Noam Dworman on Stand-Up Comedy and Staying Open-Minded (Ep. 185)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today, I’m here with my very good friend Noam Dworman in the Comedy Cellar.
今天，我和我的好朋友诺姆·德沃曼一起来到喜剧地窖。
Noam is owner, impresario, and CEO of Comedy Cellar — three places in New York, one in Las Vegas — commonly considered America’s leading comedy club.
诺姆是 Comedy Cellar 的所有者、经理人兼首席执行官（“纽约有三个地方，拉斯维加斯有一个地方”），通常被认为是美国领先的喜剧俱乐部。
Noam, welcome.
诺姆，欢迎。
Hello, Tyler.
你好，泰勒。
Thank you very much for having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
What is the perfect room temperature for comedy?
喜剧的最佳室温是多少？
Ah, that’s a great question.
啊，这是一个很好的问题。
The originator of the Comedy Cellar, named Bill Grundfest — this was a very important issue for him.
《喜剧地窖》的创始人，名叫比尔·格伦德菲斯特——这对他来说是一个非常重要的问题。
He felt that if it got warm, this had a serious effect on how the comedians went over.
他觉得如果天气变热，就会对喜剧演员的表演产生严重影响。
I think a little bit colder than comfortable is what is best — 70, maybe, something like that.
我认为比舒适稍微冷一点是最好的 - 70，也许，类似的东西。
So, it’s like how stores often feel people buy more when it’s cold?
那么，就像商店经常感觉人们在寒冷的时候买得更多一样吗？
Yes.
是的。
The problem is that the kind of air conditioning systems that we have, you take what you can get.
问题是我们现有的空调系统，你能得到什么就拿什么。
In a very, very hot day, they underperform, and then the thermostats, as you know, they’re slow.
在非常非常热的一天，它们的表现不佳，然后恒温器，如你所知，速度很慢。
They don’t keep things at a perfect temperature, so it hovers up and down around things, but we try to keep it cool.
他们无法将物体保持在完美的温度，因此它会在物体周围上下盘旋，但我们尽力保持其凉爽。
What’s the biggest thing about audiences laughing at comedy that you do not understand?
观众笑你看不懂的喜剧最大的问题是什么？
Well, what’s interesting is, always, that the entire audience — or most of the audience — at the same instant in time seems to react the same way, to know whether something is funny in a way that nobody can explain.
嗯，有趣的是，总是，整个观众（或大多数观众）在同一时刻似乎都会做出相同的反应，以一种无人能解释的方式知道某件事是否有趣。
This will happen even if it’s the same comedian telling the same joke four days in a row.
即使是同一个喜剧演员连续四天讲同一个笑话，这种情况也会发生。
I will find myself laughing harder at the same joke, just as the entire room is laughing harder.
我会发现自己对同一个笑话笑得更厉害，就像整个房间都笑得更厉害一样。
I could go to the video, and it’s very difficult to pinpoint what he’s doing differently, but there’s something on a micro level that they do differently, and everybody perceives it the same way at the same time, and that’s the magic of it all.
我可以去看视频，很难确定他在做什么不同的事情，但在微观层面上他们做了不同的事情，每个人同时以相同的方式感知它，这就是这一切的魔力。
I don’t know if that’s a direct answer to your question, but that’s what it makes me think of.
我不知道这是否是对你问题的直接回答，但这就是它让我想到的。
I don’t know how to explain that.
我不知道该如何解释。
There’s something about human synchronization of the audience in there.
那里有一些关于观众的人类同步的东西。
If you have to extrapolate that to broader social situations, what do you conclude?
如果你必须将其推断到更广泛的社会情境，你会得出什么结论？
People pick up on very slight cues in an instinctual level — kind of analogous to pheromones, I guess — that they can’t account for.
人们会在本能层面上捕捉到非常细微的线索——我猜这有点类似于信息素——但他们无法解释这些线索。
They don’t know they’re doing it.
他们不知道自己正在这样做。
It probably affects who seems like a likable person, unlikable, who you trust.
它可能会影响谁看起来是一个讨人喜欢的人，谁不讨人喜欢，谁是你信任的人。
There’s a million different ways these things present themselves, but it’s real.
这些事物有一百万种不同的表现方式，但它是真实的。
It’s very real.
这是非常真实的。
I would say some people are oblivious to these clues, and they probably suffer for that during their lives.
我想说有些人忽视了这些线索，他们可能一生都在为此受苦。
Circa 2023, can comedy still shock us?
2023年左右，喜剧还能震撼我们吗？
Simply using the F-word, trying to be like Lenny Bruce — it’s all a big bore, right?
简单地使用脏话，试图变得像莱尼·布鲁斯 ——这太无聊了，对吧？
Is there shock value left in comedy?
喜剧还有震撼价值吗？
Not funny shock value.
不好笑的震撼值。
At some point, I’ve been expecting that somebody will channel Lenny Bruce and start defiantly using the N word again, or something like that, to make a deep point, and at some point, may get away with it.
在某些时候，我一直期待着有人会引导莱尼·布鲁斯并再次开始挑衅地使用“N”这个词，或者类似的东西，来表达一个深刻的观点，并且在某些时候，可能会侥幸逃脱。
No, usually, things that are shocking now are trite and not that funny.
不，通常现在令人震惊的事情都是老生常谈，并不那么有趣。
A reader suggests to me that people don’t tell jokes very much anymore, but they watch YouTube or TikTok for humor.
一位读者向我建议，人们不再经常讲笑话，而是观看 YouTube 或 TikTok 来获取幽默。
How does that affect comedians?
这对喜剧演员有何影响？
What that makes me think of is that at some point, comedians started referring to their bits as jokes, and that happened gradually.
这让我想到的是，在某个时候，喜剧演员开始将他们的片段称为笑话，这是逐渐发生的。
I remember waking up and realizing, “Well, that’s not what a joke is.” A joke is a setup and a punch line.
我记得醒来后意识到：“好吧，这不是开玩笑。”笑话是一种安排和妙语。
A joke isn’t one of your descriptions — that is a funny thing.
笑话不是你的描述之一——这是一件有趣的事情。
That’s right.
这是正确的。
The setup–punch line of a joke is rare.
笑话中的妙语是很少见的。
Old people do them sometimes.
老人有时也会这样做。
What’s considered jokes today are comedy bits, and people don’t tell each other comedy bits.
今天所谓的笑话是喜剧片段，人们不会互相讲喜剧片段。
I think you’re right — fewer and fewer people tell each other jokes.
我认为你是对的——“互相讲笑话的人越来越少了。”
Why aren’t jokes funny anymore?
为什么笑话不再好笑了？
I don’t ever want to hear jokes.
我从来都不想听笑话。
If someone walked into the room, sat at the table, “I’m going to tell you a joke,” I’d be like, tune out.
如果有人走进房间，坐在桌旁，“我要给你讲个笑话”，我会说，别听。
Or maybe this is anthropologically interesting, but funny is the last thing I would expect from them.
或者也许这在人类学上很有趣，但有趣是我最不希望他们做的事情。
You know what?
你知道吗？
I travel in different circles than you do.
我和你的圈子不同。
A lot of comedians at the table will tell jokes, and these guys are very good at telling them sometimes, so I enjoy jokes.
餐桌上很多喜剧演员都会讲笑话，这些人有时很擅长讲笑话，所以我很喜欢笑话。
My father told a million jokes.
我父亲讲了一百万个笑话。
They were funny to me, but in your egghead circles, maybe they’re not good joke tellers.
他们对我来说很有趣，但在你们的书呆子圈子里，也许他们不擅长讲笑话。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
COWEN: How has social media changed comedy?
COWEN：社交媒体如何改变喜剧？
Well, it came to the rescue in a certain way, because just as wokeness put a cloud over everything, social media allowed some of the most successful comics working today to distribute themselves directly to their audience and find their audience.
好吧，它以某种方式拯救了我们，因为就像觉醒给一切蒙上了一层阴影一样，社交媒体让当今一些最成功的漫画家能够将自己直接传播给观众并找到他们的观众。
I think this includes even Joe Rogan, to some extent.
我认为这在某种程度上甚至包括乔·罗根。
And there’s no gatekeepers anymore.
而且不再有看门人了。
People like Andrew Schulz, Chris Distefano, and Tim Dillon.
像安德鲁·舒尔茨、克里斯·迪斯特法诺和蒂姆·狄龙这样的人。
It’s given comedy a lifeline in a certain way.
它在某种程度上给了喜剧生命线。
It’s changed everything, not just comedy, but our business.
它改变了一切，不仅仅是喜剧，还有我们的生意。
Years ago, I had a music club that was hugely successful, the Café Wha?.
几年前，我有一个非常成功的音乐俱乐部，Café Wha?。
We had lines around the block to get in.
我们在街区周围排了长队才能进去。
It was a huge local New York thing.
这是纽约当地的一件大事。
If we’d had social media, the sky would have been the limit.
如果我们有了社交媒体，那就没有极限了。
We used to have to stamp postcards if we had an event and send out 100.
过去，如果我们有活动，就必须在明信片上贴邮票并寄出 100 张。
It was expensive.
价格很贵。
Now you can announce something to a billion people.
现在您可以向十亿人宣布某件事。
It’s rippled through everything, including the ability of comedians to present themselves directly to the audience in a very meritocratic way.
它影响到一切，包括喜剧演员以一种非常精英化的方式直接向观众展示自己的能力。
You can’t argue so much with who rises to the top when people are forwarding things they find funny.
当人们转发他们觉得有趣的东西时，你不能与谁上升到最高点争论那么多。
But say in the NBA, some people charge that dunks, layups, spectacular 3-point shots have replaced watching actual games.
但说在NBA，有人指责扣篮、上篮、精彩的三分球已经取代了现场观看比赛。
You just pull out bits, and you watch highlights.
你只需拉出一些片段，然后就可以观看精彩片段。
Is comedy becoming just a thing of highlights?
喜剧是否会成为一个亮点？
And is that, in the longer run, good for comedy, bad for comedy?
从长远来看，这对喜剧有利还是不利？
It’s taking everybody’s attention span on everything.
它吸引了每个人对所有事情的注意力。
Yes, I would say it has done that, although our club has always been a showcase club as opposed to a headlining club, so we’ve always opted for shorter bits.
是的，我想说它已经做到了这一点，尽管我们的俱乐部一直是一个展示俱乐部，而不是一个头条俱乐部，所以我们总是选择较短的部分。
I’ve always found it hard to sit through an hour of somebody’s comedy, unless it was a classic Richard Pryor or a thing like that.
我总是发现很难看完某人的一个小时的喜剧，除非是经典的理查德·普赖尔或类似的东西。
I think you’re right.
我认为你是对的。
I’m overthinking it.
我想太多了。
Yes, everybody’s attention span is shorter on everything, and that’s forced comedians to —
是的，每个人对所有事情的注意力持续时间都较短，这迫使喜剧演员 ——
Well, you know what?
嗯，你知道吗？
Having said that, still, the real kings, like Louis C.K.
话虽如此，真正的国王，比如 Louis C.K.
and Chappelle and Chris Rock — they really still do take their time with their bits.
还有 Chappelle 和 Chris Rock——他们确实仍然不紧不慢地处理自己的事情。
They spin out long things, and they’re still on top.
他们纺出很长的东西，但他们仍然在上面。
They really are, but they’re the geniuses.
他们确实是，但他们是天才。
If you take a top YouTuber and put that person on stage at a comedy club like the Comedy Cellar, how does that person fare?
如果你邀请一位顶级 YouTuber 并让他登上喜剧俱乐部（例如 Comedy Cellar）的舞台，那么他的表现如何？
Very badly.
非常糟糕。
Why?
为什么？
What’s the difference?
有什么区别？
It goes back to what we were talking about before.
这又回到了我们之前讨论的话题。
It’s not as easy as it looks.
这并不像看起来那么容易。
When Twitter first started, there was a very famous tweeter.
Twitter刚诞生时，有一位非常著名的推特用户。
I can’t remember his name now.
我现在记不起他的名字了。
He had a huge number of followings for that era, and he was funny.
他在那个时代拥有大量的追随者，而且他很有趣。
He was very funny on Twitter, and he would do some shows, and it was just tumbleweeds and crickets.
他在推特上很有趣，他会做一些节目，只是风滚草和蟋蟀。
Just crickets.
只是蟋蟀。
It’s not that easy.
这并不容易。
There’s timing; there’s a charisma.
有时机；有一种魅力。
But isn’t YouTube harder in a way?
但 YouTube 不是在某种程度上更难吗？
Because you’ve got to pretend there’s a live audience there, so it takes all the more effort, energy, dynamism.
因为你必须假装那里有现场观众，所以这需要更多的努力、精力和活力。
Is it that they overshoot or that they come off flat?
是它们超调了还是表现平平？
What exactly happens?
到底发生了什么？
I think YouTube is just different.
我认为 YouTube 与众不同。
I’ve never done it.
我从来没有这样做过。
I don’t know that it’s harder or easier, but I know that there are certain people who just can fill a room.
我不知道这更难还是更容易，但我知道有些人可以填满一个房间。
I’ll give you an example.
我给你举个例子。
Chappelle — he has a talent.
查普尔 ——他有天赋。
He can just talk for three hours.
他可以讲三个小时。
Doesn’t have to be hitting punch lines.
不一定要打出妙语。
And people will just sit there and listen to him.
人们只会坐在那里听他讲话。
It’s hypnotic.
它具有催眠作用。
He’s magnetic.
他很有磁性。
I can’t account for that.
我无法解释这一点。
It wouldn’t work on YouTube.
它在 YouTube 上不起作用。
I don’t think anybody would sit and watch him on YouTube.
我认为没有人会在 YouTube 上观看他的表演。
The only other person I know who has that is maybe Howard Stern.
我认识的唯一拥有这种能力的人可能是霍华德·斯特恩。
Somehow, he can just talk and talk and talk, and people will listen.
不知何故，他可以一直说啊说啊，人们就会听。
It’s just a different talent, I think.
我认为这只是一种不同的天赋。
On Twitter, why are just ordinary people so often funnier than the comedians?
在推特上，为什么普通人往往比喜剧演员更有趣？
That’s a great question, because this frustrates comics no end, and they won’t talk about it.
这是一个很好的问题，因为这让漫画家无限沮丧，而且他们不会谈论它。
For instance, I’m pretty funny.
举个例子，我很有趣。
If I’m at the comedian table and I say something that’s funny, there’s a large number of comedians who will not laugh because it makes them uncomfortable to see a civilian be funny, because it’s a civilian.
如果我在喜剧演员席上说了一些有趣的话，有很多喜剧演员不会笑，因为看到平民搞笑会让他们感到不舒服，因为那是平民。
You’re a civilian?
你是平民？
You’re the boss.
你是老板。
DWORMAN: Well, boss, but a civilian in the sense that I’m not supposed to be the talent.
DWORMAN：嗯，老板，但我是一个平民，因为我不应该成为人才。
A lot of people are extremely funny in person, as funny as stand-up comics.
很多人本人都非常有趣，就像单口喜剧一样有趣。
What they don’t have is whatever it is that’s driving stand-up.
他们所缺乏的是推动单口喜剧表演的因素。
Well, they might not have a few things.
好吧，他们可能没有一些东西。
They’re not comfortable on stage, they may not be charismatic, and they’re not compelled to be in front of an audience, getting laughs.
他们在舞台上不舒服，他们可能没有魅力，而且他们不被迫在观众面前取笑。
This is something the comedians love.
这是喜剧演员喜欢的东西。
My father used to talk about it.
我父亲曾经谈论过这件事。
They want to be on stage.
他们想要登上舞台。
They want to be the center of attention.
他们想成为关注的焦点。
It’s not just about being funny.
这不仅仅是为了搞笑。
There’s a need that they have for this that the average funny person doesn’t have.
他们对此有一种普通有趣的人没有的需求。
I can be funny, but I don’t have the urge to be on stage being funny.
我可以搞笑，但我没有上台搞笑的冲动。
Matter of fact, I’m scared of that.
事实上，我对此感到害怕。
I don’t follow any comedians.
我不关注任何喜剧演员。
I sit there, I read Twitter, and I giggle.
我坐在那里，读推特，咯咯地笑。
There’s maybe a person who’s funny once every four years, but the funniest thing they say becomes viral on Twitter.
也许有人每四年就会搞笑一次，但他们所说的最有趣的事情会在 Twitter 上疯传。
How do comedians compete against hundreds of millions of people who are mostly unfunny, but they have one funny moment every now and then, and then it gets elevated to the top?
喜剧演员如何与数以亿计的人竞争，这些人大多无趣，但他们时不时就会有一个有趣的时刻，然后被提升到顶峰？
You’re asking me questions about things that I’ve actually thought about, even recently.
你问我的问题是我最近思考过的事情。
I don’t know the answer to that exactly.
我不知道确切的答案。
I’ve been wondering how is it that some of these Comedy Cellar comedians are on top, even though they’re not actually funnier, especially since you’re only getting the cream of the crop of these tweets.
我一直想知道为什么这些喜剧地窖喜剧演员中的一些人能名列前茅，尽管他们实际上并不更有趣，特别是因为你只得到了这些推文中的精华。
I guess somehow they are.
我想他们确实是这样。
That’s all I can tell you.
我能告诉你的就是这些。
Somehow people who are at the top of this field —
不知何故，处于这个领域最顶端的人 ——
Now, there’s a lot of overachievers in this profession.
现在，这个行业有很多优秀的人。
It’s not like the NBA.
这不像NBA。
If you want to be in the NBA, you’ve got to be in the top one-tenth of basketball players in the country, or it’s immediately obvious.
如果你想进入 NBA，你必须跻身全国前十分之一的篮球运动员之列，否则这一点就显而易见了。
You can scratch out and work hard and put together a good 15 minutes, so there are a lot of overachievers working in comedy.
你可以从零开始，努力工作，拼凑出 15 分钟的时间，所以喜剧领域有很多优秀的人。
The real super talent, the real gems, like the Chappelles, like the Louis C.K.s — they really are on another level, and the world sees that.
真正的超级天才，真正的宝石，比如 Chappelles、Louis C.K.s ——他们确实处于另一个水平，全世界都看到了这一点。
I don’t know if that’s a good answer or not.
我不知道这是否是一个好的答案。
Why are there so few great comedy movies today?
为什么现在好看的喜剧电影这么少？
And TV shows, for that matter.
还有电视节目。
It used to be top TV shows were comedies — not all of them — Seinfeld the clearest example.
过去最热门的电视节目都是喜剧 ——“不是全部”—— 《宋飞正传》就是最明显的例子。
Now for a long time, HBO, dramas.
很长一段时间以来，HBO，戏剧。
What happened?
发生了什么？
The obvious answer that most people would say is because you can’t make those jokes anymore.
大多数人会说的显而易见的答案是因为你不能再开那些玩笑了。
Most of the classic comedies had jokes which would be considered off-limits today.
大多数经典喜剧都有一些在今天被认为是禁区的笑话。
But they’re not mostly that politically incorrect.
但他们大多并不那么政治不正确。
Seinfeld is less politically incorrect than Curb Your Enthusiasm, but there’s not a Seinfeld of today, is there?
《宋飞传》比《抑制你的热情》政治不正确程度要低一些，但今天已经没有宋飞传了，不是吗？
In movies, you can go pretty far out.
在电影中，你可以走得很远。
Most of the funny movies from the past, like Bringing Up Baby — it’s pretty funny.
过去的大多数有趣的电影，比如《抚养婴儿》——都非常有趣。
It’s not politically incorrect at all.
这根本不是政治不正确。
It’s coming around, that kind of comedy.
那种喜剧即将到来。
I don’t know, Tyler.
我不知道，泰勒。
Do you have a thought on that?
你对此有什么想法吗？
We seem to be getting funny bits in different ways, and they’re more condensed, and they come at a higher information density, and we can pull them off the internet or TikTok whenever we want.
我们似乎以不同的方式获得有趣的片段，它们更加浓缩，信息密度更高，我们可以随时从互联网或 TikTok 上获取它们。
It seems that sates us, and we enjoy the feeling of control over comedy, which you don’t quite get when you’re watching, say, a hundred-minute film.
这似乎让我们感到满足，而且我们喜欢掌控喜剧的感觉，而当你观看一部一百分钟的电影时，你无法完全体会到这种感觉。
That would be my hypothesis.
这就是我的假设。
Does that mean that there are movies that have been made which are funny and would deserve the success of a classic comedy, they’re just not getting appreciated?
这是否意味着有些电影很有趣并且值得获得经典喜剧的成功，但它们只是没有得到赞赏？
No, they don’t get made.
不，它们不是被制造出来的。
They don’t get made at all.
它们根本不是被制造出来的。
Maybe some of them are made for TV, but even there, it all seems less funny to me.
也许其中一些是为电视制作的，但即使在那里，对我来说这一切似乎也不那么有趣。
But it could also be audiences are themselves less funny.
但也可能是观众本身不那么有趣。
They’re more depressed, they’re more neurotic.
他们更加抑郁，更加神经质。
We see some of that in the data, at least for young people.
我们在数据中看到了一些这一点，至少对于年轻人来说是这样。
I suspect that’s not the main reason, but part of it.
我怀疑这不是主要原因，但只是部分原因。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Sometimes there isn’t a reason.
有时没有理由。
Sometimes there’s just a golden age.
有时只是一个黄金时代。
Let’s compare it to music.
让我们将其与音乐进行比较。
Why is music a little bit stagnant now?
为什么现在音乐有点停滞了？
Maybe that’s just the ebb and flow of where it’s at, and we’re trying to correlate it to something, but it has nothing to do with that.
也许这只是它所在位置的潮起潮落，我们试图将它与某些东西联系起来，但它与此无关。
Maybe it’s just that the great talents are doing other things now, or a lot of the jokes have been told.
或许只是现在的大才子都在做别的事情，或者是讲了很多笑话。
I don’t know, but there are definitely golden ages of every art form.
我不知道，但每种艺术形式肯定都有黄金时代。
But comedy is still in a golden age; it’s just not in movies and television.
但喜剧仍处于黄金时代；它只是电影和电视中没有的。
But not in movies.
但不是在电影中。
How do you think it changed comedy to be moved away from general outlets?
您认为喜剧从一般渠道转移出去对喜剧有何影响？
It used to be there’d be a vaudeville show.
以前那里会有歌舞杂耍表演。
You would see something on a showboat, in a saloon, a circus, and parts of it would be funny, but sometimes you’d just be watching the dancing bear.
你会在游船上、酒吧、马戏团里看到一些东西，其中的某些部分会很有趣，但有时你只是在看跳舞的熊。
Whereas now, today, people go to a Comedy Club in capital letters.
而现在，今天，人们去喜剧俱乐部都是用大写字母。
Did that evolution matter?
这种进化重要吗？
I don’t think it’s better.
我不认为这更好。
I know that a lot of comedians became a little snobby about that.
我知道很多喜剧演员对此变得有点势利。
For instance, in the Village Underground, we have a band that brings the comedians on and off the stage.
例如，在地下村，我们有一支乐队将喜剧演员带到舞台上和舞台下。
I don’t know if you’ve been to the Underground.
不知道你有没有去过地铁。
No, not yet.
不，还没有。
When I first introduced it, I really introduced it because I had to let some musicians go when I was changing the club over, so I tried to include them.
当我第一次介绍它时，我确实介绍了它，因为我在更换俱乐部时不得不让一些音乐家离开，所以我尝试将他们包括在内。
Related to what you’re saying, the Black comics who came up in much more raucous rooms and rooms which were not dedicated — they immediately embraced this.
与你所说的相关，黑人漫画出现在更加喧闹的房间和不专用的房间中——他们立即接受了这一点。
They liked it; they liked the energy.
他们喜欢它；他们喜欢这种能量。
The more clever White comics — and “clever” is in scare quotes — were very resistant to it at first because this was not purist.
更聪明的白人漫画 ——“聪明”是用恐吓引号来表示的—— 一开始非常抵制它，因为这不是纯粹主义。
In retrospect, most of them have come to me and said, “No, I was wrong.
回想起来，他们中的大多数人都来找我说：“不，我错了。
The music is great.” We even allowed the band a little feature thing.
音乐很棒。”我们甚至允许乐队做一些特色的事情。
I think it’s not an improvement.
我认为这不是一个进步。
I think that a mix of things is better.
我认为混合使用不同的东西会更好。
Catch a Rising Star, which was considered to be the greatest of the New York comedy clubs back in the ’80s — they actually did have music acts, and the Improv had music acts at one time.
Catch a Rising Star 被认为是 80 年代纽约最伟大的喜剧俱乐部——他们确实有音乐表演，而即兴表演也曾一度有音乐表演。
Now, it’s true that if it’s too much, it can be difficult to settle the room back down to comedy, so there are practical reasons.
现在，确实，如果太多，就很难让房间回到喜剧状态，所以这是有实际原因的。
But I think, in general, this snobbery of the art form, as opposed to just being entertaining to an audience — I’m on the side of entertainment.
但我认为，总的来说，这种艺术形式的势利，而不是仅仅为了娱乐观众 —— 我站在娱乐的一边。
I would love to see a vaudeville show.
我很想看杂耍表演。
Here’s a very difficult question that I’ve never heard a really good answer to.
这是一个非常困难的问题，我从未听到过真正好的答案。
If you take broadly American comedy and then broadly British comedy, and you had to boil down the difference to as small a number of dimensions as possible, what would that be?
如果你先看美国喜剧，然后再看英国喜剧，然后你必须将差异归结为尽可能小的维度，那会是什么？
You’re laughing at me, but I’m not funny.
你在笑我，但我并不好笑。
I’m laughing at you because you should know more about this than I do.
我笑你是因为你应该比我更了解这一点。
No, I don’t.
不，我不。
You have British comics in, right?
你有英国漫画吧？
Yes, we have British comics in.
是的，我们有英国漫画。
They’re less politically correct.
他们不太政治正确。
They’re more word-oriented, like Jimmy Carr, but I don’t know the difference between British stand-up comedy — I don’t know enough about it.
他们更注重文字，就像吉米·卡尔一样，但我不知道英国单口喜剧之间的区别 —— 我对此了解得不够。
I would assume it’s similar to the difference between Monty Python movies and Caddy Shack.
我认为这类似于 Monty Python 电影和 Caddy Shack 之间的区别。
There’s just a different sensibility about it.
只是有一种不同的感受。
The British comics that I see are a self-selected bunch of comedians who come to the Comedy Cellar.
我看到的英国漫画是一群自选的喜剧演员来到喜剧地窖。
To America, yes, sure.
去美国，是的，当然。
And for the Comedy Cellar.
还有喜剧地窖。
They’re friends of Louis, they’re friends of somebody.
他们是路易斯的朋友，他们是某人的朋友。
Somehow, they’ve gotten in the door, and they’ve decided for themselves that this is a good audience for them.
不知何故，他们已经进来了，他们自己决定这对他们来说是一个很好的观众。
So, I don’t know the answer, but I enjoy British comedy.
所以，我不知道答案，但我喜欢英国喜剧。
I think of the Americans as more explicitly presenting themselves in your face as entertainers.
我认为美国人在你面前更明确地表现出他们是艺人。
The British comics start off by positioning their class relative to yours in some way.
英国漫画首先以某种方式将他们的阶级与你的阶级相对定位。
That’s one of the fundamental differences.
这是根本区别之一。
When Ricky Gervais did those famous — was it the Golden Globes?
当瑞奇·热维斯 (Ricky Gervais) 拍摄那些著名作品时——是金球奖吗？
Was that particularly British, would you say?
你会说这是特别英国式的吗？
Was there something about that that an American comic wouldn’t have done?
有什么是美国漫画不会做的吗？
I didn’t see it.
我没看到。
Oh, you didn’t see it?
哦，你没看到吗？
No.
不。
It was so funny.
太有趣了。
I mean, he just eviscerated everybody.
我的意思是，他刚刚把所有人都掏空了。
I don’t know if that’s because he felt more latitude because he’s not from this country — he’s British — whatever it is.
我不知道这是否是因为他感觉更自由，因为他不是来自这个国家——“他是英国人”——不管它是什么。
It seemed different than an American comic would have done.
这似乎与美国漫画不同。
It was different than the way Michelle Wolf tried to do the same thing for their correspondents’ dinner.
这与米歇尔·沃尔夫在记者晚宴上尝试做同样事情的方式不同。
If I think of the earlier history of comedy, I see a lot of comedy double acts.
如果我回想喜剧的早期历史，我会看到很多喜剧的双人表演。
Laurel and Hardy, George and Gracie, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen— those have mostly vanished.
劳雷尔和哈代、乔治和格雷西、阿博特和科斯特洛、伯恩斯和艾伦——这些人大多已经消失了。
What happened?
发生了什么？
Is the straight man or woman out of fashion?
直男或直女过时了吗？
Is it too slow when you have two people, and we need the higher information density of comedy?
两个人的时候是不是太慢了，而我们又需要喜剧更高的信息密度？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Those acts came up not in comedy rooms, as you say.
正如你所说，这些表演不是在喜剧室里出现的。
Usually, they’d be part of a bill, sometimes one of them sang, or they would do radio plays, so they had to be able to do a plot.
通常，他们会成为账单的一部分，有时他们中的一个人会唱歌，或者他们会做广播剧，所以他们必须能够做一个情节。
I’m trying to think of reasons why it would be that.
我正在尝试思考为什么会这样。
We’ve had some comedy duos over the years at the Comedy Cellar.
多年来，我们在喜剧地窖里有一些喜剧二人组。
Very few.
很少。
Some of them were very funny, but they eventually went their separate ways from each other.
他们中的一些人非常有趣，但他们最终还是分道扬镳了。
I think the vehicles that are being used now are just not conducive to a comedy team like they once were.
我认为现在使用的车辆不利于像以前那样的喜剧团队。
Is it a Simon and Garfunkel problem, like someone thinks he’s too good for the group?
这是西蒙和加芬克尔的问题吗，就像有人认为他对团队来说太好了？
Well, that’s what happened with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.
嗯，这就是杰瑞·刘易斯和迪恩·马丁的遭遇。
I remember my father telling me nobody thought Dean Martin would last.
我记得父亲告诉我，没有人认为迪恩·马丁能够长久。
Everybody assumed he wouldn’t, but it turned out he did.
每个人都以为他不会，但事实证明他做到了。
I don’t know if there’s a rule of thumb.
我不知道是否有经验法则。
Every one of these scenarios might be unique in its own way, but definitely the idea that the radio was a central way of presenting things in those days — I think that probably dictated that a duo was a smart thing to have.
这些场景中的每一个都可能以自己的方式独特，但毫无疑问，收音机是当时展示事物的主要方式的想法 —— 我认为这可能表明二人组是一件明智的事情。
Because you wanted to have a conversation on the radio and a plot.
因为你想在广播中进行对话和情节。
Abbott and Costello had plots.
阿博特和科斯特洛有阴谋。
And they were in movies with plots.
他们在有情节的电影中。
Yes.
是的。
Who’s the oldest comedian — oldest in the sense of going back in history — that you can watch today on YouTube, or listen to, and still laugh?
谁是最年长的喜剧演员（“从回顾历史的意义上来说最古老的”），你今天可以在 YouTube 上观看或聆听，并且仍然会开怀大笑？
It’s funny.
这很有趣。
Comedy doesn’t age well, right?
喜剧不太适合年龄，对吧？
Right.
正确的。
It’s not like music.
这不像音乐。
It’s amazing how it doesn’t age well.
令人惊讶的是它的老化效果不佳。
I find old Don Rickles still funny sometimes, but I find all old George Carlin — I will still find the Class Clown album funny.
我发现老唐·里克斯有时仍然很有趣，但我发现所有老乔治·卡林 —— 我仍然会觉得《Class Clown》专辑很有趣。
I thought that the Judd Apatow documentary had a lot of footage of Carlin back in the ’60s.
我认为贾德·阿帕托的纪录片中有很多关于 60 年代卡林的镜头。
I still found that funny.
我仍然觉得这很有趣。
But Cheech and Chong — they’re not funny anymore.
但奇奇和冲 ——他们不再有趣了。
I haven’t listened to it since I was in high school.
我从高中起就没有听过它了。
That’s endogenous.
这是内生的。
I probably — no, because all the weed jokes and whatever.
我可能————不，因为所有关于大麻的笑话等等。
No, it would seem very, very dated.
不，它看起来非常非常过时。
It would have to.
它必须这样做。
Jack Benny — is he still funny?
杰克·本尼 — 他还有趣吗？
Yes, I think Jack Benny is still funny.
是的，我认为杰克·本尼仍然很有趣。
He’s still funny in some of the old clips.
他在一些旧片段中仍然很有趣。
I haven’t heard Jack Benny’s stand-up.
我还没听过杰克·本尼的脱口秀。
Bob Hope is not still funny.
鲍勃·霍普仍然不好笑。
No.
不。
I don’t remember thinking Bob Hope was funny back then.
我不记得当时认为鲍勃·霍普很有趣。
Not ever.
从来没有。
Even when I was a kid, I was like, “Who is this guy?”
当我还是个孩子的时候，我就想：“这个人是谁？”
Old Woody Allen stand-up is funny, for sure.
老伍迪·艾伦的单口喜剧确实很有趣。
I played some old Bill Cosby stuff for my kids.
我给我的孩子们演奏了一些比尔科斯比的老歌。
I think this was before Bill Cosby went out of fashion, and they loved it.
我想这是在比尔·考斯比 (Bill Cosby) 过时之前的事，他们很喜欢它。
Now, they’re kids.
现在，他们都是孩子了。
And they didn’t know the backstory.
而且他们也不知道背后的故事。
They didn’t know the backstory.
他们不知道背后的故事。
We loved Bill Cosby as kids.
我们小时候很喜欢比尔科斯比。
I don’t know if you’re —
我不知道你是否 ——
To me, it was never funny.
对我来说，这从来都不好笑。
It was too boring mainstream.
主流太无聊了。
My dad used to always tell me, “Bill Cosby is a creep.” And he would say, “Someday you’ll agree with me.”
我爸爸过去总是告诉我，“比尔·科斯比是个讨厌鬼。”他会说：“总有一天你会同意我的观点。”
That’s amazing.
太棒了。
How did he know?
他怎么知道的？
There were two people he would say were creeps: Bill Cosby and Woody Allen.
他会说有两个人是令人毛骨悚然的人：比尔·科斯比和伍迪·艾伦。
He had a remarkable intuition for human character.
他对人的性格有着非凡的直觉。
Well, this goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning about these cues.
好吧，这又回到了我们一开始讨论的关于这些线索的内容。
That’s right.
这是正确的。
It’s amazing.
太棒了。
He never met either one, of course.
当然，他从未见过其中任何一个。
Now, he didn’t say something about a hundred other people?
现在，他没有说其他一百个人的事情吗？
No, no. Those were the two that he signaled out and demonized.
不，不。这就是他发出信号并妖魔化的两个人。
That’s remarkable.
这太了不起了。
Yes.
是的。
Bob Newhart — was he funny?
鲍勃·纽哈特（Bob Newhart）——他有趣吗？
It’s so low-key to me.
这对我来说太低调了。
I tried listening to some to prep for this conversation.
我尝试听一些人的讲话来为这次谈话做准备。
It’s like funny for square people in 1963 or something, but to me it wasn’t funny.
对于 1963 年的广场人来说这很有趣，但对我来说这并不好笑。
No, I don’t find it that funny.
不，我觉得没那么好笑。
I went back and not so long ago listened and watched the Richard Pryor movie, where he does the Monkey and Leon Spinks and that stuff, and I still found that funny.
不久前我回去听了理查德·普赖尔的电影，看了他的《猴子》和《莱昂·斯平克斯》之类的东西，我仍然觉得很有趣。
But it’s rare.
但这种情况很少见。
Comedy does not age well, and I don’t know why.
喜剧不太容易过时，我不知道为什么。
I will tell you this.
我会告诉你这一点。
It’s not stand-up comedy, but Chaplin — because we play Chaplin all the time in the restaurant — there are nights when the entire restaurant will be laughing at Chaplin.
这不是单口喜剧，而是卓别林 ——因为我们一直在餐厅里扮演卓别林—— 有些晚上，整个餐厅都会嘲笑卓别林。
It still captivates me.
它仍然让我着迷。
I’m not sure I’m laughing, but it’s very powerful, I think, to this day.
我不确定我在笑，但我认为直到今天，它仍然非常有力。
The end of City Lights, where he holds her hand, and she realizes that he’s a homeless guy or a bum, but she thought he was this rich man.
在《城市之光》的结尾，他握着她的手，她意识到他是一个无家可归的人或流浪汉，但她认为他是一个有钱人。
Anyway, I’m trying to encapsulate him but it’s too complicated.
不管怎样，我试图把他封装起来，但太复杂了。
And you’ll see multiple people with tears in their eyes at the end of this Chaplin movie in the restaurant.
当这部卓别林电影结束时，你会在餐厅里看到很多人眼含热泪。
What accounts for that, in your view?
您认为这是什么原因造成的？
Genius.
天才。
There’s no other way.
没有其他办法。
He was —
他是 ——
He spanned Europe and America.
他的足迹遍及欧洲和美洲。
He was not quite at home anywhere.
他在任何地方都不太自在。
Outsider, a little tramp, refugee.
局外人、小流浪汉、难民。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
We’ve tried Buster Keaton.
我们尝试过巴斯特·基顿。
We’ve tried Laurel and Hardy.
我们尝试过劳雷尔和哈代。
They did a lot of silent movies before they did talk.
他们在说话之前拍了很多无声电影。
We’ve tried sampling all the greats of the silent era, and none of them seem to attract attention from the patrons other than Chaplin.
我们尝试过对默片时代的所有伟人进行采样，但除了卓别林之外，他们似乎都没有引起观众的注意。
Also, he’s acrobatic.
而且，他还是杂技演员。
There are roller skating scenes and boxing scenes and trapeze scenes and amazing stuff.
有轮滑场景、拳击场景、空中飞人场景和令人惊叹的东西。
W.C Fields, The Bank Dick, I thought still was funny.
W.C Fields，银行迪克，我觉得还是很有趣。
Yes, W.C Fields is funny and way ahead of his time.
是的，W.C Fields 很有趣，而且远远领先于他的时代。
Actually, it wasn’t my idea, but the name Fat Black Pussycat, which is one of our rooms, is named after the bar in the movie Bank Dick.
事实上，这不是我的主意，但我们其中一间房间的名字“Fat Black Pussycat”是以电影“Bank Dick”中的酒吧命名的。
I think it might just be called the Fat Cat in that movie.
我想它可能只是在那部电影中被称为“肥猫”。
What about comedy across borders?
跨界喜剧怎么样？
Forget about the Anglosphere.
忘掉英语圈吧。
Brits are funny.
英国人很有趣。
Canadians, of course, are funny, but people from Israel, France, wherever, Germany.
当然，加拿大人很有趣，但来自以色列、法国、德国等地方的人也很有趣。
If comedy doesn’t age well across time, how does it, for you, age across borders?
如果喜剧不能随着时间的推移而长久地流传下去，那么对你来说，它是如何跨越国界而流传下来的呢？
Apparently people like American comedy all over the world.
显然全世界的人们都喜欢美国喜剧。
Americans are not so keen on comedians from other countries.
美国人不太热衷于其他国家的喜剧演员。
That’s it.
就是这样。
When we have comedians come here from other countries, I don’t think anybody has done that well.
当我们有来自其他国家的喜剧演员来到这里时，我认为没有人做得那么好。
Gad Elmaleh did pretty well for a while.
加德·埃尔马莱（Gad Elmaleh）有一段时间表现得相当不错。
They’re too culturally specific?
他们的文化太特殊了？
Or they’re just not funny?
或者他们只是不好笑？
How do you account for the difference?
您如何解释这种差异？
It has something to do with the power of American culture.
这与美国文化的力量有关。
American culture has been integrated by all the other countries in the world somehow.
美国文化已经以某种方式融入了世界其他国家。
They’ve just grown up with it, and they get it.
他们是伴随着它长大的，他们明白了。
They get us; we don’t get them.
他们抓住了我们；我们不明白。
That’s my best guess at it.
这是我的最佳猜测。
You think they’re quite funny for their local audiences?
你认为他们对当地观众来说很有趣吗？
They clearly are.
他们显然是。
They clearly are.
他们显然是。
Now, how many years have you been running the club?
现在，你经营这家具乐部多少年了？
Since 2003.
自2003年起。
Is that thirty years?
那是三十年吗？
Twenty years.
二十年了。
Over those years, across time, comedians to you — are they nicer?
那些年，跨越时间，喜剧演员对你来说 —— 他们更好吗？
Are they meaner?
他们更卑鄙吗？
How have they changed as a group or class of people?
作为一个群体或一个阶层，他们发生了怎样的变化？
None of them will be listening to this podcast, so you can say what you really think.
他们都不会听这个播客，所以你可以说出你的真实想法。
How have they changed over time?
随着时间的推移，它们发生了怎样的变化？
How have they changed?
他们发生了怎样的变化？
They’re more aggressive?
他们更具攻击性？
They’re quieter?
他们比较安静？
They are less aggressive.
他们的攻击性较小。
They are more careful.
他们更加小心。
They’re less bro‑y, which is considered a bad thing, but the bros were fun.
他们不太像兄弟，这被认为是一件坏事，但兄弟们很有趣。
There was a raucous bro atmosphere, like the Bill Burr types.
那里有一种喧闹的兄弟气氛，就像比尔·伯尔那样。
A lot of these people are famous now, but they’re grandfathered in.
这些人中的很多人现在都很出名，但他们都是祖父辈的。
A young Bill Burr would have a tough time.
年轻的比尔·伯尔将会经历一段艰难的时期。
People would look at him like, “Dude, you need to chill out.
人们会这样看着他，“伙计，你需要冷静一下。
You can’t say that stuff anymore.” They’ve changed in that way, but in many ways they’re the same.
你不能再说这种话了。”他们在这方面发生了变化，但在很多方面他们是相同的。
They’re still smarter than most people.
他们仍然比大多数人更聪明。
They’re still less easy to offend.
他们仍然不太容易被冒犯。
They’re still much better company.
他们仍然是更好的伙伴。
They’re still much better conversations, much less boring small talk.
它们仍然是更好的对话，更不用说无聊的闲聊了。
Comedians only like to hang out with comedians for these reasons, and they die a thousand deaths when they have to go to a dinner with people who are not comedians.
由于这些原因，喜剧演员只喜欢与喜剧演员一起出去玩，当他们不得不与非喜剧演员共进晚餐时，他们会死上千次。
They really don’t like it, because they cut out all the nonsense.
他们真的不喜欢它，因为他们删掉了所有废话。
They’re very, very honest and very, very direct.
他们非常非常诚实，非常非常直接。
It’s coming to me as I’m answering you.
当我回答你的时候，它就来到了我身边。
They’ll share very personal details with each other in a way that most people won’t.
他们会以大多数人不会的方式彼此分享非常个人的细节。
Even people they don’t know that well.
即使是他们不太了解的人。
This is just part of their culture and part of their ethic, to be very, very honest.
老实说，这只是他们文化和道德的一部分。
That’s a very captivating conversation to be in.
这是一次非常迷人的对话。
How often do they marry each other?
他们多久结婚一次？
Not that often.
不那么频繁。
Don’t they end up unhappy, then?
那他们的结局不是不幸福吗？
Tom Papa is married to his wife, Cynthia, and they’ve been married for a long time and very happy.
汤姆爸爸与他的妻子辛西娅结婚了，他们结婚已经很长时间了，非常幸福。
There are some couples — they usually break up.
有一些情侣——他们通常会分手。
Listen, comedians — it’s not about marrying other female comedians.
听着，喜剧演员们——这不是要嫁给其他女喜剧演员。
Male comedians are notoriously bad at love.
众所周知，男性喜剧演员不擅长爱情。
Why is that?
这是为什么？
One might say it’s because a lot of them are damaged in some way, and that’s what makes them funny.
有人可能会说这是因为它们中的很多都在某种程度上受到了损坏，这就是它们变得有趣的原因。
It could be the lifestyle.
这可能是生活方式。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
They’re not like my law school friends, who are all happily married for a long time, with children.
他们不像我法学院的朋友，他们都幸福地结婚了很长一段时间，并且有了孩子。
The comedians — they get divorced a lot, or they don’t get married at all.
喜剧演员——他们经常离婚，或者根本不结婚。
So, as a group of people, you think they’re less happy than, say, your lawyer friends?
那么，作为一群人，你认为他们不如你的律师朋友那么快乐？
Less happy?
不那么快乐？
That’s a good question.
这是一个好问题。
There’s a lot of depression.
有很多抑郁症。
There are a lot of psychotropic drugs.
精神类药物有很多。
Is that the phrase?
是这句话吗？
A lot of mood drugs being taken by comedians, but if you read the paper, this is common throughout American culture.
喜剧演员服用了很多情绪药物，但如果你读过报纸，就会发现这在美国文化中很常见。
I don’t know if it’s more or they’re just, again, more open about it, because comedians will tell you, “I’m taking this, I’m taking that.”
我不知道这是否更多，或者他们只是再次对此更加开放，因为喜剧演员会告诉你，“我接受这个，我接受那个。”
I would have to say they’re not less happy because they love their work, and they can’t wait to go to work.
我不得不说，他们并不因为热爱自己的工作而感到不那么快乐，而且他们迫不及待地想上班。
My father used to tell me that most people live their whole lives for the weekend.
我父亲曾经告诉我，大多数人一生都在为周末而活。
They can’t stand going to work, and those people, I have trouble believing are happier than comedians.
他们无法忍受去上班，而我很难相信这些人比喜剧演员更快乐。
And I have a job similar to this, where my whole profession is on my own terms.
我有一份与此类似的工作，我的整个职业都是按照我自己的方式进行的。
If I’m interested in computers, I can make that work for my profession.
如果我对计算机感兴趣，我可以让它适合我的职业。
If I have music, whatever it was I wanted to do, this is happiness.
如果我有音乐，无论我想做什么，这就是幸福。
So, unless they are chemically depressed people, as some people are, I think comedians are probably happier than most people.
因此，除非他们像某些人那样患有化学抑郁症，否则我认为喜剧演员可能比大多数人更快乐。
If there’s a truly beautiful woman, can she do stand-up comedy, or are the looks an obstacle?
如果有一个真正美丽的女人，她能演单口喜剧吗？还是外表是一个障碍？
Oh, yes, absolutely.
哦，是的，绝对是。
Whitney Cummings is very, very funny.
惠特尼·卡明斯非常非常有趣。
I think she’s beautiful.
我觉得她很漂亮。
She was a model.
她是一名模特。
I know what you’re saying, but I don’t think it would be an obstacle.
我知道你在说什么，但我不认为这会成为障碍。
Yes, it’s true there haven’t been that many truly beautiful women doing stand-up comedy.
是的，确实没有那么多真正漂亮的女性在表演单口喜剧。
I would not say that that’s the reason.
我不会说这就是原因。
Does the comedy have to change?
喜剧需要改变吗？
It might.
可能会。
I think so much of this defies these rules of thumb.
我认为这在很大程度上违反了这些经验法则。
I think that when somebody comes along who has something original about them, something about their take on things, something about the way they speak — whatever it is, and it’s real — they will become big regardless of what it is.
我认为，当有人出现时，他们有自己的原创性，有自己对事物的看法，有自己说话的方式——“无论是什么，而且是真实的”——无论是什么，他们都会变得伟大。
Again, it’s somebody with a super musical talent like Django Reinhardt, they’re missing fingers, they figure out how to play with their toes.
再说一次，这是像姜戈·莱因哈特这样具有超级音乐天赋的人，他们失去了手指，但他们知道如何用脚趾演奏。
When you have real talent, you will make it.
当你有真正的才华时，你就会成功。
The problem is always that that’s the top 5 percent, whatever you want to say.
问题始终是，无论你想说什么，那都是前 5% 的人。
Then there is the more mediocre category of people who are successful in stand-up comedy.
还有一类在单口喜剧方面取得成功的平庸人士。
In that group, then, you could maybe attribute these kinds of things that you’re talking about.
那么，在那个群体中，你也许可以归因于你正在谈论的这些事情。
Among the people with super talent, I don’t think it matters what they look like.
在拥有超级天赋的人中，我认为他们的外表并不重要。
I don’t think any of these things hold them back.
我认为这些事情都不会阻止他们。
If you do stand-up comedy for decades at a high level — not the Louis C.K.
如果你几十年来都在高水平上表演单口喜剧，那么 Louis C.K.
and Chris Rock level, but you’re successful and appear in your club all the time — how does that change a person?
和克里斯·洛克的水平，但你很成功并且一直出现在你的俱乐部 —— 这如何改变一个人？
But not so famous that everyone on the street knows who they are.
但并没有那么出名，街上的每个人都知道他们是谁。
How does doing stand-up comedy change a person?
单口喜剧如何改变一个人？
For 25 years, yes.
25年来，是的。
Well, first of all, it makes it harder for them to socialize.
嗯，首先，这让他们更难社交。
I hear this story all the time about comedians when they go to Thanksgiving dinner with their family, and all of a sudden, the entire place gets silent.
我经常听到这样的故事：当喜剧演员和家人一起去吃感恩节晚餐时，突然间，整个地方变得鸦雀无声。
Like, “Did he just say .
就像，“他刚才是说吗？”
.
。
.” Because you get used to being in an atmosphere where you could say whatever you want.
”。因为你已经习惯了一个想说什么就说什么的氛围。
I think probably, because I know this in my life — and again, getting used to essentially being your own boss, you get used to that.
我想可能是因为我在生活中知道这一点——而且，习惯了本质上成为自己的老板，你就会习惯这一点。
Then it just becomes very, very hard to ever consider going back into the structured life that most people expect is going to be their lives from the time they’re in school — 9:00 to 5:00, whatever it is.
然后，就变得非常非常难以考虑回到大多数人期望的从上学开始的结构化生活——9:00 到 5:00，无论是什么。
At some point, I think, if you do it for too long, you would probably kill yourself rather than go back.
我认为，在某些时候，如果你这样做太久，你可能会自杀而不是回去。
I’ve had that thought myself.
我自己也有过这样的想法。
If I had to go back to .
如果我必须回去的话。
.
。
.
。
I never practiced law, but if I had to take a job as a lawyer — and I’m not just saying this to be dramatic — I think I might kill myself.
我从来没有从事过法律工作，但如果我必须接受律师的工作 ——我并不是说这只是戏剧性的—— 我想我可能会自杀。
I can’t even imagine, at my age, having to start going to work at nine o’clock, having a boss, having to answer for mistakes that I made, having the pressure of having to get it right, otherwise somebody’s life is impacted.
我什至无法想象，在我这个年纪，必须在九点开始上班，有老板，必须为自己犯的错误负责，有必须把事情做好的压力，否则某人的生活就会受到影响。
I just got too used to being able to do what I want when I want to do it.
我只是太习惯了当我想做的时候就能做我想做的事。
Comedians have to get gigs, but essentially, they can do what they want when they want to do it.
喜剧演员必须得到演出，但本质上，他们可以在想做的时候做他们想做的事。
They don’t have to get up in the morning, and I think, at some point, you just become so used to that, there’s no going back.
他们不必早上起床，我想，在某些时候，你已经习惯了这一点，再也回不去了。
I’ve known a few people who casually — they’re not comics, but they do improv comedy at local clubs a few times, and they think this will help them master social situations or give talks.
我认识一些人，他们很随意——他们不是喜剧演员，但他们会在当地的俱乐部表演几次即兴喜剧，他们认为这将帮助他们掌握社交场合或发表演讲。
Is that naïve?
这很天真吗？
Or is there actually some benefit to trying that?
或者尝试这样做实际上有什么好处吗？
John Podhoretz at Commentary — he apparently took improv classes for that reason.
评论中的约翰·波德霍雷兹（John Podhorez）——他显然因此而参加了即兴表演课程。
I know that public speaking is apparently the no. 1 phobia.
我知道公开演讲显然是不行的。 1恐惧症。
I’ve read that, so I suppose getting used to being in front of an audience in some way would be helpful, but I think the law of diminishing returns probably kicks in pretty quick.
我读过这篇文章，所以我想以某种方式习惯在观众面前会有所帮助，但我认为收益递减定律可能很快就会生效。
It’s probably good to do a little bit.
做一点可能是件好事。
I don’t think it’s going to help you much to do it for a long time, but I don’t know.
我认为长期这样做不会对你有多大帮助，但我不知道。
If there’s a young comedian appearing at Comedy Cellar for the first time, you can see they’re very nervous, do you say anything?
如果有年轻的喜剧演员第一次出现在喜剧地窖，你会看到他们很紧张，你会说什么吗？
Can you help them?
你能帮助他们吗？
What do you do?
你做什么工作？
What I try to do is put them at ease if I can.
我尽力做的就是尽可能让他们放松。
They’re sometimes watching you when you audition them.
当你试镜时，他们有时会看着你。
My booker Estee does this way more often, and we speak about it.
我的预订者雅诗兰黛经常这样做，我们也谈论过它。
We try to laugh, try not to let them look out and see a stone face, try in some way.
我们试着笑，尽量不让他们往外看，看到一张石头脸，尝试以某种方式。
Now, I know sometimes it’s common that the people auditioning people — I don’t know if it’s a power trip or whatever it is — they don’t do that.
现在，我知道有时候试镜的人很常见 ——我不知道这是一次权力之旅还是其他什么事情 ——他们不这样做。
They’ll purposely not show any emotion to the person auditioning, which I think is counterproductive because you’re trying to find out how good they are.
他们会故意不向试镜的人表现出任何情绪，我认为这会适得其反，因为你想知道他们有多优秀。
Why would you not want to do as much as you can to bring the best out of them?
为什么你不想尽你所能来充分发挥他们的作用呢？
I try to bring the best out of people as much as I can.
我尽力让人们发挥出最好的一面。
This was the same thing when I was auditioning musicians.
当我试镜音乐家时也是如此。
But it’s hard because when they’re nervous, they’re really nervous.
但这很难，因为当他们紧张时，他们真的很紧张。
It’s hard.
这很难。
And just telling them “Don’t be nervous” is counterproductive?
只是告诉他们“不要紧张”会适得其反吗？
I don’t know if it’s counterproductive.
不知道会不会起反作用。
I don’t think it works.
我认为这不起作用。
Like when I was very nervous to do this interview, you could have said anything you wanted to me.
就像当我非常紧张接受这次采访时，你可以对我说任何你想说的。
It would have gone in one ear and out the other.
它会从一只耳朵进去，从另一只耳朵出来。
I didn’t say anything to you.
我什么也没对你说。
It wouldn’t have helped.
这没有帮助。
We just talked about other stuff.
我们刚刚谈论了其他事情。
We talked about the Beach Boys.
我们谈论了海滩男孩。
Yes, taking my mind off it.
是的，让我不再去想它。
How is New York City stand-up comedy different from LA comedy?
纽约单口喜剧与洛杉矶喜剧有何不同？
Well, they say — and I don’t know; I’m repeating the only stuff I’ve heard — that New York stand-up comedy is more battle tested, is quicker and funnier and more highly regarded.
好吧，他们说“——”但我不知道；我正在重复我所听到的唯一一句话——纽约的单口喜剧更久经考验，更快、更有趣，也更受高度重视。
That’s within the stand-up community.
那是在单口喜剧社区内。
I would also say that there’s a lot more celebrities at the LA clubs — people like Joe Rogan — as opposed to here where they’re drop-ins.
我还要说的是，洛杉矶俱乐部有更多的名人 ——像乔·罗根这样的人—— 而不是他们顺便拜访的地方。
They’re on the lineups there.
他们在那里排队。
It’s much more difficult, much less stage time for an up-and-coming comic in LA.
对于洛杉矶的崭露头角的喜剧演员来说，这要困难得多，舞台时间也少得多。
That’s what I’m told.
这就是我被告知的。
Part of the reason I was nervous about this interview is because I don’t think anybody realizes how uninformed I am in a certain way about anything that happens outside my little kingdom here — that sounds arrogant, but my little environment.
我对这次采访感到紧张的部分原因是，我认为没有人意识到我在某种程度上对我的小王国之外发生的任何事情都一无所知 ——这听起来很傲慢，但我的小环境。
I’m focused on everything that happens around me, and a huge amount of that has nothing to do with comedy.
我专注于我周围发生的一切，其中很大一部分与喜剧无关。
It’s about customers being happy and people being friendly and the hummus being made right and whatever it is, so I don’t know that much about LA comedy.
这是关于顾客快乐、人们友好、鹰嘴豆泥做得正确等等，所以我对洛杉矶喜剧了解不多。
How does Las Vegas comedy fit into the picture?
拉斯维加斯喜剧如何融入这幅画面？
And there, you have a club, right?
在那里，你有一个俱乐部，对吗？
Yes.
是的。
Vegas audiences are .
维加斯的观众是。
.
。
.
。
You’ll have more conservatives, more Trump supporters.
你将会有更多的保守派、更多的特朗普支持者。
It’s riskier to have a too political comic there who will start offending the Trump supporters, and whatever it is.
那里有一个过于政治化的喜剧演员会开始冒犯特朗普的支持者，无论是什么，风险更大。
Other than that, I’ve found to my surprise — or not to my surprise, but to the surprise of other people — that audiences are the same.
除此之外，令我惊讶的是——或者不是我的惊讶，而是其他人的惊讶——观众是一样的。
That the people who are funny, are funny in Vegas just like they are in New York.
那些有趣的人在拉斯维加斯也很有趣，就像他们在纽约一样。
Hacks will do a little bit better in Vegas than they will in New York because more people in New York realize that they’re hearing something that’s not original.
黑客在维加斯的表现会比在纽约好一些，因为更多的纽约人意识到他们听到的东西不是原创的。
But funny is funny.
但搞笑就是搞笑。
People say maybe you can’t send somebody out too Jew-y or too whatever.
人们说也许你不能派一个太犹太人或太犹太人的人出去。
No, doesn’t matter at all.
不，一点也不重要。
How important is the seating arrangement for a good comedy show?
对于一场精彩的喜剧表演来说，座位安排有多重要？
Do you think long and hard, how close together should the seats be?
您是否苦苦思考，座位之间的距离应该有多近？
How far away?
有多远？
Looking down, looking up?
低头看，抬头看？
What’s the deal?
这是怎么回事？
The most important thing is that everybody should be a little bit closer than they want to be.
最重要的是，每个人都应该比他们想要的更接近一点。
The claustrophobia of the room, I think, is extremely important.
我认为，房间里的幽闭恐惧症是极其重要的。
It is not good to have people spread out.
人分散了可不好。
We do get complaints from time to time that the seats were too tight.
我们确实不时收到关于座位太紧的投诉。
It’s the one complaint I will not address in terms of making changes in the room because I know that it helps.
这是我不会在房间改变方面解决的一个抱怨，因为我知道这会有所帮助。
Why does claustrophobia make the comics funnier?
为什么幽闭恐惧症会让漫画变得更有趣？
It’s just the intenseness, I guess.
我想这只是强度。
The synchronization is stronger within the audience?
观众内部的同步性更强？
Definitely the laughs are louder, first of all.
首先，肯定是笑声更响亮。
You are enjoying it with your friends in a closer, physical way.
您正在以更亲密的身体方式与您的朋友一起享受它。
There’s just an intenseness to it.
这只是一种强烈的感觉。
My answer may not be very eloquent, but obviously, anybody can just picture, as you spread people out, you can just intuitively understand, well, that’s just not going to work.
我的回答可能不是很雄辩，但显然，任何人都可以想象，当你把人们分散开来时，你可以直观地理解，嗯，这是行不通的。
You have to be close together.
你们必须靠得很近。
Louis C.K.
路易斯·C.K.
once said that in the 1990s, the Comedy Cellar often was empty and there was hardly any audience.
曾说过，在20世纪90年代，喜剧地窖经常空无一人，几乎没有观众。
Why was that?
为什么会这样？
What happened?
发生了什么？
Oh, boy, was it.
哦，天哪，是这样的。
First of all, weeknights at comedy clubs, in general, were basically empty.
首先，喜剧俱乐部的周末晚上基本上都是空的。
Comedy was not the popular thing that it is today, but the Comedy Cellar — even then, we were the newcomer and the low club on the totem pole.
喜剧并不像今天这样流行，但《喜剧地窖》——即使在那时，我们还是新来者，是图腾柱上的低端俱乐部。
The Improv, the Catch a Rising Star, Carolines — these were the go-to clubs.
即兴表演、捕捉新星、卡罗琳娜——这些都是人们常去的俱乐部。
It was so slow that my father used to have the waitresses take off their aprons and all sit in the room, pretend to be customers so that if somebody would come to the door, they wouldn’t think they were the only customer.
速度太慢了，我父亲常常让女服务员脱掉围裙，全部坐在房间里，假装是顾客，这样如果有人上门，他们就不会认为他们是唯一的顾客。
We went through all sorts of things to try to seed the room.
我们经历了各种各样的事情来尝试为房间播种。
The weekends were always busy because people want to go out on the weekends.
周末总是很忙，因为人们想在周末出去玩。
It was very tough.
这非常艰难。
Actually, those were good old days, in a way, because the comedians had much less pressure on them in those days, so they would take chances.
事实上，从某种程度上来说，那是一段美好的时光，因为那时候喜剧演员的压力要小得多，所以他们会冒险。
There would be hilarious improvised things.
会有一些搞笑的即兴创作。
I just sent a whole wall full of VHS tapes to a digitizing place in Boston.
我刚刚将一整面墙的 VHS 磁带发送到波士顿的一个数字化地点。
They actually came to pick it up.
他们实际上是来接东西的。
It’s going to cost a lot of money, but I’ll have a lot of that period on video.
这会花费很多钱，但我会在视频中保留很多那个时期的内容。
You own the IP?
你拥有IP吗？
No, I don’t.
不，我不。
You don’t.
你不知道。
The comedians own it.
喜剧演员拥有它。
But I will then share it with them, and to the extent that they want to, have it released or given to a museum someday.
但我会与他们分享，并在他们愿意的情况下，有一天将其发布或捐赠给博物馆。
There will be clips there of people like Louis C.K.
那里会有像 Louis C.K. 这样的人的片段。
performing to five people, and it’ll be a different aspect of Louis C.K.
为五个人表演，这将是 Louis C.K. 的另一个侧面。
than anybody has ever seen.
比任何人见过的都要多。
It’s fascinating, like seeing the Beatles in the Cavern Club or something.
这很令人着迷，就像在洞穴俱乐部或其他地方看到披头士乐队一样。
If you were not the top club back then — and please feel free to be immodest — and you are the top club right now, what is it the Comedy Cellar did in the meantime to get you to be the top club?
如果你当时还不是顶级俱乐部 —— 请随意不谦虚 —— 而你现在是顶级俱乐部，喜剧地窖在此期间做了什么让你成为顶级俱乐部？
That’s a good question.
这是一个好问题。
What I think it is, is that we were the most dedicated.
我认为我们是最专注的。
Yes, it’s uncomfortable for me to talk this way, but this is what I believe.
是的，这样说话让我感觉不舒服，但这就是我所相信的。
We were completely dedicated always, always, always to doing things the right way in terms of having the best comedians and treating the customers the way we wanted to be treated ourselves.
我们始终、始终、始终致力于以正确的方式做事，拥有最好的喜剧演员，并以我们希望自己受到对待的方式对待客户。
To this day, it’s an obsession with me.
直到今天，这仍然是我的痴迷。
It’s harder and harder to keep that mentality as we’re so busy among the staff who become complacent, whatever it is.
保持这种心态越来越难，因为我们在员工中如此忙碌，他们变得自满，无论是什么。
I regard this as a big challenge and a very important challenge that I have to overcome.
我认为这是一个很大的挑战，也是我必须克服的一个非常重要的挑战。
It was the way we treated the comedians.
这就是我们对待喜剧演员的方式。
My grandmother was a very warm host.
我的祖母是一位非常热情的主人。
My father was an extremely warm host.
我的父亲是一位非常热情的主人。
They ran the club before you did, right?
他们在你之前经营俱乐部，对吗？
Not my grandmother, but just like a Dworman family tradition.
不是我的祖母，但就像德沃曼家族的传统一样。
My father knew how to take care of people, treat them nicely.
我的父亲知道如何照顾人，善待他们。
He was a performer himself.
他本人就是一名表演者。
He understood the stage from a performer’s point of view.
他从表演者的角度来理解舞台。
I’ll give you a perfect example.
我给你一个完美的例子。
To this day, every comedy club has a check spot, which is during the last comedians, they give out the check.
直到今天，每个喜剧俱乐部都有一个检查点，就是在最后喜剧演员表演期间，他们发放检查。
Now, the comedians hate this because how can you pay attention to the comic while you are figuring out your check?
现在，喜剧演员讨厌这个，因为你在计算支票时怎么能关注漫画呢？
From day one, my father said, “We’re never going to have a check spot.
从第一天起，我父亲就说：“我们永远不会有检查点。
I don’t care what it takes.
我不在乎这需要什么。
I don’t care if it takes longer to turn over the room.
我不在乎翻房间是否要花更长的时间。
I don’t care if we lose a show.
我不在乎我们是否会输掉一场比赛。
We are not going to have a performer having to compete with paying a check, especially if he’s talking.
我们不会让表演者必须与支付支票竞争，尤其是当他说话时。
Music is bad enough.”
音乐已经够糟糕的了。”
This was something he dug in on.
这是他深挖的东西。
To this day, our competitors have check spots, even their last shows, where there is no time constraint.
直到今天，我们的参赛者都有检查点，甚至是他们的最后一场演出，没有时间限制。
Why?
为什么？
I cannot account for that.
我无法解释这一点。
From that, you can extrapolate many things that they’re probably doing wrong because they don’t have their priorities straight.
由此，你可以推断出他们可能做错了很多事情，因为他们没有明确自己的优先事项。
Why don’t you charge a higher price for Saturday nights?
为什么周六晚上不收取更高的价格？
More people want to go, right?
更多人想去吧？
Dude, I just found out today that the New York Comedy Club is charging $38 plus a $5 ticket fee.
老兄，我今天刚发现纽约喜剧俱乐部收费 38 美元，另加 5 美元门票费。
Why would there be a ticket fee?
为什么会有门票费？
It’s just a rip-off, and an $18 minimum.
这只是敲诈，而且最低售价为 18 美元。
You’re talking about almost twice as expensive as we are.
你说的价格几乎是我们的两倍。
It just seems too much to me.
对我来说这似乎太多了。
Doesn’t it seem too much?
是不是看起来太多了？
Who wants to pay that much money?
谁愿意付那么多钱？
It sounds like a bargain compared to a lot of alternatives.
与许多替代品相比，这听起来很便宜。
Try going to see the Knicks.
尝试去看尼克斯队。
Now, that’s comedy of its own sort, but —
现在，这本身就是喜剧，但是 ——
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I have to take a look at raising my prices.
我必须考虑提高价格。
I had no idea.
我不知道。
I didn’t mention this to you.
我没有向你提到这一点。
You didn’t know.
你不知道。
I just saw this today.
我今天才看到这个。
I didn’t know this.
我不知道这一点。
$38.
38 美元。
Also, I went to a piano bar called The Nines.
另外，我还去了一家名为 The Nines 的钢琴酒吧。
A drink is $26, and our cover charge on a Saturday night is $26.
一杯饮料 26 美元，周六晚上的服务费为 26 美元。
Maybe I’m out of touch, and I do have to raise the prices in some way, but it’s always better to be full.
也许我脱节了，我确实必须以某种方式提高价格，但吃饱总是更好。
It’s always better for people to think that they got their money’s worth.
人们最好认为自己的钱花得值。
The longevity can’t be measured for that kind of philosophy, and you only know you’ve blown it when it’s too late.
这种哲学的寿命是无法衡量的，当你知道自己已经搞砸了时，为时已晚。
You only know you’ve raised your prices when it’s too late.
当你知道自己提高了价格时，已经太晚了。
What I do keep track of in terms of metrics for my business is not how much money we take in.
我所跟踪的业务指标并不是我们赚了多少钱。
It’s how many people we turn away every week.
这是我们每周拒绝多少人。
I know if I see that number dropping, now I have to react to that.
我知道如果我看到这个数字下降，现在我必须对此做出反应。
It’s all related to each other.
这一切都是相互关联的。
Now, Estee is your gatekeeper for comedy talent.
现在，雅诗兰黛是您喜剧人才的看门人。
What makes her so good at that job?
是什么让她如此擅长这份工作？
I always say it was my father’s genius to hire a booker who didn’t speak English.
我总是说我父亲雇了一个不会说英语的预订员是天才。
Listen, she gets mad when I say this, but I’m going to be very honest.
听着，当我这么说时她会生气，但我会很诚实。
Knowing who the good comics are is not the challenge.
知道谁是好漫画并不是挑战。
It is obvious to anybody who the good comics are.
谁是好漫画，谁都是显而易见的。
You could not speak the language, be in the room, and know who the funny comics are.
你无法说这种语言，无法在房间里知道有趣的漫画是谁。
You hear the laughter, you see the audience.
你听到笑声，你看到观众。
However, she is tremendously good at other things.
然而，她在其他方面也非常擅长。
She is a Jewish mother.
她是一位犹太母亲。
She takes care of them.
她照顾他们。
You’re going to make me cry.
你会让我哭的。
She’s extremely loyal.
她非常忠诚。
This woman bleeds Comedy Cellar blue more than me.
这个女人比我更让《喜剧地窖》流血。
She worries about the club more than me.
她比我更担心俱乐部。
She broke her rib a few weeks ago, in terrible pain.
几周前，她在剧痛中折断了肋骨。
I said, “Estee, how are you doing?” She goes, “I’m in terrible pain.” I said, “You need to stay home.
我说：“艾斯蒂，你怎么样？”她说：“我非常痛苦。”我说：“你需要呆在家里。
Stay home as long as you need.” She goes, “I’m at work.” I said, “What are you doing at work?” She knows she’s going to get paid.
只要你需要，就呆在家里。”她说：“我在工作。”我说：“你上班做什么？”她知道她会得到报酬。
This is dedication.
这就是奉献。
You cannot find this anywhere.
你在任何地方都找不到这个。
People see that in her, and they respond to it.
人们在她身上看到了这一点，并做出了回应。
The most famous people in the world — Judd Apatow, John Mayer — they’re texting with Estee.
世界上最著名的人物——贾德·阿帕图、约翰·梅尔——他们都在和雅诗兰妮发短信。
They go out to dinner with Estee.
他们和埃斯蒂一起出去吃饭。
They adore her.
他们崇拜她。
That is the magic that she brings to it.
这就是她带来的魔力。
When Trump used to talk about the deep state, it always rang true to me because every boss has a deep state in his business.
当特朗普过去谈论“深层政府”时，我觉得这总是正确的，因为每个老板的生意中都存在“深层政府”。
For instance, I have a general manager.
例如，我有一位总经理。
I’m not talking about my general manager.
我不是在谈论我的总经理。
A customer’s complaining.
一位顾客在抱怨。
Now, the general manager doesn’t want to let me know about the customer complaint because in some way this reflects on her management of the place.
现在，总经理不想让我知道客户投诉的情况，因为这在某种程度上反映了她对这个地方的管理。
So immediately, the incentives are all bad.
所以立即看来，激励措施都是不好的。
That’s why it’s always better for your customer to ask for the owner because the owner is the only one who really, really cares.
这就是为什么您的客户最好询问所有者，因为所有者是唯一真正关心的人。
Estee is completely loyal.
雅诗兰黛是完全忠诚的。
There is zero deep state with Estee.
雅诗兰黛的深层政府为零。
This, as a boss, is something you may never have.
这是你作为老板可能永远不会有的东西。
When you do have it, it’s priceless.
当你拥有它时，它是无价的。
I cannot tell you the sense of ease I have that I can speak with her totally candidly, totally frankly about any comedian, about anything in the world, and I know it stays between us.
我无法告诉你我有一种轻松的感觉，我可以完全坦诚地与她谈论任何喜剧演员，谈论世界上的任何事情，而且我知道它留在我们之间。
She’ll never ever let it on it.
她永远不会让它这么做。
It’s an amazing thing.
这是一件了不起的事情。
How is it that you notice when the level of the light in the club is dimmed ever so slightly?
当俱乐部里的灯光稍微变暗时，您是如何注意到的？
I just notice.
我只是注意到。
My father had it.
我父亲有过。
I have it.
我有。
I can walk into a room and I notice it immediately.
我可以走进一个房间并立即注意到它。
People I’ve trained who were there every day don’t notice.
我训练过的每天都在那里的人并没有注意到。
I’m like, “Don’t you see the .
我想，“你没看到吗？”
.
。
.” “Oh, yes, you’re right, boss.
”。 “噢，是的，你说得对，老板。
I didn’t see that.” It’s a talent.
我没看到。”这是一种天赋。
I’ll cop to it.
我会接受的。
It’s a talent.
这是一种天赋。
What’s the craziest government regulation Comedy Cellar has to follow?
Comedy Cellar 必须遵守的最疯狂的政府法规是什么？
The dumbest thing — it’s not huge to me — is that when they raise the minimum wage, they raise it for tipped employees rather than the people who are working hard in the kitchen, let’s say.
最愚蠢的事情是，当他们提高最低工资时，他们是为拿小费的员工而不是在厨房里辛勤工作的人提高最低工资。
Now our servers, I think, finally caught up with everybody.
我想，现在我们的服务器终于跟上了所有人的脚步。
Our servers make, as a waitering job, quite a bit of money.
我们的服务员作为服务员的工作赚了不少钱。
Some of them can make $100,000 a year.
他们中的一些人每年可以赚10万美元。
They would pay me to work here.
他们会付钱给我在这里工作。
I’m not suggesting they do.
我并不是建议他们这样做。
The regulations really didn’t take care of for a while .
这些规定确实有一段时间没有得到重视。
.
。
.
。
As I said, I think the minimum wage may have caught up now.
正如我所说，我认为最低工资现在可能已经赶上了。
They did not take care of the people who were really laboring hard at low wages.
他们没有照顾到那些真正在低工资下努力工作的人。
I thought that was a tremendous mistake.
我认为这是一个巨大的错误。
The sum total of the regulations is crazy.
这些规定的总和是疯狂的。
It’s death by a thousand cuts.
这是千刀万剐的死亡。
We wanted to move a wall downstairs to expand the kitchen by, I don’t know, seven feet.
我们想将楼下的一堵墙移走，以将厨房扩大，我不知道，七英尺。
This was something we could have done without even closing.
这是我们甚至可以在不关闭的情况下完成的事情。
In order to comply with the law, we were closed for six or seven months.
为了遵守法律，我们被关闭了六七个月。
You have to get the landmark commissioner.
你必须得到具有里程碑意义的专员。
One thing after another, after another, after another.
一件又一件，一件又一件，一件又一件。
We can’t put in a bathroom because then we’d have to renovate the bathrooms downstairs and don’t have room for it.
我们不能加浴室，因为那样我们就得装修楼下的浴室，而且没有空间了。
There are so many things.
有很多事情。
We’re very, very fortunate because we’re established and we’re successful, but you wonder how it is that a new business can overcome these costs.
我们非常非常幸运，因为我们已经成立并且取得了成功，但您想知道新业务如何克服这些成本。
When my father started his first place, he was a cab driver.
当我父亲开始他的第一份工作时，他是一名出租车司机。
The notion that a cab driver could aspire to opening a restaurant in the Village now — it’s impossible.
出租车司机现在想在村里开一家餐馆的想法————这是不可能的。
You couldn’t do it.
你做不到。
Coleman Hughes says I should ask you for your 9/11 story.
科尔曼·休斯说我应该向你询问 9/11 的故事。
Oh my God.
我的天啊。
He gave me help.
他给了我帮助。
I spied on you.
我监视你。
Did he really?
他真的吗？
Of course he did.
他当然做到了。
Well, this is not a flattering story at all.
嗯，这根本不是一个讨人喜欢的故事。
I don’t know that.
我不知道。
I guess I will.
我想我会的。
I’ll try to do it short.
我会尽量简短地说。
When I was younger — not anymore.
当我年轻时 —— 不再是了。
Listen, I was a musician.
听着，我是一名音乐家。
I’m not proud of it, but I caroused.
我并不为此感到自豪，但我很高兴。
I was not faithful to girlfriends.
我对女朋友不忠诚。
Whatever.
任何。
I’m just copping to it.
我只是应付而已。
I can’t believe, because I texted Coleman today.
我简直不敢相信，因为我今天给科尔曼发短信了。
He’s like, “It’ll be fine.
他就像是，“会没事的。
Don’t worry about it.” Then the only bad question was from him.
别担心。”那么唯一不好的问题就是他问的。
Yes.
是的。
I had decided that the only way you could have an affair — I wasn’t married, God forbid — was that you and the woman had to be the only two people who know about it.
我决定，你发生外遇的唯一方式——“我没有结婚，上帝禁止”——就是你和那个女人必须是唯一知道这件事的两个人。
I had this girlfriend.
我曾经有过这样的女朋友。
I said, “We’re going to go to Washington, DC.” I didn’t tell anybody.
我说：“我们要去华盛顿特区。”我没有告诉任何人。
I can’t believe you’re doing this.
我不敢相信你会这么做。
I was in a hotel, and my cell phone is ringing and ringing and ringing, and I don’t want to answer it.
我在酒店里，手机一直响个不停，我不想接。
Finally, I answer it.
最后我来回答一下。
It was someone working in the office, calling on behalf of my father.
是办公室里的一个人，代表我父亲打来的电话。
“Where are you?
“你在哪儿？
Your father’s going — ” I said, “I’m in DC.” Then I spoke to my father’s wife.
你父亲要去 —— ”我说，“我在华盛顿。”然后我和我父亲的妻子说话。
“I’m in DC.” They’re like, “Don’t you understand what’s happened?” I had no idea.
“我在华盛顿。”他们会说，“你不明白发生了什么吗？”我不知道。
“Turn on the TV.” I turned on the TV, it was 9/11.
“打开电视。”我打开电视，时间是9/11。
The World Trade Center has fallen down.
世贸中心倒塌了。
I said, “Well, I’m in DC.” That’s all I say.
我说：“好吧，我在华盛顿。”我就说这么多。
Then my girlfriend, now my wife — my wife knows the story.
然后是我的女朋友，现在是我的妻子——我的妻子知道这个故事。
Her mother — I’m really trying to condense the story — shows up to the Olive Tree —
她的母亲 —— 我真的很想浓缩这个故事 —— 出现在橄榄树上 ——
That’s the attached restaurant, for listeners who don’t know.
这是附属餐厅，供不知道的听众参考。
— looking for her daughter.
— 寻找她的女儿。
She sees my stepmother, and she says, “Have you seen Juanita and Ava?” She says, “It’s okay.
她看到我的继母，她说：“你看到胡安妮塔和艾娃了吗？”她说：“没关系。
They’re in DC.” My wife’s mother says, “She’s not in DC.
他们在华盛顿。”我妻子的母亲说：“她不在华盛顿。
I just saw her two hours ago.” Then it dawned.
我两个小时前才见过她。”然后天就亮了。
I got busted on 9/11.
我在 9/11 被抓了。
I just remember you couldn’t get back into Manhattan, and it was burning.
我只记得你无法回到曼哈顿，而且曼哈顿正在燃烧。
I was like, “I hope it burns and burns and burns.” I just kept putting it off and putting it off.
我当时想，“我希望它燃烧、燃烧、燃烧。”我只是一直一拖再拖。
It was the most horrible thing.
这是最可怕的事情。
I will tell you an interesting aspect to that story.
我会告诉你这个故事的一个有趣的方面。
This story has been written up in a book, by the way, if anyone wants to get the long version of it.
顺便说一句，这个故事已经写在一本书里了，如果有人想得到它的长版本的话。
When we went out into DC that day, there was nobody at the White House.
那天我们去华盛顿时，白宫里空无一人。
We began to walk down the path, realizing we could walk into the building, like January 6th.
我们开始沿着小路走，意识到我们可以走进大楼，就像 1 月 6 日一样。
Then I got scared.
然后我就害怕了。
I say, “You know what?
我说：“你知道吗？
This is probably not something we should do.” I chickened out and went the other way.
这可能不是我们应该做的事情。”我退缩了，走了另一条路。
It was before cell phones had cameras.
那是在手机还没有相机之前。
It was like I Am Legend or something.
就像我是传奇之类的。
It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
这是我见过的最奇妙的事情。
I just happened to be there, and I couldn’t capture it, but deserted, like you could just walk right into the government buildings.
我只是碰巧在那里，我无法捕捉到它，但空无一人，就像你可以直接走进政府大楼一样。
It was crazy.
太疯狂了。
Is there an alternate universe where you become a professional musician, a guitarist?
是否有另一个宇宙让你成为一名职业音乐家、吉他手？
Yes, there is.
是的，有。
I would say that I was a very good musician in high school.
我想说我在高中时是一位非常优秀的音乐家。
I was hired as an accompanist for a classical oud player.
我被聘为一位古典乌德琴演奏家的伴奏者。
I played Carnegie Hall and a number of important rooms of that type.
我演奏过卡内基音乐厅和许多重要的此类房间。
I was recommended to study with Segovia.
我被推荐去塞戈维亚学习。
I was considered to be a —
我被认为是一个 ——
A lute player?
琵琶演奏者？
A lute player?
琵琶演奏者？
Oud, oud.
乌德琴，乌德琴。
Okay.
好的。
Oud.
乌德琴。
Yes, sure.
是的，当然。
Which is, “la oute” is oud.
也就是说，“la oute”是沉香木。
The oud was a forerunner of the lute.
乌德琴是鲁特琴的前身。
Then I had a whole career playing music.
然后我就开始了音乐生涯。
I was pretty successful at it.
我在这方面非常成功。
I was good, not a genius musically.
我很好，但不是音乐天才。
I play with some people who I could never play like they can play, but I was always the leader.
我和一些我永远无法像他们一样打球的人一起打球，但我始终是领导者。
I always became the leader in any situation, even with musicians who were better than me in certain ways.
在任何情况下，我总是成为领导者，即使是在某些方面比我更好的音乐家也是如此。
It’s related to knowing when the lights are up and down.
这与了解灯光何时亮起和何时熄灭有关。
There was something about my sensibility musically — I will say this about myself — which was unique to me and very good.
我的音乐敏感度 ——“我会这样评价我自己”—— 这对我来说是独一无二的，而且非常好。
That’s why, to this day, I still play with the very, very best musicians in the world, who will come down and hang out in the Olive Tree.
这就是为什么直到今天，我仍然与世界上非常非常优秀的音乐家一起演奏，他们会下来并在橄榄树上闲逛。
And you’re playing electric guitar then?
那你弹电吉他吗？
I play a nylon electric guitar, but as a band leader, more than anything else, that was really something that I was just naturally good at.
我弹尼龙电吉他，但作为乐队领军，这确实是我天生擅长的事情。
The old Burt Bacharach song, “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” — what are the chords?
伯特·巴卡拉克 (Burt Bacharach) 的老歌“雨滴不断落在我的头上” — 和弦是什么？
Oh, I know this.
哦，我知道这个。
C, C major 7, C7.
C、C 大调 7、C7。
I could tell you all the chords.
我可以告诉你所有的和弦。
For all the songs by anyone?
对于任何人的所有歌曲？
Coleman says you can.
科尔曼说你可以。
Coleman?
科尔曼？
No, not all the songs, not by anyone.
不，不是所有歌曲，也不是任何人的歌曲。
I’m pretty good at it.
我很擅长。
I don’t have perfect pitch.
我没有完美的音调。
People with perfect pitch are always better at it.
拥有完美音调的人总是更擅长。
I’m not as good as this guy, Nick Cassarino, who plays with me.
我不如和我一起打球的尼克·卡萨里诺（Nick Cassarino）。
He will have a higher batting average.
他将会有更高的击球率。
I’m not a genius, I’m not, but I’m very good.
我不是天才，不是，但我很优秀。
You hear old Beatle records — Paul McCartney is making mistakes.
你会听到披头士乐队的旧唱片 — 保罗·麦卡特尼正在犯错误。
Music has so many different aspects that go into it in terms of what it means to be a great musician.
音乐有很多不同的方面，这些方面决定了成为一名伟大的音乐家的意义。
There are artistic aspects to it.
它有艺术的一面。
There are strategic aspects to it.
它有战略方面的意义。
There are sensitivity aspects to it.
它有一些敏感性方面。
There are all sorts of things.
有各种各样的事情。
Beach Boys, “I Get Around” — what makes it a great song?
Beach Boys，“I Get around” — 是什么使它成为一首伟大的歌曲？
First of all, that introduction — it’s so fresh.
首先，那个介绍 —— 太新鲜了。
There’s a barbershop kind of sound with this rock music.
这种摇滚音乐有一种理发店的声音。
As a kid, I can remember vividly the first time I heard it.
当我还是个孩子的时候，我还清楚地记得第一次听到它的情景。
I’d never heard anything like it.
我从来没有听过这样的事。
That’s always impressive to me, when something comes out of nowhere and you can’t even trace it as a progression of what came before it.
这总是给我留下深刻的印象，当某些东西突然出现，你甚至无法追踪它是之前发生的事情的进展。
That’s what those Beach Boys songs were like to me.
这就是海滩男孩的歌曲对我来说的感觉。
That’s like the first time I heard “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” These kinds of things, I’m not exactly unique.
就像我第一次听到“我想握住你的手”一样。这类事情，我并不完全是独一无二的。
The first time I heard “Teen Spirit,” the Nirvana song — there’s just something about .
我第一次听到 Nirvana 歌曲《Teen Spirit》时—— 就是有一些东西。
.
。
.
。
Again, I’m saying this, but everybody says that.
再说一遍，我是这么说的，但每个人都这么说。
First time I heard “Strawberry Fields Forever” — maybe I was 10 — I couldn’t believe it.
我第一次听到《永远的草莓地》 —— 也许我10岁了 —— 我简直不敢相信。
“I Get Around” has that.
《我四处走走》就是这样。
Now, “I Get Around” is very sophisticated harmonically.
现在，“I Get around”在和声上非常复杂。
It’s got a key change.
它有一个关键的变化。
He goes down a step afterwards, and I think he finishes where he started.
之后他下降了一步，我认为他完成了他开始的地方。
You can’t say enough about Brian Wilson, right?
关于布赖恩·威尔逊，你不能说太多，对吧？
This guy’s a real genius.
这家伙真是个天才。
Who’s the most underrated guitarist in your view?
您认为谁是最被低估的吉他手？
The guitar players who are not fancy, like Paul McCartney, whose touch is magical.
那些并不花哨的吉他手，比如保罗·麦卡特尼，他的触感很神奇。
You can tell it’s him immediately.
你立刻就能认出是他。
Like Paul Simon.
就像保罗·西蒙一样。
James Taylor gets more credit, but is also not understood to be the genius that he is because he basically invented an entire style.
詹姆斯·泰勒得到了更多的赞誉，但也没有被认为是天才，因为他基本上发明了一种完整的风格。
Nobody plays like him, nobody sounds like him, and nobody played like that before him.
没有人像他一样演奏，没有人听起来像他，在他之前也没有人像他那样演奏。
Willie Nelson’s soloing.
威利·尼尔森的独奏。
I know that people like Miles Davis.
我知道人们喜欢迈尔斯·戴维斯。
They get it because it’s so simple; it’s all phrasing.
他们明白了，因为它是如此简单；这都是措辞。
It’s something that anybody would think they could do, but they can’t quite do it like him.
这是任何人都认为他们可以做到的事情，但他们不能像他那样做到。
It’s like Sinatra singing.
就像西纳特拉唱歌一样。
Nobody gets that, but yet, everybody can’t believe how good he is.
没有人明白这一点，但每个人都不敢相信他有多出色。
He’s not singing like Ella Fitzgerald.
他唱歌不像艾拉·菲茨杰拉德。
He’s not singing like Tony Bennett.
他唱歌不像托尼·贝内特。
It’s almost approachable.
这几乎是平易近人的。
You’d think you could almost sing like Sinatra, but you can’t.
你可能认为你几乎可以像西纳特拉那样唱歌，但你不能。
The guitar players like that — I’ve listed some of them — those are the people I really admire.
像这样的吉他手 —— 我列出了其中一些 —— 那些是我真正敬佩的人。
I never did enjoy the fancy guitar players like the guitar gods because that’s not really my approach to music.
我从来没有像吉他之神那样喜欢那些出色的吉他手，因为那不是我真正的音乐方式。
I’m more song-oriented.
我比较注重歌曲。
I like the songs.
我喜欢这些歌曲。
I even like the solos that are not necessarily improvised.
我什至喜欢不一定是即兴创作的独奏。
The fact that you mastered the oud, which is unusual — how has that shaped your understanding of rock and roll in popular music?
事实上，你掌握了乌德琴，这很不寻常——这如何塑造了你对流行音乐中摇滚乐的理解？
What is it that you see differently?
你有什么不同的看法？
Well, I’ll broaden out that answer because I don’t think I mastered the oud.
好吧，我会扩大这个答案，因为我认为我没有掌握乌德琴。
I can play it.
我可以玩。
But you played it well.
但你打得很好。
Yes.
是的。
I was very, very lucky.
我非常非常幸运。
I wish my father was alive for you to meet him.
我希望我父亲还活着，以便你能见到他。
I had very, very broad influences in my home and a total lack of snobbery about anything.
我在家里有非常非常广泛的影响力，而且对任何事情都完全不势利。
Actually, this is why I take to you in a way.
事实上，这就是我在某种程度上喜欢你的原因。
I think you have that too.
我想你也有这个。
Anything that was considered to be great within its culture — the greatest Arabic music, the greatest whatever it was — it was assumed that it was upon me to learn why it was great.
任何在其文化中被认为是伟大的事物——“最伟大的阿拉伯音乐，无论它是什么——都是最伟大的——人们认为我有责任了解它为什么伟大。
You can do that.
你可以这么做。
You bury yourself in it.
你把自己埋在其中。
You’ll always have an accent at it, in some way, but at some point, you get used to it, and then you begin to be able to discern the good from the bad.
在某种程度上，你总是会有口音，但在某些时候，你会习惯它，然后你开始能够辨别好坏。
Then somehow, that becomes part of your vocabulary and how you play.
然后不知何故，这成为你词汇和游戏方式的一部分。
That just happens.
那就是发生了。
You can’t really plan that.
你无法真正计划那个。
In some way, having all these influences made me unique in a certain way as a musician, but unique just in everything that I do, I like to think, because I try to be very, very open-minded.
在某种程度上，所有这些影响使我作为一名音乐家在某种程度上变得独一无二，但我喜欢认为，我所做的每一件事都是独一无二的，因为我努力保持非常非常开放的心态。
The answer meanders a little bit, but I do think these things are connected.
答案有点曲折，但我确实认为这些事情是有联系的。
It’s an idea that’s not limited to music.
这个想法不仅限于音乐。
It’s just an approach to the world, and you’re the best example I know of this.
这只是一种接触世界的方式，而你是我所知道的最好的例子。
Thank you.
谢谢。
The Greenwich Village live music scene — does that have a future?
格林威治村的现场音乐场景 — 它有未来吗？
Aren’t the rents too high?
房租是不是太高了？
Too many tourists come here.
来这里的游客太多了。
Will it all just become stupid?
这一切会变得愚蠢吗？
I think it’s done.
我认为已经完成了。
When I started a music club in ’88, everybody had live music.
当我在 88 年创办音乐俱乐部时，每个人都有现场音乐表演。
There was live music everywhere, not just on Bleecker Street, but throughout the city.
不仅在布利克街，而且在整个城市，到处都有现场音乐。
A few things happened at the same time.
有几件事同时发生了。
First of all, fewer and fewer people play the kind of music which is practical for live venues.
首先，演奏适合现场演出的音乐的人越来越少。
There’s much more electronic and hip-hop and whatever it is, number one.
还有更多的电子音乐和嘻哈音乐，无论是什么，第一。
Number two, rents got higher and landlords don’t want noise and neighbors don’t want noise, and it’s almost impossible to control the noise.
第二，租金上涨，房东不想要噪音，邻居也不想要噪音，而控制噪音几乎是不可能的。
DJs became super popular on their own, and DJs are way cheaper and more predictable in what they’re going to do.
DJ 本身就变得非常受欢迎，而且 DJ 的价格更便宜，而且他们要做的事情也更容易预测。
You hire some live band — you don’t know what they’re going to play or if they’ll show up.
你雇了一些现场乐队 ——你不知道他们要演奏什么，也不知道他们是否会出现。
There are so many reasons that live music .
现场音乐的原因有很多。
.
。
.
。
When I was a kid, MacDougal Street was .
当我还是个孩子的时候，麦克杜格尔街就是。
.
。
.
。
Now, this was during the folk-rock era, when the Lovin’ Spoonful was around the corner, and Dylan was .
现在，那是在民谣摇滚时代，《Lovin’ Spoonful》即将到来，而迪伦也即将到来。
.
。
.
。
MacDougal Street was so busy, you couldn’t even walk down the street.
麦克杜格尔街非常繁忙，你甚至无法沿着街道行走。
The cars had to go at a tiny pace.
汽车必须以很小的速度行驶。
It was a flood of people.
人群如潮水般涌来。
You could see this a little bit in the movie The President’s Analyst.
你可以在电影《总统的分析师》中看到这一点。
I don’t know if you ever saw it.
我不知道你是否见过它。
No.
不。
There are clips of the Village in those days.
里面有当年村里的片段。
Then it has just decayed ever since then.
然后它就从那时起就开始腐烂了。
I think live music — I don’t think it’s coming back.
我认为现场音乐 — 我不认为它会回来。
Anywhere in New York?
纽约任何地方？
I don’t think so.
我不这么认为。
I shouldn’t say never, but my Monday night live music that I do with Coleman — it’s pretty popular, but it’s very small.
我不应该说永远不会，但我和科尔曼一起做的周一晚上现场音乐——它非常受欢迎，但规模很小。
I couldn’t even imagine succeeding at a live music club now.
我现在甚至无法想象在现场音乐俱乐部取得成功。
You can do it with famous acts, but the non-famous live music club, no. I think that’s partly why comedy has gotten busier, too.
你可以通过著名的表演来做到这一点，但非著名的现场音乐俱乐部则不行。我认为这也是喜剧变得更加繁忙的部分原因。
Comedy, in certain ways, replaced music as a thing people go to do.
在某些方面，喜剧取代了音乐，成为人们喜欢做的事情。
Final question.
最后一个问题。
What will you do next?
接下来你会做什么？
Well, we just closed on the biggest thing I’ve ever done, which is a new building on Third Street.
好吧，我们刚刚结束了我做过的最重要的事情，那就是第三街上的一座新建筑。
It was the former McDonald’s.
这是以前的麦当劳。
I want to open a room that hopefully will be the flagship room.
我想开一个房间，希望能成为旗舰房间。
It should be a very, very intimate, 200-seat theater-ish kind of place with a mezzanine.
它应该是一个非常非常私密、有 200 个座位、带有夹层的剧院式场所。
I’m doing that also largely because I have kids, and I want to have enough that they don’t have to fight over it.
我这样做主要是因为我有孩子，我希望拥有足够的孩子，这样他们就不必为孩子而争吵。
I’ve seen so many families torn apart fighting over estates and things like that.
我见过很多家庭因遗产之类的事情而破裂。
I’m trying to keep having fun.
我正在努力继续享受乐趣。
Again, one of the things I admire about you, and I think as I get to know you, and I’m more comfortable speaking with you — but I think that we’re similar only in the sense that I think you’re trying to live life on your own terms and do exactly what you want to do and enjoy exactly what you want to do when you want to do it.
再说一次，我钦佩你的一件事是，我想，随着我对你的了解，我会更自在地与你交谈 —— 但我认为我们的相似之处仅在于我认为你正在努力按照自己的方式生活，做你想做的事，并在你想做的时候享受你想做的事情。
That has really been the joy of my life.
这确实是我一生的乐趣。
So far, that’s what I’m trying to do.
到目前为止，这就是我正在努力做的事情。
Now I have kids.
现在我有孩子了。
That’s a huge joy in my life.
这是我人生中的一大乐趣。
I don’t know exactly what I’ll do next after that.
我不知道在那之后我接下来要做什么。
It’ll be whatever I want to do that I’m interested in at the time to enjoy myself.
我会做任何我当时感兴趣的事情，让自己开心。
That’s really the way it’s been all along.
这确实是一直以来的情况。
Noam Dworman of Comedy Cellar, thank you very much.
Comedy Cellar 的诺姆·德沃曼，非常感谢。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。