WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1506 - Moshe Kasher

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Moshe Kasher already wrote a memoir about his years as a teenage substance abuser growing up in an orthodox Jewish family with two deaf parents. Now Moshe’s back to talk with Marc about his second memoir, Subculture Vulture, which deals with how he put his life together since those teen years, including getting sober, embracing rave culture, finding standup comedy, becoming a husband and father, and the identity crisis along the way.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast This is my podcast. Welcome to it. This is it. Today, I talk to Moshe Kasher.

Now, this guy, I've known him a long time. He's been on the show several times. I met him way back in San Francisco where he opened for me or featured for me, and he was frightening. And I think I bring that up every time I talk to him. He's been on the show, like, a lot, a couple of live episodes, as well as talks on episode 97 and episode 803. He co-hosts the Endless Honeymoon podcast with his wife, Natasha Leggero. He just wrote a book, Subculture Vulture, a memoir in six scenes. He's one of these guys that I feel like I've watched grow up.

We're at that point now where obviously we're having a few repeat guests. Most of them are comics, but really I've watched this guy grow up. And I guess on some level he's watched me change. I don't know. I think I hold steady in the view of most people. I think they see me go through different moods that could last anywhere from a week to a number of years. But I think in the eyes of a lot of people, I don't change much other than age, but who the fuck knows? But this guy, I know I've seen him change.

There's a period there. He just, he looked different. Now he's a grown man. He's got a child. He's got a life. I go to his Hanukkah party. It's very nice. But we get into a conversation about this, about changing, about identity, about what you hold on to. What are your choices? hold on to? What are your choices? What choices do you make? I mean, I don't know. I think about myself more than necessary. I would say that's a diplomatic way of saying that I'm not self-obsessed, but highly self-aware. And the only time I'm not is when I'm talking. When I'm talking or playing guitar. But like, even if I'm watching music or a TV show or listening to music, my, my gears are, are just spinning, man. All the time, wheels, not gears. Gears are grinding.

They're not grinding because that mean the gears are humming along. The wheels are spinning people. I'm in San Diego at the observatory North park this Saturday day after tomorrow, January 27th for two shows. It's a big, weird place. There's tickets available for both shows. The turnouts aren't bad, but there's still tickets available. The Castro theater in San Francisco is sold out on February 3rd, Portland, Maine. I'm at the State Theater on Thursday, March 7th. Medford, Massachusetts at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th. Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater on Saturday, March 9th.

Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th. Atlanta, Georgia, I'm at the Buckhead Theater on Friday, March 22nd. Madison, Wisconsin at the Barrymore Theater on Wednesday, April 3rd. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Turner Hall Ballroom on Thursday, April 4th. Chicago, at the Vic on Friday, April 5th. Minneapolis, I'm at the Pantages Theater on Saturday, April 6th. I'll be in Austin, Texas, at the Paramount Theater on Thursday, April 18th as part of the Moon Tower Comedy Festival.

Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for tickets. Yeah, plugging along. Everything is okay. There's some interesting thoughts, interesting questions for the bonus episode, the Ask Mark Anything that's up now. Got me thinking. Someone asked about my parents. How did I find resolution with my parents? How do you find resolution with yourself?

That's the big challenge. I mean, letting your parents off the hook and then owning whatever your expectations are of them as you get older, you'll find that many of the expectations are very young, very childlike. And that ship has sailed. They're not going to show up and be good parents. My parents are in their 80s, for fuck's sake. It's not even a matter of bad or good parenting. It's just whatever you're expecting, those are very childish needs.

Not saying they were bad needs. They were probably appropriate for when you were a kid, but you get older. They're just in there, and they just cause fire. All they do is cause fire, resentment, anger, disappointment, shame, grief. All of it. So at some point, you got to let them off the hook. I don't know how it happens. For me, it just happened. You know, they got to let them off the hook. I don't know how it happens. For me, it just happened. You know, they got old and, you know, I don't know. I became more

insulated in myself. And I just thought that was a good question. Cause as I talked to Moshe today about identity, you scramble, man. I mean, you know, some people, and this isn't a complaint, but it's a very odd thing as I get older and I wrestle with some of the same things that I've always wrestled with, is that because of whatever I grew up in, whatever world I grew up in emotionally, because of my parents' fundamental inability to really sort of do certain parenting things like be nurturing, supportive, encouraging, help develop a grounded sense of self in a child, me or my bro. Because of that, you're kind of left to kind of build it on your own. There you go.

Sorry, you're still nebulous in your identity as a unique being and yourself is kind of amoebic, but you're 15 now. So go out and try to kind of build a fence around that amoebic, boundaryless ooze you call your heart and your needs and see what you come up with. Try to build some character out of that jellyfish-like sense of self we gave you. And that becomes the project. That is the life project. Try things on, try shoes on, try hats on, different shirts. You pick people that you idolize, movie stars, writers, comedians, maybe try their hat on, maybe get their glasses, maybe get their pants or something that looks like their pants. Go out into the world. Go out into the world with your experiment and see if it sticks.

No one notices really, unless you get the exact same haircut as the lead singer from the Knack or something or Diet Red because somebody else, whatever. I went through so many outfits as a, I don't think I was conscious of it, but I was sort of like, maybe this will define who I am. I'll try this on, see how that goes. Nope, same guy, still a little insecure, no real concrete sense of self, but these shoes are good. And then, you know, you go through

relationships with that, just being a ball of, you know, random needs, aggravation, disappointment, put that on the other person, and then you become that guy, the reactive guy. And then you choose tasks, jobs, define yourself. I was, you know, I think early on I was an old Jewish man in my late teens through my early 20s maybe. And then, you know, then, you know, you try to be, you buy some boots, you're a cowboy maybe. I was a grill cook in high school. I was pretty locked into that. Once I learned how to, you know, kind of fold my apron in half and wear it around my waist like that, like a pro, like I was mentored by a guy who spent his life working in restaurants. I'm like, this is who I am. I'm the guy with the spatula. I'm the spatula guy. Different zones of comedy, different how people interact with you sometimes defines it,

but there's still a good part of me, and I think some of you know this from listening to me, that needs to be connected in a very immediate fashion to whoever I'm talking to. And that's who I am. But a lot of that stuff has faded away. I know what's going on inside of me. I know the sad, sort of fragile, vulnerable inner core of me.

I sit with that guy on the couch and I cry at movies and I cry when I watch reels on Instagram. That's that guy. He's my emotional engine, that guy. But usually I keep him pretty well locked away. He's my buddy. I'm not going to share him with everybody. he's not for i'm not gonna you know share him with everybody so i know and i also know all the manifestations of me that have built out from that little thing's needs it's like it's like that joke i wrote what was that in end times fun the monster i built to protect the child inside of me is hard to manage you know there's a spectrum of that. And sometimes it's not a bad thing. But I used to think about all that time.

I used to think about that all the time. I don't think it's everyone's thought pattern, you know, that the personality is just an elaborate defense mechanism. Kind of is. So listen, you guys, I have some sad news for those of you what's sad news for anybody a friend of mine and a comic as well as a writer named tom johnson uh died last

week and he was a one of the funniest people i ever met in my life, to be honest with you. I knew him a little bit as a comic way back, but he was a writer mostly for a lot of television stuff. He wrote for roasts, award shows, late night talk shows. He co-created the Jeselnik Offensive and was the head writer of that show. I knew him back when he did comedy briefly, but then he was actually at the comedy cellar before me. And then he became the writer for The Daily Show. This is the pre-John Stewart incarnation of The Daily Show.

And that's sort of how he came to Air America, which is where I, you know, he started Air America with me. But Liz Winstead, who was at The Daily Show, the original Daily Show show pulled tom in as a writer and that's where we remet and the thing was he he was fucking hilarious like inspired as a writer but also as a performer and he wrote so many amazing bits for us that we did on the radio so yeah just i this he wrote for giraldo greg giraldo a lot couple uh he was on his shows um good friends with giraldo tom also had his own struggles but don't we all but he had this character uh that we used to use on air america radio on morning sedition my show he had a character who would call into the show regularly. It was this,

um, it was an ineffectual liberal activist. He saw himself in the mold of a Latin revolutionary and he called himself Pendejo without knowing what that meant. His organization always went by some convoluted name before he realized it was an acronym for something like balls or gals or poodle. It was really fucking hilarious. And we're doing this show at 6 in the morning until 9 in the morning.

And to have this kind of comedy at that time, you're already a little punchy, a little giddy. It was just spectacular. And this is, I'll play, I'm going to play some for you. This is one of our favorite calls from Tom. He's calling in to talk to me and my co-host, Mark Riley on Morning Sedition, as I said, which was our show with Chris Lopresto as the board up on the levers, on the controls, on the knobs. As the board up on the levers, on the controls, on the knobs, Kalo Presto, who does that show with Brendan in our bonus material on Fridays. But this is Tom calling in as Pendejo.

The yelling guy, the guy from Poodle, or the Balls, I forget. Oh, yeah, that guy. He's on 9-1. Okay, all right, put him through. Hey, man, what's going on? So how's that thing you're working on going? You mean the revolution? Yeah, how's the revolution going? Did you guys come up with a better name yet?

I'll admit we have made some unfortunate mistakes in the naming of our group in the past. We are no longer known as Nambla, Poodle, Gals, or Balls. We are now called the Tactical Elite and Battle Action Group. Okay, so you're going with teabag. Teabag, Mark. We will go out across the land, find the evil, slanderous conservatives where they live, and teabag them into submission. They will feel one thing above all others. A stern and ferocious teabagging.

All right. Well, I think this is something you're going to have to find out on your own, buddy. But make sure you send me one of those T-shirts before you burn them, okay? So last week, your group had a big, scary, revolutionary brunch. How'd that go? The turnout at our rally. Brunch. Rally.

Was disappointing to say the least. Oh, I'm sorry. It was me, my shih tzu stompers, who cannot be left alone. My girlfriend, who while not actually there, she had a shift at Crabtree and Evelyn, but assured me she would join the rally on conference call. And the Johnsons had to leave early as their toddler Ben is an albino. Naturally, the outdoor table irritated his corneas. But the Revolutionary Council took a vote!

You mean you and Stompers? Yes! Me and Stompers! Oh, yeah. And we decided that what T-Bag needs more than anything is a recruiting drive. Ah, a recruiting drive. Since it's just you and Stompers, you decided, hey, maybe some people would help kick this revolution into high gear, huh? Exactly.

All right, buddy. So where'd you start the recruiting drive? My apartment complex. Chantilly by the lake. Stompers and I took the elevator to the top floor and vowed to teabag our way to the very bottom. So how many fours is that, man? Four. Now, how many apartments would you say are in the complex?

As many as 16, I think. So how many recruits did your liberal action group make? Well, I think the hour I chose may not have been the best. I found that at 11.30 a.m., most of my potential recruits were at work. Oh, so you mean all of them were at work. No, Mark, it might surprise you to learn I had a very successful recruiting day. Heed the names of my new lieutenants that shall haunt the dreams of the right wing. Rosa, the cleaning lady.

And Ethan, a seventh grader who was homesick that day but would not open the door all the way. But even through that narrow slot, I managed to teabag him. Well, you must be very proud of yourself, man. Well, while the police are on their way over to you, why don't you tell me a little bit about that badass revolutionary Rosa? Rosa? Yeah. She spoke no English, but I could see in her the burning spirit of Che.

know English, but I could see in her the burning spirit of Che. So Stompers and I and Rosa and Ethan, as soon as he asks his parents, will begin our assault on the neocons. To war, Mark! To war! Okay, so it's you

and Rosa, a 12-year-old boy and a little dog. Buddy, that's not a revolution. That's the Wizard of Oz. Oh, the story of teabag will not be a story for children i can assure you you can say that again i can't take it anymore i can't let you do this any longer all right listen are you in front of a computer right now yes okay type type in the word the word teabag into the Google image search bar. Go ahead, I'll wait. Okay. T-E-A-B-A-G. There. Oh, good sweet Lord, what have I done? Oh my God. Oh boy. So there you have it. That was a guy from the Revolutionary Group, formerly known as T-Bag.

Tom is survived by his wife, Rosie, and many friends and people who got to work with him who know what a smart and funny guy he was. I think about Tom and I'm kind of laughing, and now I'm kind of sad. I'm kind of sad laughing. It was like that when he was alive, too, though. So look, folks.

Come see me on the road. Things are okay. Cats are fine. Kids fine. Parents are okay. Me and Moshe get into some shit here. It's all very good. I don't know.

There's something about... I was talking to Brendan about it before the show, about really, you know, what it was like at the beginning of doing this show. Is that there are certain people that, like me, I'm thinking out loud right now. I talk and think at the same time. Not everybody can do that. Not everybody does that. Sometimes they answer questions. Sometimes they say things they already know, tell stories.

But like Moshe is sort of like me, and we're kind of thinking out loud on our feet, engaging. And that's sort of how this show developed. If you listen to the first 100 to 200 shows, it was a lot of people that I could riff with. And over time, I think I learned how to kind of drive for that or try to pull that out of everybody. But this is like, this is one of those conversations. And it happened a lot with comics and it still happens with comics. And sometimes I can feel it happen with people who aren't comics or people who aren't generally used to speaking like that freely, improvising, thinking out loud. But when you get into a jam with somebody like this, it's great.

Happened with Paul Giamatti the other day. I got John Oliver was in here the other day. I'll put that up later. That got great. Happened with Paul Giamatti the other day. I got John Oliver was in here the other day. I'll put that up later. That got going. It's just this is where it's kind of where it gets good, man. But this is me talking to Moshe Kasher. His new book, Subculture Vulture, a memoir in six scenes, comes out next Tuesday, January 30th. You can preorder it now wherever you get books. Here we go. Here we go. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Be honest.

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and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business. I was going to get a place in New York. And it was going to take time to get it together, like probably longer than I wanted. And it turned out to be...

But whatever the case, I had this idea, like, I'm going to get old in New York. It's lively. What a great place to die. Just to walk around engaged with the world. And then, I don't know, that went away. Now I'm back. I'm moving back to New Mexico, where I grew up and getting a place.

That's so the opposite experience of being old. New Mexico old is like staring at a mountain. But it's also like the real thought is like New York old is like I'm going to be an engaged guy. I'm going to go to the symphony. I'm going to Lincoln Center. I'm going to go enjoy some jazz. It's like then you got to ask yourself, have I ever been that guy? Am I going to be that guy all of a sudden? So you think you'll be sitting in an apartment

in New York, just wishing you were in New Mexico? Not wishing, but just sort of wondering like, do I, can I call anybody? Are any of my friends doing anything? You know what I heard recently was that, you know, all the old people in the 70s and 80s moved to the suburbs. They weren't old then. But there was white flight and people moved out to the suburbs and that became the way. That became like Long Island Jews. Yeah. And now nobody wants to live in suburbs anymore. It's become stigmatized.

It's boring. You know, suburban hell. Is that true? What, do they want to go further out? They want to do country? Well, this was before the pandemic. Yeah. I don't know if you heard about the pandemic.

That was when the disease happened? That's when what they call a disease happened. But I think we both know what really happened. Chinese. That's right. Thanks for bringing that up. That's right. Thanks for bringing that up. But the suburban life became stigmatized and came the advent of things like Uber Eats and DoorDash and delivery to your door. Being old in an urban center became incredibly easy, much, much easier. Oh, I see.

So now all of a sudden you have all these boomers that are now 70 and 80 years old. Moving back to the city? No, they're moving to the big city in the sky, the city of heaven. Dead. Dead. And nobody wants to, there is a reckoning, a real estate reckoning coming. Instacart go to heaven? You got to get Instacart Prime to get it delivered to heaven.

But there's going to be all these houses, like a third of the houses in America that are going to be vacant and nobody in communities no one wants to live in anymore. That's just like cities. Right. Well, all people all moved to the cities and started to love it. And we all saw that, that, you know, what was previously a terrible neighborhood then became like a cool neighborhood and people wanted to move there. But then came the pandemic and. And what? Well, I think all the rules have kind of shifted a little bit because society is a tad bit more chaotic in urban centers.

Well, I think that, I think what's, from what I can tell, people are just, depending on what they do, can work from anywhere if they're not in the service industry of some kind. Right. Or doing like those level of jobs. But I don't know, like I'm, I just started thinking about my heroes growing up in New Mexico, like the professor, this guy, Gus, you know, and he's a guy of books and things and things. And there's like a fairly progressive art scene and stuff in New Mexico. The reason I turned on it was like I've been going back to visit my father. And I thought, well, what would I do here?

You see if my high school friends are hanging out. But if you shift your like I can daughter around this fucking house all day and do whatever. I saw you daughtering when I pulled up. Yeah. I was putting some stuff in the bin. You were pre-dottering. Right. But I mean, we're comics.

I mean, you did the other thing. You have a child and responsibilities. But I mean, we built our life on dottering. Well, that's one of the great blessings of this lifestyle, right? No boss, no alarm clock. I always think about that. But if you're ambitious and you're busy and you're a worker you there's no line between work and not working you're doing something yeah i guess the idea is like the new york old person is trying to squeeze like a sponge

the last drops of life out of the experience of being alive and the new mexico old person is trying to shift into a different dimension of life i just want to stare at a river transition yeah there's no it's not looking at a river. An easier transition. Yeah. It's not looking at a river. I thought that's what you do in New Mexico. No, I mean, it's pretty. It's so pretty. But I mean, it's the idea of like,

you know, I think I'm a cultured person. I live in Los Angeles. Do I go to a museum? Once every two years. Yeah, yeah. Maybe. They're right there. Do I go to the fucking opera? Do I go to anything?

Why would I do that in New York? I know a guy at Lincoln Center, jazz at Lincoln Center. He'll get me in. I think that you're really going to hate this, but I think that admitting to yourself that you don't really like jazz is part of the process of growing up. I like jazz. And I'm sure you do.

I just had to admit it to myself. Like, you know what? I don't like jazz. I want to like jazz. I wish had to admit it to myself. Like, you know what? I don't like jazz. I want to like jazz. I wish I was a person that liked jazz. Well, that's a weird thing because I brought this up before, but I have a cousin who literally hears jazz and it makes her anxious. Yeah. But for me, it's almost like Ritalin.

I got no problem with jazz. It interfaces fine with me. I have a very hard time knowing the separate people. Like, it's too deep a rabbit hole for me to identify all the players, but I do like listening to it. Classical? You like classical? No, I don't understand it. Yeah.

I mean, I can sit and listen to it. And, you know, like, I watched Maestro, you know, Jew Conductor. That was a working title. Jew Conductor? Yeah, Jew Conductor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, in parentheses, The Nose. Jew Conductor, The Nose. That was quite a choice.

The actual conducting scene, that was a brilliant scene. There was many of them. The one, though, you know, in the chamber where they're sweeping through the hall and he's doing his thing. Bradley Cooper is definitely channeling. Oh yeah, no, he's a great actor.

He's a great actor. But what I'm finding with a lot of these movies that are like, you know, Oscar movies or whatever is that it's not that I love them as movies, but like, I didn't know that stuff.

I'm learning things. It's Wikipedia. Like Oppenheimer, I'm like, I had no idea. Oppenheimer was definitely Wikipedia the movie. Yeah. But I mean, it was good.

I needed to know that. I didn't realize that. That was originally called Jew Scientist. Sure. But I mean, it was good. I needed to know that. I didn't realize. It was originally called Jew Scientist. Sure. And Barbie was called Jew Doll. Is Barbie Jewish? Yes. She couldn't be.

She's totally Jewish. I have not met that Jew. No, but she was invented by a Jew. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm saying. We do it all. The little lady who made the Barbie. Who didn't look much like Barbie.

No, didn't look like Barbie at all. She's the one that unleashed it. Unleashed the feminine role model that either you think did amazing things for women or did horrible things for women. And the other Jew unleashed the fires of hell. Yeah, yeah. The Jew that created Barbie, you mean. Yeah, that and Oppenheimer. They should have gotten together.

Well, that was the genius of the Barbenheimer thing. It's like it's a Jewish thing. Uh-huh. Like, no one, I hadn't heard anyone talk about it like that. I talked to Greta Gerwig about it. I said, it's like Jews. Yeah. But I don't know if that makes us look good or bad, given the climate.

Well, nothing, I mean, nothing makes us look good or bad, given the climate. And the climate's always a little bit cloudy. Yeah, I've been on stage. I've been saying, it's not a great time for Jews. But has it ever been? A hundred percent. Was there ever a time in history where a Jew said, wow. I'm trying to think.

What an amazing time it is to be Jewish. Let's see. Was there? You want to know. In certain neighborhoods. No, you know what's really funny. Maybe in New York during that. This is not actually funny, but very dark.

And it is in the book. Is the reason that so many Jews perished in Poland in the Holocaust. My family's all Polish. Are you Polish? Yeah. The reason we were there. Polish-Russian. The reason that the Jews, there were so many Jews living in Poland that.

I know, I read this part. Yeah, go ahead. That they called, you know, they called Lublin Little Jerusalem. Yeah. Is because 300 or 400 years before that. Yeah. they called Lublin Little Jerusalem, is because 300 or 400 years before that,

King Casimir of Poland in the something century was looking around at European proto-antisemitism. Every Easter, they'd round up some Jews and, I don't know, throw them. Middle Ages? Yeah, like that time. And they would do like a parade with the town Jew for being a Christ killer and then toss them in a ditch or something like that. And he goes, this is stupid. Everybody come to Poland, Poland. We will welcome, we will welcome Jewish minds and Jewish wealth and Jewish culture. Come on. We're the safe space.

And that was, that's the reason everybody went to Poland. Did that guy have the long game? You think he set us up? It could be, but it's so depressing. It's like even the place where there was a celebration like, yes, this is our spot, became the seat of our destruction, you know, 100, 200 years later. So, no, no, there's never been a bright and sunny time. But what's interesting about the new book is that you wrote a fairly thorough memoir years ago. Yeah. About specifically growing up with deaf parents, mostly. Yeah, I wrote basically, well, it's interesting to call it thorough because it ends like right before I turned 16, that first book. Right. And I guess the reason that the,

the reason I started thinking about the second book is I kept over the years having people ask me like, well, what happened next? What happened next? Yeah, you're still alive. What happened? And I had decidedly not written like a recovery memoir. It was a, it was a memoir of my trials and tribulations of getting before he got sober until the, essentially the last image in the book, it flashes forward a little bit. The old book that you graciously blurbed for me, um, is, is all of me standing at a BART station, 15 years old, out of rehab for the last time, not the first time. It was my third rehab that I'd finally gotten out of at that point. Yeah.

And all my friends saying, hey, we're headed up. I remember this moment really clearly. We're headed up. We're going to go to this bar. There was a bar called Barclays in Oakland where I don't know how, but they would serve us. We were 15. There's always that one. I mean, this wasn't a liquor store where they would look the other way and give you a 40. This was a bar. They just had kids at the counter. High chairs.

Yeah, you just amble up. Bar keep, I'll have an ice cream sundae and a bourbon, please. And they said, we're going. Do you want to come? And I said, no. I think I have to go. I think I have to go. And I remember the image.

I really remember this of all my friends walking one way up the street on college avenue in oakland and me walking alone the opposite direction and that's where like kind of the rest of my life began is like walking alone were you like walking were you in your you know baggy rave clothes yet no no this was um this was pre um no hat and baggy clothes no i, before this, you know how you always make fun of me for like kind of being, I knew it was going to come up at some point,

so I'll just bring it up. I'll supersede the roast, which is when you first encountered me on stage, I had this... You scared me. I scared you? You scared me. I was like, this guy's angry

and he's dressed in all these baggy elf clothes. I'm literally currently wearing a pair of boots made in Finland that look like they're for elves, like real elves. Oh, I've had things like that. Those are like a slipper. That's not great for all day long outside. The most comfortable boots I've ever worn. But those kind of soles. Viva boots.

Those kind of soles, I don't know. They're bad for you? No, they're not bad for you, but they're not durable. Well, anyway. You're wearing elf shoes now. No, what they help is a year round in the toy workshop, me and the other elves are able to fashion sleighs and tops. The Hasidic elves.

I was not a raver yet. This was my gangster years. Okay. When you're walking away from your friends. When I was walking away from my friends, I mean. Oakland. Mark, I had a Southern accent. I had never been to the South.

I'm not a Southern person. I have no family in the South. I had a choir. Was it a Southern black accent? Oh, yeah, it was a Southern black accent. Where'd you pick that up? Somewhere in Oakland, like some too short tape or something like that. It would come and go depending on who I was talking to. up in somewhere in Oakland, like some, some too short tape or something like that. And it would

come and go depending on who I was talking to. Like I'd be talking to my brother and I'd be talking like a regular person. And then a friend would call and it'd be like, well, brother, you know, I think our plans are there. Just a second. Hello. Hell yeah. What's up, my man? Yeah. We chilling out here. All right, then peace. And I'd look at my brother and he'd be like, what the fuck just happened? Who is this? And I'm like, I'm just keeping it real, dog. He's like, no, that is the opposite of keeping it real. So all of the things that you made fun of me about when we got to know each other, it's interesting because I had excised

a lot of that kind of identity crisis stuff by the time I started doing stand-up. And when I stood up on stage, it's like this little defense mechanism, demon from the past would come out comedically, you know? Well, I feel, what I felt like when you were telling me this is that, you know, that makes sense to me because you were kind of a raw nerve in my memory. Like, it seemed like you had gotten rid of all that other stuff and now you were kind of aggravatingly dealing with whatever you were.

Well, it was interesting to find it, me again on stage you know it's like i you know when you're new to knew it stand up yeah um i don't know if you can think that far back mark that's very funny you're new sure just me and mort saw just trying to give you a little yeah you had an electric guitar under your arm he had a newspaper yeah and and he got more popular than me. I was always mad at him for it. You know, Mort Sahl used to come around the Bay Area a lot. I know, the Throckmorton. I can't.

And everybody would always say, I didn't know the guy. And we would look. It's a funny experience because when someone points at someone you're not familiar with and say, that's a legend, then you go, okay. And you go, legend over there. But everybody always said he was kind of mean, right? I hate talking about him because I didn't like him. Right. And he was an asshole to me.

He was pretty, very much in his New Mexico doddering stage when I encountered him at the Throckmorton. But yeah, I heard that was the rumor that he was not the warmest newspaper-carrying comedian. No, I just, I had a problem with him. But nonetheless, so you're saying that by the time you got to stand

up you had excised a lot of these different use and and then i and then i got on stage and you know you're one of the the things that you do early on in stand-up is you're attempting to grab at things to be able to use them to go like how do i be funny how do i perform how do i be me and so this old non-me me comes out which I thought was I thought about you making fun of me because I never thought of myself as like

I had no consciousness of the fact that I was even doing that I was just like using whatever tools were at my disposal but it was funny that this kind of

weakness from the past came up on stage and for a while and I still do it to some small extent on stage like I like playing with the

interaction between the way I physically look now and, like, a slang term. Do a little hip-hoppy stuff. Pretending to be the guy that would know that. Especially now at my age, it's getting— But you did come up. You were the guy that knows that stuff. It is true. It's not an insincere part of my life.

I mean, you're a grown-up, well-dressed man now, but, I mean, it's what you were built— Well, I think that's what's interesting about this book because you've chosen, you know, these long essays. The book is a memoir built on, I guess, six essays about what made you you, right? That's right. I mean, that was the plan. Like, which were the defining movements and factors in my life historically and also just spiritually and pop culture wise. And you kind of just broke them down that way and you put yourself together through this book. And I think, yeah, it's like what I thought a lot about is you look, when you get a little bit older, you look back and you

realize, oh, there was a pattern here. There was a path like this was where I was headed. And while you're walking through it, it feels more like, you know, you're, you're on a, you're on an adventure being sort of flung from thing to thing. Oh, so you think that when you look back on it, you're like, I was always going here. I don't believe in necessarily destiny in that way. I mean, I do believe in destiny really strongly, but only in hindsight. How else does it exist? In that I was being drawn in this one particular direction and it was always meant to be that I would be here. You believe that? I don't necessarily believe that. I believe it in a kind of metaphysical way that once you get to where you landed, you look back

and go, wow, I see now this like brilliant path that I was walking. Well, you sort of have to, I mean, you know. Oh yeah, I guess you could look back and go, God, that sucked. I mean, at some point you got to be like, was meant to do this. Cause what's the alternative? Well, like I think about, there's a moment in the book, like I think about, I was on a semester abroad, um, in Israel and, um, and this was in the height of the second intifada and the semester abroad got cut short. And in college I'd been studying playwriting and acting. And I wanted to be like Spalding. I thought like I'll be Eric Boghossian and I'll be Spalding Gray. But I didn't know what any of it meant. And then I went to New York because my semester got cut short. I go, I'll go to New York for the summer and have a good time. So I fly back and Chelsea Peretti was there

and she had started doing standup. I didn't, I was not a guy. Were you a guy? You knew her? I knew Chelsea from middle school. Oh, okay. And she went to high school with my brother. Yeah. And I'd seen her one-person show in San Francisco. Am I a guy who what? Who was always going to be a comedian, even before.

Pretty much. You always worshipped them and looked at comics. Well, early on, I thought it was a pretty amazing thing to do. And I started pretty quickly right out of college. Yeah. I had during college, I had almost no consciousness of what that standup existed. I mean, I knew that existed, obviously I'd seen delirious and my brother showed me Janine's, uh, special HBO special. And I thought she seemed so cool, but I wasn't, um, I just, that wasn't in the cards, but I go to New York and I, and I see Chelsea and she's like,

I'm doing standup now. I'm like, what even kind of is that? And we go to new york and i and i see chelsea and she's like i'm doing stand-up now i'm like what even kind of is that and we go to uh she took me to a show at luna lounge that night sure and my first live stand-up show i ever saw downtown yeah and patrice was there and sarah silverman was there and i remember watching them and going like what is i remember patrice making fun of michael j fox yeah and i was just i i was just like, I didn't even know you could do a thing like that, you know? Yeah. Like it's a sick- Well, you can't.

Patrice can, but you can't. Right, Patrice can. I'm just, but the mere idea of like throwing that kind of fuel at something that seems sacred, I just had never considered it before, especially when I'm in this Eric Boghossian balding gray. Sure, yeah. Like, oh, I'm delving into the psychological underpinnings. Well, for years, I saw Eric as kind of a guy that just didn't have the discipline or the guts to do comedy.

It's really funny because I was like a freshman in college looking and going, wow, cool. Well, it was cool, but unlike Spalding, who was his own thing, I think Spalding's different. I don't think Spaling set out to do comedy. But when I watched Eric early on in Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, whatever, it was clear that they were bits. Yeah, yeah. Whereas I think Spaulding was doing this extended, weird kind of existential riffing that was totally driven by his mind. But I thought that Eric was going for laughs. I really think it's funny that early in our conversation, you're like, I'm not a culture

guy. I don't go to the museum. But you have a really keen analysis of the differences between Eric Boghossian and Spalding Gray's long form monologues. Well, no, I mean, but I- You're a pretty cultured guy. I keep up with the art. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I did go see art. I go to New York. I go to the Whitney all the time. I grew up with it. I'm not saying I'm some sort of lowbrow guy. I just, you know, I don't go as much as somebody who like there's my, my grandparents' neighbors, they won the lottery and retired in DC. And that guy was like at the opera. He was at the symphony. You know, people who live that life who just thrive on any kind of culture. I'd like to be

that guy, but I'm not. That's all I'm saying. That's like the lady I sat next to at the Alex Edelman show. She was like 99 years old. Do you want me to change the subject? That whole story's bad already. Okay, so she was... What? Go ahead.

Forget it. No, tell me. She was just like 99 years old and she was telling me she goes to every single theater performance in Los Angeles and then she told me

I really needed to check out the new Taylor Swift movie. She'd been eight times. So that does... I mean, listen, I don needed to check out the new Taylor Swift movie. She'd been eight times. Sure. So that does, I mean, listen, I don't want to say the new Taylor Swift movie,

but that does seem like an aspirational 99 years old. Look, because I think people retire, either you fucking surrender and die or you do the things

that you never got to do in your life. Yeah. And you just go do it compulsively. Why not go to every fucking theater show? I think actually the secret, Mark,

I want to get back to Destiny, but the secret is to live. If you're going to go somewhere, go to go to Santa Fe, because then you can stare at the river, get in your old school pickup truck and then drive to the theater performance. It's all about living just. Yeah, but that's like local Santa Fe theater. I can't go to New Mexico opera. No, I mean, I could come back. I could go anywhere. Like, I'm not a big theater guy. I do like art. I do like things. I like them. I'm a guy that's

sort of like, oh, it's going to be aggravating. How are we, where are we going to park? But once I'm at a place, whether it's a party, a museum, a performance, once I'm inside, I'm great. I'm so glad we came. But when I'm at home, I'm like, it's going to be a hassle. So I just have to, right. I get that. Yes. I get that. Yes, I get that. So destiny has brought you here. Oh, destiny. So I go to New York.

I see Patrice and Sarah. I go, oh, my God. This is it. Maybe I'll try that. Yeah. Maybe that's the thing. I've been studying performance. I've been studying writing.

I'll try that. And I said to Chelsea, oh, I'll write 10 minutes. She was coming to the Bay Area. This was in June, and she was coming to the Bay Area in August. What year? 2002. And I wrote a bit. And she came to the Bay area in August, 2002. And I wrote a bit and she came to San Francisco because she's from there, took me to an open mic. I did

the open mic. I got some laughs and I that's, that was the beginning of that. And now here I am 20 years later, it's my living. I'm writing books. I meet Natasha somewhere. We get married. I have a kid. This is like my life. And if so many different weird things hadn't taken place, I'd be a different guy. I wouldn't be on this podcast. I'd be sitting at a desk somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, a social worker with a different family or no family or I'm dead in a ditch. Well, if you believe in the multiverse theory, you are doing all those things. Everything's happening for you. In another universe, you're extremely

annoyed with this interview right now, but in this universe, it feels like we're having a good time. It's the best. That universe is right here. It's right next to us. It could actually meld at any point. The two universes could meet. It happens frequently. I bet it does.

What's the worst interview you've ever had, Mark? No, I'm just kidding. Ben Kingsley. Oh, yeah? Hands down. I don't want to talk about that guy. All right.

But, like, so you go through the revelation of AA. Yeah. And where that got you. And that kind of did something to your brain that stuck? Yeah, well, when I walked alone, I walked alone into an AA meeting and it was lucky or unlucky or whatever. I know that fucking moment, man. Yeah.

That early sobriety thing where like you're just raw as fuck and you just walk into these smoky, fucked up rooms and then they just become, they start to make so much sense. Well, you know, I was terrified because it's weird.

I had been in meetings already because I'd started my mom's. In the rehab, yeah. My mom sent me to rehab when I was like 13. So they would force us to go to 12-step meetings. In the van. In the van, yeah. So we would take the van and we would go. And so when I decided to do, to ask for help,

I already was sort of already physically there. But mentally, my whole orientation was that adults were the problem. I hated adults. Like I hated, I hated, everybody was always telling me what to do from my earliest memories, like Oakland police department, the, uh, the principal, Oakland public schools, my mother, my therapist, and I get to AA and you know, that feeling you were talking about, imagine that feeling, but you're 10 years younger than anyone at the young people's meeting. Yeah. I was 15, and I went to the Monday night young people's meeting in Oakland, and everybody was 25 and older.

But you heard some stories, right? Oh, yeah. Great. I mean, you can definitely, if you don't get sober in AA at that age, it can be really bad because you've learned a lot of tools of the trade. You're like, I could try that. Yeah. Where's that corner you were talking about? It's literally right outside.

So I went in and asked for help. I remember that. I actually said, I don't know what to do. I keep quitting and starting the next day, and I just need help. And then I got up and I walked out of the room, which is a very alcoholic way to ask for help. I need help. Angrily. Don't fuck yourself out of the room, you know, which is a very alcoholic way to ask for help. Sure, yeah. It's like, I need help.

Angrily. Angrily. Go fuck yourself. And I'll be out in the hallway if anybody. But somebody followed me outside. And he, like, put his arms around me, this guy, Pigeon, that I'm still sort of in touch with. Yeah. And he just said, it's going to be okay.

I mean, by the way, this is not high-level advice giving. No, but in that moment when you're that fucking lost and raw, it's all you need. Yeah. And he was an adult. Yeah. And I go, wow, I just broke. I don't know if I broke or if it just I broke enough to go back into the meeting that night. But that was where I started like picking together days.

See, like because I'm so fucking wired for AA, just you telling that story, I'm like tearing up now. Well, it was a moment. It's going to be okay. And I'm like tearing up now. Well, it was a moment. It's going to be okay. And I'm like, oh my God, the hand of AA reached out. Well, it's interesting because you know well that the reason that guy followed me outside, yeah, I'm sure he cared about me. Yeah, but he wanted to stay sober. He was there to help himself because somebody had come outside and told him it was going to be okay 18 months before that.

Right. And then i started this process like that was 19 that was december ish december 24th 1994 so it was a long time ago yeah i mean look i just had 20 what i got i'm i have 24 years wow that's a long time yeah it's long you know when i was young when i was 20 and 25 and i got got like 30 years? Yeah. And as I've gotten older, I used to be very proud. I go, yeah, I'm 25 and I've got 10 years sober. It was like this big badge of identity. Now that I'm 44 and I have 30 years sober, I'm like, it's embarrassing.

I feel embarrassed. Couldn't handle it, huh? And then people go, what were you doing? And I know what they want me to say, which is heroin, and that's not the answer. I just go, kid, kid, kid stuff. It's become an anxious feeling. I don't think people really understand the compulsion. It doesn't matter what you did or what the depth of the bottom is.

I mean, if you know, you know. And it was fortunate that, you know, either people around you or you yourself knew that early because who the fuck would, who knows what would have happened? Oh, I mean, I don't know what would have happened, but I know what happened to the people that walked the other way up the street.

They're all dead? They're not all dead, but some of them are. Some of them are dead and some of them went to prison and some of them are fine. Yeah. It's this, you know. Fuck them, you know, there was this kid I remember we used to all get high with named Terry. Yeah.

And, um, this was the type of kids that I would get high with. Yeah. Terry, we, we, one day we had a big party at his house and then he told us goodnight. We all left. Yeah. And he was leaving town and then we broke back into his house and like went and stole his weed plants and like trashed his house and then Terry

stopped hanging out with us and we were all mystified by it we're like fucking Terry's a square now like for years the mythology about Terry was that he was just like a total dork loser

that couldn't handle the life that we were you know and Terry is a veterinarian and doing great and like the people that were calling him a loser

like some of them had heart attacks from doing too much coke at like 35. And you broke into his fucking house. We broke into his house, but it was just like, hey, that's part of the system here. Once in a while, somebody is going to break into your house. Yeah. And you're going to know them. So, okay. So that lays the groundwork for your spiritual and sort of psychological recovery. But then it seems like in the book, you move into the rave culture as your actual cultural identity initially. Well, that was the thing.

It's like, though I'm sober, though I'm like, I am getting really touched and turned on by the 12 steps and this new life, I'm still 15. And like, I come from this like lifestyle of people that break into Terry's house, you know? And it was a terrible, it was a terrible, like there was no social life, you know, and it was a terrible, it was a terrible, like there was no

social life. You know, I remember I got spiritually bankrupt, uh, pseudo gangster living. Exactly. Yeah. A white boy who thinks he's not white boy. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. The war, I would say the worst demographic in the world, in the universe, most annoying displaced and Jew on top of it. Oh yeah. Yeah. We start with a baseline of genetic annoyance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we move into cultural annoyance. Yeah. And I wanted, like, I got sober December 25th. And, you know, I remember.

Christmas. Like six days later, it's New Year's. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I'm like 15 years old. It's New Year's. And I got invited to a party.

Yeah. And nobody invited us to parties back then. Yeah. This was not, we had, our reputation preceded us. Don't invite these people to a party. You and your crew? Me and my crew. This was not, we had our reputation preceded us. Don't invite you and your crew, me and my crew. And we got invited to this party. Yeah.

And I, and I knew if I went to the party, I was done for, there's no chance that I'm going to use. I was definitely going to use. And I had this other option, which is to go to this AA dance at the, I don't know where the,

some rotary club in the suburbs. And I, I didn't know what to do AA dance at the, I don't know where, some rotary club in the suburbs. And I didn't know what to do. It's like, I'm 15. I want to go to a party. I mean, there's nothing more seductive than a New Year's party for a 15-year-old. And there's nothing less seductive than a rotary club on New Year's Eve. And I went to the fucking rotary club. Atta boy.

And I found this girl named Rose, who I still kind of know. And I remember she was the only person under like 50 at this thing. And we sat under like a fluorescent lamp outside and smoked Newports together

and discussed what the fuck happened to our lives. See, you still stayed a little black, didn't you? There's a little bit of it in me. And at 12.01,

my mom came and picked me up and drove me back home and that was my first New Year's. And at the time, it was like this was the worst New Year's I've ever had in my life. And in retrospect, once again, in hindsight, I go, wow, that was, that was, that was the most important new year's of my life. It was to make the choice to make that kind of commitment. But like six months later, I'm, you know, I'm still, I'm 16 now. And I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah. Like, who am I? Who am I?

What do I do? And I saw this flyer on a telephone pole. I remember I'd seen a 2020 news, like an alarmist kind of news report on raves, you know, the new drug-addled warehouse parties happening near your children now. And I go, I'm doing it. Yeah, yeah. And I bought a $20 ticket to this rave called Cyberfest.

That was when MDMA was the thing, right? It was the thing. In fact, I'm not sure there's ever been a scene fest that was when mdma was the thing right it was it was the thing yeah it was there in fact i'm not sure there's ever been a scene that's more directly connected to one drug than than the raves it was weird if you didn't do specifically mdma yeah and uh and that was i didn't do specifically mdma i um i bought a ticket to this party i remember i went to an na meeting across the street from the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center where the rave was happening. And I told all these like middle

aged drug addicts, like, you know, the freedoms of sobriety have allowed me to go to the psychedelic rave across the street. And they were just like, what the fuck? Who are you? What are you talking about? And I walked across the street, I got in line. And I remember I had this bottle of, I used to wear Escape by Calvin Klein. Wow. So Newport's and Escape by Calvin Klein. You can get a picture. You can get a picture.

And I remember I had this bag because I didn't know what to expect. In this rave, I had like packed like I was going camping. And I remember I grabbed, I had the bottle of Escape. And I remember I stuffed it into a sock. Yeah. In case I had to like, I had to blackjack somebody. Yeah, defend my, this is like my modus operandi. Because what is a raid?

Yeah, who knows? It's going to be open warfare. Yeah, yeah. And so that's the kind of mind I had in the line. The line was like, I might have to use this potpourri-scented blackjack to knock somebody unconscious and make an escape. You know how we live. Yeah, man. Keep it real, yeah and uh and i walk into this party and i walked into this warehouse and i heard

this music and i just listen i know it's corny no it's all right but it's like it i don't know what happened but my mind like just fractalated i was just really immediately like looking around like i was overwhelmed by everything that was happening you know if i if i if i looked specifically i saw the weirdest looking people i'd ever seen in my life and if i widened my my aperture i saw this like throbbing mass of thousands of people yeah this music and i put the bag down with the escape blackjack. I never saw the bag. The bag was immediately gone.

And I just started like dancing around the room. I'm like pirouetting, doing leaps in the air. And like, by the way, as a white person with an identity crisis, one of the places where you really betray yourself and showed the world that you truly are white is when it comes to dancing. Sure, of course. I didn't know dancing. I didn't know how to dance. And so what I would do, uh, like what I would do in Oakland public schools is just like you, but grab

booty, grab slow dance kind of thing that I talk about in the book. Like it was the slow dance where you would try to grab your partner's butt and she would grab your hand and make- To some old rock song? No, no, no. To some 1990s very- R&B. Suggestive R&B song. Yeah, right. Yeah. Like Silk or Candyman's Knockin' the Boots. Are you familiar?

No, but I get it. Spalding Gray did a great monologue about it. Oh, he did? No, he didn't. But I never danced. I never moved. I just tried to look cool. That was the thing.

Sure, but here you are with a bunch of freaks. I'm fucking doing, I'm doing Baryshnikov across the floor at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center. No one bothered you. No one judged you. There was no judgment at these parties. See, that's why you got there and you're like, this is who I am now. 100%. Yes.

Because I had come from this world where my friends were a threat. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I got- So guarded, defensive. I got physically beaten up by my best friends dozens of times great friends oh terrible i remember once this guy my friend never once you thought like maybe not be friends anymore if you know i was so desperate you know and like i was so i was so before when i found those kids and they welcomed me behind the portables at the back of the school no one had ever welcomed me before i was just like and take the hit i literally take the hit i remember once had ever welcomed me before. I was just like. So you're going to take the hit.

Literally take the hit. I remember once this dude was, one of my friends was like beating up this kid that had come to hang out with us. Right. And I ran over like, and I go, I go, come on,

Jay, don't hit him, man. Leave him alone. And I like took his shoulder, like, come on, leave him alone.

And my friend, who I'm over there intervening on, turns around, punches me in the face. Yeah. And I grab my eye and I run off and I start crying. That always happened to me when I got beat up. I always started crying.

It was the worst. It was so embarrassing. Even now? I haven't been beaten up in a long time, so I don't know. But maybe, because I'd get so angry that I would start physically crying. I cry just in verbal confrontations. Yeah? Sure.

I'd be closer to it. But yes, I was that too. My emotions were so bubbling. So I run off with my eye, you know, half shut and black and Jay comes over. He's drunk

and he goes, he comes to apologize. He's like, I'm so sorry I hit you. I really apologize. I go, yeah man, it was really fucked up.

Why'd you do that? And he fucking beat me up again. He beat me up during the apology. Yeah. So these are the people that I was surrounded by. So the rave was a relief. I get there,

I'm pirouetting and this gay couple comes up to me on either side of me and they put their arm around my waist and they lift me in the air and they go, you dance beautifully and they like drop me to the ground

and I'm in the air and I'm going I'm going, who the fuck are these who the fuck are these gay motherfuckers touching all on me? Like, who the fuck do they think they are? And they put me down. I'm going to tell them who I am. And they put me down and I grabbed both of them and I pulled them close to me and I kissed him on the cheek and I go, you dance beautifully too. And like, I was like, all of a sudden I was a new man. I was a different, I was born again. I was born again. Wow. Almost literally. Yeah. No, it feels that way. And I can, I was a new man. I was a different being. I was born again. Wow.

Almost literally. Yeah. No, it feels that way. And I can picture that. Well, the thing about raves is that when you picture a rave, you picture like a guy with an adult with a like top hat and candy. Well, just goofy shit. Goofy shit. Like a stuffed animal and glitter on his face and barrettes.

And I realize now, again, in hindsight, like what that was, was my real childhood was so like a goofy trippy shit a stuffed animal and glitter on his face and barrettes and i realize now again in hindsight like what that was was my real childhood was so violent and so uh just not childhood that when i got to raves you know i was able to sort of recreate this artificial childhood embrace the innocence yeah that's was. Because then you go into your actual, you do do a chapter on your actual parents. Yeah. But it's different than the book that you wrote before because you are coming at it from an older point of view. Yeah. And in a historical point of view, too.

I mean, like each of the segments, each of the essays are one part history and one part memoir. Sure. And the segments about my parents are, of course, the ones about Judaism and deafness, which are two of the worlds that are, they're not... But the deafness thing, like, it seems like there was a bit of focus on the fact of, you know, how embarrassing.

Oh, it was so embarrassing. It was to be the child of deaf people out in the world. It was a raw nerve, and it was to be the child of deaf people out in the world it was a it was a raw nerve and it was one of the raw it was part of the of the cocktail that allowed the invitation to the back of the portables to feel so relieving yeah is that i felt so different you know my dad was this like born again hasidic jew my mother is this like deaf activist with a funny voice, you know, and like, I was very proud of my mother. I always have been. And very, I was very aware that like of gratitude and pride in having a deaf mother, but simultaneously I, it was embarrassing

when she would call my name across the schoolyard in that voice that sounds deaf. And I, and I, the schoolyard in that voice that sounds deaf. And I, and I, and, and, and that was conflicting, you know, to, to be simultaneously proud and also ashamed of the same person for the same reasons was like, it was really tricky. Everything about having deaf parents is tricky because they're your, they're your guardian and they're your teacher and they're your leader. They're your parent, but some, you're also their, uh're your parent, but you're also their administrative assistant, and you're also, people look at you before they look at your parent. You know, you walk up, people would interface with my mother through me

or sometimes instead of my mother. I remember we pulled up, we were going camping once, and the ranger leans, my mother's driving the car. She leans across my mom to hand me the pamphlet and go, now can your mother read? And it's like, she's driving a car. Like, she's deaf, not stupid. Like, what are you?

And then as I started to get into trouble, I would be the interpreter because they hadn't made it illegal to not have interpreters for deaf people. I would be the interpreter in the meeting about my behavioral issues for my mother. I would be translating. And you have to do kind of a subtle dance. Yeah. Because you can't just do a faithful translation. Right. Or you'll get in tons of trouble.

What he's trying to say. Yeah. But he's not quite correct. Yeah. But you also, I would do that. You also can't go, your son's a great guy. We love him. Because we're like, oh, then why'd you call me in today?

Sure. So you'd have to do this sort of subtle dance of like, a troubled but intriguing young fellow. Right, right, right. We want him out. They're thinking about a different path for me. They think I'm a brilliant challenge is what they're saying. That I'm too unique. Yeah.

Fucking asshole? I saw the words fucking asshole being mouthed. So that was sort of the ground that I was born into. So how much of this book did you find closure in writing this stuff, around this stuff? Or had you already processed most of this stuff? Because usually the act of writing kind of gives you a fullness to the closure. That's for sure. And I don't know, I think that my biggest feeling of all of this

was the first thing we talked about is like looking back at these like disparate kind of worlds that had created the kind of my me-ness and going, oh man, they were interconnected through me.

I'm the connective tissue and they do fit together even though they don't necessarily all feel like they're of a kind. They do fit together because they create the story of who I am. And also, I realized how grateful I am for the time before the internet when culture would kind of, you would stumble into culture through accidental means. Oh yeah, the best, yeah.

And you would just go, my destiny was just literally the people I met or the weird choices I made rather than the app that I opened and culture was sort of delivered to me through like a— Punched into your face. Like a Brazil feeding tube. You know, you open a thing like, this is culture. Yeah. It was just this accident. Well, that's interesting also about the last two chapters where it's

Judaism and then comedy, but the Judaism thing, like all this stuff you're talking about was written before, you know, October 7th, right? Yeah. Obviously. And, you know, you run pretty deep with the Jew stuff and it's sort of, you're reckoning with, you know this chassidic presence in your life yeah and then you kind of do a a kind of uh quick uh primer on the history of jews i do i do a history of the first 6 000 years of jewish history in six pages i think but

now how much of this stuff was, did you have to actually research in order to manifest this idea? It depends on- What was your education? Depends on the chapter. Each of these worlds is a world that I know intimately well. I'm talking about the Jews. Jews specifically.

I have a degree in Jewish history, and that was, I would say, the thing that I kind of knew most of this stuff going into it. Yeah. I was at some point, speaking of things that could have gone in a different direction, at some point the plan was to become an academic, a Jewish studies academic. Your brother's a rabbi?

My brother is a rabbi. I met him, the rabbi. He's a great guy. Great guy. And he helped. I would send him everything because I know history, but I don't know theology as much, obviously, as him. For the spiritual concepts that we that i

kind of try to explain in the book he would be my resource and there was a bunch of people that helped me but a lot of the jewish history stuff yeah i that's what i studied in college and that's what i thought my destiny was bringing me to until i found an open mic i just i thought that like it was great kind of a great understanding uh and portrait of chassidim you know, I've gotten into trouble with them because I make fun of them. And I think they're like, you know, Polish hillbillies. Oh, same here. And then there's one line in the book where you're like, looked like the type of person

that only had sex with his wife and hookers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there's that too. Well, that's, you know, that's allowed. I know, but that's like, that was my one correction in the book. That was your one note? That guy definitely didn't just have sex with his wife. I used to see them cruising hookers all the time.

Yeah, but come on. It doesn't mean all of them. Yeah, it's not that Hasidic Jews go to hookers. It means some Hasidic Jews have gone to hookers. Sure, yes. Frequently. I used to see them all the time in New York. No, I remember my friend telling me he was a gay guy and he went to a bathhouse one night.

And he said these two Hasidic, like very nervous looking Hasidic boys came up to him and they were like, he was fucking some guy and they're staring and he's, and he looked, he turns and he goes, did you want to, it sounds so fun to be gay. He's like, did you want to jump in here? And they go, no, no, we just look. I think that's in the Hasidic Tales of Martin Buber. Martin Buber did discuss that. He knew all the bathhouses of New York City.

No, no, we just look. No, no, we just look. That's the title of the Hasidic Tale, the parable. Well, my reckoning with the Hasidic world is, you know, I mean, on the one hand, I'm not unaware of why you make fun of them and the difficulties that people have with them. Sure. I mean, they're difficult. Well, I interviewed, you know, Loser Tversky? Of course, yeah.

Yeah, you know, I interviewed him. That's a rough story. I don't even know where he is right now. It is a rough story. Do you know where he is right now? I think he's in an RV. He goes to Burning Man. That's one of the segments in the book, by the way.

That's the other one, yeah, sure. That goes rave to Burning Man makes sense. Now, that one does click together. But, yeah, spiritually, I can understand that. Yeah. But Loser's still in the trailer? I think so. rave to burning burning man now that one does click together but uh yeah spiritually i can understand that yeah but losers still in the trailer i think so last time i last time i saw him was actually at burning man so you never know he who knows where he is i'll text him when we're done okay i'll check in but yeah i mean i get it on his well-being i get it like my my family oh here's a here's a and and and by the way yeah hasidic people aren't all of a kind. I know, yeah.

And I got unlucky. The best story that I can tell about that is that my brother was in school at Hebrew U, and this Hasidic emissary came to the school. He was a guy that did cultural outreach. He was in Jerusalem? In Jerusalem. He was a guy that did cultural outreach to non-Hasidic people, and he's just there to like, you know, one of these college programs.

And they go, where are the Hasidic people? And this is what we're like. And he's like, oh, it's a beautiful culture. And we dance and we sing songs to the Lord. And my brother's in the back of the room like fuming. And he goes, and he finally, he just can't take it anymore. And he goes, I'm sorry. I just got to stop you.

This is bullshit. He's like, I grew up in a Hasidic neighborhood. And by the way, my grew up was every summer. Our summer vacations were spent. With your dad in New York. With my dad in New York. So all year long, we were secular kids in Oakland public schools. And in three months a year, we'd fly back home to the old country, put on some garb, and become extras on Fiddler on the Roof.

So he goes, this is bullshit. Like, they judged us. They called us goy. They treated us cruelly. There was no dancing. There was no singing. All I remember is judgment. And the Hasidic emissary guy goes very softly. He's like, can I ask what sex of Hasidic Judaism your family comes from? And he's like, Satmar and Skver. Why? And the guy goes, ooh. the bad one i don't know how to tell you the bad tribe yeah i don't know how to tell you this but you just named two of the most severe sometimes judgmental sometimes cruel sex of acidic judaism

that there are and and and so that was just dumb luck it was just dumb luck that we landed there but but i also i also i so i understand from the outside looking at the Hasidic community, specifically some of the more severe ones, why it looks like, you know, you're alienating yourself from the society around you. You're trying to create this like Wakanda inside of New York City. And, you know, you take over school boards. Not a very colorful Wakanda. No, no. I would say it's a much more white. Kind of muted.

A very muted Wakanda. No, no. I would say it's a much more white. And a muted. A very muted Wakanda with less technology. Actually, they say, how do you tell the difference between an Amish guy and a Hassid is the Hassid has a cell phone. But anyway, I understand. people and you see i guess the alienating space between hasidic society and the rest of society yeah you have to understand why they are that way they're not that way because they're unfriendly they are they are that way because the greatest tragedy that ever befell our people occurred you know 100 years ago and then the response to that tragedy for some sects of Hasidic Judaism after the Holocaust was, okay, the world is filled with murderous evil. And we have to build a wall around ourselves and say, fuck the world. And just let's keep the shards of whatever's left of our

society intact. And so they built this wall that at first made a lot of sense, but you know, generation after generation, the wall has become kind of the de facto way that they interact with the world. And it's difficult for people who are not the wolves of Germany who are just like Mark Maron walking down the street. So I simultaneously empathize with people that have, that have a hard time understanding acidic society and really empathize with my my family who's inside of the wall going we're just trying to stay together even if it's an even if it's a paranoid desire it's a paranoia that's born out of an extremely a justifiable reason and are you are you uh religious You know, I...

You do the Sabbath? I do do Shabbat dinners with my family. Sure. And then I'll watch a movie after. I don't consider myself particularly religious, but I guess compared to most Jews I know, as I... You hang on to a few traditions? Yeah, I say like, I had a simultaneously much, much, much more Jewish upbringing

than any of my Jewish friends, and much, much less Jewish upbringing than any of my Jewish friends and much, much less Jewish upbringing than any of my Jewish friends. I never went to camp. I didn't have a year-round Jewish experience. So you were not middle-class secular Jews, but you were fucking religious. But I had like a hyper-concentration.

I was like gavaged. I was like waterboarded Judaism for six weeks a year. And somehow that experience, even though it was extremely traumatic, I mean, you know, we used to play dodgeball in in seagate with the uh the hasidic jews versus the ultra orthodox jews and we were like the goys like that was like yeah you know so yeah it was a weird world i mean i when i this is a fun story when i i didn't know hebrew yeah i i'm i'm like cosplaying as a hasidic jew and i don't literally know the hebrew alphabet these people speak y cosplaying as a Hasidic Jew, and I don't literally know the Hebrew alphabet.

These people speak Yiddish as a first language. I have cousins with Eastern European accents who are third generation American. Their parents don't have Eastern European accents because they were the first generation, so they tried to like blend in. Then they had kids, and they sent them only to Yiddish speaking schools. So my young cousins sound like characters in Dr. Zhivagoago and my uncle will sound like a New Yorker, right? Interesting. This is the universe that I'm born into, but I don't even know Hebrew

and it's coming up on my bar mitzvah. Yeah. And the local rabbi, Rabbi Meisels was his name, saw that I was struggling. He saw I had the English prayer book. This is a synagogue where having an English prayer book is like a scarlet letter. Sure.

And he goes to my father, why don't you let him come over to my house on Wednesday afternoons? I'll take him and I'll teach him Hebrew. And by the way, this is like early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. So you could ask for some alone time with a child and they'd be handed over. No questions asked. So that's what happened. I go to his house and I start like drilling, um, the alphabet, the alphabet.

And this is like a Talmudic scholar teaching me the alphabet. It's like Alan Turing trying to teach you your times tables. Right. Like, and I'm struggling. I can't get, I don't have an affinity for language. And,

um, I guess sign language, notwithstanding. And, uh, and I'm struggling and I can't get it. I'm, and I'm getting so frustrated because it's getting closer to my bar mitzvah.

And he looks at me with compassion. He goes, don't worry. Hold on. He goes, Shmuley, Shmuley, come in. And he calls his oldest son, Shmuley, into the room. And he goes, say the English alphabet. And this kid's like 14, 15 years old. And he goes, oh, no.

And he goes, A, B, D, G. And the rabbi slaps me on the back. He goes, ha, ha, ha. See? He is stupid in English. You are stupid in Hebrew. Everybody's stupid. Did that help?

Well, it was a beautiful and compassionate thing for this man to do. Humiliate his oldest son so that I could learn to love my education. Did you ever get a handle on the Hebrew? I did not. In fact, I've done multiple ulpans. I mean, I can say, no tomatoes on my falafel, please. Sure. That's as far as I've gotten.

Multiple what? What? You've done multiple what? Oh, ulpans, Hebrew language speaking intensives, and it still basically comes down to, please, no tomatoes on my falafel. Yeah, I mean, I got through the reading. I can read Hebrew, but I can't translate.

I can barely read. So now what do you do? Like, look, man, I don't talk about this at all because it is just, and I'm trying to wrap my brain around it as a public person. And on stage now I've begun to address it. But what are you doing publicly about Israel? I'm really glad you brought that up. Are you or no?

You know, I'm really glad you brought that up. Are you or no? You know, I'm not, because I can't, you're going to be used one way or the other. I saw, yes. I'll say this. I saw an interview the other day with somebody and this, this, it was an Israeli talk show. Yeah. And they were asking this person who was a very outspoken advocate for Israel. Um, you're the people back in America in Hollywood. Yeah. Are they scared to show their support for Israel or do they hate Israel? And, and then they answered the question and the interview continued. And I watched that and I go, what a false dichotomy, right? Like there's a third option, which is deeply conflicted. Right. It's like, I feel like tragedy in every direction. Right. And I don't feel comfortable speaking up about anything

because it's so tragic in every direction. And that's what I feel. I feel a deep, deep conflictedness and, um, uh, and a deep pain. Well, yeah, but, but the conflict, what I've been saying on stage is essentially like, look, you know, you as a Jew, you're going to get that, you know, where do you stand or what do you feel? And I say,

well, if I say, I believe that, you know, Israel has a right to exist and should be defended however necessary. Then people can say, you fucking Zionist, colonialist,

fascist, fuck you, genocider. Yeah. And if you say, well, I believe the Palestinians are being mass murdered by Jews, by Israelis. You fucking capo you fucking capo sellout piece of shit well no but then it's sort of like you know you're anti-semite yeah but if you say how about a we we have a ceasefire and begin a dialogue to

to move towards you know some peaceful solution this then people are like shut the fuck up you naive idiot pick Pick a side. There are no good things to say. I mean, the closest to a good thing to say I've heard this whole time is Yuval Harari said that it's possible to be both a victim and a perpetrator at the same time.

And that, I think, is... That is... This doesn't refer to the innocent people that are suffering and dying in gaza and that suffered and died in in israel yeah but that that everyone every actor every major actor in this drama is simultaneously a perpetrator and a victim and they have been given only terrible choices and they've chosen over and over again the most terrible choice available. And I've been thinking a lot about this, that what really is happening as far as I can tell. And by the way, a big part of this is how far down the algorithms people are getting so that you're going deeper and deeper and deeper. You know, I posted this thing about this roundtable I did

called Standing Up to Anti-Semitism that actually I won an Emmy for recently, which I'm excited about. Yeah, congratulations. I posted, we got nominated for an Emmy, Standing Up to Anti-Semitism. And I had some people in the comments going, I don't know how I feel about this.

You know, we're not talking, that's not the topic right now. And, you know, kind of, I didn't even, all I said, I did this thing. It was before. taped it. Like it was about Kanye. Yeah. You know, I mean, it wasn't about it. It was, it was taped a two years ago and it was about, now I get that there's an idea. You shouldn't even have a discussion about antisemitism without bringing up Palestine, but I don't, I, that's, that's not a fair, true. It's not, it's not fair. Yeah. Um, so I've been thinking a lot about this idea that like what people seem to be trying to do and what they've seemed to be trying to do for the last a hundred years is figure out who started it and who's at fault. And I don't

think that that really will help any, I don't think that gets, it doesn't matter if Israel is a genocidal colonialist, uh, racist imperialist state, and that is true, and they started everything and it's all their fault, what happens next? There's still 8 million Israelis. If the Palestinians are voting in terror organizations and are obsessed with hate and will never accept anything but a full white, you know, end of Israel, so what? There's still, you know, 5 million Palestinians. It doesn't change any reality, which is that there are suffering people in Palestine and that there are living people in Israel. And I don't know what the solution is. And it feels like, you know, when I was in college 20 years ago, I was forced to write an essay on the solution to the Israeli

Palestinian conflict. And it was such a absurd assignment that I started, like, I purposely wrote this absurd essay about a tunnel system that was operated by the UN. I was doing it on purpose in order. As a satire? As a bit of a satire. Yeah. That was 20 years ago. And it seemed impossible then. But it's impossible to talk about it.

Scholars can't wrap their brains around it. And you cannot have even, and I don't know anything. And you know more than me. And we had a relatively nuanced discussion about it. But that is not the cultural dialogue. Right. So you're going to trip yourself up one way or another and be used as an example of something if you have any profile whatsoever. And ultimately your voice voice they say use

your voice it's like it's not gonna fucking matter what i say well that's a hundred percent true this this idea this idea that posting equals advocate equals activism i mean i i get i get the argument but i also feel yeah i feel trapped by what you're saying that it's just poison on every in every direction and it's like my primary feeling of uh this whole conflict is one of extreme heartbreak disappointment in the place that i that i that i do love yeah uh like deep heart-rending uh grief about uh what happened there to the people that i love my family is there my family are hiding in bomb shelters during october 7th andth and real guilt about the subjugation and the kind of endless misery of the Palestinian people. I obviously don't know

the answers. And the idea that I should post to my favorite soccer team in geopolitical tragedy does feel, it feels obscene. I mean, I hope this doesn't sound like a cop-out, but, you know, I was saying like a friend of mine said, well, I feel like the people that aren't posting a billion things about this are the people that are thinking deeply about it, are the people that are thinking in a reflective and conflicted way. And that's how I feel. I feel deeply conflicted and I really hope that there's peace and I don't necessarily feel optimistic. Great. So this should fix it our conversation yeah i mean the really heartbreaking thing about the conflict is that is like i said it felt hopeless 20 years ago and i feel like we're we're 40 years behind where we were 20 years ago it feels like things are moving backwards not forwards i don't see how this ends i mean there will be a ceasefire eventually. And the conflict will end eventually.

It will turn into something else. That is for sure. But I don't know what hope there is. I know that people in the pro-Palestinian universe are now more calling for a one-state solution where everybody is just the, of the region, Jewish and non-Jewish, uh, that feels incredibly naive given the, the unfathomable animosity that's occurring between the two people now. So what does the future hold? I mean, listen, I'm not Israeli and I don't, I don't speak for Israel either to you. And I, and I resent the implication. I'm sure you do too, speak for Israel, neither do you. And I resent the implication, I'm sure you do too,

that by virtue of your birth or your faith, your Jewishness, you are and must be a mouthpiece either for or against the state of Israel. I'm not a citizen. That you're implicated. Right. That's the word they use. As an American Jew, you're implicated in this conflict. I'm like, no, I'm not. Right. And in both directions, you ought to be also implicated in order to say, you know, Am Yisrael Chai forever. I don't feel comfortable moving in any direction other than, here's what I will say about the conflict. And this has been a big realization that I have had. I feel like to the Jews of the world, I feel that if your only relationship to your Jewish identity is Israel, Palestine in either direction, one of guilt or one of anger at Israel or one of, of defense and fear, uh, uh, in support of Israel, that's an insufficient Jewish identity to carry with you through the world. It's not enough to be angry or fearful or, uh, or, or defensive. That's not, that's,

that's not healthy. Uh, that if you care at all about Jews or Jewish identity, do something more than just be angry at Israel or angry, uh, for Israel, go to a Shabbat service, at Israel or angry for Israel, go to a Shabbat service, read a Jewish book, learn some Jewish history that has nothing to do, have a deeper experience of what it means to be in this culture than just being ashamed or defensive. Or you can also read Moshe's new book. That's true too. Subculture Vulture. And the final chapter is your born-again-ness in comedy. Yeah, it's stand-up. Yeah. Which is sort of the reason that I was even, I have the right to write a book in the first place.

Sure. And I think that's a, it's a great arc. And I think we, you know, we don't have to ruin that part because you're still in it. I'm still there. But anyway, so this book is, I think it's out now. If it's not out now, I'll tell the people when it's out at the beginning. And good job, buddy. Good talking to you.

Nice to talk to you too, Mark. Thanks for having me. Yeah. See that? We got into it, right? That's a conversational jam session. Subculture Vulture comes out next Tuesday, January 30th. You can pre-order it now.

Alright? Alright? Every veteran has a story. Whatever your next chapter, get support with health, education, finance, and more. At veterans.gc.ca slash services. A message from the Government of Canada. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store

and ACAS Creative. and ACAS Creative. Thanks to everyone who sent in a question for the latest Ask Mark Anything episode. It's up right now for full-marin subscribers where I answer questions like this one. What is your most memorable experience at the store? Well, there's a couple. I remember when I was a doorman there

and Pryor came in and he went on in the original room and he didn't do well. He bombed, but he went up there with that Pryor vulnerability. This must've been, I don't know, what year would that have been? 86, 87. I don't know where exactly he was at in his life, but he wanted to get up there and work on some stuff. And he had that real weird Pry prior vulnerability. And he just had a hard time up there and it was a hard thing to watch, but it was important to see. And then, uh, there was a lot of memorable experiences back in the day. I remember when Sam Kennison on Easter, must have been Easter 1987, he came out on stage that night on Sunday

wearing a black cap, black sunglasses, black trench coat, black sweatpants, a torn black T-shirt with a black rosary beads around his neck. And he said, how do you like my Easter outfit? That's pretty memorable. Like I remember that.

To get all the full Maron bonus episodes, sign up by going to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus. I'm doing a slide thing. I'm doing a slide thing. I'm enjoying a slide thing. I'm enjoying the slide thing. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. Boomer lives. Monkey and La Fonda. Cat angels everywhere.