Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's do this. It's Koway and we've got
a minion. You probably don't know what that means, but
that's all right. I am so pleased to be joined
in studio by by Mosha Kasher, a comedian who has
lived at kind of a crazy life for a nice
Jewish boy for sure, And we're going to talk about
all that. And Mosha is playing at Comedy Works Downtown
(00:23):
in Larimer Square tonight and tomorrow at seven thirty and
nine forty five tickets at Comedyworks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So, Hi, Mosha, meet you in person. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You got a pretty crazy story, and I'm sure you've
told every part of it a million times.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well, I just say, yeah that the Fiddler on the
Roof music. Knowing that you're Jewish made me feel a
lot more comfortable. If this was a different dynamic and
they introduced me with Fiddler on the Roof right, Jews
and space lasers, yeah, I would feel a little less comfortable.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I get it. I get it entirely. Oh my god.
So you you wrote a book, Kasher in the Rye,
the true ill of a white.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Boy from Oakland who became a drug addict, criminal, mental patient.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And then turned sixteen.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, dude, how what tell us the story?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Tell us anything? Do you only tell you the story
of the book?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, Well, I mean I
was I was a true bad boy. I mean I
was America's first true bad boy. No in and out
of rehab from the time I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
You remember that era. You're probably about my age the
era I'm a little older than you. But yeah, okay,
I look great. I just want to say that great,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
And I was in and out of rehab from the
time I was thirteen on a flunk ninth grade I
think three three times, which was kind of cool. That
was like on my way to becoming that like older senior,
you know, with the beard in Camaro or whatever, in
a lot of trouble. And then at about at sixteen,
I got out of rehab for the last time. And
I've actually been believe it or not, clean and sober
(01:53):
ever since. I'm now forty five, so it's been it's
been a very long time. But Cashine, the Riy is
the story of how I came out from the sort of.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Muff that was my life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So you you moved from New York to California when
you were very young, when I was when I was
one year old, when your mom took us on vacation
in California and we never came back.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Wow, so your dad wasn't there. Well, he wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
But he in the interim, speaking of Fiddler on the
Roof in the interim, while I was away raised in
Oakland as with a secular hippie mom and Yokland public
schools on welfare.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Jews on welfare, by the way, not.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Very common common. But if if you can catch me,
I'll grant you a wish. But I'm very tricky in that.
In the ensuing years, my dad became like a born
again Hasidic Jew and I was, and I would fly home.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
My dad won visitation rights to see me.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I spent my summer vacations basically cosplaying as Teva the Milkman.
So I would like fly home to the old country,
literally put on slacks and a yamica and pretended that
I knew what I was doing in a Yiddish speaking community.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I got cousins who have Eastern European accents and their
third generation American. Wow, their parents don't have the accent
because their parents were first and we're like second gen.
So they tried to fit in. But by the time
that my cousins were born, they were like, we're not
fitting in anymore. Let's learn Yiddish as a first.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I didn't know Yiddish. People would greet me in this community.
I would I would just answer it back.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Like uh and hope that nobody noticed I wasn't using
actual language.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I think a lot of folks don't understand just
you know how insular some of these communities can be.
You know, parts of Brooklyn, parts of Queens, parts of
in New Rochelle and other communities.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Well, I describe it like Wakanda. It's like Wakanda right
there in New York. You know, it's like it's there,
you won't see it, won't see it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Go.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
But I was an outlier in that I didn't know.
I was didn't know anything. I was a full outsider.
I mean, I'm not kidding, Like in Oakland, zero percent religious,
listening to West Coast gangster rap. Yeah, going to Oakland
public schools, getting in trouble, and then I would fly
home and pretend that I knew what I was doing
in this world wells, by the way, just to make
things a little bit more interesting. Yeah, everybody's deaf. They're
(04:00):
all deaf. No one can hear. American Sign language is
my first language. I could sign before I could talk.
So that's a lot about what Kasher and the Riot
is about. Is about this weird world where I was
born into universes where I didn't fit. But I also
I wasn't fully And then in Oakland public schools, I
was one of the only white kids in any.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Classroom I was ever in.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So I wasn't black enough, I wasn't deaf enough, I
wasn't Jewish enough.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I wasn't enough. And that is a.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Perfect recipe to go to rehab by the time you're thirteen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, and a perfect recipe to become a professional comedian
as well. Yeah, because if you can't laugh at all this, like,
don't know what else you're gonna do. Did you go
back to the old country meaning Queens or wherever you
are and explain the subtleties of f the police by.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Nwa, I know, but I will tell you that having
a deaf mother was really great for listening to West
Coast Gangster rep because my mom would be driving me
to school, and I would be happily blaring Snoop Dogg
and f the police as my mom drove me to school.
And my mom but you know, deaf people really like
like loud bass music. So my mom will be like, Wow,
(05:04):
I love this stuff. I could feel the bass. We'd
be like, we could feel a too, Mom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Wait, So are you a connoisseur of the of the
differences between East.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And West Coast gangster rap?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I would say that I know more than most people
that look like me.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Mm hmm, Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, No, I definitely
believe that. We're talking with Mosha Kasher, who's playing a
comedy works downtown in Larimer Square tonight and tomorrow night
at seven thirty ninety five.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Can you stick around and do another segment with men site.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
We'll do one more minute here, we'll hit a break,
and we'll do another segment. So in your sets, how
much do you talk about your your childhood versus you
know what you see going on in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Because you clearly have a sense of the absurd.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, and I have a sense of how hilarious the
world is. I think having a weird life like that
gives you gives you that feeling. Don't take anything too seriously.
Make fun of everything. Yeah, this particular show that I'm
doing right now, I don't go a lot into my history.
I do have a great I am telling a great
story about the best. I was a sign language interpreter
for many years. I have a new book out called
Subculture Vulture, and it starts the day that my last
(06:14):
book ends, basically, and it tells the story of the
six worlds that I discovered once I left behind the
world of chaos and drug addiction. Those worlds are the
worlds of deafness and Hasidic Judaism.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But then the things I got.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Into AA and the twelve steps I got sober when
I was fifteen at the San Francisco Rave scene, I
was a rave promoter, rave DJ and clean and sober
ecstasy dealer.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The first of my kind.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Burning Man, where I will be next week on the
twenty fourth time.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I went for the first.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Time in nineteen ninety six, and I was on staff.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
There for fifteen years. And then the worlds of.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Stand up comedy, and each of those segments gets a
comedic history and then a memoir sort of explanation of
my time in those worlds, and so I'm telling a
great story about I spent fifteen years also as a
sign language interpreter, and some of the greatest stories from
that world too.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
All Right, when we come back, hopefully motion will share
one story I can do it from that world. And
also I will note that if you are someone who's
really into comedy listening to a lot of comedy like
I do, then you also know Mosh's wife and maybe
she'll get a mention too when we come back. Keep
(07:25):
it here on Koa
All right, let's do this. It's Koway and we've got
a minion. You probably don't know what that means, but
that's all right. I am so pleased to be joined
in studio by by Mosha Kasher, a comedian who has
lived at kind of a crazy life for a nice
Jewish boy for sure, And we're going to talk about
all that. And Mosha is playing at Comedy Works Downtown
(00:23):
in Larimer Square tonight and tomorrow at seven thirty and
nine forty five tickets at Comedyworks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So, Hi, Mosha, meet you in person. It's great to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You got a pretty crazy story, and I'm sure you've
told every part of it a million times.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well, I just say, yeah that the Fiddler on the
Roof music. Knowing that you're Jewish made me feel a
lot more comfortable. If this was a different dynamic and
they introduced me with Fiddler on the Roof right, Jews
and space lasers, yeah, I would feel a little less comfortable.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I get it. I get it entirely. Oh my god.
So you you wrote a book, Kasher in the Rye,
the true ill of a white.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Boy from Oakland who became a drug addict, criminal, mental patient.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And then turned sixteen.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, dude, how what tell us the story?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Tell us anything? Do you only tell you the story
of the book?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, Well, I mean I
was I was a true bad boy. I mean I
was America's first true bad boy. No in and out
of rehab from the time I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
You remember that era. You're probably about my age the
era I'm a little older than you. But yeah, okay,
I look great. I just want to say that great,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
And I was in and out of rehab from the
time I was thirteen on a flunk ninth grade I
think three three times, which was kind of cool. That
was like on my way to becoming that like older senior,
you know, with the beard in Camaro or whatever, in
a lot of trouble. And then at about at sixteen,
I got out of rehab for the last time. And
I've actually been believe it or not, clean and sober
(01:53):
ever since. I'm now forty five, so it's been it's
been a very long time. But Cashine, the Riy is
the story of how I came out from the sort of.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Muff that was my life.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
So you you moved from New York to California when
you were very young, when I was when I was
one year old, when your mom took us on vacation
in California and we never came back.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Wow, so your dad wasn't there. Well, he wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
But he in the interim, speaking of Fiddler on the
Roof in the interim, while I was away raised in
Oakland as with a secular hippie mom and Yokland public
schools on welfare.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Jews on welfare, by the way, not.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Very common common. But if if you can catch me,
I'll grant you a wish. But I'm very tricky in that.
In the ensuing years, my dad became like a born
again Hasidic Jew and I was, and I would fly home.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
My dad won visitation rights to see me.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
I spent my summer vacations basically cosplaying as Teva the Milkman.
So I would like fly home to the old country,
literally put on slacks and a yamica and pretended that
I knew what I was doing in a Yiddish speaking community.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I got cousins who have Eastern European accents and their
third generation American. Wow, their parents don't have the accent
because their parents were first and we're like second gen.
So they tried to fit in. But by the time
that my cousins were born, they were like, we're not
fitting in anymore. Let's learn Yiddish as a first.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I didn't know Yiddish. People would greet me in this community.
I would I would just answer it back.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Like uh and hope that nobody noticed I wasn't using
actual language.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I think a lot of folks don't understand just
you know how insular some of these communities can be.
You know, parts of Brooklyn, parts of Queens, parts of
in New Rochelle and other communities.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Well, I describe it like Wakanda. It's like Wakanda right
there in New York. You know, it's like it's there,
you won't see it, won't see it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Go.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
But I was an outlier in that I didn't know.
I was didn't know anything. I was a full outsider.
I mean, I'm not kidding, Like in Oakland, zero percent religious,
listening to West Coast gangster rap. Yeah, going to Oakland
public schools, getting in trouble, and then I would fly
home and pretend that I knew what I was doing
in this world wells, by the way, just to make
things a little bit more interesting. Yeah, everybody's deaf. They're
(04:00):
all deaf. No one can hear. American Sign language is
my first language. I could sign before I could talk.
So that's a lot about what Kasher and the Riot
is about. Is about this weird world where I was
born into universes where I didn't fit. But I also
I wasn't fully And then in Oakland public schools, I
was one of the only white kids in any.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Classroom I was ever in.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
So I wasn't black enough, I wasn't deaf enough, I
wasn't Jewish enough.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I wasn't enough. And that is a.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Perfect recipe to go to rehab by the time you're thirteen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, and a perfect recipe to become a professional comedian
as well. Yeah, because if you can't laugh at all this, like,
don't know what else you're gonna do. Did you go
back to the old country meaning Queens or wherever you
are and explain the subtleties of f the police by.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Nwa, I know, but I will tell you that having
a deaf mother was really great for listening to West
Coast Gangster rep because my mom would be driving me
to school, and I would be happily blaring Snoop Dogg
and f the police as my mom drove me to school.
And my mom but you know, deaf people really like
like loud bass music. So my mom will be like, Wow,
(05:04):
I love this stuff. I could feel the bass. We'd
be like, we could feel a too, Mom. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Wait, So are you a connoisseur of the of the
differences between East.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And West Coast gangster rap?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I would say that I know more than most people
that look like me.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Mm hmm, Yeah, I believe that. Yeah, No, I definitely
believe that. We're talking with Mosha Kasher, who's playing a
comedy works downtown in Larimer Square tonight and tomorrow night
at seven thirty ninety five.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Can you stick around and do another segment with men site.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
We'll do one more minute here, we'll hit a break,
and we'll do another segment. So in your sets, how
much do you talk about your your childhood versus you
know what you see going on in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Because you clearly have a sense of the absurd.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, and I have a sense of how hilarious the
world is. I think having a weird life like that
gives you gives you that feeling. Don't take anything too seriously.
Make fun of everything. Yeah, this particular show that I'm
doing right now, I don't go a lot into my history.
I do have a great I am telling a great
story about the best. I was a sign language interpreter
for many years. I have a new book out called
Subculture Vulture, and it starts the day that my last
(06:14):
book ends, basically, and it tells the story of the
six worlds that I discovered once I left behind the
world of chaos and drug addiction. Those worlds are the
worlds of deafness and Hasidic Judaism.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
But then the things I got.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Into AA and the twelve steps I got sober when
I was fifteen at the San Francisco Rave scene, I
was a rave promoter, rave DJ and clean and sober
ecstasy dealer.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
The first of my kind.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Burning Man, where I will be next week on the
twenty fourth time.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I went for the first.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Time in nineteen ninety six, and I was on staff.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
There for fifteen years. And then the worlds of.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Stand up comedy, and each of those segments gets a
comedic history and then a memoir sort of explanation of
my time in those worlds, and so I'm telling a
great story about I spent fifteen years also as a
sign language interpreter, and some of the greatest stories from
that world too.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
All Right, when we come back, hopefully motion will share
one story I can do it from that world. And
also I will note that if you are someone who's
really into comedy listening to a lot of comedy like
I do, then you also know Mosh's wife and maybe
she'll get a mention too when we come back. Keep
(07:25):
it here on Koa
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