we stop serving food and we close the light. And we're ready to throw out the garbage. And the inspector comes in and says, oh, you have food here that's not heated. Well, we're closing in an hour. We stopped selling food. And that part is interesting, but I feel like we might have to do a part two

where, you know, you guys at least fucking address the other stuff. Like, I don't know. I don't necessarily agree that Noam loves the comedy world, at least not as much as Al does, because I think Noam loves the music world and his family and debating. He loves debating with his intellectual friends. I don't know that he loves the comedy.

Well, I think that's something he got from his dad. His dad was famous for that at the... I don't think Noam, if a celebrity comes down, gets all that titillated by that. I don't know. Noam, am I right? Well, I'm happy about it because I know it's great for the club and I'm proud of it. I get nervous and I try to... I mean, I think I'm fortunate because I really don't want to go sit with them, which I think is the way a lot of owners go wrong because I just give them their space.

I make sure somebody gets them a drink. And I don't know what the right answer is. I'm not, I don't know what the right answer that is, Dan. I'm somewhere in the middle. I definitely know that it's very, very important to the business. And I'm very, very happy when they come in and I try to make sure that they keep coming. But no, I don't look forward to hanging out with the celebrities unless it's one of them who I really knew. When Jon Stewart comes in, I'm actually really happy to see him because

he started out there. I knew him for so long before he was famous it's comfortable for me but some of them who i didn't know very well before they were famous so it's it's a little awkward for me i get that talking about the celebrities though like but like what you just said is that like you have somebody who comes to your club every night they're working there and then they become like really successful. I mean, that's gotta be. Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm as fortunate as, as anybody can be. I'm not complaining about the. You could have fooled me for that. I'm not complaining about the seller or I'm not,

I'm not unhappy with the seller. I was, we're talking about politics and I'm, and I'm saying that the attitude of a city, which is fueled by small businesses, people who risk everything to fulfill a dream and create something, who employ, I employ 120 people and have for 30 years, millions and millions and millions of dollars in income

that I paid out to people. And still, you feel like the party of the left just looks at you to try to catch you doing something. And maybe you fired somebody of the wrong race. And maybe you look funny at somebody who is gay. And it's just like, none this happens of course maybe now it's maybe you used the wrong word and and they literally get they're writing laws about that now you know and just to be clear i don't want anybody treating anybody badly on their race or their sexuality i mean obviously but the the fact is that they just trying to catch us doing something all the time. I agree.

It's very disheartening. When I was a kid, my father had a great time. He spent minimal time every week on compliance, minimal time worrying about anything that had to do with the law. He went in and ran his business basically the way he wanted. He yelled and screamed, and he was very, very fair always. We spend, I don't know, two-thirds of our week now

worrying about government top-down issues, compliance, defensive, meetings with the accountant, meetings with a lawyer. You can't do this. When COVID started, I talked about it. I have a family, a cook, who has a lot of kids. They just had a kid. I can't do this. When COVID started, I talked about it. I have a family, a cook who has a lot of kids. They just had a kid. I want to lend them some money.

You can't lend them any money because if another employee finds out that you lent them money, they could call it discrimination. I want the employees to, I want to put thermometers out while they close down so they can take their own temperature. You can't do that because HIPAA rules, they could sue you. An employee could sue you for putting the thermometers out. It's what I spend my time doing. It was so upsetting. Norm, I think you're not going to do it. You're not going to do it.

But there's a best-selling book in here somewhere, like a John Stossel kind of ranting book about, you know, government crushing small business, and you could go on all the TV shows and sell it. But yeah, we literally stayed open four days longer. I wanted to close the Comedy Cellar. I thought it wasn't safe. We had to stay open for four days longer until the city finally closed us because my legal advice told me that if I closed in order to be safe,

I could get in trouble for that. Because you have to give certain advanced notices and warrant notices or whatever it is that if you don't jump through the hoops of closing properly, you could have a fine of like, I don't know, $150 per employee, you know, $10,000. So you have to stay open. It's nuts. I get it. I get it entirely.

I mean, this all sounds incredibly tedious, but that wasn't my question. What's my, what's your question? You didn't have a question. You just said

they should stop complaining. That's not a question. They said they should stop complaining and talk about like the magic of it and no one launched into it.

Okay, let me put it, a great man once said, the grass is always greener on the other side. All right. That's just the way it is. I'm not complaining. I knock on wood every day about how lucky I am.

I mean, I'm suffering through this lockdown, but while other people are losing everything, I wish my family still eats the way we always did. We hang out and, and I'm very, very blessed and fortunate. And, you know, I never lose, I never lose sight of that. Well, it's gotta be weighing on you though,

not to get to see Dan Natterman in person and to go out and to, and to treat him to steak dinners every now and again. I do miss that. I do miss that. Make up for that when when COVID is over, if it's ever over. If you would just get a test, you can come visit. I did have a test. I got a test, as a matter of fact, but...

No, you have to get a test that day and go from the testing place to the house. Okay. I had the test, but I got one, and it was unpleasant. I don't want to do it all the time, you know, because my parents are elderly so i wanted to um get a test you know before i uh went to see them but uh it's not

something i want to do all the time and i and i i will parallel you're right i did get invited you know when we got invited out to the chapelle's thing in ohio which i was reluctant to go to because oh my god that that that that was that was reluctant to go to because that was, that was, that was fun. That was, you know, that was something, that was a nice part of the thing, but, and Dan's right though. I'd rather be playing music. Anyway, do we want to have a break? I got to get something to eat and then go watch the debate.

So now might be, what time is the debate? 9 PM. So, but give you a little time to get ready. So I think now's a good time i thought this was a good discussion anybody that's certainly um interested in the nuts and bolts of the comedy business would certainly find it interesting and i i think i think anybody that's interested in how businesses are run would find it interesting but there can al tell us where can we find your book? Yes. Did It on a Dare. How I Built a Comedy Empire in 30 Short Years. I'm going to write a sequel

How COVID Ruined It in 7 Months. I've been watching for most of those 30 years. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Yes. I remember Dan Aderman as a rookie. What was he like?

He was a pretty much the same rookie. What was he like? He was a pretty good guy. I thought he was going to make it in two years, but you know. In any case, you can reach us for comment suggestions and anything else at podcast.comedycellar.com. I feel like we haven't been getting a lot of emails. Yeah, I think we haven't been getting a lot of emails. You guys- Yeah, I think we haven't been announcing it lately. We announced it, but people either,

you're not sending it to us or- No, I haven't gotten it. You had announced it at the top of the show. Not everybody hangs on to the very, very end. Well, we'll do that next time. And Periel runs our Instagram account. At Live From The Table. By the way, we're trying to organize

this transgender show, right? With various people that we know that are transgender. Maybe Al would come on too to give a parent's perspective because that's actually

quite interesting. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's actually not a transgender show. We just have a couple

of trans friends who are joining us on different shows. They're not. But you would think we were also trying to, we were trying to have one to discuss it. Yeah. If we can do it. They're not... Right, but you would think we were also trying to... We were trying to have one... We could do that.

Yeah, if we can do it. We're trying to organize it, but at the same time not offend anybody by the idea that we're treating it as an oddity or something, which we're not, but it's in the news and it's very interesting, especially with J.K. Rowling's and all sorts of issues.

And a round table is always interesting, but a parent, that's also an interesting perspective. I don't have a... Go ahead. My kids come out twice. Came out at 13 as gay and like at 27 or 28 as transgender. He never really was gay,

if you follow the logic. If he was a woman, he wasn't gay, but he thought he was, or that's how he was... Well, I freaked her out maybe about a year or two ago when my mind started thinking. And I said, so, Dina, you're a woman trapped in a man's body, but you like men, right? Yes. So when you make that transfer, are you still going to like men? Yes.

So you're going to be a woman that likes men. You're straight. And like, she couldn't understand that concept for a minute. It was freaking her out. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I'm sure you had a road to travel to get used to

that. Oh, yeah. But I do notice, before we go, that I i know i know a few transgender people that um you know they're pretty easy going about it like you you'd think that like when people get very very offended when somebody misspeaks or whatever it is but the truth is that's usually people on their behalf you know people make jokes you know you're very right about that. I can remember one day at Katz's Deli in Manhattan. I was there with my kid. And Katz's has a lot of tourists from the Midwest.

So I'm sitting there with my daughter, and people are looking at her. And it's, like, freaking me out. And, like, she was calm. It didn't bother her at all she has very thick skin about it and like when she wasn't looking for a second i turned around and they said you know people from new york are not against taking a fork and sticking it in people's eyeballs it sounds like you're a good, loving dad, and your daughter is very lucky because there's some horror stories

about the way parents. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I made the decision along. Well, maybe I'll keep it for the next show. Yeah. Yeah. No, say what you were going to say.

No, I made the decision a long time ago. My daughter is a human being. She is the way she is. And I either lose her or accept her. That's beautiful. And I accept her. I came to that with my wife.

I thought losing her was okay. Now, I'm not sure my daughter accepts me. You're a little much. I don't care. All right. Good night, everybody everybody have a good day take care bye