Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.)

by Andrew Hankinson

  Consider that the cost of Lasik eye surgery has dropped from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of dollars. Why? Because it is not usually covered by insurance, so people shop for the best price. Competition will work, but it will take experimentation, and the flexibility to allow states to try various ideas until a superior system can emerge. In my view a little trial and error is required — nobody is smart enough to figure it all out at once. In the meantime, the healthcare bill needs to be severely scaled back or repealed. To start, in addition to competition across state lines, tort reform, and other ideas that can help control costs, I would propose a means-tested national catastrophic healthcare plan. Nobody should lose everything they have because they get sick.

  We need safety nets we can afford, and those who can afford it may not really need a safety net. I agree that the wealthy can afford to pay higher taxes. I don’t object to millionaires paying a higher amount into social security. No matter how you explain it, Warren Buffet should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. This must be addressed. But a family earning $200,000 in New York is not Warren Buffet. And if that family owns a business, every additional dollar we tax is one less dollar available to hire an additional worker.

  We have to understand that no matter how much revenue the government has, it will never be enough. I believe this is a fundamental principle. Expenditures will always rise to meet any level of revenue. And once they are instituted, every expenditure becomes essential, and can’t be cut in leaner times. Floridians pay something like half the taxes that New Yorkers do, yet they receive equivalent government services — they find a way to make do with less.

  We must reject ever-increasing taxation as a solution. In my view, it is morally wrong to expect anybody to pay more than half his income to the government. People should not have to spend most of their time working for the state. And in New York, between state, local, federal, fees, sales taxes, many New Yorkers are paying upwards of sixty-five per cent of their income to the government. Yet it’s still not enough. We need to keep taxes at a reasonable rate and cut government to live within its means.

  President Obama had promised to end earmarks, yet the stimulus bill contained nine thousand of them. While it’s true that the sum total of these earmarks will not significantly affect our deficits, any hard-earned dollar that is taken from us and then put to a corrupt use is an outrage. Who could not be angered to know that their tax dollars went to study swine manure management or tattoo removal for gang members? We work extremely hard to earn this money; our government should not be so comfortable squandering it.

  In foreign affairs I support the president in his desire to have good relations with all foreign governments. Our president is a gifted man, and a wonderful ambassador to the world. Nevertheless I think we need to remember who are our friends, and who are our enemies. Let’s not forget who was crying when the towers came down, and who was cheering. 9/11, which was the defining moment of the twenty-first century, occurred only a year after Israel had accepted the Clinton plan for peace in the Middle East. It was the Palestinians who rejected it without so much as a counter proposal, and then initiated a bloody intifada. And as far as I know, they haven’t changed their minds or expressed regret at their decision. Yet lately we have come perilously close to blaming the Israelis for our problems in the Middle East. But how long should we expect Israel to tie up its flexibility, its freedom to act the way every other nation on earth can, in servitude of a lie — the lie that they have a partner for a two-state solution peace? It is a lie, and we should say so. I have spent my entire life socializing, playing music and working with Arabic people, and I have an admiration and love for them. Yet I think it’s clear that the Palestinians are not rejecting peace because Israel has plans to build some apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.

  In the Middle East, we may be living in 1939 all over again. Iran has made its intentions every bit as clear as Mein Kampf, yet we seem to be drifting towards acceptance of an Iranian nuclear bomb. We can’t let this happen.

  The belief that we could change Iran by talking to them more nicely was dangerously naive. We and our allies need to be prepared to impose tough sanctions against the Iranians, with or without the UN — and we must not appear to take the military option off the table. We need to set out what the consequences will be if Iran continues its policies, and those consequences need to be severe. We may not have any perfect options in Iran, however we should not forget that even imperfect measures can slow Iran’s nuclear progress. Iran is a politically unstable regime, and time may present us with future opportunities that are currently unforeseeable.

  And we need to get off foreign oil — and fast. As George Will has pointed out, China begins construction on a new nuclear plant every three months, while we have not built a new one in thirty years. I’m all for exploring and supporting other forms of alternative energy, but how about utilizing the one that is proven and available? The combination of nuclear produced energy and electric cars can revolutionize our environment and our foreign problems. The President seems fond of European ideas; eighty per cent of France’s electricity is produced through nuclear power. If we are not aggressively pursuing nuclear power, we are not truly serious about energy policy.

  CHAPTER 110

  Author: The place had developed this reputation for being where the comedians wanted to hang around. There was a table for them and it was a good atmosphere, then you kind of took it over. Did you worry about keeping that atmosphere? Did you worry about what kind of relationship you would have with the comics?

  Noam: I did worry about it. I worried about not wanting to appear this young kid who inherits a club and then tries to say, ‘Okay, I’m the new …’ To step into my father’s shoes and expect them to … I was always worried about that.

  CHAPTER 109

  Noam: I always knew that he was leaving half to me and half to Ava. And he was concerned about there being … Two people running a business together is a common way to cause a lot of disagreement between two people. So he was concerned about it becoming an issue in my relationship with Ava, because we have a very good relationship. So he would try to give us advice about that. But he didn’t encourage me to take more interest in the Comedy Cellar. I think he figured that I had the Cafe Wha and I had that other stuff, and that Ava would basically run the Olive Tree and the Comedy Cellar day to day, and that’s how it would be.

  Author: Okay. So after he had died, did Ava run the Comedy Cellar?

  Noam: She did, but Ava has no interest really in show business and so …

  Author: She was a teacher?

  Noam: No that was a different wife of his. I’m sorry to confuse you. No, her name was Carol. Ava he got with later, when I was already in law school.

  Author: What did she do?

  Noam: She used to work as a bartender and then as a manager of the Olive Tree, and she’s an artist.

  Author: Did your wife work as a bartender?

  Noam: Yes, my wife worked as a waitress around seventeen years ago.

  Author: Like father like son.

  Noam: Like father like son, right.

  Author: So Ava wasn’t interested in the Comedy Cellar really, so who was running it?

  Noam: She was running it. She was interested in it, she just didn’t get any joy out of the fact it was a comedy club, you know, and she was doing most of her work during the day, and Estee was taking care of most of the booking and stuff like that at night, and that’s the way we went on for a few years.

  Author: And what kind of form did your resistance take? You just didn’t hang around there? Did you find the comedians difficult?

  Noam: No, I didn’t have any bad feelings about it. It kind of went back to what I had said to you before. I didn’t see the Comedy Cellar as a vehicle for me to … It was a fully cooked idea. It was successful. It was nothing that needed any improvement. And t
he real talent was the comedians. So, you know, it was hard to get all excited about getting involved in it.

  Author: So why did you start getting involved it? Was there a trigger?

  Noam: Yeah, the main trigger was that Ava was getting totally burnt out, and she’s a very fine artist, and she was not able to find the time to paint or draw anything for years. So I told her that I would take it over.

  CHAPTER 108

  Author: But at some point you were passed at the Cellar, do you know when?

  Joe DeRosa: Yeah, that was about seven days in 2007. It was so brief I don’t even remember. Honestly I don’t even remember. I was passed there … The first time I auditioned I didn’t pass.

  Author: Was that with Estee?

  Joe: Yeah, yeah. It was always her as long as I can remember. First time I went up where I didn’t pass. The second time was years later. It’s funny too, when you don’t pass … Just to get the audition means you have to be recommended by a regular there, and somebody that she likes quite a bit, enough to call in that favour. And it also means that you know people think you’re ready to jump into the quote big room unquote, and you know, so you go in and everybody’s like cheering you on. And then you bomb and then nobody talks to you. I just remember leaving that place like I had the fucking plague that night. It’s like, yeah, where did all the love go everybody?

  Author: So that was the first time you auditioned. That was in 2007?

  Joe: I honestly can’t remember. It was probably, oh god, I don’t know, it was probably four years after I was in New York something like that. Four or five years. The funny thing is I got the audition because somebody fell out one night and they were in a jam, and they said, ‘Put Joe on, he’s funny.’ And I went on and I did really well that night. That was a late night spot. It was like 1am. And I did well. And the staff, everybody was like, ‘Man, you should be working here.’ And then when I went up in front of Estee I just choked. I bombed.

  Author: And who was it who recommended you, was it Robert Kelly?

  Joe: No, Lynne Koplitz recommended me the first time. Bobby recommended me the second time.

  Author: And do you know when was the second time?

  Joe: That was … that was a couple of years after that first thing, because you’ve got to kind of let the smell dissipate after you stink the place up.

  Author: When you said there was a lot of love the first time you auditioned but then it didn’t go well, do you remember walking up to the table to sit back down? Or did you just leave straight away? Did anyone say anything?

  Joe: No. Lynne said something to me when I was done, but I could tell it was like, she knew I bombed. I knew I bombed. It was just like, ‘Good job.’ She was being nice. She was being sweet and supportive, but we both knew I ate my fucking ass. And that was that. I remember leaving. Just kind of leaving. There were no two ways about it. I didn’t do what I needed to do.

  Author: Then a couple of years later Robert Kelly recommended you to Estee again and you auditioned and it went well?

  Joe: In a rare stroke of genius I chose to open with the same joke I had opened with two years earlier, just to shoot myself in the foot I guess. So that almost cost me the second audition.

  Author: Did Estee say something about that?

  Joe: Yeah, yeah, she almost … She was just about to walk out and Bobby was like, ‘No, no, no, just watch him, just watch him.’ So she did and I did okay and she passed me. And, you know, from there on out it’s the story that a lot of people have. I worked there for a little while, doing late night spots, a couple of weeks or whatever. And then you just suddenly … You don’t get spots. And I guess it just wasn’t in my … I mean, for me it was a thing … I saw … I won’t name names but I saw people that worked there that were really, really affected by that, and really got into this headspace of like, ‘Well, why am I not getting booked right now?’ And, ‘Oh, I’m back in.’ It was almost like a barometer for how they felt about their career or something.

  Author: Yeah, it does seem that way.

  Joe: And I kind of saw that and, you know, whatever it was about that, I just didn’t like … I just didn’t want to feel that way. And look, that could have just been a … That could have just been an excuse for me to not have to go back ever again, because I still found the place terribly intimidating, and it still made me nervous, and you know … It just … I just never fully felt comfortable there. So whether or not that was the best thing for me to do, I don’t know, but I just decided …

  Author: You seem to have done alright.

  Joe: Well, I just basically decided I don’t want to feel that way. I don’t want a club to get in my head that way. So they seemed to have stopped using me and slowly I stopped calling in avails. And that was that. But who knows, they might never have wanted to use me again anyway. So I have no idea.

  CHAPTER 107

  Author: I don’t know if you remember this, but there was a meeting between the comedians and the club owners.

  Noam: Yeah, I remember. At the Friars Club.

  Author: Yes, and so some of the comedians told me that at one point you said … You were talking about the risk that the Comedy Cellar takes, that of course you make money, but you always take a lot of the risk. For example, if the club’s closed for the weekend due to bad weather you said you’d be missing out on … And nobody remembers what the amount was but they were all like, ‘What? You make that?’ They were shocked that you made that much money in a weekend. Does that ring a bell at all?

  Noam: No, but it sounds like me, because, first of all, these guys are unbelievable. It is simple arithmetic. Any of the Jewish comedians could have told you exactly what I was making on a weekend, because you know how many seats there are, you know how much the cover charge is, and you know how much a drink is, so on the back of a matchbook anybody, anybody, a high school kid, a grammar school kid, could come up with a pretty good estimation of what the club takes in. What they don’t have any idea of is the expenses. What’s the rent? What’s the electricity? What’s the insurance? What’s the payroll? What’s the mortgage? I mean, that they have no idea about, but the fact that whatever the number was that … The Comedy Cellar had a $10 cover charge at the time, times a hundred seats, let’s say times three shows on a Friday and four shows on a Saturday, I think that’s what it was, plus maybe $20 a person in drinks. Add it up. That’s what we were taking in.

  Author: I think someone said $30k or something like that?

  Noam: In a weekend? Between Friday and Saturday night? No, I think it would be a little less than that. I think it would have been more like $25,000 between the two nights in 2004. But that’s gross and that includes sales tax by the way. It’s a meaningless number. I do remember other things about the meeting that I pointed out to them, that I thought that their whole calculation was … I don’t remember what word I used, but I’m trying to put a word on it now for what my intention was. That it was naive, in the sense that Gotham has three-hundred-and-fifty seats or something. We have a hundred seats. We’re using six or seven comics a night. Other places are using two or three comics a night. So the overall … They were comparing spot pay rather than comparing the overall budget for comedy. And then, even further, the overall budget for comedy as a percentage of the gross of that particular room. Almost like comparing a guy who pays $2,000 rent to a guy who pays $20,000 dollars rent without talking about the fact that yeah, but his place is twice as big, his location is better, whatever. So we were not only paying the most for a spot but we were by far using the most comedians. And I think I remember saying at the meeting, ‘Look, would you prefer I use fewer comedians?’ And everyone was like, ‘No, no, no.’ They didn’t want that. So we felt that even at lower pay we were way superior to the other clubs because we were paying much more in absolute dollars and we had many fewer seats. You follow me, right? So this was my recollection, and I think when I said
all that, these are smart guys, the comedians, I think most of them said, ‘Oh yeah, he has a point, we still want more money.’

  CHAPTER 106

  Before that, Russ Meneve emails hundreds of New York comedians,

  Fellow comedians, I am sending you this letter to give you the opportunity to address the weekend spot pay in New York City. Every comedian reachable will receive this letter as you have; based on the responses a meeting will be scheduled. If there is little response to this, then it will certainly stop here. However, if you share our concerns, Ted Alexandro and myself are ready and willing to organize the effort. Unfortunately, it is a necessary burden in business to negotiate prices, salary, etc. A burden we simply do not address as a group which has resulted in the very low pay we are getting. I want to say categorically, the club owners are not to blame. History has shown that in every situation similar to this the owners will try to raise profits to the disadvantage of the service-providing group, until the group demands a change. It is inherent in the situation. With laborers mainly, in addition to every sport where the money is mathematically undeniably there, management tries to pay as little as possible to the worker or athlete until demands are made. I’ll never forget what a New York club owner said to me when he was talking about the comedy business — one point he made was, ‘You can’t let the people in without a cover charge or a charge that is too low, or they will not respect the show.’ In essence, it is the reason we are treated the way we are. There is little respect for us and our challenges because we give our product away for so little. We don’t even make a real demand for a more than fair pay raise in the course of twenty years. Think of how many years it took each of us to get to the skill level required at this point. Do you not respect this, what you’ve done? Can you evoke the difficulty in doing so, let alone the pain endured? Really think about the hardship you went through, and respect it because it is something special. I am certainly not asking for anything unfair, the cost of living has substantially increased in twenty years, which goes without saying. The cover charges and drinks have increased substantially, and the people are certainly turning out to the shows. But I think the lack of consideration for us, particularly in the wake of a recent twenty-five per cent cab fare increase, needs to be addressed. The club owners are very aware of how little we’re making, certainly they are aware of the very large cab increase (a very high cost we must absorb on a weekend running to spots). I just wonder what the thought process was when they learned of this? Does it baffle you that they could not come to our aid in the least, since they are paying us so little already? One point that was made to me many years ago by a club owner was, ‘Well, when you make it big are you going to give me any of your money?’ May I simply address this point by stating the unfortunate odds of this business, perhaps less than one per cent of us will make it to the kind of level they are implying. However, all of us can make reasonable livings as comedians since there is an obvious market for it. Making a living is a business; we must negotiate our product fairly. I wondered and laughed if this attempt I’m making to better the situation fails because of a lack of solidarity amongst the comics. Will it be the year 2050 and comics will be saying, ‘Hey, can you believe we’re getting the same pay they did in ’85? Sixty-five years man, this is wrong! Well, I gotta go, I have a spot.’ Again, I am not blaming the club owners. It is a natural progression from their side, which should lead to one on ours. It is simply business, and negotiation is a critical part of it as in all businesses. The fact that we have not seriously done it is our own fault and the reason we are in this position. Please let me know your thoughts, I truly believe this can be worked out with the best feelings on both ends as a result.