How Did This Get Made? - Last Looks: Rollerball (w/ Moshe Kasher)

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Moshe Kasher chats with Jason & Paul about his new comedic concept memoir Subculture Vulture. But first, Paul responds to corrections and omissions from Rollerball, shares an exclusive bonus scene from that show, and reveals next week's movie.  Buy Moshe's book Subculture Vulture here UPCOMING TOUR DATES IN: San Francisco, the UK, & Ireland! Go to hdtgm.com for tix and info.Pre-Order Paul’s book about his childhood, Joyful Recollections of Trauma, wherever books are soldFor extra Matinee Monday content, visit Paul's YouTube page: youtube.com/paulscheerHDTGM Discord: discord.gg/hdtgmPaul’s Discord: discord.gg/paulscheerFollow Paul on Letterboxd: letterboxd.com/paulscheer/Check out Paul and Rob Huebel live on Twitch (www.twitch.tv/friendzone) every Thursday 8-10pm ESTSubscribe to Unspooled with Paul and Amy Nicholson here: listen.earwolf.com/unspooledSubscribe to The Deep Dive with Jessica St. Clair and June Diane Raphael here: www.thedeepdiveacademy.com/podcastCheck out The Jane Club over at www.janeclub.comCheck out new HDTGM merch over at https://www.teepublic.com/stores/hdtgmWhere to find Jason, June & Paul:@PaulScheer on Instagram & Twitter@Junediane on IG and @MsJuneDiane on TwitterJason is not on Twitter

was pink the actual star of rollerball. I have a very bad idea, but it's a good thing. And, of course, street luge, bullshit or not. All this and more on today's How Does This Get Made? Last Looks. Hit the theme the last time it's over time and it's over time

it's over time oh last last Oh, let's lose. John Aten, John Aten, John Aten. Hello all you hockey players, turned street losers, turned roller ballers. I'm your host Paul Scheer and welcome to How Did This Get Made?

Last looks. Where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on Roller Ball later in the show. Jason and I will chat with Moshe Kassher. You know him as a how did this get made all star great guest on the show. And he has a brand new book called Subculture Vulture. It is a great read. I'm in the middle of it right now.

And if you read his first book, you will know that Moshe delivers. He is a brilliant can't wait to finish the book. Why? I don't want to finish the book because it's so good, but I also can't wait to see where it goes. You get what I'm saying. Anyway, get Moshe's book right now. Plus, we're going to share a deleted scene from our Roller Balls show. And as always, I will reveal next week's movie, but first things first, a big shout out to Lone Wolf collab for that great opening theme. If you've got a theme for the show, whatever it is, send it to us at howdidthisgetmadeatearwolf.com. You know the caveats.

Funny, short, clever. I mean, is funny and clever the same thing? I don't know. I'm going to say no. By the way, if you wanted to make a theme song for plugs, you could do that. And one of the plugs might be, hey, everybody, you know I told you that if you bought my book, you've preordered my book, you get something special. Well, here's the deal.

I am going to write a lot of fucking postcards. That's right. If you have bought my book, you can go to my website, you can sign up, show your receipt, and I will personally write you a postcard of thanks. I know it's so difficult right now to part with your money. And because you are parting with it from my book, I want to make sure you get something special. So I will do that. And if you don't feel like giving your address, that's fine because I'm also opening up a special part of my website. It's called Paul's Secret Scrap Book that you will have access to and no one else will.

So why am I doing this? Because I really do appreciate you all pre-ordering my book. The response so far has been amazing. And honestly, and I said it before and I'll say it again, pre-orders seem to mean everything in publishing. So that's why you pick up the book now. It's going to really, really help. And by the way, if you want to come see us live, how did this get made?

That is tomorrow we're going to be in San Francisco at the Masonic doing Samurai Cop. We're also going to be in Europe. And if you have any friends in Belfast, tell them about the show. Go to HDTGM.com to find out more. By the way, Jason and I, we perform in a group called Dinosaurs, an improv group with great people like the great Seth Morris and Rob Riggle. Nicole Byer sits in a bunch. Lisa Gilroy, Mary Holland, Owen Burke, Chad Carter. The list goes on and on. Phil Phil Augusta Jackson so many great people Carl Tartt

And we love performing. We would love to have you come see your show at Largo. I'm talking about February 23rd It's a Friday. That's our next show. We're there every month come check out dinosaur if you are in LA and let's get into it because Rollerball has a lot that we have to cover and And as a matter of fact, last week we asked everybody on the Discord, what would be a better tagline for rollerball? And Anapocalypse writes, I got one. Two teams, one track, no rules. Well, actually there are a lot of rules, but they're all in Russian.

All right, Anapocalypse, I like that. That's a good one. Let's use that to bring us into something I like to call corrections and omissions. Hit the theme! in a miss. Now somebody's pissed. We took a crack, but it weren't a fact. Now the fans are gonna yell at us. Corrections and omissions. That's right, people. It is now your chance to set us straight. Fact check us if you will. And I am going to fact check Damien Gentry as being the author of that amazing corrections and omissions song. That's how you do it, Damon. Thank you for that. Let's get into street losing. Elaine Smith writes, okay, the street lose scene

is complete bullshit. Boom. Why is it bullshit? Elaine? Well, she says, for the singular idea that the route taken from Christmas tree point in Twin Peaks to the finish line supposedly at Rinkon Hill near the Bay Bridge would be downhill all the way. Okay, and your point? Well, San Francisco is comprised of many hilly neighborhoods going down and up. So in essence, the momentum created going downhill would be lost when the losers inevitably hit an uphill street. Okay. So I guess what you're saying is you would never, so even, well, I can't,

you just get, I think you could. I mean, that's the reason the whole reason is that I don't know. I need more street Luge talk and Andy from Rhode Island. He's got some. Well, he says, look, I was at the show at the vets theater and Providence has a great tie in related to the opening street Luge race because the original two ESPN games took place in Rhode Island and they did a street luge in Providence, not far from the Vets theater. Whoa, Andy, that is amazing.

He goes on to say that he was there. He has an ex games poster that his dad got him in his bedroom, not now, but when he was a kid. And he wishes that he raised his hand in the balcony. Well, I love that we picked a movie that really had a connection to everything that's great about Providence. Kirk Wagner, by the way, that sounded like an insult. It was not. It was just an off-handed comment. Anyway, Kirk Wagner writes, you guys asked why rollerball players always had to show the ball instead of hiding it to trick the other team. Well, in the 1975 original film, they mentioned that there's a rule where they always had to show the ball at all times. I don't think that was specified in the 2002 remake.

Just one example of how the rules in the 1975 movie were so much clearer, even though they were hardly ever spoken. Well, look, we all now know Rollerball 75, James Cahn is the way to go. Before we end this segment. Let's go to the phones and hear from Adam in New Hampshire. Hey Paul, thank you so much for the Rollerball episode. Uh, my friend Sean and I went and saw that movie in college, um, because it was big with the WWE hype machine because it had Paul Heyman and Shane McMahon made a cameo. And I'm so glad you guys referenced the night vision segment because it was so baffling

in the moment. I remember there was actually a sign at the theater telling people that that was not a glitch. It was not a technical issue with the projector or anything like that. The movie assuring people that the movie was supposed to look like that. And so was anything wrong with the print or anything like that just absolutely god awful movie love the episode love the show thanks so much. That is amazing this often happens when people get upset about things that happen in film. I can't remember the last time this kind of happened. Like artistic choices have to be explained at the box office.

I love this, that's amazing. And I think that this is like moments where people come out and want their money back. Like it's such a funny thing. It's like, nope, this wasn't up to my expectations. I want my money back. If anyone has a picture of that, let me know. Although it seems more like an Instagrammable moment.

I don't know if back then people were taking pictures of just weird things unless you could share them right away. I mean, this is what we are up to now. I don't think we'd ever take pictures of just random signs or food before mobile phones. Anyway, Andrew, New Jersey, what do you got? Hey, Paul, this is Andrew from New Jersey, and I just had a quick-ish omission,

which is that the director of Rollerball, John McTiernan, the director at Die Hard, yes, but because of him defending Rollerball and getting Chuck Roben wiretapped and then lying about it, he went to jail, but then while in jail, he had to declare bankruptcy and wanted to, and the bank wanted to liquidate all of his assets because they thought he was lying about the bankruptcy because he was lying, and that just seems to be a theme with him.

And after it was all settled and he got out of prison, the liquidation was seen to go through. And then also his royalty payments were taken over by the bank. So because he lied about this awful terrible movie that he made and fought to get it out there, he no longer gives money for Die Hard. I just thought that was a pretty fitting punishment. You make a terrible action movie, you no longer get the benefit from your good action movie. Also he wanted, one of his defenses to the bank was trying to say that he was gonna make a Top Gun-like movie with John Travolta,

which never matured a lot. Thanks, Paul. What? I did not realize that. Holy shit. Could you imagine the amount of money that is? That truly is wild. Well, I mean, that's what you get.

Back to the Discord. That was really rough for me, right? That's what you get. I'm doing a lot of the sides today. Dr. Guts, 10 10-03 writes John McTiernan may know how to shoot an action scene But he seemingly knows nothing about how to shoot athletic competitions I mean, how do you show that many rollerball games and never once show what the scoring is during those games? Yeah, it really was bizarre. I didn't even think there was scoring to be honest. It just looked like a roller derby I bet you he didn't even understand what it was

Johnny unusual writes the heathergram show you mentioned was called Emily's reasons Why not and it was actually canceled after one episode not during the commercial break You might be thinking of turn on a show from the creator of Laughin It was pulled in Cleveland during the commercial due to complaints. Never even aired in Western affiliates after that. Well, I was not thinking of turn on. I need to understand what that even was.

What were the complaints? Let's find that online. You know, I didn't mean it was literally pulled after the first commercial, but it was, the ratings are so low that after the first commercial break, they knew they had to cancel the show. But I will also remind you in that episode, I specifically said, do not look this up.

Do not fact check me. It's funnier what I said than for you to tell me the truth of it. So Johnny, unusual, even if you're right, you didn't listen to my demand. So you are out of the running this week for being the winner of corrections and omissions and the winner of last looks.

You're out of both. Me and Nerd Girl, this is from Breakfast Prince writes, me and Nerd Girl both found this video where Pink talks about her time on set. Apparently she initially had a much bigger role before it got cut down to only clips on a TV. of the more impressive performances, Tubi Pink and her recreation of the chair dance, so you see it from Janice Miss You Much. Now it's even more impressive when you consider that Pink was actually playing hurt that night.

Turns out she had pulled the muscle a couple days earlier while working on the new movie, Roller Ball. Now that film is a remake or actually an update of a 70s action movie about a violent extreme futurist export and backstage at ICON we caught up with Pink and she told us more about Roller Ball. She's a creator actually and it's coming out August 15th with Ella, Kool-Jane, Chris Klein, who I have a crush on. And the movie, it's kind of crazy. I had to sing the three-penny opera, which is a little different from what I do.

So it's going to be awesome. Wait, she was rollerblading? I mean, unless she was just like rocking so hard. I mean, I've seen a pink show. She's very athletic in it. And I love that she had a crush on our man, Chris Klein. Wow, so many great corrections and omissions this week. I mean, now we just have pink and rollerball in our head. Plus, we're learning so much about John McTiernan.

There are so many great things. We learned about street luges and everything. But to me, the thing that really just kind of knocked me on my butt was what Andrew from New Jersey said. So, Andrew, for revealing that John McTiernan has none of his diehard royalty money, you are this week's winner. That's right and you get this amazing song from Tyler Mann. Fuck you win. That's right. Thank you Tyler Mann for that song and thank you to our good friend from New Jersey. Remember if you want to submit an alt movie tagline or chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode, hit up the Discord at discord.gg slash HDTGM or calls at 619. Paul asks, coming up, Jason and I are going to be joined by Moshe Casher to talk about his new

memoir, Subculture Vulture, plus a whole lot more. Plus, as always, I'm going to reveal next week's movie and play an exclusive bonus scene from our Rollerball show. I'll be right back. People, I'm sure you noticed that every Monday we re-release old How Did This Get Made episodes back on our feed. This week's matinee Monday was Monkey Shines. June wants those Monkey Shines to get paid. Remember that. And next week's will be The Boy Next Door with guests Heather and Campbell and Ben Simon.

So keep on checking out these replays of classic episodes every Monday. And now let's welcome Jason to the show to have a little just chat. Rob from Long Island. Play us in! Music Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, how are you? I'm great, hi boys, so good to see both of you. What a hunk, I gotta say, I love your, the wallpaper behind you is beautiful. You and your wife, Natasha, the way that you do your podcast, the way it looks like everyone's in these cramped

recording studios and you guys look like you are broadcasting from the hippest Hollywood Hills kind of apartment. I don't smoke cigarettes, but it also feels like there could be a room, like a thing in that room where there's just like a ton of cigarettes in a special decanter, which I felt like if something like grandparents had, like it was like a cigarette. Yeah, you pull up a little gold thing in the middle and they all pop out. Oh, that sounds good. But it's, you know what?

We're trying to take care of our health. So it's just 100 jewels. So smart. sounds good. But it's, you know what? We're trying to take care of our health, so it's just a hundred jewels. So smart. So good for you. Good for you. Occasionally, June will smoke a cigarette, and I was very happy this year to, we decorate our house very,

we go all out during Christmas, and I got June this, it's a Santa Claus, and he's in a little barrel barrel and he's shirtless. And when you pull on his legs, it looks like his dick is coming out, but it's a cigarette and you just kinda take it out, take it out with your mouth.

And it's fun for the whole family until my kids found it. And then insisted on showing it to all their friends. So not only were they showing like a Dick Santa, but then they were also showing cigarettes. And they were like, this proves it everybody. Santa has a dick, I'm sure of it. No, no, no, this isn't sexual. This is just to encourage smoking in our family.

Yeah, yeah, we just, yeah. We hit it, we really did it twice, really hit both things badly. Well, we have the same thing at our house, but it's much more modern, it's not an antique, it's Tim Allen in the Santa Claus, he's the Santa. So it's actually Tim Allen. And then when you, yeah.

And he said. Now, that's the best of the three. We are trying to compete with Bitch Sess. So do you want to throw any shade at Tim Allen, you know, here on the podcast? Oh, right. What did he do? Did he do something recently? No, Casey, actually it's not Bitch Sess anymore.

They changed the name to called Garbage World. They're on their own Patreon. They're doing their own Patreon. They're doing their own thing. But Casey, in the privacy of the podcast, Patreon, went off on Tim Allen and her experience working one day on the Santa Claus. And it went viral. Like she didn't expect it to go viral. It went, and I think the reason why it went viral was because she called him a little bitch. She said he's a little bitch. And yeah, it really like, it got out there in such a way that made me laugh.

I don't know, you know, look. You know, since there- Is there anybody that you'd like to call a little bitch or any other names right now? Is there any grudge list? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be too controversial. I also don't want to step on you. You're here to talk about your book.

I don't want to step on your book. Is it one chapter after another on grudges? Yeah, well, it's mostly about Tim Allen. I mean, to be honest with you, it's mostly about Tim Allen. And I know why he acts that way. And I think Casey wasn't being very sensitive to that. Like the guy just wants more power. That's all. I mean, he's just trying to get a little more power. fellas. No. Oh my gosh. You know, Moshe, you have you have a brand new book coming out.

I do Jason just said Subculture Vulture. It's a memoir and six scenes. It comes out January 30th, a day before my birthday. I got the box of the real thing today. I just opened up this box. Oh, Moly. And there it is.

Oh, that looks great. Yeah, I'm, Oh my gosh. Moshe, who did the art for that cover? Oh, that's a great question. The man's name is Chris Allen and Greg Mollica. And I mean, they just killed it so hard.

It looks like a little like a scene. That looks great. It's very this work. It looks like a graphic. It looks like a graphic novel or a cool book that I would pick up at a secret headquarters. I got to say, I got emotional opening up this box. Because like when I was a little kid,

I never had aspirations to be a comedian. That was not part of what I thought was happening for me, but I always said I wanted to be a writer. I didn't even know what that meant. And I opened that box, I just got emotional. Like you write one book and you've written a book and I feel like you write two. Like I've become the writer

that the little boy thought that I would be. And I'm really proud of it. And I'm really proud of this particular book. I did want to talk about that. This is your second book. And I feel like you see a lot of comedians and performers write a book, right? And it's very rare that you get a second book. And your first book I thought was so just beautiful,

personal and it was, talk to me about the process of coming like, how did you find your way into this one? Because they're both, they're both memoirs's one part history, one part, it's obviously a comedy, but it's one part history and one part memoir. And I kind of go through each of these six worlds that have created the person that I am, which are like AA and the 12 Steps. I got out of rehab for the last time when I was 15 and got sober and was like by far the youngest person

in any AA meeting I ever stepped into for 10 years. And raves, I started going to raves in the early 90s. I started throwing raves and DJing and selling ecstasy as a sober person. Burning Man, I went for the first time in 1996 because I heard there was a rave in the desert and I just like jumped in the car. And I think last year was my 24th time at Burning Man and I worked there for like 15 years and sign language interpreting and deafness. My parents, my uncles, my cousins, my half brothers and sisters are all deaf. And I was a sign language interpreter for 15 years. And, and Hasidic Judaism, my father, when my mom left him, became like a born

again Hasidic Jew and I was raised six weeks a year in the summer, basically cosplaying as an extra on filler on the roof, pretending to know what I was doing in a Hasidic world. And then stand up, which is like the reason that I'm able to write a book or two in the first place. So anyway, the reason I wrote it like that, I wanted to do something different. I wanted something that was like kind of scary to me

and this was like, cause it is history and I do have to like answer that bell, but mostly like my first book ends like the day that I walk away from my friends, you know, there's this image of me walking one way down the street and my friends all walking up the road to Barclays, this bar in Oakland that would serve us underage kids and me walking alone into my new life.

And like over the years, I had a lot of people always asking me like, well, what happened next? What happened next? And so I decided to write this book about what happened next. And the answer was like everything, like so much happened next. My whole life happened next. And the answer was like everything, like so much happened next, my whole life happened next.

Yeah, what's amazing is all the stuff that you just mentioned, that is part of that second book, is enough itself for four books. Right. Like everything you just talked about, the fact that it's not, that that's not even in the first book is wild.

You know? And do you feel, I'm'm curious do you feel like now as you are thinking about things and thinking about a way to talk about things or talk about stories or yourself or whatever are you no longer thinking in terms of this will be worked out on stage in stand-up this is are you now thinking of things more as I will now sit and write this? Are these chapters rather than, you know, chunks, you know? You know, yeah, I have reverse engineered a lot of the first book on to into stand-up, but there's something about writing books for me that like feels like I can tap into this. I think part of it is because of the age of stand-up that I started in.

Like I didn't start in this hypersincere age of stand-up that a lot of younger comics are in now, you know, with like Rothaniel and Nanette and these like hyper confessional, super personal. My thing, I was raised in, you know, I started in 2001. It was like funny over everything. All that matters is comedy, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. And so for me, the books were always this portal

into the more sincere, me the more kind of thoughtful and slow version of me. And so I can go in places, emotional places in this, in that I never really go on stage. I'm not a particularly emotional standup. I'd love to find a way to get some more of that going on on stage, but I kind of also like having. Yeah, do you feel like while, you know, like

as you are excavating the more revelatory or emotionally revelatory elements of your life, do you find that seeping into your standup or is it kind of church and state? These are separate things purposefully. You know, like you get to do, you know, just out of curiosity. Yeah, no, I think I started like I thinking much more like what you're saying Jason, like that what this exists over here.

I want to be thought of as serious over here and silly over here. I never but care. I like being ridiculous on stage. I never thought comedy needs to have this emotional element, but like as you get older, I guess like the idea of something being corny or cheesy on stage like starts to matter a lot less. And I like, I do think that as I'm getting older,

things are starting to seep a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, that's great. That's really interesting. I don't know, you're interesting to me because I think that you are somebody who is incredibly funny. So I don't think it's gonna be like, oh my gosh, I'm shocked that he went there.

But it's fun that your audience and that people are willing to go in these places with you because like as you are talking about like, you know, like the Talmud or something like that, you're going into this thing where it's like, oh, it's not this, so here's a funny story about a time I picked up a hitchhiker, you know? It's like, and I love that you are able to explore

all those things that I like about you as a human being in something that is like a mass market book. I'll jump on that too, because I feel like what is evident in your standup or your writing or especially the stuff you do on stage that isn't necessarily standup, your other shows, is I feel like Moshe, you are primarily a curious person.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And your curiosity, I feel like as we get older, people get less and less curious. They get more and more calcified in the discoveries they've already made. They like these things, they're creatures of habit. They settle, we settle into and calcify

in our personhood. And you are somebody that to me over the period of time I've known you, are always curious, are always asking and questioning and are like, you're a curious mind and I feel like that is evident in everything you do for work. I feel really grateful that you, I feel like we're in a scene in Avatar that you see me. But I really do feel that way. I love people and I think that's why on stage what I love to do is crowd work the most because I really genuinely love the discovery of who's sitting in an audience. I love, and I think that that's because of the way that I was raised.

I was raised in a world where I was an outsider in kind of every universe I felt painfully outside. Like I was not deaf, but I was raised in a deaf world. I was a white kid raised in Oakland public schools. I was a kid that didn't know how to read Hebrew, but I was going to literally the most religious Jewish neighborhoods in the world. I mean, people in my neighborhood in Brooklyn,

the kids spoke Yiddish as a first language. They had Eastern European accents, and they were third generation American. Like, I just felt this like a cute, oh, there's a good story from the book, I'll tell you. But I'll get back to my curiosity. This is true. When I would go to Seagate, this was

the neighborhood in Brooklyn. I say if you don't know how to get to Seagate, you basically take the F train to the last possible stop. You get off, walk past Coney Island, pass the projects, pass the people of color through a gate, through a time portal to pre-Nazi Europe, and then you will arrive in Seagate. I didn't know Hebrew. I don't know the Hebrew alphabet, and they're speaking Yiddish. And I just like, the dodgeball games in that neighborhood used to be the ultra orthodox kids versus the actually really religious kids.

Like the ultra orthodox kids were like the secular, like weird edgy kids. And then we would play against the like long side locked like Yiddish people. So it's getting towards My bar mitzvah, and I'm drowning. I mean I'm drowning in this world I'm only a jew six weeks a year the rest of the year I'm literally a secular public school kid listening to gangster rap in oakland

And then I fly to the old country and go like just pretend that I know what I'm doing And a local rabbi saw that I was struggling and he said to my dad, he's like give him to me on Wednesdays or Thursday, whatever day it was, and I'll take him and I'll teach him how to read Hebrew in preparation for his bar mitzvah. And this was like early 90s, late 80s, so you could ask for some alone time with a child

and they'd be handed over, no questions asked, right? So I start going to his house Wednesday afternoons and I'm struggling. Like I can't get it. I just can't get it. And he goes, don't worry, man. He pulls, he goes, he goes, shmooly, shmooly. And he pulls his oldest son in and he's like, shm He goes, A, B, C, G. And then the rabbi like slaps me on the back and he's like, C, he is stupid in English, you are stupid in Hebrew, everybody's stupid.

So this is- Oh wow. Anyway, this is the universe I was raised in and I think that like, that's why, that kind of painful aloneness is why when a kid at my school said, Hey, what are you doing, man? He saw me shoplift a pack of cigarettes and he goes, Hey, speaking of cigarettes coming out of Santhas cock, he goes, come to the back of the school and smoke cigarettes with us back there. And when I found those kids at the back of the school, behind the portable, I was just like secret power unlocked, right?

People have secrets for me that can give me my superpower. And then that very quickly fell apart into full chaos. And my journey at that point became like, well, how do I go sort of stomp through the world and find out what secrets there are out there that will make me feel that kind of feeling again. So that curiosity like started when I was super young like I went to a rave by myself. I never even heard, I didn't know anything about raves, but I thought maybe there was some secret in there for me.

I went to Burning Man just having heard a rumor of something crazy and I decided to go. I went, got on stage, you know, never having thought I would be a stand-up. It's like all of these things dragged me from world to world and and once in a while I would see a world where I felt like, you know, when you walk in, you have an experience where you turn around and you go, oh my God, the whole world has changed in, in an instant. Like I'm, I'm, I'm in a different universe. Uh, and that's what I found, uh, through being curious. So yeah, it's all about people.

Yeah. I love this. All about all about people. Yeah. I love this. Oh, all about experiential learning. Yeah. You know, what you're talking about is exposure and experience as a way to grow, learn, discover. That's incredible. Now, there's also an audiobook in this. So you can get it any which way you want this book. You can get a hardcover. You can get an e-book. You can get an audiobook in this. So you can get it any which way you want this book. You can get a hardcover, you can get an e-book.

You can get an audiobook. Now, I have been trudging through, not trudging, but happily enjoying the 48 hour audio version of Barbara Streisand's book. 48 hours of long, it's a long, long time to get through. And I'm enjoying the hell out of it. But I take breaks, I do sometimes a week or two break and come back to Barbara. Now she clearly is

improvising. And I typed it in on my, my engine and search engine. And it came back that, yeah, like it's a total her audio book is totally different, because she just kind of starts like me andering. And you can tell because she'll be like Yeah, my dentist, huh? Now, where did he? I believe it was on Veric Street She really like wow goes in you know

Here's the thing about my teeth are pretty good. Here's the thing about about her is That she's disrespectful to the form. And if I had to say it in more crystal clear terms, she's a little bitch. Like I just want I would say that. There it is. There we go. Garbage time. We are competing. But when you did your audiobook, is there anything special in it? Anything that we can be on the lookout for? Is it just, yeah. We were talking about this off mic.

The Burning Man chapter, you know, I was writing this sort of love letter to 25 years spent at Burning Man and having watched it go, in 1996 when I went for the first time, it was fucking wild. I mean it was insane and it was dangerous. It was literally very dangerous. Before the gates opened in 96, someone had died. He got his head cut,

wow, basically off playing the game of chicken on a motorcycle. And there were drive-by shooting ranges and they were setting buildings on fire right on the raw ply of Jesus fucking in the dirt and it was like it was scary and dangerous and I went there thinking Oh, there's a rave in the desert and got there and go I don't know what this is, but this is not a rave. This is something something different subversive meaningful, but terrifying and

And a big part of that my history of Burning Man is is you know the big story that people say about Burning Man which is that it's like in This slow creep towards irrelevance and jumping the shark and in some ways. I think that's true and in some ways I think that's really overstated but But then I you know this year I We had the big crazy mud, like apocalypse, you know, like, and it was, it was so crazy. I had suddenly there was all these stories about everybody getting stuck at Burning Man. Yeah. Chris Rock had to walk miles in the mud.

Yeah, he like got in a van or you're apocalyptic reporting, but right It's like the real apocalypse that we've always envisioned is Chris Rock and Diplo trudging through the desert to get to a private plane to a DJ gig in DC, but You know and when we were when we were in that I was getting texts and tweets and then I remember reading the headline on CNN But Joe Biden has been briefed on the situation at Burning Man. I go, okay, I'm in a fake news story. I'm inside of a fake news story because inside the event,

people were having the fucking time of their lives. And because, like, I can say it like this, a comment, I know that people think Burning Man's lame and people love to hate it. I get that and I get why, actually. But, you know, there was this, I would say, like God level of Shudden Freud happening when the mud came, everybody's just like,

oh, finally, they're suffering. And this woman in my comments said, I love to see the suffering of rich people cosplaying as poor people, which I thought was a funny slam, a good roast, but wrong. Because Burning Man people are not rich people cosplaying as poor people, they are weak people cosplaying as survivalists. And so there was nothing that was more justifying and just like bringing them happiness than a minor weather event where they could put to the task all of these things

They thought they've learned over the the the years at Burning Man people were in revelry like they were celebrating on a level That was it was orgasmic and ecstatic because the what was cool about it Was that burning man a lot like all of these things because each one of these worlds is like, you know, it's started, it's a history too. I literally started at the beginning. And each one of these worlds like started one place, and then like everything kind of became this other thing, comedy too, you know, now it's like TikTok and crowd work clips. And it used to be like, you're, you're in between acts on

vaudeville, or a talking horse would come out, you would just tell jokes while they clean the horseshit, right? Like, so Burning Man has changed in this way that is for the worse a lot. But all of a sudden, you know, there was a, there was a, an act of God that came in and turned Burning Man from this like digital thing to an analog thing. All of a sudden out of the heavens. And all of a sudden I felt like I was in 1996 again. All of a sudden there were no cars and there were no lasers and it was just whatever kind of like thing

you could experience in the mud. So I wrote about that. I thought, oh, this really like, this finishes the thought experiment that I've been having about Burning Man and about myself aging there and what it means to me. And I went to my editor and I said, I think people wanna know this

and it was too late to put it in the written book, but we recorded it for the audio book. So that segment is in the audio book. So it's superior. Oh, that's amazing. That's so interesting to me. The idea of both like the, I don't know if this is the right word,

but like the gentrification of Burning Man over the- It is a gentrification. Yeah, over the- Is it gentrification? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like it's gone from like what you're describing like, you know, kind of grungy in the desert, you know, rave-adjacents. All cool things become corporatized, even that thing which is the most uncorporatized, right?

I mean, I remember even going to a bumbershoot, and bumbershoot the first couple of times I went, which had been going on for a long time, it was so much different than the last time I went. You know, it's like, once all of a sudden you have a tent paid for by Pepsi or Comedy Central, you're like, oh, it's shit's changing, like money's coming in a different way.

The quote I heard about Burning Man specifically, which sums it up is Burning Man went from a place where weird people came to feel normal, to a place where normal people go to feel weird. So that's great. That's great. And I wonder if part of that is sped up by its adjacency to Silicon Valley and everything that's happening in Northern California. Is it just like if Burning Man had been located in Vermont all this time, would this be happening? You know what I mean? Well, yeah, well, that I actually talk about that specific shift because a lot of times

what people think happened to Burning Man is that Silicon Valley invaded it, turned it into a place for a corporate retreat center where, you know, trust falls at Tony Robbins Center turned into like three sums with Russian sex workers on coke on an art car as your corporate retreat. Like that's what happened, right? They infiltrated and ruined Burning Man. But the real story is more complicated than that, which is that Burning Man, it's not that tech ruined Burning Man. It's that tech ruined itself. Tech was always a burning. Oh, okay, okay. That's interesting.

From the very beginning, and always. And it used to be, I'm sure you guys remember, like being an internet person in the 90s, you were a member of a sub-culture. It was a counterculture, yes, you're absolutely right. You were like a freak, you had a shaved head, and you looked like Angelina Jolie and hackers. Like that's who you were.

And then what happened was they took over the world and they became the most powerful entity in the world, more powerful than governments. They turned into billionaires and trillionaires and they were still there. So it's not that Bernie Nen got lame or because of tech. I mean, I hope they don't take over entertainment. All right guys, we may have to be.

No, but they were there because they were there. They would never. That's not something they're even interested in doing. But like, yeah, no, but I think that's a good analogy. Like you see like the techification of the entertainment industry, it's not that they've arrived. It's that they've swallowed the culture whole. And so Burning Man always had tech people.

It's the tech people themselves became Lamer. And as a result, it turned into this kind of more corporate intent. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Okay, I'm learning a lot. All right. So the book, Subculture Vulture, is out right now. You can buy it right now. into this kind of more corporate entity. I'm learning a lot. All right, so the book, Subculture Vulture, is out right now. You can buy it right now.

You can go to a bookstore, you can get it on an e-book, you can get the audio book, whatever you wanna do. You can get it as a CD. It's expensive to get it as a CD, but you can get it. You know, I have a really crazy idea. Cause my thing is that I'm so into like, you know, Burning Man was. Cause like, my thing is like that I'm so into like, you know, Burning Man was just like counter culture, like they call it culture jamming.

And they used to do these wild street pranks and stuff. And like, I'm really a student of that school. And I know that the internet has like taken some of that on, like doing these like pranks. And I know you guys have like really rabid fans. Here's a crazy idea of like a prank that your people could do. I just think this could be so weird.

What if everybody, just like as a prank, like as a weird prank, who's listening, were to go buy the book on Amazon. Or anywhere. Or like a real like, I love that. Not Amazon. Anywhere, okay, anywhere. Or anywhere.

Or I would like it to be Amazon. I love Amazon. Hey, hey, hey. Amazon guy, but like, yeah. But that's the joke. You want to do BookSoup or whatever, independent BookSoup. And that's kind of the prank is that you're going to Amazon and you're getting it. Right. It's kind of like a gotcha to big tech. You know, we could kind of do that as a community. Like it's not about my book.

I don't care about book sales, obviously. I'm not here to like chill books. I just think like as a prank, as a subversive prank. And you know what, Paul? It could be kind of cool if they didn't just buy my book. Oh, wait a second. But while they were there. Yeah.

This is crazy. I don't know, this might be too much of a prank. I don't know if you're, but what if they were to pre-order your book in the same class actually? Oh, shit, now that's a prank. All right, that's a practical joker. Now we're doing it.

Now we've pranked. We're walking the prank. We're doing it. Oh, God. Oh, God. Yeah, a fast, you scurvy dog. You know, like go get that book as a weird prank as an internet. I love it.

I love it. It's like a flash mob. Buy some books. I'll tell you this much. The other, you know, we both have books coming out. There is something that was really disheartening during this award season or, you know, all these movies are coming out. I watched You Hurt My Feelings.

I watched American Fiction and I watched, oh my gosh, what's the third one? The Holdovers. And all of them are about like, miserable people trying to get their books out. Or not miserable people. It's just like, it really does paint a sad picture. I'll say Anatomy of a Fall. Anatomy of a Fall is the other one about struggling writers.

Yes, that's the other one. That's right. It's my movie of the year. My movie of the year. I loved it. I loved it. It's Red Dibble movie. I apparently, she made another film, the director, that's even better and I have to find it.

It's one of her first movies and it's about a journalist following a politician on a campaign trail and it's done that same kind of doc style, which is supposed to be very good. Incredible. Anyway, well, I love this so much, here's what I'll say as a good prank. I'm going to do again. I'm going to participate in the prank, even though I don't have a book coming out. Just for people who are currently listening at home on a speaker,

I'm going to say Alexa by culture. Wait, no, it's what is it? Is it culture? Vulture, all this culture, all this subculture. Alexa by subculture, wait, no, what is it? Is it culture vulture? All this stuff. Subculture, subculture. Alexa, by subculture vulture. Hardcover. Oh, Alexa, by subculture vulture, hardcover. Oh my gosh.

We got them. We really, we nailed these guys, man. We pranked them hard. Oh, classic prank. And when you're done buying the hardcover, go get that audio book because it's gonna have that extra chapter in it. It's a pleasure.

I'm so excited that you're here. We gotta get you back on the show show, but we need to get you on here to make sure we talked about your book, Subculture Vulture, a memoir and six scenes out right now. Buy it and be part of the world's best prank. Moshe, it's been a pleasure to have you. We will talk to you soon.

My pleasure, thank you for having me guys. How did this get me? Thank you Moshe, his book is Subculture Vulture. We're gonna have a deleted scene in just a second from a Rollerball episode, but I wanna make sure that you pre-order or get Subculture Vulture wherever books are sold and you can pre-order or get subculture culture wherever books are sold. And you can pre-order mine at the same time.

I know I'm sneaking in a plug for myself. I'm terrible. Anyway, now is finally time to announce our next movie. Next week, we are going to go from rollerballs to Jamie Dornan's balls. That's right. Next week, we'll be watching how did this get made's first entry into the 50 Shades trilogy, that's right, back in 2015,

there's a little film called 50 Shades of Grey, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, and we are gonna break it down next week. Do we even need to know what the plot is? Yeah, you may want to, right? Literature student Anastasia Steele's life changes forever when she meets a handsome yet tormented billionaire, Christian Gray, and the rest is movie history. Rotten Tomatoes gives this film a 25% score in the tomato meter. Richard Roper of the Chicago

Sun Times writes, basically, they made a lousy mid 2000s era Catherine Heigl romance with a handful of explicit scenes spliced throughout the familiar cliches I love Richard Roper, but I think he's overthinking it in this review. I don't see Catherine Heigl romance in here at all But the rest works listen to the trailer for 50 shades of gray Come It's just found the store what is my playroom like your Xbox and stuff trailer for 50 shades of gray. You could say that. You said you didn't do romance. That's what you do to me. Uh-oh. Oh, no, no. from there. Now, we are almost at the end of this episode, but before we go, check out this bonus scene from our Rollerball show where we talk about the cast of the movie doing a promotional tie-in with some WWF pro wrestlers.

So before we get to our final moment, I wanted to show you something because this movie was heavily publicized. I don't have any clips from it, but it was a part of a Road Rules challenge where actually one of the road rules people got in the movie Roller Ball. Was it CT? I do actually have it was. It's okay, I'm just kidding. But the only name I know because he was in a crawl show sketch. I remember that. But I wanted to show you this. Beth, can you show the lunchroom scene? Okay, because one of the things, this is the WWF. One of the things this movie had was a tie-in to the WWF.

And I want to show you this scene with the cast and professional wrestlers. It's amazing. Hey, man, it's 5.8 million. You guys are gonna have to wear an elephant. Hey, I tell you what, Mr. Bear, you bill you want you get worried by that thing advantage of you Man, I'll recall your ass being invited Don't you ever touch me something ever touch me I came here to talk to somebody I came to talk to you Yeah, yeah, I want to know why I wasn't invited to the premier rollerball in East New Suckers World.

Don't you know who I am? I'm Booker T. Five times. Five times. WCW Champion. The same man who kicked Triple H's ass on rock single handed. You know what? I want to know why I didn't get a point just because. I'm not the lead man in this damn movie. You're not the lead man in the movie because there was no scene in the movie when somebody gets their ass kicked in a grocery store. You did get your ass kicked in the grocery store. Lettuce, get some apples flying all over your head.

You did get your ass kicked in the grocery store. You did get your ass kicked in the grocery store. Lettuce, get some apples flying all over your head. You dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, you dig it, Yes, the real star is a right-nest mother. Suck it! Yeah! Yeah, it's on. Ha ha ha ha! I love that he's mad that he was not invited to the premiere of Rollerball. Saladier's sleep?

And then also mad that he wasn't in the movie. He has double complaints. And then, but then after the movie came out, there was another thing where he came in and was like thank you for not putting me in the movie role well and the other and that was my bad I did not enjoy it and the other plan but clip that we could not find is LL Cool J on Conan O'Brien where he goes yeah that movie sucked but I gotta promote it that's why I was on your show amazing I did love that they're all smoking cigars, but

just like sitting around like like pantomime and smoke. They have big cigars like they're on the Joe Rogan podcast. Oh my gosh. I love pro wrestling tie ins. And you know what? I also love coming to an end and that's what's happening right now. Please rate and review the show. It helps. If you listen to an Apple podcast, make sure you are following us everywhere on social media At Httgm. Thank you to our producers Scott Sonny and Molly Reynolds our movie picking producer Averill Halley our associate producer

Just as narrow as and our engineers Casey Hulford and Rich Garcia. We will see you next week for 50 shades of gray