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.
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