The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Sugar Sammy

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

International and multilingual comedian Sugar Sammy is also a judge on France’s version of the hit show America’s Got Talent. He

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Okay. Okay, this is Live from the Table, the official podcast of New York's world-famous comedy seller comedy club coming at you on SiriusXM 99, Raw Dog and the Ridecast Podcast Network. This is Dan Matterman, and I'm here with Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous

comedy cellar. He is coming to us from the great state of Maine, where he's on vacation. Imperial Ashen Brand is in Westchester somewhere. And we have with us Sugar Sammy, who we've been, I think, trying to get

for a while, so we're glad he's here. One of the hottest comedians on the international circuit. He has performed in 32 countries in English, French, Hindu, and Punjabi. He's, what is that word, quadrilingual? I don't even know. And he's one of the four judges on the French version of America's Got Talent, which is called La France a incroyable talent. My accent is terrible,

Sammy. And a coach on a spinoff show, Le Bataille du Jury. And he's been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, GQ France,

declared the funniest man in France is a Quebecer, according to GQ. He is from Quebec, from Montreal. Are you coming? Sammy, where are you now? Are you in France, is a Quebecer, according to GQ. He is from Quebec, from Montreal. Are you coming? Sammy, where are you now? Are you in France or Montreal?

I'm in Montreal. So I've been here since March 15th, quarantining. We had to flee France. We had to leave France in a big hurry before they shut down all the borders to come here. So you were living in france prior to this yeah we we actually ran into each other in france um it's sebastian marx's night comedy show exactly and if people aren't uh

people aren't familiar dan actually does stand up in paris and i think you've done it in french as well right i have done it in french My bilingualism is not as impressive as yours. You're a native level speaker, essentially, in English and French. Is that fair to say? Yeah, but for an American, you're pretty stellar. For an American, I'm the best. But, you know, in that limited discipline, as far as I know, a bilingual stand up in French and English.

How is your French so good, Dan, but your accent so bad? Well, it's an interesting question. Accents are very tricky after a certain age. Very, very difficult. You look at Henry Kissinger who speaks perfect English. But he talks like this. And Arnold Schwarzenegger who still talks

like this. You know, whatever he does. So, and these are people that have been living here for decades. So obviously mine is not going to be any better than those people. So where did you pick up your French? Well, I didn't pick it up. Well, I learned it. I mean, pick it up makes it sound like I just kind of absorbed it.

I learned it through hard work over the past 15 years. But don't be too impressed. It's mostly because I have nothing else going on. I don't have a family. My career is lackluster. So there's time to learn. Dan, I find Perrielle's weird way of speaking a lot less explicable than your French accent. Go ahead.

Perrielle's what more less explicable? Your weird way of speaking is a lot less understandable to me, explicable to me than Dan's accent in French. What's my weird way of speaking? No native-born speaker talks like you. Well, I think Perrielle, her voice is similar to a lot of women in her demographic, but in any case. What's her demographic?

Well, you know, a Jew broad from Westchester. I resent that. I'm actually a Jew broad from Queens. Okay, fair enough. Sammy, you can't say that. You're not Jewish. He can say it. Well, he's intersectional. I don't know if I can say it. I can think it, but I don't. He can say it. Well, he's intersectional.

I don't know if I can say it. I can think it, but I don't think I can say it. You can say it right off. Sammy, you're Indian, is that correct? A Hindu Indian? That's right, that's right. Not Indian of the north, not Indian from the south, like Kamala Harris's mom's side. Well, we'll get to Kamala.

Yeah. But you also speak... Kamala. Kamala Harris's mom's side. Well, we'll get to Kamala. Yeah. But you also speak- Kamala, that is correct. I'm sorry. Kamala Harris. Noam has some very strong opinions about her, but we'll get to that. He can't say those, but he can think them.

I'll say them. You can say them. They're not ethnically related. They're related to her competence and to her record as a prosecutor. But you're also, you do comedy in Hindu and Punjabi. Hindi. Hindi and Punjabi.

But your Hindi, I'm going to take a guess here and say that it's not quite at the level of your French and your English. My French and English, I think I get to practice more often. But my Punjabi, I speak every day with my parents. So I grew up speaking Punjabi so I would say Hindi is where I'm the most rusty right now but as soon as I get back into if I start touring India or if I do any Indian shows I pick you know it starts coming back but if you're if your Hindi is limited to your parents then necessarily you know you're not going to be able to I would imagine unless you talk to your parents like you talk to your friends, but I doubt that you do,

there's going to be a lot of vocabulary that you don't have. To me, the Hindi equivalent of I was chilling with my friends, I was chilling with my boys, you might not be able to say in Hindi because you don't talk that way with your parents. No, but you're able to still adjust. You're able to adjust when when you got to speak to someone in the corporate world as opposed to you know someone someone you know a close friend of yours

or someone at the end but you speak hindi with close friends or is it limited to parents and family uh parents and family for now but when i start you know when i start uh touring uh you know in india or whenever I do the Indian shows, then it comes back very quickly and I'm able to adjust. Between your English and your French, is there any difference in level or it's both equally as perfect? I think it depends on the time. So what happens is if I'll be in an English environment for a long time,

then my English gets better and my French drops off. And then as soon as I go back to France, I'll start touring Quebec, you know, after a couple of weeks, like I'll start getting my French back, you know? So it's, it depends on, on which environment, because it's a full immersion, right? So you're thinking in that language all the time. So it takes a while for your brain to adjust. It's like Dan's bisexuality.

Yeah. Well, in any case. Some people that are bilingual, like Mike Ward was telling me that he is, you know, Mike, he's a bilingual comic in Quebec as well. Yeah. saying this is that he his english is not quite as good or as um as rich as a unilingual english speaker and his french is not quite as rich as a unilingual french speaker by the way he might not have said that somebody somebody told me that um but i've read that you know like in other words like i'm you know all these unilingual english speakers, you know, even though they're unilingual, they have a vast reservoir to choose from. They can speak English like a southerner, like an English person from England. They can speak hip-hop, ebonic.

There's all kinds of different ways of speaking English. It's a very rich tapestry that somebody that's bilingual might not have had the time to develop all that I don't know if there's any truth to that well I think uh what happens is sometimes like if I'll be like let's say touring the states I'll just be chatting with someone the word you know one word might come to me in French first and I'll have to translate it because I just got there but you know after like six seven weeks of touring then it's like I don't even think about speaking French and the same thing when I'm in France or even when I'm in Quebec because the French or you know the French is different language is different in Quebec than it is in France so like I'll have to adjust when I get there and then sometimes yeah you're right when you're bilingual

or trilingual quadrilingual a word will come to you in a different language you know when in the middle of a sentence you don't have to like work hard to find the equivalent word. So, yeah, whereas a unilingual person has no choice. They only know that word in one language. But a unilingual person is also like just there's so much like, you know, would you know how to like would you know like that groovy is old fashioned? And would you like, if you wanted to talk like somebody from Shakespeare's time,

could you do that? Could you imitate Elizabethan English? I mean, there's just so many things that, that the unilingual comedian has access to. And I wonder if he was a bilingual comedian, have access to all those sorts of things. Or if you wanted to imitate an Englishman,

would you say it was a bit dodgy. I was in the lift, you know, with my mate. I, and, and you'd be it was a bit dodgy. I was in the lift, you know, with my mate. And you'd be able to do that as well. Yeah. I mean, I think you could. I've toured the UK, so I was able to pick that up, you know.

So it's all about immersion. It depends on where you're immersed, you know. Okay. I was trying to tear you down a little bit. I was trying to knock you down to size a little bit, you know. Yeah. Because the adaptation isn't necessarily a linguistic one. It's a

cultural one, more than anything. Now, getting into that, I'm going to try to get to a topic. This is not interesting to know him, but I'll try to get in. It is interesting. I'm enjoying the conversation. He's zoning out right now. No, I'm listening. I don't know. What can I offer

about bilingual comedy? I'm just listening. Now, do you bring the Indian don't know. I'm hooking out for about bilingual comedy. I'm just listening. Now, do you bring the Indian? So you're a Canadian Indian or an Indian Canadian? I don't know if you do that in Canada. Do you have those hyphens that we have here? Here we'll say an American. Well, we wouldn't say an American Indian because that's First Nations, which you call First Nations. We would say an Indian American. Would you say an Indian Canadian? I guess so. I mean, I don't just walk around a denim and find myself that way. But yeah, I guess if you had to, you could. If someone had to put out an APB on me, yeah,

I'd be an Indo-Canadian running around the streets. Well, do you hear in America, as you know, we're obsessed with this sort of thing. And of course, Kamala Harris was just, you know, she was just the VP pick for Biden. And many people are focusing on her ethnicity. And this will be the first woman of color, the first Indian, the first African American woman. So it's a big thing here. Is it like in Canada, do you find the Indian experience as you've been in America, you find it different

there? Growing up Indian, would you say it's different? Yeah, it depends on which part of Canada you grow up in. I mean, like, you know, like if you grow up in Toronto, Ontario, it's a different experience than if you grow up in Quebec City, you know. But yeah, I think mostly, you know, in Canada, that kind of thing is kind of encouraged and, you know, they're very welcoming and it's almost like, you know, get to know your neighbor, embrace every culture and, you know, make it a part of your every day to embrace these differences rather than have them divide you, you know, so I think that's one of those things Canada stands for. You know, I think you kind of see that with Justin Trudeau and his international image.

It's pretty powerful out there, you know, I think, and it speaks for itself. So, so you, you're happy and you, you don't, a lot of Canadian comics, I know they're trying to get their American citizenship or they're trying to get a green card. You're not in that category or are you? I mean, I'm not, I have a work visa for the States. So when I tour the States, I don't just show up illegally, you know? Uh, but, uh,

but, um, but yeah, I mean, for me, it's like, you know, why only limit yourself to the,

to the U S. So I always think to myself, you know, open yourself up to the world. So I always, you know, make it a point to tour as many countries as I can and, and,

and broaden my horizons and make sure that I can, instead of just having the U S having, you know, a way more, um, broad view of the world internationally. I mean, and I think that's what's happening anyways. You see what Netflix are signing specials from Mexico, from India, from Brazil. And, you know, there's going to start,

they're starting to become that like international voice that you're starting to see, that international. And people have an appetite to learn from other cultures as well and learn from those things. And I actually have that appetite to actually go into different cultures and see if I can connect different countries, you know? So the more the merrier for me.

There's still a sense among a lot of comics that America is still the Mecca of standup comedy and that, you know, and that it's a place where you, if you're a comic, you want to come here and you want to do comedy here for the prestige value. Yeah, no, I love it. It's definitely one of my favorite places to tour. But I still tour Canada, the UK, Australia, India, France. I'm spending a lot of time in France.

So I mean, to to me it's like it's one amongst many but I love touring the states, one of my favorite places for sure and you know it's a different every circuit is different in the US it's very comedy club based then you move on to theaters

where sometimes in places like France it's like you know you prepare your one man show and then you're out doing theaters all of a sudden. And you start from a small theater and you move to a big theater. Can I ask you a question? What was it? Why did you refer to the difference between Northern India and Southern India? Explain that.

Like if, you know, if somebody would say, oh, so-and-so is also from America, I don't know if I'd like to say, oh, they come from that southern part of America. So what's the difference that you're bringing out there between north and south? Well, because they spoke about Kamala Harris and they said that she was Tamil from the south. So that was just a fact. I'm Punjabi from the north.

So it's kind of like England does that. The northernersners the southerners there's london there's newcastle um and i guess you guys have that too where people say hey i'm from new york or hey i'm from the midwest or hey i'm a california girl or you know so i think it's just a characteristic not it's not anything uh that's uh you know uh i don't think he meant it as a value statement no i mean I'm not buying it at all I know he didn't I don't know what region

considers themselves more prestigious necessarily there are stereotypes about southerners in the United States that are negative I mean India has one of the biggest caste systems in the world still I think that

places like Rajasthan and like all of that, I think, are considered a little bit, I don't know, snootier than places like Kerala or Goa. Am I wrong? Well, it depends. I guess whichever place you're from is the most prestigious to you, right?

It's always that way. Are you accusing him of being a part of the caste system? No, I'm merely pointing out that your question actually does have some validity. I mean, I would say that the North in most places of the world have those connotations, whether or not they're accurate, including in America, right? I mean, the North is a little bit snottier than the South. We look down on them. We think that, you know, New York. For some reason, North, like the South Bronx is, you know, for some reason the South, I don't know why.

I mean, I'm not saying it's accurate. Don't scramble. Why is it there's no rational reason that the South, that Southern things are better? No, in England, it's the opposite. In England, it's the opposite. The South is more prestigious, and the North, those are the hillbillies. That's right.

That's kind of a counterexample. But I do think, for some reason, there does seem to be a lot of, in the world, like Northern Italy and Southern Italy. Exactly. You know, I mean, I don't know if i examined all the regions of the world whether northern is usually more prestigious than southern but it does seem that there's a pattern i maybe not not below the equator it translates into all kinds of things i mean remember even hip-hop had east side west side going on comics don't do that, though.

Is there a rivalry between, there is a rivalry between L.A. and New York comics, right? Well, I wouldn't say so much a rivalry. There's a snobbery amongst New York comics that we're smarter and better. Well, that exists, and that's based on the fact that L.A. We're smarter and better. Well, New York in general is perceived as a smarter city than LA. You know, we're a serious city. There's lots going on here. We got banking.

We got technology. We have media. They're prettier, though. They're pretty. You know what? I know people say that. I'm not so sure that's true. I don't know if I'd put New York comics on TV.

LA comics are beautiful. and new york comics and la comics are often the same people i mean ray romano was a new york comic until he moved to la and he hasn't been back in 20 years or more since his show a seinfeld where there's nothing more new york than seinfeld well actually he lives here now but for a while he was in la because that's what tv is or was rogan was in new york wasn't he what was wasn't rogan in new york years ago joe rogan i'm not sure but it could be so i mean yeah it's often the same people we that go out to la and become tv tv stars sometimes but um but the scent the perception is is that la is not serious stand-up la people go to la just to be on tv people in new york are here because they love stand-up they want to

do stand-ups yeah that's the perception of la i don't know what's that well the la comics just go there too and people in la get on stage it's almost like an audition for a pilot yeah that's the perception anyway i think there's a lot of truth to that. Because why would you... What's that? I thought they think the irony is that everybody wants to be on TV or most people who are in this industry want to be on TV in some capacity. Less so, but yeah, I think so. But yeah, I think so, you know, but, but, um, yeah, so, so, you know, um, but yet, um,

there are comics that, that are on TV, but they still live here, and they go out there when they need to for television, so maybe that's the difference, you know, like Chris Rock lives here, he lives in Jersey, but he goes to LA when he needs to be there. Chappelle lives in Ohio, so I don't know. He's right there. He's neither west nor east. But in any case...

You host the America's Got Talent of France. I'm one of the judges, yeah. I'm one of the judges. I'm one of the judges. You're from Quebec, so i why did they pick you i go well you know in the american version we have we have people from england so i guess that's similar uh well i was you know when i was there i was starting to tour uh france and then you know my my live tour started to get some traction and got bigger and bigger and then

you know once i became sort of a name there they were like okay well we're looking for a judge do you want to do it you know we had a few interviews for a couple months and then that was it so who else do you have probably nobody we would know maybe I don't know them but there's uh who's like uh a singer um we have Marianne James. So we have two singers. And then we have Eric Antoine who's like this magician comedian as well.

So the four of us are the judges there. And it's the same format as the American show, I guess. Yeah, it's exactly the same format. It's one of the biggest

formats in the world. I didn't know that. I think it is the biggest format in the world. They have them in almost every country. Yeah. I'm an alumni

of America's Got Talent. Yeah. I was on there back in January for what's called the Champions, where they bring people back from previous seasons and then Simon Cowell proceeded to give me an X.

I don't know if you saw that or you knew that i didn't know that yes he gave thankfully toward the end of my performance now recently he broke his back on an electric bicycle and so you might be wondering whether i get some satisfaction out of that but the truth is i feel bad for the for the guy i get i don, I don't, I don't know if I feel bad for him. I mean, he said, how can you not feel bad for me? Broke his back, Dan,

what the fuck's the matter with you? How bad is it to break your back? I know breaking your neck is really bad. He's hurt. Why wouldn't you feel bad for him? He gave him a neck. I feel bad, but the question is how bad?

Yeah. You feel bad, but not too bad. So, so I mean, he will recover. I gather. I,

again, I don't know how serious it is to break your back. It does sound awful. You'll recover from your ex. But the first time you went there, you killed it. I remember that. That was like those big years. That was the five years.

Yeah, I killed it, and then I didn't kill it. I killed it, and then I stopped killing it at a certain point. But you also then really sort of put him in his place in a very major way. Yeah, I did. I did. But it didn't, ultimately, it didn't do me much good. I thought, I said to him, Sammy, you don't know your ass from your elbow when it comes to comedy.

Nice. He said it in a way that got a lot of laughs and people enjoyed it. And I thought it was fun. He liked it. And Simon enjoyed it. I thought it would at least, it would go viral. But the truth is, it hasn't. You know, it's got like 200,000 whatever on YouTube.

It's not viral it it didn't really help me out the truth is doing doing doing the champions in retrospect if i had to do it again i probably wouldn't do it again but but um you know i it's it's like everything you said that about all your sexual experiences too no no no no i don't most did they filter your material at all? Did they tell you you can't do this and watch out for that? Yeah, they did. For example, I had a joke about fat people.

Not even fat women. Fat women, I avoid talking about fat women. Because they're not people, right? Because they're not people. To call a woman fat is so harsh and so devastating. No, because you said I have a joke about fat people, but not women. Oh, okay. I didn't even put that together.

Yeah, I have a joke about fat men. I have a joke about a fat guy. I have a joke about a fat guy checking into a hotel where there's a fitness center. And the guy ahead of him, they say, oh, we have a fitness center on the second floor. And then the fat guy goes up goes up and he says okay uh well here's your key and that's all you need to know but so in other words they don't tell the fat guy about the fitness center right um that's a summary of the joke but in any case they said you couldn't do that because it's it's it's mean to fat folk now what's the world come to you can't you make fun of fat people you know so so they did they did um censor me uh with regard to that joke and um there probably were some other things they censored me with but um yeah they so the answer

is they do but how how far in advance did they make you did they give you the warning that you had to do that wasn't like right before you went on oh i went in there with like was jokes and they said okay you can do this joke this joke but you said, okay, you can do this joke, this joke, but you can't do this joke. You do this joke and this joke. But a couple weeks before that day? Yeah, I think it was a week before. But then there's some last-minute changes, too, where they rethink it. Like, you know what? We're not thrilled about that joke.

But that's not an issue. I mean, my jokes, I can mix and match and sub in and sub out. I don't really have to practice them. They're all practice. So if they at the last minute say you can't do this joke, but you can do this joke, that's not an issue. I mean, my jokes, I can mix and match and sub in and sub out. I don't really have to practice them. They're all practiced. So if they at the last minute say you can't do this joke, but you can do this joke, that's not a big deal.

I don't find it to be a big deal, you know, but, but they do do that, you know. Didn't they also tell you you couldn't do the joke about your cousin?

No, I did that one. My cousin Sheila, didn't I do that one? I think I did. I think I did. About my cousin Sheila, about having sex with my cousin Sheila. Or not having sex with her, but she comes over for sex. I'm pretty sure

I did that one. Can I ask Sammy a question? Go ahead. That's what he's here for, to be asked questions. We're experiencing, at least in the Western world, an explosion of color consciousness. And I'm wondering, would you say that being a person of color in 2020 is helpful to you, a hindrance to you, or does it matter either way? To me, it doesn't matter. I mean, look, I just do my thing on stage

and you know a lot of people say is it tougher to be a comic today I think it makes you a better writer to have a few obstacles I think it forces you to write material even like face topics you're not supposed to but you know figuring out your way in and how to get away with it and how to make it smooth so that it can it can work so that it's palpable. That's, I think the biggest, the toughest thing, but I think it's actually a challenge. It's pretty fun to do. So you're always like, okay, I want to talk about this. I know people might get mad now. How do I do this? You know, and get away with it. I think it makes it kind of fun. Like that's, that's to me, it's a, it's a bigger challenge, you know,

and you know, our favorite comics, if you look at the ones that we've always celebrated are the ones who pissed a few people off, you know, back in the day, the people we always say we loved, you know, like the,

the priors and the Lenny Bruce's, et cetera. Those are the ones we always named. So why are we trying to do that with our comedians now? But you know, one thing is when a comedian is like, when you're, you know, time and distance a comedian is like when you're you know time and distance makes it palpable meaning like Lenny Bruce right now you can see it as wow that was

great but you know in his time he got arrested you know and you know if you look at like Ricky Gervais doing something in England you're like wow that was amazing or doing something you know getting away with it and some people getting pissed off because it's somewhere else. But when it happens in front of you, I think it's sometimes it's a little more of a shock. But I think it's, you know, every comedian in every decade had their challenges. And I think, you know, we're not without them. And you have to almost embrace them and say, okay, now let's try to figure our way in. And I think that's kind of our job as well, you know. Noam and I talk about that all the time, is whether or not it's worse today insofar as

things you cannot say and the fear of getting canceled because you say something wrong. And I think the answer is it's worse today because of social media but i'm not sure i'm not sure people are less tolerant in general but social media is rendered has rendered things more difficult that's fine yeah it's also got to be up to you like how much do you care you know like how much do you care about that and how much do you say to yourself I don't care I'm gonna do it anyways you know like for me I definitely you know go into topics of race you know sexuality politics and I face it and I'm like look if something happens it happens and you know at the same time I want to be able to do what I do and my fan base loves it um you know I think stand-up is that place where you know we're the ones who are supposed to address those things first we're the ones we're supposed to address those things first

because you never have committees filtering you don't have to pass it by you know uh what's it called the fcc in uh in uh yeah yeah so you don't have to go through the network you don't have to go through it you just you on stage right so for me i've always had that point of view and i've always said you know how now like because people are getting a little madder about it i've got to write the material's got to be better i don't think people are demanding with what you say it's how good the material is how good the joke is how intelligent the joke is i think they're more demanding with the level of material you got got to bring. I think that's good.

I think it's a good thing. Yeah, well, I mean, you have more latitude because you're a person of color. Like Dan pretty much can't make jokes about race anymore. But you're Jewish, though. We don't count as far as that's concerned. We're not considered oppressed. And we're not oppressed, is a general matter.

You should argue that. That should be the top of your set, should argue about how you're just as oppressed as the rest of us. And then you can get away with it. Well, I could make that argument. I don't know if it would convince anybody. You got to figure it out, Dan.

You got to figure it out. I think that's the key. But that's not really my my as a comedian i don't you know and maybe i should and maybe this is the reason i i bought a bigger act is i i don't push those boundaries i talk about my sheila i talk about the you know i don't talk about these weighty issues i generally used to have a joke how you'd sell a brother out for some pussy. I still do that joke. That's not, that's, that's not,

that's not really tackling any racial issues. That's just saying, look, I'm not a racist, but if a hot chick is racist, I'll get with her, you know, and I'll pretend to be a racist, but I'm not really challenging it. I'm not going up there and saying, you know, cop, like I wouldn't even touch within a hundred miles on state, even though we touch it here on the podcast, the statistics about police brutality and, and no one brought up on a previous episode that actually there is some

evidence to suggest that police do not kill black men disproportionately. I didn't bring that up. That was somebody else. In any way it's been brought up. Whether it's true or not, I'd have to research the statistics, but it's something I wouldn't touch with a 100-foot pole on stage. That's the kind of shit that I'd be afraid to talk about

because I don't think the audience would tolerate it. We've been moving backwards, Dan. There was a time, not that long ago, where we were kind of at a place where you could really talk about anything. There was a time when really there was no holds barred. And maybe we're just returning back to a historical norm,

but it's bad now. It'll come back. I think the pendulum always swings back, right? So I think we've been through political correctness, political correctness in the 90s as well. I remember in the 90s, the early 90s was a big thing, you know? I remember coming out of high school and everybody's like, oh, you got to watch it.

You have to be politically correct. That's when I learned the term. So I think, you know, you always have those waves of, like, times where you can say anything and times where people are a little more sensitive and they'll get tired of this shit eventually i mean there's still some white straight male white comics that say whatever the fuck they want and totally get away with it and are really well but who for example but they and they and i mean at the sort of most nick napoleon might maybe one example I mean at the sort of most Nick DiPaolo

might be one example Bill Burr Chris DiStefano I'm not sure they're saying but first of all I don't watch their acts but I don't know what they're saying but I don't know if they're saying anything quite as

and maybe they're not saying it because they don't believe it but I think there's certain they're saying anything quite as, and maybe they're not saying it because they don't believe it, but I think there's certain topics they would be hesitant to, to, to address, you know, I'm just saying, I'm not intimately familiar with their acts.

I mean, there's a, there's a, there's a sad reality. I, I really think it is sad of something that's changed forever, which is the past used to be the past in every way. People didn't walk around with recording equipment. They didn't have the ability to memorialize something. A newspaper went in the garbage and then it faded away. A news

story went on. Whatever and so whatever happened you insulted somebody whatever it is within 24 to 48 hours you'd have to do a lot of work even to be able to to to bring it up again to find it to document it go to the library get microfiche or something so it just now i mean we're all paranoid about somebody having their cell phone recording in their pocket. There's somebody at the next table recording us. I recently had some just conversations in my house where people got scared that, well, what if somebody might be recording? You know, just like just and, you know, just like people are just paranoid. People would, you know, work in and where um politically incorrect things could get

them in trouble and there's no going back to that it's only going to get worse your eyeglasses are going to have right you know that that's a function of technology not of basic human nature but i mean the basic human nature is less tolerant of other ideas now right but i'm saying so in the 90s we may have had a a period where a period where political correctness was a concern, but it was fleeting. Like, even if you violated it, nothing could happen to you. Right, right, right. The memory of what you even said faded away. You couldn't prove what you said. I didn't say that. Yes, you did. All right, whatever. I thought that's what you said. Now it's like, no, here it is. And by the way, it's all over Twitter and the whole

country knows about it. I mean, just think about that too. If you have something that's bad on somebody, you could distribute it to the entire planet Earth instantly. And it does go to the entire planet Earth. You couldn't do that. Yeah. I mean, I remember the first

examples of that. That's a good point. The first examples of that were like Justine Sacco. Remember Justine Sacco, that girl who tweeted she was going to South Africa and she's like, I hope I don't get AIDS. Oh, just kidding. I'm white. And then she tweeted it and then took a plane from London. And 10 hours later, like the tweet went viral. She was all over the news and got fired it's a big it's like a big almost cautionary tale it was like a mini documentary about her so that happened like that was like 10 years ago that was like and that's and that's totally a joke a comedian would have told on stage right back in those days totally a comedian that would have been like an outrageous joke that somebody would tell right and everybody go oh and now nobody would you know but they would take it as a joke yeah she lost everything i think they took away like they took away everything she got fired by the time she landed it's and there's a hashtag going on has justine landed yet and

her phone blew up it was crazy i'd forgotten about that that's a good one of those stories i've forgotten about that another Another one was Michael Richards. Yeah. Michael Richards. Michael Richards. Go ahead. Go ahead. I had a question. Even Michael Richards,

which, let's see, that was before cell phone, but it went everywhere because he was such a big star at the time. It was right after Seinfeld ended but even him that night or two nights later he went on the david letterman show to talk about it you know he wasn't actually canceled and um now when something similar there was something similar that happened uh with jimmy kimmel and everybody started crying who Who was it?

It was supposed to go. Oh, Norm MacDonald had said some things forgiving of Louis CK or something. Right. He got in trouble and then they canceled his appearance on the Fallon show or the Kimmel show before it went on. Yeah. Yeah.

A lot of it is, is, and we were talking about this on a last week with, I forgot his name. Jason. Was it Jason? Justin. Justin, I'm sorry.

A lot of it is because people get scared. So if the network executives and the film executives and the comedy club owners get scared, they might overreact. So, you know, Noam could have very easily back in the louis ck scandal era said louis you can't work here anymore but he didn't do that and when louis came we found out that the audience was happy to see him in general except for one or two exceptions but pardon is it an american i don't know you can ask her canadian and resident i that's i i'm asking i'm sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you dan no i haven't seen much of that in Canada in terms

of like what you say on stage I mean people have been cancelled for stuff they've done off stage like for behavior for sure for sexual harassment things like that yes I mean actually I think that's not a bad thing they're just the last guy right yeah there's a bunch there are a bunch of Canadian people who

who've had that especially recently quebec but um but in terms of what you say on stage i haven't seen that in france or in canada uh yes due to nay the french comedian that was like arrested or something because in france you have laws there that you're not allowed to be racist. Right, right, right, right. You have laws that restrict in America. They would never fly because the constitution says freedom of speech. But in France, I said, if you, if you said in France,

I hate the N word. Okay. Would that be illegal? I'm not intimately familiar with the law there. I don't know. I mean, I really look into it because I wasn't planning on saying it but um but i think uh with jude and with guys like uh like that he i mean he didn't really get canceled because he didn't have uh like he didn't have a tv series or anything like that but they they were just there was like they were trying to prosecute him for something he said, but he started doing shows in his own theater. So he just self-produced in terms of a standup.

And I mean, I know here, Mike Ward got in trouble for something as well, for a joke that he did about this kid here. And that was all over. And he's going to Supreme Court to fight that. But he's still invited on the TV shows. He still has his podcast. He still tours. And he's still very well respected as a comic. That's what I'm wondering. Is that a choice, Nome, that you have to make

sometimes where people can get, customers can get mad or someone from the industry or you'll get lobbying groups who will be like, hey, we don't want you to book this person. You have to make that decision. One second. What's the question? Go ahead. The question is, have you ever had to make that decision

because people are lobbying so hard to take a comedian off stage, off your stage? No, I've never had to make that decision. I haven't had to make that decision against canceling anybody for anything. And I get more and more extreme by the day, including sexual harassment. Not that I'm tolerant of sexual harassment, but I just don't believe in private retribution for perceived misbehavior of people. I mean, you see, like in Canada, there's a whole black face.

Yeah, Noam, you're cutting out up there. So, well, go ahead then. No, you're cutting out up there and we know it's so well go ahead then no you're you're back i'm saying i'm saying it's until justin trudeau shows up a black face and then all of a sudden we go easy on the black face and i you guys can hear me because i want to say something else yeah you can hear me yeah yeah so i was telling carrielle i think it was yesterday that it wasn't that long ago where really basically everybody met their mates at work if you think about it there was no internet there was no internet dating uh where would you meet a girl you'd meet them at work and that now that there's the internet i guess and that's supposedly the way civilized people meet i don't know we've we've we've made it seem like any two people who are working together who want to you know flirt or or test the waters about dating are somehow harassers

and this just isn't true. And what happens is probably in every organization, there's probably a hundred different couples on the down low that nobody knows about. Right. And then there's one dummy who went, tried to go out with some girl who didn't like it. And she turns them in and now he's a sexual harasser. And then everybody pretends that they're not themselves banging somebody that they're working with who was open to it so there wasn't harassment. And I'm just not buying it.

You know, this guy McDonald's is getting sued now because he was having these consensual relationships with people at work. And I'm pretty convinced that these consensual relationships are going on in every single organization on planet Earth where they're committed to be going on and people are denying they're going. She has stopped doing. I'm not buying it.

But there's no campaign against meeting somebody at work. The campaign is against... No, but the thing is that when somebody then asks somebody out at work. The campaign is against... No, but the thing is that when somebody then asks somebody out at work and it's not received happily, they get in big trouble and they're called out as some sort of monster. There's other examples where people are taking out their dicks and saying, if you don't suck it, you're fired. You know, that's a whole other thing. But that's illegal.

And the court system should absolutely handle that. But we're at a time now where people are scared even to think about dating each other because they're afraid they'll be accused of harassment. Well, I haven't heard anybody like being accused of harassment for asking someone out. For asking someone out, being like, hey, you want to go out for a drink? Yeah, absolutely. Or if you have the last twice and say it was aggressively asking or, yeah, this is, it's very

or they'll get fired. There's policies now everywhere that you're not allowed to date. So then by asking, you're kind of like trying to violate the policy so that can get you you have a good but so you can avoid that fuck up you know but some dudes are idiots and they really don't know and we know we know these guys some guys will not take no for an answer they it's so clear that the girls died into them but they still

they still see it i think it's genetic they just don't know any better. So, yeah, to be clear, I'm not excusing horrible sexual harassment. I just think there's a lot... We're just lying about a lot of stuff. We don't have much time. I do want to get to Kamala, because it's such a huge story. I do want to talk a little bit about

Kamala Harris, who is now the vice presidential nominee, which I was expecting Rice, but then he came in. I know a lot of Indians in America are excited about this, at least from what I read online, that now they're, you know, they're going, they see themselves maybe in the White House or maybe as vice president. Now you're Canadian, but since America is so important in the world, I was wondering what you think about it. I don't care. No, I'm kidding.

So I think right now it's cool because she had a Montreal connection too. So a lot of Canadians are happy about that too. She lived in Montreal. She studied in Montreal for like five years so everybody's Montrealers are claiming or you know are claiming her as their own right now as well so she studied like she did high school here or something like that for five years or elementary school one of the two but I think it's an interesting choice I think she's definitely good for soundbites I mean she's mean, we've seen her in the debates. I've seen her in front of Congress.

She's good at creating moments that'll end up in media and that are good in terms of soundbites and creating news stories and headlines. So I think it's a good choice. I think Biden, I don't think is charismatic enough to win on his own. So I think it's almost like when you're voting for the Democrats, it's you're voting for, you know, a team of two. You're not voting for the president.

You have to look at it as a team. Whereas Trump, people love Trump, love Trump. Well, also, given Biden's age and his lack of robustness, one wonders whether his vice president will necessarily become the president. So we could be right. No, but seriously, I mean, you know, Kamala is a very good chance that she'll end up as president.

So that's another. But Noam is not. Noam, I want to know if you think that this was a wise choice politically for Biden. I know you don't like Kamala, but do you think that this was a wise choice politically for but i know you don't like kamala uh but i but do you think it's helpful to his campaign what does harry anton have to say by the way did you talk to him i think no i'm gonna cut no i'm i'm here can you hear me yeah i don't know yeah i don't know what harry thinks um i should ask him i i i mean i don't know if it's a good choice or not. It might be.

It might be. More likely to get her elected. Actually, I don't think it's a good choice. I don't think it's a good choice. But I don't think it's a devastating choice. But I don't think it was the best choice he could make. Who would you have put? Who would you have had there?

Well, I mean, I would not have. i actually liked susan rice even though i don't agree with her politically but i i'm going to just first say that i i don't know why we have to buy into the idea that it had to be a woman a woman of color uh i don't i don't like that sort of thing. And the polls showed that more than 90% of black Americans didn't think that it should be chosen beyond color. So what I'm saying is that if you would zoom out to the entire group of people qualified to be president, if it wasn't limited to women of color, I would think people like Klobuchar would be a better choice. If we are going to accept the premise that it has to be a woman of color, I think Susan Rice would have been much better because she's ready to take office on January 19th. She has a lot of experience. She has a tremendous resume. She's a woman

of accomplishment. I don't think Kamala Harris has done anything. And she was a corrupt prosecutor or a dirty prosecutor. Yeah. Well, you see, I think people don't really vote on, they don't really vote on specifics, right? They vote on people who are inspirational. They vote on people who exude trust. So whenever you see her in debates or you see any TV appearances with her in them, you feel that, you know, you feel like, you know, she's inspiring, she's confident. No, I disagree. I see that automatically. I mean, I saw it at the Democratic debates. We saw her, you know, she created moments in those debates where everybody else was falling asleep.

Well, let me tell you why I think you're not correct, both personally and then empirically. Personally, when she accused Joe Biden of being a racist and all that stuff, I thought that was despicable, and I was really offended by that. But then the empirical evidence is that she sank like a stone in the polls to the point where she dropped out, I think before any primaries or after the first primary, she had almost zero support. So she, she did not, she did not win people over as you're saying she, she might've won over a segment of

people. But, um, I think, I think she began to wear thin after a while where I think you have a good moment like that and people say oh look at her she seems like something and then after three or four of them you say you know what this seems a little phony to me like she just seems to be like practicing these moment things and that's all

she's got but having said all that really my beef with her is that she is widely reported to have kept, to have fought to keep innocent people in prison after she knew they were innocent. And I just can't, I can't process that. That to me is just evil. But do you think most electors will hold on to that? No. But the thing is, in America, you know, she doesn't need to run up the score in California, New York. She needs to win those 70,000 votes in the white working class swing states who voted for Obama, then switched to Trump.

And now we want them to switch back to Biden. And those people, I don't think, are so enthralled with Kamala Harris. I don't think the people who switched to Trump are like, oh, good, there's Kamala Harris. I'm switching back. I don't think that's wise in that sense. I think that Susan Rice might have been good for that because

some fondness for Obama Your sound is terrible. Maybe for next week you can get a better Next week I'll be home just because I'm in Maine but the best choice would have been Klobuchar or one of these moderate Midwestern governors or senators who speak the language of swing states,

that would be the normal strategy of picking a vice president. Okay, now, hypothetically, if Biden would have convinced Michelle Obama, would that work? Yeah. It would be game over, wouldn't it? Probably, probably. But I don't know the polling in the swing states. It requires constant reminding yourself to say, wait a second,

we're talking about Ohio, Wisconsin, like it's only a few states and only a few districts in those states that matter. And would Michelle Obama be the most powerful force in those states? Probably, maybe not. Maybe really the most powerful force would be just a really straightforward, white, middle of the road, or black middle of the road, but someone who identifies with that kind of middle of the road, black middle of the road, but, um, uh, you know, someone who identifies with that kind of middle of the road, Midwestern mentality, you know, I actually don't think it needs to be white, but you know, if, if you're trying to, I mean, if you're cynically trying to win back the racist vote, as it were that voted for Trump, you're trying to win elections here. I'm not endorsing the racist vote, but I'm saying very cold, calculated

politics. If you want to make a play for those people who were enticed by Trump with his immigration talk and all that stuff, then maybe you do want to have a vice president who looks more like those people in a very cold, calculated way. I don't know.

Do you think Trump's going to win again? No, I don't think he is. you think Trump's going to win again? No. I don't think he is. I think he's so far behind that none of this even matters. I think he's going to win again. Yes, so do I. I think he's going to win again.

He's totally going to win again. If you think he's going to win again, then Kamala Harris really isn't the best choice. Well, the thing is, it's not Kamala Harris against Trump. It's Biden against Trump. Exactly.

Yeah. No, but the thing is that more than any other election, probably in history, people are looking at this vice president and saying she may take over the first week in office. Nobody knows what's up with Biden. So they are really judging her. And if Biden was elected, and Biden ran away with it, presumably because he was moderate. And people say to themselves, well, I voted for him because he's a moderate. But if he may be gone by February and the person and his vice president is exactly the person I didn't want to vote for, that sounds like a bad strategy to me. Yeah, but I think there's no, no one can save Biden from being Biden.

You know what I mean? Like, I think no matter who you would have put there, it's going to be, people are either voting for Trump or against Trump. That's what the election is. That's what the election was the last time. It's pro or against Trump. It's not Trump or Biden.

And that's why I think Trump has a better chance because he has, his bases actually, his votership are passionate about him. No one's passionate about Biden. And the thing is, is Kamala, if it were Michelle Obama, I wonder if he would inspire black people to go out and vote, she would inspire black people to go out and vote.

I don't know that Kamala is going to do it. They don't need the black vote. They don't need that one. I guess that's another story if they don't need the black vote. That's a good question. Is everybody looking at the United States for years now from your end of the

world, and especially now with this whole COVID thing, we are just the biggest fucking disaster nightmare on the planet. Yeah, we're actually happy that there's a travel ban and you guys can't come see us.

Is that true? Sorry? Is that true? No, I was just joking. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the thing. I'm sure there is a lot of the world that does feel that way, but I think it's fun to have you guys here

as tourists as well. We are beloved, Perry, I'll answer your question. Are you? Yes, we are. First of all, we your question are you when i yes we are they first of all we're still for all our faults we're still a huge destination for immigrants and we're still a pop cultural uh center and when when i go to france and talk to the comedians there they talk about our comedy and uh that's just in our little world of stand-up.

But I can tell you that they still consider America the center of stand-up comedy. Well, I wasn't referring to just comedy, though. I was referring to more the world of... I'm just saying we're still the land of Instagram, the land of Facebook. We still set the tone. And we're still DJing this party, you know.

Am I right, Sammy? Yeah, I mean, look, there's good and there's bad, right? So when you're the biggest, you know, there are going to be people who are going to watch you all the time and they're going to admire some of the things you do and they're going to frown upon some of the things you do. And yeah, certain things politically obviously internationally uh people don't uh adore america for but like dan was saying pop culture music hollywood i mean all of this i'm not talking about that stuff though i'm talking

specifically about politics and now covid which i could argue is related to politics. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I think politically worldwide, obviously, I think a lot of people, you know, it's not the country that's seen as the most politically savvy to them right now. But, you know, a lot of other advantages. Yeah, but politically, yeah. I remember when Trump

won, I was in France. It was a period of mourning in France. There was like two days where everything was quiet. People couldn't believe it. But that, but that shows you the power of America, you know, that people are so concerned with what goes on here. Yeah. And, you know, when Obama won, black people around the world saw it as a victory for them, you know, so. Yeah, totally. And, you know, when Obama won, black people around the world saw it as a victory for them, you know. Yeah, totally. And then when Trump won, people around the world saw it as a tragedy for all of us. Yeah. Many did.

Others didn't, you know. Yeah, I guess whatever steps America makes, you know, they resonate throughout the world and they affect the rest of the world. I mean, you guys hold a lot of power in every way, monetarily, militarily, you know, you guys hold a lot of power. So with that comes a lot of scrutiny. I think it's normal to see when, you know, when the world feels safe that America is in good hands, you're going to get the applause. And when it feels like, you know, America isn't in good hands, you're going to get the applause. And when it feels like, you know, America isn't in good hands, you're going to get a different reaction. How are we doing on Quebec separatism? Is that issue still alive? Very quickly, we don't have much time. I think it's pretty dead now. It's calmed down. But lots of other issues here, you know, definitely lots of other issues. Immigration is an issue here as well. Integration is an issue here. It's huge right now.

So there's a lot of that going on, that talk, you know, amongst other things going on. So politically, it's still, you know, it's still pretty charged up with a lot of issues. Yeah, well, this is one of the things that Periel, I think, doesn't fully think about,. And I don't even know the answer. But Perrielle hates the idea that Trump wants to control the border. But I don't necessarily think that that plays so badly in a lot of other countries. That plays a lot worse in America than I think in a lot of other countries are like yeah of course they should control the border we control our border and we and yeah we don't we already we we have plenty of them we have more immigrants in our country than we want so they're not furious like with trump because he's trying to control immigrants in america so don't think that um you know other countries necessarily see it through this through your eyes you know they they i think what they all agree on is that he's kind of a buffoon. Right. But I don't think they react

so negatively to some of the policies as you do. I don't necessarily for the record have an issue with controlling the border. I have a very big issue with how the border is controlled. Sammy, you ever get to New York? Yeah, I headlined Caroline's in February.

How can we stop by the cellar? I'd love to. I'd love to. I'll reach out next time. I'm usually not in town long enough. So I come into headlines. I'm there for a couple days before doing press, but I'll come in next time and just spend a week. So he's just hanging He's busy, he's not just hanging around Come after the show There's a lot of things I want to tell you but I can't tell you in public Alright, no I'd love to stop in I'm going to make an effort to come to New York when all this is over

to just hang out and maybe play some By the way My wife is Indian but you're not going to like this She's from trinidad i have an uncle from trinidad oh yeah yeah so she's trinidadian she's from trinidad right because we they don't like people from tobago trinny that's what they got not a tranny

trinny trinny is a tr what they call it. Not a tranny, which is a bad word. Trinny. Trinny is a trinidadian, I believe. That's the slang. Trinny. I'm going. I got to go. Okay. Thank you, Sammy.

This is, I mean, if you want to plug your. Yeah, where can we find you? Plug away. I got to. All right. Sugar Sammy everywhere. SugarSammy.com. Sugar Sammy on Facebook, on Instagram and on Twitter.

Amazing. Thank you so much. OK. Thank you. Contact us at podcast at comedy seller dot com. And I normally gives the Instagram address, but she's frozen solid. So we'll see you next time on Live from the Table. Thank you, everybody.