August 1, 2025 • 9 mins
In part 2 we discuss his new movie Guns and Moses, set for wider release in September (2025), plus his early influences in comedy, the story behind Stephen Colbert and the message Hollywood needs to hear in order to thrive: "we want more sex-appeal and more laughter."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
All right, we're talking with Salvador Ludvik.
He's a humorist by trade. He's got a he's also a director,
filmmaker and author. He's got a best selling book on
Amazon all about Jewish jokes, you know, and I think that's
kind of cool. He's he's back.
We're talking about comedy in general, the state of comedy in
our country. Sydney Sweeney, all of it.
And your movie sounds wonderful.Continue on please.
(00:30):
When will it be out? When can we see a guns?
Guns and Moses. You know, it's funny what's
happened to us. It came out on July 18th.
We're an independent film, so wewere supposed to get 300 screens
and we ended up getting only 77 because of what's going on this
summer. You know, used to be that when a
movie from Hollywood open wide, they would do 2000 screens.
(00:53):
Now it's 3 and 4000 screens and usually they do crap.
Last year, you know, they just, they did so poorly because they
were so woke. Well this summer they seem to
woken up a little bit in Hollywood and they're just
making movies that are for everybody and people are back to
the movies and going. So that made it so hard for us
(01:15):
to get screens because you know what happens when they get 4000
screens is Superman, F1, Jurassic Park.
They're not just in every Multiplex, they're like two or
three screens in every Multiplex.
Makes it hard for the independence like us.
But we came out, we did good numbers.
People want to see the movie. And so I I can't say exactly how
(01:35):
it's going to happen yet becauseit's going to be announced next
week. But in September we're going to
be in a lot more theaters. Thank God because it's popular
demand. People want guns and Moses and
they could see the trailer at Guns and Moses movie.com and
it's going to be in a theater near you.
Thank God in September. So I'm going to go.
Updates there. I will go exactly when and
(01:56):
where, yeah. I will go in support of you.
Tell me about your comic influences growing up.
Who are who are some of your favorites and why?
You know I love George Carlin when we were kids, that the
seven words you can't say on TV.We love that.
Listen to that album class all the time.
Yeah, he was also very wise. That was the thing.
(02:18):
He was very, I mean, I still play some of his stuff here
that's relevant to today. All this stuff about, you know,
vaccines and the climate and allthis stuff.
I mean, he was spot on, smart man.
He got bitter at the end, yeah. Yeah, he got bitter.
But. But the thing about comedians
then is they they made fun of everybody.
(02:38):
You know, they didn't limit themselves to one side of the
political aisle. It wasn't that, you know, there
was permitted comedy and unpermitted comedy and it just
went after everybody. That was so much fun.
And you had like. Go ahead.
Yeah, I was going to say it's interesting that you talk about
that because one of the criticism that Stephen Colbert
(02:58):
and some of these other guys is that they they broke the Johnny
Carson rule by by segmenting theaudience and and going after one
political side. And it is literally true that
nobody ever knew what Johnny Carson's politics were.
And there was a good reason for that.
And save with David Letterman, although you could almost sense
a little bit of a left approach,but it really got bad.
(03:21):
Why did they allow that to happen?
And and tell us about this wholecontroversy surrounding Stephen
Colbert and why he's getting fired.
Well, because the mainstream media just started moving in
lockstep. And so all the people who run
that business, who attend the same cocktail parties and have
the same approved views, you know, and, and anybody who was a
(03:41):
conservative in that world wouldhave to keep his mouth shut if
you want to keep his job. And so in their echo chamber,
they came to believe that all decent, wise and intelligent
people must think the same way they do.
And therefore, the way they're going to succeed with late night
comedy is just to, you know, be the poking fun at Trump Network
(04:02):
all the time. And all of them, we're doing the
same thing. And, you know, OK, so for half
the audience, that was pretty funny for a while.
But eventually, like, that's a pretty limited topic of comedy.
And certainly you've alienated half the audience.
So already you're competing in aworld against, you know, the
phones. Everybody's on their phone.
(04:22):
They're not watching so much TV anymore.
These young people, they don't even have cable TV.
They've cut the cord and so it just got less and less audience
that they're competing for. And so who was the top guy?
Colbert, right. They keep telling us, well, they
cancelled him. He was the number one show.
He's the number one show. And it's such a limited overall
numbers. It's not like when it was
(04:44):
Letterman and Johnny Carson and Jay and Jay Leno.
Like there's much more audience for fewer channels now.
These guys are competing for eyeballs and much fewer overall
eyeballs. And yet, because he was the
number one guy, they were payinghim like the show was getting
$40 million a year, staff of 200wasn't paying for itself.
(05:05):
And they're finally just said enough.
You know, I'm sure what's going to replace him is going to be
some young person who's genuinely funny, edgy, doing
something that we haven't seen before in late night television,
and it's going to cost them a lot less.
That's good business. Now, do you think that they'll
run the risk of maybe finding somebody like a Greg Gutfeld,
somebody who's has sort of an appeal to the right, like a
(05:27):
Peter Holmes or somebody like that?
Jim, let's not go crazy. I guess so, right?
A man can dream a. Man can dream.
I'm not sure I would like that, though.
That's the whole point, is it? You know, like Greg Gutfeld, I
don't think he's funny, but he appeals to the right and they
don't have anybody up there thatrepresents their point of view.
(05:48):
I think the guy, I think the guyon his show, Tyrese, he's
genuinely funny and they're doing viewpoints that you don't
see anywhere else. So absolutely everybody's over
there and having fun. And I, I, I suspect whoever they
bring will be just centrist, youknow that I think everybody's
going much back, you know, a little bit or more than a little
(06:09):
bit back to center. And that's good because at the
center, how are you going to stand out?
You can't just make fun of the other side and get ratings
without being funny. You're going to have to be
genuinely funny. I mean, I think what's generally
going on in America is that we're getting back to the idea
of a meritocracy, thank God. Because if we keep promoting,
(06:30):
you know, people who are incompetent and they keep rising
through the ranks because nobodywants them in their department,
they can't fire them unless they'd be racist.
So you promote them, and then pretty soon the lunatics are
running the asylum, and then youhave lots of businesses failing
for that reason. But I think that now we're
starting to say, you know, America needs to be competitive
in the world and we need competent people running
(06:51):
businesses. I was just listening on the
radio before you and I got together about, remember all the
doom Sayers saying that these tariffs, that Trump's idea of
tariffs is going to kill Americaand clode the economy, doom and
Armageddon. And lo and behold, already just
six months into it, it's going great.
(07:11):
We're making deals everywhere. American businesses come back to
America. It's like it's going great.
Cindy Sweeney has a hot new video out sponsored by DID.
You see the did you see the statement?
I mean it was a parody statement, but the the parody.
(07:32):
Statement I did. It was pretty.
Funny by American Eagle, Yeah. It was pretty funny, actually.
How? Big our boobs would.
Be Yeah, I played it 15 times. That's how much I enjoyed it.
And, and and let's get back to that because we're talking with
Salvador Ludvack. He's not director or producer of
the name. Did you direct it as well my?
Wife and I wrote it and I directed.
(07:53):
It how exciting that must be funfor you.
I can't wait to see it guns and Moses.
But what about I mean, I think that the the signal is clear.
We want more sex. We want more sex appeal and we
we don't want Disney querying everything up for us.
I think that's really the take away from Sidney Sweeney.
Yeah, apparently sex cells in America, and thank God.
(08:15):
Who would have thought, you know?
Who would have thought? I'll say one more thing.
You know, we do have a problem in America is that people are
not having enough kids, especially married people are
not having enough kids. We don't we don't have a
replacement rate for our population.
So I think, you know, hot sex within marriage, I'm all for it.
Yeah, so is God. Yeah, otherwise we're going to
(08:36):
end up in a children, children of men scenario where, you know
what, if we become infertile andwe can't have kids, then we'll
all be dressing up our dogs and cats as humans.
Anyway, it's really nice hangingout with you and I'm going to go
see your movie Guns and Moses. What's the name of the book
again that's selling? Let my.
People laugh, Let my people laugh, let my people laugh.
(09:00):
They could just find it on Amazon very easy.
Let my people laugh. And then when it makes you
laugh, please put a rating, a five star rating because that
helps you sell more books. I appreciate that very much.
I think David Chappelle is the best comic right now.
Who do you think is right now? Who is your favorite right now?
I like him because he's fearless.
He could care less what people think and he'll go there.
(09:20):
Yes, and he's not always going for the laugh.
I mean, he's kind of a philosopher as well as a
comedian. So yeah, I like him a lot.
You know, I haven't been to a comedy club in a while.
Having this conversation with you.
I'm thinking my wife and I need to go to a comedy club.
See what's out there. Yeah.
All right. Well, Sal, thank you so much for
spending time with me today and I look forward to having you
back on again real soon, OK?
All right, we're talking with Salvador Ludvik.
He's a humorist by trade. He's got a he's also a director,
filmmaker and author. He's got a best selling book on
Amazon all about Jewish jokes, you know, and I think that's
kind of cool. He's he's back.
We're talking about comedy in general, the state of comedy in
our country. Sydney Sweeney, all of it.
And your movie sounds wonderful.Continue on please.
(00:30):
When will it be out? When can we see a guns?
Guns and Moses. You know, it's funny what's
happened to us. It came out on July 18th.
We're an independent film, so wewere supposed to get 300 screens
and we ended up getting only 77 because of what's going on this
summer. You know, used to be that when a
movie from Hollywood open wide, they would do 2000 screens.
(00:53):
Now it's 3 and 4000 screens and usually they do crap.
Last year, you know, they just, they did so poorly because they
were so woke. Well this summer they seem to
woken up a little bit in Hollywood and they're just
making movies that are for everybody and people are back to
the movies and going. So that made it so hard for us
(01:15):
to get screens because you know what happens when they get 4000
screens is Superman, F1, Jurassic Park.
They're not just in every Multiplex, they're like two or
three screens in every Multiplex.
Makes it hard for the independence like us.
But we came out, we did good numbers.
People want to see the movie. And so I I can't say exactly how
(01:35):
it's going to happen yet becauseit's going to be announced next
week. But in September we're going to
be in a lot more theaters. Thank God because it's popular
demand. People want guns and Moses and
they could see the trailer at Guns and Moses movie.com and
it's going to be in a theater near you.
Thank God in September. So I'm going to go.
Updates there. I will go exactly when and
(01:56):
where, yeah. I will go in support of you.
Tell me about your comic influences growing up.
Who are who are some of your favorites and why?
You know I love George Carlin when we were kids, that the
seven words you can't say on TV.We love that.
Listen to that album class all the time.
Yeah, he was also very wise. That was the thing.
(02:18):
He was very, I mean, I still play some of his stuff here
that's relevant to today. All this stuff about, you know,
vaccines and the climate and allthis stuff.
I mean, he was spot on, smart man.
He got bitter at the end, yeah. Yeah, he got bitter.
But. But the thing about comedians
then is they they made fun of everybody.
(02:38):
You know, they didn't limit themselves to one side of the
political aisle. It wasn't that, you know, there
was permitted comedy and unpermitted comedy and it just
went after everybody. That was so much fun.
And you had like. Go ahead.
Yeah, I was going to say it's interesting that you talk about
that because one of the criticism that Stephen Colbert
(02:58):
and some of these other guys is that they they broke the Johnny
Carson rule by by segmenting theaudience and and going after one
political side. And it is literally true that
nobody ever knew what Johnny Carson's politics were.
And there was a good reason for that.
And save with David Letterman, although you could almost sense
a little bit of a left approach,but it really got bad.
(03:21):
Why did they allow that to happen?
And and tell us about this wholecontroversy surrounding Stephen
Colbert and why he's getting fired.
Well, because the mainstream media just started moving in
lockstep. And so all the people who run
that business, who attend the same cocktail parties and have
the same approved views, you know, and, and anybody who was a
(03:41):
conservative in that world wouldhave to keep his mouth shut if
you want to keep his job. And so in their echo chamber,
they came to believe that all decent, wise and intelligent
people must think the same way they do.
And therefore, the way they're going to succeed with late night
comedy is just to, you know, be the poking fun at Trump Network
(04:02):
all the time. And all of them, we're doing the
same thing. And, you know, OK, so for half
the audience, that was pretty funny for a while.
But eventually, like, that's a pretty limited topic of comedy.
And certainly you've alienated half the audience.
So already you're competing in aworld against, you know, the
phones. Everybody's on their phone.
(04:22):
They're not watching so much TV anymore.
These young people, they don't even have cable TV.
They've cut the cord and so it just got less and less audience
that they're competing for. And so who was the top guy?
Colbert, right. They keep telling us, well, they
cancelled him. He was the number one show.
He's the number one show. And it's such a limited overall
numbers. It's not like when it was
(04:44):
Letterman and Johnny Carson and Jay and Jay Leno.
Like there's much more audience for fewer channels now.
These guys are competing for eyeballs and much fewer overall
eyeballs. And yet, because he was the
number one guy, they were payinghim like the show was getting
$40 million a year, staff of 200wasn't paying for itself.
(05:05):
And they're finally just said enough.
You know, I'm sure what's going to replace him is going to be
some young person who's genuinely funny, edgy, doing
something that we haven't seen before in late night television,
and it's going to cost them a lot less.
That's good business. Now, do you think that they'll
run the risk of maybe finding somebody like a Greg Gutfeld,
somebody who's has sort of an appeal to the right, like a
(05:27):
Peter Holmes or somebody like that?
Jim, let's not go crazy. I guess so, right?
A man can dream a. Man can dream.
I'm not sure I would like that, though.
That's the whole point, is it? You know, like Greg Gutfeld, I
don't think he's funny, but he appeals to the right and they
don't have anybody up there thatrepresents their point of view.
(05:48):
I think the guy, I think the guyon his show, Tyrese, he's
genuinely funny and they're doing viewpoints that you don't
see anywhere else. So absolutely everybody's over
there and having fun. And I, I, I suspect whoever they
bring will be just centrist, youknow that I think everybody's
going much back, you know, a little bit or more than a little
(06:09):
bit back to center. And that's good because at the
center, how are you going to stand out?
You can't just make fun of the other side and get ratings
without being funny. You're going to have to be
genuinely funny. I mean, I think what's generally
going on in America is that we're getting back to the idea
of a meritocracy, thank God. Because if we keep promoting,
(06:30):
you know, people who are incompetent and they keep rising
through the ranks because nobodywants them in their department,
they can't fire them unless they'd be racist.
So you promote them, and then pretty soon the lunatics are
running the asylum, and then youhave lots of businesses failing
for that reason. But I think that now we're
starting to say, you know, America needs to be competitive
in the world and we need competent people running
(06:51):
businesses. I was just listening on the
radio before you and I got together about, remember all the
doom Sayers saying that these tariffs, that Trump's idea of
tariffs is going to kill Americaand clode the economy, doom and
Armageddon. And lo and behold, already just
six months into it, it's going great.
(07:11):
We're making deals everywhere. American businesses come back to
America. It's like it's going great.
Cindy Sweeney has a hot new video out sponsored by DID.
You see the did you see the statement?
I mean it was a parody statement, but the the parody.
(07:32):
Statement I did. It was pretty.
Funny by American Eagle, Yeah. It was pretty funny, actually.
How? Big our boobs would.
Be Yeah, I played it 15 times. That's how much I enjoyed it.
And, and and let's get back to that because we're talking with
Salvador Ludvack. He's not director or producer of
the name. Did you direct it as well my?
Wife and I wrote it and I directed.
(07:53):
It how exciting that must be funfor you.
I can't wait to see it guns and Moses.
But what about I mean, I think that the the signal is clear.
We want more sex. We want more sex appeal and we
we don't want Disney querying everything up for us.
I think that's really the take away from Sidney Sweeney.
Yeah, apparently sex cells in America, and thank God.
(08:15):
Who would have thought, you know?
Who would have thought? I'll say one more thing.
You know, we do have a problem in America is that people are
not having enough kids, especially married people are
not having enough kids. We don't we don't have a
replacement rate for our population.
So I think, you know, hot sex within marriage, I'm all for it.
Yeah, so is God. Yeah, otherwise we're going to
(08:36):
end up in a children, children of men scenario where, you know
what, if we become infertile andwe can't have kids, then we'll
all be dressing up our dogs and cats as humans.
Anyway, it's really nice hangingout with you and I'm going to go
see your movie Guns and Moses. What's the name of the book
again that's selling? Let my.
People laugh, Let my people laugh, let my people laugh.
(09:00):
They could just find it on Amazon very easy.
Let my people laugh. And then when it makes you
laugh, please put a rating, a five star rating because that
helps you sell more books. I appreciate that very much.
I think David Chappelle is the best comic right now.
Who do you think is right now? Who is your favorite right now?
I like him because he's fearless.
He could care less what people think and he'll go there.
(09:20):
Yes, and he's not always going for the laugh.
I mean, he's kind of a philosopher as well as a
comedian. So yeah, I like him a lot.
You know, I haven't been to a comedy club in a while.
Having this conversation with you.
I'm thinking my wife and I need to go to a comedy club.
See what's out there. Yeah.
All right. Well, Sal, thank you so much for
spending time with me today and I look forward to having you
back on again real soon, OK?
Host
JIM WATKINS
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