 The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad pathetic humps. Lewis Friedman joins us, hopefully for the first of many sessions on the David Feldman show. Lewis is a hysterical comedy writer. He works with Robert De Niro, he works with Jeff Ross, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, the Kennedy Center, James Carville, you've been nominated for a count. I'm just going to keep, I can see your lips. You're about, you're, you can't stand this introduction. It actually sounds like a list of people that I no longer speak to. I haven't spoken to Matt Stone or Trey Parker since, I don't know, since they became successful. James Carville, that was just two ships passing in the night. De Niro, people known for comedy. You're close to Robert De Niro. Well, he finds me useful from time to time. Yeah. I mean, that dry cleaning isn't going to pick up itself, so. You wrote on basketball and there's a new movie that you're here to talk about that you wrote called The Comedian. The Comedian had a series of writers and Jeff Ross, yes, Jeff Ross. This is another name that that you keep putting in. Do you, do you owe him money or is this, I know him. Okay. Yeah. So Jeff, I work for him. Yeah. This, this, the idea first came from Art Linson, who's a major producer of films. He works a lot with David Mamet, Brian De Palma, you know, he's done his, his list of films is, fills a very impressive Wikipedia page. Well, let's talk about The Comedian. It's opening in select theaters right now. Well, that's a nice way of saying that it's limited release. It's stars Robert De Niro. Hang on. Let me. Okay. It's, it's because I have a joke. I'm very excited about, let me just take a sip of coffee. Yeah. Let's stop everything. Can she hear? She's, I have a joke in the intro to your father. You ready? This is very funny. Ready? The Comedian stars Bobby De Niro. I call him Bobby. Daniel DeVito. I'm not allowed to call him Danny. Funny. No. I'm, wait. That was the joke. That was the joke. Because that sounded like a great setup for a joke. Well, I thought it would be funny if I call him Bobby De Niro, but Danny DeVito makes me call him Daniel DeVito. Yeah. No. And once you explained it, I didn't see how hysterical it is. It has De Niro DeVito and. Yeah. Stick to last names. That's good. Yeah. Denise. The daughter. Okay. Hey man, Harvey Keitel, do we see his penis in this movie? I'm not sure if that was cut, the scene, not the penis, I assume the latter. He's Jewish, Harvey Keitel. He is. Yes. Yeah. Which is, of course, we needed to have a representation of all sex, and that's how we got in. Right. The Jews were taking credit for Robert De Niro at one time. Did you know that? The Jews were. They took credit for, there was a rumor, that's what Jews do. You know, I still like to think that it was the Romans, but if you're Mel Gibson, it was the Jews. No, at the height of Robert De Niro, Raging Bull, he's part Jewish, and it turned out not to be true. Right? Yeah. It was just, it was a smear campaign. So the comedian is about an aging comedian whose career is up against the ropes, right? That's right. De Niro plays the comedian who's kind of on the last legs of his career, but trying to still make it. He still has his chops, his personality makes it hard on himself, and the industry itself seems to be more welcoming of younger comedians. I haven't noticed that. As a certain point, well, you know, as you passed into your dotage, it didn't exactly work for you, but has it. So if you make the transition to TV and to film, then you go on with a comedy or late night talk show, as you go on to a comedy career, if you're still doing stand up, it seems to be kind of a young man's game. What do you think? I'm listening. I've discovered this to be true. Yeah. And in this case, he had a hit sitcom, the character De Niro plays had a hit sitcom, which has followed him. And he's trying to break down that wall to go back to the stand up that he is kind of passionate about, that he loves doing, and that he's really good at doing. The sense I cannot wait to see it. It's I get the screenings and I have not had time to go to one of them, but I'm looking forward to not paying to see this movie. Well, we welcome you on that basis and please bring along all of your non-pity friends. So he was being trained around town by several like Ms. Kersen, right? There were comedians who were, I understand, shepherding. Well, he wasn't being shepherded. We went to see a lot of stand up and we went to different clubs to see stand up. And he likes it. In his career as an actor, he's always done comedy, but comic parts and comic movies from... Well, the king of comedy. King of comedy, which was a drama about a comedian. And that was the original intention of this film as well. It was a drama about a comedian. But there were comic parts in the movies he did with Billy Crystal and with the Focker's movies and Midnight Run, which was early in his career with Chuck Groten, who's also in this. Charles Groten also is in the comedian. So he has a long association with it. He has friends who are comedians and he likes hanging out with them and being funny. So he's comfortable in the world of comedy. Yeah. Well, you know, two things. One is the king of comedy came out the year I started doing comedy. And this is, I'm not saying this just to have you engage in this conversation. This is the God's honest truth. That movie made me physically ill. I was just starting out as a hungry comedian who thought, well, maybe if I could charm people behind the scenes, then I can get better spots. Having no idea that, no, you just have to be funny and good. And it's going to be 10 years before you even get considered for anything. That movie made me physically ill. And that's, I swear to you, it may be so uncomfortable because it is a side of anybody who wants to be a comedian, that neediness and the lack of patience. Well, fortunately for you, David, Charm doesn't get you that far in business. That was, that movie was brilliant. And it was, there were a lot of personality deficits of the character that he played in that movie. And you as a comic would go toward the ones that were about him wanting and needing that career, but there's so much else going on there. I saw it recently, again, at film forum in a new print. And it's, I would see that movie every week and still find new stuff in it. Well, what, I guess there's a comment on the culture at the end because he kidnaps Jerry Lewis and then he ends up, doesn't he succeed at the end? Well, he, yes, he kidnaps Jerry Lewis, which would be considered a mitzvah to the comedy business in almost, almost any generation. He unfortunately doesn't kill him. He, he lets him go and but the ransom is that he gets to do a set on the show. He's very successful doing this set. And when he gets out of prison, there are book deals and TV deals. And it's a real confirmation of the, of how important it is to commit felonies when you want to be a successful person. I don't think you have to go much past what's going on in our country right now to confirm that. Yeah, I don't pay attention to what's going on. Oh, I know that's not the case. I remember this. I remember the movie came out and Scorsese. Do I get credit for that for pronouncing his name right? Yeah, yes, you do. Thank you. Went on Letterman and had these mannerisms that he is never used before. They were comedic mannerisms. He was talking. He was using his hands touching parts of his body to emphasize certain points. And I remember thinking, oh, and this must have been 82, right? Oh, he's been studying comics. Scorsese has been studying the movements of comedians. And it was very mannered in just promoting his movie. How much of the studying for this movie did De Niro do of the physicality? How important were his hands? Did he ask about what do I do with my hands? But he knows he's a very meticulous preparer of all of his parts. And for this, he watched a lot of comedians, watched how they handled the mic. Jessica Kersen, whose comedy he we admired a great deal. She does a podcast out of this studio. Oh, does she? Yes, about food. Oh, so that's why those crumbs are all over the place. She says and she was very helpful in giving him hints about what what a comedian might do under these circumstances or those circumstances. And so that that was very helpful. It was all part of his research and she was a key part of that. And it's all about anger comedy. A good comedian is seething underneath and you don't get to see it. You're not supposed to see the anger underneath. I always and I won't move on. I want to talk about writing and movies and stuff like that. But the fact that De Niro has a fascination with stand up and he's known for raging bull and playing gangsters, it to me speaks volumes to what really great stand up comedy is because it's boxing to me. I've always viewed it as boxing, but it's a young man's game. It's aggression, but there's elegance to it. Never go up against an African American. They're better at it than than you are. And the Jews are better off. I don't know. I was just trying to. But I do find it like I just letting you hang yourself. I know it's your podcast and I didn't know what the fuck you were talking about. But it sounded good. Yeah, I mean, I do think it is like boxing because you're. That's the closest analog I can find. But I think, you know, not sex. Right. I don't know much about boxing or sex. For me, it's involves fists. So yeah, well, one for me, one of them does. In the other one, bitch slapping, maybe it's vice versa. But I should mention that you your daughter is in the studio in the control room. I want to ask you a question about your parenting skills. Are you a real I'm I can I peel back the curtain? Yes, please. How old is your daughter? Fei Fei is with me today is 15 15 years old. I think you and I have the same parenting skills. Ah, well, that's in that you're not afraid to expose them to the real world. Well, they live in the real world and it's it's really not for me to. I don't have that control over them. The real world is all around them and you like to would like to protect the people you love, especially the younger ones from the real world. But that's pretty hard to do. So the real world gets more and more fucked up. They just it's all over you and language, for example, you just use the F word. I did. Fei Fei, I say that word. Yeah, I try. I try not to say that word. But the truth is, I kind of picked it up from her. Why do they grow up without our permission? I'm completely against it. Well, I mean, they really do. They're what I have found because I have a daughter and she continues to age in front of me without my consent. They they grow up and they have opinions and attitudes and they learn things. And they I didn't say that was OK. They're such guns. The my my thank you for that. My now I feel like when you said that I my whole body just relaxed. It was like I had just had a good maybe it'll be easier for us to go on with this. Fei Fei's older sister, Anshi, is is 21 and she'll graduate, we think, from university this year or after in the spring. And I told her that my hope for her is that she's a total loser and has to move back in with us and just live the rest of her life there. That's I I. Yeah, Fei Fei is one of the most interesting people I know. And she's the most compassionate and empathic. And Anshi is a lovely young lady. And I would like to have them around me as much as possible. They managed to be all these things without humanizing me in any way. Which is nice that they don't intrude in that way. Well, the immigrants, the way immigrant parents work is you have one child who goes off into the world and becomes successful and then you you demoralize one child and keep them home. You may you turn them into a cripple so that they'll always be with you. Well, I'm going to try to keep them both demoralized. I've done everything I can so far. And right, I don't know how well it's working. Only time will tell. What did she say? Fei Fei says it's working good. Is there a basketball? You work with Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I remember not wanting my kids to watch South Park at the age of six. I didn't think it was appropriate to for, you know, but I have no I had no say. And I hear this maniacal laughing coming from the living room. I don't know, 10 years ago. And I mean, uncontrollable laughing. And it was the nagger episode, the Wheel of Fortune. I don't know if you ever saw the. Yeah, the one the guy says the N word on Wheel of Fortune. And I walked in and I said, you're not allowed to watch this show. And they said, mommy says it's OK. And my my son had has all these African American friends and they're watching us and laughing hysterically. I just sat down and OK, yeah, this is pretty funny. Well, it's it's the last thing you want to protect them from is humor. And that show South Park is just it's amazing that it keeps those guys are brilliant. That he's delivering over all these years. I mean, they couldn't save basketball. But where it was in their own best interest, they did very well. What was baseball? Baseball was a movie. It was kind of a a passionless project of David Zuckers. It was a game that he and his pals invented in their driveway. And as sports fans, they had this idea. What if what if someone invented a game in their driveway and became a national sport? So I was hired hired. He did an airplane. Correct. Right. David with his brother and Jim Abrams did airplane. David did the naked gun movies. It was quite a consortium of really good writer, performers and directors. David directed baseball. He hired me to write it to do the first draft. And then with his writing, producing partners, we finished it together. They brought in Matt and Trey to star in it as as actors, not as writers, although they contributed to it as an onset. We were all on set together and and people make contributions all the way through. So it was really kind of of the mind and spirit of David Zucker with all of us contributing in our own ways. Me as writing, Matt and Trey as performers, actors. The movie industry does not appeal to me. I just wanted you to know that. Yeah. Well, I mean, it doesn't appeal to people who can't make it in the movie industry. I'm sure that's not the case here. The movie industry is very different from what you do. And I have to say, I'm a great admirer of what you do. As soon as we figure out what it is. Well, you know, I we can we can say this. We worked on a show together this year. It was I was producer and head writer for a a roast of James Carval at Kennedy Center and looking around at people who do political humor as writers and performers. There's not a lot. I mean, they can be found mostly on your podcast, but elsewhere. It's it's pretty difficult. And I just seen you perform not just a while, not long before that, at Carolines, and you were still doing it, which is amazingly brave because then you're doing jokes based on something that happened that day where the next comedian is doing jokes based on something that happened during the Civil War, and they've been doing the same joke since. And it's wonderful and it's polished and it's funny, but it doesn't mean anything to me. So to do to be brave enough and smart enough to do political humor is is a big is important. And that has the media going on back to stay on that line. But no, you go there's an immediacy to stand up or there in the best stand up, there's an immediacy to it. And there's that in television because it's just shorter. The Art Linson and Bob De Niro had the idea of doing the comedian eight years ago and it's coming out next month. So it's not these things take a lot of time. And and there is a lot of negotiation and building and taking steps back and steps forward along the way. So it tends to it's not necessarily conducive to the instant gratification. Yeah. And and and the kind of dangerous, funny stuff that happens of the moment. Right. There are scenes in in the comedian that I wrote at once sitting and in pretty much stayed the way they were. And I think those you know, those have for me watching it. Those have more of an appeal than some of the others that we worked a lot harder on and sweated over. And all in De Niro's mouth, it all works, which is, you know, a great safety net for any writer, drama or comedy. But I like that. I don't work and film a lot, but I would. There's a spontaneity to writing. And then it has to be that spontaneity can be sitting there for eight years, but it has to be protected. I think so. When you're writing by yourself, there's a there's a spark. It's magic. And the trick is to make sure that nobody touches that later on. Well, I have this theory and writing. I call it the the tyranny of the first draft. And it happens whatever any kind of writing could be a contract that whatever is put on paper first forms the the form of of what you're going to be developing. So I my own writing, which is my own way of excusing procrastination is to keep it in my head long enough because my own first draft has the same has the same tyranny. And I'll be looking at it trying to make that draft better. But until it's on paper, it's still formless. So in the best of my writing, I think that it doesn't change much from the first thing I put on paper. The hardest I've laughed in the year 1997. The hardest I laughed in 1997 was a friend of mine got a job writing on Hollywood Squares. They used jokes, you know, you had to come up with jokes. And Henry Winkler somehow became the exact. This is this. Already. Yeah, this is this is the hardest I laughed in 1997. Somehow Henry Winkler became the executive producer of Hollywood Squares, and he gathered all the guys who wrote for Hollywood Squares into a room. And his first line in the meeting was it all starts with the word. And I started laughing. That was like the most pretentious thing you could say to a bunch of guys who are writing on a game. I mean, it all starts with and one of my friends who was writing at the time, his name was John Ross, the good friend of mine. He did not appreciate my my laughing at that. It just seemed so funny that you would say that to guys when John was writing his gospel. And that was the same thing he started with. And in the beginning was the word. And I think I've got a lot of laughs in the room at that point, too. But it does start with it does start with the word. And is that why they hate us? And by us, I mean writers or Jews are interchangeable. It does start with the word and you cannot change something until somebody's foolish enough to put it down on paper. Well, writers are in different areas. Have have different sets of problems. And if you're writing for film or TV, it's a collaborative collaborative being the euphemism for they're going to fuck it up process. So for me, it never gets better than when I first write it. But in fact, when you look at it, some of it does get better. And some of it is terrible when not in the comedian, but in other other projects I've done, some of which you've seen. But sometimes it the performer or whoever the actor or whoever's saying the lines makes it so much better. The director can add a vision when you see it with lights and sets and costumes. It can get a lot better. It still can be excruciating for the writer. But in fact, that's part of the process. Yeah. I've been, you know, I, I cannot believe I have to say this, but there are some people who don't appreciate Woody Allen because of what he's been accused of. They can't get past that stuff. And that's for a whole other conversation. That's a I'm able to get past that story. You know, it's another conversation, though, unless you want to respect. I was going to make another point about Woody Allen. Well, I just, you've met my daughter Fei Fei. She's from China and adopted and my daughter Anshi is too. And Anshi and I went trick-or-treating one year as Woody and Sun Yi. So I'm. Did you really? Yeah. And so it, for that, I'm grateful for him for being a monster in most other places. I'm not, I mean, I, I, I can't, I can't separate that if someone is a monster. I can't. Is that, is that, I didn't even want to go down this path. But now that we're there, I was going to make a point about screenwriting and being able to write your own movies without a committee. But talk to me about Woody Allen first. Well, I mean, I, I also hold it against him that he made a bunch of bad movies. And there was a time when. Well, go back to the Sun Yi first. Yeah. So you, you do think that was monstrous behavior? Yes, I do. Okay. Because, uh, so the other stuff that has not been, they haven't been able to prove, take that off the table. You know, what happened in the attic and the suntan lotion and all that stuff. That, that is, has not been proven. It's going to take me a while to get past suntan lotion, but in the attic, I didn't know about that one. I thought I invented that. Actually, Anne Frank's father did. Back to the Jews again. If you just say, okay, he, he fell in love with Mia Farrow's adopted child at the age of what? At the age of creepy. Yeah. I watched a couple of old Woody Allen movies. Yeah. In the last couple of weeks and was really, it saw a Broadway Danny Rose. There's some hints. And, uh, Hannah Anderson, no, was that, wasn't it the, um, the Lottie Dow, Lottie Dow movie? Oh, Annie Hall. Annie Hall. You know, there were parts of those that were brilliant. I wouldn't write that stuff now because a lot of it is really over the top jokes that, that you couldn't get away with now. But for the time, it was just, it was, they were wonderful and the characters were great. And it was character driven and funny and weird. And, and, um, you know, I still love those movies, but I, I can't think of Woody Allen, the person without thinking of not just his diminishing skills as a director and writer, but also about that kind of personal behavior. Okay. Uh, I, you know, Ralph, I do a radio show with Ralph Nader and yes, I'm bragging. Ralph Nader to me is the greatest American in the world that includes people who aren't even Americans. He's a better American than anybody ever was. And something happened in the year 2000 where they blame him for George W. Bush. Right. And I say, you're going to hold that against Ralph Nader. First of all, it's not even true. I can't help but think there's professional jealousy at play here, that there are liberals and lawyers who actually think they're better than Ralph Nader and they're not, and they needed something to cut him down. And it was the election of 2000. And the same thing with Woody Allen. I know, I'm, I mean, there, he is the gold standard of comedy writing. He's the best. There's never been a filmmaker like Woody Allen. And there's this part of me, I know I'm turning a blind eye to something. I'm guilty of, I know I'm guilty of something here. But how much of this is our jealousy? You know, I was watching, I'm from San Frans, I started doing comedy in San Francisco and Robin Williams. You know, I love Robin Williams. I mean, he was, when I was starting out, he was, he, you know, and I'm from San Francisco. You know, a year after he died, I stumbled on some YouTube video of him. And I said, I'm watching, you son of a bitch. Why do you have all this talent? Like he's gone and I'm still envious of what Robin has. Right. How much of this Woody Allen stuff is, is envy that he's the most prolific film director in the history of film. Nobody comes close. Well, to me, it's all jealousy. And anybody else who's successful, I would be just as jealous for. And I think everyone who's done better than I've done, which is almost everyone, also fuck their daughters. So it's a pretty clear cut case. I think we're on the same page here with Ralph Nader. It's different. Woody Allen made movies and his, his laps is as a, as a, his human lapses had an effect on a very small circle for Ralph Nader. It's different. You know, Ralph Nader for his, his work is a God. But the, when you do something for his running for president that year, it had consequences. I don't want to go down that road. Okay. Because it's like blaming the election on Jim Comey. We, we like to have, there's a narrative. We like a villain. We like an explanation for. Well, I don't think, I don't think Nader is a villain and it's okay. You can cut this all from. No, no, this is, I love this. I don't think of him as a villain, but in his narcissism, he made a step that had consequences. And I don't think it's comparable to Comey. Comey, you know, what the asshole move was one way or the other. You know, maybe that had an effect, but mostly Trump is the president-elect because people like Trump. I have a question for Fei-Fei. Fei-Fei, you're, you're from China. Jim Comey, the FBI director. If I say Jim Comey three times fast, is that an expression? I always think Jim Comey, Jim Comey, Jim Comey, is that a word? No. Okay. I thought it might be, it sounds like a word that you would hear in China. It's a, it's, they just know it is number 67 on the menu under from the sky. That's my favorite joke, by the way. You know that joke. Yeah, but, but, but tell it anyway. You want to add some little bit of humor to your podcast. I'd like 69. She goes, you want beef and broccoli? It was the hardest. It's one of the great jokes, the Asian couple in bed. It's a great joke. Honey, I want 69. You want beef and broccoli? Somebody came, somebody wrote that and will never know. We will never know who wrote that joke because it just got spread. You know, by the way, I think there's something, when I worked for David Zucker, it was an old friend of mine and I worked for him when he and his brother, Jerry and Jim Abrams did those movies together, starting with Kentucky Fried movie. They had a Kentucky Fried theater where they did live performance. It did airplane, as you mentioned. They decided that there would, no one would ever claim that they wrote a joke. It would all come from all of them. Right. And as a writer and sometimes head writer, I've always done the same thing. Sure, sure. But boy, is that changed. I have to see people right and left taking credit for what I've done. And I used to be sort of philosophical about it. And now I'm a little less generous and going, Oh, really? You wrote that? Right. Yeah. Well, the, well, I had, I think that that is still in play. I think the writing teams that I've worked on, it's considered really day class, say that's French, by the way, to take credit for something. And I think it bites you in the ass. Nobody will correct you, but nobody will want to work with you if you start taking credit for, you know, there's just something you can't, you were a team, you know, and it's a beach ball that gets bad, you're bouncing a beach ball and somebody arrives at the punchline, but they wouldn't have gotten there if somebody didn't bat the ball to them if it's a good team. Right. And that happens a lot. Someone has an idea for a joke. Someone develops it. Someone changes, changes it a little to get right to where it is. And then whoever is delivering the line has the, has the final say about how it works. And if it's a success, then there should be high fives. You didn't make it to that, the, the carl roast. You, you wrote from New York because you were busy on another show. But there was a lot of that in the wings as writers that you've worked with Ray James and Mike Ferrucci and others would turn to each other and high five when a joke worked. And I wasn't sure whose joke it was. Well, that's when it's fantastic. That's when the team is one. I mean, that's a, that I don't mean to be pretentious, but I can't help myself. The, the secret to comedy writing is trying to get to that spiritual place where you're part of one, you're part of something. You know, we all have egos. We all want to see our words spoken. But if you can have your ego mowed down properly. And you're, you're sitting around a table and you're practicing gratitude and you're just honored to be there. It's one of the most thrilling things. It's spiritual, but it invite, you have to have a guy running the room who, who knows how to do that. And the way you do that is you mow down the writers. You just mow down their ego to the point where it's a cult. Well, it is. And I, and I'm not the best head writer and I prefer not to be. I'd rather just write and I admire. I've been in a room where I've been the head writer and there'd be other people that I want to just say to them, here you be head writer. Okay. Cause you're better at it and, and can do what you're talking about. And that works in mostly in television and, and in sketch comedy. When you get to movies, it's, it's different. Um, with the comedian, Art Linson had this idea. He came to me to help write it with him eight years ago and we, it didn't work out. Then he eventually, it was a movie about a comedian and there wasn't anything funny in it. So he brought Jeff Ross and, and they did a draft together. Then, um, it went through different directors and the directors had some input. Then, uh, I was brought in because the character changed a little bit and it was no longer exactly right for Jeff Ross's brand of, uh, of comedy. And a lot of what he did was replaced. And then they brought in another writer because they wanted to, they brought in another star who wanted a different writer. And then the director, Taylor Hackford had his ideas. So there are jokes there that, um, maybe Art Linson thought of, we needed a joke here, Jeff Ross said, maybe it should be a joke about that. I came in, you know, rewrote the whole thing. Taylor came in and put it in a different place. So there's a joke out there that gets a laugh, but you know, it's all of us in a way. And, and some of us were never in the same room together. You know, I know Jeff from writing for him or writing on, on shows that he was on, roasts and so on. We were never in the same room about this, about the show. And he was out of it for, you know, several years before. And, um, but it kind of happened. And we all had contributions to it. You know, going back to Woody Allen, his movies are fascinating to me. And I just saw the, uh, Cafe Society, which I loved. I loved it. Have you seen it? No, it's about a, a comedy writer gets away with banging a little girl. And it's really delightful. It's just, you're torn from today's headlines. No, it's a great movie. It really is. Uh, the person I went to see it with did not like it, had a problem with the, the backstory of the director could not get past, uh, that. And, uh, but, and I, you know, I watched it. I said, well, this is a Woody Allen movie. It's usually a first draft that he punches up on the set. I assume. Mm hmm. I don't know. Yeah. Either way, but I would assume that nobody, nobody is touching Woody's work. You know, I don't know that he works with some really smart actors and, and, uh, um, there is improv. You can't help from happening sometimes. But, but I think his, yeah, I understand that he's not wedded to his lines. Like he said, this is a blueprint. Get it off the page. Say it any way you want without it being, you know, don't worry about my ego. He seems to have a pretty strong hand in, and, and I think, and I don't, when I look at his movies, I'm not thinking about the, the pervert. Uh, I'm thinking about the director and what I'm seeing on the screen and his problems and his later films for me, it more his, uh, style over substance. He's a very stylish director. He's still in some of his jokes are still jokes that would have worked 20 years ago. They don't work so well now because they're more obvious and more over the top. And, uh, his characters are pushed by style more than emotion. Not, not always. And he has, he's done some wonderful films and even in the bad films, they're wonderful moments. And he's also done some that I think are brilliant. Uh, so in the end with movies, isn't it style over substance in the end? Like the Godfather, for example, which I've seen so many times, I can no longer watch it in the end. Isn't it you, you watch it over and over again for the style, not the story? Well, if it didn't have the story, it never would have stuck. You'd have people, they're almost comic figures coming out and doing a series of routines and they are, which would be wonderful in YouTube clips. But those movies were great because two or three of them were great because they had great performances and a great story. It's, it's really about the story. And that's when I say substance. I mean that the, the character parts of it are style and you may return to it and return to those lines because that's what, that's what you remember, but you wouldn't even be thinking about it. If it didn't have all the rest of it. Yeah. I do think sometimes a movie can be just a series of great moments with, you know, a light story. Anyway, I can't, I mean, if you just thinking to the Godfather, think of Pacino's Scarface, you know, that was not a great movie and it had just a few of those moments, but you know, they're sort of iconic. Right. And you still watch it or you still watch those sections of it because of, of those moments or training day, training day. Right. You know, you, I remember watching that movie and thinking, this is an amazing performance from Denzel Washington. The story is kind of not really, but I would see this over and over again, just for his performance. I also think that the Godfather, the actual story of both one and two is so complicated and nuanced that it's not the story that moves the Godfather because I think if you sit people down and ask them, what is the motivation here? Why are they doing this? They couldn't tell you. I think it's a very complicated story that, that presupposes you read Mario Puzo's book. Yeah, I don't have the same feeling about it. I think that the story, I agree that it's complicated, but I think it's very accessible and it's the, the narrative drive that keeps you and you want to be kept because the characters are so interesting. But if they were just coming out and doing sketches, you wouldn't stay with them that long. You stay with them that long because you're involved in the story. And you want to see how it is. Yeah. You know what I saw? This is, I went to see Zemeckis's new movie, Allies. Have you seen this? I have not. It's a, it's a getting bad reviews and it's not fair. It's a really interesting movie. It's just, it's, it's great escapism. And I went back to see it again just because it was so lean and so well made. I really, there isn't a gesture or a moment that doesn't move the story along. I was surprised and I read the reviews and people are poking holes and then I'm going, what, why? It's very, it's that, that will be a movie that will come on television and people will watch it over and over again. I think you're right. You need to be careful of reviews. If, if there's a filmmaker that you like or a writer that you like, an actor that you like, go see it. Give it a shot. What is the movie that comes on and you watch it over and over again besides the Godfather? Catholic high school girls in trouble and pretty much any of the Russian, Russ Meyer Vixen series. I wasn't prepared for that question. I studied for this, but I wasn't prepared for that question. Is there a movie that you can watch over and over again? And you, it's, you say to yourself, why am I watching this? What does this say? I'll say, you know what I watch over and over again and I, I can defend it. There's a, a BBC series called Edward and Mrs. Simpson, the story of the king who, who quit his job for the woman he loved, Wallace Simpson. And it stars Edward Fox. I guess it came out in 1977 and it's seven episodes and I watch it over and over again. I just think, and it's not about the story. It's about the costumes, the lighting, the sets, and, and the music is so beautiful. I actually bought the album. It's about the gayest thing I've ever heard anybody say. Uh, I know the gayest thing I've ever heard anybody say is I'd like you to take your fist, grease it up and let me sit on it while I, we have a young person here. But believe me, that, that is a much, it's, it's, uh, Edward and Mrs. Simpson is, is very big among lonely guys who fall in love with people named Wallace. I think, uh, one of the movies that, that I watched over and over again, uh, is mean streets, which was an early Scorsese with, uh, De Niro and Kytel and just brilliant on every level, uh, the first two thirds of an, first two acts of animal house. Really? Yes. Uh, really? Yes. Okay. Now I have to go watch that now. I haven't seen it since it first came out. Is that Doug Kenny? Yes. Yeah. The first, why? It's, um, uh, it's kind of, it's a slacker movie, but I think early on in those movies and, and the writing is wonderful. The performances are terrific. Uh, Belushi is, is in it. The, every scene, it's, as a series of sketches, it would work, but there's also kind of a weak story, but, but very funny. I think they're very funny on every level. Robert Smigel, uh, who, by the way, keeps talking about the Carvel roast, how great it was, uh, says the first two acts of the producers, the first, are the funniest, well, was 62 minutes in film history. That's what he says to keep watching over and over again. I have to, I have to go back and look at that, but, uh, Mel Brooks is, is brilliant and, and especially, I mean, it's the third act. That's going to be a killer sometimes that, that, uh, you, you're having fun going along and suddenly what the fuck is going on now? Right. Now, why did they went, maybe they just should have walked away from it before they got here. That's why I went to see Blazing Saddles at Radio City Music Hall about three months ago. Now, I had not seen Blazing Saddles since my pot smoking years. So I don't remember Blazing Saddles. I remember not thinking it was that funny, but I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. I know that sounds really stupid to say that, but I think it would, I think that's a movie that would do better if you were stoned because I don't think it holds up and people have memories of that movie that it was, that it was brilliant. And, uh, it's really a series of sketches. There's no particular story. When's the last time you saw it? Um, I tried to get through it probably sometime in the last year or so. Really? Cause I saw, I saw it, it blew me away. It was, oh my God, it's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen in my life. It was like I was seeing it for the first time because I was sober. I hadn't seen it in, you know, 30 years. Uh, it's amazing. It is absolute. And you couldn't get away with any of those jokes. Right. But, you know, I thought those jokes were, when you couldn't get away with them, one, a little bit because of the subject matter or, or the language, but, but also you couldn't get away with them because they're, they're, they weren't by today's standards. They're not great jokes. They're kind of, they're obvious. They're kind of over the top, uh, that works on some levels. I mean, you don't do jokes like that in, in, in your act I've seen, you know, yours are much more intelligent and go on. I like where you're going with this. I think I just hit a wall. No, no, I like, I like this, I like this. But, you know, you don't do jokes like that. And it's not because you're afraid of language or, or sensitivities. You don't do jokes like that because they're, they're not great jokes. Well, not today. You haven't seen me recently before you go, and this has been great. You'll come back. Uh, sure. Okay. We went, yeah, we went a long time with that. I've come with Lovitz. Is Lovitz a town? No, I'm kidding. Oh. Before you go, we've had a national tragedy. Yes. And I have not mentioned the name. I have not brought up the Cleveland Indians not winning the World Series. Is comedy going to change now? Well, here's an experience I had. It was, this was about, um, I think three months ago, maybe it was a couple of months before the election anyway. And I went to see Lewis Black's new show on, on Broadway. And this is a community. And what, what date? Um, it was a couple of months before the election. Okay. So, I mean, may not have it exactly right, but he did a series of Mondays, I think it was in, uh, in the, uh, September, October. So sometime in, in there. So maybe it was August, September, but anyway, before the election, and that's a, he's a comedian that I revere, I think. And a sweet guy. He's a lovely guy. And, and he's not black, by the way. Oh, no, he's not black. Oh, that's why it started on time. The, um, and you can make that joke because you're a racist. Yeah. So it's okay. So he, so he was, and I was looking forward to it. Cause I've, I've see all his shows and I really think he's funny and that angry character that he plays is, is kind of brilliant. And it just wasn't really his best stuff. And I think it was because what was happening in the real political world is so far out. And so stuff that you would make jokes about, but now it's real and I think it's hard. So people that depend on, on who are mostly political, it's going to be really difficult. It doesn't mean you can't write jokes about the people that are, that are in politics now and leading us now or will be leading us and you can't make references. But for someone that is, that is, that's their, that's their whole thing. Right. And it's going to be, that's going to be really tough. It was, I admired how well he did, but I could see, I could see him sweat. Right. It's interesting. There are trends. We're such a fragmented society. I remember after 9-11, and, you know, after my back healed, because you know, I was dancing on the roof with those Muslims that Donald Trump witnessed in New Jersey. Boy, I pulled a bit. Some of those dance moves, you've got to be careful. Well, you're a little older now. Yeah, yeah. But after 9-11. Maybe you should try it without shooting your AR-15. After 9-11, they said, you know, is irony dead? Is satire dead? We were not a fragmented culture back then. We had the internet was only really five years old sort of kind of. Now we're a completely fragmented culture. Everybody can find whatever they want. I sit on YouTube now and I watch Lunar Missions. They have the flight recorders of Apollo 11. And I just watched Alan Shepard's flight. It's an 18-minute flight. The first man in space. You can actually watch the entire flight on YouTube. You're so much lonelier than I thought. Yeah. So we're a much more fragmented culture. And when I ask a question like, well, can what's going to happen to comedy now that Trump is president, nothing's going to happen. It's some people are going to have trouble. Some people will have to. But I think your audience and my audience, our audiences will be the same. Nothing's going to change. Well, no, I think things will change and we all have our alternative universes now. Right. And there's there's a big difference between 9 11 and this current one and 9 11. It seemed like it was an attack from outside of us. This seems like it's an attack from within us. It's we're eating our own. It's not people that we've offended or were angry at us for whatever reason felt that they had reason to attack us and did that. And because we felt we were attacked from without, people kind of banded together and and got strength from that. But now half of the country has fucked us and that's not just a statistic. Those are people and there are people that you can see and walking down the street. They did it. Right. And so and because of what they did, people are going to really and truly suffer and die. Yes. And it's in what will happen to comedy is as our rights to perform comedy are we might be restricted. There's talk about that already and there's certainly a mood to do that among the Trump and his and his followers and his leaders. So it might get more difficult, but we'll still do it. I mean, those of us who do comedy aren't really qualified to do anything else. If we were, we would. Right. I didn't want to talk about Trump and I brought it brought him up because we've been doing we've only been doing shows about Trump and I need to talk about other things. But I one of the things that I've been wondering to soothe myself because somebody said to me, you have John Fugel saying was on the show. He says, you know, you have to do other you have to talk about other things besides Trump. It's you can't it's boring to just focus on that stuff. And there's more to life than Donald Trump. And there is one of the questions I asked myself is I've been wrong about Trump every step of the way. What if he's not Hitler? We've been wrong about him every step of the way. I know my listeners don't want to hear this. They don't want to hear me say what if he's not Hitler? But what if you don't want to offend all the Hitler lovers in your audience? What if there are a couple of possibilities here? If we take a terrorist attack off the table, because I think then we're screwed. And I do think the problem is that people like Rudy Giuliani, all these people he surrounds themselves with are incompetent bullies. And when it comes to going into that situation room with Homeland Security, I don't think they grasp how complicated it is to prevent a terrorist attack. I don't think they understand that people like Bill Clinton and Obama were really good at their jobs and really good at flying drones and killing innocent killing innocent people who had nothing to I'm making a bad taste joke and I'm rambling. But what if he gets lucky and there's no terrorist attack and what happens if we just have four years of things go right? He gets lucky. Well, first of all, and what that says is, you know what? You know what? The people in charge really have no bearing on our future. The people who we think are in charge in Washington, D.C. really don't shape climate change and the economy. Well, let me be a little less philosophical about this. The first of all, you probably weren't wrong about Trump every step of the way. You might have been wrong about what he would accomplish as a candidate first for the nomination and then for the election. But you don't not necessarily doesn't mean you were wrong about who he is and where he is. Great point. So, you know, he's still he's that person that you under underestimated, but he's still the same person. Great point. And so so you've come to this, you've made mistakes about what you what you thought was going to happen, but he's still that guy. And then if he if it's a good four years and and we don't have a cataclysmic climate disaster or we don't have an attack or or some other enormous tragedy, we still will be making decisions. The government will be making decisions that will affect the next four years and the four years after that. If we don't do something about climate change in these four years, we may dodge bullets for those four years, but it just makes it a lot worse for the future. We don't plant the seeds of peace and understanding and cooperation and collaboration among nations then that may boil over in the next poor fucks administration. So no matter how no matter how lucky we get the next four years, it's still, I think, a tragedy for the country. If every indication is that this will be a tragedy for the country and the world. Right. I've been obviously we've all been wrestling with this and a couple of things that I've been thinking about are I remember there was a guy named Arthur Schlesinger who wrote a book called The Cycles of American History or came out right around the time Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan. I remember reading this book. I don't it's like the site. He has that had this there. Arthur Schlesinger is one of Kennedy's speechwriters and one of his historians and Schlesinger. His father was a big historian and Schlesinger wrote this book talking about how American politics is cyclical. It just or it's a pendulum that swings to the left and swings to the right. And one of the things that I'm learning is he was wrong. That I read that book and I remember saying, no, Jimmy Carter is going to get elected reelected. Reagan's going to lose because we're because Arthur Schlesinger says the pendulum is moving to the left. We just got over Nixon and I've come to realize that it's not a pendulum. It's a wrecking ball that history in America is a wrecking ball. We wreck things and it swings left or right backwards and forward in no direction as long as it's destroying something. And that seems to be our history that there is no there's nothing cyclical. There are no patterns to American history. We just wreck what came before us. And there's almost something if we if we accept that, then maybe things will be okay that that that Trump is a wrecking ball. I'm just trying to look for a reason to go on here. You know, I'm saying I think you might be on the wrong path. Whether it's a wrecking ball or a pendulum, there's still our swings and they may not be definable cycles. But it's the because of the problems, the international problems with the environment and politics, we can't afford the luxury of waiting for the next cycle or pendulum swing or wrecking ball. So what's going to happen under all indications are that what's going to happen under the administration that's about to take power in the U.S. is that there will be decisions that will cause irrevocable problems. I agree with you. What I'm saying, I listen, I listeners to this show. And by the way, I'm sorry for that you have to listen to this show. This is a good show, but in general, I feel sorry for my listeners. The I they know that I'm terrified about Trump. The the the the little optimism that I'm kind of getting from this is the wrecking ball idea that everything we thought, not everything as you've pointed at, but a lot of things that we took for granted were wrong. And Trump has just wrecked everything. And maybe those are things that you took for granted. But I'm saying is that even that that we can even our side, we should have gone with Bernie. He was a wrecking ball. And we played it safe with Hillary. This country likes wrecking balls. We'd like to reinvent ourselves over and over. We embrace creative destruction. You cannot be creative unless you destroy what's in front of you. So maybe the lesson that we can take from Trump is, OK, that's the Republican wrecking ball. There's going to be the Million Mom March when he gets inaugurated. Million Woman March. Oh, OK. And some of them are barren. Haven't really done their part. But they still identify with that gender. Yeah. Well, maybe, you know, let's be wrecking balls. You know, if the Republicans are tearing down buildings to build new ones the way Trump has done, maybe it's time we started. We have our own wrecking balls. Maybe that's the solution. I hope not. You know, I hope that's not the solution. It's the and I don't know. I don't have a plan for what the solution is. You know, those of us who don't like what's going on have to or should work to change it, to influence it, whatever we can. And maybe through comedy and maybe through other kinds of activism, but should do that. And the emphasis shouldn't be on on wrecking. The emphasis should be on pointing us in a direction that will will counteract maybe to some extent the wrecking that will be done in our names. Here we've had this conversation about writing and screenplays. You write a first draft. Some guys come in and they destroy it. That's that's what I don't know. Maybe this is maybe I'm just trying to tie it up into a neat little bow. Well, when you do that, doing the process of making a movie as a metaphor for life would be pretty fucking depressing. I think we can come up with something better than that. And I don't think if we tie everything up in a neat little bow, then you and I will be out of work. So maybe we should just let the chaos rain and do what we can to to make more sense of it. I think how is that for wrapping it up? I'm going to wrap it up Apollo 13. OK, I'm I'm obsessed with. Spaceflight, but the very specific, the we chose to go out of the moon. We chose to go to the moon not because it's easy, but because it's difficult, but kind of stuff that that that from like 62 to 69 from beef and broccoli to General Sam's chicken 62 to 69. Those are the years that I'm interested in terms of the space program. And one of my favorite lines from Apollo 13, the movie is, I believe this will be our finest hour. That this crisis, you know, Apollo 13, the the Aquarius was dying in outer space. They had to bring these three guys back and it went from being a crisis to our finest hour. You know, we we always talk about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. But after that, what do we remember bringing Jim Lovell and those guys home? They didn't go they didn't get to the moon, but we brought them home and they lived. And that's also considered our finest hour. I think we're going to look back four years from now in our post apocalyptic hellscape and say this was our finest hour. You know, God, Jesus, they were. John was right about the book of revelations and the kingdom of God is now on the planet Earth. And Trump was the anti Christ and you and I as Jews will convert to Catholicism and and enjoy the rapture and this will be our finest hour. This is all going to be cut from the broadcast. No, what I'm saying is that the Armageddon is upon us and and it's going to be great. We're going to see our dead cats in heaven. Well, you know, I if when we look back to our finest hours, I hope we find better ones than than bringing the Apollo 13 crew back. That was solving a math problem and going to the moon. That was a nice accomplishment. But I think they were just looking for new neighborhoods that were restricted. So I think we need to do something better as a nation to come up with finest hours. Louis Friedman is a brilliant comedy writer. His latest movie is The Comedian with Robert DeNiro Daniel DeVito, Leslie Mann, Harvey Keitel. Who am I leaving out? Eddie Falco. Wow. Charles Groton. Wow. Patty Lapone. Wow. Billy Crystal. Really? Jerry Lewis. No, he no, he's not in it. I was fucking with you. Oh, OK. Is Billy Crystal it Billy Crystal does a cameo on it? Yes. Does he play Mr. Saturday Night? No, he doesn't. This is he plays Billy Crystal, which is a lot like distressingly like Mr. Saturday Night. I like that movie, Mr. Saturday Night. I do. I'm a defender of that movie. Good. To me, it has a happy ending. That's nice. Well, the woman I was with gave me a handjob. Well, there you go. There I go. Thank you. Should have had that during the Woody Allen movie. She would have been younger and more Asian. Thank you, Louis.