Ari Shaffir: Growing Up Orthodox, How Joe Rogan Saved Comedy, and the Infamous Kobe Bryant Joke
2024-07-09 02:15:24
The Tucker Carlson Show is your beacon of free speech and honest reporting in a media landscape dominated by misinformation. The only solution to ending the propaganda spiral is by telling the truth. That's our job. Every day. No matter what.
Don't you also think, though, that, at least I feel this way, you can feel whether someone's speaking from affection or dislike? Like it's, just like non-verbally, I'd know if you hate me. You know what I mean? Yeah.
That word Jew is a great one. It's Jew, or hard J Jew. Then it's like-.
So the special was called Jew? Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Did you get any complaints about that?
No. It came right after all that Kanye stuff too, so I was a little worried. they were going to be like hard line on anti-Semitism and just pull everything down.
So you didn't worry about-.
I worried about a little bit.
A special called Jew?
Yeah. I worried about a little bit, but I tested it. I tested it everywhere. I tested it. It was a five-year process of like going to places where there's lots of Jews, going to places with Perth.
They were like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Iceland. They're like, what? What's that? I've heard of a Jew.
Was the Jewish community in Iceland outraged?
Both of them. Both of them? Yeah.
Yeah. No.
Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show. It's become pretty clear that the mainstream media are dying. They can't die quickly enough. And there's a reason they're dying, because they lie. They lied so much it killed them.
We're not doing that. TuckerCarlson.com, we promise to bring you the most honest content, the most honest interviews we can, without fear or favor. Here's the latest. Somebody told me yesterday that you lead the field among stand-ups for death threats.
Yeah, I was the first one to get them.
Why?
I had this when I was, yeah, I don't know. What do you mean? you don't know? I mean, I don't know exactly. So I had this, when I was starting, and National Lampoon's was doing this fake reality show pitches.
The idea was they went up, it was all faked, but they all found a box of pitches for a reality show up in the offices of NBC or something, but the craziest pitches possible. One was like, I can throw up on command. Another was like-.
I've watched that.
Yeah. Yeah. And it was this guy who drank Apecac and just barfed everywhere. And mine was called The Amazing Racist, off The Amazing Race, and it was just like a super overboard. They came to me with the idea, and I was like, that's funny, but let's like really go for it if we're going to go for it.
No, but that was a thing. I've seen that.
Oh, you have?
You're Amazing, Racist?
Uh-huh. Yeah.
Going to the black convenience store in a Klan outfit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So either you get it or you don't. If you're mad, I can see why you'd get mad, but also like- But why? Because you don't get it.
I mean, that's so over the top that of course you're joking.
If I'm throwing oranges, wait, at a Mexican yelling, go back to Africa, that you can't see, maybe, or like, wait, but you're Jewish. I'm like, right. So if I'm wearing a Klan outfit and I'm a comedian as a Jew wearing a Klan outfit-.
Probably not in the Klan.
Probably not in the Klan. You see, it's ridiculous.
Anyway, so my buddy Duncan Trussell, who's a great comic and hilarious and weird, he early websites, he built a website saying, if you prank my friend Ari Shaffir, send him a prank call, record it, I'll give you 20 bucks for the best one. This was before all that stuff came out. So the National Lampoon's DVD came out and then somebody ripped it to the internet. So pretty early, YouTube was like this, without context of National Lampoon's, just me going, hi, I'm Ari Shaffir, I'm not the amazing racist, let me do this horrible thing right now.
Anyway, so people like saw it, Googled my name. The first thing that came up was Duncan, before you even click on the Google search, it just says Ari Shaffir phone number. Was it your actual phone number? Yeah. But it was pre-doxing.
It was before any of that.
Before America got dangerous.
So I would just start getting phone calls. It was great. Like what? Oh, I'll fucking kill you. You think you're so funny.
One of them was I picked up a bunch of Latinos, Mexicans, saying, I want you to fix my deck, and then drove them to the INS building. And started yelling, la migra, and they ran out, whatever, whatever. It was funny. Nobody was hurt in the making of it.
But people took it seriously.
People took it seriously. My favorite one was, I'll build a deck in your ass, holmes.
I would just get calls all the time. I had to put my ringer on mute.
But do you think, I mean-?
They weren't serious, though. None of them were real. So when now, when people go, I've been threatened, I'm like, shut up. This isn't a real thing. I've been getting it for 20 years.
But do you think anybody was actually offended?
It's instructive, because I would get a few messages, Facebook back then, or MySpace even, and it was like, fuck you. You're a piece of shit. I'm Mexican. How dare you? And then I'd write back, like, you know, it's just a joke.
I actually paid all those guys 50 bucks and took them back to where they were working. Like nothing actually happened.
And I drove them to a library. It wasn't even like, you know, it just looked like the INS building.
And then they would respond like, oh, okay. I actually did think it was funny. I laughed when I saw it. I'm like, so we went from laughing when you saw it to threatening me because you're supposed to.
And that is what it is, right? People feel this like moral obligation to be mad about certain things. Yeah.
But your real reaction is you were laughing.
So do you ever get people walking out of your shows?
Yeah. All the time.
All the time. Why do you think they do that?
Number of reasons. Too dirty is the main. Yeah. I don't want to hear about sex. You know?
So that's, that's an okay one. Yeah. It used to be. the dirty comics were like, it's cheap. You're dirty.
All you talk about blowjobs. And it was like, okay, fine. And so then the clean comics were like, I'm a well-written comedian. I can do, you know, whatever.
And they would just look down on us, but it wasn't a moral thing. Right. Now it's a moral thing. They put them on a moral high ground. They put these people on moral low grounds, like you're kind of evil for doing it.
Not just like cheap or easy. You're wrong. You are wrong. You're immoral. Yeah.
When it's like, but it's the same thing.
So sex is one.
Sex is one. I mean, I remember I had a, I had a, at the comedy cellar, I'll help people walk out. all the time. The door guys laugh about it. They're like, every time somebody leaves crying, it's you walk out past me, literally crying.
And it's always a drunk white woman. I mean, it is on a hundred percent.
That's who yells at me. What is that?
They, well, one, they suck.
Why do you think? They've never had any problems.
So they had the slightest problem. Like, this is the worst. You ever seen. rich people that were like, they're like, my flight was delayed. I was like, shut up.
You sat in first class and your flight was delayed an hour and you're bitching. Shut up.
So you think it's just like any inconvenience.
Right. So this is the worst case scenario is a slight inconvenience. I had to hear something I didn't like to hear.
But in a functioning society, you, like, you, have a man at home to calm you down. Maybe that's part of the problem.
Well, you, yeah, you, so you see it at the shows, the man that's with them sometimes is either like quiet or they're just like, like you could see them resign to like, you. deal with it, bro. I'm not going to fuck. I got to live with it. So if I tell her to shut up, I got to, this is a month of pain.
Do they heckle you? Yeah. They'll get mad. So I had a lady walking outside, like maybe a year ago, and I remember like, oh, this lady got really mad. I didn't notice it, but she was really mad.
Um, and I was like, which joke? Was it Holocaust stuff? Was it down syndrome stuff? Was it the war in Gaza stuff? Like?
it could have been any one thing, and, and it's not all of them. It's the only thing that you feel personally, like this is the line is the one that walk out on. And I, I didn't think anything of it. And then I was hanging out, had a drink up there and then I left like 30 minutes later. There's always the, they want to tell you that they were right.
And I'm walking out and I passed by some woman. She goes, you're a piece of shit.
I've gotten that.
What did you say?
I just started laughing at her face and walked away. I'm not going to give her an argument.
So she stayed to tell you that?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny when they leave and then stay. It's, it's, it used to be.
just write a shitty Yelp review if you didn't get the service you wanted.
And how did she respond when you laughed at her?
They can't understand it. Like, no, you should be mad. I'm like, I'm not combating you. I was just making jokes. Everybody else was laughing.
I'm just doing this for everyone, for the joy. But it's also funny when you walk out angry, we're all laughing at you for not getting it.
And it's that you never rise to the bait.
I have before, but it's never a good idea.
No, it's not a good idea.
Yeah. And it's also, it's just fun to toy with them, you know, to be like, I think you're right. And I will learn from this, because it's just fun to fuck with them sometimes.
Has it gotten better or worse? It feels like people are freer to say what they think all of a sudden.
Yeah. You know, internet, everyone feels they have their 40 followers. So like they're a celebrity.
No, but I mean, it feels like the strike zone is wider than it was two years ago.
What do you mean? strike zone?
I mean, you're allowed to say more things. or there are fewer umpires, or they're just...
We're allowed to say more things? Yeah. Or are angry people allowed to say more things?
Everybody's allowed to say more things.
Right.
It felt like there for a while, there were only like four things you were allowed to say. And now I hear people giving opinions that are...
Gen Z is way better than millennials. Why? Gen Z. Okay. So you ski or snowboard?
Yeah. Which one? Ski. Nice.
Well, obviously I don't snowboard. I mean, come on now. Yeah.
Well, so I was a skier in what late eighties, snowboard started mid eighties. And everyone's like, I'm not skiing. That's my fucking dad. I'm a snowboarder. It's cool.
And then a generation passed and now the kids are like, I'm not snowboarding, that's for my father. Yeah. So they go the opposite way.
I just, I stayed true to skiing and it never changed. Yeah.
Do you still ski? Yeah. Yeah. All mountains should be, no snowboard mountains.
I completely agree. I think there's only one in the United States.
They're coming jumping out of the fucking Alta.
Deer Valley too.
Deer Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Icons got it right. And they wreck the snow.
They wreck the snow. They slide down. It's a mobile city. They get done with it.
And they take out old people, which I will be soon.
They jump out of the trees.
Oh, I know. Have a spotter. I know. Just have a fucking spotter. And they're too high actually.
Well.
Little high is fine, but they're way too high. I mean, I've seen snowboard.
I fell off a lift. You fell off a lift? I was trying to get on. You know the thing where you put your skis under you? So I was like, I saw some cool, like people do.
I was like, let me do that. I was trying to do it, but then I started getting pushed, you know, and I'm like trying to do it. And then I was just down.
That hurts. It just hurts.
Yeah.
Your bindings. don't release when you fall off a ski lift.
So you think people in their twenties are better than people in their thirties? Yeah.
So anyway, these people in the Gen Z years looked at the millennials, their aunts and their fucking whatever. And they're like, you. guys are angry and we don't want to be like you. And they understand, at least for standup comedy, like. we know they're not serious.
You guys didn't know they weren't serious. We know they're not serious. So when they say, I don't know, let's bring slavery back. Let's give it another chance. We know you're being ridiculous.
We know it's Jonathan Swift. It's fine. So then they're like, well, now we can laugh. You don't mean that.
Are you ever offended by anything? I mean, do you ever redline?
Well, I wouldn't like try to silence it, but some stuff is like.
No, I just mean, is anything personally offensive to you? Have you ever heard a joke where you're like, ah, I'm not into it?
Yeah. There's certain times. Like if I just heard my dad speak about the Holocaust and I hear a Holocaust joke, I'm like just not in the mood. Yeah.
But there are other times you're.
But also I'll just quietly leave. Or if it's like political jokes, I'm like, I don't, I don't get the references here. Right. I just don't follow it.
Yeah. I noticed that at breakfast this morning.
You're not following politics. I'm like, is that a good guy?
But how are you going to deal with, I mean, there are some political stories are sort of unavoidable. Like the current one with Biden. Like, how are you, like, what do you make of that?
Like the.
Like his physical condition, his mental condition.
I just hear people talking.
Oh, you haven't seen any of it?
A little like from, from people referencing on standup comedy clips. Like Shane had one where he's like talking about how he left the stage real slow. And he was talking about like, I've done that drunk, having to like sidestep.
Oh, but you haven't seen any of the video.
Uninteresting.
Do you live in this country? Yeah. How do you avoid that?
I do not. For six years, I haven't read or watched the news. Really? If it's on, I'll avoid, I'll leave the room. Why?
It's hatred. It's, it's terrible. It's puts you in a terrible mental state, for, for some of you don't affect you. Everyone thinks they're making a difference. They're not.
I mean, you had a popular show on, on, like a major network. You also didn't make a difference. Rogan doesn't make a difference.
Well, I got fired.
Yeah. But like this idea that like, I'm going to change everything now, the high level guys who had to reach, who had to reach, maybe you could, because you reach a lot of people. I don't think I did. But like.
I agree with you.
You being upset about Biden or Trump, it's like, what is it doing? It's going to happen regardless. It's like being upset about the rain.
You really think so? So it's, it sounds like you don't buy the premise of democracy.
Listen, it, how should I say this? The black vote matters, right? One black vote doesn't matter. Right.
That's, that's correct. Yeah.
So it's just like, why get involved in Romania and Slovenia? They just had, well, or, or you just got back from Australia. Yeah. So, like they, I always loved how they felt about it. Our government's crooked.
We can't do anything. Let's get drunk and do the worst Coke in the world. And that's what they, you didn't, you didn't really participate in Australian culture, but it's mostly baby powder. Is that true? And it's the most overpriced in the world too.
Cigarettes are $60 a pack.
It was wild.
Yeah.
I left, I bought a pouch and I was like, and then I was, I didn't think about the price. I was just like, bring it up.
A pouch of tobacco.
Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, and then, uh, I bought another one and, um, where it was in Gold Coast, and I was like 63.. I'm like, no, that's crazy. Yeah.
And he goes, that's how much it is. And it's like, I thought it was like a tourist spot and I was like, fuck up, dude, I just bought it for 40.. And he goes, no, you didn't.
Did you like the lung cancer pictures on the package?
I did have to trade a pack cause I'm like, this one's too gross.
It's too gross. Yeah. You almost don't want to smoke.
Get me a dead baby. I don't, I don't want to see the missing tail. A dead baby doesn't, it doesn't hurt me.
Well, it wasn't caused by smoking. Yeah.
It was caused by the ozone.
So yeah, I just don't pay attention. Yeah. It's going to happen regardless. Why, why lose sleep over it?
But what about the idea that, um, if you don't do anything about it, then it just gets worse and worse and worse.
If society doesn't do anything about it, it gets worse and worse. If I don't do anything about it, it's not going to change one way or the other.
It's your moral obligation to vote. If you don't vote, you're not allowed to complain.
Can I tell you something that no one seems to get on my side on? If you think the system is corrupt, participation in the system is you co-signing the system. So it's like, it, doesn't matter which side you're voting on. This corrupt, they both lie to you, two party only possibilities, which is what they were voting in in Hong Kong. Yeah.
Yeah. Here's your two possible choices. only just saying, okay, well, I'll take this one. Is you saying, yeah, the system, I agree with it and I don't agree with the system at all.
I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. I'm actually not dismissing you out of hand, because I think you're making a pretty solid point. The, the problem, though, is it could get to a point where they show up at your house and start hassling you directly.
Who?
The government.
To vote? No, no, no.
To, I mean, the government gets in the wrong hands, like it can be pretty intrusive.
Yeah, I guess. So yeah, but like, here's, two problems with that. One, it's a worst case scenario. way of living, right? I mean, I've heard the Holocaust is coming back.
My entire life, this can lead to the Holocaust, George Bush, it could be Hitler. Trump was Hitler.
Trump was definitely Hitler.
Everybody's Hitler. And I'm like, I don't, where, where is this happening? So it's like, you hear these worst case scenarios all the time. They don't come to fruition. And also it's like, you still won't have any effect on it.
When they were talking about going to war with Iran, they're like, this is a nuclear Holocaust and everyone was bitching about it. And I was skiing. and I'm like, you guys can lose your last days. If there's a nuclear Holocaust coming, these are your last days. And I spent it skiing and you spent it arguing online with a stranger.
Like. who's God going to say did it right?
That's actually completely defensible.
Like you're not actually affecting it. And if enough people-.
There's a whole book in the Jewish Bible called Ecclesiastes that basically makes this point.
Really? Yeah. Interesting. Ecclesiastes, what's that in Hebrew? Do you know?
I don't. Yeah. Some of them were like Genesis. I'm like, I don't know that word. You went to Yeshiva?
Yeah.
They didn't call it Genesis?
No. So I had to like Deuteronomy. I was like, oh, which one is that again?
How long did you spend in Yeshiva?
Two years after high school, but my entire, all high school.
Did you think you were going to be a rabbi?
It's a possibility. Really? Yeah. It was like possibility. What was that like?
It was like in pre-law.
What do you do in Yeshiva, by the way?
Study.
Pardon my ignorance. Like what's the schedule? Like you, wake up when and do what?
That's part of your culture, is to be ignorant. Yeah.
I'm not a chosen person.
You wake up, you do a little learning. That's like choose your own adventure. That sort of might be like prophets, one of the side books or something. And then you pray, then you go have breakfast.
That's like breakfast ends at like nine. So, nine to one, you learn Talmud, then one to two.
Is this just independent study or just reading it by yourself?
There's classes. And then there's also like, and then also independent, but there's classes where a rabbi do. we had a rabbi who was like teaching us one of the, one of the books of the Gemara, the Talmud.
You're so smart.
I forget his name. Oh, it's embarrassing. That's embarrassing.
Who is it?
I don't know.
But you can check it. No, it's all right. No, no. Tell me who called.
Oh, it's your mom. Hold on. Hey, he's busy right now. I'll get back to you later. All right.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Bye. Bye.
Bye.
Bye. and then doing it really well. And then somebody went to the bathroom and they came back, I forget his name, let's call him Rabbi Jew. And they're like, Rabbi Jew, this isn't the right book. And he goes, oh yeah, I forgot the, I forgot the, I took the wrong one.
Like, you've been teaching us from it, the whole class. And he goes, yeah, he just knows it by heart.
It was actually like a John Irving novel.
It was just a different track date. It was like the encyclopedia, you're doing the E's and he's reading from F's, but he's still word for word on the E's. It was crazy.
So he'd memorized it.
Yeah. Which is, it was an oral tradition. It was passed down orally for a long time.
Was it interesting?
The Talmud? Yeah. Oh yeah. So many fun, so not fun, but like, yeah, like I was telling you at breakfast, by the way, guys, Tucker Carlson feeds his guests breakfast.
Of course I do.
Yeah. What's your podcast do? Yeah. Yeah. It was like, if you accidentally kill someone, like you have to replace their, their, their wife, you have to pay their wife.
This is what I was talking about. And like a doctor's wife, you pay more than a garbage man's wife. And then it's all arguing, like, is a garbage man worth less? Does he have less value than a doctor? And then it's like the arguing, arguing, arguing.
It's like, no, you're just trying to like, you have a responsibility to keep her way of life, keep her like richness there. So you have to pay her based on her income. It's kind of like divorce now.
Do you debate this in class? Yeah.
So you debate it, you talk about it. Then there's a secondary rabbis who all weighed in. No, but do you debate it?
Is she, but it's, do the students say, you know what? I just don't agree with this at all.
Are you allowed to debate?
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. It's all based in like, say, what you think is not right. here.
There's a Philip Roth book conversion to the Jews. It's a short story. Yeah. I never read it. It's about, it's pretty good.
And, and yeah, Philip Roth. And, um.
Portnoy's complaint guy.
Yeah.
And it was just about this kid in Yeshiva in Brooklyn, who was like, I understand, if God couldn't create everything, the animals and light out of darkness, he goes, that one always got me. There was, there was darkness. He made light for the first time. I always got me. And he goes, why couldn't he make a son?
Like, no, God can't have a son. I was like, but why? He did all this other stuff. How come he can't? You're supposed to ask these questions.
So there's no penalty for.
No penalty. It's based in for a hundred percent. You should be asking questions. We should have answers. If we don't, then your question is correct.
And it sounds like a great education.
It's great. I ask everything. If it doesn't make sense, you got to ask and we should have an explanation. You shouldn't be like, don't ask this stuff.
How many Yeshiva students become standups?
Not many, not many. There's a couple, but not many.
It seems kind of like a natural training ground for it.
It's so helpful that the logic basis of it, between that and an English major, where you're also just same thing,
kind of analyzing novels. Textual analysis, yeah.
What's he doing? What does this mean? It's just a great way of looking at humanity and then like writing a joke about it.
What do your rabbis and classmates think of what you do?
Well, so it's the religion part and it's also the culture part. So the culture part was like, what are you doing? You're not making a living. This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing.
They didn't think you were making a living?
I wasn't for 10 years, you know, temp jobs and whatever. Really? Yeah.
What kind of temp jobs?
I worked for the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce.
Um, I just did like data entry in different places. Um, moving boxes. It's in commercial. I got started booking commercials for a while. I had a weird look.
that helped, but that was like five, six years in. It was just poverty, which, but it was also great training, because now you seem pretty immune, immune to finances, to the dangers.
To the dangers.
Yeah. You have money, but you seem kind of a, I don't know you well enough, but you seem like you're resistant to letting it. I was talking to you about Jake Hanrahan. I won't take, he won't take a advertising money. So he doesn't want anybody pressuring him to cover.
Yeah.
I don't think you should worship money. I, I'm opposed to that. Yeah. I don't think it makes you happy. Debt makes you unhappy.
Right. Money does not make you happy.
Severe lack of money makes you unhappy.
A hundred percent. That is real.
But I was broke for long enough where I don't need these things anymore. Good for you. I'm happy with like, oh, I got an aisle seat. You know, I don't need to fly private or first class. It's like, it's nice, but like not, I don't, I sleep in hostels, you know?
I love that. Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. So I'm free of it and it frees me up to do fun things.
So you took that experience and did a special on Judaism.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You got to watch it.
Why'd you do that?
I mean, I've been looking at this stuff for forever. I just wasn't good enough to do it, but it was always on my mind.
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The non-Jews have seven laws of Noah. That's all you gotta do, and you get into heaven. And they're pretty easy.
They're great.
They're pretty easy. Don't eat an animal while it's still living. Exactly. Should be a no brainer.
Don't kill.
Don't kill, harder for some people, but not others. Don't rape, even harder for some people, but most are still on the right side of it. I forget what the other ones are.
Adultery. Yeah.
It's not that hard. And you get to go to heaven and you'll be right alongside a rabbi.
Well, not only that, they're like very reasonable.
Yeah, they're not like hard ones to do.
No, they're all kind of rooted in natural law. No, I read that. And I-.
Yeah, when you convert, they're like, what are you doing this for? You're just gonna make it harder on yourself. You're going to heaven already.
That's interesting. Okay. You don't feel there's any contempt at all in that?
There becomes contempt, you know, at the end where it's like, well, you're not in our group. So kind of. fuck you. But that's not in the law. I mean, even Jesus is like, accept, everyone, take them in.
Right. But people don't really do that. No, not at all. Yeah.
So, but I do think that the Sabbath laws are, you know, like if you're using somebody else to do something that you're not allowed to do.
Yeah. Well, I talk about the loopholes in that special where it's like, you're actually not allowed to fully ask them, can you turn this light on? Because then that's like you're doing it.
So it's by implication.
God, it sure is dark in here. You know, I'm not allowed to turn the lights on. Najus are allowed, but I can't do it. It's a suck. I want to read.
It's so, loopholey. It's great.
But what was the moment where you decided?
So you can't use electricity. I was in a dorm room, in a Shiva that's closed now in Jerusalem, and there was a light, a reading light, above my bed. And you could use that to like read Talmud before you go to sleep or whatever, left it on on Shabbos. And what I was going to do was take a hand-washing cup. There's like a ritual hand-washing you do in the mornings and for bread.
And I was going to put that over the light. It was like this little ball. And I was going to put it over, like drown the light. So, with light still on, it's just drowned out. The cup kept falling, kept putting it on there.
It kept, cause it's round the bait, it just kept falling off. It wouldn't stay on. And the light was in my eye and it was frustrating. You want to sleep and you can't. And at some point I was like, I'm just going to turn it off.
It's Friday night, I'm not allowed. But then my, so the entrance to the Yeshiva was like right here, my window was right here. So anyone coming in or out would see my light go off. And they'd be like, we're all these super Orthodox Jews. No light can go on or off.
We'll notice that on a Friday night. And I was like, fuck, I'll get caught. I'll get in trouble if I do this. So I didn't do it. I didn't even do it.
Didn't break any law, but I thought about it for like a couple of years. The fact that I was more worried about a man getting me in trouble than God. When it's God's law, it's not man's law.
Jaywalking, sure, I'll make, look for a cop when I do that. You know, but, but the Sabbath stuff, that's all just God. I shouldn't give a fuck about Jews seeing me. There's, in the Torah, there's like a worst punishment for someone who steals in secrecy than his steals brazenly. Cause at least stealing brazenly, you're not worried about man catching you.
And you're like, well, fuck God either way, but I don't give a shit about man. So the fact that I was more worried about people getting me in trouble than God. And I was talking about, I was like, I don't think I believe in him or I wouldn't have done it. If I believe there was this, like, you know, old man in heaven saying, don't do this. It'll be bad for your mortal soul.
I just wouldn't do it. Compared to like, if your dad's in the room, you don't masturbate. Right. Because you believe he's real. Of course.
And his reaction is pretty obvious what it would be. But you're not just going to start jerking like, oh, the fuck, I didn't know you were real dad. You know, you're a hundred percent sure he's real. And I wasn't sure God was real. And I was just like, and then I just looked more and more and I was like, I think I'm out.
Maybe the lesson is you care too much what other people think.
And maybe, yeah, maybe.
No, I mean, that's another way to look at it.
So anyway, so my friends got mad. They're like, they can't leave religion. Like, well, if you don't believe in God, take the Torah, the Holy Sacred Scroll, and, like, throw it on the floor. Which is like, if you see it, fall, you have to fast for like, I don't know how long. And I'm like, no, I still respect you guys.
I'm not going to like, it's so rude.
But they were like- Who told your friends?
Your fellow- I told a few of them. Some were angry, some were like disappointed. Nobody was like, cool. Nobody.
What'd your parents say?
Pretty mad.
Yeah. They were like, well, you're going to lose the culture. They're all fine now. So in hindsight, it's fine. But they're totally fine now.
So just like, but at the time they were like, what the fuck? They were really mad. It was like, yeah. They were like, even a dog believes in God. That's true.
You're lower than a dog. Did they say that? Yeah. Yeah. But I was like, show me that research.
Like, what are you talking about? Who's done a study on that?
But totally fine now.
So how did you decide you want to go into standup from there?
I always kind of liked being the joker. And then my friend Ami Butler was, he was like, you should try it. You should try standup.
So you moved back from Israel?
Moved back from Israel. Went to University of Maryland. Couple of years. No, first went to Yeshiva University in New York. That's where I, kind of like, fully lost the religion.
Then I'm like, what's the point of paying for a split curriculum?
Yeah, of course. College.
So I switched to state school.
Got laid for the first time. Ever? Yeah. It was fucking, it's nice. If you haven't tried it, you should fuck.
I haven't. It's great, bro. I'm busy.
That's the thing. It's great.
You're busy destroying Democrats.
Jewish girl?
No, no. I have.
Oh, so you went all the way out then.
You look too much like me. You know? It's like fucking a mirror.
It's not the best.
You're like, I'm legally not allowed to join in on this.
Yeah, I went, yeah, I just had, it was nuts. It was so great. I got a blow job. Oh.
Did you call your friends back in Yeshiva and tell them?
No, I did not. I did not. I'm friends with a couple of them still, but not many. It's just a different world now. Plus they all have kids.
It's like, ugh.
How many of them got married?
All of them. All of them? Yeah.
So everybody gets married?
Everybody gets married.
At what age?
They have kids. Sister got married at 20.. Wasn't that like crazy. It was just like a touch early, but not really.
But all those marriages seem to survive.
They really do, right? It's interesting. I've noticed that.
What's the divorce rate among Orthodox Jews?
So low. We had one divorced couple growing up in my neighborhood and was like, whoa, can you believe it? They're divorced? We thought it was so nuts. Yeah.
And then, when I got to University of Maryland and everybody's parents were split. And I was like, what?
So what works better?
I don't know. I guess it's what you're looking for in your marriage. When it's just a union, to like be a family unit and raise kids is the most important thing. So like, this is fine. This works for that.
Or it's like, do I want fulfillment? And like, yeah, I don't know.
You don't think they're fulfilled?
I think if you're all you want is family, then yeah, you're fulfilled. You've got a great family, you know, you're part of the community. But if you're like, yeah, they say it's like, it's like misogynist Judaism, because the women just stay at home. But I'm like, no, they're there to raise the family. Right.
It's not like, you're not allowed to work. It's like, this is your part. This is his part. He's raising money for the family.
Do you think a lot of Orthodox mothers secretly want to work at banks?
No.
Right.
I don't think they do. Yeah, exactly. This isn't fun.
And it's voluntary. You don't have to join this lifestyle, right?
Yeah, right. Well, if you're raising it, you kind of do. It's not legally, but you know.
Do you ever have any regrets that you didn't become a rabbi? No.
No. No, I'm having a great time. Some of them will look down on me and be like, they'll be demeaning, like, you'll be back. And like, talk down to me. And it's like, oh, you guys fucking suck.
You don't think you will be back?
No. What to what?
I don't know.
If you're getting your dick sucked, that's totally illegal in that religion. Is it really? Yeah, it's wasting seed.
Oral sex is illegal.
Yeah. I didn't know that. It's wasting seed. Condoms are illegal.
But the sheet thing is not real.
Sheet thing's not real. This is all an Ari Shaffir Jew on YouTube now.
So you got to the bottom of the sheet rumor.
I was fooled. That's how strong a rumor it was. I was fooled.
Did you ever talk about that in yeshiva?
No, but I thought I had a rabbi who definitely did it. And my friend was like, that's a false memory. No way. Really? Because it doesn't exist.
Who spread that rumor? That's a pretty.
I think it comes from tzitzit. It's like this, so there's 613 commandments. God, I lived in this for fucking five years. I forgot about all of it. And then I lived in it for five years, trying to like go over this stuff again.
And then I just put it behind me again. When you mentioned Talmud and I brought up Steins Altz out of like, I don't know where that came from.
I was very impressed.
Yeah.
I didn't know what the Talmud was until pretty recently. I'm reading it. I actually think it's really interesting.
It's very interesting. But there's this, so one of the commandments, you try to do as many as you can. Some of them are big temple based. So you just can't anymore. You don't have a temple.
That's in 70 AD.
Boom.
They're going to have another one in the Messiah, they say. So those laws will be back. But you try to do as many as you can. They're good deeds and they're bad deeds, but they're all like commandments.
613 of them. One of them is, if you have a four cornered garment, a poncho, you have to tie these tassels to the end of them. So sometimes you'll see strings coming out from. Yes. Okay.
So they make themselves a four cornered garment so that they can do that commandment, you know? And it looks like a t-shirt underneath, underneath their shirt. It's like, you don't even need it, but you're like, here's our chance to wear it.
Have you ever worn one?
Oh yeah, all the time.
Is it comfortable?
It's neither here nor there. It goes in between a t-shirt and your over shirt. So you barely even.
Oh, so, you're wearing three layers.
Yeah.
That's a lot.
That's why they smell. They don't fucking wash their shit out.
How does that, they don't, do? they, is that.
They do smell.
What is that?
It's just like soap is expensive.
So I always thought that was bigotry from secular Jews are always saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they do smell a lot. It's also like you're wearing, you're fucking dressed like Johnny Cash in the summertime. It's gonna fucking, it's gonna stink after a while. You gotta wash it a long time.
So Jerusalem in August is.
Oh, oh, it's disgusting. It's like fucking Yangon.
That's actually true?
Yeah, yeah. The Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, they're more shower centric.
Amazing. It's nuts. When you get up the road from Tel Aviv, it's a windy road, and as soon as you get over that hill, it's, fuck it, it's a costume party. It's Fiddler on the Roof. It's the best.
It's so weird. It's like you're living in an ancient time.
It's the most interesting place on the planet.
Yeah. Three religions, three and a half, coming together on one little small area of an old city. Three and a half? It's like two different kinds of Christian. No, I've never heard that, but they're pretty similar.
The Armenians and the Greek Orthodox.
Ethiopians, Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant.
But in the old city, it's like, yeah, anyway, whatever. I don't know enough about them.
Do you still have your outfits?
Anyway, so here's where it came from. No, I don't have any of that. But like, so you wear that four color garment. I think they were hanging up to dry, and it's a sheet with a neck hole in it, and I think just some racists were like, they probably fucked through that. That's what that is, and it just caught on.
Interesting. Yeah, and the hole is so big that the Jews are like, let them run with that rumor.
It took you five years to write that special?
Yeah, yeah, and some of the jokes are even older.
What's your process for writing it?
This one was way different, because I never have to fact check my jokes. I can be an idiot. in my jokes. I can, normally I'm allowed to say David Trump, and people are like, it's Donald Trump. I'm like, oh, I don't know.
It's fine. if I don't get the facts wrong. I can be a moron. It's actually, sometimes I try to misspeak so that they're like, don't trust me on this. I am not an expert.
I'm just making fun of it. So I'll try to throw in wrong details.
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Thank you.
But like, how do you write it? Do you write it out by hand? Do you paste it?
No, no, no, no, I just go and say, so. I started, this one was, I would go to the cellar, the Comedy Cell has had a small room, and I would do an hour, and I would do like, I had like 20-so minutes, something on Noah and the flood. That's what I started with, which became my closer in the end. And then a couple other bits. And then I said, okay, I've already set up now that I can make jokes about this stuff.
You guys see, I'm not serious about it. Do you have any questions about Jews that you've wanted to know? Like anything, I will answer. And I'll try to riff and make it funny. Something I used to do with this guy, Don Barris, a long time ago, we'd do Ask a Jew, we'd call it Jew and A, late night at the comedy store.
And it started with like, hey, I could be a resource. And then all the comedians would sit around the room and they'd ask questions. So first it was like, how many commandments are there? I'm like, oh, good, question, 613.. Like, oh, okay.
Someone else like, yes, question, if Jews are supposed to be such good writers, why is a Diary, Anne Frank, so fucking boring? Okay, well, it's a bestseller for fucking uneducated girl for 30 years or 50 years, so you're wrong about that. Hey, what goes in the place of your soul? All right, well, Pablo Neruda would say that there is no such thing as a soul, but diamonds, diamonds go there. And then we'd just fuck around.
Occasionally, we'd get people complaining. They were so rude to that man, but it was all just comedians. Jew and A. Yeah, Jew and A, it was a lot of fun. Do you still talk to the jackal that birthed you?
It's just like, and I'm like, oh, that's a bit offensive, but it was all my friends and it was so fun. Late night at the store was so fun. The jackal that birthed you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, as a mud person, would you say, and I'm like, well, I'll stop you there. We'd have this thing at the end of it where Don would go, he would run it and he'd be like, I saw a documentary on the Holocaust. It didn't seem that bad. It seems like you guys are exaggerating. I was like, I don't know, man.
What was it? What was the documentary? I didn't see it. It was called Hogan's Heroes. It seemed like bumbling oafs.
It doesn't seem like they could have done any of that stuff. We had a smelter. He goes, can you smell money? And I was like, yeah, I can.
Yeah, it's just one of the things we have. And then we'd set up ahead of time. He was like, all right, I need three bills, a one, a 20 and a hundred. And then he crumpled up a turn, but we all knew the order. So the crowd didn't know.
And I'd smell like, that's like, hmm, that's like, it's got a nutty aroma.
A hint of saddle leather.
Yeah, it was like, is that like a, I think it's a 20.
. And everyone was like, oh, he got it. One in three shot, you know? And then the hundred, like, oh, I love that smell. I know what that is.
And then he showed me the one. I'm like, ugh, getting it out of my face. It's disgusting. Yeah, so wait, what was I going with this? Fuck.
What'd you ask?
How you write it.
Oh, right. So I just asked people. So it kind of birthed from that. I asked people, what questions do you have? And sometimes they're like, what's with the wigs?
I'm like, oh, okay. Well, it's a loophole. You can't be attracted to your neighbor's wife. So hair is something you're attracted to. So you cover up your hair.
So it's not your hair. It's some fucking Asian lady's hair, you know, which is actually better hair. It's weird, but it's not you, it's Sung Lee. And you just do stuff. What are the pillows?
I'm like, what pillows? What do you mean? Oh, it's your fucking bag that you have for your towel that you're filling, that you carry. It looks like a pillow to them. I never, it's just, so.
it was a way of looking at stuff. Like, and so the same questions would come up over and over again. And I'd riff, try to be funny. And I'm like, if the same question keeps coming up, this is something I should cover. And if a question came up once ever, then I'm like, all right, that's just one guy.
One of his like, why are Jews afraid of cats? I'm like, that's just one Jew. you knew, bro. That's not a stereotype. That was just one Jew.
And so I would just try to cover everything. Why are Jews afraid of cats? That's not a thing. A hundred percent, it's not a thing.
So yeah, I would just try to, and then I would try to tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. And then I'd have to do this thing where it's like, I had to see if I was wrong. Which I don't ever do in my standup, but it had to be correct. I couldn't be wrong.
Oh, about the religion. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So like, I started doing a bit about that, fucking through a hole in a sheet. And then my friend was like, that's not a true thing. I'm like, fuck. I had other rabbis.
I had this giant bit, a closer about Noah and his, and his, his 40, he had 40 children. and how his wife was a real hero because her pussy must've been blown out. And then a rabbi in Copenhagen was like, hey, loved it. The whole thing. He didn't have 40 kids.
And I was like, no, he did. He goes, no, he had two, two sons. I forget now, two sons at $3, whatever it was.
Yeah. Yeah. And they're husbands.
Yeah. And it was like, it just wasn't 40.. I was like, no. And he goes, he goes, I don't mind. I don't care.
I'm just telling you, I love the whole thing. I'm just telling you that wasn't, that's not right. And I had to lose it. I had to lose a fucking five minute, like crushing chunk. Cause it wasn't correct.
Any other bit I was doing, I could just like, ah, fuck it. I made up a detail.
But why were you fact-checking your own stuff?
It had to be, cause. I was doing a thing about a religion. I was doing a factual informational hour, which I've never done.
Did you have any complaints?
Yeah.
But like real ones, any campaigns against you? Nah.
Actually in Melbourne, it was that thing of like, this. is hate speech, or calling them inbred. And I'm like, no, it's loving. All the Orthodox Jews that saw. it was like a little too much cursing for my taste, but nothing's really wrong in here.
It's respectful.
So who was saying that you-.
It was a love letter to my religion.
It sounds like it actually.
In my artistic way, in the comedy way.
But people can, don't you think people can smell the intent behind things?
Well, that's what it was. So it was like a couple outliers were like, let's look for something angry in the world, which is like, that's all of Twitter. I love how I've been telling people to get off Twitter for so long.
Do you go on it?
No, it's a cesspool. And it's like, people are like, oh, Elon Musk is fighting. I'm like, no, no, this way predates it. He hasn't gotten rid of the negativity on there. Hey, look, there's this cool telephone pole.
You know, a lot of people died in the making of that. There's not enough trees to go around. And it's like, Jesus, you guys can find the fucking terrible in everything.
So do you use the internet?
Yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, to see if, like a pill you found in your closet is good or bad. Expired? Yeah, you know, something like that. Like, what is this?
But you don't spend time looking.
at other people's opinions online?
No, you still see it, though. It seeps through. If you're on Instagram and it's like, you see people weighing in on stuff. It just like, it kind of comes into your, into like what you think of the world.
So you think that the reason everybody hates everybody else is because of the internet?
Yeah, it, I didn't understand it. You saw that movie, that half documentary, a little bit of like, whatever, like, what's it called? The Social Experiment? I never saw it. Oh, you should see it.
So the acting parts are kind of hokey, but it does illustrate, like in real time, what this would be like. Somebody like lost on their phone, as this chick he likes is like looking for someone to talk to, and he's like lost on it. So it's just a little acting scene, but it's just like one possible reason why you're getting lost on this. Instead of talking to your neighbor on the bus, you're like, let me.
Yeah, it's like, and these are the light problems. You know, when I moved to New York, I was like, how do you make friends? And my friend was like, go to a bar, order a beer, drink it at a regular pace, order another one, midway through the second beer. You'll be talking to someone. Yeah.
That time is done. Is it really? Yeah. You look up to talk, they're down on their phone. And then, then they look up, let's talk and you're on your phone and you just keep missing the connection.
It's like.
Boy, I haven't been to a bar in a while. That's depressing.
It's depressing. Yeah. No, one's open to meeting new people and hostels in like Southeast Asia are still, I hear they're slipping, but like, it's still that they can't afford an internet plan. So yeah, for a while I got rid of my smartphone. I had a flip phone for a while.
And, um.
So you're like Ted Kaczynski, level anti-tech.
No, I'm on a smartphone now and it's ruining my life.
How?
I'm not present. I'm wasting time. No, that's right. You look at your, your, your time used on a, on an iPhone. It tells you, you'd think they'd cover it.
If it's over 45 minutes a day, it's too much. And it's for most people, it's between four and eight hours every day that you're wasting. Eight hours of sleeping.
Two hours is eating. So that's 10.. So you have 14 hours left and four, just eight of those are staring at a fucking screen.
It's, it's, we're all, we're all losing it. We're all losing our lives. You should just be calling a friend.
Do you call friends?
Sometimes it's fun when you have old friends, whether you like text, they text back, text, text back, and then eventually they call, I can't do this anymore. I was just talking out and you're like, this is what it should be. So when I had a flip phone, it was this, you know, you'd miss the button. She'd miss the T and you'd have to go around again and keep hitting it till you get the right letter. And it takes forever to text anything over two sentences.
I'm just going to call you and deal with it.
So you don't text?
No, I'm on a, I'm on a smartphone now. So now I text constantly. But when I had that flip phone, it was fucking, I gotta, I gotta fucking do it. I gotta fucking go back.
Why'd you get off it?
I was promoting something and I thought I had to, and it, it fucking ruined my life. It's the worst.
So you've actually taken breaks from the internet?
Well, so when I went to Southeast Asia in 2017,.
I changed all my passwords to my email, Instagram. I think I still had Twitter back then. Email, Instagram, Twitter. What else is there? Facebook.
I changed my password to this. I just went to the computer and I cut and paste of that, sent it to a friend and I said, do not send me this. Um, wow. My password was like, you know, just a 17 syllable, whatever. I was like, don't send me this.
I don't want it. I'll get it when I come back. Uh, I don't want to be able to get in there.
So you didn't look.
So I had no access to Facebook, no access to Instagram, no access to email. And then I left my phone at home. I called an Uber to the airport and then put my phone on my desk, closed it. And then I got an Uber and went.
Really radical. Why'd you do that?
It was the best.
It was the, but why'd you do it?
Um, it's like not something you do accidentally.
No, it's not something I do accidentally.
That was the first time I've done it. I've done it since a couple of times, went to Guatemala for 10, 12 days. And I was like, I'm not bringing my phone on my computer. You're just way freer. You're more social, but, and I don't want to be connected to America.
I just wanted to be like floating. You know, I just wanted to be like, I just level of freedom. And you followed the dead for a while.
Yeah.
Pre-internet. Yeah.
I found my wife pre-internet.
Really?
Yeah.
What was just like a regular mail-in thing?
Yeah. Just ordered her, you know, right from Saigon.
With no reviews. No, no, I went to high school with her. At a time. But I was trying to explain to Rogan about it, about leaving. And I was like, buddy, I can't, I can't, I don't know how to express it, but like, there's this level of freedom.
It's like a second level of like, Hey, I'm, I'm in wherever I'm in Southern Vietnam, and I was going to go to the North, but I was just, I was getting sick of white people. And I just like, where there no white people. And it was like, Chodok. It was like Southern small town. And it was like, oh, I'll go there instead.
Just the ability to swap. Someone's like, I heard there's a good hike in Myanmar. You can, oh, okay. We'll do that instead. And just like, you're just floating.
Meeting people, talking, interesting talk.
You didn't feel helpless or afraid without a phone?
A hundred percent afraid. Really? Oh yeah. I mean the first, I mean, I almost came back right away. I was like, this was a mistake.
The dopamine dropped, you know, from, from being on there, that's what they're trying to, you know, get you on there. So that dropped. And I'm like, I, I, I'm not getting my fix. I was going through withdrawals. Really?
Yeah. And I was like, this was a mistake. I say, so, I went, I just, I was like, I'm not going to make any plans. I went, I discovered, I decided a region Southeast Asia, it was cheap. Um, it was going to be that, or South America.
So Southeast Asia seems so foreign. I just gotten to travel. I did one, one like 17 day tour of China.
Did you bring a girl with you? Go by yourself.
By myself. China was fun. So the comedians would kind of like guide it for you, the ones that were out there, they, and once somebody in Shanghai, Turner Sparks, was like, by the way, it's safe here. Like they won't touch you. here in China.
You can be a drunk woman asleep with your fucking phone in your hand, like passed out. And you'll wake up in that exact position. Untouched. the punishments for violent crime are way too much. And the embarrassment for their family is way too much.
So once they told me it was safe, I was like, Oh, all my like xenophobia was gone. I was like, sick. See you guys later. Like, you don't want a guy. I'm like, Oh, I'm out.
And I would just walk around and discovers I was, then I was, it blew my mind. And I was like, I got to get lost again. It was so cool. So I wait, I got my, I got every visa I needed ahead of time. Like Thailand's, like on landing, you get a visa.
Um, some places are on landing. some places you need ahead of time. So Vietnam, I think I got ahead of time, maybe Myanmar, not Cambodia. I think that was on, on landing. And they were all like good for six months, a month, any six month period, you know, for six months, any month, as soon as you land.
So, and I just waited till like a day before. I was like, where's the weather the best. So there was rain in Vietnam. So no, there was rain in Thailand. So no.
And then Myanmar had like 10 clear days.
Did you call home at any point? No.
Uh-uh.
So you just basically disappeared. for how long?
Four and a half months. Yeah. God damn. It was fucking great.
What was so great about it?
It's that freedom. It's seeing things, seeing the world new, seeing a cultures that were different than yours, meeting, and I didn't meet locals. Yeah. The, the language is a real problem in Asia. But I met Germans at the hostels I was at.
I met people from England at the hostels. I was at. You talk, I remember talking in, in.
Did anyone recognize you?
Twice. One time on an Island in Cambodia, I was walking down this, I kind of deserved beach and someone's like, it's with a girl. I was like, are you Shafir? And I was like, yeah. He goes, what the fuck, man?
Fair question. What are you doing here? I'm like, you know, same as you got from Henry Rollins, um, later, when he, people like, what are you doing here? And he goes, I'm here to meet you. What's your story?
He would just switch it around. But he, I was in Acadia. People like, what are you doing here? I was like, what do you mean? We're in a national park.
You're here to hike for the exact same reason you're here.
Um, um, yeah, twice ever, which was also great. So I could be, I mean, I've told a bunch of comics this, I'm like, you are losing your sense of reality by being looked up to. That's not the real, that's not the real world. You don't understand. And when Trump got elected, all these liberals, that I was around, again, I'm not liberal or conservative.
I'm, I'm the third thing, the majority of the country. I'm the majority. I don't care.
Um, we could hear them talking like, how could this like, Oh, you've never got under your limo. I know a really rich woman comic. And I'm like, you've never been to Dayton, Ohio. You wouldn't understand disillusionment. There's.
the recession is still going on in a lot of places. You got to get out and talk to people. So I remember talking in Indonesia on an island. It wasn't Flores.
I forget. Um, but over breakfast, this German guy, and he was telling me about, um, German workers' rights and the five week standard vacation time they get. And I was like, what do you mean? Like first year out of college, he goes, yeah, five weeks. I don't know.
You do better after a while. He's like, how much do you guys get? I'm like two weeks. And you're expected to not take it. And he was like, Oh, and I'm like, what?
So that kind of like talking to people makes you like realize, Oh, some shit. That's wrong.
Well, you learn more about your own country, good and bad. I mean, you're in some places and you're like, God, I wish they did it the American way.
Right. Oh, a hundred percent.
And in other countries, you're like, I wish we did that.
Yeah. Oh, I mean, when I got home, I noticed the first thing I noticed getting home was like the toilet paper in my country is so fucking soft.
Oh, it's superior.
It's like, it's like God takes the cloud and just wipes your ass.
It's like Angora.
Yeah. And I learned to appreciate that. Yes. Yeah. It's like Angora.
Exactly. Right.
But it does feel to me, I mean, having had, you know, a pretty failed educational experience, but that you learn way more from a month abroad than you would in, say, a year in college.
The gap year. I met these, these four or five Canadian chicks, 18 in, in, um, in a city, in, in, um, in Myanmar. And we're all just talking and everyone's so friendly and inviting at hostels. Everyone's like, they'll see, uh, they don't, they're not ageist. They're not sexist.
There's not even, nobody even pays for a woman's drinks. They're like, no, no. My money is my time. I have left out here. I saved up 10 grand.
if I buy a drink for anybody, and it's not expected. It's so. the quality level is crazy.
But like, you want to play cards, you know, cards, we're playing a game. You want to sit in with us? There's not like, who are you? It's, they just don't have it there at hostels. And I was talking to these Canadian chicks and they were like, we're on gap year.
And I was like, oh, we don't get gap year in America, but they're like, we don't get gap year. We just took a year off. It's not, it's not a thing. It's not part of the curriculum. I don't know why we don't do it more in between college and high school and college and grad school.
That's a year to yourself.
So, but weren't you worried about coming back to 70,000 text messages, messages and emails? and yeah, a little bit.
My manager at the time was like, what if something big comes up? I'm like, I don't want it. Tell them no, for me. It's like, what if something you'd want? I'm like, I want to do this.
I want to disappear. Tell them no. I'll just have missed it. What if it was an emergency? What emergency?
What if your dad dies? Then I'll mourn when I get home. I don't need to mourn at the right time.
Why did you do this again?
My mental place was like, and when I did it, I just, I was kind of having a fight with Comedy Central. They wanted me to work nonstop. Oh, you understand this. Yeah. They wanted me to work nonstop.
I wanted some time off. that friend Duncan, who fucked me over with my name on the internet, with my number on the internet, didn't fuck me over. It was a fun prank. I mean, he used to leave, also like glasses of piss in my fridge. So like, so, like, whatever.
When I say fuck me over in the most.
respectful way, but, um. That's not a respectful way. You're in the fridge, just not, no, that's not respectful.
I did it to my friend, Bobby Kelly. He was the one who called. I pissed in a bottle and put it in his fridge. He's like, what? if my wife found this?
I'm like, right. You would have been in a lot of trouble.
Um, um, what we say you're fighting with. I just wonder why you got to work. And I'm like, it takes me eight months to edit this, like storytelling TV show that I was doing with other comics. And I'm like, I need some time off. And they're like, no, we got to get back to another season.
So Duncan was like, well, you want to see the world and this company you work for.
Does wants you to not see the world.
So I'm like, yeah, you're right. I got to get out of here. And I just like, Hey, you got, I'm trusting you to book the show the next year, I'm trusting you to do this. I'm out. handle it as best you can, but it might get fucked up every, the fountainhead.
Yeah.
So when he leaves for vacation, things get fucked up and he has to go correct it. He's got to blow some shit up. Um, but at some point you got to trust some people to like, you'll handle this. I mean, they're going to upload this video.
Right.
You couldn't stand over their shoulder, but you're like, and you, they might mess it up. They might not quite do it the way you want, I mean, interrupting where you're like, I could tell you're like, I shouldn't interrupt. You just get it right. But then they have to make it as if you're trusting them to do it. So you can free yourself up to do other stuff.
Anyway, trusted the people I had to trust and just got lost.
What happened to your brain? Not being on text all day long.
God damn was great. So when I first got up, when I first got a flip phone, which was a halfway to that, I was talking at the Stan comedy club. I was talking to Nikki Glaser before she blew up, but she was still, whatever funny comic. and we're talking for the Tom Brady roast for the time, way before the Tom Brady roast. And, um, and I'm friends with her, but not like good friends with her.
And I'm sitting at the back table. We're talking. She's like, has, and this is day one of the flip phone. Like, I think, day one or week one. Anyway, she goes, has it changed at all?
What does it change? I'm like, I wouldn't be talking to you, Nikki. I'd be on my phone looking for someone else.
And, and man, I, I loved it being out there in Asia with no connection. You're just, there was one time in this, like Northern city in Thailand, I met an American girl, started talking about Trump a little bit. And, and then it's like, it's the same patterns of discussion that we both looked at each other, like we shouldn't do this. And we're like, yeah, let's not, where else have you been in Asia? I'm like, let's switch, absolutely smart move.
Let's switch the subject.
It's just like,
you may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat, or socialist and capitalists, right, left. The real battles between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil. It's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side.
That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson network, and we invite you to subscribe to it. Go to tuckercarlson.com slash podcast. Our entire archive is there. A lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn, when only an iPhone is running. Tuckercarlson.com slash podcast.
You will not regret it.
Did you find a distance between what you were expecting and what you found?
Wasn't expecting anything.
Like China, for example, you said.
Yeah. So like China, I was like, it was so, it was so foreign.
What did you expect out of China? And versus what?
No, no. I told my agent, I was like, I'm getting this itch to travel. If you find any foreign gigs, let me know. I still wasn't making enough money to really, but I was making some and he goes, well, I got you a 17 day tour of China. Beijing, Shanghai, cities outside Shanghai, ending in Hong Kong, cities outside Hong Kong.
He goes, doesn't pay very well, but you know, the fly out there, hotels every night and it pays you. I think like, I think it was like, I don't know, it was like three grand, four grand. And I was like, buddy, that's more than I was making two years ago. That's great. And to go see, and it's just like tasting food, like, what the fuck is this?
Seeing that they don't take them bones out of their meat. They just cleaver at all. I was picking up a song with chops. I'm like, what the fuck. there's bones in these pieces of meat.
And they're like, you need a fork. I'm like, that's not the issue. You have to eyeball out of my soup.
Um, yeah. And it was just like, I don't know what I was expecting, but I told you, like, I was at the Beijing comedy scene. It was that they were in the Hutongs of Beijing doing blow. And I was like, isn't it punchable by death here? And they go, they don't care about white drugs.
They only care about yellow drugs.
What are yellow drugs?
The opium stuff, that, that, that the Chinese would, would lose their lives to. They're like, okay, you guys kill yourselves with coke. We don't care. We don't do that. So it doesn't matter.
Well, you can't import it, but if you do it, they'll just get somebody actually, in the Beijing scene got caught with coke. They stamped a passport, never allowed to return, and sent them home. She went home, steamed out that part of her passport, went right back. And they don't have computer systems there. So it was like, welcome to China.
Um, but anyway, we're doing coke in the Hutongs, having a good time. And then we're walking around, and it was like three, 3.30 AM. It was hot. This was like a June, I think. And, um, went to a bodega and bought like a 20 ounce, like Heineken.
And I'm like, you can't do that where I'm from. You can't buy a beer at night and walk around with it, but there they're like, as long as you don't skull anybody with it, what's the issue? Just, it's like having a knife. Don't you stab someone? That's now a weapon.
If you just have it to like whittle, it's not a weapon. Right. And then there's like, so it's like, Oh, wow. You can do these fun. And then my friends were like, can you get on Google?
And it's like, no, you cannot, you cannot search.
But that's not a problem for you.
I mean, I still want to find out like, where's a good restaurant in town, but I have more fun just walking and finding a good restaurant. You know, it's like discovery is so, in other.
words, sounds like it was freer than you thought. it was so free.
And then you learn how to like, adapt and overcome. I was, they tell you to take a, if you're in a hotel early, I'm better at it. now, they tell you to take a business card from the hotel. So you can show it to someone who does not speak English. Get me home to a cab driver.
Did not. It was world cup.
Um, and we're all at a bar watching it like 2 AM. I was hooked up with this chick who was there now, although I did hook up with the Chinese chick, she took me home and their dad came with a fucking bat and chased me out. It was actually, yeah, it was pretty fucking nutty. Yeah. But you know, no harm, no foul, nothing, nothing.
But see you scampered out. Y'all.
Yeah. Yeah. Like putting on your pants, running, you know, it was so fucking fun. But then I had to like, get this cab home after a world cup of making out with this chick. And then I was like, uh, the Sheraton, he's like, well, I mean, I may as well, but just being blah, blah, blah, blah, blah to him, you know?
And I'm like the Sheraton.
That's Chinese, by the way. Yeah.
It's pretty close. And then I remembered, like, I forgot, he's like, no, I got to get out of the car, torrential rain. And I'm like, fuck, I'm soaked to the bone. Another cab that the Sheraton hotel, no understanding at all. I'm like, fuck.
And then I'm like, it's near the train station. So another cab and I'm like, he's like, he said something. And I'm like, sure. And then, till we got close to another train station, I'm like, forget that share. I see it.
Sheraton, that, but you just figure it out. I'm like flip-flop started breaking in, um,
in, uh, that was that first trip, but in Indonesia, they started breaking and I couldn't find 11 and a half size shoes. They just, people don't come that big in that part of the world.
Looked and looked and looked in Cambodia, found like a bunch of 10 size, you know, flip, and they're like, they'll stretch. I'm like the bottom doesn't stretch. It's the top that stretches. I'm not a size and a half. finally found some, uh, some quick silver one in like a real store and they broke, they were fake.
They broke pretty fast. It kind of flopped or whatever. And I was like, I was going to throw them away, but I'm like, oh, I can't, I won't find more shoes. So you're like, I have to fix these shoes. So you just go.
look for superglue. You just learn to overcome situations. The bus is gone. What do I do? How do I talk to people in another language?
So fun, just getting places. By the end, I ended in East Timor and I was like, I should learn some of the language, some Tetum. I talked to a, uh, uh, Italian lady in, um, Indonesia. She was really learning Bahasa, uh, Indonesia. She was like really good at it.
Like actually learning. She hear a word. She's like, what's that word? And you write it down. It was kind of inspirational.
So I was like, I got to do that for, for East Timor. So I could get by and like place to sleep. I know how to say that. Uh, I don't remember anything.
Fatem Deskansa. It was like a hybrid of like Portuguese.
I can't fact check that for you.
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So you'd go to a small town. I'm like Fatem Deskansa.
Fatem Deskansa. And they'd point you to someplace and you'd get closer and like Fatem Deskansa. They're there and they're like, Fatem Deskansa, like, yeah, come this way. And they'd feed you and give you a place for, for five bucks, you know?
What's, what's Myanmar like, and why is it no longer called Burma?
Do you know?
I don't.
Oh, so they got a bunch of bad press from human rights violations. Yeah. Like, change the name.
Is that really why they rebranded the whole country?
They moved the Capitol to the middle of nowhere. So no one can protest. It's like moving DC to two hours outside Wichita, who's going to go there to protest? Only the hardcore is people, you know?
Did it feel repressive?
No, no, because it was only certain regions, uh, and foreigners are not allowed to stay in those regions. So it didn't really come up. They're also not allowed to rent motorized vehicles.
Foreigners aren't.
Yeah. So they had e-bikes. They just worked their way around. So that e-bikes and like Pagan and places like that, you can rent an e-bike, just an electronic bike. They had to like, it's like a, you know, motorized golf cart versus a electric.
But there was one time we saw there was a bus. It took you like this way from Inle Lake to maybe Mandalay. I forget. And it took you way over here. Then all the way back, you know, like this route and me and a couple of friends, like.
it's like three hours this way or six hours, but it's like 17 hours this way. It's like, nah, let's just get our own way. Let's not take it like a bus. It's take it like little shuttles and stuff. So we did, we stopped halfway in, like, let's get out of here.
Some fucking tiny town was cool. Went to a hotel. I was like, can we, can we stay here? And they're just like, like looking at us. And we're like, like do the bell, somebody comes up and it was like, hi, two rooms.
And they're just like, and they're just like kind of talking to each other, staring at us. And we're like, well, uh, is this a hotel? They're just like looking at us. And eventually somebody like calls somebody on the phone. They like, give me the phone.
Someone spoke English in the capital, Yangon. Like, you can't stay there. Foreigners can't stay there.
How'd they know you're a foreigner?
Long nose.
One of the buddies I was with there was like, I don't want to take my, he's a photographer. He goes, I don't want to take my camera because they'll know I'm a tourist. He goes, you're a six foot one white guy in Myanmar. They're going to know. Um, she goes, you can't stay there.
No, we just came. She goes, you gotta go South. Like, we just came from South. We're going North. She goes, no, you can't like the bus.
We're off the bus. It's gone. And I was like, well, can we stay at a fucking, um, uh, monastery? Cause like they sort of have to take you in. and she just started laughing.
She goes, you can't stay in the region. And I started like, I'm pretty good at playing pretend. So I like, I was pretend poor. while I was there. I was just like, whatever you guys's level is, that's me.
So when they're bitching about a $2 more expensive hostel, I'm like, I know, right. I can like sell it to myself. You know, I know it's the common people. You could call your father and he'd like end it all. Um, but I just ignored that.
So I'm like crying. I'm like, but I can't, we can't, we don't have, we can't go South. We're going North. I don't know what to do. And she's like, all right.
She's like, we'll call a local minister to come and talk to you. He came in and he's like, all right, we found another hotel that you can stay in, but he's doing you a fucking favor. This isn't allowed. He's helping you like, okay. And then we're there, we're walking around.
My buddy shut down the market by just being white and walking through, it was like the parting of the sea. They're all doing their work and like, like, what the fuck is this guy doing?
with love and admiration, or fear and loathing?
Uh, it's like, if you see somebody, seven foot eight, yeah, it's just weird. Yeah. It's like, what? And you've never seen a white. It's crazy.
They're like, can you take a picture all through Asia? Can you take a picture? I'm like, yeah, sure. Do you have a phone? Like, no, no.
I want to be on your camera. I want my image to go back to America. I think it'd be so cool. You know, hold my baby. Let me take a picture.
You're holding my baby. It's crazy. They, every black guy I know, they're like, can we touch your hair? No, they wouldn't ask. They would just touch their hair.
And he goes, excuse me. They're like, right. And it was nuts. But so we stayed in a place. Then we started walking.
We're just touring around. We saw a statue on maps.me like a maps app was like statue. So, like, all right, let's go to the statue. It was near an army base, like a junta base, which is like, they have rebels there in these regions and some of them work with the government. Some of them are against the government.
Some of them have deals with each other. I don't fully know. I wasn't there for the government. Anyway, we're there taking a picture, hanging out six or seven army people with machine guns come out, went right at us. What are you doing here?
Nothing. What are you doing? You're taking pictures of that? Like, yeah, it's just a statue. Give me the pictures.
Let me see. Delete them. Where's your passports? Like, I don't know. They're back at our hotels.
Let's go, let's go see them. And they just let us, machine gun style, back to our hotel to get our passports. It's just, this is a no foreigners region.
And, uh, was there, I mean, anything worth hiding there that you saw?
No, no.
There's not like a secret nuclear program or anything.
It was just some poor people with like makeshift guns and like, yeah. And then, uh, and then we got back and the people, they were like, well, why it's let's play soccer. We all tried to do the hacky sack soccer thing. They loved it. I got violent diarrhea and food poisoning there.
That was more notable than the, yeah. Well, that's, that's required.
So, four and a half months on the road, you come back to your country and what do you notice?
Okay. That's a good question. And actually I can tie that into this, this Jew special also.
So you see everything fresh when you get back. Yeah. Clean, clear eyes.
Yes, you do.
Yeah. Even probably. what'd you do a month in Australia, two weeks.
Yeah. Two and a half weeks.
Even that amount of time. For sure. It's enough time to be like, Oh, it's just horse for the trees for a moment.
And it was a little overcrowded. Yeah. The cities, even DC and the Metro, like this, is too industrial. Yes. I went to visit my parents first, surprised them, they were like, so stoked.
They haven't talked to me. I went right to them. I just walked through the door. My mom's like, what the fuck? Yeah.
It was really nice.
Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's overbuilt, but also very clean, but, but then also I was in, I was in France, I took a writing class in France and I got that beautiful city, Paris. Um, got back to New York. I'm like, there's writing on every surface here. Someone has graffitied every, this city is disgusting compared to Paris, like the, whatever.
And Paris is pretty disgusting. Yeah.
But that old town, you know, it's great. It's like, wow, look at this. Yeah. And then it's like, Ooh, why is everything written on, why is everyone signed their fucking name on every fucking surface? But so you notice those things I got, you don't notice.
So I'm trying to remember what I noticed there. It was just a lot of anger, a lot of hustle and bustle.
Toilet paper was soft.
Did it seem angrier than when you left?
Well,
I didn't check my email right away. The lady I sent it to was an employee. back then I was like, don't give it to me yet. I'm not ready for it yet.
Um, and then I did, and it was like, fuck, it was over overwhelming amount of requests. I, I would, I would need, and people asking for things, but even to weigh in on this or that, I'm like, God, a lot of fucking tasks. I didn't realize.
Yeah.
I didn't realize how much responsive, that's what it was, the overwhelming amount of.
responsibility and I'm not in a high responsibility field, you know, and it was just like needing to return texts and emails and weigh in on this and pay your bill and do that. It's just like, oh, it was so freeing before. So here's what I noticed when I did the Jew special, it was weird, because I've never done this before, but I was living with a ghost for about five years. I was living with a guy who was dead. That, that version of me isn't here anymore.
Right. Like the yeshiva student, the yeshiva kid. Yeah. He's gone. He's been long gone.
And I was living there and trying to remember this ancient religion and ancient time in my life, and I was lost. And it was a very lonely hour. Usually it's like in relation to other things.
And I finished it and I kind of came for air and I looked around and everybody was very angry. I came back into the world and it was like, everyone's, mad about everything. Um, my friends were obsessed with stories that I didn't even know were happening.
There's some chick with no dicks, uh, was swimming with a dick, swimming against other chicks with, with dicks. Like their, their, their whole life is fucking worried about it. And it's like, none of this concerns you. None of this concerns you. That there's a trans swimmer or that there's COVID vaccine, or that it's like, dude, chill out.
All of you are mad about every little thing. And it was, it's like, I don't know what happened in those five years. People got fucking mad. It, I just came up and I was like seeing it for it. It wasn't like, you know, when a kid, you see a 10 year old, you see him five years later, like, well, you got so fucking big, or five to 10 other people's kids.
Yeah. But if you see him every month, you don't notice it. So I was like dropped out, pop back in and everybody was at each other's throats. Everybody's so actively political.
Uh, how do you avoid that? I don't read the news. I try to change the subject. I try to have, I try to have tools, change the subject. How do you change the subject?
How do you focus on the only?
resolutely nonpolitical person with a public voice left?
There's a few of us, my friend, big J. we were talking once we got a, we did a week together in Miami, probably the worst city in America.
Um, I thought, I heard it was the best.
Who told you that? A fucking, I don't know. Yeah, exactly. Um, it's so disgusting. They value only beauty, no intelligence.
If you're a girl growing up in Florida, they will not reward your a plus in Scott high school. They'll reward your new hairstyle. Anyway, we got a beach house and we're talking, he goes, I like Biden. This was three years ago. I was like, why do you like Biden?
You don't vote. He goes, I hear about him less than the other guy. And I'm like, what a great reason to like one over the other. Yeah. We do hear way more about this guy than that guy.
What if you're a nonpolitical, I just want you to be away from it. You deal with it. Um, yeah, you avoid it. You learn how to change the subject.
But aren't, aren't a lot of comedians pretty absorbed with it?
Yeah, but we don't even know anything.
Yeah. I've noticed.
It's like, we don't know anything. We're weighing in. So here's what I do. It's like you start getting an argument and we're like, well, mainly my stance is I don't care, but if you're asking me to take a stance on Ford versus Chevy, you know, something that doesn't matter, what do you think is better? It's like, well, 95% of my reaction is I don't know or care.
whatever I can get a better deal on is good, but with that other 5%, I'm going to say, I think Chevy's better. Why? I just kind of feel that way. Okay. So everybody's only publicly weighing in on their 5% and not their 95%, which is, I don't give a fuck.
No one cares about women's college swimming. No one's ever cared about women's college swimming.
You don't think so?
No, I didn't even know existed. Shut the fuck up. And they're obsessed with it. They're fucking obsessed.
So what are the issues?
Amateur aquatics. Fuck off, eat a dick. Shut up, dude. What are we talking about?
What are the issues that get you spun up?
Uh, the Yankees, mid-season collapse, that's every fucking year. But I know it doesn't matter. I know this is fake. I'm not pretending, it's like an actual, real thing, you know, I'll bitch about somebody going to a slump, but I know it. in the end, they're like, Oh, I'm just playing.
pretend, angry. It doesn't really matter.
So there are no issues that gets you.
stand up. people coming after standups.
Um, who's coming after standups?
It's a lot of people. It's a, it's an interesting time for my industry, but tell me how I love this thing you used to do on your, on your TV show, where you're like play dumb to get an answer. It's really fun. It's actually really dumb, but that doesn't interesting. You, you think you would be rewarded for helping a little woman across the street.
And you're saying you were not rewarded. That's odd.
It's called evoking an answer. So I'm trying to pull back and keep my many opinions out of it.
Yeah. It's smart. It's a good way to do it. Like, instead of like weighing in and go, I know you're right. And weighing in, it's like, keep talking.
Well, you know more about the top. No, I sincerely, I don't know that much. I know a million standups and I like a lot of them, but I don't know that much about your business.
Yeah. So you had a lot of people. it's, it's worse when it's from the inside. was other comedians weighing in and saying that crossed the line publicly. Yeah.
It's disappointing. It's really disappointing because it is already a battle. Um, you're trying to get people to laugh at like dark stuff, really dark stuff, school shootings. You're trying to get them to laugh at you, trying to find joy in a terrible thing. Nine 11 jokes, Holocaust jokes, AIDS jokes, rape jokes.
You're trying to get them to find making fun, break that down. We're creating fun. You know, people are like, you're making fun of this. Like, right. I'm creating fun out of a terrible situation.
Um, that guy, Don Barris, used to run the Juneau, there was the time we had a friend die, Freddie Soto died. I don't know what, just in the sleep, one day, really helpful. Looked out for everybody. really just supportive guy. when we all started.
Um, and nobody could believe it. I was like, what the fuck. at the time I was banned from the comedy store for beating up Bobby Lee too much. I was angry about a chick and I was taking on him and I was just every chance I get, I was punching him and they were like, all. right, you're out.
You can't be here. And I live two blocks away. And I got the call, Freddie Soto died. And I was like, what the fuck? And these bands always lasted between a month and six months and then would end.
You're always welcome back. Um, but at the time I was banned, I was, I couldn't understand Freddie Soto dying. It's like, it was the first one that died that I knew of. And it was like, I remember walking down the steps of my apartment, then just collapsing on the steps and then like keep walking. And then I met someone in front of the comments or another comic.
We just hugged and we sat on the, on the, on the sidewalk, like with our feet on the street, and just like sitting there and Don Bears comes up and he goes, I'm glad you're letting the band be enforced. You shouldn't be in here. It's good. You're on the street. It was just a cathartic laugh.
He made fun out of a terrible situation. And that's what some of us are trying to do. Others are trying to do like funny, like lollipop jokes.
Well, it is true that funerals and wakes, memorial services, you know, this kind of saddest, you know, get togethers that we have, they always wind up in hilarity.
Do you, have you experienced that? Yeah. Uh, this guy, Bob Oshak, who ran the memorial for Freddie Soto, it was in the main room of the comedy store and he starts off, he was like really good friends and best friends. They started together and he goes, you know, this is a weird time. And he set the tone right away.
He goes, um, you know, I'm here. Um, it's just weird that it took Freddie dying for me to finally get a main room spot, and just Mitzi starts laughing, and it's just like, it's just like, Hey, we're going to enjoy this. We're not going to cry. We're going to, but we're going to try not to. So that's what we do.
And then some people are just not understanding it. It's almost, it's almost.
But other standups are policing their colleagues.
They fall. It used to do. We just talk shit about them. It was, I was doing a blow job joke a long time ago. And Mark Mann was just like looking at me, like, hmm, whatever.
And he goes, you're smarter than that, man, that sucks. But he, like I said, wasn't, he didn't put me in a moral low ground, him, in a moral high ground. He was just like, you're smarter than that. But I'm like, yeah, smart people also like getting their fucking balls drained. They can all relate to it.
It's universal. It works in Romania and China and America. Everybody can relate to it. I don't see a problem with it. Some stupid jokes are fine.
Um, but it wasn't a fight. You know, we would just talk shit about each other behind our backs in a fun way. Oh, that guy's just doing like alt jokes. He sucks. He sucks.
But like, never go publicly about it. Now it's this thing, this moral high ground, you get activated online where you just feel like.
Have you been attacked by other standups?
Yeah. Yeah. But also far more, the real story is, I've been supported by other standups. Yeah. I would imagine, you know, at, at a 95%.
would they attack the Kobe Bryant stuff?
They'd have a few, but even in that, it was mostly positive texts. How you doing? You? okay. I thought that was hilarious.
And then a few knuckleheads. That's it. Who just felt you got punished for that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It ruled out. I got a call from Milo going, good one, bro. Nice one. You got a lot of people mad.
I'm like, thanks, buddy. Coming from you. That's fucking awesome.
Um, so Milo appreciated it.
Yeah. Duncan was like, I think this might be your best one. I'm like, yeah, I know I made, I made a, I made a city crumble. Yeah, it was great. I turned comedians into hypocrites.
They were all like, if you don't like a joke, just walk away. And now these same guys, because they live in LA or they were black, they were like, this is going too far. I'm like, ha ha. You have no ideals. I found your pocket.
It's all, Oh, just walk away if it's a rape joke, but if it's a fucking about one of your heroes, like, oh, no, I don't like it. You've never been triggered. Now you're triggered. Now you understand those people walking out. He's screaming as they walk.
It's also helpful for the rest of us to know who they are. The, the phonies. Yeah. It's just like, did you get dropped by your management for that?
Manager dropped me. She was also getting death threats at.
home because you made fun of Kobe Bryant.
Dude. Laker fans are retarded. They're not smart people. They've only had winners, so they don't understand what struggle is. They're just, they're dumb.
They're bad people. They're Laker fans.
So, when she called you, what'd she say? Your, your man?
She was like, I think that's, I think that's, I think she might've texted me. She's like, I think that's the end of the road for us. Um, but I'm getting these like, that's the thing they're going to come to, but they doxed her. They're like, I'm going to come to your house and rape you. It's like, ugh, don't deal with that.
Get, yeah, get out of here. He's what, what are you guys doing? They upped it. They upped it at that point. I never seen them up it like that.
Where, instead of going after you, they'll go after other people, like your loved ones, to try to hurt you. And it's like, well, what did they do? What, what, what do you do? It's just, it's just idiots. You know, online going, let me, it's like, they're all playing kids.
They don't. even, if they actually saw someone, they wouldn't do that. You know, they actually, nothing actual in real life, by the way, zero, only online stuff, and I tried to calm everybody down. I was like, guys, I've been getting death threats for two decades. This isn't real.
This is gamer talk. This is just true. Yeah. The best one was. this guy was like, if you come to North Carolina, I'll kick your fucking ass.
I swear to God. And then, an hour later, he wrote back. He goes, okay, I see you're in North Carolina right now, but if you come to Greensboro, North Carolina, I'm not going to really kick your ass. I'm like, no, you took a shot already. Dork.
You took your shot. Shut up. Do you ever see you? I'll kill you. I'm like my tour schedules there.
Have some fucking ideals. Come get me.
Do you worry about that?
I used to in the very beginning, but it's, it was never even a fuck you in person, it was never even like shut up. Fuck you. It was never even that, let alone actual danger.
So you've never had anybody come to your house or hassle you or anything like that?
No, no, but online, and they went off to other people. And so then, but no one, I was never punished from any moral.
Your manager shouldn't drop you. I mean, I felt sorry. I feel sorry for her hearing about it, that she got threatened. Yeah. But you're paying this person to have your back in moments exactly like this.
Right.
Yeah.
Right. So to abandon you in one of those moments is pretty much the greatest dereliction of duty imaginable.
Yeah. We're not really friends anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, exactly.
Like you guys, this is the time. just to what's the whole point, right? Yeah. Help me through that.
Yeah. It's not when you're like, oh yeah.
And then my producer pulled out cause they were like, I was going to do that special. and then he was like, oh, I can't. people thought it was the end of the world. And I was like, what? No, it's nothing.
Even I even had an Uber driver. I'd come back from Charlotte. I was doing a gig in Charlotte when it happened and I came back, sat in an Uber driver and he was talking, he was like, uh, did you hear about this Kobe Bryant guy? I was like, yeah. He goes, I was like, what do you, what do you think about it?
He goes, it's just weird. They're, I don't know. It's like, it's sad, but like it's him and his daughter and the seven other people. They don't seem to give a fuck about those seven other people. And I'm like, right, right.
That's fair.
You got it. That's, that's where these jokes are. When some celebrity dies and I'm mocking them online, it's because, like you guys, value celebrity life over a normal life.
Well, you also made a pretty biting point. I thought, well, I'll just tell you my reaction, which is I never credit, criticize anyone when he dies. Okay. So there's that, but I'm not a standup, but I thought you made a totally fair point. I'm not against Kobe Bryant, but he was credibly accused of rape.
They hassled the woman until she dropped, dropped out, right?
Started spreading rumors about her. seven other people, semen inside of it. No.
During the trial. Right.
And stuff we wouldn't hold by today.
And he, he admitted that she never gave consent, but he implied non-verbally that there was consent and that he strangled her. So, like there was something there.
His words, although at the time I didn't realize, I now know she does not think she gave me consent. It's like, all right, so that's his word. Right.
I'm not much of a feminist. Even I'm like, no, that sounds like great.
to me, but also, I don't really care, what I'm doing is making fun of our society. Well, that's exactly, that's exactly it.
I haven't stayed up late worrying about Kobe Bryant's assault, uh, either, but these are the same people who are telling me to value all women and believe all women or whatever, but they actually don't care at all.
It was wild.
And you made that point.
And I was in LA as a Laker hater. It's going well, they're not going to let him off. Like. he'll be going to jail, hoping he would, because, like, I want the Lakers to fail. Yeah.
And then when it became time for him to go to, like, when he retired, I'm like, they're not going to let him have a retirement season. The women of LA, the liberal fucking women of LA, are never going to let this. accused rapists get through his fucking victory lap without mentioning it. And they were so cookie. They just were like, no, we don't go off to black people.
We only go after white people. That's just the way it is.
So this has been brewing inside you, for
a while. Well, I hate the Lakers. I just like, whatever, I had a bid on an old, old album of just, it was called hashtag fuck the Lakers. I was in Denver. I was like, oh, this is where he fucking raped that chick right here.
Do people laugh?
Yeah, of course.
Why do you hate the Lakers?
Um, well, I don't really, it's just fun, but it's because they killed comedy shows in LA every time they're in the playoffs. It'd be up three. Oh, in the first round. And again, when they'd be the one seat against an eight seed and you'd have a show and no one would show up, cause they all had to watch the fight. These bandwagon fans had to watch the fucking Lakers.
So I'm like, I fucking hate the Lakers. Nobody hates the Clippers. No, no. So it's like, so you just like. lean into it.
Like my number one team is anti Lakers.
That's totally fair.
Number two team is the Pelicans.
When you tell jokes in China, do you tailor them to a Chinese audience? And like, what's a funny joke in China?
So anywhere else, it's, you get halfway through a joke and realize, ah, shit, you're not gonna understand this reference. Like, you, don't even think about it.
A dog eating joke or something like that.
No, you don't do that. They were just like very clear, do not make fun of the government. And I was like, okay. And they're like, listen, we're going to tell you twice, because I know you're a comedian, we're comedians. We can tell you that it's going to make you want to do it.
Don't do it.
We'll get shut down. There's a chance you'll get arrested. There's a chance we get arrested.
Don't do it.
It's not like, it won't be, it won't work. It's going to be painful for all of us. And I still did one anyway. I was like talking about anti-government at the time and I was like, my country needs a fucking Mao to come. fucking murder all our senators.
And they were like, whoa, whoa. It's pro Mao. It's pro Mao. Change the fucking subject.
Yeah. But anyway, that Kobe stuff, some people were just like waiting and got mad, and they were like, you shouldn't say this. I was like, fuck.
Wait, other standups of that?
Yeah. A few. Like, who? Um, nah, but like, uh, they know who they are, it doesn't matter. Others were mad, but just like personally, like, dude, come on, man.
Ms. Pat called me, it was like, Ari, you can't make fun of our heroes. Like, make fun of Dennis Rodman. And I was like, all right. Or Michelle Obama.
She goes, no, not Michelle Obama. I'll tell you, you can make fun of, but she just called and like, and like would check up on me and stuff like that. And then other people, she'd be like, fuck that fat bitch for going against you, um, as Pat rolls. But like the normal people would just check on you and never say a word. You know, some people like fought tooth and nail to be like, defend me.
Um, other people were just like, it's not my fight, but I hope you're doing. Okay.
Who defended you?
Mark Norman went hard on me once, not hard on me, hard for me on a, on a radio show in San Diego, talking about how, like the jokes are jokes. If you didn't like it, it's just, you didn't like it. Uh, uh, Andrew Schultz went on the breakfast club, a very black show. And it was like, you guys are way off. You're way off.
I mean, that was ballsy to go on a black show. He was a black hero. So, just like when Cosby stuff came out and they didn't want to hear it, they didn't want to hear this either. So I like, I like bringing it up again. It's not about Kobe.
It's about them worshiping heroes. So he was like, no, it's a fucking joke. You guys are getting it wrong. And then, um, that was, how did that go over? They were fighting him and he was fighting back.
Good for him. Schultz has always been on the right side of this. Other people, Hinchcliffe, some people, he was like, he goes hard defending. just to any comic there, air on the side of just defending your art form. Don't even say, Hey, I didn't find the joke funny, but it's his right to say it.
Well, don't even say that part. Just say the second part. It's his right to say it. Why, why, why, when everyone's coming against somebody for a joke, be like, I didn't find it funny. Don't say that.
You would never say that. normally. You would never, in times of peace, go. I didn't find that.
But Tony Hinchcliffe defended you.
Tony. No, Schultz defended Tony Hinchcliffe. Oh, when he had a, they all get their kerfuffles, you know?
Um, who else? Um, oh, Tim Dillon made like really funny jokes about it. Good for him. You know, Tim, right? He was just here.
Yeah.
In fact, I texted with him yesterday.
He fit in this chair.
He's slim these days. Yeah. He's in fighting form.
Yeah. He's on a diet of fucking twinkum.
Um, I didn't ask you about that.
I don't, I don't think he's really gay.
I don't, I don't think that I don't think.
we all be like, prove it.
Kiss one guy in front of us. Totally. We, do. you remember? Pete Buttigieg ran for president, he's supposedly gay, and, uh, now he's transportation secretary.
And I had a, one of my producers was gay and he goes, you know, he's not gay. I was like, are you serious? He goes, no, that's complete bullshit. Wow. Oh no.
He goes, and you know, they all, gays all keep very close track of that stuff. And my producer's like, no, that's, that's, it's totally opposed. He was dating women just a few years ago. That's totally fake. He's not gay at all.
Smart.
So I said that on the air, people got all offended. I thought it was kind of hilarious. It is hilarious. Yeah, it is. It is hilarious.
Yes.
And you're also like, I'm not against gays. I'm saying he's not one.
Well, that's what I said.
So Tim went on and he goes, uh, he, he, he plays a good dumb, sometimes on purpose, like you do with the questions. He does that with dumb. He had this thing about when they were trying to ban Apu. Um, and he had Giannis Papas has this like old Greek guy character. And he was like asking questions to Pete about, about Apu, asking questions to Tim about Apu.
And he goes, this man, he is a, he's a bad father. He goes, oh no, he's actually a great father. That there's a white character in the show. It was a really, he chokes his children. He's a really bad father.
But Apu is now he's got eight kids and he's a really wonderful. So he, uh, he's, I'm sort of deadbeat. No small business owner.
I don't get it. And Tim's like, yeah, I don't know. They just don't like, uh, anyway. So he did that with me. where he goes, um, he goes, well, Ari's actions and his words were terrible.
to take a hero like that and make fun of her and his, and his, and his, um, and his producers like, yeah, it's tough. It's like, it's just like you get on the day of a death. to make fun of Aretha Franklin is so shitty and the producers like, no, no, no. It's. it was not as corporate.
It's like, no, no, I read it. He did a thing about Aretha Franklin and he goes, that was a different one. He goes, oh, so, he does this all the time. It's not about this one thing that they hear. No, he said something about Aretha Franklin.
It's like, it's not that he goes, well, I'm pretty pissed about the Aretha Franklin thing from like three years earlier. It was just a way of saying like, guys, shut the fuck up in a funny way. I was like a most creative way to do it.
Oh, that's so. that's inspiring. Does anybody pay any attention at all to the late night hosts?
Like, that's not even a category anymore, I.
guess, but that's, but not even so funny. You see them sometimes like crying about something, like what happened to your industry?
You're crying, but when you were a kid, I.
mean, all it was, yeah, that was it. You watch the tonight show monologue, but when.
you guys get to it, like you and Tim Dillon are having dinner, you're not talking about what Kimmel said.
No, occasionally we will talk. I'm trying to try to stay positive. So occasionally we'll talk about how cool Kimmel used to be and how that is really him, the cool guy. Yeah. And he's, I don't know, playing pretend or whatever.
Kimmel had a, there was a roast for a, um, a local kind of, kind of lunatic comedian, Peter Chen. Um, we had a sort of fake roast.
As distinct from other comedians? What does that mean?
Uh, he was a bit crazy. The owner of the conference room passed him as a, as a, to like. let everyone else kind of fuck with him. He, he was a bit of a, yeah, not a, not me lunatic or you lunatic, but like off. Um, and, and that's how it is.
Stand-up says that it's real.
A terrible, terrible cop. Like an un, no future, no past comedian.
Um, yeah. And so he was just a local, like at the comic store, he was like, you could just fuck with him all the time. He's crazy and angry, driven to anger at all times. It was fun to fuck with him. Um, so we had a roast for him, and, um, everyone, you know, did their thing.
and then it's his turn to get up and he goes, uh, to everybody's, like, you say this about me, but I, you are the man. Oh, nice. You wear a plaid shirt, not straight lines. And like, he thinks he's getting you. And then he goes to.
Jimmy Kimmel was on the, on the dais. Um, I mean, it's an 80 seater. that's got 30 people in it before. he might've already had a show. I might not have, but, um, but he goes, and Jimmy, you say I am a snake.
You are a snake. And Jimmy Kimmel cracked his beer bottle. I was like, I'll fucking kill you back. That's who he is. He's a funny guy.
I don't know what that is, but he's a funny guy.
What about the other two?
Um, the, uh, who was it? Fallon.
Yeah. I can't remember.
And the guy from the daily show, the guy from.
the daily show.
Um, I don't, I've never seen the daily show, but he, his old show was pretty funny. The fake Republican.
Very funny. Yeah, I agree.
Um, yeah, Fallon's a fucking, he's also, he's so clean on there, but I don't think he's that clean. I think he's like a boozer and a fun guy from what I hear.
I don't know. So that's just totally, that's not even a factor in comedy. Yeah.
I did like, I did like when he goes out, when they were like, Hey, you're losing the ratings to the other guy, to the, to the daily show guy, you need to talk about Trump and stuff. And he goes, that's just not me. I play ping pong with guests that, so if everyone wants to hear that, then you should go to that guy. But if you want to hear a good lip sync battle, I'm your guy.
Well, good for him.
Yeah, exactly.
Know who you are.
Yeah. That's more comics to do that. Stay in your lane. Be funny. You can write a tweet against Trump or Biden.
Make it a joke. So many comics, Louie, said this because comics fucked themselves over because they were like, it's just a joke. It's just a joke. But as an audience member, you're like, but a lot of you guys are not joking legitimately. You're making serious statements.
So how are we, the audience, to know when you're joking and when you're not, this guy might be the worst president of all time. That's not a joke. No, make it a joke. This guy's a worse president than Kermit was at being a fuck it for. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. But there's a joke possible.
So then, what do you make of Chappelle?
In general, he's a great comic.
Well, of course he is, but there's also a there's not a criticism. I've seen it.
Of what?
Well, there's, it's, it's all like his, he did this, the tranny special he did was like an editorial. It was not, he was not joking. He was serious. Is that good or bad?
There's a thing I'll say that happens to a lot of people, um, you get some, and it's not necessarily him, cause everyone's on their own path, but you get some backlash. Yeah. And then, instead of just allowing that to be backlash, you want, I think it comes from a place of, you want to win those people over and explain, you're not the guy, you're not the guy they think, and you want to win them over, but then what happens is your creative output is spent trying to win over people who hate you instead of trying to please the people who do love you. And that's your core group and keep honoring them and these other people, it sways them. It's so smart.
When the people go really.
I just got it. That is a really smart observation. Thanks, buddy. It's not just comedy that, no, I'm saying.
Fucking, anti-Semite. All we can be is a brain.
You have a high verbal intelligence, I'll say. No, I think that's a really insightful thing to say. It's not just comedians, by the way, who do that.
Right, right, right. Right.
Yeah.
And then it just keeps going further and further over until you, this warped, fucking Gollum version of yourself. Yes. And you're like, what happened to you? And I've seen it.
They won, actually. They won. Your enemies won. The critics won because they distorted you.
And it's not even like, let me do a good joke about this. It's, Hey, I was already done with that. So I'm not gonna keep doing jokes. I'm not. So people ask me about when I did this, do things like.
you should come out in a helicopter and do whatever. I'm like, guys, that was a throwaway line on a fucking three minutes you only hear about. So that's what you want me to be. I was never going to cover that again. That was the one joke about the fucking Lakers.
I moved on to other stuff. You want me to live in that forever? That's crazy. So you keep doing. also, artists do this when they get positive feedback.
Well, it's like, I do a bunch of different paintings, but this one's about deer seem to sell more. so well, I guess I'll paint more deers and it's like, that's not your natural.
progression as a visual artist, as a painter.
So how do you keep in?
Can't read any of it. You can't read any feedback, positive feedback is just as deadly as negative. Yes, I agree. Yeah. People tell you, we like that.
I knew, I liked you. This is exactly right.
Yeah. Can't read anything. Can't allow it in. That's right. You can, you as a comic, we got something that nobody gets is immediate reaction.
Uh, I can hear the laughs. Yes. We know when it's good and when it's bad. And sometimes when you're starting, somebody like, no, no, they were laughing the back, you couldn't hear. I'm like, they're facing me.
I can hear, I got the best seat in the house for the laughs. And I know when there's good laughs and bad laughs, and I know, even in that 15 minutes set that I thought was bad, there was one joke that killed and the other 14 were not good. So I'm aware what the line was for this crowd and I failed, and it's okay. And they tell you like, no, there's that. I can tell from immediate feedback.
I don't have to go home and go, who was saying anything about it online? I know what worked. every time they come out with a thing against comics. They're like, and this fucking crowd was like, this crowd doesn't know me. Especially if it's at the cellar, the stand or the comedy store.
This is not our crowds. They're just there for the show and we're going on and we're making them laugh. That's a bunch of strangers laughing. That's all the feedback you need, or a bunch of strangers not laughing. And that's also great feedback.
You know, occasionally you'll get a comedian go, Hey, there's something there. Don't give up on that joke.
Everything you're saying is true and wise. more important, but there's also the reality of touring for any gig, which is you wind up in a hotel room alone and there's nothing to do. It's depressing. And you're on your phone and you're like, I wonder what the reaction to this was.
That's fair. And I should say this, I fall to it constantly when I say don't read that. It's advising myself, read it less.
That's right.
You know, um, we're all talking once at the store, in the parking lot, and, um, Gerard Carmichael showed up and we're all talking, we're talking about reading comments and stuff, and he was like, yeah, you shouldn't read this before. It was in. what year was this with him? I think it was right, after he had his first TV show. So he was kind of a star, like Beyonce knows him, but not like internationally.
And I, he was doing well, anyway, whatever. And he goes, yeah, yeah. You shouldn't read it, but it is people talking about you. It's interesting, right? It's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
Like, let's go up there and hear my fucking.
Well, you're a performer. I mean, you play for people and for their reactions. So this is another form of it.
Yeah. And you want to hear it. And, but it's just like, do something else. It's, it's deadly. Every once in a while, I'll go open up Instagram when I'm bored and I'm like, don't fight back one time.
And it's not like a wholesale, like. I'll never be on here, but I'm like, right now. I shouldn't be on it. I'm in the woods. I'm in the woods sometimes.
And I go on my phone. It's like fucking, ugh, do it later.
You did take four and a half months off without your phone. So I don't know anyone else who's done that.
Yeah. It's just like, you set your own line and I'm behind my line. I'm about, I'm about to, I've been for almost a year, I've been trying to get on this light phone. You know, the light phone company, they made it, uh, it's, you can do regular texting. It's the, the, the buyers are two people.
They are people who want to spend less time online and people who don't want to be spied on their woods people. And there's fucking liberals who don't want to follow its fault to it. I'm in the ladder, I guess. Um, full texting. There's no email on there.
There's a maps app, but not Google maps, because they don't want those people don't be tracked. So with some other maps app, I think there is a ride share app, um, and some sort of music playing app, I think, but not Spotify, cause they don't want anybody algorithming you. The light phone three is about to come out with a camera unrelated. Like it takes a picture on.
So that's all I use my phone for. So that would be for me.
Yeah. I want one where I can't get this stuff on there. I can't get email. I'll check it at home. I want to be able to text and not have to do this, which is fucking annoying.
Um, so, a full key, but these have the one that flipped open like that. Um, the LG envy, and you can text like that flip phone, but you could text like that, it's a breeze. Loved it.
I gave up email completely. No email.
I don't do no email. How do you deal with like long form?
I text him, that's it. And I try to make, I mean, I, I'm sure I miss a lot, you know, and I, um.
How does someone send you, okay. So they can send you a link. You can open, read this.
Yeah. Or a PDF, or I just don't deal with stuff. Wow. And because I think it's, it's just, it takes too much time.
Yeah. I think I've lost probably half to a full decade of my life to this.
Right. And so it might be worth saying, you know, I'm, I'm an artist, I'm a creator, I'm a little eccentric, I've got a weird personal life, and I'm just not playing along with your conventions. You could probably pull that off.
You're also in a position where you're successful enough, where you'd be like, guys, deal with it. for me. Like handle this. Yeah.
But there's not that much, actually, you can bang it out on text and then, then you can get to the bottom of it every day. Then you go to sleep with nothing.
And you make a phone call like, Hey, explain this to me. Let's go over it real quick. It's going to take us 10 minutes. Not texting. It'll take us five hours.
Yeah. I don't do a ton of phone calls.
Okay.
Cause you can't do those at two in the morning.
Yeah. Yeah. So you tell, I wish there was a way to send a text. schedule, send a text.
Can you make more? at some point, will standards be able to make more money on the internet than they made on TV?
They already are. They already are. Yeah. They already are. So it's like, it's pretty wild.
The lack of caring they have for these conventions. Now, some of the comics have made so much money, they've re-imprisoned themselves. And that's why they usually come out against a comic who crossed the line, because they're afraid of their own money kind of going away instead of just defending their friends. When, when Harvey Weinstein came out, when it came out about Harvey Weinstein, um, they went to Tarantino and it's like, well, you've worked with him, you need a way, you need to make your statement. And he said something along the lines of, Hey guys, I've known this guy for 25 to 30 years.
He was at my wedding. I was at his or vice versa, whatever. Um, this has been a friend for a long time. You need to give me some time to think about this and it seemed reasonable enough, and they kind of went away. And I don't even know if he ever said anything, but what's saying anything going to do anyway?
Exactly.
You just, they need more of that, but they're all scared of losing their position. So they sell out their friends, LA Comics more than New York.
So the more money they make, the more cowardly they become.
We all wanted to do another, our own thing. And then this money. in prison, they had these jobs. I mean, I, I make fun of Rogan once in a while, where I was like, I remember when he was still in LA and I was like, Hey, I'm coming to town. We're going to hike.
And he goes, ah, I can't, I got to interview some guy. And I was like, I just canceled. He goes, no, he's coming from Australia. I got to fucking do it. And I was like, Oh, for your job.
He'd say, shut up. All right. Oh, you wouldn't do it for millions of dollars, but no, I would, but don't ignore.
Are you worried about getting too successful where you can't take four months off and go to Myanmar?
I can't, I.
No, no, no. The problem becomes when you have a, like this guy and that guy were like, you guys rely on me for money. Yeah. So now it's a separate thing. And that's when I didn't realize that's what comedy central did to me.
Um, you got employees. Well, they were like, well, there's all these, like, you have all these staff members, you have all these people going to shoot your show. We'll kick you out. They'll be out of work. They're not going to pay that rent, or you can comply.
And you're like, Oh fuck.
How horrible are they?
They're just really horrible.
Like they are, right? I get that, that feeling. They're done now.
They're off, which is sad because it was a good platform for comedians. I don't take any happiness in their demise.
So that's actually my last question is about, is about the new platform for comedians. Like how central is Rogan to all this, to this ecosystem?
I mean, he is the best. The amount of support he has. I mean, there's times where he goes, so some big guy, some Oliver Stone wants me to podcast, but I can't, I have this open miker on today or tomorrow. So I'm already booked. I want to promote this open miker.
Whereas everybody else would go, well, the name Oliver Stone will get more hits than this open miker. So I can't, he's just like, I'm the, I'm the name, I'm Joe Rogan. So I want to put this guy on or that guy on, and this guy's funny. I want to push him to a big platform instead of like, what's going to help me book my show. It's like, interesting.
I'll help me. He's just the casual. talking about the outlawness of standup has helped all of us. Whether or not you've been on his show or not, he's made standup more popular, you know, so now we, we can all. just, I mean, it's succeeding at a level.
It's a crazy level.
So what, like, what's the effect on a standup's career of going on Rogan?
Well, one time is not as big as, as it once was, cause there's now, there's thousands of episodes. Um, but guys like Theo Vaughn launched off like a good early appearance, Tim Dillon launched off that Dave Smith, you know, really became well-known.
I know all three good guys.
And you do well on that, Joey D, as it, but like, it was, consistent ones, you know?
Um, it's not like, it's kind of like the tonight show with Johnny Carson was a long time ago. It's like, they say like you go on there, you're a star. And everyone you talk to from back then, like, no, no, no. You're eighth time on there. You're a star.
But that whole week people recognize you.
But unlike Carson, I mean, Rogan makes the call himself. He doesn't have like scouts in the clubs at night.
Yeah. He's like, wow, this lady was like, email, open, miker. We're all getting high in the back. And then you've got to walk past the original, the room. And you kind of like go in there, especially if you're high or drunk, it's great watching some high level, unknown comic.
You just, it's, it's great. It's laughs. You know, it's free laughs.
Um, yeah, it's like you're passing by a live standup comedy show on your way out of work, it's, it's the best. And he's in there laughing. It was, you were great. He was always really great. Carson Carlin was like that.
He'd sit in the back. He knew who he was. And if you did well, I'd be like, Hey, that was a really good set. He knew not to just keep that to himself. He knew what George Carlin saying good set would mean.
Did you know him?
I met him once. Never said it to me, but if I never had a?
good set in front of him, never had a good.
set in front of him. But, uh, but if he was there and he saw you, he tipped me 20 bucks to get him a deli sandwich and I was like, no, the I know, it's for you. And I desperately needed it. I mean, I was poor and Rogan was always passing money around. Really?
Oh yeah. Yeah. He kept me in business for a long time. I opened for him for five, six years on the road. Yeah.
We're good friends. We're good friends, but like, so, I mean, I can't, I can't pay him back. I just try to be, I just try to pass it.
How many dates do you do a year?
Try to limit it to 24 weeks a year. And the weeks can either be Friday. 24 weeks? It can either be just Friday, Saturday, or, like for the Edinburgh festival, it's, it's an entire month. It's four straight weeks.
How do you not get addicted to heroin doing that? That's so much time on the road.
You, you get to be a boozer for sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Heroin is always like, one time I had a thought like, I mean, I want to try it, but I was like, okay, I'm going to do it away from home so I can't find a dealer. that I can, and then you realize you can just find a dealer.
If you're in New York City, you could find a dealer. You could probably pull that off. Yeah.
So I just haven't gotten into it.
But how do you keep your life from capsizing?
Sometimes it gets bad and you're like, oh, I got to take that back, a little. Pot also. Sometimes it's like, nah, I messed up a show a little bit. Not completely. It went from an A to like an A minus.
Be like, eh, cool it.
Being high on stage.
Being high, being drunk. You're like, let's get drunk afterwards. That's earthquake one. So, like, do you drink on stage? I love this interview.
And he goes, stand up comedy is one of the few jobs that enable you the right to imbibe while you're at work. And I like to avail myself of that right. And they go, does it ever make you worse? He goes, almost every time, but yeah, you just got to keep track of it and not let it get to your, your, your, your employee. So it's up to you.
Yeah. But there's a, there's a disconnection.
that happened. Justify. There's a lot of sober comics.
Are there really?
Couldn't handle it. Joe List. I met Joe List, great comic. I met him when I moved to New York. It was like a separation between New York and LA.
Um, and I was like, Hey, everybody here in New York talks about you, like, like, kind of reveres you, but I'd never heard of you. Coming from LA. Like what's, he goes, you want to know why I'm not as big as my name? He goes, yeah, he goes, booze, but I've been sober for six months and now 12 years and he's crushing it now. But he had to, you know, he had to do that for himself, other guy, I mean, Rogan, gets high all the time.
He can handle it.
Yeah. But a lot of, I mean, there's a reason that touring musicians, you know, it's just tour, it's the touring.
There was a DJ who quit, who quit DJing a highlight. I forget who it was. And they were like, he was like, well, I'm doing too much drugs. I can't do it. So I got to stop DJing and people go, well, just don't do drugs while you DJ.
And he goes, Hey, you just don't know the world, you have to.
Um, yeah, I don't know. He tried to self, but yeah, Rogan, he just rules for it. And it's, it's a way of like, he's like, pay your openers. Well, he was paying me $150 a set to MC. The standard rate was 50..
He's paying 150 and then paying Joey Diaz would go with us also. He's paying him also 150 and the rate for the middle was a hundred. And then one day he called me and Joey and he goes, Hey, I'm sorry, I'm giving you guys a raise, but I'm like, no one's offering us that much, definitely not more. He goes, no, you guys are headliners. You should make headliner money.
I'm giving you two, 50 a set. So we'd come home with like as much money as I would make pretty much on my own headlining. that I never got any work, by the way, but like it would have been the same, and also never touched my wallet and went out to the finest restaurants, you know, it was, it was great.
That's amazing. Why do you think he does it?
Oh, I don't know. He's a positive guy. So for a while, he just brought Joey Diaz with him and then, um, and Joey was pretty coked up back then. And sometimes he just would not show up.
Um, and he could bring a local, but he just got to be supportive to the scene. He got to help guys that are struggling and he'd bring just Joey. And then Joey would, he'd get to the airport and he's like, Joey, where are you? Don't answer his phone. And then he'd land in the new city.
He's like, where are you? He goes, ah, something came up. I missed my flight. And it's like, I was at the airport. He missed your flight.
He just coke excuses, you know? Yeah. And so he's just like, he's unreliable. He might not show up. It became too much.
But instead of saying you can't come anymore, he goes, I'll just bring a second opener. So if you don't come, I've still got somebody. It's, it's nuts to have an employee go. I just don't show up. a lot.
Like, I guess I'll hire two employees then just firing the guy. He was like, he's too funny. He's got to be supported. It's our responsibility.
That's remarkable.
So I try to do that with like young columnists, it's like, you know, it doesn't.
one time I was, wait, so what, when your opener gets too hot to, to show up at the airport, you're okay.
No, I've never had a guy like that. People are too, whatever. But like, no, I'm like, I'll pay for your meals. if we're out like at a diner after spots, it's like, ah, I got it. Don't worry about it.
Cause that's what, I remember. one of those. He was like brand new to LA. He took us all out for like the standard hotel, um, late night food. He paid like three times in a row.
I'm brand new to LA. This isn't normal for someone. you get around, but not consistently get rounds. That's weird. And we're at Carney's, where it was a chili dog place and I was like, let me get this, one was broke.
I couldn't afford the standard hotel, but the Carney's like it's $3 each, you know, and, um, he goes, no, no, it's okay. I'm like, dude, dude, please let me get it. There's also like a, um, a man, sort of like hierarchy thing. You can't get in for me. I don't know you like that.
Um, and I insisted and he goes, okay, thank you. Appreciate that. And then later we're walking back to the Congress, where he goes, Hey, just so you know, like, it's not a power position when I pay for you. It's just like that standard meal for me is, is about a quarter to you. It's about worth one, five nickels.
Yeah. That's why I pay for it. It doesn't, it's, it's meaningless. It's not for power. I thank you for buying me Carney's, but like, that's all, I have more money.
So take some, you know, like, if I could, just, I just go get coffee at your spot. I don't have to ask.
So when Rogan got attacked, when they tried to claim he was a racist of all things, um, it didn't seem what it had like no effect and no effect.
Also comics supported him. I think this is what you got to do. when there's, there's this like meteor of hatred coming at anybody, you get it plenty. Uh, other people have gotten to play. It's just meat is solid ball.
And for me to, to break up, it needs to start breaking up and you get the image where it's like a piece falls off, a piece falls off in the atmosphere, a piece falls off, piece falls off. So what support does from other people in your industry, either broadcasting or comedy, is it shoots a fucking hole through that meteor, a little hole. And that starts to break it up a lot faster. If you have a few commerce ago, guys, you just don't understand comedy. That's just a joke.
He doesn't mean that you're out of your mind. It creates. Doubt in the story. That's right. And then it breaks up really fast.
When there's no doubt, it's just fucking all that. Sorry. That fucking blows everything up.
What happened to, look, I don't know Louis CK, but I, I, at the height of that, I always thought he was really talented. So I read about it and I, you know, whatever, it was embarrassing that story, but it was not a crime that I could tell. How did he wind up getting destroyed?
Maybe we can be puritanical. I think there's something in society to like, no matter if you're big, we want you down. I think it's because it says something about me that I'm not big. And instead of like, let me rise up to his level, let me take you down. So in comedy, it works in a few ways.
You're an evil person. You steal jokes. You're hacky. You're, um, um, racist. Roseanne, racist, Carlos Mencia steals jokes, uh, Larry, the cable guy, hacky.
These are all things I don't necessarily agree with or not agree with, but this is what they say. Uh, this guy lied about something. Uh, this guy did that, but they just like, either way, we're going to take you down, and it's not about one thing. If it was about one thing, I'd be like, this. society doesn't like that thing.
Right.
But since it's about lots of things, it's like what the common factor is. You're big. You're all big. Let's take you down.
Um, yeah, with Roseanne, she offered like a legitimate explanation. That lady looks white. I saw a picture of her. She looks like an old Jewish lady. And then it's like, that's a believable, fucking retort, but it's like, we want you out of here.
Do you know her, Roseanne?
I've met her a few times.
Great person.
Yeah. I don't know her that well, but.
Truly a cool, interesting person.
Lunatic.
Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent, but in touch with something deep, she's not a shallow person.
I've seen her catch her vibe on stage, and it's not even jokes. It's just a vibe, and she just gets people on a wave. Like it's pretty, pretty special. But, um, yeah, I don't know. They go after Rogan.
They go after Louie. I think it was that, I think, because what they were going after him for was puritanical. Oh yeah. It was, you're not doing sex the way we do. But I mean, when I was in college, I started bringing up verbal consent, and it was, it, it was brought up by virgins who had never really experienced sex.
If you ask any normal woman, how they feel if a guy's like, may I kiss you? And they say, okay, yes. May I touch your breast? Like, dude, we're done here. Yeah.
Cause you're weak. Yeah. You're weak. Go for it. And I'll say no.
That's how, you know, it's not like you're not holding them down. You're just like, it's like, uh, like, okay, I mean, I've gone in for a kiss, but like, no, no, I don't see you like that. I'm like, okay, it's embarrassing. Yeah. I'm not going to do it again.
I feel shamed. They try to like, that's okay.
I'm like, when was the last time that happened to you?
Um, yeah. Uh, a long time ago.
Good. Yeah. Just checking.
Yeah. Yeah. A long time ago.
Um, yeah. And it's like, but we were like, that doesn't work in real life. Verbal consent. And he got verbal consent.
May I do this? Yes, you may. Okay. I'm going to do it. Okay.
It's, it's.
And they actually took him out.
And they, yeah, they did. And, and cause then people were like, well, I can't, I think that, so the friends of his were like, no, we'll defend him. Other people were like, you're putting me in a moral weird spot to, you're saying he's this evil guy. And if you defend evil and you're out, I mean, Norm Macdonald saying, Hey, I don't think, I don't think Roseanne meant that, and they go, well, now you're off at tonight's show tonight. And he goes, I'm not excusing it.
I'm saying it wasn't the right person. If, if somebody goes to me like, well, uh, fuck, Seth Rogen, he's anti-trans and he's, his, his podcast only has this. I'm like, Oh, I think you mean Joe Rogan. They're like, fuck, you. Don't tell me what to think.
And it's like, you can't even argue with the, you're getting the wrong, you're at the wrong door. You're at the wrong door. That's what happened to, what's her name? That black chick got shot through the fucking wall. They went to the wrong house.
What's her name?
Oh, they say her name. I never did say her name, though. So I can't remember.
Wow. It shows you what kind of person I am. But it's like, they're going to the wrong house and you're like, you're at the wrong house. Like, don't you? tell me, you're an evil person.
So they made people feel weird about even defending Louie. But it was like, what are you talking about?
And whatever. But it's also. When you take a step back from it, it's, it's all comical. If you don't take any personal, like I know that guy, it's, so here's the game I play. It's called defend them.
That's what I was going to tell you. And it doesn't work with full rapists. Okay. But anyone else, imagine they were your friend and you had to explain to people, Louie's a good example of why someone's not wrong. There was a comedian in, uh, in the UK, where the Edinburgh festival and he was doing a, it was called, uh, when heresy met Sally, this guy, Finn Taylor, he's, he's a great comic and he takes these long, he goes at one year, he did a Whitey.
McWhiterson was his, was his hour. It was all about just white people and the culture. And he takes every side, South Park style, every side. And when heresy met Sally, he had some great lines in there. He goes, men are the only ones that rape ourselves.
He goes, women, you ever have sex with a guy and it gets weird. the next day. He goes, he didn't want to have sex. You raped him. You talked him into it.
Um, and he did this thing about Louie. and he goes, he asked him some, some women, if he could do that. And they said no. And I guess he did it anyway. And I saw him afterwards, like, Hey, great, special, same thing as the other one, but like, just so.
you know, that's not, the facts are wrong. Do what you want. Just like that rabbi told me, but like, they did say yes. He goes, oh shit. And to his credit, he changed it.
She changed. It was like, I don't want to get it wrong. So he changed it, made it still a funny joke, but it's like, let me get the facts. Right. Definitely.
Um, so, anyway, we're all, wait, fuck. I haven't smoked weed today at all. Yeah, I know.
This place, let me just ask you who you, you know, Louis CK, but are there people you would defend who you don't know?
Yeah. Okay. So that's the game. Thank you. It's defend them.
So act as if they're your friend and say what happened. So, with Louis, it's like he asked someone. For two girls. come back to your hotel room, which, by the way, always implies women aren't idiots. You know what they want.
At least, you know what they want? No victim blaming. But if I walk out with a hundred dollars,
but there are no surprises. If you could write, this is, you.
know what this is probably. Exactly. So you could be like, let's meet downstairs if you don't want that. Okay. So you're at least putting a guy in a weird position.
If I walk out with a hundred dollar bill in the get an Avenue D in New York and I get robbed, I shouldn't get robbed, but also like, right. Don't do that. You know? So anyway, if you defend them, it's like he asked for verbal consent and got it. And they go, well, as high powered manager, try to shut these girls up.
Or this is the defendant game, or his friend, his manager slash. his friend was saying, Hey, can you shut the fuck up? He's married. Yeah. You shut the fuck up and not he's silencing them, but just like, Hey, quit saying this shit about my, my fucking friend, use your head.
He's married. That's not the same as like trying to silence a fucking female voice. And Janine said this on a podcast. She goes, we all thought it was funny. when it happened.
We all thought it was like, what a dork he is, which is great. Yes. A guy who jerks off in his stomach should be mocked. Of course. But should continue to work anyway.
So defend them. John Gruden. Remember that? No, he's a, he was a coach for the Tampa Bay Bucks. Yeah.
It's a sports team. I know you're not into that.
Um, I've, I've heard of him.
Okay. And he's just a coach for the Raiders. And in the interim, he worked for ESPN and he was talking to the owner of the Redskins, um, online, his buddy, who's friends with him. And they were shitting on Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the league. Good for them.
And he called him the F word for days. Yeah. He goes, I said, whatever. And they were like, you said this, and it was in leaked emails and an investigation into Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Redskins, the old owner of the Redskins. And they leaked this stuff on purpose.
Um, and they go, what's that? He said, I go, okay. It's either a homophobic slur or it's an employee privately, with another employee talking shit about their boss. Who's, by the way, hetero. So to call it, is that confirmed?
I don't know.
He's more hetero than fucking Tim Dillon, but so it's just a guy talking shit about their boss privately, that doesn't sound nearly as bad, defend them, play the, defend them game. And you'll realize, oh, actually, people are not these evil monsters that you think.
I love that. Yeah. Do you have forbidden figures in there too? It's the only people, you know.
Oh, so you research it. It's almost like a parlor game at a party.
What do you play this with?
You could do it at a house party, but people like don't want to be the one defending, especially liberals or actually the other way. Yeah. If it's like super Republicans. Yeah. Most of us are in the middle.
80% of us are in the middle somewhere. And the fucking vocal parts of each side are way, way out there. It's like Islam. It's like the fucking, the ones who are running it are the fucking bomb makers. Yeah.
The most of them are just like, Hey, you're supposed to love your wife.
Yeah, exactly.
Um, so they don't like it. If you pull fucking AOC out, you know, about something and you're a fucking hardcore Republican, you're like, ah, like you got a defender, defender. And you're like, all right, let me look into this. And it's kind of debate club. And you realize no one's a fucking monster.
The monsters are gone. Again, doesn't work with credible accusations.
So your talent study is coming in handy through lifelong, like you're looking at all sides of the question.
It's a fun game. at a party. You put a people's, too many people's names in a hat and you pick one out and you go, go.
Have you ever defended someone you don't like?
Yeah. All the time. And you realize, oh shit, if that was my friend, I would see the good in them. That's not the case. Or this story was wrong where they left out a certain part of the story to get their way.
You know, uh, the cops in, uh, in, the Robbie King beating, you know that how they cut out the first seven minutes, and it's like, doesn't excuse beating someone much, but it does somewhat excuse. It does explain it better. Exactly. When he's fighting to a standstill with three cops, by the way, if you punch a cop, they're going to punch you back.
Yeah.
I think they're going to go hard. Yeah. That's the deal. And he's fighting to a standstill with three of them and they come in like, you. don't do that to our fucking friends.
But if you start with seven cops beating a guy like he's defenseless, you're like, well, yeah, you're not seeing the whole story. If I call you a piece of shit and then we cut to you walking alone, it looks like you're walking sad alone because I called you a piece of shit. But that's not the real story. You know, we're having a good time.
Exactly.
So anyway, defend him. It's a fun game.
I'm going to play tonight.
Yeah. Try it again.
It does not work with rape. Actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to defend you.
Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah.
He's a good guy. Yeah. Ari Shaffir.
Thank you, buddy. It was great to meet you.
It really was. It was great to meet you. Thank you. Yeah.
You know, I did not tell my mom. I was coming to meet you.
Why? She's not a fan. She's a fan.
It's all these people and I'm like, he's an, he was an anti-war guy at Fox News who followed the dead. He's not, how is he, that guy that you think he is?
Well, you can't be anti-war. That means you're a fascist. It's racist to be anti-war.
I thought you were going to be different with the FAA, but, um. With the what? With the FAA. You started saying fascist. I thought you were going to say something else.
No, no, no, no, no, no, because I learned you can't even call Roger Goodell that.
Yeah, exactly.
So I wonder.
Buddy, it was great to meet you. I want you to do my travel podcast. Done? I know you've been in places. You have a travel podcast?
Yeah. It's called You Be Trippin'. It's just about a place, no politics.
Man, there's one thing I've done a lot of is travel. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's the most educational thing you can do.
Yeah.
I really believe that. I don't know why people, more people, don't do it. I feel like our rich people in this country, I am one, but they don't travel right.
Yeah.
Like they go, they kind of recreate their own lives with better service in a foreign country. But the whole point of travel is to learn how other people live.
Yeah. Read the local newspaper. If you 100%. Yeah. Instead of how do I get the New York times here?
Good.
Call me. I'd do it.
Okay. Perfect. Okay. You ever in New York?
Well, or whatever. Let's do it.
All right.
Okay.
Thanks man.
Thanks, buddy.
Thanks for listening to the Tucker Carlson show. If you enjoyed it, you can go to tuckercarlson.com to see everything that we have made the complete library, tuckercarlson.com.
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