The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Ron Bennington & Ray Ellin

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

Ron Bennington is a renowned NYC-based radio personality and stand-up comedian. Ray Ellin is a prominent stand-up comedian and regular performer at the Comedy Cellar.

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 at the back table of The Comedy Cellar. I'm here with Dan Natterman, our, I guess, what are you, our producer? This is Stephen Calabria, and one of my favorite radio personalities for a long time, and I can't believe he's actually here, because I'd asked him a million times, Mr. Ron Bennington. Good to see you. Good to see you, Ron, who's a regular on SiriusXM.

What's the name of the show that you do now? Bennington. Just called Bennington. Just called Bennington. He does it with his daughter. That's right. I've done it myself. Is it Benningtons, or just Bennington? No, it's just Bennington. That way, when I die, the name of the show doesn't have to change at all. So listen, usually, Ron, we start, Dan usually has itching to say a few things before we get with the guests. What's up, Dan?

Well, I'm still living with frozen shoulder. I don't know if I mentioned my frozen shoulder on previous episodes. Yes, you mention it every week. Well, it's very significant because this is my first old person thing. It's my first kind of face-to-face with the fact that I'm old. How old are you? Whatever it is. I'm 47.

47. And so this thing hits you in middle age. Well, I had frozen shoulder in my 30s. Did you really? I don't believe it's necessarily an age thing. Did you really? Yeah, I did. How did you fix it?

Well, I didn't know what it was, and I just lived with it, and then it went away. Well, that's what it is. It goes away, but you do physical therapy. I am in physical therapy right now with a young lady who's actually fairly attractive. Ah. But it'd be a little awkward, I think, to ask her out, and she says no, and then we still have to do exercises together. Anyway. That's it? That's your week?

Well, that's enough. We got Ron here. Alright, so listen. I have some stuff I want to ask Ron. Do you have something for Ron? My shoulders are fine, by the way. You've never had frozen shoulders? Never. Never. How did you get it? Well, they don't really know. If you look online, you know, first of all, you never look up anything online

because then they'll be like, well, you know, you have Parkinson's, this is sometimes an early symptom. So now, 10 hours later, I'm still Googling around about Parkinson's. Then I emailed the doctor, hey, I hear this is a Parkinson's symptom. And the nurse practitioner writes me back, don't worry about it. But I'm like, well, that's the nurse practitioner. What does she know? So now I'm still kind of obsessing about it. You don't have Parkinson's.

But I will tell you this. I think doctors are rapidly becoming obsolete. When was the last time anybody went to the doctor with some symptoms and didn't already know exactly what they had? Well, where else are you going to get Oxycontin, though? That's what they do. They hand out. They had in the entire country Oxycontin. And now we've got to figure out how we're going to get everybody off OxyContin.

It's a real problem, actually. Because it feels great. That's what they... You've tried it? Have you tried OxyContin? Yeah. You don't have to be sick to enjoy OxyContin. That's what killed Geraldo was OxyContin.

Yeah. Well, it's killing half the country now. All the red states have OxyContin problems. Was that what they were referring to as white death or something that I've read about? Opiates, yeah. The increased rate of death amongst the white middle class. Opioids, okay.

Hey, you correct me all the time. Anyway, so, but I this has been my latest thing now with all this healthcare talk is that you've got a good computer system, which had proper diagnostic questions and a proper database of all the people in the world, would be far superior to the average doctor.

You know, ask you the questions, get your test results, and it can tell you literally on a graph of probabilities, 5% of the people who have your symptoms have this, 1% have this. Instead of having to go from doctor to doctor to doctor, and finally the third doctor tells you, oh, he knew what I had. No one else knew. A computer would know it on the first thing, right? That's why they're coming up with smart toilets very, very soon, right? And this is not made up.

You take a piss, and the toilet will know very early on, hey, there's a single cancer cell. You know, long before you have to... That's a great idea. But I don't know if I want to know long before, unless, of course, they can do something about it. Well, why wouldn't they be able to do... Whatever they do, if they catch it in time, they tell you.

Like your frozen shoulder, your piss probably would have known a month before that this was coming on. And your bowel movements forget it, Dan. It tells the whole story. Everything is okay. If they can do something about it, great. If otherwise, I don't want to know. The toilet might even tell you to write 15 new minutes. Well, that could be...

I don't need a toilet to tell me that. You were demonstrating what is actually my favorite thing about Ron Bennington. I actually am a huge... Not that I listen to anything on the radio, but every time I've ever heard you, I'm a huge fan of yours. And I feel like you should be famous all over the country. And I know there's nothing I can do to help that. This is the best way is to not to be famous all over the country

and then you're able to talk about whatever you want to, right? You don't aspire to be Howard Stern or something like that? I mean, the thing is, like today on my show, I got to be 30 minutes with Robbie Robertson talking. From the band. From the band, talking music. Nobody comes to me before and says, here's what I want you to ask them.

Nobody worries about it after. The most beautiful thing that you can get is to get paid for what you love to do and not have the management going, Hey, we should be making even more money out of this. You know, it's perfect. I, I, I mean more power to you. I feel like you're an untapped town. You're, you're as quick witted and funny as, as the, as the world famous comedians that I know. I mean, uh, here we've had, we've had a lot of people in, in, in this chair. Um, let me ask you this. You have your finger on the pulse.

What do you attribute the current comedy, I guess, obsession, the national obsession, boom, whatever you want to call it, the mushrooming of comedy, what do you attribute that to? Well, before I would even, I mean, that's looking backwards. Now I'm wondering how much of the bubble we're on because of Netflix. I mean, you know, if you've been around long enough, the thing that ruined the last boom was oversaturation on TV. I never, that was conventional wisdom. I don't know that that's the case. And I think what we've seen now with YouTube

has kind of made that harder to maintain because there's more exposure now than ever. Yeah, but you're able, with YouTube, it's kind of made that harder to maintain because there's more exposure now than ever. Yeah, but you're able, with YouTube, it seems like, okay, if I get obsessed with one comedian, I can follow that person. I think the problem now is Netflix is just special after special. I mean, can you keep up? Nobody can keep up watching these things. I don't even try. No, I can't.

So this might be a problem. But I think what does help a lot is podcasts. The fact that you can follow somebody and go in deeper than you would have ever went years ago. Listen, I'm going to be the first casualty of any dip in the comedy business here. You're scaring the shit out of me. I mean, I got three kids. I have one on the way. Stop it.

See ya. You got one on the way, but nobody stop it. I mean, nobody's buying... And it's second trimester. Nothing I can do about it. Nobody's buying Noam's... When Noam cries, he doesn't cry poverty. He cries upper middle class, and I don't buy that either. I'm not crying poverty, but listen... No, you're crying

upper middle class. You're crying middle class. You're crying like normal people problems. Listen, everybody... This is the problem. And everybody knows you're drowning in it. Everybody, my father used to say, expenses always expand to meet income. Everybody gets used to a certain standard of living and they expand their lifestyle.

Well, your lifestyle's fairly modest. Well, yeah, but, you know, so I'm always worried about the contract. Not only that, the very notion of having to close something, like have business dwindle and have to shut down a room, is so humiliating to me. I literally don't know how I could live through it. Well, that's another issue. But as far

as you have kids that you're worried about sending them to college, no one's buying that. Alright. Anyway, so... Those kids will be fine. The only problem those kids will have is you spoil them too much. So you think that the comedy bubble is coming to a close? Well, I think all the signs are there if you were

playing this game. I mean, the only thing that's different is podcasting. See, I think you're in a better... You say you're first, but I think it's the clubs in the middle of the country that run a bigger risk because they don't have the flow of unbelievable comics that run a bigger risk because they don't have just the flow of unbelievable comics

that come through this club. So, and there are people, to me, I think Todd Barry is very, very interesting. Hey, everybody. He bypasses all the comedy clubs in the middle of the country instead of playing them. He goes out and does his own one-nighter at a different kind of club. More people catch on to that. Well, I'll do Todd Barry one better.

I don't do any clubs. I've restricted my comedy to just one-nighters and corporates. And by the way, that reminds me, I have a cruise next week, so I won't be here, no. Everything you do in your life is dictated by your anxiety. It's not like a career decision you're making. I didn't say it was. Oh, okay.

I mean, Todd Barry is doing it for other reasons, I think. Yes, but I'm saying, for whatever reason, I don't, I mean, I do once in a while, I do a comedy club. You don't like the atmosphere of a comedy club? I don't, I just don't like the whole thing. The multiple shows, the whole weekend, the atmosphere, everything about it. No, for whatever reason, it just triggers something in me. So you want to be in and out of whatever the town is? I'd like to be in and out.

Now, I am doing a cruise ship next week, which is not in and out. That's a whole week. And believe me, I'm anxious about that, too. You should be. And I don't know. So every time I book a cruise ship, my thinking is, I always book it for several months down the road. My thinking is, well, maybe I'll get something between now and then, and I won't have to do it.

You know, I'll get a writing job, or I'll get a big part in the show, you know, or they'll finally commit me. But for one reason or another, you know, I won't have to go. And then, of course, the day comes and I'm all anxious about it. But in any case... I ascribe... No, I've heard you say it. Ascribe?

Ascribe. Whatever. I ascribe... What? Whatever. You ascribe, you ascribe. I ascribe to a theory of golden ages. And I think that a lot of this is dictated...

I think I discussed this with you one time. A lot of this is dictated just by the coincidence of a crop of talent, which happens at a particular time, and they're groundbreaking, and they're fantastic. Like the 60s with the Beatles and the Beach Boys and all that stuff, which at the time, if you said that, you might look silly, but here we are 50 years later, and that music still has such a hold on everybody. You have to say, no, there was something special about it.

And in art, I imagine these periods. And I think that we had that in comedy over the last 10 years with Chappelle and Rock and Louis C.K. and all. In a way that we hadn't, like who were the comedians like that 20 years ago? It wasn't, they weren't at that level 20 years ago. And I think when this generation kind of fades away,

unless people of equal talent and stature replace them, I think that's when it's really going to peter out. Do you think there is a next level coming in? Do you think there's next classes? No. I see a lot of the young people being way ahead of where a lot of people were at

that same age or the same amount of time in the business. I'm trying to think of somebody, Joe Mackey is a perfect example. Somebody I saw, the first time I saw him, I'm like, oh, there's something to that kid. There's something there. And six months later, I'm like,

I don't know if anybody can touch Joe Mackey right now. You know what I mean? It's just amazingly fast how people like him and Sam Morrell. Michelle Wolfe. Michelle Wolfe. Those people are just growing at an unbelievable pace. Actually, you identified three of my favorites.

And I think Joe Mackey is extremely underrated in a way because his material is very, very interesting. I judge a lot of them by certain comedians whose material comes up as a point illustrator in conversation quite often. And Joe Mackey, Joe has like three or four bits that when I'm talking about something, it's like Joe Mackey's bit, you know? The Tom Brady joke comes up at least once a week. Which is the Tom Brady joke? Tom Brady said after the balls are deflated, he says, well, it's not like I'm a member of ISIS. And Mackey says, I would love to be able to get away with something by equating it to... Oh, that's the Hitler, yeah. His swimming pool bit, too, is as good as anything everyone did.

Well, you have water in your yard and you would tell people around the world that have to walk to get drinking water. No, no, no, no, this is not for drinking. It's just water we keep here. We jump into it. Oh, so it's bathing. No, no no no no not at all

and I watched that and I'm like well that's as good maybe as anything Carlin ever did I mean it's that it's that brilliant you know

I'm so happy to hear you say that I really feel that way too go ahead yeah and that was out of nowhere was he at that level you know I mean he went from being

oh he's kind of adorable to Jesus that's really phenomenal question is can these guys master... I mean, what people like Chris Rock have done, first of all, they've mastered a very long form of comedy where they can really do a bit which is 15 minutes long,

and it's very premise-based, sometimes it's interesting, almost philosophical. Mackie has some of that. And the second question is, because a lot of them don't see it this way, a charismatic persona on stage, which a lot of them,

a lot of them reject that. Like they want, Gad Elmala was telling me he doesn't like a lot of the marriage. They sit back leaning on the brick wall and they're not putting themselves forward. Like Chris Rock

is a personality on stage. Chappelle is a personality on stage. Chappelle is a personality on stage. So the question will these guys get that whole package together to be able to come viral? But once again, Noam's making a mistake. I feel it's a mistake.

It's confusing fame with talent. Obviously, Rock, Chappelle, Louis, and many of these others are very famous and very talented. But I think that it is not necessarily the case that they're the most talented because they're the most famous. So you're saying, well, will these younger comics be able to get to their level in terms of charisma, joke-telling, long form, etc.? And that's not the question. The question is, will they become famous

for whatever reason they become famous and be able to hold on to it. Okay. But Noam tends to do this. He tends to just assume that everybody that becomes a sensation is famous. The Pet Rock became a sensation too, I might add, back in the 70s.

And so, by the way, is the... The only implication... The cash-me-outside girl. The glaring implication from what you're saying is that you think at least one of these three is not as talented and doesn't deserve their fame. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying there's a sea of talented people. Some of them break and some of them don't.

And when you break, that, of course, is somewhat self-fulfilling because then you... I mentioned three names based on their talent and their ability. But you're saying, will these other guys be able to have this talent? You're suggesting that that's the key. There's more to it than that. Alright, well in any event,

certainly we suppose somebody will in every generation there's brilliant talents. The question is, will you have this kind of critical mass of all these first-rate comics at the same time doing groundbreaking material and whatever the new, in order to create kind of a national ripple of interest in comedy, which we have now. Maybe, I don't know.

Well, you know, Dan's point could be this, too. It's very rare to make it just on stand-up. The kind of fame that you're talking about, you do need that, whether it's a sitcom, a movie career, or even a variety show of some kind, SNL or something. Then people go to see the person who's on TV. Who's the best example of someone who's made it recently just on stand-up? It's a very rare thing. I mean, it's only happened a couple of times. Sebastian Maniscalco, I guess.

Good call. Bill Burr. Bill Burr, I was going to say Bill Burr. But of course, they're not as big as the aforementioned guys. But Bill Burr sold out the garden. Oh, but we've been joined by Ray Allen. Aruba Ray Allen. He's nothing here, but he's king of comedy on the island of Aruba. That is true. And it's no small thing. He's also quite selfish, but I'll bring

that up in a second. Go ahead. I'm eager to hear about that. Go ahead. Brian Regan is huge from Just Doing Stand-Up. Bill Burr has had a lot of TV exposure over the years, for sure. I mean, being on the radio show, was it Opie and Anthony? That definitely

got him a mass audience. And then he keeps delivering the goods. I mean, he's great. So, he did have a medium other than just stand-up. Regan was just on the Tonight Show, and he's been doing late-night shows for 20 years. If you go back and watch the last one,

even the last time he was on Letterman, he had to win the crowd over. He doesn't get that moment where he walks out and everybody's happy. He has to go out and win that crowd on material every single time. Because if you're not a huge fan of his, you don't know who he is. As opposed to like Louis

who just... Louis could walk out and everybody is going to go crazy or Jerry or Ray Romano. But Brian has to go out and every single time, like the third joke in, you see the television audience go, oh, this guy is really good. He used to kill when he was here. And his brother Dennis

was a great comedian. And still is. Both of them are still killing it. Do you know Ron Bennington? Ron is a radio personality from the Sirius Satellite Radio, I don't know if it's a network,

but whatever it is. I've heard your name many times. It's a Sirius Satellite. Him and his daughter have a show together. Oh, cool. And to be number one

in Aruba. You've got to love that. Here's the thing about Ray Allen Ray is in Aruba, does his show in Aruba I don't know what he's making I don't count money as you know, Noam What are you talking about? Dude, that's a joke

Good lord, Noam, he doesn't get me This is the problem, Ron He doesn't get me Ultimately So you have counted Ray's money I've done a rough calculation of his revenue But I don't know what his expenses are He doesn't get me. Yeah. Ultimately. So you have counted Ray's money. So you do have an idea. I've done a rough calculation of his revenue, but I don't know what his expenses are. What's his revenue?

Whatever it is. You said mine on the air. You play in the same room? Well, I'm sorry? You play the same room in Aruba? Yeah, I set up a club down there. We do about 100 shows a year. Yeah.

Yeah, spread out over. He's making a living. I don't know. A great living, a good living, an okay living, whatever he's doing. It's not comedy, it's other living. It's not, no. But it's whatever. But you're a single man, you know, and you don't have any addictions.

So you don't have expenses. He's addicted. He's women. Women. Yeah, but he gets them for free. He doesn't pay for it. Not in Aruba. In Aruba.

Anyway, so this is what I thought of this today before I knew you were on the show. It actually annoyed me. Why? Because my wife and I were going to go to Aruba. And then she was pregnant. And there's Zika. So I said, we can't go there. There's the rumor of Zika, Ron.

Yeah. The rumor. And he's trying to talk me. He wants me to come there to hang out. He's trying to. No, it's fine. No, it's fine. She can come.

That's ridiculous. And I'm thinking, you're really trying to talk me out of doing the prudent thing, which is to not go to Aruba with my pregnant wife, based on your knowledge of zero knowledge of any fact. I said why don't you come alone for a few days, get away. No, no, first you tried to convince me that. Because there's no Zika there. There's no Zika there. The CDC only says that.

But anyway, here's the big question with Ray Allen. Ray Allen's doing fine in Aruba. If he put more effort into it, he could do even better. But Ray Allen's not happy. Ray Allen wants to be in New York. He wants to make it big. I say just make the money, Ray Allen. Nobody's making it big.

I'm not making it big, and I got the uncle joke. You know, how many times have you been bad uncle? The problem is that there's that feeling, and you can call it a fear or whatever, that if you don't fully fulfill or tap into all your potential, and I know there's a lot of potential I have and a lot of things I want to do that I haven't done, and it's incredibly frustrating, as you know, to not get the opportunity to do certain things you want to do, where acting and this or that or whatever. And a lot of it is luck, and a lot of it is, I don't know.

I don't know what the other thing is. Can't you do both? You go back to Aruba a few times a year? Absolutely. Oh, that is why I keep coming back. That's what he is doing. But I'm telling you, he should put all the chips on that Aruba table. He should go all in.

Balls deep, as we say. Balls deep. Into Aruba and just make the dough. He's telling you to give up your dreams. He's basically telling you you're not going to make it. And you should just go to, right? There's an element of that, I guess. If you thought he was going to make it, you wouldn't tell him to do that.

Well, there may be something to what you're saying, Noam. But if I had an opportunity like that, I think I would seize it. To go to Ruba. So I'm not just saying this because, you know, it's Ray Allen. I mean, just to save Dan a little bit here and to give him the benefit of the doubt, I don't think he's specifically saying, Ray, you aren't going to make it. I think he's saying the mass, the most of us are not going to get to do what we want to do ultimately. So we're surrounded by depressives in this business.

I was feeling pretty good when I walked in. Yeah, you want to go and hit major league hitting. You don't want to be, you know, on the outside. You want to know, can I hit a curveball? Now, because Ron had said before you got here, right, that he's happy in the pocket. Right. Ron is in the pocket right now. Ron is making a nice living and has a nice fan base, but is not a household name from coast to coast.

Right. And he loves it. No, I do love it. Because, but it only happens to be this one situation where I have a booking department that's unbelievable and I get to talk to all the people in my whole life that I ever

want to talk to when I don't have one boss. They go, what are you doing? That's great. You just spent 45 minutes talking to somebody that no one cares about. When you work in terrestrial radio, every goddamn minute, they want to know, did you push this? Did you do that? You know what I mean?

So the job doesn't even exist outside of where I'm at. What is the future of radio, by the way? And I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. Probably in a Tesla and a few other things. I expect very soon, on your dashboard radio, you will be able to access podcasts the same way you can access stations.

Yes. In which case, I think everything, because Sirius has got to be 80%, 90% auto-driven. Yes. In which case, people look in their cars. It's Otto and George. We're still very much about Otto and George. Very few people are listening on there.

I used to have a home thing. So when that happens, you're going to see a huge change in everything. Are they prepared for that? Are you prepared for that? Do you agree with that? They never call me in for those meetings because they do have the car deals and now the phone deals. So they've set up a network of celebrities, you know what I mean, that you can just pick up that package on your phone

and they hope to compete in that way. But I kind of miss the fact of terrestrial radio when you could be, like you're doing in Aruba, you could be the number one guy in Phoenix. You know what I mean? Those days are going to be over. That kind of radio, I'm telling you, is the most fun radio in the world to do

where you bring up the mayor's name and say go over his house and throw trash bags there and people do it. That was the funnest radio you could ever do. The funnest. I always thought, you might not be able to talk about it because I always thought Howard Stern may not be able to talk about it because it's, I always thought

Howard Stern made a mistake going on Sirius because I felt like he traded being basically the most important figure in, like, this is what I thought. He had an audience

of, I don't know, 40 million at the time of people who would listen to him once a week or twice a month, whatever it is. Now he's got this concentrated audience of people who only have serious radio, but that's a very small audience, even though they may listen every day, and now he's not, what's the word for it?

He's not on the pulse of the pop culture anymore. But who is? I mean, look, Johnny Carson used to have 30, 40 million people a night. Jimmy Fallon has 2 or 3 million a night. There is no such thing. There's never going to be another Ed Sullivan. There's never going to be

we all as a country watched the Beatles at the same night and ran out the next day and bought the album. It just doesn't exist anymore for anybody. Of course, you know 10 times more about this than I do. I still feel like he would be a more important, cast a bigger shadow on America

if he was on, you know, 100 terrestrial stations than he does now. Now he probably makes way more money and can say whatever he wants. He makes more money and can say what he wants, and he's not doing 24 minutes of commercials an hour. And it could be that he's just doing what he just enjoys more.

He may not be that he wants to cast a giant shadow anymore. He may just want to interview Billy Joel and Madonna and this and whomever and have in-depth interviews and do what fulfills him. He's a very different guy than he used to be. I mean, he's completely changed. He's trying to kind of be more family friendly. You know, he's not the bad boy than he used to be. I mean, he's completely changed. He's trying to kind of be more family friendly. You know, he's not the bad boy that he used to be. Also, the stress of waiting for that book that now comes out, you know.

Now it's PeopleMeters where you can tell, you know, almost every day. That kind of stuff is a nightmare. When you talk about raising a family and you have to hear all of a sudden we're down a point. So you're like, I don don't know what do I do get rid of the weather girl you just start firing people for no reason it's a nightmare way to live and he doesn't have to deal with the FCC anymore

I think the FCC has kind of calmed down anyway I'm a huge Howard Stern fan well the FCC has calmed down because there's no one doing anything edgy anymore there's nothing there the way there was. I mean, that form of radio is gone. Well, things are so segmented.

I've been infuriating basically every person I know because I'm like, if they want to stop PBS, I don't think anybody's going to miss it. And everybody's going crazy. And I don't say that because I want them to get rid of PBS or I care about the budget or anything like that. I just figure, if PBS didn't exist today, nobody would think to invent it.

Like when I was a kid, when we were kids, if you wanted to watch a Beethoven symphony, you might be able to catch it on a Sunday and it was only on PBS, right? I mean, anything cultural. Now you can go on YouTube and listen to 40 or 50 versions of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. There's nothing out there that's

cultural that you don't have 100 times more of now for free than we used to depend on PBS for. Children's programming, Nickelodeon, Disney Junior, Sprout, they're all the same. And God forbid they should have to sell a commercial. What is the big thing about PBS?

I don't know if you have any feelings about it. You're political. Yeah, I mean, I'm not that political, but I think that NPR and PBS are good for a society. I think it's absolutely good for a society to say, here's culture that you don't have to pay for.

Because we forget that a lot of people don't get exposed to things. I mean, you have to know what Beethoven is before you go and look him up on YouTube. You need somebody. You need somebody to curate any kind of culture. Well, but there's all kinds of YouTube channels that are curated, and YouTube suggests videos.

If you're interested in music, you find these. I don't believe anybody's discovering Beethoven because they happen to channel surf through PBS. I mean, maybe, but you're on a thin read of the vital need of PBS. Are people, now,

in my opinion, I know, listen, I'm a minority of one on this, I'm telling you. How many people are enjoying Beethoven these days? I mean, I don't want to sound like a cretin,

but I can't sit through it. Now, the ode to joy I like, but, you know to sound like a cretin, but I can't sit through it. The Ode to Joy I like, but, you know, there's a couple of melodies. For the same way you could say that we don't need state parks, and people do that kind of stuff all the time. Why do we need a park? Well, there's no substitute for a state park. You can't YouTube a state park experience. But they'll say, why not have a park that let the people who live in that area

decide they want to park or whatever. There's no harm. I'll tell you why. I am not discounting the importance of what it is that PBS offers. I'm saying that it's delivered a thousand times more now for free

and in a million other ways than it ever was back in the 70s and 80s, which we kind of got our perception of PBS that... We'll deliver it right now. There you go. It was 20% of television at the time. And now,

I have two preschool kids or one kindergarten kid. They do not watch PBS. It's just not on our radar anymore. Yes, but they have the means. They have iPads. No, they have YouTube.

Listen, and if you want to make it about money, which really I'm not focusing on the money, I would totally get behind spending real money to make sure that every child has broadband internet access because that's worth a thousand times, 10,000 more times, 10,000 times more than being able to watch Channel 13 for a couple hours.

Well, you want to expose them to porn at a young age? The point is that, I mean, do you know how you, all the educational stuff on YouTube? It's amazing. There's tons. But you don't think that you could... And NPR is a bore. But you don't think that as a parent,

you could find, you could cultivate all that educational stuff on DVDs and on PBS programming without using the Internet? I mean, we did it without the Internet forever. He's saying, but now we have the Internet, it can be used to great effect. I mean, the parents are the ones, your kids aren't picking it themselves, are they? I mean, you're choosing for them what to watch. Well, actually, they have YouTube for kids. And you can set it up for them, and they can then begin to choose their own videos. YouTube curates it for them, and they'll pick it up based on the thumbnails, and my kids will spend a couple hours just on YouTube for kids.

But again, there's a difference between having the means and just having the access. There are initiatives now that are pushing for broadband internet to be offered as a public utility, like water. It's something that everybody needs. But having access to internet is different than having an actual computer in front of you. People pay for water, too. Water's not free. I don't pay for water at the comedy cell.

In New York City, we don't pay for water, but in houses... In a lot of places, they don't. I don't know, but normally when you have a house, you pay for water. I mean, the government doesn't... We want to keep people above poverty, right? But the government doesn't pay for our food, pay for our clothing, pay for our... I mean, we allow people to decide.

You want internet? We don't want internet. I mean, in the case of real poverty, there's a real question. Do you want to give people money and let them decide what they want to use it for? I want to say no. You need to have internet. I mean, I could go either way on that.

I just don't think PBS, anybody's going to miss it if it goes. I don't think there's any chance that it's going to go, but I think we'll be fine without it. Anyway.

I think there's only one TV show that people are watching now and that's Trump. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing how much people watch Trump and my friends are like, do you have this on right now? And I'm like, what is it? What has he done? You know what I mean? It's amazing how much people watch Trump.

And my friends are like, do you have this on right now? And I'm like, what is it? What has he done? You know what I mean? Like, it's the most entertaining thing that we've ever had in years. Ever. You legitimately find it entertaining? Or you mean it's entertaining to the masses? Oh, I don't think you can turn it off.

I don't think. I mean, the fact today, there was like four stories that came out of him. One of them was him saying, I don't think Bill O'Reilly abused any women. You know what I mean, the fact today, there was like four stories that came out of him. One of them was him saying, I don't think Bill O'Reilly abused any women. Do you know what I mean? And he shouldn't have settled. Yeah, he never should have settled. But there was one story today that was even bigger. Apparently, Barry Manilow finally came out of the closet.

Oh, wonderful. Barry Manilow gay? Mandy was a boy? Like Mandy Patinkin? Well, Mandy was not a boy. But Barry, you know... He's ready to take a chance again with Stan. I ran out...

We all knew he was gay, but he finally came out and copped to it. We burned his albums in my neighborhood today. We all ran outside. What if our children heard this? But, you know, I think it's almost, if you look back on it, I think gay culture itself

was better when people were in the closet than when they're completely accepted. What do you mean by that? I mean, if you look back at the 70s, and it was like Bowie and everything that was happening in Velvet Underground, that music, and by the time they're accepted in society, they're making Glee and shows like that. You're saying the art was better when it was produced by people who were repressed sexually? Yes. And I think that's why everybody being

furious about Trump may help the arts. You know what I mean? It makes people edgier. Well, it helped in the 60s. What do you think about Bill O'Reilly? Excuse me. I have to run on the stairs and do a set. I'll be back. Rayon's doing a set. This is unusual. You're not doing emceeing. I'm doing a set.

Did you tell Esther you want to do sets now? No, I said nothing, but I think maybe she heard good things about me. Rayon typically emcees here, Ron, but now he's doing sets. I enjoy hosting immensely. I used to just do sets, and then I just hosted forever, and now I do both.

Go light on the Aruba stuff. You'll lose people. Not too much Aruba. I'll go easy on the Zika. You know, Billy Joel famously settled that plagiarism case for some song. I don't remember what song it was. Piano Man? I don't know what it was.

No, I don't think so. To Say Goodbye to Hollywood? Because that was apparently based on the Ronettes' Be My Little Baby. But anyway, and he said, look, what am I going to do? I just, you know, you have to settle these things. And I think that, you know, if you're Bill O'Reilly, I'm not taking a position on Bill O'Reilly. I'm just saying, if you're Bill O'Reilly and you have to imagine like an Anita Hill type televised trial of someone, you're like, no. It doesn't matter.

I'm just going to settle this. And you mistakenly think I'll be able to bury it, and that's it. And Chris Rock told me at this table, he says, when you get, this is a cousin of that, that when you get divorced, he says, it doesn't matter. When you get divorced, every time you get divorced, 100% of the time, women will accuse you of things you didn't do. He was, you know,

in order to get the settlement. Wow. So knowing all that, I have to say, it could be totally unfair to Bill O'Reilly, you know? Well, I don't know, by the way, that statement by Chris Rock is accurate. Well, did Paul, you think Paul McCartney really beat that one-legged

woman that accused him? No, I'm saying Chris Rock said, according to you, that in every case, when you get a divorce, a woman will accuse you of things you didn't do. I think that statement may or may not be correct. And I'll tell you something else. When Paul McCartney married that woman, her leg was fine. And two years later, she's hopping around. Here's what happened to O'Reilly, which is the roughest thing, is the advertisers are leaving. So it doesn't matter what your ratings are. When the advertisers go, you know someone at Fox News is going, well, how old's O'Reilly?

How long before we get the advertisers back? Is this worth it? They're not thinking anything beyond those kind of numbers. You think there's a chance he might lose his show? Absolutely a chance. If you would have told me that his boss would have been out of Fox, the man who, Roger Ailes, who invented that entire format, I said, no, they'll fight forever for him. They cut him loose.

They cut him loose. The guy who came up with right-wing talk, your shoulder's killing you. It's not killing me. No, no. Ron is commenting for our listeners because I've been stretching exercises. No, I just like to stretch it. It's not killing me. It's just mobility is reduced and I'm

stretching it. You think O'Reilly did it? No, it has no concern for my shoulder. First of all, there's no way to know. You know what I mean? It's like if somebody is being accused of, let's say, being a pedophile, you can't say, oh, I knew the guy for a long time. I never saw him touch a kid.

You get a vibe sometimes, you know. You feel like you pick up a vibe from another man that would be, I don't know, abusive to women. I don't know if I always picked up on that. Not always, but there is something about Bill O'Reilly that makes it believable, you know. Especially the accusations of harsh temper berating, you know. I mean, do guys really?

I mean, it sounds, I just, I mean, I'm an employer. Like, you want to bang the girl working for you and you actually threaten her job? It just seems insane. It just seems... But he's old school. He's like Mad Men age. You know what I mean? Like he was around when you would do stuff like that.

I don't know whether... But you're saying that he wouldn't even get you what you want. Even if that is what you want, that's not how you would go about doing it. Yeah, it just seems crazy. Yeah, it seems like it wouldn't get you what you want and you'd have to be... Maybe he he does, lack of any sophistication to just put that out there like that, knowing everything that you can lose.

I mean, if you have to say that to her, she's probably already signaled she doesn't want to bang you. Like, now you're really going to risk it all? Like, double down and put all your chips on the thing that I'm going to? I mean, it just seems insane to me, but maybe we already have tape of him calling, you know, employees and sounding like he was jerking off and talking about taking showers. Well,

what's wrong with that? Yeah, exactly. No, that, but I, I'm being, I'm,

I'm actually being half serious because that's disgusting behavior, but it's not the same thing as threatening a girl with her job. I'm not condoning it, but you could have a relationship with someone who works for you where you thought that was appropriate. Flirtatious thing going on back and forth. Who knows? I have a question to the table. Do you think it increases the believability the more people that come forward?

Or is that not relevant to you? Yeah, it does. To me, I don't know. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think any of us that have been around long enough has said, oh, now that I look back on it, I was like an asshole back then. Things that I said or how long I kept hitting on a woman.

I don't think there's anyone of my generation who doesn't look back, particularly if you were raised Catholic, where, you know, girls were saying no and you were like, man, it's part Catholic, where girls were saying no, and you were like, man, it's part of the game that they say no. You know? I always took no as no. In fact, I even took

sometimes yes as no. You took yes as no? I once had a girl tell me that she wanted to watch porno, and I was like, you know, the first time I actually ever kissed a girl, she had asked me if we could watch porno, and I was like, you know, the first time I actually ever kissed a girl, she had asked me if we could watch porno, and I said, okay, and then we're watching porno, and I'm thinking to myself, should I make a move?

You know, was that a signal? I think the fact that you're still calling it porno, like it's 1938. Well, what else did we call it? Porn. It was just porn. Oh, okay. Adult erotica. If porno is an out word, I didn't even notice.

The porno came and went, just like Peking. I did not. Beijing, okay. I think adult erotica. If porno is an out word, I didn't even notice. The porno came and went just like Peking. I did not. Beijing, Beijing. I did not do the set because I'm about to go on. You raised back very quickly. But then Amy Schumer came by to do a guest. She's going on before me. Wow.

Well, I think it's great. I enjoy following someone who's very, very well-known. Because I find it, I just get a kick out of it. Are you going to follow her? Yeah, I'm going to follow her. Or is your spot just going to... The other day, I followed Louis. I was supposed to go on and Louis showed up and I went on after him.

You know what? Someone said to me, are you worried? I go, I could care less. I could care less. I think it's great. It generally doesn't... It's fine. It's not hard generally to follow somebody that's famous.

You know what's hard? If somebody does an hour and murders and then you're going up after to do 15 minutes. Amy's going to be disappointed, though, to follow somebody that's famous. You know what's hard? If somebody does an hour and murders, and then you're going up after to do 15 minutes. Amy's going to be disappointed, though, because she was hoping to bump you. She did bump me. No, but she was hoping that, you know... I wouldn't get out at all.

That the time constraints... Well, if Amy wanted Ray off the show, she only has to say, I want Ray off the show. In fact, if Amy said to Noam, I never want to see Ray on the schedule again... Noam would have you killed. Then Ray Allen would never be on... No, he wouldn't have you, I never want to see Ray on the schedule again, then Ray Allen would never be on. No, he wouldn't have you killed, but you'd never be on the schedule again. I have those situations. I mean, I've never had it

quite that baldly put to me, but I've had close to those kind of situations. What do you say to that person? You say, well, listen. If Amy said, I never want to see Ray on the schedule again. That's an easy case.

If Amy said I never want Louis in here again. Yeah, now I have to earn my pay. Now, were you there when she walked up and the audience went crazy? Yes, but you know what? It wasn't the way Sean Donnelly, the funny guy who was hosting, he gave a very low-key intro. So they started to applaud, and then as she walked on stage, they went apeshit. What happened?

As opposed to the initial explosion. A lot of times they're not sure. They don't believe it. You know what happened, actually? The other day, Louie went on, and then at the end of the show, the host told the audience we have another special guest. He just has two Netflix specials out, and people started to get excited. Dave Chappelle.

And people jumped up in the back, and people freaked out. And he said, ah, I'm just kidding. You guys are suckers. And I actually thought it was very mean that he did that. Have you had Jason Zinnemann on your show, The New York Times? We should get him on the— Yeah, you should get him on your other podcast that you do with Hattem.

He writes about comedy, you dummy. Okay. Well, all right. He wrote... Did you read the review? He wrote The Times of Louie's hour special.

No, I didn't. He just wrote the book about Letterman, right? Yeah, he wrote... He writes all things comedy for The New York Times. He wrote a really good review of Louie's hour special.

He praised it highly, but it was a pretty, I thought, well-written review. The review of an intelligent observer. I was impressed with the review. By the way, a quick word just about the Vegas room, if we could, and how that's progressing. Ron, I don't know if you know this.

Yes, I do. Oh, you do know this? But you can tell me anyway. Well, I will tell you anyway, because maybe some of the listeners aren't aware. We've discussed it, but the Comedy Cellar is going to Vegas. It looks that way. I haven't signed anything yet, Dan. But I've taken a bank loan, and I've incorporated, and I have a red-lined agreement.

You know, a red-lined agreement. I'm not sure what a red-lined agreement is. It's a agreement. You're a lawyer, Dan. Well, I do have a law degree, yes. Agreement with changes that go back and forth. You put a red line through them so that people can still refer.

You can read under the lines. You can see what the changes were. To this day, I'm still not sure if I'm doing the right thing. You'll never know until you do it. We'll ask Ron Bennington what his expert opinion is on the Vegas room, the Comedy Cellar Vegas room. Is this going to be a big thing? I don't understand.

You're supplying the comedy, right? Why do you have to take out a loan? Shouldn't the hotel be like, oh, this is great. Thanks for sending us and letting us use this incredible name that's known all over the world. Shit. No. Why is it redlined? Let me take a quick look at it.

The answer is this They tried to shunt me into just a room Like the improv with Harris And I said no, I'm not going to do this Unless I can build a room that looks exactly like the comedy cellar I want brick walls, the whole thing Really a proper comedy cellar And of course they want you to have skin in the game, as they

say, because they want you to be motivated to make it work. So it's typical to want somebody to invest some money. So I'm going to invest a certain amount of money to build the room. But then I have a partner and somebody else involved and they don't have

the money, so we're going to take a partner and somebody else involved, and they don't have the money, so we're going to take a loan, and the club is going to pay them back to buy them their shares of the company, if that makes sense. So that's the reason. And it's not a huge amount of money. If the thing goes bust, it is not going to be a damaging financial situation for me. But again, I'm just so afraid of ever having a flop. I never had a flop.

Well, the great ones all have flops. As you know, Trump's stake didn't work out, and the man is now one of our greatest presidents. Richard Pryor was in one of the Superman movies. Yeah, I mean, after George Lucas' Star Wars, he did Howard the Duck. I understand. And then he did more Star Wars. So I think a flop would be good for you It's like my first B, you know, I got a B in math I remember in 8th grade, and it was a bit of a shock

Because I was getting all As It was the best thing that ever happened to me Took the pressure off Now I can just concentrate on the joy of mathematics And Coppola did that movie with Robin Williams Jack, I was just thinking that So rest assured you will have a flop at some point if you continue to take risks. Why do you want it to look exactly the same?

Why the faux room? That's a good question. I actually hadn't thought about why I want that. I want that because I think it's the best atmosphere for comedy. One of the things I think is underrated about The Cellar and at the Underground, too, is that it really is the best vibe for comedy. The fancy rooms, the hotel banquet hall type rooms, or the rooms where everybody's a little bit too spread out, all those things don't work as well.

I like the classic brick look of it, the intimacy. How many seats? The warm colors. 200 or 250. You know, brick is a very warm thing and lighting, it just all works. And it's our brand at this point. You know, if Smith & Walensky opens in a

casino, it looks like Smith & Walensky. To have a room that doesn't resemble the Comedy Cellar at all would be weird to me. I agree. What is it about brick that you think makes comedy work? I think there is something about natural materials like wood and stone and brick, for whatever reason, for whatever primordial reason, slate,

that never look dated or always somehow soothing aesthetically to people. I think that's just magic. Earth tones, my friend. Earth tones. But I think it's natural to this place where you physically are, and that becomes fake when you take it somewhere else. It's going to be real brick. Yeah.

But I'm saying, like, you go into a place in the middle of the country, and you're like, why did they put up a brick wall? Because the improv did it, you know, in 1962. It's always seemed strange to me. Don't put negative ideas in Noam's head now. It's too late. The brick's already been ordered.

No, no. The thing I love most about this is the brick. No, no. As opposed to Dan, I actually... They're already baking. The bricks are baking

as we speak in a quarry. I like best talking to people who are going to try to puncture my ideas because I want to get it right. But more importantly, Ron, since you're a good sounding board, since the rest of us are just yessing no to death because we want to work in Vegas, and we're hoping he pays us good money to do so. You either yess me to death or you contradict me reflexively, so I have to also discount it as Dan just being difficult. Either way, we have Ron.

He's actually talking from his heart. Good. Now we have someone talking from his heart. Forget the brick. What about the notion of a showcase comedy club in a place like Vegas? Everybody's going to be doing 15 minutes like in New York? Yeah, 15, 20 minutes. It's not a headliner show like you typically have in Las Vegas.

So you're going to have four or five comics. Four comics and an emcee. Are they going to want to be together? I mean, that's a long haul to go. You picked people who are going to be get-aligned. You picked people that won. I said to them secretly. Of course, I said, don't put me with Ray Allen.

But the difference is going to be is you're not going to have Amy Schumer dropping in, right? You're not going to have that. Well, that's a good question. The casino guys, the guys in charge of Caesars Entertainment, they seem to think that we will. They book a lot of big headliners to big arena shows around Vegas, and they think that these guys will, A, want to drop in because they want to practice their set.

He said to me sometimes, it wasn't Seinfeld, let's say Seinfeld is going to do Caesars Palace. He will literally need to get permission to do an LA club the two weeks prior because that's their deal. And he said, what they can do is get them to say, well, no, do the cellar in our

hotel in the meantime. And then we're going to build a little front bar kind of like this as part of the room, and there's always a lot of talent in Vegas, so maybe it'll become some kind of little place where people want to hang out, but I'd say that's 30% chance. But I would say the key is that even if there's not any household name showing up,

that it'll have a reputation going in, and it'll prove to have a reputation that each show is fantastic just based on the comics that are on the show. Our biggest asset competitively is that the other clubs have Have you been to the clubs in Vegas? I mean, they're just terrible. I mean, the Well, they're all headliner shows, too. They're just a different

type of show. The people they're booking as headliners, not all of them, but at least half of them, are C-level comics. I mean, really, like, can't even get a chuckle. I mean, what about the rooms? C-level comics, you mean they come from low-lying areas? Yeah, yeah.

The rooms are, I mean, what's their, Brad Garrett's comedy, it's a pretty nice room. You know, I, that's not a, I don't love the room, but I don't think the room is standing in its way. The room is pretty good, you know. So anyway, Ron, you've heard it. You've heard everything now. What's your verdict?

Oh, I love it now. Seriously, Ron, we don't... No one wants a real answer. Well, I think this is... You know, it's a roll of the dice. There's no doubt about it. I mean, the thing about doing a headliner show is that you know one guy is going to be a Vegas

professional because I don't know whenever you go to Vegas the entertainment and the people's thoughts are completely different you know and a lot of times you can go into a comedy club hear a 24 year old kid talk and you'll be like oh you know I can't identify but what a funny young guy

but when you're in Vegas you're like I'm down seven fucking grand I don't want to hear this kid talking about living with his parents. I'm sending people from here. No, but I understand what Ron's saying. Even if you have a comic from here that's used to perform in New York City and in a Manhattan club, it's a different audience.

Carlin used to get walkouts in Vegas all the time because it was too heavy for them. The audience could be a little older. It's the same thing even in Aruba. There's people there on vacation. You have some people

in their 20s and 30s. You have people 50s, 60s, 70s. Right. And a lot of comics, they need to and some can't adjust their material,

adjust their attitude slightly. And they think, I'm doing what I want to do. It's like, I don't know. These people are on vacation. They want to be entertained.

You don't need to hit them with all your Trump shit. Like cruise ship, cruise ship comics get made fun of all the time but they do the best cruise ship material. Yes, I do want to underline, you don't need to hit them with all your Trump shit. Cruise ship comics get made fun of all the time, but they do the best cruise ship material. I do want to underline that I'm not a cruise ship comic per se, but rather a comic that does cruise ships.

You know what I'm saying. People make fun of Bodax, but they know how to do that place. It's somewhat different, but then again, it could be that if Gnomes Club develops a reputation in Vegas, that among the millions of people that are in Vegas, the ones that really want real, you know, good, edgy comedy will find their way to this new comedy.

You know, I start out with, and this is the way I've done everything that I've ever done. You start out with kind of the basic outline of how you think it's going to go, what your ideas are. And you think it's going to go, what your ideas are, and you do it. And a year later, it always, in certain ways, becomes something much different than what you ever thought. This idea didn't work. This idea happened by accident. I'm sure with your radio show,

like if you look at what you envisioned it as and then what it ended up being is quite different. So I'm going to try it this way in Vegas. Well, I quote the great Mike Tyson, everyone's got a plan until they get hit. No plan survives contact with the enemy. No, his wife said that. So, you know, if I have to go headliner,

I'll go headliner. I mean, whatever I got to do. How much of any reluctance that you have is due to you for the first time having to work with someone else? Do you know what I mean? Like, you're going to be in a casino. They're going to have as much say

as you, at the very least, in the business that you're running. They're not going to have as much say as me. Well, they're going to have a lot of say. It's in their casino. If you're renting out the space, you can have a ticket. We have a deal, and within the parameters of the deal,

I control my own destiny. I do think it's possible that your choice of comics might have to be somewhat different than you would book here because a Vegas audience might prove to be different. Ray Allen has a lot of experience.

I'm going to book Ted Alexandria. He's going to go there and bash Trump for that Vegas audience he's going to kill. Or, you know, you can book comics who certainly work at the cellar,

but you have to book certain people. But you may not be able to book as freely. You'll see. I mean, Ray Allen has some who certainly work at the cellar, but you have to book certain people. But you may not be able to book as freely. You'll see. I mean, Ray Allen has some direct experience with this because he books Aruba, which is a vacation spot with a similar demographic than Vegas would have. I will say, and I've said it before, to me, yeah, of course there's an element to risk this, but I think it is phenomenal. I think it's a no-brain risk, and I think it's going to be a big success.

Listen, I just need an excuse to go to Vegas a couple times a year. Honey, I'm sorry, I got to go. You know, I don't want to. Oh, God, I got to go to Vegas. You talk a mean game, but we all know that you wouldn't dare stray from the straight and narrow path. By the way, I was talking to Ed. Has there ever been a better slogan ever invented than whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? That is the most brilliant slogan ever

because it doesn't actually spell it out. It just hearkens to what everybody is going to Vegas for. I always enjoyed Supermarket to the World, the Archie Daniels Midland. No, whatever happens in Vegas stays. That is, Coke and a smile is good. I have one more question about the Vegas room. Is this interesting to people at home, you think? More than talking about Trump and sex?

Are you kidding how riveting I think this conversation is? No, I mean, really, you don't get it. This is the shit that you can only get. You can only get here at the Comedy Cellar Show. That Trump shit you're doing, you get it anywhere. Noam Dorman always made money for his partners. Whatever. That's from The Godfather.

This shit, the Vegas shit, it's inside shit. Okay, go ahead. Am I right, Ron Bennington? I'm on the edge of my chair right now. I can't believe this is being discussed out loud. Dan's banging cocktail waitresses two-three at a time. Can't get a drink at the table. You straightened my brother out?

If you have a scoop about Trump that nobody else is hitting, then let's do it. You know that Dan starred in The Ascendant of the Godfather and didn't even bother to watch the movie? Go ahead. I have a question related to what Dan said earlier. Dan, you said that the seller is going to have to be more selective about the comics. Well, I don't know. It may prove to be

through experience that not every seller comic is right for the Vegas room. We'll see. Right, right. Trump, Susan Rice committed a crime. Can he shut up? Go ahead. Look, it's no different than if you have, let's say you're having a corporate event at the Underground. Let the man get his question out. No, but the point is... Certain comics are right for that event. Right, so's no different than if you have, let's say you're having a corporate event at the Underground, right? Certain comics are right for that event. Right, so that's my question. What sorts of personalities

and material is going to work better? You're not going to have any black comics. That has to stop right now. Because people in Vegas go, why is there a black guy on stage? They won't be able to understand it. That sounds awesome. You're pulling legs. Well, the answer to your question is, we'll see. It may be that every comic does great.

I know exactly who to put on that show, but I'll tell you off the air. Greer Barnes will kill anywhere. Greer Barnes. Anywhere. Can't follow that guy. You can't follow Greer Barnes. Well, you can follow anybody. You can follow a good act. It's the easiest act to follow. And Dan offered Leonard

Oates $100,000 for his career. What does that have to do with Vegas? You obviously think he's quite commercial. Well, I think he's incredibly. He's adorable. He's going to be wildly successful. He's great. I had him in Aruba.

All he talked about was wanting to go jet skiing and snorkeling. And the only reason I can tell this is because he talks about it on stage now. But we went jet skiing. He's a heavyset fellow. And we went out. I mean, he went 10 feet and the jet ski was toppled over. I felt so bad at the time. And snorkeling, we

walked into the water and he just kind of stood there with a tube in his mouth. We didn't really go under. I have to run down to everyone's stage. We're wrapping up. Do you actually think there's a problem with black comics in middle America? You don't think so? No. They do very, very well wherever you go. They certainly do well on... Now, it may be that the audience doesn't want them to marry their daughters,

but that has nothing to do with... But they're good for entertainment purposes. What's that? I mean, even the most diehard racist enjoys a black entertainer. I agree. I'm just curious if there was a grain of seriousness to what Ron was saying or he was just making a joke. Just the opposite when you go out in the world.

Do you think that if I have a show which has only black comics on it, that that would turn off a white audience? You know, what it does is all of a sudden they call it a black room. And because I had a club in Florida and people get offended if you say that, but the

audience does go, oh, I didn't know this was a black room. It just happens with people. Yeah, I agree with you. There is a phenomenon. It's not really black and white. It could be Korean, Hasidic, Jewish.

Whatever it is. Yeah, when an all-woman show might be like, well, this is a chick show. And yet, if you have four white guys on, no one's going to go, oh, I see, white show. Well, but there is a legitimate reason for that. And I actually had this experience with music when I ended up having an all-black band, and nobody perceived it as a black show. It's because usually when you have, you can have four black comics all doing black-centric material. And that's one vibe.

You have four comics doing just material about family or whatever it is. I think that comes across differently. White guys don't usually talk too much about their ethnicity and all that, so it just seems more generic. And women, I don't know. Danish-American can't get a cab in this town.

The subject matter, I think, dictates it, too. Although, if you had four Hasidic Jews never mentioning they were Hasidic Jews, it would still feel like a Hasidic show. By the way, if they wanted to bring in 10 million Hasidic Jews and people complained about it, do you think that would be anti-Semitic? Absolutely, it would be considered that. I don't think it would be anti-Semitic. Anyway, we have to wrap it up now. Dan, do you have anything else? Well, I won't be here next week.

I mentioned that just to... Where are you going to be? I'm going to be at Seaman. I'm going to be on a ship. Who's our guest next week? Jonathan Solomon. Who's Jonathan Solomon? He was a mainstay down here for...

I'm not overwhelmed with grief that I'm missing Jonathan Solomon. Had you said, believe it or not, we got Sara Bareilles, then I might have to cancel the cruise. Ron, I'm a huge fan of yours. Thank you. And I feel like you probably came down here just as a gesture of goodwill. You probably don't want to do this. And I appreciate it very much.

I'm sorry I was late. I'll be here next week. Are you going to show down here? Yeah, no, I'll be with you here to fill in for Dan. Oh, that'd be awesome don't do too good a job my shoulder's starting to ache a little bit it's contagious

alright goodnight everybody thank you