Best of The Program | Guests: Brad Meltzer, Kari Lake, & Dani Zoldan | 3/5/21

There's only one place where history, culture, and adventure meet on the National Mall.

Where museum days turn to electric lights,

where riverside sunrises glow and monuments shine in moonlight,

where there's something new for everyone to discover.

There's only one DC.

Visit Washington.org to plan your trip.

It's Friday, and today is a great,

great show.

We start with our ode to Dr.

Seuss about Asians in cages, which I think was the problem, right?

That was the problem with, I can't believe I saw it on Mulberry Street.

Right.

They had drawn pictures of Asians in cages, and we decided

that for the left and for the progressive left in particular, it was probably really important to remind people

who actually did put Asians in cages.

We start the podcast with that.

Goes from there.

Bill O'Reilly is on.

He's fantastic this week.

We have a local news anchor that couldn't take the bias anymore and has decided to leave television news.

She was the number one anchor in Phoenix for 20 years.

We talked to her about that.

Also, Stand Up in the park in new york city it's um the uh partner the business partner of james altrature that is uh trying to get comedy brought back to new york crazy idea he sued he sued the state cuomo bent but it wasn't a real victory it's open now 30 but at least they're open he's a big big big big big big big big big liberal uh and we had a great conversation that you don't want to miss all on today's podcast and don't forget andrewcuomo is awful.com Also, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, of course, and rate and review it.

Take a couple seconds.

Do things for us because we do so much for you.

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Do something.

And, you know, let me just give you one more thing to do.

Stu Does America, that podcast available as well to subscribe to and rate and review.

And there will be a quiz after it.

So.

Uh-oh, really?

Yes.

I didn't even prepare.

Yeah.

You're listening to the best of the Glenbeck program.

Oh, what fun we'll have in the gulag together.

Welcome to the program, Mr.

Brad Meltzer, one of my favorite people in the whole world.

He loves history almost as much as anyone I know.

Brad, how are you, sir?

I'm good, my friend.

How you been?

I'm good.

I'm good.

You know,

every time you have a new book out or whatever, you know, somebody in your office calls and could Brad get on.

Yes, Brad can get on.

You're one of my favorite guests because you always bring something interesting to talk about.

And this week, you don't have to bring anything to the table.

With the banning of Dr.

Seuss and you, a guy who's writing

children's books,

what's your take on the Dr.

Seuss ban?

Yeah, you know,

I'm someone who grew up on Dr.

Seuss.

Oh, my God.

I think I'm a writer.

I think it's a good idea.

How much therapy have you had?

We all need it.

But you know me too well.

But, you know, and listen, I think I'm a writer today because of books like Dr.

Seuss.

Dr.

Seuss, when I did Heroes for My Son, I put him as one of the heroes in the book for helping millions of kids find the love of reading, right?

I mean, that is what Dr.

Seuss, of course, stands for for so many.

And, you know, what is so interesting is, and listen, you got to look at the history, right?

You know as well as I know what he did when he was younger versus what he did in the war versus what he did later.

And all those things.

Let's pretend I don't know.

Yeah, so let's talk about it.

Let's talk about it.

So when he's a younger kid, he actually, like any kid, you know, writes some things that aren't the best, right?

They just aren't, right?

And even though he does these amazing things,

his early work also has some drawings.

If you look at them, they didn't age well.

I think even Dr.

Seuss would admit they didn't age well.

Those two things can be true at the same time.

And I think what is such a, you know, it is so sad today is that we reduced the culture and the culture has come to, and I can say this, you know, for our kids' books, as Dr.

Seuss, who was a hero in one of them, right?

Every hero that I've done, Glenn, from Amelia Earhart, we did I am Abraham Lincoln, I am Martin Luther King Jr., I am Rosa Parks,

to the new ones.

I am Walt Disney.

Jim Henson.

Someone has written to me and said, that person's not a hero.

You shouldn't do him.

And that is what is so sad to me.

Because I tell my kids, if you're looking for perfection, the only thing that's perfect is God.

That's it.

All of the rest of us are flawed.

And we have to stop seeing people as all good or all bad because none of us are all good.

You know, we're good, we're bad, we're complicated, we're brave, we're cowards, we're amazing, amazing we're horrible we're wonderful and especially when we especially when it's the trajectory

you know when the trajectory of a man's life is he started out great and he turned into hitler not a good trajectory but if you are you know if you are a monster at the beginning because of your beliefs or whatever else and then you grew and you learned and you were like oh my gosh i reject the things that i thought i i'm not the same man that's a hero story.

Well, and listen, the star-belly sneaches, according to many, are him making amends for the early things he did.

That's supposed to be an attack against what Hitler's doing, right?

He's basically learned from what he did early and said, you know what?

This is the wrong thing.

We got to stand up.

Isn't Yertle the Turtle the same thing?

Yertle the Turtle is the same thing.

And the one thing that I do think is important, though, and it is this, is

he wasn't banned by by Twitter.

He wasn't canceled like that.

It was his own family, his own estate that said, you know what,

these five, these couple we're going to take away.

You get the rest.

And the truth is, you know, listen,

the drawings didn't age well.

They just don't.

I mean, the same way that Disneyland and Disney War, when you go now, when you go to the Song of the South, you look at some of them, you're like,

this might have been good in the 50s and 60s, but today it doesn't look as good.

And I think I wish that as a culture we could take a breath and rather, you know, I go back to Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address.

It's like, we need to be friends and not enemies.

And

it's so sad to me and heartbreaking that the culture has turned into everyone is the best, everyone's the worst, because those kinds of absolutes, you know, maybe it's because I'm a Star Wars fan, but absolutes, you know, in the Jedi order, right?

Like they just never do anyone any good.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

You're welcome.

So

speaking of things that don't age well, you just wrote a book, I Am Free to Callo.

And most people know her by the eyebrows that didn't age well.

Let me tell you,

we've never been closer.

I had all these people writing to me, all these kids around the country.

They're like, I want I Am Free to Callo.

Please do I Am Free to Call.

And I'm like, all I know about her is she's got the eyebrows.

And that Selma Hyde played her in the movie.

And I keep going, why do all these kids want her?

She's just an artist.

What's the big deal?

And you know, I wrote this kid's book series.

We have a mutual love of history, which has always been, you know, it's one of the great things of our friendship.

But to give the other part of our friendship, I wanted to give my kids better heroes to look up to, heroes of character, heroes of compassion, heroes of kindness.

Okay, so tell me about her because I know I also know she was married to Diego Rivera, which

he was a staunch anti-capitalist.

He was an American hater.

Pardon me?

And yeah,

right?

A socialist.

An absolute socialist, yeah.

And so tell me about her that's going to make me like her.

Yeah, so here's here.

And again,

it's almost the reverse.

It's perfect with the Dr.

Seuss, right?

Because

to show the other side, right?

Here's her story.

She's a little girl.

She gets polio.

One leg is shorter than the other, and she can't really walk.

She hobbles.

Every kid makes fun of her, calling her peg leg.

Wow.

And they say, they make fun of how she dresses.

They make fun of her because she wears long skirts to cover up her legs.

She gets as a young girl in a horrible bus accident.

And they say she's never going to walk again, cracks her back.

And they're like,

she's putting a full body cast.

And lying in bed, unable to move, she says, bring me some paintbrushes.

She can't even sit up.

They build a special easel for her, and they put a mirror over her bed above her so she can look up and see the thing that she can actually draw because she can't move is herself.

And she starts doing self-portraits.

But what happens is, and what's amazing, is that her whole life, Frida Kahlo is made fun of for how she looks for the unibrow.

She's made fun of where she's from.

She's made fun of how ugly she is.

And she is never anything but unapologetically herself.

And her whole life she goes, and

I have to tell you, one of the things I'm proudest of in this book is the last page of the book, we actually put a mirror, a plastic mirror on the last page.

And it says there, what do you see here?

And little Frida Kahlo, in our children's book, holds up the mirror, and it says, I see a work of art.

And when your kid looks in that mirror, in this selfie culture that we live in, you can see that she says, you know, everyone's, life is messy, and life isn't easy, and life is hard, but you got to to get back up again and you got to accept yourself for who you are.

And if you do that, as it says in the book, I know the most beautiful thing in the world is you.

We got to stop teaching our kids to take selfies and teach them a little self-love.

They're not perfect.

None of us are perfect.

And that's what I love about Frida Kahlo, is that I want my daughter to have that lesson.

Are you

going to

hate you for it, but it's a really good story.

You know me.

No, no, no, I know.

We don't do her social, you know, we don't do where her politics, because as you said, her politics evolve and go up and go down like anyone else's.

To me, none of that's important.

The question is, as you said, the hero's journey.

And her hero journey is just one of absolute, I mean, how hard is it to find, especially for young girls today?

And it's everyone's told to be beautiful, be perfect, be everything on Instagram.

It's disgusting to me.

Teach your kids to just love themselves.

This is proof that

we don't ban books and we don't judge people on one thing.

I mean, I think it's great that we hear this about her.

And if you're curious about her, then you eventually, as you grow up, you start to look into what she believes and who she married and what he did and everything else.

And you make your own decision.

But we don't ban people and

we don't say, oh, Dr.

Seuss did this a long time ago, and we got to get rid of that, even if you're a family.

All right.

So, Brad, you have one more book out.

Do you not?

I'm going to like this one.

Okay.

I do.

You're going to.

You've got got about three minutes tops.

I'm going to do it quick.

So, you know, me a long time.

I've never dreamed a book.

I dreamt an entire book.

I dreamt

the premise of this book.

It's called A New Day.

And I woke up and I said, I have an idea that Sunday quits just like that.

And all the other days have to have tryouts for a new day.

And they quickly have trade.

Now, they say, let's have fun day.

Everyone will have fun.

And they're like, no, let's have run day.

Everyone runs fast like the flash.

Nope.

Bun day, where everyone wears buns like Princess Leia.

And they're like, oh, I thought you were going to do the other buns.

They're like, no, let's not do that.

And then a little girl comes to Sunday.

And it gets crazy and crazy.

They want, the dogs want Dog's Day, the cats want Catur Day.

But at the end of the book, a little girl comes in with a potted plant to Sunday.

And Sunday says, what's this?

You want tree day?

You want to grow Rutabega Day?

What do you want?

And she says, no, I just want to say thank you, Sunday, for all the things you give us.

And I want you to have a nice day.

And Sunday is undone.

And in that moment, Sunday realizes, of course, the moral of our children's book, which is that with a little kindness in it, every day can be a new day.

And my God, where we are as a culture right now, our kids are so anxious.

We, as adults, are so anxious.

We need to arm our kids with the lessons of that when you say thank you and you show kindness instead of venom in this world, you can change everyone's day and have a new day.

So that's the new children's book.

You're a better man than I am, Brad.

I so respect you, and I love your constant optimism

and your ability to tell the truth and have your message heard by

all Americans without ever compromising who you are.

And congratulations on that.

And thank you for being my friend.

Listen, thanks for being my friend, whatever the genre, but it's not just optimism.

This is how I fight back, right?

I fight back by helping people teach character to their kids and help them realize this is a venomous moment we're living in.

It's a terrible moment in American history when we're all fighting.

And

you have a choice, right?

And my choice is, is try and put a little more kindness in the world.

Well, you know, again, I go back to Abraham Lincoln, one of my, and your great heroes.

And I think that a new day for me is just my attempt to kind of counter what we're seeing in the culture so our kids get a little something better.

I am Frida Collo.

Give them a little something better.

And the other book is called A New Day.

Brad Meltzer, the author and friend of the program.

Thank you so much, Brad.

Appreciate it.

Always love talking to you.

Thanks, my friend.

God bless.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

So earlier this week, I saw a viral video from a former Arizona news anchor named Carrie Lake.

Here's what she said.

Sadly, journalism has changed a lot since I first stepped into a newsroom, and I'll be honest, I don't like the direction it's going.

The media needs more balance in coverage and a wider range of viewpoints represented in every newsroom, at every level, and in each position.

In the past few years, I haven't felt proud to be a member of the media.

I'm sure there are other journalists out there who feel the same way.

I found myself reading news copy that I didn't believe was fully fully truthful or only told part of the story.

And I began to feel that I was contributing to the fear and division in this country by continuing on in this profession.

It's been a serious struggle for me and I no longer want to do this job anymore.

So I've decided the time is right to do something else and I'm leaving Fox 10.

There will probably be some hit pieces written about me.

Not everyone is dedicated to telling the truth.

Thankfully.

So this is Carrie Lake.

We have her on the phone now and so we're going to get the story from her firsthand.

Hi, Carrie.

How are you?

Hi, Glenn.

I'm doing great.

Thanks for inviting me on.

I just can't believe that I'm talking to you about this video that I put out.

I just wanted to send a message to the viewers.

Yeah.

Well, let them know where I was going.

I think this went viral because I think people are feeling kind of what you're feeling.

They don't trust

news.

And quite honestly, local news has been more trustworthy in the last few years than it has been the national news.

And

we need good journalists now more than ever.

And

I saw this and I can relate to your pain

and wanted to talk to you about it.

And I don't want to bash the station or anybody else.

I just want to talk about generally what is happening.

What is happening?

Wow.

Well, I mean, I think we have very biased news.

I think we have a lot of one viewpoint represented in newsrooms around the country, whether it be national or local, and very little of another viewpoint.

And I guess you could say, you know, right versus left, but I'm even talking,

I don't know how to say it.

When I first got into a newsroom, I remember it just seemed like there were a lot of different age groups.

You know, it's become a very young profession.

It's a hard job to run around and be a reporter.

But I think we're kind of missing different perspectives.

Even when it comes to age, we're losing a lot of the older people in

journalism.

I mean, think about, I don't know how old you are, Glenn.

You're a young guy.

No.

I'm in my 50s.

I'm in my 50s as well.

Okay.

I feel like I have a little more wisdom than maybe I did even in my 30s or 20s.

Yes.

And I think it's great to have those viewpoints.

People who may be our grandparents or people who grew up in, you know, small towns and have rural experience.

It's all becoming kind of the same, the same viewpoints.

And I just decided that I couldn't fix it, one person, but I also didn't want to be part of it.

And I didn't feel proud about what I was doing.

And I'm one of those people that

I like to work and I like to feel good about it.

And I just hadn't been feeling good about it for a long time.

So

let me say this, Carrie, and

ask your opinion on it.

I'm not sure that it is,

you know, when you were talking about age

and wisdom and experience, I know I want to surround myself with young people, not to the expense of others, but because they have a different viewpoint and they see the world for what,

with fresh eyes and what it can be.

But I also want to work with people who understand and respect the world that was and the world that we have lived through and the experience we have.

If we work together, we create something amazing.

But I don't think that exists anymore.

You're just dismissed.

Yeah, or not even dismissed.

You don't even feel you can put your ideas out there to be dismissed.

I've had so many people reach out to me.

And you're right, Glenn.

I love the young reporters I've worked with.

You know, I absolutely love the perspective they bring.

I just, I was thinking when I got into my first newsroom, how I was kind of the young reporter, and I looked up to so many of these veteran reporters who've been there forever.

And a lot of them have gotten out of the business.

So I'm not trying to bash the young people.

I adore them.

We have some of the hardest-working, great young people in town, and I've been lucky to work with them.

But yeah, you don't even feel comfortable putting out an idea because people are afraid to talk right now.

I just was at an appointment the other day.

And

it's somebody I've gone to for a while, and I thought he was liberal.

I didn't know what his perspective was.

We didn't really talk about the news because it was kind of dangerous.

And when he found out that I left my job, only then did he reveal, oh my gosh, I'm actually conservative, and I'm scared to death.

I see clients all day.

I'm so afraid to even speak that I might offend somebody.

And I thought, wow, this is not just in journalism.

This is in

this is everywhere.

In every industry, people are afraid.

And I'm hearing this from the response I've gotten from the video, which has been thousands upon thousands of emails and comments, people telling me they work in, you name the industry, they're feeling this as well.

Well, I can't tell you, we did a deal on the Great Reset and what the banks and the accounting firms are now going through on this ESG reporting, environmental, social justice, and governance score, which is basically Chinese social score, their social credit score.

It's really, truly terrifying.

And I am getting so many emails and so many calls from people who are

CPAs or work in the banking industry that are all saying the same thing.

This is coming and we don't know what to say.

We don't know what to do because I'm not for this, but

I'm out.

You don't stand against this.

Yeah,

it's frightening.

And so what do we do?

You know, that's the question.

How do we come together?

I think the majority of people feel like what you just described.

They're afraid of what's coming.

They want to speak out, but they don't know how to do it.

You know, do you lose a job?

Do you have to put food on the table, right?

Somehow.

Yeah.

Right.

And I had to come to grips with that because I was walking away from a nice paycheck.

I'm going to be honest.

I've worked in the business for a long time.

And the courageous part wasn't.

putting the video out.

The courageous part was coming to grips with, okay, I'm leaving, I have to leave this all behind.

Yeah, when you have

20 years at number one at a local station, that's a big thing to walk away from.

And also, I bet you also thought, but I'm also losing my voice.

I'm losing the ability

to have this kind of impact.

Maybe I can make a difference.

Did you go through that as well?

I did.

For a while,

I felt like, like, well, it's better to be in the media, even though I'm not totally proud of it, at least trying to, you know, I always say it's not my sandbox, I'm just playing in it.

And every once in a while, I try to throw a handful of sand out.

Right.

But, you know, I hate to have voices leave the media that we need, maybe more common sense voices.

But also, when you just feel like you can't make a difference,

then you have to move on.

That's where I kind of came to.

I thought, well, I just don't feel like I can it's not worth putting my voice on things I don't, I personally don't believe in.

Now, other people, Glenn, they might jump into these roles in newsrooms around the country and feel fine reading the stuff that I had a hard time reading and feeling good about.

Did the election play a role in this?

I think two things happened, COVID and the election.

But really, it happened back

with the election in 2016.

I started seeing about how people were covering Donald Trump.

And I thought, why are they so, why do they hate this man so much?

Can't we just be fair in how we cover him?

Didn't seem that way.

And it only grew worse after 2016.

I wasn't thrilled with how the election was handled by the media at all.

And I remember on election night,

actually, when

it was called, Arizona was called.

I remember thinking, whoa, we still had people voting.

And I even spoke out and said a few times election night, wait a minute, I don't think Arizona should have been called because we still have hundreds of thousands, maybe a million votes to count.

I remember saying that several times on election night.

And yeah, that kind of bothered me.

Obviously, when the when the votes were counted, it didn't turn out and that it turned out that Joe Biden took the state, but I didn't feel that calling it that early was the right thing to do.

And I voiced that opinion on the air.

So

I want to ask you about COVID also.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

I was going to say COVID also really, I think, was where it hit me.

I felt that what I was reading was

kind of fear-mongering.

This is my opinion.

And we were able to put out, the media was able to put out sound bites and all kinds of information from certain doctors, but not other doctors.

Correct.

You know, even if they were doctors who weren't treating COVID patients.

And then we have doctors who are treating COVID patients, and we can't talk about that.

We can't talk about what's working.

It almost felt like there was no desire to put out stories that would make people feel better, alleviate some of their fear, or give them options for treatment or things that might help.

It felt very much like fear-mongering.

I don't want to be a part of that because I work, I live in a neighborhood with elderly people who are afraid to come out of their homes.

And I just didn't feel good about it.

So, when we get into this kind of

fear to speak,

where are we headed?

I mean, there's a story in the New York Times today about how the Germans have just

banned the

speech

and put on a watch list the one of their political parties.

It's a right-wing,

they say extremist.

I know nothing about this party.

It might be a bunch of Nazis.

I don't know.

But

that's the way they're treating them and banning

their speech.

And putting them on a watch list.

And you read the New York Times story today, and it is,

it's almost giddy about the idea that you could put a political party on a terror watch list.

It's a little frightening that it seems as though we're going in that direction.

Well, we may be.

I mean, people are being banned from Twitter and Facebook, and we've seen posts banned.

I don't know anything about the story that you just talked about.

Maybe this is a modern Nazi group.

Who knows?

Right.

I don't know either.

I'm actually, you bring up a point, though.

The censorship is

at a level I never expected to see in this country.

And I'm really stunned when I post something or I talk about censorship on social media to see other journalists pop into my feed and make comments supporting censorship.

As a journalist, I just don't know how you are okay with that.

How do you reason with yourself and say, yeah, censorship is okay?

I just was, I guess I was brought up differently.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, you know, in Germany when they banned Mein Kampf, I kind of, you know, I get it.

They were Nazis, and there were a lot of Nazis that didn't go to jail in Germany and didn't pay for things.

And you wanted to stop that ideology.

But we always sold Mein Kampf here in America.

I've read it.

It is crazy.

It is the rantings of a madman.

And to me,

it makes me question, how did people dismiss this?

They knew what he was going to do.

How did they dismiss it?

And I fear we're just repeating a lot of these things.

I can still get Mein Kampf at Amazon.

I can still get it at eBay, but I can't get six Dr.

Seuss books from either of those places today.

I'm still trying to figure the Dr.

Seuss thing out.

I don't get the problem with it, but

I think when you see Dr.

Seuss being banned, it's really starting to wake people up.

And

we're led to believe that we have to remain quiet.

Our opinions are wrong.

You know, we've been called racist, Nazis, you name it.

And I think that we might be in the majority and we're just being told to be quiet and don't speak up.

Even if you think it's common sense, don't speak up or you're in trouble.

I think there's a shift happening actually based on what I've been reading from the comments I've gotten where people are saying, that's it.

I'm done.

I'm going to, the next time this happens at work, I'm going to say something.

I have to.

So I don't know.

Are you sensing it?

And you talk to people all the time, Glenn.

I feel like there might be a tiny shift happening where people are fed up enough with being told their

traditional values are wrong, their ideas are wrong, their beliefs are wrong, and they're ready to stand up.

Well, I will tell you, this is almost like the last call at a bar.

If you don't stand up now,

if you remain silent,

this is the last probably easy time for you to do it.

And I know doing it now seems like a lot.

If we would have spoken out earlier, maybe things would have been different.

But it's not going to get easier from here.

And if people don't stand up in those meetings, in those companies, and say, I'm not doing it.

You're not teaching me.

I'm hoping that, you know, if we had 20% of the teachers stand up and say, we got to go back to school, this is ridiculous.

20% of the teachers, it would make all the difference in the world, but nobody's doing it.

it

well people are afraid of being ostracized the cancel culture you know you want to fit in you want people to like you that's natural but being ostracized won't kill you and it might save the country it will save you

yeah and i've been canceled several times because people don't like what i tweet i don't think i tweet anything wrong that's bad it might not be what other people um you know i've

I try to put stories out there and get people to react to them and say, hey, what do you think about this?

The president did this today or this this happened.

What are your thoughts?

And because I'm not actively, wasn't actively bashing the president or pushing, you know, COVID fear, the media, some people in the media would attack me and write stories about me in the newspaper.

But the first time I was canceled, it was, I mean, it was really painful.

I was

distraught.

It did feel like my world was ending.

But the good news is you get over it.

And the second time you're canceled, it's easier.

The third time, you just finally start to almost laugh at it.

You go, okay, here you go again.

Yeah.

I'm being canceled again.

And you get to a point to where you can almost wear it as a badge of honor because you start to see who's canceling you.

And you're like, okay, well, I'm glad they're canceling me because I'm not with them.

Carrie, we hope that you are going to continue your reporting in whatever way.

When you decide how you're going to do it,

know that you have an ally in me and I'll help you any way I can.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Glenn.

Appreciate it.

You bet.

God bless.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

So Stand Up New York has sued Governor Cuomo to lift COVID-19, the shutdown order, and I guess it kind of won a little bit because he has lifted a bit of the shutdown order.

It's killing New York City.

Donny Zoldan is going to be joining me here in a second, and I just want to read this tweet that he tweeted yesterday.

I'll be on Glenn Back tomorrow morning, 11:30, talking New York City politics, business shutdowns, and mandates.

Hopefully, some comedy too.

Wait until he finds out I'm an Upper West Side liberal?

I'm trying to get my arms around that.

Donnie, you're...

You live in New York.

You co-own a comedy club.

You live in the Upper West Side, and you're liberal?

Hey, Glenn.

Hey, how are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Good.

I'm glad that you're on.

You co-own the comedy club, if I'm not mistaken, with James Altichure, right?

That is correct.

And Gabe Waldman, my best friend since high school.

Yeah.

New York, as James and I have talked about, is dying.

It is the saddest thing I've ever seen.

I mean, the greatest city

in the world.

I don't want to say dying.

We're coming back.

It's being revived right now.

We're really coming back.

Asked me a month ago, even, I would have said dying, but I really feel like we're on the upswing right now.

And by the way, the Upper West Side Liberal thing, I challenge you to take a walk with me on Broadway on the Upper West Side and get a bagel at Zabar's.

I should be challenging you to do that.

I've done that many times.

I don't think you know what it's like to walk down the street as me.

So

I would be surprised.

About two years ago, I was walking down Broadway with Ann Coulter and someone yelled out, we love you, Ann.

So we should do it.

Anytime, brother, anytime.

Listen, I saw you have

Stand Up New York in the park, and you guys started doing, you know, social distancing stand-up,

you know, under the trees in New York City.

Tell me about that.

Yeah, I mean, it was actually phenomenal.

March, April, May.

Really, I was in the bar, in the club, by myself.

Like everyone in New York City was really just hunkering down and being in their apartments.

So there was really nothing going on March, April, May in Manhattan.

But come June, when the weather was nice, I started city biking to Central Park and I bought a lawn chair and I would work on my laptop and I just saw hundreds of people on the lawn in Cheap Meadow in Central Park just enjoying themselves and playing frisbee and lying on the grass.

And I text my booker, John, and I'm like, dude, we should do a comedy show here.

Like it feels alive here in the park.

If you go to Broadway, it's a disaster, but storefronts closed and homeless people around, and it was actually like dangerous in the streets.

But the park, we didn't get that sense.

And

we did a comedy show, and 50 people showed up, and we had six comics, and we paid them, and

it was an amazing experience.

Comics walked around to me, and they said they haven't been outside in months, and they obviously haven't performed.

And it was such like a relief.

And then, people that came out to watch, it felt so good to be outdoors in the sun, watching live entertainment.

The city really fell alive.

So after that show,

I'm like, we got to bail this up.

Let's do like

40 to 50 shows a week.

Let's do shows in parks across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.

Everyone thought I was crazy, but we did that.

We were doing 40 to 50 shows a week during the pandemic in the summer and fall.

And I've owned the club for 12 years.

It's been really the best experience since I've owned the club.

So what is the state of business in New York?

I mean, you were just talking about Broadway.

I don't know how those people survive.

You still have to pay for the theater rent.

I mean, somebody's paying for all of that.

There's a lot of overhead.

All these actors and actresses and stagehands, they haven't worked in a year.

How is this going to survive?

I mean, it's financially, it's been difficult.

You know, before I was talking about just non-financials, you know, like we, you know, we were willing to invest some money and put on these park shows and we made a lot of people happy and made comics happy.

But yeah, the numbers don't really add up right now.

We've been shuttered a year, a year we were closed down.

That's crazy.

Even while crazy, even while other industries around us

have opened,

you can go bowling and

you look like a bowler, by the way.

No, you know the I did

I can make fun of you.

I did more bowling in New York City than I've done in my life.

Just look like a bowler.

Too much fun.

Yeah, no,

there's fine to make fun of me, but don't make fun of bowlers, man.

They carry big,

really big suitcases.

Walk down Broadway.

No,

it's been really frustrating.

A year.

I can't believe it's been a year.

We were closed down, and I got really frustrated over the past few weeks when Cuomo announced that weddings are allowed and restaurants can increase their capacity, and you can go bowling and play pool and do all of these things, but comedy clubs can operate, and music venues can operate.

And I just, I just really acted on social media, like open the clubs, you know, screaming and yelling.

And we decided Monday to file a lawsuit.

You know, we were fighting for the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment,

the First Amendment, you know, freedom of expression, which I didn't know like last week.

14, which is equal protection under the law.

We should be able to operate under the same guidelines as other businesses.

And

the media has been covering the lawsuit.

And

Andrew Yang, I had a call with him a few days ago, and he tweeted support.

And he didn't understand why we can't operate under the same guidelines.

And Cuomo caved, and he allowed us to reopen at 33% capacity now, which, again, the numbers don't work, but it's better than zero.

You know, Saturday Night Live, as you pointed out in your lawsuit, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Fallon Show, jazz dinner theaters, weddings, restaurants.

Why not you?

They didn't tell us, which is really unfortunate because entertainment in New York is everything.

I mean, that's why people from all around the world, young people move here, right, to be an actor,

to be a comic, to be on Broadway,

musicians, there's great music clubs and comedy clubs and there's off-Broadway.

And not to give one explanation, not to mention it at a press conference in the past year

when he wrote his book, right?

Yeah.

Not to address why we can't be open, why he can't arrange a conference call with venue operators, just explaining the logic to them, I find is really unacceptable.

He really dropped the ball there.

And for the life of me, I don't get it.

Well, the good news is he's provided you guys with a lot of material when you get back to work.

Can I ask you a question on this cancel culture and the

Dr.

Seuss thing?

And if the family wants to pull a Dr.

Seuss thing, fine.

But now eBay is saying they're not going to, they'll sell mine comp,

but they won't sell an old Dr.

Seuss book.

Are people in the arts, in especially comedy, Lenny Bruce would, uh you

this i think he would be uh apoplectic over what's going on it is are are are people starting to see in your business uh this isn't a good trend

you know it it's interesting most comics in

in the country especially new york are are to the left and they're very liberal but they're very

uh pro

speech and uh they're very against

this woke mob, I'll call them.

And

they hate cancel culture,

which is cool.

Again, a lot of comics are

liberal, but they hate it,

which is refreshing to see.

They hate what's going on.

And

I'm happy that you know we booked the sort of comics

where they can say whatever they want and we don't censor them.

And

again, I'm liberal.

I live on the Upper West Side.

We hosted Roseanne Barr a couple of years ago after

that whole Twitter thing.

I'm happy to give comics

a platform to say whatever they want and we've never censored them.

And it's funny, I was having drinks with my friend Dan last night and I was telling him like, There's words that we used to say like in the 90s or 2000s that you can't say now, which I want, and I want to bring it back.

It was like funny saying, I can't, I don't want to say it now in the air.

Like, aren't there some words like we used to grow up?

I mean, you are, you're a little older than me, I'm 40.

There are some words where

it sucks that we can't say them anymore because we're afraid

someone on Twitter is going to

George Carlin.

I mean,

George Carlin

made

a

good living, and

one of the things that really propelled him were the seven dirty words that you just can't say.

I want to say that.

We got to bring it back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Before we're bringing that back.

But can I mention one thing, like how far it's become?

Sure.

So about a month ago, we were approached by Common Health.

They run urgent cares here in New York.

And they saw what we're doing, trying to keep comedy going in New York and,

you know, try to support comics and keep people laughing.

And they approached me and they're like, you know, we want to offer your comic free healthcare visits and free COVID testing throughout August 31st, right?

Which is like a really cool thing to do.

And a comic, I don't want to say, I don't want to call him a comic, a wannabe comic, the guy really sucks,

tweeted, now comedy club owners get to decide who gets health care or not, which comics are good enough for healthcare or not.

Like, we're giving free health wall to comics.

And he says, why should comedy owners get to decide who has health care or not?

That's how far things have become.

And

it's unbelievable.

Well,

I want you to know I supported Roseanne Roseanne Barr when she was saying chop off the heads of

capitalists.

And I supported Bill Maher after 9-11.

I'm a free speech absolutist.

I don't have to agree with you.

I don't even have to like you.

But we must protect free speech.

And I'm also, New York's not a fan of me, but I'm a fan of New York.

And anything we can do to help you, the comedians or the comedy club, you reach out at any time.

Thank you so much.

I'm a fan of you.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

You bet.

Bye-bye.