The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Chris Turner and Valerie Scott

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

Chris Turner and Valerie Scott

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar on SiriusXM, Raw Dog 99, and we're coming at you from lockdown. This is Dan Natterman. Noam is here. Noam has decided that I should be doing the intros whilst on lockdown.

I don't know why, but that's the way it's going to be. Noam, how do you do? I'm good, Dan. And Perrielle, of course, is here. Perrielle, our producer, Ashen Brand. And we have with us Chris Turner. Chris Turner is a name, if you're not familiar with him, get to know him. He's a

British comedian and freestyle rapper based in Los Angeles. Has won multiple awards during 10 years of sellout shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And I should mention, it doesn't say this in the bio that Periel sent me, he does remind me a little bit of John Mulaney, which I think is a good thing. That's very polite.

He looked a bit like Mulaney. Oh, thank you. I mean, your voice sounded a bit Mulaney-ish there. Well, they say that, yes. I've been told that. But you look like Mulaney, and you have the youthful Mulaney look, and that's a good thing because... What a lovely... ...they just embraced him.

They might do likewise with you. There was a moment in time when mulaney first came around it was like oh he's like a young natterman he reminds everybody of natterman and then it began to shift it had some it's some horrible day couldn't quite pinpoint it all of a sudden natter remind natterman reminded everybody of mulaney well under his feet vocally perhaps but mulaney and I don't look anything alike I don't know that our comedy is altogether similar but we have a similar

vocal style I suppose I have a friend who resents the fact that whenever he wears a suit on stage people are like oh you're trying to be John Mulaney and he's like what you mean wear a suit like all the comedians that wear suits done well locking down that brand

you're trying to be like Benny Hill with that accent that wear suits. You've done well locking down that brand. You're trying to be like Benny Hill. With that accent. Regularly chase women around trees. Chris Turner, I don't think we've ever met. I know you've been to the Comedy Cellar. You've never met him? I don't believe I have, no. I don't think we've been on a bill.

Maybe I've met him and I thought it was Mulaney. No, I don't believe we have, Dan. It's Maybe I've met him and I thought it was Mulaney. No, I don't believe we have done. It's a pleasure to meet you. I have seen your work and I must say I was quite impressed that I'm not an easy person to impress. Thank you. Mired as I am in my own bitterness. Your comedy is not traditional stand-up.

You do freestyle rap. I don't know if you also do traditional stand-up. I do traditional stand-up. You do freestyle rap. I don't know if you also do traditional stand-up. I do traditional stand-up as well. So, but my, yeah, I'm not the best stand-up comedian. So I aim to be the best stand-up comedian who also freestyles. Make that really like specific niche and then dominate it.

That's my- I think that we had James Altucher on the show a couple of weeks ago and he said, well, you know, if you can combine two things, you create your own niche, and that way you can move quicker. That was his. Did I come into that conversation? Because we had a two-and-a-half-hour conversation about that on his show,

and that was where I kind of realized he painted it in a clearer way, but I hadn't realized that's what I've been doing. He's like, oh, you're just, you know, making it so you're the best freestyling comedian. I was like, oh, I guess that's what I have done. So yeah, he's a very clever boy. Well, I tried to do that just very briefly. I, you know, I did comedy in French.

I had done comedy in French and I figured, well, if I can't be the most well-known or the best comedian in America perhaps I can be the best comedian that speaks French that's American but whatever but but but I stopped doing it because the anxiety level was off the charts when I perform in French because my French is is good but not anywhere near native level anyway I had this I had a similar notion in mind that if i combine two things that i know how to do then it could be all that much more beneficial but

in your case i think it's working uh better um i i now just just let let the people know who don't know you exactly what it is you do you i mean i could explain it but you might know it's i'll give them a pressy i a freestyle rap is a rap that is made up on the spot that's the definition i use right it's off the dome it's improvised so i take in my live shows um suggestions from the audience this is the most basic format uh and i'll be like hey what do you guys want to hear a rap about and i'll usually push them to come up with some good suggestions, not just like, oh, rap about hot dogs and wolves. I'll get, you know, I'm like, hey, you know, aim big,

like suggest about the double slit experiment or Afghani irrigation ditches. And people come through with suggestions and they'll be like, cool, rap about a day in the life of an Aztec high priest. And I take a bunch of these suggestions and then I go, okay, cool, let's do this. We drop a beat and I rap about them all for like three or four minutes. And the initial shock of, oh, actually he's not bad at this,

then hopefully gives way to, wow, he's genuinely quite good at this. And by the end of it, they're super impressed. Can we play a little bit of one? I'm on your website. What's a good video of yours on the website? Oh, a good video. I mean, I can find one, a recent one that's going to be.

You know how to share the screen and everything on yours with the sound? I can definitely do that. Yeah, let me find one that I was really proud of recently. Maybe if you could introduce the topics that we're giving you to make it a little quicker and then get into the rap. Good idea. It's one of my favorite ones from recently. So let me just bring it up.

It's amazing you can do that because in most of my Zoom meetings, everybody looks at me like I'm like a like a witch doctor or something when i'm when i share a video with sound like how did you do that people have um oh actually i may not have that setting allowed on my zoom let me just check oh i might have to make you a co-host no no probably don't i'll just share the link to let me find the time that it starts and then i'll share the link although tell me if you can hear this you'll be able to hear the sound coming through in a second if i get this going uh let's have a look can you hear okay that's not gonna work now um i'll share this is the link let me share it at the time that the rap starts okay share it to perry l's email

yeah i'll send that you know how to do itiel? Yeah, but I'd rather you do it. Send it to me real quick. Okay, cool. I'm just bringing up the... So just to recap, what they do is the audience shouts out outrageous topics, not just like airplanes,

not simple topics. They do outrageous topics like the treaty in Paris or, you know, you know, collectivization in Bolshevik Russia. I mean, just crazy shit. Paris or you know, you know Let collectivization in in Bolshevik Russia, I mean just crazy shen should come to my shows that there's a be amazing Um, yeah, if I've shared that link there, I got it cool And then he makes freestyle raps about all the different topics. So there'll be four or five topics or so

Yeah, usually get what's impressive is just remembering the topics in and of itself in and of itself i find impressive because these are wildly complicated and most people could not just memorize the topics that were suggested to you most people could not memorize those topics believe me i've worked with comedians preparing lines for auditions they can't memorize anything all right so set So set up this clip. Okay, so this clip, it's from a live show in LA, and the audience asked me to rap about hot boxing, high tea, which is a British tradition,

urinary tract infections, Martians and their antennae, and Rose the Rottweiler being left at home. That was the name for dog of someone in the crowd. They were upset that the show was running long when they had a dog to get home to. Noam, you couldn't even name those things. He's going to rap about them after he can get one time. Okay.

When you think it's time to stop, you let me know. Yeah. So this is all improvised. You might want to unmute that as well. I think it's... Oh, sorry. I just rolled it down on you. Okay.

And more volume on that for me as well thank you maybe we'll start with yours my favorite meal of the day y'all agree sit down and share with me a nice tray of high tea maybe get a china teapot i gotta make sure that it's hot before the water starts to pour. Otherwise, the leaves don't unfurl. Where did you get it from? Somewhere in the third world. Probably India or China. Bring in all your family round, never got the shy ones. I get a bit of white bread cutting off the crust.

If you leave them on the edge of the bread, I don't trust you. I wanna make sure they got cheese and maybe a little bit of cucumber Yes please, I will take a little scone with a bit of strawberry jam When it comes to high tea in England, everybody who feels on my team Come round and feast upon the tea with the queen Lizzie in a palace, she's got a lot of balance If you say the tea tastes bad, she pours malice on you Getting angry, looking at your crafty

Like a little fox hotbox in the backseat You can see me, what is the point? I'm kicking back, got a bong And I'm smoking a joint at the same time Yeah, you know it won't harm you Medicinal qualities inside the marijuana I get the best grade coming from the hydroponic I drink it in the back of my Dodge Dart on it

The I-10 freeway 405 I be swerving so fast it's hard to stay aloft I'm following the quote from Ted in a tour bus All the law on the state they abhor us They don't like that we're driving illegally But it doesn't matter you can get the weed and get it for free You don't need to bring your own if your hotbox fog it in It's when you don't pass the joint round the little ring

You need to go clockwise from the start in Pass the dutchie to the left hand side and the martian You don't notice, you're up in the air They're like, what is a joint? We are not aware of these things Yes, it brings us all together I feel all of the love I can sense with antenna. Never seen them in the cartoon before. More antennae than the rest of us.

Marvin the Martian from Looney Tunes. He says, of course they've got antennae. How do you not assume? Looking like tiny little bugs on the prowl. If I saw a Martian in real life, I would howl. They've got the weird red skin and they felt kind of annoyed that the asteroid belt stopped them getting to Jupiter. Like the wall between Mexico and here. It's kind of a little thing. I'll say it again.

I made a nice comparison to illegal aliens. Yeah, we did that. You might ask me why. I feel... All right. You get the idea. That's amazing. I have a lot of questions about that.

Yeah. Go. So, first of all, how much of that is calculated? For instance, when you said, I get annoyed because the asteroid was that an intentional rhyme even within the rhyme and asteroid was that none of none of it

is ever everything i'm saying is what i've immediately thought before when you've done it long enough the natural rhymes fall into place and your brain emphasizes the like every word has so many syllables that you can just emphasize the syllables that match um and like so i would say very few of the rhymes are intentional that it's because it's your subconscious brain just putting them out like people say oh when you're getting the suggestions from the crowd you're thinking up the rap in advance aren't you and that's not how it works if you try that you just stumble um you trip over yourself so it's just letting your brain put the words in like if i want to rap about you know whatever they suggested there's a way to make it rhyme like i don't know every word

rhymes with every other word i talk about how you can break words around into letters and syllables like you know the word factory has so many different rhymes in it you've got fact or e any of those syllables can rhyme and it has the letters f a c they all rhyme differently you know so so give us some give us some ways to rhyme on on all the syllables of factory well in the sense like what if what am i trying to rhyme it with so someone's like okay rap about factory farming then your standard raps right and it's like i'm rapping about i mean i i need to just demonstrate like what just demonstrate. Like, what do you want me to rhyme about? And I'll just do it now, and then I'll show you.

Give him something. It's factory. I bet you can't think of a rhyme about liking big butts and being honest. I'm kidding. You know what that is, Dan? Yeah, that's a mixed one. Yeah, I like it. It's a factory.

If you had to say it was in a factory, like factory. Give him some subject. Factory Tesla's in a factory. Like factory. Give us a subject. Factory, factory, Tesla's in a factory. Making Tesla's in a factory. Yeah, so like Tesla factory. Okay. I mean, this is just going to be a little freestyle about it. So high-tech manufacturing, a whole lack of dust in the CEO office.

There's Elon Musk. He's looking down at the floor, playing for all to see. He adoring all the workers at the factory. Yeah. Married to grind. Used to marry to an actor. Tallulah Riley. Yeah.

In the factor E. And we can all agree that when you're in the factory, that's a nice fact. Ori for me. I mean, I'm just showing you can fit each syllable of it rhymes at the end of the line. Okay.

So the, so the first line a line like that's basically okay so the so the first line you had dusk so so clearly you have must dust i was doing dust yeah you don't need to rhyme with uh yeah the first rhyme is the only one i think of in the second before and i try and stop myself doing that more and more by you did it again before more and more but go ahead go ahead if you watch my freestyles a lot of the time i don't come in with a perfect rhyme because that's me cheating that's me having a second to think i'll just say like kick it off or here we go because that way i'm forcing myself to not think of anything which then i think comes with more original ideas and like i differ from

a lot of freestyle rappers in that respect like a lot of people if they're going to freestyle they'll try and think of some rhymes they can come up with and some bars that will hit hard off the top but i i i like it as a brain exercise i like it as a demonstration of hey look what you can do with your brain if you just kind of let it oh can i ask when you you said uh on with the t unfurled and it comes from the third world yeah so you're obviously how far in advance are you thinking of the feral and the world rhyme is it just at that very moment or like as you're doing the previous verse you're thinking of hell rhymes with the world no it's at the moment i'm not aiming to go anywhere what like sometimes i'm like oh i'm talking about tea so what do i know about tea and i've got all

this stuff in my head but i'm not consciously taking notice of it. Like, oh, tea comes from India and China. And so if I am rapping about, yeah, I actually, I think with that one, I'm rapping about the tea in the teapot. So I'm rapping about how leaves unfurl when the water goes on them. And then my brain just goes, oh, that rhymes with third world. You can talk about the third world now so i i thought i thought that you had already decided you were going to go to the third world and working backwards figured so you got to unfurl and then you didn't know

where you were going until you got until into your head pop the third world yeah and i think that's much more fun because it then can go anywhere and you're forced to justify and make connections. So like if, if unfurl I'd rhymed with, give us a twirl, right. I can't just put that rhyming. People are like,

well, why does that make sense? So I would then have to justify it by being like, you know, maybe I'd rap about exploiting Chinese tea farmers and like dehumanizing them by being like, Oh, act sexy for us.

And then the rap goes in a different direction or anything like that. It's hard to explain because it happens in a split second. And the way I kind of describe it is when I get off stage, I don't remember what I've rapped about. And that is because it just happened subconsciously

and in like a flow state. People will go, oh, you know, I'll know if the rap's bad because I'll remember what I rapped about. That's what it's about. This reminds me of pete correale's routine dan pete correale has a bit about the guitar and he said if he didn't actually see somebody do it he would have told you it was impossible or something like that like like what he's describing if i told it just doesn't seem possible right it doesn't seem like it could be done it may not be possible for everybody i mean now you come from the rap world.

You, before you were doing comedy, you were just doing freestyle rap or you were always doing that. It was a kind of weird one. I started rapping when I was 12, but it was purely for my own personal enjoyment. I never went, I was too young to go to any kind of like rap concerts or kind of,

and the one time I went to a freestyle kind of gathering, it was just awful. Like the people rapping there were just so bad. And I was like, Oh, why would I get involved with people who suck? Because you shouldn't, you know, it's like, if you're a comedian, you hang out with bad comedians, you're not going to get better. So I would just rap on my own. And then I started doing improv when I was like 18, when I went to university, then realized that my freestyling was pretty good. Cause you do all these, these you know like whose line is anyway style like wayne brady's famous for doing great freestyles on whose line i just do those kind of games and then started doing stand-up and it was after about three

years of stand-up that i started doing my freestyling in my stand-up because initially i just thought it was gimmicky and lame and not you know something that shouldn't be on the stand-up stage and then increasingly people who knew i did it were like do it on the stand-up stage and then increasingly people who knew i did it were like do it in your stand-up like you need if you do that it's just such a closer and i was like okay i'll give it a go and then i actually realized oh i really love it and kind of unfurled in me using that word again it's this desire to perform and like i don't want to be a rapper right that's the thing i'm not I don't write raps that aren't comedy raps I much prefer being in stand-up clubs than I think I would in like music

clubs but I I love that moment on stage where I get to be this kind of showman um and the tour show I'm working on at the moment and have been doing for a couple of years is is like a musical comedy rap show and I essentially I present that as like this is a rap show it's obviously a comedy show but there's like raps and songs in it and I love those gigs that I get to kind of stunt on the crowd and be live out this little kind of fantasy of being a rock star essentially where so there's a whole world I guess of freestyle rappers out there that we don't know about where do you where are you on their hierarchy in terms of your ability because you're the first guy I've ever seen that really does this. Some of them are very territorial and protective.

I'm very lucky in that I think the way I do it, no one else does it in that way, right? Because I'm coming at it from the comedy side, I'm trying to be funny and I'm trying to be smart with it. I'm not trying to be funny and i'm trying to be smart with it i'm not trying to be like most of the freestyle rappers are also just rappers in their own right and so they're making songs they're like their main income is not freestyle shows it's like doing albums or doing live shows and then they'll freestyle as a kind of thing um there's a couple of us that do stuff on youtube

harry mack is a very big name and a very, very good freestyle rapper. But again, he's a he's a rapper. So like his freestyles are just like lyrically and flow wise, just so great. They sound like real rap songs. And I'm I'm not trying to do that stuff from the audience, too. Or is that your innovation? Harry does. He raps about like, he'll take words and stuff. But like his videos that go super viral he'll just go and rap about people as well um in the audience but i mean like the idea of rapping just about words is you know what else would you rap about mc supernatural is like the kind of the founding father of freestyle um and so like a lot of what freestyle rappers do are things that he kind of started doing um yeah it's there's not many freestylers like there's a lot of what freestyle rappers do are things that he kind of started doing.

Yeah. It's there's not many freestylers. Like there's a lot of them are battle rappers as well. Like Corey Sharon, he does wild and out as well. And he's, he's a great freestyler. Did you ever see that clip when Shaquille O'Neal did freestyle to rap about Kobe Bryant?

Like 10 years ago? No, I did not. That happened at the underground. We've got millions. It went viral all over the world. Oh, wow. Yeah. That happened at the Underground. It got millions. It went viral all over the world. Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't see that, I'm afraid.

I was going to say his eulogy or something. I was like, because I know he spoke at Kobe's memorial service. I was like, wait, he didn't freestyle rap there, did he? I want to speak. Let me try a little bit about that. I want to speak to you about Kobe.

For those who think that you know me, Kobe was a friend, but it came to an end because Kobe in the chopper, it made a big... I would get this on going. But Kobe was in the helicopter. And let me tell you something.

It was not... It's a helicopter. When he passed away, that was the only thing people were suggesting for a week at gigs. Like any suggestion I was asking for, it was always Kobe Bryant. And it was like that thing of,

once I've had a suggestion, I try not to take it again. So you're rapping by it once. And that's a weird thing. People always go, oh, but how do you rap about difficult things like that? Aren't you worried you'd say something abhorrent or offensive?

So you just kind of like, it doesn't, it's weird. It doesn't happen. Like when I was rapping about Kobe, rap about difficult things like that aren't you worried you'd say something or offensive so you just kind of like it doesn't it's weird it doesn't happen like when i was rapping about kobe i was rapping about all i knew about kobe as a an athlete right rather than the accident because you don't want to upset people how much do you feel of this talent of yours is just from having done it for so long uh or and how much do you feel is innate ability? Seems like there has to be a lot of the latter involved. I think so, yeah. I think that I run workshops

and I teach people how to freestyle, but I can't teach them the way that I learned it because I think I learned it just as this ridiculous, like not realizing you were meant to be able to do it. I was just kind of rapping in my bedroom. But yeah, I think some of it is innate, but I don't want to put too much kind of praise on myself for that. Like you can learn how to freestyle rap to an exceptional level, I'm sure.

I think what makes me able to do it the way I do is I'm just very fortunate to have had a really great education. Like I grew up valuing knowledge and valuing intellect. And so- That's what I was gonna say is that it seems like in addition to this talent, I mean, you have to really be so knowledgeable about so many things to be able to effectively do that.

I mean, there's something about it that reminds me of how Judah Freelander does crowd work. Okay. Like he just knows, like you can, you're from some random town in Germany and Judah can just like riff on that for, you know, I don't know, 10 straight minutes. Yeah. But Judah, you know, yeah, Judah's great, but Judah, you know, prepares. And, you know, from time to time, he will build that act by coming up with something new.

But he has his go-to things where Chris is, you know, coming up with it every night and even doesn't want to do the same thing twice. Right. Which is crazy if you think about it. Like most comedians, most performers of any kind, they hit on something that kills or is really great. They go back to that because it's such a good feeling, you know? But he wants to stay live.

He wants to be without a net all the time, essentially. Yeah, because what I get from it is the thrill, the rush of operating on that kind of tightrope. And it's a challenge to put on yourself because say you're rapping about, a suggestion comes up and you know that you've made a really good rhyme before about this. There's that urge to be like, oh, when I drop this rhyme, they'd go crazy.

But then stopping yourself to try and find the best rhyme. It's like, it's a standup thing of, right? The first punchline you write might not be the strongest one. You've got to write the fourth or the fifth or the sixth to find the good ones. And I think pushing past that brings its kind of own creative rewards. Theoretically you could go home and just kind of come up with all kinds of rhymes for

different things you know that you'd have prepared to get into if anything related to it I guess. Yeah yeah but then it's tea is a drink so maybe you'd have a whole bunch of rhymes ready to go for drinks so if someone suggests tea time you'd have that that tool in your tool chest yeah theoretically i'm wondering yeah you could i just i don't know when people say like why don't you wrap up the same thing again i'm like it doesn't interest me um and one of the things that's fun like just for i was on with you guys i do live streams on my youtube where like my fans who this is the difference like a general audience don't know me i'm not well known so when i do the rap they're they're impressed by it being like wow we didn't think you could do this and he can do it

what i like is when i rap for like people that my fan base essentially um i like that they know i can do it so what they do is they push me as hard as they can with their suggestions. They'll be like, oh, rap about this if you can. And they'll come in with really hard suggestions and they'll suggest beats. So I ended up rapping on like super fast beats that I wouldn't do live because you have to make it accessible for the audience.

And those are my favorite raps. Like today, there were a couple of raps where someone was like, hey, rap like Kanye in Through the Wire, where he raps without moving. He had his jaw wired shut, so he couldn't move his jaw. And so I did a rap where I didn't move my teeth at all in the rap. Well, the next level is ventriloquism freestyle rap. Yeah, exactly.

I've tried that before. It is exceptionally hard. On the streams, I rap in different accents. There's different characters. Someone would rap about E.T. in the voice of Jar Jar Binks, Um, I, I, on the streams, I rap in different accents as different characters, someone like, you know, rap about ET in the voice of Jar Jar Binks, which I, you know, is less likely to come up live because people would be like, that's a, why would you try and be that challenging? Whereas on the streams, people know I can do it. And so they're just trying to push me to the limit

of, of how crazy it can be. I had a question I wanted to ask you about, um, I'm trying to figure out what this, this ability that you have. And I mean, you know, a lot of it's innate, as we were discussing, or I imagine. I wonder how it manifests itself in other ways. I mean, are there other things you can do in life that are extraordinary that play upon the same brain know brain activity or whatever um like you have an incredible memory do you are you a great mathematician but that's the i think this is it's weird because it is pretty much just put down to the freestyling like i i actually have a terrible memory a terrible conscious memory like i can definitely access stuff in the flow states when i'm rapping

that's why i suddenly go oh i know all this stuff about the topic. But I have no, and I did like a whole show about this kind of paradox where I would rap about anything the audience would say, but then I had no memory of like the last 25 years of my life. This is a show when I was 26. I'm 30 now. But yeah, I have a very poor long-term memory for fact not for facts but for people and events and i can never remember where i've been on holiday if someone says oh do you

remember we've been here before i like my wife i've upset her many times she'll be like you remember we were here and i'm like we've never been here before and she's like here's a picture i'm like no that's that didn't happen um i'm at school how are you in math uh awful at mathematics that was one of my i mean oh no i was okay i was still very good at at mathematics. That was one of my... I mean, oh, no, okay. I was still very good at it, but it was my worst of my subjects. Oh, what a revision. Well, no, just because, I don't know.

The thing I'm most grateful for is that my parents super valued my education over holidays. I got sent to a really great school, and they paid for that rather than going skiing or whatever they didn't ski um sounds very posh but yeah i i kind of had this like hard-working ethos put in me but i i really i'm very bad at many other things like i suck at sport i can't i used to play guitar but i gave up because i was really bad at many other things. Like, I suck at sport. I used to play guitar, but I gave up because I was really bad at musical instruments.

I'm, I think the rap is the main thing. Which is fine. Like, I don't mind that being my one superpower because I really love it. But yeah, I wish there were maybe other things that this worked for. But I don't think it does. I don't think it translates to like, you know,

being a genius at gambling or probability or anything. Well, no, I think we were having discussion once whether musical brilliance translates into anything else. Like you could be a brilliant musician and an, and an idiot in everything else. Yeah.

Not usually an idiot. Not, not usually. Usually, usually I find that people who are really talented, um, they're not in anything. If they can do anything at a very high level, they're usually not idiots because there's very few things, including music, that to do it on a really high level don't require other abilities. If you're a really good musician, it's more than just your musical ability you have to think about things you have to have uh you have to have taste you have to have

you have a lot of things which which come with that i think so usually in my experience um i find that musicians can be very primitive like in a sense like you know in which is really just another way of saying not embarrassed about being very open about the things that they're interested in and they don't put on any airs. I find musicians are like that, but I don't find them to be so often like the bottom 25% of intelligence, I'd say that. Unless they're like Savants or something. I always found that one of my favorite things about doing comedy is like green rooms for me have always been very like intelligent places like i think comedians are super super smart people i think you have to be to kind of have a grasp of the world i agree with that i always say that i think that comedians

by and large are exceptionally intelligent i think comedians but even like even like high level athletes if you're one of the best players in the NBA or in the NFL, then maybe in a certain position, but definitely if you're a quarterback or something like that, you've got to have a certain level of smarts on top of the athletic ability. I think maybe if you're just some guy on the line taking hits, maybe in that case it doesn't apply, but I'm not sure how much athleticism goes in that.

When I hear comedians and know I'm debating, which they often do, because that's no, I'm thing. Even boxers. Go ahead. I don't feel that they're on his level by and large in terms of their logic.

Certainly not in terms of their knowledge, because most can be about politics. Cause that's no, I'm this whole thing in life is politic, but even in terms of their logic, I, and I'm not seeing, I think they're great at comedy and decent at intellectual discussion, but not necessarily. Well, that's my point. I'm saying they're usually not, they can only be so bad. And comedy, of

course, is intuitively related to intelligence, but I'm taking it a step further. And I think that there's intelligence that goes into most skills, even if it's not apparent at first, most people have to think in some way to get really, really actors, anybody they have at some point, you have to be able to analyze what am I doing? How do I get it better? And that, and it requires some intellectual fire or some, you don't have to be Einstein, but I'm saying some.

So Chris, and I think actors are the, you know, the worst, but go ahead, intellectual firehouse some you don't have to be einstein but i'm saying some what what so uh chris um and i think actors are the you know the worst but go ahead go ahead barely a talent very general question but i think i think a an interesting one in your case especially is where do you go with this this is so not mainstream i mean you know a lot of comics they become writers they they become actors. Freestyle rap doesn't necessarily lend itself to acting for writing scripts, although you probably could do that if you were if you if you if you tried. But you know, what's the natural progression for a freestyle rapper just a big special on Netflix? Yeah, so that the interesting thing with that is like I've tried to my like um like my management about like you know goals and things and obviously i'd love a you know a big big time special um and with that like we

had the chat that look if you're going to do a netflix special for example it can't be just freestyle right and the thing is my my hour-long shows i've done so many festivals around the world i've done seven separate hours that i've toured and the majority of them have only had two freestyles in at most so each one's like 45 minutes to stand up 10 minutes of freestyle but what what led to me working on my current show which is currently called Rap God because we're you know although some people are like wait are you actually saying you're Rap God you're like no that's a sarcastic joke obviously I'm not but with that it is much more focused on the written musical comedy right if you think of like a bo burnham show it's you know

it's stand-up it's funny songs it's kind of much more like that but if you i mean not to equate it on the same kind of level of achievement but yeah this those that show has two freestyles in and the freestyles in it are much more i think you can watch them back afterwards and enjoy them even if you weren't in the room because i feel that the translating the freestyle from a live environment to a taped environment is difficult which is why i like a lot of people who watch my videos like oh i want to see the audience's reaction you'll find that the videos that do well are ones that show the audience because people want to be put in the shoes they want to empathize with how those people felt um so i think working on the that written

show is probably the next step as in like this you know a musical comedy uh show rather than just a freestyle show hi val so i have a couple more questions before we go. Wait, Val, you're muted. Val, it looks like you have Vaseline on the lens in a 1970s penthouse. It's not the greatest lighting and anything, but just briefly to introduce Val Scott, who's one of the managers at the Comedy Cellar, a co-worker and a friend, I dare say, and she is joining us from lockdown

in her neck of the woods, which I think is Queens or Brooklyn. The Bronx. Let's just get back to Chris for one second. So when you, when you were watching yourself, I noticed you kind of grooving to the beat and everything. And I'm wondering, seemed to me that you were also critiquing your own musical chops there,

where you were, were you behind the beat, ahead of the beat, were you in time, that kind of stuff. That stuff's important to you? Yeah, definitely. I mean, also, I hate watching myself perform, so I sympathize with other people who hate watching me perform. But yeah, like watching stuff back, you're going, oh, I should have rhymed this or oh i flubbed that line um or oh that wasn't very good um and because you know

i always watch myself to try and figure out what can i get better at and i i like that i can ask my like fat super fans people who i'll chat to online who are like hey have you thought about trying this and they'll be like oh you should kind of focus more on your movement on stage so now it's like the rap i'm doing now or was doing before we got locked down i was actually focusing more on like kind of delivering it in like a kind of physique that looked like oh i'm actually a rapper um and i'm always trying to work on what can i how can i tweak the raps um which is weird because obviously they're improvised, but going like, oh, maybe this rap should have more act outs

or more accents or more characters or more similes, more punchlines, whatever it is. But yeah, I mean, I'm sure as a musician, you listen to yourself play and you go. Go ahead, go ahead. Sorry. No, that was it. Surely we all do that. We kind of watch ourselves back and go,

oh, that's annoying. Should have done this um of course um and then you know the other question you talked about similes that that that reminded me of that shaquille o'neal right maybe i'll play it but uh on gimmicks and said you said at first that you were worried that uh it was a gimmick and that and that um it dissuaded you for a while. You hesitated to do it. And you've come to terms with it. What is your feeling about gimmicks? Do you regard them as gimmicks?

So I think it's because initially when I was started doing standup, I was like a deadpan one-liner comedian. And that was because those are the comedians I liked. I loved watching comedians who just did jokes. And I had this like strong opinion that comedians I was friends with who focused on delivery I was like oh you're just elevating weak material it's all about the joke itself a joke should be able to be just read you are the comedian the median by which the jokes flow through um and then I became less 19 years old and less arrogant slowly. And started to be like, oh, well, if it, you know,

because I just wanted to be a comedian. That was what I wanted my job to be. So I was like, well, if this is going to get me to close shows, then I should be doing this. And I kind of initially, and this is even still a recent thing. Like with my shows, I was always like, oh, I should be meaningful. Like we just watched the other night,

my wife and I are watching a lot of classic movies. We watched Sullivan's Travels, the Preston Sturges comedy film, which is about a film director, a Hollywood film director, who's like so successful with his comedies. And they're not critically acclaimed, but they make people laugh.

And he wants to make a serious film. And the Hollywood studio producers are like, no, you can't, only make a comedy. And then throughout the film, he learns, oh, comedy has as much value because it makes people laugh. And the final line is like, you know, laughter is all that some people have. And I think even in the last couple of years,

I've realized that, oh, it's just fun to do an hour of comedy rather than an hour of comedy with a message, at least for me, because I struggled to convey any kind of emotion or seriousness. There are those who, who I hear all the time talking about how comedy is about speaking truth, the power that we're the truth tellers, which is fine if you want to do that.

But I don't, I always protested against that line of thinking in sofar as, yes, that's something you can do and great if you can do it. But it's not. Mitch Hedberg didn't do it. Okay. for you, whatever categories or genres people who lived before you have left behind them, that should not be any kind of straight jacket to you doing whatever it is that you want to do in whatever way you want to do it. I mean, you're an entertainer and if people love it and it's original and it's natural

to you and it's the expression of real talent, which sometimes the word gimmick can mean like hack, but this is not hack. This is something that almost nobody can do. Then who cares that it hasn't been done before? Who would have the nerve to say, no, no, no, because Mitch Hedberg or whatever, he left this genre the way it needs to be,

and it shall be truth to power and whatever it is so therefore drop that drop that amazingly creative talented thing that you do and try to be more like him i think that the genre people the genre does become a straight jacket sometimes the format does become a straight jacket and that will choke off a lot of originality and you know just as total aside but somehow related to my head i've noticed that for instance if you listen to like spanish music from the 40s to you know to now it's very very very salsa let's say it's very very very similar i'm sure there's you can detect modern in it but whereas for a long time genres in american music would change drastically like every seven years like just overnight you would you know you could date decades in a way that you couldn't and that's

because america for whatever reason has this very dynamic culture about it and maybe also the diversity whatever it is but i guess what the way it comes together in my head is that if anybody during that time had ever considered the music that came before them as limiting of what they could and couldn't do and i guess that did happen then you can't play like dylan can't play electric guitars i mean you always see this where people try to force somebody with a new idea to exist within what came before them. So fuck them. I don't think it's a, I think gimmick is a pejorative word and I don't think it's a gimmick. I think that's what you do.

And no one else can do it. And you're born to do it. And I think it's great. You're not bringing a chimpanzee on stage, you know. I haven't told you about my new act so yeah I think a lot of it was just me internalizing my own thoughts on comedy because I wanted to be this like great comedian who said something because I was 19 and of course you want to be that when you start out um and then it was it's just increasingly now I mean chatting to my director for the show that I'm working on, she was like, you need to start thinking of yourself

as an entertainer with this show, not just a comedian, not just a rapper. And I'm like, oh. And when you think about that, you'll deliver the show better because you're allowing yourself. Because in this show, there's a bit she watches, she goes, you tell a joke, and it's like you almost apologize. Can you imagine, then she named some famous British comedians,

them ever apologizing for telling a cheesy joke? No, they sell it. And they're like, yeah, you're lucky to have that great joke. That was boom. I'm giving my heart. And I am now like so much, I think a big part of it was moving to America,

moving specifically to LA, where when I started freestyle rapping, it shows here people get it more, right? Because America, right? Like hip hop and comedy just are so much bigger over here than in the UK. So I'd start freestyling. People would be like, oh yeah,

I used to love freestyle. My friends growing up. Wow. Whereas in the UK, people would be like, cool. I guess that's a cool thing. They still liked it, but they didn't understand freestyle. Whereas here,

and like one of the great things about playing the cellar is like so many of the comics and the hosts like we were chatting about freestyling and they'd tell me stories about growing up with like big rap names and i'm like no way and you think my rap is good oh i feel so special dude i remember biggie smalls on the street wow i remember uh I can remember it vividly because I was so taken with the quality of his voice. I remember walking by and saying, what the fuck? And it always stayed with me. It wasn't the rapping that I remembered. I'm sure it was good.

It was this just, what is it, mellifluous? It's just this beautiful quality of his voice and the way he did it that stayed with me. And then a couple years later, I'm like, holy shit, that's the guy I saw on the street. So I'm sure the other guys saw him too. So Val is here. Chris, you know Val. I do. Hello.

I love to see you. Val used to work for me. Val, what's going to happen? First of all, how how are you doing you're getting unemployment and everything getting unemployment uh i just got over being sick uh this week what covid yeah oh my god i tested positive and you know but uh yesterday was like the third day I had no fever. So I'm feeling. Well, how bad was your illness? About a week. No, but how bad was the syndrome?

Was it like the worst you ever had? I would say it was mild. I had high fever, headache, body aches, no sense of smell or taste, no respiratory problems. So that's, but overall, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't a great experience, but it wasn't as bad as like other people that I know have had. Now it's awesome to have been through it, right? I mean, like what a relief to have been through it. I feel better that I've been through it because now I feel like, okay, maybe I have antibodies, maybe I can go out more. I don't know. Yeah, you probably have antibodies. I mean, you'd think by now they would know if you could get this twice.

I don't know. That's terrible feedback. I actually think he didn't hear you. Oh, go ahead. But I think a friend of mine who had it about a month ago, and then when he went in for an antibody test, it came back negative. So I feel like there's a lot that they still don't know about it as far as like. Well, there's a lot of false negatives and false positives on this stuff. Also, there's this thing called the base rate fallacy, where if something has a, like, something could have a small, a test could be 95% accurate. Actually, false readings, even though the test is 99% accurate

because it's accurate inside. But anyway, um, so, you know, who knows if they have the antibodies, don't have the antibodies. Um, I, I would,

I would, I would not jump to any conclusions even based on tests right now from what I'm reading. That's what I, Oh yeah. Because there's so many tests out there that haven't been approved by the FDA. So there's a lot of like false negatives,

a lot of false positives. So, but now Perry L claims to have had it as well, but, um, FDA. So there's a lot of like false negatives, a lot of false positives. So, but now Perrielle claims to have had it as well, but, um, Claims to have had it. She was diagnosed by a fortune, a telephone fortune teller on the psychic hotline. No, I had the swab up my nose. So that was worse than anything I've ever been through. Wait, wait.

I had that. The test that they do for COVID. It's a very long Q-tip that they shove up your nose. So it's very uncomfortable. It's even longer for us jews i remember going for an std test uh when i started dating a girl and the we get there and she was like she came out and she was like oh it's so invasive when they like swab you and i was like what do you mean swabbing she's like they don't swab you and the the nurse on she was like oh yeah

we used to put swabs up men's penises, but now we have technology that makes it much less comfortable. It's now just like weeing in a pot. And then she went off on a tirade about how medicine is protected by men. And therefore, of course, they'd develop a swabless test for men, whereas women still have to have swabs put on them.

And I thought, that is a very good point and very true. They haven't invented a prostate test that doesn't involve a finger in your ass. So, touche. I like that though. Don't they? Guys like that. Yeah.

Your guys like that. So, so what else Val? Dan, you have some questions for Val. Dan, you're, we lost you, Dan. Dan's muted. Dan's muted.

That looks worse than muted. That looks like your mic came unplugged because I don't see the mute thing. You look so puzzled. Sorry, my Yeti mic was on. Has all the GoFundMe money been allocated yet from the comedy seller? I know that Linda's in charge of that, but I don't know if you have any.

I actually spoke to Linda yesterday, and that's been a very big job for her. There's certain limitations as to how much money you can take out and how many transactions can happen per month. So she's just, and also her bank has been freezing her account several times, I guess, because of the amount of money. So, but she's slowly but surely getting there.

So what do you mean? Go fund me. Doesn't just release all the money. There's a whole slew of like rules and how you can allocate this money and how much money can be released. And I don't know that has anything to do with Linda's bank or if it's GoFundMe, but she's,

you know, like every day she can only take out a certain amount of money and she can only do a certain number of transactions per month. Can I just go back to that? Cause I never really thought it through, but it's really interesting, actually, if I think I get this right. Imagine a test which is 95% accurate and 5% false positives. And let's say you have a disease which 5% of the population has or antibodies. So out of 100 people, you would have five, or out of, I guess, out of 95 people, you'd have approximately five of them who didn't have it, it would test positive. And you would also have the five who actually did have it, it would test positive.

So you'd basically have an equal number of people who, even though the test is 95% accurate, you'd have an equal number of false positives to positives within a hundred people if there's only a small number of people who actually have it in a population. That's pretty interesting, right? When you think about it. I already said earlier on, I wasn't good at maths. No, but you follow that, Chris. You follow that. I do follow that, yeah. Yeah. And Perry, I'll explain it to you later, but you follow that, Chris. You follow that. I do follow that, yeah. And I'll explain it to you later, but it's really interesting.

So that is what's going on here because especially as in places where few people have this stuff, and even if the tests are pretty accurate, there's a lot of false results. A lot of false results.

So go ahead. I didn't get tested because I figured I knew I had it. What difference does it make if I get, and the tests are all fucked up anyway. I'd rather just wait and get the antibodies test. Listen, if it was herpes, I would understand that logic. You don't know that you had COVID.

Of course you do. Okay. The doctor didn't suggest that you get a test. You know enough. Go ahead, Dan. You know enough to know that you should err on the side of caution and stay home. Exactly. No, that's not exactly what you said.

That I didn't. No, but I mean, there was no pointing. I'd rather wait and get the antibodies test now so that the only useful thing for me is if i can donate plasma for somebody who gives a shit if i got a test that tested positive or not when the numbers were so off i mean look at what happened to pete lee and jamie with this they might not have had it we were it sounded like they had it but maybe they didn't i mean the negative valve just to put bring up to speed even though they had symptoms, but maybe they didn't. They just did negative, Val, just to bring you up to speed. Even though they had symptoms, it seemed to indicate that they had it.

So now us as comedians, you know, we kind of, whatever happens, we're going to still do stand-up. Now, as somebody that's a manager of the comedy cellar, what thoughts are you having in terms of going back to the comedy cellar? You don't know when it's going to open. I mean, I honestly don't think we're going to be open anytime soon. As far as like, you know, the subways. I think the subways and the homeless situation, I just feel like that's really going to prevent us from moving forward as far as the city opening up again. So what are your thoughts as to your future, your job future? I mean, have you thought about that?

I think eventually we will, but I don't think it's going to happen personally. I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Are you looking to other? Maybe next year, early next year, hopefully. But I don't see how we can have people getting on subways, going to work, dealing with the, you know, the public. And not knowing if, did you pick up something on the subway on your way to work? Are you giving it to someone at work? Are you giving it to customers? Are they giving it to you? There's a lot.

There's a lot to think about. Hey Val, how do you feel about, so everybody's making approximately $1,100 a week to stay home, correct? Is that right? Yeah. How did you feel about the fact that- That's unemployment insurance you're talking about? Yeah. How did you feel about the fact that that's unemployment insurance you're talking about? Yeah.

And that will go on until when? Just indefinitely until the crisis is over? I think initially it's 90 days. So it's three months. And then depending on what happens in the city, if they say restaurants and clubs and bars can open, then we'll have to reapply i think it's like every three months you have to reapply they're going to extend it at least once oh yeah they'll definitely extend it that is like 4 400 a month so is that enough to cover like new york

rents and bills and stuff like is that covering things yeah um yeah i mean for me, it's, I can, you know, I've had savings. That's what, you know, I, I, you know, it's covering my expenses. I'm not taking cabs. I'm not taking the subway. So that's a huge. Wait, Val, let me ask you the question I wanted to ask you. So this is $1,100 a week and that's not taxable or it is taxable. You can choose to have the taxes taken out when you first sign up for unemployment. So it is taxable or it is taxable you can choose to have the taxes taken out when you first sign up for unemployment but so it is taxable eventually so it is yeah so at the um next tax season if you didn't opt to have that money taken out you have to pay it so anyway so it's a it's it's more or less you know um what people are making and given the fact that they're staying home and

basically not spending any money like they normally do nobody's um uh uh from what i understand people are all right they're hanging in there okay i think most people are doing okay how did you feel about that tremendous amount of money that was raised because I was thinking about it. I mean, I don't begrudge anybody extra money and I was happy and it was heartwarming to see how much money came in. But I couldn't help thinking, you know, they're making $1,100 a week and some of them, you know, on top of that have parents or whatever it is. And there are so many people who are really suffering right now yeah and and you know is it's it's kind of it's something unfair about the world that the money still still flows to the not the haves but the definitely not the have-nots here and the have-nots are still

you know in great difficulty. And I don't know. How did you feel about that? It was a lovely gesture. I personally opted out of it. Good for you. That's very impressive, Val, honestly. Mainly because I'm concerned about, like, our kitchen guys,

like the dishwashers and all those guys. They all, a lot of them have families. They have children here and, you know, back home in like in Morocco or, you know, Egypt. And I worry about those guys because a lot of them, English isn't their first language. And navigating the unemployment website was a pain in the ass for someone who does read and understand English. So I was worried. When I say we, I mean Liz. I think Liz helped anybody who was having that trouble. But truthfully, there's another aspect to it, which we have no way of knowing, but I would presume is true,

which is that some people probably have Social Security numbers which are not valid in some way yeah and they would never tell us and we don't want to know actually right but and I have been worried about those people if they will be able to get benefits so you know that those that worries me that worry yeah that's what I was mainly thinking about, like, when all that money was raised, that I was like, I don't personally don't feel right taking that money because I'm okay. You know, financially, thank God, I'm okay. And that extra $1,000 is going to make or break me. But I know for a lot of our, you know, especially the kitchen guys, it's a big deal for them. Yeah. Well, good.

Did a lot of people opt out? Did a lot of people opt out? I don't know. When I spoke to Linda, I didn't ask her, but, you know, she thanked me for not, you know, for doing that. I don't know if anyone else opted. I know there's a high number of people who she has to give the money out to. So I'm assuming not very many.

I don't know. By the way, I've gotten some offers for Zoom work. Okay, Zoom shows. It pays, say, $500, $600. I'm wondering whether I should take it because if I make $600 in a week, I don't get the unemployment. So I've been doing a lot of Zoom shows.

I mean, I'm not eligible for unemployment because I'm a green card holder and I legally can't claim anything from benefits. I had to sign all that when I signed up to be resident here. Oh, God. Go ahead. Do Zoom shows. They're great. I've been really enjoying them like that i had to sign all that when i signed up to be resident here um go ahead do do do zoom shows they're great i i've been really enjoying them and you can get quite a lot like and the fun

thing for me is because it's it's always i do like college gigs via zoom but then these business lunches where it's always like you know the q1 results or the business happy hour you come on and it's like the thing I miss about doing comedy is not the act of doing comedy, it's the audience, right? It's like the people's faces, it's the people applauding, it's people afterwards coming up to me and like, hey, can I get a photo? Or like, hey, that made my evening.

And with Zoom, you get that, because you see the whole- Dan doesn't get that part of comedy, he doesn't, so he doesn't understand, but go ahead, go ahead. Sorry, Dan, sorry, sorry. Dan always hits the same themes. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry, Dan, sorry. Noam always hits the same themes. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

You know, Noam, if you take notes, Noam insults me on never getting a raise, never getting a laugh. If you had been anybody else, if you had been anybody else, I would have made the same joke. Go ahead. The point is it's Noam's favorite note.

Go ahead, Chris. He knows three chords. But yeah, I really enjoy it. And it is, people like it. They're like, oh, thank you. That was really, thank you for cheering up our day, which I know sounds corny, but like it is kind of a big reason

why I think we do comedy, right? A lot of comics are doing it. You should try it, Dan. Oh, I have tried it. I'm saying, I'm wondering, just from a pure Dawes and Sense point of view, whether it's, you know, whether it's better not to just take the

unemployment. You're worried about that? Take the unemployment, do the gig and tell them to donate the fee? Yeah. Donate to Israel. This is a man. You obviously love it a great deal. I also need the

money, right? I have to do the gig because I don't have money coming in from corporate you just get one gig does that you then you don't get any i think if you get a week hundred dollars you can't get the unemployment if the unemployment's 1100 which i thought was lower actually you can't take any other money okay like for that week then i think you can do it week by week because when you claim your benefits you do a week by week so book all the gigs in one week so so then for that week you wouldn't receive your unemployment i'm wondering i but i have done zoom shows i'm just looking

forward but i wonder i'm starting to wonder whether or not i think stand-up comedy obviously is best obviously it's best on a stage in front of a live audience but i wonder if this whole thing will give rise to more zoom stuff like like a celebrity that wants to do like a meet and greet or something a zoom meet and greet with 100 super fans or 50 super fans and charge a nice sum of money whether the and you can do question and answers and interaction whether there'll be more of that there's a there's a platform that does that john cleese is on it you can pay to have like a one-on-one meeting with him it's an increasing number of things and a lot of people are doing it like i do cameo which is that thing where you know but like i i

do it as a way to record raps like this is a busy time of year for me because it's mother's day so i i record like three four minute freestyles about whatever people want. But I've seen like a huge boost in my orders through that since lockdown. And some of them are just people being like, hey, can you just do this to cheer my friend up? But yeah, I think more and more virtual ways of income are going to be getting bigger, especially- Even when this is over,

will there be a residual effect of this stuff? Will people be, because now it's like people are kind of keyed into it like oh you know maybe we could just have a celebrity might want to make some money and say well i could just have a a conference a meet and greet with you know a zoom meet and greet like i've been doing a lot of college shows and it's been great fun i'm like i will you know i'm not charging the same that i would for a college gig it's like but i'm happy taking half the fee to not have to travel to insore to do the gig it's like oh we should just do this more um so that's i've watched a couple of these you know online comedy shows and it's just it's still not the same no definitely not i mean it I mean, it's enjoyable for this situation, yes.

But I don't see it as a long-term thing once we're completely open. There's something about even doing this. It's better to have a conversation with someone first. But I think for comedy it's true, but what I'm saying is for something, for conferences and talks, know say elon musk wants to do a meet and greet with elon musk you know his history he's this guy he's he's oh yeah he did right yeah he tweeted out he's selling all his possessions and he tanked his stock you know what like 13 billion dollars off the stock price by saying he tweeted it's

overvalued in my opinion yeah i mean I mean, that's obviously mental illness. Yeah, for sure. Three years ago in an interview, someone asked me like, you know, who do you think is the most like, you know, impressive person in the world? And I was like, oh gosh, calm down. That's the siren. I live on a street with a fire engine place, fire station. Yeah.

And I was like, Elon Musk. Oh, he's just so smart. He's either like going to save us or he's a James Bond supervillain. And neither of those have come true. He's just a stoner. That's all he is. I think he's very good at PayPal and Tesla. You know, sometimes some of his other ideas, like the Hyperloop,

I'm skeptical that that's going anywhere. The space stuff, may or may not he said i think he said that we're going to colonize mars by some absurd date like 24 i mean something that's i i think is ridiculous something wrong with this guy what about was it where was it in chile or something where the miners were all trapped at a file or something like this is a crazy person and then his defense was oh pedo guy is a common insult in South Africa where I'm from. Pedophile. It's just enough.

Biden should try that. A mean electric car. I, I really know you, you and I test drove that. Yeah. That was Dan. And I had a little bonding day one day,

Dan drove, uh, took a train out to my town and we went to White Plains. We test drove a Tesla together, but I don't think Dan actually drove it. Yeah, I did. You did? It was pretty impressive. No, many

things bothering you this week that you want to get off your chest? Well, I'm just totally obsessed and enchanted with this Tara Reid, Joe Biden week that you want to get off your chest? Well, I'm just totally obsessed and enchanted with this Tara Reid, Joe Biden story. But

I got nothing particular to get off my chest about it now. You want to talk about it? Everybody following it? I heard Tara Reid's interview on a podcast where she discusses what happens. I can't read her mind, but I heard Tara Reade's interview on a podcast where she discusses what happens. Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, I can't read her mind, but she was, she sounded sincere. She was crying. I'll just tell you quickly. These are the questions I asked myself. It's hard for me to say, fuck her, she's lying. I mean, you know. It's very easy to get, to zoom into something that she didn't say the same way twice or some little detail that she maybe even exaggerates

even though she's a victim. But these are the questions I keep asking myself. First of all, if you hear her story about going in, who she was talking to, where it was, what she said, the forms that she filled out, this is a tremendous amount of detail, almost novelist level detail. And I asked myself, if I was going to make up a lie, would I be able to tell the lie of a whole chapter of my life

with that level of detail and specificity with names and places and things I did and where. So, you know, that I find impressive if she's lying. B, there's like five people who, with various degrees of specificity, back up her story that she told them about it since in the last 25 years. Do you know five people that you could get just for the asking to ruin a man's life on an evil lie who would back you up? Listen, I'm going to ruin Dan Aderman. So listen, I want you to tell

them that 25 years ago, I told you the story that Dan tried to write. Yeah, sure. I mean, my spouse wouldn't do it. My sibling wouldn't do it. Five people. I mean, it's so implausible to me that she could gather five people who knowingly would lie for her on this level of evilness without money, but even for money. What if she asked one of them and they turned her down and they dropped the dime on her? So I think that, and I think it's totally unfair to Joe Biden, all of it. But to the extent that I had to comment on it, I would say that if it's a lie, it's a lie she told on day one, meaning that she told people 25 years ago that Biden attacked her in some way.

And she's basically stuck to that story all these years. And now she decided to go public with it. I don't believe it's plausible that this is something she just made up because she fell in love with Putin or is a Bernie Sanders supporter. I mean, her mother's on Larry King. There's too much coincidence here. Yes, there's a little inconsistency

with whether she filed a formal complaint or this complaint or that complaint, but she's the one calling for the University of Delaware to look into their records to find the paperwork. So it doesn't really feel like she's making the whole thing up. And even one thing where she said that she described the form that she had to fill out. And I'm like, well, how does she know about the form that you have to fill out when you're filing a complaint?

And then her mother on Larry King said, yeah, my daughter, blah, blah, blah. She couldn't get anywhere with it in the office. So we thought we had no choice but to go to the press. This is what her mother said. What does she mean couldn't get anywhere with it at the office if she wasn't trying to complain? Like this is so much about it that all holds together

if you're ready to believe that she didn't just make this story, which doesn't mean she was telling the truth 25 years ago, as we know, people do make up these stories, but the fact, all the stuff that they're bringing in now, it's, it's not logically plausible to say that some motivation now,

like she loves Bernie Sanders can be overlaid back in time on her mother's Larry King appearance on the, on the neighbor who says that she told her the story back then. So these things that they're bringing up to kind of smear her are not relevant to this. Do you really want to get to the bottom of it? You bring those witnesses on TV and you, and you,

and you question them hard to find out if they're lying or not. But how could they all be lying? I just don't see it. I don't know. I mean, I honestly think she is telling the truth. Joe Biden wouldn't do that, Val. You know, I, it's just, at this point, I don't know. I mean, it's like a lot, We've all overlooked Trump's indiscretions

and all the accusations that came against them. And I don't know. That's not our beef with it, Val, you and me. That's not our beef. You know what our beef is? What? The same people who are ready to just overlook this were the same people who were making our lives miserable

when Louis came in. I know. The same people threatening to bomb a comedy cell when Louie came in. I know. The same people threatening to bomb the Comedy Cellar, attacking the wages on the subway, threatening my kids. Those same fucking hypocrites who were ready to do that. Like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's a binary choice. I'm voting for Biden.

Well, fine. I respect you for that. Vote for Biden. And also, leave me the fuck alone to do what I want to do with my life. Anyway, that's what bothers me about it. I don't think it's fair to bring up something 25 years later, unless you're going to put everybody under oath and take, I mean, you know, you're not going to put everybody under oath. We can't figure out what happened.

No, we're never going to know the exact truth, but I do. My gut feeling is I think she is telling the truth. But she's an animal rights poet. That's amazing. That's even more of a freestyle rapper. I mean, if that's not a nutty thing, like, like I know that's, that's very bigoted in some way on my part, but like, you know, she's an animal rights poet. I don't know. It's like, I'm ready to believe she's kooky.

Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, she might be kooky. Well, that sounds like a type, doesn't it? She also might be telling the truth, which I... That's right up there with, you know, she wears slutty outfits in terms of, you know, trying to discredit somebody. I mean, God, the way they're trying to take this woman down.

I mean, you, the way they're trying to take this woman down. I mean, you think about this. She said, she said, my mom was on Larry King about it. She said this in an interview. And they still went into looking into her tweets and her this or that. They didn't even bother to look for the Larry King. Even CNN didn't bother to look at their archives for the Larry King, even CNN didn't bother to look at their archives for the Larry King tape. Some right-wing,

you know, one of these right-wing news organizations finally found the Larry King tape. It just shows how little interest they had in trying to verify the story

and how it was all about how can we take this woman down? It's despicable. It's always been that way. And I think it will always be. It wasn't that way for Kavanaugh. It wasn't that way for Kavanaugh. No.

So what do you think is going to happen? Do you think there's a... I think that is going to go away. But I think that, well, Biden has elevated the finding of this complaint to a higher level. And if they do find some paperwork, even though the paperwork is not going to say he assaulted her, it could be the straw. If there's a death by a thousand cuts here, that could be the thousandth cut. Do you think then that the DNC will throw in another candidate?

This is what I see. And this is kind of like a chess analogy because my son and I are learning chess, where you have a piece pinned, I think is the terminology they use. I think that because if they passed over Biden to get to Cuomo, let's say, the Sanders people would so freak out that that prevents them from doing it in a way. Biden to resign, get a robust young 70-year-old in there, and get a candidate who can string sentences together. Because it's a great opportunity for them to get rid of Biden,

get Cuomo in there, and win-win. Especially considering how popular Cuomo is right now. Except for Sanders, because how are you going to justify skipping over Sanders? And they don't want that civil war. So I think that's what's going on behind the scenes. I don't know, but it's just, you know, I didn't feel comfortable. I feel comfortable with either one of them because they're too old. I think there should be an age limit to being a president. I don't want.

Andrew Cuomo is only 62. No, I'm not. I don't want a 75 or 80 year old president. I think they're too old. When they elect a new Pope, all the cardinals vote on who the new pope would be but i think it's at age 75 maybe a little bit older you don't get to vote on the new pope because you're too old it's not going to affect you you're not going to be alive when and i'm like the vatican the catholic church are like yeah that's a rule i'm like what a smart

thing yeah cap it cap it. Cap. Can we examine the logic of that for just one final second here? Isn't the Pope supposed to be divinely ordained and inspired and people voting are just the vessel of God? I didn't know that.

I know that the Dalai Lama is chosen, right? And you just go and you find a child and go, oh, by the way, he's the new Dalai Lama is chosen, right? And you just go and you find a child and go, oh, by the way, he's the new Dalai Lama, and you take him. I don't know how they think the voting works. I thought there was a divine aspect to the election of the Pope that he works through. It's very political.

You know, they're always looking to see who's going to be the one to bring more attention in a positive way to the Catholic Church. Can you believe how stupid religion is? It's highly competitive because there are some that really do want to be the Pope. I imagine Chris Turner, being from England, is not Catholic, so probably doesn't have deep knowledge. I'm not Catholic either. When they split the atom, discovered DNA, and figured out evolution, what do you think the over-under was on religion staying as powerful as ever for the next hundred years? It really, it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

It was understandable when you couldn't understand how the sun came up and where the rain came from. Like, I get it. Those who see religion as evolutionarily kind of part of our, you know, as an evolutionary adaptation, the need for religion. And if that's the case, obviously,

we're never getting rid of it. The ingenuity to explain, people like Ben Shapiro, who you always talk about, he's a very bright guy. He was a prodigy, went to Harvard at 14, whatever it was.

He's a fucking Orthodox Jew and he's got an answer for everything. I mean, a ridiculous answer for everything. And you know what he's saying can't possibly be true. The desire to not face the reality of an indifferent universe and death

is pretty powerful. Anyway, I think... We're going to play that recording at your funeral dan all right i think we can wrap it up be there but i wish you luck in terms of outliving me that is maybe you know you're in good shape um okay so thank you chris pleasure to have you so much for having me i'm sorry i couldn't contribute anything worthwhile or meaningful to the uh the latter stages of the debate.

I hope you enjoyed listening, at least. No, I feel like I've learned. With everything to do with the election, I'm like, I have no input. I cannot legally vote. When somebody screams out, Joe Biden putting his fingers in Tara Reade's face, you will have some ability to rap about that.

That's a great idea. tariq you'll have some ability to rap about that because now yeah i'll rhyme larry king knowledge is obviously in your profession as well as mine well we're in sort of the same uh any knowledge is good thank you for coming chris well i guess we'll see you at the comedy cellar one day oh when you when you're open i will be straight back there i the last time you were there uh Thank you, Valerie, for joining us. Glad to hear things are going reasonably well for you. And you're not indigent and on the streets. That's good. You look good, Val.

Keep that Vaseline on the lens. It looks pretty sultry. For questions, comments, and suggestions, podcast at comedysear.com. How come Perrielle didn't talk this whole time? She did. She talked. I can't win.

Okay, everybody. I can't win. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time. And you can follow us at Live From the Table on Instagram. Okay.