Estee: I hate vulgarity. I don’t mind dirty. There’s a difference between a comic who works dirty or is vulgar. I don’t want the level of intelligence to go down the toilet because of that. I have personal stuff that I don’t like. I wouldn’t be offended, but I don’t like it. I don’t like Holocaust jokes. The only one that can pull it off is Dave Attell. He can do it and it works. I’m from a Holocaust-survivor family, so that’s a very raw nerve for me. I don’t particularly love cancer jokes. People do that. If you manage to do it where the audience laughs, I turn my head. Those are pretty much it.
Lena: How do you feel about rape jokes?
Estee: Depends on how you do it. You need to come and you’re going to listen to Lynne Koplitz doing the rape joke. If you don’t laugh, I’ll buy you whatever you want.
CHAPTER 150
Author: How did you come to write that joke? Was that deliberate? You thought it’s a subject you want to tackle?
Lynne Koplitz: I had a little paring knife under my bed. I live here in the Village, which is true, and I have for twenty-something years, and I was thinking, ‘I don’t really think this would keep me from getting attacked.’ My bed was pushed up against the window and I watch a lot of Law & Order and I thought, ‘I wonder what would help me? I bet I could love him. What if you loved him? I bet that would really freak a rapist out if you just loved him.’ I don’t have a really good streak with men, like, I’ve needy-ed and scared away men, and I’m like, ‘Hey, that’s one thing I do well is freak out men. I bet I could freak out a rapist.’ And I thought about how I would do it. And I was at The Stand or something one night and it was literally like somebody’s new joke night and I threw it out there, like, ‘You can’t rape me, I’ll kiss you on the mouth.’ And it got a huge laugh, like, way bigger than I expected. So I was like, ‘Woah, I need to write this.’ So I was thinking about it and thinking about it, and Estee and everyone will tell you, I don’t write like other people, I’m an actress at heart, so I’ve always been like … I watch and study and think and roll things around in my head and if I look at jokes it’ll freak me out, so sometimes when I need help on a premise then I’ll sit down and just, when the spirit moves me, I’ll just power drive through it and write it out longform and then I’ll come back and do it. I just keep …
Author: On a pad of paper?
Lynne: Yeah on a pad of paper.
Author: So that joke came about over a year or two years?
Lynne: It was probably starting to form for about four or five months. And we were at Montreal, and I was friends with Joan Rivers, she was like a mentor to me, and we were on the gala together and, oh, that was the other thing, I felt I had gained all this weight and everything was changing for me, I was getting older and the jokes that had worked in my half-hour special just weren’t working anymore, and I was on the road and I needed … And my TV shows were gone. I was getting ready to do the reality show with Joan and Melissa but I hadn’t gotten it yet and I was like, I’ve got to figure something out. And I’ve always been good at being authentic I think. And believe it or not I pray a lot. And I just prayed to God and I was like, ‘What do I do?’ And something said to me, ‘Tell them the truth.’
Author: Something said to you?
Lynne: Something in my heart said, ‘Tell them the truth.’ And I went out on stage and I wasn’t as pretty and I wasn’t as skinny, and I was like, ‘This is what you look like when you start giving up.’ And it got a huge laugh and I said, ‘I don’t know how funny I’m going to be but I’m full of information.’ And it got a huge laugh and I thought, ‘Well, I can work with this. This is better.’ So I’m going to Montreal and I do that and then I do … I close on the rape joke. And it wasn’t completely evolved yet, it’s way better now, but it had the rapist being the baby spoon, and it had putting baby kisses on his rapey hands, and it had the thing where I say, ‘I’m your girlfriend now.’ And I see Joan coming backstage across this mammoth gala stage with her assistant at the time, Graham, holding her orange Birkin bag, and Joan’s in this big fur thing that, you know, says Canada on it, it’s a Canadian flag, like a little Liberace with the hair, and I can see her with her arms out, just walking as fast as she can across the stage, and she gets to me and she goes, ‘That joke, the last joke, who wrote it?’ And I said, ‘I wrote it.’ And she said, ‘Did anyone write it with you?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And she said, ‘You wrote that joke all by yourself? Lynnesy, look me in my eye.’ And I said, ‘I did.’ And she said, ‘It’s a game-changer, you’ve got to get it on TV.’ And I said, ‘Well this is TV.’ She goes, ‘This is Canada.’ And it was so funny. And I said, ‘Thanks Joan.’ And she goes, ‘No, no,’ and she turned to Graham and she goes, ‘She doesn’t get what I’m saying. Do you understand why that joke’s great?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s a taboo topic.’ She goes, ‘No, no, no, no. That’s not why. You took a taboo topic and you made it funny, that’s what makes it a good joke, that’s what makes you a comedian. You know what makes it a great joke?’ I said, ‘What?’ And she goes, ‘You made it request-able. People are going to request the rape joke. That, kid, that’s a game-changer. I’m so proud of you.’ And then as she walked away I heard her say, ‘He’s the inside spoon.’
Author: So, have you done it on TV?
Lynne: Yeah a couple of times and now it’s on my special.
Author: On the Netflix one coming out? Congratulations by the way.
Lynne: Thank you, like the long version of it is on my special because it has a short version and long version.
Author: When did you do it on TV?
Lynne: I did it on Dave Attell’s …
Author: Oh, Comedy Underground, the one he filmed here.
Lynne: Yeah, and again it wasn’t completely developed.
Author: And when you started putting your address on it, when did that come about?
Lynne: Yeah, the Comedy Underground people freaked out because they were like, ‘We can’t. Standards & Practices called and said we can’t do the address.’
Author: Is it your real address?
Lynne: Here’s the thing, because I was doing my real address and they said, ‘We just can’t, she can’t do her real address.’ So I said, ‘Well can we do two doors down?’ Because what I like is people in the neighbourhood would see me in the neighbourhood and think it was my real address. So the NYU campus is right here, the law school, so they got me a law school address, but then Netflix said, ‘No we’re not even going to do the law school address.’ They freaked out and said, ‘You can’t even do that.’ So on Netflix I basically tell them that Netflix won’t let me give the real address but that I live near a coffeehouse on Sullivan Street.
Author: Is that recorded then?
Lynne: Yeah.
Author: And when you do that joke and give your address, it works best in the Cellar or Village Underground doesn’t it, because they’re round the corner, but if you’re going on the road?
Lynne: No, if I do it on the road I usually say what hotel I’m in, but I don’t ever give the real hotel. Well, I mean, I do give the real hotel, that’s a lie, I do give the real hotel, but before I go I find like a janitor closet, like some defunct room, and I give that room number or a floor that doesn’t exist.
Author: Have you had problems before with anyone following you home?
Lynne: No. And I have often wondered if I were to be raped or attacked how that would all factor in?
Author: Have you ever upset anyone with that joke?
Lynne: Yeah, many times. Millennials are very sensitive. At the Underground two millennials cried at two separate occasions, and then the Underground told them, ‘Well, we’re not going to ask her to not do the joke, we’re really sorry you’re sensitive.’ They’re really nice. The Cellar was nice. I mean, like, recently, this is so funny, just a couple of weeks ago some guy had his feet on the stage here at the Cellar, like, balls out
, feet on the stage, wearing shorts, it’s summer, and I said, ‘Oh, you’re going to keep your feet on the stage? Unbelievable.’ I said something like that and I made fun of how the people who come to the Comedy Cellar … I say, ‘I know you people, you’re the people who go on safaris, you want to be this close to wild animals, I get it, but you shouldn’t … Like, I get that you want to see a rhino up close, but you shouldn’t put your feet on the window of the jeep. It’s still a rhino. Like, be ready to run.’ And so as I said that one of the managers here, Val, tapped the guy on the back and he goes, ‘I just got told to get my feet off the stage.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, because they care more about us than you. The animals are more important than the people coming here. Without the animals the zoo doesn’t run.’
Author: Did he stay for the show?
Lynne: Yeah, he wasn’t mad, but so he said to me, ‘I don’t get why they would ask me.’ Like he was more important.
Author: And with the two women at the Village Underground for the rape joke, how did they complain? Did they come up to you afterwards?
Lynne: Not to me. I was told later. And the club was upset, like, wait staff told me. The club was like, ‘You shouldn’t have been told.’ Like, they don’t want us to change anything, especially that joke.
CHAPTER 149
The Cellar hosts a debate. Is American Conservativism Hostile to Women? The debate is filmed for C-SPAN. The moderator is Kathleen Parker. The panellists are Carol M. Swain, Janus Adams, Sally Kohn and Ann Coulter.
Author: Leslie Jones was quoted in a New Yorker piece, when the reporter was with her in the Cellar and Ann Coulter was there, and Leslie said something like, ‘What’s that frightening bitch doing here?’ I don’t know if you ever read that?
Noam: I never read that, but you know, they’re so much the opposite of me. Like, if I saw someone like Chomsky, or somebody who really stood for everything I disagreed with or really bugged me I’d think, ‘Awesome, let me go talk to them. I want to have it out with them.’ I would never be upset that they were there, but it’s the common reaction now. They don’t relish the idea of talking to them or trying to set them straight or listening to them, whatever it is. I mean, Ann Coulter, she has some views which I certainly won’t try to defend. That’s not even what it is actually. Her views, I don’t think she has any particular view that she can’t defend. She’s expressed them with a certain flippancy and lack of apparent empathy from time to time in a way that, I understand why people are offended, some of them have offended me, but Ann Coulter is no joke. You read an Ann Coulter book, you are not reading the ramblings of an idiot. And this is what people on both sides of the spectrum do all the time, because it’s always easier to dismiss somebody. It’s way easier than having to grapple with their arguments.
CHAPTER 148
Author: I interviewed Nick Di Paolo as well, and he was brilliant, really lovely, said nothing but great things, but then he talked about how he hasn’t played here for a little while, but because he basically was being rude to the audience.
Estee: No, no, no, it’s all his doing. If he calls in his avails I would always book him because he’s a really important comic. But yes, he can be brutal. He can be brutal. Oh my god. I would stay in the door downstairs while he was talking and he would use the c-word on a customer and, you know, he says, ‘Look at the manager, her tits are sweating.’ But that’s Nick Di Paolo on one hand. On the other hand, I can show you … I will show you text messages, how much he loves me and appreciates me and what I do for them, whatever, on the one hand. On the other hand he says, ‘Oh look, the manager’s tits are sweating.’
Author: So he wasn’t saying you weren’t booking him anymore, he started to feel hostile, he was annoyed …
Estee: He’s always, always on the edge.
Author: And he just felt like he was bringing a negativity, so he sat down with Noam and said, ‘Look, I’ll just stay away for a little bit.’
Estee: He’s doing shows around the corner.
Author: Is he? Whereabouts?
Estee: At the Fat Black or Village Underground. So he has his own show.
Author: Oh, okay, yeah, okay, when he can properly …
Estee: But not on the line-up, and let me tell you, the truth of the matter is that whenever he was going up I was sweating. Let me tell you. It’s scary sometimes.
Author: Noam talked a little bit about that, but he sent me this great email that he sent to a customer about a Sam Morril joke, about the alligator, does that sort of thing happen a lot?
Estee: Well look, when you play to open public, everybody has different sensitivity. I’ll tell you a stupid story, okay. There was a comedian that hasn’t been here in years. Jeff … He was from Atlanta. Oh my god, he hasn’t been here for years. It’ll come to me. It’ll come to me. And he had a puppet of a raccoon, Rocky Raccoon. And he was working it, you know, and then the joke was, ‘Oh, I trained my Rocky Raccoon. Rocky, how much is two and two?’ And he would take the puppet and smash it on the piano, ‘Two and two? One, two, three, four.’ A customer came out crying how cruel he was. I said, ‘It’s a puppet, it’s a joke.’ So you do have different people with different sensitivity and different awareness, with non-awareness of what’s going on, you know what I mean? And when something like this happens, what can you do? What can you say? The rape thing, Lynne Koplitz has a rape joke … That’d be an interesting thing, for you to talk to her. She does that rape joke. It’s my favourite joke of hers, and nobody is offended. So it all depends how you do it. And then, if you have a rape victim in and you’re crass about it, then yeah, they’re going to be upset, and yes, look, there’s one thing, we do not tell people, comics, what to talk about or what’s forbidden. There’s no censorship whatsoever. I have the option not to book you if I feel that you are alienating more than you are entertaining. You are in the business of entertainment. You want to get on a soapbox? Go ahead, open a new speakeasy or something, leave my stage alone. So it’s important that the comics are intelligent. That’s what I think most comics are, super-intelligent, quick on their feet, interesting, but if you make a comment about something and people get offended? It’s on them, not on the comic. If you come out of the gate to offend people? Then no, I don’t like it, but that makes sense, doesn’t it?
Author: Well, I think it’s about intent, and if you get it wrong then you get it wrong, and there’s stuff that I hear a comic say, like it might be about an illness in your family or something like that, and all it does is make me … I don’t laugh at it, but I wouldn’t go and complain about it, because everyone’s got their thing.
Estee: Yeah, but you see, the art of stand-up comedy is unique in this matter, as opposed to any other art form, if you are a singer and somebody writes your words, if you’re an actor, somebody writes your script. They are naked on that stage and it’s them and their perspective. As I said, most of them, they’re above average intelligence, above average, and so if somebody complains, sometimes it’s valid, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s not valid. So I just don’t say anything. If it’s valid I acknowledge it: sorry.
CHAPTER 147
The author asks Sam Morril if he can quote from Sam’s email. The bit the author wants to quote is when Sam says it’s a terrible time to be a comedian. Sam says sure, but he’s worried about coming off badly in the book. He says being taken out of context is scary. The author understands. A book is different from a room.
CHAPTER 146
Erika: Who makes a joke about a child who just died? But what I was thinking the whole time was, what if I had been his mother? I guess if I were his mother I probably wouldn’t be at a comedy club right after my child died. But even, like, years later, you know, just as a mother of a son or any child for that matter, but I have a little boy, I just felt like I should leave. Just to, like, be respectful to her, you know? Even if the rest of his show was fine, I just was so disgusted. And I’m not a
very emotional person. I actually hardly ever cry. It’s kind of a joke. Like, ‘Why do you not cry when you’re a girl?’ But I cried.
Author: Did you really?
Erika: I was just so upset. That story.
Author: Where did you cry?
Erika: Like, walking out of the club, and I stopped and talked to … I don’t know if it was the manager. I think it was the manager. I talked to a few people and they were kind of rude too. They basically said, and I hate to summarise as it’s been a long time, ‘If you don’t like what he’s saying then you don’t have to stay.’ It wasn’t like, ‘We’re sorry, we didn’t know that he was going to say that joke ahead of time,’ or, ‘We would have said no.’ I don’t know if they do that but …
Author: No, I think they don’t, they wouldn’t stop anybody from saying anything. But I guess there’s always a point at which they might say …
Erika: Ah, okay.
Author: I guess they’d just stop booking a comedian if they didn’t like what they said.
Erika: That’s true.
Author: So some people would watch it and say it was an overreaction. This is why I’m asking you. Like, had you had a lot to drink? Had you had one cocktail? Or two cocktails or something?
Erika: No, I don’t think it was from drinking. I mean, it wasn’t like I was hysterical. I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I cannot believe someone wrote a joke about this child.’ It wasn’t like I was hysterical. I just had, like, tears in my eyes and I told my husband. I was even frustrated that he didn’t immediately stand up to leave too. I was like, ‘What are you doing? I’m not listening to this guy.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ He was really … He thought it was bad but not as bad as me I guess.
Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.) Page 9