Loses sight of a conversations serious subject. Cathy griffin joins us. Youve made it in one of the toughest industries, only to switch gears into the other toughest career from stand up. Sit cops are also male dominated. I was just a guest star on kirstie alley, and 80 of the writing staff were men. And when i got into standup, it was even more sexist. Stand up is completely male driven and completely sexist. And im going to be open about it. Because as much as any comedian has her opinion, call your local comedy club, and ask them to read the lineup for this saturday nights show, and its going to be 80 guys. Is that females out this . Two things. Female comediennes are not out this. Does it still a stigma tha not a good job for a female. One girlfriend said that her boyfriend says im not going to stand in the back and watch you. And then theres that stigma. And thats a lot deeper than the profession part of it. Thats just the general politics issue of but as far as the numbers out there performing, you are still up against promotors, and i would say 95 of the promotors that i deal with, and that is everywhere from Carnegie Hall to a casino in elizabeth, indiana, to the Sydney Opera House to the dolby theater in los angeles, i almost never walked into a venue where i was playing for 5,000 or 1500 people, where i dealt with a female promoter. So its rampant all over. And i think to act like it doesnt exist is silly. Cathy, youre community is saying a few studies, men are funnier because they have a biological ability to be innately funnier. Tell that to lucille ball. And ros rosanne barr and as fars women being funny or not funny, when it comes to professional comedy, when it comes to buying tickets foo nightclub or to Carnegie Hall. Women have made theaters large corporations, and where i work, nbc universal, women are absolutely as funny. Were in a situation where my experience has been where i absolutely have to work harder than the boys, jump higher, and im vulgar by nature, by the way, so that part does apply to me, but other than that, i hold the record for the most standup comedy specials ever televised by a single comedian, ever. And im about to do my 20th, ive done 19, and i cant stop myself. I have a standup comedy disorder. And number two, i have something to prove. While i love the great male comedians of course, i love that i broke the record. And nobody cares and nobody has brought it up. I do wonder, if i was a male comedian, if i had a male part, if that would be more newsworthy. Do men and women hear comedy differently . Nobody makes me laugh harder than the women in my life. Nobody is funnier than my 93yearold alcohol mother, maggie. She enjoys a box of wine, and she said before this interview, can we trust them . So i think that my own mother might be part of your twitter war. Im afraid to go home. My mother is funny, and she doesnt know why, and shes clearly uncensored as i just showed you and i grew up with aunts and female cousins, and they never would say, guys arent funny, so you dont think youre going to see a dude movie. And if you go see a great comedian, whether its kev hart or old grates like rickles, if you go to see don rickles, you dont think youre going to see a bro shower a dude show. But a lot of these women that come it my shows, they have to drag their husband or boyfriends, and afterwards, they say youre funny for a chick. Hey, cathi, you know im sorry, lets break down that last one. What does that person have an issue with . We cant do lowbrow comedy . I dont want to do immature comedy, im 52. You moron. Thats his request in there are plenty of male hacks that can take care of his kind of comedy. You do comedy, and how long did it take you to figure out that you need to find places to fit your style rather than trying to find places to fit. Because i had a bunch of men telling me that i was doing it wrong t. Though i was getting laughs. I would meet with these male comedy owners, and they would say ridiculous things like, dont you know, comedy has to come in threes. And if you dont get a life every 9 seconds, you arent doingoir job. And i thought, who is counting . Number one, creating my own venue. And i started doing standup in coffee shops and in book shops and anyplace that would let me go if i had a little flyer that would say i can put on a show, and i like to do mine from personal experience. I have a story from when i met celine dion, and i started petting her hair like a lunatic. Coming up, the man who many hold up as the original hiphop store, the dmc of run dmc. How he rose to fame, and plus, action that never made air. Welcome back. Were taking a look at some of our favorite conversations. Darra mcdaniels, or the dmc of run dmc, joined us in the studio to break down his groundbreaking career with hiphop. Were so excited to have you here, and we have been talking about this for weeks. I used to torture my grandparents as i stayed with them in the summer and listen to your music, and make them crazy, but i grew up with dmc. It was a good time. And somebody will tell me, i was three years old sitting there listening to my fathers cassettes. And i was like, three years old . There seems to be a lot of nostalgia for old school hiphop. It was the real deal. And you were part of that. And part of creating your own music, and giving us some of your view. It was a unique time, because everybody in the industry windows really into it. Like when we did those early shows, we used to have to knock on the doors of venues, can we get onstage . Were run dmc. There was no video. We didnt have mtv. There were no album covers, so the record was playing in the streets, but nobody knew who we was, and they would shut the doors on us. But even with the Record Companies themselves, people thought that hiphop was a fad, that it was like it was going to go out like disco. But the radio didnt really want to play us, but it was the punk rockers, debbie harry, who made a rap song, rapture. Lou reed, the ramons, it was the rock and rollers, and the indy rockers and punk rockers that embraced us. And they saw themselves in us. But in our early days, it was, we wasnt a force to be reckoned with. We wasnt believable. People thought we would be there two or three years, and it would be over. You mentioned that you were on mtv. And you guys go on to be the first platinum hiphop artist and first video, and first cover of rolling stone, and was there a moment when you felt the shift. And you said, now were on the trajectory . Well, the reason we was able to get on mtv and get into the living rooms globally across the nation was, i have always believed this about hiphop and rock and roll, which are brother and sister whether youre in the dirt poor ghetto, or beverly hills, whenever you hear a song thats hiphop, its going to be something that you can relate to because of what we talk about. A kid in the ghetto and a kid in beverly hills, we still have the same issues, peer pressure, i hate my teacher, i love my teacher, i hate that girl, i love my mother, and i want to do this. Hiphop was a form of creative art that brought people together. Heres what the Community Says and im going to go to peter armor rod, who is a music blogger and attorney. Do you see music, specifically hiphop and rap continuing to do those kinds of things that hiphop in 2013 is able to do the same things, push those boundaries that you were such a beautiful part of back in the 80s . Yes, i see hiphop doing what it always did, but problem is, you dont get it on mtv and you dont get it on radio. What you get on radio and mtv now is basically what sells. Iced tea told me a long time ago, the Record Companies are only in the business to sell records, so if the worst record of the day sells, and people are going to buy it, theyre going to forget about whats important. Theyre going to forget about whats creative. Theyre going to forget about whats revolutionary and ground break being. Because to the record company, its a business. I always say this with or without a record company, theres hiphop. Hiphop started before the record company. Mc, before there was rappers. The whole thing was to be mcs and our job was to be responsible to the audience. The thing that separates the old school from the new school, is what they do. But the difference for my generation, run dmc, krs1, ll cool j, the beastie boys, the difference between those young rappers now and those of us young rappers back then, we felt a responsibility, and those records have the capability of doing what they did that are out there, but theyre not part of the music business. If theres such a thing as sonic placement in the business, you guys get the award for that. From big mac, that was one of the biggest endorsement deals for hiphop artist. But how has the business magnified over the years . Well, they didnt do it i mean, we didnt do it for the endorsement deal, or for the money. We were just rhyming about so many good things, oh, what can we do next . We rap about rock and roll, oh, lets make one about the sneakers that we love. And i think what happened was that that was the first time that people saw the relationship of a music entity could be huge as sports. It was the first time that a nonathletic entity was able to get a sneaker endorsement. The problem was this. We did it, it was good, it was sincere, and it was not even about the deal. Nowadays, people will search for the deal first, and not be responsible with the music that they put out. The reason it worked for dmc was it was good. We didnt make a record saying, i got more sneakers than you, more money, look at my car, look at my jewelry. We had big old chains and Mercedes Benzes and all of that. And that was about our sneakers, not about the term. But where those sneakers have been. Stepped onstage, all the people gave and the poor got paid. And right away, we had global appeal. These sneakers walked down the hallways of st. Johns university. The reason we didnt do the record at first was, there was a stereotype of, yeah, those kids with the gold chains, and the adidas suits, those were the bad people of society. Which was true. The first thing you did when you got money, if you did drugs and a stickup, was to get fresh. Everybody who was fresh, it was a stereotype, he was a drug dealer. And we made that record, and i was, im with st. Johns university. And i have a high school diploma. The problem is, the corporations will endorse the artist who is negative, who doesnt project anything positive to the audience, just to sell their product. But if theyre a good artist, and theyre making money well, this isnt about censorship or freedom of speech. Its about the responsibility. Our generation made records about being a drug dealer. We told our story, but at the end of that record, we said, but yall, you younger guys, you dont have to do this. And nowadays, in america, the guy tells his story about being a drug dealer like its great. And then americans celebrate that hes making money. We created hiphop so we didnt have to have more drug dealers and gang bangers. We greeted hiphop so the Younger Generation that listened to dmc or a rapper, would think its cool to name himself after scarface the movie, or gangsters. We created this positive music, and told this story, but we also gave positive alternatives. What you didnt see in that interview, is d, as he likes to be called is such a nice guy. He held court in our studio for an hour after the show, answering questions of our staff and the fans who came to meet him. Are you afraid of zombi apocalypse . Welcome back, were sharing some of our favorite coverings. Max brook, the author of world war z, joins us to talk zombies and everything in between. Max, whos your audience . I think its a pretty broad spectrum. We have people who are very into zombies, and very into culture, and you have people who are into big picture Disaster Preparedness. I spoke at a work college, and i met with the cdc. And great, thats kind of like cutting Strategic Air command out of the cuban missile crisis. Thanks, guys, but i think zombies are a blank slate. So we have stories, and what do people say to you when they approach you on the street and they realize who you are . Well, when people first see me on the street, oh, my god, i loved your pretty in pink, and no. You know, it depends on where im at. Comicon . Dude, what happened with the movie . If its a cult environment, its like dude, youre awesome. But there was one time when i was actually at a Disaster Preparedness hurricane drill for fema, for national guard, in port houston. And the best comment that i ever got, with general, i said, what i do, i found the best way to teach the american people, and i sort of went into that. And he came to me afterwards, and he said, i worked on airforce 2030, which was a program of where is the airforce going to be in 2030 . And he said, for the first time in a long time, you got me excited about it again. Well, our Community Takes to zombies very seriously, max. And we have a bunch of tweets we have a great video comment from mark. Give him a listen. Hey, max, its mark from new york city. I wanted to ask you what a theme or themes for your new book are going to be. I feel like theres a lot of rich material out there for Science Fiction at the moment. And we have a lot of massive changes going on in the world. Climate change, rapid population growth, up to 9 billion by the next century. And i wonder if you see these changes as being mundane and the new normal . Going off of marks video comment, mark, do you think that americans are emotionally prepared for not only disasters, but wifi down for 30 minutes, and people go crazy. Thats the whole reason i have written this new comic book. Its about being mentally prepared. And its about vampires and a zombie flick. But what im talking about, when everything is given to you, and you never have to struggle and you never have to fail, you are robbed of the psychological, emotional survival instinct, which allows you to deal with adversity. Because adversity is coming knocking. If you have never failed and never had to struggle and never had to pick yourself back up, you wont be ready for that adversity. So what was that moment to you . From the outside, i had everything. I never had to work, i never had to worry about these things, and yet, i was also cursed and blessed with horrific dyslexia. So my childhood was studying 3, 4 hours a night and scraping by with a c plus, and most kids never had to study. So it made me comfortable with hard work. Knowing that i had to dig in, and i had to work three times as hard as the guy next to me because my brain wasnt built for this world. Were talking about zombies, and what are they a metaphor for . We were talking about this before the show, there has been a shift. We have 28 days, world war z, walking dead. I think that zombies have almost become an artistic canvas, and different writers are using them for different means. I have no judgment on that. I like to use them for big adversity. And some people like to talk about them like warm bodies. A zombie love story. I have no problem with that. And for me, its kind of like falling in love with the herpes virus and i wouldnt want to write about that, but it doesnt mean that people cant get something out of warm bodies. Didnt they say the same thing . There should be room for a zombie soap opera. Whats wrong with that . I think there should be room for people to tell different stories using zombies. Theres room for conversation. See you online at aljazeera hello, and welcome to aljazeera america. Im Jonathan Betz in new york, and john seeing no the temperat. Making money, hopes are high for the economy in 2014. The record is broken, and the reason for optimism. Annihilate all terrorist. Thats the comment from russias president. [ audio difficulties ]