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Author: The Stand opened in 2012. Greenwich Village Comedy Club opened up in 2012. You opened the Village Underground for comedy in 2013 and it seemed like … I know you had big lines so wanted to ensure you made use of that business, but was it also to increase capacity of shows so comedians didn’t have to play anywhere else? Was it a way of muscling out the Stand?
Noam: No. No. No. No, not at all, not even a little bit. It was always simply that we were turning away … The first thing I did was rewrite the website, and this part I did actually to give me a count of exactly how many people we were turning away from each show. And when I saw the numbers, literally like a thousand people on a Saturday night were being turned away, I decided to do it. I mean, I wasn’t motivated by the effect on the other clubs. As a matter of fact I always caution people in my organisation that it’s not good for us if other clubs go out of business.
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Nick Di Paolo: I didn’t even put up a fight. I didn’t. Because I know I had a few incidents, a string of incidents. I didn’t even argue. I said to Noam, ‘You and your dad have been nothing but great to me. This club’s been nothing but great to me.’ I remember saying to Noam, ‘I even remember nights leaving here when I felt bad about what I did.’ I gave no resistance, because I had no argument. He didn’t say, ‘You can’t come back to the club,’ or anything. But that was a demarcation point, because I sort of suspended myself from the club. I really respect the place so much, and Estee and everybody who runs it. I really didn’t want to disrespect it. So I started coming down a little less and little less and it wasn’t because I was mad at them. I just wanted to show them the respect they deserve. But I put up no resistance. I agreed with him one hundred per cent. I really like those people a lot.
Author: And do you remember what the incident was that kind of brought that discussion about?
Nick: No. It was a string of them.
Author: So basically, you’d been getting a bit grumpy on stage with the audience?
Nick: I’m always cantankerous, even when I started. It’s just my nature. One night I do remember a table of, like, NYU students, young girls. Some girl going, ‘You’re just being racist.’ I hadn’t even really said anything yet and I just fucking went off on her and I said, ‘Why don’t you go and jump off the fucking library?’ Because a couple of students had committed suicide, like, three of them within a year had jumped off the library roof. And so I said, ‘Why don’t you go fucking scale the side of that library at NYU?’ You know. I don’t even remember. It’s just a tirade. I just remember them leaving and like some of the girls crying and then … That’s not the first time. I’d look in the doorway and there’d be like seven comics who came downstairs because somebody went up and said, ‘Nick’s on one of his tirades.’ And that’s how many times it would happen. So that’s why I didn’t give Noam any resistance when he brought it up. But yeah, I’d go fucking nuts. Someone just not paying attention or giving me, like, a dirty look, and I remember, like, knocking their hat off. And I remember even the bouncer goes, ‘Nick, what the fuck are you doing?’ I just got way too comfortable there, you know what I mean? And it was ridiculous. And I knew it. I knew it was time to go and find another club.
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Nick: I would talk to Colin at night on the phone, we still do almost all the time, about flying off the handle. And you know, always the word ‘cunt’ would come into play. Again, if I was in England nobody would blink, you know. But you know, the business we’re in, comedians, we’re such cut-throats. Nobody would say shit except for Colin. Colin is the exception, but you know the rest of the comics, if they think it’s going to help them move up a notch in the Comedy Cellar line-up they’ll watch you light yourself on fire every night.
Author: And what did Colin say to you?
Nick: He just said, you know, he goes, ‘You’re angry, you’re fucking … You get too angry, and calling women cunts every other week or whatever.’ And literally he goes, ‘I’m just afraid in the long run it’ll come back to bite you in the ass.’
Author: And did he mean with the club or with …
Nick: No, he meant in general. You know, because it’s funny. I don’t associate comedy clubs with real show business, but there is a link there. People do come down to the Comedy Cellar and who knows who’s in the audience that night. I remember coming offstage when I called Hillary Clinton a cunt and Jerry Seinfeld was standing in the doorway. He wasn’t standing where I could see him. I come through the doorway and he looks at me and goes, ‘Cunt, huh? Brilliant.’ And I go, ‘Hey, I’ve been here too long.’ He goes, ‘You’re telling me.’
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Author: Does he still come here now?
Noam: Yeah.
Author: Okay, because there was that thing where he thought he got the light.
Noam: Wow. No, that was diffused pretty quickly.
Author: Yeah? How?
Noam: Tom Papa called him and he said, ‘Alright Tom, we can solve this pretty quickly. I’ll tell you where the light is and you tell me if I’m wrong.’ And he said, ‘When you’re on the stage the light is to your left.’ And Tom said, ‘No, no, the light’s by the door.’ So Jerry said, ‘Oh, I guess it wasn’t the light.’ And that was it.
Steve Fabricant: Why would Jerry get off anyway if he got the light?
Noam: He was insulted. I understand that. Not only did he get off, he said, ‘I’ll never be back here again.’ That’s what he said.
Author: But he’s been back?
Noam: Yeah.
Ava Har’el: The best comedians pay attention to the light.
Noam: No, but we don’t give Seinfeld the light. It was probably the way the gels are on the lighting fixtures. If they don’t cut them just right, from a particular angle the white shines through.
Ava: Or maybe somebody took a picture?
Noam: No, I don’t think it was that.
Steve: Good guess though.
Noam: No, no, I think it’s what I said, because I know from being on stage and it can look like the light.
Author: I thought maybe someone had given him the light, like another comedian or something, just as, like, a prank or something like that.
Noam: No, no, there was no light. Everybody’s scared of Seinfeld.
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Tom Papa: I remember thinking it’s not a big deal. Like, ‘Noam and Estee are probably worrying too much about this.’ But then when he was so specific about where the light was, I was like, ‘Oh, maybe it does bother him?’ But it was in a totally different spot. He always loved that place and he loved it especially those years when he would come and sit with Colin and the other comics. It was a cool spot for him, but honestly, the only reason that he’ll sometimes go to Gotham Comedy Club more than the Comedy Cellar is that he can park right in front of the place. That’s literally what it is. They put out two parking cones, he pulls up on Twenty-Third Street, a guy sits there and watches his car, he walks in and does a spot, and gets in his car and leaves. To go to the Village, they don’t care whose car it is, it can’t stay out front. If you park on the side it’s a problem. If he parks in the garage, now he has to wait two minutes. That’s not going to work for him. That’s literally all it comes down to.
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Dan Soder: I got off stage and Noam was standing there and he was like, ‘Dan Soder, Dave Chappelle.’ And he was standing with Dave Chappelle and I was like, ‘Hey man, nice to meet you.’ He’s like, ‘Hey, nice to meet you.’ He said something like … I don’t want to quote him because I don’t want to give a compliment he didn’t give me but it was something like, ‘Ah, I saw the last part of that, it was great.’ And then he walked by me and I was like, ‘Oh shit, Dave Chappelle.’ I’d paid to see Chappelle nine times. I saw him in the city all the time. It was just the first time here. It was like, ‘Dave Chappe
lle, this is Dan Soder,’ and then I proceeded to get drunk and he sat at the table. And John Mayer was there. It was very random. I was basically telling Chappelle how big of a fan I was and I got very drunk which I regret.
Author: Did you do anything stupid?
Dan: No. There was the coolest moment of my life though when Chappelle was sitting at the table. He had a cigarette as he always does and I asked him, I said, ‘Dave, I’ve always wanted to know,’ and this is true since I saw him for the first time when I was sixteen years old, I don’t know if he smoked in that show, I think he started smoking later, but I said, ‘I’ve always wanted to know what kind of cigarettes you smoke.’ And he was like, ‘I smoke American Spirits.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, great.’ And he handed me one and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome, thanks.’ And I smoked at the time. I was like, ‘Do you want to go outside and smoke?’ And he was like, ‘We can smoke right here.’ And he smokes inside. There is no ‘go outside and smoke’ for Dave Chappelle. So they get him a cup of water as an ashtray and then he lights his cigarette and I go, ‘You’re Dave Chappelle, you can smoke in here, but I need this place for my rent.’ And he goes, ‘You can if Dave Chappelle lights your cigarette.’ And then he lit my cigarette and Estee gave me like a nod, ‘Yes, it’s okay.’ And I took like maybe three pulls off it and I looked around and every waiter and the bartender, every waiter and waitress in that place, and the bartender, was just staring at me, like, ‘Are you fucking smoking in the Olive Tree?’ I took maybe four drags and then I threw this cigarette out, because I didn’t want to be disrespectful.
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John Cook reads an anonymous tip about Louis CK. He starts investigating. He starts writing a story. He discusses it with friends.
John: I had to kind of argue my way … Not internally. Internally, everyone at Gawker was onboard, but just people I would talk to about this story, I had to sort of argue my way to seeing clear to do it, because there were a lot of people who were like, ‘Louis CK is on our side, why would you do this to one of ours?’
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Noam: Correlation is not causation. The trend was up all along and then the Louie show came along and we think that it had an impact as well. It clearly did have an impact but we can’t be sure how much was the Louie show.
Author: No, sure. You can’t get a number on that, but just, you’re the owner of the club, I’m sure you have an instinct for how things are going.
Noam: We saw a lot of people coming in, a lot of people filming themselves doing the same opening that Louis did in his show. So we get the feeling that people are really into this show. And I think because Louis was so respected it was kind of a stamp of approval. Like, the greatest comic in the world had given his stamp of approval for this small club. So anybody who was into comedy … But this is how social media matters so much, because all the comedy aficionados from all over the world were really getting into comedy, like you. Like, you follow what’s going on in the States now, right? That wasn’t possible only a short while ago. You’d have no idea. So it just created this big audience, and not just out of the country but throughout the United States and everywhere. And YouTube, people were checking in on comedians and becoming fans of comedians and then they would google them and it would lead them to mentions of the Comedy Cellar, so it all was just, like, doubling up, you know, accelerating.
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Rick Crom: Everybody saw it. It suddenly became this internet sensation. And it got such great press, people like, ‘Oh my god, this is the most honest ten minutes in television.’ So I was sitting up here with my students and Louis walked in and he looked at me and said, ‘We made something good’, or, ‘We did something good’, I think that’s what he said. I said yeah, ‘It’s an amazing thing.’ And we started talking and one of my students who was drunk got up and tried to assault him or, you know, ‘I love you’. Then we came over here and I said, ‘But I’ve got to tell you, I saw a couple of things in the gay press where the origin of the word “faggot” is not what I said it was, but that’s what I heard, it’s a common story.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘That’s fiction. The show is fiction. Don’t worry about it.’ But I was worried. I thought, ‘Oh my god, they’re going to get mad now.’
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Before that, Louis uploads a scene from his new show onto YouTube,
Louis: Rick does it offend you when I say that word?
Rick: What word, ‘hello’?
Louis: No, ‘faggot’.
Nick Di Paolo: Yeah, does it bother you when he says the word ‘faggot’?
Rick: No, it bothers me when you say it, because you mean it.
Louis: Yeah but really, as like, as a comedian and a gay guy, you’re the only gay comic I know, do you think I shouldn’t be using that word on stage?
Rick: I think you should use whatever words you want. When you use it on stage I can see it’s funny and I don’t care, but are you interested to know what it might mean to gay men?
Louis: Yeah, I am interested.
Rick: Well, the word ‘faggot’ really means a bundle of sticks used for kindling in a fire. Now in the Middle Ages when they used to burn people they thought were witches, they used to burn homosexuals too. And they used to burn the witches at a stake but they thought the homosexuals were too low and disgusting to be given a stake to be burned on. So they used to just throw them in with the kindling with the other faggots. So that’s how you get ‘flaming faggot’.
Louis: So what you’re saying is gay people are a good alternative fuel source.
Nick: That’s how they get the term ‘diesel dyke’.
Louis: I’m sorry, go ahead.
Rick: You might want to know that every gay man in America has probably had that word shouted at them when they’re being beaten up, sometimes many times, sometimes by a lot of people all at once, so when you say it, it kind of brings that all back up. But you know, by all means use it, get your laughs, but now you know what it means.
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Author: I wondered how that came about? How he hired you for it? He seems to have hired lots of comedians from the Cellar for various things that he’s done. Did he text you about it? Did he come and talk to you about it?
Rick: Well, here’s what happened. The Comedy Cellar table back there had a certain vibe to it. So we would sit back there and the comedians, since I was the only openly gay guy they knew, they would ask me all sorts of questions about gay sex and stuff like that. I would tell them and when I would tell them they would squeal like little girls. Louis thought that was hilarious. So we’d do that.
Author: Who would ask you stuff?
Rick: Other comedians would ask things and bust your balls.
Author: Like Nick Di Paolo?
Rick: Nick Di Paolo. Just all the guys back then. And Jim Norton and all those guys. And then the story I told in the TV thing, the story about the jerk-off club, that’s real. I told that story. It’s a real place and they would ask me about it in terms of, ‘Well, what do you do?’ And again I would very matter-of-factly tell them and I’m like, ‘You’re the guys who keep bringing this up.’ It’s like little kids, ‘I know this fire is hot but I want to touch it one more time.’ That and then the urban legend about the origin of the word ‘faggot’ is something else that I’d said at the table. And that was just part of our conversation.
Author: Did Louis ask you about his use of the word ‘faggot’ on the stage?
Rick: Yeah, but let me fill in one little gap with that history of the table back there. Louis is filming his first season, he’s about eight episodes in. I happened to be here and hadn’t been doing spots at the Cellar, but I’m hanging out. Louis sees me and he says, ‘Oh, hey. I want to ask you something.’ Okay. And he says, ‘You know those stories about the jerk-off club and the meaning of the word “faggot”, tell me those stories again.’ So I tell him the stori
es and he’s asking me questions and he says, ‘I think I’m going to put those in the show. Do you want to play yourself?’ I said, ‘Okay, sure.’ So he went away and a couple of days later I got a phone call, ‘Louis has written this scene. He wants to shoot it on Monday. Are you available?’ ‘Yes, I’m available.’ So that scene, he took my stories and embellished them. The whole thing about the origin of the word, not the origin, but getting beat up and all that stuff. Now I never said any of that stuff. He made that up. Other people had said stuff. And he was going through a period at that time where he was getting flak for his ‘faggot’ routine, for using the word, and he wanted to address that as part of the scene too. And I think he and I did have a talk about it. He did ask me, ‘Is it offensive?’ I think he did. I think it was mostly like, ‘It depends on where it’s coming from.’
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Bonnie: I do remember once being at the Cellar table with the gang. I guess it was Bobby Kelly, Keith Robinson, Rich [her husband], Colin Quinn. I don’t remember who was there. It was packed and they started making fun of me, which almost never happened. You know, that sort of bullying thing that they do.
Author: That sort of bullying thing.
Don't applaud. Either laugh or don't. (At the Comedy Cellar.) Page 12
