The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Aaron Berg - Life as a Gigolo - Congestion Pricing - The Dave Smith Twitter Feud

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

00:02:00 Congestion Pricing 00:21:19 The Dave Smith Fued 00:49:12 Trump and H-1B Visas 00:56:08 Being a gigolo and regrets Comedian Aaron Berg Aaron Berg is a NYC-based comedian, a regular performer at Skankfest, and an author who is originally from Toronto. He graduated with an honors degree in Philosophy from The University of New Brunswick. He has made multiple TV and film appearances and his six stand up albums are available on iTunes and Amazon.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous Comedy Cellar, available wherever you get your podcasts, available on YouTube, and available on demand at Sirius Radio. This is Dan Natterman, Comedy Cellar regular-ish, with Noam Dorman, the owner-proprietor of the ever-expanding Comedy Cellar, The New Room, the comedy theater on 6th Avenue, opening hopefully sometime in 2025. Perrielle Ashenbrand is here. She is a producer and

on air. She's open year-round. We also have with us making, I think, his debut on the podcast, Aaron Berg. Hello. From the great city of Toronto. Originally. Oh, I didn't know that. Toronto, Ontario. He's got tour dates coming up. You can find all those on aaron Toronto. Originally. Oh, I didn't know that. Toronto, Ontario. He's got tour dates coming up.

You can find all those on AaronBerg.com. That's A-A-RonBerg.com. Thank you. Where are you touring to? Well, I'm going back to Toronto. I'm going to Ottawa. And I very rarely go to Canada. I'm not a big fan.

Are you an American citizen? I'm an American citizen now. Dual loyalty. You have three loyalties now. Israel, Canada, and America. I'm a pretty hardcore American. Dual loyalty. You have three loyalties now, Israel, Canada, and America. I'm a pretty hardcore American. I got a Dodge Ram. I am a registered Republican.

Oh, wow. I went in. I'm all Steve. A gun owner? Yeah, multiple guns. I was going to bring one today because I read about the subway stuff, but then I was like, I shouldn't do that. Didn't you also take the bus in?

Yeah. The bus is much take the bus in? Yeah. The bus is much safer than the New York subway. Right, but why do you need a gun about the subway stuff if you're on the bus? I don't want to get lit on fire while Alicia Keys sings in the police stand. You took the bus to, I guess, Port Authority. Oh, yeah. And then you took the subway here, I think. Yeah.

So you did have to take the subway. Okay, fair enough. But not for very much. No, the bus doesn't stop at the cellar gnome hasn't arranged that yet now actually was your decision you normally drive in but your decision to take the bus was motivated by i'm gonna tell you a little something not a lot of people know about there's been murmurs of this there's a thing called congestion. Congestion fees now. Have you heard of this?

Yes, yes, yes. What do you think of that? Not a fan. There's a guy on Twitter that is covering his license plate with the middle finger, and he drives through, and he's this very rambunctious Italian man, and he just stops in front of the cameras, and he gives the finger to the cameras. I wouldn't drive in today. I'm canceling all my city spots now.'m done is that true no oh but i canceled one on monday it's not

unless i'm coming in to really make money on a weekend i think i'm gonna come in less it's nine dollars so much money you know what spots pay still though that's ridiculous you have to get spots well it's only is it's three dollars after 9 p.m i believe but if you drive in before 9 p.m and leave after 9 p.m is it only a one-way charge one way one way it's once a day but here's go ahead so if you're coming in before nine and leaving after nine you're paying the full charge yes but here's my question do you think you will eventually just relent? Yes, I'll start eating it.

It's part of living in New York. You will start eating it. And then you go, why do I live in New York? There's no point to this. And then you're like, oh, because I do 20 spots a week. And that's the only reason. So you're going to go through the grind of trying to avoid it for a while. I'm going to hope January 20th he gets in and he's like, it's done, congestion prices.

I don't know if he has that kind of power. I don't believe he has the authority to do it by executive order. Donald Trump's middle name is J, which stands for Jesus, and he can do whatever he wants. I don't know where you're getting your Republican rhetoric. He'd have to get the, I believe, he'd have to get the Congress behind him in some way. And, you know, listen, I'm the world's biggest hater of congestion pricing. But I don't know if it really is something that the federal government ought to be able

to put a stop to. I mean, it does have interstate ramifications. So maybe I have to hear the arguments, but, you know, I hope he gets rid of it, you know, purely. I hope so too. I think people just chalk it up to new york being a dump and it's just one of those things that goes on top of new york being a dump

and they're like people get stabbed on the subway you got to pay extra to drive in now everything's so expensive i think it just is the ramifications of new york being called a dump and and he does have to hurry for two reasons first of all once the city gets used to that revenue the state gets used to the revenue whoever whoever gets it, it's going to be very difficult to undo it. Number two, I'm all up in arms about this. You don't even know. I'm really up in arms

about this, but after two days of zipping into work, as I have the last two days, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to... So the traffic's not bad. Oh my god. It was awesome. Assuming that continues,

then isn't that a good thing? No, no. It's an outrage. It's an outrage to so many people. Nurses, teachers, people who bought a car, who moved somewhere for a good school system, whatever it is. They're stuck with this house, this

car, the money they can't afford. Can they do what Aaron did just today? He drove to the bus stop. Some of them can. Some of them can't. Some of them have to drop off their kids in school. And then go to the bus stop. No, come on, Danny. You're putting people through a tremendous, a tremendous problem. And some people are old. Some people are,

don't want to walk in the freezing cold. Some people live in bad neighborhoods and don't want to walk. Some people do a late shift, get home 10, 11 at night. They pay the thing. And then they have to walk home 6, 7, 10 blocks from the subway system. It's crazy. It's such a, it's such a. You're very on fire about it.

And what makes it most despicable is that this is coming from the Democrats, who supposedly care so much about the working people. If Donald Trump... Well, the working people, most working people take public transit. Most is not the point. If Donald Trump instituted any policy which had this kind of impact on black people, Hispanic people, nurses,

how could he do this? He's heartless, whatever it is. They want their revenue. They don't even tell us what the metric is. And I'll say one other thing. I'll tell you what the metric is. People are saying it's a success already, right? You've heard this? I saw that. Yeah, well, you did. You said traffic's down. Yeah, let me tell you this. They wanted it to be, it's $9, right?

It was supposed to be $17. Yeah. So how do we know that $5 wouldn't have made it? At $17, it would have said it was a success. At $100, we'll have plenty of room on that. We don't know. We don't know.

We don't know it's a failure either. Well, the point is that if it is a failure, unless they get rid of it right away, they'll never undo it. Just like rent control. Rent control, people love the market. Dan, how do you like your rent control apartment, Mr. Free Market?

That's not even relevant. Oh, not even relevant. You know why it's not relevant? Because you get the advantage of the rentcontrolled apartment, Mr. Free Market. That's not even relevant. Oh, not even relevant. You know why it's not relevant? Because you get the advantage of the rent-controlled apartment, and you don't give a shit. And you're talking about other people. You don't drive. That's the only difference. You don't fucking drive. You love your rent-controlled apartment, you fucking hypocrite.

Well, I never said I had a rent-controlled apartment. Tell me you don't. Of course you do. It was an emergency measure in the First World War. Rent-controlled. We love the market. It was an emergency measure in the first world war. Rent control. Yeah. We love the market. It's free market. Let's supply and demand control.

These people, these fucking city council people, they don't drive. They hate cars. They live in rent control apartments at the expense of their landlords. They're so fucking full of shit. Yeah. Spoiled. Well, you wanted to know what the metric is to how- Tell me if you live in a rent-controlled apartment

or you're done for the rest of the podcast. I don't live- I don't- Rent stabilized. Okay. It's not the same thing. No, it's not the same thing.

Point is, he's not paying market rent, but all of a sudden, he's all about people should pay the market price of riding on these roads. You know who's- It's such nonsense.

You know who's really up in arms about all this are the fire- the fire department is enraged about it all. Heroes. Yeah. And you know the people in rent-control apartments,

you know what that means? Less housing. This has real ramifications. People don't build because it's just, it's insane. It's insane. You wanted to know what the metric is for how we would be qualified as a success. Nobody will tell us that. I'll tell you the

metric yeah the metric is is if new yorkers are happy with it including the rich say include the rich say 70 70 percent of new yorkers are happy with you qualified that as the success no why not well for the same 70 percent of the same reason i won't qualify NAFTA as a success. Because aggregate is very easy to say a majority like it. But when you drill down to a subgroup of people, hardworking people, who are being disregarded. But the majority of New York is not rich people. The 70% is a large majority. A majority of people will say it's working for them if it doesn't cost them anything. It doesn't affect them in any

negative way, but they can only reap the benefits. Of course. Well, what percentage of New Yorkers would have to say this is great for you to say this is actually a good thing? What percentage of New Yorkers own cars also? Like, I think that that's also part of it. If you don't drive,

then it doesn't affect you and you don't get a vote, right? Go to urgent care and get that nurse to take care of you and don't give a shit about the fact that she has to pay another $200 a month to come in, but she's there for you because she's, she's using

the roads as if we don't all benefit from the people using the roads. It's such a fucking lie. Oh, well, she's using the roads, so she should pay for it. Never mind that she's coming in to help me while I'm sick. First of all, I don't know that particular nurse, hypothetical nurse you're talking about. It could be any nurse. First of all, nurses make like $200,000 a year.

I don't know if that's true. You know, and... Aaron, you're the guest. What do you want to say about this? Yeah. Look, also, you have to look at the fact, are goods going to go up in price because trucks have to come into the city? Are they going to take that? Well, you know, if a truck can deliver more easily, time is money.

If you're a truck driver, you make more deliveries, you make more money. I imagine that if you have a big truck that had a lot of shit there, the trucks pay more than $9. Let's say they pay $30. I don't know. Okay. You know, divided by all the goods, it might not add that much. It's a drop in the buck.

It might be. That's my gut. My stance is similar to yours. If when I'm driving home on a Saturday and there's traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel and sometimes it takes me an hour 10 to get home. Usually it's a 36 minute jaunt from here. If it takes me an hour 10 and then all of a sudden I'm like, oh,

it's 36 minutes every night, I'm going to be like, oh, that nine bucks isn't that bad. But I try to steal myself against that because it's very easy not to think about it. This whole state is a mess. Kathy Hochul is insane. And I'm going to tell you this, New York is

pretty close to going red. Give it two more turns. I think two more turns. You don't mean communist. No. But there's a lot of Trump people in this city and you would not. Four years ago, there were not. If you said you were a Trump supporter in this city, people would look at you

like you murdered somebody. I come to this club sometimes. I wear my gold Trump sneakers. Mind you, I haven't been here since I've done that. But I will say this. There's more support. I'll get audience members coming up after, and they're like, thank you. Thanks for saying that. Well, I go on stage and say I voted for him.

And there's jokes around it, obviously. But a few years ago, you were a pariah if you did that, especially in comedy. The winds have shifted, for sure. And by the way, one other thing. There's this congestion pricing tracker online. On the weekend, the traffic was much less coming from Jersey. Now, that's quite dangerous. Who is coming from Jersey on the weekend?

Not people working. People coming in to go to restaurants, to go shopping, whatever it is. Now, maybe, as you said, maybe, like, what if they're playing with fire here? Like, you're going to really make it. Why on the weekends? Why are they, they're playing with fire here. Like you're going to really make it. Why on the weekends? Why are they doing this on the weekends? When people come in for, for leisurely things in New York city. Saturdays are insanely busy coming through that tunnel into the city.

I have to leave. I have to give myself an hour and a half to get into the city because everybody's coming in to go out for dinner, go see shows. Yeah. Spend money. Now you think people would take their families and get in buses to come to New York City on a Saturday night and then go home on a Saturday night in some kind of mass transit?

It's fucking nonsense. It's reckless. It may be that the best congestion pricing strategy would be to have weekends exempted. But I want to get back to that nurse. That nurse might appreciate an extra half hour at home. You know, you're assuming the nurse doesn't want to pay $9 or $3 if it's after hours for an extra half hour. Okay, let's look at it this way.

First of all, and then we'll finish this. We know this. Before congestion pricing, people pay a very high price. They sit in traffic. They know the subway is $3, but they sit in traffic. They buy houses somewhere. They know the subway is $3, but they sit in traffic, they buy houses somewhere, they go through... So, they were already obviously showing that

there's not... I'm talking. There's not that much elasticity because if it was so easy, they would have already taken the subway for $3 compared to the thousands of dollars and all the time they're spending to travel by car. So, we're going to just up it until they have no choice.

The fact that we are seeing less congestion is proof that they can't afford it or it's too much for them. The rich people are not taking the subway because of this. Why'd you point to yourself when you said the rich people? So the well-to-do. So why are we seeing so much less traffic? Because people are telling us

that this is more than they want to spend. It's self-evident. Why is it more than they want to spend? Not because you say they got plenty of money. Now, maybe some people will revert. I'd say give it four weeks before we really have a baseline. But the fact is, $200 a month or $190 a month in after-tax income.

After-tax income is a lot of money for people in the middle. It's a lot of money. It's an economy car payment. You could get another car. You could be driving a Kia. That's right. This podcast brought to you by Kia. By the way, I made that point. If you look

at all the cars on the road, like I took a video driving on 7th Avenue, they're modest cars. You don't see a lot of Mercedes and BMWs on 7th Avenue. These are people who, for whatever reason, need to drive. The subway is $3, but they're spending $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 on cars.

What does that tell you? Well, it tells me that I know people that are worth quite a bit of money that drive Subarus. Oh, dang. I don't know how scientific an analysis it is to say that, well, I didn't see Mercedes and BMWs, so it's all working people. You hang out with a lot of lesbians. That may well be, but people who-

I'm talking about non-Jewish people here, Dan. Well, I don't know what people drive into the city. I know if I had a nice car, I wouldn't take it into the city, but- Of course you would. What would you do if you had a a nice car, I wouldn't take it into the city. Of course you would. What would you do if you had a really nice car? I wouldn't take it into the city. Where would you take it? So if you had a really nice car and you lived in Westchester,

you would take the train to the subway? I would take the city car if I was going to drive it. Take it to the Korean massage parlor. He's afraid because he's never driven in the city. It's very daunting. If you've never driven in the city, it's frightening. I have driven in the city. I do it all the time.

I rent cars. Ooh. I drive it all over the world. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Also, is the idea that more people are going to take the subway because they should probably do something about the fucking state of the subway?

Oh, we didn't even talk about that. The most immoral part of the whole thing is that they want to force people. It's not like London to force people on this safe bus or tube system. They want to force people on the subway where at best, their best hope is a revolting and frightening experience. Okay. Well, I don't know a single person who hasn't told me about at least once a week where they come face to face with something that frightened them or revolted them. And at worst, they can get set on fire. Now, not

everybody lives in high traffic areas. Many, many people have to take this fucking subway to, as I said, less populated places late at night, in the cold. It's fucking heartless. Well, maybe it's heartless to have your daughter driving on the Hutchinson Parkway

In the middle of the night I'd rather she take the Metro North Who was complaining about all that And by the way they want to reduce pollution I have an idea Why don't you charge people After a certain amount of time Unless they drive electric cars

You can get zero emissions And that would be fair to me. Listen, we're going to give you five years or seven years, and at the end of seven years, we're going to charge every car that has a gas engine X amount of dollars. Okay?

That's fair to me because at least you have another choice and you have time to adjust to it. If you're going to call people heartless, it's heartless maybe to have emergency vehicles that can't get to a patient because of congestion. The city streets are no less congested.

Well, you just said there is less congestion. The commute is quicker, but once you get off, the cities are the same. I feel like we really glossed over my subway point. Oh, brother. And by the way, it's not just pushing people onto the subway, which you might have a point, and the subway needs to be cleaned up. It's pushing people onto the subway, which you might have a point, and the subway needs to be cleaned up.

It's pushing people onto Metro North, which is perfectly safe and wonderful. No, it was just a shooting on Metro North. No, no, no. We're talking about the subways, too. I know, but I'm saying a lot. First of all, my town has no Metro North station. You drive to the station. I used to drive to Old Greenwich.

We have no parking because we don't have a permit at that station. It leaves at a particular hour. It means you have to have count on maybe two hours less with your family. You have to get up at a certain time. Then when you come home, you have to get home late. And then, by the way, when you get to Penn Station or Grand Central Station, Metro North Grand Central Station, a whole new inconvenience awaits you because you may not work on 43rd Street

you may work he is correct it's a fucking nightmare for people during the day the subway is I think it's perfectly safe because you live in a fucking rent control apartment on the Upper East Side and this doesn't affect you at all

a lot of things don't affect me if there were a Governor Abbott remember Governor Abbott said all the if there were a Governor Abbott... Remember Governor Abbott said all the... If there were a Governor Abbott type solution to this, where somebody could send the migrants to the people who were complaining,

who were looking down their nose at the people complaining about a problem, the way a fucking liberals used to look down their nose at people in border towns complaining about all the migrants and whatever it is. There was some way just for a week to impose this problem onto the people in favor of congestion pricing. Just some way that they could have to deal with it for a month. And then ask them how they feel about it. I've dealt with an analogous situation.

The prices of Ubers, they stopped doing UberPool, which by the way, Uber Pool might come up, might come back. Via might come back. But when they stopped doing Uber Pools during the pandemic, I was effectively pushed onto the subway. I don't take I used to take cabs home all the time from from the comedy seller. I almost never do anymore. I take either the subway or when the weather is good. I take the city electric city bike, which by the way is great. But be careful.

Do you wear a helmet? Be careful. I don't wear a helmet. Right. So it's great until God forbid you get smushed on. But the fact is, I mean, you're right. I don't have to go home at three in the morning. But I do take public transportation almost exclusively.

I want permission to use anything that we've said today at your funeral. A lot of people get hit on bikes. A lot of people get hit on bikes. You're right. And you should be wearing a helmet. For multiple reasons. The larger point is that I have been effectively pushed out

of private cars. Some people get pushed in front of subways. And some people get hit by cars. Our dear friend James Mattern got hit by a car. Why? Because, I don't know. Was he yelling at it? He only looked one way.

But people, we do, there's a comic that got killed on a city bike. Where you driving, boobas? Boom. Let's ask you, do you have a new project or something that we have you on here for, or are you just shooting the shit with us? I'm shooting the shit. I got two movies on Amazon right now. One is called First Shift.

One is called Con Job. One's really funny. The other one's really dramatic. These are low-budget films? How much are you putting in? I don't know. Are these films that you were involved with the production yourself? No, I was an actor in both of these films.

And then I'm working on a movie with Troy Duffy, who wrote Boondock Saints. We're writing a movie right now. Nice. Yeah. That's a good career. I guess. Sure.

What kind of characters are you playing? Well, in Con Job, I'm a jacked-up personal trainer who loves drugs. Dean Edwards is in that as well. Really fun film. And First Shift, I play a drug dealer uh crosses over some mob guys directed by uve bowl you know that name no i'm notoring notoriously known as one of the worst directors of all time makes a comeback with this movie that is

straight up the middle not shit it's insane what, what movie did he do that was terrible? Oh, there's a litany. And then he, he used to box his critics. People would go online and say, your movies are shit. And he goes,

meet me and I'll fight you. And he'd meet and fight these people. Awesome. Yeah. He's the guy that originated this. This is like before Alex Jones started calling people out, wanting to fight them and stuff like that. Alex Jones. Now,

but you, you are, you are associated with those Legion of skanks people, right? I do Legion of skanks often. Yeah. I'm having a big, big Twitter feud with Dave Smith.

Well, Dave Smith is very controversial. I disagree with him. Mostly on Israel, but he's a, he's a really smart guy. Good debate. Have you debated him?

On this show? No, I might take issue with whether he's a good debater. No, I think he's, of course he's a good debater. Yeah, I think he's a very good debater. Yeah, I've reached out to him about Israel a few times, then he just never responds to the facts. I've never seen his stand-up.

I only know Dave Smith as a pundit and as an outspoken critic of Israel and an outspoken libertarian, but he's a comic, at least initially. Of course. Yeah, I think. He has a special on YouTube now. It's pretty good. Yeah, and I don't know if his standup is as political as he makes himself out to be by the norm.

But there's such a crossover with comics now, delving into politics. I mean, you look at, you could say Rogan made this election for Trump and it's like, a few years ago, you remember the guy that was trying to cancel all the comics, Seth Simons, and he was like, these are not just jokes. Oh, you had him here. He wrote about Me Too. He wrote a whole article about that. Oh, he used to come after me all the time. About Me Too,

the movement, or Noam also? Noam also. Noam as well. Noam as well, yeah. well uh but yeah he was he was years ago he's like these comics are not just doing comedy they're doing and it was amazing to see if there was one thing he was right about how comedy and politics merged and there was this this big turn and you know seeing tony doing the msg thing and stuff like that it was and don't get me wrong i would love to do that trump senior advisor came and watched me two weeks ago and uh and they were like oh you're hilarious

and i was like i'd love to go to mar-a-lago and they're like come to mar-a-lago we'll arrange it and all this stuff because i'm enamored and i i voted for the guy this is the first time i voted in an american election by the way um because i'm an immigrant, and I'm going to the inauguration, and I got, like, special roof deck access and stuff like that, and I'm really excited. It's exciting for me. It's very exciting. But yeah, Legion of Skanks,

Lewis, Jay, Dave, all great. The show is great. What they do with Skank Fest is amazing. Amazing. I saw them in Vegas. Yeah. I told Dave this when he came on. It's a tremendous accomplishment, what they've done.

They went from being just these three guys that talk dirty, and Jay was kind of the big guy in that, and everyone's like, why is Jay hanging out with these guys? And then everybody elevated because of this. It's like an East Coast Kill Tony with less special needs people

on it. This is my thing. I don't like that Dave's anti-Israel, but being anti-Israel is not something that we're not used to. And with all these

people dying, poor people dying in Gaza, you expect that some people will be anti-Israel. My goodness, many people in Israel are objecting to what's going on there. But there's something else going on. And, you know, I wonder how you feel about this. And I'm worried about my thing with Dave because I don't want it to spin out of control and I lose my... Is this current? Like this is happening right now? But

I am very concerned about anti-Semitism. And Dave has become very, very influential. Comedians as, I mean, Sam Harris refers to him. It's not just in the comedy world.

Serious heavyweights are referring to him. He has Joe, forget about Tony, it's okay. He has Joe Rogan's ear. I think he's somewhat of a Svengali, Dave. And he is, my objection is that he's friendly now with Jake Shields, Candace Owens. He won't say a negative word about them. Now, these are not people who are anti-Israel. I mean, they are anti-Israel.

I couldn't care less that who are anti-Israel. I mean, they are anti-Israel. I couldn't care less that they're anti-Israel. I've never mentioned the fact that they're anti-Israel in any one of my conversations with Dave. These people are saying that Jews are draining the blood of Christians. Right. That Zionism was created to be a pedophile refuge, to create a pedophile refuge state. Yeah, and it was just one island. That Stalin was Jewish, that LBJ was Jewish, that Kamala Harris

was Jewish. Like the most vile, anti-Semitic things there are. Right. And in my opinion, he's lending them an air of acceptability and credibility by going on these shows,

doesn't challenge them, hides, in my opinion, behind these arguments of, well, you know, anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is just a label that people use to try to censor people. And now it's true that not just Jews, blacks, gays, my middle child, people will resort to whatever things they can to make excuses.

And it's true that Jews sometimes complain things are anti-Semitic. racism away or not just blacks, but people concerning that issue will use racism as a way of tarring people to try to put them on the defensive. So they're afraid to say, we all know this, they're afraid to say what they want to say. But in situations of gradualism, you sometimes do have to draw a line. So just because you think that just because too many people saying abortion is murder at conception doesn't mean you say, well, people say that, so, you know, let's have abortion even during labor. Or, you know, too many people are saying that, I don't know, that something which is not is child porn. People are using that as an excuse to shut down the porn industry. So let's not have child porn as a label anymore.

Let's just allow everything. Or too many people are saying that children, too many Israelis are claiming, now who would it be? Too many people are saying that young people in Gaza are fighters. They're trying to qualify these people as fighters. Right.

Right. So let's no longer qualify fighters. Let's just kill anybody. You know, and these are off the top of my head. The point is that at some point,

you have to be able to distinguish between, yes, reckless accusations of anti-Semitism without giving up your right to say, this is Nazis. Right. This is fucking, yes, yes, a lot of anti-Semitism is crying wolf,

but that doesn't mean we're never going to claim there's anybody who's an anti-Semite again. And I'm going to pal around with them. And I'm going to, you know, essentially, as I said, lend the air of respectability to these people and these views. It horrifies me. And they know very well that Dave's Jewish. Yeah.

And don't fucking think for a minute that they don't realize that it's advantageous to them to have a Jew on. To have a Jew on who gives them their kind of stamp of approval or acceptance. Yeah, and he's not

the only Jew that is on that side, I'm sure. No, but he's the most prominent now. Right. It's not about Israel. People don't like Jews.

No, that's the point. It's that it's not about Israel. And there's a difference, and I didn't want to interrupt you, but I do think that this distinction is very important. There is a difference between being critical of the Israeli government and being anti-Israel. But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to segregate the whole Israel issue. And the point is that they always tell us being critical of Israel

is not anti-Semitism. And they're right. But there's also a huge overlap. But I'm saying that, fine, if you want to be the champion of the cause, being critical of Israel is not anti-Semitism, then at some

point you have to be ready to identify anti-Semitism. Otherwise, you're the one connecting them so now what it is is when you call somebody an anti-semit it's like what happened four years ago when you would do racial jokes or you would do satire and people be like that's racist and it got to the point where so many people said that's racist racist just became a term where it's like just stop with what you're doing that That's nearly what's happening with antisemitism now. And it's been prevalent for so long.

And now it's rearing its ugly head way more than it ever had. I mean, the 40s, of course. But it's a huge thing. That being said, he's probably thinking, and I don't know how Dave thinks, but I bet he's thinking, look, freedom of speech is at the base of all of this. These people are allowed to have their thoughts. Candace can have her thoughts.

Jake can have his thoughts. The same way as when I go online and I see IDF videos where they're fucking massacring people, and I get excited about it because I'm like, oh, that's payback. And when the pager thing dropped, and I was like, I got excited about the because I'm like, oh, that's payback. And when the pager thing dropped and I was like, I got excited about the pager thing. Yeah. But, but the whole, um, theory of free speech and I absolutely, I'm not asking any of these people to be censored. I even wanted to have a Holocaust denial debate at the, at the underground years ago. And I remember people

people thought I was crazy. How would you cater that? Kosher. It's that the principle of free speech is based on the presumption that you're going to have people battling things out in the marketplace of ideas. I'm not asking Dave to advocate censorship for anybody. I'm saying if somebody is going to talk about Jews draining the blood of Christians at Passover, and you go on a

show, he will not even call it, they will not call it anti-Semitic. He'll say, well, he has said some negative things about Jews. This is making a farce of everything. Because free speech is about debate. It's about clash of ideas so the best ideas emerge.

But there's a whole other issue here because these people are hip and cool and have cultural cachet. And they're very influential to people who don't read. And all they get from this is, this guy Jake Shields is not so bad. This woman Candace Owens is not so bad. If they were bad, these people I admire wouldn't be hanging with these guys. So they're sending a very, very powerful message

that is shocking to me. It's as if David Duke was piling around with the hippest movie stars. That would never have happened. What do you attribute that Dave's with the hippest movie stars, that would never have happened. Right. Well, what do you attribute that Dave's,

is he just doing this because his followers would turn on him if he criticized Jake Shepard? I don't know. No. Dave is a really smart guy. When I sit down and I talk to him, and we don't talk about Israel often. We'll talk about other stuff. We'll talk Israel often. We'll talk about other stuff.

We'll talk about politics. We'll talk about the election. Pussy. I mean, it's just I know that we're going to disagree on it, and I know he's probably better read. I know I don't drink the blood of Christians. None of them will come over to Passover at my house because of the fear of it. But it's like the line for me between free speech and hate speech

is that which incites violence. Is that how you define it? Well, that's the legal line as well. I mean, incitement to violence is illegal and pretty much anything else that you say is legal. My attachment to Israel and to Judaism is primarily emotional because I was raised reform, but I feel a pride. And it's an emotional thing for me. It's not like, hey, here's everything I read this week. I'm going to lay out what's happening in Gaza. I don't do that. But I do know that I call it know if you're going to be I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be

I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able

I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're going to be able to do that. I don't know if you're this point. Which they do not, but... What?

Well, I'm just saying, saying the Jews run the banks is not in and of itself anti-Semitic, unless, of course, the Jews don't run the banks, and you're implying that they do, and that they do it in a nefarious sort of a way. Then there's this whole thing about the Jews are behind everything now. 9-11, did you hear this? In Justin Pricing, I've heard Jews are behind it. Candace Owens has said that. Yeah.

And she's also said that the Jews are behind killing John F. Kennedy. Really? Yeah. They're also saying that the Jews are behind the wildfires in California today. Look, look. I'm serious. Yes, they are. You're not.

I'm sorry. There's just no way I can process what's going on I think you need to talk to Dave about this He won't come on the show now Why? Have you gone on his show? What's that? Have you gone on his show?

No, I've never been invited It's called Nazi Talk What's your beef on Twitter right now? What's going on on Twitter? Look, I don't know if there's anything in it for Dave to come on this show Because he's going to get what's in it for him. Why would he come on? We had it.

Well, he could stand up for what he believes in. So we had an incident in the comedy community years ago. I don't want to mention the guy's name because I don't want his crazy fans coming. Lenny Bruce. Yeah. But a guy we know and we liked to some extent, you know, really exposed some really vile racist behavior and talk. Was it me?

No, it wasn't you. And, you know, I may have mentioned this once on the show, but I did not publicly do it. I cut myself off from that guy. I didn't let him do any shows in the club. I wouldn't want to go on shows that he was associated with. I knew how, first of all, I felt it in my heart. how black people, comedians, were pained by the fact that so many people just pretended this guy wasn't saying this kind of stuff.

Yeah. And this is beyond that. These people are talking about Jews, Christian children disappearing on Passover. Now, first of all, there's a whole other aspect to this, which is forget about the fact that it's anti-Semitic or about Jews.

Why are you wasting your time talking to somebody such a fucking idiot? Like, what is it beyond the audience? You're a serious guy. You want to have serious conversations. Let me go talk to the guy who thinks that dogs talk and people levitate. Unless you're talking to him because you want to make a farce out of him, you're talking to somebody or you think that reasonable minds can differ

about whether Christians are really being drained of blood. Why are you wasting your time talking to a fucking idiot? Well, you could say, why are you wasting your time tweeting at Dave Smith all the time? I thought you said, why are you wasting your time talking to Aaron Carter? Oh, no. Like, you're tweeting at Dave Smith, telling him, please come on, please come on,

for the same reason, because he's influential. No, because he's influential. Yes. Is that why you're talking to Jake Neal? I'm fighting for a cause. Right. I understand very well that the comedy community is aware when I go back and forth with Dave Smith. And I don't want this fucking stuff spreading either in the comedy community.

In a certain little way, I feel like I have some leverage at a certain somewhat significant bottleneck. I don't kid myself to think I'm going to change the whole tide of things. But it's something. somewhat significant bottleneck. I don't kid myself to think I'm going to change the whole tide of things, but it's something. It's at least something pops up in people's brains that I've made such noise about this. Because I want to fight. Yeah, I'm Jewish. I want to fight against anti-Semitism,

but I also want to fight against bigotry, which is the reason that I didn't do What's-His-Name's show all the time. Some things are fucking wrong. You know, at some point things matter. How many people have died in history fueled by this kind of stuff, by ideas, lies,

hateful ideas about other people? We're pretending like, oh, this is just playtime. It's not just playtime. And it's not about criticizing Israel. Criticize Israel based on the facts. Fine. I mean, I don't like it. I mean, I don't like it.

I should say I don't like it. It's tough to hear. It's not pleasant to hear your side trashed or, God forbid, lose an argument. This has nothing to do with Israel. Israel didn't exist when these arguments were invented. That's right. These are arguments that existed a thousand years ago before Zionism was even conceived of.

This has nothing to fucking do with Israel. These are the ideas that made Israel necessary. It was the byproduct of these ideas and their results in the world which made the Jews desperate, which fueled the pogroms, which fueled the Holocaust, which is why we feel we need Israel. which made the Jews desperate, which fueled the pogroms, which fueled the Holocaust,

which is why we feel we need Israel. It's a fucking lie to say it's about criticism of Israel. And I don't understand you that you think this is something, this is not funny games. What would I say? You say, well, if he's going to be influential, why are you doing it?

You don't see the difference? Because I'm trying to explain to you why Dave is going on Jake Shields' show, because Jake is influential, and because Dave is fighting for a cause, a bankrupt cause in my estimation, that cause being his anti-Israel cause. Dave doesn't need to go on Jake Shields. Well, he's going on Jake Shields, so I'm telling you why I think he's doing so.

Not defending it. But there's a reason he's going on Jake Shields' show. And that reason is Jake has influence and Dave is fighting for his bankrupt car. There is a real Overton window shift in this country because nobody should be going on Jake Shields' show and bashing the Jews. No more than anybody should be going on David Duke's show and bashing blacks and say, oh, there's fucking affirmative action. Huh, Dave? Yeah. Yeah. fucking blacks.

This is not the way people who have respect for themselves and care about certain things. This is not libertarianism. It's how libertarians believe that nothing matters. It's all fun and games and showbiz. Libertarians believe in the importance of ideas. Libertarians believe in the importance of ideas. Libertarians believe in the importance of ideas so much that they don't want to ever take the risk that somebody's idea is squelched

because it could be right. But that doesn't mean they don't believe in debate. That doesn't mean they don't believe in bashing. I mean, he'll bash a neocon. He'll call him neocon names. Right? That's what he thinks he's supposed to do. He's fighting for what he believes in. right? He'll call him neocon names, right? No, like that's,

that's what he thinks he's supposed to do. He's fighting for what he believes in, but then turn a blind eye to someone who says that the Jews are draining Christian blood. This is fucking outrageous. It boggles my mind. Has somebody that's Jewish could believe that I hate you're right, but I hate to say that because nobody should feel that nobody should do that.

No, I mean, unless you believe that as a non-Jew that because nobody should feel that. Nobody should do that. I mean, unless you believe that as a non-Jew that, oh, maybe this is possible. Let me hear him out. Fine. Hear him out. But obviously we know there's no there there. There's no fact he's going to, there's no like little known argument of, there's no basis to this. It's an aggressive sect of anti-Semites,

and they're becoming more prevalent. Most of them are real soft-spoken losers. Like, when we did the stand-up for Israel shows and people would come out and protest, I'd yell back at them. So it was me, Judy Gold, Voss. You did one in New York that we did. And they'd come up and they'd go, they just stopped killing children. Stop.

And they had a megaphone. And I go, stop raping women! And they did not know what to do when confronted with male aggression. They did not know how to come back at it. And now there's this whole brand of, you know, Jake Shields was an MMA fighter and it's like, you know,

these other people are very adjacent. Candace Owens is a very aggressive woman, you know, very alpha woman. So now these people are having this trickle-down effect where laymen are going to believe this shit. But shouldn't the intellectual anti-Israel movement, of which I will call Dave Smith a prominent member of, shouldn't they, if they're really operating in good faith, completely separate themselves from the non-intellectual Nazis? I mean, I guess we might believe this, though. Yes, but how many times do I have to say most of these people are not operating in good faith?

Okay, well, that, you know, I don't know. How many people do we have to have on the show? And I won't name names. Define good faith, and then I can tell you whether I agree with you. It means when presented with, thinking of a very specific person, presented with the opportunity

to have a conversation with an expert from the other side. Norman Fickleson? No, I'm not. Whatever. I'm happy. I'm only not saying who it is because... John, you can bleep this out if we need you to. Okay, go ahead.

I'm talking about Aaron Maté. Okay, go ahead. You can talk about Aaron. Who said that there were no women israeli women to corroborate the eyewitness testimony that they were raped on october 7th and i said it's hard to corroborate that you were raped if you're also killed yeah and then he said whatever he said and then we said well how about we find someone who we all agree is an expert? Because I mentioned Zaka and they said that he said they weren't reliable.

So what? Aaron refused to do it. He totally fucking disappeared. I don't think Aaron would refuse to do it. Well, I have about three emails. Anyway, your larger point. And so I'm saying, and Finkelstein fits this bill as well. Except Finkelstein would not be caught dead.

Would not be caught dead being obsequious or kind to somebody talking about the Jews draining Christian blood. Whatever. You can split hairs if you want. It's the same category for me of this is not operating in good faith. This is fucking bullshit. And it's, I'm not, I can't. I don't agree. I actually don't agree with you.

You don't, you don't agree that saying that you're going to have a conversation with an expert on the rapes and then just disappearing is that's good faith. That's like, you're really going to have a conversation. It's bullshit. You don't actually care. You don't actually want to know if people were raped. Because if you did, you would show up for that conversation. Well, let's see if he really wants to show up to it. Well, hi, Aaron.

I've sent you four emails and I haven't heard from you. And we'd love to have you back on the show. And also, has anyone here tried Christian blood? Of course. Anyway, I would like to go on record and say that, you know,

I'm very proud of you. I think it's a very honorable thing that you're doing. And I'm proud of you too because you've been a very loud voice. Yeah yeah i don't think it's uh although i am curious about your love for mr trump i thought you were to say about his uh his fur jacket i like his fur i dig it well some people some people are very against fur as well it's not i think it's a faux fur right's rabbits. Wait, are you like obsessed with Trump

because you're enamored by him for real? Or was, like, were you always like this? I'm going to explain to you, when immigrants move here from another country, especially a third world country. Like Canada? You love America. I fell in love with the idea of America

since I was a child. I always wanted to live in America. it took me 10 years to move here thirty thousand dollars um had to get like oh one visas green card and then you move here based on the notion of america as i grew up on it which was reagan's america so you have this love affair with it. And then you just start seeing what happens. You start seeing the effects of extreme liberalism. And you're like, I want someone to change this. And then when they shot at him, that was exciting afterwards. The RNC was excited.

I mean, when he got up and he said, where's my shoes? It was hilarious. And then the RNCc was exciting watching our childhood heroes like hulk hogan run all that was missing was scott baio and then and some of this is facetious of course and then uh i watched the dnc and i was very impartial and i was like oh they seem really excited over kamala harris this could be really close. And then watching him run away with it was like, oh, Americans get it. But I think it's interesting that you're from Canada. We can certainly understand why somebody from a third world country would love America.

But somebody from Canada, which is a great country, you say it's not. But why did you dream? What is it about America as opposed to Canada why did you dream what is it about america as opposed to canada that made you dream other than the better weather the more tempered climate there was some i mean doing stand-up comedy there was definitely a glass ceiling in canada about how far you could get be especially being a dirty comic um and then there was this appeal of new york this place was here cringe humor was there there was there. There was all this stamp of approval that you could get. Well, America's definitely

cooler than Canada. Sure. Canada's going through a swing right now. Trudeau's resigned, quote unquote. I mean, America is just more going on here. But in terms of freedom,

do you see a difference between that here in Canada? They arrest people for speech violations in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. There's human rights tribunals. There was people that did stand-up in Canada, and they would do crowd work, and they weren't good stand-ups,

but they'd be like, look at these lesbians, and used a lesbian slur, and this guy had to pay like $80,000. He was like an open-mic comedian. There's definitely freedom of mic comedian. There's definitely freedom of speech here. There's freedom of the marketplace and it's just

more exciting. And I feel like, I love where I came from, but Canada's gone, when you go back to Toronto, it's not the Toronto I grew up in. I never left Toronto myself. I should just say about Trump, you know, whenever I hear anybody,

and by the way, some of my closest friends in the world make you look like you're middle of the road on Trump. I'm surrounded by people who just adore this man. Sure. I'm not with you guys because the guy is so erratic. You're a loser, Noam. You're a loser. You're a fraud.

I'm going to call you loser, Noam. You're a loser. I'm low energy. Can't even fight Dave Smith. He's a loser. He's a loser. Why? No, he's so erratic, so kind of dishonest.

There's just so many things about him that I... He's entertaining, but come on. But having said all that, there's no question I lean in his direction on most policies. Most policies. Like, we should take Greenland tomorrow. Wake up, gnome. And I was very happy that he came out in favor of the H-1B visas. You like the H-1Bs.

Doesn't sound too much like Hebe to you? It sounds a lot like Hebe. I recognize that there are arguments on the other side that are legit in terms of using it as a way to pay less so to avoid hiring Americans. I mean, I don't want to be stupid. My diehard Trump friends hate the H-1B thing. They're divided. But yeah, I think highly skilled people

should be able to come into this. In general. And pay congestion price. The notion that there could be tremendously talented people who want to come in and we don't want to let them in in numbers that would help the country,

this smacks of a kind of ethnocentrism, ethnocentrism bigotry. Do you want to say fascism? No, not fascist. But what if they were all Hasidim that wanted to come in? I don't think we're anywhere near the levels

with H-1Bs. It's such a wave of people that we have to think about the consequences of integrating them and things like that. We're talking about a relatively small number of people who are punching way above their weight in terms of the benefits that they can bring to this country. It's really weird to me that people don't understand this is, you look at almost any industry, it was started by some immigrant H-1B type of a different era that came in here. Maybe they just came because there were no rules at the time. But this is where the country has grown from, is smart people from other countries.

Is it worth asking ourselves a question? Why aren't there as many homegrown people that that are at this level? I think there are. But I think they're just saying, let's bring in other people that can help out. But there's also this thing that was happening in Silicon Valley where they were bringing in these immigrants and then they were they were claiming that they were making two hundred thousand dollars a year but it was a service that was placing them in these technological jobs and then the service was taking the crux of the income yeah yeah and paying these people forty dollars which is basically human trafficking on a

higher level yeah whatever you want to call like yeah that's that, that's, that's a, that's a lie. And I'm not in favor of the lies. I'm, I'm in favor of actually bringing in super talented people that are not easily found at home or, or also, well, you're lucky I'm here today. Well,

did you get also just to take them from the other countries? Like, it's not just about what they can do here. It's about not letting them do it there. Yeah. This is important. Because then America wins. Yes.

Steve Jobs was a Syrian. Well, he was born here. That's a really good pick. His father. When you're like, we're stealing their best, that's how it should be worded for Republicans. Stealing their best. We're stealing their best.

We're bringing them here. America first. I'm pretty sure Jobs was born in the United States to a Syrian biological father. Yeah, but at some point I'm saying that someone who didn't want these people in here would have meant no Steve Jobs. Let's not go crazy with this stuff.

We are a nation of immigrants. And my biggest beef with the immigration thing has been A, the disorder of it. B, at a certain level, it just becomes so many people at one time, like, you know, add ingredients, stir. Like, we need to stir to allow some kind of assimilation. Otherwise, you have pockets that just become unto themselves, like the Hasidim. Yeah, well, but they'll never, in all likelihood, assimilate.

Right, so I wouldn't want millions of Hasids here, right? So I'm worried about that. And number three, there is an anti-American cultural element that we see within, this is new, within immigrant communities that really does worry me. I don't know if any of these apply to the H-1B issue. We hope not. I mean, if it does, then I would have to

reconsider. But to me, and Trump's instincts are a businessman's instinct. He knows. These are talented people. These are not people sneaking over the border. These are not leeches on our taxpayer.

These are people we should want in this country. Yeah, it's a good pitch. If we believe what we say we believe about not caring about skin color and race and all this stuff, and we believe then that people are people and that, you know, that...

Of course, a lot of people don't. You know, other countries have white people, you know. What's that? Other countries have white people. Other countries have white people. Yeah. Well, and you know... But the H-1B, the tech people, you know. What's that? Other countries have white people. Other countries have white people. Well, and you know. But the H-1B,

the tech people, I think there's a, there is a, certainly a disproportionate number of people from, I guess, India. But you know, it does crack me up

about this whole H-1B debate, although I don't have the examples, but I'm pretty sure I'm right. The same people who are so in favor of the H-1B visas are the very same people who are outraged that the colleges can no longer

distinguish based on race for admissions. It's fucking hypocrites, right? Oh, we have to take them. It doesn't matter where they come from. But once they get here, we don't want too many Indians or Chinese at Harvard. It's like, you know, they make it up as they go. The Chinese had it tough at Harvard for the last couple of years.

Yes, they did. Thanks to Trump. Thanks to Trump, they can be treated as people now. Yeah. When you were coming, trying to get your citizenship, did you have an artist visa? You tried to prove that you bring somebody to the table. He married him. This is after gay marriage, right?

He married a busboy. We were in New Hampshire. We opened up an antiquing shop. I had to get, oh, you had to collect. First, you had to make noise. So in Canada, I started at Yuck Yucks, which was a chain of comedy clubs. Mark Breslin. You'd love him. You guys would get along very.

The Jewish? Very simpatico. Yeah. Very like a Canadian Bud Friedman type character. He's got his own booth at the back where it says reserve. No monocle, but very short guy, little Hugo Boss suits, custom fit. And you had to make noise. So I did like a one-man show about when I was a stripper and a gigolo and all this stuff, which was very.

Wait a minute. Now you tell us how the show's ending. You were a gigolo? Yeah. You were? Yes. For how long? We got 10 minutes just to talk about that A year and a half

You used to bang women? Yeah Okay, come on Okay Were any of them attractive? Let me address while I do this Did you do any research on that guest? No

So I was a bodybuilder I went through a breakup when I was 20 years old Melissa was her name Loved this girl Her ex-boyfriend was this bodybuilder And I was like, maybe if I'm a bodybuilder i started i went through a breakup when i was 20 years old melissa was her name love this girl her ex-boyfriend was this bodybuilder and i was like maybe if i'm a bodybuilder i'll get her back so now what was your physique like scrawny little schlubby jew like my physique almost as bad and uh and so i started working out started doing roids right away with it within a year and a half won my first contest 1994 mr toronto wow within a year and a half full of there's still pictures of it around i had hair

i was gorgeous fake tan it was great and then as a bodybuilder you're like okay i can do two things be a bouncer or be a stripper so i tried bouncing but i had a philosophy degree so i'm just sitting there reading kirkagard while people walk in and i'm way too short to do that i'm five six so i go and i start stripping i was training at this gym where all these strippers and i go i want to do this and they're like okay here's this guy i call them up i call up i go do like an amateur night stripper thing dressed as a construction worker went out made like 200 bucks had a three-way with these two girls and i was like this is the best job in the world. And then I started... I don't even care if they're Nazis. Go ahead.

And then I was stripping in Toronto, this place called Fantasy Male Review. And you would start... It was like a comedy club. You had to do Wednesdays, Thursdays. If you got good enough, you would get weekend spots. So I worked my way up to weekend spots.

I'm on roids. I'm looking great. You go fully naked, by the way. So you have to masturbate, tie an elastic around your cock and balls, go out, and then on the third song. But the roids shrink your balls too, right? Yeah, but you don't fuck with balls, no. Okay, okay. So my balls are tiny now.

I'm on testosterone replacement. So I would go out. My mom came one night to watch me. This is the most Jewish mom thing. She brought my aunt, who was like a famous cookbook author, and they snuck in. I told my mom, I go, we strip.

We don't go naked or anything. Sure enough, she shows up, go naked. I go over for dinner the next night. She's like, we came to watch your show last night. You're very talented. And at that point, you're like, mom, you're supposed to intervene and say, don't do this. Anyways, I'm stripping.

Sundays were gay night. Wait, wait, slow down a second. Why did you have to jerk off? Can't we have 10 minutes left? Stop interrupting. No, I want to understand why you're- Because you can't show soft cock. So if I go out and I show my soft cock,

which is only six inches, I can't show soft cock. So if I go out and I show my soft cock, which is only six inches, I can't just do that. You have to get hard and then tie an elastic around it. That keeps you hard? Keeps you hard. Like a cock ring? A cock ring, but you use an elastic. Wait, six inches soft?

Are you serious? I'm joking. And so Sundays you would work gay night, whether you wanted to or not. So there was this crew of guys I worked with. One was this- He says that to kind of imply that he didn't want to, but he wanted to. Yeah, it was great.

The money was great. That was how he met your boyfriend for the MTV show. And then I got married. And so there was this Russian homophobe named Wolf, and he was like, I hate these, I'm going to say a word you have to believe. Can you believe it?

I hate these goddamn faggots. God made them wrong. They're a mistake. I hate to be here. Why they make us work this? And then he'd go, he's like, I don't let these faggots touch me. They have AIDS. Like it was that type of belief that he could catch AIDS by being touched.

And then he went on to buy a club in Dallas called La Berra, which is the most upper tier male strip club in America. It's still around. He runs a place. There's a documentary on Amazon about it. So we're gay nights. And then from there, there'd be guys that'd be like,

will you come back to my place and do a private show for me? So you go back to their place and you would jerk off in front of these dudes and they'd pay you 150 bucks. And so- That's it? It was 94.

Fair enough. And then there was like, you would have sex women would come up and be like i want to go out with you and the club owner taught you you have to tell these women your money your time is worth money you can't go out with them unless they pay you so girls would be like can i i want to suck your dick and i'm like i can't go out the club doesn't let us unless she's like i got 50 bucks i'm like okay and then literally and then i was banging this russian mobster's wife and she that she was 300 bucks a get and she'd just come back to my place and she's like come on fuck me fucking good and then how old was she i was 23 20 how old was the

was the russian mobster 40 45 but weren't you worried that he was going to find out and kill you? Yeah, but you're smoking weed all the time, having the time of your life. It was amazing. And then there was one girl. This was on my one-year anniversary of working at the club. I never had sex with somebody in the club. This girl gets three dances from me, $60. She goes, come on, fuck me.

And I go, I can't fuck you for $60. And I go upstairs, and I'm like, the girl wants me to fuck her. And they're like, go fuck her. What's wrong with you't fuck you for 60 and i go upstairs and i'm like the girl wants me to fuck and they're like go fuck her what's wrong with you you gay and i go no i don't want to get fired they're like go fuck her and i go come on we go my friend gives me a condom i put a condom in my sock because you're just wearing socks shoes and a g-string and i go come on and i take she goes i don't have any more money i don't worry about it come on it grabs my dick slides it in i know the condom's there i know i'm supposed to grab the condom but i'm so taken

by the moment i slide in i'm telling you two pumps just it's so wrong so beautiful the biggest load i've ever come in my life inside of this one balls deep balls deep i do a couple more pumps so she doesn't know i came that quick and i pull out and she goes i'm so glad we did that and i go why and she goes i'm getting married tomorrow and i was so another man is raising your child we don't know that but it was just this moment where you're like oh my god you know how they say like men are pigs the women that you would see in this club were insane i'd go naked women would come up grab my cock try and yank it we had a female security guard she grabbed this girl that threw her down the stairs she was a cop the woman that got thrown down the stairs and she's like i'm a cop and she's like you just

grabbed his dick motherfucker um why is it why haven't you made a screenplay out of this? That's what I'm working on with Troy Duffy right now. And I had a one-man show that I did. And it was an hour. And I did it for seven years when I first moved here. I do it on stage all the time. And it was murdering. And I was like, this is a perfect HBO hour.

I didn't have the right connections at the time. So I let that material fall by the wayside and then I started doing the comedy that I do now. And now I'm like, I gotta bring that stuff back because it's so fucking amazing. 100%. Is there something you're not telling us?

Let's get back to congestion pricing. Why are you hard, Nom? The women were begging you to fuck them, but certainly some of the men were begging for that as well. Yeah. And the question I have is, how far did you go with the men? I jerk off in front of dudes, and that was it.

You're saying no man ever sucked your cock? No, no man ever sucked my cock. A thousand bucks, you wouldn't let the guy suck your cock? No. They'd grab my nipples sometimes. Men would grab my nipples as I jerked. Well, you're telling me... Were the men more respectful than the women?

Yeah, and the money was great. They'd just sit there. You could smoke cigarettes back then. But they probably knew it was straight. I would imagine that the reason men are more respectful is the same reason that women can hit cops. There's no repercussions. When a man is out of line, he gets his ass kicked.

When a woman's out of line, that's not the threat. And then I started pimping a girl. Oh, my God. And that was the end of it for me. So there was this Muslim girl, fell in love with me. I had a four-way, her, her friend, me and my friend, named French Kiss. And so I slept with her, he slept, her friend, me and my friend named French Kiss. And so I slept with her. He slept with her friend.

Then we swapped. This was very common back then, three ways, four ways. We'd do everything. And then she came by the club a couple days later, and her friend goes, she loves you. And I go, oh, that's great. And she goes, no, you were her first. She really loves you.

And this girl was 21 years old came from this great muslim family and i didn't know what to do and i had this friend named johnny thor still around he's like 65 years old still body builds was a crackhead was a pimp um still around can get him on the phone if i want to and real crap voice he's talking been through up in the jail seen him in jail and um he goes b this girl loves you and i go yeah i i can't i'm not gonna date this muslim girl you gotta turn her out and i go what do you mean turn around but you gotta make a living off this chick turn her into hoe and i said i don't know how to do that it was up and show you how you're gonna

tell her your time is worth money she wants to fucking be with you she's gonna fucking she's gonna fucking support you she's gonna pay for your condo she's gonna pay for your roids gotta pay for your gym membership pay for your car i go how she can do that you make her strip i took this girl took her from this great family where she was she was like an A-plus student and was probably going to go to college. And I made her start stripping at this club and she would give me all of her money and she'd be like, when are we going to move in together?

And I was like, I'll put her in this motel. And then I started to feel really bad about it because it's not a good thing to do. So I ended it, and I went back to college. I went and finished my degree in philosophy. I moved provinces. It's like if I lived here, I'd move three states away or whatever, finish my degree in philosophy.

And I was very inept. I had no social skills after stripping because you're so used to being objectified and sexualized. So at that point in time, I couldn't date women. I would hire prostitutes and this would be one a month. There were $120. I'd get them out of the yellow pages. They'd come over and smoke. I'm sorry if this is disturbing. I'd smoke weed. Now you're sorry. And sleep with these prostitutes who would fall in love with me because I'd answer the door, I was glistening,

I had dreads for a while. It was a very odd time. And then I figured, okay, this is done. I went back to Toronto, started doing stand-up. And about four years in, I'm at this bar show, and my friend comes up. He goes, there's a girl at the back, real hot. She says she knows you.

And I walked to the back back and it was her and it was like i'd seen a ghost and she goes you remember me and i go yeah and she goes you fucking ruined my fucking life and i go what are you doing now? She goes, porn. And I go, we all make our choices, right? If you tell me what I think you're going to tell me, keep going. And she goes, you look old. And I said, yeah. And that was it. I thought you were going to say, it's Mia Khalifa. I thought you were going to say you at least gave her the money back

that she gave you from stripping. No. And I've talked about this story before, and there's no way to track these people down. This was all before the internet. So Johnny Thor is still around. I still talk to him. But none of the other people I can reach out to.

I have no idea what happened to her. You know her name, don't you? Just her first name. Don't know her last name. You okay? Well, we will cut out the F word. Because we don't want anybody to be bothered by what they heard. Can't have that word out Are you okay, Noam?

Yeah, it's an amazing story But it's I've spent years of my life Attempting to cleanse my karma Yeah Because I have a daughter Yeah I'm sure she'll be really excited to listen to this episode

How old is she? 22 Now she's 7 But I'm sure she'll be really excited to listen to this episode. How old is she? 22. Now she's seven. But let's hope this stays off TikTok. She doesn't have a phone. That's how I quit this out. We have to go. I'm having dinner with Rabbi Wolpe.

Are you really? At some point, she'll probably, she knows that her father, like most people, is a flawed individual. Yeah, that's like most people. Say, yeah, my kids say the same thing about me. Listen, no, to be perfectly honest, I don't judge this kind of stuff.

I think that, you know, I don't know how bad your karma is. No, no, no, but my feeling is very much that the people that we know about who have done bad things, uh,

who, who, who are forthright and admit and discuss the bad things they've done are then judged by other people who have also done bad things, who've also known people close to them have done bad things, who have also known people close to them who have done bad things, who are just full of shit hypocrites. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not saying if you

could go back in time that maybe you'd do differently, but that was, you know... I do think, depending on your finances, you should cut this chick a check. You didn't use physical force to hurt anybody. No.

It's a seedy, sybaritic environment. What's sybaritic? Like in a sexually charged environment. I mean, how did this girl first come to you? She came to the club. She wanted to fuck me and my friend. That's what I'm saying. She was asking for it.

That's what Noam said, asking for it. Noam said you didn't pick her up at a... At a Greyhound stage. As a runaway, as a Greyhound stage. Just got here from Albuquerque, huh? Nice guitar. She went there looking for something to spread some kind of itch, and she found it.

And, you know, this developed as it did. Now she's going to blame you, but that doesn't mean it's actually your fault. Yeah. I would still cut her a check. but that doesn't mean it's actually your fault. Yeah. I would still cut her a check. How much would you cut her a check for? Well, it would depend on my finances. At a minimum,

what she gave me from her... Are you bearing in mind I have a car and there's congestion pricing? I don't know if he's kidding. You should not cut her a check. No. Thanks. Listen, you're dealing with a lot of stress from this years later, too. I mean, that's the first time I've kind of talked about it and gotten emotional about it,

where I felt it hit, and I've told this story a couple times. But I feel like it's because now it's in my life because of the script, and I think I'll start talking about it on stage. Well, you can at least give her like a thank you at the end of the movie. Why don't you do it? Listen, if we could find her. That's free.

That's free. No, I don't want to find her. No, I'm saying you're dealing with stress too, which could sound like I'm minimizing it, which I'm really not. My point is not to minimize anything that anybody does that's bad. My point is just to say that this is part of the human condition to make mistakes like that.

But if you could find her, Pariel, it would be very interesting to have her on the podcast. Jesus Christ. I don't think that you should be riddled with some kind of... I feel like I've done enough good things in the past. I mean, this is, what, 20-some-odd years ago. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. I'm sure you have done a lot of wonderful things,

including stand up for Israel comedy tours. Yeah. But I'm saying that even aside from that, I mean, this is something that happened, you know, over two decades ago and you were young and fucked up too. That's what Jake Shields says about the Holocaust.

No, no, no. Really though. Like, yeah. A long time ago. It's, I don't know. Really, though. Like, yeah. It's a long time ago.

I don't know. I don't think that you did... It wasn't like you were, like, a pimp of, like, 16 year old girls. Like, she was an adult. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's a fucked up crazy story, but she was a grown person who made decisions also. You're saying she came from this, like, amazing family. I mean,

well, what was she doing in a strip club trying to fuck you what's wrong with me yeah is he chopped liver exactly okay we have to go all right this was fantastic um i guess who's gonna edit if you send it to me i'll edit out his well i don't think you need to edit out he was he was quoting he was quoting another individual if you want us to edit it out you know oh edit out that word. He was quoting another individual. If you want us to edit it out, we will. Oh, I don't care. You're fine with faggot and retard.

Say it closer to the mic. I'm fine with faggot and retard. There's one word I don't say on stage anymore. I did have a joke with that word in it, but very quickly, the N word, it, but very quickly, the N-word, obviously. Very quickly learned not to say it. Okay, we can find it. Yeah, AaronBerg.com.

A-A-Ron, B-E-R-G, like iceberg, dot com. I'll be in Canada, and then I've got a tour with Brian Holtzman. I'll be at the Mothership. I'll be at Dallas. I will be at the Dojo. I'll be at Poughkeepsie. I'll be at the Mothership. I'll be at Dallas. I will be at the Dojo. I'll be at Poughkeepsie. I'll be at the Stand. All around the place. Okay. Good night, everybody.

Thank you. Thanks, guys.