It’s hard to find a person more naturally funny than Patrice O’Neal.
As a lonely young man with a desk job in my late 20s, I spent a lot of time digging into Youtube clips of the New York Comedy scene, specifically, the class of the 2000s, specifically the acerbic, small world of mostly white male NY comedians, a crew that took special pleasure in insulting each other after sets around the “comic’s table” at the legendary Cellar Comedy Club.
This is the class of Bill Burr, Louis CK, Jim Norton, Bobby Kelly, Kevin Brennan, Keith Robinson, Rich Vos, Patrice O’Neal, Ben Bailey with vets like Todd Barry, Colin Quinn, Dave Attell, and Jeff Ross making frequent appearances.
For an outsider, this scene coalesced around appearances on the Opie and Anthony show, which is how a midwest kid could peer into the scene from afar, years later, and act like he knew what the fuck he was walking about with any of this.
Those appearances and clips from Opie & Anthony and other podcasts gave the impression of the kind of scene that people who felt like outsiders, would love to be on the inside of.
After years of listening to the recorded conversations of this boys club, two things became very clear.
- Patrice O’Neal was the best at insulting people
- Making Patrice O’Neal laugh was the highest of compliments
And yet, this very smart, very insulting group of funny, angry men was out shone one night by America’s favorite cab driver.
Yes, Ben Bailey, the host of the best game show to ever grace television screens, Cash Cab, stepped up to the microphone and insulted every one right out of the room, or at least, their chairs, from laughing so hard.
The occasion was Patrice O’Neal’s birthday.
Notice the two bullet points above. Ben Bailey insulted the master of insults and made him, and everyone else in the room, laugh for 20 minutes straight.
There may have been a night, unrecorded, where someone did a better roast than this, but of all the roasts I’ve ever heard, of all the recorded conversations between these men that devolved – I should say evolved – into a level of name calling on par with TED Talks and doctoral dissertations, I have never heard a better roast as what Ben Bailey did on Patrice O’Neal’s birthday, an occasion with the highest NY comedy stakes in the world, where your love for another comedian is defined by how badly you destroy them verbally.
What adds to this legendary performance might be Ben’s reputation for not being the most savage comic in the world, but rather, for being the face of Cash Cab.
That is certainly not a fact I hold against him because, again, Cash Cab is my favorite game show of all-time, but it certainly sets the stage for Ben to subvert all expectations of him.
Make no mistake, Bailey’s diatribe stands on it’s own two legs. The content would destroy no matter who said it, but it probably helps that it comes from, by some definitions, the world’s worst cab driver: one who will not take you to your destination unless you answers his dozens of insane questions correctly.
This set has about 4 or 5 applause breaks.
In a room full of comedians.
A room full of comedians who are being insulted.
This has to be one of the hardest sets to destroy on.
Everyone in the room prides themselves on how well they insult others, and everyone in the room is getting insulted.
If there’s anything working in Ben’s favor, it’s that this crowd really enjoys shitting on each other and can probably take a joke better than most.
You can hear Patrice, about 6 minutes in, give the roast 3 stars. That comment, and Ben’s response, is all we really need to know about how good this roast is.
Trigger warning: there are two uses of the “R” word, use of the word “midget” and one use of “gay” as an insult.