By RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com, originally filed Friday, February 27, 2015
Stand-up comic Ralphie May did his first show at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre a couple of years ago and loved the vibe so much, he decided to tape his first stand-up special last November that has gone straight to Netflix "Unruly."
"This place is amazing," May said in an interview on Feb. 17. "It's so up to date. It's so clean. It's huge. It's incredible, man. I'm a fan of old vaudeville theaters. But there's just a crispness to Cobb Energy Centre."
'Unruly" was made available to Netflix subscribers last Friday February 27 at the same time as one of its most popular shows "House of Cards."
"Talk about lucky!" said May in an interview last week. "It's going to be promoted right next to 'House of Cards!' "
He said he did the show with very little editing and seven cameras. "If I miss a joke, I miss a joke!" he said.
Netflix asked him to remove one single joke about Magic Johnson and his HIV status. May had no issue with it.
"When you get notes from other networks, man, you better be sitting down. You'll be reading awhile. Netflix is super easy to work with," he said.
May was born in Chattanooga and raised in Arkansas but spent summers in Roswell with his dad Winston, who ran the Georgia Poultry Federation.
He loves Georgians. "Atlanta is interesting. You have high education rates but there are plenty of regular folks. People have degrees but chop wood on weekends."
Early on in the special, he tackled Atlanta's own CNN and noted that if Anderson Cooper arrives, you better run the other way because that means something horrible has happened. He jumped on the Donald Sterling controversy, noting how badly punished he was by selling his team for $2 billion. "Hope you choke on that extra billion dollars!" he joked.
"I'm too far to the left for some, too far to the right for others," he said. "I'm my own brand of comedy. I love what I do. I do what I love. I'm honest about it!"
For instance, during the special, he declares, "Everyone is racist. You may say, 'No. Not me!' Yes, you are. Everyone is racist... in traffic. Everybody, right? Somebody cuts you off, you don't get more vague. You don't say, 'Look at that person, that human, driving crazy.' No, you get real f**** specific."
I spoke to him on his 43rd birthday. He was stuck in Nashville after a cancelled show due to snow. So he had time to just talk to me in a hotel room. His birthday plans? "I've got a bunch of stuff I can watch on Netflix. I haven't caught 'Marco Polo.' I've kind of got an evening planned: drinking beers and falling asleep before 10 o'clock!"
Comedy preview
"Unruly," featuring Ralphie May, available on demand on Netflix
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