Comedy Cellar Owner Reveals All!

24:16I don't even want to say the names of the people, but you hear all these names of these comedy club owners who became very imperious, is that the word? Officious? I don't know what the word is, but arrogant, that's the word. And, you know, SD knows, and I'm not saying she would veer towards that if she didn't know it, but she knows that's just not what we do. We did not, and that's a big thing. And also we're not trying to, like we really follow the audience. Like my father used to say, you don't need to speak the language to know who the good comedians are. But I know a lot of other club owners have these highfalutin notions that they are going to, you know, they have some special insight and they're going to inform the world on what's funny and what's not, which is, you know.

25:12Noam Dworman:so you're not curators then what are you yeah we are curators but we're sorry but we're not snobbish curators we're not like okay you know do you ever see you you ever see the experience where like somebody's on stage and you hear these really really loud laughs from the back but it's another comedian laughing yeah well the audience is not really laughing right the other community it's like a, it's, that's the dynamic. That's, that's, that's the phenomenon I'm describing. Like those people laughing loud. It's like, I get it. That the audience, I get it. It's over their heads. That's funny. You know?

25:48And you have bookers who then, you know, they, they implement that into a, into an ethos, into like a theory of a club. And we've seen that over the years.

26:00Noam Dworman:So some bookers you're saying, listen to the experts, not the public. I don't. Is that what you mean? I think they, snob is the right word. They substitute their judgment and their judgment is very affected by peer pressure and trendiness and the phenomenon of who is laughing loud at the back of the club. Who knows what goes in? I don't even. and they were like we always booked like a guy with a guitar that would kill or frankie pace i don't know frankie who would do do props like you know the audience loved them and and by the way i consider myself a pretty sophisticated person i thought they were funny like i don't have that but okay i'll tell you another story this is this is this maybe this so when i was uh whatever year it was, 86, whatever year Eddie Murphy Raw came out.

27:01I went to see it with a girlfriend and I came into the olive tree when the bar was still in the center of the room, not in the back where it is now. And there were two comedians there and I can tell you the names, but I don't want to tell you the names. And I, when I was, I just saw Eddie Murphy Raw in the movies, Eddie Murphy Raw. I said, it was so funny. And they looked at me like I was an idiot. And And he said, oh, come on, he's derivative, a bunch of hack, you know. And by the way, and that was the general opinion of the great comedians at that time, you know. And I was like, no, I thought it was funny.

27:38Yeah. So that's what's going on. Like those, in that day, it's hard to even imagine that was true. But in those days, you were an outsider. It's like, no, I think this is funny. But, you know, they were just too into it. Musicians are the same way. They can't tell what's good and what's not good because they have their own checklist that they're judging music by. They're not able to just take it in and say, oh, that's good.

28:02Noam Dworman:That's a hit. That's a hit. Yeah. So you have quite an authority on music as well because you owned a bunch of music venues, the most iconic one being Café Watt. Well, in the good old days, yeah. But also I was a musician myself. I was raised, I mean, I raised my whole life playing music. My father was a musician before me and my grandfather before him. So how do you compare the two art forms? I mean, all entertainment art forms are similar in the sense that you're supposed to entertain. You have to hold your audience. You want to open big. You want to close big. you want to um um transfer your emotion to the audience which is a pitfall because i mean i say this to my band when i tell them listen you're not gonna be able to play a happy song unless you're actually feeling happy you're not gonna be able to fake it you look at the beatles on the ed sullivan show you're not gonna tell me they weren't actually happy no and it's the comedians actually fall into this sometimes when they get bored of their own material, they'll, it'll start to not go over and they will be puzzled that the audience is able to interpret it as far as they're concerned, they're actually delivering it exactly as they always have.

29:28But no, when they're a little bored with the material, somehow it just doesn't hit the same way. So these are the types of things which are similar in music and comedy. The strategy of, of performing the way the, and, and the, the emotional involvement with it is very similar.

29:51Noam Dworman:So when you, when you owned Cafe Wa, there were lines around the block every single night. It was every night, seven nights a week. Crazy, right? It was the hottest thing ever. And now you've kind of replicated that with the comedy seller. So at some point someone's got to realize it's not a fluke. You know what you're doing and you've done it across two different art forms now. Yeah. Café Wa, explain what Café Wa was then and comparing it to what it is now. Most people probably only know what it is now, but compare how it's different to when you ran it. So the original Café Wa was open until 1968 at 115 Medougal Street.

30:27This is where it was like a typical village kind of clip joint. You'd have like five, six bands a night. And this is when the – you have to say I was there in the 60s and early 70s. The village was so busy, you couldn't even drive a car down McDougal Street. I mean, this is when Dillon hit and A Loving Spoonful. And it was the center of the world, really. The folk rock, whatever it was called, the folk rock breakthrough. So the cafe, they would shut off the air conditioning just to get people to leave. That was really a clip joint. But Bob Dylan played there, Jimi Hendrix played there, and all these famous people started there.

31:08And actually the owner, Manny Roth, who was a friend of ours, he also managed Richard Pryor. Anyway, but anyway, but because it was a clip joint, it closed in 1968. In the end, you can't really sustain yourself that way. So when I got out of - Explain a clip joint, sorry. Clip joint is like a place that, like a tourist, it takes the money because there's seemingly unlimited demand and doesn't really care about the quality of its product. The goal, like our goal is always to get people to come back. that's not, that wasn't their goal. Their goal was like, it's a waterfall. I can just put my cup out and I'll always get more.

31:45It doesn't work that way. So, um, so when I got out of, uh, law school actually, and I decided I want to be a lawyer, my father had a Middle Eastern club there and he was wrapping it up. So I said, I don't know. I said, let me just, I'll take it over for a while. I was actually leading his Middle Eastern band and I started to hire some American musicians to fill it out. And then I had the making of a band. So I said, let me just try doing my own band here. And it was, it was a mixture of like cabaret and comedy, but very like extremely good R &B musicians. And anyway, and it had this magical combination of like cabaret, but very, very good music.

32:25And, and it just hit, like it hit immediately. we started with zero people in the room then it'd be two people four people and then within six months we were busy almost every night we were playing five nights a week at the time and we'd have the same people coming three four times a week this is what was magical people used to at that time we used to do surveys we do them now we even then we did surveys and one of the most common comments we'd get is i didn't even want to go to the bathroom i didn't know what i'd miss wow this is intense and then so then we were by the 90s we were a line around the block five days a week and then we had a very famous brazilian night on monday and a very very famous funk night on tuesdays so that became a seven night a week thing and um and i mean that was just a fantastic time and i you know i i learned how to do computer coding we were the first club to take reservations online i learned about sounds sound lighting um live streaming we used a lot in the 90s we used to live stream our shows i mean all sorts of things that are like you know cliche now

33:39Noam Dworman:it seems to me like unless you're withholding some secret from me it seems like your two key focuses are an incredible show incredible entertainment and location Is there anything I'm missing? How are you so successful so consistently? Well, we don't focus on location, but - I mean, you are in incredible locations. Yeah, we have. Well, you know, you'd think it's a good location. I'm not saying it's a bad location, that's for sure. But we've been sustaining between the Café Watt and the Comedy Cellar. We've been sustaining that location for so long. 8th Street died which was which was a very famous nightlife street at one time Bleecker Street died for a while there's not much of a music scene anymore maybe it's coming back a little bit on Bleecker Street so and the village is no longer like the East Village is a big location now Williamsburg Meatpacking District Times Square is cleaned up it's not, okay, another way to put it.

34:52When I used to drive to work in the 80s, if I was driving down Fifth Avenue, it could take me a half an hour to get from like a block or two north of Washington Square to the garage on Third Street between Sixth Avenue and McDougal. Now, and it's been this way for a long time, I zoom right in. I never have traffic anymore. When I was a kid, the garage would always be closed. By time of nine o 'clock, all full. That garage is never full. Actually, I think they're shutting it down now, which is a crisis for me. But so the location hasn't become bad, but it is not at all. It's not even, I wouldn't say it's 30 % of what it was.

35:40Noam Dworman:Let's make a pie graph then. So you've got location, you've got show. What else? You've got pricing. What are the things that - What did you say? Pricing. Pricing of your tickets. Oh, pricing. Yeah. So what is the percentage formula for success? Well, it's obviously, quality is everything. Quality is everything. And then, yes, location, you have to be in a decent location. You can't do it in, you know, some out of the way place. And then pricing should be reasonable. Yeah. But when I say quality, it seems, it sounds like such a, you know, small thing. It's so easy to say. It's a huge undertaking to have quality.

36:28Noam Dworman:So why did you sell Cafe Wa? You were crushing it. And I don't think there's anything like that now in New York anymore, is there? There wasn't anything like that before. You had to have been there to understand how unusual it was. I'm so angry at you for selling it. Why did you sell it? A lot of people, I mean, it was really, it was just something utterly special. I sold it because my father died. By that time, I, all right. So when my father was even alive, I was moving up towards my 40s and I knew I can't do this every night, five nights a week, you know, in my 60s. So I began to already be planning for getting older.

37:16So I opened the bar, the Fat Black Pussycat, and then I opened another live music venue that I wasn't going to play at, both on Third Street. So I was already looking for the exits then. And then my father died And around the same time, the landlord of the Café Watt was being very coy about whether he was going to renew our lease or under what terms. And it was a very, it wasn't like making a tremendous amount of money at that place. Again, I probably wasn't charging enough, but the musicians were getting paid a lot of money. It was taking all my time. I was stressed. So, you know, and we owned the building at 117 McDoull Street where the comedy seller is.

38:01So for all those reasons, I just decided to sell it. And I mean, I don't know, I don't know what's boring or not. So I, what, there was one thing that happened, which was when I did decide to sell it, the plan was I was still going to be able to play with the band. They kept my band and sit in with the band, you know, um, so I just have, I would have that pleasure, uh, and not have to give that up. that didn't happen the the people i sold it to um didn't didn't live up to that well they've

38:35Noam Dworman:completely changed the model now so cafe what today is so different to how you describe it when you owned it how would you describe it now i've actually never go down there i don't i would say i've been down there two times in maybe 15 years so so i'll describe it in what they do really well it is an incredibly talented band that play a super tight set of super big hits every single night that i probably appeal to a largely white female demographic i would say um that does not sound similar to what you're what you're doing what you did yeah well they listen i have good relationships with the guys they're very smart operators um they're opening another place um it's water under the bridge about what went bad and i will say the band is incredible like they're very talented they're very very good musicians i'm sure i know someone some of them are still the guys from my band um but um you know i it's just not the same i don't want to say anything but just it's not the same i mean they they don't have my background uh i can just like one little thing we you know people dance in the aisles and in the cafe wall which is charming it's awesome but we used to basically not allow the audience to get up and dance until around 11 15 11 30 because most of our presentation was dancing was actually an interference to it it was so like it was the music was so fine and the the um vibe of it all was so entertaining it was better to just sit and watch it and then we end the set with like 20 minutes of like raucous dance music and then this after that after midnight would just be all dance music but it was so if you can imagine that it was very very unusual so where am i going like where's the music scene in new york right now where are these venues the city is not the city is not hospitable to music anymore.

40:39When I was a kid, there were ads on TV, the I Love New York song, you know it?

40:46Noam Dworman:Whatever. Give it a go. And we'd cut in with like Sinatra or Americana. New York City, it's open all night. New York City that never sleeps and all this kind of stuff. It never, and that is not what New York City wants to be anymore. Now there's a community board system that wants you to close. We're opening a new comedy club they wanted me to close at 1 a.m. I'm like, no, I can't close at 1 a.m. But if you're a new bar, it is very difficult to get a license to stay up until four in the morning anymore. The neighbors do not want music. If you go to Austin or Nashville and walk around and hear the music wafting from the bars on the strips, that is what the Village used to be.

41:36one music club after another and one by one the tenants in those buildings and it's very sad because a lot of these people moved to the village when they were younger because it was awesome to live in the village then they got older they didn't want to give up their rent control apartments and they banded together and they they changed the universe to to you know to conform to what they felt was appropriate to this stage in their life. It's a sad thing. And I was on the community board at one time and I saw this happening. And I remember one time they were trying to get out of the community board early because they wanted to all go home and watch.

42:18This is already in the late nineties, early two thousands. They wanted to all go home and watch Ken Burns' documentary on jazz. Oh my God. And which was a great documentary. And I tweaked them. I said, you do know that this documentary you want to go watch is all about the clubs that you would never let open now. Like, where do you think jazz came from? A bunch of places that you guys would approve? Never. This happened illegally. So they said, yeah, you're right. And then they went about still turning people down. So it's been a long process. It started happening then and it's much worse now.

42:52It's so sad. It's, well, and yeah, because, you know, in an age of the internet where you imagine Wall Street can be run from a small complex, you know, in South Dakota, New York shouldn't be eschewing its nightlife and it's fun. People come to New York because it's fun.

43:14Noam Dworman:Do you see it getting turned around? Nope. So 10 years from now, you think it's going to be worse. There's going to be less live music, less action. I mean comedy seems pretty safe from the noise restrictions point of view right yeah well actually one of the reasons we we ended up doing comedy where the bilge underground is because the landlord wasn't going to give me another lease if I continued making loud music geez yeah so I so I that's he thank god he did me a favor but he backed me in to um to comedy I had a successful music club there that's that's really depressing so you got to go to austin and nashville for music now yeah yeah okay and down south i'm sure just in general um they love their music and and we're you know and and the style of music that they still love country music country-ish music country rock is still appropriate for guitars and drums and and it's still it works for live music in a way that a lot of pop music today doesn't let's go back to the comedy cellar let's go back to let's go back to up-and-coming comedians dreaming to perform at the comedy cellar how does it happen how do i get my first gig there oh but is you should send me an email with your tape is that is that what every comedian should be doing um we'll watch it I mean, you know, like a lot of times it's by references.

44:43Yeah. Explain that. Like a comedian say, you need to take a look at so-and-so, you know, John Smith, he's a good comedian. And I'll tell SD and we'll audition him or we'll watch his tape. And if it's awful, obviously I'll call him in, but if it seems okay,

45:01Noam Dworman:sometimes it's hard to tell from tape. But it used to be, it was very difficult because it used to be you had to get a reference from two comedians because there wasn't any other really easy way to look at people. But now, and by the way, we do a bad job at this. I'm always upset that I find that there's a good comedian and I'll find out he's been working in town for two years. I'm like, what the hell? Why were we a year and a half late to finding out about this? person. And that might be, you know, a negative downside of, um, there's no positive downside. It might be a downside of what you were describing.

45:43Like there's just kind of like this aura of intimidation around the comedy seller, which is not good for us. And we, we need the comedians much more than they need the seller.

45:55Noam Dworman:Well, I guess practically, yes. If you have no comedians, you have no business. But in your, but in isolation, if you are one comedian, the one comedian needs the seller a lot. No, I don't think so. They don't get any boost from their career. Like, I don't think they sell tickets because they perform at the Comedy Cellar. I don't think they get a sitcom because they perform. I don't think they get, I mean, they get, it's like a certain rite of passage. They get a certain, they get their props in a way. And they get to hang out with the best comedians which is worthwhile it's like going to cost a lot yeah but it's not like it makes or breaks them but it makes or breaks us if we don't have the best comedians it absolutely makes it so if i think about venture capital they have these things called scouts where they run out and go and meet these random founders and if they find a cool little company in the middle of nowhere they bring it back to the venture capital firm and they see if they can get a deal done music industry similar at least it was they've got these a &r scouts around watching all these live bands and used to be being on the internet now more so yeah um do you have a similar system do you have people that are in all the other comedy clubs around the city to prevent this incredible comedian that's been in new york for two years you don't know about no we we're supposed to and um i'm not implementing it well we're supposed to check the lineups of every of every uh club in town every week and have knowledge of each of those names and whether or not, essentially we have, we're supposed to be deciding for every one of those names and every line of every club that we are choosing not to book them, but we are not doing a good job at that.

47:40Noam Dworman:And is that because it's hard to find people with the right judgment and skill to do that role properly? No, it's, it's just me because, because in any, in any system things degrade, it's, it's not, it's, it's a lot of work and I haven't been on top of it lately you know that's just okay well that's kind of good confession i think that's cool for the comedians knowing that you know i imagine if you're conscious of it that'll change eventually and so it'll be easier now as i'm speaking to you you can imagine the bubble over my head of course enough of this shit i mean i'm so i'm still taking up building this new club now i mean we're down to our you know our our our wits end but um also you you mentioned esty you should also mention liz okay you know who liz is i don't liz is our general manager and she runs the place unbelievably well like my entire life i never thought i would have that kind of employee to take some of the burdens off of me my father certainly never had that um and she's working me i don't know how many years now 15 years something like that how do you retain maybe more How do you retain great staff for that long?

48:54Well, you have to pay them well. And you have to give them, I mean, you have to pay them well. You have to have good people. And you have to treat them properly. I mean, it's not, again, it's like these trite things. Like, you know, Steve, I made this joke before about something else. You know, Steve Martin routine was a, you can be a millionaire and not pay taxes. You know this? No. cutting to chase he'll say first get a million dollars then don't pay taxes and he doesn't much play so like you know how do you get keep great players first get great employees then pay like it's obviously more complicated than that right yes and and they have to and you have to understand they don't only work for money so you have to find a way to give them their head and um let them make their mistakes and it's in a way it's almost like a parent having to let your watch your kid smack his head on the floor because he's got that's the way he'll learn so it's it's hard but that's it is something that we've done very well over the years we have many many employees 20 years 25 years 30 years yeah can you explain for our audience the

50:13Noam Dworman:unit economics of a comedy club where the revenue streams you know the cost basis all of those things like what how does the comedy club revenue and profit share or profit work profit share what do you mean not profit share that was the wrong like the profit the profit of a like what what are all the pieces of a pie that is the pnl or the budget of a of a comedy I have to confess, I knew this much better when I was not doing as well. You know, like when I was in a position to be every single night in every room looking at the numbers, which I don't look at. Which speaks to the old adage that nothing is a better teacher than failure.

50:55Noam Dworman:Yes. Yes. Nothing is a better teacher. So, but, you know, it's about 50 % cover, 50 % food and drink. I believe.

51:12And our rent in the places that we rent is pretty high, probably higher than I would have rented at, at least in the fat black pussycat, the upstairs.

51:22Noam Dworman:The basement is pretty good. And what percentage of rent is your annual revenue? I don't know. I mean, in that place, it could be...

51:38well, now, now it's, it's gone down now, now it maybe, maybe it's even like, maybe it's even like less than 10%. Wow. But I think, but there was a time when it was much higher. It's just that we're very successful now.

51:53Noam Dworman:Yes. And, you know, you can't count on that. I would have never rented it, assuming I'd be successful like that. Now the numbers for just operating a bar, like a neighborhood bar are much easier because you really, you can retreat to basically just a bartender and a waitress. You want to have a security guy, but even that, you know, you can try to get away without it. There's more guaranteed income with you guys though, because a bar doesn't have drink minimums. And like, I imagine your revenue is a lot more predictable than a random bar. No, but when I used to have just a bar there. Oh, okay.

52:30Right. Right. It was able to, ironically, it was able to pay a higher percentage in rent because the payroll was so drastically less.

52:42Noam Dworman:I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, well, then what is, so what? We have like seven security guys and hosts and waitresses. I mean, the city, you know, makes things progressively more, less and less hospitable for businesses. Like when I remember when I was a kid, the salaries, the minimum wage salary of a waitress, tipped wage, was a marginal cost. As it should have been because the waitresses made a lot of money from tips. Even with their low salary, they were the highest paid employees. Yeah, right. Even then, even now, the payroll cost of the waitresses is very high. It's very high.

53:30Noam Dworman:And the tips haven't gotten less either, right? The tips are through the roof.

53:36It's ridiculous.

53:38Noam Dworman:So what percentage of payroll is your income? If rent is 9 % now and payroll's gone crazy, have they switched? I don't know. I don't know and I don't want to speak without knowing. but my payroll is enormous. I'm just lucky that our gross is enormous right now. We sell out like 80 shows a week. So where is the comedy seller going to be in five, 10 years as a brand, as a business? I don't know. I mean, I hope the market doesn't soften so much that I have to give up stages, but sooner or later it probably will. But since I bought another building now, I'll be able to retreat into my own real estate

54:34or turn one of the places back into a bar. I'd hate to give it up. I don't know. You know, nobody knows.

54:42Noam Dworman:You don't have a dream of in 10 years, I want the business to look like this. well, and we have a club in Vegas too, by the way. Yes. In 10 years, I'd be very happy to be exactly where I am now. That would be a tremendous accomplishment to still be selling out as we are, still have, still have be described in such a nice way by people like you. What would you imagine I might want to say? My curiosity is in, I guess, your other revenue streams. So you have this. dude i have no desire to make more money maybe not more money but maybe more art so you could get into you know production touring management record label stuff like is there any desire to do any of those things only if someone else does it so okay you know i have i have three young kids and every new project is x amount of is either you know it there's nothing's free right so it Either is going to come out of the time that I spend looking after what I have now, which is very dangerous because I'll destabilize.

55:54You'll take your eye off the ball. What? You'll take your eye off the ball. Exactly. Take my eye off the ball. Or spend less time with my family, which I don't want to do.

56:07So as interesting as it would be, and I had a kind of experience which was informative. We had a TV show. It was called This Week at the Comedy Cellar for three seasons on Comedy Central. And it was my idea, and I know this is not a normal experience, but I had this idea and I took some meetings and it got sold. Boom, boom, boom. That never happens, right?

56:32Noam Dworman:I imagine it would be an easy sell. That idea, I imagine it would be an easy sell. And the idea was that because comedians don't want to burn material, we just get the comedians to all just do material about what happened this week. based on the news this week. And they'd all write. And anyway, but I thought, I'm going to have my own TV show and I'm going to be, I mean, I'm executive producer. I'm going to do this and this and that. It was such an unpleasant experience. I mean, the network didn't want this joke and didn't want that joke. They didn't have the camera angles. There was nothing, I got, I couldn't, and the money was good.

57:05I couldn't have been less upset. They canceled it at COVID, you know, then Comedy Central had a change of hands, whatever. And the disillusionment was huge. And by the way, I had a similar experience in Vegas. I thought, I'm going to have a club in Vegas. My name is going to be up at Lights. This is going to be awesome. I'm going to get to go to Vegas. Like, who wouldn't want to be a nightclub owner in Las Vegas, right? I mean, the club is great. I get no pleasure out of the club in Las Vegas. Except that, you know, it's nice to have it. I have a very nice relationship with the casino. The club is good.

57:44Noam Dworman:but you know, I, it's not, is it cause you're not there and it's just another headache in your email? It's, it's, uh, I don't know. It's, it's, it's not even that much of a headache. It's just, I feel disconnected from it. I'm not there. I don't want to go out to Vegas. Now it's like a burden when I have to go out there traveling and all that. And, um, having your name up in lights as it were is a rush and then it's done and um the the the downside okay so the downside of a comedy club as opposed to the music club when I was involved in music or even maybe being a chef like a chef owns a restaurant is that it's not an ongoing creative process the building of the club which i'm doing now is very very um get a lot of fulfillment out of it and it is a creative process and then once it's built and it's just right you go to preserve mode and you just want to keep it going and and not have it and not have it degrade and having it not degrade is a huge challenge as we've all seen in places that we used to love that after you become successful but it's a drudgery in a way it's not fun anymore to go out there and make sure that things are exactly the way they were yesterday and the comedy club you know so the thing i'm admiring about hearing you speak like this is that a weakness i have and a lot of entrepreneurs with add have is that when you hit the point of success and you need to just keep doing the same thing every day to keep delivering that's when we jump on side quests like starting tv shows or starting a management company or whatever and just to create that that just to scratch that creative itch or you end up selling the company because you're just done with it um whereas you seem to have such a focus and discipline to just keep delivering every day yeah yeah i am i am single-minded about it again i have to say i have an incredible support staff with sd and liz like i don't know i mean i i could see a scenario where i was just overwhelmed by crappy management where i could say fuck it i i need to get out of this i mean it's i don't i don't know what the whole kit and caboodle is worth it's got to be worth a lot of money right yeah it's got to be so i could probably sustain myself i'm sure live nation will give you a big check tomorrow somebody.

1:00:21But I want to keep it around because I have three kids and they love it. So I want to, you know.

1:00:27Noam Dworman:Oh, that's exciting. So the kids are excited about working the business? I mean, they're 13, 12 and eight. So they have a lot to come. But yeah, they are excited about it. And, you know, ironically, when it was 20 years ago, we're like, I don't want your kids in this business. But now with the, um, specter of AI and how mundane jobs might become and, and, and also hard to find, they don't even know what the future is. It's a tremendous, I have such a fantastic lifestyle. I mean, I go to work, I hang out with the most interesting people. We, you know, we have a whole like political side, like a salon side to the club.

1:01:13Noam Dworman:I did a bit of a deep dive on your podcast and stuff that you've been on. And that, that seems to be a creative itch you're scratching. Yeah. That's, that's a huge, I get tremendous. Yeah. And people like, you know, all sorts of famous journalists come down there. Steven Pinker does a show there. Reason Magazine, Coleman Hughes, all kinds of names. People I don't want to mention. And, you know, I said, I'm going to work. What are you going to? Oh, I'm sitting with, you know, this New York Times reporter, you know, arguing about the Dobbs decision or something. So that's, that's a tremendous, I mean, you can't even put, you can't put a price on that.

1:01:54That I can, that I'm so much master of my own universe that I don't, I can do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. I would like for my kids to have that. Except when I took over the comedy cellar, I had built a number of things from scratch. And I knew that I could do it. And I had full self-confidence in myself and satisfied with myself. If my kids take this, I don't know if it's good for them psychologically. I don't know how that would be to simply step right into your father's footsteps. and never know if you had it in you. That worries me.

1:02:41Noam Dworman:So what do you, I mean, I've got two kids. How are you thinking about solving that problem? Well, I mean, you might've touched on it. So like if, let's say my son Manny took it over, he has the benefit of this great name. He could try to make movies or whatever. I mean, he'll be young and eager and, you know, so, and hopefully he will. I don't know yet if he has those talents, you know, I was, I was, are you worried about, and I say this, I say this with love cause I'm worried about it and I, and I think our net worths are very different, but even I'm worrying about it at my level. Are you worried about raising rich kids without hunger?

1:03:21Noam Dworman:Absolutely. I am. This is, this is a terrible, terrible worry. And you know, I, I don't, I don't even try not to spoil them as I should try not to. because I want to get it from them. I want them to be happy. I mean, I don't fly them around first class or anything, but I, dad, can I get a new video? Sure, go ahead. Like, and what makes it harder is that if we were poor, and I don't hope I'm not giving the impression we're filthy rich, but a$60 video game doesn't really matter to me, right? So if we were poor, the kids understand you don't have money. I can't, we can't afford that. And they, because I grew up with my father.

1:04:00Noam Dworman:You don't need to justify your reason to say no when you don't have money. No, no. I'm going to get to a psychological point. Yeah, right. Oh, yes. Yeah. So they understand we can't. Yes. They don't understand as easily we won't. I won't. Yes. I'm not going to give it to you because I won't give it to you. Now, maybe when they're older, they'd appreciate it. So anyway, so yeah. So I am really worried about it. They haven't seen me struggle as I saw my father struggle. I don't know what's going to happen. And I don't know, hopefully they'll figure it out. I hope something terrible happens to them.

1:04:37Noam Dworman:And so have you thought about going, right, I'm going to get you to go and build your own businesses before you come into our business? No. I mean, I haven't thought it through yet. They're all still pretty young. I think that as they approach late high school and college age, when I can actually see what it is that they'll be good at, I can start to advise. I'm also, I'm also worried about internecine, you know, fighting between them. Oh yes. Cause families break up over this stuff. Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'm worried about a lot. Okay. Well, when you solve the problem, let me know. And, and, and yeah.

1:05:20And by the way, the smartest people in the world don't seem to be able to solve this problem. Yes. Also is very daunting. Like, you know, people put a lot of attention to this estate playing. and still the kids turn on each other i've i've thought about two things that i think

1:05:37Noam Dworman:solve the problem but i don't know how to achieve it and so what i've come to a conclusion on or the thing that i there's obviously exceptions to the rule but the thing that i've come to the conclusion on with the people that have successfully brought their kids up in an in a privileged environment is that their kids understand the the value and they have the drive of hard work and they have found God. And so, yes. So I think, I think, I don't know. That's just, that's what I'm saying. And so I'm like, okay, how do you do that? How do you instill, even if you don't believe in God, even the first one's challenging, how do you instill a thirst and hunger for hard work when they're in a privileged environment?

1:06:17Noam Dworman:Then if you do believe in God, how do you instill, you know, a belief and faith in God as well? If you can achieve those two, well, then that's the answer in my view, but even doing those two are hard. That's interesting because Mormons do seem to have this, these apparently very happy families. I don't know if you ever saw that documentary that they did about Mitt Romney after the election. No. It has just kids with him everywhere, sitting on the floor, very warm family. It's still hard work by the kids seeing the parents work hard. They see me work hard they see their mom work hard and they seem to work they're pretty good um they're not gonna be religious i don't think uh i i don't i don't know we'll see what happens i i also believe what gets left out is that um we imagine that there's causation here the kids are this way because the parents did this the kids are because the parents did that i think that's 80 not true Okay.

1:07:21I think the kids are who they are almost at birth. And unless you are really treating them badly, like traumatizing them, really damaging them, whatever it is, they're pretty much on the trajectory to be who they're going to be. That's, that's been, I mean, you have two kids, you say?

1:07:41Noam Dworman:You must already see it in the two kids. Very different. Very different. Nothing you're doing. Yeah. I have three, actually I have four because I raised, and actually because I have a fourth who's a stepson who doesn't have my genetics and is nothing like me. I mean, like it doesn't have one, doesn't have one mannerism of mine, one personality trait, not my sense of humor, like nothing. Even though I raised him since he's nine months old. So, and he's just like his, his bio dad. So, yeah. So, but that gives me some solace. I'm like, actually, they're going to be who they're going to be. Takes the pressure off you as a parent as well, when you think that.

1:08:22But I do believe this much that children who are shown love, that is a support for them for the rest of their lives. Yeah, agreed. And I think to feel that they were unloved, not worthy of love, these are terrible things for adults to carry with them. other than that i don't know if much of it matters noam who is your favorite comic of all time and

1:08:49Noam Dworman:then who is your favorite comic right now that people probably haven't heard of okay i cannot tell you my favorite comic of all time obviously because you know i can't i can't pick one are you allowed to pick two i want to get something out of you i can't but the the universe would be that would be predictable. Yep. And, um, I, I, I, and, and even of the current crop, I, I don't even, I, I don't even want to, like, I don't want to pick between like, DeStefano and Shane Gillis and, and Andrew Schultz, these, these types of, yep. But I will name one comedian who I think, um, doesn't get his full props, which is Gary Goleman.

1:09:29Okay. Even though he's, I don't think he's happy with me these days. Um, he is, um, not, uh, he's, he's well known obviously, but I don't think he's as well known as he should be. And to me, he is one of the most original Carlin-esque, if you will, comedians of his generation. Um, and, and the stuff that he comes up with just always amazes me because his premises are so unique to him and no one else would think of these things so okay and i think i can say that without insulting other comics what is the coolest thing to have ever happened at the comedy cell okay the coolest thing that happened in my opinion was recently but this is just because it was me that owns the comedy cellar is when steve martin and martin short came down to prep for the SNL anniversary show.

1:10:26Was it 40 years? No, it had to be like 50 years. So, you know, my generation, Steve Martin was like the Beatles. Like, you know, to be born in 1962, Steve Martin was just the epitome of it all. And he'd never been to the Comedy Cellar. And I didn't imagine that he ever would be because he doesn't really just stand up comedy anymore. And I just could not, I was pinching myself to see Steve Martin there. And then to make it even nicer, you know, I'm, I'm always very low key, but I, I said hello to him and he was very warm. I didn't talk his ear off or anything, you know, but he, but he was a gentleman.

1:11:13Are you still a guy that wants to take photos with comics? No, I never take photos with comics.

1:11:16Noam Dworman:Never take them? No. no desire or you just withhold that desire i don't i don't really have any desire there are photos of me with comics like somebody yeah you're sitting at the table yeah no like people people have said to me like if you go to my home there's no photos of put that in here there's no there's no just start again if you go to your shake comedy um there's no photos of a single comedian i don't I think it's not my like, I don't like live through that. Yeah. What do you. Is that a thing that's typical of. No, I'm just curious. Are you, what kind of fan are you? I mean, you are a fan in this business.

1:11:56Noam Dworman:I'm just kind of, and there's a different persona of fans. I may not be a huge fan. You know, I, I, I'm not a huge fan. I like comedy, of course. I always did. I'm not a huge fan of comedy. but even if i were i don't think i i would be the type to ask people to take pictures with me i think that would be like yeah i'm the same but i i know a lot of people who are far more successful in the game than i am that are big photo takers and so i just find the it's a different motivation yeah yeah um can you tell me your perspective on the late night comedy you know comedian tv show it's obviously a dying breed if you just look at the ratings alone like it's a night show type thing yeah by the way speaking of like wonderful people jimmy fallon has been coming down to the club lately and you know it is a ratio of fame to not acting famous and being warm and not, you know, just warm and approachable.

1:13:05I mean, he is really, he's just a very, very friendly, warm guy. Having said that, yeah, these shows are, I mean, the world's changing. They're waning, right? I mean, if this genre did not already exist, would it be created now to fill these slots? I doubt it. I doubt anybody would say, let's spend this number of millions of dollars and hire that guy who was from the Daily Show and build a huge studio for him into a nightly show. I don't think that would be the idea.

1:13:47Noam Dworman:And why do you diagnose it for me? Is it the platform? Is it the content? Like, what is the reason why that wouldn't work right now if we were starting from zero? I mean, everything is just so balkanized. Like, when there were three television networks, this was a bottleneck and everybody would tune in at those hours to get access to the most famous people in the world, the stories about the new movie, whatever. And there's interest in that. But that interest is so sated by everything you can see on your phone all day long. There's no, like the business, there's no moat. Like there was a moat for the Tonight Show.

1:14:40If you were going to see a comedian, even to see a stand-up comedian, basically you had to wait till the Tonight Show. Like that's where it was. so and it's probably not able to be described to really internalize what i'm talking about but you have to live through it so what what is there like at what's magic about 11 30 like nobody's watching anything live and everything's streamed everything's on your own time if it's good i'll watch the clips yeah yeah so there's really no there's no reason for it except the inertia that it's always been and you know the hosts are way overpaid you know and i'm i was on jimmy kimmel's side but yes obviously these shows it seems to me they all operate at a

1:15:25Noam Dworman:loss why do they why does that happen then you thought our brains at a loss why are they still around well i would say that for nbc it would be heartbreaking to cancel a tonight show and do you buy that's the reason they've got to pay it out like no one's going it's heartbreaking and i'm going to lose millions of dollars because i might be upset well i i i don't know but i could imagine myself as a ceo it's not my money right okay um and making putting off that decision as long as I could. And by the way, I think Tonight Show maybe does the best of them. The other ones, I don't think there's much sentimentality about the brand.

1:16:17They're not, they're not storied historic brands, even the Letterman. So I think they will go. I think they will go. I wonder if they didn't put Kimmel back on just because they wanted to be defiant. because it looked terrible what they did kind of buckling right but they might have been like oh that made it easy at first before they realized like oh this is an easy way to get out of this and look and not look like the bad guy but yeah in the end the show either has to make money or it has to be some kind of lost leader for something but how can be lost leader at 11 30

1:16:52Noam Dworman:so yeah yeah exactly joe rogan's got the mothership cranking and i would say as a brand that's probably the one that's going to get us close to the comedy cellar globally, you know, that exists right now that I can think of. How do you see what he's building there versus what you've got at the comedy cellar here in New York? Well, I went to the mothership. I went two nights. I was very impressed. Have you been there? Yeah, I have. it's not a small New York comedy club. It's more of a theater. I mean, so there's two rooms, right? And the small room really seemed almost like an afterthought, right?

1:17:39It was, and maybe that's by intention. Keep it very informal, whatever it is. The big room is glitzy and slick. And it has that, what is that? It's like arch.

1:17:52Noam Dworman:Yeah, and it's kind of boxed everyone's like facing the same way yeah yeah and you know if it's full there's a lot of charisma and energy in a room like that but it's more more like an auditorium i felt like um and he's you know he's a he's a juggernaut now he's a mega star so um you know and any place he would open now I'm sure that that would work for some period of time. You know, he's, he's, um, I think he's stepped in it a little bit politically now, which is, uh, now always. Always. He was always a little political, but now I think he hadn't always stepped in it. I think when he embraced, I imagine he might regret it.

1:18:44I don't know. When he embraced Ian Carroll, and Daryl Cooper and some of these,

1:18:52Noam Dworman:I mean, you know, anti-Semites and historic revisionist history types and speaking nicely about Hitler and the Jews did 9-11 and, you know, Candace Owens theories and stuff like this. And now, you know, this kind of metastasis because he's now somehow associated with people he has no control over. So like he became associated with Tucker Carlson and now Tucker Carlson is becoming associated with Nick Fuentes. As of 10 minutes ago. Yeah. But this is a huge event. Yeah. So now in some way, Rogan wakes up and finds himself as part of that chain of people. And it'll be interesting to see whether he speaks out, but he hasn't, you know, like Ian Carroll, he had on the show and the morning after uh charlie kirk was murdered he and carl said israel killed charlie kirk you know and i don't know i could be wrong i don't know that rogan said you know listen i i had him on because i thought some of this stuff is wacky conspiracy theories but i just want to make clear i have no use for you know people like that but he might have to so so that's that's you know i don't know where that leads for him that's an issue that i'm just personally concerned about this.

1:20:16It's like this kind of, uh, um, comedian, griper, industrial complex, like, like comedians, you know, they're naturally smart, Alex, and they're naturally politically incorrect. And they naturally gravitate towards speaking to people and saying the things you're not allowed to do. Right. And I, and I share some of that. And it's always in a sense, really just been fun and games. And the people who complained about it were alarmist it didn't matter if you could talk to david duke it doesn't matter no you know but something is different now and and um a lot of these comedians who are just to be very clear i don't think any of them are nazis or racist or anti-semites i actually don't think they are i'm gonna put it more strongly they're not they are do they are waking up to find themselves in this milieu that includes people like Jake Shields and Dan Bilzerian and Ian Carroll and Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes.

1:21:20And, you know, in a word association games, these names might come up different when you think of it. So that's a bad thing. And I know I'm just like, you know, tangential to your question about the Rogan thing, but that's the only thing. Otherwise, I think he's golden, you know? And he's obviously, he's just a naturally, talking about people succeed over and over. This guy is a natural.

1:21:46Noam Dworman:So there's two ways this could go where he, you know, people like Rogan, they're either just like floating around in conversations, go Bernie this way, you know, Tucker this way, whatever. And they just float around and people get upset at them for wherever they have any floating in that moment. or you're right that a community could be going down a specific deliberate path. And if it's the latter, then it makes me think that there's going to be a huge polarization and segregation of the comedy scene. There'll be people that politically align themselves here and then maybe that becomes the community at a place like the Mothership or whatever and then the alternative is there.

1:22:29Noam Dworman:And then if that happens, how does that change your job as a curator? Are you going to say, okay, if you believe that sort of stuff politically, you can't come to the cellar? No. Where does that leave the comedy scene if it ends up exacerbating your concern as opposed to it just being this random floating thing around? Where does that leave the comedy scene? I don't think that's going to happen. But I mean, well, one of the things remains to be seen, but I suspect that the appearance of this stuff on social media is a little bit of illusion. I don't think there's a huge constituency for the stuff that Nick Fulentes is saying.

1:23:11I hope there's not. There's much more than there used to be. I don't think you're going to have a Groyper chain of comedy clubs. I don't think you're going to have that. but you're going to have, you know, they're going to be tainted by that association. Like I said, I think, I think this happened just naturally because comedians are drawn to this stuff. Not, not the, not the very politics of it, but the forbidden fruit of it all. They like saying what they're not allowed to say.

1:23:47Noam Dworman:Yeah. And, and by the way, I would totally want to interview Nick Fuentes also. But what they're doing that really is hard to justify is that they give them softball interviews. But they're not journalists. That's their argument. That's not a real argument. Because it's not, I don't think that's even honest. We've seen every one of these comedians, when something is being said that offends them, show that it offends them. and you're dealing in very, very radioactive stuff, and you don't have to be a journalist. You have to be a journalist. Only a journalist understands somebody's... But it is a skill set, I guess.

1:24:33No, I don't buy that at all. Okay. I mean, comedians... I speak to these comedians at the comedian table in the comedy cellar. every one of them is capable of pushing back on a grossly obvious racist argument you do not need

1:24:50Noam Dworman:to be that don't ever say that again okay i i so i've just i'm just want to really understand how you're thinking about this commercially because let's can i give you a hypothetical you've got a comedian who is on fire very funny killing it on their own podcast whatever and by every measure they're probably going to be at the cellar they interview nick fuentes or some other you know far right extreme person does that do you go nah nah let's not book him me no i don't do that i i don't No, please, we have people that do that stuff. Yeah. But I would never want the seller brand to become associated with that political point of view.

1:25:38That's another matter entirely.

1:25:41Noam Dworman:How do you prevent that? Because you've had controversies, like when certain comedians are being canceled and then they've gone to the seller and then the seller's been attacked for having them. I was just stubborn. Like, I'm just going to do what I want to do. And by the way, the only way I'd get branded like that is if I was known for not allowing people to perform. But racism and bigotry, you know, these are, these are actual, my nose is itchy. These are actual unique third rails that, that can't, like I said, you know, comedians, sometimes they don't realize, well, actually it's not all fun and games.

1:26:22These are actual things which have, the ideas have terrible histories in recent history that are associated with them when they spread and they can't just be treated in a nonchalant way and if you have the biggest uh show in the world

1:26:45you know i mean if you if you agree with it fine it's free country i'm not saying anybody should censor you. But, you know, I'm not going to bring on a person who wants to make, you know, some very, very disturbing arguments about blacks or Jews or gays, whatever it is,

1:27:03Noam Dworman:and not push back on it unless that's what I want to do. Well, yeah, I actually would like to see, you know, I mean, if you're like a public thinker and don't imagine that these comedians don't consider themselves deep thinkers. They do. Of course. And they consider themselves public thinkers. Yeah. And your role as a public thinker is not just about the money. It's not just about the entertainment of it. You want in some way to impact society. You want to do good as you see it to the world. And knowing that that has to be how people think, that has to be the lens. that's the lens that I look through when I see what someone is doing.

1:27:49So I say, well, if that's who you're bringing on and this is the way you're challenging them, the Occam's razor explanation is that you're partial to this. Now, I could be wrong. Obviously I could be wrong, but they shouldn't like say, how dare you think I'm partial to it? Well, okay, I'm not. That's just my Occam's razor observation. If you're not partial to it, just say so. Bring on a guest the next day who's gonna debunk it, right? Bring on the guest who actually does represent what you are partial to and let them rip through all the Ian Carroll arguments. I don't know.

1:28:22Noam Dworman:So the one thing that I think that they miss a lot is that they'll say, I'm just a comedian. We're just talking. I'm an idiot. I'm just having fun, whatever. By the way, they don't say that a lot. I know people say that they say that a lot. Well, I mean, they do on the podcast. Like, hey, don't listen to me. I'm just an idiot. I'm a comedian, whatever. That's kind of their brand when they get in hot water. I think what it does and they might sincerely believe that but it underestimates the power of their art I mean people watch movies they listen to music they listen to comedians they do all these things because it moves them emotionally and it shapes your brain it shapes your emotions it shapes how you feel otherwise it's a shit movie it's a shit song it's a shit stand-up if you're not being moved emotionally it's not good art and so you have these most talented you know these talented artists in the world are now getting into politics and whether they intend to or not, or whether they know that they're doing it or not, they are very good at what they do because they move people emotionally.

1:29:23Noam Dworman:And so it's naive of them if they believe what they're saying to say, hey, I'm just a comedian, because you being a comedian, a very good comedian, means you are moving people emotionally. That's why you're so fucking good at your art. I think the biggest mistake they make is that They don't understand. I used the analogy today for the first time. You know what a check valve is or a backflow? So if you have a restaurant, you'd know. So you have to have a check valve. A check valve is the valve in plumbing, which makes 100 % sure that none of the water from the bathroom, none of the sewage, can get into the freshwater system of the place.

1:30:03And this is a requirement. They inspect it. The Nick Fuenteses of the world are not new. but there used to be a check valve. It wasn't easy for Nick Fuentes' sewage to seep into the clean water system unless they were, like on the Donahue show or some interview where they were pressed, had to account for themselves. And what these comedians are doing, without realizing it is, is they're allowing this sewage to seep in to the fresh water system. and this is creating the impression to people that they can't be that bad, right? Like who would, if it was that bad, no one would allow this to seep into the freshwater system.

1:30:54So it's gotta be exaggerated. And then plus that they believe all these conspiracy theories. And then, I mean, I could go on and on. I'm just hoping it burns itself out. um the only the only bright side is that some of the stuff they're saying is verging on such ridiculousness like this whole like candace olens like charlie kirk was killed by trump and turning point usa and the massad and there was costume changes and then macron's wife is a man like and um some of the stuff is so ridiculous that it may just collapse on its own the weight of its own ridiculousness because if you watch tucker he's actually more careful to not be like so obvious on the subject of anti-semitism but on other stuff he's crazy mauled by demons and ufos and whatever it's it's it's bad and i wish the i wish the comedy world were not associated

1:31:46Noam Dworman:with this stuff but it is it's always been though hasn't it i mean it's just so much more pronounced now because the comedians have so much online reach but they were always commentators on on politics. No, but not, we're seeing a renaissance of Nazi-ish politics. I mean, it's fueled in some way by the anti-Israel stuff and the horror that people see at the war and all this stuff. This is all understandable, but it's not in any way limited to Israel. They're talking about Jews being responsible for, like I say, for, for 9-11, for JFK's death. Lyndon Johnson was Jewish. Stalin was Jewish. And well, one of the things that, this is not your podcast.

1:32:34One of the subject, Tucker Carlson.

1:32:36Noam Dworman:I'm letting my own curiosity get in the way of the show. This is great. Keep going. So Tucker Carlson was discussing with Nick Fuentes that the Jews are a stateless people who are unassimilable. Now you, you were not hearing stuff like that. anywhere 20 years ago. Unassimilable is a horrifying word. And of course my first instinct is like, well, you know, we're not the ones out there yelling death to America, right? That's the thing. But, you know, but this is, so they're hearkening back to ancient, tried and true, very, very dangerous tropes about Jews and their permanent threat to wherever they live.

1:33:24And like I say, so Fuentes says it and Tucker says it and Tucker talks to Rogan and Rogan talks to it and Ian Carroll and Daryl Cooper and they all, and you won't hear any, and Megyn Kelly, Megyn Kelly is a big one and Candace. And I hate ever to say anything that's not true, but I don't believe any of them has come out and mocked this or said anything that they object to it. That's unprecedented in my lifetime. It wasn't that long ago where Barack Obama had to suppress, there was a single photo of him with Louis Farrakhan who had said this terrible thing about the Jews. They had to hide that photo until after the election.

1:34:06He got into that, he was known to be a friend of Reverend Wright and Reverend Wright had said certain things about America and about the Jews. He almost was upended by that. He had to go and give a primetime address or it was primetime. He had to give an address about it because the world was very sensitive to such things. That's like child's play compared to what's being said now. JD and JD Vance, the vice president, Tucker's kid works for him. They're all friends. I think it's reported that Tucker was the reason that Trump, Tucker recommended Vance to Trump. I don't, and Trump actually stands up.

1:34:40Interestingly, he stands apart from this, right? Trump is like MAGA trying to hold off post-Trump MAGA.

1:34:50Noam Dworman:It's ironic that he seems to be the real political statesman in that whole thing. He's got to please, somehow trying to please everyone right now. He doesn't have those feelings. He has 10 other things that could hang around his head. He doesn't have those negative feelings about the Jews and Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just doesn't. He obviously doesn't, right? His daughter's an Orthodox Jew. I mean, he just doesn't have those feelings. So we'll see how it goes. Let's get back to business. Sure. A couple more questions. So the first one is, what is the thing that you are most proud about that you've done in building a business?

1:35:31Well, speaking about Trump, every business has a deep state. By the way, you have business? Do you ever run a business?

1:35:39Noam Dworman:you know i start i bought rolling stone variety billboard all out to australia built that media company and i sold it last year so right now i'm just doing talent management and i'm living my best life by the way just i'll answer your question yeah if i could describe to you when i subscribe to rolling stone magazine in the 70s how i waited eagerly did it come today and sometimes it would whether let's say it came every wednesday sometimes for some reason it wouldn't come away to come on Thursday and my heart would drop, you know, disappointed. This is like a taste of that bottleneck as it used to exist.

1:36:13There was a drip, drip, drip, drip of, of, of, of journalism and information about something I was fascinated with. And I had to wait, it was bi-weekly, I had to wait two weeks for Rolling Stone magazine to come out. And until it did, there was nothing. My father would bring home Billboard magazine or Cashbox magazine or Record World. There were three like industry Bibles at the time, but it wasn't the same because they were like industries. From time to time, it'd be interesting. So anyway, so every business has a deep state. And the deep state is that essentially everybody, everybody exists to keep information from the boss.

1:36:53That's just the way it is. and even your most important employees, even your closest employees, because in the end, when something bad happens, it's on their ledger, right? So they would prefer that you didn't know that this customer was treated badly or whatever it is, because in the end, how are you training these people? Like, so they don't. So what I've been very, very effective at is creating a direct communication with every customer that comes to the seller. As soon as they leave, I don't even want to say with all the trade secrets, but, and from that, everybody in the entire organization is on notice that they can have no expectation whatsoever that anything that happens, I won't hear about.

1:37:46And this has been unbelievably effective for me, unbelievably efficacious in in helping me run a tip-top ship how do you hear about everything i can't tell you no i mean it can't be a secret but because every i'm in touch with every customer 20 minutes after they leave by a review post-review survey or something like that by uh you know through um emails and yeah amazing yeah but but it's it's very effective yeah wow okay so that leads me to my next question for any venue operator whether it's music or comedy you have had tremendous success in both yeah i'm about to open up a music venue anywhere

1:38:36Noam Dworman:in the world oh i thought you were being serious yeah give me your give me your tips what are the things that I just can't ignore I have to do well I mean again just to just be clear my attractions in music venues because I was a musician and I wanted to play and the big thrill of it was creating the show arranging the music performing um so if you don't have a jones for that then you know I would ask whether or not you're going to get constant satisfaction from the music. You know, if you were Bill Graham in the 60s and 70s, you know, that was a particular time. I don't know if we're living in that time anymore.

1:39:19You might wake up to find it's just dull and a drudgery. But having said all that, obviously you have to have the sound right, which is very challenging. And all the more challenging because every sound guy doesn't know what he's talking about will tell you they'll fix it with equalization. or well, you know, and very rare that you find some. So you actually have to, like everything, you have to know, you really have to have expertise in it yourself. There is no substitute for that. Like, even when I deal with my POS programmers, I can question them about, it actually happened, whether they properly instantiated the variable to be a string, you know, you have to know this stuff.

1:40:05It sounds like not something that you would need to have, but I do believe, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, that people are very successful. They actually have a deep knowledge of everything that they depend on in their place. So if you want to run a music club, if you want to not just succeed by luck, you need to understand sound, you need to understand lights. You have to decide whether you want to be a sit-down venue or a stand-up venue.

1:40:31and then there are questions I don't know the answers to, but I've seen it succeed both ways. Are you going to become a venue associated with a particular vibe of music such that people will say, well, let's go to Luke's place because they always have that kind of acoustic blah, blah, blah that I like. So you don't really need to know who's playing. Maybe it's like the Village Vanguard in a way. Like you do want to go see who's playing, if you like jazz, but you'll just go to the Vanguard. Let's just go see it. Or do you want to be a place which is really a smorgasbord where really you are at the mercy of your act every night and you really don't build up much business based just on your name.

1:41:18Although people will know that this is a good place to see somebody. So if they note somebody that they like, they'll go see you. So those are the challenges.

1:41:30Noam Dworman:And do you have any rules about unit economics? Don't freaking start a venue if the rent is X percent or like what are your red light, green lights when looking at a deal? Yeah, we know it's kind of the opposite of what they tell about like renovations, like you get an estimate and then halve it again or something like that. Whatever business plan you come up with, you just probably cut it in half in terms of what you think your revenue is going to be. And if you can live within that number, you should do it. Also, you need to be prepared to get out. So I had a situation in Vegas, when I opened in Vegas, where, actually I never told this story because I think I can tell it now, where, so I got, the casino is sold.

1:42:15So the people I'm talking about are no longer in charge of the casino. That's why I can tell it. But the guy who induced me to take this room he actually misled me on some things and in particular about what it was going to cost to promote the club and promotion is something i never spent a dime on we don't promote really but in vegas obviously you had to yeah get known so when we finally got there we built the club out i was going to blame some people i throw some people under the bus at the same time Anyway, I finally realized, oh, this is never going to, we're not going to make it. And - How long into this was it?

1:42:56Before we even opened. Oh, wow. Just getting ready to open. And I had some partners, I still have them. I said, listen, this is not going to work. And, you know, usually when somebody goes broke, it's when they've maxed out their credit cards, they've taken every personal loan. And that's when they go over and say, I don't want to be one of those schmucks. I said, if it's not going to work, I said, I want to get out now. We spent, you know, close to a million dollars or something to, I said, let's just, we're going to walk away and leave that stuff. So I met with the casino. I said, I blamed the guy who misled me and I had some evidence for it.

1:43:32How did he mislead you? By telling me what things were going to cost, the aspects of the business I had no experience with.

1:43:40Noam Dworman:Such as? Promotion. Okay. Okay. And so were you contractually bound to do certain marketing activities? Or it was just the... The minimum marketing activities that were deemed necessary, both by what they told me and from other people I spoke to, would have turned the cost so upside down that... So anyway, so I met with him and said, listen, we can't do it. And I'm leaving. and they said, you're going to leave? I said, yeah, I'm leaving. And I told them the same thing. And they didn't believe me at first. So then they came back with a half-assed offer. And then I did one thing that I thought, I don't even know if this actually worked, but if it did work, it's genius.

1:44:30It might have never even had anything to do with it. But what I did was I contacted the law firm that I knew represented the other side. And I played dumb and I told the law firm, I need to hire a lawyer. I want to sue this. That is genius. Because I knew that because of the conflicts of interest, they can't take me as a client. Yeah. But then they would tell their client. That's amazing. So I did that. Again, I don't know if they ever found it. I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, it's a great thing for a movie. But the thing is, I wasn't bluffing. I was just, I really was not bluffing.

1:45:17And that's always the best thing in negotiation. It's to not be bluffing, right? It's to really walk away. And I walked away and we didn't open. And they finally came back to me with a reasonable deal. I spoke, I ended up negotiating with a higher up. It was much more straight up, total gentleman, very reasonable. I showed them my numbers. I wasn't like bullshitting them. They knew I was, that also worked to my advantage. because I said, look, these are my numbers. You tell me I'm wrong. You told me it was this, but it's not. So, and then we, yeah, and that worked and we've had been successful.

1:45:47Noam Dworman:And so they fixed it by just reducing the rent or giving you some - They reduced the rent drastically. And rent kicks up when we hit certain, you know, thresholds. And now we have a fixed rent and also a certain thresholds, but we had five years to build a name. We wouldn't have been able. Noam, I am so grateful for your generosity and time and knowledge and everything you share with me today. It's a real thrill. I'm a massive fan of your business, as you probably gathered. So I'm really grateful, Noam. Thank you. My pleasure. Oh, I'm back. I don't take breaks. The world need more hope. I pray it ain't too late.

1:46:27I don't know what the plot is.