 The David Feldman radio program is made possible by listeners like you, you sad pathetic humps Welcome to broadcast I'm David Feldman David Feldman show comm please friend me on Facebook follow me on Twitter on today's show Comedian Frank Santarelli. You might recognize him from the Sopranos. He played Georgie and And he's a Sterical comic out of Boston old friend of mine great conversation And then we go to Regina Canada to talk to jeet here. He's the senior editor at the new republic magazine Jeet talks to us about the alt right neo nazis and their sense of humor So we're gonna talk about comedy today with a comedian and an editor over at the new republic Hey, we are stepping up our efforts to fight mr. Trump Legally within the system. That's the best way to take on a potential fascist I think he has the potential To well the republic is already destroyed. This is Time for our second republic first step is to peacefully legally Remove donald trump from office. I know that's wishful thinking But we have to fight him every step of the way you have to fight These people Every step of the way. How do you do it? How do you do it? They can't count our votes Jill stein is doing recounts in michigan In pennsylvania and in wisconsin Conventional wisdom is it's not going to change anything, but it's important to count the votes They can't really count our votes and if you're a person of color, they won't Let you vote often, but one thing they do count is your money That's what people care about Christmas season is upon us and Your biggest vote in the united states is what you do with your money That they can count despite What donald trump says that the new york times is doing very well. Thank you very much in fact They announced that since the election New york times subscriptions have gone through the roof More and more people now are subscribing to the new york times You can get a subscription to the new york times. You can get a subscription to the washington post to the nation magazine These are important magazines and periodicals that you need to support You go to david feldmanshow.com hit our amazon banner search magazine subscriptions And get a subscription to the new york times for your loved one get one for the nation magazine the washington post Yes, it's owned by amazon But the washington post is doing some great reporting The los angeles time support your local newspaper and you can get a subscription for these magazines and newspapers on amazon And i'll get a small piece of it because I need to keep my lights on hey Now not only Can you vote by spending money? You also vote by not spending money. Yes boycotts Yes You notice that glenn beck disappeared Especially from you know cable news. He went off and did I think is it called the blade or something? But that's going out of business You know why glenn beck disappeared from fox news? Because we boycotted his advertisers remember? rush limbaugh We don't really know how much money rush limbaugh makes these days You know why rush limbaugh is becoming more and more irrelevant Because we are boycotting his sponsors. Did you know that? Do you know the power you have in boycotting advertisers? Breitbart news was set up by andrew breitbart Who passed away in 2012 It is an alt right news rag on the web that promotes alt right theories racist homophobic misogynistic tracks are published Protecting the confederate flag. They write pieces attacking women People of color defending Your right to wave the confederate flag Well, steve bannon is one of donald trump's chief advisors and steve bannon runs breitbart.com Which traffics in fake news like when donald trump says three million Votes were cast illegally in last november's election. He gets that information From breitbart, which doesn't traffic and information it traffics and innuendos and lies Here's what you can do. You can boycott anybody any company That advertises On breitbart news. That's how they make their money. They make their money through advertising And if you let the advertisers know that you're going to boycott their product if they continue to support breitbart You can actually put breitbart out of business According to salon magazine Kellogg's, you know the people who give you high-fiber cereal They have pulled their advertising from breitbart and breitbart is announcing That they want their readers to boycott Kellogg for boycotting breitbart You know breitbart is so full of crap I doubt they use any of Kellogg's products since Kellogg's tends to have high-fiber Cereal so if you like freedom if you hate neo-nazis you might support Kellogg and Use their cereal because they are boycotting breitbart all state insurance nest labs earth link have all remove their Advertising from breitbart according to salon And the companies that have yet to remove their Advertising are bmw the german auto maker chipotle They've already given us a virus and Now they seem to Be promoting an even more toxic virus breitbart news del computers and chasebank As of tuesday of this week are still advertising on breitbart. So Here's what you do obviously We're not going to buy a bmw even if we had the money We're not going to chipotle. You know chipotle actually it's pretty healthy food when they're not They're not killing you with filth Del computers and chasebank To be honest with you. I have a checking account with chase So Here's what you do you can stop using these products, but you can also go Now where is this? Let me find it Go to I hope you all have twitter accounts go to sleeping giants It's a recently formed twitter account that has been tracking ads that are appearing on breitbart.com Sleeping giants is a new twitter account And what you do is you follow sleeping giants and they will give you updates every day on Companies who are that are well be who according to citizens is united. It would be companies who are advertising on breitbart It's called sleeping giants. Here's their handle at slpng underscore giants And in the background you hear the police coming for me at slpng underscore giants Follow them. They will give you updates on how to boycott Anybody who is supporting breitbart and they give instructions their pinned tweet On their twitter page is how to be a giant one look on breitbart and take a screenshot of an ad to Tweet it to the advertiser with the polite note three tag it at slpng underscore giants So do you know how to get a screenshot of an ad? I don't know how to Instruct you on how to do a screenshot But it's really easy to do Just google how to take because I don't know what kind of computer you have So just find out how to take a screenshot Uh, and if you can't take a screenshot if it's too complicated for you just tweet to the advertiser with a polite note Why are you advertising on breitbart? Uh, and then be as angry or as kind as you want and then tag it at slpng underscore giants sleeping giants at twitter. Am I being clear here? Do you understand that you can use twitter? To really scare the hell out of advertisers So you might want to tweet at BMW tweet at chipotle tweet at del computers And tell them you're no longer going to buy their products until they remove Their support they're advertising on breitbart news This is really important your vote counts, but your money counts even more your threats Your threats not to use a brand terrifies corporate america More so than your votes. This is the real power that you have This is the real power of social media Have you ever complained on social media about an experience on an airline or with a bank or with a computer? Try it just you know, uh, if you're having a problem with your apple computer Tweet at apple computer so all your followers can see it. They will get back to you Before you're finished with the tweet they are terrified of your influence with your followers on twitter and i'm saying if you have three followers on twitter Trust me on this Trust they they have people monitoring Twitter to make sure that their brand is being protected When you start tweeting out at companies on twitter That you're gonna boycott them unless they pull their advertising from breitbart trust me on this This is more powerful than your vote because it's being counted because it's about money And you don't see glenn beck On fox news anymore and there's a reason for that and that's because we boycott it and we announced a boycott about five years ago Boycott anybody who sponsors glenn beck You have no idea how powerful this is rush limba is becoming irrelevant. See who advertises on rush limba You can make breitbart news disappear by threatening the advertisers How to be a giant Go to sleeping giants on twitter. They're at slpng underscore giants Follow them. They will give you daily updates on who is advertising on breitbart news Then when you see a call to action Like the nfl today has an ad running on breitbart And people who follow sleeping giants are either taking screenshots if they can do it or just tweeting at nfl Informing them that they're advertising on breitbart And we are no longer going to support your product if you continue to support breitbart news And the nfl will pull their advertising trust me ratings are down. They're terrified. They're getting bad publicity They have enough problems damaging the brains of their players. They don't want to be responsible for damaging Any more brains by supporting breitbart news Okay, that's our call to action today A lot of you are helping me promote information and news Go to david feldmanshow.com Contact me send me information. That's our call to action for today On our show frank santa relly from the sopranos and then the senior editor for the new republic magazine jeet here Joining us in boston, massachusetts is frank santa relly frank Is best known for playing the recurring role of georgia the bartender and the sopranos That's how you know him, but he's also a world-class stand-up comedian You are and You'll be at the mohegan sun in unkesville connecticut on december 14th And if you live in newport rhod island on december 3rd frank will be at the grand Hyatt performing go see frank santa relly a great great comedian a great actor Hello there frank Hey david feldman. What are the all-time crates, man? I miss you. I miss you continue I miss you. I haven't seen you and how long has it been since I've actually seen you I don't know, but I cannot tell you the number of times. I'm on the phone with brian kiley The great comedian and comedy writer right and I say I need to hear santa relly. I need to hear santa relly tell me what to do To give me advice to tell to tell me it's okay to own my feelings Well, I get huge laughs whenever I'm with boston comedians because I'll just break in and go Let me tell you want to know something. You know, who's a real jerk brian kiley And people just break in a hysterical effort because that's exactly what he's not he's not He's like one of the most well respected and wonderful human beings that we all know I'll say you know who really is bluish and you can't get a word in brian kiley He's a jerk. The only the only person who doesn't like brian kiley is brian kiley. That's right There's nobody. I don't know anybody is a bad thing. So you use uh, let's do some You know home homework here and sure explain who brian kiley who who I am who you are you're exactly talking when did you start doing stand-up comedy I started in 1981 at Just talk about yourself for the whole Jesus. I With drew carry I started with drew carry And he makes 11 million dollars a year and I'm in unka still kinetic room of a of a warehouse So uh, no, uh, yeah, I started in 81. I really did start with him. I didn't meet him Ever I've only met him one time. I got in front of the improv like about 10 years ago But we never really crossed paths. He left right as soon as I got there I started there moved to boston in 85 as you know, the comedy scene was booming seven comedy clubs about 61 nighters Barry cats was booking everybody was booking things. My clerk had 90 rooms. It was ridiculous how much work there was And so I moved to boston And never looked back and I used to go to new york and do auditions and stuff And that's how I got a manager and an agent and everything And so, um, if you go on my imdb I've done a ton of stuff tv little circle spots on television law and order with jerry orback boston city with michael j fox providence um las vegas with james kahn well I don't think these people know who you're really talking to Either do you You need help. I have a good psychologist this Uh So you're born in cleveland I didn't know that about I was born in cleveland, Ohio and the indians broke my heart I'm wearing a black jacket right now with the chief wahoo Insignia on it right now and it is ruffling feathers wherever I go People like chief wahoo get rid of that guy. Well, so he's not as bad as chief nakahoma for the Atlanta bro So bad. He doesn't even have a logo. That's just That's just his name. Isn't that the worst? It's worse than chief. Chief wahoo chief nakahoma Is he japanese? ah you remember james kahn there and her husband said turn it with a tomahawk Right yeah Well, do that bit in uncusville connecticut at the mohegan sun Right living in boston so you've been living in boston since what 80 Oh, yeah, I've been living here a long time. It's like 1985 and I never looked back. This has been my home I raised two daughters I got 21 and 18-year-old daughters and yeah, so that's a lot of responsibility right there for a sweetie late night stand-up comedian. Well, I'm going to apologize because I, anybody- You should. You should be apologizing to me right away for whatever is coming, whatever is coming. I hate to bring up the Sopranos, the only thing, and I apologize because there's so much more to you than the Sopranos, so let's get this out of the way. Sure. Let's get it out of the way. Sure. You know, everybody wants to bring up, when they interview me, the Me-Lie Massacre when I was working with Lieutenant Kelly in March of 68 when we massacred a small village. Yeah, I got to Sopranos. I went to an audition, and I don't know if you saw the episode where I got beat up with the phone. That episode, I never saw that. Did Tony used to beat you up with the phone? He did. That was my sort of MO, right? I was in 16 episodes, and then 12 of them, and then I got the graphic for it. I'm being sarcastic. Let me explain. Are you kidding me? I know a lot of people say, no, I never watched it. Are you kidding? I was like, what? Oh, yeah. I get people all the time. No, I never watched it. I didn't get HBO. Oh, no. Are you kidding? I watch, I have seen every episode of the Sopranos at least 20 times. At least. Right. Right. So you've seen me get beat up. Okay. So the first episode. I know that you lost your eye. You lost your eye. You lost your eye. Oh, yeah. Ralphie. Ralphie rips my eye open with that chain with the lock at the end of it. Right. I'm glad he ate it. That's one of them. That's a big one. I mean a lot of scenes in that one. I mean like 12 scenes in that episode. All that or? Like more than Gandalf Hewney. All that over a hewer. That's right. From that episode. And so I went to this audition and Georgina Walken is in there. Christopher Walken's wife is the head of the casting department for the Sopranos. Wow. And so I go in and the lines are, hello, hello, I'm talking to this old fashioned phone and it's a menu and I'm going, hello, hello, hello, that's the lines. Somehow I made them laugh and then they looked at me and I said, listen, if I get this part, I'm going to need more lines than hello and they all, everyone cracked up except for Gandalf Hewney. He kind of looked at me like, who is this guy, you know, and then I got the part. Oh, but Gandalf Hewney was, was he in the room? He was in the room. He was in the room. Absolutely. He was in the room. And I knew him from only, um, uh, Crimson Tide. He was in the movie Crimson Tide. He was in, uh, uh, a civil action with, uh, John Travolta, he was in a small scene and that he was wonderful and, um, so not, he wasn't really known yet. No. So anyway, with everybody laughed and I got the part, it was a one day shoot. And while I was there, I was being Frank Sanderl as balancing things on my nose and just being funny and goofing around. And they took pictures of the tattoos they put on me and the girl, the makeup room said, this is great. I said, why? She said, that means you're coming back. I said, it does. And she said, yeah, they wouldn't take the pictures of your tattoos if they didn't want you to come back. So sure enough, I came back and 16th, I think 17 episodes actually aired. And I was in, I take 18 of them. So I was at a bunch. Wait, there's another episode. There's another episode that we haven't seen yet. I think, well, there's one that they left on the cutting room floor. Really? And, um, yeah. Oh yeah. There's one day tape that they never showed. And it was after I got beat up really badly and, um, Tony Cerrico, Pauli Walnutz goes, he don't want to see you no more, Tony, you don't want to see you no more. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So there's an episode that we don't know about. That's correct. Are you allowed to talk about it? I am. I am. There's an episode that they brought me back after not being on the show for literally almost an entire season. They brought me back at the end and Tony, he and a lot of my friends were saying, oh my God, you're going to kill Tony Soprano. You're going to be the guy to get it. It certainly looked that way. Like why did they bring me back? I wasn't on for like 13 episodes. I wasn't on and out of nowhere, my manager calls me because you're not going to believe this. They want you back. And I can't do that. But so do I. Gandolfini comes into the butt of being seasoned slow down, slow down, slow down. I want to, you know what? Slow down. Okay. This is really important to me. Like this isn't, this is like the most important thing in my life. I'm being serious. You have to understand that I watch this show over and over and over again. So, right. Okay. All right. That's correct. Okay. So tell me the, tell me what the story is. It's, it's, I've actually been beaten up in, this is, this is season six or seven. I get beat up really badly. And the chain, the chain with the lock. Yeah. Right. Ralph. Ralphie. Right. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm wrong. It's the one where he beats me up with the singing fish. Oh yeah. The, the Billy Bass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think this is a place of business? What are you doing with this? And he, and he, and he really, really beats me up with it badly. And I'm laying there and the next couple scenes go by and Tony Sirico, Paulie Walnuts is standing in front of a hospital room. You don't see me and he says, Tony, he don't want to see you. And Tony Soprano gives Paulie Walnuts the money and says, here, give this to him. And Tony Sirico, Paulie Walnuts says, one of the funniest lines in the panel history. Don't worry, Tony. I'll give it to him. And I'll take him to church on Sunday with my mother. I swear that's what he says. Like I'll smooth it over, but he's quitting. He's quitting the Butter Bay. Like who quits the mafia? You can't. Right? Who quits the mob? I quit because he beat me up one too many times. So almost the whole season goes by. They call me up and they say, we want you back. And nobody knows why and nobody knows anything. And I go to the read through and literally I'm at the Butter Bay all by myself and he comes in and he stops, deadness checks. He goes, what are you, what, what are you doing here? And I go, I actually say the word Cleveland didn't work out. Wow. So I went to Cleveland, according to my lines, I went to Cleveland and he goes, huh, okay. And he walks by that we shot that and it never aired. So it was literally a minute long scene. When you, so there wasn't an episode. It was supposed to be in the final season and it never aired because of whatever. But you budget cuts. Okay, but wait a second. I want to get to the bottom of this. You said there was an entire episode that didn't air. You're saying this is just a scene. No, no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. In the final season of the Sopranos, we taped a scene. I taped a scene that never made it on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There was confusion. I was creaming my pants thinking there was a lost episode of the Sopranos. Is there a possibility that there is a lost episode of the Sopranos? I don't believe so. No. No. Well, I think James Gandolfini is the single greatest actor who has ever been, ever. You might be right about that. You are correct, sir, because his face, I mean every episode is built around him. He carried that whole show and his face was so filled with expression. Everything that he felt, you saw in his face. I know exactly what you're saying. You are correct. He was our generation's Marlon Brando. I'm going to go even further and say Tom Selleck. Do you know he was a Marlboro man? Was he really? He was a Marlboro man. He really was. That was his first gig. It was on the magazine cover, on the back of the magazine, pushing cigarettes. Let's get back to James Gandolfini. That being said about Gandolfini, I maintain that the show that he didn't find it until the second season. That's correct. Really? I mean, he didn't hit his stride, so to speak. That's correct. I believe that. There was a lightness. There was something very scripted in the first season. Again, it's the best show that's ever been on television. Me too. I believe that. There was the first season. It just felt written, and it was acted. You could tell they were acted, and they were being funny off the lines as opposed to internally. It was written the first seven episodes, maybe six, I'm not exactly sure, were written by a guy from Boston named Frank Renzuli, and he left the show. They were on episode seven for a season, and they brought in this writing team, husband and wife Robin Burgess, and somebody else, some guy, her husband, I forget who his name was. Yeah. But it wasn't a day. Very interesting. But not David Chase? Wasn't he running the room? Yeah. David Chase was the, sure, he was the executive producer. But the people that were actually the meat of the writing were a husband and wife team. I'm not kidding. They were exceptional. I thought they were exceptional, because they came in, like right when you said, right, it meant the end of the first season they came in. They changed all faces of the show. I don't know if, again, you would know more than I do. I suspect that it had nothing to do with the writing. It had more to do with the actors owning the show and not the writers. In television, the writer is king, and sometimes the writer can suffocate the actors. That's correct. And I think Gandolfini just began to own the character and own the show. I don't know anything. This is just having watched each episode 20 times, and I just think he arrived at an inner truth that he just got to the point where he understood the character. And he didn't stop educating himself, right? I mean, he was in constant training as an actor. He was amazing. He would be by himself on the set. He wasn't the kind of, everybody asked me all the time, what was he like? What was he like? I said, you know what? It wasn't time for me to go, hey, I got a joke for you, buddy. No, no. He had a script in his hand. He was working with acting coaches. He was a student of the game, and he brought it. He brought his A game every day on the set. And I worked very, very closely with him many times. Many times it was just me and him. You saw him. He beats me up with a bucket of ice. All kinds of different ways. I get beat up by him. And the phone episode was fascinating because they actually had a real phone that they wanted to hit you with, not a real one, like a rubber phone that they bought from LA. And it actually plugged in and everything. Boy, Naomi Campbell could she use one of those. That would have been funny 10 years ago. That's right. But yeah, it was a mystical experience for me because I was hanging out with my Patty Stalfa and Bruce Springsteen over there and all kinds of different people where I would show up on the set. I know Syragusa, the guy that played for the Ravens. He was always hanging around. What do you mean they were hanging? For that big guy? They were hanging around? Yeah, watching the shoots. Yeah, a lot of them would sit up, but there was like a little coffee thing. You could sit up in the top and look down at the Butter Bing. And that's another thing. That guy thinks he died and went to heaven, the guy that owned that strip club. I drive them. It's a crazy little strip club in Lodi, New Jersey, in the middle of nowhere. And now it's the world famous home of Tony Sopranos' Butter Bing. And it's called the Satin Dolls. Is that on Route 4 or Route 23? It's on Route 16 in Lodi, right? Before you get the hack and sack. And you're going to believe this. There's a toy store next door, right next door. And you know this from the episode it was in. Can you tell me? The name, the party box. The party box is where Big Pussy was shopping and he ran into the Elvis impersonator. He had a whack. That's correct. That's correct. He was with the... So how many of those were sets? So they shot at the Satin Dolls? That was not a... They shot at the Satin Dolls. That was the strip club. And then the back room of the Butter Bing was there. The actual back room where we're looking at the Pio Mi, the picture of Pio Mi and the playing pool. And the bathroom where I'm taking the wand and checking for microphone bugs on the floor with Christopher. And that's all in that one building. And it's still a strip club? It's still a strip club? It's all a strip club. That was a real strip club. They would rent it out. They would rent it out for the night. So if I go to that strip club, you know, just because I'm a big fan of the Sopranos, how much is the VIP room? You know what? Because I'm a fan... I'm not really sure. But there's a big foyer now where you walk in. And is there any language restrictions on this? Well, I would prefer a few then, Curse. All right. Well, there's... You can get a G string in there. I got screwed in the Butter Bing. You can get... You know, there's a foyer there where you can get a hat. You know, with boobs on them and stuff. And you know, it's an all-inclusive foyer where you can buy Sopranos memorabilia before you even walk into the bar. Oh, yeah. You can get a killing selling stuff that says Butter Bing on it. I apologize for talking about the Sopranos. I really... Not at all. Not at all. I love talking about it. You're exactly right. One of the best damn TV shows it was ever on. Ever. It was. Yes, riveting. It's the best. It really was, you know. And the beauty is that it was all Gandalfian. It was all... To me, it was all Gandalfian. It was good actors around him. But man, he really was amazing. He really was. He was riveting to watch. Can I ask you a stupid question? Sure. And I apologize. I apologize up front because this is going to be a really stupid question. Sure. Who am I talking to? Frank Center. Oh, okay. Thank you. No. So, this is my stupid... And you are... And you... And this is David Seldo, Seldman. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And by the way, I really did play Ten of You and Fiddler on the Root. So did Don Marrera, by the way. Isn't that no way? Yeah. That's the real... Oh, man. I can't wait to see him. That's hysterical. He's so much better than he was. I mean, come on. I was in the moment, man. I was in the moment. I was Tevia. When did you play Tevia? I was 18 years old. I was a senior... I was 17. I was a senior in high school. This proves my theory that Italians and Jews, if you're going to marry... Absolutely. I am an honorary Jew for that to hundreds and hundreds of Jewish people in Cleveland. They will forever love me because, you know, dear God, did you have to make my poor old horse lose his shoe just before the Sabbath? It's enough. Isn't it enough? Isn't it enough? Isn't it enough? You give me five daughters in the life of poverty. What do you got against my horse? That's comedy, man. That's comedy. Oh, yeah. And I remember... I remember Yogi Greenberg. Oh, really? Yeah. That was his name. No kidding. Yogi Greenberg's father came up to me. In the hallway once in high school, you happen to be there, he goes, how are you going to play this? How are you going to play this? You're Italian. How are you going to play this? You know, he was outraged. You know, there wasn't a Jewish guy that played this role. It was a super, super mega Italian guy, you know. He just couldn't get his head around it. You're getting even for James Cahn. There you go. There you go. Absolutely. James Cahn was a Jew. Nobody realizes that. You know what? You're right. A lot of people don't know that. Now I was on Las Vegas with James Cahn. I was on Las Vegas with James Cahn. I was in the pilot. Absolutely. I was in bodyguard. Was the commission that too? Michael Chiklis? No. No, he was not. No, your facts are uncoordinated. I know. You've said, yes. Let's get back to you. By the way, Jews and Italians in Cleveland, I know first hand, because I have relatives in Cleveland, the Jews in the Italian... Do you really? Oh, yeah. No kidding. Yeah. And the Jews and the Italians worked very well together in certain businesses that were not legitimate. That's correct. They were both extremely hairy people. Which is the link between the two. And I don't recommend intermarriage between Italians and Jews, because it's yin and yin. That always happens. It's not... It's the same energy. Right. And so there's going to be... Well, I was the best man at Sam Greenfield's wedding. Do you know Sam Greenfield? He's like a comic turn radio guy, right? That's exactly right. I was his best man at one of the funniest moments. Is he right wing? What's that? Is he right wing? Oh, he's not. He is not. No, no. He's on our side. He's one of the good guys. He had a wedding and I was one of the guys holding the canopy. And so here comes the rabbi and he's speaking in... Is it Yiddish? It's not Yiddish, is it? Is it Hebrew that you speak at a wedding? Do you speak Hebrew? Hebrew. Okay. So he's speaking Hebrew. Unless it's a reformed marriage and then it's Latin. Okay. Yeah. He's speaking to Hebrew and in the middle he says Barbara Singer, Sam Greenfield of 128 West 96th Street, New York, New York, 1-0011. He had to read their address. He had to say it in the middle of all this Hebrew and everyone laughed. He said 1-0011. It was almost like watching Hollywood Squares when they would give the... Oh, right. He said it and everyone laughed and he looked at everybody incredulous and said, I said something funny. Right. Like scolding everybody in the room. The Spiegel catalog Chicago 60609. That's it. That's what I meant. He goes 1-001 and we cracked up and I said something funny like he was not happy that we were laughing at this part of the wedding. I wonder if the Spiegel catalog still exists. You just grew up if you're our age. If you're our age, you grew up here. The Spiegel catalog, absolutely. Our listeners have no idea of what we're talking about. That's right. Dicker and dicker of Beverly Hills. Remember that one? That was Hollywood Squares. Dicker and dicker of Hollywood Squares. That would be like Carol Merrill or J Ward or Johnny Olson would say dicker and dicker. Johnny Olson. Right. Unbelievable. Don Pardo. I wanted a dicker and dicker all night, Carol Merrill. I know. Let me ask you a stupid question going back to James Gandolfini. This is a stupid question. Sure. Who was he on the Sopranos? No. No. What character was he? When he was beating you up. He was beating me up. Okay, so I suspect that there was no laughter. No. No. There was a limited crew in the Butter Bing and a lot of times I worked with him. Limited crew, limited actual people sitting at the bar. A lot of times they had a lot of guys sitting around the actual perimeter of the bar. And that was fascinating. Guys getting hired for $120 a day to watch naked girls dance. Literally just pretend they were sitting there drinking. And it was fascinating to watch and to be a part of that. And there was actual naked girls. And that was unsettling for a lot of guys. Well, I think that a lot of the women crew would comment about how the men of the crew, the guys that hang the lights and such, would act weird on those days. Because there was literally naked women stuff. And the men would act weird in that they would? Just their blood was up, their blood pressure was up. Thinking about sex, they just were not clear headed. But we're making mistakes and forgetting things and not being themselves. That's what one woman crew member said. Oh boy, we're going to the Butter Bing. All the guys are going to be acting stupid today. So you, how many days were the shoot? How many hours? For me, three sometimes four days for me to shoot my stuff. Absolutely. Took a month to shoot a whole episode. Really? It took a month. Absolutely. A little more than a month. And then when they went to Rome and stuff like that, it was all best rock. They were there for six months. Commendatory. Commendatory. Right. So that was David Chase's cameo in the episode. But let me ask you, so you're surrounded by naked women all day? Not surrounded, but like on the stage, literally on the stage and sweating, because they couldn't run the air conditioners, because the air conditioners would mess with the sound. So the big giant air conditioners that would normally be running in a place like that were off. So it was literally a hundred degrees in there. Hot, sweater, hot, sweaty naked girls. Absolutely. Right. Let me ask you a stupid question. Okay. This is, and I apologize. Sure, you're apologizing. Women are the ones who don't have penises, right? That's correct. Okay. When you're surrounded by naked, beautiful strippers, at some point you get into guys. You get bored and you want to blow a man, right? That's not true. That is incorrect. But I mean, at some point you get acclimated to just seeing naked women and you are no longer, right? How many times can you sneak off and jerk off in your car? I mean, at some point, doesn't it wear off after a while? Well, you know, I haven't thought of announcing that I'm gay, even though I'm not, just because I think it'd be a big career move for me. You know, a big guy like me from Cleveland being gay would be absolutely shocking to the show business world. Okay. And so it would get me a lot of press, I think. We'll do it. But I know exactly. But at some point, do you forget that there are these naked women around you and you just kind of... Well, yeah, because I'm supposed to be acting, you know, I'm sort of moving around and stuff. But the beauty is, is people have asked me many times, what... How do you know which... Because they use strippers and then they use regular actresses. And the regular actresses would put a robot during the break. And the regular strippers would just stand there. And they didn't care. And they would talk about how their car broke down under a New Jersey term party. You know, regular conversations. I mean, they weren't totally naked, but they might as well have been. Are you circumcised? Are you circumcised? Me? Yes, I am. Oh, because, you know, usually when a woman tells me her car broke down, I say, why don't you look under my hood and I'll show you how to fix it. Kill me? Please? Somebody just kill me? I don't deserve to be talking to Frank Santor. Really? Yes. Yes, you do. Can I tell the listeners who you are? No. David Seldman is one of the funniest guys around. Oh, keep going. That's not an exaggeration. Go on. That's not an exaggeration. Your name comes up all the time. And not just with Kylie, with Tony D. And, you know, I talked to Paul because he's allowed to see every once in a while and, you know, people like that. So anyway, we love you, Ben. And we're pulling for you to come up from the bottom. We're hoping that somehow you come out of this, this doldrums that you're in. For the past 20 years. For the past quarter century. Do you know what the hardest thing my children are into comedy? They're big, huge fans of comedy. And the hardest thing for kids in their 20s is to discover that their father might actually be a little cool. Yes. And they can't accept the fact that sometimes we'll go somewhere and somebody they really respect in the comedy world will say my praises. Yes. And they hate it. Boy, you nailed that right. My daughters want nothing to do with comedy though. They've seen Tony D. They've seen a couple of comedians that they know working with me. They've seen maybe three or four shows. They really are not students of comedy. But you're absolutely right. People will talk about Frank Santorelli in their presence and they'll be like, well, I guess my father is sort of somebody. Somebody. But your daughter, you have two daughters and they don't want to be comedians. I'm thinking you were so abusive they want to be strippers. They're just going right to... Your daughters don't want to be comedians. Chris Rock says that. Chris Rock says that. What does he say? Because if your daughter's a stripper, you screwed up, man. There's no two ways about it. That's true and not true because... Oh, sure. I mean, they're making $900 a night. They're not having sex with anybody. All they're doing is dancing in front of these goofy guys that think, this chick's coming home with me tonight, man. So is that... I gave her 20 bucks. Yeah, I mean, how many of those? I'm curious because I think there was a time when they had daddy issues. Sure. And now I think it's... I don't go to strip joints. Right. Even though I'm almost completely divorced, I'm still very cheap. Right. I'm very cheap. I will not pay for... You're not cheap. No, I just won't go to a strip club. How can you afford to have this show? That's true. The amount of money I'm paying you to do this? I know. Good coins. That's not bad. I can do that. I can't go to a strip club. I just would find it. No, I can't either. I always thought it was weird. I always thought it was deeply, deeply weird to go to a strip club. Right. I didn't really get it. But that's all another story. That is an entirely different story. I would go to a hoover. I love that. Some of your listeners don't know exactly what a hoover is. It's when you lost your eye and he kills the stripper. He was a hoover, Tony. A hoover. All this over a hoover. Right. Is it dead hoover? Dead hoover. All this over a dead hoover. I didn't know. My listeners... And then we're going to wrap it up. And next time you're going to come on the show, we're not going to talk about the Sopranos. Okay. We're just going to talk only about James Gandolfini. I promise you. You're okay. You have my word. I don't want to get you. Okay. I don't want to pigeon you. Listen, I'll talk about it. I'll come on it. We should do a weekly report, a weekly Sopranos report. Would you do that? Absolutely. Absolutely I would. I love talking about the Sopranos. You know, people need to go, who are you on the show? Who are you? What did you play like that? People like you have seen the shows 20 times. It was on A and E with the sex and the violence taken out so grandmothers could watch it. Now I'm in a mall. People go, hey, you're the guy that got beat up in the butt of it. Yes, I am. You're the guy that used to get beat up. We felt so bad for you. One guy, hey, one guy, one guy goes, hey man, how can you not beat him up? You're bigger than he is. And I go, dude, you know it's not real, right? It's not a real show. He's like, you should beat him up. You're bigger than he is. What's that about? Hey, yeah. I'm going to wrap it up. I'm going to ask you another question. This time I'm going to apologize to my listeners before I ask. Because I'm repeating something that I say anytime. This is the truth, but I've said it a million times on the show. So my listeners have to put up with it. I didn't know that the Sopranos was funny until five years ago. This is a true story. I was watching it with you. I'm telling you, I used to watch it over and over again and it would just wash over me. It was so real and it seemed so true that there was nothing. I knew they had funny one-liners that they would make each other laugh with. Sure. I never got the visual puns and the irony. Sure. Until I sat down with my mother and she loves the show and she would laugh hysterically and I'd go, what are you laughing at? And she says, you're not paying attention to this. You're not seeing how funny this is. Right, right. And I started watching it all over again and go, oh my God, it is funny. Yeah, one specific episode that Ralphie says at the dinner table. They're sitting there eating and he goes, I was going to be an architect. And get off me and he's eating and he almost spits out the spoon. That to me was one of the funniest moments in the show, the whole history of the show. I was going to be an architect. He says it real wistfully. He's like being wistful. If a guy who murders people can be wistful, he was. Right. I was going to be an architect. And whoever dressed Ralphie is a genius. Whoever picked it because it was all Ralph Lauren outlet. It was all from the Ralph Lauren outlet store. Right. And it was perfect the way he drew it. It was just so... And you know, I got a bunch of stories, man. I could come out and tell you really funny stories, man. So yeah, definitely. I'll come out and talk about the spread. We can talk only about the spread if you want. Well, let's do it. Let me just tell you this one real quick. Ralph, I was in the first four episodes. First four, real quick, boom, boom, boom. And then nothing for almost 20 episodes goes by. I come back in season three and that's when he hits me in the face with the chain, with the stomach, with the pool stick. And that whole scene, they kill the bar, the stripper out back. All right. When I showed up that day, Tony Cerrico saw me. He was smoking a cigarette. He was all by himself. He looks at me and he goes, you must have done something right. He wasn't kidding. Everybody found out I was a comedian. They were an abject horror, like how the hell did this Yahoo get on this show? I kid you not. They were not Michael Imperiali. Same thing. He kind of looked at me and said, someone says you do stand up. And I said, yeah. And he didn't say anything. He just sat there looking at me like with the stain. Well, God bless you, Frank Santarelli. Thank you, man. Let me wrap this up, Frank Santarelli. You got it. He's a tremendous comedian. He'll be at the Mohegan Son in Uncusville, Connecticut on December 14th. Go see Frank Santarelli at the Mohegan Son in Uncusville, Connecticut on December 14th. Go see him on December 3rd in Newport, Rhode Island at the Grand Hyatt. December 3rd. He is a great, great comedian. And do you have a website? FrankSantarelli.net. And how do you spell Santarelli? S-A-N-T-O-R-E-L-L-I. And do you have a Facebook thing? I do. I'm on Facebook. And are you on Twitter? No. I'm not. All right. But yeah, anytime you want me to come on, man, anytime, call me up and I'll come on. I love you, buddy. I miss you. Thank you, man. Thanks for doing this. You've had it. Bye. So we got a small percentage of everything you purchase. And while you're on Amazon shopping for the David Feldman Show website, please buy gift subscriptions for The New York Times, The Nation magazine, The Washington Post. Support your local newspapers. You can buy gift subscriptions for mainstream media, which I believe in. Support mainstream media. We need The New York Times. We need The Washington Post. We need The Nation magazine. That's not a mainstream magazine, but we need The Nation magazine. Support real journalism. Support real journalism. Hey, get a subscription to The New Republic. Coming up, senior editor from The New Republic, Jeet here. Anybody who's a member of a protected class knows when they are being baited, specifically through jokes. If you're black, Hispanic, LGBTQ, Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, handicapped, you know when jokes are more than just jokes. For years, I've complained that people like Donald Trump, Ann Coulter, or Rush Limbaugh would often say horrible things. And then when they get heat for saying these horrible things, they always fall back to, I was joking. I find this doubly offensive because I'm a comedy writer. Horrible things are intrinsically funny. In fact, the more horrible, the funnier it is. But people like Donald Trump, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh don't get to be chameleons. When it comes to being horrible, when it comes to saying horrible things, you don't get to be a chameleon. You're not allowed to say horrible things as a pundit or provocateur. And then when the heat gets turned up, you don't get to change your stripes and say, I'm a comedian. Ann Coulter at the big comedy central rose for Rob Lowe at this past Labor Day proved she's no comedian. Donald Trump at the Al Smith dinner right before the election proved he is no comedian. Rush Limbaugh was given a late night show on CBS 20 years ago and proved without any shadow of a doubt that he too is no comedian. And by the way, just because people are laughing, it doesn't mean something funny is going on. It probably means that people in the audience are nervous. I went to a couple of Trump rallies this year and over and over I heard people say, he's joking. He doesn't mean it. Well, look at who he's meeting with at Trump Tower right now. Look at who he's making Attorney General. He means it. I've never been able to articulate all this as succinctly as our guest Cheat Hare did in last week's New Republic. It's an article he wrote entitled, ironic Nazis are still Nazis. Cheat Here is a senior editor at the New Republic. He has been published in a wide array of journals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review and VQR. And he joins us today via Skype from Regina, Canada. Thank you for doing this. Actually, the pronunciation is Regina, but most people who aren't from Regina avoid that because it sounds a little bit too much like vagina. So that's the most famous joke about Regina, which I guess you can make if you're from Regina, but yes. Yeah, I kind of heard that, but I was hoping it was... I would assume it has something to do with Queen Elizabeth, right? That's right. Yeah, the city was named after... No, Queen Victoria. It's called the Queen City. It was, I think, founded during the reign of Queen Victoria. And we still have statues of her up because this is Canada and we're still a colonial country. Yes. But I think my mom who's from India and has a bit of an accent always pronounces Regina as vagina, which causes all sorts of eatable issues in my household. Well, Queen Victoria's children went on to become the kings and queens of practically every country in Europe leading up to World War I, so she had an amazing Regina. She really did. All right, okay. So we're joking and that's one of the reasons I'm talking with you and I loved your piece in the New Republic. It just articulated everything I can't say myself. Let's go step by step. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this properly. Define Lusian press. We keep hearing this word all of a sudden from the alt-right. What is Lusian press? It's a phrase from German. It gained popularity in the 20s and 30s among Nazis who basically thought that, you know, the press that criticizes Nazis is lying and it's controlled by the Jews. And so they came up with this phrase which literally means lying press or Lusian press. And that phrase has gained great popularity recently among the European far-right and is also coming to America which is slightly disturbing. But you hear it among Donald Trump fans. And most recently there's a gathering of people called the alt-right, who are very hardcore Donald Trump supporters and I think it's fair to characterize them as Nazis but one of them, Richard Spencer, gave a speech in Washington at a conference they held and he ended the speech by saying, hail our people, hail victory. And members of the audience started to give the Nazi salute and then Spencer, he also used the phrase Lusian press during that speech and then people, he was asked about this and he said that the Nazi salute was clearly done in the spirit of irony and exuberance. So when people are saying, you know, hail Trump, that's just a joke. What does Zieg Heil mean? It means hail victory, right? Yeah, I mean Spencer was basically saying the Nazi slogans except in English, right? He was saying hail Trump, you know, which is hail Hitler, hail victory, which is Zieg Heil. Yeah, so this is a shining example of somebody hiding behind irony or satire. After 9-11 we were told that we might be living in a post-ironic world for comedians. I'm wondering if with the election of Trump whether or not we may be living in a post-ironic word where people might have to say what they mean. You write about the way grisly would-be humor is intermixed with bigotry. We're seeing this kind of would-be humor intermixed with bigotry at these alt-right differences. What exactly is the alt-right? We keep hearing about that. Why do you find it dangerous? Why is it dangerous to use humor to disguise bigotry? Well, the alt-right is a kind of amorphous term but it really refers to this sort of wing of the American right that is openly racist, that doesn't hide the fact that they believe that America should be a white country, they're white nationalists, and they often use stereotypical humor against their political enemies. If you're a Jewish writer and you're on Twitter, it's highly likely that you get harassed by these alt-right Twitter accounts, which often use pictures of Pepe the Frog but will also take a Photoshopped image of you and show you in a concentration camp with Trump happily pulling the gas chamber lever. I think what's interesting about this movement is that these are kind of ironic Nazis, that if you challenge them about this stuff they'll say, oh, you catch, you take a joke. Originally so far they aren't literal Nazis in the sense of marching in the streets or repair a military or killing people but there is a kind of ideology of bigotry there and it often deploys humor that I think is very interesting. Yeah, the thing in your article that was chilling was you write that the use of jokes to cloak bigotry, basically that's what they're doing, they're cloaking their bigotry by saying they're joking, you write, it's actually indistinguishable about the actual Nazis of the early 20th century behaved. So do we know how the Nazis behaved when it came to fooling and joking around? Yes, we do actually because we obviously have a lot of records, there's a lot of records of Nazis and I think a lot of their humor, I mean they made cartoons as they do now. They had these magazines where they portrayed Jews and other so-called inferior races with like caricature but more than that, the sort of whole rhetoric of Nazis I've always had this element of hyperbole, of exaggeration, of pushing the boundary, of being kind of offensive. Someone who really analyzes very well was the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher who lived in the early 20th century, who lived in occupied France during the Nazi occupation and in 1944, just as the Americans were, Allied forces were liberating France, published a very important book on anti-Semitism called Anti-Semite and Jew in 1944. And one of the things that Sartre makes is that the Nazis often will say things that are very exaggerated or comic and that aren't totally meant to be taken seriously. So he said, never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. Explain that to me, because that was hard for me to grasp. I think you were writing in your piece that they're less interested in a conversation that they're more interested in the totalitarianism of it all and they use humor to break down logic and conversation and to make the Jew or whomever feel frightened. That's right, that's right. I think that in some ways fascism is not politics as we normally understand it, like making, having policy, making rules. It's a politics of willfulness, of absurdity, of imposing your will. So to say the Jew is a cockroach is not a factual statement or a literal statement but an attempt to impose a will on reality using some of the same techniques as humor. I think in some ways the use of absurdity and fantastic rhetoric by the Nazis is a way of breaking down normal reality that we live in and introducing a world where violence is possible. Where there's no rules, there's no logic, so therefore we can kill people. Wow, so it makes you slippery. There's a slipperiness to this. There's a slipperiness, there's a breakdown of rationality, there's a breakdown of conventional ideas, and there's also kind of deniability of what it's to, right? Because there's a willingness to be challenged on factual grounds. I'm old enough now to have seen a couple of comedy booms. There's one going on in America right now and it kind of started under Obama. And I remember thinking, what's everybody laughing at? Everybody wants to be a comedian. Everybody's laughing. They don't quite question what exactly they're laughing at unless they're quote-unquote politically correct. There have been a lot of comics who complain about the language police. What is the virtue to political correctness? What is the virtue to language police? Well, I mean, it's a tough kind of question because I do think that there's a way in which humor makes everything allowable, but I also think that comedy itself, like anything else, can be criticized. And I think it really depends on the intent, right? I mean, someone like Mel Brooks in The Producers is doing very kind, at the time, very edgy comedy, but the thing about The Producers is he's not making fun of Jews, he's making fun of Nazis. But once you get into a position where you're not a member of a group and in fact, you have sort of a privileged position in society and you're making fun of people who are somehow threatened, you get into very dangerous territory unless the humor is done with great intelligence and sophistication. Nobody likes to be criticized, but I do think that there's a value in taking comedy seriously and taking comedy and trying to understand why it is that we're laughing at what we're laughing at. I don't know if you want to call that political correctness or not, but I do think comedy is something we should be thinking about. Yeah, and are you punching down? The big question is, are you punching down? And punching down means, is the laugh coming at the expense of somebody who is frightened? That's right, that's right. Yeah, it becomes very problematic when you are punching down and I think that's definitely something that's worth saying and worth arguing about and I think that people who just hide behind the excuse of, well, it's just a joke, I don't know if they have a leg to stand on because jokes are part of conversation and they have meaning and it's often worth inquiring what that meaning is. Right, you write that humor gives racists, I love this, plausible deniability, so if the racism is challenged, there's a prepared rejoinder, can't you take a joke? As though a joke is just words. That's right, that's right, yeah. I think that's something many people have experienced and gone through. I think it's precisely because comedy is powerful and it's such a part of your experience that we have to sometimes step back and ask, well, what does a joke actually mean? What is it actually based on? Yeah, we're almost at the end of our time here. I hope I'm pronouncing this right. Who is André Guide and who is Celine? André Guide was a French writer who was very experimental and he had been a criminal and a thief and wrote very explicitly about the underworld of life and Celine was also another French writer sort of in some ways very similar. When did they live? Nearly in the mid-20th century, so they really flourished in the 1930s and 40s subsequently. But Celine wrote these wonderful novels but then in 1938 he wrote a book called Trifles for a Massacre, which was an anti-Semitic crack which made astonishing claims. He said the Pope was really Jewish, the nation of England was Jewish, Jews were responsible for the downfall of Napoleon and the rise of surrealism. And André Guide, who respected Celine as a writer, wrote a review where he said, well, this is obviously all a joke. Celine is an intelligent man. Intelligent people can't possibly mean this. And unfortunately it wasn't a joke. Celine very much invented anti-Semitism and when he wanted Germany and France to cooperate and when Germany conquered France he became a leading collaborator and continued to encourage attacks on Jews when there was a government in power that had the ability to do so and did so. So Celine is almost a perfect example of what Sartre was talking about. Someone whose anti-Semitism seems like a joke is very exaggerated. And he's a very funny writer. He actually had a profound influence on Philip Roth. An important noise complaint is kind of influenced by Celine. In a positive way or negative? In a positive way, in a positive way. Like, Celine had the sort of like power of like exaggerated rhetoric and stream of consciousness which Roth and other writers sort of borrowed from. Did Roth know about the anti-Semitism? I would assume he did. Oh, I am assuming he did, yeah. You know, Celine is unquestionably a great writer but I think it's interesting that some of his, you know, tendencies, once it latched on to hatred of the Jews, like really led him to a very dark and terrible place. Yeah, it's interesting. You write that André Guide just assumed something that was really horrible had to be satire. Yeah, yeah. And right now we have conservatives who thought Stephen Colbert, when he was doing the Colbert Report, was for real. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the onion... So they like to forget the thing. The onion is often linked to by conservatives who think it's real. What role does a satirist have in a culture that no longer is capable of distinguishing between truth and fiction? That's a really interesting comment and I think, I mean, in some ways in the new reality I think the best satirist would simply be doing factual descriptions because what could be more absurd than the reality that we're living through? Sure. And so in some ways like satire needs to tone it down because you can't compete with that absurdity. Is satire an irony? I can never tell the difference between the two but it's basically saying what you don't mean to say what you think. Oh, yeah, that's sort of like irony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there, and I think... Yeah, yeah, I think it has that element to it. Yes. And I do think that, I mean, I think the new era is a real challenge to satirists. I think that they need to be thinking how to approach it because Trump himself is a satirical figure and it's gotten away with a lot because people who like other aspects of what he's saying will say that the more distasteful stuff is just a joke. Well, it could well turn out that the joke's on us. Yeah, we're at a time. I'm a comedian and a comedy writer. I think people need to get their news from the New Republic and... Thank you. And the New York Times and shows like this are the dessert. You got to eat your vegetables before you laugh. And when I watch CNN and MSNBC and they're laughing and they have funny people on, they're really not performing a public service. Cheet here is a senior editor over at the New Republic. He's the author of several books, one of which is In Love With Art, François Mouly's Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman. It's published by Coach House Books and Sweet Letchery, essays, profiles and reviews published by Porcupine's Quill. Very quickly, François Mouly, who was François Mouly? She's an editor at The New Yorker. She's the art editor and she basically is in charge of the covers. So all those great New Yorker covers that are a very great satire. I'm going to have to cut you off, we're out of time. Cheet here is a senior editor at The New Republic. Thank you for joining us. The David Feldman Radio Program is made possible by listeners like you. You sad, pathetic comps. That's our show. Please friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter. Give us a good review on iTunes. We need those if you want to help me and you don't have money. Give us a good review on iTunes and make sure you're spreading this show to all your friends. Help us go viral from the Chobris Studios in downtown Manhattan. That'll do it for us.