Take 120 - Comedian Ray Ellin

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for shore, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

For every two days, there is something.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default. Like everything in our business here has been open.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I probably lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I do my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one bit shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

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SPEAKER_03 1:20

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SPEAKER_01 1:43

For those of you who don't understand slightly drawly American accents, that's scriptation.com backslash S-I-T-H-A. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am, as ever, your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

And I'm your still in the entertainment business co-host, Noah Ebslin. For this week's podcast, I'm thrilled to introduce comedian Ray Ellen to the show. Ray was an executive producer of Comedy Centrals this week at the comedy store, as well as being a frequent performer there. He is also the host of the show, The Late Night with Ray Ellen, amongst many other credits. Welcome, Ray.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Hey, thank you guys. Thank you so much for having me. Uh one quick little thing, and it's not terribly important anything because the show is no longer on the air, but uh this week at the Comedy Cellar. Uh it's the uh New York uh New York City Comedy Club, the Comedy Cellar.

SPEAKER_03 2:50

Ray, I am famous for screwing up the introduction. This week or at the comedy cellar.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

Yeah, the other, I think you mentioned another club, a different, a different place on the West Coast. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

So uh Noah, I think part of the reason this podcast has been so successful is Noah's relationship with failure is so extreme um that he managed to get the intro wrong on probably over half the episode. So, Ray, you there's nothing special about him getting yours wrong.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

That's fine. I'm just I'm impressed he he said Ray. I mean, that's fine. I've been called Roy, Grey, Red. It's all fine.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, he had he actually got names wrong regularly as well. Um, so for our for our show, obviously, in some ways, uh comedian is the perfect person because I don't think there is any comedian out there who didn't have to have some pretty awful rejection, failure, and adversity moments in order to succeed. Uh yeah, you can just about like write a script and somehow it works for your first one, but I don't think there's such a thing as a shortcut in comedy.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

No, there's there's you know, it's it's it's funny you actually it's interesting you say that there's not a shortcut in comedy because lately, because of the internet, you do see people having huge success very quickly, um very quickly in comedy, because you know, people can now put their stuff out online and it can attract a huge audience and they're making a great living. Now that doesn't mean that they're gonna be a skilled comedian or or great at what they do, but they are uh having success. So and so obviously there's there's financial success and just you know, success as a you know, just with your within your craft. So so I guess there are some shortcuts now, and I I that I never really I never really thought of that before. So right away your show is uh giving me some some uh some new insight into into my career. So um it's uh yeah, I mean, look, I think most comedians have experienced a lot of rejection, never mind on stage in the beginning, but there's lots of just rejection with in their lives, I mean, in their in their homes that they grew up in, you know? Um I think that's really where the the rejection begins um within within the family. Uh I only it's I only know there's only one comedian that I can think of who seems to have grown up, unless he's hiding something, who seems to have grown up in an incredibly blissful uh situation. Only one I can really think of. And and uh and he has a good career, a nice career. Uh everybody else seems to have had something pretty uh messed up. Can I curse on this podcast? We welcome it. Okay. Yeah, everybody else seems to have something somewhat fucked up, uh, whether it was just a uh an ongoing unpleasant environment or just a very uh memorable or tragic event um in their lives uh that probably helped uh perpetuate their comedy career or at least them using humor as a coping mechanism, uh, I would think. So uh yeah, so we have uh rejection both uh in the in the homestead and also um uh uh when you go on stage. Because obviously, I mean when you first start doing stand-up, I mean, yeah, I mean, you might get laughs, but you know, I used to watch uh footage of myself every six months I would watch and I would cringe. I mean, I hate I still don't like watching myself to this day. Um, but you would see how bad you were, you know, in the in the every every six months, you really notice um some great movement. Uh, but it we you were still bad. So that's the thing that's unbelievable. Even if, even if you're getting laughs. So when I was doing stand-up in high school and in college, I mean, I could I could make my peers laugh, but it doesn't mean it was any good. Um, that being said, I guess if I put out uh a set from when I was 15 or 16, if I put that out on the internet, uh, you know, if the internet existed back then 30 years ago, um maybe I would have been incredibly successful when I was 16. Maybe it was great for a 16-year-old, but really shitty in the world of stand-up.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

You know, I don't want us to sound uh all old and sort of miserable about modern life, but do you and some of your uh peers uh begrudge the fact that you know you spent years on stages in horrible dive bars, probably with people throwing beer at you sometimes and all that stuff to make you know ten dollars and now some kid in their bedroom turns on a camera, and the worst that can happen is they don't get many views, but if they build up, they're suddenly getting endorsements from sunglasses companies and making more money than you did in the first 10 years of your career. Do you mind?

SPEAKER_04 7:54

You you just painted a much better picture than the way it was. Uh no, you know, I I don't um the only thing I actually I don't we I don't I there's probably some guys who who do uh feel that way, who do begrudge it a little bit, but I don't, I mean, I always got into stand-up because I love doing stand-up. I really when it really resonated with me when I was maybe 11 years old and I would watch a late night show or watch Saturday Night Live. So, and it was so exciting back then. I mean, I drove six hours to do 15 minutes to open for somebody for $75. I mean, when I was 20 years old, 22 years old. You know, it was it just it was fun and it didn't, it didn't bother me, you know, and that's and and I and it makes you a better stand-up putting in those hours. So when I look back on it, I don't. The only thing I I really ever do think about was I I hosted a a TV show in New York City. It was really, it was a small show for the tri-state area, and but it was five days a week, and we had really good guests, and it was a a great experience. I mean, I enjoyed it at the time, and looking back, I really like I I missed that. That was a really fun show. And we we would have, you know, um Michael Douglas came on and Forrest Whitaker and uh uh athletes and all kinds of people. So had the internet existed when I was doing that, that could have made a difference in that side of my career, maybe, because then all the clips would have been put out on social media. And even though, again, I wasn't great at what I was doing, it was my first TV uh hosting job, it would have been that would have been helpful. But I rarely, I don't even I rarely even think about it if it comes up in conversation, you know. Um, but yeah, I mean, it for sure, if I had uh put out clips of my stand-up, but by the same token, I probably maybe I would have been canceled very quickly, you know, because the stuff that came out of my mouth when I was in college or or even after college, both on stage and just socially. I mean, my friends and I, they all would have been fired. My friends who were who were who are lawyers and you know, a couple and finance guys and friends who are doctors, they would have been bounced out of law school, medical school. They're filthy, filthy human beings. And they would have pissed somebody off, and then they would have been a doctor with with you know no patients whatsoever, zero, maybe one patient. Um, so there's there's pros and cons to it for sure. But I guess also you adapt because you would know you know you have to be careful not to uh get thrown out of school or listen, I did a high school talent show, and they it was really like a scene out of like a teen movie. I I had to run my set by like one of the vice principals before the show, and he told me not to do a joke. The joke involved like Penthouse Magazine or something. It was a it was so tame by today's standards, it was nothing. And I'm up there doing a set, and just in the moment, I just said, you know, I was told not to do the next joke, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Like I'm gonna show them. And I did the bit, and uh, and it got a good laugh. And just like out of like in a film, like pushing their way to the front of the stage was the vice principal just glaring at glaring at me and like you know, wagging a finger. And then as soon as I walked off stage, he was he came back stage and he said, You're suspended indefinitely. And I was just like, I just said, Okay. And I actually I forgot I forgot about this. And then I I two minutes later, I walked back on stage to where the MC was, and I said, Can I, you know, can I say something? And I told the audience that I'd just gotten suspended. So after the set, I get suspended, and then I immediately told everybody that I just got suspended. And of course, all the other kids are all teenagers, they're all start booing uh and booing the guy that suspended me. It was really uh, it was interesting. It was uh it was it was an exciting moment. And I then I but you know, I thought my parents were gonna be livid, and uh I went home that night, and it turns out my mother, unbeknownst to me, had gone to the talent show to watch me perform because I I had told her not to go. Um and so she had been sitting in the back of the room, she saw what I did, and she didn't think it was that bad. So uh she kind of helped me sort of appeal the suspension. And uh it was a whole thing. It was a whole thing. My senior of high school. And I guess the only thing my mother was concerned was, you know, will this affect me getting into uh college, I guess. Um, which which it did not. But it was, yeah, I I haven't thought about this in, you know, in a very, very long time. So uh so I guess the point of it is if the internet had existed, who knows? Maybe that whole thing would have gone viral. Like, you know, high school kid gets suspended for telling penthouse forum magazine joke, you know. So I don't know. Maybe I could, yeah. Now that I think about it, you know what? My career is a huge failure because we didn't have the internet 30 years ago. Thanks for bumming me out, guys. Great to be on your show.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

You're welcome. The uh yeah, uh because that it actually would have been exactly the sort of thing, but then it would have ended badly because he would have got death threats because that's how the world works now and it would have gone too far. So again, just to tie a bow on that, please tell me that you were performing some big show somewhere on a big stage in LA or New York, and that teacher came up to you and apologized.

SPEAKER_04 13:27

You know, he did, he actually that guy wrote me a note. Uh, years later, um, the high school was raising money for something, and I made a donation, and I had no idea. I didn't, I hadn't even thought of him, and I didn't know. And then he sent me a handwritten note just saying, you know, thanking me for the donation and uh referenced something about about uh my performance. And uh at the time, kids put up signs around the high school that said don't suspend Ray. It became like a it was like a thing. Um and uh and he referenced you know that that don't suspend Ray, you know, something about look looks like don't suspend Ray has treated you okay, whatever. You know, when I read it, I laughed, but I at the time, I mean he made my life miserable. I mean, it was not, you know, it was very stressful at the time for uh whatever I was, 16 or 17, I don't know. But um, but it was interesting. He it all, it's fine. It's it's all fine. You know, it is amazing how many times you look back on something that was so unpleasant or a a job you had to do, a day job you had to do that you hated it at the time, and um and you look back and it was just nothing compared to you know whatever it is you you're dealing with in your life now, you know. It's it's kind of kind of fun and sweet, and you know, so it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

I think I think we're gonna definitely want to circle back to some cancel culture things. But your story of getting on stage reminded me of a past life where we once had a owned a record label and we brought a reggae band to a high school event and they played their set. Nobody looked at their set before they were gonna play it for the high school band, and then they played a song that was the lyrics were I do not smoke the coke, I only smoke sensamila from Pato Bantan. And the teachers went ballistic, they were they were so upset, and the band was like, No, you don't, you're not listening to the lyrics after. We're saying we don't smoke the Coke, we smoke Sensibility, and it's just one of those things that you live with after. But I do, I do, you know, want to ask you some more questions. This is, you know, obviously a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity. And I don't think anyone faces the immediate failure and adversity like a comedian. You go, as a writer, we write something and we don't hear something, and someone says, like, you know, didn't love it or whatever. That's our version of failure. But your failure is you go up on a stage and nobody laughs. And you talked about, you know, starting your career with people not laughing. And what makes you get back on stage, A? And is there any stories in particular that you look back upon that night and you still cringe, going, Oh my God, I can't believe either it went so badly or I told that joke, or you know, and how do you keep how did you keep going?

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Well, you know, you know, the the first time, the first time I ever performed in in front of my uh fellow high school students when I was 15, and there's video of that this somewhere. I go on stage and it was maybe, I don't know, I'm guessing, a thousand kids in the auditorium, I'm guessing. And I walked out, and the first thing I did was I looked up into the spotlight, which is a huge mistake because then you're just kind of blinded and seeing like floaters and everything. And then kids, some of the kids were vicious. It didn't matter what I was saying, they were throwing MMs at me, they were throwing pennies at me, and you can't see anything coming, so you're getting hit with stuff. And so that right out of the gate, you're like being sort of sort of physically attacked. But I kept doing the set, and if you and I if you hear on the tape, you can hear like a joke maybe falling flat and some kid yelling out, bye Ray, you know, like get off the stage, that type of thing. And I kept going, kept going. And eventually later in the set, I started doing some impressions of some teachers. And I mentioned the name of one teacher, and the whole crowd went nuts, like they all started cheering. And that turned the whole set around and it ended on a high note. And I think to myself, had that set not turned around and had just continued to be as painful as it was for the first four minutes, if it had gone the way the whole time, then I probably never I might never have done stand-up again. That might have been it. So it was it was really poignant. I mean, it was everything that you would think, you know, what before right before you walk out, this terrible pain in the center of the stomach, and just this anxiety and nervousness, and that nervous energy kind of just kept pushing you forward, you know. But yeah, had that set not turned around, that might have been it. Um, in college when I was doing, you know, open mics and then I started getting some paid gigs very quickly. Uh, somebody, uh a woman from a talent agency came to my university because I was, I was happened to be on a show that two professional comedians were on. And I did, I did well. And again, I was performing for other college-age kids, but then she started, she started booking me, um, not for any real money. I mean, 50 bucks, 100 bucks. But like around town, I was getting gigs and I was performing in front of adults, and those sets were not, they didn't, they weren't great. But one night in particular, I remember it was at a comedy club called Stitches. It doesn't exist anymore. Um, I helped put it out of business that night. No, it didn't, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't exist, but it was very popular at the time. But it was packed. It was a Saturday night. I was on the show. I had friends coming and they had invited some of their family members. And I ate it so badly. I mean, it was brutal. It was just a terrible, terrible set. And when no one in when no one in the club is laughing, you can't blame the audience. I mean, look, there could be a collective problem where everybody is wasted or, you know, everybody, that kind of thing. But this was an audience that had just bought a ticket, they're a ready to hear a show, everybody else did well. And for whatever reason, I really bombed. I mean, it was it was bad. Um, really bad. And like I didn't, I didn't want to, I felt so embarrassed talking to you know my friends and their parents after. Um, it was just, it was just sucked. Um, that was probably my sophomore year of college. And then there was another time that I remember um uh performing at I was hired to perform at another college, and that was just you were set up for failure. Like you were performing on stage. It's like it was like noon, noontime comedy, lunchtime comedy in the student union. They had an advertise, there was going to be a show. You're in a room where like there's just a lot of activity right in front of the stage. There was a pool table, kids were playing pool throughout the set. I mean, it was like it was a thankless situation, which now I'd be able to handle. It still probably wouldn't be great because, you know, that's it's not set up for comedy. It's set up for people to eat and you know, be on their on their uh headphones and play pool, and other kids were playing darts in the corner. I mean, it was just absurd. And that was pretty bad. But that was more of a function, you know, of of you were kind of just thrown into the lion's den as opposed to, you know, they weren't really setting you up for success, you know. But in in both those cases, I mean, you just you just have to you have to keep going. And part of it lies within your passion for what it is that you do, you know, that you want to keep going. I mean, that said on that club, again, this is not something I tend to think about, but it was fucking terrible. I mean, I don't remember anything I did that night. I just remember that the responses were just it was all garbage. It was just it was brutal. Um, so you just have to, if you care about something enough, you keep going for it, right? I would think same with any relationship. I'm assuming that you know, I've never been married, but I've had girlfriends, and you know, you go through some rough patches, but you stick with it and push through it uh because you care, you know. Um now that might be one reason why I loved I loved the TV show Little House on the Prairie so much, is because uh, you know, that you saw like this really like this loving family unit that just would keep pushing through obstacles and overcoming them together. And there was this feeling of unity and the sense of community on that show that maybe as a as even a teenager watching it in reruns, um, it was this the world that I never never felt like I experienced growing up in in my home. Um, and it was just felt like this kinder, sweeter, gentler time where even when there were obstacles. You would overcome them, you know? Um so yeah, I mean, I I don't know. Don't you find that in your lives, like if you really give a shit enough about anything that no matter how bad it goes, you're just gonna keep persisting. I mean, you have you have to keep moving forward. When there's a death in your life, a death in your family, whatever it is, you have to keep forward motion, forward motion. That's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

I I think our most common and probably one of our best pieces of advice that people give on this podcast is that it's a marathon and not a sprint, and that you can't, you have to love what you do. Otherwise, why do what any of us do in the entertainment business or any anything really? So, yes, I mean, I and and and on that subject, I want to drill down a little bit, just process, because I'm fascinated by it. By when you are preparing a set and you're preparing your jokes and you're going on the road and you're sort of testing out your material, and you go to a couple places and it's does pretty well, you get a good response, then you go to a third place for whatever reason, maybe people are playing pool in the middle of it. There's no laughs. Like you just bomb. Same material, different place. What does that do to your mindset and your process? Do you throw, do you throw away your set? Do you just blame it on the crowd and say, like, when do you think, when do you determine that it's not the material, it's the crowd, or do you, you know, at some point you have to say, holy shit, maybe this stuff's just not that funny. And you begin to. So I'm kind of curious about that part of your and then we'll move on.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

Now, nowadays, it's within the moment you know what's going on. You know, you excuse me, you can read the room, you know, you know how to read the room, and you could tell, you can assess the situation in the moment. And if you know you're in just an absurd situation, you can just just take a step back. And this is all into in intuitive, you know. I don't really think about it uh in these terms when it's happening, but you just take a step back, you're take a breath and have fun with it. I mean, if if you're set up in that situation of just absurdity, you know, if you're put in a ridiculous situation, then just have fun. I mean, you know, maybe what you're gonna do is is just do your act to the two people that are actually paying attention, or maybe, you know, announce to everybody, uh, you know, acknowledge what's going on. You know, maybe start you start refereing the pool game. So you might abandon the material that you wanted to do. But if there is a joke or a bit that you really wanted to get the wording out, you still might do it, but yeah, you are aware of the fact that you don't have a good gauge of of how strong that material is because no one is paying attention. They're too busy, you know, bowling. I once performed with people behind me bowling, literally. There's people watching me and watching the pins drop behind me. It was fucking absurd. And this was an ongoing gig. Like these plays did this gig every week. So comics had to give each other a heads up. I didn't know how bad it was. When they said people are bowling during the show, I didn't know they meant right behind you. I mean, you know, to have a punchline, you know, being uh uh buried by, you know, the sound of uh pins dropping. I mean, it's crazy, you know? So, but but I do just think you nowadays, now you just know how to assess the situation. You're gonna after the fact is when you look back and go, oh wow, that was really absurd. But in the moment, you just roll with it and you say, I'm gonna do the time that I was hired to do. You know, they they said, you know, we need you to do 45 minutes. I'm gonna get through my 45 minutes, you know. But again, at this, at this level, things like that thankfully aren't really happening. But you can. I did do a show. I'm in Aruba right now. I have a comedy club in Aruba, and I spend a few months a year down here, and I fly in uh comedians from New York and LA and Boston, and we do shows together uh for a few months out of the year. It's a nice way to spend the winter, and I'm doing it now. It'll be 11 years uh tomorrow. So it's been great. So there was one night, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, where for whatever reason, most of the audience was hammered, like really drunk. I don't know if it was just groups of people that all had sort of come to get large groups that came. And it was it was it was unpleasant, like it wasn't fun. And this is again, this is the one time in 11 years that this has really happened. And uh and it became it it almost felt like hand-to-hand combat, you know, in in with within the jokes. I mean, because I was hosting that show, and my concern really was less about myself, but I wanted the other comics who I've you know flown down to perform to have a better experience. So suddenly you you almost feel like you're you're becoming like a high school principal, um, sort of you know, reprimanding audience members while still trying to make it funny. Um, but that again, that's that's those shows happen, you know, at this point, few and far between. But early on, that's the kind of stuff that went on all the time. And you're performing in bars for, and again, if you're 20 years old and everybody else is 30 and 40 and they're hammered on a Saturday night. I mean, there was a show I did. There's a comedian named John Henson. He used to host the TV show Talk Soup. And I opened for him when I was like 19. And I went up and there was a guy in the audience who was heckling, who was a big menacing drunk guy. And John was, you know, a season pro at that point. And John went right after the guy and had attacked him, let him have it. They went back and forth a bit. They kind of, you know, he shut him down. But the guy was really threatening. And after the show, John kind of waved me over and we snuck out of the venue through the kitchen because John was, you know, he was thinking he was gonna get his ass kicked by this guy. This is, you know, this is the kind of shit that went on, you know, 25 years ago. It was really uh I haven't I haven't really seen that since. But again, you know, look, when you're young and dumb, it's exciting. You know, you're not really thinking that, you know, you're gonna get. I keep thinking of narcos when they're in that that bar and then they tie the guy to different, they tie him to different motorcycles and they rip his body apart. You know, it's exciting.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

So obviously, now you're notwithstanding the sort of slightly weird, you know, internet uh YouTube stuff, you know, you do the sort of you do the shows in the venues, is how you be a comedian. And then as you graduate, as it were, you although you still do that, but you do it in Aruba rather than in some dive bar in Brooklyn, um, you also end up doing the TV stuff and the podcast stuff and so on. Talk about just when you first did that, and I know you you mentioned briefly your TV show before, but talk about that sort of that switch and what you get out of the non-live versions, and and I guess the fact you're doing both at once says something, but it'd be interesting to get your take on the sort of this other side of comedy.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Well, stand-up is is the constant, you know, like stand-up is it's like you just need it, you want to do it, that immediate uh gratification, the relationship with an audience. I mean, that's all it's all really real. It sounds like a big crock of shit. And if I heard somebody say that, I would say just enough. It's like when you hear sometimes you hear an actor really going on and on about their their craft and their whatever, and then and you're like, all right, just stop. You're not flying a helicopter in Iraq, you're just you're fucking reading some lines that somebody else wrote, knock it off. But but there really but there really is something to it. I mean, you know, so so performing is a constant, you know. It's like there's there you have to eat and you breathe and you and you want to do stand-up, you know. Those other things, especially when you're not making a lot of money doing stand-up, and then you get a job doing a TV gig. I mean, it's it's different. It's a totally different skill set, you know. I mean, producing a film or producing a TV show is a totally different skill set than um doing stand-up. I mean, I have plenty of amazing uh I have friends who are amazing comedians that can't produce, they can barely buy their own groceries. I mean, they're just an apt at multitasking, you know. Um, so the TV stuff, you know, I know there's some some performers who just really don't enjoy doing it. They don't want to read off a teleprompter, they don't want to do an interview, they don't, they don't want to, you know, interview somebody else. It doesn't uh find them, uh they don't find it, they're not interested in that. But I I really do enjoy doing lots of different things, and there's challenges that come with it. You know, during the pandemic, we started doing shows on Zoom, and I I didn't want to do them at all. And there's a guy that I had met at a live show, and he said, Look, every week we're having a motivational speaker come in and talk to our company uh remotely. You know, they're everyone was working from home. And he said, and I don't think I don't think that there's any motivation. Would you do some stand-up on Zoom? I said, nah, it's gonna be terrible. I don't want to do it. And he said, Come on, and I re I really push back quite a bit. And he said, Look, I'll pay you no matter what. I said, I don't want to take your money. He goes, it doesn't matter, just do it. And I put together a little show on Zoom and something clicked while we were doing it. Like, this is pretty good. And we ended up doing like 140 shows during the pandemic on Zoom. And there's something incredibly isolating about just talking into your laptop and watching people, they're while you're watching them laugh, and then you feel like, okay, this went pretty well. And then you close your laptop and you're alone in your apartment. I mean, it is fucking depressing. And then, you know, you have to really be careful not to, you know, because maybe after a show you want to have a drink, and then you got to make sure you don't just close your laptop and you know, just empty out your liquor cabinet, you know. I mean, it was really what a crazy time. But it's uh, but they're all, they're all they all require a different, a different headspace and a different skill set. And, you know, look, when you if you act in a film or or a TV show, you're not gonna see your work for a little while. At least with stand up, the immediacy of it is very appealing. And if you're impatient, there's something, you know, certainly very attractive about getting a response uh right away. Um so, you know, and I and I think most comics probably feel the same way. Um, and now with the internet and podcasts, I have friends that are turning down TV shows just because their podcast is is so lucrative and they're happy to stay home and be with their family and and um record episodes uh from their houses, much like you two guys are right now, which is great, that uh they don't give a shit about doing any more TV. So the the the business has changed quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yeah, and for us, the the lucrative part is missing. Um, but there is there is definitely it's it's fun to do, but you know, we both do it in between our our our real jobs. So you uh you mentioned Little House on the Prairie before. Yeah, so you've got this uh this new show. Tell tell us about this this because uh I uh every single I guess this is the whole uh nostalgia for the past thing that's been going on. Every day I open the internet, somebody who used to be in something is now doing a sort of think the guy from Suits is now doing one about you know going back and talking about the episode of Suits. I know they did it with friends, they've done loads of these ones. Um, you're doing a version of that, although I I don't think you you didn't act in Little House on the Prairie.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

No, no, I did not, you know, and uh it's it's uh uh it's interesting. I mean, I just love that show for whatever reason, it is just stuck with me for some of the reasons I mentioned earlier. And it's just it is such a great escape to to watch that show and get you know whisked back into the 1800s. And for years, I just among with friends, I will you know reference the show. And one time I found myself, you know, myself with a couple other guys were just singing the uh the theme song, the end credits, the music is very catchy. Anyway, so um it's uh yeah, I and a friend of mine said, you know, you talk about this show so much, you should really be doing a podcast about it. So I've been doing Wild Nights on the Prairie, and the way I structured it is that, you know, we kind of go over an episode of the show, and it really doesn't matter if you're familiar with Little House or not, because I didn't want to make it too inside, but then my guests and I will go on go off another tangents. I mean, so there was an episode where we're talking about uh a quarrel that the Olsen family was were having. And it turns out then the my guest admitted that he and his wife had just separated, which was, you know, a big shock and very interesting. So, you know, just going over storylines from you know episodes of this of this iconic 70s TV show ends up bringing out a lot of interesting stuff in within the lives of of my guests. And it's a lot of fun. I mean, I I enjoy I enjoy doing it. Uh the the usually it's comedians that I have on the show. It's usually stand-up comics. I did have one guest who's a a woman that I met in Aruba, and she's 84, and it was a much heavier episode where she was, she had lived in Canada and she was she chose to have assisted death. She was diagnosed with an illness. She said, I don't want to, I don't, there's no reason for me to deal with this. Um, and she had lost her son 40 years prior. She lived a very interesting and full life, and she wanted to have assisted death. And we actually were talking about an episode on the show that involved a woman who was who was ill, who was dying, and she had to sort out her, sort out her affairs. So it's a very interesting episode to be having a conversation with somebody who in four years in four days from this conversation will be ending their life, you know, legally ending their life. It was really, it was really something. So I think the show uh uh brings up some very uh intriguing and and um interesting topics, uh but within the the structure of a of a of an episode of Little House in the Prairie. Uh did you ever watch the show growing up? So either of you?

SPEAKER_03 36:29

I did. Uh uh and it was very wholesome. And you know, there was only a handful of shows to watch. And you I think about as a TV writer, now when we get like a 0.7 share or something, like these shows were getting 30, 50 million views every, you know, people watching every week, which is an amazing feat.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

Right. It's isn't that it's mind-boggling. And I think you know, I think about what's on my when I record shows. I mean, I have, you know, I'll record whatever something a sporting, a football game, Little House on the Prairie, and Family Guy. I mean, I have it's such a range of of tastes. Um, but and Family Guy has has made fun of uh has referenced and and made fun of uh Little House on the Prairie uh several times, and it brought me great joy. I mean, it made me very, very happy to see that.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

I mean, obviously, Little House on the Prairie is a super wholesome television show. And I'm guessing, well, it's I we're gonna have to go back and listen to more episodes of your podcast to see the relationship between the wholesome and then comedians talking about the wholesome, which I'm sure you guys go into darker areas. But speaking about those darker areas, we you you meant you brought up cancel culture, and I bet you guys get asked variations of this all the time. But for our audience, you know, when as TV writers, we have a lot of people who listen that are TV writers. It's harder for us to get canceled because our stuff goes so through so many layers of vetting. The the executives and the network, we're not going to say something normally that gets one of us canceled unless it's on social media. As a comedian, you guys face sort of a new world where people do take offense to things off sometimes rightfully so. Sometimes they'll jump on something. And how does it affect your comedy? Uh is is the road a bit narrower now, or is funny funny? And you guys have just begun to figure out ways through uh to keep your careers going?

SPEAKER_04 38:14

You know, it's it's kind of an it's sort of it really is sort of infuriating because like I work a lot when I'm not in Aruba, I perform mostly in in New York at this place called the Comedy Cellar. It's a phenomenal uh club, maybe the best one in the country, really. And, you know, it's I I remember there was one night, people sometimes people are not even listening to what you're saying. It's like that what you referenced, what you mentioned earlier about that song and you know, and smoking the Coke and not smoking the Coke, right? So there was a bit I did one one night, and it was about uh a Muslim family that uh I saw at Disney World. And if you really pay attention to the joke, I was sort of uh defending uh the women within the religion, and it was it was you know it whatever, and it was a it was a funny bit, but you but just saying the word Muslim on stage made some people perk up. And after the show, a guy came over to me, he was a civil rights lawyer. I mean, he checked off every box of of you know, he was he was um you know, he was minority, he was he took I mean he told me uh how he identified, you know, he had he identified as uh as you know as uh he said I'm a gay with a blah blah blah whatever he says. I'm a gay Latino man and and blah blah blah and I'm a civil and he gave me his business card and I was like, what the what the fuck are we getting? Well like what is going on right now? And then he explained he was with a colleague of his uh who was a uh a Muslim woman, and he was speaking on her behalf how offensive he thought what it was. And I did something I've never done in my life, and I broke down the joke line by line by line. And and I don't even know why I was indulging him. I think in part because I just wanted to show that I was right and that this was you know, I could have just said, dude, you know, what the fuck are you talking about? That was there was nothing wrong with anything that I said and just walked away. But I went through it with him. And he said, you know, now that you you laid it out for me like that, I I understand that that wasn't, you know, that you didn't have any bad intention. And I do see where the humor lay. And he said, Well, you have my card, and and you know, if you ever wanted to go through any of your other uh edgier material, we we I was like, what the fuck is happening here? And for a split second, I thought, is he trying to pick me up? Because, you know, like it's an excuse for me to call him in the future to go over some line, you know, any material. But that wasn't the case. I mean, he really was just he was triggered by the subject. He didn't listen to what was being said. And this this used to happen a lot if people mentioned the word for a time, if someone said the word gay on stage, or someone said the word Jesus on stage, people just would immediately would turn off, not all people, but people who who got upset over nothing. Um, you know, that it happened one time. I watched a friend of mine did a joke about um about being a salesman who sold crosses, who sold crucifixes. And a woman in the audience came up after and she was so upset because all she was a pretty fairly religious um Irish Catholic woman. And quite frankly, if you're that religious, maybe you shouldn't go to see stand-up. Maybe that's not for you. But uh, she was really upset, and I kind of talked her off the ledge and explained why what he said wasn't denouncing um Christianity or Jesus or you know, it was really it was really something. So um yeah, I mean, it's getting, I think it's getting a little better. I do think it's getting a little better because I think there's enough backlash against the whole the whole woke thing, people getting upset over nothing. Um, but I also think there's a difference within ages. I mean, if you're performing for a group of 40-year-olds or 50-year-olds or 60-year-olds, there's far more leeway nowadays, uh, I think, with with those groups, you know. I think that you're you're walking on a little more eggshells. If you're, you know, 45 and your audience is 20. You know, uh, a buddy of mine performed at a college and he made a joke about Native Americans, and a kid wrote uh went and complained to the school to how you know how triggered he was, and and the the school didn't want to pay him his fee, and he had to speak with the dean. And my friend is half Native American, and he explained that to the dean uh of students, uh, and how this is just a crock of shit, and maybe you should be, you know, getting your students to be uh less sensitive um to stuff that is actually is just words and jokes, and it's it's pretty harmless. So, yeah, it still happens and you have to navigate it. Look, if you're told when you get booked for a gig, if they say, please do not mention race or religion or whatever. Years ago, I did perform at a Catholic uh school in Massachusetts, an all-Catholic university, and they said to me, Please don't talk about sex. You can talk about uh drinking and drugs, but you can't talk about sex. And I and I did say to the person I said ago, do you do you think that the students are only getting drunk? You don't think they're fucking at all? I mean, what? But okay, that's fine. And look, those are the those were the crown rules for the gig. You know, you accept the gig, those are the rules, and it is what it is. That's fine. So I didn't, there was no blowjob jokes that night for a group of people that that only think about getting blown and laid. And I'm sure that that's what they were doing after the show. So it's it just you feel You're living a lie, like what you know, you're just why aren't you know, why are we not what are we all hiding from? What is the problem, you know? So whatever.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

So um, unfortunately, we're nearing the end of the podcast in the beginning, but I got uh I guess my my penultimate question. Um, so I guess it's in terms of motivation for you, given you're doing a range of stuff now. If you had a choice between uh standing in front or you know performing on stage in front of thousands of people, like a really legit huge gig and killing it and everyone loving every second of your set, uh creating a TV show which has similar success, but obviously with uh TV version of it. Um and then um I guess the third one would be wouldn't be a podcast, it would be actually going back to how we started all this, some kind of you know, your uh TikTok or or Instagram or YouTube success, again, with you know uh all equally financially lucrative, uh all very large numbers of people loving the thing that you're doing. Which of those three would give you the most satisfaction?

SPEAKER_04 45:20

The most the most satisfaction would be doing stand-up in front of thousands of people. And I have some good friends that have been doing that. I mean, uh my friend Ronnie Chang. You know what's incredible is that I I have friends who are performing in front of in arenas, you know, for 20,000, 25,000 people. And and today with things, uh, there's so many niche markets, like they can walk down the street unnoticed. It's incredible to be that successful and still have your some anonym anonymity. Anonymity. It's it's it's incredible. But like my friend Andrew Schultz just did the just did the forum in LA the other night. I mean, he sold out the forum and did stand-up, you know, for thousands of adoring fans, you know. So that I think is is number one in terms of what I think would be most satisfying. But a close second, I, you know, would love to, you know, to work on a project on a on a great outstanding TV show, whether it's a comedy or a drama, but to collaborate with other people and to be part of an ensemble, um, that's a very close second uh at this point in my life for sure. Um but but to do stand-up as the way you I mean depicted it, to have you know thousands of of adoring fans, I mean, that's you know, that's that's that's awesome, you know. Stand up is really not meant to be performed in an arena. It it just isn't. I mean, you know, to it just it's just it's it's more of an intimate thing, you know, and I think and I think you can't turn down performing in Madison Square Guard. I mean, you'd be you'd be crazy to do so. But I there are guys I know who've done it, and they've told me they said, you know, from a performance standpoint, it's a better, they thought it was a better show when they're performing in front of 200 people versus 20,000, you know. But to answer your question, yeah, that to me is number one, and then number two would be the show, and a distant third is just to be TikTok famous. I mean, whatever. I mean, I it's I I would just as soon be be famous in the lobby of a hotel.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

I mean, you know, it doesn't sound very interesting. I think the biggest gig I went to for comedy, I mean obviously I'm old, so he's old, but Eddie Isard. I saw him uh at Wembley, um, at Wembley Arena, but still it was whatever it is, 20,000 people. And I think it was very good. But I enjoyed seeing him more when I saw in front of 300 people in a small theatre because I think it does change it. And actually, I'm a I'm a member at the Magic Castle in LA. And um you got people there who you know they perform in Vegas in front of whatever it is, 5,000 people, but they will tell you they'd rather perform in front of 24 people wearing suits in a tiny room because I think it just changes your relationship with the with the audience. So I definitely I see the small the small version of it um makes great sense.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

Hey, after become after becoming a member of that of the of the of the magic uh of the magic castle, the uh does it make you more intrigued by magic? Are you more like creeped out by it, or what how did that change?

SPEAKER_01 48:30

So um I they have a thing there called Magic University, we can actually learn how to do magic, and I've deliberately not done it because um I don't want to know. Like I I want to be amazed by things rather than say, you know, I know what he did there, and he could have you know done that in a slightly different way. I want I want to sit there and see, you know, the same trick because I've been you know so many times now you see it all the time. I I want to be amazed, I want to be a a real audience member loving the magic. Um in the same way, I think there was um, I don't think it was now actually, but there's a friend of mine who's a writer, and I went to the I went to the cinema with him and uh we saw a film and I came out and I said, What do you think of the film? And he started explaining to me how he was disappointed by the third act structure and and this whole sort of thing. I'm like, I don't really care that much. Like, did you like it or not? And I think I don't want to know too much. I don't know when you're seeing I'm gonna add another penultimate question now. When you go to comedy, do you sit there and just laugh? Or do you sit there and sort of think, oh, that was clever how they did that joke and how they built that one up? And I've got a version of that, I might change it. Or can you just sit there in the back having a beer and just enjoy yourself like a normal person?

SPEAKER_04 49:43

Most of the time when you're sitting there, you're you're saying when you hear something really funny, you're going, That's funny. That's funny. That's how you're laughing. That's that's your reaction to something that's really good. Not actually laughing, but going, oh, that's funny, that's funny. And then there's other times where off when the the when you're really laughing hard is uh is often when you hear a comic doing something that really is good that the audience isn't biting on for whatever reason, you know, maybe for whatever reason. I mean, I've watched Dave Vattel. Dave Vattel has a great news special out on Netflix, and I've I've watched him, you know, 200 times in clubs, and and I'll really like laugh out loud. Um, and sometimes the audience it wasn't buying what he was selling. And but yeah, I'm really laughing hard. But more often than not, I think a lot of people are like, oh, that's funny. Yeah, that's funny. Like it's just it's it's a it's a weird thing with comedians. Like we're we're more like in in a very quick like split seconds, you're like quickly dissecting what just happened and going, oh yeah, that's funny, that's funny. Which, you know, maybe it it maybe it takes some of the joy out of it, but you know, but we are acknowledging it on the on the purest level, you know. And uh, so you know it's it just occurred to me. I hope I didn't bore the fuck out of all your uh listeners today, because you know, analyzing and breaking down stand-up is uh often not the most exhilarating thing.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

So hopefully, hopefully, I can say as the representative of the TV writing culture that I think we're all fascinated by process. So we actually, I think a lot of people out there are also comedy writers, so like they are when you have someone on on who has uh the depth of experience that you do, they're taking it to their bank, literally, to their writer bank. And and so yes, and you're no, so you I don't think a single person out there was was was bored, but I will pass off the final question to my co-host Dan Rust.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Yeah, anyway, the final question which uh we ask every guest is uh if you could give a single piece of advice for somebody wanting to enter the industry, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Uh uh well I would say I go for it, providing you really want to do it because you're gonna get smacked around. Uh somebody once said to me, I don't remember who this was, but they said show business is like one big ass fucking, and every once in a while they're willing to use some lube. And it's really, it's just a it could be a painful, hard uh road to take. If you want to pursue stand-up, you should go out, uh get on stage as much as you can and write as much as you can. And there's that's the I I tell everybody that there's no secret to getting better at stand-up other than doing it. Just do it, do it, do it. And if you really want to get better, you know, I've had people say, Oh, I was on stage two times this month. I mean, you want to get on stage uh twice a night, you know. I mean, you sit around and just wait your turn at open mics, or nowadays, I guess people do bringer shows, you have to bring a certain amount of people, but you just do it, do it, do it as much as you can and and just and go for it. If you're excited about it, go for it, especially if you are really at any age, but if you're younger, now's the time to go ahead and just try everything that you want, you know, before you have to worry about, you know, uh paying for kids and and all that and a mortgage and whatever else. But that's it. Just do it, do it, do it as as much as possible. And uh and hopefully you weren't offended by my ass fucking analogy.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Very good. Uh Ray Ellen, thank you very much for appearing on our podcast. I'm um I because I'm not American, I don't think I have seen one episode of Little House on the Prairie. Um, so what I'm gonna do is look at your podcast list, pick the most interesting episode of yours, watch the correct corresponding episode first, uh, and then listen to your podcast, and then maybe I'll become a little bit more American.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

All right. If you I am a bit there's a there's a lot of great episodes. There's one called Doctor's Lady. Maybe watch that one. It's just about a guy, an older guy who's having a relationship with a much younger woman. And it's sort of interesting. It's it's good, it's it's sweet, and uh, it's whatever. You know, I listen, when I when people hear what a big fan I am of Little House in the Prairie, they think they think there's something seriously wrong with me. And many of my guests chastise me and mock me for the first few minutes, and that's okay. Uh, I don't I don't mind. So hopefully you check it out and and uh and maybe you'll have some fun with it. Super brilliant. Thanks very much for your time, guys. Thank you both very much. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

Thank you for listening to this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss brought to you by Scriptation. Thank you as ever to James Launch for the music, and thank you to our loyal listeners. And if there's any showrunners out there who want to hear their fellow showrunners abused uh and ruffled around and put under the microscope so you can hear their stories of rejection, failure, and adversity, please send them away. If you're interested in following us on social media, oh I've lost track.

SPEAKER_03 55:26

I am at and Ebslin on Twitter or X or whatever Elon Musk now calls it. And thanks to Elon Musk, I'm also at NoEbbslin on Hive, Scoutable, Blue Sky, Threads, Mastodon, MySpace, French Turf, and I'm sure it was