Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob left Such podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Carol Weafer, who has a new book,
Speaker 1: How to Write a Funny Speech. Carol, why this book? Why? Now?
Speaker 2: Well, Bob, here's the situation. My co writer Rick Mitchell
Speaker 2: and I it was doing the writers strike, so we
Speaker 2: couldn't write any TV. We met for coffee. Rick had
Speaker 2: just been to an event where someone gave a real
Speaker 2: clunker of his speech at a wedding, and I had
Speaker 2: just come back from a wedding where the father of
Speaker 2: the bride gave a speech that was so bad people
Speaker 2: were talking about it as they were leaving at the
Speaker 2: valet Parker. So we both said to ourselves, as professional
Speaker 2: comedy writers, you know, it's not that it's really not
Speaker 2: that hard to tell your average person how to do
Speaker 2: a speech, how to do a funny speech. And we
Speaker 2: felt like we could walk people through it a to Z,
Speaker 2: make it simple, make it easy, and do it as
Speaker 2: a public service so nobody else has to sit through
Speaker 2: another god awful speech and an event. Even more so, Bob,
Speaker 2: because now, back in our day, a bad speech was
Speaker 2: a funny story sitting around a Thanksgiving something like that.
Speaker 2: Now it's being recorded, it might go up on the
Speaker 2: web and haunt you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: So that's why we felt we needed to do this.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have to ask you. You do a lot
Speaker 1: of public speaking. The book is brief in for such
Speaker 1: a short book. I was sort of stunned how constructive
Speaker 1: it is. But it seems like preparation. You're a pro
Speaker 1: okay sopose to the person who has a speech a
Speaker 1: year or a speech of lifetime. You do a lot
Speaker 1: of public speaking. Do you prepare and write out a
Speaker 1: speech to this degree or do you do it off
Speaker 1: the top of your head?
Speaker 2: Well, I prepare very intensely. I mean the uh, when
Speaker 2: you're especially when you're paid to speak to a group,
Speaker 2: you want to give it your best shot. So that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you're kind of winging it up there and
Speaker 2: being loosey goosey. I mean you want to be in
Speaker 2: the moment. But I prepare very much, but I don't
Speaker 2: write it out. And this is what we tell people
Speaker 2: in the book to I have kind of bullet points
Speaker 2: of where that I want to go, so that I'm
Speaker 2: not only you know. Another big mistake that people make
Speaker 2: that we found in doing speeches is that they look
Speaker 2: down and are reading the whole time, and you know
Speaker 2: that it is not good. You've got to be in
Speaker 2: the moment connect with people. So we recommend bullet points
Speaker 2: for a person speaking at an event, and for me,
Speaker 2: I do the same thing. I go up there and
Speaker 2: I have a very clear idea of what I want
Speaker 2: to do with each of those bullet points. But it
Speaker 2: is bullet points.
Speaker 1: Okay. Do you have a couple of greatest hits? Do
Speaker 1: you have memories like a golf player or a baseball player.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember this hit in this game. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Do you have a couple of times where you have speeches?
Speaker 1: We go, man, I really hit it out of the park,
Speaker 1: use another sports metaphor.
Speaker 2: You know where I really feel where you know. I
Speaker 2: like to give speeches, Bob. I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: If someone asks you to speak an event, whether you
Speaker 2: enjoy that invitation or not. As a comedian and more
Speaker 2: so as a person, I like speaking at events because
Speaker 2: I find it's very cathartic for me to share my
Speaker 2: feelings about a couple that were celebrating a person who's
Speaker 2: having a big event. But especially I liked I find
Speaker 2: it especially cathartic when I'm speaking at a celebration of life,
Speaker 2: because it really helps me heal in talking about the
Speaker 2: person with people that loved this person as well. So
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example of something that really was
Speaker 2: good for me to talk about at this memorial because
Speaker 2: I knew that all the other people there would understand
Speaker 2: what I was talking about. My cousin Jay sadly passed
Speaker 2: away from cancer at fifty five, and he was an
Speaker 2: amazing person. He was an amazing people person and everybody
Speaker 2: that knew him knew that about him that quality. So
Speaker 2: I told this story about how about when he was
Speaker 2: still well dealing with his cancer, his wife and my
Speaker 2: wife we all went together to the Greek to see
Speaker 2: the Beach Boys, and I know you had the great
Speaker 2: Mike Love on as well. So not only was I
Speaker 2: excited to see the Beach Boys loving their music, but
Speaker 2: we were invited to the after party. And I was
Speaker 2: very excited to see Mike Love because I opened for
Speaker 2: the Beach Boys back in nineteen eighty two at Harrah's
Speaker 2: Okay in Tahoe. This is like one of my first
Speaker 2: big gigs, and I wanted to see if he remembered me.
Speaker 2: So we watched the concert. It's great. We go to
Speaker 2: the after party and there's Mike Love and you know
Speaker 2: when you're at a party and try to make your
Speaker 2: way to somebody, and I saw an opportunity and I
Speaker 2: missed it. And it's another opportunity that I am missed it.
Speaker 2: And I go to the bar to get a drink.
Speaker 2: I turn around. My cousin Jay is talking with Mike G.
Speaker 2: Love like he's known him for a million years, so
Speaker 2: much so that when I walked up, my cousin Jay
Speaker 2: was actually, hey, Mike, do you know my cousin Karrols?
Speaker 2: She opened for you three thousand years ago at Harris.
Speaker 2: So I love telling that story because it encapsulated so
Speaker 2: much of my cousin Jay, and sharing that with everyone
Speaker 2: who knew that story was pitch perfect in the kind
Speaker 2: of person he was. So that kind of thing always
Speaker 2: makes me happy to share what I love about this person,
Speaker 2: but also sharing with everyone what we loved about this person.
Speaker 1: Okay, you also tell that story in the book, but
Speaker 1: you leave out did I'm sure I know the answer,
Speaker 1: did or did not? My glove remember you, I have.
Speaker 2: To say I don't think he did.
Speaker 1: I would assume he didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think he was polite however he reacted,
Speaker 2: but I don't remember him going oh right, from forty
Speaker 2: years ago, Yes you, Carol Leefer, Now that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: Okay, wherever you are today, what was the dream back then?
Speaker 1: What did you want to have happened? Or did you
Speaker 1: stumble into this when you were a little girl, you'd
Speaker 1: just say this is what I want to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, since I was little, Bob, I've always
Speaker 2: loved to perform. I mean in our basement downstairs. I
Speaker 2: made it into a makeshift kind of stage and would
Speaker 2: get up on it and lip sync Barbara streisand albums
Speaker 2: or whatever. I just always loved the spotlight and the attack.
Speaker 2: And I always loved being funny because I got really
Speaker 2: good feedback ever since I was a kid from being
Speaker 2: funny doing impressions or whatever. So I really feel like
Speaker 2: I am living my dream and have lived my dream
Speaker 2: for so many years because I just wanted to be
Speaker 2: in show business really bad.
Speaker 1: Oh, Okay, you definitely are in show business. When I
Speaker 1: certainly became aware of you first, you were a stand up.
Speaker 1: In addition that you've written TV scripts, some of which
Speaker 1: are legendary like Seinfeld and the Marble Rye. You've written
Speaker 1: for the Academy Awards. All of this is fantastic. In
Speaker 1: the back of your mind, you say, well, I really
Speaker 1: wanted to be going back to our generation. I really
Speaker 1: wanted to be as big as Alan King or Joan Rivers.
Speaker 1: You know, as I say, have you followed the ball
Speaker 1: where it bounced or is there still some dream you
Speaker 1: wish to achieve?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a really good question. Well, I'm very happy
Speaker 2: with where my career is at. I mean when you ask,
Speaker 2: you know, becoming Joan Rivers or becoming Rodney Dangerfield, I
Speaker 2: don't know that I wanted to be a full time
Speaker 2: stand up comedian. And I'll tell you why is because
Speaker 2: what I love about comedy writing is what I loved
Speaker 2: about being funny growing up. You know, when you are
Speaker 2: stand up, you travel by yourself and you go here
Speaker 2: and there and you work on your own act by yourself.
Speaker 2: But when I'm in a writer's room, I really feel
Speaker 2: like that's my nirvana. I'm with other funny people and
Speaker 2: the synergy and the chemistry of that. I'm kind of
Speaker 2: with my favorite people that people that speak my language,
Speaker 2: and that makes me really happy. So I'm really happy
Speaker 2: that I developed a writing career. It's funny when I
Speaker 2: was offered my first writing job, which was on Saturday
Speaker 2: Night Live in nineteen eighty five. I remember my dad
Speaker 2: was really important figure to me also because he dreamed
Speaker 2: of being a comedian and a comedy writer. So the
Speaker 2: fact that I fulfilled his dream was something that he
Speaker 2: felled about and I was certainly happy about. But I
Speaker 2: remember my father saying to me, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Dad, I still love doing stand up.
Speaker 2: He really pushed me to take the writing job because
Speaker 2: he said, Carol, in any business, it's always good to diversify,
Speaker 2: and I think, looking back, that's very very good advice.
Speaker 2: I think my only regret would be, you know, I
Speaker 2: had my own sitcom, my short lived sitcom in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven to ninety eight on the WB network called
Speaker 2: al Right Already, and it was kind of like my Seinfeld.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wasn't a comedian or anything in it,
Speaker 2: but I really wanted that to take off. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that it didn't, but that was really a
Speaker 2: dream that I fulfilled. I just wish that it had
Speaker 2: been more successful.
Speaker 1: Well at this late date, twenty five years in the
Speaker 1: rear view mirror. Okay, there could be many reasons why
Speaker 1: it was not as successful as you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: It could be timing in the schedule, it could be
Speaker 1: lack of promotion. It could be the audience didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Or you can look back and say, if I'd just
Speaker 1: done this or that, there would be a greater chance
Speaker 1: of success. So where does the lack of success of
Speaker 1: your personal show lie.
Speaker 2: That is a very very good question. I look, I
Speaker 2: know you can't control everything. And by the way, to
Speaker 2: this day, the guy who was in charge of the WB,
Speaker 2: who ran the WB at that time, whose name I
Speaker 2: will not mention, still comes over to me and says,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry I canceled your show. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 2: which I still enjoy. I still enjoy his apology. But
Speaker 2: there's one small regret I have, and I don't know
Speaker 2: that it would have turned the tide. But I do
Speaker 2: think about this one little element, Bob, which was when
Speaker 2: they were deciding about renewing my show or not. It's
Speaker 2: a bit of a more complicated story than I thought.
Speaker 2: I remember Bill Carter, you know, the at that time,
Speaker 2: the media writer for TV writer for The New York Times.
Speaker 2: He liked my show, and he said, I'd like to
Speaker 2: write a piece on it, but if I know that
Speaker 2: it's coming back. So this was relayed to the big
Speaker 2: wig at the WB and he said, we're ninety five
Speaker 2: percent sure it's coming back. So I kind of believe
Speaker 2: ninety five percent. So they had a big meeting that
Speaker 2: I was, you know, should have been at about whether
Speaker 2: they were going to pick it up or not. And
Speaker 2: I was on vacation in uh Hawaii, and I just thought, well,
Speaker 2: my people will handle it. Ninety five percent, We're good.
Speaker 2: And they did wind up the five percent canceling the show.
Speaker 2: So I just had that one small regret that because
Speaker 2: my philosophy of being around in show business for almost
Speaker 2: fifty years is on my end. I have to do
Speaker 2: everything I can to make sure things are successful. That's
Speaker 2: my responsibility. So I'm just a little so worry that
Speaker 2: I didn't go to that that meeting, but I yeah,
Speaker 2: I still don't think they would have picked it up,
Speaker 2: but I do think about that.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. Would your father do
Speaker 1: for a living?
Speaker 2: My father was an optometrist and his name was Seymour Come.
Speaker 1: On Bob Listen, I got it, isn't it With comedians
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to laugh out loud and just go yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good run or something.
Speaker 2: He was an optometrist by trade, but he was the
Speaker 2: master joke teller of joke tellers. He was literally like,
Speaker 2: give me any subject, whatever subject you have, I have
Speaker 2: a joke on it. And you know a couple of
Speaker 2: things he told jokes when I look back now, as
Speaker 2: good as any pro that I know. You really had
Speaker 2: fantastic timing. He had an appreciation of But I saw
Speaker 2: how he connected with people through humor, and he was
Speaker 2: called the tumbler of the family. If you're familiar with the.
Speaker 1: Course from the Mountains.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he was always entertaining people with his jokes,
Speaker 2: and he was funny personally, but he also loved comedy.
Speaker 2: Like we listened to the two thousand year Old Man
Speaker 2: record in my house growing up. We could all practically
Speaker 2: lip sync it, Vaughan Meeterer albums, Alan Sherman. So I
Speaker 2: think not only watching him connect with people through being
Speaker 2: funny and his love of comedy, you know, watching the
Speaker 2: Ed Sullivan Show and watching the great comedians, you know
Speaker 2: Jackie Mason, and Ronnie Dangerfield and Alan King. I mean
Speaker 2: this was like my comedy education through him. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he just, you know, he was never able to be
Speaker 2: professionally funny. And whenever I asked him, like, Dad, how
Speaker 2: hung you didn't pursue this yourself, I think he said
Speaker 2: something that a lot of men of that generation would say,
Speaker 2: which was you know, he said, Carol, I had to
Speaker 2: make a living. You know, it was a far off
Speaker 2: dream to his generation to take that leap, that risk.
Speaker 2: But there's one story about my dad, you know, seeing
Speaker 2: that he was never able to make it professionally, but
Speaker 2: one story that gives me so much solace and happiness
Speaker 2: hearing about it. So my mom was a psychologist and
Speaker 2: every year she would go to the APA convention, their
Speaker 2: meeting or whatever. And one time they went to one
Speaker 2: of those psychological events and the person running it said, oh,
Speaker 2: our entertainment dropped out, and my father said, well, I'm
Speaker 2: happy to go up and tell some jokes if you like,
Speaker 2: and they were like please, great, and I wasn't there,
Speaker 2: but apparently my father went up and he slayed them,
Speaker 2: I mean, just tore the room apart. And my mother
Speaker 2: was just so happy about it, and everybody was coming
Speaker 2: over to them afterwards, and that made me so happy
Speaker 2: that he did have his moment in the sun. And
Speaker 2: the other thing that makes me feel good about my
Speaker 2: dad of him never getting to have a career in comedy,
Speaker 2: is that when my father passed, the first thing everybody said,
Speaker 2: and you know, you sit shiver for several days, you
Speaker 2: see a lot of people. The first thing everybody said
Speaker 2: was your father was so funny, and if he could
Speaker 2: know that, even that would would make him so happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, where do he get his material?
Speaker 2: That's a very good question. I don't know. I think
Speaker 2: over the years he just would hear a great joke
Speaker 2: and then remember it. I remember he had a list
Speaker 2: of jokes that he kept in his wallet, bullet points
Speaker 2: of what the jokes were. I think that's how he
Speaker 2: called all these jokes over the years.
Speaker 1: Okay, my father told jokes too, you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of a Jewish tradition. Do you remember a couple of
Speaker 1: his jokes.
Speaker 2: I do remember a couple of his jokes. Yes, Oh,
Speaker 2: he loved telling this one for sure. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've heard this. One guy goes to the
Speaker 2: ticket window of a movie theater with a chicken on
Speaker 2: his shoulder and asked for two tickets. Particularly he asks
Speaker 2: who's going in with him. The guy says, my pet chicken. Here.
Speaker 2: Ticket lady says, I'm sorry, but we don't allow animals
Speaker 2: in the movie theater. So the guy goes around the block.
Speaker 2: He stuffs the chicken down his pants, goes back to
Speaker 2: the ticket window, buys his ticket, and goes into the movies. Now,
Speaker 2: once the movie starts, the chicken starts to get a
Speaker 2: little hot, so the guy SIPs his pants so the
Speaker 2: chicken can stick his head out and get a little air. Naturally,
Speaker 2: woman sitting next to the guy sees this, and she
Speaker 2: is understandably appalled. She nurges her girlfriend. She goes this
Speaker 2: guy next to me just and zipped his pants. Woman
Speaker 2: says back, hey, look, you know you've seen one. You've
Speaker 2: seen them all. And the woman goes, I know, but
Speaker 2: this one's eating my popcorn, all right. I got Bob
Speaker 2: to laugh.
Speaker 1: Sounded like yeah too, Do you have another one?
Speaker 2: I do have another one that Yes, Jewish women love
Speaker 2: this joke, as I hope you'll see. So this Jewish
Speaker 2: mom is out on the beach with her little toddler,
Speaker 2: having a great time. They're playing in the sun and
Speaker 2: the sand and the surf, having a wonderful time. All
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I don't know where, this huge wave
Speaker 2: comes up, picks up the toddler and shoots him out
Speaker 2: to sea. You know, the Jewish woman is beside herself.
Speaker 2: She looks up at the sky and she says, Oh,
Speaker 2: my God, God, please, I'll do anything, anything, just please
Speaker 2: please bring my little boy back to me, Bring my
Speaker 2: little boy back to me. Next thing, you know, another
Speaker 2: wave comes up deposits the little boy back on the sand.
Speaker 2: There he is safe and sound. The Jewish mother picks
Speaker 2: him up. She squeezes her sun like she's never squeezed
Speaker 2: him before. She looks up at the sky and she says,
Speaker 2: he had a hat.
Speaker 1: Ah. That is good, that is good. Okay, your father
Speaker 1: were his parents born in America?
Speaker 2: No, they were, I believe somewhere of Poland.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, did you know them?
Speaker 2: I knew my grandfather, Well, I didn't really know. I
Speaker 2: was four when he passed away, so I did not
Speaker 2: know them. And I wish I really should find out
Speaker 2: where exactly they're from, because I did that ancestry thing
Speaker 2: and it came back just one hundred percent Jewish.
Speaker 1: That's actually kind of rare. Really, there's usually three or
Speaker 1: two percent whatever, Bob, I have not done it, but
Speaker 1: I'm just talking anecdotally what I've read.
Speaker 2: Huh, because did they other people's don't come back one
Speaker 2: hundred Lutheran? Like, what is with that? I don't get it.
Speaker 1: And how about on your mother's.
Speaker 2: Side, my mother's my grandparents, I think are they're from Russia? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they're all from the Old Country as we call it.
Speaker 1: As my grandparents were too. So how did your parents meet?
Speaker 2: My parents met at City College, obviously in New York. Yes.
Speaker 1: Do you know any more specifics of how they met
Speaker 1: at City College?
Speaker 2: I don't, Other than this story was that my mother
Speaker 2: was the club cutie of some club she was in.
Speaker 2: And I just remember my father telling of a funny
Speaker 2: story because my mother was one of six kids, that
Speaker 2: the first time he went over to my grandparents' house
Speaker 2: to meet them, my uncle, her younger brother, opened the
Speaker 2: door and said to my father, we don't like your
Speaker 2: type and slammed the door.
Speaker 1: That was a humorous thing, or was that real?
Speaker 2: It was humorous these twenty years later, I'm sure right
Speaker 2: at the time, not very humorous because I'm sure my
Speaker 2: mother opened the door back up and was my little
Speaker 2: brother doing. But I remember that being part of the
Speaker 2: family lore.
Speaker 1: And so how many kids in the family?
Speaker 2: There were six in my it was.
Speaker 1: On your generation, your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 1: And where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I'm the youngest. And I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 2: this or not, but a lot of comedians are the youngest,
Speaker 2: the attention hogs.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny. My younger sister prides herself a comedian.
Speaker 1: You have the wherewithal to go as far as you did.
Speaker 1: What are the two older ones up to?
Speaker 2: Well, the two you know, it's a family very entrenched
Speaker 2: in the mine world mind world. My brother's a psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: and my sister has a degree, she has her PhD
Speaker 2: in linguistics, but she is also a therapist as well.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny they're both in their field. Who ran
Speaker 1: the house? Who are the peants in the family, Your
Speaker 1: mother or your father?
Speaker 2: I think my father, my father. It's funny though, when
Speaker 2: my mother, my mother became a PhD in psychology in
Speaker 2: the seventies, and you know, that was sort of unusual
Speaker 2: at that time for women to pursue their career like that,
Speaker 2: and I give her a lot of credit. But I
Speaker 2: remember that when my mother started to really embark on
Speaker 2: her getting her PhD, my father kind of took over
Speaker 2: a lot of the family chores, like he did the
Speaker 2: grocery shopping, and he always had a funny story about that.
Speaker 2: I still remember to this day, Bob. He would talk
Speaker 2: about how when he went grocery shopping, some of the
Speaker 2: women would, you know, congregate in the aisles, and he
Speaker 2: would go around them with his cart and say under
Speaker 2: his breath, totally oblivious. But and then he started he
Speaker 2: did the grocery shopping. Then he started baking. He got
Speaker 2: my aunt Ellie's recipe for ruggluch and he started making
Speaker 2: it at home. And I'm telling you, I haven't had
Speaker 2: a piece of ruggloch that good since my father's, so
Speaker 2: I think he's sort of when he retired. When he
Speaker 2: retired and my mom started to really pursue her education
Speaker 2: her PhD, that he sort of took over in that
Speaker 2: way and he did well with it. But he was
Speaker 2: also very very handy around the house. His father was
Speaker 2: apparently a landlord, so he learned so many things to
Speaker 2: do around the house. I know you're a big music
Speaker 2: lover as I am, because I listened to your pod.
Speaker 2: And when the Mamas in Papa's album came out and
Speaker 2: the song Monday Monday, he had such a jones for
Speaker 2: this Monday Monday. He figured out some contraption Bob on
Speaker 2: the record player that it would keep it just the single,
Speaker 2: this contraption with string, that it would somehow keep playing
Speaker 2: Monday Monday over and over. So he was very inventive
Speaker 2: that way as well. But I think he certainly ran
Speaker 2: the house. He you know what Dad wanted, We we
Speaker 2: went along with. But it wasn't in a, you know,
Speaker 2: in a dictatory way, but I think he did. He
Speaker 2: did wear the pants.
Speaker 1: And where did you grow up?
Speaker 2: I grew up on Long Island in East Williston, Okay.
Speaker 1: Where exactly is that?
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with the are you need?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find out how familiar I am right now.
Speaker 2: Okay. East Williston is a little town near Roslyn, Minneola.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just found out recently that my George
Speaker 2: Santos was the congressman from where I grew up, which
Speaker 2: I could not believe, could not because it was so
Speaker 2: democratic and when I was growing up, and to hear
Speaker 2: that it, wow, it flipped the other way was a
Speaker 2: bit eye opening to me.
Speaker 1: So did you go to public school?
Speaker 2: I did go to public school. I went to the
Speaker 2: school system where I grew up. I think it's still
Speaker 2: in the top one hundred, if not, like maybe number
Speaker 2: one of the public schools. People really wanted to live
Speaker 2: in the area I grew up and because the schools
Speaker 2: were so great, and I did get a great, great education.
Speaker 1: So what kind of kid were you? Were you a
Speaker 1: smart kid? Did you do well? You know, how did
Speaker 1: you fit into the school hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I like to think I always did well in school.
Speaker 2: I have my own son now and this doesn't apply.
Speaker 2: When I was growing up, it was like, of course
Speaker 2: I had to do well in school. My parents would
Speaker 2: have killed me.
Speaker 1: He you know, this came up just yesterday. Looked like
Speaker 1: and they literally would have killed us.
Speaker 2: Absolutely exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was I think a healthy fear that we
Speaker 2: had of being killed.
Speaker 1: I can remember. I remember came home on a freshman
Speaker 1: year with what my father considered to be a bad
Speaker 1: report card. He started to lose it so much, was
Speaker 1: so angry that it was less me say, feeling the
Speaker 1: blow of his being eager, saying, this guy is so
Speaker 1: out of control it is weird.
Speaker 2: I get it. I totally get it. It does not
Speaker 2: sound a strange at all to me. Yeah, So did
Speaker 2: I did well in school? And you know, in high school,
Speaker 2: I think I was part of a good crowd. I
Speaker 2: played sports in high school, I was a cheerleader, So
Speaker 2: school was always good and fun for me. I did it,
Speaker 2: was in a lot of skits, and did a lot
Speaker 2: of comedy in high school. So I you know, like
Speaker 2: I told you earlier, early on, I knew that I
Speaker 2: wanted to perform and be out there on stage.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you graduated from high school and you go
Speaker 1: to Binghamton to college. What was that like?
Speaker 2: Well, Binghamton was great and I really credit it now
Speaker 2: looking back with a sort of serendipity of where I
Speaker 2: am today, because well, I went to Binghamton because my
Speaker 2: older sister Jane had gone there and I visited and
Speaker 2: I really liked the school. Also, maybe you can relate
Speaker 2: to this too, Bob. Growing up, you know, my father
Speaker 2: is like, can go to any school you want, as
Speaker 2: long as it's a state school. So Binghamton was the
Speaker 2: school for me. But while I was there, I was
Speaker 2: in a theater group with a guy named Paul Reiser,
Speaker 2: and he was the one who told me that there
Speaker 2: were these comedy clubs springing up in Manhattan. This is
Speaker 2: all really new, this is like the late seventies. And
Speaker 2: he told me about how anybody could go on an
Speaker 2: open mic night and do five minutes. He had done it,
Speaker 2: and I did it with Paul. You know, went to
Speaker 2: an open mic night. I look back now, I can't
Speaker 2: believe that it, you know, twenty and twenty one. I
Speaker 2: had the hutzpah to go and do this in a
Speaker 2: New York City nightclub. But that's also the beauty of youth,
Speaker 2: having this freshness. And I passed the audition at two
Speaker 2: comedy clubs, one the Comic Strip where Jerry Seinfeld was
Speaker 2: the MC that night who put me through, and I
Speaker 2: passed the audition. Another club, Patchurizing Star that's no longer there,
Speaker 2: and the MC that night was Larry David who put
Speaker 2: me through. So I literally go back to my first
Speaker 2: stay of show business with these guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, you grow up on Long Island, you go to Binghamton.
Speaker 1: Although you meet Paul Riser is it weird being in
Speaker 1: a large population with many fewer Jews.
Speaker 2: Wait, what do you mean like when I left? Wait,
Speaker 2: he asks me, what you mean?
Speaker 1: Okay, I grew up in the suburbs in Connecticut. I
Speaker 1: went to college. You know, just you're talking about when
Speaker 1: you're in the suburbs. It wasn't that the Jews were
Speaker 1: the dominant population in my town, or there were plenty
Speaker 1: of Jews, but their parents scared him into doing well
Speaker 1: in school, such as there were a lot of Jews
Speaker 1: in the top classes. Then I went to college, there
Speaker 1: were very few Jews, and it actually made me more Jewish.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had a similar experience.
Speaker 2: No, No, In fact, I grew up I think in
Speaker 2: a very Jewish area was one thing. But you know
Speaker 2: Roslyn Heights, I mean it was almost all Jewish. But
Speaker 2: when I went to Dampton, it was very, very big
Speaker 2: Jewish population of students. So I think even more so
Speaker 2: than where I grew up.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you literally meet Paul Riser?
Speaker 2: I literally met him. I had auditioned to be in
Speaker 2: this our dorm. Our dorm section was doing you can't
Speaker 2: take it with you to play, and I auditioned and
Speaker 2: I got it, and Paul was in the ensemble. Of
Speaker 2: course he was hilarious, and that's how I met him.
Speaker 1: Okay, you meet him, you like him. You're you know,
Speaker 1: a couple hundred miles from the epicenter of culture in
Speaker 1: New York City. Do you say to yourself, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is just a funny guy, or do you say, wait
Speaker 1: a second, this guy is pretty funny, more funny than
Speaker 1: the people I grew up with. You know, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: in college now, maybe this is going to turn into something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I skipped one part. Boy, this guy is
Speaker 2: really funny and he's really cute too, And I dated him.
Speaker 2: I mean, we quote from mel Brooks's two thousand year
Speaker 2: Old Man, I vented him. So yeah, I just I
Speaker 2: just could tell from going to these nightclubs. This to
Speaker 2: me felt like a shortcut to Hollywood and fame, because,
Speaker 2: you know, when I came up and my open mic nights,
Speaker 2: this was happening to comedians. Freddy Prince would go on
Speaker 2: the Tonight show Boom the next day he had a sitcom.
Speaker 2: It really was the stepping stone to big, big things
Speaker 2: for people. So I felt like, instead of doing acting
Speaker 2: and an agent and an audition and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: I can kind of control this, uh, this path myself,
Speaker 2: and that always appeal to me. And also I can
Speaker 2: control my own comedy, which I've always loved over the years,
Speaker 2: like win or lose. I'm still driving the car here.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Paul Riser. I got a
Speaker 1: reason I'm going here. So how do you end up
Speaker 1: dating him?
Speaker 2: How do I end up dating him? Well, how does
Speaker 2: anybody want to do?
Speaker 1: Well? Okay, wait, okay, you and me both know it
Speaker 1: is very, very difficult to make it to have this
Speaker 1: level of success, and talent is nowhere near the major
Speaker 1: percent well, it is is nowhere near the percentage of
Speaker 1: the wes. And somebody makes it as people think they do.
Speaker 1: There are people who have drive and have opportunity. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. You emailed me, which I was thrilled.
Speaker 1: I've known who you are for decades, and then you
Speaker 1: mentioned being on the podcast. I was going to ask you, okay,
Speaker 1: but you threw it out there, not in an aggressive fashion.
Speaker 1: So I am interested in the personality. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: I was dealing with somebody who was a radio consultant
Speaker 1: the other day when they became a music supervisored. So
Speaker 1: the opportunity came up, I had no idea what I
Speaker 1: was doing. I said, yes, I know this person. You know,
Speaker 1: he sort of puts himself in the mix. So are
Speaker 1: you saying, I mean, let's say Paul Reiser is there
Speaker 1: very verbal person, You're a very verbal person, and you
Speaker 1: meet him whatever. You know, there are people waiting at
Speaker 1: home for the phone to ring, and there are other
Speaker 1: people saying, hey, we should go get a pizza. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know pushing it forward? Is that your personality?
Speaker 2: Oh? Completely? And you know I keep talking about because
Speaker 2: it still stupefies me that I'm doing this for almost
Speaker 2: fifty years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have always been someone who it's very simple equation
Speaker 2: to me. You know, I enjoy your podcast. I enjoy
Speaker 2: your emails every day, and when I am a fan
Speaker 2: of someone and I feel like I would potentially be
Speaker 2: a good mix with someone. You know. I had a
Speaker 2: publicist for my book. I told her way back when
Speaker 2: to go after getting on your podcast. Nothing ever happened.
Speaker 2: So now that I'm not working with her, well, it's
Speaker 2: not all that hard. You ever an email? I email too,
Speaker 2: I'd love to be on your show. I'm glad you
Speaker 2: pointed out, and not in an aggressive way, because I
Speaker 2: really feel when you take that step of approaching someone personally,
Speaker 2: you have to be delicate because if someone feels like
Speaker 2: you're steamrolling them, you know. I'm on the other side
Speaker 2: of that. Sometimes I feel like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: not interested, and I always go into it. If you
Speaker 2: had not gotten back to me or gotten back to
Speaker 2: me and said I'm sorry, I don't have room right now,
Speaker 2: or whatever your way of saying no was, I would
Speaker 2: have been fine with it. I mean, I've learned along
Speaker 2: the way to go after things that I'd like to do,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, if they don't happen, it's okay, It's.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Jumping forward, how do you end up writing
Speaker 1: for the Oscars?
Speaker 2: Well, yes, a big jump, but I'm taking it the Oscars,
Speaker 2: like many things in show business, I was just kind
Speaker 2: of doing my thing. I think the first time was
Speaker 2: I was approached was ninety seven, maybe Bruce Falange reached
Speaker 2: out to me. He was the head writer and asked
Speaker 2: if I wanted to write for the Oscars. I remember
Speaker 2: passing the first time because I was in the middle
Speaker 2: of doing my then sitcom, and then after that I remember,
Speaker 2: he asked me another time and the next time, and
Speaker 2: I jumped in and since then, you know, I've done
Speaker 2: it many times, many many times over the years. And
Speaker 2: of all the things I love to do, and I
Speaker 2: do love to do many different things involving comedy, award
Speaker 2: shows are one of my favorite, absolutely, and especially the
Speaker 2: Oscars because it's the big kahuna. It's the award show
Speaker 2: that all the other award shows bowed down to. So
Speaker 2: I'm very honored to be a part of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, when Bruce calls you, do you have a relationship
Speaker 1: with Bruce? Do you know Bruce at that point? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think I think we probably if we didn't, if
Speaker 2: we weren't friends, we certainly would see each other at things.
Speaker 2: I mean. Another thing that I love about being a comedian,
Speaker 2: about being a funny person is that, uh, you know
Speaker 2: other funny people. We're all one people. So when I
Speaker 2: meet another comedian, I don't have to know what his
Speaker 2: act is or what her shpiel is or whatever, just
Speaker 2: knowing that they're professionally funny, there's instantly a bond. I
Speaker 2: find that people sometimes have this misconception. They asked me
Speaker 2: about my career where people cutthroat, people competitive and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to derail. It's the complete opposite. When
Speaker 2: I find I'm with funny people, it's the most supportive,
Speaker 2: fun group of people I could ever be with. Like
Speaker 2: I said earlier in our conversation, we speak the same language.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm with people who have the same
Speaker 2: a similar personality to me in certain ways. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: Brews gotten in touch with me. I don't know how
Speaker 2: well he knew me, but he certainly we knew. I
Speaker 2: knew of him, of course, but you know he knew
Speaker 2: of me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So a lot of you grew up in New York.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the clubs, you know, catch a rising star,
Speaker 1: et cetera. At the same time, does every comedian know
Speaker 1: every comedian?
Speaker 2: Well, not to sound like an old timer, but back
Speaker 2: in the day, he pretty much did. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think younger comedians are really just surprised when I tell them,
Speaker 2: Like when I started, you knew the comedians that were
Speaker 2: in New York it was probably twenty five people, if
Speaker 2: that female wise, there were probably four or five. And
Speaker 2: then out on the West Coast, I got it was
Speaker 2: very prestigious at that time. Someone came in from oh
Speaker 2: I should remember the club's name, but it was like
Speaker 2: a club in Claremont and one in Newport Beach, and
Speaker 2: they would fly you out there and you could perform
Speaker 2: these clubs. And then when I went out to California
Speaker 2: and I saw the scene out here, there are literally
Speaker 2: twenty people probably that were doing stand up. Now I
Speaker 2: can't even begin to tell you how many comics there are.
Speaker 2: I go on a lot of times at the Comedy
Speaker 2: and Magic Club, which is in Hermosa Beach, and I
Speaker 2: like it because they do a lot. It's ten comics.
Speaker 2: They call it ten for ten, ten comics each doing
Speaker 2: ten minutes. And I just went this past Saturday. I
Speaker 2: meet all these great new young comments and every Saturday
Speaker 2: it's like a new crop. So, yeah, we did know
Speaker 2: most of the comedians back then.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know Netflix was doing a stand up a week. There.
Speaker 1: There's a plethora of comedy. Forgetting the comedy bloom of
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, let's just talk about now. There's
Speaker 1: a plethora of comedy. Comedy is a broad swath, but
Speaker 1: let's just start with stand up. There's more than ever before.
Speaker 1: It's more available than ever before. I'll use music as
Speaker 1: an analogy, it's more than there ever was before. It's
Speaker 1: big business, but I've been around since the Beatles. It
Speaker 1: doesn't represent what it used to be, and the acts
Speaker 1: are in as good. What would you say about comedy.
Speaker 2: I would actually say about comedy. I don't. I still
Speaker 2: think people are doing it and doing it well.
Speaker 1: I just.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I also feel like I have
Speaker 2: to watch my old person ness, my boomer ness and say, eh,
Speaker 2: you know, the new crop they're not as good as weird.
Speaker 2: And then there's a lot of great comedy out there.
Speaker 2: And what I think is great about comedy, And you know,
Speaker 2: by the same token music is if you don't like it,
Speaker 2: don't listen to it. But you know where I feel
Speaker 2: like there's certainly a dearth of new rock stars per se. Boy,
Speaker 2: there's just a shitload of comedy that's out there and
Speaker 2: really good. I mean you start to think, you know,
Speaker 2: is there one more airline joke that that's funny? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just heard one this past Saturday night. There you know,
Speaker 2: still mining out there, you know, we're their heads with
Speaker 2: the lamps on it and finding very good stuff. I
Speaker 2: think it's great.
Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree do you feel the competition.
Speaker 2: I don't feel the competition, and I'll tell you why,
Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. One is I noticed that
Speaker 2: when I go up as an older person, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't think I you know, I'm a boomer, but
Speaker 2: I think people people like it. I would say, you know,
Speaker 2: people my age like to hear from someone of their generation,
Speaker 2: but I think younger people like it as well. I remember,
Speaker 2: you know, watching older comedians when I was young and
Speaker 2: enjoying them. But I don't feel competitive because nobody is me.
Speaker 2: Nobody is me Bob, and I have my own take.
Speaker 2: I've always had my own individual take on things that
Speaker 2: connect with audiences. I'm pleased to say, and the more
Speaker 2: that I keep writing, I don't feel like I'm ever
Speaker 2: in anybody's class. And the great thing about comedy is
Speaker 2: it's all about what you're putting out there, and if
Speaker 2: what you're putting out there is good, you're not really
Speaker 2: in competition with anybody else because it's your own thing.
Speaker 1: So how would you describe your own act in your
Speaker 1: own sensibility?
Speaker 2: My act, Well, i'd like to I think it's I'd
Speaker 2: like to think it's whimsical. It's not aggressive or attacking
Speaker 2: or anything like that. I feel like it's just it's whimsy.
Speaker 2: But the great thing about I think being a funny person.
Speaker 2: And I heard this from I was flying back, no
Speaker 2: airline joke to come. I was flying back from somewhere
Speaker 2: and they had a masterclass by David Sedaris and I
Speaker 2: watched it, and I thought he said something pretty profound
Speaker 2: that I hadn't realized for all these years that I
Speaker 2: do comedy. And he was talking about how funny people
Speaker 2: have the advantage of having embarrassing or terrible things happened
Speaker 2: to them and then making humor out of it. I like,
Speaker 2: for example, what he talked about was, I'm paraphrasing, but
Speaker 2: he went to the doctor for something and they asked
Speaker 2: him to want dress and put on one of those
Speaker 2: horrible robes that open in the back, and they had said,
Speaker 2: and then go to this room and wait. And he
Speaker 2: went into this room where there were all people dressed
Speaker 2: and waiting, and he sat there for a couple of
Speaker 2: minutes before he kind of realized, oh, I'm apparently in
Speaker 2: the wrong room, and he left. But he was talking
Speaker 2: about how too, you know your average person, that's a
Speaker 2: horrible thing and you just kind of Grin and Barrett,
Speaker 2: you go off to the other room. But funny people,
Speaker 2: we can take that story and make hay of it
Speaker 2: and make it humorous. So the terrible things that happened
Speaker 2: to us can become fodder. And I found that in
Speaker 2: my own life, you know, Like I was walking my
Speaker 2: dog recently in my neighborhood and I got to a
Speaker 2: crosswalk and instead of stopping, this car of young guys
Speaker 2: came and barreled through the crosswalk, almost hitting me. And
Speaker 2: so what did I do. It was kind of stupid.
Speaker 2: I flipped them off, so big mistake. You know, they
Speaker 2: did a new turn. They're following down the street, honking
Speaker 2: their horn. I was really scared. And then one of
Speaker 2: them rolled down the window and he said to me,
Speaker 2: you're a fat whore. And he also said, and your
Speaker 2: dog is ugly. But anyway, so I tell this story
Speaker 2: now on stage of what happened minus the dog, you know,
Speaker 2: and he said you're a fat horror and yeah. It
Speaker 2: was really shaken up. And I went home and I
Speaker 2: said to my wife, yeah, fat, And the audience loves
Speaker 2: the story. You know, I've taken something that was really
Speaker 2: upsetting to me, and now it's part of being funny.
Speaker 1: If you went back and looked at your early material,
Speaker 1: would you cringe or you say, no, that's my act.
Speaker 2: Oh, now I'm very Someone recently sent me my first letterman,
Speaker 2: which was in nineteen eighty two. I mean, it's like
Speaker 2: watching my daughter. It's like that far back, and I
Speaker 2: just get a real kick out of it. I really
Speaker 2: even sort of miss I have. I had this kind
Speaker 2: of joyful, you know, uncratered enthusiasm going out there that
Speaker 2: I sort of miss now, this youthful exuberance, No, I love.
Speaker 2: I love watching my old stuff and remembering what I
Speaker 2: was thinking when I was doing it, and what was
Speaker 2: going on, and all.
Speaker 1: That tell me about your state of mind today visa
Speaker 1: the yesteryear. That youthful exuberance you say you wish you had,
Speaker 1: you say you don't have it, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that I look back at
Speaker 2: that youthful exuberance and I just look at it as
Speaker 2: being young. I mean I miss it justin in being young.
Speaker 2: I don't miss it in terms of oh I wish that,
Speaker 2: wish I had that today. It's just to me, watching
Speaker 2: your younger self is fulfilling in a certain way, because
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, that's who I was back then, and
Speaker 2: look at me. I was really acting young because I
Speaker 2: was young. So I do miss the like when we
Speaker 2: were talking about when I went on those open mic
Speaker 2: nights at twenty and twenty one, I do miss the
Speaker 2: I would say recklessness, but it's not the jumping in
Speaker 2: to anything when you're young, because you're young and maybe
Speaker 2: in a way clueless of the consequences, but you're ready
Speaker 2: to jump off that cliff. And certainly now as an
Speaker 2: older person, you know, I'm not going to go hang gliding.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I know you ski. It's like, what what
Speaker 2: are you thinking? I don't want to fall. I've had
Speaker 2: too many friends at this age fall. I have to
Speaker 2: get a good pair of sneakers. Maybe I'll get sketches. Bob, Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: spoke so highly of them. But yeah, there's a certain
Speaker 2: caution being older that I respect a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm less worried about that aspect then more the
Speaker 1: state of mind, of career and then mixing and aging. Yes,
Speaker 1: when you're nobody from nowhere, you have this incredible desire
Speaker 1: to push walls down and make it by anybody's standards.
Speaker 1: In comedy, in Hollywood, You've made it. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that reads a complacency. It could in some people, but
Speaker 1: certainly not in your case. But you know, you look
Speaker 1: at the game and say, well, what are the targets
Speaker 1: out there? And even if I achieved that target, would
Speaker 1: it mean enough for me to do it? You know,
Speaker 1: once I achieved it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well. The good thing about stand up comedy is
Speaker 2: I know that there's more for me to say, there's
Speaker 2: more jokes for me to write, There's more things I
Speaker 2: like to say and talk about. So I always look
Speaker 2: ahead optimistically in that way. And as we've been talking
Speaker 2: a lot before about this, nobody has will ever have
Speaker 2: my act or my jokes. So to me, that's always
Speaker 2: been a big advantage in the SHOWPI Is World, because
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to write a show for somebody. I'm not.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a whole different thing when you work
Speaker 2: in one as one, and I always think like there's
Speaker 2: always an audience for I think what I'm doing, what
Speaker 2: anybody's doing. If you connect with whoever you connect with,
Speaker 2: that to me that that's a thumbs up. And more importantly,
Speaker 2: I think Bob I dig being creative. That's my Jones.
Speaker 2: You know, that's my thing. It really makes me feel alive. Really,
Speaker 2: it's what led to writing my book. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was writing a TV I couldn't do it because of
Speaker 2: the strike. Honoring the strike. I always like to be
Speaker 2: that I'm working on. That's I'm thinking about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's my fix.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's look at Bill Maher. Let's not get into
Speaker 1: his act or whatever. And he's got a TV show's
Speaker 1: had a TV show for thirty odd years. He says
Speaker 1: he's quitting the road if you look at some of
Speaker 1: his numbers, not necessarily going clean everywhere. But that's not
Speaker 1: really the point. I know Richard Lewis. I knew Richard
Speaker 1: a certain amount, not a lot. Which people don't realize
Speaker 1: about Richard, which I have to throw in, is he
Speaker 1: was that guy. You know, there's so many people you think,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you know, it's just so hilarious, but you know,
Speaker 1: well he only he unfortunately passed, but he only wanted
Speaker 1: to do so much work. Now, your career is not
Speaker 1: that of the average stand up comedian. But let's say
Speaker 1: the aviad, you know, we look at it. You could
Speaker 1: go book thirty dates of whatever number of tickets you
Speaker 1: could sell somewhere between five hundred and fifty thousand, and
Speaker 1: you can go out and you collect money. You reach
Speaker 1: this age. Is that's still satisfying?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely? Yeah. I don't know why. I'm just interested.
Speaker 2: Why would you think it would not be?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let's use a couple of examples musicians. Musicians
Speaker 1: have hits otherwise you can't play it all. And if
Speaker 1: you go on the road you have to play those
Speaker 1: hits and people find out you're not, then people are
Speaker 1: not going to come. There are a lot of musicians
Speaker 1: who say, hey, yeah, you know, I'm singing my hit,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about doing the laundry, etc. We live in
Speaker 1: an interesting world where there's so much stuff. Okay, such
Speaker 1: a if you do something live, it's a momentary thing
Speaker 1: for that audience, and then you move on and do
Speaker 1: it for another audience. With a comedian, it tends to
Speaker 1: be a similar act. So uh huh. At what point
Speaker 1: do you say, well, I'm out here, it's fun hearing
Speaker 1: people laugh, I'm getting paid, but it doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: same thing because it's not moving my career forward. Let
Speaker 1: me throw that into the mix. It used to be
Speaker 1: in the sixties certainly the seventies, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: be successful, going on the road was part of growing
Speaker 1: your audience. Okay, certainly for an established comic who's charging
Speaker 1: an admission fee in excess of thirty five dollars, it's
Speaker 1: not really growing their audience. That's not how you grow
Speaker 1: your addies. Not to mention it, it's so hard to
Speaker 1: grow your audience today. So you could be sitting at
Speaker 1: home saying, especially if you have enough in your bank account.
Speaker 1: You know, this is sort of a pass thing. But
Speaker 1: using an example, I could come up with a tweet
Speaker 1: that's so good it could go viral. I could do
Speaker 1: a skit on TikTok so good, I could reach millions
Speaker 1: of people. Whereas, if I go on the road, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, when I'm all said and done, I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, reach a small fraction of the population. And
Speaker 1: am I really moving the needle forward? You know? Conversely,
Speaker 1: you're talking about playing the Oscars. You know, we can
Speaker 1: debate all day long how many people actually watch the show,
Speaker 1: et cetera, But a shit ton do And you say,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if you're there, and the comedian lands your
Speaker 1: joke and there's a big laugh. You know you're talking
Speaker 1: about velling. This is the greatest thing that ever happened.
Speaker 1: You're on a high for a couple of days. Okay,
Speaker 1: But that's different from saying, oh, yeah, I told a
Speaker 1: joke and Poughkeepsie the audience loved it.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think you're missing the experience of
Speaker 2: being a comedian because as many times as I've told
Speaker 2: the joke, when the audience laughs at it, it's like
Speaker 2: the first airing the laugh for the first time. But
Speaker 2: it's interesting what you bring up, Okay, Bob, because you know,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a re education on comedy every moment because
Speaker 2: things change, and things changed drastically from when I started
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven. For example, Now I've thought a
Speaker 2: lot about, ah god, it would be great if I
Speaker 2: could get a special like on net Felix or Hulu
Speaker 2: Prime one of those. I'm not going to get a special.
Speaker 2: It's just not going to happen. But talking to these
Speaker 2: young comics as I do now, one of them was
Speaker 2: telling me the other night he went on and he
Speaker 2: said to the audience, oh, this is great because I'm
Speaker 2: about to tape my special. And after he got off stage,
Speaker 2: I said, Oh, that's cool. Who are you doing this
Speaker 2: special for Netflix Hulu? He was like, I'm taping it
Speaker 2: myself and then I'm putting it up on YouTube. And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, like why would you do that?
Speaker 2: He was like, Oh, that's the way to go these days.
Speaker 2: Tell me how a comedian he knows that a Netflix special.
Speaker 2: He did so much better putting his own up on YouTube.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, okay, and then I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about material, how much material I need? What do you
Speaker 2: need to do an hour now and fifteen? He is like, no,
Speaker 2: thirty forty minutes. You can do less than that. People
Speaker 2: only a wived for the first ten minutes. And then suddenly,
Speaker 2: now I seek that I can have a special. And
Speaker 2: do I do a special? I performed for so many
Speaker 2: Jewish groups? Yeah, so surprised. I could do a special
Speaker 2: of all my Jewish material and put it out there,
Speaker 2: and I bet you, Bob, I bet you I'd get
Speaker 2: twenty or thirty groups that hire me, which would be fantastic.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think there's always that. To me, was
Speaker 2: so exciting to hear that. That made my year hearing
Speaker 2: that thinking about a special, and especially my personality as
Speaker 2: you touched on earlier. I can make this happen in
Speaker 2: three seconds.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, Okay, I had the same experience. I see a
Speaker 1: lot of comedy on TikTok and Instagram reels and they'll
Speaker 1: say my special, and I'll say this person has a special,
Speaker 1: And that's how I found about the YouTube specials. But
Speaker 1: you just laid it out. You speak to Jewish groups,
Speaker 1: you have the material. What's going to take to get
Speaker 1: you over the hump to actually do it?
Speaker 2: You mean to actually get the gigs, no.
Speaker 1: To film, you know what. Listen, ten minutes plus ten
Speaker 1: minutes is enough. Yeah, you stand up there and you
Speaker 1: do ten minutes worth of Jewish stuff. It's going to
Speaker 1: lead to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you found out about it the Comedy Magic Club.
Speaker 1: Are you going to do it?
Speaker 2: Of course I'm going to do it. Of course. Am
Speaker 2: I going to do it right now? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm promoting my book, Bob. That takes a lot of
Speaker 2: energy and effort. I'm also of the age that I
Speaker 2: am like to be in bed around ten you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? My souted ten twenty. You know, comedy.
Speaker 2: The biggest challenge for me is it's a young person's game.
Speaker 2: In terms of the hours. You know Fraser Smith, who
Speaker 2: was you know, a big DJ on k Los. He's
Speaker 2: out there killing him. I worked with him Saturday night.
Speaker 2: He's so funny. He was like, come on my show
Speaker 2: at the comedy Store. I'm like, great, I haven't been
Speaker 2: on at the comedy store. This is a way in.
Speaker 2: He was like, yeah, I start my show at nine thirty.
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, all right, I'd like to do it, Frasher,
Speaker 2: but you got to get me on early. I got
Speaker 2: to get home, I got to get to sleep. Can
Speaker 2: I tell you another joke that my father told all
Speaker 2: this reminded me of this. Oh my god, do I
Speaker 2: love this joke? Okay, So this guy comes home from
Speaker 2: the doctor. The wife says to him, what did the
Speaker 2: doctor say? Guy says, I can't believe it. Doctor says
Speaker 2: I have twenty four hours to live. The wife is like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe it. Well, what would
Speaker 2: you like to do? And the husband says, how about sex?
Speaker 2: So they have sex and then she says all right, honey,
Speaker 2: what would you like to do? Now? He says, how
Speaker 2: about some more sex? She goes, okay, honey. Now when
Speaker 2: they're done, she says what would you like to do?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: The husband says, how about sex one more time? She goes, look,
Speaker 2: I gotta get up in the morning. Yes, so I
Speaker 2: gotta get up, Bob.
Speaker 1: Okay, those are a couple of your father's greatest hits.
Speaker 1: Do you have a couple of jokes whether you tell
Speaker 1: them on stage just amongst friends that are just your
Speaker 1: favorites and you whip.
Speaker 2: About, Oh, jokes that I tell hm, that is interesting.
Speaker 2: You mean jokes for my act that I like to
Speaker 2: tell people.
Speaker 1: They can be from your act, but a couple of
Speaker 1: things that you know, you know, we'll always get a laugh,
Speaker 1: irrelevant of context, who's president, whether the you know, the economy,
Speaker 1: who the audience is. You know, you tell this joke
Speaker 1: and you smile because it always works, and you like
Speaker 1: to tell it.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, oh why I you know, talk about when
Speaker 2: I mentioned to you. It doesn't matter how many times
Speaker 2: you've told the joke. If people laugh, that's all you need.
Speaker 2: I'm not sitting there thinking, oh, I have to tell
Speaker 2: this joke one more time. I'm always like, I get
Speaker 2: to tell this joke one more time. Now. I do
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, gigs where I got to
Speaker 2: fly there Okay, So I love doing this joke because
Speaker 2: people always like to know that you're in the moment,
Speaker 2: that you're in their city, that you got there. So
Speaker 2: many times I start my set by saying, oh, it's
Speaker 2: great to be here. You know, I flew in yesterday.
Speaker 2: But I have a great travel tip for you guys.
Speaker 2: You know how like when you fly on Southwest and
Speaker 2: you want to keep that seat empty next to you,
Speaker 2: I have the best way to do it. Okay, when
Speaker 2: someone walks down the island and says to you, is
Speaker 2: someone sitting here? Just say no, one except the Lord.
Speaker 2: And it always works. It always always works. So once
Speaker 2: I do that joke, I know I'm in like Flint
Speaker 2: and I can use that expression with my fellow boomer.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely a little believe it or not. I never
Speaker 1: saw those two movies. But okay, let's go back. So
Speaker 1: how do you decide to leave Binghamton and go to
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a very easy decision for me because
Speaker 2: I had passed the audition at the Comic Strip and
Speaker 2: it was the summer of my junior year, finishing my
Speaker 2: junior year, and I decided I wanted to become a comedian,
Speaker 2: So I told my parents. It's another thing. I look
Speaker 2: back now, I go to my Jewish parents, I'm going
Speaker 2: to leave college. I will finish at Queen's College, which
Speaker 2: was my mother's alba mater, so I had some brownie
Speaker 2: points there. But when I look back, and I think
Speaker 2: I said to me, I want to start to try
Speaker 2: to become a comedian, and my father says to me, well, look,
Speaker 2: you got to strike while the iron's hot. You know
Speaker 2: that was pretty remarkable. I don't know how I would
Speaker 2: feel as a parent if my kid had done the
Speaker 2: same thing. So that's how I left Binghamton and finished
Speaker 2: my education at Queen's. God. I used to do a
Speaker 2: joke back then Bob about Queen's which was, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very tough school, Queen's College, very tough. You
Speaker 2: need a pen to get in the young people. They
Speaker 2: don't use pens.
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, the act that you did to pass the audition,
Speaker 1: how long did you work on that act before you
Speaker 1: took the stage.
Speaker 2: Not long. I just kind of I think I had
Speaker 2: kind of done a version of it at Binghamton opening
Speaker 2: for a friend of mine who is a singer. So
Speaker 2: I had an idea and I'm sure I ran it
Speaker 2: by Paul, and I'm sure Paul ran his set by me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, you moved to New York, you know the stories
Speaker 1: have become legendary. Yeah, I'm working at five clubs in night.
Speaker 1: What happened to you? First you were in school? A
Speaker 1: Were you doing that? B? Did you have a day
Speaker 1: gig after you graduated from school?
Speaker 2: I did well. First, I was living at my parents' house.
Speaker 2: I was going to Queen's College during the day, and
Speaker 2: at night I would drive into the city to do
Speaker 2: my act. And then, you know, it was a pretty
Speaker 2: great at Queen's College. I had a professor who let me, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he let me do this as a course. I would
Speaker 2: come in and play my tapes of my stand up
Speaker 2: and we would listen to it and critique it. And
Speaker 2: I think that was pretty great. Thank you Queen's College
Speaker 2: for the support. So when I graduated school, I moved
Speaker 2: into the city and I had to get a job.
Speaker 2: So for three seconds I worked at this coffee company,
Speaker 2: a coffee wholesale, and then I remember the boss saying
Speaker 2: to me, my friend needs somebody at his office. He's
Speaker 2: a private eye and he needs a secretary and I
Speaker 2: was like, it was a good typer. I was like,
Speaker 2: so I met with the guy and it was a
Speaker 2: private eye. It sounded really very you know, very glamorous
Speaker 2: and very you know, Maltese falcony. But he was a
Speaker 2: guy who gave polygraph tests two people who wanted to
Speaker 2: work at places as varied as burger king and escort services.
Speaker 2: So he needed someone to type up via dictaphone, that
Speaker 2: archaic piece of technology writing up the reports. So this
Speaker 2: is a great job for me for two reasons. One was,
Speaker 2: as mentioned, I was a very good typer, so to
Speaker 2: operate the dictaphone, I was asis at that. But also
Speaker 2: he was very understanding of my stand up situation. I
Speaker 2: said to him, because I was going on so late,
Speaker 2: can I work eleven to six with no lunch? And
Speaker 2: he said, okay, is a lot of the work it's done, okay,
Speaker 2: So to get to the office at eleven that was nice.
Speaker 2: That was very understanding of gracious of him. So that's
Speaker 2: what I did. Until I was seeing that I was
Speaker 2: making enough money. My first gig, oh my god, Bob
Speaker 2: Baroque College in Manhattan, one hundred bucks to perform. I
Speaker 2: felt like I had hit the Vegas jackpot one hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So yeah, that was my day job.
Speaker 2: I just was in Manhattan recently and I just passed
Speaker 2: by four fifty seventh Avenue just to look at the
Speaker 2: building again of where I worked. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: Okay, how long after college could you give up your
Speaker 1: day job?
Speaker 2: I think it was about tak about a year. That's
Speaker 2: so bad what.
Speaker 1: Happened within that year financially such as you didn't need
Speaker 1: it anymore?
Speaker 2: I found that I was making enough from gigs you're
Speaker 2: in there to pay the rent and be able to
Speaker 2: just be a full time, full time comedian. That was
Speaker 2: another thing that my father said when I said I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a comedian. He said, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a cash business, and cash is king Carol.
Speaker 1: As long as you don't put it in the bank.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay. On the West Coast, they weren't paying
Speaker 1: the comedians at the conventional clubs. Hey, what was the
Speaker 1: situation on the East coast? And to what degree were
Speaker 1: there like at Baruke College? What were these other gigs
Speaker 1: and how did you get them?
Speaker 2: You know, you got cab fare at these clubs, which
Speaker 2: was about five bucks, but you also got to eat there,
Speaker 2: but you couldn't have cheesecake. That was only if you
Speaker 2: were the empcy, but so free meals. It just became like, hey,
Speaker 2: there's a club in Jersey, they drive you out, you perform,
Speaker 2: You make forty bucks here and there, you do a college,
Speaker 2: you get the hundred bucks's. It was all kind of
Speaker 2: word of mouth, kind of booking. Somebody did this gig,
Speaker 2: Oh you should do this gig, and blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and you kind of through connections started to make enough
Speaker 2: money that way.
Speaker 1: And when you're doing that, you give up your day job.
Speaker 1: What is the dream? Dev ready to court of a
Speaker 1: see you? What would you say? This would be what's happening?
Speaker 2: That was the absolute holy ground to get on the
Speaker 2: I think in my journey what happened was gladfully David
Speaker 2: Letterman had seen me. I was in a New York
Speaker 2: comedy competition and I always talk about it because I
Speaker 2: came in fourth and Eddie Murphy came in fifth. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: good job, judges right. And then when he got his show, oh,
Speaker 2: he recommended me to the Tonight Show and they passed.
Speaker 2: But when he got his late night show, he put
Speaker 2: me right on. So and then I went on to
Speaker 2: do it twenty five times, but it kind of marginalized
Speaker 2: me as a Letterman act. So the Tonight Show didn't
Speaker 2: really take me seriously. But Bob relentless garral Leifer never
Speaker 2: say die every time I would no audition for it,
Speaker 2: audition over and over and over. And then finally two
Speaker 2: months before, three months before Johnny retired, they booked me
Speaker 2: on the show, So I got to do it once
Speaker 2: with Johnny.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you say auditioned for them as a practical matter,
Speaker 1: what was that you actually did.
Speaker 2: They would come to a club and they would put
Speaker 2: together a showcase for them of comedians and I would
Speaker 2: be one of them.
Speaker 1: Okay, you worked with them all. You know amongst the
Speaker 1: younger generation, Letterman is cakeing. Letterman changed late night because
Speaker 1: it really became more of a comedy show, whereas with
Speaker 1: Johnny and his generation or more interviews, you didn't have
Speaker 1: to come in with the so called funny story like
Speaker 1: you do today. So what has been your experience with
Speaker 1: all these late night hosts?
Speaker 2: Well, the great thing about doing sense well on any show,
Speaker 2: you know, I did MERV Griffin back then, and a
Speaker 2: solid gold you know, a cornucopia of appearances on shows.
Speaker 2: You just had to go out and do your thing
Speaker 2: and be funny. Let me tell you some MERV Griffin audience,
Speaker 2: those white haired ladies, you know, with the pocketbooks in
Speaker 2: their lap. That was not an easy audience. But that
Speaker 2: toughens you up. You know, you have to really do
Speaker 2: badly as a comedian to get good. There's no way
Speaker 2: around that. You have to figure it out, and a
Speaker 2: lot of that is bad sense. But another thing that
Speaker 2: I'm seeing now, Bob, with the evolution of time and
Speaker 2: how things work, you know, with my book now, to me,
Speaker 2: I'm always like, I gotta get on the tonight show.
Speaker 2: I gotta get on this show. It's podcasts. It's podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're in a good business, Bob. You struck while the
Speaker 2: iron was hot, corning up. When my editor told me
Speaker 2: the other day, O'Brien, you're doing his podcast so the
Speaker 2: most books by far. So you know, it's a it's
Speaker 2: a different it's a different world now. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it was very good for stand up comics
Speaker 2: back in my day because it was the pathway to
Speaker 2: getting your own show, you know, becoming a quote star.
Speaker 2: It's not that now, even you know, writing on shows
Speaker 2: like Seinfeld. When I the Marvel Why which was my
Speaker 2: episode when it aired the next day, everybody was talking
Speaker 2: about it was a water cooler show. I hadn't explained
Speaker 2: to our son what water cooler show means. People you know,
Speaker 2: we're on mass would watch these shows and could reference them. So, uh,
Speaker 2: that was a special time. That's not happening anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay, But you would go on Letterman, you would riff
Speaker 1: with him. How much of that was one hundred percent
Speaker 1: in the moment And what was the essence of Dave?
Speaker 1: What made him special?
Speaker 2: Well, you certainly didn't. You sat down and you knew
Speaker 2: there were bullet points of things he was going to
Speaker 2: talk about, but so much of that was spontaneous, just
Speaker 2: to people talking. I always had a great connection with
Speaker 2: him in those days. He was so supportive of me.
Speaker 2: I mean, he executive produced one of my specials at
Speaker 2: the time. So I always felt going out there, which
Speaker 2: is important, that he was an ally, that he was
Speaker 2: a friend, so that that made it easy. And he
Speaker 2: is really, and back then, especially a master interviewer. I mean,
Speaker 2: any any artifice, any bullshit that comes his way, he
Speaker 2: you know, will not have it. You know, he takes
Speaker 2: out the knife and cuts away the bullshit fat. So
Speaker 2: that also made it fun because you knew you had
Speaker 2: to be at the top of your game certainly talking
Speaker 2: to him, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a classic question. Anybody in the New
Speaker 1: York scene who didn't make it big, who you thought
Speaker 1: was going to.
Speaker 2: Oh, there are always lots of people like that. Wow,
Speaker 2: I hate to say their names just because I don't.
Speaker 1: Let me ask a different question. Are they still in
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 2: No, No, A lot of people had to make the
Speaker 2: decision at a certain point when it wasn't working of like,
Speaker 2: I've got to find something something new to do. And
Speaker 2: I've found out with actors as well that I've worked
Speaker 2: with along the way, you know, se la Vie, but
Speaker 2: I you know, but know that there were some incredible
Speaker 2: people who people had their eye on and said this
Speaker 2: person is going to skyrocket and for whatever reasons, And
Speaker 2: you know, along the way, there are self defeating reasons,
Speaker 2: self sabotaging reasons, some people that just didn't try hard enough.
Speaker 2: Because as we were kind of touching on before, you know,
Speaker 2: there's no coasting. I mean, in this business, you always
Speaker 2: have to advocate for yourself. It's like a shark. You
Speaker 2: got to keep swimming because if you don't, you'll go
Speaker 2: by the wayside. I think quickly. So I think people
Speaker 2: who are successful and have stayed successful have really put
Speaker 2: the work in to keep themselves relevant and happening.
Speaker 1: Did you ever contemplate giving up going straight? As they say?
Speaker 2: No, I mean maybe I did early, early on, because
Speaker 2: you have so many bad stuffs and so much horror
Speaker 2: when you start. And my mother did confess to me
Speaker 2: a few years later. I thought you were going to
Speaker 2: be a lawyer, you'd get it out of your system.
Speaker 2: But I never did for too long. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't mean this in a big headed way. I just
Speaker 2: mean it in an honest way. I've always believed in myself, Bob.
Speaker 2: I just I've just always felt like I have something
Speaker 2: to say and I think it's good and I think
Speaker 2: it's funny, and if people don't get it, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna keep doing it. That's my attitude.
Speaker 1: Okay. Seinfeld gets his show with Larry Day. The average
Speaker 1: person doesn't know lyric except the guy in the background
Speaker 1: on the Friday show. At that point in time, it's
Speaker 1: called the Seinfeld Chronicles. It was the initial order, I
Speaker 1: think four episodes. Whatever you hear that they have a
Speaker 1: show needs say iconic looking back, But when they got
Speaker 1: the show, did you say, oh, good for them, or
Speaker 1: one of us is finally broken through, or they're on
Speaker 1: their way, or you know they're doing what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Well. Of course, being friends with both Jerry and Larry,
Speaker 2: I was thrilled when Jerry got the show. I thought
Speaker 2: that was great. I thought they were totally onto something,
Speaker 2: and I thought, that's fantastic for them, That's that's great.
Speaker 2: I was heavily into doing my stand up at the time,
Speaker 2: but you know, I thought it was fantastic. Like I
Speaker 2: was saying, comedians love other comedians. I would be nothing
Speaker 2: but happy for two of my good friend's success. What's
Speaker 2: interesting about my writing on Seinfeld? As many times I've
Speaker 2: touched upon in our conversation my being a fan and
Speaker 2: pursuing avenues that I'm interested in, Actually these guys came
Speaker 2: to me and asked me if I wanted to write
Speaker 2: on the show. So that was very lucky for me
Speaker 2: because I was lucky that Larry David didn't want to
Speaker 2: hire any writers that had written for TV before. Because
Speaker 2: he felt like they had been poisoned by the system.
Speaker 2: So I was lucky that they reached out to me
Speaker 2: because we were friends. They liked to work with people
Speaker 2: that they already had a good rapport with, you know,
Speaker 2: sitting in writing rooms and being on a show as
Speaker 2: many hours of being with people, so you got to
Speaker 2: like hang. It be an easy hang to work at
Speaker 2: these jobs. And I was very complimented that they felt
Speaker 2: like my style of writing would compliment the show. But
Speaker 2: when I did get the job, and that was thrilling
Speaker 2: to be hired as a writer over there. You bet
Speaker 2: I went in the first day with three pages it's
Speaker 2: got to be sixty ideas of things. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be ready when I showed up for the first day
Speaker 2: that you know, I wanted to make sure they knew
Speaker 2: they made a good decision.
Speaker 1: Okay, so drill a little bit deeper. You show up
Speaker 1: the first day. How did it work?
Speaker 2: It worked rather well because I pitched. I know, I
Speaker 2: definitely pitched one of the ideas that eventually became.
Speaker 1: Let me change it. Your first day? Was it us
Speaker 1: with those two What was the first day the whole
Speaker 1: so called writer's room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first day was just the writer's room, just
Speaker 2: meeting everybody and people had some writers had been there before,
Speaker 2: so kind of giving us a lay of the land
Speaker 2: of how it works and being with Larry and Jerry,
Speaker 2: and it was a bit of a getting to know
Speaker 2: you time.
Speaker 1: Okay. So in terms of scripts, did everybody come with
Speaker 1: ideas and then they sifted through the ideas? How did
Speaker 1: they split up the work?
Speaker 2: Yeah, at Seinfeld, it was really all about the ideas,
Speaker 2: and so how it worked was you would go in
Speaker 2: individually and pitch to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld in
Speaker 2: their office. They shared an office and took a seat
Speaker 2: and gave it your best shot with ideas and they
Speaker 2: would either spark to things that's great. Especially Larry David
Speaker 2: would get very very excited and animated when he liked
Speaker 2: one of your ideas. It was just thrilling to him
Speaker 2: to seize upon something that he could see he could
Speaker 2: make hay out of. And then there are cluckers along
Speaker 2: the way. But you know, like you'd get that nah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I could see that on another show.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But if you hit on something that
Speaker 2: they liked, it was, you know, a howl Loujah moment.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you hit on something light they like. Do
Speaker 1: they then say, go write the script. No.
Speaker 2: What they would say then is come back with a
Speaker 2: sort of outline of what that would mean for each
Speaker 2: of the other characters. Like when I pitched Lane thinks
Speaker 2: the Korean manicurists for talking about her behind her back
Speaker 2: in Korean, and they liked that idea, then it's like,
Speaker 2: go back and try to think of George's story, a
Speaker 2: Kramer story, and a Jerry story. So you would work
Speaker 2: on that and once they felt that you had something
Speaker 2: workable there, then you would go off and write a draft.
Speaker 1: Okay. Seinfeld had a very specific but not conventional layout
Speaker 1: with the A and the B story and things usually
Speaker 1: coming together when you went to write the first script,
Speaker 1: did it already have that structure?
Speaker 2: I think, following what you kind of outlined of what
Speaker 2: was going to happen in each scene. Yeah, that kind
Speaker 2: of structure was there. But I think it's very important
Speaker 2: for me to say we're looking at Seinfeld why it
Speaker 2: was also such a learning experience for me, and I
Speaker 2: can speak for every other writer there is. I would
Speaker 2: turn in a draft as other writers would. Then Larry
Speaker 2: and Jerry would do their pass on the draft, and
Speaker 2: so every Seinfeld that you see, you're seeing their version
Speaker 2: of whoever's draft that was. So I learned a lot
Speaker 2: seeing what they kept of my drafts, what they threw
Speaker 2: out of my drafts, what they changed of my drafts.
Speaker 2: So their presence is really all over the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to what degree with Seinfeld was their conventional
Speaker 1: writer room stuff where you're sitting there with a script
Speaker 1: and people are throwing out jokes and you're saying no,
Speaker 1: and you're building from that.
Speaker 2: Well, Seinfeld was a different show in terms of how
Speaker 2: it worked, in terms of it was more kind of
Speaker 2: individual study sort of model in that you worked one
Speaker 2: on one with Larry and Jerry with your idea, with
Speaker 2: your script, with your outlines, all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: They would and then we'd all meet for lunch. We'd
Speaker 2: all eat lunch in the office, and that was when
Speaker 2: all the writers were together. I mean, they would occasionally
Speaker 2: call us together if they were looking for a certain
Speaker 2: joke or a certain idea for somebody's joke, But that
Speaker 2: was more the exception than the way that it worked there.
Speaker 2: I mean, when I went on to write for the
Speaker 2: Larry Sanders Show, that's where I experienced the classic writer's
Speaker 2: room of a sitcom, where pretty much every day you're
Speaker 2: starting and finishing all in a conference room, sitting around
Speaker 2: a table and coming up with ideas, maybe even you
Speaker 2: know what is called gang writing a script. They just
Speaker 2: put it up on a monitor and we all kind
Speaker 2: of write it together. I actually like writing like that,
Speaker 2: and that's more classic writers whom I actually enjoy that
Speaker 2: style now more, and when I've had a show, that
Speaker 2: is the style that I like to use. And it's
Speaker 2: also the way the thing that I was talking about
Speaker 2: at the beginning of our conversation about I love being
Speaker 2: with funny people. It just, you know, so much so
Speaker 2: that I kind of call it a profession. You know.
Speaker 2: To me, it's like a thank God it's Monday kind
Speaker 2: of thing because I have so much of a good
Speaker 2: time in the writer's room that opposed to like maybe
Speaker 2: going to a party on the weekend or some you know,
Speaker 2: snore event. It's like that's my favorite spot.
Speaker 1: Okay, the heat of the writer's room. You know, a
Speaker 1: Jewish family, you tend not to hold back. Somebody comes
Speaker 1: up and say that's a terrible idea, and you march
Speaker 1: forward and everybody you know the bruise is no one
Speaker 1: sits there says, how dare you say that to me? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the heat of the writer's room, in the style
Speaker 1: you're talking about with Larry Sanders, does anything go or
Speaker 1: do you have to be aware of the politics in
Speaker 1: your choice of words?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think any good writer has
Speaker 2: learned way back when you got to go for broke,
Speaker 2: because sometimes the thing that you think, oh, everybody, this is,
Speaker 2: this is so out of left field. This is such
Speaker 2: a wild idea and if they don't like it, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be laughed out of the room. Turns out
Speaker 2: to be the best idea that anybody's ever heard. So
Speaker 2: you have to know you got to go for broke,
Speaker 2: and somebody got on, you know, the head writer going, boy, no,
Speaker 2: that's a terrible idea. You just you really have to
Speaker 2: have a teflon back to be in a writer's room
Speaker 2: because there will be so many ideas that are not good.
Speaker 2: But you know that one that flies so many times
Speaker 2: has been me, I don't know if I should say
Speaker 2: this one, and it turns out to be incredible.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Seinfeld for a minute. So I
Speaker 1: knew Jerry from his late night appearance is his famous
Speaker 1: checkout line routine. So I'm watching from the very beginning. Okay,
Speaker 1: Ultimately the show becomes a gigantic kit. Jerry's on camera,
Speaker 1: Larry puts out this special that is really uneven as charitable,
Speaker 1: but then he has krubed your enthusiasm and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, wait a second, that was more his show.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way, what did Jerry bring
Speaker 1: to the show other than being on camera?
Speaker 2: No, No, Jerry brought you know. It's really important for
Speaker 2: people to know and remember that every Seinfeld they see it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: Larry David, but Jerry is in there. They were partners
Speaker 2: to the end. I mean, you'll appreciate this analogy. I
Speaker 2: think as a music person, Bob, but I really compare
Speaker 2: their their comedic partnership as Lennon and McCartney, Larry David being,
Speaker 2: of course the more Lenin of the twosome, the more cynical,
Speaker 2: you know, the unfriendly maybe, and Jerry being the pop
Speaker 2: light sensibility of a McCartney and together, I think it
Speaker 2: fused this beautiful partnership and show. So yeah, don't count
Speaker 2: out Jerry for a second, for.
Speaker 1: Sure, Okay, when you worked on Curb, which legendarily was
Speaker 1: builled as improvisational because Larry didn't want to work that hard,
Speaker 1: what was it like working on Curbs opposed to Seinfeld?
Speaker 2: Well, and I don't know about that. I don't think
Speaker 2: it was that Larry didn't want to have to work
Speaker 2: too hard. I think what he felt was he had
Speaker 2: such an incredible ensemble of comedy players around him that
Speaker 2: he knew he was going to get the best of
Speaker 2: that show, letting these people do their thing, which it did.
Speaker 2: You know, what was funny about Curb was I went
Speaker 2: from Hacks over the Curb. Hacks. The writer's room was
Speaker 2: all on Zoom, so you were not together with people.
Speaker 2: You were together with people virtually. But I think, as
Speaker 2: people can tell, you can't write a good show on Zoom,
Speaker 2: and Hacks is the proof. But then once the writer's
Speaker 2: room is over, the writers are not on set, the
Speaker 2: three show writers are on set, and the writer's room
Speaker 2: is gone. So when I went from that, then I
Speaker 2: went over to Curb, and Curb my whole job, which
Speaker 2: was this is my favorite of everything, is I had
Speaker 2: pitched show ideas earlier to them, some of which they
Speaker 2: took But then my job when I went over there
Speaker 2: is I was just there when they shoot it, and
Speaker 2: it was just me and a couple other writers. You're
Speaker 2: just there for an idea or a line for someone,
Speaker 2: or is mostly lines, like we need a line for this,
Speaker 2: we need lines for that, because when you improv sometimes
Speaker 2: it's not a script. Something isn't working or you need
Speaker 2: a better line. And then you sit on set and
Speaker 2: you just come up with lines and ideas while you're
Speaker 2: shooting it. And to be there while Curb was shooting
Speaker 2: was amazing and to watch the synergy of these you know,
Speaker 2: so many times when I worked there, I thought, Gee,
Speaker 2: the next show that you know, I'm lucky to have
Speaker 2: where I'm the executive user, maybe I should let people
Speaker 2: just improv and have an outline of what happens. Let
Speaker 2: them improv, and then you see quickly it's only you know,
Speaker 2: the show was twenty five years. They had a rhythm
Speaker 2: and a comfort with each other that that kind of improvisation,
Speaker 2: you know, was unique to that show. You can't kind
Speaker 2: of throw people in there and hope they'll come up
Speaker 2: with a brilliant show. That was Curb's genius.
Speaker 1: So if I saw a script of curb before they
Speaker 1: shot it. What would it look like? How fleshed out
Speaker 1: was it?
Speaker 2: Well, it was they worked off a very detailed outline.
Speaker 2: It would probably be about twelve pages of what the
Speaker 2: scene was, who was in it, and kind of what
Speaker 2: needs to happen in that scene, and also some lines
Speaker 2: potential lines for it. But you'd be holding an outline usually,
Speaker 2: like I said, about twelve pages.
Speaker 1: Okay. Gary Shandling, who got great inside Press, died before
Speaker 1: his time. Never wanted to be a permanent late show host.
Speaker 1: What was Gary's special sauce?
Speaker 2: Oh? Gary? I mean I still miss him to this day.
Speaker 2: Just as a sidebar, so interesting to me. He came
Speaker 2: to my wedding to my wife Lori, which was ten
Speaker 2: years ago in December, and for some strange reason, after
Speaker 2: the ceremony, beginning the reception, we talked to Gary, my
Speaker 2: wife and I. It had to be at least twenty
Speaker 2: five minutes. And you know, when you're getting married, you're
Speaker 2: mixing and you're talking to people for two seconds here
Speaker 2: and there and blah blah blah. We must have talked
Speaker 2: for twenty five minutes. And then that following March she
Speaker 2: passed away unexpectedly and I just I feel so grateful
Speaker 2: that that weird thing that happened at the wedding of
Speaker 2: talking to him the most of any guests that that
Speaker 2: happened before he passed. But anyway, what was amazing about
Speaker 2: Gary was not only comedically spot on, you know, had
Speaker 2: that thing that Larry David has that Jerry has. He
Speaker 2: knew when he had agreed since of scene structure, kind
Speaker 2: of like a director of a play. When I worked there,
Speaker 2: he could be in a scene, he could be watching
Speaker 2: a scene and know when something was not working or
Speaker 2: working well, or need to be changed slightly. His sense
Speaker 2: of story and scene structure was really something to behold,
Speaker 2: and I think that was his special sauce. He also was,
Speaker 2: I think, like most great comedians who become stars, so likable.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was so neurotic, you know, his persona,
Speaker 2: but I think it was so endearing that people really
Speaker 2: latched onto his neuroses and him. But I really feel
Speaker 2: like with his passing, we just lost such a great
Speaker 2: comedic voice.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, there's been a number of controversies in comedy.
Speaker 1: When this is released, there may be a few more
Speaker 1: on the EVB in the rear view mirror. What is
Speaker 1: your position on this first threshold is you say, I
Speaker 1: don't want to weigh in Republicans laugh too. We have
Speaker 1: the situation in ri Odd, we have the situation with
Speaker 1: Jimmy Kimmel Colbert before is your first major thing? I
Speaker 1: want to stay out and what does it take for
Speaker 1: you to take a stand?
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't really like to get into it
Speaker 2: because I feel like, what's what's out there, what's going on,
Speaker 2: is beyond my control. I mean, obviously Jimmy Kimmel, I
Speaker 2: mean I don't know anybody personally who could say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he should have been taken off the air. I mean,
Speaker 2: free speech is incredibly important, and he had every right
Speaker 2: to say what he wanted to say about the situation.
Speaker 2: I'm not the only person that's going to say it wasn't.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was that controversial it was. I
Speaker 2: think they lit on something that they thought was a
Speaker 2: bigger thing than it was. But more importantly than that,
Speaker 2: it's a free speech issue and that's important. Yeah. But
Speaker 2: and I sent Jimmy an email that I congratulated him
Speaker 2: on his comeback to the show and his monologue that night.
Speaker 2: I thought it was brilliant. But I don't like to
Speaker 2: get into political things because you know, social media, Bob,
Speaker 2: I call it the yentification of the world.
Speaker 1: Right, everybody's got good description.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: a part of it. I just don't. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: I'm happy that what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, that he
Speaker 2: got support and he's back on the air. I think
Speaker 2: that was important. I think we'd be in a very
Speaker 2: difficuent different situation if he was permanently taken off the air.
Speaker 2: I think that would be a signal an even scarier
Speaker 2: time that we're maybe living in now. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't like to get into it.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go a different direction. If you wanted to
Speaker 1: know which way the wind blew. In the late sixties
Speaker 1: and early seventies, you listened to a record. FM radio
Speaker 1: was the heartbeat of America. We live in a world
Speaker 1: now where the guy who runs Ukraine is literally a comedian,
Speaker 1: and the power of comedians has never been greater. To
Speaker 1: what degree can comedy change the mindset of the population.
Speaker 2: I think it has a great, great power to do that,
Speaker 2: you know, I know he's a comedian, but it's I
Speaker 2: don't I'd like to see his act, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I know you say he's a comedian,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't really use his comedy right to political effect.
Speaker 2: But I know how important a comedy is, and you
Speaker 2: know this regard. I also know that if you're a
Speaker 2: political comedian, now, half the audience is going to like it,
Speaker 2: and half the audience isn't. But people do what That's
Speaker 2: why I stay at a poll in my act. You know,
Speaker 2: A great compliment that I feel like I get now
Speaker 2: is you know I was happy to just laugh for
Speaker 2: as long as you were on and not think about
Speaker 2: what's happening in the world in politics, and that that
Speaker 2: compliment resonates with me. You know, I'm happy about that.
Speaker 2: But comedy is still important. It will always be important.
Speaker 2: It can change some people's minds. It cannot change people's minds,
Speaker 2: and I think every comedian who's a political comedian knows that.
Speaker 2: But just having that voice is really what we have
Speaker 2: to protect.
Speaker 1: Okay. I have a friend who says all the great
Speaker 1: songs are written in collaboration. I don't happen to agree,
Speaker 1: But if you're writing for yourself, if you're writing for
Speaker 1: a show, there are inherently other people there. But if
Speaker 1: you're writing for yourself, do you doing it solo is
Speaker 1: the best way? Or do you want to be able
Speaker 1: to bounce it off somebody?
Speaker 2: Oh you mean writing a TV show?
Speaker 1: No, writing like stand up stand up joke?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I even with my stand up. Well,
Speaker 2: first of all, for a TV show, bouncing it off
Speaker 2: other people is absolutely a must, because especially the you know,
Speaker 2: the beauty of a writer's room is somebody will have
Speaker 2: a good idea, somebody else will take it to the
Speaker 2: next level, somebody else does that, and then bam, the
Speaker 2: last person has the best incarnation of whatever that thought
Speaker 2: or joke was. So there is this. It's kind of
Speaker 2: magic to me, and I love that about a writer's room.
Speaker 2: So for a TV show, absolutely, But even for my
Speaker 2: stand up I will get together with a friend or
Speaker 2: two and say this is what I'm working on. What
Speaker 2: do you think of this punchline? What do you think
Speaker 2: of this tag to the joke? And sometimes they'll, you know,
Speaker 2: we'll give each other. They'll do that, you know, with
Speaker 2: me with their material, and it's always fun to bounce
Speaker 2: things off somebody.
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to the Oscars, Can you ever have
Speaker 1: a victory at the Oscars? The Oscars are hosted and
Speaker 1: pretty much all the time the critics come down on
Speaker 1: the host. You know, you have people who bring in
Speaker 1: their own writers room lettermen. Did it got some of
Speaker 1: the worst reviews ever. Bob Hope used to do it,
Speaker 1: but it was bland. Is it something that you can
Speaker 1: never achieve or is there a holy grail such an everyone?
Speaker 1: Even Chris Rock did it and didn't completely succeed. Can
Speaker 1: anybody succeed at that gig?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely? I mean look at the reception then Conang
Speaker 2: got this past year.
Speaker 1: Did you work on that show?
Speaker 2: I did? I did, and I think it raised him
Speaker 2: unlike many other hosts, raised him to an even higher
Speaker 2: level hosting the show because so many comedians, I think
Speaker 2: that job is like there's no upside to hosting mak Oscars.
Speaker 2: I think with Conan and with Jimmy Kimmel even it's
Speaker 2: a big upside because I think they did so well
Speaker 2: doing it well. Conan's coming back this year that I
Speaker 2: think it's enhanced their comedicness to people.
Speaker 1: And circling back to the book, So this book about
Speaker 1: writing speeches, giving speeches. Yes, you couldn't write scripts because
Speaker 1: his union was on strike. Who came up with this
Speaker 1: specific idea for.
Speaker 2: A book, Well, my partner Rick Mitchell and I because
Speaker 2: sitting there and talking about these bad speeches that we
Speaker 2: witnessed and were horrified at, it just became you know,
Speaker 2: Bob's stand up is like a speech every night. It
Speaker 2: is you have to have a good start, and you
Speaker 2: know what your middle is going to be, and you
Speaker 2: have to wrap it up in a certain way that
Speaker 2: wraps the whole thing up. And that's what a good
Speaker 2: speech is. I mean, the biggest piece of advice we
Speaker 2: given our speech book that I think is very consoling
Speaker 2: to people right off the bat, besides the fact of
Speaker 2: what you mentioned that it's small, it's handy, it's not
Speaker 2: threatening when people pick it up. It's not like a
Speaker 2: tone like an Encyclopedia Britannica that you pick up. It's
Speaker 2: something that you know you can digest. But anyway, the
Speaker 2: tick that we give is keep it five minutes and under.
Speaker 2: I mean, what a simple piece of advice that is
Speaker 2: that needed to be in a book because most people
Speaker 2: don't know that. How many times have you gone to
Speaker 2: event the person goes on and on, they think, oh,
Speaker 2: I love this pruson so much. So more is more.
Speaker 2: There's a reason more is more did not become the same. Also,
Speaker 2: not realizing I just went to a memorial this happened,
Speaker 2: you keep it five minutes an under because many other
Speaker 2: people are speaking and people don't realize that. So we
Speaker 2: just felt like having a whole book of duh things
Speaker 2: for people when they write a speech. What's important and
Speaker 2: what's nice is I'm getting feedback from people on Amazon
Speaker 2: or whatever. I read every review. It's like this book
Speaker 2: really helped me. I was afraid to write a speech.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that hard, and then when I did it,
Speaker 2: I got some nice feedback. And that's really all we
Speaker 2: wanted from the book. The other thing, Bob, is we
Speaker 2: looked at, of course, before we pitched this, publishers other
Speaker 2: books on the subject, and there are subjects about writing
Speaker 2: a speech and if you about writing a funny speech,
Speaker 2: but they're written by Thornton, how Max you know people
Speaker 2: you've never heard of. We are two bona fide Emmy
Speaker 2: winning writers. So we feel like we can take a platform,
Speaker 2: excuse me, in telling people, giving them an idea of
Speaker 2: what to do.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess what I'm really asking. Were you sitting
Speaker 1: riffing with your partner and say, whoa, there's a book here,
Speaker 1: or were you saying we can't work we should write
Speaker 1: a book. Oh this is an idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it wasn't the latter. It was certainly the former.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I never kind of come up with something, well,
Speaker 2: what the hell will do this? You know, it really
Speaker 2: was a nice timing of things that as buddies just
Speaker 2: meeting for coffee, Hey, I just went to this event.
Speaker 2: Yeah I went to one too, and just sitting there thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, normal people need this advice, let's do that.
Speaker 2: And it was convenient that it was during you know,
Speaker 2: I told you so early on in our marathon discussion,
Speaker 2: which I am adjoining. You know, being creative makes me
Speaker 2: feel alive. And I have a project and to pitch
Speaker 2: this to publishers and see if somebody buys it, and
Speaker 2: deciding between the people that were interested that is I
Speaker 2: can't tell you what a thrill it gives me. And
Speaker 2: to be doing it at my age and this many
Speaker 2: years in show business to still be taken seriously and
Speaker 2: embraced that way is it's just you know a wonderful part,
Speaker 2: a big part of my life.
Speaker 1: Okay, you read a book like this, you know you
Speaker 1: can't work writing scripts and it's fun. Can you make
Speaker 1: any money?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, book writing. It's really the luck of
Speaker 2: the draw if you kind of hit it or you don't,
Speaker 2: but you know what you can. We had to reach
Speaker 2: a certain number of books sold where we're starting, where
Speaker 2: we can start to earn a profit. And I believe
Speaker 2: that in seven months we are very close to the
Speaker 2: profit margin, which I am looking forward to. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: you can make some money if your book hits. And
Speaker 2: what's nice is it's connecting with people and I'm happy
Speaker 2: about that. We're happy about that.
Speaker 1: And is there another book cooking on a burner?
Speaker 2: I don't have one yet. No. If you have some ideas, Bob,
Speaker 2: if you have coffee with a friend and you both
Speaker 2: experienced something, pass it along to me and maybe we
Speaker 2: can make a book out of it. Now I'm gonna really.
Speaker 2: When I have a book, I really like to sit
Speaker 2: with it a while. Because I bring it to my
Speaker 2: speaking events, to my stand up events. I do some
Speaker 2: things for gratis, but then I say, hey, can you
Speaker 2: buy can you buy a book for everybody who's intending.
Speaker 2: You know, my wife teases me that I'm Wilma Loweman,
Speaker 2: that I'm out there every day selling my wares. So
Speaker 2: you know, I'll give it it's best shop, but you
Speaker 2: know it, I might just come out there with one other,
Speaker 2: another idea, because you know what my jam is, Bob.
Speaker 2: I love doing what I do and thinking and producing
Speaker 2: seeing these things into action. That is really a high.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got invited to do comedy going on at
Speaker 1: nine thirty, you said no, I go to bed at ten.
Speaker 1: I didn't say no to use the cliche. Are you
Speaker 1: gonna die on stage? Or at some point you'm gonna
Speaker 1: put your keyboard away and say I'm done.
Speaker 2: Well, I think at a certain point that won't be
Speaker 2: up to me. Look, I am very lucky that is
Speaker 2: a TV writer turning seventy next year. Then I'm still working.
Speaker 2: I really don't know many other writers who are my
Speaker 2: age and who are around. I mean, I have a
Speaker 2: lot of women who turned fifty and come to me
Speaker 2: and go I'm starting to feel I'm getting aged out.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know what to do, and so
Speaker 2: I feel very lucky that I'm still doing it. It's
Speaker 2: just funny. I remember working on the show The Naked Truth,
Speaker 2: and they hired an older writer to come in because
Speaker 2: it needed some help, a guy I think who had
Speaker 2: worked on Dick Van Dyke. I don't remember his name,
Speaker 2: and I remember thinking and the writers are like, who's
Speaker 2: this old guy? Who's that? You know it's going to
Speaker 2: happen to me at a certain point, I hope not.
Speaker 2: But am I going to be doing this at eighty?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't know. You know, I
Speaker 2: get hired for the Oscars a lot because the head
Speaker 2: writer who's brilliant, a guy named John Max. You know,
Speaker 2: he's my generation, and I'm lucky that he's hired me
Speaker 2: so many times. But what happens when John Max is
Speaker 2: a working anymore? Am I going to get hired? I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't think so. So I now I
Speaker 2: do have to plan for, you know, an escape patch
Speaker 2: at some point. I'm just happy it's not now, because
Speaker 2: I'm loving what I'm doing. I'm telling you, especially with
Speaker 2: this news about YouTube special that I can do and
Speaker 2: put on up there, it's like re energize me, like
Speaker 2: I cannot even begin to tell you pop, So look
Speaker 2: out next time. I talk to you. It'll be promoting
Speaker 2: my special I swear to.
Speaker 1: God, well, Carol, I'm gonna be looking out for it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look for cut up clips on social media.
Speaker 1: Everything the younger generation loves and the older generation derides.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you so much for taking this
Speaker 1: time with my audience. Great to meet you face to face.
Speaker 1: Is someone I followed forever. I was thrilled that you
Speaker 1: reached out. Seriously. Yes, it was great.
Speaker 2: Seriously, man, let me you know, give the compliment back
Speaker 2: to you. I approached you because I love your take
Speaker 2: on so many things. I think someone of our generation
Speaker 2: and that have such a clear and interesting voice. I just,
Speaker 2: you know, read your newsletter every day, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: approached you because I love what you do. So you know,
Speaker 2: keep doing what you're doing because it's.
Speaker 1: Okay. Thanks so much until next time. This is Bob
Speaker 1: left six