Ray Ellin on the NYC Subway Story, Aruba & Why He Won't Post His Best Clips

Ray Ellin is a New York comedian, Comedy Cellar regular and the owner of Aruba Ray's Comedy Club, the number one nightlife activity on TripAdvisor in the entire country of Aruba. He started going to Aruba by accident in 2012, fell in love with the island and opened the club a year later. His colleagues thought he was nuts. They were wrong. Known for his crowd work and his entrepreneurial streak, Ray has also self-financed a documentary that he sold to 20th Century Fox, hosted a hybrid live and online talk show 17 years ago before the technology existed to do it properly, produced three seasons of a weekly topical standup show for Comedy Central, and raised millions of dollars for charity.  He has also been profiled on Dateline NBC, where they discovered his heart rate drops when he walks on stage. In this episode he talks about building a comedy career across New York, Aruba and now Europe, losing his sister during the early days of the pandemic and how Zoom comedy kept him going and why he still has not posted any of his crowd work clips despite having hundreds of hours of footage and everyone telling him he should. Timestamps: 00:00 - Why He Is Called Aruba Ray 00:49 - Opening Aruba Ray's Comedy Club in 2013 05:51 - Why English Comedy Exploded Across Europe 09:22 - Touring Europe Three Years Ago & Coming Back for More 11:34 - Opening for Chris DiStefano at Madison Square Garden 14:40 - Bombing at 19 in Boston & Why It Still Irks Him 15:45 - Why Stand-Up Is a Coping Mechanism & What He Was Coping With 17:06 - His Sister's Battle With Anorexia & Her Incredible Career at Stanford 19:25 - Losing Her at the Start of the Pandemic on March 1st 2020 22:03 - Going Into Lockdown Alone Without Being Able to Grieve Properly 23:39 - Doing 100 Zoom Shows 26:01 - Being on the First Plane Back to Aruba When It Opened in July 2020 27:19 - Is the Entrepreneurial Side Getting in the Way of His Stand-Up Career 29:06 - The One Man Show He Has Been Thinking About for a Year 30:03 - European Audiences vs New York Audiences 32:48 - Adapting Material for Europe  34:57 - Hundreds of Hours of Crowd Work Footage He Has Never Posted 37:02 - The Clip That Did Go Up 40:44 - The Film He Is Developing With His Sister 43:52 - Charity Work and the One Love Foundation for Dogs 48:37 - The Aruba Dog He Adopted  50:09 - Raising Millions for Charity  53:33 - His Dad Designing the Most Iconic Polaroid Camera Ever Made 57:19 - Dateline NBC Discovery 01:00:12 - How he became a Better Performer 01:03:20 - What Kind of Comics He Will Not Book for the Aruba Club 01:10:51 - Sleeping in His Car on 76th Street  01:13:15 - Where to Find Ray & What Is Coming Next Follow Ray Ellin: https://www.instagram.com/raycomedy/ https://www.instagram.com/comedycellarusa/ https://www.instagram.com/arubarayscomedyclub/ Follow Dam Yankee:  https://www.instagram.com/damyankeepodcast   Website:  https://damyankeepodcast.nltimes.nl/ Connect with me:   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharynewmark