The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Documentary Filmmaker Caroline Suh

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

Caroline Suh is an independent documentary filmmaker, whose work in film, television and commercials has been featured on Netflix, CNN Films, Sundance Channel, PBS, and Epix, among others. 

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar coming at you on SiriusXM 99. Raw comedy, formerly known as Raw Dog. This is Dan Natter, and I'm here with known Dorman owner and proprietor of the world-famous comedy cellar. Hi, everybody. And we're here with... What a kind of hasty start is this? Go ahead. It is very cold in here.

We're hoping to rectify that soon. We have with us Caroline Suh. Caroline Suh. See, I asked her about her last name, and I just took the first name for granted. It's Caroline. Caroline. Sorry.

Caroline Suh is a documentary film director and producer best known for her work on the documentaries Working What We Do All Day, which she made with President Obama. And also, Sorry Not Sorry, that's a documentary on the Louis C.K. scandal that we have talked in depth about on this podcast. Never enough. In any case, welcome, Caroline, to our podcast. And we do apologize for the temperature. I had nothing to do with it.

I'm not sure who's responsible for the temperature here, but it's not me. Anyway. So I'm very happy to see Caroline. I first met your sister, actually. Put the mic closer. Okay.

At an Atlantic magazine thing. I think it was in San Francisco for free speech. And I really liked your sister. And then somehow by coincidence, then you were starting this documentary about Louis. And so I put two and two. Oh, no. Maybe your sister connected you with me. No.

So I heard your daily podcast. Oh, yeah. And was intrigued. And so I reached out to you. And then we met at your restaurant. How did I put it together that your sister was married? I think you might have asked me.

I don't know. I guess it's not that. I guess it's unusual the name. Su. Su. It's been anglicized. It has been, yes. You just threw in the towel. You are first generation. I am, yes. You just threw in the towel on the... We did, yeah. You are first generation?

I am, yes. How's your Korean, by the way? It's terrible. It's terrible. I don't speak Korean. By the way, just as totally, before we get into it, I'm always intrigued by the choice of English characters

for some of these sounds. In Chinese, Zhu is spelled X-U or something like that. Xie. Why didn't they use a Z? There's all sorts of weird things. Actually, I happen to be an expert on this. X-I.

No, I'm not. Oh, you're not. But I agree with you. I haven't thought about it before, but it is strange. And not just with Asian languages. In general, there's like these weird Turkish, just like weird choices of consonants. This is true. As if there's some connection.

Anyway, I just think it's interesting. So I'm watching TV with my wife. I'm a little hard of hearing. I watch less TV now, but my wife watches everything. And I'm watching this documentary that really engaged me, and things don't usually engage me. And then I watched the credits. It was the Barack Obama documentary. What's the proper title of it?

It's called Working What We Do All Day. Working What We Do All Day. And your name came up as the director. Director, yep. And actually, it did jog my memory that you told me you'd been working on that, but I never really heard about it again. And it's fantastic. Oh, thank you. That's so nice.

Now, how many episodes are there? There are four episodes. It's on Netflix. So give an overview of what it is. It's really good. Good. So it actually took us four years to make, if you can believe it. We started before COVID.

And all we knew from the president is that he wanted to make a series about working people. This was his idea. It's his idea, yeah. So he loves Studs Terkel. Studs Terkel who wrote books about profiling. Who did a lot of oral interviews, taped interviews with people from all walks of life. Thousands and thousands of interviews. There's a huge archive of his interviews in Chicago. And just, it was really

kind of radical in that he just, Studs just basically interviewed everyone from a paper boy to a CEO, and he interviewed them all in the same way and kind of gave everyone equal time and treated everyone equally. So no one had really bothered to ask this wide ranging group of people about their work. And so I think, you know, from early conversations with the president, he really was interested in all of the changes that are happening and how insecure people feel. The gig economy and stuff like that. The gig economy, AI, inequality, and the middle class. So we spent like a year kind of trying to figure out what the lay of the land was.

I mean, he already knew what the lay of the land is, but I sat in a room with some producers and we just read a ton of stuff and tried to figure out, okay, how, what's the best way to approach this topic for a series? And just as, this is first question, just a little aside, how highly do you have to be regarded in your profession to get the job as director of the documentary for Barack Obama? That speaks largely about you and how you're regarded in the industry. The answer is seven. You know, I have to hand it to them. I think, and to him, you know, I had done Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, I think, at that point,

which was like a show about food and that was the thing that i was best known for and so they kind of took a flyer if that's the expression on me i mean i i think they really walk the walk of trying to you know be inclusive and they're really trying to get a diversity of voices and points of view out there. So, you know, I don't know why they chose me. Are you saying that maybe because you were Asian? I wasn't going to say that explicitly, but, you know, I'm sure it didn't hurt and I'm sure there are lots of, you know,

I'm happy to have that be part of it if it was. You know me. I have a million questions about that. How does that make you feel? Are you comfortable with that? I feel comfortable with it. I mean, because I know that I work really hard and I don't

really have an issue with it. But that's a whole huge topic. I can understand people who aren't Asian might feel like that's not the right answer,

but well, it's worth, I'm not convinced that's the reason you got the gig. I hope it was. I hope it wasn't the reason,

but if it was, it was, but, uh, I would like to think that it wasn't, um,

but go ahead, continue about the, uh, well, I think, um, you know, I think when we started out, my answer to how to make the series was I really have no idea.

It's going to be incredibly hard and who wants to watch a series about work? Not me. So I think my kind of minimizing my own kind of expertise and certainty about how to do it was maybe appealing. Now, what do your parents do? My father was a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. So you didn't come from a home where people were doing tough jobs working? Well, actually, I mean, I think it's fascinating. He started out, so he, his father was a professor

and came here during the, before the Korean War, and then it broke out. And then he had to stay here, and so, but the rest of his family, including my father, were in Korea. And then after the war, my father came here. And so, but the rest of his family, including my father, were in Korea. And then after the war, my father came here and he, they, you know, my father

lived in Cambridge. My grandfather was an adjunct professor at Harvard. So while that's prestigious, it's like he was making no money. So father enrolled in a um private boys school in massachusetts i don't know who paid for it and then the headmaster of the school paid for him to go to mit and my father never knew until like 20 years ago wow and so and then my father worked his way through college of being like a janitor and working at a children's hospital, which he said was horrible with all the vomiting. And he worked at a cannery and he was like part of the big union. And so he has had so many different jobs in his life. And then he ended up becoming a president of a university in Korea.

So he really. So you're the black sheep of the family. Basically. But he was like a migrant worker. I mean, he really... So you're the black sheep of the family. Basically. But he was like a migrant worker. I mean, he really had every job you could ever imagine. So, you know, we grew up hearing these stories. So there's a lot of pressure, I would imagine, to make something of yourself,

given all the sacrifice that they had. You know, they're not, you know, I don't know if... They didn't really put that much pressure on us in a way. They, you know, I mean. By Korean standards. By Korean standards, exactly. They were not dragon parents.

Yeah. So obviously, you know, I was trying to see if there was a through line between the personal experience or family experience and your kind of empathy for these people doing these day-to-day jobs. So tell everybody like the kind of jobs that you guys were following. So we basically – we decided that we wanted to look at – work is so different depending on what kind of work you do and what kind of level of the socioeconomic ladder you're at. So we wanted to start with service jobs, which most people are going to have, you know, going into the future, which is really bleak when you look at the quality of the jobs and how much they pay. And then we would go to the kind of jobs

that would give you a middle-class lifestyle, kind of day jobs, and then kind of, you know, creative jobs, like upper-middle-class jobs, and then kind of, you know, creative jobs, like upper middle class jobs and then to CEOs. And just we wanted to treat everyone with the same level of respect and, you know, not bring everything you read in the news to the table. Like people are, you know, there's a tendency to maybe look at CEOs like they're evil because they're on top versus someone who's on the bottom. So we tried to really just kind of channel people's stories and not be really leading with our – in our selling of them. By the way, I was in the cab the other day and there was an advertisement for the corrections officer test.

I don't know if you – you don't take cabs. Anyway – I take cabs. I don't take subways. I take cabs. Oh, you usually drive in. Well, no. I still don't take cabs. Anyway. I don't take cabs. I don't take subways. I take cabs. Oh, you usually drive in. Well, no, I still don't take cabs. Anyway, the average salary for a corrections officer in New York City, care to take a guess?

$82,000. $130,000. Wow. That's a hard job, though. I mean. And 22 years and you're out. Yeah. And great benefits after you're out.

Yeah. And I don't think it's that dangerous compared to being a cop because the prisoners don't have guns. I mean, yeah, sometimes they get a shiv or whatever. No, you're right. They get injured less. So take the test. So I saw the episode where he was interacting.

He was probably, from what I'm describing, the second episode. These are people working at answering phones and desk jobs. It was probably, from what you're describing, the second episode. These are people working answering phones, desk jobs, with somebody in a hotel. And was that the second episode? Yeah. And I want you to tell us what you learned about all these different types of jobs,

but I want to comment that I was completely blown away by how warm Obama was in his interaction with everybody and how comfortable these people were hanging out and shooting the shit

with the former president of the United States, which I attributed to him being able to put people at ease. Yeah, that's totally, yeah, that's exactly. So what is it about him? Because, you know, politically, we've heard that he was cold. They compared him to Mr. Spock. He was not known for being for warmth.

He just wasn't known for that. But what I saw in that documentary, maybe it's a tribute to the director, was an extremely appealing, warm guy who did not seem to be faking his respect for the people he was talking to. Yeah. No, he he is really good at putting people at ease. I mean, he, um, I mean, I can so distinctly remember sitting in the waiting room before I met him for the first time and hearing him say, Caroline, as he walked down the hall. So in such a casual, warm way. And he was throughout the process, really respectful and nurturing even. And he gave everyone on, you know, everyone who he filmed with kind of off the record advice in a very kind of gentle, non. Not arrogant. Patronizing way. And he really is great with people.

And I have to say, so he obviously is super busy and has a limited amount of time. But in every shoot, we had to build in time for photographs, for people who worked at the locations, for everyone who you didn't see on camera. And he's just so gracious because people, I mean, even for me, or for me also, a picture with Obama or some, that association can kind of change the way you see yourself in your life. Thinking like, oh, I work in a grocery store, but I have this picture of President Obama that is on my shelf.

You know, that just – the proximity to power and importance and significance really makes people think about themselves differently. So he and his people – I mean his his people are just the most low key. They're so smart and well prepared. He's so well prepared all of the time. Noam, could I ask you of all the living presidents, and I'll throw in George Bush senior, who would you most like to spend an hour with? Probably Clinton, I would guess. Oh, it would be between, well, you know what? It's a tough call because I'd be fascinated to spend an hour with Obama. And I think Obama may be the answer because I have the most questions for him because I disagree with him on the most number of things. So I'd be the most intrigued to talk with him. Um, I'd like to spend an hour with Bill Clinton because I think I agree with him on most things

and I have a feeling that there's, I even agree more than he's let on. Like I feel like Clinton is actually hiding some of the stuff he believes in. And I'd be fascinated to speak, to spend an hour with Trump to get my own take on what's with this guy, you know? But each for different reasons.

Who's your answer? You know, you brought up Trump. I hadn't thought of that because Trump is so familiar to us as New Yorkers. It doesn't even seem special. But maybe it would be Trump. I will say this. The one thing that sucked about Trump losing was, for me, was because I just figured out kind of how to do his voice.

Which that's kind of a bummer that I just... It's not hard to do Trump. You don't have to sound like him. All you have to do is like get his cadence down. It's very easy. All you have to do is like describe something and then say you described it that way. That's it.

It's every time, like, what a big room this is. I walked in here and I said, wow, what a big room. That's it. Every time. Trump. Maybe it would be Trump. What about you?

It would have been President Obama. Maybe George W. Bush. George W. Bush. No, he's on the bottom of mine. He's on the bottom? Why George W. Bush? I just think's on the, I think, on the bottom of mine. He's on the bottom. Why George W. Bush? Just think it's interesting. I mean, he's kind of disappeared.

He had a terrible reputation, basically, at the end of his presidency. Trump is kind of, in my mind, you know, for people who are not on Trump's side, has eclipsed him as the worst president. Yeah, but that's an important caveat because for the people who are on his side, he's beloved, whereas George W. Bush had almost nobody who loved him by the time he left. Yeah. I would ask George W. Bush,

he wouldn't answer, of course, how he deals with the mental weight of the problems in the world, which most people attribute to his decisions. Yeah. He's carrying a heavy burden. Yeah. And by all accounts, he's like a decent guy.

He seems to be. Oh, yeah. I mean, he made the decision that Buck stops with him on Iraq, which is really the big mistake. Right. But that that was a heady time. And he was by no means him. That the execution of it and the terrible decisions they made along the way were all – could be blamed as much as the idea. In other words, the idea to revamp Iraq properly executed perhaps could have had a much better outcome but i mean the way that anyway we're off the subject so so now he is really so and he is great at putting people at ease and he's very very warm i mean he's really warm so i'm a boss yeah and i and i lead a very, very pleasant lifestyle. And I've worked very, very, very hard in my life. I had periods where I was working 80, 90, maybe every waking hour,

but always for myself. And it never bothered me. It was never, you know, I wasn't making money. It didn't matter. When you're working for yourself and in the in the furtherance of your own ambitions your own dreams your own ideas it's it's not to be compared to working flipping burgers it's just it's just not was music ever a chore for you you ever on stage like oh fuck i don't want to be up here no but i wasn't just doing music i was running the place. I was writing software. I was doing payroll.

But I'm more interested in the music because that's your passion, and I wonder if even your passion could get boring. No, that would never get boring. But I would wake up in the morning with tools that I would be hanging. There was a point in my life where I was doing basically everything that I could do, and I loved every minute of it. I was young too. Um, but, uh, there, there comes with the, um, pleasure of the lifestyle guilt, guilt, you know, you're seeing people who work for you,

um, uh, spending their lives doing these difficult, I don't know if they're difficult, but monotonous jobs, and then they wake up and they're old, right? And somebody has to do them, and there's no, no one's proposed a better solution, and, you know, if robots do them, the law of untimely consequences might make their lives worse. Nobody knows, right? But I'm sure that Obama, with his background and his concerns in life, feels what I'm describing by an order of magnitude more. And I'm wondering if he ever spoke about that kind of thing or if you sensed that in him. I feel very strongly he has those thoughts. You know, I can't speak for him, but inequality is really the biggest thing on his mind. And that's

really why, you know, I spoke to someone, He had to speak to all sorts of journalists and professors and different kind of experts. And someone said to us, you know, this is in the series is in line with what he tried to do during his presidency in terms of like the middle class, Obamacare, helping the middle class. So, you know, once again, I can't speak for him but he does I mean if you look at the world it's so um unequal and people at the bottom there are so many more people at the bottom and that's funny when you say unequal you you're probably meaning money which of course matters but it actually wasn't what I was thinking of. You mean in terms of tasks? Yeah. You know,

the people I'm describing, none of them got rich, you know, but the people who work for me, they've all raised families. I mean, I'm sure they would say, what do you know?

You know, but I'm saying like they, they had cars, they raised families, they took vacations. They were, they were making it. I'm sure they could always use more money.

And maybe I'm, you know, I don't know that much about what I'm speaking about. So maybe they would object to what I said. But the tasks also to me, because money is not fulfillment. You know, if you spend eight hours a day doing something and you can find it fulfilling like you do. Yeah. Imagine spending the same time.

Prison guard. Cleaning hotel rooms. Yeah. At any, at any rate of pay. Right. At any rate of pay. Do you think the wait staff here has fun?

I mean, it seems like kind of a collegial vibe. People are young and good looking. Yeah. I waited tables, you know, At any rate of pay, right? At any rate of pay. Do you think the wait staff here has fun? I mean, it seems like kind of a collegial vibe. People are young and good looking. Yeah, I waited tables. Waiting tables is not. Now, as you get older, you know, certain times, I think there are waitering jobs, which are more comparable to what we're talking about. But in general, young kids, waiting tables, they make a lot of money. Wagers work for me, make six figures.

They go out hanging out after work, and they're young and optimistic, and it's a temporary line of work. So I don't think they're feeling that way. I enjoyed it when I waited tables. It's carefree, you know. I think... And you created some babies along the way

in your establishment as resulted in children being born. I mean, I think, at least for Elba, she gets a huge source of pride and enjoyment in her work, and she really is able to... She's been able to create a really good life for herself what was this job she's the elba's the maid at the pier and so she i mean it's a union job so she um you know makes a decent amount of money it's not tip it's not she's not relying on tips which is huge i mean that's one

thing that i've realized that i'm really aware of now to tip people. I mean, I think I always tried to tip people well, but for a lot of these jobs, like being an Uber driver, they barely make any money. I mean, Uber Eats driver, they barely make any money from Uber. It's all tips, which is just so unbelievable to me that a company can have all of these people working for them and barely pay

them anything. And they're just waiting in their car and basically they don't know how much money they're going to make. But there seems to be no shortage of people willing to do that. What do you attribute? Well, yeah, I mean, I so I drive around New York a lot because we drive our daughter to school a lot and back. And, you know, there are people, especially like in this area, and we live in the financial district, just zooming like bike you know riding bikes crossing the going the wrong way down the street and i think before i worked on the series i would have just been like really angry at them like you're risking your life i don't want to kill you what are you doing and then kind of after working on the series i kind of learned that like they're doing this,

I mean, it's a desperation to make money because they're trying to deliver as many things as they can to make sure they make enough money in tips. So, which is really because they're not being paid like a basically decent wage. So, you know, I think the series is attempting in a quiet way to kind of show the interconnections between all these different levels and to show like these things are this way because we made choices that

they be this way we all want really cheap food delivered really quickly so um yeah well it's complicated obviously it is no one no one's been able to figure that out. But there are basics. I mean, there are basics. Like in terms of your, you know, some jobs are always going to be jobs that are more interesting and better paid and jobs that are more of a slog. And I don't know. I'm not. I don't know how to get around that.

I mean, AI is going to take away a lot of those kind of slog jobs, but still, so that's an unsolvable problem. I mean, not everyone can be, I mean, it's easy for me to say because I have a fun job I can do. And you're talented. Well, that's nice, but it's, I don't know what the answer to that is, but at least if you're going to do a job, you know, I guess the big thing is like dignity and that you get paid just so you can survive and you don't have to have three jobs. I have. I don't know if that's that complicated, though. Well, it is complicated because I can tell you that at various times in my career, I was losing money. And if I mean, when I say various times, many, many periods of time, everything was on a shoestring.

And I was always pretty successful. And the money has to come from somewhere. And the notion, this is one of the things I used to fault Obama for, the notion that the employer simply has the extra money to give everybody a raise and doesn't is just not the case. It's just not the case. And what's happened is as they put more and more pressure on employers to pay out more money, and this is not just in wages. It's in the consequences of various regulations and matching.

Employers also have to match Social Security. The employees don't even know they're getting that money because they never actually, they get it, you know. Yeah. And it's, but it's real, it's real wages. So if you, if you think your employer is paying you $15, he's not. He's paying you 15 plus half of your things. So that, that part of the consequence of this, and there's so many things we pay out

now that we didn't used to. And I'm not, make it very clear, I'm doing very well now. I'm not complaining. part of the consequence of this, and there's so many things we pay out now that we didn't used to, and I'm not, make it very clear, I'm doing very well now, I'm not complaining, but I know the guy next door, that mom and pop businesses

can't really cut it anymore. There's a reason that you see Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks, the notion of a person, my father was a cab driver and then opened a coffee house from the money he kind of squirreled away, maybe borrowed some money from his parents, but little amounts of it, and opened a restaurant.

You can't open a restaurant for less than a million dollars today. There's just no, only somebody would, and that's a consequence an unintended consequence of many of the ideas that were uh formulated in order to address the problem that you think you're trying to address and they made it worse in many ways so so you know nobody knows yeah it is very complicated but i guess i'm thinking about less than mom and pop businesses and more kind of like the big, you know, Amazon workers or, you know, this is obviously a totally rare and not exemplary example. But, you know, we follow, so we follow the same industries throughout the series. So the person you see in episode one, their boss is in episode two, and so on and so forth. So we, you know, home care workers, that's a huge industry of the future. It's not going to be

automated. People really, there's going to be, there's a huge aging population with nobody to take care of them. And these are jobs that we're desperately going to need. But they're terrible jobs. They make less than if you work at McDonald's. So we start following Randy, who gets $9 an hour working in Mississippi. Isn't that below minimum wage? I think in Mississippi. Or maybe it was $12 and then what she takes on.

But it's basically nothing. And so we kind of trace it as you go up the ladder. And then it turns out the CEO who started as a home care worker and she basically started her own business and now is one of the biggest employers in Mississippi. But she pays herself $40,000 a year. And the way that her employees get paid is through Medicaid. And, you know, so but they keep on cutting Medicaid in Mississippi. So she is has to take more and more of a burden on to make sure her employees have health insurance. And so, you know, CEO compensation is also a big thing. But I'm talking about like big businesses where. But do you regard the solution as a higher minimum wage?

I guess that would be the only way to solve the problem as you articulate it. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a public policy person, but just looking at the. I mean, just, you know, as a lay person looking at it, I would say, I mean, people, you know, just, I mean, when you just filming with people and, you know, in the episode, you saw Luke's colleagues that who are like kind of middle-class ish now, you know, when they're talking about working in retail and how humiliating it is and how horribly people treat you and how you have, you can't afford to get gas and you can't afford to get groceries.

I mean, it just seems really shameful. But, Noam, you would advocate more for not a minimum wage but for the government to step in for people that can't make it on their own. I think you've said that in the past. Yeah, I think that there are various stages in life. So a kid, like I have a kid in his 20s, if he's making crappy wages, well, he has no skills and he's working at home. You know, my heart doesn't bleed for him right on the other hand if he was 40 years old and trying to support a family then you'd say this so my man my answer would not be to raise

the minimum wage so the the high school kid or the college you know the young kid gets money that he can't even really earn but that the government step in to help people with children to help people with this whatever it is people with this, whatever it is, that would be my way of doing it because the businesses can't afford it. And it's very, very dangerous to point to like my business or any tremendously successful business. He can afford it.

And then to take that as your template and then raise every business to expect to do that. Because as we know, for instance, just in New Yorkork city at least it's bandied about quite often that's something like 50 percent of restaurants go out of business so obviously they and and they only go out of business after the owner has lost everything right nobody nobody goes out of business the first time they start losing money they take loans and they they this utter disaster for these entrepreneurs before they go out of business so that tells you that that you just accelerated if you raised everybody to a wage that you would think would really make a difference to them.

So we don't know the answers, but some people don't care, right? Like some people don't even concern themselves with worrying about are there answers to this stuff. people don't even concern themselves with worrying about are there answers to this stuff and i think what your documentary does a good job at is is is making people stop and think how other people are living right and hopefully imagine themselves in other people's shoes now what did you what what did you learn that you were surprised to learn about people at the top? Basically, it's really hard to film with people at the top because they really can't say very much. They have a lot to lose.

They have a lot of people who, I mean, they're kind of, you know, it's important that they're careful about what they say and what they do because there's a lot at stake. And in a way, that the kind of the toughest episode because they are the people who get the less least empathy, you know? Because I mean, you realize that the stakes are so high at the bottom and they're really high at the top too.

And the people's values at the top trickle down and affect people at the bottom um you know even with like in ai like one of the companies is doing self-driving cars and so they're you know um we followed aurora which is a big self-driving car company and you realize that even in like the technology of a self-driving car, like your kind of ethics go into programming the car. It's the car and the speed. Do you hit the kid or do you hit the old lady? Yeah. Or even just like, you know, how far away do you stay away from the shoulder if someone is pulled over? Or just, you know, so you just kind of realize that there is actually really a trickle-down effect from the top um and and you realize like at the bottom i mean

you know one little thing can basically like ruin your life like if your car breaks down if you're an uber driver your car breaks and it's just this kind of snowball effect from one thing your child is sick so you miss work so so you get fired. It's like this, you know, you really have no wiggle room. Yeah. One of the things I noticed about making more money,

I never saw this, I never expected it. You think you're going to make more money, oh, I'll buy this, or I'll take this, I never did any of that. And not because I'm cheap. I always was happy with what I had. I have a nicer car, but I'm not going to go buy a Rolls Royce or something stupid like that.

I'm not going to. It's like none of that really changed my life. Did you start to think about meaning more? Well, yes. But what really did change is the loss of anxiety. So like I had a new car and like three weeks into it,

my wife backed the other car into it. And years ago, like, oh shit, how am I going to, I didn't budget for, you know. I was like, all right, we'll get it fixed. That kind of thing.

Or the boiler goes. What the hell am I, I need a boiler, I have heat, my kids are cold. A boiler, $15,000. I didn't budget. Can I finance it? This kind of tremendous, where somebody gets hit with something they weren't expecting, and it upends

their life. God forbid somebody's sick. This went away. And it's not a huge amount of money, by the way, to change that. It's less than you might even think. But when that goes away, that is a huge change in your life. I don't really, now it's my health I'm worried about, right?

And you can't do anything about that. Well, money can help there, too, to an extent. Well, but you can't, yes, to some extent, but you can't, no. I mean, it's not like you say, oh, I have cancer. Oh, no problem. I'll get it reported. Right, if something that horrible happens. But there's people that don't go to the doctor because there's an expense.

Well, in all this, there is the flip side of what conservatives would call personal responsibility, which is did you do your homework? Did you get an education? These are hard things to talk to. Did you take measures to try to have a family with more than one parent in the house? Because in the old days, it's not like people made so much more money,

but they had a family and maybe even a grandparent or whatever. So they made ends meet and probably had a much more pleasant lifestyle, not just with the money, but just with the wholesomeness of the family, right? So there are changes, social changes, and personal decisions which exacerbate these problems. It's not, I mean, you can point that out.

You can't say, so tough shit on you. Can't do that. Nor can you attribute everybody's situation to poor choices. But we have, I think, many more what we would call poor choices going on now than we used to. People are doing worse in school. They're having more and more births out of it. All kinds of things which also cost the government tons of money, making the tax requirements higher. It's a morass.

I mean, I think, though, the kind of jobs that people will be able to do are service jobs. That's a huge problem, and those jobs are pretty bleak unless we choose to – I mean, this major thing i learned which maybe everyone else knows is that factory jobs used to be terrible like all these jobs that we say like created the middle class and we're like the golden age of america and those were all terrible jobs you know they were dangerous and you've never seen modern times the chaplain movie where he's he's do you know this yeah yeah that's that's what yeah and people would you know couldn't were poor and couldn't you know this? Yeah. Yeah. And people would, you know, couldn't, were poor and couldn't, you know, they were just terrible jobs and then unions happened and then, you know, they became great jobs. And so, you know, I think that's one policy, you know, if,

if people are going to be caregivers, maybe we should make those jobs. Why do we, why do we consider those jobs unskilled jobs? Like, they're incredibly skilled. I mean, I guess, you know, working on the series and as I get older, I just realize more and more that we live in a very unforgiving society. You're basically on your own, and there isn't a lot of, you know, safety net. So, I mean, you know, obviously that's like a and it's always buzzword and it's always been that way and i when i was younger i was like well i'm competitive whatever i'm gonna i don't i don't really care but as i get older and my mother has alzheimer's and i imagine if

she had alzheimer's and there were no resources to take care of her like what would happen to her and then you know you just realize how harsh life is and how we don't really. There's no way around it. Or just that you had parents who kept you on the straight and narrow that allowed you to develop your talents. I mean, how many kids don't have that, right? I mean, how many geniuses are there out there doing nothing, squandering in prison? Who knows? You know, because they just had no access to enriching themselves.

Yeah. So I just – I don't know. I just think it's – I don't know. It might be a whole bunch of things coming together, but it just seems like – especially New York these days, it just feels like it's so cold outside. So, you know. All right. So we're almost out of time. So that's the cold outside. So, you know. All right. So we're almost out of time.

So that's the Obama documentary. Now, do you have his cell phone number? Do you text Barack? I do not. I do not. Oh. So it's all an act. No, he emails me.

He emails you. Yes. He lives in D.C. and I guess in the vineyard. Yes. Yes. You have to see that. He really, he's a star. You watch him.

He's so good in this. Well, I always thought that. I mean, I always thought he had amazing charisma. He's really funny. And yeah, I mean, you know, it's always the worry. I used to work on the show Iconoclast where you work with all these really famous people and you put them together and it's just really sobering. Like how much people's image is different from like what they really are but he's really like a great person he really is did michelle come at all i know i met her in his office

one day i was just sitting in there with him talking and she popped her head in and said honey i'm going home and i really like that's when i was just like really start and i said something i like said something really weird and she and i was sweating i think so cute well they're regular i mean at the end of the day they're a regular couple in many ways they say honey i honey, I'm going home. They had marriage counseling. They have the same. And if you see that she, I mean, she had a doc. They made a doc out of her book tour. And when you see her apartment that she lived in growing up, it's so modest.

I mean, they really grew up as like totally normal people. I'm sure he had a very modest background too. Yeah. But, you know, there is this thing. He was gifted. And there's a gifted premium in the world, unfortunately, that will never be conquered. People who are smarter, more talented, more charismatic,

whatever it is, they'll get rewarded for it. What? Yeah, they get rewarded. They're going to be rewarded for that. But we do have something that we can say about everyone else, though. I mean, something we can do about everyone else. And people who, through no fault of their own, don't have any of those things, you know.

Yeah, we do. I mean, every parent worries about this. I have a bunch of kids, and, kids, and even at my affluent point, I worry what's going to come of this one? What's going to come of that? Does this one have – or what – do I see something in them? Like I used to say, I would like them to be top 10% in something, but obviously 90% – well, I don't know. I can't do the math. But many people are not top 10% in something, but obviously 90%, well, I don't know. I can't

do the math, but many people are not top 10% in anything. And, um, and I think. Where the top 10% is something that's, it's not very, uh, lucrative. I don't know. I think if you're top 10% in almost anything, you're going to, you're going to make something of yourself. Stilt walking? What something of yourself stilt walking what's that stilt walking yeah maybe if you're a poet maybe that's tough yeah i don't know well yeah i mean top 10 is top 10 you know but um anyway i i you know this is very philosophical conversation i hope i don't sound uh't sound not sufficiently empathetic or something

because it's not where I'm coming from at all. I hope I don't seem too dark and depressing. No. Can I ask a bit of a question? I want to talk about the Louis Dock before we go. Yes. Salt, fat, acid, heat. What's that?

Is that just about the food industry or about eating healthy? It's based on this woman, eating healthy? It's about, it's based on this woman, Samin Nosrat's book and it's basically about like the four principles of cooking. Oh, okay. Yeah.

So, you did the documentary about Louis C.K.'s return. What was it? What's the? Yeah, his return.

Yes. And we were gonna do an interview about it and then we didn't do it because I... I don't know. Can I speak freely? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, please. So, my beef with the documentary,

certainly not personal to you, was that so much of what I thought was the most important part of that story was the malfeasance of the New York Times. And being a New York Times production, I suspected that's the reason none of this made the cut. And I didn't want to to because i like you so much

and i you know i didn't want to like especially when it was out and people you know at the time i just feel like i don't i don't want to have an unpleasant conversation about it the there were certain parts of the documentary which were really compelling um the The profiles of the women were much more sympathetic. I shouldn't say more sympathetic than I expected. I didn't have any expectation. But they came across very reasonable and very sympathetically, the two of the comedians. It's a little fuzzy in my brain.

Were Dana and Julia also in the documentary? No, Dana and Julia declined to be in it. Yeah. And they were the ones who were very nasty with me. Dana and Julia. For no reason. I never knew them or whatever it is. The other...

What were the names of the other women? Abby and Jen Kirkman. Yeah. They seemed... I thought they were very... She tore me a new one on Twitter, Jen Kirkman. Why?

I forgot. I said something in defense of Louie, but I forgot what I said, but she came at me and then all of her followers came at me. Yeah. And yeah, whatever. But anyway, forgot what I said.

But the documentary is quite good. I, you know, I recommend people to watch it. I'm not the, I mean, I have such a close. Yeah. I'm sure I'm not unique when somebody's so close to a story, nothing can satisfy them in terms of what they see in a documentary because you want, no, that's not it. I want it to comport to my particular opinion on it.

But in this case, especially with Barbaro on The Daily Show, and somewhere they have those tapes, and oh my God, if they would ever release those tapes of his interview with me, it would be very difficult for him. He was horrible with me. Just horrible. The stuff he said to me. And the duplicitousness.

I mean, I never talked to him about it. And I actually, I mean, to be totally, I'm not just saying, like, I don't know about any malfeasance on top. I mean, by the New York Times. I mean, that's not really. Listen, if we say something against Genshaw, I can cut it out of here. So I'm about to speak out of it. Yeah, there was the following stuff

in no particular order. When Louis came back, Melina Rizek asked me for a quote. And I said, I'll give you a quote if you promise to run it verbatim. And I have most of this in email. And she said, I'm so stupid. She said, well, I don't see a problem with that.

Which I thought would be yes. So I gave her a quote. It was at the time when Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky had just been disinvited from an event to allow Bill Clinton to come. And Mike Tyson. And I said something like, well, at a time when Monica Lewinsky is being disinvited to allow Bill Clinton to come in and Mike Tyson is convicted of rape, he's getting standing ovations on Broadway, I don't see any standard here, which would say that Louis C.K.,

who's never been charged with anything, can't perform at a comedy club. And she said, well, if you're going to mention Bill Clinton, we can't run it. And I said, what do you mean? If you're going to mention Bill Clinton, they can't run it.

So they massaged, like if you think if you read the New York Times, you're going to read what it was that I said, what I was feeling. No, they forced me, like they just changed it to suit. That's not the news. That's not the news if the reporter.

What was the quote that wound up in the article? I don't know. They changed it in some way. They took Bill Clinton now. So it's not the news if the reporter is telling you what you can and can't say. That's on the face of it. There was another thing where the the uh the uh and this was a big thing at the time the the initial uh gawker.com story about louis was that he blocked

the door and didn't let the girls leave and you remember this so and this is what to this day if you speak to a person on the street whatever they can remember about the story yeah didn't he have those girls in a hotel room wouldn't let them leave while he was jerking off? That's what they remember. This was in the air. And she interviewed the girls, the women. And so I asked her, did you ask them if he blocked the door? Because that would be very serious if he blocked the door. And she said, yeah, I asked him. Well, he didn't block the door. I said, well, why didn't you write that in the article? She said, I didn't think it was relevant.

I said, but you would have thought it was relevant if they said yes. And of course, you know that everybody thinks this is what happened. This is, you know, in their mind. So wouldn't it be news to report that something that's been reported and everybody thinks is true is not true? Nah, this kind of thing. And I, this kind of thing blew my mind because there was another narrative out there just by, you know, telling the truth about certain things, which could have brought the temperature way down. Maybe I'm being naive, but perhaps could have brought the temperature

down. I know from the hateful emails that I was getting, people had no idea what the facts were. And the New York Times did nothing to try to get those facts out, nor did Michael Barbaro. I mean, I came across pretty well in that interview.

Yeah, you did. That's 20 minutes of an interview. We probably spoke for 90 minutes. And at one point, I was screaming at him, and my wife was screaming at him, and my wife wanted to throw him out. It was ugly as hell because of the stuff that he said. Why are you blaming the...

It was just ridiculous, the stuff that he said. He says to me, why are you blaming the... It was just ridiculous, the stuff that went on. And I don't know. There was another fact that's not coming to my mind now, something that the Times... Oh, this guy, the story about Dave Becky. And the Times made it sound like Dave Becky had threatened people with their careers. But that's not true.

I know from speaking to Melina and I know from a lot of questioning that I did, he never threatened anybody with their careers. It's just not true. And this became part of the story that Louis somehow got these guys. And then they were, as far as I know anyway, I shouldn't say it's not true. As far as I know, I've never been able to uncover, nor did Melina tell me anything that indicated that was a true fact.

Was Dave accused of telling the young women, look, we prefer you don't say anything about this? At least, not threatening them necessarily, but implying that... Yeah, I don't remember all the details now, but I remember at the time saying to Melina, it sounded like she put the idea

out there and got them to respond to a question rather than asking a question based on what there was a factual basis already that she was you know it's a lot of stuff and i like i like melina good yeah i mean i can't i mean i can't speak to all that stuff because i just don't know and the and we did you know it is produced by the new york times we did you know have melina you know we interviewed them and got their feedback. But what is in the film is completely what I,

my goal for the film was just to create a conversation about it because I felt like I wanted to have a conversation about it. It's very difficult to have a conversation about these things. Now I think it's easier because it's like, yeah, because it's been time has passed and people aren't so feeling so heated about it. But everything I wanted, everything in the film just to be fact. I didn't want there to be speculation like about Louis, for instance, Louis's frame of mind. I have no idea. Like, I have no idea.

You know, and also what happened in the rooms, you know, I just wanted to keep it just minimal fact based and then really have like. The women who came forward not seem because they're not like that, like just be normal human beings, because I think like even for me, like I watch the cosby doc which is great and there are so many women who he in the doc unfortunately because he assaulted so many women and you don't really get to i mean the doc is great and that's definitely i mean you just see the vast the vast number of people who he affected but um you know just you women sit in a chair and they say this happened to me but you don't see them in the kind of context of just being normal people who just something happens to you and you you talk about it and then every the world comes down on you so i thought the women came across well yeah i. I mean, they're, you know, and none of them are like, I mean, Abby certainly isn't like this.

You know, Jen says at some point I wasn't in a shower crying. Like and Abby says, you know, I mean, she forgave him. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. In some sense, the tone of the women would not justify the worldwide – the reaction that the women showed would not justify the extent of the worldwide reaction. It's not – anybody should give them a pass. Nobody should give them a pass. But the women... So yeah, it suffered also

because Dana and Julia were there. And also, people who wanted to defend Louis would be too scared to do that documentary. That wasn't your fault. Yeah, nobody wants to talk about it because it just hurts their careers. But really, I mean, as much

as, you know the whole issue of the moral panic also it's coming back to me the whole issue of the moral panic i thought but they got so much horrible horrible shit just for saying what happened to them i mean i mean which is really crazy when you think about it i mean my because of my age and my generation i tend to focus on him, like what happened to him and kind of worry about him and think like, oh, was it that bad? I've been in. So everyone who I know has been in situations not exactly like that, but like and just it's really hard to turn your mind and think about other things other than him. And so the film is an attempt to do that

really for my own an exercise for my own brain to think like, okay, well, what about these other people? What do they have to say about it? And what is a different way that maybe we could look at this? I'm the worst person to, I'm so close to that whole story. Well, you're in it. But I like talking to you and I like the deal because it just does bring up all of these questions I mean as you know to me

it was lost on a lot of people at the time I was not friends with, I knew Louis, I wasn't friends with him to me there was a much much bigger issue at stake and I think time has vindicated me, as we are kind of getting away from that,

that this kind of idea of mob punishment and social media and retribution against people based on a sentence here in a newspaper and things like that, that this was a bad path to go down, and there would be a lot of casualties. And then it just got worse and worse. You may have read that 10-million-word essay that James Bennett wrote in The Economist about his experience with The New York Times. It was really, really, really long.

Yeah, I did read it. Where he just talked about how the New York Times had just become a traitor to its mission statement in terms of presenting unbiased news and unbiased opinions or a balance of opinions.

And of course he got fired, and McNeil got fired, and Mike Peska got fired, and people were saying Lab Leak was right. And we had normalized for a while the idea that if you could be identified as someone who was problematic, it was open season on you from your boss, from your this, from your that. And I think we are taking a step back from that. But I think from the point of view of the women in the film, it was open season on them. Well, that's outrageous.

I mean, but he really could have easily said, like, guys, just back off. You know, like just, you know, because he came forward, he admitted he did it, which was really good that he did that. Like Matt Lauer didn't good that he did that. Like Matt Lauer didn't do that. Nobody did. He's the only one.

But if he had just gone a step further and just, you know, it could have changed things for them. I never thought of that. I wonder what he would say about that. I'm not going to ask him. And I wonder what difference it would make. But whether it would make a difference or not – It would have made a difference for him, I think. I think people would have been a lot – People who were really angry at him would be like,

oh, okay, so he's doing the right thing. Yeah, and the women would have felt at least he tried. Like, you know – Well, I think – I mean, I'm not onto it. But if you recall, his admission was, you know, that I thought it was okay because I asked. So the implication being that the answer was in the affirmative, although that wasn't stated in the admission. I don't get that. Now, the truth is, I didn't is I didn't realize they were getting it,

as you're describing, and, I mean, I was – it's horrible to be on the receiving end. I was getting the most horrible, horrible thing. I can't even imagine what – yeah. You know, and not just me. Like, employees were being spit on on the street. My employees were being spit on on the street. This kind of thing.

Like, that's what was – like, that's not a world we should want to get into. The employees, people, and people righteously felt, Oh, she works at the comedy cellar, spit on them, you know, because they think they know, but they don't even really know what happened. And, and, and even if they were right as a thing, even if you got this one, right, very quickly, you're going to get it wrong because

that's why trials take, you know, hundreds of hours. I talked about this probably in an interview. It's like, every one of these incidents would probably be a whole day of testimony back and forth. Look at Derek Chauvin. But I mean, he agreed, but I mean, he

said everything in the article is true. so he already bypassed any sort of um you know factual um deliberation by saying what that it was true yeah but the people but it well you know it doesn't I think I mean that's good theory but what people thought he did was assault, keeping them – like the stuff that was in people's minds when they wrote me was not this kind of barely traced out New York Times stuff. It wasn't that at all. I mean I think there's like generally just been a lack of – you know, there's just been – there's a breakdown in civility all over the place. And, um, we have to have a justice system that handles this stuff. And, and like, that was the, that was the question I thought was going to get me in trouble with Michael Barbaro. Then we'll end, we asked him, would you, would you let, uh, Cosby work if he wanted to? Now there was one part of

my answer he cut out. I wish I could remember it now. I was furious when I heard the interview because I thought what he left in was going to get me in big trouble. It ended up not getting me in big trouble, but I went very much out of my way to give a nuanced answer. But what was left in, I do stand by, which was I wouldn't book Cosby, but if the guy across the street wants to book him, I wouldn't say boo about it. And he says, how could you do that? And I said, because what goes on between a guy who's done his time, a free person,

and somebody who wants to employ him is not my business. And this is a fundamental norm I think we really have to embrace. In the same way, like, I hear about employers giving employees a hard time because they're pro-Palestinian or Palestinian or vice versa. I'm like, what the fuck? I don't care. Like, if my employee leaves here and goes to a free Palestine riot,

well, protest and river to the sea, Yes, of course, I disagree with that. I'm like, what am I going to do? Nothing. I'm going to do nothing because that's America. They're supposed to be able to do that. But I think the good thing about the podcast and about you bring up all those questions, which is why I wanted to make the doc really is because it just I mean, I don't think there are clear answers to any of these things, at least not for me. I don't know. Maybe it's a cop-out, but I think just thinking about it and kind of turning it on yourself is the best thing to do. I've thought about so many instances like, should I have done something when I heard a rumor that this was going on with someone else?

No, there are clear answers in my opinion yeah for me for me I don't know I mean I I'm I guess I'm just generally ambivalent this is the best analogy I've come up with all year then what's up just like they say in the justice system better for a hundred guilty people to go

free than one innocent person but he said that he did all the things though so it's not like he's saying he's innocent and people were saying, well, he, he agreed. He admitted to what he admitted to. He admitted to,

yeah, I asked these women if I could masturbate in front of them. And I thought they said, yes, that's not something that, um, any legal body would ever think to punish with the fact that you can't work anymore.

Like, like, like this is not, you can't then turn it over to society to act out in any way they, they want to, because they determine the true fact how someone is punished for something that they've done is supposed to be done judiciously with wisdom and thought and

with fairness, meaning everybody who does that is supposed to get treated the same way. This is just the idea that a mob... Well, we know this. It's completely unpredictable. This person

does it two weeks after Harvey Weinstein. He's not going to work. This person gets a pass because he's beloved. This is what I said. Bill Clinton, he's a darling of the Democratic Party. So even though he was accused incredibly much worse than Louis, rape, rape of Paula Jones, and everybody actually believes he did it. To this day, nobody says boo when Bill Clinton wants to

go do something, appear somewhere, go to the Democratic Convention. This kind of hypocrisy because he's a darling of these people. Kavanaugh. Sorry, no. This is why I can't have this conversation with you because A, you're

such a quick thinker and speaker. I'm just like left in the dust. And these are things that I can't even, yeah. Yeah. So like, but so like, you know, when Kavanaugh happened, my first, the first thing I looked up was what would happen if a 17 year old were accused of what Kavanaugh is accused of? Well, it wouldn't be a crime, but if there was some crime,

his record, or 16-year, I guess, his record would likely be expunged. Now, who would want the record of somebody that age expunged? Liberal people. You know, this is what liberal people say. Well, if somebody does something as a kid, and it's, again, Kavanaugh's not accused of rape

or anything like that, he's not accused of groping a girl. And the notion that they were going to then, with no, really, very little evidence, use this against him, all of which is to say that I knew that if Kavanaugh had been the nominee for the Democratic Party who was going to save Roe v. Wade, they would never be coming after Kavanaugh had been the nominee for the Democratic Party who was going to save Roe versus Wade. They would never be coming after Kavanaugh.

And this is the problem with a mob. They would be saying, you can't go after somebody because something he did at 16 years old. He's kept a clean record for 30 years. People have to be forgiven for their past. And by the way, and I believe that stuff. I think that's right. You shouldn't hold things most things. Some crimes

are so bad that I think you may never be forgiven. Anyway. No, you've totally left me in the... Anyway, the documentary, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. But these are the interesting issues which I always... Yeah, they are.

I mean, what I always just go to is like, okay, let's hear people kind of say what their experience is. Watch the Louis doc. Oh, and that too. And watch the fantastic Barack Obama. I'm going to watch the rest of the episodes. It is really something. It is really good. It is really good. And I know it's good. It's not because I knew you, because

like I said, even though at the end it registered with me that you had told me about this, as I was watching it, I had no idea that it was yours and nothing interests me anymore. And I was like really watching this documentary. I was really enthralled by it. And by the way, if you have

Obama's email, feel free to invite him here and half off on all menu items for all former presidents. 75%. What's the matter? Oh, we'd love to have Obama

at the Comedy Center. I'll tell him 75%. The place would go crazy. Yeah, it would. Who's the most famous person we've had here? Maybe Madonna? Prince. Was Prince here? Really? Yeah, Prince is the most famous person. Yeah, it would. Who's the most famous person we've had here? Maybe Madonna? Prince.

Prince is the most famous. Really? Yeah, Prince is the most famous person. Well, Madonna is probably as famous as Prince. Madonna came to the wall one night. For some reason- But she was here at the South. She might be more famous, but Prince had a more powerful effect on the room.

I can't. Were you there? But banana, they would go. But more so than Prince, they would go bananas. For Obama? Yeah, I think. Oh, to be in the same room as Barack Obama would be ridiculous. Yeah.

And I think more than any other president it would be. Yeah. All right. Anyway. Okay. Well, I'll pass on the invitation if I see him again. Thank you very much,

Caroline. Kamsahamnida is what Jewish people say. Thank you so much.