The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Franqi French

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Franqi French is one of 2020 Variety’s 10 Comics To Watch, reigning champion of Stand Up NBC and a regular at the Comedy Cellar. She can be seen on season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

This is live from the table recorded at New York's world-famous Comedy Cellar. Coming at you on SiriusXM 99 Raw Dog and the Laugh Button Podcast Network. This is Dan Natterman, here with Noam Dorman, owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar. Perry Alashinbrand is with us. She is our producer, but she also has lots to say. And we have Frankie French with us. Frankie is a comic that works here regularly, relatively new. Welcome, Frankie, to our show. Thank you for having me, guys. This is

very exciting. And you are making your debut on Live from the Table. I am. I did want to get into I'm back from Vegas. I wanted to talk somewhat about that. As you know, Frankie, have you been to the Vegas room? You know what? I've never been to Vegas. And I lived in L.A. for like four years. And I was in Arizona recently. I've never gone to Vegas. Well, the comedy seller has a room in Las Vegas. I heard. And I just did it. I just came back from a week in Vegas. And no, are you listening? You look like you're looking down at something. I'm listening. I'm listening. Vegan Vegas. Go ahead. Yes. Well, my impressions are as follows. Well, forget that. I want to talk about the fact that I made it.

Do you want to hear my impressions of the room? I do. Are they negative? Pardon? No, it's fine. The shows were good. And, you know, it's not this. It's not the New York room. I think the audience is a little bit. You got to be a little bit more conventional, I think, in your stand up to appeal to them. And but I'm able to make that adjustment. And the week went fine. I know you can't be like an edgy, dirty comic like you and just go to Vegas. You got to.

There are jokes that I have that I would hesitate to do in Las Vegas. OK, I have seen him be very edgy and dirty for the rest. I've seen people in Vegas be very dirty and go over like crazy. So in Vegas, one of the most debaucherous cities, they want cleaner comedy. Well, an interesting dichotomy, right? The people that go to Vegas are tourists. They come from, you know, all over, but I think more likely from the Midwest than from the East Coast.

And I do think they're more conservative. Nah. But no one disagrees. I agree with that, too. Go ahead. You were going to say something else. But the main point I want to make is I took my first foray into selling merch.

Oh, nice. I've never sold merch before. So I took a I sent a modest 20 copies of my book, Iris Spiro before COVID. Frankie, I'm not sure if you knew I have a book. I didn't know that. Well, I recently wrote a novel and it's called Iris Spiro before COVID. In any case, I sent 20 copies to Mark Cohen in advance. He's the emcee out there because I didn't want to take it with me.

So I just smoke them. He did not smoke. No, they were they were they were they were there when I got there. But for the first time ever in my entire life, I sold merch after the show. And I must say it is something I do not ever wish to do again. Really? Why? It is horrific. First of all, maybe if I were headlining and they were they were all there to see me it might feel a little bit better a couple of aspects of it first of all you can't just do your show and then show up with merch after the show especially a book which is something unexpected you have to kind of intro it in your set right so at the end of my set i not like toward the end of my set i said by the way you know of my set, I said, by the way, you know, I try to weave it in naturally, but it's never natural. I said, oh, so during quarantine, you know, is a rough quarantine. I tried to, you know, I tried to keep busy. I wrote a book. I wrote, you know, I wrote a book. It's called Iris Beer Before COVID. It's about a comic, a neurotic New York comic and, you know, this and that and blah, blah, blah. I'll be selling it outside. If you want to come say hi or, you know, buy a copy, it's available on Amazon, whatever.

So I had to intro it, which felt unnatural and embarrassing, to be quite frank, because it just felt like shillery. And also I felt I said to myself, these people don't want a fucking book. Who the hell who the hell who the hell reads anymore anyway? But but at the first night, I said, you don't have to buy it. And I actually I said, I said, you know, if you wanted to buy it, I give it to you. But no, I said, quite frankly, I feel uncomfortable even even doing this. That was the first night. And I sold zero books.

Perfect. Well, your marketing worked then. The second show I saw, I didn't do that. And I sold, I think, one or two. Anyway, I sold 18 in total. Hey, I might have sold 20, but I gave two away in the course of the week. We did. That's amazing. It is horrible. You stand out there.

First of all, the guy next to me is selling T-shirts. Michael, you know, he's doing a bang up business. I told you to make T-shirts. I told you I'd make you T-shirts and hats. The point is why. OK, wait a minute you to make T-shirts. I told you I'd make you T-shirts and hats. The point is why. OK, wait a minute. You make T-shirts. OK, we need to talk later. The point is, is this guy's doing like a gangbuster business selling T-shirts right next to me as I'm standing with a book. I feel it feels ridiculous because obviously they're going to buy the T-shirt. Everybody wears T-shirts. Who the hell reads? Like I said, and you know, who the hell wants to buy? And so people would come up like one or two

people after each show. I would be so 18 people bought the book. I would be utterly, utterly blown away if one of those people read the book. Absolutely. I would be shocked because I don't believe I think they just wanted us either. They wanted a souvenir or they feel felt bad for me because the guy was selling so many T-shirts. So let me get this straight. So you're in Vegas and it's just like Midwestern audience and and you present them with this Nebushi New York. That's right. That's correct. Novel. Yes, that's why. And that's what I'm getting at. I do think it's the dirty content, which is off-putting. I know I didn't do dirty. I did. I did. Well, first of all, I didn't say I my act was off-putting. I did well pretty much every show. Second of all, it's not the dirty jokes. It's not the dirty. That's the problem. It's like, if I were to do be a little bit,

I don't know. Uh, like I have a joke about, I don't want to do my act, but I have a joke about gun control. Uh, you know, that,

that the seller works. I don't know if it would have worked there. Um, you know, um, it's not dirty. It's just things that are a little bit outside the box. They like their guns.

But in any case, I don't think they were off put by me selling the book, but it was not my ideal audience. And there was some it was like, but you sold all of that. Right. I did. I don't think they're going to get read. Who cares? One guy came up to me and he had like a sudden access. And how and how much is that book? And I said, and it's like, you think this guy's going to read it? The last thing this guy is thinking is, well, I could use some Philip Roth type literature right now.

Are you a voice? My bookshelves are filled with books that were never read. Some of them by some of the great authors of our time, including mine. You wrote a book? Gnome's also Gnome's bookshelf is also filled with my books that he's never. I never meant to read your book. Hilarious. So that is my.

And by the way, the last and a shout out to the lovely Angel Gaines, who was one of the comedians that worked with me this week, because the last night I had two books left. And it was after the first show and nobody was buying the books. And Angel then stepped up to the plate and said, come on, he's only got two books left. Buy a book. It's a great souvenir. And she got two people to buy the book. Nice. So she and so had I done that all week, had I been that kind of an aggressive, you know, P.T. So she if and so had I done that all week, had I been that kind of an aggressive, you know, P.T. Barnum type, I probably could have sold double the amount of

books. But at the end of the day, to make an extra two hundred dollars the entire week. And another thing is, is during the set, I was worried about selling the book. I'm like, I got to kill like, am I killing hard enough to sell this book? Well, two of the shows, I didn't even sell the book because I didn't think I killed hard enough. And I didn't want to be standing. So you mean you didn't even put it out? I didn't even put it out there. I didn't want people looking at me like this guy's got some balls.

After that, after that awful set he did, they were bad sets. I just didn't. They weren't killer. And I just felt like if the set is not killer, I'm not going to sell any books. And I don't want to stand there and have people look at me like, why is he trying to sell a shit when he didn't crush? But I feel like you're hindering yourself because there's someone in the audience you connected with. You know what I mean? There's probably someone there that wanted your book or wanted to say hi after. There probably was, but I didn't want to endure the stares, S-T-A-R-E-S, of those that felt otherwise. So what I'm trying to say is there's a reason I didn't go into sales

and I don't want to start now. That being said, if anybody listening wants to buy my book, it's at Amazon, Iris Bureau before COVID. Anyhow. It's excellent. I read it. Oh, really?

No, I'm very much. You enjoyed it? I loved it. Oh, wow. I'll stand out. I'll just say that. I mean, like I saw Periel's animated series. I didn't say I loved it, but I saw Dan's book.

I loved it. You're a monster. I could find the cure for like childhood cancer. And if it were me, no one would be like, meh. I think he would. I think he would acknowledge a cure for childhood cancer. She has a point. I'll stand outside and sell your book for you, Dan.

If you found the cure to childhood childhood cancer, it would just it would it would force me to re-evaluate everything in my life. I mean, right. Take me to my bones. My miss my misapprehension of reality.

But you're not going to you're not going to find it's also why he won't read my books. Now you're going to really try to cure childhood cancer. It's dirty. It talks about you having oral sex and you have no idea what it talks about because you haven't read it.

And once you read it, you're going to be like, oh, my God, she really is that good of a writer and it's going to fucking kill you. Good writer. But I don't want to I don't want to picture you in these in these, you know, boy bulls or whatever it is. Can we talk about Frankie? Yes, I thought you wanted to talk about Chicago. Oh, I do. Yeah, I want to hear about Chicago. Well, I do. Yeah, I want to hear about Chicago.

Well, I'm opening for Louis C.K. in Chicago this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. So so Perry is coming out to to see one of the shows Sunday, I think. Right. I'm coming out Sunday to see the show. And I said, Dan, before I get plane tickets, I just want to make sure that there are tickets because the shows are sold out. And no, you really need to listen to this. And so he says to me, well, if the shows are sold out, how am I supposed to get you tickets?

Dan, shut up. Go ahead. Start again. I really wasn't listening. Go ahead. Did you hear the part that Dan's opening for Louis in Chicago? Yeah, Dan said that. I heard that. So I said, I'm going to come see you in Chicago.

But before I buy a ticket, the shows are sold out. So I want to make sure before I get a plane ticket, I want to make sure that there are tickets. And he said, well, if the shows are sold out, how am I supposed to get you a ticket? Yeah, it makes sense to me. It's sold out. Really? That makes sense to you?

If I said, Noam, can I go downstairs and see a show at the Comedy Cellar? And you said to me, oh, well, how can you do that? The shows are sold out. Well, if we sold tickets per table, every table. OK, but you don't because. Yeah, but Louie does.

They have seats with numbers on them. A1, A2. Oh, my God. No, no. I'm sold out. There's no place for you to sit. The talent has tickets always. Apparently not.

He didn't offer. OK, Louie might. But Dan doesn't. No, actually, Dan does. Well, look, I texted Leah, his road manager, and I said. Can I get two cops for the show? And it's OK if I cannot. Yeah. And also, I'm happy to pay for them.

I didn't say that. Well, I said that. But she said fine. And I put Per say that. Well, I said that. But she said, fine. And I put Perrielle's plus one on the list. But Perrielle thinks it's silly of me not to have just assumed that I could get comp. He didn't know that there are comps for like, I mean, every single fucking comp. Yeah, I always assume that.

Of course. Why don't you just go on StubHub or something and buy your own tickets, Perrielle? Why do you have to ask them? Because it's sold out. I couldn't find any tickets. I mean, I would have happily bought tickets. I don't care about buying tickets.

I mean, I got plane tickets. It's not like it's about. Where is this? Louis C.K. What date? Sunday, the whatever date Sunday is. What club are you going? Well, it's a it's a it's a theater.

It's. Oh, nice. Yeah, it's the Vic Theater. Was it? I don't know. Well, it's a it's a it's a theater. It's. Oh, nice. Yeah. I had the Vic Theater. Was it? I don't know. I think it's the big theater. Look, no, I'm going to go find my scout tickets on Craigslist and berate me. Now, I did a December 5th fine tickets. They got some tickets here. OK, well, I'll buy two then.

Does anybody does anybody sold out here? Of course, they're sold out. If you go on Louis website to they're all sold out here? Of course, they're sold out. If you go on Louie's website, too, they're all sold out. Will you stop it? The fucking love. I love that your story got fact checked in real time. That's all. Yeah. OK, that wasn't the actual that was.

He's looking at like a Knicks game in like 2023. Shut up. The point is, is that you know what? Never mind. Frankie. Yeah. Hi. Hi. It's in Ukraine. Shut up. The point is, is that you know what? Never mind. Frankie. Yeah. Hi. Hi. It's taking Ukraine. Go ahead. There are tickets and you just want to send me away to Ukraine. Nikki French making her her debut here.

Who's Nikki French? She's not Frankie. Nikki French was Nikki French. Did a did a dance remix of Total Eclipse of the Heart back in the 90s. You remember that, Nicole? Was it Nikki French? Yeah, that was her name. Nikki French. I think I love that. I love that song, though. But do you remember the Nikki French remix? Samantha Fox. She might have done it. I love Samantha. Pretty sure it was Nikki French. But in any case, Frankie French, no really. Yeah, no, we're actually that's my mom. So is joining us for her first time on Live from the Table.

She is also relatively recent, as I said. How long have you been working here at the Comedy Cellar since June? June 21, 26 was June 20. I got your first day. So you remember that day. So I assume it was an important day for you and day that. That is near. It was a huge deal for me, for sure. Oh, wow. OK, well, welcome aboard.

How are you enjoying it so far? I love it. I've had I've been having a great time having some great sets. Well, you've definitely been having great sets because, A, I've seen them be. You're still here. Esty is not shy about this place is not on autopilot. She will toss a motherfucker out

if they're not doing a good job on stage. There's a few people that might be tenured if they have sufficient fame behind them. But pretty much everybody is subject to being evicted. Would you say that's true? No.

Yes. Excellent. One word answer. But there's plenty of people that pass here, and they're all excited, and they passed, meaning authorized to work the club, for those of you who are not familiar with that term of art. And within a couple of weeks, they're seen no more.

So that's part of the secret, I think, of the success of this club is always a looking for new people, be not afraid to get rid of the old. That's yeah, that's terrifying and also very good. I think at this point, it would be hard to get rid of me because I think I've been here so long and no, no, no. Well, they might. They might. Like I said, no one's no. I mean, I mean, listen, if you go on stage, you start bombing

you're out. Right. Would I get a warning? Yeah. Like, Dan, you're not. Could you bring back the old material or something? You know? No, I don't think you get a warning because you don't need a warning. You know, if you're not going over and look, I mean, listen, this is,

this is sensitive, but my, I don't like to tell comedians what to do. I feel like they don't like it. And, and it presupposes that I have some insight into comedy, which I hate the stories about the club owners and the book owners who try to give advice, blah, blah, blah, to comics. I feel like we're all adults here. You know when you're not going over and if you choose not to adjust

and you stick to the material that's not working, then that's up to you. You know, it's like, okay, well, he's not doing so well, so let's not use him. If you came to me and asked me why, I would say, you know why, you know, but I'd say, does this have anything to do with me and Juanita? You'd say, huh? Juanita is here, by the way. So, I mean, this has happened, but I feel I feel like, um, I w we wouldn't pull a plug on somebody like overnight. It would give you plenty of time to adjust and stuff, but it happens when somebody just decides that they don't want to be the old person anymore. They want to do this new stuff or

and they say, okay. I mean, I think every, every comedian who gets fewer spots deep down understands why they know when they're not doing well, right? Yeah. I mean, if you're self aware, I know plenty of comedians who are not constantly bomb and have no idea that they're bombing. But if they used to kill

and they start bombing, then they would know. And some comedians wear this bombing as a badge of honor, like, I'm not going to cater to the audience. I have my integrity. Yeah, Ulf is right. That's why we get into comedy, to have people hate us and

despise our material. I want to go on stage and want people to pay their money, and I want and I don't give a shit if they enjoy it. That's not going to work. That's bananas. that's insane well a little bit look what one can stick to their art that's fine but one has to expect consequences true you know listen being part being a good artist is in part being accepted by an audience and the great artists are able to keep their

integrity. Like let's, something like Louie, Louie managed to find a way to say exactly what he wanted to say and yet be accepted by audiences around the world. And, you know, we know a lot of people like that in music too. You have a, you have genius musicians who are totally boring, you know, and then you have something like Stevie wonder who was admired by the geniuses and the everyday people as well. He found a way to keep his integrity and have mass appeal. We've discussed this.

So I don't buy that. You I don't buy that. You can really be good. And you're the only one who gets it, that you're good. If you're great. But I agree. I do buy that you're good and not everybody gets it. True.

Not everybody gets it, but you'll get you'll you'll find it. But you'll gain a decent percentage. Sure. I mean, I mean, even like somebody like Andy Kaufman. Right. That's a good example. Thank you. Nobody else on the show would have admitted that.

So I appreciate a good example. I think of somebody that wouldn't appeal to everybody, but appeals to enough people that he became who he became. Right. See the first all comic. Well, I don't I don't know. I mean, he's certainly, I guess, among the early ones that we know, we know of, you know, I would say. Would you say now?

First, when I was aware of it, I was a kid, but, you know, I don't remember anything like that prior. Yeah, I don't. I don't either. He was was a kid, but, you know, I don't remember anything like that prior. Yeah, I don't. I don't either. He was also kind of a genius, you know. Oh, for sure. Perry, you had something specifically I think you wanted to talk about with Frankie. Yeah, she's on the most recently released episode of like the best fucking show on television.

Small like side notes. That was very fun. I was very nervous. What show was that? Kirby. Yeah. Well, you know,

I'm not, I'm not on squid. Well, you said it was the most watched show on television. I said it was the best show on television. It is actually my favorite show, which is funny. I was sad when it left because it left after season nine.

Yeah. And then a few years ago, they brought back season 10. And I was like, wait a minute, what? They're bringing my show back. And my husband and I were watching it and I paused it.

And I was like, I have got to get like even the smallest part on this show. Like, I love it so much. I would love to do a, you know, an episode. And then last night we finally won. I couldn't watch it right away.

And so last night we sat on the sofa and we watched it. Well, what did you say to Larry David when you met him? I'm an idiot. So he comes in and one of the guys is like, hey, Frankie, this is Larry. Larry, this is Frankie. And as I'm shaking his hand, I go, oh, my God, I know this is really exciting for you to meet me. Well, I didn't see the episode. What was your part in the I'm in the opening scene, which is kind of cool. It was last Sunday's episode. And Larry had just come back from a

trip from somewhere and got a car service back to his house. He didn't like it because the car service person that came to pick him up was a very small, slight woman. So he didn't feel comfortable having her carry his bags. And he's like, no, no, no, I got it. I got it. But he was clearly agitated by having to get his own bags. And so when he gets home, he calls the limousine service and I'm the limousine service operator and hilarity ensues. And, and so, so how many lines were in that? Oh, I mean, it's a lot. Yeah. A lot. It's like a two minute scene. Yeah. So it probably took like a whole day to film. It did. Yeah. I mean, I know when I did crashing just two lines or three lines and I was there like till, you know, from morning till till night mostly just wandering around well we got it done

pretty quick i was there for probably about six hours and we shot for maybe like an hour and is it true that a lot of it's improv it's a hundred percent improv they give you the scene and they set up you know this is what you're doing this is why you're doing it now just say some stuff that's what crashing was like i have to to say, I didn't love that. I loved it. Improv is my space. Oh yeah. Because I felt like I had like, well, we would do the scene, say me and Rachel Fiennes and whomever we do a scene and then we do whatever lines we did. And then they would say, okay, let's do it. Try it again.

And I would say, I came up with a great response to something Rachel had said in the first thing, but then Rachel didn't say it again in the second. So I couldn't do the improv. So, I mean, in other words, it's like, you know, when you're when you're trying to coordinate with five different people, each trying to improv and there's no coordination among them. I didn't find it, you know. To be, you know, optimal. We just have to live in whatever the character is, right?

In my brain, you just are that person. And regardless of how the scene changes, you just, you have to learn how to counter from the perspective of the character you're pretending to be, right? But isn't it true that with a good improv actor, as they do multiple takes, they will kind of settle into a little bit of a script.

You know, if they, if they hit on something that's good. Yes. That is again in the following take, like, you know. Yeah. But they can only say it again. If the, if, if, if it's a response to a line that the other person. Right.

I guess. In other words, so if Rachel knew that if Rachel thought your comeback was, was really good, she might have then set you up in the following take. Oh, I see what you're saying. Now, maybe she didn't think it was that good, or maybe she didn't think of it.

I'm just using it as an example. Rachel, I just threw that name out there because she's somebody I was in scenes with, but I don't mean that it necessarily happened with her, but I do recall like, oh, okay, I got a great line for this, but I didn't get the line coming at me you know um that i wanted to get the line that i wanted to say so um i felt that some combination of improv and more structure might have been optimal but these were these were mostly the scenes at the table i don't know if there was a lot of improv with the more plot oriented scenes in In other words, there's some scenes where you have to,

things have to happen to move the plot. And then there was a scene like within crashing where it's just a bunch of comics trashing each other around the table. There's no plot movement per se. It's just a moment, a moment. Yeah. So you didn't, it wasn't necessarily,

I think the scenes were like Pete and his good, like when Pete breaks up with his girlfriend, he has to break up with his girlfriend and he, you know, and there's no room for flexibility and maybe there could be some flexibility into how he does it. Right. Isn't that that's the improv? Yeah. Right. You just have like kind of a basic shell of what the scene is. So the whole show is like that. I assume even when I got the audition, the sides, there were no sides. It was just this is your character. This is what you're going to do.

And then I got my friends to just kind of like, hey, this is, you know, let's just improv it. Sides, by the way. Oh, yeah. Are the script. I'm very sensitive to showbiz terms that people might not all know. Sides means that portion of the script that includes your lines. Yeah. So if they say here are your sides, that means here is the portion of the script that includes your lines. Yeah. So if they say here are your sides, that means here is the portion of your script

in which your character has his lines or her lines. The first time I was auditioning, I thought I was getting like fries or something. I was like, oh, sides. Yes, I love sides. Can I get a salad? Not even kidding. I didn't know what sides were. not even kidding? I'm not.

I didn't know the sides where I was like, so like I'm going to get OK, so I'm getting like fries or something. The first time I somebody said to me, I'm going to do spots, meaning a show. Right. Comedy Club.

I was like, we're going to do spots. There's a lot of a lot of lingo that that I that we take for granted that that I just assume I assume everybody knows. But, you know, or a set, even if the word is that word is said, I didn't know what that meant. Well, I knew set because I did music before comedy. So I knew what a set was. Also, get the light that that I didn't know. That was a new thing for me. It took me a while

to learn. I was just running lights. Frankie was just on stage for like hours. No, my failure. Looking up something online, looking up tickets to Louis C. There are some some if you want to do get into some more current events stuff. No, of course, there is some things that have happened this week. Or if you would like to keep talking about I'll leave it to you at this point. What happened this week? Well, there wasn't this week or if you would like to keep talking about show business, I'll leave it to you at this point. What happened

this week? Well, there wasn't this week, but Ahmaud Arbery's three killers were sentenced. We're all found guilty. Thank God. I think we're going to try to get Lara Basel on or somebody to do the show. I don't know. Yeah.

Working on it. I don't want to those things for you that we need to do, you know, within't know. Yeah. Working on it. One of those things, Perry, although we need to do, you know, within a short time of when the verdict happens. Maybe you can maybe we can get someone to discuss Dred Scott. I mean, you know, we got to strike while the iron

is hot. I was working on Al Sharpton today. Oh, nice. Well, I'm working on it. It's happening. It's going to happen. Right. Quickly. I got it. So that's that.

What about Omicron? Omicron? I don't know how you say it. Omicron. Sure, we can talk about Omicron. Is that why you're home? No, that's not why I'm home. But that's why I might be home. I'll tell you why you're home? No, that's not why I'm home, but that's why I might be home. I'll tell you why he's home, because Noam has has discovered Zoom and there's and there's no going back. That's why he's never leaving us again.

No, I'm home because I'm two out of the last three days that I usually spend with my family. I had to go into the city, so I'm staying home tonight with my kids to read them. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, he's a good dad. What? How old are your babies? Twenty one. No. Well, one of them is twenty seven. But one of your stepson is nine, nine, eight and four.

Ninety. Oh, thank you. But your stepson is twenty seven. And you can say, yeah, I'm like, I would stay home for a twenty one year old. I was trying to make a deal. Wait a second. Do you really think Omicron is going to make us go back into lockdown? I almost called you today. I hope not. No, I don't.

I don't think that. But I, I don't say it's not. I mean, it seems to be mild. It seems like it's, it's been out there long enough that if people were dropping dead from it, I think they would know that already. The few cases I've read about that somebody had them had it was reported as being mild, although they were vaccinated.

Boosted to. I think one of them was boosted. Yes. So it's going to take them was boosted, yes. It's going to take them about 100 days to release a new vaccine, a new updated vaccine. So people with the booster will have to get reboosted? Not necessarily.

I think that they don't know yet whether the current vaccine is effective against Omicron. It was effective against Delta, so they think there's reason to believe it will be effective against Omicron. No, I mean, the head of Moderna was out there saying he thinks it's it's not zero to one hundred, you know, not binary. He thinks it could be significantly less effective. The vaccine could be significantly less effective against Omicron. And which is why they're they are they are already in trials for the new vaccine.

That's how quickly they can do it. What the fuck? I mean, how many vaccines are we supposed to get? But it's also, you're saying Omicron may be less deadly to begin with. And so that a vaccine. Right. So the question is, like, some people may just decide, you know what, if it's a mild illness, I'll just take it.

And not everybody gets the flu shot. And this might even be less than the flu if you've already been boosted. So it remains to be seen. Of course, we know there's various population groups that are very anti-vaccine to begin with. So it's unlikely they're going to take it. But I'm going to take it. Well, I'm going to. I kind of, you know, I'm kind of I kind of like the vaccines.

I like that, you know, that I like to feel the science working within. And if I have nothing to do, it's kind of almost pleasant to be under the cover, shaking a little bit. I was that weird. Yes. OK. As long as I know it's not going to kill me or it's not going to be too severe. And as long as it's not nausea and vomiting, which is my Achilles heel, I don't mind a bit of it's like comfy under the covers, you know. And so you're comfortable being a little bit sick, a little bit sick, but uncomfortable selling your wares that you've worked very well. I didn't know that we were going to go there.

Yeah, it's just comparatively. Yes. Yes. But if that's your question, my answer would be yes. I don't see that as I think a lot. I feels he takes comfort in the sickness because he feels it making him safer. Well, but not only that, no, I just think about being under the covers and you and you have an excuse not to do anything you don't want to do. As long as I as long as I don't want to do something, you know, so you're just trying to get out of my life. Yes. And of course, I could always lie. And I do have a joke about that where I say, you you know, I, I was, I, the day after my vaccine, I was feeling well enough to go visit my aunt. I didn't go, but I was feeling well enough to go.

I told him that I, that's one of the best Kroger enthusiasm episodes when he, when his mother dies and he realizes he can use that as an excuse. He's not really upset, but he's like, you know, my mother died. I can't. That's right. That's right. He says it to everybody. Well, so I guess, well, great minds think alike, as they say, but but yeah, nobody likes like being like a little bit sick, like

that under the cover. I used to like when my daughter was a little bit sick because not Munchausen. No, no, no, no, no, no. My mom actually had Munchausen no no no no my mom actually had Munchausen by proxy but she tried to murder me but anyway but can you not gloss over that yeah well I'll get back to it but not because I liked seeing her sick but she's a bit she's always been very independent and when she's not feeling well she'd be really clingy and so it's not that I wanted her to be ill but when she was like not feeling so great, she would crawl in bed with me.

We just snuggle all day. She's cutest. How old is she now? She's 16. We don't snuggle anymore. Well, you could. You could snuggle with a 16 year old. She sends us every now and again.

If she's like feeling kind of blue, she'll come and like we'll snuggle. We do a thing called foot snuggling where we lay next to each other and we tangle our feet. That's ridiculous. know sweet well you did bring up a topic that does seem like it might be worth investigating you say that your mother tried to murder you she tried to murder suicide me when i was eight well that's a little bit better yeah she was gonna take herself out too but that's not quite like when i heard that brianundrie killed himself, I almost thought to myself that maybe he's not such a bad guy. He really he probably really did love that girl. And I understand being the interviewer and trying to use the guest as a springboard for your own comments.

But she just told us her mother tried to kill her in suicide. And we'll get to your own dumb jokes already. Can you please tell us? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, to give a little backstory, my mom had a lot of mental illness. She had a bipolar, schizoaffective, severe narcissism and personality disorder. And with a sprinkle of Munchausen. Yeah. Oh, she was she was off the rails. And so when she had me and she had three kids before and three kids i don't know what munchausen is i'm sorry i obviously everybody does but maybe i don't know

what munchausen is oh munchausen syndrome is when a parent uh try like they make their kid a little bit sick all the time because they like the attention for themselves for themselves right not necessarily or they create illnesses that aren't real and they give their kids medicine yeah i mean you could you could have munchausen and like say that your child has cancer and get Not necessarily. Or they create illnesses that aren't real. And they give their kids medicine. I mean, you could you could have Munchausen and like say that your child has cancer and get right chemo. I mean, it's like a really serious fucking disease. Yeah, for sure. But what's Munchausen by proxy?

That's what we're talking about. Munchausen by proxy. It's the same thing. Munchausen is just the shorter version of it. Yeah. And so she so when she had me, she just left me in the hospital. And then my grandma came and got me and my grandmother raised me here in New York. And but every now and again, like every couple of years, my mom would have these like breakdowns. And so me and my grandmother would go to where my mom lived and help her take care. Not me, but my grandma would help her take care of my siblings and her household and that kind of stuff. So during one of those stints, my mom, no one was home and my mom calls me into the bathroom. And I remember very vividly and I was standing at the door and she's asking me if I want to go get ice cream with her. And she never wanted to do anything with me. So in my mind, I'm like,

I'm like, oh my God, you know, she, she loves me now and she wants to hang out with me. And the whole time she's like taking handfuls of pills and taking him. And I'm like I'm like oh my god you know she loves me now and she wants to hang out with me and the whole time she's like taking handfuls of pills and taking him and I'm just assuming I'm a little kid so I don't know I'm not connecting what's happening I'm just like oh she must be taking vitamin you know I don't know and so we get in the car and she just drove until like at pretty high rates of speed until she wrecked. Oh, my God. And I remember people coming like it was like in a residential neighborhood, like one of those light poles. And I remember people like coming out of their house

and like getting me out of the car. She smashed into a light pole. Yeah. I mean, that's one. I mean, next to a tree, a light pole. That's about as bad as pretty. Yeah, pretty bad. Pretty.

That light pole doesn't move. No, it did not move. Were you just terrified? I mean, I don't remember. I remember everything up to people coming to get me out of the car. I don't really remember how I felt. Were you in the front seat? I was in the front seat.

Unbuckled. Buckled. Yeah. I put my seatbelt on. Were there airbags at that time? No, I don't think we had. I don't think we had airbags. How are you so well adjusted?

Like you are really like you are one of like my favorite people that I've met in like the past year. Like you are so much sunshine and love. And what can we get into the aftermath of the accident? Well, I mean, I mean, that's's that's literally just a small little blip of kind of my life experience my the next year she so your mother was able to keep custody after that no one cared about a bunch of black kids being abused like i'm not i'm not even trying to be funny but we called cps we've called we called we called for help multiple times i told teachers you know no one no just, just no one cares.

Where did you, where was this taking place? This is, it was in Northern Virginia in Fairfax County. And we were one of two black families that lived in that. That's sort of a wealthy area. Very wealthy area. But my, but my mom, she like finagled the system to like get that house. You know what I mean? Like she did some, I don't know what she did,

but it was something kind of shady and underhanded and just was like, whatever. Yeah. But the next year, my brother ran away from home for a multitude of reasons and I helped him to leave by, so he was outside begging me to throw

like his go bag out the window. This is my older brother and my mom was like standing at his bedroom door, like you better not drop that bag. But he's my best friend. So I dropped it. And then the next morning she woke me up and put me in the car with her. And this is another car about a year later. And we drove around the neighborhood till she found my brother. And he was like in the street talking with friends and then she floored it and hit him with the car yeah and he flew over the car and i didn't see him for like two days and then he showed back up at our house and he was like his arm was broken his leg was broken and some other like bones were

broken and he had just been like at his friend's house hiding for like two days and my mom like still didn't take him to the hospital for like three more days. Yeah. So now. So what ultimately happened? You went to live with your grandmother. Well, I was living. I was living with my grandmother this whole time. But like I said before, we would come sometimes to my mom's house because she would have these mental episodes and she really couldn't like work or do anything. So my grandmother would come and I would go with her and we would live with my mom so that my grandma could help her like maintain her household and help my sibling.

The making of a comedian, ladies and gentlemen. Oh, 100 percent. I'm actually I'm writing a book about my life story. Do you have a book deal? I have a literary agent. Yeah. I mean, that's I mean, you know, we know a lot of comedians that have books and have have book deals, you know, for nonfiction. You don't have to write the entire book to get the deal. You can write a. That's what I'm writing a book proposal. Proposal. Yeah. But it's so when I started because I had actually forgotten a lot of my childhood.

And as I started writing this book, like memories started coming back. And I was like, oh, crap, my mom did try to murder me. I forgot about that. And my uncle tried to stab me to death when I was like 11. So, yeah, did I take this too dark? Are you guys OK? No, I think we were expect because Periel had told me that this had happened to you. Oh, yeah. So when I said to Periel, isn't there something specific you wanted to talk about? Talk about with Frankie. That's what I Oh, yeah. So when I said to period, isn't there something specific you wanted to talk about? Talk about with Frankie. That's what I meant, actually. But you went to start talking about

Larry David, which is fine. But that's actually what I meant. I didn't necessarily, but I didn't know if we were going to do it and if it was OK. But oh, I'm a super open book. But you're an open book. Can we talk about speaking of open? Can we talk about something else that's open with you? He's talking about my marriage, ladies and gentlemen. He's completely

shocked and floor. It's I'm not shocked and floored, but I heard of open relationships before. And I do have a friend who has I wouldn't necessarily say it's an open marriage, but they go to swing clubs wherein they have threesomes with people. Now, we're not so much into that at all. I mean, I begrudge no one. Like, do your thing. I don't care. But we've been together now for 22 years,

married for 15. Yeah, we just had our 15-year anniversary. And we've had an open relationship from the day we started dating. So was that something that was initially discussed? By me, yeah. I was like, I'm never going to be faithful to you. So was that something that was initially discussed? By me, yeah. I was like, I'm never going to be faithful to you. So not because it's him.

It's just not anything I ever really wanted. But does he have a similar mind? Or he was like, okay, well, if that's the only way I can have you, I'll have you that way. Or he's like, I was thinking the exact same thing. He's a big time slut. Yeah, no, he's very happy. Noam, are you jealous at all?

No, are you listening? I'm listening. Am I jealous? Yeah. God damn it. But I don't want my wife sleeping with other men. That's for sure. But do you think, Noam?

I mean, I guess I was my question was going to be, can that work? But Frankie, apparently it has been working for 20 plus years. Yeah. Frankie has cracked some code. Well, he's he's legitimately and people say this all the time he's legitimately my best friend in the entire world so like i talked to him about like he talks to me about his girlfriends i talked to him about people because i'm bi so i sometimes i'll date a woman or some sometimes we'll date the same person um and sometimes i'll date a guy if I feel like it. But typically, I don't really date men that much.

You and he ever date the same person? Yeah, we date the same person often. Usually we're dating the same girl. So right now he's got his own. Well, right now he's got a girlfriend and I actually am not seeing anyone right now. But there's no threesome involved. Yeah, often, sometimes. Yeah.

Oh, I thought you said there was a threesome. Oh, no, absolutely. For sure. Just yeah. Your daughter. And this is your daughter's father. Yes. And how does she she's she knows his current girlfriend. She's so when we sat and told her, she said her response was exactly this. She goes, huh? That's fine. But if i get scared in the middle of the night and i need to come in your room that bitch better move over verbatim how old was she when she said that like 13 wait so this is not just my friend and his his wife that i was just referring to um they're they're they're they're allowed to they a they have threesomes, and B, I believe they're authorized to have sexual encounters from time to time. But these are sexual encounters, strictly sexual encounters.

You're describing something different. You're describing full-on relationships. So this is our theory, is that I don't think that anyone can be 100% of what anybody else needs. And we've had that conversation. I'm not going to be everything he needs and vice versa. So if we find someone that can fill in those spaces,

you know, and it doesn't hamper, hinder, and it's respectful to everyone involved, I don't see why not, right? Yeah, but then it's like a walking communication of what it is that you don't have that he wants. No, no, no, I don't. That's no. Well, that's what you described it. Well, right. True. But what I'm saying is he doesn't need to tell me what it is like. We are we communicate. We probably over communicate. We talk a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

And if he goes home, like you find out he's dating a super hot skinny white girl. Oh, his current girlfriend is a super hot skinny white girl. So you can't be all what he needs because he needs super hot skinny white. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the guy before the last guy I was dating is my husband's short and it's a really he was a really tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, black dude. You know what I mean? How do you have a blonde haired, blue eyed, black dude?

Oh, I don't know. He was a mix. He was. Yeah. God just like said, poof, the world needs that. And I was like, thank you, Jesus. But no, I don't have hang ups like that in terms of I don't think someone's looks or even their personality is going to break up my marriage. You know what I mean? We were friends for years before we started dating.

But then you have to find a guy or a that this is our relationship can never be any more than a side thing for me? Well, that's not necessarily true because we've had girlfriends that we've gone like on family vacation with, too. Now, this is just getting this is getting beyond anything I've ever heard of. No, I've heard of couples that you say, OK, you can fuck who you want to fuck. I can fuck who I want to fuck, but it's just fucking. But again, what you're describing is a whole new level where you're having full on relationships and they come to the

house for Thanksgiving dinner or whatever. Last time I was here in New York, my husband's girlfriend was at my house with him and my daughter cooking them pho from scratch. So yeah, I mean mean it just it works it works well i guess i mean i guess if it works it works i've just never heard it before and i don't think it could work for most people um yes i don't i agree with that it does not work and and it often doesn't work for the person we're dating after a while they want to be with just one of us and

then try to that's happened many times where they've tried to like like the girl just wanted to be with me or just with him after a while and that's not the way it works and so then we have to kind of cut that relationship off but no if you could have your druthers regarding your relationship with juanita would there be any aspect of it that would, why don't we ask Juanita is Juanita in the, in the vicinity? No, she's not,

but she's not going, but you've obviously, you said if, if Juanita said to you, look, you can do what you want to do on the side. What would you, I mean,

I know you talk a mean game about how you, you know, but you're just kidding around, but would that have any appeal to you? But she would be faithful to me? She would be faithful to you. Oh, hell yeah. Who would that appeal to? But why would you care if she did the same

thing? Why would I care if she did the same thing? Yeah, I care if she did the same thing? Yeah, why? I mean, if. Really? Yes, really. Why would I care if my wife starts

fucking other dudes? If you're I mean, if you're ostensibly fucking other people, that was the offer. It wasn't a realistic offer. OK, then I mean, it it's you know it's old school that's what it used to be well you know eric zemmour apparently the the uh french political

candidate who just by the way announced his candidacy what about him uh he apparently his his mistress is pregnant and it's everybody knows and it's um oh good for them you know um it's very french that's what i said that's what I said. That's what you said. Maybe that's why you're last. That's why my last name is French. Exactly. Well, actually, I've been you know, I why don't I ask Perry all that question? I mean, would you be comfortable with anything resembling what would Frankie has described? I think not not with my husband.

I don't think that he's a person that that would work with. What does that mean? What do you mean? I think that when I was with my ex-boyfriend, it was a much different relationship. Like, I think that he was, you know, pretty open to the fact that, you know, it was sort of like more like don't ask, don't tell. He doesn't see you and me. Dan asked me the question. I answered it. You asked the question. Nobody knows what you're talking about. Now, I get what you're saying.

Like, really, nobody knows what you're talking about. 100 percent. I get it. You're saying the relationship you have with your current husband is not one where you think that that would work, but you were with someone. Yeah, I think that was the question. The question was never what do you think would work? Dan asked you, would that, but you were with someone. Yeah, I think that was the question. The question was never what do you think would work? Dan asked you, would that appeal to you? Oh, OK.

Not with God, not with guy, not with guy, not in this relationship. What have you said? Do you know what I've been thinking? I want you to go and have fun and have sexual encounters with other men. Would you take him up? No, I wouldn't. You wouldn't take his. He would. Why not? Because he would also first of all, also like he would never say that.

But just to be clear, I'm not like out like. Humping every night, you know what I mean? Like, it's not I travel a lot, so one of our role. I'm sorry, but I really I just want to I just want to nail this down. Perrielle, you just answer the question, God damn it. If you were allowed to sleep with other men. I said, no, you would not sleep with other men. No, I might sleep with other women.

But there was other women. Yeah, I don't think I'd be interested in. Now, why would you not sleep with other men? I've just had enough dick already. Just enough. She's reached her dick quota for her life. Yeah, I always said if Guy and I ever got divorced, I think I would just become a lesbian.

I dig it. Look at Noam. He's so upset by this answer because now I've given him a straight answer. No, you don't. You gave him a gay answer. He's so mad about this.. So now let's ask the reverse question. If Guy said, yeah, I would like to sleep with other women. Yes. No. The answer is

no. You may not. Why not? Because I don't want him to ask me that question. Like you thought why not? I don't know. I just I think that intellectually I really am totally okay with it. And I think it's like a very bourgeois concept that we're supposed to be monogamous. And like, I actually don't think that that's the way that we're supposed to be. I just don't think that, I don't know. It's scary. Yeah. It can be scary for people for sure. I think that I don't know, like if I'm emotional. I mean, maybe I could be. Maybe I could be. I think that it really is like monogamy is like a made up thing. Like, I don't think human beings are supposed to be monogamous. No, I don't think so either. And so there is really something very enlightened and reasonable that. Well, but it is natural to be jealous of a partner that is not monogamous. So it doesn't come from out of nowhere.

It's not just like we made it up out of whole cloth. But where does jealousy come from? That's personal insecurity. You know what I mean? That's your insecurity. And like, I know for an absolute fact, no matter who my husband's with, and I can, I feel this with a hundred percent certainty.

He's never leaving me. I'm never leaving him. Right. So that's not like that, that problem or that issue or that concern has just always been off the table. Right. And we've been through like the worst stuff together and the best stuff together. Like that's my guy. Like that's my dude. Right. Do you get what I'm saying? Like someone said like your husband's not really, you're not his best friend. Yeah. Who would he call if there was cocaine in the trunk and a dead hooker and I said he wouldn't call you is what they said I said no he wouldn't call me because I'd be sitting in the seat next to him going oh my god there's a dead hooker in the trunk that's literally my best friend like for sure no I think that there that I mean listen I

also I always for some reason have like super hot, young, gorgeous, like girl babysitters. I've had so many people say to me, like, are you crazy? Aren't you worried about? And I'm like, no, like I think if like he's going to cheat on me, like it's going to happen. Cheat on me regardless. That's the and that's it right there. You can't you don't own anybody. You can't stop anyone

From doing anything What if he says like that I just want to go get a hand job at a massage parlor Yeah I've told him to go do that I don't think he's I really don't think he's interested in doing that I really genuinely don't Look at Gnome

Ariel does not know her husband at all I also I didn't want to say the other stuff but like she does not know him i don't know i feel like i've got a pretty good handle on things literally okay look at him and then also for both my husband and i he's the best sex that i've ever had in my whole life and And still to this day, 20 years later, it's just like it was the first time we had sex. Really? 100 percent. 100 percent. 100 percent. That's wild. Yeah. Like we like sometimes. Go ahead, chime in, please. Why are you making that face? Who, me? Yes.

I didn't realize I made a face. I mean. It was involuntary. That's not normal. It's not. I don't think that it is normal. And a lot of times after sex, I'm like, babe, do you think other married couples are having sex like this? And he's like, no, he's like, we'll high five.

I'm like, I think we just won sex just now. But then when you when you have a relationship with another man or one, no one's ever as good as my husband, never been with anybody as good as my husband. So it's not the sex that you're getting from this. No, it's not. It's a companion. Marital liaison. No, it's more so the companionship because I'm gone. Like I would say probably 70 percent of the time I'm not home. You know what I mean? So like that.

Like datey kind of feeling, you know, you know, when you're with someone and you can, you know, hang out and whatever like that, I miss that. And so like, especially when I'm here, I'm by myself. I don't even have my daughter here. So I want that companionship. So it's actually more about that than it is ever really about the sex. Fascinating. Yeah. Well, again, I don't think most people could pull that off, but if it works for you, I would. OK, good. And I think that's great.

No, I feel like I've guided the conversation. Is there anything there must be some topic this week, some issue that you're that you'd like to discuss? Maybe not. Maybe this was a slow, slow week, perhaps. I mean, just everything was waiting to see what's going to happen with this new variant. You know, I just hope that it I hope we handle it. Well, I suspect that there won't be any lockdown.

I don't know. Well, countries are locking down over the world. Israel just went back on lockdown. Are you serious? Yeah. Well, I don't know that America has the will to, you know, I mean, you know. Well, when you say they went back on lockdown, what do you what does that mean? They went back on lockdown. It means that they have shut down international travel. That's not what lockdown is.

Lockdown is when you when you can't leave your house or you don't shut down work and stuff. I mean, the bottom line is, is if if if either a the vaccines are effective or be the Omicron is not that severe, then there's no reason to lock down. Right. And it seems like these vaccines have so far held up pretty well against the variants that we've seen now. You know, I don't know that Noam had said that they're a little concerned that it won't against Omicron, but which is Greek letter you don't hear very often. I mean, do any fraternities use the word, use the letter Omicron? Omega. Yeah, Omega.

No, I know Omega. No, but I didn't. I thought that O for in Greek was Omega. And it's not apparently. It's not. Well, I guess it's Omicron, isn't it? Well, I don't know that there's necessarily a one to one correspondence between each letter in the. Yeah, I think it's... Hold on, I'm going to

look it up. There are two O's? Well, there might be, you know, but... What did you say now? Is that an O? It's like they don't have a letter for each of our letters. Well, it's alpha, beta... Theta. C? Theta, right? No, what's C? It's alpha beta. Beta C. Theta, right?

No, what's C? It's not C. Just kidding. Well, there's a sigma. The C has two sounds, and they have kappa and sigma. So maybe those. No, those are K's.

No, Kappa's a K. Sigma is an S. Right. And our C is a K is a case. Sigma is I.S. and right. And our C is a and a sir. So the Kappa and the Sigma is does does what our C does and what our S does. I'm I'm guessing I don't understand. So Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Psi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Epsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi Omicron Pi Rho Sigma Tau Epsilon Phi Chi Psi Omega. Oh, I heard all those letters

in fraternities except for Omicron. Yeah, for sure. Omega is Z. There is you just told me it didn't correspond. Oh, shit. I thought it was Alpha Beta Theta, Alpha Beta Gamma. Right. Alpha Beta Gamma Delta. There's Zeta, A, B, C, right. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta. A, B, C, D, E. And their F is zeta.

I'm so confused. Why is the omega Z? Because it's the last letter. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it has that sound. It just means it's the last letter. I know. I see how many letters. So what sound is Omicron? It's only many letters. One, two, three, four. So what sound is Omicron? There's only 24 letters.

Are you trying to confuse me on purpose? I don't know. How do you pronounce X-I? Xi? X-I? In Chinese, it would be Xi. And they skipped over Xi. There was no Xi variant, was there?

I don't think so. There was a mu. There was a mu. There a mu there was a new and a new what what what is interesting is that m and n you and you do follow like the american alphabet and english alphabet m n so i that's probably not coincidence that's the roman alphabet but what about a b Yeah. Yeah, that's probably not coinciding. So there's some crossover here, I guess. And the X is pronounced P. Delta is the fourth letter, D, D, E, delta,

epsilon are the fourth and fifth letters. So yeah, there's obviously some relationship. There's too many things, but yeah, whatever. Dan, you're the language expert. Well, I'm not an expert, but again, I just don't I've never heard of Omicron in a fraternity or sorority. There might be,

but I've never heard it. I don't think so. I've never heard of that. I was not in the Greek system myself in college, but I was aware of the fraternities and sororities that we had. In any case, Do they still use the Greek

alphabet in Greece? They do, right? I would think so. That's their language, right? I'm wondering if like some This is the actual current Greek alphabet, right? I don't know whether Greek universities have fraternities and if they do

They use English letters. They might use English letters. Why are these moron Americans using our letters for their dumb fraternities and sororities? For keg stands. I think it has its origins in, I don't know where it has its origins, but I think we associate Greeks with partying, don't we? Like the Bacchus, the Bacchanal. I'm finding out something that I like.

I'm a total idiot. I didn't even know that pi, you know, 3.14, pi is a Greek letter. I didn't know that. Wow, that is really astounding that you didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know that. I'm astonished he didn't know what Munchausen was, frankly. We're finding out tonight that

no one's an idiot. I thought Munchausen, I know like the Munchausen thing is when people lie. That's what I just said. Munchausen was like Baron von Munchausen was this big liar. Munchausen things when people lie. That's what I just said. Munchausen was like a Baron von Munchausen was this big liar. Munchausen syndrome I didn't know was pretending that you're sick all the time. Not that you're sick, but that your kids

or someone you're caring for is sick. Munchausen syndrome by proxy Okay, so that's actually the difference. Munchausen is when you pretend you're sick. By proxy is when you do it to someone else. To a kid usually. Usually it's your child, but it could also be someone you're caring for. Yeah.

But I didn't know that. There's a lot of things I don't know. Apparently. That makes me feel pretty good. So what happened to me? You don't know. No, once again, excellent job on Monday with the band.

I had come home Monday from Vegas. And you ever go away for a long time? You ever like you ever go away for a long time and you're so disconnected and isolated from your world that you need to get back into your world as quickly as possible. So I I came home from Vegas on Monday and for a week in Vegas, I was out there with people I didn't know, except for Mark Cohen. I was in my room most of the time. I felt an overwhelming need. I don't know. Noam, did you remark when I walked in at 10 PM, it was very unusual for me to come into

the cellar at that late hour. I don't know if you thought anything of it. Maybe. Honestly, what I was thinking was I, we were in the middle of some like tender moment and I wanted you to not walk on the aisle close to the stage. I wanted you to walk around the other aisle because sometimes you walk right in front of the stage. When I'm playing, all I'm focused on is playing. I didn't pick up on the fact that it's late for

Dan to be there. Why was it late? I see you all the time. I stay late, but I never come late. You could have been at the underground. I could could have been that's true but the explanation was i had just arrived i had come from the airport i came home changed unpacked and said i've just been a week in vegas basically in my hotel room i'm going crazy i gotta get out there come to the comedy and be amongst my people and then i Comedy Cellar and there was really nobody there that I hang out with. But I was still there in the energy

of the room. You don't go out by yourself when you're out of town? No, I don't. And you say the band was good then? Yeah, the band was good, as it always is. There's no surprise there. But Nick seemed to be a little bit more impressive even than normal. And Nick is normally very

impressive. But he did some solo that I that was even more. You know, didn't Frankie perform with you? I did sing with those guys. Funnier, I sang with them years ago before I was I had just started comedy. I was like I'd been doing comedy, I think, two years, three years, maybe. And I had my first headline show at a club here in New York. And so we came to the Olive Tree to celebrate and I got completely separated from like 20 people. And so I was just here by myself celebrating alone.

And you guys were playing and they were wrapping up for the night and said that they would take a request and i said oh can you play adele when we were young and i remember who said it but the guy i think he was just kind of messy he's like we will play it if you come up and sing it and i was like oh yeah for sure and we like blew the roof off like it was really we're not expecting you to be able to sing it was was incredible. It was really fun. So you sang recently with the band? Yeah, a few weeks ago. What did you sing? What did I sing? So let me just tell you, just so she knows how racist the real world is.

When a black girl says she wants to come up and sing with the band, we absolutely expect her to be able to sing. Like, absolutely. We assume she could sing. When a white girl says, I want to sing with the band we roll our eyes oh god and if she's good like holy shit she was she was good that's that's probably my favorite thing have you ever seen count like well you frank you remember like ron grant over mic night sunday nights in the village underground did you ever go to that no i didn't you know it's like mostly r&b open mic and, Sunday nights in the Village Underground. Did you ever go to that? No, I didn't. You know, it was like mostly R&B

open mic and like, and there would be some song and the audience would sing along and they would sing in perfect three and four part harmony. You know, like, like, just without it. And then you go to some like dumb, you know, white girl karaoke night and everybody

is just awful. I'm not going to speculate as to whether this is nature or nurture, but it is real. Okay. It is real. We are a rhythmic people and guilty feeding got no rhythm. So it's difficult for the lights. And by the way, this is, this is true around the world. If I remember seeing there was some protests in South Africa, it might've been a protest against apartheid.

It might be that old or whatever it is. And they, you know, they were all singing and there was, there was, it was, it made you cry. It was singing in beautiful harmony, like just beautiful, you know, as if they were rehearsed. It was, it was crazy. It was crazy. You don't see that in Staten Island, you know, I don't know. It's just different. Anyway, there is the Beatles documentaries out, which is pretty interesting.

Yeah, you guys do a great Blackbird, by the way. That's one of my favorite songs. Noam, where would you put Vivian Sessoms in the hierarchy of singers? Oh, she's fantastic. This is somebody that sings. She was there on Monday night singing. She's fantastic. She was very hoarse on Monday, actually.

She I mean, she's she's had gigs with all with many of the top. Oh, nice. Yeah, she's she's really good. I'm very jittery from the coffee I had earlier. You are. Oh, my God. So I haven't had coffee in like weeks. And so I'm like.

Anyway, no, is there anything she toured with Pink and Joe Cocker? Oh, wow. And yeah, she did the Chris Bodie gig for a while. She's she's top top notch. Rob Thomas. She was Rob Thomas's main background singer

for a while and a bunch of other. And I haven't all of a sudden she's singing with you on monday nights i haven't seen where she's been on tour all this time because i haven't seen her no we're just old friends she's worked for me in the wah years ago you don't know vivian she's been around for years um maybe i know i knew her because she used to sing at the underground i think but or maybe at the wah she's in the olive tree at one time i haven't seen her at the olive tree in a while or if ever but yeah yeah there's

a whole there's a whole collection of really really really good singers that i worked with all of whom went on to really really big gigs like sasha's touring with the stones now and amanda that's awesome and amanda's singing with adele i mean all of them became like the very and these were all people I met. Like they were doing nothing when I met them. Amanda was managing one of these clothing stores in a mall and Sasha was doing nothing. Vivian was waiting tables in the olive tree. Like all these people that I, they, they, they didn't,

they weren't just good. They were great. Like, you know, it's a big country out there with a lot of people trying to get these, these background singing gigs. And I mean, it's pretty amazing that I was so lucky to meet these people. Anyway, but do you give yourself any credit for not just meeting them, but putting them on the road to those those careers? Not really. Not really. I think they would have done it anyway. You know.

Maybe you just attract greatness. Boom. I would say I have a good ear for it. I'll accept that. But I don't believe that somebody that great needed to, you know, meet me in order to people to recognize. No, sure. But I think that, you know,

it does say something about the kind of people that one chooses to surround themselves with no yeah you're energy what it says is that what it says about me is that i'm that i'm uh a good enough accompanist which is a rare thing accompanist is not is it is a breed all its own it's not just about playing solos or music or anything. I could be accompanying a singer that I'm a good enough accompanist that singers wanted to be there. Good singers wanted to be there,

which because good singers struggle to find good accompanists. What's that word? Accompanist. Somebody who accompanies. Accompany. Yeah. So would you say Nick is a good accompanist or he's like a solo act that not Nick is very good to Nick is very good.

If there's nothing else, Nicole, this was an episode a little bit less political than most. What are your impressions? Yeah, this was super fun. I love this episode. Yes. Well, this is a good time. If Nicole says it, it must be so. Cole always says it's good. I want Nicole, you got to say something bad.

Yeah, but it's not what she says, it's how she says it. If she had said, oh, I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Then, you know, she's full of shit. I felt less fear this episode. What's that? I felt less fear this episode. I feel like that's good, right?

Nice. I suppose. Well, we'll see what the listeners think. Please give us your comments. Please, we want to what the listeners think. Please give us your comments. Please. We want to help us help you podcast at comedyseller.com. Noam, are we ready to wrap it up before I

get into my closing spiel? I'm ready. And if anyone has any questions about how to open their marriage, just slide in my DMs. Well, that's like, and I will happily advise you. Yeah, but that's a bit like Roger Federer saying, if anyone has questions about how to be the greatest tennis player in the world, it's not everybody can do it. Everyone can do it.

You basically you basically did an ad tonight telling girls around the world they should fuck your husband. Oh, yeah, please. A girl. You ever had. Well, it's amazing. Yeah, please. If you get an opportunity, do it. Yeah, for sure. Has he ever been here? Have I seen

him? No, I'll bring him down. We do have one question here. What are the protection rules in that relationship? Oh, strap it up always 100% of the time. There is no we are on. Excuse me? Except with you. He and I. Yeah, we I mean, yeah, we're

we're actually yeah, we're not. We don't. He doesn't wear a condom with you. No, but he has to with the other girl and I. Yeah, we I mean, yeah, we're we're actually yeah, we're not. We don't he doesn't wear a condom with you now, but he has to with the other girl. Absolutely. And yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you believe that he does. Absolutely. He does. One. He's very fertile. Like if I would have gotten an STD or he would have or, you know what I mean? Someone would have been pregnant for sure. Well, we'll take your word for it. And like I said, I don't think most people could pull this off, but if it works for you, fine.

It's a good way of making sure that the sex with you is better than with any of those girls. Say what? It's a way of assuring that the sex he has with you, from his point of view, is superior to any of the girls. That's hilarious. It's true. No, I'm amazing.

So, yeah, even if he didn't, I'm still fine. Where can everybody find you, Frankie? Oh, I'm at Frankie French everywhere on all of the socials. With a Q. Yeah. F-R-A-N-Q-I-F-R-E-N-C-H. And Frankie, was that your given name or is that a stage name? It's yes, it's a stage name. I was working in corporate America. I was a talent acquisition director for a executive director for a tech company. And so I wanted to separate my comedy from like my real life at the time when I had started. And then I won stand up NBC. And so I was like, it's kind of too late to change my name

at this point. So I kept it and then started doing comedy full time. So now I really don't care. But yeah, that's my moniker. Okay.

And all right, Frankie. My real name is Arabic. It's Bahija. Oh, Bahija. Yeah. I'm happy I didn't know that before we started.

Damn, I have to go. Okay. Podcast at ComedySally.com. Iris Spiro before COVID started. Damn, I have to go. Okay, podcast at comedycellar.com. Iris Spiro before COVID, available on Amazon. Perry L's books, The Only Bush I Trust is My Own and On My Knees, also available on Amazon. Oh, my God, I'm getting both of those. And at Frankie French, F-R-A-N-Q-U-I, you said? No, no, no, no, no.

No U. It's F-R-A-N-Q-I. This is another African-American thing, Dan. Yep. Thank you, Noam. And don't do the U. I didn't know that. You would think I would have picked up on that after all these years.

Every white person, though, that spells my name. And I'm like, don't you me. Don't you it. Thank you. And we will see you next time on Live from the Table. Thank you, Frankie. Thank you, Noam. Bye. See you soon. Thank you, Frankie. Thank you, Noam. Bye. See you soon.

Good night, everybody. I punched myself in the face.