The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Poker and Comedy with Clayton Fletcher and Ray Ellin

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

Clayton Fletcher is a comedian, poker dude and author of "The ROI of LOL." Ray Ellin is a comedian, host and producer and the owner of Aruba Ray's Comedy Club.

🎵 This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy cellar, coming at you on Sirius XM 99, raw comedy, formerly Raw Dog, and wherever your podcasts are available, and we're on YouTube, too. This is Dan Natterman, comedian and regular co-host of Live from the Table. I'm here with Perrie L. Ashenbrand, our producer. Shalom. And again, the word producer is rather ambiguous.

It's not ambiguous at all. We've established that numerous times. We also have with us Aruba Ray Allen, one of our Comedy Cellar emcees, veteran emcee here at the Comedy Cellar. They know him as Aruba Ray because he has a comedy club in Aruba where I have performed on several occasions. And with us, I think for the first time ever on the podcast, Clayton Fletcher, comedian and professional poker player and author of the new book, The ROI of LOL.

If you're not watching us on YouTube, picture Ray Davis from The Kinks, the lead singer of The Kinks. That is what Clayton Fletcher looks like. I'm just going to take it as a compliment. You know, I'm just going to say that guy's hot, so I'll take it. Well, he's kind of cool looking, you know, but it's hard to dissociate his looks from the fact that he's a famous rock star. Right, and I am not. Yeah, you're not, but at the same time, you are a pro poker player.

So tell us about the ROI of LOL. ROI, I guess, means return on investment. That's right. And LOL, of course, means laugh out loud. So what about it? What can you tell us about the ROI of LOL? So first thing I want everyone to know about my new book is it has nothing to do with poker, but that's what Dan knows about me, that I'm a poker player.

This book is about teaching business people how to use comedy skills at work. And using sort of a gambler's perspective on it. Of course. Yeah, there you go. Tied in. So tell us, and by the way, you co-wrote it with a fellow ghost by the name, I'm looking at the cover here, of Steve Cody. Yeah, Steve Cody's a CEO.

He's got a PR firm here in New York City called Peppercom. And he and I have been training business people at his company and other companies together for like 15 years now. And then we finally decided, you know, it's time to write a book about this work we're doing. You know, because the problem, as you well know, Dan, is there just aren't enough comedians. You know, obviously. By the way, Gary Goleman, speaking of comedians, he says, and this is the blurb on the back of the book, Clayton Fletcher is an outstanding comedian and teacher. I cannot think of anyone better suited to teach you how to make your home or workplace funnier and happier.

No indication that he actually read the book from that blurb. Gary's not endorsing the book at all. He does not endorse the book. He just endorsed me personally. Well, that's what I find with a lot of these books Because the truth is I asked for blurbs I wrote a book

Iris Spiro Before COVID A novel available on Amazon Wonderful book Ray claims to have read it I don't know that that's true I don't believe that Excellent book But Perel has read it

That I know You believe me I believe you yes Now I am a poker player And I think he's lying and she's telling the truth. But Claytonius, the thing about blurbs is most people don't read the book. They're blurbing. They just don't have time.

It doesn't matter. Now, I asked Jim Gaffigan for a blurb. Now, I'm not saying he didn't read it. But an hour later, I got a blurb. Yeah. So maybe he... It doesn't matter. That's not the point of blurbs.

Nobody gives a shit. The point of blurbs is to help sell the book. The fact that you've actually read the book is immaterial. All right, but true or false, nobody that blurbs,

I mean like half of them don't read the book. I read the book. You didn't ask me to blurb. Yeah, you didn't blurb me. I would say more than half. Yeah,

more than half don't. But they write a blurb that's sort of like, this guy, I love this guy, he's funny. Yeah. But damn,

think about it. You're asking for blurbs from the people that are the busiest. See, I read the book, Perry O read the book. You didn't ask us for no blurb. You didn't care about our, you wanted super famous people blurbs. That's right. And they're too busy to read your book. And that didn't help sell it either.

However, but like I said, available on Amazon.com. It's called Iris Spiro Before COVID. It's a novel taking place in the comedy world world but we're not here to talk about that we're talking about tell us about how corporations can use lol to increase their roi yeah very good um you know i break it down into stand-up improv and sketch right so the different skills that you learn from doing these different kinds of things and how they can help your company it's not really about trying to make business people you know comedians but they can learn to be more engaging more charismatic you know improves presentation skills corporate culture and all that stuff so in the first half of the book i'm explaining how these things work in our world in

comedy right and then in the second half of the book the businessman kind of takes over the wheel and says how he uses these same skills in business. So you're saying that for a corporate person or a businessman to be able to be funny with clients, is that the gist of? Yeah, with clients, with his or her employees, with whoever. And when it comes to like Sketch, for for example a lot of companies basically do little sketches in their tv commercials nowadays i mean that's you know if you watch the superbowl each company is trying to be funnier than the next one a lot of times it kind of falls flat so what i try to do is the same thing we do in stand-up try to teach them how to be authentic you know tell you

a real story and like what's really going on with you and don't just try to say something because you think it's funny probably the worst advice business people have ever been given is when you do a speech you should you should open with a joke right they always say yeah start with a joke and so these guys get up there in their suit and tie and they're like three guys walk into a bar and it just you know it's like okay whatever dude we could have read that on the internet this is more about you know being honest and and tapping into you know what's really going on with you or your company or your your home life whatever the case may be. By the way, speaking of humor, one of the most well-known commercials over the past

decade has been the Geico commercials, right? They were doing the caveman. That was Geico, right? Yeah, yeah. Now, it didn't say anything about insurance, but we all remember the caveman. Yeah. And, you know, because it was fun. I think they even made a sitcom.

They did make a sitcom, yeah. Very short-lived, by the way, that sitcom. Yeah. Well, in any case, a sitcom based on a commercial is probably not going to last. Right, right, yeah. But would that be an example of using LOL for increasing ROI? Yeah, of course.

I mean, we did a ton of research for the book. I mean, there's all kinds of studies out there. Like, employees are more engaged at work. They're less likely to quit their jobs. They don't value salary, number one. They actually put purpose before salary, especially like millennials and Gen Z in the workplace now. They're not looking for just, you know,

which company is going to pay me the most. Of course, that's important. But what's more important to them is, like, they want to be in a happy place with people they like to be around, especially if they have to go to the office, which more and more companies are doing now. Like the whole like work from home five days a week thing is starting to fade out. And so now this is even more important as people get back into the physical office. Like, you know, how are we going to bond at work? It's not just like hanging out at the water cooler and talking about, you know, whether the local sports team did well this weekend or not,

but it's more about, you know, just really bonding with each other and working together as a unit. Are you doing any workshops? Because that's sort of a natural, would be a natural derivative of this book would be for you to conduct workshops for corporate people. For sure.

And I've done, you know, hundreds over the years to conduct workshops for corporate people. For sure, and I've done hundreds over the years of these type of corporate workshops with Steve Cody, sometimes without Steve Cody, or different people from his company, and so we kind of made our mark as, like, there were a lot of companies that were doing improv, and they would just kind of have, like, I don't know,

some improv group come and make them be silly for a few hours, and then they'd kind of forget it, but what we do is we develop a program where like you actually learn the skills that comedians know, whether it's standup, improv or sketch and how to use those same skills at work. So it's not really so much like something you do once for fun, but more like how do you incorporate these ideas and these concepts and these, you know, tenets of comedy, if you will, into the workplace. So, you know, that. So that's what the book is about. And we talk about different companies that we worked with in doing this type of training

and when it went good and when it went bad and why. And you learn from the failures too. Okay, so the name of the book is The ROI of LOL. Available, I guess, anywhere you get your books, which for most people is Amazon, but it could be barnesandnoble.com. And you might even go to a bookstore if you're feeling old-fashioned. The reason I wanted to have Ray on with you is because you both share a passion, just to move a little bit away from the book, for gambling.

Yes. You are a professional poker player. Yeah. You make what percentage of your income? You're a comedian. You do these corporate workshops. But where does the bulk of your income come from is it from comedy or from poker it kind of depends on the year you know but if i have a good year in poker it it absolutely dwarfs everything else that i'm doing to make money you know for example in the year 2018

i won like four hundred thousand dollars playing poker that year i've never made that much doing stand-up that's for sure. That's awesome. I don't do that every year, but that was a great year. Do you play in the World Series every year? Yeah, in that year, 2018, I actually finished in 28th place in the main event of 8,500 and some players. I've actually been in the top 100 twice now in the 13 or 14 times that I've played the main event.

That's really cool. But what's really funny about it is those are the only two caches I have. Like, I either bust out early or I go really, really far and almost make the final table. Yeah. Do you think you're taking much bigger risks early on? Just you figure, fuck it, let's just go for it early and bust that about. Yeah.

Now, Ray Allen's more of a ham and egg or poker player. I'm sure he's good, but it doesn't sound like he's quite at your level. I'm not Clayton good. I mean, that's impressive. Becoming 28th in the World Series is a big deal. Now, you hear a lot about poker is a game of skill. It's not gambling, per se, because there's skill involved. How true is that?

Yeah, it's very true in the long term. Over the course of a year, I've never had a losing year in poker. I've been playing poker professionally for 17, 18 years now. I've never had a losing year in poker. I've been playing poker professionally for 17, 18 years now. I've never had a whole year where I lost, but I certainly had a day or a week or even a month where things didn't go my way. So in the short term, luck is very important. In the long term, it doesn't matter at all.

And what are the skills for what makes a great poker player? Well, number one, you have to understand the mathematics of the game. Nowadays, so many players are using artificial intelligence and solvers, what we call solvers, where they kind of tell you what the theoretically correct decision is at any given point in a poker hand. So if you don't have that stuff kind of memorized and you haven't done your homework, you're not going to win at the high stakes nowadays.

You have no chance at the very high stakes where they're playing for literally millions of dollars. It's not going to work. But in the lower stakes, that's less important. And what becomes more important is just kind of figuring out who's lying and who's telling the truth, reading people's body language, maybe using your LOL skills to get them laughing a little bit so that you can loosen them up and maybe get them to reveal some information about their hand. With due respect, we've moved off the book. I'm sorry. I just turned that down now.

But Clayton, if we can get in our time machine and move back to the 90s to a movie called Rounders, which was... I enjoyed it. I mean, maybe a poker player would have thought it was ridiculous. There's a scene where Matt Damon figures out that John Malkovich, every time he's got a losing hand,

he takes an Oreo and he splits it apart. His tell was that he would listen to an Oreo cookie. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is one of my all-time favorite movies. Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being complete horseshit and 1 being, no, 10 should be complete reality

and 1 being complete horseshit, where would you put that element of of the movie i mean with all due respect to brian koppelman you know my friend yeah i don't want to say anything but he even would admit today that that is a hollywood you know device but there are things that people do i'll give you guys an example um you know an amateur player is going to stare at the flop which is when they deal three cards face up all at once and that really tells you how strong of a hand you have in all likelihood for the rest of the hand so when that flop comes out i don't watch it i watch the amateurs at my table and i get reactions they don't realize

they're being watched because they're so eager to see what those three cards are so they're looking at the flop and i'm looking at them and most amateurs if they have nothing they're so eager to see what those three cards are. So they're looking at the flop and I'm looking at them. And most amateurs, if they have nothing, they're just going to stare at it and try to figure out how the hell can I create a winner out of this hand. But say you have like two fives in your hand and now a third five comes on the flop. That's a good hand. You have three of a kind.

And it's almost like looking at the sun. They're going to look away and try to play it cool. And I'm not looking at that. So I pick up on little mannerisms things like that or you know breathing patterns and you know especially if i can get a baseline for somebody like we're just having a casual conversation maybe while they're dealing the cards hey where are you from oh yeah how long you been playing poker stuff like that just kind of like being casual but almost like doing crowd work or whatever right well now when the you know when the millions are on the

line i'm going to have an advantage because i've learned what your baseline looks like and hopefully i've paid enough attention to you in the last seven eight ten hours we've been playing that i now know what you're like when you have it and when you don't it won't be as simple as just like chomping on an oreo cookie if you're bluffing but a lot of players do have certain things you can look for those are the amateurs what about some of the professional tells that you've come across in your career? Right. So most of us that have played for a long time and we've done well, we've learned how to hide our tells. And my secret is I know what my tells are.

Right. So, for example, if one of my tells happens to be that I stare at the flop when I don't have anything, sometimes before the flop even comes out, when the dealer's getting the cards ready, I say to myself, no matter what it is, I'm going to stare at it. And what that'll do for me is I don't have to do something that's unnatural for me. I just intentionally do that same thing at other times so that even if you are studying the hell out of me, the information you're getting is not going to be useful to you at all.

Now, Ray, when you play, it's just like, do you do any of this shit? You know, I just look to see what snacks are available in the casino. And, you know, maybe chat up the waitress. Say hey to her. Order another drink. Yeah, say something cute. Like, if she says you need anything, yeah, better cards. You know, something like that.

No, a lot of what Clayton is saying, yes, I do as well. I mean, he's a far superior player than I. And I don't play, I used to play a lot more. What's interesting is I play in a game here in New York with, because Ryan Koppelman did Rounders and he also did the show Billions that just wrapped up. And I play in a game with a bunch of the actors from Billions. No

one plays at the same skill level that Clayton is describing. But it's a fun game. I can't get invited to that game. You would not be invited. You would not be allowed near the building. Now, this is a question for both you and Ray, because you brought up celebrities, but this can apply to anybody with a big net worth. How does that, if you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars, this game doesn't really mean anything to you in terms of your money.

Does that affect how you're going to react you know somebody that's fucking broke you know they're they're nervous that didn't it's it's important this is a huge thing that we do at the table like as soon as somebody sits down i try to evaluate you know is this player like a satellite winner so a satellite is a small stakes tournament where the prize is a buy-in to the larger stakes tournament and so especially like a big tournament like the world series main event there are going to be a lot of satellite winners in there and for those players just cashing it's a ten thousand dollar buy-in maybe they got in for like a hundred bucks or a thousand bucks even so if they cash in that tournament their roi is going to be huge i'm

sorry you so well you know i'm sorry about that. I apologize. So their return for whatever their buy-in was is going to be very significant to them. Like for me, I spend the $10,000 to play. So if I minimum cash, like barely squeak into the money, I'm only going to win like $5,000 profit. But if I had gotten in for $1,000, then the profit will be $14,000. So you kind of try to figure out who the satellite winners are, who the professionals are, who has a large bankroll. And this can come down to what country they're from, what kind of watch they're wearing.

You look for any sign that you can possibly find to get an advantage. So somebody that has a real lot of money, the money's not an issue, how does that affect their psychology? Really, you don't want to bluff that guy. He's so likely to call because he just doesn't care the money means nothing to him you know but somebody that's like really sweating it out like looking at the clock like how many more players until we're in the money i want to get my minimum cash fifteen thousand dollars you know a player like that is way more bluffable because you know it they're just sweating

it out and you never you don't feel bad about raping these people oh absolutely i mean it's part of the game you know You know, you have to take any edge you can because the object of the game is to get all the chips. So, you know, there's no room for, like, sympathy or being, you know, a nice guy. It doesn't always annoy you when I play even a home game and somebody will win

a huge pot and they'll turn and they're being sincere but they go, no, I'm sorry. It's like, shut up. You're not sorry. If you're sorry, give the money back. Exactly. I'm sorry, man. Now, I want to talk about something I've had a dis I'm sorry. It's like, shut up. You're not sorry. If you're sorry, give the money back. That happens to all of them. Sorry, man. Now, I want to talk about something. I've had this argument with Ray. It's not even an argument because he's completely wrong.

You're talking about Blackjack. I'm talking about Blackjack. Okay. Do you play Blackjack, Clayton? Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with Blackjack. Ray Allen thinks that if the other player doesn't play correctly, that hurts him, and so he'll get angry if another player hits when he should have not hit or doesn't hit when he should hit.

Let's be clear. Let's be clear, Daniel. And that is, if you are paying attention to the cards that are coming out, another player can make the wrong move. Yeah, they can make the wrong move for him. No, no, no. But it doesn't affect you. If there are a certain number of tens or aces that are remaining in the deck,

then if you're paying attention to these things, then there's a time that you should not hit your hand. Yeah, he, right. And that can affect. It affects you, but it could affect you. It's equally as likely to help you as to hurt you. The mathematics have been done over and over and over again. Clay, do you not agree?

If you're tracking all the tens and the aces that are coming out of a shoe, there's certain hands you shouldn't hit. Yes, but that doesn't mean that it affects you. If the player next to you is hitting when he shouldn't, that could help you or it could hurt you. Let me just settle this once and for all. I'll settle this once and for all. Settle this for this time. I'll settle this once and for all.

I have two points to make. Number one, Ray, I would really like to come to Aruba sometime and perform at your club there. Okay. Number two, Dan's absolutely right. You're right, Dan. You're right. I don't want to just like, I know he's got a club in Aruba.

I don't want to be like, oh, yeah, right. He's not. If Dan takes a card when he shouldn't, it has just as much of a chance of hurting you as it does of helping you. Except if the decks are still rich full of tens, plush full of tens. Okay, so you're counting cards while you're playing? And if the dealer has, let's say, a six showing. Ray, are you counting cards?

No. No. But the dealer has a six showing, dan has a 13 right he should stay he should stand but if he hits he takes a 10 but the dealer turns over his hand dealer has a 16 that would have been the dealer's 10 and and remember the decks are lush full of tens this is human nature okay are you open to the possibility of being wrong sure okay. Okay. No, no, because maybe like decided like this is it and that's it. Right. But like if.

It's completely the wrong move though for a player to hit. That doesn't sound like what the question is. That's not the question. Basic strategy, you don't hit a 13 with a six showing. Everybody should know that. And when they do that, if it's the 10 the dealer would have gotten, it can upset you. But if they do that and it's a two that prevents the dealer from making an 18 then that can help you and that

these things happen just as frequently but statistically mathematically ray is clinging to this like a like a trump voter clinging clinging to the fact that they think he won the election trump voters are very good blackjack players. You should be happy to be wrong because it gives you like less to be annoyed about when you're playing blackjack. Well, in that situation, that scenario, I would be thrilled if Dan Hinton had got a two and the dealer then busted

with a 26. But even if you don't believe Dan, why would you, it sounds like Clayton knows what he's talking about. I like listening to Clayton talk about poker. Well, I'm glad. I hope, Brad, that you can finally. But this just shows you confirmation bias at work.

You know, Ray will rant about these idiots that believe that 9-11 is a government conspiracy. But he's believing something equally as absurd. Well, it's human nature to try to protect yourself from bad things, right? It's like losing hurts more than winning feels good, right? So he remembers all the time somebody cooks. It does? Yeah, it does. It hurts a lot more. Like when you win, you feel good.

You're like, wow, that was great. I had a great day. But, you know, when you bust out of the main event, that's like the worst day of the year. You know, it's painful. Although, you know what's interesting? I probably do remember better, let's say, great relationships that I've had with women as opposed to the ones who had totally, like, broke my heart or dumped me.

So that's the reverse of what we're talking about. Yeah, I guess I never thought about that. But some people might find it more memorable to remember how they got dumped versus when they felt good. I remember a time Ray flipped out on this Italian dude in Aruba. Let's hear the Italian dude in Aruba. I remember, like, because he didn't do... I don't know, he came into the middle...

He didn't really speak English. He came into the middle of a... He did something Ray didn't like. Yeah. You know, that superstitious Ray, you know, he came into the middle of a shoe, or he would... Ray was on a streak, and the guy, I don't know what he did, he coughed. You know these gamblers with their ridiculous superstitions. The blackjack players are probably the most superstitious of all.

You know, don't sit on my left in the middle of a shoe and don't do this. Why did you hit that 13 when the dealer had the thing? It's all this superstition. It actually doesn't affect the odds of you winning this hand or not. It just doesn't. But because we're so, we remember the times when the guy hit his stupid 13 and it ruined everything for everybody. The dealer would have busted it if this

stupid Italian jerk just wouldn't have hit the 13. See, Clayton knows what I'm talking about. He knows about your confirmation buys. That's what it is. It sounds like that poker players are the intellectuals, the intelligentsia of the gambling community and

that's the problem by the way why i started playing less poker is because i started i used to play every night yeah and i just started to get more and more impatient because you get tired of not having cards to play yeah i'm just like one of the key skills of poker is like waiting you got you got to wait for the right spot you know you if you're going to make your move you got to make your move at the right time it's so important and for some people that are used to games like you know craps or blackjack where you kind of get an outcome like every 10 seconds or whatever you know they're not they're not patient enough to like just chill and be like well if the strategy is to fold literally everything for the next hour unless i have like a tremendously powerful hand then I'm going to be able to do that.

Not everyone is actually capable of doing it. Yeah, there was one guy we played, he was like a semi-pro poker player in a home game. And I'd say over the course of, we played for seven hours, he played three hands. And it was impressive just to see that. Just to see all that folding. He won two of the three, yeah.

It's not a fun night. It's not fun. If somebody always folds unless they have an amazing hand, isn't that a tell of sorts? Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you've been paying attention to your opponents, you will notice that one of them is a 93-year-old lady who only plays when she gets dealt pocket aces, which is the best starting hand.

And so when she opens for a raise, I mean, I would probably fold my pocket Kings in that situation, but you know, that's an extreme example, obviously. But yeah, if you pay attention to your opponents, you start to get, I sort of take notes in my mind, like, well, this guy, when, when he bets really small, he's trying to get us to raise. Cause he's got a really strong hand or this guy, like, if he says a number before he puts the chips in the middle, like you can either bet the chips or you can say like 500 and then put in 500 and maybe one means one thing.

But when he does it the other way, it means something else. I'm taking all these mental notes. And then the crazy thing about tournaments is once you got the whole table figured out, they'll come and grab you and say, okay, Clayton,

we have to move you to another table because this other table just broke. And so you have, and then you have to do it all over again. The whole new table. And by the way, that guy that I mentioned who played three hands in seven hours he could have been bluffing on on some of his hands i you know we didn't necessarily see his car is see what cards he had well if you want to bluff a good strategy is to fold everything for three hours first and right when you bluff people are going to be like oh wow he must really have it now do you do

you count when you do play blackjack yeah so if you if you're going to play blackjack the only way to make money in the long run is to be a card counter and there's a lot of websites and stuff you can google like how to learn how to count cards you don't actually have to know exactly how many tens are left in the deck how many aces and how many low cards but you're you're kind of uh you're sort of estimating based on how much the deck has gone and all that stuff and it's it's a lot of work. It does take, to me, the fun out of playing Blackjack. And Blackjack's kind of like a carnival game, right? I mean, it's like, you know, which way is it going to go?

And then if you're counting cards, you're only able to get maybe like a 1.5% advantage. And if you play perfect basic strategy, the casino has about a 2% advantage. So you're flipping the advantage to slightly in your favor when it used to be slightly in the house's favor. But honestly, if you play blackjack all day, if you don't keep increasing your bets, you're probably going to be able to make your money last a while. It's not the worst game to play. That would be Keno or slots.

But they do kick you out of the casino eventually if they think you're counting. Yeah, I mean, they have the right to refuse the casino eventually if they think you're counting. Yeah, I mean, they have the right to refuse service, just like here at the Comedy Cellar, they have the right to refuse service for people for any reason. It's a private concern. Yeah, it's a private concern. So they don't even have to tell you why you're being what we

call backed off if you're a card counter. But yeah, I know plenty of card counters out there who do it regularly. They don't play for that much money, and they don't get in trouble. It's really like these MIT blackjack teams they write books about. That's where, bring it down the house.

By the way, did I mention Gnome's not here? I don't know if I mentioned that, but Gnome's not here. Normally I say at the top of the episode, if Gnome's not here, I say Gnome's not here. If you're seeing us on YouTube, you figured it out.

If you're listening to us on the radio, you probably figured out that Noam is not here. You did say who is here. Pardon? It's a very pleasant conversation. I hope you're not,

you don't feel insulted. Noam had some, he's doing two other podcasts today, one with us and Alan Dershowitz and one with somebody else. He didn't want to do three pies, a lot of pies. And he had a tea party.

He doesn't like Ray. And he had a tea party. And he has kids. Wait, wait. Why can't you count cards? How come you're not allowed to count? And how would somebody know you're counting cards? That's a good question, Perrin. Thank you, Dan. So the big key

to knowing that someone's counting cards, like say somebody's a good question, Perri. Thank you, Dan. So the big key to knowing that someone's counting cards, like say somebody's betting like $10 a hand for like 45 minutes, and now the deck is almost to the end where they're going to have to reshuffle, and all of a sudden that same player that's been betting $10, $10, now all of a sudden he bets $500. That's an indication. But how do you know he's counting properly? The house has to count with him.

Right. Otherwise the house doesn't know whether or not he's counting properly. Yeah, the house has security and surveillance, and they always know the count. So if they see that when the count got good, all of a sudden this player increased his bet by 5,000%, that's a sure sign that something's up. But can't you just see that the deck has almost nothing left in it

that you wouldn't necessarily have to be counting? Right, well, you can see how many cards are left, but you don't know how many tens, aces, twos, threes, and fours. Let me learn you something. Now, in blackjack, the tens, the more tens favor the players, the less tens favor the house. That's right. Good, Dan.

So if you're counting cards and they've dealt like all, you know, very few tens have come out. You know that there's a relatively high number of tens left. That favors the player. Therefore, you might increase your bet if you were counting. There was a guy, I was once in a casino, and a guy, he knew that I was a comic, so he wanted to sit with me. But he said to me, he goes,

look, I might do some stuff you think is weird. Don't say anything. I said, okay. And then you proceeded to. He played. Finger raise asshole. Yeah. Kind of weird. I said, it's kind of weird, don't say anything. I said, okay. And then you proceeded to... He played... Finger raising. Yeah. Kind of weird.

I said, it's kind of weird, but I got a nice stack of chips. It's okay. So the guy, he's playing three hands. I'm playing one. And he got them to raise the max bet from 500 to 1,000. So it's a 25 minimum, 1,000 maximum. So he's playing three hands. He's betting 25 a hand.

And at certain times, he popped it up to 1,000 a hand. At some points, he split tens. Once in a blue moon, he took insurance, which typically... These are all things we normally would never do. Right, you would never do. And the whole time, he was chatting. He was talking to the dealer, talking to the waiters, talking to the manager. He had this great patter going the whole time.

It was really a Rain Man situation. So I followed everything he did. I just followed what he did. He walked out in under an hour. He had about $38,000. I made $11,000, and we both left. And it was obvious what he did. Yeah, I'm sure of that.

And they should have fired everybody who was working that night for even letting him bounce it up to $1,000 max bet. But it was incredible to watch. But did his winning in some indirect way make the casino more money? Because people were coming over to the table. They thought, oh, the cards are hot. I'm going to get in on this.

And they're losing, but he's winning. I don't know. It was slow that night. They lost $49,000 between the two of us. They all should have been fired. But it was great to watch. It was actually incredible to watch. Yeah.

To see somebody talking like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom boom and tracking all the cards was great it's funny people that don't really know that much about gambling will often ask poker players blackjack questions you know because maybe they've seen like the the movie kevin spacey movie or whatever but you know they're totally different games of course and the biggest difference is that i don't play against the casino i play against the other humans you know in the in the in the room and so and many times we'll know each other you know i have a poker podcast it's called tournament poker edge and so a lot of people know me from that because you know i'm like the comedian who plays poker everybody knows that i mean as side hustles go that's the best one i've heard yeah it's pretty great a lot of times my side hustle makes me more than my hustle you know but you know a lot of times my side hustle makes me more than my hustle.

But a lot of times comedians get into trouble after the show, right? Like they do drugs, they drink too much, they cheat on their wives, whatever. All I'm trying to do when the show is over is how far away is the nearest casino and what kind of game do they have tonight. So kind of in a weird way, going to the casino to all hours of the night keeps me off the streets and out of trouble. Do you still enjoy it or is it a job? Because you really, you can't just, you know, as you said with blackjack, counting cards takes the fun out of blackjack because it's like work. Yeah.

Do you find that with poker as well? Because you're paying attention. Who's doing what? Paying attention to everybody's tell. This is a lot of work. Yeah. Does that take all the fun out of it i mean in a sense it it it should but it just doesn't damn because for me like it's like comedy like i've never gotten tired i've been doing comedy for 22 years i've never

gotten tired of doing comedy it is you know in one way it's the same every night but the more you learn about comedy the more fun it is to do each and every night. So it's, because I keep learning more and more about poker, I look forward to playing and applying the new skills that I'm acquiring. Also, that's part of the game. Like, if you're a great tennis player, you're going to work on your backhand, right? So if you're a really good poker

player, you know, you're picking up tells and you're increasing your skills. Right, but to stay with the tennis analogy, a game just hitting the ball with a friend might be a lot more fun than playing at the U.S. Open, where it's your job. Well, but if you have a certain skill level of tennis,

like to say you and I are just hitting it back and forth a little bit, but let's say we both are really good, and so that's more fun for us to touch tap into our great skills so he's tapping into his you know his skills because not everybody can do the math you know and not everybody can can read people yeah i love the game i love the game i will always love the game i probably never quit comedy or poker for the rest of my life because i just love them both so much well you know it's you know it's interesting there's time and you've done this with me in aruba but there's other we're in aruba and hanging out with a bunch of comics, and there were certain weeks where, just for whatever reason,

with travel days, you have a lot of comics there at one time. Typically, it's me plus two people, but there's a lot of people. So we all kind of took over a blackjack table, and a lot of people didn't really know how to play. I remember it was like, I don't remember exactly. It was Adrian Appaloochee and I think Leonard Utes and Nimesh Patel, Pete Lee maybe. And it was really fun, but they would just say, you know,

what do I do? And I would just kind of tell them the right move. Except Leonard Utes, the dealer had a six. Leonard has a 17. That is a no-brainer. That's a stand. But Leonard's like he's kind of looking the dealer up and down. He's like, what are you going to give me?

And Gary Beter's like, Leonard, stay. Just stay. Leonard hits. He gets a four. So now he has a 21, which is the best hand. And everybody's like, you know, what the fuck are you doing? Well, the luck of the utes. Yeah, luck of the utes.

And then, of course, the dealer turns over his hand. The four would have, whatever, four would have given him, you know, it would have been a 13 and a bust. So Leonard won, and everybody else got fucked at the table. But he didn't seem to care. This is every Blackjack story ever. This is how they all go, because it's table. But he didn't seem to care. Every blackjack story ever. This is how they all go because it's like if he wouldn't have done that, he would have done it.

So what did you do with the 400K? Yeah, so I blew it all playing poker. No, I'm just kidding. No, I still have a lot of that money, you know, and it's in my bankroll now. I took some of it and invested it in my career and my life and everything. But yeah, I kept, you know, a good 50% of it as it kind of became my new bankroll. And so then I can play higher and hopefully win more money and, you know, maybe get...

Well, speaking of investments, and this is my deft and agile way to shift the focus of the conversation. Ray has an investment opportunity that you cannot afford to ignore. Ray is producing a movie. And as we all know, there's no better investment than an independent movie. Of course. Everyone knows that. Everybody knows that. Forget gold.

No. Forget stocks. Bitcoin. Forget it. Forget it all. Independent films. Ray is a big producer ray wears many hats he's literally got a ruby ray hat on now but he's also a comic he's a he's a

producer ray tell us about the movie that you're producing just just to go back a little yes it can be risky but i made the i made producing director of the movie latin legends of comedy several years ago and i put it all on credit cards. And that did well. It made some money. I sold it to 20th Century Fox. It was a stand-up comedy movie. In the vein of the Kings of Comedy. The same thing.

The three Latin comedies. Same thing, except with Latin comedy. Anyway, but tell us about the current project. The current project is called Misfits. So my friend Gibson Frazier, who you've met before. Gibson, we've collaborated on it. He's a terrific actor. He made a movie called Man of the Century, which was the

one the audience worded slam dance when that came out. And it's a really fun film. So he's a terrific actor and writer. So he wrote this film, and it's about, it's a coming-of-age comedy about a 13-year-old boy who finds the power in his dreams to overcome

the obstacles of eighth grade. So it's a really great story for adolescence. And Gary Goleman says Ray Allen is an amazing comic, and there's no... And teacher. Anyhow, go ahead. So it's really... I thought the story was really good,

and I really liked the script a lot. So we were trying to raise money, and that could be very tedious. And finally, and this is going on for a couple years, sort of half-assed, but, you know, it was going on. And also during the pandemic. Finally, I said to Gibson, I said, look, let's just pick a date. Let's just pick a shoot date and let's do it.

You know, he wanted a film at the school he went to in Pennsylvania and they were sort of like, they were cool with it, but we just need to lock in a date. I said, let's set it all up. Let's get the crew, and we'll figure out the money. But you got Clayton here. You still need some money to finish the film.

I'm putting you and Clayton together because I know that he's going to be more than thrilled. You're a great matchmaker. No, so the film, we shot already most of the movie. We have two days left to shoot. And the cast is great, buddy. Anthony Rapp is in it. He was the original cast of Rent He's a poker player too

Yeah, that's how we met No way Poker's the new golf This is how people become friends It really is I was doing stand-up in Louisville And Anthony was singing And he looked familiar

I didn't know how I knew him I thought he was a comic He goes, no, I'm in this show called Rent And I didn't really know what that was either at the time Right And it's huge People in the theater world go nuts when they meet him. Anyway, how much do you need to finish this movie, Ray?

So. Dan's making a deal here. So we have, like, two more shoot days. We really need, like, altogether 50,000 more. But, which, and we have people who have already kind of, you know, pledged money. You don't want to invest in it, Dan? I, no, I don't. Because...

Dan's not a big risk taker. Well, I just don't know that indie films... I was being sarcastic before. You know, it's... It's a risk. It's a risk. It's absolutely a risk. Here's why I feel okay with this risk.

And obviously, I put some of my own money into the film. Well, you're the producer. Yeah. A producer. So, what does that mean again? Well, into the film. Well, you're the producer. Yeah. A producer. So what does that mean again? Well, in this case, it means Ray wrote a check. Okay. Or a Venmo or whatever, however he did.

Well, you're also facilitating the production of the movie as well. But what's interesting is that I feel good based on the budget of the film and the subject matter and the people I'm working with. I feel confident that it'll be a great movie, and I think financially it'll reap some reward. Clayton, any thoughts? Any thoughts? You heard the pitch? I mean, it's a solid pitch.

Send me a prospectus. I'll have my venture capitalist friends take a look at it. Maybe we'll, you know, strike a deal. And also, the other thing that's interesting is, like, so I have a buddy of mine who's a lawyer, and, like, he just kind of loves showbiz, and he's like, oh, great, yeah, I'm in. I'm in for 15 grand.

I'm like, okay, great. And then you have other people who are like, no, I would never do that, but they bought a racehorse. Right. That's a much better investment, right? I mean... Well, if it's a good horse.

Well, I mean, look, the odds of you picking a horse that's ever going to make any money, I mean, almost all racehorses lose money. Well, what if this is a really fast horse? I'm sure it is. The horse could break a leg. You need a good trainer.

You're not taking care of the horse. Things go south. Yeah, horses are expensive. Hardly any of them make money. If I had to choose to put $50,000 into a horse or to an independent film about a 13-year-old boy, we're going to 8th grade right away. Or a movie. A movie about buying horses.

So were I to put in $10,000, what would that... That would get me a percentage of the profits, obviously. Sure. Are there any starlets that I could bed? Well, Dan, most of the cast is under 18, so you might want to retract.

You said most of the cast. Most of the cast. Well, so you're saying there's a chance. I believe that Marissa Ryan is married. I don't know any. She's a great actress. Are you in the film? It's a very tiny role.

Because I thought I heard a movie about middle school. I thought, I thought, Creepy Gym Teacher, right? I mean, it leaps to mind. I'm not Mr. Morales. He posted it. I posted that on Facebook and he deleted it. Really? Did I delete it? I can't find it. That's right. I don't think I deleted it.

Did you delete your post? No, I'm saying he posted about the movie and I said, hey, Ray should play the creepy gym teacher. And then I went back, and I didn't see my comment. That's weird. I didn't delete it. I didn't even read it. Okay.

You don't have to read it. I'm telling you right now. I want to go read it. Facebook has really ruined the high school reunion. Yes, I do. Is it take place in the, what decade does it take place? Is it an 80s thing, a little retro? Present day.

A present day. We did get permission from the estate of David Bowie to... Because Gibson, the director, is a huge Bowie fan, as am I,

but he's a crazy Bowie fan. And we're allowed to use some of the music and we can use some of David Bowie imagery in the kids' room, which is actually pretty cool. That is cool.

It's neat. So the total budget is how much? Like $250, which is nothing for a film. How would a film like this... How does it make money? Make money.

I'll give you a hypothetical. Because the theaters, right, it's not going to probably get in many theaters. Nowadays, almost nothing. Nowadays, nothing gets in the theaters. Festivals. It's not a festival. You have festivals, and you sell it.

Maybe you sell it to a streamer. But you maybe do a very limited release in the theater, so it's eligible to win awards and all that stuff and creates more buzz. Or they throw it on Netflix. Does Netflix pay for shit? Sometimes. I was just talking to a comic the other day,

and he said he gave his special to Netflix for next to nothing. He just wants it to be on Netflix. But they can also pick and choose whether they want something from a comic, right? So let's just say, hypothetically, you sell the movie for more than what you make, you put in $50,000. You get your money back plus 20%.

You get back your $50,000 plus 20%, so that would be another $10,000 on top of it, right? So once everybody has recouped what they put in, then there's a pool of money that you then will split based on what your investment was, you know, for whatever additional profits are. So the movie is sold for $1 million. The budget was $250. Okay, great. Everybody gets back their first money, plus 20%. And then that remaining pool gets split up accordingly. So it's pretty straightforward.

Just the question is, can you sell the movie? I feel good about this. I don't know that market, you know. What's it called? Misfit. Misfit. That's actually the name of Gary. I mean, that's Gary Goleman's new book, right? Gary Goleman's new book, Misfit. That's actually the name of Gary. I mean, that's Gary

Goleman's new book, right? Gary Goleman's new book, Misfit. The reason he didn't read my book. The only reason. He was too busy. He was so busy writing and promoting his own book. Gary Goleman's new book? Yeah, it's not that new anymore, but it's about, it's a memoir. It's not a novel. Was it really called Misfit? It's about growing up as a misfit

in Boston. I did not know that. You know that Gary could never fit in. Yeah. Yeah. Well. I had no clue. Yeah, yeah, it is. Gibson named the movie.

Okay. I like the title. Well, I think I'd have to read the script first. Of course. But. We're basically done. I'm not. If I was worried about

Raising the rest of the money It would be a problem Because we still have Just two more days of shooting But we've been edited You know Did a rough cut Of all the other footage

And it looks good No Dan knows that He just wanted to put me In an awkward position That's what he likes to do Well If Noam was here It would have been really awkward

Extra awkward Well Noam would Not put money into a film No Probably not No He's a smart businessman For sure So Aruba Ray They call him Aruba Ray As I said No one would not put money into a film. No, probably not. He's a smart businessman, for sure.

So Aruba Ray, they call him Aruba Ray, as I said, because he is in Aruba. Yeah, we're kicking off the next season, November 28th to April 4th. 36 different comedians. Everyone's terrific. Everybody has real credits. Everybody's very, very funny.

All different types of comics, you know. And I'm eager to get down there and get out of the cold and get down to Aruba. Arubacomedy.com if anybody's going to be in the greater Aruba neighborhood. And you're coming. You're performing there. I'll be there. Yes, I'm there. December, I think.

Right before Christmas. Third week of December, Dan will be there. I'll be there right before. You've been there, I think, nine or ten times now. I think I'm over ten times. And you enjoy it. They call Dan Hot Tub Dan. I spend a lot of time in the hot tub.

Yeah. And Dan got very mad at me once. We got into a hot tub, and it was really enjoyable. And I said, you know, Hot Tub Ray, that sounds pretty good, Hot Tub Ray. And he really got mad. He goes, no, no, you're not. No, you're Aruba Ray. I'm Hot Tub Dan.

I'll tell you what. You want to be Hot Tub Ray. I'm Hot Tub Dan. I'll tell you what, you want to be Hot Tub Ray? I'm Aruba Dan. I wasn't legitimately angry, but, you know. He was steaming in the hot tub. Clayton, what, now, you know, Clayton, as long as we're making people feel awkward,

Clayton has, of course, expressed interest in coming down. I give him my wholehearted endorsement. And as you can see, he's a great guy. He's fun to hang out with. He's a lot of fun to hang out with. Not to sound like a jerk at all. We've never worked together. I don't know anything about your act at all. And not to be rude,

because there's a lot of comics I've never seen. I'm a middle child who had to share a birthday. No wonder I'm on stage. Did you know a very high percentage of performers are actually middle children? Yeah, see how much attention she wants? See, that proved my point. She's like, I'm as far away from the stage as I could possibly be,

but let's make this about me anyway. So that'd be step number one. All right. Well, this has been step number one. Because, Ray, when booking Aruba, because it's... I agonize over it. Well, when booking Aruba, it's not just about can you kill in Aruba, which is basically like a Vegas-y kind of, you know...

Yeah, mixed crowd, yeah. Crowd, you've got to kind of be clean. Feels more like a road gig. Yeah, a little clean-ish. Clean-ish. Yeah. It's not like the cellar where you can talk about abortion and no you know and and not too edgy in aruba when people are on vacation you got to keep it right down no no politics but also ray uh he's

gonna hang you're gonna be there with him so he needs to know that you're somebody he doesn't he doesn't mind hanging out with that's that's an element right what what percentage of of an element is that in your booking decision? It used to be a huge element. It used to be a big chunk of it. It was like 90% of it. And then once the- 90% was whether or not you wanted to hang out?

Well, 100% you had to kill. Okay. And then 90%- Beyond that. Beyond that. Beyond that, yeah. Do I also want to hang? Because I was booking so few comedians.

It was like the same two or four people all the time. And then once the club sort of grew and grew and it started being a lot more people, needing to hang out with people becomes less important because, A, I have a lot of stuff to do during the day. I'm not always available. And, B, you know, it's like anything. Like, we all work with people that we don't necessarily love,

but we're co-workers, so I might have somebody come down that, like, I'm not crazy about, but I generally would like to bring people that also like us people. It's just much more enjoyable. We'll have fun. We'll do some comedy, and then I can argue with you about Blackjack. About Blackjack. There are plenty of casinos in Aruba.

The nightlife is eating and drinking and gambling. Casinos, yeah. And then, ofinos in Aruba. The nightlife is eating and drinking and casinos. And then, of course, Aruba raised comedy. The number one nightlife activity in Aruba is the comedy club. Of course it is. According to TripAdvisor. What else do they got going on at night in Aruba? Nothing.

Well, Dan, are you into attractive women? Are you suggesting the working girls? No, no. I didn't even mean that. Yes, Dan is what, yes, prostitution is legal in Aruba. It is? Why aren't we talking about that? Well, we can, but Dan, just to be clear,

I was talking about going to a place called like Moomba. It's like a bar dance club or The Mill. It's like a bar dance club or, you know, a bar like a bar dance club. Or, you know, a bar. Just to hang out and maybe talk to a woman. Oh, I thought you meant some of the working girls. Where are the working girls? So there's a red light district. Let the river run.

It's part of the Dutch kingdom. So there's like a red light. Hey, that was a good reference. Anybody? That was pretty good. That sounds fun. Yeah? Would you want to go down to the red light district just to kind of hang?

Obviously. Women love to see hookers. What is this? There's no strip clubs. This is a thing. Strip clubs are illegal in Aruba. That's odd. Yeah.

Why? Why? Prostitution is illegal. I don't know what the thought... My thought was originally maybe the Dutch really want you to get your money's worth, but I'm not really sure what it's about. But it's a very interesting scene. And it's mostly women from Colombia and Venezuela.

Not bad. Really close to Aruba. And then you also can, because some comedians have done this, I'm sure. Oh, I'm sure. Have had. Present company included? I'm not saying anything. Not I.

But you could have a uh have somebody come to your hotel room now you go to the red light district it's a lot less pricey if you go down the so here's the thing i'm always interested in places where prostitution is legal because i think that prostitution should be legal i think the girls are in a much better and safer they get tested every week for stds they have to have a permit, like an actual work permit, to come to Aruba. It's three months max. What do you mean three months max? They can come for three months to work, and then they have to leave the island if they're coming from another country.

Oh, wow. And so can they ever come back? Yeah, they can come back. There's some sort of waiting period, I think. The reason I know this is because there's a guy who's actually American who, for lack of a better word, is a pimp. And that's a legal business there in Aruba. He has whatever papers you need. And I was walking with Lenny Marcus down the street at night,

and all of a sudden I hear... Fresh fish. Yeah. It's great. You like fresh fish? Okay. So we're walking. He's walking.

Somebody's walking behind us. And all of a sudden we hear, he has a Boston accent, this guy. And he goes, Hey, guys, you looking for a good time? And Lenny was like, what the hell? And I turned and I recognized the guy, this who will get you women if you want. And I turn and go, hey, Rob.

No, neither of us are into that. But anyway, this is Lenny. Lenny and I introduce him, whatever. But what was the point? The point was. Not sure. I don't know what the point was. The point is, it is an organized business.

And yes, to your point, I think the women are much safer and healthier. It's a cleaner, safer, healthier thing. And I know about this just because I met that guy. That's what it was. Oh, you know what's funny? He came in this pimp. He comes into the casino. I'm playing 2-5 at one of the casinos.

That's poker. Poker. And he walks in, and I see him. He kind of waves me. I go, hey, how you doing? He starts talking. How are the shows going? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I go, great, man. Good. Nice to see you. He walks away, and then he yells across the casino, hey, Ray, buddy, don't forget, half price on pussy. And I'm like... Well, thank you for just giving me the title of this episode. Half price on pussy.

It was so embarrassing. Now, is this guy like a super shady character like one would imagine? He less shady than you would imagine, but I wouldn't give him the keys to my house while I'm away from him. But what I want to know is why is he telling Ray half price on pussy unless he has reason to believe that this would be of interest to him. Well he likes it like oh hey you're Ray and also

to help kind of advertise his wares to everybody else in the casino by yelling that way. Well Clayton wouldn't be interested in any of that because I believe Clayton is a family man. That's right. Are you married? That's right yeah I have a wife and a daughter. Oh nice. Yeah. How old's your daughter? She's gonna be eight in January. I'm not sure I like the tone of that question, Aruba Ray. What are you talking about?

How old's your daughter? Is she a newborn? When Aruba Ray asks, how old's your daughter? If it's a newborn, I would have said, oh, congratulations. If she's 18, I would have said, oh, she talked to Dan. Now, is your wife a comic? Oh, no, no. She doesn't.

There's a lot of that going around, you know, comic on comic. Yeah, no. Comic on comic. I never did that. The female comedians were never attracted to me. You know, I never did well with female comedians. I had to find women from the private sector, you know. That was always my problem.

Civilians? Yeah, civilians. So what kind of work is she in? She's a fashion designer. That's cool. But that's so creative. Yeah, for sure. Men's or women's? She does both, civilians. So what kind of work is she in? She's a fashion designer. That's cool. But that's so creative. Yeah, for sure. Men's or women's?

She does both. Yeah, she's in hosiery. Yeah. I actually have a pair of socks that she designed on right now. Cool. They are black and they have white skulls on them. Oh, wow. Yeah, skulls are big right now this season.

Yeah, you got your skulls on your... Skull leggings. You're very much in fashion right now, Perrielle. I did not know that men's socks were also referred to as hosiery. Yeah, I thought hosiery meant pantyhose. No, no, it's all hosiery. Oh, I didn't know that. We're learning a lot.

Women's children. Okay, in the business. She would be horrified to know I'm talking about her on the radio, by the way. Well, you're not... She's the most private person in the world. Well, we're saying very little about her. Where did you meet her? She doesn't play poker.

Did you meet her in the comedy world? I met my wife at the Duplex. Were you performing? That's a gay bar. That's a gay bar on Christopher Street. I'm the only guy who meets his wife in a gay bar. Were you performing or sucking somebody up? Can it be both?

Why can't it be one or the other? It's a performance of sorts. Yeah, exactly. The upstairs, there's a theater. So I used to perform there years ago. That's where I was. I did an open mic. I used to do open mics there every Friday

With Amelia David Yeah, sure, I know Amelia David So you'd pay like five bucks For a drink or whatever And in exchange for that, you'd get to go on stage for like three minutes That's right So I used to do that every Friday night But that was in the 90s

So I don't know if you weren't around then No, I started in 2001 Okay, so yeah. But you were doing a show. Upstairs. She was in the audience. She was in the audience. She had come to see a friend of hers.

And I saw her when I was on stage. And I approached her after the show. And I said, so, what did you think of my comedy? You know, like Mr. Smooth, right? She's like, eh, you were all right. It wasn't that great. And I was hooked, you know. Because as comedians, like we seek that approval. You know what I mean? So I was like, I got to, I got to, you know, meet this girl. I got to,

she was about to leave. I was like, you got to give me your phone number. Turned out we lived in the same neighborhood. And yeah, I mean, this is, you know, many, many years now. That's cool. That's awesome. Did you ever date a comic, female comic? Date? No, No, not date. Hook up? I might have done. Is that right? I might have done.

Is this a kiss and tell episode? Anyone with a special on Amazon or Netflix? Half off episode. No, no. They never went anywhere in the business. The ones that I'm... Were they newer comic? Were they sort of over micers that you preyed upon?

That sounds right. Newer, newer. You know, just like, hey, look, just like the captain of the football team, you know? I mean... Yeah. You know... That was after the cheerleaders. Oh, the cheerleaders.

I thought you meant he gets the rookie kicker. No, no. Okay. That could happen. But I haven't... Not in a long time. Yeah. Me neither

I dated She's made it very public now But years ago Lynn Coplitz and I dated Oh yeah She was on stage the other night I was hosting a show here at the Cellar And she did a set

And at the end of her set When I walked over She took the mic back from my hand And on stage she said I just want everyone here to know Ray and I used to go out for a long time We used to sleep together. And I've been with a lot of guys.

And Ray is definitely in the top three in bed that I've been with. It was, I was complimentary, but it was so embarrassing. So embarrassing. That you had to say it on this podcast. I had to retell it. How great I was. And it's so embarrassing. She didn't say you were great.

She said you were of the people she's been with. Right. Of which there are many, Dan. Many, many. She could have been a lot of very geriatric men. She doesn't mean you're great. It means among that pool. Correct.

Among that pool. But this is a good sizable pool from what she said. That's like saying I was the best football player at the Yeshiva. Or at the conservatory. I'll tell you, the first time I saw Lynn Coplitz, I was at the comic strip, and she walked in, and I was just, I was breathtaking. Stunner.

Yeah, absolute stunner. She's certainly an attractive comedian. She looks like Cindy Crawford, and she had a little scar on her chin. Tony Woods, very funny comic, Tony Woods, he called her Gangster Cindy Crawford because of her scar. She did look a bit like Cindy Crawford, but there are certainly a lot of attractive comedians. Our very own Perry L. Ashenbrand is a comedian, and not of her scar. She did look a bit like Cindy Crawford. There are certainly a lot of attractive comedians. Our very own Perrielle Ashenbrand is a comedian,

and not without her charms. Well, thank you. Very good-looking comedian. Hope that doesn't sound creepy. She's a newer... Now, does that sound creepy when I say, yes, Perrielle is a fairy? Anything out of your mouth sounds creepy.

She's a very good-looking comedian. You're not offended by that? No, I'm not offended. It's a compliment. But you are a newer comedian. Yes. That's fair to say. Yeah.

But anyways. Dan, your hair looks unbelievable. Speaking of good-looking comedians. I guess we'll end on that. Speaking of good-looking comedians, we're almost out of time. We'll end on that. But Ray recently gave me a birthday present. It was just my birthday in October.

He didn't frame it as a birthday present. I did not. But I'll consider it a birthday present. Is this so crazy, by the way? I've been resisting. Well, we've talked about it. I've been resisting But I'll consider it a birthday present. Is this so crazy, by the way? I've been resisting. Well, we've talked about it. I've been resisting coloring my hair.

It's going quite gray. Very gray. Grayer than I even realized because I saw a cartoon version of me and it looked like fucking, you know, it was like completely.

We did this great animation. It was hysterical and I sent Dan the clip and I was like, what do you think? And he goes, my hair's not that gray. Why is my hair so gray? And I was like, what do you think? And he goes, my hair's not that gray. Why is my hair so gray?

And I'm like, that is not the takeaway here. Well, that was my takeaway. But it was exceedingly gray. I think more gray in that cartoon than it is in reality. Be that as it may. It was really gray. It was gray. And Ray said, you got to color your hair.

You look much better, whatever. And he was reluctant. I said, I'll pay for it. So Ray volunteered to pay for it. So your hair. You look much better. Whatever. He was reluctant. I said, I'll pay for it. So Ray volunteered to pay for it. So this is the result. What a guy. I sat there while Dan's in the chair. And I sat next to him.

I didn't realize that you went. You guys had like a spa day? Well, no. It was a hair coloring day. A salon. And I was the only one getting my hair colored. Yeah. So this is it.

How did you guys not tape anything? That is so cute. I do have a little video of Dan getting his hair colored. And he's kind of looking at the thing. And the guy, George, is like, Dan, don't worry. It's going to be beautiful. Don't worry. Well, anyway, Clayton, what do you... Is he gay? Yeah.

What do you think, Clayton? Did you notice? You, who notice everything, because that's your job as a poker player. Yeah, I did notice your hair looks darker and you know, just more... It looks very natural. Totally natural. I was never going to say anything. I think it's rude to say to a man, hey, I see you colored your hair. Now, that didn't stop Keith Robinson.

Well, very few things can stop Keith Robinson. All right, you got a dodger. Yeah, you look good, Dan. I like you. Thank you. You look very natural. And you were nervous about it at first. I was only nervous because it was, pardon?

Sorry, go ahead. I was only nervous because it had gotten so gray that I knew everybody would notice. It was a striking difference. Had I started this a couple years ago when I was less gray, then it might not have been as noticeable. And you know how it would have been less noticeable?

Is if Dan didn't talk about it on the air. Which is fine. No, that's not true because Clayton said he noticed. I think it's better to talk about than to notice and not say anything. but if Dan, if somebody met Dan

for the first time, a new fan of dance performing in Iowa or whatever, they wouldn't know. Never in Iowa. Okay. You get the point. Have you done it?

I did do Idaho recently and I bombed. She wants to know, did you touch it up since? Have you? Not since, no. It's been,

it was October 20th. It was like the 19th, it was almost my birthday. So it's been, we're going on a month, and it looks, it's holding steady. I'll say. A lot of times when I listen to this podcast, everybody's talking about politics. I'm glad we're talking about Dan's hair. Yes.

It's a better topic. Well, it's when Noam's here, we talk about Noam. Well, when Noam is here, we talk, the next episode we're doing is with Alan Dershowitz. Oh yeah, I've heard him on this podcast before. It's going to prove to be, you know, very political, yeah.

Very political discussion. We're not going to be talking about getting pussy half off. No, but you know what? Prostitution in Aruba. You might want to bring that up. I think Dershowitz,

he doesn't want to talk about pussy, but he, I don't think he would mind talking about comedy. No, he loves comedy. But Noam won't allow it. You can do those washes

if you don't want to spend money. Like they have, I'm sure for men, you can just like buy a box. It's not so much the money as the time. You got to go down, you know,

you got to sit in that chair. Do it in the Jackie Mason accent though. Why? Because it's funny. But why bring it up Jackie Mason? Because it sounded like you were like a little bit You got to sit in the chair.

With the thing. No, I can't. You know, it's got to come. You know, I can't. You color your hair because you reach around. I can't do it on request. It's got to. Why don't you,

but Dan, think about it. It's Clayton Fletcher. Dan, I'm glad he does poker because Lord knows he doesn't make any money in comedy.

But Dan, if you did it for one hour and it's lasting you a month, that's a great ROI. It's a great ROI. Good ROI. We got some LOLs and it's an ROI.

For sure. Will you go with him again? Are you going to pay for it again? Not going to pay for it for life. However, it's right next door to my apartment building, so I'll happily hang out. Oh. We had some Chinese food afterwards. That's right.

That's nice. I like that. You guys had a nice little date. Yeah, we had a nice little spot. Sounds like you might be able to do this like once every two months. Yeah, maybe I would do it every two months. Salon in Sichuan. Oh, I like that. Yeah, maybe I would do it every two months. Salon in Sejuan. Oh, I like that.

Yeah. Is that your new podcast with Dan? Yeah, you guys can podcast while Dan's getting his hair cut. Yeah, I like that. Well, maybe next time. Salon in Sejuan is amazing. Thank you, Clayton Fletcher. A wonderful discussion.

The ROI of LOL available wherever you get your books, which for most people is probably Amazon.com. But oddly enough, they opened up a new Barnes & Noble's on the Upper East. I was shocked. Wow. I live right by there. Oh, you live near there? 88th and 3rd, I think. Yeah, I actually did a book signing there with my co-author. We had a great turnout.

I was there. There's no chairs. No, no. It's not that kind of Barnes & Noble. This is the kind where you go in, you get your book, you leave. You know what? They might have opened it. Maybe they're trying to do a bigger online presence. Maybe they opened up the store almost to serve as like a billboard. Yeah, it could be.

To buy books, but it's just a billboard. I like that there are- And there's no cafe. I mean, I just like- Right. Listen, though. I'm walking around because I'm like, you know, I have to meet my sister, but I'm early. So I figure I'll go to the Barnes & Noble, sit down, read a book.

Fill some time. Yeah, no. No. I'm walking around. Hanging out. I'm walking around like a schm have to meet my sister, but I'm early. So I figure I'll go to the Barnes and Noble and sit down right away. Kill some time. Yeah, no. No. Not that. Walking around. Hanging out. I'm walking around like a schmuck trying to find a seat. Yeah.

I almost complained. I almost complained. Remember when bookstores only sold books, though? Yes. And then they became like places where you could sit there for three hours and not buy anything. And that probably wrecked their business model. No, because I think a lot of people did buy.

They all closed. I think a lot of people did buy. They closed because of the internet, not because of the chairs, I think. I think Amazon did amend it. Yes, I think it was Amazon, not the chairs. I think a lot of people did sit down and read and not buy, but a lot of people bought, and a lot of people sat down, read, and like, I'm going to finish this at home, and they bought the book.

What's Clayton's website to get the book? R-O-I-L-O-L dot com. That's good. And if you want to try your luck head to head with Clayton, you can see him at the world series of poker, I guess. Yeah. So the book is the ROI of LOL. It's on Harper Collins.

And so it's, it's everywhere. It's in all the Barnes and Nobles around. Like if you, if you don't want to support Amazon for any reason, you can do that. Oh, but I have a special coming out on Amazon prime in January.

It's called middle child syndrome. Okay. Well, well, unfortunately, we couldn't get to that today. Next time. But next time. My book, in case you're interested, Iris Spiro Before COVID is a novel. It takes place in the world of comedy. I'm told some people say it's very good. Periel's a fan. Ray,

I don't think he's read it, but he's... It's a great book. He has not read it. That's why, here's my blurb. Dan wrote a great book. Zero percent read it. And Perrielle has two books out, two memoirs about her sexual coming of age. Not about my sexual coming of age. Well, it's called The Only Bush I Trust is My Own and On My Knees are the two titles of the book. I didn't know you had two books.

Two memoirs. They do sound like. Also HarperCollins. HarperCollins. The second one. The first one was Penguin. Those sound like sexual titles, though. They're a little bit sexual,

but they're not like coming-of-age stories. Sorry, Dan. I mean, you haven't read either one of them. Yeah, Dan. Talk about reading. Well, I would definitely read it if they were available in French translation. Look at that.

That's a pretty specific order. Well, I read most of my books in French just because I like to keep my French in shape. Okay, can we wrap this up? Okay, thank you, Aruba Ray Allen. My book hasn't come out yet about my sexcapades with various whatever. No, my book hasn't come out yet.

But please visit on Instagram, Aruba Ray's Comedy or Ray Comedy or arubacomedy.com And if perchance you're in Aruba, come to the show. Sure. And if you want to get involved in a movie. And if you want to invest in Ray Allen's movie, you can email

podcast at comedyseller.com for questions, comments, suggestions, or offers to fund Ray's movie. We thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to Nicole Lyons, our behind-the-scenes gal with the sound, Working Wonders with our sound. We'll see you next time.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you.