CHAPTER 54
Lewis: I really thought I was like an amazing person, because suddenly the club got busy, right. And Manny said to Estee that he should make me the five-night-a-week compere, because I was pulling so many people in. And I was very … I wanted to be in control. I wanted a perfect body. I love that song. And I wanted to be in control and I thought I should be in control, because I know what I’m doing here. Suddenly we have a busy place. I remember Manny, one Tuesday, you know, when it was relatively slow, said to me, ‘Lewis, I’m thinking of bringing back the Jewish music.’ Because that’s what he used to do with the other place, the Jewish music. ‘Business is not that good, I’m thinking of bringing back the Jewish music on a Tuesday. What do you think?’ That’s what Manny would do, he would play with your head.
Author: What did you say?
Lewis: It’s Manny, just playing with your head, trying to get you to work harder, trying to get advantage over you, whether he realised it or not, that’s what he did.
CHAPTER 53
Lewis: The hardest business in the world is running a club. It’s harder than being a comedian. You need total attention. That’s what Manny did, he gave everything total attention. He counted up the number of forks and spoons at the end of the night. You know that? Did you know he would do that? He made the staff count up the number of forks and spoons at the end of a shift, at the end of the night, to make sure that nobody was stealing probably.
CHAPTER 52
Author: Lewis said your dad used to get the staff to count the cutlery up at the end of every night.
Noam: Oh, he’s so stupid, Lewis.
Author: It might not have been him who said it. I can’t remember.
Noam: This is years and years and years ago. There was a time when the waitresses would bus the tables. They would just dump all the dishes. They would dump the silverware into the garbage all the time. So at some point you warn and warn and warn and say, alright, that’s it, we’re going to have to go into some procedure of accounting. Count up how many forks we have at the beginning of the shift and count out how many we have at the end of the shift to see what’s going on. I don’t remember that lasting very long. I’ve had the same kind of … It kind of deteriorated, but I had the same sort of policy for menus at the Fat Black Pussycat. We were just constantly buying new menus. We had expensive menu books and the customers would steal them, and the reason they were able to steal them is after the waitress had taken the order she would neglect to recollect the menu and bring it back. You know normally in a restaurant, after they take your order, the waitress takes the menu back, but our waitresses would … So I got fed up. So I had them text me at the beginning of the shift how many menus they were starting with and text me how many menus they were ending with.
Author: God.
Noam: But you know what? The menus stopped disappearing. They were like $5 a book. They were expensive. So this was not out of any kind of counting pennies. This was just getting … I mean, there’s a better story about this phenomenon. There used to be a policy in the Olive Tree. The drinks of juice were …
Author: Oh yeah, I got that from you. It’s another one I loved.
Noam: So that’s what it is. You charge people a quarter, it’s not because you want to make the quarter, but all of a sudden they either drink the whole juice or they don’t drink it at all. You have to have some way to make an incentive for people to care, especially about something that they consider to be a small change item of negligible value, but actually adds up to significant money throughout an organisation. So, like, no glass of orange juice matters, but the entire …
Author: It’s death by a thousand cuts isn’t it.
Noam: Yes, that’s exactly right. By the way, just to go back, so you know, if there would be any criticism about the way my father was as a businessman it would be exactly the opposite of what that story implies. He was very uninterested and had to work to interest himself in these kind of nickel and dime issues. Margins, costs of goods, all stuff which is exactly the way all the most successful restaurants and bars live and die, that stuff. They know exactly how many ounces of alcohol go into a drink, how much it costs. And he had almost no interest in that whatsoever.
CHAPTER 51
Larry Doyle interviews Manny for a feature for New York Magazine. It’s about the bleak state of stand-up in the city. Larry types up the quotes,
I don’t see that kind of caliber now, but maybe when I look back on the people we have today, maybe I’ll be more nostalgic.
They copy one another, not only with their material, but how they approach the microphone, how they deliver the punchline.
There are people who might not be as good as other comics, but who are more predictable in terms of pleasing the audience, and that’s what’s more important to me. I’m constantly having squabbles with the comedians about this, who think of themselves as artists and who think it’s more important to work on their art than to be funny.
I want to get a more interactive kind of thing, not maybe like a gong show …
We all tend to romanticize the past.
CHAPTER 50
Larry interviews Marc Maron for the same feature,
Marc: I’ll tell you something about some of the clubs in this city. I mean, they haven’t been what they used to be in a long time. The scene isn’t what it used to be. And they are very strong personalities, and that’s putting it lightly, you know, what they encourage and what they don’t. Each club picks their own little stable of people. You know what I mean? And it’s all based on that particular club owner’s sensibility. Club owners, for the most part, aren’t known to be visionaries, you know, and they want to keep asses in seats and they want to sell drinks. So you can pretty much believe that most clubs pander to competence, you know, if not pure fucking hackiness.
CHAPTER 49
Larry interviews Sarah Silverman for the feature,
Sarah: Club owners are going with safe choices. Nobody’s being encouraged to be eclectic or to try new things, or see where the crowd leads them.
CHAPTER 48
Larry interviews Louis for the feature,
Louis: The crowds aren’t out there right now. I mean, they’re not showing up, so it’s not … Again, it’s a vicious cycle. I don’t know how much people can be expected to put in as far as effort if they’re not being paid back. And the audiences are not appreciative of lots of good stand-up. But again, we’re in this populist kind of field, and the trick is to try to take stuff that’s … I think the artistic challenge is to take stuff that’s hard for them to grasp and make them laugh at it and grasp it. I mean, it’s easy to … Like at Rebar, it’s easy to fill a room with people that you know and that all identify with you, and to find people that are like you and make them laugh. That’s not hard to do, because they are like you. I think the interesting challenge is to go to places where people don’t relate to you, and make them relate to you, you know, without compromising. I think that’s really the great thing that can be accomplished, you know. Like, Dave Attell can work any fucking crowd in the world, you know, and that’s a great thing to be able to do. It’s just that these little rooms that are popping, like Rebar and the ones in LA, where pretty much everybody there is an insider and knows somebody who is performing and agrees with their politics and sort of their cultural background, what are the chances … What, are you gonna bomb? You know. What are the chances that it’s not going to go well? It’s just silly to me.
CHAPTER 47
Noam writes a letter,
Dear Mr Mayor,
My name is Noam Dworman. I am the owner and operator of three well known restaurants and nightclubs in Manhattan — The Comedy Cellar, the Olive Tree Cafe, and the Cafe Wha. I am also an attorney, although I do not practice.
I’ll be very brief because I’m sure you’re too busy to be reading this to begin with. Quite
simply, I just want to tell you that I’m a huge supporter of yours. I think an administration which holds your priorities is the only hope for New York City at this very critical time in our history. Additionally, I would like to offer my services to help the city in any way possible. I would be very happy to invite city organizations to use my establishments for meetings, or anything else, free of charge. Also, if there are committees, or panels which need input from New York small business owners on the subjects of restaurants, nightlife, tourism, or other related areas, I would love to participate.
Mr Giuliani, your election has given me a new sense of optimism about my own future in this city. I think I could provide an intelligent insight into a traditionally important sector of the city’s economy, and I am eager to be involved.
Sincerely,
Noam Dworman
PS Please forgive the absence of my signature, because I am sending this letter through CompuServe Email.
CHAPTER 46
Noam: This might have been the last straw, when we stopped bringing money home. He was walking around the corner with money and there was a guy waiting in the garage, and they held him up at gunpoint, took the money. Ava would remember even better than I do. And that was scary because of the gun. And then Ava was also robbed making a bank deposit. That was the worst one of all because she was actually assaulted.
Author: When your dad was held up at gunpoint was that in the Eighties or Nineties?
Noam: It had to be in the Nineties I think. New York was like a jungle in the Nineties. People have no idea and no recollection of how bad it was. It was ridiculous.
Author: That’s why these stories are interesting, because as much as I’m trying to do other stuff with the book, it’s nice to show the way New York used to be.
Noam: It was just crack addicts all over the place and it was scary as hell. And it’s one of, this is probably not for your book, but it’s faded in everybody’s memories such that people make a lot of the fact that they punished crack much differently than cocaine. You’ve heard these arguments, right?
Author: Yeah.
Noam: That it’s supposed to be racist and all that?
Author: Yeah.
Noam: It couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s such an inaccurate take on reality. The fact was that crack was a daily threat to people’s lives. People just walking down the street and crack addicts were a source of violence. Cocaine was something rich people were doing, you know, in their homes and it wasn’t a threat to society. In other words, the crackdown on crack wasn’t because they didn’t want people taking drugs, although I’m sure that’s part of it, it was that it was such a menace to society. It was making the city unliveable.
CHAPTER 45
Lewis: The place was absolutely dead, and there were times when Hassan, the manager, would demand, or ask, or try to ask, in his nice way, for the comedians to sit in the audience to make it look like there were people there. Okay? There were like none. Not a single person coming in. And of course they wouldn’t do it, because they weren’t quite used to the idea that the bottom had fallen out of the market.
CHAPTER 44
Gregg Rogell: There was one night when there was only one guy in the audience. He was from Holland and spoke broken English. And I remember I was going on first and Manny said, ‘We’re having a show.’ So I sat down at the table with the guy and chatted with him for twenty minutes. That was my spot.
CHAPTER 43
Mike Royce: Weeknights, you weren’t even sure if they were going to have a show. A few times we actually didn’t have a show, because there was no audience. And quite frequently I would have to start the show with, like, four people in the audience. And you know, it’s a showcase, so people come in and out during the night, but I mean, I would emcee and there were four people sitting there. I did do a little banter, you know, with the four people, and you see a couple stick their head in the door and then I’d be like, ‘Come in.’ And they’d come in and then they’d sort of realise there are only four people there and, shit, I’d have to pitch all of them into staying, ‘There’s more people in the show, we’re just starting, blah, blah, blah.’ And this happened night after night for a couple of years with not too many exceptions. And on more than one occasion I had to literally start the show with no audience and then I’m just on stage and there’s no one in the audience, but the reason is so that when people come through the door and the show has started, they think there’s a show going on, and from the stage I beg them to stay.
CHAPTER 42
Catch A Rising Star closes.
The Improv closes.
Who’s on First closes.
Comedy U closes.
Manny asks some staff to take a temporary wage cut. After about six weeks Ava makes the money back up to them. The Cellar stays open.
Louis: There was no one going to see stand-up anymore. And at the Cellar there would literally sometimes be no audience and Manny would make you go on stage anyway to literally perform for no people, because the thinking was, and it was proper, was that if somebody is curious on the street and they stick their head in and there’s nothing going on … You’ve got to prime the pump, something has to be happening, so it was horrible and humiliating to do these sets, but of course they were formative. It was a great experience. And also Manny was trying to keep the place going, he was trying to keep the place going for all of us, but at the time he would have these meetings to talk about what can we do about this new crisis of comedy falling apart, and there I don’t think that was his best … Like, he would just criticise everybody, and he and I used to fight a lot, so I just didn’t want to be part of it. I just knew that I would not do well in those meetings, and I had started getting less and less work at the Cellar and I was getting a little bit bitter about it, and so I went to the meeting to meet another comedian to leave and Manny saw me in the door and he said, ‘Hey, why don’t you come in here, you have opinions, let’s hear your goddamn opinions.’ He said it kind of combatively and I said, ‘I’m not coming into this meeting Manny because you’re mean. You’re a mean person. I don’t like the way you talk to comedians. I don’t like you.’ And I pointed at Estee and I said, ‘And you’re mean and I just don’t want any part. I don’t care if you use me or not.’ And Manny said, ‘Not only are you stupid, you’re not funny.’ And everybody went, ‘Whoa.’ And Manny said, ‘Hey, he called me mean.’ And I learned something about him there, which is that he didn’t think I’m stupid and unfunny, it’s just that I hit him, I fucking insulted him, so he insulted me back. I never got upset anymore when Manny would say something mean because I knew he was just fucking … He was a fighter. So it didn’t bother me.
Author: How did Estee take it when you called her mean?
Louis: She started to say something and he stopped her. He didn’t let … Because he wanted to take the lead in the fight. I left. I didn’t work at the Cellar for years.
CHAPTER 41
Juanita Dworman: Manny would come in and walk across the room and say, ‘That light is out, fix this, clean that table.’ And he was friendly. He spoke with everybody. It was more of a social thing to come down.
Author: You were a waitress then. What happened when it was quiet?
Juanita: Well, if the Cellar wasn’t busy he’d have the waitresses sit and be the audience. He’d say, ‘Take off your aprons, sit down.’
CHAPTER 40
Louis: There was a big fucking, what do you call it, giro thing out front. Yeah, and it was at the front out on the street, and Hassan ran that and would serve this Middle Eastern food. And at the time when the war was going on Manny had turned the big screen into a TV to show the war, and I remember that all of the Arab cooks and workers and Hassan were all sitting watching, and they were huddled together, and Hassan was asking me for interpretation because it was going by too fast, the talking, so he would say, ‘Can you expl
ain to us what’s happening?’ And I realised that these people were all from this fucking region, this was their home, and they were worried. And it struck me, because Manny employed all these guys and he had this little microcosm of the Middle East that he brought to this place, and he brought so much tradition, coming over from Israel as an immigrant, and being a folk musician and creating a place for folk musicians to play and then getting these strange instruments and he had stand-up, and how he just protected the values of that place, of his customers having a good time, and his comedians having a place to work, and keeping it all afloat during tough times, instead of just bailing. I admired him tremendously for that. And anyway, one time Noam was telling a story about how he had been to the Middle East, this was during the Gulf War, and they were talking about how much everybody hated Israel and all this stuff, and he said, you know, Noam said, ‘I’ve travelled all over the Middle East.’ He had travelled in every Arab country, and he said, ‘Known to be a Jew. I would be taken in. Everywhere, taken into people’s homes. They would feed me and take care of me and treat me like family everywhere I went.’ And I said, ‘Why do you think that isn’t extrapolated? Why then do these countries hate Israel so much?’ And Manny said, very joyfully, ‘It’s because of the Jews. Everyone hates the Jews.’ And he laughed really hard. He used to really love laughing about how much people hated Jews.
Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.) Page 19