Episode 322 - Phunny Business
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks this is mark maron this is wtf how are you i'm trying to hold on to hope because i can't just go on and on
Marc:every week twice a week talking about my missing cat boomer who i loved who i had for a long time he is not back and uh i don't want to lose hope and i and i know like look i'm not trying to bum you out but this is a lot of you are curious those of you who listen every uh week you know boomer kind of
Marc:At least you had expectations out of Boomer to at least talk occasionally.
Marc:It's still very difficult.
Marc:It's been a week and a day.
Marc:And again, I appreciate the stories of cats returning after years, months, weeks.
Marc:Some hope was diminished recently because I noticed there's a lot of signs up for other missing cats, which could mean that there's a...
Marc:You know, a coyote pack in the neighborhood.
Marc:I don't want to think that.
Marc:I don't know why the coyotes didn't take the crazy stray cat who I now seem to emotionally blame for Boomer's disappearance.
Marc:But I'm trying to look on the bright side.
Marc:I'm trying to appreciate the time I had with the guy.
Marc:I had him a long time.
Marc:And I'm even trying to mythologize him a bit.
Marc:I find in my mind that if he did encounter a coyote, perhaps it would be the trickster spirit.
Marc:That's what I'm trying to do.
Marc:I'm trying to frame it like that.
Marc:Perhaps Boomer is on some sort of heroic journey.
Marc:Perhaps Boomer is like he's in another dimension.
Marc:And he's being tested at different levels.
Marc:I've never read all the books about the hero's journey, but I do know one thing.
Marc:One thing I've learned about hope in the last week is it's very interesting how when you want something to return or someone to return, the hope of their return is is is painful.
Marc:And, you know, one thing that if they do return, at least for a day or two, you're going to be thrilled.
Marc:Everything is going to be OK.
Marc:And I kind of get the whole Jesus thing because of Boomer's disappearance.
Marc:I mean, you know, to say you're going to come back after your dad's a hell of a trick.
Marc:And he laid that down.
Marc:And I think that to say that and you're going to come back and then take people with you to a better place is a hell of a thing.
Marc:And that I can see where that hope of of of that return is powerful.
Marc:And yes, I did just I did just analogize the entire spectrum of Christianity to to my cat disappearing a week ago Friday.
Marc:I did do that.
Marc:Because I believe that the feelings are the same and that I know some people trivialize feelings that some people like, hey, it's a cat.
Marc:You know, it happens.
Marc:Yeah, I get that.
Marc:And I am certainly accommodating that emotionally.
Marc:But you got to look on the bright side.
Marc:It does.
Marc:It does happen.
Marc:I don't know if he'll come back.
Marc:I'm losing that hope.
Marc:But I think I'll hold on to that hope and continue to mythologize my cat boomer.
Marc:And the sad thing is I just ordered a bunch of Boomer buttons because he was becoming such a presence on the show.
Marc:So I'm going to have those.
Marc:I wish I would have ordered Boomy Lives buttons.
Marc:But look, you know, I'm sad, but I'm not miserable.
Marc:There is an absence here, but that horrible little fuck face cat is out there filling somewhat of a void.
Marc:And maybe Boomer is living with a nice old lady.
Marc:And I talked about that.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not.
Marc:See, what I'm avoiding is eulogizing.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I'm not going to eulogize.
Marc:I'm going to hang on to hope.
Marc:Either way, with or without Boomy, I've become a more hopeful person generally.
Marc:I think it's good.
Marc:You know, faith is pushing it, but hope I can handle.
Marc:The shoot has been going great.
Marc:I'm still not sure how much I should or will tell you about what's going on, but we did finish the first week of shooting on my IFC show.
Marc:We did put one episode in the can, and we're almost done with another one that we're shooting on Monday.
Marc:It's been very thrilling for me, 12- to 13-hour days.
Marc:You know, I realize that it's not an easy role playing me and I should have known that it's never been easy being me to me.
Marc:But then to act like me being me is is it's not so much that it's challenging, but it's a it's sort of a heightened bit of a meta bit of business.
Marc:But I will say that the shoots are going great and I'll give you more details as time goes on.
Marc:It's very exciting for me.
Marc:Is that OK?
Marc:Very exciting.
Marc:Oh, the show today is.
Marc:Interesting show.
Marc:Sometimes people ask me to have more black comics on.
Marc:I do try to get black comics on, but it's not as easy for whatever reason, numerous reasons.
Marc:I don't know what those reasons are, but the outreach is difficult.
Marc:But I did have an opportunity to get the creators of...
Marc:of this new documentary out called Funny Business, which is a documentary about all jokes aside.
Marc:It's a relatively unknown to me, a comedy club in Chicago that had its heyday, but was really the starting place of a lot of black comics that you know that have become famous.
Marc:Uh, and, and their presence is, is culturally recognized.
Marc:Very funny fellas.
Marc:I don't want to give too much away, but, uh, on the show today, I have Ali Leroy, who is a comedian who went on to, uh, to, uh, help create, uh, everybody loves Chris.
Marc:He also worked on Louie's movie, uh, Pudi Tang.
Marc:Uh, and he's got some inside info about Pudi Tang.
Marc:I did talk to him about that.
Marc:for you Louis C.K.
Marc:fans.
Marc:And he's also worked on the Chris Rock Show for years.
Marc:And with him, I have John Davies, who was the director and the sort of the force that created the documentary Funny Business.
Marc:And we'll talk to those guys in just a second.
Marc:I think I should tell you that I'm throwing away a bunch of underwear.
Marc:I feel like that's a big moment.
Marc:I think it might be a big moment in other people's lives.
Marc:I don't know if I'm the only one that has this experience that
Marc:I opened up my underwear drawer and I realized that I have some underwear, some boxers and some briefs that I don't wear that often, that I probably had for 15 years.
Marc:15 years, maybe 20.
Marc:What the fuck is that about?
Marc:I mean, if there's anything you should have some turnover with, it's underwear.
Marc:Why underwear and socks?
Marc:I mean, what needs to happen?
Marc:I mean, I guess I should be grateful that they're built so well.
Marc:It's the only thing...
Marc:that is built well anymore in the world we live in, underwear and socks?
Marc:Because that shit holds up and you would think that that would be the first stuff to go.
Marc:Jeans have come and gone.
Marc:Shoes have come and gone.
Marc:Shirts have come and gone.
Marc:Jackets have come and gone.
Marc:But I have boxers that have stayed the course for 15 to 20 years.
Marc:And I'm just going to let them go out of practicality because I think, Jesus, you should move on, man.
Marc:You got to move on.
Marc:Even if you like the pattern on them.
Marc:Even if they're in pretty good shape.
Marc:Just get rid of them.
Marc:They've had their time.
Marc:Let them go.
Marc:You have to let those boxers go.
Marc:Ali LaRoy, John Davies.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:John, you are the director and producer and creator of the funny business documentary, Funny Business, a black comedy, correct?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Now I'm asking you as if you're doing a deposition.
Marc:Is that correct, sir?
Guest:Yes, sir.
Marc:Ali LaRoy, you were originally a Chicago comic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I remember you, man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I think the first time I met you was in New York.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Luna Lounge-ish.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:You had dreadlocks.
Guest:Oh, I did.
Guest:I had a head full of hair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all it was all long and Jamaican looking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you had a mustache going, I think.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was I was being anti something at the time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Anti haircut.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:Yeah, I get it.
Guest:You know, I like to rail against things, but I pick small things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not going to the barbie anymore.
Guest:To hell with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You brought.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That kind of haircut, though, it makes a statement.
Marc:It's unclear what it is, but it's not the other haircut.
Guest:yeah you're not getting my 12 that's right yeah but you were doing stand-up then and you were you were hanging out with lance and you guys were but you were involved in weren't you guys part of a a black sketch troupe at one time yes we were what was the name of that mary wong yeah yeah yeah yeah that was like we were out we were out in new york maybe like in the mid early 80s uh you you remember when uh like usa comedy cuts and bill box comedy tonight and all that stuff was going on out there
Marc:yeah we had we had to group together then and you know it's like a group is tough to kind of keep together when you know you got guys and wives and kids and all that kind of stuff it's hard to keep anything together with those things yeah it's just hard to you know it's better to just stay away from people right but you were like into the writing thing but you did do stand-up yeah because i remember the first time i saw you do solo stand-up because i associated you with the group but then you know you had your chops as a stand-up yeah from before that
Guest:Yeah, no, I did it.
Guest:I probably was doing stand up from like the mid 80s into like 97 is when I kind of officially hung it up because I transitioned back into writing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that's interesting because, I mean, that's about the same time, you know, I think I started doing stand up like full on in the mid 80s.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then then it never stopped for me because I didn't write.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just had, you know, I mean, really, for me, it was just a real like I had a decision to make.
Guest:You know, I had a wife and a kid.
Marc:Smart decision.
Yeah.
Marc:Don't ever beat yourself up for making that choice for saying, hey, you know, there's only five or six guys that get to the top.
Marc:Why not have a job where I get to write comedy, make more money and do what the fuck I want to.
Guest:But, you know, honestly, man, it was it was a serious choice.
Guest:Like, I really enjoy stand up.
Guest:I like doing that a lot.
Guest:uh but in a very practical way i just kind of looked at okay there's two lines here to be in right you know one is manufacturing product and the other is being a consumer of the product right and i don't you know it's not that i thought i was bad or anything like that i think i'm really solid you know if you gave me a month i could you know no no you were definitely funny but it's sort of a more of a roll of the dice with your life yeah and uh but you started at uh all jokes aside in chicago
Guest:No, I started way before that.
Guest:We were doing like sketch comedy inside clubs.
Guest:I didn't come up through the, you know, through the Improv Second City route doing it.
Guest:We came up doing sketch comedy inside clubs.
Marc:So that's always rough, man.
Guest:Well, you know, I mean, it made you do a different type of act.
Guest:You actually had to care if people were laughing.
Guest:You couldn't just his suggestion.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But were you working as a feature, though?
Marc:But I mean, were you on regular shows?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know.
Marc:It's always a weird transition.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, at some point you get past the open mic stuff and then you start getting booked.
Guest:And, you know, I did a ton of colleges and that sort of stuff with the group and also did a ton of colleges solo.
Guest:So, yeah, there's a lot of work back there.
Guest:Who was in Mary Wong?
Guest:Myself, Lance Crowther, who would go on to do a great deal of work with, you know, not just Chris Rock.
Guest:We both work, but with Wanda Sykes.
Guest:He was partnered with Wanda on a number of her projects.
Marc:Crowther is how you say it?
Guest:Crowther, like Souther.
Guest:He was Pootie Tang.
Guest:Yes, he was Pootie Tang.
Marc:The cult classic or debacle, depending who you ask.
Guest:Wasn't Bernie in that too?
Guest:Bernie was not.
Guest:Yeah, Lance Crowther was Pootie Tang.
Guest:And the last show I know he was working on, he was on George Lopez's talk show.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Was he writing?
Guest:Yeah, but so, I mean, we haven't talked recently, so I'm not sure what his most recent project.
Marc:and you you went on you both worked on the Chris Rock show yes we did and then you went on to create with Chris the everyone loves Chris everybody hates Chris everyone hates Chris everyone loves Ray right and they hate the black guy love the white guy so you've been doing alright for yourself I did okay yeah
Marc:Now, how did the like it sounds like the clubs that you were talking about, Zany's and the satellite clubs were just the general comedy, suburban comedy club.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now, when when when Lambert, when Raymond Lambert decided to open his club, which is documentaries about all jokes aside.
Marc:How did that change the landscape?
Marc:I mean, not just for for black performers, but in general in the comedy scene over there.
Guest:Well, it gave it gave an entire community of comedians a place to work because, you know, there were certain comics who were considered kind of crossover, a little more mainstream.
Guest:You know, in the early 80s for television, most of the black comics didn't get the comedy tonight, the USA comedy cuts and a lot of that stuff.
Guest:a lot of black guys were like on the apollo right doing three minutes you know of death defying comedy acting and hoping that kind of worked out so that was one spot um you know there weren't a lot of places and then uh there weren't a lot of places where they were uh you know i don't want to use the word allowed but there was well embraced is the word okay yes we were allowed to go every place you just weren't embraced
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there was also there's this, you know, and I get I get flack when, you know, when I get into these conversations from people who want to insist that there's no color lines in the world, which is, you know, it's a nice idea, but it's just not true.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there were there's definitely black comics that play for the black community.
Marc:And then there were dudes there and other comics that were trying to not detach themselves, but looking for other opportunities.
Guest:Well, I mean, you actually started out in those other clubs.
Guest:I mean, guys like D.L.
Guest:Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey all started out in the other clubs.
Guest:And then suddenly when these, you know, when a club like All Jokes Aside comes along, you know, they also had Comedy Act Theater out here in L.A.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like.
Guest:oh, shit, there's a place where we can go perform for black people and do almost another version of your same act.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's not like Steve Harvey went into that club and did an entirely different act.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's like, oh, shit, I can actually talk about this from another perspective now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I don't have, you know, there's no translation involved.
Guest:I don't have to explain.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't have to explain any of the reference points.
Guest:I can, you know, you know, do the same act and get a whole different feeling from it.
Guest:Because a lot of these guys, you know, they were doing Evening at the Improv and all.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, did you do those?
Guest:uh yes i did even at improv was and lisa gibbons was the host of mine by the way yeah we almost bought that clip oh wow and we what we remember about that clip and we bought it we almost bought it for a funny business the movie is because uh she introduces you and she says please welcome ally laroi right and so you called her lisa she was like lisa yeah well it sort of seemed like he got her back yeah
Marc:Those hosts would come in.
Marc:I did that.
Marc:That was one of my first comedy shows.
Marc:And Nancy Wilson, the jazz singer, was my host.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:And she fucked up my name.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then the second time I did that, it was the mother from Wonder Years, and she fucked up my name.
Marc:Right, right, right, right.
Marc:It's literally, they got there five minutes before and did nothing.
Marc:So, John Davies, what made you do this documentary?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I was out in L.A.
Guest:working with Bob Zemuda on Comic Relief.
Guest:I had him in here.
Guest:Another Chicago guy.
Guest:I had him in here for three hours.
Guest:And I actually got that job through Chris Albrecht.
Guest:Chris Albrecht had liked a short of mine.
Marc:Originally a doorman at the improvisation and went into the improv here and then became the manager, right?
Guest:And then became the head of HBO.
Guest:And then the czar of HBO.
Guest:He'd seen a short of mine about a blue cow or...
Guest:Barbara is working on the south side of Chicago.
Guest:Flew me to L.A., said, I think this could be a sitcom following rock on Fox.
Guest:Gave me money to go back, reshoot it as a three camera.
Guest:Told me just to shoot six minutes of it, but I shot the whole thing.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then we screened it for the folks at Fox.
Guest:At the end of the screening, he says, you know, I love the first six minutes, but ultimately I don't think it works.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And so Chris said to me, you know, John, what a mistake.
Guest:I told you just to shoot six minutes.
Guest:But he liked me, and he said, I'm going to do you a favor.
Guest:Now, this depends on if you think working with Bob is a favor or not.
Guest:But he put me with Bob, and I was with Bob for six or seven years.
Guest:And in the course of that time, we did a lot of events all around the country for Comic Relief.
Guest:How many times in that relationship did you say this?
Guest:Oh, come on, Bob.
Guest:That's bullshit.
Guest:Pretty much every day.
Guest:But actually, Bob and I were like brothers.
Guest:We got along really well.
Guest:And he was very kind to me and immediately took me in as an equal partner.
Guest:And we did events all over the country at all these clubs, including Raymond Lambert's in Chicago in 1992.
Guest:We did a Christmas show there, and Bob performed with Vanna White, Sinbad, Bob, and Me.
Guest:It was terrible, but we got to know Ray that way.
Guest:And Ray said, hey, John, if you'd like to come back tonight to see what I really do here at nighttime in the club, here's some tickets.
Guest:So I went back that night in 1992.
Guest:I think I might have seen Chris Rock.
Guest:I saw a lot of great people.
Guest:And so every time I came into Chicago for the next three or four years, I would go to Ray's club.
Guest:Then I lost touch with Ray, ran into him on the street in Chicago, maybe in 2008.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I still thought the club was going.
Guest:And he tells me this tale about how, oh God, John, no, it's been gone.
Guest:I've had a whole other life.
Guest:And he started telling me the story and I got really into it.
Guest:The politics of it.
Guest:The politics of it and how it was closed down when he tried to move it to the northern, whiter part of the city.
Guest:And when he was done, I was like, oh, shit, I know I'm going to do this as a film with you, Ray.
Guest:It's a good story.
Guest:I know all the players in it.
Guest:I know I could pull it off.
Guest:And so I moved to Chicago like a couple of months later into a condo I'd owned there for years, and we just got to it.
Guest:And we made the story, and I thought, I can pull this off in a year.
Guest:And then after the year was over, I said, I can pull this off in two years.
Guest:I ended up putting in two years and eight months.
Marc:At this point, people, I think it would be good to break in here and take you to an interview I did with Raymond Lambert, the owner of All Jokes Aside Comedy Club.
Marc:I met him in Chicago, and he can tell this story better than any of us can.
Marc:So let's hear from Raymond Lambert, and then we'll get back to Ali and John to talk about it themselves.
Marc:When you opened your club in Chicago, were you from Chicago?
Guest:No, I'm from Wilmington, Delaware originally.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, so I came here to work in securities and investment banking, actually.
Guest:I met comedians at a school day thing where you talk about what you do for a career, and that's how that sort of started.
Guest:And Steve Harvey and Rex Garvin happened to be two of the comedians that I met through that process.
Marc:And what inspired you to do a club?
Marc:Because, I mean, what year was that, 90?
Marc:That's like 91.
Marc:91.
Marc:So, I mean, the original boom was over.
Guest:For the general market.
Guest:For the general market.
Guest:Which is kind of interesting you say that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:For the general market.
Guest:But still, when we thought about opening this room, I had another partner at the time, James Alexander.
Guest:And there were five rooms in Chicago.
Guest:Zanies.
Guest:Zanies, improv, Funny Firm, Catch a Rising Star.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Laugh Factory.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Was in the burbs.
Guest:But cats like Steve, Bernie couldn't get booked.
Guest:Bernie couldn't get booked.
Guest:Bernie Mac couldn't get booked in those clubs.
Guest:In the city of Chicago.
Guest:At that particular time.
Guest:It was a big, big ordeal for him.
Marc:Isn't that fascinating?
Marc:One of the most powerful black comedians, one of the most powerful comedians, period, could not get work.
Guest:So he was working where?
Guest:One-nighters, coffee shops, open mics, and Ali can contribute to that much more, because Ali was with him at that time.
Guest:But Ali happened to be one of those unique guys who was working both sides of the street.
Guest:Why do you think that was?
Guest:I think probably because Ali's act...
Guest:at that particular time was more easily digested by the general market and what i what i mean by white people yeah and the folks who were booking those particular clubs he didn't make them uncomfortable at all and bernie mack yeah whoever he uh you know what you know it doesn't matter what kind of person whether white or black or anything else bernie mack will make you uncomfortable he could but i think but i think that's the nature of comedy
Guest:No, look, you're preaching to the choir here.
Guest:So I just happened to bump into these guys and they say, hey, listen, I can't get booked.
Guest:And then when I started looking around the country, seeing that there was very few places at all, not just in Chicago, but period.
Guest:One thing led to another where it was like, can you give me a hand?
Guest:We'd love to do just a showcase show on a weekend.
Guest:Producing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't know at the time that's what I was doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that thing did okay enough to make us do it again.
Guest:And we did it.
Guest:You know, every weekend for about four or five months.
Guest:And we got to a point where it was like, okay, this may or may not work.
Guest:We didn't know what the hell we were doing.
Guest:And then we had a weekend with Steve.
Guest:That sort of made us say, well, you know what?
Guest:There's a business here.
Guest:And then we ran with it from that point.
Marc:So would you say that for most practical purposes you were the first sort of regular black stand-up comedy club?
Guest:There were rooms around the country.
Guest:I like to think that we were the first to put it all together.
Guest:In other words, to have top flight operation, top flight comedians on par with any other comedy club, be it Carolines, be it Improv, be it whoever.
Guest:You used that model.
Guest:What model inspired you?
Guest:I'd say improv was probably the one.
Marc:I like the idea.
Marc:When you started, you knew there were... How many of your acts really couldn't work mainstream clubs?
Marc:I mean, if you think about it.
Marc:I mean, let me look at the list.
Guest:Probably 90% of them.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you'd have, like, Ali was working those rooms.
Guest:Lance Crowther would be working those rooms.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Who else would I... Tommy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tommy Davidson.
Guest:Actually, it was a bidding war for Chris Rock at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we beat them.
Guest:We beat improv...
Guest:was where he normally worked.
Guest:And then I think we outbid him at that particular time, which is real interesting because the audience that he... Early 90s.
Marc:So that was Chris in the, you know, he was sort of wandering then.
Guest:Before Bring the Pain.
Guest:That probably was right after Saturday Night Live.
Marc:Right, SNL, and he was sort of like regrouping as a comic.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And building who he was.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And you had him over the improv.
Guest:We had him here.
Guest:You know, we had a room in Detroit for four years, too.
Guest:So we had him between Detroit and Chicago.
Guest:But if you looked at that audience,
Guest:that audience was completely different than the audience you would have had at improv.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, I mean, well, then you were probably somewhat responsible for his, you know, connecting to what became a fairly specific black identity.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think he was working it out.
Guest:Sure he could have.
Guest:But I think, I would like to think that that contributed to,
Guest:to what he was doing at that time and working out that material.
Guest:He still does the same material.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But I think that, you know, after SNL, where he, you know, he came up in just mainstream comedy clubs.
Marc:But, you know, defining his point of view on race...
Marc:You know, that happened later.
Marc:It did.
Marc:And I don't know that that could have happened without performing for specifically black audiences.
Guest:Well, and if you think about that, what was it, Bring the Pain?
Guest:Was that the first one and he did it out of D.C.
Guest:or whatever that was?
Guest:That was a big one.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Yeah, that was a big one.
Guest:You look at that audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, so, but still, I mean, I do think that there's, you know,
Guest:Can you cite a difference between a black and a white audience?
Guest:I think Aries Spears says that the best.
Guest:So when he says that, you know, a white audience applauds effort and a black audience doesn't give a damn about effort.
Guest:They want to see... They want you to bring it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like... Put on a show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's no... Because I think that's cultural.
Guest:It's like you've got to bring it.
Guest:When you get the opportunity, you may not have this opportunity more than once.
Guest:You don't get sort of these...
Guest:second and third and fourth chances.
Guest:You can't go in with that mindset.
Guest:So if I'm going to pay, if I'm going to come here and I'm going to support you, then we expect it.
Guest:And the guys who didn't do that, you know, will suffer.
Guest:So, but, you know, in a white audience, I think it's much more giving in that way because, you know, it's art, takes time.
Guest:They're trying to develop their act, give them a chance, all that.
Guest:That doesn't really, that doesn't really fly as well.
Marc:I don't know if that's, I mean, I certainly am guilty of that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But I still think that any audience would prefer, there's a type of audience that's sort of like, we came for a show.
Marc:We didn't come for you to sort of figure out what you're going to do.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We put on good clothes.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You know, why are you testing whatever you're fucking trying to do?
Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But I think also the white expectation of a black performer is different.
Guest:Absolutely, it's different.
Guest:Now, one thing we tried to do at All Jokes Aside was not to define what black was.
Guest:So we might have a comedian.
Guest:That was an agenda.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And what does that mean to you?
Guest:Well, that was very important to me because even within...
Guest:our own culture, this notion of what's supposed to be black.
Guest:Now, is that Def Jam?
Guest:Well, in some cases, maybe improv.
Guest:So just because a person is black doesn't mean it's got to be a bunch of motherfuckers.
Guest:It doesn't have to be a menstrual show.
Guest:It doesn't.
Guest:It could be intelligent.
Guest:It could be smart.
Guest:It could be oddball.
Guest:It could be
Guest:Way out there.
Guest:It could be a Bobcat type act.
Guest:I mean, it could be whatever it is.
Marc:Did you see that type of diversity?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But they weren't really given as much an opportunity.
Guest:as like a lot of the other acts.
Guest:And another thing that happened during that time was Def Jam became huge.
Guest:It exploded right around that time, 93, 94.
Guest:There was a certain type of act that was sort of, you know, that- Yeah, became a hackneyed sort of thing.
Guest:It was that.
Guest:So there were guys who were not like that.
Marc:Right, and they had a fight against that.
Marc:Then they've got even fewer opportunities.
Marc:Right, well, yeah, here they are.
Marc:They can't get work in white rooms, and now the black rooms are so geared towards that type of, and that's a way heightened, aggressive performance style.
Guest:Absolutely it is.
Guest:So I worked really hard to try to have as many diverse acts as I possibly could, even within the black culture.
Marc:Well, that's magnanimous as a business owner and as somebody who wants to create a creative space.
Marc:But what are your personal feelings about how blacks were represented in deaf comedy?
Guest:I think it was good for...
Guest:for what Def Jam stood for, you know what I mean?
Guest:So in other words... What do you see that as being?
Guest:Well, I was sort of balls out, you know what I mean?
Guest:You have it.
Guest:Now, for me, that's not to say some acts obviously I liked, some acts I didn't.
Guest:Now, the shortcoming is there's guys who went up on Def Jam, say, and had seven minutes worth of material and became a star, which didn't work for me because if you were a headliner, you need to do 45 minutes to an hour.
Guest:And also, if you're going to do the blue material, okay, for seven minutes, but doing it for a half an hour, 45, with no real act is a problem.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Gratuitous.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So what young cats started doing was looking at Def Jam and trying to develop their act, and that was the wrong ... They should have been watching Ellen DeGeneres.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:They should have been watching somebody complete.
Guest:They weren't ready for that just yet.
Guest:They didn't have an act to do it.
Guest:So while I'm listening to Richard Pryor, it's like, yeah, that's genius right there.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You need to be building something.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:So that was a distortion.
Guest:But overall, the exposure, the opportunity, what that represented far outweighed any of the shortcomings.
Marc:When you see the cats that started at your place, who were you most surprised by in terms of the evolution of their creativity?
Guest:I can't say I'm really surprised.
Guest:I'd like to think I saw it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I don't want to look like I'm this savant or anything.
Guest:But I just felt like... You had a good eye for talent?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So when I see Jamie in 91, I'm like, there's something really special about this person.
Marc:Is that right after Living Color?
Guest:That's right before.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:But his whole act was everything that he's good at now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Characters, singing, the whole thing.
Marc:And when you saw him when he was a kid, it must have been sort of like, holy shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's like I liken it to athletics.
Guest:When you see a young kid, like now you can tell who's good in ninth grade.
Guest:You can say that kid has a potential to do something special.
Guest:But you know, and then the other thing is there's opportunity where only so many guys are going to make it.
Guest:I'm talking about when you say make it, quote unquote.
Marc:Yeah, there's only about 10 at any given time.
Guest:And it's always been that way.
Guest:And it is.
Guest:What happened to the business?
Guest:A couple things happened.
Guest:How long did it run?
Guest:91?
Guest:Well, 2000, if you run the whole thing.
Guest:And then we did that four years in Detroit.
Marc:But oddly, like we said before, for comics, that was the difficult time from where I was standing.
Guest:Yeah, for mainstream comedy.
Guest:For maybe general white comedians.
Marc:Because the comedy club chains and basic cable television just sapped the hell out of everything.
Marc:And when I first started working in the early 90s, all you had was a bunch of comics going, it's over.
Marc:And that's when you started.
Marc:Why was it so different?
Guest:It was sort of like a decade behind.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then the black comedy circuit went through the same...
Guest:Boom and bust.
Guest:But only in the 90s.
Guest:Yes, through the 90s.
Guest:So by the end of the 90s, you had so many rooms doing stand-up.
Guest:You had the same TV overexposure.
Guest:You had the same sort of cycle.
Guest:Right, I get it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We went from 400 clubs to 250 around the country.
Marc:What was the struggle that you had with mainstream comedy clubs in terms of your business?
Guest:as far as booking acts ultimately like i mean i assume you wanted to branch out you wanted to franchise you know was there was there obstacles well a couple things happened to me personally uh sort of we went through this whole boom so you had a situation where the bernies and the dl's and the steves and the rocks they were gone
Guest:But the audience still wanted to see them in this up-close, personal way.
Guest:And if it wasn't them, they didn't care about who the new person was coming up.
Guest:They had no interest in that.
Guest:When is Bernie coming back?
Guest:Call me.
Guest:When is Cedric coming back?
Guest:Call me.
Marc:So the support that you had built up when these guys were nobody was diminished because now they had their stars.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:They were gone.
Guest:So the evolution was, well, why not...
Guest:Why not go after the entire market?
Guest:Because at that time, every club in the city had closed with the exception of Zany's, which was a 100-seat room.
Guest:So in Chicago at that time, say 2000, you had one room, Zany's, 100-seater.
Guest:That's bizarre.
Guest:It is bizarre.
Guest:You got six rooms in New York.
Guest:You got seven or eight in LA.
Guest:You'd only have one.
Guest:So I said, well,
Guest:shit, I'm going to go after the whole market.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:Why can't I book Ray Romano and why can't I book Mark?
Guest:Why not?
Guest:I mean, did nobody come to see him?
Guest:So I tried to do that.
Guest:And I tried to move north of the Chicago River because I felt like that would be a centrally located.
Guest:It's only a mile and a half.
Marc:Where was your old club?
Guest:South Loop.
Guest:So right below Congress.
Guest:Is that a black neighborhood?
Guest:Well, that was a sort of transitioning neighborhood when I went in there.
Guest:Now it's not.
Guest:I mean, it's a totally gentrified neighborhood now.
Guest:But...
Guest:At the time it wasn't.
Guest:So then when I made this move, that's when I recognized how segregated Chicago was.
Guest:I didn't know that until I did that.
Guest:I honestly didn't know.
Guest:I knew there was a south and a west, but I didn't know the intensity of the north versus south.
Marc:So you were sort of naive in that, like Chicago's, you know, it's a balanced town.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:I mean, listen.
Guest:I mean, if you're a black person, you know you're going to meet some resistance.
Guest:I already know that.
Guest:Right, got that.
Marc:But this was not the city that you thought that was in.
Guest:Well, I knew it was here, but I'm saying the intensity of it was beyond what I had anticipated.
Guest:Well, like what happened?
Guest:Soon as I got there, they said, well, you're from the south side.
Guest:Which means something.
Guest:General area.
Guest:Business community.
Guest:Yeah, business community.
Guest:What's this guy going to do?
Guest:So it's sort of like, well, I figure I'll get that resistance just in general.
Guest:So it's like, well, here's who I am.
Guest:This is what I've done.
Guest:This is what I'm doing.
Guest:This is what I'm planning on doing.
Guest:We don't really want that.
Guest:Well, you don't want what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was two comedy clubs within a half a mile radius of here.
Guest:Improv was here.
Guest:Funny Fern was here.
Guest:I don't know if you remember, but they were right around the corner from each other.
Guest:So we're going to do some of the same things.
Guest:Well, that's when that sort of thing raises its head and says, well, if you're black and you own a bakery, you own a black bakery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't just own a bakery.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You see what I mean?
Guest:So it's like, okay,
Guest:that's gonna mean X, Y, Z, and you're not even supposed to be.
Guest:So in their minds, they're like, well, then we're gonna have lines of black people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And all black people are the same.
Guest:Sure, in their minds.
Guest:So it's like Ali is the same as Bernie.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, wait a second.
Marc:But even with the pitch that you just want to open a comedy club.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you could show that to them on paper.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:They didn't trust you.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Guest:They didn't think, yeah, they didn't think I was capable of doing that.
Guest:Now, mind you, we had ran for eight years without one incident.
Guest:None.
Guest:Not inside the club, not outside the club.
Guest:That's unprecedented in a comedy club.
Guest:But, I mean, we were that aggressive about, because we know one incident.
Guest:In a black club?
Guest:You could be out of business because you're only getting one chance at this.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:So you were vigilant?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:You had to be.
Marc:But how did that manifest itself?
Guest:At our club?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we had to be, we had, obviously we had security.
Guest:We had people who we didn't tolerate heckling.
Guest:We didn't, we had rules, regulations.
Guest:This is how we're going to operate.
Guest:inside and outside.
Guest:Because if there was a broken bottle in the street, which we had absolutely nothing to do with, we would get blamed for that broken bottle being out there.
Guest:So we had to clean the street for one block.
Guest:When we left at the end of the night, we examined the whole street so that
Marc:So you were always conscious of the fact that if something goes down in a one-mile radius of a black-owned business, the whole community is going to get blamed for it.
Guest:You need to be thinking about it.
Marc:You need to be conscious of that.
Guest:You do.
Guest:And that's just the way it is.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So now what was the fight?
Marc:How long did the fight go on or was it the end of it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It went on for...
Guest:Man, was it close to two years by the time it all ended?
Guest:And by the end, I was out of time, time, money, energy.
Marc:And they just, what, they may have jumped through hoops for no reason?
Guest:Yeah, they keep it going.
Guest:It's a little bit different in Chicago now, but at that point, anybody could protest your license, and they keep dragging it on.
Guest:It's really a bizarre situation.
Marc:Did you have to try to align yourself with the people in local government and do all that?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You have to do that.
Guest:So some community members were for me, some were against.
Guest:In your community or here?
Guest:In the community I was moving to.
Guest:So, yeah, you had to fight that whole battle.
Marc:But at some point, did you realize, like, they're just dragging us on it?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I knew that all the way.
Guest:But then it gets to a point where you say, well, even if I opened, this is going to be hell.
Guest:Because every single thing I do, I'm going to have to manage it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Now, that's where the businessman comes in where I wasn't as good a businessman as I should have been.
Guest:It might be the moral and social thing to do, but I should have probably stopped a long time ago and started looking for another room.
Guest:oh just like me you know stop the fight and find a middle area forget about it and try to pull people to where you built it just go somewhere else right where i could exist and still do what i want to do that's the thing why do you think you didn't do that because i was still learning you know what i mean i was still learning what were you idealistic were you stubborn i think so i think i think were you fighting a fight that that's
Guest:I was fighting a fight culturally speaking, not from a businessman's thinking.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So this business at all costs thing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Rosa Parks said on the bus, I'm going to fight this shit until the very end.
Guest:So that's what you got.
Guest:That's not the thing to do.
Guest:You got to do it once though, right?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:No, I find myself in those positions still to this day where it's like, what should I be fighting for?
Guest:What should I let go?
Guest:Which one's cultural?
Guest:Which one's business?
Guest:It's a juggling act.
Marc:Well, that's because I think as somebody who...
Marc:has had experience in pursuing what the freedom of business in this country and just the nature of America is supposed to be about, but also carrying the legacy of the racial struggle.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:It's got to be an amazing kind of confusion.
Guest:No, it's...
Guest:It's a really, really delicate balance.
Guest:And you know what's interesting about it was when Obama's giving a talk in the Rose Garden and the guy interrupted him.
Guest:It wasn't a press conference.
Guest:He was talking.
Guest:Like every president does.
Guest:Comes in, says what he's saying, and he's gone.
Guest:And the guy just interrupts him.
Guest:I mean, just shouts out.
Guest:Or when he's giving State of the Union and that guy shouts out.
Guest:So I go...
Guest:how does he do it?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like he's a master at maintaining that sort of persona and the mentality and the difficulty of doing that to say, I've never seen that before.
Guest:But it's like, man, I mean, even the president's got to do it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So do you, you know, in your mind in terms of, you know, not just show business, but culturally in, in light of your experience,
Marc:Do you think that things are obviously better for individuals?
Marc:But I mean, in the struggle that you have around cultural versus business and everything else, has there been growth?
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:And I always like to say this.
Guest:Listen, nobody owes me shit.
Guest:I mean, I don't operate like that.
Guest:I can be successful.
Guest:I got all the tools.
Guest:We've got all the opportunity.
Guest:So I don't hold on to it.
Guest:So you don't think that the game is fixed?
Guest:Well, I think the game's probably fixed.
Guest:But, I mean, still, you can find your way.
Guest:And you can find your niche, and you can find – you may have to work twice as hard.
Guest:You may have to go through a lot more hurdles or whatever the case might be.
Guest:But it's still doable.
Guest:So that's cool, and I'm okay with that.
Guest:I don't hold that – I'm not bitter, angry.
Guest:It's more of an observation that there should be a level of respect
Guest:paid to this man for who for the office that he's holding so for a minute you go hey you know that guy you know somebody should pull him in the back or something you know what I mean but it's like well you can't do that you know what I mean you just can't for the same reason you had to clean up those bottles right
Guest:He'd be in a world of trouble if that was to happen.
Guest:Then he'd be angry.
Guest:Then he'd be bitter.
Guest:Then he'd be blaming folks for something they had nothing to do.
Guest:It's a whole chain of things.
Marc:But there is a different standard of judgment.
Marc:Sure, and that's okay.
Marc:It's just the way it is.
Guest:It is, and he still can be successful despite that.
Marc:Okay, so let's go back to Ali and John to talk about what Raymond had to say, and then we'll get into a little bit more about Chicago, and I will talk to Ali about Pootie Tang, because I've talked to Louis about it, and I've got to talk to Ali about it.
Marc:Now, you were in Chicago this whole time.
Marc:Now, did you see, Ali, did you see the landscape of comedy change?
Marc:And what kind of impact did it have on that?
Guest:Well, I mean, you know, there was this period when right in, there's an area in Chicago called River North.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So in like a one-mile radius, there was the improv scene.
Guest:uh there was a big club at the time the funny firm uh there was zanies and then in a in a hotel not too far away from there was catch a rising star right so on a saturday night all of those clubs would be full for two sometimes three shows uh the funny firm had two floors so they had a they had a main room and then they had a secondary satellite room upstairs and they were running five or six shows yeah on a saturday night
Guest:uh so that that period of time you know comedy was booming but how exclusionary was it for real you know like was was Monique playing in those rooms no Bernie playing no Bernie didn't get booked in those rooms Monique didn't get booked in those rooms I mean you know at the time sin uh not Sinbad but uh Sinbad got booked everywhere yeah I know Sinbad was a uh he was a touring headliner at the time yeah
Guest:because that was after his uh uh star search right so he was doing you know theaters right uh you know he was actually on that level but steve not steve either yeah steve not yet yeah so none of those guys you know so they didn't really have a place where they were getting booked as headliners which maybe on some road clubs right i mean if you go down like to louisville i guess there's a guy named tom sobel you know so you did some of his road clubs you know you can still do those if you ever
Marc:You sure want to get back in, man.
Guest:You can get there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then up in Minneapolis, there was a circuit up there.
Guest:I forget the name of the club.
Guest:Brave New Dudley Riggs.
Guest:He had his room.
Guest:So, you know, there was some road clubs where you could, but in the cities, it was a lot tougher.
Guest:Was there bitterness?
Marc:I mean, I know you can't speak for everybody, but the way I talked to Raymond about it, and, you know, he was really... It seemed to me that he wanted to compete with those clothes, but he also wanted to give opportunity where opportunity was deserved and owed and, you know, take care of these comics that were not necessarily appreciated.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know...
Guest:I don't really think of it as bitterness because there had not been an alternative.
Guest:So there was really nothing to judge it against.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, when you're getting a particular treatment, you know, you just think it's as good as it is.
Guest:And then when you're able to compare it to something else, when All Jokes Aside came along, then the black comics were like, fuck the funny firm.
Guest:I'm going to All Jokes Aside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they love me over there.
Marc:But there were black clubs.
Marc:I mean, there were black clubs.
Guest:Scattered.
Guest:I mean, there were black nights.
Guest:And the nights like Bernie Mac made his entire nut doing shows in rooms that were not comedy rooms.
Guest:Like he would get a Thursday night or a Wednesday night and he would do a comedy show and bring in a lot of the black comics.
Guest:And it would just be that night.
Guest:And then they'd go back to doing whatever else they did some other night.
Marc:The first time I ever saw Bernie Mac was was spectacular because it was it must have been 1995.
Marc:And I went to the Aspen Comedy Festival.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they brought Bernie out and Cedric and I think two other black dudes in the snow in Aspen.
Marc:And that night that I saw Bernie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:it was watching him perform in aspen it was not just like a fish out of water thing but it was like that he brought something that no one had ever fucking seen before i'd never seen anything like it before because you know he was very black yeah you know and in aspen and it's and it's literally skiers right the industry and i just never seen anything so honest so fucking uh you know focused angry but right on the money i mean it was unbelievable and i love to see his apres ski wear
Guest:Oh, no, there was no skiing.
Guest:And you got to think that at that time, you're talking about 95.
Guest:I was on the road with Bernie probably from about 91 to actually about 97.
Guest:So when you saw him in 95, he was actually touring theaters.
Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Selling out, you know, three, four, five thousand seat houses with regularity.
Guest:But to that audience, he was a virtual unknown.
Guest:And but you could feel all that momentum.
Marc:I mean, you know, he was not fucking around.
Marc:And now when you decided to do this thing, what was it that you were what?
Marc:As a documentarian, you know, in Remaining Objective or whatever your goal was, what was it you thought that this would show?
Marc:I mean, you know, outside of just the story, I mean, what did you learn from it?
Guest:Well, I grew up in Chicago, in Chicagoland, had worked there for many years in TV there, too.
Guest:So I knew it was a very, very segregated U.S.
Guest:city.
Guest:More so than, you know, I think it's the number one, it's the largest segregated city in the U.S.
Guest:I know that like, you know, like even with Ray and I, when we walk out of our editing room downtown, he would go left to the south side and I would go right to the north side.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's how it works in Chicago.
Guest:So I thought this is an opportunity for me because I'd worked at the PBS station there and done all kinds of documentaries about the project and all that.
Guest:I thought, here's a way for me to illustrate that with comedy.
Guest:I love comedy stories.
Guest:I don't make docs very often.
Guest:Every eight years, I do something like this, and then I go deep into debt, and then it takes me another eight years before I want to do one again.
Guest:So I don't consider myself a documentarian.
Guest:I consider myself...
Guest:Someone who does entertainment docs.
Guest:And I realized, hey, Ray had the star power.
Guest:I looked at the footage that he had.
Guest:I called Brian, who's sitting here in the room with us today.
Guest:And we just said, you know, we could put this together.
Guest:There's enough material here, but we've got to do it for a price and we'll make it smart and we'll make it a little bit edgy.
Guest:And we'll kind of, you know, get down on the city we all love because Ray loves Chicago.
Guest:But we wanted to smack their hand a little bit because we also felt this is still going on today.
Guest:I think Raymond would have trouble opening that club in that white entertainment district now.
Guest:There are not a lot of black owned businesses in that area.
Guest:There are businesses that blacks work at.
Guest:But in terms of ownership, no, I can't think of a single.
Guest:And, you know, we put it in the movie.
Guest:We track this down.
Guest:There wasn't a single black owned business north of that Chicago River.
Guest:Not even.
Guest:the blues clubs that's right so it was a way to do that that doesn't seem right not even the there's no black owned blues club and and the really great black blues clubs that were deep south chicago like teresa's white people don't go down there and if you can imagine anymore or ever well ever really unless you're interested in another culture which most chicagoans really aren't you'll sit on a bus in chicago directly across from a black person and you two will never talk
Guest:There'll be no exchange.
Marc:But it's interesting.
Marc:Am I wrong in thinking that, you know, outside of the South, that Chicago is really one of the oldest black communities in the States?
Marc:That, I mean, you know, when blacks left the South, I guess, in the 30s and 40s, I mean, that Chicago was... Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland.
Guest:Yeah, the Mississippi black people.
Guest:It's all about the highway, so it depends on where you are.
Guest:Like, the Texas black people came to L.A., the Mississippi, Alabama black people went to Detroit and Chicago...
Guest:And the Georgia, Georgia, North Carolina, black people went to New York.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and D.C.
Guest:So it's like, what's the major highway to 95 to 57 and the 10?
Guest:The one right over there.
Guest:That's where they went.
Marc:Where did your family come from?
Guest:My grandmother is from, gosh, where's Memphis?
Guest:That's Tennessee.
Guest:And my dad's from Louisiana and my mom was born in Chicago.
Marc:But you grew up your whole life in Chicago.
Marc:I was in Chicago.
Marc:And what kind of family?
Marc:What did your old man do?
Guest:He was a hustler.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, in a phrase, he was a hustler.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He opened a couple of businesses.
Guest:He sold candy, made clothes.
Guest:I think he played in a band for a while.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Seriously.
Guest:What did he play?
Guest:Congas for Al Green or something.
Guest:That's the story that I hear.
Marc:That's how the story goes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That one time?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you now in Chicago today, because I was just there, it was very interesting.
Marc:It seems like neighborhoods that were considered bad, you know, i.e.
Marc:black at one time, they they they get colonized by hipsters who are nervous for a while and then they bring the property values up.
Marc:And then all of a sudden that neighborhood is gone that, you know, whatever history had, you know, in terms of the black community gets sort of pushed aside.
Marc:And I think that when I talked to Raymond, he said that that kind of stuff happens a lot and that even the neighborhood that the All Jokes Aside was in originally, which he characterized as a fairly shitty neighborhood on any standard.
Marc:Is now not even a black neighborhood.
Guest:Now, now I was just there like a week ago.
Guest:Now, Columbia College in Chicago has brought up tons of space down there.
Guest:So it's almost like a university campus where the club used to be.
Guest:University.
Yeah.
Guest:It was just black.
Guest:You know, it wasn't even that bad when Ray was there.
Guest:It wasn't like you're going to get mugged.
Guest:There wasn't a lot going.
Guest:And not to mention the fact that the downtown Chicago, there was a police station like right at 11th and State.
Guest:So, you know, I mean, it was just it just was not a very populated area.
Guest:And there was a mission.
Guest:that was also down in that area.
Guest:So like I said, it wasn't populated.
Guest:There wasn't a lot of commerce, but it was more desolate than bad.
Marc:Well, I think that his point was, maybe I'm mischaracterizing what he said.
Marc:He said that in order to run a business, even as a black man in a black neighborhood, the type of care you had to put in to managing that business on the streets and making sure no shit went down around was far and above the call of what a white business would have to do because they're looking to shut you down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you actually have to know.
Guest:You got to know the people.
Guest:You got to know who's on this street.
Guest:You got to know who the shit starters are.
Guest:You know, sometimes you got to know it was like, you know, the drug dealers out here at this time.
Guest:I actually got to become friends with those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They got to know.
Guest:Don't fuck with me.
Guest:I'm cool.
Guest:I'm not going to fuck with you.
Guest:You actually have to make it's not it's not that you have to make a deal per se, but you do have to have relationships with a certain element when you move into certain neighborhoods.
Guest:But, you know, I mean, Ray did something.
Guest:I still don't know why we couldn't put this in the movie because I didn't think we'd cause anybody trouble, but I could be wrong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He used off duty Chicago cops.
Guest:They're not allowed to do that kind of work.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That's totally against Chicago court city official doing something illegal.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Shocking.
Guest:Shocking.
Guest:But there's no record history of that in Chicago.
Guest:But but one of the things that's interesting about that he never had a problem.
Guest:I mean not one.
Guest:In the entire time he was in that neighborhood, not a single arrest, no tickets for anything, no violence, because the Chicago cops took care of him.
Guest:And he had to help them out.
Guest:So when he went to apply for his liquor license to move north, he had an impeccable record, which should have just sailed through.
Guest:But then, of course, the people in the white entertainment district, once they figured out, oh, wait a minute, now we know what's coming in here, then they do a standard technique where they stall your license.
Guest:So what year was this?
Guest:I mean, just so people know.
Guest:Let's see.
Guest:He tried to move up north in 1998, and it wasn't resolved until 2000.
Guest:He started spending money in 1998 to open the club in the White Entertainment District.
Guest:By the time it all got settled and he won the court battle, it was 2000, but they broke him.
Guest:Because he's still paying on the rental of this space, which you can imagine the square footage rental up there was huge.
Guest:It's like a divorce.
Guest:He built a bar in.
Guest:He did the plumbing.
Guest:He did the electric.
Guest:And another thing we don't really mention in the movie, and I probably shouldn't do it because Ray says he'll get killed and his kids will end up in a dumpster.
Guest:It's interesting who ended up taking over the bar after he had put in all the features.
Guest:So that information will just get him hurt.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:but yeah we just i don't know who they are but apparently they're tough yeah you kind of know who they are but uh yeah so i mean they they crushed it um now here's the thing you know me and the other producer reed brody jewish guy from chicago very connected guy you know reed said to me john i wish ray had called me i could have gotten that club open for him and and he probably could have but what ray doesn't say in the movie but he says whenever we talk is that
Guest:Yes, in Chicago, he could have handled that with a check or with some cash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe as little as four or five grand, right, to the right alderman.
Guest:But he knew that if they're going to bust only one guy this year, they're going to bust the black guy.
Guest:Because that was going on all the time for white guys.
Guest:I mean, this is part of doing business.
Guest:I mean, when I first moved to California, I was almost arrested in Burbank because my wife and I put an addition on our house.
Guest:And because I'd been growing up in Chicago, I got the white envelope ready.
Guest:with the three $100 singles.
Guest:So when the Burbank City inspector came, I said, hey, I want to pay you and your family a tribute.
Guest:He's like, what are you talking about?
Guest:I go, I just want to give you a tribute, man.
Guest:He said, where are you people from?
Guest:I said, I'm from Chicago.
Guest:He went, oh, oh, okay.
Guest:He says, that'll get you in jail here.
Guest:But I was just so used to it that that is how it works there.
Guest:The city that wakes, you know.
Marc:Did you have experience with that?
Marc:I mean, in working for people?
Guest:I mean, you were just a... Yeah, I mean, you know, it's entirely different as you coming in as just a performer.
Guest:But the reality of having to make deals in that city is not unusual in the least.
Guest:And like I said, I mean, you know, he thought maybe he could be upstanding about it.
Guest:And that was just the wrong way to handle that.
Guest:But I'm not assuming that it's any different for anybody, but it's absolutely compounded and complicated if you're black.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he wanted to play by the rules.
Marc:It's a classic horrible story where I'm going to do things right and I'm going to give fun.
Guest:I mean, Ali said it that when we were at Ebertfest together, they were applauding Ray down there after he said, you know, and I was an upstanding moral person.
Guest:I made the right moral decision.
Guest:I think Ali said something like, they're applauding you for your failure, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You could have had a club open and the comics still could have a place to work, but no, you got principles.
Guest:Yeah, you got to be moral high ground.
Guest:And I believe Ray does.
Guest:I think he still does.
Guest:And it's tough to work in show business and have those principles.
Marc:Now, on any given night, you were working there when you were starting out?
Guest:By that time, I was years into the business by then.
Marc:So you were in?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was working around.
Guest:I worked all the other clubs as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And when you worked at his club, I mean, what was the night like?
Marc:Who were the acts mostly there?
Guest:Oh, gosh, man.
Guest:Who lived in the area?
Guest:No, it wasn't that.
Guest:There were certain acts like one of the hugest acts at that club was Simply Marvelous.
Guest:You may or may not know her.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:Simply was from Louisiana.
Guest:And she would come in like two or three times a year.
Guest:And she's just one of these women that absolutely killed in that club.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know, I mean, it was just huge.
Guest:Simply was in there.
Guest:Shucky Ducky used to play there.
Guest:Cedric the Entertainer was huge.
Guest:He was doing a lot of dates there.
Guest:AJ Jamal used to come through.
Guest:He did great.
Guest:George Wilborn.
Guest:George Wilborn and T to the motherfucking K. Yeah, yeah.
Marc:tk kirkland tk kirkland uh-huh and uh hugley was there hugley was there yeah he was young and he was like pissed off he was great i mean i watched that hbo half hour with him where he's just like got that fire and he's like and it was like holy fuck yeah but it's those acts like tk kirkland man those are just the the sorts of acts that you weren't going to see anywhere you weren't going to see him any place what did he do i don't know him the dirtiest shit yeah
Guest:I don't know these guys.
Marc:It bothers me.
Guest:Well, they're all huge, and they have an audience, a big audience.
Marc:No, I'm sure they do.
Marc:This is the thing that bothers me about knowing.
Marc:When people tell me that if I have a black comic in here and I focus on blackness, that I'm doing something isolating or something dubious.
Marc:But the fact of the matter is that there's a whole world...
Marc:Oh, shit, man.
Marc:Of black comics that no white people.
Marc:Some more?
Marc:You never seen some more?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:See?
Marc:Like, I feel left out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's hard.
Guest:And when you discover it, Mark, as a white person, you're like, what an idiot I've been.
Guest:I missed out on this.
Marc:What do you want people to take away from this?
Marc:I mean, what do you hope to, you know, when somebody watches this, like somebody like me, is it about me saying like, holy shit, I had no idea.
Marc:There were all these comedians I didn't know.
Marc:Is it to, you know, for someone to say like, oh my God, Chicago's still racist.
Marc:That's a sad story.
Marc:I wish that was open still.
Marc:What was your intention?
Guest:Sort of three things.
Guest:It's a cautionary tale for young black entrepreneurs.
Guest:That was one of the goals, because Ray was a business guy, really.
Guest:You know, Ray isn't a funny guy.
Guest:He's a business guy.
Guest:You know, he said to me one day, it could have been any business.
Guest:He was going to find something that he was going to make his own, that he was going to do the Ray Lambert way.
Guest:It happened to turn out to be comedy.
Guest:But even the people he partnered with to do it.
Guest:They weren't particularly interested in comedy.
Guest:The one guy never left his job at the bank.
Guest:Mary was a person from finance, the woman that he partnered with, Mary Lindsay.
Guest:So this was just the thing that they settled on.
Guest:So one of the stories is it's a cautionary tale for young black entrepreneurs.
Guest:You don't just have to be smart about the business.
Guest:You have to deal with this other issue in America called race.
Guest:The other thing was I wanted to make a fun doc, something funny, and expose my friends to, hey, I'll bet you guys didn't know about this world.
Guest:Look at how funny this is.
Guest:Look what a rich cultural existence this life is.
Guest:And you're going to laugh and you're going to learn something.
Guest:And I can't think of what the third reason was.
Guest:Those two were big enough.
Guest:And Ali, did you meet Chris in Chicago or did you meet him later?
Guest:I met Chris in New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is about 84, 85, something like that.
Guest:I met Chris.
Guest:He was still doing open mics at Comic Strip and Catch a Rising Star up on 78th, New York.
Guest:So that's when I met Chris out there.
Marc:And you met Louie on Chris's show?
Guest:I met Louie on Chris's show.
Guest:I didn't know him before the show.
Guest:And you and how are you and Louie get along now?
Guest:I haven't spoke.
Guest:You know, this is so weird, man.
Guest:This honestly, I almost feel like when I watched your episode, you and Louie, like I almost feel like I honestly, I don't know whether Louie likes me or dislikes me.
Guest:I'm not sure because it was all shit that had a lot to do with Pootie Tang.
Marc:Outside of this conversation, if you want, I'm curious about it, because I did a couple episodes with Louie, and we had our own issue, but I've known him forever, and we're okay.
Marc:But I think a lot of people, I remember when he was doing Foodie Tang.
Marc:I remember when he wrote it, and I remember what he was going through with the studio, and then I remember that the story was that they took it away from him, and they said, here, Ali, you fix it.
Marc:That's not entirely how that went.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not trying to sandbag you either.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:And you're not.
Guest:I got no problem telling the story.
Guest:They did take the movie away from Louis.
Guest:But what happened at the time was that Louis had gotten Pootie Tang into production as a byproduct of Chris doing Down to Earth with Paramount.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we had actually gone in.
Guest:Because Chris produced it?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So we had gone in to do some re-edits on Down to Earth with the Weitz brothers, and Sherry Lansing, who was the head of Paramount at the time, was like, okay, so we got Pootie Tang sitting over here, and they had tested it.
Guest:It hadn't tested well.
Guest:They took it from Louis, and they were passing it around.
Marc:And that's something that happens.
Marc:I think people should know that.
Marc:It's like, this is our money.
Marc:This is what you did.
Marc:We don't like it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:We've got the footage.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We own this movie.
Guest:We're going to do what we feel like doing.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So Chris and I were actually doing some work on Down to Earth, doing some rewrites and some work on that film.
Guest:The third remake of Down to Earth.
Marc:Right.
Guest:What was it originally called?
Marc:Heaven Can Wait.
Guest:Heaven Can Wait.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So while we were working on that, basically Paramount said, hey, since you guys are recutting this other film, work on Pootie Tang.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So what happened with me is that Chris was about to go out and do press for for down to earth.
Guest:He had just been on Oprah.
Guest:He was doing some other stuff.
Guest:So he's running around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They basically left me in a room with an assistant editor.
Guest:It was like, OK, you had some ideas that worked on this other film work on this one.
Guest:Now, mind you, they had already paid all of the go to fix it edit guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they came to me like, OK, we're not spending any fucking extra money on you.
Guest:You're in the room already.
Guest:So we've already tried to fix this and we think it's shit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what the fuck?
Guest:Why don't you give it a shot?
Guest:So, you know, I mean, from my standpoint, it was like, OK, you know, what do you do here?
Guest:You know, creatively.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I get that.
Guest:You know, I understood where Louis was coming from.
Guest:I had seen his two hour cut.
Guest:And I understood the esoteric humor and, you know, and the whole thing.
Guest:And on the other hand, just in a very practical sense, you know, the head of the studio asked me to do something for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, you know, as a guy, you know, making a living, trying to make a buck and being in the room anyway, you know, it's like, OK, you know, what to do here?
Guest:You know, I'm working with Chris, the head of the studio is like, OK, fuck, they gave it to me.
Guest:I didn't go and take it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So, you know, here's some ideas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so we cut it and here's the story that I like to tell.
Guest:Originally, Pootie Tang, the version that I know of, tested at a 13.
Guest:You can double check with Louie about that.
Guest:But tested at a 13.
Guest:Out of what?
Guest:Out of 100.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then when we recut it.
Guest:Out of 14.
Guest:When we recut it and put some shit in there and did some other stuff, we did some reshoots.
Guest:It tested at a 39.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, I don't know this for a fact, but I think that I may be one of the few people in the history of Hollywood to triple the score of a film.
Guest:But still have it come out under 50.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I might be the only guy.
Guest:So, I mean, you know, I mean, I get why creatively I get why creatively Louie absolutely would have been pissed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, and when you feel like that, it doesn't fucking make any difference to you.
Guest:You know who put their finger in the pie?
Guest:It's not the pie that you were trying to bake.
Guest:And that's right.
Guest:And, you know, look what they done to my song.
Guest:So I get it.
Guest:You know, I'm you know, I'm complicit.
Guest:I understand that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if he's pissed about it, I understand why he was.
Guest:But ultimately, the weird thing is fucking people liked it.
Guest:you know and that's the other tough part is that sometimes people look at your shit and they they don't you know they don't know that story so they just like what they they like and well then there's also like you know there's people like it's a cult classic people like it but there's also people like i wonder what the original cut would have looked like right what was a two-hour cut like
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because if I understand something about it, I mean, most of the changes were sort of narrative and you added a voiceover.
Guest:Yeah, I added a J.B.
Guest:Smoove voiceover and then we had to do a little extra picture.
Guest:Probably a lot of things that in terms of, like I said, in terms of a narrative, he felt better not having them.
Guest:But at the same time, you know, Louis' vision is so out there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That it took a lot of warming up.
Guest:Like where he is now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It took fucking 15 years of people seeing Louis be funny to be able to embrace this very loose narrative, jazzy style and shit that he's doing now.
Guest:He had to warm people up.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's fucking like listening to Frank Zappa for the first time.
Guest:Right.
Marc:He's like out there.
Marc:So you're saying ultimately, it's nothing personal, Lou.
Marc:I had a job to do.
Guest:Yeah, so it certainly was.
Guest:Have you talked to him since then?
Guest:The last time I saw Louis...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's like six or seven years ago.
Marc:It feels like it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, it's just interesting because I think it's one of those weird little moments where I think that in talking to Louis that that whole experience was a lesson to him outside of what happened with you.
Guest:I like to think that I helped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like to think that I was one of the nails in the coffin that made him go, fuck this shit.
Guest:I'm doing my own thing.
Guest:That's a good way to spin it.
Guest:I think for your own sake, that's probably the best way.
Guest:For me, I like to think of it as, you know, as negative as this was, Louie, in the larger scheme of things, it was a positive experience.
Guest:It gave you the fortitude and the vision to go, fuck this shit.
Guest:I'm doing my own thing and I'll look at you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what Ollie was thinking when he took that movie from me.
Marc:He's like, I'm doing this.
Guest:Oh, I didn't take the movie.
Marc:No, I know that.
Marc:Now you're in real trouble, right?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:You didn't take the movie.
Marc:But in this film, in John's film, you have a significant presence in there?
Guest:I was told after I did my interview that somehow I kind of became sort of a narrative thread, which was an odd thing to me because I wasn't one of the comics at all, jokes aside, who was one of the most popular comics.
Guest:But, you know, I was from Chicago.
Guest:I knew a lot of the players.
Guest:I knew the environment, and I knew all the stories.
Guest:So a lot of those guys came in and out of town, but I was kind of there.
Guest:So you were the historian.
Guest:Well, that's what I figured out later, is that Ollie actually knew more than anybody else we interviewed about the entire history of history.
Guest:Chicago comedy I mean you were doing this 12 13 years before Raymond ever got to town right Raymond knew everything from his arrival date forward but didn't know much about what had happened before and and like me we were incorrect and actually I sort of wish I had some time to talk to you before I did the interview because I would have found I would have had better questions for him because yeah he is kind of this story believe me I know that feeling oh god yeah I've done so many interviews the pre-interview is very helpful you know
Guest:Yeah, I never do it.
Guest:Every time we needed somebody to sort of take everything five comedians had said and sort of summarize it so you could walk away knowing exactly what the main point of that scene was, I'd say, let's go back to Ali's footage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because that guy knows how to synthesize this stuff, crystallize it, say it in two sentences.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I realized, you know, if I probably would have had Ali narrate the film, we would have taken him out of the position of being an interview.
Guest:I would have asked him anyway if he'd be interested in narrating it.
Guest:I mean, John Ridley turned out to be fine.
Guest:John Ridley.
Guest:I'm going to narrate the bootleg version.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:There we go.
Guest:And John Ridley brought something to it, too.
Guest:And he knew the business.
Marc:I tell you, I loved when Ridley did stand-up.
Marc:You know, he's gone on to, like both of you have, have gone on to much bigger careers outside of stand-up.
Marc:But he had a couple of great jokes, man.
Marc:He had that one joke about uptown cigarettes.
Marc:Do you remember that joke?
Marc:I don't remember that one.
Marc:It was a cigarette that they were very shameless about marketing specifically to black people.
Marc:And he said, I think the angle was that I would have liked to have seen this creative meeting where a white executive walks into an office and goes, you know, Bob, I can't help but notice there's still a lot of black people around.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:But I think also you and I share the fact that I get the sense that you were like, you know, in it very young and a really deep fan of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Of comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like being part of the community and sort of like, you know, having, you know, you know, knowing that, you know, you've got your sketch element and then you've got, you know, a mainstream comedy and then you were able to, you know, kind of, you know, crossover into just the black rooms and everything else that, you know, there's a joy to that.
Marc:to just sort of living that life.
Marc:And then at the end of all that, after 20 years or whatever, you're like, oh, I know that guy.
Marc:Let me tell you a story about that guy.
Marc:And that's our lives.
Marc:It's why I do this show.
Guest:Well, I mean, it's that thing where if you've been in it long enough,
Guest:sitting in a room with comedians yeah and and then you start you know you start going through the stories i forget the two big guys out of st louis uh it was zach and and something i forget those two guys uh a mac zach and mac yeah you know there was zach and mac were out of st louis and you know and then there was a there was a teddy laroi yeah uh who was big out of chicago uh-huh
Marc:It was a lot of guys, you know.
Marc:And then you got, everyone's got these mythic stories.
Marc:It's like, I heard that he, you know, and then you just sit there like, oh no, that's not how that went.
Guest:What really happened was nothing.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Like you see Boss, the show, the Kelsey Grammar show.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like all of the shit that on that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was Chicago when Harold Washington became mayor.
Guest:It was never more.
Guest:Matter of fact, what's happening in the country right now with Barack Obama as president.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All this shit was that was in Chicago.
Marc:Harold Washington became mayor.
Marc:Isn't that interesting?
Marc:Not only is comedy from Chicago in the culture now, but the government is Chicago.
Guest:Chicago is just in terms of like a social polarization.
Guest:I don't know that there's any major city in the country that galvanizes that idea in that sort of way.
Guest:I mean, that shit's more racist than any other big city, more segregated than any other big city, absolutely much more political.
Guest:So it's just a weird combination.
Marc:Yeah, it's uniquely American in its corruption and in the opposite of that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I mean, look at the politicians out there.
Guest:I mean, we actually have a little section about that in the film.
Guest:But it's always had this huge political thing because of the original boss, Mayor Daley, the original father there.
Guest:I think he's the beginning of the real corruption.
Guest:And also Capone.
Guest:I mean, the mob influence in that city is...
Guest:searching where Ray's Club was.
Guest:Al Capone opened a store about four blocks south of Ray's.
Guest:We were looking for another young man that came to Chicago looking to make an imprint.
Guest:We were thinking about going there.
Guest:That was good that you didn't go there.
Guest:There's a great new Capone book out, though, where a guy really did his homework.
Guest:It's fabulous.
Guest:And you find out a lot more.
Guest:He actually came to Chicago, if you can believe this, with good intentions.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But when things didn't go right, old Al had to.
Guest:Yeah, he had to invent the mafia.
Guest:It's like when Hitler didn't get into art school.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I mean, you know, the messed up thing about what all jokes kind of represented, it's this weird kind of idea because, you know, you have this a lot of times when you have, it's like the black sitcom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, black comedy on television is a business that gets passed around.
Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, sure.
Guest:At a time it was on the major networks.
Guest:It was on NBC, ABC, CBS.
Guest:And then at some point, you know, it got handed off to the secondary networks.
Guest:Then it was on, you know, there was big on Fox.
Guest:It was big on the WB.
Guest:Then it got big on the UPN.
Guest:You know, now.
Marc:So, you know, then got handed out to TBS for a second.
Marc:Now it's just all Tyler Perry.
Marc:And so now TV land.
Guest:You know, after 30 years of being in business now, the Black Entertainment Television Network is actually doing black comedy now.
Guest:They just started.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Just now?
Guest:Yeah, they just started.
Guest:Like the black comedy business just got in the hands of black people after like 30 years.
Guest:But the thing about the comedy side of it is that so out here in L.A., you'll see, you know, there's a black night, you know, it's chocolate sundaes at, you know, at the laugh factory.
Guest:And I forget what they call it.
Guest:You know, so they have a black night.
Guest:But that actual whole business of a club that caters to black comedians and that portion of the audience, like nobody picked it up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And said, fuck it.
Guest:They're not doing it.
Guest:We can do it.
Guest:We'll get the black people.
Guest:You know, not like they aren't fucking white owned barbecue fucking shacks and all the blues clubs are white people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's just interesting to me that that nobody even picked that business up to this day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So even in Chicago now, there's a few rooms that are doing it again.
Guest:And I'm not suggesting that that, you know, they should be bought out.
Guest:But in terms of, you know, fucking even BET, that shit's owned by Viacom now.
Guest:They're like, hey, there's some business in this black shit.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Always.
Guest:So it's just odd and interesting.
Guest:A white guy did the doc.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, black shit makes money when white people get interested in it.
Guest:except our doc we can do okay on our own yeah yeah but fucking you know def jam is warner music group and you know when fucking white people get interested in black shit that's when there's really money in it they're like shit if you made this money on your own without the use of our fucking you know magnificent magic machine behind you what the fuck could we do with it now mind you we're only going to give you one percent of this shit when we take over that's right but yeah you
Guest:The 1% of what we give you is going to be 10 times bigger than the fucking 100% that you had on your own.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And I think that the big issue there was that the black community never made their own magnificent magic machine.
Guest:They haven't been allowed.
Guest:Or embraced.
Guest:But that's the point of this story.
Guest:You can't fucking make it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You can't make your own magic, magnificent machine because the white people are in charge of that shit.
Guest:They're the one that hands out the leases.
Guest:They go, no, you can't have the machine.
Marc:I'm sorry, sir.
Marc:Sorry, bring a white guy back with you.
Marc:We'll give him the machine.
Marc:He gets keys to the machine.
Guest:That's what that's what Raymond was trying to do.
Guest:He was like, wow, this is big.
Guest:I can get greater access.
Guest:I can bring a greater audience.
Guest:It's not like white people don't enjoy this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then the machine goes, hold on, man.
Guest:Hold on, you're getting a little out of control here.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's not how this shit works.
Marc:Yeah, that is the horrible truth about the Magnificent Magic Machine.
Marc:That would have been the greatest fight for the end of the movie.
Marc:Well, we'll keep it for this.
Guest:So why don't you tell us where people can get this movie now?
Guest:Well, it's currently running on Showtime and will be for a long time.
Guest:They have a two-year deal on it, but they give you what's called a second window.
Guest:So in February of 2013, it's going to be on about 150 stations across the country, syndicated as a Black History Month special.
Guest:That's always a good hook for selling black shows.
Guest:It's coming out on DVD.
Guest:Speaking for the machine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's coming out on DVD October 2nd, and it'll be available from Redbox, Family Video, all other rental outlets like Amazon, Walmart, and eventually it'll end up in Kmart at some point.
Guest:But you can also go on the website of the company that's distributing it, Indican Pictures.
Guest:So it'll get a pretty broad release.
Guest:But October 2nd is going to be available for purchase on DVD.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Awesome.
Guest:And to the black people, just don't buy it in the barbershop at the beauty salon.
Guest:Don't buy the bullshit fucking ripped bootleg copy.
Guest:It's not going to cost that much.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, just, you know.
Guest:Thank you, Ali.
Guest:Buy the real copy.
Guest:That'll work.
Guest:I'm sure you just stopped a lot of sales.
Guest:You know, you're like, it's going to be in Walmart.
Guest:No, it's going to be in fucking Crenshaw.
Damn.
Guest:It's the Soul Plane story.
Marc:Let me try to reframe it a different way.
Marc:White people, you should really watch this film because it's a good film.
Marc:It'll teach you something about black culture and it'll broaden your point of view in your life.
Marc:And it's only available for purchase at places that sell it licensed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You can't get it anywhere else.
Guest:Black people know better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thanks, fellas.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:I definitely, it's a whole world I didn't really know about, and I was happy to talk to those guys.
Marc:It was good to see Ali again.
Marc:Yeah, I remember him from back in the day.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:That's iced.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:uh get that at wtfpod.com along with uh anything you want wtf related get on the mailing list check out the episode guide get the app upgrade to the premium app kick in a few shekels buy some merch check my tour dates of which there are not many if any because of this uh because i'm shooting the show and uh
Marc:Let's all send out some good juju to the missing boomer.
Marc:I will rise above.
Marc:I do miss the guy.
Marc:But I think he's with the trickster coyote.
Marc:I don't think he's with the coyote that eats things.
Marc:That eats cats.
Marc:He's on some sort of vision quest.
Marc:Some sort of heroic journey.
Marc:I'll have to tap into something to figure out what it is.
Marc:But I miss him.
Marc:And I will talk to you on Thursday.
Marc:Boomy lives.