Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 150: Ari Shaffir

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

The band: in an ever-fluctuating state of abuse and recovery. Of what, you might ask? Alcohol and each other, mostly. That's right, we have more 1-minute interviews with Nick Gerlach! And on the Interview Hour, we welcome comedian and darn nice fellow, Ari Shaffir! Listen in as Andy and Ari tread gracefully across a sea of topics such as introversion, comedy, and drugging your friends right in front of their kids. Plus: Brian chastises Andy for mushroom banter and Mara joins the circus. This is EP 150. Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out Andy's new song, "Friends (A Song About Friends)" on iTunes, Spotify  Treat yourself to some guffaw at arithegreat.com   Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Mara Davis Brian Schwartz Shawn Eckels Andee Avila Arno Bakker

Andy, I'm just snoring on my couch. Listen to yourself. Hey, Schwartz, a couple of things. Listen, one, I just listened to the first part of the Burt cast, the Burt Kreischer interview. And, you know, you need to, A, not take mushrooms every time you do an interview with someone, and, B, you need to not talk about it, and you need to not fly with mushrooms and then seemingly brag about flying

with mushrooms because you're going to get arrested and only it's just it's just shocking it's like you have Tourette's when it comes to your own habits sorry to anyone who has Tourette's who may hear this you know the other thing is um I got an email that you're you want in-ear monitors and that you want to spend money on all these in-ears so that you could talk to Jason at Front of House during the show and only to find out the Lakers score. So you basically want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and you want to get in-ears

so that you can secretly, during the show, keep track of the Lakers games. It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. It's almost as ridiculous as you telling Bert Kreischer you fly around the country with mushrooms. So you're not getting in-ears. You're not the type of band that needs in-ears. And I say that because you guys pour Jameson all over yourselves, and we don't need to be shorting out in-ears and paying thousands and thousands

of dollars a week to replace not only your keyboard, but now in-ears too. So it's just not a reality. I mean, you know, if Beats needs it, I get it. He sits in the back. He might need it. But you, just to talk to Jason about the Lakers game, it's ridiculous. And here's an adage for you. Less is more. Less talking about your habits publicly is more beneficial for you. Less in-ears to hear scores during your show when you should be focused on playing great music for your fans

is more beneficial for you. Enough. Head out of ass. Bye. And we are live. Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast. I'm Andy Frasco. How you feeling today?

Are you annoyed with your co-host yet? Yes, I fucking am. What did I do? I just wanted to see what you... I don't think I've done anything annoying. No, you haven't. Yeah. I'm probably one of the least annoying people in your life.

Right? Right. How y'all doing? How was Thanksgiving? How was your Thanksgiving, Nick? It was great. I sat at home and ate and watched TV all day. Like, nailed it.

No different than any other fucking day off. Yeah, because, no, actually no one texts me on any other day either, so you're right. Do you, like like wish your parents happy thanksgiving i mean why i don't understand why what are we celebrating that i need to text my mom happy thanksgiving she's from england first of all so if anything my grandma's inc british right she has this great joke she goes thanksgiving is britain's fourth of july or fourth of july is britain's thanksgiving because they're like glad they don't have to deal with us are you yeah do you think america's canceled no no it's weird that america's fucked right now right but it's still better than like two-thirds of the world to live in

yeah it's kind of fucked up yeah that's how bad humanity is right now everybody let's go oh what a fucking day dude hell yeah actually today's been good. Yeah, you been having fun? Yeah, it's been pretty low-key. I miss touring. You do? No. What the fuck are you talking about? How can you miss it?

You're in the middle of it. Let's fucking go. Oh, man. You know that point where your vacation, where you still feel like you're on tour because it's only like a couple days off? It's not like a two-week or a three-week tour? Well, yeah, we haven't really had vacation yet. We've had like breaks, but it's just like you're like...

Yeah, you're anxious and you're fucking... That's what I've been doing. I've been working on my show the whole... Yeah, it's like stupid. That's why we have a podcast, though. Yeah, it's good. It's good mental health exercise. Are you depressed you depressed no not today or any other day maybe i could can become depressed for the most depressed i've been on tour was uh before the show in los angeles

you ever get like you know and you get like toward it you know what i mean by tour depression you're not even sad about a certain specific thing you're just like i think it's just like the routine of that same thing every day gets to you you know yeah you're just like kind of uh you're just like kind of like foopy you're just like uh i've had that feeling couple yeah everyone gets it what is what was the hardest part of this tour what do you mean like in what way this is the longest tour you've ever been on uh it's like tied you know what i mean what do you mean well i've been on other It's tied. You know what I mean? What do you mean? I've been on other tours for two or three months, but they weren't during COVID. You know what I mean?

And they're worth way less people, too. How many people? Three or four, because it was just my band and a tour manager. Man, that sounds so boring. No, it wasn't boring at all. Not the music, but just being with only two people. At least with eight people. Dude, it wasn't boring at all. Not the music, but just being with only two people. At least with eight people. Dude, it's harder.

If you get mad at someone, you're way more ingrained with them. Did you guys only have one hotel room for four people? No, we would get two usually sometimes. Sometimes one. It just depends. I'm having a blast out here. Yeah, the shows are going good. Yeah, I'm fucking pumped up.

Pre-sales are up., I'm fucking pumped up. Pre-sales are up. Pre-sales are up. And this next run in December, it's up. It's popping. Yeah? Yeah. We're talking like $200, $300 already each night?

We're talking $300 plus. At least. Oh, okay. The only show that isn't kind of popping is Burlington, Vermont. That's weird. It is. Isn't that like a fish town? College town. Maybe they don't.

I mean, that's still three weeks away, too. Yeah. I want to talk about why Cosby Sweater got canceled. Okay, that's the band I was just talking about. And actually, that's why that tour sucked. We were kind of declining because of the name change. Because we have Ari Shafir on the show. Because we were doing all these shows, and we had changed our names,

and no one cared about us anymore, so they blew. They weren't fun shows. So if people have known Ari Shafir, he actually is... What would you consider Ari? A comedian's comedian. Yeah. He is dedicated to the art of comedy,

and he staunchly protects the sanctity of certain things about it. I don't even... I can't even explain like he just is so much better at it that like i can't really explain it you know what i mean so what all did you and ari shafir like so you have talked about the lakers thing a lot did you cry during that i was like i was ready to talk to him more about it but we did just it was such a good way into nba or is that someone he is yeah um he's into sports but we talked a lot about chappelle we

talked a lot about dave chapel yeah we talked a lot about Chappelle. We talked a lot about... Dave Chappell. Yeah. We talked a lot about just being a comedian now and how hard it is to skim through the fat. I like how people say it. They think Dave Chappelle's canceled. It's like, he's not canceled. He's a millionaire.

Oh, that Sam Morrill. Yeah. What'd he say? That's on Instagram, so he can probably just do it. He's not canceled. He's playing fucking arenas, and he got $20 million for his special. Speaking of being canceled, we're almost about to cancel Floyd. Floyd!

Get over here, Floyd! Floyd! Floyd! Come over here, Floyd! Podcast stuff. Come on, this is the last one. Sean, get in here. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, Sean Eccles is back. podcast stuff come on this is the last one Sean get in here hey ladies and gentlemen

Sean Eccles is back hey Sean Sean and Andy oh shit we got the whole band in here Andy Alva too all the people that are worth a shit stupid ass come here Floyd

oh god okay Ernie too it's his birthday you puked again? oh the whole band's. It's his birthday. You puked again? Oh, the whole band's in here. What are you doing? Actually, that was a joke. Ernie wasn't in here yet. It's Ernie's

birthday. Oh. How do you guys feel? How's the tour been for you guys? Why don't you supply headphones and more mics? Floyd! Shut up, Floyd. Do you have a mic in your hand? Four days felt like four months. Yeah. What about, uh, what'd you guys do for Thanksgiving? Sean's good at this.

He just gets his information. I just got here. Oh. Never mind. You're going to blow our cover. Get out of here, Floyd. No, we're done. We're done.

Thanks, Floyd. Go practice shutting the fuck up in the mirror. Oh, shit. All right. We're going to do a one minute. Who's going to be the one-minute interview this week? We already did it. It's Mara.

No. We did Floyd last time and Mara this time. We've already done it. Oh, let's do it again. It's Ernie's birthday. He doesn't get any appreciation enough. Ernie, I have enough. What?

Let's do the Ernie. We need to appreciate Ernie more because he gets sad. Ernie does not get sad. He does. Not about this. I mean, he gets sad about a lot of things. He's probably so used to you. What? No, no. He still gets sad. He's in the room right now, so he hears us. Ernie does not get sad. He does. Not about this. I mean, he gets sad about a lot of things. He's probably so used to you. What? No, no, he still gets sad.

He's in the room right now, so he hears us. You know how used to Andy Fresco, Ernie, probably? This is probably the easiest time in his life to be around you. Ernie, come here. He survives cocaine, Andy. I know. I mean, he survives cocaine banned. Yeah, but he survived cocaine. I mean, you don't do cocaine. Was I bad when I was on coke?

Uh, well. You're alright. You hit it I was... Was I bad when I was on coke? Well, you were all right. You hit it pretty well. You didn't really show it. You just... Yeah. I actually didn't really know until you actually were showing, you know, you were kind of just going stir crazy

and just getting ready to, just like go on another bender, another one, another one, another one. You just... I really did. I mean, honestly, I didn't see it until it was like already you were there yeah ernie this poor man has dealt with the addictions of this band and he would just

he's like pretty sober you know yeah i remember ernie used to get real fucked up drunk you used to drink a lot oh yeah oh yeah i used to drink yeah your 20s in a rock band you're supposed to well i mean we all did i mean i remember when i first met ernie we were drinking remember scott oh we were drinking scotch all freaking night oh my god that's not i don't know i don't know it was the thing that i used to drink with my dad so exactly we just drank scotch and then you know and make steaks and make steaks literally just like not even have any side dishes we would just eat straight meat oh Oh my God, you're eating like Mad Men. I know, but that was nice. I remember we used to smoke cigarettes. That was when you were smoking

those Turkish blues. Turkish blues, yep. I quit. I quit. I don't really see you drink that much either. I love a drink or two. I don't drink as much as I did back in the day. You drink socially. It's like a social drinker. So what do you do, Ernie?

You watch his history? How are you and this band still not wanting to kill us? For the money. I actually get a lot of sleep now. Sleeping is a key thing now. Once you get older, shit just starts breaking down. Knees hurt, back hurt. You can't party like you did back when we first started off.

And now you're just trying to survive or keep up. So you just pick and choose your battles. Get some sleep. You can have a couple beers, have a couple shots, but don't go ham every freaking night. This is why I need to get married. Horn players are all reasonable. You ever notice all the horn players are pretty chill?

Yeah, they're pretty chill. This is why I need to get married, if i think if i don't get married or don't have a relationship oh good we're talking about you again great a wild dog i mean like look how much ernie's changed ever since he got like really he looks a lot healthier than you do right now ernie's looking good is his hair is glowing yeah he's looking good ernie looked hot um no nice work, Ernie. You look like shit. You know what I mean? Thanks, man.

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. What's your skincare routine? Jameson and mushrooms. Mine is look in the mirror every morning and go, fuck. Shit. That's what I look like? You know, before we go, I want to address this, too.

So Ernie was having a tough time last tour and he was having like anxiety attacks, right? Were you having panic attacks or?

No, it was more like just everything just imploding and just everything just, you know, just things started

getting really small and I tried to deal with it but just wasn't able to deal with it by myself. That's such a good way to put it. Things are getting small.

When you get so focused on one thing, it dominates your whole thought process. And because of that, I want to clap it up for my man, Chang. He went to go to Backline, and he got a therapist. Are you comfortable talking about this publicly? Yeah, I'm comfortable with it. Okay, just making sure. Do you feel better now that you have someone to talk to? How many sessions have you gone to now uh so far four and it's been good yeah i mean it's i mean the very first beginning part of your establishing relations with the

with your therapist and then i was lucky that the one that i found the very first one she's awesome and she same person every time same person every time i haven't i didn't need to go find another one because i mean we just killed like we clicked it right off and then uh with her i mean she was just more about like trying to understand like she went like back she like went back to like my childhood oh yeah that's where they start and then just build it back to you know like asking specific questions rather than like you know asking, asking the life story. She was very direct about what she wanted. This, this, this woman's been in this therapy thing for like over 35 years.

Oh yeah. So she, she knew exactly. Really? She like spit in a can, like fucking cakewalk with this. Oh, Richard Slovin,

our old manager. Oh wow. Wait, what? Okay. Okay. Ask him about, okay. One minute interview with our old manager. Oh, wow. Wait. What a minute. I want to interview him. Okay. I want to ask him about. Okay.

One minute interview with our old. Get in there, Richard. Yeah. Okay. Richard Slovin. Okay. By the way, Ernie. How old were you when you were a manager? I'm proud of you.

You got therapy. I'm fucking proud of you. Ernie's great. He hasn't caused one problem in four months. And I'm really proud that you did that on your own. Literally the least annoying person I've ever met in my life. That's fucking tight. I love you.

I love you, too. Let's go. Go Lakers. Okay, how old were you when he was your manager? Hold on. In your 20s? I just need a little research before I ask him a few questions. This was my first manager. I met him at the knitting factory. Okay.

Well, Jess gave up on me way before you did. I feel like you're my first, first manager. And now he runs Basement East, and you're basically Live Nation, one of the talent bookers for Live Nation now? Correct.

A national market. Well, here we go. One-minute interview with my old manager, with Nick Gurley. Hell yeah. Okay. Tell me a little bit about 26-year-old Andy Frasco, and what were the challenges in trying to manage him on a day-to-day basis?

I can't even begin to talk about the challenges because that's all it was is just one one big challenge yeah uh was he crazier than even um i i i mean he's still pretty wild but um i think that there are certain lines that uh he doesn't maybe doesn't cross now that it was that maybe, tell me this. I used to poke the bear. I used to poke the bear. Yeah, okay. Tell me this.

When Andy was, so he was a lot less successful then, right? Ticket sales weren't nearly what they were then. So tell me about Andy's expectations versus reality. What was the gap like there? I mean, he basically, he'd roll into a city. He'd roll into a city like he was selling out the arena. This is exactly what I thought it was. It was some little club that you've never

heard of that fits 200 people that there were maybe 70 people there. Yeah, on a good night. On a good night. I get an angry phone call from the promoter. My next question was going to be that. That was going to be my next question is,

of course, when the shows were bad, it was definitely your fault, right? Yeah. No, no, no. Because it's a process. One more question. One more question. Would you describe Andy Frasco as passive aggressive?

No. What? That's fucking good. Why are you clapping? That means you're worse now. you are passive-aggressive now he wasn't passive-aggressive oh we're talking about 26 sorry i forgot we're talking about 26 year old yeah yeah yeah it's fucking bad he was just a good shit he was just aggressive i forgot that we were we were in the past yeah but i was talking about so he's changed i'm talking about kerny oh% So he's changed Yeah So he used to be like

Just aggressive or what No he was Yeah he was He was reckless I would say So why the fuck Did you want to manage him In the first place

Cause I love the guy That's the thing with you Yeah I love I love the live show I love the music That's great I agree Yeah

I mean You love the person as well But that's the thing with Andy You're like You're like a stray dog. You got all these problems, and you've got fleas, the zoom equivalent. You're just like, you're not so great in the house or whatever. But everyone loves you.

I love you. And Richard, I love you too. And thanks for letting us play your room. I know you're a good guy. Hold on. Do you want to close the opening for us? I want to give i want you to give these bands you're way more successful i need to give you a give the people a motivational speech before we go to ari shafir's interview i want you to give a motive it can be about the musicians in the

music industry right now maybe they're not dealing with great ticket sales give them a pump up speech right now that, as a man who's been booking fucking one of the biggest cities in the market ever, what would you tell people right now? I mean, it's tough right now, obviously, with COVID. It's hard to safely travel the country. It's hard to sell tickets. People aren't as willing to go to shows,

but, like, we're going to get through it. So just, you know, you keep doing what you're doing, and we're all going to get out of this thing together, you know? That's a great saying. Even Kiel, this is why he was my manager. No problem. Even when the fucking ship is going like this. You like people like that.

I love guys like that. Him and Schwartz. I'm like that, too. And Scott Morrill.. Him and Schwartz. I'm like that too. And Scott Morrill. Yep. And Scott Morrill. All right, buddy. I'll do sound check and I'll give you a hug.

The only way is through it, people. And by the way, thanks for the cake. Oh, yeah, yeah. I love you. Cake? It's Dargie's birthday. Oh, okay, okay. All right.

We love you. Enjoy Ari's interview. You guys are great. All right, guys. Enjoy Ari. And hey, Nick Nick I love you all right next up on the interview hour we have Ari Shafir oh man I was looking forward to interviewing him comedian but um we had a great conversation. He was the one actually who, you know, said that crazy

things about when Kobe died. And I wanted to really get into him about it. And what's the deal was, you know how much I love Kobe and how much I love the Lakers. And he gave me a nice perspective on, you know, his interpretation of comedy and stuff. And I heard it and now i'm not as offended anymore um so and we also talked about a lot of things cancel culture we talk about just keeping a career in comedy i mean it's it's super hard that's like one of the hardest gigs lonely gig that's a lonely gig so ladies and gentlemen please welcome mr ari sheen i'm gonna my car all, let's start this over. Ari. Let's start this over. Hey, bud. How's Raleigh? It's going good. How are you doing, bud?

I'm great. You do a lot of errands in the morning? What's your routine? I don't really have a routine. That's not really a word associated with me. Yeah. Yeah, but I got to build a studio in my spare bedroom. So I got to go to Ikea to try to find fucking shit that works.

That's dope. That's dope. I want to tell you, you know, we kind of briefly talked about this a little bit. Spending to exist. What's your take on this? I hate it. I hate being treated like a fucking wallet. Yeah.

Everywhere you go, there's advertisements everywhere. You're really like i mean i don't know i don't know how many people are actually noticing it versus like you know i'm not noticing it yeah um but it's just like it's like the standard is shop move spend money otherwise like like we said like you don't exist like they don't matter and so they'll co-opt any sort of like social movement or anything. It all boils down to, can somebody make money off it? So even Black Lives Matter, which at its heart was a good idea,

however people feel about cops and everything like that. The point of it is Black Lives Matter. People are like, yeah, sure, great. So it's a good cause. And then on top of that you're like look can i make a bunch of money off t-shirts blm t-shirts yeah and so then you're like sure let's make a bunch of money let's like uh make these in indonesia but just like it so they just like co-ops every social movement every way you're being black friday it's such a ridiculous

like you have to i try to spend a year without buying any new clothes how'd that go uh it was okay i mean the chicks i was fucking were like can you please get some new pants but like uh but like uh which i get but it's also like why why do i have to like there's still clothes i have that are good yeah when they force you to think that way they force you to think like hey the stuff you have that was good enough yesterday is no longer good enough only because other people have better stuff like an iphone people like wait in line for an iphone and then a year later you're like well i gotta get a new one this one's worthless i'm like you waited six hours for that iphone yeah exactly it still works fine is it do you have that same philosophy about

building new content for your business like every day like you have to build and make new content and make make new jokes make new videos and it's like the same type of pressure no no it's different only because like i mean that there's that might be pressure there but it's not it's not the same thing like like you know if i do some video or write a new joke, that's what I want to be doing. You don't want to be spending money. I don't want to be spending money.

I want to be adding to more goods in the world. For what? What's wrong with a thrift store desk instead of a fucking new desk? Spoken by someone who just wants to idea. That's what I was just about to say. I get it. I try not to go to Amazon, but then sometimes you're like, fucking, it's the only place

where I can get this shit in the next week. You know, you look and look and look around, and then you're like, eventually you're like, all right, well, here or there, I'm going to be weak and just support this fucking horrible monster. But like, but no, it's different. I mean, the idea to, I'll tell you the pressure I don't like is the pressure

to like promote and like do shit that I don't really want to do. Yeah. Like going shopping at Ikea for fucking desktops just so I can make podcasts. Yeah, that's true. You know, it's like, this isn't creative. This is just fucking boring clerical work. What gets you off? Blowjobs, really.

When a chick like puts her lips around my dick and then just like goes in and out a bunch. That for sure gets me off um they're not gonna say that i'm fouling um yeah why why do you like comedy what what made you start doing stand-up what made you want to tell jokes like i want to hear what who are you in when you're in your younger life i really was was just like, I like stand up. I like watching it. Um, we didn't have cable growing up,

but I'd watch it on like, on like, um, the tonight show here or there. It just made me laugh. Just made me die laughing. And then like Saturday nights, you would have this,

this like standup showcase show on like Fox or something or CBS. I just liked it. I thought it'd be funny to do. And then also mixed with that with like i don't know if with the college but after college it was like the job offers weren't great yeah you know it's like the prospects of a no of a no experience you know liberal arts major is like you know paralegal or like an admin assistant it's just like god damn it was fucking lame i applied for one cool job like designing a website discovery channel um that would have been somewhat creative

but you know then it was like my i had my room in my eventual room it was like you want to go to california you want to be a screenwriter so you want to go to california and i was like fuck it yeah yeah and then i was just like it really wasn't like so much to do stand-up as it was to like not do some fucking desk job so it's more of like instead of doing what like what the sheep do you wanted to be original it's like kind of the same reason why you don't want to shop at ikea yeah exactly exactly like uh exactly yeah but's just like, just do something fun. Uh, and then it was like maybe screenwriting, maybe, maybe, um, maybe stand up, you know, see which one took off. But it wasn't like I was like married to stand up.

It was just like, I do not want to do a fucking desk job, sit under halogen lights. Yeah. And have some dumb coworker talking about the same football game. It's just like, well, I just wanted to run away from it. So I did. And luckily stand up kind of like call I just wanted to run away from it. So I did, and luckily, stand-up kind of like caught my interest

as soon as I did it. Are you an introvert? Oh, yeah. What's the most introvert thing you've ever done in your life? Or what's the first thing that came up to your mind

like when you're thinking about being an introvert? I mean, I used to go to like nightclubs with friends, which I hated. I could never put my finger on it.

I read this book, Quiet, by Susan Cain. It was all about introversion. What did you say? clubs with friends which i hated i could never put my finger on it i read this book quiet by susan kane it was all about introversion what did you say she was like really like went into like how it's just not really like promoted much but she thinks like about her research shows about a third of people are introverted yeah um but there's no world for them like it's always marketed to like let's go nightclub and let's go you know party there's no like there's no world for them like it's always marketed to like let's go nightclub and let's go you know party there's no like there's no marketing towards like quiet walks in the woods yeah there really isn't yeah i mean a little bit instagram or shit but what about during covid i

mean i felt like the introverts were the kings great time to be an introvert absolutely we had experience it was like i mean my dad was like it was like because they were like really locked in hard they're old yeah so they didn't go out at all i was like how was it goes great we just did gardening didn't have to see anybody didn't feel any pressure to see anybody it's like i loved it yeah i mean it's like i mean it's the same philosophy i mean that makes sense like you don't like to market yourself right like it's a is that a part of being an introvert no it's weird because she talks about in that book, she talks about like performers.

So we were like, how can you be an introvert when you're in front of like, you know, hundreds of people, a thousand people, whatever, in a night in a show, like as an introvert. But it's like, well, you know, this is, you're a musician. There's a lot of like similarities. Yeah. It's there's a wall that you're not really in with them. They can't stop you and ask you any questions. Really? It's just like, it's, it's there's a wall that you're not really in with them they can't stop you and

ask you any questions really it's just like it's a faceless crowd you know so it's not really like you're not really talking at a cocktail party with like 10 people i don't know would be way way harder than than 1500 people on a show you have a stage you know as a barrier um have you ever had that experience where that wall has disappeared like stage you know as a barrier um have you ever had that experience where that wall has disappeared like say you've done a joke or a sketch that didn't really react the way you thought it'd be yeah it doesn't really escape and even when you're talking to me when you deal with a heckler doing crowd work it's still like i don't know you got a mic they don't you're not really talking to them or getting to know them they can't really ask you any question you

can always just say fuck off their face but you can't which you can't do in real life you know if you get caught at a party with like somebody boring you're just stuck unless you're really gonna commit to being an asshole you're just stuck they own you oh that's my biggest pet peeve like that's why i don't like going out because yeah i'm i'll talk to anyone i won't tell them to shut the fuck up i'll just be there i had a bit about it and they make they'll never read body language you'll be looking around like this you know the whole time just looking left and they don't they don't ever go like you would you're normal you're a fucking you know an observant person so you're probably like oh okay you don't have to say like well i guess you

don't want to talk to me you just go anyway nice talking to you you get it they want to leave you know they keep looking at their watch you're like all right well i don't want to hold you yeah you just say certain things but some of those people don't ever say any of those things so god damn it's annoying do you regret those moments i don't know if i regret it but it's just like with them no you can't do it you can't do it's too hurtful to be like fuck off i don't want to talk to you it's too hurtful you can't do it so they own you bob dylan talked about it what do you say when fans come up to you and say hi or like he's at a coffee shop and you know and somebody just tells him how great is how much they like him he goes that's dead brain time because your brain is not working at all all you can do is go thank you thank you he's like yeah man my dad just was like oh cool thank

you thank you you're not there's nothing other than you're not having a real conversation you just say thank you and shut off so you're just like whatever you're thinking about stops yeah yeah that's bob dylan i mean i don't know i don't know i don't know i keep thinking about the kobe thing a little bit you know like when you take a joke about the kobe thing and like do you still get back are you still getting backlash from that dorks it was always only dorks yeah still dorks sometimes just less of them when you're working on comedy and stuff like and you're just trying to do your thing and then a whole community reacts differently like how did you get past that oh well so i mean i've dealt with like hecklers and people walking out of shows for for a long

long time before that you know and whenever he's having a good time and then like i think i was in providence not too long ago a few months ago and doing some joke about like uh if you didn't read the news like you would find out about 9-11 regardless of whether or not you were watching like somebody would tell you about 9-11 and then i was just kind of taking it lightly acting that out like what would happen if you didn't know and you were just downtown new york like wait what what like and some guy clearly was triggered by 9-11 i don't know whatever happened to him maybe he had somebody lost in it or maybe he was just like a patriot or something but he was like fuck you this ain't funny and it's like that's just not new but it's like when everyone's laughing and then the

one guy's not it's like that's all right it's like you know that's that's that's the line you walk as an offensive comic is like you can't have everyone liking you or there's a won't be like there's no danger to it so you need some people doing that and so then if the word if that guy would tell you know it's a big influence and told like a million people how disrespectful i was and they all got on me it's like you just it's just like you come to terms with it early it's a bit annoying when they'll start calling venues and like threatening bombs and stuff. Try to get like other people in trouble. Oh yeah. They call my manager at home.

They're like, we have your home address. They doxed her. Like we have your home address. We can fuck you up. We can beat you up or rape you or something. It's just like, you guys are dumb.

You're trying to like create justice, but you don't really know how to do it. It's like putting the privates in charge of the army. Yeah. It's like, Oh no, you guys don't really know who you're supposed to be attacking you just not a fire so it's like they're just morons i i can almost see like one of their dads coming in it's just gamer shit one of the dads coming in like what are you doing he's like i'm threatening this woman i'm gonna i said i'm gonna rape her because her client made a joke about a basketball player i like to try to like show how America overvalues celebrities

their dad would punch them in the head like you're gonna what? like how would that help? I don't really think it out that shit gets in the way but it's all part of it you know you have a crushing joke that people are talking about years later it's like small price to pay

yeah I want to talk about a couple you just pointed something out that makes totally sense america and their fascination with celebrities what's the deal with that not sure i'm not sure if it's only america i just know it's gross so it started you see it you see it some celebrity does something right and then everyone starts posting about it uh making themselves part of the story oh i remember the first time i saw david bowie i was here i was doing this and this and like interesting and like why are you telling the world about this you're not just with your buddy going

fucking david bowie guy damn that guy was so fucking good oh he just put out a new album yeah damn it sucks fuck i like that guy know, instead you're posting it publicly because we have this fascination also with like, with likes and, and, and I don't know, but it all comes from, if you remember like 12, 15 years ago on Facebook, it started with, with, uh, my father's gone 10 years ago today. He was the best, you know, these public posts or my wife is the best wife every day i'm so lucky to be with her and a bunch of us were at home just quite i didn't get a bunch of likes like oh my god you're so sweet you know or oh my god i'm so sorry your dad you know i remember him he was great and a bunch of his homegirl like why is this a public post why why are you putting this in the air the

the father thing is like who you telling not your dad Why don't you call your mom and say, I missed dad today. I just wanted to talk about that. And why aren't you DMing your wife saying you're a great wife? It's this public show. And every time a celebrity does some big thing or a new president gets elected or anything, everybody tries to make it about themselves. And it's nauseating to a lot of us it's nauseating so i like poking holes at that shit like what are you guys doing it's the best

it's so easy too it's like everyone's talking about how great they like somebody ever got no conversation with like eight people i was like oh joey's the best oh yeah dude i love joey oh dude fucking joey's always there for you and then they get to you just go fuck him it's like what I don't know. It was easy. I can't be sincere. Is that, is that, so yeah, you're,

that's why you did the Kobe thing, you think? To pull all those things. That's why I do all those things, to mock them. If they get angry, it's like, you know, why are you getting angry

about some guy you've never met who was disrespectful? That wasn't the first one. That was like, What was the worst one? Um, I got a lot of threats. Uh, not so worst one? I got a lot of threats. Not so many threats.

I got a lot of... I get anger in different ones. Kenny Rogers got me a lot of anger. What'd you do with Kenny Rogers? I said he was so racist he wouldn't do fried chicken, only roasted chicken because he didn't want black people

in his restaurants. Oh my God, Harvey. Yeah, I set up... Not Patti LaBelle. Who's the big fat one? Cause you don't want black people in his restaurants. Um, um, yeah, I set up not Patty LaBelle. Who's the, who's the big fat one? I died. Aretha Franklin.

I was like, she showed a nation of, of, of, of black people that, uh, big can be beautiful. Thereby dooming them to a life of diabetes.

Um, you know, burning hell monster. Sure. Like that, you know, where it's like, where it's like where it's like if you know me you know the setup it's plenty funny but if you don't which a lot of people did

you get the people retweet that right so people who are like who the fuck is this yeah the fuck yeah and so then they're like they haven't seen the setup right so they're just like hey man she was a good singer and i'm like yeah i don't really care like yeah tell me about cancel culture because i feel like you understand this. So the options are, you let them control your creativity. You say like, what kind of music do you do?

Funk, is that what you said? Yeah. And let's say you wanted to, here's a decent example. You know Mike Ness? Yeah. Social distortion. Okay, so Mike Ness has a rockabilly side to him.

And he can't really do that with Social D. Because he's got this project, right? so a lot of people have these side projects where they can explore like a different a different thing yeah you know so when he did a solo thing it was way more rockabilly and way less rock you know um and if he did that as social d imagine if people going super mad this is an innocuous example i like the innocuous examples because then there's no there's no emotion behind it right yeah so if he did this thing and everyone goes fuck you don't do that fuck you now he's just the option is okay i listen to everybody being angry about me doing this country song or i want to do the country song so of course i should i'm a musician and I want to do it.

So if you listen to the cancel culture, for whatever reason it is, you won't be a free creative person, which is like what you have to be. You've got to be free to express yourself however you want. Yeah. And so you make your own lines, you know, and everyone has their own lines. It's like some people's lines are not mine. Um, and my lines are not other people's, but like, I like, listen,

like if I'm making fun of a dead celebrity, I wouldn't do it to their fucking relative. You know, I wouldn't go down to their funeral. I'm not trying to disrupt that. You know, it's like those people should be grieving. It's,

it's, it's my buddies should not be grieving. Yeah. You know, about some guy they remember. They could be like, Oh, but like,

why are you putting out a public statement? It's fucking gross. So anyway, I want to make fun of that shit. So if you worry about what people are going to do, now you don't even know what the line is. So now you're not being freely creative. So you just can't do it. So you got to accept that this comes

with a bunch of sellouts, a bunch of hypocrites, a bunch of people literally threatening violence to your loved ones or to venues who aren't doing anything other than like, I don't know what it says nothing to do with it. It's not like I'm at these venues still doing that joke. They just want, they want anger and justice. So they want like, you just want you to suffer. They haven't thought it out. They haven't thought about anything. So you just got to keep going. You just got to keep going. Now, a lot of people will say cancel culture is just backlash. It's a bunch of people saying, well, we don't

like that. We're not going to support you anymore. I'm telling you now, nobody has a problem with that. Very, very few people have a problem with that. It's when it goes to the next level of calling a sponsor and say, don't support him. Putting pressure on other people. Free market's fine.

Free market's like, hey, listen, I don't like the direction your music's headed. I'm not going to support that anymore. Or you're being real political in your lyrics and I just direction your music's headed. I'm not going to support that anymore. Or you're being real political in your lyrics, and I just don't like politics. So I'm not going to be a fan anymore. OK, sad to see you go. But then if you're like, no, I'm going to call the club in Raleigh and tell them, I don't think you should perform there. I'll never support your club again if you have him there.

And you're like, oh, now that's the really evil thing. Now you're trying to silence the arts. because you don't you don't like it it's the same shit as like you know rap lyrics but you're dirty um smut in in like visual art you know you're painting naked bodies we shouldn't have like public funds go to that yeah it's the same shit all the time but it's like how do we decide it's it's social media yeah like the echo chamber of social media it's a lot of that it's like how do we get here though it's it's social media yeah like the echo chamber of social media it's a lot of that it's a lot of like let me do a hot take if you so you're acting when you're on social media you're acting yeah um um same thing as we are right now it's like the conversations you would have in private everyone's so pretty good at two shoes but then like bill

burr says open up your text messages and messages and every one of you cancels. Every one of you for jokes you said that you knew were jokes and you're relating to everyone else is not joking. Statements, private emails. Like, dude, I'm just fucking around with my friend. I don't really mean any of this. We're just venting privately. That's what you're supposed to do it. But like social media, I mean, it started with like, hey, this restaurant wasn't good.

I'm not going to go back there. And then I go, that's not good enough. I want to hurt this restaurant for giving me cold soup so yelp was really helpful for that you know where people go let me affect your business instead of just like i'm not interested anymore yeah you know um let me now affect your business and that was social media where you really everyone has a has a an audience it got bad it's like everyone looks for the negative and and by the way i get that it seems like i look for the negative too i don't i'm i'm in a positive place trying to entertain my fans who are like yes let's make fun of the people who overly mourn you know people they don't know

celebrities they don't know it's a fun positive thing i don't really care about any celebrities i like a lot of them it is halftime at the endy fresco interview hour care about any celebrities. I like a lot of them. It is halftime at the Andy Fresco interview hour. We are doing a one-minute interview with Nick Gerlach,

and tonight we have our podcast booker, Mara Davis. I'm your talent booker? You're our talent booker. Yeah. I don't know how to say that. I've never had a talent booker You're our talent booker Yeah I don't know how to say that I've never had a talent booker before I know

It's pretty impressive Okay hold on We're on the hot spot Mara Mara Like marijuana It's all you guys know We gotta

This is quick Nick you're on the spot Okay let's do it Mara How are you doing? Great Great to meet you in person What is the hardest thing

About booking talent For Andy Frasco? He asks for the people that he absolutely cannot get. Who's the most ridiculous person that Andy has rejected that you've brought to him? Colin Hay from Men at Work. Didn't want him. We kind of have a no Australians policy. Okay. Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles.

Wow. Walk like an Egyptian? Yeah. She's super hot. Married to a giant movie producer. Bangles music is still played on the radio today, Andy. Wow. Walk like an Egyptian? Yeah. She's super hot, married to a giant movie producer. Bangles music is still played on the radio today, Andy. Wow. What do you think about Andy's manager, Brian?

You like him? You guys get along? I love him so much. Yeah? So one thing, let me say this about Brian. I wish I were a music artist because the way he loves his clients and he champions them. He's very, very aggressive. I love Andy and I love

Brian, but let's face it, Andy, you're a lot. This isn't propaganda for 7th and 7th. He's spit in my eyeball, dude. Jesus. Is he ever short with you? Maybe he's short with people, but maybe Andy deserves to be short with sometimes. He is 5'7".

He is 5'7". Okay, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah, but how hard is it? It's got to be hard for comedians to even do anything with stepping on toes. You just say, fuck it and fuck you. Yeah, it is. And that's why it's really disappointing to me when you see other comedians fall prey fall prey to the, to the backlash culture where you see like a, you know,

a billion people going or a million people like, fuck that guy. That guy went over the line. It just sucks. It comedians wouldn't go. No, no, no,

there's no line. Did he touch anybody? Did he punch anyone? There's no line. Even if he did, if he reached across the stage and kick the shit out of someone in the front row, why would I comment on another comedian that I know?

Yeah. I would call him like, what the fuck dude? Yeah. Now everyone's going to make that harder for us. someone in the front row why would i comment on another comedian that i know yeah publicly i would call him like what the fuck dude yeah now everyone's gonna make that harder for us everyone's gonna think we're gonna be violent yeah but they fall prey to it too you see a thousand people say something and you start thinking maybe they're right you see one person make the same exact point and you go nah so all these comedians are such fucking weak hypocrites for the first time in their lives they start going, some jokes go too far. That's what I didn't understand, too.

It's like the same thing as selling out for musicians, selling out, getting a record deal, and doing the fucking pop scene, or following what the Black Keys did, just so they could chase the rabbit's tail. And then all of a sudden, you put out that record. Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, it's like you put out that record. Aren't you trying to do what kind of music you wanted to do?

So now you're able to, and now suddenly you can't, you've got to keep promoting. Yeah. Well, it just turns into what art is that nine to five fluorescent light that you fucking feared in the beginning. Yeah,

exactly. Exactly. Fall in line. But it's like, nobody has any balls anymore. Just to be like, you can just be quiet, you know,

even if you don't like something, you can just just be quiet when was the last time art was like this until we had the renaissance it's a kind of sterile art i mean it's not you do have a lot of shitty art but compared to that the the paintings you buy at the beach you know the shitty like you know made for fucking rich tourists there There's nothing to it. There's plenty of shitty art. It's just you can promote it now. A lot of artists hate Jeff Koons, but he's popular.

I actually like him, so I don't even want to bring that up. What about the Chappelle situation? What? How many specials is he releasing? No, no uh you know like the backlash like people love him and yeah no backlash there's no backlash right it's it's 50 people and then and then 5 000 people commenting on what the 50 people say and then and then 5 million people commenting on what everybody's commenting about no one on their own got to any level of anger by watching that shit. Yeah.

I didn't feel anger. So people are looking to be angry. Like that guy who says, fuck you, don't talk about 9-11. Like you have an occasional person here or there, which is a lot of it. Just work your own shit out, you know? So why don't we play that game, though? Why don't we still play the game of like for the social media fucking game? It's a good question.

And then everyone's angry. So you're weighing in on their anger because anger is what I mean. I started doing this in interviews now where people ask me like I was in Australia once and I was doing something. There was somebody some hate group. I'll call them. They're not like right wing or a racist, but they're a group that enjoys hating things yeah you know same as those people who were you know attacking dave chapelle they're a hate group yeah you know they would call themselves justice groups but but they're not into like hey dave can i talk to you and tell you

something uh maybe improve your outlook on something they're like no we hate him they're full of hate so this group was like looking for lawsuits all the time they came to see my show they're like it's demeaning to jews um they wrote a little article in the i think the melbourne newspaper and um and then i got a bunch of interview requests and like how do you feel about this how do you feel about this and i was like wait you guys are asking me about there's a thousand people there you're asking about the two who didn't have a good time and not the 998 who had a good time yeah like why is that your? Your news story should be almost 1,000 people entertained by a visiting comedian.

Isn't that the problem, though? Why are we so worried about that one or fucking two people who want to talk shit and they're going to talk shit no matter what over the 998 people who fucking had a great time? They rise above the den that way. I don't know it's it's

amazing people look for the most negative possible thing i saw some chick wrote uh alec baldwin had put a statement out you know yeah he's a fucking stone cold killer that guy's fucking cold-blooded dude you gotta love him she fucking didn't even feel it just like wanted to see the life suck out of somebody and rich people can do that you know rich people can do that because they know they'll get off some director of photography nah he ain't going to jail he knew what he was doing but he put he brought the real bullets from home but anyway he uh he had to put out a statement right so he's like i'm so sorry my heart goes out to her like this is just fucking awful it's like she was a a great wife and a mother and a super respected

colleague of all of ours we loved her and then some social justice lady was like oh you're gonna only call her a wife and a mother that's that's the only way she exists you know like this is violence how dare you and then all people like what do you mean he also said a respected colleague he didn't only say wife and also what do you mean she was a wife and a mother yeah like like dude shut the fuck this guy's mourning he did something horrible by accident he's more and you're attacking him what do you want him to do run it by you when he's like i'm really sorry this chick was great why do we fall for the trap though still yeah why do we fall for the i don't know i'm starting to mourn more because i know i've been fooled enough times to start going like,

oh, hold on. I'm seeing a story. It's wild, right? It's like, what? That's crazy that person did that. So then now I'm starting to go, hold on. That is crazy. People aren't really crazy.

So is it possible that they're leaving out a detail that would really, really explain this? Case in point, not your situation. Some girl, a friend of yours is at a bar. She goes, I can ask what the bar just starts screaming at me for no reason. And you're like, what? You just started screaming right in my face. You started yelling at me, called me a bitch for no reason. Oh my God, I'm going to go do something about this. And then you find out like, no, no, no, no, no. She bumped me. She moved right in line in front of me. And I was like, excuse me go do something about this. And then you find out like, no, no, no, no, no. She bumped me. She moved right in line in front of me.

And I was like, excuse me. I was here first. And she goes, fuck off. Right. Yeah. You left that part out, lady. So you can get the reaction you want. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, but social media. Right. Exactly. Social media leaves out that detail. And so you go, I know what I saw. I saw a video of that guy saying, fuck you, bitch. Right.

So you leave out the context of like, well, hold on. What led up to that? So now more and more when I'm seeing some crazy story, I'm like, let me look at this for best case scenario for the person and what might've been left out. Cecil the lion is the first time I saw it. When everyone was mad, myself included, that some guy went to Kenya, I think, and killed a lion named Cecil and the black mane. And everybody loved him.

Everyone's mad about it. He's a dentist. He lost his business. Everyone was fucking upset about it. Then it comes out like he got a permit from the Kenyan government. They actually need to kill about 40 lions a year to keep the population down, to keep them from killing humans. Instead

of just killing them, they give out permits and they make a shitload of money for the government and conservation. Instead of just finding them and making no money, it's it's like well let's let some big game hunters come in here so the guy got a permit got permission he didn't fucking go there against anybody as well and so you're like and then rogan pointed out like dude that line had a black mane it's because it's super old the only way to become an old line is to kill tons of lion cubs so you're the you're made so that all is like left out but people get a name so we love them but it's like can you look at this

from like what's the least crazy situation the most is some guy got in a plane hit a gun and went out to kill a fucking endangered species yeah and that got me i was super mad about i was talking to a cab driver we're both fucking commiserating how mad we were at this guy me i was super mad about i was talking to a cab driver we're both fucking commiserating how mad we were at this guy and then more details come out like oh yeah all right good point what about so it's a the idea that we want to listen we look at the negative yeah we want to listen to whatever the fuck that's gonna trigger us to have our own way on it yeah exactly and you never just go hold on hold on hold on hold on what's going on like matt lauer remember him yeah he got out and they're like what with the button and people like he had

this button to lock the door that's how he could like and then people infer like that's how you rape people at your office or molest them at your office now then nobody wanted to listen to the other executives going hey we all have that button yeah every other executive there was like females too like we have that button too it's because we're so fucking busy and we need to do private conversations we need to just lock that door under our desk that wasn't installed after hours that was part of his office everyone knew about it

but like when you remove it you're like what an evil asshole and then when you look at it in that context you're like oh it's standard oh there's a reason a powerful person like that shouldn't have to get up from their desk to go lock their door so they can have a phone call. They don't want anybody bothering them. It's like, oh yeah, that does make a lot of sense.

But if you're looking at it the worst, then that guy's crazy. Yeah, it's like the same thing I could see with when Bert says you drugged him. What was that story about? Oh yeah, in front of his kids. First of all, your kids were inside. Second of all, we had a blast third of all it was molly relax oh my god what a fucking

dork everyone's like everyone's like something bad could happen to his kids i'm like what you want to hug them to death yeah it's molly calm down also i took three times as much as him yeah so calm down are you uh are Are you an enthusiast on drugs? Oh, yeah. That's a good way to put it. Enthusiastic. Have you ever gotten in trouble with addiction or anything? No.

Sometimes it's not too much weed or drink too much. You just got to pull it back. I'm not prone to that kind of addiction. Same thing with food. I'll get a little fat then i'm like hey i gotta diet for a little bit what get back to normal what do you think your flaws are too perfect looking around people that aren't as good looking um and work ethic makes people upset no i don't know um i have trouble seeing people from from their point of view so like i don't have

kids right yeah so i could never even imagine like what what and that whole burn thing was for sure overblown it's like sure i shouldn't have done it but relax you know it's like don't roll through a stop sign but nobody's gonna get to lose your job for it yeah yeah you know it's like no give me the ticket that's it but like um so i don't have kids i never think in terms of kids and the idea that like a friend of mine like burt was like hey dude i had like one hour left to spend with my kids before i left i wanted to have dinner with them and say goodbye i was about to go on the road for like a week and it's like ah shit sorry i didn't really think about that yeah and it's like nah you couldn't

have thought about it you know and same thing it's like people don't think of my like stand-up they don't think why it's as important to me as as as it is you know what like how you approach comedy that's all i care about it's the only thing i truly care about same um yeah for music it makes sense yeah no i get it i've never had a girlfriend i've been on the i've lived on the road for 15 years 250 shows a a year. I think you're the same person, right? Yeah, it's about that. And even if you have a girlfriend, it's like, you don't want to say this, but you're going to be

backseat. I can love you like I love my mom or something like that, but if my mom was like, quit stand-up, I'm like, well, we're not going to talk much anymore, mom. Sorry, but no. How important is comedy to you it's very important it's my creative outlet it's my only creative outlet so everything else is just bullshit yeah you know my podcast i'll do

them to get people to come to my shows but if it stops resulting people come to my shows i'm not doing it anymore i don't need the ad money I'll figure out another way to make money. But it's like, I only care about standup. And I do it for free all the time. I like it. Yeah. Like, is that why, where are you from? Ari, I don't.

Maryland. You're from, okay. So New York, isn't that far of a jump to start? I went to LA first. What's a better comedy scene, LA or New York? New York, a thousand percent. For anybody, it's a better comedy scene. or new york for a guy like you thousand percent for anybody it's a better comedy scene la has this acting stuff with it oh um but if you just want to be a stand-up la is a great city for it i don't want to completely neg it but like it's it's um

it's spoiled it's gotten um it's gotten rife with with a desire to be famous are you a gary goldman fan quality yeah love gary he's uh he's a basketball head too i i scored his uh great depression oh really yeah yeah oh damn good job i mean i didn't notice that so good job no but like he talks about mental health and how he over-exaggerated the dream. Do you feel like you ever get to that? Over-exaggerated the dream? Basically, all he cared about that made him have a mental breakdown was his comedy and how people perceived it.

Have you ever had any breakdowns like that for just working 200 on the dream yeah well you can't get too caught up in how people perceive it um that's that's uh i mean i don't know what gary said exactly it's been a while since i watched that special so i don't i don't you know too much i can't quote anything anymore but like uh that is if that's what you're saying you said i would say like that's a that's a moment where you like you've gotten a little lost on what's the important thing the important thing is making something good second most or not second most but like second to that um is you do want respect from your colleagues and respect from people going like hey that was really good i saw a fucking great special. You did.

And good job. That's nice. It's nice to have that, you know, money is nice. You know, you've done the same, you know, I don't know how long you perform 90 minutes, two hours, two hours, two hours. So like you've done this kind of the same two hour show in one city and then another city. And you've made more in one of those cities. You don't make the exact same, you know, but the show is still really good.

And some of those shows that are the best shows are not the highest paid ones, but it is a nice detail to get a bigger check. Yeah. You know, it's not worth giving up like a quality show, but it sure is nice when you see a $50 check versus a $10 check. Yeah. You know,

so that respect from your colleagues, that's all nice, but none of that matters compared to putting something good out, putting something out, putting on a great show, making a song that's awesome. If people are like, I really don't like this, that's okay. I loved it.

To you, what is your opus joke so far in your life that you're the most proud of my last hour was probably that my last stand-up hour um was it hard to make or did it come out oh yeah no no it was real hard it was the most like thoughtful and like intentional hour i've ever done how long did it take to make it about three years holy shit yeah and it wasn't even just like putzing around it was like really like focused on like making a specific thing um i went to the edinburgh fringe festival a few times and they have you been yeah it's the shit dude it's the shit, dude. It's the shit. It's the best. How many shows do you do in a month? Do you do the same show for like 40 days?

Yeah, 26 days. Yeah, and so a lot of people do the same exact show. Some people fuck around. I've done both. I've done also just a storytelling show, which is a little more like free creatively. But there's something to be said. After like 15 days of doing the same show,

you start going like, I'm going crazy here. So you start like thinking of new taglines and stuff. Yeah. But it's great. but you also see all these comics doing these weird theme hours these really specific theme hours and now a lot of the uk comics so they're like about 10 years behind us that's not where we are because our their stuff came out of theater and our stuff came out of the soil so we're just like more natural to stand up you know we're not trying to be anything other than stand up um but i was like let me i learned from them how they're doing it and then i saw what i didn't like too which is the moments of like sincerity and like and like non-humor yeah um so i'm like let me lose all that but keep the fucking thematic stuff and really i

just focused for three years on making an hour that would really spite those uk comics really make them upset yeah um did it work and so that i oh yeah it was great i just didn't get a chance to put it out because of you know violent threats to venues it's so crazy yeah so do you feel do you regret anything um there's some things i regret you know like um shouldn't give birth that fucking molly she was just convincing to do it um but not like a master didn't keep me up at night what keeps me up at night was him being like mad at me and and not like being as close to me as a friend i'm like oh man i i mean i knew you'd be a little sore that was the point of it,

you know, give you a fun podcast to put out and like make you a little upset, but also like we had a great time, but then it's like, oh, I didn't want to cause any like fucking any unrest at the home. You know, I wasn't trying to do that.

My bad on that. I didn't think that out. I did that too. With my bass player. I gave him X lax and he quit the band. Oh really? Yeah. I fucked up there. It's like, I don't know lax and he quit the band. Nice. Oh, really? Yeah, I fucked up there. It's like, I don't know, man.

It's some fun hazing. And then somebody's like, if they don't laugh, then it's like, oh, now we went too far. Yeah. So because of all that stuff, you couldn't put out, like you couldn't really give the special, the promotion it deserved? No, not the promotion.

Literally, like the venue was fine with it. The production company pulled out um they said like with threats of violence they're like hey what if our if something happens our insurance is going to go up um and i was like what's going to happen so i'm like i'll hire extra security you know i put like seven grand in extra security which wasn't necessary i've been getting death threats for 15 years no one's ever done anything in person but i'm like sure to make your feel at ease venue we'll get some metal detectors and get a off-duty cop that's there and then the production company was just like now insurance might go up so um i mean this is a guy i gave a start to also

yeah i mean i really helped set him free creatively and like fought for him and constantly promoted him but he was just it was la dude la people fucking suck so the people who got maddest about that were la comics and black comics yeah the la world but no one in england gave a shit about that because they didn't that wasn't their heroes like what you know most new york white comics are like what but everyone in la felt it more than anybody so they're like oh i don't know so this guy was in la so he pulled out he pulled his insurance with him 11 days before the special. There was no time to find another insurer. Oh my fucking God.

Are you, are you serious? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't talk to him anymore, but the interesting thing is it's like, nobody made any moral decisions on like, I don't want to work with you anymore.

It was all just like outside influence. You know, no one was like, Hey, that's shitty. We're done. It was all just like, Hey,

someone's putting pressure on me to not work with you. It's that LA fucking bullshit. This is why I fucking left LA. LA sucks. LA sucks. They were so worried about the image instead of like, no, that's my buddy. That's my buddy. There's no fucking loyalty. None. It used to be at the comedy

store, it used to be great. If an audience member would get physical with a comedian, like offstage, we would just pounce on that guy yeah the comedians uh would just take that opportunity to just destroy him physically i mean punch punch him and kick him like it would just be eight on one the guy would think like oh i'm bigger than this comic i'll push and not knowing these fucking vultures are around. Like you're touching another comic. No questions asked. That guy's getting this ass kicked.

Yeah. And, and listen, you might even be defending a comic that you don't like. A lot of us didn't like each other. You know, we're all fucking the same people. Yeah.

Competitive, some inside battles, you know, some parts that maybe somebody wanted a part. Somebody else's got, you know, and, um, hold on. Let me that maybe somebody wanted a part, somebody else got. You know? And, um... Hold on, let me do this. So, um...

But still, we're going to defend the comedian. Yeah. And then I don't know what happened. And then it became a... Nah, here's my hot take to not defend the comedian. LA sucks, dude. No one has the ability to go, that's my friend. I don't know what you're talking about. That's my friend. Yeah, and I grew up out there and like my friends who are,

uh, actors who want to be fucking comedians and all this bullshit always fucking never gave me the respect. Like, because they're fucking jealous. It's like some jealous ho shit, you know? Yeah.

It's a lot of that for sure. That's crazy. Ari, I know you got, you got to, you got to get out of that parking lot of Ikea. So, well, thank you. Thanks for talking to me in a parking lot. I appreciate it. I'm conversating.

I don't know how to... I can still hear you. Okay. One of the things you bring up is like, it's a legit thing. Like, how do we avoid it? How do we avoid falling prey to the same thing? And I, I don't know if there's the idea that you can change society. I think is it's too broad. Yeah. I don't think anyone's going to do it. I think you just have to change yourself a little bit and maybe mention one person when somebody goes like, Hey, can you believe this? Just, just go like, Hey, listen, I don't know anything about the story, but but here's something i like to do let's examine why he might not be at fault why if that was your friend you might be looking at like oh i can explain that you know yeah and and then you can

do it and just not fall victim to this being mad and also it doesn't help you to be mad at anybody so you're just mad your day's ruined about some guy you've never met. Yeah. Do you think Gabby Petito chick? Same thing. Everyone's so mad at her and not mad that she's dead. I'm like, you didn't even know her. Yeah.

You didn't know she existed. And then you're letting some news story make you cry about some bitch is fucking. You've never met hundreds of people die every day, everywhere. And you're just like, Oh, here's another one.

But I knew her name or I found out her name after like, fuck off you know so get upset yeah reading the news social media makes us think that everyone's our friends which is fucking bullshit like i i'd go prom with this too like i'll start following you know fucking hot influencers thinking that they're my friends and i'm yeah and then you reach out to them and go like yeah you message them. Hey, cool, thanks. That was a good one. And you're like, they don't know you.

Yeah, they don't give a fuck. You ever run into somebody that you follow online that you've never really met? Oh, yeah. And then it's this awkward thing like, oh, hey. And you're like, oh, wait. Yeah, you don't know. Our relationship's all a lie.

We don't know each other, actually. Yeah. You really feel like you do. So there's that connection, too. In the old days, you couldn't reach out to the person to tell them you were upset at them and now you can and so you do and also they're strangers so they're really just reaching out like it's a character yeah you know i'm mad at this character when it's like you ain't yeah and it's also like that's you know it's with social media is like is not the real person everyone is everyone just

shows like the happy shit or like the stuff that's gonna trigger people it's fucking bullshit only showing us a certain a certain amount of stuff so it's like damn ari thanks for being on the show buddy means a lot thanks yeah i live in i go to new york a bunch i'm playing the warsaw um i think uh bert's coming out if you want to come out where's that warsaw's in brooklyn it's like a polish venue thousand cap it's pretty dope but if you want to come hang have a beer or something yeah sure when is it um i'll tell you right now it is december uh december 3rd december 3rd. I'll be in Oklahoma City. Sorry. Yeah, Oklahoma City. Nice.

I'll be in Denver in February, though. Oh, where? When? Comedy Works, February 17th through 20th. Alright, I'll be there. If you need a... Opening band. Yeah, if you need an opening band. Yeah, man. that's funny musicians don't really have openers i mean comedians do not have musician openers vice versa definitely happens sometimes oh yeah we always bring a comedian we brought

we've had todd glass open for us for a tour we've had uh kyle ayers you know kyle ayers yeah that's one of my he did we did a royal Rumble wrestling tour where he was the commissioner he would just do stand up and jump through tables alright I got one more question for you I'll let you go buddy when it's all said and done what do you want to be remembered by um

oof let me think how do I like when people talk about me what do I like them saying I guess I like when people talk about me? What do I like them saying? I guess I like when people mention some level of integrity or like not sell out ability or, or just the way I try to help comedians in general, try to prop people up when people like, Hey,

I saw that thing you did. It was really nice. It makes me feel good. Even more than when somebody goes like, Hey, I like that joke. Yeah. Being there for people. Yeah. Yeah. i like propping up my art form well we're here for you too bud thanks for

being on the show and thanks for uh just being fucking honest you know that's all we can be in this life there you go exactly right have a great day buddy have a great day i'll see you later and there we have it. Ari Shafer. I thought he was going to be more of a dick, to be honest, because all the stuff he was saying with Kobe, I was very angry going into the interview. And, you know, he's just a normal person,

and he's just trying to entertain his fan base, and we've got to stop taking things so seriously. All right. I love you, and we got to stop taking things so seriously. All right. I love you. And we got another comedian coming up. I'll catch you on the tail end. Ladies and gentlemen, sign up for Repsy.com. They're a great company.

If you're in a band, if you are a DJ, if you're a comedian, I mean, if you have a talent that you want to do for the entertaining of the arts, put your band's profile or your artist's profile on Repsy.com. It's a win-win. If you have an agent, they don't take a cut. If you do not have an agent, they take a small cut.

And you might as well get as many people as you can out there going to bat for you because it's hard times out here. I'm out here in the trenches. I see all the shows that are happening and all the new shows that are coming up. There's going to be a lot of competition. So you might as well get as much as you can out of all the people helping you out. So please sign up for Repsy.com. And Nick, right?

Sign up for Repsy.com? Yeah. Sign up for Repsy.com? I'd just like to add that if you do currently have an agent, you don't have to pay double booking fees.

All right, all right. We're done. Now, a message from the UN. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be frasco Don't let them drink whiskey or eat lots of drugs Let them be doctors and lawyers and such Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be frasco

Cause they'll never be home, they'll be beaten off alone Even with someone they love Frasco ain't easy to love, and he smokes lots of weed ain't easy to love and he smokes lots of weed He'd rather give you some shrooms than something you actually need Birkin socks, sandals

and old Lakers jerseys and each night begins a new day If he doesn't text back And he don't die young He'll probably just Crowd surf away Mamas, don't let your daughters Grow up to date Frasco

Cause he'll cuss at Thanksgiving Smoke pot with grandma And stink up your whole goddamn house. Mamas, don't let your daughters grow up to date frasco. They'll have lots of sex, get it, she peevee, and blame it on her ex-boyfriend's mouth All right, and there you have it. Thanks, Ari, for being on the show. That was wonderful.

Like I said, I learned a lot about his art, and I learned a lot about just comedians in general. So thank you for the conversation. I appreciate it. Guys, we're doing a short closing. We did a long one with Nick. I got to do my tour date, sorry. And then I'll let you go.

I'll give you a little motivational pop-up. A little va-boom. But December 1st, y'all. We're playing Washington, D.C. December 2nd, we're in Philadelphia. December 3rd, Brooklyn. Selling a lot of tickets all that week. I'm stoked.

Even Boston. Shout out to Boston. I know, shout out to Boston. I know I talk shit about Boston because I'm not a Celtic fan, but I love you, Boston. Thanks for – we're almost sold out on that show too. And then we're going to Mexico with – oh, my God. God bless my liver. But we're going to Mexico with Humphries McGee.

Oh, and I haven't talked really about this yet, but shout out to Chuck from Mo. Fucking nuts, dude. I hope you've recovered, buddy. We're here for you. We're thinking about you. So I don't think, no, no, Lotus is playing it because Mo can't do it because homie had a stroke and it's fucking horrible,

but it'll be a fun show. Doom Flamingo is playing our people. And Chromio, actually, the guy who we had him on the podcast a couple months ago. And then we fly back to Boston and then drive to Burlington on December 9th. And then end it on the 10th in Woodstock and the 11th in Rochester. So go buy your tickets. Come on, let's get this shit. Let's finish this tour with a bang and let's get it popping. You know what time it is. All right, guys, I love you. Stay safe. Do I have to play the music? I want you to have a great fucking week. I want you to be the person you want to be.

I want you to fucking fulfill all those weird to be I want you to fucking Fulfill all those weird fucking wild dreams And let's be ourselves again 2022 The year to be ourselves again Let's fucking go Alright I love you Have a great week Shout out to Repsy

Shout out to the team Shout out to Joe Angel Howe Chris Lorenz The whole gang gang Without you guys I'd just be a guy talking on a fucking microphone alright

I love you bye you tuned in to the World Saving Podcast with Andy Fresco now in it's fourth season thank you for listening to this episode

produced by Andy Fresco Joe Angelo and Chris Lorenz we need you to help us save the world and spread the word please subscribe rate the show give spread the word. Please subscribe, rate the

show, give us the crazy stars, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're picking this shit up. Follow us on Instagram at World Saving Podcast for more info and updates. Fresco's blogs and tour dates you'll find at andyfresco.com And check our socials to see what's up next. Might be a video

dance party, a showcase concert, that crazy shit show, or whatever springs to Andy's wicked brain. And after a year of keeping clean and playing safe, the band is back on tour. We thank our brand new talent booker, Mara Davis. We thank this week's guest,

our co-host, and all the fringy frenzies that helped make this show great. Thank you all. And thank you for listening. Be your best, be safe, and we will be back next week. No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast

as far as we know. Any similarities, interactions, or knowledge, facts, or fake is purely coincidental.