The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Rich Vos, Mike Lawrence, and Aman Ali

Episode Date: April 27, 2018

Rich Vos is a legendary New York City-based standup comedian. He may be seen performing regularly at the Comedy Cellar. Mike Lawrence is a Los Angeles-based standup comedian and writer. He may be seen performing regularly over the next several months at the Comedy Cellar. Aman Ali is an award-winning storyteller and comedian in New York City. He is currently the producer of the documentary "Two Gods," about a Muslim mortician in New Jersey using the lens of death to teach young boys that their own lives are worth living.

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to The Comedy Cellar show here on Sirius XM Channel 99. We're here at the back table of The Comedy Cellar. My name is Noam Dwarman. I'm the owner of The Comedy Cellar. I'm here, as Dwarman. I'm the owner of the Comedy Cellar. I'm here as always with Mr. Dan Daniel Natterman. As always unless I'm doing some sort of corporate gig or synagogue function. Or in Aruba with Ray.

So we haven't seen him in a long time. One of the funniest guys in the world Mr. Mike Lawrence is here. Hey man, thank you. I appreciate that. Well he says that about pretty much everybody. No I don't actually. Let the compliment lay. I need this. Mike, he says that about pretty much everybody. No, I don't, actually. Let the compliment lay. I need this. Mike and I are Facebook friends.

And, you know, I really think that you can really, not everybody can be funny on Facebook. And he's really, really, really funny on Facebook. Thanks, man. And he always, always makes me laugh. And he loves superheroes, which my son loves superheroes. So I kind of connect with him on that, too. And I send him little, the same articles that come up in my feed come up in your feed. Yeah.

So I was like, I need to send him this stuff. It's all pretty fascinating. Tomorrow, the new Avengers movie is coming out. Are you going to go see it tomorrow? Oh, yeah. You are going to go see it. I'm going to see it with coworkers, and I'm not sure they're ready to see me cry. Like, if it's good, I'll cry. If it's bad, I'll cry. I'm going to see it with coworkers, and I'm not sure they're ready to see me cry. Like, if it's good, I'll cry.

If it's bad, I'll cry. I'm going to cry. You love it that much? Oh, yeah. It's my sports. I get the shirt. I got the action figures. Like, I'm invested.

Yeah. Well, you mentioned coworkers. So you're in town. You got a new job or something? Yeah. Well, why don't we chitchat about that? Oh, you're on the writing staff? Yeah.

Okay. That show gets better and better every season. I haven't seen the third season, but it seems to get... It grew a lot from season one to season two. You watch it, Dan? Oh, you're featured in it. Well, I've been in a couple episodes. I'm not a regular watcher, but I...

You watched the episode you were in. That's actually the episode I don't watch, because I don't like to see myself on screen. I'm not thrilled with either my voice or my physicality. But I mostly watch things that have a French audio track. So if it doesn't have a French audio track, it's likely I'm not going to watch it. So you're in high demand now as a writer. Yeah, man. It's been nice. You wrote for Amy Schumer, right? Yeah. And, you're in high demand now as a writer. Yeah, man. It's been nice. You wrote for Amy Schumer, right? Yeah.

And now you're writing for Crashing. Did Judd hire you? Yeah. Is he very hands-on in that whole? Yeah, he's awesome. He's a part of it and everything, yeah. He is amazing, right? He's a genius.

And he does so much stuff. Did you see the Gary Shandling documentary? Loved it. Fantastic. He's amazing. He reads books. I don't read books, and I don't have, like, a 20th of the schedule that guy does. And he reads. He reads.

He gets so much stuff done. He answers emails. He's relaxed. What's interesting to me about Judd Apatow are none of those things, although it's all valid. It's the fact that he seems to have a stable marriage and doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that cheats on his wife. He seems to be a good, monogamous husband, a doting father, and that this marriage could actually go the distance, which in Hollywood is a rare thing.

That, to me, is most... Of course, I don't know. Mike probably knows. He knows his family. I don't know, but it seems to me, if I had to bet... You wouldn't say that about me? You don't think I have that kind of... Yeah, but you do, but you're not a Hollywood big shot.

You also don't want those guys to openly brag about that all the time. If the guy's like, I'm great with my family, then it's just like... That's not when someone's like, but he's there for his kids. I'm like, yeah, you're supposed to be. But that's just, he doesn't brag, but that's the vibe that you get. Now, it could be completely wrong. I could be off 100%, but if I had to go by the vibe, that's the vibe that I would be. He did promise me some, he listens to the show sometimes.

He did promise me that he was going to give me notes on our Comedy Central pilot. And I sent him the pilot. And I'm me that he was going to give me notes on our Comedy Central pilot. And I sent him the pilot. And I'm afraid that he thought it was so crappy he couldn't bring himself even to give me notes about it. I don't know. And that worries me.

Well, it's possible. But how can you go wrong? Or he was so jealous he couldn't. Even if the pilot wasn't good, which I haven't seen it, the idea is good, such that... It's official. It's been announced.

Well, you need a French audio track. Well, we're going to have a French audio track. Yeah, no, the pilot was pretty good, but it wasn't nearly what I wanted. How did you go wrong? Mike, you're familiar. You know about the Comedy Central pilot with Ed Ray Allen and Noam are producing together. Dan's doing that just to bug me. Go ahead. I'm doing that to broach the subject Go ahead

Are you familiar with the format? It's comics telling jokes about the week's event How can you go wrong with good comics telling good jokes about the week's events? As long as the jokes are good then what could possibly make it a bad show?

Well, you had to see the iterations of the pilot. What risked making it a bad show was that they tried to weigh it down with a lot of clever presentation and graphics and screen wipes and jokey interstitial graphic things. And then they shot the table, but they didn't shoot it at the real table, and they shot it over there, and it was kind of like, it wasn't contentious like the table. So these are the things that were going wrong. What's the fear that kids won't watch?

I don't know what it is. If you look at the MTV presentation of what television is, I remember I was pitching a show to different networks. And when I pitched to MTV, it was like a game show. And they're like, yeah, but can we add this and this and this and this? And I'm like, you can, but then I'm just selling you the shows you already have. Right. That's exactly what I was facing.

And I tried to beat them back we have the best comedians in the world I compared it to Jeopardy I said look there's a million game shows the game show that's better than all of them that lasts forever is Jeopardy they say good evening, welcome to Jeopardy, first question and I was like just get into it, this is what people want to see we don't give a shit about anything else first joke, boom Welcome to Jeopardy. First question. Yeah. And that's like, just get into it. This is what people want to see.

We don't give a shit about anything else. First joke, boom. Jeopardy has tried to get sexier over the years, and it doesn't work. They have this thing called the Clue Crew. You ever see? No, I haven't seen it. So if you get a Daily Double or something like that, they'll have, say the topic is Afghanistan, the guy will be like, I'm in Afghanistan. And they have some young guy, and he's standing outside of some monument.

It's like, you don't need to do that. And it falls flat, I bet. Yeah, or they'll have a celebrity. If the topic is Seinfeld, they'll have Jason Alexander. Say the N-word. Ask the question. But no. He's the one who didn't.

Oh, Michael Richards. It's even better if Jason Alexander says it. I didn't do it, Jerry. I'm the old Michael Richards. It's even better if Jason Alexander says it. I didn't do it, Jerry! I love them all! All that's true, but Jeopardy's demographic is what it is, whereas Comedy Central feels like they need to appeal to, I guess, the Instagram generation and the 25 and under. It wasn't Comedy Central that was pushing me in this direction.

It was the production company I was working with, and I think we all agreed. I think Comedy Central actually took my side on this. They wanted the authenticity of what the show is. Yeah, they wanted a little more docu-style, as we say, and they wanted us to streamline it. That's awesome. So, but I still lost other, there was other things, battles I lost.

I don't know if this is interesting. Like, we shot the pilot the week that Trump called Haiti a shithole country. And Will Silvans got up there that week and did like a 45 second, really heartfelt, I

found it moving, kind of little presentation about what Trump said. And then he finished it with a really funny joke. And the audience, it was just a wonderful little moment. And I shot it with a handheld camera actually and I pulled in tight on Will's face because Will has an interesting face and it was real emotion going on

and I thought it was very powerful footage and I wanted to put it in the pilot and the people who were making it, I got vetoed on that and I said well this is the kind of thing that if I was a viewer I would watch, I'd find it interesting and it's the kind of thing that if I was a viewer, I would watch. I'd find it interesting. And it's kind of the thing that could go viral.

Remember how hot everybody was that week when Trump called Haiti a shit old country? It's like every other channel is having the white guy in the suit comment on it. Be the show that has the Haitian guy coming on it. The Haitian guy, yeah. So it got taken out of the pilot. But then I think if we had it to do over, I think I would win that battle. I agree with you, obviously.

If it's a heartfelt moment, just because it's a comedically oriented show doesn't mean you can't have a heartfelt moment. What if it ends on a joke? Then he sticks the landing. Why did they not want it in? I think timidity. I think they were just afraid to make that bold kind of statement. I don't know. I mean, I feel like fortune

favors the brave, and you'd have to have a certain self-confidence. Like, listen, I know I would watch this. I know I would find that interesting. That would go viral. That's, to me, like, that's the stuff that goes viral. The stuff that, like, you know, people always talk about how the internet sometimes is ruining comedy and YouTube

and all that, but it is a real democracy. You know what I mean? Vine died. People were like, we don't want six seconds of content. And John Oliver clips that are 27 minutes get millions of views. That's right. I always think people are, the audience is always smarter than we give them credit for.

That's exactly along the lines of what I was thinking and the pitch that I made. So anyways, I lost that one. I also lost a battle about the... Rich Vosch, yes, what? Hey, Rich. About the camera shots. Yeah. Because I thought they should be tighter and less editing.

I went back and, first of all, I looked at the way crashing is shot. They crash when they shot down here. Yeah. It really felt like you were in the comedy cellar. Yeah. And that's actually not even any big difficult thing to accomplish. It's just the decision to allow the footage to look like you're in the comedy cellar rather

than try to push, to create the illusion that you're in a bigger room or whatever it is. So I wanted it to look like that. And I wanted it to be tight shots because I feel like when you see somebody's face, there's a certain critical distance that if you see somebody's face, you pick up on kind of a lot of emotions and things that you don't even realize you're picking up on, which changes how you perceive what they're saying, like in a conversation. And I feel like these shots that are far away are not very effective. And I went back and watched like old Ed Sullivan show footage and old Lenny Bruce footage. And I found that the footage that stood the test of time was quite simple.

It was close, not a lot of cutting between cameras. And that's the way I wanted the show to look. It's still the way I want the show to look. And again, they wanted bells and whistles and this and that and shooting the whole audience and a shot from behind his head and blah, blah, blah. And I was against that stuff. So, anyway, Rich Voss. Hey, how's it going? Good. So, Rich came up.

Rich was here our opening week in Vegas. Ah, I was wondering whether I should mention that. Mention Vegas. But as long as you brought it up, yes. I was there the second week. Great room. Great room. A lot of fun. I mean, I've worked Vegas for over 20 years.

I've done 10 different rooms there. And I'm not saying it because it's you, but it's a great room. It's a great room. It's a masterpiece. Say it. Don't be afraid. It's not a fucking masterpiece. It's a masterpiece.

I'm a masterpiece when I'm on stage in a great room. Rich Voss plus Comedy Cellar Vegas with Rich Voss on stage is a masterpiece. Is a masterpiece. That is the place to be in the United States of America when that's happening. Can I tell you one of the intros that the host gave me one night? Mark Cohen? Yeah. Here's my intro I told him. I kept it simple.

I said, two-time Oscar writer, just shot an hour special. Easy. He goes up, he goes, our next act, two-time Oscar writer, and he's here to try new stuff. How did he get that? How did he get from an hour special? But he did a great job. The people I worked with the week were great. It was fun. It was a great job. The people I worked with the week were great. It was fun.

It was a great time. Yeah. Too bad they're snuffing it out. They're snuffing. They're killing his baby in the crowd. It cannot happen because I'm there next week. It might happen. You guys have to come.

I will be the moderator if I have to and get this fucking thing. I don't care really what happens after the week after I'm there, but next week... So what happens in Vegas only lasts a couple weeks? No, what's going on? So there's no shows this weekend? We are at an impasse in terms of...

Listen, I don't want to say the wrong thing because I don't want any bad feelings with the people that I'm working with, but we're at an impasse in that we don't see eye to eye on certain key things. And I feel that if status quo remains, that it's better just to close. I don't want to run into, I can't run into- But here's my, and I don't know anything to what's going on. And as you know, as a businessman nothing nothing

happens overnight but when when one party sees the other party is really bringing in a whole new clientele because people that are coming to your club are gonna go gamble you're gonna go gamble so I already gambled on St. Rich Voss. There you go. And they won. And they won. So I don't know the particulars and it's none of my business but you want to see things work out because

sometimes it's money, sometimes it's ego, sometimes it's just miscommunication. I have a lot of money sunk in there. I want it to work out. I think that the club is fantastic for the real. You have celebrities coming in. We trended nationally. We have a TV show coming out in the fall.

I don't know what is the thinking of the other side, but I think it has something to do with this. When you're dealing with an $8 billion company, they just don't respond to the same incentives that a small businessman would be. Even within their division, like the guy who makes his bonus from how many rooms are booked

per year is not the guy who makes bonus from how much rent is collected. It's not the guy who makes his bonus from how much food is sold. So trying to work out a deal, who the fuck knows? All I know is that it's an opaque situation. I don't know what's motivating

or what they're thinking, but I think we're going to end up walking away from it. That's what I think is going to happen. But Noam, whatever these disagreements are, were these not things addressed contractually prior to the opening of the club?

Well, that's the part I can't talk about. Okay. But we're trying... There's some errors. Two't talk about. Okay. But we're trying. There's some errors. Two questions. Yes, sir. I would like to do that TV show that you got coming out. That's one.

That's not a question. Okay, go ahead. There's one of the guys I'm not a big fan of involved. But also, too, I think if it doesn't happen next week, I need to get loaded up here. You will be. You will be. So, can we talk about Joy Reid? Who's that?

Who's Joy Reid? Joy Reid is the, you guys don't know about Joy Reid? Yes. He's one of your guests. Joy Reid. You know about Joy Reid. This is Amman. Let me get Amman's intro.

Amman Ali. Yes, indeed. Is an award-winning... What award? I have been nominated for a Pulitzer and then an Emmy as well. But winning. What award winning? Award... Well, then I won...

As a reporter, I used to be a reporter before I did stand-up, so I won a few... Can you hear me now? Yeah, that's all right. I won a few breaking news awards from the Associated Press. Okay. Aman Ali is an award-winning storyteller and comedian in New York City. He is currently, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. He is currently the producer of the documentary Two Gods about a Muslim mortician in New Jersey

using the lens of death to teach young boys that their own lives are worth living. Absolutely. So Joy Reid is this MSNBC host who apparently had blogged a lot of pretty nasty anti-gay stuff. Now they caught her one time and she apologized, but now they found a whole bunch more stuff, and this time she's claiming that the Google

was hacked, the Wayback Machine was hacked. I got no problem with somebody saying, you know what, 10, 15 years ago, I said some ignorant, stupid things. And just leave it at that. Stop making excuses, whatever. I understand in 2018, there's more sensitivities, this and that. We've all been open micers.

We've all said really stupid stuff we probably wouldn't say as adults. I was never an open micro. I went right into working. Right through, exactly. I have a problem with it. I'm going to tell you why. I don't really have a problem with it. She comes from the left.

She's quite a liberal. The liberal typical mentality will not forgive somebody who said something bigoted in 1806. They think that they can't even judge something in its time and place in 1806. But they're ready to forgive someone who said something bigoted in 2006. I find that hypocrite. I'm all for you about judging people and their place in time. They can change. But you can't pick and choose.

You can't say, you know, we have no sympathy for Thomas Jefferson. Never mind what error he wrote. But Joy Reid can say nasty things about gays. But because she's on our side, we're going to forgive it. That's what I think. And then this guy, Kevin Williamson. You know about this, Mike? but because she's on our side, we're going to forgive it. That's what I think. And then this guy, Kevin Williamson, you know about this? Mike, you and nobody?

I feel like Joy Reid can make it right if she just apologizes to Rachel Maddow's haircut. I think that everything will be okay. I think the left picks and cues is who they throw under the bus. They have thrown their own under the bus in the last year or so. It's an electric-powered bus. It runs really smoothly. What's that? Al Franken.

They'll throw a white male under the bus if they have a... Because they had a bigger picture in mind. They needed him out of the way because they wanted to run against this child. Roy Moore. Yeah, Roy Moore. They have to out of the way because they wanted to run against this child. Roy Moore. Yeah, Roy Moore. They have to have the higher ground. Now I think Franken will probably run for re-election. I mean, the left is always going to suffer for having to try to appeal to everyone, whereas

the right just has to appeal to their fan base. Yeah, I guess you're right. And then this guy, so Kevin Williamson was hired in the Atlantic magazine and he got fired because he had some anti-abortion views or whatever. It's ridiculous. They don't believe in free speech.

Did he say abortion sucks? No, what he said was he had said at one time that what's his name? Goldberg is the editor. He had said at one time that he thought abortion was murder.

And he so felt that it truly was murder that he felt, however, murder is punished, that's the way you should be punished for it. Like if he could write the law so that if abortion, if murder is punished by life in prison, you should get life in prison. And if it's punished by capital punishment, even though he didn't support capital punishment, he thinks that's the way, because he should be punished because he didn't see any way

to distinguish it from murder. Now, you can agree or disagree. Certainly a logical position. And he had the balls to say it rather than most people who say abortion is murder. And then when you say, really? Do you want to put them in jail for life? They start backtracking

and giving non-logical, mushy answers. This guy's just a writer? Yeah. So they found it in his past, and the left screamed bloody murder, and he got fired. This was a big thing. But Joy Reid's still on the air. How far do you think they're allowed to go back

to ruin careers? How far? That's what I'm saying. I'm saying, I would say, when did Twitter start? Twitter started like 07, 08. Okay, so I'll say 010 or even 012 or 12. And then maybe before that, hey, you have a pass. Unless you're just a flat out racist, anti-Semitic, homophobe. Now, this lady that went after the gay people, was she white?

She's black. She's black. And politically correct, or I could get bash for this, but a minority has a pass right there sometimes with the left to say what they want. Good day, sir. You don't think so?

Of course, of course. Okay, so what Joy Reid said, and you probably know better than I do, she was making fun of Charlie Criss, the governor of Florida at the time, and kind of teasing whether or not he's in the closet. No, she said a lot more than that. Oh, she said more than that?

Yeah, she said that she couldn't even watch Broke Mountain because it was disgusting. Oh, okay, I didn't see that one. And that gays prey on young boys, and she said all kinds of stuff. No, but she's not anti-Semitic or... I don't know. I mean, it's usually...

She's a dummy. But I don't think they should fire her. It's usually the whole package. It's not usually after one. Go ahead. No, I broke back. It wasn't just that she felt that the movie had a weak second act. That it had the line, you boys ain't fishing.

Like someone literally says that in that movie. When Michelle Williams finds out that they went on a fishing trip and that they were having sex, she's like, you boys ain't fishing. And they weren't. Remember Randy Quaid was in that movie? He just plays the guy with binoculars Angrily looking at them He wouldn't watch it

Gross me out I'm kidding I'm a comic What about Moonlight I don't think he should have won the Oscar He didn't even have a big enough role in it I think he's a great actor and he's good in a lot of stuff I don't think he deserved the Oscar for that.

Was that that movie about the gay? I saw a little bit of it. I thought it was second rate. I'll tell you the great movie. You have to see the end. It sets up the new Avengers film. You see the Florida project. Watch the Florida project. Anyhow, I don't want to get into movies. Listen,

if you're pro-gay or anti-gay, one isn't better than the other. I can't attack somebody for being anti-gay if that's what they believe. But you can't bash somebody if you're against it. If you're not, listen, everybody's not. I don't agree with you. You think everybody should, everybody doesn't believe the same way. I'm not saying...

I don't think you can be openly anti-gay and still say you're part of the left. I'm not saying you can be openly gay. But everybody isn't as open-minded as someone like you or somebody from the East Coast or the West Coast. They're not as open-minded. They don't... This is what I think. I think that most people... And I'm not sticking up for them. I'm not sticking open-minded. This is what I think. I think that most people... And I'm not sticking up for them.

I'm not sticking up for them. I'm just saying... Do you know what I'm saying? You've got to be consistent. I see what you're saying. This is what I think. I think most people... Doug, did you order something, Mike?

Yeah, I ordered a cup. Yeah, just put it down. Thank you. I think that most people, virtually everybody I know, has something that they believe that they know that they can't say publicly. Sure. Yes. Sure. And I think that's terrible.

I think that somebody's anti-gay, bash them all you want. They should not call for them to lose their job. Yes, I agree. Enough of this fucking taking people's jobs away. Let people have the security to speak their minds and have a real honest debate, not a fucking fraudulent for show kabuki dance debate. That's what I just said. That's what you said? That's what I'm saying, that everybody isn't on the same.

Everybody's not supposed to agree and believe in the same thing, because then we all are fucking robots. There's freedom of speech, but also if a company thinks that an employee is going to cost them money, it's their freedom to fire them. Yeah, but culturally, this should all stop. First of all, I don't think that people ever really cost the company money. Laura Ingraham, actually, they stood by Laura Ingraham, and the advertisers will come back. But it's putting blood in the water, and some company needs to say, listen, we believe in free speech. We don't endorse this guy's views, but we think he represents

a large number of people who live in this country. Sure. So let's have it out. But even you, Noam, would put a limit on that. No, I wouldn't. At some point, if somebody was saying openly that we should commit genocide against certain races or whatever. Which races? But I'm saying even you would have a limit in terms of who you would tolerate as an employee.

I used to think that. I don't feel that way. I think now I think that I'm so turned off by where things have gone. I think that I'm an absolutist. If I have an employee, like an employee works for me here. Right. Or wherever. Any employee that works for you wherever.

And if I have an employee here who I knew was like a Holocaust denier or whatever it is. I would not care. Now, what if they go on stage and talk about denying the Holocaust? It depends on how the audience reacts. Nick works here? Nick DiPaolo. But now, if Joy Reid's audience reacts negatively, then is MSNBC doing the wrong thing? No, if Joy Reid's audience reacts negatively. No, I think it's the opposite here.

MSNBC is standing by her hypocritically when they attack anybody else who ever said any such thing. And I'm saying, fine, MSNBC, stand by her and then stop calling for other people to get fired as well and let people speak their minds and if the audience doesn't like it,

the audience will stop watching. That's what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with saying, this person said some crazy things and I'm not going to watch. Just leave it alone. Why? It's the extra, this person must be fired, this person must let's take him off the air. That's where the issue is. And if you're getting so mad over someone's tweets from nine years ago, you've got to

re-examine your life. You know what I mean? If something makes you that mad in this country of a tweet from nine years ago, like... I'm going to tell you something else. Sorry, Richard. Go ahead. I think there's a phenomenon. My wife suffers from it, but it's very human. I think it's one of our human biases, which is that we can't put things, we can't comprehend the size of things.

Hear me out. So when somebody gets kidnapped and kept in a basement in Iowa Ohio. Which was my first credit, yeah. My wife all of a sudden says don't let the kids play outside. She cannot somehow comprehend that okay, one kid is one in a 400

million chance the kid is way more at risk just walking under a piece of pottery. And I think this happens even with sophisticated people in corporate America. A couple of fucking bloggers or

some dumb organization calls for somebody's head and these people lose their minds thinking that 300 million Americans really care about this stuff. Americans don't really care. It's like the Louis thing. We've been through this. There's a few bloggers going nuts about Louis. Right.

But in everyday life, nobody's saying he didn't do anything wrong. But nobody, I don't know anybody saying, I hope he never performs again. They should, mostly like,

it was kind of gross, you know, but the corporate America is reacting to these few loud mouths who are extreme. What do you think about, do you think Starbucks

jumped the gun or reacted excessively in declaring a, you know, May 29th that they're going to close all their stores and immediately issuing

an apology? Do you think they went too far then? Aman, what's your opinion? By the way, Aman has a whole Muslim thing that we should talk to.

We'll get to that. No, I think they were just scared of the backlash. They didn't want it to fester so they let's just go above and beyond. Is it above and beyond in hindsight? Sure. But I think it's from a corporate perspective, not my perspective,

from a corporate perspective, it's safer to go above and beyond than do nothing at all. They couldn't, they didn't want to risk not doing anything. But apropos of what Noam was saying, are they poisoning the water? Are they creating, are they giving blood in the, whatever you said. I mean, you know, by immediately, without, it seemed to me, without any further investigation, assuming this was a racist incident, which by the way, it does look like it from what I know of it.

But they immediately concluded that. Okay, but Starbucks has what? 100,000 employees? Is it a shock? 200,000? Yeah. And somebody did something wrong? I mean, these are people.

Starbucks didn't raise them. Starbucks hired them. Of course they have some racists working at Starbucks. The whole company has to shut down? Well, also, too, people make mistakes when they see somebody not ordering food in their store. They go, you know, order or get out. You know, these are young kids. They're 22, 21.

They don't know anything about life. I have to tell you, even the way the story was written, it describes them as young entrepreneurs, but doesn't say what their business is. They had a real estate meeting. My favorite thing was when they were like, when the owner met with them at the Starbucks to discuss things, and you know he was just like, hey, you did two black guys that we arrested? Is that true?

I'm just saying how awkward that must have been when that CEO... No, but he did meet with them. He had a peace summit, and then a day after, that's when the whole sensitivity thing happened. I think Dunkin' Donuts was behind it. Here's what I want Starbucks to do is when you order the coffee, you type in your name and you spell it out and you phonetically write it out

so they know how to pronounce it. And then all the hack jokes about getting your name wrong die, and people feel less racially hurt. I think, like you said, people are outraged. They're outraged if they're not outraged. They find there's people, you know, the Internet is not for everybody. Certain people shouldn't have a platform. And like you say, a couple people.

Look, for example, I drink Vita Water. If Vita Water was sponsoring MSNBC or Fox and that stuff happened, I'm still drinking Vita Water. I don't care. I don't care. I'm not into, you know, attacking. It's the mentality of just getting everybody to be tender against, you know, the company or boycott. I'm not into that crap. We get angry about the wrong. Like, I'm upset that Chick-fil-A is homophobic.

But as a fat guy, I'm more upset they're closed on Sunday. It's like when I think of which policy has negatively impacted my life more. Is it really good? People say it's really good. It's unbelievable. I saw one driving home. Apparently, there's one in Manhattan now. Yeah, it's on 36.

They have one at NYU when this whole, like, alleged homophobia stuff happened at Chick-fil-A. The students at NYU tried to boycott, but then they're like, Oh, but it's so delicious! And, like, they weren't able to, like, organize a boycott. I have no problem with the idea tried to boycott, but then they're like, ah, but it's so delicious, and they weren't able to organize a boycott. I have no problem with the idea of a boycott. I mean, Martin Luther King spoke of boycotting back in the 60s. Certain companies, Coca-Cola, I think, was one of them. Yeah, he boycotted having sex with Coretta and instead had sex with everyone else.

Wheezy. Allegedly. I mean, I know, Noam, you're against the very notion of boycotting companies as an absolute matter. Well, I mean, you know, during World War II, if Mercedes was actually making the ovens at the time, I could see boycotting

Mercedes-Benz cars because they're actually doing something that's killing people. Actually, if somebody wanted to boycott Apple because they're using little Chinese slave's killing people. Actually, if somebody wanted to boycott Apple because they're using little Chinese slave labor to build the phones, that would make sense to me. But to boycott a company

because somebody believes something, no, I don't believe in that. I think that's fair. If you don't like the policies, if you don't like the way they treat their employees, and you don't want to support that business, that seems fair to me. I'm not saying it should be illegal.

I just think it's opportunistic. And again, I really think what it's doing is shutting down and changing our culture in terms of our respect for open discussion of things. And I think that's a tremendous price to pay. I think that much better than boycott is to refute it and to show where they're wrong

and win the debate, not force people under the rock where they're still going to believe it and they speak to their own little audience and it's, you know, and we get it. That's why people go into the bubble. Well, the far left and the far right

both hijacked both parties and there's no in between into the bubble. Well, the far left and the far right both hijacked both parties, and there's no in-between. You're listening to two extremes fighting nonstop, and the middle person, the moderate person, really has no say anymore, and they're stuck, and half of them are going, I don't give a fuck. Do you think it's going to get worse and worse, or do you think there's finally the rise of the middle? You're asking Rich Voss?

I don't know. That's a good, that was funny. You know, you get some good ones. You're really funny on Sirius. Anyhow, I don't know. Yeah, it's going to get worse because it's getting worse. It is. It's been getting worse and worse. I looked at an old video of mine or I listened to an old bit.

And this is from 12 years ago. And I go, I said something like, man, this world is falling apart with political correctness. We also know it's old because you called it a video. It was audio. But it could have been. But whatever. It was a CD. It was in your old CD.

It was one of them. And I'm listening. It was on the radio. And I'm going, you know, this is 12 or 14 years ago. So since then. What's that? You were an oracle. Yeah, I'm way ahead of my time.

I mean, I'm like, you know. So, yeah, it's going to get worse. It's going to get. People are getting fired right and left. People are running scared. Everybody's divided in this country. It's just in this country. It's just, you know.

But I think it's also. Go ahead, Mike. No, I was signaling. Yeah, but there is like the business of outrage. Right. You know, I think like there is a lot of justified outrage and people should be angry. But it's like when you have somebody like an owen benjamin and he's saying like angry hateful things he's making money off that from his fan base and then the people blogging against it are also making money off it like when that woman did the uh cancel colbert thing was it suyi park

it was a few years ago colbert made the joke about asians and then she you know started the hashtag cancel colbert she started doing like college speaking tours like she got road gigs based on the anger and I don't think there's anything wrong with that because she found an audience that wants to hear what she has to say but that's also now

you can get a fan base just by being angry about something well that's what I'm saying so much of outrage and even boycotts, back in the day, it was people were outraged because they wanted something to be done, but these days,

a lot of it is, I just want to show people that I feel this way, so it's a way of displaying this hashtag or changing my Facebook profile to this, or boycotting

so I can feel good and show my friends that, yeah, I don't drink Starbucks for this reason, but in reality, nobody really cares and it's not going to make

Didn't Starbucks do something ultra-diversity oriented a few months ago? Something with cups or something? Black and white shake. It was happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. They've done a lot of great LGBT stuff. Anyway, okay, so listen. Aman, you're a Muslim comic.

You're Indian. I'm Indian. My wife's half Indian. Okay. And therefore, his kids are'm Indian. My wife's half Indian. Okay. And therefore his kids are a quarter Indian. My kids are a quarter Indian. And one 32nd Native American, just like Elizabeth Warren, by the way, according to our 23andMe. So what's your story about the whole Islam thing?

How does that affect you in your career and all that? It was interesting because I've been doing stand-up now for about 12 years. And I felt, you know, when I first started doing stand-up I felt, oh, I got to do these jokes about 9-11 and airport jokes. How does it feel to be sitting next to the legendary Rich Voss? If you're funny, you're funny, you know? But for me, I felt

the need, oh, I always need to address my ethnicity, my faith, or this or that. But I'm like, I got TSA pre-check. I've never been detained. Why am I talking about being profiled? The problem with 9-11 jokes is they never land the way you want them to. So for me, I was just like, wait, I'm an awkward brown kid.

You guys are laughing at puns? I'm an awkward brown kid from Ohio. Why can't I just talk about that? Why do I feel the need to... What part of Ohio? Columbus, Ohio. Is it me or is 9-11 in a perverse way catapulted the careers of Muslim comedians? For sure.

Look at Vito Vigala. Trump as well, no question. So I can't... Sorry, go ahead. No, you go. No, no. And it's been a blessing in disguise. Obviously it's horrible with all the hate crimes

and this and that, but it's created a curiosity. We're the exotic fruit. And so I take advantage of that. My agent once said, as long as people hate Muslims, you're going to get gigs. And I'm like, thank you for it. Why just talk about 9-11? There's so many other

trains in London. Exactly. So much diversity. Parish. Exactly. I like the conspiracy theorist who's like, 9-11 was caused by Muslim comedians who just wanted more work. That's exactly what it was. And so for me, I don't feel it as limiting.

It's like, why can't I just talk about cereal for 10 minutes? Why can't I talk about other things? But no, there's the elephants in the room as a comic when you see a shiny bald head and a beard. Like, okay, I want to know what this is about. One reason is because cereal's been beaten to death. Maybe not cereal, but the normal topics that comedians talk about have been beaten to death.

It's like, we had a trans comedian on recently, forgot her name, Jane McBride. I think we were having this discussion, like she talks about normal things, but you know what, normal things is kind of played out. I want to hear about the trans experience.

I think the more personal you are, for me, a comic, when you're personal, that's what I want to hear. Because, you know, observational. When I leave the room, if I know about him, then I leave knowing about him. Or do I leave the room going, oh, he was funny. What did he say? I don't know. What I meant by that was I thought – I was telling jokes that I thought people wanted here initially. I thought they wanted here being stereotyped or being profiled to be a terrorist.

But I'm like, that's not my life. I'm this awkward, weird kid that nobody knows where I'm from and has ignorant questions. And so I was talking about myself. But initially I was like, oh, this is what people want here. I know in a lot of black comics, they say, oh, I need to be this loud, theatrical, pulled over by the cops and all these stereotypes that people have. You mean every black comic. Exactly. You know what I mean?

They write jokes that they think people want. That's what I thought I was doing. I wasn't writing about, I wasn't being true to myself. I'm a kid from Ohio. I've never really had people yell hateful, ignorant things to me from the Midwest. Give me time. That in and of itself is interesting.

You could be the one Muslim saying, look, I'm Muslim. I've got to be honest with you. It hasn't really affected me that much. So you're still talking about being Muslim. But you're talking about Go ahead. I want to ask a couple questions. So you're talking about the fact that your Muslim experience does not mirror the average comedian's Muslim experience.

And then even being Indian, you know, there's a lot of comics that, and it's not any shots or anything like that, but a lot of comics talk about their parents and they use these ethnic voices. But I'm like, my parents have. Never gets old. My parents have like, both have master's degrees and like both went to like Ivy League education. They can still have these ethnic voices. But I'm like, my parents have... Never gets old. My parents both have master's degrees and both went to Ivy League education. They can still have funny ethnic voices. They're parents who are right. Exactly, right?

So, but I'm like, why am I making them these caricatures? Okay, but do they have the ethnic voice? Of course they do. Can you do it? Just do a little bit of it. Okay, I will do it. But wait a second.

Dance, monkey, dance. You uphooed him, you motherfucker. I'm doing a documentary on this. I want to ask you a question. Red chance. He came into Karnabalu and you uphooed him. When people see that you're Indian Muslim, it's not as scary as being Lebanese or Syrian Muslim. Or the wobbly happy kind, of course.

You know, so it's not as threatening to an audience when you go... You do look like potentially... Hasan Minhaj. You look at him and you feel at ease. This is the man that's not blowing up shit. He's getting too much pussy.

What do you mean by at ease? Hasan is a very good looking dude that was on the Daily Show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does his room a lot. Yeah, but he could pass for Puerto Rican. I guess. No, no, no.

He looks Indian, but he looks like he's definitely from the Indian area. Whereas our friend here, our new friend Amar, looks like he could be, say, Amar, I'm sorry. Amar, no, all good. Could be from the Arab world. Could be. Could be African American, too. I get a lot.

I get anything and everything. And nothing offends me. I'm like, whatever. You want to come with this? It's because of the bald head. It's the cocoa butter. And kind of like the African American style beard. It's kind of.

The bald head, yes. You take it on kind of the look of an African American style. I want to ask you a question. Go for it. If you could push a button alone in your room and no one would ever know, and if you push this button, 9-11 would have never happened and all those people's

lives would be saved. But you would lose all the advantages in your career. Tell the truth. Would you press that button? Wait, so if I push the button, 9-11 would never happen? All those people, all those little kids have a daddy, but your career, you're just another fucking nobody. Oh, I'm not pushing that button.

You're not pushing the button. No. Think of all the great Toby Keith songs we would lose. You could tweet that out in outrage and boycott me. Of course not. No, of course you push a button, and then you go on tour as the guy that pushed a button. No, no, I said no one could ever know. You didn't listen to the premise.

Yeah. No one can know? No, no, no one would one could ever know. You didn't listen to the premise. Yeah. No one can know? No, no. No one would push it. I'm assuming you're joking, but... No, he's not joking. Well, we don't know if he's joking. He's not joking.

And we'll never know because the whole premise of the hypothetical was that no one would ever know. The point is that he would lose all he did there. Would you give up everything you have here? Would you push that button? No. You wouldn't save 2,000 lives and the future of... I would give up everything and become what? And become what?

I don't know. A contractor. There's a magic button I could push to make sure 9-11 doesn't happen for a second time. There's two questions. It didn't happen. Undo it. Undo it. It's one thing to be glad that it happened in a weird way to be okay that it happened.

Nobody's glad that it's happened. It's not glad, but it's one thing to say my life worked out better because it happened. It's another thing to say I'm going to take an active step to cause it to happen or to not prevent it from happening. What I mean is there's always blessings in disguise. I'm not saying 9-11 was a blessing or anything like that, but I wouldn't be where I was. It had a hell of a silver lining. I'm going to be on Joy Reid tomorrow night, guys.

He benefited, and so did Jeff Dunham's puppets. I don't believe that Amar is being truthful. I don't believe that either of them are being truthful. You think he's better than Ilhan Saad. You think he would sacrifice his career to save some stranger's kids. I think he would have to because otherwise he has to live with that. And I don't believe he could. But you guys think 9-11 is the only thing.

People have disliked Muslims forever. That's not true. What do you mean that's not true? Not to the level that you can make a career out of it. It became more mainstream. There was a lot of anti-Muslim.

I don't believe so. If you watch movies from the 30s, 40s, even the 80s and 90s, executive decision, true lies, there was all these stereotypes about them. It was way before 9-11. I don't believe the focus

on Muslims was strong enough that your career could get a good boost out of it. Sure. After 9-11, everybody's talking about Muslims. What is it? What are they? What do they believe? What's the Quran say? Everybody's interested all the time. When I was a kid, I actually remember this.

You know, in school, they give you those little magazines. You could choose the books, like, for the book club. One of the books I ordered in grammar school was 1001 Polish jokes. Like, it was such a different world then in terms of what you could get away with ethnically. Yes, Muslims, it started with the PLO. There was kind of, like, the dark skin, like, the PLO. There was kind of like the dark skin, like the terrorist character. But there was not any animus by the typical American of like, we shouldn't have Muslims in our country.

We're worried about Muslims in our country. It started with 9-11. Do you guys not remember the Iron Sheik? He was booed and hated for being a Muslim pro wrestler, and Hulk Hogan beat him because people wanted to see him fail. Well, he was booed and hated for being a Muslim pro wrestler and Hulk Hogan beat him because people wanted to see him fail. Well, he was booed because he was Iranian and that was the whole hostage crisis thing. I don't think they considered him Muslim. I don't know what the Iron Sheik's religious – I think he's a – isn't he a white guy? But that's why I love stand-up because stand-up has always been the most democratic art form.

And it's been a tool for especially oppressed people to get up and speak out about it. That's why for a lot of Jewish people in the 60s and 70s, it was a platform for them. And then for African Americans as well. And so Muslims are just the newest group of oppressed people that have found this art form to speak out about what's been going on, tell their own narratives and talk about their lives rather than people telling their stories.

You think Arabs in this country or around the world are oppressed? I mean, some of the richest... Oppressed is subjective, for sure. Yes. 100%. And a lot of them

are being oppressed by their own leaders, too. No question. No question. You know, some of the richest people in the fucking world are. Well,

that's what I do on stage is I always try to challenge how much... I think there's this new phenomenon of... I don't know if it's new, but this internal oppression where we perceive to be oppressed

so we feel oppressed. You know what I mean? That guy gave me a dirty look. What if that guy was just looking at someone else? But I'm perceiving him. So I think there's a lot of that. I'm hoping he looked at me because of what I am. That would be awesome. I can get really mad. So I can tweet about it so I can get some

followers and I can go viral with being pulled off an airplane. I really think there should be a TV show about oppression and just have Jews,

Muslims, blacks, everybody sit and tell their oppression stories. Okay, so I have another question for you. Sure, go for it. I notice

Indian people, now again, my wife's Indian so I can say whatever I want. You have a pass. I have a half Indian second cousin once removed. You have an Indian sounding name, so

you can say whatever you want. Dawson was my preferred street fighter character, so I can say whatever I want. I bought my furniture off of Craigslist from an Indian guy. You guys all get brown passes today. Go for it. I notice quite often, it came suddenly, and it spread,

it propagated, and it's ubiquitous. Sure. Referring to themselves as, I'm a brown guy. I'm a brown guy. Yeah, I used that too. Yeah, it doesn't make me think of it.

And it occurred to me, number one, that when I was growing up and I would see Indian people, I never, I regarded, if I had to put them on where I regarded them, they were like just white people who were

from, like Indian-ish, but white people. I never viewed them in the minority black Puerto Rican. I know the skin was darker, but I didn't, I wouldn't have separated it that way. And I felt like, and I never saw any anti-Indian

bigotry or no Indians need not apply or anything. And I always saw them treated basically like everyone else. And then I noticed them begin to a little bit wrap themselves up in this brown concept, which to me seemed almost like to try to put themselves as like in that category of black people who really have had this horrible, oppressive history here. And I wonder what you feel about that. So I see your perspective.

I don't think it's so much of that. I know I only speak for myself where a lot of us came from countries that were colonized by the British and Europeans. And so all these borders of like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh are all within the past like 50, 60 years. For centuries, it was all one. So I grew up with Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, Middle Easterners, all these different backgrounds. So we all kind of see ourselves as brown. But Indians and Pakistanis are the same.

That's what I'm saying. But you're not the same as the Iranians. Indian and Pakistanis are the same people. But to us, our cultures might be different, but we're all the same. We all unify as brown. So it's not so much of we're just like black people. We have it just as bad or just as difficult or this or that. It was just more like, you know what, we're all kind of in this together.

So it wasn't necessarily in response to try to say that we got it bad out here so we're going to use this. But it was just more about this shared experience where people we grew up in towns where you're either white or black or Hispanic and then other. We're Asian Pacific Islanders on the SAT bubble. So brown was kind of like a rallying cry for all of us.

That's interesting. It wasn't necessarily that impression. That's a very good explanation. My dislike for Indians started when I played, you know, because I played a lottery and they would always fuck up my numbers. Like I would say 6-2-8 and they would say 6-3-8. Now I've got to play 638 in case it comes out. You know what I mean? So as long as they don't

repeat my numbers and just do them, then I have no animosity. If that's your only issue, then we're good. That's all the truth. Go for it. Have you ever booked from Expedia? I use Kayak. Have you ever called tech support and found yourself

in India and had I actually had my cousin. And had this wretched stress in your stomach because you know you're in for a nightmare scenario. Oh, yeah. I'm just like, man, don't embarrass us. Don't embarrass us. That's what it is. Don't embarrass us. Don't embarrass us.

Like, don't screw this up. 100%. I always find it weird when they use, like, American names and they're like, this is Bob. Just be yourself. Exactly. But you're cool. names and they're like, this is Bob. Just be yourself. Please fool him. Especially when a cab driver goes by and especially an Indian cab driver passes me,

I take that shit personally. I'm like, yo, Gandhi would not stand for this. What are you doing? We're supposed to be in this together. When a cab driver passes by me, I take that so personally. You're an Indian cab driver. Well, he thinks you're African American. That's exactly what it is. Come on, man. I'm just like you. We're all brown cab driver. You're an Indian cab driver. Well, he thinks you're African American. That's exactly what it is.

Like, come on, man. I'm just like you. We're all brown. Listen, cabs will go by white people, too, but not nearly the same numbers. No, no. But you never know. I always wanted to see a documentary about, like, how certain ethnicities monopolize certain things. Like, how the Asians got the laundromats.

Sure. And Indians got Dunkin' Donuts and convenience stores. And Subway. It is fascinating. I'm not trying to be racist, but you see it a lot. But you're doing perfectly well. There's actually been documentaries about this. I'm born in Florida.

This is with any ethnic group. One ethnic group comes to this country, finds a way to be successful, and they tell their friends and family, Hey, come on over. So in the 60s and 70s, the Greeks, especially throughout New Jersey, were like, hey, diners. We're going to run diners. Let's all come and do diners. There must be something cultural, though.

I would imagine to precipitate that, or was it a completely random choice? It's purely a hustle. This is an easy income stream. Let's bring people over. What about the Indian love of hotellery? Again, it's another easy income stream. Let's bring people over. What about the Indian love of hotillery? Again, it's another easy income stream. My uncle that runs a hotel, he got people jobs and said,

Hey, why don't you come over? I can put you to work. And everybody kind of helps each other. Even total strangers. Even Dunkin' Donuts. And this is what I heard. I think it's true. You can't buy one.

You have to buy three. So now you have to buy three of them. Three franchises, you mean? You've got to buy them both. Yeah, you've got to buy them. You have to buy three. So now you've got to bargain. You have to buy three of them. Three franchises, you mean? You've got to buy them both. Yeah, you've got to buy them. That's what I heard. I don't know. Don't quote.

No, look it up. Can I correct? Because I said it quick and it could sound wrong. I know that blacks have trouble getting cabs. Of course. I didn't mean to, but it could have been taken wrongly. What I'm saying is that in a lot of these things, many times in my life something has happened to me,

either with the cops or with cab or whatever it is and I've said on the radio if I had been black there'd be no fucking way you'd ever convince me that didn't happen to me because I was black but it happened to me and I always notice those things so I always try to tell people

in any specific incident you don't really know what's in someone's heart if it happens to you 30 times, doesn't happen to me at all, yeah, you know something's going on. Now, Amman, you've been doing,

is it Amman or Ammar? Amman. I said that. You got it right the first time. You've been doing comedy 12 years. Yes, indeed. Well, I haven't seen you before.

Because you don't go anywhere. I haven't done this room, but I've done other ones. I usually do The Moth. I'm more of a storyteller, so that's the platform that I really like. Where else? Comic Strip Live, I do that room other ones. I usually do The Moth. I'm more of a storyteller, so that's the platform that I really like. Where else? Comic Strip Live, I do that

room a lot. Stand Up New York, we were just talking about that earlier. Where are you from? New Jersey? I'm from Ohio, but I live here in Manhattan now. Is it The Comic Strip or Comic Strip Live? What is the live? I call it The Comic Strip. I think it started off as The Comic Strip. Then in the 80s, there was a show called The Comic Strip Live. I was told, according to the rumor, they changed it to The Comic

Strip Live so people would think it was affiliated with the show. Or it wasn't even really affiliated with the show. I was told, according to the rumor, they changed it to the comic strip live so people would think it was affiliated with the show. Yes. Or it wasn't even really affiliated with the show. I don't think so.

Not at all. That's bad karma. I can say karma, right? It was taped at the Laugh Factory in LA. Okay. And it was called

Comic Strip Live, taped at the Laugh Factory, and the host, I remember back then, whatever, Mulrooney was one of the hosts. But yeah, anyhow. So no, but yeahoney was one of the hosts. But yeah, anyhow.

So no, but yeah, no one's seen you. Can you do 10 minutes right now? Just put me on the spot. Let's go for it. But no, I kind of go all over. I think I've evolved as a comic. I'm not more of a bit punchline joke person. I'm a storyteller.

And so I need 15, 20 minutes to flush out a story and this or that. And so to do a room with like... We're aware. You know what I mean? To do a room with like eight comics and only do like 10 minutes, I can do that just fine. But my comfort, what I enjoy is like

rooms where I can really get weird and tell stories. And that's why the comics that I like growing up, you know, Cosby was one of my favorite. CK is obviously a great one I didn't even know they were comedians but that's what I'm saying is people that tell amazing stories

even if you're not laughing you're still entertained what do you think about the whole Louis CK thing he was a little pervy but doesn't take away from the fact

that the man is a genius he got a little horny and sad Einstein was a genius he's a great comic that's what I'm saying he's brilliant he's absolutely brilliant and yeah he was a little horny and sad. Einstein was a genius. He's a great comic. That's what I'm saying. He's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant.

And yeah, he was a little pervy and creepy, but like, I'm not condoning it, but does that mean that his entire legacy should be thrown away? I wish he'd come back and go on stage. He's on the Mount Rushmore. He will be back. I read he was hanging out here recently. He comes to dinner. He likes a steak, but he hasn't gone on.

Aziz went on recently here. Aziz got cheered. Che recently. He comes to dinner. He likes a steak, but he hasn't gone on. What do you think? Aziz went on recently here. Aziz got cheered. Cheered. But he's brown. What do you think? What do you think? And also, Aziz is... Most people are on Aziz's side on the whole Aziz controversy.

It's a lot less controversial, what he did, than what Louis did. It was none of anybody's fucking business what happened with Aziz. It was an outrage what happened to Aziz. He didn't even do anything wrong. It's his private date. What do you think will happen if Louis goes on, Mike? They'll go nuts. I think it'll take a while.

I don't think it'll take that long. I think there will be certain people that I think in the room the immediate reaction, the surprise of it will be interesting. People will want to just be a part of something that in their minds is historical.

But then I think that you will have different thoughts of positive and negative and I think they'll be valid. If people don't want to see him again, I understand it. If people do want to see him again, I get that too. At the end of the day, if you're funny, you're funny.

You could take... Look at Dice when they hated him. When he was on SNL and Shanae O'Connor boycotted. And it didn't stop him. He still, at that time, was selling out. If Louis C.K. booked the Garden tomorrow, it would be sold out like that. Those people buying tickets to see him. I'm wondering if he went on, I think if he went on the cellar, people would go nuts.

They'd be cheering him. They'd destroy him. I don't... I mean... There might be a couple of people that walk out. You just never know. And there's always a possibility that somebody will yell out, rapist. Not rapist. Whatever they might yell it out. I mean, people perceive it that

way. So also, you don't think he's writing stuff about what happened? Of course he is. He's brilliant enough. When he comes back, he's going to come back with an hour about this, in my opinion, about the whole thing. Probably will. And it's going to be brilliant. And you're going to go, oh, fuck. That's funny.

We see his side of the story. But if you spring him on a crowd here at the cellar, it's possible that somebody is going to say something or walk out. You may say this. That happens. That's always going to happen. At your shows. The danger is there. Somebody wrote, there's a comedy club uptown that had a picture of Louis C.K.

on the wall, and somebody, a customer, defaced it. Louis does provoke a certain anger in certain people, and if you bring him on stage here, yeah, certainly something could happen. Honestly, I think a vast majority of people have completely forgotten. Not a majority, but every night. It's a slight, be slightly nervous. Every night in the Village Underground, we show that slideshow of all the comedians. Right.

And Louis' picture goes up like three different times. Okay. Not once has anybody in the audience cheered out, made a noise, said boo, nothing. Okay. Not once. Doesn't mean some people aren't feeling that, though. Of course, out of 10,000 people, somebody will eventually walk out. But I think in general, no.

Also, they know those are old clips. I guess they could say you didn't pull them out. I don't think anybody did. I just do think that is the thing that gets lost In freedom of speech That like if he wants to go back up Or whatever okay But then it's like let's not just condemn the people That are upset about that

No I'm not condemning them Well I am condemning them but they have a right to be upset I don't take their right to be upset Well I'm just saying what will happen when he goes on here And it'll be interesting I'd like to be a sexist. Well, I'm just saying, what will happen when he goes on here? It'll be interesting. I'd like to be there his first night back. Please hit me up with a text if you wouldn't mind knowing when he's here. I can tell why I condemn them.

Because where were these people who feel so deeply when Mike Tyson was on Broadway? Some of them were also complaining then. Were they? Yeah. I didn't hear anybody. I didn't see anybody walking out of Mike Tyson's Broadway show. You probably don were also complaining then. Were they? Yeah. I didn't hear anybody. I didn't see anybody walking out of Mike Tyson's Broadway show. You probably don't follow their feeds. You do? Also,

too. Yeah. Alright, I stand corrected. Also, too, Louis went down during the major part of when Harvey Weinstein, and they fucking lumped him in with that, which was bullshit. Whoever the second guy was, was going to get hit hard. I mean, look, I

wrote on that cartoon show, so I have a personal relationship and it's complicated, but I think that... You were on the show with one of the... That Albert. The one with Albert Brooks, yeah. And this is one of the events that happened

with Louis that was on that show? Well, he was... No, I'm saying like when it got canceled. Oh, because of ICM. Yes, yes. Because Louis was the producer? Well, he was the star and producer. Oh, okay, okay. And, you know, so Lord knows I've thought a lot about this,

and I think that it is like a very difficult subject, and I think you have to take everybody's thoughts into consideration. And, you know, if clubs want to put them up again, that's their right. And if people are upset and want to walk out, then good for them. Well, I would invite everybody to listen to our podcast where we interviewed the lady from the New York Times, Melina Rizek, who wrote the Louis C.K. story. And I think that podcast really showed

that she had more of an agenda rather than being, and her agenda was not to be a journalist. It was to make the case against Louis C.K. And she purposely left out very important facts that a journalist would have put in. And I think that some people

don't actually even have the right factual basis. But just the entity. Correct me if I'm wrong, that story had been sitting around for years, but a lot of editors are like, okay, who else can we get? Well, I'll give you a little example of it. So the story that was sitting around for years,

that was in Gawker, was that these girls came back to his room, he started masturbating, and then he blocked the door and wouldn't let them out. Now that sounds horrifying. So I asked the lady from the New York Times, did you ask them if Louis blocked the door? Because the rumor was that he blocked the door.

That would be a real crime. Even I would be like, that's terrible. And she's like, yeah, I asked them. Did he block the door? No, he didn't. Why didn't you write that in the article? I didn't think it was relevant. Oh, wow.

This is true, right? Dan, am I lying? It sounds right. I have to go back and review the tape. Yeah, yeah. She didn't think it was worth writing. A key fact that everybody would want to know. If it's good for him, no.

It wasn't relevant for her agenda. That's right. That's right. And also, too, even if he locks the door, he's not going to get up. You can't fight somebody and jerk off at the same time. If you block the door. You can't do it. If you block the door, somebody's trying to leave.

That's a whole other ballgame in terms of an act. That's kidnapping almost. I mean, yeah. Well, that would be unlawful something or other. I say so. My daughter, full-grown daughter, dad, I was hanging out with this guy until the bars closed, and we went back to his room to smoke pot, and then he tried to do something sexual. I'd be like, sweetheart, what do you want? And then he blocked the door and wouldn't let me leave.

I'm like, you're going to call the cops right now. But he was Louis C.K. Oh, well, let him stop. If that happened to my daughter, I'd go, you're 10. Why were you in a hotel room? Aman, what do you feel about... With Louis C.K. again. And then I'd ask, does he need an opener?

What do you feel about this whole thing with the Apu I think the Apu from the Simpsons it was a documentary out about it right did you see Hank Azaria on Colbert last night

no I didn't see it so he basically said you know what I think this is more because the documentary is not so much about Apu it's more about

representation of people of color in Hollywood Hollywood has always been maybe 5 to ten years behind in terms of our culture and where we are as a society. So it's more so about that. So I love the documentary. Hari's brilliant.

Good friend of mine. Like, really cool dude. It wasn't so much of, oh, take the Simpsons off the air or kick a poo off. It's just more like, no, if you're going to have this character, have people that can speak to that person's experience. So he's not a two-dimensional character.

They have so many old Jewish characters. It's been a staple of sitcoms. Nobody has an issue with him on the show. The issue is nobody's writing about his experience, so he's seen as a caricature. Okay, let's write caricatures. But Homer is a dumb idiot, immoral. Mo is an amoral character.

All the white characters are horrible people too. Actually, Apu is probably morally better than they are. Right, but there's other narratives of people from different cultures. Remember Mr. Bacigalup? Remember Mr. Bacigalup and the Abbott and Costello show? No. The only exposure, for example, growing up, the only exposure that people had to

brown people in entertainment was a poo. That's the only perception. So growing up, I was called a poo. I was called hey, bunny, a squishy, do this or that. I wasn't offended by it, but I was like, it was getting exhausting. Do you have any other jokes? But as I said, well, as I said, though, all the white characters, most of the white characters,

Krusty the Clown, the sole Jewish character, except, of course, for Kenny Brocklestein or Ken Brockman, Krusty the Clown, the sole Jewish character, except, of course, for Kenny Brocklestein or Ken Brockman. Krusty the Clown is a horrible, hacky, greedy individual. There's 300 other shows

where there's different white people, there's different cultures. Yeah, but it's not The Simpsons' job to help young Indian people feel good about themselves. It's their job

to make people laugh. I'm going to support him on this one. Let Mike. I saw the documentary, and there are things I liked about it. I disagree. Hari is a friend of mine. Sure. I think that it does make a valid point.

He is less upset about The Simpsons and more upset about all of media not including them at all. And when no one else is including him and the only show that does is... And he's not a moral high ground. He, like, you know, sells expired meat, all sorts of stuff like that. So, I mean, he's as questionable as everyone else. Sure, they're all questionable. But for me... I'm sorry.

The other thing, the one thing that I did disagree with the documentary a little bit is going after Hank Azaria specifically because he seems more like, you know, an accessory, but not the actual problem. I think everybody's got to be realistic.

And I don't... That when you are a small number of an ethnic group, which is relatively new to a society, you're kind of an oddity and a novelty and... You're saying he should be happy just to be included. No, I'm not saying he should be happy just to be... I'm not saying that at all.

A small group of people from a country with 1.1 billion people. I'm saying that if we went to... If I went to China and I became, I mean, of course, I would not expect them to portray white people in their movies as less than a caricature. I would understand. Ricky Ricardo and Isla Lucy show all the jokes about his Spanish jokes. It was not mean-spirited. And yes, of course, I would like to see people happy and treated well and not as a novelty. But I'm saying part of it is just you can't expect a small number of a very different ethnic group to just spring on the scene. And it's like everybody pretend, oh, I don't get any of the jokes.

I don't think one bit that the Simpsons was racist or anything like that. That's a word I don't like to throw around. And I understand what you're saying, when there's a new novelty, things like that. But The Simpsons has been on for 30 years. So it's more about, yo, what else are you going to give me in terms of funny? You're going to keep going back to this stereotype?

But we keep laughing at that. It's funny. But I was like, I want to see more than that. So again, it's not so much about the Simpsons. And so for me, I'm like,

instead of complaining. He didn't have any black characters. What I'm saying is instead of whining, complaining, I'm like, let's just create

our own stuff. And that's what's happening. Aziz is creating stuff. Hassan's doing his stuff. Like I'm doing my stuff. My friends are doing their stuff. Like instead of just bashing,

I don't want the Simpsons off the air. I don't want Hank Azaria fired. I'm just like, okay, let them do that. They win Emmys. They're talented. I love the show. I watch the air. I don't want Hank Azaria fired. I'm just like, okay, let them do that. They win Emmys. They're talented.

I love the show. I watch the show. Let me just create our own thing. Let me put the question to you another way. Is there any group of people who gets offended at these type of things who doesn't actually laugh at the very same type of thing when it's a different ethnic group which is being kind of cheesed? Most of the people that are-

We all find it funny. It's funny. If something's funny, it's funny. You can make fun of the white guy. You can make fun of the Japanese guy. The Japanese guy will not like it when it's the Japanese guy. You've got to have a little sense of humoresed. Most of the people that are... We all find it funny. It's funny. If something's funny, it's funny. You can make fun of the white guy, make fun of the Japanese guy. The Japanese guy will not like it when it's the Japanese guy. You've got to have

a little sense of humor. That's all I'm saying. You've got to be able to take a joke. I agree with you a thousand percent. It's not mean. If something's funny, it's funny.

I don't take it from a mean-spirited place. If you're funny, you're funny. Like, I'm going to laugh. I was laughing at Emmanuel Macron speaking. Did you see him speaking in front of Congress, the French president?

Hilarious. His English was tremendous. He wanted to say a unique jest, but he said a eunuch jest. You know, like somebody with no penis. No balls. You know, but it was a lot of stuff like that. It was hysterical. We're out of time.

I invite our listeners to listen to Macron's address to Congress. Isn't it Macron or something? Well, I'm not sure. I'm a family guy, anyhow. You mean the show Family Guy? Yeah. Yeah to Macron's address to Congress. Isn't it Macron or something? Well, I'm not sure. I'm a family guy. Anyhow. You mean the show Family Guy? Yeah. Yeah, it's a great show.

Anyway, when I say things like this, I was like, I don't want to be insensitive to something. No, I don't think you're being insensitive. I don't think you're being insensitive one bit. But, like, I heard so many old Jewish characters growing up. You know, I never thought. Now, the thing about Jewish characters, the one thing is we, in our hearts, we kind of know, like, okay, there's probably a Jew that wrote that. So we're less going to be less offended. And a Jew that's playing it.

And there's other narratives. The issue is this was the only narrative for 30 or 40 years was a poo from The Simpsons. I can understand why the Indian community is upset by that. But I don't think The Simpsons is to blame or is morally culpable. The Simpsons has been on for 30 years? Yeah, and I think it's just enough. Tracy Ullman, 1987, 31. I stopped watching it probably 10 years ago.

So the documentary is more about Hollywood and how it hasn't evolved with this narrative as opposed to just bashing The Simpsons or this or that. Yes, the documentary called The Prom with the Pooh might be a little problematic. Okay. But big content. Well, look, we can always go a little bit longer.

No, we can't go a little bit longer. No, we can't. Sign off, Dan. Listen to My Wife Hates Me podcast on Ryocast. My Wife Hates Me. You're working for Robert Kelly. Go ahead. Watch the Emmanuel Macron video on YouTube. Also, I'm at DanNatterman.com on Twitter.

Mike? I'm at the Mike Lawrence on Twitter. I'm on Ali on Facebook and Twitter. How do you spell it? A-M-A-N. Last name is Ali, A-L-I. Okay. Good night, everybody.

Thank you. Bye.