Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson - Moshe Kasher

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Meet Moshe Kasher, a comedian, writer, actor, and podcast host. You may know him from his books, including his memoir Subculture Vulture and Kasher in the Rye. He has written for various TV shows and movies, including HBO’s Betty, Comedy Central’s roasts and Another Period, Zoolander 2, Wet Hot American Summer, and many more. His Netflix specials include Moshe Kasher: Live in Oakland and The Honeymoon Stand Up Special. He co-hosts The Endless Honeymoon podcast with his wife, Natasha Leggero. Catch him live on tour as well! I hope you enJOY!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

70% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. Not black people, not brown people, everybody. And whether you're white, black, red, brown, or yellow, you wanna see some more green. Can I get an amen? Hey, this is Financial Literacy Awareness Month. Tune in to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, a podcast that breaks down financial freedom

in a way that's real, relatable, and rooted in empowerment. From rebuilding your credit to starting your wealth journey, I give you all the tools to rise. I'm gonna break down how the modern economy works. This is what they never taught you in school. You're not dumb and you're not stupid. It's what you don't know that you don't know is killing you, but you think you know.

To hear this and more practical wisdom, open your free iHeartRadio app, search Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, and start listening today. If money is a taboo topic and nobody wants to talk about it, how can we be educated on something we're unwilling to talk about?

April is Financial Literacy Month, and Black Tech Green Money is where culture meets capital. Each week I sit down with Black entrepreneurs and leaders to share their blueprint for building generational wealth through tech, innovation, and ownership. Once we know more, we can have more. One thing is when we tell our clients is,

the more that you learn, the more that you earn, but you have to be willing to learn. To hear this and more game-changing insight, listen to Black Tech Green Money on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're Feeling This Too is a horror anth your podcast. You're feeling this too. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The number one hit podcast, The Girlfriends, is back with something new, The Girlfriends Spotlight, where each week you'll hear women share their stories of triumph over adversity. You'll meet June, who founded an all-female rock band in the 1960s. I might as well have said, we're gonna walk on the moon. But she showed them who's boss. They would rush up and say, not bad for chicks.

Come and join our girl gang. Listen to The Girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well, it's actually about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money.

But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout 2025 and beyond. For a full list of dates, go to thecraigfergusonshow.com. See you on the road, my dears. My name is Craig Ferguson.

The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. One of the rules I set for myself when I started this podcast is that I was only going to talk to people that I wanted to talk to. And for the most most part I'd stuck to that except for the episodes when it was just me talking to myself but I will say this my guest today is someone who I've known tangentially and I'm a fan of and I've watched him work over the last maybe almost 20 years since I started late night 15 years something like that he is a very unusual mind, a stand-up comedian, but much more than a stand-up comedian,

as I think you're about to find out. Moshi Kasha in the body. What I have to say to you, Moshi, is this. I haven't seen you for a while, and you've got new glasses. I'm glad you noticed. I did get new glasses. And they're about to be old glasses. Are they glasses that you can see people behind you?

They look like they might be glasses with, they've got the little mirrors and you can see people behind you. You know what I'm talking about? What I can say about that is this, they were made in Germany, so the possibility that they're doing surveillance is higher than if they were American glasses. Well, I think nowadays,

I think we're all under a little bit of surveillance. We signed up for it, man. We signed up for it with these things. The phones, man. I thought you were talking about Cash Patel and the new surveillance apparatus of the United States government, which has never been more sophisticated and impressive. Tell me about this. I don't know anything about it.

About me and Cash Patel? Well, Cash is an old college buddy. He's running the FBI now and he kind of, I'm on his email list and I'm getting a lot of the intel and he's up to some really interesting stuff and I'm really glad you had me on your podcast because that's all I want to talk about today. Do you really know Cash Mattel? No I wish I don't wish I know. I hope he doesn't know who I am. I never want him to know my name. He knows who you are. He knows when we are sleeping and he knows when we are awake. Wait, can't you tell us Santa Claus?

Oh, I didn't say that. That's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah. That's what I'm saying that he's Santa. He knows. Summer on the naughty list. Summer on the night. You're so right.

He, he 100% has a naughty and nice list and it's, it's actually just a twit. It's an Elon Musk X feed. And he just looks at it. And the coal is back too. They're digging for coal. Yeah, I heard about that. What do you use coal for now? See, I grew up in Scotland where coal was very popular.

We used it for all sorts of things. We made houses out of it and toys. Well. I think my first Christmas present was coal. But it's coals for power stations, I guess. That's it, isn't it? I'm glad that you're coming to me for questions about the power infrastructure in the United States, because I'm the right guy. Listen, I grew up Jewish, so our Christmas presents were made of gold, and they were just telescopes

where we could see into the houses of the Gentile families. Oh, nice. Tiny little telescopes as well. Tiny little telescopes made of golden foreskins. I'm glad you mentioned growing up, because I'm always fascinated to talk to you, because you got clean and sober like before most people get started on their journey of excess if they're going to have one. What was the name of your book again?

I read it ages ago, but it was about somebody who got clean and sober by the age of 16 or something. Oh, it was my, that's my first book, Casher in the Rye. The true, the true tale of, of the true tale of a white boy from Oakland who became a drug addict, criminal mental patient, and then turned 16, turned 16. There you go. Yeah.

I remember it. I'm glad you remember it too. It was, it's a fascinating kind of thing because I, I feel like you may have, you should be able to sue someone. I think if you've gone through all that, by the time you're 16, well should be able to sue someone, I think, if you're going through all that by the time you're 60. Well, who would it be? My mother?

Probably. Yeah, I think probably you should sue your mother. You know, I've officially been sober such a long time from such a young age that I don't even find it impressive anymore. For my, from about age 20 to about age 35, I was like very proud of it. Like it's been, it's been 15 years and I'm only 30 years old. Now I'm 45 and it's been 30 years and I, I get embarrassed trying to talk about it at like dinner parties, cause it begs so many questions that I don't have good answers to.

Well, it's interesting thing that you bring up an interesting point, because I've been sober for over 30 years as well. And it is an interesting thing because I don't people say, you know, we'll say things to me like, do you miss it? And I'm like, Miss Wacken, I hardly I don't even know what you're talking about. You know, I mean, it's yeah. I mean, it's such a fucking long time ago. What happens is though, I think, I mean, I describe myself as an alcoholic.

I don't know how you identify, but that's kind of, and I feel like that's still what I am. It's just, it's not connected to, it's more a description of the type of person that I am, the type of, you know, mental aberrations that I have are connected with being an alcoholic. I mean, look, I can get back to drinking pretty fast if I, if I made a terrible error of judgment, but, but it doesn't come up in my daily life at all. Do you mean, do you think about it at all? About drinking again? Yeah, drinking or using or anything like that.

Well, I'll tell you, I'll answer your first question by saying during those glory years when I would brag at parties about how long I had been sober, because it really was something I thought was so cool and unique and different about me because I was so young and I really was proud of it. And I was proud of the muck that I'd pulled myself out of But as I have gotten older and I'm sure it's not a coincidence

it's coincided with me feeling less sort of confident about declaring how long it's been is this idea of I No longer understand the word alcoholic like I understand the framing that you're that you're giving over and I think in programming becomes a sort of spiritual state of being. It's it's the it's my orientation in the world. It's the way that I interact with the universe. It's the agita I feel if I'm not caring for myself, it's you know, scrambling thoughts,

blah, blah, blah, which I have all of those characteristics, but so do a lot of people. But I got sober so young, I was 15 years old when I got out of rehab for the last time, almost 16. And for, I would say, probably 20 years, I knew in my bones that I was an alcoholic. But now, I don't know if I know what an alcoholic is. And I mean, obviously, I know that there are alcoholic behaviors drinking too much compulsive drinking being unable to stop drinking once you start but if I was nothing about me is the same from when I was 15 so the idea that there's one spiritual state of being that

still is totally true and definitive for me is is harder with each passing year for me to wrap my brain around. Yeah, I can identify very strongly with that. I think the thing that I pivot around, which is maybe slightly different or a slightly different way of approaching it to you is that I, it's kind of, I like take the allergy kind of things like if I was allergic to peanuts when I was five years old, I'm allergic to peanuts, I'm 62 years old. The allergy, I've changed a great deal in that time, but the essential allergy to peanuts remains fundamentally true and unchanged. And I feel like that with me alcohol is kind of like that. It's still the basic, the first drink is the one that gets you drunk, not the third one, not the 10th one.

And, and if I get to the point where I introduce the allergen into my system, then I'm no longer holding the wheel. That that's kind of how I feel about it. And that makes total sense. And I don't refute it. Uh, actually in the set, I have a new book out that came out last year. I think you'd actually really like it. It's called Subculture Vulture, a memoir in six scenes. And in each subculture that I examine, these are like the kind of

six worlds that I've spent my life in. I do a history of that world and then I enter the history at a certain point, it becomes about my time in that world. And the first chapter, it's actually, I don't know, they're actually longer than chapters. It's like the first novella is about my time in AA. And I talk about this whole process where I went through this brain melt at about, I don't know, about 20 years sober where it just became harder and harder for me to understand what I meant when I declared myself alcoholic. But I understand what you're saying to that idea, like once you have crossed a threshold

into alcoholism, you become allergic in a way that is permanent. And not to say I think anyone should drink again. I certainly don't, and I'm still still sober But allergies even change from 15 to 45 I mean even within the framework of the analogy you could say well I was allergic to I was allergic to the peanut when I was 15, but now I'm 45 and my My chemistry has changed but I use a an analogy in the book I think you'd like I to describe what alcoholism is is I have two problems, right?

The alcoholic has two problems. They are, it is strawberries and mind fuck. Like you need both in order to really be an alcoholic, right? Strawberries is the analogy you're using, right? It's like every time I eat a strawberry, I break out in hives. I leave my wife, I go drunk driving, you know, I have an allergy for strawberries. If, and if all I had was the allergy for strawberries, it would be very simple to know what to do in the face of that, which is just don't.

Yeah, that you're right. Avoid the strawberry patch. Strawberry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I'm sure you already know where this is going. The other problem we have is mindfuck. Mindfuck is every time you look at a strawberry, all you can

remember is the beautiful, delicious flavor of that sweet nectar within that strawberry. You must have another strawberry. You take another bite and the allergy is back. But I don't even know if I believe in that analogy anymore. Well, you know, it's kind of like, uh, it's whatever works in the day. I think I, I know that. It's kind of like, it's whatever works in the day, I think. I know that it is something,

and I'm sure you've heard this as well. There are two things that I hear more bullshit about in my life than ever. One is addiction and addictive people, especially if they're being described by people who have opinions about it, but have not experienced it, or people who are in the active throes of it. Man, they really talk a lot. Right, it's either people who don't know what they're talking about or people who do. Both of them are full of shit. I'm full of shit,

right. And the other one is aviation. You say you never give in to a meltdowndown and never fill your feed with kid photos. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it and never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop. Look. Lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But most people avoid them, staying silent, missing opportunities and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid, I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent, it's a skill anyone can learn.

And it starts with negotiating with yourself, breaking through fear, self-doubt and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi-million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve, and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world,

where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Listen to Negotiate Anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. On November 5th, 2018, at 6.33 a.m., a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open.

No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now. You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI-fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked.

Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this?

This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Craig Ferguson. And I want to let you know I have a brand new you get your podcasts. And it says right there, just click it and play it and it's free. I can't, look, I'm not going to come around your house and show you how to do it. If you can't do it, then you can't have it. But if you can figure it out, it's yours. Aviation is something that I became, I was terrified of flying for a long time. And I thought that as people of my strike kind of do. I thought the best way to combat this clearly is to learn how to fly and I got a pilot's license and I kind of went through all of that and I learned so much about it that now when I, you know, when you read a report about, you know, a drunk guy on plane forces emergency

landing and you go it's not an emergency landing. They just landed the plane because there was a drunk guy on it. That's not an emergency. That's just fucking unpleasant. And then, or the, is like turbulence. The plane dropped a thousand feet. It didn't, it didn't drop a thousand feet. And it's weird.

It's like a plane traveling at 600 miles an hour going through, you know, rough air moves maybe an inch, a couple inches, maybe a foot, maybe if you're in real, you know, real mind blowing turbulence, but thousands of feet. It's just bullshit. And what I think is, is interesting is that we now live in a world where there is no... I don't know if I trust any source of information, even the ones that I go to, that I supposedly trust. I'm like, sometimes when I hear stuff, I'm like, yeah, I don't know if that... I don't know if that's right to me? I think we've become very suspicious.

I think we should be very suspicious because information has become unbelievably less, less reliable and cash for tell as a part of the issue. But it's true. Here's the, I've been thinking about this last night because I was working on a new bit about this very topic, which is that everyone is stupid. I think we all know that everyone's stupid except for you and me, right? Of course. Craig and Moshe are kind of the only two intelligent people left. But the stupidity has a different

harmonic these days. For 200,000 years, stupid people were like, yeah, I'm kind of just like a stupid guy. I'm just a dumb old. And I go to other people for information. Stupid people now are like, I'm actually the smartest person in the world. Like I actually know every single thing that there is to know. That is the that's the disease of the modern era is that the no one will admit that they don't know anything anymore. And it expresses itself. This is the bit I'm working on is about homeschooling. I'm like, I've never met a person who decided to homeschool their kids. I hope you don't homeschool your kids. I've never met a person who decided to homeschool their kid where I'm like, yes, you are an educator. I have

always thought you had it in you. I've never seen it, never. That's a fascinating approach and I wholeheartedly agree. I think, so I have this, it's not an argument, but I have this different point of view with my wife. My wife sees, not conspiracy theories, but she always thinks like, you know what these guys in Washington are up to, or do you know what these guys in Washington are up to or you know what these guys are doing.

And I'm like, I have a, I think her view of the world, like they're up to something is a rather touching and optimistic view of the world. Because I don't think any of these fuckers are smart enough to be up to anything. I think they're just basically bumping around going, oh, what now? Oh, what now? Oh, what now? And I don't think, I have a very hard time in believing in any form of conspiracy theory

because like you, I think most people, except you and me, are pretty stupid. There's a tradition in Judaism, it's called the Midrash, right? The Midrash are extra canonical anecdotes about biblical figures and the story of the Bible, right? So they're kind of like oral stories that were passed down that are not like fully canon, but are extra canon, right?

Like the strange story, like, I don't know if you ever heard the story of Abraham coming and breaking all of the idols in front of us that his father used to worship. I don't know if you've ever heard that story. I don't know that one. I know the one about I'm going to murder my son. I'm not going to murder my son. That's the only one I know of. Unfortunately, that one's that one's in that one's in the original text.

Unfortunately, that made it to the main script. But this is like an extra thing, which is like when God revealed himself to Abraham, Abraham came to his father's, you know, idol worship barn and broke all the idols. And my whole childhood, I thought that was in the Bible. And then I found out, oh, it's not in the Bible at all. It's just an extra story that people kind of tell. Anyway, what's my point of saying all that? There's all these midrashim they're called. And there's a great quote about the midrashim, which is, if you believe all of the midrash, you're a fool. If you believe none of them, you're a bigger fool. And that's a religious idea in Judaism. I have always supported that idea over into

conspiracy theory. If you believe, but I reverse it, which is if you believe no conspiracy theory, you're a fool. If you believe all the conspiracy theories, you're a bigger fool. Yes, I think I think I can absolutely concur with you on that. I, but the, the problem is of course, is, is picking the ones to believe in, not to believe in. And they also, the, the agenda, which is interesting, you use Judaism as a voice, of course you would do, but it's because of course the, the Jewish people are always accused, the anti-Semitism is

always based on a, oh these guys are up to something, oh there's an agenda, like to that that Protocols of the Elders Zion stuff. That's our greatest work. It's so crazy, it's, I remember here in a while ago, somebody was banging on about the hated, it was actually, I think it was on Bill Maher's show. Somebody was talking about, yeah, I don't suppose they like that on the Hollywood cocktail circuit.

And I'm like, Hollywood cocktail circuit? What the fuck are you talking about? Well, you heard synagogue. When you heard Hollywood cocktail, you heard synagogue. When you heard Hollywood Cocktail, you got synagogue. I know. What? I thought, how dare you accuse me of that? What I thought was that, do you know anything about Hollywood?

The idea that people are hanging around socializing, socializing, they, they, they're not, they don't do that. It's Hollywood is, is the most work, you know, LA Hollywood. I'm not talking about Hollywood Boulevard and stuff, but I mean, that's a whole different community, but the idea that, that people in the Hollywood hang out cause they like each other in the show business community. I don't see a lot of that. I wasn't aware of it.

Maybe they just didn't like me. Or that we get, you mean that we all get together and kind of like lay out the plan for controlling the culture. For movies and show business and stuff. Right, right. We're going to be pushing our gender agenda in 2027. That's the plan. Right.

Nobody's that sophisticated. And I totally, I agree's the plan. Right. Nobody's that sophisticated. And I totally I agree. I get so frustrated. I mean, obviously, you know, it can be bigotry can be frustrating in all of its forms. But it's so frustrating that, you know, when if in the computer programming world in the tech world, there's a lot of Indian programmers, a lot of computer geniuses that are Indian. But nobody's talking about the grand conspiracy for Indians to control the tech universe. But every time the Jews

do some stuff, they go, ah, this is a part of a large nebula of black. No, I mean, would I deny the Jews are overrepresented in Hollywood circles? I would in the Hollywood cocktail scene, I would not deny this. It's not like we planned it. It's like that's an industry. Different industries have different groups that go to them and that's the way it is. This is an interesting thing. Have you noticed, we talked about the allergy changing and the alcoholism changing. Have you noticed your approach to Judaism changing as you go? You become a parent obviously as well and you know, your perspective on these things,

has it altered do you think? It's altered. I mean, I loathe to even get into this part of the conversation, but it's altered a great deal and it's altered a great deal because for the same reason that a lot of things have altered in our society, that Judaism, Jewish identity has been swallowed whole by political agenda, it's and the the self definition of the Jewish culture has become intertwined with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that is so heart-wrenching and exhausting.

It's hard for me to say exhausting because I'm not living in the most acute pain of that conflict. But the idea that war and politics and government has been infused into my origin stories, spiritual and cultural identity is an endless heartbreak and one that I, I, so I find it harder in some ways to access and in some other ways, maybe easier to access.

But as I get older, my relationship with my, with my religion and with my, I guess, ethnic background has become more complicated and more difficult because of forces beyond my control. The same thing, by the way, is true of my relationship with being an American citizen. It's more complicated, more heartbreaking, because of forces that I'm not directly involved in, but I get, I'm sort of endlessly pulled by the external definitions of what it means to be an American, what it means to be a Jew, what it means to be an American Jew, and I hate being forced into ideological foxholes against my will. Yeah, I think that that is, unfortunately, as a great steaming truck of verisimilitude.

I remember when I, years ago, I was shooting a movie in Moscow in Russia, and I grew up in the UK during, in Scotland, during the Cold War. And so we were, I was of the belief that the Russians were ready to eat babies and all this stuff you hear about. Whenever you create the other, they're always eating babies and having, you know, human sacrifices and stuff.

And I believe that about, I didn't, I mean, you get old enough, do you think, well, that's probably not entirely true. But then when I went to Russia and interacted with Russians for the first time in Russia, and realizing that a lot of people in Russia were not in any way, shape or form, black waivers for the Soviet empire, you know, that they, they weren't Stalinists. They were kind of, and I think that it's the creation of the other used to be geographic. Like you could create, uh, the other because nobody knew who they were. Now you kind of, I think what you do, I think what is done in our digital cartography is you take the other and you give them a label. And I think the minute you give any group of people

a label, then we're getting into trouble. That's when it gets inhuman. Yes, that is step one in empire building and warfare is to identify the enemy and then make them a non-human entity. Right. It's a, they are vermin, they are rats, they are terrorists, they are Nazis. They are pedophiles. Some of them were Nazis to be fair. Those people were not, but those Nazis, they were that thing.

But I think, I see, I think it's even, it goes back even further than that. Or it begins earlier than that. I think what is, I think you're right with that, but I think what it does is, the first rule of the totalitarian, the aspiring tyrant, I think, is to go after the comedians. Now, I think that what you do is you tell, you say, which, and both the left and the right in this country are very guilty of this. The jokes that you can't tell and the jokes that you can tell. And that if you, which kind of negates the skill of the teller of the joke,

because I am always impressed by a comedian who tells a joke that you can't tell, technically, but actually is so good that this individual, he or she can tell that joke. I think of, there were people like, I love, the comedians I admired, like Joan Rivers was a great one for this. She could say a thing that was, that's totally not acceptable, but it was acceptable because

the way she put it around, she's not the only example. Of course, there are many great comedians that do it. But I think when you start saying this area of human life is not subject to humor. That's when totalitarianism begins. Because you can't have an iconoclast if you want to be an icon. You have to go after the iconoclasts. And I feel that- I feel that's what it is.

That's really interesting. But yeah, once you stop having a sense of humor about yourself, that's when you get into the territory of I am, I, it becomes I am God. You don't make fun of, you don't make fun of the Lord. That's really interesting. I think like comedy, I always thought in the early days, like when somebody would start telling a joke about certain topics the Holocaust slavery These things you'd go. Okay. I hope this is your best joke, right? Oh, and then when you see a person pull it off you go Wow impressive and what has happened?

I think with comedy and listen I would not be a Shiller of my book without mentioning that we're now touching every one, almost every, almost every topic that's in the book. The six scenes are, are AA, uh, Judaism and comedy. That's three out of six so far. And we do a history of each other. Well, I think we should do the whole six. So we've done, we've done Judaism. We're now in comedy. Comedy. Yeah. So what do they say about comedy?

Well, what's happened now, what feels very, feels very obvious to me is, and it's changing so rapidly, I can't even keep track of it, is that people have fallen under the illusion that, to your point, I think your point is well made, you know, any joke is, any topic is on the table as long as you can pull it off. But now a lot of comedians think the fact that I'm attempting to pull it off is work, it makes, it validates the, whatever the topic is. The fact that I was brave enough to tell the Holocaust joke, it doesn't need to be good or funny.

It just needs the real revolutionary work is the fact that I'm telling it. So you see these jokes that are offensive without without any point and on the other side, you see the reaction to that is jokes that are progressive and political and lift every voice and, you know, raise the glass ceiling. they punch through the glass ceiling so hard they've touched the G-spot. Like they're Ted Talk, you find these like Ted Talk-esque humorless, you find a lack of humor on both sides of the ideological comedy aisle from people that think, well, if I'm on a stage and I'm saying some

pro-choice messaging, it doesn't really have to be funny because it's righteous. And on the other hand, well, if I'm on stage and I'm saying something racist, it doesn't really have to be funny because it's righteous. And on the other hand, well, if I'm on stage and I'm saying something racist, it doesn't really have to be funny because it's really punk rock that I'm being racist in today's society. So both of these things, I say, I can't stand both of them need to, you can do anything on stage, I say, right? But it's just, it's got to be funny. It's got to be good enough. I think that's right. I think that's what it is.

But I think my feeling is to add to this and then we'll move from the third part of your book to the last three places because I feel like that's the structure our conversation is staying today. And I like that idea, but I think there are too many comedians, a thousand percent. There's too many and not all of the first of all, crowd work is crowd work and that's fine but crowd work is not stand out comedy. It's crowd work. Oh Craig, now see.

No, I like, no, I know what you're doing. I liked when you said you could make a joke about any topic. I liked when you were, when you said that Jews control Hollywood. I was willing to accept all these things. I never said that. How dare you? You said Hollywood, I was willing to accept all these Hollywood cocktail party, I think we all read between the lines, but if you start impugning crowd work I was just thinking about this today Craig. It's like yes, it's stand-up comedy. It's a different ver It's a different. It's a different version of stand-up. It's like saying I was just thinking about this today Jazz that's not music.

Beethoven, last music. It's not jazz. It isn't music. No, I thought you were rejecting the analogy. You were you were supporting the analogy. Oh, the jazz. Carefully. Like Beethoven writes a Beethoven writes a symphony and it's it's written

and it's perfect and it's beautiful and that's music. Coltrane writes a writes a riff and then goes off on a tangent and create something in real time that will never be recreated. And it's also music is a different kind of music. Anyway, listen, I love crowd work very much. And I know you that's why I was needling you. Yeah kind of music. Anyway, listen, I love crowd work very much. And I know you, that's why I was needling you. Yeah. I, I mean, I did, I did bring up for a reason because, but you, but

you're really good at crowd work. Thank you. You know, there's a, there's a difference. See, I think yes, uh, Coltrane, you know, refs on something and it becomes remarkable, but you know, you don't give a saxophone to someone who's never played one before, and they make five different squeaky noises and give it a fucking Netflix special. It's not right.

And PS, the way that you start playing the saxophone to get to John Coltrane level is you start in band, and they say, play this song. Oh, and the saints, you're not going off on your weird, uh, uh, Sun Ra, ask, you know, squonking riff on day one. Listen, I agree, but you know what? I always say everybody that says crowd work is isn't real comedy. Hasn't seen a real crowd work master at work. I know that you were just fucking with me and, and they don't, there's a lot of short shrift given to how many horrifying written jokes there are out there. There's a whole lot of people.

I totally agree. Totally agree. I mean, and I, I think though that the, what I, I guess my objection to the idea, the delusion that, and you brought up, it's perfect. You don't start, you don't day one go and do crowd work. They, you know, go up and learn how to do the job and then do crowd work. Because if not, you're going to do things like, hi, where are you from? Oh, that's stupid. Did you fart there? I mean, that's, that's how my comedy career started.

When I started comedy, I was very loose. And my friend, Louis Katz, one of the great joke writers, one of the best dirty joke writers in the business, came up to me, he's a dear friend and this was on early days. He goes, listen, you have it. He was maybe a year or two ahead of me. And he goes, you haven't been doing this long enough. He was basically saying you haven't been doing this long enough to be as confident as you are. He's like, you're not actually as good as you are confident. Right?

It's like, you think you're better than you are because you've got all this confidence. He's like, stop fucking around on stage, go write jokes for two years. And I, I somehow I took him seriously. I really did. I would go write jokes for two years. And I somehow, I took him seriously. I really did. I folded that instinct in and I went and I just started trying to figure out how to write. And then came back with all of these things

that I had written and then started to unpack the performer that I would become, which is, I would say, when I'm at my best, I look at my set list, I go, wow, I didn't tell half of these, I didn't do half these bits I planned on doing because I was right loading in space. But 100% you have to learn how to it's just like Picasso, you got to learn the form before you can deconstruct the form. So I've now compared myself to Picasso, to Coltrane and and you to Beethoven.

You are the Beethoven. I don't feel like I'm Beethovening this for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like, you know, take the late night, which is one of the chapters in my sixth chapter book, that late night I learned how to do late night for the first maybe 18 months of doing it. And then I made a fucking good call. to do late night for this first maybe 18 months of doing it. And then I made a fucking good colleagues try of deconstructing that form for the next eight and a half

years, like throwing everything I could to make it look as fucking absurd as I felt that it was. I really think that's what made your show special was it was like we've seen this form and now Craig's doing so many, like it felt experiential your show. It felt like a reinterpretation and I think to me that's like when I'm excited on stage and when I'm at honestly when I'm excited to watch a performer is when I'm like oh wow this show is one part his act his or her act and one part a gift that he's or she has given to me as in the

audience that will only exist in this universe and or on Instagram for the rest of time and get a special you say you never give it to a meltdown and never fill your feed with kid photos you say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it and never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council.

The best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. But most people avoid them. Staying silent, missing opportunities, and holding themselves back. I know this is true because I used to be one of those people. As a kid, I struggled to fit in and I was afraid to speak up. That fear followed me into adulthood until I realized something powerful. Negotiation isn't a talent, it's a skill anyone can learn. And it starts with negotiating with yourself,

breaking through fear, self-doubt, and the limits we place on ourselves. Now I help people from all walks of life, whether it's people closing multi-million dollar deals, parents setting boundaries, students finding their voice, or professionals advancing their careers. If you want to handle tough conversations, get what you deserve, and take control of your future, this podcast is for you. I'm Kwame Christian, host of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where you'll learn one simple truth. You don't get what you deserve.

You get what you negotiate. Listen to negotiate anything on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with

someone else's body parts on my body parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream. It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the internet and to the front lines of a global

battle against deepfake pornography. This should be illegal, but what is this? This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast.

Find it on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On November 5th, 2018, at 6.33am, a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley. The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Until now. You feeling this too.

A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So that's comedy. So we've done alcoholism, Judaism, comedy. What's chapter four? Novella four. So novella four is the rave scene.

Did you do that? You're a UK guy. Scene. Yeah, I kind of passed me by the sober just before ecstasy was invented. So I kind of missed it. You know? Yeah, it was really well here. I did the opposite.

I got sober, 15 years old, and about maybe nine months, six months, nine months into sobriety, I stopped being whipped by this monkey on my back and looked up, my whole illusion, my whole fear, and I'm sure you relate to this, I think every alcoholic relates to this, is like if I stop drinking and looked up, you know, my whole illusion, my whole fear, and I'm sure you relate to this. I think every alcoholic relates to this is like, if I stop drinking and getting high, there'll be nothing to do.

I'll have nothing to do. And as like the problem with that kind of thinking is it's a very diseased brain that produces a thought like that, because it stands to reason if you stop drinking and getting high, you'll have nothing to do. It means ergo, all you do is drink and get high. So yes, yeah, yeah. There's perfect logic to that. If you're a drug addict and alcoholic and at about nine months sober, I looked up and I realized like, oh my God, I'm 16 years old. I can't go recovery bowling with these Vietnam vets for the rest of my teens and twenties. Like I gotta find something to do.

And what the cool part of AA, one of the beautiful parts of my recovery journey was like when I lifted my head up out of the bottle and looked out into the world, I suddenly realized that if I stopped drinking and getting high, what there was to do was everything else. And I decided to like spend my life trying to do was everything else. And I decided to like, spend my life trying to find that everything else. And

the first thing I found was the rave scene in San Francisco was I, I walked by a flyer on a on a telephone pole, it was a big, big massive rave. This is not like the underground parties that got really famous in the UK where you had to call a number. This was like a big commercial rave. And I not like the underground parties that got really famous in the UK where you had to call a number. This was like a big commercial rave and I got $20 from my mom and I bought a ticket to this rave and I went by myself. I don't know, I truly don't know what drew me there. I wasn't a dancer. I was like a kind of a gangster. That was my thing. I was like kind of a, you know, like... You were a gangster no I mean I was I had an accent I know you I had a no but I had

an accent great I did I had a southern accent when I was 15 I'm not from the south okay is that kind of paint a picture yeah I've told myself some stories too so I go to this party by myself. I remember I went to an NA meeting the night before, just before across the street. There was an NA meeting. I walked across the street. I told all these like black, like middle-aged, you know, recovering addicts, like the freedom of sobriety is bringing me to that rave across the street.

And they were like, we do not know what the fuck you're talking about. And I walked across the street and I had, uh, I remember I had a, I used to use a, a cologne called escape by Calvin Klein. It was a terrible scent of the early nineties. And I remember I stuffed this bottle of escape into a sock as I was waiting in line and I was like, just in case case you know, I got a kind of thwap thwap somebody with this sock blackjack that I've built I mean that's just like the this is the brain I'm bringing into this first raid like and I remember I walked into the first the main room of this party called cyberfest in 1995 and I put down the bag containing the potpourri scented blackjack, and I walked

into this party, and I just like, I had a as profound a spiritual experience at that first party as I did getting sober. It was a reconstruction. It was a re formation of who I was as a human being. I started pure wedding around the room and dancing. And this couple, this gay couple came up to me and they grabbed me on either side and they they picked me up in their arms and like, you're beautiful. And I was like, I was like, what do these motherfuckers, these gay motherfuckers hugging on me? And so I was like, I know what I got to do.

And I grabbed both of their heads, pulled them close to me, kissed them on the cheek and go, you're beautiful too. Like I'm telling you Craig, in one evening, I turned from like identity crisis, addled wannabe gangster who thought he was something that he wasn't to soft, puro wedding, techno dancing. I, the next day I dyed my hair blonde

and twirled it in a little Bjork buns and put barrettes in my hair. I mean, was it absurd? It was absurd, but it was a kind of alchemical shifting of my identity that was as profound as anything I've ever experienced. And I spent all of my 20s throwing raves, DJing at raves, and eventually becoming

the world's first clean and sober ecstasy dealer at raves. So it got dark later. Okay. Yeah. That went to a little bit of a kind of minor note there. It kind of went, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee. Well, it's like that. It's kind of like that. In fact, a lot of the book is about that is like, you

know, I got you go into this thing. It's like religion, you know, you go into a thing, you have a come to Jesus, like, you know, baptism moment, it redefines everything about you. And you spend two decades in it trying to like drink it like every scene I've ever been in I've tried to like eat it you know like I want to own it I want to be the man I want and then by that process of trying to eat it own it be the man it starts to curdle the thing a little bit and then you're 20 years in and you're going hmm what was it that I what was it that I found here, the book was awesome because I got to remember all the beautiful magic that I found in each of the universes that I occupied. That's an interesting thing.

How did you, how did it end then, the rave scene? Was it because of the sober ecstasy or was it something else? It was a little bit of that. It was, you know, there's a funny story. So I started DJing. That was like, you know, that's the alpha, you know, there's a funny story. So I started DJing. That was like, you know, that's the alpha, you know, the alpha human at the, in the rave thing is, is the, is the DJ. And so I wanted to do that.

I wanted to do that. Did you do this? Did you point at people when they were dancing? I feel like that's an essential move. I would do this like almost like I can't hear and then, oh, I can hear. And then I point, then I point. Yeah. Right. Okay. almost like I can't hear and then oh I can hear and then I point then I point yeah all right okay and I started to really become defined by that identity and about 10 years into the rave scene

through a very complicated series of uh strange events you know I was throwing these bigger and bigger parties and eventually the person I was working with kind of was a con man and stole all the money and absconded and so I was sort of became kind of persona non grata within the promoting rave world that I was in. Uh, and as a result of that, all the DJ gigs that I'd been getting started to dry up and I was, and I was also getting older, you know, I was also becoming older. I wasn't 16 anymore. I was, I was 20.

I just in your pointing finger. That's like, why are you pointing at the ground? You really can't hear things either. When I started going to raves in San Francisco, I was 16 and I was the youngest person there, I was among the youngest. And when I stopped going about 10 years later, it was the median age. And so it was there was that. But something very funny happened, which is that I was having this identity crisis and my ego was just being

bruised all the time. I wanted people to want me, but nobody wanted me. This is before comedy. So I didn't get the attention that you know, a comedy will provide you. So I just was like, my performing life was drying up. Nobody was booking me anymore, but I still had this identity of like, I am Moshe, DJ Moshe. And that was my name. And I picked up a flyer to a rave right now as I was in the middle of this identity crisis. And there was a DJ on the lineup called DJ E Moshe.

E Moshe. E Mosha. I go, E Mosha, that's not, you can't, you can't do that. I couldn't, I couldn't like become a comedian and call myself E Craig Ferguson. I think you would have a bit of an issue with that. So I gathered up all the flyers of all the raves I'd ever been to and I went to this rave and I confronted the guy.

I go, where's E Moshe? And they're like, over there. I go to the guy, go, who are you? And he's like, I'm me. I go, well, I'm Moshe. I'm DJ Moshe. That's me. Oh, yeah, cool. I've heard of you. Yeah, you fucking heard of me. You have my name.

And I go, well, what's the deal? Like, is is your name? Are you Jewish? Is your name Moshe? And he goes, well, what's the deal? Like, is is your name? Are you Jewish? Is your name Moshe? Is your and he goes, no, I just thought it sounded cool. I go, yeah, it fucking sounds cool. It's my cool sounding fucking name. And he's and I go, look, you gotta you gotta drop it.

Like you have to drop the name. And he's like, no. And I'm like, no, not no. Yes, you got to drop it. It's my name. And he's I think I'll keep it. I go, OK, look, I'll battle you. OK, we'll do a DJ battle.

You and me. Oh, my God, this is exciting. Well, it doesn't end as exciting as you want it to. I go you and me versus the crowd. The crowd decides whoever wins keeps the name. And he goes, right. I think now I think I'll just keep the name. And I'm like, I only I don't know what to do here.

I could either beat this guy to death or impotently walk away. Guess which option I chose. I impotently walked away and I'm pretty sure I just gave up on DJing altogether in that moment. And to this day, I'm not convinced. I've never seen Emotia on a flyer since. I'm not convinced Emotia wasn't just a guardian angel, the scent from the heavens to transfer me

from one scene to the next. God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. Indeed. So, is that when you transition out of DJing and then the next one's going to be comedy then? Is it comedy the next one? Well, comedy was in there, but the other world that, and I do want to say anecdotally, when

I wrote this chapter in the book, I bought myself a DJ controller and I started DJing again 20 years after the fact. If anybody wants to listen to some of my mixes, they're on SoundCloud. But anyway, the next one's Burning Man and they're very related. They're very related. The rave guy. Yeah. This year, I will go and it will be my 25th time going. I think I've been going for a very long time and I worked there for a very long time, too. So I've seen it go from the thing it was to the thing it is and I'm watching it become the thing it will be, which is not as exciting as I would hope. I think it becomes like everything, like punk rock,

like Christianity, like anything. It starts off pretty good and then, you know, people get involved and too many people get involved, turns into something else. The original idea can get lost in the mix a little bit. I don't know much about Burning Man other than I know you, I always envisage Burning Man and I've never been, but I always imagined it be like 50, 55 year old men out of shape walking around wearing shirts and no pants. Shirt cocking, I believe it's called. You nailed it.

And that is what that's what keeps me coming back 25 years later. Yeah. So that is a burning man. And then I'm waiting for it to be you became a parent. And that's what the world is that what is that what happens? I would say that's the frame, the frame, the true framing device of the whole thing is that what it is? That what happens? I would say that's the frame, the frame, the true framing device of the whole thing is that really, I didn't even realize

it till I was done with the book. Is it really the book is a and it kind of connects back to what we were talking about earlier, that the book is really a an archaeological artifact that I'm leaving to my daughter so that she can know the things that life threw at me because, and this is sort of what, I talk about this at the end of the book, because when we were growing up,

Craig, this is true for you, it's true for me, your life felt very accidental. Your life felt very accidental. Your life felt very like if I go to this bar with this guy and I try cocaine, then I become a cocaine guy and a drinker. And then I end up in AA. And then I meet my wife. And then I, if I, if I go with this other guy and I smoke pot in the forest with that guy, then I become a hippie and then I become a bassist in this hippie band, and then I become fish. And if you know, it was all this very like accidental stumbling from scene to scene.

And the internet and social media has made not that process impossible, but that process much more difficult because culture has become sort of the aperture has shrunk into really one thing. There's this like monoculture that, you know, you pick up your phone and your algorithm tells you what's cool, what's culture, what you should think, what you should believe, how you should dance, all of these things. And so in a way, I didn't do a section on parenting, but in a way, the whole thing is for my daughter to like, oh, here are all the things that made me me and I hope, I really hope that you find things that are uniquely you and find a path that is uniquely yours that doesn't get handed to you, but that you stumble into.

Do you have a strategy for that for your daughter? Do you do you I mean, I'm, I'm I mean, I'm a real hard ass at that my kids and social media, I mean, they they're on select sites, but very it's I'm not cool with it. Do I have a strategy for avoiding social media? Or for her? I mean, like her parenting strategy? Yeah. You start to realize I'm sure you realize this too, like, a lot of it is about Exposing them to things you like and then seeing if they like them too

And then you start going after about 10 activities there all of a sudden seven and you're like, oh my god I'm like running out of time here to like I can't I can't do judo and surfing and camping and Circus can't eventually're going to run out of options and they're never I keep waiting for the thing where my daughter looks at me and goes this is me you know and I haven't she's seven she's young but I keep I'm I'm just curious of that moment because it didn't happen for me until I was much older that moment where you click into your kind of like your destiny.

Like was that you, was that comedy for you? Was that the only time you felt that? Not at all. I still don't, I'm not entirely convinced it's something I want to get involved in. But the, my oldest kid, my son, when he was about like very young, like a toddler, he became fascinated with early Disney. You know, the old, like the real old kind of, you know, the black and white kind of early Disney stuff. And he would watch it over and over and over again. And he was always fascinated with anime. He loved cartoons. Oh, kids love cartoons, of course. But he loved them in a way I had never seen them.

He's now, he graduated from the School of Visual Arts, New York, and he runs an independent animation studio with his friends. That's the dream! That's the dream! That is the dream that your child goes, here's who I am, and not only do I love it, I'm going to be great at it. I will be great at it. That to me, I'm going to be great at it. I will be great at it. That to me, I'm jealous of that.

I mean, listen, I'm so excited to see what the world brings to my daughter's consciousness and life. I don't put any pressure on her like that. It's all internal, me looking at her. No, no, I didn't either, right? Half of my experience of her is looking at things she does and going, uh-oh, is this like me? Uh-oh. Is she gonna turn out like me? Uh-oh.

Like, she's got a lot of me in her. But I think that's so awesome that your son, like, early on found that, like, little tickle that became his life. And I think about that, by the way, with comedy, like, I can't leave... This is what's different about this scene versus the other ones, is that I'm 22 years into comedy, I pay all of my bills with it, this is permanent. So I had better find a way,

I'm not going back to grad school, it's too late. So I had better find a way to make it feel refreshing, make it feel useful and meaningful and not wrong. That's a challenge for me. I don't know about you. I have a perfect solution for you. Stop using the word comedy. What do you use? Because, well, I just, I do comedy, but I think that what you are, and this is one of the reasons why I hate to say this because it sounds so part of the Hollywood cocktail circuit, but I am a fan of you.

But I am a fan of you. One of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you today, you are an interesting person. You're erudite and thoughtful and you have a brain which causes you difficulty and you use everything in your power to navigate through the universe and comedy is a very useful tool for that but why limit yourself you know and I think the good comedians good comedians to me no I, I'm not talking about, you know, the ones that we don't need to talk about, but good comedians to me are just Socratic philosophers.

That's all they are. The history goes all the way back to Epictetus and before. And what it is, is you see how you perceive the world and you present it in such a way that other people are stimulated by it. But comedy doesn't have to be the world and you present it in such a way that other people are stimulated by it. But comedy doesn't have to be the only way to do it. It's a convenient platform for a philosopher, which is what I believe you are and it's what

I aspire to be. You're a philosopher who struggles in the world and your perception, the absurdities of it provide you with comedy. But there are particularly, and I noticed this after I became a parent as well, there is an incandescent level of beauty that I never loved anyone until my first kid was born. I thought I did, but I didn't. I was like, it was just, you know, I was like, oh, you're nice.

But when my first son was born, maybe not even when he was born, like about six months in, because when the little babies are like, ah. But when they start being human, there's a whole different perspective. And one of the, I have a tattoo here. I have a lot of tattoos,

but this little tattoo here is where I wear my watch. And when I forget to wear my watch, that's still there. What it is, is the planet Saturn. And the planet Saturn is the bringer of old age. So even though if I'm not wearing my watch, I can look at it and go, oh, right. Saturn, of course, was the god. Yeah, yeah.

And, and right. But in, in the, the planet suite, we were talking about music. In the planet suite by Holst, you know, that's got like down, down, down, down, down, down, for Mars, the god of war and all that. And there is a piece of music called Saturn, because he does all of it. Like you wrote your book about all these things. He wrote his, his suite of book about all these things. He wrote his suite of music about all the different planets. And in the piece of music Saturn, the bringing of

old age, it's a very odd, weird piece of music. It's almost like an ambient Brian Eno type piece of music. It's a very strange piece of music. And the aging process, I think is that it's fucking weird. And I think that the only way I stay enthusiastic about things is the fact that it's just getting stranger. You know, I now have friends, contemporaries, I'm 60, I'm going to be 63 years old in about a month. I have friends who just like fucking die. Just like fall over and I'm not talking about drug overdoses and stuff. I'm just like, life overdoses or yeah, they just run out of fucking, you know, and it's right. And I think that if I have any delight in, in making and having a little bit of success is that allows you to do the thing that you do, but also do other things too.

I think you've been doing that since you were 16. I think that's, that's entirely, you know, like I will be a DJ Moshe. Although, and I have to say, and I was going to say this when you brought it up, I never heard of DJ emotion. Where the fuck is DJ emotion now? So you know, a lot of good denim. Well he's probably doing comedy now. Probably.

Yeah, I, by the way, Craig, what you said is, is, is beautiful. It's like, it's one of the things and I do need to say Hollywood cocktail party that I'm a fan of yours as well and have been for a long time. But what you're saying is so true like I've been thinking about aging lately myself because like I'm at the age where the youth is start I can it's starting to not be applicable to me. And I want to fight that. I'm still in the fight it phase, you know, like cling. And one of the things I keep,

and I feel this way with my career and I feel this way with my life path. I feel this way with the raising of my daughter is like, there is no way out, but through. There is no, I can fight aging, but I cannot stop it. There is no, I can fight aging, but I cannot stop it. I can, there isn't a way out, but death. And so a thing that I am unable to affect any meaningful leverage upon, I may as well embrace.

I'm still, by the way, figuring out how to embrace it. I'm not gonna claim that I am, but I'm starting to process that idea like life goes in one direction. Time, I mean, I don't fully understand time and space, but it seems to me the time is linear and you must only continue to walk because the other option is to fall off the edge. I think so. I think though the time is linear physically. I think that that's correct, but I think physicality is not all there is. I'm not talking about life after death or anything like that.

I mean, I don't know anything about that. Just like no one else doesn't. end like that. I mean, I don't know anything about that. Just like no one else doesn't. But I do kind of, I do kind of, I am interested in the notion of, I don't know if you, you ever, you familiar with Brian Cox, Dr. Brian Cox, the- Yeah, the handsome scientist. The handsome scientist, very handsome, very cool, very clever. I think he's an astrophysicist, but I'm not sure. I mean, he's some kind of expert on all things time.

And he did a beautiful show for the BBC about time. Somewhere in space time it's called. If you get a chance to find it, you should watch it. It's called. If you get a chance to find it, you should watch it. I would love that. It's beautiful because it's absolutely poetic and he talks about time. He does a very interesting thing about, because I suppose it's wrapped up with Einstein, but he gets into a supersonic jet and flies west into the sunset. And of course he's flying west into the sunset faster than the speed of sound.

And as he flies into the sunset, the sun starts to rise because he's traveling fast in a direction where it's really about where you are in the universe affects what time I mean is Yeah, in fact, you know this it's called the theory of relativity Uh-huh. I understand that theory completely. That's the sixth section of my book is about the theory of relativity and my work on it Do you know this this blew my mind and I don't understand it So don't ask me to explain it, but I'm sure Brian Cox talks about it in this special, which is that, that, that time, the linear thing that we are describing, the thing that makes us older and the thing that, uh, you know, makes the sun go up and down and space in like

the thing that you look up and it's, it's up there, but it's also over there and down is the same thing. It gets that the thing that makes your grandma old and die is the thing that contains Saturn, it's like, what the fuck does that mean? But according to theoretical physicists, that is true. Well, I think if you are wrestling with those questions, then by all means, do crowd work, but don't just. Amen.

Amen. Amen is a good word to end with. It's great talking to you and catching up with you again. I love talking to you and I do remain a big fan. You are the only crowd work guy that I can watch and go, all right, I suppose that's all right. That's nice, but there are some other masters out there. Listen, I'm going

to leave you. I've loved talking to you. I always do. And I'll leave you with we never discussed the sixth scene. So I'll leave it with you so that you so you can ask me back someday we can talk about it for an hour. But it's the world. We'll start with the sixth episode. That's right. Yeah, maybe you can write another book about space time. Right. And about the six other things. That's interesting. I'd have to get a lot of living done. Anyway, it's the world of the deaf and American Sign Language. My mother and father and all my siblings. Of course your parents were deaf. Yeah and I spent a long time as a sign language interpreter. So it goes through the whole history of sign language and American sign language and the

education of the deaf. And anyway, the book's called Subculture Vulture and I'm very proud of it. And that's all I have to say. I can't speak sign language or can't sign sign language, but I used to be a bit better at it because I was helping a guy get sober who was deaf. Oh wow. So the only thing we could do was, you know, he could lip read a bit, but he was taught, I mean, he was profoundly deaf, you know, so he could do that. And he taught me some sign

language. I've forgotten all, most of it. The only thing I remember is British sign language is a different language to American sign language. That's right. Fascinating. I thought it was weird. And then when I heard that this. Was weird and that that's weird, which I think is very witty and that's odd. That's weird and odd.

And yeah, and I think it's it's a very funny thing saying language. It makes me laugh. It's clever and witty. And it is very witty. It is very funny. And it used to be much more in your face. I won't do it, but I want you to guess what the sign for Asian and Chinese was when I was a kid.

That's probably not good. Thankfully deaf Chinese immigrants moved to America and were like, what the fuck is a sign for Chinese? No, we've got our own sign, okay? And they've updated the language, but all that and more. All right, get out of here. It's great to see you. You're the best.

Yeah, great seeing you too. I hope I see you again somewhere along the space time continuum. You will. Somewhere the space time continuum. You will. Come where it is space time. If money is a taboo topic and nobody wants to talk about it, how can we be educated on something we're unwilling to talk about? April is Financial Literacy Month and Black Tech Green Money is where taboo topic and nobody wants to talk about it. How can we be educated on something we're unwilling to talk about? April is Financial Literacy Month

and Black Tech Green Money is where culture meets capital. Each week I sit down with black entrepreneurs and leaders to share their blueprint for building generational wealth through tech, innovation and ownership. Once we know more, we can have more. One thing is when we tell our clients is, the more that you learn, the more that you earn,

but you have to be willing to learn. To hear this and more game-changing insight, listen to Black Tech Green Money on the more that you learn, the more that you earn, but you have to be willing to learn. To hear this and more game changing insight, listen to Black Tech Green Money on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 70% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. Not black people, not brown people, everybody. And whether you're white, black, red, brown, or yellow, you want to see some more green. Can I get an A man?

Hey, this is Financial Literacy Awareness Month. Tune in to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, a podcast that breaks down financial freedom in a way that's real, relatable, and rooted in empowerment. From rebuilding your credit to starting your wealth journey, I give you all the tools to rise. I'm gonna break down how the modern economy works. This is what they never taught you in school.

You're not dumb and you're not stupid. It's what you don't know that you don't know is killing you, but you think you know. To hear this and more practical wisdom, open your free iHeartRadio app, search Money and Wealth with John O'Brien and start listening today. You Feeling This Too is a horror anthology podcast it brings different creators to tell 10 vile Grotesque horrific stories on what scares them the most You feeling this too listen on the I iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. The number one hit podcast, The Girlfriends, is back with something new. The Girlfriends Spotlight. Each week you'll hear women triumph over adversity. You'll meet Tracy, who survived a terrifying attack. I remember that feeling of, okay, this is how I die. And turned that darkness into light. I want to take over the world and just leave this place better than I found it.

So come and join our girl gang. Listen to The Girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.