The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Zarna Garg & Uriel Epshtein

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Zarna Garg is a TikTok comedy sensation with over 75 million views and 370k followers.  She is the winner of Kevin Hart's Lyft Comics comedy competition on Peacock and the winner of the 2021 Ladies of Laughter Newcomer Award.  She also won the Top Comedy Feature Screenplay Award at the 2019 Austin Film Festival.  The project is now in development.  She is a Comedy Cellar regular.  Uriel Epshtein is the Executive Director of the Renew Democracy Initiative dedicated to defending the values of liberal democracy in the US and around the world.   

this is live from the table recorded at the world-famous Comedy Cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM 99, Raw Dog, and the Laugh Button Podcast Network. Dan Natterman here, out of isolation from Omicron. It took about two weeks for the symptoms to completely go away. I was in the middle of licorice pizza about halfway through, when all of a sudden I said to myself, you know, I think the symptoms are gone because I was a little bit fatigued going into the movie. But but then about halfway through, I felt myself again. Noam Dorman is joining us from an undisclosed location via Zoom in Westchester County. Periel Ashenbrand is here, our producer.

Once again, Periel, we'd love to hear what you have to say but please refrain from changing the subject and we are joined by comedian zarna garg who is making some waves in the business she's a new comedy seller comedian well you know what zarna why don't you tell us what you're up to? I know you won the Kevin Hart something with Kevin Hart. Yeah, he had a show. First of all, Namaste. Thank you for having me. Oh, yeah. Namaste.

And yeah, it's a white people thing now. Namaste. So you're learning. He had a competition called Lift Comic. L.I.F. and why? Oh, like the car company. OK. Which was filmed.F. Oh, like the car company. Uber, Lyft. Okay. Which was filmed out in New Jersey where the comedians had to drive a Lyft and pick up passengers and make them laugh.

Oh, that's so funny. And the passengers would rate us. They had no idea we were comedians. So the passengers rated us and then whoever had the highest ratings. So you were driving? Yeah, we were driving all day. That is hilarious.

Driving around like the suburbs of New Jersey, picking up people. But you were the driver or you were? I was the driver and the like, you know, you know how some Uber drivers just talk and talk. And it was kind of that vibe, at least in my car. OK, because the minute somebody sat down, I was like, oh, my God, you know, get the jokes and get the jokes in. And it just kept going. So it was like cash cab, my God, you know, get the jokes and get the jokes in. And it just kept going. So it was like cash cab, but for comedy. Exactly. And who is the camera guy?

The the car was outfitted with all kinds of cameras. There was no people with us. It was just me and a passenger and two people. But the car was like it was like the G.I. Joe of cars. They had everything in it. And so then afterwards, you said to the customer, by the way, this was for a comedy competition. Please sign here for the release.

I actually didn't say anything. They did all this thing because we had to keep going and picking up passengers. So when we drop people, they must have signed off on stuff. And so where can we see this? It sounds like a lot of fun. It is streaming on Peacock, and I believe it's now on the L.O.L. Network YouTube channel as well. How fun. Yeah. And Zarni, you also have a movie in that I read correctly, a movie in development.

Yeah, that's right. So what's that's the first screenplay I wrote. I'm a self-taught screenwriter. So, you know, I wrote a romcom. It's a it's a very classic romcom, but set in the Indian world. It's a story of how I came to America and, you know, it won the Top Comedy Feature Award at Austin Film Festival in 2019. And it's being made now.

What's it called? Rearranged. So I, you know, I was almost going to be arranged at 15, which is not uncommon. It's not very common, but it's not uncommon in India. Certainly not 25 years ago. And I was almost arranged and I found my way out of it,

which in hindsight was a mistake. There are days now where I was like, I should have just gotten arranged. It was easier. You know, you marry like an old rich dude. And that's it. You take care of his mother. Well, if you are lucky enough

to be arranged with an old rich dude. That's the whole premise behind the arrangement. It's usually. Always. But not everybody has that choice. If you're not from a family of high, you know, well-born, you may not have that choice. You have to take what you can get.

Well, I mean, rich is a spectrum, right? Would have been richer than whatever we were in life. And so it would have been fine. So I've been married for 21 years. Thank you. You're a really nice Indian man. We're the perfect Indian couple. Thank you. To a really nice Indian man, we're the perfect Indian couple. We do math for fun.

We take romantic walks in the park and discuss interest rates. The last time we refinanced, I got pregnant with my third. And, you know, I've never said I love you to my husband. Oh, it's only been 21 years. What's the rush? But if he said it to me, I'd know he's cheating on me. With a white woman. Where else would he get this nonsense? We've also never had a candlelight dinner. I mean, thank you. But we came... The things that make people sad. And we came to America for the electricity.

Does the caste system still bear down on Indian culture? Of course it does. Nothing changes. I mean, you know, maybe 10 million people in urban India will be like, we don't believe in it. But the red, the remaining 900 million are still pretty much subscribers. So what cast is my wife? She's not in any cast. She's half Puerto Rican. Well, I'm talking about her India guests. Well, we asking Zarna for how it's on. She can probably tell us by looking at her.

I my guess would be that she's part of the merchant community. Same as me. That's the vast majority of all Indians. If she if she's if her if her dad is not a priest praying all the time, then she's not a priest. Yes. And if she if they're not out fighting wars, which I don't think they were, they're not warriors. So like it's down. How many cats are there? How many cats are there for cats?

Well, then they're the untouchable cat. Is that a cast or is that no? That's just when you don't know. That's a real cast. But untouchable cast rarely makes it out of India. Like that, the leap from India to anywhere out of India is so unlikely that you could bet against. So how did you make it to this country? So I I'm part of the merchant community, whatever. But I came here to study. My sister was living in America. So I came here to get an education, which also in hindsight, I was like, what was I thinking? It was easier when I didn't know stuff. By the way, this is an example of worlds colliding. You know, Zarna knows my sister because my my nephew, my sister's son and Zarna's daughter went to the same school. I went to Horace Mann and they were

friends there. No way. So my sister said to me, you know, Zarna's, you know, Zarna. And at the time I didn't. But then she wound up here. But you're not friends with my sister. You just kind of know her because your kid is friends with her kid. Well, we cross paths. It's like all the mom is stuff. You know, we were parents together in the same class for over a decade. So we cross paths a lot more than you might imagine. A lot of parent teacher, you know, in America.

Also, parents are involved a lot more. Like India, you give birth, you forget to get them married at 15, 16. Here it's every year, another whatever the report card day is called in America. So what made you make the so you got an education? What were you doing prior to stand up? I was a stay at home mom for 16 years. So and I taught myself how to write a screenplay. And even after winning the top award, I couldn't get anybody to read it. Wow.

That's part of what made me think hard, like what I should do when I was really struggling. And my kids, my the same daughter who's friend with friends with your nephew was like, she's all American. So she's like, Mom, just do stand up comedy, make jokes about your script. And that's the first time I thought, like, what? Who's going to listen to what I have to say? Well, this is a lesson to, I guess, aspiring screenwriters in a way, is that stand-up, if you have the aptitude for it, stand-up is always a good way to get attention for yourself as a writer,

if you can do it. It's just a way to get yourself in front of people a lot of writers do stand-up and this is how they then get attention and then they and then they'll get hired as a writer because they got attention for themselves as a stand-up so that's a strategy that people do use um but it's a very different skill set yeah well no but there's a lot of overlap a lot of writers are stand-up sure yeah a ton of writers are stand-ups it's it's a it's a very different skill set. Yeah, well, no, but there's a lot of overlap. A lot of writers are stand-ups. Yeah, a ton of writers are stand-ups. It's a different skill, but no, because as a stand-up, you're writing the shit that you're saying.

I know, but as somebody who wrote for years, I think that you're a stand-up and you're a writer. I think that there are more comics who are also writers than writers who are also stand-ups that that's accurate that may be that's accurate I in my case I just didn't know I was a comic until like I really didn't I've been making jokes my whole life now again in hindsight been giving away the comedy gold but but to the point that Dan was making I think today there's a lot more ways to put your voice out there. So if you're not a traditional stand up comedian, the digital comedians doing all that, if you can make funny tweets, you're going to get attention. Yeah. So there are ways to just not be waiting for the phone to ring and actually be proactive is, you know. Speaking of tweets, this leads us into

Noam is yawning. Noam Hayton, we talk about comedy because I'm tired. I'm tired. I don't know if you know this about Noam, but he he he's he's a comedy club owner who doesn't who doesn't really like comedy. I like to laugh. He likes to know what you know. Noam I mean, I don't know if you know the story of the comedy seller. Just very briefly, no, I don't know if you know the story of the comedy seller. Just very briefly.

Noam basically tripped and fell into this because his father owned the club and his father tripped and fell into it because he was a restaurant owner and there was a basement and somebody came and said, let's do a comedy show here. Now, that being said, Noam was has the wherewithal to have grown the club. I want to give Noam the full credit he deserves. He his father did a great job and then Noam took it to another level because Noam's a good businessman, whether he loves comedy or not.

Like if you go to the stand, those guys are comedy fans, the owners of the stand. And that's why they got into the business. But Noam, Noam was more of a music guy. But are they really in the business? I feel like the comedy seller is in the center of the comedy well it is but that but no one doesn't care maybe that's why he's in in the center of like you know well because he's a good businessman when he does something he likes to do it right i mean no what is your motivation to make the comedy seller as great as it is

um i don't know yeah that's a good question. It's, it's I love, I do love show business. I love, I love putting on good shows. And I do, and I do love, no, you're right. I don't love comedy. I don't, you know what? I don't think most comedians love comedy. I love a good show. And you know, I, you know, I, the truth is what, I mean, to be just so you know, so like when I had a music club, you know, for most, for most of the, most of I had a few music clubs and the club that I cared about most, my band played it. And I loved that.

But then I had the village hunting ground where you used to book a lot of famous acts like, uh, you know, uh, uh, I Turner and, you know, I, whoever the Jesus, you know, Ike Turner and whoever the. Ike Turner, Jesus. It just reminded me of an act, Michelle and Dougie Cello. And like big, big national acts would come through that I, and I didn't have any, I didn't get any enjoyment out of that. Like I didn't care like that I own the club that these great musicians

were playing at or little Steven, you know, from the Sopranos and the Springsteen band. He used to do every Monday night. And and I didn't get that much pleasure out of that. I get I get way more pleasure out of comedy than I used to get out of presenting other bands and stuff. So I don't know what motivates me. I don't know. This is more fun version this is like you get more pleasure out of them but why is it why was it more pleasure doing the comedy uh than than the music because music is loud and and and most of it is just you know not pleasant and i don't know something i love music but i didn't necessarily love owning a club that had music.

I love playing music. Yeah, you like playing music. I love I love comedy as much as the next guy. But I felt like I had this dream to be, you know, having a club where comedians play. I love hanging out with the comedians. I mean, my motivation really, Dan, is to, you know, there's a lot of things that come into business that have nothing to do with comedy. Like I did computer coding and I do the video montage and I did the website and, you know, decorating and presenting the sound and the lights and picking things out and, you know,

the bathroom fixtures, whatever it is. These are all interesting things to do and and just to be moving forward on something and then also it's it gives me a lot of freedom to do do other stuff i like to do which is you know like read and i don't know i think you also take great pride in doing something very well don't you like making sure that it's the best that it can be yeah of course it has to be the best it can be it has to's the best that it can be? Yeah, of course it has to be the best. It can be, it has to be the best. No, I don't think that other people say that. No, they don't. I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand how the other clubs operate.

Like you go into other clubs and the sound isn't good. And the lights are lighting up this shadows and there's lights on parts of the wall that clearly there's no reason they should be lit up and the light bulbs out and just all kinds of things. It's like they don't even care. It's like they love comedy so much. They don't care about anything else. They just want to sit there

and like be fanboys or something. You're running a business here. I don't know. What do you think motivated Ziegfeld? He loved showgirls? Like he loved the... Well, I guess you could say the same thing about Louis B. Mayer. I mean, was he a movie fan or he's just trying to run a business? And, you know, and in his case, I think it was just because he couldn't get into it. He couldn't get any other job. You know, he was an immigrant Jew and and and and movies were a business that

was kind of new and open to everybody. Well, clearly, Harvey Weinstein wasn't in it for the movies. Oh, my God. But I was about to get into. But going to it is going to go to talk about the elephant in the room. What's that? Why is Perrielle wearing a mask? First of all, she struck out, tried to avoid COVID. She caught it twice with all her fucking.

She's like, she's like so cautious. So she caught it twice. Am I supposed to take this off now? Now you have super immunity. You're triple vaccinated and you've had COVID twice. What are you worried about? I'm worried about, I don't know. There's apparently some other fucking strain making its way over here.

You've got HPV, you've got herpes, and you've had your ovaries removed. Why is he wearing a condom? What are you worried about? You really think I can take this off now? Absolutely. You know, you are really a piece of work. You know that? Like, it's just unbelievable.

Because if I came in here without a mask on, you would be like, you see, I told you you aren't being careful. No, that's that's that's ridiculous. You weren't careful. You got COVID. I was careful. Now you're not careful enough. And now you're now you have now you're being careful when you have immunity.

OK, first of all, I don't appreciate that. And it's not fucking accurate. What do you mean not careful enough? I was the most careful, which is what every single person we know has said to me. I can't believe Perrielle got COVID again. She's the most careful person we know. I think not careful enough is self-evident considering the fact you got COVID. Well, or Omicron is pretty tough to avoid.

I mean, I mean, gam's avoided it so far. Noam's the most careful person, probably. He has 47 vaccines. Well, well, the vaccine doesn't seem to stop Omicron. But I wear it and I wear an N-100 mask. Well, let's just let's just talk about this. I'm sorry, Zarna, but no, but here's the thing. A few days before New Year's, I was scheduled to do a podcast with Modi. You know Modi? Yeah. He's kind of like the Jewish Zarna. That's amazing. And she said, are you coming to the podcast? I'm like, of course I'm not coming to the podcast. Positivity is like at 18% right now. I'm not going into a little studio to do a podcast today. And she says, okay, well, I'm going to go

do it. And I think, well, I don't think you should. I said, I don't think you should. And then a few days later she got COVID. Now I don't know where she got COVID. He's talking about me, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. But hold on. Now you can say you didn't catch it at that, at that podcast. That may be true. Maybe the numbers all line up. The point is that. Oh, no, we analogy is an analogy for other decisions you certainly made. Wait a second. Wait a second. First of all, I already had covid when I went to do that podcast that I didn't know about. I was already. I just said you may not have caught it that day, but the point is it was indicative of the chance. Why nobody

else at that podcast got COVID? Modi and Leo don't have COVID and I had my mask on. She has trouble thinking like she has trouble zooming out from a specific to a pattern. I'm trying to say there's a pattern there that whatever

arithmetic you went through and said, yeah, I can do this podcast. You did that arithmetic in other situations that week. No, no. One of them got you covered. No. Let me ask you, how do you know what you don't tell Donna? You know what I call her? The Virgin Mary of COVID.

She got it, but she didn't. She didn't fuck anybody. She never caught it. She just got it, but she didn't. She didn't fuck anybody. She never caught it. She just got it. You know what you like? All of this is such a crack of shit because, you know, better than anyone, given the fact that you were the only person I saw for 18 months. Right. I mean, was I careful?

Why am I the only person you designated allowed into the house? How did you get COVID, Perrielle? My doctor thinks that I got it from doing a show, that I got it from being on stage. No, but I keep my mask on except on stage. And she said she thinks that it doesn't matter. OK, OK. But like, how was I supposed to know that? I would say that Perrielle is pretty careful, but she one can always be more careful.

Now, Noam goes to the extreme and we'll see if Noam's able to avoid covid. But but Perrielle's, you know, she's not perfectly careful. I mean, I can't. No, if I get friends, I had to. I'm sorry. I had an exposure a couple weeks ago when I ate outside with somebody who had turned out to have COVID. You also ate inside with somebody who turned out to have COVID. No, I didn't do that.

Yes, you did, me. You, well, that's because you said, I'll let you in my house when you say you didn't have COVID. So, so I ate outside. Now, if I'd caught COVID from that person, I would have had to say, you know, I wasn't careful enough. I took the risk that he didn't have it and being outdoors was protective enough. And it turned out I didn't catch it. But, you know, I took a little risk. You were taking a lot of logic because you can get it anywhere. I take the subway every day to come here and do 10 other things. You can get it. Yeah. Thank you. You're not going to go anywhere at all.

And even then I know people who got it, people who didn't leave their room, especially this variant is you can get it like that. But what I'm saying is that, but what I was really saying is take off the mask. Periel, you already had COVID. You promise I can't get Omicron again?

I can't promise you. I can only say that it's very, very, very, very unlikely that you would get it again. Now, you don't know you had Omicron. That's part of the problem. No, I think it's pretty clear that it was Omicron. Well, if the main symptoms were like stuffiness and cold-like symptoms, then they say that that's Omicron. If that was what your symptoms were like a stuffiness and cold like symptoms. And they say that that's Omicron. If that was what your symptoms, even in somebody triple boosted.

Yeah, probably, but I'm not sure. Probably at Omicron. And by that, this is, this was around, you got,

you, you got it around the 21st of December. No, I got, I tested positive on the, on the test that I took December 20th. I had taken two. I would say that's about the 21st. Yeah. OK, go ahead. All right. Whatever. Can we can we perhaps talk about Chappelle and Patton Oswalt? Yes. Or Licorice Pizza, which

I don't know. Licorice Pizza is a movie that I saw. I finally saw a movie for the first time since the pandemic. I had a couple of thoughts about it. So you want to hear those thoughts? You want to hear about you want to talk about Patton and Chappelle? I want to hear your thoughts if they're brief. Well, they're brief ish. First of all, I would say that Paul Thomas Anderson has come a long way since Boogie Nights, but it's not.

It's a long way down. Wow. Maybe that was a little too harsh, but it's not. It's a long way down. Wow. Maybe that was a little too harsh, but I thought it was clever anyway. So I was clever. No, I thought it was a mess. I thought it was a bunch. Did you see it, Nicole? Nicole, I did not see it.

Did anybody see it? No. OK, well, it was a lot of really interesting scenes thrown together, but no real story that I could ascertain. But the main point I wanted to make about Licorice Pizza is that the lead actors, Cooper Hoffman, who's Philip Seymour Hoffman's son, and Alana Haim, who's a musician. Do you know her? No. She and her sisters have a band. They were this was their first acting gig, apparently.

And they both did a great job. So once again, it comes down to the point that we've made or the question that we've posed numerous times. What exactly is acting? What is the skill involved? How hard is it? Is it something you can either do or you can't? I mean, there's two questions. One question is, how hard is it?

And then the second question is, can it be taught? Or you just have it or you don't? Because as we've said many times, you couldn't pick up a guitar for the first time ever and convince anybody that you knew how to play the thing. But we've seen so many cases of people that really aren't actors in terms of their training or in terms of their work, and they do a pretty fucking good job. actors in terms of their training or in terms of their, their work. And they do a pretty fucking good job. Yeah.

We also have to factor in that in the movies, it's like a recording studio. You have unlimited takes. So you can maybe get it right. Like, like you can, you can take a mediocre guitarist and you give him enough time in the studio. He will come out with like a great guitar solo,

but if he's a live musician, you would be pretty obvious. This guy's mediocre, you know? So stage acting is probably more of a clear talent than movie acting. I would say. Well, that's an interesting point.

And yet still, you know, I think that I still, I still think it's, it's it's it's that still leaves a question of how teachable is it? And we know people like Judah Friedlander that I don't think ever took an acting class that he was in the movie was American Splendor, you know, and did a good job. Then there's my star turn and and, which everybody said was at least pretty good. Weren't you playing yourself?

Yeah, I was playing myself. Well, Ray Romano went from, I wouldn't call it bad acting, but from workmanlike acting in his first season of Everyone Loves Raymond to becoming a fine actor, such, such a fine actor that Martin Scorsese casted him for a role based on an

audition, not knowing who he didn't know who Ray Romano was. He just saw the audition and, and chose Ray Romano for a part and only found out later because he doesn't watch TV. Apparently only found out later that Ray Romano was, I don't found out later because he doesn't watch TV. Apparently only found out later that Ray Romano was. I don't know that. I mean, well, you said that Ray Romano started off like. At a lower level of act.

I mean, I don't know. He started off on his TV show, which I thought was his acting was certainly. No, he got way better as the seasons progressed on a TV show. Darn is your is your script designed for you to be in it? No. OK. Theage love. Teenage love story. But but to your point, don't people doesn't everybody act a little bit in their life, unlike playing a guitar, which you may not touch ever?

Most people act a little. Perrielle, that includes faking orgasms. Sorry, I was distracted. I'm trying to look up Patton Oswalt thing with the... What did you say about orgasm? No, never mind. Zarna said most people act in their lives, and Noam said that includes faking orgasms.

I don't think I fake orgasms. Have you never have? I'm sure I have. Okay, so Paul Thomas... Having you? No, I have not. Paul Thomas and I fake not having them. Paul Thomas. Having you. No, I have not. Paul Thomas. And I fake not having them. Paul Thomas.

Paul Thomas Anderson had directed. There will be blood, which I think is one of the finest movies ever made. I think that movie is just off the charts. Fantastic. Daniel Day-Lewis. Unbelievable. I still, I still say boogie nights, which is best in my opinion. Thatewis, unbelievable. I still say Boogie Nights was his best, in my opinion.

That was enjoyable. But Licorice Pizza is getting a lot of buzz. It's getting a lot of buzz. And I think it's because it's Paul Thomas Anderson and he's so respected. And it's quirky. It's weird. The female lead is not classically attractive.

I mean, I think she's cute, but she's not classically beautiful. And I think he's getting quirky points that I don't know that another, I don't know how merited it is, in my opinion. I just thought it was some interesting stuff thrown together, and some good 70s nostalgia and some good music. I've talked about it before, but it's really interesting. If you go on the internet and you can look up the reviews for various movies and see how wrong or right they were over time,

like Godfather 2 was poorly reviewed. Rocky was poorly reviewed. That first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, which looks awful, was considered like a masterpiece when it came out you know so there there is a lot of um a lot of things that go into the atmosphere that creates reviews uh that people don't it's hard to see until you zoom out from it time-wise so you're probably right about these quirky points and things like this. Time will have a way of being unkind. I mean, it could be that the public loves the movie and that and that that I'm the odd man out.

But but, you know, it is a good movie. It was quirky. It was good. I just saw recently with my daughter was Heathers. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's going back. Yeah. That's quite a few years. It's still pretty good with Christian Slater.

And what's her name? What's her name? winona rider well i mean it's on it's on it by the way just getting back to your point that we all act in life i mean we all lie which i think is harder than acting because when you're lying there's something at stake you might get found out so that you know people say well, you know, people say, well, you know, I've heard the point made like, well, just pretend just lied. You know, it's like acting. And it's like, no, it's actually quite a bit harder, I think, because you're worried about getting found out. And so, you know, that's much more stressful. And so it's hard, harder to do it. Do you think I don't think I'm phony in any way? I really don't think I am. You should work on that.

Good one, Ariel. Now, of course, my position in life, my station, as it were, permits me that, you know, like. You don't have to kiss anybody's ass Yeah I don't really have to account To anybody or even Yeah kissing anybody's ass is part of it Or just I don't depend on anybody To I don't need to be anybody's good graces But I don't know if I could

If I could actually do that I think I'd have a hard time with it What about like your wife or your in-laws, you know? Oh, please. Oh, please.

What? I mean, I think that you, you, there's no, there's, I mean, there's no internal monologue.

Like maybe I shouldn't say that. Cause it'll upset. I'm not, I'm not phony. Right. And Zarna said, well, what about your wife or your in-laws? I think she meant what about with your wife or your in-laws? She meant do I interact with them?

Do I do I do I tone it down for them? And I'm like, no, I don't. Sometimes you have to be nice just because you have to be nice to your spouse or their parents. So you don't want to. But you're kissing us in a different way. I always want to be nice to my in-laws. Is that true? Well, I don't interact with Noam and his in-laws.

I think that he's I do. He's nice. It's not I mean, sometimes he's not nice, but it's not because he's trying to not be nice. I think it's because there really is no internal monologue. No, I mean, Noam will refrain from saying certain things. Really? Yes. I have not encountered that.

Of course he will. Of course he will. He will encounter it every minute, Perry. But, you know, he doesn't he doesn't say things, I guess, as far as I know, that are untrue, but he will refrain from saying things. I things, I guess, as far as I know that are untrue, but he will refrain from saying things. I think,

Noam, you would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if I go to somebody's show, I always, I like,

if they invite me backstage, that is like one of the things I hate most in life. Because that's a time when you, when you're going to have to be phony, presumably from time to time, you know, but phony in the sense that it doesn't, you know,

what you're going to have to say before you even see the show. You know, it's like, there's nothing about the show, which has anything to do with what you're going to say after you see it. Hysterical. And, and so I hate, um so i hate i hate

hate hate yeah but when you went backstage to meet mick jagger i assumed you enjoyed the show enough that you could have been did you you didn't have to fake it no i didn't meet mick jagger but i did get i did get invited backstage uh to see david lee roth after the van halen concert and i didn't go but didn't you i thought you were invited backstage when Sasha was singing. I was backstage. I was backstage before the show and maybe after, but I didn't,

but I didn't meet Mick Jagger. I was offered to be introduced to Keith Richards, but I declined. Not because I was, I was afraid of being phony. I could have been sincerely compliment, you know,

talk about how fantastic it is, but because I didn't think, I didn't want to impose on the guy. He doesn't want to meet me, you know. Well, that's Noam's philosophy here at the Comedy Cellar. You don't want to meet the big name comics that come in. You you don't make an effort to meet them or to talk to them.

I say hi. And I said, yeah, I don't make an effort to talk to them. They don't want to be bothering me. Well, they may have an honor. Pardon? I'm right about that. They don't want to be bothering me. Well, they may have an honor. Pardon? I'm right about that. They don't. I don't know if you're right, but it can hurt, I guess, to err on the side of caution. They might well want to talk to you. Why else would they come and hang out here? Why else would they hang out in the cafe if they didn't want to say hi and talk?

No, they want to talk to their friends like if Chris Rock is here with Kevin Hart. Well, they can talk to each other in their homes all the time. No one's going to stop them. They all have big, gigantic homes. They choose to come here. Well, because it's a great environment, right? He's created. But that doesn't mean they want to see Noam.

I mean, yes, there's a lot that's great about this environment, but that might not include Noam. Imagine like Kevin Hart and Keith and whoever else is sitting at the back table and say hey kev how you doing come here i want to talk to you for a minute he's like what the fuck now if if uh keith went up to him and said hey i want to talk to you for a minute he said sure or any number of people will go up to kevin hart and say hey can i talk to you for a minute if you have norton anything would if i go to me he's like what the fuck and and that and then he'd have to, right? Because I'm the owner.

He's not going to insult me. So it's like, whatever. So that's one of Noam's, but Noam, that's one of the, would you consider one of the secret sauces of the comedy seller is to create an environment that you think is most comfortable for the comics. And that includes you staying the hell away from it. Yeah, now like there's certain comedians I have a relationship with, like if Jon Stewart comes in, comfortable for the comics. And that includes you staying the hell away from it. Yeah. Now,

like there's certain comedians I have a relationship with, like if Jon Stewart comes in because I know him so well when he was, you know, before he was famous, that's a comfortable thing. I'm sure I'm sure he is happy to sit down and talk to me because we knew each other. I mean, a lot of them are you're being modest. I mean, I know you're being modest. I'm not being modest. I'm not even sure Jon Stewart wants to talk to me, but it wouldn't be uncomfortable because I actually knew him. I actually had a I had the thought that if I ever become famous and it's looking grim, obviously, it would be interesting to see how, if at all, Noam's behavior toward me changed. If at all, that would be interesting to me to see that it probably will never get

to see that. But but it would be interesting to me because Noam likes to rib me and insult me and in a loving way. But I wonder if that would change at all. That's my prime motivation to become Uber. I mean, if if Perry L, that would be even more interesting because Noam really lays into Perry L in a devastating way. This is like a movie script.

And I'm wondering what what would know him if if Perry became famous, would know him all of a sudden have to be respectful toward her? He just I don't think he could do it. Now it's Natterman. Get him a drink. But neither of those scenarios are, alas, likely. I'm for yourself. So I'm speaking for you you i just had a nice profile written up about me speak for yourself look no one's ever no one's ever been come never

no one's ever become famous who i was quite as uh um friendly with his natterman so well yes yeah none of this so it might not come between us. I don't know. But like even the people I knew who became famous, like Jon Stewart and Ray Romano or whoever else for Chappelle, even who's come and sit with the bands. And we would never like just hang out the two of us that I can remember. So I think that in this room, the most likely person to become famous, Ms. Zarnagard.

Absolutely. You know, I don't know if it's likely. Obviously, becoming famous is never likely, but it can be more likely. I mean, what's your goal precisely? You just want to make a nice living as a writer. Much more likely to become infamous because. Oh, don't be silly. I'm like bringing shame to like a billion people back home.

But yeah, but Aziz is doing the same thing. And Aziz was born and raised here. Yeah, he doesn't carry that obligation. And he is not a woman. Yeah, I was just going to say Zarnes is a woman, too, and she's a mom. My mom, you know how much hate I get. Oh, do you really? But that of course, that husband thing is that you let your wife do this.

Really? They say that. Of course they do. Wow. They threaten my in-laws back home. And so so why are you so motivated to do it, despite the fact that this that you're that you're causing this reaction? You must be really, really motivated. Where does that come from? I. I myself trying to figure it out. How I'm sitting here is a big mystery to me. My kid, my all American kid

said, Mom, you should do it. And I was like, I should listen to her because I counsel her for 18 years in her life and made her listen to me. So I kind of took it up as a dare. It's amazing. And I never thought anybody would listen to what I had to say. And here I am. Well, I will say that, you know, Zarna does kill as hard as anybody downstairs at the comedy cellar. How long have you been doing it? It will be three years.

After only three years now, I'm in it. Well, I'm not even going to say but, you know, it's bittersweet for me to see Zarna killing up there. I mean, she's a nice woman and all, but three years. Yeah, but three years. Yeah, but three years on a stage in New York, to be clear, you know, the lot of us people like me had to do comedy to survive for many,

many years in real life. That's why a lot of this stuff doesn't scare me. I read Kevin Hart's book. I don't know if you guys have ever read his book, how he started, but very poor, humble upbringing. And a lot of times to get invited he was the funny one and and that's how he got invited to things did you read did you read steve martin's book yes it's very good right yes i mean the comedians are just brilliant people

that's part of what draws me to continue to i I think every comedian is brilliant. Well, I think you're out of line. So I'm fascinated, you guys, by the amount of pressure that American people put on themselves to learn about other cultures. We don't care. We came here to be American. Don't offer me chai tea I came here so I could choose

from a list of 9 lukewarm coffee drinks that all taste the same and you know what do you think would happen if an American person went to India? Do you think that somebody there is going to offer you a toilet seat? No, you're in India. Squat like the rest of us. Well, Patton Oswalt apparently took a picture with Dave Chappelle and posted it on Instagram. Dave Chappelle was performing and called up Patton and said, come over, perform with us.

I don't know where it was. L.A., I guess. Patton posted the picture. That's alliterative. Patton posted the picture. And there's problems from Patton's picture posting as posing problems. There's a peck of problems in those pictures. Because Dave obviously is controversial figure because of his stance.

I don't know if it's a stance, but because of his jokes about LGBTQ. So so he so Patton got a lot of blowback from this and Patton issued an apology. It's very long. But basically, I'll try to summarize here. I have it here. He says that he's been friends with, I'm paraphrasing Chappelle for a long time, but he disagrees with Chappelle on trans rights. But he says that a seeker like Chappelle hasn't stopped evolving and learning. You know someone that long, see the struggles and changes. It's impossible to cut them off. Impossible not to be hopeful and open and cheer them on. Also, I've been carrying a lot of guilt about friends. I've cut off that had views different than mine.

I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Um, uh, there's, there's fiction and I'm sorry, truly sorry that I didn't consider the hurt this would cause or the depth of that hurt. I've been messaging a lot on IG today, Instagram, and the back and forth has really helped guide me in the writing of this. I naively deleted a lot of posts in the comments. Hold on a second. I lost where I was. um i naively deleted a lot of uh posts in the comment thread of critical ones from lgbt writers and shit posts by turf anti-trans um i can't read radical feminist don't you know anything good anyway that so so that's the story so a lot of people are now

accusing first they were accusing patent of taking a picture with dave and then they're accusing people are accusing him of throwing Dave under the bus to save his his own reputation. So that's that's what are your thoughts about it? Well, my thoughts are, first of all, I don't know,

is it's always the case in these situations. It's possible that Chappelle and Patton talked and Chappelle said, look, Patton, you need to save yourself. I love you, but here's what you need to write in order to get these people off your back and might've done all this with Dave's blessings. That's certainly possible.

You say no. Okay. Another thought is that, you know, he said that he disagrees with Dave about trans rights, but as far as I know, Dave is fully on board with trans rights. I don't think there's any evidence to suggest otherwise. So I I think he misspoke in that regard. You know, yeah, I you know, I mean, I think Patton's a pretty woke guy anyway. So his fans are probably, you know, like.

Other people like Jim Norton wouldn't be wouldn't have this problem because nobody expects him to be woke. So that's not the only reason Jim Norton wouldn't have. Yes. All right. I guess. But but since I think Patton is sort of a woke guy to begin with, he's in this weird situation. Obviously, I would have liked to have seen him say, look, Dave's my friend. We don't agree on everything. That's it. And I think that would have liked to have seen him say, look, Dave's my friend. We don't agree on everything. That's it. And, and, and I think that would have been appropriate to say, and Dave is, is certainly not anti-trans. I don't know. What are your thoughts? No.

I think that, I mean, there was another story we heard from a comic that we all work with it. She was on a bill and there was a poster of a bunch of pretty well-known comics and she was going to be on this. She's a well-known comic. She was going to be on this roster of comics and there was a poster or some promotional

material made and then all of a sudden she got a call. It's like, I'm very sorry. I hope you don't mind that we put you on the same poster as Dave Chappelle. Is that okay? And she got furious and she said you don't mind that we put you on the same poster as Dave Chappelle. Is that okay? And she got furious and she's don't ever fucking call me like that again. So I think that should have been, uh, Patton Oswalt's,

um, response. I, I, these people are making me sick with these apologies for associating with Chappelle enough. It's terrible in my opinion. Also, Patton is a guy that's successful enough that he could,

you know, his career is, I think, sufficiently successful that he could probably have afforded to say, look, go fuck yourselves. I'm not apologizing. He's a friend of mine. We don't agree on everything. I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah, he could say, I don't know. I don't agree. Listen, I don't agree with him about that. I don't I don't agree with him about the gonna leave it at that yeah you can say i don't know i don't agree listen i don't agree with him about that what i don't i don't agree with him about the various

things he said about trans but i'm not gonna apologize for taking a picture with him but i you know or for being friends with him yeah i mean these are the same people who said cancel culture doesn't exist how can you take a picture with dave chappelle how upset is anybody anyway? No one canceled their Netflix subscription over this. This is all faux outrage. Well, it could. Yeah, right. You never really know. One thing they could have

done that would change things is actually cancel the subscription. That's voting with your wallet and your feet and all of that. But that no one wants to do. They just want to sit and write on. Yeah, they just want to sit there and make Instagram posts and be horrified. Well, they don't even make the post because that's work. They just want to sit and write on. Yeah, they just want to sit there and make Instagram posts and be horrified. Well, they don't even make the posts because that's work. They just want to write comments.

Well, I mean, that's a point we've made previously on the show is how much of this outrage is real, how much of it is manufactured and ginned up. And of course, with Louis C.K., there was obviously a lot of outrage on Twitter and elsewhere after the scandal broke a few years ago.

But when we, when no one put him on here at the comedy cellar, we didn't see any of that outrage. We saw a couple of people walk out. Most of the people were happy to see Louie. We saw some outrage at the comedian table. We saw some outrage at the comedian table and some cowardice. So,

so I, I think the chapelle thing is misunderstood um i think that chapelle said things uh which if you analyze them if you parse what he said uh they're in artful and he probably wouldn't stand by them if you say listen dave you said here blah blah did you mean no i didn't mean that because i think we all know that dave really doesn't have any hostility towards trans people although he said some things which could be taken as that but i think what what dave was trying to do was make a point which was the following that from his point of view i said this somewhere, from his point of view, the world has gone from zero to 60 in acceptance of the gay community, of the trans community, things that he never in a million years, like it was just like it went from 90% of the country was against gay marriage and it was gay bashing was kind of a joke so all of a sudden they're like we're all going to gay weddings and and and now and he's and in his mind this they've all these causes have leapfrogged his the cause of his

people in a kind of illustration of the of the of the systemic the systemic racism of the world as it were. I think that's what he would. Well, that's his position. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I got to answer this because it's Liz, but that was, that's the position. That's the point he was trying to make. So there has to be taken at that.

Are you guys talking? This is, this is the general manager of the commies. So it's probably something very important. Ariel Epstein is here. Hello, Ariel. You can have a seat. Have we met? Yeah. A couple of times, Uriel. You can have a seat. Have we met? A couple of times, I believe.

Yes, you look familiar. Uriel, this is Zarna Garg, who's a comedian that works here quite frequently now. She's become a new favorite here. Good to meet you. And she is an Indian American. And she brings that perspective to the stage, which is something we actually, we have a lot of comedians that are Indian, but none of them that were actually born and raised in India.

So she brings that to the table that Aziz, for example, does not bring or, or others. What's, what's that guy's name? Nimesh Patel, for example. Anyway,

early on Epstein is the executive director of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an organization founded by former chess world champion Gary Kasparov and dedicated to defending the values of liberal democracy in the U.S. and around the world. Welcome, Uriel, to our show. Noam asked for you to be on, so I know he has questions for you, but he is on the phone with Liz, the general manager. So whilst he is dealing with that, we'll talk amongst ourselves. Sounds reasonable. What are you up to these days? Do you have anything specific that you came on here to promote or to discuss?

I'm sure Noam would have things that he would want to make fun of me for, but generally a little closer to the mic, if you please. Ah, all right. OK, I'm back. He's back. He's back. Thank God, because this is a Noam guest. And I was flustering a little bit because I'm not exactly sure why Noam wanted to have him on. He actually he's a he's a friend of mine and he has a he has a thing he's doing as a political thing he's doing. It's which which it's about essentially

Republicans who can't stand Donald Trump and they want to make sure he never gets anywhere near the White House again. And they're organizing. Well, I'll I'll just I'll amend that a little bit in the sense that we are actually strictly nonpartisan. We are neither Republicans nor Democrats. We have both. Right? We have both, you know, former Democratic senators involved as well as the former head of the Republican National Committee. Who are some of the Democrats?

Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Senator Bob Kerry, as well as a number of others who generally have center-left political views. Okay. So what unifies you guys? Belief in liberal democracy, a belief in the process that allows us to disagree productively without killing each other. And is this indicative of the fact that some of these left of center

former senators think the Democratic Party has gone too far left and don't believe those things? I think it's indicative of an understanding that there are extremes on the left and there are extremes on the right that don't necessarily want to prioritize the processes that allow us to come to productive political decisions. So in other words, there are folks on the very far left who believe that America is in some way irredeemably oppressive, right? Who believe that America is a force for ill and that it needs to be stopped. That essentially this idea that America can improve people's lives, both domestically and internationally, is either something that's outdated or quite frankly, something that was never true. And that's an incredibly dangerous

thing. This idea that we can't make things better. Bill Clinton once very famously said that there's nothing that's wrong with American democracy that can't be fixed by what's right with American democracy. And I think at the core, the core ethos that these Democratic senators, as well as everybody else on our board of directors believes is that. And the project, I think that you referenced at the very beginning, is one where we brought together dissidents from oppressive countries from around the world. We brought together 52 dissidents from 28 oppressive countries specifically to convey that message from people who have never had democracy in their home countries or people who have had democracy at a certain point and then witnessed its fall because they actually offer a really unique voice that I think a lot of Americans

haven't heard before because they've looked to American democracy for inspiration. Anyway, so that's kind of our vision is that American democracy has been and can remain a force for good, even while recognizing some of its flaws. So this is always interesting. So you're an immigrant. Zarna, you're an immigrant. India is a democracy, right? In theory.

Freedom House, I think, has a back and forth right now. When you hear him talking about American democracy and the goodness of it and all that jazz, what, forgive me, what is the bubble over your head as an Indian immigrant? I've made some jokes about this in my latest set about how like you do all this

work to come here because democracy and you're free and then you find out that everybody hates everybody here. That's the first realization you have as an outsider, even though there is freedom relative to anywhere else. You can, I mean, you can get on a stage here

and trash your president. You can't do that in most other countries. And certainly not the part of the world that I come from. Now, what year would you say, what year did you come here, Zahra? 1992.

Now, in 1992, you didn't feel that everyone hates everybody, did you? Well, you know, if you're outside and your only exposure to American life is Hollywood, which is true for a lot of the rest of the world, it is eye opening the amount of acrimony that

exists here. You don't expect it. Of course, the last few years it's reached its own peak and it's hit new peaks. But I remember being surprised, thinking, wow, why are they all fighting on TV? I thought they all got along and went out to dinner every night. Where did you come to? What part of the states? So of Akron, Ohio. Oh, wow. Yeah. The rubber cap. That should be great. Yeah. So that's not introductory America either. That's like that's advanced America. Just I got dropped in there. What were you doing in Akron? So I the only person willing to help me get a visa to come here was a congressman in Ohio who said if I enrolled in university there, because at the time, international students were uncommon,

like full paying international students. So he allowed me to come if I agreed to enroll at the University of Akron. Otherwise, getting a visa to the US is not easy. It's very difficult, right? Oh, I mean, I'm aware. Luckily, I was born here, but my parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union. It's a fight.

Like it's like a lot of strategy, a lot of fighting. That's why I do all the jokes about immigrants. Because it's not, I wasn't born here as a child. I had to fight to find my way to get there. And that's a whole, you know. But there's a there's a really rich vein of potential jokes here. I mean, I remember growing up on these stories of Stalin and the evils of the Soviet Union and communism and how lucky I was and, you know, how if I didn't behave, if I didn't eat my vegetables, if I didn't get an A, I'd be sent back to Russia or whatever.

My God, that's horrible. I'm sorry that I said you were an immigrant. You told me before that you were born here. You have a slight accent, so I always forget it. I'm also the son of immigrants. My parents came here in a Ford from Canada. Yeah, that tale is not not as that. That's not as that.

That tale is not made for movies. Not as no, I mean, no, not not not not when you get in the car and cross the border. But but they are, you know, I am first generation technically. No, Miss, too. So am I. I mean, can I ask you a question? I mean, you're you you went to Yale and you know a lot. Is American history really in some way notable for our blemishes as opposed to Chinese, Japanese,

Russian, you know, English? Like, is there something Indian? Is there something about us that we need to be particularly ashamed of over and above the general? Probably more so than Canada, I would say. General observation that Canada, you know, doesn't hasn't had these things. But anyway, Canada's just benefited from it. But the general observation that the human race is horrible and has been horrible is progressively getting a little bit better. But our instincts have not changed and we try to keep them reined in and America did bad things. But like what are we different than other countries? Well, actually, I would argue that what makes us different is not that we have these, you know, some kind of unique blemishes of things to be ashamed of, but rather the very fact

that we are so self-reflective that we are willing to recognize the flaws and try to combat them and try to address them and try to improve upon them. That's actually what makes us unique, not the flaws themselves. Those flaws are absolutely ubiquitous. And for what it's worth, Canada has a fair share of them too. In fact, just recently, I think they passed a bill with what, 30 plus billion dollars in funding for indigenous families who are harmed as a result of the foster care system. So, I mean, there are flaws. And again, that doesn't make Canada unique in any way. I mean, all countries have flaws, just like all people have flaws.

The question is, how do those nations deal with those flaws? Canada, like the U.S., recognized that mistakes were made and made progress to address them. Meanwhile, you have right now the ruling party in Poland, which has outlawed serious academic research and scholarship into what was going on in Poland during the Holocaust. Wow. Yeah. Can I answer that too, Noam? Please, please go ahead. I not only second everything that he just said, and I'm going to put a plug in for my comedy, which I do right here at the Cellar six nights a week.

I love reminding the American audience how amazing America is. That's how every set of mine ends. I need the audience to leave elated because the amount of self-reflection that goes on here is enough to drive anybody crazy. There are entire countries where genocide is happening right now as we speak and the whole world knows and forget apologizing for it. They're not even going to acknowledge it. They're going to hide it. They're going to do everything they can. Well, here, you know, things because of the way the freedom of the press does exist, everything's out in the open

and the country feels bad altogether collectively. Where else do you see that? Never. It's unprecedented. And if you come to any of my shows at the Comedy Cellar, you will leave amazed. I do think, you know, the French are, you know, they have a lot of guilt about colonialism in North Africa. And know, they have a lot of guilt about colonialism in North Africa.

And obviously the Germans have a lot of guilt about World War Two. Do they? Oh, yes. I think they're not even allowed legally to deny the Holocaust in Germany. You're not allowed to. The swastika is illegal as opposed to the United States. You could wear a swastika. It's not illegal, but it is there. And as an American who's into freedom of speech, I don't know if that's a good idea or a bad idea. But in any case, yeah, they're obviously. But that's the distinction isn't between different liberal democracies. Right. And I use a liberal, of course, in the classical sense of the word, right, not meaning left or right, but but simply in the sense of pluralistic open societies with

free speech, press assembly and so forth. Youries like Japan, Canada, Germany, France, all these countries have all of those things and therefore today have, I would say, a fair bit of self-reflection and a fair bit of openness about it. And the real distinction, which I think Americans frequently lose sight of, is the distinction between free countries and unfree countries. And that distinction is huge right now. I mean, according to Freedom House, depending on how you define India, actually, India is really the crux of this,

either anywhere from 60 to 80% of the world's population lives in a not entirely free country or rather an unfree country. Yeah, I would agree with that. And so that's the distinction that I think a lot of Americans fail to recognize and not just Americans. I mean, people in general who were born and raised in freedom, they fail to recognize how unique that freedom is. Oh, I would even say that I would even say it even further than that, even to the extent that India is unfree, it's less unfree than it even would be if America didn't exist. Just the gravitational force of America in the world prevents things with spinning too far in that direction.

Yeah. I'd like to take this podcast. I will offer you to join us as a freedom fellow for our front lines of freedom project. That's exactly the perspective we have. She got a performance, some event, they would love her.

She's perfect for that. You'll be welcome to. You'll do it for free. We'll talk about it after the podcast. Oh, no, no, that's binding. No, this is all being recorded. That is a verbal agreement. It is binding. I didn't even just offer

to perform in that case because I'm just sitting here saying nothing. I think that, first of all, we got a lot of mileage argument-wise over the last five years. Americans don't know this. Americans don't know this. They're not taught this. They're not taught that about the history. But you know what? We're basically coming to the law of diminishing returns on that argument because we all know everybody knows anybody doesn't know America's history at this point is, is living under a rock. So, so now that everybody knows now, what now, where do we go from here? You contextualize it. Now that we got our pound

of flesh because, uh, and I'm not for a second arguing that people shouldn't know. I just suspect that people always didn't know. I mean, I, I the deep South, there was a curriculum which we should have been ashamed of, and it's good that they changed it. But at this point, I think everybody basically knows America's past. But I wonder if psychologically, it's possible for a nation to flourish without the fiction even, one way or another, that people think that it's a great nation. How can we ever accomplish anything if we think we suck? And we don't suck. I mean, I can make the objective case that we don't suck. But even if we have to pretend that we didn't suck, it's it's what is the end game

here? What are they trying to accomplish by just getting everybody to hate the country? Is it is it going to make is it going to make people have more money for people? I don't think I don't think the vast majority of America thinks that they suck. It's a loud minority that goes crazy on Twitter and social media. I think if you ask most American people, they probably think that they're decent, good people trying to survive just like everybody else in the world. I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think what we're seeing right now is this false dichotomy between, you know, one very, very loud minority saying that America is one of the most evil countries in the world and another

very, very loud minority that wants to pretend that America is absolutely perfect and nothing has ever gone wrong, right? This idea that somebody pointed out the, what was it, the 1619 Project versus the 1776 Commission, where one of them, of course, painted America as one of the most evil things ever. And then the other one painted America as an absolute angel that never made any mistakes. And of course, the truth is in between. The truth is that we're a flawed nation that has generally strived to improve upon itself. And there have been significant steps back in the interim, but generally speaking, it has trended towards good. And I think that's a story that's, on the one hand, difficult to tell because it's complicated, it's nuanced, but at the same time, that's also quite frankly what the Renew Democracy

Initiative is all about. Our very mission is about conveying a nuanced story about American democracy and how we can defend it and fight for it in a way that recognizes the flaws while simultaneously believing in its capacity for good. Well, I hope you can make some progress. I mean, just recently, the New York State released a regulation. You saw this about the, you know, there's a shortage of these antiviral drugs. What's it called? Paxlovid? I don't know. And so you saw this, right, Uriel? So that the regulations are that you can get this drug if you have covid symptoms and serious comorbidities.

Or if you have covid symptoms and you're not white. I'm not misstating it. It's exactly exactly what it says. So that, for instance, my friend Coleman, I joke to him because he had he had COVID this week. And you're talking about Coleman Hughes, right? Yeah. Coleman is a young, healthy, very healthy black guy. I'm like, Coleman, you should go get those. You should go get those antivirals.

You can sell them. You can sell them to some sick white people. But the notion that in America and forget about African-Americans, they're defining Asians who, to my knowledge, are the most successful group in America, more successful than whites and had the least covid. Right. And are the most vaccinated. They're defining being Asian as a comorbidity for life-saving drugs. Now, this is America gone off the rails. This isn't America. This is like a caste system. This is more like India, right? This is crazy, except it's reversed. I mean, should we just say that this is meaningless? Like, I don't want to overblow it. Is it really just like, oh, it's just some wacky politicians trying to, or wacky doctors trying to curry favor? Or is it real? Is it really just like, oh, it's just some wacky politicians trying to, or wacky doctors trying to curry favor? Or is it real? Is it something that we really need to fight against,

or it will be our future? I don't know. What do you think, Uriel? I mean, it's a question of, well, first it's a question of magnitude, right? I think I used to be a consultant. So the first question we would ask is, well, what's the size of the prize, right? How prevalent is this approach? So first, I mean, needless to say, I think that approach is terrible. I do not think we should be basing decisions like this off of people's racial demographic or whatever other identity they should be based on. How bad you need the drug. But so anyway, so first the question is like, how prevalent is this? And I actually don't know that answer. So I think that would be, you know, one, you know, the first interesting question to ask. But the other one also is I do think this is something that will resonate with people, whether for good or for ill. In other words, it'll either alienate a lot of people and make them very angry and try to push them to the other extreme,

or there are other people who will look at that and will say, you know what? This makes sense. Let's actually do more of this. And obviously, both of those reactions are dangerous. So what we want to do is we want to contextualize it and basically say, look, we can recognize that there are people in certain communities who have been disadvantaged, who we need to think about in a particular way and whom we need to help without just being reductive and saying anyone who isn't white, you know, should get X, Y, or Z, you know, I think there is a nuanced way to approach this where we say that the approach is where we say that the policy is wrong, but it's also not, you know, the oncoming of communism or something. Right. So, you know, I'm beginning to wonder if the nuanced answers to all this thing, this hypersensitivity is not is not a as opposed to saying, absolutely not. This is not going to happen in America. You get drugs, you get life-saving drugs based on how much you need life-saving drugs, period. And yes, we have various issues you may want to raise.

They have no place in a triage medical situation. And no, sorry, skedaddle because to normalize this way of thinking is very very very dangerous and and to and to and to have to answer with hat in hand as to like no i don't want to be insensitive about why i tell you just because you're perfectly healthy you shouldn't get drugs because you're Asian. Like, it's so absurd. And it's so against everything this country stands for. And this country can't survive that kind of thought.

This is a knife to the throat of the country. We already had COVID aid given out to businesses that were owned by non-whites. And this is what's so insidious about it, as if you are on the bad end of this rule, for instance, if you, I'll give two things, let me hear me out. So if you want to organize politically against this rule, I don't mean to organize white people. I just like, I think I should be allowed to get the drug just like everybody else. And you've decided it's white people. So now all of a sudden white people have a rational reason to start organizing as white people for this, white people for that, white people for equal medical care. And here's the other part, which I think is even worse. If you didn't get Mike, like Mike's son is, is one quarter of this and one eighth that, but he looks white. Let's say he goes to the hospital and they're like, no, I'm sorry. You're not, you're not, you're not eligible for this drug. And he says, you know what? I was fucking

eligible for this drug and I'm going to have a lawsuit. Now he goes to court and now the court has to define race. They have to say, yes, yes, you were entitled to this drug or no, you weren't. Well, how do I know you were entitled? Well, how about I get it? How about a one drop rule? So I know there used to be a one drop rule that if you had one drop of Negro blood, right, you were you were considered. I think that's what it was that my right. I think that's what the one drop. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the left now is backing into the necessity of defining race for legal purposes. And this is not a crazy thing I'm saying.

I mean, there's a regulation right out there now and it can lead to a lawsuit tomorrow. And exactly what I'm saying could happen. I mean, there's a regulation right out there now, and it can lead to a lawsuit tomorrow. And exactly what I'm saying could happen. And imagine having now the left embracing, they're already embracing kind of separate but equal, you know, these in schools and stuff. And now they want to embrace legal definitions of race for government, for health care, one drop rules. This is this is really, really dangerous, I think. I think any any policy that engages in any form of race essentialism, right. Saying that the key element of your identity is your race is a bad policy, right. Generally speaking, we be given our incredibly horrific history with policies that,

you know, used race as a key identity characteristic. I think at this point we can safely say, look, if a policy is based exclusively on race, then this is a very dangerous policy. Now, where we can be nuanced here isn't to somehow be mealy-mouthed about that. I mean, I think we can be very direct and say, look, this is wrong. But the nuance comes in as to the scale of the problem. In other words, my intuition is that this problem isn't something that's ubiquitous. Right. I think that it exists. You know, it exists. It sounds like in New York. I actually know I did not know about that. The policy about about those drugs. So that's that's news to me. But I do know that it existed, I believe, in New Hampshire as well. I think it was New Hampshire. I don't remember. It was Vermont for the vaccine. Vermont. Yeah, for the vaccine. Exactly. So it exists. But now, of course, how many, you know, how many non-white people actually live in Vermont, right? So, you know, arguably that policy there was really much more about virtue signaling than anything else.

But anyway, so the point of the nuance- Let me interrupt you there because that's really the point I was trying to make before. It's not so much about whether anybody actually has ever denied for the drug it's normalizing an approach to everything that's and you see there's coveted okay well we better make sure that the white people uh are separated from from non-white people in the way that's administered now we have drugs to give it okay i mean it's becoming the ordinary course of business now for the government to start conceiving of things it's doing in terms of two, in terms of race. And it's, and it's teaching us to think this way and it's, it's spreading and sooner or later it will, it will turn out. I mean, listen,

it's not crazy to say right now, not, not only was somebody white could die, but somebody black, when you have, when you have a scarcity of pills, if you give it to young, healthy people of color. Because they're people of color and then you run out of pills, you will not have pills left to give to sick people of color who need them. This was this was eventually what tanked because the CDC essentially the CDC had wanted to prioritize race, remember? And then Matt Iglesias made the point, CDC had wanted to prioritize race for vaccines and then Matt Iglesias among others, but he got a lot of notice about it on Twitter. He made the point that mathematically,

if you prioritize race as opposed to age and comorbidities, more black people would die of COVID by more by having to wait than than than otherwise. So it backfires for that reason as well. So I just think it's terrible. But I mean, look, I agree. I think the question is just how much you know, I just want to be careful that we don't overemphasize it in the sense that it is a problem. I just don't think it is the defining problem that we face as a democracy today. I think that's definitely more of a longer term problem. It's one thing. It's something that will be growing over time, but it's not the thing that, you know, I believe threatens us most today, especially given that tomorrow is January 6th, right? I mean, so when I think of, you know,

the immediate threat, the thing that I'm most scared about tomorrow, it has more to do with maintaining free and fair elections, ensuring that results are respected and so forth, which isn't to say that we can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I mean, you can recognize that there's an immediate threat while simultaneously recognizing that there's also a long-term threat that if it remains unaddressed can also become an immediate threat,, maybe not today, but five or 10 years down the road. So anyway, I mean, I think we have to, that not about it. It wasn't about that election. Right. You know, it's not a failed coup. A failed insurrection is really just a practice attempt. If not January 6th riot. I'm talking about the January 6th riot. And I'm also not but not just that. The January 6th riot is not the insurrection. I whatever you want to call it. Right. Whatever. The January 6th

riot is obviously incredibly scary, but it's, but it's the culmination of things. I mean, it's not the riot itself that scares the crap out of me. It's the lies, the media narrative. It's all of that that led to the insurrection, because I'll be honest, right? If I believe if I were to believe all the lies that came out of Trump's mouth, it's actually not unreasonable to do what the rioters did. Right. I mean, these are folks who many of whom I imagine genuinely believed the lies they were being fed. And if you're being told that the election was stolen and that by by by through Biden becoming president, that that's actually a coup. It's not unreasonable to say, well, I'm going to defend the true government by opposing

the election or rather the installation of what I perceive to be a tyrant. So really, the thing that's most dangerous to me is not the individual rioters. It's the lies that led them to the Capitol on that day. And what's also scaring me a lot, and what people aren't actually talking a lot about this, you see a lot of folks talking about voter suppression and things like that. And I actually happen to agree that those are threats. But the thing that scares me even more than that actually are the changes in the way votes can be counted, both on the state level, where you actually have a lot of state legislatures taking power over counting the votes. So they will say, well, instead of having a nonpartisan,

a nonpartisan organization or whatever, count the votes. Actually, it's going to be a partisan legislature, which will certify the election and count the votes. And that's and that's really scary because that means so basically what happened in Georgia, right, where you had Raffensperger. Wait, go ahead. I just want to stop you there for a minute because I don't want to get- First of all, Zarna, what time do you need to be on stage?

I don't want to keep you. I have a few more minutes. Okay. I just want to go back to January 6th because we're out of time. So I just want to say where I agree with you and where I disagree with you because we may not have time for more than this.

Sure. I think that- Let me, you know, Zarna doesn't this. Sure. I think that. Let me know. Zarna doesn't have much time. I just don't want to get some plugs in for her. If I could go ahead. Zarna,

of course, she's a regular here at the comedy cellar. She'll be headlocked. Can we plug another club in New York? No. Or is that verboten? Yeah, go ahead.

We'll cut it out. She'll be headlining at Caroline's on Broadway in February 4th and starts touring the nation in February. And she'll be at the Comedy Cellar in Vegas in February as well. And she'll be at the Kennedy Center in March. Oh, that's interesting. What are you doing at the Kennedy Center? I'm going to be with Maz Jobrani. Are you opening for Maz?

Yes. OK, she's opening for Maz at the Kennedy Center. It's also the Iranian New Year that weekend. The Iranian New Year? Is Maz Iranian? Yep. Okay. Persian. Persian New Year. So if you don't have plans for Persian New Year yet, the Kennedy Center is the place to be. Can I talk about January 6th now? Yeah. Okay. This is a natural transition. It's okay, Zarna. Zarna has to be on stage at your club. Wait, just say where everybody can find you online, Zarna. Oh, at Zarna Garg everywhere.

Instagram, TikTok, and ZarnaGarg.com. I continue to think that having to tell people how to find you. I mean, everybody has Google. Just Google Zarna Garg. You'll find everything. They're not everybody has Google. It's like, just Google Zarnagar. You'll find everything. They're not going to write down, what's her Instagram? Zarnagar, Instagram. Zarnagar, like, come on.

Anyway, it's become a formality. So I think that January 6th is way overblown. And consequently, the other stuff you're talking about is being under-recognized. Zarnagar, thank you for coming. She's off to- Trump had a strategy to pressure test, not just laws, which had never really been put to the test before, but formalities, formalities that no one had ever even conceived of being anything less than just rubber stamp formalities.

And they they and we know this Pence had said to him in his letter to Nancy Pelosi that Trump had pressured him to exceed his constitutional authority. This was a clear, impeachable and very, very, very dangerous thing that Trump was doing. Very dangerous. And January 6th, that riot undercut Trump's threat enormously. Trump didn't want these people to, he wanted to protest out there for political reasons. He didn't, he wasn't happy. I mean, he might have been ego happy, but this was not part of the strategy to have these thugs and lunatics occupy the Capitol building. And amazingly, the Democrats latched onto it. Rather than impeach him for

exceeding his constitutional authority, they impeach him for a speech, which he's allowed to make a speech and he never called for violence. And these people had planned the violence prior. We know they were planning the violence prior to Trump's speech. So Trump's speech couldn't have incited it. But they've latched onto this as if this were really a threat to a democracy. And I think that this violent thing has nothing to do with the actual threat to democracy. As a matter of fact, it probably impeded what was a, and Peter Navarro wrote as much in his book, they had a plan going and this upended that plan. So they could not have been happy about it. And I do not think, what if they had occupied

that Capitol building and were still there today? Would that have anything to do with government? Would that have affected the transfer of power in any way? No, it would have just been these idiots occupied a building. The real threat is what you say, is that they figured out a way to test and to find the flaws in these rules, which we had never considered to be more than formalities. And unless we fix this shit now, these these these cracks are exposed. And we need to fix it, right, has nothing to do with the violence. And I don't know, that's all. Well, I mean, look, you know, and now that I'm thinking back to it, I think we have talked about this a little bit in the past, you know, and I think we agree on more than we disagree. But I do. I mean, obviously, we do disagree to a certain extent on about the day of January 6th itself. So one with respect

to Trump being happy or happy or unhappy about I mean, look, I don't pretend to know what's in that guy's heart or in his head. I have no idea. I do know that there's now plenty of evidence that he had multiple opportunities to try to prevent it or to speak out and to try to tell his people to back down. To end it, rather. Yes. Well, even to prevent it. I mean, look, I would argue that his reasonable person could have looked at that speech and could have seen sending the people down to the Capitol, you know, in the way that he did. But nobody did say that in real time. Nobody noticed at the time. But the point is, we know that the day before they were planning it. So it can't be the speech. So, well, anyway, I don't want to get too much into into those levels of details because the key here is what you pointed out with respect to the rules, right?

The fact that Trump was able to take advantage of rules that people never even thought about. Like you said, many of them- Formalities. They're formalities, right? Like the Electoral Count Act is one of the things

that allowed this whole thing to happen, right? I mean, that's the act that essentially determines how Congress can adjudicate disagreements about slates of electors from different states, you know, so on and so forth. It's from 1887. It's a vague law that, you know, most folks don't have never even heard of before. Certainly, you know, people never really thought of January 6th as an important date, even because it's really traditionally just a formality. Nobody thought about the vice president's role during this entire process because the vice president has no role other than a one that's a formality. And but but so right. So those things,

I think, are the things that really threaten our rule of law the most. Right. So one, it's we need to reform the electoral count. So, you know, that's kind of one of the top things that I believe, you know, it's really important. And that, you know, there are a Renew Democracy Initiative, we just put out a petition, calling for folks calling rather for, you know, reforms to that law to essentially get rid of it and change it. So people can find that on our website. So that's, you know, that's one. Two is we need to be thinking about how our votes being counted on the, on, on state, uh, you know, within states, right? Because if within a state like in Georgia, for example, right, Trump was on the phone with Raffensperger asking him to find, uh, whatever it was, right. 11 plus thousand votes. Um, because that's exactly the margin of, of Biden's victory in that state. Based on Georgia's law right now, the way they change those laws, Raffensperger has no power anymore. He would not have power in that instance. And Trump would be able to go to someone who actually would say yes, who might have tried to do what Trump asked them

to do. And that's something that scares the crap out of me. And so that's something that we need to be thinking about in fighting. So that's number two. It's thinking about how are votes being counted on the state level and making sure that election certification and vote counting is taken out of the hands of partisan legislatures and given to bipartisan or nonpartisan commissions, you know, which will be able to count the votes. You know, we got we got to keep it less detailed because of the because of the audience. But I agree with you. I would say that what we know now is that all the people around Trump were telling him, you got to stop this. You got to stop this. When the riot started, his daughter, his son, the people around him, his chief of staff.

And he seemed to take some egotistical pleasure in seeing what these people were ready to do in his name because he's a sicko. But the people who were thinking strategically clearly recognized immediately that this was a mistake. But here's the thing that really scares the shit out of me, right? Within a few days, for about a week or two, almost everyone unanimously said that January 6th was horrific, that it was dangerous, and that it needed to be condemned, right, for about two weeks. And then starting with the third week, you have Kevin McCarthy going down to Mar-a-Lago and, you know, shaking Trump's hand, taking a photo with him and essentially saying that January 6th was actually not that big a deal, despite the fact that just a couple of weeks ago, he had said that Trump bears responsibility. And so my fear about that

whole day isn't just about what happened on the day, but the fact that we went from essentially agreeing that it was a bad thing to having a significant percentage of people saying, well, actually, it's not that big a deal. You know, it was just, you know, well, who I forgot which congressman said this. I think it was Paul Gosser. It might have been someone else. Oh, well, you know, it was just a normal tourist day, you know, on Capitol Hill. I don't want to sound naive and then we got to wrap it up. I have a great faith that the, I don't know how far they could take this. I don't know how crazy some small state might be,

but I have a great faith that the checks and balances, and in this case, the judicial check is not going to allow American elections to be overruled or to become unfair. Although these people might put us through a lot of chaos and mess, and mess is really the the word in that process when it finally gets thwarted by the courts. But in the end, I don't think it can really happen in America. I'm not going to say it's 100% can't happen, but I don't think it really happened. I think in the end, the bigger threat to America, and they can both be threats. It's sad that we have to offset them or compare them to each other. But what people believe can rip this country apart. What people believe about each other, about the nation, about racial matters, about class matters, whatever it is, these things cannot be overruled by a court and a country can come apart if the people

no longer want to be a country or no longer feel affinity towards each other as a country. I don't think the country can come apart because some unscrupulous politicians fuck around with the electoral system and then get slapped down, which is inevitable. They're going to get slapped down. You're more optimistic than I am. But no, come on, where's your Jewishness? The Supreme Court of the United States is not going to say, yep, you don't have to have free elections anymore. That's just not going to happen.

But the Supreme Court of the United States will have no say in an America that has retreated into ethnic and racial divisions against itself. They can't they can't impact that. So I need to wrap it up there. What's that? I think we should probably put a put a bow on it. Nicole, let him let him let him give the details of his initiative. OK.

Yeah. And I'll just add, by the way, I agree with that fear. And I'll add one additional fear to way, I agree with that fear. And I'll add one additional fear to it, which is that a huge percentage, relatively speaking, of Americans right now believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate, which is absolutely horrifying. And the same percentage of Democrats believe that 2016 had been illegitimate. You know that. Well, anyway, that's that's a longer conversation. Google, Google percent of Democrats don't believe Trump was fairly legitimately elected. It was close to 60 percent.

Democrats, go ahead. Anyway, so so yeah, so quickly plugging Renew Democracy Initiative, you can find us at RDI dot org. And basically, we're out there trying to fight for classical liberal democratic principles and trying to mobilize people in defense of, you that, as Noam pointed out, doesn't hate each other. And so we're trying to educate folks and mobilize people and build that community where we can actually coexist, even if and when we disagree, which, believe me, many of us have huge disagreements with one another. But the thing that brings us together is a belief that we as the United States can come together and support free and fair elections and support basically our democracy. So with that, I'll drop. Well, as long as an asteroid doesn't hit, I'm optimistic. Nicole, this was it. We had sort of two different conversations. What are your thoughts?

Did you enjoy them both in equal measure? Yeah, it was definitely interesting. I mean, I was really excited to see Zarna here. I've seen her around, but didn't really know much about her and her work. So it was cool to learn about her and her life. And of course, Arielle. Yeah, of course. I mean, that is way beyond my level of comprehension.

So I do struggle to keep up a little but it's interesting to see um different people's opinions thank you so much for listening podcast at comedyseller.com let us know what you think more comedy talk more political talk or are we doing it just right we'll speak to you next time bye