The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - The Politics of Comedy

Episode Date: April 19, 2019

Brian Volk-Weiss and Myq Kaplan

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. My name is Noam Dwarman. I'm the owner of the Comedy Cellar. We're at the back table of the Comedy Cellar. I'm here, as always, with my good friend, Mr. Dan Natterman. How do you do, sir? You're welcome.

And our producer, Periel Aschenbrun. God. I don't know how to... Still, you don't know? Really? It just doesn't seem like a name that you can say,

like Smith. Should I change it? It's like Nicaragua. You can't say Nicaragua. Anyway, and our guest is Brian Volk-Weiss, is the CEO, founder of Comedy Dynamics,

the largest independent comedy production distribution company. That's a sentence fragment. That's what I thought too. The largest in the world, in the country. I always assume there's some company in India I haven't heard of, and I'm like, fuck, can I curse? I assume I can curse. Yeah, sure, go heard of, and I'm like, fuck. Can I curse? I assume I can curse. Yeah, sure, go ahead.

So I always like to say, if anyone knows otherwise, please tell me so I can stop saying it. Even hearing you say it, it feels like bullshit, even though I know it's accurate. But I have not heard anyone bigger who does more than we do, volume-wise, and in my biased

opinion, quality. In the world. At least in the United States of America. It does not say highest quality here. That's why I said bias. Volume-wise, that's a fact. We're number one. Quality-wise, I'm biased, but I believe we're number one. That's a subjective.

Yes. He has produced the coming Mad About You reboot. This is with Paul Reiser. Currently producing, yes. Bill Grunfest involved in that? No, yeah, maybe, maybe. Too early to tell. TBD.

We believe Bill should be back. Literally the 22nd is day one, so we're still a little early. Doesn't make no never mind to me whether Bill's involved. I have nothing against him. But Bill's the guy who started the Comedy Cellar. I'm aware. I know my history. But yes.

And Kevin Hart's Guide to Black History. Jim Gaffigan's Noble Ape. There's Johnny on Hulu. What's There's Johnny? It's about the Tonight Show. Another Paul Reiser scripted vehicle. Oh, that's a great idea. It's like a dramedy.

Yeah, all Paul. It's on Hulu right now. Who's playing? He's playing Johnny Depp? No, all Paul. It's on Hulu right now. Who's playing? He's playing Johnny Carson? No, he's not in it at all. He created it, and he co-wrote most of it, if not all of it.

But no, it was his baby for like 20 years. Who's playing Johnny Carson? It's sort of like in Cheers where you never see him. It's always slightly out of focus or off camera. How's that like Cheers?

Well, that's so ironic because when he... Norm's wife. Was it Norm's wife? I haven't seen Cheers in a while. In the Mary Tyler Moore show, when Johnny Carson was a guest, you never saw him. It's like that. But are you aware of that? Yes.

I haven't seen that show in a long time. He was a guest on the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson. It was a blackout in Rhoda's apartment. And you never got to see Johnny Carson. You just heard him. That's also in Seinfeld with the Yankee guy with George. George Steinbrenner. Exactly like that.

That's exactly what it's like. Noam, can I ask, by the way, briefly, when we're going to have an official announcement with regard to the Comedy Cellar show, this week at the Comedy Cellar? Or if you know. I think we will have, I think we will know for sure either way this

week. Probably before the Mueller report unredacted version comes out, but may, perhaps not. But I think we're going to know this week. Okay, so we're here, we're looking on the TVs here. This is the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. This is the fire at Notre Dame

Cathedral. This is very, very painful to watch. What did it make you think of, Dan? We were talking about communism. What it made me think of is that we pretend that human life is the most important thing, that nothing is more important than human life. But literally,

if it was one of these scenarios where you had to pluck just one human at random to their death or save the Tower of Notre Dame, you know, 500 years old or whatever it is, we wouldn't sacrifice that for one person,

would we? I know who it is. Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay. That guy. If we were asked to choose, we would all choose to sacrifice the cathedral. If you're asking what makes us more upset, well, social media has spoken. I'm not saying...

No, I don't think... If you were asked to choose with a camera roll, you would choose the cathedral. If you were asked to choose, anybody would choose the cathedral over a human life. In the privacy of your own home? Yes, because you couldn't live with that guilt otherwise. Especially if you're Jewish. If you would have chosen the cathedral of Notre Dame over a human life,

you'd be a monster for so choosing. I think if you had a button in your apartment and there was no strings attached, and if you pushed it, some human would die somewhere. This is like an episode of The Twilight Zone. There's an episode. There's a movie like this called The Box. This is like an episode of The Twilight Zone. There's an episode. There's a movie like this called The Box.

Button Button was the name of The Twilight Zone. Completely bizarre. One of the craziest movies ever made in history. I saw that movie actually. Ten years ago. What's his name? The big hole in his cheek. That was the whole movie.

That was the whole premise of the movie. The premise in that was I believe you get like $10 million or something if you press the button. And someone somewhere dies. That was the whole premise of the movie. Well, the premise in that was, I believe, you get like $10 million or something if you press the button. And someone somewhere dies. And someone that you don't know dies. Right, and then what happens is that then they go to somebody else. Spoiler alert for anybody who wanted to see the movie, thank you, Periel, for ruining it.

The answer, by the way, Noam, is that nobody would, or very few people, very few people, would choose to sacrifice a human life over a cathedral if given the choice. But if you're asking what makes us more upset when we see it, that's a separate question. A newborn baby. When I say newborn baby, I mean a baby two days past the age where it's a woman's right to kill it because of psychological problems.

It's a very edgy show. A newborn baby. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And then the other side is the Mona Lisa. Newborn baby. I mean, it's just literally last week it was a woman's right to choose. And as a newborn baby in the Mona Lisa, you're taking the baby over the Mona Lisa. I would choose the baby.

Call me crazy. I would choose the baby. Yeah, I mean, if you're seriously saying that you would choose other than the baby, then we have, there needs to be some psychological counseling. And I know this isn't your point at all, but I would also

and this is something I've thought my entire life I don't get what the big deal is about the Mona Lisa. That's not an easy question for you. I know that's not the point of your question. It's very easy. I think it's hopefully easy for most people. No, the assumption of my question is that you cared about the Mona Lisa.

Go ahead. Literally, when I saw it, there was like 200 people in the room looking at it. I'd say at least half of us were like, and? And it's behind all that glass, right, too? When I saw it, it wasn't. This is about five years ago, the last time I saw it. But I'm like, and? And it's behind all that glass, right? When I saw it, it wasn't. This is about five years ago, the last time I saw it. But I'm like, what? That I don't know the answer to. Why is that

considered the greatest work of art? One of the greatest works of art. Maybe we should stick to our areas of expertise. I will say this just about the Mona Lisa, but for whatever it's worth, is that you do see it once and always remember it. Whatever that magic is, there's nothing as iconic as the image of a Mona Lisa, but for whatever it's worth, is that you do see it once and always remember it. Whatever that magic is,

there's nothing as iconic as the image of a Mona Lisa. But you could argue that about Mount Rushmore, but the point that I would make to both of those... Or a velvet painting of Elvis. I don't know about that,

but look at it from this standpoint. If our society ends and aliens come here, if aliens see Mount Rushmore, they'll be like, holy shit, we don't know what this is, but oh, look at these awesome rocks carved, these faces carved at the top of a mountain.

If those aliens went into a museum and walked around the museum, the odds of them seeing the Mona Lisa and be like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing in the museum, or in all of art of the species that's now gone, I'd say is almost zero. I think you're right. Perhaps an art artist or an art historian might be able to shed light, perhaps

not. Noam, I think the reason you remember it is because it's the Mona Lisa, and you know that it has cultural significance. I saw Dealey Plaza, I'm not going to forget it. It's an intersection. However, it's associated with one of the most significant events in American history, and I've been hearing about it all my life.

So I'm not likely to forget. Dealey Plaza? I've never heard of that. What is that? You don't know what Dealey Plaza is? JFK blown away. What else do I have to say? John F. Kennedy?

Yes. He was shot at Dealey Plaza. No, I didn't realize that. You didn't know he was killed at Dealey Plaza? I know he was killed. My favorite thing about Dealey Plaza is they have that X where he was killed. And you literally, if you stand there for like five minutes or more, you'll literally see tons of people.

You know, it's still a functioning intersection. So literally tons of people stand there on the X, like taking pictures, and like cars are honking. From what I hear, by the way. It's like Abbey Road. I hear that that X is. Yes, exactly. I hear that that X is not official.

In other words, it wasn't the city or the government that put the X there. It's just like tourists that put the X there, and then they're constantly taking it away, and then they put it back. That's what I've heard. That's where Kennedy was when the CIA shot him? That's correct.

We're aliens. I think it's aliens. By the way, I do have a list of topics, and Perry, you didn't include this on this sheet, but I did note in big bold letters a note to know them if there's any

topics you wish to discuss that are not on this list please let us know beforehand so we can prepare and be mindful of whether the guests might be interested or knowledgeable about said topics so I just want to put that out there. Did you do that because we spent half an hour talking about tolls last episode? That's correct.

Can I just, so nobody's doing any bad letters, I just want to make my point. I am not diminishing the value of a baby's life. What I'm trying to point out is that society in general is not consistent about how it values life. That's true. And one of the examples I've often given is like, well, you know, we do trade off lives for instance, the speed limits are 55. Now we

can make the speed limits 20 and save a lot of lives. And we know that we're going to lose lives for the convenience of a higher speed limit. And that's just the way it is. And you can think of a million examples of that. But the fact is, it doesn't, it just doesn't seem like, I mean, a

500-year-old cathedral burns down. It gets way older than 500 years old. But whatever, how old is it if not, if it's of little import to the point that Noam is making? Noam, go ahead. Is it from the 1600s or something? Wherever the hell it's from, it's old. Over 800 years old.

800 years old. Yeah. But the stones, and I think this is worth remembering today, the rock part of it is like 800 years old. The roof is like 100 years old. So it has burnt down before. Any homeowner knows you've got to replace the roof.

It's burnt down before? Yeah,owner knows you've got to replace the roof. It's burnt down before? Yeah, it's a wood roof. But the windows, the stained glass windows, I think, are from like the 1200s. Are those, this is a dumb question, are those melting? I think they're gone. Oh, that's horrible. Also, I feel like somebody has a joke about a newborn baby. Like, if you knew it was Hitler, would you kill it? Okay, but we're getting far afield.

They broke ground in 1163, I didn't realize, and it was completed in 1345. So it took them almost 200 years to build this thing. My reaction, by the way, Noam, was the opposite. My reaction was, isn't it nice that something is allowing us to make it all about ourselves on social media and no one has to die, which is quite rare. Empire State Building was built in 18 months.

Anyway, go ahead. Go ahead. Let's talk about comedy dynamics. Mostly what you do is comedy specials. Is that correct? Yeah. That is definitely the majority. Now, comedy specials is a term of art.

Yes. Comedy special, I guess it used to mean a comic goes on, you know, HBO or Comedy Central. And now a Comedy Central special is basically anything where a comic does an hour, basically. I mean, I would agree with your present analysis. I would argue in the past that was also true, but it was only limited by it was much more expensive to do, and there were fewer places to do it. So your comedy specials mostly air where? Everywhere. I mean, literally everywhere.

The majority of them are on Netflix, Showtime. Fewer and fewer have been on Comedy Central lately, but we've done dozens for them. And then we have our own network where we put out our own specials somewhat routinely now. Now, we have with us Mike Kaplan. That's M-Y-Q Kaplan. Hello.

Surprise guest. Although it's not really spelled that way, but you spell it that way for reasons of style. I made it up when I was a kid. M-Y-Q Kaplan. And you were one of the specials that was produced by Brian's company, Comedy Dynamics. Yeah, it's true. And how did you come to know Mike and decide, well, geez, this is a guy I'd like to do an hour special with?

Well, there's a way we figure out who we're going to work with. There's a bunch of different, there's like three different ways we do it. In Mike's case, there's basically a list of people we trust. I used to be a manager. I was a manager for a long time. A comedy manager. Yes, of only comedians.

And when I was a manager, it used to drive me crazy that I would have clients that one year could sell 300 tickets in Denver, and then the next year could sell 5,000 tickets in Denver. And I'm calling all these people at all these companies being like, you should do something with my client. And they're like, I don't find your client funny. And I'm like, well, that might be true. But their ticket sales are up 8,000% all across the United States. What about what the fellow Americans think?

And that didn't work very often. Actually, it never worked. So when we started making our own originals, one of the things I was like was, if there were agents and managers that I trusted, if they would call about somebody, I would give them more than the benefit of the doubt. We would try and back it up. And Mike was a great example of that. That I think, and I'd love to hear your point of view on this.

Sure. I've actually never had this kind of conversation before. It's true. So this would be great. Who was your manager? Dave Rath. Dave Rath, yes. Okay, good.

Yeah, so Dave had called me. I've done tons and tons of business with Dave before Mike and after Mike. And he raved about you, and it worked out great for us. I hope it worked out great for you. And I agree with Dave's raving. I'm glad that he did it. I'm glad that you listened. Yeah, from my perspective, I had been,

I think at the time, I think we recorded in like 2013, and so Netflix wasn't really making their own specials yet, and before that, it was basically like Comedy Central was where most of the specials were. Like I'd done a half hour and your goal was to get an hour and it was either there or like HBO was, there was even fewer of those or Showtime or other places. So I think my goal, I made an album

with Comedy Central records. And then we had that as like a demo to be like, hey, this could be a special. And Comedy Central said, nah. But then like Comedy Dynamics said, yeah. And then we shot it and then sold it to Netflix. And then I was super happy to have it on Netflix for the three years that it was there.

And now it lives on Amazon. What you may not know is that right around that time, I got a call from this woman I'd never heard of in my entire life. I did not know this. You'll find this very interesting. Please. I get a call from, you know, it says on my IM or whatever, Lisa Nishimura.

And I'm like, well, I don't know who that is. I didn't have Netflix at home. From my point of view, the majority, I think everybody, was watching Netflix, plastic discs shipped in the mail. So she called me up. She came to my office, which I don't know if you know Lisa or not. She don't go to people's offices anymore. They go to her office. And I had a notebook. And in that notebook, she was like, hey, so what are you up to? And in that notebook she was like hey so what are you up to and in my notebook I had a list of all of these specials we had

made and sold to like Comedy Central and Showtime where the rights had reverted back to us so people like Tom Green, Tom Rhodes Harlan Williams then I had a list of specials we had shot but not

sold you were on that list and then we had a list of specials we had shot but not sold. You were on that list. Sure. And then we had a bunch of specials that we were going to shoot but hadn't shot yet. That included Mike Birbiglia's second special, Eliza Schlesinger's second special, Tom Segura's first special,

and she basically was like, we'll take it all! And I was like, okay. So we, go ahead, sorry. No, I was just wondering, how do these specials nowadays, because there's very many specials, and they're more every time I check my Netflix, there's more and more specials. How do these specials, if at all, move the needle? What does it mean for a comedian?

I'm going to take myself out of my role as a stand-up comedian, who, by the way, has never had a special. How do these specials move the needle, if at all? I mean, it seems like there's a lot of people. If Netflix makes you a special today, then you're probably doing all right, and it'll probably make more people see it and come out and see you live. I feel like it definitely did that for me some. I'm definitely, like, there are more people who know who I am now for all of, you know, everything is, there's no, since, like, Carson, you know,

like, that was, like, a thing that if you got it, then you were made. And then at a certain point, it was maybe a Comedy Central, like, some level special. But now, now because there are so many avenues for people to put out their own things, for people to be found all kinds of places, not everybody, you know, even if there's a million people watching one thing or a few million here, like there's no one massive, like there's very few like Dane Cooks of now. And I think that's fine.

I mean, I'm happy to be able to go. I'm happy for people to invite me to a town and for people to come out and see me, whether it's a room full of 50 people, 100 people, 1,000 people. I feel like the same is true probably for you. You could probably perform for 50 to several thousand people. Well, I'll tell you what. It's interesting you bring that up, Michael. Somewhere between 50 and several thousand, right?

Did I nail it? The fact is I don't do typically clubs that require an entire weekend. I prefer to do one-night shows, corporate shows, country clubs, etc. Because the cold, hard reality is I don't like stand-up. Oh, okay. And I've made that point several times. I was hoping to be on television. I watch Seinfeld, you know,

and, you know, Paul Reiser and these guys and Drew Carey, and I said, well, see, from where I was standing, it seems to me if you do 10 minutes of stand-up, you get a TV show. That's how it looked to me. On Seinfeld, all you have to do is, like, two minutes at the beginning of the show,

then one minute at the end. No, I'm saying the way he got the sitcom. They were on a few talk shows. I figured all I've got to do is do that, so it didn't work out that way. Hasn't worked out. That's what I keep saying. Yet. But if I could sell a theater with

10,000 or 2,000 people in it, and only just do one show and make my money and leave town, I would do that. But that requires, you know, to be well-known. I understand. So you understand that. Oh, yeah. And a little bit of effort.

And I won't like it, but at least it'll be one show, whereas a club is a whole weekend. I guess there's a few differences. But you enjoy the club experience. I love doing stand-up. I went to Edinburgh for the first time to the Fringe Fest in August, and I did the show, the hour show that I'm working on now, like, you know, 25, basically 25, 26 times in a row. Wow. Every day, basically the same thing, which I would also, like, not have thought I wanted to do exactly because I like, some of the fun stuff about stand-up is discovering a new idea in the moment, developing it. But this is like the end point where it's sort of all like clicking into place and being like, now this is exactly how this goes pretty much every time this is a show.

Like, I like every side. I like beginning from nothing. I like making new ideas work. I like finding connections and building it. And then I always sort of have a few. You know what my favorite part of stand-up is? Stopping? Thank you. good night.

And then I come upstairs to the comedy cellar here and order myself a roast chicken or a kebab, though I'm getting tired of both of those dishes. Noam has not expanded the menu since the kitchen renovation of 2015. Are there still cheese sticks? I love those mozzarella sticks.

There used to be, but there are. Has Sanders released his taxes? He promised to release his taxes today. Well, we'll get there. Okay, so here's my question. How do you negotiate with Netflix for the second special when you don't, I don't know this, I think that I know this,

that you don't have access to their analytics about how many people have chosen to watch the first one. I mean, do you mean me personally or in general? You personally or anybody. I don't negotiate for them for that reason. I'm not an agent or manager. How does one negotiate? They don't tell you how many people have streamed it, right?

Right. So basically, they put out a number, and then the agents and managers have to say, we will take that, or we would like more, and you just go back and forth until you can do a deal or you can't. It's got to be very hard. You don't know what your leverage is. But the thing that gets lost in this conversation is we really didn't have ratings for HBO either. So when I was a manager, they might say to you, it did blah, blah, blah. So you might get a number, like it did 3.9 million. But it didn't mean anything. Let me just say that I think with HBO,

I could be totally out to lunch here. One indication I would think would be how often they're showing it. Like when they start programming it more often. But your question was about the second one. Right. So if they programmed your first one a lot. I have an answer to this question. Go ahead, Dan.

The answer is you don't know the exact numbers, but you put your ear to the ground, you go on social media, and you hear what people are talking about. Look, I don't have to be head of analytics HBO to know Game of Thrones is getting pretty good ratings. Because I go online and all I hear about is Game of Thrones. Every other post on Facebook is Game of Thrones. So you know if you're Game of Thrones, somebody's watching. Who was watched more, a special or Hannah Gadsby special? If you want to get down into it.

I'm asking what you're feeling on that. I'm sure it's ****. The point is you don't know precisely, but you know. But if you look on social media, you would think Gadsby because she got so much heat from that special. Wait, wait. If you look at social media and you live in New York, you have to remember, the social media is targeted to you. You live in Manhattan. Right, that's right.

Your friends live in Manhattan or L.A. When I go on Twitter and I put in the Twitter search box, I put in Mike Kaplan. I see 50,000 people tweeting about Mike Kaplan. I know Mike Kaplan has made some noise. Right. Obviously, you have some idea. You're not totally flying blind, but it's still different. The overriding thing,

the black and white thing that's been true for 300 years, and it was true before Facebook, it was true before the United States existed, it's true today. It's ticket sales. It's all about ticket sales. I learned this as a manager. It was true then for everything I did then. It's true for everything I do now. It's all about ticket sales. I learned this as a manager. It was true then for everything I did then. It's true for everything I do now.

It's absolutely, it doesn't lie. What can Hannah Gadsby do in Albuquerque? It's not always about New York and L.A. and Chicago. So by the ticket sales, we'll give you an idea as to how many people are watching as well. To answer Norm's question about negotiation, if you see all of a sudden Mike is filling up the Royal Albert Hall in Albuquerque,

then you go to Netflix and you say, look, I don't know what you're trying to hand me. Nobody's watching. Well, they may not care. But the point to your question, my answer to your question is Netflix may not care about ticket sales, but from my point of view, having been selling stuff

to Showtime and Comedy Central and HBO for almost 20 years, they didn't care either. So I represented Dane Cook when he blew up, and no one cared. Like, Jack Vaughn was like... Okay, so there's a good example. So let's leave Chris Rock out of it, because that was just the first thing that came

to my head, because he had a big Netflix deal. Dane Cook. I would guess that he could still sell a lot of tickets, but would not be streamed as often as Hannah Gadsby special was. I would argue that is not accurate at all. I would guarantee you

You would know. I don't have any Hannah Gadsby data, but I do have a lot of data. And there are... Lots of tension. What's that? Lots of tension.

There is? No, that's Hannah Gadsby, right? Oh, I was like, am I being a dick? Okay. Sorry. No, Dan was. Go ahead. No, I was doing my poor Hannah Gadsby impression.

I think it was great. There are... Listen. There are people in our catalog that I brag about. And I'm like, woo, we got Bill Hicks. Hey, we got Kinison. Hey. There are people I don't brag about, and I'm not going to say their names,

that do more than both of those guys combined every day. And I bet you anything, a year after Hannah's special came out, she would not perform as well as Dane Cook's oldest special, let alone his newest special. It's just sheer numbers. There's a reason that there's red states. There's a reason, I don't want to get into politics at all, but there's a reason Trump won.

Well, Noam does, and probably will later. So those red states, it's sheer numbers. It's not my opinion or my taste. It's just sheer numbers that a Dane Cook, who could sell out arenas in Albuquerque and Boston and Austin and Seattle for 10 years, something Hannah's never done and may never do. It's just numbers. Those people grow up and they're still watching.

I saw a movie. I find it fascinating. I find it fascinating too. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm processing it through my own thing. I know there's certain classic acts

like Paul McCartney or something. Yeah. Although now it may have changed in the last year for some reason. But putting out a lot of albums that were not selling. Yeah. But would sell the most tickets

on planet Earth. And there were acts who were outselling him easily who could not draw a stadium tour. And also there are dumb YouTube videos, like Psy, the Korean guy who had a billion hits. He will get way more hits, or I'm sure there's comedians who get way more hits

that'll go viral who could not sell tickets. So, yeah, I mean, that's all you have to go on, and it's probably eight times out of ten accurate. But I bet you there are anomalies where they diverge. There are anomalies, and there's anomalies to every statistic. I took a stats class in college. It's the last math class I ever took. The first thing they said on minute one of day one was,

the first thing you've got to know about statistics, don't trust statistics. So that's always been my opinion on stats. And I was in a stats class. So yes, there's anomalies, but I would argue it's not 80-20, it's 99-1. And it's not about if they're always selling. That's not the variable that I think is important. The variable is how long did they sell tremendous volumes of tickets and did it penetrate to the point of being iconic? For, I would argue, two generations, at least one and a half, Dane Cook was iconic.

Yes. And that permeates. So someone who's in college, when Dane is selling arenas, they got kids. So, like, I was a huge Star Wars fan. My daughter's wearing a Soca Tano shirt. She doesn't know who the fuck a Soca Tano shirt. She doesn't know who the fuck a Soca Tano is,

but she's going, you probably don't even know who that is. I also don't. Yeah, that's a rare, she's not that rare, but it's a big Star Wars character now, if you're still a fan. But my son's wearing a Star Wars shirt right now. He doesn't know what Star Wars is. It's the same thing with comedy,

that if, like, you were, like, Dane Dane Cook obsessed and don't forget when Dane blew up comedy was not what it is now. Stand-up has become its own genre. It's been pulled out of comedy and it's become its own genre. It's stand-up. The way horror was pulled out of drama in the late 60s and 70s because it was like

Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and then it was like huge awards, lots and lots of like, it was the number one movie of the year, so all of a sudden it wasn't this subsect of drama. It became its own thing. That's what's happened to stand up now. But when Dane was doing

it, he was the biggest comedian in 30 years. No one had done what he had done since Dice. And I would argue you're right about Steve Martin and Dice isn't right because Dice only did... I'm arguing with myself. But Steve Martin did tours.

Dice, for whatever reason, didn't really tour. He did Madison Square Garden twice and tapped out. Now, and this was something you said earlier, I don't know if I agree with, if I understood what you said correctly. Fair enough. You're like it with everybody, there's no Dane now, but it's like when Dane sold out Madison Square Garden, he was the third comedian ever to do it. Now there's like 15 who have done it and like three or four who do it every year.

And what I meant before is that because he was the only one who did it, he was that guy. Now, because there are multiple people who can do it, I mean, there's tons of people as successful as he was then. So there is no one person that's the king or queen. I didn't hear you right. I'm sorry. I guess there's something else, too, which is like you take Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle and Amy Schumer and whoever these like the real like the tops, the top, top, top. The tops. The top, top, top. The arena. The arena. And they are, their fame transcends any particular special or whatever.

Then you have somebody like Hannah Gadsby, whose special became talk of the town. It may have gone viral. And a lot of people watch it. Like I watch it. I don't watch comedy specials because everybody was talking about it. But do I think her next special then, is that going to translate into her next special getting the same kind of numbers as the previous one? Probably not.

I don't know. Because it was a lot of buzz rather than a lot of... I don't know. It depends on the quality of the act. And you never really know the answer to that, to your point about Dane Cook. When Dane blew up, it hadn't happened really in memory. So it imprinted itself on people's memories. And that's why when their kids get older, they start playing

retaliation and harmful if swallowed. And that's what keeps feeding that now. So to your point about Hannah Gadsby, she doesn't have that either yet or ever because, A, it's a lot more crowded than when Dane did it, but, B, when Dane did it, I mean, there were people who never before or again paid to see stand-up comedy that would see Dane four times and drive eight hours to see him. What's Dane doing now in terms of, is he doing big theaters, arenas? I don't know. I'm not sure what theaters, arenas? I don't know. I'm not sure what he's up to.

I don't know. Louis C.K.'s next special. Value is higher or lower than the previous one? I don't mean to split hairs, but this is a real question. From whose point of view? From the point of view of who's making money on it. Netflix, everybody in the chain. If you remove any of the politics or the baggage

associated with him as a human being and an artist, if somebody were to back his next special, it would do better than the last one. Way better. I think it would have to. And what about without removing all of those things? It would be a very dangerous proposition for any company that went near it.

Yeah. And what if it were the most brilliant thing he had ever made? Not relevant. Really? You say that, but really, are people going to cancel their Netflix specials because they disagree about... I mean, they show all... Well, the thing that's so interesting is everything that I keep reading,

even though people are up in arms about Louis and whatever, is that with that one sort of incident aside with the Parkland jokes, from what I've been able to discern is that the crowds are laughing and he's going around and he's performing. The issue isn't the comedy. And I will say this. I will say this.

And again, I hope I don't need to say this, but I will say it. I'm only speaking for And again, I hope I don't need to say this, but I will say it. I'm only speaking for myself and my company. I don't speak for Netflix. I don't speak for anybody but me. So I just want to point that out. That said, that Parkland thing, for me, and I'm saying this as a human being and as a fan, and as somebody in a position to greenlight stand-up specials.

And also on behalf of Netflix and Hulu and Amazon, of course. And my Catholic. He speaks for us all. This is for the official Comedy Cellar podcast line. I think that was a horrific strategic move. And I think if enough time had gone by, he could have worked his way back into People's Good Graces. I heard a great quote when I was still in the

high school you and I were in together. That's right. We went to high school together. We may discuss that if we're absolutely out of things to talk about. I read this great quote, which was, Americans love a tragedy with a happy ending. So I think Louis could have found redemption,

and he still might. Who cares if I think he will or he won't? But I would argue that, like, that to me, I mean, that was just, I mean, if you have kids or you don't have kids, you know people, like, it was just so bananas. But you say it's strategic. Now, Louis had no notion that this was going to be recorded and become, well, I mean, I guess, arguably, he should have considered that possibility.

It wasn't strategic. It was a lack of care. I don't know Louis very well, but I know him a little bit. He's a smart guy. If he truly thought anything he ever does is not recorded, that was foolish. And I do not believe him to be a foolish person. So, everybody's recording everything. So the question is, is Louis calls up

Comedy Dynamics and says uh how you doing Brian is this Brian Louie CK no this is a secretary do you want me to get you Brian Louie CK for Brian absolutely of course this is Louie CK

okay we'll get you Brian you're just gonna assume that I'm when I say I'm Louie CK you're gonna assume that I really am Louie CK oh., you're going to assume that I really am Louis C.K.? Oh, is this? Wait, prove to me that you're Louis C.K. That would be more difficult. Take your dick out. Is it a FaceTime?

Yeah. I would pass. So you would pass. I would absolutely pass, and I'd lose a lot of money by passing. You would lose, I think, a monstrous amount of money. Yes, a tremendous amount of money. So the only thing that's important isn't ticket sales, then. Ah, well played.

Well, I think were I in your position, and I assume you're doing reasonably well, it's not like you're, I mean, if you were homeless, maybe you would take the deal. He's got all the Sam Kinison. He's got the Bill Hicks. You don't need the headache. It's not about the headache. It's about the... Part of it is our society is just very sensitive.

That is a part of it. But there's a reason why there is a sensitivity. We've worked very hard to have a brand that either people don't know or they know and there's some quality behind it. Even if they don't like the artists that we're working with, you can spend 20 years making a brand and you can lose it in an hour. A great example is what's going on right now with Boeing

with their two 737 crashes. This is a 100-year-old organization that makes a very complicated product that's a very dangerous product that's a very dangerous product that really within reason everybody trusts with their lives at least twice a year for the most part. And they've had two planes go down in five months. Their reputation might be permanently damaged or it might be damaged for two to five years, who knows, or ten years.

I don't want to take that risk that everybody's like, oh, the guy who did these horrible things and... But do you believe, now, do you believe, and maybe you don't want to answer this question, would you refuse to do a Louis C.K. special because you think it's bad for the brand? Or do you believe in your heart that... What am I trying to say?

Do you agree with the cloud that Louis is under? Or do you think he, like the Boeing 737, is essentially a good product? Okay. No, that's a great question, and I'll answer that question. Would you give Boeing a comedy special? I would not get on a 737 MAX for sure. In fact, I've flown on two Boeing planes since Thursday, and I literally thought

to myself, I hope the software shit they put in the new MAX wasn't put in a 777. So, yeah, it's the same logic, regardless of what I think of the cloud he's under. And I would argue, even the original cloud, I think of the cloud he's under, and I would argue even the original cloud, I think that was to a certain extent, it fed on itself in a way that had he handled it a

bit differently, I think he could have prevailed and he could have gotten through it. That being said, again, to answer your question directly, I truly believe the actions he has taken to deal with the cloud and get through the cloud created an environment where it would not only do harm to the reputation of my company, but also the staff that would work on the special would be uncomfortable working with him. And I don't want to do that to my staff. I don't want to do that to my brand. And just so you know, this is not theoretical. I've talked to my staff about this. I mean, we're more than a 50% female company. And even if we were a 10% female company, it's the same logic. Like it makes people uncomfortable how he handled it almost worse than what actually happened or supposedly happened or whatever. But I would also say,

and this is now me speaking for myself, the Parkland thing, that was disgusting. It wasn't funny. It shouldn't have been said. That is my opinion. And I happen to own a company that could make an offer that could probably afford to pay him for his next special. And that, to me, was not cool. And that's why I would not make the offer. Right or wrong, that's my opinion. And that's how I feel. Well, you know, it bothers me. It bothers me. I'm thinking about not jumping in because on the one hand, as everybody knows, I didn't like the Parkland joke either.

So, you know, and I don't want to. I didn't. I have kids and I just didn't like it. But I would not go as far as you did in the following sense. First of all, it killed in the room. It killed in the room. And when I hear that something kills in the room, then I have to say, well, I wasn't there. So obviously, you know, either I think that 300 people are just all animals or, you know, it's just somehow out of context.

Watching on my computer screen, it's just not the same. I agree with you. And B, it's not the worst joke. It's not the first joke that's offended me. It's not the worst joke that's offended me, and it's probably not the worst joke that's ever been on a special that you put on the air. No, I don't

agree with that, but I will say a couple things. I know about your swim at your own wrist thing. I've been asked about that before. I agree with what you're doing. I think that's fair. And again, I would not green light a special with him. That's my prerogative.

But it's your prerogative to let him perform and do that policy. And I think it's a fair policy and a great policy. Well, I appreciate that. But honestly, just to be very clear, I don't like jokes like that. Period. It's just my thing, man. Maybe some people don't like jokes like that. Period. It's just my thing, man. Maybe some people don't like jokes about airplane crashes, and if they wrote the checks to Greenlight Specials,

they wouldn't Greenlight a special about airplane crashes. But for me, it was... Please, sorry. But we, as a more sophisticated, for lack of a better word, people commenting on comedy, it's probably not fair for us not to acknowledge that he was also making a point, and the point we probably don't think

was a stupid point to be making, which is that just because you were involved in something and caught up in something doesn't make you an expert on that subject. Just because you suffered an earthquake, you can start complaining about the building codes. I completely agree. And we know that's what he was getting at.

Yes. So we do have some obligation to mention that when we're talking about the tone-deaf joke. It wasn't a tone-deaf joke where he was looking to make fun of the victims of a shooting. He was trying to make a point about something else, and he did it in a ham-handed, tone-deaf way. I agree with every single thing you're saying. So I'm sitting here saying to myself, why do I feel the way I do? If I agree with you, here's the best I can come up with. And maybe I'll call you

in a week and be like, you know what? I thought about it more and blah, blah, blah. But here's my knee-jerk reaction. We all in the comedy community have this funny little thing we do where it's like, blah, blah, blah. Too soon? And it's this funny little thing we all do. But you know what? Sometimes it is too soon. And like,

again, and I say this as a parent, but I really feel like I would have said this before I was a parent. These are grieving parents. I'm sure you know some guy just killed himself, whose daughter was killed. And he personalized it to one individual, real person, as opposed to just victims in general.

It really was too soon. And again, this is my opinion. Can I tell you something else about that? Yeah. I think it is. I think you'll agree with this. I also sensed that he was coming from a dark place at that period of his life or very recently. What do you mean?

What happened? And normally when Louis would touch on a third rail topic, he was quite aware. It was pedophilia or whatever it is. He was quite aware that he was doing it and he would go out of his way. So listen, only from their point of view and I'm not saying, like he was aware that he was walking

into the dangerous situation and he tried his best to let us know he's aware of it. Don't get offended. I'm just trying to make a point. Now he's like, fuck it. I'm just making a joke. There's no, he didn't soften it.

He didn't, there wasn't, there wasn't like a twinkle in his eye that I could detect from listening to it. So it came across much harsher, which I think is a reflection of where his head was at. He's like, you know, just dark. You know, that's what I think. Fair enough.

Can I add, as a person who, I don't agree with any jokes that kill in the room. First of all, I don't agree with killing of any kind. But sincerely, to the point about him making a point, I think even if that is the point that he's making, I think that it's not the best point to say, just because kids are shot near you, just because people are dying all around you,

you might have a different perspective on the idea of gun violence. Those kids 100% do. Like, what has he been through that's like that? He hasn't. Like, he's like, you hypocrite. Like, he's making a point. Like, and who am I? Like, I'm not, I don't have that experience.

He doesn't have that experience. Well, the point is that it doesn't make you necessarily an expert in how to prevent future tragedies. Just if we want to continue with the Boeing 737 MAX example, which Brian seems very near and dear to his heart, if I had a relative that died in the Boeing 737 MAX, it doesn't make me an aeronautical engineer. It doesn't make me qualified to discuss the finer points of aviation safety. But aren't they saying, please change the laws so people don't get shot near me again?

It doesn't take an expert to say that. It doesn't take an expert to say we need to secure these schools. It does take an expert perhaps to know what the best laws would be, what the most appropriate laws would be, and the most laws that could pass constitutional muster. It takes a certain kind

of person to make fun of anybody who's been through that kind of trauma. It just does. Look, I didn't even hear the joke, but, like, I also think it's, like, why aren't people more upset about the school shootings? Well, they're plenty upset about the school shootings. I mean, I don't know. You always do that. No, no, no.

I know. You always say, I always do that. But I get really weird about, like, where this line is of, like, what you're allowed to joke about. Like you're allowed to make jokes about the Holocaust. You're allowed to make jokes about cancer. He's allowed to make all the jokes. Not him. Everybody. Yeah. Everybody's allowed to make all the jokes. And if the joke isn't as funny to you, then you're allowed to say, I don't think it's that funny. If the joke is about a thing that you've been affected by, whether it's murder, death, cancer, AIDS, the Holocaust, if you have

something that makes you react to it, your freedom of speech allows you to react to it. That's capitalism. That's the markets. That's the Constitution. I think we all know that here in America, the whisper is the racist accent. I learned from my grandmother she is a master racist

not the way to say that my grandmother lives in Florida she had a black woman move in she didn't have a black woman she had a woman move in next door who was black and my grandmother told me about it

in hushed tones she was like Michael a black lady moved in next door. She is lovely. But I don't know how she affords the rent. Exactly. I was like, I believe it's because they're allowed to work for money now.

I don't know if you heard, but there was a war. It was pretty civil. Anyway, the point is. What about this? Is it affected by the following? I think if we all heard him tell a joke like that in the comedy cellar and it was just and the feeling as even if it might have

been a fiction, even the feeling, it's just among us. I think we might have let it go. He might even have left. There's something about the idea of knowing that this family or that these actual victims, that the circuit closed, that they heard the joke too. That's what it is for me. Which moves it, but that in a way is not his fault.

He should have been smarter about it, but it was not his intention because I have to say the thing, I didn't watch the hearings. Was it a young girl who was testifying

and got a lot of attention? Yes. I didn't watch that. But I know a lot of people did comment, you know, that was terrible what he said,

but yeah, a lot of people were turned off by those hearings. Sure. Sure. Of course. So it was a subject somehow, which I think people were ready to hear poked at, but just not publicly in a way that could hurt the people who were close to it. Yes, but first of all, there's no right answer here. Louie doesn't give a shit

what I think, so let me just put that out there. If he ever heard this, he'd be like, who the fuck is Brian? So let's start with that. But second of all, I think what I said before,

I still feel that way. It's too soon. But to that point, which I think may correspond a bit more with your point, is, I don't know, maybe in five years I get that call

and can you do my secretary impression again? That was great. Oh, yeah. Are you, maybe in five years I get that call. And could you do my secretary impression again? That was great. Are you looking for Brian? He's out right now. Oh wait, who is this? Boeing? Mr. Boeing? Right away. That is dead on. Maybe in five years, you hit the nail on the head. It's like knowing

these parents are in a 10 out of 10 stage of grief. When that got out, yeah, that, for me, mattered. Yeah, me too. Well, and also Brian is doing very nicely with the current lineup that he has. But again, were you on the balls of your ass, you might, I would imagine,

it would be a little more tempting to say, Louis, let's do this. Anyone who answered that other than saying you're right would be lying, and I'm not going to lie. So yes, of course, if I were desperate, then, listen, there were deals I did 15 years ago I wouldn't do now. Mike Kaplan, everybody?

That was six years ago. That he wouldn't do now. Louis could release it himself if he wanted. Speaking of unpleasant topics, I did want to briefly mention something very significant that happened in the world of comedy. A comic literally died on stage in England.

Comedians will often talk about comics dying. That's our term meaning we didn't do very well. Nobody laughed. And here a comic actually did have a heart attack on stage in Bicester. I don't know how you pronounce it. Sounds right. But Ian Cognito was not his real name.

I think his real name was Paul Barbieri. But apparently the audience thought that it was part of the act. Do you guys know Tony V, the Boston comedian? Yeah. Sometimes his opener is, he says to the audience thought that it was part of the act. Do you guys know Tony V, the Boston comedian? Sometimes his opener is, he says to the audience, just so everyone knows, the only thing you need to know to enjoy my comedy is that at no point during my act will I

feign a heart attack. So, if I go down, don't be like, hey, this is a pretty committed piece of acting right there. No, call somebody. I've checked out. This guy apparently didn't do Tony V's opener. No, but he did say he was making a joke about he might have a heart attack or a

stroke, right? He did make some reference to it. He made some reference to it. But not a reference in the way that Tony V basically said is I'm having a heart attack is my safe word. That's fun, Dan. You should enjoy doing stand-up. You're so good at it. Well, thank you.

Thank you, Michael. You should do it twice in a row sometimes. I just find it very, very stressful. I find it stressful when I'm bombing. It's stressful when I'm killing. I'm uneasy with my power. You should try doing it right in the middle. You're uneasy with your power?

I find I get very uneasy when I'm killing too hard. Great power goes great responsibility. But that's part of your charm. That's part of your thing. Right in the middle is where I prefer it, but what I prefer more than anything else is finishing and having a nice frangelico. Well, Dan, you have a law degree.

You don't have to do this. My law degree is worthless. It's been 20 years since I graduated law school. Plus, I still have a dream. You understand? If I was a lawyer, the best I could hope for would be... Yeah, I could be successful, theoretically. I could be partner. I could make a lot of money.

But stand-up gave me the option of glory. And I don't want to relinquish that dream. You shouldn't. I like that. You know, because... By the transit of property, you've just dissed our podcast. But go on, I'll let you finish. No, I like the podcast. The podcast is something

I enjoy a great deal. Because there's no pressure at all. I'm actually thinking of quitting the podcast, actually. Okay, let's talk about that. Do you want to talk more about the incognito? I can't take the stress of it anymore, because I'm always afraid I'm going to say the wrong thing. How long have you been doing the podcast? Years already.

We've been doing it at a high level since just a year. I would say before that we didn't put much effort into it. But the world has changed a lot in the last two years. Counterpoint, it's the same. Anyone else? Exactly the same?

The idea of being cancelled and all this stuff, it was not on my radar when we first started doing the podcast. I mean, I shudder to think what we've said in those podcasts. But now, I mean, yeah, every week I'm like, well, shit, what could we say that's wrong? And they'll come at us. And they did, you know, well, I was traumatized by the whole Louis thing

anyway, so. That makes sense. Being on the outside looking in, I mean, I thought you handled it great. Thank you. I thought it was a smart policy

and you stuck by it. And I think, but we had death threats. Wow. Protective violence. Somebody on Facebook made some comment about my kids.

Oh, that's lovely. it's like, yeah. Yeah, you should quit. What are you doing? Save your life. And the flip side of that is that I only really want to talk about those things that could get me in trouble.

Like, sometimes we'll have a guest and we're making small talk about their career. I know it's interesting to people, but I'm not the guy to host that show. I want to talk about the stuff on the edge, the stuff that I think about privately. You know what? It's difficult. Yeah, an eighth month, now they're passing laws that says in a ninth month you can have an abortion if a woman's mental health is at stake.

And then, well, what does that say about the value? But we're ready to sacrifice all the great monuments in the world history a day afterwards when it's born. I find that interesting, you know? but someone's going to listen to that and say, you know, either something about abortion. I find these sorts of things interesting. An intelligent person ought to.

And I do, too. Let's give you a little bit of meat that you can chew on and talk about the reaction to Ilhan Omar who recently stated Ilhan Omar, who recently stated, in front of a group of Muslims, she was talking about civil liberties and Islamophobia

and said that some people did something and all of us were losing access to our civil liberties and that some people did something was how she referred to 9-11. And there's more to that quote. That is the edited quote that is being used to inflame. What's more? I'll pull it up. Well, the quote was, some people did something and all of us were losing access to our civil liberties. Let him say whatever he thinks

is relevant. If you guys want to keep talking, I'm just loading it up. No, we're going to make you wait. The New York Post in particular posted a cover wherein they said some people did something, and then it was a picture of the Twin Towers shortly after the impact of the aircraft.

What's the Wi-Fi password in here? Just say it on the air. Boeing 737. Thank you so much. Matt, can you bring up the quote? I'll start by telling you this. First of all, there was a thing with Ilhan Omar that Judith Miller wrote a column in the Post. You can look it up like a month ago, where they actually quoted her exactly to the opposite of what she meant.

It was something about the Holocaust and how she compared it to people in Somalia. And I sent that around to my friends. So I am totally sold on the fact that they might actually quote her unfairly and wrongly. Yes. Having said that. So when I first heard the thing about some people did something, I said, well, you know, that could just be a way of saying they're picking on a small group based on it. It's a little flippant way to talk about 9-11, but I didn't immediately jump to a conclusion about it. The point was that, yeah.

However. Please. to talk about 9-11, but I didn't immediately jump to a conclusion about it. The point was that... However, also in this bouquet of things that have come out about her, there's this quote where she was criticizing how a professor would say the word Al-Qaeda as if it was a little villainous. She said,

you don't talk that way about England or something like that. So, you know... That was insane. I saw that. So when you... And when you take all the quotes about Jews hypnotizing...

When you take the totality of where she's coming from, I think it's pretty clear where she's coming from. And whether that particular quote about... And she's going to say more things in the future, I'm sure. And all the Democrats

who are wrapping themselves or anybody's wrapping themselves, circling the wagons around her now, is going to say more things in the future, I'm sure. And all the Democrats who are wrapping themselves, or anybody's wrapping themselves, circling the wagons around her now, is going to get slimed when next month she says something that is not excusable, like she did about dual loyalty. Well, I'll offer this on behalf

of Brian Volkweis only, and Netflix, and the comedy seller. I speak for everyone here. This is from Ilhan Omar's Twitter. There's a series of tweets, and one of them is, No one person, no matter how corrupt and after vicious, can threaten my unwavering love for America.

I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans. Oh, come on. Don't be so credulous. If she tweeted something like that out about her love for America any other time, except when she's behind the eight ball being criticized for this, I would believe it. But as far as I know, I've never heard her tweet anything out like that about America,

except when she was trying to get herself out of trouble. She ran for Congress and got elected Congress of America. She is an American congressperson fighting on behalf of all Americans. I really will defend her where she deserves to be defending. And I really will. I'm all for not taking people out of context. And I said, when she said to some people, I don't think that that's a smoking gun.

But if there's too many quotes of hers, you would not give that kind of benefit of the doubt to anybody who was talking about black people or gay people. You don't have that many quotes in the same keys, that many songs in the same key without having some affinity for that key. I'm sorry.

It's impossible to believe that stuff about her. I saw the video of the quote and, you know, yes, it did seem a very, very odd and flippant way, as Noam said, to talk about 9-11. I could see why it would upset people. That being said, I thought that New York Post's cover went too far to post those images. Those images, they're shocking. Those are images of people being murdered. And to juxtapose that with a quote from Ilhan Omar I thought was inflammatory.

Brian Volkweis, you say what? He obviously doesn't want to get in there. Well, you know, I know this is not what you came here to talk about. I don't know if Perry will explain to you. This is a trans genre podcast. I'm learning that in real time. And we cover it all. And that's why we're so beloved by the people that beloved us.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, listen, you're right. Yeah. No, I don't want to talk about this. But that being said, I mean, I'm not going to hide under a rock either. If there's any unifying thing, I believe everything that's going on now with the social media and everything, how everything is perceived, there's a tremendous lack of context. So like what I've been saying lately is I'm like, if I ran for president, I would, my slogan would be like bringing context back to America.

So I bring that up in that I haven't seen the whole speech very many times. I see something during the day because I don't have time to read an article and I'm seeing headline, headline, headline and I'm like this person's horrible this person's horrible. Then I get home and I watch the whole video and I'm like that's not what he said. That's not

what she said. Defend this one. Ilhan Omar. When I was in college I took a terrorism class. Every time the professor said Al Qaeda his shoulders went, she said while laughing. But you know, you don't say America with an intensity. You don't say England with an intensity. You don't say the army with the intensity. But you say these names of terrorist groups because you want that word to carry weight. Who the fuck says something like that? Yeah, theorizing, that's the whole point. You want to defend that? So what does that mean to you? That's the context

within which, when you're trying to analyze something which seems, which I agree, seems kind of innocuous, and some people said something, you say, well, yeah, and when you have like six or seven similar quotes, well, I don't know, what does it say to you? Do you think it's fair to juxtapose Al-Qaeda

to England? Yeah, colonially, throughout history, I think that they caused much more destruction than Al-Qaeda, objectively speaking, yes. Okay, but do you think that's what she's talking about? I think so. I think that is correct. Then you should defend her. I think to an everyday person, what she's saying is that...

To an everyday white person, I would say. I think that she's talking on behalf... To an everyday white person, I would say. I don't think... I think that she's talking on behalf of... She's talking from her perspective. It was just a whole article in the New York Times about surveys saying actually, liberal white people are much more to themselves. Moderate white people and black people are way

more in tune than liberal white people. This is just... You can read it in the Times this week. But having said that, I think that when you're talking, she wasn't talking about the past tense. Yes, when you're talking about England today, we think about England as

one of the better countries in the world, a Western democracy free country. And Al-Qaeda is this organization which was dedicated to our destruction and to say that you're supposed to talk about them the same way

is kind of madness because if God forbid anything should happen to us, it's not going to be from some English some of the English policies of England, but 9-11 was Al-Qaeda. And I'm just saying, I guess if this were 1812, then maybe we should

be worried about England. Well, in today's world, I'm saying America... But that's the last time England was a threat to America, right? America is responsible for droning innocent people in lots of parts of the world. Listen, you're obviously a... Is that not true? Yes, it is true, but as I always tell Perrielle,

if you want to talk about everything, then you can always make points. Well, I'm responding to your point. Well, okay, but is that— You asked the question, why is America like Al-Qaeda? It kills innocent people. So you—okay, so fair enough. That's—I agree. So I'm saying—so we actually agree, because I'm saying that that's what she thinks. That's the truth. You agree.

So when she said some people do something, she was minimizing 9-11. She was saying Al-Qaeda is no different than England. Why are we making a big deal out of 9-11? She wasn't saying why are we making a big deal. That's what you're saying right now. What I'm saying is her point there was. Am I being unfair? Isn't that what you just said?

Well, let me say what I think about that quote that you're saying now, which I think is misquoting her intention, which is my understanding is the response to the number of people that performed the act, the horrible act of 9-11 that I believe she believes is a horrible act, is now there are all of the basic people of color in America that are of Middle Eastern descent are receiving the treatment that is unfair as a result of the actions of this small number of people. Well, never mind that Jews are overwhelmingly the victims

of hate crimes, not Muslims. But be that as it may, I don't defend anybody's hate crimes. And actually, one of the things that made me proud about America was that right after 9-11, there was so little that we ever heard about anyway. Retribution against Muslims.

After 9-11, and this is, I think, curious or whatever you want to call it, but Muslim immigration has increased since 9-11. Now, I think that has to say something about America that after this horrific attack, perpetrated by people in the name of Islam, you know, like it or not, we've had more opinion of their name of Islam. Yeah, yeah. But be that it... Their twisted opinion of Islam. But be that as it may, our reaction...

Yeah, but the Crusades were in the name of Christ. But be that as it may, our reaction as a nation was actually increased Muslim immigration. So, you know... They wanted to get out of the Middle East that we were bombing into... But, Mike, I don't want to let you off the hook because I think that you're actually agreeing with me. And now you don't want to say it out loud.

And I'll tell you why. Because if she what you what you believe she believes, which is that Al Qaeda in England are on a similar moral plane. If she were to say that out loud, she's done. If she says Al Qaeda in America, there's no distinction between them. She's done. If she says Al-Qaeda in America, there's no distinction between them. She's done. So either she doesn't believe that and you're wrong, or she does believe it and she's bullshitting us. Because she's not going to say that out loud. What you just said, she will not say that. And if she actually said what you just said, then there's no way she's getting out from under those tweets anymore. Am I wrong? I agree with you. I think that it's more complex than just saying that America and England are like Al-Qaeda.

I think that there are any powerful nation or organization, anything that rises, you know, absolute power, corrupt. So let me ask you this. Are you Jewish? I am Jewish. So what if I said to you, you know, when the professor talked about Nazis, his shoulders went up. But when he talks about England or America, nobody gets that kind of attitude. And you would say, that's right, because America and England have done things just like the Nazis. But this is crazy talk.

England, at the end of the day, I mean, England, this is our blood. This is your ilk. These are our brothers. I mean, at some point is our blood. This is your ilk. These are our brothers. I mean, at some point, a nation has... Can you still cancel this special? At some point, a nation... Maybe we have an opinion of America that's not completely in accord with reality,

but people need their cherished myths. They need patriotism to some extent. And they need love of country. And listen, let me say, I think we all agree. I think we do all agree that we all want no hate crimes. We all want fewer hate. We all want less violence. That's what I believe.

That's what Ilhan Omar wants. I think that you are making a joke and it's not okay. I know that you like making jokes and that they should be okay. But I sincerely, I think that everyone should make all the jokes they want. Everyone should say what they want.

I think the great thing about America is that we can have this conversation, is that we can share. Can you do that in Al-Qaeda? I don't think I can join Al-Qaeda. You think you could? Could anybody be... Could you be gay and join Al-Qaeda. You think you could? Could anybody be... Could you be gay and join Al-Qaeda?

Brian wanted to jump in, and I want him to be able to say what he wants to say. I wasn't calling you gay. Thank you. And this might be splitting hairs from your point of view, Mike, or nuance that you don't think is relevant, but Al-Qaeda's beef with this country is one issue. I'm not pro-Al-Qaeda, just to be clear.

I'm not pro-murder. I'm not pro-Norway. I'm pro-America. I'm addressing the point you made. I'm pro-human. I'm addressing the point you made. Well, that's the point I'm addressing. And you're also vegan, I believe.

That's true. Pure animal as well. But pro-choice. I'm addressing the point you made that they kill people and we kill people. They killed over 3,000 people within a couple miles of here because we had our citizens in Saudi Arabia with the legal blessing of the Saudi government. And al-Qaeda took it upon themselves to say that the government of Saudi Arabia

wasn't up to them to decide if we were allowed to have our people there, troops and non-troops. So they killed 3,000 people here. I think that was bad. Yeah. And I'm not trying to suggest you think otherwise. And I think going into Iraq as a result and killing innocent Iraqis

was also bad. I think both of those things are true, and that's not a black and white simplicity thing that you can't think it's complex. Let him finish his point. That is true but the difference is the point that she made was about

these people doing something like if she was saying the point of like yeah in a perfect world nobody would kill anybody. Cool. But for her to talk about her citizens was saying the point of like yeah nobody in a perfect world nobody would kill anybody cool but for her to take to for her to talk about her citizens uh in such a blasé way the worst day of violence in our nation's history uh like hey these people did this thing well i would also to your point say can i can i we didn't invade ira blah, blah, blah. That was a horrible thing.

I think, do you guys know how when you get a text, sometimes you can't read the tone of the text? I honestly think that people reading tone into tweets

is also problematic and takes away from, like you said, the context. It wasn't a tweet, it was a speech. I think that most people have seen it in print.

I heard the speech and I did think it did not help her. I think that her tone, speaking about that event, was flippant and blasé. It's the most minor thing of all the things she said, but intelligent people understand that you get a certain number of swings at the bat before we're able to draw a conclusion. When you have four or five or six different quotes like this,

you say, yeah, I think that's what she's coming from. She has a right to come from there. Can I make one more point? Sure. This is something I've thought for a long time, but I've actually never said this out loud, let alone in front of a recording device. Think before you say it.

Again, going back to your point of they kill people and we kill people, and that's true and we should not have invaded iraq and i feel horrible about a lot of the things that happen in iraq to put it mildly almost everything was horrible and bad but i will say this the united states we invented the internet we invented the plane we have made we have added and contributed wonderful things to this society, to this civilization. We put someone on the moon. And we got a lot of things we've done wrong. Al-Qaeda's done nothing positive.

So for her to sit there and say, these people did this thing. She's talking about a people who have contributed medicines, technologies, things that have made the world better, despite doing bad things, of course, throughout this same period. And she's talking about, and the same thing could be said for England. They invented longitude and latitude. They did all these great things,

while also doing fucked up shit, to be sure. Al-Qaeda's done nothing but violence. And she's not Al-Qaeda, just to be clear. She's not on the side of Al-Qaeda's done nothing but violence. And she's not Al-Qaeda, just to be clear. She's not on the side of Al-Qaeda. What you're saying is the whole context of her speech or her story was, well, why isn't he raising his shoulders when he talks about England when he raises his shoulders about Al-Qaeda? And I think the answer is England's contribution to humankind

may at least counterbalance the answer is England's contribution to humankind may at least counterbalance the ill that it's done. Same for the United States. That's your point and maybe mine. Certainly mine. I can't speak for you. But Al-Qaeda has brought nothing but violence and death. Noam goes beyond and here's

why. Noam, hit it. No, I go beyond it in the sense that listen, it's ridiculous to think that any nation doesn't have its chapters where it's done things wrong. It's made up of humans. And that's the way it is. But Al-Qaeda is an organization dedicated to evil and death and destruction.

And England is... They can't wear a bathing suit. They can't vote. And England is by and large, and America, by the way, is by and large in the hole dedicated to enlightenment, dedicated to freedom. I mean, there's nobody on planet Earth that lives free.

There is nobody on planet Earth that lives free except because of America. Period. There is no freedom on planet Earth. Is there some other nation that you I mean, every nation is flawed. Is there a nation which you think would have been better to be the most powerful nation

in the world and lead the nation in its trajectory the last hundred years? Who could you pick? It had to be somebody. It was us. And we're the best of the lot. And we're not perfect, but we, I mean, we handled it. We handled absolute power with tremendous restraint. Literally the entire world was burnt down in 1946.

Today, China has a million Muslims in concentration camps. Today. Today in Africa, they have slavery. I don't think that those are good things. Right. So she's putting us on the same moral plane, American, English, Al-Qaeda. This is crazy talk.

What I think she is doing, which I think is a good thing, is there are other viewpoints. The viewpoint that America has done so many great things, I understand, I agree with. And also, because of the power that we've had, the power that we still have, that when you have that much power, we are also causing harm. And so by saying, but we're also doing these good things, so don't think about the harm. I think there's a lot of black and white. There's a lot of, well, if this, then it has to be that. It is both. It is all.

What harm are we causing? We are killing innocent people with drones in the Middle East. And that is something So what would you do about the terrorists in the Middle East? Well, what I'm saying is that she's presenting this viewpoint that outside of America, America is not the best for everyone.

That's what I'm saying. I'm just wondering, are you a pacifist? Are you saying anytime innocent people die, the people who are responsible for that death are in the wrong? Yes, usually, yes. So if there's missiles that come in, and the missiles are kept purposely in a civilian area, and the only way to get the hit back of those missiles is to shoot back at those missiles, and know there's certain, you can drop leaflets, but some civilians are going to die.

We should just take the missile fire? I want there to be the fewest people dying. Don't duck the question. If you want to have a serious conversation, then don't duck the question. Say the question again. Would you say that if the only way to stop the missiles coming into your family was to shoot back and know that innocent civilians are going to get killed? I might die, yes.

You would say we have the obligation to get killed. I might die, yes. You would say we have the obligation to get killed ourselves. I would rather die than kill someone. But you think morally your obligation is to die? I'm saying I can only speak for myself. Morally your obligation is to have your children die rather than to shoot back, even if the enemy has purposely hid. So in other words, when we got hit with Pearl Harbor, we shouldn't have attacked Japan.

I'm saying that I wouldn't want to kill innocent people to protect myself. Nobody wants to. Yes, that's what I'm saying. But thank God, hopefully you're not running for president. I'm not. So when you say America does bad things, what you're saying is that America doesn't agree with you. So by that definition, of course America's going to do bad things. America causes innocent deaths is all I'm saying.

Even if we're 100% in the right. In other words, even if we bombed the concentration camps and we killed a lot of German villagers in that process, we shouldn't have bombed the concentration camps. I'm not going backwards. I'm saying four words I don't want to kill. I would rather there be less killing. I'm not going backwards. I'm taking a known event in history. There's people that want to kill us.

I would rather die than kill. That's all. That's your choice. I'm taking a known event in history. There's people that want to kill us. I would rather die than kill. That's all. That's your choice. I respect that. One thing for you to say you'd rather die than kill, and another thing to look at someone else who defends himself and say they're doing bad things. I think that we might be going further than that.

Have we talked about the Boeing 737 MAX? We have indeed. We need to wrap it up. We didn't get to your thoughts on the Boeing 737 MAX. We need to wrap it up. We didn't get to your... What are your thoughts on the Boeing 737 MAX? It's bad that they crashed. I don't know a lot about it. I'll tell you something, Mike.

You may think that I'm upset with you, but you know what the bubble over my head is right now? What's that? I want Mike Catlin back on this show at least once a month because I love having these kind of arguments. Anyway, you can catch... We got to go. now. What's that? I want Mike Catlin back on this show at least once a month. Because I love having these kind of arguments. Anyway, you can catch, we gotta go, you can catch

my special Thou Shalt Not Kill. I am recording a new hour next month at ACMI, May 21st to 25th. It's called All Killing Aside. Is this a comedy dynamics joint? It's not. As Spike Lee would put it

can we just say one thing? I don't totally disagree with you about this drone strike I mean I don't know I mean I trust Barack Obama kind of and I feel like he was weighing things with every intention

of doing the morally correct thing and I'm glad I'm not in charge I don't believe Bin Laden was involved in that kind of consideration and that may be he was doing the morally correct thing. And I'm glad I'm not in charge. I don't believe Bin Laden was involved in that kind of consideration. He was doing the opposite. That might be another reason why it should offend you to compare them.

Okay, more on that when Mike's back. Are we wrapping it up? Well, I feel like it would be fun to spend... Even when we cut out that to spend a minute on Queens. Anyone? The greatest borough, you mean?

It is. Two airports? Do any of the other boroughs have two airports? And how many? Do they have one airport? Amazingly brilliant people have come out of Queens. Simon and Garfunkel. Noted.

Why are you talking about Queens? Because we went to high school together. Because they both brought Brian and Perry out. We're Jaguars. We're Jaguars. Came from a school with no sports teams, but it was called the Jaguars. The sports teams were so bad, they let me play sports. That's how bad they were.

Here is a question I ask every week, and I bet. Can we make jokes about, I'm supporting for president, by the way. Who's that? Buttigieg. Buttigieg. Okay. But I can't resist the jokes. Fair enough.

About his name, about his sexuality. I actually said out loud, I support, I've said this on the show already, I support that guy, top or bottom. He's my first choice right now. Did you catch my joke? The jokes. He's only said it on every other episode.

I know, I know. know Dan you're a real anyway he's my top choice I actually said already that I said it he's my top choice I'm the most excited about him

of anyone running and I would be fine with jokes you're fine with the jokes I think as long as the jokes are good then go that's a fun joke

that's how I feel as long as the jokes are good they have to kill well they can't be mean spirited that's for sure I apologize

but there is something about me. But people love our squabbling. And I'm saying it so many times already and still not stopping with the jokes. I understand it might not be credible anymore. But honestly, in my heart of hearts, I wonder. It's kind of like the Parkland thing. It's fine to tell the jokes. But if he actually heard that joke, I would feel terribly small.

And I could see that he would feel dehumanized. You know what? I'm actually talking to them about having him on the show. Part of the reason I like him is because I think he has, I can tell he has a sense of humor. And one of the things Trump gets no credit for is a huge part of why he won, is his sense of humor. And Hillary's, who I raised a lot of money for, voted for her even in the primary against

Obama, yada, yada, yada. I love her, but no sense of humor on camera. Off camera, very funny. Yeah. Off camera, very funny. On camera, yeah. So this guy whose name I still can't pronounce yet, he's got a good sense of humor. Like Buddha and a judge.

Buddha judge. That's the opposite of Mike Kaplan. Off, on camera, but when I talk to him, just hanging out, terrible. I think if he's not president this time, he will be a president. Unless there's something that'll come up about him

that we don't know or something like that. I doubt it. Like he cheats on his husband. But yeah, this is an impressive, impressive dude. Yeah.

And you might not like him because he volunteered for the military. Oh, no, I like him a lot. He's not in it anymore. I love it. And he was just doing analysis. I guess in your kind of liberal... Drone deployment. Anal ISIS?

Okay. In your liberal worldview, gay trumps veteran. I don't like to use the word trs as a verb, but no, I'm also, I'm definitely, look, everything that happened in the past, we can learn from. That's what I want. Very true. That's a good note to end on.

First of all, just a couple quick housekeeping notes. Please send us, this episode we really, was really a classic episode insofar as we covered both comedy and politics. So please send us your feedback. Podcastatcomedyseller.com. Also

we didn't get a chance to talk about it but Brian you're I believe producing a movie that's coming out soon called Slut in a Good Way. It's already come out but it's still in theaters. We didn't produce it. We're just distributing it. We acquired it. But it's and I feel like I can say this because we didn't produce it. We're just distributing it. We acquired it. I feel like I can say this because we didn't produce it.

We're only distributing it. It is 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It is an A-plus film. I haven't gotten a chance to see it, but I've read about it. If you enjoy French-Canadian girls having sex, then this is the movie for you. There's no sex in it. There's slut in the title, but no sex in the movie.

But it is a French-Canadian movie. It is, yes. And if you enjoy French-Canadian girls as I do, then don't walk, run to your nearest Cineplex to see this film. Where can we see it? It's at the, what do you call it, in Brooklyn. The big... The Barclays Center?

The Alamo? The Alamo Draft House. Thank you, yes. Slut in The Alamo? The Alamo Draft House. Thank you, yes. Slut in a good way at the Alamo Draft House. Also, I should mention, it does require subtitle reading. It does, but they're really cool subtitles. They're like different colors. Okay.

So, Brian, I didn't know who you were. Yeah. You didn't know who I was. I did know who you were. But you were an awesome, awesome guest. Will you come back again? Of course. Or just come back.

Actually, it might even be more interesting to hear you talk off mic, but I would like to get to know you better because you— Can I be a dick for a second? Yeah. We've met like a dozen times. Maybe just to say hello. We never had a conversation. We never had a conversation like this.

That's for sure. That's for sure. But you're very kind. Thank you. No, I won't forget you now. He doesn't even know who I am half the time. No, first of all, I actually have bad facial recognition. It is a problem.

And I was talking to a guy, a journalist who has the same issue as I do. But then I meet a million people. And I'm shy, actually. I don't like to meet people. So I actually do it as quickly as I can. You might still be insulted. And I'm shy, actually. I don't like to meet people. So I actually do it as quickly as I can. You might still be insulted. I am not insulted at all.

You should not be. At all. And I'm the same way as you. So I'm shy and I'm horrible with faces. But you remember. But you own the fucking club of clubs. So of course I remember. And follow us on Instagram. Super bright and super interesting.

And if you want to come and hang out again. Thank you. Thank you. Do you drink? I do. Not a lot, but I do drink. All right. And Mike.

Mike, a special all-killing aside will be being filmed, and then we can look forward to seeing that. Woo-hoo! And, you know, I was actually thinking to myself, have I met him before? I really was. I said, no, I haven't. And also, this actually went in my head.

And I'm like, when I saw him, he didn't act like we knew each other. Well, you were kind of looking down. I thought you were like mad at me or this was an ambush. I'm like, oh, that'd be cool. Oh, and it's like 11 degrees out and I'm dressed like it's 80 degrees out. That's because you dress for yesterday's weather, if you're like me. My wife is calling me We need to go

Okay goodnight everybody Thank you very much Goodnight Thank you Bye