EITM interviews Moshe Kasher

EITM interviews Moshe Kasher

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Mosha Casher will be at sixth andI tonight. He's got a brand new
book called Subculture Vulture. Please welcomeMosha Casher. I want one hundred dollars
the you know what you won.I deserve it. How are you,
sir? I'm wonderful. It's niceto be here. Well, it's nice
to have you back in your Book'sgreat, Thank you very much. It

(00:24):
is really really like I was fascinatedby the last one. Yeah, the
Casher in the Rye, not tobe confused with a similarly titled book.
Correct, it was weird. Ifound out about that book after I wrote
mine. Some of the weird coincidents. But yeah, but like I remember
when we talked about the first one, Yeah, and thinking like, whoa

(00:47):
Mosha has seen some stuff? WhoaMosha has really seen some stuff? Well
that's sort of I mean, that'sI think why I wrote this book is
over the year. You know,my first book is all about my like
sort of teenage derrel Licht years juveniledelinquent you know, for those that don't
know, I was like a teenagedrug addict, kind of in and out
of mental institutions and rehabs and arrestedmore times than I could count if you

(01:11):
could see me. Now. Iknow this is radio, but I don't
exactly cut a swath, no asa career criminal, more a career podcaster.
But I kept getting it ends thatbasically the day before the day I
get sober, when I walk awayfrom all of my teenage friends and go
try to get sober. And Ikept getting this question, and I wrote
it like that on purpose. Bythe way I wrote, I didn't want

(01:33):
to write like a recovery memoir.I wanted it to be like a snapshot
of an insane time in my life, right, But people kept asking,
like, what happened next? AndI started writing this book to answer that
question, And yeah, the answeris like a lot sort of everything else,
all of the other parts of mylife. When I finally did get
so finally, it's hard to saybecause I was fifteen, but when I

(01:57):
got sober, I realized, like, I have the rest of my life
in front of me. I didn'tthink I was going to live, and
I have the rest of my lifein front of me, and I want
to, like, I want togo grab life, you know, I
want to go find out what's outthere for me. And I found this
insane path of sort of squeezing everydrop of fun out of life. Well,
I was going to say, there'sa couple of things that I like
the way that the book was done, And you're right. It picks up

(02:21):
on Christmas Day of the day nineteenninety four, the day you get sober,
and it starts with you going Theworst thing about that is New Year's
is six days away. Well yeah, I could feel it coming right.
It was like I was like oneday sober and oh and the worst part
was, as I say in thebook, I got invited to a party,

(02:43):
right, and nobody invited me toparties back then, like me and
my crew we were, like Isay, like we were the types to,
you know, break in your parents'bedroom, like throw a keg through
your window, call you a bit, and then leave. So nobody was
inviting us to parties and we did. Somehow, me and my crew got
invited to this party in the suburbs, who I guess hadn't heard about our

(03:04):
reputation. And I don't want topaint a picture like I was some kind
of gangster. I was like no, because it was you sit here,
look at motion. Go Really no, I mean, you're gonna throw a
keg. The way I describe itis like no, but okay, this
was also thirty years ago. Theway I describe it as you know when
you're on the bus to work andlike a group of like those white boys
get on the bush. Great,this is my commute. That's us.

(03:28):
We weren't like, we weren't mafiamembers. We were like we would we
wished we knew mafia members. Soso I got invited to this party and
it was six days away, butit was getting closer and closer, and
I had two choices. I mean, how tempting, how tantalizing? Is
a party on New Year's Eve?A teenage party to a fifteen year old
boy, right, who's never invitedto party? All you want is to

(03:50):
be at the party. But allyou've been is a derelict until that point.
And I knew, like I knew, if I go to the party,
it's over. I have to restartit, right, It's not gonna
I'm not gonna just possibility. I'mgonna stay sober five days sober at this
party. And I had a choice. I could go to the party or
I could go to this old personAA dance right, And that was the

(04:10):
choice. I mean, that's nota choice, that's a terrible choice.
I mean a rotary club or likea cool teenage party. But I made
the choice somehow. I don't knowhow. Maybe it was just the will
of the universe. I got amoment to say. I went to the
AA dance and I found this girlRose, who I still know and really
yeah, I still know her.And we sat under like a fluorescent light,

(04:31):
smoked newports all night and talk abouthow much our lives sucked. And
then at twelve oh one, mymommy came and picked me up. And
that was my first sober New Year'sAnd I thought to myself, this is
the worst New Years of my life. And now I realized, forty four
years old, looking backwards, thebest New Year's of your life. That
was the best New Year's you knowI've been to. I was on the
beach in Mexico for New Years I'vedone. I can't even count how many

(04:54):
stand up shows you know, whereI'm the star of the show. I've
DJ'ed in front of thousands of people. But that was the New Year's where
I like chose my life. Ichose my new path, and I said,
this is where where I'm going tobe. I'm going to put sort
of living above above partying. Doyou want to? So right now I
got to decide do we want to? Do you? Do you want to
talk AA real quick or or orsomething more general? Hey, well you

(05:15):
just say you're the host. Yeah, I know, but I don't want
to. I don't want to.I don't want to meander too far away.
Let's talk AA real quick. Okay, let's do because I'll tell you
this. So I'm reading the bookand and the book is split up.
Now I'm going to get right awayfrom aaah. Let's do it. It's
split up into six scenes. It'ssix scenes. They're the six kind of
universes that don't feel like they fittogether, that if you piece them together,

(05:36):
they create who I am. Right, So it's not it's not chronological,
it's not. I mean it is, but it's not. But it
is. It's you essentially walking insix different pairs of shoes. Yeah,
and it does really get you toknow exactly who you are, which I
thought was a fascinating way to writethe book in terms of it being like

(05:58):
a memoir of a very different wayto kind of lay out your life where
it isn't so much having to worryabout this happened, then this happened,
then this happened, then this happened, then this happened. And oh,
by the way, it's all verythey're all very serious scenes if you will,
that you were a part of.But the book's hysterical. Oh thank

(06:20):
you very much. The book islike, don't get lost in all this.
At his core most is a comedia. Well that's the thing I always
think of. And I don't knowif I can say this on the radio,
but comedy is lube. You know, you can say that, but
that's fine, but I'm trying tofollow you. Well, comedy is lube,
and you okay, now that's thepart where but it lubricates all of
the hard parts, you know.My first memoir was like, like I

(06:43):
said, it was really about teenagedrug addiction, which is not I wouldn't
say hilarious. It's not a hilarioustopic. But all of these things,
all these scenes that I walk in, and I mean, should I just
take a sure? They are ain the twelve Steps. I got so
when I was fifteen, sign languageinterpreting and Americans and death, my family,
all my family, my brother's halfbrother, half sister, father,
mother, aunts, uncles, everybody'sdeath. And I spent fifteen years as

(07:05):
a sign language interpreter, which,by the way, I know somebody hears
that and goes like, oh,that's nice, like Mosha was interpreting for
his mom and like helping out.Oh no, oh no, I mean,
no, you did that, butoh no, oh boy, did
you do some stuff well. Imean I describe every childhood of a kid
with deaf parents as a a fifteenyear non consensual sign language interpreting internship.

(07:30):
Like I had to interpret for mymother's doctor's appointments are kind ofcological appointments,
which was very fun. Everything thatwhere I would show up and there would
be nobody there to interpret for mymother. That was my job. And
then as I started to get introuble, there started to be a shift,
which is the subject matter of themeeting would be me and my problems,
and now I'm interpreting for my mothera meeting about which I am the

(07:53):
subject. And then you have tostart doing like a kind of a very
subtle dance, you know, becauseyou can't interpret the full myth because then
you get in total trouble. Butyou also can't be like we think this
kid's great, Well why did theOakland Police Department decide to have a meeting
or you know, like why arewe here? So you got to kind
of like you got to kind ofshift it a little bit, like,
oh, we think he's well,he's got some problems, but he shows

(08:15):
great promise. He'll be on elliotin the morning someday, we think,
you know. Like so that thatwas the beginning. And then I and
then later in my life, Ibecame a full time sign language interpreter,
like a professional, and that thatwas a whole other journey. Dude,
the wh when you are doing likea sign language interpretation for like porn,

(08:35):
like well, like it's not exactlyporn, right, I mean, look,
I worked on webcams. Well thatsounds like more porn, I said,
comedies like loud, grab your loomand get on your webcam. So
for a long time I was Iwas an in person interpreter. I was
a freelance interpreter, and I wouldbe the person that shows up at the
meeting. But then webcams were inventedand allowed deaf people to make phone calls

(08:56):
over the internet, which was anawesome thing because it made all the calls
really smooth and easy. When Iwas young, it would be all typed
and so the message would be verystuttered, and it would and the person
reading it had no experience with deafpeople, and it would just be a
deaf person typing a message and itwas it was. It was awkward,
but that was my childhood. WhenI would call my my mom would call
me growing up, That's who whatI would hear. I would hear an

(09:16):
operator's voice on the phone like hello, hello, my son. God,
no, no, it's your mamacall it. Oh, why you're my
beautiful boy? Mam? Are youa black dude? And she was sometimes
she was, But now I wasthat black dude, right. I was
the interpreter and I could and wewould be signing over the That's why I'm
not an anti technology guy, becausewell, you've seen how beneficial it can

(09:41):
be, insanely beneficial, you know, like I can call my mom on
FaceTime now, or she can calla business and there can be somebody speaking
in her native tongue, in herher true language, that will give over
to the person she's calling. Theamount of linguistic sophistication that she actually has.
And so that was me. Iwas the interpreter and I would interpret.
And most of the calls were andall and very regular, but sometimes

(10:03):
once in a while, yeah,you'd get a great one. There was
there was a call, I thinkthe one that you're referring to this guy.
These two guys popped up on thescreen and they looked like excited,
And that wasn't a look I wassuper used to for a phone call.
You know, most of the timeI was ordering Papa John's right. They
were like excited and they were like, go ahead, call, so I
press connect and it's just I'm gonnado this for the radio. But it

(10:24):
was just like I realized what they'reexcited when I picked up. They're like
tons of hard body babes. No, by the way, it's much more
extrated than this. Tons of hardbody babes are standing by waiting to touch
themselves to the sound of your voice. Press five to be connected. And
I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I got it. I
go okay. But then I did, I did. I had to tell

(10:45):
them the bad news, which islike I can't do that, I can't
connect you to this, it's likefive bucks a minute. We don't like
the FCC or whatever what won't allowthat, and and so and they go
they go oh no, no,no, no, no, that's not
what we want. And I go, oh my god, thank god,
this is the wrong number. They'retrying to call our customer service, refrigid

(11:05):
Air, and they accidentally put inthe number for this phone sex sign and
they go, no, we don'twant that. We don't want that.
We want a woman to come toour house to have sex with us.
And I go, you mean youmean you mean a prostitute to go yes,
that's what we want. Yes.Do you know somebody now listen,

(11:26):
I'm a CODA. That's what we'recalled, a child of deaf adults,
right, And it's in my DNA, it's in my blood from that fifteen
year forced internship to help where Ican. If a deaf person needs help,
I'm there. But I am notalso not a pimp like I just
even though I would have wanted tobe when I was a teenage darrel.
Like, I am not a pimp, and I just I had to lower
the boom, like I don't knowanybody, maybe maybe google escort in your

(11:48):
area. I don't know. Istill don't know if those two boys ended
up getting sent but you know,you know what I'd like though, when
you talk about the being like doit sign language interpretation, Yeah, and
then having having family that is itis completely deaf. Is you talk about
being both an insider and an outsiderat the exact same time. And I

(12:09):
guess I've never I've never looked atit that I've not had that experience,
so I don't I don't know whatthat's like, right, But when you
talk about like being both an insiderin the outsider at the same time,
that's a that's a kind of abizarre thing to be in in that moment.
Well, it's a weird reality tobe born into a culture where you
are fully accepted deaf people, fullyaccept codas as a part of the deaf

(12:33):
community, but also you are amember of the oppressor class. I describe
it as like being born white inWakanda, like you're welcome, you have
a passport, but you can't wearthe panther suit like you're not. But
but it's it. That was notthe only world that I was born that
I was into that I was bothinsider and outsider. The other. The
other world is the world of HasidicJudaism, which I was. My father

(12:56):
deaf though he was when my momleft and came like a born again Hasidic
Jew, and I was a regularsecular kid. Nine months a year,
I'm in Oakland public schools listening togangster rap like and then six weeks a
year, I would fly home formy summer vacation where I would cause play
as tavy O the Milkman for sixweeks a year. So that was another
world where I'm just sort of I'mnot of them, but I'm not out

(13:18):
of them, but I'm sort ofboth. And each of the segments of
the book not only is about mytime in them, but it gives over
a comedic like you said, that'swhat I'm saying. It's history. It's
a comedic history. You will neverhear the a history of the Jewish people
or the deaf that is quite asfunny as this one. That is true.
That is true. The you knowwhat I loved. And there's there's

(13:39):
one part where the and I thinkit's in the second scene if I'm not
mistaken, but the moment that youfull time become Mosha. Oh yeah,
that's that's my maybe my favorite storyin the whole book, is it really?
Yeah? I love that story andit's true and it's true. I
mean it's true and it's true.It's true story in the book. I've

(14:01):
never I'm not jish I can saythat. But uh, but it's during
am I right? It's during therave scene? Right, yeah, that's
that. That's see that is seentoo, which is the rave scene and
an incongruous scene with the first one, which is the Twelve Steps in AA.
Right, about eight months sober,like I said, I looked up
from this sort of shattered remains ofmy life that I had begun to piece

(14:24):
together, and I go, oh, I have to like be young and
find fun and do have life.And the way I found it was on
a telephone poll in the Bay Areafor a rave called Cyberfest ninety five,
and I thought, I'm going tothat. Like, I don't know why
I even had that, ve neverbeen to a rave. No, I
was, like I said, mything was like too short and scarface,

(14:46):
right, you know, And butI never even thought about something as soft
as a techno party, you know. But I bought this ticket, and
I went by myself, but andI walked into it and I emerged from
my first party as diametrically changed.As the twelve steps made me, Raves
did too, Like it made mesoftness of that I needed. I didn't

(15:07):
even know that, like I neededto be like soft. I needed to
be in this like Neon colored youknow, Jinko Jeen wearing like Mickey Mouse
glove pumping glows stick universe to liketo like crack me open and make me
this like sort of softer human being. And it was like healing. It
was like it was like medicine.And I was sober the whole time,

(15:28):
right, which again I don't Atten years of Raves, I became a
rape promoter. I became a DJin the early nineties in the rave scene.
I eventually became an ecstasy dealer.Which is it? I think I'm
the only clean and sober ecstasy dealeraround? Well can I can I tell
you this? This is where Iapplaud you and don't let me forget.
I have to get back to AAat some point. This is where I

(15:48):
give you a ton of credit.Is you are so you go to this
rave party and again not because you'redrawn to it. It's like, I
gotta go find something to do.Yeah, but you get you are all
in. Well, like you yougo to the first one and you have
a great experience and you talk tothe girl and she's like, what's your
name? And the first time that'swhen you go emotion. At one point

(16:11):
you're like, I'm standing there andthe next thing I know, I'm jumping,
jumping up and down. Well,that's the problem when you are a
white kid that thinks he's not awhite kid. One of the most dangerous
situations you can find yourself in isdancing because you're gonna expose your white boy
too left feet, like very quickly. So the way I would dance before
that, so I would stand upagainst a wall, kind of nod and

(16:33):
just kind of clench my butt cheeksto the beat, you know, like
there's nobody could nobody could see thebutt I called the butt clench. No
one could see that that first party. When I first walked into that into
that warehouse at the Henry J.Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California,
I walked in and I was Iwent from a scarface to Barishnikoff and one
night I was pure a wedding.I was leaping through the air. I

(16:56):
was like dancing, and this thisgay couple came up to me and they
have me by the waist and pickedme up in the air and they go,
you dance beautifully, And as youknow, I'm Tony Montana, you
know. So I'm like, oh, she's all hugging on me. And
who they think I am? Youknow, don't they know? I'm gonna
tell them. I'll tell them whoI am. And they let me down.
I grabbed both of them, pulledme close, pulled them close and
kissed them both on the cheek andsaid, you dance beautifully too. I'm

(17:18):
heroed it out and in very shortorder I burned all of my Fela gear
and I was like in Barett's andglitter. And but my name, my
name grow. My birth name isMark Mosha Casher. My middle name is
Mosha right. And in the Jewishreligion, there is a tradition that the
father gets to name the second bornson, the mother gets to name the
first, father gets to name thesecond. And when I was born,

(17:41):
my father declared my name Mosha.We'll call him Mosha. My mom says,
no, I mean, that's ridiculous. That's a ridiculous name. It
sounds like moose. Now, mymother's deaf and has never heard the name
Mosha. She wanted to name meMark. She's never heard the name Mosha.
She never heard the name Mark,she never heard the word moose.
She doesn't know what any of thesethings sound right, But somehow she decided

(18:02):
that that made sense, and myname became Mark Mosha Kasher. And I
walked through the world with that name. My father never called me Mark.
He called me Motion of my entirelife. So even when you were like
before, before you announced yourself ata rave, he only would return he
called me yeah, yeah, Andand I hated my name. I never
weirdly, I'd never connected to myname, to the Mosha part, to

(18:25):
the mark part, to the mark. I just never had a connection to
it. But you know, whenyou're eight nine years old in Oakle public
schools, you're not going to goto a public school teacher and be like,
excuse me if you wouldn't mind callingme by my biblically mandated name.
And I prefer that. So Ijust stayed low. I stayed Marked.
But then something terrible happens in thenineties, Mark became a like a hip
hop's slang insult, you know,like a mark. I learned that in

(18:48):
the book Broadcast Bust. That's whatthey would call you. And it means
like a fool, like a coward. And I felt like a fool and
a coward most of my life.But I kept just going by that name.
And I go to that party thatone night. This was my second
party. This was a full moonparty in San Francisco. It was a
kind of a legendary party. Theywould throw on the beaches are and fields
right in the San Francisco area.And I walked down to the beach that

(19:11):
night and and I with the ball, with the ball, Well, okay,
you want me to tell about theball? We got to go back.
Yeah. Now, there's a videogame called Katamari Demasi, a great
video game. It's a kind ofa classic. It's a you play a
prince, a teeny little powerless prince, and your job in Katamara Demasi is
to push this teeny little ball.And the ball is so sticky that it

(19:33):
collects things. It collects teeny littlethings, pieces of dust and dander,
flowers, rocks, it gets bigger. That's the gameplay, that it gets
bigger and bigger as you advance throughthe stages. You're now picking up buildings
and cars and hillsides and mountains,and eventually the ball gets so big that
at the end of the game spoileralert, thirty year old video game,
it is used to rebuild the moon. All right, It's thrown into the

(19:55):
air and you become the Prince ofthe Moon. Now I walk That was
me. That was my life.I was like that little prince, walking
running through the world, pushing thislittle ball, picking up things. But
the things that I picked up wereall terrible. They were all negative.
A court case, resentment, afight, you know, getting jumped,
you know, unarrest, mental institutions. You know. Did you fight a
lot? Oh? I fought alot? Did you really? Yeah?

(20:17):
Oh yeah, you know. ObviouslyI only know you as an adult.
Yeah. I don't see you atall as somebody who would fight. Well,
I didn't say I won a lot. I got beat up all the
time. I had a time.Were you going to fight every week?
All the time? I got astory. We'll get back to the ball,
Okay, I got a story.These are my friends. Just to

(20:37):
get paint a picture my one ofmy best friends. We were out one
night and this new kid had comearound and we were all drunk and he
was beating the kid up and Iran over to stop my friend and go,
dude, don't beat him up.He's with us or whatever. And
my friend's so drunk. He turnsaround punches me like three times in the
fake me. I'm the guy ismy friend, and I go, ah,
off. And my problem is everytime I got beat up, I

(20:57):
would cry. Tears are like directlybeneath the surface, and I'm like trying
to be tough, but it's likethe minute I get out, I'm like,
oh, if you do that,And I run off and I go
sit in this alley and I'm cryingand drinking and he comes over and he
goes, dude, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I hit you. And
I go, yeah, you're damnright, you're sorry. You shouldn't be
sorry. He goes, what andhe starts hitting me again. He beat

(21:21):
me up for while apologizing for beatingme up. These are the people I
grew up with. That's why Ineeded a soft world. These are the
kinds of things I collected with theball, you know, getting beaten up,
and then the consequences got bigger thatI was picking up in this big
ball, you know, flunking ninthgrade again and again and again, and
it just felt like nothing was goingto go my way. Psychological diagnoses like

(21:42):
all this stuff that by the timeI got sobered, the ball that I
had collected was it was towered overme. Was it enormous? It loomed,
And but my job was just tokeep pushing it because I was so
scared of what would happen if Istopped, that it would run me over.
And I ran into the twelve stepsand I said, like, I
got this ball. Someone help,and they go, we've seen this before.

(22:03):
I go, what do I do? They're like, stop pushing the
ball. I go, you sureit's so big and they go yeah,
yeah, yeah, we've seen itbefore. And I go okay, and
I stopped pushing the ball and itstops, It teeters, it groans,
and then it runs me right overand I go, ow that hurt.
That hurts so much and they laughed, yeah, it does hurt. You
knew this was going to happen andthen but it was there. Now,

(22:26):
now I didn't have to push it, and I put pump some air into
my little flattened body, so toWiley coyote style, and I go,
well, okay, fine, whatdo I do now? And somebody in
AA walked over with a hammer anda chisel, and they said, get
to work. And so that's whatI started to do. I started to
get to work on the arduous processof tinking little bits of trauma from that

(22:47):
ball. And so that night,at that second party, I ran down
to the beach. The ball followedme down there on that full moon party,
the beach on the beach, thatball followed me down there. And
I got down there, but Iwas, I was changing the ball was.
I'd worked on it. And Igot down there, and I was,
and my identity was shifting, andI was I was. I was
wearing these big silly pants and Ibleached my hair, and I was just
this new I was trying to bethis new person. I needed to be

(23:11):
a new person, because the personthat I was was so diseased and so
so addled with just violence and angerand and psychological problems that I wanted this
new identity. And I sat downon this bonfire and and and this girl
asked, he's the most beautiful womanI'd ever see. Every woman, and
every woman there, every person therewas the most beautiful person I'd ever seen.
I was like shifting into a newspiritual consciousness. And she goes,

(23:33):
what's your name? And I go, uh, well, it's And I
looked at the ball. I said, well it's I look back at the
ball. I say it's it's Mosha. And that was the first time that
I started going by my middle name, and and I needed a rebirth.
I needed to be the new me, and that was who I was.
And then I turned around. Isaid, oh, have you met my
ball? And the ball was gone. That awesome. I look up in

(23:56):
the air and the and the moonwas shining a little brighter that night.
That's awesome. I love that that. I love that moment. That moment
in the book is so good.It is so good. But what I
was going to say is so likejust in the in the whole rave,
in the whole scene to the ravescene. Yeah, and it's it's It's
the same thing with with whether it'sAA or Burning Man or or any of

(24:17):
the rest of it is it's notenough for you. And that sounds negative,
but I don't mean for it tobe It's not enough for you to
just go experience it like you areall in, oh no, I want
to be a king. Yeah,like it is all two and so so
then it's like then then you goand then you kind of start promoting them,

(24:40):
and then you're buying turntables and tryingto figure out how to be a
DJ in them and going into thechill rooms and like and two and you
you you even say, the goodthing about having a mom that's deaf is
she can't hear you. Well,yeah, mix some music. It makes
it makes the early years of djayingreally really convenient if you have a deaf
mother, because that's a rough knowwhat that's like for hearing family. I
imagine it's pretty rough when I havea teenage nascent DJ living in the room

(25:06):
next door. Yeah, you're right. Like, what I have realized about
this book is that is that whatI who I relate to and with the
books that I read growing up asa kid were like, you know,
they were like Narnia, and HarryPotter was uh and and and Star Wars
not a book, but all thesethese people, these characters that I related
to were these characters who felt likethey're they're weak, they're powerless, they're

(25:30):
alone in the universe. And thenall of a sudden, like somebody taps
him on the shoulder and they turnaround and walk through a doorway into another
universe. And not only are theyin another secret universe they didn't even know
that existed, but they're powerful there. They have they have superpowers there.
They're a Jedi Knight, They're they'reyou know, King and Queen of Narnia,
They're a wizard. Like that's whatI wanted. And I walked into

(25:51):
into these universes of Raves in particularlike but AA two and Burning Man,
which is the next scene, uh, and I wanted to not only be
there, I wanted to like Iwanted to drink it. I wanted to
run it. I wanted to bea person of significance because I'd like found
my people in this universe, andI like, I wanted to own part

(26:12):
of it so that it felt likeit was mine, so it really belonged
to me. And that is whatI started doing in the rave thing.
I started throwing parties almost immediately.I remember I threw my first rave like
eight months into the scene and Iput on the flower dedicated to taking our
scene back. I was like,back, I just got it here to
my talking about I'm like, oh, I used to be underground six months

(26:33):
ago and I arrived. But Iwanted you become like the king of raves
in oak or in San Francisco.I was like, I describe it as
when I would walk into a ravein San Francisco, it was like the
the Copacabana scene and Good Fellows,you know, like everybody was just like
pointing at me, and I'm like, there he is. That's the guy.

(26:55):
But I wanted to, like,I wanted to do it too.
I wanted to like become a partof it. I wanted it to be
in my blood. And I startedthrowing these huge parties and uh, they
started very small and underground, andthen they very quickly mushroomed into this sort
of mega consumeris. Yeah, theywere massive. Zip the A couple of
things. Number One, I'll neverever ever be able to picture you with

(27:17):
a tweetybird pacifier. Oh that's anissue. Okay, the people in raves
do pacifiers because you know, thethe drug dejure in the rave scene.
I don't know what it's like anymore, but I think it probably still is.
Was ecstasy, right, and peoplewould suck on pacifiers because ecstasy makes
you grind your teeth, and theywould, and so to prevent them being
ground into little rave nubs, theywould suck on pacifiers to protect their their

(27:41):
their dents, their dentistry. Me. I was cleaning sober, so I
didn't need one. I just didit because I thought it looked cool.
I was like, yeah, thisis cool, this is cool. Now,
this is cool more, this iscool. Also. I don't know
how in the in the in thechill rooms, which were like not where
the big party was taking place,but it was just kind of like hang

(28:02):
out. It was like a littlebit of a vibe and a little bit
of a scene. But you describedthese cuddle puddles how and again and listen,
God bless you. But I sitthere and go, how does anybody
do this sober? How would anybodydo this? So you're laying in a
pile of women do this sober?No, but like in one of them
freaking Yanni's play. Yeah, wellokay, yeah, the chill room.

(28:26):
I don't know. I don't thinkthey still do chill rooms. They might
but I don't think they do it. Let's go four tickets to a party.
They used to do this thing calledthe chill Room where if people would
get a little bit too you know, out there, and they needed a
place to go kind of like collectthemselves, they were going to the children.

(28:47):
And the music in there, yeah, was ambient music and trip hop
and down tempo, and it wasjust a lot. It was a place
where you could go chill and rideyour your trip out or whatever. And
and what would happen was when enoughpeople would go into chill room and they
would be sort of inebriated enough,they would reach this sort of critical mass
where everybody would kind of like justcollapse on top of one another and just
yeah, they called them cuttle puddles. And I did do a number of

(29:11):
cuttle puddles, clean and sober,but I will tell you like it was.
I was intoxicated. I was cleanand sober, but I was intoxicated
on the kind of you have toto have come from where I came from
in order for that kind of Imean, yes, it sounds silly and
ridiculous, and the way we dressedwas silly and ridiculous, But to come
from where I came from, andthen to find this zone in the like

(29:34):
corrugated steel wall warehouses of San Franciscoand Oakland at four o'clock in the morning,
this like zone of like love andjust peace. The rave creator was
plur peace, love, unity ofrespect. I mean, I know it's
very difficult to respect someone that screamsplur at the top of is one.
But for me, it was thislike like I said, it was like

(29:56):
going to a clinic. It waslike going to a psychological healing Like,
yeah, was silly and ridiculous andabsurd, and anybody looking at it with
a sober brain in twenty twenty fourago like, uh okay. So for
me it was like I was gettingthis like second chance at a childhood.
Right. It was drug adult andsex adult and you know, but it
also was innocent and beautiful and ithealed me and it made me the kind

(30:21):
of person I described as like Istarted my pendulum started all the way over
here, and the raves are absurd, so the pendulum song all the way
over here in order for at somepoint me to kind of reach the middle
ground again, right, which wasburning me. Yeah, yeah, much
more reasonable world, all right,let me do this, let me take
a quick break. Mosha Kasher isat sixth and I tonight and it's I'm

(30:41):
right, it's kind of like partabout the book. It's part stand up,
it's part Q and A. It'slike a whole it's a whole evening
with a book in conversation about thebook. And yeah, there'll be some
jokes, all right, very good. And then Subculture Vulture is the book
that is out now. Quick breakmore with Moshaksher next Elliott in the morning.

(31:03):
I would do anything to be inSan Francisco watching motions. Just get
after it right now. I lovethat song, that song that was my
gateway song pre love. I rememberit's in the book. At an AA
dance they played this and I startedgoing live. I really do think that
is the reason that I went tothe rave the first time, because I
was at some AA dance and Iheard that song, and I go,

(31:26):
I think I should go to aray like even where this it's fun and
it's fun to dance with, likeyou know, people from the vets Hall
and and like you know former sexworkers and men with them Phasema. But
I think I should find some peoplemy own age and that is I really
think that song. That song openedthe door from my first party. Do
you like Do you like writing memoirs? I do. I do really enjoy

(31:49):
it because you'll hear people talk abouthow hard it is and how painstaking it
is. Well, I have thegift of genius right so that it makes
it so easy. I wrote thebook in two weeks. No, it
is hard. It's hard, butyou have to be you know, it's
different than stand up. Stand upis is a is a I'm trying really
hard not to say dialectic, butstand up is like it's a process where

(32:14):
you go you you build over time. You know, you have a bit,
and then you add up tag andthen you you go on stage and
the audience tells you what you likeand then you know, you slowly over
time, piece together and act.And memoir is more very is very much
more deliberate. You know, yousit in your office and you write,
and you you have to you know, when you sell a book, you

(32:34):
have like a deadline. And Imy process was I would write and it
was the same way I wrote thefirst book. I would write two pages
of a day, no judgment.That was my process. I would go
upstairs. I would write two pages, no editing, no judging, no
going backwards, just write for twopages. What do you mean, no
judgment? Like you cannot I can'tyourself, Yeah, I can't. I'm
sure some people write there, obviouslysome people are differently. But I would

(32:58):
get to the end of the twopages without re reading it and going that's
stupid, that stinks. I shouldchange that. I need to edit it,
because that's where you get stuck,and you start going, you start
getting stuck on a sentence or ona concept. So I would just write
without without stopping and without judging,two pages of a day, and I
would not go back and read.Well, sometimes I would go back and
read, but I just basically,if you do it like that, you

(33:19):
will write a book. The bookwill be written. And is it two
pages? So like, just takethe raid scene? Is it? You
start at the beginning of like youknow you're going to do the raid scene?
And then is it two pages?The next day, add onto the
first two pages and then yes,exist, Okay, so for me,
you know the book, like Isaid, each of them contains a history
of each world. Yes, Andso it was not as simple as my

(33:42):
first book although my first book wasnot simple emotionally, because my first book
had a lot more trauma in it, and it was a lot more difficult
to kind of I describe it asyou know, when Wesley fell into the
sands and jumped after a Buttercup andthe Princess Bride. You know, That's
how I felt the whole time Iwas writing my first book, was like
in the sand of my memory,like attempting to grab things that were meaningful,

(34:04):
but in there I felt like Iwas suffocating in this world. It
was especially in the rave scene,it was really thrilling to go back and
write, and I would. Iwould write to old mixtapes, old uh
mix YouTube has all of the ravekings of my particular era, and I
would write to those things, andI and I would do some research because
you know, like there's a lotof research in the book. I mean,

(34:25):
that's worth pointing out there is.There is a ton of research that
went into the book. As karsOne calls it, edutainment. Yeah.
The rave scene starts with the firstrave where Frankie Bones, the famous techno
duj from New York, was flownto London to go play at what was
called at one of the outdoor partiesin England that were like sort of rave

(34:47):
famous, and he flew home andhe was already you know electronic music.
I know this is not exactly yoursweet spot, but electronic music is,
and it's an American art form.It's an American music form. I didn't
that when I read that in thebook, I had no idea. Already
thinks not everybody that doesn't know wouldthink that it comes from Europe, because
that's where it blew up, becausepeople in Chicago and Detroit, and Detroit

(35:08):
was the home of techno. Chicagois the home of house music. And
what happened was we had disco inthe seventies and Steve Dahl, one of
your ILK a morning DJ, hestarted this Disco Sucks movement and he told
the people in Chicago, if youbring a disco record to the White Sox
doubleheader, we will literally detonate abomb under this pile of disco records.

(35:30):
You'll get in for free to thegame. And they did that. They
blew up the White Sox field.They ruined the field because they had detonated
a bomb on it, and theSocks had to forfeit. The second game,
grab that second game. But allthese people ran towards the flaming pile
of disco records, chanting Disco suckright, And that was marked as the

(35:51):
moment that disco died. And whathappened when disco died is that the kids
in Chicago and Detroit grabbed those shatteredremains of those disco records spiritual and started
piecing back together into this new musicform which was called techno and house.
Techno and Detroit House. In Chicago, nobody cared about it here. It
wasn't popular. It was popular ininner city Detroit and Chicago, but it

(36:12):
wasn't big. And then Europe foundit. They added a little bit of
drugs to the mix, and theycreated raves and these warehouse parties that there
were things that were similar in America, but that's where it really took off.
And so Frankie Bones goes over thereand he plays this party, and
he comes home and he throws thisrave called the Storm Rave. It's like
the first American rave. And thenit spread back to Chicago like it had

(36:35):
gone from Chicago to Europe and thenhad had some ecstasies sprinkled on top and
then got re exported into New Yorkand then read moved over to Chicago and
then Detroit and then towards the West, and then finally it met me in
San Francisco in nineteen ninety five,just in time to change my life.
The I don't even know how IOh, there's a ton of research in

(36:59):
the book. Yeah, were youtalking about that? So the process of
going through and then doing the doingthe memoir is Oh, that's what I
was saying, is you have toenjoy that to do a second one.
Well, yeah, I find itso different than stand up that that's what
I love about it. It's likeright differently. Yeah, Well, my
big skill in stand up, whatI'm best at is interacting with the crowd,

(37:22):
right, And that's like muscle fastmuscle like twitch kind of energy.
You know. That's about like themoment, and it's about immediacy and it's
about temporariness. And like when Ido a show where the I'm with the
crowd, they know like this isa gift that I mean a gift.
I'm not trying to I'm not likeMoses or whatever. I guess motion means
Moses. So I am way anyway, like I'm just saying it's like it's

(37:45):
for them that night, Like right, that's the beauty of crowd interaction,
is like this is for you,and this will never happen again. A
book is the opposite. It's likeit's thoughtful, it's slow, and it's
permanent. It's like this is thisis for everyone, and is it is
in it's unadulterated form. And Iloved that process and I love the slowness
of writing a book. Right,Okay, that all makes total sense to

(38:07):
me. Let me ask you this. I want to go to the first
scene, which is which is AA. If somebody came to you now and
said should I go to AA?Is your answer yes? My answer is
definitely yes. Yeah. I mean, listen, the part of the process
of the story that I tell isabout getting sober. Having a really fundamentally

(38:30):
and revolutionarily changed my life. Itsaved my life and it's still, without
question the way that I lived mylife today is principles that I learned there.
But I'm not I'm not in AAanymore. I'm still sober. I've
been sober twenty a long time,too long, too long. But part
of this is is about you know, me reckoning with like life as an

(38:52):
adult and the kind of slow movementthat for me that took me into other
spaces and other places in my lifelife. But if you are struggling with
with drugs and alcohol, I thinkthat twelve Steps are are a monumentally medicinal
place. They are. It ispowerful and deep medicine. I don't know

(39:13):
that it works for every single person, but there is never a harm in
finding out if it will work foryou. And uh and I would absolutely
say to someone to go uh yeah. It's still like it saved my life
because the when when I first startedreading it, right, and it's the
it's the first scene. So I'mreading it and it, like we said
at the at the beginning, mosha, the book starts the day that that

(39:37):
you get sober, huh and andit walks you through you in a A
and to me the craziest I mean, there's a lot of crazy that comes
out of all the AA stuff.Yeah, including your your visit to sex
addicts anonymous. Oh that was agreat day. Well yeah go ahead,

(39:58):
No, look, look a lotof the book I realized only having finished
it is really it's a story ofa compulsive person. I was like,
everything I went into, I wantedto. I wanted to get high off
all the way I want to.I wanted the mainline raves. I wanted
a snort burning man. I wantedlike I that's that's what it is.
And you know, I definitely hadthat With dating and sexuality. My rule,

(40:22):
uh, at my peak. I'ma married man now. My rule
at my peak was if you werewilling, I was game. That was
it. You just had to bedown like you know. There was no
nose, you know, I couldn'tsay no like I So one night someone
was like, can I come over? And I was like, yes,
you know, I didn't want herto come over, but I didn't.
I couldn't. I didn't. Shecame over and at a certain point,

(40:45):
like there was some stuff going onwhere I was like, I just freaked
out. I'm also a hypochondriact,or as it's more commonly known, a
jew. And so when she left, I this is the one with the
butt marks, had some butt marks. I mean, I don't chance things
on her button. I decided thatthey were thinking they I just anyway,
The point is when she left,I ran in my kitchen, opened up

(41:06):
the cabinet and grabbed a bottle ofa can of lightsol and started spraying my
legs and they say, you know, if you ever find yourself dousing your
legs with benzodium chloride, you shouldprobably seek help. And so I did.
I was like, I'll go toa Sex Addicts Anonymous meeting, and
I went in and I was firstof all, I realized how how the

(41:28):
early members of AA must have felttelling people that they were in AA.
This is the pre like eminem andlike Sam Malone, like it's cool to
be a recovering drug addict alcoholic.This is like people were ashamed. And
I was sitting outside of this SexAddicts Anonymous meeting ashamed, like oh,
I don't want anybody to see megoing in there pulling my hat down,
which it makes you look more likea sex addict. And so I walk

(41:49):
into the meeting and I'm listening,and very quickly I realized like, Okay,
whatever I've got is like different thanwhat these guys have, Like I'm
I'm like just horny, and they'retalking about like you know, liquidating their
savings account on sex workers or liketurning on porn at like six when they
get home from work and then allof a sudden, the sun's coming up,
and so I go, oh,so that was a nice perspective for
me. It is like I dohave some compulsion issues. I don't exactly

(42:12):
think I have this, but theyI was like feeling very grateful. But
then I was like, okay,good, I understand what I am and
what to do. And then butthe problem was in this meeting, In
this particular meeting, or maybe inthat program, people will all they will
introduce themselves. They'll say, youknow, I'm Elliott. I'm a sex
addict and I've been sober for twoweeks. I've been sober for a year.

(42:34):
People don't do that in AA asmuch. And I think where they
announce how long they've been sober,and I think it's because my guess is,
you know, sex addicts anonymous likefood, like compulsive eaters and overeaters
anonymous. They these are difficult.They're really difficult because they are addictions that
you have to still engage in afteryou get sober. You can if I'm
an I'm still eating. You haveto eat. And so you have to

(42:58):
like define your sobriety as like theamount of time it's been since you engaged
in that in a destructive version ofthat behavior, which is really I mean
imagine, I can't it's that's sodifficult, and it's really admirable to find
a way to find health within abehavior you're still engaging in. Sure,
So I think that's why they wouldall announce how long they've been sober,
because they needed this reminder of like, I these are this is how long

(43:21):
I've been doing this, and it'spossible. But a guy came into the
meeting, and he came in late, and he goes, I'm so,
and so he raised his hand righttowards the end of the meeting, I'm
so, and so I'm a sexatic. I've been sober for thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes and he's sitting next tome, and I know how this meeting's
going to end. It ends awayall twelve step meetings, and which is
we're all going to stand up andhold hands, and his hands are still

(43:44):
moist like, and I go,oh, no, no, no,
no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not hold. I was having
such a moment of like thank youmy brothers and sisters of recovery, but
then I go, no, I'mnot holding that dude, Sam, there's
no way. So the meeting endsand I bline for the door like I
just like I just like I,you know, I tip my cat to
those horny men and women. Butthat was one hand I would not hold.

(44:04):
I've forgotten my lifesol. But thebut going back to AA is you
you talk about how the you youyou again you jump in with both feet
absolutely, and it's not it's notYou're not just going to meetings like you
You're an advocate, you're a sponsor. You're going to I used to get
flown around the country to speak atmeeting. That's where, to be honest

(44:28):
with you, that's where I learnedhow to perform in front of the crowd.
And that's the part that I lovethe most from that chapter is that
gives birth to Mosha Casher. Yeah, the ability to stand up and you
talk about like you're not just goingto like meetings, you're going to stadiums
like you are. You are travelingas the AA guy. That is where

(44:51):
I learned how to use language andwords to elicit a laugh reaction and an
emotional reaction. And there's no questionI obviously I didn't do it for but
it was it was a in termsof the gifts that the Twelve Steps bestowed
upon me. It definitely set meup for my career. And the thing
that I love the most that thatwas a byproduct and one that I didn't

(45:13):
see coming right. And I lovethat because you look at it and you
go, I mean, listen,you are a very successful and very good
stand up. Everybody knows that is. But do you get there? Like
listen, getting getting clean? Obviouslyit saved your life, you'd be dead.
But if you don't go down thatroad, I don't know that you

(45:35):
end up there, you know,I mean, like that is such a
great moment to me in the book. Well, that's what this book is
about. This book is not aboutme becoming a stand up. It's about
about hindsight becoming destiny. Destiny isnot a concept I believe in in the
future tense, but it's one thatI believe in in the past tense.
Like you get through yes without AA, I'm not this, but without all
of these parts of me, I'mnot me. And that's how what makes

(45:58):
these worlds feel like they don't fittogether, fit together perfectly in in my
body and in my life and everybodyhas some version of that. And by
the way, I'm not trying tosugarcoat the amount of pain that people walk
through in the world. You knowa lot of people go, that's what
you call destiny, But it doesn't. It's not consensual. It's it is
a life. And you look whenyou get to I guess I would say

(46:19):
middle age, and you and youstart to look back and go, I
had no idea that the that thecircumstances that I was walking through were leading
me here. And it's not.Yeah, is it always these circumstances are
perfect, of course not. Butit's always when you look back, you
start to see this pattern emerging thatwasn't felt chaotic. It felt my my
friend and Pete and I call ita spiritual plinko. Like you don't know

(46:43):
that the that the chance you goto a rave one night and then all
of a sudden, now your lifeis here. You don't know. You
go to burning Man one year andyou spend fifteen years there working and you
just you don't know what things arecreating your future and your destiny without all
of these things, I mean,the only reason and I do stand up.
Also, I got this thing fromfrom AA, this gift of rhetoric

(47:05):
and being able to make people laugh. But you know, like I also
like I went to I was ina semester abroad in Israel, and and
I probably went there because I wasJewish, and that got cut short because
there was once again a terrible thinghappening. And I went to New York
on vacation that now because at theschool had been canceled. So I left

(47:28):
from New York and I just waslike, I don't have anything to do,
let me go to New York.And I happened to look up an
old friend who was doing stand upin New York and she goes, I'm
doing stand up. I go,what what is what? What does that
mean? What's stand up? Andshe says, well, just come look.
And I go to this show andI never thought about stand up before.
I've been writing like long form monologuesand plays and studying acting, but

(47:50):
I'd never thought about stand up.And I so I go to h to
up to a show with her,and I see Sarah Silverman and Patrise O'Neil
perform and I go, who arethese what is this like? And they're
talking? I mean, their comedywas so I remember Patresa was making fun
of Michael J. Fox, andI go, what what are you doing?
Like you're not allowed? That feelsillegal. I like, you should
do that. And then the nextnight she was performing my friend and she

(48:15):
was funny, and I go,whoa, Like she's funny, and these
two kings of comedy are funny,and like, what's happening? I go,
all, all right, five minutesof material and will you take me
to an open mic when you cometo the Bay Area? And so she
does and I do when we goto an open mic, and all of
a sudden, boom, my destinyis set, like I never thought about
stand up before, and so thenI become a stand up and it's my

(48:35):
whole life. It's how I paythe bills. And then I meet my
wife in the stand up world,and now I'm married, and then we
have a child, and now themost important thing in my life is as
a chance result of this sort ofbizarre spiritual plinko of me just being you
know, world circumstances and me goingto this school and me keeping in touch
with this friend, and me goingto this show, and now I'm like
in Los Angeles with my daughter who'sturning six next weeks, And and I've

(49:00):
got this wife that I love andthis life that is cool. In this
book that I wrote, it's alllike destiny. But I couldn't have seen
it at the time. No,no, no way. And I can't
remember exactly what it is in thebook. But you talk about like everybody
has their path or their road,but it's a I'm gonna mess it up.
But it's like it's not a straightline. It is like a pinball's

(49:22):
path in a machine. And Iread that. I was like that,
you couldn't be more right, Andlisten, not everybody has the life experiences
that you do, thank god.Well, no, I have an unusual
pinball game. Yes this is quitea game, but everybody's got their their
game. Sure yeah, no,no, And that's what I mean.
It may feel my life is nothinglike that, but you still feel like

(49:42):
it's not a straight line. Itdoesn't it doesn't go that way. And
we all have these universes that createwho we are. And like, you
know, I think maybe less andless, I don't know, maybe maybe
more and more. The Internet hasbecome like a thoroughfare as opposed to a
Plinko game. It's more of alike this is the path, you know,
Like you go, what is life? And you just reach in your
pocket, open up TikTok, andgo, oh, that is life,

(50:05):
you know. And and so thisbook also in some ways is like a
it's like a love letter to therandomness that life used to be. Like
you know, if you were youknow, if your dad bought you a
skateboard in the nineties and you tookto it, like, chances are you'd
be writing graffiti and smoking blunts undera freeway overpass. And if you like
Tolkien and beetlejuice, chances are you'dbe doing a blood letting ceremony in a
field with your fellow goths. Likeit used to feel more random like and

(50:29):
life was an adventure that sort ofunfurled itself to you accidentally. And this
is I mean, this isn't melike shaking my fists at the internet.
It's more like, uh, it'smore like a a an archaeological artifact that
I'm leaving to my kid. Youknow, this is what life felt like
for me. Can I can Iask you a question if you don't want
to answer because it's about your kid. Yeah, six feet it's unusual.

(50:53):
Yeah, that's six for a year. I knew where you were going with
this. Do you do you getscared about any of your addictions being passed
down? Oh? My god,yes you do. Oh yeah, yeah.
But I can answer that like this, like, you know, she's
wild and I was wild, andshe's me, Like there's no question,

(51:15):
Like I'm like, okay, Igot what I you know, karmically paid
for here. But like in thesame way that looking back you see the
plinko, you know that I'm notme without this insane set of circumstances that
led to me falling into trouble inthe first place, right, Like,
it's not just wildness that creates aderelict child. It's also for me because

(51:37):
my brother had the same set ofcircumstances and was a straight A student and
everything, you know, was itjust wasn't like that for him. But
for me, it was about thisfeeling of like aloneness and deaf parents and
my dad's super religious and my mom'snot. And I go six weeks a
year into this community that rejects me, and I feel half deaf and half
hearing, and I'm in Oklan publicschools, one of the few white kids,

(51:58):
and and then and just this setof circumstances created a field in which
my by the time I found drugsand alcohol and the other like sort of
broken toys at the back of theschool, I found like, you know,
medicine and freedom in finding these otherbroken toys. You know. So
my job for my kid is notto go, don't be like that.

(52:21):
It's to go, let me offeryou a different set of circumstances leading into
what is going to be your wildlife. I know who she is.
I know that she's a She's aspark plug of a person. And I'm
there to like provide like stability andlove and a verdant field for that kind
of firecracker life to explode into somethingpositive. And she did a nice job

(52:42):
polishing your Emmy award. Yeah,yeah, that's what I'm saying. My
job is to get at a policyim and make sure she understands what's most
important in the world, which isHollywood. Will this be? Will this
be turned into? Have you beenapproached to turn this into a series?
I we may, we may,we may do that, right, I

(53:06):
would like to do that. Thefirst one was close, right, first
one got very very close to Ithink we're at showtime, and I don't
even know if showtime exists anymore.They say in Hollywood, everybody's making their
second favorite script, like their passion. Your passion project is usually not the
one, but this would be,I think a really cool show. You
know. I love the idea oflike a euphoria, but it's moving in

(53:28):
a positive direction, because that's whatthis is. Like my Plinko journey was
one towards like towards health and healing, as opposed to towards my own destruction.
Like I think that's you know,if you if you had an arc
of the two books book Casher andthe Rye was really about like a road
to perdition and subculture. Vulture isreally about the road to freedom and finding

(53:52):
what the world has for you.Were you really diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder?
Yes? Were you really? Yeah? I knew conduct is order,
oppositional defined disorder. These are badthings. I was going to say,
I met somebody who had a sonwho had that, and I'd never I
maybe I'd read it somewhere or heardof it, yeah, but definitely didn't

(54:13):
know anybody who had it or inthis case new didn't know a parent of
a kid who had it. Dude, that is that's hardcore. Well,
you know, you start to feelwhen you hear these things about yourself like
they are self fulfilling prophecies, andyou start to believe this stuff, and
then the next time you get diagnosed, you're diagnosed it with a little bit

(54:35):
more severity because the energy that youbring to the diagnostic technician is one of
more opposition and defiance. And Istarted to feel like fully defined by these
labels that were put on me.I mean, listen, I'm sure that
there are bad gas, bad seeds. I don't really know, but I
felt like I never had a chanceof not being a bad seed because from
my earliest memory, I started goingto therapy when I was I think four,

(54:58):
did you really yeah? Wow?And by the time I was fifteen,
like I started to believe these things, you know, I started to
believe them about me, And soall of these worlds that I lived in
were about not just freedom, butabout rejecting these these labels that had been
put on me and realizing like whoI actually was. And I think that's

(55:19):
what the story of the book istoo, is like finding out who you
really are and who your people are, right, and your people can help
you reject those labels too. Andyou may be the only person Mosha that
I know that has taken Burning Manand the burning of Burning Man and been
able to tie it into the highholy holidays of being a Jew. Well,
listen, I burning Man is thislast year was twenty four years that

(55:43):
I've been going to Burning Man.I went for the first time in nineteen
ninety six. I was sixteen yearsold. And over the time, like
you said, like each of theseworlds, they start to like the magic
starts to wear off right, Andso with Burning Man, like it's fused
into the rhythm of my life insuch a way that, like in the
high holidays in the Jewish religion,you do this thing where every year you

(56:04):
take stock of yourself and you say, you know, where do I go
wrong this year? How do Iwant to improve myself in the year to
come. That's at the beginning,that's Russia Shana, and then on Yum
Kippur, you like fast and youcleanse yourself of those things. I mean,
is it literally cleansing? I meansome people think literally it's God up
there going like you made it andthen ceiling you in the book. I
don't really believe that, but Ilike the ritual of every year going like,

(56:25):
how do I want to improve myselfin the year to come? And
so now I've tacked Burning Man ontothat because Burning Man is always about the
same time as the high holidays,and if the actual burning of the man
means anything to me twenty four yearsin, it's a reminder of the temporariness
of life, that we're all aman about to catch fire. Every one
of us is temporary. We aregoing nowhere but gone. And so every

(56:50):
year I'm remind I begin that processof self reflection by saying, I am
temporary and I'm not going to behere forever. What do I want to
do in my life? What doI want to experience? How much do
I want to live in the yearto come? It's going away, and
I want I want to make surethat while I'm here, I experience as
much of it in as much ofa positive way as I possibly can.

(57:13):
Yeah, I'd never I mean,well, by the way, would would
I like Burning Man? That's anotherway. I've never been to a rave.
I've never been to Burning Man?Would you like burning man, I
don't know you that well. I'mgoing to go ahead and say almost everybody
would like burning Man for twelve hours. After the twelve hour mark, you
go, okay, I'm dirty nownow I'm dirty and I need something more.

(57:37):
But I don't know if you'd likeI think you'd like it, yeah,
the as I'm sure you've seen itchange a million times in twenty four
years. Oh yeah, I meanit's changed. It's changed so significantly.
First year I went, it waslegit. I just heard it was a
rave in the desert and I waslike, cool, let's go. Success
you ended up there. That wasthe only just somebody said raven desert,
and I go up the car.Let's go. Yeah. Me and a

(57:58):
bunch of other gumbags jumped into aninety one four escort and drove six hours
into the desert. And it wassmall and it was dangerous. People who
were dead. People died. Butbefore the event even started, somebody was
dead. I had friends that wererun over because you could drive at like
sixty miles an hour on like openplier with thousands of people there. There
weren't enough porta potties, so therewas just like hippie and raver and technopunk

(58:21):
poo poo littering the desert, andthey were either were drive by shooting ranges
where you could drive by in yourcar and like shoot at a building.
They were they're lighting things on fireon like raw like National park Land.
Like it was crazy and scary andwild. And it's not as crazy and
scary and wild as it once was, but it's still kind of this thing

(58:43):
that the way I describe it islike it's like reality through the looking glass
and these kind of experiments in immediacythat are just for their like experiences for
their own sake, Like there's anthere's one night we were out there and
and there are big things, youknow, buildings get set on fire,
four story statues of a woman likewith flaming propane eyes, and you mean,

(59:07):
they're like there are big things,but there are these like tiny things.
Like I once was walking through thedesert and with a bunch of friends
at like four o'clock in the morning, we saw like a pale blue light
like a quarter mile out and wewere way out in the desert where nobody
is not in the main drag andwe walk we go, oh, there's
a light like, well, mightas well go see what that is.

(59:29):
And we walked for like twenty minutesand we get out there and there's just
a lone man with a pale bluelight and he's set up a little teeny
marionette stage and he's doing a marionetteperformance for nobody in the in the coldness
of the desert. He's just doingthis performance for whoever happened to walk by,
Like that was that was for me, and that little random ridiculousness that's

(59:51):
a part of the plinko that's Theselittle moments of wonder are the thing that
keeps me going back because I hearyou talk about that, and then I
think of like the president of iHeartgoes every year in like one of his
like million dollar r vs. Ithink it doesn't sound like that's not like
that would be no fun. Now, I don't know if I want to,

(01:00:14):
you know, like watch people getrun over either that I have no
interest in, but like I seehim going, I god, that's probably
not for me. Well, it'sbecome a thing. I don't want you
to talk about the President of IHeart like that. It seems like a
great guy. Yeah, it's becoma thing. Where the best quote I
heard is it went from a placewhere weird people go to feel normal to

(01:00:34):
a place where normal people go tofeel weird. And it is that,
you know, Silicon Valley. Everybodytalks about how Silicon Valley is ruined burning
Man, but the truth is SiliconValley was always there. There were always
tech people there. Tech used tobe a subculture of its own. Tech
used to be like a counterculture,used to be Angelina, Joe Lee and
hackers and like mohawks, punk technopunks, and like Silicon Valley, it

(01:00:57):
didn't didn't ruin Burning Man, Siliconitself got ruined, and then they just
kept going. You know. Yeah, So yeah, there are like company
retreats at burning Man that occur.But it's still the most weird and left
field experience of reality that I haveall year long. Like, it's still
weird enough that it keeps me goingback. There's still moments of beauty there

(01:01:20):
that you cannot see anywhere else.All Right, last couple of things and
then I'll let you jump. Numberone funniest thing in the book is,
and I don't want to give itaway, but the way you describe the
mona Lisa is absolutely fantastic, Thankyou very much. You mentioned the wife.
How is how is? How isshe? She's great. She's at

(01:01:42):
home right now resenting me for beingon the road. And I will I'm
going to see her this weekend.Yeah. No, actually, please tell
her we said hello, I will, indeed. And then the last thing
is have you ever taken a humanlife or had sex with an animal?
Sorry, I'm sorry, coughing isbad for radio, Mosha. I can't

(01:02:06):
thank you. I'm not let youOkay. That deserves context. And it's
a question that my first sponsor askedme when we went through our fourth step.
At the end of it, helooked at me with great graveness and
he said, I need to askyou two more questions. Have you ever
taken human life or had sex withan animal? And the answer, thank
God, to this day, throughoutmultiple rounds of spiritual plinko, through the

(01:02:30):
worlds of AA Judaism, interpretation anddeafness, stand up comedy, raves,
and burning Man, to this day, the answer is still a happy,
enthusiastic no, No, I havenot no neither of those things. Subculture
Vulture is out now, Mosha.Casher will be at sixth and I tonight

(01:02:52):
in conversation about the book. Dude, thank you so much for coming in,
Thank you for having me. It'sa pleasure. And yeah, this
book. I poured so much ofmy off into it. I cannot wait
for people to listen to get itand experience and coming six and nine to
night you can hear more about it. Absolutely, Bosha, Thank you,
my friend, Thank you for havingme.