The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Ari Shaffir

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

For decades, Ari Shaffir has brought the best stories in comedy to light. Coming from a deeply religious upbringing, Ari’s wild and raunchy path in comedy seems about as far away from seminary as anyone can get. Ari speaks to Dan about his time in the industry and the liberation that comedy provided him after leaving his orthodox Jewish upbringing. Ari talks about what inspired him to bring the best voices in comedy together, to tell their real stories that they couldn’t tell anywhere else. He also details his process making his stand-up special “Jew,” traveling the world honing his material (and realizing that, even after years of religious study, he got some details about the Torah wrong). And, of course, it wouldn’t be a conversation with Ari Shaffir if he and Dan didn’t take a little dive into the world of psychedelics. Ari’s special, “Jew,” is available now on Netflix and watch his hilarious live storytelling show, “The End”, from YMH Studios. Go to AriShaffir.com for podcasts, tour dates, merch, and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Draft Kings Network. Do you take a minute or anything? I don't need to take a minute. We've started already. Who's going to make this weird? Am I going to make this weird or you're going to make this weird? He's Ari Shafir. You probably know him of over 15 years of allowing comics to tell their stories in a way that is really fun.

And the New York Times says he's got one of the best comic specials going right now. The name of it is, and I imagine you spell. I'll give you permission. A lot of time on it. Jew is the name of it, and it's being watched a lot. It's particularly timely. And thank you for joining us, by the way. Yeah, thanks for having me.

How is it going over the special? How did you feel about doing it? And how did you come about naming it? Because it is very simply perfect, and I'm surprised it hadn't been taken before. Yeah, Jew. Well, they make you in these specials pay by the letter. So I decided to cut it down and save myself some cash because I paid for myself. No, because that's what it was.

I had other titles like Heretic or something like that or like, but yeah, it's just this is all about, it's me, it's about my, I grew up Orthodox Jewish, which is like the Frisbee ones. And yeah, it's all about just growing up like that, but also like filthy. Everyone from the Jewish community is like sort of seen it, but they were like, we're watching it, but we're worried. And then they're like, no, it's actually really like respectful. It's far too filthy, but yeah, I don't know why I just say fuck so much when you talk about

the Bible, but okay. It also games the algorithm, right? It gets a whole lot of people in these particular times to find you. Yeah, I guess so. I didn't do it for this Times. The Times came up around me. I saw Kanye West last night. For real.

He was playing his new album at the Comedy Store. It was wild. How does that happen? He's with Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle's like, let's go to the Comedy Store. And then he's like sticking his phone in the Aux and playing his news. I was like, this is nutty. Well, you started at the Comedy Store.

We'll get to your special. in a second. You started at 15 years old, 16 years old answering. When did you start answering phones? No, 24, 25, but right out of college. Right at University of Maryland. Terps, practice player. Actually, that would be weird if it was 15 or 16 years old, given that it'd be illegal for you to be in there in a drinking establishment.

No, dude, you're allowed to perform. When I was a door guy there, there were people under 21, and I'd have to escort them offstage and out when they were done. Like, as soon as they were off, I'm like, let's go, out, out. Some of my friends, too, they started at 19, and I was like, We gotta go. Yeah, the place ruled. It was the best. It was where it became like kind of a man.

We were all like crazy idiots. And then the owner was just becoming kind of senile. So she stopped coming and nobody was running the place. I mean, imagine, you were at ESPN or no? I don't know if I was then. Back then, I have been at ESPN, yes, many years ago. But imagine if you're an employee there and then just there's no boss. And then you guys would all just do what the fuck you wanted.

I mean, they would be like definitely, games. I mean, you'd have John Boy Studios, really. That's what you'd have. Yeah, that's what we were. We're in casinos in the back and just like, everyone's having sex everywhere. It was just a wild time. Yeah, and then the people that weren't, like the young guys would like try to spy on the older guys having sex and like peer our head over the bathroom still. Let's even get a look. Well, how hard was it for you to even come out here to get out here and start chasing the dream? Yeah, it's difficult. I mean, okay, so there's some like weirdo jobs. You know, you have one. I call them like outside the norm jobs.

HR is not a weirdo job. But, yeah, writer, comedy. You have to make it like kind of a leap, right? You have to be like, yeah, I want to do this other thing. But also, like, it wasn't like I had a good job. I just had prospects. But it's unsafe, and I don't know how much support you're going to get. My parents were way against it, you know, they're like, it's not really a job you can do.

It seems weird now because comedy's so big that it does seem like a job you can do. but back then it was like get Ray Romano and then like nobody you know and then the next best guy was making like 40 grand a year so yeah

it just seemed silly but I don't know I didn't want to work on like halogen lights in an office that seemed like more dangerous to me it is yeah and it was like

I figured I'd come out here and fail but at least I could like if I had like three kids and a mortgage and some fucking neighbor that hates me at least I could be like well I tried oh so you didn't have like

so you didn't have like So you didn't have grandiose dreams that you thought you were going to conquer? No, I was like, seemed fun to just stand up. I didn't one open mic in Northern Virginia. And then like, and that was it. I had no reason to tell anybody like, I couldn't do this. I couldn't. I have no training.

But I don't know. It seemed fun. And then it came and started. I just fell in love with it. Well, how old were you? 25. So the open mic in Northern Virginia. That was probably 23, 24.

I started college late because I went to seminary. That's what the special is about Jew. It's a lot of those days. It's hard to imagine you. It's hard to imagine you though as profoundly religious. No, visually you can pull it off. Visually, I think you can do it. But you as profoundly religious given both your material and the stuff you've been talking about for 15 years.

I can't imagine you leading others spiritually to God. Well, we're also like, okay, Jews are like a funny people, you know, like we have a sense of humor. So even as religious as we all were, we were still cracking jokes, but just about other things. You know? So, yeah, I mean, I wasn't as filthy. No, but when you talk about seminary, like this requires a devotion. Take me through the path of how it is you get to there and how you break off from that. Okay, okay.

Damn, I thought we were talking about sports. This is wildly different. Oh, so no one told you this was largely biographical. I probably shouldn't have told you that there was no obligation to be funny and it's largely biographical. I have always an obligation to be funny. I always feel that. And then, yeah, all right, sick.

It's great to talk to you. We had one dinner once, but I've been watching your shit for a long time. Okay, well, it's great to talk to you as well. I'm going to backtrack for everybody here. Last time I saw you, it was in the back of the back of the, of a restaurant that felt a bit like good fellas? They hated us. It was a comedians.

A lot of comedians were at dinner, and you, fairly shockingly, had half a beard and half of a haircut. I don't know how long this phase lasted. It went for about a month. I did it that day, I think, because I was doing a show.

Like, let me just fuck around for the show. And then I was like, I think I was going away home and some drunk white lady was like, I like, I love that. And I was like, I'm keeping this for a while. then children dude would be like they just point they'd help their mom's girl mom mom and so I'm like I'm keeping it yeah probably a month it was it was so wild who'd just say I looked like then there was some some it wasn't like Nick Foles you said it was somebody I looked like it was it was

brave of you to do it for even a month it was a terribly bad decision all around people would see me from just this side and they would talk like normal and then I'd turn their what the fuck What, man? Or I had two people talking both this way, and they couldn't. Neither one could say, they're like, oh, he's just shaved and oh, he's just fully haired. Yeah, those people fucking hated us. And Salekuse kept taking pictures, and they were like, stop with the pictures.

And he's like, all right, he would just sneak him. And then they were like, we're going to throw you out. It really wasn't like a good fellow's place. I mean, it was strange because, yeah, you were in the back of the restaurant. You weren't actually in the restaurant. you were but so it's a group of comedians and you thought we were going to talk sports because you for a while did a sports podcaster were thinking of doing punch drunk sports yeah yeah we didn't have any actually did a few out of this studio a long time ago but um yeah it was just me same tripley and

tebow and just like saying the stuff we would love if the spian said you know what guys bulgers look like and yeah the stuff that you discussed is team because you guys never have actually grown up. Yeah. Did you guys ever have, I don't want to flip it, but did you ever have moments during sports analysis where you're like, okay, hey, we got to stop, we're about to start. And then go into what you actually are allowed to.

What I was able to do later in my career, the televised stuff, is Zig because the Zag had been established. So I didn't actually have to be as respectful as talking sports guy because there was already the established, okay, there's debate culture. Now I can just make fun of all of it and just sort of weave in and out because I didn't think that that was very entertaining, right? Because I love what you guys do. A lot of what we do on South Beach sessions is talk to the comedians because I like talking to the creators because they view everything as a skew.

I don't know that comedians would enjoy the content of ESPN very much. They like the sports, perhaps. They like the sports. But not the making of stuff. I imagine you'd be watching this and starting punch drunk sports because you're just. saying you could do so much more with this. There's so much more space in this playground to fool around it. I'm stunned that more sports things haven't been made that are funny.

Think about in the history of all the content that's been made in sports what you would regard as, man, I thought that was funny what they tried to do there. Comical, like, Berman would do like a funnier way to say something early on. It's a lot of... Yeah, the boom goes to dynamite stuff was like cool, but not like long form funny. Yeah, I'm always complaining about sports sort of being a... weird cathedral. Like it's way too respectful. Way to, especially all the athletes now are fans of comedy. So they wouldn't really care.

You know, they never would have cared. The LeBron types would have cared because he's fucking a stick in the mood. I don't know if you've gotten very good at deflecting intimacy the way I have, but you really moved us off the whole story of how it is that we got biographically from you being extremely religious and almost choosing a life of total devotion. that probably wouldn't have suited you. Into your path as an analyst of sports. Yeah, I'll get back to... You did that nicely.

Thanks, buddy. Yeah. I was in Israel, seminary, kind of like could go rabbi or could go, like, just devote, devout, I mean. And then came back to America with the Yeshiva University, owners of the longest all-time baseball playoff consecutive losses record. It was just snapped. I think it had 107. I just love baseball, but they cannot put motion on a ball.

Yeah, and then I got back. I was in Yeshiva University, and I just kind of lost my faith. I was just, like, thought about it. I was like, I don't think I believe in God. And then I struggle with it for a while because it's like, you know, the whole life. I mean, it must have been like, not the same, but like, what if you wake up one day? You're like, I think I'm a communist. Then you're like, I can't be here.

You know, like, I better like either start planting some stuff. So what was happening, though? Was your upbringing and patterns so rigid that you weren't doing a lot of questioning before that? Yeah, you're just doing it without thinking about it. You just, you don't really have a chance to look in. Like, my friends asked me, like, was it repressive not being able to eat cheeseburgers because cheese and meat together or any, and I was like, we never even had as a possibility. It was like, I don't feel like I'm being held down because I can't fly.

I didn't, you know, I didn't even think about it. We had our own groups. It was fine on Saturdays and Friday nights. You couldn't use TV. So couldn't see Dukes a Hazard until it came on reruns. Yeah, you just didn't think twice about it. But then when I looked in, it was like, oh, and then it opened up like, well, it was like a struggle for like four or five, six months of like, what does this mean to me? And then how do I tell these people in my life that I'm not this anymore between the ones that are super religious still and the ones that are not.

that are going to be like, I knew it. Come on, I wish I didn't want that either. It was just like an eternal struggle. Talked to a couple friends and they were like trying to like get me back. And I was like, I'm open to it. Talk me into it. But then it just wasn't inside me. I don't know what your faith in God is, but it just wasn't in there.

I mean, I was raised Catholic, but Orthodox Jew is, it's a different, like when you are that, determined, devoted, rigid, I guess keeping life small, right? Like you're with just your people all the time. Like I don't know that there's much like it. Like I don't, Catholicism has its rigidities, but it's not quite this. No, it's not that.

It's just like, right, go to church. But it's not like, watch what you eat outside of Lent. You have to wait six hours after meat before you can have pizza. But this seems particularly ill-suited to just the things that you are in terms of rambunctious and free and doesn't mean you're not disciplined in many ways. Your work ethic shows everywhere. Except for being on time today. Email sitting in my thing just going, obviously, here's your schedule.

I should open it. You've been lamenting your lateness here by minutes today. I apologize. I really am feeling bad about it. They call me like, are you almost there? I'm like, where? I mean, thank God. But it was an eight-minute walk.

So this is you emerging. This is emerging. This is you emerging for a morning in Los Angeles. Yeah. Yeah. Haven't even in my matta yet. Yeah. I think I'm probably rebelling, to be honest.

You're making up for lost time. I was like, I started doing way more drugs than a normal 35, 40-year-old would do. Fun drugs, you know, but obviously I was making up for lost time. Fucking way more than I, you know, should have. Not that it was bad, but it was like, haven't you worked through this yet? No, I'm just getting started. This is really fun.

Yeah, you're still a child in many ways, right? Exactly, yeah. You've just not used any of these muscles. Yeah. And then you get into the comedy world and the comedy store is such a melting pot of these different backgrounds. You had like people like me

and then people who grew up with like prison life, you know, and then like abusive households and then like a loving family man. And then like we're all just together, putting all that stuff behind me, friends of the Palestinian as I lived in Israel for years and we're like, yeah, well,

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Old Navy's drapeed denim wide leg. How did your upbringing not become a special until this late in life, given how unusual an upbringing it is? Dude, you should do a pocket. You've got questions. I couldn't handle it. I didn't know how to do it right. I tried in the beginning.

Everything came off hateful. So I had to work out my own shit first. Um, kind of like Los Angeles, actually. I lived here for 12 years. Lived right next to Pink Dot down the street. Um, so I could walk to the comedy store. Because I wasn't allowed to park there because it wasn't like a regular yet. And, um, and, uh, when I left, I started saying how shitty L.A. was, the parts that were shitty.

How everyone's focused on money over art. You know, you asked somebody how a movie was in here. They tell you the box office. It's, it's like, what? You guys are supposed to be acting and directing. And you're talking about money first always. You have a real disdain for acting. I hate them.

They're the worst people in the world. They're so self-absorbed. And they think that you can't see through it. They think they're not being phony. They go, I still talk to normal people. And we're like, normal people don't say normal people. They just say people. What the fuck are you talking about?

That was your brag? Ugh. Oh, God damn. If you show up with a beat-up Toyota, like, ew. Like, what the fuck you, it's a reliable car. Yeah, I do. Is that why you got out of acting? Did you get away from acting?

I hated the people, and I didn't, it got, it would get in the way of stand-up sometimes. I book commercials, like, you got to, I'm like, shit, well, I got a gig. And then when people start coming to see me and not just, like, a gig I was on, then I'm like, I can't let people down for, like, for a callback for something. And then also I did a movie that I was really embarrassed about with a gad, that super hot chick. What's her name? The Israeli one? You should know.

You did the movie. I hate them all, dude. I hate them all. I don't know even what you're talking about. It was the guy from Mad Men, the main dude from Mad Men. John Ham. I don't know the movie. John Ham, keeping up with the Joneses, was what it was called.

And it was like a spy movie, that super hot Israeli model chick and Galaphanacus. And I read the script and I'm like, it seems bad, but Galaphanacus and John Ham, I guess it'll be. And then I got there, I'm like, no, this blows. And then I was embarrassed to be a part of it. And I was like, wow, cool. It's that cool. He knew it was sucky. They all knew.

This blue. What are we doing? Well, yeah. Why are we making something just got greenlit? And then stand up was just me and a mic. So it's like, it's so free. I mean, it's just you and your talent. That's, it's vulnerable.

It's brave. It's something that I actually admire that people choose it. But it seems like a, reckless choice. Like it seems it seems like a really hard thing to do successfully. Yeah, I mean, you got to be able to throw out sports quotes while a fucking nerd is telling you at the end of a show. Like, this is what you got wrong. Comedians are always good about saying it's not quite as brave as you think it is because, you know, it's brave because you bombed a lot and it sucked. But also like the other, I saw my friends

moving into their adult lives and I was like, I want to put that on hold as long as possible. So it really was like, let's stay at this festival a little longer before we go back to work on Monday, you know? It was just a hard leap of like, okay, I'm not, I almost got a job designing the website for Discovery Channel. I would have stayed in D.C. area if I got that job because it was like somewhat creative and not done this. But then I didn't, so I was like, yeah, I'm out.

So when you're in, take me back to your life in Israel. Yeah, there's too much. So it was losing my religion, coming to this, starting to talk about it, but I was like, I don't have, I have too much hatred. And then I had to eventually get over that hatred. Oh, this is what I was going to say. Same as L.A. I love L.A. now. I miss the stuff that I miss about it.

Being broke here is a great place to be broke. Those times in my life, it was just like, it was just the, anything was possible. Going up on hikes, going to Runyon Canyon, saying women that you didn't even know could exist outside of a magazine, just casually hiking. Yeah, the beach is the barricie. Everything was just so fun. Get into ecstasy. It was just like, this is a wild party. And I miss those times.

And I'll see people this week and have those times. So the same thing with like the religion. I eventually got back to a place where I'm like, no, this actually was really helpful to my life. Gave me structure. I don't think about it now. It's just, I don't know. Yeah, if you're Catholic, you're probably the same way.

If you go in a supermarket and you see a 60-year-old woman behind you, You just naturally after you, ma'am. You don't say man, you know, but you just do it. You're not thinking this is what I should do. It's just, right? You just do it. So what was your plan? You didn't have a plan.

Up here? Well, just six months you decide I don't believe in God anymore. So what I've been doing for a long time is wasting my time. So I switched to University of Maryland. There's no reason to go to a split curriculum, religious, and, you know, math, English stuff. Why waste that money? Became a terp. And then became a practice player for the University of Maryland women's basketball team.

Oh, did you? Got your ass kicked. Yeah, dude. Those bitches. Yeah, they're good. Oh, my God. And they're, like, are, like, are, I hope they use them to, like, cut it you. Me and Paige Bukers, we share that in common.

You practice players. But you're just, you're a guinea pig. That's all, that, the guys who think they're going to beat the women at college basketball. Yeah, you go light on them right away because it's a girl. And then they fuck it. check you to the neck and you're like oh okay and then you'd start playing hard and then you'd start losing yeah that we go I would go hard though we would like push them and stuff they were better than me I figured out that where I would have been I would have been first off the bench

really yeah you would have been able to play women's basketball first off the bench a good six not now not now we're talking about 21 years old you you feel like you would have been a good sixth woman the women all said it we all had these discussions they were like you're definitely You're not a starter. Yeah, you probably first off the bench. And then the girl, Michelle, that was first off the bench, she goes, yeah, you'd probably get it right before me. I begged Coach Weller to put me in one time. I had long hair.

I'm like, buddy, I'll paint my nails. What was Maryland? Was Maryland a 500 team? Was Maryland one of the good ones back then? The women's team then was, it was like right around last of ranked or first of honorable mention in the AP. Okay. So we had a good team. ACC also was a dominant.

But we lived in the shadow of the men. but yeah they would yell at me too if I missed layups like kind of win the fucking game man the fuck you do and I'm like I missed I wasn't fucking around so yeah I went to Maryland for three years and I graduated and now religion's done lost my virginity now you know had plenty of non-coher food saw the joy and probably had sex with two women saw the joy in bacon and then just like what's this world? And now it's like, yeah, it's like I'm brand new born. Could you have started that sentence or could you have ended that sentence a little early just by saying saw the joy period? Just joy like what I don't imagine the life that you were living before that probably had

so much discipline in it, suffering, repression in it. I don't know how much joy there was. There was tons of joy. No, I saw the joy in it in addition to what I had before it, there's joy in another thing too. So it was like, I never considered what the outside world was like. like why go there but then I was like oh it's actually really cool out here I was scared of it at first

people like you Christians ugh what are they gonna do they're to steal your soul but yeah then I was like this is so fun flipping on and off lights

on the Sabbath and just like oh I can do anything so you were always you were always joyful though because I just I think of the regimen of it as being

yeah but it was it was a standard I mean if you're in if you've never had any schooling and you have to hear about somebody who's in high school. They're like, what do you mean? They force you to sit in a chair for 45 minutes?

No, six different times. And you're like, that's crazy. Didn't you hate it? And you're like, it's just a standard. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Well, I never thought of hating school because you didn't really have a choice. Right.

You didn't have a, exactly. It was just what you do. But then getting out, summer breaks, we're like, well, there's more. Last part's not a best metaphor. But, yeah, I really enjoyed it. And then I was like, now I'm out on my own, but I don't want to go into, I'm still a boy. I didn't want to do the life life.

So I'm like, let me take a chance. But I'm still, I was still dealing with, like, coming out of the religion, probably for five years after. What does that mean? Still shaking it. Still, like, shaking that stuff off me. Like, let me think. So I just got back from trial,

I went through South America for like eight months, with a backpack and she got back a few months ago. But like my friend came, I was in Austin, he came to go on a hike and I was brushing my teeth and I just came out laughing and he's like, what am I? I still like doing with the tap water to me, is still like, what am I doing? Just brush my teeth with tap water?

You know, so I still had that for like religion. We're like, oh my God. You know, like, I can't believe I'm doing it. We drank till 3 a.m. That was crazy. Does it, is there any comp, and I'm sure you cover some of this in the special, but are you talking about for four or five years shaking off the cobwebs of what would be the equivalent of brainwashing?

I get why you're going to these places. It wasn't that it was just religion. The reason I'm doing it is just seminary work in general. I'm not even making it orthodox. I'm just anyone studying for a priesthood, for monk to be any kind of religion. It's not specific. Yeah. I just think of it as being really disciplined and having so many rules that wouldn't fit with someone like you.

Right. That's why I push back so hard, I guess, where I'm like, I'm free and I love freedom so much. Like so much. I'm more than any, I'm a freedom guy where I'm like, don't hold me back, don't tell me what to do. I hate it more than most people I know. Same. Yeah. And then when you have it, some real freedom, like to be able to do whatever today, even on one, you're like,

This feels invigorating. But it wasn't brainwashing. It was just, it just has negative connotations. It does, but so too does being ardently religious and then being atheist. Like the swing there is. So if I would like read a new portion from the Talmud or something like that and figure something out, like get to like the heart of an argument that the old, like, leaders would have and you like figure something. It was like, I, oh my God, I figured.

It was like the same kind of joy just transferred. The reason I, the reason, you're right that brainwashing has a negative connotation, but the reason that I'm talking to you about it in the, in the space of freedom is because you've gone from being devoutly religious. And I'm free. To, to not believing in God at all. And so your life view or whatever it is you were thinking at one time is totally the opposite of how you were living.

Yeah. Yeah, if I went from now to there, they'd have to brainwash me to give up everything to say on Friday night you're going to start again until Saturday night. I'd be like, no way. You're not allowed to tell me that. They would have to brainwash me to get me back there. But it's just part of the growth process of a person, I guess, to see what you can do. You know, all the people that like, you know, left. Like Che Guevara, he was supposed to be a doctor.

And then he was like, I don't want that. And you'd have to like tell his dad, I'm not going to be a doctor anymore. I'm going to go get murdered by the U.S. military in Bolivia. Yeah. No, I just don't look at it like that. Like, it was repressive. It just wasn't. It was your normal.

Yeah, it was my normal. I heard of Cullio interview on John Stewart. You just have an old show on UPN before the Daily Show. And he was on there. And John Stewart made his self-deprecating joke about how Cullio had to deal with drive-bys at school. And John Stewart was like, I just had to deal with like, the bully taking my lunch money. But then Kulio was like, no, but dude, in a child's mind that me avoiding the drive-by

and you avoiding the bully for your lunch money, had the same place in our heads, had the same weight to each of us. Obviously, the drive-by is worse. But we were both, our level of fear was the same. And I think it's like that. You don't know what you're missing. So it's like the good and the bad is just different. What was the first questioning like for you when you're like,

I'm doing the wrong thing. I don't believe in God. How does that sneak up on you? I looked inward for the first time. I was just doing it because you're supposed to do it. Che is probably a good example. Like, he probably looked inward. It was like, oh, they're suffering here.

Why are we allowing indigenous people to not have full rights? But you know, you have to like see it. And I kind of looked in. And I was like, there was just nothing there. I was just doing it because you're supposed to do it. And I'd get joy out of praying at the Western Wall on a full moon or something. Or new moon. But like, I just wasn't, I was doing it because I guess it was getting me like out of boys from my rabbis.

I never, you know, if I could do well at math. But like, why are you taking math? I'm like, I don't know. I actually don't want to and won't ever use it. Maybe I should stop doing math. You know? Well, that's the reason I chose writing. Just some people told me I was good at something.

Right. And so you dropped the other shit and you're like, you didn't like the other stuff. I'm like, I guess I didn't. I never thought about it. I just had to do it. So like, so like I looked inwards, there was nothing there. And then I'm like, well, don't make any rash decisions. Because once you're out, it's going to be tough to get back in.

And you've invested a lot at this point, right? Yeah. And I'd alienate my parents and my friends. I had to literally switch colleges. because it was a religious college. It was like, I couldn't be there or not. Last semester, I would lock myself in my dorm room on Friday night, because if they knew I was there, they'd make me go to services.

They'd be like, they'd have questions. And so I'd lock myself in my dorm room. I'd watch Star Trek Next Generation on a one volume, on a TV VCR, like right up next to it, and then I'd piss in a thermos and put it in the mini fridge, because if I left, they would know I was there. And then on Saturday night, I'd be like, it just got back. And I'd empty my piss stuff without them knowing.

So you're legitimately hiding. Hiding. Yeah. And feeling good, rebellious, dangerous while you're watching Star Trek? Good question. Not rebellious, just bored. And so I already don't believe in this. So there's no reason not to use electricity on the Sabbath anymore.

Oh, yeah. You can't use electricity on the Sabbath. So TV was out. It's pretty wild. This is the special is mostly about. What the religion is, what my version is. what my version of the religion is. You're even, you're even, as I'm sitting here not having lived it and saying, well, it seems

like there's rigid and suffering and you're like, not the way I looked at it. It was so normal to you. So normal. But it wasn't like, okay, so you probably nearish the same age, I don't know, but like, you're probably younger than me, but like. I'm 57. Nice, bro. You look great.

Getting laid. Keeps you young. All respect to your wife. But you're doing a great job. Look at them. So you would watch Dukes of Hazard on Saturdays, I think, or Friday nights. There were a lot of people in America watching Dukes of Hazard on Friday nights. But yes, I just told this story the other day and the young people around me were laughing.

And I'm like, you don't understand that like one in four people in the United States were watching Dukes of Hazard at that time on Friday night. That was an unbelievable magic box produced things that the General Lee was not. I wasn't thinking about the civil rights movement. I was just thinking about Daisy Dukes. And everybody was watching that. It was crazy. You would stop people just by being hot in the road. What a ridiculous setup.

Oh, I'll stop the bad guys, but just going, I have a flat tire. And you're like, oh. She could always flirt with the same cop. The same cop would be like, at some point, like, bitch, get away. You keep getting me in trouble. You've never put out once. That and then like Saturday mornings was. wrestling once a month

WWF always WWF fuck the E would be on Saturday nights that was the only time I could watch it but I didn't know I was missing that so instead of watching wrestling I'd go hang out with my friends we play basketball or we play catch

we play baseball or something or or tag football it was just a different thing we had fun just we did it differently you know mm-hmm um yeah You might like skydiving, we're like, it's not here right now.

So let's go get a drink, you know. So, yeah, I can recognize it looks more oppressive than it was. I don't know how else to say it. And so how do you go to Virginia? How do you make the transition from all of that to choosing this as a career? Well, so a lot of it was getting associated with pieces of shit, degenerates, you know. Even when I got to New York, it was Sam and Mark, Mac. Mackie, Hanley, Atel, and just boozers, late night of the cellar.

And I was like, oh, I was never a booze. I was broke in L.A. I just started coming to some money, but I didn't really, it wasn't part of me, were like, you can go out and drink, and they would just start with bullet rye on the rocks. And I was like, okay. And then it was like, they taught me how to be a cool, like, comic in New York. Start with that and then go off from there. I mean, List was already sober, just, and Attel wasn't sober yet.

So we got after it. Big Jay was there too and Metzger, but it was like a cool crew. Michelle Wolf, she would throw them down. And then we'd all get into fights and arguments. It was just so fun. But like I didn't know that was possible because L.A. would end earlier because we didn't have subway here. So we had more like stay where you are. When did you realize it could be a career? Probably like seven or eight years in.

I booked a commercial, a Kia commercial, which like, I was doing temp work. It was an obsession first. First, it was just like, I just want to try it once. But I was like, I'll say I'll be a writer. Because I took writing classes in Maryland. So I'm like, I could at least tell people I want to be a writer. I'm trained, you know.

Not great, but a little bit. I couldn't tell I want to be a comic. It is that, like, who gave you permission to do that? You're not, no. No one normal does that. No one we've ever heard of has done that. So I kept that to myself, but that's why I immediately like that more. So the writing just kind of faded.

No offense. It's faded for me too. It's faded. I'm doing this nonsense. All the cotton candy now. It's been a long time other than notes to my wife. I'm not doing very much writing anymore. I actually applied to be a sports writer for like local newspapers, like the local

that comes free on your stoop. Yeah, I was like, can I please write columns for you about local sports? And they were like, no. So you wanted, it sounds like you wanted to be a sports subject. or another. Oh yeah. You are, if I could do it over again, I'd be you. Yeah, I'd be living in South Beach. I didn't realize, though, that your sports inclinations were so strong that to laugh at sports would be even more magical, perhaps, than what you're presently doing. If you could be like a comic in this space, especially it's because it's less competitive where the funny

is. Like, there just aren't a lot of funny people in sports. It's weird to me, honestly. It's Honestly weird to me. You have fucking whatever his name is that's now on ESPN that always has, dude, I'm so bad with names. Are we talking about McAfee? Yeah, McAfee. Yeah. He's funny, but more, he's not as funny as a comic. He's still funny for sports.

There's no one in sports as funny as a comic. Yeah. But I'm surprised there are not more comics working in sports because it's really cheap programming to make sports programming. And I'm surprised the funny people. haven't come over here and realize that there is a market inefficiency that they can exploit. Oh, to take callers and call them idiots and stuff like that, that would be so fun. So here's the thing, right? Back when I used to be a writer, I got to, I get to 30 years old, okay, and I'm writing some things now that I've done before, and it's feeling a little repetitive because I've been doing it for 10 years. And I'm like, how do I change my career? What can I do that is within this realm but not? And I'm listening to Sports Radio.

I'm like, these people are outsourcing their creative playgrounds to bill on a mobile. Like, they're not even doing it themselves. They're just calling. They're taking a call and allowing the caller to make the content for them by saying, you know, I think this Mets pitcher stinks or whatever. And I'm like, well, I can do better than that. I can climb over that bar. Yeah.

Yeah, right. It really is. You're just like asking them to fill your time for you. to do your job for you. Good point, John from Monarchy. Imagine, imagine being on the stage at the comedy store and saying, here, you do it. Who's got a bit?

That was a good one. Who else? Who else has a good point? That was a good, that was, I like the way you did that. That was awesome. I always have a joke they want to say. You're right, what a loser. You should go fire back at those people, call them morons or say like, dude, they know so much

more than you do. Just have some fun. Yeah, what a weird thing. I have a travel podcast, you'd be tripping, and my travel friend, Rolf Potts, he's a writer. respected writer and he goes please start doing something there's no humor in this in this like field it's all just i was arrested in a russian prison or it was the most enlightening moment we need some degenerates sports could use some too yeah the i was going to ask you whether you're the trip you just came back from was part of your travel uh podcast i'll talk about it on there but

israeli just kind of like kind of obsessed with going places but dude i okay sports and travel together went to a Wahaka Guerrero's baseball playoff game. I was missing the Yankees, and I was out there. And I was like, oh, Wahaka, I'm about to get to there. They have baseball, major league of the Mexicano baseball or whatever it is, LMB, I think. And I was like, oh, the season just ended. And then I'm like, they're a two seed. So I just like went to every playoff game.

They became my team. You just got a quick fix and quick international baseball fix intravenously? Everybody took me in. The concessions are wild. There's no hot dogs. It's like 12-year-old selling beers out of their hands to people. Burrito plates just coming by. There's not even a place to go for concessions.

They come to you. Yeah, when you hit a home run there, they put a giant Ganesh elephant head on you, and then they knight you with a sword or a baseball bat. I couldn't see from that far. It's so fucking fun. What is some soccer games? We're some rivalry games. Why they need to travel?

What is it about seeing the world? It's two parts. The part of it's the freedom is getting away from the responsibilities of, even though I'm a comicist, still like shit pulling at me. Special. I just did this TV show called The End. It's a storytelling show. You can get on R.eshafear.com right now.

Mark Norman's in there. I think you know him. Yes. Shane Gill is, people like that. But it was like, oh, you got to edit it and do stuff and return emails about it and, like, do this, you know, the sound. and the color correction. Well, it's called The End.

It's part of the YMH family. And it seems to me, from what I can tell, 15 years of punctuation on what you've been doing since 2010 in terms of giving comics the space to tell stories, right? Like, it's a 15-year show. It's had different names, right? But this is the, I don't know whether you called it the end because this is the punctuation on those 15 years.

Play on a title of storytelling, you know, The End. and the end of this. Yeah, so there's a lot of responsibility to it. But, I mean, it's stuff I want to do. I want to give these opportunities to these comics to be seen, you know, and let them tell their cool stories in a space that allows it. All we had before is the late night stuff, and it's five minutes. They go over your jokes.

They go, take this one out, take that one out. And I was like, that's not really what we do. So I was able to, like, start a show where I'm like, and like, how long should I do? I'm like, between five and 15. Or if it's longer, go longer. Like if you got a story the last 25, then do that. You're basically doing what the internet did to newspapers.

Exactly. Where you're saying here, there's no space limit. Why didn't it to fit this in to the Washington Post in this space? Just whatever, man. If it requires investigative journalism and it's a 10-page thing, then, you know, do that. And if it's just like a one-per, you know, if there's a one-minute story, that's fine too. Don't milk it for no reason. Yeah, I set these comics for it.

People responded to it, like the realness of it. But is this what you're proud of it? of stuff like if you look at the thing that gives you the most fulfillment as an achievement yeah i'd say it's those two things we talked about to be honest i think i've i've hit it a cup you know i'm sure you've got these i haven't read all i really haven't read any of your stuff i've seen you from tv mostly but i haven't read any it's it's before your time i was doing most of my writing uh 20 years ago okay you would have no reason to do to be reading any of it or any way to read it right like how what I even get on the South Beach.

You would have been reading it in ESP in the magazine. I bet you you have read some of the things without knowing that I had written them. But you must get, you know which one's a better piece of yours and which one's worse, right? It's not to say anything's bad, but like you could tell when, like, if you had to rank them all, you could. And there's probably a couple where you're like, I hit that one out of the park. I'm really proud of that one. Puring it, you know, hitting a driver, you know, 310 right to the front of the green. It's like pure, and you want to look around.

And you see that? So it does like, nice shot. Like, thank you. That's where people get addicted to golf. The one time you hit that shot. Where you can hit a 23-foot rolling, like, putt, and no one in the world could do better than you. They could equal you, but no one could do better. That's correct.

Yeah, it's sick. So there's a couple things where I've pured, you know, in a 20-something year career. It's that special Jew and that storytelling show. Oh, wow. What a great feeling to have your last special be the one that feels like that. I mean, that is. Yeah, well, it was two ago. This one actually, I did it on YouTube.

And then Netflix was like, can we put it on? With everything I think going on, they're like, let's, hey, let's put that on our platform. But yeah, I really feel like I was like, all right, I can kind of hang my hat on that. A lot more work went into those, you know. And so everything else could be. good, but, you know, one of those that are like lifers. You don't get married. What is it about Jew that you like so much? Because from the way you've just described it here, it sounds like the most adult version of you who has grown into doing all the work on himself that can now

look back on his life and find the funny without the hate, which is like, that's a, to do it without resentment is a gift, like, is a healing property for you to be able to have that as your art where you look back on your life and you're like, oh, I made it funny. I was able to make something that could have been darker funny. Yeah. So it was a two-part thing. It was, it was, I went to the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. It's the biggest comedy festival, fringe festival in the world. It's 1500 comics each performing an hour every night all over the city. The city doubles in size. for the month of August. And I went once.

I brought my storytelling show there once, but then I started looking at these other comics doing these hour-long theme hours. It's like all one, it's about one thing. It was either a plot or all on one subject. One guy, Finn Taylor, did one about the Me Too movement called When Heresy Met Sally. That was just like so good.

Covered like South Park, covered every part of it in an hour. I'm like, God damn. So there's some people were bad. but some people were doing really interesting stuff and I was like I want to do something like that but their problem was that they got serious for like 15 fucking minutes in the middle when they lost their dad's respect or you know it was and they had that line and the moth always had like that's not just when I lost my watch it's it's when I lost my innocence and you're like dude fuck off be a comic so I was like I want to spite them and they all thought they were better than American comics

which is ridiculous what do you you talking about? We're clearly the best ones. But they had us beat on these theme hours. That's the only thing they got us beat on. And they would look down on us for that. And I'm like, if you're going to attack on one point, it's like if a fighter, it's like, well, you can, you can beat me standing up, so I'll take you down. Or, you know, if I can't post up against you guys, because you got three centers, like, well, let me start drafting some Steph Curry types. And that's the only way I could beat you. I'd love that you're trying to speak my language. You didn't, you went, You went fighting it.

That didn't work so you went basketball so that I can understand what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you can't do what it takes here, I'll hurt you. If you can't do what it takes to actually win a title, go fucking pay some other guy to come join your team when he didn't deserve to be. Two other guys, excuse me. No offense, Chris Bosch. You didn't mean to fucking ignore you on that one.

Cheap fucking title. Ruin the game, the fucking super team. That's my team. Fuck you. Fuck what you did. That's my city. I know. It sucked.

It sucked for the rest of the country to just go, oh, let's pick up the best players. Okay, so now you like Chey Gilder's Alexander. Do you like what that is better? I don't like that even. You guys started that shit. You play for the team you got drafted for. Wait, what were we talking about? You got drafted by the Orthodox Jews.

You needed to play for them. That's a damn good point, Lepinart. You make a good fucking point. What we say? I got sidetracked. I was so worked up over those fucking LeBron's idiot announcement.

You were trying to speak my language on fighting analogies and basketball analogies in order to explain to me the right way to do things, the proper way to do things. What was it? The proper way to do things.

It doesn't matter. I was about to go somewhere. What were you asking? I wanted to go back to how all of this went over in your family. I know. I know.

Okay. Hold on. So I wanted to spite these motherfuckers. So I wanted to do an hour that was funny the whole way through and informational and so one of the informational ones but then also be personal and every time i was writing it i was like where would these edinburgh comics attack me where would they go sure sure but and there's one there's nothing personal here what about yours this is about judaism what about you you know and it was like oh good point in my head you know so i'd like

do that how was it coming out of the religion was that so i'd have to write stuff like that in and then i just hear questions like how come what's the brown jews and the white jews i'm like Good question. I'll cover that. What's coat? You know, so. So you're being inspired, whether it's South Park, I'm going to attack this from every angle with so much work that it's going to be unassailable, that when the work is done, there's not going to be anything missing from it. And I'm going to do it so thoroughly that you also can't say that you're better than American comics. And then I had to do what I've never done is do research, because I can be, I can make fun of your shirt, you know, and I'm not wrong. or right, it's an opinion. I can do whatever jokes I want.

And if somebody's like, no, that's a Calvin Klein shirt. Like, well, I didn't like it. I'm allowed to say it. But this was like, I couldn't be wrong. I couldn't say something. So I actually, I went back to my seminary. I took a trip to Israel, I went back and I studied with my old rabbi, a piece on Noah in the flood, so I could like get the right stuff in there.

You wanted it to be unassailable. Yeah, and then every once in a while, you'll have, in New York, you'll have, I call them, frontier Jews. They're like Orthodox or Hasidic Jews. It'll come out to comedy shows. Because you're not tantal Jews. technically not allowed. It just seems like untoward for that life.

But you're a lot, you're allowed to be like, oh, they can say those words, I'm not going to. And I'd see them, and I didn't want to offend them. So if I was doing a joke about like Orthodox Jewish women and their wigs, I keep like an eye, just an eye on them to make sure they're having a good time. So it's not a tacky. Same thing we do with black people in the audience. If you're doing something about black people, you always have like an eye to,

if there's one black couple, like if they're not having a good time about it, then I got to switch up the writing. It's funny that you should say some of this because the people that I admire most professionally, someone like, for example, Mike Scher, who does parks and wreck and the office and everything else. And then the pandemic strikes and he needs to put the creativity somewhere. So he ends up writing a book on the side about all of philosophy, all the philosophers that have ever existed. He's going to try and make it funny. He's tackling the hardest thing because it's the hardest thing.

What you've just described is a much harder version of comedy, what you decided to challenge yourself with, which is I'm going to do this on this subject, a subject that's got a lot of history in it. And I'm going to make an hour that speaks to people. But that also funny, like New York Club funny. You know, so it's going to be filthy, which is like, that doesn't seem to go, you know, talking about like Adam and fucking chickens.

Well, and filthy. and I've got to go back to Israel in order to actually study to make this the right kind of filthy. And then so I tweeted everywhere I could, places where there's our Jews, places where there's never been a single Jew, you know, Reykavik, Perth, Australia.

I don't even know what you're talking about. So if the joke would work in New York or Chicago, people are like, no, I see them. So I kind of get what the Sabbath is. But they're like, I don't know, any of it. So I had to make it work for them too. And I had in Denmark some rabbi showed up with some of the adult students.

And he was like, that was funny, but just so you know, like, you got a fact wrong. And I was like, no, really? No, I mean, do whatever you want. I'm like, no, no, no, I actually need to hear this. I had a big joke about Noah's, I thought Noah's wife had 40 children. I don't know where I got that in my head. And I had this long, crushing bit about how gaping her pussy must be at this point. Sorry, Dan, go with me.

And I mean, at 36 kids, can you even carry a baby to turn? But you got a fact wrong. Or does it come out? Yeah. And I got up. So I had to lose the whole thing. It was such destruction, but I had to drop it. A bit that took, a bit that was how long and took you how long to form, that was undone

by a fact that you can't get wrong. Yeah, probably two full years of writing it and it was seven-minute bit of just, boom, boom, laughs, it was like my closer. And then it was like, oh no. Yeah, then it was like, fuck, back to the writing. What a horrible, what a horrible thing to learn. Like, you're not going to have a lot that feels worse in your stomach. I know.

I was like, no, no, no, no. And I went back to the text and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, I know I know this from somewhere. And then, uh-uh. That's worse than, like, writing something and then just losing it. Have your computer eaten it. Yeah, right. Like, that's, what you're just describing is the worst. Because I still had it.

So I could do it. It's like quitting smoking and then you're like finding a cigarette. But you can't do it if the fact is wrong, right? Because you're, because what you're, the subject matter you're choosing has to be unassailable. You have to have your facts right on what it is that you're doing. Because comedy, you can make up anything. Any of the subject matter. stories that you've been telling on your platform for 15 years, half of them are made up.

No, those are real. Those are real, but there's details that aren't. I showed up late and Dan looked at me like I was Clint East were coming into a bar. That's a joke. It's not true or not true, you know. So that part's the flourishes, but they're supposed to be real stories. They're supposed to be. But they don't have, but a lot of comedy doesn't have to be. Right. Right. We have to believe that you're, that you're credible, but you're watching a lot of comedy that is not real. That is not, that people are telling stories that aren't in any way true. If anybody ever did this, I would take them and bash their head.

Like, no, you wouldn't. You would be cowardly and walk away. But it's a funnier bit to say what you would do. So what happened with your family? If you're done with this portion of the story, you don't have to be done with this portion of the story if you haven't gotten to your climax. They like that, I mean, when I had to talk with them about, and this is covered in the special, I had to tell them.

So it felt kind of like coming out of the closet. I don't know. There's no societal problems. But in my little society, it was similar. It was like, what the fuck? What are you talking about? And risk, like, never talking to them again. And, you know, I really like my family.

So I didn't want that. Dad was very mad. It's all fine now. So it's tough to even call up the pain of that, of those moments of, like, just becoming an adult 20, 21. So you, you know, with our upbringing, we're children, you know, and having to be, I might be alone for the rest of my life now because I might have lost all connection. There was a lot of that when I got a wife in my community.

I didn't realize how tight knit it was. It was like, I don't have anyone. I don't have any support group. There was no one supporting you on this. Right. Emotionally, there wasn't. So I didn't know who to go to for anything. It's like when you break up with your chick, the one person you go to an event would be your chick.

Oh, but it's bigger than that. And that, though, you are denying a relationship with God. Right. Like, you're running the risk of becoming an outcast. Never mind, support. Your dad's a Holocaust survivor. Yeah. And so it was like, it's like, what the, without saying it like, what the fuck's wrong with?

You're like kind of a piece of shit. Not the way he said it, but he did say like even a dog believes in God. So you're lower than a dog. I know. I was like, I don't know, got to check your math on that. But like, I don't know. Who researched? that what are you talking about there's been no studies on that what i don't know any

we're still putting fluoride in the water i don't know any deeply religious dogs yeah yeah but again he's totally cool that it was a time like four or five years later we were skiing he goes you can get a cheeseburger if you want like don't worry about it but i'm like i know i won't be disrespectful but but that meant a lot to be like but what was that period like what was that like how much pain were you in how alone were you it was tough but then i switched to maryland the next semester So I had that whole semester. I had to tell them why I'm switching. They were paying for college, you know,

or paying for whatever the grants and the student loans, you know, didn't pay for. In the summer jobs. God damn. Remember how much money it took just to go to a state college? You got out of there with so much debt. Anyway. Yeah, it was pretty alone.

But then found in a university, a big quad-type university, very friendly people. Like at every quad-type university. and then it was like new friends, new attitudes. New people, different people, different, much different from whatever it is, just freer. Yeah. My GPA in high school was so bad that I had one year of Yashiva University, but didn't count towards transfer. And I had two years off for seminary, which also didn't help my resume.

So they waitlisted me to a state school, to a not even that great state school. And by the time I get in it, all the dorms were full. So they said there's one dorm open. There's an international dorm, Dorchester. And if you write an essay about how you're linked to international, I lived in Israel for two years, I was like, okay, I got in there. But then I met very interesting people, a Liberian refugee, you know, Brazilian lady, my friend who's the son of the old president of Trinidad.

Oh, wow, so you start seeing the world, basically. Yeah, and then they kind of broadened my scope of just this insular community inside, you know, Maryland to like, whoa, this is a ton out there. So how long did you feel like you were alone or drifting or not supported? Okay, so drifting because I needed to replace God with something. The worship and stuff, I didn't have a direction. So, okay, I don't believe God, I'm okay with it. But where am I going in the world then?

And then I got to L.A. I found comedy. That's probably the closest where I'm like, I love this. That's all I want to do. I mean, it helped me get through, you know, like I said, getting late for the first time. I was like, what? This is pretty cool, you know?

Yeah, I didn't know what a blowjob was until I did. And I'm like, where was this in my upbringing? He would not keep anyone in Orthodox Judaism if we knew this was a possibility. I have a bit in there where I took my nephew for his bar mitzvah. You know those good seats you get sometimes from like an agent or something where you're like, I can't, these aren't the seats I can't. for it. It's a hookup.

So I called in a favor. Got one of those. And he's like, we're sitting a row behind the Rangers, like, behind the bench. And he's just like blowing his mind. And then I got a cheese, I got a bacon cheeseburger. And he's like, what? And I was like, is it good? I'm like, bro.

Yes. And he's like, can I? I'm like, no, told your mom you'd be good. No, he cannot have any. He gets French fries if you want. And so what do you end up replacing God with? Comedy. Yeah.

It becomes your religion. Yeah, friendships. Comedy. Yeah, but comedy. Stan, I just love doing it. I got obsessed with it. Even when I'm not doing, even when I'm going traveling, it's intentional to, so I can come back to it with like a fresh mind. I love it.

I just love it. And then the friendships around it, too, are like, we used to go for 15 minutes a night and then hang out for six hours. I would assume many of my friends are work-related friends because it's a shortcut to friendship when you have all of these commonalities where you, well, just so many of these people, though, know exactly what you're talking about. They have a fluency and what it is that you love that the average person does not.

Yeah. Yeah, I can actually only really ever dated artists because even if you're not a comedian, and I've dated one or two comics too, but just someone in the arts almost always, because like you gotta understand, not you gotta, but like, they get it. They get like, hey, I'm going through a process of building something right now.

Well, it's too much a part of you for not to be understood, right? It matters too much to you. It's too much a part of your identity to be with somebody who doesn't have any connection to it. And it's not even like, so I can't do this. I just wouldn't connect with them. And then I connect with their process too. Yeah, I'm trying to paint this thing now.

I'm trying to figure out how to do this. I'm like, oh, it's just like it's invigorate. I think you just understand the language a little bit. So when did the support come back around? So they, when I moved to California, I graduated Maryland. My friend was like, do you want to go to California? He wanted to be a screenwriter.

He had already left Maryland, gone down to Miami, because his mom moved there with some dude. And then we like shotgun. We met up in like Tennessee driving. We just drove out cross-country. He quit pretty early. He became a lawyer. But like they paid for it.

So they were like, they were like at that point, it was already three years of Maryland, University of Maryland, and they were okay with it. And then my dad understood it completely because he left an upbringing, well, first an upbringing in, you know, work camps, internment camps. But then, you know, once he got normal, he grew up in Israel, you're supposed to stay there, you go through the army,

and you're supposed to, like, have a life in Israel. He goes, I think I'd go to America. Took a boat. That's how long ago it was, you know? So he understood the, like, spread your wings and fly kind of idea. Eventually. Eventually. Eventually.

I mean, at first you were dirtier than a dog, right? First I was dirty than a dog. It got over it. It took a couple years. But also, I think, so we had another distant relative, like a cousin's wife's kid or something like that, and he married a non-Jew. And that was like a real big no-no. And the dad was like, I'm not going to go to your wedding, I don't, whatever.

And then the next kid, the younger brother, also married non-Jew. And I think he had to go like, Dad, you don't talk. talk to your son anymore because you handle this so badly. Like, don't fuck this up. And he was like, yeah, I don't want to lose my kid. And so my dad saw that. He was, well, I don't want that. He's smart enough to go.

That's not what I'm looking for. I wanted you to be religious. You're not. So I can either be spiteful and kind of lose my son or I can be like, this is the way it is. So like, all right, you got to roll with the punches. There's no better rolling with the punches than they stole our farm, you know, put my dad off to a gas chamber that got, you know, liberated a week before he was done to like yeah they got a roll with it so like i don't know let's go to israel i heard they're starting that up i mean you must have felt loved yeah it was great yeah that

acceptance it was it was it was huge yeah i mean many dads do do that right or many people are ardent enough about their relationship with god to uh forsake their son yeah Mormons you're you're you're You're like sent out. They have a process, I think. It's not just like, eh, we don't talk to him. It's like, no, we're not allowed to talk to him. That would be wild. But yeah, it was great.

And then now I'm moving to, I wanted to drop out to become a writer. And he goes, tell you what, that's a mistake. Obviously, he was right. Not obviously. I guess I don't really need my diploma. But I didn't in my education. He goes, finish the next year and a half, and I'll help support you for their first year.

You know, I'll pay for your, I'll pay for your gas and your insurance. Three years. So he did. And you were still broke. Still broke. It wasn't enough. I just wouldn't have gotten insurance.

You know, I wouldn't like, that's why they did it too. They're like, we know you're not going to get insurance, so we'll pay for it. Yeah, but he was like, once I was like, I'm going to go to, now I've accepted me, but now I'm doing it even more alternative thing in a different way,

where I'm going to California to be a clown. And you're also doing psychedelics now? Not yet. Not yet. You haven't gotten into the psychedelics yet. But you're rambunctiously free in a way that has to be dangerous, comparative to how you were living.

You had no job. It's explained to my mom how I was living money-wise. I figured out my budget for food. It was $3.10 a day. And that wasn't my budget. I spent as little as possible and then did the math after a month. And it broke down a three. And she goes, you can't live on that.

I'm like, I happen. I just find sales. McDonald's had 20 minutes and hamburger days. Killed it that day, froze some. Can you imagine freezing a fucking McDonald's hamburger so you could eat it for the rest of the week? But we didn't think twice about it. It was just the way.

Every once in a while, some rich guy would drum up a beer for you. And you're like, okay. But it's because you knew exactly what your dreams were looking like at that point. Like you were not unclear in any way. about what you wanted. So you chased it with the same sort of fervor that you were. Yeah, the same deal. You're right.

Good point. It's like I'm all in. I'm on half-asset. Yeah, but I also think you're, I think you're taking from me some sort of judgment. As soon as you said seminary, I'm like, oh my God, devoting your life to the rules and rigidities of what that is, that is the most devote of religious people there.

That is the most aggressively religious as you can be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so you just poured that into writing and comedy and chasing something else that is... This is comic Argus Hamilton at the comedy store and he asked him about, fuck, I forget what, smoking or something like that. And he quit smoking and I was like, how? And he goes, oh, I got into running and I couldn't do both. And I just liked running more. But I had to do one because I was a co-ke-ed. So I had to do one of those two. Same thing.

Happens a lot with like yoga teachers and stuff where they go from addiction to... No, I'm going to be, yeah, just a healthier addiction. Right. But then it's like all the time, chill, dude. Golf. I can see that being an addiction, you know. No, I've said that before. Yeah, the reason I've never done cocaine is because I know myself.

I can be compulsive. Like, so I just better not do something that's going to ravage the insides of my life. Yeah. If it feels too good. It feels good. Guys like Norman can't not do a spot. He's more of an addict than I am even. He goes up as much as he can no matter.

And he doesn't even. question it. He'll be on an anniversary date with his wife and he'll go to the bathroom and then run next door to him like, do five and come back. I'm like, oh, sorry, I had to pick poop. So it's also an addiction, right? And what, what is it? It's not validation. It's not necessarily laughter. It's doing your job. Well, what is it? What's being chased in the addiction? It's totally validation. And it's chasing the validation. So even if it's not good, it's still the hunt for it. Which is crazy because comments get nothing but anti-validation for about three years to start because we suck.

We all suck. And so we're chasing validation. We get it once every 20 times. And then 19 times it's telling you you should quit this. You're actually not good at it. And it's painful. I don't know why we kept doing it. Because it was such a good high.

For that one pure driver a day, it's such a good high. We're out of time, I think, because we've been going a little longer in my head that we were supposed to. I'm fine with whatever you want. Ari Shafeer.com is where you go. if you want tour dates. I have more questions. I do have more questions.

Jew is the name of the Netflix special. Is there anything else? You be tripping. You be tripping. You be tripping. It's the travel show. Yeah. And the end is my storytelling show.

And which is that culmination of all that. Yeah. I watch a Netflix show and Legion of Skanks every Monday. But I don't think I have to go anywhere. Was there one more that you wanted to actually know about? Oh, no. I wanted to go down the path of psychedelics with you. you because I wanted to know where it is that you've had the brain the brain altering stuff,

what it is that you've been working on and where it is that it's opened you. Yeah, mushrooms got me first to the place of like, you can, it just, it's so cool, it drops your ego to the ground so then you can observe yourself as someone else would observe you, but you know yourself more than anyone. So you can observe all the details of yourself without trying to defend a stance. So you're like, oh, look at it. at that guy. He should have walked his dog and put away his phone while I did it and spent time with his dog. Oh, that guy's me. Oh, shit. I better start walking my dog and enjoy my time.

So you do it without judgment? Yeah, without judgment. Or I'm doing this wrong or I'm doing this right or I should call my dad more, you know, let him know that, you know, I love him, things like that. Like, you just see it. And then like, had a ton of those experiences. Love them more and more every time. You're talking about clarity is what you're seeing, right? 100% I call it the capital T truth where it's just this is it just is

and it's fine But you don't have access to it without the help Some people go you can do meditation They compared it to this lady I meant Ecuador It was like Okay so it's like the doorbell rings And you can go up and get it yourself

And say hi to whoever that is Or you can get a butler To go do it for you And he'll open the door And meditation is you getting it yourself and mushrooms is like a chico it's a butler and I was like

I'd rather have a butler though what are you talking about I'm watching TV and I can get an employee to go do it that's clearly better why would I work hard to get to the same place

when I could just take a couple fucking disgusting tasting fungus and then ayahuasca was the one where I just like just destroyed me completely I've been wanting to do that but I'm too scared

of the sickness in it yeah I was too And because you're purging, right? You're physically purging. The biggest fear for me was projectile diarrhea. That's what I was most afraid of. Those are two bad words together. Yeah, projectile alone is not bad.

Diarrhea is bad, but not so bad. Both of them are bad independently. Together, those two words are really bad. Exponential. It is. I can't think of a lot of words I could put in front of diarrhea to make it worse than projectile. Not nearly as bad as projectile.

Explosive is bad, but projectile. You're launching it across a room. Like projectile is bad. Yeah, but it didn't happen. I did barf a lot, but that's totally normal. But sometimes I've seen people barf on mushrooms, and it's like, blah. And then barfrey, it's crazy. Well, but I would imagine ayahuasca had some of the same principles for you that religion did

early on whenever it is that you felt most connected to egos, godliness. Yeah, it was a whole. It was that clarity from mushrooms, that truth, but like, I don't know how to say deeper. And it was just like, someone's taking a scrub brush to your soul and just cleaning you out. And then the next four days just writing in a journal all the thoughts I had before they would go away. And just feeling this like level of clean that I really am not good at expressing it. No, you did pretty well there. You just did pretty well right there in the way that if you're talking about scrubbing a cleansing of your soul.

Like, that's pretty good. Yeah, I guess so. Not a lot of things that feel like that. Yeah. And just feeling fine. And then I was left with, it wasn't like realizations you have to have to have to, it was just a change.

So there's all these comedy fights. I don't know if Sam will ever tell you about it, gossip wise. I'm not going to get into any of them. But like, we're bitter, we're bitter people. We feud. And we're like, talk that guy. Somebody fucked the wrong guy's lady

or somebody did a premise similar to yours or would it bumped you one night and you never forgave him. and we'd all be fighting we'd be very fighting I've seen Sam go hard on people it's fun to watch I have no appetite for it anymore

yeah people come at me I'm just like yeah let's work it out it's not even a decision I'm just not hungry for that it just changed immediately I just want to make things so this is getting in the way so then I came home

from that recorded Jew got it back again recorded Jews started like working on it, record, and then had some time during COVID to think about, about, well, that was that. And then like, and then started working on the end on the show and finishing that off right. But it was just like, I just want to get things done now. It brings me joy. So, yeah, you should do it.

Listen, if you do projectile diarrhea or vomit on yourself, you'll clean it up. I mean, bring a change of underwear to wherever you're going. Okay, thank you for the advice. Thank you for the time. Bring a change of underwear. Dude, that's such a... Okay, wear something nice, black tie, optional. Bring a change of underwear to any event.

Go, I'm not coming. Thank you, sir. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if.

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