Episode 607
with Moshe Kasher, Mohanad Elshieky, and Glitterfox
Comedian and writer Moshe Kasher dives into his new memoir Subculture Vulture, which explores the six communities which shaped his life, from AA and Burning Man to sign language interpretation and his ultra-Hasidic upbringing; stand-up comedian Mohanad Elshieky tells us why he might be the most dangerous man in America; and indie band Glitterbox perform their single "TV." Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello chat about some niche subcultures our listeners have belonged to.
Moshe Kasher
Comedian and author
Moshe Kasher is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actor. He is the author of Kasher in the Rye. He has written for various TV shows and movies, including HBO’s Betty, Comedy Central’s Roasts and Another Period, Zoolander 2, Wet Hot American Summer, and many more. His Netflix specials include Moshe Kasher: Live in Oakland and The Honeymoon Stand Up Special. He’s appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Shameless, The Good Place, and other fun things. He co-hosts The Endless Honeymoon podcast with his wife, Natasha Leggero. Publisher's Weekly calls his latest book, Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes, “[a] winning blend of humor and pathos . . . This will resonate with readers who’ve felt alone in an overwhelming world.” Website • Instagram • Twitter
Mohanad Elshieky
Comedian
Mohanad Elshieky is a New York based, Libyan born comedian who made his national TV debut on Conan and has been featured on Comedy Central. In 2018, he appeared in an episode of Epix’s "Unprotected Sets" and has been featured in Kumail Nanjiani's Little America book. He’s also a writer on the hit podcast Lovett or Leave It and the host of the You Could Do That on Television. He was also one of the hosts of Lemonada’s webby nominated podcast I’m Sorry. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Glitterfox
Musical band
Glitterfox is a Portland, OR-based indie folk band lead by married couple Solange Igoa and Andrea Walker with Eric Stalker and Blaine Heinonen on bass and drums. Since being named one of Portland's "Best New Bands" by the Willamette Week in 2022, coming away from Oregon Country Fair 2022 as one of the most buzzed-about breakout acts, and being named winners of the High Sierra Music Festival Band Competition in 2023, Glitterfox has worked relentlessly to electrify their live show while honing in on the inimitable "west coast indie meets Southern Americana songwriting" style that defines Glitterfox song craft. Website • Instagram • Twitter
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going so well. I am curious, though. If you are emotionally and mentally ready to play a little round of Station Location Identification Examination.
Elena Passarello: I am, I hope I'm physically ready too. I did a few deep knee bends. Okay, let's do this. All right.
Luke Burbank: You sound ready. This is where I quiz Elena about a place in the country where Live Wire on the radio. She's got to guess where I'm talking about. This place is one of the oldest place names in the Great Lakes. The name is French for big marsh, which is kind of puzzling, as there is apparently no marsh in this place.
Elena Passarello: Is Marsh Marais in France?
Luke Burbank: Oh my God!
Elena Passarello: Grand. Grand Marais.
Luke Burbank: What! That's Grand Marais, Minnesota.
Elena Passarello: I don't know what state that was in. I just know a little French.
Luke Burbank: I don't know, that. That is really impressive, by the way. Just because people might want to know this, it's also the eastern entry point for the largest international dark sky sanctuary in the world. So if you're trying to enter that area from the east, you're going to go through Grand Marais, Minnesota, where we are on the radio on WLSN. And that was impressive, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Well, I had some pressure because I met an awesome Live Wire listener at our most recent live show. Rita and Rita really likes to get the SLIE right, so I wanted to do good for Rita. Shout out to Rita.
Luke Burbank: Message received. All right, let's try to ride this momentum wave right into the show. You ready to get to it?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right, take it away from it.
Elena Passarello: This week, comedian and author Moshe Kasher.
Moshe Kasher: So, like, my message is, if your drug dealer ever does an intervention on you, it is time to seek help.
Elena Passarello: And standup comedy from Mohanad Elshieky.
Mohanad Elshieky: A friend of mine her biggest fear is that one day she will be killed by a serial killer. And I was like, I don't think that's going to happen here. Also, she lives on like a fifth floor walk up. And I was like, even your loved ones still want to come see you.
Elena Passarello: With music from Glitterfox and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much, Elena. Thanks to everyone tuning in from all over the country, including Grand Marais, Minnesota. We have such a fun, funny, but also informative episode of the show for you this week. Of course, we have asked the Live Wire listeners a question. We asked, what is the most niche subculture you've ever been part of? This is because of Moshe Kasher's latest book. We're going to hear those responses coming up in a few minutes. First, though, of course, we got to kick things off with the best news we heard all week this week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show there's some good news happening out there. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love this news from Down Under. I will spare you the accent. Australia news. So there's a beach in Sydney called Manly Beach, and apparently it's, favorite place for swimmers to go and do some pretty hardcore oceanic swimming. And for the past three years, nearly every morning at 4 a.m., a man named Guy Dunstan shows up with a headlamp and a meat thermometer, and he takes the temperature of the water. And then he goes over to a concrete drainage pillar that's along the beach wall, and he makes a pretty decent sized mural. It's kind of artful. It's different every day, but each time it communicates the water temperature to the swimmers, which tells them how to dress. Do they need the wetsuit? Maybe they shouldn't try it at all today. And one recent 4 a.m., he noticed this bottle in the surf and there was a message inside the bottle. Just like the police song.
Luke Burbank: We were all thinking it.
Elena Passarello: And the message read in this bottle is a small part of our parents. If you find it, please set it off once again on its journey. And it turns out that there are these two sons named Kevin and Nigel, who had recently lost both their parents, who loved the ocean. And so they'd thrown the bottle into Bondi Beach, which is only about seven nautical miles away. So it didn't really get that far. But Guy Dunstan is like the coolest dude in the world. So he had a friend with a sailboat, and once he was done making his temperature mural, they sailboat it out past the Sydney harbor, past the bay where the currents are stronger. So then he set the bottle on its way, and now it's going to go somewhere even further. I just love this. I love this story. And if you want to follow Guy Dunstan and his escapades, you can follow him on Instagram. At at temperature underscore temperature guy underscore manly.
Luke Burbank: That's also just such a lovely thing for the memory of the parents of those folks. This idea that, you know, a little bit of them will travel around in this bottle and it's a it's an afterlife in of sorts for these folks, these parents.
Elena Passarello: And it's traveling via the internet now because everyone's talking about this story thanks to Guy. So it's really what a great legacy to leave behind for these sea loving folks.
Luke Burbank: Absolutely. The best news that I heard this week happened a little closer to home. It happened actually, in, Spokane, Washington. Yeah, in the old Inland Empire in Washington state, where the March Madness college basketball tournament was occurring. And you had the team from Yale who had qualified for the tournament. But the problem was, it also was coinciding with when they were taking their spring break. And so they didn't have enough members of the Yale band. Basically, Yale couldn't feel the marching band to support their basketball team. And so the athletic director of Yale reached out to the athletic director, at least the music director of the University of Idaho, the Vandals, and asked, would you consider sending your marching band over to the game to be like the Yale marching band, to stand in, to be a surrogate for our band that can't make it, and this director of athletic bands as his official title, Spencer Martin, put this out on the internet, like there at Idaho, and immediately had 29 people sign up for it, which is the maximum you're allowed to actually bring as a marching band. I learned.
Elena Passarello: 29 vandals.
Luke Burbank: 29 vandals, or as they were calling themselves for these purposes than dogs.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, because.
Luke Burbank: Yale is the Bulldogs.
Elena Passarello: Right.
Luke Burbank: So they get these like 29 members of the Idaho Vandals marching band together. They, of course, don't really know the Yale like songs and chants. So they're on their phones like learning the Yale fight song in the bus on the way from Idaho over to Spokane. And, they were so enthusiastic and great that, in fact, Yale won its first game, of the tournament. And, you know, it's unclear if it was just that all of that excitement and encouragement from these van dogs or not. But it sounds like the kids from Idaho had a super fun time.
Elena Passarello: I think this is just confirming my suspicion is that the most important thing in sports is the band.
Luke Burbank: 100% years from now, no one will remember what the final score was against San Diego State. What we will remember is the friendship that was shared from the the Idaho Vandals band on behalf of the Yale Bulldogs. So that right there, that's the best news that I saw this week. You. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to the program. He's actually kind of hard to sum up, in one of these little intros, Elena, because, you know, he's done a lot of stuff. Thankfully, he's also now written entire book about his various lives, including his time as the boy king of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's how he describes it. His stint as a rave promoter turned DJ turned Burning Man security guard. Also, how he became a sign language interpreter. Oh, and then he also gets into the thing that we all mostly know him for, which is his career as a standup comedian. The book is Subculture Vulture a memoir in Six Scenes. The New York Times calls it part history lesson, part standup set, and part love letter. This is our interview with Moesha Kasher, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon.
Moshe Kasher: Hi Portland.
Luke Burbank: Moshe!
Moshe Kasher: What's up?
Luke Burbank: Hey, man. So good to see you. Good to see.
Moshe Kasher: You, too. Glad to be back. I have a tale to tell. Okay. What? I got the email. Livewire would like you to come back. I thought this is a perfect. This is the end of the circle. I published my first book. It's called catcher in the Rye the True Tale of a white. Oh, you laughing because there's a similarly titled book. Is that what's going on there? Yeah, I found out about it after I wrote my book. So we go. Incidents. The subtitle is The True tale of a White Boy from Oakland who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental patient, and then turned 16. When I'm on book tour, it's the first book I've ever written. It's the biggest thing that's ever happened to me.
Luke Burbank: This is for Kasher in the Rye.
Moshe Kasher: For Kasher in the Rye. And I came here and I came outside and opened my phone, and there was a guy from Oakland who texted me, an old friend. He goes, people in Oakland are looking for you. They're very upset. And then I swear to God, there will be no elaborations.
Luke Burbank: What?
Moshe Kasher: I was like, oh, okay, Mr. Gambino, I didn't like. So since I came to live where I have not felt at home in my hometown since, and I feel like now I'm 44. It's been, 11 years since that book came out. I'm going to finally go back to Oakland and walk with my head held high, confident that if someone tries to murder me, you got my back 100%.
Luke Burbank: I mean, are they going to mess with a guy with a carnation in his lapel that he borrowed from a bouquet in the lobby? I don't think so. And by the way, I hope there will be some elaboration, because that's what makes for a good story.
Moshe Kasher: Well, I can tell, I can elaborate. What happens when you write a memoir is that, especially when you're young, is that the people that are swimming around in your memory and the people that, that that are in the kind of traumatic shards of your past, they exist in your mind if you get enough space away from them as memory and they cease in the rearview mirror to be to remain human beings. And then when you grew up with the kind of people I grew up with while you're writing, you go, these people aren't going to read my book.
Luke Burbank: Right.
Moshe Kasher: They haven't written that. My friends didn't read. They never read. Guess who reads the book where they're mentioned? Everybody. Yes, everybody reads the book and everybody read the book. And I was writing as a comedian, just like then there was Pathological Liar Blank, and then there was everybody who read the book, and these were people that had been in and out of prison since I left Oakland. Yeah, I know what I look like, and I do not paint a swath as the kind of guy that had friends like that. I look more like my friends are sort of heavy in the podcasting and graphic novel community, but they all read the book and people were mad. And it was a to be honest, it was a growing experience. It made me. It made me realize for the second book, like everybody you write about is human Being, and they're not a part of your story. They exist in your memory, they exist in your mind. But they they, they, they're still there and they still have agency. And it made me grow up a little bit.
Luke Burbank: I'm realizing that the school district, whoever was, had it wrong trying to give us pizza to read books when I was a kid. They should have wrote about us in the books because nothing drives literacy like knowing you're in the book.
Moshe Kasher: Well, that's why I keep writing memoirs, because I know for sure I am going to be in that book.
Luke Burbank: There's there's something. There's something at the beginning of this motion that is a a big turning point in your life that I was really interested in and also kind of impressed by. You had just gotten sober. I mean, six days sober, I think. Yeah. And you're invited to, like, a New Year's Eve party, or some sort of party that is definitely going to end your sobriety. You're very, you know, brief sobriety at that point.
Moshe Kasher: Well, I got yeah, I got sober on December 25th, 1994. I was 15 years old, and I had been in and out of rehab since I was about 13, almost 14 years old, and I was in therapy from the time I was four until the state funding ran out when I was 15, almost 16 years old. And I had this problem with adults. That was my big thing. I had this problem with adults. I hated adults, every adult was like a cop or the principal or my mom, and all of them were always telling me what to do. And then I had this kind of otherworldly, really. I don't know where it came from, where a 15 year old sort of juvenile delinquent has this thought. But I had this this realization like a light. What is it possible that every single person around you is is wrong and you're right?
Luke Burbank: People go through their whole life and never figure that out. I'm serious. You don't mean like, amazing that you and this, you decide to go to what sounds like the world's worst sober New Year's Eve party instead of this fun young person party. And I don't understand how as a 15 year old, you had that sense of, like, the big picture.
Moshe Kasher: Well, well, that's the issue, right? Is that I realized I needed to stop and I the secondary realization, which was that I couldn't. And that is a really terrifying place to be. I remember how I realized that I went to my drug dealer's house, and I paid him for yesterday's bag, and I declared that I was done. I was like, goodbye, my friend, Adios. I'm on to another life. And he was like, whatever. The next day when I went to his house to buy another bag, he looked at me and he goes, dude, what are you doing here? You said you quit yesterday. Here you are again today. He's like, man, you've really got a problem. So like, my message is if you if your drug dealer ever does an intervention on you, it is time to seek help.
Luke Burbank: I want it. Speaking of drug dealers, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about your time as a sober drug dealer, which are not words that are usually close together in the same sentence. But we are going to hear about that when we talk to a cashier a little bit more. The book is Subculture Vulture is Live Wire from PRX. We'll be back in just a moment.
Luke Burbank: Hey, welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We're talking to Moshe Kasher about his latest book, Subculture Vulture. You talk about six different subcultures that that you have personal experience with. What's one of the things that's really great about the book is it's a great combination of memoir and research. Like, you really clearly enjoyed the scholarly aspect of researching these different subcultures, including another subculture you found yourself in sort of during your sobriety, which was the rave scene. There's a so much more Jenko Jeans writing in this book than I was expecting. Judge none. Choose one. By the way, that's what the Jenko stands for.
Moshe Kasher: Is that what—I didn't know that. You—perhaps you are the scholar, Luke.
Luke Burbank: Well, you know, I dabble.
Moshe Kasher: Actually. The the AA dance on New Year's Eve pours directly into raves. So I went to the drug dealer. I couldn't stop, and I finally sought help. 15 years old, I walked into a young people's meeting. I looked around, everybody was. I was the youngest person by ten years at a young people's me. These people were like gross old, like 25. It was like disgusting. And I found something in the meeting that allowed me to, like, stay sober. That sort of cliché of like one day at a time, which I always hated because it felt like it felt like an insult. It's like, I know you say one day at a time, but you really mean, like one day at a time for the rest of time, say goodbye to having a good time. And it was enough, though, and I started to piece together these days. One day two day, three day, four days, five days, six days. I got invited to this party and I was 15. That's all I wanted to do was go to a party that's like. That is manna from the heavens for a 15 year old. And I hadn't been invited to a party in years.
Luke Burbank: And you're talking about this fun party like.
Moshe Kasher: A real party.
Luke Burbank: With people your age, not a mixer.
Moshe Kasher: Well, there was another option that evening, which was an AA dance. Like, has anybody ever been. I'll describe an air dance like picture the energy of, like, studio 54 in the height of the 70s. Right. Picture Coachella at the EDM tent, right? Like after the headliner is done and all the partiers go to the EDM tend to like, squeeze a little bit more fun out of their night. Right. You have that picture. Okay. Picture the exact opposite of that energy. That is what an air dance feels like. It's the worst. It's at a Rotary Club picture, a man with an emphysema oxygen tank dancing to like a former sex worker to like it's raining men at 9:45 p.m.. That's sort of the picture. These are my options. It's a 15 year old, six days sober, drug addict, like good party, cool people, fun times or Rotary Club. And I chose Rotary Club. Like somehow another moment of Providence. I chose Rotary Club, and I remember I found the one other person under 30 in at the dance. Rose was her name, and we sat under a fluorescent light outside, smoking Newports and talking about how much our lives sucked. And at 1201, my mom came and picked me up. It was the worst. It was the worst New Year's in my life. But now I've had a lot of fun. Over the years I've gotten to be a DJ at raves. On New Year's Eve, I've gotten to be a headlining comedian at clubs. On New Year's Eve, I've gotten to travel the world at different New Years. I've had a lot of fun in hindsight, which I really think is the theme of the book is hindsight. I realized that that that night, smoking those cigarets under that light, that was the most important New years of my life, because it was the New Years. It was the moment where I chose my life and what the rest of my life would look like. That was the that was my resolution was I wanted to live.
Luke Burbank: I just think. I just, I do. I think it's so impressive that at that age, your brain or some part of you was able to connect with that idea because people struggle with that their whole life, potentially, and it would be very understandable. A 15 year old kid was like, I'm doing the much more obviously fun thing, but you didn't. Which allowed you then to have this incredible life, which did include a period of time selling drugs at raves while a sober person. How did you square that in your young, still very young mind at this point?
Moshe Kasher: Well, it was much like drugs, a degree of tolerance. You know, I slowly built up my tolerance. You know, I didn't start at raves as as an ecstasy dealer. I ended at raves as an exit dealer. And that's a really awkward thing, because I was still clean and sober. I might be the world's first clean and sober ecstasy dealer. But the problem was, people from the meeting would sometimes come to the rave and it'd be me. And then I'd see a guy from the meeting come in. E Gads, good to see you. Recovery brother. From the Tuesday night meeting. That's where I ended. Yeah, but where I started was not negative. It was where I started was, as I would say, is healing a kind of force? As as AA was for me, the first party I ever went to again. I was 16 years old, and I walked into this party super trying to be a gangster like, identity crisis guy. Like, I had a southern accent back then. I'm not from the South, you know. I just, like, had it. And and I would code switch to I would, like, be talking to my brother and I'd be like, well, anyway, David, you know, I don't know what. We're gonna hold on a second. I'm getting a telephone call. Hello? What's up, my man? Yeah. We out here? All right then. Peace. And I turn back to him. He be like, what the [expletive] is wrong with you? So that's the guy I was in line.
Luke Burbank: I there's so much in this book that I would talk about so many different parts of your life and huge topics that you really get into. I don't know if we have time for all of it, but, one of the things that you write about is that you are a coda child of, of deaf adults. Yeah. And, both of your parents, are deaf. Your father was deaf. I'm wondering, when I was a kid, everything my parents did in public was deeply mortifying to me. Anything like we would hold hands and pray before dinner, like at a McDonald's, which would be pretty.
Moshe Kasher: Like praying to go to a different restaurant.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Exactly.
Luke Burbank: Well, that was where we had the entertainment book coupon for us, so that's what we were going to be. But I'm wondering, for you, to be a child of deaf parents and to end up doing a lot of translating, it sounds like, particularly for your mom, in situations where you were delivering the information from the school administrator that you were being kicked out of school to your mother, how like, were you tempted to dilute the message?
Moshe Kasher: Well, that's a very delicate dance, actually. I mean, I spent the first 15 years of my life the way all Codas do, which is in that extensive nonconsensual sign language interpretation internship program I interpreted for everything for my mom. I mean, this is before the Ada, before interpreters were mandated to be there, and I would walk into an emergency room, visit with my mom sick, and realize if I wasn't there, my mom literally wouldn't understand the care she was going to be offered. And that was the beginning. That was when I was eight, seven, eight, nine years old. And then when when, like you said, the the subject of the meetings that I was required to translate for became increasingly about me and my own behavioral issues, I would have to do this kind of sort of weird dance where you can't really you can't if you're, you know, you can't be like, tell them my mom the unadulterated message. But I also couldn't be like, the Oakland Police Department thinks this kid's a okay, because my mom. My mom would be like, okay, I smell a rat. Like, so you'd have to kind of do kind of a, you know, weird, like, oh, well, we he does have some issues. We did want to talk, but actually we think he shows great promise. In fact, we think maybe a memoirist could be in his future. You know, like.
Luke Burbank: I did not know this until I read the book that their Alexander Graham Bell, of all people, did such immense harm to the deaf community through this idea of something that you describe as oralism, this obsession with trying to get deaf folks to basically conform to hearing folks idea of how communication works.
Moshe Kasher: The craziest, most tragic part of that, or I sort of from a literary storytelling perspective, is that the only reason that the oral movement was ever able to impose what I kind of what I call like, an imperialism upon the deaf community. And what was craziest about that is the only reason that that the hearing society was aware of the fact that they could communicate and impose their communication standards upon the deaf community was because of sign language that deafness is not the disability. The problem is that the hearing has this cascading effect of cutting people off from language. And one day, through an insane story, truly, a French priest was walking down. The street and saw two deaf sisters signing back and forth to one another. And he looked at it and realized that what he was looking at was language. Prior to that, if you were born into a family, like most deaf people are the only deaf person in your family, you would not receive language because there was an assigned system to be given to you. And this priest saw that language and he said, that is language. I know it. And he wanted to teach. He asked them, teach me, teach me what you're doing. They taught him to sign and he taught them French. And from that interaction, they started the first school for the deaf in France. They started the first recognized sign system. They started teaching these deaf people that French, and they would literally bring them on road shows. And there would be like a hearing administrator who would receive a question from the audience, like some French question, like what degree of suffering can be borne by man or whatever?
Luke Burbank: Highfalutin.
Moshe Kasher: And he would and he would turn to the deaf students, and he would sign to them from French into sign, and they would receive the sign with their eyes, and then get up to a chalkboard and write in perfect French. There is no degree to of suffering that man cannot bear. Suffering is endless. We are French and like. And that's the beginning of sign language. And one of those students was Laurent Clerc, who became the the father of American Sign Language. And the world had this revelation, which is O deaf people are linguistic. And almost immediately when they realized that hearing people said, let's take away that language and teach them how to speak and look more like us. And it wasn't about whether it was the most successful system. It was about making hearing people comfortable around them. And the father of that movement, and in many ways the progenitor of it, was Alexander Graham Bell, himself a coda himself, married to a deaf person. And in many ways, he's like a he was like a boogeyman because Oralism won. Because of course it did. And Oralism won until the deaf community took their language back and put a fist through that oralist glass ceiling and took their world back to.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Moshe Kasher here on Live Wire. His new book is Subculture Vulture. Again, everybody get the book. Read it. There's so much in here, and I wish we could talk about all of it.
Moshe Kasher: Oh, okay. Yeah, I went to Burning Man for a long time. My dad was a Hasidic Jew. And also I do stand up comedy.
Luke Burbank: We really we are running short on time. But I do want to talk to you a little bit about Burning Man, because I've met you as a popular comedian. And what I think of when I think of cool, popular comedians are people that are so steeped in irony, there's almost no or it's like, it's not very cool to be authentically, genuinely excited about something anymore. And you authentically love Burning Man in a way that really humanized you to me and made me see this other version of you then, like, you just love Burning Man.
Moshe Kasher: Well, that sounds insulting when you say it like I am.
Luke Burbank: Well, I don't mean it to be.
Moshe Kasher: I mean be the kind of thing. If you're walking down a street in Portland and somebody points at you and says that other people will turn and say, avoid that man. You love Burning Man!
Luke Burbank: But you I mean, I think you make a really you make a really good defense of this thing that so many people have so much judgment around and why you love it and why you say you might take your kid there someday. What is it about Burning Man that the people that are so dismissive of it are getting wrong?
Moshe Kasher: Well, I think I love people and I love communities that live a little bit outside the margins, you know, and I think that, that that's what deafness in Hasidic Judaism, the two subcultures that aren't really subcultures, if we're being honest, they're really they're cultures. They're perhaps a little bit to the left of the dominant culture. But those were that's the bucket. I was born into Hasidic Judaism and ultra-Orthodox Judaism and deafness. And those two worlds gave me this kind of appreciation for people that like to do things differently, and that that's what raves were. And in many ways, that's what what AA is. It's people that are their natural state should be in obliteration, but in fact is in recovery. And what Burning Man I think gets so right is this idea that life has these parts to it that can be experienced for, the pleasure only for the experience only that not everything needs to have inherent meaning. And like, is Burning Man a utopia? No, but it's not supposed to be a utopia. It's supposed to be a fake utopia. When you take a psychedelic, you have this experience of being subsumed into a kind of like spiritual reality. But in fact, you have to come down, but you hope that you come out of your psychedelic experience having shifted ever so slightly. Well, I gave up psychedelics when I was 12, 13, 14 years old, and I kept looking through the the world for a psychedelic experience that I could I could have clean and sober. And that's, I think, what Burning Man did for me. People always go, how could you go there? Sober I go, I don't particularly I felt high the whole time I was there. Last year was the 24th time, my 24th time attending. Wow. I went for the first time in 1996. I worked there for 15 years. Has it changed? Has it gotten lamer? Sure. But everything changes. Everything got lamer. I mean, I was at Live Wire Radio ten years ago, you know, like. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Luke Burbank: Moshe Kasher everybody.
Luke Burbank: That was Moshe Kasher right here on Live Wire. His latest book, Subculture Vulture, is out and available now. This is Live Wire where, of course, each week we ask our listeners a question because of that deep dive into various subcultures with Moshe. We asked our listeners, what is the most niche subculture you have ever been a part of? And people responded to that. Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: I love this one from James. James is in a unique subculture that practices partner acrobatics.
Luke Burbank: I just saw a TikTok about this.
Elena Passarello: Oh, no. Oh, no. He's back on TikTok.
Luke Burbank: I I've been talking about me, not James. That's what the. You hear the concern in Elena's voice?
Elena Passarello: I love when you're on TikTok.
Luke Burbank: You can just. You can kind of rate my emotional well-being by how much time I'm spending on TikTok, looking at things. I've. This partner acrobatics thing is really interesting. It's like a trust fall, but with like a lot more going on, right?
Elena Passarello: It's like it's like, remember the airplane? Remember when you were a kid and people would put it's like adult airplane, correct?
Luke Burbank: Yes. With again, with more flipping around and like it's a very it's a it's really quite something to watch. So but it's a niche subculture that's getting less niche. If I'm starting to see it on TikTok. Elena.
Elena Passarello: Cause of TikTok, your best friend.
Luke Burbank: For now anyway, it just fills the hole anyway. Hey, what's, something else niche that one of our listeners is into?
Elena Passarello: I think I might have to join this subculture that Andy is a part of. Andy is among the group of axolotl owners.
Luke Burbank: Okay. Axolotl owners, is this a is this thing living or is it inanimate?
Elena Passarello: It's an adorable amphibian. Sometimes it's the prettiest pink color, and it's got, like, a little mane. It's not hair. It's like, you know, scales or something. It's like the size of, like, a salamander. And it's notorious because its face looks like it's got this big, blissful smile on itself.
Luke Burbank: I was trying to find while we were talking, I was trying to quickly search on the internet for a picture, one of these things. And I clearly cannot spell axolotl because I just got an Italian football man, manager named Carlo Ancelotti, who is not smiling in any of the photos.
Elena Passarello: Well, maybe he owns an axolotl. Ancelotti has an axolotl.
Luke Burbank: Very possibly. Okay, one more niche subculture that one of our listeners is very into.
Elena Passarello: Okay. This is his niche as it gets. Ron says this might be a subculture of one, but I have a collection of my dad's big toe nails. Maybe there are others out there contact me. And so I'm wondering if Ron thinks there are other people who collect their dad's big toe nails, or if Ron is wondering if his dad's big toenails are also being collected by someone else in the world.
Luke Burbank: I really that's exactly what came to mind, Ella. And it was, you know, you find out sometime in adulthood that you weren't the only person who had a collection of your dad's toenails.
Elena Passarello: That also only the big toe. No pinky toenails, you know, like the only pinky is the one that went to market. None of the other ones.
Luke Burbank: That's, you know, I mean, you do you when it comes to how you how you think about your family members and what things you treasure. But I'm, I'm, I'm genuinely hoping that that is a very niche, niche culture and that there aren't other people who have this guy's dad's toenail clippings, because that's going to be really hard to explain honestly. All right. Thank you to everyone who responded to our listener question this week. We got another one coming up for next week's show, which we will reveal in just a moment. In the meantime, we've got to say hi to our next guest. He's one of our very favorite stand up comedians out there today. He actually grew up in Benghazi, Libya. But then came to the US, got into comedy and ended up on Conan and ended up working at Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. And these days he is also a writer on the hit podcast Love It or Leave It. And he hosts the podcast. You could do That on television. He is Mohanad Elshieky and he's been on the show., I think maybe this is his sixth appearance, and we're so glad he was able to join us on stage recently at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. Take a listen.
Mohanad Elshieky: Thank you. Thank you so much everyone. So happy to be back in Portland. I travel a lot for comedy and I take a lot of long flights, so I like to have fun when I do that. Well, my fellow passengers, here are some fun things you could do to, if you see the person, in the exit row sleeping. Did you know you can just walk to them and be like, is this some kind of joke to you or something? Like eyes on the sky. Like. You could also bring, some loose bolts with you and put it in your pocket. And midway through the flight, you can be like, hey, I'm not playing expert, but are they supposed to come off like this? It's fun. I live in New York City, and I, a friend of mine, her biggest fear. Is that one day she will be killed by a serial killer. That's our biggest fear. And I was like, I don't think that's going to happen here. Like, no one in New York has the time, you know, like everyone in New York is busy. No one has the time to focus on the little hobbies, you know. Also, she lived in something like a fifth floor walk up and I was like, even your loved ones don't want to come see you. There is no psycho out there, just like at Planet Fitness every day using StairMaster. Just being like, one day I'll get Claire. She also recently told me that she doesn't believe in tipping. And I was like, maybe you should believe in having inside thoughts, you know, like, why? Why would you tell me that? You know, I don't want to hear that. And I was like, the only person you should be worried about is your delivery person. And like, if I walk up for five floors and I don't get a tip, I think I'm allowed some stabby, you know, just kind of like. Nothing fatal. Just something in the thigh, you know, memorable. And, you know, because I use social media a lot, I, you know, sometimes people, like, enjoy my content and they send me nice messages. Some sometimes people read my name and they don't like my content, and that's fine. And they sent me their like little manifestos, which I don't read. And I'm always like, get to the point. I don't want to read all of this. And one guy, did, you know, one guy sent me one line and all it said was, you're not funny, kill yourself. And I was like, that's a horrible thing to say to me, you know, because, you know, I am funny. But the second part, which I don't care about, I like I think I'm going to pass on that, you know, because if anything, it seems like you don't like me, I like me. Why are you giving me homework? You know. Seems like you should do it. I feel like this just seems like another example of a job that an immigrant has to do, because an American want and.
Luke Burbank: I don't like.
Mohanad Elshieky: So stop being lazy and come and kill me. I also know a lot of people have conspiracy theories like, you know, like what? TikTok now and everything. We were like, oh yeah, the government of China is tracking us. And some are like, oh, the government from the US is tracking us, which obviously I you know, I'm like, sure, they're keeping tabs on us, but not to the level some people think they are, because it's not that I. Like the U.S. government that much. I just don't believe in that. Because this is the same government that made Social Security cars on the most destructible paper known to man. And they were like, hey, buddy, I know you're two or whatever, but, if anyone even looks at this, your life is ruined. So keep it safe. And it's always people who are like, oh, the government wants to know where I am all the time. I can't let them, like. I'm sorry. Like, you live in battleground Washington. Even God doesn't know where you are, you know? I also I I'm not I don't really cook that much so I usually get food delivered. And recently I did that. I got a, I got a, I got a text message from my food delivery person and he was like, hey man, the door is closed. Can you come downstairs and pick your food up? So I was like, sure, I'll do that. I go downstairs and I see a man behind a glass door holding multiple bags, and he was like waving at me. And I was like, you know, these guys are busy, so I'm just going to like, grab my stuff and let him go. So I go to this man, I open the door, I take the first bag out of his hand and like, thank you so much, man. And then I close the door and start walking back. And then I look back and I see the same man still waving at me. And I was like, oh, he's saying bye, you know? So I waved back and I was like, I'm making new friends every day. What a city. And then I went back to my apartment to eat. And then I opened the bag and I was expecting my delivery. And all I find inside is a bunch of ingredients. And I was like, is this one of those restaurants that's wanting me to make my own food from scratch? Like, I think that's just called cooking, which we're trying to avoid here. So I went and I sat on the couch, you know, to think about it. And then a minute later, it finally hit me. I was like, oh, I don't think these are ingredients. This is what we commonly referred to as groceries. I like the guy downstairs. That's not my delivery person. That's my neighbor. I've seen him around. He just forgot his key and he was waving at me to open the door for him, and I just took his stuff. I thought I was getting my food deliver, that I was just doing crime. I and I went downstairs to look for him. I couldn't find him. I did find my food though. I thought, like, I think whatever this is, I want. And I went back to my apartment and then two weeks later, I see the same man in the elevator, and I was going to explain to him what happened, but he would not make eye contact with me at all. And I was like, this makes so much sense, because in his head he's like, this is the most dangerous man in America because I took his food out of his hand and I was like, thank you. Close the door, walked all the way back, and then turned and just waved at him like a psychopath. And I was like, I think I am the alpha of this building right now. I'm not even paying rent anymore. One last thing I want to say is I thought the show the first time in 2016, and back in the day, I was working at a store here in Portland that sells phones, the eye variety. And and I remember I was telling them I was like, I got I got on the show, they asked me to do it, and I was like, oh, I told them I was like, hey, can I leave work Italy next week? Because I have this like thing I'm doing. And they all like, what is it? And I was like, oh, is is live wires like live radio? And they were like, can we listen to it? I was like, no, you know, it's not live, but live. And he was like, no. And I was like, oh, like, you can't leave, you know? And I was like, I'm leaving, you know? And then come, that work day and it was like, you know, 6 p.m. or something. I was supposed to stay there until eight. Then I just, like, left, and I done the show. I had a great time. And then the next day, that manager. And he was like, did you leave early yesterday? And I was like, hey, man, I'll say this, you know, remember, like our on our first day here, the job, he came to the training and he said, we are all dreamers here. And if you have a dream you should go and chase it. And he was like, yes. And I was like, that's all I've done. And he was like, okay, that makes sense. And the thing is that men never said that. But I just wanted to thank Livewire for giving me an opportunity back then and.
Luke Burbank: You know, for taking a shot on me. And thank you guys so much. Please have a good night. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was the always hilarious Mohanad Elshiek right here on Live Wire. Make sure you check out the podcast Love it or Leave it that he writes on, and also the show that he hosts You could do that on Television. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but do not go anywhere, because when we return, we'll hear some music from Portland sensation, the band Glitterfox. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Before we get to our musical guest this week, a little preview of what we're doing on the program. Next week we are going to be talking to the comedian Gary Gulman. He's been on every late night television show multiple times. You might know him from those appearances, or maybe his HBO special, The Great Depresh. And he's got a book out now. It's a memoir. It's called Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the 80s, and it talks about his childhood in Massachusetts, but it also gets into his adult life, his depression that he dealt with, which actually landed him eventually, in the psych ward, where he writes, he got recognized as a celebrity, which is, you know, an unusual place to have that happen. We're also going to talk to our friend, the award winning poet, a niece, Gorney, about what it's like to actually be the poet laureate of a state. And we're going to get some music from singer songwriter and TikTok sensation Olive Klug. It's going to be a really great show that you do not want to miss. As always, we would like to get your answers to our listener question. What are we asking the Live Wire listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: This is going to be a feel gooder. We would like you to please tell us about a meaningful thing that someone did to cheer you up when you were having a hard time.
Luke Burbank: Always useful information.
Elena Passarello: Dairy Queen Blizzard. That's. That's what anyone can do to cheer me up at any time.
Luke Burbank: Good to know. Okay. Yeah, I love that. All right. We'll put that in your writer for craft services backstage at the show. All right. If you have a response to that listener question, go ahead and hit us up on social media. We are at Live Wire radio pretty much everywhere. All right. Our musical guest this week are an indie folk act. They were named one of Portland's best new bands by the Willamette Week, and their sound has been described as West Coast indie meets Southern Americana songwriting. That's all stuff that I love, all mixed together. Their latest single, Highway Forever, is out now on kill Rock stars. This is Glitterfox, who joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Hello. Hello. Welcome.
Glitterfox: Thanks for having us.
Luke Burbank: All right. What song are we going to hear?
Glitterfox: This song's called TV. It's a single we put out in October on our new record label, which is Killer Rock Stars.
Luke Burbank: Oh, hell yes, All right. This is Glitterfox here on Live Wire.
[Glitterfox plays their song “TV”]
Luke Burbank: That was Glitterfox right here on Live Wire. They've got a new song out. It's called Portland. It is very good. It is very Portlandy. And you should be sure to check it out wherever you get your music stuff. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A very, very big thanks to our guests Moshe Kasher, Mohanad Elshieky, and Glitterfox.
Elena Passarel:o Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer, Leona Skinner, Kinderman and Molly Pettit are our technical directors, and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow, and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves, and AWalker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Marie Lampe from charitable foundation Live Wire, was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Pamela Brown of Tigard, Oregon, and Michael Smith of Everett, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over the live wire radio talk. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello the whole Live Wire team. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next week.
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