September 4, 2025 • 34 mins
The Roastmaster General is now the Toastmaster of Broadway. Phil & David catch up with their friend Jeff Ross, who they had "Lunch" with for Episode 62 -- to hear all about his current one-man Broadway show, "Take A Banana For The Ride." To learn more about the show and get your tickets or its limited run, go to https://jeffrossbroadway.com. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Phil. Uh, this is a very personal question. Do you
use a belt? I do?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And the reason you see me putting on the belt
is uh.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
That could have been like Jim Morrison did. They've got
him in a lot of trouble, which I'm sorry I'm Morrison,
but no one has called you the Lizard king that
I know. So much is going on, David.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We've got the diner stuff is the books, yes, the books,
the National Tour, North American Tour, all these things.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But but you don't make time yet. We've made time
for this. What you don't have yet is a Broadway show.
Not that you're not going to soon be on Broadway,
I'm not, but but we do have We're doing a
one of our reheated naked lunches and revitalized, re energized.
(00:57):
We're updating with Jeff Ross.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's update with my buddy Jeff Ross, who does have
a one man Broadway show.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And called take a banana for the ride.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Take a banana for the ride, Ladies and gentlemen, our
friend Jeff Ross. Let's build the beans to the fat
food for thought.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Joke's on tap, talking with our mouthful, having fun, beas
the cake and humble pie, serving up Slaze lovely. The
dressing homicide. It's naked lunch.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Clothing optional.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you for having me on. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I love you, Jeff. We're so happy and, like David said,
so proud, too proud to know you, proud of your accomplishments.
You've done more for bananas than mcgilla gorilla.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
That's a good one. I forgot about mcguilla garrilla in
the banana that was his thing.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I've been following that. Wool will end up in the
ads for in the New York Times next Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I believe I've been I've been following you on the Instagram,
and you had the greatest premiere of all time. I
love all the shots of your celebrity friends taking pictures
with hundreds of bananas.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, it's fantastic. Thanks Phil. It's been this very surreal.
You know how much in show business and life is
anti climactic. This has been totally climactic.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
You must be drained.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'm not drained. I'm I'm I don't know what it is.
It's the opposite. I'm it's like it's it's invigorating me.
Oh great, It's like driving a Ferrari every night, like
I can't wait to get to that set.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We have an invigorated, climaxing banana which sounds filthy but yes,
quite appropriate somehow.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That's like my next show.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yes, So I want to ask you your the playing
the Neederlander Theater. I looked up like because I like you.
I think I came and like you. I came into
the city to go to shows growing up with my
relatives would take me. It was a big, big deal.
The theater where you were at is the Nederlander was
where Rent was. It was where Lena Horne did this
(03:17):
one woman show. I saw Harry Houdini before any of
us were even born, and for one night a show
that I wanted to see that closed the first night,
unlike your show Te Neck Tanzi with Debbie Harry and
Andy coof Look it Up. I don't know. Have you.
Have you checked out the history backstage of your theater?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I have, and I even printed and had them print
some of the vaudeville and old shows. Yeah, for the
dressing room. But I missed this one. What was it called.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Look Up Te Neck Tanzi? It was a British show
that was called like some British Town. But when they
moved it to New York for its big Broadway moment,
they named it after Teeneck. I grew up in Tenafly.
You grew up not far away from there, so it
was like t neck tans Eye, and I remember reading
about it, probably in Rolling Stone. Debbie Harriet Blondie will
be playing in it, and Andy Kaufman at the early
(04:12):
in his career, and literally apparently it closed. It did
one performance.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
How does that even work? How do they only get
one performance.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
While the review comes out exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And then my friend has been in shows where they're
all at the bar afterwards. And this was at a
time when the New York Times review was everything right.
So if you didn't do well in the New York Times,
game over that one guy could shut down your show.
So director bar, everybody's celebrating, and the phone call comes.
The phone rings, everybody goes quiet, and the guy gets
(04:44):
on the phone and he's listening. He's listening, he's listening
to the review, and then he just not He shakes
his head and the bartender rolls down the bar.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
No more drinks. That was ted dance, And I think
what told I mean that's yeah, that's brutal. That's brutal.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Game over.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But but you, Jeff, you're not a theater kid. I
don't think right. You weren't in the school plays and everything,
were you.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I was in one play in second grade. I had
one line. I said, this is corn, it is good
to eat.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
The reviews are wonderful, and they said if he could
do corn, I wonder if he could do bananas. But
but he You Here's what I'm really curious about. Because
I was the theater kid. I did do all the
school plays and everything, So Broadway was the dream. It
probably wasn't a dream for you. But being in a theater,
you know, because you played comedy clubs your whole life,
(05:39):
and you play theaters. What is it like on Broadway?
And have you been indoctrinated into the whole theater world
now just by being in a Broadway house.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
The toast, the French toast of Broadway.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Well, here I've been very welcomed by the Broadway community.
There's a true tradition where the shows sometimes send the
whole cast and crew send a note and send it
over and there's twenty of them along the stairway. Every
time I walked to the stage from all the Broadway
(06:14):
shows unions. But here's the thing, Phil Like, I wasn't
in those plays as a kid, I can say I
was a theater kid. But my dad when my mom
was sick, my dad would would The hospital was in
New York, two hours from where we lived. Yes, he
would take us to see her, and then to make
(06:35):
it fun, he would take us to a show afterwards.
So we saw The King and I, we saw Cabaret
we got there, we saw Oliver, we saw Annie, all
the Orphan shows, and I saw Beatlemania with the Camp Group,
and I've been seeing I've always always loved Broadway, So
(06:57):
although I wasn't in it, I was banince as long
as I can remember, and I remain I remain that way.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Do you say this in the show?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
By the way, I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I probably should.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I'm not telling you how to run your thing. It
seems to be going very well, but I want to
before I don't want to lose track. I want everyone
to know when and how they can see the shows.
Let's do that first.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, you can't miss it. It's eight shows a week
at the Nino Lander Theater on forty first Street. Always
been my dream to perform ninety feet from Port Authority.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, you could have. If your career went a little worse,
you might have been performing at the Port Authority in
a different way.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
By the way, there's a good pizza place, uh, Suprimo
you know it?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
No, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, if you need a pizza where, it's right near
to Port Authority.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I think I'll look that up. Because we're right there.
You can catch me walking my dog around the block.
And my show My life has a lot of connections
to that neighborhood. When I was a young comedian, I
talk about in the bus into Port Authority, my grandfather
would give me napkins and a banana and that was
(08:07):
and afterwards I would go to Port Authority and take
the one fourteen Express bus back to where I lived
in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That's so funny. I did this too from Rockin County.
I took the bus and I would go I did
from Tennifly and I would go to TKTS and see
Matt n Ay and of course eleven dollars half Nay.
I mean, it was crazy, that's how old I am too.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Well, and then I took a comedy class in nineteen
eighty nine that happened to be right across from Port Authority.
Now here, I am on Broadway at a Broadway theater
right by Port Authority. So a lot of this is
coming back to me from my early days, and the
real desire the dream is because my ant best took
(08:52):
me to see Jackie Mason on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I saw that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Nine and I was just like, oh my goodness, this
is the funny thing I ever saw.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and now you are, by the way, Did you
know Jackie because he was apparently an interesting character. I
never got to. I saw that show, but I never
met him.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I shook his hand twice. Once when I was about
twenty three or twenty four. I was handing out flyers
from my open My comedy show and he walked by
and okay, you're a comedian, and I thought he was interested,
and he said he was coming and he's like, maybe
there'll be some women there or something like that, and
I say, yeah, sure, who knows. I was young, and
(09:32):
he didn't show up. And then decades later I shook
his hand somewhere else. He was very.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Nice when I saw that show. I took a friend
who is now a famous screenwriter, Susanna Grant, who was
Aaron Brockovich, but at that point we were working at
Esquire magazine and she is the wonderful and very waspy
from a very very fine, waspy family. And she laughed
and I was always I don't know if you had
this experience, Like I was like, are you laughing with me? Yeah? Right,
(10:01):
at right right? That show was very Jewish. Your show,
I think is rather rather waspy. I'm sure my show is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
One reviewer really compared it to Fiddler on the Roof
and only that it's the most Jewish show, Like there
are many many prideful Jewish Is that a word? Prideful,
proud Jewish moments in the show. There's a song in
the show called Don't Fuck with the Jews, which is
(10:31):
a Jewish cultural tribute to the hardworking blue collar people
in my family. And and I do a solid ten
minutes of a Nazi accent talking about my German shepherds.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
But by the way you are singing on Broadway telling stories,
do you feel Bruce Springsteen has retroactively ripped off your
act with his one man show.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
For inspiration I did see Bruce's last show in Milan
over Fourth of July weekend.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Great.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I wanted a little bit of that energy that I
grew up on. I really learned a lot from watching
Bruce as a kid, Not so much his Broadway show,
which I absolutely loved and sat in the last row
at my brother in law when it came on at
first and since dived into it again on HBO, but
(11:27):
the way Bruce would put a concert together, and I know,
you guys get this like a couple fast ones, a
slow one, a new one, an old one, a sing along,
a funny one, lights up, you know, the whole crowd
gets some like I love that showmanship of Bruce's shows,
And I felt like as I was getting into the
(11:49):
dramaturgy of my show, I was like, I need to
recalculate and go back and look at what inspired this
initially thirty years ago when I first started writing this show.
So I went to Bruce to Bruce's show because the
band that always said, oh the Italy shows Milan, that's
our best shows. And it was the last show on
the tour. So my brother in law, on very little notice,
(12:12):
showed it up in Milan and We're blown away yet again.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Isn't that great at seventy five?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Right? I mean, he's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Who knows. The one thing I will never google is
Bruce Springsteen's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Age, Right, it doesn't matter, It doesn't want to know.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Don't you notice that he gets younger as the show
goes on?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
It's insane. I love that, crazy, right, I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm so with you.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And the biggest lesson that I've gotten he's been a
tremendous influence on me too, although you wouldn't know by
looking at me, is the joy that he takes in
doing it. Yeah, And if you can enjoy yourself as
much as he does, that is what's so infectious.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is the.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Best thing to to the audience connects to that they
identify and relate to, that they want to be taken
on that.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I love that observation, phil, and I definitely think that
that's happening with me.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, how could it not consciously?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Unconsciously?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I tried to show decades a girl and I didn't
ago and I didn't really have the emotional strength to
keep it going. It was too personal, too vulnerable, And
now I wanted to be able to sustain it, and
the one of the ways of sustaining it is to
making it more fun for me, more joyactly right now,
I can't wait to get back there every night.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It seems antithetical. It seems like, wait a minute, you're
not there to enjoy yourself. You're there for the audience.
You're there to make that. But you have to enjoy
every second of what you're doing so that that comes
across to the people. It's so essential. It's the opposite
of what we think.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, yeah, eight shows a week. People say, no, you're
ready for eight shows a week. That's much easier than
getting on a plane three times a week.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's right, because you have you got a routine.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I got my dog at work. See see every day.
She has her own dressing room, she has her own
fan mail. You know. It's like, I love the process
of Broadway and it's something I wanted to do my
whole adult life since I saw that Jackie Mason show
at Miami. I held on to this apartment in New
(14:33):
York for decades, hoping one day I would have this opportunity.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
How fantastic are you?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Is this a limited engagement or what's going on?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Very limited. It's got another through September twenty eighth.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
All right, people, you got to get there. By the way,
I don't know if I can get there in time,
because I'm on the road myself.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
My thing. I literally just took I think a job
on a show event happening in New York so that
I could try to see the show. So I think
I I will get there. And I have a message
from Brad Paisley who said, yesterday you know, he text
with you, but he's going to try to figure out
if he can get He wants to get there too.
And obviously, can you say, like the Instagram the amount
of friends showing up for you, is it been really
(15:14):
meaningful to you to see everyone you know rallying around this.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
It's so thank you for saying that, and thank you
for taking that gig so you can see the show.
I said to my manager and the publicist, like, please
don't make me endure a Monday night in August opening night.
It's going to be embarrassing. It'll be my aunt Donna
and the three guys I went to high school with. Oh,
but we could do that anytime, And they said, no,
(15:40):
this is what's best for the show. It doesn't matter
whoever comes comes. So I start casually putting it out there.
I didn't even have to invite people. They were writing
to me, going anything we can do to support? When
is Opening Night? What's going on? And then you know
immediately Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stay Host, John Mayer,
(16:01):
Craig Robinson, my Pow, Jordan Rubin, who told me to
get a call on Oscopye last year and saved my life.
And now then all the New Yorker they all flew in,
Jim Carrey, and then Susie Ashman and h and Richard
Kind and Jessica Curson and Rachel Feinstein and Mody and
Elon Gold and Steve Buscemi, who I don't even know.
(16:23):
I walk out on Opening Night Flavor Flave iced tea
and Coco like, and I'm like, are where are we?
This is like sitting in my fantasy brain and now
I'm trying to do a show, and I'm so distracted
because I'm like, hey, wait a second, who is that?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Is that my uncle Maury? Or is that ste I
can't really tell from here. So I've been absolutely blown away.
Every day is you know, On the very first preview,
Colin Quinn was there, and there's no comedian I respect more.
I've gone to see all his plays. Yeah, seeing how
actors are reacting to it and comedians are tribe if
(17:05):
you will, of funny People has just been completely overwhelming,
where it got to a point where I think I
just need to put my phone down. I go, I
don't even know how to absorb all this. And it's
been truly, truly climacting.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I know that you road tested this right, you did
it around telling process.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Well, I've been doing a few bits in my stand
up a few years ago that had to do with
mortality without me even realizing it. Yeah, and a tribute
to a dog that I adopted during the pandemic. And
at that point I was talking about Prince Philip and
the Queen and how they were holding on to life.
(17:50):
And my manager Amy was like, Oh, I see a
lot of similarities with what you're talking about now and
what you were talking about thirty years ago, when that
show about your grandfather and your parents that you used
to tell me about it and Jimmy Kimmel held onto
an old VHS tape of it, and every couple of years.
He mentioned it to me, going, you really should revive this,
(18:13):
And then I looked back at the old show and
I realized I had some of the same philosophies on
loss and resilience and mourning and bouncing back. And Gilbert
Gottfried and Bob Saget and Norm MacDonald were dear friends
and I all died within eight months of each other.
(18:36):
And I started doing the show again, but I started
doing it with a completely new attitude in that I
could sustain it. In the old way, I didn't have
the strength to keep it going. I did not want
to dig up my family every night. It was depressing.
And now I'm a better joke writer and I understand
(18:57):
acting a little better. So I can wear a costume
that I take off every night and I leave it
in the dressing room, and I'm able to go out
and have my normal life, Whereas years ago I didn't
have that understanding, and I was it was too heavy.
But now I can take off that My Bruce Banata
suit is like is like a suit of armor that
(19:19):
I can leave in the dressing room until the next performance.
So a lot of things lined up, including just my
understanding of what I had.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Great, and you still, if I understand correctly, at the
end of the night, maybe you still have room for
a little in the splash zone of people up front,
you do a little roasting. Can you explain how that works?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I would. It's the one time that I leave the
stage actually and I walk around. And it wasn't something
I originally designed to be in the show, but as
I was doing previews, to me honest, I creatively unfulfilled.
The audience was giving me standing ovations in the first
(20:07):
rehearsals and previews, and I was working it out at
the Barrow Group, at an acting school run by Seth Barrish,
who's been a consultant on the show. He directs all
Mike Birbiglia's shows, and he very graciously opened up his
school over the summer for me to run the show
like two in the afternoon for students, and they were
(20:29):
so receptive. But yet I could see the emotion. I
saw people crying, and I felt like I was missing
a connection, literally, a physical connection. I wanted to put
my arm around these people, but the show is over
and I would go backstage and they would go out
that way. So three or four previews in I was
(20:50):
leaving and people are going, that was a wonderful play.
But I go but it wasn't enough of a night
out for me for the audience. I felt like I
was missing something. And it wasn't a roast. I didn't
want to bring people on stage and stop the stop
the show and make it about them. I wanted to
make it about us, right, And I'm able to now
(21:14):
go into the audience and I don't call it a roast.
I said, who wants to earn their banana? And I
have a bag of bananas. I strap on and I
walk around the floor of the Neederlander Theater and people
are talking to me about their lives. They're emotional. I
had a lady yesterday my husband has alzheimer. She was
there with her son, and you know, it wounds up
(21:38):
being almost like spiritual moments that are happening. An old
lady getting hip surgery, a young boy with his dad
whose mom is sick in the hospital, which totally parallels
what I went through in my life. So people are
(21:59):
opening up to me. They're talking about their pets that
they lost, and they'll have their dogs ashes and a necklace.
And this is something I never anticipated. What happened, which
is the real story of the show, which I haven't
seen in the reviews yet and I haven't seen in
the press. The real story of the show isn't about me,
(22:20):
the underbelly of the roast Master. It's what other people
are getting for it, and it's why I can do
it every night. If it was about me, i'd be
bored after a week or two. I would shoot it
and memorialize it and have it on TV. But because
the human experience and the immersive nature of it is
so joyous and it's making people so happy at the
(22:43):
end of this intense theatrical experience that I feel like
I could do it forever. I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
How great I do a show not scripted like yours.
I tell stories to a moderator in the whole second
half of my show.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Is Q and A.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And I get what you're saying one hundred percent. That
part of it is different every night. Yeah, people tell
you their stuff, and that is the real point of it.
The connection that you make with the people who like
you and came to see you. It's so beautiful that
(23:22):
you feel like, yes, this is why I do this
to have It's why you became a comedian to connect.
It's why I do what I do to connect. It's
all we do is human beings on the planet is
try to connect to each other. And you, now, Jeff,
have found probably the ultimate way.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, thank you, Phil. You know someone like you who
everywhere you go, people go, oh, I read your book
or I saw your show, or I watched your old show,
and it hit it touched me like it's like it's beautiful.
And now I'm able to cut out the time and
the distance of it, and that's right right as I'm
(24:02):
doing it. And that's such a beautiful thing that I
never anticipated that. You asked me if I was drained, David,
I'm I'm. I'm fortified every night and go for a refill.
It's like a recharge.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Now, wait a minute, are you You're not? I can
tell because you're talking to us. You're not saving your voice.
You're not. You're not doing any of that Broadway.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Stuff that they probably tell you.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
That's a mistake.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I should.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I had an NPR interview at eleven this morning. I
got another thing at four, and then I have a
show at seven and then two tomorrow. So the idea
of saving my voice happens on Sundays from two to four.
We takena and I don't talk.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
We just had Josh Grobin in here yesterday who he
was talking about his process. I guess you do a
little less singing, right you sing? Is it two numbers?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I sing two songs? Not well.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So, I'm sure they're funny.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
They're very funny, and they're poignant, and one of them
is a sing along, and one of them is a
howl along. People howl like cootes the chorus. It's a
very cathartic, interactive experience. And I even said to a
Dina Menzel a couple months ago, I was telling her
(25:31):
about the show, and she knows my old show from
thirty years ago because we're old friends. And I said,
I sing in the show. And she turned her head
and she said on key. I said, did your friend.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
John Mayer give you any musical consultation on your performances?
He's funny too, He's very funny.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
He's very funny. He actually complimented the songwriting this is
that I do in the show. There's a song I
do at the towards the end of the show called
You're one of the Good Ones, and it's basically from
the voice of my German shepherd Nana that I adopted
(26:13):
during the pandemic. It's her singing to me from her deathbed,
and I hate to give it away, but it's worth it,
and she sings. And John said that that song felt
like a song that could have been written at any
time in the history of Broadway, and it was still
up and it's done with the piano and violin, and
(26:33):
the audience howls along with me. And I'm probably doing
a terrible explanation of it, but it gave me very,
very good feeling to have John Go, the songwriter. He
knows I can't sing, so he complimented the writing.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, if you're funny, you can get away with not
being on key.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You tell adena, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah. Next time she says I'm doing this number, you go,
is it funny?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
She's been so supportive. The Broadway community has been really
wonderful about this. Billy Crystal told me. He warned me.
He warned me because I asked him for some advice, because,
let's face it, seven hundred Sundays is the greatest one
person show ever in my opinion, and I saw it,
you know, twenty years ago, and he was about, you know,
(27:25):
my age when he first did that show, and he said,
you know, you think it's emotional and you're going to
be glad in two months that you're done with it.
He said, that's not going to happen. You're going to
want to keep doing it. And it took him five
years to stop doing it and actually putting on TV.
He wound up doing it twice, two Broadway runs. He
(27:48):
went to Australia, all over America.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I don't know yet because I'm so I'm only a
week into it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Can see why he said that, and I can see
why he wanted to hold onto it. It's the audience.
It's not for me, it's for the crowd. Like I'm
really enjoying watching people get what they're getting from it,
and the mail that I'm getting and the letters and
when I go out state outside afterwards, the people are
(28:20):
wearing yellow shirts, banana shirts. I'm signing stuff every like
signing playbills. Something I just didn't calculate into all of this,
and it's so cool, and people are telling me about
their lives, so I feel like a little bit like comedian,
a little bit like rabbi, a little bit like Jackie Mason,
(28:40):
like it's all kind of happening.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I remember Alex Edelman told me that Billy Crystal told him.
When Alex started doing his show just for us, he
used a microphone because that's how he felt comfortable as
a comic. And Billy said, put the mic away, and
where the head set?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it freeze up your hands. Do you do that?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I do wear a headset because I have a lot
of business in the show. I read letters from my parents,
love letters that they wrote to one another. And I
do some nunchucks in the in the songs, some some
(29:22):
nunchuck demonstration. Let's see what else I do. I carry
a banana around for part of it. So I need
my hands free. So I got that not from Billy,
but he did mention that to me before he saw
the show, that I should have my hands free.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, Jeff, we're so appreciate you, you know, taking the
time from in the middle of this thrilling experience to
talk to us.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And I love this. You were already talking to me different,
Like I feel like I moved up a notch in
the show business.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
A little Yeah, Before this, I thought it's Jeff.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Now it's Jeff.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I know, how do I handle all this newfound up.
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I'm so happy for you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I think the answer is what you do is walk
your dog, and you know, you pick up the poop,
still pick up the poop, because, by the way, I
think we're all kind of late in life after not
having a dog. Dog people. The pandemic has done that
to all of us, which is good, keeps you humble.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It definitely humanized me in that I know I'm a
human who loves dogs, and not only that, wrote a
show that is largely about my dogs. So really, a
big chunk of this is about my dogs, a big,
big chunk of it. And it's not something my sister
she she just can't. She's mad at me almost because
(30:47):
I used to say to her for the last thirty years,
how can you get a dog? You're just you know,
I'm allergic, you know, I'm afraid. You just don't want
me to visit. So now you got a dog. And
now she's looking at me like you as so now
you got a dog. You gave me prap for so
many years not having a dog, and you know, I
love my dog so much, and and you know, hearing
(31:10):
other people's dog stories, you know you might think that
dog would be a boring I love it seven your
dog stories.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Well, by the way, you should tour. You should tour
the show and do a dog night like bring your
dog if you could do it, like the Hollywood Bowl
live at the Hollywood Bowl with you. They do that
at Dodger Stadium once a season.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Here's the only David that's hilarious. Here's the only caveat
So you know Broadway it's very buttoned up. And you
know I have a dog trainer, Bill who trained Sandy
for the original Annie, right, you know, and he was
around in the seventy when I was first learning Broadway.
So my dog comes out at the end for a
(31:50):
curtain call, kind of like Sandy doesn't Annie. And the
stage manager comes up to my dressing room and she says,
just letting you know, there's a service animal in the
third row.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So hold on, Jeff, just tell the story. But we
have Brad Paisley who wanted to see your show on
the speakerphone. It's with Jeff Ross.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Hey, Joe, Hey, bub Brad, Paisley, I got a seat
aside for you there, Row one thirty eight, double j
I already got the middle behind the bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I got you that cowboy hat will block someone's very
very expensive view.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I love you, Paisley, Love you buddy.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
All right, he said, he said, he said his love.
I'll call you from the airport. Thank you. H there
he is, so Yes, that was.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I guess what I was saying. What I was saying
was there was a service animal in the audience. That's
the one time they were like, your dog might get
distracted during the curtain call because there's another dog there.
But she handled it very well. Hit her mark and
those are lines better than I.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Holy cow, that's so nice. That's really great.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, Jeff, have a good show tonight, my friend.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Thank the rest of the run.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
And if I can't catch you in New York, I
have a feeling we're going to see you on the road.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I have a feeling I might have to keep doing it. Yes,
I think you're right, and maybe we'll be in the
same city at the same time when you're doing your Q.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And as the people demand it of you.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That'd be quite a double bill. Would you open for
Jeff Ross? I would do anything for Jeff Ross.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It means so much that you guys help me get
the word out today. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh no, We're so happy for you. And I hope,
I hope I'll see you soon. I will. I'll let
you know. I'll pay for the ticket, but I will
let you know if I'm there.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Drop this podcast net episode soon and I'll owe you
wild I owe.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You got it, buddy? Great?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
All right, thank you so much, Thanks guys, Lots of love,
same mayor.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Cella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend. But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
We like five stars.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch. A lucky
Bastard's production
Phil. Uh, this is a very personal question. Do you
use a belt? I do?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And the reason you see me putting on the belt
is uh.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
That could have been like Jim Morrison did. They've got
him in a lot of trouble, which I'm sorry I'm Morrison,
but no one has called you the Lizard king that
I know. So much is going on, David.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We've got the diner stuff is the books, yes, the books,
the National Tour, North American Tour, all these things.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But but you don't make time yet. We've made time
for this. What you don't have yet is a Broadway show.
Not that you're not going to soon be on Broadway,
I'm not, but but we do have We're doing a
one of our reheated naked lunches and revitalized, re energized.
(00:57):
We're updating with Jeff Ross.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's update with my buddy Jeff Ross, who does have
a one man Broadway show.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
And called take a banana for the ride.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Take a banana for the ride, Ladies and gentlemen, our
friend Jeff Ross. Let's build the beans to the fat
food for thought.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Joke's on tap, talking with our mouthful, having fun, beas
the cake and humble pie, serving up Slaze lovely. The
dressing homicide. It's naked lunch.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Clothing optional.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you for having me on. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I love you, Jeff. We're so happy and, like David said,
so proud, too proud to know you, proud of your accomplishments.
You've done more for bananas than mcgilla gorilla.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
That's a good one. I forgot about mcguilla garrilla in
the banana that was his thing.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I've been following that. Wool will end up in the
ads for in the New York Times next Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I believe I've been I've been following you on the Instagram,
and you had the greatest premiere of all time. I
love all the shots of your celebrity friends taking pictures
with hundreds of bananas.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, it's fantastic. Thanks Phil. It's been this very surreal.
You know how much in show business and life is
anti climactic. This has been totally climactic.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
You must be drained.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I'm not drained. I'm I'm I don't know what it is.
It's the opposite. I'm it's like it's it's invigorating me.
Oh great, It's like driving a Ferrari every night, like
I can't wait to get to that set.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We have an invigorated, climaxing banana which sounds filthy but yes,
quite appropriate somehow.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
That's like my next show.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Yes, So I want to ask you your the playing
the Neederlander Theater. I looked up like because I like you.
I think I came and like you. I came into
the city to go to shows growing up with my
relatives would take me. It was a big, big deal.
The theater where you were at is the Nederlander was
where Rent was. It was where Lena Horne did this
(03:17):
one woman show. I saw Harry Houdini before any of
us were even born, and for one night a show
that I wanted to see that closed the first night,
unlike your show Te Neck Tanzi with Debbie Harry and
Andy coof Look it Up. I don't know. Have you.
Have you checked out the history backstage of your theater?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I have, and I even printed and had them print
some of the vaudeville and old shows. Yeah, for the
dressing room. But I missed this one. What was it called.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Look Up Te Neck Tanzi? It was a British show
that was called like some British Town. But when they
moved it to New York for its big Broadway moment,
they named it after Teeneck. I grew up in Tenafly.
You grew up not far away from there, so it
was like t neck tans Eye, and I remember reading
about it, probably in Rolling Stone. Debbie Harriet Blondie will
be playing in it, and Andy Kaufman at the early
(04:12):
in his career, and literally apparently it closed. It did
one performance.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
How does that even work? How do they only get
one performance.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
While the review comes out exactly?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And then my friend has been in shows where they're
all at the bar afterwards. And this was at a
time when the New York Times review was everything right.
So if you didn't do well in the New York Times,
game over that one guy could shut down your show.
So director bar, everybody's celebrating, and the phone call comes.
The phone rings, everybody goes quiet, and the guy gets
(04:44):
on the phone and he's listening. He's listening, he's listening
to the review, and then he just not He shakes
his head and the bartender rolls down the bar.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
No more drinks. That was ted dance, And I think
what told I mean that's yeah, that's brutal. That's brutal.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Game over.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But but you, Jeff, you're not a theater kid. I
don't think right. You weren't in the school plays and everything,
were you.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I was in one play in second grade. I had
one line. I said, this is corn, it is good
to eat.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
The reviews are wonderful, and they said if he could
do corn, I wonder if he could do bananas. But
but he You Here's what I'm really curious about. Because
I was the theater kid. I did do all the
school plays and everything, So Broadway was the dream. It
probably wasn't a dream for you. But being in a theater,
you know, because you played comedy clubs your whole life,
(05:39):
and you play theaters. What is it like on Broadway?
And have you been indoctrinated into the whole theater world
now just by being in a Broadway house.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
The toast, the French toast of Broadway.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Well, here I've been very welcomed by the Broadway community.
There's a true tradition where the shows sometimes send the
whole cast and crew send a note and send it
over and there's twenty of them along the stairway. Every
time I walked to the stage from all the Broadway
(06:14):
shows unions. But here's the thing, Phil Like, I wasn't
in those plays as a kid, I can say I
was a theater kid. But my dad when my mom
was sick, my dad would would The hospital was in
New York, two hours from where we lived. Yes, he
would take us to see her, and then to make
(06:35):
it fun, he would take us to a show afterwards.
So we saw The King and I, we saw Cabaret
we got there, we saw Oliver, we saw Annie, all
the Orphan shows, and I saw Beatlemania with the Camp Group,
and I've been seeing I've always always loved Broadway, So
(06:57):
although I wasn't in it, I was banince as long
as I can remember, and I remain I remain that way.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Do you say this in the show?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
By the way, I don't.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I probably should.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I'm not telling you how to run your thing. It
seems to be going very well, but I want to
before I don't want to lose track. I want everyone
to know when and how they can see the shows.
Let's do that first.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, you can't miss it. It's eight shows a week
at the Nino Lander Theater on forty first Street. Always
been my dream to perform ninety feet from Port Authority.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, you could have. If your career went a little worse,
you might have been performing at the Port Authority in
a different way.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
By the way, there's a good pizza place, uh, Suprimo
you know it?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
No, I don't know that one.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, if you need a pizza where, it's right near
to Port Authority.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
I think I'll look that up. Because we're right there.
You can catch me walking my dog around the block.
And my show My life has a lot of connections
to that neighborhood. When I was a young comedian, I
talk about in the bus into Port Authority, my grandfather
would give me napkins and a banana and that was
(08:07):
and afterwards I would go to Port Authority and take
the one fourteen Express bus back to where I lived
in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
That's so funny. I did this too from Rockin County.
I took the bus and I would go I did
from Tennifly and I would go to TKTS and see
Matt n Ay and of course eleven dollars half Nay.
I mean, it was crazy, that's how old I am too.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Well, and then I took a comedy class in nineteen
eighty nine that happened to be right across from Port Authority.
Now here, I am on Broadway at a Broadway theater
right by Port Authority. So a lot of this is
coming back to me from my early days, and the
real desire the dream is because my ant best took
(08:52):
me to see Jackie Mason on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
I saw that.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Nine and I was just like, oh my goodness, this
is the funny thing I ever saw.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and now you are, by the way, Did you
know Jackie because he was apparently an interesting character. I
never got to. I saw that show, but I never
met him.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
I shook his hand twice. Once when I was about
twenty three or twenty four. I was handing out flyers
from my open My comedy show and he walked by
and okay, you're a comedian, and I thought he was interested,
and he said he was coming and he's like, maybe
there'll be some women there or something like that, and
I say, yeah, sure, who knows. I was young, and
(09:32):
he didn't show up. And then decades later I shook
his hand somewhere else. He was very.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Nice when I saw that show. I took a friend
who is now a famous screenwriter, Susanna Grant, who was
Aaron Brockovich, but at that point we were working at
Esquire magazine and she is the wonderful and very waspy
from a very very fine, waspy family. And she laughed
and I was always I don't know if you had
this experience, Like I was like, are you laughing with me? Yeah? Right,
(10:01):
at right right? That show was very Jewish. Your show,
I think is rather rather waspy. I'm sure my show is.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
One reviewer really compared it to Fiddler on the Roof
and only that it's the most Jewish show, Like there
are many many prideful Jewish Is that a word? Prideful,
proud Jewish moments in the show. There's a song in
the show called Don't Fuck with the Jews, which is
(10:31):
a Jewish cultural tribute to the hardworking blue collar people
in my family. And and I do a solid ten
minutes of a Nazi accent talking about my German shepherds.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
But by the way you are singing on Broadway telling stories,
do you feel Bruce Springsteen has retroactively ripped off your
act with his one man show.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
For inspiration I did see Bruce's last show in Milan
over Fourth of July weekend.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Great.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I wanted a little bit of that energy that I
grew up on. I really learned a lot from watching
Bruce as a kid, Not so much his Broadway show,
which I absolutely loved and sat in the last row
at my brother in law when it came on at
first and since dived into it again on HBO, but
(11:27):
the way Bruce would put a concert together, and I know,
you guys get this like a couple fast ones, a
slow one, a new one, an old one, a sing along,
a funny one, lights up, you know, the whole crowd
gets some like I love that showmanship of Bruce's shows,
And I felt like as I was getting into the
(11:49):
dramaturgy of my show, I was like, I need to
recalculate and go back and look at what inspired this
initially thirty years ago when I first started writing this show.
So I went to Bruce to Bruce's show because the
band that always said, oh the Italy shows Milan, that's
our best shows. And it was the last show on
the tour. So my brother in law, on very little notice,
(12:12):
showed it up in Milan and We're blown away yet again.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Isn't that great at seventy five?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Right? I mean, he's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
Who knows. The one thing I will never google is
Bruce Springsteen's.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Age, Right, it doesn't matter, It doesn't want to know.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Don't you notice that he gets younger as the show
goes on?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
It's insane. I love that, crazy, right, I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm so with you.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
And the biggest lesson that I've gotten he's been a
tremendous influence on me too, although you wouldn't know by
looking at me, is the joy that he takes in
doing it. Yeah, And if you can enjoy yourself as
much as he does, that is what's so infectious.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
That is the.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Best thing to to the audience connects to that they
identify and relate to, that they want to be taken
on that.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I love that observation, phil, and I definitely think that
that's happening with me.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, how could it not consciously?
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Unconsciously?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
I tried to show decades a girl and I didn't
ago and I didn't really have the emotional strength to
keep it going. It was too personal, too vulnerable, And
now I wanted to be able to sustain it, and
the one of the ways of sustaining it is to
making it more fun for me, more joyactly right now,
I can't wait to get back there every night.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
It seems antithetical. It seems like, wait a minute, you're
not there to enjoy yourself. You're there for the audience.
You're there to make that. But you have to enjoy
every second of what you're doing so that that comes
across to the people. It's so essential. It's the opposite
of what we think.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, yeah, eight shows a week. People say, no, you're
ready for eight shows a week. That's much easier than
getting on a plane three times a week.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's right, because you have you got a routine.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I got my dog at work. See see every day.
She has her own dressing room, she has her own
fan mail. You know. It's like, I love the process
of Broadway and it's something I wanted to do my
whole adult life since I saw that Jackie Mason show
at Miami. I held on to this apartment in New
(14:33):
York for decades, hoping one day I would have this opportunity.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
How fantastic are you?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Is this a limited engagement or what's going on?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Very limited. It's got another through September twenty eighth.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
All right, people, you got to get there. By the way,
I don't know if I can get there in time,
because I'm on the road myself.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
My thing. I literally just took I think a job
on a show event happening in New York so that
I could try to see the show. So I think
I I will get there. And I have a message
from Brad Paisley who said, yesterday you know, he text
with you, but he's going to try to figure out
if he can get He wants to get there too.
And obviously, can you say, like the Instagram the amount
of friends showing up for you, is it been really
(15:14):
meaningful to you to see everyone you know rallying around this.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
It's so thank you for saying that, and thank you
for taking that gig so you can see the show.
I said to my manager and the publicist, like, please
don't make me endure a Monday night in August opening night.
It's going to be embarrassing. It'll be my aunt Donna
and the three guys I went to high school with. Oh,
but we could do that anytime, And they said, no,
(15:40):
this is what's best for the show. It doesn't matter
whoever comes comes. So I start casually putting it out there.
I didn't even have to invite people. They were writing
to me, going anything we can do to support? When
is Opening Night? What's going on? And then you know
immediately Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, John Stay Host, John Mayer,
(16:01):
Craig Robinson, my Pow, Jordan Rubin, who told me to
get a call on Oscopye last year and saved my life.
And now then all the New Yorker they all flew in,
Jim Carrey, and then Susie Ashman and h and Richard
Kind and Jessica Curson and Rachel Feinstein and Mody and
Elon Gold and Steve Buscemi, who I don't even know.
(16:23):
I walk out on Opening Night Flavor Flave iced tea
and Coco like, and I'm like, are where are we?
This is like sitting in my fantasy brain and now
I'm trying to do a show, and I'm so distracted
because I'm like, hey, wait a second, who is that?
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Is that my uncle Maury? Or is that ste I
can't really tell from here. So I've been absolutely blown away.
Every day is you know, On the very first preview,
Colin Quinn was there, and there's no comedian I respect more.
I've gone to see all his plays. Yeah, seeing how
actors are reacting to it and comedians are tribe if
(17:05):
you will, of funny People has just been completely overwhelming,
where it got to a point where I think I
just need to put my phone down. I go, I
don't even know how to absorb all this. And it's
been truly, truly climacting.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I know that you road tested this right, you did
it around telling process.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Well, I've been doing a few bits in my stand
up a few years ago that had to do with
mortality without me even realizing it. Yeah, and a tribute
to a dog that I adopted during the pandemic. And
at that point I was talking about Prince Philip and
the Queen and how they were holding on to life.
(17:50):
And my manager Amy was like, Oh, I see a
lot of similarities with what you're talking about now and
what you were talking about thirty years ago, when that
show about your grandfather and your parents that you used
to tell me about it and Jimmy Kimmel held onto
an old VHS tape of it, and every couple of years.
He mentioned it to me, going, you really should revive this,
(18:13):
And then I looked back at the old show and
I realized I had some of the same philosophies on
loss and resilience and mourning and bouncing back. And Gilbert
Gottfried and Bob Saget and Norm MacDonald were dear friends
and I all died within eight months of each other.
(18:36):
And I started doing the show again, but I started
doing it with a completely new attitude in that I
could sustain it. In the old way, I didn't have
the strength to keep it going. I did not want
to dig up my family every night. It was depressing.
And now I'm a better joke writer and I understand
(18:57):
acting a little better. So I can wear a costume
that I take off every night and I leave it
in the dressing room, and I'm able to go out
and have my normal life, Whereas years ago I didn't
have that understanding, and I was it was too heavy.
But now I can take off that My Bruce Banata
suit is like is like a suit of armor that
(19:19):
I can leave in the dressing room until the next performance.
So a lot of things lined up, including just my
understanding of what I had.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Great, and you still, if I understand correctly, at the
end of the night, maybe you still have room for
a little in the splash zone of people up front,
you do a little roasting. Can you explain how that works?
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I would. It's the one time that I leave the
stage actually and I walk around. And it wasn't something
I originally designed to be in the show, but as
I was doing previews, to me honest, I creatively unfulfilled.
The audience was giving me standing ovations in the first
(20:07):
rehearsals and previews, and I was working it out at
the Barrow Group, at an acting school run by Seth Barrish,
who's been a consultant on the show. He directs all
Mike Birbiglia's shows, and he very graciously opened up his
school over the summer for me to run the show
like two in the afternoon for students, and they were
(20:29):
so receptive. But yet I could see the emotion. I
saw people crying, and I felt like I was missing
a connection, literally, a physical connection. I wanted to put
my arm around these people, but the show is over
and I would go backstage and they would go out
that way. So three or four previews in I was
(20:50):
leaving and people are going, that was a wonderful play.
But I go but it wasn't enough of a night
out for me for the audience. I felt like I
was missing something. And it wasn't a roast. I didn't
want to bring people on stage and stop the stop
the show and make it about them. I wanted to
make it about us, right, And I'm able to now
(21:14):
go into the audience and I don't call it a roast.
I said, who wants to earn their banana? And I
have a bag of bananas. I strap on and I
walk around the floor of the Neederlander Theater and people
are talking to me about their lives. They're emotional. I
had a lady yesterday my husband has alzheimer. She was
there with her son, and you know, it wounds up
(21:38):
being almost like spiritual moments that are happening. An old
lady getting hip surgery, a young boy with his dad
whose mom is sick in the hospital, which totally parallels
what I went through in my life. So people are
(21:59):
opening up to me. They're talking about their pets that
they lost, and they'll have their dogs ashes and a necklace.
And this is something I never anticipated. What happened, which
is the real story of the show, which I haven't
seen in the reviews yet and I haven't seen in
the press. The real story of the show isn't about me,
(22:20):
the underbelly of the roast Master. It's what other people
are getting for it, and it's why I can do
it every night. If it was about me, i'd be
bored after a week or two. I would shoot it
and memorialize it and have it on TV. But because
the human experience and the immersive nature of it is
so joyous and it's making people so happy at the
(22:43):
end of this intense theatrical experience that I feel like
I could do it forever. I love it.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
How great I do a show not scripted like yours.
I tell stories to a moderator in the whole second
half of my show.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Is Q and A.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And I get what you're saying one hundred percent. That
part of it is different every night. Yeah, people tell
you their stuff, and that is the real point of it.
The connection that you make with the people who like
you and came to see you. It's so beautiful that
(23:22):
you feel like, yes, this is why I do this
to have It's why you became a comedian to connect.
It's why I do what I do to connect. It's
all we do is human beings on the planet is
try to connect to each other. And you, now, Jeff,
have found probably the ultimate way.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, thank you, Phil. You know someone like you who
everywhere you go, people go, oh, I read your book
or I saw your show, or I watched your old show,
and it hit it touched me like it's like it's beautiful.
And now I'm able to cut out the time and
the distance of it, and that's right right as I'm
(24:02):
doing it. And that's such a beautiful thing that I
never anticipated that. You asked me if I was drained, David,
I'm I'm. I'm fortified every night and go for a refill.
It's like a recharge.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Now, wait a minute, are you You're not? I can
tell because you're talking to us. You're not saving your voice.
You're not. You're not doing any of that Broadway.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Stuff that they probably tell you.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
That's a mistake.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I should.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I had an NPR interview at eleven this morning. I
got another thing at four, and then I have a
show at seven and then two tomorrow. So the idea
of saving my voice happens on Sundays from two to four.
We takena and I don't talk.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
We just had Josh Grobin in here yesterday who he
was talking about his process. I guess you do a
little less singing, right you sing? Is it two numbers?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
I sing two songs? Not well.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
So, I'm sure they're funny.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
They're very funny, and they're poignant, and one of them
is a sing along, and one of them is a
howl along. People howl like cootes the chorus. It's a
very cathartic, interactive experience. And I even said to a
Dina Menzel a couple months ago, I was telling her
(25:31):
about the show, and she knows my old show from
thirty years ago because we're old friends. And I said,
I sing in the show. And she turned her head
and she said on key. I said, did your friend.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
John Mayer give you any musical consultation on your performances?
He's funny too, He's very funny.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
He's very funny. He actually complimented the songwriting this is
that I do in the show. There's a song I
do at the towards the end of the show called
You're one of the Good Ones, and it's basically from
the voice of my German shepherd Nana that I adopted
(26:13):
during the pandemic. It's her singing to me from her deathbed,
and I hate to give it away, but it's worth it,
and she sings. And John said that that song felt
like a song that could have been written at any
time in the history of Broadway, and it was still
up and it's done with the piano and violin, and
(26:33):
the audience howls along with me. And I'm probably doing
a terrible explanation of it, but it gave me very,
very good feeling to have John Go, the songwriter. He
knows I can't sing, so he complimented the writing.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Well, if you're funny, you can get away with not
being on key.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You tell adena, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah. Next time she says I'm doing this number, you go,
is it funny?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
She's been so supportive. The Broadway community has been really
wonderful about this. Billy Crystal told me. He warned me.
He warned me because I asked him for some advice, because,
let's face it, seven hundred Sundays is the greatest one
person show ever in my opinion, and I saw it,
you know, twenty years ago, and he was about, you know,
(27:25):
my age when he first did that show, and he said,
you know, you think it's emotional and you're going to
be glad in two months that you're done with it.
He said, that's not going to happen. You're going to
want to keep doing it. And it took him five
years to stop doing it and actually putting on TV.
He wound up doing it twice, two Broadway runs. He
(27:48):
went to Australia, all over America.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Are you going to do that?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
I don't know yet because I'm so I'm only a
week into it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Can see why he said that, and I can see
why he wanted to hold onto it. It's the audience.
It's not for me, it's for the crowd. Like I'm
really enjoying watching people get what they're getting from it,
and the mail that I'm getting and the letters and
when I go out state outside afterwards, the people are
(28:20):
wearing yellow shirts, banana shirts. I'm signing stuff every like
signing playbills. Something I just didn't calculate into all of this,
and it's so cool, and people are telling me about
their lives, so I feel like a little bit like comedian,
a little bit like rabbi, a little bit like Jackie Mason,
(28:40):
like it's all kind of happening.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I remember Alex Edelman told me that Billy Crystal told him.
When Alex started doing his show just for us, he
used a microphone because that's how he felt comfortable as
a comic. And Billy said, put the mic away, and
where the head set?
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it freeze up your hands. Do you do that?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I do wear a headset because I have a lot
of business in the show. I read letters from my parents,
love letters that they wrote to one another. And I
do some nunchucks in the in the songs, some some
(29:22):
nunchuck demonstration. Let's see what else I do. I carry
a banana around for part of it. So I need
my hands free. So I got that not from Billy,
but he did mention that to me before he saw
the show, that I should have my hands free.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Well, Jeff, we're so appreciate you, you know, taking the
time from in the middle of this thrilling experience to
talk to us.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And I love this. You were already talking to me different,
Like I feel like I moved up a notch in
the show business.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
A little Yeah, Before this, I thought it's Jeff.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Now it's Jeff.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
I know, how do I handle all this newfound up.
I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
It's awesome.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I'm so happy for you, my friend.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I think the answer is what you do is walk
your dog, and you know, you pick up the poop,
still pick up the poop, because, by the way, I
think we're all kind of late in life after not
having a dog. Dog people. The pandemic has done that
to all of us, which is good, keeps you humble.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
It definitely humanized me in that I know I'm a
human who loves dogs, and not only that, wrote a
show that is largely about my dogs. So really, a
big chunk of this is about my dogs, a big,
big chunk of it. And it's not something my sister
she she just can't. She's mad at me almost because
(30:47):
I used to say to her for the last thirty years,
how can you get a dog? You're just you know,
I'm allergic, you know, I'm afraid. You just don't want
me to visit. So now you got a dog. And
now she's looking at me like you as so now
you got a dog. You gave me prap for so
many years not having a dog, and you know, I
love my dog so much, and and you know, hearing
(31:10):
other people's dog stories, you know you might think that
dog would be a boring I love it seven your
dog stories.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Well, by the way, you should tour. You should tour
the show and do a dog night like bring your
dog if you could do it, like the Hollywood Bowl
live at the Hollywood Bowl with you. They do that
at Dodger Stadium once a season.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Here's the only David that's hilarious. Here's the only caveat
So you know Broadway it's very buttoned up. And you
know I have a dog trainer, Bill who trained Sandy
for the original Annie, right, you know, and he was
around in the seventy when I was first learning Broadway.
So my dog comes out at the end for a
(31:50):
curtain call, kind of like Sandy doesn't Annie. And the
stage manager comes up to my dressing room and she says,
just letting you know, there's a service animal in the
third row.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So hold on, Jeff, just tell the story. But we
have Brad Paisley who wanted to see your show on
the speakerphone. It's with Jeff Ross.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Hey, Joe, Hey, bub Brad, Paisley, I got a seat
aside for you there, Row one thirty eight, double j
I already got the middle behind the bathrooms.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I got you that cowboy hat will block someone's very
very expensive view.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
I love you, Paisley, Love you buddy.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
All right, he said, he said, he said his love.
I'll call you from the airport. Thank you. H there
he is, so Yes, that was.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I guess what I was saying. What I was saying
was there was a service animal in the audience. That's
the one time they were like, your dog might get
distracted during the curtain call because there's another dog there.
But she handled it very well. Hit her mark and
those are lines better than I.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Holy cow, that's so nice. That's really great.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, Jeff, have a good show tonight, my friend.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Thank you guys.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Thank the rest of the run.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
And if I can't catch you in New York, I
have a feeling we're going to see you on the road.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I have a feeling I might have to keep doing it. Yes,
I think you're right, and maybe we'll be in the
same city at the same time when you're doing your Q.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
And as the people demand it of you.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That'd be quite a double bill. Would you open for
Jeff Ross? I would do anything for Jeff Ross.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
It means so much that you guys help me get
the word out today. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh no, We're so happy for you. And I hope,
I hope I'll see you soon. I will. I'll let
you know. I'll pay for the ticket, but I will
let you know if I'm there.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Drop this podcast net episode soon and I'll owe you
wild I owe.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
You got it, buddy? Great?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
All right, thank you so much, Thanks guys, Lots of love,
same mayor.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Cella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend. But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
We like five stars.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch. A lucky
Bastard's production
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