(lively music) - Tonight, we're gonna meet and experience three fantastic New York comedians: Gina Brillion... - If you ever meet somebody that's like, "I could spend every second, of every hour, of every day with you!"

(chuckles) Run.

That's a crazy person.

(audience laughs) - [Susie] Erin Jackson.

- I've been sleeping a lot more since I started WeightWatchers, man, because when I run out of points for the day, I go to bed.

That's how I do it.

Yeah.

(audience laughing) - [Susie] And Tom Cotter.

- I played Minor League Baseball, very.

Little League is what it was called.

(audience laughs) And my mom was the coach.

And she traded me.

I'll never get over that, but... (audience laughs) - Welcome to the extraordinary new series, "Live from the New York Comedy Stage."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (audience cheering and applauding) (organ humming) (drums thump) (engines rumble) (brakes screech) Ah, the comedy club odor.

And here's our legends, pictures of all the comedians I never slept with, men and women.

No regrets whatsoever.

Wow.

Gotham Comedy Club, empty.

This is one of the great rooms in the city, this place.

I have had many a great night on this stage.

One of my great problems when I used to do standup is, what do I do with my handbag?

I never knew.

I'd give it to the bartender.

Not a good idea.

Oh, wow.

This is where I feel at home.

When you live in New York, you're on the subway, you're dealing with every ethnicity imaginable.

The entire world lives here in New York.

You're on the streets, you're encountering people.

It's a visual feast here.

But there was so much stage time to be had in the early '80s in New York.

And comedy is all stage time.

And you can't put anything over on a New York audience.

And you'd better be really, really good for a New York audience, otherwise, they're not gonna give you anything.

So, you wanna learn how to be a good comic, you do it in New York.

- Hi, I'm Gina Brillion.

(audience cheering and applauding) (cheering rises) Oh, stop it.

(audience applauding) Oh, you guys, stop it.

Did you see how slow I was walking up here?

It's the shoes.

(audience laughs) I don't know why.

Why do we do this?

This is, I'm very impaired if something goes down later.

Gonna have to use them as a weapon.

I know, they're great, though, right?

(giggles) Thank you.

(audience laughs) It's worth the torture.

Hi, everybody.

Comedy was kind of always my thing since I was a kid.

I fell in love with comedy at 14.

I was 14 years old, channel surfing.

What came on was a comedy special.

It was Brett Butler.

It was "Brett Butler: Sold Out."

And I can remember it like it was yesterday, sitting there and watching it, and going, "That's what I wanna do for the rest of my life."

What I saw was this smart, beautiful woman controlling a room full of people with nothing but her wit.

We know each other very well, me and my husband.

I got me a good husband, by the way.

I got a really good husband.

I got a wonderful- - Yeah!

- Yeah, I did.

(audience cheers and applauds) Yeah, you could clap.

I worked hard.

(chuckles) (audience laughs) I dated below the bar.

You could clap.

(audience laughs) I married above the bar, but, whoo, ha, ha!

(audience laughs) Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Yeah, my husband's a good one, man.

I got me a 1978 Caucasian.

(audience laughing and applauding) Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(audience laughing) It's a good make, a good year.

I love that car.

My husband's white, that's what I'm trying to tell you guys.

(audience laughs) Just in case you messed it, yeah.

I'm not white.

I'm Puerto Rican.

That is just- - Whoo!

- Oh my God, thank you.

Probably my cousins.

(audience laughs) - Whoo!

- I absolutely love Gotham, let me start by saying that.

I love Gotham, I love the Mazzillis.

I absolutely adore them.

I got married here at Gotham.

That's how much I love this club.

My husband loves the fact that he's married a sassy Latina.

(audience laughs) (chuckles) For now.

(audience laughs) I feel like that's gonna backfire.

(chuckles) I get it, though, like, you know, I'm the only Latin woman he is ever been with, so he's, like, super excited.

He's not my first white guy.

(audience laughs) - [Attendee] Whoo!

- I've been with white guys before, mainly to gather information, bring it back to my people.

(audience laughs) (chuckles) I like how some of y'all laughed, and then some of y'all were like, "I knew it."

(audience laughs) "I knew that was their plans for world domination."

I'm a Puerto Rican girl from the South Bronx, so my lens is that.

That doesn't mean that I have to say that all the time or display that all the time, or be like, you know, "Hey, I'm Latina."

Like, I get to talk about it.

It's part of who I am.

I think the more important thing is somebody sitting in the audience and realizing that they identified with a Puerto Rican girl from the South Bronx, when they're a white person from Maine or a German person from someplace in Germany, if I knew cities in Germany.

We're good, I mean, we're just very different from each other, you know what I mean?

We're just like, we make it work, but we have such different backgrounds.

My husband's white from the Midwest, so like white, white.

(audience laughs) Like, organic.

Like, you know?

(audience laughing) (attendees applaud) That's like farm-to-table white.

Like, that's about as white... - Whoo!

- Yeah, I was like, "I'm gonna go where they make y'all.

I'm gonna get one right off the factory."

(audience laughs) (Gina chuckles) And I'm Puerto Rican from the South Bronx, so, like, yeah.

- South Bronx!

Whoo!

- Hey, what up, gangsters?

Sorry, sorry.

(audience laughing) Sorry, we frightened the rest of the audience, everybody.

(audience laughs) (gasps) "There's gonna be gang violence!"

(audience laughs) (Gina chuckles) I know, and I realized, I remember the day I realized that me and my husband were raised, like, so different, because I was visiting my now in-laws, like, I was visiting them, and my husband got into an argument with his mom.

Yeah, I was, whew, I was shocked, 'cause it was like, (audience laughs) I didn't realize you could argue with your parents.

I had no idea.

(audience laughs) You can have opinions?

I have no idea what that's like.

(audience laughs and applauds) No idea.

I grew up in a Latino household, where we fear our parents well into our early hundreds.

Like, we don't- (audience laughs) I'm a grown woman.

If my mom says my full name, I get, like, chills.

I'm like, "Oh."

(audience laughs) I always say that the New York comedy clubs, all of them, are like a bootcamp for comedy.

Like, this is where you come and you put all the work in.

There's so many chances to get up on stage in so many different environments.

The reason why I like New York audiences is because they're not easy.

They're not an easy crowd.

And then I met my husband.

I was so happy when I met my husband 'cause I was done being single.

I didn't have to worry about that no more.

But then we got engaged and I had to plan a wedding, and that was the most stressful thing I ever did.

Planning a wedding is so stressful, man.

Like, right away, one of my girlfriends, when she found out I was getting married, she was like, "So are you gonna lose weight for your wedding?"

(audience laughs) I was like, "No, but I'm gonna lose girlfriends."

(audience laughs and applauds) (Gina chuckles) You gotta do what you gotta do.

But then I went to the bridal shop, they did the same thing.

I couldn't believe how rude they were to me at the bridal shop.

They were like, "Yeah, you have to lose weight for the dress.

You have to."

I was like, "How about I just (gasps) get a dress that fits?"

(audience laughs) (audience cheering and applauding) Right?

(chuckles) What a novel concept.

(audience chuckles) I'm not gonna buy a dress that's too small and then starve myself, so that the day of my wedding, you have to staple it to my tired, withered body (audience laughs) as I hobble down the aisle to my husband, like, (gurgling) "I love you so much."

(audience laughing) "Does anybody have a Capri-Sun?

I'm starving."

(audience laughs) My guiding philosophy, in terms of comedy, has always been how healing it is, that comedy heals, that, you know, if you walk into a room and, you know, people are going through something, you have the chance, just for a couple of minutes, to make them feel some sense of relief.

Like, I think that's why I'm still in love with comedy.

If you grew up in a Latino family or anything like it, you're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about.

When we tease each other, (attendees chuckle) not one damn feeling is spared.

(audience laughs) - Whoo!

- Not one.

(attendees clapping) It is to the point where your biggest insecurity will be your nickname.

(audience laughs) Yeah.

- Whoo!

- If you're chubby, they call you Gordito.

That means fat little kid.

That's what that means.

(audience laughs and claps) It's not a nickname.

That's a sentence.

That's a mean sentence.

(audience laughing) I was a chubby kid, but they used to call me Chuleta, (attendees laughing) which means pork chop.

(audience laughs) I would've got mad, but every time they said it, I was like, "That sounds delicious."

(audience laughs) I've always viewed comedy as an important way of changing the scope with which you see the world.

Comedians, to me, are like the bird perched on the ledge, watching everything happen.

We're the ones observing the world.

It's why you'll see a lot of comedians aren't like, you know, all crazy and extroverted when they're off stage.

They're very quiet and observant, because we're watching, we're studying, we're seeing things, we're taking things in, we're processing them.

And I've always kind of looked at us as sort of, in a way, really funny philosophers.

(audience laughing) You guys have been great.

Enjoy the rest.

Thank you.

(audience cheering and applauding) (attendee whistles) - What I have observed the comics do is, I think we see the world a little differently than most people.

We see it through a twisted prism, and then spit it out, and then people see it, and they're like, they laugh because they think, "I never saw it that way."

I think it's true for all artists.

You have to figure out who you are.

And comedy, I mean, comedy's an art form.

People think that we're just vaudevillians or something, spinning plates.

No.

- Hi, I am Erin Jackson.

(audience cheering and applauding) Goodness!

Wow, what a warm welcome.

What inspired me to be a comedian?

I think there are comedians that I saw, and I just thought, "Telling stories looks really cool."

You know, and I never really, I was a fan of comedy, but never ever front of mind was I thinking this is something I would wanna try in my life.

For exercise, I've been walking.

Yeah, I started off walking around my neighborhood, but I don't do that anymore.

I go to the track now.

Because I don't know if you guys know this, when you're puffy and you exercise outside in your neighborhood, your neighbors cheer you on.

That's a thing that happens.

(audience laughing) It's not as helpful as they think it is, you know what I mean?

Like, what do you?

I'm just a fat person walking.

You see it all the time.

It's just, I don't need you to honk your horn or, like, give me a thumbs up.

"You can do it!"

Right?

(audience cheering) Like, I know I can do it, I just don't want to.

That's how this happened.

(audience laughs) New York is everything to standup comedy.

You know, I tend to think clubs have personalities more than the city.

Gotham is all class, right?

You walk in here, you feel like you've come out for an evening.

It's set up beautifully.

You know what I mean?

You're gonna get great comics every night.

So New York audiences can be anything, 'cause New York could be anything.

Oh, it's bananas, man.

This country is so divided.

I hate where we are now.

I just, I feel like I'm at the point where I almost don't even wanna meet new people anymore.

(audience chuckles) Does anybody else feel like that?

Like, I don't wanna invite new awful opinions into my life.

Like, it's- (audience laughing) I feel like I cleared most of that out.

But I saw a post the other day, and a lot of it probably coincided with like 4th of July, but there was just a lot of still, like, "We're number one," "America's number one."

"It's the best country."

I'm like, "Still, you feel like, like after?

Come on."

Like, America is a fine place to live, don't get me wrong, but at best, we are the hot girl from high school who let herself go of nations.

Like, that's about our level.

(audience laughing) Let's be real, back in the day, we were hot, you know?

But now, we show up to the reunion, and all the other countries are standing around in the corner, like, "Yo."

(audience laughs) "Did you see America?"

(audience laughs) "She don't look good."

(chuckles) "Are you sure that's even the same country?"

You know what I mean?

(audience laughing) "You know, I heard she had that virus, mm-hm!"

(audience laughs) "I heard she might have a civil war."

"I heard that, too.

I heard that, too."

(audience laughs) Comedy is so important.

It's important to the culture because, especially now, I feel like we're so divided as a nation, as a world.

You know what I mean?

When you can find the things that bring a room together, right, that everybody can identify with regardless of, you know, political affiliation or race, everybody, that is what, it brings people together.

People need to laugh.

Everybody in New York is always talking about like, "My therapist said," "I was talking to my therapist."

And I was like, "Should I get one?"

You know?

(audience laughs) And I really debated about it, 'cause, like, I knew I was fine, but I was like, "You know, you should probably just go confirm that."

(audience laughs) And turns out, no, I'm not fine at all.

(laughs) In terms of doing comedy for a career, there was not some big aha moment.

It really was people that I respect in the business, going, "You're good enough" that made me even start to consider it.

I was staying in a hotel recently, and walked in, wanted to go up to my room.

So I head to the elevator, and there was a woman ahead of me, waiting for the elevator.

And I won't say what she looked like, but she looked like, you know, the opposite of what I look like.

(audience laughs) And so she got on the elevator first, and then I got on just behind her, and then she turned around and looked at me, and she went, "(scoffs) I guess I'll just wait."

And she got off the elevator.

- Oh my God!

- Oh my God!

- Yes.

- Ooh!

Yes, my my first instinct was like, you know, "Dig a tunnel."

You know, but I- (audience laughing) I'm in therapy, you know, so.

(audience laughing) So I didn't say anything.

I just rode up to my floor.

'Cause I said, "Erin, you can't stop somebody from being a bigot."

I was proud of myself, you know?

Until I rode back down to the lobby.

Because here's the thing, (audience laughing) I'm a work in progress, like... (audience laughing) 'Cause it is true, you cannot stop somebody from being a bigot, but you can make a bigot take the stairs.

That's a thing that you could do, so... (audience cheering) Yeah.

So when the doors opened to the lobby, I was like, "Hey, how you feeling?"

(chuckles) Just wanted to check if you were still waiting, 'cause it's still me.

(Erin chuckles) - [Attendee] Whoo!

- It's gonna keep being me, too, just so you know.

(chuckles) I got nowhere to be till 10:00 PM.

(audience laughs) And that's how I'm healing the nation, all right.

When you make it about yourself, "The personal is universal," they say.

You know what I mean?

And so people can identify with like, "I have a crazy relative."

"I've been through that dating thing."

And I think if you get good enough at it, you can build a fan base that wants to come see you say whatever you're going to say.

Whenever I would get sad about being lonely, you know what I mean, being single, I would play this game.

I'm a people-watcher, and during the pandemic, I was not able to do that, like, live.

But I was doing it on the internet.

Like, I would do it on like Instagram and stuff, and just kinda like scroll through, explore.

And I would play this game that I call, "Well, Somebody Married Her."

And it always made me feel good.

(audience laughing and clapping) Like, "Don't give up, Erin," you know?

"She found a husband," you know?

"There's still hope."

I would say the best advice I ever got about playing New York was like, "You never know who's in the audience.

Always give it 100."

All right, you guys have been so great.

Thank you so much.

Enjoy.

(audience cheering and applauding) (audience continues cheering and applauding) (jazzy upbeat music) - I like to call New York the Comedy Capital of the World.

This really is where the best clubs are and the best comedians are.

And it's extremely, extremely competitive, and you have to get good, you know, to make it here in this city.

- Hi, I'm Tom Cotter.

(audience cheering and applauding) Thank you.

(audience cheering and applauding) Thanks, everybody.

(audience cheering and applauding) I'm wearing pink pants.

Hi everybody, how are you?

- Whoo!

- Good to see you.

Lower your expectations, everybody.

You'll have a good time.

Alright, anyway...

I'm the youngest of six.

When you're the youngest of six in an Irish family, you need attention, you'll do anything to get attention.

And I did do everything.

So the stuff that used to send me to the principal's office now pays my bills, which is a wonderful thing.

I went to Los Angeles last week, and everyone in LA thinks they're in show business.

And it's annoying, frankly.

(audience laughs) So I'm at a restaurant in LA, and the waiter comes sauntering over to the table, and he says, "I just wait tables on the side.

I'm actually a writer."

And I said, "Okay, write this down: I'll have the onion soup and the swordfish."

(audience laughs) Get over yourself.

Anyway... (audience laughing) This is The City That Never Sleeps.

This is New York City.

And I've told jokes at four in the morning in front of three people.

My dad's Catholic, my mom's Rastafarian.

And that was weird growing up.

So dad would bring home the Christmas tree, and mom would smoke it.

(audience laughs) So it was weird growing up as a Christafarian.

But anyway, my brother just converted.

He is a Crystal Methodist.

(audience laughs and claps) So, thank you, that side of the room.

Let's pick it up over here.

How about that a little bit?

I feel like I had a stroke 'cause only one side is responding.

Let's go.

(audience laughs) Yeah, you pay your dues here, you definitely do.

But this is where everyone wants to be.

The other night, tell me if I'm opening up too much, the other night I took an overnight laxative.

Sir, have you ever taken an overnight laxative?

(audience laughs) Unbelievable product, my friend.

(audience laughs) Took it at midnight, 7:00 AM, had the most incredible movement.

(audience laughs) The tragedy is I didn't wake up till 8:00 AM.

(audience laughing) - [Attendee] Oh!

- I am no longer welcome in that hotel, I'll tell you that right now.

That's another restraining order.

(audience laughs) If you went to any comedy club right now in the city and did a demographic study of where everybody's from, so few of them are from New York.

I mean, many of them are from Ohio, from Texas, from New England, like myself, from DC.

They're from everywhere.

But they come to one of two places.

It's New York and LA.

It still is.

But if you wanna talk about comedy, "Saturday Night Live," you know, stand-up, this is the place, this is the Mecca.

So, but I am married.

I'm a married man.

Is anyone here encaged?

Engaged, I'm sorry.

Anybody?

No?

(audience laughing) I have been married for five wonderful years, 21 total, and I know some things now.

(audience laughs) I got married because I just didn't wanna live without decorative pillows anymore.

That was the one thing missing from my life, was having to remove 20 pillows from my bed before I can get in the bed, (audience laughing) pillows that I'm not allowed to touch otherwise, those pillows.

(audience laughs) Snoring has become a major issue in our relationship.

I snored the day we met.

My snoring has remained constant, never changing.

Her reaction is what has changed dramatically.

'Cause when we were dating, she said it was cute, but that's when she was trying to lure me in, right?

And once we got married, it wasn't cute anymore.

On the honeymoon, she started with a nudge.

And over time, the nudge begat a shove.

And now she throws an elbow that would get her thrown out of a hockey game.

Seriously.

(audience laughs) Two weeks ago, I'm sound asleep, snoring.

She pinched my nostrils together, (audience laughs) which is attempted murder, and it's wrong.

(audience laughing and applauding) My snoring's bad.

It's gotten so bad, we have to sleep in separate bedrooms now.

I have to sleep in the guest room, and she has to sleep at her yoga instructor's house.

(audience laughs) And that's, it's very awkward.

I don't like it.

(audience laughs and applauds) We fight a lot, but we're never gonna get divorced, 'cause, frankly, neither one of us wants custody of the children.

(audience laughs) So we're in it for the long haul.

(audience chuckling) Sometimes you don't even know you're gonna have a fight.

You know, one night I was slowly taking off her bra, and she walked in on me.

(audience laughing) Wow, what a fight that was.

(audience laughing) Dr. Phil says, if you're arguing with your spouse, what you should try to do is try to see things from your spouse's point of view.

So whenever we have an argument, I put myself in her shoes, and her stockings, and her bra, and her panties, and her scrunchie.

And when you're standing there, wearing stiletto heels, fishnet stockings, with an underwire bra and a thong up the crack of your butt, it dawns on you: This is why she's irritable.

I get it now.

(audience laughs) Dr. Phil's a genius.

(audience laughs) I wish I could tell you that my act had some kind of socially redeeming value.

It has none.

I don't preach, I don't try to pound people over the head with my politics.

I just try to make people laugh.

That's the only goal I have when I'm up there.

I'm not trying to get a point across.

I'm not trying to, you know, sway someone's opinion on any issue.

I just try to have fun.

To her credit, she got me to quit smoking.

'Cause I only smoke after intimacy, so I haven't had a cigarette in 11 years.

So that's pretty good.

(audience laughs) I married a comedian, 'cause who needs health insurance?

You know, it's overrated.

(audience laughs) And people say to us all the time, "Oh, you must laugh all the time.

Your house must be filled with laughter."

And yes, there's some laughter in our home.

It's usually her.

It's in the bedroom, and she's pointing, and I don't care for it, but.

(audience laughs) You know, the old cliche is "Laugher is the best medicine."

It really is.

And comics are available without a prescription.

One doctor I like 'cause he recommended marijuana to me, but that was Dr. Dre, and I don't know if that counts.

(audience laughs) So I went to see my doctor.

And I have a bad doctor 'cause I have bad health insurance 'cause of a preexisting condition called poverty.

(audience laughs) So I go to see this guy, and I went to see him, and he gave me a complete physical.

That's what they, you know, at my age, they wanna check for all your everything.

So, first, he told me I had high blood pressure, which I took with a grain of salt.

But then he- (audience laughs and cheers) Thank you.

Live audiences, getting a room full of strangers to jump on board, it's the best thing ever.

It's, you know, I'm a married man for 21 years.

I will tell you it's better than sex.

It really is.

It's the best thing you can do.

It fills you with euphoria and just the adrenaline before the show, the endorphins after the show.

Today was weird.

I woke up this morning, I could feel tension mounting.

Tension's my dog.

(audience laughs) And that was awkward.

(audience laughs and cheers) But the other thing about this past year, you know, we had a lot of things go on.

We had murder hornets, you know, we had the capitol storming and riots, and all this stuff going on.

But we had weird things go on.

People got really offended in the last year and a half.

I think we get triggered very easily now.

So I just wanna say that if I've offended anybody tonight with my comedy, and you're gonna go on social media and besmirch me, at least pronounce my name correctly: Ray Romano, everybody.

Ray Romano, two Rs.

(audience laughing) I'm Tom Cotter, and I approve this message.

Thank, you everybody.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(audience cheering) Gina?

- (chuckles) Thank you for tossing it to me, Tom.

It feels like, you know when you finish a workout, and you're just kind of like- - No, I don't.

(Gina laughs) - And you're just kinda like, "Wow, I did that, I did that."

Like, okay, I did that.

They were a good crowd.

So it was an "I did that" night.

It was, "I did that," not, "I did that."

- That's what we do every night, but I think when it's something that you know is gonna be recorded, you're are a little bit more like, "Oh, let me make sure I get it right," "Let me make sure I remember the order," you know, that kind of thing, so relief, too, yeah, at the end.

- I always need to get away after the energy.

Like, I need to, I need some chill time, usually solo.

Like, I just wanna kind of chill, collect my thoughts, and, you know, get ready to just go to bed and have the rest of my night.

- Yeah.

I find it hard to go to bed a lot of times after the show, but, you know, I don't live in the city right now, I live in Jersey, so driving home is usually that chill time for me.

- But I think women have a tougher time in the field, because I can get up and talk about anything, and it's okay, but women, the perimeters within which they get to work is more narrow because the audience, I don't know what their experience is, but my experience watching them is people get uptight when women talk about, you know, sex and things like that, whereas guys can do it, and people cheer for it.

Yeah, it's just, it's almost unfair.

- Let 'em know, Tom.

- Women can't swear without someone in the crowd getting uptight, but a guy can, and so it's- - 100% true.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- I wish more people actually said it just like that.

There was a time when I would be the only female on the show.

'Cause if I was on the show, and there was another female, oh, it was a big scandal.

"Well, we better have a guy in between them.

You can't have two back-to-back females."

- Or we only get to work together when it's a women's festival, or a women's show, or something like that.

I'm like, I never get to see my friends.

- I've actually been asked, "How can a comedy show with all female comedians be consistently funny?"

- I wore pink pants, though, 'cause I wanted to give a little femininity to it.

(organ humming) (guitar strums) (drums thump) (lively music)