The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Bonus Episode 2: Working it Out

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand discuss Noam's recent purchase, new jokes, Chris Rock, whether or not it's cold in the studio and Periel tries to get Dan to give her advice.

All right. Hello and welcome to Table Talk, a Comedy Cellar-affiliated podcast. No, I don't know. How do we introduce this thing? Why is it affiliated? Hey, welcome. All right, let's talk about it. Hey, welcome to Table Talk. It's the Live from the Table After Show with Dan Natterman and Perrielle Ashenbrand. Oh, I thought I was supposed to say my name.

And? And who else? Oh, that's it. I thought you were going to say your name and I would say my name. We could do it that way next time. Okay, we'll try. But anyway, today's episode...

Just kidding, yeah. So we talk about the episode. We also talk about other things. So you don't... It's a standalone standalone, really. You don't really need to have listened to the corresponding lie from the table. Right. I don't think.

But however, we did discuss today some interesting things that came up. Noam purchased the McDonald's on West 3rd and 6th Avenue. So he's opening up another comedy cellar, as if the comedy cellar could not get any bigger and expand any further. I mean, it's huge news. What's going on? Did you spill some water on your show? I think it's water.

I think, yeah. What else would it be? What else would it be? Yeah. So the Comedy Cellar, in addition to the four, how many rooms does it have? One, two, three, four rooms that they have, the Comedy Cellar, the Village Underground, the Fat Black Pussycat Bar, and the Fat Black Pussycat Lounge.

Now we'll have, is going to add to it, the Menachem Dorman Comedy Theater, formerly the McDonald's on West 3rd and 6th Avenue. And Menachem Dorman is Noam's father, who founded the club along with Bill Grundfest back in the 80s, and is the reason why Noam is the current owner of the club. So in honor of his father, he's going to name it the Menachem Dorman Comedy Theater.

Are you excited? Yeah, I am excited to see what it looks like. It's going to be, I think, probably very beautiful. He's talking about having like a balcony, which none of the other clubs have. My guess is, you know, he's going to make it very, very nice. Yeah, it's going to be like a real theater. Now, as I've mentioned on Live from the Table as well as I think on Table Talk,

which may or may not be the ongoing title of this podcast, but Table Talk for now. I don't know that I'll benefit financially in any great way. Well, you might, except that you might. Well, I'll benefit perhaps slightly. There'll be more shows. Maybe I'll do more shows, but they'll only be- Maybe you'll do an hour.

Well, I could do that now if I wanted to, but I just don't think I'm going to get a lot more spots. That's what I'm saying. But it's going to be exciting to see the continued domination, the continued rise of the comedy cellar is certainly always something exciting and interesting to see. By the way, I did do, this is unrelated, but last night I did New Joke Night.

Okay. Oh, that's fun. Which every week, Will Silvins hosts New Joke Night on Monday nights, and they might also do it Thursdays, but I know they do it Mondays, at the Fat Black Pussycat Lounge.

And this way the audience knows ahead of time you're doing new jokes so you feel less stress. So I did a bunch of new jokes and none of them really killed. And I don't know if it's because the audience wasn't great or because the jokes weren't that great. Tell me one. Well,

one of the jokes, some of them were brand new. Some of them I know in retrospect aren't good. One joke I do, I talk about how I'm studying Spanish. This joke I've done before and it's worked. This is funny. I know this. Yeah, go ahead.

The Alzheimer's ones? I say I study Spanish because I read that if you study Spanish, that can delay the onset of Alzheimer's. It won't prevent it, but you'll get it. You'll get it later. And then I guess I'll have Alzheimer's in two languages. People will be like, Dan, what's your birthday? Yo no sé. That's funny. You did that at my show too, right? Yeah, I did that at your show. And it killed. Did it not do well? It did okay. It's a funny joke.

And then I did how, you know, as I get older, if I have kids, if I get too old, I won't be able to, you know, play ball with the kid or go hiking with the kid, maybe take him on a ski trip, all the things my father was able to do with me. He didn't do any of them, but he was able to. That's funny, too. Okay. Yeah, no. But what do you think? Thoughts on Nicole?

Yeah, they're both great. But you felt like they didn't respond? They did all right. They did okay. They did okay. And how? And then I did another joke about how, like, this joke I've tried in the past. I can't get it to work, and I've given up on it.

How Neil deGrasse Tyson, how I would date him if I were a woman, but I would only be using him for his science knowledge. Okay. And he'd be like, can we discuss something else besides science? And I'd be like, yeah, we can discuss you sleeping on the couch. You know, because he doesn't want to talk about science. But nobody ever laughs at that. I don't know why.

Seems funny to me, but anyway. You could dig your hair. And then one other one I didn't do, I forgot to do, was like the Declaration of Independence where, you know, it said like, you know, we hereby dissolve all ties to the British crown. If one of your descendants marries a biracial actress, let us know. But other than that, we want nothing to do with you.

So you seem to think that's sort of funny. That is funny. I'll try that. I didn't try it last night. I just didn't. Anyway. Yeah, okay.

But yeah, I did a couple of those at your show that we did. Yeah. So they weren't necessarily by new jokes. They weren't necessarily, by new jokes, they weren't necessarily brand new jokes. Are they supposed to be brand new? There's no law.

There's no rule. What, is Will Smith going to fucking call the cops? I did, speaking of Will Smith. Did I say Will Smith or Will Silvins? You said Will Smith. I meant Will Silvins. I meant Will Smith. That's an interesting slip of the tongue.

Speaking of Will Smith, I did finish finally watching the Chris Rock special. Oh, I didn't know you had not finished. I had not finished it. It was, why does he say everything twice? Do you have any insight? Well, that's just his rhythm. That's just the way he does it. Like a preacher, I think, might do that.

Right. What does the Lord have to say? What does the Lord? Like it. Like a preacher, I think, might do that. Right. What does the Lord have to say? What does the Lord? Like it's a preacher thing. Right. I thought it was great. I really liked it. For something new and interesting to say about it,

I don't know that I have one, but I wanted to tell you that I did finish watching it. So you had watched, you had only watched the first half? Yeah, I got to the part where paying for pussy, which I thought was really funny how he did that. Well, the best part, in my opinion, was the end where he talks about Will Smith.

Yeah, it was great. And where he doesn't really pull punches. He basically, yeah, he's no fan of Will Smith. It was brutal. Where he talks about how all these other motherfuckers talking about, you know, saying shit about Will Smith

and he didn't hit any of those people. But he hit me because I'm small. Yeah. He played Ali. I played Pookie. Yeah. I mean, it was very well done. Is it cold in here? No, it's not.

We go through this every week. It's not cold in here. What? Is it cold? I just don't understand why it comes up in the middle of the podcast every single time. It just strikes you at a certain time. Yeah, I feel chilly. But you've been sitting here for three hours.

I've been sitting here for an hour and a bit. But yeah, I feel chilly. You don't feel chilly, Nicole? I don't, no. You want your jacket? Last time you did it in your jacket. I could do that again, yeah. You want me to get you your jacket?

Yes, if you wouldn't mind. I don't mind. Thank you Periel, Ash and Brand Well maybe something wrong with my body temperature I don't know We've got to pick up the pace here a little bit

I mean you're putting the jacket on the chair Alright So let's chat about something I mean, you're putting the jacket on the chair. All right. So let's chat about something. Oh, my. Go ahead. Start the chat.

We did a show together the other last week. How was that? We did Deli Labs. Perrielle and I did a show called Deli Labs. And I think that last time I spoke to you about something, you said you didn't remember if part of my act was funny or dirty or something. Well, I didn't. Yeah, because I only saw you. I didn't see your act.

You just introduced me. And I don't even think you said much before you introduced me. Did you? Yeah. But, yeah. Well, what did you say? I don't remember. Who knows? Yeah, I don't recall one way or the other. But it yeah. What did you say? I don't remember. Who knows?

Yeah, I don't recall one way or the other. But it was a good show, I thought. It was... And Modi closed. Modi closed. Modi, the... You know, I mean, that's the kind of guy you need to close a show about that's deli-oriented. Why?

You've closed them before. Well, I'm saying, like, Modi's a good choice. Yes, thank you. Modi's a good choice to close a deli show. Modi is... Modi Rosenfeld, goes by the name Modi, is, for those of you

who don't know him, he has staked out a niche amongst Jewish Orthodox, mostly, but not necessarily. Not anymore. I don't think. But very, very... People that identify as Jewish.

In other words, so if the Italians like Sebastian Maniscalco, and I don't think. But very, very people that identify as Jewish. In other words, if the Italians like Sebastian Maniscalco, and I don't know how much of his audience is Italian, but there's some number, and if Matteo Lane has a special appeal to the gay community, and if Zarna has a special appeal to the Indian community, then Modi has done the unthinkable and decided to carve out a niche in the Jewish community, which is odd because I would have always just thought the Jewish community would be more interested in Chappelle

or in just like the younger Jews. You know, I don't know how interested they are in specifically Jewish comedy. The older ones, like my parents, you know, I don't know how interested they are in specifically Jewish comedy. The older ones, like my parents, of course, they grew up on the borscht belt and, you know, the Catskills. So, anyway, whatever. Okay, that's a tangent, but fine. Okay, yes, they love him, and the show is fun. Even though he is now out.

He is out. He's out as gay, which you're not supposed to be if you're religious. Right. Well, I mean, I think that depends on who you ask. I mean, are you asking, like, the fucking Satmar people? I think that... It's a whole new world, Dan. Yeah, but the Bible's not a whole new Bible.

Right, but the interpretation... Ain't nobody rewrote the Bible. It's hard to reinterpret. A man shall not lay with another man as with a woman. Well, it also says that you're not supposed to mix like wool and linen. And I don't. And woe to he that mixes wool and linen, for there shall be a terrible punishment.

Well, that's why I don't believe in the Bible at all. But if you're going to believe in the Bible, then you can't just pick and choose. You've got to say, well. But everybody does. That's the whole point. Didn't you hear what Gianmarco just said about his whole conversation? Yeah, I know. I get it.

Everybody picks and chooses. You would think the whole thing with the Sabbath and you can do this and you can't do that. I mean, it's all... Everybody picks and chooses. This is the whole thing. And everybody thinks that the thing that they pick and choose is the right way to do

it, right? This is okay. Right? I suppose. Well, are you an atheist? I don't like that word. Why not? Because it is too strong. Okay. It scares me. Okay. But it might, I might well be.

I use the word agnostic. Now, what does agnostic mean? Agnostic means somebody that believes there might be a God, but is not convinced of it. An atheist is a person who says there's no God. Right. So where do we draw the line?

Because what if somebody is 99.9999999999999999999999% sure that there's no God? Would that be enough to put him into the agnostic category, that.0000001? I mean, I don't think, you know, people use the term atheist. I mean, I don't think any, well, I won't say nobody, but my guess is most people allow for at least a tiny possibility of the existence of a God. Even a guy like Richard Dawkins, who wrote the book The God Delusion, I read the book. If memory serves, I think even he acknowledged a slight possibility that maybe, perhaps, there's a God, but he would call himself an atheist. So I don't know what the line is between agnosticism

and atheism. But the term atheism scares me so much. It just seems so extreme. I call myself an agnostic. I thought agnostic meant something else. It means that there

might be... Agnostic means you're unsure. Atheist means you're sure there is no God. But I don't know how many people literally fit that category. How many people really literally are sure. But you can look that up and you tell me. A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomenon.

A person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God. That's the agnostic. Roughly what I said. You want to keep your options open is basically what you're saying. It's not a matter of, I'd like to keep my options open if it's not up to me. Who's it up to? The universe. Yeah, of course I'd like to keep my options open, but I don't get to decide.

Now, did you always feel like this, even as a kid, or did you have a moment where you were like... Look, as a kid, I probably believed, you know, going back a long time, I don't remember if I believed in God. But as an adult, you've always been pretty firmly agnostic. I've been very firmly agnostic as an adult, yeah. Unfortunately, regrettably, terribly, tragically, I don't want to believe this is all there is. Okay. Talk a little bit about that. Why would I want to believe that? We get 60, 70, 80. Well, if we're lucky, we get 100 years, like my neighbor. And we don't even get to know ahead of time if we're going to get to 100. So

she's probably been nervous the past 20 years. Well,'t know i mean that's one way that's one way of looking at it but i think there's a positive way about looking at it also you'd be like this is amazing you get you live every day yeah yeah i guess what is what is that horrible expression dance like nobody's watching and singing the fuck yeah i mean it's look, it's, look. There's a great, look at this amazing life we have. Well, some of it's more amazing than others, but. Well, I'm just saying

that you're saying that it's tragic not to believe in God. And I'm saying, well, that's one way of looking at it. Yeah, I guess. But most people have a fear of death. I think the reason we have a fear of death is because

it's an evolutionarily necessary thing to have. If we didn't fear death, we wouldn't make every effort to avoid it. Okay, fair enough. And we wouldn't last very long as a species. So I think our fear of death, logical or illogical, is hard to get rid of. Okay. But in any case, so, you know, but it's very uncomfortable.

Right. And very upsetting. So we try to work around it by believing in God. Right. And so that makes death more palatable, the idea of death more palatable. It does to me. Is this show supposed to be funny, do you think? Or are we just... Well, it's supposed to be what it's supposed to be.

Well, I think we need to have some sort of thesis about what this is. There's been moments of humor. Okay. Well, I'm asking... But in exploring tragedy, one often finds great humor. Right. Well, I think we should have, like, a thesis sentence. Well, I think...

Like how John Marco said,co said oh like this is a look we we had we talked to john marco about for those of you who listen to the john marco episode about decaying bodies yeah that was you know things come up well should we have like a topic for each episode no i think our topic is the news of the week. I did the new talent. I did the new jokes. Okay. Okay, Noam opened up the thing. Yeah. What about me? Don't I get to have something interesting? Well, I

do. Okay, go ahead, but it's got to be interesting. Well, I'm doing my first bridal shower, as I told you this weekend. You mean you're performing at a bridal? Yes. Well, yes. So you're the entertainment for the Bridal Show? That's it, baby.

Here I am. Are these friends of yours? No. And how did they find you? Somebody saw me and recommended me to... You look at you, you find that just impossible. No, I don't find it impossible at all. It's a rough gig because they all know each other, you know.

Right. Do you have any, as a veteran commenter. I've never done a bridal shower. I would imagine that would be fucking amazing. You know, sometimes when everybody knows each other, they kind of get chatty with each other. And it's like you're in their house. You're their invited guest. They have a certain power over you

because you're... You know what I mean? Do you have some pointers for me? I don't know if there's no pointers except if I prepare for a potential... How much time do you have to do? It'll be about 40 minutes. That's a lot of time.

I figure part of it I'll be chatting with them. Do you have 40 minutes? Have you done 40 minutes. That's a lot of time. Well, but I figure part of it I'll be chatting with them. Like part of it I'm going to be. Do you have 40 minutes? Have you done 40 minutes? Well, I'm not doing 40 minutes of stand-up. They want me to like engage with them and do some crowd work. Oh, okay. Stuff like that.

So you're like emceeing the event. Right? You're emceeing the event in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. Like they gave me information about the bride and this. And so I actually thought it was very sweet. Like it's sort of really nice to be asked to be brought into like, you know, this huge moment in this person's life.

Well, there's a fair amount of pressure because this is a big deal. Yeah. You know, my niece is pregnant. Maybe you can do her baby shower. That's I was kidding. I mean, well, she asked me, maybe I'll recommend you. That's how old I fucking am, is that my niece is pregnant. Only Dan Nicole could take the story of me doing a bridal shower and make it about him. No, I'm sure other people. I'll offer you a gig and then take it away. I'm sure other people could pull it off.

Okay, so you have no pointers for me except that be prepared to bomb. No, not that be prepared to bomb, but no, just do your best. It's their party, and you're the guest. Okay. So they have the kind of power, so if they start to get disruptive, it's harder for... In other words, if we're the comedy seller and somebody's disruptive,

we throw them the fuck out. Right. Okay. One, two strikes, you're out. You're the guest at their bridal shower. They can say whatever the fuck they want.

You can't throw them out. Okay. And you can, if you reprimand them, you have to do it in a sort of a, a delicate, deft, tactful fashion because you're their guest.

Right. That's their shower. Right. So sometimes, look, I've done a lot of private shows where people know each other, and it usually goes okay, but sometimes it doesn't. I did one recently. It was a very well-paying gig, and it was a horror show. How hilarious.

Because they were talking the entire time. It was me performing for some group of, I don't know, they worked in the power industry, energy, you know, energy transmission industry. And the whole time they decided they would rather drink and chat.

Yeah. These were people that knew each other. They were probably trying to get laid. Where was this? It was at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel

in one of the rooms there. In a room? Not a, not a, like a, Not in a guest room. And they didn't do it right. First of all, they left half the room a standing room, which lends itself to... Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

So they don't always know. When you do a show for somebody that's not... Well, you do a show at the Comedy Cellar, we've been doing shows at the Comedy Cellar for 40 years. We know how to do a comedy. You do a show at a Broadway, they might not know. Is the sound going to be good? Are people going to be paying attention? Is it going to be

standing room? I did another show once for a Hasidic group. A Hanukkah show, whatever the hell it was. A Hanukkah show? And there were no seats. No seats. Everybody was just wandering show. And there were no seats. No seats. Everybody was just wandering around. And the guy told me, just go do your comedy. It's funny.

They'll listen. I said, no. I said, it's funny. They'll not listen. He says, do 20 minutes. I did 20 minutes and nobody was listening. That's a mess. So not everybody knows how to run a comedy show.

Right, that's absolutely true. But I did put some grounds rules down. So I hope by addressing some of those things a priori. A priori or a priori? I don't know. A priori or a priori. Okay, well, we'll see. I'll report back.

It's on Saturday. Yeah, but, you know, I'm just saying, yeah, so, you know, if it's like not a group that is used to doing this kind of thing. No, it's not. But it's not a group that's used to doing this thing. Okay, so, yeah. So I don't have advice except prepare for a potentially difficult situation. Except for what?

To prepare for a potentially difficult situation but hope for the best. Right. That's not great advice. Well, you know. But, again, like you don't have power over these people. I'm not in the market for power. I just want to make them laugh. As I said, but at the Comedy Cellar, we have rules.

You can't yell shit out. You can't talk on your phone. Right. That's the one thing that I need to tell them is that nobody can record this. Right? No. Well, yes. You tell them that.

But also, put your phones away. You don't want people texting. I mean, they'll probably do it anyway, and you can't really do anything about it. I shouldn't let them record this, right? No, I don't think you should. I mean, they might do it on the sly, you know, but ideally, no.

Ideally, they wouldn't. Oh, boy. Okay. Mike, that's a helpful piece of advice. Not like prepare for the worst, but go, you know, try your best. That's not fucking good advice. Advice could be you tell them before you get there, look, this is how it's got to be. People have to be seated.

I did that already. And nobody's serving shit. I did that already. You know, there's no open bar. I did done. Because sometimes I've done gigs where there's a bar and the people leave the seat and they go to the bar. It's insane. Right.

Everybody needs to know that I'm coming before. The bride doesn't know. It can't be a surprise. It is. The bride doesn't even know that it's her bridal shower. Okay. Well, that's always a problem when the audience is like, they don't even know there's a comedy show. Right.

And they're sitting there and they're like, we happy we're having a good time just talking yeah and who's this person now telling comedy we don't want to sit here and watch this right interrupting my my sea bass yeah so ideally everybody who wants to see a comedy show goes into a separate room do you want to see a comedy show yes go into this room to see the comedy show right do you not want to see the comedy show no stay in this room and don't see the comedy show right do you not want to see the comedy show no stay in this room and don't see the comedy show but what you don't want is a room full of people that have no idea comedy show is coming hey everybody we got a comedy show right that can be bad right but we've all done those gigs and sometimes they pay well so we do them anyway

right all right well um that was a little bit more helpful the specificity of it but i've already done all of those things yeah hopefully um so i should or should not wear a wedding dress well i mean if you want to be kitschy about it no i'm just kidding you know but uh yeah i wouldn't recommend that but uh well i mean you made me a little bit more nervous than i was i thought this was going to be like just like a wedding cake walk yeah there you go um all right well i'll report back yeah report hopefully it won't be a complete disaster i'm just saying you know you got to be careful sometimes. All right.

Anything else? We'll be announcing some other things soon. But as of right now, you can find Dan on Instagram at Dan Natterman. I also encourage everybody, if you haven't watched his clip on YouTube of America's Got Talent, when he's just absolutely abusing Simon Cowell. Wow. Well, it's hilarious. Nicole, have you seen that? I don't know if I have.

I feel like I tried to look it up when you brought it up once, but I couldn't find it. Oh my God, it's literally one of the best things to watch on YouTube, especially if you're a fan of Dan Edderman, as I am. And I'm on Instagram at Periel Ashenbrand, P-E-R-I-E-L. Thank you so much.

This has been Table Talk, podcast at ComedySeller.com for comments, questions, and suggestions about all the Comedy Seller podcasts. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.