The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Erica Komisar

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Erica Komisar

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar. We are coming at you on SiriusXM Raw Dog 99, and we are via Zoom. And Noam wanted me to do the intro for some reason. I guess he's sick of it. But Noam is here from his undisclosed location somewhere in Westchester County. Perry L. Ashton Brand is with us.

And I forgot the name of our guest. Erica Comisar. Erica Comisar. I'm sorry. You want me to start that again? You want me to just do that intro again? No, no, it's okay. Erica, I'm sorry. know i just saw you a

couple of weeks ago at the cellar and i totally spaced on your name don't worry she's a therapist they don't get mad or anything i'm wearing a baseball hat because how's a brother get a haircut in lockdown so i'm having a bad hair day i never wear baseball hats. That's completely not my MO. I find them... It's just not me, but given the hair situation. Anyhow, Erica's a psychiatrist or psychologist, and we're going to be talking to her in a bit. I did want to mention, Noam, I think it's important

to mention that the Comedy Cellar has a GoFundMe for the staff. Yeah. And you don't want to talk about this? I think it's... No, we can talk about it. The Comedy Cellar doesn't have it. i think i think we have to credit that with mike to mike rabiglia okay mike rabiglia set it up as the comedy seller um to raise money for the comedy seller staff because they're not working obviously and in very short order we're up to last i checked it's up to over thirty thousand dollars um yeah well in our government's

infinite wisdom you know i'm not allowed to set that kind of thing up and uh i'm also not allowed because it can be considered a way of discriminating i'm also not allowed to have a hand in how it's how it's distributed because then i can be open for other discrimination um accusations but i i am allowed to contribute to it, which I did. No, generously contributed. I won't say how much, but if you go on the GoFundMe, you'll see. But he was generous. But that is an interesting question.

How are they going to divide it up? Who's going to get it? And who's in charge of dividing it up? Well, I mean, listen, I'm a little worried about it. I mean, I have other things to worry about, but the government's giving everybody like $600, I think, pretty much at minimum, as far as I amount of money to sit home and order out and whatever. People will let their bills slide a little bit. And a lot of the waiters and waitresses have families. Some of them I know have doctors and lawyers as parents, but they have other safety nets. And then there are some employees there who are like some of our security guys who are sole wage earners. They don are, uh, so sole wage earners,

they don't make the big money that the waiters and waitresses make their sole wage earners. And they have like two children and a wife and an apartment. Some of them are, are immigrants, uh, and have no safety net, no family and things fall back. And some of them, I presume, and I really don't know this, but I have to presume. Some of them are people who are working with um flimsy social security numbers who in the end may have trouble collecting unemployment and I the government wants to come after me because I suspect that go ahead but I I believe

that to be the case I really don't know the case so what what worries me about this go fund me thirty thousand dollars is that everybody... I'm sure it's going to go higher. Yeah. It's just that if I had my way, I would give it only to the people who really needed it. I'd be generous to the people who I felt really needed it, and I would expect that people who have families and parents in their lives, whatever it is, or just didn't need that much money, find another source of income. But I'm afraid that once he puts

this up and says, here, we have this amount of money that everybody is going to feel, oh, I need to get my share of it. So it's not the way ideally that I would like it to be done. And I hope that if anybody in my staff is listening here, they know that it's a finite amount of money and that they should really question themselves 10 times to decide whether they need that dollar as opposed to the people who they work with who really don't have any other options.

And they know who those are. And I'm not saying that I think my staff won't do the honorable thing. It's just always worrisome when you put out a sum of money like that and it's for you guys. And everybody says, okay, well, where's my share? That's my worry. Also, some people have been working there a long time. Some people work there part-time. So you have that issue as well. I mean, somebody that just started yesterday, are they entitled to the same money?

These are the questions there's some there's some people who work there just a couple months and don't even intend to work there more than a couple months some people just passing through i people you don't like well i wouldn't bring that into but i i also have people who work for me uh 20 30 years who are lifers in the way that we used to think about like Japanese companies would, would, uh, when you worked at a Japanese company, that was like a lifelong decision. And, and there was a kind of responsibility that the Japanese companies had to their employees,

which was different than the American commitment because they were considered to be committed employees for over the longterm. So my waiters and waitresses, of course, they just take a job for a couple of months, they're bartenders and then they move on to something else. And it's kind of like musical chairs. The chair that they happen to stop in is supposed to somehow have this, this big responsibility to them. And I, I don't really accept that.

I think the government is really the, the, the institution that is supposed to backstop this particular type of event. I ideally, I would like to have been able just to deal with this one-on-one with my employees. Um, uh, but I certainly have nothing bad to say about them, uh, having, uh, that fund of money. Now, Mike, now Mike has got to worry about

what the requirements are going to be, who's going to distribute it, who gets to decide, how do you make sure, whatever. The only thing that I said is that I think that the first question needs to be, have you applied for all the government benefits that you applied for?

And if you haven't, I think you should do that first before you start taking money from the fund. But I don't know. I don't know. Well, you know, it is, I mean,

I, I don't, I would imagine the comedy community seems to be able to given GoFundMe campaigns related to the comedy community that I've seen in the past, raise a lot of money very quickly. And I don't know if this is unusual, but it probably is. And there's some big,

you know, some of these comics are very wealthy people and they tend to be generous. Well, I mean, John Mayer gave $2,500 and Sarah Silverman gave money and somebody gave $5,000. I don't know who that was. Was that an anonymous?

That was an anonymous donation, yeah. So we don't know, but we certainly know who it was. Is that an anonymous? That was an anonymous donation. Yeah. Um, so we don't know, but we certainly know who it isn't. Who is, who isn't it? Well, I mean, there's a lot of people who it isn't. Not you, Dan. We totally know it's in you. I know I donated under my name. Did you donate? I donated a honey. All right. That's nice of you. I thought it was reasonable. It's about the, you know, you matched all your tips over the years.

Anyway. My tips, if you ask any of my tips, they're pretty generous. Can we bring Erica into the conversation? Erica Tomasar is whether you can introduce her,

you know more better than I do. So Erica is, first went on my radar when she wrote a Wall Street, she has a book about how children need their mommies or at least their daddies, uh,

somebody in with for the first three years, was it Erica? Yep. And, I was very taken with that column. And so we first invited her to be on the podcast a few years ago. And then she, she and I became friends.

And, um, recently she wrote a column about, about how to, uh, deal with children during the, uh, um, this crisis, right?

Yeah. That sounds like a good topic for us. Maybe we should start with that because I've been treating my kids like the little boy in Life is Beautiful, thinking, you know, in the concentration camp, who thinks it's all fun and games. But Perrielle has a six-year-old also. So what's your advice to parents out there? Well, I wrote that column about how the good thing that might come out of this is that very young children in particular

are getting a lot out of being with their parents so much. Their volume is not great. Could you increase the volume somehow? Sure. They're probably spending more time. Is that better? Yeah, that's good. Yeah?

A little bit more if you could. I can take off, I yeah that's good yeah because i can also more if you could i can take off uh i think that's it i can take off the headphones it sounds good to me sound good to you perry oh yeah it sounds fine it sounds fine is hearing loss a covid symptom i could i could take off the headphones would that help you think no i think the mic is in headphones yeah so is that the mic you're using? Yeah. Yeah. You want me to? No, that's good.

That's good. Okay. Well, maybe just speak a little bit louder for the people in the back. Sure. I can speak louder. So I wrote the column because kids are getting to spend more time with their parents, which is a very good thing. And for very young children, they're probably getting to spend more time than they've ever

spent with their parents. And so many of my patients are really finding that their very young children are loving the corona crisis because, you know, they're getting quality time with their parents and quantity time. Teenagers, it's a different story. So they're having a very hard time being home and not socializing because developmentally, it's like appropriate for them to like be separating at this point. But for very young children, you're doing the right thing, Noam, which is, you know, this has got to be fun for them. You have to and it doesn't always have to be entertaining them, but at least, you know, making this an enjoyable time that you spend with them. How much are children absorbing the nature of this? Are they hearing on TV death tolls and people dying?

And are they understanding, at what age are they really understanding that this is a legitimate crisis? Well, children pick up on parents' worries and anxieties from the very beginning. Infants do. And one of the things that I say is to parents is don't listen to the news more than 15 minutes a day. You get your allotment of 15 minutes of news a day. That's it. And that way there's no TV blasting. And also parents have to be careful about speaking about their worries in front of their children, you have to speak about your worries, it's very important that adults have places they can go people they can talk to, talk to each other if you're living in a house with

another adult. But you have to be aware that you don't do it in front of children, that you save that for other adults and maybe for your therapist. But yes, children pick up on anxiety at a very young age. Well, if I were a young person or even a teenager and I heard on the news, this many people are going to die and that many people, I would have been pretty concerned. I was concerned at that age about the Russians dropping a bomb on us, but that was the eighties. Yeah. We don't have that concern anymore, but is it important to tell a young person, look, at your age, you're really, you're, you're, you're

not, you're not in any physical danger. I mean, your mother and I might drop dead, but you'll be okay. And I mean, the best way is to ask them if they have any questions. And, you know, if you've been careful, you know, they're going to have some questions, even if you've been careful. And so the rule is that you answer the questions the children ask, but you don't give them too much information, you just give them enough information to answer the question. And then you ask them if they have another question. Well, I got a question. So if I'm a kid and I say, mommy, is this, are we going to die? So the idea is, the idea is you do want to get to reassuring them, but you don't, you want to hear their fears first. So you want to, empathy always comes before reassurance. So you want to

make sure that you're tuning into how they're feeling and saying, I can hear, I can see that you're kind of worried about this. And you may be hearing things that are making you feel worried about this. Do you have any questions about it? I have a question, mommy. Mommy, do you have any comorbidities? The idea is that you do want to reassure them, but you don't want to reassure them without first hearing their feelings feelings first so always feelings first and then you get to reassurance but yes you

do want to reassure them and you know we say you don't want to lie to children so parents have to dig adults have to dig really deep into themselves now to find hope and to be able to see past the present, meaning there's this kind of balance that we have to find now, which is that we lean into the past to think about how we've dealt with adversity and what will help us to deal with adversity that's worked for us in the past. And we have to think about the future and know that this is not going to last forever. But for the most part, we want to live in the moment and we want to be mindful and we want to be mindful with our children. So to say, mommy's fine now, daddy's fine now. And in the end, we're all going to be okay. It's going to be a little bit of a

long haul. We're going to be in together. And I can hear that it's scary, but we're all going to be okay. So yeah, you want to hear their feelings and then reassure them. At what age do they actually, like my son said something the other day. I wish I could remember exactly what he said. My son is six. He's very, very attached to me. And he said something like, well, daddy, if you die, blah, blah, blah. And he said it so casually.

It was very clear to me that, not that he didn't love me, that he didn't really understand death. Right. Yeah. And at what age do they really understand death? Or is it very? I mean, they don't understand the finality of death. You know, they don't understand death is a word to them.

It's the concept is far too overwhelming so yeah i mean i think if your son says to you you know when you die and then i think you could say well are you worried about me dying again you're you're kind of digging for feelings always digging for feelings but yeah no they don't understand the concept or the finality of death which is why we... Yeah, go ahead. I gotta be honest with you. As I plumb the depths of my own memory, I'm pretty sure I knew exactly what death was at three years old, certainly by six.

But I remember my parents explained, like, I heard the word, I have a vague memory of hearing the word, somebody died. And I'm like, what's dying? And they explained to me, oh, that's, you know, how, you know, the end of living. And I'm pretty sure I got it right away because I remember hollering, screaming, and my parents were like, don't worry, it won't happen for a long time. You know, I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal that came out, I don't know, a few months ago about how faith is important for children, meaning that even if as a parent, you don't believe in

something otherworldly, you don't believe in a higher power, that when it comes to children, because they can't really conceive of the finality of death, you know, it rests on you to come up with a good story. And the story is heaven. And you know, a lot of people believe in heaven. And if you don't believe in heaven, you're doing that for your child. Because telling your child that just it's the end of life and dust to dust, it's too overwhelming to a child. So they have to have some sense of the continuation. Overwhelming for an adult, I dare say.

Yeah. I mean, I think you have to treat, you know, this whole thing with things that are age appropriate. Like you can't expect a six-year-old or a three-year-old to understand certain concepts. And I think, you know, as parents, the onus is on us to sort of figure out how to protect them from the harsh realities of what's going on with this.

They don't need to know everything. They can't possibly understand all of it. And I don't really think it's fair to put that on them either. That's exactly right. You only answer what they need to know. Look how Noam cringed when you said you're exactly right

that was a low blow Erica but we've never said that to Perry on this show before but uh yeah no the concept is you really you only give children what they can handle and what they need to know and again without lying to them you also don't want to lie to them. So if they say, mommy, are you scared? Daddy, are you scared? It's okay to say, yeah, I'm scared sometimes too, but I'm also hopeful about the future. It's what we call simultaneous feelings. So children don't always understand the concept of simultaneous feelings. Like you can feel angry at someone and love them at the same time. Whereas as adults, we understand that. So you can say to them, yeah, I do feel scared too sometimes about this, but I also feel like we're going to be okay. And that's

probably both true. You're not lying to them. All right. Question. Let me put this, only because I like the tech here. What do you think, if you can see this? You see that headline? Yeah. I just want to add this to it. Oh, wait. Wait, I didn't do it right. Can you hear that?

I'm hearing music. Wait. Do it like this. I'm hearing string music. I should have done this. I'm hearing string. Health experts say. Yeah. I've been playing a lot of shit. You couldn't see the headline that you wanted to show us.

You couldn't see it? And you couldn't hear you screaming over Schindler's List either. All right, hold on. I'll do it again. I realize now that I shared the wrong. The headline said something about mental health and- Okay, you see it? And about economy.

Should I play Schindler's List again? No. I just want to have the proper mood for it. Erica. Yeah. So the president has said that he talked about suicide rates and the stresses of social distancing. What did you think about when he said that? And what do you think about what he said? I mean, I think that inherent in all this is so much loss for people.

So it's social distancing or what I call physical distancing. We really shouldn't be calling it social distancing. We should be calling it physical distancing because that's what it is. We're not disconnecting from socially. I'm talking to you. I can see you. It's not the same as being there, but we're physical distancing. But anything to do with this whole coronavirus crisis is involving loss. We're either losing, you know, my kids were losing seeing their friends and going to school and finishing. One of my sons is a senior in high school. He's missing the end of his senior year. He's going to miss graduation. People are losing their jobs. People have lost loved ones. You know, there's loss all around, people are losing income,

you know. So I think the concept of depression and anxiety, whenever you have adversity, and you have an underlying kind of depression or anxiety in a human being, it's going to exacerbate it. So yeah, we're going to see an uptick for sure in anxiety and depression. We were already seeing so much anxiety and depression. So yeah, we're definitely going to see more. Are you busier than usual? Sorry? Are you busier than usual? I am busier than usual. So busy. Patients from 25, 30 years ago are calling me. Because we say once a therapist, always a therapist. So once I'm your therapist and you get better and you go away, 30 years later, you could have a loss and you call me and I'm still your therapist. So yeah, I'm hearing from people that I haven't heard from in 25 or 30 years.

Yeah. I'm hearing some people saying that there's a, one guy in particular said, you know, now everybody's kind of in the same boat as me. I mean, this is loser talk. Yeah. People like, people whose lives weren't going that great might feel like this is sort of equal,

equalize the playing field. And they feel, I don't know if you've run into that. Maybe those people can't afford a therapist, but I hear them. You know, yes. I mean, I think, what is the expression? Misery loves company. So I think if you were unhappy before, you know,

I would say everybody's impacted by this in some way. Maybe those people that were already feeling unhappy, maybe they're still unhappy. But what I would say is unhappiness is now exponential. You're just happy that Jim Gaffigan's not making any money. Yeah. I mean, again, I think everybody is impacted by this in one way or another. And I do think there will be an increase in depression and anxiety, and I'm already seeing it. Yeah, I should explain the Schindler's List. I was just thinking that, you know, it could be a lot worse, is really what I've been thinking a lot.

And when you think about what other generations have been through, we're not going through the people who are not sick. Like people who are sick, we're really going through it. But the rest of us, I mean, um, we're not, it's not, this is not the worst thing we've ever experienced. It may, it may happen that the future is very difficult, but we don't know that. And hopefully it won't be. I think one way to keep yourself grounded is to be grateful. And I think what you're saying,

Noam, is you're grateful for what you have. You have a lovely family and you have a good business. And, you know, I mean, we all have things to feel grateful. Maybe as you say, Dan, maybe some people have fewer things to be grateful about, but we all have something to be grateful for Maybe, as you say, Dan, maybe some people have fewer things to be grateful about. But we all have something to be grateful for. And I think it is a time to have perspective. You're right, Noam.

Ironically, let me cheer you all up. I mean, I say, can you imagine, like, can you imagine what they were going through? Right. Well, in that video seemed like they were in a good mood,

but I think we're just not used to adverse. Like people, a hundred years ago, expected everyone to drop dead of, of, of smallpox or cholera or expected horrible things to happen. We thought we're so stupid. We thought that we had, uh,

science and technology to our way out of this kind of adversity. Yeah. I think it's a very American thing. Pardon? I think it's a very American thing. I think it's a first world thing. Pardon? I think it's a very American thing. I think it's a first world thing. Okay, well. We thought that we had defeated these kinds of diseases.

And, you know, we haven't seen this in so long. And we've been sort of spoiled, you know. Those of us who were born, you know, we avoided getting drafted and sent off to war. And, you know, we avoided some, some, some of the things that our parents and grandparents went through and we're soft. I mean, I think that's right. I think World War II is what, 80 years ago. So, you know, if you think about it, 80 years is more than one generation, two generations. So, you know, maybe even- You've gotten away with murder. Yeah.

So, you know, we haven't experienced the kind of adversity since no one put up, you know, a picture of Hitler. But the truth is we haven't really experienced that kind of adversity in 80 years. So, but I do think- Well, in America, we haven't. I mean, my husband's from Israel and he's like, you know. That's true.

This is not something that is altogether that foreign to him in the sense that, you know, you can't leave the house. You know, in a lot of ways this is, what I'm not hearing a lot of people here say is if you're one of the people who isn't sick and staying home is a luxury you know like i have a lot of friends who have people who are doctors and nurses and you know i don't know the people who are you know i saw a picture of the subway that i don't know if it's accurate but it was yeah i sent it to you, Perry. I sent it to Noam as well. It was a picture of the subway supposedly taken yesterday at rush hour and it was packed to the gills. And I think it's an accurate picture because everybody was wearing a mask. So that wouldn't have happened a week ago, probably.

So that's scandalous. These are people, working people. Yeah. This is an assault on working people. Yeah. How do you solve it? How do you, what's the solution for people that have to go to work

and have to take public transportation? Should we give them all an allowance to take an Uber? Well, Ubers aren't safe either. Well, they're safer, I would imagine, than a subway. Or should we just, or should we close more things? I don't know where these people are all going. I mean, there can't be that many grocery stores. And they're not all health workers. So I don't know what else is open. I don't know. And I think the subways are not running as frequently as they used to also.

They're not. That's causing congestion. I mean, a lot of the coming and going are the healthcare workers and people that support them. And I mean, I know the hotels like the Four Seasons and I think it's the St. Regis and have opened their doors to doctors and nurses and people who work in hospitals and so they don't have to commute,

but they're still having to get to their jobs. And, you know, I think there's still a lot of coming and going. We just had the seven o'clock clapping and screaming. I don't know if you all... I heard it. I look out of like the courtyard, so I can't really do it. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. I mean, talk about appreciation and gratitude. At seven o'clock every night, it gets louder every night. The clapping and the screaming for the healthcare workers and the people who support them is magnificent. It's really a wonderful thing. But, you know, I think that this is, I think it's this corona thing is scary because health is something that people in the Western world take for granted. I think the fact that we, and maybe that's what makes it a

little different than Israel or living in a war zone. There's an unpredictability to living in a war zone. There is to this too, but I think that we've all just assumed that there will always be a pill or a remedy or a cure for whatever ails us with Western medicine. And I think we're just shocked that, I mean, there've always been things like there's antibiotic resistant TB, but you don't hear about that very much, but nothing so widespread that can't be treated that is so unpredictable.

That's what I think is frightening everyone. Also, the way they told us, it's no big deal, it's no big deal, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. And like literally overnight, so head for the hills they told us, it's no big deal, it's no big deal, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. And like literally overnight, said head for the hills, you know, like we got such bad information from day one, from all the people that we were supposed to trust, from the World Health Organization, to the president, to the mayor, to the governor, to everybody. Everybody except Noam Dorman because he was at home two weeks

before everybody else. Really? And I, you know, and I thought he was being a little excessive about it, but I guess he was right. I did not think he was being excessive about it.

I also knew that this was going to be crazy and everybody thought I was nuts and hysterical. Well, because you're like the boy from... I don't remember that. Talk to anybody in my family. going to be crazy and everybody thought I was nuts and hysterical. Well, because you're like the boy I don't remember that. Talk to anybody in my family. We're going to have to go back to the table. You don't remember it because you

weren't there and I was the only one who was sticking up for you. Everybody's like why is it Noam at the podcast? What do you mean? Yeah, I took my kids out of school like almost two weeks early. But it came, it was, I'm not saying it, I'm afraid. Dan, is that true?

Do you remember when Noam's in Canada? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I don't know what people are saying, why the hell is he not at the podcast? I thought internally it seemed a little excessive, given what I was told by the CDC, World Health Organization, et cetera. Yeah, but I mean, all I was saying was, look what's happening in China. Why would anybody think it's going to be any different here? And nobody had any answers to happen, I don't know if you remember his approach. He said, I'm just turning the knob as I need to, meaning he was afraid to shut everything down. And he said, we're just going to turn the knob as we need to. So even Cuomo,

who everybody is saying is wonderful, and he has been very presidential, and his leadership skills are great. But even he didn't jump on this quickly and shut it down. I mean, I have friends in South Africa, and friends in other parts of the world who are saying in India, things I mean, things got shut down immediately. But things in New York are still not shut down. I know. I mean, there are still people gallivanting around in the streets. It's maybe that's good, because we need some people to getanting around in the streets. It's true. Maybe that's good because we need some people to get, I don't know, immune to it. But I just want to say about Cuomo, I'm happy Erica said that because I've been saying it and I got a lot of flack, which is, I agree with you a thousand percent.

I think Cuomo is reassuring and presidential is a good word. And he shows a lot of gravitas and caring and seems very sincere and all that but he did not get this right virtually every decision he made was about two weeks too late and was not uh could not stand up to just the slightest scrutiny of what you're thinking is like kind of like you said so so you're waiting until everybody's exposed and then you're gonna like when everything was waiting till it was too late and it was illuminated by the fact that other states were, who had, which had fewer cases were earlier to the game than he was. Ohio shut down their schools like a week before we did. The federal government was recommending very small groups when Cuomo wouldn't go less than 500 and just nothing. We had the experience. They told us to go half capacity, but then everybody just piled in together at half capacity and left the other half of the room. And even if you would put them, spread them out at half capacity,

you would have been like two feet apart, not six feet apart because you have to have a circle of six feet around you. And normally they're shoulder to shoulder. So none of it made sense. Well, also de Blasio didn't shut down the public schools in New York City. I mean, he refused to shut down because he wanted to feed the children when he could have fed the children without having the schools open. And the governor could have shut them down too.

And de Blasio was saying, go out, go have a good time. And then they're telling us, don't wear a mask. And like nothing was right. And something Perry Ellis said made me think of something, you know, like when you want to say how good people can really blow it. And also maybe even as a way to view the federal government getting certain things wrong. In 1973, Israel was caught with their pants down during when they had a sneak attack and, and almost lost the country. And these were the smartest battle-tested Israelis in history that were in charge of the government in those days.

But sometimes, and they knew an attack from the Arab world was likely, but sometimes despite all that, despite your talent and your good intentions and the knowledge, you still get caught. It just happens in a way and it just overwhelms you. And it's not that helpful to try to lay blame while it's happening, which you see a lot of people doing now. Afterwards, as it was in Israel, there needs to be a reckoning, see who did what wrong and how to handle it, and for the reason that you want to make sure that next time we're prepared

not to blame somebody. But this really isn't, I think, a situation where there were anybody, there's any real bad guys, I don't think, including the president, I would say, and including Cuomo and de Blasio. You know, they just blew it. I think it was just complete disbelief and denial. I mean, nothing like this has happened. So the incredible, you know, denial is an incredible defense. And I think just people had such disbelief that this could actually be happening. I don't know. I have a very hard time accepting that. You look at a place like South Korea. They've been through this before. They've had pandemics before. They were, they had a... It's hard. Did you see that video I sent you where Fauci said, I think this was in February. Yeah. This is not something that the average American has to worry about or words to that effect. Yeah. He got, you know, he was wrong in January. I think it was, it might've been in January. He was on, I think it was, I'm not sure

where he was being interviewed, but he said, yeah, this is, you know, we, we, we got it. We're taking precautions and, and, and he, he, he minimized it every bit as much, I think, as Trump did, except in a more elegant way. People in international public health have been talking about this. You know, my husband, Noam, knows my husband's in public health. And, you know, they've been talking about a pandemic for decades. Yeah. You know, but just no one believed them. So like, little the sky is falling and no one actually believed them.

So all the people that for years said this pandemic is coming, it's just, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, are vindicated, you know, now. And what is the expression?

Fool me once, you're the fool. Fool me twice, I'm the fool. I mean, we better be more prepared for another one, you know,

because these things can happen. Now we know it can actually happen. And, but here's the, to me, because these things can happen. Now we know it can actually happen. And, and, but here's the, to me, here's the interesting thing about that, which is that, um, I'm not sure what of those preparations would have made that much a difference in the end, the big mistake, and we haven't even yet run out of ventilators, you know, just, you know, hopefully we won't, we might to some degree, and that will be some lives lost. But the big mistake was holding off on the, what I don't want to call social distancing, physical distancing.

Social distancing is the term that we use. No, Erica wanted me to use things that she's right. Physical distance. It really shouldn't be called social distancing. I'm going to continue to use social distancing, and I'll tell you why. Wait, wait, wait. Let me finish my point. So the physical distancing was the big thing. that I understand would have significantly changed our situation

other than the physical distancing. What about more masks on hand for the nurses and doctors? Yeah, I mean, yes. And the general public. And the general public. That's what's come out now is, you know, now all these companies, my husband's company is repurposing their function to make masks. I mean, everyone's supposed to wear masks now. And it's not six feet. Yeah. It's actually.

But if you're physically distancing when you're supposed to, the masks then become less crucial. For the healthcare workers, of course, I'm not saying there's nothing that would have been better, but I'm saying that, oh, let me just show you something here. I showed this to somebody yesterday. So this is from the New York Times yesterday. This is a graph of all the, a bunch of first world countries, United States, Spain, Germany, Italy,

France, Iran is our first world, United Kingdom. And you can see they're all pretty much identical. And United States has 244,000 cases out of 330 million people. Germany has 79,000 cases out of something like, you know, I don't know how many people Germany have, like 80 million people or something like that. Similar ratios per capita. The point being that some of them have very good leaders, some of them have mediocre leaders, and it doesn't really seem to matter that some of them have masks, of them don't well look at the netherlands and switzerland well switzerland is on their way up actually and um you know some of these countries may benefit from the fact like north dakota that they're just naturally more spread out no i've been i've read that germany is actually even though they have a lot of cases they're

they're doing a pretty good job in terms of their mortality rates. Yeah, that's because I think that's because they're maybe because they're younger, but more because they're testing so many people that their denominator includes a lot more people who are asymptomatic or very mild, where our denominator is basically all our sick people. I think that's part of it. I just read an article where it said it's because they're testing people more frequently, they're able to, as soon as somebody is positive, they can start whatever treatment might be appropriate and that can save lives as well. That makes sense to me. It's not that there's much you can do, but I think there are some things that you can do.

Yeah, well, we had some real- We had some real mess-ups with the testing, which I don't know if there's anybody... I mean, the tests were defective. I don't know. It's not like we could prepare the testing until we knew what the virus was. And the virus came here pretty shortly

after it was in China, you know? And yeah, they made a mistake by... They made a mistake by they made a mistake by not believing it could really happen. Then it was the disbelief that was really yeah. Well, you got to give it to the captain of the Titanic who like within at least

according to the movie, you know, within five minutes, he's like, okay, we're sinking. We got an hour and a half and we got to abandon ship. I mean, to accept that level of doom. Who was the pilot that landed in the Hudson? And also Sully.

Sully just said within five minutes, okay, we're going into Hudson. And then to accept that and to then act on it very quickly. So I think that's like where Cuomo's done a good job, right? Where? Where's he done a good job? We were just talking about how Cuomo didn't do any of those things. He kind of half-assed it and did everything a little bit late.

Well, he did it a little bit late, but now, I mean, he's doing a very good job. Well, you have, Perrielle, you're in the demographic of women that want to have Cuomo's baby. I don't want to have anybody's baby. I'm done having babies.

Wait, do you have the right Cuomo? Pardon? There's two Cuomos. There's two of them. The younger brother. Yeah, I went to school with the younger brother.

Yeah, okay. He had a thick Queen Queens accent at the time, like his brother and his father, but he got rid of it. Yeah. So, no, Cuomo, I mean, when, as I, and I review like my Facebook posts to the local Ardsley forum and my emails to various people. It was,

it became, what was that? It became when it was becoming apparent to me, I'm no expert on it, but when I began to really think that shit, they need to be doing this and this and this, it was the local government that I was bitching about. Why aren't they closing the schools?

Why aren't they closing down the businesses? Why are they doing only half capacity? I decided to close the Comedy Cellar a few days before the government, without even knowing that they were going to shut us down, because I just felt guilty. I was like, you know what? Noam had us each use a separate microphone a few days prior to the shutdown. Noam was giving everybody a separate microphone and one shudders to think what this pandemic

would be like, uh, had we all use the same microphone. Yeah, really? On those two days, that would have been the, that would have changed everything. But, um, kidding, of course, but, um. He had some foresight. You know, what I say is germaphobes rule now, you know, people who were like aware that, that, that people, you know, you could contract things from other people. They, they were made fun of before. Now they're, they, they rule, you know, Purell hand sanitizer and some foresight about, um, you know, the spread of disease.

I applaud Noam because people have been in such incredible denial. So listen to this. This is an article in The Hill. And tell me what you guys see behind these words. This is something with Cuomo. So the headline is, Andrew Cuomo to Emerging Coronavirus Hotspots. Make hard choices sooner. And then he says here, he advocates paying attention to numerical projections against hopeful intuition.

Now, I read that to be, to his credit, his realization that he didn't do that. He was using hopeful intuition. He didn't make the hard choices soon enough. So, you know, I'm not going to beat him up over it. I'm more just disturbed with the people that just wants to say it out loud. And people talk about how, thank God we have Governor Cuomo.

And I'm like, yeah, but, you know, I can't help it. But he didn't close the schools when he should have, you know. And closing'm like, yeah, but I can't help it. But he didn't close the schools when he should have. And closing the schools, my idea back then was to make it at least optional where they could so that, I said, put the lessons and stuff online for parents who can stay home. And that way, at least the schools will be less crowded and they can spread the kids out as well. Because so many kids were coming home to households where they had high risk people. Yeah. It's crazy that they were forcing these high risk people or grandparents or people with heart conditions to send their kids to school waiting for until

somebody in the school tests positive. Yeah, it's crazy. You're absolutely right. Now, if I said that to the governor, somebody must have said that to him. Like, why couldn't he figure that out? Well, you said you said that to like your local school and everybody said you were being crazy.

Yeah, but I would, yeah, well, they told me I was a fear monger and causing panic. And I wrote this school superintendent too and he didn't have much use for me. But the governor is different. I mean, you wonder if it really is like Roy Scheider in Jaws, you know, when the sheriff, he knew he should have closed the beaches. He knew, but there was so much pressure not to close the beaches. He said, OK, we'll just let it ride this one more day. And then the kid gets eaten and the mom comes and slaps him across the beaches. He said, okay, we'll just let it ride this one more day. And then the kid gets eaten

and the mom comes and slaps him across the face. I feel that, you know, and the sheriff was a sympathetic character in Jaws. I think Cuomo is a sympathetic character, but he screwed up. No, you're right. I mean, it's true. And the subway still, it's like, I just don't.

But what's the solution to the subway issue? I mean, if people got to get to work, essential workers have to get to work. I think they have to run more subways. I mean, I really think that they should shut everything down for two weeks. Like, well, they have to. The workers have to get to work, the healthcare workers.

Okay, so there needs to be some provision for that but what's going on right now is the grocery stores as well by the way erica's house is just beautiful look at that and then with the dog there it's really just this is uh idyllic and whatever we're the only ones left in new york i don't know perry are you in new york dan are you in new york i am in new york anybody who can flee has fled. I feel like it would be desirable to flee at this point. But, you know, but I might, depending on how long this continues. Perrielle, so if they close everything down for two weeks,

what happens after two weeks? Well, I think after two weeks, my understanding is that it slows everything down so much that the hospitals do not become so overwhelmed. And then what? I think we just slow it down. That's the whole point. This flatten the curve thing is we just don't want the hospitals to be overflowing with people that they don't have the manpower and equipment to take care of. So it sounds like you're suggesting something like two weeks on, two weeks off, two weeks on, two weeks off, because it's going to come right back as soon as you end it. I don't think so.

Why wouldn't it? I don't think that's true. I think that it's if you... Of course it's true. Of course, it's just going to pick up where it left off. It's a virus. Until there's enough people who've had it that some sort of herd immunity, which I think I'm here is like 50, 60%. 60% with this particular virus, they say, the more contagious the virus, the more people you need to have immunity to it. So measles, I read, is like 70%. This is about 60% that they would need. Yeah, but the problem is, too,

that there are occurrences in Korea and in China of contracting the virus again or... The jury's still out. The jury is out as to whether you develop an immunity to this

or whether. Or there are multiple strains, right? Yeah. From what I've read, the overwhelming likelihood is that there is immunity because that's pretty much how viruses tend to work.

But assuming there is immunity, so I mean, best case scenario that there is immunity, it's going to start spreading right again as soon as it starts again. It started, it was just like yesterday, there were 10 cases. I mean, it was like three weeks ago,

something like that. Now we're going to start with, you know, tens of thousands of cases, two weeks from now, you know, some people will be cured. There's no, it seems like no way out of this. I think from now, some people will be cured. There's no, it seems like no way out of this. I think that's what's so depressing about it.

It's really, unless one of these therapies like this hydroxychloroquine or the Ebola drug or the AIDS drug, unless one of these things really is consequential and really changes the game.

A way out of it, no, not the way out of it, but a way forward is A, one of those drugs works. B, we get enough tests that we can do more aggressive isolating of the people that are infected and contact tracing. C... Let's just, let's examine it because you know they're close to having a 15 minute test so let's say uh there's got to help right so let's say in a week everybody can get a 15 minute test so will everybody go in time how many people will they infect before they have before they realize a little scratch in their throat or the little is actually serious get an appointment and go. Yeah. It seems like it would slow it down. Is it going to slow it?

Is the test going to be enough that people can come out and work again? I don't think so. I think that. And masks. And if everybody can get a really good mask, I would imagine that could because the mask, if you have one on, you can't transmit it. And if it's mandatory. So do you think if there's a 15-minute test and everybody has an N95 mask, we're all going to come out?

Everybody doesn't need an N95 mask. They just need a regular mask. Only healthcare workers need N95 masks. So, Noam, repeat the question. Well, the N95 mask is the one that you need to prevent catching it. Right. The other one is to prevent spreading it. Yeah. So, well, let's Right. The other one is to prevent spreading it. Yeah. So,

but let's see the mask of choice. What is it? If we had all those things, I don't see people coming out to the comedy cellar. I don't see. Comedy cellar is fucked. Yeah, but I don't see people going. I don't see people resuming life as normal.

I think that, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, a vaccine is what's going to make, is what's going to normalize. And that's going to take a year to 18 months. Or some antiviral that works, you know.

But the 15-minute test, so I mean, the order of things is the 15-minute test by Abbott, which is, I think, already been FDA approved. I think the idea is that it would enable people to know if they've got antibodies and then they can go to work or they can go to the comedy cell or they can be out in public if they have some immunity to this thing. And plasma, right? Yeah, plasma too. But what we understand now is more people are carrying it and have it and are asymptomatic, then we can possibly know. The test will probably reveal that a lot of us have been exposed to it

and either have natural immunity or antibodies. So that would be the first step. The second step is some sort of verifiable treatment. And the third and the most effective will be the vaccine. I did read one kind of nutty sounding solution. Apparently, the severity of your illness can depend on the viral load. That's sort of a Beavis and Butthead moment right there. He said load, he said load. The more virus you get, the worse your illness. So some guys suggested just infecting everybody.

This is like a pseudo vaccine. And they used to do this, I think, with smallpox. They give everybody just a little bit. They did. Relatively light illness and do it with only young people, 40 and under, whatever it would be. And use that as sort of a pseudo vaccine.

You go first. Right. I wouldn't volunteer, but I'd probably be too old for it. But I did read that as a possible strategy. So, well, yeah, I don't think too old for it. But I didn't read that as a possible strategy. So, well, yeah, I don't think they're going to. It might be a good idea,

but I don't think you're going to get that past the public. But I did have two. Go ahead, you want to say something? I had two different parties. Exactly. I had two kind of weird thoughts during all this. One is, and maybe just because I'm, I don't get it. One is what a bedrock immovable,

whatever, immovable concept, the idea of money is. Like you just think there'd be some way to say, let's just, we just don't need money for a little while. Let's just, let's just work without money for a few months. And then when we come back, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll start money up again and everything will be fine, but you can't like, it's, you can't get rid of money. It's going to, it's, you know,

nuclear war, you'll have cockroaches. And if there's three people living, they will have to have money or or everything because we can't go into suspended animation you know thing electricity still has to flow but money is man-made it's so much like money's man-made right they didn't always have money at some point we thought of it and it's just like you think some smart person would find figure out a way that we could all just kind of pull through this without money and i guess you can't all right yeah yeah the other thought i had is that waking up every morning now i might have said this right waking up everything on the last episode about about public assistance yeah you've made that point uh all right so i'll make it again remake it you're

welcome to do so at this time i i noticed i get. I noticed, there's no reason to get up in the morning at any particular time, no reason to get dressed, just no responsibilities, no work to do, no appointments, no nothing. And I began to think of how deleterious and how insidious it must be to go on public assistance for a long period of time. And that is not to say that I'm against public assistance or I think that people in need shouldn't get public assistance. I'm just saying that after like five years of living like this, I don't know if I'd ever be able to go back to work. Like everything just falls apart. I can see myself out on a stoop drinking beer. You need work. You need responsibility. You need people depending on you. You need all this stuff. And I just find that this

is in a very short time, this is not healthy. This is not healthy to just not do anything all day long. And prison must be like that too. Prison's got to be a terribly damaging thing for people. Well, you know what I've been saying to my patients is, you know, other than finding structure in the day, you know, you can't have a completely unstructured day. So you have to, it's, and you can't have a rigidly structured day

that has too high expectation of you, but some structure. What I've been saying is do something creative every day. You know, Noam, you're a musician and a very creative person and lucky to be creative in that way. But even if you don't have an obvious talent that's a creative talent, everyone can be creative. You know, I'm telling people to bake bread. I'm telling people to, you know, to make Play-Doh with their kids, you know, from scratch, or to paint a painting, you know, or get out the crayons or do a mandala. I have a friend who's been sending me these daily coloring. Yeah, I don't know if you've

seen these mandalas that you color in. I don't know what a mandala is. Yeah, it's sort of a it's a it's a Buddhist I think it's Buddhist. Basically a prayer image. It's like a geometrical image. And basically, you know, she sends it to me every day, but it's white

with just you color in the lines. But basically there's something. There you go. Thank you. Those are mandal's something. There you go. Thank you. Those are mandalas. Okay, go ahead. But the idea is do something creative every day because, yeah, Freud said you need love and work. You need some kind of meaningful work,

but some creative endeavor is work. He didn't necessarily say it has to be paid work. So something creative every day. And it doesn't, again, the expectations that you don't have to write an award-winning song or bake a bread that's the best bread you've ever baked or paint a painting that's a masterpiece, but the idea of doing something creative and doing something creative with your kids every day. Yeah. Well, actually the homeschooling, that gives us the most structure because the school has assignments every day that the kids have to do. So that I do. And then I've been practicing the guitar, trying to learn some old

classical pieces that I used to work on. And I'm going to go into the city, I think tomorrow to pick up a hard drive. Okay. Don't worry. This is how I'm going to do it. Tell me if it's okay. I'm going to pull up in the aisle is how I'm going to do it. Tell me if it's okay. I'm going to pull up in the olive tree. I'm going to... No. Listen, I'm going to pop the trunk. I'm not getting out of the car. And Tony's going to put it in the trunk for me.

I'm going to drive away. You think that's safe? I don't know why you have to do that. Can't you order something on Amazon to be shipped to your house? You haven't been picking up for so long. I want to pick up the hard drive

of all the recordings I've made in the olive tree with my band over the last three years I was going to try to mix a little you know if you order from Amazon Periel someone's got to go out and drive and deliver some shit yeah I know that you're right

Noam hasn't left the house in so long and Juanita has you know delicate lungs and like is it really worth it um well I don't know I don't think if I don't get out of my car am I taking a risk I think if you don't get out of your car you're not taking it I think as long as you drive in you don't get out of your car you pop your trunk and they stick it in there and you and you really scrub it down with some bleach when you get when, some chloroform. I'm going to leave it in the trunk for a week before I take it out. You can wear an N95 mask if you have one.

I have one. You don't need an N95 mask. Those are for the healthcare workers. I have two things. I have one. You have one? Yeah, I ordered some in February. You should give them to the doctors. I have two things to say. Number one is what Erica said before is why she's actually qualified to be a real therapist. Yes. Unlike, you know, somebody like yourself. Of course, she's qualified to be a real therapist. She really cares about people. I just want to be right all the time. And the second thing is,

and Noam's going to give me a hard time about this, but I really think that there is a moral and ethical responsibility on those of us who have the luxury to sit at home is to really be helpers and to find ways to, like I've been using my big mouth and all of my connections to try and really get healthcare workers masks. Yeah, but Nome had some issues with that.

And it's been working both on a larger scale and a smaller scale. I have, like I mentioned, a few friends who have partners who are doctors at several of the big hospitals in New York. We just got three, they need five baby monitors to put into the rooms with the older patients. No, this is important. I got to interject something because Dan said something that could, I don't have a problem with you. You have some questions regarding. I am very skeptical of some of these people who seem to be doing mask arbitrage or whatever it is. And I just know how corrupting money is.

And these people who are buying millions of masks rather than just introducing the hospital to the supplier and saying, here, you can order masks. People who want to raise money from GoFundMe, then buy the mask, then be the middleman to take the mask. But they're not taking a penny for themselves. It's possible. But there was a whole article in the Times about it.

I sent it to you that a lot of people are not doing it honorably. On the face of it, it's suspicious to me because if there's a supplier in China who can sell a million masks, why can't New York Presbyterian order them directly? Okay, so it's the same reason why Mike Birbiglia had to set up a GoFundMe for the comedy seller. Yeah, it is. Because New York Presbyterian is not allowed to order the masks? No, because New York Presbyterian has certain rules and setups. And I don't even know for New York Presbyterian. I can talk.

Listen to me. My friend's husband is an infectious disease doctor at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. They do not have enough masks. We know that. Okay. So why aren't they getting enough masks? No, that's not my question. My question is if there is somebody in China that has a million of them, why do they need a million? Why do they need a middleman and a GoFundMe page? I don't know.

Why can't the hospital directly? I'm not dealing with those kinds of quantities. Nobody I know is dealing with those. Yes, the GoFundMe page that you showed us, they said they have a purchase for a million masks and they're raising, they want $10 for a protective, what's a PPP stand for? Whatever it is, protective. Kit. The whole thing is like, if you have access to a seller, why can't you just introduce the seller to the buyer? I don't get it. I don't get it.

I asked you to invite your friend on so you could explain it. I'm super happy to be here, but I also sent you a ton of evidence to which you did not reply, including pictures. You didn't send me any evidence. I didn't?

You sent me evidence that people don't have masks. No, I didn't send you pictures of the doctors receiving masks. Oh, I'm not even questioning whether they might receive masks. I'm questioning whether or not this is... You know what I'm questioning. I'm questioning whether or not this is not a scheme, maybe not with your friend, but in general, to try to take a taste, a few pennies,

on each one of these masks. Right. I'm sure some people are doing that. Marielle, let's move on. I want to say something. I'm asking a very simple and very reasonable question, which just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean there isn't a very reasonable answer. But the question is, why can't the hospital buy the masks directly from this buyer? Why do they need a GoFundMe page to raise money to then buy the mask, to then give them to the hospital? And rather than give me a million other things, why don't you call up your friend and ask her the answer to that question? Because it's a

perfectly reasonable common sense question. It's the same kind of common sense question, which says, why do we think after seeing what's happening in China, why do we think it's not going to happen in New York? But I've already told you what I think the answer is. I think it's bureaucratic red tape. But why is it no red tape taking it from your friends?

It doesn't make any sense sense and if you think that's the answer that's just something you've come up with you i i like the dylan facts i don't know i i don't think fair enough i'm gonna make a ruling the ruling is it's a legitimate question and we should get the answer from the person from from perry l's friend and i'm tempted to say something that you're not gonna like and i'm tempted to say something that you're not gonna like but i mean i will say it but it's not it which is that every time you read about read about in the paper about somebody who did something really horrible and selfish and scammed somebody don't say it they have friends too it's like the fact that that people know

people i thought you were gonna say this but this is just like, we've all been in situations where we suspect our own friends. You hear some facts like, oh my God, you don't think my friend would do such a thing. I mean, let's just grow up here. With a lot of money, we're talking about millions of dollars here. And people- We're not. And people who are asking on good GoFundMe pages that have glaring omissions of facts, it's certainly, I think I'm certainly correct to say, hey, wait a minute,

you got to explain a few things to me first. I think it's fine to be skeptical. I feel very confident in the things that I'm involved in, that they are legit because I know the doctors who are receiving them and the people who are getting them. You've been promoting this via the Comedy Cellar Instagram page because I think Noam would probably not want you to do that. I don't care. She can promote it.

God forbid, and I don't want to take a mask out of anybody's face, off of anybody's face. I just wish that since you have access to these people and it's been a week already that you would ask them the very simple question. Why can't you just arrange for the seller and buyer to, to, because I will ask that question. Why do you need charity? Okay.

I think we've resolved that. She's going to ask the question. Charity would imply another. Here's another question. Why can't, if there's, why can't New York Presbyterian give the money to the GoFundMe? Like if it has to be a middleman. That I don't know, but the only, but you've also derailed what I was saying. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Is that I do think that, you know, for example, we just got four baby,

three baby monitors into a hospital that desperately needed them. This is what's called baby monitor drama. Meaning there's other things, Perrielle, that they need other than just masks. There's actually basic equipment that they need. Oh, they also need masks. A friend of a friend just had 18 and 95 masks who sent to this doctor who's at infectious disease at Montefiore. I mean, so it's like,

stop rolling your eyes. I'm not rolling my eyes. I'm thinking that, listen, I'm not saying they're not going to get masks as anybody's hand. I'm not saying they're not going to get baby monitors. For instance, we have Mike Birbiglia has $40,000 or whatever it is for this GoFundMe for

the seller staff. Now someone's going to have to decide and be in charge of distributing that money and consider the need and all that stuff, I presume. Someone gets paid to do that, right? No, I don't think so. Of course, somebody should get paid to do that right no I don't think of course somebody should get paid to do that to get paid to do what I thought Mike was going to do that if Mike wants to do it that's fine but if Mike hired somebody to do it for $15 an hour

I would certainly say of course that's how charities work charities start hiring people and so that when you certainly say, well, of course, you know, that's how charities work. Charities start hiring people. And so that when you, and when you start raising, this is a small amount of money and it's a close-knit community, but when you start taking, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars from strangers, sending it to China, coming back, delivering to hospital, there's tremendous opportunities for small bits of that money to get siphoned off. And it's very tempting. And the truth is, there's even

honorable, honey, up and up reasons to siphon some of that money off. But when you're self-dealing, when the person who's raising the money is also the person deciding how to siphon it off, and also the person deciding who gets to do the job and who gets paid to do the logistics and all that. It's a real formula for corruption. And given that it's such an obvious formula for corruption, the people asking for the money should be very, very open. Like if you have a 501c3 corporation, whatever, you have to put online exactly where the money goes, how much each person gets paid. There's all sorts of disclosures that are required of charities because, because of this very reason. And none of that's going on with this mask stuff.

That's well, the ones that I send you, I is a four rated star on charity navigator. I sent you that. It says that. Yeah. I mean, that's how I bet all the time. I think this conversation we've, everybody said what they need to say I'm turning it to Scrooge

I don't want to be Scrooge the chances are they're doing great work and I'm happy there you go it's just my nature Noam has a question I think it's a legitimate one and your friend hopefully can answer that and when they do

then we can discuss it at that time so I think we should move on. I did, by the way, Trump said something today in the press conference that even by his standards, unless I'm missing. I just want to add one thing to this

because it's important that everybody see. I'm sorry, Dan, but just so you know that I'm not crazy because this happened after this. Look at the headline in the Times. It's bedlam in the mass market as profiteers out hustle. Good Samaritans.

Hospitals, governments, do-gooders, and hucksters are all competing scams, and prices are soaring. So this came out a few days after I said this stuff on the podcast. So call me crazy, but there it is in black and white. So if it's not appropriate for the people we were talking about, it's certainly appropriate in general, what I'm saying, and correct in general. So go ahead.

I was saying that Trump said something today at the press conference that even by Trump standards seemed to me pretty horrific, unless I'm misinterpreting it. Somebody mentioned something that Biden apparently said. I'm not sure what it was. And Trump said, I don't think Biden said that. Somebody said it on his behalf. I don't even think Biden is watching this press conference. And if he is, he doesn't even understand it or something like that. To me, it felt like a reference to dementia. Yeah, it does sound like that. And that's how I took it. And I'm surprised I didn't see more about it on social media. I'm sure people are talking about it. I thought it would

be a bigger scandal because that seemed, even by Trump standards, to be a pretty horrific thing to say, if I'm interpreting it the way I think he meant it. Well, I think you are. And I'll tell you this. So, because I was thinking, I didn't hear that, but I was thinking about this. First of all, by Trump standards, Trump made fun of the guy with, you know, with physical issues and Trump made fun of McCain for getting captured or Joe, whatever. He said some terrible things. did occur to me that for two years we were told that trump had cognitive decline and doctors psychiatrists and psychologists were breaking what they knew was their ethical obligations and saying listen i know we're not supposed to ever you know uh diagnose somebody without seeing them but it's clear to us that that this man is in cognitive decline, blah, blah, blah. And that guy Steele wrote that book where he said that Trump was in cognitive decline. So, and now we watch Trump in his press conferences. And although he may be horrible in terms of how you feel about him,

he really doesn't appear to be in cognitive decline, does he? He's got the names and the figures and the facts and the first names and the last names and the governor's names and how many of this. He's got them all at his fingertips in a way which you would just not suspect cognitive decline in the way he's answering questions and so many details, which to me really took me aback and say, well, you know, isn't it interesting how confirmation bias just overtook us all? And every time he tweeted something with a misspelling or a missed word, we said, there it is again, cognitive decline.

And then as opposed to Biden, who, and this may be part of the reason that Trump is so nasty about it, Biden, who really does seem to be slow and kind of does forget things all, not dementia, but like a normal 80-year-old. And we all kind of just pretending it's not happening. But it's really hard to imagine Biden and at this trajectory being 83 and being able to handle a crisis like the one Trump is handling now. And I, I,

as I, as I hear Biden talk and I don't say this with any pleasure, it doesn't seem like he'd be able to remember the names and the figures and, and all the stuff. He goes on an interview and gets the name, you know, Chris Wallace, very famous longtime journalist gets their names wrong. And he talks about hundreds of thousands of people dying from,

or millions of people dying from gun violence. I mean, he goes all, he gets numbers wrong all the time and names wrong all the time and, and misremembers facts all the time. So I've, I've taken the subject away from Dan's question. I would say, Dan, yes, it's very insulting and Trump shouldn't talk like that. But then the actual substance of the matter, I'm worried that Trump may be onto something there with Biden. I don't know, Erica, you probably can't talk about it. I mean, I don't remember Trump. I mean, you may remember it more clearly. Some of my colleagues wrote pieces about Trump having a personality disorder, not being in cognitive decline. So I don't remember having organic decline, but I do remember

my colleagues putting themselves out on a limb, which really we can't do as clinicians, which is diagnose someone remotely if we haven't even met them from their public statements and their public image. So that's not right. But at the same time, I do remember that, that there were a bunch of articles in the psychological community, you know, people coming out in the clinical community saying he had a personality disorder. So I did a quick Google just to show you like, here's a quick psychologist's one of Newsom of Trump's mental decline. Yeah, I mean, I don't see him as being in a different, decline would imply that he's in a different place than when he started. And I don't think

he's in a different place than when he started. I just think it exposed running for president and becoming president exposed his cognitive inabilities, but I don't know that it would be declined. In terms of Biden, you know, I don't think many people know, but Biden had a very bad stutter when he was a child. And what can happen with speech impediments is as you get older, they can come back to a certain extent. And so what I have noticed is that, and I think more, he should talk about it more because his speech impediment is not a cognitive deficit. It is, it's really a disability he had that he overcame. But as you get older, some of your internal resources in decline just naturally, things like speech impediments can come back. And he's got a little bit of that again. And I think people sometimes confuse him stumbling with thought processes., I'm going to say he does

forget some things. I think Trump forgets things. Trump is always misnaming people. And, you know, so they're all guys. I have more confidence that Biden would surround himself with people who are good people who he wouldn't fire every time they disagreed with him. The problem with Trump is he didn't surround himself with good people. And if he did, he fired them. He just fired another guy. He fired the guy who called him out on the Ukraine thing. He just fired him. Let me make the case for Biden, because I think Erica's right. She could be right that he did pretty well in that one on one debate with sanders i don't know if anybody watched it and he was it was a lower pressure situation he didn't have an audience there and being relaxed he he didn't make any gaps of note that i recall and he and he and

his even his speech was more fluid and i think that i i it's totally plausible to me because the mind can actually only do one thing at a time, even though it switches back and forth. When he's in the process of focusing on trying to get the word out because there's speech impediment, at that point, he could just reach for a number and be so distracted that it comes out 330 million instead of 30,000. He might not even really even hear what he's saying because he's so overtaken with the stress of being on TV in front of a billion people on planet earth and not being able to say a few simple words. So I could see that. I could totally see that too. Also, it takes to control a speech. A speech impediment is not something that you just

you master and then you've mastered it. So I don't know if you've ever known somebody with a speech impediment or I've treated families with children with speech impediments. It's something that you just continually have to regulate for the rest of your life. You have to always be aware you have to use the same techniques over and over again. So you're right. I mean, he might be very much focusing on making sure that he doesn't stumble on his words. And, you know, so out comes a statistic that is not the right statistic. We'll never know. But I do think that's an important point, which is that we don't really know if it's cognitive, or if it's really just that many, many people don't know because he's been so good at overcoming the speech impediment

that he stumbles. You know, they've always said he stumbles, he stumbles. He stumbles because he's always had a speech impediment and he works very hard to control it. That does not affect his cognitive abilities. Either way, it's going to be a problem because if you read some of his answers where he really like loses kind of focus on the question and goes off on a tangent

then kind of just peters out altogether so let's say that happens because of what we said he's stressed and and actually loses his train of thought because he's focused on the speech impediment all you know all understandable things. He's going to have to be president and it's going to be tough on him if he, in press conferences and things like that, he does this repeatedly. And of course, his opposition is going to be brutally unfair and unkind to him. And they're going to put the worst spin on it that they can in terms of calling it cognitive decline. And we're going to have, you know, unfortunately, probably four more years of ugly, horrible politics. And I think we're all kind of hoping that Biden would be the

answer to like just somebody who could kind of just bring things, not that politics were ever that pleasant, but just to, you know, right above the line where we're, at least our heads are above water, that it's just not so horrible every day, no matter whose side you're on, even if you're pro-Trump, this has got to get to you. It's just, it's just horrible, you know? And I'm worried that, that Biden won't be that guy. And I think that maybe Cuomo could do a lot better at being a unifier, somebody like that. I don't know. I think a lot's going to depend on who he chooses as a running mate. I mean, I think that's going to be a really important decision for him because if he chooses a

brilliant running mate, you know, people are going to see his vice presidential running mate as someone who can take on the presidency if he can't fulfill his commitment. Do you think that Cuomo stands a shot at that? I mean, is there a shot that he could pick Cuomo? I've tried to, no, pick Cuomo as his running mate? He could, but he already said he wanted to pick a woman, so he'd have to do a little double talking to get out of that. I suppose he could pick a woman and she could, uh, publicly, you know, say,

I, I, I'm very honored, but I think that you should have Cuomo or someone. I'm sure they could orchestrate something. Well, I think a man should handle this, but if he,

if he doesn't pick a woman, people like AOC, I mean, she has been brutal on everything now. Uh, I don't think she's going to stand for that. I guess he, he could transition.

Well, Cuomo, in no uncertain terms, in an interview with his brother, said he has no interest in running for president. I assume, by extension, he has no interest in being a vice presidential candidate either. Well, one awkward thing would be that we may not be out of this crisis yet. And for him to leave the governorship

to take the vice presidency might look very opportunistic when we need him. So maybe he's got to wait till 2024. Also, they made such a big deal about Bloomberg breaking the rules, right? And so the fact that there's a system and if you go outside of the system, you are cheating kind of thing. That Bloomberg was cheating the political system.

And so I have a feeling that whoever is chosen is going to be someone within the political system, not outside of it, based on that. Boy, does Bloomberg look bad, huh? He tarnished his image something awful. Well, you know, again, he came in too late and he wasn't really prepared for, I don't think as a CEO, he was really prepared to be a candidate. I just don't think he was prepared. Turns out he says all those horrible things about women, jokes, and then now he induced, they claim, he induced everybody to take this job because he said they'd have employment through the 2020 election.

And then he laid everybody off and he canceled their health care. I mean, it's just, it's probably not as bad as they're saying. But his legacy is just, I'm sure he's steaming. Yeah. He left as the greatest mayor ever, you know. And now he's this, that's what happens to New York mayors when they leave. All right, we're way over time. Saturday Night Live, I guess.

What's that? It's like leaving Saturday Night Live. Yeah, well, some people manage it, some people don't. Where's Giuliani been? Right, which is where he should be. He's been about hydroxychloroquine, among other things. He's probably investing in hydroxychloroquine, among other things. He's probably investing in hydroxychloroquine. Yeah, we just have to hope that the president doesn't,

that Trump doesn't sort of declare postponing the election based on some kind of, you know... But realistically, how are we going to vote if we're still social distancing? Yeah, no, I mean, that's what I'm most fearful about, is that he finds some legal constitutional reason to postpone the election. Well, Giuliani tried to do that at 9-11, and Governor Pataki, who was a Republican, told him,

no fucking way, I'm not doing that. Now, the thing about Trump, one of the blurring, one of the connecting of the dots or blurring of the lines that goes on with him is that, in my opinion, just because he's an authoritarian personality, like a boss, and he wants things his way, and he wants things done, he wants to cut through the bullshit. People have always taken that as shorthand to mean that he wanted to end American democracy and didn't respect that. And I've never felt that way at all.

Roosevelt was quite an authoritarian and he stacked the court. He tried to pack the court and he ran for four terms and whatever it is. And he was a little king. But that doesn't mean he wanted to end, he was looking for a way to become a dictator. I honestly have never felt But that doesn't mean he wanted to end. He was looking for a way to become a dictator.

I honestly have never felt that Trump wants to end democracy. He's never made noises about not honoring the Supreme Court. When they put a limit on his travel ban, he licked his wounds and rewrote it. You know, you're shaking your head, you know, but he's never said anything to indicate that he wanted to end democracy. From your mouth to God's ears. Yeah, I think he's a patriot. I think that in half a second, if it suited him, he would set the entire constitution on fire. Okay. Well, you, you can think that and you, and you might be right. Some, some, Some very smart people think that Yashamalk wrote a whole, and he's a friend of mine, Yashamalk wrote a whole book about it. And yet, he hasn't done, I mean, the argument's been made,

it may be a good argument, it may be not, but the argument's been made, if that were the case, why is he not using all the authority that he has for this crisis? For example, he said to the governors in the press conference today, somebody said, well, why do we have a nationwide shutdown? He goes, because there's something called the Constitution. So he's leaving it up to the,

now, I don't know from a constitutional standpoint how legitimate that is, but would a dictator do something like that or would he try to take all the power for himself? And if Trump tried to suspend the election, of course, there would be an immediate supreme court case and the court would either say it's it's okay for a certain amount of time or not and probably not i mean i'm almost certainly not and and everything would everything would happen according to the rule of law and then if he refuses to abide by it, the army is not coming out to install President Trump as a dictator.

It's not going to happen. I mean, if there cannot be an election, Trump's term of office ends. Right. It ends when it's supposed to end constitutionally. And then I don't know that he can just stay there just because there was no election. He can't. He can't. And he can't even cancel the election.

And he could, you know, he could be like, I mean, I've joked about this years ago. He'd be like the last scene in Scarface with Al Pacino. Like, I'm not leaving and shooting everything down, but he's not going to come out alive. He's not staying. We're not going to have dictator Trump. Famous last words. But it is a legitimate question. If we have this level of social distancing in effect, we cannot have an election, at least as we normally have it. We'd have to maybe have it over five days and everybody goes in one at a time by an appointment or something. I don't know. I mean, you could let, if the election were tomorrow,

you couldn't do it. You could see reasonable case for Trump to say, we need to, we need to postpone the election for a month. Or I mean, you know, it's like without, without doing it because he wanted to become a dictator,

but hopefully by November, that will not be the case. I don't know. You could have mail-in voting or... I suppose everybody could do it by mail. Or yeah, Dan had a good idea. Or extend it to four or five days and make an appointment to vote.

But also in crisis, people are more unlikely to want to change leadership, even if the leadership is bad. I mean, that's just been proven. People are afraid of change at moments of crisis. So yeah. So we hope by November, it's a different story.

There's some sense to that because someone takes over and they got to get up to speed. That's right. And one thing that I think about both Tromo and, Tromo and Quump, Cuomo and Trump, is that they are both much better for this job now than they were two months ago. They both have learned, hopefully with Trump, certainly Cuomo has learned a lot and has learned from their mistakes

and they're likely to be much better at doing this going forward than they have been in the past. There's a lot of mistakes that Cuomo will not make again. And hopefully there will be a lot of mistakes that Trump will make again. I'm more confident in Cuomo learning. But I mean, I don't think Trump is the total idiot that they say he is. And Trump seems to be respecting the scientists around him. I say this, if Trump were not taking advice from doctors who were trying to save lives, I do not see how it would not leak out immediately in the press. Trump could not keep a secret within his own administration that he was trying to investigate

Biden with the president of Ukraine. Every single conversation Trump has ever had within his administration that was a little bit funny has leaked out into the papers. If Trump were actually saying, I don't want to hear about this life-saving shit. I'm doing this anyway. Let the lives be damned. Do you think people hearing that, the doctors, doctors who have taken an oath would keep that quiet? You don't think they'd resign? You don't think they'd call the times anonymously

and tell them what's happening? So I think I'm pretty confident that he's listening to what's being told to him and taking it seriously. That's my, maybe naive. That's what I think. All right, on that note,

anybody, you disagree with that, Perrielle, of course. You don't need to actually disagree. You should just make that face. No, you know what the difference is? Is that I'm not just gratuitously disagreeing. But you don't agree, right? No, I do agree. Oh, you do?

Oh. She's listening. Unlike you, I'm not just going to disagree for the point of disagreeing. Can I say something really nice about Perrielle? I said this before, but it's really true. You know, Perrielle is very, very easygoing. And sometimes we tease her on the show and make jokes, you know.

I almost like make little tongue-in-cheek like Gracie Allen jokes, like teasing her I almost like makes little tongue in cheek, like a Gracie Allen jokes, like, you know, like teasing her for like being like, you know, like silly or simple. And she- Silly or simple? Simple. I make jokes like, yeah, I know, Perrielle. I roll my eyes. But she takes it with such gracious spirit. You know, that is a very rare quality in a person. Yes, she does. a person she does yes she does um and i'm tempted to say that's that's an indication of her being simple-minded but i'm that's like a raymond ross's poem my girl giggles no but perry perry l is really a good egg i really

appreciate that about her like you can make jokes and kind jokes and do that stuff without having to worry about getting emails from her and text messages about how could you say that, blah, blah, blah. The thing is that I actually think it's because I'm so smart that I'm actually able to I don't take it to heart. I know

that I'm right more often than you realize. It's easier. It's easier than you realize. Yeah, that's probably. So it's easier. It's easier to do it. But thank you. Anyway, Erica, I'll email you. But anyway, I'm really hoping that you're all keeping safe. And it's really nice of you that you've looked in on me.

And we feel very fortunate to know you and have you as a friend. Thank you. Yeah, and I hope you and Juanita and the children are safe. I also will email you just to check in. We're not leaving the house until this is over. I think we're going to pick up the computer. Yeah, you're not picking up

a fucking hard drive. I'll think about that. But I mean, we're not going to mix with the hard drive. I'll think about that. But I mean, we're not going to mix with the outside world. I actually think in my car, just wearing a mask in my car, just popping the trunk, and then driving off, is

probably not a risk. In any case, yeah. And wait, and what happens if, God forbid, you get into an accident or something? Like, is it really worth the chance? I wish you hadn't said that. Pardon?

I wish you hadn't said that. You're right. I mean, if a car breaks down, I just get one needed to come pick me up. If I could die in an accident. Well, or you could have an accident and then have to interact with people. Yeah, I mean, it's just like, no.

You're right. I'm going to send Juanita. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. God's going to punish me for that one. I'm sorry. Let Noam have the last laugh and bid our audience adieu. You can write us comments, suggestions at podcast.com.

ComedyCellar.com. Erica, do you have any books coming out? I do. I'm working on my second book. It's on parenting adolescents in the age of anxiety. That's the next one to come out in about a year. So right now I have Being There, Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters. Okay, so that's perhaps some good quarantine reading along with Periel's bestseller,

The Only Bush I Trust is My Own. And follow us on Instagram at atlivefromthetable. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.