The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Cheers, Corona!

Episode Date: March 14, 2020

Rob Long and Gary Vider

You're listening to Live from the Table, the official podcast and radio show of the comedy seller on Radox. This is Dan Natterman, and you're saying to yourself, well, Noam's not here because Dan's doing the announcement. That's right, Noam is not here, but he is here by a Skype all the way from the great city of Ardsley, New York, at his home, where he is joining us via Skype. Noam, how are you? Okay, Dan, how are you?

You sound clear as a bell. Technology is a wonder indeed. And why are you doing this show all the way from home today as opposed to coming in studio? I think people want to know. Well, I'm trying to stay out of crowds because I have some high-risk individuals close to me. I'm verging on high risk, but I don't feel high risk. But I do have some people around me who are high risk, so I don't want to bring home. You say verging on high risk. Is that because – what is the age where high risk starts? According to the science? You know, first of all, like everything else, there's something I mean, I would imagine it's an inclining risk and it doesn't there's not a clear demarcation of risk and no risk with 60 is what they say. But I imagine that fifty nine and a half

is also risky and fifty seven is coming up behind. I'm 57. Well, you look good, may I say. We have with us tonight, first of all, Gary Veeder is here. Gary Veeder. Hey, 36 years old. I'm perfectly healthy. Looking good, and like myself, was a contestant on America's Got Talent. He got further than me.

He was a finalist on season 10. Different seasons seasons but yeah different seasons not more importantly he's one of the only living success stories of relationship counseling oh yeah well that story has not been fully written he is back with his wife and we'll see we're all monitoring the situation very very closely he's been on conan the late show with steven colbert and is a regular here at the comedy cellar and we'll talk about his monitoring the situation very, very closely. He's been on Conan, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and is a regular here at the Comedy Cellar. And we'll talk about his debut comedy album,

Veeder Las Vegas, that can be streamed anywhere you listen to music. And he taped that at the Comedy Cellar in Las Vegas, which I just did a couple of weeks ago. And I just got back from that. We have with us also Rob Long, writer, producer. He was a writer for the iconic television show Cheers from 1992 to 1993 when the show ended. That's when it ended.

In my memory, it ended in 95, but that's obviously a false memory which can happen. And he's a contributing editor at National Review. Well, you don't see that every day. A Hollywood guy writing for a conservative publication like National Review, but there you have it. Must be great for your career, Mr. Long. I don't think it's helped it, but it hasn't hurt it yet. Mostly because people

in L.A. just assume that's the nation. Also co-founder of Ricochet, a center-right podcasting network, and he offers weekly commentary on public radio. Martini Shot from LA. Martini Shot, I have written down here. What's that exactly? That is my

four-minute commentary on the local public radio station in LA called KCRW, which you can podcast to, and it's really just about show business. You know, Martini Shot is the last shot of the day when you're on a shoot. You call it out. You say, it's a martini shot. You know what?

I remember that from my limited, very limited, but I was in a few episodes of the show crashing on HBO and I recall martini shot. Yeah. It's a good show

but it's just later. That's an amazing gig. Four minutes of commentary a day. That's great. Oh, no, a week. A week. Oh, God, I couldn't do a day. I don't have four minutes a day

of any kind of insight, but four minutes a day of any kind of insight. But four minutes a week, I could kind of like scoop together. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig. It's a sweet gig except for the money. Right. Then it's not a sweet gig. Yeah, it's a gig. Yeah, it's a regular steady gig.

Noam, do you want to start talking about what everybody's talking about, the coronavirus, which we've already alluded to? Yeah, I'm very curious to know what everybody thinks about the coronavirus. I presume that Rob Long is on top of this. He's got to talk about it. He's got to comment on it. Yeah, I wish I was. I'm not really on top of it because it changes all the time.

And it seems like all of the stuff that we're supposed to do now, we probably should have been doing anyway i mean not that i'm doing it i mean you know my washing your hands i wash my hands but i don't you know i'm not a nut about it but mostly like you can wash your hands and then you pick up your phone and you basically have ruined your hands totally because your phone is essentially a a men's room you know a public men's room. Speak for yourself. No, when they test the phone, it's disgusting.

The phone is like, you know those things where they go into the hotel room and then they turn on the blue light and you go, oh my God. That's what happens when people look at their phones. It's disgusting and we just touch it all the time. Well, because a lot of us use it in the bathroom. You should stop that. Well, it's the bathroom. Well, because a lot of us use it in the bathroom. You should stop that. Well, it's a bathroom. You touch everything. Then you touch your phone.

You got to Lysol your phone as well when you're done. Right. But all this stuff we should have been doing. Yeah, you got to keep up with that stuff. Why should we have been doing that? Because isn't there a competing theory that says part of the reason you have so many allergies and all this stuff today is because we're too hygienic and we need a little bit of dirtiness is good for us good for our immune system yeah i think you're gonna get a little bit of dirtiness anyway i mean look like the ben the really good news about coronavirus is that it's not killing everybody it touches all the time

just indiscriminately it's not the plague but you know and i'm not even a paranoid but the plague is coming i mean it's like it's the next one's going to be really hard. And we keep getting this is a warning. It's like if you live in L.A. I lived in L.A. for 30 years. And when there was a five or a category five earthquake or five, six or something, everybody said the same thing was, wow, I don't think we're ready for the big one. And then they went off their merry way. And this is kind of like not the big one. This is like a i think this is like a 5.3 earthquake size virus um but the big one's gonna come like we there's no no way around it you know we're just gonna have to get

prepared what is this according yeah but but if just the way the world's gonna come to you know i'm sorry if the big one's really gonna come do i really want to spend my because because if i if i if i extrapolate your advice i have to start using condoms and dental dams whenever i have oral sex and and do i really want to live that way when the big one's coming anyway like well i can't speak for you i don't i don't know what you're into there are people who are into that stuff so who knows like i don't think that's the case i think it's more like the just general i mean i don't know whether you're using condoms and dental dams on the subway. Maybe you are. But I don't think... I wouldn't recommend that. I just think

probably you're better off... All of these things that people are saying we should be doing now, we probably should have been doing. I'm not trying to be a fatalist. I thought we're all going to die in a plague, but it's a matter of time. Except for the part that you said that we're all going to die in a plague and it's a matter of time. We're all going to die, comma.

There will be another plague, comma and it's a matter of time. We're all going to die, comma. There will be another plague, comma. It is a matter of time. Yeah, there's always something bad that happens, though. It's like you have Hurricane Sandy. It's like you're in the city during that time and, like, half, like, the Lower East Side was just, or the Lower East Side and pretty much to, like, Midtown was just blacked out. And people were just, like, trying to figure out their life.

Like, what's going on? But meanwhile, you go uptown and there's lights and people are just living their best life. Like it's just two different like – I come back again and again and again in my life to perhaps the quote that has had the most impact on me. Jim McKay's father who said our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized. Now, Noam, do you ever hear that quote? I've heard something similar. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as first reported.

That's something like a journalistic thing. That's another quote. But Jim McKay, when the Munich athletes, the Israeli athletes in Munich were killed, he said, my father used to say, our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized, but tonight our worst fears have been realized. But in any case, i think it's a good

quote and all i know is that jim mckay's father said it i don't know it's enough for me that's enough for me but um so i i that's how i feel about the coronavirus i don't think it'll be complete and utter disaster but i don't think well thank thank god i'm sure we can all agree that at least we have a president who has a preternatural talent for medical technology. It's almost a divine intervention that seemed to have brought us Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. We are truly lucky to have a natural scientist heading out. But Noam, you're usually skeptical about things, and yet here you are staying at home. I would have thought you would have been a Corona skeptic. Well, that's interesting because one of my, one of my observations in this, uh, in this chapter

is that the people who are normally saying, don't panic. The people who are always like skeptical, as you say, are taking this very seriously. And the people who seem to swallow any nonsense conspiracy theory going around are like, ah, it's nothing. There's a total flip in some way that, um, because this is real and it's scary. And, and we don't, we don't know what the truth is, but you know, I've read that there is a, uh, we've all seen the same data. There's a spread from 0.009 mortality rate for the very youngest to something like 25, 30% for people in their mid 80s. And between 0.009 and 35%, you have a huge universe and they give us advice on some sort of average aggregate. But for each person, wherever you are in that universe, this is either absolutely nothing or it's very, very serious.

And there's a lot of people towards the top third of that curve. And for instance, and then I'll stop talking, they're advising people 16 and over not to go out basically, to work at home, don't go to crowds, whatever it is. But if you're 60 years old and you have a kid going to school in your home, well, if the kid goes to school and comes back, it's like you went to school and came back because I'm sure the transmission rate within the home has got to be close to 100%. So I would think that already we would have the option if we have a high-risk home to keep our children home. And if we can, you you know release the lessons and course materials online and stuff like that so high risk people can protect themselves but they don't seem to follow the you know they don't seem to finish the equation is shut down

are your kids in school no i kept them home this week because because i'm worried about my wife my wife getting my you're right that's exactly what you should have done. I read Cornell University is sending all the kids home to do school, to do online courses for the semester. Don't you guys find it hard to find what's the truth about where's the damage? People are so confused on what actually to do besides wash your wash your hands and like, you know, not touch your face and like the stuff that people know. But I feel like there's so much different like reports of like what's going on. Like are the numbers going down? Where is it increasing?

Like obviously like if there are three deaths that happen like, you know, in Cleveland, it doesn't seem like a lot. But then but people are freaking out. They're like closing out like rallies and stuff. There's just so much different information that's like hard to figure out if you should be actually worried right well the death rates not really the most but that's right is the hardest thing to figure out and probably the least least valuable number because the death rate includes people who lived in China people who had respiratory failure all that stuff ahead of time so the death rate is not it's really the the

rate of infection how many people can one person infect? And it's about two or two or three almost. And the healthcare system collapsing because they don't have the things that they need. They don't have the tests and stuff like that. Or the respirators. Yeah, the respirators for people who need them. So that's the scary part. And that's sort of the part that we should just be prepared for more infectious diseases like this and be prepared to stay home. And, I mean, look, all the stuff they're doing in China and Hong Kong

has actually done a lot of – had a lot of benefit to those places. Yeah, China's numbers went down. Like, I guess they had, like, 1,000 people being, like, infected daily, and then that number's down. But once they quarantined everybody, that's how they got a handle on it in South Korea. Right. They just fucking shut everything down. Yeah.

Well, there's something attractive about that, right? I mean, that's when these big emergencies is usually when the dictators come out. Well, they also created like a national database where they were testing everybody. We don't have tests here. So people are by and large walking around infected, asymptomatic, and super contagious. Right. Somewhere between, what is it, three days and 14 days? Mm-hmm.

I think that I— Like you probably have it, Dan. Why do you figure? I'm just kidding. You don't look good. Prudence, I'm all— He's got swine flu. I'm all in favor of Prudence.

I think that Perriel is bordering on hysterical. All right. Go ahead, Noah. But let me ask you a question because within the logic – I'm always trying to be sensitive to this. Within the logic of whatever it is they're sort of containment zone, whatever we call it. New Rochelle, right. And basically everybody knows and says that – well, it's pretty imminent that it's going to get to all the towns in some small degree around there. But what they do is they wait until the first kid is a risk before they close the school. But of course, then it's too late. The kid's been to school and they pass it all around. That's right.

If you know this is imminent or almost certainly imminent, why do you wait until it's kind of too late to take action? Close the schools now. You're absolutely right. You're right. Instead, they wait until – no, we'll close the school, but first we absolutely right you're right instead they wait no we'll close school but first we want to make sure they have it this is insanity you're absolutely right well it's the same thing it's the earthquake right we're gonna wait until we have a nine to prepare for the nine so then you think they should also close the subways for like and then how you know that means because nothing should be going then well i don't have enough food

in my house to last uh till tonight, let alone another two weeks. I would have some shopping. And I'm counting the mice, by the way. I'd have to do some serious shopping. Well, you should. You should get some food in the house. Yeah. I actually bought cans today.

You should. Were they filled with food or are they just cans? Yeah, just cans. Just regular cans. Empty cans. But yeah, I bought some soup um i bought some i got uh nuts yeah some everything literally everything from soup to nuts yeah some can't some canned tuna and then i i guess i guess the problem is here we wouldn't know when it ends like if they close the subways, right. Uh, and then when do they reopen them?

Well, they should close. No, no, no. It just comes right back. No, no,

no, no, no, no. If you look at what's going on in Italy, they have now had to shut down the entire country because everybody, I mean, the rate of infection was insane and they're literally letting people die because they can't keep everybody alive.

So they're making decisions about who to save in the hospitals, right? So it's like the people who have the best chance of surviving are the people who are getting breathing aids and respirators and all of that stuff. So what you're doing is actually the right thing to do. Is to close the subways? I mean, maybe. But like shut everything down until we have a better understanding of what's going on.

But how about the notion that every year we have a flu season and people die by the thousands and we don't resort to these measures? We don't have quarantine. It's not as contagious as the flu. Yeah, the rate of infection is much lower. Or is this, they just try to make this extra sexy. So then they try, you know, that's why.

I'm not sure we know how contagious this is. I've read that it's less contagious than the flu. I've read that too. But where are you guys reading that? That's why all this information is confusing. In the news media. Yeah, you should do that. Anecdotally, it really doesn't make sense.

I mean, here, the guy who was the first guy I knew knew Rochelle, the lawyer, he's in a coma. The guy in the leadership in Iran is dropping dead. I mean, these people have all gotten flus. I mean, I know it's anecdotal, but I don't know anybody in my life who's dropped dead of a flu at 50. I've just never seen that. We have data. We have a really good – we have the Diamond Princess. We had a cruise ship that was under quarantine, and that's a great way to find out how contagious the disease is, and that's how they got the number.

The number is really high, between two and three people, which is pretty good. If you're a virus, you could be proud of that number. That's a good number. You can walk tall down the virus high school corridor because you're you're a badass um and how many people from the diamond princess have died do we know i don't know but but again it's like i think that when you catch it early and you're you know you're you don't have respiratory illness anyway you know it's not you're you're you're you're in good shape you're you're you've got a fighting chance at it. This is not Ebola.

You don't sort of explode in blood and mucus and piss and shit on the sidewalk. You just get, you know, you got a really, really, really bad flu. But it's just the scary part of it is the contagious part of it and the rate of infection. And that is what we need to prepare for.

We need to be ready to like- And we're not. Five years from now to like figure out when we're when this is over, there's going to be another one coming. But we're not even ready for this. It's like every I mean, my understanding is that every emergency room in every major city in America operates daily pretty much at like 100 percent. So probably. How do you get ready for it?

I mean, you do what you're doing. You know, you start saying that's not getting ready. I didn't prepare. You start when when when when when the rate of when when infections go up in China, you start building the test kits rather than wait a month. Yeah. Like they knew it was coming here. Right. It was like, that's no way it's not coming here.

Everybody. So they were just like, oh, it's China. It's so far away. Yeah. I mean, I was within like a week and a month. Yeah, like they knew it was coming here. Right. It was like we're – There's no way it's not coming here. Everybody – People are just like, oh, it's China. It's so far away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I was within like a week and a half. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it was here. Rob, you keep talking about the – that even if this isn't the big one, that the big one

is coming. Yeah, I'm here to bring sunshine. Yeah. But, I mean – Relax. You guys are going to die in a few years. Is that really the case? When was the last time we had a big one?

SARS. You'd have to go back to 1918, I guess. No, SARS. SARS was big. SARS was a big one. I don't remember during SARS. Yeah, nothing was shutting down. The rate of infection wasn't that low.

No one was right here. But remember, 1918. SARS was deadlier, but it didn't spread, thank goodness. Yeah, the rate of infection was lower. But 1918, you can't even compare that to now i mean we you you are you are 15 hours from some shithole in the middle of the world that you've never even heard of you're you're you're 20 hours never heard of it i've played that yeah exactly well chuck chuckles at shithole right you're you're you're 20 hours away from the anywhere else on earth then you weren't you

weren't we there are people people are people are sick in in Italy because they went to Iran and they came back from Iran. That's why they're sick in Italy. The guy sick in New Rochelle isn't sick because he went to Gristiti's. He's sick because he went somewhere else. He was from... We also have better medical care

than we did in 1980. If you don't get on top of it early, then you're in trouble. And in 1918, what measures were they taking? I guess, were they quarantining everywhere? Was it... I mean... Well, no, they weren't as good. We were much better.

This did start from them eating bats, right? I don't know. You're not supposed to say that. You're not? Why not? I think it's considered... What's the matter with you, Perrielle? I think it's considered, like, not... perry l i think it's considered like not it's like not okay not not what you have to see this has to be the mystery mystery origin coronavirus you can't say wuhan flu or bad eating flu or there was a market in wuhan where people were eating fucking bats no no noolin. No, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, this is like a scientific fact.

I'm not making this up. Periel doesn't make stuff up, but what she does do often is twist. Well, no, there's a live animal market in Wuhan. Right, and those things were vectors for this disease. Yeah, that is true. I'm not saying it's not true. I'm just saying that

we're not supposed to say it. Well, and this touches on something else, which, okay, there's a few things that I thought about while Rob was talking. First of all is that part of what we're suffering from is that this is neither here nor there. Like if it had a 20% mortality rate, we would all be in our homes and the subway would be shut down and whatever. They don't really know how to react because we don't really know. It wouldn't shock anybody if when it's all when the history is all written that this wasn't any worse than the flu. Like, you know, we don't know.

So they're very hesitant to react. And then on top of that, we have seen introductions of political correctness. Like I remember reading, I think it was in the Times, there was one article which discussed closing the schools and complained about the disproportionate effect it would have on women. I'm like, well, this is crazy talk now, you know, because women are the caregivers. So we're mixing politically correct concepts into health decisions.

Well, no, speaking of health decisions, what about, of course, you own several businesses wherein large numbers of people gather. Yeah. So what are your thoughts with regard to what you should be doing to protect your workers, your comedians, et cetera? Okay. Well, first of all, I will say that business has not been all that affected, and I think that's – You're breaking up. – who don't have high-risk people around them. I'm sorry? You were breaking up slightly.

Hello? Hi. Young people who don't have high-risk individuals around them have correctly probably concluded that they don't really have much to worry about, so they're going out. We've taken every precaution we can. I've asked high-risk employees to stay home with pay. I have thermometers there for the staff to take their temperature. We're sanitizing the whole place four times a day, but all this may be futile if people are have the disease. You guys still there?

I don't know. Yeah, I just made one of your bartenders put on a pair of latex gloves. There was this article in National Review. I forget who wrote it, but it talked about some case of the virus on a bus in China. And the guy, they had video of it. But it talked about some case of the virus on a bus in China. And the guy, they had video of it. He didn't leave his seat. And he spread it to like one person behind him, four people in front of him, one person on the other side of the bus.

But not the person next to him, right? I mean, it was the weird kind of a checkerboard thing. Say it again. I'm sorry. Well, not the person next to him. There were people who were closer who didn't get it. That's right. And then people three rows ahead who did. Yeah.

No, I'm thinking one reason business has still been robust is because you have all these tourists that came to New York City. What are they going to do? Stay and quarantine themselves on vacation? Yeah. People were at the show yesterday and I was like, you know, people are like, I'm traveling. So it's like, yeah, you have to do something. They can't just stay in their hotel. So they're still coming.

They're still getting tourists. So the tourists, they're already here. Maybe they planned their trip. They can't just stay in their hotel. So they're still coming, they're still getting tourists. So the tourists, they're already here. Maybe they planned their trip. I don't know. But since I think tourists would be less likely to stay home, they're on vacation. Yeah, they booked a flight.

But the airlines though, they said that you could get your money back for the flight or you just get like a refund for the entire year. Like you could just buy another flight of equal value. But yeah, people are still flying.

I'm flying this week. You're flying tomorrow now. Yeah, tomorrow to Detroit and then also Cleveland. So two areas that I know have been infected, but yeah, I mean, it's just, uh, just, I feel like people are just going on too, unless it gets more serious. The flights, national flights, um, are like 25 bucks. I read today. Oh really? Yeah. I looked for like, yeah, it's still to like Detroit. It was like $300. But yeah, maybe it will go down. No, Omar. Do we have any more to discuss on this topic? Because we do have some other interesting topics to get to.

Yeah. I'm just curious what our guests, how they think this will end up. Will it disappear? Well, you're breaking up a little bit, unfortunately. Is this a weird thing? Sorry? You're talking to Rob? Yeah, to Rob and my other expert, Gary. Go ahead.

Well, Rob's not an infectious disease expert. I want to underline. No, I'm not licensed to practice medicine in the state of New York, that's for sure. Who knows? I'm not really sure. I think a lot of it's behavioral, so if people do what they're supposed to do, that it's going to, you know, maybe it'll die out when the weather gets warm and the numbers will go down. And we've got to hope the numbers stay down. There was always a SARS bounce, they used to say, that when SARS went down, then it went back up.

So we can only hope that that's what that's what happens and and we you know we keep the the purell you know stocks high and you know buy shares in zoom and slack and all this other the purell is owned by jews by the way so well a five-year-old company well it was found it was founded by jews so again i one has to wonder what these jews are up to well that's funny because uh my you know there was this story. I haven't heard anything about it since, but there was an Israeli lab which claimed it was going to have a vaccine in four or five weeks. Yeah.

And I told our au pair, it was from Brazil, I told her that, I said, look at that, the Israelis, they say they're four or five weeks away from a vaccine. And she says, well, yeah, there's a lot of money to be made. So there's another virus that spreads all over the world. Exactly. That's a good relationship you have with your Brazilian au pair, though, I got to say, that she felt free enough to tell you how she felt about it. Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

The thing is that, and this could be a jumping off point, it was so naive and so – it was not – it was zero intention of hers to offend me. She was literally naive to what she was saying. This is just kind of what she kind of talks. She grew up around, and she just was saying it. So I didn't even – it didn't even faze me. It doesn't – I wasn't even upset about it. And it's also true. So it's like part of it's like you can't be, you know, it's like the intent wasn't there.

Noam's always talking about how we need to encourage innovation in health care. And part of that is by allowing pharmaceutical companies to make a lot of money. Noam, that was one of your primary arguments against Sanders' position. So, in effect, you're agreeing with it. You're saying, well, we need to keep people want, people invent shit because they want to get rich. Well, I'm agreeing with that. I'm not agreeing with the fact that

that's the reason Israel has a leg up on it, you know, but whatever. But actually, no, but it is kind of, I mean, Israel has a leg up on it because they see everything in terms of national security. they see everything in terms of national security. They see everything in terms of a threat. Israel shut down.

You can't fly into or out of Israel. You know that, right? They're not kidding around. They don't kid around in Israel. Yeah, yeah. Israel's 11 miles wide. So the people have tried to invade it for years. And maybe they don't want to be invaded by people.

They don't want to be invaded by a virus. So, you know, they do see everything as a what is it going to threaten the state of Israel or not? And this is definitely threatens the state of Israel, especially a little state like Israel. Israelis handle shit differently. Like they don't panic about things just because. Well, but that's but that's I found that interesting because when I look at Israel making a decision as severe as the one they've made, I say to myself, first, these people are not prone to panic. And second, they have some really smart fucking medical scientists. They're advising the government.

So I'm like, what? That sounds like this is serious. You know, it is serious. No. Well, is it serious or is it a little bit worse than the flu? I mean, we don't know. No, it is very serious. It's serious.

Well, if Periel says it, then I'm serious. I have two girlfriends. Yeah, exactly. One is a pediatric ER doctor who flies back and forth from here in Israel. I spoke to her this morning. I have another friend who is a pediatric oncologist. I speak to both of them regularly, and this shit is no

fucking joke. Do you guys remember that Star Trek episode where they had a disease that only the grown-ups get? And the kids are on it, and the grumps get it. Was that Star Trek or Twilight Zone? Nor neither. I don't think it was Cheers.

I don't think it was Cheers. I don't think it was Cheers, although that sounds like a good one. In 1995. Maybe it was before you got there. Yeah, it could be. Could be. Noam, could we briefly talk about the chef situation here? Why aren't you reading these titles? They're so funny.

I would like to hear, before I get to the chef situation, since we have an authentic intellectual there, and I don't mean Gary Vee. Yeah, yeah. I knew you weren't talking about me. Who's the authentic intellectual? We have a TV joker. Yeah, give me a break. No, no, he writes in the House Review.

So, Rob, can you tell us what your take is, what your most interesting observation has been on this primary season, on the turnaround? It looked like Sanders was a shoe, and now it's Biden. You must have thoughts on all this. Yeah, the Democratic primary voter came to the census and they're like, well, we what do we want? Do we want health care, Medicare for all and open borders or do you just want to get rid of Trump? And they decided they just want to get rid of Trump. Now, not that it may succeed. They may not get rid of Trump.

I'm not sure they're going to, but they'll probably get closer to it with Biden than they would ever do it with Bernie Sanders. And their point was that, you know, the hive mind of these parties is supposed to be – this is how it's supposed to work. And it really has worked that way flawlessly until 2016 when the Republicans went insane. Nobody ever expected the Republicans to go insane. They expected it to be Democrats, and it turns out the Democrats are the ones that kind of right the ship at the last minute and think, you know what, we'd rather win.

Now, they may still may lose, but if you're ever put money down on who's in a better shape to beat Trump, it's got to be Biden, not Bernie. Bernie can't even get the young people who say they support him to vote for him. So, you know, the young Bernie bros aren't actually voting for Bernie in the primary.

So how are they going to vote in November? They're probably not going to show up then either. So, you know, just the party, the party without, this is not the party, you know, elite or the insiders. This is just your Democrat primary voters made a prudent choice. That's how it's supposed to work.

Well, what about Biden's mental, his cognitive functioning, which seems to be – is getting called into question? So these gaffes that he's making these these verbal uh slip-ups well at no time in american in recent american political history has that ever hurt a candidate i mean people win the presidency sometimes by a lot of votes having said weird stuff on the stump but is it possible that he does have cognitive functioning issues? I can't. Also, I would say that I don't think there's been a presidential candidate that doesn't have that.

I think that's actually considered qualifications, that you're a little bit nuts. Well, but people talk about senility, you know. I mean, and all these candidates are so old. I mean, Ronald Reagan was running this country with, like, full-blown fucking Alzheimer's. Really? And he was better at it than a lot of people who didn't.

Little Alzheimer's, give me more Alzheimer's if you're... Well, he didn't have it. He didn't have it. He didn't have it at that level. He was starting, perhaps, toward the end of his... What are you talking about? He had total Alzheimer's. He did when he died.

Let me talk for a second, and then you can just Google a little bit about Ronald Reagan and come back informed. But I don't think that it's it's fair to to say that Biden is showing signs of senility. I think what is saying I'm asking you if you think it's fair yeah okay but what i think is more fair is that he's showing the signs of being a 78 year old man basically similar to all the 70 or 78 year olds in our lives um sanders is an exception he's very vital and he doesn't seem to slow down if you imagine if bernie sanders could present himself in a young body i don't think we would detect much amiss uh if you put joe biden in a in a 40 year old's body like what is up with this dude you know so i i don't i don't but the question is if he's slower does that i don't know that that means his judgment is going to be worse or that um he you know that he's going to make crazy

choices that he's going to start answering the banana like like i i think so what if he does answer the banana so what if he does answer the banana you know what harm could come from answering a banana you can order the banana to do something arguably a cognitively impaired president no but i think i don't think i'm saying i don't think he's impaired i just think like you know there's not many seven-year-old winners of jeopardy you slow down a little bit it doesn't mean you got stupid or insane. It's just like you can't remember the name. You can't remember the fact.

I'm suffering. It's a continuum. I can't remember names like I used to. My God, it's scary, but I know it's not Alzheimer's. Let's also be clear here. He's not running against Albert Einstein. He's not, you know, he's going to be running against a morbidly obese 70, late 70 year old president who spends an hour and a half

in hair and makeup. He's early 70s. Yeah. Well, you know, and he's going to and he's running against that person. So, you know, when the voters in November

see the two of them, it's not like they're going to, oh, my God, Joe Biden's out of it. He's saying things that don't make any sense. They're going to say, oh, my, how do we get here how do we get so they always say almost how do we get to how what what karma did we do as a nation what what orphanage did we burn down in a previous life that led us to this moment where we have this weird fat guy who is in lipstick and mascara and then this ancient weirdo thin guy who's like shouting at the clouds. By the way, what what? So leaving aside Biden's cognitive slowing down, whatever the word is for that.

What about the fact that there's going to be a lot of very very angry sanders supporters uh what how much how much threat does that pose to the biden campaign you mean in the general yeah well the young people aren't going to vote anyway they don't so it doesn't matter have the they'll be really angry on twitter and then they'll just i don't know they'll be binge watching some shit on something on Hulu and they won't vote on Election Day. Yeah. The young voter is just a moron. They don't vote. So they you don't lose anything. And the rest of people hate Trump. So they're going to vote for Biden.

And if he's smart, he's going to scoop all of them up. Plus the people that are like, well, you know, Biden's smart. He'll just say to the American people, look, I'm not going to be that liberal. I promise you I'm going to be normal look, I'm not going to be that liberal. I promise you. I'm going to be normal. I'm really not going to be liberal. You vote for me, and I promise I won't be liberal. And a lot of people will take that bet.

Trump is not a popular president. He should be a lot more popular than he is with the economy the way it is. That's really interesting. I totally agree with you. And one of well, that's just it. This is just a swing state election. And what matters is what will win in those swing states. And that's why I think I agree with you that I don't think there's a lot of like activist Sanders voters

in those districts that swung from Obama to Trump and need to be swung back in the other direction. Do you think that Biden has a real chance of winning? Because I've been saying for months, I think Trump is definitely going to win again. I think it's hard to know. It's hard to know. Look, a lot of people really, really, really hate Trump. And nobody really, really, really hates Biden.

Right. A lot of people really, really, really hate Hillary. Like there are a lot of people really, really, really love Trump. And how many people really, really, really, really love Biden? Well, you don't really need to worry about that because the party faithful will turn out. Everybody's going to start with their 44%, 45%. It's really the middle people who, like, they don't really love or hate anybody that much,

but they just, but they don't, nobody doesn't like Biden. Right. Nobody's afraid of him. Like, there are people who hate him. Saying Biden is like Sarah Lee. Exactly. Do you think, like, the debate actually matters? Because I feel like, obviously, Trump is just going to destroy him and just talk, you know, just get him through.

Maybe, but, you know, these things are weird. Like, two old men eating it out. Like, it's kind of like a weird porn, you know? Like, I don't know what's – That's normal for me. Hey, don't call it weird. You just type that into Pornhub. Yeah, right.

I don't really – who knows? Who knows? But it's going to be a fight. And it's not going to be about policy because Trump doesn't understand that. Right. So it's really going to be about personality, and the problem is that Biden's got kind of a – he's likable. Yeah. When was Trump – he was running against the least likable person in American politics.

Can I read something from Snopes, Noam? Brief, please. Very brief. I know you asked Noam, but I'm telling you, I prefer to stay brief. Noam, are you here? Yeah, I'm rolling my eyes. Go ahead. Go ahead.

It has long been rumored that President Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's disease years before it was diagnosed in 1994, five years after he left office. Yeah, he probably did toward the end of his life. No, no, you're right. I'm saying you're right. I was wrong. He actually didn't come down with it until five years later.

Well, he might have toward the end of his... He was forgetful. Alzheimer's takes a long time. There's, you know, long before you're diagnosed, you're showing there, you know, light, milder signs. He might have had some cognitive impairment toward the end of his second term. It's certainly possible. Noam, could we discuss briefly the chef situation now? Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Two more things about this than the chef situation. First of all, I think it remains to be seen. Like Trump has obviously flubbed a lot of the coronavirus stuff so far. It was not clear is that really anything would have been any different if he hadn't flubbed it. But come election time, I mean, if Trump was clearly not up to the job, then I think that's going to hurt him a lot. And B, I just wanted to say that I remember hearing a story about Ronald Reagan when he was senile, was out in his backyard. He used to go and rake the leaves all the time. And it just occurred to me, I remember when I read that, like, I won't fucking rake the leaves now. I'm so lazy. Like even senile, this guy is doing chores and stuff like that. I think that's just a very deep aspect of a person's character. Okay, go ahead.

The chef situation. What do you want to know? Can I tell you one more story? Because you're talking about Reagan's story. He's walking. A Russian grandfather is with his grandson in a park in Holmby Hills in L.A. And the Secret Service guy, and he only had one. Reagan only had one near the end. They go for a walk in the park in Holmby Hills in LA. And the Secret Service guy, and he only had one, Reagan only had one near the end,

would just kind of walk, you know, they'd go for a walk in the park every day. And Reagan's just sitting there, you know, he's completely out of it at this point. And the old Russian guy tells his grandson, you walk up to that man and you thank him. He's why I'm here. He brought freedom to me and my country.

And so the little kid walks over to Reagan and says, I just want to tell you, my grandpa says thank you for, you brought him freedom and you did great stuff and stuff. And Reagan said, I had obviously no idea what he was saying. He said, well, thank you. That's very nice of you. Tell your grandfather I said, thank you. And then that was it. And it was like, it was an incredible weird story. And the Secret Service agents always told these stories to the press. But, you know, amazing. People really, people had a lot of unfinished business with Reagan. Yeah. I mean, I would like to say that with all due respect, he was, you know, sort of

single-handedly responsible for hundreds of thousands of gay men dying of AIDS. How did he do that? What was he at the bathhouse saying? Well, shut up, you. Was he doing, was he saying, no, how? He did nothing. I mean, there were 10. He either did the gay community in San Francisco.

What's that? If you're going to blame Reagan, you've got to blame everybody. You've got to blame the gay community in San Francisco, which beat up Randy Schiltz, who wrote the book and the band played on and spit on him. And he would try to get the bathhouses closed, and they said, no, you can't. That's fine. I mean, people have been behaving against their best interests since the beginning of time. So it was up to Ronald Reagan to tell the gay community in San Francisco, hey, you shouldn't. No, I think that it was up to Ronald Reagan, who's the president of the United States,

to make some very serious medical care available instead of not even uttering the word. What does it matter? What could he have done? I think it matters a lot. No, I really feel like this isn't true. This is one of these canards that people do because they don't want to take responsibility for the fact. First of all, they didn't know what it was. I know that. I read and the band played on. And the band played on. It's extremely critical, not of Ronald Reagan and not of the Reagan administration.

But especially of the community that knew there was an infectious disease going through. But they didn't know what it was and they didn't know how to deal with it. They knew exactly how to deal with it. You close the bathhouses. Well, that was one thing. And one thing, that was the most didn't know how to deal with it. They knew exactly how to deal with it. You close the bathhouses. Well, that was one thing. One thing. That was the most important thing and they refused to do it. So you say that that's, oh, yeah, I understand why they didn't do that.

Somehow Ronald Reagan is supposed to sit in the Oval Office while he's fighting the Cold War with a crystal ball. Say, oh, there's a virus here. We've got to kill it this way. Give me a break. No, I'm not saying that they shouldn't have closed the bathhouses. No, no. You said he was responsible for 100,000. That is completely wrong.

It's not. That's totally wrong. That if he's responsible for it, no. You said he was responsible for 100,000. I said he is. That is completely wrong. It's not. That's totally wrong. If he's responsible for it, then everyone in that community is responsible for it, too. Well, I don't think those are mutually exclusive points. Rob, Perrielle often speaks. Perrielle. Perrielle. I'm just curious.

We keep Perrielle on the show because she really pitches fastballs right over the plate. Right. And from time to time, we need to score runs but i'm just curious i don't know the story about reagan but uh who is more who is more directly responsible reagan for the deaths of x number of um people with aids i don't know if it's hundreds of thousands it is and maybe it was uh or um no i mean i don't think you you wouldn't extend the reagan's blame forever to every single person who ever gets AIDS. I don't know what within his within the time that his impact was felt. But Ronald Reagan and AIDS or Obama and five hundred thousand dead Syrians.

You get so mad at me when I do things like that, when you're trying to argue about something and I change the subject. Like I don't I don't like There's some really direct connections to big numbers of deaths that don't really seem to get your... I'm not a fan of the Syrian deaths either, but we weren't talking about that. Alright, fair enough. Fair enough. I would like to move the conversation along.

Yes, let me guess. As a general matter, I don't mind when Periel contributes, but I don't like when she kind of takes the conversation off into a completely different direction. But in any case, that's just food for thought. Speaking of food, you talk about a transition.

Now, Rob, I want to just set the table, if you will, a food analogy. Here at the Comedy Cellar, we have a restaurant upstairs from the club, and Noam wanted to bring in a new chef, really take things up to another level. He hired this chef after testing several chefs, and I loved him. I mean, you know, he had different specials.

We'd have a variety of foods that we hadn't had before, and he made a wonderful fried chicken. I thought his pappardelle was great, even though Liz didn't like it. But Lynn Cobbison, I thought it was terrific. Anyway, he's been fired. So now we're back to the old menu. No, no, it wasn't fired. It just didn't work out between us.

He wasn't fired. Okay, but he wasn't, well, how do you, what is it when a guy works for a place and then the next day he's not there anymore and he didn't quit? I mean, listen, i like the guy and i don't want to say anything uh that's gonna make it look like um there's anything bad about his cooking or the way he acted whatever it is i don't want to harm his career in any way you know

not sometimes sometimes it just doesn't work out between um talented people or whatever it is or or good people with good intentions um so where are we now in terms of of of because the comics here have you know i gary i don't want to speak for for you but let's face it we want some new stuff on that menu well a little bit of a meeting with a consultant i do i do want to um get on the menu but you know as i told you it's it's um I'm so bogged down with my family and my kids and whatever it is, and the amount of time that it takes to really throw yourself into a restaurant,

it's not the best use of my time. So we are trying to do what Liz is on it. The food in the Albatross is quite good as it is, but we're not serving meals heard around the world. I would like to, I'd like to be more like a Blue Ribbon, that kind of restaurant. With regard to you being too busy to handle the situation, and I hear you and I certainly am not unsympathetic, but I did have a suggestion. I think I texted, you thought I was joking. I said, put Aruba Ray in charge. But I did have a suggestion. I think I texted you. You thought I was joking. I said, put Aruba Ray in charge.

Aruba Ray knows two things. He knows banging NYU chicks and food. And the latter could be of use to you. Ray knows food. The former could be of use to me, too. I'm not out of the game. But Ray, he knows food. I'm out of the game. I'm out of the game. But Ray, he knows food. I'm out of the game. I'm out of the game. Go ahead.

You know, and he also knows some chefs, by the way, down in Aruba that he says might be willing to come here. But I don't know. That's a whole other issue. Okay, Dan, if I'm not already the object of ridicule uh above my of my what i deserve if i put a ruba ray ellen in charge of the olive tree kitchen i could not be able to show my head again do you know the abuse i would get he definitely have to do it anonymously it would have to be uh but gary what did you think of the chef's specials it was good i mean i had the uh it was the chicken sandwich that i had that was good and then and then he also had the the list of the specials i never had any of the specials i stuck with the the chicken sandwich which i thought was very good it was a nice change i like the idea of like the blue ribbon because it's like i mean if that's where you see you know the like what you

want to change like i don't know what you want to get get off of the menu obviously there's been like staples on the menu but there's a lot of things that you know you don't know what you want to get off of the menu. Obviously, there's been staples on the menu, but there's a lot of things that you don't get. I feel like if you had it, you don't get it. Or there are a lot of things outside of the salad. The lentil soup, I know Estee loves it. I'm going to tell you what the problem with chefs are. I'm going to tell you exactly what it is. They think that they're artists.

If you go out to hear music, you go out to hear music you really you don't want to go hear some dumb original band that's that's you know like that's gonna that's creative most likely you'll enjoy a really good cover band better than anything that's right because you want and these chefs it's not enough for them to make delicious fried chicken the way it's been made and you know they're doing new material on your Friday night. They think they're hacks so what they subject you to and I mean this guy I mean in general they subject you to is their twist on this and their twist on that and and and nobody likes that from time to time yeah you might see you two at the bitter end is it oh my god but

but you know most 99.99 of the chefs are just one of these original bands that's never going to become famous that's how i see it but they see themselves as artists and i'm looking for a great cover band there's so many great restaurants in new york find one go to the kitchen and say how much they paying you here yeah yeah it's a good idea you know i mean that seems like it seems like the the um the way to go uh robert if you have any opinions you you'll you'll have our food here and you'll you'll decide i could just hear all of america more olive restaurant chef conversation well look america's top chef is a big show no sorry noam is howling because he tends to disparage disparage my choice of topics but i

this is a good one this is a top chef is what the big one of the biggest shows on tv now involve chefs are you kidding me all right well top five what are the five items on a menu go around the table or three items that you are most likely to be happy to see on the menu and most likely to order. What are they? Gary, we'll start with you. I like a chicken sandwich, pizza, and then you have a great salad, like a skirt steak salad. A skirt steak salad.

Yeah, so you mix it up. You got a little bit of some sort of healthy, and then you got your essentials, your pizza, your personal pan pizza maybe that you could share, and also like a chicken sandwich. Rob, that's a good answer. Rob, we have a masculine man's opinion on this. Yeah, well, that wouldn't be me, but I would not go with a pizza because you should get that at a pizza place. If I saw pizza on a menu downstairs, I'd be like, I don't want the pizza. A nice Napoleon?

Like you'd want a really good beef something, a really good burger, which is not that hard to make, and you just got to be strict about it. Well, we do have that. You want to have a steak, and you want to have a roast chicken, and then a piece of fish of some kind, and then like two pastas. The smaller the menu, the better, and then salads. You get good salads, and then the apps you can make to share. That's kind of all you need.

Pasta how? What style of pasta? Oh, I think you want anything twirly pasta, like linguine or spaghetti. With vegetables with what? Well, you could do both, but I wouldn't do both. I would just do one cheesy, tomato-y cheesy. One like cacio e pepe and one like spaghetti with tomato sauce. With like a tomato sauce.

Solid. In the spring and summer, it could be a la caca, which is just like tomatoes. And every other time, you can make a pot of bolognese and keep reheating it. That's great. I'd like to see a rigatoni, maybe a rigatoni a la vodka, a rigatoni a pomodoro. Or a baked rigatoni. A rigatoni a la Ray Allen. A fish that is not salmon.

More soup. The lentil soup. I'm sorry. It's just, it's not what it should be. French onion? They don't have French onion. Maybe a French onion. A good French onion.

Maybe. And I think, importantly, specials. I think that's, we want variety. Can I say something about politics? Yeah. Okay, Go ahead. One of the things that I really enjoyed about all this was seeing the viciousness of the way everybody attacked Joe Biden and the way they called him a racist and everything else under the sun. And then the way

they all rallied to endorse him as if they never said such things. And what that made me – what I thought that was a really good illustration of is what politics really is. And that unfairness with which – or the insincerity, I guess, with which the Democrats were attacking Joe Biden is the insincerity and unfairness which the two parties criticize each other with 100% of the time to the point where you just can't believe anything you hear at all. I mean, the people that I've been arguing about, this Chuck Schumer thing, and who are dismissing it and minimizing it where he's threatened the Supreme Court, or he didn't really threaten, whatever it is, when he said that about Supreme Court justices, like if Mitch McConnell had said that, they would be on fire. And these are smart – I'm talking about smart people, national intellectuals who have no – seem to have no sense of fair – or impaired sense of fair mindedness.

And I think that's a growing, growing problem. There's fewer and fewer people out there who are kind of trying to be fair all the time. I don't know. That's my presentation. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Wake up, everybody. Yeah.

Well, you know, Perry, she said she had a bone to pick with me about Harvey Weinstein. I don't know if you want to get to that or continue along. Oh, you just told me that you don't want me to talk anymore. So now you want me to have a bone to pick with you. Well, I didn't say that. Well, if you have a legitimate bone to pick with me, that I want to hear. I do have a legitimate bone to pick with you, but it also requires me speaking.

Okay, let's do this and let's hear some stories about Cheers and then we're going to wrap We also got to talk about... Let's have Gary talk about his album. No, no, no. I want to hit the bone. Harvey Weinstein or my album? Harvey Weinstein. Hold on.

Weinstein, the album, and Cheers. Okay, fine. We'll do it quickly. Dan gave me a really hard time last week. I don't know if you listened to the episode because I said that, you know, I was glad that he was found guilty and that I thought he deserved whatever he got. And you went on this like rampage about like, how dare I presume that I didn't believe in like the American justice system. I don't think I was being accusing you. I was basically saying by saying that I'm glad that he was found guilty.

There's a presumption that he was guilty. Correct. You should be glad that he was found guilty if he was guilty. But isn't finding him guilty so he was found guilty? But what if he was found not guilty? Then how would you have felt? That it was a miscarriage of justice. And you would have known that because? I mean, based on the evidence that I'd been presented and having a brain in my head, despite what the two of you might think about me. My point was, would it have crossed your mind, had he been found not guilty, would you have said to yourself, and this was really my only point, Hmm, interesting.

It seemed like he was guilty, but then again, I wasn't in the courtroom. So maybe there's some stuff I didn't see. I didn't hear the cross-examination. I agree with Pariel. Oh, wow. This is an epic moment. Nice. Oh, wait. Did I say epic moment. Nice. Oh, wait.

Did I say Perrielle? I meant Dan. I agree with Perrielle because, you know, at some point, although, you know, nobody takes these presumptions of innocence more seriously than I do. At some point, when there's so much evidence in the public sphere, we don't really need a trial to be sure that Hitler did it. And the evidence with Weinstein is pretty overwhelming. And if he were to have been found not guilty, I think what that would mean was that the stories were too old, the number of witnesses, statutes of limitations, all sorts of procedural and time-sensitive issues might have precluded the ability to convict him, and that would be a disappointment.

I don't think anybody, anybody seriously thinks that this guy was not a monster. Now, whether the specifics, I don't know of any particular crime, and I'm sure that some of them are exaggerated and some of them he might not have done. It's very difficult to believe that this is all just one big conspiracy to get Harvey Weinstein. That's just a tough one to believe. That's what I think. Thank you, Noam. You're welcome. Well, he got 23 years. What do you think of that you, Noam. You're welcome. That was... Well, he got 23 years. What do you think

of that sentence, Noam? When it comes to the length of the sentence, I would want to be in the courtroom. You're right. And the length of the sentence is actually quite significant. Yes, it is. I mean, it's a very harsh sentence, given what other people who have been accused or found guilty of the same things have been sentenced to, which he was complaining about, apparently. Yeah. And I might agree with him on that. I don't like these extreme sentences, which clearly just reflect a political or a, you know, he sent the mob. Similarly with Roger Stone. I mean, it was crazy that they wanted to put him in jail for Roger Stone. I mean, um, it was crazy that they wanted to put him in

jail for nine years. I mean, I don't know what, what choice Barr had to just to look the other way and let this guy, you know, be punished the way nobody else in his, in that guy's situation would ever be punished. I know it looked bad, but it's not like he, it was, it was telling that all the people who are outraged by Barr's reaction, not one of them defended the idea of nine years in prison. And we know Randy Crudicle, right? He's been on our show, and he didn't think this was anything serious. So, yeah. Now, he sends it 23 years.

Does that mean 10 with good behavior? I think it's five. I mean, for Weinstein, it's five, I think. Five? He'll get five with good behavior? I think it's five is the mean, for Weinstein, it's five, I think. He'll get five. I think it's five is the minimum. Five is the minimum. I mean, he's certainly not very likely that he would be able to make 23 years.

He'll be 91. Yeah, I don't know that Weinstein is going to make it to 91. How old is he now? I don't know, 91 minus 23? Yeah, and he clearly takes care of himself. But you don't know. 91 minus 23. And he clearly takes care of himself. But you don't know how old he is. I think he's 68. I can tell you how old he is.

Harvey Weinstein is born 1952, so I guess he's 68. He's going to turn 68 in March. Yeah, I was right. March 19th. Oh, March 19th is his birthday. His birthday is during Women's History Month, which I guess is some minor irony, perhaps. Okay, Gary's album.

Oh, yeah. What is there to say about Gary's album? He has an album. Yep. And it's available wherever albums are sold or streamed. iTunes, Spotify, all that stuff.'s that he taped it all of it at Comedy Cellar we have a comedy so it Rob Comedy Cellar is in Las Vegas as well Wow. Yeah

Be your Las Vegas I saw this the other day though. I saw a blind man and his seeing-eye dog walked directly into a wall I Saw that They did not see it. And right after the guy yelled at him, yelled, you didn't do your job. You didn't do your job. And the dog was just looking up like, I don't even know how I got this job. I definitely don't want to work here anymore. Consider this my two weeks. I said that joke at a show once. In the audience was a blind man

and his seeing eye dog. Yeah. Right after I said it, he stands up, yells out, not funny. And he walked out of the room, but his dog stayed. Now, I was just there, by the way, in Vegas. Are you happy with how Vegas is going? Yeah, I am happy with it um you know like like like

everything else i'm worried about what the virus may bring but um yeah vegas is doing all right well i was there and as we discussed last week the crowds were it wasn't sold out every night it was one or two sold out shows but the crowds were good and numerous, and the quality of the crowds were good as well. Crowds are good. Where is it? It's at the Rio Hotel. And also, it's like the only show in Vegas, like comedy show in Vegas, where it's a showcase

show. So you're actually getting what the experience is in New York there in Vegas. Also, and we've made this point before, if you look at the other clubs in Las Vegas, they have one headliner. He does 45 minutes, whatever he does, and you have a couple of openers whereas we have variety and i'm look i'm not going to mention names i look at these you like variety of variety on the menu i like variety especially but also what are the chances that the one person you're an average comedy club go oh yeah that they like that they're going to like that person for 45 minutes

it's not going to happen and i've seen some of the people that they're headlining at these other clubs will not mention names but i cannot imagine 45 minutes of some of these totally um we take vegas very very seriously like like we've always taken everything in our family back you know since the my father started in the 60s in terms of trying to do everything right. Just, you know, like just trying to do it right. It sounds such a cliche, but I speak to a lot of business people and that's not their attitude. And we just kind of didn't spare any expense. And we just decided we're going to send the comedians out there who would make the show good. And if that doesn't work, we'll close. No, there are comedians. We're not going to cut back. We're not are comedians. We're not going to cut back.

We're not going to compromise. We're not going to tarnish our reputation. We're going to give an A show. And if it works, it works. If it doesn't, we'll take the loss. No, and there are comedians. But the thing is, it almost works. There are comedians, very good comedians, that I have not seen on the schedule in Las Vegas.

And I'm wondering if there are certain comedians that just won't go out there for the money. For the chicken feed we're paying? I don't know the answer to that. I'm sure there's some people who don't want to travel to Vegas, but I haven't heard that. Like, say, David Tell, for example, who's one of our bigger names here at the Comedy Cellar. Obviously, he lives nearby.

He'll come to the Comedy Cellar for a relatively small amount of money, but he would not go to Vegas, I guess. Well, he has gone to Vegas. He's done some headlines. And he's planning to do some, like, Atel and Friends shows out there. But, of course, David Atel is not to be compared with the average working comic. Atel is a celebrity.

Well, I would say I would not be insulted. I personally would not be insulted if you paid certain comics more money to go out there. I know a lot of comics have issues with, well, what is he getting paid? Or what is he getting paid? I personally would not be insulted if you decided to say, hey, Attell, we'd like to have a special. We'll give you $10,000 and we can go out there Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah, I would do that. I don't feel that I can't do such things.

I just don't know that that's – I'm always reluctant to ask people to do things because I know they don't like to say no. So I don't want to ask Dave to do things. And then, I don't know. It seems to be going fine. People are stopping in. There's a lot of political considerations.

Well, you could actually ask Dave through somebody else and put out feelers if you want to do that. You might not feel that that's worth the money. But I just think— It's that that's worth the money. Um, but I just think it's not a matter of the money. It's a matter of, I, I, I think that if Dave wanted to do it,

he has expressed an interest to go out there with his friends. I don't, the extra money that we could offer and would happily offer. Um, I don't think is going to make it or break it for Dave, a tell in terms of whether he wants to go out to Vegas. I don't know.

What about a Jim Norton? I think Norton is too big. Norton's filling huge rooms and stuff. I don't think Norton would go out to Vegas for a week. I don't think he would. Well, not a week, but you could give him like a weekend and pay him a premium. But I just float that out there. I know you want to get to –

I want to hear about Cheers. Wait. Rob Long has a question. Before we go, what's on the menu in Vegas? Maybe that's the solution. The menu in Vegas is handled by the Rio Hotel. Oh, there you go. So it is not –

It's banquet food. Well, they have a Cluck U, which is their flatbread with pizza. Yeah. The Mother Flucker. What's it called? Mother Clucker or something? I don't know. They have funny names.

That's a cute name. That's a cute name. The food and drink and all that stuff in Vegas is handled by Caesars Entertainment. We don't get any money from it, and we don't have any say in it. But I do applaud you, Rob, on your interest in all things culinary. Well, I just assumed. This is my only time I've been on a podcast. I assume that's one of the things you guys talk about.

As you know, as I've said, Anthony Bourdain, if memory serves, had a very, very big show based on food. So I don't know that it's completely uninteresting to people. And I think people like to hear my complaining as a general matter. Cheers, of course, for our younger listeners. Was an iconic show. One of the.

From 1982 to 1993. Thursday nights. And Thursday night was fun anyway because it was Friday. So I don't care what they were. I mean, they could have been playing Small Wonder on Thursday night. I'd be in a good mood. But you add to that one of the best shows of all time, and you know that I was there every 9 p.m., every Thursday, some of the happiest moments of my life watching that show.

Wow. What else were you doing at the time? Well, I was in school, so what else would I be doing? I was in ninth grade, and Friday was coming, and Cheers was on TV, and all my friends, Norm and Cliff and Coach in the early years, et cetera. So very, very fond memories. Rob, you were a writer in the later years. Later years, yeah.

Because it started when I was in high school. Yeah, we were not that different in age. It started when I was 16, and then I joined when I was 24 in the eighth season. How'd you get a job that good a job? You must have gone to Harvard. No, no. That's the only explanation. No, I went to Yale.

But no. There you go. The TV in that time was kind of a closed shop, but they always needed material. So nobody really knew how to do it. Now everybody kind of knows. You go to any college campus now and everyone's writing a spec, right? Everyone's like, I really want to – I'm doing a show for Hulu. Everybody.

But back then in 1980, when I moved to L.A. to go to film school in 88, nobody knew how to do it. So if you just figured out what the golden in 88, nobody knew how to do it. So if you just figured out what the golden key was, the business was ready for you. They were like, yeah, we need young people. What's the golden key? Or why is the golden key? You just had to have a good spec script of something that was on. And then you had to present yourself in the right way to the people who were hiring at that show. So you looked like somebody they'd want to spend all day with.

So you're in a living room all day with these people, and if you seem like you're sort of agreeable and you get somewhat appropriate hygiene and you weren't talking too much, they'd take a shot. So how did you know what the golden key was? Oh, I had an agent. So I wrote a bunch of spec scripts,

and I got an agent, and she just said, go in there, wear clean clothes, don't say anything, don't try to be funny, just listen, and if they ask you a question, answer it. Did you have family and show business? No. So how did you get where you're from? I went to New England.

I went to UCLA film school after college, and I was writing feature films because that's what you did. It's an unbelievable story that that's the advice that your agent gave you. Can you imagine somebody saying that these days? No, I can imagine feature films because that's what you did. It's an unbelievable story that that's the advice that your agent gave you. Can you imagine somebody saying that these days? No, I can imagine your agent saying that. It wouldn't be true now. I wouldn't give anybody that advice now. But back then it was like, yeah, you just like – you have to – I mean it was a machine.

Like they had to turn it with 26 episodes a year. So you had to like – it was – you had to be able to row. And if you couldn't, you just weren't useful. It just was like, wait, we're too busy. Do you have... Now, how does it work? Because you see at the end of the sitcom, you'll see written by,

and there'll be one name, maybe two. Yeah. But there's obviously a whole staff of writers, so whose name goes on the episode? Usually the person who wrote the first draft gets that, and you get the... And I've seen people get Emmys for scripts that they didn for scripts that by the time it was on the air, not one word.

And I've also seen people not get Emmys for stuff that they wrote that was brilliant, that somebody else got the Emmy for. So it kind of like it evens itself out. It's really more of an accounting thing. Like if you write the script, you're the named writer or you're one of the named writers. That's when you get the residuals. And now it's on Netflix, so you're getting money from that, I gather. Yeah, I haven't actually gotten anything yet.

It's like one cent. What is an episode that you remember that you had a did, we did one where Frasier reads A Tale of Two Cities to the guys because he can't believe they didn't know the story, but they get bored, so he just spices it up with a lot of weird violence and an evil clown, a psychopathic clown, and then they love it, and they become real Dickens fans, so then he has to keep spicing everything up.

I like the idea i didn't yeah it was called the episode well i thought we did a lot of them you know what i you know what episode i remember from that era yeah i don't know if you were there yet no i guess yeah you were there starting in 90 there was an episode where this old guy is like um is like hitting on this like young like um uh chambermaid and and she's saying and he's like he's like a psychologist i think he's a friend of frazier's and he's like a psychologist. I think he's a friend of Frazier's. And he's trying to convince her that she's interested in him.

Oh, I think it must have been before my time. It might have been before your time. But we got away with a lot of stuff. There's a lot of jokes that we made that you could never, ever make. Ever. There was an episode with Shelley Long where there was a gay guy that came into the bar. And the guys are upset about it. They're upset about it. Shelly Long, where there was a gay guy that came into the bar, and... Yeah, and the guys are upset about it.

They're upset about it, and she's like saying, no, we're calling them bigoted assholes, basically. I thought that was sort of ahead of its time. Yeah, but you still couldn't do that, because you could never find people who wanted to play the characters who were bigoted. No actors want to play that. They always want to play,

how about if I'm the one who chose the way? We didn't. They did another one, Sam and Diane stuff, and I think it's still on, where they slap each other. And it's hilarious. It's great.

But now you think, oh my God. So you can't do that. They'd be all arrested and carried out, and you put the, taking them to re-education camps. It's God. You can't do that. They'd be all arrested and carried out. And you put – taking them to reeducation camps. It's crazy. You can't do that now, but you could show it in reruns.

You could show it in reruns. But I think – it's only a matter of time before you can't show it in reruns, I'm pretty sure. I mean, there are episodes of Lucy. I love Lucy. He spanks her at the end. Or just Seinfeld stuff that they're saying. Wow, that was pretty out there. You can't even put it in the mouth of a guy like an archie bunker anymore like you know you can't you can't get one degree of

separation say no he's a racist no you can't even do that anymore well the problem the archie bunker problem is really huge if you know if you're really old you remember that show because the he was the hero of the show and everybody that nobody expected it who put that show together they thought he'd be the butt of the joke but it turns out he was the hero of the show, and nobody expected it, who put that show together. They thought he'd be the butt of the joke, but it turns out he was the hero. Because they're all incredibly progressive, the people who put it together, and it never occurred to them that America would actually find, they would admire the Korean War vet who has taken hold. I think he was.

Maybe, I think he's Korean. But he holds down two jobs because his, and his daughter. So he and his daughter work because his idiot son-in-law is some idiotic graduate student who doesn't have a job. And they just thought, oh, well, America will love the idiotic son-in-law because he doesn't have a job, but he thinks the right thing. And in fact, America said, no, no, actually, we like the old guy because he's going to a freaking job every day too.

He worked at the docks and he drove a taxi. He's the breadwinner. So if you don't like it, get a job. I remember as a kid thinking kind of siding with Archie. As regards to why is this guy busting Archie's balls? He lives in Archie's house.

How about a thank you? How about the line where Edith says, Archie, what's a homo sapien? He says, geez, Edith says Archie what's a homo sapien and he's like jeez Edith it's a killer f*** right I also never understood Mike's you can't say that anymore

I also was never in love with Gloria as a sexual object but I don't know that's probably politically incorrect to say I was more of a bionic woman. Oh, sure. Fan. By the way, am I allowed to repeat the joke now?

I'm not endorsing the use of the F word. I'm going to beep that out, honey. And us laughing. This is a crazy time. No, it's fine. This was an episode I thought jam-packed. We got to the coronavirus. We got to this food situation.

We got, we got Noam to agree with Perry L. Gary's album. Gary's album. View Las Vegas. So much jam-packed into this episode. I'm just disappointed. I've been reading Rob Long for a long time. Not recently, but years

ago when you were in National Review. I always wanted to meet him. I think I saw you somewhere once. Did you appear with Jonah Goldberg one time? Maybe it was on a cruise ship. I also live around the corner, so you probably see me walking by.

Checking out the menu. No, I live here now lived in L.A. Checking out the menu. No, I live here now. I moved in May. Oh, I didn't know that. Checking out the menu and thinking maybe. I don't know. Dude, now Periel's in trouble because I wanted to cancel today because of the coronavirus and all that.

And I wanted to meet you. And I was like, no, no. We can't cancel. He's coming all the way from California just to do this podcast. Oh, yeah. Sorry. He's coming all the way from California to do our stupid podcast, our radio show. So I immediately, I pulled out all the stops.

We got an engineer, we got Skype, and we advanced technologically all to accommodate you, and you live around the corner. But having said that, I'm very happy we did because it was terrific. Well, I know him. The fact that he lives around the corner might mean you could entice him to come here just for sparkling conversation. because it was a well know him that he the fact that he lives around the corner might

mean you could entice him to come here just for conversation sparkling conversation I would love and roast chicken which we do have

oh there you go in fact all the items you mentioned we have good burgers good steak what's all the complaining about tell us where to

find him on social media well we're about to get out of here go ahead Gary oh yeah I'm on at GaryVeeter.com and, or not at GaryVeeter. Yeah, at GaryVeeter.com.

Now, if you like Clever. No, just at GaryVeeter. Yeah, at GaryVeeter. If you like Clever, if you like a thinking man's comic, then GaryVeeter is for you. Ah, thanks, Stan. Veeder Las Vegas. Veeder Las Vegas Vita Las Vegas filmed

taped I gotta do a new tape mine's very old I need to do a new album yeah recorded live at the Cellar in Vegas and also I have clips

that I post on Instagram from those shows they're brilliant and a soon to be father soon to be father yeah June June 6th is the due date

yeah we were gonna get divorced we got back together and now date. Yeah, we were going to get divorced. We got back together. And now there's a baby, and then we'll get divorced after that. Look, I advised him not to go to couples therapy, and he didn't take my advice. I said that if you go to couples therapy, whatever you do, don't tell the truth, because you can't ever undo that stuff. How solid do you feel this marriage is now going into it's the next phase which is being parents pretty good we're not right where the couple's counseling really helped so we weren't you know we slowed down on fighting everything's like talked out way better we're communicating way better so yeah going in can i get the name of that therapist yeah sure yeah if you if you, if you would, if you would, if you would, um, you know, uh,

all the changes of behavior patterns between you and your wife, what percentage has she changed in order to stop the fighting? What percentage did you need to change to stop the fighting? Uh, I think she changed 100% and then mine was, I've stayed the same. There's really nothing. That's how it feels. I just had to play different mind games to get to that 100% for her. But yeah, we got there. I love Josh Peter. He's a beautiful man.

I guess that's it. No, unless we have other business to get to, should we sign off? Sign off. Let Rob get Rob a burger and some comedy. Rob, you have You Can Eat For Free Tonight. My guess is Noam would prompt you as a general matter, but I don't have the authority

to say that. No, no. I understand. Rob, do you ever read Coleman Hughes? He's really a young man who writes for Quillette. Oh, yeah, that's right. Quillette's great. Yeah, I do read him. Well, he comes here for burgers.

Coleman is a good friend of ours. He comes down to the office all the time. He also plays trombone. We play together. But you would probably really enjoy meeting him. Well, thank you. He's around all the time. I look forward to it.

I do. Well, as you know, I live around the corner. Look for Rob Long's byline at the National Review and Martini Shot on National Public Radio. That's me. You can reach... Podcast at

ComedySeller.com. Podcast at ComedySeller.com for questions and comments and menu recommendations. Of course, Periel has two books. I don't trust any bush that isn't mine. The only bush I trust is my own. And get on your knees. On my knees.

Let's do it. No, it's unbelievable every time. And you can follow us at livefromthetable on Instagram. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Wash your hands.