Ray Romano | Club Random with Bill Maher

Bill Maher
We took it all. We brought them to our land. An endless night. Amber hot and icy cold. The rage of the earth.

We made this curse, carved it in the blood on our backs. We did not see. We could not. But she did. And in the end, what will I become?

Ray Romano
Senwa saga hellblade two. Play it now with game. Pass. My book is out now. It's called what this comedian said will shock you.

Bill Maher
And it's available now anywhere you get your books. The one thing I miss is going up in a room full of strangers and winning that audience over. That's the thing I hated the most. I would get a student loan. I would register, and my parents thought I was going to college, and I would leave the house and never go.

Club random. Is this a gift already? Well, you know, it's like when the husband gives a wife lingerie. Who's the gift really for? Exactly.

It's my book. Yes, yes, I know. I know the book. I want to show you what I wrote to you because I feel like it's so apropos for. Oh, it is a gift.

Ray Romano
Oh, I thought you were using it to plug. Hooray. The lifelong friend. I'm just getting to know. I feel like that's where we are.

Bill Maher
Right? Appreciate it. Yeah. Alternative universe. We've actually spent thousands of hours together, and we enjoyed every minute of it, but there just wasn't time on this earth.

Ray Romano
But how did we. We just missed each other. Coming up, I guess. Cause you were at the improv, right? We were like Captain Tuttle on Mashed.

Bill Maher
You remember that episode where the captain, he just left there. Never. Really? No, they never. Made Frank Burns go mad, thinking he constantly dismissed him.

Ray Romano
But were you, did you, was your first place the improv? Improv? La. Oh, oh, I was. I mean, I did work the improv in New York.

Oh, so you didn't start, you started out here? No. What, New York? So the improv was your home club? Was it a place where you really.

Bill Maher
Was catcherizing star improv? But, you know, when you got, what years? When you got to be a big act, you got to work all three clubs, the comic strip improv, you know. Yeah. And then the seller, too.

And then the seller. Yeah, but what years? What years were there? 1979 to 1982. That's exactly.

Ray Romano
And I started in 83. Like 83. Captain Tuttle. Yeah, I'm telling you, I started 83, and then I quit for a while and then started again. Yeah.

Bill Maher
You quit? I had two tries at it. You know, I started once. The first time ever on stage was the improv ever. And I did well.

Ray Romano
Did you do well the first time? That kind of tends to be the. Of course not. How could you do well the first time? Because it's audition night and the crowd is very generous, and, I don't know, it was.

That seemed to be the way it went. That's not my memory. Well, it was terrible. I was you, you know, gasping for the oxygen of laughter. Rudely awakened to the fact that making my friends laugh was a whole different animal than making a room strangers laugh.

Bill Maher
I did obviously get enough laughs to. Get asked back, but I had the horrible experience the second time I went on stage. So I had the false hope that, oh, this is easy. And then I was rudely awakened. Well, you must have been if you actually quit.

I mean, when you quit. Yeah, I quit. It scared me so much. And then I tried again, and I quit again. And then the third time is when I said, I gotta give it a shot.

So you quit and did what? I was. I mean, I did a lot of everything, but at the time that I started working as a stand up, I was delivering futons in New York for my friend. And you went back to that? I don't even think I was doing it then.

Ray Romano
When I was 23, I wasn't doing anything. I was going to college. Dropping out of college. That's how painful stand up can be when you're not good at it. It can make you go back to delivering coupons.

Bill Maher
Right. It could make you quit. Yeah. As exhilarating as the first night was, that's how equally horrible the second night was. Right.

Ray Romano
And, yeah, it scared me into. It's an amazing phenomenon that people. Well, first of all, just that a human being would want to, like, take the mood of a whole room of people, or a thousand people, or sometimes 25,000 people. Music, 50,000 people. And put that on your one back.

Bill Maher
That alone is a little weird to want to do. And then to endure that kind of apprenticeship. I mean, every industry has a type of apprenticeship. You're a computer program. You're working, you're learning the computer.

It's not humiliating, learning the computer. It can be frustrating or you wish you were going faster or slower or something, but it's not. But we like rank humiliation. I mean, real. Yeah, that's the hardest part.

Ego crushing. That's what I tell. There's always young guys who kind of ask me about what's the best path or whatever. Sure, Ray, you're a big star. You're worth hundreds of millions in your big shows and movies and acting career.

Ray Romano
And what's your favorite for stand up? Royalty. Give us your advice, Ray. Can I call you Ray, or should I mister Romano? Hold forth.

Who are you? Are you mocking me or them? I'm mocking that whole syndrome that we've all lived through a million times where there was. I remember not to blame him for it. He was good at it.

Bill Maher
But, Lena, when we started, he was a little older than us comics who had started and was doing better, and he would, he had smoked a pipe back then, and he would occasionally hold forth. But I've seen Rodney do it and, you know. Do what? Like hold court? Well, yes.

The young comics gather around and they want wisdom from the elders. By the way, I'm not saying I ever offered it. I'm talking about kids. When guys ask me, I don't say. I don't say, I know what they asked me to.

I'm just saying it's how you handle it. You know what? Something about the whole syndrome just creeps me out. I heard Seinfeld give one of the best pieces of advice to. I don't know what it was, but he said someone was asking him, how do you make money in comedy in stand up?

Ray Romano
And he said, the way to make money in stand up is to not care about making money. Yeah, that's like Elaine May's famous dictum, the only safe thing is to take chances. Right? That's show business. Yeah.

But I think also what he was saying was, just do it. You got to do it and get better at it. Feel like you lived up to that. The only safe thing is to take chances.

In some things. In other things, I'm the. I'm the. But, like, you could have done a reboot of Raymond for $12 trillion or something, I'm sure. And you didn't.

Bill Maher
You didn't. You didn't bite it, that fat piece of bait. No, because I knew it wouldn't be good. It wouldn't be okay. But that's taking chances.

Instead of just playing it safe, playing. It safe would be doing it. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to be fair, the money wasn't going to entice me anyway.

Ray Romano
I mean, yes, the money's good, but I'm well aware I don't make choices right now for financial reasons, because it. All came out in the wash for us, didn't it? We were very. We're, like, so lucky, because when you think about the old days and how many people you started with, I always compare it to the army. Like a lot of guys got shot.

I know. And, you know, a few guys and guys. You thought, there's so many guys. I thought, right, this guy's gonna be a star and did better than me. Certainly, I can't speak for you, but in the clubs.

Yeah. The guys I didn't want to follow. Right. Yes, but see, that's the thing. Tv's a cool medium.

Bill Maher
This was the advice I learned almost as a child. Not as a child, but certainly as a teenager when I was thinking about going into comedy, I was very attuned to this shit. And I remember knowing that message. It was Marshall McLuhan, who I guess my mother was interested in. I think he was also on tv.

He's famously in Annie hall when Woody Allen is online for a movie member and he's with the girl. And he wishes that somebody could come along and straighten out whoever he's arguing with. And Marshall McLuhan, because he was thought of as, like, a very smart guy at the time. And that was his big message, you know, cool medium. And tv is a cool medium.

Your people are watching you in a different setting than they are in a nightclub. That energy that blows people away in a small room does not permeate the screen. So people like us. Dull plotting. We do much better.

No, but we're not like. No, you're right. Because there are character stand up acts that would tear the house down. I mean, and to try to find them a sitcom or whatever, they never panned out. I probably have told this, but there was a guy, it's not that I won't say his name.

I just can't remember at the moment. But he did this thing with puppets. But, I mean, he would. Yes. No one could follow him.

I certainly could. And he did close the shows. I remember certain clubs were opening and he was getting, like, the toppest dollar that they were paying 2000 a week. And the closing was he would put hand puppets and then they would pipe in the Rolling Stone, start me up. And the puppet would.

I guess it was a Mick Jagger puppet. And I was in the back of the room thinking, man, I gotta get glasses. There's something in this I must be missing. The people are going fucking apeshit for this. And then, you know, no, it wasn't the glasses.

I just. I didn't understand. Do you think that act would work now? Like, I look at the guys who were character stand ups and I wonder if they would go over it in today's audience. Well, Mick Jagger's 80 now.

What's the best premise to, like, energize the crowd with. Although I hear that I've heard from number of people, the Rolling Stones. He is 80 and they say the show is fantastic. And he especially is just like, as he ever was. Yeah, I have to go.

Ray Romano
I've never seen him live. And my wife wants to go, too. Yeah, yeah. You should definitely go. I've seen them like four or five times.

I'm not a concert going guy.

The first concert I went to, I'll tell you, it was John Denver. And opening for him was the Star land vocal band. Do you remember that? I certainly know that. Afternoon delights.

Bill Maher
Yes. From Anchorman. Yes. When they sing an anchorman afternoon.

Ray Romano
But then I saw Chicago once. It. Chicago was like my favorite band growing up. What a band. They're still one of my favorite bands.

Right. But, you know, they change from the seventies and in the eighties and nineties, they got more softer and pop, you know. Yeah, yes, that's true. That's true. But they had, you know, I don't know how much you know about Terry Cath, their lead guitarist, who, who Hendricks said was better than him.

Bill Maher
Wow. And he. But he tragically accidentally shot himself when he was. Oh, no. Yeah, 29 maybe.

Oh. Oh, he's. He was unbelievable. You should watch. There's a YouTube video, 25 or six through four of them live in the seventies.

Ray Romano
That's unbelievable. That sure doesn't make me smile. Yeah. Terrible. And the Beatles, we have that in common.

Bill Maher
Yes. Yeah. But Chicago, like, man, they're. You're right. When they were a rock band with a horn section.

Ray Romano
Yes, yes. And as a kid, well, you know, 13 or whatever, I was, horns were sort of like something from my father's era, more so you like, it had to be really hot for me to like it. Right. And they hit it. Yeah.

Bill Maher
There was another band, blood, sweat and tears. Blood, sweat and tears. Yeah. That also had a horn section. Yeah, yeah.

They certainly didn't go to where? Chicago. They're still playing kind of Chicago. I mean, some of their guys are still there. I remember when they were inaugurated into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame and my friend Rob Thomas did it.

Ray Romano
Yeah. From match March 20 and this great solo stuff. Yeah. And, you know, he kind of acknowledged that. They said something about like, you know, oh, they're your mom's band.

Bill Maher
And, you know, he was just like, hey, if that's your mom's band, I want to hang out with your mom. He wasn't saying it. He was saying he was when he inducted them, you know, he was, he was putting down people who said that they were, you know, soft or. Well, yeah, because they don't remember. They don't know their early stuff, where it was.

Ray Romano
So. So I think. I mean, that's their most famous stuff. I mean, Saturday in the park. Saturday in the park.

I put it in my mouth. Ellen. Stronger every day was the song that got me through my high school breakup. Really? I'm not kidding.

You only had one high school breakup? I only had one girl. Yeah. I mean, that one. I mean, it was amazing.

Bill Maher
I got one. And then, you know, she broke my heart in a million pieces. Which it was deserved. I'm not gonna say it wasn't. But being young is so much harder than being old.

Ray Romano
Yeah. If you have your health. If not, then it sucks even more being old. But you put yourself in such pain with your stupidity. And you're just the old.

Bill Maher
If I only knew then what I know now. You could spare yourself. But I went through that. That was at least a year where every day was a knot in my stomach from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. Because of the girl?

Yeah, because it was just like, how do I get her back? And I can't. Because, you know, once you turn off the pilot light, I always say it cannot be reignited in a woman. You can make it go low, but if you turn the pilot light off, it will never go back on. And then you just.

You are less attractive as a beggar, which is what you become. A supplicant. You're like Oliver Twist. A little more, please. How long did you date her for?

Like a year and a half. Like, sophomore year, was she. I was a junior. She was a sophomore. It was my first date.

Taking a bus to the mall in January in freezing cold weather to see a movie and, like, being 17, like, we all, like, get a little complacent. But as we mature, we become self aware of it and fight. Like, letting on that we're maybe not as thrilled as we used to be. You were complacent with, what, say, your relationship? Oh, you know, after what's gone on for a year and a half or whatever it was.

Ray Romano
Yeah. You know, I just was kind of. I don't know. I think I was dickish about something. I still were into her big.

Bill Maher
You know. I guess I was. The interest was waning, but once she dumped me, it was just about my ego. And, you know, then it's just, you realize that it's not really about the person so much when you really go through that kind of hard. It's a lot about your ego or your sense of survival.

Like, oh, it's a blow. It's just a blow to an emotional part of you. So then I was just beside myself and that song, feeling stronger every day. When that came on, it was the summer, I guess, of 74, and it had been a year or so, and it really helped me. That was kind of the beginning of their more poppy kind of period, but.

It still had that great hornshow. That's a good rock song. Yeah. Please don't ever say anything bad about Felix. No, it's a good song.

Ray Romano
It's a good song. They had great songs in there. Just you and me, you know? Yeah. Hell of my world was how.

Bill Maher
My world was my prom song, which I didn't go to. But that was the song they played at the prom. That was earlier. That was earlier. That was on their early albums.

What's important is that I was feeling stronger every day. Ray, who is that? So who is your number? Is your number one group the Beatles? Yes.

I feel like they're always the primus into Paris on the Mount Olympus of musicians and rock and roll. And, I mean, everything they did first. Everything, like music videos, like things you don't even think of certain instruments, sound, whatever stadiums. Did you. Cause you played the mirage, too.

Ray Romano
When I was playing it, did you go to love? Absolutely. I would go. I've been there like, twelve times. Twelve times?

Well, because I played the mirage for over, I know, 20 years. So every once they change it up. So if I was. But aren't you performing when that show. My show was at ten.

Wasn't your show at ten? Mine now at the MGM grand, it's at. No, I know that nine. But at the mirage, when it was at the. You were at the mirage?

Bill Maher
It was. It was late. Yes, it was at ten. So you could go see the other. Walk in the back and it's.

Right. Same building. Yeah, it's in the mirage. Yeah. I should have done that.

But I did see it. Oh, yeah. I would. I would tear up sometimes. Just sitting there.

Ray Romano
I used to, like, look. Sitting there and just. I used to like looking at the people and just seeing, like, when a song would come on, they just. They just had to. Had to get into it and move, you know, how it would affect them.

Bill Maher
Oh, yeah. And it was just nostalgic. Well, the sound system. Yeah, yeah. Is amazing.

And then you have, like, midgets on tricycles. What isn't that. What is that? My recollection, that's for strawberry fields or Lucy in the sky. Okay.

I mean, I remember it was. It was. I love Cirque. It was Cirque du Soleil. You know what the best one was?

Oh, I didn't see. You know, I never saw. That's the one that's on water. Yeah. And, you know, there's little people flying all around.

They're over your head. They're just amazing. And they do amazing stunts and. But the water and the. It's those shows.

Vegas, you know, I was just in Atlantic City. I'm sure you play Atlantic City and you're a big. I did play, but I haven't played there in a long time. Really? Why?

Ray Romano
Where do you play? I don't know. It was at the Borgata. Well, I mean, I live here now, so, I mean, yeah, it's kind of road gig. Yeah, but a road gig for me is Vegas.

I don't. I don't do. Oh, look at you. Well, I don't. I let them come to see you.

Bill Maher
Right? Let them come to you. I just did my first corporate gig in like 15 years. Oh, I can't do corporate. Yeah, I've.

Ray Romano
I know, but it was. It was in Vegas. That's why I did it. They all think the cor and I got offered crazy money. Yeah, I know.

Bill Maher
And it's not worth it because, see, they think, oh, we're hip. We're gonna love him. Because the person in charge of the entertainment committee is a big fan. But it's 2000 lawyers or some shit. You know, very often they're not that.

Ray Romano
And it's also a crapshoot to set up. What's it look like? How big is it? But I mean, I feel like you could do this easily. You're not.

Bill Maher
You're not gonna. You can not offend a corporation. I cannot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna.

I mean, I'm an atheist and all this stuff. Yeah, but you just do. You do what, mister Salty? You do. I.

Mister Salty. That's from like. Oh, my God, I do. Fuck you, mister Salty. I hadn't thought of that.

Ray Romano
I remember that, mister. You're right. That was one of my big jokes. I can't. I would.

That Mister timely. That's still. That's still timely today in this. In this. That was age of low sodium.

You got to give them credit. They're like, there's a few years of my life where that was very important to me. That Mister Salty joke. It was one of my biggest jokes. And now I can't even remember what.

The joke was, it was, you got to give. I roughly remember it. You got to give Mister Salty the people of Mister Salty credit. Because in this age of health and low sodium, they're like, fuck you, Mister Salty.

They're not changing the name.

It's kind of like Seinfeld's. You gotta give the chinese credit. They're sticking with the chopsticks. That's always. Yeah.

Bill Maher
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Ray Romano
I just gotta find a way to get my kids kids to watch you. No, they do. They don't have to. They're fans. They're fans.

Bill Maher
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Amber hot and icy cold, the rage of the earth. We made this curse, carved it in the world on our backs. We did not see. We could not. But she did.

And in the end, what will I become? Senwa saga hellblade two. Play it now with game pass. I did a corporate gig at the Bellagio just a month ago. Yeah.

You did? Yeah. First time in 20 years, man. I got out alive, you know? They alive.

Come on. No, no, no. But, you know, the conditions can be crazy. They can be. What are they.

Ray Romano
Are they eating now? Are they. This is it. In a convention center. That's true.

Bill Maher
I mean, those kind of crowds can be rough. I mean, I was at a charity event about ten years ago, and the Eagles, out of the goodness of their heart. It's a charity event. We're playing it, and they go on stage, and they had just put out an album. It was in its awesome album.

It was their album. They hadn't put out one and one in 28 years. And I think this is like, two. I guess this is like 2008, maybe seven. So they opened with a song, new song from the album.

So new, they didn't open with hotel California. And the crowd just. I mean, it was just like. It was a garage. They got restless, just restless, just completely ignoring it and talking.

And Henley was pissed. You could tell after. And I don't blame him. I very nearly stood up and just shouted, fucking shut up. It's the Eagles.

Ray Romano
Yeah. Really? Well, who were they? Who were the people? Lawyers?

Bill Maher
No, it was a charity for. Oh, it was a charity. It was a charity for. You know. Yeah.

That's why they were there. I was, you know, that's the thanks you get. One of the worst gigs I ever had, and I'm not. I don't want to trash the gig. Because it wasn't.

Ray Romano
It was the Gator growl. You ever do the fly? The Gator growl? Is this. I think I know what you're talking about.

Bill Maher
I heard about this gig. Yes. It's in the stadium. The Jacksonville. No, I think so.

What? It's the Gators. It's. See, I don't know. College football.

Ray Romano
Yeah. I don't know what that means. It's very big. It's very big. And in Florida, it must be like.

Bill Maher
I have heard of this gig. I avoided it. Like the play. Yeah. Well, I was.

Ray Romano
It was the second year of everybody loves Raymond, and so I was one of. And Chappelle was on it. Larry Cable guy was on it a couple of. And when I went up, there's, I guess, 20 or 30,000 people. You know, it's homecoming, so there's some parents, but mostly students.

And my stuff, I never did. I didn't do the college circuit a lot. No, me, neither. Yeah. And now it's unthinkable.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now it's just. I mean, you would be. Even you.

Well, you could. You would have. You would have half this way and half this way. Maybe I would be. First of all, they would protest before I even got on the campus.

Bill Maher
Half of it if they would. Some of them. I was uninvited when I was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Berkeley graduation and then re invited. But today. Are you kidding?

These kids, that would be the first thing they would do, is try to get me thrown. They don't want to hear anything they don't already agree with. They don't want their minds pried open. And you know what? Let somebody else do it.

Ray Romano
Yeah. Okay. I'll do it from my perch here in LA. I'll be a little white tower about this one. No, I could see where you.

Because you do speak about them a lot on your show, which is, you. Know, I don't do it because I have anything against people in their twenties. I probably spend more time with people in their twenties than most people my age do. But I love kids. I mean, there's a exuberance that you cannot quench.

Bill Maher
There's a love of life and of possibility, and it's all the things we know about youth. I'm not going to hold my tongue when they embrace stupid ideas. And, of course, then they'll just say, the tritest, easiest, most erroneous thing lobbed at people like us is you're old now. It's about. Just get off my lawn.

It's like, okay, so you put zero amount of thinking into the actual point I'm making. You didn't engage with the actual idea. If you did that, I would respect you. But when it's just like, you're older. Get off my lawn.

Oh, wow. You learned a cliche about age and you noticed I'm a lot older than you. But what about the idea? Am I right? Should we bring communism back?

Cause I think it's a bad idea. Maybe because I remember what happened the first time and you don't, and you don't care to learn, but somehow I'm the asshole. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have that issue when I do my stand up.

Ray Romano
But do you ever? Why? What do you mean? The kids. I don't talk about the things that you talk about.

Bill Maher
Yeah, no, but your stuff, obviously. Look, your stuff is universal. Oh, would. I still don't think I'd go over with a college crowd. I don't think that's why I didn't go over at the Gator growl.

Ray Romano
I don't think. Oh, so you didn't? No. This was 30 years ago, and I remember 30,000 people. And I remember after about five, three or four minutes, hearing a girl from about 10,000 people over, and I heard her voice go, you better start being funny.

Bill Maher
Oh.

Ray Romano
Yeah. That kind of shit. It was rough. That's rough. And that's not early in your career.

This is the. That's after you were a big success. Well, it wasn't. It was the second year of the tv show. Well, that's.

Bill Maher
To most people, having your own show is a big success. I mean, it wasn't the overall landmark it became, but it was a success. You know, it was like when I was on politically incorrect. It wasn't a giant, you know, but it was, you know, that's a success for when we started. That's our goal.

Ray Romano
Yeah, well, that's why they had me there. Yeah, but whatever. I remember we were supposed to spend the night there, and I told my manager was there, and I said, let's just go to the airport. And the airport was, like, 40 minutes away, so it must have been somewhere. But do you have.

And I said, let's just go. Let's just get out of here. Yeah. I didn't want to sleep in the town. I wanted to get.

We slept at the airport. I once did horribly on a gig I was not ready to do yet in 1980, in Cleveland, in a restaurant. In a restaurant. Did terribly, like, almost to the point of, you know, asked to leave almost asked to leave level bad, you know. Like in the middle of your.

Bill Maher
It did not work. It was a tough room. I was a real rookie. And it's just. And then the next day, wouldn't, you know, I get snowed in and I'm at the airport for 12 hours watching them like plow the Runway.

Just wanting to get this city off me, get home. Not that it's the city's fault, but just I wanted to get Cleveland off me, get home and take a shower. And I have to live with it for 12 hours. Did you ever do cruises? Cruise ships?

Oh, no, there's. I paid my dues, I can prove it. But that is a. I've had beer cans thrown at me opening for rock stars, but I will not do it. Cruise ship.

Ray Romano
Well then. Cause then you're with the audience for the next five days. And I only did it twice. And the second. 1st time went okay.

Second time they had, they said, we're gonna have late night comedy. Me and the other comedian were like, we did a regular show. And then they said, now it's late night comedy. The next night it was still us. It was still us.

And, and so of course it didn't go well. And I remember walking, you know, in a cruise ship, I was walking to my room and I'm, you know, this way, this way. And I hear the people, a couple. Well, where do they get these guys from? Where.

And they, they turn the corner and as I'm walking towards them, it's not wide enough to just walk by. We have to, we have to shimmy this way like our faces and I have to. And he just, he just insulted me. And I got like, was he aware that it was. Oh, yeah, it was me.

Yeah, it was only two comics. Wow. Now that. And then you're living on the boat with them for the next couple days. It's kind of like you do a show at a club or somewhere and.

Bill Maher
Right. You're just. The club is with you for the next two days. That's how ridiculous it is. Yeah.

And so, like, when you were, you're at the buffet, you would see people and did anybody, did anybody like come up to you at the buffet? No, I don't think. Hey, you were good last night. I think anyone. I don't.

Ray Romano
I probably stayed in the room for, instead lay low for a while. People think they're doing you a big favor. When they say I laughed, I was all like, fuck you. You know? So did lots of people.

You know what's funny is you think you're immune to that now at this point in your career. And basically, well, you kind of. For the most part, you are, because they're coming to see you now. Yes. But people can still.

Bill Maher
Damn. With faint praise. Yes. And we work so hard at what we do. Stand up, especially.

I've talked about with Jerry, you know, why I might stop doing it, at least for a while, just. Just like it's playing the cello. You have to practice 2 hours every day or whatever it is with the cello. And it's that kind of thing. And I love that.

And I have loved it. I will miss it if I don't do it. But, yeah, you got to be on it. Or, I mean.

Ray Romano
To do a show. To do a 1 hour show. Yes. You can't just. You know what?

Bill Maher
The more popular you are and the more the audience loves you. And yes, when you've been around as long as us, the people who come to see you really do love you. You just don't want to disappoint. No. You just want to give them what they want you to give them and give them the best version of it.

Ray Romano
But you know what? The thing that I miss. Cause I still like to. When I go to New York, I go to the cellar. Any night I can go.

I go. Really? You still play the old clubs? There's just the cellar. I do the seller.

Bill Maher
But still. That's amazing. I live eleven. I have an apartment. Eleven minutes.

Ray Romano
I can walk there. And it's. I get. I still get charged up. Yeah.

And I, you know, nobody knows you're there. And I do 20 minutes. You do 20. But, uh, when you like, you go up with a yellow legal pad and just from. No, because they're new stuff.

I do a couple new. I try a couple new things, but otherwise. Oh, you just do your regular act. Well, if I'm doing 20 minutes, yes, I will have a piece of paper with thoughts and ideas. I hope so.

Try this. Try this. Try this, try this. I don't have 20 minutes of it. I don't have 20.

Bill Maher
These people are getting you for a bargain basement price. The least you could do is try out new material on them. They don't care that they don't, but some of them don't. Most of them don't know the stuff. Even the older stuff.

Ray Romano
Not old, but. No, but I'm just saying I don't do anything. I did on my. The one special I did a couple years ago. I retired that material.

Bill Maher
That audience is there for you to use. That's a showcase club. That's different than a real club or a real theater. They're only paying, what, $5 to get in? Well, it's a little more than that.

Well, it was when I was there. Did you do the seller? Yes, I was talking to, I think it was Sandra Bernhardt, who was recently here. And I mentioned the funny night where I was so bad that when I left the MC, Bill Grundfest said, bad man went away. Oh, yeah, I remember hearing that.

Ray Romano
That wasn't Sandra because I listened to her yesterday. But it might have been Seinfeld. That's. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Again, another.

Oh, so you didn't go there, frequent it a lot? I did. There was a time when I remember because you were a big act, which is like, okay, my third year in comedy. Okay, you can work all the clubs and then you do because you're greedy. First of all, you want the stage time, but you also want the money, which was just basically like glorified cab fare.

Bill Maher
We're talking about 15, $20. But if you worked on the weekends where there was an early show and a late show, if you worked all the clubs, that would be six sets. I did that frequently. Me too. And of course, the sets were fine.

It was like you were getting into cabs. And I drove. I drove. I drove from Queens and I would. Pop to all the different gloves.

And where would you park? If I had to park by a hydrant, I'd park and run in. Right. Okay, well, see, that's better than what I did. Because you were always sweating getting to the next set.

Because you booked three sets in a two hour time. Yes, yes. And you just made it. And I did seven. My record was seven.

Ray Romano
I did seven. I remember running often from the cab to the stage. Like, you walk, you come into the club and they're like. They're waiting for you and they push you on. Yeah.

And your clubs with a strip, this catch and improv. Strip catch and then stand up New York. And then I remember doing comedy cellar, but that was, like, so far downtown that it was hard to get to the. Do you know what it's like now? The seller?

It's. It's because when I started, they were lucky to have an audience on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You know, they would have the staff sit there and you would have to go. You would have to go up for the staff. So people walking down would see that they were.

They thought they were customers in the. Yeah, but now. Now do you know, it's like the hottest it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, three shows a night. Three shows, three shows. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, four, Friday, four Saturday.

And waiting list only. Yeah. Yeah. And now he's buying. Good for him.

He's buying another. And yeah, they opened the one around the corner where the village underground was. That's all comedy now. And then he just bought the McDonald's. The McDonald's went out of business and he bought it.

No one bought it. And he's going to open up there. So they, so the, what we did, where we had to go uptown, downtown this time, that you could stay on one corner on that Friday and do seven shows and never leave that. Never leave that one block radius. Yeah.

Bill Maher
Yeah. But it didn't teach them grit. Right. They did. They came out a bunch of pussies.

Okay. That's what you get when you put all the comedy clubs on one quarter. Yes, that's what he had to. I mean, I do look back and shudder, but I also look back in a way so grateful that I had to. We were talking about this at my office today because we have Abigail Schreier on this week, and her book is about this, that kids just are not asked to go through things anymore.

Like if you're, you know, if the math test stresses you out, we don't, don't take it, that's okay. And so they don't have the memory of, like, accomplishing something when they're young, of overcoming something, even shyness, you know, I mean, no one was more shy than I was. There was no suggestion that this was some sort of defect of humanity. And so, you know, just, you're a marginalized victim of something. You were just shy and get over it.

It's not the world's problem, it's your problem. Right. All right. And again, this is where they go, get off my lawn. It's like, engage with the idea.

Is the idea wrong? Argue with me on that level, I will respect you. Hey, I'll be at the David Copperfield Theater at the MGM Grand Hotel and casino June 21 and 22nd in Las Vegas. The Orpheum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 13 and the Riverside theater in Milwaukee on July 14. July 26, the MGM Music hall at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, and July 27, Toyota Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, Connecticut.

I learned so much about Jerry Seinfeld this last month because of all the promotion he did and all the shows he did. And I've known this guy for a very long time and look up to him. Not a phrase I use with very many people. And also just deeply deep friendship with him. But I didn't know a lot of these things.

I saw him say to Howard Stern, like, the secret to life is getting comfortable or something like that, with your torture. Because he was saying to Howard all day long, all I'm doing all the time is looking for bits. And Howard said, that sounds like torture. And Jerry said, it is. Secret of life is to just define the torture that you're comfortable with.

Something like that. And he said. He mentioned that. And then marriage, kids, it's all that. Are you.

That is not my life philosophy. Do you look for bits all the time? Because I don't. No, I don't either. Even when I was young and didn't have three kids and was just crazy mad about, like, finding bits everywhere.

Cause it's, like, this new thing, and you're actually getting paid for it, even if it's $35. I remember literally in bed, like, in the middle of coitus, writing something down on the nightstand without taking my dick out of the punani. I mean, that is a love of comedy, ladies and gentlemen. But I'm the same way the bits would, especially with kids. Cause I started talking about that, and it would happen, and I would say, hold on.

Ray Romano
And I would write it down and then go to it later. That's the thing. I was never a purposeful creator. That's Jerry and Bill Cosby. Same thing you have to write every day.

Bill Maher
Get in front of the yellow legal pad, whatever. I could never do that. I was more the, I'll get stoned. Funny things will fall out of my mouth. Just be vigilant about writing them down now.

Over the course of my lifetime. This is one of my big bugaboos that lots of gold I let fall to the ground, because I didn't write it down at the time, because I said, I'll remember. And I'm like, oh, what was that pit? It was gonna work perfectly, like. But I would say over the course of my lifetime, I probably guesstimating got 67.2% of what I thought of.

I did record when you were. When you were high. Whatever. All my life, it would just come. Restaurants.

I mean, I have. Yeah, same for me. Same for me. I wasn't one who said time to write. I didn't set my clock and say time to write.

Ray Romano
But when I had premises and bits. Oh, shit, that's something funny. Oh, that's. I would put it in the book. Then at some point, I had to stretch it out and make it into something right.

So. And it's. It's work. It's like homework a little bit. But then when you get on stage and when you get it last.

Bill Maher
Yeah, playing the cello, it takes a lot of practice, but it's worth it when you're up there with the orchestra and you get the big laughs. But do you miss. Cause the one thing I miss is as hard as it was back then, but when you were good, when you got better and you were a stand up is going on in front of a crowd that had never seen you before. Cause that's never gonna happen again. That's what I miss, is going up in a room full of strangers, and they paid their cover charge, and now here comes this guy, and now it's your job.

Ray Romano
And they. There's a little bit of a. You know, you got to prove yourself to them. And winning that audience over, that's the. Thing I hated the most.

Bill Maher
I swear to God. Now that probably. But I'm talking about when it worked. When it worked, it was great. Yes, I'm sure it was, but.

Ray Romano
But you like it. And it doesn't speak highly for my character in this sense, because it is. It just come off as a little haughty. I would rather have been like you. That's the preferable way to be that, you know.

Bill Maher
No, I'm going to win you over. But I was, like, more haughty about it. You're talking about if they gave you attitude during your set, right. Then you would be kind of like Larry David was like that. Where Larry would turn on the audience.

Ray Romano
Right. First of all, I wasn't. Yes. When you're starting, you're not great. That's part of the equation.

Bill Maher
But another part is that, you know what I play now and for God knows how long, I'm attracting the people who know what they're getting. So it's my audience. So the stuff works because they're my people. Yes. When you're in the clubs, it's not that it's potluck audience.

And a lot of times I did have great jokes that went over their head. See, I could see where you. There's a difference. Mine stuff is more mainstream. Right.

Ray Romano
So I know you're not talking about just specifically political humor, but you do have stuff. But mine's neither. Whoever you are, you could probably identify with something I'm saying. I was never meant to be like this mass act that was going to play stadiums. I'm more like HBO.

Bill Maher
HBO. Netflix has thousands more movies, and it's great. But HBO is a boutique place. It has a great audience, a nice sized audience, but it's not the biggest thing. And that's as best as I can do or want to do with the kind of crowd.

I'd much rather have that smaller audience that's more sophisticated. I mean, that's what I'm selling, is sophistication. I mean, I owe it to my New Jersey upbringing, but there's a lot of entertainment is just not sophisticated. When I was a kid, and I'm sure there are people who go, you vulgar potty mouth. You think you're sophisticated?

Well, you know, in this arena that we're in, where everything is, like, very unsophisticated, you know, like, I like this lane. Yeah. You know, but it is always going to be somewhat smaller. Do you think it's gotten smaller? Has it gotten smaller?

No, no, it's gotten bigger, but it has a ceiling because it's, you know. Not your audience, but in general. In general. In general, no, mine specifically, my audience has a ceiling much more. Yours has a much bigger arc, I feel.

Ray Romano
Right. I mean, not that we're not competing. I love you as you are, and it's just different. It's just different. And that's what's good, is that, you.

Know, yours is different from mine. Mine's different from Seinfeld. Seinfeld. It's like in the Godfather when Don Corleone says to Barzini, you know, like, good luck with your business. I'm not going to invest.

Bill Maher
But since your influx interests don't conflict with mine, you know. Yeah, we don't walk the same. We would be good on it. On the same show. Because we both.

Ray Romano
I was going to say, could we, Cohel? Yeah, we'd be great because we both appeal to a sophisticated audience. But it's just two sides of the thing. Right. So do you want to.

Bill Maher
Yeah, I would. I would love it. I've. I've been. You know, I used to.

Ray Romano
I did the mirage with Spade. Spade. And I did the mirage. We would go headline. I was like, I could do it myself.

And I have been doing it myself now, but now the mirage is closing, you know, so I went to the Venetian. I went to venetian. But. But I was like, it's more fun doing 30 minutes. You know what?

Bill Maher
That's a great. You know, that's a great compromise I should think about for. Instead of just not doing it at. All, like, do a little co and. Well, maybe.

Yeah, do something. And then, how. And then we did a cue. So instead of 90 minutes, you do it 1 hour. Is that right?

Ray Romano
We had an opener and then David would do 25 minutes, I would do 35 minutes, and then we'd both come out and do a little Q. Q and a thing for ten minutes. Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was like so real.

You know, when you got to do. You do an hour and a half. Yeah. Wow. Well, you got it because it's just.

You in Vegas, though. Yes. Don't you have an opener? Don't you have an open? No, no, no.

Yeah, I don't want to. I don't. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. No, I don't.

Bill Maher
I never want. I'm tired of myself, really. Five minutes. Well, it goes fast, but, I mean, that's one reason I'm thinking about hanging it up for this. It's.

Ray Romano
Well, you want to do your editorials, right? That I want to do forever. That I want. Because that's. But they're different every week.

Bill Maher
I mean, an act is something you build. And I always love that. I'm a builder by nature, but it is like building a ship inside of a bottle. It's just a more elegant way to do it. Or maybe less elegant.

I don't know. Some people like a ship in a bottle. I like an act. The one thing. But you're constantly tinkering and making it better.

Ray Romano
Is that good or bad? That's. I love it. I love tinkering. But you can't.

But when you're at tutorials, you can only tinker up to the point where you say it the first time and then you don't have to go week. Right. But, you know, with your act, you get feedback from the audience, of course, and then you tinker a little more. Oh, I know. Yeah, of course.

Bill Maher
It's all that. It's that they're the director. Right. I'm the actor and they're the director. And it's.

It's great. No, I love. I know what you're. I understand the kick you're getting out of doing your thing because that's why I'm doing. That's why I write.

Ray Romano
I wrote the movie. Yeah. You always got like a million fucking things going. No, no, it really. Yeah.

Bill Maher
As far as, like, actual projects. I read more about your shit. Yeah, but you read about stuff and. Yeah. And what's that?

What's the next one you have? I bet you have one. Supposed to do a biopic on Jim Volvano. You know Jim Volvano? No, who's that?

Ray Romano
You should know him. He was college basketball. He was the. I don't follow college. But this was sports, really.

Take it. Take it easy. No, I have a very. This is a sore point because people like, are on your case now if you don't follow women's basketball. And my answer is, I don't follow women's basketball for the same reason I don't follow college basketball.

Bill Maher
I only want to watch athletes at their very best. That's not a knock on any of them. I don't watch golf. I don't watch hockey. I don't watch soccer.

Sports is a waste of time. I enjoy it. You need a waste of time. But I'd like to limit that. So I'm only going to watch baseball, football, and basketball, and mostly only in the playoffs.

Ray Romano
But the other football, that's every week. They're at their very best in the other sports. You just aren't into those sports. But that's the same sport. It's the same sport.

Oh, you mean the best in that sport? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, even. And I watch big tennis matches, too.

Bill Maher
Of course. They're great. The women athletes are great, but women and men are different. Okay. And even Serena Williams said she kind of backed up McEnroe when he said, you know, the.

Ray Romano
Oh, yeah, that's ridiculous. That's the number 300 player could beat her. And she said, yeah. I mean, it's just when you play against a man, that just comes in faster. Right, right.

Bill Maher
You know, because of nature, because of biology, which I'm sure the kids are very angry about me even mentioning. How dare you bring up biology in a discussion about biology. But, yeah, biology matters. Kids, again, engage with the idea. Engage with the idea.

Don't just say, get off my lawn. Well, where is everybody on that? On males who become females participating in female sports. Where is that now? Are they allowing it?

It's a great question. I don't think it's settled. People have different ideas. One is a third division. Yeah, division where they compete with each other.

The LGBTQ division, like males, females, and everybody else, whatever stripe. I never understand why the LGBTQ community wants to be lumped in like that. It's so, you know, remember Gilligan's island theme? And. And the rest.

Ray Romano
And the rest. It was only two people, for crying out loud.

And then they did the amount it takes to say. And the rest you could fit in Mary Ann and whatever. The professor and Marianne. Oh, then they did. Yeah, then they did.

Bill Maher
Because their agent got on the phone and said, come on.

Ray Romano
What was their credit you may have seen her as the rest.

She played one of the rest on Gilligan's island. Anyway, that's my analogy to the LGBT. So many different. But we were talking about sport. You.

Bill Maher
Oh, yes. What were you gonna say there before I. Well, Jim Volvano was Jim Valvano. He was. He's the coach.

Ray Romano
Who's the. Jimmy v. You know, the Jimmy V with the ESPY awards. You have to educate me on college. I know nothing.

Jimmy v. He coached NC State in the eighties when they. They beat. That's Duke. No, North Carolina State.

Bill Maher
That's Duke. No, it's North Carolina State. Duke is Duke. North Carolina State. Yeah, Duke is.

Ray Romano
They're both in North Carolina. I thought one was that. No, Duke is. I don't know if Carolina was at Duke or something. Duke University, that's coach K.

And North Carolina State was Jim Vilvano. He's italian guy from Queens. And he was this fish out of water that became this coach who. You play him. Yeah.

One of the biggest upsets was when they beat Yousen in the NCAA championship. I don't even know this, but I think you're perfect for it. No, really, just listening to this, it does sound like you are. You know who, if you see him, you know. Cause he gave a famous SBS.

The first year of the SBS, he gave the speech about don't give up. Don't get up. Give up. When he was dying. He died two months after that.

He died like ten years after he won the championship. Anyway, whatever. Can I tell you a college sports story about Mister T? Yes. So it's 1983.

Bill Maher
I'm on the set of DC cab. Mister T. Yes. And, you know, a lot of time in between shots, as you well know, all your acting work. And I'm doing the New York Times crossword puzzle because that's what 27 year old actor Billy Mar did.

Ray Romano
What day. What day of the week was it? I don't question one I could have. Because I do the Monday and Tuesdays. Yeah.

Bill Maher
I say. And the theme was college sports teams. And I'm trying to. I'm struggling and I say, hey, mister T, do you know what the name of the Penn state team is? Nittany Lyons.

Oh, my God, it does fit. Nittany Lyons. I said, hey, why did they call them Nittany Lyons? He goes, I sure know what some stupid white man did.

Remember it to the. How should I know what the white man. What the stupid white man did? It was just. He was either, you know, that was his character was surly.

Ray Romano
Were you a Rocky guy? I was. Rocky was big in my childhood. Of course. Well, the movie, you mean.

Yeah, the movie. Well, I was 20 when Rocky was. Yeah, I was 18. Yeah. I mean, it was a big movie, but I had much bigger problems when I was 20.

Bill Maher
I mean, that's right. In that age where you're just. You're an adult, but you're. I always call it the infancy of adulthood because just like an infant, when you're an infant adult, which is 18, 1920 you're powerless in the same way you were when you were an infant. Like, everyone is more powerful than you about everything.

You know, you don't really get to control your own life, whether it's what you can afford and, like, what you have to do to survive. Were you home still? No, I was in college, you know, again, by living in places I didn't want to live with, people I didn't want to live with. You're not controlling your life just like an infant. I don't think I liked childhood because I wasn't in control.

You know, I'm smaller. People who could boss me around, tell me what to do. It all just grated against me. Yeah, but you. There's also something special about being a child and not having all the shit that you have now as an adult.

Ray Romano
The knowledge of it, everything is magic, kind of, isn't it? As a child, there is a magic still. There's an innocence. For me, the magic came later.

Bill Maher
There is magic in life. That explains the. Yeah, you're sitting by a stripper pole. Yeah. I mean, some people are just, you know, you're not molded into different personality types.

And I know from talking to parents, they always tell me, like, you can tell at the age of two what they're, like, gonna be like, oh, that's a wild one. You know, I wouldn't know this, but is that what you found? I don't know if that's true. My 26, my youngest was a lot of him and my wife just boom. And punched each other.

Ray Romano
No, no, no. What? Just butted heads so much. It was. That's odd for a boy to butt heads with the mom.

Bill Maher
Usually the boy butts heads with the dad. Well, yeah, I mean, he did. He did. He was not easy. He was not an easy kid.

Ray Romano
You know, he's the youngest. He's the youngest. Is there a syndrome? And he got out of it. He grew.

He grew out of it. I mean, he was a kid. I laughed sometimes he would. I remember seeing when he was eight and he was trying to go outside. And I was like, joe, you can't go out without your shoes on.

And he just looked at me and went, my shoes are on. And he was in bare feet, standing there in bare feet. That's what something Trump would do. Really? My shoes went on.

Yes, I've made that relationship. Yeah, but he's mellowed out. Yeah, I've heard that story. I hear a lot about kids in their twenties and teens because my friends are always talking about their kids or if I am close with them, I ask them about them. And I've heard this story also.

Bill Maher
The kid who is just not getting his shit together, and it's almost always a boy, not a girl. It's the boys who are in crisis more than the girls at that age. Well, that's, well, girls are too with suicide. And that's my experience. And my daughter is the first, was the oldest, and she was the a student, hard worker, go work, get a job, do this.

Ray Romano
And the boys were more like me. I was not that. I flunked. I went to three high schools. I flunked out of two high schools.

Bill Maher
Flunked out. Yeah, but from, not from just being irresponsible, from just cutting school, not going, not caring, just wanting to have. I was the exact opposite. You were exact opposite? I was number seven in my class, which is as high as.

I mean, that's about right. I'm not this, I think this morning. That tracks, though. That tracks. Yeah.

No, I was deathly afraid of not doing well in school. Yeah. I didn't know what they were. It's not like my parents were going to beat me. I mean, they weren't.

They, you know, that's not who I. Finally, I graduated high school. I went to college. I went to Queen's college. But I would register.

Ray Romano
I would get, here's what I would do, this, you know, I talk about stupidity. I would get a student loan. I would register. There'd be money left over on that student loan and I would have money all of a sudden. And my parents thought I was going to college and I would leave the house and never go.

Really? Yeah. And so after like two years, probably, I had 20 credits, you know, and then as I got a little older, I got a little more serious and I went back, I started accounting and I got about 100 credits and I never graduated, but I actually graduated. I got a two year degree, but I never got the four year degree. But when did you, where in your childhood did you have the idea that you wanted to be a comedian or was it not in childhood at all?

In my teenage years it was. Yeah. Yeah. I was always a fan of comedy stand up to, you know, I knew. Before I was ten.

Yeah. Like, I always wanted to do that. I was probably the class clown, I guess. Class comedian. Different than the clown.

Bill Maher
The clown threw spitball. The comedian said things that even the teacher sometimes laughed at. Did you ever make the teacher laugh? I don't remember that. That's when I knew I was fucking sophisticated.

Ray Romano
I had nuns. Nuns didn't laugh. Yeah, yeah. But I used to work in a theater. I used to in a movie theater.

I was an usher. And I remember it was a Neil Simon movie. And I remember I would know exactly every moment in that movie, and I'd be out in the lobby, you know, sweeping up the popcorn, whatever. And I knew when a funny part was coming up and I wanted to go in there and listen to the audience. I wanted to have the audience experience.

And I wanted. Yeah. To feel that this was. I didn't know that I wanted to do standup yet, but I knew I was. That's what I was drawn to that, you know?

And then stand up was just. I had heard about an audition night at the improv. Someone told me about once a month they do audition night, and I got five minutes up. And that was the first time. When I do think about those years, what mostly stands out is being able to just survive on fumes.

Bill Maher
Like, what was I actually surviving on? It wasn't money. It wasn't any women. It wasn't the promise of a better tomorrow. Cause that certainly was in doubt, like, whether you were gonna make it as a comic.

It seemed very far away. The one thing it kind of had was the respect of some of those people who were a little ahead of you. The ones who said, yes, you passed the audition. You're a funny guy. You know, that is really what I was surviving on in those years.

Ray Romano
But also the audience. Right. You liked being that feeling. No, because that wasn't bad either. You go the first year.

Bill Maher
Yes. You would bomb. You would bomb the first year. I don't think I even get on stage. First of all, you have to hang out at the club.

Ray Romano
Yeah, same for a long time. Okay. Then you get on last, right? No, listen, that's what I tell. We talked about this sooner, earlier, but I never got to it.

The first few years is the hardest thing in, I think, in any business. I always say it. The first two years. Yes. You go on.

Like you said. You hang out, you go on last. So now you're the comic who's up in front of three drunks and two people. Yes. And you're the guy who can't handle that.

Bill Maher
Exactly. You don't have the experience. Kind of like what they do in medical school when they make you go to a residency and work 80 hours a week because that's who you want. Looking at you is some bleary eyed. I know what it's like to be overtired, to think that they do that in hospitals.

But, yes, you go on. Last David, say, God bless him, loves him, still love him if he's around. Once brought me on with the words, here's the last guy. I forget his name, and then walked off the other side of the stage into the bathroom. At categorizing, I love those memories.

I really do, because they're memories. I want to relive them. Like people say, would you like to go back? Not if I have to relive that. No.

Ray Romano
Yeah. Well, no, but I look fondly back at when I was a comic and I was a working comic in the city and my kids were little, so that was hard, too. But I kind of am nostalgic about that, you know? Of course. What did your kids think when they were little and daddy was a celebrity?

Bill Maher
Did they? I'm always fascinated about that moment. Paul McCartney tells that story about his kid when he was little, and he said he was riding by on a ponytail, and the little kid goes, hey, you're Paul McCartney. You know, the moment it dawns on the kid that the parent is also this personage. I mean, well, I remember when I was a working comic and my daughter was the only.

Ray Romano
My daughter was born, we didn't have any. She was like three. And I had a gig in Delaware. I had to drive to a gig in Delaware and my wife decided to come. And we were with my daughter.

So she's in the back of the room with my daughter and she's three. She doesn't know what I do, right? And she's coloring in the room. I'm on stage now in the room. You know, my wife's with her and I'm on stage.

And after about five minutes, I'm getting laughs. I'm getting laughs. This is my wife told me, and my daughter just looked up and went, daddy's funny. That's funny. So she didn't know what I was doing, but she realized I was making people laugh, I guess.

Bill Maher
Terrible if she said, daddy's bombing. Daddy's doing that same shit he does. Yeah, Daddy's a hack. Jesus Christ. Daddy needs to change the tag about him.

Oh, yeah, the Gilligan's island routine, dad. Yeah, boy. But you know, my kids, my kids came to the show when I got the show. So my twins were like three, four when the show started. And the show was on for nine years.

Ray Romano
So we moved to LA. You know, we were in New York when I got the show. And the first year I went back and forth. We didn't move out cause I didn't know if it was gonna get canceled or not, you know. So my wife and kids stayed in New York.

Second year we moved out. All right. So now I'm on a show, my kids are three. When the show goes off the air, they're twelve. So that's basically Daddy.

That's how they know Daddy's universe, you know? And now it ends, right? And they took it harder than I did. My twins, they're twelve years old now. It was not an easy, because they.

Bill Maher
Couldn'T get a good table anymore. They knew we were gonna fly private. But the transition was hard, man. I mean it was, I don't want to get into details, but it was rough for them. Yeah.

Ray Romano
And I realized, yeah, all of a sudden that world that they saw daddy in ends. And do you remember that? Of course you do. You did it. Do you remember that show you did after?

Bill Maher
I loved that show. It was like a dramedy man of a certain age. Yes. With back Scott Bakula. Right.

Ray Romano
And Andre Brown. That really spoke to me. I mean, at the time of my life, that was a very, I mean. That'S on the list of things I'm most proud of. Oh, really?

Bill Maher
Yeah, yeah, I don't blame you. That's a really. Yeah, it was a really, I mean, it was just two seasons and we won a Peabody Award. Which means you're in danger of getting canceled. It means people think there's quality there, but nobody's watching.

Ray Romano
Really. A month after we won the Peabody Award, we got canceled. Yeah. What is the Peabody Award? The guy Peabody is, I've certainly heard of it.

He was a guy, some smart guy from some college, university. And they named an award after. I have zero respect for any awards. It used to be a stone in my shoe and now I love it. I don't want them to give me anything because they're almost like the media they've exposed themselves to be.

Bill Maher
Just not something people respect for good. Reason, like an Oscar, any of them. Emmys is my category, but also Peabody. I mean, Larry King, every time I saw he would say, you are more like Mark Twain than anybody that we've had in a long time. And I take it as a great compliment.

Now, I don't know if that's gospel or if it's true, but it always amused me that the Mark Twain award did give out the award to, like, 20 people who might have been. I'm sure there are many of them. All of them probably are fine comics, but are not like Mark Twain. There's one guy who's actually like Mark Twain much more than the people. Again, great actors, comics as they are.

That kind of stuff is very funny to me. Did you. You never did the Washington press correspondence theater, right? I did. You did?

Yes, I did it in 95. I did it too. Yeah. What year? Clinton.

Ray Romano
Yes. Yeah. Clinton. And I did it for. And that's the reason they had me, because that was during.

What's her name? What's her name? Oh, the woman who had the affair with Clinton. Monica Lewinsky. Monica Lewinsky.

Yeah, it was during Monica Lewinsky. And so they hired the innocuous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they didn't make that cagey calculation with me. And I remember I said one bad word.

Bill Maher
I did say the word fuck in front of the president of the United States. And the next year, people magazine wrote about whoever was hosting, and they said. They wrote, last year, Bill Maher delivered an obscenity laced monologue. I love that. In one year, one fuck became an obscenity laced monologue for them.

Ray Romano
One fuck is all it takes. How did it go over with, you. Know, it's a shit room, because first of all, like, nobody wants to be seen laughing at what they're not supposed to be laughing at. Right? So you do need a juggler or somebody like, who is not political at all.

Bill Maher
The mistake they make is going, oh, this is a political event. We'll get the political comedian. It's the last person. Yes, but that's. I look back at mine and think, although I shouldn't have done it, because.

No, I wish I hadn't. Well, but you, for that reason. Me, for the reason of it, you should speak to what's going on. You should make jokes about. I wasn't even aware the one person.

And he and I are not really friendly. I don't know why. I don't hate him at all, and I hope he doesn't hate me. Stephen Colbert. Some people just don't vibe.

But I got to give it, the one he did in front of Bush when he was in character was genius, and was the best one anybody ever did and was ballsy. It was everything that to me, marks excellent. It was truly funny, it was original and it was courageous and it spoke. To what was going on at the time. Right, Colin, did you see this year's Colin Jones?

Ray Romano
I thought he did a good job. No. Yeah, you know, you know, he is. Of course. Yeah, I'm sure he did.

Bill Maher
He's a brilliant joke writer. Yeah. But I remember I just did my act and I said, I don't do political, I just do my act. And they said, yeah, that's good. They said, we'll pay.

You don't. That's what they need to do. But then, you know, Arianna Huffington's looking at you like, why is he up there? You know? Exactly.

But you never did anything to your great credit that, like, embarrassed your kids, your family. I mean, so many stars have to walk some sort of walk of shame because, well, I've done movies. I've done stuff that hasn't. You've had bombs. Everybody has bombs.

That's not the same thing. I'm talking about, you know, getting out of your car and you could see your balls. Oh. You know, just anything that brings, like where people. I always say it this way, whenever you.

If you can get through show business life without ever doing it, ever doing anything. Where it made people go, oh, yeah. But you, you've never done it. Only. Only if things you've said.

Ray Romano
Right. Let's not go there with me. But things you've said. But you're the guy.

That's your job. Your job is to part of it. Is it? Yes. And I've also done stupid things, but yes, it's much more likely if you're mixing dangerous chemicals, that there's going to be something blow up.

Bill Maher
Or to use another analogy, you are going to make more errors at third base than second base. Yes. There's just more sharply hit grounders your way. Right. But you're the guy.

Ray Romano
Yeah, you're the guy in the arena. I want to. They don't call it the hot corner for nothing. So you don't even drink or you do drink? I don't drink.

You know, I have vices. I have my vices. What? I gamble too much. Really?

Bill Maher
You gamble, like heavy money? No, not heavy money, but I was in Vegas yesterday. We went for a poker tournament. I drove. I drove home this morning.

Ray Romano
We got home at 130. A poker tournament? Yeah. There's. You mean you're that serious about poker?

It's. Yeah, but it's nothing. It's. It's the stakes are low. Well, how's it lower?

Bill Maher
Do you not want to say? This was a. It's a World Series of poker. They have tournaments every day for three months. This was a $1000 buy in.

Ray Romano
You put a $1,000 in. And so how much can you lose it? That's it? A thousand balls? It's.

That's how much the entry is for each hand or. No, no, no. It's a $1000 entry. There's 3000 people who are in the tournament. They play and when you get knocked out, you're eliminated.

They play until there's one winner, but they like the top 400 cash in. You know, I never understood gambling. Why it was so amusing to people. It just made me nervous. Like, I'm losing money.

Bill Maher
Slowly I realized that even if I'm up, I won't be in five minutes. You know, it's just. I'm just gonna slowly lose this money. Which is okay if, you know you're gonna lose it to begin with, but to, like, really go there thinking and then be so disappointed. Because of course, you know, you're not supposed to win in a casino.

Ray Romano
Well, you know what they say psychologically, the gambler really wants to lose. Is that right? I don't get it. I don't get that. But they say subconsciously.

Yeah. They want to punish themselves. Well, you know, I think it was one of those jimmy the Greek, maybe. Somebody said the most favorite thing for him to do in his life is to gamble and win. And his second most favorite thing is the gamble and lose.

Bill Maher
Is that right? Yeah. It's just the thrill. Yeah. You know, but, you know, I mean, I've never got a thrill of it.

I also think it's amazing what they get away with. I don't know if you saw recently, but the supreme Court heard this ruling about affirmative action at colleges that was brought mostly by Asians who said they were being discriminated at Harvard and a number of other schools. Because, you know, if you admit it, if you just did it by blind admittance like 50% of Harvard would be asian. They just do. Well, when I'm saying anything about anybody, the Asians, they can fucking do a test.

So they were kind of penalized for like, winning at the game. And I feel like the same thing goes on at a casino, like a card counter. That's not cheating. I know that's what I saw. Cheating is if I have a piece in my ear and there's a guy across the way, you can see the card.

That's cheating. Card counting is just being good at it. I agree with you. Just being good. He's not breaking any rules.

No, he's just good at it. And you throw him out for being good. Yeah, yeah. No, it's. I'm running as a one issue candidate on this and only this.

This is my one issue. I can't take it anymore. This gun. I agree. I agree that.

Ray Romano
Yeah. What is he doing? He's just being smart, that's all. He's just. All right.

Bill Maher
Do you have anything to plug? I gotta pee.

Ray Romano
I have a movie that I'm in coming out July 11 that I. Well, look at this. Is the worst plug I've ever seen in my. Yeah. You're like an old jerk man on the porch.

I'm not the lead. Oh, no. I don't want to bother anybody with my movie. It'll be just. It'll be a nuisance to you if you're there.

If you're there. I'm fine here on the porch. I don't need to come in if it's raining. You got nowhere to go anyway. The movie's called fly me to the moon.

Bill Maher
Oh, okay. Fly me to the moon. It's with Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson. July 11 comes out. Yeah.

And it's about Johansson and Channing Tatum. Yeah. That's amazing. I got a nice roll. It's not super big, but it's.

So I'm guessing you're the love interest for Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum is just like the butt boy that you're both. It's about Apollo eleven. It's about the moon lady. It's like a historical fiction that takes place in 69. Yeah, yeah.

Ray Romano
We went to. We went to Nassau. We went to Cape Kennedy. It was cool. Oh.

But anyway. Yeah, that's it. July 11, and then this. Well, fly me to the moon is also one of the great songs of all time, not just done by Sinatra. There was a very funny movie that was done in 1997, I'm guessing, called down with Love.

Bill Maher
If you never saw it, I recommend it highly. It's with Renee Zellweger and from 97. Yeah. Yes. It's a parody of the rock Hudson Doris Day movies.

Ray Romano
Yeah. So if you don't know the rock Hudson Doris Day movies, it's not as funny. Right. It's genius. The writing.

What's the name of it? And they have a. It's called down with love. All right, but refresh yourself with the Doris Day rock Hudson movies first. And then they play fly me to the moon as done by Astro Gilberto, who was married, I think, to the guy who wrote Antonio Carlos Jobima wrote all those great.

Bill Maher
Brought samba to America. A girl from Ipanema, tall and Tan and young and lovely. And she does a rendition of fly me to the Moon. So now I have by you saying, I kind of have to watch a rock Hudson. No, but you don't remember those rock.

Ray Romano
Yeah, kind of. You know, they were. They were really funny. I mean, they were of their time. And the one, the big one they did.

Bill Maher
The plot is they're. They're on a party phone. A party phone where you people, kids have no idea what I'm talking about. It's even before our time. But you'd get on the phone and they'd be.

You have to share the line with other people. Would you please get off this line? I have to make a call. I mean, it's. I saw.

Ray Romano
I watched Marty a little while back. It came on somewhere. Marty? Yeah. Talking about things that are dated.

And the mother was talking to her sister and, you know, she had an italian accent and she goes, I want Marty to get married. Come on. I need. I wanted to see him get married. Look at me.

How long am I going to be here? I'm a 57 years old. I said, what? Right? I said, oh, yeah.

Well, I know we still have the. Future for us, right? All right, we're up. All right. Club random.

You didn't have to take a break. No, I was having too much fun. I couldn't tear myself away from it. You pre gamed it, right? Yes.

Bill Maher
Yes.

Ray Romano
Yes.

Ray Romano | Club Random with Bill Maher

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1: Early Days in Comedy

2: Life Lessons from Comedy

3: Comedy and Personal Growth

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