The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Letters from a Nut

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

Barry Marder, Rick Crom and Nick Thune

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table on Raw Dog Sirius 99. And here's your host for Live from the Table, Dan Natterman. Thank you, Rick. That is Rick Crome, the Don Pardo of the Live from the Table show. I'm Dan Natterman. Dan Natterman. Noam is not here tonight. I'm not sure why, but he had some sort of engagement.

He has a life. So I will be hosting solo with Periel, the producer. Thank you. So I guess that's not solo technically. But yes, so those of you who like deep dives into politics, this episode will probably not be that. Well, you never know. We could veer off.

Probably not, but we could veer off slightly. You weren't here on the last... What happened last week? Well, I lost it a little bit because Noam took such a deep dive into the Mueller report with Neil Katyal, who is, I guess, an expert in that. But he went so deep, so

deep into it that I felt it was much too deep for the average listener. And he went on for about 40 minutes, and I... as sometimes I do, as long-time listeners know, I got upset about that. Uh-huh. I see. So, you know, we have, Noam and I have a long-standing controversy about if this

show should be more comedy-entertainment oriented or politically oriented. We have a meeting about this next week to try and sort it out. So we solicited the listeners, and by the way, you can write in at podcast at comedyseller.com

We solicited their advice and most seem to like a combination of both. Yeah, see, no one knows too much. I like political talk when we don't really know what we're talking about and then somebody says something ridiculous. That's usually me. That's your job. I like to keep it just accessible to everybody.

Anyway, Rick Crone, by the way, if you don't know him, he's a regular here at the Comedy Cellar. Comedian, actor, and songwriter, but a songwriter is a generally comedic in nature. And he's been on film and TV, and he's celebrating 35 years at the Comedy Cellar this month. Happy 35th anniversary, Rick Crone. Thank you very much, Dan Aderman.

And he also, by the way, is the teacher for the Comedy Cellar comedy class. And the instructor, yes. I provide a course on joke writing and performance. And I must say, I see him with his students very often giving extra time. Yes. No one is more devoted a teacher than Rick Crow. And the fact that they're all good-looking young boys is, I'm sure, a coincidence.

Pure coincidence. Pure coincidence. No, they they're all good-looking young boys is I'm sure a coincidence. Pure coincidence. Pure coincidence. No, they're not all good-looking young boys. Some of them are ugly. But young boys nonetheless. No, now stop that. I'm kidding around. I do enjoy mentoring the

people who are truly interested in learning the craft. So, you know, there are those people who just want to screw around. I can attest that you're a phenomenal teacher. Thank you. Thank you very much. I remember. How long ago was it that you came through the course?

Probably seven. Six, seven years ago? Rick. Seven years ago, probably. Rick, now there is the age-old question is can funny be taught? We've discussed this on the show before, I think with Veronica Mosey, who actually works with you. Uh-huh. But I don't know if we've ever asked you if comedy can be taught.

What exactly are you doing at that? Well, you see, comedy is such a broad term, right? So what can be taught? I can't give somebody a sense of humor. If somebody is just not a funny person at all, who doesn't understand irony, well then it's kind of hard to teach them to be funny. But most people

have a sense of humor. It can be a little funny. And they think things. And they think thoughts that need to be structured into what we might call a joke where we're using a little comedy technique of joke writing where there's for lack of a better word

something that surprises you or tricks you into laughing. And those things can be taught. Well, if I were to give a comedy workshop, I would focus mainly on the business side of things. Well, that's a course that needs to be done.

I would say here's what's going to happen. But I'm not good at that. Here's what's going to happen here. Here's how long it takes here. Here's what to do. Barry, do you want to come join us? Yeah, yeah, now is fine. We're being joined by Barry.

Do you know Barry Marder, Rick? I don't think we've met. You can bring the drink with you if you'd like. I'm just worried about his knees. Barry Marder is a stand-up comedian. You might have seen him on Comedians in Cars getting coffee. He did an episode of that. He was co-writer of the B-movie, Seinfeld's B-movie.

He's a good friend of Seinfeld's. Yes. They do a lot of work together. He also writes under the pseudonym Ted L. Nancy. Are we on? We're on, yes. We are on. A series of books that I don't know if you're familiar with, Rick, called Letters from a Nut.

We'll get into that in just a little bit. Ted, I mean, I was about to call him Ted, but his real name is Barry Marder. Welcome to our podcast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. That's awfully nice of you. And let me introduce you to Rick Crome. Hello, sir.

How are you, sir? Rick does, he's a stand-up comic, but he does a lot of music. He has a song and his musical comedy. So his latest song is about sex with a young Spanish boy. Oh, how dare you? That is... That's okay in these times, right? It's not my latest song.

Oh, you have other ones that are worse? Oh, much worse. No. But now when you say a Spanish boy, you mean somebody that's of age but young. In my 60s, anybody under 30 is, I can use the term, boy. So Rick's song, I don't know if you want to sing a few bars of it or not. I'd like to hear it. Barry would like to hear a few bars, but of course I don't want to put you on the spot.

That's up to you. Well, it talks about cliches. At the beginning. That's up to you. Well, it talks about cliches. At the beginning... Oh, thank you. You can tell I'm a little hoarse today because I've been singing all day. Anything about your Spanish boy? To the Spanish boy. There was a serenade

going on earlier. I don't know. I think Rick's a little shy about singing it. But maybe Barry can hear it another time. He says, I've done the research and I cannot deny there is one thing on which you can always rely. And it's when you put your penis in a Spanish boy, every cliche that you've heard people say is true. He won't say no, no, or nada when you're serving that big enchilada.

Oh, here's what that dear Spanish boy will say to you. Ay, papi, si. Ay, papi, si. Ay, papi, si. And it goes on like that. You have the right to remain silent, Ray. I sang that to... To catch a predator, I did do that song.

I think they caught him. He's in trouble now, too. Yeah, yeah. They did catch him, and he is in trouble now. Who, the host of... Yes, Chris Hansen. No. He got arrested.

I don't want to say that. I don't know if I can say it. He's out. My advice to people that wanted to... Chris Hansen was the guy that you'd go to meet with a young lady, and he would say, I'm Chris Hansen, and you're on to catch a predator. Right. My thought would be, if you ever get asked to meet a young woman,

just bring a headshot of Chris Hansen with you, so that when he says, I'm Chris Hansen, you say, I know, I was only here because I wanted to meet you. Here's a headshot, can youen with you so that when he says, I'm Chris Hansen, you say, I know. I was only here because I wanted to meet you. Here's a headshot. Can you sign? Can you sign it? Yes.

Now, if Chris Hansen's not there, you just have sex with the underage girl. But if he is there, you have your out. People were driving like eight hours to meet like a 12-year-old. Wow. Is that SAG? Is that show SAG at all or after? I don't even think it's a union show. It's NAMBLA is what it is.

I think it's NAMBLA. It's NAMBLA is what it is. I think it's NAMBLA. It's NAMBLA. But let me just get this straight. Chris Hansen did not get arrested for that show. He got in trouble

for something else. Oh, that's non-pedophile related? Nothing at all. He's an honorable person. Well, at least in that department. Just pure tax evasion, that's it.

Barry, I know you started as a comedian. Are you still doing stand-up or are you now more just in the nut letter writing business? I quit about 20 years ago. By the way, I want to compliment you, because I tweeted about you when I saw you on America's Got Talent. Oh, did you? I don't know if I recall that.

You can go to Ted L. Nancy, which is my tweet thing. And whenever you were on it, it was a couple years ago. You were suitably impressed and or revolted. I was impressed with you, with your material. I think it's right up there, so you can see it. And Crashing is one of my favorite shows. I've seen you on that quite a bit. Well, as you know,

Crashing has been canceled. I know, I know, I know. I was very sad about that. Just before I was going to get on it. Oh, you were never on it, Rick? I was never on it! I loved that show. Dan, you're supposed to say thank you. Well, I'm hoping that Judd will have another project that maybe I'm right for. That was such a good show. You should still say thank you for the compliment.

Thank you for the compliment. Yes, obviously. They left it right there with the crazy girl, the tall girl, and the screaming and yelling in the street. I just loved it. I loved it, too. I thought it was a great show. And I do want to emphasize that I'm

grateful to Judd Apatow for including me in his project because I never actually whenever I audition for something I never book the role no but Judd just said

here's the role that's nice which is much easier than auditioning for sure because you're playing yourself as Maria in The Sound of Music not right what about Maria in The Sound of Music?

you're not right for that oh okay and why you keep going off of that part I don't know I'm not sure I understand the reference but I have seen The Sound of Music? You're not right for that. Oh, okay. Why you keep going off of that part, I don't know. I'm not sure I understand the reference. But I have seen the Sound of Music, but it was a long time ago. Chris Hansen was arrested for bouncing $13,000 in bounce checks. Okay, so at least I'm off the hook here, right? Yeah, it feels like not that big of a deal.

It's financial. You said you're free to leave, and then they took him down on the front lawn, right? I love that. You're free to leave. After getting some sweet tea. Stand-up was not your, you don't like it? No, I did stand-up for about 20 years. I quit about 20 years ago when the books came out.

And, you know, it was fun. It was fun. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was shot. Okay. You were shy? Is that what you said? Shot.

Shot. Shot. He was burned out. But let's talk. Are you familiar, Rick, with the books? It's called Letters from a Nut. I am familiar with them. It's basically like prank calling in written form, and I only wish I had thought of it.

And it's letters to companies, right? Weird companies, weird people. And it's the back and forth between the company and the nut. I would write to a hotel and ask if I could check in with my own ice machine. And then they would write back, and they're all courteous because they don't know if it's from corporate or I'm a lunatic. And then I would, they would say, well, you know, they would always be, I'm very gracious and very complimentary in the letters. And then they would say, we have ice on the 14th floor. We have ice on the 16th floor. We can get you as much ice as you want. And then I would get into an exchange back and

forth. And then we would videotape it. and forth. And then we would videotape it. We actually went out and we would videotape. We would hire people and then go out and check into a hotel with a nice machine. So that's where that went. And they became fairly successful. And you want to hear the beginning of it? Yeah. Actually, you told a story on your one-man show about how you thought of the idea, which I think was interesting. So yeah, if you could talk about that. You want to go there? Yeah, I think it's an interesting story. True story. I was sitting with my girlfriend, and

it was about 4 o'clock in the morning. This was about 25 years ago. And she was watching TV, kind of, you know, aimlessly listening to me, and I was eating some Fritos, and on the back of the bag it said, you got any issues? Any problems? Write to Fritos. And I thought, well, who would write to Fritos? I mean, unload on a corn chip company. What any problems write to fritos and i thought well who

would write to fritos i mean unload on a corn chip company what would you what would you say to fritos you know i mean so i said would you i was like thinking out loud would you not understand the concept of a frito would you tell them what could you tell them and you know so i actually wrote to fritos you know and i started writing these people and uh and then it just then jerry came over jerry Seinfeld, because I was working on Seinfeld with him writing the stand-up. And he came over to my house. I had about 12 of these letters, and he thought they were pretty funny,

and he took them to his agent, William Morris, at the time, and got them published. And now there have been three. Oh, there's been about a dozen books. Oh, there's been a dozen books. A dozen books, and we did them at the Geffen Theater. Where you read? I read the letters.

We had a really good show. We did 50 shows at the Geffen Theater. Wow. And they filmed it, and they put it up on Amazon, so you can see it now on Amazon. Seinfeld produced the show, and now we're out on the road with it with weird celebrities. I'd like to read a couple of them. All right, go ahead. Let me see.

Stupidly, I got the Kindle version, so I'm reading it on my phone. But anyway, now in the one-man show, you read the letter, and then you have someone else you hire to read the response. Right, in the one that we did, right, I had Beth Kennedy and Sam Quasman played a sad Pagliacci clown that gets interrupted by cell phones. And then Alan Martyr did all the illustrations. So it's a whole show. It's not just reading letters because that can get kind of old. Okay.

Well, you can see that on Amazon. You can see it right now. Okay. But let's give a sampling here of one of the letters. All right. I don't know if it's one of your favorites, but I enjoyed it. This is to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Department of the Treasury, All right. I don't know if it's one of your favorites, but I enjoyed it. This is to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing,

Department of the Treasury, 14th and C Streets in Washington, D.C. Ted L. Nancy writes. That's your pseudonym, Ted L. Nancy. Right. Dear Bureau of Engraving...

You would like to read it in my voice? I also do some impressions. I could read it. You can read it. You are the guy right now in this moment. Got it.

You can read it any way you want. Who would have dubbed David up? Well, Dear Bureau of Engraving and Printing. the guy right now, in this moment. You can read it any way you want. Who would have dubbed David off? Tim, you're off in graving and printing. There's better letters. Well, alright. You don't like the graving?

What was that, Lincoln? That was Lincoln. What about... What about Odor Readers Anonymous? Better. Or then there's... We may have to go to someone else's books to find something I like. Precious Moment Wedding Chapel? No, hate that one.

Hate that one. Hate it bad. The great ones always hate their own work. Right. An idiot loves everything he does. So this is how you know Ted, rather, Barry Martyrs, the real deal. I like finding out how you came up with your pseudonym. I can tell you that if you want me to interrupt.

Yeah, you do do that, and I'll try to find... He's looking. I mean, he's like... Okay, I can tell you that if you want me to interrupt. Yeah, you do do that and I'll try to find... Okay, I'll tell you exactly. Ted Alnancy, that's your pseudonym. I saw this product called Mr. Coffee and I thought that was kind of interesting. Somebody out there's name is Bob Coffee and they're calling him Mr. Coffee and I thought well, you know, it's working

for him and then I thought, I don't want to call him Barry Martyr, I wanted to call him... So I went through the female names. I had Mr. Vivian, which sounded like a hairdresser, Mr. Shirley. And then I came up to Mr. Nancy. And I thought Mr. Nancy was funny. It has always made me laugh. And then I needed a first name.

And Ted was the name du jour of Ted Kaczynski and Ted Bundy. And I thought, well, Ted is kind of a... These guys were terrorists, but they seemed to be friendly terrorists, you know? So now I had Ted Nancy, and I needed a middle name. I didn't want a middle name. I needed an initial, so I just went down the A, B, C, D, and when I came to L, it sounded very royal, like Spanish royalty, Ted L. Nancy.

And that's where it went. That's how it happened. What about Rett House Hotel? That's how it happened. What about Red House Hotel? That's not a bad one. Okay, I'll do Red House Hotel. Maybe I'll let Rick read the response. Okay. Because Rick is a voiceover artist. Really?

Well. Amongst other things. Well, I guess. Let's see. He does it. He's got, as he says in his act, he doesn't have the gay voice. He has the announcer voice. Fourth day reference here with Rick. Anyway gay voice. He has the announcer voice. I'm the announcer voice. Fourth gay reference here with Rick. Anyway, dear, this is to the Red House. I'm fascinated with my sexual album.

I'm not fascinated. Every time I come on the show, we start, we start, and then all of a sudden. Ricardo, the young boy that you serenade. It's one song, Barry. It's one song. Well, you still got to fill the album, right? Right. You can't throw that out.

This is to the Red House Hotel in Beaufort, South Carolina. Right. Dear Reservation Desk, Ted L. Nancy writes, I wish to check into your fine hotel on September 29, 1996 for one evening. I wish to stay in a suite. My problem. I have an aversion to all germs. Therefore, I travel with my own toilet seat and portable shower.

I wear a body sheath when I sleep in a strange room. Can I be accommodated? I will put down a protective splash when eating at your buffet. This protective splash will cover me in the area directly around me. It is similar to a tent, but I can see through it. Will it interfere with other diners? I believe I will catch the diseases of others if I do not protect myself. I wear a dribble

poncho and use calf lining for my feet when I walk across the room. My hands are covered in knuckle gum. I put a cellophane area around the toilet then put down my own toilet seat. I use cardboard over my head. This is a long one. Then sit down and relieve

myself. This is the only way... This one comes with an intermission. It's always one night that I only want. One night in a cheap hotel. This is... He loves hotels. He keeps coming back again and again to hotels. This, just like Rick, often comes back to his theme. His guy. This is the only way I can... Oh, there's a typo

on the Kindle version. It says, the only way I cam. That would be the thing that I would. Or did you write that on paper? I always have typos and misspellings. Okay, the only way I cam, with an M, not a typo. Be sure that the diseases of others will not get me. Please give me your best corporate rate for that evening and let me know that my special cleanliness equipment will be allowed in your hotel. I have often heard that

the Reth House Hotel allows its guests specialties to accommodate them. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you regarding my September 29, 1996 stay. Sincerely, Ted L. Nancy. The response from the hotel, I don't know if if wait a minute, do I not have the response?

The response has got to be on there. Received your letter dated... Ah, yes, okay. This is from... Yeah, do you want to read it, Rick? Let Rick read it. Don't insert any of your smut. And also, you can use whatever voice you like. I know you do a Johnny Carson impression. You can do that. No, no, we won't put a hat on a hat. We'll just read the response.

Okay, hit it. All right. Mr. Nancy, we received your letter dated August 27th regarding the possibility of reserving a room on September 29th. We do have rooms available for that evening, although we do not have any suites in the inn. Your best bet would be room 10, which is our deluxe room with a king-size bed, a private entrance, and screened veranda, and a jacuzzi. We would be glad to accommodate you and your special equipment for, and then I have to switch pages here, for the evening. I do not anticipate that your provisions will lose any,

will pose any problem to the inn or other guests. However, none of us is sure what knuckle gum is, and our only concern would be if it would stain the linens or bedding. Feel free to call us at and they give a number, for further information about our inn and to discuss a reservation

for the evening of September 29th. We look forward to hearing from you. And the reason we can't give the number is they didn't pay us for sponsorship. That's right. Molly Wilson. Oh, this is Molly Wilson. What, is this another letter?

No, she's the innkeeper. Oh, okay. The innkeeper. Now, Ted would always pick a $109 hotel, a regular hotel, with massive problems going in. And then they would always be very nice. Remember, this is 25 years ago.

Now I'm doing the emails. And emails, you get 20, 30 different back and forths because they don't care anymore. They don't care? They don't care. If you write to them and say that, they'll write back and say, what's knuckle gum? And then I'll write them back and I'll give them a 10-minute knuckle gum thing and then they'll come back and say, would you be happy not to use the tent?

I go, I must have the tent. The tent's got to be in, you know? And I can't have a draft. So it sounds like it's better in the email area. must have the tent. The tent's got to be in, you know? And I can't have a drag. So it sounds like it's better in the email area. I love the emails. The emails are much better. And you can hear those on Amazon, some of these emails? Yes. I wrote a letter.

Can I read my... Yes. I'm no Ted L. Nancy, but I wrote a letter that I think is a letter from a nut. Dear Comedy Cellar. Oh. I attended a performance at your club with several friends on January 22nd. The second stand-up comic was a man named Rick Crone. In point of fact, he wasn't really a stand-up comic at all,

as his act consisted of singing songs whilst seated. That's him. He closed with a song about having relations with a Spanish boy with the chorus, I poppy C, I poppy C, I poppy C. Let me be clear. The song was about a man having sex with a younger Spanish man. I was shocked to hear a song with lyrics that, there's no delicate way to put this, were ripped off from a song I had written back in 2015.

It was an homage to a young student named Hector with whom I'd been intimate. Next time I want an evening out to celebrate being paroled, I'll go to a place that does not encourage plagiarism. Wow, look at that. That's very good. You could be a Ted Ryder. And that's from Hampton Peterson.

Hampton Peterson. Which is my pseudonym. Is that your nom de plume? Now, would you like a lawyer now, Rick, or not? I'll wait till he adds

more insult to injury. Rick, you seem a little, because I know you have a spot tonight. I do have a spot. So you're looking at your watch quite a bit. What time is your spot?

In about 20 minutes. Oh, you got 20 minutes? 20 minutes of magic. It's a great tonight. I do have a spot. So you're looking at your watch quite a bit. What time is your spot? In about 20 minutes. I'm good. We've got 20 minutes. It's a great company. Now, you were unmasked, right? Jerry took me on Larry King about 10, 15 years ago. And nobody knew who you were before that? You were in deep cover.

Well, he had put all his names on the book as, you know, forward by Jerry Seinfeld and got them made, so they thought it was him. And this went on for years and years, and then there was people out there claiming to be me, lots of people. I read about that. Yeah, there's a lot of people out there. There's one particular lunatic that's out there continuously, and Ted's like a fungus that doesn't stop. Well, he's like Banksy. Or he was.

He was. He was like Banksy. Banksy's an artist that nobody knows who it is, but he draws stuff. And then, like on the street, he's a street artist. He's a very famous political British street artist. And people say they're Banksy, right? I'm going to show you a picture. But anyway, so now your cover is blown.

So how does this affect further books? They're more popular now than ever. But now when you write a letter, it says Ted L. Nancy. They know this guy's pulling our leg now. Everybody knows

the name Ted L. Nancy. Well, we've branched out. We're going to do a documentary. I did Comedians in Cars with Jerry as Ted L. Nancy. You did it also as Barry Marder. Right. That was the first one. I did the pilot. There's a whole weird story on Comedians in Cars with Jerry as Ted L. Nancy. You did it also as Barry Marder. Right, that was the first one. I did the pilot. There's a whole

weird story on Comedians in Cars. And then we're doing the Ted L. Nancy stories, like weird little stories that I have, not letters. So it's branching out quite a bit. I saw the Comedians in Cars. Now, on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry

has a different car for every comedian, and the car is usually somewhat related to the comedian. I didn't quite get the connection. The car that he chose for you was some sort of... Well, I can tell you, I did the pilot. He and I came up with this idea about ten years before we even shot the pilot. And then he wanted to try it. We were working on some other stuff,

and he said, as long as you're in town. I was in New York. He said, why don't you come out and let's try the pilot. And then he was supposed to pick me up at 9 in the morning. The guy that shot the thing messed it up. Didn't come by until 4, so he was in a very irritable mood. The car that he had picked broke, and all he had was that Dutch police car,

which I looked at the registration I was nine pounds heavier than that car so we took that car and and we shot it we were both very irritable I was the only person in the 60 comedians and cars shot that actually ate the food every so funny everyone else is picking if you see the later ones. I mean, we have pie, we have soup. You went to a diner in Jersey.

I was hungry. All I had to eat all that day was a mint at nine in the morning. There was no show here. Seinfeld and I go out quite a bit and we eat. We're humans that eat. We sit down and we eat. So there's a lot of food on that table and I, I went bananas, you know? And now we,

uh, I just shot another one. As Ted Nancy. As Ted Nancy, which came out a little bit differently. I picked up the food. I buttered one piece of toast instead of, you know, glomming onto a whole handful of toast. So, you know. You know what I was wondering is, is is those shots in the car on the highway, would you use a GoPro? They use the cameras were in that car, you know, at the time. I don't know what kind of cameras they were. And now they have a car that shoots the exteriors that follow.

They've really got this thing down to a science, I have to say. Embassy, Tammy is the great producer that does this. This is like a Mercedes-Benz operation on how to do this now. Now, you know, you were having some funny interplay during the discussion. You talked about the Lincoln Tunnel. You had a joke about the Lincoln Tunnel. But was this stuff that you wrote beforehand, or is it all improv? It's all improv.

Even the one that we shot a couple of weeks ago, it's all improv. You know? And so the one is Ted Alnancy, you're in disguise? No, it's just me. Sam Barry. Okay, that's interesting. And then we did the Bee movie together, which is, you know, really took on a life of its own.

So I've been working for him since since the early 90s because you were doing stand-up together I opened for him on the road for years but mostly writing the Seinfeld you know stand-up with him on the show he and I would knock it out we'd both go to the Improv on Melrose

and knock it out and then go back to his house till about 3 or 4 in the morning and kind of formulate it by the way we were talking before you got here. Rick, I think you were over there when we were discussing. Rick's actually a teacher. Were you sitting down?

We talked about how Rick is. I've been sitting down the whole time here. No, no, you were the first one. I saw him over there. Rick saw me. He was serenading me. Okay, but we were talking about how Rick is a teacher. The Comedy Cellar has a comedies class.

Nice. That's right. And Rick is the teacher. So we were asking the question, can comedy be taught? Wow, that's a pretty good question. Well, listen, I know that Jerry... Yeah. I call him Jerry

because I've never met him. That's his name. No, I used to actually know him. But he is totally... There's a lot of philosophies that being a comedian is like being a pirate. Either you have it or you don't. He has said this. It's like being a pirate, you know. Like a lot of philosophies that being a comedian is like being a pirate. Either you have it or you don't. He has said this. It's like being a pirate, you know. And like a lot of us.

Well, one of your students is here. I don't know if he wants to sit down. Is this Ricardo? No, this is Sadiq. Sadiq, do you want to sit down? Sadiq. Sadiq Samani. Is he a comedy student?

He was about five years ago. Now he's taken the basics of just joke structure, joke writing and performance, which needs to be mentored. And he's now a working comedian. Thank you for having me. Sorry, I'm trying to put these headphones on over my man bun. Are you hearing us okay, Sadiga? Can you hear us? Just the man bun is like.

So what does Rick teach you in his class? Actually, when I first took his class class I was already doing stand-up for about three years or so and I wasn't writing much so I took his class to write and one of the first things he told me is you don't write punchlines and that's three years into stand-up. Laugh lines. Yeah laugh lines so I already have a performance background I know how to be on stage. I have a perspective. I have premises.

But he taught me how to write solid punchlines. And then you actually watch him perform. Right. And you see him coming up with it on the fly. Right. Like how do you not only write it, but come up with punchlines on the fly so accurate in the moment. And that's what he's good at.

I think that the thing that a stand-up comedy class does best, if I may say so, is provide a warm environment to do the... Because when I first started doing comedy, I had to go on a stage in front of a real audience. It was open mic nights. But, you know, they were an audience. And I was scared shitless. And you should have been. And it's a class environment, I would think.

It's like, okay, they're all, Rick is here, he's holding my hand, and he allows me to get better in an environment that is like his world. I don't know. I mean, I was also a student of Rick's many moons ago. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

And I had already written, I'm a writer by nature, so I'd already written two books by the time. But I'd never, getting on stage was the only thing that sort of. Is anybody else sweating or am I having a heart attack, by the way? No, it's a little warm. It's because I'm sitting next to you now. What, are you sweating?

I'm sweating. Why? Because either it's hot or I have. Well, are you wearing a jacket? I'm wearing a. So then take it off. Dan, you're under a spotlight here. That's awesome.

You're not hot. I like your Conan shirt So then take it off. Dan, you're under a spotlight here. That's awesome. You're not hot. I like your Conan shirt. Oh, thank you. Yeah, anyway, Peril, you were saying something? No, so first of all, I don't know how warm of an environment it is. I mean, and... It's tough. It's brutal.

I'm very encouraging, Dan, yes. But I give them, you know, actual things to do that they need to accomplish. And so there's a little bit of pressure in taking all of those essays that people write. When people first start, it's all essays and it's all disjointed things. And then trying to just get them to formulate what's the subject, what's the premise, what's the setup, what's the punch, I mean, what are we doing? And the editing thing.

The editing thing. People need to be, especially writers, primarily writers, they want to bring that literary format into a conversational art form and getting to break them of that and let them speak in short phrases.

That was the thing. The first thing I say is, you know... You're not writing a book here, Perrielle. We have to see what you're saying. We have to see what you're saying. And a lot of people talk in metaphors. I want to know exactly what you're saying. Whatever you do, have a point of view.

Are you for it or against it? Got to hear it in your voice. And those things. And then the way that you not only structure it, but there's a certain timing involved. You know, we can't have people going on 25, 30 seconds without a laugh. Just can't do it. That's not stand-up comedy for a nightclub. Barry, how did you start?

Did you take classes? Well, I can actually tell you the importance of what he's doing from my experience. I grew up in Miami. I didn't know a soul in Los Angeles. And there was a thing called the Sherwood Oaks Experimental College. I don't know if you remember that. I don't. And it was, they were having different people teach classes.

Do you remember Stanley Myron Handelman? I do. He used to be on the Dean Martin Show, and he was a comedian. The Tonight Show, he did several of those, too. He did those, too. Anyway, it was a name at the time. I moved to California in 1979. This school, just as you're

doing, and he was the teacher, got me into a room, just like you, where he would have everyone read the Enquirer and try to just be funny. The National Enquirer. Yes, it was a starting place for me. Exactly what you're doing. A starting place so I could get up there and see if I had any chops at this at all.

That was a comic, not a writer. And, you know, it got me to the starting point. So you need something. Otherwise, I'm walking around here aimlessly. And, you know... Can I add something to this? Sadiq. Also known as Sadiq I add something to this? Yes, go ahead.

Sadiq. Also known as Sadiq. You need to change your name to Rick, by the way. No Sadiq anymore. He'll talk you into it with a guitar. I was thinking of Sadiq Chrome, but... He'll talk you into it with a guitar. You're going to have a song about you soon. Actually, my website is sayhisname.com.

I actually purchased that site because no one knows how to do it. So it's almost like my parents knew I'm going to need branding when I got older, so they just gave me that name. Are you getting ready for a flight, Rick? What are you doing? Is that the curriculum? No, no, no.

Go ahead. Sorry. I just wanted to add from another perspective as well. When comics are starting out, a lot of them think they don't need instructions. No, you need instructions. And we have this whole scene where people are like, you don't need that. You just need to get up on stage. I'm like, but you actually,

this person's been there in the game. They've been working with comics. They know what you need to get there. So why wouldn't I spend a few hours here and some of my money and that'll save me all this stage time? Well, if you wanted to fix a refrigerator, you know, you would go to someone like Rick and they would show you the steps on fixing a refrigerator. If you want to be a doctor.

Right. Right. You have to know the specific. What do you got, Rick? You're handing your resume out? What are you doing? Please remember these basic. These are the Rick Crome's basic cider house rules.

This is an overall. These are the kinds of things I emphasize in the class before we get to the. I think comedy can be done just by doing it. But I think there's something to be said. But I can save you two years. I mean, I do think that there is something about the pirate thing, though. There is. But what happened was.

Let me just make this point. But when we were starting. Yes, you. There is. But what happened was, let me just make this point. But when we were starting, yes, you had to audition, you had to come and bring yourself, you'd hang out at the Improv, you'd go, but if you got passed to hang out late night,

to be on between midnight and four in the morning on a Tuesday, but you would go to the club at 10 o'clock at night and you'd sit and you'd watch and you'd absorb

and you would talk to professionals and you would learn it that way and then you'd get up and the mc who was king of the clubs at that time the mc would choose who goes on for five minutes for two drunks at two in the morning right but it doesn't but so you absorbed it and you go every night and it was kind of like being a pirate right but there's nothing wrong if somebody like me tells you what I learned in those two years or three years of hanging out late night. Your class is brilliant and your knowledge is invaluable. Thank you. But it's not mutually exclusive to getting up on stage.

No, you need to do that, too. Over and over and over again, and bombing and learning and all of those things. Sadiq Samani just added me on Instagram. Really? Couldn't wait until you got off the podcast. I had to tag him on a story that I told. Oh, he just tagged me. He didn't add me.

He tagged me. I followed you, but also I tagged you on a story. Should I follow him back? I can do that. It's your choice. Are you a big Instagram? Well, now, Barry, you've been doing this a while. I've been at this since the 90s.

The pre-Instagram era. Have you adapted to the social media? I'm on Grubhub. Rick's on Grindr, which is like Grubhub. Oh, I'm on them all. You eat either way. Surprisingly, he's on Tinder, too. Either like Grubhub. Oh, I'm on them all. You eat either way. Surprisingly, he's on Tinder, too. Either way, you have things in your mouth.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to run down and do a set. Okay. And I'll come up and join you after I tell my funnies. Well, you can give us a debriefing of how it went. Right. Sadiq, thank you for joining. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

You can walk outside and get tackled like Chris Hansen. Thank you for having me. $13,000 feels like not a lot of money. This guy is a good guy. Oh, Rick? Very good guy. Does he own this place? No, that's Noam, who's not here. What happened to Noam?

No, I don't know. Where's Noam tonight, Peril? He can't come in on Sundays, and this was the only day Barry Marder could make it. Yeah, and I said there's no way I'm passing up the opportunity to spend time with you. Meanwhile, I'm sweating. I hesitate to start Googling symptoms because that never leads anywhere good. You're fine. You are literally soaking wet like a suspect at this point. You're fine. Drink some water.

You look like on Live PD. Maybe I'm nervous because I'm with the great Ted L. Nancy and anything can happen. You ever see Live PD? No. It's one of these shows where these guys start sweating them and the cop pulls them over for a light bulb. That's funny. There's always some illegal tortoises in the car. Now, you're the letter from a nut guy.

The comedy seller gets letters, not just the ones I write for fun. Wait, wait. Can I just ask one question? Go ahead. Are you continuously writing letters? No. No. Not anymore?

Well, I work on Comedians in Cars getting coffee now. Okay. So we actually put that show together. Okay. Jerry hires the comics. I write all the social media. Sometimes I'll give him questions and stuff, areas and stuff. It's all his show.

He ad-libs it all. What do you mean you write the social media? What does that mean? I wrote a bunch of fake Yelp reviews for the restaurants that the people have. You can see them up there. That's funny. Posts on Facebook, posts on Instagram and stuff about the show. Captions, weird things.

It's all different each season. They'll have like six pictures of whatever people were in the car and I'll write some funny captions. Anyway, just to get the word out. So you are a social media adept individual. Yeah, I know. Rudimentary. It's a great show. Perry L is our social media guru. I'm kind of lost

on that whole... I know enough about it. I'm not really a... I'll take the compliment. I don't know. It is a good compliment. I just, you know, some people they'll post, I don't understand why they post their salad that they're about to eat. It's crazy.

That's not interesting. Without Facebook, this whole thing of likes. Without Facebook, if I walked up to you and I said, do you like me? Can you get five of your friends to like me? Here's my lunch. This is what I ate today. You'd be a crazy person. Yeah. Or if you said, hey, here's a picture of the salad I just ate.

Do you want to take a look? Nobody would ever say, oh, really? Yes, I would. I would, here's a picture of the salad I just did. You want to take a look? Nobody would ever say, oh, really? Yes, I would. I would like to see your picture of your salad. Here's my friends around my picture, my new friends with my salad. I like Facebook because I use it to debate, and I

like Twitter because there's news items. Instagram, I just use it, but that really is just a steaming pile of look at me. It's ridiculous. And, you know. You humor me. That's the only reason you're on Instagram.

And it's just a bunch of girls. A lot of it's women and telling other women how pretty they are. You know, you post a picture of yourself. Oh, my God, you're so gorgeous. There's a lot of porn. I love you. I love you more. There's a lot of that.

There's a lot of porn on there. Here's another thing I can't take is the birthdays. Everybody's birthday. Yeah, happy birthday. Someone shows, I can't come up with another funny little witty, you know, hey, didn't we have this last year? I can't take another birthday. Everybody's born every day.

There's no days, you know, out of the whole calendar where there's been no birthdays today. But I must confess, I do like those likes. So, I mean, it is an addiction. You want a like, don't you? You're like a dog. You're like me. You know what? Pet me, touch me.

Well, you know, I like, you know, a girl, when a woman that you have a crush on likes you, and you're like, okay, you know, maybe I'm in the game. Right. You know, because if she was ready to call the cops on you for harassment, she probably wouldn't like you. So, at least, you know, it says that. You shouldn't like any girl's posts, like, after, like, late at night or anything, though. Why? Because that looks creepy. Yeah, it says that. You shouldn't like any girls' posts late at night or anything, though. Why? Because that looks creepy.

It's creepy. Everything is creepy now. Also, you can't like a post that was posted a year and a half ago. Right, that looks creepy, too. Because that looks like you've been scrolling. Okay, I feel like we're going to get in trouble if we don't ask you more about this rich writing history. So you started writing on Seinfeld. I started writing for, actually,

we saw him last night, David Letterman. Jerry had a party last night. I started writing in 1979-80 when I moved to LA for David Letterman. He was the guest host of the Tonight Show. And I started writing jokes for him. I used to charge $75 to these guys

for jokes. How many jokes? I worked for him for him. I used to charge $75 to these guys for jokes. I think that's still the rate. How many jokes? I worked for him for three years. $75 for three years? $75. Everybody else was charging $25 then, but I thought, these are valuable. That's amazing.

So back then, that was my way. So then I worked for Gary Shandling for a long time as a joke writer, then Leno. And then I worked for Bill Maher for a long time. He was at the party last night. And then, so we got to catch up with Bill and Letterman. And, you know, then I met Jerry, I guess, right before Seinfeld.

There was about four episodes done. I was actually friendly with Larry Miller. And Larry and I would run around on the road and Jerry and he were friendly. So he came friendly. So, he came over. I met him at, do you remember Jeff Altman? Yeah. I was used to get him confused with Larry Miller. No. I think I kind

of looked a little... What was the one that played, didn't one of them, was in the Dukes of Hazzard? That was Jeff Altman. He played the Bob guy. Abraham Lincoln Hogg, I think. Yeah. So, he had a barbecue in 90 or 91, and I think Seinfeld had four episodes out. And Jerry came over, and we kind of knew each other from the clubs.

I was working for Gabe Kaplan, and he had the same manager as Jerry, which was George Shapiro. So I used to see Jerry in the 80s in the hallway at George's office, and I'd say hello and not see. You know how you see people. And it's boring, isn't it? No, it's fascinating. And also, I think to our listeners, it's fascinating. That's nice of you. Yeah, I can't tell what's fascinating.

All I can speak is for me, and I find it interesting. Thank you. So I was with Larry, and he called me up. We saw each other at the barbecue, and he said, I know you're working for Letterman and all these guys and stuff. I have this show on called Seinfeld. It's only done about three or four episodes. Have you seen it?

And I had not. And he said, do you want to come and see it? I've got them taped, you know. And I went to his condo with, it was not Jerry Seinfeld at that point. He was just a successful comedian on the road, you know. And I went, Larry Miller and myself and him, we watched the show. And it was funny. And he said, I do the stand-up at the beginning of the show.

I love somebody that drifts off while I'm talking. No, I'm just looking at the monitor to see if Rick is on stage. Like a dog after I've given a treat to someone else in the room for a treat. You have my rapt attention for what that's worth. That's our monitor that shows you who's on. I just wanted to see if Rick was, that's the emcee right now. No, you were drifting on me. No, no, I would never drift, never drift, never on. I just wanted to see if Rick was... That's the MC, right? No, you were drifting on me. No, no, I would never drift.

Never drift, never drift. I beg. So, um... I, uh... He said he had a minute and 45 in the stand-up in Seinfeld. He had three segments, and he said he was running out of stuff.

Now, he could have written this stuff himself. He's good enough for that, but he needed somebody to bounce off of. Anyway, that's how we started. So he and I just started putting these things together. We would go to the improv, do stand-up, and then write three or four weeks' worth of. Anyway, that's how we started. So he and I just started putting these things together. We would go to the improv, do stand-up,

and then write three or four weeks' worth of the shows, and then he would take... He taped them not in a club. He taped them where the show was, which was at Radford,

the MTM Studios. Oh, wow. That's where they taped the stand-up. They would bring the same audience that was watching the episode

and bring some tables down. Jimmy Brogan did the warm-up. You know Jimmy, right? I've met him. He's some tables down Jimmy Brogan did the warm up you know Jimmy right? I've met him and he did the warm up and then Jerry would change his tie and he would change his jacket and stuff and then we would do three weeks worth and then they would insert him

in the show. Wow that's so interesting but they stopped using the stand up it got to the point where you know it was just too much for him to, because he's a perfectionist, he tried everything out. We would go to the improv on Melrose. I would do a set, the regular people would do a set. He'd come up and then he would couch, let's say there were 7, 8, 10 new minutes in there,

couch it into a 20-minute set. We'd get back at his place and work until four in the morning. It was just too much for him, especially when Larry David left in the last couple of years. So that was the end of that. And now you're working with Jerry just on the Comedians in Cars. Comedians in Cars, I work with him on that, and the books are now played, so that's been very successful.

Any big names coming out that you can let us, on Comedians in Cars, that you're at liberty to divulge? Well, there are quite a few big names here. I don't want to give out, you know, Mike Pence. No, he's not on. No, wow, really? Because they're not using just comedians anymore. No, these are all comedians, and they're pretty big. They're all comedians, aren't they?

We had President Obama. That's true. I saw that one. You had Howard Stern. Steve, do you want to sit down? This is Steve, our manager. Steve, how are you, sir? Hey, how you doing? This is Barry Marder. Nice to meet you, Steve. Hi, Barry. You guys met outside. Did we? Steve was the one who was so kind to us. Steve never wants to come. Steve is

the, well, they call him Outside Steve because he works outside at the front door. I like that name. It's a soprano name. Metzger gave me that name. Outside Steve. There was like seven Steves working here at the time. Really? Seven Steves is a good name for a pizza place, isn't it?

It was also the name of my band in college. So when the customers come in, Steve, and, you know, remember Steve Rubell in Studio 54, how he was rude to everybody? Yes, Steve was a nice guy. And that was sort of, that's a little bit of how, no? Are you rude? He was very nice to me. I'm nice to people. No, but you're like, you know, but you can be a little gruff.

It's a zoo out there, to be fair. Oh my God, it's a line around the block every night. I'm to the point. There's no time. He's very brief. Like, they'll come up and say, oh, how about... We're sold out. You are?

Cut him right off. We're sold out. You know, Jerry was going to come to this thing as of... Not true. Tonight. Yeah. About an hour before we went to the Mets game today. How was that?

It was pretty good. But Jerry was going to come where? Tonight. To do this. To do this podcast? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

I swear to God. He was going to come. We were driving us all home. Wallace was in the car. George Wallace. George Wallace. We had Bill Maher over there, and we all went to the Mets game. He had planned it for two days.

But then he said, I'm bailing. I'm just too tired to go down there in that traffic. So, you know, I almost got him here. Oh, well, that would have been incredible. Right. Where'd you sit? He's got a booth Oh, well, that would have been incredible. Right. Where'd you sit? He's got a booth there, a box in the Mets game. Sweet.

It's a nice thing with the food and everything. It's a good deal. Yeah, it's okay. Steve is a guy. He's almost as funny. Maybe he is as funny as a lot of the comedians here. But he's outside Steve. You've got to come inside to make it work.

I mean, I've been outside plenty and, plenty and watched what he has to navigate out there. And it's, I mean, he handles it with real dignity. Really. And grace. And grace, exactly. But I think it could be fun if you really took it up a notch. And people would be like, oh, you've got to go down to the cellar. The guy at the door, he makes fun of you and yells at you and tells you to beat it.

That could be part of the excitement. Well, I've been trying to work on that for years, but they won't allow me to do that. You want to be a stand-up? No. Why? I don't have the cojones to. What do you want to do? You can't just stand outside your whole life.

I know. Well, he's been doing it for about, I don't know, going on 10 years now. 10 years outside? Yeah. It's a cold winter, I'll tell you. Wow. They have to put a heat lamp out there for you. Which do you?

Doesn't work. I want to just say, because you mentioned this earlier, that I feel like this is important to say on this show. I am re-watching the Larry Sanders show right now. And I swear to God, it's just absolutely brilliant. Each and every single one. He really had a great show

before anybody had a show. A hundred percent. Colin Quinn's here tonight. Is he here? I saw him. I saw him last night at the party. Where is he? He popped in for a second.

He's got a spot later on. Steve, you're in between shows now. You've checked everybody in. Yes. So it's a spot later on. Steve, you're in between shows now? You've checked everybody in? Yes. It's a full house. You're inside, Steve. There's another guy named Inside Steve. He's six Steve's.

They're all inside. Seven. Seinfeld doesn't come here all that often. He goes to the Gotham Comedy Club. We went there Friday night. He did a set. Any insight into why he prefers Gotham? They. We went there Friday night. He did a set. Yeah. Any insight into why he prefers Gotham?

They can park his car in the front. Oh, okay. That's the only reason? I think he's friendly with Chris Mazzelli. It's just a room. It's like the improv or the comedy store in LA. Somebody has to give him a warm invitation. I'm sure he'll be happy to come by.

Well, he knows he's always welcome. And he's been here. He has been here. I feel like you always assume that people think they have a warm invitation. I don't know if that's true. They don't. He was going to get up and do some stand-up and everything. He was supposed to come.

But, you know, that game takes a lot out of you. Does it? It's massive eating in there. And, you know, it's a lot of people. What were you eating? Is it good food over there? He has the thing catered in there. He's got a thing.

So we had, I never had them before, the Shake Shack burgers. Oh, yeah. He had those. He had Philly cheesesteaks. He had hot dogs, nachos. God, Jesus Christ. He's got a lot of that stuff. I took a knee at one point.

I would be comatose. Steve, by the way, is an old friend of the owner's. Noam, unfortunately, Noam couldn't be here tonight to meet you. He doesn't come in on Sundays. Why doesn't he come in on Sundays? He's family time. I didn't pry. He's got young kids, but Steve is an old friend of Noam's,

and that's Steve's connection to this place. I can answer any questions on behalf of him. On Noam? Yeah, what's his deal with Sunday nights? Normally we don't record on Sunday nights. I told you, guys. I'm only in town. I very rarely travel. I'm only in town

for his birthday party, so I came in Sunday. And you're not a good traveler, apparently, I've heard. Why? Tell us why. Well, he lives in Los Angeles. Which is weird, because he strikes me as such a New York guy, but he's not a New York guy at all. He's from Miami. Yeah. From Miami and I lived in L.A. for a while.

Can Jerry just, he sends a jet for you? No, no, I took a commercial flight. Regular flight. Tell me about how you're a terrible traveler. Do you hate to fly? I'm not a good flyer. I'm not a structured person. I don't like taking my shoes off ten minutes after I put them on to get to the airport.

I don't like putting my keys in my wallet and my cell phone in strange, dirty bins. Okay. It is amazing how brutal the traveling process is. It's just demoralizing. You wouldn't think taking off your shoes would be that bad, and yet it can just break your spirit right in two. Well, even Papillon, they left his shoes on. But, you know, he said to me the other day, Jerry, he said he hasn't been on a commercial flight in 20 years.

He actually said this, is flying different now? And I showed him a video of a guy being dragged down the front of a plane, you know. Oh, that Asian doctor that was dragged off of, I guess, United it was. And nobody's dressed up. It's Mecca back there. You hear some noises and mooing and, you know, and... And I like first class because the only people in first class, they're dressed up. It's the sky marshals, the terrorists, and myself.

The terrorists are always dressed nicely and in shape. So you get that before you go back into, you know, the Mecca search back there. Now, we don't want to promote Islamophobia on this show. Nothing at all. Not after Rick's songs about 19

year old kids that he's singing to. Well, 19 is legal in the stadium. Am I going to get in trouble for the Mecca line? No, I don't think so. Well, I can't speak for the... It's a pilgrimage back there. I can't speak for... Go ahead. Steve has a question. Does Jerry own his own plane?

No, no. He has a net jet. He doesn't own a plane. But, you know... If I had a billion dollars, I would probably not even move. I'd do a billion dollars I would probably not even move I'd do nothing differently except I would fly privately because

that's the big thing is to fly privately but it's easier now too they're like uber private yeah there are what the uber fly? it's not really uber it's called blade it's a plane I mean it's not 30 it's a plane? Yeah, it's a plane. I mean, it's not 30...

It's still monstrously expensive to fly privately. Go look up some YouTube videos. People are taking cell phone pictures of other people cursing people out. People are urinating on people on the plane. Men are clipping their toenails.

Sorry about that. Are they? One of my best friends from growing up is a flight attendant. She's been a flight attendant. We should have her on the show to discuss. I told her that she thought I was kidding.

Flight attendants, you're not allowed to complain because they have ultimate power over you. Well, she has told me about behavior that is so appalling.

What do they do? Tell me. First of all, I mean, I think clipping your toenails is like fairly. And then they go into the bathroom. They take their socks off and they walk around and they go into the bathroom and then they urinate and then they come out with their filthy feet. Right.

They like, people like snap their fingers at you. Let me get a cup of water, miss. I love that. She's adding more to my... Well, I don't know what kind of accent that was. It was an African accent. You're soaking wet here. I do not eat spaghetti.

Shut down the whole podcast here. Completely closed down on a 1970... There's an ambulance waiting out front for him. We're going to be tackled out here. And Dan took particular offense because she said, a flight attendant's worst nightmare is a straight Jewish guy from New York to Fort Lauderdale. Why? Because they're picking her up?

No, just the entitlement is just... Really? And Dan was upset about that. I wasn't upset about it. He asked me if she was Jewish. I said if she's not Jewish and she's saying that her worst nightmare is a Jewish passenger, I would say that's a little sensitive. Not a Jewish passenger.

A very particular kind of a Jew. But be that as it may, it's a little bit sensitive if you're not Jewish to make that kind of a comment. But I'd certainly welcome her on the show to hear her point of view on that score. Right. Cellar podcast shut down. I can see that tomorrow. I need water to take a pill. Like three times?

That's what they say, right? I need water to take a pill, miss. Kosher meal. It's a two-hour fight. I like a shoe and sock on a man. I don't want to see a twisted, dirty toenail. Yeah. And, you know, Sandals is the worst name for a place to go to, Sandals.

What kind of romantic place is that for a woman? It's a Middle Eastern wedding shoe. You know? They're really getting in trouble here. You're fine. We always veer into politics on this show. If you've listened to us in the past, Noam and I have an ongoing dispute

as to whether this show should be more about comedy and more about politics. Are you politically oriented? Nowadays, comedians, a lot of comedians are the political voice. Now, you know Bill Maher and, of course, Jon Stewart. Are you a politically oriented person? Privately. Privately.

So you don't wish to discuss who your favorite... Well, you're going to divide somebody. I'd like not to insult any more people than I've insulted tonight. But, you know, you have to have at least some political leanings in these times today. I agree with that. You're a comedian. You should keep your political views to yourself. Why alienate half your audience?

Well, I think it depends on the kind of comedian you are. I mean, if your shtick is that you're the guy that's ranting about Trump and the people want to see that when they come to see you, that's fine. But here at the Comedy Cellar, the audience is, they the people want to see that when they come to see you, that's fine, but here at the Comedy Cellar, the audience is, they're not coming to see a particular comedian, they're coming to see

a group of comedians. You don't want to, you know, sit there and slam somebody. You're going to annoy somebody. But some comics do, and as a result, sometimes we get letters,

you know, from nuts, and from not so nuts, but people complain, well, you know, they insulted Trump, some from not-so-nuts. But people complain, well, you know, they insulted Trump. Because everybody here insults Trump freely, but because we're in New York. Right.

So anybody that might possibly not hate Trump is probably going to keep it to themselves on stage, because we're in New York. But people do insult Trump quite a bit downstairs, and every now and again somebody complains. I don't do that. You're just a pretty good, clean, straight comic with good material. Well, you perceive me as clean because you've seen me on television.

Well, it's clever material. It's not political. Generally, it's not. But I don't disparage those doing political shit. You can't take a compliment, can you? No, not so well. You know, that's interesting. I can't do it very well.

You've noticed that. And you're a very funny guy. I told you before I even knew you, I was tweeting. Look at Nancy. I was. You know, that's interesting. I can't do it very well. You've noticed that. And you're a very funny guy. I told you, before I even knew you, I was tweeting, look at Nancy, I was tweeting about you. That's amazing.

I appreciate it. You're clever. Well, thank you. I try to be. I try to be, because you know, these younger comics,

they're coming, they're nipping at my heels. And all I have is my cleverness. Right. I don't have youth. I don't, you know, I don't have hip.

Well, you were good on the show, so you're a good actor. You were good on Crashing. I absolutely love that show. Oh, thank you. Thank you for saying I'm a good actor. As far as loving the show, you have to thank John Apicow. I was right here. I've been trying to get back. Was this where it was?

Yeah, yeah. Who was that woman that ran the club? Esty. Esty is the real booker. He's using actual people from the club. And Esty is the booker that actually books the club. And that tall girl was a very good actress. Oh, Madeline Wise. Yeah, she's great.

And Jamie Lee is good. And Artie is good. Artie's nose fell off at one point. Unfortunately, he has some issues in that area. But we wish him well. And he's been a longtime friend of the club. And he's, I guess, issues in that area. But we wish him well. And he's been a longtime friend of the club. And he's, I guess, getting himself sorted out. We hope that he pulls it off.

So that table goes over here. I see. And then this is really where the magic really happens. Well, the show is called Live from the Table. And the idea is that it tries to mirror what discussions are like at this table. Okay? And the idea is that it's a discussion. It tries to mirror what discussions are like at this table. And the truth is that most of the discussions at the table...

Steve, back me up. Who's that? You're pointing to somebody. That's Nick Thune. Oh, Nick Thune is here? I don't know Nick. Spike Ferriston was trying to do something with him. You know Spike? Yeah, he had a show that... It was like a talk show years ago. And he wrote the Soup Nazi episode.

Oh, wow. I remember him telling me he was doing something with Nick Thune. Well, Nick Thune's right behind you. I don't know if you want to ask him about it. I don't know who he is. It's just what Spike said. Well, you know, Nick, I don't know if you want to come talk to us. This is Nick Thune, everybody. I don't know him.

But he's got... Welcome to the show. Nick Thune, how. I don't know him. But he's got... Welcome to the show. Nick Thune, how do you do? This is Barry Marder. How are you? Do you know Barry? I don't. Have a little respect for the older generation. I do. I have a lot. Nice to meet you. My friend Spike Ferriston

was doing a show with you, wasn't he? Who's that? Spike Ferriston wrote Soup. Spike and I did a thing together. I remember that. I remember your name. Spike's that? Spike Ferriston wrote Supernatural. Yes, Spike and I did a thing together. Right, I remember that. I remember your name. Yeah, Spike's a nice guy. I have respect for Spike. Well, you should know your forebears.

Okay, like, fill him in. Barry Marner, he not only is a comic, he co-created Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Oh, wow. That's how you knew Spike then, you were with that... Oh, Spike from Seinfeld. Yeah, from that group.

And B-movie and all that. And also he writes letters from a nut. Are you familiar with letters from a nut? I'm not. It's like prank calls, but with letters. Oh, okay. Oh, great. I like that. Just get rid of Nick right now,

because he doesn't even know anything about... I like that. I like letters. I like this. You have to know those who opened the door for you. Yeah. Where are your forebearers? Those are the things that I'm inspired by, actually.

Letters. Do you like cars? No. Are you an L.A. guy? I do like cars. I am an you. Yeah. We're your forebearers. Those are the things that I'm inspired by, actually. Letters. Do you like cars? No. Are you an L.A. guy? I do like cars. I am an L.A. guy. Well, he's a handsome guy. I'm not going to lie.

I like... He's an L.A. guy, too. Do you know that bit that Woody Allen wrote for the New Yorker about playing chess? The epistle-y, the letters back and forth with someone? I love that. Anyways, that's what reminds me of what you do. This is coming really well. You're an L.A. guy, but you're living in New York now,

or you're just here visiting? I'm just here visiting. No. I'm just here hanging out. Okay. You're not working on a particular project? No. Nothing I can be jealous of?

Stand-up comedy. What happened to the Spike pilot? Who knows? You guys shot it, right? No, we didn't even shoot it. We spent a lot of time riding it and riding in his nice cars. It was about three or four years ago, right? Yeah, I remember that whole thing.

Nick, the comedy store in LA, I'm told, is like the comedy cellar. I don't think so. Because that's what I'm told. It's the closest thing, though. I mean, yeah, if Joe Rogan's audience came to the comedy cellar every night, then yeah, it would be just like it.

So you're saying, if I read you right, and I think I do, that this is better? Yes. I think that... I mean, I like the Comedy Cellar more, yeah. Because of the... I don't know, by the way, Joe Rogan's audience. I think he's... Well, no, I just like... I love Joe. And that whole group of guys that Joe

has championed all have these really big podcasts, and I think they each talk about the comedy store on their podcast and so that is the kind of... That's what I'm working on over here. Do they have a hangout scene? The comedy store is the best place to hang out.

Is there like a restaurant upstairs like we have here that's a hangout? No. They have a bar outside but they have three rooms or four rooms. Rick is back. I just want to know how it went. I like Rick. You know Rick, right?

Rick, do you know Nick Thune? Nick Thune. Good, how are you doing? Rick, how are you? Come on back in. Come on back. I just want to debrief. We're almost done here.

Nick, thanks for joining us. Yeah. What did I step into? We're just a podcast that we do every week. Usually we talk about politics, but Noam's not here, so we're not talking about politics this time. Are you a politically oriented guy? I'm oriented, but I don't know if it's politically.

Fair enough. Yes, sir. How did it go? I slayed them. I killed them. What am I going to tell you? I bombed? No.

You're a teacher of this. You can't bomb. Like a guy that can't repair the refrigerator. Did you sing for them? I did, but you know what? You didn't sing the Spanish boy song. I did not because we ran out of time, and I didn't get the five. I got a two.

So there was no time for the long song. What do you mean you didn't get a five? You got a two? They usually give you a five-minute line. You know, this is the thing. You got to understand. And so I sang the short song. This is what I talked to Noam about.

You've got to assume the audience doesn't know the terms of art. Now, Noam, when he's doing a political discussion, he'll throw out names. I've never heard of these names. He'll be like, you know, the Steele dossier. And he'll just assume everybody knows what he knows. He was talking about the Mueller report. Or Mueller, whatever.

He's throwing out names. Just make sure you define your terms. You say, I got a two instead of a five. You might as well be speaking Greek. What he means is... I got two Greeks. What he means is when you're on stage, you get a light to tell you how much time you have left.

Right. Or the MC gives you a signal. Or they give you fingers. So you know, wrap it up. Now, Rick, if you got two minutes, you can't sing the Spanish boy song in two minutes. you know, wrap it up. Now, Rick, if you've got two minutes, you can't sing the Spanish boy song in two minutes. I can't set it up. You can get to the part where you get him naked,

but you don't actually have sex with him. But here's the thing, Dan. This is the early show, so I probably wouldn't do that song anyway. Although I did a lot of gay stuff. But that song, I'll switch that out with Denial. But I do have this song called The Face of a Man in Uranus. Is that a real song?

Is that on the album also? It's about the planet. Rick, I think people say love is a gift from above. There's a planet. And you're teaching this? Yes. And the man and the moon. But I'm here to say that from much further away comes the power to make lovers

swoon. Right. There's a face of a man in Uranus. Right. That makes you feel tingly inside. And the tingly grows the deeper it goes. And the melody is even better, by the way. I guess the music... Well, thanks for stepping on the goddamn laugh line. I'm sorry. My bad. My bad. Well, no. It's over now. When you put the music to it, it's much better.

I was gonna... I'm sorry, Rick. My bad. I take full responsibility. This is the difference between L.A. and New York, by the way. He realized he got a two-minute light and got off on the two-minute light. In L.A., people would have just done the five-minute thing. Well, we have that here, too. Yeah. People do that here, too.

But most of us are... I haven't noticed it since I've been here. I'm fine to get off. I'll get off. You tell me to get off, I'm off. Because to me, comedy, the best part, I get off, I have a chicken. I eat a chicken. You have a chicken.

I eat a chicken, roasted chicken. There's a guy who wrote a letter saying, Dan should stop complaining about stand-up. But I've got to be me. Yeah. You like chicken, though. That's what you like. I like chicken. Why?

How do I? It tastes good. I don't know. Why? Well, the way they prepare it. They prepare it. The spices are really to die for. And where do you eat it?

Are you right here at the table? Are you right here at the table? They serve a roast chicken you can have. Really? Rick, do you find that the audience is more accepting of gay material in 2019 than, say, when you started in the 80s? Oh, absolutely. Really? Absolutely. And I also think because I'm older, I'm

not kind of a threat in the sense that there's no sexual tension. Because they don't think of me as sexual. They think of me as grandpa with a hobby. Creepy grandpa. Creepy grandpa. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

But no, it's so much more easy to do now. Now, I've worked our Las Vegas room, and I must tell you, they were not as accepting of it. Does the Comedy Cellar have a room in Vegas? We do now. Yes. Where is it at? I just heard about it.

It's at the Rio Hotel. Really? And Steve, you're not part owner. I know some of the... Steve's outside, right? No, no, no. Some of the comedy seller... Noam's got a couple of partners.

Noam's got a couple of partners. I didn't know if Steve was... Let's keep it at that. In the Rio. How long's that been open? About a year. A year. Wow.

Nick, you have not done the Rio. No. I don't do... What's that? Oh, I thought you said, yes, you have. I was like, well, maybe I have. I don't know if Nick would do it.

I would love to. If you like getting L.A. comics, you're closer. I started like, well, maybe I have. I don't know if Nick would do it. I would love to. If you like getting LA comics, you're closer. I started doing less in Vegas. I started doing rock clubs outside of the strip. Because it's just easier. It sounds like Nick is successful and maybe wouldn't

do the cellar room for the money. No, but maybe if it was a reason to do it, I don't know. I just find that I don't like the Vegas crowd. I like the people that work in Vegas that have a night off. You could still drop in and do a spot. Yeah, I would love to. Yeah, our room is kind of New York-y for Vegas, and it appeals to a lot of locals as opposed to the tourists.

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's what I like. Providing kind of New York-y acts. But you're right, the tourist crowds, they were not as accepting of these things, so I had to pivot a little bit and do more general stuff. But it's a great room. You'll love it.

They got comped a ticket to the show. I don't know if that's it. Because they're fine, and then you bring up something controversial, and they just shut down. You're not doing anything controversial that I can see. No. Not at all. Songs about pedophiles. Well, again, I want to underline that

the boy in the song is of legal age. Is he? Well, I don't know. You're trying to wrap up some legal here, aren't you? I assume it is. I assume he is. I'm going to take Dan to a legitimate

gay bar and let you work all this out. Because it seems whenever I come on the show, this is all we talk about. We talked about your mentoring. Mentoring young boys at gay bars. See what you do now?

I find sexuality interesting. You're not familiar. Whether it be straight or gay, sexuality is interesting. I'm sure Nick Thune has some interesting stories to tell, but I don't know him well enough to ask him. But it doesn't all have to be scandalous, Dan. It doesn't have to be an underage...

Nick, now you're a good-looking guy. Are you single, or are you involved in a monogamous relationship at this time? You know, I'm just in a lot of in-betweens, to be honest, yeah. I'm not sure I follow, but anyhow. Means he's a bottom. Yeah.

I'm kidding. Well, just when Rick accuses me of being scandalous, of course, he interjects with that. That was a well-crafted interjection. We are out of time, but... No, we actually are out of time. Wrapped up 45 minutes early, huh? I'd like to thank our special guest, Barry Marder.

Thank you, thank you. And Letters from a Nut can be purchased on wherever you purchase books. And also Amazon. Amazon Prime, it's on... And Patrick Warburton is at the Improv in Irvine, May 10th, 11th, and 12th, reading the Ted Onansi letters. Okay, so that's Letters from a Nut,

and also being performed, the live version, as well as the book version, and Nick Thune, what are you up to these days? I'm just a vagabond. A road? Are you killing the road? Yeah, I was just in Mexico. I did a Mexican tour, which was fun. In English, though, I gather.

Yeah, yeah. My openers didn't, but I did. Your openers did it in Spanish? Yeah. Really? That's kind of tough to follow, isn't it? No, it made it better. Wow.

Rick Crome, thank you for stopping by. Thank you for having me, Dan. Always a pleasure. Well, I hope you weren't offended. You know, I'm curious. I'm unoffendable. I'm curious. I hope you weren't offended. You know I'm curious. I'm unoffendable. I'm curious. I don't think it's

a bad thing to be curious. All right. Now, you stay right here. I'm going to go over to the leather shop. I'll be back with some items and then we'll go out. Rick's been trying

to sway me for decades now. To become what? Yes, well... You're past your prime, well. You're past your prime, Dan. Yeah, my twink days are over. You're twunk.

Are you married, Dan? No, are you? I have a girlfriend. Oh, you have a girlfriend. So, okay. I don't even have that. Nice Irish girl. Okay, all right.

I don't have, I have issues with relationships. Long-time listeners might know that. I told her if we get any fatter in bed, we're going to need a seatbelt extender. Is she a bigger girl? Well, not big, big like me. She's bigger, but she's, you know... The one thing I like about her is when we're intimate, if it's uncomfortable,

she lets me tap out. If I have to do this, then I can roll right off. Okay, that sounds fair. When you've had enough. I've had enough. I love her. Her name is Phyllis Murphy.

Don't forget to breathe. Periel. Great booking. Periel's responsible for bringing Mr. Barry Marder to us. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming. And we'll see you next time.

Thank you, everybody. All righty. Wait. Oh, and Steve Fabrikant, we thank him, too. And if you want to write in. Oh, yeah, podcast at comedyseller.com. Right. Okay.