Featured: Alex Bennett, Bob Goldthwaite, Patton Oswalt, Robin Williams, Dave Chappelle, Bobby Slayton, Jeremy Kramer, Kevin Spacey
What’s in This Episode
- Alex Bennett’s ‘King of Comedy’ era in 1980s San Francisco radio
- Early radio talk show format evolution from disc jockey to talk host
- Comedians’ early appearances on radio and career exposure
- Political discussion and disagreement in modern media
- Comedians who distanced themselves from early radio mentors
- Hot takes on Kevin Spacey from Bennett
Questions Answered in This Episode
Why was Alex Bennett called the King of Comedy?
Bennett earned the title through his influential 1980s San Francisco radio show where he organically began featuring comedians, eventually hosting live comedy concerts and becoming a central figure in the local comedy scene.
How did Alex Bennett transition from being a disc jockey?
Bennett moved away from spinning records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, believing it limited his show, and instead pioneered long-form talk radio with guests and conversation as his primary format.
Which comedians did Alex Bennett help early in their careers?
Bennett had early radio relationships with Bob Goldthwaite, Patton Oswalt, Robin Williams, and others, though some of these comedians later downplayed or denied his influence on their success.
Did Johnny Mac and Alex Bennett have political disagreements on air?
Yes, they frequently had friendly political discussions while working together from approximately 2004-2013, often respectfully disagreeing without hostility, which is different from modern political discourse.
Why did Johnny Mac edit out part of the Alex Bennett interview?
Johnny Mac removed the extended political discussion because it was recorded before a recent debate that changed the political landscape, and he wanted to avoid audience backlash over candidate endorsements.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, I’m Jenny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. This summer on Saturdays, I’ve been doing some interviews. Today’s guest is Alex Bennett, radio personality known for his mix of left wing politics and humor. So why are you talking to this political guy?
John Well? Back in the eighties, Alex was a jock in San Francisco, where the press dubbed him the King of Comedy for his influence on the local comedy scene. So you’ll hear us talk about people like Bob gat Goldthwaite and Patton Oswalt and Robin Williams. Will also talk about some things like Dave Chappelle and current comedy. Alex and I work together, oh like twenty and four to twenty thirteen, something like that, and we would have very friendly political discussions in the hallway every day.
We rarely agreed on anything, but it wasn’t the current name calling style of political disagreement. It was always like I feel this way, you’re crazy. You feel that way, you’re crazy. So as part of this interview, towards the end, we lightly talk about politics. I did edit back that part of the conversation one because we had had it before the debate, and the pieces on the board have changed since the debate.
And two, I don’t want to lose half the audience with you going. I can’t believe you don’t support candidate X. I hate your show now, John that I listen to for four years, and you’re stupid. And we’ll share with you whatever you come away thinking my politics are at the end, you’re probably wrong. You will hear us disagree on many things.
There’s a section about old jokes that kind of caught me off guard. Alex also had some hot takes about folks like Kevin Spacey that I didn’t even know how to feel. You’ll hear that awkwardness. And along the way, Alex said some swear words. I thought about taking them out.
It would have just made for choppy edits so Titan, your Belta notch today. I think there’s two or three. One of them is the capital M, capital F one, so be prepared for that one. And if you normally listen to Daily Comedy News with your kids in the car, don’t. Here’s Alex Bennett.
Let me just jump in here again to remind you we recorded this section before the debate. Back to the interview. So in my own career I went through these weird phases. I did news talk for the first ten years, and then when I started doing comedy at Serius XM, everybody hit me with, well, what do you know about comedy or a news talk guy. Then ten years later, when I got into podcasting and I went back doing news talk, everybody said, but you’re a comedy guy.
So Alex, the Alex Bennett I know is a host on the left leaning channel on series XM, and we used to talk politics a lot during the days.
And then I’m talking to Mike Chisholm from The Letterman podcast who randomly…
So this morning I’m prepping even though I know you. But now after doing the prep, I’m like, maybe I don’t really know Alex Bennett. Because I mean this lovingly. I when I see the King of Comedy, I’m like, oh, I missed the boat on a big chunk of this man’s career. Let me dive in here.
So I invite you on today not to do our usual political friendly banter, but to talk comedy. So how did you become the king of comedy? That is not a light term. That is not a light term. And I don’t know that I ever particularly use the term myself, okay, but when I was in San Francisco, I started the thing where I, you know, everything I ever did in this business is just it’s organic.
I don’t sit down and say I’m going to do a show with comedians. Okay, the show with comedians kind of happened in that one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I was up to my ass in comics.
And then of course the newspaper started referring to me as the king of comedy.
You know, when I was here in New York years ago and I did left wing politics and I did music, musicians and what we call left wing politics, the Abby Hoffmans and so on, the press referred to me as the youth guru. So you always get this kind of handle. And the one thing about radio that was great in those days is you could move to a completely different market and redefine yourself. And I always enjoyed comedy, and I met up with a comic who came on the show, and he was very funny, and I thought, this is very nice. And after the show, I said, you have any other friends who might want to do the show?
No comedians were doing radio shows at that time, and he so he said, yeah, I got this other friend, Bobby Slayton.
And then Bobby Slayton, I said, I got this other friend, Jeremy Kramer, and J…
Before I knew it, I was up to my ass in comics. I was doing live comedy concerts and things like that. It became a literal business for me. Now, what was your show back in the day? Were you spinning records?
Were you mostly talking? Were you doing issues on the days? You didn’t have comedians In my career except for the very early part of my career, I never spun records. I always resented the idea of using somebody else’s talent to make my show work. Okay, So I was very much the undisc jockey.
I mean I came out of being a disc jockey. I’m not denying that, but I got tired of that. I thought that that was very limited in my opinion, and wasn’t the kind of radio I wanted to do, you know, so I didn’t really ever play record. I played records occasionally, you know, to fill time I had to go to the bathroom. Now, and how early on were you going jockless?
You know? I think back to the New York market. Maybe other than wor there weren’t there weren’t really long form talk shows other than evening sports talk. But the modern talk era to me is more very late eighties, early nineties. But you were ahead of that.
I was doing talk in Houston, Texas. Thank god. I have to remember the years now, it goes I go crazy trying to remember the years for that. The nineteen sixties maybe late six sixties. Yeah, I was doing a talk show in Houston, Texas as Alexander Bennett, the man you love to hate.
I didn’t create that, by the way, that was given to me by the radio station. That gets back to you know, in later days, everybody hates Howard Stern, so they listened to him three hours a day. Yeah, exactly when you started having the comedians on. There’s this weird thing with the comics. I guess when they’re not really well known, they look up to the DJs.
And then they at some point they pass radio, and radio is not cool anymore, even at serious My listeners know I will name check. I won’t do it today. But a particular comedian who’s pretty famous now, who came up a lot in two thousand and three, two thousand and four and then forgot our phone number, how did they react to you back in the day. Pretty good, actually, And even to this day some of them will still remember me and mention that I had a part in their career. Then there are others who who I had very much a big part of their career and like to deny it, you know, because I made it on my own.
I didn’t need Alex Bennett blah blah blah blah blah. You know, well, yes you did at that time, and you used me till the cows came home. You know. Yeah, it’s not taking credit for someone’s work. They’re clearly talented, but you giving somebody exposure helps accelerate someone’s career, and let’s just be real about it.
Well, I don’t want to see. Here’s the thing. It’s kind of like, and I don’t want to deny people deny that I had anything to do with their career. Yet on the other hand, I don’t want them to have to say, oh, hey, Alex Bennett helped me. You know, Alex Bennett made my career.
I don’t want that either. I just want them not to resent me because I helped them at one time. You know, I was telling the story today. This is interesting. If there are a few comics I could probably say I had something to do with their career.
Others who say I had something to do with their careers that I go, well, you know, it was more you than me. Okay. But one guy who I absolutely made in San Francisco made him into a big star, was Bob Goldthway. And Bob Goldthwaite came to us from Boston, where he done okay, he came to San Francisco and he came on my show, and the one thing he noticed about me that nobody else was who did morning shows. He was expecting that I was going to at some point say during the interview, well, Bob, come on, what do you really like And I never did that.
What I did is I love being the straight man, and I played to the character and he loved that and because of it, because of the combination of me knowing how to use him and him appreciating what I was doing for him. He became a just I mean, I can’t tell you what kind of a star he became. In San Francisco. I would hold concerts with Bob Goldthwaye on the bill, and they sold out in fifteen minutes, okay, and these were sometimes thousand sedars. So you know, I made this guy a star in San Francisco.
And then people called him to come to LA and be in the movies, and he did the Police Academy films and some other films and whatever. He comes back to San Francisco to do a special on HBO for one of the one night stands I think it was, and I figured I’ll go backstage to say, oh to Bob. I haven’t seen him in a while. It’s been in LA and whatever. I want to see how he is.
And I go in to see him and it’s, Oh, Alex, how are you arms around me? Jim, I’m so happy to see you doing so well. Bob. Oh, thank you so much. And I really, you know, appreciate our relationship.
It was just huggy, kissy, wonderful, all of that. Right now, I go out in the audience ready to see his act, and this is being taped, of course, for HBO, and the first ten minutes of his act was putting me down no way, Yes by name or as character by name. Oh tell me more about that. No. I mean, I can’t even remember what he said.
But it was one thing after another. Alex Bannon, Hey, what this? And he no talent, son of a bitch, blah blah blah, you know, and I’m going, wait a minute, that wasn’t wasn’t the guy I was talking to fifteen minutes ago, was it? You know? And after that time, I just you know, I just wrote them off, you know.
And I never did anything to Bob except wish the best for him and try to set the table for his career, you know. And he he just say, you know, so I think there’s a sense of some comics will deny you. Okay, I’ll tell you a guy. It was a good guy, Patton Oswalt. He was doing a special in San Francisco for HBO, doing it at the Great American Music Hall, where we did a lot of our gigs.
And he said to me, so I get a call and it’s Patton. He said, Alex, I just wanted to call and say hello, and I said, well, it’s very nice for me to do that, Paton, He says, no, I wanted to tell you to night. I’m just playing the great American music call. I’m doing it special for HBO, and I have to thank you for my career. And I went, hey, you know, and I said what I always say when the comedian would say something like that, I didn’t do it.
You did it. You were great, you were terrific, you know. But it was a nice thing for him to do. He didn’t have to do that, you know. He went out of his way to call me.
That’s super classy. So some guys are really nice and appreciate what you did for him, and nobody should appreciate what I did for him. Hell, they did for me too. I had a top morning radio show in San Francisco and they were part of the reason why, and so I have to thank them too. We used each other.
I find it a weird move to go after you were any jock because in radio back in those days, even if you were an all time ratings guru, maybe twelve percent of the town is listening to you and another twenty percent. I’ve heard of you. So if you go up and you start talking about the morning Man, half the audience might not know who you’re even talking about. Well, in San Francisco, they they probably knew pretty well. If they were going to a comedy show and they were interest in comedy, they probably listened to my show.
Good point, So you know that’s why that played. But you know, so some comedians are really appreciative and others aren’t. I don’t care if they aren’t appreciative. But no, don’t go on television for fifteen minutes or ten minutes of your comedy act that they’re taping and put me down. You know, I don’t deserve that.
And at this point, he’s still doing the character. No, he’s not doing that anymore. No, not anymore. But when he ripped o oh yeah, it was still doing the characters. Yeah.
Yeah, he almost seems like a different personnel. It does make me laugh that he titled one of his albums, you don’t look the same either. I thought that was very funny. But he’s done over his act. I do enjoy his modern comedy.
Well. I The thing that I found about Bob is that sometimes you create a character that America loves in his case in San Francisco. That character is a very lovable character, a person who was totally afraid of everything and screamed and you know, it was whatever, and it was a great hack. But at a certain point, people like that suddenly one day wake up and go, oh, I want to marry you. To know what the real Bob Goldthwait is Like, Well, they aren’t buying the Bob Goldwaight that you know eats dinner every night with his family.
They’re going there to see Bob Goldthwait the comedian, And sometimes they start resenting the character they’re playing. And it’s sad when that happens, because some of them create great characters. You know. One guy always persisted beautifully was Emo Phillips. Sure, And I got to tell you Emo had a character.
If anybody had a character, Emo had a character. Okay. And I would sometimes sit down either backstage or at a party or whatever with Emo and have a really strong political discussion, kind of like you and I used to have. And he was a right winger, rabid right winger, and so we would go back and forth and discussing it and very intelligent guy. And I really like Demo a lot, even though we didn’t agree politically, but he had you know, he had a character.
He always lived with that character. He didn’t care if anybody want to know who the real Emo Phillips was, you know. But backstage did he drop it and speaking in more normally he dropped it completely? Yeah, dropped it completely. Now another guy.
People always ask me about Gilbert. Yes, I was gonna bring Gilbert up. Yeah, Gilbert had a character, no question about it. Was Gilbert that way when he wasn’t on stage, Well, he sounded like Gilbert, but he was quieter. He’s much more demure.
I mean every year we would both go to the same party, Christmas party together, and we hate parties, so we both went off into a corner and would talk for hours, you know. And yeah, there was a Gilbert voice, but it wasn’t the Gilbert persona. You know what I’m saying. That’s a different between the persona and how you still sound like yourself when you’re off the off the stage, but the demeanor is not the same. Yeah, you’d be hey, Gilbert, let’s go back to Studio three.
Oh okay, And that’s said. You wouldn’t get the the afflac Duck parking back at you exactly exactly more with that look’s been ittt after this. What made San Francisco such a great comedy scene it still is. There are certain cities, you know, New York, Boston, Philly, Austin in there. Now I can go back and forth in la but San Francisco definitely had a scene, still has a scene.
The Great Sketch Fest. What is it about the uh? You know, I’d like to say that at least that comedy scene during that period of time, which was the nineteen seventies, was part of the way it was because as a me I mean, I had a radio show and we promoted comedy, and comedians came on and established their characters on the you know, these guys were these guys were fool proof when they went to do a gig somewhere because people had already accepted their voice as it was. You know, because what a comedian has to do when they first go on stage is establish who they are to the audience. And you got to do that as quickly as possible.
You should be able to do it in the first five minutes, so that if nobody has ever seen a Gilbert Godfreed in the first couple of minutes. He’s got to establish this character and bring you into his world. Well, if you did my radio show, you didn’t have to do that because everybody had already been brought into your war and they were there because they probably heard about it on my show that you were playing somewhere and they went to see you. So you didn’t have to do that salesmanship. I mean, I could go on stage and I could get big laughs on stage, but I’m not comedian.
I was an MC of these shows, and yet I got laughs just simply because it was all based upon they listened to me on the radio and I said something that I had to do with the radio show or whatever, you know, So it may made comedians’ jobs a lot easier. Yeah, and you can. You can kind of cruise on attitude and timing for three four five minutes in front of one audience once. I’ve been talking with several guests recently about things that sound like comedy but maybe there’s no actual joke there. You can kind of get into that rhythm.
Yeah, well, I’ll I’ll give you an example of something I said. You have to establish yourself in the first couple of minutes. Here, on stage, bring people into that world of yours, that kind of skewed world that you have, and then they laugh along with you at these things. The best comedian I’ve ever known for bringing people into them as a guy by named Larry Bubbles Brown. I don’t know if you know who Larry Bubbles Brown.
Tell Larry Bubbles Brown for my money. Is one of the most professional comedians alive. Okay, And Larry plays this dead pan on stage okay, and the first words out of his mouth are, yesterday, somebody tried to steal my identity. Now they’ve got no life. That sets it all up for the next ten minutes.
It doesn’t matter. He’s established that character with that one joke. I was reading an article I think it was yesterday with Jerry saying that he’ll set up like you know, I’m having an argument with my wife and he said the audience knows it’s not true, but they’re willing to go for the ride. They’re willing to go for the bit. Oh yeah, absolutely.
Listen. Henny Youngman was saying take my wife please, long after she was dead, you know, so I mean, but still it. You know, it’s important that you establish yourself when you first go on stage. You know, I’m bringing people into that world of yours, that craziness that you inhabit. But as a comedy snob, I sometimes struggle with I’ll be watching a set and I understand that, you know, the basic compared to graphing out a sentence when you’re in grammar school, the basic, here’s a premise.
Let me exaggerate it for effect. Let me tell something that happened very colorfully. Let me say something that probably didn’t happen at all, but it’s funny, and later do the callback. I get that, But sometimes I’ll watch a set and I just don’t believe a single word coming out of the artist’s mouth that I’m like, that never happened. This is just a made up story for laughs, And I struggle connecting with it that they haven’t sold it to me.
Whereas Jerry’s admitting to the tricks of the magician, and I go, yeah, all right, I can imagine having Maybe it’s maybe I’m profiling back to myself. I can imagine having a fight with my wife. Maybe that’s what the connection is. Could also be no comedy too, Well, well, that’s true, I was that can spoil it for you. I have one of my best friends over the years has been Bobby Slayton.
Well, why you think is inexorably the one of the greatest stand ups alive? Okay, And he doesn’t even do his act anymore because he feels he’s been, you know, shut out of the business by people being too socially what’s the word I’m looking for, socially? Right? Correct? Okay, because his act isn’t that way puts down everybody, Chinese, black people.
He’s a black guy in the audience, you know, he’s kind of like Rickles in that in that fashion, and Bobby is just an incredible comic, and he finds he can’t work anymore because his act has problems that people are just to to, Oh, that’s not correct. You shouldn’t say that about women. You know, can’t do the wife jokes anymore, even though his wife’s dead by the way, but he can’t do the wife jokes, so he’s got to the girlfriend jokes. He can’t do them anymore. Most he said, most of my acts being got it.
But who are the people that are offended? I talked about this on the show the other day. Every day there’s an article some comedian I just saw Julie Louis Dreyfuss reacting to it. You can’t say anything anymore. But who are these people who’s actually canceled?
Like, who’s telling Bobby he can’t do that act when he goes to a college and they start booing him for a joke. You know, there are a lot of comedians now who just will not play colleges any longer. Yeah, I know, Jerry’s one of them. Can you imagine like that they’re too politically correct? Yeah, a college student being more uptight than a sixty seven year old comedian, Like what is happening?
That’s absolutely correct, you know. And the fact is that I hate it when I see that Bobby decided to quit the business. He just you know, it’s that and salaries they’re paying too. You know, they’re trying to get away as cheaply as possible. Hey, Slate, you want four thousand a week, I can go get Bobby asshole to to work for a third of that.
You know, So why should I hire you? Because you’re a draw? You’re not a draw in this theater? Blah blah blah blah blah. You know, I mean, it’s just it’s very hard for for especially older comedians today to work.
You know, I mean, I have my I mentioned Larry Bubbles Brown. He may not know, but he He’s worked more consistently with people than I’ve ever known because he’s the perfect opening act. And so he always opens for Dana Carvey. And there’s this Spanish guy that he opens up for. I can’t remember his name now, Sparsa Philippias Sparsa, Philippia Sparsa.
Anytime he’s in the Bay Area, he has bubbles open for him. Heah bubbles open for him at the Netflix Festival, you know, because he’s a great opening act, because he does one of his main things is he doesn’t spoil the room. There can be who spoil the room. You put a Bob Goldthwaite on, Nobody wants to follow him. Why not because he’s great, Because he’s loud, and loud comedians are hard to follow.
So you want an opening act that doesn’t spoil the room. And he doesn’t spoil the room. I was looking at your resume and I had no idea. I found this poster HBO comedy Half Hours hosted by Alex Bennett nineteen ninety five. Fillmore Poster fifty Bucks, by the way, But listen to this lineup.
I mean you were there, Bob, Jonathan Katz, Mark Maren, Judy Gold, Dana Gould, Jeanine Garoffalo, Carlos Mencia. I mean, that’s some lineup. If I had to rank them, Jonathan Katz is the seventh greatest comedian on that list. That’s some show. Yeah, that was, But that was an HBO one Night stant or half what were they half hour comedy half hour comedy hour?
Yeah, that was for the This was an HBO show that they were taping in San Francisco. And all I did at that point I if you listen to the old One Night one night Stands the first season, I’m the announcer on the first season. But I all I did, really was I hustled the crowd into the into the show, and then I opened up the show by being the warm up guy. But I did those were not my shows. The posters pretty awesome, though, it is I know you.
Also, it says here you’re the host of Public Television’s comedy Tonight. I’m k q ed I again, you’re somebody I talked to every day for ten years. I had no idea six five seasons, and then I was replaced as a host by Whoopy Goldberg. I can argue that either way. Right says it says tonight the part of Alex Vanner will be played by Whoopy Goldberg.
At least it’s somebody we’ve heard of. H No. I was the host of that show for I think it was five years. What was that show? Like?
What happened on it? It was a half hour show, three comics per show came out of what was I think it’s now called Wolfgangs, or maybe it was called Wolfgangs. I can’t remember now, But anyway, we did. We did the shows out of there, and we would go in once a year, spend a couple of nights and do all these shows. And you know, and I got residuals for another twenty years.
Oh that’s nice. Fifty cents or five thousand dollars going to ask, Well, No, I got paid one hundred and fifty dollars a show.
And then you know, when they put the shows back on and ran the various places…
Bill Maher is a still run his HBO one night Stand on the Max and every time they keep doing that, every year I get another check each year. It’s for less and less money, but I figure over the years I’ve made maybe three four thousand dollars from Bill Maher. Thanks Bill, Thanks Bill, just for doing the opening. But by the way, that’s a that’s a great story that she’s doing the one night stand, okay, or yeah, HBO’s one night Stand. So I do the warm up, right, and every night I get a little better, I get a little funnier, get you know, I get a little I build a little act.
By the fifth night of doing these shows, I’m pretty damn good. Okay, but I’m not a stand up but I never will be, and I don’t ever expect to compete in that arena. But anyway, so we’re doing the show that night, with among other things, Bill Maher doing his show. So I do the warm up, you know, and a part of it is I’ll say, like, how many here, like I don’t know, I don’t know who the president was at the time, and some of them will boo and cheer and so. But what you’re trying to do is, among other things, you’re trying to get a reaction from the audience that they can have some sound to use if they have to fill in the show, like laughing or applauding or whatever.
I get the people to applaud all it. So anyway, so before I go on, I’m called into Bill Maher’s dressing room and he looks at me. He says, you’re Alex Bennett. I said, yes, you’re the warm up guy on the show. I said, I’m not really the warm up guy.
I’m kind of, you know, just going out and getting people warmed up. And so he says, do you do any political And I said, well, you know, I use a few political things to get people to applaud and to cheer and get a reaction. You know, how many people here like so and so? And I can’t. I can’t remember it was president at the time, and who the the opposition was, you know.
But and he says, so you do comment, you do do political. I said, well, that’s not really political. I’m just you know. He said, well I do political, so stop doing it. And I looked at him and I said, I happen to know you’re making twenty thousand dollars for this show tonight.
Follow me motherfucker. That’s fantastic. Yeah, political comedy has kind of become a lightning rod. Now, if I’m thinking back, depending on the president, some president’s made for better comedy. Everybody had a generic Nixon, Everybody did the Ronald Reagan, Whyale, you know, maybe not so much Bush.
Other than somebody doing Dana Carvey’s. Nobody really nailed Obama. But I feel like these days, other than the late night guys piling on Trump, I feel like there’s a fear to really go political at all. You just immediately lose half the audience. Whereas back in the day, you could make a Bill Clinton joke.
Yeah you could, and people would laugh at it because you’re making fun of the of the character Bill Clinton, not the personal problems that Bill Clinton might have. You know, I think that people are too sensitive. Yeah, you’re going to lose half the audience if you tell them where you are politically. These days, I think that goes for any place. You know, the trouble I have and I you know, I enjoy all the bashing of Trump.
I have no compunctions about that, but I wonder if it isn’t cheap because he’s really easy to get a laugh from. You know, yes, it’s a really it’s it’s almost like, why don’t you use the F word? Why shouldn’t you use the F word? Hear? I?
Well, I always hated comedians who would use well we can say it here, who used fuck as a punchline. You know, they’d be telling him and fuck and that’s the point, and everybody would laugh, and I go, that’s not comedy. You don’t use that as a punchline. And the same thing is true with Trump. Very easy, it’s very easy to do that, you know.
And I don’t know if I had a comedy act somewhere, if I would go after Trump, because I consider it maybe cheap. But conversely, I personally like a good old fashioned Joe Biden is so old joke, and the joke’s not really about Biden despite his age. It’s really a so and so is so old punchline. Here. I love those.
Well, I am eighty four years old, and I get a bit upset by them because again, they’re kind of a cheap shot. You know. It’s always about oh yeah, blah blah blah. I’ll expend it meta musil you know, uh, I you know, at eighty four, I don’t know if I find ages funny. You know, we got enough problems being old, but people laugh at us.
So see, I don’t know. I want to keep the courage of my own convictions here. And you and I have a twenty year relationship of respectful discussions. And so where you’re you were always wrong, I was always wrong. I admitted that to you in the pre dape.
I like a good solid you know. Joe Biden was at the D Day ceremony. It was the first time he had been there since serving as a colonel in nineteen forty five. Like, it’s a silly joke and at the risk of offending you, Hey, Alex Bennett was talking about D Day. It must have been really great for him to see his old friends.
Like, it’s just to me, that’s just a joke, joke. Well, to you, it’s a joke, joke. To somebody that age, it’s not as much of a joke. It’s kind of like saying, oh, that joke about a black person is just a joke. Joke, you know, but if you’re black, it may not be a joke.
So then what can we joke about? Well, you can joke about anything. And I have the right to be offended by it if I want to, But I don’t have the right to stop you from offending me. That makes sense, It makes total sense. Yeah, I have the right to be offended, you know, And as I got older, I have I can hear you when I give it.
I’ll tell you a story. I was doing comedy tonight in San Francisco, and what I would have to do is I would have to go into Channel nine in San Francisco, which was the PBS station, and record some voiceovers for stuff we had missed or for the shows that we were doing or whatever. But I do the voiceovers. So I’m sitting over there waiting in the lobby to get going on this thing, and the woman who is the receptionist there says, by the way, mister so and so over at over Easy would like to see you now. Over Easy was the show they did with you downs.
It was about age and about aging, okay, And so I said, okay, I’ve got a couple of minutes. I’ll go over there. And I went over there and I introduced myself. He said, Hi, you know, he says, I’ve listened to your show in the morning along, he said, and you make jokes about old people, he said. Now, I’m not here to tell you to stop, he said, but the fact is, it’s hard enough being old.
Because this guy was the expert on aging and agism. He says, difficult enough getting old without having somebody make fun of you. And he said, you really should stop doing that. And I thought about it, and I said, you know, he’s right, and I never did another. So he’s so old joke ever again, because he felt that it’s hard enough getting being old, but it gets really hard when people are giving it making a joke about it.
You know. Now, I appreciate that. I think one of the things, especially as we age, is you learn that life’s a journey and all you can try and do is be a better person than you were the day before. And along the way, some mistakes were made. I’ve been open with this audience back.
I try. I try. I try to be the worst person I can be every day. I figure I didn’t do it well enough when I was younger. I want to get it down when I’m older.
You know, a great thing about being old is that you can tell just yell at people, get out of my way, get off of my lawn, you know, and they fully expect it, so what are you doing? You know? I remember back at Serious it was pretty early in my run. We had something on the air and one day one of my friends from out Q, which was the LGBTQ Plus station, came by in a very friendly way and said, what the hell’s your problem? And I was like, what are you talking about?
And he pointed out the thing that we had on the air that was offensive. That here, twenty years later, I’m embarrassed by I wish we hadn’t done it. At the time I put it on the air, I approved it. It didn’t accidentally make it on the air. I was just too stupid, ignorant, foolish, uneducated, didn’t realize we were hurting people.
And we took it off the air as soon it was brought to our ted what was it? Jim Brewer had a bumper. He used to use a word that rhymes with rag and starts with F. I don’t want to use it, and he would explain it as it had nothing to do with sexuality. He would describe it as the kid who couldn’t kick the kickball in the playground.
Was how Jimmy and us denim jacket wearing knuckleheads from Queens and Long Island who grew up in the eighties didn’t think twice about it.
And then the friend coworker came over and I was like, what is your problem?
And I was horrified. I’m still horrified by this twenty twenty five years later, but I don’t have a time machine. I’ll loan up to it. I’m sorry we did it, but I can’t go back in time. Yeah, but also, you did it at a time when it was still fairly acceptable and wasn’t in your purview as being wrong.
Today, you might not do it today, you might feel guilty about it because you now know how wrong it was in retrospect, but at the time you didn’t. I’ll tell you when I was, you know, I had comedians on every morning, and all of a sudden, in the middle of doing my little morning comedy show, something hit San Francisco that hit San Francisco before it hit anywhere else. It was a thing called AIDS and it was hitting pretty badly and people were dying by a high number. But I, being the straight guy, not hanging out in the in the Castro district or anything like that, never really thought about it. You know, and I had comedians coming on making jokes about age, okay, which at that point he went, oh, well, yeah, it’s just a joke about AIDS.
Oh blah blah blah. One night, I’m watching television. They show a guy with age and he’s got all these CARPOSI sarcoma all over his face and his body and so on, and he’s gone and looks like he’s on the edge of death. And I said to myself, there’s no joke in this disease. So the next day I went in and every comedian came on and he said, no age jokes.
And I was the first guy actually in San Francisco to realize that, you know, but I just found that I didn’t see anything funny in age. I didn’t see it. There’s only one funny age joke I’ve ever heard, okay, and that was what’s the worst part about having AIDS? Having to tell your parents your haitian. That’s a good joke, I know.
I just I wanted to laugh at the joke. That’s a good joke. And I’m like, can I laugh at this? Am I going to be canceled? This is the struggles you see every other gay joke these comedians were doing was at the expense of the person being gay?
Okay, that joke does it isn’t at the expense of somebody being gay and and so uh, you know. But otherwise I just said, no more jokes about ads and I hit it right on the head. Then a lot of other people realized that that was the way to go too, you know. But I mean, it was horrible. It was a horrible disease.
What’s funny about it? How did comedians react to you putting up a boundary? None of them were bothered by it. They understood what I was saying. That’s great, explained I explained it to him.
I said, I you know, I’ve seen people with aids and it’s not funny. There’s nothing you wouldn’t tell me a funny joke about cancer. You know, you can’t really come up with a funny cancer joke, can you? And they said no, And I said, then, how can you come up with a funny age joke? For those of us at a certain age, my age, Eddie Murphy’s brow Slash Delirious was a cornerstone comedy piece because we were too young to realize what a Richard Pryor cover act.
It was, but his. He has the first ten to fifteen minutes of that set. There are some age jokes in there. I mean nothing in that set as aged particularly well, but I could probably do the entire thing off the top of my head. That’s how many times I listened to it and laughed at it.
As a fourteen year old, I never found Prior a very good stand up interesting talk to me, not Prior, Not Prior, Eddie Murphy. I thought you were going to go on a heart take here, Alex Bett. It well for exactly the reason you said it wasn’t funny because he was trying to be Richard Pryor only in a leather suit. Well even sunset strip, Richard’s wearing a red suit. It’s a total lift.
Again, I was fourteen, I didn’t know. But as I’ve studied this, I go back and I listened to the way Richard tells a story, the voices Richard does, and Eddie’s a cover act doesn’t mean it’s not funny, but it’s a cover band. Prior was empirical. He was He was one of the best of all time. I didn’t come to appreciate Carlin till years later in fact I interviewed him, and that’s what kind of made me listen to more Carlin in a different fashion, and I got to really like Carlin’s work.
I thought that as a stand up comedy he was comedian. He had he had had a rhythm in his in his style, and it was very precise that show that anytime he went on stage, all of that material was literally set in stone, word for word before he went on stage. There was no ad libbing or whatever, but it was brilliant in the way it was presented, in his timing on it. Much like years earlier I had was privileged to see and was a fan of Lenny Bruce. And Lenny was a very musical act.
I mean he was to comedy what Miles Davis was to jazz. There was a rhythm there in his presentation that was very musical, very musical. I feel like Lenny has gotten left behind. I forgot who said this recently. One of the topics that’ll come up is when we talk about best comedian of all time, like, you know, where do you want to start?
You want to start at Shakespeare or at what point? And somebody compared Carlin and prior to almost being John the Baptists of comedy, of ushering in that modern era of maybe instead of doing ten to fifteen minutes, we’re going to do an hour here and putting out albums. And that’s when comedy started to change. And I feel like Lenny got a little bit left behind. A part of that, as somebody who has programmed comedy on the radio for twenty years, is factually the recordings just aren’t as good.
I remember it serious. Early in the run, my boss, Jeremy Coleman asked me why I didn’t play much Richard Pryor, and the answer was because the record sounded like garbage, and when we pumped them through the satellite and back and through the speakers, they didn’t sound good on the radio, so I didn’t play them. Now, since then they’ve been well remastered. But I feel like Lenny Missus Masel kind of helped a little bit. But I feel like Lenny got left behind.
Lenny got left behind, and he shouldn’t be. His voice is still resident. The stuff he was talking about, still much of it can play today and not have I don’t know if I don’t think it’s aged badly. I just think people have forgotten him. You know, I think if they played him today, people would get a good, good laugh out of it.
The question, then, is who’s the they. That’s the issue. Oh they is the buying public, you know, and what are they buying today. I’ve just seen some of the comedians that are out there, and I, quite frankly and maybe I sound like an old man, feel a lot of them don’t deserve the adulation they’re getting. I liked the what’s his name mulaney for a while and then I watched him do this thing on Netflix a couple of weeks ago, and he was terrible.
It was just horrible. See, I think that show is misproduced. I’ve talked about this on the podcast a lot. You know, well, you know you posted talk radio. Civilians can’t tell a story, get their point and get them out of there.
And I’m watching this thing screaming at my television. They’re taking calls from civilians. You have Jerry Seinfeld sitting next to you. All you have to do is shut up and ask you a question and hang back. Why are you letting some Oh that’s the one thing.
That’s one thing a lot of people have never learned. And that was the reason I was good at doing what I did on radio. I was not perhaps a very good comedian, but I was one of the world’s best straight men, and I knew how to play straight man to people. And that was the you know I did. I mention with Goldthwaite.
The reason Goldthwaite liked me was because I never Most interviewers that would interview Goldwaite would have stopped and said, come on, Bob, tell us what you really like. And I didn’t do that. I played to the character, and I played straight man to the character. And I always loved playing straight man over anything else or the butt of jokes. Yeah.
Sure, And if you get a good guest. This gets back to Johnny Carson theory. People would say, did you see Carson last night? He was great, And what they meant was Don de Luiz told a great story. Well here was the great talent that Johnny had.
He knew when to shut up. Yeah, you know really, Steve Allen once said, and it resonated with me, and I was never a big fan of Steve Allen’s, but he was right. He said, you’re running a talk show. There are a couple of things you should remember. Number one, you’re having the g on to work for you.
Okay, So don’t try to top him. And that’s probably the best piece of advice anybody could take. If you’re interviewing a comedian, don’t try to top him, try to get the next joke out of him. I took that approach to programming, specifically the Raw Dog Channel. I have heard over the years other comedy products, and everyone tries to make the bumpers, things like comedy radio and you’re coming out of George Carlin’s perfectly honed routine, the one they chose to press the vinyl.
Don’t follow that with a joke. We just said the station idea and moved on to the next thing. That advice. You’re not going to be funnier than the comedians, no way. Well, and the other thing he said was the other rule is don’t try to be funny, try to be fun.
He said, Funny you can’t do constantly. You can’t get a laugh every time. Fun you can always be enjoyable. That makes sense absolutely. I’ve never been a fan of comedian guests that go for their act.
Alex, how you doing, I’ll tell you how I’m doing. I just got back from the airport and this TSA. You know it just Oh, I hated comics that just did their act. Yeah, you know, so how are you these days? Well, funny thing happened to me yesterday.
Blah blah blah blah, and I’m going I like the comics who just could sit there and add lib with me, toe to toe, and that was wonderful. And some of them were terrific at it, you know, But when they came on did nothing but material, that was the last time they were going to be on my show. More coming up with Alex Bennett. As I mentioned in the open, in this next section, here we lightly talk about politics. The reason I’m sharing it is because Alex and I are friends and for ten years in the hallway every day we discussed politics, so I thought it would be weird of me to have Alex on and not talk politics at all.
Don’t worry, we’re not getting too much into it. We mentioned George Carlin when I was programming the Rodock Channels. He had his final two albums, and at the time I did not like them. I thought it was bitter Carlin had lost his way, And twenty years later, I think he’s the great profit of the twenty first century. I mean, his leader political material.
I can play some of those bits today. It sounds like he recorded them this morning. I mean, he did get bitter more and more bitter as time went on, you know, But he was I think, and I wasn’t a big fan of his for years because I didn’t like him because all of a sudden, he was wearing his hair long, you know, and wearing a beard, like he wanted to play to the hippies of the day, you know, where before he had worn a suit and been, you know, George Carlin, mister strait. And it took me a while to realize the real George Carlin was what I was seeing, not the one who was wearing the suit. So he was horing himself out.
It was back then where he was wearing the suit, not when he was trying to appeal to me. But but I resented that, and so for years I didn’t like or listen to Carlin.
And then when I finally did, I went, this guy’s he’s the best.
His presentation, He’s timing everything, impeccable and something to say. He had something to say. It wasn’t just she’s always something to say. Yes, absolutely for the modern scene, is there anybody that floats your boat? Who was it?
There was a female comic who was on the Brady Roast. I’m trying to remember her name name, Nicky Glazer, Nikki Glaser. I think she’s very funny. She crushed, She crushed that day. Yeah, that was the only thing on that whole thing that was worth watching.
By the way, that Brady Roast was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, I think it’s the best thing of the year. Talk to me, No, I don’t. I’ll tell you why. I mean, they had people who are not comedians trying to roast him, and what you got to do?
You know, too bad. Gilbert isn’t alive. He’s the guy who knows how to do a roast, you know. And Nikki Glaser came close to that. You know, she was very good.
I became a big fan of her.
And then I watched your specials my wife and I and she’s very critical and sh…
You know. I enjoy the art of the roast when the comedians kind of switch up instead of so the rest of Tom Brady, instead of making Tom Brady jokes, sort of goes sideways and say, oh, and Alex Bennett’s here, and then just take some come. That’s what you did at Roast. That’s what you did at Roast. Though.
See the thing is the Roast died the day they put them on TV. But now that it’s on Netflix, they should be as filthy as is humanly possible. Because you got to remember the Friars Club. These guys I would see. I had a friend who belonged to the Friars Club, so I went to the Friars Club with them a lot.
And I went to one thing one night where they were just doing something with somebody. It wasn’t a Roast or anything, and it was all these old comics, you know, the Sheechy so On sos and the you know Bobby so and sos. And they were all getting up one after another. And I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that much in my life. All of a sudden, these mediocre comics that I’d seen on TV and gone, hey, you know old borsch belt come.
They were just killing it. When they didn’t have any cameras there, when they didn’t have any microphones there, and nobody was gonna in years later put them in judgment of what they had said at that rost. My Guide to Interviewing Alex Bennett says, I’m supposed to say Robin Williams at some point I’ve been remiss. Were nearly an hour in Did you have encounters with Robin? Do you have any good Robin stories?
Robin did my show in San Francisco total of one time. It was a very memorable time. It was wonderful to have Robin on. The reason Robin didn’t might do my show a lot is because I had to call him on stealing jokes. I felt that, you know, a comic coming up, works hard at getting material, you know, and to suddenly have it stolen from him and used on the Tonight Show.
Ruins that joke in just about a minute and a half, so that this guy, whenever he goes on stage and does that joke again, people yell out, oh, Robin Williams did that joke, Because if Robin Williams did the joke, it was his joke, okay, and he would keep stealing material. I remember sitting at Cobbs Comedy Club, the old Cobbs Comedy Club, back in the back room the night that Robin was on the Tonight Show, and all these comedians were sitting there one after the osis, that’s my joke. That’s my joke. It’s my joke. It’s my joke.
And the fact was that I you know, I met up with Robin once. I said, you know, you just shouldn’t. You shouldn’t steal from people. That’s what I have against you, Robin. You know it’s not right.
These people are coming up, They they fight for every piece of material they have, and then you use it one night on the Tonight Show and it can never be done again. I don’t care if you want to write him out a check for it. The only person that has a right to say, yes, you can use my material as a guy who’s material it is, and not for you to steal it first and send the check later. So how does a guy like that make it? Is he more charismatic, is he handsome?
He has a better agent? Hollywood doesn’t care if you steal jokes, all of that. In his later years, Robin got to be very good about this and he did improve and I have to give him credit for that. Okay, And there are a lot of comics who love him because he did good stuff for them. Okay, So I’m going to give Robin that and give him a pass on the rest of it.
But how he made it, How can I describe it? His act was doing the best impression of a comedian he possibly could. I got it. Do you get what I’m saying? I totally get what you’re saying.
But yeah, before it sounds like comedy. But he’s telling you that Robin Williams is so funny, and I’d say, okay, tell me something funny. He said, silence. It was just that he went on, he did this comedy which is basically word salad. You know you didn’t really understand it, but you weren’t willing to admit you didn’t understand it.
And then when he’s finished, went, oh, that guy’s great. Are you following Dave Chappelle? I’m I’m bothered by Dave Chappelle’s greatness, and yet he has chosen to make his someday obituary. The second line is going to be about digging in on transgender jokes. The way I’ve been explaining this lately is, Alex, you know why it’s so hot in New York City today because of the trans And you slap your knee and you mug for the camera with a smile and you get a laugh, and I it boggles my mind.
Why is Dave Chappelle choosing to make that the thing that’s going to be the second line of his open I think, and this is just I can’t read David Chappelle’s mind, but let me try and do it for a second here. I think he doesn’t want to give up. He doesn’t want to say I won’t do that because you’re pressuring me. He wants to say I won’t do that because it’s his decision. And I think that’s why he digs his heels in.
You know, I saw a very interesting interview with the Piers Morgan, who, again as a person I don’t particularly find wonderful, but he did a terrific interview with Kevin Spacey, and Spacey was saying, you know, I haven’t been found guilty of anything anywhere. All the charges have been thrown out. You know, anybody who sued me civilly is lost. He said, I should be working right now.
And then he asked them, well, how do you feel about Netflix?
And he said Netflix as soon as this thing hit, before I was even found guilty of anything, or even put on trial, or even charge they got rid of me, He said, you would think they would have been that way Dave Chappelle, but they weren’t. He said. They didn’t go after Dave Chappelle in the same way they went after me, and I did nothing interesting. Why do you think, why do you think Netflix has stood by Dave Chappelle and dug their heels in. I find it disingenuous that Netflix always has a House of Cards on the main menu, but never a picture of Kevin Spacey’s.
Kevin Spacey’s in this show, I had no idea. Really, is he an house of Cards the show? Everybody but the man’s been erased, literally erased from anything. They even took him out of a movie and replaced him with Christopher Plumber in the cost of several hundred thousand dollars to film the scenes and to pay the actor. You know, what’s happened to Spacey is sad.
It’s time for the people in the industry to turn around and say it’s time to hire Kevin Spacey again. That seems like one of those things that you know he’ll have. It won’t be at He’ll have to come back and play against type, whatever type would be, and just do a really deep character role. Yeah, but he has to get hired first, you know, and nobody will hire him. There are some people starting to come to his defense now, so maybe one of those people will say, you know, he’s a good actor, I want him in my movie.
Screw all of you, you know, and that will break it. But he mentions Kirk Douglas with the with the Blacklist and the fact that Dalton Trumbull wrote Spartacus and he was going to put on a they were going to put on a fake name for Dalton Trumbull on the screenplay, and Kirk Douglas said, no, the Blacklist stops here, and I’m putting his name on this movie. When that happened, everybody else dropped the blacklist as well, and that was the end of it. What he needs is his Kirk Douglas. It’s interesting to bring up.
He is one of the few actually canceled Luis K’s Top of Mind because of the new documentary What Happened to Louie On the Flip Side, Jerry Seinfeld’s dating history is quite colorful, and everybody’s like, yeah, okay, whatever, Yeah, but here’s the thing with Louie that just really bothered me. These women go to see him. He says, do you mind if I pull out my penis? Did any of them say no? No?
None of them said no, and so Louis did, and then they’re offended by it. But he asked permission first. That’s a real gentleman. But what about the implied power dynamic? How do I say no to this person?
Well, I mean you could just you could walk out of the room. He asked you in a very pleasant way. He didn’t ask you in a threatening way. You know. If you if you want to look at his penis in order to curry favor with him, then who’s being the whore?
I don’t have her re tour? How I’m gonna leave that alone. These days you’re hosting on gabinet. It’s great to see you’re still doing there. And I see the post on Facebook.
Looks like a very lively group. If you could explain as everybody what GABNet is and how we can participate. Oh, GABNet is just you know, a bunch of people calling up talking about stuff. I have a Monday show which I do, which I really like because just really friendly people who like each other as opposed to a bunch of people who start arguing with each other, which is on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Friday nights at ten thirty Eastern. The other show is four o’clock on Mondays on the Facebook.
So it’s you know, it just it just makes us eighty four year old still have to force to use as chops. Now. I think that’s good, you know, for several reasons. I always say it’s good to have something on your calendar, and we all need to get these things out of our system one way or another. It’s one of the reasons I started this podcast is you know, me yelling at the wall about Chappelle does nothing.
At least here I can have, you know, a couple thousand people either agree or disagree.
Also, if I could, I’d like to push something I haven’t pushed in a long time.
That is that on thegabnet dot net, which is our web page, there’s a thing called Alex Bennett’s Life in the Passing Lane. It’s the history of my life in sixty nine episodes. Wow, and a lot of it has stuff about the comedians, a lot of it has stuff to do with you know, nineteen seventy’s, nineteen sixties, radical era, you know, and people that I would have have had a relationship with, like John Lennon and so on, and it’s every inch of my life. And I think people might find that interesting. Thank you for saying, John Lennon.
I had that on my notes and I forgot to ask you about it. You met John Lennon? What’s John Lennon? Like I often said that if people, if you met John Lennon, you’d be expecting, oh boy, I’m going to meet this brilliant, brilliant guy, and he it almost seems stupid. Oh wow, you know, yeah, he never had what he was.
He was a savant. You know. What he did musically was brilliant, just the best lyricist. He and Coleport are two of the best lyricists of the last century. Okay, incredible, Yea.
Yoko was the brains of the family. Okay. I like Yoko a lot, and I like John John was okay, but I especially liked Yoko. You’ve got a couple interesting takes here. I’ve never heard that take on the Yoko.
What is it about her? I think she was brilliant. I think she was a brilliant artist, and I think her association with John Lennon kind of stifled that because she was living in his shadow, and she shouldn’t have. She was too good at what she did. She was a brilliant artist before he met her, and she could you know, I loved you, Yoko.
I think the world of Yoko. Did you ever see the photo album that are mutual coworker Pat Saint John, the New York City disc jockey has Did he ever show you his photo album? No? So aside from the amazing photos, the way Pat would present it to you, He’d put it on the table and he’d very slowly flip the pages and he’d be like, and this is me with and your brain is going, it’s obviously John Lennon, And this is me with It’s obviously David Bowie. And everybody in this photo album is like elite Mick Jagger level rockstar.
You to identify every single person they’re in the picture with Pat, but he takes the minute to explain to you, like, and this is me with, Yes, those are the Eagles. Well, and there are moments in my life that I have tapes that are kind of like that. I mean, I was the first guy in the United States to interview Elton John, for instance, I had on all of the Grateful Dead at the same time except for Pig Pant, and I got high with them, but not because I wanted to. They were I had a lawyer that said to me, if somebody starts smoking a joint in our studio, you can let them, but you can’t join. Yeah, okay, So they came in.
They all lit up at the same time, and the room was filled with marijuana smoke, but I couldn’t have any And by the end of the hour, I didn’t even know what my name was anymore. That is a great story. I should get on top. But I want to ask you. I got to spend a couple of minutes I’m talking about Okay, I want to lose half the audience here, so I’ll just say nothing.
I’ll let you answer. Where do you think we’re heaving on? I’d be the right winger and then you can be the left winger and then we can keep the whole audience. How do you handicap this thing? Is Uncle Joe going to pull this off?
Or we looking at Trump too well, there’s no way that Joe should lose this. I mean, if you’re a sensible human being I mean, look, it’s not even a choice for me either. If I didn’t have to vote for Joe Biden, I wouldn’t vote for Joe Biden. And quite for I don’t have to vote for Joe Biden. I live in New York and our votes are all chopped down into what seventy nine electoral votes.
So he’s going to win this state whether I go out to vote or not. All right, But in a state like oh, say, South Carolina, then there’s a place you got to get out and vote. And why do you have to vote for Joe Biden? And listen, it’s not a great it’s a terrible choice we’re being handed here, you know, and it’s rumored that most of America doesn’t even like the choice. I think back to our hallway political discussions and how far we’ve come.
I mean, some of the stuff we would talk about was, boy, look at that John Kerry. Look at him on a surfboard. He’s so out of touch. These were the discussions we were having. Now you would kill for such a candidate.
I still wouldn’t kill for John for him, but I yeah, I don’t know. I just feel there are better people out there. Was suited to run for office. Well, think about in the past, we have candidates got not canceled, but eliminated because oh so and so might have smoked marijuana or somebody went on a stage, I got canceled, which come a long way. Yeah, we sure have.
We’ve lowered our expectations. How do we get better people to run? I think we have to offer them the ability to run and not be assailed in the way they get a sailed today. You know, to be able to run on the basics, like what you’re going to do for the country. I mean, the thing that bothered me most about Trump is when you ever hear him talk about what he’s going to do for the country.
Basically most of his speeches are railing against all the harm that’s been thrown his way, and then how he was cheated with the trial in New York and blah blah blah blah blah, and there’s no like, well, here’s how I’m going to make America better in modern times. There’s the show biz aspect of it. I think back to al Gore. One of his big things was the climate emergency he’s running for basically Bill Clinton’s third term, and he got outperformed by a fake cowboy. Yep, Trump figured out the game.
He’s better at the game than everybody else. Well, I don’t know if he’s better at the game. I mean, he had everybody convinced that he was really good with money, you know, and now we’ve learned he doesn’t know a thing about money, you know, And everybody went, oh, I saw him on the Apprentice. He really knows he really knows money. Well, this isn’t the Apprentice.
This is America. This is democracy that’s at stake. But the debates are a reality TV show. All I have to do is get up there and zing you a couple of times and I win the night. Yeah yeah, but I don’t know that he can do that with Biden necessarily.
You know, the optics don’t look good. If you’re going to portray Biden is this old, doddering old man. Then what are you doing if you go after him? You’re beaten up on an old man, you know, And we know you don’t like that. We’ve brought this full circle.
I don’t like that at all. I don’t like it getting beaten up on. All Right, we’ve now lost half the audience. So who’s your favorite comedian of all time. My favorite comedian of all time couldn’t even begin to say, because there are so many good ones and for different reasons.
I mean, Seinfeld is beautiful at what he does. He’s a beautiful If I had an example of here’s a comedian you should watch to see how to be a comedian, it would be Seinfeld. Okay. On the other hand, you know Lenny. I saw Lenny.
Lenny was a favorite of mine when I was growing up, you know, So I mean, who was the greatest of all time? They’re all great for different reasons. But I could make you a list. I suppose top ten that would be much fairer, but that would take too long here, So is there one show you remember seeing that sticks out? I think the comedian that I think is maybe the best stand up club comedian in the country is Bobby Slate.
You’re probably not all let familiar with Bobby. I’m sure you are on a certain levels, but you know, I don’t think I’ve seen a better stand up than Bobby period. You know, plants his feet on the stage and he makes you laugh. That’s the job, and that’s Alex Bennett. And I hope you enjoyed him a little feistier than usual, and that’s your comedy news for today.
Back somewhere with a normal episode. See then.